Bird populations declining fast across North America • Hacker News Board

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#171

Post by willob33 » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

themodelplumber wrote: post #13

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…

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…

You’re flogging the abstraction known as English.

None of these philosophers old works need to be given any weight and working with you to decipher your personal beliefs is not my problem.

The abstractions of physics and biology provide the evidence necessary given the context.

Perhaps sit and ruminate as you wish. Those dead men have no capture of my perception. Paulo Freire said we have no obligation to import the jargon and implied behavior of our captors; I won’t submit to Christian rule; why rich mens dollars? The political capture of our economic behavior is a cudgel I’m tired of being bashed with, and the measurable effects are where I’ll put my effort.

If you prefer to equivocate them away with deference to endless semantic recitation, that’s fine, because I know that means you won’t be in the “real” way. You’ll be here proselytizing others just how none of the effort is going how it should.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#172

Post by scythe » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

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).

>you prop up that predator's existence by feeding it

... and constrain its population by neutering it, and reduce its hunting behavior by keeping it inside most of the time.

Cats are native to North America. Animals in North America have evolved to avoid cats. This is not some island in the Pacific Ocean which forms the only habitat for a rare flightless bird with no natural fear of felines.

I live in a dense suburb of Providence which is surrounded by roads and buildings for miles in every direction. There are cats running all over the neighborhood, which is very cute and fun to watch. I do not own a cat and never have.

You know what else this place is full of? Squirrels, rabbits, and several colors of loud-ass birds. Apparently the cats aren't quite the slaughter machines they're made out to be.

Now, I would absolutely agree that if you live in a "wild" rural area, especially in or near a wetland/high altitude/island ecosystem, you need to keep the cats inside. But in a city, full of animals that have co-evolved with humans and their pets for centuries and in some cases millenia? Give me a break.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#173

Post by huetius » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

selestify wrote: post #16

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…

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.

The problem has to do with the order of values which is evinced by our economic activity. Ideally, money should be ordered towards facilitating the exchange of real things, which are in turn ordered towards a good life, and so on to higher meaning beyond that, but that is not what is transpiring. We can see this not only in the huge tranches of the economy devoted to trivial or deceptive things, but also in routine decisions: be they irresponsible, greedy personal choices, or larger organizational habits which have devastated human communities and the environment for the sake of making a number in a spreadsheet go up. Further, this takes the form of a novel crisis in that the scale and speed at which the consequences keep coming are without precedent among societies with similar vices in the past.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#174

Post by throwawaylinux » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:25 AM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #129

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.

That's not what the original paper says. This is why you want to read the actual scientific paper and not the article about it. The researchers, in the article's text, state: > "Steep declines in North American birds parallel patterns of avian declines emerging globally (14, 15, 22, 24). In particular, depletion of native grassland bird populations in North America, driven by habitat loss and more toxic pesticide use…

This illustrates why it's a terrible shame that the overpopulation topic has effectively been silenced and demonized in science conservationism and environmentalism.

I frequently get people becoming wildly irrational and upset at me when I suggest that the current population is not supported by the earth sustainably, let alone a much larger one. They'll angrily insist that the earth's "carrying capacity" is 20, 50, 100 billion people! Or that countries should be looking to increase their populations, or that natural population stability and decline is a terrible thing.

As though we have not _already_ caused (and are continuing to cause) a great extinction event almost entirely before any significant effects from greenhouse gas emissions have made an impact.

Habitat destruction, chemical pollution, mining, mineral and fossil fuel depletion, water depletion and contamination, farming practices and monocultures, human interference, etc., are all just horrific, are responsible for massive destruction and extinction of the environment, and aren't all suddenly going to get magic'ed away the instant we somehow get the GHG pollution thing under control (if we ever do).

The funny thing about that is, if our population was a very healthy, say, 5% of its current level, greenhouse gas emissions would be practically a non-issue too. The problem would literally be solved. Gradually moving toward cleaner and more renewable sources of course should and would happen, but while that was responsibly and efficiently changing, there would be no imminent climate catastrophe occurring.

EDIT: It's happening again.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#175

Post by aradox66 » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

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…

In a geological time scale, human extinction due to ecological fallouts is also a blip.

I agree that the ecological crisis is not existential on a geological scale, but that's an irrelevant scale for questions of human civilization, where we are indeed facing some very bad problems.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#176

Post by jollybean » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:38 AM UTC

pirate787 wrote: post #158

Spooky23 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I blame online communities for this. Cat ladies are insane and organized now. In my city, there’s a group distributing shelters and placing them in various outdoor areas to keep feral cats alive over the winter. They are as nutty as the pigeon feeders, except the cats kill everything in sight.

We have a group like this, which feeds a couple dozen feral cats on "Kitty Cat Lane." Of course there is science behind the insanity -- toxoplasmosis infections from the cats they love.

Enough with the petty, denigrating attacks people helping mostly harmless animals, which is a generally good thing. These rescuers/helpers run 'neuter and release' programs and are keen on having population control, not increasing the number of rogue cats.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#177

Post by jollybean » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:42 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #165

pirate787 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a group like this, which feeds a couple dozen feral cats on "Kitty Cat Lane." Of course there is science behind the insanity -- toxoplasmosis infections from the cats they love.

Our local Nextdoor exploded when some particularly nutty cat vigilante started stealing cats and spaying them. I think as society sprawls out and folks have fewer kids, this stuff gets escalated.

These comments are disturbingly out of touch.

'Neuter and Release' programs are common, supported and sanctioned by animal shelters, usually local vets provide their services for free, and the point is to provide basic medical for the animals while at the same time trying to control excess populations.

Calling them 'Nutty cat lady vigilantes' would be like calling people 100 years ago providing shelter for abused women 'Marriage Wreckers'.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#178

Post by toqy » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:45 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #174

photochemsyn wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the original paper says. This is why you want to read the actual scientific paper and not the article about it. The researchers, in the article's text, state: > "Steep declines in North American birds parallel patterns of avian declines emerging globally (14, 15, 22, 24). In particular, depletion of native grassland bird populations in North America, driven by habitat loss and more toxic pesticide use…

This illustrates why it's a terrible shame that the overpopulation topic has effectively been silenced and demonized in science conservationism and environmentalism. I frequently get people becoming wildly irrational and upset at me when I suggest that the current population is not supported by the earth sustainably, let alone a much larger one. They'll angrily insist that the earth's "carrying capacity" is 20, 50, 1…

> I frequently get people becoming wildly irrational and upset at me when I suggest that the current population is not supported by the earth sustainably

Arguing about how many people the earth can sustain is pointless without defining what kind of life you expect people to be living. How many billions can capitalism + western rates of consumption sustain and for how long vs a simpler way of life.

> aren't all suddenly going to get magic'ed away

and neither are all the people deemed excess by your world view, which is probably the part people get riled up about.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#179

Post by jjoonathan » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #174

photochemsyn wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what the original paper says. This is why you want to read the actual scientific paper and not the article about it. The researchers, in the article's text, state: > "Steep declines in North American birds parallel patterns of avian declines emerging globally (14, 15, 22, 24). In particular, depletion of native grassland bird populations in North America, driven by habitat loss and more toxic pesticide use…

This illustrates why it's a terrible shame that the overpopulation topic has effectively been silenced and demonized in science conservationism and environmentalism. I frequently get people becoming wildly irrational and upset at me when I suggest that the current population is not supported by the earth sustainably, let alone a much larger one. They'll angrily insist that the earth's "carrying capacity" is 20, 50, 1…

It's not so much the abstract idea of depopulation that has people upset at you, it's that every concrete proposal for getting there involves genocide and suffering.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#180

Post by et-al » Tue, Dec 14, 2021, 2:54 AM UTC

lambdadmitry wrote: post #65

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the pandemic and my society's inability to deal with it To put the doom and gloom in context, we had a novel virus go from virtually zero to pandemic in the course of a few months. Within weeks we had working treatments. Within a year, effective vaccines. Less than two years from first publication, and over 4 billion people have been inoculated. All within the systems of abstractions you decry. We're messing up a l…

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…

I wouldn't be that optimistic. A lot of these problems the developed world "solved" by offshoring production to countries with looser environmental regulations.

And it's not like our new technologies don't bring about new problems. E.g. pesticide use and microplastics everywhere.