I have been visiting Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for about 5 years, once every winter.
It is depressing to experience this decline in such a short span.
Bird populations declining fast across North America
51–60 of 322 posts
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#52I think this and many of the similar problems plaguing the earth will only be solved with a drastic reduction of people on the planet. Get the population down to 1 or 2 billion of us and a lot of these issues go away. Deforesting, not an issue if the demand for lumber is cut down by 80%. Same for coal, oil, paving, lithium... It all gets solved with just less people. 8 billion people is just too much, even if we all…
I don't think that eco-fascism is the answer. The cause of this problem isn't people, it is capitalism and imperialism.
1/3rd of all emissions are produced by 20 companies
The US Military alone puts out more carbon than the top 60 carbon emitters.
“The Earth is not dying-it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.” — Utah Phillips
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference between abstraction and reality is all the little details that get excluded from abstractions. Consider, people cooking at home are creating real value that doesn’t get captured in GDP, which means maximizing GDP may is not maximizing the actual economy. The difference is not so critical when people are starving, but the difference continues to grow until maximizing GDP starts harming the economy.
There are a lot more differences than that. You are communicating a subjective model of reality, one model of many, many models.
Within the context of a Model. Models that don’t capture the very large scale effects are useless and therefore not worth talking about. What’s left is models that used to capture large scale effects and all the smaller effects that where never captured by the model.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#54Pigeons seem to be doing well.
Especially passenger pigeons, not a single decline in 107 years.
Ouch. (they're exinct already).
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#55the single most terrifying experience of my life has been to read biology conservation articles these last two years, coupled with my increasing understanding of climate change (literature). we often forget that ecosystems (that we barely understand) provide us with crucial benefits and should be considered as (like many planetary scientists say) Life Support Systems.
if there remain historians a century from now, i'd be not surprised they collectively call decisions taken now as "The Mistake".
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#56I've been counting the flocks of Canadian Geese sizes that stop by our local ponds. Last head count was 8 individuals together. I thought I recall seeing 20 years ago dozens of head counts, maybe 24?
I live in a major migration path. A month ago, they were still paired up in couples. A couple weeks ago, they started flying in small groups. This past week, I've seen large flocks of geese in the dozens, and a flock of 80 sandhill cranes. The flocks are definitely gathering, but they seem to be running late this year, so you may see larger groups in a couple weeks.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#57Maybe this is related to declines in insect populations? I mean, if birds eat insects and there aren't as many insects, you'd expect there to be less birds as well.
This was my immediate thought as well. Last year and the year before the reports were about insect populations at historic lows. Now, we hear about the next level in the food chain.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#58Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over things that are real, then real things will continually face consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these abstractions. Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will not be these shared drea…
But isn't the problem that these abstractions exist precisely to help coordinate real things? The economy (and by extension, to a limited degree, the stock market) directly influences a lot of real things and basic needs.
I think the problem is that there's lots of hidden costs or incorrect assumptions in much of the way society functions. We overestimate how rational people are, many costs get swept under the rug or ignored as "something for future people to deal with", certain costs are just hidden, we fail to account for corruption and fraud, and so forth and so on.
It's not really that we use abstractions or models, it's that many or all of them are incorrect, and we proceed as if they're correct, even when we seem to know they're not.
I don't think this is just limited to the environment. Sometimes I wonder if this is some defining feature of our age, rampant fraud or disingenuousness. Maybe it's always been this way, and maybe it doesn't matter.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#59Windmills https://abcbirds.org/blog21/wind-turbine-mortality/ edit: yes cats do too, let's try to talk about it all, cat genocide if you want, windmill improvements too.
The ranked list of human-associated stuff that kills birds goes something like windows >> cats >> pollution >> cars >> windmills.
Alright, can we get numbers going then, let's work through this.
That's the most substantive response yet, let's source it and drill down solutions for each.
Windmills are the most recent change I can think of to explain this trend.
Cats, cars, and pollution have been killing birds, but maybe it's ramped up.
Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America
#60Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over things that are real, then real things will continually face consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these abstractions. Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will not be these shared drea…
That seems a bit of a dichotomous view on a complex web of interconnected "realities" and "abstractions", and I'm not sure if "real" is a great term for an opposite of an abstraction, which is also real in a lot of ways. Otherwise you are getting _very_ close to the N/S dichotomy in Jungian psychology and the Myers-Briggs type model :D and the growth idea there is transcendence of the dichotomy, bringing strengths of…
If you prefer moral relativism, let’s go. You’re not my problem; I don’t believe in your net worth or money. That’s your subjective reality, stop tethering me to your memes.
Even religious people eat.
Let’s dispense with the thought ending semantic wank.
Formal human languages are not as old as humans organizing around their biological impulse. All cultures have a history of oppression and violence, none are sacrosanct or deserve special treatment.
The past has never been a concrete anchor. I don’t see a British flag around my neighborhood, and money holders are fine gate keeping the masses when they’re handed stacks of cash.
There is evidence there is no truth to many beliefs.