Comment on I'm not even ooking
shalafi@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Am 54 year old American. If young folks knew what the natural world was like when I was a kid, you would fucking SCREAM. LOL, if I teleported some of you to 1978, you would be afraid to go outside for all the wild animals and insects. Lightning bugs were fucking sweet! Love bugs, meh, not so much. So it goes.
Yes, pollution and littering has massively improved, not even a contest. OTOH, I’ve seen population better than double in my lifetime. That should freak you right the fuck out.
Only looking at the vertebrates we’re tracking, they’re 73% fucking dead. Those stats say nothing of the insects and amphibians we’ve killed off in a short human lifetime. We’ve killed off the bottom of the food chain. I’ve seen the food chain collapse on my fucking front porch over the last 5 years. And our house is the only reason this hood has frogs and dragonflies!
Fuck me, can’t even fish around here for fear of driving the ecosystems into a further death spiral. I got loads of free gear from kayaking around and picking up fishing litter! Can’t even nab a couple of fish for dinner, can’t risk it. 🤬
I don’t know what to do. I have a fair sized yard and 2.5 acres of swamp in the boonies. No money, but I do what I can, as best as I know. But I’m crying for what my little kids never saw and will never know.
In school, about 20 years ago, we visited a village with a monestary. We slept there. There were a lot of fireflies. I moved to this village 2 years ago. I‘ve yet to see a single firefly.
Heck there’s moments on days when I visit my parents and walk their dog where I can’t even hear a bird.
I drive on the road for 16 years now. Compared to when I started, there aren’t that many insects colliding with me.
When I was a kid in the 70s dad taught me to always clean the bugs off when stopping for gas. Now I can put in 700 miles across the American South and not clean the windshield once.
That’s what got me thinking about all this originally. Saw a picture on reddit years ago, couple of teen girls posing on their 70s hot rod, totally covered in bug guts.
But did you know that I think maybe it’s natural and not made by humans. The earth just did that, much like the head of JFK
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 3 days ago
I’m 40 years old from Eastern Europe. My parent’s generation grew up with pollution, no infrastructure, food rationing and very limited access to pretty much everything. They saw everything improve slowly as they got older and the lucky ones were able to retire fairly comfortably. I think my generation hit to sweet spot. We grew up without all the capitalist bullshit and don’t focus on mindless consumption that much but we got access to all of it when we started working so we were able to enjoy the nice things. Hopefully we will retire and die before everything turns to shit. The next generation is fucked.