131–140 of 454 posts
I live in Minneapolis. The city fumigates regularly in the summer by aircraft and ground-based methods both, which is why I can go running around the lakes in mid July and get maybe one mosquito bite. I think most US cities are like this. It's a policy that should be scrapped in spite of the risk of West Nile and Lyme Disease.
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People here argue things like that if whole industries, laws, etc don't change then an individual's actions don't matter. I see it the opposite. Only if I change can I expect or hope anyone else will. My list includes: - Flying less - Driving less - Eating low on the food chain - Avoiding packaged food - Owning and acquiring less stuff ... things like that. My life has never been better. I wish I had started this cha…
to me this implies you don't travel or go out much. so what do you do for fun then?
Yes. 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…
> On the other hand, some types of beetles, ants, flies, mosquitoes, even wasps - are just new. Afaik most of these are usually invasives species, displacing local populations, which is happening in the weirdest ways and places. In Germany, our local ladybug species are on the verge of going extinct because an imported Asian ladybug species emits some kind of spores killing them, and the Asian ones generally being st…
Results like this are some confirmation of what everyone not entirely swaddled in the virtual worlds of city and business is already entirely aware of: that our living planet is dying. All the people I know who have lived in rural areas for decades (in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and SE. Asia) are in no doubt that their local ecologies are collapsing, and that the collapse is accelerating. I'm not sure…
Being an earth dwelling human, this seems pretty bad. Aside from buying ammo or survival rations, what's something proactive that I can do? Is there an organization that is trying to rid the world of pesticides (assuming that's the cause)? If I opt to call my representatives, what am I calling in support of/against? Over the last year, reading the news had made me more passive and worried. I want to dedicate a slice…
Yep, stop focusing on the movie-style end-of-the-world apocalypse, where it's just you and your guns versus the raiders. Instead of planning what you're going to do when it all turns to crap, do stuff now. In short, fix the world you're in, rather than planning for a world which really isn't going to happen.
Talking to politicians is the first thing you can do - if they don't hear the noise, they're never going to do anything about it, and they're the decision-makers. Change your behaviours as other commentators have stated. Talk to your friends so they at least have heard the issue.
But don't pretend that you're going to go off into the woods and survive like in a movie - if society ever did go that far, then you're fucked anyway - no doctors, no hospitals, no emergency services, no entertainment, no travel, so on and so forth. Few of us are actually comfortable with the idea of living permanently off the land (those survival rations won't last very long).
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Go into crispr research or other biological engineering fields if you want to do something directly. Figure out how to make less toxic pesticides that are economically substitutable (break-even or only slightly more costly than existing ones) rather than demanding that they're banned entirely, or if you're satisfied those exist already, lobby for their use. I suspect that whatever preventable problems we face we're n…
I am going into crispr to make pesticide immune versions of all the bugs we currently have. Effect change where you can.
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This is making the headlines in Germany right now: http://www.zeit.de/wissen/umwelt/2017-10/insektensterben-flu... http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/insekten-in-deutsch... http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/insektensterben-dramatisch... Der Spiegel discusses issues in the methodology of the data collection. The intervals over the years weren't uniform, data was collected by volunteers/hobbyists and they did not…
Just speculating wildly and looking at Sweden, for example meadows have more or less disappeared since 30-40 years. I mean flowering meadows, not pastures for grazing. The meadows have been turned into forests and to a lesser extent pastures. It's not a few percent, it's 30% of the land, probably more in Germany where there are much lest forests than in Sweden. The bio-diversity in a meadow strikes me as much higher…
This is mostly clearly seen on the east coast because most of the Midwest is still used for farming.
Edit: in Europe this is visible in coppiced forests. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coppicing . Haven't seen one here in the US but I assume they're somewhat common in Europe where they were an early and effective method of sustainable forestry.
Being an earth dwelling human, this seems pretty bad. Aside from buying ammo or survival rations, what's something proactive that I can do? Is there an organization that is trying to rid the world of pesticides (assuming that's the cause)? If I opt to call my representatives, what am I calling in support of/against? Over the last year, reading the news had made me more passive and worried. I want to dedicate a slice…
People here argue things like that if whole industries, laws, etc don't change then an individual's actions don't matter. I see it the opposite. Only if I change can I expect or hope anyone else will. My list includes: - Flying less - Driving less - Eating low on the food chain - Avoiding packaged food - Owning and acquiring less stuff ... things like that. My life has never been better. I wish I had started this cha…
This makes no logical sense. Only if I fly to the moon can I ever expect anyone else too? Some things require collective action at the government level.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am going into crispr to make pesticide immune versions of all the bugs we currently have. Effect change where you can.
Wouldn't that eventually mean you starve a large portion of the population as crop yields shrink dramatically?