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Empty Landscape Looms, If Large Herbivores Continue to Die Out
From the BBC comes this depressing excerpt: Populations of some of the world's largest wild animals are dwindling, raising the threat of an "empty landscape", say scientists.
About 60% of giant herbivores - plant-eaters - including rhinos, elephants and gorillas, are at risk of extinction, according to research. Analysis of 74 herbivore species, published in Science Advances, blamed poaching and habitat loss.
A previous study of large carnivores showed similar declines.
Prof William Ripple, of Oregon State University, led the research looking at herbivores weighing over 100kg, from the reindeer up to the African elephant.
"This is the first time anyone has analysed all of these species as a whole," he said.
"The process of declining animals is causing an empty landscape in the forest, savannah, grasslands and desert." Here's the study, published in Science Advances, on which the BBC article is based.
I'm going to have a nice steak, while they're still available. I hadn't heard how badly Herbivores are doing.
Good thing whale populations are rebounding. It would suck not to be able to get a nice steak.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It will be inevitably filled with humans... ...at least until we destroy ourselves...
We're smart enough to kill off everything else, but we're not smart enough not to.
The sad truth that no one will ever talk about is that there are way to many humans on the earth to ensure the rest of the animals are not brought to extinction. we need to cut the human population in half in the next 100 years (by breeding less, not killing people off) if we really want to sustain the earth
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
thats not always a bad approach. in fact doing nothing in many cases is a better answer than doing something simply for the sake of doing something
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
This has been going on for tens of thousands of years, so while it matters, it isn't news.
Large size makes animals evolutionarily fragile and is often a dead end.
They say, during the K-T event, no land animal larger than a cat survived.
I disagree, blood is the most delicious food ever. i've licked enough nosebleeds and bit my tongue or cheeks or have had tooth removal blood.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Copypasta from FARK. Slightly cleaned up for formatting.
Rik01 4 hours ago
Folks have heard me biatch about changes in my own city in the State of Florida -- and changes in the State itself. Basically the response has been (1) progress old man, (2) change the onion on your belt, (3) yelling at clouds, (4) who cares -- it's Floraduh!
However, these changes have been going on in other states.
I've watched politicians promise Eco-improvements with one hand and sell the voters down the river with the other. [For example] We had a massive oyster bed in the Indian River placed off limits to the public for preservation and ecological reasons for close to 20 years. That thing had huge oysters in it and the water in its cove was nearly crystal clear. The local police arrested scores of people sneaking down there to poach oysters and the shores were dotted with piles of empty shells. The cove was absolutely packed with the things, no river bottom exposed. Then, during the Housing Boom, an upscale development went it around it. Since the cove was too shallow for wealthy owners to park their boats at the planned docks behind the cove-side homes, it was dredged. No warning to anyone who wanted to get these delicious oysters. Dredges came in, ripped thousands of them out and disposed of them. The cove is now full of dark water and few oysters, making a lot of folks like myself wonder why we preserved them.
Water use in the state has quadrupled. Florida used to be very swampy, but the water table was shallow. Now, after sucking so much out and changing the lay of the land, plus paving over every square inch they could, we're the capitol of the US when it comes to sink holes. Water shortages began to pop up years ago, where before, we never had any.
Millions of acres of wild woods have been developed, endangering a host of native species of animals we used to have and the amount of fish in the rivers has diminished to the point that you need a license and a fishing season for Mullet -- once so plentiful that it was considered 'garbage fish' and caught mainly for bait. Within the last 40 years, the Indian River has to be closed to shellfish harvesting and fishing periodically during the summer because of massive human fecal bacteria contamination.
The previously crystal clear air of my seaside town now shows signs of grey pollution. They stopped dump burning ages ago, along with burning huge piles of used tires. Land clearing agencies have to use these massive air blowers that surround burn pits to burn stumps and brush with, creating a hotter, less smoke making fires. However, the local traffic, even with more eco-friendly cars, has quadrupled and quadrupled again. Their lesser pollution has, by the sheer weight of volume, has surpassed that which was present in times of less pollution control, when you used to have 'smokers' rolling down the roads.
Major advertising campaigns have convinced the public that instead of one or two cars per family, everyone except the dog needs one, plus a couple of ATVs, a boat and a couple of those fast, small watercraft good for nothing except going fast on the water and making a lot of noise. Prior to that, dirt bikes were the thing, tearing up thousands of acres of wild woods and chasing out local animals for fun. To round things out for the macho man, we have air boats, running on aircraft engines, no mufflers, tearing up the diminishing acres of wild swamps and annoying the crap out of neighbors when the owners 'test' them in their yards.
We have fewer forest fires than when I was a kid, thanks to sophisticated fire equipment -- but then again, the acres of undeveloped woods has fallen by 3/4, so there's less to burn. Where lightening would hit decades old pine trees and forest floors thick with dry pine needles, it hits houses, paved streets, power poles and grassy lawns.
My yard has an 'old growth' pine in it. Around 60 feet tall and nearly three feet around. It was 6 feet tall when we moved in around 1958. Across the street used to be a
People do not eat people because it really pisses other people off, and, unlike large herbivores, large crowds of angry people are going to ruin your day and take away any advantage that you got from eating them in the first place
In cultures that do eat people they have customs that allow for it only if the 'person' they re going to eat had magical powers and was a witch of some sort, thereby accepted by the general population as not being a person any more
In the long term eating people has disadvantages like carrying forward diseases like kuru and, potentially, Creutzfeldt–Jakob
Wherever You Go, There You Are
We killed just about all of the bison in North America in the 1870's. We killed them for their skins, and the cows that replace them taste good. We are poorer for it- the great plains are boring and nobody goes there for a safari. It will be an even greater loss if the same happens in Africa, because they still have the top predators that were lost in North America tens of thousands of years ago.
But hey, fuck it, I want a burger.
Only teenagers with helicopter parents taste like veal. Now you understand why there are so many of them.
https://xkcd.com/1338/
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Your flatulence is destroying our climate. To the dinosaurs with you, stinkers!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Yes, exactly. I remember when I was a kid,
You are still the same generation you were born into.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The population of the world is still rising, and by any estimates will keep rising until at least 10 billion inhabitants, and the limited resources we have are not growing at an equal pace, so this is still an issue.
My first thought is Malthus is into his third century of being wrong, but still people think it makes them look intelligent to wring their hands and repeat what he said.
I'll be more charitable. Population is only a problem when the expected economic value of a person becomes negative. There is absolutely nothing on the horizon that might cause that except possibly self inflicted stupidity.
If you want to look at self inflicted stupidity that could cause population to be a problem, look at California's drought. A problem created by people who stopped the projects needed to provide for increased population.
Ozone depletion is a genuine threat, and the ozone hole is one of the few examples of environmental dangers that was actually tackled by agreeing globally to ban the use of CFS andf other ozone depleting gases. If it wasn't for these actions, we'd be facing a lot more issues with regards to added UV radiation.
As someone else commented the "Ozone Hole was there before we were using CFCs" We have cut our use down to nearly nothing and it is still there.
Someone who was objective, would have to come to the conclusion that it is a natural phenomena independent of CFC use.
Unless you've found a endless source of oil,
ME ? No not at all. I am pretty good at basic chemistry but certainly not able to take that task
These people
http://phys.org/news178203219....
Well why yes.
Where did I say anything about Malthus?
POPULATION BOMB :Paul R. Ehrlich
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Neo-Malthusianism generally refers to people with the same basic concerns as Malthus, who advocate for population control programs, to ensure resources for current and future populations
Hope this is informative for you.
Source:
The IPCC Report [www.ipcc.ch]
The ipcc ? ehh
http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/713...
I like my science with less politics and less people screaming doom you must do this, that way so they can make money off of it.
I'm well ware of the different processes and methods to manufacture oil from different sources, and those are certainly something to look into, but again, it doesn't negate the fact that natural deposits of fossil fuels are limited and we cannot ignore this. If anything it backs up my point: if we didn't need to worry about running out of oil, technologies such as this would not be investigated or needed
So new sources of oil and oil products don't count because ?????
Seriously you need to learn what a strawman is so you can build better ones.
Both arguments concerning resources are very simple straw men,
1. Define resources as only what is currently proven and available.
2. Ignore the fact that new sources are rendered economically viable both by advancing technology and changing economic realities.
3. Once you have restricted the possible resources note the strawmen resources will be gone
The ozone hole, is an appeal to authority. An authority that regularly makes false statements as demonstrated by my links.
Simple question why is the ozone still there why does it still grow in the winter and shrink in the summer ? Any reasonable examination you have to conclude it was always there and it wasn't noticed until people started studying the polar upper atmosphere in a way that would detect it.
In 1900 there were only 20 white rhinos left; in 2010, there were 20,000.
So what happened? we privatized them.
In fact take any animal that can be bought: chickens, horses, cows, etc..., and none of them are in any danger of extinction.
Why this works? Well, suppose I owned those 20 white rhinos. Simple supply and demand would make them worth a fortune. I would have a very strong incentive to try to get 21, so I would make everything I could to make them reproduce. Eventually I would have enough rhinos that I will start selling some for profit and continue reproducing them. The people that buy them would also have a strong incentive to reproduce them. As supply continues to increase, the value of an individual rhino will fall. At that point, the animal is safe from extinction, and it may become more profitable to sell them to hunters for example.
Simple market forces would make us breed them when there are too little, and hunt them when there are two many, keeping a sustainable population.