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

#201

Post by lifeformed » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 2:54 PM UTC

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…

Overpopulation is not the problem at all, it's only the symptom of the problem. It's the natural result of poverty and poor living conditions. A rise in standards of living is directly correlated with lower birth rates. Improve life for the poor and birth rates will drop to a sustainable 2 kids per couple. We need to work on bringing everyone up to a point where sustainability is even possible. We can't just exploit the world and then blame those who live in systems that offer no alternative.

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

#202

Post by isp » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

ivanhoe wrote: post #17

60% of animals or 60% of animal species?

Neither.

The best explanation I've seen is: https://twitter.com/TomChivers/status/1057210578429755393

"the average population has declined by 60%. If you have two populations, white rhinos (8 animals) & pigeons (a billion animals), and four of each of them die, then "the average population" has declined by more than 50% but the total number of animals has declined by 0.0000007%"

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

#203

Post by deialtrous » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 3:00 PM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #201

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…

Overpopulation is not the problem at all, it's only the symptom of the problem. It's the natural result of poverty and poor living conditions. A rise in standards of living is directly correlated with lower birth rates. Improve life for the poor and birth rates will drop to a sustainable 2 kids per couple. We need to work on bringing everyone up to a point where sustainability is even possible. We can't just exploit…

>A rise in standards of living is directly correlated with lower birth rates.

No it isn't. That is based on a single observation, increasing standards of living in the 20th century in western nations. Living standards in western nations were increasing before that and birth rates were not declining. Living standards stopped increasing decades ago, and birth rates have not gone back up. So the evidence that this is even true in western nations is quite poor, but there is no evidence at all that it holds true in other cultures.

>We can't just exploit the world and then blame those who live in systems that offer no alternative.

It isn't about blame, it is about solving the problem. You can not give 5 billion Africans a western standard of living, that is not a physical possibility. So we need to prevent the 5 billion Africans from happening while there's still only 1 billion Africans. We're not trying to prevent 5 billion Europeans from happening because the European population is falling, not rising.

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

#204

Post by lifeformed » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 3:01 PM UTC

deialtrous wrote: post #194

jahaja wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Could you direct me to the organization responsible for selecting which facts go on the list of "you are racist for stating these facts"? I would really like a list so I know how to censor myself. It is very concerning to me that I am now a thought criminal and therefore anything I say is incorrect.

You plainly said that black people are genetically incapable of being held to the same ethical standards of white people. Come on dude, get out of here.

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

#205

Post by deialtrous » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

jahaja wrote: post #198

deialtrous wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you direct me to the organization responsible for selecting which facts go on the list of "you are racist for stating these facts"? I would really like a list so I know how to censor myself. It is very concerning to me that I am now a thought criminal and therefore anything I say is incorrect.

> Could you direct me to the organization responsible for selecting which facts go on the list of "you are racist for stating these facts"? Kindergarden. > It is very concerning to me that I am now a thought criminal and therefore anything I say is incorrect. And rightly so after that comment.

Kindergarden is not an organization. If you want to decree that people who commit wrongthink offenses are by definition incorrect in everything they ever say, you need to provide a list of wrongthink offenses. I don't even know what you think is racist about that comment, much less how anyone could logically extrapolate that everything I say is wrong as a result.

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

#206

Post by biglenny » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

mattferderer wrote: post #160

Some bright spots: Solar & wind are getting cheaper & more common AR & VR will hopefully decrease travel Lots of research going on in creating beef in labs instead of fields to reduce the over abundance of cattle Medical Marijuana is becoming legal in just about every state in the USA. One nice side effect I'm hoping for is that it's price & method of growing will help improve technology & lower costs for growing pla…

Most of what you said is relevant and correct, but:

>Medical Marijuana is becoming legal in just about every state in the USA.

Feel like this was just thrown in there. I don't see how wasting millions of gallons of water on a useless plant is representative of the human population taking sacrifices to luxuries in order to prolong the life of the planet. In fact - it sounds like quite the opposite.

>AR & VR will hopefully decrease travel

"Hey boss can I take a week off next month for travel?"

"Sure bud where ya going?"

"google.com/images" - said nobody... ever.

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

#207

Post by auiya » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 3:02 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…

Stop having kids.

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

#208

Post by usaar333 » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 3:04 PM UTC

deialtrous wrote: post #169

bryanlarsen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a much better record of cleaning up the environment than we do have in human culling. Compare the US of today with that of 50 - 100 years ago. The tree cover is almost back to pre-contact levels, lakes & rivers are potable, smog doesn't kill 10's of thousands of people per year, et cetera. IOW, local environmental problems have been solved. And we know how to solve them elsewhere in the world: economic growth…

>The tree cover is almost back to pre-contact levels The number of trees is not the issue. The ecosystem is. Huge plantations of SPF in rows that are all the same age and size does not make a natural ecosystem, and biodiversity is very low. >lakes & rivers are potable Public drinking water isn't even potable in many places, nevermind lakes and rivers. This is pure fantasy talk. >IOW, local environmental problems have…

If you look at the report, generally things are getting better in developed counties.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/1409030-ani...

All the hit is coming in developing nations.

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

#209

Post by malvosenior » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 3:04 PM UTC

api wrote: post #133

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…

It's clear that this rate of growth is not sustainable. Everyone knows that, though not everyone acknowledges it. Population growth must top out somewhere. The most likely mechanism is the same one that's driven birth rate decline in developed nations: affluence. The end of huge scale population growth doesn't mean human extinction or even significant population decline, though it may mean financial crisis and a majo…

This is a very interesting perspective and it's too bad it's being downvoted.

I think there are three schools of thought around this:

* Environmental conservatives who think change in ecosystem, populations... is bad.

* Environmental objectivists who acknowledge that change is constant, species are still participating in evolution and that there is no such thing as "good" or "bad" as far as nature is concerned.

* Normal people who haven't satisfied all levels of Maslow's hierarchy and are thus focused on living their lives with little to no thought to the environment.

We hear a lot from that first group. I'd put your comment in the second and it's quite refreshing. I suspect the third group fits more with the second than the first when pushed.

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

#210

Post by zdragnar » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 3:04 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)…

At those levels of scarcity, the economics of farming will likely change enough that hydroponics could (would?) become far more commonplace. That drastically cuts down on the amount of land needed, as you're no longer limited to ground surface area for growing crops.

In fact, there's a growing trend of combining fish farming with hydroponic vegetable farming; circulating water between the plants and fish tanks, monitoring nutrient and bacteria levels, can allow for a non-vegetarian diet.

Granted, they're not going to be the tastiest fish- think tilapia, not salmon. There's a CSA farm doing exactly that in a relatively densely populated suburb not too far from me.