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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

#71

Post by nickff »

vharuck wrote: post #7

>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. I'm pessimistic with this claim. From my experience, if a productive process like agriculture becomes more efficient, we scale up output. The resources being used up, in this case land, won't be reduced. For an analogy, consider how adding m…

As a matter of fact, the more industrialized nations have increased productivity and production, while decreasing the amount of land devoted to agriculture (returning a great deal of it to 'nature').

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

#72

Post by Aaronstotle »

ashtonkem wrote: post #31
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Madagascar is a slow-motion environmental catastrophe because every family has many children and each of those children eventually needs to slash-and-burn rainforest in order to plant enough rice to sustain themselves. Also a lot of tree-felling to make charcoal, because for whatever reason Malagasy villagers cannot afford e.g. kerosene to cook with. The result is the steady eradication of all those cool lemu…

And without significant investment by those with resources, asking them to preserve the environment is a direct ask for them to go hungry or cold for the sake of the environment. This is an ask that 99.99% or more of the human population will absolutely ignore.

I guess a solution would be give them supplies so they aren't forced to destroy their own backyard in order to survive.

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

#73

Post by sul_tasto »

tuatoru wrote: post #40
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.

> The actual people chopping down rainforests for palm oil plantations are formerly impoverished farmers. The people chopping down rainforest and planting oil palms are dispossessed , former farmers. The people making them do it are wealthy and politically well connected who arrange to have their land confiscated.

I saw the same thing in Latin America: farmers dispossessed by banana plantations.

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

#74

Post by sethherr »

samatman wrote: post #41
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…

... wait, how is what you’re suggesting different from zoos?

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

#75

Post by samatman »

sethherr wrote: post #74
samatman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

... wait, how is what you’re suggesting different from zoos?

In a zoo, we take an animal out of the wild, and keep it alive. Ideally breeding them as well.

In my suggestion, we tranquilize an animal, take a blood sample, and extract marrow from the hip. We then perform a full genome sequence on the blood, and freeze the marrow down, with compounds which vitrify the cells such that they can be revived at any point in the future.

We should do both. But the latter has advantages: the animal stays in the wild, it scales better, and the only ongoing input is a bit of energy to keep the cells cold.

We don't have the technology to print a whole genome from a file, but I expect we will. Stem cell cloning is well understood, and will only get better.

Doing this to as many individuals as possible will preserve genetic diversity. It's insurance, basically.

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

#76

Post by Passthepeas »

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…

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/13/746576239/is... Pastured farming is actually capable of being carbon negative

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

#77

Post by grecy »

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.

It's a fact the furthest you can get from a McDonald's while anywhere in the lower 48 is only 115 miles!

http://www.datapointed.net/2010/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdon...

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

#79

Post by jeffbee »

refurb wrote: post #64
jeffbee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, clearly. In what way is a forest road not a road? https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7775746,-122.9327754,2401a,3...

I think when people think “road” they think something maintained and well used. A forestry or old logging road that hasn’t been used in 50 years doesn’t come to mind.

I can't really know what people think is or isn't a road but these are objectively roads and I think you are understating the extent to which resource extraction activities use these roads today, and the degree to which any road, no matter how much or little used, alters the ecosystem through which it passes.

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

#80

Post by wozer »

holoduke wrote: post #22

To me (at least in the area I live in) the easiest and quickest win is to plant trees massively. There is so much space available. But somehow people/governments wants to have grass vegetation as a filler between roads, inside parks etc.

Or just stop mowing these areas. Shrubs and then trees will grow there all by themselves.
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