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The sad thing is that 100 years ago humans and livestock accounted for around 5% of the biomass (all zoomass, not land mammals only), 95% being the wildlife. No
by myshpa 4y ago
The sad thing is that 100 years ago humans and livestock accounted for around 5% of the biomass (all zoomass, not land mammals only), 95% being the wildlife. Now the numbers are reversed.
We've stolen the land from the wildlife and dedicated it to a few species we consider edible (agriland is more than forests now, and 75% of it for animal agriculture).
Is anybody surprised that we're living in the anthropocene, defined by massive die off of wild species?
We have to (as a species) return the land to wildlife and let it repopulate the earth, otherwise we'll lose them. We don't even know what gems we're losing. I'm not talking about some bugs, but about dna - those are millions of years of (computer) code generated by nature, code so precious we don't even have an idea how to simulate it, let alone understand it (at this point in our evolution).
If we lose it, goodbye new medicines, new regenerative dna techniques, new technologies, and who knows what. We simply cannot know what we're stealing from future humans (this point was made for the selfish humans we are, better arguments could be made).
- throwawaysleep 4y agoBuild more zoos then. That’s the only realistic solution.
- rvba 4y agoMore nature reserves.
- carapace 4y agoE. O. Wilson proposed that half of the Earth's surface should be designated a human-free natural reserve to preserve biodiversity. https://www.half-earthproject.org/ https://www.half-earthproject.org/
- quickthrower2 4y agoHalf of land surface?
- cmpb 4y agoThe article indicates that the bulk of the extinction of large mammals happened during the Quaternary Extinction[1], between 52kya and 9kya, so 100 years ago the damage was already done. It also makes the argument that the extinction events in each region coincided with the arrival of humans to that region, which would imply that these extinctions were not due to climatic changes. I don't mean to imply that we're doing enough right now to keep our planet healthy. I agree with your sentiment and just wanted to provide a little context and clarification. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/mammals#quaternary-megafauna-extinctions https://ourworldindata.org/mammals#quaternary-megafauna-exti...
- myshpa 4y ago100.000 years ago ... 20 mil. tonnes of carbon 10.000 years ago ... 15 mil. tonnes of carbon 100 years ago ... 10 mil. tonnes of carbon now ... 3 mil. tonnes of carbon https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2021/04/Decline-of-wild-mammals-1536x1499.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2021/04/Decline-of-wild-m... First 5 mil. tonnes took 90.000 year. Next 5 mil. 9.900 years. Next 7 mil. 100 years. 3 mil. remain, most of the megafauna is already gone. If we continue this trend, in 30 years there'll be only mice, mosquitos, and medusas. And farm animals, of course. We have to switch to plant-based diets. Now. There is no other way. No time to wait for technological breakthroughs.
- pha392 4y agoI'm good enough with the farm animals Why should I switch to plant based?
- taneq 4y agoI'm not them and I'm not telling you what to do, but meat typically takes ~10x the resources to feed one human compared with plant based food. Whether you think this means we should eat plants or we should have 10% as many humans is an open question.
- thegrimmest 4y ago> otherwise we'll lose them So what? What value are these species? What are they for? I'm sure we'll be able to advance medicine in other ways. I'm much more concerned about the longevity of our civilization than the other organics we happen to have coevolved with. If we have to pave over the whole planet then so be it. Organic life is common and therefore expendable. If we all die off, new life will almost certainly evolve, but a new civilization? That's much less certain.
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoWhat the hell, man.
- davzie 4y agoThis HAS to be trolling!
- thegrimmest 4y agoBelieve it or not, I'm actually looking for a good faith refutation that doesn't rely on sentiment.
- dragonwriter 4y agoValue is sentiment; you cannot refute a value statement without relying on it.
- thegrimmest 4y agoValue is more than one thing, arguably. You kind of have to go back to first philosophical principles to unpick this. Which I guess is my point - if one's goal is the expansion and longevity of human civilization (which I think is reasonable) then it's not clear at all where the rest of organic life (which we compete with) fits into this picture. If the best reason to preserve it is "it's pretty to look at" and "maybe we'll get some medical advances" then let's just admit that. I'm only suggesting that this is something about which reasonable people can (and have) disagree.
- glitcher 4y agoReminds me of George Carlin, "The earth will be fine..."
- myshpa 4y agoI love that talk. It's just so ... unnecessary & preventable
- therealdrag0 4y agoIn what sense will the earth be fine? Is it the sense that people care about or is it a rhetorical trick to make people feel good about not caring?
- croes 4y agoSomething will survive, but maybe not mankind. The while save the planet thing isn't about the planet but about us. If we change the environment, nature will adapt and live will continue but maybe not in a way we can survive. So it's unlikely that we kill live on earth just the live as we know it
- ninkendo 4y agoThe important part is the rest of the sentence: “… but the humans won’t.”
- nemo44x 4y ago
- jablala 4y agoWe have the capability to enjoy life like no other generation before us. The difference is previous generations did not have the resources to destroy like we do now. With that being the case we must be sensible in how we enjoy ourselves, by being mindful of our existence and impacts.
- fnimick 4y agoYes, except unlike wildlife, we have evolved be smart enough to limit our consumption in order to sustain future life. Unlike the algae that grows until it literally chokes itself to death, we can limit ourselves so future generations can also thrive. Up farther in this thread you're celebrating increasing meat consumption as an economic victory, so I suggest you tilt your balance more towards "conservation" and away from "immediate pleasures".
- nemo44x 4y agoUnlike algae we can invent things. We can engineer. Are aren’t a hopeless, deterministic algorithm like algae. Future generations don’t need us to thrive. Plus, what’s your obsession with future generations? Thank you for your suggestion. While I’m choosing prime ribeye steaks to grill this weekend I will consider it.
- fnimick 4y ago"Future generations don’t need us to thrive. Plus, what’s your obsession with future generations?" Have you considered asking those "future generations", i.e. YOUR KIDS, whether they'd like to live on a planet with a self-sustaining ecosystem or suffer through a climate catastrophe? You can't possibly think that we don't owe it to future generations to try to leave them a better planet. Would you support setting off a nuclear war now too, because the fallout will be a future someone else's problem?
- hsn915 4y agoYou are advocating contradictory points. If we return land to wildlife, that entails shrinking the human population by a hgue margin. The supposed benefit is what, new medicine and regenrative dna? But why would we need that? Shrinking human population and human longevity are incompatible goals.
- nine_k 4y agoIt entails improving the efficiency of food production. Switching to LED lighting put more light in my house while lowering electricity consumption. Similarly switching to more efficient daily sources of protein (plants, shrimp, etc) can give more people more food, while yielding some of the land back to wildlife. To say nothing of inefficiencies due to weird local policies, like growing almonds and alfalfa in arid parts of California, etc.
- myshpa 4y agoLand surface ... 71% habitable land, rest glaciers & barren land Habitable land ... 50% agriculture, 37% forests, 1% urban and built-up land Agriculture ... 77% meat and dairy, 23% crops We would need just 25% of agriculture land we're using to feed the world on vegan diet, no shrinking necessary. But on the meat diet? We'll shrink for sure, just you wait. We'll diminish and go to the west. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets