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Bird populations declining fast across North America

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Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#111

Post by animal_spirits »

codazoda wrote: post #101
christophilus wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

If you are interested in light pollution there is a fantastic documentary I would recommend called "Saving the Dark" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fHxNn-FEnc

Light pollution seems to be the easiest type of pollution to fix

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#112

Post by ericmay »

MAGZine wrote: post #102
colechristensen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> 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).

Yeeeeeeah but that’s true of all human cultivation of animals, including bees, cows, and tilapia. I mean I’m also not sure what you’re getting at with the feeding of cats thing. I don’t know anybody that’s like hardcore pro-feral cat. Most people just have an indoor cat which kills 0-1 birds/year and feed it cat food.

But anyway to my interpretation of the Op’s point. Who cares how many birds die when (if you’re like me - Canadian Geese) they’re getting run over by cars and starving to death and can’t replenish their numbers because their nesting grounds were turned into a parking lot? This problem, like sooooo many others stem from our terrible relationship with nature and inability to admit we already know how to build towns and cities in harmony with nature and we don’t need to invent crap like highways or suburbs.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#113

Post by cmurf »

karaterobot wrote: post #106
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.

And make outdoor cats illegal. An unpopular opinion no doubt. But from nature photographers to veterinarians, the outdoor cat is not good for anyone, including the cat.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#114

Post by Retric »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #47
Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier 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.

GDP is a useful abstraction that can help guide policies. Do you have concrete examples of its unjust use that were supported by economists? I don’t know any government that considers maximizing GDP as its primary goal.

Maximizing GDP doesn’t need to be the primary goal to as you say guide policies. There are plenty of policies aimed to increase economic growth as measured by GDP.

Economists however are on all sides of this issue, it isn’t some monolithic field where everyone agrees on even basic ideas.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#115

Post by ostenning »

cmurf wrote: post #113
karaterobot wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And make outdoor cats illegal. An unpopular opinion no doubt. But from nature photographers to veterinarians, the outdoor cat is not good for anyone, including the cat.

Its a solid point. I'm not sure what the average ownership of cats are, but I would imagine every 3rd or 4th person in my friendship network to own one. I would imagine at least over 100 million cats in north America to which most owners probably let them outside to hunt wild life.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#116

Post by nlittlepoole »

pessimizer wrote: post #90
roca wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1/3rd of all emissions are produced by 20 companies Sure, but mostly they're producing goods and services that millions/billions of people consume. Getting rid of those 20 companies won't change anything.

It will get rid of 20 massive power centers that move politics for their own benefit. Turning those 20 companies into 500 companies would allow for political change that is impossible now.

No it wouldn't. You are understimating the number of westerners who quite prefer their standard of living and either don't care or have theological beliefs that allow them to not care about the consequences of their lifestyles. There is a cultural change that has to preceed the political one

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#117

Post by hactually »

ericmay wrote: post #112
MAGZine wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> 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). Yeeeeeeah but that’s true of all human cultivation of animals, including bees, cows, and tilapia. I mean I’m also not sure what you’re getting at with the feeding of cats thing. I don’t know anybody that’s like hardcore pro-feral cat. Most people just h…

an indoor cat should be killing 0; not a range of 0-1.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#118

Post by immmmmm »

colechristensen wrote: post #98
immmmmm wrote: post #55

the 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…

Fear sells. It also convinces people to get into science and biases their work and conclusions (not all of it, but definitely some of it that gets headlines). We aren’t preserving the animals for themselves, in a geological time scale the animals will be fine, extinction and population contraction are just part of the dynamics. We are preserving animals because we like them and it seems a high quality thing to do. Th…

the doom narrative indeed sells, i has even been coined "doomism" by scientists like Michael Mann et al.

i am however talking here of a personal literature review of several thousand papers over several years. not headlines.

as a physicist i do not like neither the dynamics, nor the cinematic (in the physical sense of it) of all this.

so yes, but that's not my point.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#119

Post by fleddr »

The eagerness shown by some commenters to emphasize the damage done by cats, and preferably have it codified immediately in law that they are to stay inside, is typical.

It's not that cats don't do that damage, it's the hypocrisy.

Cats don't wreck the planet, we do. We destroy natural habitats at planetary scale, and not just to have a place to live. We cut forests for cheap palm oil. We spill our garbage everywhere. We always go for the short term thoughtless approach.

And in those places that we do live, we ensure it's as hostile to life as possible. Lifeless lawns with useless exotic plants, useless lights that for some reason have to be on all night.

We've know this for decades and rather than to try and find a more balanced way, we doubled down. More cars and bigger cars. Bigger houses. A house stuffed with electronics. Eating more meat. AC. Cheap air travel. Throw away consumer goods. Excessive packaging.

The cat thing is performative, like most of our "morals". An easy win to show that we care, but we don't. Not at all.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#120

Post by JimTheMan »

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.

There are simply too many of us and 'growth' will ultimately doom us unless we act fast.

It won't matter if the percentage of clean energy is 50% if we are still emitting greenhouse gasses at 1990 levels. We need carbon zero yesterday to be honest, but the world is only just now waking up to this fact...

The world going Carbon neutral by 2050-2060? The damage we are going to do between now and then will be phenomenal. ( if we ever get there...)

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