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Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

bloomberg.com

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Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#51

Post by foxdev »

claudeganon wrote: post #46
keiferski wrote: post #4

In addition, no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won. The dust which had contaminated most of the planet's surface had originated in no country and no one, even the wartime enemy, had planned on it. First, strangely, the owls had died. At the time it had seemed almost funny, the fat, fluffy white birds lying here and there, in yards and on streets; coming out no earlier than twil…

I think about this aspect of the book all the time when I see kids (and increasingly adults) invested in games like Pokémon during our ongoing mass extinctions. The book doesn’t cover the intermediary steps between its barren world and our own, but it’s a pretty easy to draw a through line between the digital ecosystems we’ve built in the past 40 or so years and the synthetic life of Blade Runner.

You sound like someone who's never played or watched Pokemon. It regularly hits on these themes. One Pokemon's whole shtick is wearing its dead parent's skull. It evolves by growing past that trauma.

Ecology is a huge theme through the whole thing. It is not a happy-go-lucky franchise isolated from the troubles of the world.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#52

Post by derwiki »

perfunctory wrote: post #35
keiferski wrote: post #4

In addition, no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won. The dust which had contaminated most of the planet's surface had originated in no country and no one, even the wartime enemy, had planned on it. First, strangely, the owls had died. At the time it had seemed almost funny, the fat, fluffy white birds lying here and there, in yards and on streets; coming out no earlier than twil…

“What we are facing now is a person whose crime dwarfs all of the crimes ever committed in human history. We were unable to find a single law applicable to his crime. So we recommend that the crime of Extinction of Life on Earth be added to international law ...” — Cixin Liu, The Dark Forest

They weren’t talking about animals per se though? This was the “cursed” planet?

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#53

Post by atomi »

keiferski wrote: post #4

In addition, no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won. The dust which had contaminated most of the planet's surface had originated in no country and no one, even the wartime enemy, had planned on it. First, strangely, the owls had died. At the time it had seemed almost funny, the fat, fluffy white birds lying here and there, in yards and on streets; coming out no earlier than twil…

The rarity of animals in Blade Runner is a recurrent theme in the film.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#54

Post by raxxorrax »

alangibson wrote: post #41

Does anyone else > 40 years old remember there just being lots more animals around when you were a kid? I don't know if it's just age blinders or paranoia, but in particular I remember there being way more birds pretty much everywhere.

I am not that old, but aside from the shitty insects like wasps and mosquitoes, they seem to have almost vanished. Birds still seem ok, but they can pick up food left behind by humans and many feed them in winter.

Also snow... we had cross-country skis and used them almost every winter (northern Germany) 15 years ago. Today they are basically useless and you would certainly stand out if you used them here. Some birds that usually migrate with seasons just stay or are only absent for a few weeks.

No data, but it certainly looks that way.

People telling us that we live in an age of mass extinctions seem to be correct.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#55

Post by hdjdbtbgwjsn »

Aunche wrote: post #43
hdjdbtbgwjsn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming some negative feedback mechanism kicks in. There is a chance a positive feedback occurs, global warming spirals and Earth becomes uninhabitable. See Venus for an example.

You realize that all of the carbon in fossil fuels was once in the atmosphere right? The earth spits out a little bit of CO2 naturally, and the sun is a bit hotter than it was 100 million years ago, but we aren't turning into Venus anytime soon.

Back then the continents were configured rather differently. That has a huge effect on hothouse vs icehouse regime. Right now we are in a continental configuration that should be icehouse (circumpolar currents with cold deep water). If we force the climate into hothouse against its natural state what will happen?

It's very much not settled how balanced the mantle vs surface carbon cycle is. How much carbon is in MORB? Is subducted sediment actually entrained into the mantle?

A major store of CO2 is sedimentary dolomite. We did't even really understand how that formed! (Last time I checked but I'm no sedimentologist so that might have been solved.)

Speaking as a geologist your statement is dangerously naive. I'm not saying Venus and the end of all life is definite but it is the worst case scenario of a situation that we don't understand and that will soon be (maybe already is) out of our control.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#56

Post by macspoofing »

One of the issues of plunging headlong into solar and wind (and bio-fuels) is that those sources require huge land-areas around mining of rare metals, deployment, and finally waste. As our global population and energy needs grow, this problem gets bigger and bigger and therefore place stress on existing, and already stressed, ecosystems. On the other end, nuclear is energy dense, and requires tiny amount of land for energy generation and waste storage. Sooner or later we will be moving back to large scale nuclear deployment because there isn't anything like nuclear power which checks the global warming box and reduced stress on ecosystem box.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#57

Post by x87678r »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #13

Really sucks being young 20s. Between climate and the looming covid recession, is there even a point to planning for the future? Seems like the world will be trashed before I'm anywhere close to retirement anyway, almost like I might as well enjoy my money while I can do things with it.

There were always problems. Would you rather be living through the World Wars? Or even Vietnam/Korean wars. Slavery. Nuclear Cold war. Acid Rain. Crippling economy and crime in the 70s. 80s crack crime epidemic. Covid sucks but otherwise things are pretty good right now.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#58

Post by keiferski »

atomi wrote: post #53
keiferski wrote: post #4

In addition, no one today remembered why the war had come about or who, if anyone, had won. The dust which had contaminated most of the planet's surface had originated in no country and no one, even the wartime enemy, had planned on it. First, strangely, the owls had died. At the time it had seemed almost funny, the fat, fluffy white birds lying here and there, in yards and on streets; coming out no earlier than twil…

The rarity of animals in Blade Runner is a recurrent theme in the film.

It’s mentioned and hinted at a few times in the film, but it’s practically the main story point in the book.

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#59

Post by devit »

ajkdhcb2 wrote: post #38
myvoiceismypass wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what? “I also stopped worrying about COVID and wearing masks and keeping social distance. If humans are weak and die from a begnin virus then it's part of the circle of life. Keeping everyone alive through unsustainable measures only harms our planet due to over population and further exploitation.” Benign?

Yes, humans in previous generations wouldn't even bat an eyelid at the death rates. it wasn't long ago that people used to willingly go on boat journeys even though 10% of the passengers would typically die on the way

> on boat journeys even though 10% of the passengers would typically die on the way

Source? Seems highly implausible (in general).

Re: Animal Populations Fell by 68% in 50 Years and It’s Getting Worse

#60

Post by raxxorrax »

ecmascript wrote: post #14

When the effects of global warming and extinction finally will hit us hard, people will die of in billions and life will begin to come back. Of course a lot of species will be extinct forever, but so is the natural cycle of life. Almost all species that ever existed has already gone extinct and it's foolish to think that we won't have the same destiny, especially how we're treating our food chain.

I don't know what is wrong with young people protesting climate change - not all people will die.
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