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Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

theguardian.com

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Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#51

Post by paulmd »

MiroF wrote: post #25
steffan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Habitability for humans . It's more or less a self-correcting problem

Our society is so odd. I find it astonishing that so many people can be cavalier about the deaths of millions of people when it comes to environmental destruction in a way that would be totally socially unacceptable if you were talking about targeted killings or genocide.

china is in the middle of a genocide right now and nobody cares

and really, even in cases that don't involve a superpower like china, I think if there was a random genocide in some random developing country, the world wouldn't do anything about it at this moment in time, the west is just too busy with its own internal problems at the moment.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#52

Post by spaceribs »

MiroF wrote: post #25
steffan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Habitability for humans . It's more or less a self-correcting problem

Our society is so odd. I find it astonishing that so many people can be cavalier about the deaths of millions of people when it comes to environmental destruction in a way that would be totally socially unacceptable if you were talking about targeted killings or genocide.

Our only outlet to fix this problem in our society hinges on mutual knowledge of the causes reaching unquestionable levels. Until then, it's like watching half our population play out like an "Always Sunny" episode.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#53

Post by indigochill »

On the topic of seeing across many fields, it's occurred to me there is a common theme across the crises of 2020 (particularly as seen through the lens of the US): "I can't breathe".

Covid: check

George Floyd's murder which sparked worldwide protests: check

Smoke covering half the US: check

Not that I'm a polymath or have any answers. My approach to these problems is to leave the fate of the world to those who hold the power and just do my best to locally mitigate the damage.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#54

Post by modoc »

abakker wrote: post #43
hart_russell wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would make sense. Most areas in California are covered in a cloud of smoke so thick it looks like fog. Where I live in San Diego it's been that way for the past week.

I moved from SF to Boulder over the last weekend. At the end of my first day driving in Wendover UT, the smoke was still so thick we could look at the sun directly with no eye protection. It was just dull red. In Boulder, there is STILL a haze, though there are local fires that are also adding to it.

Welcome to CO! Boulder is great!

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#55

Post by sp332 »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #24
jibcage wrote: post #5

It feels like the earth is dying. I wonder if the human population has longer than 20 years of tolerable existence left on this planet.

Mount St. Helens (in Washington state) had a massive eruption in 1980, causing huge ecological and economic damage that lasted for years.[1] But, the region recovered. Similar such natural events, such as Typhoon Maria, have caused massive casualties and damage. Yet, the Earth and humanity have persisted. I wouldn't worry about anything happening to our planet and our ecosphere, short of a mass extinction event like…

"the region recovered"

Yeah, because the volcano stopped erupting. This current disaster is not short-term.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#56

Post by oramit »

How serendipitous. I was just chatting with my partner and we heard birds chirping outside our house.

I realized that I had not heard them for a couple weeks now and guessed it had to do with the awful smoke conditions here in Portland. The smoke is still bad but it is noticeably less apocalyptic this morning. I thought birds would flee bad smoke like this but maybe they were just holed up in their nests waiting for things to improve, same as us?

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#57

Post by throwaway5752 »

Filligree wrote: post #50
sjm-lbm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the fires of the past (ie, the fires that these birds would have evolved to survive) have been larger? I've always assumed that, while fires of the past would have been more rare, they would have bigger if allowed to grow without any resistance. I mean, all our firefighting efforts do some good, right?

No, our firefighting efforts mean the fires get far bigger once they do erupt. Forest fires in the past were more frequent, but also smaller.

That is not true. These are, broadly speaking, in unmanaged areas without fire suppression programs. It is extraordinarily hot and dry in the areas with fires, and that's why these are bigger than in modern human history.

edit: fair point on sources. There are a lot, and they're easily found. This was an interesting read https://www.fs.usda.gov/nfs/11558/www/nepa/19535_FSPLT3_3990... (pdf) though I'd warn anyone not to just look for supporting information for this pet theory. Fire suppression builds up fuel and causes worse fires. But there are worse fires in areas without fire suppression programs. There are even worse fires (vs historically) in areas with prescribed burn programs. Your propublica article is also linked to by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_wildfires#Caus.... Adjacent to the "Fire Policy" section there is a robustly sourced "Climate Change" section. I don't have time to comment further here, so I'll leave it at that.

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#58

Post by paulmd »

indigochill wrote: post #53

On the topic of seeing across many fields, it's occurred to me there is a common theme across the crises of 2020 (particularly as seen through the lens of the US): "I can't breathe". Covid: check George Floyd's murder which sparked worldwide protests: check Smoke covering half the US: check Not that I'm a polymath or have any answers. My approach to these problems is to leave the fate of the world to those who hold t…

the internal instability within western nations has reached the point that our national psyche has regressed to the lower levels of maslow's hierarchy

we've regressed from self-actualization and are now focused on issues of survival

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#59

Post by [deleted] »

mhb wrote: post #46
gdubs wrote: post #36

I was walking the trash bins down our long drive to the road yesterday in a soup of wildfire smoke and fog when it occurred to me — we sure have a compartmentalized way of looking at the issues plaguing the world right now. Part of that is the sheer complexity of our contemporary world. There are few polymaths — most are specialists. It feels like we’re sorely lacking people who see across many fields to synthesize e…

we’re still having arguments about whether people are the cause. Of. Course. We. Are. You seem to discount the anthropocentric argument (as it should be) and then promptly jump right in to it. Why does it matter what the cause is?

[deleted]

Re: Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US

#60

Post by chrisco255 »

rhacker wrote: post #10
chrisco255 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The planet is fine. What would make you believe that, based on 5 billion years of geological history?

There's always a comment like this. How about "The habitability of this planet is dropping like a brick."

Sensationalism is an art form that's become extremely refined in recent years. However, the habitability of the planet is just fine.

Carbon dioxide is fertilizing the earth, providing a higher leaf area index than any time in recent history: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fer...

Global area burned in wildfires is actually down 25% over the last 20 years despite the arson in the Western United States: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145421/building-a-l...

Crop yields are up over 100% from 50 years ago and we produce about 10x more wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, and sugar beets per acre than we did in pre-industrial times: https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields

Stop reading sensational journalism and start digging into the actual data, and you'll find there's plenty to be optimistic about.

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