ATS SURVEY / Global Warming & Climate Change / Do We need to Protect Insect Populations?

originally posted by: rickymouse
too much pesticide is used by many big farming corporations too to protect their profits.

Stopping the use of fertilizers and pesticides greatly reduces crop yields, which drives prices up dramatically. Higher food prices means less of the world gets fed due to the price.

Isn't it odd how the same people who complain about food prices also support actions to drive the prices up and increase starvation around the planet? Then the same people seem to worry about the starving people around the world who can't afford enough food to survive. Quite the conundrum.

Farming is not a highly profitable business in the first place. People will not pay what food should cost, so the farmers are forced to use even more fertilizers and pesticides to keep the prices low enough. Then the first world farmers have to compete with third world products that are grossly under priced and who knows what kind of chemicals are on them.

You have a solution that does not increase worldwide starvation or drive farmers into bankruptcy? Not a pie in the sky solution, a tenable one?

a reply to: Waterglass

Seen a lot of toads this year. It was a wet year so that may be why.

I spend a lot of time outside as I like the outdoors and one of my favorite hobbies is nature/landscape photography. I recently came back to my hometown after being gone for almost ten years to entertain the notion of putting my roots down, and I can say that I have found there to be just about as many insects as there has always been. Hell, I've even seen some new variations. I even saw a rare bird the other day.

When I was in Virginia I could have done with way less flying insects, but such is life. When I was out west in the desert I didn't see too many flying insects, but again such is life.

Honestly I think kids grew up playing videogames and on the internet their whole lives and then moved to a city if they didn't already live in one and one day looked up from their phone to take a look around their concrete wilderness and realized they don't see much of any wildlife.

I grew up on a farm, my dad sprayed DDT on the crops, I rode with him on the tractor while spraying in the fields with a handkerchief over my mouth just like he did. He died of brain cancer, a complication of many farmers that led to the banning of DDT.

They change the adjuvant in the formula when it is banned and since then around every seven years the replacements are banned. Dioxin was the adjuvant in DDT, but the replacement was proven just as bad and the replacement of that was just as bad.

What would have happened to all the farmers if they kept breathing in all the chemicals?

The yield on organic farms is almost as good as on the commercial farms and the food tastes better. There are natural chemicals that can be used which are usually much safer for us and wildlife.

I do not see a big price difference between organic and commercial produce these days, it is not what people think it is. Now potatoes, rock derived fertilizers are better than natural stuff, less black in the potatoes when you peel them when they use urea to fertilize them. There are natural fertilizers like 10/10/10, they do not have to be certified organic to be good, the certified organic fertilizers have lots of regulations which adds to their cost.

A healthy plant makes it's own plant defense system chemicals to ward off insects. Nurturing these plants to create higher amounts of these chemicals tends to make them taste good, but the plants do tend to be a little smaller in size. Not all plants can be grown this way, but most can. I do not mind squashing potato bugs on a plant.

The chemical companies making these pesticides and miticides have been lying to farmers for a couple of generations, the farmers have been misled to believe that they can not survive without these chemicals and often spray them even when not needed. That has been going on for decades. Yes, we sometimes do need pesticides and once in a while we do have to use herbicides to clear the field of weeds, but for the last eight years or so they have been changing the regulations governing their use which allows way more herbicides to be used in fields. They raised the allowable limits of residue in food considerably, with no evidence needed to justify the increase.

a reply to: Waterglass

Yes, there has been a massive decline over the last 20 years, especially in City areas but of course if you live out in the suburbs you aren't going o notice any decline! I've noticed this myself with recent trips to the coast but i live in the City and right next to a park/forest and I can tell you that the park/forest is almost empty of wildlife, just crows, pigeons eating a few worms that are left and some Swans/Geese in a lake... oh and some rats in the undergrowth. There aren't even any sparrows around here anymore, the most common bird in Britain has disappeared! No ants, beetles, worms, snails, caterpillars, butterflies, bees, wasps, its all gone and spiders have almost gone too, not that I like spiders much but still... living next to a pretty big park with trees and lakes, you would think these would be in abundance!

a reply to: CrazeeWorld777

Thanks. I lived in New York State, Georgia and South Carolina. All near bodes of water including Lake Erie. No real loss of insects and actually Bald Eagles began appearing in Western New York in the 2000's. I am all for protection of the environment but just want to deal with facts and not hype. Loss of insects in the cites could be true as what is there for them to eat as its a concrete jungle. Cities need to open more green space and plant trees. The South I live is loaded with critters from insects to snakes, toads and frogs. Millions of them.

a reply to: Tarzan the apeman.

Thanks, yes here too.

a reply to: gortex

Agree so are you feeling more or less up yer lions cloth.

a reply to: network dude

Where we live right now has the most Honey Bee activity that I have seen in almost 30 years. I only saw that type of activity in my parents yard in a rural area. My parents typically did not use weed killer on the lawn and we had clover and dandelions along with 1000's of honey bees.

Thinking back on it. Its probably all about those flowering weeds. I am sure the weed killer wacks the bees. Weed killer run off "wacked" my dog with cancer along with all other dogs in a neighborhood in which I lived for 24 years. All died of the same cancerous growth inside their urinary tract. I am talking over 20+ dogs. Most Fill Pedigree.

Then we can look at the women in the neighborhood all getting breast cancer or urinary cancer. Several died. All professionals. Yes in my opine a direct connection to air and water runoff.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I agree with everything thing you wrote. Global warming is coming but I do not believe that its all on man kind trashing the earth. I also hate deforestation, plastic and crap air to breath. Much good to come from all if pursue logically. See the position of the Dutch and the German plan that is out 20 - 30 years.

a reply to: Quantumgamer1776

Agree. Many species before man ever showed up went extinct. However they don't want to talk about it.

a reply to: pavil

Huh? So where did this come from Mr. Environmental Friendly Man?

So because there is more biomass and insect life because of Global Warming which brought more creatures to your neck of the woods, your first instinct is to pesticide them all to death??

I fired Mosquito Joe's after 5 months. Unless you like living with Palmetto Bugs I will catch and release them to you free of charge. Here's an overnight pic of my catch. Yep Red Wine!!!



1. FYI for 30+ years we take all vegetable waste, coffee grounds and put into our garden. You?
2. FYI for 30+ years we ether pull by hand or spot treat weeds because we have dogs. You?
3. FYI for 30+ years I have bought from the respective state forestry over 1500 pine and other tree seedings and planted then into property berms. Neighbors loved them.
4. Since 1992 I mulched all grass into the yard and still do so today? You?
5. FYI since I was a kid I shoveled dog sheet. Still do. It went into the ground. You?
6. FYI I still clean my own toilets and bathrooms. You?

Oh do respond "gentle" reader.

a reply to: Waterglass

I don't know about overall, and tyese days, I'm skeptical of just about any study I didn't design, perform and analyze myself, but this much is certain:

Spraying neonicotinoids and other nerve agents all over the planet is sure to decimate insect populations. In the end, it might not mean an overall decline of insect population, it might mean mis-balancing (not enpugh of this, too much of that.)

Nature balances things out, but at its pace. Actually, it'll balance things out fairly quickly if the change is fairly quick as well, we just might not like the rebalancing as much. Pull the rug out and a 40-ton concrete slab may fall in its place.

Haven't been at the new house long, but in 10 years at our old house, it became more diversified with insects and birds every year - and less annoying (no 1 or 2 insects completely taking over.)

Te robins would only come to our yard for worms, and the soil, the richest I've ever had, was TEEMING with them - to the point it looked like a horror movie or a bad trip if you shone a flashlight on the lawn at night to see a wriggling worm about every centimeter ::heebie-jeebies::

Nature thrives and balances pretty darn well if left to it, even on a half-acre plot of suburbia. I think the pesticide use needs to be curtailed and quickly. In the meantime, since "$ > All", the more pure spaces we can make/keep, the better chance of getting through it without causing too much irreversible damage.

a reply to: dogstar23

I am in agreement with you and all of you guys on neonicotinoids and the other bacteria that lives in the soil. We bought a planter and loaded in two bags of dirt from the prior owner. Nothing grew. Not even weeds. Why? Those bags were out in the South Carolina Sun for months, years. So all good bugs were "cooked".

We plant our own vegetables in a 200' x 13' berm along one property line. We get a good yield but we do have to control the bugs. Especially slugs on the Tomatoes. I disagree with Pavil.

I am #1 as Bugs are #2