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David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

bbc.com

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Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#71

Post by lostlogin »

boston_clone wrote: post #36
belorn wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern agriculture, both animal and non-animal versions, are bad for the environment. Artificial fertilizers, replacing forests with farm land, and drainage of wet lands are all heavily contributing to emissions and water pollution, destroying local ecosystems as well as warming the planet. Artificial fertilizers is particular bad since its production uses fossil fuels, has large amount of accidental green house emis…

The most impactful elements of modern agriculture are entirely animal-based. Full-stop. You in fact rightfully but incompletely recognize : artificial fertilizers (for giant mono-crop fields of soybeans to feed to cows and pigs [0]), replacing forests (to clear room for soybean fields and pasture for cows and pigs [1][2]), and runoff of these fertilizers and manure into waterways. The parent comment is right - if we…

> The most impactful elements of modern agriculture are entirely animal-based.

If we step back a bit, the most impactful bit is true human wish for growth.

If we were satisfied with a comfortable stasis, that would be helpful.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#72

Post by DavidPiper »

lanza wrote: post #53
vr46 wrote: post #33

Top man, lives up on Richmond Hill and absolutely loves it - when asked about his travels and adventures and where he would choose to live, he replied, "I already live there" Fairly well-known locally is that my favourite bookshop, The Open Book in Richmond, stocks signed copies of all his books. They used to be signed directly on the page, but since he got to the mid-to-late nineties in age, tons of hardbacks are to…

I always find it really weird when somebody on the anonymous internet talks about local places as if we're all neighbors or something. Googling "Richmond Hill" gave me multiple pages of results that had nothing to do with the one that Attenborough lives at.

I really enjoyed OP's story, and the way they told it. Knowing the location of Richmond Hill is really not the point.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#73

Post by eastof »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #35
quickthrowman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is extremely reductive. Noting that oil, gas, and cement companies are responsible for pollution is ignoring that oil, gas, and cement are inputs to everything we consume and the infrastructure used to transport goods. Exxon Mobil isn’t extracting oil and burning it for no reason, it gets refined into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc. Cement is used in concrete which is what infrastruct…

Right - so how is me not eating meat or not driving an ICE vehicle going to help change the situation? The people with the capital to actually change things seem to be more interested in mongering fear while continuing to profit off of their ecosystem-destroying industries, than trying to come up with effective solutions to the problem.

The list you linked explicitly excludes emissions from agriculture, you are talking about %70 of what they measured, not overall emissions. If everyone stopped eating meat, it would reduce overall global emissions by a third which is hugely significant.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#74

Post by Phemist »

barrkel wrote: post #57
lanza wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it really weird when somebody on the anonymous internet talks about local places as if we're all neighbors or something. Googling "Richmond Hill" gave me multiple pages of results that had nothing to do with the one that Attenborough lives at.

If you're familiar with London, you know where Richmond is and that it's a wealthy area. A search confirms there's a Richmond Hill in Richmond.

Or if you've seen Ted Lasso

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#76

Post by wolvoleo »

DavidPiper wrote: post #72
lanza wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always find it really weird when somebody on the anonymous internet talks about local places as if we're all neighbors or something. Googling "Richmond Hill" gave me multiple pages of results that had nothing to do with the one that Attenborough lives at.

I really enjoyed OP's story, and the way they told it. Knowing the location of Richmond Hill is really not the point.

Well yes but it does open the question for me as to what the place is like and why he'd like it so much.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#77

Post by wvbdmp »

CSMastermind wrote: post #63

He was just mentioned on today's Lateral podcast with Tom Scott. Apparently, he's the reason tennis balls are yellow. I guess they were traditionally white but when they started broadcasting matches on TV it was too hard to see the ball. David who was at the BBC at the time suggested they use yellow balls instead so they would come through on camera. Ever since then tennis balls have been yellow.

Amazing. It’s relatively easy to find color photos of this, for example one of the very last pics here, from 1970: https://www.esquire.com/sports/g36954688/wimbledon-1970s-pho...

But what is the oldest color photo of white ball tennis?

Also, do we have a good source for this story, because it’s not mentioned on Wikipedia: ”In 1972, the International Tennis Federation introduced yellow balls, as these were easier to see on television. Wimbledon continued using white balls until 1986.”

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#78

Post by psvv »

Phemist wrote: post #74
barrkel wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're familiar with London, you know where Richmond is and that it's a wealthy area. A search confirms there's a Richmond Hill in Richmond.

Or if you've seen Ted Lasso

In hindsight it maybe should have also been obvious from the language alone. "Richmond Hill" feels a bit like saying "Rich Hill Hill" which is basically like saying "Wealthy Desirable Area."

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#79

Post by cody_ellingham »

CSMastermind wrote: post #63

He was just mentioned on today's Lateral podcast with Tom Scott. Apparently, he's the reason tennis balls are yellow. I guess they were traditionally white but when they started broadcasting matches on TV it was too hard to see the ball. David who was at the BBC at the time suggested they use yellow balls instead so they would come through on camera. Ever since then tennis balls have been yellow.

What do you mean tennis balls are yellow? I always thought they were green? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_ball#/media/File:Closeu...

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#80

Post by belorn »

eastof wrote: post #66
belorn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was a competition in who did more harm the distinction may be relevant but in terms of saving the environment and turning back the ecosystem back to a sustainable one, the distinction between animal based or non-animal based is mostly irrelevant. Modern agriculture are not sustainable for the environment. The fossil fuels that are pulled from the earth and put on fields are not sustainable, and the amount of ru…

No one is saying fields of corn and soybean wouldn't exist, but we would have far less of them without animal agriculture. You are creating a false dichotomy of "sustainable"/"not sustainable" the reality is human societies would be much more sustainable without animal agriculture. More sustainable does in fact result in less extinctions/ecosystem impact and reduced climate change. Maybe I'm wrong but reading your co…

> No one is saying fields of corn and soybean wouldn't exist, but we would have far less of them without animal agriculture

There is no evidence that there would be far less farm fields without that. Farm fields exists if there is profit to be had. Right now the demand for biofuels are directly competing with the demand for animal feed. Farmers will primary grow and sell crops based on what pay the most, and can easily switch if one pays more than the other.

https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/360637/?v=pdf The Impact of Market Prices on Farmers' Crop Choices in Ghana https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373480516_Farmers'_... Farmers’ risk rating and crop portfolio choice in Kewot Woreda, North Ethiopia https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X2... Understanding factors influencing farmers’ crop choice and agricultural transformation in the Upper Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Notice that none of those says that farmers would not use the fields if the current most price worthy crop would go away. Farmers choose what to farm based, among other things, the market. If you remove animal agriculture, you don't get far less fields. You get fields with a different crop in them.

The only thing that will stop farming is either if the external cost of farming is applied, such as pollution, or if climate change makes farming the land unprofitable. Currently that pollution is not applied as a cost. A carbon and water pollution tax could be a strategy that addressed this, and would impact all farming regardless of crop. If that is "perfection" and "enemy of the good", then the definition of perfection is not shared.

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