3 ms·

The estimate is about 200 species go extinct every day from the actions of human beings -- ecosystem destruction, degredation, climate change etc. We are a mea

The estimate is about 200 species go extinct every day from the actions of human beings -- ecosystem destruction, degredation, climate change etc. We are a meatgrinder to the biosphere.

joshuahedlund 3y ago
Very few bird species have gone extinct this century though, and many that were on the utter brink have rebounded (California condor, whooping crane, and kakapo to name a few). Conservation works.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  It works, but not fast enough.
- SapporoChris 3y ago
  If conservation worked this article wouldn't exist.
- unhammer 3y ago
  Not just conservation, but banning some of the worst pesticides in the 60's
macinjosh 3y ago
the biosphere is a meat grinder. nature is scary
- therealdrag0 3y ago
  How so? humans dominate. Our livestock outweighs all wild animals. And humans will outweigh all wild animals very soon if not already. HALF of the entire earths habitable land is used for agriculture. Humans dominate earth.
- over_bridge 3y ago
  Does nature even exist anymore? Even remote areas often have roads or hiking paths carved through, or huts to sleep in. Or worse, they are dumping sites of plastic. The concept of nature as someone 2000 years ago might have imagined it is consigned to history. There's just spaces between towns.
  - Brusco_RF 3y ago
    This is not even close to true. Most of the world is still wilderness, and always will be. I'd love to drop you in the middle of Siberia, northern Canada, or the Amazon and watch you try to find a road or hut :) Hell, I could drop you in a huge wilderness region in my state (Arizona) where you might walk a dozen miles before you encounter a "trail" (loosly defined). Honestly, I don't know how you could end up with a take like that unless you're a European who hasn't travelled much.
hasmanean 3y ago
Imagine the headlines when humans try to immigrate to other inhabited planets: “They’re bringing pollution, they’re bringing Extinction, and some of the I assume might actually enhance the ecosystems they inhabit.” It’s not such a hard skill. When we see a complex ecosystem is our first instinct to make it better or to exploit and degrade it? Do we even have a metric for what making it better actually means? Do we even have a way to debate it? Because the whole debate oscillates between destroy(“jobs”) and the minimum (“we need it to survive.”) nobody has the heart actually suggest it might be worth sacrificing anything for just to make it better. We need more than a utilitarian reason, we should feel pleasure in making nature better the same way we feel pleasure at seeing a well designed race cad like a Ferrari.
- Arubis 3y ago
  > We need more than a utilitarian reason, we should feel pleasure in making nature better the same way we feel pleasure at seeing a well designed race cad like a Ferrari. There are definitely people that fit this descriptor! Poets, artists, laypeople that are well-attuned. But those are also likely to be the folks already doing relatively less damage compared to the rest of their societal cohort.

The estimate is about 200 species go extinct every day from the actions of human beings -- ecosystem destruction, degredation, climate change etc. We are a meatgrinder to the biosphere.

joshuahedlund 3y ago

Very few bird species have gone extinct this century though, and many that were on the utter brink have rebounded (California condor, whooping crane, and kakapo to name a few). Conservation works.

jacquesm 3y ago
It works, but not fast enough.
SapporoChris 3y ago
If conservation worked this article wouldn't exist.
unhammer 3y ago
Not just conservation, but banning some of the worst pesticides in the 60's

macinjosh 3y ago

the biosphere is a meat grinder. nature is scary

therealdrag0 3y ago
How so? humans dominate. Our livestock outweighs all wild animals. And humans will outweigh all wild animals very soon if not already. HALF of the entire earths habitable land is used for agriculture. Humans dominate earth.
over_bridge 3y ago
Does nature even exist anymore? Even remote areas often have roads or hiking paths carved through, or huts to sleep in. Or worse, they are dumping sites of plastic. The concept of nature as someone 2000 years ago might have imagined it is consigned to history. There's just spaces between towns.
- Brusco_RF 3y ago
  This is not even close to true. Most of the world is still wilderness, and always will be. I'd love to drop you in the middle of Siberia, northern Canada, or the Amazon and watch you try to find a road or hut :) Hell, I could drop you in a huge wilderness region in my state (Arizona) where you might walk a dozen miles before you encounter a "trail" (loosly defined). Honestly, I don't know how you could end up with a take like that unless you're a European who hasn't travelled much.

hasmanean 3y ago

Imagine the headlines when humans try to immigrate to other inhabited planets: “They’re bringing pollution, they’re bringing Extinction, and some of the I assume might actually enhance the ecosystems they inhabit.” It’s not such a hard skill. When we see a complex ecosystem is our first instinct to make it better or to exploit and degrade it? Do we even have a metric for what making it better actually means? Do we even have a way to debate it? Because the whole debate oscillates between destroy(“jobs”) and the minimum (“we need it to survive.”) nobody has the heart actually suggest it might be worth sacrificing anything for just to make it better. We need more than a utilitarian reason, we should feel pleasure in making nature better the same way we feel pleasure at seeing a well designed race cad like a Ferrari.

Arubis 3y ago
> We need more than a utilitarian reason, we should feel pleasure in making nature better the same way we feel pleasure at seeing a well designed race cad like a Ferrari. There are definitely people that fit this descriptor! Poets, artists, laypeople that are well-attuned. But those are also likely to be the folks already doing relatively less damage compared to the rest of their societal cohort.