Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 277 posts

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

#41

Post by samatman »

AlexandrB wrote: post #5

I think the future is very grim for biodiversity. Even if we stopped destroying habitats tomorrow, many larger animals are already living in small, isolated pockets surrounded by roads, farms, and industry. Meanwhile, plants and smaller animals face intense competition from invasive species - often brought in by accident thanks to the constant flow of goods around the globe. We're probably headed for a pretty homogen…

That's the direction things are heading.

It's (past) time to start collecting genomes and marrow samples from as many critically endangered species as possible. Unextinction is a difficult problem, but without the necessary material, it's impossible.

Sure, that's going to favor charismatic megafauna. But we like those, it's right in the name. And it's no substitute for building wildlife corridors, managing park lands better, extirpating invasives, and all the rest. But it doesn't draw resources away from those things either.

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

#42

Post by hyper_reality »

airstrike wrote: post #12
rcpt wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Many countries with high population density have managed to deal with COVID-19 rather well, and vice-versa.

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

#43

Post by dariosalvi78 »

ojnabieoot wrote: post #27
philips wrote: post #9

I find it notable how indirect the author is about the “Why” in this story: > New modelling evidence suggests we can halt and even reverse habitat loss and deforestation if we take urgent conservation action and change the way we produce and consume food. > The British TV presenter and naturalist Sir David Attenborough said the Anthropocene, the geological age during which human activity has come to the fore, could b…

Many people consider anthropogenic extinction immoral and the ongoing human-caused mass extinction event to be an urgent moral crisis. But let's suppose you were going to take a cynical argument along the lines of "these species are going extinct due to their poor adaptations to a changing environment, it's just evolution," or let's just say you think moral objections are irrational. Then from this (ignorant and need…

which, from the Darwinian perspective, will cause either our extinction, or an adaptation, but only after many have died. It's probably all avoidable, but I don't see the human kind, in its current form and way of societal organisation being able to get out of this.

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

#44

Post by throwaway894345 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #5

I think the future is very grim for biodiversity. Even if we stopped destroying habitats tomorrow, many larger animals are already living in small, isolated pockets surrounded by roads, farms, and industry. Meanwhile, plants and smaller animals face intense competition from invasive species - often brought in by accident thanks to the constant flow of goods around the globe. We're probably headed for a pretty homogen…

The glimmer of hope that I have is that the same sort of market forces that create these problems can be marshaled to solve them. For example, if the wealthiest countries implemented a carbon tax including a border adjustment (accounting for goods from countries with a laxer carbon policy) would give governments a single, simple dial that the could turn to lower carbon emissions. Similarly, we ought to be able to implement other kinds of ecological taxes to great effect. However, arriving at that kind of policy is a purely political problem.

In the meanwhile, there are other market-based solutions, like organizations who certify products' sustainability. The certifier allows the manufacturer to place the sustainability trademark on their products if they pass the required audits. I'm of the impression that this has made a significant impact for forest-derived products via the Forest Stewardship Council (https://fsc.org/) with a handful of activists decades ago pushing the largest retailers (e.g., Home Depot) of forest-derived products to invest significantly in FSC-certified products.

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

#45

Post by refurb »

jeffbee wrote: post #20
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.

Not sure I believe the 20 miles thing unless you could count an old road that hasn't been used in 100 years as "developed".

There are massive swaths of land in the lower 48 that are pretty much untouched beyond a few footpaths that are rarely used.

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

#46

Post by Avicebron »

Hokusai wrote: post #38
Aunche wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about the capital owners. The actual people chopping down rainforests for palm oil plantations are formerly impoverished farmers. You can stop corporations from buying from them, but you're hurting these poorer communities the most.

> you're hurting these poorer communities the most. My point is that redistributing wealth in a better way, we would get less opposition to upgrade our production means and people like that poor farmers and others will get a bigger piece of the cake in a more healthy environment and conserving their culture and land. I agree with you, thou. The current mindset is that the super-rich are super-rich and their wealth ca…

This is key. It's this cultural blind spot where we gloss over the fact that these people are impoverished and so desperate that they would destroy the home around them, partly because we allow a tiny fraction of humanity to amass absurd wealth. Then we double down by making it socially acceptable for them to leverage that wealth into making it untouchable and ever-growing.

If we just took this situation as strictly unacceptable, then we are working with a much larger range of options.

The idea that big reward == all that innovation needed is pretty sick. It assumes all it takes is innovation to solve literal planet scale problems.

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

#47

Post by x87678r »

AlexandrB wrote: post #5

I think the future is very grim for biodiversity. Even if we stopped destroying habitats tomorrow, many larger animals are already living in small, isolated pockets surrounded by roads, farms, and industry. Meanwhile, plants and smaller animals face intense competition from invasive species - often brought in by accident thanks to the constant flow of goods around the globe. We're probably headed for a pretty homogen…

You're right. On a good day I think end of biodiversity is basic Darwinism in in the new environment.

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

#48

Post by pvaldes »

philips wrote: post #16
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?

There is an huge difference between saving giant panda in zoos and saving the forests where giant panda lives (and all the other species of birds, flowers and mammals including pandas with it.

De-extinction would be to save just one screw from a perfectly tuned and complex machine that produces more than pandas. No-extinction is better than de-extinction and also much more cheap.

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

#49

Post by jeffbee »

refurb wrote: post #45
jeffbee wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not sure I believe the 20 miles thing unless you could count an old road that hasn't been used in 100 years as "developed". There are massive swaths of land in the lower 48 that are pretty much untouched beyond a few footpaths that are rarely used.

Well, go right ahead and name any place that is, say, fifty miles from a road.

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

#50

Post by air7 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #5

I think the future is very grim for biodiversity. Even if we stopped destroying habitats tomorrow, many larger animals are already living in small, isolated pockets surrounded by roads, farms, and industry. Meanwhile, plants and smaller animals face intense competition from invasive species - often brought in by accident thanks to the constant flow of goods around the globe. We're probably headed for a pretty homogen…

That might be over pessimistic as "95% Of The World's Population Lives On 10% Of The Land"

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217192745.h...

Post reply on HN