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Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

theguardian.com

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Re: Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

#71

Post by jjoonathan »

ah765 wrote: post #9

I agree with the big idea of conservation of biodiversity, but it really bothers me when these articles are using what seems like lies and fear tactics to convince me. 2 years? Why is it so urgent? The article doesn't explain. And "By 2050, Africa is expected to lose 50% of its birds and mammals," sounded really implausible to me. I had to do further research to determine that they are probably actually referring to…

Repeated hysterical predictions of human-level catastrophic events are the single largest impediment that environmental causes face -- because when they repeatedly fail to come true people update their priors accordingly.

The worst part is that the people making the exaggerations think they are helping.

Re: Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

#72

Post by chr1 »

sverige wrote: post #36

A great place to start would be to seriously limit or eliminate pesticides like Roundup. Don't believe the alarmists in Big Ag who will say the world will starve. We overproduce food now, and organic farming techniques, if widely adopted, wouldn't make it impossible to continue to produce enough. The loss of diversity in insects and "weeds" has had a huge impact up the chain.

Using gene drives to eliminate the few insect species that cause most of the harm to agriculture, will allow to drastically reduce the amount of pesticide we have to use now.

Re: Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

#73

Post by glenneroo »

peepopeep wrote: post #61
Illniyar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very vague. Collapse how? According to other comments we have already remove 60% of species, why wasn't that enough to cause a collapse. Other species take up the slack left by those removed.

I am not an expert on anything but I can give the answer a stab. Let us make many assumptions: Say plankton dies off, say animals eating plankton die, say humans eating those animals now have less food. Say all the fish die and we are reduced to land-based food. Now we have more space competing for farm land, we have to clear forest. Clearing adds to CO2 emissions, construction, more emissions, less CO2 being taken o…

Also phytoplankton are responsible for 50-85% of the oxygen we breathe, so if they die off it won't just be a food-chain issue.

Re: Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

#74

Post by bordercases »

TomMarius wrote: post #54
bamboozled wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once saw a great quote which was, "maybe food is too cheap". This is probably true, we could probably eat better quality, organic food grown in a more diverse way, it would just cost more. On the flip side, it would be more valued so we'd have less waste. I can't imagine the amount of "non-valued" food, fruit vegetables etc which end up in the bin.

What about people who can't afford it now, though? There are literally billions of them.

Population inflated. Do a steady "deleveraging" where you couple a decrease in food production with a decrease in population from birth control.

I would also say "urbanization" but that generates other externalities and costs which interact closely with the biodiversity problem.

Re: Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

#75

Post by jules »

bamboozled wrote: post #43
sverige wrote: post #36

A great place to start would be to seriously limit or eliminate pesticides like Roundup. Don't believe the alarmists in Big Ag who will say the world will starve. We overproduce food now, and organic farming techniques, if widely adopted, wouldn't make it impossible to continue to produce enough. The loss of diversity in insects and "weeds" has had a huge impact up the chain.

I once saw a great quote which was, "maybe food is too cheap". This is probably true, we could probably eat better quality, organic food grown in a more diverse way, it would just cost more. On the flip side, it would be more valued so we'd have less waste. I can't imagine the amount of "non-valued" food, fruit vegetables etc which end up in the bin.

That's easy to say if you are rich because your food is only a small fraction of your income.

Re: Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

#76

Post by jjoonathan »

zeroname wrote: post #44
sverige wrote: post #36

A great place to start would be to seriously limit or eliminate pesticides like Roundup. Don't believe the alarmists in Big Ag who will say the world will starve. We overproduce food now, and organic farming techniques, if widely adopted, wouldn't make it impossible to continue to produce enough. The loss of diversity in insects and "weeds" has had a huge impact up the chain.

> We overproduce food now... The alternatives to Roundup tend to be worse than Roundup. That's why people use Roundup. That's not to say Roundup per se is absolutely necessary, but farming without pesticides doesn't work at the scale necessary to feed the human population. There's no choice between "overproduction" and "appropriate production" by getting rid of pesticides. Despite all the overproduction, we still hav…

It brings to mind sorting food at the shelter. The bins of produce that don't have an organic label usually come covered in some sort of semi-waxy preservative goop -- but it washes right off and the produce is almost always good. The bins with an organic label never have the goop but the produce itself has almost always gone bad. Entire bins of mush. The waste is staggering.

That goop had better be poisoning dolphins or something, because the null hypothesis -- that it really isn't so bad and organic labels reject it on account of the FUD opportunity -- is pretty damning.

Re: Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

#77

Post by strainer »

ramblenode wrote: post #46
zeroname wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We overproduce food now... The alternatives to Roundup tend to be worse than Roundup. That's why people use Roundup. That's not to say Roundup per se is absolutely necessary, but farming without pesticides doesn't work at the scale necessary to feed the human population. There's no choice between "overproduction" and "appropriate production" by getting rid of pesticides. Despite all the overproduction, we still hav…

> First of all, "organic farming" is marketing BS. At least in the US, there is a "certified organic" label regulated by the USDA. https://www.ams.usda.gov/about-ams/programs-offices/national...

Its not just a label, its a regulated labeling term. Practically all food labelled as organic in US, EU and other regions has to be certified organic. This "marketing BS" idea is pure meme.

https://www.ams.usda.gov/grades-standards/organic-labeling-s...

Re: Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction, warns UN

#78

Post by nearbuy »

intended wrote: post #62
Illniyar wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very vague. Collapse how? According to other comments we have already remove 60% of species, why wasn't that enough to cause a collapse. Other species take up the slack left by those removed.

Death of insects means no honey and many dead birds. No pollination means many fallow meadows and dead plants. This means either weeds spreading or top soil depletion. This also means many crops we depend on will not survive because various helper species aren’t available. Earthworms dying mean no areation of soil, or the impact of other insects to improve the eco system. So no those other species aren’t taking up th…

This doesn't really explain human extinction. Our food supply doesn't come from a natural ecosystem.

- Commercial bee populations aren't declining. (There has been an increase in Colony Collapse Disorder, but lost colonies are replaced and total bee population hasn't declined.)

- The vast majority of the world's food supply does not depend on pollination from insects. To quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated...:

> The most essential staple food crops on the planet, like corn, wheat, rice, soybeans and sorghum, need no insect help at all; they are wind-pollinated or self-pollinating. Other staple food crops, like bananas and plantains, are sterile and propagated from cuttings, requiring no pollination of any form, ever.

- None of the crops that require pollination from insects are essential to human survival. It's hard to see how their loss could lead to our extinction.

- Crops can be pollinated by hand or machine.

- Crops can be propagated without seeds.

- Crops can be grown in all kinds of unbelievable conditions. Crops can be grown without soil. They can be grown in space stations, completely isolated from Earth's ecosystems.

- Extinction is a very strong claim. To support it, it wouldn't be enough, for example, to show that 90% of the population would die off, leaving 750 million people. They need to propose a mechanism by which all humans would die.

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