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Its hard to have a rational response to the steady trickle of warnings. We know that things are not going well on many fronts. We also know that we are locked
by college_physics 4y ago
Its hard to have a rational response to the steady trickle of warnings.
We know that things are not going well on many fronts.
We also know that we are locked-in along an unsustainable path that is extremely difficult to change given that people are not equipped mentally, socially, politically, economically to do the right things.
We also know that the negative effects will not be the kind of in-your-face "wake up" call that will panic people into some sort of action.
Species don't make a lot of noise when they disappear. Its just silence.
Not that panic reactions could change anything. Changing course into a sustainable economy would require massive, coordinated and persistent changes over decades.
So we must resign to a steady degradation of the environment across the planet, the loss of many beautiful things, the creation of fragile human monocultures, recurrent epidemics and ecosystem disasters and just hope that some deus-ex-machina will grant us at some point a way out - despite us not deserving it.
- vivekd 4y agoDoesn't the article suggest the opposite. If populations are declining in untouched forests far from human activity, wouldn't that be evidence that human activity is not the cause of population decline
- bagels 4y agoIt only suggests that local effects are not responsible. That leaves as some of the possibilities: climate change, air pollution, other chemicals that still make it in to 'untouched' forests.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- vkou 4y agoIt could be evidence that the impact of human activity - say, pesticides - isn't localized to the particular field that you spray with them.
- college_physics 4y agoMicroplastics have been found everywhere, from high mountains, to antarctica and deep ocean sediments. I am not claiming thats the vector responsible in this case but the human footprint is now everywhere.
- throwaway290 4y agoA PFAS study could not find a control group because they are present in all currently living people...
- college_physics 4y agoThe term anthropocene is not an exaggeration. We are changing everything on a planetary scale: light pollution, sound levels, chemical and gas abundances etc. People think that if something is not immediately fatal its somehow ok. That the tragedy of our reptile brain wiring. In reality all sorts of impacts will accumulate only imperceptibly slowly. We might be able to do something about some of them if they have clear cut causes and some easy remedy. Like the ozon hole. But its an uncertain arms race.
- xvilka 4y agoWe also should archive everything we can, like we do with books. Assuming civilization will survive there's a small chance to rebuild the ecosystem on this planet or some another in distant future. It's not a given, but definitely possible.