'Hyperalarming' Study Shows Massive Insect Loss (washingtonpost.com) 336
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: Insects around the world are in a crisis, according to a small but growing number of long-term studies showing dramatic declines in invertebrate populations. A new report suggests that the problem is more widespread than scientists realized. Huge numbers of bugs have been lost in a pristine national forest in Puerto Rico (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source), the study found, and the forest's insect-eating animals have gone missing, too. The latest report, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that this startling loss of insect abundance extends to the Americas. The study's authors implicate climate change in the loss of tropical invertebrates.
Bradford Lister, a biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, has been studying rain forest insects in Puerto Rico since the 1970s. "We went down in '76, '77 expressly to measure the resources: the insects and the insectivores in the rain forest, the birds, the frogs, the lizards," Lister said. He came back nearly 40 years later, with his colleague Andrés García, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. What the scientists did not see on their return troubled them. "Boy, it was immediately obvious when we went into that forest," Lister said. Fewer birds flitted overhead. The butterflies, once abundant, had all but vanished. García and Lister once again measured the forest's insects and other invertebrates, a group called arthropods that includes spiders and centipedes. The researchers trapped arthropods on the ground in plates covered in a sticky glue, and raised several more plates about three feet into the canopy. The researchers also swept nets over the brush hundreds of times, collecting the critters that crawled through the vegetation. Each technique revealed the biomass (the dry weight of all the captured invertebrates) had significantly decreased from 1976 to the present day. The sweep sample biomass decreased to a fourth or an eighth of what it had been. Between January 1977 and January 2013, the catch rate in the sticky ground traps fell 60-fold. The study also found a 30-percent drop in anole lizards, which eat arthropods. Some anole species have disappeared entirely from the interior forest. Another research team captured insect-eating frogs and birds in 1990 and 2005, and found a 50 percent decrease in the number of captures. The authors attribute this decline to the changing climate.
Bradford Lister, a biologist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, has been studying rain forest insects in Puerto Rico since the 1970s. "We went down in '76, '77 expressly to measure the resources: the insects and the insectivores in the rain forest, the birds, the frogs, the lizards," Lister said. He came back nearly 40 years later, with his colleague Andrés García, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. What the scientists did not see on their return troubled them. "Boy, it was immediately obvious when we went into that forest," Lister said. Fewer birds flitted overhead. The butterflies, once abundant, had all but vanished. García and Lister once again measured the forest's insects and other invertebrates, a group called arthropods that includes spiders and centipedes. The researchers trapped arthropods on the ground in plates covered in a sticky glue, and raised several more plates about three feet into the canopy. The researchers also swept nets over the brush hundreds of times, collecting the critters that crawled through the vegetation. Each technique revealed the biomass (the dry weight of all the captured invertebrates) had significantly decreased from 1976 to the present day. The sweep sample biomass decreased to a fourth or an eighth of what it had been. Between January 1977 and January 2013, the catch rate in the sticky ground traps fell 60-fold. The study also found a 30-percent drop in anole lizards, which eat arthropods. Some anole species have disappeared entirely from the interior forest. Another research team captured insect-eating frogs and birds in 1990 and 2005, and found a 50 percent decrease in the number of captures. The authors attribute this decline to the changing climate.
The main driver (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The main driver (Score:5, Interesting)
The main reason is likely efforts to end the current deadliest illness that plagues humanity: malaria. We actively destroy insect breeding grounds to contain it, because malaria kills more people on the planet than any other illness on a yearly basis.
Bonus points from countless other illnesses also spread by insects that are not as prevalent as malaria, but tend to also be debilitating and often lethal.
The real question here is: are insects so important as to lose millions every year to illnesses they spread, and even more survive but be crippled for life with consequences?
Re: The main driver (Score:3, Insightful)
That's an interesting question. I don't mean to attack you personally, but it does show the very kind of thinking that got us here:
Are [any other creatures] worth anything in comparison to:
* Human life
* Human goals ?
Sadly, for the majority in the West the answers' NO, if they even consider the question.
How could the life of a mosquito compare against homo sapiens?
How about a thousand?
How about an entire marsh's worth?
They always lose out.
And people that act on those calculations end up doing irreparable dam
Re: The main driver (Score:4, Insightful)
This shows the severe disconnect from reality present in nature in many of the green activists.
1. Humans vs nature dichotomy is the norm. Humans as part of nature never even enter the thought. Something only someone utterly disconnected from nature, only someone who lives in modern city could think.
2. "West is uniquely anti-nature and pro-human". Reality is, it's the most anti-human and pro-nature. You need not look beyond how shamelessly people outside West dump their waste, or where the plastic garbage filling the oceans comes from to see that "think of the nature before yourself" attitude is utterly absent outside the West beyond a few village idiot types.
3. Strange empathy towards other species that assumes that other species can be more valuable than their own. Not a single creature on this entire planet follows this philosophy in their actions. Nor does overwhelming majority of people, luckily, as this attitude is self-exterminationist. This mindset is almost uniquely locked to the certain parts of modern Green movement, which can commonly be described as "medieval nature worship" - worship of idealized view of nature as something beautiful, that human tarnish. Without ever realising that nature in reality is the bloodiest, most brutal, most amoral and unethical state of being, by definition.
This mode of thinking iss utterly absent outside West, and represents a tiny and vocal minority among even the Green movement itself. It's unfortunate that it's increasingly taking over the movement, and its various forms ranging from deranged animal activists from PETA to vegan extremists violently attacking people eating meat dishes in restaurants are increasingly taking control over the movement that used to be quite close to nature and very much pro-"humans as a part of nature" narrative rather than "humans against nature" one that is advanced here.
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Whoa whoa there buddy... Why do you assume I think you are worth anything in comparison to my life and goals? You seem to have this false notion that humans are all together on this and it's some sort of us-vs-them setup with humans vs nature. Ha, no. Sorry to burst that bubble, but we are not inherently altruistic. Do I care about your life? Yes, but only to the extent that society is pretty handy towards keeping me alive and furthering my goals. Do I care about marsh's? Yes, but only to the extent that I
Re: The main driver (Score:2, Informative)
Well, have you given it any thought?
You example is extreme, and for sure these days I wouldn't be surprised if it happened.
But it's sidestepping the question: does removing X creature from the ecosystem damage the ecosystem?
Take weed and some pests that we try to eradicate with the use of pesticides. Removing them doesn't directly cause ecosystem collapse, but there is some (debated) evidence that it has unintended consequences, e.g. bee dieoff
The truth is, real life is very complex and humans are very many
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Malaria isn't the only disease we attempt to eradicate insect populations for.
As for "collapse of the biosphere", there were more mosquitoes in Lapland last year than there are people on the planet. And that's the northernmost mosquitoes, who are under the heaviest evolutionary pressure from global warming, and a fairly small chunk of the biosphere.
Not to even mention the "moose flies" or whatever that particular fly that literally goes under the moose's skin to breed called in English. You should ask the m
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Fuck my life. I remember seeing one moose that was felled by hunters where they literally had to skin it in a certain way because of all those wingless flies having a literal orgy under its skin.
For that to happen to a human being? That's fucking horrifying.
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But we're not removing it. Not even the colourful language of the report in question tries to make such a hyperbolic claim.
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Boy are you're butthurt from having had to go off your comfort zone of dogma in that discussion and into actual science, and having your ass handed to you in the process.
I guess I'll write that as a good deed of the day.
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You're still butthurt because you don't understand science I see. Don't worry about it.
Also, you're my first hater that actually stuck around on slashdot. Thanks!
Re: The main driver (Score:2)
Not sure how antibiotics would affect butterflies. In Britain, monoculture fields starve insects. It's possible that cutting down forests and planting monocultures is having a devastating impact.
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Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Studies (Score:4, Funny)
Why don't they just do tag and release
Lie (Score:2, Informative)
From the study:
climate warming is the major driver of reductions in arthropod abundance, indirectly precipitating a bottom-up trophic cascade and consequent collapse of the forest food web
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Also in the study is the following proof that the diminished diversity is solely imputable to Global Warming:
.
Impressive, isn't it...
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Re: Why should we believe the hype-masters? (Score:3)
Different insects prefer different climates.
Plenty of insects in Britain need the cold, which is why they're extinct in the south.
You're also assuming only one variable changes in isolation. Higher temperatures mean fewer plants suitable as a good source due to both higher temps and the consequent reduced rain.
Less rain means fewer puddles for eggs.
Rapid change, and this is the killer, means less time to migrate to a suitable new location.
I
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So they say, but it makes no sense - insects thrive in warmer climates.
Do you have a citation for that conclusion? And no, "common sense" is not scientific evidence.
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No, but insects that operate in hotter conditions are more numerous than those that can operate in colder ones.
This is well demonstrated in spread of malaria-bearing insects northwards as global warming progresses.
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You should make a trip to the arctic if you want to see a lot of mosquitoes.
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My last one was this September. It was actually nice this year, as summer was dry. Not many of them in Lapland.
Previous summer though, more mosquitoes in Lapland than people on the planet.
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No, of course not, but it is absolutely true of the insects they were studying - and on top of that, the temperature changes we are talking about are still minor compared to mere seasonal variation - even in places that don't really have winter, there are still seasonal variations.
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A "small" variation can cause a cascade of effects to ripple through a complex system. Some years, because of a slightly less harsh winter, you have earlier hatching of bees, bigger colonies, and yellowjackets are a bigger pain in the ass. If you have rain at the right points during the season it can suppress honey bees and you'll have less yields of both crops and honey.
Slower change (Score:3)
The rate of change was slower, so more time to migrate and adapt.
Rainfall patterns due to more forest and thus lower albedo meant less impact on the environment.
More forest and more open grassland meant a larger reserve of insects, so greater genetic diversity, so greater capacity to endure.
More wildflower species in existence meant alternative food sources.
Don't look at one variable, if you want to understand anything
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Actually, our resolution even back to 10,000 years before present is close to year by year, thanks to pollen counts, atmospheric samples in ice cores, insect counts in archaeological deposits, limestone deposition rates, and so on.
Climates tend to be global. As long as you have enough data points to map relationships, you don't need every data point.
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Ever since 1976, scientists have been running exhaustive studies to track the loss of insects that involve trapping and killing millions of bugs. Scientists now believe running constant sampling on that scale may have affected the bug populations.
How the hell is this modded insightful?
Probably because Funny votes don't increase karma, so some people will use a different vote so that the person who posted the joke will gain karma.
I'm not saying that moderators should do it, only that some of them do it.
So becoming an insectivore (Score:3)
Oh, I know. Soylent Green [youtube.com].
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It's 2018 I still can't buy that stuff.
I am going to have to satisfy myself with rotisserie child.
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is out. What then are we going to eat when we run out of food? Oh, I know. Soylent Green [youtube.com].
An old cliche but a true one:
Only when the last tree has been cut down
When the last river been poisoned,
When the last fish been caught,
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
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Wow DDT couldn't manage it (Score:2, Troll)
A directed attack that was claimed would actually destroy the ecosystem up through birds
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Which just wound up seeing to it poor people got malaria
Now global warming has killed off insects by making conditions more favorable to them ? Is there no limit to its power.
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And leave him there, so he understands the impact of aridity on sustaining existing populations that he also depends on. It will be a thirsty if brief revelation, but I think he'll finally understand how powerful it can be.
I have been camping most of my life. Tell you what buckwheat I'll be glad to take on your desert you can try and survive in the everglades we'll see which one manages better.
It will also be fun to see how you feel about insect populations after a day or two there.
Changing climate? (Score:3, Insightful)
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It's good to see you have a healthy disagreement with the authors of the study, it's just bad to see you using your gut instincts about the topic to try to supplant the scientist's conclusion. That's like... how Republicans operate.
Re:Changing climate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Try local pollution and continuous habitat loss. When you destroy habitat (especially continuous habitat) you lose. Much more of a threat than climate change.
Eeeeh.... no. Many species of animals and plants are highly temperature sensitive and forests in particular don’t just up roots and migrate north when the global temperature goes up by 2-4 degrees on average.
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Agreed that habitat loss is not the problem in these studies, as they are going to heavily forested areas to look at trends. Germany is showing 76% flying insect loss in German nature preserves?!?! They have a ton of forests, 32% of Germany is covered in forest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Anecdotally, from 30 years back to today we have I'd estimate about 1/20 the amount of bees in the three forested areas I frequent in my state (relatives live in the sticks). Butterflies are less than half. Mosquitoes
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It's purely anecdotal - one data point - but the whole time I've lived here, every year there has seen a reduction in insects, peeper frogs, goldinches...pretty much all but deer and raccoons, all less every year, and it's kinda depressing.
No new population of humans, no
No tears here (Score:2)
Insects are annoying. They are also extremely adaptable. They will adapt, or other insects will fill the void left by those that don't.
The world changes, fucking duh. Ecosystems change. Climate changes. Even when we're not involved.
Re:No tears here (Score:5, Interesting)
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Glad I don't have kids (Score:4, Insightful)
We're already starting to see mass migration due to climate change. That's going to get worse because currently habitable areas are going to become uninhabitable, and because of exponential population growth.
If we have some food systems collapse, as these insect studies seem to indicate is already happening, well... that's pretty scary.
Humans have grown technology much faster than than they have the ability to think about the repercussions of using it. This isn't good at all.
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IMHO opinion, the easiest and most humane way to help the environment is TO STOP MAKING MORE PEOPLE.
Economies will have to learn how to deal with not having a generation of more abundant peopl
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food (Score:2)
They've told us that meat production is unsustainable and in the future we will have to eat insects.
Maybe that prediction won't come true after all.
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Nobody ever said you'd be going to eat insects being caught in the wild. It would be insects that are being farmed, just as with nearly all other animals we eat. The percentage of wild animals globally is hardly more than a rounding error compared to cattle etc. anyway.
That's Evolution For You (Score:2)
That's evolution, right there, in front of your eyes! Those critters are getting smarter!
Fortunately (Score:2)
By complete coincidence something else happened. (Score:5, Interesting)
There has been a massive increase of diversion of the water from that rainforest.
https://www.fs.fed.us/global/i... [fs.fed.us]
Lets not confuse the issue though ... it's all climate change.
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I don't know that it is climate change, but what explains Germany's 76% decline in flying insects in pristine nature preserve habitat? That shit has me worried.
"In 2014, an international team of biologists estimated that, in the past 35 years, the abundance of invertebrates such as beetles and bees had decreased by 45 percent. In places where long-term insect data are available, mainly in Europe, insect numbers are plummeting. A study last year showed a 76 percent decrease in flying insects in the past few
Re:By complete coincidence something else happened (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed.
"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. "
"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)."
These assertions are not mutually compatible.
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They discounted all other potential sources without justification or references. Diverting up to 54% of the water of watersheds inside the rainforest is significant enough by fucking common sense that it requires justification to discount.
Of course fucking common sense as well as normal common sense is in short supply, especially among modern scientists ... the ones in 2007 were a little more honest.
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Diverting up to 54% of the water of watersheds inside the rainforest is significant enough by fucking common sense that it requires justification to discount.
That's not what your quote says. It says 7%-17% percent overall, with up to 54% of individual watersheds. You have provided no evidence to substantiate that they were studying in an area that had any significant reduction in the watershed, and no evidence to substantiate that a reduction of that magnitude would have the effect of reducing the insect population by between 75% and 87.5%.
Also from what I read of the report you linked, the water diversion happens between the rain forest and the ocean. That's
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I said "up to 54%". As or the intakes being outside the rainforest, I quoted the relevant part already ... but I guess I can just do it again.
"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)."
Why there are intakes in the forest at all I have no idea, but it is what it is ..
This is all part of the great conspiracy (Score:2)
The insects are clearly in cahoots with the scientific community and are hiding out of site in a bid to trick the politicians into action.
C02 Concentration.... (Score:2)
Some scientist needs to see if the lowering of biomass correlates to the increase in c02 in the atmosphere.
Temperature change in this case may not be the key. It could be the change in the atmosphere.
Possibly related (Score:2)
I've mentioned this before to family and friends.
When I was a kid (NOT THAT LONG AGO), I distinctly remember the HUNDREDS of lightning-bugs glowing. The night would pulse with flickering dots. We would run around and catch them and put them into jars and keep them overnight as lanterns.
Now, like, 10-15 years later, I have not seen more than a few dozen. It's just occasional blips. It doesn't matter where I go. It doesn't matter if I go home to my family's house where it was originally. I barely see them at
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Indecticides and herbicides (Score:2)
I think it is insecticides and herbicides. A recent study found roundup to be responsible largely for Honeybee Colony Collapse. You also have the huge amounts of insecticide people add to their lawns to control things like cinchbugs and snails, the vast amounts applied around peoples homes to control household pests, etc, the herbicides added to fields also affect insects and move up the food chain. All of this stuff washes with the rain into rivers and bodies of water and circulates through the environment
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Another possible cause are GMOs. Many GMOS are toxic due to their side-effects. But many are also designed to essentially have a built in toxn, bt toxin, built into them. This toxin is toxic to insects. So you have all of this GMO crap around, GMO corn, GMO soy, GMO this and that, and this stuff can end up basically everywhere. Remember that the GMO crop plant will become a wild plant. So your going to have these GMO things growing wild in forests and it produces its own built in insecticide that kills in
Not very new, unfortunately (Score:4, Interesting)
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Dead insects don't decay within a year. In fact, many may take much longer than a few years, some parts effectively not decaying at all. So the effect of any missing insects quickly adds up over the years. However, most insects eat other living things that are probably just as effective at being a carbon sink when they're not eaten by insects.
Therefore, I'd say the missing insects don't really have a big direct effect. It might just as well be the other way around; insects help organic matter decay. They pl
authors say climate change - hahaha (Score:2, Interesting)
what idiots, jumping on the "it's all climate change" bandwagon.
destroying forests for farmland with pesticides and herbicides is the cause.
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Insects (Score:2)
I, for one, welcome our new lack of insect overlords
The study no "climate scientist" wants to run. (Score:2)
Where's the study of the actual effects, in a controlled lab environment, of a 2C temperature increase on the creatures they're saying are so negatively impacted? There are none? Really? I'm shocked. (No, I'm not actually shocked).
What they're basically saying is my dog will die if I raise the temperature in my house from 20C to 22C. Or if I take him outside in the summer, I guess by their logic he'll spontaneously combust and start a forest fire.
There is so little science or scientific method being ap
Is There ANYTHING Climate Change Can't Do? (Score:2, Funny)
No need to worry CLIMATE CHANGE can do everything!
Lost your car keys? CLIMATE CHANGE!
Icy roads on the way to work CLIMATE CHANGE!
Hurricane in Florida Cli...oh sorry that was SUPER TRUMP!
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Double the human pop = more forests need to be cut down for roads, farms, housing, businesses, etc... Climate scientists pretending to be dumb, because talking about birth control in the 3rd world is inconvenient.
No, I would be willing to put money on the majority of climate scientists being absolutely for promoting birth control.
It's "Christian" conservatives who are against birth control like condoms and abortions. They are also the ones against doing anything about climate change. Strange that isn't it?
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Don't see how increased sale of Soylent Colaâ(TM) would lead to deforestation. Besides scientists should deliver the (believed to be) facts with policy decided elsewhere.
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Great news. Really great news.
Signed: Malaria doctors. Other doctors dealing with insect-transmitted illnesses which are prevalent in tropics.
Re: Fake news (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. Those doctors will be frankly terrified by the news. Maybe you'll understand why, maybe not. If you don't, and are interested, ask. If you aren't interested, I can't help.
However, expect people including people you know and care about to die of malaria and other tropical diseases in higher latitudes in very large numbers over the coming decades.
And that's not good news.
I
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I'm going to guess that you're thinking "oh he probably doesn't know that global warming is pushing the belt of biological viability of malaria-carrying insects north, and I'm going to pretend to be a wise-ass about it".
Now go read what we're actually talking about, and comprehend why you're wrong in both yours assumption about me, and your assumption about the increase in malaria deaths due to things discussed here. The only thing that is making malaria issues worse is the progression of the strains immune
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Re: Another lazy Republican pretends to know bette (Score:5, Insightful)
Rate of change is different. Insects can move, just not fast enough when the change is hundreds of times faster than anything natural outside of an asteroid strike.
And even there, the great dying took centuries, and that was an asteroid plus the entire Siberian flats turning into a magma pond.
Here, we're still seeing change maybe twice that rate
That's pretty unusual.
Re:Another lazy Republican pretends to know better (Score:4, Insightful)
So what's different this time? I mean, the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period, the Minoan Warm Period - all were hotter and longer than the current burst.
Well, the evidence suggests that you're probably wrong about the Medieval Warm Period, the Roman Warm Period and the Minoan Warm Period being hotter and longer than the current warming.
I guess modern insects and mammals are just too wimpy...
Or, I guess you could ignore the evidence and invent your own explanations...
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I can think of multiple other sources of pollution that would as likely if not more so to cause this than temperature change. Plastics pollution would be the most obvious choice and in terms of invertebrates and reproduction rates actually somewhat supported by studies.
Re: Another lazy Republican pretends to know bette (Score:3)
You're forgetting several things.
1. When it was hotter, there was twice as much oxygen and no higher lifeforms.
2. The rate of change is greater than that from the asteroid strike that took out the dinosaurs. Rate of change, not magnitude, is what matters, as climate scientists keep pointing out.
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You're forgetting several things.
1. When it was hotter, there was twice as much oxygen and no higher lifeforms.
2. The rate of change is greater than that from the asteroid strike that took out the dinosaurs. Rate of change, not magnitude, is what matters, as climate scientists keep pointing out.
Both of these statements are myths. Even the MWP was hotter, and the change was just as fast.
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During the Carboniferous, oxygen was 40%. Last I heard, 40% is twice 20%.
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Cheap shots are like bad whiskey - they only look good on the outside.
Climate scientists technically do not believe in evolution because science is not a belief system. They do, however, accept evolution - on the scale of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. The speed everyone else accepts it as being for all higher lifeforms.
Climate change due to humans is taking place hundreds, maybe thousands, of times too fast for that. That matters.
Re: Fake news (Score:2)
No, they didn't.
The judge ruled there was no case to answer, which is not the same as losing.
Re: Fake news (Score:2)
The judge ruled there was no case to answer, which is not the same as losing
Being ordered to pay Trumps legal fees means she lost.
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Their not blaming every stupid thing on climate change asshole, their blaming changes to the environment on climate change! Get it? The environment is dominated by the climate, so climate change effects just about everything in the environment. Duh!
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Climate change affects everything, but in close proximity to humans it's generally better to look for other causes ... because we are far better at fucking things up.
The paper says :
"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. "
Which is either stupidity or a lie.
"Water diverted from the forest ranges from 7 to 17 percent of average flow througho
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What I refuted was their assertion there were no other significant perturbations.
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Projection.
Re: Meh... (Score:3)
Most insects can only survive in a very narrow band of temperatures. Anything above or below will kill them.
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I've had similar notices here in the deep south of the US. Lovebugs are the ones you always have to deal with every summer. Now their numbers are a small fraction of what they used to be in areas that have had no major changes to forest or roads or anything. Something is doing it... a combination of insecticides and screwy weather patterns or diseases or straight up climate change. It is damn scary.