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Birds Are Vanishing from North America

nytimes.com

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Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#341

Post by joey_bob »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #335
joey_bob wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appeal to authority probably won't be very effective in convincing thr root commenter about the validity of the study. None of the quotes addres the concerns about counting methods, and the experts cited are more likely to be seen as experts in biology than statistics, inference, and logic.

If the experts do this sort of work often they'll be proficient in the application of statistics. We don't distrust engineers because they aren't the people who came up with the physics they are applying.

That's a valid assumption to start with, sure. If the results are called into questions on the basis of statistics, their field of work is no longer a convincing argument. When someone calls into question your design choice, you don't say "trust me an engineer" unless you're joking.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#342

Post by jjuhl »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #143
isodude wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing could simple as not adding that many more all the time. Increasing the level of global education will have that effect in itself.

Sure, not adding will work... by 2200, maybe 2100. But, if you believe the current panic about the climate, that's far too late. So if you think that the population has to be reduced, and you think that we need action by 2050 at the latest, what is your proposal?

Obviously, "not adding" is good but not sufficient. We need to decrease the population. There are multiple ways to do that (all unpopular): 1) (the obvious) actively kill some people. That would work but most people don't like that option. 2) inactively kill some people - by not trying to feed everyone, not trying to prolong the life of sick people etc. That's also not popular (but would help). 3) forcefully reduce increase by placing limits on numbers of children per person, forced sterilisation etc (also not popular). 4) Just wait; the climate change we've started + the rapid decrease in resources available will at some point force a massive die-off. That seems to be what everyone is going for..

You cannot fix overpopulation while still keeping your empathy and "everyone has a right to life" hats on. There needs to be a decrease and it will have to be ugly and unpleasant. No way around that. It's either survival of the species or the death of humanity. You have to take off the civilized glasses if you actually want to fix the global problem (which is the number of humans inhabiting the planet beyond its sustainable limits).

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#343

Post by jjuhl »

remir wrote: post #161
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Or not raise the level and just let them die out. Is also an option. Not saying it's the best one, just saying that it is an option.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#344

Post by UnFleshedOne »

gerbilly wrote: post #232
UnFleshedOne wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese are "native people from a population that has un-uninterrupted culture". Not too great at preserving environment (reportedly improving lately I think). Idea of a "noble savage" is a myth that is about as racist as it's opposite.

Don't sling epithets. My using the word 'native' was a proxy for a type of culture: a close to the land hunter gatherer lifestyle. You know one that would necessarily make them keen observers of their natural environment. I could have said aboriginal, but maybe you'll take offence to that too?

Ah, sorry, I didn't mean you are racist. Just the idea of noble savage. I should have been more careful with the wording.

Re: hunter-gatherer lifestyle, my understanding that people leading that are merely unlucky (or lucky) ones who didn't domesticate enough plants and animals to settle down and go through a population explosion. They certainly have a lot of knowledge about local ecosystems because they depend on that knowledge for survival.

But, a few successful domestications, some introduced species, few hundred years of nice weather and they will multiply and turn into the same kind of locusts the rest of humanity is. I think Maya or Aztec went through that. Hell, this was happening back when cyanobacteria was repeatedly wiping out life on earth before something figured out how to use oxygen. It is a general property of life -- consume and reproduce.

We might eventually grow out of it (I see a lot of promise in regenerative agriculture for example), but chances are not certain.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#345

Post by jjuhl »

bikeshed wrote: post #253
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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" (by means unspecified) sounds uncomfortably close to mass killing. he's calling for basically this elsewhere in the thread.

You cannot deny that it would work. If we are seriously researching (global, species wide) solutions, it has to be part of the possible solution set.

If your focus is "survival of a given individual", then I agree it's probably not a solution. But if your focus is "survival of the human species in the long term", then it very much is a part of the solution space.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#346

Post by bt848 »

leftyted wrote: post #327
bt848 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also think we avoided the future predicted by “The Population Bomb” but we didn’t.

We've explicitly avoided the predictions that Paul Ehrlich made in The Population Bomb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager Predictions without deadlines are not useful because you can keep kicking the can down the road forever. That's exactly what Paul Ehrlich has done since all of his predictions didn't happen.

Ehrlich's timing was not great and his book is almost unreadable but the things predicted therein have come to pass. It really is more crowded in Yosemite than in downtown LA, and the air quality is worse. There really aren't any non-toxic fish left to catch.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#347

Post by dmix »

gerbilly wrote: post #211
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.

> 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…

Without advanced systems of agriculture where I was dependent on thing likes mass herds of Buffalo migrating through my local regions I'd see it as sick too.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#348

Post by dlivingston »

jjuhl wrote: post #73
throwaway66920 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Noone in particular. Just let the lack of food do its thing. So the poor then?

Fine. Or the rich if you like - although there are fewer of those so the impact won't be as significant. But whatever. I don't care. The point is we need to reduce the number. Who goes, specifically , is somewhat irrelevant.

Besides the absolute inhumanity of mass genocide, your comments rings of hyperbole unless you are willing to lead the charge by offering your own life before anyone else's.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#349

Post by UnFleshedOne »

atombender wrote: post #215
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…

Nature is a non-linear system, and once things start to collapse, many things will collapse at the same time. We can deal with many challenges, but not at the same time. Given enough time, perhaps we would be able to work around the disappearance of bees, for example. But that assumes the structure of society can survive that long. Climate change can cause agricultural collapse (due to droughts, floods, blights, etc.…

Better hope billionaires succeed in trying to all emigrate to a space station or something in time. Really. It is so much easier to restart civilization from a pocket of technology.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#350

Post by jjuhl »

dlivingston wrote: post #348
jjuhl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine. Or the rich if you like - although there are fewer of those so the impact won't be as significant. But whatever. I don't care. The point is we need to reduce the number. Who goes, specifically , is somewhat irrelevant.

Besides the absolute inhumanity of mass genocide, your comments rings of hyperbole unless you are willing to lead the charge by offering your own life before anyone else's.

"the absolute inhumanity of mass genocide" - If your focus is "survival of humans as a species", what's so "inhumane" about it? You are focusing too much on the individual human and not on the species.

And of course I wouldn't sacrifice my own life first, since from my perspective that's obviously the most important thing and everything else is secondary. But once my life is preserved, I look at the bigger picture and see that we (I) would obviously be better off if we killed off 50% of the remaining population.

Why is that so hard to wrap your head around? I'm fairly sure you would see it the same way (if you would just admit it to yourself).

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