Mosquitoes control human populations, an invasive species. Removing mosquitoes will make humans proliferate, which is known to be environmentally damaging.

Joking aside, the consensus seems to be that the effect of removing disease-carrying mosquitoes (not all mosquitoes) from the environment is minor compared to how many lives it can save.

Aedes aegypti is an invasive species native to Africa so removing it from the environment everywhere else in the world that it has been spread to would benefit the local mosquito species which don't spread the same diseases and are less of a nuisance to humans.

Lots of animals eat mosquitos, but they really aren't the primary food source of any species, especially this particular type of mosquito. It would have a very minimal effect on food supply.

There are still a lot of other mosquito species. removing just the few that carry human disease will not have a major impact on creatures that eat mosquitoes.

In places where it's been living for hundreds of years, that's a legitimate concern.

In Europe though, where aedes aegypti didn't exist 20 years ago, it's probably the other way around: what did the introduction of this new species damage? (apart from making the summer unbearable outside if any of your neighbour isn't very strict with standing water elimination)

There isn’t, but why would I care?

A billion human lives, or some sad trout who have to eat fruit flies instead. For me, it’s an obvious choice.

I just can’t understand the level of smugness it must take to insist that we must force another billion people to die of horrible diseases like malaria, because you want the moral high ground. How do you even tell yourself that killing all those people is the moral high ground?

I believe the argument is the dominant mosquito species are themselves invasive to the continent

Are you proposing that it would be infinitely bad? That somehow extincting a few varieties of mosquitoes could cause the collapse of all life on earth?

I don't get the "but what if it's somewhat - not infinitely - bad" argument? The known good is so dramatically good that we'd need a shocking amount of unknown bad to have made it not worth it. But if I'm choosing between mosquitoes, and say... fish, frogs, and a variety of birds, yes, get rid of the mosquitoes.

There are many mosquito species in competition for the same resources, only a few (iirc 10% in the US) of which sting humans and carry diseases. Wiping out the ones that attack people would allow other mosquitoes to take over the ecological niches.

The swallows love mosquitoes. When I get bit by mosquitoes I often joke I am feeding the birds.

What's the ratio of frogs lives to human children spared from disease that's acceptable to you, assuming we had a clear answer?

If 20,000 humans weren't significantly harmed from disease because of this release, but 70,000 frogs faced starvation, which would you choose?