A great place to start would be to seriously limit or eliminate pesticides like Roundup. Don't believe the alarmists in Big Ag who will say the world will starve. We overproduce food now, and organic farming techniques, if widely adopted, wouldn't make it impossible to continue to produce enough. The loss of diversity in insects and "weeds" has had a huge impact up the chain.
Getting rid of chemical warfare on soil and in farms will become much easier of farming is automated. Automation in farms works longer than any human labourer. And getting rid of weeds in farms and planting hedgerows and letting at least 30-50 percent of land go back to nature with reforestation and installing grasslands will help with habitat restoration. We have urban indoor farms that can deal with the shortage. A lot can be grown indoors..not all our food tho. Just take inside whatever is possible to be grown indoors! Shorten supply chains. Population needs to be reduced not by punitive methods but by incentivizing smaller families. In the 70s, our population was around 3.5 billion ..now it’s close to 7.5 billion. This is a problem. We accommodated this explosion by getting rid of animals, birds, insects and turning forests into farmlands. Some of this conversion needs to be reversed.
I agree with the big idea of conservation of biodiversity, but it really bothers me when these articles are using what seems like lies and fear tactics to convince me. 2 years? Why is it so urgent? The article doesn't explain. And "By 2050, Africa is expected to lose 50% of its birds and mammals," sounded really implausible to me. I had to do further research to determine that they are probably actually referring to "50% of species" rather than "50% of population", which is a very big difference that seems the opposite of what is implied. In this case, "face our own extinction" seems like a huge overexaggeration.
This kind of deception and disregard for actual facts makes me much less sympathetic to the cause.
Permaculture (Applied Ecology) - we can provide food <i>and CARBON-NEUTRAL fuel</i> for ourselves without wrecking Nature.<p>A "Permie" farm is more productive than any other mode of food production. By setting up ecosystems that consist of a preponderance of human-usable crop species you can grow <i>multiple times</i> the amount of food-per-acre of conventional agriculture (even with GMOs and pesticides, et. al.) After the initial set-up very little labor is required.<p>Permie farms <i>foster</i> biodiversity.<p>"Permaculture Behind `Greening the Desert` with Geoff Lawton" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q41b05ku9U" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q41b05ku9U</a> Salt desert to figs in two years.<p>Toby Hemenway - "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Earth, but Not Civilization" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nLKHYHmPbo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nLKHYHmPbo</a><p>"Alcohol Can Be a Gas!" <a href="http://permaculture.com/" rel="nofollow">http://permaculture.com/</a> Small-scale alcohol fuel production integrated with a Permaculture farm. You can grow your own energy. The economics are totally different from large-scale industrial ethanol production. You can start this in your backyard and be driving your converted car from your own home-grown carbon-neutral solar energy within a few months. Faster if you scavenge feedstock. Farmer Dave used to have an arrangement with a donut shop to ferment their old leftover/scrap dough.
Why would reducing biodiversity cause humans to go extinct? It isn't made clear in the article.<p>Wouldn't it just cause certain creatures to be more dominant?
<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07183-6" rel="nofollow">https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07183-6</a> : this explains about the loss of terrestrial biomass. [..]Numerous studies are revealing that Earth’s remaining wilderness areas are increasingly important buffers against the effects of climate change and other human impacts. But, so far, the contribution of intact ecosystems has not been an explicit target in any international policy framework, such as the United Nations’ Strategic Plan for Biodiversity or the Paris climate agreement.<p>This must change if we are to prevent Earth’s intact ecosystems from disappearing completely.[..]
We can't even stop killing each other because of greed and other stupid reasons, we can't even stop global warming, who's going to stop biodiversity loss and how? It's in the nature of mankind to create but also destroy. Every era of civilization was build on the ashes of the former, and the next will not be different, a lot of people will have to die of violent death for humanity to evolve and come to its senses. we are at the beginning of a climate refugee crisis of proportions never seen before,coming from Southern countries, do people really think it will go smoothly?
Once again the principles of centralization vs decentralization play out in front of us. Decentralization is a strength, centralization is a weakness, in almost everything, from the internet to crops...
Humanity will never go extinct as long as the Earth supports photosynthesis generally. If the ecosystem collapses, we might suffer for a little while, but our technology can overcome any environmental problem. Environmental damage, no matter how severe, is not an <i>existential</i> threat, and hyping it up as so does nobody any favors.<p>That said, environmental damage is expensive, and we should mitigate it. But we should do so with an accurate, not inflated, knowledge of the consequences.
I like to think each living organism as a gigantic living git repository of successful experiments by evolution. No wonder a huge number of human inventions come out of either isolating naturally occurring compounds or mimicking some natural occurring behavior of some organism: plant/animal.<p>Each time we lose an organism, we lose an entire repo of commits made over billions of years.
There is a lot of skepticism and charges of exaggeration about this threat to the planet. Is it ok to make a book recommendation here? <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Sixth-Extinction-Unnatural-History/dp/0805092994" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Sixth-Extinction-Unnatural-History/dp...</a> : Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. And it’s not a new book either. Many people have been warning about this and 2020 is a pivotal year for answers about our survival. Media..as usual..is getting hysterical about it too late and all in unison. But that doesn’t negate the overwhelming evidence that the threats are real.
This has happened many times before in more localized settings. The big difference to our situation is that the pertaining cultures were most likely plain ignorant about the dynamics that lead to their demise.<p>We are lucky that we do have all the knowledge but instead of taking action we constantly bathe ourselves in dystopian fantasies and social media whining (Q.E.D.) without any <i>vision</i> other than what seems like a global death-wish.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Chimpanzee#Environmental_impact_and_extinction_(part_five)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Chimpanzee#Environme...</a>
Honestly, I think it’s too late.<p>It’s not too late technically, we could make changes now that would save us. But it’s far too late politically because people are stubbornly doubling down on the behaviors that are killing us.
What about overpopulation as a factor? The elephant in the room. Every time someone suggest that we are too many, people tend to agree, but when what is suggested is that we should think about how to be less people, everybody halts in horror
I some countries is still a challenge to forbid use of plastic bags on supermarkets and plastic straws. We just keep throwing this disposable stuff out like crazy.
It's incredible how many participants in this topic don't seem to grasp the delicacy of earth's ecosystem and see it as something that is easily replaced or that humans can exist without.<p>Let's not kid around; if the ecosystem of goes the way of the way of the dodo, humans will go along for the ride.<p>You might (or not) have noticed that humans don't exist outside of the ecological system that our plant harbors. We're part of this ecological network, we're fully, totally, non-negotiable dependent on it. Techno-utopian dreams (nightmares, more like it) of being independent of the 'natural' world are not going to save mankind; we're part of 'nature', we exist within nature, there's no existence for humans outside nature. We need an ecosystem that provides us with calories and oxygen. The only ecosystem in existence that is capable of providing that is the very ecosystem we're working tirelessly to dismantle and destroy. So yes; we might die out because of lack of resources. We very probably will.
There's only so much damage that an ecosystem can take. And there are tons of signs that signal that our earthly ecosystem is reaching it's breaking point; - we've lost about a third of the arable land in the last forty years. - we've lost about 30% of bio diversity in the last twenty years. - we've lost almost 75% of insect biomass in the last thirty years.<p>The loss of insects is especially alarming; insects play a major role in all food webs on earth. The disappearance of 75% of insects (biomass, not species) has a catastrophic impact of everything further up the food chain. Yes, including humans.<p>We're currently working non-stop to destroy our ecosystem's capacity to carry animals in the upper food chain. Guess who's on top of that food chain. Yes, us humans.<p>Don't kid yourself; we're currently rushing full-speed ahead towards a full-scale ecosystem collapse. And don't fool yourself on our ability to create and maintain a man-made closed ecosystem as a replacement; we're not able to do that and we probably won't for many, many, many decades to come.<p>The only ecosystem we have to save our collective asses is the one we're currently punishing every day with our overproduction, overconsumption, with our fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides and waste.<p>It's so past high times that we - humans, as a collective - have a hard talk how much longer we want to exist as a 'civilized' species, with global trade, no struggle for survival, boundless capitalism.<p>Because if we keep going, we've got a dozen or so decades left. It's back to hunter gathering for the rest of mankind's existence after that.<p>If we leave enough prey species alive, that is. Otherwise that will be the end of mankind's short stint.
While it would be sad to see so many species dying, i dont think it will affect the survival of humans.<p>If really needed bacterias and plants would be enough for humans to survive. Wouldnt be pleasant though, so we should try our best that it doesnt happen.<p>I just dont see the apocalyptic prophecies coming true.
So precisely who is going to pay for all this, and the reduction in growth it’s going to entail?<p>Markets are levered if not overlevered, and maintenance of biodiversity is going to have both spending costs for the govt and resource extraction reductions (arguable), followed by compliance costs for firms.<p>Sure we save ourselves, but face it, our economic system is a rational system which at the end must put a finite price on a human life. Whether by market price discovery or by fiat, we are going to say, “there’s only this much we can spend”.<p>I’m really curious because I pretty much see a dead rock and humans under domes, in the far future.<p>Is there some other plausible outcome?<p>———-<p>Edit: people are correctly targeting the rational part of markets, but here’s the counter.<p>It’s very rational for business firms to lobby against externalities being priced in. It’s rational for ranchers to cut forests for economic gains. And it’s rational for the many many people who are being propelled up out of poverty to want better food, clothing and power.<p>That guy burning crops in India says “shit, sorry for the bad smoke Delhi. But it costs too much to do anything else. Sucks to be you.”<p>That’s why my point on our economy being levered. It’s not in anyone’s rational interest to halt growth. Every % of global gdp growth is millions of people out of poverty.<p>Which is why the question. Are people really incentivized to bell the cat - to actually price in externalities ?
Terraforming Mars, or maybe just create a habitable satellite is easier than saving the earth. Current economical model fosters growing business, and only government regulation to deal with externality. Growing is intuitive to human activity, but restricting human growth is counter-intuitive.<p>I forget the link, but a lecture video using bacteria growth as a metaphor of human growth creeps me out. Supposed bacteria in a jar growth 2 times for 1 minutes, and the jar will be full in 1 hour. When will the jar be half full? Answer is at 59 minutes. At the time of 58 minutes, only 25% space is used. How many bacteria thinks the jar or the world will be full after 2 minutes?<p>The situation is similar to human, and we still cannot find a way to protect the environment and have economic growth at the same time. Maybe the end of human history is next 2 years but we still think its pretty okay and didn't notice anything unusual. Then maybe finding a new jar is the second best way to deal with it.