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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

#341

Post by throwaway2037 »

himinlomax wrote: post #41
giantg2 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Every single tonne of steel manufactured by humans from prehistory until about a century ago -- the entire output of the industrial revolution -- amounts to less than one year at current production." The real questions are: Does that include recycling? If not, how do we see this being sustainable?

It can be sustainable with electrolytic furnaces powered by carbon-free energy.

Luxembourgh has a huge steel industry, relative to the size of its GDP. As I understand, they switched to electric arc furnaces. Yes, it seems possible, but difficult. Also, I don't know if there are limitations on these furnaces. Example: Can you only recycle scrap metal or produce certain types of (lower grade) steel? Unsure.

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

#342

Post by carapace »

rvba wrote: post #69
throwawaysleep wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Build more zoos then. That’s the only realistic solution.

More nature reserves.

E. O. Wilson proposed that half of the Earth's surface should be designated a human-free natural reserve to preserve biodiversity.

https://www.half-earthproject.org/

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

#343

Post by throwaway2037 »

grecy wrote: post #82
retrac wrote: post #25

Going off on a tangent, but the scale of production is very hard to grasp. I'm probably not the first person to observe this, but I once did some napkin math about steel production, and what I realized kind of blew me away. About 1.9 billion tonnes in 2020. Like with billions of dollars, I have no intuition for such numbers. Context is needed. Global steel production just before WW I was about 70 million tonnes. So p…

Yup, I was Justin the town that has the worlds largest shipping port by tonnage, all of it iron ore. I bet you’ll never guess - you’ve never heard of it. The city and surrounds makes Mordor look nice.

Brazil? Australia? Where?

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

#344

Post by nine_k »

hsn915 wrote: post #336
myshpa wrote: post #59

The sad thing is that 100 years ago humans and livestock accounted for around 5% of the biomass (all zoomass, not land mammals only), 95% being the wildlife. Now the numbers are reversed. We've stolen the land from the wildlife and dedicated it to a few species we consider edible (agriland is more than forests now, and 75% of it for animal agriculture). Is anybody surprised that we're living in the anthropocene, defi…

You are advocating contradictory points. If we return land to wildlife, that entails shrinking the human population by a hgue margin. The supposed benefit is what, new medicine and regenrative dna? But why would we need that? Shrinking human population and human longevity are incompatible goals.

It entails improving the efficiency of food production.

Switching to LED lighting put more light in my house while lowering electricity consumption. Similarly switching to more efficient daily sources of protein (plants, shrimp, etc) can give more people more food, while yielding some of the land back to wildlife.

To say nothing of inefficiencies due to weird local policies, like growing almonds and alfalfa in arid parts of California, etc.

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

#345

Post by Dylan16807 »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #318
Dylan16807 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Val…

> 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.

There are plenty of people I would say are more important/valuable than me. And I can imagine species that would be more important/valuable than humans; they just don't seem to exist here and now. But the boundaries within humanity are a lot narrower and I wouldn't be confident enough to label any humans as less important/valuable than me the way I would talk about a random non-endangered rodent.

> 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"?

Well I think "hibernate" and "eggs" are dumb metrics. But we can replicate most feats with some prep time, even if you use a big list of unique abilities that humans need technology for.

Even taking bias into account, I think the bias would have to be ridiculously large to overcome the strength of the answer.

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

#346

Post by throwawaylinux »

pencilguin wrote: post #334
throwawaylinux wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange this is getting downvotes. Protein consumption was traditionally one of the fundamental measures of social health, wealth, and quality of life, and it is on track to massively expand as population grows and huge parts of Asia and Africa (and others) continue to catch up in wealth. Apparently now we're in upside-down world were the richest and most highly consuming people on the planet believe that the product…

Hint: you do not need to eat any meat to get plenty of protein.

That's not a "hint", meat is a desirable food, a very good source of protein, can be a good income for poor farmers and can be raised in places that aren't suitable for cropping.

But even if you set aside meat, modern lifestyles necessitate the killing of other life.

Take your protein-rich plant food, for example. Do you know how modern cereal and vegetable farming is carried out? The idea is basically to create a holocaust of chemical poisons that exterminates all animal, plant, and fungal life except the crop, over millions of acres, and that is after the land has been cleared and the native plants and animals killed and wiped away. Housing, water, energy, mining, all that costs lives as well.

You can't absolve yourself just by not eating meat.

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

#347

Post by virgildotcodes »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #345
virgildotcodes wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Val…

> 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. There are plenty of people I would say are more important/valuable than me. And I can imagine species that would be more important/valuable than humans; they just don't seem to…

> There are plenty of people I would say are more important/valuable than me.

So by this thinking humans are not interchangeable?

> And I can imagine species that would be more important/valuable than humans; they just don't seem to exist here and now.

Really? You think the single celled organisms and plants responsible for producing oxygen, those responsible for decay, even those present within the digestive tracks of all animals, are not more important/valuable than humans?

>But the boundaries within humanity are a lot narrower and I wouldn't be confident enough to label any humans as less important/valuable than me the way I would talk about a random non-endangered rodent.

Sorry I'm confused, your first quote says there are plenty of people you'd say are more impotant/valuable than you. How do you square that statement with this one? What is the range of variation within human capability that is allowed for equal consideration, but which excludes nonhuman animals? What are the boundaries of that variation defined by if not, honestly, by ex post facto rationalization?

> Well I think "hibernate" and "eggs" are dumb metrics.

Why are they any more objectively dumb than any other capability?

> But we can replicate most feats with some prep time, even if you use a big list of unique abilities that humans need technology for.

Huh? At this point in time humans are incapable of any of the things I listed. You'll need to show proof that we are capable of these things even with all of our technological ability. As of right now it's just kind of handwaving "with the power of technology, at some indeterminate point in the future, anything is possible!" when facts don't bear that out, as we have yet to have any immortal humans, and may never have them.

> Even taking bias into account, I think the bias would have to be ridiculously large to overcome the strength of the answer.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by the strength of the answer. I do think it's self evident that the bias is ridiculously large though.

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

#348

Post by Dylan16807 »

virgildotcodes wrote: post #347
Dylan16807 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. There are plenty of people I would say are more important/valuable than me. And I can imagine species that would be more important/valuable than humans; they just don't seem to…

> There are plenty of people I would say are more important/valuable than me. So by this thinking humans are not interchangeable? > And I can imagine species that would be more important/valuable than humans; they just don't seem to exist here and now. Really? You think the single celled organisms and plants responsible for producing oxygen, those responsible for decay, even those present within the digestive tracks…

> You think the single celled organisms and plants responsible for producing oxygen, those responsible for decay, even those present within the digestive tracks of all animals, are not more important/valuable than humans?

Weren't we talking about most important animal?

But when it comes to most important, things a million different species can do are much less important.

Let alone the fact that we can produce oxygen and decay organic matter.

As for everything else, I don't feel like you're even trying to understand my argument. But if you're that confused it's only going to be a waste of time for me to go on.

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

#349

Post by abdullahkhalids »

club_tropical wrote: post #128
pvaldes wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The energy contained in one group” - what energy? The chemical energy contained in the links of the molecules > Is a lean cheetah “less-energy” than an elephant? Yes, of course. One cheetah, has less biomass than one elephant. But -the- rats, have more biomass than -the- elephants. Is the beauty of the ecology. > What a bizarre metric, nobody thinks like this, I don’t even think “ecologists” understand why they sh…

> The professionals that use it, obviously, know their job. They aren't stupid. I will not defer to authority. I want an explanation for why the percentage of aggregate “chemical energy contained in the links of molecules” is considered a meaningful metric for anything other than “how much percentage heat would I produce if i threw them into a fire”, let alone mammal population health or diversity. > Well, the differ…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)

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

#350

Post by hn-is-retarded »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #346
pencilguin wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hint: you do not need to eat any meat to get plenty of protein.

That's not a "hint", meat is a desirable food, a very good source of protein, can be a good income for poor farmers and can be raised in places that aren't suitable for cropping. But even if you set aside meat, modern lifestyles necessitate the killing of other life. Take your protein-rich plant food, for example. Do you know how modern cereal and vegetable farming is carried out? The idea is basically to create a ho…

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