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There's already a news on front page at the moment which says bird population is declining in North America. The comments section mention that it's not just Nor

There's already a news on front page at the moment which says bird population is declining in North America. The comments section mention that it's not just North America but also Britain, France and also that it could be due to declining insect population. We rarely get this kind of data from developing countries, which means these studies are rarely or not at all performed simply because they don't have resources to focus on these causes. We have no idea how much worse the situation is. Here we have methane levels increasing fast. There was another news that the third pole of earth i.e. Himalaya is melting rapidly. I am sure there are plenty more that I have missed. Do we need more evidence to act? What are we waiting for?

aldoushuxley001 7y ago
We should act on the insect apocalypse and do things like ban neonicinoids, etc. But connecting this to climate change is an extreme stretch considering species decline has been happening for a long time before the industrial revolution. It’s simply not attributable to CO2 and greenhouse gasses
- guerrilla 7y ago
  Thinking that changing the climate to which animals are specifically adapted to and on which they exclusively sustain themselves is likely a major contributing cause to their death is not really "stretching." It may not be the exclusive cause or a cause at all but its hardly anything but a prime suspect.
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  The connection is the disrespectful, undignified, instrumental way that humans treat everything else, animate and not, and with little concern about how their own fortunes are unalterably stitched into the life web they are busily tearing apart.
  - aldoushuxley001 7y ago
    Yes, you’re right that is the connection.
caconym_ 7y ago
> Do we need more evidence to act? What are we waiting for? We're waiting for a reversal in the apparent worldwide collapse of liberal democracy, I guess. Probably climate change and said collapse will feed into each other. The way most oligarchs and their toadies are wired, I think they're more likely to look to pull the ripcord for themselves rather than spend big on best-effort change for everyone else. Dismantling democracies like America must be a central pillar of their strategy for consolidating power. Incidentally, right now the single person most standing in the way of positive change (and he has even been dismantling previous progress) is a comically narcissistic, borderline illiterate fraud artist who'll most likely be dead before the shit hits the fan even according to the most alarming predictions. I don't mean to say he's fully responsible (far from it), but that's a good proxy for where we're at.
- MiroF 7y ago
  Your mistake is assuming that democratic consensus will spur the kind of action we really need. Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    It's not so much that voters are selfish (although some are; probably 20-30%) as that they don't like being ripped off and it has become very clear over the last ~30 years that all the happy talk of market economics is mostly self-serving BS. We've seen from recent economic crises that people are willing to tolerate and even vote for austerity; but since then they've noticed that all the austerity happened to people at the bottom of the economic pyramid and those at the top barely suffered at all. They've also noticed that a considerable portion of their taxes is pent on policing whose purpose is not the prevention of crime but the maintenance of the economic status quo.
  - worldsayshi 7y ago
    > Once voters realize that this would take personal cost This is why we need to make sure that voters feel that lost income from climate gas taxes goes directly back to them through other means. It could just be income tax subsidies for low income brackets. Or I mean anything that makes sense. Taxing climate impacting practices doesn't need to have an overall negative impact on the economy of the average voter! This needs to be made super clear.
anonuser123456 7y ago
What do you propose people do?
- DesiLurker 7y ago
  eat less beef, red meat in general. no need to give up anything. just reduce it a bit.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  start using nuclear, solar, and wind power asap and quit burning fossil fuels asap and start having only 1 or 0 children for a while.
  - anonuser123456 7y ago
    So you propose specific solutions that should apply to everyone. BZZZZT. Wrong. The correct answer was a carbon tax.
  - wickedsickeune 7y ago
    How can I, as a citizen, decide to use eg solar power? If my power provider burns coal, how can I affect that?
    - kaybe 7y ago
      That depends on your country. Here you can choose your provider, for example, or put your own grid-connected solar panels up.
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    >start having only 1 or 0 children for a while. Almost all developed nations already have birth rates below the replacement level. The only way our populations are not falling is through migration from less developed countries.
drharby 7y ago
Act how? I'm being pragmatica here. How and to what end is this statement and the aggregation of headlines on hacker news hoping to persuade the hn reader? Donate all money to causes? Starve ourselves to death? Go retreat from our lives to invest in reforestation efforts, managing beehives, and growing pesticide free sustenance farms while microcurating our own little corner of the Earth? Or is it simply to strike undirected alarmism and fear in hopes it contributes to some vagie movement to improve the earth? Can you be more constructive in your feedback, please?
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  The "something" to be done is very simple: 1) End fossil fuel subsidies 2) Apply or increase taxes on emissions 3) Invest the money from 1 and 2 heavily in nuclear, renewables and CO2 capture and storage for industries that can't just switch to clean electricity, negative emissions and "mild geoengineering" solutions. Unfortunately, this is bad news for lots of existing multinational companies, and for lots of rich people, who lobby politicians hard to avoid this.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Also for jobs. A big issue in my country is the vocal subpopulation employed in coal mining, and the larger population believing that our coal industry is somehow nationally strategic; both of which will vote against anyone with any sensible climate strategy. I took a look the programs of our parties during last EU MEP elections, and sound treatment of climate issue is essentially inversely correlated with popularity of the party.
- ThemalSpan 7y ago
  Make big changes now, or be forced to make them later. Stop supporting the meat industry. Take public transit or bicycle if possible. Avoid flying, driving by yourself. Avoid excessive consumption of disposable products. There is no sustainable future where we get to keep our current lifestyles.
  - Frondo 7y ago
WhompingWindows 7y ago
"We" may not be waiting at all, the readers of HN and other tech-centric websites. Many people here may be improving their personal behaviors, but that is never going to be enough. What WE need to do is VOTE, first off, and second, realize that politicians and corporate entities are those with the power to truly shift our behavior as an economy. Until politicians and corporations make huge moves, we'll be stuck waiting and making minor tweaks to our relatively inconsequential individual carbon footprints.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Automated market movements take place in milliseconds and those in developed countries mostly enjoy access to more or less instantaneous communication. The idea that the best response to political problems is to patiently vote every 2 years and expect that to have more of an impact that actions taken on shorter timescales is absurd. Voting is nice in theory but in practice is extremely amendable to corruption. 18th century technology isn't cutting it in the 21st century. In a rational world our legal code would be editable like Wikipedia built on top of blockchain. If you look at representative government as an information system it's screamingly obvious that it no longer functions properly and is ripe for abuse.
- ComputerGuru 7y ago
  That’s very high and noble but look at France and les Gilets jaunes. Even voting in people willing to bite the bullet and pull the trigger on much needed actions is not enough. And that’s a shame because the general consensus is that in terms of effectiveness (i.e. not accounting for economic fallout), simply directly taxing CO2 emissions at “only” $60-100 per metric ton would work instant miracles.
  - WhompingWindows 7y ago
    Yeah, you're right. Even if we do vote, it's likely we will fail. Even if we ignore the US senate as a major, broken obstacle to climate legislation...will any said legislation actually be in time? will it be enforced? will it not be challenged by courts? Vote anyways, it's our duty to at least do that.
pier25 7y ago
We are still debating if we should listen to science /s
- malandrew 7y ago
  No, we're debating whether we should listen to the charlatans that present us our science. Every time I read a pop-sci article and then go check the original research paper I find out that the pop-sci journalist completely misrepresented the research they are writing about, usually due to a mix of trying to get more clicks and Hanlon's Razor (incompetence). Most people don't have the skills to be able to listen to science. They don't know how to read and interpret and abstract and then dig in further and read an entire scholarly peer-reviewed paper. That's just part of the problem. The other part is that most people are completely innumerate.
  - ryacko 7y ago
    Based on what I’ve read from old library archives, quality changed for popular science type magazines after the 1950s. Everything becomes closer to being ads, or just glosses over the basic details. I doubt it is intentional, the journalists now aren’t capable of understanding, but they know how to write things in a way to get as many clicks.
  - pier25 7y ago
    > No, we're debating whether we should listen to the charlatans that present us our science. I'm sure some do, but considering the huge number of deniers and their effect on government policy humanity's biggest issue is not understanding the facts (established by science) of climate change.
jonnycomputer 7y ago
Collapse in insect populations is probably not global warming, or methane release, imo. New pesticide use, yes, e.g. the nicitinoids and loss of habitat. Bird population decline is expected consequence of decline in insect population, but could be other pollutants. There could be changes in fertility too. Plastics? I dunno.

aldoushuxley001 7y ago

We should act on the insect apocalypse and do things like ban neonicinoids, etc. But connecting this to climate change is an extreme stretch considering species decline has been happening for a long time before the industrial revolution. It’s simply not attributable to CO2 and greenhouse gasses

guerrilla 7y ago
Thinking that changing the climate to which animals are specifically adapted to and on which they exclusively sustain themselves is likely a major contributing cause to their death is not really "stretching." It may not be the exclusive cause or a cause at all but its hardly anything but a prime suspect.
JulianMorrison 7y ago
The connection is the disrespectful, undignified, instrumental way that humans treat everything else, animate and not, and with little concern about how their own fortunes are unalterably stitched into the life web they are busily tearing apart.
- aldoushuxley001 7y ago
  Yes, you’re right that is the connection.

caconym_ 7y ago

> Do we need more evidence to act? What are we waiting for? We're waiting for a reversal in the apparent worldwide collapse of liberal democracy, I guess. Probably climate change and said collapse will feed into each other. The way most oligarchs and their toadies are wired, I think they're more likely to look to pull the ripcord for themselves rather than spend big on best-effort change for everyone else. Dismantling democracies like America must be a central pillar of their strategy for consolidating power. Incidentally, right now the single person most standing in the way of positive change (and he has even been dismantling previous progress) is a comically narcissistic, borderline illiterate fraud artist who'll most likely be dead before the shit hits the fan even according to the most alarming predictions. I don't mean to say he's fully responsible (far from it), but that's a good proxy for where we're at.

MiroF 7y ago
Your mistake is assuming that democratic consensus will spur the kind of action we really need. Once voters realize that this would take personal cost for benefits they won't see in their lifetime, I can't see them willfully voting for any substantial reversal.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  It's not so much that voters are selfish (although some are; probably 20-30%) as that they don't like being ripped off and it has become very clear over the last ~30 years that all the happy talk of market economics is mostly self-serving BS. We've seen from recent economic crises that people are willing to tolerate and even vote for austerity; but since then they've noticed that all the austerity happened to people at the bottom of the economic pyramid and those at the top barely suffered at all. They've also noticed that a considerable portion of their taxes is pent on policing whose purpose is not the prevention of crime but the maintenance of the economic status quo.
- worldsayshi 7y ago
  > Once voters realize that this would take personal cost This is why we need to make sure that voters feel that lost income from climate gas taxes goes directly back to them through other means. It could just be income tax subsidies for low income brackets. Or I mean anything that makes sense. Taxing climate impacting practices doesn't need to have an overall negative impact on the economy of the average voter! This needs to be made super clear.

anonuser123456 7y ago

What do you propose people do?

DesiLurker 7y ago
eat less beef, red meat in general. no need to give up anything. just reduce it a bit.
gameswithgo 7y ago
start using nuclear, solar, and wind power asap and quit burning fossil fuels asap and start having only 1 or 0 children for a while.
- anonuser123456 7y ago
  So you propose specific solutions that should apply to everyone. BZZZZT. Wrong. The correct answer was a carbon tax.
- wickedsickeune 7y ago
  How can I, as a citizen, decide to use eg solar power? If my power provider burns coal, how can I affect that?
  - kaybe 7y ago
    That depends on your country. Here you can choose your provider, for example, or put your own grid-connected solar panels up.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  >start having only 1 or 0 children for a while. Almost all developed nations already have birth rates below the replacement level. The only way our populations are not falling is through migration from less developed countries.

drharby 7y ago

Act how? I'm being pragmatica here. How and to what end is this statement and the aggregation of headlines on hacker news hoping to persuade the hn reader? Donate all money to causes? Starve ourselves to death? Go retreat from our lives to invest in reforestation efforts, managing beehives, and growing pesticide free sustenance farms while microcurating our own little corner of the Earth? Or is it simply to strike undirected alarmism and fear in hopes it contributes to some vagie movement to improve the earth? Can you be more constructive in your feedback, please?

semi-extrinsic 7y ago
The "something" to be done is very simple: 1) End fossil fuel subsidies 2) Apply or increase taxes on emissions 3) Invest the money from 1 and 2 heavily in nuclear, renewables and CO2 capture and storage for industries that can't just switch to clean electricity, negative emissions and "mild geoengineering" solutions. Unfortunately, this is bad news for lots of existing multinational companies, and for lots of rich people, who lobby politicians hard to avoid this.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Also for jobs. A big issue in my country is the vocal subpopulation employed in coal mining, and the larger population believing that our coal industry is somehow nationally strategic; both of which will vote against anyone with any sensible climate strategy. I took a look the programs of our parties during last EU MEP elections, and sound treatment of climate issue is essentially inversely correlated with popularity of the party.
ThemalSpan 7y ago
Make big changes now, or be forced to make them later. Stop supporting the meat industry. Take public transit or bicycle if possible. Avoid flying, driving by yourself. Avoid excessive consumption of disposable products. There is no sustainable future where we get to keep our current lifestyles.
- Frondo 7y ago

WhompingWindows 7y ago

"We" may not be waiting at all, the readers of HN and other tech-centric websites. Many people here may be improving their personal behaviors, but that is never going to be enough. What WE need to do is VOTE, first off, and second, realize that politicians and corporate entities are those with the power to truly shift our behavior as an economy. Until politicians and corporations make huge moves, we'll be stuck waiting and making minor tweaks to our relatively inconsequential individual carbon footprints.

anigbrowl 7y ago
Automated market movements take place in milliseconds and those in developed countries mostly enjoy access to more or less instantaneous communication. The idea that the best response to political problems is to patiently vote every 2 years and expect that to have more of an impact that actions taken on shorter timescales is absurd. Voting is nice in theory but in practice is extremely amendable to corruption. 18th century technology isn't cutting it in the 21st century. In a rational world our legal code would be editable like Wikipedia built on top of blockchain. If you look at representative government as an information system it's screamingly obvious that it no longer functions properly and is ripe for abuse.
ComputerGuru 7y ago
That’s very high and noble but look at France and les Gilets jaunes. Even voting in people willing to bite the bullet and pull the trigger on much needed actions is not enough. And that’s a shame because the general consensus is that in terms of effectiveness (i.e. not accounting for economic fallout), simply directly taxing CO2 emissions at “only” $60-100 per metric ton would work instant miracles.
- WhompingWindows 7y ago
  Yeah, you're right. Even if we do vote, it's likely we will fail. Even if we ignore the US senate as a major, broken obstacle to climate legislation...will any said legislation actually be in time? will it be enforced? will it not be challenged by courts? Vote anyways, it's our duty to at least do that.

pier25 7y ago

We are still debating if we should listen to science /s

malandrew 7y ago
No, we're debating whether we should listen to the charlatans that present us our science. Every time I read a pop-sci article and then go check the original research paper I find out that the pop-sci journalist completely misrepresented the research they are writing about, usually due to a mix of trying to get more clicks and Hanlon's Razor (incompetence). Most people don't have the skills to be able to listen to science. They don't know how to read and interpret and abstract and then dig in further and read an entire scholarly peer-reviewed paper. That's just part of the problem. The other part is that most people are completely innumerate.
- ryacko 7y ago
  Based on what I’ve read from old library archives, quality changed for popular science type magazines after the 1950s. Everything becomes closer to being ads, or just glosses over the basic details. I doubt it is intentional, the journalists now aren’t capable of understanding, but they know how to write things in a way to get as many clicks.
- pier25 7y ago
  > No, we're debating whether we should listen to the charlatans that present us our science. I'm sure some do, but considering the huge number of deniers and their effect on government policy humanity's biggest issue is not understanding the facts (established by science) of climate change.

jonnycomputer 7y ago

Collapse in insect populations is probably not global warming, or methane release, imo. New pesticide use, yes, e.g. the nicitinoids and loss of habitat. Bird population decline is expected consequence of decline in insect population, but could be other pollutants. There could be changes in fertility too. Plastics? I dunno.