Insects Are in Serious Trouble
theatlantic.com
Insects Are in Serious Trouble
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Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble
#2I believe the primary source was discussed last week. (Discussion is still open but ain't nobody got time for that once it's off the front page!)
75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074 (Oct 2017, 428 comments)
Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble
#3I believe the primary source was discussed last week. (Discussion is still open but ain't nobody got time for that once it's off the front page!) 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074 (Oct 2017, 428 comments)
This article gives even more supporting evidence, citing declines in butterflies and honeybees from other sources.
Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble
#4solution: 1 child max per person, globally
Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble
#5I believe the primary source was discussed last week. (Discussion is still open but ain't nobody got time for that once it's off the front page!) 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074 (Oct 2017, 428 comments)
This article gives even more supporting evidence, citing declines in butterflies and honeybees from other sources.
Pretty sure these were pulled as highlights from the "References" section, but I can't guarantee that beyond confirming they are listed there. The article does add some interpretive commentary quoting experts.
The best TL;DR I could grab from the previous discussion:
>MrBuddyCasino https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15503474
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 measure the dry mass weight. There are differing opinions whether or not those issues have relevance.
SZ gives some details on suspected causes. Neither climate change (warmer weather should yield more insects, not less) nor changes in plant diversity can explain the observed effects alone. Main suspects:
- agricultural fertilizers, especially nitrogen
- pesticides, especially neonicotinoides
Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble
#6I believe the primary source was discussed last week. (Discussion is still open but ain't nobody got time for that once it's off the front page!) 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074 (Oct 2017, 428 comments)
> 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas
The measurements took place in protected areas in Germany. Have there been similar studies for other locations?
Edit: It appears that almost all the measurements took place at locations in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany's most populous state ...
> S1 Fig. Map of study area.
> Insect trap locations (yellow points) in Nordrhein-Westfalen (n = 57), Rheinland-Pfalz (n = 1) and Brandenburg (n = 5)
Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble
#7As sad as this is, the reality is that nobody cares. Biologists have been beating the conservation drum (rightly so) for decades but the behaviour of the average consumer has hardly changed. Arguably, it's actually gotten worse with metrics like the use of plastic at an all-time high [1] (thanks, bottled water). Soon enough we will learn what the economic value of the free labor provided by insects and other animals as basic agricultural processes like pollination become a service that must be paid for (on many farms this is actually already the case).
The good thing about capitalism is that it's great at optimizing a cost/value equilibrium for things that are easy to quantify. But the bad thing about capitalism is that things that are hard (or impossible) to quantify are, at best, an afterthought. Resulting in the all-too-familiar tragedy of the commons.
[1] https://www.plasticsinsight.com/global-consumption-plastic-m...
Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble
#8Just some wishful thinking here...
Is it possible that the local insect populations got wise to these malaise traps that the researchers were using in western germany?
Apparently the way that a malaise trap works is that it waits for insects to fly into it's wall, hopes that they crawl up the wall, and then hopes that they crawl right into a bottle filled with ethanol.
Now I do not know anything at all about insects and how they might learn or adapt to various situations.
But I know that they can adapt just like anything else, and maybe some of them starting saying "no I will not crawl up that screen into the bottle of alcohol" after 27 years and got the word out to other local insects?
Am I crazy for thinking that might be the case?
Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble
#9I believe the primary source was discussed last week. (Discussion is still open but ain't nobody got time for that once it's off the front page!) 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074 (Oct 2017, 428 comments)
Last week's article motivated me to plant Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa and Asclepias incarnata) in my garden next year, to help with the population of Monarch butterflies and bees.
On the other hand, I'll still be deploying my organic mosquito control based on plant oils injected into a mister system. I really don't think mosquitoes fulfill any role in the ecosystem that can't be filled in by other species; but the difficulty is in avoiding messing with any other insects.
Re: Insects Are in Serious Trouble
#10I think nothing will change as long as economic growth is understood as economic Good.
Current economy can't work if there's no economic growth.
Banks are among the biggest culprits. If banks lend money at a 5% interest rate, their customers must grow their businesses by 5%.
A new, sustainable economy is needed. I think about it each time I see the Race for the Galaxy card. I've seen a radical example of this among African tribes, in a documentary Africa serries by Basil Davidson. He argued the tribe (sorry I don't remember its name) can fully sustain itself by taking things from nature around it. All their wealth is external. They possess little, but whenever they have a need for something - food, medicine, water, paint, clothes, containers(...) they go to a forest, harvest a specific plant and get it. They have recipes for everything they need.