8 ms·

From what I have researched about conservation, it seems that our oceans are simultaneously the most important and most overlooked parts of our environment. The

From what I have researched about conservation, it seems that our oceans are simultaneously the most important and most overlooked parts of our environment. The oceans house 80% of the world's biomass, and produce between 50% - 85% of the world's oxygen. We can't see below the waves, so it's easy for us to ignore what is going on down there. Massive overfishing and acidification is having huge impacts, not to mention the falling levels of oxygen in the water.

dgzl 8y ago
You might be right, but damn does this world have a lot to worry about.
- eanzenberg 8y ago
  We’re always 10 years from total annihilation and destruction. You can worry your whole life (tons of people do) or go on with your life. The earth has dealt with far far far worse outcomes in the past and there’s no evidence that it’ll reach that in the newr future.
  - skh 8y ago
    We’re always 10 years from total annihilation and destruction. I know people talk in hyperbole to make a point but can you point to any credible source in the last 30 years stating we are close to total annilhilation within the next 50 years? No one doubts the Earth will be fine. The doubt is whether or not human civilization will be fine.
    - XorNot 8y ago
      I think an even better way is not even human civilization, of some sort is in doubt. It's civilization where you get to walk to the store and buy a week's supply of food in exchange for money, and expect to do so the next week just as easily, which is in doubt.
  - thomasahle 8y ago
    Problems were fixed because we did stuff about them. The abandonment of cfc gasses was huge. Treaties on fishing and hunting has saved tons of species. Any single person can probably get away with not doing anything, and the problems will seem to magically go away, but they only do so because some people act. (And usually it takes a lot of people.)
  - taneq 8y ago
    We're always 3 missed meals away from anarchy too.
    - uxcolumbo 8y ago
      It's '9 meals to anarchy' - so it's basically 3 days.
      - taneq 8y ago
        There are plenty of versions of it with different numbers of meals and different anarchic endpoints. It's a pretty broad fact of the human condition.
  - swinglock 8y ago
    You're right, the earth has had worse and will be just fine. After all the earth is just a rock, it's not concerned about emissions or life. It's not the earth anyone needs to worry about, it's the humans. We've not been through worse and our smaller challenges often have catastrophic outcomes.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    "Total annihilation" may be a bit far-fetched, but what we are much closer to is global war, death and suffering for you, me, and everyone we know. Just to cover one angle (IMO most likely one): reduced living space (sea rise) and food shortages will cause massive migrations. Think how the whole EU went basically insane over a bunch of refugees from Syria (and the aftershocks still threaten to shake it apart). Climate-change induced migrations will be much larger, and this time around actually backed by countries people are fleeing. Wars are likely. Proxy wars are likely too. And nukes won't be off the table either. Even if you live so far inland that waters can't get to you, people will. And if you survive that, then lack of people will get to you as the global supply chain stretches to a breaking point and suddenly no one can make anything as all the components came from China. The lifestyle we're all used to depends on global-scale systems with single points of failure.
  - ckastner 8y ago
    > We’re always 10 years from total annihilation and destruction. You can worry your whole life (tons of people do) or go on with your life. The earth has dealt with far far far worse outcomes in the past and there’s no evidence that it’ll reach that in the newr future. This got down-voted to hell, which is odd, because it rings true. The "total annihilation" isn't even that hyperbolic. I've seen comments here on HN that depict our world as under imminent threat of global nuclear war, or that depict our world as suffering from a mass extinction (caused by humans) that will end all life as we know it. I believe those statements are the hyperbolic ones, and one should be allowed to call them out for that.
    - usrusr 8y ago
      The history-repeating argument, when applied to drunk driving: "so far I've always made it home without killing anyone". I read a lot about history and the one common thread that appears over and over again is that history is only repeating until it stops doing so. So many cycles that must have seemed eternal to those inside have eventually come to an end. One day, every Cassandra will be right.
      - ckastner 8y ago
        The history-repeating argument, when applied to astronomy: "so far, the Earth has revolved around the Sun". Just to show that the history-repeating argument can be made ad absurdum both ways. We have ample empirical evidence that drunk driving poses a significant risk of killing someone, hence there should be a non-trival level of expectation of this outcome. We have absolutely zero empirical evidence as to what actions may trigger a nuclear holocaust, and we're currently not seeing any of the popularly accepted causes for the 5 mass extinctions of the past.
    - acqq 8y ago
      https://www.mymoneyblog.com/talebs-thanksgiving-turkey.html https://www.mymoneyblog.com/talebs-thanksgiving-turkey.html "I have the story of a turkey that is fed for 1,000 days by a butcher, and every day confirms to the turkey and the turkey’s economics department and the turkey’s risk management department and the turkey’s analytical department that the butcher loves turkeys, and every day brings more confidence to the statement. So it’s fed for 1,000 days… " Every day somebody was able (even accidentally) to start the nuclear annihilation of the whole world (hint: it's not "just a president" who can do that, but many, many more): the complex systems and the war plans are actually maintained in which everything happens in just a few hours. Our statistics that it didn't happen yet is not a proof that an "accident" (oh, sorry, it was an error!) can't very easily happen any moment now.
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  > damn does this world have a lot to worry about. Around 7.55 billion with something like three more every second. [1] [1] https://www.census.gov/popclock/ https://www.census.gov/popclock/
  - taneq 8y ago
    Not to imply that population isn't going to be an issue (especially since we're likely going to flood a bunch of arable land in the next few decades) but if the graph "Yearly Population Growth Rate (%)" here (http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/) is to be believed, there's been a pretty significant drop-off in world population growth in the last ~50 years and we're certainly nowhere near the exponentially exploding population crisis that people were fearing in the mid 20th century.
    - henryw 8y ago
      There's a good animated video that explains this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348
    - yesenadam 8y ago
      I learnt from that that there are more non-religious people than there are catholics! I had no idea. (Most of my friends are catholics, I'm atheist)
      - saiya-jin 8y ago
        Not non-religious, but other religions - the fact that only -+28% are christians might give some humbleness to those feeling righteous and above all in religious aspects (ie us vs those poor lost pagans mindset). Since muslims believe in basically the same god it gives you 54% (jews are rather insignificant portion of population). It still means 3.5 billions currently (and historically over 100 billion) are breaking 10 core amendments and should burn in hell eternally (grossly oversimplified obviously). You can't just bring rationality, common sense or critical thinking into most current religions, they fall apart like house of cards. I wish there would be some new major religion that would only preach a single thing - be a nice, good person to yourself and every sentient living creature out there. Nothing more required.
- smallgovt 8y ago
  My thoughts exactly. I feel like a day doesn't go by where I learn about another potential problem that could lead to the end of civilization. What's a good way to stack rank / prioritize these issues to know what's most urgent?
  - krageon 8y ago
    I suspect you are seeing the result of a few generations of humans doing exactly what you are proposing and subsequently maybe (with effort) fixing the number one demand. All the other "future huge problems" have become the now huge problems and it doesn't really make sense to rank all the definitely going to destroy our way of life issues because they will all result in the same thing with a similar time frame (way too soon).
    - m_mueller 8y ago
      I have the same intuition. It’s not all that different from an old codebase that runs on even older (and disintegrating) hardware. You may keep fixing things, adapt to mildly new requirements, change a tape deck here, a consensator there, but eventually the whole system is going to come down and has to be replaced - there’s nothing we know that lasts forever in a self-repairing way, and that’s what’s going to happen to our civilization. Telling by the worms and the beetles my guess is it’s a matter of decades, not centuries, hopefully not years. The only hope is that we’ve wisened up sufficiently till then to renew without completely getting annihilated or being back at cave-and-sticks level.
    - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
      maybe although I got to think that a lot of these environmental issues destroying our way of life way too soon are interconnected, and it perhaps isn't as difficult to rank them as it might seem when viewed as singular unconnected problems. on edit: typo, changed out to our.
    - collyw 8y ago
      Climate change has been talked about for decades now, and very little actually seem to be done. What is something you would consider a number 1 that was fixed? (I guess the ozone layer hole was a relative success).
- CarelessSmirch 8y ago
  On the upside, the dying process of oxygen deprivation seems to be quick and painless. https://jme.bmj.com/content/36/3/174 https://jme.bmj.com/content/36/3/174
std_throwawayay 8y ago
Doesn't the extraction of fish have a positive impact on the O2 balance? I thought that overfishing the kinds of big fish we like to eat will just lead to a growing population of smaller fish and other marine life.
- zappo2938 8y ago
  Top level predators plays a key role in balance and sustainability of ecosystems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q
  - std_throwawayay 8y ago
    I agree that taking one specific animal out of a complex system that had a long time to adjust will produce big changes. Killing the wolves allowed the deer to thrive. We wanted lots of deer, so that was good for some time. Now we don't hunt enough of them, so we need wolves again. I agree that the oceans change - a lot - due to human influence. Some species will dwindle in numbers and disappear. It takes a long time for new species to emerge. But what I'm not so sure is that the overall change necessarily would have to be so negative in the long run.
- krageon 8y ago
  Fishing while selecting for big specimens and throwing smaller specimens back leads to the unfortunate result of us creating selective pressure for small fish. Those big fish have, when they are smaller, inefficient reproductive systems which means they have a harder time creating enough offspring in the wild. Even if what you are saying had anything to do with how things actually work (it doesn't), this selective pressure contributes to our favourite fish dying out.
  - std_throwawayay 8y ago
    Yes, the fish we catch will die out. Bad for us because we don't have any good fish left over. What I'm also saying is that I think that other fish (or lifeforms in general) will take their place.

dgzl 8y ago

You might be right, but damn does this world have a lot to worry about.

eanzenberg 8y ago
We’re always 10 years from total annihilation and destruction. You can worry your whole life (tons of people do) or go on with your life. The earth has dealt with far far far worse outcomes in the past and there’s no evidence that it’ll reach that in the newr future.
- skh 8y ago
  We’re always 10 years from total annihilation and destruction. I know people talk in hyperbole to make a point but can you point to any credible source in the last 30 years stating we are close to total annilhilation within the next 50 years? No one doubts the Earth will be fine. The doubt is whether or not human civilization will be fine.
  - XorNot 8y ago
    I think an even better way is not even human civilization, of some sort is in doubt. It's civilization where you get to walk to the store and buy a week's supply of food in exchange for money, and expect to do so the next week just as easily, which is in doubt.
- thomasahle 8y ago
  Problems were fixed because we did stuff about them. The abandonment of cfc gasses was huge. Treaties on fishing and hunting has saved tons of species. Any single person can probably get away with not doing anything, and the problems will seem to magically go away, but they only do so because some people act. (And usually it takes a lot of people.)
- taneq 8y ago
  We're always 3 missed meals away from anarchy too.
  - uxcolumbo 8y ago
    It's '9 meals to anarchy' - so it's basically 3 days.
    - taneq 8y ago
      There are plenty of versions of it with different numbers of meals and different anarchic endpoints. It's a pretty broad fact of the human condition.
- swinglock 8y ago
  You're right, the earth has had worse and will be just fine. After all the earth is just a rock, it's not concerned about emissions or life. It's not the earth anyone needs to worry about, it's the humans. We've not been through worse and our smaller challenges often have catastrophic outcomes.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  "Total annihilation" may be a bit far-fetched, but what we are much closer to is global war, death and suffering for you, me, and everyone we know. Just to cover one angle (IMO most likely one): reduced living space (sea rise) and food shortages will cause massive migrations. Think how the whole EU went basically insane over a bunch of refugees from Syria (and the aftershocks still threaten to shake it apart). Climate-change induced migrations will be much larger, and this time around actually backed by countries people are fleeing. Wars are likely. Proxy wars are likely too. And nukes won't be off the table either. Even if you live so far inland that waters can't get to you, people will. And if you survive that, then lack of people will get to you as the global supply chain stretches to a breaking point and suddenly no one can make anything as all the components came from China. The lifestyle we're all used to depends on global-scale systems with single points of failure.
- ckastner 8y ago
  > We’re always 10 years from total annihilation and destruction. You can worry your whole life (tons of people do) or go on with your life. The earth has dealt with far far far worse outcomes in the past and there’s no evidence that it’ll reach that in the newr future. This got down-voted to hell, which is odd, because it rings true. The "total annihilation" isn't even that hyperbolic. I've seen comments here on HN that depict our world as under imminent threat of global nuclear war, or that depict our world as suffering from a mass extinction (caused by humans) that will end all life as we know it. I believe those statements are the hyperbolic ones, and one should be allowed to call them out for that.
  - usrusr 8y ago
    The history-repeating argument, when applied to drunk driving: "so far I've always made it home without killing anyone". I read a lot about history and the one common thread that appears over and over again is that history is only repeating until it stops doing so. So many cycles that must have seemed eternal to those inside have eventually come to an end. One day, every Cassandra will be right.
    - ckastner 8y ago
      The history-repeating argument, when applied to astronomy: "so far, the Earth has revolved around the Sun". Just to show that the history-repeating argument can be made ad absurdum both ways. We have ample empirical evidence that drunk driving poses a significant risk of killing someone, hence there should be a non-trival level of expectation of this outcome. We have absolutely zero empirical evidence as to what actions may trigger a nuclear holocaust, and we're currently not seeing any of the popularly accepted causes for the 5 mass extinctions of the past.
  - acqq 8y ago
    https://www.mymoneyblog.com/talebs-thanksgiving-turkey.html https://www.mymoneyblog.com/talebs-thanksgiving-turkey.html "I have the story of a turkey that is fed for 1,000 days by a butcher, and every day confirms to the turkey and the turkey’s economics department and the turkey’s risk management department and the turkey’s analytical department that the butcher loves turkeys, and every day brings more confidence to the statement. So it’s fed for 1,000 days… " Every day somebody was able (even accidentally) to start the nuclear annihilation of the whole world (hint: it's not "just a president" who can do that, but many, many more): the complex systems and the war plans are actually maintained in which everything happens in just a few hours. Our statistics that it didn't happen yet is not a proof that an "accident" (oh, sorry, it was an error!) can't very easily happen any moment now.
newnewpdro 8y ago
> damn does this world have a lot to worry about. Around 7.55 billion with something like three more every second. [1] [1] https://www.census.gov/popclock/ https://www.census.gov/popclock/
- taneq 8y ago
  Not to imply that population isn't going to be an issue (especially since we're likely going to flood a bunch of arable land in the next few decades) but if the graph "Yearly Population Growth Rate (%)" here (http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/) is to be believed, there's been a pretty significant drop-off in world population growth in the last ~50 years and we're certainly nowhere near the exponentially exploding population crisis that people were fearing in the mid 20th century.
  - henryw 8y ago
    There's a good animated video that explains this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsBT5EQt348
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    I learnt from that that there are more non-religious people than there are catholics! I had no idea. (Most of my friends are catholics, I'm atheist)
    - saiya-jin 8y ago
      Not non-religious, but other religions - the fact that only -+28% are christians might give some humbleness to those feeling righteous and above all in religious aspects (ie us vs those poor lost pagans mindset). Since muslims believe in basically the same god it gives you 54% (jews are rather insignificant portion of population). It still means 3.5 billions currently (and historically over 100 billion) are breaking 10 core amendments and should burn in hell eternally (grossly oversimplified obviously). You can't just bring rationality, common sense or critical thinking into most current religions, they fall apart like house of cards. I wish there would be some new major religion that would only preach a single thing - be a nice, good person to yourself and every sentient living creature out there. Nothing more required.
smallgovt 8y ago
My thoughts exactly. I feel like a day doesn't go by where I learn about another potential problem that could lead to the end of civilization. What's a good way to stack rank / prioritize these issues to know what's most urgent?
- krageon 8y ago
  I suspect you are seeing the result of a few generations of humans doing exactly what you are proposing and subsequently maybe (with effort) fixing the number one demand. All the other "future huge problems" have become the now huge problems and it doesn't really make sense to rank all the definitely going to destroy our way of life issues because they will all result in the same thing with a similar time frame (way too soon).
  - m_mueller 8y ago
    I have the same intuition. It’s not all that different from an old codebase that runs on even older (and disintegrating) hardware. You may keep fixing things, adapt to mildly new requirements, change a tape deck here, a consensator there, but eventually the whole system is going to come down and has to be replaced - there’s nothing we know that lasts forever in a self-repairing way, and that’s what’s going to happen to our civilization. Telling by the worms and the beetles my guess is it’s a matter of decades, not centuries, hopefully not years. The only hope is that we’ve wisened up sufficiently till then to renew without completely getting annihilated or being back at cave-and-sticks level.
  - bryanrasmussen 8y ago
    maybe although I got to think that a lot of these environmental issues destroying our way of life way too soon are interconnected, and it perhaps isn't as difficult to rank them as it might seem when viewed as singular unconnected problems. on edit: typo, changed out to our.
  - collyw 8y ago
    Climate change has been talked about for decades now, and very little actually seem to be done. What is something you would consider a number 1 that was fixed? (I guess the ozone layer hole was a relative success).
CarelessSmirch 8y ago
On the upside, the dying process of oxygen deprivation seems to be quick and painless. https://jme.bmj.com/content/36/3/174 https://jme.bmj.com/content/36/3/174

std_throwawayay 8y ago

Doesn't the extraction of fish have a positive impact on the O2 balance? I thought that overfishing the kinds of big fish we like to eat will just lead to a growing population of smaller fish and other marine life.

zappo2938 8y ago
Top level predators plays a key role in balance and sustainability of ecosystems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa5OBhXz-Q
- std_throwawayay 8y ago
  I agree that taking one specific animal out of a complex system that had a long time to adjust will produce big changes. Killing the wolves allowed the deer to thrive. We wanted lots of deer, so that was good for some time. Now we don't hunt enough of them, so we need wolves again. I agree that the oceans change - a lot - due to human influence. Some species will dwindle in numbers and disappear. It takes a long time for new species to emerge. But what I'm not so sure is that the overall change necessarily would have to be so negative in the long run.
krageon 8y ago
Fishing while selecting for big specimens and throwing smaller specimens back leads to the unfortunate result of us creating selective pressure for small fish. Those big fish have, when they are smaller, inefficient reproductive systems which means they have a harder time creating enough offspring in the wild. Even if what you are saying had anything to do with how things actually work (it doesn't), this selective pressure contributes to our favourite fish dying out.
- std_throwawayay 8y ago
  Yes, the fish we catch will die out. Bad for us because we don't have any good fish left over. What I'm also saying is that I think that other fish (or lifeforms in general) will take their place.