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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

#291

Post by KozmoNau7 »

sitkack wrote: post #127
ChuckMcM wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was listening to an entomologist podcast on colony collapse and they were suggesting that as members of the colony became more and more impaired the interdependency of the various bee groups (workers, foragers, queen) was compromised and then "all of a sudden" the hive was unable to reliably function. And large social group (ants, termites, bees, etc) might be similarly affected.

Not unlike if one drives up the cost of rent in a city so high that the people who make it function, can't afford to live there and leave. Dogs don't get walked, burritos unmade and drinks unstiffened. Jane Jacobs outlined all of this decades ago.

All of which is only exacerbated by the über-rich buying property as investments, leading to almost completely empty neighborhoods, which obviously can't support convenience stores, laundromats, bars, cafes, bookstores and all of the other local business that support and are supported by locals.

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

#292

Post by wott »

moultano wrote: post #289
titzer wrote: post #279

It's not only a consequence of direct habitat destruction, but also the use of pesticides. According to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2946087/ , more than a billion pounds of pesticides are used on lawns in the US every year. There is little regulation there. All of those pesticides are designed to kill bugs . Why are we now surprised that bugs are disappearing? We are sterilizing the planet. According…

Per acre doesn't seem like the right metric.

The right metric would be per hectare, indeed :-)

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

#293

Post by titzer »

moultano wrote: post #289
titzer wrote: post #279

It's not only a consequence of direct habitat destruction, but also the use of pesticides. According to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2946087/ , more than a billion pounds of pesticides are used on lawns in the US every year. There is little regulation there. All of those pesticides are designed to kill bugs . Why are we now surprised that bugs are disappearing? We are sterilizing the planet. According…

Per acre doesn't seem like the right metric.

This article (http://scienceline.org/2011/07/lawns-vs-crops-in-the-contine...) is about water usage, but it states that there is more lawn acreage in the US than the 8 top irrigated crops combined.

(Discussed here: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lawn-largest-crop-ameri...) (original here: http://www.isprs.org/proceedings/XXXVI/8-W27/milesi.pdf)

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

#294

Post by atomical »

avip wrote: post #3

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…

I'll respond with my ancedotal experience as well. I live on a farm and the bugs are irritating as ever. There is a lot of pesticide used around here and I have used pesticide as well on the lawn. It hasn't decreased the number of bugs.

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

#295

Post by rebuilder »

Eyes wrote: post #119
spodek wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not sure how much of a frequent flyer you'd have to be to make a conscious decision to fly less. I'm certainly not there.

Flying once a year will, for most people, form a significant percentage of their total CO2 footprint. So cutting that in half by flying once every two years would already be a big improvement.

Flying 5000 KM apparently produces approximately 1 ton of CO2. The 2010 rate average CO2 footprint per capita was about 7 tons a year, and the goal by 2050, if we mean to have a reasonable chance of keeping warming by 2100 to less than 2 degrees centigrade from pre-industrial levels, is a bit over 2 tons. So if you fly at all, making a conscious decision to fly less will help.[1]

Yes, the requirements to meet that goal of sub-2-degree warming by 2100 are pretty severe.

[1]http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/carbon-targets-for-your-footp...

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

#296

Post by WillPostForFood »

groby_b wrote: post #237
WillPostForFood wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would say we are at perfect temperature now, or should we pursue strategies to cool the globe toward a cooler temperature?

You seem to be under the misapprehension that climate change is simply fiddling with the thermostat. The decidedly ill-chosen name of "Global Warming" might certainly lead in that direction. But here's the thing - the weather systems on the planet are rather complex systems that are in a somewhat stable equilibrium. Changing temperature will affect that equilibrium, which will mean rather impressive upheaval. Both a…

You seem to be under the misapprehension that we are at a stable equilibrium. The temperature and weather systems of the planet have continually been changing since forever. Do you consider the last ice age part of the somewhat stable equilibrium you refer to? It is impossible to hold the current state, it will inevitably change, it is just a matter of how fast, how well we can deal with it.

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

#297

Post by KozmoNau7 »

christophilus wrote: post #157
avip wrote: post #3

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…

This year, I left a portion of my lawn unmowed. I seeded it with a $10 bag of wildflower seeds. It's given me 4 months of beautiful flowers, loads of polinators, many butterflies, and it's given me less yard to mow. I now think that lawns of neatly trimmed grass are about as dumb as it gets.

I'm doing this when I move to a house with a garden, in a couple of years (my girlfriend needs to finish her PhD first).

I'll still want some lawn to play ball and such, but I'm all for keeping some wilder areas in the corners, let whichever flowers want to grow, grow there.

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

#298

Post by ciconia »

carbonmachine wrote: post #75

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…

Buy a piece of land (a prairie, woodland, marshland, whatever) and either let it sit without touching it, or take action to improve the ecosystem.

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

#299

Post by monodeldiablo »

ioquatix wrote: post #72
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an anecdotal data point, I'm trying to establish a robust, poly-culture, mostly chemical-free agricultural system on my hobby farm. We do seem to get more flying insects on my place than our neighbors, all of whom have grass lawns. Critters of all kinds, in fact - lots of frogs and toads as well, and box turtles. Obviously I haven't done a scientific study, but we see butterflies, lighting bugs, and so on; not as…

I think it's up to city planners to include more green belts. Better for the environment, better for water drainage, better for humans, it's really win win win.

City planners would if they could, but they're not autocrats. They know that green space (and mixed zoning and high density and...) is a good thing, but they are captive to the whims of politicians and poorly-informed citizens. And property developers have more than enough money to buy policy and sway public opinion.

A close relative is a city planner, a job he went into as an idealist. He saw the economic, social, and ecological suffering created by terrible urban design, and he wanted to make a better world. After 30+ years, though, he's jaded and cynical.

He's seen historically active flood and landslide and earthquake areas quietly and repeatedly re-zoned for residential development. He's seethed at 40 years of opposition to even modest expansions of mass transit. Suburban sprawl, ghettoization of the poor, retail-only developments... At this point, although he still does his best to advance healthy policy, he's resigned to the fact that the developers always win in the end.

So please don't direct your ire at city planners. In many places, they're the only resistance to the boundless greed of property developers. As in all things, it's important to follow the money. The only people getting rich off the status quo are banks and developers.

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

#300

Post by adriand »

avip wrote: post #3

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…

I totally agree with the anecdotal perceptions around the decrease in insects since childhood. In my case, what I noticed recently was how few times my children have been stung by bees/wasps at their current ages, compared to how many times I was stung at those ages.

My seven-year-old daughter has never been stung. My ten-year-old son claims he was stung once, but I'm not sure I believe him. By the time I was ten years old, I had been stung at least a dozen times. (I can still remember some of the particular stings, just due to the severity of the swelling.)

This strikes me as odd, and in the context of this paper, frightening.

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