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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?

#161

Post by didgetmaster »

My car was covered with bugs after a recent trip, but hard to say if that anecdata is any indication of actual insect population stability. If insect populations are truly in decline, it is hard to see how insecticides used on crops could be responsible for massive worldwide reductions.

Here is an interesting breakdown of how much of the world's surface (particularly the part that includes habitable land) is used to grow crops: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use (TLDR: it is a very small percentage)

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

#162

Post by Nasrudith »

alangibson wrote: post #56

I 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.

Anecdotal, but I was pleased to see fireflies returning after not seeing them post puberty. Not denying general trends at all but it makes me wonder what is the cause of counter examples. Maybe more neighbors not overgrooming their lawns or the local park's native species garden?

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

#163

Post by fleddr »

donkeyd wrote: post #142
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…

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 soon as a tiny thing is asked of us to better the course, we resist like a maniac.

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

#164

Post by Der_Einzige »

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…

This thinking reminds me of the moral crisis that lagoshi from beastars has of the idea of killing an insect.

The scene is very well done. His imagination of the insect anthropomorphized is absolutely fascinating...

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

#165

Post by donkeyd »

ryan93 wrote: post #121
jorvi wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would replace 'protesting' with 'terrorizing'. They've been visiting politicians their homes with torches, threatening them and explicitly their kids, blockading highways with burning rubble, blocking highways with asbestos , using their tractors to rip out doors out of government buildings. What is most aggrieving to me is that the police is pseudo on the side of the farmers. The head of the police said that he 'f…

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 problem, often caused by intensive farming and is mostly unrelated to climate change.

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

#166

Post by geysersam »

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…

I'm surprised you didn't mention pesticide usage as one of the reasons. Or is that not an important factor?

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

#167

Post by DonaldFisk »

dutchbrit wrote: post #94
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…

It’s also sad to see what people are doing to their gardens over here. Fake grass, no plants/just bricks. Not to mention the municipalities mowing nice patches of grass/plants/flowers where insects thrive.

It would be nice if people realized that they can have a low-maintenance, inexpensive, and insect-friendly garden full of pretty wild flowers, by planting a perennial meadow. This needs to be cut once a year.

In the UK, you can buy perennial meadow seed mixes from https://www.scotiaseeds.co.uk , https://wildseed.co.uk , https://www.wildflower.co.uk, and several other companies.

Elsewhere, there should be equivalents.

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

#168

Post by galangalalgol »

noasaservice wrote: post #159
bamboozled wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/24/let-fall... Article from today, “let fallen leaves lie”

I blow them off my wood deck, so they don't rot and damage the wood. I let them lie on the rest of my 1.6 acres. And the 1 acre that's forested, we're working on trying to de-invasive-ize the forest and try to help rehabilitate it. Its just 2 of us, but we're trying.

Are there any guides on "deinvasiveizing"? It seems like a complicated topic. Some non native life is considered to be non invasive, having found a homeostasis its new nich (common carp as an example). And some native life is considered invasive by some because it is so well adapted it crowds out all other native life (some bindweeds)

Given the dramatic impacts we have made on a global scale, is trying to preserve de-humanified areas realistic anymore? Or are we supposed to simply try to maximize the diversity of life without regard to what life was in a place before humans arrived?

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

#169

Post by jspash »

bamboozled wrote: post #133
Beltalowda wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've noticed after moving back to the Netherlands is how absolutely obsessed people are with keeping things "tidy". In a way, it's nice I guess, at least sometimes, but it comes with some serious costs too. This is not unique to the Netherlands, but we're probably the best (or worst?) at it, except maybe Singapore.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/24/let-fall... Article from today, “let fallen leaves lie”

From near the end of the article: "Sometimes people find it a bit gross when we put the mulch back in plant pots, because it smells a bit woody"

Are people really so detached from nature these days that the smell of wet wood puts them off? I do despair for humankind some days when I read this sort of thing.

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