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Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

bbc.com

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Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

#51

Post by jbay808 »

arcticbull wrote: post #49
Forricide wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American Bird Conservancy estimates that "In the United States alone, outdoor cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year." [0] Although it's true that everything we do as a species / society has an impact on the environment, I think it's still important to look at things like this with perspective. Unfortunately, even green/renewable energy sources have a negative impact on the environment; wind isn't t…

Nuclear energy doesn't kill any birds, though, and is the safest form of energy in terms of (human) deaths per terawatt hour. This kind of data should inform our decision making.

I bet a nuclear power plant (and its associated uranium mining) kills many more birds than a cat does.

Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

#52

Post by arcticbull »

jbay808 wrote: post #51
arcticbull wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear energy doesn't kill any birds, though, and is the safest form of energy in terms of (human) deaths per terawatt hour. This kind of data should inform our decision making.

I bet a nuclear power plant (and its associated uranium mining) kills many more birds than a cat does.

You think it kills more than 2.4 billion birds per year in the US alone? Or did you mean more than a single cat? Did they forget to put on the upper biological shield?

To be clear there are 98 reactors in the US, so that would be almost 25,000,000 birds per reactor per year, or 67,000 per day, or 2,800 per hour, or 46 per minute. That's nearly one bird per second. It would probably be hard to hear over all that racket.

Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

#53

Post by tonyhb »

refurb wrote: post #47
melling wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I didn’t blame humans for when animals get diseases. Humans kill an elephant every 15 minutes. That’s about 100 a day. At any rate, maybe you should look into our impact on the environment. Most people have no idea, so we continue to do the damage.

How many elephants die per day from natural causes?

That doesn't impact us killing 100 per day. Relativity doesn't matter.

Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

#55

Post by j-pb »

arcticbull wrote: post #49
Forricide wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American Bird Conservancy estimates that "In the United States alone, outdoor cats kill approximately 2.4 billion birds every year." [0] Although it's true that everything we do as a species / society has an impact on the environment, I think it's still important to look at things like this with perspective. Unfortunately, even green/renewable energy sources have a negative impact on the environment; wind isn't t…

Nuclear energy doesn't kill any birds, though, and is the safest form of energy in terms of (human) deaths per terawatt hour. This kind of data should inform our decision making.

Yet...

I'm all in for nuclear, once we know how to get rid of the waste products.

It's never been about reactor safety, we have a storage problem, that hasn't been solved yet. Without that we're just slithering into the next "waste product that we don't know how to get rid of" cycle.

Also even if we had solved it, it's too late to go nuclear now. The next 20 years will be crucial when it comes to stopping climate change. We simply don't have the time to waste 7.5 years on building new reactors. What we need to do is ramp up the production of existing tech to the max. It's much easier to scale the current renewable production capacity horizontally than scale vertically with nuclear.

Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

#56

Post by j-pb »

melling wrote: post #33
j-pb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"green energy" if you're insinuating that wind power kills birds, that's something you can totally stop worrying about. A single turbine kills as many birds as a cat per year.

I’m talking about the aggregate number. Buildings, cats, ... Our total footprint. I’m not sure of the exact wind turbine impact. It’s a rapidly growing form of energy. But that really is my point, people brush aside all the small impacts and we damage the environment in many small ways that really add up As for birds, the Audubon has some information. “ Wind turbines kill an estimated 140,000 to 328,000 birds each ye…

Yeah but a cat doesn't power 400-4000 households.

Yeah we are ruining the planet, but the "wind turbines kill birds" thing is FUD spread by the fossil lobby.

The alternative to wind turbines is more climate change which kills an insane amount of birds in comparison.

Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

#57

Post by coolspot »

sitkack wrote: post #37
coolspot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most logical and somehow most controversial way is to stop human population growth. All big problems - pollution, deforestation, climate change are caused by having too many people on this planet.

Impact per person is still high. We could have a million people on the planet, but if they consume the same as 5 thousand people each, there is no difference. The farmer in Bangladesh isn't the problem.

The farmer in Bangladesh takes wast amount of land from wild animals and trees, puts a lot of water and chemicals in the soil, fights “pests”. Don’t underestimate impact of one farmer, especially in a country with millions of farmers.

Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

#58

Post by coolspot »

williamdclt wrote: post #26
coolspot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most logical and somehow most controversial way is to stop human population growth. All big problems - pollution, deforestation, climate change are caused by having too many people on this planet.

I don't see how it is "most logical". It seems more logical to me for humans to stop destroying our ecosystem than it is to limit the number of humans that destroy. Probably the answer is "both" anyway, but even if we divided the number of humans by 2, our impact on the ecosystem would still be crazy high (assuming the impact decreases linearly, which is probably not the case)

On current level of average quality of life in the US one can’t stop destroying ecosystem.

Each person in US needs a home. Heat, water, electricity and waste disposal for that home. A phone, likely a vehicle. Fresh food - a lot.

QoL levels are rising worldwide, so eventually each human on earth will demand all of these things.

You can’t consume significantly less (not 10x less). To achieve that you would need to became a caveman again.

Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

#59

Post by j-pb »

pvaldes wrote: post #24
j-pb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"green energy" if you're insinuating that wind power kills birds, that's something you can totally stop worrying about. A single turbine kills as many birds as a cat per year.

Not even in the same league. A cat will not kill bald eagles or herons, a turbine will.

Yeah but cars will. But whenever we talk about wind turbines, the amount of birds killed by highways are conveniently ignored.

Re: Botswana: Lab tests to solve mystery of hundreds of dead elephants

#60

Post by klyrs »

refurb wrote: post #47
melling wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I didn’t blame humans for when animals get diseases. Humans kill an elephant every 15 minutes. That’s about 100 a day. At any rate, maybe you should look into our impact on the environment. Most people have no idea, so we continue to do the damage.

How many elephants die per day from natural causes?

Better question: how many elephants are born every day?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/03/african-...

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