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

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

#311

Post by tpush »

nemo44x wrote: post #259
eyko wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we have discovered methods that allow anyone to enjoy this. This is great progress. Just because we can produce (and consume) vast amounts of meant doesn't mean we must. Restraint is a virtue.

You sound like a Catholic. Just because we can have sex doesn’t mean we should, etc. What is the point of restraint? To what end? I should suffer to make your ideal of how the works ought to be a reality? I’m not into your religion.

> What is the point of restraint? To what end?

You know, stopping climate change. The thing that's gonna keep your grandchildren from eating meat at all if people don't stop consuming so much of it.

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

#312

Post by therealdrag0 »

myshpa wrote: post #112
jonnycomputer wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has total biomass (not just wild biomass) declined? I would expect it has, because most modern farming tries very hard to make sure the only thing growing is the thing that makes the farmer profit. A lot of farms are ecological wastelands; or rather, they sustain less biomass than they could.

I suppose it has. Farm land has 2% of a forest biomass (iirc). Agriculture (meat/dairy/sea-food) is worse than most want to acknowledge. Land and marine ecosystems are decimated (70-90% die off, incl. soil & plankton). We've killed off almost everything. The change has to come, there is nothing more important imho, or we'll be heading directly into blade-runner like future. Personally I would prefer star trek. [think…

Tbf a some farmland used to be wild grassland not forestland. Though clearly much forest is cleared for farms as well.

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

#313

Post by therealdrag0 »

beauzero wrote: post #33
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #27

You have any prepper ideas about surviving an apocalypse and living off the land, forget about meat. It'll be crickets or some such. All the wild meat in the world will be gone in like 4 days due to massive over-hunting.

If you ever look in old barns that have been there before the Great Depression (few but there are some) you will see rat traps with holes drilled in them. They were used to hang on trees to trap squirrels. Apparently this worked well the first year...not so good for the decade after that.

Are you saying there was a great squirrel die-off due to trapping?

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

#314

Post by fnimick »

xupybd wrote: post #308
fnimick wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You can just accept that meat is a human food. Animals die for it. The natural world involves animals eating other animals. If you have to kill male calves because you're on a dairy farm then you kill the male calves. It's really not that shocking.

The natural world also involves species consuming their entire food supply and then going extinct. Or polluting their ecosystem until they are unable to survive.

I would hope we are intelligent enough to avoid that. Meat eating is contributing to both.

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

#315

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #52
nicoburns wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess that depends greatly upon where you live. Some places are sparsely populated, and I suspect it's these rural people who would have the best chance of surviving in an apocalypse. The earth is a big place. There's a non-trivial chance that some people wouldn't be affected at all.

There are a LOT of people. Even a small percentage remaining, would quickly deplete all available wildlife. E.g. 1 deer will feed a family of four for a week. Or somewhere about that. There are approximately 100 deer per square mile in the US midwest. If population were depleted to a tiny fraction of what it is now, there could still be about one family per section. They would deplete the deer population to zero in 2…

There are a lot of people...right now, but in an apocalypse scenario, a huge number of those people will die off before getting a chance to hunt. Some to starvation, some to other humans, and many many to whatever event is causing all this in the first place.

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

#316

Post by lo_zamoyski »

fnimick wrote: post #272
virgildotcodes wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could we use this to justify factory farming humans, in that the agony and terror they experience is eclipsed by the good of them being bred into being rather than not existing at all? We would certainly have more humans being born in that case than now, is it a negative thing that we are not doing this?

I was going to say - I know where the parent comes down on abortion laws. Given that they obviously think an unwanted child being born into an impoverished family unable to support them is still a net positive.

What a strange way to judge the value of a human life.

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

#317

Post by therealdrag0 »

rcarr wrote: post #37
chrishare wrote: post #14

Devastatingly sad. Are plant-based meat replacements and lab-grown meat going to help fix this?

One day, whilst eating a burger in a pub and thinking about the food chain, I ran a thought experiment in my head. I imagined being hungry and someone offering me a choice between a ham sandwich or a vegan sandwich. I could only select the ham sandwich if I was willing to shoot a pig in the head. I wouldn’t have to butcher the pig or anything else, just be responsible for its death. I decided that I would choose the…

2 short thoughts.

1. Just eating less meat would go along way without the social awkwardness. Have a burger with friends once a week who cares. But reduce otherwise.

2. I’ve been drinking huel and it has good nutrients and lots of protein. Might be easier to be vegan without feeling like trash these days.

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

#318

Post by virgildotcodes »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #303
virgildotcodes wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I think they may agree that we are the most powerful species on Earth (debatable, if you account for the impacts of bacteria, viruses, trees, etc.), but that's distinct from agreeing that our lives are the most valuable. I think most humans would begrudgingly agree that white men, americans, europeans, etc. are the most powerful group on Earth. I don't think they'd agree that their lives are the most valuable…

The question wasn't powerful, it was important. Humans are roughly interchangeable with each other, so in a wide view they can be roughly equally important. But we're capable of so many things nothing else is.

> The question wasn't powerful, it was important.

I know. I looked to see which way the rest of the world could see us as being some synonym of important, powerful is the likely one.

The way that "important" was likely meant in this context was "valuable", which I then addressed in my comment.

Again, even the power is debatable. Single celled organisms and plants have a far greater impact on the world than we do.

Valuable is not really up for debate. A nonhuman animal would not say that the life of a human is more valuable than their own any more than a disempowered person would say that the life of a powerful person is more valuable than their own.

>Humans are roughly interchangeable with each other, so in a wide view they can be roughly equally important.

What? Some are surgeons are working for MSF saving lives with their bare hands on a daily basis, others are sex traffickers. Some are Einstein others are flat earthers. Their positive and negative impact on the world around them, their capabilities vary greatly.

Depending on how loosely you define interchangeable, you can include nonhuman animals as being interchangeable with humans.

> But we're capable of so many things nothing else is.

Can we hibernate? Can we lay eggs? Can we grow to the size of a blue whale? Can we survive naked in the vacuum of space? Do we possess biological immortality? Have we persisted for hundreds of millions of years through multiple extinction events? Etc etc. The natural world is filled with species who hold countless capabilities beyond our own.

Do you think there might be a bias at work when we decide that the traits unique to humans are those that are more "important"?

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

#320

Post by rafaelero »

rcarr wrote: post #306
rafaelero wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because between non-meat eaters and meat eaters there's a statistically significant reduction, while between vegans and fish-eaters there isn't?

So I stated: > The longest living populations are eating diets that are heavy on plants yes, but not vegetarian or vegan. The people longest living at the adventist church are pesco-vegetarians which are not vegetarians as far as I’m concerned. Also as far as I’m aware, there is no significant difference between the Adventist church goers in terms of life expectancy and the other blue zones, which are also consuming…

Again, there is no statistically significant difference between fish-eaters and vegetarians.
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