Big Decline in Insects: 'Ecological Armaggedon'

#1

armchair

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#1
Our flying insects seem to be disappearing--and rapidly, say scientists. The reasons aren't yet clear--but we can assume that chemicals--pesticides--are a major cause. I'm sure Scott Pruitt would tell the scientists that they wrong....I seriously believe that this planet is going to be in a very bad in the not-so-distant future. Animals, frogs, bees, insects, fish, forests....one perhaps can dispute how fast fauna are disappearing, but they are will get scarcer and scarcer. Global warming, over-population (9 billion!), industrial farming, over-fishing, deforestation, drought: There is no question we are ruining the planet--and a lot quicker than most people realize.


Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers | Environment | The Guardian
 
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#3
#3
Driving a truck for a living, I can say that, anecdotally, there are plenty of insects out there.
 
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#4
#4
It's Trumps' fault.

If your parent's cared about this planet, they wouldn't have had you, armchair.
 
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#5
#5
Our flying insects seem to be disappearing--and rapidly, say scientists. The reasons aren't yet clear--but we can assume that chemicals--pesticides--are a major cause. I'm sure Scott Pruitt would tell the scientists that they wrong....I seriously believe that this planet is going to be in a very bad in the not-so-distant future. Animals, frogs, bees, insects, fish, forests....one perhaps can dispute how fast fauna are disappearing, but they are will get scarcer and scarcer. Global warming, over-population (9 billion!), industrial farming, over-fishing, deforestation, drought: There is no question we are ruining the planet--and a lot quicker than most people realize.


Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers | Environment | The Guardian

So what's your solution to overpopulation.
 
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#10
#10
Here's a story from today. Rivers, lakes and oceans are under enormous pressure from pollution (wastewater runoff), overpopulation and over-fishing, etc. It is of course well documented that there are massive quantities of plastic in the oceans. All of the wildlife in these bodies of water are equally under threat. The Great Barrier Reef is rapidly dying. Polar bears are in dire shape now because of the melting ice caps and could disappear altogether. It goes on and on and on....drought and general climate warming seem to get worse by the year.

We in the United States should be environmental leaders--and we have been--but when Republicans are in office we go backwards. I cannot fathom how any person could not be a rabid environmentalist--could not want to protect our precious planet. But, let's be candid, Republicans/conservatives the biggest, most narrow-minded tools on the Earth--always waving off environmental protection in their zeal to throw up another cheap housing development on what was once farmland; always eager to roll back water- and air-quality and other environmental regulations so some industry won't be inconvenienced. Trump has installed staunch anti-environmentalist as head of the EPA--an utterly disgusting move. In the near future--sooner than we think--extreme measures will have to be taken to literally save this planet for humanity because the ignorance and short-sightedness and corruption of people like Scott Pruitt. Trump's Interior Secretary wants to open more land in national parks and national monuments to drilling.

The conservatives who are always yodeling about how environmental regulations hamper the economy are wrong. And even if it were true, we should all be fine with it as, in my view, there is nothing more important than protecting the environment and the planet. Think how much the planet has been degraded in just, say, the last 100 years--massively degraded. Think of what the situation will be like 100 or even 200 years from now. We should be the global leader in environmental protection--but conservatives would rather make a buck, and thus we have the president of China taking a shot at Trump in his speech two days ago on the issue of global warming.

World's deepest lake crippled by putrid algae, poaching and pollution | World news | The Guardian
 
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#11
#11
Here's a story from today. Rivers, lakes and oceans are under enormous pressure from pollution (wastewater runoff), overpopulation and over-fishing, etc. It is of course well documented that there are massive quantities of plastic in the oceans. All of the wildlife in these bodies of water are equally under threat. The Great Barrier Reef is rapidly dying. Polar bears are in dire shape now because of the melting ice caps and could disappear altogether. It goes on and on and on....drought and general climate warming seem to get worse by the year.

We in the United States should be environmental leaders--and we have been--but when Republicans are in office we go backwards. I cannot fathom how any person could not be a rabid environmentalist--could not want to protect our precious planet. But, let's be candid, Republicans/conservatives the biggest, most narrow-minded tools on the Earth--always waving off environmental protection in their zeal to throw up another cheap housing development on what was once farmland; always eager to roll back water- and air-quality and other environmental regulations so some industry won't be inconvenienced. Trump has installed staunch anti-environmentalist as head of the EPA--an utterly disgusting move. In the near future--sooner than we think--extreme measures will have to be taken to literally save this planet for humanity because the ignorance and short-sightedness and corruption of people like Scott Pruitt. Trump's Interior Secretary wants to open more land in national parks and national monuments to drilling.

The conservatives who are always yodeling about how environmental regulations hamper the economy are wrong. And even if it were true, we should all be fine with it as, in my view, there is nothing more important than protecting the environment and the planet. Think how much the planet has been degraded in just, say, the last 100 years--massively degraded. Think of what the situation will be like 100 or even 200 years from now. We should be the global leader in environmental protection--but conservatives would rather make a buck, and thus we have the president of China taking a shot at Trump in his speech two days ago on the issue of global warming.

World's deepest lake crippled by putrid algae, poaching and pollution | World news | The Guardian

"President of China taking a shot at Trump"!:eek:lol:

Having lived in China for the last 15 years I can honestly say, its a wonder any of us are alive today.
 
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#12
#12
I am all about clean water and clean air, as far as carbon and global warming that deters imo as to pollution causes. The problem of course, someone wants to make a buck (or globally control) off pollution and the only way of doing that is a carbon credit system or equivalent.

Stick to reducing water/air pollution (especially as it pertains to corporations) I am in your corner, all this global warming crap is for people that want to control other people. Back in the 70s, all this pollutions was suppose to lead to a global freeze. :eek:lol:
 
#13
#13
Here's a story from today. Rivers, lakes and oceans are under enormous pressure from pollution (wastewater runoff), overpopulation and over-fishing, etc. It is of course well documented that there are massive quantities of plastic in the oceans. All of the wildlife in these bodies of water are equally under threat. The Great Barrier Reef is rapidly dying. Polar bears are in dire shape now because of the melting ice caps and could disappear altogether. It goes on and on and on....drought and general climate warming seem to get worse by the year.

We in the United States should be environmental leaders--and we have been--but when Republicans are in office we go backwards. I cannot fathom how any person could not be a rabid environmentalist--could not want to protect our precious planet. But, let's be candid, Republicans/conservatives the biggest, most narrow-minded tools on the Earth--always waving off environmental protection in their zeal to throw up another cheap housing development on what was once farmland; always eager to roll back water- and air-quality and other environmental regulations so some industry won't be inconvenienced. Trump has installed staunch anti-environmentalist as head of the EPA--an utterly disgusting move. In the near future--sooner than we think--extreme measures will have to be taken to literally save this planet for humanity because the ignorance and short-sightedness and corruption of people like Scott Pruitt. Trump's Interior Secretary wants to open more land in national parks and national monuments to drilling.

The conservatives who are always yodeling about how environmental regulations hamper the economy are wrong. And even if it were true, we should all be fine with it as, in my view, there is nothing more important than protecting the environment and the planet. Think how much the planet has been degraded in just, say, the last 100 years--massively degraded. Think of what the situation will be like 100 or even 200 years from now. We should be the global leader in environmental protection--but conservatives would rather make a buck, and thus we have the president of China taking a shot at Trump in his speech two days ago on the issue of global warming.

World's deepest lake crippled by putrid algae, poaching and pollution | World news | The Guardian

China is talking out of its hind parts. they have actually done very very very very little to clean up what they are doing. all their reports are lies, and even these lies are falsehoods. The central government was only reporting about 1/3 of what they were actually doing, come to find out they are reporting between 1/4 & 1/5 of the actual damage. thats even after they shut down everything for a week before they do their tests.

plus all (well not quiet all but most) of the green things they are making use rare earth metals and their processes for those minerals do irreparable damage, usually involves pumping nasty chemicals into the ground.

Trump is at least upfront with his disregard of the environment, China may talk the talk but they are far from even starting the walk, if anything they are still going backwards.
 
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#14
#14
GOP War on Science.

This from The New Republic. When you wave off scientific findings because they clash with your (warped) ideology, you have a country that's in a very bad way. Big business fights science with disinformation to protect its profits--even at the expense of the health and well-being of the people. We saw this with tobacco and cigarette smoking--30 years of lies---and we see it with climate change and environmentalism in general. We have American companies that spend millions and fight aggressively to keep products that are known carcinogens on the market. Why do you think there has long been a cancer epidemic in the world. Most probably because we have introduced an absolute of ton of carcinogens into the environment.

19 hours ago

Saul Loeb/Getty
Republicans are winning another battle in the war on science. For at least the last four years, Congress’ most outspoken climate change deniers have been trying to radically change the way science works at the Environmental Protection Agency. Led by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith and his Science Advisory Board Reform Act, their goal is to replace EPA scientists with representatives of polluting industries, empowering them to judge the science behind environmental regulations.
Smith’s bill has failed to become law each year it’s been introduced. But now, it appears that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is going to implement this policy himself. On Tuesday, the Washington Post’s Brady Dennis reported that Pruitt is planning to ban EPA scientists who have received EPA grants from serving on the agency’s Scientific Advisory Board, which reviews the “quality and relevance” of the science used to create regulations. Pruitt’s reasoning is that if scientists have received money from the agency, there are “questions on the independence and the veracity and the transparency of those recommendations that are coming our way,” he said at a Heritage Foundation event on Tuesday.

This reasoning is pretty sloppy. Most scientific research in the U.S. is funded by government grants; that hardly means that every scientist is biased toward government regulation. And industry representatives would have a much clearer conflict of interest, and could be counted on to promote whatever studies supported their case for deregulation. While Pruitt, unlike Smith, is not explicitly calling for more industry representatives on the Scientific Advisory Board, but he has a famously close relationship with polluting companies—and has been doing them favors in his current position.

Pruitt’s latest gambit is what environmentalists, Democrats, and scientists are referring to when they accuse Republicans of waging a “war on science.” Federal environmental regulations are based the best available science, and their goal is not just to reduce global warming and protect the environment, but to ensure the public’s health and safety. That’s the principal reason why we have rules governing air and water pollution. Republicans want to manipulate the science underpinning these rules so they can successfully repeal them. Doing so will threaten not just the climate, but Americans’ lives. It is the most consequential of battles, and Republicans are about to win it.
 
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#15
#15
Our flying insects seem to be disappearing--and rapidly, say scientists. The reasons aren't yet clear--but we can assume that chemicals--pesticides--are a major cause. I'm sure Scott Pruitt would tell the scientists that they wrong....I seriously believe that this planet is going to be in a very bad in the not-so-distant future. Animals, frogs, bees, insects, fish, forests....one perhaps can dispute how fast fauna are disappearing, but they are will get scarcer and scarcer. Global warming, over-population (9 billion!), industrial farming, over-fishing, deforestation, drought: There is no question we are ruining the planet--and a lot quicker than most people realize.


Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers | Environment | The Guardian

Good, I hate flying insects.
 
#18
#18
GOP War on Science.

This from The New Republic. When you wave off scientific findings because they clash with your (warped) ideology, you have a country that's in a very bad way. Big business fights science with disinformation to protect its profits--even at the expense of the health and well-being of the people. We saw this with tobacco and cigarette smoking--30 years of lies---and we see it with climate change and environmentalism in general. We have American companies that spend millions and fight aggressively to keep products that are known carcinogens on the market. Why do you think there has long been a cancer epidemic in the world. Most probably because we have introduced an absolute of ton of carcinogens into the environment.

19 hours ago

Saul Loeb/Getty
Republicans are winning another battle in the war on science. For at least the last four years, Congress’ most outspoken climate change deniers have been trying to radically change the way science works at the Environmental Protection Agency. Led by Texas Congressman Lamar Smith and his Science Advisory Board Reform Act, their goal is to replace EPA scientists with representatives of polluting industries, empowering them to judge the science behind environmental regulations.
Smith’s bill has failed to become law each year it’s been introduced. But now, it appears that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is going to implement this policy himself. On Tuesday, the Washington Post’s Brady Dennis reported that Pruitt is planning to ban EPA scientists who have received EPA grants from serving on the agency’s Scientific Advisory Board, which reviews the “quality and relevance” of the science used to create regulations. Pruitt’s reasoning is that if scientists have received money from the agency, there are “questions on the independence and the veracity and the transparency of those recommendations that are coming our way,” he said at a Heritage Foundation event on Tuesday.

This reasoning is pretty sloppy. Most scientific research in the U.S. is funded by government grants; that hardly means that every scientist is biased toward government regulation. And industry representatives would have a much clearer conflict of interest, and could be counted on to promote whatever studies supported their case for deregulation. While Pruitt, unlike Smith, is not explicitly calling for more industry representatives on the Scientific Advisory Board, but he has a famously close relationship with polluting companies—and has been doing them favors in his current position.

Pruitt’s latest gambit is what environmentalists, Democrats, and scientists are referring to when they accuse Republicans of waging a “war on science.” Federal environmental regulations are based the best available science, and their goal is not just to reduce global warming and protect the environment, but to ensure the public’s health and safety. That’s the principal reason why we have rules governing air and water pollution. Republicans want to manipulate the science underpinning these rules so they can successfully repeal them. Doing so will threaten not just the climate, but Americans’ lives. It is the most consequential of battles, and Republicans are about to win it.

I don't have a direct link but this source states that the government is no where close to the largest supplier of scientific studies.

OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2015 - Statistics - OECD iLibrary

its about 60/30/10. being corporations/government & universities/charities.

and the government is the worst in disregarding the information they get. If the powers that be don't like it they forget about it or don't publish it. I see it quiet often in my job, if they get a report they don't like it never sees the light of day and they say "the study didn't result in conclusive evidence" despite the only disagreement being their opinion.
 
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#19
#19
I don't have a direct link but this source states that the government is no where close to the largest supplier of scientific studies.

OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2015 - Statistics - OECD iLibrary

its about 60/30/10. being corporations/government & universities/charities.

and the government is the worst in disregarding the information they get. If the powers that be don't like it they forget about it or don't publish it. I see it quiet often in my job, if they get a report they don't like it never sees the light of day and they say "the study didn't result in conclusive evidence" despite the only disagreement being their opinion.

The amount of data is so limited there is no way to tell where the Earth is as far as cycles anyway. Its science only if you throw science out the window. Its the same thing that happened in the 70s when the scientists were saying the Earth was going to go through another Ice Age - that didn't work so they moved to global warming - that didn't work so they moved to "climate change".

Which is funny as real estate prices generally on the coast still go up, and all the celebs that push all this nonsense still have no problem buying ocean front property - the insurance companies have no problem offering policies.
 
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#20
#20
Our flying insects seem to be disappearing--and rapidly, say scientists. The reasons aren't yet clear--but we can assume that chemicals--pesticides--are a major cause. I'm sure Scott Pruitt would tell the scientists that they wrong....I seriously believe that this planet is going to be in a very bad in the not-so-distant future. Animals, frogs, bees, insects, fish, forests....one perhaps can dispute how fast fauna are disappearing, but they are will get scarcer and scarcer. Global warming, over-population (9 billion!), industrial farming, over-fishing, deforestation, drought: There is no question we are ruining the planet--and a lot quicker than most people realize.


Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers | Environment | The Guardian

99% of all species that have ever existed are extinct. Wrap your mind around that.
 
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#21
#21
Armchair, good luck getting anybody here to take you seriously on any of this stuff, especially when you say nonsense like "regulation doesn't hamper the economy".

The scary thing is the research comes from Germany, not the US. Europeans seem to be more environmentally conscious. What can be done if "ecological Armageddon" exists there?
 
#22
#22
the great die off we are in started long before the industrial age. from the arc of life on this planet we are still in the same epoch (maybe not the right word) as the last ice age. So from Woolly Mammoths, saber tooth tigers, to the bumblebees of today, its part of another shift.

in this case there is an irony in that the progressives want to keep things the same
that they probably have no control over while the conservatives want to prepare for the future.
 
#23
#23
Our flying insects seem to be disappearing--and rapidly, say scientists. The reasons aren't yet clear--but we can assume that chemicals--pesticides--are a major cause. I'm sure Scott Pruitt would tell the scientists that they wrong....I seriously believe that this planet is going to be in a very bad in the not-so-distant future. Animals, frogs, bees, insects, fish, forests....one perhaps can dispute how fast fauna are disappearing, but they are will get scarcer and scarcer. Global warming, over-population (9 billion!), industrial farming, over-fishing, deforestation, drought: There is no question we are ruining the planet--and a lot quicker than most people realize.


Warning of 'ecological Armageddon' after dramatic plunge in insect numbers | Environment | The Guardian

Come spend a week in Georgia during the summer, then try to convince me bugs are dying 😬
 
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#24
#24
Armchair, good luck getting anybody here to take you seriously on any of this stuff, especially when you say nonsense like "regulation doesn't hamper the economy".

The scary thing is the research comes from Germany, not the US. Europeans seem to be more environmentally conscious. What can be done if "ecological Armageddon" exists there?

Yep, and it's funny (in an ironic sense) that we have left leaning posters here accusing the GOP of being "where's the money in it?", what happened to all those "green" companies that popped up under Obama's green support push? As the song says, come on take your money and run.

Moral of the story, all politicians and lobbiests are in it for either power or money doesn't matter much which side of the aisle.
 
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#25
#25
Come spend a week in Georgia during the summer, then try to convince me bugs are dying 😬

These nutjobs are actually hurting environmental causes. imo So, if someone wants clean streams, rivers, lakes and oceans - they have to worry about these nutjobs and their carbon crap polluting the real problems.

If you ever notice, they really don't have any plan for anything either - its about carbon credits and control of the global economy. And most of them have no problem driving around or flying around in their carbon vehicles like Al Gore. Al Gore, if he really cared would go live out in the woods. Hey, I give him credit, its made him rich.
 
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