Humanity Has Wiped Out 60% of Animal Populations Since 1970 (theguardian.com) 303
Artem Tashkinov shares a report: The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else. Many scientists believe the world has begun a sixth mass extinction, the first to be caused by a species -- Homo sapiens. Other recent analyses have revealed that humankind has destroyed 83% of all mammals and half of plants since the dawn of civilisation and that, even if the destruction were to end now, it would take 5-7 million years for the natural world to recover. Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF, said: "We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it."
First generation? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Most logging companies in the US plan two new trees for each one cut down. The financial incentive is clear.
I agree with you that is one of the reasons there is a focus on "Climate Change." Another reason is it gives government a reason to take over or regulate industries. It gives us a handy enemy list as well - big oil, big lumber, etc.
Re:First generation? (Score:5, Informative)
Logging companies aren't the ones destroying habitat. That's mostly from farming and ranching, and suburban growth.
Brazil just elected a president who wants to privatize even more of the Amazon, so expect the rate of deforestation there to increase from its current rate of six square miles per day [wikipedia.org].
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Brazil just elected a president who wants to privatize even more of the Amazon, so expect the rate of deforestation there to increase from its current rate of six square miles per day [wikipedia.org].
I'm not in Brazil, so I don't know this first hand, but I suspect that as with the US, the respectable people wouldn't address things that needed addressing, so the voters went with the unrespectable person.
Re:First generation? (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately they almost exclusively replant fast growing species like pine. They are planning for the next trip through that area in 20-30 years to cut down mature trees again. They hardly ever plant hardwoods and when they do it's only because they are forced to by state or local regulations. They will come through and cut down trees that take 50 to 70 years to reach maturity. Trees that are worth a ton of money because they take so long to grow. Then they plant cheap, fast growing pine to "replace" the hardwoods they cut. Even if they plant 10 pine trees for every hardwood they cut down it's still not a fair trade.
I'm glad they are planting more trees but don't pat them on the back. They have a financial incentive to plant a ton of evergreen trees. They will need something to cut down and process in the future. It has exactly zero to do with environmental stewardship and everything to do with future profits. The one and only reason companies in the US do anything that seems environmentally responsible is because they are either forced to do so by regulations or because they know if they don't they will go out of business since their won't be any trees left for them to cut down.
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Hardwoods account for a very small portion of lumber sales precisely because they don't grow fast.
Pine forests are being replaced by Pine forests.
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I'm glad they are planting more trees but don't pat them on the back. They have a financial incentive to plant a ton of evergreen trees.
Well yeah, that's exactly what I said. What part of my second sentence was unclear? ;)
Re: First generation? (Score:2)
Usually quick-growing trees as they're worth more per unit time and unit area.
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That is the real problem now.
These issues have long term affects while we are evolved to fix short term problems. The disciplines of Math and Science can show us trends and long term projections, and give us these big picture complex problems. But the solutions to solve these big problems seem to require suffering short term problems, which we are evolved to instinctively respond to.
If a predator is threatening myself or my family, I am not going to go, well this animal is endangered, and us humans are ov
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60% of species (Score:2)
I assume they mean 60% of species, not 60% total individuals of animals. Bugs are animals, and many of them are thriving on our leftovers, processing, and farming leftoves. We've spread ants around the globe. They already were there- but we've spread more invasive ones that have huge numbers in colonies.
Now, if we ever want to become 100% efficient as a species (meaning utilizing 100% of resources and not letting any skip through the cracks)- that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all
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They will eventually. Look at how quickly wolves and bears returned into the deserted areas around Chernobyl. 5-7 million years? More like a few decades.
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Re:60% of species (Score:5, Informative)
Bugs are animals, and many of them are thriving on our leftovers...
Nope.
Bugs dying off too:
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
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...that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all resources go directly towards sustaining human life.
I consider pigs, chickens, and cattle resources for humans.
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...that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all resources go directly towards sustaining human life.
I consider pigs, chickens, and cattle resources for humans.
Not 100% efficient resources though. They use up energy and resources. For us to be 100% efficient we would need to get rid of food animals too... perhaps a pure plant or bacterial solution would be most efficient way to use up 100% of all energy... either that or find a way to photosynthesize for ourselves...
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either that or find a way to photosynthesize for ourselves...
If you haven't already started regularly injecting chlorophyll, then I'll reach peak efficiency before you.
the web of life, billions of years in the making (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, well except 99 percent of the species that ever existed are extinct.
Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki (Score:4, Insightful)
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Hmm, I'd be willing to bet we saw a quicker, more irreversible mass extinction, oh, 65 megayears ago, when that big rock fell out of the sky....
Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki (Score:4, Informative)
Funny, but not factually accurate. The KT extinction event was just the start, it took thousands of years for the extinction of species to reach its peak. We are outpacing it by a fair clip.
Re: the web of life, billions of years in the mak (Score:3)
Irrelevant.
Branches of the tree of life become irrelevant ant die off. That's natural and normal.
But that is not even remotely equivalent to taking an axe to the trunk or lopping off healthy branches to make way for the diseased.
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Irrelevant.
Branches of the tree of life become irrelevant ant die off. That's natural and normal.
But that is not even remotely equivalent to taking an axe to the trunk or lopping off healthy branches to make way for the diseased.
It is not really a tree https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... [nytimes.com] , but whatever.
Human actions are part of the evolutionary process as well. Same as all other animals.
Humans + livestock account for 96% mammal biomass (Score:5, Informative)
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Here is a brilliant XKCD chart illustrating this very thing.
Forest is being cut down to make room for for cattle grazing. the XKCD graphic above shows just how bad this situation is. Us humans outnumber ALL wild animal put together and out cattle outnumber us!
100 times as much water is used to create a lb of beef than a lb of crops! Producing 1 calorie of animal protein uses over 10 times as much fossil fuels as 1 calorie of plant protein!
I think in the long run the only chance we have is for us all to go v
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100 times as much water is used to create a lb of beef than a lb of crops!
The steak tastes at least 1,000 times better than the lettuce leaf though, so it's worth it.
I think in the long run the only chance we have is for us all to go vegan.
Eventually we'll be able to grow meat in labs and it won't be nearly as expensive or have anywhere near the environmental impact. At that point, I don't see anyone being vegan unless they have some rare condition that necessitates that kind of diet.
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100 times as much water is used to create a lb of beef than a lb of crops!
Your simplication is mostly wrong. The water requirements depend a lot on location and type of crop. Also you have to consider the type of water that's used. Rainwater that's falling out of the sky for free is a different than potable tap water, or ancient well water.
Producing 1 calorie of animal protein uses over 10 times as much fossil fuels as 1 calorie of plant protein!
Again, not true. There's a huge difference between protein content of different plant sources, as well as fossil fuel requirements. Very little fossil fuel is involved when you let a bunch of goats graze on grassy mountainside. A lot more is us
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Obligatory XKCD of that: https://xkcd.com/1338/ [xkcd.com]
Fake News (Score:5, Funny)
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Tanya Steele is the Chef Executive of the UK office of the WWF. Why would you ask if she's a real person instead of just clicking on the first Google result of her name: https://www.wwf.org.uk/tanya-s... [wwf.org.uk]
There isn't a global solution (Score:4, Insightful)
The first step to protecting a future for our grand kids is to recognize there is NOT a global solution. There are probably already to many people.
Population is the one driving factor. Everything else is a rounding error. Anyone who actually cares about the environment would be in favor of basically ending immigration. Limit agricultural exports and imports.
Here in the US we are essentially at the replacement rate in terms of birth rate. Stop letting new outsiders in. Deal with the not nearly as complex economic problem of having a flat population size as compared to growth beyond sustainability or population decline.
Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.
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I'm conflicted.
Fate is the who, where, when, and how (much money) one is born into.
But we make enough food for the humans, at the expense of nature.
Immigration isn't a bad thing, but it does need to be controlled (Example: the whole USA thing, tears for the natives at the time, they couldn't handle European diseases or our ignorance and hatred that they were equal persons).
We should be carpet bombing the entire world with condoms and instructions for such. Population growth reduction is the only answer. R
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Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.
The point is that there is no longer any "naturally". Even the poorest countries have access to enough technology that by the time their populations get large/dense enough that they are limited by starvation, etc. then the environments in those countries will be totally destroyed. Back when all the technology that people had was sharp rocks and rubbing sticks together to make fires, people would start starving to death long before the environment was completely destroyed. But that's no longer the case.
The i
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or lived anywhere where violent criminal organizations threaten your life on a daily basis, or try to kidnap your children to turn into prostitutes or slaves or suicide bombers.
Yes, and he would like to keep it that way, thankyou.
If I'm in an overcrowded lifeboat, in freezing North Atlantic waters, I should pull more people on board until it capsizes? Describing foreigners that way is really not helping your argument, just scaring him more.
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You, on the other hand, are making me wonder if you're any better.
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stop being a selfish dick
The people that are coming over from Africa to Europe are all selfish dicks too. Most of them are young, strong men that are lucky enough to have the money to pay for the fare. Instead of helping to overthrow their corrupt government, they quit, and leave the problems for the less fortunate to solve.
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Well that's pretty monstrous. Because what's the solution to "too many people"?
Anyone who actually cares about the environment would be in favor of basically ending immigration.
So that they'll magically stop making more people? So that they die out there?
Limit agricultural exports and imports.
The only possible goal for this action is to literally starve the people outside our nation. You are a monster.
Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.
That's a cute little euphemism for "let them die".
But there is no "local" carrying capacity. We can ship food around and people can move. "Local" is defined as "planet Earth". Ignoring that, or suggesting we stop doing that is willfully ign
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The only possible goal for this action is to literally starve the people outside our nation. You are a monster.
If you don't let them starve, they'll make more people, and then more of them will starve after a few generations. You are a monster.
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The only possible goal for this action is to literally starve the people outside our nation. You are a monster.
If you don't let them starve, they'll make more people, and then more of them will starve after a few generations. You are a monster.
Thanos, is that you?
Re:There isn't a global solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, so, what's the "carrying capacity" of New York City? Or Los Angeles? Hell, it's not like they grow enough food in either of those places to feed the Police Department, much less the rest of the people!
Or was this just your way of saying, "let them brown people starve, damnit! And pass the mashed potatoes"?
Note that if we were to drop back to the "natural carrying capacity" of the land, we'd have to drop back to the "natural" number of humans. Say, a few tens of thousands living in caves.
Oddly enough, I'm willing to bet that everyone who wants to "drop back to the natural carrying capacity of the land" assumes that they'll be part of the 0.001% who survives the famines/plagues/wars that'll be required to make sure Those Others do the dying.
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I'm willing to bet that everyone who wants to "drop back to the natural carrying capacity of the land" assumes that they'll be part of the 0.001% who survives
I can't speak for the others, but I'm more than happy to be part of the 99.999% myself.
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Ok but how do we keep our own country's citizens from filling up all the empty space? Ending immigration only changes who fill those spaces.
Only 60%? (Score:2)
That's BS.
We can do better than that! I have faith in humanity.
Welcome to the Anthropocene Extinction Event! (Score:5, Informative)
Better get used to it.
It's still a long slide to the bottom.
Obligatory /. meme (Score:2)
It's their fault for being delicious.
no problem, we'll make more (Score:2)
Not only will we come up with new species but we'll resurrect useful extinct animals, just as we have been doing with plants. We'll correct imbalances such as the predatory purple urchins that are destroying kelp forests. We'll create fantastic creatures inspired by Dr. Seuss to amuse the children. We're gonna have some serious fun populating what's left of the natural world.
Remember that most species, the most important ones, are too small for human eyes to see. The magnificent rhinos, giraffes, tigers ...
Pfft (Score:4, Interesting)
"the world has begun a sixth mass extinction, the first to be caused by a species -- Homo sapiens"
Cyanobacteria wiped out 90% of life on the planet. They still have us beat by a landslide.
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Cyanobacteria wiped out 90% of life on the planet. They still have us beat by a landslide.
Patience. We have only really started our efforts in the last century. I'm sure we'll catch up. Maybe we'll even get the cyanobacteria to pitch in.
So the real question is... (Score:3)
What species will adapt to these changes and thrive?
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Here in Texas, the rattlesnakes are about the only predators that keep the mice and rat populations down. Coyotes assist, but the rodents are in the billions. Feral hogs are another major issue here. Coyotes cannot take them and the mountain lions and other large cats are only in certain areas. My father-in-law has so many wild hogs on his land (East Texas), that we could literally shoot them from dusk to dawn for a week straight and not really even put a dent in their population. They are highly destructiv
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Here in Texas, the rattlesnakes are about the only predators that keep the mice and rat populations down. Coyotes assist, but the rodents are in the billions.
No owls or other predatory birds in Texas? Foxes? No Domestic Cats? No other species of snake? No raccoons or opossum to eat the young mice? No bullfrogs? Nothing like a mink/polecat/weasel/stoat?
It would be very unusual indeed for a rattlesnake to be the only predator of mice in most ecosystems. If rattlesnakes died off, no doubt another species of snake could move in and take over rodent eating. Here on the East Coast black snakes do a great job.
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Get rid of mosquitoes, and the frogs starve to death. Get rid of rattlesnakes, and you're overrun by mice.
This gets brought up every time, but I'm pretty sure that respectable authorities have said that mosquitoes aren't a crucial food source for anything. (yes, some things eat them, but nothing will starve if they went away)
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Re: And as usual (Score:2)
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As supposedly a great French princess once said, 'Then, let them eat cake".
In other words, yes... for about a third of the human population. Other food sources of crucial importance are various other cereals (especially wheat, rye and maize), various species of bean/legumes and some root vegetables, like potatoes. If any of them are magically waved away, major continental-scale famine (as GP said) would ensue. They aren't called 'staple foods' for nothing.
Re:And as usual (Score:5, Informative)
AC is right. History teaches us, specifically the Four Pests Campaign [wikipedia.org] , that eliminating "pest" species can end very poorly.
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I had no idea about that weird Four Pests Campaign. This tidbit from the wiki link says that that crazy campaign, which was intended to end disease, helped contribute to 20 to 45 million people dying. Wow.
"With no sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and pesticides.[10] Ecological imbalance is credited with exacerbating the Great Chine
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Get rid of rattlesnakes, and you're overrun by mice.
Mate, I'm from Australia and I have to say if your rattlesnakes are responsible for keeping your mice population under control then you wildlife scares me!
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...we screw it up. We get rid of harmless Dodos. We don't get rid of rattlesnakes or mosquitoes.
Allegedly, dodos tasted better than rattlers or mozzies.
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Actually, no.
The Dodo was named "walgvogel" ("disgusting bird") by the Dutch because its flesh tasted awful. They wiped out the entire species because it was so easy (it feared no predators) and, er, just because.
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Actually, no.
The Dodo was named "walgvogel" ("disgusting bird") by the Dutch because its flesh tasted awful. They wiped out the entire species because it was so easy (it feared no predators) and, er, just because.
The irony is that the egg yolk of the Dodo contained a unique protein that suppressed the growth of many forms of cancer. Oh well.
Yes, I made that up. But consider the idea that species that we've eradicated could have been more valuable than as targets, dinner or apparel.
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Answer seems to be 'yes' if history is to be believed. I haven't heard about my fellow countrymen wiping out mosquitoes, which they certainly would have done if they were more disgusting than those birds. ;)
--
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Rattlesnakes are fine if you have the sense to leave them alone. They have a rattle *to warn you off*. They don't want to inject you with venom, any more than you want to get up and run ten kilometers. You're about 3.5x as likely to be killed by a dog as you are by all venomous snakes combined.
As for mosquitoes, don't get your hopes up. One female can lay 100-500 eggs depending on species every three days; under the right conditions those eggs can reach sexual maturity in about ten days. That means, in
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We can pretty confidently say that we can eliminate mosquitoes these days and we're almost 100% sure that our last practice run didn't create zika.
I worked in vector borne disease surveillance for decades, I can say with equal confidence there is no technology known or proposed that has the potential of completely eradicating a mosquito population from any region larger than a thousand acres or so. Even those genetically modified mosquitoes you've been hearing so much about only reduce an infected population in a limited area short term. That reduction will last, at most, for a matter of months; in many situations mere weeks. Still, even that could b
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Humans with their big brains out-compete all other macro-scale life. Intelligence isn't what is at work here, genetics is. Intelligence is the possible answer - if humans can use their intelligence to decide to keep their numbers in check, then we can share the planet with other macro-scale animal lifeforms. If we can't decide to harness our intelligence towards that end, we will dominate, eventually becoming a mono-culture. Whether or not that is a good thing depends on your point of view. What happen
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We could all do our part by having fewer kids; no one has to be killed off to reduce the population. Will we make that choice?
Evolution does not look kindly on individuals that lower their own fitness. Some people will make that choice, yes, but they will go extinct, leaving only those that make the other choice.
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It's unfortunate that the areas of the world with birthrates high enough to actually lead to population growth do not read Slashdot.
Westerners should probably have more children to offset the 'migrations' they are being subjected to -- if they want to keep their cultures and societies intact.
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Mother nature. Evolution. She's wiped out far more species than man has. Over 99.9% of species that have ever existed have gone extinct since life evolved on this planet.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolu... [pbs.org]
So while man is inevitably wiping out some species due to our expansion and applied technologies, and at a more rapid rate, we are nonetheless far from the only threat to species' survival.
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TFTFY
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Hey look you are having trouble paying off your bills, well guess what you are fired. Because you couldn't pay off your bills with your job, you will have no change to your troubles without a job.
Re: How many has Humanity saved from extinction? (Score:2)
There is a difference between a species that was no longer relevant to the ecological web going extinct and a species that was critical to the ecological web going extinct.
I want you to take those two groups of numbers and exclude the irrelevant. Then come back and tell me how they compare. Show your working.
Want a cheat sheet answer? Almost none of the naturally extinct species were relevant, so essentially that becomes zero. Almost all the animals humans have made extinct were relevant and were hunted to
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Humanity has saved a lot more from extinction through conservation efforts than it has "wiped out". When will activists learn that such dishonest hyperbole is doing more harm to their causes than help?
Oh, so now we're just saying things? *acts surprised"
Re: How many has Humanity saved from extinction? (Score:2)
No, it really hasn't.
Humanity has saved precisely nothing, just as the mass-murdering German nurse currently on trial can't claim they saved some of their potential victims.
Back story: German nurse gets it into their head that they're a resuscitation genius, so murders 170 of their patients and tries to revive them to prove it. According to the news, they did succeed in reviving one.
Can they claim to be a hero in that one case? No.
Did they save a life? No, they simply avoided another count of murder.
Extinct
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Humanity has saved a lot more from extinction through conservation efforts than it has "wiped out". When will activists learn that such dishonest hyperbole is doing more harm to their causes than help?
It's a bloody shame that the peregrine falcon [theonion.com] ended up being such an ungrateful little fucker.
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Humanity has saved a lot more from extinction through conservation efforts than it has "wiped out". When will activists learn that such dishonest hyperbole is doing more harm to their causes than help?
I saw a blurb the other day that only in North America and Southern Africa wildlife has increased in numbers in recent decades - both based on income and sustainable use provided by the hunting industry ("big huntin' " ?). Probably needs verification, which I don't have...
Are they the same wildlife as was there previously? For example, here foxes are pretty well gone but we have a huge population of non-native coyotes.
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We pushed away from factory farming to help the welfare of the animals. Maybe it is time to go back to those methods as well as taking other extreme measures to ensure the longevity of our own species?
I'm pretty sure the article is talking about wild animals. No one is concerned about the size of the population of pigs. We need more pigs, we grow more pigs.
Re:5-7 million years to recover is complete bullsh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: 5-7 million years to recover is complete bulls (Score:4, Informative)
Pigs doubling in number isn't quite the same thing as 90 species of megafauna suddenly coming into existence at 10% the number of pigs.
We both know that.
Therefore we both know that you don't listen to the experts because they don't agree with what you believed beforehand. Has nothing to do with whether they're right.
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What does the World Wrestling Federation have to do with animals?
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Alligator Wrestling of course.
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Exercise and fitness is very important if you want to be a professional wrestler, and selling merchandise tshirts is a big part of the pro wrestling business too.
Re: Ok hippies (Score:2)
How would that help? Replacing hippies with morons will improve the health of Taco Bell and McDonald's but thats about it. You still get a dead planet.
We need a seventh the global population and we need that as a fixed ceiling. There aren't that many hippies and you lot can't be trusted. You haven't the courage to do the next right thing.
Besides, killing yourself increases entropy and reduces intelligence, precisely what you don't want. You want reduced entropy and increased intelligence.
I don't expect you
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We need a seventh the global population and we need that as a fixed ceiling.
I hope you're not questing for an Infinity Gauntlet.
Re: Unsurprising (Score:4, Insightful)
Mathematicians declare 1+1=2
Objectors declare mathematicians have vested interest
Sometimes, interested parties lie. Yes. Sometimes they tell the truth by accident, not intending to do so. And sometimes they are indeed being honest.
Is it a better use of time to be cynical or skeptical?
Skeptics need evidence, but will be persuaded by what they see (and not by what they don't).
Cynics don't want evidence and will never be persuaded. They don't want to be, and will move the goalposts to infinity to ensure it, if they have to.
Be a skeptic, not a cynic.
You don't have to be schooled, there won't be any significant new species forming between 1970 and now, so the maximum percentage of species must be all the ones we know went extinct divided by all the ones we know about now plus the ones that went extinct, all multiplied by 100.
We don't know about cleared land, loggers aren't known for tracking such things. So we use the biodiversity of rainforests as a guide for estimating unknown species that went extinct and unknown species total. That will give us a second percentage. The tundra has a lower species count and a lower extinction level, so we've a second lot of unknowns there. Add those to the rainforest totals to get a third percentage.
We now have a spread of three possible values. It's unlikely to be below the minimum, it's unlikely to be above the maximum, it's probably close to the figure between those, but it won't be exact.
Doesn't require any schooling. Just requires a skeptical, enquiring mind.
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Re: Don't worry! (Score:2)
Dead species tend not to bounce back. Numbers only matter for viability.
It will take 75 million years or so to restore biodiversity.
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People still think Malthus was wrong.
He wasn't. He was just off by a few hundred years.
Malthus wasn't off at all. He was absolutely correct when he wrote, and remained absolutely correct until 1938.
Malthus's claim (backed by valid data and argument) was that population was limited by land productivity. Crop production could only be increased by bringing uncultivated land into production, which could only be added in a linear fashion ("arithmetically") and had an absolute upper limit.
Despite the industrial revolution, and the increasing use of fertilizers (rare before the 20th Century), crop p
Re:Pure speculation with zero actual facts (Score:4, Informative)
The report, written for the general public is documented with 281 references. The Living Planet Index maintained by the WWF is backed with solid research, some of which is also linked to in the references here [wikipedia.org].
So no, this is not "pure speculation", and yes there are absolutely massive observed decreases.
Ignoring the science doesn't make it go away.