Planet on 'path to catastrophe' as million species threatened, warns UN report

Discussion in 'Science' started by cerberus, May 7, 2019.

  1. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I agree with you entirely. But it isn't necessarily a feckless intent to harm the environment, it's our various ways of life, and by extension, gross over-population which are the main contributing factors. To elucidate, the bigger and wealthier a population, the more commensurate is the amount of waste it generates? On a microscopic scale, I see it like this - just imagine the amount of waste in the form of packaging that's produced on just one day out of the 365 . . . Christmas day?
     
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  2. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    I have always been opposed to the fervor with which zoologists work to preserve obsolete species. They put GPS trackers on them collect them and put them in zoos. I'm surprised it is a popular notion.
     
  3. tecoyah

    tecoyah Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Humans like animals...some to eat and others to admire.
     
  4. Hoosier8

    Hoosier8 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  5. Moi621

    Moi621 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Conservation seems to have worked for the
    California condor and whale populations.



    However the flip side of reestablishing whale populations off the California coast
    has been starving Sea Lion pups stranding on beaches.
    Didn't use to happen when we rarely saw a gray whale let alone all the
    other species that now visit.

    Suck is "survival of the fittest".
    Sort of like Thumderdome of species and people don't like that.



    The condor was a matter of poisoned condor food (rotting carcasses)
    Lead shot and an unretrieved shot critter or poisoned.



    After the great fires in California, I would love to see a count
    of all those iddy biddy flowers declared endangered making returns.
    Some of our wild seeds need a burn before they germinate.
     
  6. fmw

    fmw Well-Known Member

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    I'm not opposed to conservation activities as long as they are done without compromising the animals' freedom or health. Every image I see of a California condor shows a red tag attached to a wing on each bird. When those birds die out and are replaced by natural born free ones, I will consider it a success. If we leave nature alone, it will seek a level of statis. Our attempts to mess with it often causes more bad than good despite condors and gray whales.
     
  7. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I see it differently - 'what-ifs', 'could-bes' and 'maybes' are the scientific research and experimentation stages, which hopefully - or not, dependent upon their usefulness to us? - will achieve tangible results, and it's the results that matter to the man in the street.
     
  8. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    These species are the canaries in the coal mine - the dying that indicates something serious happened.

    It is a measure of the failure to maintain the environment. It indicates change that will take out other life forms if allowed to continue.

    Obviously, there is natural selection that removes various species. But, that's not the issue.
     
  9. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    A couple years back the Nobel prize in medicine came from basic research on the immune system - finding that a particular protein controls how aggressive our immune system behaves. It can mean the difference between our own healthy cells being attacked and just invaders being attacked.

    There was NO IDEA whether that was useful. It was research on how the human immune system works.

    Today, others have found that research and have used it in various ways. For example, it is a foundation of a whole range of methods of assaulting cancer and some other problems humans have - harnessing our immune systems to do work for us.

    This is a common process, not just in medicine. It happens in physics, chemistry, etc.

    One can NOT limit science funding to research that is somehow known to possibly result in some solution we want. We need those who are working on fundamental research even when there is no idea of how the results may end up being used. It all adds to our understanding of our universe, enabling others to move forward in ways not anticipated.
     
  10. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The Nobel Prize has lost it credibility and has mutated into a meaningless travesty of 'Let's just hand them out to anyone whether they deserve it or not.' ritual.

    "Nobel Peace Prize controversies often reach beyond the academic community. Criticism that have been levelled against some of the awards include allegations that they were politically motivated, premature, or guided by a faulty definition of what constitutes work for peace."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies#Peace
     
  11. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I gave you a description of an incredibly important case of fundamental research.

    All you are doing is whining about the fact that the Nobel folks identified it and gave it an award!!!

    The point is that the fundamental research is something we absolutely DO need to fund.
     
  12. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What 'fundamental research'? Scouring the universe for dead planets? Are you for real??
     
  13. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I gave you an example of fundamental research that others found to make possible an entirely new approach in fighting cancer.

    That fundamental research was purely an investigation of how our immune system is controlled.

    The idea of using that result in fighting cancer (and psoriasis and other cases) came only after those attempting to develop solutions found a way to use that fundamental research.
     
  14. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    WTF does any of that have to do with space exploration? You don't think I classify the field of medicine as a faux science, do you? Sometimes I think you and I speak difference languages.
     
  15. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Again, fundamental research isn't oriented to providing a specific benefit. It's a matter of learning how things work so that others have new tools to solve specific problems.

    Research in space helps understand the limits of our model of physics - which is known to have serious holes. Who knows what the benefit would be if we managed a new advance such as Einstein provided? When Einstein presented his results, nobody had any real idea how it could ever be used. Today, those results are everywhere and are a fundamental tool.

    It also helps understand the issues of human travel off our planet, how gravity affects procreation in plants and animals, in materials science where earth's gravity is a problem, in the hunt for raw materials, etc.

    All of our rocky planetoids show numerous huge impacts from collisions with space objects. Understanding these objects (what they are made of, where they come from, etc.) can lead to better detection and allow for preventative action.

    I could go on. The idea that space exploration is somehow irrelevant just doesn't fly.

    We're funding NASA at the level of 0.5% of our budget, and that includes support for our military and for studying Earth - developing information used by agriculture, weather, climate, sea transport, communications, emergencies, etc. It also includes budget for making this information available to all.
     
  16. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Just forget it Will - your moving the goalposts, and ridiculous non sequiturs, are starting to annoy me. Sometimes they're so bizarre that I wonder if you're taking the piss.
     
  17. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    You asked about benefits of fundamental research.

    If you have an objection, feel free to make it.
     
  18. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm not playing your word games, there are more substantive things I'd rather discuss than bloody 'space waffle'.
     
  19. hudson1955

    hudson1955 Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Destruction of habitats is the number 1 cause of extinction. And destruction of the rain forest a huge reason for climate change and extinction. Managing forests around the world is crucial. The U.S. Stopped managing forests in the west. Causing unmanageable fires. Trash and oil dumps in the ocean have changed the oceans environment. And shipping and cruise ships are making it difficult for ocean mammals that use sonar to navigate and communicate leading to many
     
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  20. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Humans are part of nature you know.

    If other species can't adapt so something in nature they will be replaced by those that can.

    It's the rule of nature, survival of the fittest.
     
  21. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    That doesn't mean it's not an impact on humans when other life dies. The interconnectedness of nature is extreme - and it includes us. Our own bodies are loaded with biota that helps us live.
     
  22. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We are merely another species on this planet, everything we do is natural.

    Impact is irrelevant.

    There is no God, we evolved from the same stuff everything else did.

    Right?

    We have no higher moral standards than the beaver who floods an acre and makes that rare grasshopper go extinct.

    That is the natural law.
     
  23. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Natural law also includes millions of cases of cooperation. We see the requirement for microbiota within our bodies. We see the cooperation between pollinators and plants. We see the life in our soil busily providing nutrients in usable form. Etc, etc. in cases too numerous to itemize.

    We also see what happens when the balance of that cooperation is disrupted.

    The various laws of nature certainly do not protect us from the consequences of our ignorance.
     
  24. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Yes it does.

    We see many species that absolutely thrive with human expansionism, some would even argue it's pertinent for their survival.

    Many bird and rodent species rely on us for sustainability not to mention the micro-organisms that flourish.

    While we may harm some we benefit others and this is true of all species. True that we may due it to a greater degree but that is ultimately irrelevant to the laws of nature.

    We do not exist outside of those laws, we are part of them and just like all other species we will be susceptible, as we have been in the past, to something greater than us that comes along and wipes us out or reduces our population.

    It's the way the natural order works.

    When we run ourselves out of supplies, or destroy our environment, or tap into the wrong thing we shouldn't be tapping into we will suffer for it and another species may take our place.

    All species have something inherent that allows them to survive.

    Some have camouflage, some have hunting techniques, some have the power to adapt or resistance to elements.

    Humans have intelligence.

    But as is often the case, that useful trait can often play a role in the demise of a species as well as help them.

    A pride of lions may be so effective that they overhunt and end up starving themselves.

    Humans may build a bomb that wipes out their population.

    It's all natural.
     
  25. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    None of that addressed the issue that we can make change that leads to worse conditions for humans.

    There are numerous trivial examples - such as pesticide use killing off pollinators. But, life on earth is more complex and interdependant than that, so stuff we do that does not appear to have an immediate detrimental effect on humans can still cost us.

    "Nature" isn't just life forms wiping each other out. It's also life forms learning to work together from deep in the ground, in the seas, on land and in the air.
     

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