Live data from Hacker News

Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

nationalgeographic.com

161–170 of 212 posts

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#161
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time similar topic came up (either here or reddit), someone posted this recording of a ”Kauaʻi ʻōʻō” bird [1] in which a male, apparently the last of its species, is trying to connect with a female. Reeally eerie. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDRY0CmcYNU

Absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking, thank you - I might never have stumbled upon that.

The podcast "Anthropocene Reviewed" has an episode[1] on the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō including the last time it was seen if you would like to know more about it.

[1] https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/anthropocene-reviewed/e...

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#162
post #110
post #51

editorializing the title is addressed in the guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yes, that was bad. Submitted title was "Yangtze dam separates Paddlefish, largest, from spawn, now extinct". That spawned a whole school of complaints and offtopicness in its own right. We've changed it now. Submitters: please don't do that. If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with ev…

That's weird... I think the original title of the article was wordier than mine, so i cut out words to fit the limit. But now when i check the article it has a shorter one. I could be wrong tho, but I'm pretty sure that's what i remember seeing....

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#163
post #106
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds highly suspect: "The Chinese government has roving vans that execute dissidents and harvest their organs right outside their house."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_van PRC does not deny they exist, nor denies that organs are harvested after. There are pictures of them online, and notable cases where it was the officially recorded method of execution.

Oh wow, there's been heavy editing of that page since I last saw it. All references to the US's lethal injection vans removed for not being "relevant to the article".

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being anti-dam is environmental NIMBYism. A dam focuses externalities on the same communities that benefit from the dam (jobs and revenue). Fossil fuels benefit the producers but everyone suffers the externalities.

> Being anti-dam is environmental NIMBYism. Hard disagree. Dams simply need to be categorized as dirty energy. They are probably less dirty than coal or natural gas energy. However dams are dirty and they should be treated as such. Categorizing an energy source as dirty does not mean we don't use it. It doesn't even mean we don't build more of it. We don't have 100% clean energy today. I hope that someday we do. And…

I have sometimes wondered if we could consider specific solar and wind energy sites as 100% clean if we could calculate their carbon costs and actively take actions to counter carbon release to at least that amount. E.g., if a 1 KM solar farm took 12 Tons of Carbon and 1 tree sequesters 25 Kilos of Carbon per year, then we could start a forest of 500 trees using the Miyawaki Method and keep it thriving.

I have come across messages stating that Trees sequester Carbon for now only to release it all eventually, but Trees provide much more. They provide oxygen, a habitat for animal and insect life, they cool down an area, help attract clouds for rain, hold together the ground soil to prevent erosion, etc.

We ought to be reforesting and afforesting land again to compensate for all the cover that we've lost. Ensuring forests would help carbon-offset the carbon-load required to set up Low Carbon energy sources for locations that need them.

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#165
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thanks to declining American manufacturing (thanks China) Spoken like someone who doesn't work in manufacturing...

(I'm not American so don't really have a horse to grind or axe in this race, but) why would an American working in manufacturing want American manufacturing to decline? Or do I misunderstand?

Somewhere in this chain, someone was being sarcastic.

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#166
"Extinct" means no longer existing, but the news (https://3g.163.com/dy/article/GAVLG6910514TQ42.html) says "The Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute in Yichang, Hubei Province, is the only institution that continuously conducts the breeding and release of Chinese sturgeon. Founded nearly 40 years ago, the Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute has made a series of advances in the artificial breeding of Chinese sturgeon. The 2009 breakthrough in fully artificial breeding"

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#167

I recall visiting the Yangtze river by boat tour around 1997. This was before the dam was built and the place was beautiful. Imagine the grand canyon but it was covered with lush vegetation. We visited a center where there were models of the three gorges dam would soon to be built. On the tour they said we would be the last tourists to see the Yangtze as it stands, after the dam, many landmarks/settlements would be f…

Fun fact, the Three Gorges Dam generates about 112 TWh per year of electricity, which is almost exactly the power consumption of Bitcoin.

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#168

The unbridled enthusiasm of man again pushes us deeper into this 6th mass extinction event, the Holocene extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction . I still remember the Baiji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiji or the finless porpoise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrow-ridged_finless_porpoise . Can we realistically ever taper down and live more simple minimalistic lives that strike a better bala…

This ain’t a mass extinction yet

It has already started over last few hundred years. It's called the Holocene extinction or Anthropocene extinction. It is the sixth extinction.

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#169

"Extinct" means no longer existing, but the news ( https://3g.163.com/dy/article/GAVLG6910514TQ42.html ) says "The Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute in Yichang, Hubei Province, is the only institution that continuously conducts the breeding and release of Chinese sturgeon. Founded nearly 40 years ago, the Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute has made a series of advances in the artificial breeding of Chinese sturgeo…

Here it means "extinct in the wild", see the link from the post https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/extinctio...

Re: Chinese paddlefish, one of the world's largest fish, declared extinct

#170

I recall visiting the Yangtze river by boat tour around 1997. This was before the dam was built and the place was beautiful. Imagine the grand canyon but it was covered with lush vegetation. We visited a center where there were models of the three gorges dam would soon to be built. On the tour they said we would be the last tourists to see the Yangtze as it stands, after the dam, many landmarks/settlements would be f…

It's a pity they didn't put in any fish ladders, or perhaps that's too big of an ask on a major Dam project.

Anyone here with Dam experience wish to comment?

Post reply on HN