Slashdot Mirror
Insects Could Vanish Within a Century At Current Rate of Decline, Says Global Review (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The world's insects are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a "catastrophic collapse of nature's ecosystems," according to the first global scientific review. More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century. The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are "essential" for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.
Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: "The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet. The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors. "One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects," the study says, noting a recent study in Puerto Rico where there was a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years. Butterflies and moths are among the worst hit.
Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: "The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet. The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors. "One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects," the study says, noting a recent study in Puerto Rico where there was a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years. Butterflies and moths are among the worst hit.
By the time this whips back around to fuck humanity, the denialist will be spouting off how mass extinctions happened in the past without human influence. Perfectly normal part of the lifecycle in Earth.
Is it really necessary to talk about extrapolation?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Insects are a keystone species in many food webs. Without insects, many plant waste products (wood logs, dead grasses, fallen leaves, etc) would not break down fast enough for the carbon and nutrients to be recycled into the food chain, or otherwise returned to the ecosystem.
Add to that, that insects are essential pollinators for many plant species, including (and especially) those that are valuable human agricultural crops, (or are otherwise essential to other macrofauna), and you end up with bad juju very quickly.
The loss of insect species at this rate is alarming. Very alarming. Making quips about mother fucking donald trump, or wasting everyone's goddamn time with pointing fingers at one political group or the other to preserve their complacent lifestyles and personal peace of mind--- rather than being mindful and alert about this problem, and going for the needed fixes to prevent the looming catastrophe this represents--- It is fucking damning as hell about why this catastrophe has happened in the first place; It's part of the problem, not any solution.
I slept in a half hour today. At this rate I'll be sleeping for nearly 200 hours per day this time next year.
I extrapolate that by 2035, all intelligent discourse will consist of threads of XKCD links.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
I extrapolate that by 2035, all intelligent discourse will consist of threads of XKCD links.
You can't find an XKCD for that?
I extrapolate that by 2035, all intelligent discourse will consist of threads of XKCD links.
We should be so lucky. I can imagine worse.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
No it will not, XKCD links are actually a source of the problem.
I like XKCD and all, but let get real for a minute, problems can hardly be summed up as such and are tantamount to nothing other than mudslinging. Unless someone is 100% in lock step with your beliefs on something then XKCD articles are mostly used to imply that dissenters are just ignorant morons. The problem is far more complex and what is even worse... XKCD's articles are better though of as a problem that all sides in every debate shares.
Everyone has confirmation bias, and all sides have people that will overlook the sins of their fellow compatriots because the ends really do justify the means. Take an politically polarized subject and you will find someone calling for criminal charges, fines, imprisonment, and even the death of those disagreeing with them. There is no faster proof of an unscientific moron than when someone trots out one of these following fallacies...
Consensus = Truth/Fact/Proof.
Correlation = Causation.
Gatekeeping qualifications... Only a certified, licensed, or recognized group/institution/team are allowed to have an opinion... except skeptics because their opinions are invalidated by the professionals that I happen to agree with.
Gaslighting people for not believing in something.
Asking for skeptics to prove a negative, or asking that they provide scientific evidence for their position when the evidence being unable to convince them is the evidence.
Acceptance of controvertible evidence, scare or abundant, as good enough to be proof as though it were incontrovertible evidence.
I don't consider name calling or generic aspersions as proof someone does not know what they are talking about. Even Einstein said... Only two things are infinite... the universe and human stupidity and I am not sure about the former.
People are stupid... epicly stupid, and human stupidity is constantly being underrated. Especially proven by all the pseudo scientists guilty of the fallacies I mentioned above.
Hopefully XKCD will keep being nothing more than a funny and witty little site where groups of pseudo intellectuals can mentally masturbate with each other.
First we were told cockroaches were the only things that were survive a nuclear war. Now we are to believe that insects are super fragile? I don't think so, they have a super short lifespan and prodigious replication rates so as to be able to out-evolve any threat and take over any exposed ecological niche.
1. Cockroaches can survive nuclear war.
2. Cockroaches are insects.
3. Therefore, stop worrying about the ecological fragility of insects.
That's logically compelling. Not.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Just as true as the original headline: "Insect researchers could vanish within a century!"
The italicized word is doing a lot of work in both sentences....
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Don't worry, someone is just running Earth in debug mode.
The entire planet Earth could spontaneously explode in 15 minutes.
It won't, but it could. It COULD.
This is a problem humanity is causing that it could fix.
How would it be fixed?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What happens when the food supply declines, because nutrients don't cycle with fauna, because pollinators are gone, because all the interrelated parts of nature unravel? That is the basis for a planet habitable to humans.
Do we use more pesticides to fight harder for what's left, considering that pesticides cause the implosion of the very ecosystem benefits we depend on to raise food to begin with? Then we're finished.
What happens to poor people when sustenance and shelter and resources that once came freely become scarce? I'm sure the rich will have their hydroponic gardens - atop places where oaks once rivaled wheat fields for output and salmon arrived to spawn in such numbers that it appeared possible to walk across rivers on their back. If manufactured solutions are a replacement for ecosystems for the many, though, why aren't we all snapping up real estate in places like the Sahara or Antarctica?
We are turning an Eden into a much more barren world, because we so insist on dominating and concentrating its wealth. We don't live where ecosystems aren't established. Humans have got to learn to share the world with others - or else.
At this rate I'll be sleeping for nearly 200 hours per day this time next year.
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
For around the past 5 years, I've generally noticed simply less insects around in places I would traditionally expect them.
Obviously they are still around but there just /seems/ to be less.
I am firmly, firmly in the camp of the post, I definitely believe we've begun the 6'th mass extinction. It's gonna be a doozy.
Huh? Why do you consider me being a downer for refuting the guys claim that all future intelligent discourse would be XKCD links?
I said I like XKCD and I said they are witty, I am just saying that if all discourse being distilled down into XKCD links then it is just a sign of the problem.
Nothing of what I said was pseudo-intellectual, many well respected scientists including Nobel Laureates have espoused the exact same views I have on the subject. Heck even many therapists have commented negatively on our "twitter" like shortness in regards to the news.
I also did not saying XKCD was not relevant, but I am saying it is counter productive because it really over generalizes many issues without providing any solutions. Of course XKCD is hilarious sometimes... that is the nature of humor.
I already said I like XKCD, just that people often don't care about the material at hand and are instead in a dead rush to be first to be right, with someone else's words.
And slashdot is just fine for at least some meaningful debate, just because it may not be able to be vigorous is not call to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Stop using all of these nasty chemicals and start looking for ways to control for problems without causing other problems.
One of the main reasons we use chemicals is because governments only allow chemicals to get patents, well... time to get rid of patents so businesses will no longer have a perverse incentive to develop nasty chemicals as solutions to problems and instead let them develop more natural solutions, they do exist, they just cannot be monetized and for good reason!
What is sad here is that people no longer listen to smart people, the moment they find something in their politics they don't like and they get buried under the mountain of morons and the moment they offend one of the gate-keepers they are marginalized into oblivion. It is one of the reasons the internet is turning into a giant divided mess of echo chambers. No one cares to learn the truth, they just care to parrot ideals.
And in 100 years you'll be sleeping 18,000 hours a day.
Which is pretty much the truth.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I propose you see if there is actually a problem before acting or panicking. Wow, what a radical concept, to insist on replication of results.
Why not check to see if there are other comparable results before using rhetoric which depends on their non-existence?
https://journals.plos.org/plos...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
As a child, I used to wish for this to happen.
Why, so you can bury your head in the sand and sing la la la la la whilst we exterminate the planet? Sure there will be some slow down eventually but so far in Europe at least half the insects are dead already and we are heading for a disaster the likes of which we've never seen before if we don't change our rape and pollute the planet ways.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Insects provide $57 billion in ecological services to the USA alone, and that's just dealing with quantifiable things.
https://www.scientificamerican...
The analysis, published in the journal Biological Conservation, says intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides. Urbanization and climate change are also significant factors.
No, habitat loss from intensive agriculture and urbanization are both the main driver.
The heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers are second.
Invasive species and diseases from microorganisms are third (not mentioned).
Climate change is fourth.
From the abstract:
The main drivers of species declines appear to be in order of importance:
i) habitat loss and conversion to intensive agriculture and urbanisation;
ii) pollution, mainly that by synthetic pesticides and fertilisers;
iii) biological factors, including pathogens and introduced species; and
iv) climate change.
It's been the last couple of years of significant decline only. I'm a pilot, and as an unavoidable side effect of flying I kill lots of insects, which afterwards need to be cleaned from the plane. Cleaning has become noticeably easier over the last few years. However, I'm quite sure that this is a local artificial process, i.e. more advanced (less natural) agriculture in this area.
Climate change is going to make an impact in future, especially if we're going to see the typical +5C up within a few decades as has happened a couple of times in the (long) past, but I'm quite sure humans can help seed some bugs from here to there to make the transition more smooth than it would otherwise be.
Actually the article is watered down a bit from the paper.
The paper says that [o]ur work reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world's insect species over the next few decades., not merely declining.
I'd be happy it was just spiders that were going extinct (and mosquitos and roaches, too). The rest of em' don't really bug me.
Lets talk for a minute, objectively, about alarmist fake-news.
Okay.
The above is anecdotal evidence; one person, one observation.
Not it's not. It's a scholarly paper with many observations of insect biomass and local tempertature..
Am I going to seriously make a change to my lifestyle because the never fallable Brad Lister, scientist extraordinair, made an observation? No. The bar of evidence is a study. I need hard data.
The data are decribed in the paper linked above. Knock yourself out.
Lowest price I can find for me to get copies was around $6k.
So there's two possibilities here; either this is fake news and I have a publication so desperate they need to post clickbait, or this isn't fake news and the rich are keeping vital information from the public because, most likely, we're screwed as a species.
There's a third possilbilty. This research was published in a scientific journal that isn't open access.
First we were told cockroaches were the only things that were survive a nuclear war. Now we are to believe that insects are super fragile?
Gosh you're right! Cockroaches are insects. Thererfore all inscts are cockroaches. Let's expand it. Cockraoches are animals therefore all animals are cockraoches. Including you.
This does make a lot more sense now.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
The one time humans could have maybe made dent, with DDT and mosquitos, they checked out thanks to more fake science [reason.com] that claimed DDT harmed birds eggs.
No, that's not fake science.
DDT and Birds
Birds played a major role in creating awareness of pollution problems. Indeed, many people consider the modern environmental movement to have started with the publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson's classic Silent Spring, which described the results of the misuse of DDT and other pesticides. In the fable that began that volume, she wrote: "It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh." Silent Spring was heavily attacked by the pesticide industry and by narrowly trained entomologists, but its scientific foundation has stood the test of time. Misuse of pesticides is now widely recognized to threaten not only bird communities but human communities as well.
The potentially lethal impact of DDT on birds was first noted in the late 1950s when spraying to control the beetles that carry Dutch elm disease led to a slaughter of robins in Michigan and elsewhere. Researchers discovered that earthworms were accumulating the persistent pesticide and that the robins eating them were being poisoned. Other birds fell victim, too. Gradually, thanks in no small part to Carson's book, gigantic "broadcast spray" programs were brought under control.
But DDT, its breakdown products, and the other chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides (and nonpesticide chlorinated hydrocarbons such as PCBs) posed a more insidious threat to birds. Because these poisons are persistent they tend to concentrate as they move through the feeding sequences in communities that ecologists call "food chains." For example, in most marine communities, the living weight (biomass) of fish-eating birds is less than that of the fishes they eat. However, because chlorinated hydrocarbons accumulate in fatty tissues, when a ton of contaminated fishes is turned into 200 pounds of seabirds, most of the DDT from the numerous fishes ends up in a relatively few birds. As a result, the birds have a higher level of contamination per pound than the fishes. If Peregrine Falcons feed on the seabirds, the concentration becomes higher still. With several concentrating steps in the food chain below the level of fishes (for instance, tiny aquatic plants crustacea small fishes), very slight environmental contamination can be turned into a heavy pesticide load in birds at the top of the food chain. In one Long Island estuary, concentrations of less than a tenth of a part per million (PPM) of DDT in aquatic plants and plankton resulted in concentrations of 3-25 PPM in gulls, terns, cormorants, mergansers, herons, and ospreys.
"Bioconcentration" of pesticides in birds high on food chains occurs not only because there is usually reduced biomass at each step in those chains, but also because predatory birds tend to live a long time. They may take in only a little DDT per day, but they keep most of what they get, and they live many days.
The insidious aspect of this phenomenon is that large concentrations of chlorinated hydrocarbons do not usually kill the bird outright. Rather, DDT and its relatives alter the bird's calcium metabolism in a way that results in thin eggshells. Instead of eggs, heavily DDT-infested Brown Pelicans and Bald Eagles tend to find omelets in their nests, since the eggshells are unable to support the weight of the incubating bird.
Shell-thinning resulted in the decimation of the Brown Pelican populations in much of North America and the extermination the Peregrine Falcon in the eastern United States and southeastern Canada. Shell-thinning caused lesser declines in populations of Golden and Bald Eagles and White Pelicans, among others. Similar declines took place in the Br
Just as true as the original headline: "Insect researchers could vanish within a century!"
The italicized word is doing a lot of work in both sentences....
And of course the solution is to sit on your ass and do nothing except make snarky comments and maybe increase the use of pesticides because the 70-90% declines in insect populations we are seeing already is clearly a non-issue.
We're all gonna die!!! Eleventy!!! This may be a genuine problem. Or it may not. There is no way for the average person to know. Breathless headlines touting climatic disaster have become so ubiquitous that my first reaction - and that of many people - is a yawn. Ecologists and climate alarmists have done their causes active harm.
Are insects declining? Sure, along with all other animal species that share our habitat. Intuitively, mass agriculture is the most likely culprit, since it creates huge zones of monoculture. Amusingly, the vegetarians may be doing active harm - I'll bet that good, natural grazing land has more biodiversity than a soy field. But the real problem is and remains human overpopulation.
tl;dr: Our planet would be a lot healthier if there were fewer of us.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
The only good planet is a dead planet.
So I guess you'll be fine with eating just bread, oatmeal porridge and hazelnuts?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
You should mostly care because of the amount of effort being made to push such politicized BS down your throat, mostly in the aim of growing government control over you.
Its not a new thing, we even have a word for it, Totalitarianism.
The '98% drop' BS has been widely and strongly show to be utter BS, basically written an a sensationalist opinion piece by a 'researcher' who wanted a bit of attention, using a highly selected location which was statistically irrelevant and measures a short time after a couple of natural disasters had slammed the local ecosystem.
Most people with a bit of critical thinking made it about 10% of the way through before seeing this and turning off.
The media however grabbed and ran with what is pure sensationalism.
Now we have the second wave, people trying to use this false 'fact' to grab their own little bit of media frenzy attention.
Why does this happen? Its simple really, it suits the powers-that-be that there are 'scary things' for them to protect us from. They always love a good 'do something or there will be a disaster!' story.. because it gives them the ability to grab a bit more power, which they never let go.
Piss off
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
This is a better link, btw:
http://www.xerces.org/wp-conte...
and I smell bullshit. Second digit? Really? Interpret this bullshit figure as 0-100B estimate.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
You are more or less correct, no matter what happens life itself will continue by adapting and evolving (you're a bit off on the timescales, the changes will be a lot slower than you seem to think), we humans pose very little threat to the continuation of life in general.
However a secondary or tertiary effect of the changes likely to happen is that humans go extinct. Change is good, change is normal, for the planet as a whole. Not so good for our species in particular.
What's the most depressing is we are causing the very changes that will bring about our own extincting. Moreover we are aware (some of us are, some chose to deny) of the changes we are causing and that they will likely lead to our extinction, we still have the ability to reverse them but we chose not to.
The vast majority of "nasty chemicals" which kill insects are naturally occurring insectides which plants themselves have developed as a defense mechanism. Good luck getting rid of those.
You obviously don't. But a lot of people do because if not us then any kids we have, are looking likely to experience our own extinction unless there is drastic action (which is very unlikely, as humanity simply doesn't change that quickly). That's going to be no picnic for anyone
Funny you should mention xkcd... https://xkcd.com/1732/
is obvious, if somewhat cynical. Stop using new pesticides. Get used to reduced yields and higher prices of food. There will be famines in the 3rd world. It is inevitable. The human population on our Earth is already well past the line where it can be fed safely. The first few decades will be the hardest. But a century in the future, our descendants will thank us for having evaded the looming catastrophe.
Insects can adapt to climate change (unlike humans, apparently). All of nature can adapt to climate change.
However, insects cannot adapt to being bathed in nerve agents. The entire planet needs to immediately stop using insecticides of all kinds.
"But people will starve!"
Then tell people to stop making so many babies they can't feed. Seriously. We reproduce so damn irresponsibly it's sickening. We already have 10 times the people the Earth can sustainably feed and we keep right on paying people to crank out 10 kids and rewarding irresponsible behavior in exchange for votes.
Two things will solve this mass extinction event we've started:
1) Mandatory sterilization after 1 child. If the kid dies, too bad.
2) Complete global ban on all insecticide use in agriculture
Get the world population down to 1 billion and all the problems humans are causing go away.
What I can tell you is there here in Northern Ontario, Canada, when I used to go fishing as a boy (~35 years ago) our truck would be covered with insect guts before we even got to our destination 50 miles away. You would be eaten alive by flies and mosquitoes at the destination until you got out onto the water.
Nowadays, we can go and do the same trip and it's not apparent we've hit even a single bug on the way. And bugs at the shoreline are hardly a nuisance anymore, relatively speaking.
And it's not just insects. I can go on a trip in the bush and not see any animals, not even birds sometimes.
I can't speak for anywhere else in the world, but something is very wrong with this.
Cockroaches could be the food of the future.
$57 is easy to come up with. Just tax the rich and finally start making them pay their fair share and we won't need the bugs. We can do $57B worth of things EASILY. It's barely more than 1% of the entire budget (not even including state and local budgets).
I used to spend a lot of time in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin islands in the 1970s. I remember anole lizards being all over the place. I recently visited Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands and I thought there were significantly fewer lizards running around. The lizards eat insects so I would be curious if there is any evidence of decreased lizard food causing trouble with the population. I must admit that I think that insects are remarkable adaptable and resilient and I find it hard to believe that insect populations are declining that fast, but the lack of lizards in the Caribbean seems real to me.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
You read the materials and methods section?
An you found they used 6 data points?
I'll copy the relevant part of the section here:
Arthropod Samples.
Lister (22) sampled arthropods within the Luquillo forest during July 1976 and January 1977. Following the same procedures and using the same study area, arthropod abundances were again estimated during July 2011 and January 2012 using both sticky-traps and sweep netting. Our 10 traps were the same size (34 × 24 cm) as Lister’s (22), and also utilized Tanglefoot as the sticky substance. Traps were laid out on the ground in the same-sized grid (30 × 24 m), and also left uncovered for 12 h between dawn and dusk before all captured insects were removed and stored in alcohol. Hoop sizes of our sweep nets (30-cm diameter) matched those used by Lister (22). Body lengths of all captured arthropods were measured to the nearest 0.5 mm using a dissecting scope and ocular micrometer. Regression equations were used to estimate individual dry weights from body lengths (142, 143).
Anolis Abundance.
To compare Anolis densities with Lister’s (22) estimates from July 1976 and January 1977, we sampled anoles within the same 15 × 15-m quadrat during July 2011 and January 2012. Following Lister (22), we used the Schnabel multiple recapture method (27) to estimate densities. However, instead of marking captured lizards by toe clipping, we used Testor’s enamel paint to create small (2 mm) spots with different color combinations directly above the dorsal base of the tail.
Climate Data.
We analyzed climate data taken at two locations in the Luquillo forest: the United States Forest Service El Verde Field Station and the Bisley Lower meteorological tower, which is part of the Luquillo Critical Zone Observatory. The El Verde station lies 5 km southwest of our study area (18.3211 N, 65.8200 W), at an elevation of 350 m. The upper Bisley Tower is located 3.2 km southeast of our study area (18.3164 N, 65.7453 W) at 352 m in elevation. Temperature data for the El Verde station span 37 y, from 1978 to 2015 (Fig. 1A), and for the Bisley station 21 y from 1993 to 2014 (Fig. 1B). Given that the highest ambient temperatures for a given area should have the greatest impact on fitness, especially for ectotherms (144), daily maximum temperatures were utilized in our analyses. Climate data for the Estacion de Biologia Chamela were obtained from www.ibiologia.unam.mx/ebchamela/www/clima.html.
Luquillo Long-Term Ecological Research Data.
Data sets from the Luquillo long-term ecological research (LTER) online Data Center were downloaded and analyzed for trends in population abundances over time. Detailed methods employed in the various studies can be found at the LTER Data Center website (https://luq.lter.network/luquillo-information-management-system-luq-ims).
Canopy arthropods.
Data were collected by Schowalter (23) near the El Verde field station between February 1991 and June 2009. Several articles have analyzed these samples with respect to invertebrate diversity, functional groups, arthropod composition in gap and intact forest, and recovery from disturbance (145), but none have looked for trends in overall abundance. Here we summed all arthropods sampled each year across taxa, forest type, and tree genera.
Walking sticks.
We analyzed data from a census of walking sticks (Lamponius portoricensis) carried out by Willig et al. (24) between 1991 and 2014 in the 16-ha Luquillo Forest Dynamics Plot (LFDP) near the El Verde Field Station. Sampling was conducted during the wet and dry seasons and captured individuals were classified as adults or juveniles. To analyze walking stick abundance through time, we summed all juveniles and adults across seasons and land classes.
E. coqui abundance.
We analyze census data for the Puerto Rican frog E. coqui taken by Woolbright (29, 30) between 1987 and 1997 at study areas n
Stop the import of the bad pesticides.
Stop removing the forests for farm land and housing.
The bugs will return when the bad use of pesticides stops.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Yet nobody can explain how we could have this effect if it started before we actually began putting carbon into the air in large quantities.
This has the smell of yet another chicken-little, panic-the-plebes boost-your-power propaganda operation.
First off, congrats for being able to smell academic papers. I have to read them with my eyes, and then interpret them with my brain. I wish I could just smell them. That would certainly save a lot of time.
Secondly, who gets what sort of power from this paper that you smelled?
I don't respond to AC's.
I understand statistics very well, thanks. If you're not scared, it's clear that you don't.
I don't respond to AC's.
Every single time there's a study like this, there's another study that wants us to panic over the exact opposite. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
A few weeks ago--I'm pretty sure it was right here on Slashdot--we were being told we were headed for some calamity because world-wide warming was going to make the disease-carrying insert population explode and there wasn't a damned thing we can do about it. Except cut carbon, as usual the miracle solution.
I'll believe any compelling evidence as much as the next guy, but please, when you have such contradictory positions, stop making the claim "the science is settled" and acting as if it was all done deal. Because you can't have both opposites going on at the same time.
It's called the Holocene extinction event. It may or may not have been going on since we spread out around the globe.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
This ! Agriculture is destructive on the environment, leading to loss of top soil, destruction of local plants and animals. Check what happened to Limberlost Swamp.
Too bad that's not how it works. So far the only attempts to build a controlled biosphere which will support humans have failed for a combination of technical and personal reasons. And the cockroaches will likely persist in spite of any efforts to the contrary, because they are so very resilient. Mosquitoes might go eventually, but you will probably go first.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Pot, meet kettle.
The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century
But 0.975^100 ~ 8% not 0.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Why, so you can bury your head in the sand and sing la la la la la whilst we exterminate the planet? Sure there will be some slow down eventually but so far in Europe at least half the insects are dead already and we are heading for a disaster the likes of which we've never seen before if we don't change our rape and pollute the planet ways.
Does this mean that Europe will now import masses of insects from third world countries and call anyone who disagrees racist?
It's OK. In 100 years, Windows will still be chock full 'o bugs.
You are more or less correct, no matter what happens life itself will continue by adapting and evolving (you're a bit off on the timescales, the changes will be a lot slower than you seem to think), we humans pose very little threat to the continuation of life in general.
However a secondary or tertiary effect of the changes likely to happen is that humans go extinct. Change is good, change is normal, for the planet as a whole. Not so good for our species in particular.
It is very unlikely that humanity will go extinct. We're the first species who can respond effectively to being endangered.
Though I suppose one could quibble about whether it matters if the population goes from 7.5B to 10M or if it goes to 0M. I mean, humanity survives, but everyone you know and all their descendants are dead.
First we were told cockroaches were the only things that were survive a nuclear war. Now we are to believe that insects are super fragile? I don't think so, they have a super short lifespan and prodigious replication rates so as to be able to out-evolve any threat and take over any exposed ecological niche.
SuperKendall, you are making incorrect logical steps. I'll spell out for you where.
The popular press article said "More than 40% of insect species are declining". That relates to a sentence from the original academic paper, "Our work reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world's insect species over the next few decades." https://www.sciencedirect.com/...
Obviously that means that 60% of insect species AREN'T declining.
Your faulty logic was (1) from the figure that 40% are declining you understood that all insect species are fragile, and (2) you know that cockroaches are robust and assumed they must be in the 40% of declining species, rather than in the 60% of non-declining species.
If we abandon that faulty logic and instead think how to reconcile the data which suggests decline in some species, with the knowledge that cockroaches are robust? Here's one obvious resolution, building as it does upon your own statement about fast-breeding and adaptability:
https://www.bbc.com/news/scien...
"Fast-breeding pest insects will probably thrive because of the warmer conditions, because many of their natural enemies, which breed more slowly, will disappear, " said Prof Dave Goulson from the University of Sussex who was not involved in the review.
"It's quite plausible that we might end up with plagues of small numbers of pest insects, but we will lose all the wonderful ones that we want, like bees and hoverflies and butterflies and dung beetles that do a great job of disposing of animal waste."
Prof Goulson said that some tough, adaptable, generalist species - like houseflies and cockroaches - seem to be able to live comfortably in a human-made environment and have evolved resistance to pesticides.
> intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, particularly the heavy use of pesticides.
This ! Agriculture is destructive on the environment, leading to loss of top soil, destruction of local plants and animals. Check what happened to Limberlost Swamp.
It says nowhere that insects have died out. So yes, you still will find insects everywhere. All the article says is that the amount of insects being around falls 2.5% every year. So if you turn a stone today, you will find only about 97.5% of the insects you would have found a year ago.
It might actually be better to target certain insects for complete extinction via the new CRISPR-based technologies. These would be the specific insects that people are trying so hard to poison right now. Removing the economic motive for indiscriminate use of insecticide might just help save the others. Research would be needed to see if this could be effective, just don't take too long.
>whilst we exterminate the planet?
You are a blithering alarmist imbecile. Go kill youself.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
You are very ignorant, go educate yourself.
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There's nothing theoretical about the huge decline in insect numbers, Germany has a 75% decline, France now has a 50% decline in birds likely due to the decline in insects.
If you're not scared it's because you don't know enough about the level of destruction going on.
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Nobody in your knitting circle, maybe, but climate scientists can explain that graph pretty well these days.
I confess I feel horribly guilty when I think about the world my children will be raising their children in. One hundred years from now looks so grim.
If you're not scared it's because you don't know enough about the level of destruction going on.
If I'm not scared it's because I'm an adult and somewhere along the way learned to face reality. Time to grow up, Mr Logic.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I understand statistics very well, thanks.
Good job, I'm proud of you.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You mean, because it's extrapolating at the end of that graph? Or.......
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
One of the main reasons we use chemicals is because.....mountains of morons
The primary reason we use chemicals is because everything is chemicals. There's no other option.
Your post is clear and readable though, thanks.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'll make you a $50 bet, 2019 USD, that there are insects around in the year 2100. Care to take the counter?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
We're the first species who can respond effectively to being endangered.
The point I was making in my 3rd paragraph (the bit you didn't quote) is that, yes, we COULD respond effectively to being endangered, but (for various reasons) we AREN'T responding effectively. If we were to respond effectively, we'd have significantly cut CO2 emissions and pollution/waste as soon as AGW/etc gained strong scientific consensus. We are NOT responding effectively because those in power who dictate our response either have a financial or political incentive to not respond in an effective way (or they're just plain stupid). We COULD respond effectively but we WON'T and therefore we'll go extinct anyway.
Between the military industrial complex, disposable personal computing devices (smartphones), and hugely extravagant lifestyles for the super rich (to name but a few examples) do you honestly think our species is responding effectively? If your answer is "but we're not endangered yet", by the time we are becoming an endangered species we're well past the point of being too late to change anything anyway.
Seriously. Farming introduces monocultures and reduces populations for large swaths of insects, such as locusts. Stop farming. Problem solved. (Or you could just let insects eat the crops, but the effect is the same.)
Oh, btw, you'll have to run a lot more cattle to feed everyone...
[waits for envirowhacks' heads to explode]
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Why, that would be completely besides the point. A serious bet would be to bet that 50% of insects still remain 10 years from now worldwide as compared to some baseline in the last century.
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If you're not scared it's because you don't know enough about the level of destruction going on.
Fear is a valid human emotion when your life or the life of your family is at risk. It is at risk.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Fear is a valid human emotion
Every emotion is valid, every emotion is irrational. Emotion is the antithesis of rationality.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Emotion is the antithesis of rationality.
No it's not at all, it's rational to feel fear in dangerous situations, that emotion is to stop yourself from getting killed.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Amazing, you don't know the definition of rational.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
We're the first species who can respond effectively to being endangered.
The point I was making in my 3rd paragraph (the bit you didn't quote) is that, yes, we COULD respond effectively to being endangered, but (for various reasons) we AREN'T responding effectively. If we were to respond effectively, we'd have significantly cut CO2 emissions and pollution/waste as soon as AGW/etc gained strong scientific consensus. We are NOT responding effectively because those in power who dictate our response either have a financial or political incentive to not respond in an effective way (or they're just plain stupid). We COULD respond effectively but we WON'T and therefore we'll go extinct anyway.
Between the military industrial complex, disposable personal computing devices (smartphones), and hugely extravagant lifestyles for the super rich (to name but a few examples) do you honestly think our species is responding effectively? If your answer is "but we're not endangered yet", by the time we are becoming an endangered species we're well past the point of being too late to change anything anyway.
I wasn't at all addressing the point of whether we're responding effectively, and I wasn't saying "we're not endangered yet". My post explicitly suggested that on our current course, most of humanity will die, which seems like an ineffective response to me. Just that extinct means ALL of humanity dies, and that probably won't happen.