This is frightening.

[jukel123 9,040]

Who can remember 'snow storms' of insects when driving at night on country lanes? Car bonnet and registration plate splattered with dead flying insects? Bathroom invaded by dozens of moths if window and light were left on at night?

I was thinking how few flying insects there were compared to the past just a few weeks back. Then I came across this. A really alarming study below.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/flying-insects-numbers-drop-ecological-armageddon-75-per-cent-plummet-a8008406.html

[Born Hunter 17,837]

Read about it a couple weeks ago. Down to pesticides in agriculture essentially.

[kanny 21,099]

The earth will recover from whatever we throw at it  it's been through much worse ....us on the other hand I think there's very dark days ahead for our species we are reaching a tipping point of sustainability. 

[just-A-snap 1,269]

8 minutes ago, kanny said:

The earth will recover from whatever we throw at it  it's been through much worse ....us on the other hand I think there's very dark days ahead for our species we are reaching a tipping point of sustainability. 

Like

 

 

[just-A-snap 1,269]

8 minutes ago, kanny said:

The earth will recover from whatever we throw at it  it's been through much worse ....us on the other hand I think there's very dark days ahead for our species we are reaching a tipping point of sustainability. 

Soylent Green kanny

 

All the very best

[Rabid 1,936]

I'm not so sure it's all down to the use of pesticides, sure, a good few years back it was been slapped around willy nilly, used too heavy handed and too strong in a lot of cases, I also think a lot of them were pushed onto the market without enough research into them.

 

Things have changed, cost been the main reason, technology been the second, now farmers can target a certain patch of any field by gps plotting, data gathered at harvest and throughout the year marks hotspots for certain weeds, saves spraying a whole field, save hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Also the cost of them, the dose rates are so carefully calibrated, not a spare drop is used ''just for luck'' like the old days, agronomists have moved on leaps and bounds and cut the doses down to bare minimum, they know farms are tight and if not seen to be saving money they are out the door and the next one brought in.

I know a lot of damage has been done in days gone by, and it can take many many years for things to return a healthy balance, but we're heading in the right direction.

 

i think a massive problem, farming related, is intensive practises, not a spare foot of ground is wasted, folk want cheap bread, cheap beer, cheap everything, supermarkets dictate prices to farms, so they have to yield more from the same acreage, so that means pushing the boundaries of what the land can sustain, no room for bugs, it's about margins, tonnages and profit, ultimately everyone who wants to see cheap food on the shelves is responsible.

 

i can say that with conviction as I have worked both methods, intensive and non intensive, currently I have a 5 acre field that's been fallow for 3 years, it's like a nature reserve, it's unreal the amount of wildlife on it, from the smallest bug to badgers and fox, things you never see, voles, field mice, shrews, you just don't get the number or diversity from a field been fallow for one short season, this I have witnessed personally, but financially it would be catastrophic to farm this way for profit.

 

Then we need to look at housing and industrial growth, thousands of acres have been turned from green fields and woodland for houses, roads, industrial estates, and they think a little nature reserve a fraction of the size of the land taken over gives everything back, it doesn't !!! 

 

They call it progress, but nature has to find some place else, evolve or die, evolution doesn't happen in a decade or two, it can take centuries, too long for most things.

 

Nature has a remarkable way of balancing itself, right upto the point mankind interfere.............

[bird 10,013]

5 minutes ago, just-A-snap said:

Like

 

 

   true   , man kind  will  be   gone , with these   idiots   in charge    once they hit the button  

[nothernlite 18,090]

It's no happening with  the midges 

[WILF 48,236]

How funny, we get all worried and upset about bugs dieing out and yet don’t give a shit about our own race because that’s frowned upon.

 

[DIDO.1 22,851]

I'm not sure if it is just pesticides. Drive around the north Pennines, lake District and the borders and you still don't get the flies on the front of your van which you once did...these areas aren't covered in agricultural chemicals are they? Where have the wasps gone? Yet I believe Iv seen more bees in the last three years....

[Malt 379]

Another thing to consider is the fact modern vehicles are a lot more aerodynamic than they used to be and a lot of insects are swept around the car with the flow of the air.. 

[dogmandont 10,059]

No shortage of flies and bugs where I'm at, in fact in the summer they reach plague proportions ye want to try riding a motorbike at night round here. And because of the flies you get huge numbers of spiders and cobwebs.