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Rewilding the Self

worldsensorium.com

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Re: Rewilding the Self

#51

Post by daveguy »

ANewFormation wrote: post #42
kmmlng wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem that there are periods and places where things are in equilibrium, or stable. At some point, something typically comes along and disturbs that balance. This can be seen in the fossil record, where you have lots of species going extinct during fairly short periods of time, while there are other times when not much happens. What people are concerned about is that we, as humans, are the thing that is distur…

Things are not stable between the mass extinctions - the mass extinction events are just extreme events of high relevance. The thing is that Earth is constantly shifting in unpredictable ways. There was an interesting paper recently published working to reconstruct the temperature record of the last 500 million years. [1] The paper concluded that global mean temperatures varied (over time) in a range from 11c to 36c.…

I think the point is that those promoting ecological balance are concerned that humanity itself may be an extreme event of high relevance.

Re: Rewilding the Self

#52

Post by krackers »

amelius wrote: post #3
Over2Chars wrote: post #2

"walking barefoot in the grass, planting native species in our backyards, or simply pausing to observe the life teeming around us" - from the fine article Ok, I'll get right on it.

You can put this [1] under your desk. [1] https://www.freshpatch.com (I saw this on Shark Tank)

I'm glad someone brought Picchi 2 to life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqjUlmkYr2g

Re: Rewilding the Self

#53

Post by wilg »

It seems like a lot of people spend time outdoors, gardening, hiking, doing outdoor recreation, etc. Is it really true that we're losing something here?

Re: Rewilding the Self

#54

Post by Over2Chars »

1shooner wrote: post #32
xigency wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the downvotes. It's hard to read any fraction of this article without wanting to take a walk away from the computer.

From the guidelines: > Don't be snarky.

I'm glad our anti-snark overlords are being attentive. Oh sh*t was that snarky too?

Re: Rewilding the Self

#55

Post by timeon »

sriacha wrote: post #48
spiderfarmer wrote: post #21

My problem with the term “ecological balance” is that it doesn’t exist. It’s a mythical term that seems invented by Disney. Nature is brutal. Populations will get wiped out, species will disappear. That’s exactly why having a lot of species is important. But it’s hardly balanced.

I worry this view is both pedantic and harmful. Of course over geologic scales extinctions are quite normal, and nothing is static. That doesn't mean ecosystems aren't normally resilient to perturbations on a smaller timescales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_stability >Populations will get wiped out, species will disappear. There is plenty of evidence that extinction rates are extremely high right now, and…

> I worry this view is both pedantic and harmful.

Yes it seems like excuse for enlightened apathy.

Re: Rewilding the Self

#57

Post by fulafel »

ANewFormation wrote: post #35
SteveVeilStream wrote: post #34

With the world's population now exceeding 8 billion, we need to be thoughtful about the best way to rewild ourselves. We can live in dense cities with concrete high-rises but animals can't. Many animals at the top of the food chain need significant ranges for themselves. So the challenge is finding a way that we can minimize our footprint while also providing more opportunities for legitimate connection with nature.…

The world is far bigger than most realize. Split completely equally there's enough room for more than 200,000 square feet per person. [1] Thats about 4 football fields of area for every single man, woman, and child alive today. Factor in that some people enjoy living in urban areas, most won't leave in any case, and so on - and we're realistically talking about tens to hundreds of football fields per person. It's a b…

How much of appealing countryside is there that is attractive living area for humans?

Re: Rewilding the Self

#58

Post by fulafel »

93po wrote: post #50
ANewFormation wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is far bigger than most realize. Split completely equally there's enough room for more than 200,000 square feet per person. [1] Thats about 4 football fields of area for every single man, woman, and child alive today. Factor in that some people enjoy living in urban areas, most won't leave in any case, and so on - and we're realistically talking about tens to hundreds of football fields per person. It's a b…

only about 71% of all land is habitable, and there would be a lot of other restrictions in terms of access to resources, and we need land dedicated to stuff like manufacturing and shared common spaces, so that per-person number quickly gets much smaller

According to https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture of the habitable land, still half is used for agriculture.

Re: Rewilding the Self

#59

Post by zonkerdonker »

A bit beside the point of TFA, but reading about "rewilding ourselves" reminded me of some research on human parasites [0].

Tldr is that the parasite dampens the immune system, and our bodies have evolved to deal with that dampening, so in places (like the US) where parasitic infection is relatively rare, diseases involving hyperactive immune systems (allergies, T2 diabetes, asthma, etc) are much more common.

So to really rewild, maybe we should all go out and eat some raw snails out of the nearest stagnant body of water. (50% /s?)

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5010150/

Re: Rewilding the Self

#60

Post by SteveVeilStream »

ANewFormation wrote: post #35
SteveVeilStream wrote: post #34

With the world's population now exceeding 8 billion, we need to be thoughtful about the best way to rewild ourselves. We can live in dense cities with concrete high-rises but animals can't. Many animals at the top of the food chain need significant ranges for themselves. So the challenge is finding a way that we can minimize our footprint while also providing more opportunities for legitimate connection with nature.…

The world is far bigger than most realize. Split completely equally there's enough room for more than 200,000 square feet per person. [1] Thats about 4 football fields of area for every single man, woman, and child alive today. Factor in that some people enjoy living in urban areas, most won't leave in any case, and so on - and we're realistically talking about tens to hundreds of football fields per person. It's a b…

Although that is true, the counterpoint is that I think some people underestimate the potential impact on animals and how much room away from humans they really need. Some interesting recent research here: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/folio/2025/01/human-recreation-pu...
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