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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

#211

Post by xg15 »

ubertoop wrote: post #143
seanwilson wrote: post #117

50% of habitable land on earth is taken up by agriculture, 77% of which is used for meat & diary (including the crops grown for livestock to eat), which contributes only 18% to the global calorie supply because of the inefficiency of animal products: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets I wonder how much of an impact it would have to return the land used by meat & diary to nature (40 million k…

The unfortunate reality is that mankind as we know it, probably developed to the level it did, in part due to the consumption of meat. Meat is absolutely PACKED with bioavailable nutrients in a way that most plant products simply aren't. Add to that, the growing evidence that much of the plant material we're eating may have inflammatory side effects of consumption. The point I am making is that a solution isn't a sol…

> Meat is absolutely PACKED with bioavailable nutrients in a way that most plant products simply aren't.

We'll ok, but we're not in the stone age anymore. We can produce processed, plant-based food with a similar nutrition density.

> Add to that, the growing evidence that much of the plant material we're eating may have inflammatory side effects of consumption.

Do you have sources for that?

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

#212

Post by lotsofpulp »

aporetics wrote: post #191

Fascinating to see how these comment threads debate the relative facility of different diets, and even armchair evolutionary biology... while conveniently avoiding the critical topic: the choices we continue to make are defacing the planet, destabilizing ecologies, and exterminating other species at a scale that is hard to imagine. We’re all ok with this? So, why is it so hard, when confronted with facts about the co…

>So, why is it so hard, when confronted with facts about the consequences of your decisions, to really think about the meaning of your actions (much less to resolve to change your habits)?

The statistics show most people can't keep themselves from eating excess calories and developing diabetes and hypertension. They certainly know their eating habits will cause them pain in the long run. Yet they still do it. Because it's obviously hard to choose the long term benefit over the short term benefit.

If people can't control themselves from binging on sugar, salt, alcohol, in order to prevent harm to themselves, there's not much chance they're going to do it for their kids or grandkids, and definitely not for great grandkids.

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

#213

Post by feralimal »

runarberg wrote: post #81
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 disaste…

Yes but none of the imminent dangers he warned about came to pass did they? We're still waiting. So, perhaps the right choice was made.

20 years later, you should watch that film again and see the manipulative fear mongering that is in play.

And let's not forget that Al is heavily invested in 'green' tech.

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

#214

Post by cranekam »

runarberg wrote: post #108
munificent wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they say, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. It's worth it.

There are ways to construct constitutions such that no one person in a democracy has the power to do this much damage. E.g. only a multi-participatory and diverse parliament—and crucially not any government; especially not any president—has the power to enact laws which can cause such a damage. In a successful democracy, the people don’t have the option to vote them self a dictator.

Switzerland is perhaps an example of this. There's no president — the head of the federal government is a 7-member Federal Council elected by the parliament, with representation proportional to parliament. This means that politics is generally more consensus-driven and less subject to extreme views.

Swiss politics also makes heavy use of referendums, and any aspect of federal/cantonal/local law can be decided in a referendum if there's enough support.

https://www.eda.admin.ch/aboutswitzerland/en/home/politik/ue...

Note: I am a recent transplant to Switzerland so I'm still learning the ways in which the Swiss system has advantages and, crucially, disadvantages (I'd guess stalemate/slow progress are some).

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

#215

Post by seanwilson »

toxik wrote: post #205
seanwilson wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In addition to the other replies, I'd like to point out that insect farming is an often overlooked solution. What is the actual problem that needs a solution though? I feel like "but where will we get our protein from?" is a common fallacy on the subject of meat that people accept without evidence. We're eating more meat now than ever and most Americans eat too much protein: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/well/…

Who recommends 50 grams of protein per day? That’s way too little for an adult male.

NHS for one:

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/body-building-spor...

> The Department of Health advises adults to avoid consuming more than twice the recommended daily intake of protein (55.5g for men and 45g for women).

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/what-are-reference-int...

> Protein: 50g

Also, not that it's hard to get protein with plants anyway, but if you're really concerned with getting lots of protein, look into making seitan:

https://www.menshealth.com/uk/nutrition/food-drink/a25976250...

> Steak (25g protein per 100g)

> Seitan (75g protein per 100g)

Its main component is wheat flour with everything washed away but the gluten so it's super cheap to produce and make.

I think "you need meat for protein" is just a persistent meme/myth people cling on to to justify eating meat. Where do people think the animals are getting their protein from?

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

#216

Post by DarthGhandi »

tarsinge wrote: post #201

The key quote is that 94% of the drop is in Latin America and the Caribbeans. For example in France forests are increasing since more than 100 years [0]. So discussing diet is interesting but eating les meat in the developed world will do nothing for the obvious big problem: Amazon deforestation. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1122699/forest-area-surf...

France destroyed basically all of their forest in the last few centuries. It's a funny claim. It's like a homeless man saying his wealth increased by 100% in one day.

There's a real problem with conservation in the West where we lecture developing countries about the environmental destruction we ourselves did long ago for pure monetary gain.

It's hard to have a proper conversation about it and find solutions when there's a real hypocrisy that is quite blatant to one party and not the other.

I see this with the EU and palm oil in SEA, what exactly does Europe want them to do? If they can't sell palm they'll still farm something else (probably far less efficient too, palm oil per kg needs 4x less space than European canola).

It's not an easy issue in the first place and borders/nationalism/trade protection makes it even harder.

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

#217

Post by cranekam »

chongli wrote: post #130
seanwilson wrote: post #117

50% of habitable land on earth is taken up by agriculture, 77% of which is used for meat & diary (including the crops grown for livestock to eat), which contributes only 18% to the global calorie supply because of the inefficiency of animal products: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets I wonder how much of an impact it would have to return the land used by meat & diary to nature (40 million k…

I think these figures are pretty misleading. First of all, they only look at calories, not protein. If you wanted to replace all the meat and dairy with equivalent protein substitutes you’d be looking at huge amounts of land for growing soybeans, peanuts, tree nuts. Replace all the milk with almond milk and you’re still dealing with huge water and land use for a product that has inferior protein and nutrients. Second…

A bunch of people have said it already but I have to add my voice in the hope the message is heard: humans don't need tons of protein. Most sources list less than a gram per kilo of bodyweight per day, e.g.:

https://www.nutrition.org.uk/nutritionscience/nutrients-food...

It's quite easy to achieve this with a no or low animal product diet.

I don't know for sure but I expect the obsession with protein is down to carbohydrates being demonised in the last couple of decades of fad diets (much as fat was before that).

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

#218

Post by bodono »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #199
acituan wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Taxes are not market forces, they are exogenous interventions on markets. Which means having…

Taxing carbon is just removing the carbon subsidy that we currently enjoy because it isn’t sustainable. If we decide we want to subsidize India’s pollution or whatever, we can still do that. Anyway, you don’t have a market at all without government and you don’t have a government without taxes so appeals to taxes being an intrusion aren’t persuasive IMO.

Google 'black market'.

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

#219

Post by tpnCC »

feralimal wrote: post #213
runarberg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 disaste…

Yes but none of the imminent dangers he warned about came to pass did they? We're still waiting. So, perhaps the right choice was made. 20 years later, you should watch that film again and see the manipulative fear mongering that is in play. And let's not forget that Al is heavily invested in 'green' tech.

If U may tell, which specific imminent 'dangers' did not come to pass?

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

#220

Post by tarsinge »

DarthGhandi wrote: post #216
tarsinge wrote: post #201

The key quote is that 94% of the drop is in Latin America and the Caribbeans. For example in France forests are increasing since more than 100 years [0]. So discussing diet is interesting but eating les meat in the developed world will do nothing for the obvious big problem: Amazon deforestation. [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1122699/forest-area-surf...

France destroyed basically all of their forest in the last few centuries. It's a funny claim. It's like a homeless man saying his wealth increased by 100% in one day. There's a real problem with conservation in the West where we lecture developing countries about the environmental destruction we ourselves did long ago for pure monetary gain. It's hard to have a proper conversation about it and find solutions when the…

> France destroyed basically all of their forest in the last few centuries. It's a funny claim. It's like a homeless man saying his wealth increased by 100% in one day.

Sure but the point is that it's not directly related to the "Wildlife in catastrophic decline since the 70's".

I'm not sure I follow the rest, there is no time for philosophical debates about wether the West has the right to lecture developing countries, the earth cannot afford developing countries going down that path, period.

My point was that adapting our diet in the west looks useless to stop that catastrophic decline happening now, but maybe it could be a powerful act of solidarity to lead by example? To be clear I'm not discussing the merits of eating less meat (I'm vegetarian), just pointing out that it doesn't look like a short term solution for the very issue in TFA.

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