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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?

#301

Post by chasil »

bmitc wrote: post #259
namaria wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe that if we acted today, that there could be salvation. Institute massive taxes against plastic use. Ban it for take-out food and other single-use instances. Start heavily taxing other wasteful areas. Heavily encourage if not enforce composting and recycling. Immediately start restoring mowed lawns with native plants. Ban the use of chemical fertilizers. It could be done, but we won't. Salvation is at our fi…

Humans are not particularly destructive to the planet.

Comparatively, "the great dying" was a much more profound event, and quite beyond our capability.

Even pushing our planet out of the current icehouse will likely require much, much more co2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth

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

#302

Post by [deleted] »

namaria wrote: post #288
bcrosby95 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to break it to you, but Earth before humans has largely been dead for hundreds or thousands of years, depending upon the exact region you're talking about.

lol talk about human centric dellusions and an example walks into the conversation

[deleted]

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

#303

Post by saltcured »

xattt wrote: post #44
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…

> 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) Hasn’t California had extremely climat…

Yeah, I certainly don't doubt that there are global changes going on, but that particular drive along I-5 is confounded by many other local variables.

I too notice changes in the amount of bugs having driven that route periodically for about 30 years. Due to economic and weather conditions over decades, there are very obvious changes in whether you are driving by grassland, irrigated crops and orchards, defunct and desiccated crops and orchards, or graded and developed human environments. The road has also widened and gotten much more traffic.

The general trend is more human presence year over year, but the agricultural activity is more cyclic. As I understand it, these areas are only viable to irrigate in wet years, because the senior water rights are held and used much further north and east along the CA-99 corridor. In droughts, these more recently developed farms dry up first.

It's also of course very seasonal, with bug populations booming and then disappearing much like wild flowers and migrating bird flocks along the same route. In the heaviest bug carnage periods, driving this section of I-5 can be like driving through the US midwest during a grasshopper or cicada boom.

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

#304

Post by [deleted] »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #174
chickenimprint wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> How would that work? We don't have enough land as it is. With capitalism there can never be enough of any natural resource. When there is enough, it will be put to more extravagant and wastefull purposes. The original purpose of a lawn was to show that you are so rich and have so much land that you can dedicate some of it to just grass. The purpose of a tough guy wearing a massive golden chain in a bad neighbourhoo…

[deleted]

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

#305

Post by _5uxp »

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.

Insects are disgusting if we and nature could live without them, that would be amazing.

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

#306

Post by root_axis »

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…

> Insects do not have emotions

Why wouldn't they?

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

#307

Post by Gordonjcp »

lynguist wrote: post #22

I’ve noticed the same with snails. When I was a child in the 90s, the sidewalks were full of snails, and during a 10 minute stroll, I’d often find tens of small snails. Today I find 1 or 2 snails after rainfall, if at all.

You can come here and take away all the snails you want. It's impossible to walk around at night without stepping on them, and they have utterly destroyed my garden. I've never seen a crop of kale or broccoli fail in 30 years until this year.

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

#308

Post by Gordonjcp »

Anecdotally, my 25-year-old Range Rover, and the 10-year-old Landrover Defender (which hasn't changed its basic shape since the 1950s) we have at work pick up just as many bugs as cars did in the 1970s.

The modern, sleek, aerodynamic cars we have don't pick up any bugs at all.

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

#309

Post by pfdietz »

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,…

An additional problem for monarch butterflies is a pair of introduced species, both swallow-worts. These are in the milkweed family, and they induce the butterflies to lay eggs on them, but the caterpillars die after only a few days.

I wonder how common this sort of thing is. Insects evolve to feed on certain plants, and not feed on others, but invasives could screw that up.

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

#310

Post by nawgz »

fullstop wrote: post #297
nawgz wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As for the license plates, they are no more aerodynamic than they were 30 years ago, which makes them a better source for insect measurement. I agree with this, but not the claim that there are studies showing this number is consistent with the past. The linked discussion also seems to imply that sampling rate corresponds with the decline in insect populations, unless I missed something.

I've not said that they (bug splatters) are consistent with the past. Perhaps my wording wasn't the best, but I was trying to say that the aerodynamic properties of a license plate have not changed.

I see, "that really hasn't changed" was a statement on aerodynamics and not volume of insect collisions. Thanks, I agree with what you're saying, good tidbit about the more aerodynamic cars leading to lower probability of insect survival.
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