Reverse Nature's Decline or There is No Future, UN Says (bbc.com) 120
The United Nations' biodiversity chief says global talks under way in Montreal are the "last chance" to reverse the destruction of the natural world. From a report: "Biodiversity is the foundation of life. Without it, there is no life," Elizabeth Maruma Mrema told BBC Radio 4's Inside Science programme. But she is worried about the amount of work still needed for the 196 countries to reach an agreement. The Global Biodiversity Framework, if agreed, represents fundamental change. It is the nature equivalent of the Paris Agreement, an international treaty to limit global temperature rise and arrest the climate crisis.
"The targets in that [Global Biodiversity Framework] are a roadmap to, by 2030, reverse and halt the loss of biodiversity, which has reached rates unprecedented in the history of humankind" Ms Mrema said. The list of 20 targets includes quantifiable aims, such as a call for 30% of the Earth's land and sea to be conserved through the establishment of protected areas. But it also includes trickier political issues, such as protecting the rights and access of indigenous people to their territories. Indigenous communities are custodians of an estimated 85% of the world's biodiversity -- and where they have rights and access, it is significantly better protected from degradation and damage.
"The targets in that [Global Biodiversity Framework] are a roadmap to, by 2030, reverse and halt the loss of biodiversity, which has reached rates unprecedented in the history of humankind" Ms Mrema said. The list of 20 targets includes quantifiable aims, such as a call for 30% of the Earth's land and sea to be conserved through the establishment of protected areas. But it also includes trickier political issues, such as protecting the rights and access of indigenous people to their territories. Indigenous communities are custodians of an estimated 85% of the world's biodiversity -- and where they have rights and access, it is significantly better protected from degradation and damage.
Yeah, no kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
I got downmodded hard for saying that COP27 was going to be another big jerkoff waste of time as world leaders came together to look busy. Do you know what the single largest group of people was at COP27? Fossil fuel lobbyists [theguardian.com]. They shouldn't even be there. They have literally no place in the discussion of what to do about them, because they literally never operate in good faith.
As long as we pretend that AGW is not an existential threat, there's nothing we can do about it. We will keep making decisions on a profit basis, and fund our own demise day by day, until it is obvious to the dumbest among us that it is too late. And it might already in fact be too late, and we're still arguing about whether we should do anything.
Re:Yeah, no kidding (Score:5, Insightful)
We all perish as individuals.
I will be no more troubled if we perish as a species.
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We all perish as individuals.
I will be no more troubled if we perish as a species.
I don't particularly care about the species, except insofar as I'm a member of it and not a particularly privileged one, so I expect to suffer a lot more than the people causing the problems.
Re: Yeah, no kidding (Score:2)
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We all perish as individuals.
I will be no more troubled if we perish as a species.
Except: We won't.
Those same billionaires will find a suitable place for luxury mansions and a way to keep enough "consumers" alive to feed them no matter what hellish state the planet gets into.
Consumers don't need wildlife or nature, they'll be fine living in plastic and eating junk food forever.
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Those same billionaires will find a suitable place for luxury mansions and a way to keep enough "consumers" alive to feed them no matter what hellish state the planet gets into.
Maybe. The very atmosphere is less hospitable to life than it used to be. You know we're past the point at which people actually get dumber and more anxious due to CO2, right? Everyone is noticeably affected at 1000 ppm, but that doesn't mean there's no effects in the 400s, and some people are more affected than others. The rich are, for the most part, breathing the same air as the rest of us — and not smart enough to maintain systems like that, so they're dependent on staff. And at some point, you h
Re:Yeah, no kidding (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone is noticeably affected at 1000 ppm, but that doesn't mean there's no effects in the 400s, and some people are more affected than others.
Interesting... Particularly given that submarines typically operate with CO2 levels more than twice that, and "Acute Exposure to Low-to-Moderate Carbon Dioxide Levels and Submariner Decision Making" [nih.gov] (Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2018 Jun 1;89(6):520-525. doi: 10.3357/AMHP.5010.2018, Christopher D Rodeheffer, Sarah Chabal, John M Clarke, David M Fothergill) was unable to replicate previously-claimed cognitive impairment at CO2 concentrations as high as 15,000 ppm.
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Curiously, they didn't even try. The older study I found showed impairment with subjects in high CO2 environments for 1.5 hours for three sessions. Presumably this 4.5 hours is supposed to be similar to an office environment. The study you cite has them in the high CO2 environment for 45 minutes. For a realistic submarin
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Maybe. The very atmosphere is less hospitable to life than it used to be. You know we're past the point at which people actually get dumber and more anxious due to CO2, right? Everyone is noticeably affected at 1000 ppm, but that doesn't mean there's no effects in the 400s, and some people are more affected than others.
This is pure hogwash.
https://doi.org/10.3357/amhp.5... [doi.org]
Real studies that inject CO2 rather than subject themselves to hopeless maze of confounding variables by measuring environmental CO2 levels consistently find nothing.
Man up (Score:1)
We all die; it sucks.
However, humanity -- or at least the good parts -- is worth keeping around.
We can always make ourselves better.
No point giving up just because of personal mortality.
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There are in fact very few parts of humanity that is good and worth keeping. Take the last half millennium of Western history - take away the wars (especially the religious wars - literal ones) war industry, slavery, exploitation, destroying the environment, ... and what do you have left? You might say how about technology, industrial revolution! Let
Elitism (Score:1)
We agree here, but without humanity, those parts will not exist.
Yes, the industrial revolution had its horrors, but people now live better lives. Our quest at this point is to figure out how to keep our advances without destroying nature or self-destructing civilization.
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As I say, Humanity has some good stuff, in the Human-centric view.
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I for one am happy to be born and given the priceless gift of life on earth....
You didn't care before you were born, and you won't care after you're dead. Non-existence has a way of being completely void of everything.
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Do you have children or care about other peoples' children. I for one am happy to be born and given the priceless gift of life on earth, and am very troubled about our species future.
You grandkids will almost certainly have a better standard of living than you do unless they are complete fuckups.
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Yep, pretty much. The fossil-criminals should have all been lined against a wall a long time ago to honor their contribution adequately. Instead they are still running the show and all over the planet, bizarre death-cults are bowing to their every whim.
My personal evaluation, taking into account what has been done or not and looking at the present mindset is that this is pretty much over. There may be some pockets of humanity that can survive what is to come, but there will not be any high-tech civilization
Hol' up jes' a second (Score:1)
Not the people whose need for tax revenue to fund entitlements created unrestricted growth?
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Not the people whose need for tax revenue to fund entitlements created unrestricted growth?
That never happened. There is no need for unrestricted growth to fund entitlements, just to tax the rich the same as the rest of us
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Indeed, the need for unrestricted growth comes from the stock market. It enables people to make money in the market without doing any useful work.
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It enables people to make money in the market without doing any useful work.
It also funds my pension plan so I don't have to work until I die. I'm not rich but still kind of like that functionality.
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Pension/retirement plans are really the only legitimate reason to be able to do this, and even for this purpose it's needed in large part to offset the effects of inflation. Economies would work better if making money by owning things was painfully difficult and slow regardless of the amount involved - and pensions wouldn't be affected.
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I'm not arguing for an economy with no growth, I'm arguing for one that doesn't require growth or artificially incentivize it.
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Economy with any kind of growth is long term unsustainable. Think in terms of doubling times.
At 2%/year, doubling time is about 35 years.
At 1%/year, doubling time is about 70 years.
At 0.5%/year, doubling time is about 140 years.
How many times can you double something on a finite world? In a finite universe?
Half of all oil ever consumed has been consumed within the last 30 years. The same goes for many other raw materials (for instance construction sand). How many more doublings will we get?
We got awesome th
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For your consideration:
Top 20% of Americans Will Pay 87% of Income Tax
The problem is the top 1%, who own 27% of the wealth.
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Marginal utility of money is in fact a thing, the top 20% pay more because they can afford to pay more.
Compared to similar developed nations a 37.5% top bracket is actually one of the lower tax rates.
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Yeah, I brought up the 1% because it's punchy, but the disparity between the 1% and the other top 19% is notable, and so is the top .1% and the rest of the 1%, etc. And then there's net worth, and the "what is a stock option worth" debate, and forever on and on.
I propose that one way to address this is to charge a corporate income tax, but also remove the limit on how much a company can write off on compensation, and then go on to tax the top wage earners (percent of a percent types) more. Companies still g
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Yup, although I have heard a lot of economic arguments against a corporate tax in general due to it having a pretty low efficency and instead replacing it with higher income tax brackets with less deductions and rules, and also adjusting capital gains rates or even just doing away with capital gains entirely and everything gets treated as income. Basically I have heard it said the meme of "corporations don't pay taxes" is not totally true but kinda true. The profits of a company always end up in teh hand
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Not the people whose need for tax revenue to fund entitlements created unrestricted growth?
I'm not sure what you said there. You're saying that politicians are bowing to the fossil fuel industry because they need the tax revenue they get from fossil fuels?
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More broadly, the voters (through politicians) created a system dependent on growth because they need funding for entitlements (financial or in-kind gifts directly to citizens).
The more free stuff, the more tax money is needed, therefore the more people are needed.
You might want to check out the subsidies for CO2 emitters. Especially fossil fuels.
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More broadly, the voters (through politicians) created a system dependent on growth because they need funding for entitlements (financial or in-kind gifts directly to citizens).
That's not what the word "entitlements" means. The largest "entitlements" in the US budget are benefits that people are entitled to because they paid for them, such as social security.
If the US really wanted to cut its budget, we could decide to have a military budget that's only as large as the next three nations put together, instead of the next ten. But the people who are interested in cutting the budget don't actually want to look at the budget.
Re:Yeah, no kidding (Score:5, Informative)
My personal evaluation, taking into account what has been done or not and looking at the present mindset is that this is pretty much over. There may be some pockets of humanity that can survive what is to come, but there will not be any high-tech civilization ever again on this planet
I'm not sure what your "personal evaluation" is based on, since I don't see science-based predictions saying this will be the end of civilization.
Things to consider:
1. Climate change due to the greenhouse effect is real. The science is well validated by measurements.
2. Climate change will have bad effects. It's already too late to make the effects zero, but we can, if we take positive actions, reduce the effects.
3. No, it's not the end of the civilization.
For a look at the real world climate change effects, I continue to recommend the IPCC reports: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar4... [www.ipcc.ch]
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Well, all I can add is that you are one of those responsible.
One of those responsible [Re:Yeah, no kidding] (Score:2)
Well, all I can add is that you are one of those responsible.
One of the 7.9 billion people responsible, to be precise, but yes.
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Re:Yeah, no kidding (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no much that can be done as the world population is 8 billion and growing.
There are tons of things that could be done, if we could kick out the pricks profiting from our demise. As long as the destroyers are calling the shots, the only probable outcome is destruction.
The resources are scarce
Which resources? We're using extractive rather than regenerative farming practices not because it has to be that way, but because of greed. I suspect this planet could support significantly more people if we chose a more sustainable development model.
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"The destroyers" are merely reacting to market forces. There are things we could try covertly or by force. For example, eugenics or population control. However, would you publicly support adding compounds to tap water to reduce sperm counts or tweaking vaccines to increase infertility rates?
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I would support free sterilization for anyone who wants it, plus a government pension for anyone who is sterile/infertile, even if they're still working.
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Population is a red herring now, population levels are decoupled from pollution in most countries and most of the damage that got us here was done with less than half of the current population.
It's not a matter or resources being scarce, just a matter of using the wrong resources which happen to be kept artificially scarce for the profit of a few.
Don't worry about population (Score:2)
We're all-in on Simon https://www.genolve.com/design... [genolve.com]
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Those liberals often have later-life conversions to conservatism.
Sure, let them get some money to rub together and they start thinking about protecting it. Nobody is immune to greed, especially not those who came by their money honestly.
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We knew this was going to happen decades ago. It's just human nature to not act until it's too late. 1.5C? We're going to go way over that - somewhere between 3C and 5C.
When wet bulb temperatures go over body temps and you can no longer cool yourself by sweating, and you need to keep your cattle indoors in air conditioning, and your crops wilt under the sun, you're dead - you just don't know it yet.
We vastly overshot permanent human carrying capacity of the planet - now nature will correct it and we'll
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" ... until it is obvious to the dumbest among us that it is too late."
You got that wrong IMHO - experience taught me that only a small group of people are capable of recognizing and admitting their own mistakes, the cynical culprits ones will use their acquired wealth to protect themselves as long as possible, some others will keep lying to themselves, blaming others and creating fantasy stories to protect their ego - that's how the brain is in general wired, look back at the human history - in times of trouble there was always someone else to blame, and any voice of reason w
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There's a sci-fi out there with a scene on their equivalent of a sit-com making fun of this time period. The scene is of a dude that just bought a new laptop and is asked what the first thing was he did with it. "Turned off all that power saving bullshit because fuck the planet. We all gotta die sometime. Just as well do it together!"
That seems to be our plan at the moment. Some of us lesser creatures that the big decision makers barely notice are constantly told to save energy, while they all fly on privat
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Do you know what the single largest group of people was at COP27? Fossil fuel lobbyists. They shouldn't even be there.
LOL. I guess you won't be happy to learn that COP28 next year is in Dubai.
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Future? Irrelevant! Profits NOW! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, the problem is these alert calls are pretty much spot-on, including that there is a dire need to act now and not in 10 or 20 or 30 years. But since the effects (end of civilization, end of the human race) are a few decades to a century or two in the future, this exceeds the capability for understanding of most people. The first posting above is a good indicator of that.
My conclusion is that, as a group, the human race is too dumb to survive long-term. We are at the last decision points now and people are still putting their heads in the sand.
Re:Future? Irrelevant! Profits NOW! (Score:4, Insightful)
Obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2278/ [xkcd.com]
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Spot-on. Unfortunately. Now, if this was some minor problem, like, say a large war or a disease set to kill a few 100M people, the approach currently taken would be fine. Well, sort-of. But this is not a minor problem we are facing.
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... But since the effects (end of civilization, end of the human race) are a few decades to a century or two in the future, this exceeds the capability for understanding of most people.
I suffer from ADHD, so my brain doesn't process awareness of future consequences the way most people's brains supposedly do. What you said is both spot on and eerily similar to my own behaviour vis-a-vis diet, exercise, organization, bill payments, etc. Is it possible that some form of ADHD is a fundamental human trait and simply manifests differently in different individuals and groups?
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Is it possible that some form of ADHD is a fundamental human trait and simply manifests differently in different individuals and groups?
It's possible, but a more likely explanation is that shitheels who don't care if the world burns are spending a lot of money to convince people to vote for their own demise because they can profit in the process. At least, we know that to be true...
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Quite possibly, yes. An interesting comparison. My take is that most non-ADHD people are only functional with regards to shorter-term consequences, but as soon as it is more than a few years or maybe a decade, they become hardcore ADHD and are completely unable to understand anything.
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> I suffer from ADHD, so my brain doesn't process awareness of future consequences the way most people's brains supposedly do
I'd say you're a normal monkey like the rest of us that wants its short term dopamine hits. The distant future will always be an ominous unknown, while the future that quickly becomes the present is more often than not pleasant.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I accept you might have it worse than the average, but worrying about tomorrow's meal while not knowing where my next
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Are you going to pay somebody to not work? (Score:2)
The problem is fighting climate change means stopping the cycle of endless growth. Doesn't mean your quality of life really has to go down
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Yep. There is always the extreme assholes. If we had a reliable way to identify them at birth and then immediately drown them, that would make the overall situation massively better. We would probably not even be in the fix we are in now.
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Bottom line, are you going to pay somebody not to work?
Well, given the alternatives? Yes. I would have no problem with that at all. And, say, if I had an Universal Basic Income that I could reasonably live on, I would probably still do 50% of the work I do now for free and only replace the rest with something else. I do, admittedly, only work about 2.5 days a week and I live pretty decently on that. Sure, I do not have a car, I use public transportation and I do not go on expensive holidays. But when shopping for food, I do not go for "cheap" either and the too
"No Future" (Score:5, Insightful)
Bit of an overreach there. When the Permian Extinction got under way, if life capable of being alarmist had been present they surely would have been shouting from the rooftops, "No future!" Yet... here we are.
It might not be a future that we prefer esthetically, but the world cares not one whit for esthetics. The configuration of the world never returns to a previous state, and to some part of the ecosystem, every previous state was their paradise. Wanting last century's biodiversity back is a nice wish, but it's not reasonable, and it won't return.
As for indigenous stewardship and "ownership", I have no problem with that... provided the "new" (old) custodians don't simply use it as an excuse to continue the practices of the conquerors (and modern means) and simply move the profits to themselves. That would be a shell game.
We should, in fact, try to make our habitats work for us. That would be a more honest approach. But heralding the end of the world doesn't help anybody.
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I don't think anyone is claiming it will be the "end of the world". Life on Earth will surely survive. I don't think anyone thinks that AGW will turn our plant into Mars. The big question is, will human civilization survive?
Mars? No. Venus? Now that's another story. It is our sister planet in so many ways.
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It's not just esthetics. The Blade Runner future we're heading for (and that you seem to be fine with) is one with oceans that are too acidic for most life as we know it, where outdoor farming is somewhere between impractical and impossible, and where semi-natural disasters are more destructive and widespread, leading to increased crises and conflict. Those are problems that should hit home even to a reptilian-brained stonks enthusiast.
Wanting last century's biodiversity back is reasonable and probably stil
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I'll argue that if you're talking about life and the planet, this is primarily esthetics, because life is not in danger of vanishing. Sure, we might see our preferred ocean life fall away, but jellyfish might become dominant. Our farming might become problematic, borderline infeasible, or fail altogether, but the ecosystem will be used in some other manner. The selection process is heartless, but usually trends towards some sort of balance. Not enough rabbits, some wolves starve.
Some areas will undergo dese
Half Earth please (Score:1)
We should consider Half Earth [half-earthproject.org]:
Either that, or go full Linkola [penttilinkola.com] and Kaczynski [archive.org].
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it's weird (Score:2)
it's almost like I need food, water, and oxygen more than I need cryptocurrency.
The answer is easy. (Score:2, Funny)
We need to throw poop on some art. That'll fix things.
queue the "this is just being alarmist" posts (Score:1)
And that's why the human race is fucked in the long term.
Also , people don't get out much.
Do really think that people born and raised in a city know jack shit about how bad things are in the natural world ?
Interestingly the people that _should_ know, for example, hunters and fisherman, don't actually give a fuck either, as long as their little corner of the environment is protected. Otherwise it's just tree hugger nonsense. also there's no elk because of wolves and that's because of environmentalists, and
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the people that _should_ know, for example, hunters and fisherman, don't actually give a fuck either, as long as their little corner of the environment is protected. Otherwise it's just tree hugger nonsense.
They do give a fuck, but most of those people are right-wingers, and their political leaders have been telling them that the idea that AGW is going to affect them is a liberal myth. They think that as long as they conserve stuff by killing animals, nothing else need be done to protect their lifestyle. This is stupid because AGW is already negatively affecting their lifestyle, but there's no shortage of stupid.
Cool Story, Bro (Score:1)
Do you have Russia, China, and India on board?
If so, what tradeoffs were made?
If not, what are you even doing?
And the first step is... (Score:1)
And the first step is... give us money.
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Yes actually.
Because there is no possible way that saving this planet for future generation is gong to be cheap, easy, or convenient.
Doomsayers (Score:2)
"The future" is an expression of time so the future will be there no matter what. It may just not be the future you'd like.
Elon Musk destroyed the climate movement (Score:1, Offtopic)
Back when his name was Anakin he talked about "sustainability" and preventing climate change to sell his cars and obtain subsidies. Now that subsidies benefit competitors and he wants the support of Republicans to keep his plants operating cheaper (less tax burden, union etc.), he will flip on the environmentalists. It's guaranteed that he will soon be calling climate change a hoax. He's got a few billion dollars to spend on taking out key climate activists.
He claims to be moderate but he hasn't said what
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Musk is an asshole billionaire, but what he isn't is a member of the antihumanist, neomalthusian cult the WEF represents the iceberg tip of , and that puts him to... maybe not quite likeable, but definitely OK position.
Last chance! (Score:1)
Going out of business sale. Every fucking year.
In every discussion people are looking for (Score:2)
exceptions.
But it also includes trickier political issues, such as protecting the rights and access of indigenous people to their territories.
There is nothing trickier about this issue. We all need to be part of the solution. It's amazing how we find excuses why some can't participate. Are you protecting biodiversity? Then there is no tricky political issue. If you are not protecting biodiversity then you need to change your ways.
Some of the worst polluters are not part of a global warming solution because it will affect some areas/peoples/region economics/profits/life/excuse.
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Are you protecting biodiversity?
Yes, I am. I eat beef, raised in an environment that resembles the pre Columbian American environment as closely as possible. Basically, just replace buffalo with cattle.
No shortage (Score:2)
Well, there's certainly no shortage of histrionics.
Reverse Our Lack of Funding Or There Is No Future (Score:2)
No future for us, that is. /sarc
Well, well (Score:2)
The only thing that's really a problem here, not so much for climate change reasons as for ones of exhausting available resources, is capitalism, or at least, the present breed of it. However, what the likes of the attendees to COP27 fear most is that their personal fortunes would shrink to being several digits over their fellows in linear, not logarithmic scale.
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Capitalism isn't the problem. Real capitalism has never been tried.
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once the arbiter gets bribed
The existence of a bribeable arbiter means it's some form of socialism. Not real capitalism.
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Feudalism involves the existence of a lord or king to act as arbiter.
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Oh yes, "capitalism" is evil incarnate. It increased global GDP per Capita from $459 to $12,263 in the past 60 years. Grr.
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In short, eating the menu.
Live evolved from a single cell. (Score:2)
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Good, cease maintaining this sadistic joke. (Score:2)
Most of life is devoted to avoiding painful stimuli, call that what we may. The only way to end suffering is to cease making new beings for circumstance to torture. What we refer to as happiness is remarkable for its rarity and short duration.
Humanity must lie to itself, inventing deities and "pie in the sky when you die by and by" to somewhat cope. Most humans are ignorant vicious stupid shaved apes and the sooner this variety of planetary parasite ceases to be the better. Everyone dies so the only way to
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Or Florida, it's already uninhabitable except to mutants.
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We could easily evacuate those areas and viola.
Bassoon? Oboe? Cello?
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