Monsanto.
75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
61–70 of 454 posts
Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tons of wasps. Wasps everywhere and carpenter bees. It's insane. I don't recall it being like this when I was a kid.
I could barely mow my lawn last weekend. They just kept attacking me. Didn't even get to trim the edges because I was tired of being stung.
Maybe they're trying to tell you to stop mowing the lawn and start enjoying the meadow?
Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
#63Yes. This is a case of hard data confirming what we already know. As in - few types of butterflies I used to like, and see yearly as a kid - are gone. I see them now once in 5 years, if lucky. I bring my kids to look because it's a first time for them. On the other hand, some types of beetles, ants, flies, mosquitoes, even wasps - are just new. They were not here 20-30 years ago. Now, what are the consequences of all…
This kind of the same thing I'm seeing with firefly in Michigan. In the summer time when I first moved to MI over 30 years ago I use to see them everywhere in large amounts. This year they're back but last 3 years I didn't see them at all. As long as there are climate change deniers a.k.a Trump supports we're all in a lot of trouble, even humans.
Some of the people you go out of your way to slander as both trump supporters and climate change deniers exist as they do because of people like you, who immediately take any adverse global trend, blame it on climate change with what amounts to shakey, correlative evidence, and then shame anyone who dares glance over with a skeptical eye.
We are dumping all kinds of chemicals into the environment - pesticides, plasticizers, and a host of bio-active compounds which we already know may be directly responsible for the decline of certain individual species[1].
Climate change is a serious threat. But your post is an example of how climate change has become a highly politicized meme.
Next thing you know, it becomes a cultural taboo to be skeptical about climate change, and suddenly we're only asking the questions we are allowed to ask, looking for the data we are allowed to look for, sweeping inconsistencies under the rug, and just generally practicing sloppy science.
The scientific method necessitates skepticism. I welcome sources to the contrary, but modern western climate science is void of any published criticism, or at least it was when I had access to journals some 5 years ago. Hell, I couldnt find ONE paper discussing ANY benefit on any place on earth from a warmer climate-which is absurd, because northern permafrost could thaw and create arable land, for example.
Climate science has been sickened by politics and political correctness. You should be very wary.
Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
#64My feeling: brace for systemic collapse.
Depends on how widely you define system. So far in all previous mass extinctions the system resets to a new normal and repopulates the various gaps with new choices. The cynic in me would imagine the 'system' is working to kill off humanity so that it can re-balance.
The Happening much?
Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
#65Yes. This is a case of hard data confirming what we already know. As in - few types of butterflies I used to like, and see yearly as a kid - are gone. I see them now once in 5 years, if lucky. I bring my kids to look because it's a first time for them. On the other hand, some types of beetles, ants, flies, mosquitoes, even wasps - are just new. They were not here 20-30 years ago. Now, what are the consequences of all…
This kind of the same thing I'm seeing with firefly in Michigan. In the summer time when I first moved to MI over 30 years ago I use to see them everywhere in large amounts. This year they're back but last 3 years I didn't see them at all. As long as there are climate change deniers a.k.a Trump supports we're all in a lot of trouble, even humans.
Bernie Sanders was swept under the rug for the "benefit" of Hillary Clinton. Trump did nothing in comparison, he simply reaped the fruits of that own goal. Which of course people swiftly pretended didn't happen to complain about Trump, being shocked constantly like some looping meme gif.
Instead of using 4 years to clean one's own house, they're working harder to make it dirtier. I say "they" because I don't do the liberal/Democrat/conservative/Republican thing and am not American. So, I can tell you what the result of that will be: even worse stuff. Remember how Obama promised hope & change and removed nothing of what Bush created? But who cared, he wasn't the grating thing Bush was, and congress blocked him, and la di blah. Same shit, same day. As long as it is like this, it will always be the same lame day. Everybody has their scapegoats, nobody executes their "own".
Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
#66Yes. This is a case of hard data confirming what we already know. As in - few types of butterflies I used to like, and see yearly as a kid - are gone. I see them now once in 5 years, if lucky. I bring my kids to look because it's a first time for them. On the other hand, some types of beetles, ants, flies, mosquitoes, even wasps - are just new. They were not here 20-30 years ago. Now, what are the consequences of all…
I never read "silent spring", but the title has stuck with me since childhood. Perhaps I'll read it now.
Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
#67Yes. This is a case of hard data confirming what we already know. As in - few types of butterflies I used to like, and see yearly as a kid - are gone. I see them now once in 5 years, if lucky. I bring my kids to look because it's a first time for them. On the other hand, some types of beetles, ants, flies, mosquitoes, even wasps - are just new. They were not here 20-30 years ago. Now, what are the consequences of all…
Butterflies - exactly the example I wanted to mention too. In childhood I saw them often, now - very rarely.
Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
#68This is pretty alarming and suggests that soaking agricultural land in insecticides might be having some far-reaching side effects.
While plausible, this study doesn't suggest that.
They mention it as a potential cause, but did no research to that effect and even state they made no attempt to measure such things.
Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
#69Everyone is chiming in with anecdotes. Maybe they're all correct. But I definitely remember fireflies being everywhere at my parents house and turning the sky into a shimmering display... and I rarely see more then a few fireflies at all these days.
Same. I don't know if it's the pesticides on the farm fields by my parents' house, or what. There used to be swarms of them, maybe 2-3 feet in diameter. Now just a hand full. It's been like that for over 20 years.
Same with gnats, but I don't get nostalgic about those.
Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
#70It's almost as if widespread use of pesticides is having a widespread effect on insects