131–140 of 168 posts
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Sure it works... but now you need snakes or raccoons to keep bats in check. Next you need badgers to keep snakes and raccoons in check etc etc. Soon enough you will need elephants and lions and whatnots. Maybe easier to just live with mosquitoes.
Why do you need to keep bats in check?
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we like to call them "lighting bugs" back here on the east coast ;)
We called them "lightning bugs" when I was living in Pennsylvania (as I recall), but since then I've lived in North Carolina and Virginia and now think of them as "fire flies". Maybe it's a north/south thing, too.
Years ago when I lived in suburban Texas with a typical suburban house with a back yard that had open space behind it I had a terrible insect problem. Exposed skin would get a mosquito bite-per-minute, the dogs were coming inside covered in fleas, etc. So I went to Home Depot and bought this yard spray that promised to kill mosquitos, fleas, ticks, etc. and I hosed down the back yard in a desperate attempt to reclaim…
Nuts to that, I don't want to spend every summer covered in weeping sores from whatever infection the local mosquitos carry. The wife and I look like crackheads half the summer. If I could I would DDT my whole neighbourhood and wouldn't bat an eye.
Years ago when I lived in suburban Texas with a typical suburban house with a back yard that had open space behind it I had a terrible insect problem. Exposed skin would get a mosquito bite-per-minute, the dogs were coming inside covered in fleas, etc. So I went to Home Depot and bought this yard spray that promised to kill mosquitos, fleas, ticks, etc. and I hosed down the back yard in a desperate attempt to reclaim…
Nuts to that, I don't want to spend every summer covered in weeping sores from whatever infection the local mosquitos carry. The wife and I look like crackheads half the summer. If I could I would DDT my whole neighbourhood and wouldn't bat an eye.
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Does your estimation take into account the energy absorbed by the plans we farm?
No, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption We spend a lot of that sun on meat and other livestock products though: https://ourworldindata.org/yields-and-land-use-in-agricultur... (the numbers in the second figure)
Years ago when I lived in suburban Texas with a typical suburban house with a back yard that had open space behind it I had a terrible insect problem. Exposed skin would get a mosquito bite-per-minute, the dogs were coming inside covered in fleas, etc. So I went to Home Depot and bought this yard spray that promised to kill mosquitos, fleas, ticks, etc. and I hosed down the back yard in a desperate attempt to reclaim…
Nuts to that, I don't want to spend every summer covered in weeping sores from whatever infection the local mosquitos carry. The wife and I look like crackheads half the summer. If I could I would DDT my whole neighbourhood and wouldn't bat an eye.
And we desperately need to start thinking and acting long term here. We are really messing things up. Badly.
I believe the primary source was discussed last week. (Discussion is still open but ain't nobody got time for that once it's off the front page!) 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074 (Oct 2017, 428 comments)
Last week's article motivated me to plant Milkweed ( Asclepias tuberosa and Asclepias incarnata ) in my garden next year, to help with the population of Monarch butterflies and bees. On the other hand, I'll still be deploying my organic mosquito control based on plant oils injected into a mister system. I really don't think mosquitoes fulfill any role in the ecosystem that can't be filled in by other species; but the…
They are so ubiquitous and numerous that they are without a doubt an important part of the food chain. Removing them from the equation will seriously disrupt the eco-systems they are a part of, and dramatic changes will happen. I cannot tell you what, because no one knows - but they are an important source of food the animals higher up the food chain. Maybe we get overcrowded by flies and spiders. Maybe most birds disappear. Maybe bees die out because mosquitoes kept a parasite at bay, leading to significant change in vegetative matter.
Most of our world is very adaptable, but it is also highly tuned, finely balanced, and complexly interconnected.
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I think the idea of "external wealth" is interesting. But how are banks culprits here? Are they forcing you to borrow money? Should they charge no interest so your business doesn't need to grow? Also, I don't follow. You need revenue to pay the interest (and principle), not constant growth.
I'm repeating that argumentation after Marcin Popkiewicz, a Polish climate expert. He wrote a few fat books about it. No one forces you to take bank loans, but banks definitely foster geometric growth. They want geometric returns on investment. If you don't have constant business growth, borrowing money from bank is losing money. I don't know what would be the right answer. I know what human population is growing at…
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Those "mythical tribesmen" produce no plastic or other materials which take very long to decompose. Poop, bone, leather, wood re-enter the system very quickly.
> Poop, bone, leather, wood re-enter the system very quickly. I suggest you study the River Ganges and then reevaluate your position. Poop alone can destroy a river on the scale of citywide human populations. --------- Plastics are actually INCREDIBLE for preventing waste. A plastic bag for groceries is composed of roughly 13mL of LDPE, or roughly 260 "drops" of plastic! LDPE is so incredibly efficient at manufacturi…