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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

#201

Post by cedilla »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #184
jamil7 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern solar panels and their batteries do not require any "rare" metals. A lot of wind turbines use neodymium however it accounts for a very small amount of total usage. Edit: clarified.

Yes, this is just the latest attack angle. Office buildings and cats kill ~4 orders of magnitude more birds than wind turbines ( https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-k... ). Let's also not wonder about the land cost of pumps/pipeline/refineries, or the rare metal content of the cracking catalysts, catalytic converters on all of the IC cars. The arguments start from bad faith attempts to sabotage…

Yeah. There is no modern consumption without detrimental effects. And the thing is that the total effects of a system are difficult to estimate even for experts.

And when we talk about birds, let's not forget the devastating effect of light pollution, which seems to get only worse with the availability of cheap, power-efficient LEDs...

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

#202

Post by hannofcart »

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…

However, isn't a lot of the improvement you see in clean air and water in Europe thanks to the fact that a lot of the manufacturing that used to happen in Europe has now relocated to China after its efforts to open up its economy that started in the 80s.

The net result may be a win for the environment in developed Western nations, but considering how polluted China now is, I wonder if it's still a net negative for the world as a whole.

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

#203

Post by dustinmoris »

kortex wrote: post #76
imtringued wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitively the reference to COVID. Telling people to die from a preventable cause is conflicting with the rest of the message.

I mean if your message is "too many humans are bad for the planet, so if I die of Covid, so be it" at least it's mostly consistent. The part I object to is the lack of masks leading to spreading CoV2 to those who haven't volunteered to get out of the gene pool.

Do you know anyone who died because they volunteered?

Besides that, when I was 10 years old and I asked at that time 30-40 year old people to not smoke cigarettes indoors because the passive smoking was damaging my young lungs and can lead to severe cancer and early death I was told that this is none of my business. Those people voluneered to damange their own health and knowingly also damanged my and other children's health. Now the same people are in their advanced age and demand from me to wear a mask because they don't want to bear the consequences of their earlier decisions. They essentially harmed themselves, and now they want to harm me again so that I have to carry the burden on my shoulders for their own wrongdoing. No thank you very much. I had COVID and my body fought it off in no time and I feel great. Other people have got their own immune system to deal with it. It's none of my business after all, like I was told.

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

#204

Post by tremon »

itsoktocry wrote: post #27
echelon wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We are chipping away at these problems

No, "we" are not. Some people are chipping away at some of these problems, but "we" (in the global, UN-sized scheme of things) are still adding and exacerbating these problems much faster than the solutions are being developed and/or deployed.

It's not like you can flip a switch and change a society

Our response to the Corona virus suggests that yes, if the will is there, we can manage to flip at least some switches. But yes, I do realize that these measures are considered temporary, and Covid is a much more immediate threat than the implosion of society.

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

#206

Post by manoDev »

slavik81 wrote: post #36

I saw a figure[1] the other day that blew me away. If you exclude pets and livestock, then human beings comprise ~90% of all mammals (by weight). All wild whales, bears, lions, deer, moose, mice, rabbits, wild horses, camels, beavers, buffalo, elephants, tigers, rhinos, chimpanzees, pandas, goats, etc... are in that remaining 10%. [1]: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/5/29/17386112/al...

Obligatory Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgS1Lwr8gq8&ab_channel=Popco...

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

#207

Post by misja111 »

hannofcart wrote: post #202
misja111 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

However, isn't a lot of the improvement you see in clean air and water in Europe thanks to the fact that a lot of the manufacturing that used to happen in Europe has now relocated to China after its efforts to open up its economy that started in the 80s. The net result may be a win for the environment in developed Western nations, but considering how polluted China now is, I wonder if it's still a net negative for th…

No, the improvements started in the 70's and 80's already due to more strict regulations for companies. Although maybe this helped the industry in Asia get a competitive advantage. Also a lot of the water pollution was due to washing powder that used to contain phosphates. Those were forbidden in the 80's.

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

#208

Post by krageon »

macspoofing wrote: post #97
jamil7 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern solar panels and their batteries do not require any "rare" metals. A lot of wind turbines use neodymium however it accounts for a very small amount of total usage. Edit: clarified.

>Modern solar panels and their batteries do not require any really "rare" metals. The salient point was that manufacturing millions (billions?) of panels and turbines has a huge toll on the ecosystem - regardless if rare metals are used - and they are used in components of solar panels and wind turbines.

What's most disappointing about this reply is that once you move past what is said, you start to realise this person is just repeating bad-faith anti-green propaganda but probably doesn't even realise it.

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

#209

Post by krageon »

christiansakai wrote: post #118
macspoofing wrote: post #56

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…

I was surprised that ESGV (Vanguard Index for responsible environmental friendly investing) does not include nuclear power there. I wonder what's the stigma bout nuclear?

Nuclear isn't friendly to the environment.

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

#210

Post by Guy2020 »

wow_yes wrote: post #189
Guy2020 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fascism," "democracy," what's the difference? There's always an elite class pulling the strings. The world has always been a mess. The only thing that is dying is our illusions. Edit: for those that downvote me, go tell the millions living in violent poverty how magical democracy is. There will always be a show. What matters is who's putting on the show.

But those running the show now are open, avowed white supremacists, nationalists, xenophobes. We're in a world very similar to pre-WW2.

If that was the case, then why aren't our schools teaching white supremacy and nationalism? Isn't the opposite the case?

Also, what's wrong with nationalism? Isn't it better to have nations who are interested in the well being of their people as opposed to a world controlled by globalist corporations?

It seems to me like the people have been conditioned against nationalism and towards globalism which favors corporate control.

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