Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

newrepublic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 137 posts

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#51

Post by renewiltord »

PeterisP wrote: post #32
renewiltord wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real difference will be made by abolishing Europe's cities and returning that entire continent to Nature. All the forests and animals should be restored and the cities razed. Extant emissions from the people there dwarf the Amazon's deforestation so it's a much better fix.

Europe has been and still is re-foresting, it's much more forested than 100 or 300 years ago, and in the last 30 years there has been a 9% increase in forested areas ( https://resoilfoundation.org/en/environment/eu-forests-growt... )

In Roman times, Germany had 70% forest cover. Conveniently chosen timelines of the last 100 years after half of all forest cover was razed are all very nice but ultimately, the Earth pays the price.

What the Germans did then, the Brazilians do a fraction of now.

40% forest cover lost. And now, Germany has almost no primary forest. And Germans burn oil and coal and gas like no other.

The net effect of Germany on the Climate is the effect of an Environmental WMD.

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#52

Post by deanmoriarty »

endisneigh wrote: post #28
deanmoriarty wrote: post #13

I am doing my part by deciding not to have kids: imagine the incredible amount of resources I just saved with my decision. Thousands of chickens, dozens of cows, pounds and pounds of fertilizers, etc. All this without causing any pain or suffering.

true. all humans should stop having kids. imagine the environmental savings. then earth can finally heal

If everyone stopped, at some point it would become environmentally feasible (by some metric, I'm sure) to have offsprings again, in which case I would certainly amend my decision (clearly hypothetical, because I wouldn't be alive anymore by then).

It's the same non-sense argument of "imagine if everyone invested in index funds". It cannot happen, because at some point the right arbitrage opportunity becomes too obvious to ignore. Here is the same, at some tipping point there would be so many resources available per capita that it would make complete sense to have kids again without screwing up the environment.

All the downvotes simply prove, in my opinion, that people get really offended when confronted with the uncomfortable fact that having kids is, by far and on average, the single most negatively impacting choice they will make on environmental resource consumption in their lives, but they'd rather blather about not taking that one flight or eating organic quinoa for lunch, missing the forest for the tree. I don't blame anyone for that, it's very much biological.

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#53

Post by _8j50 »

Maybe there should be a government mandate like a mandatory military service but where you instead go farm stuff and hunt food for a year. I say that partly in jest but I'd imagine having that perspective would change a lot of minds and help us understand where our food comes from.

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#54

Post by Timon3 »

0xBombadilo wrote: post #35
myshpa wrote: post #7

One of the leading reasons why we're in such deep mess are our systems of food production, esp. animal agriculture (75% of agriculture lands, uses more land than forests) & fishing. - The majority of deforestation (particularly in the Amazon), is driven by livestock farming. By reducing demand for animal products, we could slow or even reverse the trend of habitat destruction, thus preserving biodiversity. - Growing…

>Growing plants to feed animals and then consuming those animals is an inefficient way of obtaining calories and nutrients. Shifting to a plant-based diet would allow us to feed more people with less land, reducing the pressure on wild habitats. Not true. Ruminant grazing animals (like cows) use land that generally is not fit for farming plants that humans would consume. They make land productive that otherwise would…

>> Growing plants to feed animals and then consuming those animals is an inefficient way of obtaining calories and nutrients. Shifting to a plant-based diet would allow us to feed more people with less land, reducing the pressure on wild habitats.

> Not true. Ruminant grazing animals (like cows) use land that generally is not fit for farming plants that humans would consume.

You are arguing a different point from GP. They were talking about growing and farming animal food, feeding that to the animals, and then eating the animals. You're talking about feeding animals directly from the land.

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#55

Post by ethanbond »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #19
timthelion wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that if everyone gave up air travel, individual automobile transport, and meat and dairy and lived in a max 110m2 apartment you could say that. But it seems that there are a lot of people who simply don't care.

I would rather humanity have a bloody war that wipes out 90% of us than live the miserable life you have described. My life does not fit within walking distance of a 110m2 box.

Do you, like most I've encountered who hold similar views, see this position as a testament to your courage and resilience?

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#56

Post by Fricken »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #23

Does anyone have a realistic comment that isn’t some Malthusian doomerism? There must be a solution to this problem besides drastically curtailing people’s lifestyle, even if it involves technologies that aren’t quite here yet like genetic engineering, space travel and fusion power.

If you aren't serious at all about doing anything to avoid doom that makes you the doomer. Non-doomers take reasonable precautions to avoid such things.

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#57

Post by freilanzer »

pwgentleman wrote: post #18
darkwraithcov wrote: post #2

There’s a mass extinction happening and no one seems to care. We may see a complete collapse of the ecosystem in the next 30 years.

The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate...

The 1970s are long gone.

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#58

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

myshpa wrote: post #7

One of the leading reasons why we're in such deep mess are our systems of food production, esp. animal agriculture (75% of agriculture lands, uses more land than forests) & fishing. - The majority of deforestation (particularly in the Amazon), is driven by livestock farming. By reducing demand for animal products, we could slow or even reverse the trend of habitat destruction, thus preserving biodiversity. - Growing…

> - Growing plants to feed animals and then consuming those animals is an inefficient way of obtaining calories and nutrients. Shifting to a plant-based diet would allow us to feed more people with less land, reducing the pressure on wild habitats.

I think about this all the time. We need to get the US to stop subsidizing beef so that it can be priced according to its trophic level and not according to its favor with lobbyists.

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#59

Post by freshpots »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #23

Does anyone have a realistic comment that isn’t some Malthusian doomerism? There must be a solution to this problem besides drastically curtailing people’s lifestyle, even if it involves technologies that aren’t quite here yet like genetic engineering, space travel and fusion power.

No. There's not. Listen to the scientists, engineers, and experts if you can't be bothered to learn the basics of resource consumption on a finite planet with billions of people. Space travel to where? We're not moving to Mars in droves, ever. It's more inhospitable than the worst environments on Earth. Genetic engineering isn't going to stop pollution and change things measurably. It's not doomerism, it's basic science, math, economics, etc.

Re: Animals Are Dying in Droves. What Are They Telling Us?

#60

Post by surgical_fire »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #19
timthelion wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that if everyone gave up air travel, individual automobile transport, and meat and dairy and lived in a max 110m2 apartment you could say that. But it seems that there are a lot of people who simply don't care.

I would rather humanity have a bloody war that wipes out 90% of us than live the miserable life you have described. My life does not fit within walking distance of a 110m2 box.

[flagged]
Post reply on HN