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Bird populations declining fast across North America

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Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#201

Post by throwawaylinux »

ip26 wrote: post #192
throwawaylinux wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not that at all actually. It's a plain head-in-sand denial of reality that I'm talking about encountering. Same kinds of thinking cause the exact same kinds of knee jerk reactions, denialism, conspiracy theories, etc. when you suggest green house gas emissions are not sustainable and should be reduced too. And I should say that you're wrong about that genocide assertion too. In most of the countries with the…

populations are naturally in slight decline on their own Yeah, by maybe 10-20% generation over generation. If your target population is 5% of today, and your strategy is to use the natural population decline of Western countries, you aren't getting to those levels for a good 15-25 generations. 400-700 years or so.

> Yeah, by maybe 10-20% generation over generation.

So my counter-example disproves the absurd claim that any population limitation or reduction requires or devolves into genocide.

> If your target population is 5% of today, and your strategy is to use the natural population decline of Western countries, you aren't getting to those levels for a good 15-25 generations. 400-700 years or so.

I'll assume that math works out for those stated assumptions. So what's the point?

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#202

Post by DantesKite »

titzer wrote: post #149
DantesKite wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feral pigeons are doing well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_pigeon

An invasive species that human civilization brought with it is doing well? Hold the phone, call off the emergency alert. Next we'll be hearing the insect decline is no problem because there are more mosquitoes than ever (which we also brought with us around the world).

I never said nor implied the latter. I’m literally just taking about how pigeons are doing surprisingly well despite bird populations decreasing.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#203

Post by AlanSE »

Groxx wrote: post #182
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…

It is also just general reading comprehension, as the post begins with what appears to be a fairly accurate summary of the study: > Experts believe that habitat loss due to agricultural development and intensification is most likely the driving factor. and then makes recommendations about tinting windows and cats. One does not imply the other. All of which also mirrors stuff like plastic recycling and water pollution…

Seems more complicated - industrial actions, technology, and personal preferences have intertwined roles.

The most effective thing we could do would be to tax beef (and other meats on a sliding scale), because this would decrease the acreage needed per person. People would howl because they like meat, consumers would also just absorb a lot of the tax instead of actually changing behavior. They'll break out arguments about inequality and social justice (but in truth they like the taste).

Vertical factory-like farms seem very promising to me. These will only target certain groups of foods, which tend to be very leafy and healthy. Government policies can play a big role in advancing this tech because economics are challenging and it needs some more scale to drive the cycle to further cost reduction.

I'm sure that direct farm incentives to reduce pesticide use could help. But there's a reason they're used, and there needs to be a game-plan that doesn't assume the farmer will make massive capital investment into the alternatives.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#204

Post by jdkee »

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…

2430 A.D. by Asimov.

"Earth has established a totally balanced and ecologically stable underground society (similar to that portrayed in Asimov's novel The Caves of Steel). But one man, Cranwitz, regarded as a deviant and eccentric because he keeps a few animals as pets, refuses to get rid of these animals, the last non-human inhabitants of the planet.

He is finally persuaded by his sector representatives to exterminate his pets, but also commits suicide. This leaves Earth in 'perfection', with its fifteen trillion inhabitants, twenty billion tons of human brain and the 'exquisite nothingness of uniformity'."

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#205

Post by throwawaylinux »

AlanSE wrote: post #194
throwawaylinux wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well, people get wildly irrational at me when I suggest that the only viable option here is for people to migrate from Earth into orbit. Space constraints will go away, because in 3-dimensional space everyone can live in as large of a house as they want but remain in a fast commute to urban centers of space cities. There are plenty of materials available on the moon to build whatever we want with. This can, of course…

It sounds like you agree that population levels on Earth are unsustainable and reducing them would help to preserve the environment.

Now certainly you can see why your ideas may be a little harder to accept as the scientific fact that human activity at even much smaller levels as today's population has caused terrible environmental destruction, extinction, etc., and with a lot more room to disagree, but so long as you approach the conversations humbly and with a willingness to consider differing opinions as you would have people consider your opinion I sympathize. Some people just react irrationally.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#207

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#208

Post by roca »

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.

It would be great if you could fix politics by breaking up a few villainous corporations but it's much more difficult than that. In America, Michael Bloomberg and Donald Trump have (in different ways) shown us the limits of the power of money in politics.

I'm pro-anti-trust and I believe that breaking up certain big corporations would a good thing. But that's a long way from "the problem is capitalism and imperialism" and the implication that eliminating those things is possible or would fix environmental problems. The Soviets were even worse for the environment.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#209

Post by cmurf »

Spooky23 wrote: post #127
cmurf wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Feral cats should be euthanized from a distance. Ask any infectious disease doc about cat bites. And think twice about feral kittens being all innocent, their teeth are like hypodermic needles, and can inject shit into joints. You can lose life and limb from kitty cat bites. These are not cool animals.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#210

Post by jwmhjwmh »

pdonis wrote: post #193
jwmhjwmh wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean by "information channels". Wouldn't a factory mainly just need to communicate its inputs and outputs the computer or computer cluster doing the calculation? Similarly for distribution centers. In particular, would much more information need to be transmitted in a planned economy than in a market economy? Remember that, while there are millions of products in the economy, any given center of…

> I'm not sure what you mean by "information channels". I mean information channels to and from the central computer. > Wouldn't a factory mainly just need to communicate its inputs and outputs the computer or computer cluster doing the calculation? If that's all it's doing, a free market does that fine. There is no need for any additional computation. Similarly for any other economic actor. If the central computatio…

You say "a free market does [calculation] fine," but it has obvious deficiencies that I have already remarked upon. As I have said before, the optimization problem can be solved on modern computers without the problems of the market. The inputs and outputs of individual processes are known in a market system, so logically this information can be centrally recorded for use by the planning process. If a production center doesn't produce output at exactly the expected rate, the expected rate can be adjusted.

About computing capacity: Maybe free market capacity scales exponentially (with the number of actors?) but I don't see how it could. If an economy of n actors has a "capacity" of e^n, the average capacity of an actor would be e^n/n, which is about the same as e^n. How could an individual actor have such capacity? Perhaps my analysis here is mistaken.

Regarding government intervention, let's look at an extreme example. Do you think that, during World War II, the U.S. should have structured its wartime economy around free market principles? Did it make things worse by not doing so?

About government planning for the future: First of all, social security gets gutted because the U.S. government is not a government of the people. Business interests have too much control (that is, more than no control at all.) You also say governments are shortsighted because of elections. Even if this is the case, this is not a necessary part of government. The governance model described in the book I linked is based on sortition rather than election. China's current system, while authoritarian, is also able to plan for the future.

It seems you agree that China investing in solar power is beneficial to it, even if you disagree on the reason. So you agree that, all else being equal, it is better for China to have invested in solar power than to not have done so. In this case, this is a clear example of a government acting in the market with a good outcome. This contradicts your previous point.

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