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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

#81

Post by gdubs »

daveslash wrote: post #74
paulmd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US defense department has been saying basically this for over a decade in fact.

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

#82

Post by throwaway5752 »

btilly wrote: post #61
throwaway5752 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be happy to read any reputable paper, article, or discussion thread you can find about it. Seems like something that would be falsifiable and has been researched already, so not worth debating about in the hypothetical.

I am not a researcher, but https://www.audubon.org/news/how-wildfires-affect-birds would seem to be a reputable source. It was written in 2017, but is relevant to the current situation. Multiple passages in it are relevant to this issue. Birds do try to fly away from fire. We have evidence that smoke inhalation is worse for birds than mammals (which would mean that birds would need to flee smoke, and not just the fla…

Not a researcher in this area, either. And no need to be, we are probably able to evaluate research. Great article. I will say that some sources (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/us/dead-birds-new-mexico-...) indicate that migratory bird die off observations started in mid-Aug, which would not jibe with the fire timelines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Complex_fire#Timeline). Also, the linked article submission talks about New Mexico, Texas, and even Nebraska which are hundreds of miles from the fires and generally outside of areas of NWS smoke forecast concern (https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=2ff16...)

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

#83

Post by charwalker »

havelhovel wrote: post #20

I have been told on this forum that the men and women working in wildlife conservation are in it for vanity or for self gratification. Relatedly, I have been told on this forum that there is nothing that regular folks can do about climate change. But then events like this happen, and no one reflects on how fatally pessimistic this community can be. Are we ourselves not capable of forecasting the effect of a burning s…

Sounds like a bunch of science deniers. Weird to have those on a tech forum but I guess it takes all types.

There have been many pans proposed, such as the Green New deal, to combat climate change, create stable jobs, and in many other ways improve the nation. But when 1/3 of the voters don't want change and would rather descend back into the racism and xenophobia of the 50's (except for the taxes) then not much can be done.

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

#85

Post by paulmd »

daveslash wrote: post #74
paulmd wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

our inability to deal with the climate collapse is only a second-order effect, we are completely unable to deal with anything right now. If it wasn't the climate crisis, and if it wasn't the pandemic, it would be something else. Our political system is far too polarized and far too plagued by anti-intellectualism, it simply can't respond to anything.

Russia and conservative media (murdoch media, etc) seeding regressive/anti-intellectual movements has been massively successful, western society is just completely unprepared to deal with freedom of speech being leveraged to spew an unending firehose of bullshit, it's a "copyleft" style trojan approach of using our own democratic values against us.

The firehose of bullshit has led to the rise of anti-intellectual movements, an anti-intellectual president, and a party that just votes absolutely lockstep with him no matter what he does. They don't give a shit about absolutely anything, not fires or hurricanes or plagues, and just let all these problems fester. It has a lot of other negative effects too of course, but we have reached the point where we simply can't respond even to acute crises anymore, our system has long-since lost its higher functioning in terms of setting goals and being able to execute them (what you'd call "self-actualization" in maslow's hierachy) and now is struggling even to maintain basic homeostasis (the "physical needs" tier of the maslow hierarchy).

(I include Brexit, Bolsanaro, Duarte, etc in this as well - western democracy is in deep fucking shit worldwide and if we don’t get our shit together and deal with the firehose of falsehoods we will be supplanted by more authoritarian forms of government that don’t suffer this vulnerability because they don’t tolerate free speech and dissent.)

It is also super depressing to know that even with everything that's gone on, less than 5% of america has even changed its mind. Even with the plague, even with the fires, even with civil unrest and mass arrests, even as the post office is dismantled and we lose the ability even to get a fucking package on time, 40% of america will go in the booth and pull the lever for more of this. It goes beyond just "doesn't affect me, who cares", or "that's 20 years from now me's problem", this has all affected everyone, now, today, and people still want more as long as they get to own the libs. It's maddening.

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

#86

Post by [deleted] »

Retric wrote: post #64
mhb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It’s generally more difficult to actually fix something without knowing the cause.

[deleted]

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

#87

Post by damon_c »

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?

If I thought something was God's will, the last thing I'd do is try to stop it!

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

#88

Post by _pd19 »

catmistake wrote: post #62
MiroF wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> about the deaths of millions of people when it comes to environmental destruction You're not getting it. With global environmental catastrophe the concern is not about the deaths of millions of people. It is about the deaths of all people everywhere. A symptom of the problem of environmental catastrophe is those that are cavalier about the deaths of entire species of wildlife. The planet will be fine, the plant and…

> You're not getting it.

No, I think I am. Your comment actually misses my entire point and instead just explains climate change?

My point is that a common sentiment I see articulated in response to someone saying that the biosphere soon might not be able to support humanity is "Good, humanity is a cancer on this planet and we've shown we don't deserve it."

I think that statements like that should get a comparable amount of social ire to someone blithely stating that the Holocaust was good population control. It is unacceptable to view the death of millions or billions (after a long period of extremely impoverished living) as a good thing to me.

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

#89

Post by randcraw »

jlengrand wrote: post #42
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual behavioral change is insufficient. A civilization-level crisis requires government intervention. Vote.

Most definitely agree about this. It's number 1 on my list. When I moved to the Netherlands I learnt that they actually have separate elections for the water management. Almost like a separate body of the government. I wish something like this for environment was implemented, simply because people tend to vote for things that are much closer to them, unemployment, security, ...

Given recent events, it seems clear we need to rethink the role of the executive branch, probably to strengthen gov't services (e.g. cabinet-level agencies) and make them more independent of political agendas and misdirection. A more independent EPA, NOAA, FDA, law enforcement, military, etc that are governed by strict codes of conduct and missions that proscribe their misuse by either a careless/malignant POTUS or legislature could save many lives, make US policy more stable and sustainable, and upgrade the standard of living for more than just Americans.

I think we need to do more than just vote.

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

#90

Post by matmann2001 »

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?

Yes. I prefer this planet in its habitable state.
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