My dad and I take (usually) yearly road trips west to visit various national parks. We've been doing this for nearly 2 decades now. We'll typically drive through the night with just a short, few-hour stop at a rest area if we are both too tired to drive.
I distinctly remember some of our earlier trips where by the time we got fuel in the morning after driving through the night there were SOOO many bug guts all over the front of the car no amount of car washes would get them clean.
Our last trip to South Dakota/Colorado there was almost none and I was actually thinking about this. It is very unsettling...something is changing and it's not for the better...
A global apocalypse has already happened (and is continuing, within what wreckage remains) in the insect and amphibian populations. Almost no one outside a small community of scientists that are specifically in that field has even noticed, let alone has a theory for why, or a guess as to whether it is an urgent problem.
But yes it seems like an urgent problem.
I mean we used to have giant frog spawns every spring where we would have to be careful walking or we would step on several frogs at a time.
We haven't had one in 5 years.
Yeah I first noticed it like 10-15 years back when I visited my aunt in another town. Her place was always full of June bugs who would smash into your face repeatedly like a bunch of assholes, when we were kids. We even named her place after the bugs. But when I went back as an adult 15 years or so ago, there wasn't a single one. My aunt said they vanished over a couple of years. I always wondered if they just didn't like her property anymore or something, but it was likely climate change in the area.
Part of it is destruction of their habitat.
Yeah, it's getting worse. I specifically have been trying to grow plants to bring in pollinators; the only bugs I've seen on them are flies and aphids. I live in an area of California that's a seasonal wetland; it's now possible to drive an hour in any direction and hit no bugs. The bugs and ecological collapse might get us before the fossil fuel companies manage to murder us all for their investors.
Keep going - I see little individual bees, wasps, and butterflies pollinating things in my garden. Purple colored flowers really seem to draw in the bees.
Insect biomass declined by ∼47% and abundance declined by ∼61.5% over the last 35 years.
There has been a 69% decrease in wildlife since 1970. Even recreational fishing is considerably harder than it was when I was a kid, despite lots of stocking efforts.
This is how I convinced my grandfather climate change was real.
For the passed 50 years, he’s gone up to his cabin and fished.
Over the passed 10 years, he’s caught less and less fish.
When I was a kid, you could hardly put your rod in the water before you’d get something to bite. We’d through back a dozen fish before keeping one that was bigger. Now you’re lucky to get a single fish in several hours.
I asked him about the bugs, and he admitted there were less bugs in the windscreen then anytime in his life. And what do freshwater fish eat a lot of? Insect larvae and dead insects on the water. No food means no fish.
I think he finally realized just how fucked everything has to be for so many bugs to die off that fish start to die, and all the animals in the area that eat those fish. He kind of had an existential crisis, but unfortunately has ended up with the mindset “it’s gonna suck for you and your kids, but I’ll be dead before it’s really my problem”
But at least now he acknowledges climate change is real.
I remember this pond we went to, they stocked it with bass but you couldn't catch it because the second your line hit the water a damn suicidal bluegill would snatch up the hook, bait or no. My dad was trying to teach me to fish and I was having the time of my life. He, on the other hand, was pissed as hell because the damn bluegills were getting in the way of him finding us some bass for dinner. Also, apparently I was supposed to learn that fishing involved patience but we picked the wrong spot for that. I did learn catch and release, and maybe I got a pet fish I dunno.
That pond burned down a few years ago. Climate change is fun.
It's those little things that scare me the most. Insects make up a large amount of the bottom tier of the food chain and are a necessary part of the reproductive cycle of a lot of plants. This is a much clearer indicator of how deep in the shit we are with climate change.
For me it's the oceans.
That's the kind of cascading changes that are going to rapidly fuck shit up.
Just a bit too acidic or warm and we can kiss our asses goodbye. And it's pretty much at that point already.
Enjoy things while they last. We probably have less time than we think.
Birds decreased a bunch it seems, but the one that stood out to me was squirrels. I seem to remember there being a lot more when I grew up. They were chasing each other playing in trees running on rooftops everywhere. Now I see them playing once in a while. Either the squirrels all got Netflix, depressed, and repressed like us humans and not want to play anymore, or they are dying off.
Yeah we're probably totally cooked. I wasn't even alive in the 90's, so I wouldn't know firsthand, but you can listen to nature recordings around certain locations and what was once many birds is now not very many birds.
I dunno. I think everyone looks at climate change and the destruction of ecosystems and habitats as a kind of, instantly apocalyptic issue, like that's just a turning point and then suddenly everyone dies. I don't think it's so simple. I don't really know if corn or many of the crops we rely on can weather 2 degrees celsius global warming or whatever, but I think it's probably pretty likely that humanity, or more likely, some well-meaning asshole, ends up terraforming a bunch of shit before that really happens, which will probably kill a bunch of other animals and decrease overall biodiversity to an even greater extent. I think probably humanity at large would rather kill almost every other lifeform on the planet for survival before we allow ourselves to be threatened. Or, before we allow our structures to threaten dissolution, so probably "other lifeforms" also includes like, people in third world countries who rely on more local ecology and depend on local ecosystems for their foodstuffs. More interdependent.
So I dunno, we're probably totally cooked.
Oh no we are. We were told in the 80's that we had 20 years. It's been 40 years.
They also told us that when we start seeing the signs, it's too late.
Realistically at this point all we can do is mitigate the damage as much as possible. There's going to be widespread migrations, famine, resource wars. Humanity will survive but the environment will be drastically altered damn near permanently.
I am beginning to wonder how long it is going to be before we do something stupid like intentionally detonate a few nukes in a remote area to intentionally cause a mild nuclear winter to stave off the effects of climate change.
Futurama was wrong, nukes will just make climate change worse. That's why the Doomsday Clock combines both.
you can listen to nature recordings around certain locations and what was once many birds is now not very many birds
any good decades old nature recordings you could recommend me?
Yeah that sucks though. It dawned on me when I realised fly fishing sucks nowadays. There’s simply so little flying insects here that fishes aren’t feeding on them anymore and lost the reflex to go after them.
Now here I am trying to add flowers for insects in my garden to offset a bit my part in this :-/
Yeah the insect apocalypse is the most terrifying thing to happen so far in my lifetime, though if I never see another mating swarm of palmetto bugs it will be too soon.
They do have short little lifetimes mostly, could bounce back but people just can't stop using insecticide. It's not even like fish, where we are consuming too many, we are literally just killing them, in ways that poison the food chain. Short term thinking will doom us all.
Been screaming about this for a couple of years now. I remember dad teaching me to always clean the windshield when we stopped for gas.
I've seen the decline in my swampland in Florida in just the past 4 years.
Also a Florida native and I think the county mosquito fogging is part of the problem, there is no way that poison isn't harming other invertebrates. I know they do it to control disease and keep malaria from becoming endemic, it's not literally for no reason but is the cure worse than the disease? We need insects.
The first mass extinction caused by an earth life form.
After we finish killing ourselves off.. I wonder in the deep future if some smart creature will find it in the geological record and make jokes about how unbelievably stupid we were
the best part is, you don't have to consume fish.
Saw this on Facebook and the comments were teaming with boomers and morons insisting it was because cars are now more aerodynamic.
That will have a non-zero effect, but it's far from the whole story.
Because cars in the 90's weren't aerodynamic? There's been improvements, sure, but most cars then still had pretty good coefficients of drag.
But sure, blame anything except climate change.
This but unironically coupled with about half the total insects we had back then.
I've done a lot of campaigning with different groups about climate change and lots of the older folks have cited the disappearance of bugs as a wake up call for them. Ecosystems (including weather systems) are dying and our food is going with it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68792017
The UK government thinks giving some farmers some money will solve this and keep handing out new licenses for drilling for oil and gas, which the oil industry and the rest of the world has known for over 50 years will end up roasting the humans off the planet. The government are incredibly short sighted, profit hungry and lacking in humanity (see also selling bombs to kill kids with and sending people who block those sales to prison)
Thank capitalism
It's not just insect apocalypse, although that's most of it. Cars also do a better job of moving air over the vehicle now, so smaller insects don't end up on your windshield. It's still a problem with motorcycle helmets, although it's far, far less of a problem than it would have been 20 or 30 years ago.
The study was saying that less aerodynamic, older boxer cars killed less insects, conversely to what I would think...
Man it's always a strange feeling when you suddenly realize something quite ubiquitous disappeared like 20yr ago and you never noticed.
The worst is that celebrity that just died, or that movie I meant to get to from recently, or finally listening to "new Weezer" and they all happen 20 years ago
Just spent 12 hours in the car driving to see the eclipse. The windshield does not need cleaning. Far cry from when we used to drive all over the states as a kid, you'd have to scrub the windshield probably every third gas stop.
Well obviously all those people driving in the 80's killed all the insects with their windshields and now there's none left. It's their fault.
The democratization of corruption.
I'd like like a graph of the bug population decline overlayed onto Roundup adoption. Just a theory.
Roundup is an herbicide, fyi. But there are plenty insecticides being widely used, even moreso than Roundup in urban and suburban settings. Whenever mosquitoes start to come out, someone near me gets a mosquito yard treatment, and you can instantly see the insect biodiversity in my garden drop.
I work with a biologist who is studying this question because of the decline in pollinators and their results from studying this seem to show that it's very likely that glyphosate is contributing to the problem by limiting food sources and making pollinators more avoidant of spray areas. There's also some evidence that it may have an impact on insect immune systems.
I had a pest control company come out to plant some rat traps in the backyard and I specifically told them not to spray for spiders. They did anyways and fucking killed my bees! I was furious, and heartbroken, and there was nothing I could do to undo the damage.
That is a dominant theory, yes. Well, and other similar environmental poisoning + climate change + ecosystem destruction + transformation of biomes into anthromes (human made)
I live in dairy country and have to travel on a lot of rural roads; I do not share this experience. There are still plenty of bugs. Even with the county trucks spraying mosquito poison every few months around the canals and rivers.
Oh, right. Larvacide.
Come to Mexico, I swear my windshield was crystal clear throughout all my road trip from McAllen to Austin, but once when I headed home, Mexico, I started to see the bugs all over the windshield, and even a dude in a gas station appeared from somewhere to clean it without even asking for (this is some of those douchebags who get mad because you don't want to give them coins for the service you did not ask for lol) and when I continued driving the windshield was almost in the same dirty status pretty quickly.
We acá en el centro del país cdmx, ni maiz. Puedo entrar en moto de noche sin bicho alguno
Yes it's terrifying. I hope its not the start of the food chain collapsing.
I fly fish and therefore pay attention to aquatic insects. The rivers in my area definitely have more bugs largely due to efforts to cut pollution
Damn millennials with their ecological collapse; killing the windshield wiper fluid industry!
I have a 2004 Honda element, the windshield attracts bugs like craz. In the summer I can go through a gallon of fluid in a few weeks. I also have a 2008 Outback, which is the one I usually take across state lines to see family. It's better at keeping them off the glass, but the washer line is busted and the tank is cracked, so I still end up having to use gas station squeegee a couple times per trip.
I can't win.
What general area do you live in if you don't mind me asking. The south east has seen less bugs in my experience.
Midwest. Great Plains region.
I replaced the washer line on my 2016 Outback. It looked way more complicated than it was, and I think I took the bumper off when I didn't have to. You should look at YouTube. I recall thinking how easy it would be to do it a second time.
Yeah, I've been told it's easy on the '08, too. The truth is I'm not really on the highway that much to begin with, unless I'm visiting family in the next state over or very occasionally running to one of the bigger cities. It's not enough to justify at this point, and I'd wager not enough by the time I sell the ol' girl.
I miss my 2006 Element dearly. By far my favorite vehicle that I've owned. It did feel like a rock catcher though. I had to replace the windshield several times.
Can't remember the last time I saw a banana slug or any other large varieties. Used to see them all the time in the PNW.
Where in the PNW? I still see them on trails north of King county in the suburbs. Not disagreeing with the message behind the original post but those slugs surprised me when I moved here from the Midwest and they're still around.
Western Washington. I used to go to a number of parks along the sound and see tons of slugs all the time. I know they aren't completely gone, but I can't even remember the last time I've seen one now.
Used to see larger slugs in FL too.
I used to drive to McDonalds and my car would be covered in banana slugs by the time I got back.
Now my cat Dexter looks at me while I eat my ice cream and big macs and all I can say is “sorry buddy, nothing for you this time”
damn you awoke a deep memory. roads used to be blanketed in bugs come summer back then. now it's rare to even get a single bug stuck on the screen in a cross state drive.
I wonder if cats being more aerodynamic could have something to do with this too.
Edit: I said what I said.
Cats have always been pretty aerodynamic. I don't think I've noticed a major improvement in how aerodynamic they are
I haven't seen any change in cat aerodynamics. Their trick is actually in their center of gravity, as it results in them being able to quickly right themselves when in free fall.
i just drove across the State and was covered in bugs.
When people around here mentioned there are no more insects on the wind screens of car a local biologists checked the number of insects - and it was more or less the same (~5% less)
But what he found out was pretty interesting: Nowadays insects avoid streets. Evolution seems to have breed an inherent fear of streets into insects.
I'll believe you without questioning or researching myself because that would be a very comforting thought indeed
You would believe it if you saw the mosquito swarms in my garden. The quite busy street basically is a biological desert. One meter off road in my garden I have a HUGE swarm of mosquitoes every evening. Not just one or two, more like 100, all in one big flock, within 1-2m³. And as soon as I leave the house they are all over me. Only way to get rid of them: Walk to the street or get back into the house. Dusk-Time is Mosquito Time in my garden. No humans allowed.
Edit, what I call mosquitos are two different insects around here. The very tiny ones of 3-5mm and sting like hell and the huge ones at 50-150mm (Not joking, some are larger than my hand) which are utterly harmless but also disgusting. I guess nobody expected Monster Mosquitos in Bavaria. But then we also have snakes who can spray like skunks. And LOTS of them.
Way I see it is, if I gotta die for the mosquitos to die, we'll call it a draw and that's that.
Def this. I remember the pesticide trucks would come through the neighborhood and spray everything down. Which I'm sure is a big part of why this shits like this now.
It will lead to the death of all of us but maybe we will have one summer without that fly buzzing in your room at night so that's probably worth.
I see this meme a lot but is there any actual truth to it? I just drove to see the eclipse (April, not the warmest month) and my car was covered in bug splats.
Yes, there is a well documented mass extinction occuring as a result of human activity. It's commonly referred to as the Holocene extinction or the Anthropocene extinction. It's affecting many species of animals, not only insects.
I see this meme a lot but is there any actual truth to it?
Denmark: A 20-year study measured the number of dead insects on car windshields on two stretches of road in Denmark from 1997 until 2017. Adjusted for variables such as time of day, date, temperature, and wind speed, the research found an 80% decline in insects. A parallel study using sweep nets and sticky plates in the same area positively correlated with the reduction of insects killed by cars
United Kingdom: In 2004 the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) asked 40,000 motorists in the United Kingdom to attach a sticky PVC film to their number plate. One insect collided with the plate for every 8 kilometres (5 mi) driven.[2][3][4][8][11] No historical data was available for comparison in the UK.[12] A follow-up study by Kent Wildlife Trust in 2019 used the same methodology as the RSPB survey and resulted in 50% fewer impacts. The research also found that modern cars, with a more aerodynamic body shape, killed more insects than boxier vintage cars.[13] Another survey was conducted in 2021 by Kent Wildlife Trust and nature conservation charity Buglife, which showed the number of insects sampled on vehicle number plates in Kent decreased by 72% compared to the 2004 results.
It kinda is. I used to constantly get bug splats all over my car, but as of the last year or two I don't have nearly as many. I've noticed that I spend less time when washing compared to then. What makes it even more worrying is I drive a lot more now.
I remember there being hordes of butterflies every year when I was a kid.
I havent seen a butterfly in years now.
Yet somehow the one species that avoided it is mosquitoes. I moved back to an area I lived in 15 years ago, I swear there's way more mosquitoes now.
Makes perfect sense, as human population grows, parasites and pathogens are going to thrive while the others will continue to die off.
When I moved to Los Angeles a huge selling point was no mosquitos. There are now invasive mosquitos, but most people don't mind enough to do anything about it. I might move again.
It's okay, we just put all the bugs on big bug reservations where they can practice their bug culture.
I wonder if the South still has love bug season.
Idk, but I know that there are far fewer fireflies now.
Nothing like it was 18 years ago when I moved here. I barely noticed last September.
Where'd the ugly motorcycle windshields go?
We're probably doomed.
What's bizarre is the smile of the guy at the wheel. I mean I get it but it's still surreal.
What's bizarre is that your focus snapped to the body language and emotions of this sketched character instead of the main idea of the comic. I don't mean to be judgmental at all, it's just an observation and an interest of mine. Can you tell me a bit more about your flow of consciousness when you first looked at the image?
First thing I see is face and then unhappy and happy states?, feel it kinda though not exactly. I look at the smile and I somewhat feel it too.
When I look at a picture of a smile I get a brief glimpse of my happy moments in life. I can feel the green grass and trees and family for a split second. Then this happy conflicts with the realisation of the message of the image which gives it surreal quality of being happy and horrible at the same time.
Which is accentuated further by the happy being not just some usual happy human but an idealised character from cartoon in a way that I associate with positivity and pureness.
Then I try to frame this guy in a bad light semi subconsciously. He voted for Trump
This is so subtle
Subtle in the sense that, it's not explicitly saying "ooooh, the bugs are dying" in caps, it doesn't even have much text, is just some dude meh or smiling. I think the composition of the "meme" is very smart
What happened then in 1998?
On a hike with my kid and actually said, "Oh look! A bee! Stop, let's watch it! When I was a kid these were everywhere. They pollinated all the flowers.. and we thought the world would end if they went away... And they did.. .... And here are all these flowers.... Hmmm"
If you live in the USA and if that was a honey bee, please be aware that they're not native.
It was a honey bee
Good, fuck bugs! Especially mosquitos! And those grubs that crawl up your urethra!
Wearing a seat belt in 1998? Nice try zoomer ;)
in 1998? yes we definitely were wearing a seat belt. I didn't see many in my circle not wearing them. Of course the drunk uncle sometimes wasn't.
high school in 1998 - we 100% were wearing seatbelts by default.
we're not THAT old!
In Germany you have to wear a seatbelt since 1976. Where are you from that you still didnt had this law in 1998?
Oh the law was there.
Enforcement was practically non existent and it was generally seen as evidence of government overreach (“who are they that they can tell me what to do?”) instead of good safety practice.
Edit: I looked up a recent study. Apparently 1/3 of drivers in that particular country didn’t wear seat belts in 2021. How they manage to do that with modern cars is a mystery to me.
This isn’t actually a bad omen. It’s actually better this way as things that were sticking to windshields were pests on crops. So fewer is actually better for food stock. That’s kinda what the farmers are trying to head towards. There used to be a lot of insects. There were also many many shortages on farms as a result.
Complete nonsense. Mosquitoes, flies, bees and wasps are not pests on crops. Quite the opposite in fact, as they are all crucial for the pollination process.
it's the kind of thinking that led to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
Mosquitoes and wasps in particular are a pest to livestock.
Grasshoppers are a pest to grain.
Another good news is we'll have plenty of jobs pollinating crops manually instead of those damn bugs.
