Birds 'falling out of the sky' in mass die-off in south-western US • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by catmistake » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:12 PM UTC

_pd19 wrote: post #88

catmistake wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 am…

Fair enough. May I suggest that it is the depreciation of the family unit that may be causing this. Generally, in my experience, jerks had crummy parents. I don't know the solution, but maybe instead of treating young pregnant couples as sacred, we should make having children a privilege, not a right, and make them work for it. But I wouldn't know how to do that.

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

#112

Post by jlengrand » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

havelhovel wrote: post #94

jlengrand wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. The events from the past years have already been difficult to digest. But every time I come and read comments, I'm even more depressed, anxious. "no matter if you don't drive, or stop meat; it won't be enough". "nice that you're stopping commuting, but that won't suffice". "offsetting by planting trees is not good enough compared to net zero". Or worse, dismissive like "it only helps with your own self-…

I took an elective wildlife conservation class while earning my Master's. I had no right to be there, because I was surrounded by the brightest, most pragmatic minds I had ever met. The work that my classmates had done to stop destruction, or to sustain populations through novel solutions, was awe inspiring. We don't see it here, and there's an obvious reason for why that might be, but there are amazing people out th…

My use of pragmatic was really not meant to be dismissive. My English is not always as good as I'd like it to be :).

Every time there is a discussion about climate change, there are comments in the lines of "we are in danger, Earth is not". That's entirely correct, but it doesn't help much :).

Thanks for the kind words, you are definitely right, many people are working in the right direction. We need to listen to them more.

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

#113

Post by francisofascii » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

daveFNbuck wrote: post #97

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.

If we can't agree on what the cause is, how can we agree on what to do about it?

Effective solutions to problems do not always depend on knowing the cause.

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

#114

Post by jlengrand » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

paulmd wrote: post #93

jlengrand wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. The events from the past years have already been difficult to digest. But every time I come and read comments, I'm even more depressed, anxious. "no matter if you don't drive, or stop meat; it won't be enough". "nice that you're stopping commuting, but that won't suffice". "offsetting by planting trees is not good enough compared to net zero". Or worse, dismissive like "it only helps with your own self-…

individual-scale action is not a substitute for collective action. You can plant trees and sort your recycling every day for the rest of your life and it won't make the tiniest fraction of the difference that raising fuel economy standards or implementing a carbon tax or whatever would do. individual action is often presented as a sop precisely because industry wants to divert discussion from the forms of collective…

Entirely correct. And that's infuriating

Though it does not stop us from acting at local level. Let us all stop replacing our phones every year, and there will be a shift in consumption models. We collectively, as a sum of locals, have the power to make things change.

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

#115

Post by ponker » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

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?

Wipe out 90% of pollutants or wipe out 90% of humans in a mass die off. The animals (except for rats and raccoons) will rejoice but I don’t think that’s what humans want.

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

#116

Post by jlengrand » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #69

jlengrand wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. The events from the past years have already been difficult to digest. But every time I come and read comments, I'm even more depressed, anxious. "no matter if you don't drive, or stop meat; it won't be enough". "nice that you're stopping commuting, but that won't suffice". "offsetting by planting trees is not good enough compared to net zero". Or worse, dismissive like "it only helps with your own self-…

I oftentimes see that parroted and I believe it is more slacktivism and politically motivated than anything- "Only my guy can fix everything! All I can do is like his political ads and keep on doing what I do" For instance, how many times have you observed articles that call out cruise ships as "super polluters". Wouldn't not going on cruises be much more impactful than any sort of negotiated regulation? I believe th…

Yes, reducing consumption as a sum of individuals is the most impactful thing we can do, next to voting.

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

#117

Post by OJFord » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:18 PM UTC

daveFNbuck wrote: post #97

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.

If we can't agree on what the cause is, how can we agree on what to do about it?

Well, there's cause and there's cause.

If you have a smoke problem you can put the fire out without working out how it started.

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

#118

Post by rriepe » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

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…

I've noticed that every issue ends with this exact post. Despite the actual complexity or circumstance of the issue, at the end is always a guy on a soapbox talking about exactly one thing. It's only ever one thing and it never has anything to do with the complexity of the situation. It is always, always always about anthropogenic climate change due to carbon.

It's like getting pamphlets at the airport. You do not read them but you know what they're about.

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

#119

Post by indigochill » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

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

It's not actually the instability as such (I think), but the scale of the power and decision-making. The US in particular has centralized a ton of power and decision-making in Washington, where the original vision (at least among the early Federalists) would be that the federal government would remain weak and the power would be largely left in the hands of the states.

If government were better-federated, to push the power and decision-making to smaller and smaller units, then citizen buy-in would be a lot easier because the answer would always be "get involved in your local legislature", not "cast your vote into an ocean of millions of votes and hope for the best".

Americans sometimes look at Iceland as an example of Scandinavian Utopia, but I think the single best thing Iceland has done that's the cause to a lot of the effects has been to stay small. It's easy to know someone in government personally even if you're an outsider. Sure, there's still corruption and centralization of power and wealth, but the scale is so much smaller that it's a lot easier to just kind of shrug it off than when the fate of the world's data is at stake.

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

#120

Post by throwaway0a5e » Wed, Sep 16, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

charwalker wrote: post #63

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?

There is a large chunk of the US voter population that thinks that even if climate change is real it isn't human driven and therefor totally natural or by God's design. So of course nothing should be done about it because either it isn't real or it isn't human caused. This is also the group that often votes single issue or directly against their best interest much like What's the matter with Kansas. Surprisingly, Kan…

>This is also the group that often votes single issue or directly against their best interest much like What's the matter with Kansas. Surprisingly, Kansas itself hasn't read that book and seems to repeat history every time the GOP wants less taxes.

Oh please. Inner city minorities have been voting for gun control (good luck getting the cops to show up let alone promptly in some places) since long before climate change was a thing. The bases of both parties are rife with cognitive dissonance. You could probably count on one hand the number of people in the other country who agree with everything in an official party platform if you present each policy goal in isolation instead of as a platform.

Proclaiming that people are voting against their interest is just calling them stupid or saying you know what's good for them better than they do with some obfuscation thrown in to make it fit in better in "polite" conversation.