A brightly-coloured Australian Christmas beetle on a gum leaf (pictured at the top of this article).Ken Griffiths/Getty
Millions of people worldwide watched on as the Sydney Olympics came to a close in 2000. Meanwhile, thousands of bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) were airborne, making their annual migration to the Australian Alps.
These bogong moths swarmed in such large numbers that the rain radars showed a storm approaching Sydney. The bright lights of Stadium Australia, where the closing ceremony was unfolding, had lured them in.
As an entomologist, I’m fascinated by insects. This year, the bogong moth population has exploded along Australia’s east coast, with people discovering these insects in every nook and cranny of their homes.
The current resurgence offers scientists valuable information about the health and abundance of the bogong moth population. But they aren’t the only insects worth watching.
Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) embark on a mammoth migration each year.Andrew Waugh/Getty
Bogongs bouncing back
Bogong moths are small, brown insects that typically fly at night. Each year, they embark on a magical migration, travelling up to 1,000 kilometres across Australia.
A clump of bogong moths.Caitlyn Forster
By following the stars, they are able to navigate to the cool caves of the Snowy Mountains in southern New South Wales, where they shelter during the sweltering summer. These moths then return to inland Australia to mate, lay eggs and repeat this migratory cycle.
In recent decades, the bogong moth population has dramatically declined. Numbers fell by 99% between 2017 and 2019 alone. Like many other insects, bogong moths face multiple pressures including habitat destruction, drought and climate change. Light pollution may also hamper their ability to navigate during their mammoth migrations.
But this year, bogong moths have reappeared in remarkable numbers, particularly on the east coast of Australia. Two years of high rainfall have likely boosted the population by creating ideal breeding and feeding conditions. Strong winds may have also knocked the moths off their course, causing them to congregate in and around Sydney.
Many of us, myself included, have never witnessed bogong moths gather in such numbers. This means the public maybe be completely unaware of their decline, a concept known as “shifting baseline syndrome”. This is the idea that what younger generations understand to be a healthy natural environment is based on their own observations.
For example, a young Australian may think seeing very few bogong moths is “normal”. But an older Sydneysider, particularly if they were tuned into the 2000 Olympics, would remember when bogong moths were everywhere.
This matters for conservation. Knowing if an insect is thriving, stable or in decline can shape how much younger generations care about its survival. Once they understand these trends, we can teach them to observe and appreciate these creatures in everyday life.
Bogong moths are hard to miss, particularly in such vast swarms. However, many of our rare and threatened insects have similarly had a resurgence, even from the brink of extinction. And ordinary people have helped rediscover them.
There are dozens of Christmas beetle species across Australia, including the golden green Christmas beetle.KarenHBlack/Getty
Citizen scientists have collected vital data about Christmas beetles (Anoplognathus). Across eastern Australia, these vibrant-hued critters used to emerge in their millions around December, just in time for Christmas. Tragically, Christmas beetles have become rarer in recent decades, possibly because of habitat destruction. Australia has no formal Christmas beetle monitoring program, so citizen scientists are helping researchers monitor the health of our surviving Christmas beetle populations.
Citizen science has also been crucial to the discovery of new stick insect species and even an unknown type of spider, found by someone appreciating the wildlife on their bin.
Here are some tips to help you, your child or your science-loving friend pay more attention to the world of insects.
if you stumble across a bogong moth, take a moment to marvel, rather than simply letting them outside or killing them
listen out for cicadas, which typically start buzzing in spring
stare at some flowers, noticing any bees or insects hovering around them
look for iridescent Christmas beetles, which usually emerge from the soil in late spring.
You can also help monitor insect populations by taking photos of any insects you spot. If you see any bogong moths, you can upload them to Moth Tracker or iNaturalist. These online platforms help scientists monitor their population and track their migrations.
To make people care about our insects, particularly our most rare and vulnerable species, we can encourage them to get out in nature. Spring is the perfect time to do just that.
Turtles rescued from the Gingham Waterhole in north-west NSW have begun returning, while keepers at Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo incubate more than 250 eggs laid by females brought into care.
It’s human nature to want the future to be predictable: we are creatures of routine. If the Earth’s climate really was going to settle into a “new normal” at 1.5°C of warming, we would find the idea comforting.
Unfortunately, it’s not true. Passing the 1.5°C threshold isn’t like stepping from one state into another. Global emissions of greenhouse gases are slowing, but have not yet peaked – let alone begun to fall. That means further heat, greater change and more climate uncertainty.
Many different futures are possible after 1.5°C. As Australia’s National Climate Risk Assessment spelled out last year, our future looks very different at 2°C. At 2.5°C, it’s something else again. At 3°C, it’s unrecognisable. Thinking of any of these futures as a new normal invites a dangerous misunderstanding of future risk.
What is a ‘normal climate’ anyway?
By “normal”, we mean usual and expected – a situation following predictable patterns.
“Climate” isn’t day to day weather: it’s the statistical fingerprint of weather patterns over 30 years, spanning typical weather through to rarer extremes.
For many weather phenomena, we lack reliable long-term data. As a result, we are often surprised by “unprecedented” events – even though some may actually sit within a pre-industrial natural range, representing rare extremes our records haven’t captured.
As a result, we’re exiting the old normal without having the data to fully understand what we’re leaving behind.
What happens to ‘normal’?
We might expect a steadily warming world will cause steady change to existing weather phenomena – hotter days, more rain, longer droughts.
Unfortunately, our desire for predictability won’t be satisfied here either. Weather will change unpredictably, meaning we can expect new extremes as well as new combinations, such as drought to flood climate whiplash and pyrocumulus clouds (thunderstorms forming from bushfires), which were virtually unknown a few decades ago.
We can no longer take a 30-year average of past extreme weather and extrapolate that into the future. We don’t know what will emerge as the atmosphere undergoes very rapid change at rates humans have never experienced.
As the climate changes, historically rare events become more likely.Author provided image, CC BY
Can we adapt to the unknown?
To date, much of the focus of global climate negotiations has been on mitigation – trying to stop climate change from getting worse by reducing emissions and protecting nature. Efforts to reduce emissions have helped, but at nowhere near the scale needed.
This failure to cut emissions has driven the view that climate change is inescapable. But this isn’t helpful. We will have to learn to adapt to the future climate.
If this seems scary, it might help to remember that we haven’t actually been in a stable climate state in our recent past.
Climate-related risks have been growing (even without climate change) over the past century, because of the growth of cities, infrastructure, farms and more.
Even without the influence of climate change, an intense heatwave, drought or bushfire in Australia will play out over natural habitat which is more fragmented and degraded than it used to be, making it harder for animals to escape.
A strong coastal storm surge falling in a historically known range can reach more people, houses and businesses than it would have just 50 years ago – because there are more people on the coasts.
For these threats, climate change acts as a risk-multiplier. As temperatures climb and rainfall becomes more variable, our ability to respond becomes more limited.
It’s increasingly less useful to look to the past as a guide to the extreme weather of the future.temizyurek/Getty
What can we do?
Many people fear the uncertainty of climate change. Some are already grieving the current losses and those to come, or feel rage at our unwillingness to change course. These responses are understandable. We must act in empowering and hopeful ways – without shying away from the gravity of the task.
If we take a longer view, we can see Homo sapiens are highly adaptable. Faced with these threats, we will look for ways to adapt and cope, as we have done for millennia.
If we give up on the comforting idea of normal – old and new – we can focus on practical measures. These include bringing climate adaptation to the fore while embracing a future of clean energy, electric transport and regenerative farming to help reduce emissions.
It’s a mistake to focus either on reducing emissions or adapting to a warming world – we need both. Adaptation will be easier if we limit future warming.
The first step is to give up the idea of a “new normal”. We can no longer look to the past to predict the future climate, and we know that climate change will continue to intensify until such time as we stop it. We do not know what is to come.
James Hopeward receives funding from RACE for 2030 Cooperative Research Centre and other grant sources. He is a member of the Australian Greens political party.
Andrew Lowe receives funding from the ARC and other grant sources. He is a member of the Landscapes South Australia Hills and Fleurieu Board.
Melissa Nursey-Bray receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the CRC One Basin. She is a member of the NSW Coastal Council and Marine Estate Expert Knowledge Panel, NSW
