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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

#71

Post by mathgladiator »

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…

All I feel these days is despair. It's hard enough to get people to just wear masks, or not throw parties with active covid infection. I think and feel that we are doomed. I wonder if the polymaths have just given up.

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

#72

Post by xoa »

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?

>Why does it matter what the cause is?

Are you being serious? The cause is a key part of choosing the most efficient response. Responses can potentially involve both reactionary measures to climate forcing and reductionary measures trying to reduce forcing. If the cause was, say, the sun getting brighter by 15% for some reason, well we can't just turn down the sun, so while yes we'd having just a much motivation to respond our range of actions would be purely on the reaction side, reducing incoming solar insolation maybe. And that'd further just be bringing things back into the comfortable range we and everything else have been living in.

But since instead the cause is human driven fossil carbon emissions, both different reaction measures and reducing the cause in the first place are possible and important. To take the above example, solar shading would be a bad idea because while yes it'd lower thermal input, it'd also reduce critical wavelengths used by primary producers below normal levels as well. That's a major side effect that's different from if the cause was different. And while we can mess with the sun, we certainly can treat net atmospheric carbon increases as the externality it is.

But if you don't accept greenhouse gas emissions are an externality, why would you support internalizing those costs? If they weren't the cause after all it'd be uneconomic and pointless to go after them.

I mean, I'm genuinely astonished to even be writing this on HN. Like if my "computer broke", well if the cause is a dead SSD that's quite different then a dead mobo or fried PSU or "5 year old knocked a potted plant onto it then 7 year old poured seltzer water on it to clean it off". Would you be saying "what does it matter what the cause was" there?

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

#73

Post by gspr »

mathgladiator wrote: post #71
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…

All I feel these days is despair. It's hard enough to get people to just wear masks, or not throw parties with active covid infection. I think and feel that we are doomed. I wonder if the polymaths have just given up.

Remember not to conflate the loudness and visibility of the idiots with their numbers!

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

#74

Post by daveslash »

paulmd wrote: post #58
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

If our ecology really is collapsing, this is going to get worse. As resources become more and more scarce, powerful first-world countries are not going to want to regress in their standards of living, which I speculate is going to lead to increased global conflict.

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

#75

Post by OneLeggedCat »

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?

Because a majority of Americans will believe it most proper to do NOTHING about it if they believe that the cause is of divine origin. A politically powerful and obvious majority.

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

#76

Post by aurizon »

From the initial posting, it seems these birds avoided the smoke. Miners used to use canaries in coal mines to detect gas. Birds are exquisitely sensitive to combustion fumes. Their instinct is to get far away. It appears they fled to an insect free desert area and kept pushing on until they literally exhausted their fat reserves. The only way I can think to help them is to scatter some meal worms on the ground in the hopes that you will save a few. It will have to done on a wide area = probably not practical. The only long term solution is to change forest management to allow the understory of brush/grass/small trees to burn every 2-3 years via intentional fires. In addition substantial clear zones around all homes in addition to stripes of clear zones every 1/2 mile as fire breaks. These highly packed stand of trees with thick understories burn to the ground, kill all trees and sterilize the soil of seeds so nothing grows for a while until wind scatters in new seeds. California has done this to itself, with the help of The Sierra Club (who lobbied against preventive burns because the home owners loved the trees and bushes where they lived) You reap what you sow. Changes MUST come ASAP

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

#77

Post by btilly »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #57
Filligree wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you have a citation?

Everything that I've read on the subject says otherwise. I know of no unmanaged areas without fire suppression programs anywhere in the West. And as articles like https://www.propublica.org/article/they-know-how-to-prevent-... points out, scientists have been clear for decades that the disastrous fires we are now dealing with are the direct result of past human attempts to put out fires.

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

#78

Post by throwanem »

Izkata wrote: post #26
tashoecraft wrote: post #6

Whose traveling back in time out there? Thought the portal was only in Germany

Seems to be one of those things just weird enough to get used in fiction regularly as shorthand for "something is really wrong" - it was part of the trailers for Jericho [0] and a plot point over the course of FlashForward [1]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jericho_(2006_TV_series) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FlashForward

Birds are significantly more susceptible to acute radiation injury than humans (cf. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep16594 - not directly on point, but the dose rate relationships can be trivially compared with those widely documented for humans, e.g. at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_radiation_syndrome#Dose_...). I suspect that's where the association originates, and the use of the trope fits in especially well with Jericho's plot, which opens with a nuclear war.

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

#79

Post by clankyclanker »

just_fred wrote: post #70
ohyes wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But frankly, it doesn't matter if we're the cause or not, we're the only thing around that could potentially do anything to save ourselves. So ya know, we kinda should regardless of whose fault it is.

We would have to shut down 90% of the pollutants world wide to do anything. Will make the Covid shutdowns look like a long weekend. And even then it might not make a difference if climate change is out of our control. You willing to do that?

Yup, because in the mid-term, the alternative is basically the same anyway.

I don’t want to be uncharitable, but I can’t help reading your comment as, “we shouldn’t be inconvenienced to prevent ours and our children’s suffering.” That can’t be a correct reading, can it?

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

#80

Post by jfengel »

havelhovel wrote: post #65
jfengel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The single most effective thing you can do for climate change, by far, is vote. The climate is one of those tragedy-of-the-commons problems that can only be solved when everybody consents to work on it together. It takes only a relatively small proportion to prevent any progress from being made. We certainly to have enough resources to intervene, but doing "something -- no matter how trivial" fails to minimize the de…

I agree that voting (for the party that accepts climate change) is a helpful step that US citizens can take. But why prove my point by seeking to tear my idea apart? We need more action, not less. Isn't voting and picking up trash in a park better than just voting? Isn't voting, picking up trash in a park, and reducing meat consumption even better?

Yes. But picking up trash in a park, reducing meat consumption, and not voting, is much worse. And that's a point a lot of people appear to be missing, so I felt it was worth pointing out.
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