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Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

bbc.com

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Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#11

Post by spankalee »

laurent92 wrote: post #4
Hokusai wrote: post #2

> "Doing so will require systemic shifts in how we produce food, create energy, manage our oceans and use materials," This is a hard political problem. The owners of the current means to produce meat/oil/etc. want to keep their fortune and to move them to renewable/plant-base/new-tech solutions make them lose that edge and creates real competition. The problem with economy/ecology is that many people are addicted to…

We are addicted to high population density, making babies and helping get everyone to what we consider is the minimum level of consumption, which is exactly 2x higher than the Earth can provide sustainably. At one point we’ll have to say “Earth can only feed X billion people if we want to have a medium pressure on our environment”.

We unfortunately are more addicted to sprawl than population density. We'd be better off with _more_ density.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#12

Post by airstrike »

rcpt wrote: post #8
laurent92 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are addicted to high population density, making babies and helping get everyone to what we consider is the minimum level of consumption, which is exactly 2x higher than the Earth can provide sustainably. At one point we’ll have to say “Earth can only feed X billion people if we want to have a medium pressure on our environment”.

There's nothing wrong with population density. We'd do better to have people living in dense city centers instead of sprawled out into every corner of the wilderness.

COVID-19 begs to differ

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#13

Post by mythrwy »

okcwarrior wrote: post #10

Ok, this is a crazy comment, but I have been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 a lot and almost every piece of land has something, somewhere built on it. Farm, suburb, etc It's depressing but maybe it helps me understand that we are using too much of earth. Do we really need endless farms?

If we are going to have endless people we need endless farms probably.

It would be cool if we could keep the population of the globe like 1/10 what it is now but I don't know of a humane and rights respecting way to achieve that.

Or maybe if we reduce our standard of living it would help but how low can we go? And people aren't going to go for that either. It's a tough problem.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#14

Post by philips »

How are people on Hacker News changing their behavior around food and energy consumption?

And besides individual action what community action have you taken?

Personally I have found myself on a similar path to Peter Kalmus[1]. Before having kids I did what I could: didn’t own a car, commuted by bike, composted, minimized fashion/tech consumption, etc. On the other hand my career required significant plane travel for a time. Now with kids I feel extremely motivated to take further action to reduce energy consumption and interact directly with nature: through gardening, removing all plane travel, installing rooftop solar, etc.

On the collective action front I become increasingly frustrated that something as obvious and “market based” as the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (HR 7173)[2] isn’t already law. Something like that feels like the bare minimum solution to putting the US on the right track.

[1]: https://peterkalmus.net/books/read-by-chapter-being-the-chan...

[2]: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/energy-innovation-and-carbo...

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#15

Post by coolspot »

okcwarrior wrote: post #10

Ok, this is a crazy comment, but I have been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 a lot and almost every piece of land has something, somewhere built on it. Farm, suburb, etc It's depressing but maybe it helps me understand that we are using too much of earth. Do we really need endless farms?

We got a lot of people to feed. The only right way to stop/reverse climate change is to control population growth.

Others ways, like reducing each individual’s carbon footprint or clean energy just gives us excuse to breed more and overwhelm the planet, but later.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#16

Post by philips »

xnx wrote: post #6

I wish we spent more time talking about "habitat destruction" instead of "climate change", while understanding that climate change is the largest form of habitat destruction.

Why do you feel discussing habitat destruction would be helpful?

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#17

Post by coolspot »

xnx wrote: post #6

I wish we spent more time talking about "habitat destruction" instead of "climate change", while understanding that climate change is the largest form of habitat destruction.

Too complicated for the masses. Climate change is something everyone can observe more or less. Dead bees, elephants, wolves - not so much.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#18

Post by mythrwy »

xnx wrote: post #6

I wish we spent more time talking about "habitat destruction" instead of "climate change", while understanding that climate change is the largest form of habitat destruction.

The net effects of climate change (and of course the magnitude) are big question marks in my book.

But you bring up the exact thing I think every time I hear the more extreme climate change claims.

We have some very real and relevant issues right now that are huge, existential even, and not based on theoretical models and we don't seem to be discussing or doing anything at all about these. Groundwater depletion. Topsoil depletion. Loss of habitat and biodiversity. Microplasics. Desertification.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#19

Post by 11235813213455 »

philips wrote: post #14

How are people on Hacker News changing their behavior around food and energy consumption? And besides individual action what community action have you taken? Personally I have found myself on a similar path to Peter Kalmus[1]. Before having kids I did what I could: didn’t own a car, commuted by bike, composted, minimized fashion/tech consumption, etc. On the other hand my career required significant plane travel for…

Same here, I'm on a bike for everything, I eat organic (literally, I forage a lot of fruit when going for a ride, currently there are many figs). So my consumption and my environmental impact is certainly super low.

I pick up plastic trash every now and then, it's hard to counter all that continuous litter volume

Next step is to spread this philosophy, but it's not easy or even possible to change other people lifestyles. It's sad because, it's definitely healthy to live that way

Just talked with someone today, near a fig tree, he said they should cut that tree next to the road because it was dangerous, I replied to him, the fig tree is more important than the road and car traffic with a smile, and a bit of sadness inside because I know what will happen

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#20

Post by jeffbee »

okcwarrior wrote: post #10

Ok, this is a crazy comment, but I have been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 a lot and almost every piece of land has something, somewhere built on it. Farm, suburb, etc It's depressing but maybe it helps me understand that we are using too much of earth. Do we really need endless farms?

I believe in the contiguous USA the furthest you can get from a road is only 20 miles. There are no undisturbed places left, really. Unfortunately preserving roadless areas is politically contentious here. Clinton enacted a roadless area rule at the end of his administration and Bush tried to reverse it a week later.
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