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Current Biology has an article (open access, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.08.049) about the extent of wilderness areas around the world (except Antarctica). The authors found a decrease of 9.6% in the extent of those areas in the 2010s, as compared to the early 1990s.
For 3 of the 14 biomes (kinds of ecosystems)—"Tropical and Subtropical Coniferous Forests, Mangroves, and Tropical and Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests"—there remain no contiguous areas of at least 10,000 km2, say the authors. However, such large contiguous areas do comprise 82.3% of all wild lands.
They note that
the total stock of terrestrial ecosystem carbon (~1,950 petagrams of [c]arbon (Pg C)) is greater than that of oil (∼173 Pg C), gas (∼383 Pg C), coal (∼446 Pg C), or the atmosphere (∼598 Pg C), and a significant proportion of this carbon is found in the globally significant wilderness areas of the tropics and boreal region.
and recommend legal protection for wild lands as part of efforts against emission of carbon dioxide.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday September 15 2016, @05:27PM
So basically, what you're saying is "There's no problem because me and mine will be fine even if billions of other people die". That's extremely callous of you, if nothing else.
Not to mention the complete and utter lack of concern for all other life on the planet. Human economic activity uber alles!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:38PM
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday September 15 2016, @08:55PM
My convenience has nothing to do with it. I'll likely be gone by the time the worst of this hits. Just somewhat incredulous that a avoidable catastrophe will occur and much that is great and wonderful will be lost forever mostly due to people like yourself, whose response to an impending crisis always seems to be more of the same and faster, cashing in is more important than anything else.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 16 2016, @12:11AM
Just somewhat incredulous that a avoidable catastrophe will occur
Avoidable? How do you propose to avoid it? Aside from whining that there are people who don't agree with you, that is? I at least have a solution that has been shown to work for about a billion people rather than some patter that hasn't even been shown to resemble a solution.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 16 2016, @12:41AM
You having an idea of a solution in your head is far different from an actual improved outcome over the present course of "full profit ahead."
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 16 2016, @01:04AM
You having an idea of a solution in your head is far different from an actual improved outcome over the present course of "full profit ahead."
There's a billion people already living in that "idea of a solution in my head". And "full profit ahead" is an empty slogan. Where's your solution?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 16 2016, @02:25AM
Start with this:
http://5050by2150.wordpress.com [wordpress.com]
and/or this:
https://www.amazon.com/Half-Earth-Our-Planets-Fight-Life/dp/1631490826 [amazon.com]
If significant wild places aren't preserved, your billion people's grandchildren will be eating "meat" grown in vats, breathing mechanically cleansed air, and/or worse fates that seem unlikely today but emerge as a property of a biosphere that's changing as radically today as it did following a major meteor strike in the past.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 16 2016, @02:53PM
If significant wild places aren't preserved, your billion people's grandchildren will be eating "meat" grown in vats, breathing mechanically cleansed air, and/or worse fates that seem unlikely today but emerge as a property of a biosphere that's changing as radically today as it did following a major meteor strike in the past.
They might have to anyway just to preserve that much wilderness. If that much land is taken off the market, the remaining land will have to become more productive, especially with continued population growth in the developing world.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 16 2016, @08:52PM
They might have to anyway just to preserve that much wilderness. If that much land is taken off the market, the remaining land will have to become more productive, especially with continued population growth in the developing world.
Population will have to stop growing, period. If current population growth rates continue for 5000 years, there won't be enough surface area on the planet for people to stand in open air, they'll have to dig into the crust and cool the mantle to make habitable underground space to hold them all. Continue that growth rate for another 5000 years and there's not enough material in the planet's crust to make all the bodies. It clearly has to stop somewhere, and that time is very close, especially if you consider that homo sapiens has taken 50,000 years to get to this stage.
So, given that population will have a cap, eventually, would you rather cap at 10 billion using half the earth and having a functional biosphere on the other half, or go for 20 billion and "fully utilize the resources" with virtual museums that show holograms of what life used to be, but doesn't exist anymore?
I strongly prefer the future that retains as much of the current biosphere as possible - whether my children have 4 kids each, 2 kids each, 1 kid each, or none, I don't think matters nearly as much as whether or not the children of that generation live in a world where the diversity of the biosphere that gave their ancestors life still exists, in reality, and not just as digital images of what used to be.
Choke that biosphere down to 10% of the least desirable surface areas of the planet and you'll be relegating the remaining wild places to the same mockery of existence that the American Indians have - living off of welfare, barely aware of their cultural history, and suffering from significantly increased rates of mental illness; while a few specimens thrive in the new circumstances, putting up casinos and fleecing the tourists.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 16 2016, @10:41PM
Further, treating humanity as something that must be physically be permanently excluded from at least half of Earth's surface is pathological. I don't see good things coming of that outlook in the long term either in terms of humanity's isolation from nature or in its attitude about itself. I think a more passive exclusion of land development and infrastructure will be more than sufficient.
For a relevant example, Yellowstone National Park allows people to go almost anywhere in the park aside from thermal areas aside from a huge list of prohibited activities and behaviors (no scaling the cliffs of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, flying drones above the geysers, or approaching/harassing wildlife) and areas that are prohibited to people at certain times of the year due to bear activity in the spring (the park is fully open by July) which cuts down on the number of bear attacks on people and bear dependency on people as a food source.
So what I've heard is that despite well over four million visitors this year and last, only a low single digit percent travel more than a mile away from a road. That's still a lot of people, mostly concentrated on a few trails too, but it's vastly less than one would expect given just how much of the park there is.
And that brings me to my point here. You don't need pathological rules excluding all people from huge areas of the world in order to keep people out. You just need to make it inconvenient.
Similarly, outright banning extraction of resources is foolish. No human activity is permanent not even the worst run open pit coal mine. But it is reasonable to have expectations that whatever extraction of resources occurs that it be in such a way as to have negligible impact on the ecosystem a reasonable period of time (say two decades, for example) after the work is finished and the area abandoned and that it avoids areas that are considered particularly high value. Sorry, but human society is pretty high value while generic untouched wilderness in a world where half the world is wilderness is not. Manage the human impact not pathologically prevent it altogether.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday September 18 2016, @01:41AM
treating humanity as something that must be physically be permanently excluded from at least half of Earth's surface is pathological.
Unless you're not human. Take a look from the perspective of ANY other species, and don't forget to back out to a timescale of perhaps 1000 years... unless you consider being bred and slaughtered a good thing, we're killing them... all, and quickly.
No human activity is permanent not even the worst run open pit coal mine.
Yep, after 1000 years or so, these kind of things will be just fine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire [wikipedia.org] http://mentalfloss.com/article/52869/5-places-are-still-fire [mentalfloss.com] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2569820/Blaze-rages-coal-smokey-disaster-causes-major-health-risk-entire-town.html [dailymail.co.uk]
Managed human impact is barely effective - exclusion, or near exclusion, is what works in the world at large. As soon as there are rules and regulations and oversight, the rules are broken, the oversight misses it for decades, and the "protected" areas and species are still heavily degraded. Even CITES gets it: the only way to enforce "no take" rules on threatened species is to make products from those species (e.g. ivory) 100% illegal to possess, sell, etc.
Business as usual isn't going to pull the ecosystem out of this dive before it crashes. Thinking needs to change, and faster than it's happening by showing dolphin videos to elementary school kids. Same goes for climate protection, unless the rate of change in attitudes toward carbon emissions accelerate dramatically, all the parks and species protections are going to be for naught.
We can do it, but not with the attitude that "we're doing fine, everything's gonna be alright." Attitudes toward the environment have improved dramatically in the last 50 years, but it's not scare mongering to say that they haven't improved nearly enough.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 18 2016, @11:30AM
Unless you're not human. Take a look from the perspective of ANY other species, and don't forget to back out to a timescale of perhaps 1000 years... unless you consider being bred and slaughtered a good thing, we're killing them... all, and quickly.
So how things be different if the environment were being overloaded by intelligent rats or pigeons? This point of view thing isn't working for me.
Yep, after 1000 years or so, these kind of things will be just fine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire [wikipedia.org] http://mentalfloss.com/article/52869/5-places-are-still-fire [mentalfloss.com] " rel="url2html-12917">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2569820/Blaze-rages-coal-smokey-disaster-causes-major-health-risk-entire-town.html
You do know that's not going to burn forever right? A glacial period will put that right out. In the absence of humanity we just might get it in the next thousand years.
Business as usual isn't going to pull the ecosystem out of this dive before it crashes. Thinking needs to change, and faster than it's happening by showing dolphin videos to elementary school kids. Same goes for climate protection, unless the rate of change in attitudes toward carbon emissions accelerate dramatically, all the parks and species protections are going to be for naught.
Once again, business as usual is working despite your empty claims to the contrary. Peoples' thinking changes when survival is no longer the primary concern and they can afford to care. We're doing that. It probably won't work well enough to save some large animal species that are alive today, but it probably will save all of these large scale biomes discussed.
We can do it, but not with the attitude that "we're doing fine, everything's gonna be alright." Attitudes toward the environment have improved dramatically in the last 50 years, but it's not scare mongering to say that they haven't improved nearly enough.
Of course, we can. And I think we will over the next 50 years. My view is that by 2066, China and India will have joined the developed world with developed world sensibilities towards the environment and credible developed world actions towards reducing pollution and preserving wilderness. The only holdouts at that time will be Africa, who may be the primary polluters of the second half of the 21st Century and they'll be well on their way collectively to developed world status at that point.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday September 19 2016, @01:42PM
My view is that by 2066, China and India will have joined the developed world with developed world sensibilities towards the environment and credible developed world actions towards reducing pollution and preserving wilderness.
My view is: India has added 350 million to their population in the last 50 years, in the 35 years of China's so called "one child" policy, they still added 330 million to their population. Energy consumption per-capita in both of those countries is trending towards U.S. levels, though nowhere near there yet.
There are "bright spots" all around the world, wonderful nature preserved, clean(ish) cities, sustainable communities, but these are rare exceptions and while the world's Billions may aspire toward those goals, the path that brought those communities into being isn't wide enough; the earth isn't physically big enough, and its energy reserves are not large enough to get 10 billion people there over the next 100 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita [wikipedia.org]
Hopefully, the bright spots continue to grow and hold out against the majority of "business as usual" consumption. Unfortunately, in a limited system, they do compete with each other.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 19 2016, @02:24PM
the earth isn't physically big enough, and its energy reserves are not large enough to get 10 billion people there over the next 100 years.
That's true. The Earth is instead about four orders of magnitude bigger than that just due to solar power alone. We're already in the process of getting there.
Hopefully, the bright spots continue to grow and hold out against the majority of "business as usual" consumption. Unfortunately, in a limited system, they do compete with each other.
I think a big part of the problem is that you don't understand what "business as usual" actually is.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:58AM
Lived in Seabrook, TX for a couple of years, right next door to NASA's Mission Control - business as usual is very much in-your-face in that neighborhood, and affects the environment up and down the coast for 100s of miles.
Solar cells neither make, nor dispose of themselves without impacts. If you want to power a city like Hong Kong with solar power, you'll need a radius around the city of miles of panels. I might rather have that than coal fired power, but it's still very impactful to the environment.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 21 2016, @01:18AM
Lived in Seabrook, TX for a couple of years, right next door to NASA's Mission Control - business as usual is very much in-your-face in that neighborhood, and affects the environment up and down the coast for 100s of miles.
So what? It's vastly less in-your-face than it was in the 1960s. This isn't a bit you set.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:35PM
Lived in Seabrook, TX for a couple of years, right next door to NASA's Mission Control - business as usual is very much in-your-face in that neighborhood, and affects the environment up and down the coast for 100s of miles.
So what? It's vastly less in-your-face than it was in the 1960s. This isn't a bit you set.
The affected area has expanded tremendously since the 1960s, especially including offshore activity. And now, in response to the higher cancer and other healthcare problems in the area, they have the "world class" MD Anderson cancer treatment center, in the middle of the gigantic med-center campus. I work in healthcare, and after 25+ years of making devices to diagnose and treat disease, the single best piece of advice I can give anyone regarding healthcare is: don't get sick in the first place. Houston is not a good choice of a place to live if you want to avoid health problems.
The rest of my life I have spent in Florida, watching the coastal cities completely develop the beaches, the agriculture in the center of the state drain the groundwater until sinkholes form in nearby neighborhoods, under roads, and even I-4. Right now, the tomato fields in Sarasota county consume more water than all the people put together, but when the coastal population doubles one more time (as it has been doubling every 10 years or so), that will change. When I was a kid, "saltwater intrusion" where seawater moves into the ground water because the ground water is being removed faster than the rains replace it - was a concern, but not really a problem anywhere. Now, coastal pine forests are dying because of saltwater intrusion, up to several miles inland and getting worse by the year. The big jobs in Florida center around tourism and retirement - lots of hospitality and services, and construction to support it all. Eventually, maybe within 3-4 decades, growth will have to stop in Florida due to simple lack of water. I look at what Florida was 40 years ago, and I look to the highly populated areas of India as a picture of where Florida is going 40 years from now. Many Indians are choosing to emigrate to Florida right now, very few Floridians relocate to India by choice.
As world population continues to increase, more and more of the world will look like today's India, and less like yesterday's Florida. It's not just the usual "change is bad" reaction, yesterday's Florida really was better.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 21 2016, @02:15PM
The affected area has expanded tremendously since the 1960s, especially including offshore activity.
Again, "affected" is not a bit you set. Exposure has massively dropped since the 60s.
And now, in response to the higher cancer and other healthcare problems in the area, they have the "world class" MD Anderson cancer treatment center, in the middle of the gigantic med-center campus.
The number one cause of cancer is not dying of something else first. Death from cancer is not as preventable as death from heart disease, accident, or diabetes.
As world population continues to increase, more and more of the world will look like today's India, and less like yesterday's Florida.
Tomorrow's India won't look like that just like today's India doesn't look like 60s India.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday September 21 2016, @06:45PM
Exposure has massively dropped since the 60s.
Human exposure. If the biggest rigs operating in the 1960s had a major mishap per year, they still wouldn't have come close to the exposure that Deepwater Horizon caused to the ecosystems we can, and especially cannot, see. Oil foam from DWH appeared on ALL Florida beaches, even up into Georgia.
In the 1960s, the solution to pollution was dilution. With the growth of the human population and economy in the last 50 years, and lack of growth in the size of the Earth, dilution isn't cutting it anymore.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday September 21 2016, @11:00PM
Human exposure. If the biggest rigs operating in the 1960s had a major mishap per year, they still wouldn't have come close to the exposure that Deepwater Horizon caused to the ecosystems we can, and especially cannot, see.
Actually, yes they would. For example, the Ixtoc oil spill of 1979 spills 60% as much oil into the Gulf of Mexico as Deepwater Horizon did. Yet somehow we never hear anything about the environmental impact of that spill. I think a large part of the reason we don't see the "exposure" of Deepwater Horizon is because it didn't happen. Further, there's a lot less spills, those spills tend to be smaller when they occur, and they tend to be far better contained which is my point about exposure. And there's almost none of that deliberate dumping of pollutants which occurred way back when.
In the 1960s, the solution to pollution was dilution. With the growth of the human population and economy in the last 50 years, and lack of growth in the size of the Earth, dilution isn't cutting it anymore.
It wasn't working in the 60s either. That's why we fixed it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday September 22 2016, @03:31AM
Stay in a Galveston beach hotel, they've "fixed" their pollution problems: they provide chem-wipes so you can get the tar off your feet after walking on the beach. 1960s solutions, still in use today.
If you believe that industry complies with regulations, you've never spent any time in LaPorte.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 23 2016, @01:35PM
Stay in a Galveston beach hotel, they've "fixed" their pollution problems: they provide chem-wipes so you can get the tar off your feet after walking on the beach. 1960s solutions, still in use today.
If you believe that industry complies with regulations, you've never spent any time in LaPorte.
Because walking on a beach right beside one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world would have been cleaner in the 60s.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 23 2016, @01:58PM
1960s solutions, still in use today.
Because walking on a beach right beside one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world would have been cleaner in the 60s.
No, because the situation hasn't improved since the 1960s, it has only gotten worse.
Go have another cup of coffee.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 23 2016, @02:28PM
No, because the situation hasn't improved since the 1960s, it has only gotten worse.
You keep saying that like it were true.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 23 2016, @04:09PM
No, because the situation hasn't improved since the 1960s, it has only gotten worse.
You keep saying that like it were true.
Lived in Seabrook, TX 2003-2006, it actually got significantly worse during those years.
According to friends who had lived their all their lives (since the 1960s), the big picture (for Southeast Houston) is getting worse. Cancer rates (not people dying of cancer, people contracting cancer in the first 50 years of life), accessibility of clean air and water, compliance of chemical plants with the regulations (more compliant on occasion, then less compliant for long stretches of time).
If you look at a single endeavor: refining 1000 tons of crude oil into gasoline, yes, that process is dramatically improved since the 1960s, much cleaner and safer than it used to be. If you look at the system as a whole, more crude oil is being refined, so much more that the net pollution output (including "accidental spills", "unforeseen problems", "acts of God", etc.) is still climbing, despite the technical gains in per-unit deliberate emissions.
Plain and simple: the beach hotels use more tar-wipes than ever. But the truly insidious part of living near all that isn't having to watch where you step, it's having to breathe the air.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 23 2016, @04:45PM
According to friends who had lived their all their lives (since the 1960s), the big picture (for Southeast Houston) is getting worse. Cancer rates (not people dying of cancer, people contracting cancer in the first 50 years of life), accessibility of clean air and water, compliance of chemical plants with the regulations (more compliant on occasion, then less compliant for long stretches of time).
So why should I believe "friends" over the EPA? And cancer rates are typical enviro-bullshit. Detection of cancer is a particularly weak sauce because we weren't looking for it in the 60s. Once again, people fail to realize that when you look for something, you find it.
I'll note once again everything you say was worse now was worse in the 60s. And notice you're only speaking of the Houston area which will remain uniquely environmentally challenged for some time to come due to its legacy oil and chemicals industry (including some of that 60s era pollution such as groundwater contamination and mercury, sticking around today).
Plain and simple: the beach hotels use more tar-wipes than ever. But the truly insidious part of living near all that isn't having to watch where you step, it's having to breathe the air.
Given that tar-wipes didn't exist in the 60s, that's a very easy thing to achieve.
Now, you're claiming air quality is down which contrary to assertion is the most noticeable improvement. Are we even both on the same planet?
For example, Houston's ozone levels [epa.gov], NOx and volatile organic compounds [google.com] have improved since the 1980s despite considerable growth and continues to show improvement to the present day.
And I think you're being quite dishonest here. Earlier you were speaking of "'bright spots' all around the world" which were "rare exceptions". Now, you're speaking solely of Houston which would be a single dark spot as if it were typical. Well, that's a rare exception too in the developed world.