> There are plenty of other, more specific ways to do that, no? The problem with light traps is they are indiscriminate.
Well you do usually want to kill as many as possible. Bringing up mosquitoes because it's one of the most common. I cannot go out and sit down in my garden if I have insects flying around. Unless they keep an appropriate distance as to not be intimidating.
> Not to mention that if you apply some repellent
If you mean the skin applied kind it's totally unsatisfactory.
There are chemical sprays/diffusers that work very well, but even though they are marketed as "repellent" they absolutely do kill mosquitoes and many others. That's what I usually use.
> Well you do usually want to kill as many as possible.
Indiscriminate across species - those traps kill everything, not just mosquitoes. I'm sorry that you find insects intimidating but killing everything is not the answer to that and in the long run, unless you don't care about having food, ultimately counterproductive.
> If you mean the skin applied kind it's totally unsatisfactory.
Why? I've spent a lot of time in tropical countries and found it very effective. Even just a running fan keeps most mozzies away as they aren't generally strong fliers.
The overarching issue is that we need to coexist with our many-legged brethren, however inconvenient it may be.
I have an extremely hard time believing average citizens are having such a huge effect. This German law seems to have been spurred by some study saying that over the last few decades the flying insect population has dropped by a big percentage in Germany. Yet cannot find any information as to any adverse effect it had on anything. Nor is it obvious what exactly caused this drop.
The logic here seems to be "insect populations are dropping so let's forbid some things that are killing insects".
> Why? I've spent a lot of time in tropical countries and found it very effective. Even just a running fan keeps most mozzies away as they aren't generally strong fliers.
They'll still fly around you. Sure when traveling somewhere that's the only solution.
Chemical diffusers work best for me. I rarely go outside, just deploy it as needed and it takes care of the problem pretty fast.
But say someone has a restaurant/whatever with an outside area. In addition to periodic chemical treatments, you might want to have a bunch of light traps in your arsenal.
And the article does talk about limiting use of insecticides too but isn't too clear on that.
> The logic here seems to be "insect populations are dropping so let's forbid some things that are killing insects".
And the counterargument is - let's keep killing them anyway? Why is that more logical?
It's the same logic as - fly/drive/heat less, to reduce carbon release; eat less meat to reduce land usage and methane release; etc.
It seems to me that maybe the primary reason we're doing so much damage to our planet is a combination of
a) for most people, personal convenience > planetary health, and
b) as you say: "I have an extremely hard time believing average citizens are having such a huge effect"
The latter is especially pernicious - we are so successful as a species because, working together, we can achieve tremendous changes that aren't possible alone. But that potential for collective action can also have severely negative effects as well. Even a mountain can be leveled eventually if you keep chipping away at it. As an example of collective action, take a trip to Borneo and drive the 100km route from Tawau to Semporna - palm plantations literally as far as the eye can see in every direction, the whole route; it used to be rain forest. Individuals working together (whether deliberately or unknowingly) have a lot more power than they think.
Am I making sense? I'm not sure what's difficult to grasp about all this.
How would you stop them entering cities? It's not like an insect flies towards a city from a rural area then thinks "oh, no, shouldn't go there, I'll get zapped". If anything, we attract a lot of insect life with an abundance of light and free food. And then put out traps to kill them.
> Since you seem to know about that, which bugs should one avoid killing?
I'm not trying to hold myself up as an expert but on the other hand a lot of this stuff seems pretty obvious... Anything non-invasive? Anything not causing a serious public health risk? OK, mosquitoes are an obvious target here and I hate them with a passion but that doesn't mean we should kill everything just to get to them. Try reframing the question - which birds should you avoid killing? Which big cats are OK to shoot? Honest question - what is it about insects that feels like it's OK to wipe them out? Is it because they're so numerous? That simple extends the amount of time it's taking us to destroy them all, but we seem to be making good progress there.
I do not know but this is besides the point. I still do not see why we should protect the insects that are in the city as they do not bring us any benefit.
> Anything non-invasive? Anything not causing a serious public health risk?
Let me rephrase it, which bugs should one avoid killing because they benefit us directly or indirectly? Only bees come to my mind at this moment.
> which birds should you avoid killing?
The ones that benefit humans directly or indirectly.
> Which big cats are OK to shoot?
Big cats tend to not come to the cities so they do not really pose any danger to humans.
> Is it because they're so numerous?
In general they are gross, numerous, invasive, and they carry diseases.
I've been trying to encourage you to think about this holistically because then you might understand where I'm coming from. How about this: look at the front wall of your house - which bricks is it safe to remove? Which of those directly or indirectly benefit the wall? Maybe those over a doorway or window are obviously important, can't lose those, but what about the others? How many can you safely remove before it no longer fulfills its function? How about if it's a giant game of Jenga? Or a massive construction of scaffolding that's been built and rebuilt again and again over thousands of years and overall is holding up a giant roof but with no clear plan how? Which parts of that are safe to remove?
The bees are an easy win - they do a lot of pollination work, but there are other insects that do that too. But is that all that's important? How about the oxygen you breathe or the nitrogen in the soil that nourishes the plants you eat or the rain that waters them? All these things depend on multiple complex cycles involving things like forests, the health of which depend on many other interconnected webs of life at all levels from mammal to microbe. It's Chesterton's Fence on a grand scale - if you don't know what it does, you really shouldn't remove it until you do know what it does. We're still working that out in many, many cases.
A lot of insects provide food for other animals - kill the insects, and we also kill all the things that feed on them. And there are certainly numerous other natural cycles and systems than those I outlined above (did you know that ocean microbes can seed cloud formation? https://news.agu.org/press-release/bacteria-feeding-on-arcti...) - these are just the ones that come to my mind as someone with an amateur interest in these things; I am, as I said, no expert.
> In general they are gross, numerous, invasive, and they carry diseases.
I understand why you might feel that way but, aside from the first (which is your opinion): the second, as we're discussing, is increasingly not the case; the third is generally only true where humans have transported a species to where it shouldn't be; and the fourth is really only true in very few cases - things like cockroaches and house flies, but even these fulfill important roles breaking down organic matter that would otherwise litter the surface of the planet, and thus returning nutrients into the soil, keeping it fertile. Cockroaches etc. are only a disease risk when they intersect with us, find a huge source of waste, and multiply excessively - and in those cases of course we have to deal with them.
> I still do not see why we should protect the insects that are in the city as they do not bring us any benefit.
An obvious reason that comes to mind is that cities as a black hole for insects act to decrease the overall population by simple diffusion.
> So you won't be able to kill mosquitoes outside?
There are plenty of other, more specific ways to do that, no? The problem with light traps is they are indiscriminate.
Not to mention that if you apply some repellent, you don't need to kill them at all.