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General Category => Everything Else => Topic started by: Anna Woman von NRW on October 02, 2018, 04:51:51 PM
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Just got back from an excellent road trip : 2 weeks, 4600 km and 8 countries ;D ........... but ........
The windscreen and lights should have been covered in splattered insects, bugs and whatnot during the trip and I should have had to clean them off at least once but nope, not at all - there was barely anything. I remember when I started driving 30 odd years ago the screen would have been virtually impenetrable with a fair bit of graft required to clean the beggars off.
So where are the insects?
I've read a bit about this over the last few years but this is the first time I've seen it (or rather not seen it) so graphically.
Various reasons have been posited for declining insect populations : pesticides/monoculture plantings/habitat loss/mobile phone or digital signals. I'm not sure which is correct, an element of all of them I would guess but whatever the cause the implications are rather concerning because insects are an important foundation of the foodchain and are vital to pollination and the overall health of the ecosystem.
Of course insects are not cute and cuddly like polar bears or orang-utangs but this is a serious issue methinks.
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So where are the insects?
Well here is a take on it;
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/17/where-have-insects-gone-climate-change-population-decline
As we clog up our countryside with concrete and steel, use more pesticides and the like, we are doing damage. And you don't have to be an eco-warrior or even a climate change zealot to see that happening.
Here is my dilemma. You know, because I've posted it many times, I run my own engineering and construction company. For me its great at the moment, building is everywhere. I hate Corbyn, but even he won't probably be bad for me as he is going to borrow billions (bad for the country though), and put it into infrastructure. Yep that is me as well.
However for all those millions of "affordable houses" and HS2s and flood defenses we need for our massively expanding population, while great for me, is disastrous for our green areas and ecosystems.
I have to, I'm IEMA qualified as well, put in an environmental case in every project we do. But here is the truth. It isn't enough. Its to make the people who pay us feel better.
Now to the tricky bit. We need to stop our population growing. It is of course everyone's need to have a home, but how far do all of you want it to go. Hell I can build and cover 100% of this Island if you like so there are enough houses. Maybe I'll retire on a nice little Island in the Caribbean and leave what is left after that, as I will have a lot of the folding stuff!
But talk about border control, talk about rationing construction to let our ecosystems recover and what do you get? You get called a right wing, racist, xenophobic or a foaming at the mouth green tree hugger. What can you do?
Hell even the Greens don't talk about what is needed, but are content to push mass affordable house building. Blind to the irony that they are called the Green Party.
Its all ridiculous. but that is what political dogma does for you.
PS. Apologies if I sound a bit philosophical today. I'm taking a day at home to, believe it or not, draft something for an end of year parliamentary review on the industry I work in. I get invited to a Do apparently at the Houses of Parliament for the launch of the report in a couple of months where Nick Clegg is there, which I'm glad about as I want to kick him in the gonads! 8)
PPS Bet you didn't expect a rambling reply like that Anna! ;)
PPPS I've probably killed this thread stone dead haven't I! :D
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Not at all, me old mucker. An interesting read, not afraid to mention things that might be unpopular here, and backed up with reason. Not everyone might agree with you, but it's intelligently written and opens up the thread for further debate.
Just not from me, I'm not stupid enough to be seen to be agreeing with you about political stuff around these parts... :-[
(Kidding, mate... ;) )
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I'm guess it's all the reasons Anna said , construction and use of the green belt sure doesn't help. To be fair I've not really noticed tho I don't drive n live in a more rural area . The Scottish midges seem to be surviving strongly the wee fckers.
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Guten abend alles :-*
PPS Bet you didn't expect a rambling reply like that Anna! ;)
Kinda hoped for one from someone ;D
I'd read that article before but took the chance for a re-read and it gives a good overview of an ongoing background situation. I must admit that I had been of the opinion that habitat fragmentation was the underlying cause together with intensive farming removing feed plant species but now I'm not so sure because we were partly driving through relatively "unspoilt" landscapes where these problems did not appear to be evident. However (and I'm aware this makes me sound like I've got a supply of tinfoil hats) there are mobile phone/digital signal antenna EVERYWHERE even (to coin a phrase) in the freshest mountain air :D There appears to have been some research done on the effect of radiation on insects but not alot and not enough to warrant a definitive cause and effect statement. With the advent of 5G and the ever increasing connectivity required worldwide I do wonder whether we are presiding over an imminent ecological catastrophe.
As we clog up our countryside with concrete and steel, use more pesticides and the like, we are doing damage. And you don't have to be an eco-warrior or even a climate change zealot to see that happening.
Totally agree dude :o but shite choice of words there fella (i'll come back to that). That damage you mention is real, trouble is by and large it's not seen or felt in daily life but below the surface it's there progressively getting worse and with ever more serious long term consequences.
Now to the tricky bit. We need to stop our population growing. It is of course everyone's need to have a home, but how far do all of you want it to go. Hell I can build and cover 100% of this Island if you like so there are enough houses.
This is a bit of an elephant in the room for many issues as the population that the planet can support is not infinite and to state that should really be a non-controversy but it does seem to escape many people and perhaps the UK is a good example as it is, as you say, an Island without large expanses of empty land - jesus in America there a places in the middle of nowhere that don't have a name but are just called "Populated Place" :not, I would venture a situation that arises in the UK :) - Increased population inevitably requires increased resource consumption and land use. It seems to me that there is a lack of comprehension that this means reduced land left as "natural" and that "natural" doesn't just mean lovely green things it means functioning eco-systems carrying out the critical roles they play in a dynamic landscape without which the risk of a breakdown or catastrophic failure increases. A recognition of this fundamental fact is long overdue within both the UK and globally but that's a whole other dissertation ;D
But talk about border control, talk about rationing construction to let our ecosystems recover and what do you get? You get called a right wing, racist, xenophobic or a foaming at the mouth green tree hugger. What can you do?
Again, I totally agree with you here fella :o :o but (back to that choice of words again) do you really not think that using terms like eco-warrior, and climate change zealot are exactly what you are complaining about? I'm with you re: political dogma because I don't see how issues regarding the ecosystems we rely on for life can be reduced to politics, they sit beyond it : don't matter if you're red blue yellow green or black the fundamentals of life remain the same.
Not at all, me old mucker. An interesting read, not afraid to mention things that might be unpopular here, and backed up with reason. Not everyone might agree with you, but it's intelligently written and opens up the thread for further debate.
Totally agree :)
The Scottish midges seem to be surviving strongly the wee fckers.
Perhaps they're a bit like cockroaches - would survive a nuclear war ;D
Bit surprised to find so much agreement in this here reply but I'm sure it's only temporary - think brexit might be cropping up again over the next few months ............................. ;)
oh and ....
where Nick Clegg is there, which I'm glad about as I want to kick him in the gonads! 8)
give that Tommy Tucker one from me too and say love from 2010 :-*
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Why sound so glum in your post "Where are all the insects?"
That's a good thing that those annoying little brainless creatures are being eradicated.
Hey, I love all living creatures (even that creature Master Ray), but insects? They are dust. Wipe them away.
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I'm guess it's all the reasons Anna said , construction and use of the green belt sure doesn't help. To be fair I've not really noticed tho I don't drive n live in a more rural area . The Scottish midges seem to be surviving strongly the wee fckers.
Then I'd strongly recommend a brilliant product Pol, and its Scottish, we use to keep the bastard midges away when we work outside as we do a lot. And it works brilliantly. It is call Smidge That Midge and you ca but it on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Smidge-Midge-Insect-Repellent-75/dp/B00413715E/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1538730523&sr=8-1&keywords=smidge+that+midge
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Again, I totally agree with you here fella :o :o but (back to that choice of words again) do you really not think that using terms like eco-warrior, and climate change zealot are exactly what you are complaining about?
Yep, perhaps those phrases are extreme. But there ARE zealots out there. I'm not advocating that we go back to dung and carts, but some virtually are. Those are who I refer to. Also yep, maybe a bit extreme, but that is just the world I live and work in. But we seem to agree for once Anna, and that in itself is a marvel! ;)
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Why sound so glum in your post "Where are all the insects?"
That's a good thing that those annoying little brainless creatures are being eradicated.
Hey, I love all living creatures (even that creature Master Ray), but insects? They are dust. Wipe them away.
I'm assuming this is said jokingly. Even the most disgusting creature is a cog in the fragile ecosystem that keeps this planet habitable! Do we want to take the chance? :)
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Just Spacewind being a wind up merchant as usual ?............ ::)
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...Even the most disgusting creature is a cog in the fragile ecosystem that keeps this planet habitable! Do we want to take the chance? :)
I agree. Insects must serve some purpose. As I suppose Master Ray does. We must learn to tolerate and live with all.
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Tons of Ladybirds in these parts. Barely seen a Wasp all summer though. Which is a plus. Aggressive buggers.
Are they called Jaspers anywhere else or is it a Black Country thing?
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I was born in East Midlands and don't remember anyone calling them Jaspers,as you suggest probably a Black Country thing.I think it makes them sound quite lovely in a country bumpkin sort of way............whichTHEY AINT......... >:( >:(
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I was born in East Midlands and don't remember anyone calling them Jaspers,as you suggest probably a Black Country thing.I think it makes them sound quite lovely in a country bumpkin sort of way............whichTHEY AINT......... >:( >:(
To be fair, neither are we....although there are two farms in my big urban area!!
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I was not suggesting you were..........Jaspers just sounds like a very bucolic description.
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Yep - I know the name Jaspers (from Kent) so not just a Black Country thing then.
Oh and though we don't like the feisty feckers they do, of course, have a valuable role as pollinators and predators :D
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Yep - I know the name Jaspers (from Kent) so not just a Black Country thing then.
Oh and though we don't like the feisty feckers they do, of course, have a valuable role as pollinators and predators :D
So do I. I dont however feel the need to don a stripey jacket to do so ;D
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When i read about the extinction of bees i was shocked. this was some years ago. i got this feeling: "well, now the chain-reaction of armageddon apocalypse doom has started."
bees are such fantastic creatures, we all use their products and many studies have been made and we all know that they are kind of intelligent. they are part of pop-culture, they appear in movies, etc..we all know how they work and that they are part oo the reproduction of plants. so when the plague began and they didn't know why, you immediately had in mind that now all the other plants will also die.
but i want to go here:
Well we talk about saving the world now, Eddie
It's our vanity gone mad
She'll survive us all perfectly well
When we're all long buried and dead
so yes, we are witnessing now big changes in our world, climate change, floods, insects dying, etc.. on a fast pace bur i think this is really about a change in perception. so no when we look at the world and notice less insects, warmer/colder weather, we become fearful and frightened, because the white coats give us their opinions and judgements, the experts tell us what to think and they all either say: "run! it's armageddon!" or they say: "no, there's nothing wrong here. go to sleep" but i think both posotions are untrue. untrue to the pure nature of change and the universe we just don't understand fully and never will. our bad feelings come from th ethings we know but don't act on. like wasting resources, organising everything under profit reasons so wasting more, producing bullshit under pressure and so on.
so i don't think that there is not enough space or food for everyone. there is! what's lacking is just the organisation of socoiety with the improving of life quality as the goal.
change that
change that only profit is the goal for almost every entrepreneur and everything will be fine!
change the way you think
change your feeling that there's no alternative, because there always is
change you feeling about the things that you think you need and then you always will have enough
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Ok well certainly some food for thought there cthulu and firstly a point of agreement:
so i don't think that there is not enough space or food for everyone. there is! what's lacking is just the organisation of socoiety with the improving of life quality as the goal.
I'm inclined to go with this as a basic truth but the trouble is that the required re-orientation of society/civilisation as we experience it today is too big a leap and with the speed of modern life just too big an ask - it will never happen and so we should be thinking of working within the parameters of where we are now if anything effective is to be achieved. Sad but true. As an aspiration sure lets aim for it but unfortunately I think reality bites a bit too hard.
I feel that perhaps you have got the perception wrong here somewhat. Short of detonating every single thermonucleur bomb at once nobody is actually saying humans will destroy the planet rather that we will create conditions whereby we find it extremely challenging for the human species to thrive and even perhaps continue - this is an entirely different proposition to destroying the planet - but an important distinction that seems to get cloudy.
I'm not sure that I understand the ideas behind all of your post but it seems like you are suggesting that human induced climate change is not real ? Or perhaps that the potential effects are exaggerated ? If so then sorry fella but I think you are wrong. The evidence led science is there and no credible evidence has been presented, peer reviewed and accepted to suggest otherwise. For sure vested interest will cherry pick studies to pseudo support various positions they wish to promote but that is the @game@ not the reality.
Intersting thoughts fella - thanks for engaging :)
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‘Hyperalarming’ study shows massive insect loss
Insects around the world are in a crisis, according to a small but growing number of long-term studies showing dramatic declines in invertebrate populations. A new report suggests that the problem is more widespread than scientists realized. Huge numbers of bugs have been lost in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico, the study found, and the forest’s insect-eating animals have gone missing, too.
In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent. In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few decades in German nature preserves.
The latest report, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that this startling loss of insect abundance extends to the Americas. The study’s authors implicate climate change in the loss of tropical invertebrates.
“This study in PNAS is a real wake-up call — a clarion call — that the phenomenon could be much, much bigger, and across many more ecosystems,” said David Wagner, an expert in invertebrate conservation at the University of Connecticut who was not involved with this research. He added: “This is one of the most disturbing articles I have ever read.”
Bradford Lister, a biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, has been studying rain forest insects in Puerto Rico since the 1970s. If Puerto Rico is the island of enchantment — “la isla del encanto” — then its rain forest is “the enchanted forest on the enchanted isle,” he said. Birds and coqui frogs trill beneath a 50-foot-tall emerald canopy. The forest, named El Yunque, is well-protected. Spanish King Alfonso XII claimed the jungle as a 19th-century royal preserve. Decades later, Theodore Roosevelt made it a national reserve, and El Yunque remains the only tropical rain forest in the National Forest system.
“We went down in ’76, ’77 expressly to measure the resources: the insects and the insectivores in the rain forest, the birds, the frogs, the lizards,” Lister said.
He came back nearly 40 years later, with his colleague Andrés García, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. What the scientists did not see on their return troubled them. “Boy, it was immediately obvious when we went into that forest,” Lister said. Fewer birds flitted overhead. The butterflies, once abundant, had all but vanished.
García and Lister once again measured the forest’s insects and other invertebrates, a group called arthropods that includes spiders and centipedes. The researchers trapped arthropods on the ground in plates covered in a sticky glue, and raised several more plates about three feet into the canopy. The researchers also swept nets over the brush hundreds of times, collecting the critters that crawled through the vegetation.
Each technique revealed the biomass (the dry weight of all the captured invertebrates) had significantly decreased from 1976 to the present day. The sweep sample biomass decreased to a fourth or an eighth of what it had been. Between January 1977 and January 2013, the catch rate in the sticky ground traps fell 60-fold.
“Everything is dropping,” Lister said. The most common invertebrates in the rain forest — the moths, the butterflies, the grasshoppers, the spiders and others — are all far less abundant.
“Holy crap,” Wagner said of the 60-fold loss.
Louisiana State University entomologist Timothy Schowalter, who is not an author of the recent report, has studied this forest since the 1990s. The new research is consistent with his data, as well as the European biomass studies. “It takes these long-term sites, with consistent sampling across a long period of time, to document these trends,” he said. “I find their data pretty compelling.”
The study authors also trapped anole lizards, which eat arthropods, in the rain forest. They compared these numbers with counts from the 1970s. Anole biomass dropped by more than 30 percent. Some anole species have altogether disappeared from the interior forest.
Insect-eating frogs and birds plummeted, too. Another research team used mist nets to capture birds in 1990, and again in 2005. Captures fell by about 50 percent. Garcia and Lister analyzed the data with an eye on the insectivores. The ruddy quail dove, which eats fruits and seeds, had no population change. A brilliant green bird called the Puerto Rican tody, which eats bugs almost exclusively, diminished by 90 percent.
The food web appears to have been obliterated from the bottom. It’s credible that the authors link the cascade to arthropod loss, Schowalter said, because “you have all these different taxa showing the same trends — the insectivorous birds, frogs and lizards — but you don’t see those among seed-feeding birds.”
Lister and Garcia attribute this crash to climate. In the same 40-year period as the arthropod crash, the average high temperature in the rain forest increased by 4 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperatures in the tropics stick to a narrow band. The invertebrates that live there, likewise, are adapted to these temperatures and fare poorly outside them; bugs cannot regulate their internal heat.
A recent analysis of climate change and insects, published in August in the journal Science, predicts a decrease in tropical insect populations, according to an author of that study, Scott Merrill, who studies crop pests at the University of Vermont. In temperate regions farther from the equator, where insects can survive a wider range of temperatures, agricultural pests will devour more food as their metabolism increases, Merrill and his co-authors warned. But after a certain thermal threshold, insects will no longer lay eggs, he said, and their internal chemistry breaks down.
The authors of a 2017 study of vanished flying insects in Germany suggested other possible culprits, including pesticides and habitat loss. Arthropods around the globe also have to contend with pathogens and invasive species.
“It’s bewildering, and I’m scared to death that it’s actually death by a thousand cuts,” Wagner said. “One of the scariest parts about it is that we don’t have an obvious smoking gun here.” A particular danger to these arthropods, in his view, was not temperature but droughts and lack of rainfall.
Lister pointed out that, since 1969, pesticide use has fallen more than 80 percent in Puerto Rico. He does not know what else could be to blame. The study authors used a recent analytic method, invented by a professor of economics at Fordham University, to assess the role of heat. “It allows you to place a likelihood on variable X causing variable Y,” Lister said. “So we did that and then five out of our six populations we got the strongest possible support for heat causing those decreases in abundance of frogs and insects.”
The authors sorted out the effects of weather like hurricanes and still saw a consistent trend, Schowalter said, which makes a convincing case for climate.
“If anything, I think their results and caveats are understated. The gravity of their findings and ramifications for other animals, especially vertebrates, is hyperalarming,” Wagner said. But he is not convinced that climate change is the global driver of insect loss. “The decline of insects in northern Europe precedes that of climate change there,” he said. “Likewise, in New England, some tangible declines began in the 1950s.”
No matter the cause, all of the scientists agreed that more people should pay attention to the bugpocalypse.
“It’s a very scary thing,” Merrill said, that comes on the heels of a “gloomy, gloomy” U.N. report that estimated the world has little more than a decade left to wrangle climate change under control. But “we can all step up,” he said, by using more fuel-efficient cars and turning off unused electronics. The Portland, Ore.-based Xerces Society, a nonprofit environmental group that promotes insect conservation, recommends planting a garden with native plants that flower throughout the year.
“Unfortunately, we have deaf ears in Washington,” Schowalter said. But those ears will listen at some point, he said, because our food supply will be in jeopardy.
Thirty-five percent of the world’s plant crops require pollination by bees, wasps and other animals. And arthropods are more than just pollinators. They’re the planet’s wee custodians, toiling away in unnoticed or avoided corners. They chew up rotting wood and eat carrion. “And none of us want to have more carcasses around,” Schowalter said. Wild insects provide $57 billion worth of six-legged labor in the United States each year, according to a 2006 estimate.
The loss of insects and arthropods could further rend the rain forest’s food web, Lister warned, causing plant species to go extinct without pollinators. “If the tropical forests go it will be yet another catastrophic failure of the whole Earth system,” he said, “that will feed back on human beings in an almost unimaginable way.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarming-study-shows-massive-insect-loss/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e62126785614
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There are still far too many in hot, humid climates. Even in Eastern Europe, there is not shortage of them. Keep in mind that mosquitos and cockroaches have no positives.
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Why this absurd concern for insects?
As The Clash so pointedly said:
"Please save us not the whales."
Think about it.
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No insects -- No us in the long/ maybe not so long run
Think about that
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No insects -- No us in the long/ maybe not so long run
That's just words. There is no conclusive proof that man would become extinct if insects were gone.
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You mean like this
http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/what-would-happen-if-all-earth-s-insects-vanished
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You mean like this
http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/what-would-happen-if-all-earth-s-insects-vanished
Uhh, did you read that? I read it and can once more safely say no bother to man if every insect dies.
They make the point about pollination. Insects (along with winds ands animals) pollinate much of our plant life. You know what? If insects were gone, man would surely find a way to pollinate (hell, we do that now).
That article also makes the point that if insects were gone, oh, my God, we would no longer have honey and silk! We are doomed!!! How can makind live without silk sheets?!?
Folks, read that link and learn that absolutely nothing but good would come from insects leaving us. Ever hear of malaria? A killer of millions. That would be gone. I'll take a loss of silk and malaria over insects.
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The Scottish midges seem to be surviving strongly the wee fckers.
Perhaps they're a bit like cockroaches - would survive a nuclear war ;D
We had a highland midge crawling around on the dashboard of our car on our way back down from a holiday up there last year. It stopped moving and expired just as we crossed the English border !! ::)
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You mean like this
http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/what-would-happen-if-all-earth-s-insects-vanished
Uhh, did you read that? I read it and can once more safely say no bother to man if every insect dies.
They make the point about pollination. Insects (along with winds ands animals) pollinate much of our plant life. You know what? If insects were gone, man would surely find a way to pollinate (hell, we do that now).
That article also makes the point that if insects were gone, oh, my God, we would no longer have honey and silk! We are doomed!!! How can makind live without silk sheets?!?
Folks, read that link and learn that absolutely nothing but good would come from insects leaving us. Ever hear of malaria? A killer of millions. That would be gone. I'll take a loss of silk and malaria over insects.
And what about the tens of thousands of species of animals that depend entirely on insects for food, or eat animals that eat insects ? Fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, all would be wiped out. Oh, but us humans with our technology may be able to pollinate plants artificially you say. Big deal. Life wouldn't be worth living if we were the only living things left.
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There are still far too many in hot, humid climates. Even in Eastern Europe, there is not shortage of them. Keep in mind that mosquitos and cockroaches have no positives.
Mosquitoes are food for bats, and swallows and swifts :)
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And what about the tens of thousands of species of animals that depend entirely on insects for food,
They'll eat other things.
Hey, if the nearest McDonalds is closed for the night and you are hungry, don't you find other things to eat? Animals will do the same.
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McDonalds food.................................Oxymoron ;D
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McDonalds food.................................Oxymoron ;D
Yeah, but as you are eating it, it's good.
It's just that a mere five minutes after you finish, you shake your head and say, "Never again."
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Another article for you to dissect Whirlwind
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/insect-bug-medicine-food-macneal/?user.testname=none
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The Scottish midges seem to be surviving strongly the wee fckers.
Perhaps they're a bit like cockroaches - would survive a nuclear war ;D
We had a highland midge crawling around on the dashboard of our car on our way back down from a holiday up there last year. It stopped moving and expired just as we crossed the English border !! ::)
..... perhaps it was a Remainer :D
There are still far too many in hot, humid climates. Even in Eastern Europe, there is not shortage of them. Keep in mind that mosquitos and cockroaches have no positives.
Mosquitoes are food for bats, and swallows and swifts :)
And cockroaches are pretty much natures recyclers :)
‘Hyperalarming’ study shows massive insect loss
in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico,
“This study in PNAS is a real wake-up call — a clarion call — that the phenomenon could be much, much bigger, and across many more ecosystems,” said David Wagner, an expert in invertebrate conservation at the University of Connecticut who was not involved with this research. He added: “This is one of the most disturbing articles I have ever read.”
The sweep sample biomass decreased to a fourth or an eighth of what it had been. Between January 1977 and January 2013, the catch rate in the sticky ground traps fell 60-fold.
“I find their data pretty compelling.”
The study authors also trapped anole lizards, which eat arthropods, in the rain forest. They compared these numbers with counts from the 1970s. Anole biomass dropped by more than 30 percent. Some anole species have altogether disappeared from the interior forest.
The food web appears to have been obliterated from the bottom. It’s credible that the authors link the cascade to arthropod loss, Schowalter said, because “you have all these different taxa showing the same trends — the insectivorous birds, frogs and lizards — but you don’t see those among seed-feeding birds.”
“It’s bewildering, and I’m scared to death that it’s actually death by a thousand cuts,” Wagner said. “One of the scariest parts about it is that we don’t have an obvious smoking gun here.”
The gravity of their findings and ramifications for other animals, especially vertebrates, is hyperalarming,” Wagner said. But he is not convinced that climate change is the global driver of insect loss. “The decline of insects in northern Europe precedes that of climate change there,” he said. “Likewise, in New England, some tangible declines began in the 1950s.”
ears will listen at some point, he said, because our food supply will be in jeopardy.
Wild insects provide $57 billion worth of six-legged labor in the United States each year, according to a 2006 estimate.
That's a very good article you posted Cthulu. I've selectively quoted parts of it that I feel are the most salient. The thing is cuddly cute mammals tug at the heartstrings and devastated landscapes are immediately understood but the horrible creepy crawlies underpin it all and we don't often notice them in our everyday life.
Another article for you to dissect Whirlwind
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/08/insect-bug-medicine-food-macneal/?user.testname=none
Another good article - cheers Tony :-*
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Nobody has mentioned what would happen to all the animal waste . The Asia countries that insects are a large part of their diet. With apparently 85% plants needing insects, aye maybe we could pollinate some crops ourselves but what about all the trees etc the lungs of earth .
As Fraser said on dad's army were doomed lol
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Nobody has mentioned what would happen to all the animal waste .
That was kind of alluded to in the article I posted;
"Insects also return nutrients to the earth. If they weren’t around, the amount of decay and rot all over the place would be terrible"
The Asia countries that insects are a large part of their diet.
And this was covered in it too;
"You say that 2,086 species of insect are eaten by 3,071 different ethnic groups in about 130 countries. Give us some highlights from that global menu—and your own experience in Japan.
[Laughs] If you go to Mexico, they are selling chapulines—grasshoppers—in brown paper bags filled with spices. In Borneo, they eat rice bugs blended with chilies and salts, cooked in hollow bamboo stems. Caterpillars are very popular in Africa and are a great source of zinc, calcium, iron, and potassium. On Sardinia and Corsica, they eat “crying cheese”— Casu Marzu—that literally has maggots inside it.
In Japan, we went to three restaurants in Tokyo and Shinjuku. At the first, they had these bamboo caterpillars that you could tell had obviously been dead for a while. They got caught in the back of my throat. [Laughs] I needed a swig of beer to get them down.
The next place we went to had a smorgasbord of various insect species. One was this locust that ate rice leaves. It was cooked with soy, with a nice glaze, and because it ate rice leaves, when you ate the insect, you got this crunch, followed by this bright herbal taste that was unique. I’ve never experienced an ingredient like that.
Wasp larvae tasted like the white raisins you get in couscous. They were sweet, had a little pop as you ate them. When chefs regard insects as an ingredient filled with potential, you end up getting fantastic things."
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Worth noting that we have lost over half the spieces of all animals in my life time alone.
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And the thing is once you find out about one issue you then start to notice reports and findings about all sorts of trends and indications - it's a bit of a rabbit hole :(
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Worth noting that we have lost over half the spieces of all animals in my life time alone.
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And yet we still live. Imagine that.
Folks, there's a lot more to worry about than loss of insects. Climate change, long term effects of social media, opioids, Donald J. Trump, Whirlwind's next post... Insects? You can't be serious.
You foreigners probably never heard of Chlordane. Man, that stuff was lethal. One drop of it would kill every insect from New York to Ohio. No joke, that stuff made the Hiroshima bomb look like a sparkler. One drop....WHAM every insect kaput. I never saw a bug until I was 30 years old. Then our Enviornmental Protection Agency banned Chlordane...and then I started seeing insects.
(http://i.ytimg.com/vi/z7Lr1pCEcNU/hqdefault.jpg)
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Preliminary research seems to show heatwaves - and particularly repeated heatwaves- have a significant effect on the fertility of male beetles, even worse this seems to be passed on to the next generation . Of obvious concern in relation to climate change and worth thinking about considering decline in human fertility.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/13/heatwaves-wipe-out-male-insect-fertility-beetles-study