Here in Phoenix it is hot as usual. We haven't had an unusually hot or cool summer.
What we have had is an apparent collapse of the arthropod population here in the Valley of The Sun. I used to spray my apartment every 6 months or so. It was easy to keep on that schedule because the roaches and ants kept showing up as a reminder. That has stopped. I haven't sprayed in over 3 years and neither have the neighbors.
It's become so bad that you can't find an apartment in the Phoenix area with the usual expected roach problem and my favorite park has maybe one ant mound in areas where a few years ago there used to be several.
I don't think it's just the Valley. You're a bug guy. You seeing this collapse elsewhere?
Down here I try to keep the house cooled down to around 85 during the day and about 80 at night so I can sleep.
If you were young you wouldn't need sleep!
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
What we have had is an apparent collapse of the arthropod population here in the Valley of The Sun. I used to spray my apartment every 6 months or so. It was easy to keep on that schedule because the roaches and ants kept showing up as a reminder. That has stopped. I haven't sprayed in over 3 years and neither have the neighbors.
Roaches don't seem to be a problem around here, but little tiny ants invaded my bathroom last week. Terro ant bait does the trick. Targeted pesticides have less impact on beneficial insects.
In general, the public here in the US, is terrified of insects. They think there are a few hundred species and they are all pests. The only good bug is a dead one. It turns out that the terrestrial biosphere cannot function without them and it is collapsing world wide. Humans have finally developed some really, really effective pesticides that will kill everything and they are persistent in the environment.
Remember when you were a kid and when you went for a drive and the car windshield would be covered with splattered insects? Well, that doesn't happen any more and most people are happy about that.
A part of the collapse is that many insects are getting out of synch with their host plants so the larvae don't have the specific food source they need at the critical growth stage of their life cycles. This phenomena is being reported by ornithologists as well. The insect larvae that birds feed their nestlings have already pupated and become adults. Pollinators are getting out of synch with the blooming of the plants. Add in invasive species being spread around the planet with global trade (pest insects seem to be really good at colonizing new territory where the normal controls on population growth are nonexistent).
One of the more famous insects where we are seeing these effects is the Monarch butterfly, but it is happening to tens of thousands of other species that no one is paying attention to.
Climate change and other human activities are the cause of this insect apocalypse.
Humanity is plunging over a thousand mile high cliff, on fire with a nuclear bomb in our mouth.
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
One of the more famous insects where we are seeing these effects is the Monarch butterfly....
Around here, the environmentalists encourage people to attract butterflies (because we like butterflies) by letting plants like milkweeds grow. Meanwhile, the city government still considers milkweeds a "noxious weed" and if you don't kill them a city crew will come and do it for you and add the cost to your tax bill. After more than twenty years of fighting them, I finally gave up the house. Now I go around seeding milkweeds as much as I can.
"I've been to Moose Jaw, now I can die." -- John Wing
The universe knows we recently released an IPCC report admitting we’re losing and to expect more bad news. Now prescient science decides to slap us in the face with prediction come true just for emphasis.
Since June 2021 Siberia has been on fire. Worse than the California hits these last few years. Worse than the Amazon these last few years.
So big is the burn, just since June, the carbon released into the global environment has exceeded that of our 6th biggest annual polluter, Germany. In 3 months we have added an entire Germany’s worth of annual pollution to our air. Twice the greenhouse gas emissions of any burn on record.
IPCC cautions such burns will get worse.
The nation of Burning Siberia, which just popped up out of nowhere, is now exceeding Germany for 6th biggest annual polluter worsening humanity's present problems on this planet considerably.
And ... that wasn't us burning stuff.
I think we just got the finger from Mother Nature.
Donald Trump, Albert Gore, Greta Thunberg, flooded shore Global warming, Fast Color, Kyoto protocol Forest fires, massive drought, anthracite, skeptics doubt Rachel Carson, Paris pact, Jair Bolsonaro
We started the fire Now we are burning While the world is turning Yes, we did start this fire We burn more to spite it While we try to fight it
Apocalypse, killer bees, Montreal, rising seas Anthropomorphic heat, An Inconvenient Truth Massive floods, farmers fry, fallen forests, Exxon lie Ice sheets melt, AR6, barred from the voting booth
Yes, we started this fire And now we are burning While the world is turning Yes, we did start this fire And it's all upon us As extinction calls us on, and on, and on, and on
"Man has always assumed that he is more intelligent than dolphins because he has achieved so much--the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But, conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons."
How right they are...
Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?
Almost all countries have already demonstrated they're unable to follow such pledges, and even if that weren't true we're already screwed. Many analyses say the tipping point (the point of no return) is 2050 or 2060, but it's not. It's sooner. I don't have science behind me, but so far all the pie-in-the-sky scientific predictions are trailing the reality on the ground.
The effects of climate change do not lie in the future but are now. Low-lying island nations are already beginning to disappear. Coastal regions around the world are losing land to the sea. Extreme heat is causing forest fires in the US, China and Australia. The western US is being hit by droughts that have brought reservoirs like Lake Mead to record lows.
In the future the Gulf Stream will eventually be interrupted (because of melting glacial ice in Greenland) depriving Europe of its warm currents and sending it into a mini-ice age. Aridness and droughts will afflict some regions, high humidity and frequent rains others.
The world will be overwhelmed by the consequences of climate change. Famine, floods and extreme weather events will kill billions by the end of the century. In the end we'll find that climate change is self-correcting as the contributors to that change are gradually eliminated by it.
I just want to point out that one of the most dangerous aspects of global climate change is the many devastating regional wars that will cause more suffering and death than the environment itself.
We're dealing with human's here. We won't do anything to forestall disaster but we will gear up so when we lose our resources we can come get yours.
NOAA studies find that methane is exploding onto our environmental problems with concentrations now at 1900 ppb compared to 700 ppb before the industrial revolution.
quote:After rising sharply in the 1980s and 1990s, atmospheric methane then stabilized. Growth resumed in 2007 and has accelerated in recent years – the sharpest rise on record happened in 2020.
This was not expected when world leaders signed the 2015 Paris Agreement. Methane is becoming the largest discrepancy from emissions trajectories necessary for meeting the agreement's target.
Even with the deadly issues with CO2 well known and documented for decades we have not made any headway in curbing our poisonous ways. CO2 levels will continue to rise and will not reach 2050 targets. Now the issue of methane, known for decades but seen as less tragic than CO2 is making its presence felt big time.
There are no global mitigation efforts, targets, plans, to lessen methane release. So not only are we fighting a battle with CO2, which we are losing since we haven't even started any mitigation efforts, but now we have methane belching out from our activities at record rates and accelerating which, we can assume, we will also pay lip service to but, ultimately, do nothing to stem.
Have pity on your great-grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. Their lives will be brutal.
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