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Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

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Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#271

Post by derefr »

teruakohatu wrote: post #187
giancarlostoro wrote: post #173

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.

The roads in a gated community are "communal property" in about the same sense as hallways are in an apartment building. I suppose you could care if someone is driving an oversized load through the community and so wearing down the roads; or if they're parking a car on the road that's leaking oil.

There's also noise and odor/smoke pollution. An HOA is pretty much the only mechanism to ensure that a group of people who don't smoke marijuana can band together to live in marijuana-smoke-free air. (Yes, some people smoke enough potent skunkweed for the stink to carry multiple houses away. No, the police don't care.)

Most of the things HOAs care about are indeed idiotic, though. IMHO, the HOA's right to dictate what I'm doing ends where my property begins. The point of the HOA is to control/constrain the externalities you have on other houses/communal properties. If you put a garden gnome on your lawn, there's no externality.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#272

Post by ry4nolson »

vorpalhex wrote: post #260
cs02rm0 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife seems to think all boxes with pictures of lawns on are the same. About three years in a row now she's tried to get lawn seed and poured a load of cheap weed and feed on instead. Completely going overboard on the quantities for good measure. At this point I'm amazed we have anything left to grow.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but you can't put down seed and weed & feed in the same season - you'll kill your seedlings. It actually says this on the bags of weed & feed.

pretty sure he was saying she gets the weed & feed by accident because the box has a picture of a lawn.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#273

Post by derefr »

vorpalhex wrote: post #269
teruakohatu wrote: post #187

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.

An HOA is typically formed by people who live in the neighborhood to allow a housing development to represent itself as a single larger entity instead of several smaller ones. Like any human collaboration they can be awesome or terrible. A good HOA can manage resources for ammenities like pools and sports courts, they can help homeowners settle disputes over things like fencing and street parking. Like many volunteer…

> Like many volunteer orgs, they're run by those willing to volunteer - which are not usually the most capable at the job.

Sounds like a good use-case for sortition. Require that people "submit to the potential for being drafted for HOA service" as part of the purchase agreement of the houses built in the development. Then at least the HOA will mostly be composed of harried people who don't want to do the job and want to get it over with as quickly as possible; rather than busybodies with idle hands.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#274

Post by kharak »

shekharshan wrote: post #120

"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment; but you humans do not. Instead you multiply, and multiply, until every resource is consumed. The only way for you to survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern... a virus" -- Agent Smith (The Matrix)

This so called equilibrium is created in nature by starvation or death by predators. Let's all go back to starvation and killing ourselves, for equilibrium.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#275

Post by bennylope »

faitswulff wrote: post #162
GordonS wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never going the obsession with pristine lawns without clover, daisies, moss and such. I actually think it looks quite nice with some variation. My wife is militant about this, insisting that our lawn is sprayed with horrible chemicals at least once a year to kill off the clover, daisies and moss. Seems such a pointless thing to do, and very obviously not good for wildlife.

Clover also doesn’t get as tall as grass, which obviates the need for mowing the lawn. And the rabbits quite like it.

Don't forget that it's nitrogen fixing, too!

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#276

Post by lostlogin »

faitswulff wrote: post #162
GordonS wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never going the obsession with pristine lawns without clover, daisies, moss and such. I actually think it looks quite nice with some variation. My wife is militant about this, insisting that our lawn is sprayed with horrible chemicals at least once a year to kill off the clover, daisies and moss. Seems such a pointless thing to do, and very obviously not good for wildlife.

Clover also doesn’t get as tall as grass, which obviates the need for mowing the lawn. And the rabbits quite like it.

It sorts out the soil too by fixing nitrogen. https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/966-the-role-of-cl...

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#277

Post by GordonS »

flippinburgers wrote: post #263
GordonS wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never going the obsession with pristine lawns without clover, daisies, moss and such. I actually think it looks quite nice with some variation. My wife is militant about this, insisting that our lawn is sprayed with horrible chemicals at least once a year to kill off the clover, daisies and moss. Seems such a pointless thing to do, and very obviously not good for wildlife.

At the very least moss is beautiful. Personally I don't have a problem with "weeds" as Americans see them. If covid ever lets up, you should try taking your wife on a trip to Japan. The moss in Japanese gardens is extraordinary!

We've actually been to Japan, and both loved the "moss lawns"!

They are really nice to walk on too - almost springy.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#278

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

formerly_proven wrote: post #119
hunta2097 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a budding stargazer I hope this dark-nights idea spreads to other countries. Light pollution has the potential to get even worse with LED lighting which is no longer filterable like sodium lighting was.

I live in a fairly rural area in Germany and even if the nightsky is perfectly clear the cities in the distance cast a bright haze into the sky. They aren't that dark...

This reminds me of the movie Logan´s run all the time. The cites under their bubbles. Our's don't have the bubble over them, but look very similar from afar. All the illuminated haze. Fortunately I'm living right at the edge of one such large bubble, and can flee it within 30 minutes on a bicycle.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#279

Post by lostlogin »

saityi wrote: post #185
zackmorris wrote: post #109

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…

My backyard this year is an experiment in doing my best to encourage something that takes care of itself and is more supportive of local fauna. I laid down clover and what the local university's agriculture dept recommends for native-friendly grass seed. I've used no weed killer back there. I'm growing some ornamental grasses and flowers native to the area for decoration. I feel like it's been nice. I think the clove…

Nice. We haven’t done as well as you with planting but took a different rack. A crowd near me was letting you rent beehives. They managed them and we got a lot of honey. This made a striking difference to trees and plants in our garden and our neighbours. I was cutting unripe fruit off trees to stop their branches snapping.

Re: Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

#280

Post by gamblor956 »

jagrsw wrote: post #180
gamblor956 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The states of California and Alaska each individually have more wild forest lands than the entire European continent. The US created the concept of state-protected wilderness reserves and national parks. The US was the driving force behind the Kyoto Protocol, and the originating nation of solar power, wind power, and nuclear power. California leads the world in automobile fuel economy targets, and the US as a whole h…

> The states of California and Alaska each individually have more wild forest lands than the entire European continent. But that's not b/c of actions of local residents. > The US created the concept of state-protected wilderness reserves and national parks. That's quite incorrect, e.g. from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bia%C5%82owie%C5%BCa_Forest The forest was declared a hunting reserve in 1541 to protect bison. In…

A hunting reserve is not a wilderness preserve. The US actually protects its wilderness areas.

And the national parks and forests in CA are very much the result of local residents.

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