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

washingtonpost.com

331–340 of 525 posts

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

#331
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There would be impact but if anything human are good with adapting and with technology. Is it impossible to image that these million species roles can be replaced with technology ?

If we are not able to organize our behaviour in a way that don't destroy the existing working system, why do you believe that we will able to accomplish, the arguable most difficult task, of creating a working system anew?

Sometime its easier to create a new system rather than modifying the current system.

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

#332
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an honest question: do you really see no issue in replacing bees with robo-bees? Do you really believe humanity can just technology our way out of every issue we face? What happens when the whole system collapses?

> do you really see no issue in replacing bees with robo-bees? What issue do u see ?

Personally, I have a moral issue with it. Bees are living creatures. No amount of tech will ever replace the beauty of a living, breathing creature. This moral issue can be translated to any other creature that we are affecting. They depend on us to be good to them and treat them with the same respect we show any other creature, and we depend on them to sustain us and the planet as a whole.

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans don’t need to invent some kind of bee like automation technology. We need to invent a way to not kill all the fucking bees!

True, we should be striving to create synthetic apples

As long as its as good or better than existing apples.

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

#334

Unpopular to say, but people as a group will not change. it won't just happen. We will destroy part of earth and as a consequence we will engineer a fix for it. It is maybe an unfortunate thing. But that's how we people work. We mess up first and clean after. It's quite unrealistic to expect the world to look the same in 100 years from now. We will slowly take control over every single square feet on this planet. Tha…

I am not so sure about the "as a consequence" part. If people engineer a fix, it is because the problem is grave enough that it calls for a fix, on the other hand it might be so grave that engineering anything beyond simple stick and stone tools might become impossible.

The problem we are talking about here is in the geologic scale of things (250 million years without a precedent perhaps, going back to the Permian-Triassic extinction event), which means our mental models and analogies become dubious.

And as for people messing up first and cleaning after, I'm not so sure either. That's not the way things turned out to be with the Ozone Layer Hole.

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

#335

One thing that I fail to wrap my mind around: aren’t all those corporations executives, politicians, and poachers living on the same planet Earth as all of us? Don’t they ever think that they’re actually destroying our planet and there’s no other place to live? I can imagine that they don’t believe pro-climate change people, but they could simply hire an independent group of researchers, don’t they? And I mean actual…

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

― Upton Sinclair

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

#336

I have a theory, and I have no evidence to back this theory up. The increases in anxiety in the general public over the last decade or so is in large part to people knowing we're on an unsustainable path. We're all collectively marching towards the edge of the cliff to jump off together. More people than ever have anxiety because we subconsciously (or consciously) know this. We're unsustainable with how we pollute an…

Read the late Dr. Hans Rosling's Factfullness. By many measures, the world is getting much much better. Try testing yourself to see what you know, are you smarter than a chimp?: http://forms.gapminder.org/s3/test-2018

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

#337
post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we should not even consider taking any animals to space. let them be where they developed naturally. humans, on the other hand...

Given your views on asteroid impacts, that seems a bit short sighted.

why? there’s been 7 extinction events so far.

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

#338
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you really see no issue in replacing bees with robo-bees? What issue do u see ?

Personally, I have a moral issue with it. Bees are living creatures. No amount of tech will ever replace the beauty of a living, breathing creature. This moral issue can be translated to any other creature that we are affecting. They depend on us to be good to them and treat them with the same respect we show any other creature, and we depend on them to sustain us and the planet as a whole.

I see, I personally don't have moral issue with it. I don't consider non-human well being as important.

Well, if anything the only time I concern about non-human well being is because it affecting human who care about them.

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

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but in the US at least, if you vote Republican, you are working actively against solutions.

And if you vote mainstream Democrat as well ;-)

I don't know of a mainstream Democrat who doesn't support mainstream policies in conservation, the Paris Climate Accord, fuel efficiency standards, environmental research and protection, climate science, etc. These are all things the current GOP is taking real steps backwards on, so mainstream D vs the majority of Rs doesn't even come close. And in general or national elections you don't have much of a choice but to support the mainstream candidate who comes closest to a sane environmental choice.

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

#340
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given your views on asteroid impacts, that seems a bit short sighted.

why? there’s been 7 extinction events so far.

I think you can join mazt1 in paintbrushing flowers for the amusement of spectating bees.
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