How To Fight the Locusts

I fan emailed me today, asking a simple question: how does one fight off locust swarms?

You’ve come to the right place*. Here’s what I said.

So, locust swarms: this is tricky, and tbh I’ve given it some thought 😊

There was a terrible movie aways back called something like, Attack of the Killer Bees. In the movie they try all manner of nonsense, like using flamethrowers (effective in bursts, but insufficient against the horde).

This got me thinking, how would you deal with it? SCIENCE.

Locusts are insects, and insects need to breathe – lots of chemicals solve this problem. Aerosolize some carbaryl or similar agent, and boom, all the locusts die.

But wait. That also kills the other insects. Not great.

Turns out there’s a vineyard (citation needed) in Italy (citation needed) experimenting with a new system that’s apparently relatively effective. They find a good chunk of dead insects, and incinerate them, then spread the ash on their crops. The insects do not like seeing the charred bodies of the dead, and fly elsewhere (most of the time).

Neat! Now while this doesn’t defeat the swarm of locusts, it does make it someone else’s problem, and viola, you can go back to wine drinking.

* Very little science was used in the fabrication of these lies, but I know you don’t come here for hard facts. If you want to get more outright lies, sign up to my newsletter. It’s a good ride, and I almost never tell the truth.