Why are there so few dead bugs on windshields these days? • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by wickedsight » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 3:51 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #198

donkeyd wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Most of the discussion around farmers over here has to do with nitrogen. Yes, and nitrogen fertilizer yields nitrous oxide which is a greenhouse gas implicated in climate change [1]. This is not just "misinformation", this is part of the reason behind the push to ban nitrogen fertilizer. [1] https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/fertilizer-and-climate-ch...

> this is part of the reason behind the push to ban nitrogen fertilizer

Sure, that might be true, but it is definitely blatant misinformation that Dutch farmers are being blamed for climate change. It is not part of the discussion that's currently ongoing in The Netherlands and that is purposefully being misrepresented in (mostly American) right-wing media. This needs to be clear, because the violent protests by framers in The Netherlands are being abused by foreign interest groups who frame them as protests against those farmers being blamed for climate change.

This is a real issue, because this is starting to become an actual discussion point for those who are supporting the farmers. They are, for example, asking why farmers are now targeted and airports are not, while farmers cause 88x more nitrogen emissions than flights in the Netherlands. Also, those emissions are less focused on the problem areas.

Misinformation is incredibly harmful in this discussion and therefore it's incredibly important to keep the facts straight. Otherwise all discussions and arguments will mix and there will never actually be anything done.

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

#232

Post by __alexs » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

addingadimensio wrote: post #213

DonaldFisk wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I just love picking ticks off my children

Unless you have wild mammals visiting your garden regularly it's quite unlikely there will be a single tick in it.

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

#233

Post by j0057 » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

jorvi wrote: post #109

WJW wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the farmers are (obviously) not in favor and have been protesting heavily.

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…

The highway blockades have lead to accidents too, in one case a fatal one: https://www.rtvutrecht.nl/nieuws/3443753/twee-aanhoudingen-n...

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

#234

Post by donkeyd » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 3:57 PM UTC

fleddr wrote: post #189

donkeyd wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as soon as a tiny thing is asked of us to better the course Well, I also see a lot of people who do the tiny thing but not the big thing. Plenty of people around me are reducing their meat intake (and are vocal about it), because climate change, but still fly on airplanes, some multiple times a year. It's so incredibly frustrating that many people are just green washing their lives, but are oblivious to the fact th…

Respectfully, I think your take on this does not work. If before you have a frequent flyer that regularly eats meat, and next they stop eating meat, that is to be celebrated. It's still massive progress. Further, their footprint from flying may improve over time as airlines are investing in sustainability. From flying 3 times a year to 2 times a year is big progress. From eating lots of meat to somewhat less, is prog…

> From flying 3 times a year to 2 times a year is big progress.

These people are going from 0-1 time a year to 2-3 times a year, because they're starting to earn more and can therefore take more trips. They are ignorant to the fact that's more wasteful than eating meat. This is typical personal green-washing, which is the part that annoys me.

I understand that perfect is the enemy of good and I'm not implying that everyone should be perfect.

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

#235

Post by ericd » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

addingadimensio wrote: post #213

DonaldFisk wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I just love picking ticks off my children

Critter fences are cheap and effective at preventing this without requiring you to create a sterile landscape or monoculture.

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

#236

Post by newsclues » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

chickenimprint wrote: post #91

newsclues wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a push to move to smaller regenerative farms occurring?

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…

Same way it did before we had industrialized (petrochemical) agriculture.

More people working on farms. More people living close to farms. More animals on farms.

Should lead to healthier lifestyles and diets. Better environment for people and the planet (and all the creatures including BUGS).

Time to make the old new again, and stop building suburbs on farm land.

All of this is possible and logical, but there is a massive propaganda machine that is convincing people otherwise.

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

#237

Post by gs17 » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

nobodyandproud wrote: post #118

Aside from pesticides and land development, yet another cause of decline is our over obsession with landscaping and municipal lights (at least here in the Northeast US). I have mixed feelings about this: Night lights do add a bit of security, but insects such as moths rely on natural darkness and moonlight to navigate.

> Night lights do add a bit of security, but insects such as moths rely on natural darkness and moonlight to navigate.

We can have a bit of compromise, at least if we had dark sky compliant lights there would be a lot less of an issue. Where I live the streetlights seem to intentionally point upward and it's frustrating that this isn't a priority even when refiting them with LEDs (at least here they put in warm lights instead of cool ones like where I used to live).

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

#238

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

jspash wrote: post #169

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”

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.

[deleted]

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

#239

Post by toss1 » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

anon84873628 wrote: post #221

toss1 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Visited the US Midwest (Minnesota) recently and driving from the airport city to another smaller city, started going out into farmland. At first, it seemed like a nice bucolic change. But soon, it took on a far darker aspect - this was a barren monoculture, as far as the eye could see, for dozens of miles. Where to the birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and insects live? The land is not only covered with chem…

At one point during the development of California agriculture, there was an idea that farms should only be 160 acres in size, since that was what was manageable and profitable for a smallholder family. I wonder what the land would be like if we had managed to enforce that. There would probably be more crop diversity at least, and habitats in between the farms. Kind of like anti-trust enforcement for the land itself

Wow, would have been brilliant. (thx for the info)

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

#240

Post by moffkalast » Mon, Oct 24, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

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…

> some groups are disappearing whilst others remain

Speaking of those that remain, I can say beyond reasonable doubt that there is an insane percentage increase in stinkbug populations in recent years. Fuckers get absolutely everywhere.