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

theguardian.com

211–220 of 236 posts

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

#211

It was the massive surge of cold air that spewed into Colorado last week. The same surge that caused the massive winds in CA / OR / WA to churn up small fires. Those birds left CO for the South - probably don't normally get that in the middle of summer. There's very little smoke in NM. Some but not enough to kill the birds or cause them to fly a billion miles. That was the summer cold snap that did it. This is a clas…

I’d need to see evidence of this, there’s a lot of propaganda about climate change causing things “on both sides” so I would like to see a reference to this effect before I believe it!

> evidence

The problem with climate change is precisely this.

In order to convince everyone we need evidence. However evidence, strictly and scientifically speaking, can only be produced once a phenomenon is fully observed, understood, and reproducible.

In the case of climate change that means waiting for the changes to fully happen, which would be too late if climate change is indeed real.

So you are left with a choice: trust the partial data we have and conclude that climate change is happening, or deny it and hope it never materializes. The third option would be to consciously prefer to wait for climate change to fully materialize and only then take action, but this to me sounds a bit suicidal.

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

#212
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If everyone agrees that the fire is causing the smoke and needs to be put out, we can do that.

The problem here is that we have a bunch of smoke, and a good chunk of the population is either saying that there's no smoke or that the smoke is unrelated to the fire.

How do you fix the smoke problem if you can't get enough people to agree to put out the fire?

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

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Climate change seems to be one of the problems where acknowledging the cause is key to solving the problem. The only viable solutions we have right now involve mitigating the cause.

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

#214
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A little further out there, but if other intelligent life exists and they saw us as a virus, they might try to cure the planet by eradicating us. Which would be awful, as we can all agree.

Yes, sorry. It would be awful. The implication was that we should turn things around before that could ever be the conclusion another lifeform might come to.

Seems like a damn hasty conclusion anyway.

We have reason to judge the health of human civilization above other factors, but what grounds do they have with an outside perspective? What's right and wrong for this planet, or for us, from their alien perspective? Why would they sympathize with, say, the dolphins instead of us (they might - for random reasons?)

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

#215
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You can't attack another user like this regardless of how wrong they are or how strongly you disagree. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again. Please also stop using HN for ideological battle, as it makes the threads predictable and nasty. That's in the site guidelines. You've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly. However, you've also posted some good comments, so I'm not goin…

It's righteous moderation but it's also probably past time for 'virtue signaling' to go into the 'whataboutism' box.

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

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

==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. == Kind of like you do in this sentence: "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…

The implication that I thought was obvious was that in light of their voting patterns they're either stupid or there's something other than "what will benefit me personally the most" that's driving their voting and I know which one I'm betting on.

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

#217
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d need to see evidence of this, there’s a lot of propaganda about climate change causing things “on both sides” so I would like to see a reference to this effect before I believe it!

> evidence The problem with climate change is precisely this. In order to convince everyone we need evidence. However evidence, strictly and scientifically speaking, can only be produced once a phenomenon is fully observed, understood, and reproducible. In the case of climate change that means waiting for the changes to fully happen, which would be too late if climate change is indeed real. So you are left with a cho…

I mean, the sky was orange and the sun never came out. The ice just keeps melting when it shouldn't. The hurricanes are getting worse. The years just get hotter.

It's happening, present tense. The data is in, you can see it with your own eyes. It's clear as day (pun intended).

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

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everything is fine. This is all normal." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-...

> "Everything is fine. This is all normal." Thanks. I knew it was a repetitive moral panic. Definitely every few years in western media we get a cycle of hysteria. Over the world I'd say yearly about the "birds falling dead from the sky" as we are all smitten :) You can spell it out, but it's all repeated.

Oh, here's a big list, with links to articles from all over the world.

But it does talk about how it might be 5G, which fit's pretty well with the comments here.

https://fendaux.com/why-are-dead-birds-falling-from-the-sky/

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

#219
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d need to see evidence of this, there’s a lot of propaganda about climate change causing things “on both sides” so I would like to see a reference to this effect before I believe it!

> evidence The problem with climate change is precisely this. In order to convince everyone we need evidence. However evidence, strictly and scientifically speaking, can only be produced once a phenomenon is fully observed, understood, and reproducible. In the case of climate change that means waiting for the changes to fully happen, which would be too late if climate change is indeed real. So you are left with a cho…

The third option seems less detrimental than the second in a way. Even if one would be opposed to action to curb humankind's contribution to global warming (due to being unconvinced for any reason), at least the third option, while the proposed non-action seems to me that it would be the same as the second, would at least keep one's mind open to information rather than make a conclusion without conclusive evidence to do so. And while there seems to exist a gradient of possible perspectives/stances between the first and third, from my limited understanding, strong action is required in order to really do anything at all to slow the damage, making less drastic action somewhat moot and thus seems to somewhat polarize the situation -- necessarily so, I think.

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

#220
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> evidence The problem with climate change is precisely this. In order to convince everyone we need evidence. However evidence, strictly and scientifically speaking, can only be produced once a phenomenon is fully observed, understood, and reproducible. In the case of climate change that means waiting for the changes to fully happen, which would be too late if climate change is indeed real. So you are left with a cho…

I mean, the sky was orange and the sun never came out. The ice just keeps melting when it shouldn't. The hurricanes are getting worse. The years just get hotter. It's happening , present tense. The data is in, you can see it with your own eyes. It's clear as day (pun intended).

Yep, that's great. It's also happened many times in the past when no documented industrial civilization existed.

There is a long term correlation with solar activity(CME's,Sunspots,Solar flares) that can attest for large climatic swings of the past.

The science is not clear as day, and if you stopped searching for the truth of the matter you've stopped do science.

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