The science behind it is one of the most alarming datasets in modern ecology.
A 20-year study in Denmark measured dead insects on car windshields along the same two stretches of road from 1997 to 2017. Controlled for time of day, temperature, and wind speed. The result: an 80% decrease in insect impacts over two decades.
That wasn’t an outlier. A German nature reserve study found 75% of flying insect biomass had vanished over 27 years. A UK citizen science project called “Bugs Matter” had thousands of drivers count splats on their license plates using a standardized grid. Between 2004 and 2023, insect splats dropped 78% nationwide. England alone lost 83%. London lost 91%.
Now scale that globally. A 2020 study in Science analyzed 166 long-term surveys across 1,700 sites. Terrestrial insect populations are declining at roughly 1% per year. That compounds to 9% per decade. A quarter of all land-based insects gone since 1990.
The economic math is where this gets real. Insect pollination services underpin an estimated $235 to $577 billion in annual global crop production. One out of every three bites of food you eat exists because a pollinator visited a flower. Fruits, vegetables, coffee, chocolate, almonds. Without pollinators, those crops don’t disappear overnight, but yields collapse and prices spike in ways that hit the poorest populations first.
Three billion birds, 29% of all North American bird abundance, have vanished since the 1970s. The primary driver: their food supply disappeared. Insects are the base layer of terrestrial food webs. When the base layer erodes at 1% per year, every layer above it follows on a lag.
Your clean windshield is a real-time sensor for a collapse most people only notice when the grocery bill changes.
Visa/MasterCard and the banks will still charge, so now small businesses who weren't charging people not using the service will have to raise prices on products to cover the cost of those who do. Please tell me how is this helping with the cost of living?
#BREAKING: We know you need cost of living relief, so we’re banning payWave and credit card surcharges. That means no more nasty surprises at the till.
National’s priority is rebuilding the economy so Kiwis can get ahead.