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Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

#141

Post by thanatos519 »

dutchbrit wrote: post #94
fleddr wrote: post #74

Here in the ultra-dense Netherlands, threats to insects are magnified. As such, it's easier to point to specific causes. Butterflies: 50% reduction in 50 years. Beetles: 75% decline since 1985. Ladybugs: 50% reduction in 20 years. Across the border in Germany: a 75% decline in flying insects since 1989. It doesn't take much of a scientist to see the trend. I've been hiking the forests here multiple times per week for…

It’s also sad to see what people are doing to their gardens over here. Fake grass, no plants/just bricks. Not to mention the municipalities mowing nice patches of grass/plants/flowers where insects thrive.

It's crazy! On one side, I have a neighbour with all slate and concrete backyard, and a barrier at the top of the fence (to keep the fancy cats in 'o_O ) covered with plastic vines. I think they have one actual living tree and maybe a flowerpot.

Fortunately, on the other side ... I have the head of the groene commissie (neighbourhood gardening enthusiastc) and a beautiful tended garden. Mine is the most natural: a barely-tended jungle which gets trimmed and brushed once a year. We have hedgehogs!

We installed ~200m^2 of green roofs in the neighbourhood and there are bug hotels all over the place so we are doing relatively well. Quite a few different varieties of bees.

All this green absorbs a lot of heat, and manages rainwater which is important at 0 above sea level and 2m below the nearby canal.

Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

#142

Post by donkeyd »

fleddr wrote: post #74

Here in the ultra-dense Netherlands, threats to insects are magnified. As such, it's easier to point to specific causes. Butterflies: 50% reduction in 50 years. Beetles: 75% decline since 1985. Ladybugs: 50% reduction in 20 years. Across the border in Germany: a 75% decline in flying insects since 1989. It doesn't take much of a scientist to see the trend. I've been hiking the forests here multiple times per week for…

Wow, it's refreshing to see a Dutch person write down the impact of nitrogen as facts. Around me, its seems like slowly everyone is starting to doubt/deny the impact of nitrogen and whether it's something we need to care about. I'm starting to feel less at home in this country by the day because of it (and all the upside down flags consequently).

Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

#143

Post by Zigurd »

tejohnso wrote: post #111

Maybe because we're in the midst of an anthropogenic mass extinction? https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1704949114 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction "The contemporary rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than the background extinction rate" "the current rate of extinction is 10 to 100 times higher than in any of the previous mass extinctions in the history o…

This should be obvious. There is some good news in that the human population is plateauing, and is projected to gradually decline, as a result of urbanization, educated women, mass entertainment, secularism, and other influences.

If we want a natural world around us, we have to leave a lot of it natural. Sometimes it reminds us that's not really an option, but a requirement for survival. One thing we will learn from space colonies is that humans cannot thrive in a monoculture surrounded by sterility.

Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

#144

Post by Zigurd »

INTPenis wrote: post #86
alangibson wrote: post #56

I recently went back to my hometown in the USA after a couple of decades away. I was struck by how there we're almost none of the fireflies, grasshoppers and assorted other bugs I'd chased as a kid. I chalked it up to being a nostalgic old man, but I've never shaken that feeling that something is definitely not right.

Sad and frightening to hear. Funny though but here in southern Sweden and Denmark I've had the opposite experience. Sometime around 2018 I started noticing a lot of fireflies, in a park in the middle of a major city. Which was not normal to me. Since then I've noticed them almost every summer. And on vacation in Denmark it's the same thing, the air is alive with life. It has its downsides too because there are more t…

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. On hot summer evenings the fireflies were spectacular. The cooler summers of New England meant many fewer fireflies. But, in the past couple of years I have noticed more of them where I now live.

Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

#145

Post by christophilus »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #138

I was thinking about this lack of bugs phenomenon when driving to my mom's house a few times over the past 3 or so months. It hasn't been the case for me this year. My car is covered with dead bugs, more than there used to be ~10 years ago. While I was there, I walked around at night (in a small midwestern town), and was constantly assaulted by bugs. Is pesticide use down with fertilizer use?

I have a similar anecdote. I had to make a 5 hour drive this weekend up to Raleigh, NC, and for the first time in years, my windshield was dotted with bugs.

Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

#146

Post by wartijn_ »

ryan93 wrote: post #121
jorvi wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would replace 'protesting' with 'terrorizing'. They've been visiting politicians their homes with torches, threatening them and explicitly their kids, blockading highways with burning rubble, blocking highways with asbestos , using their tractors to rip out doors out of government buildings. What is most aggrieving to me is that the police is pseudo on the side of the farmers. The head of the police said that he 'f…

I mean placing the blame for climate change on the backs of Dutch farmers was absurd. They should have started with severe controls on importing goods from countries with high levels of pollution

Do you have a source of the government "placing the blame for climate change on the backs of Dutch farmers"? The Dutch government wanted[0] to curb emissions, and since (high intensity) farms are huge polluters, some of the measurements affected farmers.But I can't remember them placing the blame on the farmers.

[0] Well, they didn't really want it, but had to https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/dutch-official...

Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

#147

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #137

Although indoor vertical farming is going to be super expensive, it does have the possibility of huge benefits such as reducing contamination to the environment.

I like the idea of using genetic engineering to knock out certain species of pest, limited to the ones specialized to eat domesticated crops. You wouldn’t need to spray a cornfield if the corn moth was no longer around.

And, we could always keep a pristine population of the peat locked away in some vault if it turns out making them extinct in the wild was a bad idea.

Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

#148

Post by fullstop »

vlovich123 wrote: post #17

To everyone replying “aerodynamics”, I’ve had the same car for about 9 years now and the drive along the 5 from Bay Area to LA feels like there’s fewer bugs on my windshield (granted not recorded diligently for scientific purposes but whereas before I’d need to scrub the windshield at least once halfway these days I can drive all the way and still don’t need a wash at the end) Same goes for the argument that bugs hav…

The last time this was discussed I found some articles showing that the more boxy and angular windows of older vehicles were less likely to have bugs smashed on them. This is why these studies often use license plate splatters to get a better count -- that really hasn't changed.

Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?

#150

Post by luxuryballs »

alangibson wrote: post #56

I recently went back to my hometown in the USA after a couple of decades away. I was struck by how there we're almost none of the fireflies, grasshoppers and assorted other bugs I'd chased as a kid. I chalked it up to being a nostalgic old man, but I've never shaken that feeling that something is definitely not right.

5G and emf seems reasonable but will they turn it off for a few years and find out? nope
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