221–230 of 372 posts
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Who do you suggest we kill?
Noone in particular. Just let the lack of food do its thing. Or if you want to actively do something, then pick 50% at random.
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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?
2) Were the trees killed made susceptible to the beetle because of heat stress, possibly caused by human driven climate change? (this is the case for some large scale infestations)
Overall, the point is; yes, where imbalances in nature are triggered by natural causes, there is no issue with that (earthquake, hurricane, long term climate oscillation).
Where imbalances in nature are triggered by humans, (IMHO) we should quite naturally regard that as a negative since a) we are intelligent enough to find ways of avoiding environmental degradation and b) Environmental degradation has both consequences to other forms of life as well as other humans.
I guess you're playing devils advocate here, but you're hardly adding to the conversation.
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> 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.
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…
Perhaps a better measure would be genetic diversity? A more diverse gene pool is more likely to survive the unexpected.
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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…
I was actually wondering recently if there has ever been a huge spike in, say, a new species of algae or something, that caused a large change in the atmosphere. I know that what we're doing as a species isn't "natural", and we know better and could avoid it if we really wanted to, but it still had me thinking about what kinds of things the planet has gone through before that would have been alarming at the time if s…
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There's only one jump: I don't trust the data, so I'm not yet concerned by this click-bait title. In this day of clickbait titles, studies that are not reproducible, and suspect motivation for studies, the idea that we can calculate the total number of birds with an error rate of less than 30%, including the fact that some data is 50 years old, doesn't pass my smell test. I would prefer waiting for accurate data rath…
> The analysis, published in the journal Science, is the most exhaustive and ambitious attempt yet to learn what is happening to avian populations. > A team of researchers from universities, government agencies and nonprofit organizations collaborated on the new study, which combined old and new methods for counting birds. > Kevin Gaston, a conservation biologist at the University of Exeter > Hillary Young, a conserv…
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+1 - I think the kind of marketing and messaging that makes environmentalism all about saving "the planet" and "the animals" and "the natural environment" really doesn't serve us well. A better strategic approach would be to highlight (with the right crafty messaging) that a very tiny statistical slice of earth's historical states and potential future states are any good at supporting large human populations comforta…
Your approach will fail for the same reason than an ethical environmental appeal does. Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead. I would go so far as to say that some of them take a perverse pleasure in the id…
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Your approach will fail for the same reason than an ethical environmental appeal does. Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead. I would go so far as to say that some of them take a perverse pleasure in the id…
I don't disagree, but I also think it is important to note that what you are describing is baked into our entire economic system. Economic actors all acting rationally in their own best interest, which automatically filters out any long term multi-generational outlook. Capitalism is the root cause here.
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> 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.
> That makes it sound like there's some kind of natural 'ideal state' for the planet to recover to. If you want to know what the natural state for an area is, ask a native person from a population that has un uninterrupted culture, that is if you can find one. A native person I know often describes a discorded ecosystem by saying: "The land is sick." To equivocate and to claim all states are equally natural, is to de…
Idea of a "noble savage" is a myth that is about as racist as it's opposite.
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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?
1) Was the beetle introduced to the area by humans (which is the case for a number of pests) 2) Were the trees killed made susceptible to the beetle because of heat stress, possibly caused by human driven climate change? (this is the case for some large scale infestations) Overall, the point is; yes, where imbalances in nature are triggered by natural causes, there is no issue with that (earthquake, hurricane, long t…
That premise doesn’t really hold up to rationale examination.
To continue the thought experiment, if the beetle infection was not due to any impact of humans, should we try and stop it to preserve the forests? By the above logic we shouldn’t because the destruction is “good and natural” and we would be interfering with nature.
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Your approach will fail for the same reason than an ethical environmental appeal does. Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead. I would go so far as to say that some of them take a perverse pleasure in the id…
I lean more towards ignorance than malice. The average Earth person (out of all 11 billion) probably doesn't have as solid of a scientific or historical background to form an educated opinion on what affect we are having on the ecosystem in the long term.