Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bird populations declining fast across North America

emagazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 322 posts

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#101

Post by codazoda »

christophilus wrote: post #75
jnwatson wrote: post #62

I’ve always imagined that we’re in this situation of creeping ecological and environmental collapse because of a long buildup over hundreds of years of bad priorities. But it isn’t. Most of the damage has taken place during our lives. Over half the carbon humans have emitted is after 1990. This isn’t an inherited problem. We’re doing this to ourselves. Right now.

I suspect, totally off the cuff, that this is more related to destruction of insect habitat, overuse of pesticides, cats, night time lighting, and a whole slough of other anti-insect man-made problems. Global warming plays a part, no doubt, but my guess would be that it’s not the primary problem. Almost all of the yards around me are insect deserts, and these yards are common across the US urban and suburban regions.…

So, I prefer a dark house at night. There are even studies that indicate crime is actually lower in the dark(1).

What other studies are there that indicate turning off the lights and reducing light pollution is a good idea?

1: The Chicago Alley Lighting Project (1998-2000)

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#102

Post by MAGZine »

colechristensen wrote: post #91
rowathay wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s an estimate based on fairly thorough research, which includes attaching collar cameras to outdoor cats. The carnage they wreak is impressive. Cats belong indoors, period.

It seems like this is just narrative based judgment. Everyone is all about how reintroduced wolves are so great for XYZ because predators do so many good things for environments and prey dynamics but cats in the environment are bad for ABC and they kill all the birds, etc. Most of the places which aren’t islands had predators in roughly the housecat niche before human civilization and many of those are lost. I think…

There's a lot going on here to try and avoid the statement that introducing predators to a given area's biome changes the balance of things.

This is especially true when you prop up that predator's existence by feeding it (and not letting its population remain harmonious with available food supply/prey).

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#103

Post by lambdadmitry »

titzer wrote: post #77
lambdadmitry wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are focusing on it plenty enough. The timeframes for serious climate change are measured in half-a-centuries, remember how much changed in the last decade? Solar got massively cheaper, it became possible to convince countries to reduce their carbon emissions purely through political pressure, billions get spent on energy and sustainability R&D. Hell, even nuclear is quickly losing it stigma after Europe haven't ha…

I do remember how much changed in the last decade. A very nice decline in solar power cost. But you know what? That didn't solve any problems. Emissions kept rising at an exponential rate, meaning the problem not only kept getting worse, it got worse at a faster rate . Adding solar capacity replaced no fossil fuel capacity. We're using more fossil fuels than ever. We are still on exponential growth. So the next decad…

Whose emissions? Western emissions (yes, including carbon embodied in imported goods) are falling for a decade both in Europe and in the US [1], both per capita and total. Sure, there are six more billion people on the planet that can't afford cutting edge grids and loads of renewables and nuclear just yet, but that's a temporary issue, the efficiencies of scale will take care of that.

That "exponential growth" is mostly about taking people out of poverty. Not nearly enough people in the West realise just how dire the average level of wealth is on this planet, which means any "degrowth" rhetoric is just outright misanthropical, and what's worse self-defeating. We still need to produce loads of stuff, and it will be produced regardless of what "enlightened" Westerners imagine about acceptable quality of life, unless you want to literally bomb India or Bangladesh for burning fossils.

Besides, I just don't see why do you imagine some sort of fundamental cutoff existing and being roughly at where we are. Humanity managed to grow from several tens thousands of nomads to soon ten billion people, most probably stabilising somewhere close to that number; why the cutoff was not overshot earlier? If it increased over time, what stops it from increasing any further?

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2 , see "Production vs. consumption-based CO₂ emissions, Europe" and the one below for the same but per-capita

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#104

Post by forgotmyoldname »

christophilus wrote: post #75
jnwatson wrote: post #62

I’ve always imagined that we’re in this situation of creeping ecological and environmental collapse because of a long buildup over hundreds of years of bad priorities. But it isn’t. Most of the damage has taken place during our lives. Over half the carbon humans have emitted is after 1990. This isn’t an inherited problem. We’re doing this to ourselves. Right now.

I suspect, totally off the cuff, that this is more related to destruction of insect habitat, overuse of pesticides, cats, night time lighting, and a whole slough of other anti-insect man-made problems. Global warming plays a part, no doubt, but my guess would be that it’s not the primary problem. Almost all of the yards around me are insect deserts, and these yards are common across the US urban and suburban regions.…

> And our new forests tend to be more monocrop than the woodlands of old.

This is a huge problem.

When "reforesting", all too often the effort is just planting rows of evenly spaced out pine trees. Pine needles are decidedly less edible than soft leaves, and the piles of needles on the ground don't exactly provide a good environment for smaller plants to grow and certainly aren't a good home for insects. People are essentially planting green deserts.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#105

Post by zip1234 »

moosey wrote: post #5

Until 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…

Tax/price the negative externalities.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#106

Post by karaterobot »

moosey wrote: post #5

Until 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…

Disagree with this. According to this article, birds aren't dying off because people choose the almighty dollar, they're dying because they smash into windows or are hunted by cats. The solution isn't to examine our relationship to abstractions versus reality, it's to put a screen on the window so the bird will notice it in time.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#107

Post by pdonis »

jwmhjwmh wrote: post #81
selestify wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes. However, using modern computing and communication technology, it would be possible to run a complex economy with calculations "in-kind". That is, most calculation could be done using the inputs and outputs of millions of processes. Such an economy could avoid the instability of our current economy with its cyclical booms and busts.

> using modern computing and communication technology, it would be possible to run a complex economy with calculations "in-kind".

No, it wouldn't. It's not a matter of the speed of the computing; it's a matter of the number of information channels available. The amount of information that would need to be processed to run a complex economy goes up exponentially with the size of the economy, but the number of information channels available only goes up linearly with the size of the economy. I think it was Hayek who first pointed this out more than a century ago.

The proper tool to "run" a complex economy is decentralized computing, otherwise known as a free market.

> Such an economy could avoid the instability of our current economy with its cyclical booms and busts.

The way to avoid cyclical booms and busts is for the government to stop messing with markets. The government should not be subsidizing some products and services and penalizing others. It should let the market work out what products and services are produced and consumed.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#108

Post by pyjarrett »

> blackbirds, sparrows and finches, account for over 90 percent

Among other factors which contribute to this, one thing not mentioned is that bird feeders and bird houses used to be a very common sight in American backyards, but do not seem to be anymore. I've only seen one house that has them now.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#109

Post by lambdadmitry »

titzer wrote: post #80
lambdadmitry wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It's also just that people don't remember the issues of the yesterday, they just disappear without much reflection. Remember ozone layer hole? Acid rains? Leaded petrol? Asbestos causing lung cancers? All sorted out when we realised they are problematic. Not immediately, not without some foot dragging and screaming, but sorted. We are great at solving problems. We just take a bit of time and convincing to get…

Just a reminder, but we solved, err, almost none of those things. The ozone layer hole has just barely stabilized, and might recover by 2075, acid rain was never a scientific concept, but a media scare, but leaded petrol did absolutely contaminate the air and water and that lead is still out there, so is most of the asbestos, we just let it be for the most part, as it is really expensive to deal with--I know, I have…

The ozone hole stabilising and recovering while we don't emit PFCs anymore is solving the issue. Acid rain is so real it has its own big Wiki article [0] and was solved through sulfur emission controls. Leaded petrol use stopped, asbestos is either phased out or has strict protocols for working with it rendering it harmless. Being "really expensive to deal with" is solving the problem, because the expense if the expense of making it safe.

You just moved the goalposts in every example. I'm not sure why would you do that, what's the underlying narrative you have in mind.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#110

Post by lambdadmitry »

darkmarmot wrote: post #89
lambdadmitry wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect you might be experiencing the classic freshman medical student syndrome. The papers (or medical studies) need to be contextualised, and that contextualisation takes lots more of knowledge than just reading some papers casually. Instead, I suggest reading IPCC reports. While quite stark and damning, they provide context for the predictions and balance speculation out, so you don't get "we're all going to die…

I suspect you might be suffering from "the hubris". We're quite well into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction -- and it's only accelerating.

I really fail to see how suggesting to read IPCC reports instead of random out-of-context papers is "hubris".
Post reply on HN