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Bird populations declining fast across North America

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Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#61

Post by roca »

mmstgshj wrote: post #52
SkipperCat wrote: post #18

I think this and many of the similar problems plaguing the earth will only be solved with a drastic reduction of people on the planet. Get the population down to 1 or 2 billion of us and a lot of these issues go away. Deforesting, not an issue if the demand for lumber is cut down by 80%. Same for coal, oil, paving, lithium... It all gets solved with just less people. 8 billion people is just too much, even if we all…

I don't think that eco-fascism is the answer. The cause of this problem isn't people, it is capitalism and imperialism. 1/3rd of all emissions are produced by 20 companies The US Military alone puts out more carbon than the top 60 carbon emitters. “The Earth is not dying-it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.” — Utah Phillips

> 1/3rd of all emissions are produced by 20 companies

Sure, but mostly they're producing goods and services that millions/billions of people consume. Getting rid of those 20 companies won't change anything.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#62

Post by jnwatson »

I’ve always imagined that we’re in this situation of creeping ecological and environmental collapse because of a long buildup over hundreds of years of bad priorities.

But it isn’t. Most of the damage has taken place during our lives. Over half the carbon humans have emitted is after 1990.

This isn’t an inherited problem. We’re doing this to ourselves. Right now.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#63

Post by micromacrofoot »

rubylark wrote: post #41

> "declined by 29 percent—or a total net loss of around three billion birds—since 1970." > "estimates that our pet felines kill some 2.6 billion birds annually in the U.S. alone" So is the net loss of 3B birds since 1970 a lot or not a lot? If 2.6B birds each year are killed just by house cats, then wouldn't the decline of 3B over 50 years be not that big of a difference? It sounds like banning outdoor cats would sin…

it means cats and other factors are outpacing replacement, for a total of 3 billion lost… that’s a lot. Total population was somewhere in the area of 10 billion in north america, now around 7 billion

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#64

Post by themodelplumber »

Retric wrote: post #53
themodelplumber wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot more differences than that. You are communicating a subjective model of reality, one model of many, many models.

Within the context of a Model. Models that don’t capture the very large scale effects are useless and therefore not worth talking about. What’s left is models that used to capture large scale effects and all the smaller effects that where never captured by the model.

This sounds more like an argument for systems design. You can easily build models and meta-models that help navigate various scopes. For example the concept of the long tail is by definition a widely-scoped way of gaining leverage in a situation where smaller details are important.

Traffic control systems, computer hardware design...these all incorporate the same combinations of depth and breadth of thinking. I think it's wise to keep an open mind and ask whether it's really necessary to exclude a given model or entire set of them.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#65

Post by lambdadmitry »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17
moosey wrote: post #5

Until human society stops serving abstractions (like money) over things that are real, then real things will continually face consequence. These will still over into our lives in a multitude of ways until we no longer have real systems to support these abstractions. Loss of natural life is such a failure. Today we speak of stock markets, governments, businesses. Someday, our main concern will not be these shared drea…

> the pandemic and my society's inability to deal with it To put the doom and gloom in context, we had a novel virus go from virtually zero to pandemic in the course of a few months. Within weeks we had working treatments. Within a year, effective vaccines. Less than two years from first publication, and over 4 billion people have been inoculated. All within the systems of abstractions you decry. We're messing up a l…

Indeed. It's also just that people don't remember the issues of the yesterday, they just disappear without much reflection.

Remember ozone layer hole? Acid rains? Leaded petrol? Asbestos causing lung cancers? All sorted out when we realised they are problematic. Not immediately, not without some foot dragging and screaming, but sorted.

We are great at solving problems. We just take a bit of time and convincing to get going.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#66

Post by milkytron »

outworlder wrote: post #38
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the pandemic and my society's inability to deal with it To put the doom and gloom in context, we had a novel virus go from virtually zero to pandemic in the course of a few months. Within weeks we had working treatments. Within a year, effective vaccines. Less than two years from first publication, and over 4 billion people have been inoculated. All within the systems of abstractions you decry. We're messing up a l…

> When we focus on something, we get it done That's true. What's also true is that some things simply can't be done. If a species goes extinct, it's over (Jurassic Park fantasies nonwithstanding). It's not like they will respawn if we fix the ecosystem, the damage is permanent. If we get too far into climate change, it won't get undone in time, no matter what crazy geoengineering efforts we undertake. In between ther…

> In between there's a window where we can act. That is closing.

If we is taken as individuals, then sure we can do tiny bits and pieces. But it will take global systematic changes that start with the elite individuals to invoke such changes. And those that try will acquire many enemies and challenges that fight for the status quo.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#67

Post by micromacrofoot »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #27
pstuart wrote: post #4

A literal canary in a coalmine situation, writ large. What is doubly distressing is that we collectively could be addressing issues such as these if we wanted to.

"if we wanted to." It's unfortunate, but people are too obsessed with their short term comfort and prosperity to consider making sacrifices for saving the environment, nature and future generations.

do we have to be? are we unable to overcome this trait?

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#68

Post by lambdadmitry »

titzer wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the pandemic and my society's inability to deal with it To put the doom and gloom in context, we had a novel virus go from virtually zero to pandemic in the course of a few months. Within weeks we had working treatments. Within a year, effective vaccines. Less than two years from first publication, and over 4 billion people have been inoculated. All within the systems of abstractions you decry. We're messing up a l…

Well, there's a lot to quibble about in this rosy portrayal of the COVID clusterfuck, particularly anti-rationality's rearing of anti-Science conspiracy theories and "hesitancy"--but I won't. > When we focus on something, we get it done Yeah, great. Can we focus on not ruining this planet for the stock market? Climate change, deforestation and plastic pollution are seriously damaging the one planet in the known unive…

We are focusing on it plenty enough. The timeframes for serious climate change are measured in half-a-centuries, remember how much changed in the last decade? Solar got massively cheaper, it became possible to convince countries to reduce their carbon emissions purely through political pressure, billions get spent on energy and sustainability R&D. Hell, even nuclear is quickly losing it stigma after Europe haven't had much wind for a few weeks! We are getting there, regardless of alarmist "we have two years to fix everything or the planet is uninhabitable" nonsense.

Re: Bird populations declining fast across North America

#69

Post by micromacrofoot »

hunterb123 wrote: post #59
jeffbee wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ranked list of human-associated stuff that kills birds goes something like windows >> cats >> pollution >> cars >> windmills.

Alright, can we get numbers going then, let's work through this. That's the most substantive response yet, let's source it and drill down solutions for each. Windmills are the most recent change I can think of to explain this trend. Cats, cars, and pollution have been killing birds, but maybe it's ramped up.

…it’s a 50 year trend
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