231–240 of 299 posts
Pesticides need to be taxed to discourage their excessive and indiscriminate use.
What we need is a cure for crazy (this whole obsesso, brainbound, machine-pooping culture being a symptom of that).
I'm thinking psychedelics and meditation.
The loss of pollinators is scary. blueberries, cherries, every brassica (broccoli, cabbage etc), carrots, squash, melons, and many more are insect polliated. A few other plants can also self pollinate, but with reduced yields.
All the major staple foods are wind pollinated.
Still scary, in that a single disruption, like a new illness infecting crops, would have a much bigger impact.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could that be explained by improved aerodynamics of cars now compared to then? Has that been studied?
I drive my old motorcycle with the same big windshield since the 90ies. Insects are dramatically less on it now than 20 years ago.
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 toget…
I used to want a backyard wildlife refuge until I realized this also means having a backyard refuge for ticks. I'd love to know if there's a way around this
Last year I had a jarring experience driving through some of the agricultural land near the Salton Sea en route to Bombay Beach coming down from JTNP, taking back roads. The general region is desert, water and food is scarce, but through this agricultural zone there's this dense pocket of food and water on the surface. I was in a Miata with the top down, and the amount of chemicals they were using to keep the pests/i…
Yes it’s very bad and it doesn’t have to be that way. The mass chemical use must be profitable but there is a great cost to the land and the environment to do so. This is why it is so upsetting that Bill Gates is pushing this kind of chemical intensive farming all over Africa and positioning himself to profit off the transition too. Once again harming the continent and its people for profit while telling them it’s go…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
At my place the Monarchs (a couple weeks ago) were all attracted to a plant I haven't properly identified. It looks like queen anne's lace--crowns of many tiny, white flowers. We have a few similar-looking species in the region (Ozarks), and it could be any of them. Maybe worth a shot finding out if you want some other options for them!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes it’s very bad and it doesn’t have to be that way. The mass chemical use must be profitable but there is a great cost to the land and the environment to do so. This is why it is so upsetting that Bill Gates is pushing this kind of chemical intensive farming all over Africa and positioning himself to profit off the transition too. Once again harming the continent and its people for profit while telling them it’s go…
Lex Luthor's mistake was causing the disaster he planned to profit from rather than preparing to profit from one that was inevitable in his lifetime.
Last year I had a jarring experience driving through some of the agricultural land near the Salton Sea en route to Bombay Beach coming down from JTNP, taking back roads. The general region is desert, water and food is scarce, but through this agricultural zone there's this dense pocket of food and water on the surface. I was in a Miata with the top down, and the amount of chemicals they were using to keep the pests/i…
https://quillette.com/2021/07/25/the-insect-apocalypse-that-...
I feel like if this were true we would be seeing a major decline in the sales of pesticides, at least on consumer-level volume. Has anyone dug into those numbers?