4 ms·

I don't get it. Who cares if there's bugs in your grass? I used to play with bugs in the yard as a kid.

by mac01021 9y ago

cbcoutinho 9y ago
Because bugs play an important role in keeping ecosystems healthy.
- skeleton 9y ago
  I believe he was questioning why people feel the need to eliminate bugs from their grass. Not why anyone should care if there are no bugs in their grass.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
erikbye 9y ago
Well, ticks like grass (or at least breed in lawns) and some tickborne diseases are pretty bad.
- nolok 9y ago
  By that logic we should steralize the planet of all mamalian life, since rats carry some pretty bad disease.
  - erikbye 9y ago
    No, by that logic, I understand why some people use pesticides to get rid of disease-carrying ticks from the lawn where their children and pets play daily. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25280366 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25280366 https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/index.html
    - schiffern 9y ago
      >use pesticides to get rid of disease-carrying ticks Unfortunately this solution is a bit like using a nuclear bomb to get rid of gang violence. It does indeed do that, but at the expense of destroying the entire beneficial insect community as well. Generally pest species recover faster after catastrophe than beneficial species, so by eliminating all of the pest's competitors pesticides are sewing the seeds of future infestations. A much better, less toxic, and longer-lasting solution would be to provide pest-eating insect predators with habitats. In nature balance is achieved by predator/prey interactions instead of razing the beneficial soil ecosystem[1] with poison. To take just one example, ticks are naturally eaten by birds (eg chickens), and if productive bird species can be used this has the side effect of producing delicious chicken (vs surface water/aquifer pollution, soil degradation which necessitates fertilizers, and a proliferation of plastic "keep children and pets off this lawn for X hours" signs). People's instinct to protect themselves from disease-carrying pest species is a good one. The solutions handed to them by the post-war chemical industry are not. Who coulda thunk that redirecting all our WWII chemical weapons output to fighting nature wasn't such a good idea after all? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag
      - erikbye 9y ago
        By your response it looks like you assumed I thought using pesticides were a good idea. I only said I understood why people might choose to. It wasn't an endorsement.
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        schiffern 9y ago
        Great point. Thanks for clarifying.
  - ryguytilidie 9y ago
    "Some people don't like ticks on their lawn so they use pesticides" "By that logic we should steralize the planet of all mamalian life, since rats carry some pretty bad disease." Uhhh, what happened here...? I've heard some atrocious analogies before but this almost seems like a joke.
briga 9y ago
My step-father has this weird obsession with keeping a perfectly flat green lawn as a front yard. Any time an ant-hill springs up it's out with the pesticide. Any weeds that pop up are immediately exterminated. It's this sort of stupidity on a global scale that's causing the problem. For a lot of middle-class America, a sterile grass mono-culture is the ideal for a front yard, environmental health be damned.
- surge 9y ago
  Right, if you're that obsessed with perfection, just pave over the damn thing. I only kill ants if they're building nests that threaten something else, like a tree. Usually though, that's a good indication the tree is already sick. I'm nursing one back to health, hopefully, now that had an ant colony at it's base. I let moss, and local vegetation that grows fairly small thrive in my yard. In some ways, I prefer the moss to my grass. I do fog my yard, so guilty, but I live in area densely populated with mosquitos which are a problem and they have plenty of wooded areas nearby to thrive if they want. But yeah, if there was some way to be selective, I'd be all for it, but it's not worth 20 mosquito bites when I go outside for 30 minutes to keep bees around. Maybe if I could hire a service to do this: http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-virus-sterile-mosquito/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-virus-sterile-mosq... Granted I imagine that's not something I could do without having to get EPA or fish and wildlife approval.
ryanmerket 9y ago
We have some nasty bugs here in Texas. Fire ants, scorpions, asps, and many other pain inducing critters. My wife, from Kansas City, had no idea when we moved here...

I don't get it. Who cares if there's bugs in your grass? I used to play with bugs in the yard as a kid.

cbcoutinho 9y ago

Because bugs play an important role in keeping ecosystems healthy.

skeleton 9y ago
I believe he was questioning why people feel the need to eliminate bugs from their grass. Not why anyone should care if there are no bugs in their grass.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

erikbye 9y ago

Well, ticks like grass (or at least breed in lawns) and some tickborne diseases are pretty bad.

nolok 9y ago
By that logic we should steralize the planet of all mamalian life, since rats carry some pretty bad disease.
- erikbye 9y ago
  No, by that logic, I understand why some people use pesticides to get rid of disease-carrying ticks from the lawn where their children and pets play daily. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25280366 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25280366 https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/index.html
  - schiffern 9y ago
    >use pesticides to get rid of disease-carrying ticks Unfortunately this solution is a bit like using a nuclear bomb to get rid of gang violence. It does indeed do that, but at the expense of destroying the entire beneficial insect community as well. Generally pest species recover faster after catastrophe than beneficial species, so by eliminating all of the pest's competitors pesticides are sewing the seeds of future infestations. A much better, less toxic, and longer-lasting solution would be to provide pest-eating insect predators with habitats. In nature balance is achieved by predator/prey interactions instead of razing the beneficial soil ecosystem[1] with poison. To take just one example, ticks are naturally eaten by birds (eg chickens), and if productive bird species can be used this has the side effect of producing delicious chicken (vs surface water/aquifer pollution, soil degradation which necessitates fertilizers, and a proliferation of plastic "keep children and pets off this lawn for X hours" signs). People's instinct to protect themselves from disease-carrying pest species is a good one. The solutions handed to them by the post-war chemical industry are not. Who coulda thunk that redirecting all our WWII chemical weapons output to fighting nature wasn't such a good idea after all? [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2H60ritjag
    - erikbye 9y ago
      By your response it looks like you assumed I thought using pesticides were a good idea. I only said I understood why people might choose to. It wasn't an endorsement.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - schiffern 9y ago
        Great point. Thanks for clarifying.
- ryguytilidie 9y ago
  "Some people don't like ticks on their lawn so they use pesticides" "By that logic we should steralize the planet of all mamalian life, since rats carry some pretty bad disease." Uhhh, what happened here...? I've heard some atrocious analogies before but this almost seems like a joke.

briga 9y ago

My step-father has this weird obsession with keeping a perfectly flat green lawn as a front yard. Any time an ant-hill springs up it's out with the pesticide. Any weeds that pop up are immediately exterminated. It's this sort of stupidity on a global scale that's causing the problem. For a lot of middle-class America, a sterile grass mono-culture is the ideal for a front yard, environmental health be damned.

surge 9y ago
Right, if you're that obsessed with perfection, just pave over the damn thing. I only kill ants if they're building nests that threaten something else, like a tree. Usually though, that's a good indication the tree is already sick. I'm nursing one back to health, hopefully, now that had an ant colony at it's base. I let moss, and local vegetation that grows fairly small thrive in my yard. In some ways, I prefer the moss to my grass. I do fog my yard, so guilty, but I live in area densely populated with mosquitos which are a problem and they have plenty of wooded areas nearby to thrive if they want. But yeah, if there was some way to be selective, I'd be all for it, but it's not worth 20 mosquito bites when I go outside for 30 minutes to keep bees around. Maybe if I could hire a service to do this: http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-virus-sterile-mosquito/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-virus-sterile-mosq... Granted I imagine that's not something I could do without having to get EPA or fish and wildlife approval.

ryanmerket 9y ago

We have some nasty bugs here in Texas. Fire ants, scorpions, asps, and many other pain inducing critters. My wife, from Kansas City, had no idea when we moved here...