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Birds Are Vanishing from North America

nytimes.com

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Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#161

Post by remir »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #41
jjuhl wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not. There are too many humans on the planet. Reducing the number would lead to a more sustainable situation. That's just basic logic.

"Reducing" (by means unspecified) sounds uncomfortably close to mass killing. Worse, the logic of the "climate action now" position is that we can't wait for 2050. That will be too late. Well, if you want to reduce the population by 2050, what concrete steps do you propose? (I know, you didn't say 2050. I think "action now" is inherent in the logic of your position, though.)

Reducing can mean helping developing countries advance to a point where they have a social safety net, less children per family by having better sex education, more opportunities for women, access to contraceptives.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#162

Post by refurb »

amatecha wrote: post #159
refurb wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A beaver dams a river, flooding the shores and killing off the ecosystem. That’s natural. A group of humans do it and it’s unnatural?

Beaver dams don't kill off the ecosystem. Tons of other life forms make use of the newly-flooded area. I've personally watched herons perch upon the dam to catch the fish that are now swimming through the now-deeper waterway, for example.

Same thing when humans build dams, right? We're creating new ecosystems.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#163

Post by RootKitBeerCat »

the_af wrote: post #154
refurb wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That explains the sparkling environmental record of the USSR and China!

> That explains the sparkling environmental record of the USSR and China! If you assume that capitalism requires unchecked growth harmful to the environment, it doesn't follow that some specific alternatives to capitalism are automatically healthy for the environment. The only conclusion you can draw (if the initial proposition is true) is that if there is a healthy alternative, it's not capitalism. By the way, some…

Things get overcomplicated when we start using capital “C” words like Communism/Capitalism.

The basics are enough: unchecked greed is bad, regardless of the society / system of capital allocation and thought.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#164

Post by chaostheory »

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…

> 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.

I agree. I would argue the majority of people in developed countries share this view. However, it should be pointed out that it's also a luxury to have this view. If you're currently in, come from, or ever visited a developing country; you'd realize that for many other people a major primary concern is to get enough income for basic needs. They just don't have the bandwidth to fully appreciate the world as we do.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#165

Post by keiferski »

chaoticmass wrote: post #120
RoutinePlayer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I fully know your stances on all of this, but Religion is not really a prerequisite for fully appreciating how beautiful yet precarious our biosphere truly is. Engineering solutions to combat or circumvent Climate Change is our ONLY way forward. But first we need to get a critical mass of our American citizenry to be convinced we have an actual problem. Especially, in fact, a large segment of the elector…

Carl Sagan wrote about the numinous, a feeling of awe from looking at the night sky. Can't remember if it was Cosmos, or Contact, or one of his other books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numinous

The Sublime is a similar concept from the Romantic era.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime_(philosophy)

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#166

Post by booboolayla »

spodek wrote: post #5

We're swimming in environmental problems. We can come up with makeshift solutions to many, but for solving them all, and not to suggest it's the only solution, but a part of anything comprehensive, is there any environmental problem that a smaller human population doesn't alleviate?

We really are not "swimming in environmental problems," you're just made to feel that way through incessant reporting on anything that might be construed as a doomsday scenario.

I hope there's a good reason for why the hidden hands have been trying to freak us out for the last 40 or so years.

In the real world however the climate is very nice most of the time, we haven't killed all bees, birds are still chirping away, cow farts aren't setting the planet on fire, airplanes and rockets are not depleting the ozone layer, etc. etc.

I'm honestly flabbergasted at how many otherwise perfectly sane and rational people have bought into the climate doomsday scenario without a shred of evidence.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#168

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

openmosix wrote: post #14

Birds aren't real! https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history

No, just no. This is exactly how the flat earth thing took off - people passed it around as a laugh, but at some point someone wasn't in on the joke and really ran with it. If that stuff continues pretty soon people will be shooting birds because they think they are drones or something. Let's not propagate that insanity, even if you do find it funny.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#169

Post by incompatible »

coliveira wrote: post #131
lacampbell wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The laws are not generally part of capitalism, but imposed upon it to prevent various harmful activities. Pollution is an example: capitalism itself (the private ownership of the means of production) has no mechanism that could deal with it.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#170

Post by lacampbell »

coliveira wrote: post #131
lacampbell wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's your argument? You've so far told mecapitalism leads to terrible things happening in the name of growth unless there are laws against it, which there are, as 'capitalism exists inside a framework of laws'. Your own argument informs us that capitalism does not automatically mean environmental damage will occur.
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