We are the only species out of the ecologic system, we need the nature, but the nature don’t need us.
We’ve successfully extinctified hundreds of species through our very excellent human-centric activities. I’ve yet to see any environmental fallout from it. Where are the secondary and tertiary extinctions of the animals that depended on the first lot we rubbed out? Where are the corpses left in the wake of the dodo’s disappearance? Big Environmental Science™ won’t tell you, because they can’t. They’re shills and liars, all of 'em. Rich elites who make bank on selling textbooks at a 1,200% markup.
Who’s up for starting a truthseeker podcast with me?
/s
Explain humans. Checkmate, scientists!
Humanity is the CEO of earth.
Counterpoint: animals which are clearly not intelligently designed, like pandas and horses
Ok but I still think the mosquito thing is worth a try. I’m even willing to live alongside wasps but mosquitoes gotta go!
The mosquito thing is known to be false, and people only every talk about extinguishing half a dozen species of them at most, that are invasive on most parts.
Half a dozen out of 6k+ lmao
I’m willing to pump up other insects to get rid of mosquitoes
Can I be an insect?
…🥺
👉👈::bonk::
We’ll pump you full of larvae
I’m prepping my ovipositors as we speak
Then do what you can to promote dragonflies.
(Don’t know how to better link this old comment.)
https://photon.lemmy.world/post/lemmy.world/19193004?thread=0.12060765.12088433
tl;dr: Just read it.
The small section of mosquitoes that bite humans actually don’t serve a critical niche like that, and just spread disease. Why the idea has been floated at sterilizing them.
Until we are forced to replace them with technological bandaids and hope the ecosystem keeps churning. Like we’ve been doing for a couple centuries atleast.
As long as these creatures leave me the fuck alone they can stick around
Some plants would go extinct?
I feel like that’s a sacrifice I might be willing to make.
Majority of the wasp species did not bother human nor want to be close to human. It’s human that want them dead while entering their territory.
Those bitches fly into my house, that’s their territory? Where’s my territory? Ethiopia?
You need to pee on the perimeter of the house, inside and out, to mark your territory.
How many species of birds and bats eat just mosquitoes though, or a high enough percentage that they would go extinct rather than shift to rely more on their other prey species, even if at a smaller population? And are those particular species of birds and bats worth the consequences of having mosquitoes?
Which would maybe force some other animals to change their behaviour slightly more, which in turn affects yet other species. And so the butterfly effect rolls on.
Or it doesn’t and the system stabilises in another state. Who knows, can we actually know it with a high enough certainty or are the dependencies and behavioural guesses too complex?
I mean, has the system ever not eventually stabilized in another state? The fact that we have had extinctions, quite a lot of them even involving most species that have ever existed, and yet complex life and ecosystems still exist, would suggest that life will find a way to adapt around such a loss given time.
If humans went extinct, the planet gets better?
Tremendously! We’re like a tumour
Open Ecofacism in the comments, what have we come to.
Let’s hear it, what group of people are you suggesting we “excise”, brown shirt?
Don’t be weird
There would be no one left to value it as such. It would simply continue to exist.
So yes. Better. Please excuse my colleague, they have ass burgers
i am under the impression that mosquitos, as an invasive species, do not fill an important ecological niche and could go extinct and be replaced by other insects
I think that’s true for the Aedes egypti species at least, they’re not native in the Americas and are a main disease-spreading species
This has been a common sentiment but it hasn’t been proven in any substantial way to my knowledge. I personally doubt it’s accurate. That’s not to say the entire ecosystem would collapse but there would likely be consequences.
That said, the other commenter is correct that there are many introduced mosquito species that could probably be eradicated from their non-native range without major ecological harm. And the species that are the worst pests in human cities tend to be introduced, so eliminating them might significantly reduce the level of bites and disease transmission for people.
Mosquitos are a nuisance to every mammal, I think if we could talk to animals this is how it would go down
Human: “So anyways we’ve been mulling over making the mosquito extinct, but it might have some consequences for yo…”
Mammals: “WTF BRO YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT THE ENTIRE TIME! WHY TF ARE YOU STILL HERE GET RID OF THOSE FUCKERS!”
Yeah I mean the ethics of how humans relate to wild mammals are so complicated and confusing that I’m not even going to go there.
TBF humans historically have been pretty lax in doing anything simply because it was a good thing to do
Invasive where? They can’t be invasive in general
They’re invasive of the PLANET
I think in Lilo and Stitch the aliens mention in passing that they use Earth as a wildlife preserve for mosquitoes.
My back patio, the little shits
They’re invading my personal space
Many of the most common species of mosquitos in america are invasive
Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are invasive in all of North and South America
There are many types of mosquitoes, but only a few suck blood. It’s the bloodsuckers they’re talking about when they say no one would miss them.
If humans went extinct the planet would find balance.
Not for a while
When the COVID shutdown happened nature started returning to industrialized and commerce stained areas in a matter of weeks.
Started
‘Balance’ is a human concept. The planet will get by fine. The only relevant question is whether humans will.
Balance is absolutely not a human concept.
‘Balance’ in the meaning you intend is absolutely a human concept. Life doesn’t give a F about ‘balance’, it just adjusts to the current situation. Conditions change? A few species here and there go extinct, and new ones appear to fill the space. It’s humans who have come up with the concept of ‘balance’. And we’re not wrong, if we want to avoid going extinct, we need to not throw the environment totally out of whack like it’s going right now. But if we mess it up? ‘Balance’ goes out the window, humanity goes extinct, and life on Earth goes on without us. ‘Balance’ matters to nobody but humans.
Life doesn’t give an F about balance
you speak with the confident wrongness of someone who has no scientific understanding of natural cycles, equilibriiums, self-limiting reproductive rates, ecology, or biology. have you heard of chemistry? equilibriums?
you are confusing a linguistic object , the word “balance” (like from an Oxford dictionary) with empirically observable, falsifiable hypotheses which are well established in environmental science. humans are late arrivals to the millennia of life systems on earth, and the first thing they did was begin destroying balanced ecosystems to grow surplus foods, exert population pressures on other species, reshape rivers and lakes, clearcut forests, and general terraform the shit out of everything, other creatures be damned.
your comment suggests a stunningly anthropocentric hubris and a total ignorance to eons of geological time preceding homo sapiens which humans came along and completely fucked by rapidly terra forming the planet. go tell a black rhino or a dodo that only humans care about balance.
humans cause imbalance in nature, it’s literally our whole thing we do. transform the environment by whatever means possible, dominate other life forms to extinction if we feel like it, overcome natural limits or push others to extreme boundaries.
Great, you missed my entire point.
me missing your point doesn’t make your arguments correct. you are factually mistaken in your framing.
Yeah, no. Fuck off with your condescending bullshit. I’m not getting into a discussion with somebody who opens with insults and can’t remain civil.
You’re both using different definitions of that word. But also, you’re anthropomorphizing the biosphere, which seems to be what the other person is mainly talking about. Yeah, it obviously is affected by human activity, but to say that it “cares” doesn’t make sense for an idea like the entire biosphere.
What about ticks?
I’m sure they somehow contribute to the stability, but I try so hard to ignore it.
It’s spring (your hemisphere may vary) and time to set out tick tubes!
Tick tubes are cardboard tubes stuffed with cotton fluff soaked in permethrin. Mice use the cotton to make nests. The permethrin kills ticks on the mice, reducing the tick load of the area. It doesn’t hurt the mice, and is much more targeted than just spraying the whole yard for insects.
The sun has a purpose, and it can easily kill you. Merely having a purpose doesn’t make that purpose useful or without dangers.
