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> Of all the birds left in the world, 70% are poultry chickens and other farmed birds While the overall thesis of this article may be correct, the writer under

> Of all the birds left in the world, 70% are poultry chickens and other farmed birds While the overall thesis of this article may be correct, the writer undermines themself with the inclusion of misleading statistics like this one. It makes it sound as if we have killed all the wild birds or shunted them into the food industrial complex when really these things are fairly independent of one another. We're simply growing more chickens than ever because people like to eat meat.

GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago
But the bird population has decreased. Deforestation and house cats are doing a lot of damage.
- noahtallen 7y ago
  Fair enough, for sure, but the statistic doesn’t really get at that point directly. It’d be better to say “50% fewer non-agricultural birds were alive in 2019 than in 2018” (or whatever the stat is) if that’s the point they wish to make.
- jurassic 7y ago
  I don’t doubt the bird population has declined. But the stat cited above doesn’t convey any information about the decline. If you have 30 wild birds in your property and you setup a barn with 70 industrial meat birds inside, you did not necessarily obliterate the wild population.
perfunctory 7y ago
> when really these things are fairly independent of one another are they really? we simply expropriate more and more land from wilderness for animal farming.
matznerd 7y ago
I'm not sure he completely undermines himself. Yes, we are definitely growing more birds for food and he could have made that relationship more clear, but at the same time, there is simultaneously a bird "extinction" event going on that also results in an increase in the percentage of birds that are for poultry use. I'm not sure if you've seen this, but based on an extensive report examining 140 million records of birds, the Oct 2019 paper in Science, "Decline of the North American Avifauna"[0] determined that there are now 3 billion fewer birds in the US since the 1970s: >"Using multiple and independent monitoring networks, we report population losses across much of the North American avifauna over 48 years, including once-common species and from most biomes. Integration of range-wide population trajectories and size estimates indicates a net loss approaching 3 billion birds, or 29% of 1970 abundance. A continent-wide weather radar network also reveals a similarly steep decline in biomass passage of migrating birds over a recent 10-year period. This loss of bird abundance signals an urgent need to address threats to avert future avifaunal collapse and associated loss of ecosystem integrity, function, and services. This paper also spurred some articles that discuss the issue such as "Birds are Vanishing From North America" in the NYT [1] and "The Quiet Disappearance of Birds in North America [2] Then a week after that paper came out, the Audubon Society released a report "Survival by Degrees" [3][4][5] saying 2/3rd of birds are at risk of extinction from climate change alone if global warming hits 5.4 deg F by 2100. So while the author could have been more clear, the fact is, the evidence is clear that bird populations are rapidly declining due to climate change and the latest reports warn that we must take steps to "avert future avifaunal collapse." [0] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6461/120 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6461/120 [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-america-canada.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/america-has-lost-quarter-its-birds-fifty-years/598318/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/america-... [3] https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees [4] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/798652v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/798652v1 [5] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/798694v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/798694v1
Supermancho 7y ago
> the writer undermines themself with the inclusion of misleading statistics like this one This author does this a lot. I just couldn't keep up with all the inaccuracies and mischaracterizations, so I stopped reading near the bottom. This article is an example of modern top-notch fear mongering. As much as I loved The Newsroom, that Toby clip is one example of a failure in their writing. Where 1 death by climate change somehow translates into everyone on earth dying. Spoiler: Everyone does at some point. SMH
- ncmncm 7y ago
  It matters when. 50 million dying per year is the baseline, say a billion in 20. So, if six billion die over the next 20 years, that is a problem. If it happens, we can at least be certain that 6 billion more will not die in the subsequent period.

GrayTextIsTruth 7y ago

But the bird population has decreased. Deforestation and house cats are doing a lot of damage.

noahtallen 7y ago
Fair enough, for sure, but the statistic doesn’t really get at that point directly. It’d be better to say “50% fewer non-agricultural birds were alive in 2019 than in 2018” (or whatever the stat is) if that’s the point they wish to make.
jurassic 7y ago
I don’t doubt the bird population has declined. But the stat cited above doesn’t convey any information about the decline. If you have 30 wild birds in your property and you setup a barn with 70 industrial meat birds inside, you did not necessarily obliterate the wild population.

perfunctory 7y ago

> when really these things are fairly independent of one another are they really? we simply expropriate more and more land from wilderness for animal farming.

matznerd 7y ago

I'm not sure he completely undermines himself. Yes, we are definitely growing more birds for food and he could have made that relationship more clear, but at the same time, there is simultaneously a bird "extinction" event going on that also results in an increase in the percentage of birds that are for poultry use. I'm not sure if you've seen this, but based on an extensive report examining 140 million records of birds, the Oct 2019 paper in Science, "Decline of the North American Avifauna"[0] determined that there are now 3 billion fewer birds in the US since the 1970s: >"Using multiple and independent monitoring networks, we report population losses across much of the North American avifauna over 48 years, including once-common species and from most biomes. Integration of range-wide population trajectories and size estimates indicates a net loss approaching 3 billion birds, or 29% of 1970 abundance. A continent-wide weather radar network also reveals a similarly steep decline in biomass passage of migrating birds over a recent 10-year period. This loss of bird abundance signals an urgent need to address threats to avert future avifaunal collapse and associated loss of ecosystem integrity, function, and services. This paper also spurred some articles that discuss the issue such as "Birds are Vanishing From North America" in the NYT [1] and "The Quiet Disappearance of Birds in North America [2] Then a week after that paper came out, the Audubon Society released a report "Survival by Degrees" [3][4][5] saying 2/3rd of birds are at risk of extinction from climate change alone if global warming hits 5.4 deg F by 2100. So while the author could have been more clear, the fact is, the evidence is clear that bird populations are rapidly declining due to climate change and the latest reports warn that we must take steps to "avert future avifaunal collapse." [0] https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6461/120 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6461/120 [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-america-canada.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/science/bird-populations-... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/america-has-lost-quarter-its-birds-fifty-years/598318/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/09/america-... [3] https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees [4] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/798652v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/798652v1 [5] https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/798694v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/798694v1

Supermancho 7y ago

> the writer undermines themself with the inclusion of misleading statistics like this one This author does this a lot. I just couldn't keep up with all the inaccuracies and mischaracterizations, so I stopped reading near the bottom. This article is an example of modern top-notch fear mongering. As much as I loved The Newsroom, that Toby clip is one example of a failure in their writing. Where 1 death by climate change somehow translates into everyone on earth dying. Spoiler: Everyone does at some point. SMH

ncmncm 7y ago
It matters when. 50 million dying per year is the baseline, say a billion in 20. So, if six billion die over the next 20 years, that is a problem. If it happens, we can at least be certain that 6 billion more will not die in the subsequent period.