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Bird populations declining fast across North America

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Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#291

Post by pdonis »

register wrote: post #257
pdonis wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> There is no such thing as an ideal free market.

Sure there is. A free market is a market in which all transactions are voluntary. That's the natural state of a market. We see many markets that are not free only because governments either prevent people from engaging in transactions they would otherwise choose to make, or force people to engage in transactions they would otherwise not choose to make (the obvious example of this is coercive taxation).

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#292

Post by willob33 »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #251
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 w…

[dead]

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#293

Post by dgroshev »

meowkit wrote: post #200
lambdadmitry wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really fail to see how suggesting to read IPCC reports instead of random out-of-context papers is "hubris".

> I suspect you might be experiencing the classic freshman medical student syndrome. That is hubris. I have skimmed the action reports for policy makers from the IPCC. A humanist approach to the nihilism and fatalism around climate change might be that the urgency presented is what is required to make progress in a time frame where we don't meet horrific consequences. In other words, bias and exaggerate so that we ta…

You call it "humanist", I call it "lying to the public to convince them that the end is nigh and to force the behaviour you want". This is not just morally repugnant, but also can backfire spectacularly as truth tends to come out in the end. In fact, arguably that's what makes people tune out already, you can listen to "Arctic will be completely ice free next year" and believe it only so many times.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#294

Post by AlanSE »

carbonguy wrote: post #216
AlanSE wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 suspect part of the reason people have a strong response to your suggestion is that it's patently impractical, and thus easy to pick apart. To offer one small critique: you suggest that we first need "people to migrate from Earth into orbit," THEN "take full intentional control of the planet's climate" - surely if we have the ability to fully control Earth's climate, we don't need everyone in orbit? And, since we h…

Your comment doesn't add up. I need to ask more questions to triage what your positions are. Let's start with the fairly basic premise that virtually all of us agree on:

1. Current human impact on the planet is unsustainable

Now add these premises:

2. As developing world changes, our impact gets worse 3. As our own standards of living increase, our impact gets worse

Your vision of the Earth doesn't have space migration as part of our path to sustainability. Because of this, you're fighting increasing demands while at the same time needing to reduce total impact dramatically. Say that the equation is:

Impact = (number of people) x (quality of life) x (efficiency)

You can reject either (2) or (3) or both at the cost of some human harm. Most pro-tech people tend to not reject either of these, but you might be an exception. Because of that, you have 2 increasing factors, because you don't have control over the number of people are we're locked into growth for 50 years or something demographically, even with birth rates quickly falling below replacement (which they haven't yet).

There's only 1 factor left in your toolbox - efficiency. We live better but at a lower impact to the planet. Agreed, that's great, but because of (1) and (2) we already have high expectations of this factor. On top of that, we need truly dramatic total reductions in total impact. So if we need 2x improvement (which is probably underestimating) to stay level, then we need maybe 8x or 16x to get where we need to be so that the Earth is moderately healthy. That would be great, but this is magical unicorn-ish thinking. Is this what you're counting on? I want to know.

We can control Earth's climate today by Sulfur geoengineering, which I'm worried that we will not start until it's too late, and even more worried that it may not be globally coordinated which would be disastrous. This is just a band aid, we still need to virtually eliminate Carbon emissions on a time scale we're not prepared for. As long as we are here, then climate intervention will be done for us (our own selfish needs), not for the health of the biosphere.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#295

Post by [deleted] »

hunterb123 wrote: post #247
micromacrofoot wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…it’s a 50 year trend

Pollution, windows, and cats appeared in 1971? 1975 is when the first commercial wind farm went up, maybe you got something :p If it was all pollution we'd see improvements as we decrease emissions. (we have been since 2005)

[deleted]

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#296

Post by micromacrofoot »

hunterb123 wrote: post #247
micromacrofoot wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…it’s a 50 year trend

Pollution, windows, and cats appeared in 1971? 1975 is when the first commercial wind farm went up, maybe you got something :p If it was all pollution we'd see improvements as we decrease emissions. (we have been since 2005)

Rough estimate is that there were ~30 million housecats in 1970 versus ~90 million today

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-the-house-cat-...

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#297

Post by micromacrofoot »

cheese_goddess wrote: post #280
micromacrofoot wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, but cats and birds have existed together for, I don't know, millions of years? Without cats causing a mass extinction of birds. And why is that?

the increase of cats as pets seems like a possible factor, one rough estimate says the US has 3X more housecats than it did in 1970... so it certainly seems possible that we've thrown off a more natural equilibrium

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-the-house-cat-...

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#298

Post by utexaspunk »

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…

We need fusion yesterday

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#299

Post by utexaspunk »

qqqwerty wrote: post #97
nitrogen wrote: post #84

I've noticed an even more disturbing trend of learned helplessness and misanthropic Malthusianism in these threads over the years. Not a single comment, at time of writing, has had a positive tone, and there are very few actionable suggestions. No consideration is given to the many positives in modern life, nor to realistic, productive tradeoffs. Everyone wants to wail in dismay at the perceived impending doom and do…

There are plenty of folks on HN who are trying to solve climate change, myself included. But if you spend enough time in the industry, it becomes apparent that it is incredibly difficult to move the needle without significant government level intervention. For example, no matter how hard you try, there will be no profitable carbon capture venture under our current regulatory regime. Every scheme to sell some sort of…

Sadly, the most profitable use for the CO2 might be piping it to an aging oil field and using it for a [CO2 flood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_flooding) to recover more oil. So even when you're doing good you're still doing bad. :\

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#300

Post by lambdadmitry »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #187
jjoonathan wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem quite convinced that you have the carrying capacity argument correct. I can understand why: it's really easy to come up with doomsday arguments of this form. Extrapolate any rising trend against any perceived constraint and bingo bango you have your prophecy. Thing is, people have been doing this since the dawn of history, and they've been spectacularly wrong since the dawn of history. Doomer models just nev…

Complete rubbish. We're past the sustainable carraying capacity because we have already brought about mass extinction events, irreversible destruction of habitat and environment with our existing population (and it even started when the population was far lower, it's just that it's been accelerating). I have the counter example. There is no "model". Also it's strange you accuse me of being a spectacularly wrong doome…

> We're past the sustainable carraying capacity because we have already brought about mass extinction events, irreversible destruction of habitat and environment with our existing population

People drove megafauna extinct before they invented the wheel. Great Britain lost most of its forest, irreversibly (for at least next few millennia), before Romans arrived. Romans, in turn, demolished half of Europe worth of forests to support iron production. Taking that argument seriously it means that "the sustainable carrying capacity" is way below what we had in 300 BCE.

Alternatively, it just suggests that there is no inherent carrying capacity, it's always of function of technology. As technology changes, the carrying capacity increases. Thankfully, our technology improves faster than ever before in the last few centuries and continues to accelerate. This suggests your core assumption is likely to become obsolete in not too distant future, even if it isn't now.

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