Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by runarberg » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:36 PM UTC

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…

Very much indeed. It frustrates me to no end to look back 20 years in the past and see that Al Gore ran on an anti global warming platform in the 2000 presidential election, and lost to an oil baron. While in the 2020 presidential election the democratic candidate hardly mentions the climate disaster while the western parts of the country is literally on fire.

Over the years we have tried to solve the climate disaster with some (but very limited) success. Methods including carbon tax, international agreements and green infrastructure. However these efforts have always stopped short of being implemented on a necessary scale (international agreements especially). It is a hard problem only because modern politicians are unwilling to implement any of the necessary policy to tackle it (even though most voters generally want it; green infrastructure especially).

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

#82

Post by Jon_Lowtek » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:39 PM UTC

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.

Deforestation in Brazil was almost stopped when Bolsonaro came into office and has surged since then. For me this is one of the primary reasons why i worry about the future of our civilisation: every nature reserve, every protected animal, every small victory against ecological destruction can so easily be lost again.

Those who wish to protect must be on guard every day and win every fight.

Those who wish to destroy must only win once and can choose the best time.

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

#83

Post by runarberg » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:43 PM UTC

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…

I stopped trying to fix the climate disaster on my own a long time ago. There is nothing you can do to save us from the climate disaster. The illusion of green lifestyle only serves to push the responsibility from the actual polluters over to the consumer.

While polluters (including those that marked high polluting consumer products on mass scale) are not made to pay for their pollution (e.g. by carbon tax) they will keep polluting.

I’ve shifted towards trying to push politicians into enforcing stricter international agreements and building more green infrastructure. So far it has only made me feel even more powerless then before.

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

#84

Post by runarberg » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:46 PM UTC

11235813213455 wrote: post #19

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 lifesty…

I’m not trying to shame you for your efforts—plastic trash is indeed ugly and annoying; thank you for picking it up—but plastic straws are not the reason the west coast is on fire.

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

#85

Post by giantg2 » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:46 PM UTC

Surprise, surprise. What did we think would happen with increasing quality of life (increased consumption) and increasing population (further increase in consumption).

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

#86

Post by Aunche » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:47 PM UTC

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.

Do you have a source of this happening? This is from a report about Indonesia (http://www.fao.org/3/a-i7696e.pdf).

> Large plantations cultivate export crops on about 15 percent of the total agricultural area, but the majority of farmers (68 percent) are smallholders operating on less than one hectare.

Indonesia's population is still growing. If you're an uneducated farmer in a large family with a small farm, the only option you have to make a living may be to work in a palm oil plantation.

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

#87

Post by canofbars » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:49 PM UTC

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.

Doesn't matter what term you use. The rich and powerful will spin up the propaganda machine to shit on whatever term you pick.

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

#88

Post by coronadisaster » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:50 PM UTC

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…

> often brought in by accident

also often brought on purpose

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

#89

Post by giantg2 » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:52 PM UTC

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…

It doesn't really matter if we collect the genetic material if we aren't reversing the actions that caused it to become extinct. For example, arable land is shrinking and population growth as well as an increase in consumption will not leave much (if any) suitable space for some types of wildlife.

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

#90

Post by StanislavPetrov » Fri, Sep 11, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

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…

>And besides individual action what community action have you taken?

I didn't have any kids.

Its a message that unfortunately most people still refuse to hear (much less accept) - the earth is massively overpopulated. It doesn't matter how think try to dice the onion, there are far too many people for the earth's finite, renewable resources to sustainably support. Certainly our wasteful and overly consumptive habits are accelerating this destruction but no matter how we tailor our habits, the fact is that there are simply billions too many.

Some people ignore this obvious issue because its a difficult problem to solve that carries with it a host of economic and ethical issues. Others ignore it due to religious beliefs, and others because they worship at the altar of technology (which they believe can solve every problem). As long as this remains the case, we cannot even begin to acknowledge the issue and seek solutions.

Some argue that the population levels of "developed" countries have plateaued or begun to shrink slightly but that isn't happening remotely fast enough given the rate of degradation of our ecosystem. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, objective reality doesn't care about our economic or ethical concerns and the sustainable resources we all depend on to survive (the birds, the bees, the wildlife, the oceans, clean air, clean water, contiguous forests, ect) will continue to be degraded and will force a solution to this problem whether through famine, war, disease or otherwise.