75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas • Hacker News Board

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#451

Post by surge » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

briga wrote: post #449

mac01021 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. Who cares if there's bugs in your grass? I used to play with bugs in the yard as a kid.

My step-father has this weird obsession with keeping a perfectly flat green lawn as a front yard. Any time an ant-hill springs up it's out with the pesticide. Any weeds that pop up are immediately exterminated. It's this sort of stupidity on a global scale that's causing the problem. For a lot of middle-class America, a sterile grass mono-culture is the ideal for a front yard, environmental health be damned.

Right, if you're that obsessed with perfection, just pave over the damn thing. I only kill ants if they're building nests that threaten something else, like a tree. Usually though, that's a good indication the tree is already sick. I'm nursing one back to health, hopefully, now that had an ant colony at it's base.

I let moss, and local vegetation that grows fairly small thrive in my yard. In some ways, I prefer the moss to my grass.

I do fog my yard, so guilty, but I live in area densely populated with mosquitos which are a problem and they have plenty of wooded areas nearby to thrive if they want. But yeah, if there was some way to be selective, I'd be all for it, but it's not worth 20 mosquito bites when I go outside for 30 minutes to keep bees around.

Maybe if I could hire a service to do this: http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-virus-sterile-mosq...

Granted I imagine that's not something I could do without having to get EPA or fish and wildlife approval.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#452

Post by abacate » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 9:38 PM UTC

Which is one of the reasons I don't understand a few "pro-science" folks that go against organic by equating things like anti-vaxxers to people that believe sustainable and organic farming are better for our health and for the planet as a whole.

Sure, people defend all kinds of things with stupid arguments, but just because stupid arguments may be used to argue for something doesn't mean that other arguments are not correct.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#453

Post by lotharbot » Thu, Oct 26, 2017, 8:16 PM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #372

Dove wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing something is unproductive, and often counterproductive. It is the battle cry of doctors who prescribe unnecessary antibiotics because they cannot hurt and are what patients want, and wind up contributing to the development of antibiotic resistant microbes. It is the philosophy of politicians who make laws for show without solving problems (and often creating problems in the process). Do not do something . Do so…

All true, but the point I'm trying to make (poorly) is that there's more to life than truth-seeking. That's the function of science, but even if science hands you a definitive answer you still need to create the political will to implement it. And it's a fact that there are people who have economic interests in not fixing problems. I don't care about insect biomass in particular. I care about it as a possibly-wrong i…

personally, I've seen several circumstances where the costs of "doing something" are much higher than the benefits of deliberate study and taking correct action, even on a global scale.

Re: 75% decline over 27 years in total flying insect biomass in protected areas

#454

Post by ioquatix » Fri, Oct 27, 2017, 10:19 AM UTC

monodeldiablo wrote: post #299

ioquatix wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's up to city planners to include more green belts. Better for the environment, better for water drainage, better for humans, it's really win win win.

City planners would if they could, but they're not autocrats. They know that green space (and mixed zoning and high density and...) is a good thing, but they are captive to the whims of politicians and poorly-informed citizens. And property developers have more than enough money to buy policy and sway public opinion. A close relative is a city planner, a job he went into as an idealist. He saw the economic, social, a…

I'm honestly sorry about the situation you talk about.

It must be frustrating..

People work hard but it's difficult to make things genuinely better.

Thanks for enlightening me.