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Where have all the insects gone?

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Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#251

Post by FooHentai »

tw04 wrote: post #47
throwaway803453 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a good anti-growth counter argument/observation in Homo Deus. Population growth necessitates economic growth otherwise you end up with unemployment which destabilizes society and can lead to war. If you don't have population growth you still need economic growth to provide upward mobility to people at the bottom. Without growth you have a zero-sum game which again can lead to war. Ideally improvements in eff…

>If you don't have population growth you still need economic growth to provide upward mobility to people at the bottom. Without growth you have a zero-sum game which again can lead to war. OR you reset wealth upon death. You don't necessarily need unlimited growth if you prevent wealth from pooling at the top.

What does that look like, in practice? You have a family of four, and the father dies suddenly. What happens to the house? The wife re-marries, dies, and the second husband re-marries. At what point is this 'reset' occurring? To whom does the wealth transfer when it is 'reset'?

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#252

Post by gremloni »

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.

Trump futzing around with the clean air and water act has newly ruined rivers in North Carolina and our ground water with PFAS :(

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#253

Post by 0x0nyandesu »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #192
pengaru wrote: post #129

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…

What exactly is he going to really profit on? Guy is 65. Has said he's not leaving much to his kids. So I guess it's all going to a trust????

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#254

Post by Igelau »

thrashh wrote: post #243
BayAreaEscapee wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everytime this "the insects are dying" thread comes up, people come out of the woodwork with anecdotes like this. But I am one of them! I remember getting my first car in the late eighties and scrubbing tons of splattered insects off my windshield every time I went to the gas station. Now I barely even notice them. Antecdote is not data, but I certainly believe people when they say the insects are dying.

But people who haven’t seen fewer insects probably aren’t posting. Anecdotes are misleading and they are always a huge trick.

Indeed. I've never seen more insects, birds, toads, and bats in PA than I did this summer. Some nights the katydids were deafeningly loud. The only thing that seemed to decline was spotted lantern flies, thankfully.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#255

Post by BasicObject »

imglorp wrote: post #185
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.

Songbird populations everywhere are hurting.

I wonder how much noise levels are playing a role in it. Habitat loss is an obvious contributor but it seems like noise levels would hurt songbirds efforts to find a mate.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#256

Post by mod »

dmux wrote: post #241
mod wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I'm not sure if this is the plant you're describing, but in New England, Monarchs are really attracted to Milkweed. The White Swamp [0] variety may be what you're describing. [0] https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the-week/asclepia...

I do believe I see a lot of that in the understory, where there is a canopy and shade.

In this particular case, though, it was a similar plant that I normally always see in sunny areas. On the edges of my mowed yard, I was seeing a lot of monarchs for a few days.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#257

Post by forgotmyoldname »

Igelau wrote: post #254
thrashh wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people who haven’t seen fewer insects probably aren’t posting. Anecdotes are misleading and they are always a huge trick.

Indeed. I've never seen more insects, birds, toads, and bats in PA than I did this summer. Some nights the katydids were deafeningly loud. The only thing that seemed to decline was spotted lantern flies, thankfully.

I remember in the 90s sitting on my grandmother's porch in rural PA at night. Huge moths everywhere. Luna moths being just about as common as mosquitos. Beetles bangings into the walls. Chubby spiders having so much food they couldn't even eat half of it. The walls were absolutely plastered with insects and you'd have to try to not get covered fireflies while walking through the grass.

Now there are some mosquitoes and crickets. Maybe a few moths sometimes. The walls outside are spotless.

Living in Asia now, I see insects about as much as I saw them back then. I have to wonder if there were even more back in the 90s, or if things are as good as ever here. But it's nice to see life.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#258

Post by Kye »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #237
Kye wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or just... being focused on profit instead of mutual support of others.

Comic book villains aren't known for having complex motivations.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#259

Post by makeitdouble »

agumonkey wrote: post #187
DantesKite wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of birds are getting way closer to our windows than they used to be (lived in the same place for 40 years). These aren't angry bird (npi), usually they keep their distance with humans, but now they come very close very often.. I cannot not interpret it as a sign of risk taking facing higher needs.

We've seen the same phenomenon in multiple directions. Crows were usually near habitations, and we've seen a lot more deeper in the forest, and smaller birds that were hiding in the forest have been more adventurous and come to our balcony.

I don't know how good/bad of a thing it is, but surely there seems to be something going on.

For what it's worth, people also seem to have rediscovered the forest, and I hope will get more emotionally involved in its maintenance and preservation.

Re: Where have all the insects gone?

#260

Post by BoiledCabbage »

jonathankoren wrote: post #113
jonny_eh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, that's my point!

I'm surprised some hyphen aficionado hasn't tried hyphenating that country's name because it's "too confusing".

Is it any different than Bosnia and Herzegovina? Or Sao Tome and Principe?
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