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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

#881

Post by Brusco_RF »

over_bridge wrote: post #470
macinjosh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the biosphere is a meat grinder. nature is scary

Does nature even exist anymore? Even remote areas often have roads or hiking paths carved through, or huts to sleep in. Or worse, they are dumping sites of plastic. The concept of nature as someone 2000 years ago might have imagined it is consigned to history. There's just spaces between towns.

This is not even close to true. Most of the world is still wilderness, and always will be. I'd love to drop you in the middle of Siberia, northern Canada, or the Amazon and watch you try to find a road or hut :)

Hell, I could drop you in a huge wilderness region in my state (Arizona) where you might walk a dozen miles before you encounter a "trail" (loosly defined).

Honestly, I don't know how you could end up with a take like that unless you're a European who hasn't travelled much.

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

#882

Post by emodendroket »

93po wrote: post #878
emodendroket wrote: post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue you are missing my point. There are other issues with A/C (refrigerants are also contributors to CO2, production is an issue), but the finer points of any one technology are not the issue. The issue is that I think it’s a fantasy that we can solve global warming simply with some technical tweaks and no changes whatsoever to our patterns of consumption. “Consume less” is not a message that goes over well.

A quick search online shows that HFCs (refrigerants) are 2% of greenhouse gas emissions, which also accounts for them being thousands of time worse than CO2. Which is way higher than I expected, but still not exactly making-or-breaking climate change. I really don't see the need to consume less energy if it comes from renewable or carbon-free generation. In general, energy is used for good and productive things. AC i…

If you’re so hung up on the details of this example, how well do think meat rations would go over?

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

#883

Post by TeMPOraL »

dunefox wrote: post #368
giantg2 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The outdoor neighborhood cats are the ones that are an issue. It sounds like promoting owl habitat would be a great targeted solution to mice problem without affecting small birds as much.

Great Horned Owls apparently also kill cats, so that might be a perfect solution.

Owl also kill other birds, so...

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

#884

Post by themitigating »

amelius wrote: post #37
leeoniya wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If people don't change even with the threat of human life being lost then there's no way they care if multiple species of birds goes extinct. people won't change. they are addicted to convenience, low prices, diversity in options, and unlimited availability. which is also great for corporate profits. as a species, humans plan and invest very little beyond our own lifetimes. but we're just animals after all. all the…

> people won't change. they are addicted to convenience, low prices, diversity in options, and unlimited availability. which is also great for corporate profits. But we can change our behavior by showing ourselves less ads. And that would solve a lot of other problems too.

The reason you block ads is selfish, the environment savings (I'd like to see data on that) are incidental.

Not every change we need to make will benefit people. More often they will require more work, more resources, or less enjoyment at rhe individual level (recycling, not driving certain types of vehicle).

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

#885

Post by krainboltgreene »

EGreg wrote: post #200
krainboltgreene wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> human over-population in no way is this the root cause, in any real scientific analysis. it is literally just the rallying call of right wing politics.

First of all, left-wing politics is the one advocating for less kids. Elon Musk is like “there’s no problem, guys, keep on having more kids!” and he himself did. Right wingers are pro life, and many religious ones advocate not even using condoms. Left wingers are the reason women now have so much education and careers that they postpone having children til their 30s. Anyway, the amount of resources and garbage is pro…

> left-wing politics is the one advocating for less kids.

In no way is this true. No left-wing organization is advocating for this, liberal organizations and activists are.

> Left wingers are the reason women now have so much education and careers that they postpone having children til their 30s.

Oh you're one of those people.

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

#886

Post by krainboltgreene »

nverno wrote: post #135
krainboltgreene wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> human over-population in no way is this the root cause, in any real scientific analysis. it is literally just the rallying call of right wing politics.

I'd say it is the root cause, since habitat destruction and pollution have been proportional to population size. If the human pop. hadn't grown geometrically throughout recent history, there almost certainly wouldn't have been the global decimation of wildlife/habitat we have today. To support such a large population, half of the earth's habitable land is currently being used for agriculture - that's a shitload of ha…

You can say this stuff all you want, but not only do the facts not support it but also the analysis of the facts disproves these statements.

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

#887

Post by sgu999 »

flagrant_taco wrote: post #469
sgu999 wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you've established that and, luckily, don't fall into the camp of the ones who don't give a damn and just profit. How do you cope? It's a very depressing thought that puts in perspective absolutely everything, including reproduction.

That's a great question and really the ultimate trick. For me the situation is oddly a bit of optimism and hope in an otherwise totally screwed up system. I find peace in the idea that the planet will go on one way or another, if we humans cause too much damage it will get rid of us like a bad cold and move on. That can absolutely be depressing as well, but that's where I have to remind myself that the environment fu…

Thanks for the detailed answer :) I am still very unable to ignore the things I can't control which is likely my main problem. I think the small house soon to be off grid part may be a very good way to take a step back... It's way too easy to focus on absurd human behaviours in rather dense areas.

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

#888

Post by MSFT_Edging »

hasbot wrote: post #120
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my freedom to have a big lifeless lawn that takes the place of local plants and displaces insects, which in turn starves bird populations. Why doesn't my yard have any birds?

Lawns aren't the problem. I used to live within the Willamette National Forest in Oregon and there is no wildlife there. Sure, there's a few deer, bear, and birds, but no where near as much wildlife as I can find in my suburban neighborhood. The original forest was nearly completely clearcut and replanted very densely with just a few species of timber trees. The canopy is so dense, there is no under story. There is n…

> Lawns aren't the problem

> The original forest was nearly completely clearcut...just a few species of timber trees.

So clearcutting and planting non-local, dominating plants isn't the problem,but clear cutting and planting non-local, dominating plants is the problem.

This is obviously two sides of the same coin, when you remove native plants, native wildlife goes away. Just because certain species of wildlife can make it work in the suburb doesn't mean that large lifeless lawns, especially in areas without intermixed native green space, are not killing off birds, insects, etc.

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

#889

Post by nucleardog »

giantg2 wrote: post #366
nucleardog wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish they would just stay away from me and I’d happily respond in kind :’( I mean, that’s kinda the line I draw and live with. Anything in the house is fair game. I don’t feel good about it, but mice, insects, or anything else that’s in my living space has to go. I’ll do what I need to to keep my living space mine. Anything outside… that’s shared space. As much as I can I try and co-exist. I see the bugs as much…

BTI is a great targeted solution for mosquitoes. Tick tubes can work well for ticks. Although targeted, the tick tubes have some potential for larger impact. More effort, but there tick drags and CO2 traps too.

Oh wow, not sure how I missed that one. I'm up in Canada so it's probably restricted or only sold in tiny 100g retail packages, but if I can chase down some industrial sized bags of that somewhere I'll definitely add that to my toolbox. A little bit of that spread around the wet spots during the spring melt would probably go a long way.

So far I've been primarily relying on permethrin. A gallon of 36.8% was something like $100 and dilutes out to ~600 litres of spray for my purposes. It's not water soluble and binds strongly to soil so I don't need to worry about it getting into the water table and spreading beyond where I spray it (or into my well water). I've been spraying just around my house (and, well, _on_ my house) to make a moat to keep away the mosquitos, ticks, ants, and all the other bazillion things that kept finding their way in.

We've also invested in a couple of the CO2 traps for mosquitos. Have those out in the yard a little ways out.

End of the day though... we live in the middle of a forest situated on wetland. That's part of how I got to a place of picking my battles. I know I'm not going to make much of a dent. As long as my house isn't overrun, it is what it is.

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

#890

Post by nverno »

krainboltgreene wrote: post #886
nverno wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it is the root cause, since habitat destruction and pollution have been proportional to population size. If the human pop. hadn't grown geometrically throughout recent history, there almost certainly wouldn't have been the global decimation of wildlife/habitat we have today. To support such a large population, half of the earth's habitable land is currently being used for agriculture - that's a shitload of ha…

You can say this stuff all you want, but not only do the facts not support it but also the analysis of the facts disproves these statements.

> half of the earth's habitable land is currently being used for agriculture

This is a fact (to some margin of error). It's indisputable that humans require land to produce food through agriculture, and that amount of required land increases with population size. I'm curious what analysis could possibly show human population growth doesn't result in more wildlife habitat destruction.

Since we stopped being hunter-gatherers, we've required agriculture to support large sedentary populations. Land use by humans/wildlife is generally a zero-sum game.

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