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Saving Canada's only desert

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Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#41

Post by dogma1138 »

oneloop wrote: post #37
pyre wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post says that someone must be either "all for deserts" or "all against deserts." It's unclear why people seem to want to force this false dichotomy.

The dichotomy that I'm pointing out is not that people are "all for deserts" vs "all against deserts", you misunderstood my position. I'm pointing out a false dichotomy which is "all for environmental preservation" vs the position that "all environmental conditions are irrelevant".

Again this is like being "pro-bear" but not wanting a bear to come out and maul your children at the playground. And one good way of ensuring that the bears don't come out and play is by not destroying their natural habitats.

I don't know what false dichotomy you are trying to point out but it doesn't exist, no serious preservationist or environmental scientists saying "all for X". We want to preserve what we can do not cause further needless destruction and degradation in the biodiversity of our ecosystem.

Many environmental problems including desertification are cause by us destroying natural habitats including deserts.

If you have a desert more or less contained in its "natural" state providing a habitat to multiple species do what you can to preserve it. If you have man accelerated desertification that is threatening to turn your arable land into sand dunes within the next 5 decades you should do what you can to slow it down, stop it, and then reverse it.

The only way of fighting desertification seems to be now to actually try to revert the damage you've done to the natural barriers and local environment in the first place. Sand dunes that have had migration patterns of barely a CM per year now migrating at rates of a few meters per year are not a "natural" state.

Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#42

Post by oneloop »

ommunist wrote: post #40
oneloop wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you say there is no environmental concern? If my environment is unlivable (for example because I can't find water, or air etc), isn't that a concern? Look at Beijing and its atrocious air polution, of Flint and its water polution. How is this not a concern? You keep talking about agencies, or about saving species (the benefit of which can be debatable depending on the species) and aren't really addressing my…

Do you live in Beijing? Flint? So why are you protecting spending on Canadian desert problem, instead of pushing the directing of money to solve acute Flint water quality problem? Ask yourself, be consistent. It is not environmental concern that bothers you. Would Beijing air pollution be of your concern, you'd be volunteering in China R&D putting all your inherited money to find tech solution and establish political…

So you do agree that some conditions of the environment will have negative consequences, or don't you?

You rhetoric style makes it really difficult to have a rational conversation with you.

Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#43

Post by oneloop »

dogma1138 wrote: post #39
oneloop wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one is inventing posteriori arguments and decides arbitrary what is good and what is bad, one environmental change can drastically affect human civilization including costing human lives in the long run You completely nailed it. First you say that no one is inventing posteriori arguments, and then you go on to say that "changes can have effects". But, but non-changes can also cost human lives in the long run. Ho…

I don't know how simpler I can make it. Desertification can cost us anywhere between 25 to over 50% of the global arable land over the next 50-75 years. The destruction of natural habitats can also have a negative effect on human lives, if only by denying future generation from being able to visit them. We gain nothing from destroying them in the long run, many of them even if they are deserts can be natural barriers…

> The destruction of natural habitats can also have a negative effect on human lives

Simple question: do you concede that in some cases keeping the natural habitats as they are might be worse than changing them, in terms of loss of life over the long run? If I can't get a yes or no on this, I don't think there's much point in continuing the conversation.

Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#44

Post by dogma1138 »

oneloop wrote: post #38
dogma1138 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about "pro-desertification" it's about having negative effect on natural habitats that otherwise have no negative impact on human civilization. Also I would like to point out that Okanagan is not a desert it's a dry subhumid tundra, preserving it in it's current state would actually combat desertification. Israel was trying to fight the creeping dunes for decades, it finally figured out that actually tryin…

> why would you think just stripping and entire habitat Again, you completely misunderstood my position. I'm not making a comment on deserts, or this deserts specifically. I'm making the following comment: "it seems to me that certain people (which I've just learned includes you) seem to believe that any change to any environment is necessarily bad"

I'm not an environmentalist, and again I don't understand how you define "good or bad", you seem to operate on so basic/childish terms that I'm honestly starting to suspect your engagement is nothing more than clever quasi trolling.

We have very little ability to gauge the true impact of environmental changes so far we've learned that for the most part any manmade or man accelerated change has in the long run an adverse effect on humans and the planet as a whole.

There is no conflict between humans being the geoengineers they are trying to stop adverse changes to their global habitat that can threaten them, while wanting to preserve natural habitats that serve as a home to countless other species.

Most people think nature is pretty nice, and well pretty pretty, screwing it over needlessly especially considering that every time we do it gets worse for us is what most of us by now came to define as "bad" because it has a negative effect on our civilization.

On the other hand if you say make an argument that we found the cure for cancer but to make it we need to harvest every blue belly turtle in the planet and cause the species to go pretty much extinct I don't think many people including me would have much of a moral objection to it since while I do feel bad for the blue belly turtle (I made this species up, it might exist but i don't know :)) the positive effect on human civilization is most likely going to outweigh any negative effects the extinction of this turtle will have on the environment.

Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#45

Post by oneloop »

dogma1138 wrote: post #41
oneloop wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dichotomy that I'm pointing out is not that people are "all for deserts" vs "all against deserts", you misunderstood my position. I'm pointing out a false dichotomy which is "all for environmental preservation" vs the position that "all environmental conditions are irrelevant".

Again this is like being "pro-bear" but not wanting a bear to come out and maul your children at the playground. And one good way of ensuring that the bears don't come out and play is by not destroying their natural habitats. I don't know what false dichotomy you are trying to point out but it doesn't exist, no serious preservationist or environmental scientists saying "all for X". We want to preserve what we can do…

My response was carefully tuned to respond to pyre, not you, so I don't feel the need to reply to this. Just politely letting you know...

Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#46

Post by ommunist »

oneloop wrote: post #42
ommunist wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you live in Beijing? Flint? So why are you protecting spending on Canadian desert problem, instead of pushing the directing of money to solve acute Flint water quality problem? Ask yourself, be consistent. It is not environmental concern that bothers you. Would Beijing air pollution be of your concern, you'd be volunteering in China R&D putting all your inherited money to find tech solution and establish political…

So you do agree that some conditions of the environment will have negative consequences, or don't you? You rhetoric style makes it really difficult to have a rational conversation with you.

Negative consequences for what species? Negative to humans - better for rats and cockroaches. Honestly, from biological point of view Homo sapiens and Rattus norvegica are just different species, but it seems your views are quite biased to favour only one, is it not?

@oneloop. HN does not techically provide me reply link, so I reply here - Sure thing. I told you earlier, I am based on oxydation as a life form. Remove oxygen - I die. And speaking of desert - me and you will die there too, being left in the middle of it. So what?

Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#47

Post by oneloop »

dogma1138 wrote: post #44
oneloop wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why would you think just stripping and entire habitat Again, you completely misunderstood my position. I'm not making a comment on deserts, or this deserts specifically. I'm making the following comment: "it seems to me that certain people (which I've just learned includes you) seem to believe that any change to any environment is necessarily bad"

I'm not an environmentalist, and again I don't understand how you define "good or bad", you seem to operate on so basic/childish terms that I'm honestly starting to suspect your engagement is nothing more than clever quasi trolling. We have very little ability to gauge the true impact of environmental changes so far we've learned that for the most part any manmade or man accelerated change has in the long run an adve…

Well, you SHOULD understand. I'm speaking in term of "loss of lives over the long run". Your words. More "loss of lives over the long run" is the bad alternative, when an alternative exists of less "loss of lives over the long run", which is the good one.

You seem to be writing your responses as if I were claiming that "it's ok to trash the environment", or something, which is not true (see my other comments in this thread).

Anyway, I'm bored, sorry.

Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#48

Post by oneloop »

ommunist wrote: post #46
oneloop wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you do agree that some conditions of the environment will have negative consequences, or don't you? You rhetoric style makes it really difficult to have a rational conversation with you.

Negative consequences for what species? Negative to humans - better for rats and cockroaches. Honestly, from biological point of view Homo sapiens and Rattus norvegica are just different species, but it seems your views are quite biased to favour only one, is it not? @oneloop. HN does not techically provide me reply link, so I reply here - Sure thing. I told you earlier, I am based on oxydation as a life form. Remove…

For humans.

So you do agree that some conditions of the environment will have negative consequences for humans, or don't you?

Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#49

Post by dogma1138 »

oneloop wrote: post #43
dogma1138 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how simpler I can make it. Desertification can cost us anywhere between 25 to over 50% of the global arable land over the next 50-75 years. The destruction of natural habitats can also have a negative effect on human lives, if only by denying future generation from being able to visit them. We gain nothing from destroying them in the long run, many of them even if they are deserts can be natural barriers…

> The destruction of natural habitats can also have a negative effect on human lives Simple question: do you concede that in some cases keeping the natural habitats as they are might be worse than changing them, in terms of loss of life over the long run? If I can't get a yes or no on this, I don't think there's much point in continuing the conversation.

It depends, if it's the last liveable place on the planet and our species survival depends on it it's a no brainer. If it's to make some grapes so Canada can make more shitty wine while causing irreversible damage to the local wildlife and causing even worse desertification and other environmental changes in the future then no. There is no black and white, yes and no, good or bad, I don't understand why you are continuing to form these dycohomotic arguments I honestly suspect you are simply trolling at this point.

Re: Saving Canada's only desert

#50

Post by oneloop »

dogma1138 wrote: post #49
oneloop wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The destruction of natural habitats can also have a negative effect on human lives Simple question: do you concede that in some cases keeping the natural habitats as they are might be worse than changing them, in terms of loss of life over the long run? If I can't get a yes or no on this, I don't think there's much point in continuing the conversation.

It depends, if it's the last liveable place on the planet and our species survival depends on it it's a no brainer. If it's to make some grapes so Canada can make more shitty wine while causing irreversible damage to the local wildlife and causing even worse desertification and other environmental changes in the future then no. There is no black and white, yes and no, good or bad, I don't understand why you are conti…

The question of "are there any circumstances under which ..." is dichotomy. The circumstances either can conceivably exist, or it cannot. And I still haven't gotten an answer from you, so I guess there's no point continuing.

No, I'm not trolling.

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