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While I agree on the general notion, I disagree with quite a few points from the article: - the effective population size of the passenger pidgeon was supposed

by patall 5y ago

While I agree on the general notion, I disagree with quite a few points from the article: - the effective population size of the passenger pidgeon was supposedly smaller than a million individuals. The billion animal events where likely exceptions and outside of the norm, possibly due to some form of human intervention. - The huge bison herds were likely artifical, due to missing predators and almost all other large herbivors that are by coincidence missing since the first native american arrived. - Same about the australian abriginees: > 'who thrived as guardians of their world for over 55,000 years. In all that time, the desire to improve upon the natural world, to tame the rhythm of the wild, never touched them. Indigenous people accepted life as it was, a cosmological whole, the unchanging creation of the first dawn, when the primordial ancestors sang the world into existence.' which totally disregards that the entire land based australian megafauna exept emu, red kangaroo and wombat was long extinct when europeans arrived. A world without humans would not look like it did in the 1500s.

TrispusAttucks 5y ago
In a similar vein the effective population of humans is probably much much smaller than it is now. Our current state of existence is an artificial blip on the ecological timescale of the earth.
garyrichardson 5y ago
A common flaw I see with "Save our X" type campaigns is the lack of knowledge of the history of our places. We all tend to remember a place the way we first encountered it. And conversely we also tend to fetishize how people lived before us. A short anecdote, I live in the PNW. There are plenty of places that are 3rd generation logging sites. I live in a neighborhood that since the 1800's was logged, homesteaded, reforested, logged again (possibly 2x?) and in the last 30-40 years has become an attractive semi-rural place to live. I've been in the area for about 20ish years, my partner her entire life. People who have recently come to the community and complain about new development don't understand the history of the place and that the homes they live in are new development to us. What they see as old growth forests are 50 year old sick and polluted monoculture tree stands that were abandoned by the forestry industry. There is great depth to how humanity has impacted our planet and this article touches on some of it. It's easy to forget that humans bring change to places, even 5000+ years ago. I think your comment also points out some of the longer term impact humans have had. What state of planet earth are we trying to lock in? What are we trying to save? Humans are part of nature. How do we find balance to participating in the world?

by patall 5y ago

TrispusAttucks 5y ago

In a similar vein the effective population of humans is probably much much smaller than it is now. Our current state of existence is an artificial blip on the ecological timescale of the earth.

garyrichardson 5y ago

A common flaw I see with "Save our X" type campaigns is the lack of knowledge of the history of our places. We all tend to remember a place the way we first encountered it. And conversely we also tend to fetishize how people lived before us. A short anecdote, I live in the PNW. There are plenty of places that are 3rd generation logging sites. I live in a neighborhood that since the 1800's was logged, homesteaded, reforested, logged again (possibly 2x?) and in the last 30-40 years has become an attractive semi-rural place to live. I've been in the area for about 20ish years, my partner her entire life. People who have recently come to the community and complain about new development don't understand the history of the place and that the homes they live in are new development to us. What they see as old growth forests are 50 year old sick and polluted monoculture tree stands that were abandoned by the forestry industry. There is great depth to how humanity has impacted our planet and this article touches on some of it. It's easy to forget that humans bring change to places, even 5000+ years ago. I think your comment also points out some of the longer term impact humans have had. What state of planet earth are we trying to lock in? What are we trying to save? Humans are part of nature. How do we find balance to participating in the world?