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A third of North America’s birds have vanished

nautil.us

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Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#181

Post by brutusborn »

ZunarJ5 wrote: post #112
Blackstrat wrote: post #99

Why do we assume that the biosphere should remain largely unchanged? That it should or even could strikes me as extreme vanity. It never has. Long before humans, long before fossil fuels, etc. species came and went. Climate changed continuously. I’ve been watching this for most of my nearly 70 years, the population bomb, the coming ice age, global warming, the Club of Rome, and on and on. None of it ever happened. Fo…

Change isn't the problem. The velocity of the change is the problem. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08649

I don’t think this paper supports your premise (“climate change is not a problem, but rate of change is”)

They are essentially determining the relative temperature rates of change in different environments. They give no indication how fast this velocity is relative to the past, or any predictions as to how it affects anything tangible. For all we know the velocity is less extreme than average (I’m not saying this is likely - just that we can’t tell from their data or analysis).

I would call this a “water is wet” paper - the basic conclusion is “different environments respond to climate change at different rates” which is intuitive and doesn’t need research. I admit that I could be missing some novelty but based on reading a lot of other “water is wet” climate papers, I doubt it.

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#182

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

bmitc wrote: post #117
gerad wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been reading Harari’s “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” recently. The book makes the point that the history of Homo Sapiens coincides with mass extinction - humankind has been disrupting and destroying habitats since it rapidly expanded out of Africa 300k years ago. Even before the agricultural revolution. It happens time and again throughout various geographies and histories, Homo Sapiens arrive somewhere…

Thanks for the book recommendation. Does anyone know a good reference that discusses technology in the context of evolution? I think it's less abstract ideas and more technology that evolution can't keep up with. It's likely many other animal species can think abstractly, such as whales. But it is our technology development that surpasess everything, even our own emotional ability and intelligence.

I don't like it, but it could be worth reading Kevin Kelly's "What Technology Wants". I find some flaws in Kelly's thinking, but his central idea (as presented in this book) is worth considering.

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#183

Post by smaudet »

23B1 wrote: post #147
nemo wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the systemic issues driving habitat loss are massive. I have made my yard a refuge for native plants to support insects, birds, and other wildlife, but I see exterminators on my street all the time killing off any insects that appear in neighbor's yards, and that kind of mass scale habitat destruction/loss is going on all around us in so many ways (lawns, roads, industrial farming, et al). I also really enjoy m…

Right, which is why you have the opportunity to evangelize what you're doing. Like for example, a two dudes in my hood have swapped their lawns over to micro clover because I did it three years ago; the lawn is packed with wildlife, and it looks great. Wouldn't have happened had they not come over for BBQ one day and asked about it.

Part of it is evangelizing, but its bigger than that - the yards of tomorrow need to look at lot more like grasslands and a lot less like farmland or golf courses, though.

Grassland is long grass, and it shelters a lot more than just insects and birds. It can be cover for small dogs, cats, beavers, possums, moles, mice, snakes, etc...

Understandably most "neighborhoods" don't want snakes, raccoons, or possums in their yards, but that's the level of "wilderness" we need to return to. Might make living a lot more difficult for a lot of folk...

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#184

Post by EGreg »

I really don’t understand why climate change and global warming commands all the attention (and invites conservatives to deny/dispute it) when we face much more pressing issues:

Collapse of ecosystems

Extinction of species

Loss of biodiversity, the world is being turned into monocultures and farms

Desertification of soil

Overfishing

Kelp forests

Rainforests

Insects … now birds — years ago when the insects were going I said the birds are next

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#185

Post by notatoad »

23B1 wrote: post #35

One thing I dislike the most about these problems – and the information/media/activism around them – is the "solutioning". Yes, we should recycle and reduce carbon emissions and learn to live in a more integrated fashion with earth. But the problem is so diffuse and requires substantive work against powerful forces (government, business, apathy). What I'd like to see more of, when presented with these sorts of proble…

bottom-up solutions only have so much effectiveness though, and at some point crosses a line into feel-goodery.

does building a bird-friendly yard actually accomplish anything? does building a bird-friendly park actually accomplish anything? is there any science that backs up an argument that people have the power to do anything at all about this, or are these just individual actions that make people feel like they're helping to solve the problem while diverting their attention away from actual practical solutions?

individual actions aren't free. making people feel like they're doing something is counterproductive if it's not helping in a meaningful way. we've all been sorting our plastic recycling for the last 30 years, and the only practical outcome of that is that we feel better about creating more plastic waste. if planting "bird-friendly" gardens doesn't do anything beyond make people feel better about killing birds, then let's not do that.

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#187

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

paulcole wrote: post #179
jemmyw wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends enormously on what 'efficient' means. They certainly save a lot of time so that's an efficiency. They do use less water for the same amount of washing, so they are more efficient with water. The only problem with that is that, just with most efficiency gains, the result is more consumption. In this case, dirtying more dishes. So I would argue dishwashers are demonstrably more efficient than hand washing…

> So I would argue dishwashers are demonstrably more efficient than hand washing dishes Yeah my argument is that this is nonsense. Just turn the tap off often when you’re scrubbing the dishes (use the water for rinsing) and it should be obvious that you’re using less water — particularly when you take into account the fact that a dishwasher uses 4 gallons of water no matter how many dishes are in it. Under ideal cond…

I've measured my (previously owned dishwasher; don't have one at the moment), and compared it to handwashing in terms of water used.

How did I measure it? I had the DW drain into a bucket.

The DW won hands down. I also learnt to wash dishes without the water running when I was a kid.

Yes, the proviso that you should only run it when it is full is important, but I assumed everyone knew that.

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#188

Post by nyolfen »

RecycledEle wrote: post #121

When Alfred Hitchcock filmed "The Birds" in Texas, his production company brought in grackles. These are the black birds in that movie. They promised to clean them up afterwards, but grackles are birds and can get away. Grackles are an invasive species in Texas, and have almost exterminated our native bird population. I blame Hollywood, not warming for bird extinctions.

as far as i can tell, every part of this comment is fabricated. grackles are not invasive in texas, nor have they driven other birds to near-extinction, neither were they brought in by hitchcock, neither was the film produced in texas. where did you get this idea?

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#189

Post by 23B1 »

bmitc wrote: post #168
23B1 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have a memory of cut height, and I mow it with a reel mower once a week. WRT other things taking over the yard, it's been rainy as hell here past few weeks and so the weeds have deff. sprung up unaccounted for; I just spend a day weeding mechanically, using a weed grabber tool. Both count as my workout. Headphones + podcast = no gym membership required. You'd be interested to know that this month I'll be fini…

Thanks. I use a battery powered mower, but because the fescue and clover retain so much moisture and has grown so thick, it has been really struggling (I think any mower would really) to mulch except at the highest height setting. I let it grow unhindered in the spring, and since it's been raining like crazy, I can't stay on top of it. (I should note that my lawn is probably only a 1/4 of my property.) What reel mowe…

Its just a Scotts and yes it adjusts – you could also try scything if you wanted to truly scare the neighborhood kids ;-)

Re: A third of North America’s birds have vanished

#190

Post by BillyTheMage »

tnias23 wrote: post #132

Like almost every other goddamn problem we face, the solution is boring as hell: campaign finance reform. If politicians actually represented their constituents, they would be able to effect the policy changes required. But they don’t, because campaign finance is broken, allowing the richest, most blood-sucking elements of society to have the biggest influence. If you have the opportunity to vote for someone who beli…

Voting will accomplish nothing.

The US doesn't even allow people to truly vote. It's mathematically impossible with our several layers of crap bolted onto an already mathematically-broken voting system. It's rigged to give you a choice between 2 evils, and really it's just a choice between 2 different representatives of the exact same evil.

And even if we:

- replace First-Past-The-Post with a proportional voting method

- replace single-seat districts with larger multi-seat districts

- get rid of the electoral college

- secure the rights of referendum and representative-recall

, it's unlikely that they would actually do anything meaningful enough to make a difference. More likely they would pass the same old useless hyper-specific miss-the-point regulations they always do. The only thing that will change is their advertisement methods.

Real change requires direct action.

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