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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 28 2016, @05:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-needs-'em? dept.

In October, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) released its biennial Living Planet Report, detailing the state of the planet and its implications for humans and wildlife. The report warned that two-thirds of global wildlife populations could be gone by 2020 if we don't change our environmentally damaging practices.

At the Singularity University New Zealand (SUNZ) Summit we met up with Dr Amy Fletcher, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Canterbury, who spoke on the topic of public policy and exponential technology at the Summit. As part of our regular "One Big Question [OBQ]" series we asked her whether we should consider bioengineering animals that could live in the world we're creating, rather than die in the one we're destroying?

That sort of relates to the whole de-extinction debate, and again, I would pay money to see a woolly mammoth. But I do take the point that the world of the woolly mammoth is gone, whether we like it or not, same with the moa – I mean this comes up a lot in criticisms of the bring back the moa project. You've got to have huge swathes of undeveloped space - maybe we still have that, but we don't have as much as we did in the 16th century.

I guess it comes back to not making the perfect the enemy of the good. Working in conservation, extinction issues like I do, I meet a lot of people who are deeply opposed, actively opposed, say to zoos. I think in an imperfect world, I'd rather have animals in a well run and ethical zoo than not have them at all. But I do have colleagues in the animal rights movement who say, if we don't value them enough to let them live in their natural environment, then we should pay the price of having them go. It's sort of that same thing, I mean, if the alternative to living in a world of simply humans, rats, cockroaches and pigeons is bioengineering animals, I would have to say, alright yeah, we're going to have to do that.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday December 28 2016, @09:40AM

    by bradley13 (3053) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @09:40AM (#446605) Homepage Journal

    There's really no environmental problem killing the animals. Bio-engineering isn't the answer, because that's not really the question. The fundamental problem affecting wildlife is much simpler:

    There are too many people.

    If we want to ensure the survival of wildlife, we would designate large areas of the planet as "off limits" to people, except possible for short sightseeing visits. However, this does not work. Just to cite the most obvious example: the slash-and-burn agriculture that is encroaching on the Amazon [nasa.gov]. The people doing this are people without much choice - they're uneducated, subsistence-level farmers who don't have anywhere else to go.

    Or take Africa. Once of the few things that Western aid has accomplished is a major reduction in infant mortality [worldbank.org]. Gee, that's great and all, but in the absence of other societal changes, it means that African populations are exploding. This well-meant aid will result in an unending series of further disasters - war, hunger, disease - and at the same time, destroy Africa's wildlife.

    In order to find useful answers, we must ask the right questions. And the most important question of all is: how can we limit the human population?

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bootsy on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:32PM

    by bootsy (3440) on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:32PM (#446666)

    The only proven way to limit the birth rate is to increase female literacy. We need to educate the world's young girls so they don't put up with being brood mares and only have children if they want them and can afford them.

    When the UN looked into this it was the only link they could find between lower birth rates and any other program that was in place.

    If you remove immigration then Europe's population has been shrinking for a long time.

    It would probably also help if the Roman Catholic church had a more pragmatic view on contraception.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday December 28 2016, @02:47PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 28 2016, @02:47PM (#446700) Journal

      The only proven way to limit the birth rate is to increase female literacy.

      Yeap, spot on. With higher education, the chances of manifestations of feminism are higher. Eventually, the society will ethically, morally and politically (correct) de-nut the male population (if you don't believe me, ask runaway)

      My only question is: why go with this convoluted way and not denut the males straight on? Not only that is frowned upon by the free market fairy (higher costs and, oh the horror of horrors, socialize them) but you are also making a significant segment of the population unhappy - after all, ignorance is a bliss - one may say education is an action worth to be called unconstitutional.

      A Happy 2017 (I really doubt it, you elected Trump, but it's sorta traditional wish this time of the year).

      (grin)

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @02:50PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @02:50PM (#446703)

        (oh, shit, I forgot to check that box. Time to go to sleep... if only this dam' weather would cool a bit).

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:03PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:03PM (#446710) Journal

        And again, checking that box is mostly pointless since you are about the only poster who signs with "(grin)".

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        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:27PM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:27PM (#446721) Journal

          And again, checking that box is mostly pointless since you are about the only poster who signs with "(grin)".

          Oh, but there is a reason behind the madness of checking that box: this way, the soylents which choose to browse at over 0 will be spared from my exquisite sense of humour on a hot and humid night that followed an atrocious hot and humid day, near the end of a so fine a year 2016 has been.

          But... point taken, I shall try to make my signature more... mmmm... pointful?

          (…g̣ṛịṇ…)

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:06PM (#446716)

      But, but, but . . . what about cultures that state their ultimate goal is to overcome and eradicate the western-world and intolerable freedoms by out-breeding them? Those folks will never allow women to be literate or educated or anything more than chattel slaves, let alone have a say on whether or not to be the "brood mares" for generations of righteous warriors suitably indoctrinated to believe without question that the great Satan of the west and all its peoples must be murdered and the existence of free thought expunged from the face of the earth?

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:56PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:56PM (#446752) Journal

      Actually, TV has been shown to decrease the birthrate even in the absence of female literacy, so it's not the only way, but it one of the more effective ones.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:05PM

    by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:05PM (#446714)

    India comprises .6% of the earth, while housing 20% of its human population, and is one of the most successful countries at protecting its wildlife. There are few places with that much stable biodiversity.

    Clearly population density has nothing to do with the matter.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:32PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:32PM (#446743)

      That is because India's population *is* the wildlife there. If only they would go extinct.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:12PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @04:12PM (#446734)

    human population is currently not the problem. The Stupid is the problem.

  • (Score: 2) by caffeine on Thursday December 29 2016, @12:14AM

    by caffeine (249) on Thursday December 29 2016, @12:14AM (#446902)

    Why do you think population is a problem? It seems we have more than enough water, land, food and energy for everyone if we shared it out.

    Why target African and South American countries? They generally have low population densities and their environmental footprint per capita is also low. Surely Japan, the UK and Netherlands should be the first to be targeted.

    If we really want to fix the problem, let's declare religion a mental illness and develop a vaccine against it. Within a generation, education will increase, wars decrease and world population will start falling.