Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects

msn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 481 posts

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

#421

Post by ben_w »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #349
nashalo_nighly wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that I hear people say « we’re having a unusually hot dry year » every year...

Well, this year we for one don't, in fact we're having the exact opposite, but last year we did have a hot year and everyone said it's definitely climate change. I think we're not yet at the point where we can feel it, we're just projecting.

The personal subjective feeling at this point is fewer places having snowy winters and more frequent and severe heatwaves — the phrase “9 of the hottest years on record were in the last decade” being in the news most (or all?) years since the late 1990s.

Most individual people won’t feel the change that’s happened over their lifetime unless they’re wondering why it doesn’t snow any more or how they ever managed without air conditioning; it shows up in higher costs for national-scale-multi-year weather damage or crop and fishing productivity.

And of course, this is a global rather than local effect, so some places have more change than others. My first trip to the USA was the 2014/15 winter when there was simultaneously record cold on the Atlantic coast and record warm on the Pacific coast.

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

#423

Post by distances »

TheSmiddy wrote: post #364
mattoxic wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hit me a couple of years back, a night time drive through the Australian countryside and your car would be plastered with insects - not anymore. And fireflies, I haven't seen one in years,

Yes 10 or 15 years ago driving from Adelaide to Melbourne would require a halfway pit stop to manually clean the windscreen because the wipers weren't able to cope with all the bug guts. Last year i did it and didn't need to even use the wipers once. Our insect loss is much more likely due to climate change than light pollution though due to our sparse population between the cities.

Is there agriculture in those areas? I've been assuming it's mostly insecticides, as my home country hasn't warmed up that much yet.

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

#424

Post by esarbe »

robk wrote: post #410
amelius wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many bugs are on your car's windshield/grille, versus 20 years ago?

How much more aerodynamic is your car now versus then?

This does not seem to have any influence. Even with 'oldtimers' you get less squashed bugs nowadays.

Even accounting for this, there is sufficient evidence for a significant drop in insect populations. While it's hard to have exact numbers, the estimations in decline of population range from 70% to 90% since the 1980.

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.5236

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

#425

Post by esarbe »

While it's difficult to get hard numbers, the estimations for the decline in insect populations range from 70% to 90% since the 1980 (for some areas).

Given that insects are one of the corner stones of our ecosystem, we can congratulate ourselves that we are very successful in destroying our own life support systems through predatory exploitation and sheer carelessness.

Well done.

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

#426

Post by hef19898 »

esarbe wrote: post #424
robk wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much more aerodynamic is your car now versus then?

This does not seem to have any influence. Even with 'oldtimers' you get less squashed bugs nowadays. Even accounting for this, there is sufficient evidence for a significant drop in insect populations. While it's hard to have exact numbers, the estimations in decline of population range from 70% to 90% since the 1980. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.5236

I remember that a couple of years ago, there was a study that was based on squashed bugs on licence plates. Basically they used the standardized surface of the plates to measure the bugs in a certain area. No idea what came from it.

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

#428

Post by esarbe »

veddox wrote: post #355
yalsk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foxes and rats have very much to do with the fact that the government is telling us that species are disappearing and need protection while there was literally a fox trying to enter my house via an open door pretty much in the city. This has never happened 20 years ago, so someone is lying. It is a massive credibility problem created by ideologues who will deny the foxes until there are 5 in every apartment.

That is a pretty accusatory tone... There are probably over 10 million species of plants and animals in the world. Of course some of these are going to be better at coping with humans and their cities than others. As you correctly observe, foxes happen to be some of the best at adapting to city life. If you want more examples, just take a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_wildlife However, these exceptio…

I was going to formulate an answer to the GP and then I saw your reply. Thanks for putting it together.

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

#429

Post by Akeewiu »

veddox wrote: post #355
yalsk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foxes and rats have very much to do with the fact that the government is telling us that species are disappearing and need protection while there was literally a fox trying to enter my house via an open door pretty much in the city. This has never happened 20 years ago, so someone is lying. It is a massive credibility problem created by ideologues who will deny the foxes until there are 5 in every apartment.

That is a pretty accusatory tone... There are probably over 10 million species of plants and animals in the world. Of course some of these are going to be better at coping with humans and their cities than others. As you correctly observe, foxes happen to be some of the best at adapting to city life. If you want more examples, just take a look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_wildlife However, these exceptio…

You are again evading the pertinent question. For the ideologues, foxes are an endangered species:

https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/tierschutz-fuchs/

It is a crime to hurt a fox!

But I am sure that if there are 5 foxes per person in Germany, there will be a new "Referentenentwurf" and everyone will ask how this could possibly have happened.

If you cannot see how this hurts credibility, you have to get out of your ecological bubble. Why should people believe numbers on insects if numbers for other animals are clearly wrong?

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

#430

Post by iofiiiiiiiii »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #16

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 have had similar realization with regard to simply mosquitoes. We used to have to put bug-nets on doors and windows to stop bugs flying in during the summer. Now, not needed anymore - at most we get one bug flying in per week.
Post reply on HN