Horror Spilling to Grief > Not Halloween Horror, Reality | Insect Armageddon | Don’t Choose Extinction
October 27, 2021 2 Comments
Horror spilling over to grief, are the feelings I have of the human complete disregard and negligence towards all the other species on the planet. Right in the town where I live, and Hershey, the next town over, in this country, and as I posted several hours ago https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2021/10/27/extinction-chinas-relentless-building-and-crush-of-biodiversity/, all over the world.
Several weeks ago, I was bicycling from a place I ride to for WiFi (7.5 miles each way) to sit and work. Along my route I often see deer, whose habitats have diminished due to relentless building. The deer, like many animals, have become nocturnal, to avoid humans. So have I. I wait till very late at night to bicycle home, along areas that are too dangerous during higher traffic hours, due to the complete non-existence of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure.
I notice during my various bicycling routes, rows of trees that promise a forest, but they are like a curtain, a veil that is very thin. It is the pretense, of a forest that is ‘postense’ – no longer there. The forests have disappeared. Beyond the narrow row of trees, is more development or agricultural land.
I was on my way home bicycling, and except for the occasional roar of a car or truck, in silence, up a narrow path. When suddenly, I was immersed in a raucous chorus of insects. It was as if I had just biked through an invisible wall. I stopped, stunned and delighted. Got off the bike, to witness why this glaringly stark difference existed. The reason, I had come upon a thin strip of a hectic diversity of wild plants and grasses, that had been left to grow. This thin patch was sandwiched between neat and tidy, well-groomed, proudly manicured lawns. Not a hint of a weed such as a dandelion (which is nutritious and medicinal). The property dominated by lawns and parking lots, accommodating our car-centered culture.
Stop the Obsessive Lawn Mowing, Relentless Building, fracturing of habitats by developments and roads.
In this case, I’m not just referring to the mass extinction of large mammals and wildlife. I’m talking about the methodical cleaning up and sanitizing lawns, and subsequent wiping out complete populations of insects that thrive there.
The micro level, as humans continue to multiply and feed their desire for material acquisition, consumption and convenience, the construction of more human-dominated places, is equal to the destruction of habitats.
In particular, I’m talking about the increasing silence of the insects.
Decline in Insect Populations Silence Spreading
“Recent research report on significant decline in insect populations. In Germany a 75 percent decline in total flying insect mass has been observed over a duration of 27 years in natural reserves (Hallmann, 2017[1]). Another study reports on a 45 percent decline in invertebrate populations over the past 40 years based on global monitoring data.”
I recall how the home where I was raised. The house was skirted with bushes and flower beds, where I’d sit outside and watch chipmunks, squirrels, birds and the occasional skunk sauntering by. A complete Habitat for Wildlife. In addition to cover, we provided water. The new property owners tore all the bushes out and decapitated a 50 year old Wistaria with lavish and fragrant blossoms; also a nesting place for birds each spring.
What were they thinking? Obviously, only of themselves.
I recently witnessed these other busy with life fields of wild grasses with a proud sign, ‘Pollinator Area’, which were mowed over. Just like the strip of wild grasses where I had the eureka moment about America’s obsession with mowing lawns, crushes biodiversity. The wild grasses, a nuisance, untidy looking, ‘surgically removed’. Hershey wants tidy, pesticide-fueled, manicured lawns.
The experience taught me very clearly, that it is not merely the human activity fallout of carbon dioxide from our vehicle use and the industries that are warming the planet, but that we have been methodically, nonchalantly and unflinchingly killing off – with our obsession for tidy lawn facades. Reliance on pesticides, kill off everything. Extinguishing the plants that naturally grow (trees, grasses, woodlands, meadows, wetlands) Are killing off the habitats of most insects, rodents, birds and mammals. Why are we so clueless? Oh, that’s right. We learn out of habit, and what is advertised as being inviting and acceptable. And the whole lawn mower ‘industry’, is fueled by the oil and gas industry. We lubricate the engines of our machines to unthinkingly plow down more and more natural habitat. Not to mention, sound pollution. Fences that block the movement of wildlife are also criminal.
The Conversation: What is a ‘mass extinction’ and are we in one now?
Monbiot’s article, Miracle of Reduction
“What we need, to stand a high chance of stabilising our life support systems, is not slow and incremental change but sudden and drastic action.
“And this is widely considered impossible. There’s no money; governments are powerless; people won’t tolerate anything more ambitious than the tepid measures they have proposed. Or so we are told. It’s a stark illustration of a general rule: political failure is, at heart, a failure of imagination.”
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Pingback: Extinction – China’s Relentless Building and Crush of Biodiversity | digesthis
A running lawnmower puts out dozens of times more pollution than the average car, not to mention the herbicides and pesticides used to kill nature, and the fertilizer wasted on lawns and taken from the economy of third-world farmers, only to end up as choking algal blooms in our waterways.
The oceans are the place where chemicals and harmful biota wind up. We wouldn’t treat our toilets as badly — after all, most plastic, human and animal wastes terminate there, and we often repeat the cycle by eating from the ocean ecosystem (not to mention over-farming) ourselves. The best thing for protecting wildlife might be to leave it alone.