Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says • Hacker News Board

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#291

Post by 24gttghh » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:01 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #267

24gttghh wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So invent a mechanical bee, or just keep the bee's alive that we already have. Which one sounds easier?

Thats the question, its seem that the difficulty and cost of keeping bee alive is higher and higher, compare to inventing mechanical bee or using alternative method.

There are lots of steps that can/should be taken to keep alive the bees we have.

Make homes for native pollinators[0]

Stop using Neonicotinoids and other pesticides [1]

Find ways to stop stressing out honey bee's used for pollination[2]

[0]https://www.honeyflow.com/resources/blog/what-is-the-pollina...

[1]https://xerces.org/neonicotinoids-and-bees/

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_collapse_disorder#Possi...

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#292

Post by jaredklewis » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

dustinmr wrote: post #226

kilroy123 wrote: post #120

I have a theory, and I have no evidence to back this theory up. The increases in anxiety in the general public over the last decade or so is in large part to people knowing we're on an unsustainable path. We're all collectively marching towards the edge of the cliff to jump off together. More people than ever have anxiety because we subconsciously (or consciously) know this. We're unsustainable with how we pollute an…

Humans are good at being anxious due to the precariousness of life. Especially for things we don’t fully understand. For example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley's_Comet#1910 Why is the environment any different?

I agree that humans are, in a sense, evolved to stress out, but this is a horrible example.

Like so Michu astronomy, Flammarion's theory was merely conjecture with no experimental evidence. Further, many other scientists correctly contested his hypothesis at the time.

Compare that with overfishing, where we have strong evidence that tuna populations have drastically declined in the past 50 years [1]. These declines are very likely due to overfishing, particularly of immature fish that have not had a chance to reproduce. Without a change of trajectory, many tuna species will almost certainly go extinct.

Yes, we should be skeptical and not give into hysteria. But that doesn't instead mean we should just stick our heads in the sand.

Don't you think oceans without fish are going to cause a lot of problems?

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3251139/

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#293

Post by TheBeardKing » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

dkarbayev wrote: post #279

One thing that I fail to wrap my mind around: aren’t all those corporations executives, politicians, and poachers living on the same planet Earth as all of us? Don’t they ever think that they’re actually destroying our planet and there’s no other place to live? I can imagine that they don’t believe pro-climate change people, but they could simply hire an independent group of researchers, don’t they? And I mean actual…

[flagged]

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#294

Post by TaylorAlexander » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

ivanhoe wrote: post #209

perfunctory wrote: post #11

We keep hearing that individual actions don't matter and that we need a system change instead. I used to hold the same opinion for the very long time. However, since recently I started to turn around. For the last 30 years governments and politicians have proven incapable to do anything about global heating. What makes us think it will be any different in the coming years. Scientists keep producing report after repor…

Individual actions in this context are like trying to put down the fire with a single glass of water. It will certainly not hurt if you do it, but for it to have any significant effect you need everybody else to do the same at the same time. And the best way to have everyone do it is to push politicians to commit to it and create public policies to enforce it. The huge problem with individual actions is that they mak…

I don’t think this is universally a reasonable outlook. For example, I’ve become vegan in the last year. It is extremely politically infeasible to legally force a vegan diet on everyone, so individual action is the only way to participate in veganism. However now that I am vegan I can legitimately tell you this: being vegan is super awesome. I no longer contribute to the insane environmental destruction of the beef industry nor do I contribute (with my diet) to animal suffering on the same scale as before.

Individuals deciding to be vegan is a kind of voluntary collective action that should not be forced by the state. I would imagine it is not the only kind.

Realistically an entire change in our culture to reduce consumption is needed. Some of that can come from above (government decision) and some of that must come from below (genuine cultural support).

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#295

Post by matz1 » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

inflatableDodo wrote: post #278

matz1 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then I really can see no reason for you not to be forced to spend your entire life pollinating plants by hand with a paintbrush Like I mentioned before, if human can find better way to pollinating plants (better than paintbrush nor bees) then yeah no reason to do any of these. Keeping in mind that keeping bee alive will also incur cost and sacrifice.

>Keeping in mind that keeping bee alive will also incur cost and sacrifice. Do you live anywhere near an active volcano? I have been reading up on Maya culture and thanks to your comment I may have a plan to save the bees. It is unlikely to work I'd be the first to admit, however I think it could be worth a try.

If you inferring that you are going to throw me into active volcano, then I see few issue with that solution :

- I don't live near active volcano

- I am going to fight back

- Even, when I fail to fight back, you might be living the rest of your live in prison. Which I think it going to be suck.

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#296

Post by peey » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

dkarbayev wrote: post #279

One thing that I fail to wrap my mind around: aren’t all those corporations executives, politicians, and poachers living on the same planet Earth as all of us? Don’t they ever think that they’re actually destroying our planet and there’s no other place to live? I can imagine that they don’t believe pro-climate change people, but they could simply hire an independent group of researchers, don’t they? And I mean actual…

They will just usually say "let the others do it". Game theory says that all parties could be better off by co-operating but if you get benefit if you defect while others co-operate then everyone would end up defecting. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma#Internation... for an example.

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#297

Post by nickflood » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

dkarbayev wrote: post #279

One thing that I fail to wrap my mind around: aren’t all those corporations executives, politicians, and poachers living on the same planet Earth as all of us? Don’t they ever think that they’re actually destroying our planet and there’s no other place to live? I can imagine that they don’t believe pro-climate change people, but they could simply hire an independent group of researchers, don’t they? And I mean actual…

I mean, I live in Russia and I ask myself the same question about our "president". And the North Korea, that's a nightmare on a country scale. It seems, once you get up there, your humanity somehow gets abstracted away by either power or groups with interests...

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#298

Post by leakybit » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

abootstrapper wrote: post #262

matz1 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, must it be paintbrush ? Is it crazy to think that human can't invent some kind of automation/technology to solve this ?

Humans don’t need to invent some kind of bee like automation technology. We need to invent a way to not kill all the fucking bees!

True, we should be striving to create synthetic apples

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#299

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #275

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have a theory. Anxiety is increasing because anxiety sells. The right leaning sites raise anxiety about immigrants. Left leaning sites raise anxiety that Trump is on his way to becoming a dictator. Environmental sites raise anxiety about species going extinct. Business sites raise anxiety about increase regulation and taxes. Meanwhile, humans are the best off we have ever been. This is one of the most peaceful…

> humans are the best off we have ever been This is too broad to be true. It's easily disproven with a single counterexample. I could guess what you actually meant, but the tiny details in sentences like these change so much meaning I better let you clarify if this was an important point you're making. Especially since you seem to be aiming to dismiss concerns about people who are not safe, I think it's important you…

Ok here are some of the areas where we are better off than ever looking at humanity as a whole:

* Infant mortality * Life expectancy * Maternal mortality * Global poverty * Opportunities for women * Global literacy * Ability to control pain * Knowledge

Here is a more concrete example. Imagine you are going to be born as a baby girl in a random family on earth. In what other time would you have a better chance of having a decent life?

Re: Up to one million species are on the verge of extinction, U.N. panel says

#300

Post by kmlx » Mon, May 06, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

The_Stone wrote: post #183

kmlx wrote: post #151

Hopefully this will make us ditch the planet and finally look towards the stars. But I fear it will actually lead us towards an "Interstellar" future: where our inter-planetary progress is hampered by this single planet that we want to save.

You can't migrate every person on the planet to another one. And we still haven't found any planets remotely as habitable as our own, nor solved the problems related to long-term space travel or terraforming. And above all else, why the hell would you be content with throwing away Earth, the most livable planet we know of? The idea of saving the human race by just going somewhere else is laughable.

we’re an asteroid strike away from perma death. single planet is not sustainable.