191–200 of 481 posts
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Exactly, we are getting overconfident in our ability to control the planet and its resources. I believe we are privileged to share this planet with other beings. Instead we treat animals like some kind of inanimate resource.
You missed their point. The link shows that reindeer also multiplied far past their carrying point. Agent smith is wrong, plenty of mammals will overshoot given the opportunity.
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In my case its the HOA that cares.
As a non-American I have never understood why a people that values personal liberties are sometimes happy to be dictated to by housing authorities. I get it with apartment buildings with shared walls and communal property, but I just don't get why you would with suburban homes.
German side streets are fairly dark already. This change will affect ‘large’ polluters, eg. floodlights in car parks, outside store areas, brightly lit buildings, etc. It is a very welcomed change. In our neighbourhood ppl knowingly plant flowers and leave grass grow ‘wild’ to support insects.
Yes, German streets are quite dark. Some villages even close the lights at midnight.
The best thing we can do on a personal level is to stop using broadleaf weedkillers like Scott's Weed and Feed and other herbicides like glyphosate (Roundup). I've been doing handyman work at my boss's house during COVID-19 and he has clover growing in his yard. He has a fair number of bees, certainly more than on my end of town which is all chemlawns. It's arguably ok to use a little weed killer by hand on dandelion…
Old lawns (1950s) had clover by design. Even the lawn seed had clover seed already in it. Clover produces nitrogen which grass consumes, so it is a nice synergy. Clover eventually fell out of style because kids stepping on bees isn't desirable, and fertilizer and herbicides made an all grass lawn feasible.
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Ahem... I seem to recall that the masts of most streetlights are rather thin. Which meant that one could kick them a few times in ways that make the mast swing. Which could be rather large and abrupt swings at the top, which led to "Wackelkontakt"/ loss of contact, and thus darkness. It was even reversible! Your own personal kick switch for public street lights!
The way that ("Lampen austreten") works is because the vibration causes the plasma to "disembark" from the electrodes, which opens the electrical circuit, which prevents further power flow into the lamp, which lets the plasma cool down quickly. There's a thermal cutoff switch in the lamp that prevents it from re-igniting on a hot lamp, so the entire lamp needs to cool down before it turns back on.
Drive around -- billboards are lit up at night. Headlights might as well be pointed into the sky and are blinding. Stores are scarcely less well-lit when they are closed than during operating hours. I can go for a walk at night and read a paperback the whole way. Porchlights are left on all night, for no good reason.
Sometimes, on a my regular trips to visit a friend, we go out at around one in the morning to a road far from other towns and I can actually see the faint haze of the Milky Way, but in the suburbs, I am lucky to pick out thirty stars and/or planets. I don't even think that all of this constant light makes us any "safer."
I actually was sitting outside a few nights ago and realized that there was no more fireflies, and I couldn't remember the last time I had seen one. I used to go out all the time during summer as a kid to catch them, they would light up whole fields. That was just like 15 years ago. Pretty sobering realization
I'm in Chicago (in a neighborhood close to downtown) and in previous years I'd hardly ever seen any fireflies. This year, they're everywhere -- in parks and even in trees on neighborhood streets. I understand fireflies are sensitive to light pollution. I can't imagine Chicago's any different from other major cities. COVID has people staying home a lot more but that has nothing to do with street lighting. I wonder wha…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my case its the HOA that cares.
As a non-American I have never understood why a people that values personal liberties are sometimes happy to be dictated to by housing authorities. I get it with apartment buildings with shared walls and communal property, but I just don't get why you would with suburban homes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my case its the HOA that cares.
As a non-American I have never understood why a people that values personal liberties are sometimes happy to be dictated to by housing authorities. I get it with apartment buildings with shared walls and communal property, but I just don't get why you would with suburban homes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a non-American I have never understood why a people that values personal liberties are sometimes happy to be dictated to by housing authorities. I get it with apartment buildings with shared walls and communal property, but I just don't get why you would with suburban homes.
If memory serves, Adam Ruins Everything thinks suburbia is about racism with a dash of classism. HOAs just seem to ratchet that up another notch.