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Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
241–250 of 380 posts
Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
#242Earlier 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"? 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.
Well, to be more specific: literally any handbook about statistics will explain the difference between correlation and causation.
Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You're fixating on CO2 when the problem the article talks about is clearly environmental destruction. Canada and the US produce all of our own beef. Exactly, environmental destruction caused by the beef industry, an incredibly inefficient process if you compare the land and water requirements vs other types of protein. > There is no environmental destruction happening here for beef production. This is a huge blanke…
That's a story that's often repeated here on HN. But it doesn't hold up much under scrutiny. American pasture lands, for instance, are not normally arable lands (cannot be used for cropland). And meat animals use less resources per pound of protein that vegetable sources. Certainly less plowing. I'm always stunned by the idea that somehow raising millions of cattle is destroying the planet, yet the millions of buffal…
> American pasture lands, for instance, are not normally arable lands (cannot be used for cropland).
This is a fair point but unfortunately intensive animal agriculture (in feedlots) dominates US and world beef production which requires the growing of corn and other grains to feed entirely or supplement grass-fed beef, introducing further environmental impacts.
Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that my diet and car have absolutely nothing to do with the problem. You're fixating on CO2 when the problem the article talks about is clearly environmental destruction. Canada and the US produce all of our own beef. There is no environmental destruction happening here for beef production. We can in fact produce much more beef using the existing idle grasslands we have now. And the only relevant problem from…
I think you may be wrong here. Firstly, most cattle is not grazed on open pastures: "[…] the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply" [1] Rather, they are kept on feed imported most likely from South America, and "Agriculture is the direct driver for worldwide deforestation" [2]. So how does attempting to minimize deforestation not address the issue? [1] http://iopscience.io…
Literally all beef in Canada and the US is grazed on open pastures. The majority of it is sent to feed lots for the last couple of months of their life to be fattened on grain, but they spend the first year in pasture no matter what. Second, absolutely none of the feed is imported from South America. It is from Nebraska and Iowa in the US, and Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada. Both nations produce massive amounts of grain, far more than needed to feed all the livestock we raise, much less just the cattle. Third, this is the point, it isn't attempting to minimize deforestation. My eating beef or not eating beef does absolutely nothing, as my beef did not cause any deforestation. My habits do not cause people half way around the world to change their behavior.
And just as a note of interest, your first link is quite incorrect. It uses the lowest production pasture figure for its math rather than the average, it does not consider the idea that grass fed beef becoming a major industry might involve people switching to more productive grazing systems which we know produce at least double the calories per acre. It ignores the huge quantity of idle grassland we currently have which could be used for cattle production. And it neglects to factor in the millions of acres of corn and soy fields that would no longer be needed for cattle feed and can be converted to pasture.
https://bovinepracticum.blogspot.com/2018/03/another-land-us...
Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Please explain how CO2 is causing people to burn forests, wiping out ecosystems and killing millions of animals. You know, the subject of discussion.
Well, to keep things simple :
- CO2, as a greenhouse gas, increase the Earth surface temperature
- This temperature increase causes droughts/floods/other extreme meteorological events
- Lands that used to be arable aren't anymore, because of these events.
- People need to feed themselves, so they need new lands.
- They burn forests, wipe out ecosystems, and kill millions of animals in the process.
Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
#246Human 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…
"We only have one small planet to live on, and we are destroying it." We're not destroying the planet, we're destroying our habitat, and the habitat of those animals unfortunate enough to live at the same time as us. The planet is going to be just fine, it's us who's going to suffer. I love this quote from George Carlin: "The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tect…
OK, I'll say it. That is a stupid statement. I've seen that "planet will be fine" line too many times. Here is the truth: the main purpose of that line is to hide the wrongdoing.
The planet is not just a rock in space. It includes the environment and everything that is there. When we destroy that, we are destroying the planet itself.
Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a story that's often repeated here on HN. But it doesn't hold up much under scrutiny. American pasture lands, for instance, are not normally arable lands (cannot be used for cropland). And meat animals use less resources per pound of protein that vegetable sources. Certainly less plowing. I'm always stunned by the idea that somehow raising millions of cattle is destroying the planet, yet the millions of buffal…
> And meat animals use less resources per pound of protein that vegetable sources. What? There's literally hundreds of scientific articles out there that establish the opposite, e.g. [1] [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding... Edit: Where do you think the protein in cattle comes from? Isn't it… plants? That the cattle eat? Once eaten, the cattle expend some energy to live and then we kill…
That premise is only accurate if you are planning to have everyone consume livestock feed. If that is the plan, then you shouldn't be fixating on beef, you should be going after almost all crops we grow, which produce just as few calories per acre as beef, and even lower protein per acre. Depending on where you draw the line, your argument effectively requires all farms to only grow a small number of very high calorie crops like field corn and potatoes.
Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
"We only have one small planet to live on, and we are destroying it." We're not destroying the planet, we're destroying our habitat, and the habitat of those animals unfortunate enough to live at the same time as us. The planet is going to be just fine, it's us who's going to suffer. I love this quote from George Carlin: "The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tect…
OK, I'll say it. That is a stupid statement. I've seen that "planet will be fine" line too many times. Here is the truth: the main purpose of that line is to hide the wrongdoing. The planet is not just a rock in space. It includes the environment and everything that is there. When we destroy that, we are destroying the planet itself.
Honestly though, even if it isn't a stupid statement, it doesn't change anything.
The planet WILL be fine, the solar system, universe, existence.. Yea, in the big scheme of things it WILL be fine. Conservation is about conservation of the human species, and there is no reason we shouldn't talk about it like that.
Honestly, more right wing / anti-environmentalists would probably respond better if they understood how dire the threat to humanity is.
Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no evidence that any acceptable behavioral alteration will help. The kind of behavioral modification needed is horrifying dystopian nightmare stuff, people naturally resist things like that. The population is going to be reduced no matter what. The question is purely "are we going to do it by lowering birth rates, or are we going to wait until India or Africa unleashes an antibiotic resistant super plague on…
Rethinking our property system need not be draconian. The economic solutions to a steady state economy have been on the shelf for years. The ideology of growth will need a humiliating defeat, and then folks will be ready to accept alternatives.
That's stopping growth, that's what I am suggesting we do. The alternative which I think can only be draconian is "modifying our behavior" to accommodate a huge population. This means eliminating almost all food in favor of the half dozen highest producing crops. It means eliminating all natural spaces and consuming all resources for ourselves and leaving nothing for non-humans. I can't see any reason why a high population is a good thing, much less so good that it warrants making all those lives as miserable as possible. A billion people with high quality of life and a diverse planet full of billions of creatures beats the hell out of a hundred billion people living like factory farmed chickens on a planet virtually devoid of non-human life.
Re: Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds
#250Some 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 hopef…
The point made about marijuana was more focused on the process of indoor agriculture than the plant itself. However, I also think calling it a "useless plant" is an overstatement considering the proven medical benefits of CBD.
Also I don't know if the AR/VR comment was about traveling for luxury. I read it as travel in general, like a lot more people would be able to work remotely if they could just appear at work through VR. Or instead of needing to take a flight for a business meeting in Hong Kong you could potentially strap on a headset and virtually tour a factory overseas.