Birds Are Vanishing from North America • Hacker News Board

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#181

Post by NeoBasilisk » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #150

amatecha wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never use the phrase "ideal state", but rather "natural state". Though, even that is not quite accurate as humans are naturally-occurring too, but the things we do (and do to the planet) are not quite so "natural". While thinking that "the planet is worse off because of humans" is a judgement, I think it's not unreasonable to assert that innocent life forms all over the world suffer by our actions (more than…

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?

It's a question of scale. There aren't 7 billion beavers. If there were only 300 million humans, we wouldn't be having these issues.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#182

Post by refurb » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:02 PM UTC

amatecha wrote: post #176

refurb wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is that a rhetorical question? There's quite some difference between a 200m tall concrete dam that holds 1m+ cubic decameters of water[0][1], and a bunch of twigs and logs jumbled in a creek that might be 2 meters high on average and actually house life like beavers, frogs, birds etc.[2] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Bullards_Bar_Dam [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_reserv... [2] http…

So whether something is natural is a matter of scale?

If we cut down 1,000 acres of trees for wood, is that natural?

What about if a beetle infestation destroys a million acres? Still natural?

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#183

Post by brlewis » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:03 PM UTC

omosubi wrote: post #86

homonculus1 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stop having multiple children for Christ's sake" is a great alternative.

But Christ said to go forth and multiply? :D

I think we can check that one off as done.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#184

Post by chadcmulligan » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #61

wins32767 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet. The alternatives are either less people on the planet, lower standard of living, or resources from off the planet.

Artificial meat seems like a pretty exciting workaround. Beef has a feed conversion of something like 10:1. So, if you imagine a post-beef world, we will need only 10% of the field corn & soy to produce similar amounts of artificial meat. Corn, by the way, is the US's largest crop. This has a lot of open questions around, e.g. what happens to all the corn & soy farmers. But if we're just talking about the planet's ca…

Headlines I'm expecting in 10 years - "problems caused by artificial meat are as bad as the obesity epidemic caused by processed food."

There is no need for artificial meat, just eat less meat, and eat more veggies, nuts and beans. They are way better for you and provide a lot of micro nutrients (anti - oxidants, phytochemical etc) that may or may not exist in artificial meat. Artificial meat is a processed food, and like any other may have the same problems.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#185

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

Yhippa wrote: post #156

This is one of the saddest things I've read in a long time. Birds are amazing. It's amazing to me that they are the descendants of dinosaurs and they're all around us. Their songs and plumage are beautiful to me. > 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 one I'm not totally sure is…

[deleted]

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#186

Post by chadcmulligan » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:08 PM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #145

everdrive wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No is suggesting this. Population control via less breeding is always an alternative.

Good lord, are really americans from the Land of the Free having thoughts like this one.

I feel the whole "land of the free" thing has gone out the window, land of the indentured servants is more like it, with their health care and higher education costs

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#187

Post by socialist_coder » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

wins32767 wrote: post #20

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're exceeding the carrying capacity of the planet. The alternatives are either less people on the planet, lower standard of living, or resources from off the planet.

This is kinda bullshit though. Our lifestyle is the problem, which is multiplied by our population. If you just took the US and Europe, wiped out everyone else, we'd still be destroying our world.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#188

Post by notadoc » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

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…

Loss of insects, likely combined with the huge increase in domestic cat populations.

> continue on this road and completely destroy the natural world

I'd generally agree with that dystopian line of thinking.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#189

Post by chadcmulligan » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:11 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #168

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.

by that logic, any satire should be rejected, a bit of a boring world.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#190

Post by Scarblac » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:12 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #162

amatecha wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that beavers didn't suddenly start doing that, the ecosystems they live in co-evolved around the existence of beavers.

On time scales relevant to evolution, human civilization is happening in an instant and nothing can adapt as fast.

The result is a gigantic loss of biodiversity.