Humanity Has Wiped Out 60% of Animal Populations Since 1970 (theguardian.com)

Artem Tashkinov shares a report: The new estimate of the massacre of wildlife is made in a major report produced by WWF and involving 59 scientists from across the globe. It finds that the vast and growing consumption of food and resources by the global population is destroying the web of life, billions of years in the making, upon which human society ultimately depends for clean air, water and everything else. Many scientists believe the world has begun a sixth mass extinction, the first to be caused by a species -- Homo sapiens. Other recent analyses have revealed that humankind has destroyed 83% of all mammals and half of plants since the dawn of civilisation and that, even if the destruction were to end now, it would take 5-7 million years for the natural world to recover. Tanya Steele, chief executive at WWF, said: "We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it."

Comments

And as usual

[squiggleslash]

...we screw it up. We get rid of harmless Dodos. We don't get rid of rattlesnakes or mosquitoes. If humanity is going to have this kind of affect on the planet, can't we at least do it in a positive way?

Re:And as usual

[freeze128]

Get rid of mosquitoes, and the frogs starve to death. Get rid of rattlesnakes, and you're overrun by mice.

Re:And as usual

[codeButcher]

...we screw it up. We get rid of harmless Dodos. We don't get rid of rattlesnakes or mosquitoes.

Allegedly, dodos tasted better than rattlers or mozzies.

Re:And as usual

[squiggleslash]

Frogs have plenty of alternatives to mosquitoes, and mice have plenty of natural predators.

Re:And as usual

[cascadingstylesheet]

Get rid of mosquitoes, and the frogs starve to death. Get rid of rattlesnakes, and you're overrun by mice.

This gets brought up every time, but I'm pretty sure that respectable authorities have said that mosquitoes aren't a crucial food source for anything. (yes, some things eat them, but nothing will starve if they went away)

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically, fish and frogs eat mosquito larvae, but they are omnivores and eat plenty of other things. The only animal that eats a lot of adult mosquitoes are bats, but they eat other bugs as well.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Who are you so wise in the ways of science? Please tell us where we, like you, can learn to understand every possible permutation of events that would follow an intentional extinction of mosquitoes. I'm particularly interested to hear why you believe so many species have evolved to consume mosquitoes if there are other things for them to eat sufficient to make up the difference.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure that respectable authorities have said that mosquitoes aren't a crucial food source for anything.

That's an answer to the wrong question. The question isn't whether things that can eat mosquitoes can eat other things. Of course they can eat other things. The question is whether the CURRENT populations of animals that prey on mosquitoes, and the species that prey on them, would remain stable absent mosquitoes.

To make an example, humans do not have to eat rice. There are lots of other foods we can eat. Now let's wave a magic wand and make rice disappear from the planet tomorrow. Continental-scale famine would the instant result.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

The only animal that eats a lot of adult mosquitoes are bats, but they eat other bugs as well.

And dragonflies, and mosquito hawks. Here you are ready to wipe out mosquitoes with the firm belief that you have the understanding necessary to make an informed decision, and yet you don't even know about two common insects that prey upon mosquitoes. God help our species, because we were very obviously not intelligently designed.

Re:And as usual

[McWilde]

Are you saying that rice is a crucial food source for humans?

Re:And as usual

[alvinrod]

Also there are several thousand different species of mosquitos. Not all of them bite humans, so realistically you just need to eliminate those that do (or the ones that feed on both humans and some other animal that carries viruses dangerous to humans) and you've solved a good part of the problem.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Texas, the rattlesnakes are about the only predators that keep the mice and rat populations down. Coyotes assist, but the rodents are in the billions. Feral hogs are another major issue here. Coyotes cannot take them and the mountain lions and other large cats are only in certain areas. My father-in-law has so many wild hogs on his land (East Texas), that we could literally shoot them from dusk to dawn for a week straight and not really even put a dent in their population. They are highly destructive to crops, domestic farm stock, and irrigation areas. I tend not to shoot coyotes unless they are a nuisance, but we'll shoot hogs all day long. Their meat is nasty and most of them are unfit to eat. The foxes have largely been pushed out by the coyotes. And the deer... so many deer. If humans don't cull them, their predators cannot kill enough of them and quite a few end up starving to death in the winter because the hogs eat up all the acorns and other tree nuts.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

For many populations of homo sapiens sapiens it is. Go back and reread the other post.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Smart guy like you making statements of fact on the internet should probably read a little about it first. Mosquito hawks, aka the crane fly don't prey on mosquitoes or their larvae.

Dragonflies do eat mosquitoes but it is not the main source of their diet. They are most active during the day and late afternoon. They are finding a place to rest for the night just about the time mosquitoes start to get active. There is not enough overlap in the two insects active times for dragonfly diets to rely on mosquitoes.

The consensus is that mosquitoes being 100% eradicated would have a minimal effect on any part of the insect or animal food chain. All of the things that prey on them would have plenty of other food sources around and wouldn't notice if one day there weren't any mosquitoes to eat.

So yes, I'm ready to wipe out mosquitoes and I do feel we have the understanding necessary to call it an informed decision. They are nothing more than a disease vector that is responsible for a large portion of the deaths to illness in human history.

Re:And as usual

[Errol backfiring]

Actually, no.

The Dodo was named "walgvogel" ("disgusting bird") by the Dutch because its flesh tasted awful. They wiped out the entire species because it was so easy (it feared no predators) and, er, just because.

Re:And as usual

[SqueakyMouse]

Getting rid of some species is even counter productive. Toxorhynchites is a mosquito that eats other mosquitoes but does not drink blood.

Re:And as usual

[jiriw]

As supposedly a great French princess once said, 'Then, let them eat cake".

In other words, yes... for about a third of the human population. Other food sources of crucial importance are various other cereals (especially wheat, rye and maize), various species of bean/legumes and some root vegetables, like potatoes. If any of them are magically waved away, major continental-scale famine (as GP said) would ensue. They aren't called 'staple foods' for nothing.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, no.

The Dodo was named "walgvogel" ("disgusting bird") by the Dutch because its flesh tasted awful.

More awful than a spoonful of mosquitoes? That's the bar here.

Re:And as usual

[Oswald McWeany]

Here in Texas, the rattlesnakes are about the only predators that keep the mice and rat populations down. Coyotes assist, but the rodents are in the billions.

No owls or other predatory birds in Texas? Foxes? No Domestic Cats? No other species of snake? No raccoons or opossum to eat the young mice? No bullfrogs? Nothing like a mink/polecat/weasel/stoat?

It would be very unusual indeed for a rattlesnake to be the only predator of mice in most ecosystems. If rattlesnakes died off, no doubt another species of snake could move in and take over rodent eating. Here on the East Coast black snakes do a great job.

Re:And as usual

[jiriw]

Answer seems to be 'yes' if history is to be believed. I haven't heard about my fellow countrymen wiping out mosquitoes, which they certainly would have done if they were more disgusting than those birds.
-- ;)

Re:And as usual

[hey!]

Rattlesnakes are fine if you have the sense to leave them alone. They have a rattle *to warn you off*. They don't want to inject you with venom, any more than you want to get up and run ten kilometers. You're about 3.5x as likely to be killed by a dog as you are by all venomous snakes combined.

As for mosquitoes, don't get your hopes up. One female can lay 100-500 eggs depending on species every three days; under the right conditions those eggs can reach sexual maturity in about ten days. That means, in theory, that missing a single gravid female in your pre-summer eradication efforts can lead to over a million trillion descendants by the end of a 13 week summer. While in practice no single mosquito is likely to be *that* reproductively successful, in practice you're always going to miss a lot more than just one.

This combination of short reproductive cycles and large brood sizes is characteristic of a "weedy" species. In a stable ecosystem, weedy species are kept in check by species with more specific adaptation to local conditions, but when you disrupt an ecosystem, it tilts the competitive balance towards species whose ecological niche is rapid colonization of unstable habitats.

Life always finds a way, but it doesn't mean it'll be a way we as humans will find pleasant. A world in which we don't constrain our disruptive activities will have plenty of life, but it'll be algal blooms rather than salmon runs; poison ivy and sumac rather than chestnut trees. A world of mouse plagues, poison ivy and mosquitoes.

Re:And as usual

[ElizabethGreene]

AC is right. History teaches us, specifically the Four Pests Campaign , that eliminating "pest" species can end very poorly.

Re:And as usual

[Errol backfiring]

I have eaten insects, but not mosquitoes. The insects I ate did not taste bad at all. Likewise, I expect a snake to have a lot of muscles, so snakes could taste good as well. Rattlesnakes are not exactly local food, so I did not try those either.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

We do have some possums and coons, but they largely eat insects and fruit. The foxes have largely been driven out by the coyotes. And the fire ants have driven away most ground nesting birds like quail, plover and bobwhites. Not too many "domestic" cats out this way. The coyotes kill them. There are other snake species here and they do help, but again, rattlesnakes and water moccasins are the dominant two species with a smattering of copperheads. Texas is an odd place animal wise. The feral hogs and coyotes cannot seemingly be culled fast enough, and there are no seasons for them. Shoot at will and no bag limit.

Re:And as usual

[mnemotronic]

Actually, no.

The Dodo was named "walgvogel" ("disgusting bird") by the Dutch because its flesh tasted awful. They wiped out the entire species because it was so easy (it feared no predators) and, er, just because.

The irony is that the egg yolk of the Dodo contained a unique protein that suppressed the growth of many forms of cancer. Oh well.


Yes, I made that up. But consider the idea that species that we've eradicated could have been more valuable than as targets, dinner or apparel.

Re:And as usual

[houghi]

Sure, but thedutch eat their fries with mayonaise, so do they actually know what good food tatses like?

Re: And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck yeah! I the battle of man vs. nature, it looks like we are winning! If we keep this up, hopefully we can wipe out ALL species in the next few decades! USA #1!!!!

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a moron, not a biologist.

Re: And as usual

[BytePusher]

Also, most people don't realize there are hundreds of species of mosquitoes, but only three bite humans.

Re:And as usual

[butchersong]

We can pretty confidently say that we can eliminate mosquitoes these days and we're almost 100% sure that our last practice run didn't create zika.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you are an American. Catsup with that?

Re:And as usual

[DNS-and-BIND]

The same "respectable authorities" said the cane toad would do a lot of good for Australia.

Playing God is one of humanity's worst traits and results in much needless suffering.

Re:And as usual

[thegarbz]

Get rid of rattlesnakes, and you're overrun by mice.

Mate, I'm from Australia and I have to say if your rattlesnakes are responsible for keeping your mice population under control then you wildlife scares me!

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

And you are the reason we elect Representatives to make laws. If you made the laws, we'd all be dead.

But hey, feel confident in your ten minute Google search that you're capable of making decisions that affect our entire planet.

It's days like this that I remind myself: "On the Internet, you're an adult who is usually arguing with children who are pretending to be adults...."

If only we could see your face, we'd probably realize that you just need to quit ditching class and go back to 3rd grade.

Re:And as usual

[Darinbob]

Tadpoles of many species depend upon mosquito larvae.

Re: And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

please, seriously, please....you've got to end these comments with

less educated than you will interpret them as serious, then they will adopt your attitude, but for real.

Re:And as usual

[hey!]

We can pretty confidently say that we can eliminate mosquitoes these days and we're almost 100% sure that our last practice run didn't create zika.

I worked in vector borne disease surveillance for decades, I can say with equal confidence there is no technology known or proposed that has the potential of completely eradicating a mosquito population from any region larger than a thousand acres or so. Even those genetically modified mosquitoes you've been hearing so much about only reduce an infected population in a limited area short term. That reduction will last, at most, for a matter of months; in many situations mere weeks. Still, even that could be useful in reducing anthroponotic (human-to-vector-to-human) transmission.

And by the way yes, human activities didn't create Zika, but they were a big factor in its global emergence. 70 years ago it likely existed only in a small population of rhesus monkeys in a forest on the shores of Lake Victoria, where it no doubt had persisted for thousands of years. Human encroachment offered an alternative host for the primate virus, and human trade and migration patterns carried across the entire tropical world, with anthroponotic outbreaks spreading into temperate climates. That same combination of human incursion on isolated animal populations and global emergence through migration and trade routes is behind SARS, Ebola, Marburg, MERS, Lassa Fever among others in modern times, and are likely the sources of influenza and measles.

I reiterate: life always finds a way, but given a rapid rate of global change it's not going to be a way we'll be happy about.

Re:And as usual

[jbengt]

In parts of American, they eat their fries with fry sauce - which is essentially mayonnaise and ketchup mixed together.

Re:And as usual

[turkeyfish]

Owls are likely nest-site limited, so it is unlikely that they will consume anywhere near enough mice to replace snakes. That means mice-borne illnesses are likely to rise dramatically. There are simply so many interactions within food-webs that it is foolish to think that one can predict what exactly will happen as species become locally extinct.

Re:And as usual

[turkeyfish]

Many flycatchers eat plenty of mosquitoes. Your certainty is highly uncertain.

Re:And as usual

[turkeyfish]

Rattlesnakes are no where near the threat that most Australian snakes are. To make matters worse, venomous Australian snakes don't rattle to warn you before they strike.

Re: And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

........are you saying it isn't?

Re: And as usual

[turkeyfish]

Sadly, only in the minds of those ignorant of biology. For example, presently we are witnessing the rise of oxygen-deficient zones in the Eastern Pacific from Washington to California. This results in mass mortality of benthic organisms, many of which form multi-billion dollar fisheries. At the current rate of warming, which is changing ocean stratification and associated mixing, we may witness mass extinctions of crab and fish populations in as little as 50-100 years. Considering that humans extract nearly 50% of all protein they consume from the oceans, this will put an increasing strain on human food sources.

Re:And as usual

[thegarbz]

Rattlesnakes are no where near the threat that most Australian snakes are.

If there's enough of them to actively control a mice population then they sure as hell are. I'm picturing a local pest, kind of like how we drive down the road at night and see how many cane toads we can squish with our cars, but in snake form.

Re:And as usual

[omfglearntoplay]

I had no idea about that weird Four Pests Campaign. This tidbit from the wiki link says that that crazy campaign, which was intended to end disease, helped contribute to 20 to 45 million people dying. Wow.

"With no sparrows to eat them, locust populations ballooned, swarming the country and compounding the ecological problems already caused by the Great Leap Forward, including widespread deforestation and misuse of poisons and pesticides.[10] Ecological imbalance is credited with exacerbating the Great Chinese Famine, in which 20–45 million people died of starvation."

Re: And as usual

[omfglearntoplay]

I think you are getting species and Genus mixed up. According to this, hundreds of species of 6 types of genus, do bite people, and at least one of them has hundreds of species per genus. 3 of those genus are common in the US.

https://www.megacatch.com/mosq...

Cool random facts on this link... I remember when those damn striped Asian tiger mosquitoes became a thing. We didn't have them till the 80s. Man that is so annoying.

https://www.megacatch.com/mosq...

Re:And as usual

[ElizabethGreene]

This event is one of the reasons I am quietly afraid when we talk about eliminating, introducing, or de-extincting a species. I don't trust us not to repeat it.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

That means mice-borne illnesses are likely to rise dramatically.

That explains texans.

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously. They didn't have to create another condiment to make up for failing mayonaise. If your country can't even make mayo....hold up..wtf am I even trying for? American food. American food. That was easy enough.

Re:And as usual

[eaglesrule]

Rattlesnakes are no where near the threat that most Australian snakes are. To make matters worse, venomous Australian snakes don't rattle to warn you before they strike.

Supposedly due to the selective pressure of being hunted, rattlesnakes are losing their rattles or staying silent.

It's ironic that hunting them so aggressively turns out to make them even more of a risk for the unwary.

Re:And as usual

[Kyr Arvin]

On one hand, that is a horrible, cautionary story. On the other hand, we did get the great propaganda slogan "birds are public animals of capitalism" to motivate people in their anti-sparrow campaign.

Re:And as usual

[Kyr Arvin]

I like good BBQ sauce with my fries. Mmmm.

Re: And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Rural parts of the country are green environments. The city is where vast amounts of our liberal population feast upon the delicasies of the rural community all the while piling up their plastic, generating smog and other unnatural behaviors. Yet the rural guy is the backward idiot? Liberals espouse living green but we see your hypocrisy and see the dump trucks coming from your bloated urban blight hauling the plastic garbage to our rural countrysides. Our rural areas are picked clean for your thirst of resources, fresh produce and water. Truly the city dwellers are the backward leaching life forms...vampires..

Re:And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

Mayor Quimby: "For decimating our pigeon population, and making Springfield a less oppressive place to while away our worthless lives, I present you with this scented candle."

Principal Skinner: "Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend."

Lisa: "But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?"

Principal Skinner: "No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards."

Lisa: "But aren't the snakes even worse?"

Principal Skinner: "Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat."

Lisa: "But then we're stuck with gorillas!"

Principal Skinner: "No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death."

Re:And as usual

[McWilde]

Yes, continental-scale famine. Because rice is a crucial food source. Unlike mosquitoes, which is, according to the same poster not the question to ask. But he then refutes this statement by going into an example of a crucial food source.

Re: And as usual

[c6gunner]

The same "respectable authorities" said the cane toad would do a lot of good for Australia.

Citation needed. Somehow I doubt these guys were alive in 1935, let alone doing science.

Re: And as usual

[Anonymous Coward]

I really enjoyed your insight into the pesty wildlife in your area. Who better than you, to intelligenly relate issues in your own, so to speak, backyard. You seem to have been your best researcher. You do what works for you. You are your best fieldworker.and knowledgeable biologist. Good for you. Wish you the best of luck.

First generation?

[110010001000]

I'm pretty sure we have known this for generations and could have taken action earlier. Unfortunately, there is no financial incentive to do so. In fact, the financial incentive is to do the opposite: clear land for farming, living, raw materials. This is the real threat to humanity: the destruction of continuous habitat and forests. But the focus is on "Climate Change" because we can implement carbon trading and taxes on it and "fix it".

Re:First generation?

[JackieBrown]

Most logging companies in the US plan two new trees for each one cut down. The financial incentive is clear.

I agree with you that is one of the reasons there is a focus on "Climate Change." Another reason is it gives government a reason to take over or regulate industries. It gives us a handy enemy list as well - big oil, big lumber, etc.

Re: First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

But what tree? Economically useful trees, or a tree of the same species they cut down?

Re:First generation?

[Ly4]

Logging companies aren't the ones destroying habitat. That's mostly from farming and ranching, and suburban growth.

Brazil just elected a president who wants to privatize even more of the Amazon, so expect the rate of deforestation there to increase from its current rate of six square miles per day.

Re:First generation?

[jellomizer]

That is the real problem now.
These issues have long term affects while we are evolved to fix short term problems. The disciplines of Math and Science can show us trends and long term projections, and give us these big picture complex problems. But the solutions to solve these big problems seem to require suffering short term problems, which we are evolved to instinctively respond to.
If a predator is threatening myself or my family, I am not going to go, well this animal is endangered, and us humans are over populated, so Ill just be passive about the problem and see what happens. I will setup conditions where my family is safe over the safety of such animal. The more urgent this threat, the less of a long term solution I will have for it.

Re: First generation?

[jd]

Usually quick-growing trees as they're worth more per unit time and unit area.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately they almost exclusively replant fast growing species like pine. They are planning for the next trip through that area in 20-30 years to cut down mature trees again. They hardly ever plant hardwoods and when they do it's only because they are forced to by state or local regulations. They will come through and cut down trees that take 50 to 70 years to reach maturity. Trees that are worth a ton of money because they take so long to grow. Then they plant cheap, fast growing pine to "replace" the hardwoods they cut. Even if they plant 10 pine trees for every hardwood they cut down it's still not a fair trade.

I'm glad they are planting more trees but don't pat them on the back. They have a financial incentive to plant a ton of evergreen trees. They will need something to cut down and process in the future. It has exactly zero to do with environmental stewardship and everything to do with future profits. The one and only reason companies in the US do anything that seems environmentally responsible is because they are either forced to do so by regulations or because they know if they don't they will go out of business since their won't be any trees left for them to cut down.

Re:First generation?

[sycodon]

Hardwoods account for a very small portion of lumber sales precisely because they don't grow fast.

Pine forests are being replaced by Pine forests.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardwoods account for a very small portion of lumber sales precisely because they don't grow fast.

Pine forests are being replaced by Pine forests.

Sorry just gotta chime in, "When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns." Are you that retarded that you think that people like trunmp aren't fascists?

Re:First generation?

[JackieBrown]

I'm glad they are planting more trees but don't pat them on the back. They have a financial incentive to plant a ton of evergreen trees.

Well yeah, that's exactly what I said. What part of my second sentence was unclear? ;)

Re:First generation?

[cascadingstylesheet]

Brazil just elected a president who wants to privatize even more of the Amazon, so expect the rate of deforestation there to increase from its current rate of six square miles per day.

I'm not in Brazil, so I don't know this first hand, but I suspect that as with the US, the respectable people wouldn't address things that needed addressing, so the voters went with the unrespectable person.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Logging companies aren't the ones destroying habitat." - Yes, they are. Farming and ranching and suburban growth FOLLOWS LOGGING, MORON.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let everyone utterly destroy their environment. America First!!!

Re: First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, companies donâ(TM)t do stuff for the environment unless it is in their interest? How very insightful!

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Name one fascist dictator who allowed the populace to keep useful weaponry.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking of Brazil... there are no respectable people.
And yes, I know this first hand...

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is very easy to look at Google Maps or Earth satellite photos and see the huge swaths of clearcutting by some logging companies. Not all do, but it is still permitted in many locations. Google Earth historical data allows you to see this over time and it is quite apparent.

Re:First generation?

[butchersong]

Anything at this point first world countries could do would be labeled imperialist/colonialist... though I'm not sure that means they shouldn't act. The US for example this past century has been doing very well. Our conservation model is one of the most successful in the world imo. Europe is more likely to be introducing species back than destroying existing ones I'd think -though there are always exceptions. In the end preserving species means limiting the growth of populations in South America, Africa and Asia. I'm not sure how you spin that in a palatable way.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I'm pretty sure we have known this for generations and could have taken action earlier

Why? Every species has gone extinct. There's nothing special about the ones we ate. Other times, disease or other predators ate other lost species.
Dealing with the inevitability is a lot more productive than hand-wringing or coddling species that aren't absolutely necessary. Survival of humanity costs other living creatures.
This is simply moral and there's no reason to apologize for it.

Re:First generation?

[rogoshen1]

Other fun fact about pines: those pine needles basically amount to chemical warfare; raising the soil acidity so that other non-pine varieties can't grow in that soil.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

The US has more area covered in trees today than it did when the Pilgrims first landed.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

I should have added 'in the US' in keeping with the original post. But thank you for your mature contribution to this discussion.

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

"Today's forest land area amounts to about 70 percent of the area that was forested in 1630."
https://skeptics.stackexchange...

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Logging companies aren't the ones destroying habitat. That's mostly from farming and ranching, and suburban growth.

Brazil just elected a president (...)

Yeah, and I'm sure you may, by now, have acknowledged the robustness of our political system and democracy. Brazil is not a dictatorship. There are very functioning Congress and institutions. It is a western nation much more sophisticated than old geopolitical guard might want to accept or recognize. In sum, keep cool. Amazon will be fine.

Re:First generation?

[sycodon]

Are you so retarded that you think people running around in black masks assaulting people, rioting, vandalizing, are against Fascism?

Re:First generation?

[Kyr Arvin]

Brazil just elected a president who wants to privatize even more of the Amazon, so expect the rate of deforestation there to increase from its current rate of six square miles per day.

I'm not in Brazil, so I don't know this first hand, but I suspect that as with the US, the respectable people wouldn't address things that needed addressing, so the voters went with the unrespectable person.

Cutting down the entire Amazon is one of Jair Bolsonaro's less controversial positions. Other quotes:

(Said to a Congresswoman) "I wouldn't rape you because you don't deserve it."

"I've got five kids but on the fifth I had a moment of weakness and it came out a woman."

"I visited a quilombo (settlement founded by former slaves) and the least heavy afro-descendant weighed seven arrobas (approximately 230 pounds). They do nothing! They are not even good for procreation."

"I would be incapable of loving a homosexual son [ ... I would rather my son ] died in an accident than showed up with some bloke with a moustache."

"Elections won't change anything in this country. It will only change on the day that we break out in civil war here and do the job that the military regime didn't do: killing 30,000. If some innocent people die, that's fine. In every war, innocent people die."

"the error of the Brazil dictatorship was that it tortured, but did not kill." And, "Pinochet should have killed more Chileans."

Re:First generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pine forests are being replaced by Pine forests.

And, as noted, non-pine forests get replaced with pine too.

Re:First generation?

[SCVonSteroids]

Most logging companies in the US plan two new trees for each one cut down. The financial incentive is clear.

Yeah. Ever walk in one of those "forests"? Apart from squirrels and birds, and even then, it's dead.

Re:First generation?

[SCVonSteroids]

I read an article about the guy yesterday. Apparently they call him "Trump of the Tropics"
Not a great start.

60% of species

[Oswald McWeany]

I assume they mean 60% of species, not 60% total individuals of animals. Bugs are animals, and many of them are thriving on our leftovers, processing, and farming leftoves. We've spread ants around the globe. They already were there- but we've spread more invasive ones that have huge numbers in colonies.

Now, if we ever want to become 100% efficient as a species (meaning utilizing 100% of resources and not letting any skip through the cracks)- that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all resources go directly towards sustaining human life. If any animal can survive it means we're not using 100% of the resources. Thankfully, no one really wants to live in a 100% efficient world.

Re:60% of species

[Gilgaron]

It was 60% of /populations/ of vertebrates, so not species extinction, but local extirpation. Kind of a funny number, but an interesting one to consider. Essentially it is dealing with fragments in populations and how these makes them more vulnerable to extinction from further disruption or changes in climate and so on. With range discontinuities, a locally extirpated population won't repopulate unless intentionally put back by humans.

Re:60% of species

[JoeDuncan]

Bugs are animals, and many of them are thriving on our leftovers...

Nope.

Bugs dying off too:

https://www.theguardian.com/en...

Re:60% of species

[Viol8]

They will eventually. Look at how quickly wolves and bears returned into the deserted areas around Chernobyl. 5-7 million years? More like a few decades.

Re:60% of species

[gnick]

...that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all resources go directly towards sustaining human life.

I consider pigs, chickens, and cattle resources for humans.

Re:60% of species

[Oswald McWeany]

...that would mean wiping out 100% of animals and making sure all resources go directly towards sustaining human life.

I consider pigs, chickens, and cattle resources for humans.

Not 100% efficient resources though. They use up energy and resources. For us to be 100% efficient we would need to get rid of food animals too... perhaps a pure plant or bacterial solution would be most efficient way to use up 100% of all energy... either that or find a way to photosynthesize for ourselves...

Re:60% of species

[gnick]

either that or find a way to photosynthesize for ourselves...

If you haven't already started regularly injecting chlorophyll, then I'll reach peak efficiency before you.

Re:60% of species

[Gilgaron]

Oh no, those gray wolves and brown bears won't differentiate into pre-human levels of variety in a few decades, let alone how long it'd take to get lions back in North America or what have you.

Re:60% of species

[Oswald McWeany]

Man, it's not easy being green.

Re:60% of species

[Sperbels]

We tried to bring back Passenger Pigeons before they went extinct, but we killed too many and crossed a threshold where they couldn't recover. Recovery is not a guarantee.

Re:60% of species

[Anonymous Coward]

If humans made extinct 40 % of all species before 1970,, and 60 % since, that doesn't mean there are 0 % left.

Factory farming

[Anonymous Coward]

We pushed away from factory farming to help the welfare of the animals. Maybe it is time to go back to those methods as well as taking other extreme measures to ensure the longevity of our own species?

Re:Factory farming

[kilfarsnar]

We pushed away from factory farming to help the welfare of the animals. Maybe it is time to go back to those methods as well as taking other extreme measures to ensure the longevity of our own species?

I'm pretty sure the article is talking about wild animals. No one is concerned about the size of the population of pigs. We need more pigs, we grow more pigs.

Re:Factory farming

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is talking about farmland being created at the cost of habitats. If we relied on factory farming we'd need to use less of that land for livestock.

Ok hippies

[Anonymous Coward]

Be the change that you want and kill youre self

Re: Ok hippies

[jd]

How would that help? Replacing hippies with morons will improve the health of Taco Bell and McDonald's but thats about it. You still get a dead planet.

We need a seventh the global population and we need that as a fixed ceiling. There aren't that many hippies and you lot can't be trusted. You haven't the courage to do the next right thing.

Besides, killing yourself increases entropy and reduces intelligence, precisely what you don't want. You want reduced entropy and increased intelligence.

I don't expect you to understand that. I do expect you to get to the point where you can.

Re: Ok hippies

[gnick]

We need a seventh the global population and we need that as a fixed ceiling.

I hope you're not questing for an Infinity Gauntlet.

Re:Ok hippies

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad strategy. A better one is be the change that you want and kill you. Not that I'm endorsing it...but it is a better strategy.

Re: Ok hippies

[butchersong]

So eugenics is the only solution?

Re: Ok hippies

[Kyr Arvin]

We need a seventh the global population and we need that as a fixed ceiling.

I hope you're not questing for an Infinity Gauntlet.

Thanos's solution was something of a dumb one. Kill half the population, and they will be at their former population within a generation. Thanos's solution would have to be run continuously.

Until only a husk is left

[Anonymous Coward]

We will eat the planet until every resource is used and all other species eliminated. Then we will vanish to be never seen again.

Re:Until only a husk is left

[turkeyfish]

Given modern day evangelicalism, what Jesus meant when he said "The meek shall inherit the Earth" is that bacteria are going to be around a lot longer than humans.

You Can Help

[Anonymous Coward]

If any of you feel like you want to help out the WWF to help further their research, come up to Canada and climb the C.N. Tower's stairs in April. I did it last year, it was the most fun I ever had raising funds. You even get a free T-shirt!

Re:You Can Help

[Anonymous Coward]

You even get a free T-shirt!

Made from what? Farmed cotton, manufactured polyester, vinyl-based printing - sewn by some chinese or mexican minwager?

Re: You Can Help

[Anonymous Coward]

How does increasing your need for calories and taking processed cotton help the WWF?

Re:You Can Help

[PPH]

What does the World Wrestling Federation have to do with animals?

Re:You Can Help

[turp182]

Alligator Wrestling of course.

Re: You Can Help

[Bert64]

Exercise and fitness is very important if you want to be a professional wrestler, and selling merchandise tshirts is a big part of the pro wrestling business too.

How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Humanity has saved a lot more from extinction through conservation efforts than it has "wiped out". When will activists learn that such dishonest hyperbole is doing more harm to their causes than help?

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed but not expected]

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[SqueakyMouse]

Saved from whom?

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Humanity has saved a lot more from extinction through conservation efforts than it has "wiped out". When will activists learn that such dishonest hyperbole is doing more harm to their causes than help?

I saw a blurb the other day that only in North America and Southern Africa wildlife has increased in numbers in recent decades - both based on income and sustainable use provided by the hunting industry ("big huntin' " ?). Probably needs verification, which I don't have...

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[Anonymous Coward]

From themselves, predators, etc.

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[cyberchondriac]

Mother nature. Evolution. She's wiped out far more species than man has. Over 99.9% of species that have ever existed have gone extinct since life evolved on this planet.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolu...

So while man is inevitably wiping out some species due to our expansion and applied technologies, and at a more rapid rate, we are nonetheless far from the only threat to species' survival.

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[Bodhammer]

"According to Darwin Humanity Has Wiped Out 60% of Unsuccessful Animal Populations Since 1970"


TFTFY

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[robsku]

Humanity has saved a lot more from extinction through conservation efforts than it has "wiped out". When will activists learn that such dishonest hyperbole is doing more harm to their causes than help?

Oh, so now we're just saying things? *acts surprised"

Re: How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry we cannot allow positive, rational comments on the matter. Only shocking statements that fit the narrative. Be sure to include multiple exclamation points and always blame humans as much as possible.

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[jellomizer]

Hey look you are having trouble paying off your bills, well guess what you are fired. Because you couldn't pay off your bills with your job, you will have no change to your troubles without a job.

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[dryeo]

Humanity has saved a lot more from extinction through conservation efforts than it has "wiped out". When will activists learn that such dishonest hyperbole is doing more harm to their causes than help?

I saw a blurb the other day that only in North America and Southern Africa wildlife has increased in numbers in recent decades - both based on income and sustainable use provided by the hunting industry ("big huntin' " ?). Probably needs verification, which I don't have...

Are they the same wildlife as was there previously? For example, here foxes are pretty well gone but we have a huge population of non-native coyotes.

Re: How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[jd]

There is a difference between a species that was no longer relevant to the ecological web going extinct and a species that was critical to the ecological web going extinct.

I want you to take those two groups of numbers and exclude the irrelevant. Then come back and tell me how they compare. Show your working.

Want a cheat sheet answer? Almost none of the naturally extinct species were relevant, so essentially that becomes zero. Almost all the animals humans have made extinct were relevant and were hunted to extinction precisely for that reason. So the 60% remains.

Sorry, you cannot compare apples and oranges unless you're making fruit salad.

Re: How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[jd]

No, it really hasn't.

Humanity has saved precisely nothing, just as the mass-murdering German nurse currently on trial can't claim they saved some of their potential victims.

Back story: German nurse gets it into their head that they're a resuscitation genius, so murders 170 of their patients and tries to revive them to prove it. According to the news, they did succeed in reviving one.

Can they claim to be a hero in that one case? No.
Did they save a life? No, they simply avoided another count of murder.

Extinctions or near-misses entirely caused by humans are no different from the actions of the nurse. All humanity did was avoid another count of extinction.

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[Scarletdown]

Humanity has saved a lot more from extinction through conservation efforts than it has "wiped out". When will activists learn that such dishonest hyperbole is doing more harm to their causes than help?

It's a bloody shame that the peregrine falcon ended up being such an ungrateful little fucker.

Re: How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice story bro

Re:How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[turkeyfish]

Where did you get such a wrong and silly notion?

Re: How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[turkeyfish]

There is no such thing as a species that is "irrelevant" to ecological webs of species interactions.

Re: How many has Humanity saved from extinction?

[cyberchondriac]

The question was, "saved from whom"? There are instances where species have been saved from natural extinction by mankind's efforts; in other cases, we saved them from ourselves. The 99.9% was cited simply to show that mother nature is indeed a serious threat to species survival, not just mankind. I wasn't interested in ratios or comparisons nor am I inclined to humor your homework assignments.
But who decides what species are/were relevant and which are/were not? What does that even mean?

Unsurprising

[Anonymous Coward]

Study founded by organization with an ideological bent produces results that reinforces its ideology. Must be a day ending in Y. The common quip here is: "There's lies, damned lies, and statistics" - and the truth to it here is that they can cherry-pick the statistics in such a way that they reinforce a narrative.

There's no doubt an actual problem to discuss in our ecological damage here, one I'm not really schooled in, but when we couch that argument in alarmist ideological rhetoric, all we do is turn certain people away from the points that can be made.

Re: Unsurprising

[jd]

Mathematicians declare 1+1=2
Objectors declare mathematicians have vested interest

Sometimes, interested parties lie. Yes. Sometimes they tell the truth by accident, not intending to do so. And sometimes they are indeed being honest.

Is it a better use of time to be cynical or skeptical?

Skeptics need evidence, but will be persuaded by what they see (and not by what they don't).

Cynics don't want evidence and will never be persuaded. They don't want to be, and will move the goalposts to infinity to ensure it, if they have to.

Be a skeptic, not a cynic.

You don't have to be schooled, there won't be any significant new species forming between 1970 and now, so the maximum percentage of species must be all the ones we know went extinct divided by all the ones we know about now plus the ones that went extinct, all multiplied by 100.

We don't know about cleared land, loggers aren't known for tracking such things. So we use the biodiversity of rainforests as a guide for estimating unknown species that went extinct and unknown species total. That will give us a second percentage. The tundra has a lower species count and a lower extinction level, so we've a second lot of unknowns there. Add those to the rainforest totals to get a third percentage.

We now have a spread of three possible values. It's unlikely to be below the minimum, it's unlikely to be above the maximum, it's probably close to the figure between those, but it won't be exact.

Doesn't require any schooling. Just requires a skeptical, enquiring mind.

the web of life, billions of years in the making

[Kernel Kurtz]

Yeah, well except 99 percent of the species that ever existed are extinct.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Humans + livestock account for 96% mammal biomass

[fedor]

Humans account for about 36 percent of the biomass of all mammals. Domesticated livestock, mostly cows and pigs, account for 60 percent, and wild mammals for only 4 percent. https://www.ecowatch.com/bioma...

But more dogs than ever

[Anonymous Coward]

I shoot coyotes for fun but I would rather shoot pet dogs.

Re:But more dogs than ever

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem nice.

Re:But more dogs than ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoot the cats instead. Dogs are mostly kept tied, cats get to roam everywhere without cat people giving a shit. Cats destroy their environment.

5-7 million years to recover is complete bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

If all humans magically disappeared tomorrow the planet would be over run with non human life in 5-10 years, tops. Hint to the WWF: animals breed and will quickly fill all ecological niches as fast as they can birth the next generation. It is blatantly obvious crap like that which makes me ignore the rest of what these kind of people say. Why should I believe anything you say when I know some of what you say is no different than monster under the bed stories for children?

Re:5-7 million years to recover is complete bullsh

[SqueakyMouse]

It's referring to biodiversity. You won't see much speciation in 5-10 years.

Don't worry!

[Anonymous Coward]

Once we have caused our own extinction with not taking climate change seriously, they will bounce back in a few decades.

Re: Don't worry!

[jd]

Dead species tend not to bounce back. Numbers only matter for viability.

It will take 75 million years or so to restore biodiversity.

Re:Humans + livestock account for 96% mammal bioma

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a brilliant XKCD chart illustrating this very thing.

Forest is being cut down to make room for for cattle grazing. the XKCD graphic above shows just how bad this situation is. Us humans outnumber ALL wild animal put together and out cattle outnumber us!

100 times as much water is used to create a lb of beef than a lb of crops! Producing 1 calorie of animal protein uses over 10 times as much fossil fuels as 1 calorie of plant protein!

I think in the long run the only chance we have is for us all to go vegan. It will save the animals and the planet and therefore us as well.

Cleerline

Food for thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

If there are less animals we can have more space for us... right?

No more wastage in national parks.... we'll have enough land for sustainable land fills and space for nuclear plants and factories without worrying that they are too close to humans. Sounds like a total win to me!

Re:Food for thought...

[turkeyfish]

"No more wastage in national parks."

How brain dead can you be? If humans pave the planet, don't be foolish enough to think that they would survive.

Re: Food for thought...

[Anonymous Coward]

He forgot the sarcasm tag. You forgot your automatic sarcasm tag generator. Let's call it even.

Re:And they were delicious!

[Anonymous Coward]

-1 for the sauce i hope. Ribs are not supposed to be saggy dough.

Humans are the "devil"

[edris90]

Life vs humans. Humans are destruction to all life including themselves, limitations of scale, may make it seem otherwise, but that's just because we are still in play. Mid destruction. We won't quit overstepping until everything's dead including us. That's humans for you. Destructive intelligence.

Re:Humans are the "devil"

[anegg]

Humans with their big brains out-compete all other macro-scale life. Intelligence isn't what is at work here, genetics is. Intelligence is the possible answer - if humans can use their intelligence to decide to keep their numbers in check, then we can share the planet with other macro-scale animal lifeforms. If we can't decide to harness our intelligence towards that end, we will dominate, eventually becoming a mono-culture. Whether or not that is a good thing depends on your point of view. What happens after is anybody's guess.

We could all do our part by having fewer kids; no one has to be killed off to reduce the population. Will we make that choice?

Re:Humans are the "devil"

[religionofpeas]

We could all do our part by having fewer kids; no one has to be killed off to reduce the population. Will we make that choice?

Evolution does not look kindly on individuals that lower their own fitness. Some people will make that choice, yes, but they will go extinct, leaving only those that make the other choice.

Re:Humans are the "devil"

[rogoshen1]

It's unfortunate that the areas of the world with birthrates high enough to actually lead to population growth do not read Slashdot.

Westerners should probably have more children to offset the 'migrations' they are being subjected to -- if they want to keep their cultures and societies intact.

Re:Humans are the "devil"

[Pinky's Brain]

There's always the alternative, make the choice for others.

If an infertility virus was spread and the only way to have kids was an expensive IVF procedure ...

Re: Humans are the "devil"

[edris90]

Cultures come and go,. Seems like ridiculous amount of competition for something so arbitrary and meaningless

Re: Humans are the "devil"

[edris90]

Us culture is unique in that we don't invent anything here rather we take something high-quality or skill sets that we import or receive via immigration,. Hollow it out keeping it down and sell knock off cheap quality versions to our neighbors the we have rebranded as our own idea. Us culture is unique in that it is completely dependent upon regular immigration and influx of culture, the is rapidly consumed hollowed-out and diluted until everything is crap. without immigration we get no influxes of quality to to give us something new to cheap down and desecrate

Re:Humans + livestock account for 96% mammal bioma

[alvinrod]

100 times as much water is used to create a lb of beef than a lb of crops!

The steak tastes at least 1,000 times better than the lettuce leaf though, so it's worth it.

I think in the long run the only chance we have is for us all to go vegan.

Eventually we'll be able to grow meat in labs and it won't be nearly as expensive or have anywhere near the environmental impact. At that point, I don't see anyone being vegan unless they have some rare condition that necessitates that kind of diet.

Re:Humans + livestock account for 96% mammal bioma

[Gavagai80]

Obligatory XKCD of that: https://xkcd.com/1338/

Fake News

[fleabay]

Vince McMahon is the chief executive at WWF, not some Tanya Steele who may not even be a real person.

Re:Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

She needs a steel chair shot and maybe a cage match to teach her the error of her ways.

Re:Fake News

[thegarbz]

Tanya Steele is the Chef Executive of the UK office of the WWF. Why would you ask if she's a real person instead of just clicking on the first Google result of her name: https://www.wwf.org.uk/tanya-s...

Re: Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh!

Re:Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

Tanya Steele is the Chef Executive of the UK office of the WWF. Why would you ask if she's a real person instead of just clicking on the first Google result of her name: https://www.wwf.org.uk/tanya-s...

*WOOOOSH!!!*
Just to spell the joke out to you, Vince McMahon is the executive of the WWF as in "World Wrestling Federation" which at one time shared the initials with her org.

Re:Fake News

[Glarimore]

Woosh!

Re:Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

Joke dumb ass!

Re:Fake News

[thegarbz]

You're gonna have to explain this to me in english. "Whoosh" is reserved for obvious jokes.

Re:Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

Both of those names sound too macho and fabricated - I don't believe either of them are real people. Fake wrestling = fake names.

Re:Fake News

[SCVonSteroids]

His joke was extremely obvious. It flew right past you.
I guess you must not have watched much wrestling as a kid.

Re:Fake News

[thegarbz]

I guess you must not have watched much wrestling as a kid.

Nope. Please continue to enlighten me. As obvious as it may have been I still have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

Wooosh

Re:Fake News

[SCVonSteroids]

You're a Google search away from enlightenment. I gave you the biggest hint I possibly could have mate.
Nothing wrong with not getting a joke, if you didn't watch WWF (now WWE) growing up, you won't care for it even once you DO get the joke.

Or maybe you're just a troll. If so, my hat off to you, making me waste two posts worth of time.

Re:Fake News

[thegarbz]

The google search was entirely my point. I started this entire post with a Google search and even linked my result as to why I didn't get the joke.

No I'm not a troll, troll's don't bother Googling something before they post. Don't congratulate me. Google wouldn't have helped me either, WWF does not return any wrestling results and honestly I had no idea that they even changed their name to WWE.

But thanks I now get the joke, and it makes perfect sense now that the connection has been made. :-)

Re:Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

> continuing to pretend to never have heard of the WWF

> as if it makes him sound more worldly and authoritative

Cats

[ThurstonMoore]

How many species have cats wiped out.

There isn't a global solution

[DarkOx]

The first step to protecting a future for our grand kids is to recognize there is NOT a global solution. There are probably already to many people.

Population is the one driving factor. Everything else is a rounding error. Anyone who actually cares about the environment would be in favor of basically ending immigration. Limit agricultural exports and imports.

Here in the US we are essentially at the replacement rate in terms of birth rate. Stop letting new outsiders in. Deal with the not nearly as complex economic problem of having a flat population size as compared to growth beyond sustainability or population decline.

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[JoeDuncan]

The first step to protecting a future for our grand kids is to recognize there is NOT a global solution.

Disagree.

The first step in protecting our grandkids is wiping out any animals that may be potential threats.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[turp182]

I'm conflicted.

Fate is the who, where, when, and how (much money) one is born into.

But we make enough food for the humans, at the expense of nature.

Immigration isn't a bad thing, but it does need to be controlled (Example: the whole USA thing, tears for the natives at the time, they couldn't handle European diseases or our ignorance and hatred that they were equal persons).

We should be carpet bombing the entire world with condoms and instructions for such. Population growth reduction is the only answer. Religion is a HUGE problem with this, they want to live in the middle-ages but with iPhones it seems to me.

And regarding population control we face freedom. And raising kids is fun, they are so interesting (I have twins, wife got fixed after that).

Very conflicted.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Population is the one driving factor. Everything else is a rounding error. Anyone who actually cares about the environment would be in favor of basically ending immigration.

Harsh, but it is true that we can't stabilize (and reverse) the world population if countries like the US are facilitating countries with unsustainable population growth. And the wealthy elite appear hell bent on keeping the cost of labor low by creating the conditions to keep people creating plentiful young replacement labor.

Limit agricultural exports and imports.

No, worldwide agricultural exports and imports are what prevents regional famine. We need to reach a sustainable level of population without war, pestilence and famine. We can achieve sustainability through de facto 2 child social norms and limiting net immigration.

Here in the US we are essentially at the replacement rate in terms of birth rate. Stop letting new outsiders in. Deal with the not nearly as complex economic problem of having a flat population size as compared to growth beyond sustainability or population decline.

Yes, the economics are not hard to fathom. But a lot of "economic growth" is thinly veiled population growth and many economic policies are predicated on economic growth as inherently good. Literally economic models rely on growth through population and start failing when there aren't enough people to sell stuff to.

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

That is a bit harsher in reality than you make it sound. I think for big countries this makes sense because people can internally relocate in response to local issues. Smaller countries really should federate with other smaller countries or larger countries in order to allow for internal displacement for local and regional economic reasons. Otherwise such an inflexible system simply isn't sustainable, as we see with Central Americans, there will be uncontrolled migration because of small state local failures of governments, social breakdowns or natural disasters. And when you have no way to relieve local pressures, you usually get wars that can spin out of control.

Ideally we should be able to reach balanced trade and balanced migration and a sustainable population that is likely a bit smaller than it is today.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

The point is that there is no longer any "naturally". Even the poorest countries have access to enough technology that by the time their populations get large/dense enough that they are limited by starvation, etc. then the environments in those countries will be totally destroyed. Back when all the technology that people had was sharp rocks and rubbing sticks together to make fires, people would start starving to death long before the environment was completely destroyed. But that's no longer the case.

The interesting thing though, is that if you give people a basic education and access to affordable birth control then they don't want large families. When you're trying to survive on less than a dollar a day, condoms are hard to fit in the budget. Very few people want to tell their children that they were unwanted. So there's a lot of rationalization that goes on in developing countries. But the truth is that the high birth rate in developing countries is mostly due to unplanned pregnancies.

If people in the USA want to preserve the environment in developing countries (i.e. most of the rest of the world) then it's not about limiting immigration. I will absolutely guarantee you that people in developing countries aren't like "Oh, I see the USA has a welcoming immigration policy so let's have more kids!". Instead, it's about providing people in developing countries with enough socioeconomic assistance that they are able to choose to have small families.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Rick Schumann]

You know, it's always really fucking easy for someone who lives in a nice, safe, first-world country, who makes a nice, tidy six-digit income, owns his own home, a couple cars, has nice things, new clothes, and is perfectly safe 24/7/365, as is his wife and kids, to say shit like "Stop letting outsiders in" and "Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places". You've never had to struggle like these people have just to have enough to eat or a roof over their heads, you've never had to deal with a government that is so corrupt and/or disregarding of their own citizens human rights that they feel the need to leave for their own safety, or lived anywhere where violent criminal organizations threaten your life on a daily basis, or try to kidnap your children to turn into prostitutes or slaves or suicide bombers. No, you have precisely ZERO perspective on what it's like anywhere else in the world, and treat your willful ignorance like it's some sort of fucked-up virtue instead. You most likely don't even know what it's like for the homeless that exist (not LIVE, but EXIST, BARELY) in your area, and probably think they're just lazy or criminals on the run and should be erradicated "for public safety reasons" or somesuch shit. You need to shut the fuck up about things you know nothing about, you entitled son of a bitch.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

Wow, and there you have it, the national character of the US is now reduced to "fuck you, I've got mine".

Tell you what, lock yourselves in your country, shoot each other all you want, and the rest of the world will stop doing trade with you, and you can find out if America can survive on its own like you seem to think.

Because the rest of us would be happy to not have to listen to you assholes any more, and ban your corporations from doing business here. Just fully close your borders to everything and fuck off.

America is truly in a race to the bottom.

Fuck you, America, fuck you.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Eliminating trade in agriculture and eliminating immigration... I mean I guess it would help global population levels drop 250 million or so if that's your goal, but surely there's some better methods than reducing the USA to CHUDs.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The first step to protecting a future for our grand kids is to recognize there is NOT a global solution.

Disagree.

The first step in protecting our grandkids is wiping out any animals that may be potential threats.

You are correct sir!
Not to worry, autonomous military drones will do a great job at wiping out the top level predators.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[HeckRuler]

Well that's pretty monstrous. Because what's the solution to "too many people"?

Anyone who actually cares about the environment would be in favor of basically ending immigration.

So that they'll magically stop making more people? So that they die out there?

Limit agricultural exports and imports.

The only possible goal for this action is to literally starve the people outside our nation. You are a monster.

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

That's a cute little euphemism for "let them die".

But there is no "local" carrying capacity. We can ship food around and people can move. "Local" is defined as "planet Earth". Ignoring that, or suggesting we stop doing that is willfully ignorant to an extreme. It's like you're covering your ears and humming to yourself as you brace the pantry door closed while people starve outside. And it's hypocritical, you're typing on a keyboard and looking at a screen that was made in China. We ship goods all over the place, and our society is built upon that. Unless, of course, you're in favor of letting everyone in cities starve to death as the farmers sit back and take the "high moral ground" of stopping food shipments. You know, for the good of the planet. Of course, they'll have no oil, machinery, electrical power, computers, medicine, education... It's like society is a sort of interconnected web of dependencies and chopping ourselves off from most of it isn't going to work out so well.

And it ignores global CO2 levels and global warming. And SO MUCH of the valuable biodiversity that we want to conserve (the weird-ass specialists whose genes have millennia of real-world real-time in-field testing that we're on the cusp of harvesting) isn't within our borders.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[CrimsonAvenger]

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

Hmm, so, what's the "carrying capacity" of New York City? Or Los Angeles? Hell, it's not like they grow enough food in either of those places to feed the Police Department, much less the rest of the people!

Or was this just your way of saying, "let them brown people starve, damnit! And pass the mashed potatoes"?

Note that if we were to drop back to the "natural carrying capacity" of the land, we'd have to drop back to the "natural" number of humans. Say, a few tens of thousands living in caves.

Oddly enough, I'm willing to bet that everyone who wants to "drop back to the natural carrying capacity of the land" assumes that they'll be part of the 0.001% who survives the famines/plagues/wars that'll be required to make sure Those Others do the dying.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[quenda]

or lived anywhere where violent criminal organizations threaten your life on a daily basis, or try to kidnap your children to turn into prostitutes or slaves or suicide bombers.

Yes, and he would like to keep it that way, thankyou.
If I'm in an overcrowded lifeboat, in freezing North Atlantic waters, I should pull more people on board until it capsizes? Describing foreigners that way is really not helping your argument, just scaring him more.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[religionofpeas]

The only possible goal for this action is to literally starve the people outside our nation. You are a monster.

If you don't let them starve, they'll make more people, and then more of them will starve after a few generations. You are a monster.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[crunchygranola]

The only possible goal for this action is to literally starve the people outside our nation. You are a monster.

If you don't let them starve, they'll make more people, and then more of them will starve after a few generations. You are a monster.

Thanos, is that you?

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Rick Schumann]

FWIW that guy doesn't sound scared, he sounds like some jackass who (at the risk of sounding like some SJW) needs to 'check his first-world country citizen privilege', stop being a selfish dick, and think about what actually motivates people to want to come here (or anywhere where they're not in fear of their lives or living in poverty their whole lives).

You, on the other hand, are making me wonder if you're any better.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly.
Keep all the brown people out of first world countries.
Their archaic ways of reproducing huge families... four, five, eight or more kids on average... needs to be contrained to their own physical borders until they are forced by nature to evolve new thinking and physical drive which results in no more than replacement.
Importing them into first world right now at this moment just gives them and their archaic ways the luxury to have even MORE kids.
And that will wipe you out.
Let them downsize themselves out of existance in their useless lands, not you in yours.
Three brown imports nearby two with five kids, one with six, all of them on welfare, none educated, not contributing anything, all consuming precious resources, for nothing other than penis meets vagina, not to mention promulgating some planet and people killing religion in the mix.

You WILL lose if you import brown.
The way to win for the planet is by exporting yourselves to them.
Show them how to improve in their own lands.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[religionofpeas]

I'm willing to bet that everyone who wants to "drop back to the natural carrying capacity of the land" assumes that they'll be part of the 0.001% who survives

I can't speak for the others, but I'm more than happy to be part of the 99.999% myself.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[religionofpeas]

stop being a selfish dick

The people that are coming over from Africa to Europe are all selfish dicks too. Most of them are young, strong men that are lucky enough to have the money to pay for the fare. Instead of helping to overthrow their corrupt government, they quit, and leave the problems for the less fortunate to solve.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Ichijo]

Anyone who actually cares about the environment would be in favor of basically ending immigration.

Ok but how do we keep our own country's citizens from filling up all the empty space? Ending immigration only changes who fill those spaces.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, so much for the right to life, liberty, and and the pursuit of happiness. One's fate determined at birth. I think it is you who doesn't belong in that first-world nation.

Re: There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Orange man bad

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Rick Schumann]

Because ALL immigrants are 'young strong men lucky enough to pay for the fare', they're never mothers and children fleeing for their lives, or men with their wiife and children, who just want to get them away to safety

Nice strawman, did you take a class in how to build one or are you naturally talented?

All immigrants fleeing violence should just stay there instead, fight with sticks and rocks, and get their asses shot off by their government or the criminal gangs

Oh look it's another first-worlder sitting in his nice comfy safe house, commenting on how people in 3rd world countries should conduct their lives. Bug off.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong on so many levels this isn't even really debatable

Go back to your nationalist meeting and come back with another solution buddy. It is a global problem, pure and simple. When you stop thinking so fucking local and start thinking more globally, then and only then, can humanity move forward. Otherwise you and everyone else will starve.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[religionofpeas]

they're never mothers and children fleeing for their lives, or men with their wiife and children, who just want to get them away to safety

There are a few yes. But estimating from the pictures of the boats and the riots in Greece and Italy, 80%-90% of them are young men, old enough to have a wife and children that they left behind.

All immigrants fleeing violence should just stay there instead, fight with sticks and rocks, and get their asses shot off by their government or the criminal gangs

How do you know the immigrants are not the people from the criminal gangs ? Or do you think people that have to fight with sticks have a few thousand dollars they can use for the trip ?

Oh look it's another first-worlder sitting in his nice comfy safe house, commenting on how people in 3rd world countries should conduct their lives. Bug off.

LOL. You're the one telling others what to do, sitting in your comfy safe house. I'm just saying that they are selfish dicks, just like us.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[turkeyfish]

"Anyone who actually cares about the environment would be in favor of basically ending immigration."

I guess that means starting an effort to return the Statue of Liberty to the French.

Ending immigration will soon be impossible. As the Earth continues to warm and more and more regions are either underwater or have soils to hot and dry to support agriculture, there will be more and more mass migrations, of organisms of all kinds. If you actually want to prevent immigration, you should actively start doing something to stop global warming induced as the result of carbon dioxide pollution.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[turkeyfish]

More likely they will simply align themselves with other nations that will put their own interests before those of the USA. That the Brazilian and Argentinian soybean farmers are actually shifting to supply the bulk of Chinese soybean consumption is a perfect example. Once these markets are established, US farmers will suffer a permanent injury. If the US insists on goading the Chinese and others into an arms race, its not going to end well for the US. They can readily field armies of hundreds of millions and will soon have weapons technology that will rival our own. Is this really the kind of world the US wants to create? If we put our efforts into that global warming will be ignored until only bacteria, fungi, cockroaches and ants will be the only winners.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Rick Schumann]

estimating from the pictures of the boats and the riots in Greece and Italy

So in other words you're making assumptions. Gotcha.

How do you know the immigrants are not the people from the criminal gangs ?

How you you know they are? More assumptions, gotcha.

LOL. You're the one telling others what to do

Oh gee I'm just such a meanie, telling you people to stop being assholes. Gotcha.

Bugger off.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[HeckRuler]

Whatever mental gymnastics you feel you need to justify advocating for genocide. You do you.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually even if your values are right, you are wrong that he should shut up. If you want to change people minds and convince them you are right, you NEED to hear them out and debate so you can learn more from each other. Your argument seems sensible but it is wafer thin. How many people can 1st world nations take in? What about the rest who must remain behind in these 3rd world countries? How does it benefit the ones who stay behind that the 1st world countries take all the smartest and the best and leave the rest to suffer. You are not offering any better solution than he is and your outrage attempts at silencing him makes me think you know you cannot defend your position from genuine query.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Leslie43]

Hmm, so, what's the "carrying capacity" of New York City? Or Los Angeles? Hell, it's not like they grow enough food in either of those places to feed the Police Department, much less the rest of the people!

Central California (starting just north of L.A. metro) grows 2/3rds of U.S. produce consumed by people.

The rest of the U.S. grows more for livestock and ethanol than it does for human consumption (by a large margin) and it's been that way for a while now. This is why food prices across the U.S. go up any time California has a fight over water or they have a bad season.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[geek]

You are exactly the type of shit bag people want to keep out. Thanks for showing your "gimme gimme gimme" attitude. As to the rest of your barely coherent bullshit, if they want peace and prosperity so badly, they can strive for it in their own country and make a difference. But tools like you want them to run away, making those places even worse and thus reinforcing the vicious cycle.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Uberbah]

Central California (starting just north of L.A. metro)

Which still isn't LA, which means the people there still have to import their food. It's only a question of distance.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Uberbah]

You are exactly the type of shit bag people want to keep out. Thanks for showing your "gimme gimme gimme" attitude. As to the rest of your barely coherent bullshit, if they want peace and prosperity so badly, they can strive for it in their own country and make a difference.

Slight problem: that's all projection, shitbag. Because the problem isn't overpopulation, it's resource consumption. And when each of your entitled western asses are using the same amount of resources as literally dozens of people in third world countries - tell us again who has the "gimme" attitude?

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Uberbah]

The people that are coming over from Africa to Europe are all selfish dicks too.

You mean people fleeing America's wars? Thanks to Obama, there are literal open-air slave markets in Libya - when it used to have the highest standard of living on the continent. It takes a powerful level of dumbfuckery to turn those kind of refugees into "selfish dicks".

Re:There isn't a global solution

[omfglearntoplay]

Wiping out animals that are threats? I guess that'd be other humans then, they are the main competition and threat to you and your kids and their kids. Everybody better start having less children and fast.

Re: There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you've made a mistake in thinking a local problem has a purely local cause. In the same way that the economy apparently requires structural unemployment to operate best (ie maximise profit for owners and investors), broken countries are necessary for capital streams to keep flowing.

It's worth investigating the sources of the rivers of cash that flow into the City of London, and expert opinion on maintaining a few brushfire wars here and there on the map for weapons testing purposes.

In other words, your hands are not completely clean of Yemen. Your individual hands might not have a very big spot on them, but it'd be wrong to say you have no spot at all.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

All feels no reals. Where's your solution tough guy? The fact is letting people emigrate from *ahem* shitholes is like adding lanes to a highway. You don't get smoother traffic; you get more traffic. People from those countries will have more kids. Point is you have no solution, no idea, no sense. Grow a brain when you're off your period.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[david-bo]

People living under such circumstances have a very easy choice: don't breed. That will both make their own lives easier (children are expensive and demanding) as well as prevent innocent children from suffering.

They should take some personal responsibility and adapt to a non-perfect world.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh look it's another first-worlder sitting in his nice comfy safe house, commenting on how people in 3rd world countries should conduct their lives. Bug off.

The fact is, it's OUR country and our land (which we stole fair and square). No one outside of the country has any right to it.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

go home bot

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The real elephant is the foreign policies and military industrial interests that keep the corrupt governments in 3rd world countries propped up militarily and financially to gut the natural resources.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Kyr Arvin]

Well that's pretty monstrous. Because what's the solution to "too many people"?

The answer is "lower birth rates." Much lower. Much of that comes naturally as a nation develops. And of course "too many people" is a problem, an obvious one.

Limit agricultural exports and imports.

The only possible goal for this action is to literally starve the people outside our nation. You are a monster.

Yeah, I don't know what that was supposed to solve either, unless his point was that every section of the world should be 100% self-sufficient. Well, there are good swaths of the USA that aren't self-sufficient either.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[quenda]

You, on the other hand, are making me wonder if you're any better.

Don't stoop to ad hominem.
It should be clear I was playing devils advocate, and replying to the more reasonable (if shrill) poster. (you)
The "zero immigration" is too extreme to deserve a direct reply, but there is room for debate on numbers and source of immigrants.

If you just want to help the unfortunate, developed countries can help far more people for the same cost in foreign aid than in taking refugees.
Currently, a fortune is being spent (at least in Europe) on housing and caring for "refugees", and a relative pittance on genuine non-military foreign aid to countries closer to the refugee source.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people have it really horrible. And yet they continue to bring children into the world. Why is that?
I know this sounds ignorant, but I'd actually like to know.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it would be more like 1 person per square mile in a hunter/gatherer society on land with vegetation...tens of millions, not tens of thousands....

Re:There isn't a global solution

[SCVonSteroids]

Oh gee I'm just such a meanie, telling you people to stop being assholes. Gotcha.
Bugger off.

Mate, I hate to say this to you but every time I've read anything with your userID associated to it, you've come off as an asshole.
*Queue obnoxious alarmist comeback*

I think I've told you this before, but chill the fuck out. Yelling at the top of your lungs and calling everyone you come across an asshole/prick/what-have-you won't get you very far.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[SCVonSteroids]

My thoughts.
Those people would likely rather stay home. Where they grew up. Where they know best. I know I would.
We need to help fix their situations.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Rick Schumann]

There are plenty of people who agree with me on any number of subjects, and I've never even heard of you. Bug off.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter if people agree with you. In this case I do. YOU ARE STILL A FUCKING DICK.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Rick Schumann]

Y U SO MAD THO? xD

Re:There isn't a global solution

[DarkOx]

Limit agricultural exports and imports.

The only possible goal for this action is to literally starve the people outside our nation. You are a monster.

False - the objective there is to bar certain people from attempting profit off the rest of the worlds hunger over producing food and over working agriculture resources in the is country. 2nd to prevent the import of contaminated food stuffs that often bring with them invasive specie.

Let the rest of the worlds population 'naturally' adjust to the local carrying capacity of those places.

That's a cute little euphemism for "let them die".

Yes and no. Some near term death will be the predictable outcome. Its not worse than the territorial warfare and anti-terror BS that goes on now. How has interventionist policy worked out in Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc... These people ARE going to suffer and die in any case; we can harm the plant to or not; that really is the choice.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not just a matter of population density, what we see are the effects of industrialization based on a massive division of labor. I doubt there is way to maintain the same standards of technology and living we have now without causing this massive extinction. Note that fertilizers and crude oil are the absolute cornerstones of society, without global trade of oil and fertilizers, almost all industries would break down.

Re:There isn't a global solution

[HeckRuler]

Yes and no. Some near term death will be the predictable outcome.

You. Fucking. Monster.

How has interventionist policy worked out in Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc...

It worked out really shitty in Iraq. We got a lot of people killed, made a power vacuum, spawned ISIS, and through all that (further) destabilized and threw Syria into (more) turmoil. Syria is a proxy war where the CIA is supporting rebels while Russia supports Assad. It's a real shit-show. Hundreds of thousands dead, ~5 million refugees, threat of international war. But that doesn't mean we should stop all food shipments to China. Really, the come-back "But what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" is very apt here. The state of Syria is irrelevant. The CIA are being dicks on one side of the map, so it's time to starve the other side and cut off a major source of our own income? Monstrous.

We had no intervention in Libya. We let the Arab Spring happen. That's not on us. We can neither claim victory nor fault for that.

We are currently turning a blind eye to Yemen because we sell weapons to the Saudis. There is no intervention. You are delusional on multiple fronts.

we can harm the plan[e]t to or not; that really is the choice.

The absolute worst sort of eco-terrorist monster that's advocating for the death of millions.

If you live in a city you're hypocrite. If you grow your own food (First off, wow, that's actually pretty amazing in today's America, but) you're operating under a laughably inefficient agricultural system that cannot scale to feed the world. If you grow economically viably food-source you are a hypocrite as you are obviously financially dependent on shipping food around. You have no logical basis for this stance. It's impossible to be internally consistent without being a monster. You just want to see foreigners die. You want to "save the planet" by killing off the masses. You are a bigger and more immediate problem than the loss of biodiversity.

Only 60%?

[JoeDuncan]

That's BS.

We can do better than that! I have faith in humanity.

Ni6ga

[Anonymous Coward]

EFNet 7servErs.

And yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

People still think Malthus was wrong.

He wasn't. He was just off by a few hundred years.

If we didn't have nearly 8 billion people eating, breeding, and shitting, this wouldn't be an issue.

Re:And yet...

[crunchygranola]

People still think Malthus was wrong.

He wasn't. He was just off by a few hundred years.

Malthus wasn't off at all. He was absolutely correct when he wrote, and remained absolutely correct until 1938.

Malthus's claim (backed by valid data and argument) was that population was limited by land productivity. Crop production could only be increased by bringing uncultivated land into production, which could only be added in a linear fashion ("arithmetically") and had an absolute upper limit.

Despite the industrial revolution, and the increasing use of fertilizers (rare before the 20th Century), crop productivity per hectare did not increase measurably throughout the entire 19th Century and into the 20th Century. The best crop productivity increased at no more than about 0.01% a year, as it had for the previous few thousand years.

Then in 1938, in the United States, crop productivity started to climb at 2% a year every year. This was unexpected and for decades economists predicted that this was a temporary anomaly which would soon "correct". Instead it has continued unabated, and has spread to the rest of the world after 1950 and is now known as the "Green Revolution".

Until the Green Revolution occurred Malthus's account was an accurate description for agriculture and population for all of history.

One key aspect of the Green Revolution (there are many contributing factors that came together to create it) is the Haber Process for nitrogen fixation, used industrially beginning around the start of WWI. Natural nitrogen fixation is only able to support a world population of about 2 billion. About 70% of all nitrogen consumed by humans (meaning 70% of all the nitrogen atoms in an average human body, higher in the U.S.) was fixed by the Haber process. True organic farming "no fertilizers" cannot feed the world's existing population, it depends on a slight of hand, it is supported by Haber Process nitrogen that has been processed through cows into manure.

Re:And yet...

[religionofpeas]

This was unexpected and for decades economists predicted that this was a temporary anomaly which would soon "correct".

I think it still will "correct", but probably not soon. We're currently depleting three major ingredients: topsoil, ancient water, and phosphorous.

Re: And yet...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Instead it has continued unabated, and has spread to the rest of the world after 1950 and is now known as the "Green Revolution"
And now we can keep feeding more with GMO crops and protein from insects or lab grown meat. Ain't the future fun

Welcome to the Anthropocene Extinction Event!

[His name cannot be s]

Better get used to it.

It's still a long slide to the bottom.

Obligatory /. meme

[Tablizer]

It's their fault for being delicious.

no problem, we'll make more

[swell]

Not only will we come up with new species but we'll resurrect useful extinct animals, just as we have been doing with plants. We'll correct imbalances such as the predatory purple urchins that are destroying kelp forests. We'll create fantastic creatures inspired by Dr. Seuss to amuse the children. We're gonna have some serious fun populating what's left of the natural world.

Remember that most species, the most important ones, are too small for human eyes to see. The magnificent rhinos, giraffes, tigers ... well they are pretty but have little to do with ecological balance. Try to get some perspective about what's really important.

Re:no problem, we'll make more

[Anonymous Coward]

All with shiny and delicious microplastics.

Taking WWF at its word

[Anonymous Coward]

is exactly like taking any Con Artist at their word.

Wow are you ever racist!

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you know the chinese need to poach those mammals so they can dry up their penises and possibly get an erection!

Not the first mass extinction caused by a species

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is the start of a sixth mass extinction, it might well not be the first mass extinction caused by a species. There isn't a definitive explanation why the Permian-Triassic extinction occurred, but one hypothesis implicates a microbe called Methanosarcina that lived in the oceans. Massive volcanic eruptions in present day Siberia released large quantities of nickel, which helped this microbe to thrive far beyond what it otherwise would have done. This microbe produced large amounts of methane, which caused ocean acidification and also caused global temperatures to warm dramatically.

I don't think this undermines the overall intent of the article, though. If there's precedent that a single species had a large role in the worst mass extinction in the history of the Earth, it demonstrates that this is possible and, therefore, that it could happen again.

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[Artem S. Tashkinov]

Those 99% of the species have gone extinct in the previous billion years. We are now talking about a period of time which is less than 0.000005%. I'm not sure Earth has ever witnessed such a rapid and currently irreversible extinction event.

Re:Humans + livestock account for 96% mammal bioma

[religionofpeas]

100 times as much water is used to create a lb of beef than a lb of crops!

Your simplication is mostly wrong. The water requirements depend a lot on location and type of crop. Also you have to consider the type of water that's used. Rainwater that's falling out of the sky for free is a different than potable tap water, or ancient well water.

Producing 1 calorie of animal protein uses over 10 times as much fossil fuels as 1 calorie of plant protein!

Again, not true. There's a huge difference between protein content of different plant sources, as well as fossil fuel requirements. Very little fossil fuel is involved when you let a bunch of goats graze on grassy mountainside. A lot more is used when you grow cucumbers in a greenhouse.

I think in the long run the only chance we have is for us all to go vegan

Not at all. The optimal mix should at least include eating animals grazing on land that's not otherwise useful.

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the mak

[jd]

Irrelevant.

Branches of the tree of life become irrelevant ant die off. That's natural and normal.

But that is not even remotely equivalent to taking an axe to the trunk or lopping off healthy branches to make way for the diseased.

Extinctions are Always Occurring

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so let's look at this with some common sense.

First, this so-called "study" makes the assumption that ANY extinction that occurs during the holocene period is the direct result of man, which is an absurd statement to make. Many animal species would have gone extinct even without man's help.

Second, this so-called "study" makes the assumption that there are zero new species being created, which is also an absurd statement to make. The environment is evolving new species (or God is creating them, depending upon your religious bent) all the time.

Third, this so-called "study" is only guessing. It's not as if they went out and counted every animal on Earth and compared to some mythological count of all animals on Earth that somehow happened before Man appeared. They're making seemingly uneducated guesses based on absurd assumptions and questionably valid proxy data.

All of that having been said, please do not hear what I am not saying. I am not saying that man is not causing extinction, nor am I saying that man is not reducing wildlife populations. It's pretty intuitive that if man moves in and strip mines a mountain or clear cuts a rain forest, that many animals are going to cease to exist. This is not necessarily good or bad, we just need to understand the true long-term effects of it.

In general we should be using as few resources as we can get away with, and admit that humanity has several problems it MUST overcome if man is going to survive:

1) There are too many of us. Probably ten times as many as the Earth can reasonably support in the long term. Without action to curb our out-of-control breeding, the Earth WILL die at some point, and take us along with it.

2) Conspicuous consumption is a huge problem. Huge. Enormous. When you compound rampant overpopulation with every single person having to hoard as much "stuff" as they can, bad things happen.

3) Humanity does not understand that all life is precious. Animal life. Plant life. It is all a precious gift that we must preserve for the long term, even if it means having to control our impulses now, and tell ourselves, "no."

4) We have to stop politicizing literally everything. This study is a good example of political agenda run amok. The message is correct and true, but the delivery is steeped with hyperbole, lies, deceit, and manipulation, and so nobody will take it seriously.

That is all.... I'll be gone in a couple of years, but my kids and their kids will be around for decades to come. I fear for what this generation is going to leave for the next.

Re:Not the first mass extinction caused by a speci

[SqueakyMouse]

The great oxygenation event, caused by cyanobacteria, killed off a lot of anaerobes if that counts.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, idiots are trying to kill off free speech because "words hurt" and "safe space" yet nobody seems to care about the real problems, like humans destroying the earth.

It makes it ironic because earth is then not safe! So much for "safe space". :-/

Mister Anderson..

[bill.pev]

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure."

Re:Mister Anderson..

[SqueakyMouse]

Agent Smith was a virus. Humans are mammals. That's why the females produce milk. Consuming and spreading out is what mammals do. The problem is we're a little too good at being mammals.

Re: 5-7 million years to recover is complete bulls

[jd]

Pigs doubling in number isn't quite the same thing as 90 species of megafauna suddenly coming into existence at 10% the number of pigs.

We both know that.

Therefore we both know that you don't listen to the experts because they don't agree with what you believed beforehand. Has nothing to do with whether they're right.

Pure speculation with zero actual facts

[bshell]

If you go to the original article in the Guardian, you then have to click on a link to the World Wildlife Fund which then links to a report from the Zoological Society of London https://www.wwf.org.uk/sites/d... which is the ACTUAL study that all this is based on. If you read it you find there is no actual research that definitively counts any species or animals so everything about this is pure speculation. There has been no actual observed decrease. The headline is totally misleading. The actual report simply speculates that there will be decreases due to human behaviour. This is not news. This is not even science. It's simply fear mongering and speculation. In fact if you take the time to read the report it even shows that in some cases human impact is now decreasing year by year, e.g. in world fishing catches. People: please read the source of these stories before making wild comments about statements that are not even based on observable facts. Or better yet: get off your chair and walk into any woods or get out on the sea near you and notice the vast array of life that surrounds you. It's totally astounding. This article is not science. It is hubris. It is humans thinking they are so powerful and wonderful that they can kill every other living thing on the planet. This is totally and completely false. We are just animals like all the rest. Here for a short time and then gone. So read the source and get a grip.

Re:Pure speculation with zero actual facts

[Anonymous Coward]

The actual report simply speculates that there will be decreases due to human behaviour.” Not really.

This is form the executive summary: ”The Living Planet Index also tracks the state of global biodiversity by measuring the population abundance of thousands of vertebrate species around the world. The latest index shows an overall decline of 60% in population sizes between 1970 and 2014. Species population declines are especially pronounced in the tropics, with South and Central America suffering the most dramatic decline, an 89% loss compared to 1970. Freshwater species numbers have also declined dramatically, with the Freshwater Index showing an 83% decline since 1970. But measuring biodiversity – all the varieties of life that can be found on Earth and their relationships to each other – is complex, so this report also explores three other indicators measuring changes in species distribution, extinction risk and changes in community composition. All these paint the same picture – showing severe declines or changes.”

For methodology, check out this article: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1670/17-076

Re:Pure speculation with zero actual facts

[crunchygranola]

The report, written for the general public is documented with 281 references. The Living Planet Index maintained by the WWF is backed with solid research, some of which is also linked to in the references here.

So no, this is not "pure speculation", and yes there are absolutely massive observed decreases.

Ignoring the science doesn't make it go away.

Re:Pure speculation with zero actual facts

[bshell]

Thanks for the link to the wikipedia article. However according to wikipedia it's still all based on reviews of the literature which injects some speculation, then it is weighted (more speculation), then finally indexed (even more guessing) so this report is based on A LOT of guessing and meta data and virtually ZERO actual measuring of anything. To re-iterate, maybe it's because I live in Canada, but I've experienced it in Japan, too: if you go for a walk in the wild it is incredible to observe the amount of animal life all around you. Everyone should do this more often so as to feel less horrible about the state of the world. Humans are having an impact for sure, but this is a REALLY big planet and there's room for a lot of life. I do feel that we humans need to make more of an effort to live together at peace with all this other life, and respect it more, but I don't think we need to get all bent out of shape over it. There's a lot of unnecessary FUD on this topic.

Re:Pure speculation with zero actual facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to clarify: So your counter argument to an alleged lack of data is based upon how you feel when you go outside and take a walk?

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the mak

[Kernel Kurtz]

Irrelevant.

Branches of the tree of life become irrelevant ant die off. That's natural and normal.

But that is not even remotely equivalent to taking an axe to the trunk or lopping off healthy branches to make way for the diseased.

It is not really a tree https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0... , but whatever.

Human actions are part of the evolutionary process as well. Same as all other animals.

Fukushima dumps megatons of radioactive material

[Anonymous Coward]

Each and every day, right into the Pacific ocean.
And yet, no sanctions or punishment for Japan. Poisoning the Earth and having no remorse is a big part of asian cultures, and we wouldn't want to be insensitive.

Better to blame Trump. Darn you Trump!

So that means we're winning this war of attrition!

[Anonymous Coward]

In a battle between us and the animals, it sounds like we're winning! GO TEAM!

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[CrimsonAvenger]

I'm not sure Earth has ever witnessed such a rapid and currently irreversible extinction event.

Hmm, I'd be willing to bet we saw a quicker, more irreversible mass extinction, oh, 65 megayears ago, when that big rock fell out of the sky....

Population Bomb - 50 year anniversary

[Anonymous Coward]

The book was 'discredited ' can we now admit it was just maybe somewhat right?

Re:Not the first mass extinction caused by a speci

[Anonymous Coward]

This will not be the first mass extinction caused by a species.

But this will be the first mass extinction caused by a species, knowingly.

Catchy Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

"We are the first generation to know we are destroying our planet and the last one that can do anything about it."

That's about the catchiest and dumbest thing I've read here in a long time.

Re:Fukushima dumps megatons of radioactive materia

[Anonymous Coward]

> Fukushima dumps megatons of radioactive material... Each and every day, right into the Pacific ocean. And yet, no sanctions or punishment for Japan

Huh, does it occur to you that Fukushima's atomic reactors were designed and made in the USA? They were installed shortly before the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, when Japan didn't yet have her own nuclear industry. Who is responsible then for the tsunami-induced nuclear disaster?

I have more wildlife than ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

The population increase in deer and coyotes over the last twenty years has been astounding. They can't be killed fast enough. It may take 5 million years to get the same number of species back as before, but it only takes ten to twenty to be crawling in critters again.

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[greythax]

Funny, but not factually accurate. The KT extinction event was just the start, it took thousands of years for the extinction of species to reach its peak. We are outpacing it by a fair clip.

What good are animals?

[Mes]

They can't speak! They can't operate machinery! I mean, are we not in the hands of a lunatic?... If I were creating a world, I wouldn't mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o'clock, day one!

It’s a matter of faith

[sdinfoserv]

In the US, the Right completely disagree that humans have the ability to change the environment – or species count. And they own the House, Senate, White House and are really busy appointing Corporate Friendly federal judges. In the US, Evangelicals and people of deep religious faith believe its nonsense that humans can affect planet as only God can. And if it is changing, its Gods will and God will save us (or those deemed worthy). Many of them are actually looking forward to the mass destruction of humanity believing we approach the “rapture”. A completely made up bs word never used in any scripture but signifying the end of time when believers will be rescued. So, why fix what will be wonderful?
A recent study says we have till 2030 – or just 12 short years – to fix this mess.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com...
Also realize that there’s 2 years left of Lord Trumpkin and his army of Climate Change deniers busy rolling back environmental regulations. Then there’s another election, and probability shows the incumbent likely to win. Even though he lost popular vote last time, and since he’s become the most popular POTUS with his base since Reagan. Likely giving him 4 more years, or ½ of the total time we have left to fix the environment. Can the world fix it in 6 years despite the US doing it's best to ruin it? I wouldn’t bet on those odds.
So, like most societies before ours that found religion, and it’s faith-over-fact requirements, faith will ultimately end the human species. But, as George Carlin pointed out – in the end, the planet. Humans will be just another failed experiment.

Re:It’s a matter of faith

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah blah blah. Acting like 2 years matters shows you lack any kind of useful perspective. The discussion is about long term consequences and you're off thinking your political hand waving matters, like the majority of the USA.

Re:It’s a matter of faith

[geek]

In the US, the Right completely disagree that humans have the ability to change the environment

Thats called a strawman. No one on the right says this. No one. Its just your biased bullshit response to try and de-legitimize valid criticisms to your incoherent world view.

Re:It’s a matter of faith

[sdinfoserv]

Ted Cruz: Evidence doesn't support global warming:
https://www.npr.org/2015/12/09...

GOP leaders view climate change as fake science:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

GOP-Climate change education is propaganda:
http://nymag.com/intelligencer...

Next lie, snoflake?

Re:It’s a matter of faith

[sdinfoserv]

we have 12 years... 6 will be with the US under the control of people who push capitalism, less environmental regulation, and more profit of the future. That leaves 6 years for truly positive action.
Now consider that the US just went from 1st place to 2nd for CO2 emissions:
https://www.ucsusa.org/global-...

and maybe your missing the big picture.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Re:It’s a matter of faith

[sdinfoserv]

And as to the "rapture" part: http://jesusplusnothing.com/st...
https://theonlinedisciple.word...
"For every Christian, the goal is to be along in the rapture. That glorious moment when Jesus takes those who belong to Him up to heaven to be with Him eternally. This is part of the series of events described in the book of Revelation that will occur during the end times."
https://activechristianity.org...

These people really believe this. I'm not trying to troll you or use strawman arguments. But don't be like them and dismiss statements out hand because you disagree with them. The fact is, these people vote and are in control of the US House, Senate, Oval Office and now have the Majority on the Supreme Court.

Didn't you know that....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is obviously Trump's fault.

Pfft

[Maury Markowitz]

"the world has begun a sixth mass extinction, the first to be caused by a species -- Homo sapiens"

Cyanobacteria wiped out 90% of life on the planet. They still have us beat by a landslide.

Re:Pfft

[religionofpeas]

Cyanobacteria wiped out 90% of life on the planet. They still have us beat by a landslide.

Patience. We have only really started our efforts in the last century. I'm sure we'll catch up. Maybe we'll even get the cyanobacteria to pitch in.

Because

[Anonymous Coward]

She's old, she has no tits, and...

  WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!

Need to punish those responsible

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is killing all these animals? What does he or she look like?

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[butchersong]

You could look at it as us hitting the gas on evolution. We're an environmental stressor the likes of which can only be rivaled by a cosmological catastrophe or super volcano going off.

Re:Humans + livestock account for 96% mammal bioma

[butchersong]

Herbivores are necessary parts of grasslands. I don't think you can look at rainfall on a 200 acre pasture and count that as external water to produce cattle. If I don't run cattle on my place it goes to crap. When I rotate them around, everything is lush and green. The ground retains more water because soil is being built-up... I mean you could get rid of cattle but you'd need to replace them with bison or it would be devastating for the prairie states.

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[turkeyfish]

What your simple-minded reasoning fails to appreciate is that that 99% figure is for all species over 3.5 billion years of evolution. Extinction rates currently are now thousands of times faster than one sees in the historical record. Total extinctions over a 3.5 billion year period is hardly relevant to the issue of modern day extinction rates.

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[Anonymous Coward]

> We are outpacing it by a fair clip.

So what? The result is the same depending wherever you want to go on the timeline. The bacteria don't care. It gets exponentially more difficult to wipe out species at the same rate so your comment seems misleading and combative.

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[turkeyfish]

Your comment is known to be provably false.

Re: 5-7 million years to recover is complete bulls

[turkeyfish]

This is the problem with modern Republican ideology. Bearing false witness has become a lifestyle rather than a sin.

So the real question is...

[SocietyoftheFist]

What species will adapt to these changes and thrive?

Re:So the real question is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawyers

http://www.lotsofjokes.com/sta...

Dat headline...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Humanity Has Wiped Out 60% of Animal Populations Since 1970 ...but man, were they ever *tasty*...

Re:Fukushima dumps megatons of radioactive materia

[turkeyfish]

Have humans really descended into this level of stupidity? If so, brace yourself as mentalities such as your are certain to lead to human extinction.

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[igny]

Besides, how can we be so sure that this is the first extinction caused by a species? What if dodos together with other birds got away with the extinction of dinosaurs? Just because no witnesses of the dinocide(*) survived, does not mean it didn't happen.

(*) I hope it is not too early to joke about that tragic event.

genetic engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

The Apocalypse is inevitable and the "diversity" of opinion on how to solve it will just contribute to it. Global Warming, AI, over population, mass extinction, meh ... genetic engineering will apply the coup de grace.

Punctuated equilibrium.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a perfectly natural part of evolution.

So what you're saying is...

[Anonymous Coward]

We are winning!

Sure there is: end capitalism

[Uberbah]

There are probably already to many people.

That's what entitled westerners tell themselves while arguing poor brown people need to practice eugenics. Because each of you uses dozens the times the amount of resources a person living in a third world country does.

As for a real solution, just end capitalism. That would be a lot easier than betting the farm on some kind of geo-engineering project to trap massive amounts of carbon, or hoping India and Pakistan will trade a few nuclear blows so the resulting nuclear winter can stop the climate methane bomb.

FUUUCKKKK! The 1970s want their animals back

[omfglearntoplay]

As a person born in the 1970s, this totally fucking bums me out. It is so bad it makes me want to change my career, stop eating meat, and teach my kids that animals don't matter because they are all going to die out. I'm not going to do any of those three things in reality, but what the hell can a guy do to actually make a difference? SSSHIIIIIITTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: the web of life, billions of years in the maki

[Anonymous Coward]

Those 99% of the species have gone extinct in the previous billion years. We are now talking about a period of time which is less than 0.000005%. I'm not sure Earth has ever witnessed such a rapid and currently irreversible extinction event.

It took just one day, 65 million years ago!

No

[Anonymous Coward]

No, thats called a virus.

Re:Its a matter of faith

[sdinfoserv]

You said no one - here's one. You lose.
“As a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is much bigger than us,” Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) told constituents last week at a town hall in Coldwater, Mich. “And I’m confident that, if there’s a real problem, he can take care of it.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

sorry Dude, you need to pay attention to what the Christians are saying.

Wow

[Jarwulf]

So we've apparently destroyed as much as the greatest mass extinctions (according to this article) and its had so little effect nobody's noticed (until this article). Guess the earth must be a lot more resilient than we thought. Thanks for the tip enviroguys!

Re:Humans + livestock account for 96% mammal bioma

[Bradmont]

But water isn't destroyed when it's used... I mean, yeah, in California there are shortages, but not everywhere, and stats like this make it seem like somehow making meat destroys water...

Guilt by association

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite the generalization and guilt by association. I and imagine some others are less responsible and likewise others more responsible depending on lifestyle, locations etc...

Thoughts

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It wasn't me!
2. Somebody else must have done it
3. Most surely somebody has developed a plan - if only we the public fund it

As usual follow the money and you'll now whar's pushing the agenda.

The Sixth Extinction

[Qbertino]

If you want to be scared out of your mind read the book "The Sixth Extinction". It's bottom line is that we are smack in the middle of Earths Sixth mass extinction of life and humanity is the driver. Basically the ecosystem that built is is already fubar, that's her premise. She also has a lecture or two on YouTube and Ted. We have to act now if we want any sort of feasible damage control, that's the only option left according to her. And she makes good points and has solid data.
I tend to believe her.

Science says it does not matter

[Anonymous Coward]

First, given that all life evolved from non-life and without the intervention of any intelligence, we could destroy all life on Earth and eventually there could be every bit as much life and with even more diversity in a few billion years. Indeed, the new life that arises and evolves could be far superior to humanity. In fact, but putting off our own extinction we could well be comitting a crime against the universe by delaying the rise of our superior replacements.

Second, given that we too are just evolved animals, everything we do is just as natural as anythin any other animal does and so our wiping out of other species is perfectly natural an OK. Nobody gets mad at a tiger for eating gazelles.

Third, given that we are all just curious animated accidents of physics resulting from a Godless big bang + time + random events, and given that everything will ultimately end in a dead universe at absolute zero, there's no point to anything. No matter what legacy we think we are creating, there will be nobody left to remember it or benefit from it eventually. If we want to wipe out a species for fun, or just for the hell of it, we should; It does not matter in the long run and every species will eventually die off anyway no matter what we do.

If you disagree, you hate science.

trees

[Anonymous Coward]

My bit of land in east Texas is heavily treed. Gives the cats somewhere to retreat to. The coyotes still get them sometimes but then people go get more from the shelter. Before they started spaying and neutering them they held their own, but only just. No snakes or mice to be found. Cats kill both of them. Trees also mean more raccoons though. So you trade mice and snakes for 30lb balls of teeth and claws that are smart as a 7 year old and can open doors and climb walls... Also they carry a parasite that eats your brain. Honestly. I think I dislike about %60 of the remaining animals.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Focusing on the positive side, since the Black Plague wiped out 30 to 60% off ALL humans in such a short time frame, I'd say we wiping out 60% of animals since the dawn of civilization is still pretty good for such invasive species we are.