Insect collapse • Hacker News Board

Re: Insect collapse

#71

Post by scott_s » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

11235813213455 wrote: post #17

titzer wrote: post #14

This planet will not support 7 billion humans. Certainly not 7 billion stupid-ass humans who swing massive sledgehammers into the pillars of the biosphere that support them in their hedonistic blunder in search of more "wealth". When I hear the words "economic growth", and then weigh it against the destruction of this magnitude, I often want to vomit. And how do I square the fact that I work on flipping bits in compu…

Agreed, but I believe we can act about it. My environmental fingerprint is probably At a single person level, these actions looks insignificant, but if everyone does it, it won't be since the major source of pollution is residential pollution, i.e. people, and the other sources of pollution (industry, large-scale transports...) are also driven by consumption. So if people stop over-consuming, this saves dramatically…

Local food is not necessarily more environmentally friendly. According to a paper on food transportation and reducing its carbon footprint, about 11% of typical US food consumption's carbon footprint comes from transportation [1]. If the food you're eating from the area you're in is not suited well for growing that kind of food, it's quite possible the local farmers are making more of a carbon impact versus growing it in a more suited area and shipping it.

[1] "Food transportation issues and reducing carbon footprint", Wayne Wakeland , Susan Cholette , and Kumar Venkat. http://www.cleanmetrics.com/pages/Ch9_0923.pdf

Re: Insect collapse

#72

Post by ben_w » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:27 PM UTC

shusson wrote: post #47

stouset wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, that’s the “our” in “our world”.

If life started on the Earth, then we are just part of a process of a particular rock floating in space. There is no 'our' world and it is not dying.

Are you objecting to “our” on the grounds that we didn’t build it? Because most people use “our house” to mean the one they occupy, not limiting it to only what they built.

Re: Insect collapse

#73

Post by apocalypstyx » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:29 PM UTC

secstate wrote: post #65

ryanmercer wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've come to accept the fact that we've already lost the game. I have a friend that is extremely optimistic and thinks we will figure things out, like fusion, 'because we need to' but I'm far more pessimistic. This year, based on previous years, we will probably hit 35 gigatons of carbon emissions and it won't be long before we hit 40 gigatons. Even if a fleet of alien ships appeared in orbit today and was like "we'r…

While I generally prefer optimism to pessimism, this comment seems horrifyingly accurate. We may escape to new planets, we may learn to live under the sea. Humans will likely persist for a longer time than you suggest here because we're feisty motherfuckers who are programmed to survive. BUT when you consider how long the lizard kings owned the planet, we are but a drop in the bucket now. The thin veil of oxygen on t…

>We may escape to new planets[1], we may learn to live under the sea.

The problem is even those options put humans in a space where someone else (whoever that someone else is) can turn off your air supply, a kind of social constraint that even the worst individuals and societies and governments in history have never had at their disposal.

[1] baring a true Earth-like planet being discovered, but, even then, based on any foreseeable technology, the only option to get there would be generational ships subject to exactly the same constraints as outlined above.

Re: Insect collapse

#74

Post by titzer » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

Regardsyjc wrote: post #43

titzer wrote: post #14

This planet will not support 7 billion humans. Certainly not 7 billion stupid-ass humans who swing massive sledgehammers into the pillars of the biosphere that support them in their hedonistic blunder in search of more "wealth". When I hear the words "economic growth", and then weigh it against the destruction of this magnitude, I often want to vomit. And how do I square the fact that I work on flipping bits in compu…

I used to feel this way and I found that it wasn't productive. What can you do? If you can do something, do it. If you think you can't change the future possible destruction of our ecosystem or millions of people, then you also need to make peace with it. I think you can either do or not do things without the negativity. I found that the negativity made me think emotionally and not rationally or productively, and als…

> I decided to be more optimistic or maybe stoic. Make sure I can do what I can or all I can and not let some potential apocalyptic future darken my life.

I am somewhere along this path, trying to find a mindset to cope. Yet I have the feeling that even so, widespread, happiness all but ensures the collapse, as the emergent effect of everyone being happy and living their best life, no matter what they think as they do it, is just as bad. I am sorry about this, sorry to be a bearer of bad news, sorry to bring this darkness out in the world, but honestly there is no way out of this box for humanity.

Re: Insect collapse

#75

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

dmichulke wrote: post #59

tejohnso wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My environmental fingerprint is probably You forgot to mention the #1 (by far) contributor that is 20 to 50 times more significant than everything else you mentioned. > We recommend four widely applicable high-impact (i.e. low emissions) actions with the potential to contribute to systemic change and substantially reduce annual personal emissions: having one fewer child (an average for developed countries of 58.6 t…

That's recursive reasoning because a child also eats, travels by car and by airplane. It's also equivalent to saying: Kill yourself because you cause 58.6t CO2 (unless children cause more CO2 than adults which would be absurd because children don't take a lot of emission-relevant decisions)

It's not equivalent since you're already alive. Not producing a child isn't the same as killing one's self in any way.

Re: Insect collapse

#76

Post by mrob » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

vixen99 wrote: post #63

mrob wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't have any problem with tigers going extinct in the wild. From Wikipedia: "The most comprehensive study of deaths due to tiger attacks estimates that at least 373,000 people died due to tiger attacks between 1800 and 2009, the majority of these attacks occurring in South and Southeast Asia.[1] Over the last five centuries, an estimated 1 million people have been eaten by tigers.[2]" https://en.wikipedia.org/…

No problem at all! So put tigers at the top of your list and work slowly but surely down the the list of 'nasty' animals and plants. Doubtless we can eliminate the whole damn lot if we really try. You'll be a hero! Or maybe not.

I'd put malaria carrying mosquitoes at the top of the list, not tigers.

The concept of a tiger is an important part of human culture, and it would be a pity if nobody could see a real one, but they breed in captivity, so people can see them in zoos. It's easy to romanticize the idea of "wild tigers" when they live far from you, and you're at no risk of one eating you or your livestock. Humans killed most wild tigers for good reason.

Re: Insect collapse

#77

Post by dmichulke » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

drankula3 wrote: post #70

dmichulke wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's recursive reasoning because a child also eats, travels by car and by airplane. It's also equivalent to saying: Kill yourself because you cause 58.6t CO2 (unless children cause more CO2 than adults which would be absurd because children don't take a lot of emission-relevant decisions)

Limiting further population increase is in no way equivalent to saying kill yourself. This is a gross exaggeration.

I'm just saying it logically follows that killing yourself is likely even better than not having children.

I consider it a failure of the study if it says "don't have kids" if (and only if) its original aim was to show how that can be done without drastic measures (such as "kill all humans", "don't have kids", ...).

It's like suggesting to not have kids in order to fight cancer. Yes, absolute cancer occurrences will decrease if you don't have kids, yet we have not in any way addressed the underlying problem.

EDIT: Previously I said "absolute cancer rates" where I should have said absolute cancer occurrences

Re: Insect collapse

#78

Post by coldcode » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

Evolution will ultimately prevail; it just may not include us. In all eras of mass species die off, eventually new niches created new opportunity. Even with idiot humans messing up stuff, in a long enough timeframe, evolution will eventually route around us.

Re: Insect collapse

#79

Post by eecc » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:47 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #15

titzer wrote: post #14

This planet will not support 7 billion humans. Certainly not 7 billion stupid-ass humans who swing massive sledgehammers into the pillars of the biosphere that support them in their hedonistic blunder in search of more "wealth". When I hear the words "economic growth", and then weigh it against the destruction of this magnitude, I often want to vomit. And how do I square the fact that I work on flipping bits in compu…

> And how do I square the fact that I work on flipping bits in computers somewhere that represent some fiction of our collective imagination, all the while burning more energy and fuel and contributing to the massive side show that distracts us from our self-destruction? Not well. Well at least the mass consumption of virtual goods (software) seems to produce less waste than the mass consumption of physical goods. Yo…

Unfortunately datacenters don't run on pixie dust! I'd love to know the carbon billow produced in a 5 social media session.

Re: Insect collapse

#80

Post by cs702 » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 2:47 PM UTC

The growing body of anecdotal evidence, including the disappearance of insects at the bottom of the food pyramid in more than one area, suggests that it is now too late to reverse these dramatic changes to the earth's biosphere and humankind's ability to extract food from it.

Let us hope that as these dramatic changes start affecting more and more people in concrete ways, we, human beings, will search for and develop technological solutions that will allow us to survive and thrive in a changing environment.