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75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

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Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#191

Post by carbonmachine »

t420mom wrote: post #113
beambot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to dedicate a slice of time to doing something to solve the problem Eat less meat (huge environmental impact!), bike more, don't consume as much non-local food, etc.

Factory-farmed meat is bad for humans and bad for the environment, true, but any industrial-scale monoculture crop has huge negative impacts, and that includes vegetables too. Better to avoid monocultures by buying organic/biodynamic, shopping at farmers' markets, CSA, growing your own food, etc. Eat less processed and make more from scratch. Better health, better for the environment, and you can still enjoy meat :)

I've long had a scifi vision of the future in which autonomous drones intelligently, with sustainability as a goal, hunt wild fish as a good way around the factory meat problem. Only slightly related, just wanted to share some techno-optimism.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#192

Post by sulam »

downer71 wrote: post #185
irrlichthn wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, did exactly the same thing, since I noticed nearly no bees or other insects last year. I dedictated around 200 m² of my lawn to nature. I think it helped: This year, there where so much more of them to see.

Aren’t there local ordinances in some jurisdictions, requiring an orderly yard about the house? For sure, in many places there are laws regulating tree count and what you can and can’t chop down. I swear I’ve heard of fines for unmowed lawns too.

HOAs, township laws, etc — it is somewhat common in the US to be unable to do anything but grow grass in your front yard. We took advantage of the CA drought and tore out all our grass in front and replaced it with drought tolerant natives. It looks better and the kids didn’t play there anyway. And now we have monarchs.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#193

Post by irrlichthn »

downer71 wrote: post #185
irrlichthn wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, did exactly the same thing, since I noticed nearly no bees or other insects last year. I dedictated around 200 m² of my lawn to nature. I think it helped: This year, there where so much more of them to see.

Aren’t there local ordinances in some jurisdictions, requiring an orderly yard about the house? For sure, in many places there are laws regulating tree count and what you can and can’t chop down. I swear I’ve heard of fines for unmowed lawns too.

AFAIK, I can do with my garden whatever I want to do, as long as a I don't turn it into forrest. But that's here in Austria. What you describe sounds terrible. Fines for not mowing? In which country do you live?

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#194

Post by deelowe »

QAPereo wrote: post #134
deelowe wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh pesticides. Duh!

...also habitat loss, destruction of aspects of the overall food chain, Cline change, etc.

Yeah, I think my sarcasm didn't go over well here.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#196

Post by deelowe »

musage wrote: post #129
mikestew wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Enjoy” a meadow full of stinging insects?

First off, stinging insects hardly make up 100% of the biomass of a meadow, so if it's full of stinging insects, it's a bowl filled with stinging insects, not a meadow. Secondly, http://www.countrylovers.co.uk/hort/wildgrdn.htm > Where 'attracts insects' is mentioned you can assume that birds will also be consequently be attracted https://www.kingsseeds.co.nz/Kings+Seeds+Blog/x_post/Plants-... > But what if we are tr…

Just so we're clear here, you're whole argument here is that people shouldn't mow the lawn b/c it causes stinging insects, but at the same time doesn't cause stinging insects? What is your point exactly?

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#197

Post by musage »

lossolo wrote: post #121
colordrops wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to think that as well. As a father it hits me much harder, and I think I'm at stage four of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The human race may just not be special and will be erased, sooner rather than later.

Human race will survive. When extinction level event will be certain then 20-30 underground mini cities will be created and biggest minds will create solution for humans to survive there for 100+ years. Of course only privileged will be chosen to live there. 7 billions of people will die but human race will survive.

Only "a boot stamping on a human face, forever", will survive that. Not a human foot, not a human wearing a boot, just a boot -- I think these words were chosen carefully.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#198

Post by djsumdog »

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #138
kpil wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not sure if this is case in Sweden, but here in the US the reforestation is actually a return to the natural state. Much of the country was logged repeatedly in the last few centuries. Modern sustainable logging and the transition to other energy sources is resulting in the land returning to the endless forest it was before settlers arrived. This is mostly clearly seen on the east coast because most of the Midwest is…

It seems like a lot of American logging has pushed to the Pacific Northwest, where it's very wet, doesn't get very hot/cold and new growth is very fast. I was talking to someone in Portland out in the middle of nowhere who said, "Almost everything you see is new growth; less than 60 years old. It grows that fast." The Singapore City gallery had a display where they talked about growing plants sustainability for paper.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#199

Post by musage »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #54
wazoox wrote: post #9

My 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.

> We will arrive at a moment of sufficent self-alienation where we can contemplate our own destruction [as a species] as in a static spectacle.

-- Walter Benjamin

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#200

Post by nordsieck »

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #138
kpil wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not sure if this is case in Sweden, but here in the US the reforestation is actually a return to the natural state. Much of the country was logged repeatedly in the last few centuries. Modern sustainable logging and the transition to other energy sources is resulting in the land returning to the endless forest it was before settlers arrived. This is mostly clearly seen on the east coast because most of the Midwest is…

> before settlers arrived

I think you mean "before Native Americans arrived". One of the side effects of the European arrival to North America was reforestation due to a disease-driven decline in the population of Native Americans.

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