[Yardstick]

Urban lighting actually strengthens the insect population by weeding out the stupid and the weak. Bugs with the intelligence to avoid lights survive, as do those with the morphological wherewithal to survive an encounter with a light. These intelligent survivors then go on to breed. The urban population of their well-adapted progeny swells, and the excess must seek living space elsewhere. Typically they move into the surrounding countryside. This is why, contrary to what you claim, insects are actually more prevalent in the areas surrounding the cities. I have been researching this for years and know this to be true. It is simply a fact. For this reason, friends of the ecosystem should encourage urban lighting. In fact, we must push to install new lighting in the countryside, for the insects, for the Earth, and for the children.

[ovrtaxt]

Cool, glad to know I’m doing my part for our little exoskeletal friends. My luminescent instruments of mass murder don’t seem so bad now, thanks. I was having trouble sleeping.

[Colin Henshaw]

For urban lighting to strengthen an insect population by weeding out those attracted to lights would require mutants in the population that were not attracted to them. Such individuals would be at a survival disadvantage in a natural setting and would already be extinct before lighting could have any effect.