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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?

#361

Post by yellowapple »

raffraffraff wrote: post #321
sillystuff wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as the elites believe they have a plan B, whether it be New Zealand or Mars, they will not make the sacrifices necessary to avert disaster. The author writes on his experience with a group of elites who were seeking ways to protect their positions in the face of collapse (societal / ecological / etc.). Salvation will not come from the top. https://archive.ph/AABsP original: https://onezero.medium.com/survival…

Nobody is making it off earth. And it's not just elites, we're all shitting in the drinking water to some degree, and we're all stuck here. I don't know anybody (personally) who actually makes significant lifestyle sacrifices that curb their impact on climate change. My wife and I are vegetarian, have no kids, don't own a car, and haven't been on a plane for years. I don't know any other person in the "first world" w…

> And yet they also demand to know what the elites and politicians are doing to save the planet.

Because none of what they do as individuals has any significant bearing on the current trajectory of Earth's biosphere. None of it. These are systemic problems, and trying to pin the blame for systemic problems on individual participants in that system - as you're doing right now - is not just ineffective, but is deliberately ineffective: a narrative crafted by those very same elites (and the corporations they own) to deflect blame from the system they themselves architected and continue to enforce.

> I think that these elites you want to blame are as clueless and selfish as every other person you know.

Well yeah, obviously. But that brings into question why they're elites in the first place, and the answer is that they shouldn't be elites in the first place, not that they're somehow of equal blame (let alone less) as their subjects.

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

#362

Post by Tagbert »

deafpolygon wrote: post #39
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…

What if, with more cars and bigger windshields, we're just grabbing less and less of these bugs due to more of them being killed by other cars / trucks?

The environment around those roads contains millions of other insects. The amount killed by cars is a tiny percentage. That would obscure any affect from the small increase in automobiles or their windshields.

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

#363

Post by naravara »

yellowapple wrote: post #360
yamtaddle wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Whoever ends up growing the food and maintaining the breathing machines on Mars will be the angry mobs trying to eat you.

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

#364

Post by chasil »

bmitc wrote: post #356
chasil wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 direct…

If we go by co2, the guess is that something between 1,000 - 1,500 ppm is required to tip us into a greenhouse phase.

Our current levels are well under 500 ppm.

Humanity will have to work very hard to force the planet out of its current icehouse.

We are definitely having an impact, and could well drive ourselves extinct, but I still see us as unable to implement drastic change, especially as some extinction events have required thousands of years to come to pass.

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

#365

Post by yellowapple »

hedora wrote: post #261
bmitc wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's a fantasy. For one, I think Mars is just a power play by the likes of people like Musk and Bezos. It doesn't even make sense to view Mars as a backup for Earth because, at least currently, Earth is still alive and Mars is already completely dead. It's like saying "we're going to kill off the only planet that can sustain us to get to a planet that cannot sustain us". It's mind boggling that we can ge…

As far as I can tell, humans can't survive for extended periods of time in gravity as low as it is on Mars. There's also the problem of surface radiation. Given that we can't figure out how to build subterranean cities at scale on earth, I'm not sure what the plan is for dealing with that. Honestly, a self sustaining space station seems easier to achieve than a self sustaining Mars base: You can spin the space statio…

> As far as I can tell, humans can't survive for extended periods of time in gravity as low as it is on Mars.

Our only datapoints for long-term human activity are "Earth gravity" and "complete freefall". This is one of the things I hope we can answer in the near-term with manned lunar missions.

> Given that we can't figure out how to build subterranean cities at scale on earth

We know perfectly well how to build subterranean cities at scale on Earth. We don't, because it's expensive and because people tend to like having windows for natural light and fresh air. It'd be cheaper on a smaller planet like Mars (less gravity to fight against), and it ain't like there'd be a possibility of natural light or fresh air anyway given the radiation and unbreathable atmosphere.

> Honestly, a self sustaining space station seems easier to achieve than a self sustaining Mars base

You'd have the same radiation problem if not worse (and no "underground" to shield you from it; "park it behind a celestial body" doesn't really work, either, when you have cosmic rays coming from all directions - said cosmic rays being the dominant form of space radiation), but other than that, yes, space stations are more practical - and you can build 'em anywhere, not just Mars.

You could also build such a spinning structure on an airless body like the Moon or Ceres. Ceres is in fact pretty close to ideal as far as human colonization goes: low gravity (so it's easy to build there and easy to leave for other destinations), close proximity to the rest of the asteroid belt (so lots of opportunities for space mining), and it's pretty much a giant ball of water ice and hydrocarbons so we'd have everything we need (at least on a fundamental chemical level) for air, food, and water alike.

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

#366

Post by javajosh »

bmitc wrote: post #342
namaria wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't me making this argument if I thought everyone thought like me. We have a great capacity for understanding and changing nature, yes. And also the need to believe we are apart and special. But we're not. High rise buildings and fiber optic cables are as natural as anything else that grows on the planet. Drawing a line and calling "artificial" or "designed" on this side is completely arbitrary.

I think your take is very interesting and I agree with the sentiment in general. But humans are different sociobiologically from other animals. As far as I know, we are the only ones that cook our food, which caused drastic changes in the guts of hominids, because the energy required to process food was farmed out to the cooking process and literally to the grass-eating animals we ate. Every since fire and further te…

As a practical matter I just don't think it's useful to lose the distinction between artificial and natural, even if I cannot define precisely when something is one or the other. In the same way it's not useful to lose the distinction between "selfish" and "selfless" which is a good enough reason to reject psychological egoism.

I think it's okay to accept something is true in an "ultimate sense", but not in a practical sense. e.g. that all technology is a natural process since the causal chain that led to it happened or rather was allowed by physics. To wit, plastics really are natural because humans evolved to be able to make plastics. If you argue against plastics being natural, then you might argue that anything "made" by an individual organism is artificial, which is clearly absurd.

No super interested in finding a resolution here, since I don't think the common meanings are problematic.

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

#367

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#368

Post by Panzer04 »

bmitc wrote: post #343
Panzer04 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These suggestions sound like a classic "central planners know better" attitude. Would taxing/banning plastic actually reduce waste/pollution? or would the shift to more expensive replacements (paper/wood/etc) actually increase pollution and waste? Banning chemical fertilisers would almost immediately cause a massive famine, enormous drops in agricultural productivity, etc. People consuming "organic" foods that don't…

I should have clarified in my original comment, although I already mentioned this elsewhere prior to your comment. Chemical fertilizers, to my knowledge, serve no actual purpose other than vanity for residential applications. Thus, they should be banned for those purposes. For commercial agriculture, a more long-term approach is clearly needed, but an actual approach should be realized instead of doomsdaying. Plastic…

Thank you for the polite response - I realise I was a bit harsh.

I don’t see an issue with chemical fertilisers, personally - I don’t think non commercial users of them are significant enough to be worth any consideration compared ro conventional agriculture.

I can’t say how consequential microplastics are - however banning them for use as packaging etc can have huge negative consequences because they are a very cheap (both in price and energy) packaging compared to most alternatives. I think that if microplastics are a concern, car tires and clothing are much more significant than “single use” instances as good packaging (which I would guess is actually usually disposed of properly most of the time).

I brought up paper because it’s a common substitute packaging (eg cardboard and the like), but is significantly pricier than plastics and more energy intensive to produce.

It’s not an easy Robles to solve, the more so because we use these things because they work so well. I just took exception to singling these things out because they are either critical to modern civilisation (fertiliser) or extremely useful (plastic packaging)

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