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Comment by ah765 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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Humanity has already wiped out 60% of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles since 1970.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity...

Read the article and you'll see that it's a decline in population, not in number of species.

Losing 50% of species _is_ the loss of biodiversity by definition. Just about every species plays a vital role in maintaining a habitat and losing 1 or several has consequences that are hard to predict and could mean a drastic reduction in the ability to grow food and have clean water.

What incentives do scientists have to lie about this? Why is everyone so skeptical about warnings that scientists around the world agree on and have been saying for 20 or 30 years? It's maddening

Losing 50% of species sounds bad, but much less bad than losing 50% of all mammal populations. Are we just talking about losing ten thousand obscure rodent species? I actually have no real idea what this value means, which makes me inclined to ignore it. A scientific source would be great, but the article doesn't provide any.

If we're talking about "human extinction" level threats, it would probably be from massive famines, and "half of the animals are now dead" seems much more likely to cause that than "half of animal species are extinct". What is the actual percentage estimate that we would go extinct from this, and when? It matters when comparing it to nuclear war or AI.

The incentive for scientists to lie seems obvious to me. They want people to support and fund their efforts (possibly for noble reasons, possibly because they just want more money). They think that simple facts aren't good enough, so they use fear tactics like "we could face our own extinction" hoping that will convince us instead.

Also, the authors of these articles and the people interviewed are not necessarily the scientists either. Given that sources aren't provided, I have no idea what the scientists are actually saying.

Most animal species are insects, so probably that is the majority of animal species that will die out. Insects and grubs, worms etc though can be very important to the local ecology. Loss of some could damage human food production that relies on them in sometimes very indirect ways.

There have been a several recent studies showing massive loss of insect populations: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarm...

But insects are also a foundation of natural food webs; we can't lose lots of insects without losing lots of other animals too. And as a couple of us have posted already, a recent study showed that we've reduced the populations of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles by 60% since 1970: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity...

I don't believe the GP disagrees that losing 50% of species is loss of biodiversity. But the OP might give the impression that is about losing 50% of animals, which seems more apocalyptic.

"What incentives do scientists have to lie about this?"

They might believe they are lying "in good faith". Exagerating the impact so people take action. Basically treating the rest of the world as children.

And this, like the GP, I too consider counter productive.

And a possible answer to "why is everyone so skeptical...". Because scientists (if taken as a homogenous group) are lying to us (as a group of lay people) for some time. Sometimes this lies are just exagerations made with good intentions, sometimes from bribed "scientists" like the ones who defended the tobacco industry, sometimes the scientists were just wrong but acted like they were 100% certain of their results (not technically a lie, but has the same impact on general population).

Good news! We haven’t lost 50% of animals. We’ve lost 60%. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity...

Repeated hysterical predictions of human-level catastrophic events are the single largest impediment that environmental causes face -- because when they repeatedly fail to come true people update their priors accordingly.

The worst part is that the people making the exaggerations think they are helping.

There are billions of people on the planet and there's no way to stop some of them from being hysterical. It would be a shame to fail as a species because we didn't like the way the message was delivered.

If only a few fringe outliers were crying wolf, I would not be so concerned about the credibility issue.

It’s not an over exaggeration or fear based. We have overwhelmingly evidence now about weather forecasting and global temperatures WILL increase. We have to keep that under 2 deg C. When wet bulb temperatures start peaking first in places like India and then Asia, people will go to sleep and die before they can wake up because of the heat. Sea levels will rise and is getting warmed up. Data is overwhelming. This IS urgent.

I too am sick of these exaggerations, it makes it hard to separate real science from crackpots. Two years before we face human extinction? Why did the reporter ask zero questions about “how”? Likely they got the quote they wanted for a clickbait headline, smirked, and carried on.

So, how many times do you think earths' ecosystem can lose 70% of it's insect biomass before it collapses completely?

Consider the two years a 'final notice period' in which we actually can change the course of the cruiser. Until we start facing the dire consequences a bit more time might pass, but it will have been to late for a long time.

It's only a matter of time until the results of our predatory overcultivation catch up with us. Do you sincerely doubt that? How much more punishment can our habitat suffer before in finally collapses?

I don’t doubt any of it, but I despise the hyperbole.

> "50% of species" rather than "50% of population", which is a very big difference

Loss of 50% of species is really bad. Population growth and climate change will only accelerate the loss.

While I would welcome a decrease of the population of farm animals by 50% or 75%.

https://xkcd.com/1338/

Besides, humans will never die out because of lack of "resources".

Instead:

- either the sun kills all intelligent life on Earth maybe in 600 million years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth

- or ET or AI kill us.

- or some huge object from outer space collides with Earth.

IMO transhumanism will end the biological evolution of humans. Maybe as soon as this century.

You're being downvoted. I too voted this post of yours down, let me explain why; sheer hubris.

> Besides, humans will never die out because of lack of "resources".

We are in grave danger of dying out; because of lack resources and because of our mind-boggling stupidity, sheer arrogance and our inability to deal with our tribal instincts.

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, no-exceptions 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. Maybe

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If we leave enough prey species alive, that is. Otherwise that will be the end of mankind's short stint.

Thanks for the clarification. I guess you did not downvote me. As always, reasonable interesting people do not downvote so easily.

> We are in grave danger of dying out;

I do not think so and there is no reason at all to think so.

Again: https://xkcd.com/

Again: I welcome a reduction of farm animals by 50% or 75%.

> because of lack resources

What resources of and on Earth are scarce in your opinion ?

Depending on skills and technology, they are not scarce for a world population of 10 billion humans or they are scarce with a world population of 1 human.

> and because of our mind-boggling stupidity, sheer arrogance and our inability to deal with our tribal instincts.

Yes, most societies worldwide are very insane. Obvious proofs: Wars and military and poverty in 2018. All elected and re-elected US presidents being evil mass murdering war criminals.

IMO, humanity is not so insane that humanity will die out. If people became vegan and current morality and practices and technology improved we could live in a biological paradise even with 10 billion people.

Improvements like cooperation instead of competition, waste treatment, recycling, no fossil fuel, no insane individual commuting every day because of flexibility, no insane transport of products, less waste of time and energy for needless production,...

I live in Belgium.

Do Belgians need butter from Ireland ? No.

Do Belgians need milk products transported around Europe ? No.

I studied agriculture at university so I know a little more than the average arrogant angry downvoter.

And I am in favor of transhumanism (e.g. machine body parts) in case somebody might read my previous comment in the future.

The problem is not of a technical nature, but of a political/social one.

> Depending on skills and technology, they are not scarce for a world population of 10 billion humans or they are scarce with a world population of 1 human.

This is very true. If organized properly we could very easily feed the 7.7 billion people that live on earth today. We could easily feed the 11 billion people that are expected to exist in about 50 years or so on earth. I do not doubt that the technological hurdles are gigantic, but the could be overcome.

Alas, I don't see that happening. Not because of the technological difficulty, but because of human stupidity or shortsightedness, our tribal instincts and the tendency towards reckless acquisition of resources that allowed our ancestors to become the dominant species on this planet in the first place.

You see, the problem is not our abilities to change the environment. The problem is our inability to change ourselves.

/If/ we all went vegan, /if/ we stopped needles, wasteful wars, /if/ we stopped consuming more than we need, /if/ ...

... then we could make it. But we don't change our behavior. We are still greedy little apes that are driven to resource acquisition to improve our social status in order to have higher reproductive success. We are reproduction machines, nothing that is changed by a few decades of wealth in some parts on earth.

It is this inability to overcome our biological imperatives that will doom us, because they prevent us from recognizing the foreigner as our sibling. And so we compete for resources, even though we've already so many resources that we die from over saturation.

So, unless all the peoples around the world start working together very soon to combat climate change, mitigate species and biomass loss, reduce the consumption of resources to a degree our planet can actually provide, I don't see how the human species will be able to survive.

It's not that we couldn't do it. It's that we're not willing to pay the cost in the /now/ to be able to survive in the /future/.

First: I had missed the part of your previous reply where you wrote that you too had downvoted my comment because of "my hubris". Unfortunately I read and replied too quickly because I had to leave. Now it is too late to correct my reply.

Second: Fortunately only few people need to introduce or enforce change to make big changes for all. Modern societies would have never happened if change was not imposed by a few on all.

Unfortunately climate change is a bad problem because it is also a political problem because appropriate technology might not be available and imposed soon enough. Politics are determined by the stupid ignorant democratic majority. Even in dictatorships like China because a dictatorship must be tolerated by the democratic majority.

Fortunately, the stupid ignorant democratic majority could die and leave the surviving elite (not a money based elite of billionaires) with a better society. Natural evolution.

IMO, relatively few humans will die because of climate change but many more other species will die out.

https://theconversation.com/capitalism-is-killing-the-worlds...

> One tweet, posted in response to the WWF publication, retorted that “we are a virus with shoes”, an attitude that hints at growing public apathy.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/google-deepmind-founder...

> "Either we need an exponential improvement in human behavior — less selfishness, less short-termism, more collaboration, more generosity — or we need an exponential improvement in technology."

> "If you look at current geopolitics, I don't think we're going to be getting an exponential improvement in human behavior any time soon."

> "That's why we need a quantum leap in technology like AI."

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