Insect Apocalypse?

[CrealCritter]

In the Midwest a LOT of GMO corn is grown for ethenol.

 

[Britesea]

Nature will eventually re balance the scales, although probably NOT in a way we will appreciate. It's all very good to say that there are too many humans, but I don't see very many people willing to step up to the plate and bow out, lol. If you want to talk about mandatory sterilization to control the population... it's been suggested before, and the word genocide got slung about...

 

[tortoise]

This is in contrast to a farmer raising cash crops as his livelihood. At that scale, it is an entirely different ball game. A great friend of mine farms at that scale for a living. In order for him to do that efficiently, conventional chemical usage is necessary. If not, the crop (part of the monoculture) fails and he can't pay his bills.

I rent crop land to large scale farming. This past year, our 30 acres along with neighbors' 20 and 15 acres were planted with wax beans. They had one spray of fertilizer, but no herbicide. They cultivated the field twice. After harvest mid summer (wax beans), the field was left to rest and then later a winter crop sown. I'm not sure if it is a cover crop or maybe something like rye that is started the winter before the year of harvest. It was very interesting to see a different way of cultivation. Previous two years, renting to same farmer, were soybeans and field corn, with herbicides. I am hoping for no round up again. Our neighbor wants to go organic (although he uses crazy amounts of roundup on his own stuff, go figure) and I believe he is going to rent to a hay producer. We're landlocked by hi field so may go that way too. I hate roundup being used here. I keep telling DH that it really IS up to us if we decide to rent to someone who is going to use it.

 

[tortoise]

@Britesea , there are population reducing initiatives which don't interfere with human rights. Reducing child mortality and improving education for women both correlate with lower birth rates. In fact, most of the women's right and human rights issues are ones which correlate with lower birth rates. Globally, birth rates are greatly reduced from 100 years ago, where many countries have birth rates low enough to begin reducing their populations. That's great except for USA's social security system.

 

[CrealCritter]

@Britesea , there are population reducing initiatives which don't interfere with human rights. Reducing child mortality and improving education for women both correlate with lower birth rates. In fact, most of the women's right and human rights issues are ones which correlate with lower birth rates. Globally, birth rates are greatly reduced from 100 years ago, where many countries have birth rates low enough to begin reducing their populations. That's great except for USA's social security system.

My wife and I messed all those statics up.

 

[tortoise]

Population-wide, it's fine. Not every single family has to be small. That's what's great. People still retain autonomy and choice in family size. As of 2018, USA dropped below the birthrate benchmark for maintaining population. If trends in the last 5 years sustain (and not including immigration), the USA population will decline.