Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 525 posts

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#61

Post by _Microft »

tenpies wrote: post #59
bryanlarsen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The next U.S. federal election is an excellent opportunity to address climate change. Ensure that the Democratic primary chooses a leader with a good plan, and then ensure that he/she wins in 2020.

Except it's also not. As a continent, Asia is the largest polluter by far. What's worst, they're exporting those practices to Africa. Meanwhile, the Anglo-West is hyper-focused on the US because there's a president they don't like. This has been a blessing (now the average Anglo-Westerner at least pretends to care about the environment), but also a curse (they think the US is the only country that can save humanity).

The per-capita emissions in the US are about twice to 2.5 times as high as that of a british citizen. Maybe it's just that there are the low hanging fruits?

It's easier to reduce 1 ton of annual CO_2 emissions when you're producing 17 tons per year and person (like in the US) than when you're at 6 tons like the Brits. In either case, it would be 1 ton saved per year but it's only a 6% reduction for someone in the US but a 17% reduction of their yearly emission for a Brit.

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#63

Post by jcwayne »

neuronic wrote: post #19
perfunctory wrote: post #11

We keep hearing that individual actions don't matter and that we need a system change instead. I used to hold the same opinion for the very long time. However, since recently I started to turn around. For the last 30 years governments and politicians have proven incapable to do anything about global heating. What makes us think it will be any different in the coming years. Scientists keep producing report after repor…

> Don't upgrade your phone. Seriously. The market makes this easy nowadays. Unless your phone is broken/severely outdated there is next to zero benefit to upgrading at this time. Prices for flagships become prohibitive as well. Upgrading phones every 1-2 years is a dead tradition outside of contract incentives, only relevant to hyper enthusiasts (r/android etc...). Even then I am not sure why aside from corporation b…

You're forgetting the status symbol aspect of having the latest phone. It seems to me that fashion is a driving factor for far more people than any technical consideration.

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#64

Post by uhtred »

perfunctory wrote: post #11

We keep hearing that individual actions don't matter and that we need a system change instead. I used to hold the same opinion for the very long time. However, since recently I started to turn around. For the last 30 years governments and politicians have proven incapable to do anything about global heating. What makes us think it will be any different in the coming years. Scientists keep producing report after repor…

Why not go vegan? Sure, anything is better than nothing, but a vegan diet is best of all. Plus, dairy, especially when consumed as cheese, is worse than some meat in terms of environmental impact.

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#65

Post by Udik »

bad_user wrote: post #56
perfunctory wrote: post #11

We keep hearing that individual actions don't matter and that we need a system change instead. I used to hold the same opinion for the very long time. However, since recently I started to turn around. For the last 30 years governments and politicians have proven incapable to do anything about global heating. What makes us think it will be any different in the coming years. Scientists keep producing report after repor…

> “ Reduce your meat consumption as much as you can. Don't go all the way vegan, but make meat a special treat not a commodity. ” No thank you. I know vegans have an anti-meat agenda and have been promoting this idea, however industrial agriculture as a whole is not sustainable, not just meat, and switching to a plants-based diet won’t save the planet. The elephant in the room is that sustainable farming needs to be…

> sustainable farming needs to be local, it needs natural fertilizers and it needs grazing animals.

I suspect that the "sustainable farming" you're describing, if applied at scale (= enough to feed 7 billion people) would require so much land as to completely devastate and replace every natural environment still left on earth. Little crops and pastures, as pleasing as they are to the eye, are not a natural environment.

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#66

Post by akskos »

perfunctory wrote: post #11

We keep hearing that individual actions don't matter and that we need a system change instead. I used to hold the same opinion for the very long time. However, since recently I started to turn around. For the last 30 years governments and politicians have proven incapable to do anything about global heating. What makes us think it will be any different in the coming years. Scientists keep producing report after repor…

I think individual actions might be required for a system change. It would be way easier fe. to put high taxes on animal products if people wouldn't be so used to only eating meat. One person giving an example of alternative ways to consume is shifting the culture of consumption around him/her and therefore making a system change easier.

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#67

Post by gxx »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #40
crispinb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's INSANE And the death of our living planet isn't? So-called 'economic growth' was never much more than a global entropy increase, as high quality self-organising evolved systems were ripped out to feed crude technological ones requiring endless inputs. This was always mere borrowing against the future. It was never 'growth' in any true sense. It ends because biology, chemistry & physics say it must, regardless…

> We could perhaps 3 or 4 decades ago have made a collective decision to gradually reduce consumption and allow our home to survive in decent enough shape to sustain us. One thing we know about humans is that, as a species, we were never and are not currently capable of making such collective decisions or otherwise coordinating at this scale. This is probably the root of most problems we have, except death and diseas…

For this reason there is no hope that collective action through government pave the way to the solutions we need. Governments will only be forced to act when things are so bad that it's too late. There is also no hope that individual action will make a meaningful difference. Not enough people will care until things are so bad it's too late. Public corporations will not lead the way to a solution because they are only driven by short term profit. Does anyone seriously believe any of the above will lead to solutions soon enough?

It seems to me that only the ultra rich have the resources, independence, and arguably intelligence to lead the way to solutions that could save humanity. They might devote their talents and resources to funding research into technologies we will need when when things get so bad that governments are forced to act. Also funding powerful lobbing groups to counteract the powerful lobbing efforts of corporations that benefit from delaying action on the climate.

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#68

Post by samatman »

perfunctory wrote: post #11

We keep hearing that individual actions don't matter and that we need a system change instead. I used to hold the same opinion for the very long time. However, since recently I started to turn around. For the last 30 years governments and politicians have proven incapable to do anything about global heating. What makes us think it will be any different in the coming years. Scientists keep producing report after repor…

The difficulty this poses is that the market may as well be designed to frustrate this approach. It works only in the absence of marginal consumers, which, in practice, never happens.

Stop flying? The airlines still have to amortize the cost of their airplanes and bulk fuel purchases. You've subsidized discount flights, paying with your virtue.

Work remotely, so you don't need to buy a car? That's one more car that's sold in a lot sale, or for a few hundred less on Craiglist if you buy used.

Reduce meat consumption? More for the people of the developing world, many of whom eat as much as they can afford and would like more.

Don't upgrade your phone? That's one more that gets sold next year, on sale, when the new models come out.

Demand-side reduction doesn't work. We need actual solutions.

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#70

Post by perfunctory »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #43
perfunctory wrote: post #11

We keep hearing that individual actions don't matter and that we need a system change instead. I used to hold the same opinion for the very long time. However, since recently I started to turn around. For the last 30 years governments and politicians have proven incapable to do anything about global heating. What makes us think it will be any different in the coming years. Scientists keep producing report after repor…

I believe this is an incredibly dangerous attitude. Kudos that you're doing your part, and leading by example is important. However, systemic change is possible. We have numerous counter-examples: the UN, the Montreal protocol, free trade deals, et cetera. So why don't we have systemic change for climate change, because people like you and I let our politicians get away with it! If it was obvious to politicians that…

Maybe I wasn't very clear. I am not against systemic change. Surely we need to keep pushing for it. It's not either/or. We should use every method we can.

On the other hand, recently I've been thinking about this. According to some theory it takes about 3.5% of the population to take part in active resistance to cause change (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YJSehRlU34w). Now, 3.5% is clearly not a majority required to vote in the right politicians. Which leaves you with direct action. Something like that.

Post reply on HN