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

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

#241

Post by munificent »

fleddr wrote: post #163
donkeyd wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

It's a worldwide thing. An urbanized population does not care about nature. At all. Modern life is almost fully abstracted away from it, and it seems fine to destroy it for as long as our delicate lifestyle remains intact. Every once in a while, we watch a documentary like Planet Earth. It inspires even the most cynical stoic. And we feel terrible about our negative role. But the next day we go on as usual. And as so…

> An urbanized population does not care about nature. At all.

My experience has been the exact opposite. Growing up in rural areas, most people seemed to treat nature as an endless resource to be exploited for personal enrichment. Any discussion of ecological regulation was met with harsh rebuke about "jobs" and "freedom" (i.e. the freedom to extract value by exploiting nature).

As I moved to more urban areas, people were more and more ecologically focused on the long-term impacts of natural exploitation. Today I live in a dense metro area (Seattle) where I've never been around a greater concentration of nature-focused people.

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

#242

Post by willnonya »

anon84873628 wrote: post #221
toss1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Visited the US Midwest (Minnesota) recently and driving from the airport city to another smaller city, started going out into farmland. At first, it seemed like a nice bucolic change. But soon, it took on a far darker aspect - this was a barren monoculture, as far as the eye could see, for dozens of miles. Where to the birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and insects live? The land is not only covered with chem…

At one point during the development of California agriculture, there was an idea that farms should only be 160 acres in size, since that was what was manageable and profitable for a smallholder family. I wonder what the land would be like if we had managed to enforce that. There would probably be more crop diversity at least, and habitats in between the farms. Kind of like anti-trust enforcement for the land itself

The only thing you can know for sure is that it would have driven up prices and reduced supply.

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

#243

Post by fallingfrog »

eden_hazard wrote: post #139
fallingfrog wrote: post #125

Does anyone else remember the puddles in the road being full of worms after a good rainfall? I hardly see any of those anymore either.

I remember that. I used to walk to school and would jump be looking down the entire time to avoid stepping on worms. Now I hardly see them.

This is concerning because if it's affecting worms too, then it's not just airborne bugs landing on crops with insecticide. It means it's already soaked into the soil.

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

#244

Post by bmitc »

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…

And what's crazy is that everyone thinks it's going to be electric cars that somehow saves us. When the fact of the matter is there is a ton of stuff we can start doing today that would positively impact the environment.

It's pretty easy:

* Restore lawn areas to native plants: small (wildflowers), medium (bushes), big (trees)

* For areas that are kept as lawn, simply mow less. Allow plants to flower. Don't treat clover as evil. Support multiple grass types. Stop using chemical fertilizers and stop trying to feed the grass. Feed the soil with organic fertilizers and compost.

That's it! It reduces maintenance costs and time, reduces the use of gasoline, reduces noise pollution, and vastly improves soil health, insect and wildlife health, and increases pollination of our own food. It's a literal win-win.

And yet, no one does it. They turn their lawns into wastelands and never even use them. I've heard that lawns should be compared to deserts but that even that is disregarding the biodiversity that deserts have over lawns.

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

#245

Post by naasking »

wickedsight wrote: post #231
naasking wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the discussion around farmers over here has to do with nitrogen. Yes, and nitrogen fertilizer yields nitrous oxide which is a greenhouse gas implicated in climate change [1]. This is not just "misinformation", this is part of the reason behind the push to ban nitrogen fertilizer. [1] https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/fertilizer-and-climate-ch...

> this is part of the reason behind the push to ban nitrogen fertilizer Sure, that might be true, but it is definitely blatant misinformation that Dutch farmers are being blamed for climate change. It is not part of the discussion that's currently ongoing in The Netherlands and that is purposefully being misrepresented in (mostly American) right-wing media. This needs to be clear, because the violent protests by fram…

I admit find this response confusing.

Given that climate change is the primary reason for restricting nitrogen fertilizer, it's implicit that the farmers are contributing to climate change. Are the people claiming that the farmers are being blamed for climate change saying that the farmers are the only or primary driver for climate change? That would obviously be incorrect, but the former claim is absolutely correct.

Maybe it's not part of the conversation in the Netherlands, but I'm not seeing what's factually wrong about it. Are they actually claiming that climate change is part of the discussion in the Netherlands? If this isn't part of the conversation in the Netherlands, what exactly are they talking about?

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

#246

Post by bmitc »

lettergram wrote: post #95
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…

While I don’t disagree with those two points I don’t know if they’re the primary cause. I also think it’s important to put it into context. 1. These insects weren’t really robust to begin with. Take the monarch butterfly in the North America. They actually needed primarily milkweed to survive. A single point of failure (milkweed) can cause the population to collapse. When we put up houses and converted land to farms,…

That is a very human-centric viewpoint and a very strange one at that. It's almost egocentric.

Were big cats such as mountain lions and bobcats not robust enough in America? Because they've been eradicated due to habitat loss.

Is it really a surprise that animals that have evolved over millions of years to fit within the balance of nature are having difficulty adapting in just decades to humanity's technology destruction of that balance? The fact that some are able to make it through that imbalance is not a justification.

It's weird that you basically seem to blame evolution. And it's not just about specific populations. It's all about their interactions and relationships. We do not fully understand how all these things tie together as a system. So much of it is disappearing, we really have no idea what could happen to our ecosystems. For the most part, it cannot be good.

I am in general seriously concerned about soil and insect health. We take leaves and grass and native plants off of land and then instead needlessly dump water and fertilizer in their place because what's left is not self-sustaining. It's literally the most wasteful process you can think of for managing land, and yet we do it in full force.

I planted native plants and let things grow up in my yard this year, and it's amazing how popular the areas get with insects. This is just one year. Next year, I am hoping for much more, especially now that I know what I'm doing for the most part.

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

#248

Post by Deegy »

Beltalowda wrote: post #105
unglaublich wrote: post #100

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.

I actually don't care at all if an insect lives or dies. Insects do not have emotions; no other insects mourn if one dies. This makes them markedly different from humans and other animals; insects are little more than machines and from a moral perspective much closer to bacteria than, say, mice. The only reason I care is because of the broader ecological effects. I don't care whether my gut microbes live or die eithe…

I know what you mean. The foundational support beams on my house are starting to rot away. I don't care how they feel, but I hope my house stays upright.

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

#249

Post by kdbeall_ »

leokennis wrote: post #219
donkeyd wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The farmers' protests are insane. They either flat out deny science, or frame biodiversity as some "left wing bleeding heart liberal" hobby. Despite that they get offered millions to stop their farming activities. Despite that they dump asbestos on highways and threaten politicians by visiting their homes. And despite that our politicians cheer them on. It really is the worst of times.

Oh, so the Dutch government should expropriate their land?

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

#250

Post by namaria »

bmitc wrote: post #244
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…

And what's crazy is that everyone thinks it's going to be electric cars that somehow saves us. When the fact of the matter is there is a ton of stuff we can start doing today that would positively impact the environment. It's pretty easy: * Restore lawn areas to native plants: small (wildflowers), medium (bushes), big (trees) * For areas that are kept as lawn, simply mow less. Allow plants to flower. Don't treat clov…

There is no salvation. Whatever was Earth before human civilization is in a death spiral. What comes next is anyone's guess. Elites are massing wealth to get off planet, and when the mass migrations really start and mid income countries start becoming failed states on their path, I hope you are in a place that can hold you safe for the remainder of your time here.
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