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

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

#271

Post by JoeAltmaier »

nemo44x wrote: post #238
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this works at scale. The problem is that we are past carrying capacity. We need to control population. I am in favour of E.O. Wilson’s Half Earth solution where we set aside half the planet for habitat and inhabit only half of the land and leave the oceans alone.

Who gets to decide who has children? And how many? This is a really dangerous line of thought you are pursuing here. "We need to control population" is a scary thought and I hope this never becomes a serious solution to the problems we have to solve.

Currently, with continuing education and public health, its women who 'get to decide'. So half the population is disenfranchised already.

This 'who gets to decide' argument is sophomoric. Its an important issue, and we may have to face it, and we'll do something hopefully equitable.

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

#272

Post by jelliclesfarm »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #271
nemo44x wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to decide who has children? And how many? This is a really dangerous line of thought you are pursuing here. "We need to control population" is a scary thought and I hope this never becomes a serious solution to the problems we have to solve.

Currently, with continuing education and public health, its women who 'get to decide'. So half the population is disenfranchised already. This 'who gets to decide' argument is sophomoric. Its an important issue, and we may have to face it, and we'll do something hopefully equitable.

It’s not so everywhere in the world. I think it’s fair that the ones with the uterus get to decide what they want to do with their body.

Maybe if we start making pod babies that can gestate outside the female human body, it would be a free for all decision to make. I hope someone works on it.

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

#273

Post by g8oz »

mymythisisthis wrote: post #133
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.

Low density suburbs are indeed the failure mode of the urban expansion process.

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

#274

Post by macspoofing »

krageon wrote: post #209
christiansakai wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is. Nuclear plants don't emit pollution. They don't emit carbon. They have tiny land-use requirements (especially compared to wind and solar), as does nuclear waste (for example, all of the nuclear waste generated in US since inception of nuclear power, would fit in an area the size of a single football field). There's nothing else like it.

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

#275

Post by TomSwirly »

davexunit wrote: post #231
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this works at scale. The problem is that we are past carrying capacity. We need to control population. I am in favour of E.O. Wilson’s Half Earth solution where we set aside half the planet for habitat and inhabit only half of the land and leave the oceans alone.

This is so completely wrong I can't believe I'm responding to it. We are not past carrying capacity. Population control is some ecofascist bullshit.

> This is so completely wrong I can't believe I'm responding to it.

And yet you provide no logical refutation.

> We are not past carrying capacity.

Because... you say so?

> Population control is some ecofascist bullshit.

Because... you say so?

"Fascist" doesn't mean "someone told me what to do." Not everything you don't like is "fascist". The environmental movement even at its worse doesn't encourage nationalism, or venerate the military or industry, promote sexism, have an obsession with national security. - it simply has zero connection to fascism.

---

Population increases exponentially, and individual consumption increases exponentially. No one wants to stop having kids. No one wants to stop consumption. No one wants people to tell them what to do. So how is society going to survive?

The answer: it won't. The exponential growth will never stop until it all collapses. People will scream "fascism" at any attempt to stop any of this exponential growth... and we will devastate the ecosystem for all time to come.

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

#276

Post by TomSwirly »

nemo44x wrote: post #238
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this works at scale. The problem is that we are past carrying capacity. We need to control population. I am in favour of E.O. Wilson’s Half Earth solution where we set aside half the planet for habitat and inhabit only half of the land and leave the oceans alone.

Who gets to decide who has children? And how many? This is a really dangerous line of thought you are pursuing here. "We need to control population" is a scary thought and I hope this never becomes a serious solution to the problems we have to solve.

Don't worry, there won't be any solution at all, so you can rest easy.

Everyone will resist any attempt to limit their God-given right to reproduce as much as they want, to consume as much as they can afford, and to discard the waste wherever they please.

By the time humans figure out that this attitude is not compatible with a functioning biosphere, it will be far too late.

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

#277

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #249
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Feed it right now" is true. "Feed it sustainably" - that is, be able to keep feeding it - is also something we care about. And there are some worrying signs about sustainability - the Ogallala Aquifer, the collapse of ocean fish stocks, and so on. Does that prove it's unsustainable? No. The way to prove it's unsustainable is to have a massive die-off, which is not a way I'm interested in proving anything.

A catastrophic failure in any food chain can make ANY population have a massive die off. > that is, be able to keep feeding it - is also something we care about. This is disingenuous. In general, no one cares about the famine in Syria except starving Syrians. When's the last time you heard that on the news over a Trump tweet? Enforcing population limits in theory sounds like a great idea - in human practice, it will…

I don't know where you got the idea that I was talking about famine in Syria. I'm not. I'm talking about world-wide famine. If the way we feed the world isn't sustainable, then there's going to be a global problem eventually.

Nor am I talking about enforcing population limits.

Bringing all of humanity out of poverty isn't going to do it either, if they all want to have an American diet.

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

#278

Post by yogthos »

squibbles wrote: post #216

The wolves eat the deer. The deer population collapses to the point that the food supply for the wolves cannot support the wolves. The wolves starve and the wolf population collapses. Without pressure from the wolves, the deer make a comeback and flourish. The population cycles occur in both large and small ecosystems. The process is slow and steady. Often it seems like the embers of life have gone out. However, some…

Human population collapse is very likely in the near future.

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

#279

Post by holografix »

lou1306 wrote: post #222
reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plodding and limp segment in the ruins of Las Vegas really killed the pace and punch of that whole film. Even assuming there was any point in having Deckard in it all, 15 minutes of that could have easily been cut out with almost no impact to the story.

There was a point in having him: he fathered a replicant-born child (while possibly being a replicant himself), aka the central theme of the movie. Execution could have been better, though. And at least the Vegas section had great cinematography ad times: I take much more issues with the final fight, which I thought was anticlimactic both visually and story-wise.

I know but even there they lacked imagination, finesse, esprit. How much better would it have been for Ryan G’s character to find remnants of Deckard proving he lived there but had been long gone. Some indication that he may or may not have been a replicant. Maybe the replicant child is a cross between humans and replicants. But nooo, Deckard had to be a replicant, obviously given his longevity and strength, and a “tough” guy who wants to have a biff with Ryan G. No nuance, no deeper meaning.

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

#280

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #277
ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A catastrophic failure in any food chain can make ANY population have a massive die off. > that is, be able to keep feeding it - is also something we care about. This is disingenuous. In general, no one cares about the famine in Syria except starving Syrians. When's the last time you heard that on the news over a Trump tweet? Enforcing population limits in theory sounds like a great idea - in human practice, it will…

I don't know where you got the idea that I was talking about famine in Syria. I'm not. I'm talking about world-wide famine. If the way we feed the world isn't sustainable, then there's going to be a global problem eventually. Nor am I talking about enforcing population limits. Bringing all of humanity out of poverty isn't going to do it either, if they all want to have an American diet.

I didn't get that idea - I posited that idea. No one is talking about the famine in Syria. If people don't care that people are starving now, they won't care when a few billion more from poor countries are either.

> I'm talking about world-wide famine. If the way we feed the world isn't sustainable, then there's going to be a global problem eventually.

That's not how it works - the world has enough food for current population P + x offspring. Whenever food supply starts to dwindle P+x will go down. Less people will survive at the fringes - the poor will die, much like they do now, hence I brought up Syria, which no one on here talks about, because they don't care.

A worldwide famine would be the result of catastrophic failure. Catastrophic failures you're suggesting will impact any population size regardless of its sustainability. Sustainability is about maintaining resources without depleting them - it's inherently different than catastrophic events destroying most of the system. No amount of sustainable farming matters if, say, a meteor impacts the earth, or global warming renders most land un-farmable. There is no sustainability fix here.

> Bringing all of humanity out of poverty isn't going to do it either, if they all want to have an American diet.

It's the only proven way to reduce birthrate without war and disease.

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