This study is useless. All it can tell us is: The number of insects flying above two particular roadways in one country over the course of 2 decades has declined by about 90%.
We can wildly speculate about what this means. Is it genetically-modified crops? Is it climate change? Is it changes to our automobiles? Is it population density changes? Are the bugs increasing elsewhere to compensate? etc. Has something about roads in Denmark changed? Is this part of a larger cycle within Denmark?
Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
351–360 of 378 posts
Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
#352I 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.
Seems like you were too successful in chasing them as a child. ;)
Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
> placing the blame for climate change on the backs of Dutch farmers was absurd Nobody is doing that, this is blatant misinformation that is being spread by interest groups that profit off Dutch farmers. Most of the discussion around farmers over here has to do with nitrogen. As the OP mentioned, it is causing acidification of nature areas, which is negatively impacting all sorts of wildlife. It's a mostly local prob…
You might be right here.
Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
#354Here 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,…
> These insects weren’t really robust to begin with. Take the monarch butterfly in the North America.
This a horrifying sentiment.
The modern monarch butterfly as a species is two million years old. In less than 200 years, we have mostly wiped it off the map, and the excuse is, "They weren't really robust to begin with"?
Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
#355No post body was provided.
Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Humans are not particularly destructive to the planet. That is blatantly false and stands in denial of mountains of evidence.
No, it does not. I don't believe that we could end 81% of marine species, even with the worst that we could do. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permian%E2%80%93Triassic_ext...
The existence of prior extinction events does not negate the fact that humans are extremely destructive to the planet.
Even in your link to the Permian–Triassic extinction event, one of the most probable causes of loss of marine life was hypercapnia. Several of our modern-day coastal waters are highly hypoxic, enough to cause drastic changes in macro behavior of fish and even whales, and the hypoxic waters are directly caused by human actions.
Humans, in the last century alone, caused half of the total forest loss in the past 10,000 years, and we were directly responsible for a large portion of the other half.
This could go on and on.
https://www.epa.gov/nutrient-policy-data/documented-hypoxia-...
https://ourworldindata.org/world-lost-one-third-forests
It is simply incorrect and downright antagonistic to say that humans "humans are not particularly destructive to the planet".
Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
#357Earlier 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.
If you watch high-altitude time-lapse photography, human settlements look exactly like a mold infestation. We spread as much as we can, and eventually we'll collapse as we exhaust resources. The earth won't "care", it'll just be another of the many boom-bust cycles in the history of nature. We're part of it. It's not going to be pleasant for the humans and animals that live through it, though! While we have enough in…
These crowds are being controlled by those benefitting from the status quo and the status quo, practically by definition, has its own momentum - "this is the way we've always done it." Many people legitimately don't understand how doing what we did in the past won't work or even cause harm going forward. That's the heart of the issue.
Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
#358Here 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…
> 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.
This was true for me for a long time. We had a lawn, and we had kids, and I believed that kids w/out a lawn was a travesty. Special lady friend was like, "dude we're surrounded by lawns," and it's true. There are 2 parks within walking distance of here and a big plot of grass at the local church. We killed the lawn, the kids didn't care, and I just haul them to the park. Still working on better habitat but it's coming along. And yeah as you say the exciting stuff going on in the soil and above ground is just amazing. Wild beans (not edible but pretty), edibles like dock, orach, dandelions & mallow ... just all kinds of stuff.
Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
#359Earlier 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.
I'm a bit confused on what you're getting at and your timelines. Earth was around for billions of years before humans and had life on it the entire time except possibly the first few hundred million years.
"Earth before humans is in a death spiral" says to me they're talking about earth as it existed before humans, not life on earth at all.
Earth before humans died with the rise of civilization, and especially global trade. We transformed large swathes of land into farmland and urban areas. We enabled the transfer of invasive species throughout the world. We redirected and sucked rivers dry for our own purposes. We dumped our garbage and literal shit in waterways. We destroyed the majority of natural habitats.
And this all happened hundreds or thousands of years ago.
Re: Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days?
#360Earlier 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.
> Elites are massing wealth to get off planet Well... no. They're prepping to move to compounds in New Zealand. Even a global warming (and nuclear war, let's throw that on the pile!) ravaged Earth is vastly easier to live on than, say, Mars. Trying to escape that way would be a frying-pan-into-the-fire plan. > and when the mass migrations really start and mid income countries start becoming failed states on their pat…
> Even a global warming (and nuclear war, let's throw that on the pile!) ravaged Earth is vastly easier to live on than, say, Mars.
Depends. Yeah, much harder to grow food or breathe on Mars, but probably a lot fewer angry mobs trying to eat you, too.