Not all that long ago, either …… early in my career I worked in downtown Boston, and one of the guys claimed to commute by ice skating down the Charles River. Ok, I’m old for online but not that old
Yuuup good times. Going places you could only access by car if you crossed a frozen lake or river. Some of my fondest memories as a child. I would never in a million years attempt this today.
Yes! That just made me remember a time in highschool over 20 years ago now… We got off the bus and looked over at the bay that was completely frozen and decided to walk over to an island we would always see but never knew what was there. I took a big rock and kept throwing it in front of us to see if the ice cracked
I see this kind of realy devastating change in many areas in nature. There used to be frogs in our garden when I grew up, I would listen to them every evening right outside my bedroom window.
Now they are gone.
I see it in the Forests, where huge swats of trees have died over the last couple of years. There are areas in our forests now, that look like war zones, because drouth followed by to much rain in combination with invasive bugs have killed or weakens them so much.
Going back another generation, my brother, who is 16 years older, told be about field hamsters who where so plentyfull in the fields, that the local kids would earn money by hunting them and turning their corpses in for money in the village center. In the 16 years between my bother and me the European field hamster has, consequently, gone almost extinct. I never have seen one in my life.
And while all this is by its nature very anecdotal, these are areas where climate change and the way we treat nature as something alien realy feels close to me. And to be honest: It fucking scares me.
Well. Geeze. Scrolling through all the “heehee old tech” posts and now I feel like we’re all sitting around a campfire in something like “The Last of Us” or “Metro 2033” talking about the world that was…
You sure bring up excellent points though. The world needs to know while there’s still something left to save…
I would think a nontrivial part of the insect thing was related to the lights in use. They would attract bugs. Newer light sources just seem to be less interesting to bugs. I think it’s related to the amount of infrared output by the lamps, but I honestly have no idea. I’m no bug expert.
I’m certain it also has something to do with how many bugs have been killed on a massive scale, either from pollution or habitat destruction or something. Again, I’m no expert on any of this, so IDK.
if anything, I would think it’d be the opposite. LEDs are pretty capable of more narrow bandwidths natively, but old streetlights used to be a more pure kind of yellowy color, because they were low pressure sodium vapor lamps. Those kinds of lamps give off an incredibly narrow bandwidth of yellow light, and are pretty energy efficient. I would think, as we’ve made the transition from that to more wide-bandwidth LEDs, more insects would be attracted to the lights, and more insects would die. But I’m not quite sure one way or the other.
Well, I know more about the lamps than I do about the bugs and their behaviour. What I know is that there was no real standard that was universally adopted for what kind of bulb technology to use in most cities. Lately, almost every municipality has switched to installing LED lamps. Not all pre-LED lamps used LPS bulbs. Some were florescent, some were even HPS or even incandescent, if you go back far enough. From what I’ve been able to determine, sodium vapor was one of the most common at the end of the 20th century. Either LPS or HPS I would assume.
I get the impression HPS was more common, but again, it’s going to vary wildly depending on municipality. HPS has a more spread spectrum than LPS, with plenty of emissions into the far red.
My assumption is that the yellow/red attracts insects because it resembles the sun. Effectively, if a bug is in a dark place (such as a cave or similar internal space, it will aim for the brightest source of light to try to find it’s way outside (where food and other bugs are to mate with). I’m not sure what spectra bugs see, so I’m really only guessing as to whether sodium vapor or LED may attract them more or less than the other. I would assume any infrared would be a desirable wavelength for an insect to move towards, since our sun emits a lot of infrared.
Of course the amount of insects drastically reduced, but for the windscreen there is another thing to take into account: Cars today are extremely aerodynamic. Even new Jeeps and the F150s are aerodynamic. Because of this, the insects are pushed away from your windscreen instead of against it, which is one of the main reasons why your windscreen isn’t full of insects anymore.
The only real exception to this is the Mercedes G-Class, but I doubt that a lot of us will ever sit in one
The survey of insects hitting car windscreens in rural Denmark used data collected every summer from 1997 to 2017 and found an 80% decline in abundance. It also found a parallel decline in the number of swallows and martins, birds that live on insects.
The second survey, in the UK county of Kent in 2019, examined splats in a grid placed over car registration plates, known as a “splatometer”. This revealed 50% fewer impacts than in 2004. The research included vintage cars up to 70 years old to see if their less aerodynamic shape meant they killed more bugs, but it found that modern cars actually hit slightly more insects.
Insects. At night there would be plenty of insects under every singe street lamp. The windscreen would be full of yellow goo after driving in summer.
Snow. It used to last the whole winter and not just 2 days here and there.
I keep being told that the canals used to freeze over and people would skate on them.
Not all that long ago, either …… early in my career I worked in downtown Boston, and one of the guys claimed to commute by ice skating down the Charles River. Ok, I’m old for online but not that old
God damn our local lake used to freeze over and people would drive cars on it.
Yuuup good times. Going places you could only access by car if you crossed a frozen lake or river. Some of my fondest memories as a child. I would never in a million years attempt this today.
Yes! That just made me remember a time in highschool over 20 years ago now… We got off the bus and looked over at the bay that was completely frozen and decided to walk over to an island we would always see but never knew what was there. I took a big rock and kept throwing it in front of us to see if the ice cracked
Tons of bird bones. So many bones… Lol
Huh! Bird bone island! Sounds nice! Kinda like my backyard by the end of summer.
My cat likes to leave me mountains of bodies and bones. 🥰
Yeah I used to go out in the backyard in summer and catch a bunch of fireflies (we’d always let them go after). Now it’s a rarity to even see one
Seeing hundreds of fireflies in your own backyard, and nowadays maybe 1 or 2 an entire season IF YOU ARE LUCKY.
And when I point out the declining insect biomass to people, they’re all like ‘Good, less bugs’
And I’m like ‘You ignorant motherfucker…’
This is so sad.
It realy is.
I see this kind of realy devastating change in many areas in nature. There used to be frogs in our garden when I grew up, I would listen to them every evening right outside my bedroom window. Now they are gone.
I see it in the Forests, where huge swats of trees have died over the last couple of years. There are areas in our forests now, that look like war zones, because drouth followed by to much rain in combination with invasive bugs have killed or weakens them so much.
Going back another generation, my brother, who is 16 years older, told be about field hamsters who where so plentyfull in the fields, that the local kids would earn money by hunting them and turning their corpses in for money in the village center. In the 16 years between my bother and me the European field hamster has, consequently, gone almost extinct. I never have seen one in my life.
And while all this is by its nature very anecdotal, these are areas where climate change and the way we treat nature as something alien realy feels close to me. And to be honest: It fucking scares me.
Well. Geeze. Scrolling through all the “heehee old tech” posts and now I feel like we’re all sitting around a campfire in something like “The Last of Us” or “Metro 2033” talking about the world that was…
You sure bring up excellent points though. The world needs to know while there’s still something left to save…
Holy shit, this one is depressing.
I would think a nontrivial part of the insect thing was related to the lights in use. They would attract bugs. Newer light sources just seem to be less interesting to bugs. I think it’s related to the amount of infrared output by the lamps, but I honestly have no idea. I’m no bug expert.
I’m certain it also has something to do with how many bugs have been killed on a massive scale, either from pollution or habitat destruction or something. Again, I’m no expert on any of this, so IDK.
if anything, I would think it’d be the opposite. LEDs are pretty capable of more narrow bandwidths natively, but old streetlights used to be a more pure kind of yellowy color, because they were low pressure sodium vapor lamps. Those kinds of lamps give off an incredibly narrow bandwidth of yellow light, and are pretty energy efficient. I would think, as we’ve made the transition from that to more wide-bandwidth LEDs, more insects would be attracted to the lights, and more insects would die. But I’m not quite sure one way or the other.
Well, I know more about the lamps than I do about the bugs and their behaviour. What I know is that there was no real standard that was universally adopted for what kind of bulb technology to use in most cities. Lately, almost every municipality has switched to installing LED lamps. Not all pre-LED lamps used LPS bulbs. Some were florescent, some were even HPS or even incandescent, if you go back far enough. From what I’ve been able to determine, sodium vapor was one of the most common at the end of the 20th century. Either LPS or HPS I would assume.
I get the impression HPS was more common, but again, it’s going to vary wildly depending on municipality. HPS has a more spread spectrum than LPS, with plenty of emissions into the far red.
My assumption is that the yellow/red attracts insects because it resembles the sun. Effectively, if a bug is in a dark place (such as a cave or similar internal space, it will aim for the brightest source of light to try to find it’s way outside (where food and other bugs are to mate with). I’m not sure what spectra bugs see, so I’m really only guessing as to whether sodium vapor or LED may attract them more or less than the other. I would assume any infrared would be a desirable wavelength for an insect to move towards, since our sun emits a lot of infrared.
In the end, I’m only guessing.
Of course the amount of insects drastically reduced, but for the windscreen there is another thing to take into account: Cars today are extremely aerodynamic. Even new Jeeps and the F150s are aerodynamic. Because of this, the insects are pushed away from your windscreen instead of against it, which is one of the main reasons why your windscreen isn’t full of insects anymore.
The only real exception to this is the Mercedes G-Class, but I doubt that a lot of us will ever sit in one
Edit: apparently I’m wrong: https://feddit.de/comment/8318194
This is a myth and has been debunked.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/12/car-splatometer-tests-reveal-huge-decline-number-insects
didn’t know that!
I assume this is from the larger more flat-faced grills, especially on SUVs and pick-up truck size creep.