81–90 of 298 posts
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.
I guess it was alluded to in the article but my main concern is the amount of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides we use. As we clear more land for Ag we are of course limiting habitat for animals but also zapping them constantly with these chemicals. Fertilizers get into water and decimate the life in there. Herbicides coupled with pesticides decimate insect ecosystems. The development of land gives larger anima…
Also, forestation is going up in many rich countries (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.FRST.ZS?end=2016...)
That doesn’t imply we aren’t killing the world, though. Agriculture in rich countries often needs fertilizer to get the higher yields it gets, newer forests aren’t as diverse and often never will be as the ones that were torn down, etc.
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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).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Passage
Deaths at sea definitely occurred. Credible accurate records don't seem to be available however, as this article's abstract notes:
Farley Grubb, "Morbidity and Mortality on the North Atlantic Passage: Eighteenth-Century German Immigration" (1987). https://www.jstor.org/stable/204611
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.
Even in the worst case projections I’m aware of, global warming won’t kill people in the billions. This kind of frankly fearmongering is a large part of why it’s so hard to get consensus on environmental issues in the first place.
A rise of 5-8C make large parts of the Earth uninhabitable and would collapse food production and global civilization. Billions dying is not scaremongering, but is a very probable outcome of business-as-usual.
Our civilization, and our population of 9 billion, takes an immense amount of resources to maintain, and it will collapse if the Earth can no longer supply it.
It was pretty obvious to me 40-50 years ago that a mass extinction event was coming soon. I figured few animals larger than a dog would be left.
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I've had this book on my shelf for a couple of years. I was put off it because I finally saw the film (and the remake) and didn't like them. Especially the remake, fell asleep trying to get through that film on three seperate occasions before giving up on it. But I need to give the book a chance if it's quite different to the film.
I think instead of "remake" you meant sequel, because there is no remake. If it's any consolation: I'm an absolute fan of Blade Runner but hated the sequel. In my opinion, it fails to capture the neo-noir feel of the original, has no interesting characters, Jared Leto's acting is distracting, and the villains/antiheroes... compare Roy Batty's "tears in rain" dying speech with Luv's "I'm the best!". It makes me cringe…
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For us, not really. The generations that come after us? Probably. And therein lies the problem. The people making the rules and pulling the strings don't have a bleeding, burning pressure to change course. And they won't until it's too late. Complain all you want about climate and biodiversity and pollution, but nothing is going to be done until we've stunted the lives of the people at the top. That's just how the sh…
> but nothing is going to be done until we've stunted the lives of the people at the top Do people honestly believe "nothing" is being done? We are chipping away at these problems, otherwise you wouldn't be reading about it in a mainstream newspaper article. People (especially younger people) are more conscious about these issues than at any time in my lifetime. It's not like you can flip a switch and change a societ…
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You should speak to some more Geologists then. We really don't understand the systems of our planet and we are currently sticking a big spanner into them. Many of us are more concerned than we can publish - precisely because we don't want to scaremonger. Will the Earth definitely turn into an out of control hothouse with a Venus - like climate? Very probably not there are many differences between Earth and Venus. Can…
>Many of us are more concerned than we can publish. Maybe you should be a little braver? As in, let your work be actually scrutinized by your peers (isn't that what tenure is for?) instead of scaremongering anonymously and accosting others for not understanding the science you are not willing publish? Seriously, what is the public supposed to take away from that kind of statement? Especially given that the public can…
I think I get what you are saying but maybe you could reformat it in a civil way rather than berating me.
I listed some very simple examples of places where we don't understand the Earth's carbon cycle fully. No one will publish a study saying, 'Hey guys we don't understand this yet'. We know we don't! That's why we do research to chip away at the problems.
> But you can't just use a lack of knowledge around an low probability event to drive global policy that could potentially be disastrous in all kinds of other ways.
The way I think about it like this. When I do an experiment I (am supposed to) do a risk assessment. If a proceedure has a low probability of causing a huge hazard like death I should take steps to reduce the risk of that hazard occurring as much as possible. Similarly climate change has a none zero possibility of causing humans to become extinct (and a much more than none zero chance of cause society as we know it to breakdown). Shouldn't we lower that probability?
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.
No I remember the opposite. I'm over 50 and when I was young in the 70's the water in ditches and canals was so polluted that nothing lived in it anymore but algae. In Amsterdam, where I moved to after leaving home, you had to be suicidal to be willing to take a swim in the canals. Nowadays fish are back everywhere, even in the canals in Amsterdam. There seem to be salmons swimming in the big rivers, this was unthink…