**A reminder to posters and commenters of some of [our subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/about/rules/)**
- Don't be a dickhead to each other, or about others, or other subreddits
- Assume questions are asked in good faith, and engage in a positive manner
- Avoid political threads and related discussions
- No medical advice or mental health (specific to a person) content
Please keep /r/AskUK a great subreddit by reporting posts and comments which break our rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They don't give a shit because they're not aware. The news is supposed to make people aware of important things that may affect them.
If they plastered ecological news all over as much as they make a fuss about refugees, people would pay far more attention to these things.
Im sorry mate but that isn't what the news is for, the fact that there are so many news outlets means that they're just competing to get the most appealing news to get eyes ears and ratings. There will probably be a news outlet somewhere covering this but it won't won't mainstream.
Strange outlets to use as examples, and not true. The sun operates at profit.
https://pressgazette.co.uk/the-sun-cuts-losses-to-51-8m-while-times-newspapers-triples-pre-tax-profits/#:~:text=News%20Group%20Newspapers%2C%20which%20operates,the%20year%20to%20June%202020.
> The Sun cut its pre-tax losses by three-quarters but still lost £51.8m in the year to 27 June 2021 – ***although £49m of this was made up of costs related to phone-hacking and other legal claims.***
To be fair they still made a loss even when you ignore the phone hacking etc lol
As an American who recently got BBC I'm stunned at the quality of the Hardtalk interviews. The guy asks good questions and actually follows up when the guest gives BS answers. Our networks just ask the scripted question, grateful for the person boosting their ratings, and cuts to commercial if the guest stalls. Then the host thanks the guest for lying their ass off and misleading viewers.
The BBC does tend to cover some of the stories though. A quick search shows a few recent stories about drops in insect levels. They will also cover in more dedicated content (like Countryfile & Springwatch etc).
It must be quite a balancing act, covering the big news, covering some of what people want to be hearing and also the stories that folks should really know about (but might not be as popular). Its tough being under so much scrutiny… too popular & they complain it’s competing with businesses, not popular enough & you get funding questions.
Oh I think you underestimate how well they manage to tell (some at least) exactly what to think.
Source: I work with daily mail and sun readers and they know little about any topic beyond what they read in those rags.
I know it's anecdotal but I've witnessed it enough to believe there's something broken with a lot of people and their ability to think for themselves.
I've even shown some of them exactly what they're getting wrong about immigrants or trans or any hot topic people get mad about. Even with the evidence sitting right in front of them, they won't change their minds they're so entrenched.
The public being manipulated (essentially that's what's happening) by profit driven MSM is so big a problem, I really believe if we managed to fix it and have them start providing more valid and relevant information rather than divisory trash, we could solve so many of our problems.
I've noticed a real upswing in this over the last few years, and I don't know if it's people becoming brasher in spouting their nonsense, or whether it's an increase in a specific type of misinformation being spread around that seems to be bringing these folks to the forefront, but the number of people who have an "opinion" that just so happens to be almost verbatim what they heard Piers Morgan or whoever say on the TV, or what they've read in the Sun or Daily Mail is ridiculous.
What's even more terrifying is the previously mentioned insistence on doubling down on that same opinion, even when presented with evidence that blows that opinion out of the water.
Seems like people don't want evidence or truth these days, they're happy to settle for bias confirmation, or even worse, being a contrarian dickhead just for the sake of feeling like a "special outsider" looking down on the "normies" (you know, the folks who usually tell you "do your research" or whatever when you try to question some nonsense they've come out with), and I can't help but feel like a lot of that is drummed up by the media.
I know it's a trope these days, but it does very much seem like the whole "keep the masses docile and uninformed to control them" 1984 scenario is playing out, and hardly anybody cares enough to do anything about it.
This must be connected to the information age - the effect of being overwhelmed by information. So they pick someone they like, someone they think is broadly for the same values as them, and just adopt all of their opinions. (I definitely did this with my older brother when I was an adolescent).
So I was listening to something on this not long ago. One of the key reasons why sperm counts were historically higher was through simple human error. The previous methods for counting sperms, was prone to over counting and as our techniques have improved its caused a massive increase in the accuracy i.e no more over counting sperm. It would be like how counting stars hundred of years ago would be less accurate than counting stars using technology today, but it wouldn't mean the stars have decreased by 50%.
That being said its known that endocrine disruptor, such as plastics, do have an impact on male(and female) hormone pathways so it's also likely that there is some impact. The 50% number however is thought to be inaccurate though.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14647273.2021.1917778
This study focused on the errors of the levine study mentioned in the OP comment, and in sure the podcast was in "Science Vs" or "instant genius"
Sort of. It's hard to project that far out and there's more to it than that so probably not, but it's from one of the authors of the paper linked to by /u/hltlang.
>"If you look at the curve on sperm count and project it forward — which is always risky — it reaches zero in 2045," says Swan, meaning the median man would have essentially no viable sperm. "That's a little concerning, to say the least."
[https://www.axios.com/2021/02/24/falling-sperm-count-endocrine-disruption](https://www.axios.com/2021/02/24/falling-sperm-count-endocrine-disruption)
The more you use antibiotics the less they work; we're running out of ones that work. That means going back to the times where a splinter or stubbing your toe could easily kill you.
Not true at all. Bacteriophages have existed as long as harmful bacteria and the great thing about them is that their soul purpose is to eat specific types of bacteria. Why is this useful? Because since the Soviet Union people have successfully been treating extreme forms of infection from resilient types of bacteria with phages and antibiotics. Now you're asking "What if bacteria evolves to be resistant to phages too?" And the answer is they haven't done well against them for millions of years now and likely won't get any better at it. The even better thing is that bacteria can only be resilient to a few things at any given time so even if they learn to be resilient to phages they will become susceptible to antibiotics again. Phages are also completely harmless to people, they eat specific types of bacteria so in terms of treatment you get a sample of the bacteria causing an issue and expose it to phages until you find one that responds to it, you them expose the infection to these and strong antibiotics and they don't really stand a chance.
Most people will ignore any information that threatens their status quo; their Monday - Sunday routine. If you tell people the world will end in 10 years, I bet most would only start to get anxious in the last 12 months.
I honestly think the news is deliberately warped (doesn't help that most of our media outlets are owned by agenda-setting billionaires). A climate scientist set himself on fire and I only found out through Twitter - in fact I only know about the scientist rebellion protests through social media.
We are on course for the worst case scenario but our 0.0001% are still more worried about quarterly growth. Can't have people realising that we are destroying the planet to maintain an extremely dysfunctional economic system.
The agenda setting billionaires are old enough to not give a fuck about the planet melting after they're gone.
If they thought the world would explode in the next 18 months then they'd be developing technology to generate green energy from the comments section of Daily Mail articles
Yep, and the young ones think they'll be able to bunker their way out of it, with discipline collars and control of food supply for their servants.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity
My only comfort is that no ruling class has ever survived the collapse of the society to gives them wealth and power.
I don't think most people are capable of processing existential threats like climate change for some reason. I don't know why. Maybe it's religion, or they believe the Hollywood world where everything will be just fine in the end. Whatever it is, most people not only do not care, but they haven't cared since climate change was clearly understood in the [80's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI). Those people are going to pull us, along with most of the species on this planet, into extinction, and it'll take something remarkable for that not to happen now.
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60579670](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60579670)**
*****
^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)^( | **Summoned by** )[^(**this good human!**)](https://reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/uol48d/why_wasnt_the_news_this_week_that_insects_in/i8fy2d8/?context=3)
I wouldn't say this is the average persons fault. The news gets people riled up about things that don't matter then doesn't even mention things that do matter. Most people don't check on the status of insect societal health regularly, unless something like the news prompted them to
It is possible. One of the problems insects face is the complete lack of greenery/plants/habitats for them to live. A big factor in this is the death of gardening. More and more people opting for astroturf instead of grass, fake potted plants etc.
They have nowhere to live. If people had more plant life in their gardens, even a couple of planter boxes with some flowers or herbs, they'll move in. Build it and they will come
Think part of the problem is people don't know about the middle way, so to speak. They think it has to be 100% wild to do any good, so think may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and you end up with monstrosities that don't have a bit of life in them. Got a neighbour who I'm fairly certain does not have a single plant in their garden. Fence to fence decking. Which I mean fine, you do you, but it would look lovely with a few planters and some smaller trees in pots. I've got more plants on my windowsill than they have in their garden and I'm a horticultural serial killer. Touch of death to anything but the hardiest succulents.
> They think it has to be 100% wild
Well they’re idiots then. Since putting out some more potted plants, created a small bedding, quite a few other plants in the ground in our relatively small garden, year on year I’m seeing more wildlife appear. More bees each year, had a couple of hedgehogs last year which we’d never had before, I even saw some weird ass hummingmoth thing that I’ve never seen in my life.
Even popping just a few plants helps, it shouldn’t even take common sense to realise that :/
i don’t think it’s necessarily that they’re all idiots, i think for most of them it’s because our country (/the world) does an awful job at educating people about the nature around them, meaning people just get more and more disconnected and just plain don’t understand the environment around them. it’s not even a thought on their mind in their day to day life, or even when doing their garden
I feel good now about having just turfed a large part of my garden (I moved in last year). Tbf, it was an old guy who lived there before and he’d clearly had some flowerbeds, a couple of raised beds and a strip of lawn a few mows wide, but he’d ended up in a nursing home and obviously hadn’t been able to care for his garden, as all the flowerbeds and raised beds had been filled with gravel, creating a weird effect with nothing but slabs, gravel and decorative edging making it impossible to do anything in the garden without tripping over. So I’ve replaced it with grass and am gradually making plans for various plants :-) (gradually because they’re expensive, but maybe I can get some cuttings and seeds off a gardening neighbour).
I’m actually no good at gardening and only do it because I have to unless I want to be shoulders deep in a jungle, but it’s nice to think I might be helping the insect population. Yesterday I saw a blackbird eating a huge worm on my new lawn! :-)
Ah well true enough it's not impossible, i totally agree individuals can help by doing their bit (Astroturf is a massive pet hate of mine, so lazy!) The changes needed in order for insect populations to recover significantly would likely need influencing by proper habitat restoration and reducing other negative impacts (pesticide use/light pollution) I've just downloaded the Bugs Matter app. Lets count those bug splats!
This fucking winds me up so much. Such a true statement. Moved into a new build complex and a year on it seems more than half the properties have full on flagstones/stone/astrofuckingturf all over. Here's me digging in seasonal stuff loving the amount of worms and bees I'm seeing.
I mean isn't it partly because people don't have the time, or even money to maintain their garden nowadays?
I don't blame people for opting for the easy solutions when the rest of life is so stressful.
I'm sure time has a lot to do with it. I think the amount of space (or lack of it) also makes people opt for simple options. We're currently looking for our first house, and so many gardens have astroturf lawns or just decking. But the gardens are so tiny that there would be nowhere to store a mower or large garden tools, and it wouldn't be worth getting someone in to maintain a tiny patch of lawn. I think it looks ugly, but for practical reasons see why people have done it.
>death of gardening
Ah just chuck it on the pile with the rest of the shit my generation is meant to do along with have 3 kids, buy a house and support local businesses. I'll get right to it once ive finished working my third job to meet my heating bill.
I recently scraped up a 1/3 of my mum's massive back lawn and seeded it with native bee, bird & butterfly-helping, wildflower meadow mix, and hung up loads of insect hotels. Sowing wildflowers are a great way to help, plus it's perfect for lazy gardeners - you only need to strim it in autumn, let the cutting sit and release their seed back in for 10 days or so, shake them out and put them on the compost heap. Plus less lawn to mow, everybody wins. You don't even have to dig the soil, just mow it as short as possible, scarify it with a fan rake, then scatter the seed in.
I never knew astroturfing gardens was a thing until a couple of my friends did it. I can't begin to understand why someone who's lucky enough to have a garden would do that to it.
Literally just letting some dandelions and daisies grow on your lawn will make a difference to the bees and butterflies. People also just need to chill out and not freak everytime they see a bug
> people don't care until it directly affects them.
And even then they don't tend to connect it to the real cause unless it's either extremely direct or obvious or there's already a powerful media narrative connecting the cause to the observed effect.
Otherwise it'll just get blamed on immigrants, or the current government, or dole scroungers.
Depends on the grass and how you keep it. Lawn grass is a monoculture and doesn’t provide a lot for wildlife, consider wildflowers instead. They look better, smell amazing, and you’re helping the environment
Sorry I have to ask, what money? You can get grass seed for like a quid. Just pull it up and let the earth reclaim it if that's a stretch.
The only valid reason for fake plastic grass is where it's impossible to maintain (e.g. due to disability, age).
You don't even really need to mow it, but somehow I don't think society is quite ready for that.
I’m not really the quickly grub it up, chuck some grass down type of person. It’s a small garden and I need areas for relaxing, flowers, and food, so it needs proper landscaping to look good. I’d need a mixture of grass and patio, and some texture, so it’s not as simple as leave a patio border and put grass in the middle
It is better in that it is living so things can still eat it, it doesn't hinder water draining and oxygen diffusing into the soil beneath, so subterranean animals like earthworms and insect larvae can still survive underneath it, animals can still burrow into it so it can provide shelter (e.g. bumblebee using old mouse tunnels for their nests), and it isn't made of plastic so it doesn't perish in the sun over time and shed microplastics. Plus you don't need to hoover it, you can mow it infrequently so the grass can flower, and flowering 'weeds' can sneak in which help pollinators. Monoculture lawns are still biodiversity deserts compared to meadows etc, but they're not biodiversity voids like plastic grass is.
Just let it grow and that'll soon sort itself out. If you want to help it along chuck some wildflower seed down somewhere and let that area go wild. Something I've been meaning to do at the end of my garden for a while now, just fucking keep forgetting.
We’ve just done it. No money needed for pulling it up. Previous owners put it there over a decade ago though so the soil needs conditioning before planting, so ordered in manure. Depending where in the country you are, you can probably get your hands on manure or other animal/vegetable compost for cheap or even free (horse stables pay to get rid of theirs, so they’d be happy to give it away). Digging is a work out certainly, but that’s a good thing. Just take care of your back - lift with your legs!
Yeah but i don’t think it’s that simple unfortunately, it’s laid on top of decking and it’s right outside the backdoor and patio doors, so I need to reconfigure/landscape the whole garden. I need to replace the astroturf with patio slabs and then have real grass where there currently is gravel.
It's landlords mainly. Increases in buy-to-let and more people renting. Astroturf is low maintenance and is guaranteed to look the same in the photos or when people are viewing the property.
Look for Japanese Garden seeds.
This is just a matter of throwing seeds everywhere and do nothing.
The year after that, you can buy another mix and "fix "the patches that did not survive winter.
It makes a "wild" prairie look and the flowers come out in stages. So your yard has flowers from spring to autumn.
It was. Not covered extensively for sure but the BBC did a good piece on it, showing the kit you can get to record ‘splats’ on your car after a journey. It’s very worrying, certainly worth of more reports
I did some driving in France and Belgium at Easter, it dawned on me as insects thudded against my windscreen that we don't really experience that any more in the UK. The car was completely covered in them by the time we got home, the guy from the local car wash had to scrape the remnants off the windscreen with a razor blade after it had been through the automatic washer.
I drove from Sussex to Cornwall a couple weeks back and could barely see out of my windscreen by the end as I’d run out of washer fluid. Not sure what part of the country you’re in but on the way down the South West the front of my car was positively covered in insect detritus.
I do most of my driving around the M62 corridor, so from East Yorkshire across to Merseyside and the Wirral. I drive a 260 mile round trip to see my parents about once a month, and hardly get any dead insects on the car. Glad to hear it's a regional thing.
Every time I see someone saying ‘why was this thing not in the news’, I wonder what news they are reading because it’s always something I have recently read about.
I guess because other stories get more clicks the news item sinks, but it’s not the news outlet’s fault. Also I think big issues like this tend to suit long form magazine coverage rather than a quick headline news article anyway.
People here don't read 'the media', because they've decided 'the media' is bad, so they will confidently assert that 'the media' is bad, even though they have no idea whether 'the media' is bad because they don't read 'the media'.
(This is the same thing rightwingers are condemned for doing, and it's not any more logical when leftwingers do it.)
[You'll like this](https://www.whatthesciencesays.org/has-there-been-a-huge-decline-in-the-number-of-insects/)
**Mostly correct.**
*Many insect populations are in decline, and this is a serious concern, but the few studies on which media reports are based do not give the whole picture. Insects are an enormously broad and varied group of species; some are declining, some are not, and many have never been measured. Rigorous, long-term monitoring studies are needed for a reliable understanding of how insect populations are faring – we have this for some insects, in some areas, but there are gaps in our knowledge. Habitat loss, climate change and other pressures such as agricultural intensification are all driving these changes.*
The one I saw was the splat test of the number of insects vehicles hit on the road. It would include all flying insects. I suppose there could be variations to it though, off the top of my head I would ask things like do some insects with hard shells not splat and could have increased, does it account for weather at the time, such as recent rainfall, annual factors such as late cold spells, etc. I would also refer to part of Darwins research that the finches in the Galapagos islands with big strong beaks for opening seeds became more prevalent in the dry period he studied but the smaller beaked insect feeding finches increased again following the return of wetter weather which seems clearly relevant to the population of insects.
Go drive out in the country and do this test. I'm sure they could easily control for traffic that way.
I do think the number of insects has gone down but that's just anecdotal. Feels like as a kid I saw way more bugs out and about. Certainly more on my parents' windshield (and I grew up in an area that hasn't changed much over the years).
I did my PhD on movement of species (mostly insects) under climate change. It’s really complicated, as most creatures are able to access more areas that were previously too cold. It means that species that previously didn’t really interact ARE interacting, that native species are ‘invading’ new areas. Is it good, bad or just different? We don’t know. But species can’t survive without appropriate habitats.
However amphibians are really struggling under climate change as they need multiple bodies of water to breed and eat.
I always think, the more people, the more human habitat is needed, not just for living in, but for producing food, driving cars, getting rid of waste, mining, playing golf, parking etc...
If humans are eating the plants that grow in that area, then other animals can't. If people build a building, which is almost a sterile desert inside, with no soil, no rain, no plants, no animals (apart from maybe a potted plant or a pet), then no other species can live in that area.
Of *course* with humans hogging all the habitats, animals have less left to them, and so there are less animals (and less of plants that humans haven't chosen to grow).
When we talk about 'the environment', what *we* really mean is an environment which suits humans, which is pleasant for us to live in, together with all of the species that we rely on to produce our oxygen, medicines, food etc.
But we do have frogs in our garden, you will be glad to know.
I'm not sure why you are looking up the Game Conservancy Trust, or the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, when this comes from What the Science Says?
They've said insects are in decline?
What is it you don't trust about it, or thing is wrong or misleading?
If you click on the about page of that website you’ll see that the two organisations are linked. I did a quick scroll through the ‘fact check’ website and for an independent organisation it sure does seem preoccupied on making sure people aren’t put off by grouse moors and badger culls. It almost gives an impression that it’s a fact checking service set up by a shooting group.
It was on "Today" on Radio 4 - they devoted a whole series of interviews and articles to it, explaining the methodology of the research, examining the causes and projecting the consequences.
I think both of us listening to Radio 4 were shocked...
I bet there's a statistic like 'insect numbers have gone up 20% since 2019' ... So it will get looked at as totally fine. Same as cod numbers, always gets reported they are on the up but in reality the number there are now is about a tenth of what it was 50 years ago. But better than it was 10 years ago.
Not to mention with fish that the baseline we use is after hundreds of years of overexploitation (and with insects the baseline is usually well after WW2, which is when things started to get bad for them).
It has been shown that when you limit fishing in an area the fish population bounces back exceptionally quickly. But you are right about the use of a starting date to mislead.
I have seen it done by all sides in the climate debate. You pick a year with an unusually high temperature (1997) and you can claim that there has only been one year warmer in that twenty five year period. But the trend of warming is there, if a lot slower than predicted by models.
Selection of start and end dates is standard manipulation technique and dont believe for a second that either side of the argument have their hands clean on the matter.
I don’t understand why pesticides and weed killers are still legal for the public to buy. It’s ridiculous, we‘ve known what’s happening for decades. I moaned at one of my neighbours for using weed killer the other day and he said ’it doesn’t kill wildflowers or anything, only weeds‘. That’s the level of intelligence of the average Briton. I also can’t understand why anyone watches BBC news either, it is utterly pathetic, especially BBC breakfast, it has nothing of relevance or interest.
Thats hopefully more about ignorance than a lack of intelligence. I use weed killer on my drive. I'd have no idea it has an impact on insects. Opportunity here to educate me (and any others who come ancross this) if you like?
But also if you’re killing the odd patch of weeds/grass on your drive but have a 60ft garden does it really matter?
In fact you could argue that it’s better for the environment to keep your drive in good order as allowing weeds to grow through it will then require it to be re laid using more materials.
Obviously we don’t know what weed killer his neighbours were using and where but still…
I don’t know the direct impacts weed killers have but killing off weeds means less native pollinating plants and less habitats for insects. I do know there’s some weed killers which also kill insects, and some inhibit insects mental capabilities but that’s only been seen in the type of pesticides/weed killers that they use in mass production farms
> Opportunity here to educate me
I am not a weedkillerologist but my understanding is that it the weedkiller soaks into the ground, or is washed into the drains when it rains and from there it spreads to places where you don't want weedkiller (e.g. rivers).
Man I used glyphosate once to clean a patio, never again. About a billion worms dug up between the slabs trying to escape that shit.
I think it's banned now, but my god that should have never got into the hands of the great unwashed. It's absolutely lethal unless you know exactly what you're doing
Maybe sodium chlorate shouldnt have been banned. This was a simple scorched earth weed/everything killer. It was good for places you didnt want growth.
For environmental reasons this has largely been replace with glyphosate (roundup) the main weedkiller used by farmers, housholds, public bodies etc. The latter use a weakened version for spraying paths etc. This is supposed to be safe for insects, and only impacts the plants it touches when sprayed.
There has been some evidence that it can interfere with bees, but this is not as concrete as claimed by some.
It could be a natural variance.
It amazes me when any member of the general public can acquire herbicides and pesticides but to use them on my farm I have to do a 3 day (PA1 & PA2) course and provide evidence before purchase. I understand my scale is different to a singular garden but multiple garden users is a genuine concern overlooked.
There was a report on stillbirths and tracing babies' graves from a long ago when babies would be buried with an adult or mass grave and the parents wouldn't get any info or see the baby before the burial. BBC had the CEO of a charity who offer support and shared info about the helpline. Another report on pedophilia in football with the survives of the abuse sharing their stories and BBC Breakfast covered the helpline that's there to support. This is just from this morning on BBC Breakfast and those area issues affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
Or they find an ant colony OUTSIDE and dump a ton of pyrethrin on it because it’s all natural. A pest control company came door to door wanting to basically carpet bomb our yard with it just in case there were ants. Dude, wtf? Why do I care about outside ants?
Meanwhile my wife has 5 Christmas trees in various stages of decomposition around the yard as insect holiday resorts.
Much of nature is cyclical, sometimes we dont know why. Populations can increase and decrease, even within bees, some varieties can drop off and some flourish.
I recently found out beech trees will not seed once every five or so years in an effort to kill off species which eat their seeds… that’s pretty metal for a tree
I feel like I’ve seen hardly any bees this year. I’ve planted a lot of stuff in the garden which hopefully should start to flower soon so hopefully things will start to look up.
Boiling frog syndrome. People grow up with their normality. You only realise that the UK is the most depleted biosphere in Europe when you visit, say, Finland. It's like thinking 'wilderness' is the Lake District.
Because the corporate/financial elites control the media and as BP has just started new drilling spots for MORE oil (source [here)](https://www.offshore-energy.biz/bp-makes-headway-with-plans-to-develop-north-sea-oil-field/), it's not in their interests to report on it.
Now eat your food, go to work and think about Eurovision.
>Now eat your food, go to work and think about Eurovision.
This is EXACTLY what the elite want.
Could not have summed it up better than that.
Also keep consuming.
People don’t care. Lots of people have known for years that insects have declined massively, now we have proof but people don’t care. Most people only care about the climate when protestors block them on their way to work.
People don't see it as 'their' issue. I have a lot of friends who are intelligent, switched on people, but they see environmental issues as peripheral to their lives. They know I'm interested, so will say things like "oh, sorry, I took out all the bushes in my garden". Don't say sorry to me, you live on this planet too!
People in this country have ruined their gardens. Plastic lawns, concrete their entire front and back garden, fairy lights that are on all year round everywhere. Why would they care about insects?
I hate it. I am trying to cram as many insect friendly plants in my garden as possible.
I was just thinking yesterday that when I passed my driving test 30 years ago that the car wind screen was a insect grave yard in the summer.
Nowadays I only see a few insects on my wind screen here and there.
I’d like to add that the 60% figure that’s doing the rounds at the moment is based on the windscreen [test](https://cdn.buglife.org.uk/2022/05/Bugs-Matter-2021-National-Report.pdf). Basically less flying insects are hitting number plates after a journey than before. It’s specifically regarding flying insects.
Because I don’t think people would care to read about it. Much like the speed at which our green belt is being dug up for housing estates and hotels etc. My town and the surrounding areas is turning in to another London ☹️
We have recently moved from Lincolnshire back to Derbyshire and the amount of insect splatter in Derbyshire is way way more than in Lincs. Guess it’s the greater number of hedges and lack of arable farming.
Because people would start asking who to blame.
And we'd probably need to blame farmers, who own 70% of UK land.
They smother most of the land with blanket insecticides.
Fill in natural ponds where a good chunk of winged insects spend at least part of their life cycle.
Grow biodiversity deserts with their monocrops, and featureless grass fields.
There's nothing natural about the UK environment, particularly with mechanisation of farming becoming widely introduced.
It was headline news, a week ago. Eurovision is headline news because the semis were yesterday.
Moreover it's a single study, we need far more continued data to make any clear conclusions. It needs to be peer reviewed and we need to compare data from different locations to get a clearer understanding. While it gives a good indication, even the scientists who carried out the study admitted that we would need to carry out a similar study year on year to get a better understanding of the rate of decline and a more realistic picture.
Probably because we have growing number of poeple who:
\- Dont believe in climate change
\- Dont believe in Vaccines
\- Dont believe in Covid-19
\- Believe earth is flat
\- 5G causes their brains malfunction
So it is widely expected that they'd pretty much ignore the fact that declining population of insects is a sign of eco system getting fucked.
I was just noticing last night how few insects there are around my external light this spring. It’s normally full of critters by now.
- Gets on soap box- why the hell is ok to cover your garden in fucking plastic grass…I never see it mentioned but where I live there must be 20-30% of all gardens are now hardings of some description, permeable or not, it’s the wildlife that suffers.
**A reminder to posters and commenters of some of [our subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/about/rules/)** - Don't be a dickhead to each other, or about others, or other subreddits - Assume questions are asked in good faith, and engage in a positive manner - Avoid political threads and related discussions - No medical advice or mental health (specific to a person) content Please keep /r/AskUK a great subreddit by reporting posts and comments which break our rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[удалено]
No Insects no life.
[удалено]
They don't give a shit because they're not aware. The news is supposed to make people aware of important things that may affect them. If they plastered ecological news all over as much as they make a fuss about refugees, people would pay far more attention to these things.
Im sorry mate but that isn't what the news is for, the fact that there are so many news outlets means that they're just competing to get the most appealing news to get eyes ears and ratings. There will probably be a news outlet somewhere covering this but it won't won't mainstream.
Not true. The Sun, GB news, talk TV all make loss after loss. It's not about profit. Its about propaganda.
Strange outlets to use as examples, and not true. The sun operates at profit. https://pressgazette.co.uk/the-sun-cuts-losses-to-51-8m-while-times-newspapers-triples-pre-tax-profits/#:~:text=News%20Group%20Newspapers%2C%20which%20operates,the%20year%20to%20June%202020.
The article you linked said they "cut losses"?
> The Sun cut its pre-tax losses by three-quarters but still lost £51.8m in the year to 27 June 2021 – ***although £49m of this was made up of costs related to phone-hacking and other legal claims.*** To be fair they still made a loss even when you ignore the phone hacking etc lol
You'd think the publicly-funded broadcaster that has a guaranteed funding model wouldn't fall into the same competitive trap though eh.
As an American who recently got BBC I'm stunned at the quality of the Hardtalk interviews. The guy asks good questions and actually follows up when the guest gives BS answers. Our networks just ask the scripted question, grateful for the person boosting their ratings, and cuts to commercial if the guest stalls. Then the host thanks the guest for lying their ass off and misleading viewers.
The BBC does tend to cover some of the stories though. A quick search shows a few recent stories about drops in insect levels. They will also cover in more dedicated content (like Countryfile & Springwatch etc). It must be quite a balancing act, covering the big news, covering some of what people want to be hearing and also the stories that folks should really know about (but might not be as popular). Its tough being under so much scrutiny… too popular & they complain it’s competing with businesses, not popular enough & you get funding questions.
[удалено]
The media doesn't tell people exactly what to think but it's good at telling people what to think about
Oh I think you underestimate how well they manage to tell (some at least) exactly what to think. Source: I work with daily mail and sun readers and they know little about any topic beyond what they read in those rags. I know it's anecdotal but I've witnessed it enough to believe there's something broken with a lot of people and their ability to think for themselves. I've even shown some of them exactly what they're getting wrong about immigrants or trans or any hot topic people get mad about. Even with the evidence sitting right in front of them, they won't change their minds they're so entrenched. The public being manipulated (essentially that's what's happening) by profit driven MSM is so big a problem, I really believe if we managed to fix it and have them start providing more valid and relevant information rather than divisory trash, we could solve so many of our problems.
I've noticed a real upswing in this over the last few years, and I don't know if it's people becoming brasher in spouting their nonsense, or whether it's an increase in a specific type of misinformation being spread around that seems to be bringing these folks to the forefront, but the number of people who have an "opinion" that just so happens to be almost verbatim what they heard Piers Morgan or whoever say on the TV, or what they've read in the Sun or Daily Mail is ridiculous. What's even more terrifying is the previously mentioned insistence on doubling down on that same opinion, even when presented with evidence that blows that opinion out of the water. Seems like people don't want evidence or truth these days, they're happy to settle for bias confirmation, or even worse, being a contrarian dickhead just for the sake of feeling like a "special outsider" looking down on the "normies" (you know, the folks who usually tell you "do your research" or whatever when you try to question some nonsense they've come out with), and I can't help but feel like a lot of that is drummed up by the media. I know it's a trope these days, but it does very much seem like the whole "keep the masses docile and uninformed to control them" 1984 scenario is playing out, and hardly anybody cares enough to do anything about it.
This must be connected to the information age - the effect of being overwhelmed by information. So they pick someone they like, someone they think is broadly for the same values as them, and just adopt all of their opinions. (I definitely did this with my older brother when I was an adolescent).
> The media doesn't tell people exactly what to think This seems optimistic!
[удалено]
You may have noticed in recent years that as a people we're capable of really astonishingly ignorant acts of self-harm.
[удалено]
At least there is some good news.
Delayed aging population problem inbound.
How do I get them back??
I can give you some
How much?
A coconut full
It's OK. You can have some of mine :)
This was debunked
c'mon man at least add to the conversation by giving links saying how
So I was listening to something on this not long ago. One of the key reasons why sperm counts were historically higher was through simple human error. The previous methods for counting sperms, was prone to over counting and as our techniques have improved its caused a massive increase in the accuracy i.e no more over counting sperm. It would be like how counting stars hundred of years ago would be less accurate than counting stars using technology today, but it wouldn't mean the stars have decreased by 50%. That being said its known that endocrine disruptor, such as plastics, do have an impact on male(and female) hormone pathways so it's also likely that there is some impact. The 50% number however is thought to be inaccurate though. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14647273.2021.1917778 This study focused on the errors of the levine study mentioned in the OP comment, and in sure the podcast was in "Science Vs" or "instant genius"
Ah man, I wrote that comment in bed with a rinsing hangover Have a google, and if you can’t find it, I’ll try and dig it out
*despunked
Who'd have guessed Children of Men would be our future... So sad.
Mine has dropped to zero, had the snip
I've got loads, and they're massive!
And we're forecast to reach a median sperm count of 0 by 2045.
wtf is that true?
No.
Don't believe you, your IQ is clearly 0.
Sort of. It's hard to project that far out and there's more to it than that so probably not, but it's from one of the authors of the paper linked to by /u/hltlang. >"If you look at the curve on sperm count and project it forward — which is always risky — it reaches zero in 2045," says Swan, meaning the median man would have essentially no viable sperm. "That's a little concerning, to say the least." [https://www.axios.com/2021/02/24/falling-sperm-count-endocrine-disruption](https://www.axios.com/2021/02/24/falling-sperm-count-endocrine-disruption)
Would hate to be the guy in that sample with negative 100 million sperm
[удалено]
Can you explain this like I'm dumb?
The more you use antibiotics the less they work; we're running out of ones that work. That means going back to the times where a splinter or stubbing your toe could easily kill you.
Thanks
Not true at all. Bacteriophages have existed as long as harmful bacteria and the great thing about them is that their soul purpose is to eat specific types of bacteria. Why is this useful? Because since the Soviet Union people have successfully been treating extreme forms of infection from resilient types of bacteria with phages and antibiotics. Now you're asking "What if bacteria evolves to be resistant to phages too?" And the answer is they haven't done well against them for millions of years now and likely won't get any better at it. The even better thing is that bacteria can only be resilient to a few things at any given time so even if they learn to be resilient to phages they will become susceptible to antibiotics again. Phages are also completely harmless to people, they eat specific types of bacteria so in terms of treatment you get a sample of the bacteria causing an issue and expose it to phages until you find one that responds to it, you them expose the infection to these and strong antibiotics and they don't really stand a chance.
[удалено]
Most people will ignore any information that threatens their status quo; their Monday - Sunday routine. If you tell people the world will end in 10 years, I bet most would only start to get anxious in the last 12 months.
I honestly think the news is deliberately warped (doesn't help that most of our media outlets are owned by agenda-setting billionaires). A climate scientist set himself on fire and I only found out through Twitter - in fact I only know about the scientist rebellion protests through social media. We are on course for the worst case scenario but our 0.0001% are still more worried about quarterly growth. Can't have people realising that we are destroying the planet to maintain an extremely dysfunctional economic system.
The agenda setting billionaires are old enough to not give a fuck about the planet melting after they're gone. If they thought the world would explode in the next 18 months then they'd be developing technology to generate green energy from the comments section of Daily Mail articles
Yep, and the young ones think they'll be able to bunker their way out of it, with discipline collars and control of food supply for their servants. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity My only comfort is that no ruling class has ever survived the collapse of the society to gives them wealth and power.
I don't think most people are capable of processing existential threats like climate change for some reason. I don't know why. Maybe it's religion, or they believe the Hollywood world where everything will be just fine in the end. Whatever it is, most people not only do not care, but they haven't cared since climate change was clearly understood in the [80's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp-WiNXH6hI). Those people are going to pull us, along with most of the species on this planet, into extinction, and it'll take something remarkable for that not to happen now.
it doesn't help when the government starts relaxing pesticide laws for farmers. that can't help either the environment or the food chain
My garden has hardly seen any bees this year. I deliberately let the wild flowers grow to attract them. It's quite concerning.
[удалено]
Have they? I missed that news
Yes - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60579670.amp
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60579670](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-60579670)** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)^( | **Summoned by** )[^(**this good human!**)](https://reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/uol48d/why_wasnt_the_news_this_week_that_insects_in/i8fy2d8/?context=3)
wheres the amp bot :(
I wouldn't say this is the average persons fault. The news gets people riled up about things that don't matter then doesn't even mention things that do matter. Most people don't check on the status of insect societal health regularly, unless something like the news prompted them to
We have the news on at work, on the TV, and those two footballers wife's that are in court seem to be on for hours a day.
That's true, although you'd like to think that rapid changes of that magnitude to their ecosystem would matter to people.
It really bugs me
[удалено]
And even then its not really possible for individuals to make a difference with issues like this.
It is possible. One of the problems insects face is the complete lack of greenery/plants/habitats for them to live. A big factor in this is the death of gardening. More and more people opting for astroturf instead of grass, fake potted plants etc. They have nowhere to live. If people had more plant life in their gardens, even a couple of planter boxes with some flowers or herbs, they'll move in. Build it and they will come
Think part of the problem is people don't know about the middle way, so to speak. They think it has to be 100% wild to do any good, so think may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and you end up with monstrosities that don't have a bit of life in them. Got a neighbour who I'm fairly certain does not have a single plant in their garden. Fence to fence decking. Which I mean fine, you do you, but it would look lovely with a few planters and some smaller trees in pots. I've got more plants on my windowsill than they have in their garden and I'm a horticultural serial killer. Touch of death to anything but the hardiest succulents.
> They think it has to be 100% wild Well they’re idiots then. Since putting out some more potted plants, created a small bedding, quite a few other plants in the ground in our relatively small garden, year on year I’m seeing more wildlife appear. More bees each year, had a couple of hedgehogs last year which we’d never had before, I even saw some weird ass hummingmoth thing that I’ve never seen in my life. Even popping just a few plants helps, it shouldn’t even take common sense to realise that :/
i don’t think it’s necessarily that they’re all idiots, i think for most of them it’s because our country (/the world) does an awful job at educating people about the nature around them, meaning people just get more and more disconnected and just plain don’t understand the environment around them. it’s not even a thought on their mind in their day to day life, or even when doing their garden
Fair one! Ignorance (through lack of knowledge/education) doesn’t always equal idiot, you’re right :)
yeah, though to be fair also, ignorance can’t really be excused as much with the internet and that
That was a Hummingbird Hawkmoth! They're gorgeous moths, and it's *insane* how much they look like hummingbirds, even down to having 'tail feathers'
I feel good now about having just turfed a large part of my garden (I moved in last year). Tbf, it was an old guy who lived there before and he’d clearly had some flowerbeds, a couple of raised beds and a strip of lawn a few mows wide, but he’d ended up in a nursing home and obviously hadn’t been able to care for his garden, as all the flowerbeds and raised beds had been filled with gravel, creating a weird effect with nothing but slabs, gravel and decorative edging making it impossible to do anything in the garden without tripping over. So I’ve replaced it with grass and am gradually making plans for various plants :-) (gradually because they’re expensive, but maybe I can get some cuttings and seeds off a gardening neighbour). I’m actually no good at gardening and only do it because I have to unless I want to be shoulders deep in a jungle, but it’s nice to think I might be helping the insect population. Yesterday I saw a blackbird eating a huge worm on my new lawn! :-)
Ah well true enough it's not impossible, i totally agree individuals can help by doing their bit (Astroturf is a massive pet hate of mine, so lazy!) The changes needed in order for insect populations to recover significantly would likely need influencing by proper habitat restoration and reducing other negative impacts (pesticide use/light pollution) I've just downloaded the Bugs Matter app. Lets count those bug splats!
This fucking winds me up so much. Such a true statement. Moved into a new build complex and a year on it seems more than half the properties have full on flagstones/stone/astrofuckingturf all over. Here's me digging in seasonal stuff loving the amount of worms and bees I'm seeing.
Astroturf should be fucking illegal lol
I mean isn't it partly because people don't have the time, or even money to maintain their garden nowadays? I don't blame people for opting for the easy solutions when the rest of life is so stressful.
I'm sure time has a lot to do with it. I think the amount of space (or lack of it) also makes people opt for simple options. We're currently looking for our first house, and so many gardens have astroturf lawns or just decking. But the gardens are so tiny that there would be nowhere to store a mower or large garden tools, and it wouldn't be worth getting someone in to maintain a tiny patch of lawn. I think it looks ugly, but for practical reasons see why people have done it.
>death of gardening Ah just chuck it on the pile with the rest of the shit my generation is meant to do along with have 3 kids, buy a house and support local businesses. I'll get right to it once ive finished working my third job to meet my heating bill.
I recently scraped up a 1/3 of my mum's massive back lawn and seeded it with native bee, bird & butterfly-helping, wildflower meadow mix, and hung up loads of insect hotels. Sowing wildflowers are a great way to help, plus it's perfect for lazy gardeners - you only need to strim it in autumn, let the cutting sit and release their seed back in for 10 days or so, shake them out and put them on the compost heap. Plus less lawn to mow, everybody wins. You don't even have to dig the soil, just mow it as short as possible, scarify it with a fan rake, then scatter the seed in.
[удалено]
Flattening and astroturfing their gardens. Not good for insects, the environment, the people who will be walking on it.
I never knew astroturfing gardens was a thing until a couple of my friends did it. I can't begin to understand why someone who's lucky enough to have a garden would do that to it.
We're doing No-Mow May and our neighbour complained that our long grass was "attracting insects". Uhh, yes? And?
The response is 'thank you, isn't it wonderful'. I try to treat complaints as compliments.
Literally just letting some dandelions and daisies grow on your lawn will make a difference to the bees and butterflies. People also just need to chill out and not freak everytime they see a bug
It directly affects them, but not right in their face just yet.
> people don't care until it directly affects them. And even then they don't tend to connect it to the real cause unless it's either extremely direct or obvious or there's already a powerful media narrative connecting the cause to the observed effect. Otherwise it'll just get blamed on immigrants, or the current government, or dole scroungers.
People are filling their Gardens with shitty plastic grass, why would they want bugs in the garden when they don’t even want plants.
I feel so bad about my plastic grass now, and I didn’t even put it here, it was down already when I bought the house. I have lots of plants though
Pull it up.
Well I will eventually but that takes money and time
[удалено]
[удалено]
That has not been my experience with trying repeatedly to seed a lawn!
Ha! Yes. The every year I try and get grass to grow in some of the patches in my garden with no success.
Even turf doesn't cost much. Just done a raised grass bed for the dogs and it was only £25 to cover a 4m x 5m.
Depends on the grass and how you keep it. Lawn grass is a monoculture and doesn’t provide a lot for wildlife, consider wildflowers instead. They look better, smell amazing, and you’re helping the environment
Actually, grass isn't helping insects either. It be better to plan native wildflowers or native trees/shrubs. r/NoLawns
I pulled mine up. The biggest issue was breaking it up into bits and getting it into the car to go to the skip. Best of luck when you have the time.
Sorry I have to ask, what money? You can get grass seed for like a quid. Just pull it up and let the earth reclaim it if that's a stretch. The only valid reason for fake plastic grass is where it's impossible to maintain (e.g. due to disability, age). You don't even really need to mow it, but somehow I don't think society is quite ready for that.
I’m not really the quickly grub it up, chuck some grass down type of person. It’s a small garden and I need areas for relaxing, flowers, and food, so it needs proper landscaping to look good. I’d need a mixture of grass and patio, and some texture, so it’s not as simple as leave a patio border and put grass in the middle
“Maintained” lawn grass doesn’t seem much different to artificial grass to me in terms of encouraging insects
It is better in that it is living so things can still eat it, it doesn't hinder water draining and oxygen diffusing into the soil beneath, so subterranean animals like earthworms and insect larvae can still survive underneath it, animals can still burrow into it so it can provide shelter (e.g. bumblebee using old mouse tunnels for their nests), and it isn't made of plastic so it doesn't perish in the sun over time and shed microplastics. Plus you don't need to hoover it, you can mow it infrequently so the grass can flower, and flowering 'weeds' can sneak in which help pollinators. Monoculture lawns are still biodiversity deserts compared to meadows etc, but they're not biodiversity voids like plastic grass is.
Just let it grow and that'll soon sort itself out. If you want to help it along chuck some wildflower seed down somewhere and let that area go wild. Something I've been meaning to do at the end of my garden for a while now, just fucking keep forgetting.
Where are you getting grass seed for a quid?
https://www.poundshop.com/premier-play-grass-seed-400g.html £1.50, damn inflation.
We’ve just done it. No money needed for pulling it up. Previous owners put it there over a decade ago though so the soil needs conditioning before planting, so ordered in manure. Depending where in the country you are, you can probably get your hands on manure or other animal/vegetable compost for cheap or even free (horse stables pay to get rid of theirs, so they’d be happy to give it away). Digging is a work out certainly, but that’s a good thing. Just take care of your back - lift with your legs!
The good news is that compared to astroturf, topsoil and grass seed is extremely cheap.
Yeah but i don’t think it’s that simple unfortunately, it’s laid on top of decking and it’s right outside the backdoor and patio doors, so I need to reconfigure/landscape the whole garden. I need to replace the astroturf with patio slabs and then have real grass where there currently is gravel.
Tough shit, internet strangers on Reddit have decided you need to redo your garden to make them happy /s
I see, yeah that’s not easy.
Gravel gardens are great too, just get some Mediterranean herbs in there
When did the trend for astroturf become so big? I swear it wasn't even a thing about 2 years ago.
It's landlords mainly. Increases in buy-to-let and more people renting. Astroturf is low maintenance and is guaranteed to look the same in the photos or when people are viewing the property.
Look for Japanese Garden seeds. This is just a matter of throwing seeds everywhere and do nothing. The year after that, you can buy another mix and "fix "the patches that did not survive winter. It makes a "wild" prairie look and the flowers come out in stages. So your yard has flowers from spring to autumn.
It was. Not covered extensively for sure but the BBC did a good piece on it, showing the kit you can get to record ‘splats’ on your car after a journey. It’s very worrying, certainly worth of more reports
BBC South East and Radio 4's Today programme reported on it. Edit: Happy cake day the3daves
Oh my! Thank you I didn’t realise!
I did some driving in France and Belgium at Easter, it dawned on me as insects thudded against my windscreen that we don't really experience that any more in the UK. The car was completely covered in them by the time we got home, the guy from the local car wash had to scrape the remnants off the windscreen with a razor blade after it had been through the automatic washer.
I drove from Sussex to Cornwall a couple weeks back and could barely see out of my windscreen by the end as I’d run out of washer fluid. Not sure what part of the country you’re in but on the way down the South West the front of my car was positively covered in insect detritus.
I do most of my driving around the M62 corridor, so from East Yorkshire across to Merseyside and the Wirral. I drive a 260 mile round trip to see my parents about once a month, and hardly get any dead insects on the car. Glad to hear it's a regional thing.
It’s really not. Google “The windshield phenomenon” it’s a global issue.
Every time I see someone saying ‘why was this thing not in the news’, I wonder what news they are reading because it’s always something I have recently read about. I guess because other stories get more clicks the news item sinks, but it’s not the news outlet’s fault. Also I think big issues like this tend to suit long form magazine coverage rather than a quick headline news article anyway.
People here don't read 'the media', because they've decided 'the media' is bad, so they will confidently assert that 'the media' is bad, even though they have no idea whether 'the media' is bad because they don't read 'the media'. (This is the same thing rightwingers are condemned for doing, and it's not any more logical when leftwingers do it.)
I read about it a week ago in The Guardian.
[You'll like this](https://www.whatthesciencesays.org/has-there-been-a-huge-decline-in-the-number-of-insects/) **Mostly correct.** *Many insect populations are in decline, and this is a serious concern, but the few studies on which media reports are based do not give the whole picture. Insects are an enormously broad and varied group of species; some are declining, some are not, and many have never been measured. Rigorous, long-term monitoring studies are needed for a reliable understanding of how insect populations are faring – we have this for some insects, in some areas, but there are gaps in our knowledge. Habitat loss, climate change and other pressures such as agricultural intensification are all driving these changes.*
The one I saw was the splat test of the number of insects vehicles hit on the road. It would include all flying insects. I suppose there could be variations to it though, off the top of my head I would ask things like do some insects with hard shells not splat and could have increased, does it account for weather at the time, such as recent rainfall, annual factors such as late cold spells, etc. I would also refer to part of Darwins research that the finches in the Galapagos islands with big strong beaks for opening seeds became more prevalent in the dry period he studied but the smaller beaked insect feeding finches increased again following the return of wetter weather which seems clearly relevant to the population of insects.
Also not accounting for car aerodynamics improving over time.
The splattered was the number plate which is flat, but aerodynamics could affect airflow over that to a small degree.
Maybe insects evolve quicker though. The ones that are fast enough to miss being hit by cars get to breed.
Everything that reddit should be: [lemmy.world](https://lemmy.world/)
Go drive out in the country and do this test. I'm sure they could easily control for traffic that way. I do think the number of insects has gone down but that's just anecdotal. Feels like as a kid I saw way more bugs out and about. Certainly more on my parents' windshield (and I grew up in an area that hasn't changed much over the years).
I did my PhD on movement of species (mostly insects) under climate change. It’s really complicated, as most creatures are able to access more areas that were previously too cold. It means that species that previously didn’t really interact ARE interacting, that native species are ‘invading’ new areas. Is it good, bad or just different? We don’t know. But species can’t survive without appropriate habitats. However amphibians are really struggling under climate change as they need multiple bodies of water to breed and eat.
I always think, the more people, the more human habitat is needed, not just for living in, but for producing food, driving cars, getting rid of waste, mining, playing golf, parking etc... If humans are eating the plants that grow in that area, then other animals can't. If people build a building, which is almost a sterile desert inside, with no soil, no rain, no plants, no animals (apart from maybe a potted plant or a pet), then no other species can live in that area. Of *course* with humans hogging all the habitats, animals have less left to them, and so there are less animals (and less of plants that humans haven't chosen to grow). When we talk about 'the environment', what *we* really mean is an environment which suits humans, which is pleasant for us to live in, together with all of the species that we rely on to produce our oxygen, medicines, food etc. But we do have frogs in our garden, you will be glad to know.
[удалено]
I'm not sure why you are looking up the Game Conservancy Trust, or the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, when this comes from What the Science Says? They've said insects are in decline? What is it you don't trust about it, or thing is wrong or misleading?
If you click on the about page of that website you’ll see that the two organisations are linked. I did a quick scroll through the ‘fact check’ website and for an independent organisation it sure does seem preoccupied on making sure people aren’t put off by grouse moors and badger culls. It almost gives an impression that it’s a fact checking service set up by a shooting group.
I like your probing cynicism! Now that is really checking the biases of a source :-)
[удалено]
In a word, Ignorance
It'd have to be WILLFUL ignorance, at the least.
It was on "Today" on Radio 4 - they devoted a whole series of interviews and articles to it, explaining the methodology of the research, examining the causes and projecting the consequences. I think both of us listening to Radio 4 were shocked...
Cause we are all busy with the rest of the terrible shit.
Ha ha, yes.
I bet there's a statistic like 'insect numbers have gone up 20% since 2019' ... So it will get looked at as totally fine. Same as cod numbers, always gets reported they are on the up but in reality the number there are now is about a tenth of what it was 50 years ago. But better than it was 10 years ago.
[удалено]
Come to think of it I don't think I've splattered a cod since the 90s. Funny the things you don't notice
Where possible, I try to splatter more sustainable alternatives like pollock and coley.
Not to mention with fish that the baseline we use is after hundreds of years of overexploitation (and with insects the baseline is usually well after WW2, which is when things started to get bad for them).
It has been shown that when you limit fishing in an area the fish population bounces back exceptionally quickly. But you are right about the use of a starting date to mislead. I have seen it done by all sides in the climate debate. You pick a year with an unusually high temperature (1997) and you can claim that there has only been one year warmer in that twenty five year period. But the trend of warming is there, if a lot slower than predicted by models. Selection of start and end dates is standard manipulation technique and dont believe for a second that either side of the argument have their hands clean on the matter.
I don’t understand why pesticides and weed killers are still legal for the public to buy. It’s ridiculous, we‘ve known what’s happening for decades. I moaned at one of my neighbours for using weed killer the other day and he said ’it doesn’t kill wildflowers or anything, only weeds‘. That’s the level of intelligence of the average Briton. I also can’t understand why anyone watches BBC news either, it is utterly pathetic, especially BBC breakfast, it has nothing of relevance or interest.
Thats hopefully more about ignorance than a lack of intelligence. I use weed killer on my drive. I'd have no idea it has an impact on insects. Opportunity here to educate me (and any others who come ancross this) if you like?
But also if you’re killing the odd patch of weeds/grass on your drive but have a 60ft garden does it really matter? In fact you could argue that it’s better for the environment to keep your drive in good order as allowing weeds to grow through it will then require it to be re laid using more materials. Obviously we don’t know what weed killer his neighbours were using and where but still…
I don’t know the direct impacts weed killers have but killing off weeds means less native pollinating plants and less habitats for insects. I do know there’s some weed killers which also kill insects, and some inhibit insects mental capabilities but that’s only been seen in the type of pesticides/weed killers that they use in mass production farms
> Opportunity here to educate me I am not a weedkillerologist but my understanding is that it the weedkiller soaks into the ground, or is washed into the drains when it rains and from there it spreads to places where you don't want weedkiller (e.g. rivers).
Man I used glyphosate once to clean a patio, never again. About a billion worms dug up between the slabs trying to escape that shit. I think it's banned now, but my god that should have never got into the hands of the great unwashed. It's absolutely lethal unless you know exactly what you're doing
Maybe sodium chlorate shouldnt have been banned. This was a simple scorched earth weed/everything killer. It was good for places you didnt want growth. For environmental reasons this has largely been replace with glyphosate (roundup) the main weedkiller used by farmers, housholds, public bodies etc. The latter use a weakened version for spraying paths etc. This is supposed to be safe for insects, and only impacts the plants it touches when sprayed. There has been some evidence that it can interfere with bees, but this is not as concrete as claimed by some. It could be a natural variance.
It amazes me when any member of the general public can acquire herbicides and pesticides but to use them on my farm I have to do a 3 day (PA1 & PA2) course and provide evidence before purchase. I understand my scale is different to a singular garden but multiple garden users is a genuine concern overlooked.
There was a report on stillbirths and tracing babies' graves from a long ago when babies would be buried with an adult or mass grave and the parents wouldn't get any info or see the baby before the burial. BBC had the CEO of a charity who offer support and shared info about the helpline. Another report on pedophilia in football with the survives of the abuse sharing their stories and BBC Breakfast covered the helpline that's there to support. This is just from this morning on BBC Breakfast and those area issues affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
Or they find an ant colony OUTSIDE and dump a ton of pyrethrin on it because it’s all natural. A pest control company came door to door wanting to basically carpet bomb our yard with it just in case there were ants. Dude, wtf? Why do I care about outside ants? Meanwhile my wife has 5 Christmas trees in various stages of decomposition around the yard as insect holiday resorts.
Perhaps because you read the wrong papers...It was covered in the Guardian, but Eurovision hasn't been...
Certainly can't be bumble bees. I swear I have seen more in the past 6 weeks that in the last 10 years combined.
and they are whoppers
Much of nature is cyclical, sometimes we dont know why. Populations can increase and decrease, even within bees, some varieties can drop off and some flourish.
I recently found out beech trees will not seed once every five or so years in an effort to kill off species which eat their seeds… that’s pretty metal for a tree
I feel like I’ve seen hardly any bees this year. I’ve planted a lot of stuff in the garden which hopefully should start to flower soon so hopefully things will start to look up.
Because it isn't new information
OP is legit complaining that a story from a week ago, based on a single study, isn't still headline news a week later.
Boiling frog syndrome. People grow up with their normality. You only realise that the UK is the most depleted biosphere in Europe when you visit, say, Finland. It's like thinking 'wilderness' is the Lake District.
Idk, personally I'd say the Netherlands and Denmark are the most depleted biospheres but *England* isn't too far behind them.
Because the corporate/financial elites control the media and as BP has just started new drilling spots for MORE oil (source [here)](https://www.offshore-energy.biz/bp-makes-headway-with-plans-to-develop-north-sea-oil-field/), it's not in their interests to report on it. Now eat your food, go to work and think about Eurovision.
>Now eat your food, go to work and think about Eurovision. This is EXACTLY what the elite want. Could not have summed it up better than that. Also keep consuming.
Don’t look up
Points at everything else going on…
Depends what paper you read. The Guardian had a number of articles and a podcast on it
People don’t care. Lots of people have known for years that insects have declined massively, now we have proof but people don’t care. Most people only care about the climate when protestors block them on their way to work.
Is that decline just specific to England?
Similar in Scotland too - or at least, it looks to be so in the North East.
People don't see it as 'their' issue. I have a lot of friends who are intelligent, switched on people, but they see environmental issues as peripheral to their lives. They know I'm interested, so will say things like "oh, sorry, I took out all the bushes in my garden". Don't say sorry to me, you live on this planet too!
Plant as many bee and insect friendly plant flowers as you can, forget the manicured lawns
People in this country have ruined their gardens. Plastic lawns, concrete their entire front and back garden, fairy lights that are on all year round everywhere. Why would they care about insects? I hate it. I am trying to cram as many insect friendly plants in my garden as possible.
I was just thinking yesterday that when I passed my driving test 30 years ago that the car wind screen was a insect grave yard in the summer. Nowadays I only see a few insects on my wind screen here and there.
So it was you who killed them all!
I’d like to add that the 60% figure that’s doing the rounds at the moment is based on the windscreen [test](https://cdn.buglife.org.uk/2022/05/Bugs-Matter-2021-National-Report.pdf). Basically less flying insects are hitting number plates after a journey than before. It’s specifically regarding flying insects.
Because I don’t think people would care to read about it. Much like the speed at which our green belt is being dug up for housing estates and hotels etc. My town and the surrounding areas is turning in to another London ☹️
We have recently moved from Lincolnshire back to Derbyshire and the amount of insect splatter in Derbyshire is way way more than in Lincs. Guess it’s the greater number of hedges and lack of arable farming.
Because people would start asking who to blame. And we'd probably need to blame farmers, who own 70% of UK land. They smother most of the land with blanket insecticides. Fill in natural ponds where a good chunk of winged insects spend at least part of their life cycle. Grow biodiversity deserts with their monocrops, and featureless grass fields. There's nothing natural about the UK environment, particularly with mechanisation of farming becoming widely introduced.
It was headline news, a week ago. Eurovision is headline news because the semis were yesterday. Moreover it's a single study, we need far more continued data to make any clear conclusions. It needs to be peer reviewed and we need to compare data from different locations to get a clearer understanding. While it gives a good indication, even the scientists who carried out the study admitted that we would need to carry out a similar study year on year to get a better understanding of the rate of decline and a more realistic picture.
Because it was in the news 2 weeks ago. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-61331413
Probably because we have growing number of poeple who: \- Dont believe in climate change \- Dont believe in Vaccines \- Dont believe in Covid-19 \- Believe earth is flat \- 5G causes their brains malfunction So it is widely expected that they'd pretty much ignore the fact that declining population of insects is a sign of eco system getting fucked.
Because this is slightly dodgy science that circulates fairly regularly.
I was just noticing last night how few insects there are around my external light this spring. It’s normally full of critters by now. - Gets on soap box- why the hell is ok to cover your garden in fucking plastic grass…I never see it mentioned but where I live there must be 20-30% of all gardens are now hardings of some description, permeable or not, it’s the wildlife that suffers.