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Bird populations declining fast across North America

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Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#251

Post by AussieWog93 »

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…

There have been massive ecological disasters in command economies too, the most famous being the locust plagues that resulted from Mao's Four Pests Campaign.

Hell, before civilisation even existed you had humans wiping out megafauna right across the world.

Regardless of what economic system we have, a technologically advanced culture that values hamburgers and Doritos over biodiversity will trample on nature to get what they want.

(I'm not making the cynical argument that humans don't inherently care about the environment - in many Australian Aboriginal cultures, for example, environmental damage was considered as great a sin as murder - just that you can't blame capitalism for wider humanity's lack of care or respect for the environment.)

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#252

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #236
carbonguy wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> _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.

[deleted]

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#253

Post by larsbrinkhoff »

arbitrary_name wrote: post #241
throwawaylinux wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Hey, i just want to say i really deeply agree with you, and appreciate the time you are taking to share your views.

Agreed, cheers!

"We should reduce population somewhat."

"Yet you are part of the population. Curious!"

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#255

Post by littlecosmic »

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!

if we were kangaroos, rabbits, or deer, we would do a population cull on ourselves 'for our own good' (not that I think we should).

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#256

Post by mkotowski »

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…

> "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

> YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

> "So we can believe the big ones?"

> YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

(Death about belief and humanity, from Hogfather by Terry Pratchett)

> Until human society stops serving abstractions […]

Without abstraction, there is no human society to speak of. No government to organize large scale actions, no incentive to share ideas, no way to exchange goods from places where there is overabundance to the places in need of those resources. Wanting to maintain a livable environment, too is nothing but an abstract thought.

I would dare to claim that human society exists first and foremost thanks to our brains being able to abstract away some processes. Of course, it creates blind spots and shortcoming in the process, but they are in the end an acceptable cost.

> As a believer in the concept of memetics, it is clear that standing in defense of the real is a battle that is being lost, but the consequences will not be escaped forever.

Is it? Seems to me that more and more people are starting to be more proactive in attempts at preserving the nature. Too late? Maybe. Time will show.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#257

Post by register »

pdonis wrote: post #107
jwmhjwmh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 informat…

You mean you should let decide to monopolies and oligopolies what products and services we need right? There is no such thing as an ideal free market. Free market is an human model and therefore just an abstraction. The gap between theory and reality makes all the difference in the world.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#258

Post by mwattsun »

I learned from Stewart Brand recently that we are not in a 6th mass extinction event

Rethinking extinction

https://aeon.co/essays/we-are-not-edging-up-to-a-mass-extinc...

I was happy to hear this, because I took it as gospel that we were in one. I was told to worry about the population explosion and the coming ice age back in the 70's. So I take things with a grain of salt. (however, I am not a climate change denier)

So I doubt that birds a really dying off across N America. How is this determined? I've road tripped extensively around N America in all 50 states and all Canadian provinces and the most amazing thing is how empty most of the continent is. House cats are not roaming the wilderness killing birds.

If you told me birds are disappearing from urban areas I could find it more beleivable.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#260

Post by ekianjo »

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…

> and upset at me when I suggest that the current population is not supported by the earth sustainably,

because you are wrong. 100 years ago people said we would all starve when the world population reaches 1 billion people. then we not only not starved but became wealthier as well. Doom predictions are mostly damn wrong.

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