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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

#121

Post by MiroF »

catmistake wrote: post #111
_pd19 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think that young childbirth and the general age of having children is on the up and up, so perhaps this will happen naturally.

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

#122

Post by [deleted] »

sul_tasto wrote: post #107
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…

Voting is great, but it’s not enough to punch a ballot every few years. We need to be exerting a sustained pressure on our local and national representatives to support and pass legislation. We need to put public pressure on corporations to make changes. Look at how the BLM movement has gotten companies to commit to making changes. We need citizen leaders to provide vision and hope.

[deleted]

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

#123

Post by padseeker »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #84
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.

To paraphrase George Carlin: The planet is fine, but the people are fucked.

I think about that comment from Carlin ALL THE TIME in relationship to global warming and natural disaster. Our perspective on saving the planet is very ego and species centric. As said in Jurassic Park "Life finds a way". However that life might not include humans.

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

#124

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

paulmd wrote: post #85
daveslash wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 regressi…

Anti intellectualism has a root cause.

Intellectuals have led us to credit crisis. But "Nobody saw it coming!" Is not a response. Remember that statement?

Intellectuals have led us to forever wars everywhere.

Intellectuals have overseen the collapse of the family unit in the last 70 years

Intellectuals old us in the 90s that the polar caps would melt in....2020

Intellectuals have led us to a permanent underclass of people in cities like detroit, chicago, NY and Philadelphia.

I'd say that's enough. People have a right to call out the bullshit.

Because most of what intellectuals say is bullshit.

Human knowledge is limited. intellectuals have failed to exercise basic humility.

The bill is now due and those institutions need to dissappear (unis, newspapers etc) so something new can rise.

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

#125

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

falcolas wrote: post #13
pjc50 wrote: post #4

I've heard smoke inhalation cited as a possible cause for this, but it looks too early for a definitive explanation.

The smoke is really bad in the west. https://fire.airnow.gov/

Looking at it, and the extent I begin to wonder about the global implications of that. Probably doesn't rise as high as a volcanic eruption or nuclear mushroom, but this is massive.

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

#126

Post by hirako2000 »

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…

Very curious about those brilliant ideas. Giving a few examples would be great.

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

#127

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #120
charwalker wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 chan…

Unfortunately this is typical of the elites in bith sides.

They know whats best for you.

So they can give you Iraq, Credit Crisis, Vietnam, Covid19 in nursing homes, etc

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

#128

Post by DenisM »

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…

> whether people are the cause. Of. Course. We. Are.

And that's how conversations go to hell. You just postulate your own correctness and the opposing side recoils from that. Do you really think it's productive?

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

#129

Post by jordache »

bryan0 wrote: post #34

The first sentence of this article describes the die-off as "inexplicable", but the sub-title gives a couple explanations including the massive fires and resulting smoke which is covering the western US. Watching the animals outside my house, I wonder how this smoke must be effecting them, but evolution must have led them out of wildfire conditions in the past.

>but evolution must have led them out of wildfire conditions in the past.

or maybe such extreme wildfire didn't happen frequently enough in the past, for animal to develop a method to mitigate.

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

#130

Post by blahblah4332 »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #31
blahblah4332 wrote: post #9

So far food scarcity looks like the most plausible explanation. Someone needs to get a massive campaign together in flyover zones to get people to scatter food for them. Assuming appropriate feed for these species is even widely available in those areas. Probably too little too late in this case though... I guess we just update the wildfire documents to include care for migratory species and hope there's a next time

I want to point out the issues of 1) commenting on areas where one doesn't have expertise 2) not recognizing that and find credible sources of information. No offense, but even though you projected confidence I doubted you had any ornithology background. Since I didn't either, I recognized my lack of expertise and did some good faith basic research, informally speaking, to see if I could find out what the most likely…

I will project confidence while stating that you can go fuck yourself.

In the ass.

With a rake.

dick face

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