
The Noah's Ark Problem (1998) [pdf] - tintinnabula
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/weitzman/files/noahs_ark_problem.pdf
======
squirrelicus
Is it just me or does the biodiversity crises seem a bit blown out of
proportion? I mean, I think it's true that humans are causing faster species
loss than the historical average. But I think it's hard to suggest we're an
historical anomaly in this regard compared to Yellowstones and meteors and
such.

I mean, I know that ecology is very complex and small changes can have big
impact. But the world isn't really much different having lost mammoths and
dodo birds. And if ecosystems do collapse in catastrophic ways, I find it
difficult to believe that the gap wouldn't be filled by other creatures after
the previous distribution of life changed dramatically. There's nothing
particularly balanced or normal or good about the ecology we had yesterday. It
merely is.

Like... If you cut down the Amazon, hypothetically, it's not like that land
will necessarily become a barren lifeless wasteland. Other life will move in
after the culling, right?

I pretty much always get downvoted for these posts where I bounce heterodox
ideas of y'all. And it's totally worth it. I'd like to understand why I don't
understand the biodiversity concern.

WRT that guy who's going to post about the medical breakthroughs from
rainforest specimens... That's cool and all, but why wouldn't we expect a
similar thing to happen with the life that moves in after the hypothetical
clear cutting of the Amazon? After all, such events tend to be catalysts for
punctuated equilibrium which appears to be responsible for much of the
biodiversity we have today.

~~~
fhars
The problem is not so much that we are causing species loss at a higher than
average rate, it‘s more the we are causing species loss at a higher rate than
the end-permian extinction event (which no land animal with an adult body mass
over 25kg survived).

Life will recover from the anthropocene over the next few million or so years
even if we continue business as usual. It will just not be a world I want to
die out in.

~~~
squirrelicus
So that's the jump I don't understand. Why would dramatic decreases in
biodiversity cause any dying off of humans at all?

~~~
DanBC
Because they're caused by changes to the ecosystem, and some of those changes
are going to kill us off.

They also cause further changes to the ecosystem in weird complex feedback
loops, which will also kill us off.

They'll also collapse some food chains which will kill off many humans.

~~~
squirrelicus
What changes and what food chains? Your statement is just false. We don't live
off the wild. We're long past that point, and the developing world is
increasingly past that point.

~~~
DanBC
> We don't live off the wild.

You don't eat fish? You don't eat food that requires pollinators?

~~~
squirrelicus
I think all the fish I eat is farmed... Now I'm curious, because that's a
partial counterpoint. Doesn't defeat the message, but it's certainly a gap.

