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

theguardian.com

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

#181

Post by kimmeld »

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…

> What can we do to change this?

Get people out of poverty. Educate people. https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_...

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

#182

Post by philipps »

deialtrous wrote: post #173
krisroadruck wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ar…

Science fiction is not a good argument here.

Not only is it not a good argument. It is a dangerous argument. We need innovation and maybe it will come in the form of “whacky” ideas, but please don’t replace the work that climate scientists have been doing for decades with a few “back of the napkin” calculations.

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

#183

Post by mempko »

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…

Let's pretend the human population stopped growing 30 years ago. No new children. The USA and other rich nations use SO MUCH energy and resources we would still have seen this drop and still see global warming. Let's not make it about them, it's about us.

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

#184

Post by jahaja »

deialtrous wrote: post #159
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…

>to consider support for candidates that at least acknowledge that there is a problem There are none. Every candidate for every major party in almost all western nations is openly pro-growth. Saying "we'll tax CO2 emissions while importing millions of people and destroying ever more of the little remaining natural ecosystems on the planet" is not acknowledging the problem: overpopulation. >Consider a carbon tax. That…

> but it also gets you labelled an evil racist nazi klansman

But you are a racist [1].

I wonder how common it is to do these brief checks through the comments of users that seems just a bit off. Too often there's a pattern.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18331992

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

#185

Post by deialtrous »

cletus wrote: post #142
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…

> This is not sustainable. This is a longstanding concern going back to at least the 70s [1]. The argument is essentially twofold: 1. Population growth will continue at or near present rates indefinitely; and 2. We will exceed population N where N is the number of people the planet can support. For (1) the rate of growth has slowed and is projected to continue slowing over the next century [2] such that many of these…

>But the notion that this planet can only support 5, 7 or 10 or 15B people is patently false.

It is also a strawman. People don't say that, they say that the world can only support X many people with our current lifestyle. I do not want to make my life, and the life of every other person on the planet worse, simply to increase the population of humans. We are not endangered. We have more than enough humans. There is no need to breed even more replacements, we're covered. Why cause every single person on the planet to have a worse life simply to pack more people onto this rock?

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

#186

Post by codyb »

deialtrous wrote: post #159
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…

>to consider support for candidates that at least acknowledge that there is a problem There are none. Every candidate for every major party in almost all western nations is openly pro-growth. Saying "we'll tax CO2 emissions while importing millions of people and destroying ever more of the little remaining natural ecosystems on the planet" is not acknowledging the problem: overpopulation. >Consider a carbon tax. That…

Logged in to downvote this. What bullshit.

CO2 is absolutely a problem, and promoting birth control does not get you called a nazi klansmen.

What are you going on about?

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

#187

Post by philipps »

thousandautumns wrote: post #175
philipps wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s neither hysteria nor something you can “move on” from. Please either provide facts or other evidence for your opinion or don’t comment. There is no basis for the suggestion that we can sustain a growing population on this planet, even with technology and science continuing to progress.

What evidence is there that we can't? The issue again isn't the number of people on the planet, its the number of people combined with our current usage of planetary resources. But between the fact that the vast majority of those resources are being used by a small amount of the population, and the fact that people have been claiming the "population bomb" will be going off imminently for hundreds of years and it not…

There are two reasons why we can’t: We live within a finite ecosystem of resources and finite systems can by definition not sustain infinite consumption. And we are currently consuming an unsustainable and growing rate of resources. Maybe at some point our aggregate consumption will slow, but all credible models of population growth (leveling off around 11B) and associated consumption suggest that it would be far too late.

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

#188

Post by thealfreds »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #134
strainer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your evidence that behaviour can improve? The whole of human existence shows we're pretty consistent about choosing easiest every time. That leaves blind optimism or restrictions. Since WW2 the developed nations have been systematically throwing away sustainable approaches to literally everything. Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 sl…

> The whole of human existence shows we're pretty consistent about choosing easiest every time.

This isn't the case across the globe. Japan's recycling and Singapore's trash policies come to mind immediately but there are sure to be better.

Probably the most common though. Will certainly require a shift in culture for most people on this planet.

> Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 slices of meat.

The EU has recently voted to remove the use of single use plastics. I do wonder what the overall effect will be but I think policy could change this as well as affect behavior around it.

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

#189

Post by deialtrous »

apazzolini wrote: post #177
deialtrous wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>to consider support for candidates that at least acknowledge that there is a problem There are none. Every candidate for every major party in almost all western nations is openly pro-growth. Saying "we'll tax CO2 emissions while importing millions of people and destroying ever more of the little remaining natural ecosystems on the planet" is not acknowledging the problem: overpopulation. >Consider a carbon tax. That…

> That won't do anything. CO2 is not the problem, too many people is. CO2 is a problem. This year's Nobel prize in economics was awarded to Bill Nordhaus [1] for figuring out the economic impact of carbon based emissions. He, along with many climate scientists and economists, think that this is the most market-aligned way to reduce the impact of climate change. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Nordhaus#Nobel…

>CO2 is a problem.

Not the problem the article is talking about.

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

#190

Post by deialtrous »

ajross wrote: post #168
deialtrous wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>to consider support for candidates that at least acknowledge that there is a problem There are none. Every candidate for every major party in almost all western nations is openly pro-growth. Saying "we'll tax CO2 emissions while importing millions of people and destroying ever more of the little remaining natural ecosystems on the planet" is not acknowledging the problem: overpopulation. >Consider a carbon tax. That…

> CO2 is not the problem, too many people is. Proximate vs. root cause nitpickery isn't a solution either. It's entirely possible to get carbon output down to sustainable levels without genocide. You're simply wrong here.

Getting carbon output down will not do anything about the massive ecological destruction this article is about. That's the point. And where on earth does genocide come into this from?
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