201–210 of 378 posts
Pesticides and crop mono-cultures. There is no place for insects to live. When 0.1% of humans dies of a virus, we call it a disaster. When 50% of insects dies, we don't give a damn.
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How would that work? We don't have enough land as it is. And we can't pay for the additional labor small farms need, or food inflation will explode. Making agriculture unproductive will just push the demand outwards like a beaker of toxic reactants boiling over. We can't impose more trade restrictions on foreign agricultural goods either, for fear of a trade war. This hopeless romanticism of small organic mom-and-pop…
We don't have enough land as it is. Only discussing the land statement here, but we have loads and loads and loads of unused farmland. At least, that is true in Canada, and I suspect the US, and I know in the EU some are paid not to farm. In Canada, we have quotas on some things, to prevent over production. There are two real issues: * drought, or summers with few sunny days, reducing yields * random new diseases So…
This article is pretty characteristic of the chemical industry influence trying to muddle the waters. I've watched recently a conference[1] by several renowned scientists. They affirm that neonicotinoids / neonics are responsible of at least 80% of the decline. They also affirm that the "merchants of doubt" are working their best to muddle the evidence with things like "there are multiple factors", "it's complicated"…
This is true.
It's also true that less than 30% (in Europe as low as 15%) of smokers get lung cancer. [0]
I point this out b/c I always believed that "if you smoke, you will get lung cancer" whereas the data was "if you get lung cancer, odds are it's from smoking"
I wish that more information was presented this way but I also get that if your goal is to stop smoking then saying "smoking == lung cancer" is a better persuasion play than "odds are you won't get lung cancer if you smoke"
0 - https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/resources/position-statem...
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I blow them off my wood deck, so they don't rot and damage the wood. I let them lie on the rest of my 1.6 acres. And the 1 acre that's forested, we're working on trying to de-invasive-ize the forest and try to help rehabilitate it. Its just 2 of us, but we're trying.
Are there any guides on "deinvasiveizing"? It seems like a complicated topic. Some non native life is considered to be non invasive, having found a homeostasis its new nich (common carp as an example). And some native life is considered invasive by some because it is so well adapted it crowds out all other native life (some bindweeds) Given the dramatic impacts we have made on a global scale, is trying to preserve de…
We also don't use any chemicals to do the killing, as so many of those have terrible side effects. Killing larger invasives involves something as simple as "black contractor bag enveloping and tied at base". It captures all the seeds, kills the plant, and provides easy removal.
We also see that a lot of "lawn grasses" are also pretty invasive especially to forests. So, we also try to keep the lawn encroachment from happening..... as much. Ive done the high tech solution of "lay a slab of plywood on the grasses at the edge of the forest"!
We're also designing our garden with local plants in mind, including rarer plants for our area. If/when those flower and seed, we're seeing natives with natives. And the non-natives we bring in are checked for invasiveness.
Basically, it's being low-key stewards to the land.
This article is pretty characteristic of the chemical industry influence trying to muddle the waters. I've watched recently a conference[1] by several renowned scientists. They affirm that neonicotinoids / neonics are responsible of at least 80% of the decline. They also affirm that the "merchants of doubt" are working their best to muddle the evidence with things like "there are multiple factors", "it's complicated"…
> But just like the overwhelming majority of lung cancer comes from smoking This is true. It's also true that less than 30% (in Europe as low as 15%) of smokers get lung cancer. [0] I point this out b/c I always believed that "if you smoke, you will get lung cancer" whereas the data was "if you get lung cancer, odds are it's from smoking" I wish that more information was presented this way but I also get that if your…
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One thing I've noticed after moving back to the Netherlands is how absolutely obsessed people are with keeping things "tidy". In a way, it's nice I guess, at least sometimes, but it comes with some serious costs too. This is not unique to the Netherlands, but we're probably the best (or worst?) at it, except maybe Singapore.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/24/let-fall... Article from today, “let fallen leaves lie”
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It's good to see a comment that recognises that this "bug splatter on the windshield" data is mostly just an easily observed hook to connect the measured declines to people's everyday life experiences. The topic seems to come up here ever few months, and there's always a significant percentage of the discussion devoted to aerodynamic effects, or changes in insect distribution specific to roadside habitats. Those conv…
insecticides kill insects? Big if true. Sounds like it working as designed.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you..."
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/24/let-fall... Article from today, “let fallen leaves lie”
From near the end of the article: "Sometimes people find it a bit gross when we put the mulch back in plant pots, because it smells a bit woody" Are people really so detached from nature these days that the smell of wet wood puts them off? I do despair for humankind some days when I read this sort of thing.