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Birds Are Vanishing from North America

nytimes.com

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Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#281

Post by scoutt »

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.

> 'ideal state'

There may not be an ideal state, but maybe parent is talking about reverting the damage we are producing.

> Without us, the planet would just go on changing

That's true, but at the same time it is not a valid excuse to keep making damage. Someone could argue that killing you today is OK since you'll eventually die.

> Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less.

You can also word it as 'destroying the environment is killing ourselves', that is more or less the same we hear every day.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#282

Post by andrey_utkin »

socialist_coder wrote: post #179
anigbrowl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Following one's desires is baked into our biology, and economic system is just the consequence. Kittens don't know about capitalism but they follow their desires.

Capitalism is just a mental framework which helps to satisfy one's desires in a big way without the need to kill people.

Full socialism, while very interesting to many here, especially when it comes to the final happy picture, unfortunately involves killing lots and lots of people, as history shows us.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#283

Post by IntricateJake »

socialist_coder wrote: post #179
anigbrowl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Economic actors all acting rationally in their own best interest

>Capitalism is the root cause here.

That is not how capitalism works, it works by providing value to the greater whole of people, that's how it obtains money. If a business isn't doing something we like, we don't purchase products, services, advice, etc. or at least that's how it should work. The bigger problem is why do we value the wrong things? or why are we unable to develop better solutions?

I agree there are things we can improve about the environment (for example plastic in oceans, etc.) but saying capitalism is the root cause is foolish and unsubstantiated.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#284

Post by chosenbreed37 »

solotronics wrote: post #226
anigbrowl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is certainly a factor. The other thing is that even for people that now it is very difficult to change consumer behavior. E.g. I came across a family of three on the underground train in London. One of them lamented the fact that she wouldn't be able to part in a climate change protest march the following day. The reason being that they were flying to Germany the next day. Oh...and they came from Texas ;-)

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#285

Post by IntricateJake »

ff317 wrote: post #70
technothrasher wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

+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…

Couldn't have said it better

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#286

Post by tmp190914pn2 »

elliottkember wrote: post #137

I'm from New Zealand, which has a lot of birds, and I live in California. The forests here are eerily quiet, I hate it. Back home the birdsong in forests is deafening.

I'm from California but I live in New Zealand. The birds here are very noisy in the morning. It's almost plague levels of birds on my farm, of many many varieties (Aussie Magpie, spurwing plover, thrush, morepork, tui, kingfisher, swamp harrier, wood pidgeon, ducks, and others that I haven't identified yet or forgot about. There are even a few exotics that escaped the conservatory in town and decided to live here and breed. Not to mention the bees everywhere, both honey and bumble.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#287

Post by MiyamotoAkira »

frutiger wrote: post #276
saagarjha wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can they wipe out thousands of species?

Yes: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event

Wait, that says it took around 0.3 billion years, and when there was only single cell life, we have no clue about the biodiversity at that point in time. It cannot compare in time scale, and we have no clue if it can compare on biodiversity scale.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#288

Post by blunte »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #280
corey_moncure wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>say that some of them take a perverse pleasure in the idea of everyone else being worse off, going by the number of facially specious arguments and overtly sadistic rhetoric deployed by many self-styled 'skeptics'. We don't even have to look at arguments and rhetoric. Simply go outside and observe. You can immediately see people driving conspicuously huge vehicles, and some of them have modified their vehicles to in…

Hopeless? Aye. I think part of the problem is we have become so hugely separated from the natural world. Nature and the environment isn't part of many people's lives, at all. Go outside and look might reveal a few artificially manicured bits of monoculture grass, endless asphalt, concrete, poles, boxes and wires. Meat, milk, fruit, veg comes in plastic packs, and quite often ready cooked and prepared. One of the thin…

> I think part of the problem is we have become so hugely separated from the natural world. Nature and the environment isn't part of many people's lives, at all.

The "disconnectedness" of people seems to be a big part of the issue. This applies to many cases where we might say that things are done wrong, but people don't seem to care.

For example, treatment of animals or other humans: When a person is given an opportunity to get close to, or get to know an animal or another person, their care for that animal (and animals in general) often increases - likewise for care for other humans, particularly ones of very different backgrounds.

So it is with nature as well. Give someone an opportunity to go feel the proven benefits of time in nature, and then show them a video of their "favorite" nature spot being clear cut, and they will have a negative reaction.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#289

Post by rectangletangle »

Jweb_Guru wrote: post #279
frutiger wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think of cyanobacteria and the poisonous oxygen they emitted hundreds of millions of years ago?

They were hugely disruptive and set off a massive extinction event... not to moralize the actions of cyanobacteria (who obviously act without agency), but the only reason we think what they did was fine is that we breathe oxygen!

This is the brilliance of natural selection. If it were any less robust life would probably have already gone extinct. It's "easy" to devastate the ecosystem and wipe out say 90% of biodiversity, but that remaining 10% becomes increasingly difficult to root out, as you're increasingly dealing with the hardened survivors. The massive bust leaves open ample under exploited niches, which then spurs rapid disruptive selection, and then subsequent sympatric speciation. Long after humans are gone something will probably be thriving feasting on our garbage.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#290

Post by TeMPOraL »

IntricateJake wrote: post #283
socialist_coder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Economic actors all acting rationally in their own best interest >Capitalism is the root cause here. That is not how capitalism works, it works by providing value to the greater whole of people, that's how it obtains money. If a business isn't doing something we like, we don't purchase products, services, advice, etc. or at least that's how it should work. The bigger problem is why do we value the wrong things? or w…

> That is not how capitalism works, it works by providing value to the greater whole of people, that's how it obtains money. If a business isn't doing something we like, we don't purchase products, services, advice, etc. or at least that's how it should work.

The entire large industry called "marketing" exists explicitly to subvert this process. Why make something people need, or like, when you can make them like it or feel like they need it through persistent psychological manipulation in form of advertising? Hell, why make them like it at all if you can make it addicting instead? They'll hate every minute of their lives but still come back to your product.

Then there are countless ways of making money by providing value to someone, while providing lots of negative value to other people - also known as externalizing costs.

Point being, capitalism is good at making money, period. That this implies providing value to society is not true in general; in fact, it turns out it isn't the most efficient way of making money in many cases. And capitalism is really good at making money efficiently.

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