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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

#341

Post by Bartweiss »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #338
sulam wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>somewhat common in the US in the parts of the US that are over-represented on HN FTFY.

21% of all Americans live in common-interest housing. Half of that is condominiums, half is HOA-governed housing. It's a safe bet that large portions of that heavily restrict lawn conditions. Add in another ~10% of the country living in multi-family apartment buildings, which usually have no lawns or owner-controlled lawns.

And, of course, single-family home lawns in any densely populated area are likely to be regulated, many of which aren't high income. I can't get numbers on how many of those ~70% of Americans are under town restrictions, but it's not a trivial number.

So no, it's not just HN's demographics. This is genuinely widespread in the US; I'd estimate that at least 100,000,000 Americans live under some form of these restrictions.

https://www.caionline.org/AboutCommunityAssociations/Pages/S...

http://www.builderonline.com/money/economics/80-percent-of-a...

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

#342

Post by Tharkun »

sulam wrote: post #192
downer71 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Land of the free, indeed.

In all seriousness, if anyone tells you you can't have a thriving eco system in your yard, fight them on every level. Manicured lawns should be outlawed, not encouraged.

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

#343

Post by dsfyu404ed »

viridian wrote: post #310
kpil wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The land of the 'free' I believe they call themselves....

People are free to not move into a HoA area or gated community though. I'm looking to buy a house soon, and any HoA with any real authority causes me to reject the house based just on that. There's nothing wrong with the idea of "lets all agree to these rules that define a neighborhood we all would like to live in" in theory, but in practice the HoA contract is often a cudgel used to bludgeon people who aren't well l…

Yes, but government doesn't go away. You get HoAs that spring up outside of Denver, Austin and all the other places people from SV go when they're sick of SV. They get there and realize that while they don't miss lawn height rules they don't like their neighbor's copious power tool usage well into the evening or loud parties they create a HoA thinking that they won't recreate the situation where they come from. After all, they only want the rules to reign in or drive off a few people who's behavior they don't like. Over time the list of rules and regulations grows and personal freedom to do what you want on your own property slides down the greased slope into the abyss. It starts at reasonable noise restrictions (nothing >85 db as measured on your property line after 10pm on weeknights) and grows to include disallowing motor homes and trailers to be visible from the street, acceptable mailboxes and so on. The influx of poeple who don't want to put up with community (local government or HoA) micromanagement of what they do on their own property tapers off and is redirected at some further out suburb of whatever unnamed "up and coming" city we're talking about or to the suburbs of some other city all together. The cycle repeats itself. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This isn't SV specific DC, NYC or pretty much any other large city has a slow drip exodus of upper middle class people from it's suburbs to the less stifling suburbs of some other city with similar results.

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

#344

Post by Tharkun »

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.

I've been on a plane exactlt twice in my life. It's pretty easy not to fly.

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

#345

Post by Tharkun »

jackmodern wrote: post #116
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…

to me this implies you don't travel or go out much. so what do you do for fun then?

Ah yes, life without flying must be so dull. Is that what you're implying? Seems rather silly.

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

#346

Post by davesque »

aklemm wrote: post #4

Presumably this is similar here in the U.S.? In the 80's and 90's the fronts of our cars would get so encrusted with mashed bugs that it would take real scrubbing to get them off. I haven't had to do that in many years.

Since I see a lot of people here chiming in with similar anecdotes, I feel obligated to remind people that, even though we may think we notice a difference about something in our daily lives, it's really hard to attribute any actual meaning to this.

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

#347

Post by miceeatnicerice »

gilbetron wrote: post #334

The company I work for has a big portion of it's land devoted to nature meadow, and it is amazing how much more insects you see and hear, and I find it 9000x prettier than grass. We're letting most of our lawn at home get overtaken by a clover-like plant called Germander. People call it "lawn cancer", but I like it better than grass. More life in it, it gets pretty purple flowers in the spring, and it is hardy as hel…

Our flat is the same - I enjoy letting the mould grow on the wall, in its pretty, grey shapes. And every Summer, as the world turns in its natural course, there's the seasonal infestation of fruit flies around the bin. Nature's lovely.

Maybe our romantic adoration could be rediscovered if we admitted more things as being 'natural'? People, too, provide a kind of undergrowth, and their greater structures form some very fetching accretions.

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

#348

Post by Tharkun »

ciconia wrote: post #298
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.

My grandfather did this. One day he set out to go for a walk in his wee forest, only to discover that all the trees had been stolen. That's pretty much the thing holding me back from buying a small forested plot.

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

#349

Post by jly »

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…

Invertebrates often get overlooked for conservation efforts and money spent, in favor of larger animals. Pollinators are critically important for their direct food supply services, but we really just don't know the full ecological impact down the road of mass species loss on a scale we could be heading towards with many other species of insects, other arthropods, molluscs, coral, etc.

If you're in the US, we have a great conservation organization for invertebrates that is doing great work on both habitat revival and pesticide reduction, and receives not nearly enough donations: https://xerces.org/

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

#350

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Bartweiss wrote: post #341
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>somewhat common in the US in the parts of the US that are over-represented on HN FTFY.

21% of all Americans live in common-interest housing. Half of that is condominiums, half is HOA-governed housing. It's a safe bet that large portions of that heavily restrict lawn conditions. Add in another ~10% of the country living in multi-family apartment buildings, which usually have no lawns or owner-controlled lawns. And, of course, single-family home lawns in any densely populated area are likely to be regula…

Homeowners on HN are wealthier and live in more densely populated areas than the average American homeowner. Wealth directly correlates with minimum standards of upkeep. Population density correlates with volume of rules and regulation. A suburb of Portland ME and Portland OR both likely have a bylaw disallowing you to run a pig farm without some paperwork/approval.

A suburb of Portlad OR is far more likely to have a bylaw or HOA reg about grass height or some other nit picky thing than the suburb of Portland ME because the OR suburb is wealthier and wealthy people have the time to care about these things, care about what the standards should be and care about how to enforce them.

Yes, many Americans live somewhere one or more rules/laws that control what they do on/with their own residential property. The Americans who are most represented here likely have far many laws/HOA rules with which they much comply.

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