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

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

#441

Post by mrnobody_67 »

uhtred wrote: post #64
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…

Why not go vegan? Sure, anything is better than nothing, but a vegan diet is best of all. Plus, dairy, especially when consumed as cheese, is worse than some meat in terms of environmental impact.

The most calorie dense food is the least healthiest... when you have tens of millions of people with no savings and with little food security in the USA... it's easier said than done.

The US also has over 23m people living in "Food Deserts" - https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-food-des... and http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-a...

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

#442

Post by crispinb »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #40
crispinb wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's INSANE And the death of our living planet isn't? So-called 'economic growth' was never much more than a global entropy increase, as high quality self-organising evolved systems were ripped out to feed crude technological ones requiring endless inputs. This was always mere borrowing against the future. It was never 'growth' in any true sense. It ends because biology, chemistry & physics say it must, regardless…

> We could perhaps 3 or 4 decades ago have made a collective decision to gradually reduce consumption and allow our home to survive in decent enough shape to sustain us. One thing we know about humans is that, as a species, we were never and are not currently capable of making such collective decisions or otherwise coordinating at this scale. This is probably the root of most problems we have, except death and diseas…

> One thing we know about humans is that, as a species, we were never and are not currently capable of making such collective decisions

I'm pretty sceptical re claims of knowledge about complex systems, and human ecology is about as complex as systems get. So I think your statement is way overconfident.

Having said that, if I had to make a bet on whether or not we'll make the necessary decisions given how late in the game we've left it, I'd put a decent whack of cash on the prospects of failure. Also that the proximate cause of the collapse of our civilisation won't be global environmental collapse, but war consequent on local collapses. Look at Europe following 2015, convulsions caused by trickles of refugees that were minuscule compared to what's coming. I'd bet on nukes (another can we've kicked down the road for decades) offering the coup de grace.

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

#443

Post by mooseburger »

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…

Don't try to scapegoat, it's a collective action problem, everyone on the planet is responsible for this. Think about how painful it would be for you to totally wean yourself off fossil fuels. It's the same at the nation level.

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

#444

Post by TearsInTheRain »

mooseburger wrote: post #440

The U.S. and Europe can't actually do much about this though. Look at this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th... If everyone in the US and Europe dropped dead, that would be about a 24% decrease in global GHG emissions. Said emissions need to be 40% to 70% lower by 2050, according to the IPCC ( https://www.climatecentral.org/news/major-greenhouse-gas-red... ). Bottom line, you're not…

Is there any progress being made on carbon sequestration so that we dont have to revert to killing people?

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

#445

Post by zackmorris »

mooseburger wrote: post #440

The U.S. and Europe can't actually do much about this though. Look at this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th... If everyone in the US and Europe dropped dead, that would be about a 24% decrease in global GHG emissions. Said emissions need to be 40% to 70% lower by 2050, according to the IPCC ( https://www.climatecentral.org/news/major-greenhouse-gas-red... ). Bottom line, you're not…

This is only true because the US didn't lead 40 years ago when environmental impacts were well-studied but conservative politicians like Ronald Reagan began doubling down on anti-environment policies.

Then China and India cargo culted our "western" lifestyle and the rest is history.

The only inspiration I find in all of this is that many developing countries are rejecting rat race capitalism for basic sustainability. Many of them have better/cheaper internet connectivity than we do, and are adopting solar and wind projects in place of coal power plants. If they invest in automated community gardens (similar to our lettuce greenhouses), there is a chance that they will go around us within a generation.

I think that explains a lot of US interventionism in Africa and South America. They see this sort of futurism as socialism or communism and do everything possible to shut it down at every turn.

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

#446

Post by perfunctory »

mooseburger wrote: post #440

The U.S. and Europe can't actually do much about this though. Look at this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th... If everyone in the US and Europe dropped dead, that would be about a 24% decrease in global GHG emissions. Said emissions need to be 40% to 70% lower by 2050, according to the IPCC ( https://www.climatecentral.org/news/major-greenhouse-gas-red... ). Bottom line, you're not…

> If everyone in the US and Europe dropped dead, that would be about a 24% decrease in global GHG emissions

That's not quite right. A lot of that pollution by China and Other is due to exports for US and European consumption. We just outsourced our pollution. So it depends on how one does the accounting.

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

#447

Post by komali2 »

andbberger wrote: post #346
komali2 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicken, fish, and turkey are some of the healthiest delivery mechanisms for protein on the planet. They can be grown sustainably, as well, so again, veganism isn't required. At the supermarket, just get the expensive chicken breasts - I'm guessing the vast majority of us on this website can afford it.

Nah man, just eat the plants those animals are eating. You can't get away from the 10x energetic penalty.

But the animals strip out the fiber/carbs and over time convert it into efficient stores of protein/fat.

I need ~140g protein a day to perform in the gym, I don't really want to get that from beans and be chew through 3,500 calories of carbohydrates to get to that protein.

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

#448

Post by pvaldes »

spurgu wrote: post #435
pvaldes wrote: post #414

To put things in context; If we wipe from the planet ALL vascular plants, all flowers and trees and ALL vertebrates, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the full pack, plus SIX major phylums of invertebrates including all molluscs, snails, clams and squids, ALL corals and jellyfishes, ALL starfishes and sea urchins, ALL sponges, ALL flatworms, parasites and free living, and every one tunicate described b…

That's just... crazy.

Can turn crazier. Selecting carefully and with "1 million of nethack scrolls of genocide" we could probably wipe all extant life beings known heavier than 1 Kg, except fungus, macroalgae... and not much more.

I hope that this article is wrong. If not, one million of species is a lot of biodiversity about to jump by the clift in the next ten or twenty years.

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

#449

Post by defterGoose »

kmlx wrote: post #368
inflatableDodo wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can join mazt1 in paintbrushing flowers for the amusement of spectating bees.

the bees should already be considered extinct. and we have drones for this today.

*citation needed

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

#450

Post by defterGoose »

lorenzorhoades wrote: post #429

I'm confused on why people actually care about global warming. That planet is in whats called a 'glacial age' on the historic time table of the earth. Yeah, we are rapidly depleting the ice caps (So what?) Yeah, we are slowly warming the earth. (So what?) yeah places like south florida are going to be underwater, and will potentially cost hundreds of billions (So what?). The point is, growth sacraficed now will have…

About: Capital Expenditure at Tesla

Hmm, why is it always the finance guys who proselytize about "but tech innovations will save us, don't worry", and never the scientists and engineers who will deliver those innovations? I can promise you, we don't share your optimism, and I can fairly confidently say that any "Law" based on a brief survey of social/financial science is uniquely made to be broken.

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