4 ms·

Salt-Water Fish Extinction Seen by 2048

64 points by chaostheory 8y ago

defterGoose 8y ago
The way I see it, there really isn't any room for debate here anymore. We could all go back and forth about how actions to help ecosystem collapse are going to blunt our current economy, but ultimately, that won't help; our current collective lifestyle needs to take it on the chin. And we should all be afraid. Not the paralysing, indecisive type, but the kind that makes you enact lifestyle changes when you get some bad news at the doctor.
protastus 8y ago
Given the evidence, every nation of the world should have a massive federally funded project on the scale of the Apollo program to put the brakes on global warming and biodiversity loss. It blows my mind that we haven't dropped all luxuries and transitioned into the analog of a war economy to address what is literally, without hyperbole, the worst catastrophe humanity has ever seen and will likely ever see, by any definition.
- rayiner 8y ago
  People don’t believe it will happen, or assume engineering and science will save the day. If people really understood the significance of what’s happening, funding for this stuff would be #1, 2, and 3 in terms of priorities, far ahead of universal health care or free college. But again, nobody believes it will happen, or assume that engineers and scientists will save the day. Fun fact: taxing consumption (the thing that destroys the environment) at the same rate as a typical EU country would raise almost a trillion dollars annually that the US could direct towards funding research and development into climate change solutions.
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    The key issue is we don't really have a "world government" to force all countries to do this. With our current system of every nation having its own government, whichever nation does most to stop climate change will disadvantage itself relative to other nations.
    - growlist 8y ago
      The nice thing though is that we can all have as many children as we want, because apparently massively increasing the planet's population in future won't contribute to global warming/ecological collapse, whereas forcing me to switch my 3 litre BMW for a hybrid and to stop eating burgers will magically solve everything /s.
jazzyjackson 8y ago
I want to drop a book recommendation in here for everyone else that feels panicked and mad that no one around them is panicking enough. Climate - A New Story by Charles Eisenstein The author suggests that we might have the causation backwards. It's not that everything is dying because the climate is getting worse -- it's that the climate's getting worse because we're killing everything. Healthy ecology actually regulates the climate around it -- and nature actually can be very quick to bounce back when a niche is available to it. But we keep overfishing, and slash and burning for plantations and cattle grazing, paving over limestone and wetland -- we really are physically very destructive to healthy ecology, but we could be much better hosts to life on earth, and in protecting fisheries and planting forests, we may be able to reverse the extinction by taking a very heavy hand in creating spaces where the ocean and the forests are cared for and not just exploited. It is our rush to extract wealth from the natural world that has put the climate into a havoc -- the CO2 is just icing on the cake.
- vbuwivbiu 8y ago
  this makes sense as part of the problem. the more carbon actively stored in the form of living creatures the less there is in the sky cooking us
maxander 8y ago
[2006] Also, checking out the abstract of the paper (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/314/5800/787.long https://science.sciencemag.org/content/314/5800/787.long , paywalled, but it must be on scihub if someone has a moment) doesn’t mention extinction of anything. Presumably, predicting the apocalypse would merit a line there, right? Climate change is real and awful, but hysteric doom-mongering reporting about it does far more harm than good. Compare the D.A.R.E. model of communicating about drugs to people.
- xupybd 8y ago
  Alarmist claims like this do tend to fuel climate change denial.
  - slackfan 8y ago
    It's pretty much why the green movement lost me. When I was growing up - we were supposed to have no snow by 2015, and all the wales were supposed to dead. I see the value in clean water, clean air, biodiversity, and living in harmony with nature. However scaremongering and wild predictions (the latest one I heard seems to be that we have 12 years?), is an easy way to drive me away from the movement as a whole. Even though I agree that emissions should be cut, fuck the crazies I ain't dealing with their shit.
StanislavPetrov 8y ago
Global climate change is the main focus of most people in retards to the environment these days but that's only one small facet of how we are killing the ecosystem. Unless and until people somehow wake up and acknowledge the fact that the earth is vastly overpopulated and start figuring out how we are going to address that issue none of the band-aids we propose is going to be ultimately effective. The faith that most people have that the ecosystem can sustainably support countless billions despite all of the evidence is incredibly myopic, very disturbing and borders on religious.
let-it-burn 8y ago
Knowing the kinds of things that run off into the gutter every time it rains, and all the horrible things that go down sinks and toilet bowls in every house, and never mind all the industrial factories and slag lagoons from mining and mineral processing, it has always felt like this staggeringly toxic runaway freight train must be clogging the gills of every fish on earth since the 1800's. Whales were hunted to the brink of extinction, right up until petroleum took off, but what happens next feels so far gone that collapse feels pretty much certain. Dark forces will kill themselves and take us with them. They'll trade wildlife from smog and call it progress. And of course nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers will insist on those policies being upheld. Time to drop out and never contribute another shred of effort to society again.
cryptos 8y ago
I feel depressed if I read something like this. It is possible that there would be no human live in only 100 years or so! We would need a revolution right now. Do you have any hope that the humanity is able to turn it around?

64 points by chaostheory 8y ago

The way I see it, there really isn't any room for debate here anymore. We could all go back and forth about how actions to help ecosystem collapse are going to blunt our current economy, but ultimately, that won't help; our current collective lifestyle needs to take it on the chin. And we should all be afraid. Not the paralysing, indecisive type, but the kind that makes you enact lifestyle changes when you get some bad news at the doctor.

protastus 8y ago

Given the evidence, every nation of the world should have a massive federally funded project on the scale of the Apollo program to put the brakes on global warming and biodiversity loss. It blows my mind that we haven't dropped all luxuries and transitioned into the analog of a war economy to address what is literally, without hyperbole, the worst catastrophe humanity has ever seen and will likely ever see, by any definition.

rayiner 8y ago
People don’t believe it will happen, or assume engineering and science will save the day. If people really understood the significance of what’s happening, funding for this stuff would be #1, 2, and 3 in terms of priorities, far ahead of universal health care or free college. But again, nobody believes it will happen, or assume that engineers and scientists will save the day. Fun fact: taxing consumption (the thing that destroys the environment) at the same rate as a typical EU country would raise almost a trillion dollars annually that the US could direct towards funding research and development into climate change solutions.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  The key issue is we don't really have a "world government" to force all countries to do this. With our current system of every nation having its own government, whichever nation does most to stop climate change will disadvantage itself relative to other nations.
  - growlist 8y ago
    The nice thing though is that we can all have as many children as we want, because apparently massively increasing the planet's population in future won't contribute to global warming/ecological collapse, whereas forcing me to switch my 3 litre BMW for a hybrid and to stop eating burgers will magically solve everything /s.

jazzyjackson 8y ago

I want to drop a book recommendation in here for everyone else that feels panicked and mad that no one around them is panicking enough. Climate - A New Story by Charles Eisenstein The author suggests that we might have the causation backwards. It's not that everything is dying because the climate is getting worse -- it's that the climate's getting worse because we're killing everything. Healthy ecology actually regulates the climate around it -- and nature actually can be very quick to bounce back when a niche is available to it. But we keep overfishing, and slash and burning for plantations and cattle grazing, paving over limestone and wetland -- we really are physically very destructive to healthy ecology, but we could be much better hosts to life on earth, and in protecting fisheries and planting forests, we may be able to reverse the extinction by taking a very heavy hand in creating spaces where the ocean and the forests are cared for and not just exploited. It is our rush to extract wealth from the natural world that has put the climate into a havoc -- the CO2 is just icing on the cake.

vbuwivbiu 8y ago
this makes sense as part of the problem. the more carbon actively stored in the form of living creatures the less there is in the sky cooking us

maxander 8y ago

[2006] Also, checking out the abstract of the paper (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/314/5800/787.long https://science.sciencemag.org/content/314/5800/787.long , paywalled, but it must be on scihub if someone has a moment) doesn’t mention extinction of anything. Presumably, predicting the apocalypse would merit a line there, right? Climate change is real and awful, but hysteric doom-mongering reporting about it does far more harm than good. Compare the D.A.R.E. model of communicating about drugs to people.

xupybd 8y ago
Alarmist claims like this do tend to fuel climate change denial.
- slackfan 8y ago
  It's pretty much why the green movement lost me. When I was growing up - we were supposed to have no snow by 2015, and all the wales were supposed to dead. I see the value in clean water, clean air, biodiversity, and living in harmony with nature. However scaremongering and wild predictions (the latest one I heard seems to be that we have 12 years?), is an easy way to drive me away from the movement as a whole. Even though I agree that emissions should be cut, fuck the crazies I ain't dealing with their shit.

StanislavPetrov 8y ago

Global climate change is the main focus of most people in retards to the environment these days but that's only one small facet of how we are killing the ecosystem. Unless and until people somehow wake up and acknowledge the fact that the earth is vastly overpopulated and start figuring out how we are going to address that issue none of the band-aids we propose is going to be ultimately effective. The faith that most people have that the ecosystem can sustainably support countless billions despite all of the evidence is incredibly myopic, very disturbing and borders on religious.

let-it-burn 8y ago

Knowing the kinds of things that run off into the gutter every time it rains, and all the horrible things that go down sinks and toilet bowls in every house, and never mind all the industrial factories and slag lagoons from mining and mineral processing, it has always felt like this staggeringly toxic runaway freight train must be clogging the gills of every fish on earth since the 1800's. Whales were hunted to the brink of extinction, right up until petroleum took off, but what happens next feels so far gone that collapse feels pretty much certain. Dark forces will kill themselves and take us with them. They'll trade wildlife from smog and call it progress. And of course nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers will insist on those policies being upheld. Time to drop out and never contribute another shred of effort to society again.

cryptos 8y ago

I feel depressed if I read something like this. It is possible that there would be no human live in only 100 years or so! We would need a revolution right now. Do you have any hope that the humanity is able to turn it around?