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Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point'

theguardian.com

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Re: Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point'

#61

Post by schoen »

AlexandrB wrote: post #58
wincy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also going to make those you convince of this less genetically fit than those who ignore the advice. So the people who choose to have ten kids are going to be more represented in the population a hundred years from now.

Arguments like this are insane because complex behavior like lifestyle choice is not 100% (or probably even 50%) genetic. It’s like saying that the only way to have more people coding is for coders to have kids. Complete bullshit.

In principle there is a selection pressure against it if it's even 1% genetic. But that pressure might not be strong enough to have a large effect very soon (especially when very few people today seem to be actively motivated to have as many children as would be physically possible for them).

Re: Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point'

#62

Post by ralusek »

PinkMilkshake wrote: post #60
ralusek wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's called a third party negative externality. Even libertarians are fine with state intervention.

But what if a state is causing the negative externality and the third party is all other states ? (Thanks btw, I hadn't come across that term.)

Then the other states beat up the bad one.

Re: Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point'

#64

Post by forgotmypw3 »

aitchnyu wrote: post #63
forgotmypw3 wrote: post #49

If you buy palm oil, you're complicit.

I thought you were digressing to Indonesian forests, but TIL Brazil wants the palm oil money too: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jun/29...

I didn't even have to check. Anywhere warm and moist, land is being cleared for palm oil.

Re: Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point'

#65

Post by digitalsushi »

woogiewonka wrote: post #48
makerofspoons wrote: post #10

Loss of the Amazon would be a major tipping point in ecological collapse: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-c... In one model if the Amazon were deforested the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains declines by half. There are global impacts for all of this.

No sources, but something tells me we are already past the tipping point.

A morbid thought I've been struggling with a lot lately.

As we continue to pass point of no return scenarios, will there be an increasing collective of people that flip to believing there is no hope, and adopting a congruent lifestyle?

Could an increasing collective of people sharing this narrative, that we've entered the palliative era of humanity, be the last factor for our ultimate failure as we navigate this tricky problem of scaling our species for a planet?

Does the process of giving up, on the individual level, accelerate a 'bank run' scenario on the planet?

I devote a small minority of my constant focus to remaining calm and trying to not give in, and I am increasingly fatigued and tempted to join the much easier position that it's already too late. But I don't want to see who I turn into once I adopt that position.

Re: Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point'

#66

Post by gtirloni »

rabidrat wrote: post #50
riffraff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We probably don't need to impose birth control, population is stabilizing and will probably decrease after peaking. The faster we get people out of poverty, girls educated, and reduce child mortality, the faster we stop population growth.

The population is not stabilizing. The growth rate is stabilizing. We're still adding almost 100m new humans to the roster every year. We're going to hit 8 billion in 3 years (ahead of predictions made 20 years ago), and then 9 billion 12 years after that. People love to talk about the birth rate is falling in developed countries and how we're going to have a population peak here Real Soon Now. But I'll bet you dolla…

The growth rate is approaching zero though. Year after year.

Re: Amazon deforestation accelerating to unrecoverable 'tipping point'

#67

Post by rabidrat »

gtirloni wrote: post #66
rabidrat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The population is not stabilizing. The growth rate is stabilizing. We're still adding almost 100m new humans to the roster every year. We're going to hit 8 billion in 3 years (ahead of predictions made 20 years ago), and then 9 billion 12 years after that. People love to talk about the birth rate is falling in developed countries and how we're going to have a population peak here Real Soon Now. But I'll bet you dolla…

The growth rate is approaching zero though. Year after year.

And yet year after year there are 80m+ more people being added. If the rate of change of the rate is slow enough it doesn't matter that it's going down, the population is still increasing at a breathtaking pace, and we'll have to have a population collapse to get back to anything sustainable.
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