It’s surprising how much this headline affects me. Who doesn’t like penguins? And seals are nice, but penguins are so likeable. We’ve really ruined everything.
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Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb (Recorded at Live 8)
Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
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Re: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
#12It’s terrible that the side effect of humans creating a world of wealth, safety and comfort (for all?) is that we risk destroying the very comfort we create - but it is also awesome that we have sufficient wealth to allow people to study these birds full time, enough wealth to build communication systems that tell random strangers about the threat they are under and hopefully enough time to correct the problem.
I saw a speech by Carl Sagan that might be relevant - he said (sometime in 1990 judging by haircuts) that the US had spent 10 trillion dollars on defending itself from the threat of Soviet attack since 1945, but that the attack was not “certain” - not 100% sure. So if we were willing to spend trillions to prevent an uncertain catastrophe, why does the same logic not apply to climate chnage?
Re: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
#13It’s surprising how much this headline affects me. Who doesn’t like penguins? And seals are nice, but penguins are so likeable. We’ve really ruined everything.
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About 15 years ago, I saw on the news in Europe that 8 students had been shot at some random high school in a random US state.
Having been conditioned by my environment to perceive such events as important, I turned to my friend and said “Man, 8 students were shot at a high school in the States!”
He asked me “What am I supposed to do with that information?” That response changed my life.
Re: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
#14"According to the IUCN Red List criteria, a species is generally classified as Endangered (EN) if its population of mature individuals falls below 2,500"
Also IUCN, with only 180,000 individuals the Emperor penguin is now classified as Endangered.
I think someone has been out hunting headlines.
Re: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
#15Climate change is a hoax, those leftist penguins and marxist seals just want to hamper our great economy!
Re: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
#16Quick, book a cruise to take some picture of them before they're all dead! \s
Don't forget to raise awareness on Instagram (and vote for parties that lead to this).
Re: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
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About 15 years ago, I saw on the news in Europe that 8 students had been shot at some random high school in a random US state. Having been conditioned by my environment to perceive such events as important, I turned to my friend and said “Man, 8 students were shot at a high school in the States!” He asked me “What am I supposed to do with that information?” That response changed my life.
>“What am I supposed to do with that information?”
...Feel some sorrow? Think a bit about what could cause such a thing? Because one day, it may happen at your kid's school... And it may be your own kid.
An absence of both empathy and curiosity aren't exactly a response to be proud of. An unconscious life. The kind that leads to, one day, spouting the standard response: "I never imagined it could happen to me".
Re: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
#18"According to the IUCN Red List criteria, a species is generally classified as Endangered (EN) if its population of mature individuals falls below 2,500" Also IUCN, with only 180,000 individuals the Emperor penguin is now classified as Endangered. I think someone has been out hunting headlines.
That is objectively a wrong summary of how IUCN Red List is calculated. There’s a variety of factors including rate of decline, and any of those factors can lead to a species being in the Endangered category.
https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/categories-and-criteri...
No one is farming for headlines.
Re: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
#19It’s surprising how much this headline affects me. Who doesn’t like penguins? And seals are nice, but penguins are so likeable. We’ve really ruined everything.
Seals can be a bundle of cuteness. Leopard seals are impressive, in a different way.
This indeed a sad story.
Re: Emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal now endangered
#20Ice breaking up before the chicks can swim isn't even a threat to the penguin population I had considered, and now I am horrified and saddened.
While not related to penguins, [0] is the saddest thing I ever saw.