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Biologist E.O. Wilson suggests ‘moon shot’ conservation effort
- dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp 9y agoA good idea if only because the natural world contains technology far beyond what humans are capable of engineering today. I use the word technology loosely here. Plants and animals are self-sustaining, self-replicating, intelligent, et cetera. We depend on this natural technology to survive. However, it's a tough political sell for many people (and many powerful people). The more of us who put up money, the closer to the goal we are. Charities such as the Nature Conservancy finance nature preserves... I'm curious about other organizations and philanthropists who do too.
- Gatsky 9y agoThis is an excellent point. When we lose a species, we are throwing away genotype-phenotype data which took billions of years to develop.
- flyGuyOnTheSly 9y agoI'm reading E.O. Wilson's "Letters to a young scientist" right now. He's a thoughtful man who really knows his stuff when it comes to biology. If he suggests anything at all, the world should listen. We owe him a greater debt than most people will ever realize.
- 8bitsrule 9y agoHe's also a (literally) down-to-earth author who knows how to hold the reader's attention ... a fairly rare distinction. He won Pulitzer Prizes for General Nonfiction (for On Human Nature in 1979, and The Ants in 1991).
- austincheney 9y ago> which are becoming extinct at a rate between 100 and 1,000 times the rate before humans I have always wondered how people come up with that conclusion. How do people guess at those numbers? We honestly don't know how fast species went extinct at various points in the past and we don't really know how fast they are going extinct right now. We are still discovering new species, by the way, and there may be some that go extinct that we never discover.
- nharada 9y ago> We honestly don't know how fast species went extinct at various points in the past and we don't really know how fast they are going extinct right now. Citation needed please. Yes, they're estimates, but there are scientists who have devoted their entire careers to exactly that question. A quick Google turns up entire books devoted to this topic (http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/344/1307/local/front-matter.pdf http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royptb/344/13...) Your phrasing here makes it sound like this number is entirely random and not based on any evidence or science.
- ianai 9y agoIt seems like blanket denials of research to impeach an article would be against the rules here.
- TaylorAlexander 9y agoI don’t know about the rules, but the comment is certainly uninteresting. It’s getting downvoted currently, which is nice.
- austincheney 9y agoIt is only research if it is presented with evidence. Challenging unsubstantiated claims is generally how truth is achieved... according to JS Mills.
- austincheney 9y agoI am not going to give you a citation for missing knowledge. Grow up. Consider the Drake Equation[1]. This equation was created to stimulate conversation. It was never intended for scientific merit, but this doesn't stop people from looking at evidence and then making unsubstantiated guesses about things. People can guess and theorize all they want, but in the absence of evidence any guess is crude. So, lets talk about it in terms of numbers. Between 2000-3000 years ago how many species went extinct rounded down to the nearest 1000? In the past ten years how many species have gone extinct rounded down to the nearest 50? You must have some kind of numbers, based upon something, that serve as the presented basis of comparison. Without evidence of numbers you are simply making an extremely crude guess. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y agoThis is not a "moon shot". The total cost of the entire Apollo program over 14 years was around 200 billion 2016 dollars. The costs of reserving half the Earth's land and oceans will easily be in the trillions in terms of economic opportunity costs. In addition, it will need to be defended. My guess is that much of the critical areas needed for this effort are inhabited or exploited by some of the poorest people in the world and they will desperately fight anyone who tries to take away their livelihood (witness for example the backlash of people in coal country to any attempt to curtail coal) Given how humanity is not really doing much about climate change which in the next few decades will significantly affect humans directly and costs a fraction of what is being suggested here to mitigate, I have no hope that anything even resembling this will come to pass other than by someone forcibly conquering the world and then issuing a decree.
- Alex3917 9y ago> The costs of reserving half the Earth's land and oceans will easily be in the trillions in terms of economic opportunity costs. That's not really that much money in the grand scheme of things, especially since the benefits would greatly outweigh the costs.
- sokoloff 9y agoCould you make an attempt to enumerate and quantify the benefits and discount them back to today (DCF analysis)?
- peacetreefrog 9y agoYeah, this is not happening. I don't think a world conqueror + decree would do it, no one would do it and it'd just be the end of the world ruler. I suppose the mostly likely route might be a nuclear war or something. Chernobyl has apparently turned into a nature preserve since the nuclear meltdown 30 years ago (1). But even radiation probably couldn't keep people out if it was half the world we were talking about. 1: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl-wildlife-thirty-year-anniversary-science/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/060418-chernobyl...
- _bxg1 9y agoSounds wonderful, but I nearly laughed out loud at how unrealistic it is in today's political climate. We can't even uphold our end of the Paris Agreement.
- _bxg1 9y agoPut differently: it would have been a moonshot three years ago. Today it's nothing more than a political statement.
- grzm 9y ago> "[I]t would have been a moonshot three years ago. Today it's nothing more than a political statement. Today it's nothing more than a political statement." I'm not sure if this is just a statement on the current political climate or an attempt to label Wilson as an opportunist speaking now without conviction. I can't really speak to the former, but as to the latter, Wilson has been active in conservation for decades, from advocating for forest protection[0] to calling for setting aside 50% of the planet for wildlife.[1] [0]: http://www.saveamericasforests.org/congress/congress.htm http://www.saveamericasforests.org/congress/congress.htm [1]: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-world-really-set-aside-half-planet-wildlife-180952379/?no-ist https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-world-real...
- _bxg1 9y agoThe former. In my view the idea is empty (beyond being a thought experiment/illustration of how badly we've messed things up already), but I'm not suggesting it's empty for lack of conviction, only that he must himself see how unrealistic it is.
- throwaway052309 9y ago> in today's political climate Like how Macron was savaged for stating that African women having 7-8 children on average, as in Niger, is unsustainable: https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-g20-angry-reaction-to-emmanuel-macrons-remark-that-africa-has-a-civilizational-problem/ https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-g20-angry-reaction-to... https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/07/11/536445457/macron-got-a-lot-wrong-about-africa-but-made-one-good-point https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/07/11/5364454...
- pfisch 9y agoI mean this proposal is sort of ridiculous. There is just no chance this is going to happen at all. Stopping global warming is far less ambitious and we clearly can’t do that.
- throwaway052309 9y agoI predict that in the coming decades, we'll hear much less from progressives about conservation and biodiversity as it becomes more apparent that those goals are incompatible with Africa's on-going population explosion. The U.N.'s current median estimate is 4.5 billion Africans by 2100: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-of-all-world-regions-including-the-un-projection-until-2100 https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-of-all-world-r...
- PeterStuer 9y agoCan only happen if we manage to reverse this clock. In the current political climate this can only happen through pandemic outbreaks of deadly diseases or through world-war. Barring those we'll consume ourselves to death. http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/
- announcerman 9y agoIt's easy to be in favor of not cutting down rainforests when you're sipping Brazilian coffee at your cushy software development job, it's much harder when you're the one planting the coffee so your family doesn't starve to death.
- vixen99 9y agoWhy assume (some) coffee planters are too dumb not to understand a balance sheet with the pros and cons of rainforest destruction clearly set out?
- JasonFruit 9y agoWhy did you jump to stupidity? When a person's livelihood is threatened, they think about ensuring things like shelter, food, and clothing, not what the environment will be like in a century. You need leisure and plenty before you can worry about that sort of thing.
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- tonyedgecombe 9y ago"he also said that the current U.S. administration’s negative stance on the environment has created an opportunity to mobilize public support and make common cause among groups concerned about other policy areas" It would be ironic if that is the lasting legacy of the current administration.
- hypertexthero 9y agoAnother lasting legacy of the current administration might also a re-awakening of civil rights discussions. See Daryl Davis in ”How can you hate me when you don't even know me?” — https://www.yahoo.com/news/unfiltered-can-hate-dont-even-know-113457690.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/unfiltered-can-hate-dont-even-kno...
- jfaucett 9y ago> Wilson, Harvard’s Pellegrino University Professor emeritus, says that setting aside half of the Earth’s land and half of its oceans would be enough to save 85 percent of species, which are becoming extinct at a rate between 100 and 1,000 times the rate before humans. This is ridiculous. Species extinction is nothing new, that literally is the process of evolution and the universe as we know it. The amazing thing is one species has so far overcome that and managed to bring evolution to an ever increasing degree under its own control. If we don't want a species to go extinct our primary concern should be how it effects human well-being. Some species going extinct is very likely a net positive for human flourishing on this planet, others very likely a huge loss. But regardless I think it should be weighed in that context. Obviously, this still means you should look after the world - its the only one we've got - and we want to maximize human flourishing in it so we need to care for it. But these people are so far removed from nature's reality its crazy - especially considering they are biologists. This idea that nature is something beautiful and lovely apart from these evil humans who live in it is, frankly, absurd. Nature is harsh, brutal and violent. If you don't believe this try living without heating, electricity, running water, and access to a grocery store for a prolonged period of time. I've done it and its brutal and that is with a massive amount of technology and tools to overcome the harsh environment that surrounds us.
- 7952 9y agoOne of the advantages of our mastery of the environment is that we can choose to do things for frivelous reasons. We don't have to protect nature but we want to because it is beautiful and amazing. Just like we don't have to send humans to space, but we really want to. These are primarily moral questions. The environment and our interactions with it are just too complex to manage in such a mechanistic way.
- jfaucett 9y ago> We don't have to protect nature but we want to because it is beautiful and amazing. Yes, but at what costs? Taking away half the available land and water resources on the planet - which is what they are advocating for - will inevitably have costs associated with the benefits you mention. If those costs are negligible I'm fine with it, if on the other hand we significantly make the lives worse for all human beings for "frievlous reasons" I think we would be right to criticize these views.
- spodek 9y agoThe challenge isn't coming up with moon shot ideas, the challenge is implementation -- putting the bell on the cat. Legislation without popular support is authoritarian, which people resist, even if they like the law. They claim there is an environmental crisis, but when voting, Americans don't see it that way. You'll find no greater fan of science and education than me, but we need to get to the next level of conservation isn't more facts nor moon shot ideas from scientists who know that these things can work in principle. We need people with the social and emotional skills of leadership -- not likely forefront scientists, though basic scientific knowledge would help. What works? Speaking of successful moon shots, JFK wasn't a rocket scientist. He was a skilled leader. He led and motivated people based on the situation of the times using social and emotional leadership skills.
- graeme 9y agoJFK's actual moonshot 1. required no sacrifice, 2. And wasn't a coordination between people to sacrifice That's the problem we face in dealing with environmental challenges. People have a short run incentive to defect and exploit the environment.
- golergka 9y agoHow are billions of taxpayer's money not a sacrifice?
- enraged_camel 9y agoSacrifice means giving up something in return for another thing that is worth much less (or nothing) in value. Most people, especially on HN, would argue that the Apollo program has yielded enormous benefits for America. And it cost only $25 billion - about as much as Trump’s border wall (the cost estimates for which are most likely grossly optimistic).
- golergka 9y agoOK, so the only thing we disagree is the definition of "sacrifice".
- spraak 9y agoThe article misses that the reason we need to do this us much more than for enjoyment of nature, but that we need it to survive.
- pvaldes 9y agoMy applause to harvard.edu and Mr. Powell for including the name of the human in the title instead of the outrageous and demeaning "scientists say" motto that lazy journalists use commonly. We need more people aware that science is done by individual people with real faces and names.