Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers posted:

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

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

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

A Buttery Pastry posted:

fake edit: Tried to look up insect population growth, stumbled on an article from 2006 talking about how global warming could trigger an insect population boom.

quote:

Call it the beetle baby boom. Climate change could be throwing common tree killers called mountain pine beetles into a reproductive frenzy. A new study suggests that some beetles living in Colorado, which normally reproduce just once annually, now churn out an extra generation of new bugs each year. And that could further devastate the region's forests.

Pine beetles (Dendroctonus ponderosae), which scuttle from New Mexico north into Canada, are trouble for trees, says study co-author Jeffry Mitton, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Beginning in late summer along high altitude sites in the eastern Colorado Rocky Mountains, for instance, swarms of hundreds or even thousands of these small black bugs will single out individual lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta) or related trees, then advance on them en masse. Females dig deep burrows inside the pines' trunks and drop down their eggs. They also deposit a special type of fungus that the insects carry with them that grow inside the trees, eventually helping to kill them. Beetle larvae feed on that same fungus throughout the winter, escaping their burrows the following August.

Recently, pine beetles have inexplicably exploded across their range. In British Canada alone, the insects gutted and killed about 13 million hectares of trees in about a decade. Mitton says it's possible to fly in a small plane over pine forests here for an hour or more and see almost no living pine trees.

Telephones posted:

What the hell is there to do at this point? Early twenties, very little money and no authority. What can I do to be prepared?

Telephones posted:

What the hell is there to do at this point? Early twenties, very little money and no authority. What can I do to be prepared?

Telephones posted:

What the hell is there to do at this point? Early twenties, very little money and no authority. What can I do to be prepared?

Telephones posted:

What the hell is there to do at this point? Early twenties, very little money and no authority. What can I do to be prepared?

Telephones posted:

What the hell is there to do at this point? Early twenties, very little money and no authority. What can I do to be prepared?

VideoGameVet posted:

Lots of pine bark beetles killing trees all over the place, the winters aren't killing them.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-sierra-dead-trees-20170128-story.html

Arglebargle III posted:

Seriously if you haven't see the new Blade Runner go see it, the nightmare future hellscape has been tastefully updated for ecosystem collapse.

Oxxidation posted:

Make peace with dying young.

Xeom posted:

Stop playing video games and buying useless poo poo you don't need, stop wasting time.

VideoGameVet posted:

China is the leading producer of solar panels, has signed onto the Paris Accords, and will probably dominate the EV market in a decade.

the old ceremony posted:

that's great but the world is still going to blame america for climate catastrophe

the british got to rule the world for hundreds of years and as a result they're reviled as the face of murderous colonialism. the americans got to rule the world for about a hundred years and as a result they're reviled as the face of destructive consumerism. whether other countries pollute as much as america doesn't even factor. you were the biggest, you were the loudest, you got noticed and people are going to remember

the old ceremony posted:

that's great but the world is still going to blame america for climate catastrophe

the british got to rule the world for hundreds of years and as a result they're reviled as the face of murderous colonialism. the americans got to rule the world for about a hundred years and as a result they're reviled as the face of destructive consumerism. whether other countries pollute as much as america doesn't even factor. you were the biggest, you were the loudest, you got noticed and people are going to remember

Fojar38 posted:

Chinese solar panels are cheap and inefficient and are a byproduct of mercantalist trade policy more than far-seeing environmental policy, the Paris Accords require China to do literally loving nothing, and lol China can't even build a decent regular car.

You're being had by the propaganda of a crypto-fascist autocracy.

A Buttery Pastry posted:

At least if the cause is (largely) pesticides, there's the possibility of it being more quickly reversed if action is actually taken. I mean, fish stocks can bounce back pretty well if you stop fishing them, on a relatively short time scale, and presumably insects have the potential to bounce back even faster?

fake edit: Tried to look up insect population growth, stumbled on an article from 2006 talking about how global warming could trigger an insect population boom.

Fojar38 posted:

I'm sure that the atmosphere cares a whole lot about China saying the Correct Things while continuing to pollute the poo poo out of it.

VideoGameVet posted:

China is a Kleptocracy.

Rime posted:

Rime posted:

https://i.imgur.com/pmigpyZ.gifv





Just 10 rivers, 8 in Asia alone, may be responsible for dumping almost 4 million tonnes of plastic into the seas every year, accounting for 88-95% of all of plastic pollution in the ocean. Cutting plastic pollution in the 10 rivers could reduce plastic pollution in the ocean by as much as 45%

VideoGameVet posted:

Lots of pine bark beetles killing trees all over the place, the winters aren't killing them.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-sierra-dead-trees-20170128-story.html

Sir Tonk posted:

https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/921565475884208128

Telephones posted:

This is really stressful. I can't believe it. Every few weeks I check in and see how hosed we are and, just gently caress gently caress gently caress we are so hosed.

I can't imagine staring at these facts for a living.

Sir Tonk posted:

https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/921565475884208128

quote:

. Engineers had built several dams on the river north of Delhi to provide drinking water for the capital and irrigation for the states of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Those states, India’s breadbasket, powered the 1960s “green revolution,” feeding the masses. The dams left little water in the river to flow to Delhi, whose population growth outstripped the city’s ability to treat sewage and wastewater.

blowfish posted:

i'd bet money the main reason is habitat fragmentation and the follow-on extinction debt (the time frame is roughly right for this), with larger scale (rather than small scale like analysed in the study) land use change, climate change, and pesticides being smaller additional problems

ChairMaster posted:

Bourlag's not the drat problem, there's no reason the planet can't sustain the 9-10 billion population he helped create.

And by that I mean there is a reason, it's just not a scientific one, it's political. He was a scientist, scientists are generally pretty politically naive and optimistic, especially in the 60s.

ChairMaster posted:

And by that I mean there is a reason, it's just not a scientific one, it's political. He was a scientist, scientists are generally pretty politically naive and optimistic, especially in the 60s.