5 ms·

This is far more pressing than the climate crisis, but people don’t seem to prioritize it: One third of all arable farmland has become desertified in the last

by EGreg 4y ago

This is far more pressing than the climate crisis, but people don’t seem to prioritize it: One third of all arable farmland has become desertified in the last couple decades as people are in a race to the bottom (just as USA was in the Great Depression leading to the dust bowl) Biodiversity has plummeted as species go extinct, only to be replaced by farms and monocultures Insect populations are plummeting Forests are being decimated The boomer through millenial generations think they’re smarter than previous ones but they are in fact like an irresponsible kid living on an ecological credit card, that their children will have to pay. Child mortality was solved but humanity was slow to adjust their birth rates to compensate for it.

pc86 4y ago
I'm curious how you can view this as separate from climate change and not inextricably linked.
- EGreg 4y ago
  It may not have anything to do with the greenhouse gas effect and emission of fossil fuels. The desertification has to do with farmers planting too much and extracting all nutrients from the soil - same as happened in the 1930s which didnt have to do with cars and cows and methane in the atmosphere. The overfishing - same thing The collapse of insect populations is highly unlikely due to the slight aberage temperature changes or carbon concentrations in the atmosphere. It may be due to wireless radio signals, or light pollution, or pesticides and GMO plants. The collapse of kelp forests or bleaching of coral reefs also has less to do with acidification of the oceans, and more with local pollution and ecosystem collapse. The extinction of some species is due to hunting. And so on. You could say the anthopocene is behind all these things — but that is not the same as saying that climate change is CAUSING these things. If A (human activity) is causing B and C, and nearly all we talk about is C, then it is valid to say that B is more pressing, and that we should focus on A causing B. The response that “C is linked to B” is not enough because C doesn’t cause B and talking about C doesn’t do anything to stop B.
  - pohl 4y ago
    FTA: The team suspects climate change may be warming the region and affecting bee and possibly butterfly survival.
    - ars 4y ago
      You are unlikely to find a biology paper that doesn't say that. If it were true there should be an equivalent change in insect population as you move north/south.
      - all2 4y ago
        Or shifting biodiversity as new species move into a now warmer region, rather than net decline.
    - EGreg 4y ago
      "suspecting" is not exactly the standard that I am looking for when making statements of such importance. And their "suspecting" is certainly nowhere near good enough reason to not draw attention to other things such as pesticides, light pollution and other radio electromagnetic pollution
- ars 4y ago
  No, the two are quite different. Which is worse in your opinion: smoke, or CO2? (Defining smoke broadly.) It's a real question: Diesel motors make less CO2, but more smoke (of lots of types). Would you rather spray some pesticide on crops? Or would it be better to use an energy intensive tractor (lots of CO2) to handle the situation mechanically? The world currently is obsessed with CO2, and I think that's a huge mistake - the other types of pollution are worse.
- goatlover 4y ago
  Because not everything is related to climate change. You have to show there's an "inextricable" link first.
- throw_pm23 4y ago
  If climate change would be causing this then insects and butterfly would move into colder zones like many other animals and plants in fact do. Instead, they are disappearing everywhere. It is due to pesticides and monoculture agriculture.
galangalalgol 4y ago
Falling birth rates have little to do with child mortality and everything to do with child labor becoming less valuable due to legality as well as industrialization. Children became liabilities instead of assets to parents, parents had less kids. And the current problem is actually not enough people are going to be around to maintain the current economy of scale both in terms of production and consumption. The demographic cliff looming in Italy and China for instance will probably alleviate some of these environmental issues we are discussing, but at the cost of political instability.
- irrational 4y ago
  > child labor becoming less valuable due to legality It's ironic you post this on the day that Governor Sarah Huckabee rolled back child labor laws.
Buttons840 4y ago
> The boomer through millennial generations I'm a millennial, this is the first time I've personally noticed my own generation sharing the blame and it makes me defensive. I suppose it's true enough though. I do vote on these issues, and I do what little I can for the environment; I don't use pesticides on my 100 square foot farm (more commonly called a "garden"). So long as we're on the topic of blaming entire generations though -- will more than 30% of Gen Z join us in voting any time soon? We could use the votes.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  Millennials are every bit as good as the boomers for having a blizzard of excuses about why they can't possibly be inconvenienced, it just sounds a bit more nuanced. This website is full of it. And the idea that voting does anything real is kind of cute, that's literally the least you can do and should take all of 5 minutes every couple of months these days.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
    > a blizzard of excuses about why they can't possibly be inconvenienced, it just sounds a bit more nuanced. An excellent point. So what have you done to solve the problem?
    - lamontcg 4y ago
      Good example that proves my point.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    > Millennials are every bit as good as the boomers for having a blizzard of excuses about why they can't possibly be inconvenienced, it just sounds a bit more nuanced. This website is full of it. The idea that this problem is solvable by individuals changing their behavior when there is a vast ocean of money being deployed to keep everything (roughly) the same is pretty laughable. Changing the behaviour of a large population first requires them to agree on what the problem is in the first place. "Energy" interests have done a good job of clouding the issue and providing enough plausible deniability for continuing the status quo. Here's a relevant example: a generation of people have been convinced to recycle - but those efforts were largely wasted because the collected material was shipped to China (!) and sometimes dumped in the ocean (!!). So individuals did their part, but "the system" is still going to optimize for cost-efficiency and not for environmental impact.
macinjosh 4y ago
Why does Gen X get a pass? lol
- irrational 4y ago
  It's not called the forgotten generation for no reason.
orcajerk 4y ago
[flagged]

by EGreg 4y ago

pc86 4y ago

I'm curious how you can view this as separate from climate change and not inextricably linked.

EGreg 4y ago
It may not have anything to do with the greenhouse gas effect and emission of fossil fuels. The desertification has to do with farmers planting too much and extracting all nutrients from the soil - same as happened in the 1930s which didnt have to do with cars and cows and methane in the atmosphere. The overfishing - same thing The collapse of insect populations is highly unlikely due to the slight aberage temperature changes or carbon concentrations in the atmosphere. It may be due to wireless radio signals, or light pollution, or pesticides and GMO plants. The collapse of kelp forests or bleaching of coral reefs also has less to do with acidification of the oceans, and more with local pollution and ecosystem collapse. The extinction of some species is due to hunting. And so on. You could say the anthopocene is behind all these things — but that is not the same as saying that climate change is CAUSING these things. If A (human activity) is causing B and C, and nearly all we talk about is C, then it is valid to say that B is more pressing, and that we should focus on A causing B. The response that “C is linked to B” is not enough because C doesn’t cause B and talking about C doesn’t do anything to stop B.
- pohl 4y ago
  FTA: The team suspects climate change may be warming the region and affecting bee and possibly butterfly survival.
  - ars 4y ago
    You are unlikely to find a biology paper that doesn't say that. If it were true there should be an equivalent change in insect population as you move north/south.
    - all2 4y ago
      Or shifting biodiversity as new species move into a now warmer region, rather than net decline.
  - EGreg 4y ago
    "suspecting" is not exactly the standard that I am looking for when making statements of such importance. And their "suspecting" is certainly nowhere near good enough reason to not draw attention to other things such as pesticides, light pollution and other radio electromagnetic pollution
ars 4y ago
No, the two are quite different. Which is worse in your opinion: smoke, or CO2? (Defining smoke broadly.) It's a real question: Diesel motors make less CO2, but more smoke (of lots of types). Would you rather spray some pesticide on crops? Or would it be better to use an energy intensive tractor (lots of CO2) to handle the situation mechanically? The world currently is obsessed with CO2, and I think that's a huge mistake - the other types of pollution are worse.
goatlover 4y ago
Because not everything is related to climate change. You have to show there's an "inextricable" link first.
throw_pm23 4y ago
If climate change would be causing this then insects and butterfly would move into colder zones like many other animals and plants in fact do. Instead, they are disappearing everywhere. It is due to pesticides and monoculture agriculture.

galangalalgol 4y ago

Falling birth rates have little to do with child mortality and everything to do with child labor becoming less valuable due to legality as well as industrialization. Children became liabilities instead of assets to parents, parents had less kids. And the current problem is actually not enough people are going to be around to maintain the current economy of scale both in terms of production and consumption. The demographic cliff looming in Italy and China for instance will probably alleviate some of these environmental issues we are discussing, but at the cost of political instability.

irrational 4y ago
> child labor becoming less valuable due to legality It's ironic you post this on the day that Governor Sarah Huckabee rolled back child labor laws.

Buttons840 4y ago

> The boomer through millennial generations I'm a millennial, this is the first time I've personally noticed my own generation sharing the blame and it makes me defensive. I suppose it's true enough though. I do vote on these issues, and I do what little I can for the environment; I don't use pesticides on my 100 square foot farm (more commonly called a "garden"). So long as we're on the topic of blaming entire generations though -- will more than 30% of Gen Z join us in voting any time soon? We could use the votes.

lamontcg 4y ago
Millennials are every bit as good as the boomers for having a blizzard of excuses about why they can't possibly be inconvenienced, it just sounds a bit more nuanced. This website is full of it. And the idea that voting does anything real is kind of cute, that's literally the least you can do and should take all of 5 minutes every couple of months these days.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  > a blizzard of excuses about why they can't possibly be inconvenienced, it just sounds a bit more nuanced. An excellent point. So what have you done to solve the problem?
  - lamontcg 4y ago
    Good example that proves my point.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > Millennials are every bit as good as the boomers for having a blizzard of excuses about why they can't possibly be inconvenienced, it just sounds a bit more nuanced. This website is full of it. The idea that this problem is solvable by individuals changing their behavior when there is a vast ocean of money being deployed to keep everything (roughly) the same is pretty laughable. Changing the behaviour of a large population first requires them to agree on what the problem is in the first place. "Energy" interests have done a good job of clouding the issue and providing enough plausible deniability for continuing the status quo. Here's a relevant example: a generation of people have been convinced to recycle - but those efforts were largely wasted because the collected material was shipped to China (!) and sometimes dumped in the ocean (!!). So individuals did their part, but "the system" is still going to optimize for cost-efficiency and not for environmental impact.

macinjosh 4y ago

Why does Gen X get a pass? lol

irrational 4y ago
It's not called the forgotten generation for no reason.

orcajerk 4y ago

[flagged]