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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

#131

Post by codemk8 »

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

Expecting the Netflix show of this book though.

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

#132

Post by snarf21 »

spodek wrote: post #63

The Hacker News and geek community is weird. Ask them about reaching Mars or fusion and they say it's inevitable. They're unqualified good results. Suggest we have fewer children for a few generations and consume less and it's absolutely impossible, against human nature. The One Child policy proves it. We idolize people who change the world as entrepreneurs but say one person can't make a difference in changing cultu…

You aren't wrong but to me you are focusing on the wrong things. As you say, the west is already dropping the birth rate and being more and more focused on sustainability, etc. Eventually, it will get there. Change takes time.

The big problem is the 3rd world. People there don't a have a choice. They don't want their family to starve. Women are largely forced into a reproduction role only. But we know that the way to reduce birth rate is to educate women and give them jobs and careers. We know that if we can create stable jobs in the 3rd world, they will stop clear cutting forests. To me, that is where the billionaires should be putting their money. If we raise the global standard of living enough, our high population problems will slowly revert.

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

#133

Post by mymythisisthis »

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 remember when the city had a real limit, you could leave it. Now the suburbs seem endless. Towns 300km away, were once distinct towns, now just part of one large metropolis - pretending that they are still distinct. If you want to know the real size of a metro, map out the delivery areas for furniture stores and restaurant suppliers.

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

#135

Post by rapnie »

misja111 wrote: post #50
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.

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…

There was indeed a big mentality change. Significantly less casual pollution (Diemerzeedijk in Amsterdam North, the open chemical dump for Europe, comes to mind), and .. lots of the polluting industry outsourced to Asia, China mostly.

My personal impression is that there are way less insects than there used to be.

Edit: found an old HN comment about the relationship to Agent Orange production and Diemerzeedijk: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9431741

I was actually searching an article about exploding chemical barrels now and then landing on fishing boats sailing in the area.

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

#136

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

cultus wrote: post #121
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IPCC says that the worst case scenario is a 5C rise, and their analysis of food production ( https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WGIIAR5-Chap... ) doesn't indicate any sort of catastrophic collapse. What source are you getting this information from?

e.g. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-019-0310-1 The IPCC report is rather out of date at this point. There's a number of positive feedback mechanisms such as cloud cover and methane clathrates that are still poorly constrained and could credibly lead to a rise like that. It's not the most likely scenario, on the high end of current projections, but it should be planned for. You buy fire insurance for your hous…

This article is describing a rise of 8C only in some specific areas. That's a very different thing; there are all sorts of localized rises of 8C, and most of them don't matter.

We should definitely take existential threats seriously, but part of that seriousness requires us to be rigorous about what we call existential. If we go around calling things existential threats when they're merely bad, the truly existential threats won't be taken as seriously as they deserve or get the attention they require. Temperature rises in particular are strange to present as an existential threat, because we have pretty solid ideas (see https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2017/06/22/seeding-t... for a general review) for how we could quickly force the temperature down if we absolutely had to.

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

#137

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

oulu2006 wrote: post #33
dustinmoris wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started to change my bevahiour. I stopped buying fruit and vegetables in plastic wrapping. I buy milk in glass or paper containers. In my household I pay super close attention to how much water is running when we do dishes. We fill up the sink and wash it there. We turn off lights wherever possible and use energy efficient devices. I only bought A++ electrical kitchen appliances, we invested in a new energy efficie…

Not sure why you're getting downvoted, my guess is the reference to COVID. The earth is currently overpopulated for the system we have in-place to feed it. We are very inefficient in resource usage and waste over 1/2 the food we produce each year. COVID isn't the answer to this problem, but your point is valid.

The population exists because we can, in fact, feed it, right now.

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

#138

Post by aww_dang »

ecmascript wrote: post #15
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.

If there is something you should do as a young person who thinks the future is bleak is to invest. Invest in stuff that will be worth a lot when the shit hits the fan. Long before the economic system will collapse you will have a lot chances to buy properties make money from stocks and build to prepare for a potential collapse. If you invest now and prepare for a dystopian future you will be well prepared when and if…

I like your positive sentiment. Responsible preparation isn't necessarily selfish. Charity starts with the freedom allowed by abundance. Surpluses allow for creation.

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

#139

Post by nemo44x »

davexunit wrote: post #129
nemo44x wrote: post #18

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…

It's a complete lie that industrial agriculture is the only effective way of feeding everyone. It seems to be that it produces the most yield of a crop, but therein lies the problem: The only metric that we look at is crop yield. Sure it yields a lot, but it's completely destroying the land in the process. If we continue to use industrial agriculture practices (which are completely dependent on oil) humanity will col…

I agree, it reminds of Nassim Taleb's idea of anti-fragility in that because our monoculture and reliance in chemicals to sustain it, it would only take a certain devastating thing to endanger the national food supply.

Do you have examples of or references to regenerative farming practices? I ask because I'm curious about them to see if they scale like modern Ag which for all of its problems (many you pointed out), has been effective in many ways. I feel like in the end it will always come down to money.

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