My dad claims that the bugs come and go in cycles and says he has seen so several times over his life. He believes that we are just in a period of low bug population and that at any time there could and will be a population explosion.
Personally I am not so optimistic. My dad moved around multiple times over his life and I would suspect different areas would naturally have varying bug densities and that is why he felt they went in cycles.
Because for myself I DO notice the decline in bugs and articles like these do scare me for the sake of humanity.
I'm starting to feel like this is the common trend when you bring up arguments of potentially how disastrous our effects on the environment have been.
Bugs? They come and go in cycles. Climate? Again, cycles. I suppose next we'll see claims that the rising ocean is just the cycle of the ocean and it'll fall back down any day now.
I’ve lived long enough in just one area alone that I should have witnessed at least one of those cycles. I have not. What I’ve seen is a steady decline over the last thirty years (over which time I’ve lived several places).
You're not wrong; insect populations can grow enormously in a very short amount of time (just like e.g. mice). But they need to have had the chance.
I wonder what would happen if a country banned the use of pesticides for one year. Probably a huge imbalance at first, but over time things would stabilize - that is, huge bug explosion, but in the span of a few years, bird population would be restored which keeps the bug population in check. Well, in my climate anyway, not much to be done about huge locust swarms by some birds.
A really hard winter followed by a dry summer and there will be almost no insects. Now a wet summer followed by a warm winter followed by a wet summer and maybe some other factors, like plenty of food for the insects, their population will explode in no time.
For what it's worth, i noticed the same bug-on-windshield difference between the 80s and now in France. So, whatever it is, it crossed the Atlantic ocean.
