Should We Eradicate Mosquitos?

[Homeless Nutter]

I'm willing to risk environmental catastrophe in order to wipe mosquitoes off the face of the planet.  At least while our forests burn or whatever, we can say, "Yeah. . . but at least I'm not fucking itchy!"

"Itchy"? Mosquitoes cause way more deaths per year, than all other animals combined. Annually, there are between 700k and 1 million deaths from disease spread by them.  On top of that, over 200 million cases of malaria per year are an enormous strain on medical infrastructure in developing countries, as well as loss of productivity, contributing to poverty. Not to mention, that relentless swarms of mosquitoes in some parts of the world are torturous to humans and livestock, even causing deaths of cattle on pastures.

Even if we're able to somehow contain malaria, without resorting to extermination of certain species of mosquitoes - there is no way to stop some future disease from using them as carriers. Hell - they might be used by humans one day as a biological weapon...

 I'm not saying that we should exterminate mosquitoes - as there surely would be environmental consequences, even if an actual "catastrophe" seems unlikely (you see - mosquitoes don't really put out forest fires much) - but we should at least seriously consider the option. It's easy to demean other people's suffering, when all you have to worry about is an "itch" once in a while...