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Decline of Indian vultures

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Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#81

Post by nyc_data_geek »

VikingCoder wrote: post #80

I once had someone on Reddit comment back to me, "Why should I care about biodiversity?" As someone who grew up watching "Life on Earth," I could not relate to their question at all. It was like if someone asked me, "Why should I care about oxygen?" And of course, I had the shame that if I can't explain something simply, then I don't really understand it. I still don't have a great answer that I can offer. But wow, t…

Because we are all interdependent, and monocultures fail. Loss of biodiversity means you are more likely to die of starvation. Loss of habitat means you are more likely to die of disease. Loss of biodiversity means less resiliency to a changing climate and world.

We get a lot of our medicines and medical treatments from plants and animals, historically and to this day. If not for those creatures, these avenues of progress may well be inaccessible dead ends.

Life is a unique information form given rise through evolution. Elements are plentiful in the universe, but as far as we know, the information in the DNA of a species exists nowhere else. Thus, every species unique in the universe - we don't even know what we don't know about life yet, but we do know that every species extinct is an irreplaceable loss to the frontiers of knowledge we mostly haven't even managed to explore yet.

Some reasons offhand.

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#82

Post by jihadjihad »

> The scavenging bird would always hover over sprawling landfills, looking for cattle carcasses

Reading this sentence gave me the unsettling feeling of cattle carcasses tossed into the trash, along with a feeling of, "surely that doesn't happen in the US?"

It turns out that landfilling a carcass seems to be a legitimate option (item 3 at [0]), and isn't something I'd ever thought about before.

0: https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/UT/Cow_Mort...

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#83

Post by nyc_data_geek »

trte9343r4 wrote: post #5
aurareturn wrote: post #2

Question: Did another animal take the role of the vultures? Nature is very efficient. If there opportunity, it seems like some animals might evolve to fill that role.

Evolution takes long time. But to answer your question: wild dogs. But in India they spread rabies and other diseases, attack and kill people. And their excrements are highly toxic, and kill plants (unlike vultures). Nature is not always efficient.

>>Nature is not always efficient.

that all depends on what you're optimizing for

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#84

Post by [deleted] »

jihadjihad wrote: post #82

> The scavenging bird would always hover over sprawling landfills, looking for cattle carcasses Reading this sentence gave me the unsettling feeling of cattle carcasses tossed into the trash, along with a feeling of, "surely that doesn't happen in the US?" It turns out that landfilling a carcass seems to be a legitimate option (item 3 at [0]), and isn't something I'd ever thought about before. 0: https://efotg.sc.ego…

[deleted]

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#85

Post by ffsm8 »

nyc_data_geek wrote: post #81
VikingCoder wrote: post #80

I once had someone on Reddit comment back to me, "Why should I care about biodiversity?" As someone who grew up watching "Life on Earth," I could not relate to their question at all. It was like if someone asked me, "Why should I care about oxygen?" And of course, I had the shame that if I can't explain something simply, then I don't really understand it. I still don't have a great answer that I can offer. But wow, t…

Because we are all interdependent, and monocultures fail. Loss of biodiversity means you are more likely to die of starvation. Loss of habitat means you are more likely to die of disease. Loss of biodiversity means less resiliency to a changing climate and world. We get a lot of our medicines and medical treatments from plants and animals, historically and to this day. If not for those creatures, these avenues of pro…

You're making it sound a lot more straightforward then it is.

We're currently producing incredible amounts of food through monocultures, which is kinda the opposite of biodiversity. So the relationship with starvation is objectively inverted: we sacrificed it to boost yields!

Resilience is another thing that's very hard to reason about, because why would resilience matter to you if your race dies out? Sure, some animals and insects would have a higher chance of survival under different settings, but why does that matter to you, a human?

The medicine is a valid point, but I don't think random people on the Internet would prioritize that higher then cheap food, which we just established is enabled by sacrificing biodiversity.

While I'd agree that biodiversity is probably important, finding reasons for why - which actually matter to the average Joe - isnt quiet as easy

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#86

Post by thih9 »

The timeline looks scary, it looks like it took about a decade to introduce a regulation that would help protect the vultures (and humans).

> By the mid-1990s, the 50 million-strong vulture population had plummeted to near zero (...) Since the 2006 ban on veterinary use of diclofenac, the decline has slowed in some areas, but at least three species have suffered long-term losses of 91-98% (...)

Wikipedia claims that before this, a vulture species "was thought to be the most abundant large bird of prey in the world"[1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-rumped_vulture

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#87

Post by konfusinomicon »

jihadjihad wrote: post #82

> The scavenging bird would always hover over sprawling landfills, looking for cattle carcasses Reading this sentence gave me the unsettling feeling of cattle carcasses tossed into the trash, along with a feeling of, "surely that doesn't happen in the US?" It turns out that landfilling a carcass seems to be a legitimate option (item 3 at [0]), and isn't something I'd ever thought about before. 0: https://efotg.sc.ego…

just dont encourage burying them..farmers have a knack for hitting fiber optic lines when they bury dead cows

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#88

Post by nyc_data_geek »

ffsm8 wrote: post #85
nyc_data_geek wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we are all interdependent, and monocultures fail. Loss of biodiversity means you are more likely to die of starvation. Loss of habitat means you are more likely to die of disease. Loss of biodiversity means less resiliency to a changing climate and world. We get a lot of our medicines and medical treatments from plants and animals, historically and to this day. If not for those creatures, these avenues of pro…

You're making it sound a lot more straightforward then it is. We're currently producing incredible amounts of food through monocultures, which is kinda the opposite of biodiversity. So the relationship with starvation is objectively inverted: we sacrificed it to boost yields! Resilience is another thing that's very hard to reason about, because why would resilience matter to you if your race dies out? Sure, some anim…

Fair point about monocultures increasing yields. That said, they are also more susceptible to being wiped out by black swan events (see:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_disease)

Resilience of your food supply should matter to you, as an organism that needs food to live.

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#89

Post by ClumsyPilot »

netsharc wrote: post #75
jna_sh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usage of “hedging” terms like this is normal practice in academic writing. For a variety of reasons, some social and political, some practical. The short explanation is that the current scientific process values humility.

It's a scary realization that a lot of climate scientist, including the IPCC, give us the lower number that they can be more confident with, because the higher number will get people yelling "Crackpot!" at them. (the number being temperature rise, CO2 concentration rise, and all the bad things).

They also assume CO2 capture and negative emission after 2050 which is pure fantasy and will not happen

Re: Decline of Indian vultures

#90

Post by ClumsyPilot »

Waterluvian wrote: post #45
jauco wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe to establish a ring of accounts that duck underneath the vote ring detection metrics and that you can then use to upvote people’s stories? (For a small fee of course) This attempt probably will be flagged by dang since you called it out, but given enough effort they may even construct bots that generate the proper curious discussion that we like here, and have a small (but lucrative) rounding error in voting be…

I’m sure this is a worn out discussion point, and touches on some deep philosophical issues. But if bots could be entirely indistinguishable from humans and generate curious discussion, would I really care that they’re bots? None of you know me. I might be a bot. But do I not generate curiosity? Do I not get downvoted on occasion? As a language model I—-

> None of you know me. I might be a bot. But do I not generate curiosity?

Yes, because they used to manufacture consent. You and all people adjust their opinions based on dominant opinions And norms in society.

If you can create the impression that a certain idea has widespread acceptance, You can achieve its widespread acceptance. Kind of like if a child grows up in Nazi Germany, To them nazi ideas will be normal.

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