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[Ether_Snake]

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...eddon-after-dramatic-plunge-in-insect-numbers

The abundance of flying insects has plunged by three-quarters over the past 25 years, according to a new study that has shocked scientists.

Insects are an integral part of life on Earth as both pollinators and prey for other wildlife and it was known that some species such as butterflies were declining. But the newly revealed scale of the losses to all insects has prompted warnings that the world is ”on course for ecological Armageddon", with profound impacts on human society.

The new data was gathered in nature reserves across Germany but has implications for all landscapes dominated by agriculture, the researchers said.

The cause of the huge decline is as yet unclear, although the destruction of wild areas and widespread use of pesticides are the most likely factors and climate change may play a role. The scientists were able to rule out weather and changes to landscape in the reserves as causes, but data on pesticide levels has not been collected.

”The fact that the number of flying insects is decreasing at such a high rate in such a large area is an alarming discovery," said Hans de Kroon, at Radboud University in the Netherlands and who led the new research.

”Insects make up about two-thirds of all life on Earth [but] there has been some kind of horrific decline," said Prof Dave Goulson of Sussex University, UK, and part of the team behind the new study. ”We appear to be making vast tracts of land inhospitable to most forms of life, and are currently on course for ecological Armageddon. If we lose the insects then everything is going to collapse."

More at the link.

We need a revolution in food production, so we can massively reduce the amount of pesticides going into the environment and protect land from being exploited for farming. This shouldn't even be that difficult, but it seems there is little interest because people aren't interested in having something like Soylent being the basis of our nutrition, keeping traditional foods for special occasions only. It would also stop the current massive amounts of food waste.

Either that, or massively reduce earth's population. Or both.

 

[FUME5]

75%? Fuck that is not good.

 

[MikeyB]

Malthus was delayed by the green revolution, not defeated.

 

[CarlisleDavid1979]

Need more Spiders

 

[Veon]

Am I going to get the Fallout universe I always wanted? YES!

 

[Davide]

This was only in Germany?

 

[Grym]

Fuck you mosquitos, we win!



....oh shit....

 

[Oppo]

having a hard time comprehending this

 

[HotHamBoy]

 

[Daingurse]

75% drop in the flying insect population? Holy fucking shit. That doesn't bode well at all.

 

[Pagusas]

So your telling me there use to be even MORE insects around????!???

 

[lastplayed]

75% of them are splattered all over the front of cars.

 

[Reverend Funk]

shits about to be fucked

 

[Skellig Gra]

They ain’t been to Louisiana.

 

[Lautaro]

Gotta start working in automated pollinization.

 

[Fuchsdh]

Malthus was delayed by the green revolution, not defeated.

Even as a guy who thinks Malthus was on the right conceptual track, I don't think you can consider him "right" if it takes an hundreds of years past his original scope. Besides, the population is leveling out naturally; unless we had a massive dieoff I don't think it would have met his expectations. The problem isn't really the number of people, it's the resources required for the number of people. Were we seven billion people living like a poor guy in subsaharan Africa our lives would be shitty, but on a macro scale we wouldn't be facing the same global threats. What's unsustainable is seven billion people with a quality of life like Western Europe or America.

 

[outunderthestars]

So your telling me there use to be even MORE insects around????!???

I'm 40, and remember there being many many more birds and insects 25 years ago.

 

[ponpo]

Another way of sampling insects – car windscreens – has often been anecdotally used to suggest a major decline, with people remembering many more bugs squashed on their windscreens in the past.

“I think that is real,” said Goulson. “I drove right across France and back this summer – just when you’d expect your windscreen to be splattered all over – and I literally never had to stop to clean the windscreen.”

Liked this part.

 

[Hazelhurst]

I've got a shit ton of butterflies in my backyard. They're attracted to the butterfly bush back there.

 

[Ether_Snake]

So your telling me there use to be even MORE insects around????!???

Am I the only one who actually remembers there being more mosquitos 25 years ago or so? When I was a kid, this village I went to regularly was in a swamp, and there would be loads of mosquitoes outside, especially at night if we had lights on, it was never something you would just get used to, people had that lemon scented giant candle thing, bug spray, all that stuff. Now there's very little, I'd say at least half. I wonder if others have experienced the same.

75% of them are splattered all over the front of cars.

That might actually be a contribution to the drop for real.

 

[jellies_two]

I read some study on insects that get splattered on cars while driving, and it's a precipitous decline.

People are noticing:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...henomenon-car-no-longer-covered-dead-insects/

It's scary. Not one type of insect, but insect life in general.

 

[Poor GRIMES]

This shouldn't even be that difficult, but it seems there is little interest because people aren't interested in having something like Soylent being the basis of our nutrition, keeping traditional foods for special occasions only.

That's a tough sell even to vegans.

I'd like to believe GMO tech can solve the pesticide problem but we all know how held back that is.

 

[phoisgood495]

That's a tough sell even to vegans.

I'd like to believe GMO tech can solve the pesticide problem but we all know how held back that is.

Soylent also tastes pretty bland/mediocre imo. I'd be okay with eating artificial foods, but Soylent while a good starting point, is not tasty at all.

I think once we can produce things with better texture and flavor that is CHEAPER than regular food then many more people would get on board the synthetic food train.

 

[MikeyB]

Even as a guy who thinks Malthus was on the right conceptual track, I don't think you can consider him "right" if it takes an hundreds of years past his original scope. Besides, the population is leveling out naturally; unless we had a massive dieoff I don't think it would have met his expectations. The problem isn't really the number of people, it's the resources required for the number of people. Were we seven billion people living like a poor guy in subsaharan Africa our lives would be shitty, but on a macro scale we wouldn't be facing the same global threats.

It depends on whether we can continue to harvest enough food. We are levelling off before the food crunch hits. Once weather and a lack of pollinators disrupts harvests for multiple years and our industrial food supply collapses, we will see how smoothly it levels off.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

I'm sorry guys, at least 5% of those were killed by my windshield.

 

[SpinningBirdKick]

Remember going on long car journeys as a kid in summer?

There would be loads of squashed bugs on the windscreen at the end of the journey.

Make a similar journey these days (area, duration, season) and the windscreen is completely free of bug corpses at the end.

"All my friends are dead".jpg

 

[Nikodemos]

The only way to restore agricultural wastelands to their pristine state is to stop the current method of highly chemical industrialised agriculture in favour of a hyper-intensive fully-enclosed one. The only way forward, if we're to maintan the wildlife to a minimally sustainable level, is via the massive fully-enclosed multi-tiered farms you currently see only in sci-fi designs.

 

[yanipheonu]

Save us, Robo-Bees!

 

[kirby_fox]

Am I the only one who actually remembers there being more mosquitos 25 years ago or so? When I was a kid, this village I went to regularly was in a swamp, and there would be loads of mosquitoes outside, especially at night if we had lights on, it was never something you would just get used to, people had that lemon scented giant candle thing, bug spray, all that stuff. Now there's very little, I'd say at least half. I wonder if others have experienced the same.



That might actually be a contribution to the drop for real.

I remember every summer I would get tons of mosquito bites. I don't recall getting one any time recently. I thought maybe it was being outside less or something, but now I wonder if there's a more serious reason.

 

[BackLogJoe]

I love how we are on the edge of all of these ecological disasters and the solution is always a drastic measure because we have neglected whatever it was until now.

We already know we arent doing anything drastic. 40% of the country straight up denies science.

We are fucked.

 

[lastplayed]

Save us, Robo-Bees!

I've seen that cheesy Black Mirror episode... no thanks!

 

[Not]

I'm pretty sure none of us are making it to 2200

 

[jerry113]

Here's a link to the actual study. (Are you guys able to scroll down and see the whole study at this link? It's supposed to be open access): http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809

 

[Ether_Snake]

Soylent also tastes pretty bland/mediocre imo. I'd be okay with eating artificial foods, but Soylent while a good starting point, is not tasty at all.

I think once we can produce things with better texture and flavor that is CHEAPER than regular food then many more people would get on board the synthetic food train.

Seriously? Taste seems fairly easy to fix, just separate it from the main source itself, and let people flavor them as desired.

If people already replaced two meals by something efficiently produced and nutritious, it would already be a significant boon.

 

[Nikodemos]

I'm pretty sure none of us are making it to 2200

At the rate we're sliding down, neither will our great-grandchildren.

 

[NYCmetsfan]

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...eddon-after-dramatic-plunge-in-insect-numbers



More at the link.

We need a revolution in food production, so we can massively reduce the amount of pesticides going into the environment and protect land from being exploited for farming. This shouldn't even be that difficult, but it seems there is little interest because people aren't interested in having something like Soylent being the basis of our nutrition, keeping traditional foods for special occasions only. It would also stop the current massive amounts of food waste.

Either that, or massively reduce earth's population. Or both.

what?

lmao eating soylent

 

[Brakke]

This shouldn't even be that difficult, [...] Soylent being the basis of our nutrition

l m a o

 

[Ether_Snake]

Remember going on long car journeys as a kid in summer?

There would be loads of squashed bugs on the windscreen at the end of the journey.

Make a similar journey these days (area, duration, season) and the windscreen is completely free of bug corpses at the end.

"All my friends are dead".jpg

Yeah jellies_two mentioned it, like this article states http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...henomenon-car-no-longer-covered-dead-insects/

We'd need to have transportation going through tunnels.

 

[Shake Appeal]

I'm pretty sure none of us are making it to 2200

I, too, am confident that no one reading this is making it to 2200.

 

[Pagusas]

For everyone citing “windshields/bug splatters” car talk was asked this questions a few years ago “why are there less bug splatters on my windshield:

https://www.cartalk.com/blogs/dear-car-talk/what-happened-all-dead-bugs

The answere is aerodynamics. Cars have much more aerodynamic windshields these days, not as easy to get direct hits.

...that air takes the bugs with it. Instead of hitting that big, flat windshield and meeting their bug-maker, the bugs get carried in the laminar flow right over the car and deposited on the other end. Often shaking their little bug heads and saying, "What the heck was that, Frank?"

 

[FUME5]

Here's a link to the actual study. (Are you guys able to scroll down and see the whole study at this link? It's supposed to be open access): http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185809

Yeah, full study is available, don't have the time to read it right now but thanks.

 

[Grym]

For everyone citing “windshields/bug splatters” car talk was asked this questions a few years ago “why are there less bug splatters on my windshield:

https://www.cartalk.com/blogs/dear-car-talk/what-happened-all-dead-bugs

The answere is aerodynamics. Cars have much more aerodynamic windshields these days, not as easy to get direct hits.

Yep. was looking for that. Knew it was at least a part of the reason

 

[RCSI]

I've got a shit ton of butterflies in my backyard. They're attracted to the butterfly bush back there.

A bush beside my bedroom was in bloom a few weeks back. All you could hear was buzzing from all the bees.

This report is extremely concerning. Are there any insect count studies in other areas of the world?

 

[Ether_Snake]

For everyone citing ”windshields/bug splatters" car talk was asked this questions a few years ago ”why are there less bug splatters on my windshield:

https://www.cartalk.com/blogs/dear-car-talk/what-happened-all-dead-bugs

The answere is aerodynamics. Cars have much more aerodynamic windshields these days, not as easy to get direct hits.

Possible, possible it's still fucking them up though. Good if not the case. Sadly it seems it's not stopping the massive insect drop.

I mean, I'm going to doubt this part:

Often shaking their little bug heads and saying, "What the heck was that, Frank?"

Imagine them on a highway.

 

[Madness]

I used to see dragonflies, bumble bees, beetles and butterflies. All gone. Even mosquitoes I barely see.

Massive deforestation and urbanization, lights everywhere, millions of new cars on the road, highways and freeways in wildernesses. Pesticide use, aerosols, etc. I barely see any birds either aside from crows now.

And yet they keep developing and developing and developing and the human population will only grow another 3 billion this century. We're supposed to feel good about pristine evergreen forests cut down so people can build condos etc. I'm hearing even eagles and birda of preys near lakes dying because they cannot grab fish or hunt because of all the people using noisy boats on lakes, having campfires and parties etc.

 

[DiscoJer]

Malthus was delayed by the green revolution, not defeated.

Malthus has been proven wrong by agricultural science basically since he made that prediction and I continue to believe it will. The only thing holding it back is irrational fear of science, particularly GMOs

 

[jb1234]

The good news is that after we're gone, they'll all return.

 

[____]

 

[RoadDogg]

I have seen (and beem bittem by) more mosqitos this year then the last 10 years combinded. I have also seen more flies amd bees in the last week then I have seen all year. I dont douvt the claim, but man it has been anbanner year for flying bugs around me it seems.

 

[Vyrance]

Insects are doing just fine down here in Florida