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We need the wolf

theguardian.com

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Re: We need the wolf

#71

Post by strogonoff »

fogihujy wrote: post #70
strogonoff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point though is that people would be willing to leave if those issues were addressed. (I.e., they would agree that saving the planet is beneficial in long term, and all that stops them is insufficient information and distrust.) No need to force anyone.

Some people are simply not well-suited for living in a city. I'm one of them, and I know many others like me. Even if we somehow managed to solve the practical issues, I'd have to spend a lifetime in therapy just to stay sane. I know, I tried. My therapist told me to move back to the countryside again because the pace city life wasn't good for my mental health. :)

You say “simply” but there obviously must be a cause. If can be addressed, it could, and if it is a fundamental condition then you’d qualify for an exception—assuming nobody pretends to have psychological issues in order to not have to leave (and thus undermine the whole project and the future of their own descendants), that would be just fine.

Re: We need the wolf

#72

Post by tzs »

smcl wrote: post #47
tzs wrote: post #4

I don’t know if they are in Europe, but in some ecosystems wolves are a keystone species. That’s a species that if removed leads to cascading changes with large effects throughout the ecosystem. Here is part of an article at Wikipedia on wolves in Yollowstone describing the changes there when wolves were reintroduced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wolves_in_Yellowsto... The range of effects is astonishing.

The story of wolves in Yellowstone gets a very prominent mention in the article and seems to be cited as an inspiration for the movement to reintroduce wolves to Scotland. They don't directly state this, but right after talking about the huge changes observed in Yellowstone there's a section on how Scotland has issues with management of the deer population and suggests that wolves could help.

Huh...you’re right. I skimmed some of the article the first time and missed that it included Yellowstone.

It’s still worth looking at the Wikipedia article, though, because the Yellowstone section of the Guardian article doesn’t go as far into how wide ranging the changes were in Yellowstone, such as stabilizing the water table and reducing erosion.

Re: We need the wolf

#73

Post by fogihujy »

strogonoff wrote: post #71
fogihujy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people are simply not well-suited for living in a city. I'm one of them, and I know many others like me. Even if we somehow managed to solve the practical issues, I'd have to spend a lifetime in therapy just to stay sane. I know, I tried. My therapist told me to move back to the countryside again because the pace city life wasn't good for my mental health. :)

You say “simply” but there obviously must be a cause. If can be addressed, it could, and if it is a fundamental condition then you’d qualify for an exception—assuming nobody pretends to have psychological issues in order to not have to leave (and thus undermine the whole project and the future of their own descendants), that would be just fine.

Why must there be a cause? You can't just "make people better", just because they aren't having the same priorities, desires and morals as you do? That's the mistake the guys that did the mass-relocations of old did. ;)

In the long run, there is no silver bullet to fight climate change, pollution, over-population, decreased nativity, poverty, geopolitical power-play, consumerism, good old greed, and the other things that we humans use to screw up the planet. We need just as many different solutions as there are problems.

What we need is a cultural change that swings people from "doing nothing" to "doing something". If we keep trying to look for ways to force others to do what we want then we'll just keep fighting about it. I've planted 20 trees this week. With luck, I'll do another 50 this weekend. The plan is to turn our second, unused, field into a forest. I encourage everyone to set a good example by doing their part rather than trying to find ways of forcing others to do things for them.

Re: We need the wolf

#74

Post by rorykoehler »

mulmen wrote: post #61
rorykoehler wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still need our cities to be in harmony with nature. Humans are frighteningly destructive. Everywhere we go gets destroyed be it by industry or careless individual actions. We cannot leave this to individual choice fraught with conflicts of interests and sociopathy.

Sure but skyscraper gardens are not harmony with nature. They’re misguided hubris.

They don't need to be at odds with nature either. Think more solarpunk than cyberpunk. Every building should be designed to provide habitat for nature.

Re: We need the wolf

#75

Post by rorykoehler »

mulmen wrote: post #62
rorykoehler wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about containment. Now we are everywhere. You fly over Malysia and Indonesia and the whole place is plantations.

We aren’t everywhere though. And the parts you can see and fly over are the parts with people, that’s where we put airports. When you say we should limit human presence to 50% (of land?) that implies enormous development.

Half of all habitable land is used for agriculture. 37% by forests... much of that managed forests which are used for human resources. The ones we aren't managing we are felling, irreversibly destroying million year old ecosystems.

https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture

Re: We need the wolf

#76

Post by sifar »

roenxi wrote: post #2

> Perhaps predators are needed to bring nature back into balance. I don't really think this theme was sustained through the article, but it just starts off in the wrong spot. Nature isn't balanced in any meaningful sense. It lurches from one equilibrium to another in a haphazard way [0]. Equilibriums only appear because all the many unequilibriums die out, so by evolution everything rapidly reaches equilibrium. Also…

>> If we can make the world work without wolves, that is the new natural and there is no particular reason to believe there is some sort of cosmic doom awaiting us for our hubris.

Perhaps we can stake a claim to this when the modern civilization building, terra-forming human has existed for million years. Meanwhile natural processes have been at it for billions.

Re: We need the wolf

#77

Post by krrrh »

rorykoehler wrote: post #6

We should rewild 50% of the world and ban humans from entering without a permit. Permits should only be given to those with legitimate professional requirements.

Humans become less human and lose their understanding and capacity to value the natural world without simplistic sentimentality when they are divorced from experiencing it. There’s a balance.

The world is already rewilding without segregation[1], but I’ve benefitted massively from backcountry camping and hunting, it’s turned me into an ardent conservationist, and I think we’d have a better more respectful relationship with nature if some more of us did the same.

[1] https://longnow.org/seminars/02015/jan/13/nature-rebounding-...

Re: We need the wolf

#78

Post by strogonoff »

fogihujy wrote: post #73
strogonoff wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say “simply” but there obviously must be a cause. If can be addressed, it could, and if it is a fundamental condition then you’d qualify for an exception—assuming nobody pretends to have psychological issues in order to not have to leave (and thus undermine the whole project and the future of their own descendants), that would be just fine.

Why must there be a cause? You can't just "make people better", just because they aren't having the same priorities, desires and morals as you do? That's the mistake the guys that did the mass-relocations of old did. ;) In the long run, there is no silver bullet to fight climate change, pollution, over-population, decreased nativity, poverty, geopolitical power-play, consumerism, good old greed, and the other things…

Yes there are all those hurdles, but assuming they are figured out there’s no way someone would consciously choose to sacrifice planetary ecosystem in the name of “you know, I’d just hate to move”.

Making my argument I felt being pushed into idealistic-communism-like tropes, but I think that idea could be achieved in a free world.

Re: We need the wolf

#79

Post by eru »

mulmen wrote: post #54
eru wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, that's exactly the point. If you want people to move away from those areas so that wilderness can take over, you should not subsidize them to stay there. Whether you like rewilding more or the critical service that the USPS provides, is up to you. But you should recognize that they are at least somewhat in conflict.

Yeah, no. You don't get people to move by making their lives horrible. see: coal country. The USPS is more of a service to guarantee equal opportunity than it is a subsidy. This year is a great example of that. The USPS is the organization tasked with collecting and transporting ballots. That's not the kind of thing I want entrusted to the free market. You have presented a false choice between rewilding and the USPS.…

On the margin you do get more people to live in certain places or in certain ways by providing subsidies for those places and ways.

Many other countries do just fine without a government monopoly on mail that subsidizes rural areas. Private carriers can serve just fine.

Re: We need the wolf

#80

Post by eru »

mulmen wrote: post #64
petre wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, ticks do kill deer and moose. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/ticks-ca...

But do they change the deer's behavior in beneficial ways like wolves?

Beneficial to whom? The deer certainly likes neither the wolf nor the tick.

And whether humans like wolves depends on whether eg we'd want to hunt deer for food.

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