Where have all the insects gone? • Hacker News Board

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#171

Post by plushpuffin » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

yeetaccount wrote: post #80

thisiscorrect wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could that be explained by improved aerodynamics of cars now compared to then? Has that been studied?

We’re seeing a comparable decline in birds that depend on them for food, so probably not. That said, it’s fun to imagine that we just selected against insects that hang out by the highway.

This has apparently happened with birds. Some bird species have evolved shorter wings for better maneuverability near traffic.

https://www.npr.org/2013/03/22/175054275/birds-evolve-shorte...

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#172

Post by nonameiguess » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

hsavit1 wrote: post #126

elif wrote: post #122

In my neighborhood, there were 2 cases of West Nile virus detected in humans in June/July. Since then, the city have contracted a corporation called BugStars to drive down every street in my neighborhood (downtown, 10k population) and the four around it releasing poison directly into the air every Wednesday night. There was no notice given to any of us, and only after investigating were we able to figure out why ever…

this is horrendous. where are you located?

It's fictional, but similar things have happened, like the aerial malathion bombardments of the 80s in California to combat the Mediterranean fruit fly. I lived through that perfectly fine, but do remember it being pretty controversial (but I was a kid, so not sure how reliable my memories are).

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#173

Post by rvense » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #148

About the same amounts of pests every summer, so I'm not concerned. If the winter comes fast, like 15 C one day and -15 C the next day, many will die and there will be less of them the following spring, but at the end of the summer they have usually recovered. I think the lack of pest are due to use of pesticides and lack of habitats - rather then some doomsday coming.

The doomsday that is coming is because of the pesticides.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#174

Post by Jensson » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

revolvingocelot wrote: post #166

Jensson wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Contrast that to the concept of a Crown corporation in Canada Crown corporation in Canada isn't running any industries though, it is just an organization for providing government services and isn't any different than a typical department of education or post or government rails etc. I'm sure most agree with you that there are areas best served by government run organizations. Crown corporation just operates in such…

>Crown corporation in Canada isn't running any industries though, it is just an organization for providing government services and isn't any different than a typical department of education or post or government rails etc. An oil extraction and distribution company isn't an industry? I also suggest you read the second link in the grandparent: Nova Chemicals, Yara Belle Plaine, PotashCorp, all the resource extraction…

> An oil extraction and distribution company isn't an industry?

No, they aren't manufacturing anything. Managing natural resources is a reasonable thing for a government to do.

> Crown corporations could operate in any sphere of business at all

But they aren't which is the point. Just because they could do something in theory doesn't mean that they would do a good job if they did. There is no evidence that they would, so using them as an example doesn't work.

> Furthermore, some Crown corporations must deal with real physical externalities arising as a consequence of their operations, like Petro-Canada

There is no reason this couldn't just be done for private corporations via regulations. Politicians have that power today, why aren't they using it? And why do you think they would use it if ownership was different?

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#175

Post by quasse » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

micromacrofoot wrote: post #90

I had noticed this decline anecdotally previous years, and this summer made a concentrated effort to plant wildflowers to attract pollinators and it did wonderfully. I saw more bees and butterflies than ever. I plan to do this as long as I can and would encourage others to do the same! I was amazed by the difference.

I've been planting wildflowers at my new house as well and it's very fun to watch which plants different insects prefer.

I've noticed that Monarch butterflies ignore almost all plants in my area but they love Mexican Sunflowers (Tithonia rotundifolia). I wonder how much of that is regional, since they're supposed to like Zineas and Verbena but they've shown zero interest in mine.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#176

Post by foxhop » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:48 PM UTC

We used technology to make the earth sick. The insects are fleeing to safe havens in places like my small backyard. Seriously all I did was stopped mowing, and instead use simple nudges to guide the manifestation of a natural system! So much abundance here, with some practice we all can make habitats for humans and animals (including attracting animals and humans by growing tasty food).

We will rebuild stronger together, nature abhores a vacuum and will repair with us if we allow it to manifest. Thank goodness.

Ref: https://youtu.be/aYewfMjRH0c

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#177

Post by revolvingocelot » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

Jensson wrote: post #174

revolvingocelot wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Crown corporation in Canada isn't running any industries though, it is just an organization for providing government services and isn't any different than a typical department of education or post or government rails etc. An oil extraction and distribution company isn't an industry? I also suggest you read the second link in the grandparent: Nova Chemicals, Yara Belle Plaine, PotashCorp, all the resource extraction…

> An oil extraction and distribution company isn't an industry? No, they aren't manufacturing anything. Managing natural resources is a reasonable thing for a government to do. > Crown corporations could operate in any sphere of business at all But they aren't which is the point. Just because they could do something in theory doesn't mean that they would do a good job if they did. There is no evidence that they would…

Apologies, I had updated my comment to list a few of the dozen-and-a-half industrial Crown corporations that Canadian governments have sold off to already-wealthy people. I'll continue: Victory Aircraft, Orion Bus Industries, Canadian Vickers, Canadair...

It's a historical fact that the government did operate industrial Crown corporations, and they operated them "better", as viewed from the embarrassingly non-fiduciary perspectives of the workers and the environment, which is the point.

>There is no reason this couldn't just be done for private corporations via regulations. Politicians have that power today, why aren't they using it? And why do you think they would use it if ownership was different?

There's several organizations between the legislature in which some regulation is made, and the actual group to be regulated, whereas a Crown corporation's mandate to report directly to the government, not to mention the absent necessity to cover bad things up until the quarterly earnings report drops, makes them more honest. The other kicker, of course, is that private corporations can just bribe I mean lobby the government for permission to do bad things. There's not really an incentive for Crown corporations to do that.

A Crown corp is not there to make ever-increasing amounts of money, they're there to provide a service. No amount of deployed regulation on a for-profit, privately-owned corporation can change its tendency to optimize for the former.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#178

Post by DantesKite » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

Hokusai wrote: post #16

Not just insects. Where I used to live even birds had left. A decade of stronger regulations and cleaning the closer by river made animals come back. And the river started to look less like a sewer and more like a river. The pollution that kills insects is not good for humans either.

On a side note, I noticed after the pandemic began, the birds began starving because they started eating out of our dog's bowls of food.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#179

Post by DiffEq » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

revolvingocelot wrote: post #31

DiffEq wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@babycake I take it that you are making a dig at Western society as a whole or just the U.S.? I think if you took some time and traveled to some of the non-capitalist (Marxist) countries you might see the utter horrifical ecological damage that they are doing and have done to the world. I think if all told you might find that capitalist countries have done a better job with the environment - I am not saying they have…

There are no "Marxist" countries on the planet. I'm not sure there ever were. I think I understand what you're trying to say, but someone could very easily take what you wrote as the suggestion that there are two types of countries: "capitalist" and "non-capitalist (Marxist)". That's... you should actually read Marx, or decide on a less fraught descriptor. For that matter, how much of the ecological devastation in th…

I don't disagree; just like there are no true capitalist countries. However there is a degree in which you lean one way or the other and it may vary depending on industry. For instance the Health care in the United States mentioned earlier in this thread is thought to be capitalist - but it is so heavily regulated in certain ways that it is probably leaning more towards a Marxist creation.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#180

Post by AtlasBarfed » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

Hm, I would guess that it is the neonicotinoids pesticides. If I could point to my general recollection of the decline, I'd very vaguely point to that and when "roundup" became a thing.

It does seem to be even more global than that though. So global warming is probably the main culprit.

Look out the window next time you're in a jet. In america it seems like we have industrialized everything: food production, suburban housing, etc. The scale of our civilization is terrifying, and America is peanuts in terms of population (but NOT in terms of resource consumption per population, the far more important metric).

The fact is economists can't estimate the value of an ecosystem, habitat, or wilderness. It's just untapped money to them if it's torn down. If economics, which directs 95% of our policy, can't get their heads out of the asses and figure out how to properly account for the existential value of nature, we are doomed.

The fact that a pseudo-mathematical/pseudo-scientific area of study, one filled to the gills with venal denialist ultra-right-wing orthodoxy is the driving force of our future is not encouraging.

Economics is useful in the small and medium scales, and in very limited large scales, I'm not going to sit here and tell you price theory, supply/demand, and game theory are all bunk, but the political force that is "economics" is a key contributor to our dire situation.