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Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

bbc.com

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Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#271

Post by seanwilson »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #259
seanwilson wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, we do, and we will. The point is we should be doing something now and adopting lab based meat when it actually arrives, instead of doing nothing and hoping it comes. The catastrophic impact of climate change is coming on the scale of decades - we really don't have time to wait. > which people like yourself said were never going to be "the answer" for a hundred different reasons What a weird thing to write. You…

You don't know anything about what I think of electric vehicles or my wider views When you make identical arguments, it's reasonable to infer identical underlying motivations and beliefs. What a weird thing to write Not as weird as assuming that people are "doing nothing and hoping it comes" with respect to synthetic meat. There is serious money in that market. It's being worked on, trust me. Like EVs, it's not a tri…

> Not as weird as assuming that people are "doing nothing and hoping it comes" with respect to synthetic meat. There is serious money in that market. It's being worked on, trust me. Like EVs, it's not a trivial engineering problem.

I'm not talking about the people putting research and engineering time into synthetic meat, I'm talking about personal consumption - most people could give up meat today if they really wanted to and start helping the planet now. You don't need to wait for synthetic meat to arrive to start helping right now. I think synthetic meat is a great idea by the way but not when people have the attitude of "I will only reduce/avoid meat when synthetic meat arrives".

Electric cars doesn't hold as a good analogy to me e.g. many need a car to get work or make deliveries so you couldn't easily give up driving while you waited for electric vehicles to arrive, it could be expensive to replace your car (unlike changing your diet).

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#272

Post by solinent »

seanwilson wrote: post #256
solinent wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found that I perform way better when I eat well. So that has allowed me to eat more grass-fed meat. I think it's easily possible to do it in a ecologically conscious way if it was something anybody cared about. But they care more about the coast line they're still holding on to that's inevitably eroding. We can also plant trees, it doesn't have to be a traditional farm. If we planted a certain number of conifers…

Maybe look into what top plant based athletes eat if you're convinced you can only perform better with meat e.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/elite-athletes-who-are-vegan... This is a more convincing anecdote to me.

They eat all the nutrients in meat, just in pill form. It's not very convincing. Also they have tons of problems with insulin resistance and supplements have tons of flaws. Most of these athletes are spending much more and destroying the environment much more than the equivalent amount of meat or eggs would do.

I don't think we're going to move away from an ecological collapse unless we stop using pesticides.

Most vegan athletes don't last too long. I'm of Indian heritage, so I'm well aware of vegetarianism.

I should also mention that there are many, many ways to do a vegan diet wrong. The studies probably don't include too many sources of sugar, which is probably the bane of a vegan's existence since they're constantly looking for blood glucose in order to do things as their body can't use gluconeogenesis as there is less protein (and therefore more cortisol!).

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#273

Post by throwaway894345 »

acituan wrote: post #266
throwaway894345 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not arguing that we should subsidize China at all. Frankly we subsidize them too much already, but that’s a separate topic. My only point is that we taxing carbon doesn’t preclude subsidizing them to whatever extent we choose. It seems like you’re arguing that if we pass a carbon tax it will hurt China’s economy because business will move to greener countries (countries who are now competitive after adjusting for…

I guess I don't quite get what you suggest we should subsidize. China and India are two of the big, emerging polluters, and their exports only account for roughly 20% of their GDP. So a good 80% chunk will run on non-green energy even if we devised the perfect policy to make the remaining 20% of the entirety of their exports green. (US imports only a portion of that but let's assume entire world cooperated). This is…

I don’t think we should subsidize anyone, neither China nor India, but only pointing out that a carbon tax doesn’t prevent us from doing so if we wanted to.

Ultimately I still don’t understand why you’re claiming that we depend on China and India to implement their own carbon taxes in order for us to be successful. If all wealthy countries implement a carbon tax with a border adjustment, China and India will either have to invest in greener tech and practices to compete in the wealthy first world market or be content in a less valuable market where pollution is allowed to be externalized.

> This is not accounting for the havoc it would wreak in international trade obviously, hurting China's exports is never hurting them alone, because trades not only go both ways, but also through; meaning depending on a lot of Chinese intermediary goods that we export affects US's GDP, and also worlds GDP.

Of course it’s going to hurt our economy. We’ve been living partly off of unsustainable environmental debt, and the whole point of a carbon tax is to reckon with that. Economic pain drives us toward greener solutions so we can enjoy a sustainable economy. The only “trick” to a carbon tax is deciding what the carbon tax rate should be at any moment in time to balance economic pain with necessary environmental goals. We should want to avoid an abruptly high carbon tax rate and prefer an initially low rate that rises gradually to allow our economies some time to invest in and implement green technologies, but waiting longer to implement the tax means the carbon tax rate will have to grow more steeply which translates to greater economic hardship.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#274

Post by throwaway894345 »

acituan wrote: post #267
throwaway894345 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you’re correctly identifying the tragedy of the commons nature of environmentalism, but then advocating that we ruin the environment because if we don’t someone else will, which is to say the only sure-fire way to lose. Maybe I’m misreading—it’s late. Hopefully you will correct my error.

I am not advocating that, in fact I am with you in how bad it is, but I am also telling what the incentive structure looks like and what would it take to move it to the other equilibrium point. There are many and different types of agents in this game and appeals to morality or apocalypticism just don't work on them. There needs to be a concrete, depolarizing, global leadership that coordinates this transition, to ma…

Thanks for clarifying. I don’t see why the Paris Agreement is a useful analog for a carbon tax. A carbon tax doesn’t depend on the good faith of partner countries, but the border adjustment itself incentivizes other countries to reduce their emissions (they want to trade with us). The more wealthy countries who implement a carbon tax with border adjustment, the stronger this incentive mechanism becomes. There is a political problem in getting a larger block of wealthy countries on board, but it’s not unrealistic to think of Europe and North America forming that initial block, and surely there’s enough wealth in those markets that it would incentivize other countries to get on board.

In whatever case, I can’t imagine an environmental solution that won’t have the same (or worse) political problems. As far as I can tell, border adjuster carbon tax most neatly and efficiently aligns incentives.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#275

Post by seanwilson »

solinent wrote: post #272
seanwilson wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe look into what top plant based athletes eat if you're convinced you can only perform better with meat e.g. https://www.businessinsider.com/elite-athletes-who-are-vegan... This is a more convincing anecdote to me.

They eat all the nutrients in meat, just in pill form. It's not very convincing. Also they have tons of problems with insulin resistance and supplements have tons of flaws. Most of these athletes are spending much more and destroying the environment much more than the equivalent amount of meat or eggs would do. I don't think we're going to move away from an ecological collapse unless we stop using pesticides. Most ve…

> They eat all the nutrients in meat, just in pill form.

> Also they have tons of problems with insulin resistance and supplements have tons of flaws.

> Most vegan athletes don't last too long.

Sources?

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#276

Post by soco »

cranekam wrote: post #214
runarberg wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways to construct constitutions such that no one person in a democracy has the power to do this much damage. E.g. only a multi-participatory and diverse parliament—and crucially not any government; especially not any president—has the power to enact laws which can cause such a damage. In a successful democracy, the people don’t have the option to vote them self a dictator.

Switzerland is perhaps an example of this. There's no president — the head of the federal government is a 7-member Federal Council elected by the parliament, with representation proportional to parliament. This means that politics is generally more consensus-driven and less subject to extreme views. Swiss politics also makes heavy use of referendums, and any aspect of federal/cantonal/local law can be decided in a re…

There are quite a few theoretical disadvantages to the Swiss system, including what you mentioned. The surprising thing is though, when I compare to all other systems, I don't see that much of stalemate or progress gap. So even without understanding why, it seems to me it gets somehow evened out.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#277

Post by ncmncm »

pvaldes wrote: post #255
ncmncm wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are descended from Homo Erectus . They survived for many times longer than H. sap has, and it is far from clear that we will outlast them, in the end. Eat carrion if you like. I will send flowers to your grave.

> Eat carrion if you like. I don't need to, animals have plenty of vitamin B12, but I could do if necessary of course, because my species is omnivore. Better than ignoring my real nature and being forced to eat dirt or my own crap to fix my diet. > I will send flowers to your grave. Can't fall to mention that is a nice detail. Will be appreciated.

> Will be appreciated.

You will be dead, and not equipped to appreciate anything.

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