At first Adam Smith couldn’t believe his calculations. Then it sank in.

  • nicetriangle@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Anybody in their 30s or so would remember there used to be a hell of a lot more bugs than there are now and they’re just gone now.

    It’s so crazy. You see butterfly bushes and flowers and stuff and there’s no bees or butterflies or anything on them anymore. It’s crazy. I’m assuming that’s a big part of bird population declines.

    • Lakija@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m seeing bees, and butterflies coming back, lightning bugs. But not enough. Not nearly. I know it’s only cause my block has native plants on purpose to attract them.

      Otherwise I barely see anything else. Except lots of dragonflies and damn mosquitoes.

  • Grass@geddit.social
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    1 year ago

    And we will lose more. Eventually all that will be left will be slaves, billionaires, and cockroaches.

    • Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      That’s a red herring report and is completely unreliable IMO. It lists poison as unknown but at an absolutely minuscule number, but given what we know about pesticides and herbicides, they are unquestionably the absolute true cause.

      Recall that prior to the EU publishing reports showing that glyphosate based herbicides like the incredibly common Roundup were behind “Colony Collapse Disorder” that a whole bunch of false causes were being dolled out and trotted out as the cause.

      In the last 5-6 years we’ve found out that various major pesticide/herbicides have far more wide ranging effects than what the companies selling them have claimed they do. They claimed various pesticides to control root-eating worms, built into GMO crops would last 50-60 years, they lasted 5 before the worms developed immunity. Worse, they did climb up into the flowers when companies like Monsanto said it was impossible; so they were poisoning good bugs along with the targeted ones. Not to mention that they claimed the pesticides wouldn’t accumulate in predators that ate the bugs, or in us, and both of those claims are false too.

      The cause is pesticides and herbicides, not flipping cats my dude.

  • Zima@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    my anecdotal experience is quite the opposite. but it might be because I’ve started to pay more attention to birds.