Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds • Hacker News Board

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#121

Post by tonyedgecombe » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

trentnix wrote: post #110

dao- wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped eating meat five years ago and made the decision not to get a car. It's a start but it's not enough. I'd welcome the government forcing more change on me, but more importantly I want the government to encourage if not enforce change on a larger scale (like the EU banning old-school light bulbs some years ago), because that's what governments are there for. I can't do that on my own and the looming ecologica…

Centuries of fear-mongering by those warning of ecological disaster and yet we've experienced no global ecological disasters. But you want government forcing change despite many, many examples (within a century!) of that resulting in political, and subsequently human, catastrophe. You might want to think this through...

"Humanity has wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970" isn't an ecological disaster?

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#122

Post by api » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #11

montenegrohugo wrote: post #10

Human Population has more than doubled in the same timespan (from 3.7 billion to 7.7 billion today). This is not sustainable. We only have one small planet to live on, and we are destroying it. We are overfishing the oceans, cutting down entire forests to make way for pastures, warming up the planet and acidifying the plastic-filled ocean. Even insect populations are plummeting. The consequences of this will not be f…

I'm afraid the problem will fix itself soon enough. WW3 could be around the corner according to the people behind the Doomsday Clock. Climate change will cause famine, natural disasters and mass migrations. Poverty, overpriced health care and a lack of common social structure (every man for himself) will lower the life expectancy again after decades of increase.

War is one of the most environmentally destructive things we do, and it's usually followed by a period of expansion.

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#123

Post by GreeniFi » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:09 PM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #94

montenegrohugo wrote: post #10

Human Population has more than doubled in the same timespan (from 3.7 billion to 7.7 billion today). This is not sustainable. We only have one small planet to live on, and we are destroying it. We are overfishing the oceans, cutting down entire forests to make way for pastures, warming up the planet and acidifying the plastic-filled ocean. Even insect populations are plummeting. The consequences of this will not be f…

> Human Population has more than doubled... This is not sustainable Hans Rosling had some interesting findings on population growth: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnexjTCBksw

Rosling’s arguments overlook the point that gains have been won with unsustainable use of the planets resources. Like the farmer who eats his seed corn, he lives well whilst it’s there, but has nothing to sow come planting time.

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#124

Post by bpicolo » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:09 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #109

stephengillie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War is good for business - 34th Rule of Acquisition (Ferengi, Star Trek)

Well, war is good for the war racket, but generally not good for trade in the vast majority of other goods.

Globalization is in full swing drastically more than it was during large-scale wartime. Hard to imagine a world war happening in that context

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#125

Post by redleggedfrog » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

strainer wrote: post #97

montenegrohugo wrote: post #10

Human Population has more than doubled in the same timespan (from 3.7 billion to 7.7 billion today). This is not sustainable. We only have one small planet to live on, and we are destroying it. We are overfishing the oceans, cutting down entire forests to make way for pastures, warming up the planet and acidifying the plastic-filled ocean. Even insect populations are plummeting. The consequences of this will not be f…

Human behavior is vastly more impactful on the planet than human numerosity. We are not feeling the consequences of simply people - it is our gross behavior. impact = people * behavior To make people reduction the target in this situation would be systematically misanthropic. Behavior can improve by orders of magnitude and even reverse polarity amicably and rapidly, through culture, inspiration, technological potenti…

I think the problem with this is plausibility. I have much more faith in humanity culling itself, by whatever misanthropic means, than behaving "amicably and rapidly."

The possible solution might not be the pleasant one.

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#126

Post by jessriedel » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:10 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #6

betageek wrote: post #3

Is this true? It is hard to believe that killing off 60% of animals on the planet would leave us with a functioning ecosystem. It's also very hard to work out what the facts are here without finding yourself in climate change denial land, a place I do not want to visit.

Ecosystems are mostly local - what this represents is the erasure of the rainforests and their conversion to largely animal-free cropland. The impact of that is yet another large CO2 emission.

> the erasure of the rainforests and their conversion to largely animal-free cropland.

Additionally, even when natural lands are converted to grazing land for farm animals, rather than cropland, the number of animals is still likely to decrease. Wild animals are strongly tilted toward small species and the same piece of land will support many fewer large animals even if the total animal biomass is similar.

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#127

Post by krisroadruck » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:11 PM UTC

Majestic121 wrote: post #101

philipps wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no scientific basis for the claim that the earth could sustain 100+ billion people. These types of unsubstantiated claims are not just false but dangerous, as they suggest there is no need for significant action and change.

Quick calculus : TLDR : 100+ billions is a hard reach today, but 50+ billions might not impossible There is approximately 63,824,448 km² or liveable land on earth today.[1] Let's cut that in half to account for farms/land lost due to global warming/industries/etc... We get 31,912,224km² of land usable for habitation. Let's assume we cover the remaining with a huge city with the density of Hong Kong (6,690 people/km²)…

Since you nerded out on this enough to do the math, you might actually be interested in this video. The only real bottlenecks to getting to these numbers are first, power and second the elevator conundrum. Solve for those and you can have quite a substantial population. Go big enough and the only bottleneck, if you want to stay a single planet species, becomes black body radiation. Check it out

Archologies - Isaac Arther (28:43) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqKQ94DtS54&vl=en

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#128

Post by anoplus » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:13 PM UTC

temp364364 wrote: post #42

anoplus wrote: post #18

Some companies are willing to harm humans and the environment for profit. I am active against a gas processing project in Israel, planned to be built near residents. Thousands of people joined the battle to protect their water and air against the blind tycoon greed. Government hands are tied by threats and bribe. Press are under incredible pressure to keep silent about the protests. We demand building the rigs 120km…

This is just pure NIMBY-ism. You should be ashamed. Even the Green groups in Israel support the current solution. Building the gas infrafracture on-shore would have expanded jobs and the industrial base. Instead this was moved off-shore 20-km. Now you are fighting even this. This is just richer/educated/organized people acting in the most selfish way possible. Its disgusting. Its no wonder Israel is the country with…

I would like to correct myself a bit.

I am not sure there is bribe involved and in what decisions but I highly suspect it.

I don't think companies are willing to harm people, but I strongly suspect they care too little about citizens' health and environment.

Some greens groups support the project, and some groups are against it.

I know that "Minstry of the environment" support the project as awell as the currently running petrochimical plant in a local city.

The said petrochimical plant is shown to increase cancer rates in the area dramatically for up to 10km away.

I know the Minstry suppose to review the plant critically suffers from conflicts of interest. Officials that worked in the minstry got jobs in the plant they were suppose to validate

The new plant is planned to be placed 10km from shore and not 20km.

There are 2 plants built far away on Israel coast without risking citizens which proves its possible to build the new one similarly.

Nobel Energy originally wanted to build it 120km away themselves, but were denied.

Minstry of Energy stated the only reason it wants the plant 10km away is so it will be easier to "guard" it. But they all very reluctant to discuss the environmental risks publically.

Protesters against the 10km plan are not selfish at all. They want to keep the plant far away from people in general.

I don't trust they say it will be very clean since a similar plant, "Tamar" in the southern coast measured to have a pollution 30 times greater than promised.

And most importantly. If the 10km partners think they are right about it why they are so scared of bringing it to national media for public discussion?

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#129

Post by qubax » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

montenegrohugo wrote: post #10

Human Population has more than doubled in the same timespan (from 3.7 billion to 7.7 billion today). This is not sustainable. We only have one small planet to live on, and we are destroying it. We are overfishing the oceans, cutting down entire forests to make way for pastures, warming up the planet and acidifying the plastic-filled ocean. Even insect populations are plummeting. The consequences of this will not be f…

Most of the environmental damage so far has been done by the wealthy developed countries to maintain a high standard of living. Most of the population growth is in the underdeveloper world that hope to be developed.

What's really worrying is that the 5.5 billion people in underdeveloped countries want the high living standards of 1.5 billion people in the developed countries. This will put incredible strain on the environment and resources.

Technological advancements will help but technology can only do so much. We already see this with china. They are developing and getting richer and they want to drive cars, have AC/refigerators/computers, eat more meat, etc like americans or europeans. And who can blame them. Why shouldn't they have the same living standards? Soon, ASEAN, india, africa, etc will want the high living standards as well.

Can 7 billion people ( soon to be 9 billion ) live like americans or europeans? Also, as the chinese, indians, africans, etc get higher living standards, wouldn't we want even higher living standards? Will we reach any resource limits?

Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

#130

Post by rb808 » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

trentnix wrote: post #49

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN doesn't really do sarcasm. There is an interesting point here though, we will never get a grip on this problem whilst the primary focus of politicians is growth. The idea that you can fix this without some lifestyle sacrifice is probably false. If we want a sustainable future it won't include foreign holidays, personal cars, juicy steaks and shiny toys.

And by what conditions would the problem be judged as fixed? I’ll believe it’s a real crisis when the people insisting it is actually live like it is. But while they get their Starbucks and fly on their planes and watch their Netflix and shop their Whole Foods and stack their Amazon boxes all while claiming we need to collectively engage in some sort of “lifestyle sacrifice”, I remain skeptical. If such a sacrifice i…

> But while they get their Starbucks and fly on their planes and watch their Netflix and shop their Whole Foods and stack their Amazon boxes all while claiming we need to collectively engage in some sort of “lifestyle sacrifice”, I remain skeptical.

Yeah but they recycle.