Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

Post by undersuit » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 2:14 AM UTC

flavius29663 wrote: post #202

inawarminister wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK Africans, that is, the Bantu and related West African peoples, went directly from Neolithic to Iron Age, skipping Bronze. For Mediterranean, it's mainly because the whole region, Iraq, and Northwest India/Pakistan were already integrated together as a trading unit, with factors coming hp from Sumer and Assyria to trade with Dilmun, Indus Valley, and Anatolia. Then the Phoenicians traded tin from Iberia and all…

Did the Africans discover iron on their own, or was the knowledge imported?

Post by version_five » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 2:15 AM UTC

fnimick wrote: post #249

version_five wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Happy to see more people celebrating human achievement amidst all the usual doom and gloom that people like to leverage to push their political beliefs. The GP should be commended. Seriously, it's a bit tiring that [vegetarians] people that want to control what I eat get a pass for posting the same tired stuff every time it came up. If any other fanatic jumped in with their own agenda at every conceivable junctu…

Maybe because your meat consumption and demand for increasing land and water use to satiate your meat consumption is ruining the planet for the rest of us? If I could trap all the "unrepentant meat eaters" in a dome and let you ruin your own environment without broiling the rest of us, I wouldn't have a problem with your choices.

Post by pfdietz » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 2:17 AM UTC

thegrimmest wrote: post #163

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extirpation of keystone species causes the rest of the food chain to become disrupted, resulting in proliferation of some species and extinction of others. The consequences for humans are zoonotic diseases and loss of natural food sources.

This is basically bioforming, and I'm sure it's more complicated than "removing keystone species == always bad". For instance, sperm whales compete significantly with humans for tuna fish, making up about 50% of the fish eaten. As our demand for tuna grows, wouldn't exterminating sperm whales help us meet that demand?

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 2:20 AM UTC

arcticbull wrote: post #269

prvc wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Almost 40% of all food in the US is wasted each year and that's enough to feed every hungry person on earth. You have a feasible plan to distribute all the wasted food in the U.S. to all the world's hungry people that you'd like to share?

Nope, but we can reduce waste by raising prices for instance by ending farm subsidies. We can mandate the removal of (or at minimum the regulation of) expiration dates on food. Also, educating people about food. People assume that milk goes bad the second the clock rolls over on the unregulated 'best-by' date, so there's incentive to goose the numbers to raise sales. Further, slightly sour milk can be used as a subst…

Post by 9991 » Fri, Oct 28, 2022, 2:21 AM UTC

virgildotcodes wrote: post #217

9991 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The human perspective. There are extraordinarily few chickens participating in HN comment threads.

On a planet filled with millions of species, is it ethically defensible to consider these matters from the perspective of just one?