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Birds Are Vanishing from North America

nytimes.com

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Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#321

Post by Japhy_Ryder »

hatchershoes wrote: post #206
the_af wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that the world is precious. I also agree with someone else in this comments section that quotes someone saying the world and the life within is precious regardless of what we can extract from it. However, this puzzles me: > Psychedelics seem like one promising avenue. Perhaps they will help give us the inspiration to fill in this tragic blindspot. Why? What do psychedelics have to do with anything? I…

Certain psychedelics can and do have a profoundly life-changing effect on people, which can be a positive, affirming experience in an appropriate/safe context. It is essentially impossible to describe their effects in any meaningful way, but the most succinct explanation might be something like "spiritual awakening", which is probably unfathomable. Many of the ancient world religions describe some sort of mysterious…

That is an excellent summary, and I _highly_ recommend everyone go read Michael Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind". I actually recommend the audiobook, as it is read by Pollan himself.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#322

Post by Kaiyou »

socialist_coder wrote: post #179
anigbrowl wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your approach will fail for the same reason than an ethical environmental appeal does. Enough humans who feel and fear their impending mortality are selfish and vindictive enough to obstruct change because they want to conserve whatever material comforts they have now and do not care about what happens to other people after they're dead. I would go so far as to say that some of them take a perverse pleasure in the id…

I don't disagree, but I also think it is important to note that what you are describing is baked into our entire economic system. Economic actors all acting rationally in their own best interest, which automatically filters out any long term multi-generational outlook. Capitalism is the root cause here.

It's hardly the fault of capitalism that lots of people do not believe in human responsibility for climate change. I wouldn't advise to force people into complying with your vision.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#323

Post by ngvrnd »

bsmitty5000 wrote: post #2

This article doesn't mention the declining insect population at all but I would think it's clear that a quickly declining food source would be a major cause of population decline. I wonder if there's a similar decline in other animals that rely on insects, eg bats. Although, interestingly, the article does mention neonicotinoids as a direct reason for the decline in population. It's hard to imagine humans taking the…

"... just one huge mega-city that fabricates all of its needs, ... "

Plug for "Girl's Last Tour" anime/manga.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#324

Post by Kaiyou »

Angostura wrote: post #300
technothrasher wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or we die out and the planet recovers on its own. That makes it sound like there's some kind of natural 'ideal state' for the planet to recover to. Without us, the planet would just go on changing, without anything to judge the current environment at any point as good or bad to any particular standard. Saving the environment is simply saving ourselves. Nothing more, nothing less.

I strongly disagree. I don't believe in an natural ideal state, however I can distinguish between a planet with a large number of species living in a biologically diverse set of ecosystems; an a biologically impoverished planet with fewer species and biomes. I think it is fair to say that complexity and variety is a objectively good thing and that humanity's action causing a mass extinction event is objectively bad.…

I disagree and prefer a world with fewer species. Insects and birds going away is something I'm really happy about. For example, I hate mosquitoes and the noise birds make. Also not fond of birds defecating wherever.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#325

Post by Kaiyou »

bognition wrote: post #319
Kaiyou wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the planet recovers on its own. Like all those other planets without us, like Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus,...

As far as we know those planets are devoid of life. Whereas the earth has been teaming with life for billions of years. During that time the earth has gone through thousands of extinction events with 6 mass extinctions (when upwards of 90% of all life went extinct). Our success (humans/mammals) is the result of one of those extinctions. So yeah, life has a strong foot hold on earth and it will continue to do so long…

Wouldn't you then be inclined to agree that planets being devoid of life is the natural state?

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#326

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

guerrilla wrote: post #205
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we need to figure out where satire ends and crazy conspiracy theories begin. The difference seems to be with how often repeated and fervent the claim is.

how about we teach epistemology and logic instead.

We can't even teach critical thinking. That's a lofty goal.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#327

Post by leftyted »

bt848 wrote: post #54
hyperion2010 wrote: post #35

Since I almost never see it mentioned in any threads related to this subject, am I thrilled that the main article actually references Silent Spring. I remember growing up that people thought that we had somehow managed to avoid the future it portrayed, but no, we have not. Another generation and the purveyors of death are back selling the cure for other species some people haven't learned to live in balance with.

People also think we avoided the future predicted by “The Population Bomb” but we didn’t.

We've explicitly avoided the predictions that Paul Ehrlich made in The Population Bomb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager

Predictions without deadlines are not useful because you can keep kicking the can down the road forever. That's exactly what Paul Ehrlich has done since all of his predictions didn't happen.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#328

Post by leftyted »

sedachv wrote: post #261
tengbretson wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We obviously did.

From Chapter 6 of the "Population Bomb," titled "What If I'm Wrong?": "To cover this contingency, I would like to propose an analogue to Pascal's famous wager… If I'm right, we will save the world. If I'm wrong, people will still be better fed, better housed, and happier,thanks to our efforts. Will anything be lost if it turns out later that we can support a much larger population than seems possible today? Suppose w…

> To cover this contingency, I would like to propose an analogue to Pascal's famous wager… If I'm right, we will save the world. If I'm wrong, people will still be better fed, better housed, and happier,thanks to our efforts.

Thanks to our efforts...how arrogant to claim future responsiblity for our success at feeding and housing 8 billion people. Of course our present ability to do that has nothing to do with The Population Bomb or the mania it encouraged.

Re: Birds Are Vanishing from North America

#329

Post by throwaway66920 »

nabnob wrote: post #216
throwaway66920 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rowing the boat got us out this far, it would be foolish to think that rowing the boat could get us back /s

Thermodynamics doesn’t work like that. There’s no undo button.

Thermodynamics doesn’t in the sense that entropy always continues... but that’s not really relevant. Climate change does have undo buttons.

Things like biodiversity loss may not.

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