Insect Collapse: 'We Are Destroying Our Life Support Systems' (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientist Brad Lister returned to Puerto Rican rainforest after 35 years to find 98% of ground insects had vanished. His return to the Luquillo rainforest in Puerto Rico after 35 years was to reveal an appalling discovery. The insect population that once provided plentiful food for birds throughout the mountainous national park had collapsed. On the ground, 98% had gone. Up in the leafy canopy, 80% had vanished. The most likely culprit by far is global warming. "It was just astonishing," Lister said. "Before, both the sticky ground plates and canopy plates would be covered with insects. You'd be there for hours picking them off the plates at night. But now the plates would come down after 12 hours in the tropical forest with a couple of lonely insects trapped or none at all."

"We are essentially destroying the very life support systems that allow us to sustain our existence on the planet, along with all the other life on the planet," Lister said. "It is just horrifying to watch us decimate the natural world like this." Lister calls these impacts a "bottom-up trophic cascade", in which the knock-on effects of the insect collapse surge up through the food chain. "I don't think most people have a systems view of the natural world," he said. "But it's all connected and when the invertebrates are declining the entire food web is going to suffer and degrade. It is a system-wide effect." To understand the global scale of an insect collapse that has so far only been glimpsed, Lister says, there is an urgent need for much more research in many more habitats. "More data, that is my mantra," he said.

Comments

AGW

[phantomfive]

The most likely culprit by far is global warming.

Really? The most likely culprit?

Re:AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, really.

It couldn't be tons of pesticides or hurricanes. It couldn't be invasive species. It couldn't be human tourism trampling the ground.

The temperature went up 1 degree and that is the REAL OBVIOUS cause. You must not question the church of global warming. Back to re-education camp for you!!

Re:AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

It does affect all of those other things just that much more. Invasive species can be aided along with parasites, diseases, bacterial infections, fungi, etc, all are affected in unpredictable ways. Why pretend otherwise?

Re:AGW

[ShanghaiBill]

Really? The most likely culprit?

Of course not. The most likely culprit is experimental error, and the 2nd most likely is outright fraud.

So far AGW has warmed the earth by 1.3 C (2 F). That is a serious trend, and a big concern for the future but is unlikely to wipe out 98% of insects today. It is also implausible that nobody has noticed this massive worldwide catastrophe before this lone researcher stumbled onto the evidence of our life support systems "collapsing".

This sort of shrill hyperbolic alarmism is counterproductive to getting people to take climate change seriously. This is so over-the-top that I suspect this guy is on Exxon-Mobil's payroll as a false flag operation to make scientists look incompetent.

Anyway, we will soon find out. If he is right, we will all be dead by this time next year.

Re:AGW

[rtb61]

Little Island are different to big Island, as in small locations with only one climate and large locations with many. Little they die off until eventually evolution allows new mutations to take their place. Big and of course populations, migrate, north or south as the case maybe.

For most places, the concern is cities, for small places, well, collapse is likely to be total and human populations must relocate, depending upon the nature of environmental collapse. Bugs, simply bring in new species for more northern or southern locales as the case may be.

Specialisations can create major distortions in overall analysis. For human, the biggest concern by far, underwaterfront and the disruptions that will cause ie pretty much the entire east coast of the USA, really bad, pretty much 3m sea level rise is the realistic outcome, with the first 1m being much sooner than expected.

Re:AGW

[Zorpheus]

I think the culprit are the insecticides used in agriculture. And this blame on others comes from their lobby.

Re: AGW

[astrofurter]

Yup. Toxic insecticides and other crazy chemicals stayed with abandon onto crops are by far the most likely culprit. Why? Because a) they've done this before, many times. And b) killing insects is what those crazy chemicals were _designed_ to do.

But hey, let's blame it on the sky falling. That way people can spend a lot of time shaking their first and shouting at the sky. Rather than, you know, controlling and restricting the usage of dangerous environmental toxins.

Re:AGW

[Quakeulf]

The most likely factor is rapid human population growth in asia and africa.

Re:AGW

[Can'tNot]

The article makes a decent case for global warming as the culprit, you have made no case whatsoever. Not even shitty anecdote, you have offered nothing at all and yet here you are disputing this guy's research. You need to do better.

Re:AGW

[Quakeulf]

The cause of global warming is directly related to rapid human population growth in asia and africa.

Re:AGW

[cheesybagel]

Yeah. I thought the scaremongers had told us that when global warming really took off only the cockroaches would be left. Turns out they are dying. So they did not even get that right.

Perhaps people should study the ecosystems more in depth instead of blaming everything on anthropomorphic global warming. Seriously.

Re:AGW

[cheesybagel]

Yeah I also think this is a lot more likely as an explanation.

Re:AGW

[phantomfive]

The article makes a decent case for global warming as the culprit

It really doesn't. What insect that thrives at 27 degrees practically disappears at 29 degrees? Or maybe the recent hurricane had more to do with it?

and yet here you are disputing this guy's research

I'm not disputing his research, I'm disputing his conclusion. Although now that you mention it, his research does raise eyebrows. 98% of the insects are gone? This is a study I would double-check before using it for anything important.

Re: AGW

[Maelwryth]

In response to your first sentence,

"Little Island are different to big Island, as in small locations with only one climate and large locations with many."

I live on a small Island and there is quite large variation in climate between valleys. For instance, we cannot grow stone fruit yet the next valley can. Also, it got 30mm of rain yesterday while we sat in bright sunshine.

Re:AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell has gone wrong with Slashdot when conspiracy theory laced anti-science nonsense like this gets marked +5 Insightful.

No its not insightful. Its sad, its embarassing, and its idiotic, and it reflects poorly on Slashdot that this sort of crap , that rightfully belongs along with creationism, UFO punditry and "Lizards control the earth" foolishness isn't laughed off the site.

Re:AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe, maybe not.. one year the world's corals are alive.. the next they are dead

same for fish

same for bats

all three have happened recently in Australia. I have no trouble believing ecosystem collapse can't happen with insects also.

Re:AGW

[lu-darp]

The article never said Anthropogenic or human-caused. Sorry, but YOU (and many commenters) inserted that. If you really care about such topics, this should alert you to your own biases in interpreting information.

For folk who just headline-skimmed then jumped to the comments: the article offers into good reasons why heat-thresholds are crossed regularly now but not before make the changing climate a likely candidate, and how pesticides and other "usual suspects" are unlikely to be factors in this scenario. Remember also that a changing climate can bring much more extreme _local_ variations than just the "world average" increase.

Re:AGW

[Can'tNot]

No need to limit yourself: The cause of global warming is directly related to rapid human population growth. Since the bulk of additional CO2 in the air has come from industrialized countries, it's misleading to omit them.

Re:AGW

[lu-darp]

> It is also implausible that nobody has noticed this massive worldwide catastrophe before this lone researcher stumbled onto the evidence of our life support systems "collapsing".

More than merely implausible, you can go and look up the previously found results. :-) Thankfully insect geeks do exist, and guess what...

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/germany-s-insects-are-disappearing ... they found similar declines. What makes this new data-point particularly informing is, aside from the scale, its location and how that was not an area previously expected to be hit so badly.

> So far AGW has warmed the earth by 1.3 C (2 F).

That's a world average, but that same level of warming can bring local extremes more like +/- 4 C

As the article states: “The number of hot spells, temperatures above 29C, have increased tremendously,”

Re: AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the Luquillo rainforest? Tourists have impact on a tiny fraction of it.

I have no idea why the bugs are dying. But at some tipping point, if they go, we wonâ(TM)t be far behind.

Re: AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

It is also implausible that nobody has noticed this massive worldwide catastrophe before this lone researcher stumbled onto the evidence of our life support systems "collapsing".

They've been putting out articles about disappearing bug populations all over the world for like... 20 years. What the hell are you even on about here? Are you that far in your own little world that you haven't seen any of them?

Re:AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

In a word: No.

In more than a word: Its not pesticides. Pesticides are spot-use. Sure, they can kill everything in a field, but compared to the size of the planet, a field is literally nothing.

Insects counts are down all over the planet. If pesticides were to blame then they'd be in samples of air taken everywhere. But they aren't. We'd also have to be spraying them non-stop everywhere (and I mean EVERYWHERE, like in the depths of national parks and on top of mountains), which means we would need to be producing them at a far greater rate than we are.

So as you can see its actually very unlikely that it's pesticides to blame.

Re:AGW

[Can'tNot]

The middle part of the chain has not been skipped, it just hasn't been explained. The article says:

tropical insects, having evolved in a very stable climate, would be much more sensitive to climate warming. “If you go a little bit past the thermal optimum for tropical insects, their fitness just plummets,” he said.

The article does say why insects have declined so much, it just doesn't take the next step to say why their fitness plummets. Higher heat can more more humidity in the air, or less rainfall, or different wind patterns... many possibilities. That is, not doubt, an interesting topic. I share your curiosity, but I'm not going to criticize the author for declining to go off on a barely-related tangent.

Let's say the article did answer why their fitness plummets. Let's say it went into great detail about a specific insect which requires enough moisture in specific places in order to procreate, and how the decline of that insect effects some others who rely on the first as a food source. And a third group who rely on the structure-building practices of the second group for shelter. And a fourth group who... and on and on down the cascade effect. What would that accomplish? You can always ask another "why" question, there's no end to that.

Re:AGW

[cascadingstylesheet]

This sort of shrill hyperbolic alarmism is counterproductive to getting people to take climate change seriously.

I keep saying that.

If anybody's wondering why folks like me are skeptical, it's because of decades of shrill alarmism.

If you were trying to make skeptics, you couldn't have done a better job.

Re:AGW

[jellomizer]

You mean small cold blooded animals, who had adapted for millions of years for a particular climate have trouble to a rapidly changing climate?

The problem with global Climate change, isn't that the Climate is changing, but the speed of the change. While many of these animals can deal with fluctuations of weathers and seasons. The change in climate means the number of bad seasons for them outweighs the number of good ones, so it just leads to long term pressure on their survival.
While there are other issues such as toxic pollution and insecticides, these type of problems are more localized, and it issues diminish further away from the source. While Climate change affects the world.

The problem is although it is happening very fast in terms of climate, it is still too small for humans who are not looking at data to notice that much, and we will generally react to the weather. Look a Record Cold day where your Global Warming!, or It is a really Hot day because of global warming. Humans as an animal are rather tolerant to changing climates, as we are able to successfully survive and thrive in most climates, so if there is a 4c average difference in temperature, it isn't a big deal for us. But other animals don't have the same tolerance as us. Especially Animals without such an advance heating and cooling system to keep our internal body at the right temperature.

Re:AGW

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It couldn't be tons of pesticides or hurricanes. It couldn't be invasive species. It couldn't be human tourism trampling the ground.

In the middle of the rain forest, it's hardly going to be pesticides, hurricanes, or tourists - and the invasive species would presumably be noticed by the same biologists noticing the lack of insects.

Re:AGW

[greythax]

You should probably ask anyone who farms or hunts. In my neck of the woods, everyone can tell you the difference a "cold winter" or "hot summer" will make in insect populations. Particularly the ones that like to eat you or your crops. Many insect eggs are very delicate, either laid in shallow pools that dry up, or at very specific locations where small temperature/humidity variations will make them non-viable. Usually the species are healthy because they lay a LOT of eggs, but eventually, tipping points will be reached.

Re:AGW

[hackertourist]

Any shrill alarmism is the result of people going "lalalalala, I can't hear you" when confronted with evidence of warming, because that evidence presents a threat to their current comfy gas-guzzling lifestyle.

Add to that a great deal of misinformation spread by people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

In disbelief that people can be dumb enough to ignore the facts that are right in front of them, scientists and policymakers turned to hyperbole in hope of shaking people out of their stupor.

The reasons for this process have nothing to do with the quality of the evidence, and everything to do with human psychology, i.e. denial as a coping mechanism, and all of the irrational behavior it causes. Plus a certain amount of shortsightedness on the part of climate scientists (who are not psychologists, after all) in how to publish their message.

Still, there's hope. Denial is just one stage of the coping process, so don't worry. You'll grow out of it.

Re:AGW

[mixed_signal]

It's all things put together, rarely just one cause, but AGW could be the straw that breaks the camel's (beetle's?) back.

Re:AGW

[mixed_signal]

You don't get it. A 1.3C warning is the global average, but you need to look at the duration of extreme temperatures that affect insect or other animal life cycles. It's quite possible, and expected, that there is a limit to how far temperatures can go for how long before a species has trouble at some stage. For example, a few hours at, say, 100F might not b a problem, but eight hours might be.

Re:AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

The same thing is happening in the Tidewater VA area (Newport News, Hampton, VA Beach, etc). Our populations had a slow decline from the 80s to the mid 2000s, only to totally crash in the last 10 years. We haven't gotten that much warmer, though we have been having one or two week-long "false springs" every year that might kill some insects - e.g. grubs emerging early or things like that.

In Newport News our native butterflies are almost nowhere to be found, when they were common 10 years ago. There are almost no mayflies when their time comes, and the worst is that there are few to no fireflies, and few to no green june beetles, which both used to be abundant and beautiful. We do have large numbers of a few dragonfly species, due to still having some mosquitoes and deerflies (though those are in lower numbers too). There's a particularly noxious area called 'City Center' (where all life dies) where you can't even find an ant, and there are no birds.

I don't really know what to blame.

We're nearing a point where all that's going to be left is grass and trees.

Other areas of the state like the Eastern Shore are still OK, and the Appalachian foothills seem to be doing great.

Re:AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

So far AGW has warmed the earth by 1.3 C (2 F)

If you don't understand the quite serious implications of this you don't deserve to participate in this conversation.

I mean, just spit-balling. Consider this-

Do you know how much energy it takes to heat your average living room 1.3C? It's a fair amount all things considered conservatively, about 110KJ of energy. And that's inside a modern, insulated building.

Now consider that energy, outdoors where it's free to radiate in to the atmosphere, spread across every square meter of the planet.

That is an absolutely insane amount of energy to introduce to a system. Catastrophic change isn't even the question, it's what kind of catastrophic change is going to happen.

Re:AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

My friend, allow me to introduce you to Japanese honeybees, insects for whom a 1 degree C difference is a matter of life and death

Re:AGW

[Thelasko]

Your conclusions sound straight out of Hans Rosling's book. Although chapter 9 suggests we shouldn't blame Exxon-Mobil. We're all to blame.

Re:AGW

[phantomfive]

You should probably ask anyone who farms or hunts.

I do. I've never heard of a hot summer making any difference in insect population. Cold winter, sure, but that's basically a question of freezing or not freezing.

Re:AGW

[Thelasko]

No need to speculate. Here's the data.

Re:AGW

[phantomfive]

You mean small cold blooded animals, who had adapted for millions of years for a particular climate have trouble to a rapidly changing climate?

These cold blooded animals have evolved to deal with 20+ degree temperature changes every night, amazing, right?

Which insect are you thinking about in particular that thrives at 27 degrees, but disappears almost completely at 28 degrees?

Re:AGW

[phantomfive]

The article never said Anthropogenic or human-caused

The article does, it says "“We are essentially destroying the ...." 'We' refers to humanity (and for that matter, when the article/summary said "global warming" it was referring to human caused global warming).

Re:AGW

[Anonymous Coward]

If 98% of ground insects disappear after 1 degree of warming, we would have geologic records of tens of thousands of mass extinction events.

All you have to do to prove your claim, is show evidence that 1 degree of warming equates to a 98% kill off.

Or you could keep your fingers in your ears and head off to church.

Re:AGW

[guruevi]

Not enough data is available to make definite predictions. It's like the bee population, it dipped for a while a few years ago, but bee populations recovered. We don't really know why it happened, but we have more bees now than we had before. Sure, some people had entire hives die but we don't know why, the media just made it sound it was global because they picked reports from people having 'sudden' colony deaths, but based on the data, it seemed all was normal.

Same for this, check again next year before you make predictions about a crisis borne from a cycle we don't quite understand yet. Sure, the top of the ocean is warming, the bottom is cooling however and we don't have accurate data that's older than ~50 years.

Re:AGW

[Thelasko]

The hypothesis that was being tested was that the more frequent heat waves at this location would result in smaller insect populations. This was based on previous research conducted in a laboratory environment. The data collected confirmed the hypothesis. This was not a random survey looking to explain the results.

Re:AGW

[phantomfive]

That's a really great study and the methods section is an especially great read. The temperatures are dramatically different than the ones in Puerto Rico. The flour beetles in that study (or any other known insect) would have no problem surviving the temperatures found in Puerto Rico.

Re:AGW

[sexconker]

Insects in general fucking thrive in warmer environments anyway.

Re:AGW

[Shotgun]

Maybe the author was using the royal "We"?

Re:AGW

[nightfire-unique]

+5, Insightful? Really? What the actual fuck, slashdot?

Re:AGW

[phantomfive]

Oh, was he bragging??

Re:AGW

[quantaman]

This sort of shrill hyperbolic alarmism is counterproductive to getting people to take climate change seriously.

I keep saying that.

If anybody's wondering why folks like me are skeptical, it's because of decades of shrill alarmism.

And now insect populations are rapidly collapsing in many locations over the planet.

Apparently you should have been alarmed after all.

Re:AGW

[phantomfive]

And now insect populations are rapidly collapsing in many locations over the planet.

Not because of heat, though.

Total agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

5 step plan to fixing this, fast.

1. Remove 2 billion people from the planet.

2. HVDC lines built to all major deserts.

3. All major deserts covered in as much solar power as we can build.

4. LFTR reactor research funded to pre-Jimmy-Carter levels.

5. Ban coal power outright.

Keep in mind that if we want to reverse the damage, we need to build excess power capacity (a lot of it) to pull CO2 out of the air as a feedstock for hydrocarbons or some other sequestration.

Re:Total agreement

[b0s0z0ku]

6. Escalating taxes on fossil fools for transportation use. The aim should be to phase them out for ground transport within 20 years, worldwide.

7. Ban all unnecessary use of pesticides and herbicides. Agriculture is a valid use if used in moderation; so is disease control. Having a perfect, green lawn in your boring shithole of a suburb is NOT a valid use.

Re: Total agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

Children , open a history book and read about what usually happens when political means are used to achieve what you are asking for.

Re: Total agreement

[b0s0z0ku]

Isn't population reduction the goal? :D

Re: Total agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove 2 billion people? And put them where exactly?

Are you going to line up first to be removed?

Or is that only for other people from some other place you dont know anyone?

Thought so. I stopped reading there. Nothing else you could possibly have said would have made sense or even been funny.

Re: Total agreement

[phantomfive]

Remove 2 billion people? And put them where exactly?

In the nether, or maybe a river. At least, that's where I unload my excess cobblestone.

Re: Total agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not supposed to be funny. It's supposed to be jarring and awful, because we've let this problem go for so long that at this point the solution is going to be commensurately jarring and awful. And you touch on how the answer will actually go, but then try to pretend that there's some form of moral high ground you can take. War is coming, whether or not you acknowledge it. No one is going to line up for removal - as climate change wrecks the tropical zones, people will either be killed outright over resource shortages or will starve. It will be the most horrific event in human history to date. It will also be concentrated where population density is the highest, and/or local self-sufficiency is at its lowest. Whoever is left afterwards will need to continue though steps 2 through 5.

Re:Total agreement

[Applehu Akbar]

All good points, except that there is no need to kill off the 2 billion people. If we implement the other steps, we can leave genocide to the Greens.

Re: Total agreement

[Anonymous Coward]

In regards to truck traffic. As long as you can get a 500 to 600 mile range in the truck you are fine. The driver can take her or his mandatory rest while it charges. You can only drive 10 hours straight. And you are expected to cover only 50 to 60 miles on average per hour.
So, this is not only a last mile solution. That said, a better multi-modal train and truck solution would be a good idea. You need trains that have regular schedules, and quick build/break times.

Re: Total agreement

[110010001000]

Actually I agree here. The OP modded +5 Insightful??? Remove 2 billion from the planet? The only way to do that is to kill them.

Re:Total agreement

[AmiMoJo]

Remove 2 billion people from the planet.

There is really no need for that. We have basically got population growth under control, with the fertility rate being around static (2.2) in most places. Yes, even third world countries.

The population is still growing because people are living longer. But it's levelling off, and at a level which is sustainable with modern farming methods and renewable energy.

In the longer term, past 2100, the population will probably fall as the fertility rate continues to decline

Re: Total agreement

[CanadianMacFan]

There should be a law that says that anyone that proposes removing (killing) people as a solution to climate change then the first ones in line to be removed should be their family and friends.

Re:Total agreement

[flink]

Remove 2 billion people from the planet.

There is really no need for that. We have basically got population growth under control, with the fertility rate being around static (2.2) in most places. Yes, even third world countries.

The population is still growing because people are living longer. But it's levelling off, and at a level which is sustainable with modern farming methods and renewable energy.

In the longer term, past 2100, the population will probably fall as the fertility rate continues to decline

Modern farming techniques aren't sustainable. Modern farming relies on tapping fossil water (aquifers), mining phosphorus, and petro chemicals. All of these are exhaustible resources. And beyond that fertilizer runoff in waterways, excessive antibiotics used to raise livestock, and pesticides are all ecological disasters in their own right.

I'm not saying that we should just stop all those things now and let a bunch of people starve, but we need to realize we are drawing down resources in decades that were built up over millions of years. We should do our best to improve these practices, figure out how many people actually sustainable agriculture and industry can support, and work on getting our birthrate down below replacement until we hit that number.

And of course, we'd have to come up with an economic system that isn't predicated on constant growth. Right now several countries that have flat or negative growth rates are running PR campaigns and social programs to incentivize people to have more children to stave off economic repercussions of a shrinking population.

Re:Total agreement

[AmiMoJo]

Modern farming is unsustainable only when profit is the main motive. If sustainability is the main motive it's fine. We can fix the economic system simply by legislating that sustainability must be the priority and imposing penalties for not doing it.

Re:Total agreement

[msk]

Ban reproduction by anyone with an inheritable disease. (Source: Larry Niven's _A World out of Time_)

Make abortion legal and available on demand, worldwide.

Equality now, everywhere, so women have control of their bodies.

The population will fall to a more manageable level after these are in effect.

Re:Total agreement

[flink]

Modern farming is unsustainable only when profit is the main motive. If sustainability is the main motive it's fine. We can fix the economic system simply by legislating that sustainability must be the priority and imposing penalties for not doing it.

The bread basket of the US is only that because of tapping aquifers and putting nutrients back into the soil that we are pulling out and shipping all over the country/world. If we moved to sustainable techniques like rotating in non-food crops, leaving fields fallow for long enough for the aquifer to recover from a year's worth of growing, and recovering nutrients from sewage all over the country to ship back to fields as fertilizer, then food prices would skyrocket as supply plummets. Even if there was enough to go around, people would starve because they couldn't afford it.

The prairies have enough rainfall to support prairie grass, not water-hungry food crops, otherwise they would have been covered by forests. There aren't enough sustainable resources to feed the number of people we need to feed at a price our economy can afford. Legislating fines from above to force sustainable practices might work to change the practices, but it won't fix the resulting change in supply nor in the concomitant rise in the cost of goods.

Re:Total agreement

[Uberbah]

6. Escalating taxes on fossil fools for transportation use.

Eh. Sounds like all the campaigns to get Californians to take two gallon showers and to not flush for number ones - small potatoes when residents use less than 15% of the state's water supply. Most of it is used by industry - twenty million people could move out of the state tomorrow and you wouldn't even notice the difference.

It's the same for CO2 production. The world's single largest producer is the US military, with all those warships, aircraft, tanks, etc. And just 100 corporations produce 71% of the world's CO2 emissions. People driving Hummbers and dually pickups as passenger vehicles aren't helping....but they (and all other drivers) are a drop in the bucket.

https://www.theguardian.com/su...

Re:Total agreement

[Thelasko]

1. Remove 2 billion people from the planet.

Which 2 billion? It makes a difference. 2 billion Americans and Europeans will have a much bigger impact than 2 billion Africans and Asians.

Re:Total agreement

[Shotgun]

6. Escalating taxes on fossil fools for transportation use. The aim should be to phase them out for ground transport within 20 years, worldwide.

Some guys wearing yellow vests will show up to your door in a few minutes.

Re: Total agreement

[Shotgun]

Says the guy that never drove a truck for a living in America.

A) You will be in the sleeper while the other driver takes over for the other 10.

B) They are called "lie" books for a reason. There are several ways to fake it out and get more than 10 hours driving in per day.

C) Recharging a battery that can pull 80tons through mountainous terrain for 10 hours is going to be one major feat of engineering.

Re: Total agreement

[SCVonSteroids]

Why should my family and friends be affected by something so ridiculously stupid coming out of MY mouth?
You want to pass law for this? You're no better than the people you're trying to get into that congo line first.

Re: Total agreement

[Woeful Countenance]

Birth control is a way to remove people without killing them.

Re: Total agreement

[CanadianMacFan]

Why should you think strangers should die? I didn't say kill the people you know for saying something. I said they should be the first ones to be killed if it gets implemented. There's a huge difference.

It's like a politician who's all for going to war with another country. They might feel differently if their child or other close blood relative had a high probability of being killed because the war started.

Re:Total agreement

[Kyr Arvin]

The aquifers are already getting tapped out. We may not even need legislative controls.

Deja Vu

[Pinky's Brain]

We had this dance already :
https://it.slashdot.org/story/...

As I said last time :
"Water diverted from the forest ranges from 7 to 17 percent of average flow throughout the year, with up to 54 percent of flow diverted from individual watersheds (table 5). A much higher percentage of average flow is diverted when intakes outside of the forest are considered (table 6)."

https://www.fs.fed.us/global/i...

That forest isn't as pristine as the researchers pretend it to be.

Re:Deja Vu

[Pinky's Brain]

It doesn't have to be deliberate, it could just be bad science. It wasn't my intention to define the cause. I just has a sneaking suspicion his basic assumptions were unsupported and hey presto, they were. Not my fault, his fault.

Why get so offended by me showing a clear contradiction between his assertions and earlier research which he completely failed to cite? Is it blasphemy?

Global warming?

[b0s0z0ku]

What about pesticides and other toxins as well? We're dumping this shit into our environment and some of it is persistent. Agriculture is one thing, but whenever I see a house with a perfect, green lawn, I want to smack the owners in the face.

Re:Global warming?

[b0s0z0ku]

Ecosystems aren't "isolated" -- pollution and toxins blow in with the winds. Insect breeding sites outside the area being damaged may affect populations outside the immediate area. Ecology ain't simple -- we still have a lot to learn about it. In the meantime, best not to f**k with Mother Gaia.

Re: Global warming?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to post that, too.

Which is more likely to wipe out 98% of insects?

The tremendous amount of pesticides we dump on our crops which spreads into the water system ooooorrrrrrr GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!! (Queue up the dramatic music)

The first is the obvious answer any real scientist would come up with.

The second is what a lying Marxist control freak would say because Fucking Everything is due to GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!! (Queue up the dramatic music)

This asshole doesnt even bother to TRY to explain how GLOBAL WARMING!!!! (Music, please) could have possibly had any impact on insect population. We are just all supposed to stupidly sheeplike hear GLOBAL WARMING!!!! (Queue music) and nod our heads and uh huh our way through the rest of his crap.

Re:Global warming?

[dryeo]

It's not that hard to have a nice green lush lawn without chemicals. Good soil with the right mixture of sand and compost, don't mow the grass short so it shades out the weed seeds and live somewhere with lots of rainfall.

Re:Global warming?

[JaredOfEuropa]

I have my doubts as as well. A slightly higher temperature killed the insects? Sure, there's more to it than that, stuff migrates when the climate changes for example, which can disrupt an ecosystem. But the earth has been as warm before as it is now, and warmer.

Wouldn't be the first time that a scientist blames global warming for some unexplained phenomenon. And no, we don't need more data, we need more study into this.

Re:Global warming?

[Freischutz]

What about pesticides and other toxins as well? We're dumping this shit into our environment and some of it is persistent. Agriculture is one thing, but whenever I see a house with a perfect, green lawn, I want to smack the owners in the face.

The EU issued a blanket ban all neonicotinoids last year. This is the stuff that is largely responsible a 75%-85% collapse of the insect population in the EU zone. I don't know how much those are used in Puerto Rico but neonicotinoids are certainly capable of causing a 70% plus reduction in insect populations so I won't be crying any rivers if this stuff gets banned elsewhere too. It's just one of many toxic substances that I don't want in my food.

Re:Global warming?

[pr0fessor]

The best and easiest way to get a green lawn is to not plant grass there are any number of weeds that look like grass that also help with erosion and are more persistent than average grasses people usually plant. Let the lawn grow to about 6 - 7 inches before your first mow of the year, keep the lawn mowed to 3.5 - 4 inches if you mow to low in the hotter months it will turn brown. No pesticides required that being said I use pesticide on the back tree line in particular to kill flea and ticks and it helps keep my lawn safe for pets and children.

Re: Global warming?

[WindBourne]

Agreed, but this is Costa Rica. Far from lots of manacured lawns, though it might be used in their fields. CR still uses DDT.

Re:Global warming?

[Thelasko]

...and live somewhere with lots of rainfall.

There's the problem. Too many people live west of the 100th meridian.

Re: Global warming?

[guruevi]

Agriculture in general, but especially third world agriculture, is worse. If we were still farming at medieval rates, we'd be dying of hunger and need to cut down all of the forest near any populated area.

Re:Global warming?

[bugs2squash]

almost everyone lives west fo the 100th meridian, if you keep going west you come back to it

Re: Global warming?

[muecksteiner]

Pesticide use is hard to hide.

I see you have given much thought to the problem of how easy it is to find traces of one particular organic compound (of many, many potential culprits) in dead insects which are not there in the first place (what with the population having collapsed).

See, buster, if it only were that easy. Pesticides could of course cause mass insect deaths if they were spread around the environment evenly, and at easily detectable levels. So that, if you don't see as many insects around as you used to, you only have to take e.g. a soil sample. And if that soil sample contains measurable amounts of some insecticide, presto, you have your culprit.

But this is of course ignoring that there are thousands of chemical compounds out there which are being used as insecticides: and that you have to test for pretty much each of them separately to find them (and if you test for n-1 of them, and by chance miss the test for the one which is actually out there, you come out seemingly clean). This is also ignoring the fact that a lot of these compounds are, sometimes even by design, highly chemically unstable, and do not linger in the ecosystem. You use the pesticide: and a few weeks later, you will not find any trace of the stuff in the environment, as it breaks up into generic substances which are impossible to trace. The insects are dead, sure, but the chemical compound is gone as well.

But it gets even better: a lot of these substances also cause very specific damage to ecosystems by bio-accumulating in particular places. Say, in the flowers of specific plants, and then in the eggs of certain insect species feeding on those flowers (eggs which then fail to develop properly, due to the pesticide having accumulated there). In such cases, you will not find measurable amounts of the stuff in the general environment: you will have to look in very specific places, and at exactly the right time. In this example, you'll have to find the non-viable eggs of that particular insect species, and have to have the intuition to test for exactly the right chemicals, to figure out that bio-accumulation of one particular pesticide caused this species to disappear. Bonus points if the compound which bio-accumulates in the eggs is unstable enough to quickly degrade along with the dead eggs, so you can't find it in the soil afterwards (this is actually what usually happens).

So if you don't do that particular complicated chemical test on those non-viable eggs at precisely the right time (assuming you found these eggs in the first place), all you will ever see is that suddenly, that particular insect species is gone.

And if you are a knobhead, you then go on to claim, without any real evidence, that "global warming caused this". And claim that "if it had been pesticides, we would be seeing those". Yeah, right.

Re:Global warming?

[dryeo]

Exactly, I'm west of the 100th meridian and get perhaps 150 inches of rain a year on the wet coast. I am about a dozen miles north of the USA though.

Some farmer

[AHuxley]

got a great deal on some spray that allowed for more exports and more profits every year.
Every year they spray and use more.
More people are trying to use the same land every year.
So human population need to expand into forests more every generation.

How to fix this:
Consider what and who is using so much strange spray on their crops.
Set the forests aside like the US does as a huge new national park. No more human activity is allowed.
See if the insects and critter populations recover when the import and use of crop spraying is regulated.

Re:Some farmer

[b0s0z0ku]

Also, crops are one thing, but I'm fine with banning frivolous uses of pesticides and herbicides. Nope, you don't get to have a perfect, green, dandelion-free lawn to impress Mr. and Mrs. Stepford next door. Mother Gaia is more important than the fuckin' Stepfords.

Re:Some farmer

[js290]

wild pollinator no sprays orchard mason bee http://bit.ly/P6QlXf

Fertilizer & pesticide run off http://bit.ly/1nCBv9S

Re:Some farmer

[AHuxley]

Once the animals and insects get weakened with the pesticides and herbicides all kinds of fungus and parasite infections take over.
Every generation of animals and insects then has to face huge changes to its own health and what the illegal and powerful pesticides and herbicides do.

Re:Some farmer

[b0s0z0ku]

Ideally by public flogging, I may add. Unless it's in an apartment building with common structure, I'd never want to own a home in an HOA-infested area.

Re:Some farmer

[AHuxley]

AC that could be tested.
Two experiments in one.
Forest recovery and UBI.

Have the UN remove all the humans near the forests and from inside the forests.
See how well the humans do on a UBI in a city setting, in shanty towns.
Protect the forests from all returning humans. Ban all pesticides and herbicides use in the surrounding areas.
See if the insects, critters and forests recover.

Find another nation and let it use all the pesticides and herbicides it can import. No regulations.
Let humans move deep into the forests and use the forests in any way they want.
Crops, gold mining, tourism, timber exports, gems.
Need more land for crops? Just clear the forests.
No UBI and total access to forests.
See what happens over the decades to the insects and critters.

monocropping annuls & ecosystem destruction

[js290]

"Name one ecosystem that is better off for having agriculture moved into it?" Toby Hemenway http://bit.ly/1pnapoW

Re:monocropping annuls & ecosystem destruction

[b0s0z0ku]

Brings to mind this quote, possibly by Alanis Obomsawin... "When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money."

Re:monocropping annuls & ecosystem destruction

[js290]

No no, it totally makes sense that humans are the only life forms in 3.8 billion years that "need money" to live.

— Decivilized (@decivilized) September 20, 2013

Re:monocropping annuls & ecosystem destruction

[Shotgun]

My home.

Pretending to know better than data w/o looking?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to nicontinoid bee killers, glyphosate, GMO baked-in toxins, AND climate change making their current habitat niche obsolete? I mean did you think none of these things affected eachother also? You have no data.

Deja Propaganda narrative, yours.

[Anonymous Coward]

You danced, did you prove anything? no. All you did is "re-convince" yourself that no change was needed on your part. How convenient that you come to that conclusion every time, without any expertise or data. Interesting.

Re:Deja Propaganda narrative, yours.

[Pinky's Brain]

I proved that the paper said :
"Given its long-term protected status (59), significant human perturbations have been virtually nonexistent within the Luquillo forest since the 1930s, and thus are an unlikely source of invertebrate declines. "

I proved that an USDA study said :
"Water diverted from the forest ranges from 7 to 17 percent of average flow throughout the year, with up to 54 percent of flow diverted from individual watersheds (table 5). A much higher percentage of average flow is diverted when intakes outside of the forest are considered (table 6)."

Re:Deja Propaganda narrative, yours.

[Pinky's Brain]

I think lots of changes are necessary, I just don't see any way to become dictator of the world to accomplish them.

So until then I nitpick obvious flaws in the assumptions of global warming theologians.

Re:Deja Propaganda narrative, yours.

[Anonymous Coward]

So all you did is "re-convince" yourself that no change was needed on your part. How convenient that you come to that conclusion every time, without any expertise or data. Real interesting, I'm convinced now. Seriously.

6th mass extinction event

[ihaveamo]

We are in the midst of a huge mass extinction event. It's up to us, our generation, to save what little we can for future generations. If humanity gets through this.. it will be our time RIGHT NOW that will be judged harshly. Grow plants, create pools for insects in your yard. Do whatever you can. At least, lucky for us, we have strong leaders who want to do something about it.

Re:6th mass extinction event

[Pinky's Brain]

I think the bigger problem is that we are ruining this planet for technological civilization until plate tectonics recycle the access to minerals. Nature can adapt faster than that.

Re:6th mass extinction event

[Gilgaron]

There's not enough time to recycle for another species to take over. When the huge coal seams and oil were buried in the carboniferous period, there were not microbes that could digest lignin. So, no successor of ours will ever get as much fossil fuel to jump start their development. If the insect population truly and irreversibly collapses, there won't be any vertebrates left anyway.

Re:6th mass extinction event

[Uberbah]

The problem with that is that the first people to die will have little to nothing to have caused the problem in the first place. The United States and Europe have produced huge amounts of CO2 pollution for their populations, but it's people in other parts of the world (ie Africa and Asia) that will die by the billions first, if catastrophic climate change comes to pass.

Re:6th mass extinction event

[cmdr_klarg]

We are in the midst of a huge mass extinction event. It's up to us, our generation, to save what little we can for future generations. If humanity gets through this.. it will be our time RIGHT NOW that will be judged harshly. Grow plants, create pools for insects in your yard. Do whatever you can.

At least, lucky for us, we have strong leaders who want to do something about it.

Fuck the future! I'll be dead by then, having made MORE money RIGHT NOW!

(in other words: "I've got mine, fuck you.")

It's a rainforest without rain

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a rainforest, didn't you even read the summary? I mean I get it, it's nice to see you're trying a *deflection* instead of a flat out "no global warming", but you might at least try something closer to Puerto Rico's rainforest. e.g. blame hurricanes or brown people or something.

https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-09/documents/climate-change-pr.pdf

It seems to have faced a 2.5 F degree rise in sea temperature since 1900 with a loss or rainfall and 4 inch rise in sea level since the 1960s. So the rainfall is likely to be the cause. So yeh, Global Warming.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[Anonymous Coward]

DO you think those things don't migrate? It's impossible to know exactly where the breakdown is without studying intensely for multiple years, they have barely scratched the surface noticing the massive losses. Pay attention.

None of this is obvious, one study may find GW the #1 culprit, another might find it #2. Either way it's a massive change planetwide that is happening, killing the food web. ALL of these factors adversely affect it at once.

Picking one to worry about is not going to cut it. We need to stop polluting, stop poisoning, stop clearcutting, stop dumping unclear water, etc. All at once, or we're going to suffer for it. That's how delicate this is.

Picking one to worry about is why we fail. Pretending the case for only one of them must override our economic paradigm of short term profit, it's all of them, or nothing. The greatest one today may not be tomorrow. All factor in.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[phantomfive]

Either way it's a massive change planetwide that is happening, killing the food web.

There's not much evidence of that.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[budha_burger]

There's not much evidence of that.

You've been spending too much time indoors for many years, and not enough outside walking around. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or entomologist to see what's going on right under our noses. Drive a car during summer in the last twenty years? Google "insects on windshield" and read the buzz there. The collapse of the insect population is real, planet-wide, and happened in the last fifteen years.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[stealth_finger]

DO you think those things don't migrate?

Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[Luckyo]

This is the new narrative among those pushing the most catastrophist view of global warming.

As usual with such views, they ignore all of the obvious elephants in the room, such as massive escalation of war on malaria which is purposefully designed to destroy as much insect habitat as possible to save tens to hundreds of millions of human lives, or significant increase in agricultural efficiency due to insecticide usage having spread to developing counties and spreading of farmlands into rainforest areas. None of these things that are literally targeting insect populations are relevant, nope. It's the global warming.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[Anonymous Coward]

Warmer climate will be good for life, in a million years.
Rapid climate change may decimate 99% of life as we know it today.
Google it. It's happened before, and takes 100k-millions of years to fix.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[mixed_signal]

Massive escalation of the war on malaria? Right. That's only very recent, even if "massive." The lack of bugs on winshields has been noticed (by me and many others) since the 1990s, and that's true for the long term insect counts in Europe, as well. In any case, as with most systems it's likely many causes, not a single one.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[spatley]

but how could a six ounce sparrow carry an eight ounce coconut?

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[ilsaloving]

Well, ackshully...

It turns out they do!

https://academic.oup.com/aob/a...

Re: It's a rainforest without rain

[MachineShedFred]

Your hypothesis doesn't contain enough detail and context. For example, with the proper equipment, jumping from an airplane at 30,000 feet and surviving is quite possible with a high order of probability.

I just proved you wrong in about 10 seconds. Come up with a better direct analogy.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[k2r]

This is really frightening - I've been riding motorcycles in Germany all year for 20 years, naturally taking the more scenic routes.
In summer I used to clean my helmet from insects at most tankstops because of visibility. That was kind of a ceremony - tank, take a paper, soak it, put it on the helmet, go pay, come back.

This year I cleaned it at home every few weeks.
Something changed, for whatever reason and the sheer number or weight of biomass that seems to have disappeared is frightning.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[Luckyo]

It's obviously not a single cause. Which is my problem with this story, which tries to sell it as such. Global warming is likely very, VERY low on the totem pole of things that are affecting insects right now, especially because insects are among the most adaptable creatures on the planet due to their very rapid reproductive cycle. That's why pesticides have to be constantly worked on in terms of R&D. Such life forms are the least affected by a slow change like global warming, as they will adapt to it with ease. Remember, these are the life forms that adopted to being hit with everything from toxins to habitat denial from humans for a very long time with extreme rapidity, to the point where we still can't figure out how to annihilate the insects we want extinct in spite of decades of trying our very best.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[Hognoxious]

DO you think those things don't migrate?

Better build a wall, just to be on the safe side. Get the spiders to pay for it.

Re:It's a rainforest without rain

[budha_burger]

It's hard to believe, but I actually miss seeing insect guts on the windshield and swallowing bugs by accident. At least gnats and mosquitos are scarce where I live. Haven't seen a bat in years -- but have seen bluebirds and lots of bald eagles and woodpeckers, contrary to expectation.

Arthropod Farm

[mentil]

Six legs good, eight legs bad.

Re:Arthropod Farm

[sheramil]

So Nils Hellstrom was exaggerating?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hellstrom_Chronicle

Might want to re-read your PDF

[SuperKendall]

It's a rainforest, didn't you even read the summary?

Pretty amusing coming from someone who did not even read the PDF he posted...

It seems to have faced a 2.5 F degree rise in sea temperature since 1900 with a loss or rainfall

We aren't talking about sea insects, now are we? Your OWN PDF states PR has seen a 1*F* (not even C) increase in land temperatures since mid 20th century... vastly less than seasonal variation.

Furthermore the paper speculated rainfall MIGHT lower, based on... nothing at all.

In reality rainfall has been cyclical but remained fairly steady (click on "MAX" below the chart).

This would be obvious to anyone who understands the effect of heat on large bodies of water, which surround PR.... A warmer climate means MORE RAINFALL which I cannot believe how few people, even now, understand.

Sorry to disturb your manufactured panic with actual real data... carry on.

Re:Might want to re-read your PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

"A warmer climate means MORE RAINFALL which I cannot believe how few people, even now, understand."

Hold your horses, this is most definitely not a universal truth. There are plenty of examples across the globe where this clearly isn't the case, geography also plays a major part.

The Middle East is as hot as it gets, but it's also as dry as it gets. Similarly if you look across island chains such as the Caribbean or Canary Islands you'll see completely different levels of precipitation on even neighbouring islands depending on the geography of those islands. In the Canaries for example Lanzarote is a dry barren landscape resembling Mars in many places, whilst near islands in the Canaries such as Tenerife have trees left and right. In the Caribbean you have islands like Bonaire that are reminiscent of Arizona within visible distance of Venezuela's lushest regions. The reason for this is because those islands don't have peaks that are sufficiently high to cause clouds to gather over the island and drop rain. An island like, say St Lucia, would be a desert island and not a lush tropical rainforest covered island were it not for the two peaks there, the Pitons. In the case of the Middle East, the Sahara etc. rainfall is blocked by weather patterns of hot air caused by the position of the sun around the Earth.

As such there are vast regions of the globe where increasing temperatures would most certainly cause less rainfall; if you look on a map you'll notice two major bands of desert for example; one south of the equator covering the Atacama in Chile and Argentina, across South Africa, and New Zealand, and one north of the equator spanning Mexico/Southern USA, North Africa including the Sahara, the Middle East, Kazakhstan, Mongolia etc. It doesn't matter how much hotter things get, not only will these regions not become wetter, the area of dryness they cover will actually expand.

With that in mind it's worth looking at where Puerto Rico is on the map, it's at the Southern end of the northern band. Whilst I agree there's no clear impact yet, it's not impossible that rising temperatures will dry Puerto Rico out somewhat more. It's also worth noting that the effects can be incredibly localised; it's equally possible that Puerto Rico's position as an island with decent sized mountains will increase rainfall around those mountains, whilst, say, drying out it's lower lying areas for example. This is something you see in Peru which is often thought of as a lush rainforest covered wilderness due to images of Machu Pichu and such, but it's coast line is dry as a bone. It can even be seasonal, again depending on the unique geography of a place; more rainfall overall doesn't necessary mean that a place doesn't see dryer summers (or winters) which could cause animal or plants to die out still due to not being able to survive worsened dry seasons, even if more rain falls in the wet seasons.

So before kicking off and implying people are dumb for not understanding warmer climate means more rainfall, please consider that that's a rather simplistic view, and is most definitely not a universal truth. There will be substantial areas of the Earth's land mass that will see much less rainfall (and typically more and more problematic wildfires as a result; Australia is already seeing this for example). Things aren't even remotely as simple as you're implying.

Re:Might want to re-read your PDF

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh dear, we've found the idiot that thinks air humidity is somehow equivalent to rainfall and stored water in the landscape that stems from that.

I'll give you a hint, when you boil a half-filled kettle, where is the largest proportion of water, is it in the bottom of the kettle as a liquid, or is it the portion that is filled with evaporated water? If you fill one container with the evaporated water, and one with the un-evaporated water, which is the driest of the two, a term that means "least wet", or "contains the least water" to avoid any further confusion on your behalf?

The middle east can be humid precisely because what little water there is evaporates and because there isn't enough rainfall or stored water as a result of that rainfall in the ground to allow plant life to grow and trap what little moisture that does end up there.

Perhaps the fact you stop reading things you don't understand is the reason you don't understand basic junior school science in that evaporated water is less dense than un-evaporated water. For avoidance of any doubt, what I'm saying is you're obviously a really dumb fucking idiot because you apparently believe the only place water is stored is in the air and that water doesn't take any other form than as an evaporated gas, and that hence the regions with the most evaporated water must be the wettest, obviously by your idiot world view you must also believe that an island with 1% humidity in the air over it is much wetter than the fucking sea that surrounds it because water only counts when it's in it's vapor form.

Re:Might want to re-read your PDF

[flink]

We aren't talking about sea insects, now are we? Your OWN PDF states PR has seen a 1*F* (not even C) increase in land temperatures since mid 20th century... vastly less than seasonal variation.

That 1 degree shift is an average. Along with a "small" increase in the macro average are much more frequent and more wild swings in local weather patterns and temperature due to there just being a lot more energy in the system. It only takes one extreme weather event at the right time to disrupt a population. As these extreme events become more frequent with a warming climate, you get larger and more frequent population disruptions leading to species becoming extirpated from an area and eventually extinction.

Re:Might want to re-read your PDF

[Jahoda]

Stopped reading your wall of text

Maybe if reading is hard for you, Slashdot is not the correct community for you to participate in.

Re:Might want to re-read your PDF

[LynnwoodRooster]

The driest place on Earth is not in the Middle East, it is right in the middle of the Andes mountains. Where it tends to be quite cold. The Middle East is driest around Riyadh, which actually gets more rain than Las Vegas.

Re:Might want to re-read your PDF

[LynnwoodRooster]

If a 1 deg F change wipes out the insects - what happened during the heat wave of the 1930s? Or the Medieval Warm Period?

Two can play at that game

[SuperKendall]

once it's too late you can expect all the deniers to go to the ovens and gas chamber

Fine, so what do we get to do to all the alarmists that attempted to kill millions with extreme proposals to address climate change once we determine there was never any reason to panic some 10-20 years hence?

I also find it pretty amusing that even by your own logic sending the deniers to the gas chambers (which, P.S. you do realize puts you right up there directly with Hitler as one of a select group of people to use that.. solution....) would give them the most merciful death compared to the rest of you that slowly die as the Earth turns into Venus.

If you truly believe climate change to be beyond hope at some point, would not the ideal solution be to get rid of yourselves and let all of the "deniers" live to suffer through what you see as the inevitable and horrible end? Why would you seek to give comfort to your mortal enemy? :-)

Re:Two can play at that game

[Anonymous Coward]

I have noticed that extremely few global warming alarmists have ever made any meaningful sacrifices of their own.

Although more than half of most western countries could all band together and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to miniscule levels, which would make a staggering impact to global emissions.

Just refrain from activity that is GHG intensive.

- Stop using electricity. Even the manufacture of wind turbines and other renewable sources uses greenhouse gasses, and what's more even if it was completely neutral, your demand for it drives up the price and so makes more polluting energy sources more competitive, and therefore also contributes. Best just to avoid electricity completely.

- Stop using electronics, computers, phones. These should go without saying. Ridiculous expensive polluting frivolities.

- Definitely stop driving an automobile, taking public transport, or flying any airplanes anywhere. A bicycle is probably acceptable.

- Heating and airconditioning are right out. Unless you live somewhere the heat is geothermal or scavenged for free, can't use it.

- Living in a house or apartment? No way. There is no reason why anybody should be so greedy and hateful that a tent is not good enough. Hot water may be used but only if you heat it using non polluting methods.

- Buying goods manufactured in polluting factories and then shipped across the globe in horribly polluting ships can't be done. Buy local made clothes and shoes, or make them yourself.

- Meat is right out. But even vegetable food production using modern agricultural methods is surprisingly GHG intensive.

Voila, you guys have just done vastly more for climate change than any impotent agreement like Paris, for example. I know this is a slight inconvenience but surely one you will be quite willing to do for the greater good to tackle the greatest problem in your life and the biggest problem facing humanity. Quickly now, it turns out you don't actually have to wait for any of these hateful deniers to change their mind, you can start making a difference right now.

Re:Two can play at that game

[flink]

100 corporations are responsible for 71% of carbon emissions. Even if every would-be environmentalist dropped dead tomorrow and took themselves off the board, we'd still be in trouble (assuming you want carbon emissions to go down). Meaningful change is only going to come at the the policy level. As an individual the change you can effect isn't even a a drop in the bucket.

It's nice if you try to be "green" as an individual if it makes you feel good, but as a consumer it's not very obvious whether a given admittedly ineffective decision will actually be a net benefit, and it's unreasonable to expect every consumer to read an environmental impact report every time they buy a can of beans.

Re:Two can play at that game

[Shotgun]

Except when used against someone that actually calls for using the worst solutions used by Hitler. The GP did propose the use of gas chambers, after all.

Re:Two can play at that game

[Shotgun]

As expected, the article leads off by listing oil companies. How are they responsible for the emissions? It's like saying that I'm responsible for your wife's murder, because you bought a screw driver at my hardware store. The people responsible for the emissions are the ones using the energy produced from the companies' products. That would be YOU, flink.

Re:Two can play at that game

[LynnwoodRooster]

100 corporations are responsible for 71% of carbon emissions.

False. CONSUMERS of products from those 100 companies are responsible for 71% of carbon emissions. ExxonMobil only sell gas to people who want it; if no one bought, they would quickly fold and go out of business. This is the ultimate pass-the-buck; it's not the companies, it's the consumers. But that tends to strike too close to home, so easier to blame some faceless corporation...

Re:Two can play at that game

[Woeful Countenance]

100 corporations are responsible for 71% of carbon emissions.

That headline is misleading. From the article, "These companies, led by Saudi Aramco, Russian gas giant Gazprom, and Exxon Mobil, have produced about 923 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalents between 1988 to 2016."

Those companies produce oil and natural gas. So who's "responsible" for carbon emissions: the people who produce the oil and gas, or the people who burn the oil and gas? (As another note, people can use oil indirectly, for example by buying goods transported by ship, truck, or air: people tend to concentrate on their direct consumption while ignoring the indirect.)

Meaningful change is only going to come at the the policy level.

Probably true. A very large collection of individuals, acting together, could make a difference, but how likely is that?

I think one mistake people make is blaming, e.g., Big Oil. Corporations (in the US) have a disproportionate effect on government policy, but if people stopped buying oil-related products, Big Oil wouldn't be Big any more. It's always tempting to blame Somebody Else for problems, but I think the main problem is that billions of people just don't want change -- especially if they view the change as making them worse off. In addition, there's a lot of propaganda to convince people they don't need to change, or they don't need to change much.

I actually have some reusable plastic bags with the slogan, "I'm saving the planet". As if reusing plastic bags is going to save the planet.

Re:Two can play at that game

[Hognoxious]

Even the manufacture of wind turbines and other renewable sources uses greenhouse gasses

WTF?

I think that's worth repeating: WTF?

Most likely cause?

[bobstreo]

After not being bothered to check on the insect count for 35 years, is it a coincidence this count occurred a little more than a year after Hurricane Maria?

I'm guessing a category 4 hurricane doesn't do insect populations any favors.

Re: Most likely cause?

[Anonymous Coward]

After not being bothered to check on the insect count for 35 years

And this is the real issue here. This is in no way a scientific study at all.
He is using two very isolated sets of numbers and a lot of anecdotal evidence, then jumping to the conclusion he wants to be the explanation.

It is not reasonable that a degree or so of temperature increase will rather suddenly kill off the majority of insects. If that were the case we wouldn't see the same insects over such huge areas of our continents as we do.

Re: Most likely cause?

[Gilgaron]

I'm too lazy to look up the reference, but there has been similar decline noted in Germany. The reason the PR study was interesting was that it wouldn't be linked to agriculture. Still... ag in Germany and a hurricane in PR could play a role, but on the same note of all things I'd expect insects to be largely unaffected by a hurricane relative to larger organisms.

Re: Most likely cause?

[Woeful Countenance]

After not being bothered to check on the insect count for 35 years, is it a coincidence this count occurred a little more than a year after Hurricane Maria?

People count insects all the time, and declines have been noted elsewhere (e.g., the UK). Just because you don't happen to hear about it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. (Daniel Kahneman calls this "WYSIATI": What You See Is All There Is.)

Re: monocropping annuls & ecosystem destructio

[cheesybagel]

The Soviets had "money". The problem was the whole nation was run by state monopolies. In the USA you have corporate monopolies like P&G. You have a lot of brands, sure, but most of them are part of only a few conglomerates. The more the conglomerates grow, the less real competition there is, prices go up, and salaries go down.

Re: monocropping annuls & ecosystem destructi

[Maelwryth]

In Soviet Russia the government controls the method of production. In the U.S. the methos of production owns the government.

Not just the rain forest

[Chrisq]

In the UK nsect abundance has fallen by 75% over the last 27 years. I notice in woods where I used to constantly hear bird noise it is now mostly silent

Re:Not just the rain forest

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. I "hear" that silence here in France too. That silence is frightening me. Nobody under 20 would understand and the others mostly don't care or don't notice

Another german study on insect collapse https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-04774-7

Re:Not just the rain forest

[Greyfox]

Whoopsie. And I think we were planning on eating all the insects once we ran out of higher mammals. Guess we'll just have to move directly to the soylent green phase.

Re:Not just the rain forest

[maestroX]

In the UK nsect abundance has fallen by 75% over the last 27 years. I notice in woods where I used to constantly hear bird noise it is now mostly silent

I commented above with a similar statement.
GW is an issue but not the reason, due to the increased temp, soft winters many native birds are capable and do breed 2 times a year now yet population plummets.
There really is no safe pesticide when used on such a massively industrial scale.

easy

[Tom]

Here's the thing:

What is destroying the planet are a) humans, lots and lots of humans and b) progress, industrialisation, travel

Or, in other words: Our life, and the things that make it cute.

I don't see volunteers for giving up either of that. Oh, plenty of people who want others to give it up. But almost all the "back to nature" freaks are doing so from a position of 1st world luxury and comfort, not from a position of hard field work and subsistance farming and starvation winters.

The solution is at the same time easy and unbelievably hard: We need to reduce our footprint on the planet, and the only sure way that we know will definitely work is by drastically reducing our numbers. Which is not a thing that will voluntarily happen, hence the solution being unbelievably hard. How do we reduce our numbers without genocide and without forcing people into having fewer children?

Re:easy

[Gilgaron]

Industrialized nations have been dropping to sub-replacement levels, but you do see this generally mentioned in more panicked rather than relieved tones in the media. From some of the models, we need to proactively remediate some of the damage that's been done rather than merely stop doing further damage. That seems to be a more intractable problem to get the public behind to me, but maybe if we can convince the plebs that The Other is trying to steal their CO2 we can get the money to do so.

Re:easy

[Freischutz]

Political correctness is the godless religious offshoot of the godless religion of communism. By supporting the lie of political correctness, the left makes it about who the biggest liar is. Since the right is a bigger liar, it wins and we numbly drift into calamity.

Political correctness exists on both flanks of the political spectrum, there is such a thing as right-wing political correctness.

Re:easy

[Tom]

Industrialized nations have been dropping to sub-replacement levels

Yes, but barely. And yes, the mostly see this as a problem, not because of any real reasons, but because too many systems (pension systems, healthcare systems and economic systems dependent on growth) are built with the assumption of growing population.

The problem is that existing levels of human population are already at around 200% of what the planet can sustain without serious consequences.

Re:easy

[b0s0z0ku]

Fertility reduction virus that only affects humans and doesn't affect health in other ways. There now, I said it.

Re:easy

[mr.mctibbs]

I'm a software developer, but if I have to move into a cabin with no AC, grow vegetables and get a vasectomy after two kids, and in exchange I don't have to worry about the fucking apocalypse hitting in my lifetime, sign me the fuck up.

Re:easy

[Thelasko]

We need to reduce our footprint on the planet, and the only sure way that we know will definitely work is by drastically reducing our numbers. Which is not a thing that will voluntarily happen...

It can and it has. As soon as people can afford contraception, they use it!

The population side will take care of itself. However, a per-person CO2 reduction still needs to happen.

Re:easy

[Tom]

They now expect that 75% of the population growth by 2100 to be in sub-Saharan Africa,

Yes, though I heard Asia is also growing strongly, so I'm surprised by 75%, I would've expected something around 50%. But we agree in principle.

The other 98% is split almost evenly between increasing affluence and technological efficiency.

That is the thing. The additional billion or so we will add in the nearest future are not going to be dirt poor subsistance farmers. They and their parents want to partake in the prosperity of the west. We are increasing efficiency, but at the same time the base rate keeps going up.

But to avoid accusations of "alarmism", they assumed that all countries that had not peaked would peak immediately (because that gives the most rapid reduction).

Progress isn't linear. War, famine, religion and other disasters can and do throw countries back along the path of progress, with all the side-effects that has.

Globally, I have a feeling that we are degenerating as a species. Just compare the expectations of the future of the 70s with those of today. Where are the visions? And where are we headed?

The assumption that we will rapidly and linearily increase efficiency and reduce energy consumption and carbon emission is short-sighted and in total ignorance of history, which goes in boom-bust cycles, not in trend lines. It ignores catastrophe scenarios - yes, maybe statistically speaking in 2100 we will have reduced emissions, but the statistics isn't any good if we have a few global catastrophies along the way.
Never forget that statistics is what tells you that a game of russian roulette is, on average, a profitable game to play.

More than a rainforest without rain

[budha_burger]

It's not just the rainforest. In the Catskills and Hudson Valley of New York, the insect population has been devastated. There were practically no crickets or katydids in Kingston in September and October. It was wierd. The zombies living around me scarcely noticed. People are oblivious or in deep denial. There's been no sudden deforestation, uptick in heavy industry...hell we even cleaned up a few Superfund sites. And except for some drought in the late 90's or early 2000's the climate has not been exceptionally hot, cold or dry. Just damn irregular. Something else is going on -- or we reached a global ticking point. Personally I find it hard to imagine that so many species, especially hardy ones with plenty of food like crickets, katydids and moths, suddenly reached a tipping point due to our local climate change. "Chemtrails" perhaps? Who the fuck knows.

Re:More than a rainforest without rain

[maestroX]

Who the fuck knows.

Don't know about the rainforest, but here in Europe it's pesticides in agriculture and villages (e.g. removing weed from paved paths).
Easy to spot, sudden drop of native insectivorous bird population.

Glyphosate.

Re:More than a rainforest without rain

[ranton]

There were practically no crickets or katydids in Kingston in September and October. It was wierd. The zombies living around me scarcely noticed. People are oblivious or in deep denial.

Or they were happy there were less noisy insects.

Re:More than a rainforest without rain

[greythax]

Many times the vulnerabilities in insect populations are do not to harsh conditions for adults, but delicacy of their eggs. Small changes in humidity, temperature or host plant species can cause them to be non-viable This country used to be blanketed yearly by 1000 mile long carpet of locusts that blacked out the sun. But then we expanded west and turned the grassland where they buried their eggs into farmland. And then they disappeared, despite there being plenty of food left.

Re:More than a rainforest without rain

[omfglearntoplay]

Please double check your sources on the eggs, Wikipedia seems to disagree. Wikipedia with references is saying that the Rocky Mountain Locusts, at least, laid eggs at high altitudes and the prairies were just where they sometimes spread to. They went from possibly the most abundant species of animal in the world to extinct in 30 years... around 1902, and nobody has proved exactly why I take it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

" with one famous sighting in 1875 estimated at 198,000 square miles (510,000 km2) in size (greater than the area of California), weighing 27.5 million tons and consisting of some 12.5 trillion insects, the greatest concentration of animals ever speculatively guessed, according to Guinness World Records.[2]"

"The first mention of Melanoplus spretus appears in 1887 in publications by S.H. Scudder.[6][7] Although the name "Rocky Mountain locust" was thought to have been given to this species following recovery of specimens washing off from Rocky Mountains glaciers in recent years, particularly from the Grasshopper Glacier, the name was given to the species, while it was still extant, after it had been established that the true habitat and breeding site of the species is high on the Rocky Mountains. The species is reported to have descended from the Rocky Mountains to the prairie in large numbers only in certain years, particularly in dry seasons, following westward wind currents. Outbreaks usually lasted two consecutive years. Although a great number of eggs were laid on the prairie during outbreak years, individuals hatched from these eggs usually did not thrive, a condition that has been attributed to the lack of adaptation of this species to prairie habitats"

Re:More than a rainforest without rain

[omfglearntoplay]

On second reading/thought, I guess some sea creatures like krill or something are probably more abundant across the planet. But anyway, that crazy sighting with trillions of individuals is some king of impressive and scary.

Re: More than a rainforest without rain

[greythax]

Like most things i have been taught in my life, it doesn't surprise me that there is more to the story, however, based solely off what you have quoted, I would say it reinforces the central message of my post. Insect reproduction is highly dependent on environmental changes.

Re:More than a rainforest without rain

[Wrath0fb0b]

Glyphosate is a herbicide, not a pesticide.

Re: More than a rainforest without rain

[omfglearntoplay]

Definitely so. Life, even insect life, is often fragile. I was shocked to read of something so prolific to become extinct so quickly... very freaky.

Re:More than a rainforest without rain

[maestroX]

Glyphosate is a herbicide, not a pesticide.

Word play, a herbicide is just a form of pesticide.
Wherever it's used liberally, bird population drops more effectively than shooting and more invasively than we (=bird watchers/foresters) would expect if we account for habitat loss.
There's lots of ditches interconnecting patches of small forests, essential ecosystem supplying water and food.
Approx 20 years ago I patrolled the woods greeted by bird warning calls, I saw the population/foilage moving away from the edges of farmlands/ditches until now there is pretty much nothing left.
So, we can lecture it's safe because only plants do EPSP synthase, but it's the trees that live and the animals, even crows, that are fucking decimated.

Re:Pretending to know better than data w/o looking

[GameboyRMH]

GMO baked-in toxins,

That's a very efficient way to emergency-jettison any scientific credibility you might've had.

Surprising....

[beheaderaswp]

Wasn't expecting it... but this really bugs me.

Evolution has many turns

[AndyKron]

Maybe the bugs evolved to avoid sticky plates?

Probable Cause

[CanadianMacFan]

All those scientists and their sticky plates wiped out the insects.

Re: monocropping annuls & ecosystem destructi

[js290]

"Scaling... not incompatible to be libertarian at the state level, communist at the commune level... Singapore vs China... Norway (size of NYC borough) vs Canada vs USA" --Nassim Taleb http://youtu.bet3m8s/

Re: monocropping annuls & ecosystem destruct

[js290]

I think that's called "fascism." didn't Nixon famously say in 1971, "we're all fascists now"?

And yet, ppl fight nuclear energy

[WindBourne]

Seriously, we are destroying our planet due to massive CO2. We need to stop burning all fossil fuel. The only way is adding Nukes to AE.

Total western entitlement

[Uberbah]

Remove 2 billion people from the planet.

It's not the human population, it's the human resource consumption. As the average American uses 30 times the amount of resources as people in developing countries, removing the USA would be equivalent to "removing" the poor from around the world many times over.

Ban coal power outright.

Sure.

LFTR reactor research funded to pre-Jimmy-Carter levels.

Cost and time make nuclear power unjustifiable. Taking 20 years and $20 billion to build a new nuclear power plant is already a non-starter even if climate change didn't exist. But if we need to replace coal, wind and solar can be rolled out in a fraction of the time, for a fraction of the cost, with none of the risks presented by nuclear energy.

Re: monocropping annuls & ecosystem destructio

[Uberbah]

The Soviets had "money". The problem was the whole nation was run by state monopolies.

You say that like it was a bad thing. Soviets had universal health care, education, housing, and no stock market bubbles that would periodically pop, that would make the poor poorer and the rich richer, as capitalists would swoop in and buy up assets at discount prices.

Re: monocropping annuls & ecosystem destruc

[WindBourne]

And trump said, we are all Nazis now.

Humans are very adaptable

[TomGreenhaw]

We'll find a way to make do with a shitty and changing environment. Unfortunately the only remaining insects will feed on us. We are made out of meat.

Re: monocropping annuls & ecosystem destruc

[js290]

Keep trying...

Opinion | Trump just deported a Nazi. That’s a move I can get behind. https://wapo.st/2whWU0F?tid=ss...

Re: monocropping annuls & ecosystem destructi

[js290]

"Scaling... not incompatible to be libertarian at the state level, communist at the commune level... Singapore vs China... Norway (size of NYC borough) vs Canada vs USA" --Nassim Taleb http://youtu.bet3m8s/

corrected link: https://youtu.be/Dn_XEDPIeU8?t...

Glyphosate is an herbicide, not an insecticide

[blackhedd]

Just sayin'

Re:You are a bit, caffeinated bacon

[muecksteiner]

You contribute nothing to life. Go commit suicide and help the planet.

I wish I had mod points to mod you up. :)

Re:hyperbole much?

[Shotgun]

Except, there wasn't a drop in rainfall...

Before we call in Thanos

[bugs2squash]

I suspect it is all down to scientists over-collecting

Before, both the sticky ground plates and canopy plates would be covered with insects. You'd be there for hours picking them off the plates at night

If we engage more scientists to research the issue it will only get worse

Re:I blame the GOP.....

[Shotgun]

You blame the GOP, because you're an idiot.

We have also seen the Dem plan. Give all the wealth to the politicians through confiscatory taxation levels, destroying the economy's base.

Re:Dumbest thing I've ever heard

[Woeful Countenance]

If insects could be wiped out by a 1-2 degree variance in temperature, they would have gone extinct hundreds of millions of years ago.

This is OBVIOUSLY a result of PESTICIDE use.

1. Could be both pesticide use and global warming. (Is there evidence that the insects were exposed to pesticides? Is the problem that insects are dying, or that they're not reproducing successfully?)

2. The present situation isn't just "1-2 degree variance in temperature", it's a change in temperature (and other related conditions) over an unusually short period of time. That may make a difference.

3. A lot of species HAVE gone extinct, according to the fossil record, and according to contemporary records, many more species of insects (and some mammals) continue to go extinct.

Re:Decimate?

[Woeful Countenance]

I think people confuse "decimate" with "devastate".

Phrasing!

[SuperKendall]

Reductio ad Hitlerum is a debate losing logical fallacy.

Good thing I used Exposio ad Hitlerum then.

if climate change is the cause

[sad_]

all those insects probably moved to another place that now has the conditions their original habitat once had?

hot humid rainforest global warming ?

[fygment]

Have actually been to the rainforest in question.
Would really like to know how global warming is an issue ... ... especially for insects which generally are a pretty hardy bunch of creatures.
_This_ type of report is why there remain people highly skeptical of scientific pronouncements.