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Bird populations declining fast across North America

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Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#231

Post by throwawaylinux »

OtomotO wrote: post #230
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…

Antinatalism is a thing, yes. You're not alone and it doesn't matter if something is popular. Apart from the adoption rate (no pun intended)

Not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse or you actually think what I wrote equates to antinatalism, but no that's not my believe. No more than someone who believes the earth's carrying capacity is 100 billion saying that 200 billion is too many people would be antinatalism.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#232

Post by damnedspot »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #48
jonmc12 wrote: post #22

> The U.S North American Bird Conservation Initiative estimates that our pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone. The 100M pet cats in US on average kill 26 birds/yr? Doesn't seem right. When I track the source[1] of research, the estimates include both "own" and "unowned" cats and rely on some assumptions like "a correction factor to account for owned cats not returning all prey to owners"…

26 a year for an outdoor cat honestly seems low to me… that’s 1 every other week. I had one cat that I started keeping inside because it was approaching one per day. Without us they’d be doing this for sustenance, so in theory multiple kills a day.

Worse than for sustenance: I've read that about 2/3 of animals cats kill aren't eaten. They're doing it for sport...

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#233

Post by throwawaylinux »

Cullinet wrote: post #211
throwawaylinux wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say a 95% reduction in population would lead to a consistently healthy world. I said if global population was 5% of what it is now, greenhouse gas emissions would practically be a non problem.

What do you think about our ability to raise qualified adults enough to manage the continuing industrial sectors of the planet, if we were 5% of our present number? Subjectively and with zero rigor I think that possibly 150 to 100 years ago levels of population were capable of creating so much of the modern world. But from the Holocaust to Pol Pot, the Bangladesh civil war, mass exterminations of some of humanity's m…

I'm not saying 5% is the correct population mind you, several hundred million people is quite a lot though. Certainly enough to carry on civilization in my opinion.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#234

Post by eloff »

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…

I think because it's not practical yet. I'm not sure if it ever would be, but if SpaceX gets starship right it brings us one big step closer to that. Also I think most people would prefer to remain on Earth. But moving some kinds of industry to space could be useful. Asteroids contain an abundance of elements that are difficult to extract here on Earth. If much of the demand for them was also in space due to heavy industry there, that might make it viable. Having heavy industry in space like that could really open up orbit and the solar system to us.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#235

Post by throwawaylinux »

dwaltrip wrote: post #215
throwawaylinux wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Not really, 10 billion "simpler way of life" people have huge catastrophic footprints as well. Farming being a major one. But the point was not to come to a precise figure…

They probably get upset as they assume you are implying some moral judgment against having kids. Most people want kids, just like those before us for untold hundreds of thousands of years.

No I don't think it's that either: for example many seem to get especially upset when I suggest that most developed countries have naturally slightly declining populations so they should more or less be left alone rather than implement policies to drive population growth.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#236

Post by throwawaylinux »

carbonguy wrote: post #218
throwawaylinux wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Not really, 10 billion "simpler way of life" people have huge catastrophic footprints as well. Farming being a major one. But the point was not to come to a precise figure…

> _My_ world view deems no person "excess". So we don't have "too many" people? The world is not OVERpopulated? Because excess means "too many" or "more than needed," so if you're saying there's no excess, then you're saying there's not too many people. I definitely agree with you, by the way: the world does not have an excess of humans!

We have many more people on earth than can sustainably be supported without continuing environmental damage and depletion.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#237

Post by Yizahi »

JimTheMan wrote: post #120
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…

I doubt we will be Carbon Neutral by then. It means that CO2 levels MUST at least become constant. Looking at the current graph I see CO2 levels not only always increasing, but the rate of increase is also accelerating.

I strongly suspect we will blow all targets and will move along the most pessimistic scenario.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#238

Post by throwawaylinux »

carbonguy wrote: post #220
throwawaylinux wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The point is probably that, if you believe the biosphere is in crisis NOW, then waiting hundreds of years for human populations to decline is not a solution. There's an odd disconnect in the comments you've been making where you identify this problem of overpopulation, but seem extremely reticent to describe what you think should be done about this problem you've identified. Maybe I've missed it, and I plan to contin…

> The point is probably that, if you believe the biosphere is in crisis NOW, then waiting hundreds of years for human populations to decline is not a solution.

I didn't say that waiting for western countries to decline to 5% of their populations was solution. Hope that cleared things up for you.

> There's an odd disconnect in the comments you've been making where you identify this problem of overpopulation, but seem extremely reticent to describe what you think should be done about this problem you've identified. Maybe I've missed it, and I plan to continue reading the thread to see if that's the case, but if I haven't, let me ask you directly: what, if anything, should be done about human overpopulation?

What's really odd is that you think an observation is verboten if it does not come with any solutions! Very strange. I don't think your question is the big gotcha you're hoping for though. In general, policies should be geared toward limiting population growth or reducing it, which as I said then makes all other environmental efforts proportionately less difficult.

Most of the highest consuming countries have naturally declining populations, so one thing would be to leave those alone rather than institute growth policies. Another would be to invest in education, healthcare, and other quality of life measures in other countries which are shown to reduce population growth over time. Another one would be to end global environmental and trade agreements which incentivize countries to boost population and limit quality of life with per-capita concessions. For a few examples.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#239

Post by JimTheMan »

syshum wrote: post #146
JimTheMan wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Going carbon zero "right now" will just trade one disaster for another. And some argue an even bigger diaster. Energy is required for human life to live now. We cant go back with out massive famine and death. Just cutting boff energy production not get to Carbon zero NOW like many are demanding is not feesable, realistic, or moral

I'm advocating switching energy sources very rapidly and shrinking the population gradually.

The alternative is literally the death and famine that you are afraid of.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#240

Post by lotusko »

Can we also analyze these multilaterals ,like the behavioral level, birth rate, natural environment threat, human impact, geography and climate impact of birds from a more systematic perspective? moreover, the emergence of a phenomenon may be the occurrence of another pain point, or even irrelevant fields, which is a bit like neurons. The pain of a leg may be caused by some brain organization.
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