
Sir David Attenborough makes stark warning about species extinction - makerofspoons
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54118769
======
LostTrackHowM
I've been watching Sir David Attenborough since I was a kid, and I am now
middle aged.

And I've known about species extinction since I was a little kid. They've
happened and keep happening. Little to nothing seems to have done to prevent
them during my lifetime.

I feel powerless and have no idea what to do about it.

I mean things that will actually make a huge difference, not just telling
myself I am making a difference by doing little things like not having a car,
or re-using and recycling.

And pardon me for saying this, but part of me is ever so slightly disappointed
Covid-19 is not a lot more deadly. I am a terrible person.

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
> I mean things that will actually make a huge difference, not just telling
> myself I am making a difference by doing little things like not having a
> car, or re-using and recycling.

I think if we all do more to make a little difference, we'll make a big
difference as a group.

I've been making a focused effort to buy food produced locally. Details on how
this helps here: [https://www.terrapass.com/eat-your-way-to-a-smaller-
carbon-f...](https://www.terrapass.com/eat-your-way-to-a-smaller-carbon-
footprint). Lettuce from across the country costs the same, and isn't as
fresh.

We moved for a better quality of life, and part of that was reducing our
commute. We were able to cut the commute back from 3hrs a day to about 30min a
day per adult, if that. There's a calculator here that can help you figure out
the carbon savings: [https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/household-carbon-
footprint-...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/household-carbon-footprint-
calculator)

When our water heater failed, I did some research and realized the state where
we were living at the time would pay for a replacement tankless combined water
heater and furnace. That saved us about $4k from the cost of the system, plus
it is super efficient so our heating and cooking costs dropped, plus we had
endless hot water for showers.

I realized one day it's like working on legacy software: if you look at it as
a whole, it looks like a completely intractable problem. But if you start
making incremental changes, over time you can change and have an impact.

~~~
anigbrowl
What you describe is a good way of coping with individual anxiety but doesn't
really get us closer to tackling the bigger problem. If this approach was so
great, why isn't it working already? I think you're assuming that everyone
else is embracing optimality and that everyone else sees the mutual benefit in
that. In reality, many people don't care and quite a few find negative
outcomes sufficiently profitable that they're willing or even eager to
sacrifice your future wellbeing for their benefit.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem#Soci...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem#Social_traps)

------
VikingCoder
I was arguing with someone on the internet, and biodiversity became the
arguing point. They ended up flat-out asking me why anyone should care about
biodiversity.

It's such an ingrained assumption inside my head that everyone should
understand the value of biodiversity that I couldn't even answer.

I grew up watching David Attenborough, David Suzuki, and Carl Sagan explaining
the natural world.

I can't imagine how much poorer my life would be, if I hadn't grown up with
that.

And I can't begin to imagine how to explain my world-view to someone who
clearly didn't grow up with them... Other than to sit them down with all those
fantastic series, and hope that they take hold in them.

I mean, like, start by watching "Queen of the Trees," and see how inter-
connected all of that life is:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy86ak2fQJM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy86ak2fQJM)

~~~
evo_9
Some time ago I worked for a small company and one of the owners was a pretty
nice guy, often talked of his mountain home and being near nature versus in
the city. Then one day he mentioned that he had to change the oil in his sons
ATV and always did that at the downhill slope of his properties edge. He would
park the ATV over a small stream and empty the oil directly into the water.

Of course the staff were all furious at hearing this, which he seemed to
enjoy. I asked the other owner if he was serious and he said he 100% was
serious. So I approached the owner dumping the oil why he did this, why he
didn't just empty the oil into a container, etc. Long/short he said it didn't
effect him and couldn't care what any of us hippies though of the practice.

I would say that there is a fundamental difference in the way people are; they
either view things in the long-term and strive to ensure the best for all of
us. The other side of the coin are people that just want what's best for
themselves and maybe their family. They don't care or want to believe such
actions have long term effects on them directly.

~~~
anigbrowl
_Of course the staff were all furious at hearing this, which he seemed to
enjoy._

There's a certain personality type that derives more pleasure from the loss of
another than a gain of their own.

~~~
dredmorbius
"It Is Not Enough to Succeed; One’s Best Friend Must Fail"

Gore Vidal's vversion is well-known: "It is not enough to succeed. Others must
fail."

[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/08/06/succeed-
fail/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/08/06/succeed-fail/)

~~~
darepublic
In a survival of the fittest this makes perfect sense

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shekharshan
The conservationists shared a portion of the revenue from the park with the
adjacent villages. This helped create a symbiotic relationship between the
gorillas and villages.

Not saying that this solution will work with poachers but there is probably a
combination of approaches needed to preserve the biodiversity. One national
park in India has given legal protection to park rangers if they were to kill
to poachers and that has had a dramatic impact on the population of single
horned rhinos. In 2015 park rangers shot dead more poachers than poachers
killing rhinos for Chinese medicine.

------
abeppu
It totally makes sense for someone to try to capture the public attention
about the impacts of climate change and habitat destruction on species most of
don't get to see on the other side of the planet. Those impacts are important,
and worth discussing.

But would you expect it would convince anyone to change their lifestyle or
behavior, given the other evidence that people seem to just accept as the new
normal? The west coast of the US is burning. And when California isn't
burning, Australia is. Chunks of Florida already regularly experience
"nuisance flooding" related to sea level rise, and it's frankly confusing to
me that people are still building stuff in Miami. Rising temperatures have
meant that the ranges of some infectious diseases have expanded in rich
countries (e.g. Lyme disease in parts of Canada, Zika and Dengue in parts of
the US). But most Americans, Canadians, Australians and others haven't
substantially reorganized their lives to stop emissions.

If direct impacts on the lives of people living in rich and powerful countries
doesn't cause people in those places to change their behavior, why would you
expect them to be moved or motivated by threats to pangolins or rhinos?

~~~
runarberg
I live near Seattle and I’m astounded to see people going about their normal
lives while the air they are breathing is literally toxic. It makes me wonder
how much people actually know or care about the problem as they are willing to
sacrifice their lungs in order to ignore it.

This also further solidifies my belief that asking people to change their
lifestyles in ineffective in tackling the climate disaster. Given the choice
people will carry out their normal businesses (even as the world is burning
around them).

What we really need is actual policy that combats this. We need the state to
build the infrastructure and enact restrictions on polluting behavior so
people aren’t given the choice of carrying out our polluting destructive
business.

~~~
c22
What's the alternative? Should everyone on the west coast have dropped what
they were doing and fled over the mountains? Are we supposed to be helping to
put out the fires? Or are you just astounded that we haven't all retreated to
the personal hyperbaric chambers we've all pre-constructed in our respective
bomb shelters?

What have you been doing?

~~~
runarberg
According to airnow.gov:

> People with heart or lung disease, older adults, children and teens: Avoid
> physical activities outdoors.

>

> Everyone else: Avoid strenuous outdoor activities, keep outdoor activities
> short, and consider moving physical activities indoors or rescheduling.

I’ve been staying indoors, and so have many people. You definitely should not
go fishing, golfing, play football in the park, etc. like I’ve been seeing
people doing

------
jelliclesfarm
Restoration of habitat and setting aside half of earth for the rest of the
species would be an easier solution than cloning or Crispr

Human beings procreating responsibly is a major factor in continuing our
species to perpetuity. It should not be for religious, economic, political or
social reasons.

Species extinction occurs because human beings are outbreeding every other
species on earth exploiting all the planet’s resources and keeping it for
themselves.

This is detrimental to our own survival as we are super apex predators. When
an apex predator gets hungry, nothing else can survive. And we are always
hungry and we keep adding hungry mouths.

If we pick quality over quantity, we will have a healthy stock and sufficient
earth resources when the eventual depopulation event occurs. Depopulation is a
mathematical certainty.

We can either control population with responsible procreation and resource
conservation or we can burn all existing and non renewable resources and
perish in a spectacularly tragic and violent way.

The only way to prevent species extinction is to conserve habitat for the
species. Since everything is below us, we have to step aside and make space.
Without habitat, we will perish as a species.

Being the apex predator, it’s like sitting on the top most branch of a tree
and sawing off all the branches. Because apex predators consume everything.
Increase in population is like inviting everyone to come and sit on top of the
tree too.

Hunters and fishermen know this. That’s why most conservation groups seek
hunters and fishermen and NRA support. They donate because they realize the
importance of preservation of habitat.

How do we go about this? By removing population pressure from economic
activities like work and employment and GDP. This can be easily achieved by
automation. Growing high calories, nutritionally dense food to feed the
population and investing in local food security by utilizing modern tech like
hydroponics and vertical farming on marginal land. Figuring out the
environmental cost of replacement rate of human births and helping people gain
resources to justify having children rather be a continual drain by
incentivizing large families.

When resources disappear, civil unrest and war begins. We have always seen
this. Famine and drought have always preceded every major war. From tribes to
the latest Syrian incursion. Even way back, primitive tribes will go to war
with the the neighbours when there is a famine or drought or food runs low.
The men who die remove themselves from the food chain. Women and children are
spared and were always spoils of war. The resources are combined for greater
survivability of species..not a tribe.

The latest upheavals we see and the protests and revolutions in recent memory
have always been due to less resources to distribute amongst a larger
population. Densely populated regions revolt when resources are stretched
thin. We incarcerated criminals when they show a tendency to appropriate
community resources without contributing to the common pot thereby reducing
their ability to be multiplying and replicating vectors of DNA. We did not
allow the sick and the weak to continue sharing the commons.

If we look at the bigger picture unemotionally, what we pride ourselves
with..the genteel fair kind and sociological progress Is what has allowed this
resource restriction.

We can’t let go of that progress. The only way out is automation. And removing
economic incentives for procreation. And resource allocation and distribution
equally by removing speculation over resources that contribute to human
survival.

~~~
FooHentai
>feed the population and investing in local food security by utilizing modern
tech like hydroponics and vertical farming on marginal land.

I think your hearts in the right place but this is misguided. Marginal land
should not be farmed, via any method. Re-wilding marginal lands is one of the
best ways to restore ecological health and diversity on a wide scale.

Hydroponics are also not a silver bullet, the tech has conformed to the hype
curve just as predictably as anything else. You can produce leafy greens, and
even some meat via aquaponics, but not significant calories or staples.

>The only way out is automation.

I know you had a few ‘and’ after this but nevertheless, hard disagree. A major
contributing factor to mankind’s abuse of the natural world is abstraction
from it. We will not solve that by going deeper into the darkness where kids
grow up believing the food that sustains then springs into existence via
inexplicable magic. We need to become closer to nature and the origins of our
food, not further away from it via automation, urbanisation and increasing
specialisation. All of these further the ignorance, misunderstanding, and
abuse of the natural world on which we depend.

Is it most efficient to have more people return to rural environments and
become involved in food production? No. But seeking greatest efficiency is one
of the biggest errors we are committing here - nature is not efficient, it is
broadly stable and able to support great diversity of life, at the cost of
efficiency. We should be seeking to emulate nature in these regards, instead
of attempting to extract and refine the parts of it we believe we need to
maintain our particular version of life.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
I think I understand what you are saying. My reasoning was that right now we
are using good farmland for frou frou crops like lettuce that have a quick
turn around(45-60 days)..they use a lot of fossil fuels, have to transported
long distances and involves labour exploitation for very low
calorie/nutrition. And then strawberries that require the soil to be fumigated
with really nasty stuff like methyl bromate fungicide. These are kind of crops
are better grown in urban spaces indoors and vertically where there is soil
already contaminated and is essentially warehoused.

Using solar, better led lights and maybe hacks like placing them near water
treatment plants etc can be a good optimization of energy and resources that
are other wise underutilized. Further aquaponics that is also fish farming is
even more environmentally friendly as it’s a closed loop system with minimal
inputs.

By marginal lands, I mean abandoned factories and soil contaminated with heavy
metals that is difficult to remediate without a lot of expenses. Growing
highly perishable produce like lettuce and strawberries indoors in these
spaces is a win-win. My 2c.

I dream of little nuclear ‘suitcases’ that can power cities for weeks or
months. Factories that can be run with solar as well as nuclear energy.
Hopefully we will find a way to dispose and dismantle nuclear installations
safely in the future.

Your other point: if we are to emulate nature and get back closer to natural
growth and evolution of civilization as we know it..we could model it around
the Nile valley or the Indus Valley. I think having clusters of small self
sustaining villages with intra trade and further away trading for other wgat
we can’t produce is better. If we can create village clusters networked to
other clusters connected together to bigger and bigger fractal systems of both
tech and environment and wilderness, we can have it all.

In the future, a lot of trade would be services. For small scale
sustainability, we would need automation. This frees up labour force to do
other things. Even a simple adjustment like a 4 day work week or 20 hour
workweek or working remote would have a massive impact on how we consume and
our collective footprints.

------
amai
This video narrated by Sir David Attenborough should be watched by everyone on
our planet:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Puv0Pss33M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Puv0Pss33M)

------
StavrosK
About the two rhinos, do we have the technology to keep genetic material from
animals that are endangered so we can reintroduce them later? I realize the
population would be too much of a monoculture, but maybe it's better than
nothing.

~~~
conception
We do and use it!

SD zoo just made a horse!

[https://www.cbs58.com/news/a-clone-of-the-endangered-
przewal...](https://www.cbs58.com/news/a-clone-of-the-endangered-przewalskis-
horse-is-born-of-dna-saved-for-40-years)

~~~
StavrosK
That's exciting news, thanks!

------
mikelyons
The wildfire smoke has brought that future that we'd feared and daydreamed
(daymared?) about; where we can actually see the posibility and impetus for
living in self-contained bubbles of breathable atmosphere and livable
temperatures.

Now is the time that we are finally transitioning to electric vehicles and
hopefully toward sustainable policies and economies, but has the collective
level of consciousness risen to empower us to meet these challenges?

~~~
solutron
Electric vehicles are just one piece of the solution. We stop the output of
new CO2 emissions for private and commercial transportation. Then we gotta do
agriculture. Then we gotta decentralize the power grid. Then we gotta further
decentralize agriculture again. Then we gotta better manage tens of millions
of acres of hardly traversable terrain that's been fuel loading for a century.
The list goes on and on. We've lost decades of progress by side-tracking
ourselves with complete bs narratives being pumped out of monied interest
groups that prefer things stay they way they are. I hate to be a pessimist but
we might be right and truly fucked at this point.

~~~
animal_spirits
We have to follow the same refactoring strategies we use for programming to
refactor the way the world works

~~~
solutron
Exactly. And nothing's off the table.

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ArkVark
We'll struggle to address this until we get the global population under
control, particularly in the 3rd world where regard for the Environment is
much lower than in the West.

At least in the West, we can phase out beef, coal, and oil; as well as
dramatically limiting immigration (accepting migrants only from other highly
developed countries, deporting all illegal immigrants, and ceasing all
permanent refugee programs) in order to limit overall population growth.

~~~
vharuck
>as well as dramatically limiting immigration (accepting migrants only from
other highly developed countries, deporting all illegal immigrants, and
ceasing all permanent refugee programs) in order to limit overall population
growth.

Those people won't cease to exist. They'll just stay in poorer nations. In
fact, wouldn't accepting them into a wealthy nation reduce the average number
of children they have? And if these nations can drastically reduce the impact
of their citizens, all the more reason to start recruiting migrants.

~~~
ArkVark
The reduced number of potential children is offset by the significantly higher
net increase in emissions from moving from a poor country to a rich country,
and participating in a more CO2-intensive economy.

Unskilled migrants and refugees move to the West for economic reasons.
However, their labor can increasingly be replaced with robots. Additionally,
in Welfare states, their existence is a cost on the rest of society, as well
as increasing demand for finite land and transport infrastructure, thus
worsening quality of life for existing citizens.

With all of that, it would be much more effective to provide free and
universal education, contraception, and abortion for women, which will also
address the underlying cause of mass migration and habitat destruction -
regional human overpopulation.

