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Yeah, but the beavers didn't do environmental impact studies, and don't care about safety. They also made a temporary dam, and have no legal liability if it bre

Yeah, but the beavers didn't do environmental impact studies, and don't care about safety. They also made a temporary dam, and have no legal liability if it breaks apart. People could pile logs together in two days if that's all they had to do, but if you believe in environmental and safety regulations, the consequence is that it adds cost and takes longer to build stuff.

ggm 2y ago
The dam you get for $1m is also a temporary, or very small dam. Real construction costs for a permanent structure at scale exceed this by one or two orders of magnitude. If the dam required was a $1m dam, then getting beavers to make it is an entirely sensible decision or outcome, even if not decided.
- karaterobot 2y ago
  That's another thing: nobody got the beavers to make this dam, they just happened to do it coincidentally. You might as well say that waiting for a landslide to block the river is better than hiring human engineers and builders. In most cases, a landslide is not going to come along at just the right spot, but if does, you can say "see? we saved money"
  - ggm 2y ago
    Yes, but also .. kinda-no. Rewilding is a thing. You get to put beavers to work inside a specified area. Exactly where, thats on them. Which is a bit of a bummer for planning and risk assessment but you go for net-upside overall, and the specific farmer rage bait outcome settles with some of the $1m you saved. I have concerns with the economics behind rewilding, and green upside monetising. A lot of carbon credits monetize things which were going to happen anyway, and don't reflect real re-wilding or carbon sink activity. Like, if you had been clearing land for decades, and left it alone, you get to claim amazing carbon sink benefits from the wood which grows, even on the land you never intended trying to make productive. Somehow, that feels wrong. Beavers are also cost avoidance on other people than the land holder. Overground water flows generally don't stop at the farm boundary. Somebody 100km away doesn't get flooded, and its a benefit, but to them, or their insurer, or their town council, or .. who exactly isn't clear. "I didn't have to remediate all this flood damage" has undefined, but treated as uncountable/low dollar value where 'I did spend $200m remediating' has very clear value. (I want to say negative but there's bad economics coming back in. A giant flood potlach is jobs, and spend, and boosts the rural economy. Albiet at the expense of somewhere else not getting that spend. Money is wierd. we need more wars! they're good for the economy.. kinda)
    - karaterobot 2y ago
      Re-wilding beavers is a thing, but that's not what the article says happened here. This was some native beavers who came along and happened to build dams in the right spots.
      - ggm 2y ago
        yes. good point. shouldn't argue for helping nature from nature helping itself. I mean I do think we should help nature but we can't claim this was because we helped.
HomeDeLaPot 2y ago
Let's hope the beavers allocate sufficient funding to maintain the dam.
frugalmail 2y ago
This is why it's important to keep the beavers happy so they don't strike or unionize.
tim333 2y ago
Also have they considered diversity? Have they tried to include LBGT beavers?

ggm 2y ago

The dam you get for $1m is also a temporary, or very small dam. Real construction costs for a permanent structure at scale exceed this by one or two orders of magnitude. If the dam required was a $1m dam, then getting beavers to make it is an entirely sensible decision or outcome, even if not decided.

karaterobot 2y ago
That's another thing: nobody got the beavers to make this dam, they just happened to do it coincidentally. You might as well say that waiting for a landslide to block the river is better than hiring human engineers and builders. In most cases, a landslide is not going to come along at just the right spot, but if does, you can say "see? we saved money"
- ggm 2y ago
  Yes, but also .. kinda-no. Rewilding is a thing. You get to put beavers to work inside a specified area. Exactly where, thats on them. Which is a bit of a bummer for planning and risk assessment but you go for net-upside overall, and the specific farmer rage bait outcome settles with some of the $1m you saved. I have concerns with the economics behind rewilding, and green upside monetising. A lot of carbon credits monetize things which were going to happen anyway, and don't reflect real re-wilding or carbon sink activity. Like, if you had been clearing land for decades, and left it alone, you get to claim amazing carbon sink benefits from the wood which grows, even on the land you never intended trying to make productive. Somehow, that feels wrong. Beavers are also cost avoidance on other people than the land holder. Overground water flows generally don't stop at the farm boundary. Somebody 100km away doesn't get flooded, and its a benefit, but to them, or their insurer, or their town council, or .. who exactly isn't clear. "I didn't have to remediate all this flood damage" has undefined, but treated as uncountable/low dollar value where 'I did spend $200m remediating' has very clear value. (I want to say negative but there's bad economics coming back in. A giant flood potlach is jobs, and spend, and boosts the rural economy. Albiet at the expense of somewhere else not getting that spend. Money is wierd. we need more wars! they're good for the economy.. kinda)
  - karaterobot 2y ago
    Re-wilding beavers is a thing, but that's not what the article says happened here. This was some native beavers who came along and happened to build dams in the right spots.
    - ggm 2y ago
      yes. good point. shouldn't argue for helping nature from nature helping itself. I mean I do think we should help nature but we can't claim this was because we helped.

HomeDeLaPot 2y ago

Let's hope the beavers allocate sufficient funding to maintain the dam.

frugalmail 2y ago

This is why it's important to keep the beavers happy so they don't strike or unionize.

tim333 2y ago

Also have they considered diversity? Have they tried to include LBGT beavers?