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Birds Are Vanishing from North America

nytimes.com

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Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#131

Post by coliveira »

lacampbell wrote: post #123
coliveira wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is based on infinite growth (economists even laugh at people like Malthus who proposed otherwise) and on fungibility of values (money is green no matter where from). This basically leads to a necessity of destroying nature for the sake of realizing economic growth. We need at least start to take seriously the fact that, the way capitalist economy is conducted, there is no way forward to save the environmen…

By that logic, capitalism leads to a necessity of murdering your business rivals for the sake of realizing growth.

Capitalism happens inside a framework of laws. There are strong laws against murdering your competitors, that's why this doesn't happen (nowadays). There is a whole set of unethical behaviors, however, that are commonly used for the goal of producing a profit.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#132

Post by christophilus »

> Grassland species have suffered the biggest declines by far, having lost 717 million birds. These birds have probably been decimated by modern agriculture and development.

This has been known for a while. I remember hearing a piece on NPR about this maybe a decade ago. The problem is actually that we have been working hard to reforest, and haven't left grassland. Everything is either forest, or developed, with very little in-between. One of the proposed solutions was to simply not mow 100% of your yard. Leave some bit of it unkempt. There's a local monastery that does this, and there are birds there that I haven't seen anywhere else in the area, so I think there's something to the strategy.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#133

Post by magduf »

wongarsu wrote: post #82
siempreb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until we wake up to this fact That is not really the case here. I woke up already long ago, but there is no way I can stop the idiots. Only governments can take action by law, not me. France and Germany will not allow for Facebooks' Libra coin. It shows how fast they can act if their economy is at stake. But for decades already they allow pesticides for agriculture. They could and should know about allowing for mas…

Germany managed to outlaw glyphosate. That's the government reacting to pressure from voters (especially the massive gains of the Green party).

That's an example of where democracy works because the voters are educated and care about important issues. In countries that are full of uneducated idiots, it doesn't work so well and glyphosphate isn't banned.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#134

Post by SOMMS »

monktastic1 wrote: post #36

This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous . Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. It's hard to prove (or even study), but I believe this is the root cause of all the other tragedies. It is not something we will merely engineer our way out of. We don't like religion (or in many cases, even…

It's pretty, but your post in a nutshell: We are too full of ourselves to admit the transcendental beauty and value of our world soooo...drugs.

??

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#135

Post by reassembled »

vpmpaul wrote: post #122
monktastic1 wrote: post #36

This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous . Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. It's hard to prove (or even study), but I believe this is the root cause of all the other tragedies. It is not something we will merely engineer our way out of. We don't like religion (or in many cases, even…

>psychedelics Every "epiphany" that someone has told me they had while on psychedelics has been something that easily could have been come up with a bit of quite time and thought. I have never heard a single story that blew me away or offered anything but mundane "insights" that easily could be gotten other ways. Its time for the "psychedelics" people to come clean and just admit they are simply getting high.

That's a profoundly cynical view on experiencing, well, anything really. That's like saying couples in love should just wake up to the fact that an experience of love has zero nuance and can be summed up with a single word.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#136

Post by Bjartr »

jacobolus wrote: post #117
commandlinefan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves I wonder, though... we know, for example, that bees pollinate plants, and that we need plants to be pollinated for our survival. But if the bees die out, we can figure out another technical way to pollinate plants - it might be a pain to carry out, and we might be kicking ourselves for not saving the bees before it got to that point, but it can be done. If it comes…

> If it comes down to a matter of survival, humans as a species will figure out a way to get what needs to be done, done. Don’t count on it. Human civilization depends heavily on trust and cooperation, and a large number of complex systems functioning which nobody completely understands and most people barely notice. The whole endeavor is quite fragile. Once basic systems start breaking down, people start starving an…

Note that he said species and you said civilization. Civilization could crumble, worldwide populations of humans could crater to under a million, and the species could survive for another hundred thousand years.

You're both correct, you're just talking past each other.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#138

Post by monktastic1 »

zaroth wrote: post #124
monktastic1 wrote: post #36

This apparently isn't a popular opinion, but: this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous . Until we wake up to this fact, we will continue to ennui ourselves and this world into oblivion. It's hard to prove (or even study), but I believe this is the root cause of all the other tragedies. It is not something we will merely engineer our way out of. We don't like religion (or in many cases, even…

> we will continue to ennui ourselves... I’m trying to recall which post from yesterday used this word which we probably both read. But FYI I believe the word is merely a noun; one cannot ennui oneself.

Thanks. It turns out it can be used as a verb:

- (verb, transitive) To make bored or listless; to weary.

But it doesn't quite capture what I mean. It's not merely that we're boring ourselves by some particular activity, but by deciding that reality itself is boring.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#139

Post by [deleted] »

technothrasher wrote: post #16
bsmitty5000 wrote: post #2

This article doesn't mention the declining insect population at all but I would think it's clear that a quickly declining food source would be a major cause of population decline. I wonder if there's a similar decline in other animals that rely on insects, eg bats. Although, interestingly, the article does mention neonicotinoids as a direct reason for the decline in population. It's hard to imagine humans taking the…

> or we die out and the planet recovers on its own. That makes it sound like there's some kind of natural 'ideal state' for the planet to recover to. Without us, the planet would just go on changing, without anything to judge the current environment at any point as good or bad to any particular standard. Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less.

[deleted]

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#140

Post by rjf72 »

soulofmischief wrote: post #96
jobigoud wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this world is precious. I would even go so far as to say miraculous. Here is an attempt at a framework to think about this: we have no proof that life exists anywhere else in the Universe. There is a possibility that life itself arose only once and that we are the only intelligent beings around. We have a sort of grand astronomical duty to not fuck it up and expand to the stars and keep the fire going.

That's what I'm saying man this behavior is just beyond selfish. And we are leaving nothing for the next generations to use in terms of raw materials in order to help us become a space-faring species. Society is perverted to the core.

There's a fun catch here though. Earth is going to face a natural destruction sooner or later. Be it by a gamma ray burst, a super-volcanic eruption, an asteroid impact, or any of other other practically infinite number of ways it can happen, has happened (multiple times), and will happen again soon or later. So we're all effectively living on borrowed time. You can't create a permanently sustainable Earth in a beautiful equilibrium because that's not how this universe works. It loves to throw a spanner in the works, over and over. And so the point of this is that it's only by racing against an unknown clock that one can hope to actually sustain humanity.

Consequently, our rapid development which is undoubtedly causing harm to Earth is likely also, equally without doubt, the very thing that may ultimately enable humanity to survive in the longrun. We already have all the resources we need to become a space faring civilization, except for one - public will. People of course want it, but also simultaneously think space is a fantasy, much like at one time crossing the ocean was seen as. And so it's put on the side burner while we focus on much more pressing matters, like what some politician or celebrity said on Twitter. If a tenth of the energy we spend on social media or trying to shove ads at each other was focused on space, we'd already have set foot on Mars.

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