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from the it's-only-natural-to-question-authority dept.
Around 80 percent of the land area in Europe is used for settlement, agriculture and forestry. In order to increase yields even further than current levels, exploitation is being intensified. Areas are being consolidated in order to cultivate them more efficiently using larger machines. Pesticides and fertilisers are increasingly being used and a larger number of animals being kept on grazing land. "Such measures increase yield but, overall, they also have negative impacts on biodiversity," says UFZ biologist Dr. Michael Beckmann. "This is because even agricultural areas offer fauna and flora a valuable habitat—which is something that is frequently not sufficiently taken into consideration."
Betteridge's law of headlines says no, but is more intensive farming really crowding out native species more than less intensive farming?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Friday April 12 2019, @10:42PM (11 children)
Obviously, if life had never arose on earth, we'd have a perfectly pristine planet. For some value of "pristine".
But life is messy by its very nature and problems arise. The only reason that e don't see the problems that arise all the time in nature even without man is our amazingly short timeline and that much of what we notice are problems that have already been worked out. (Oxygen catastrophe, Permian extinction, KT impact, etc, etc)
Earth is a work in progress and will be until life dies out and the heat engines of the atmosphere and geosphere run down. Then it'll be pretty boring. For now, get used to having to solve problems. In fact, be glad that we have problems because sterility and heat death are the only things that don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 12 2019, @11:15PM (6 children)
I just want to take a comfortable shit in the morning. Is that too much to ask?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 13 2019, @02:34AM (5 children)
Three words: Heated Toilet Seat.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @05:15AM (1 child)
Yeah, and a taller toilet so I'm not teabaggin' my damn balls!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:03AM
That's a personal preference thing, I'd think. Maybe a taller toilet bowl with an optional, secondary reservoir of clean water for the boys to go swimming in?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday April 13 2019, @04:09PM (1 child)
The Romans had something like this (Roman shared toilets) [thevintagenews.com] , should not be too hard to turn that room into a caldarium ...
Surely that's something the American Empire can improve on, no?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:09PM
Roman shared toilets
With snakes biting your balls off, and the occasional gas explosion? You're better off shitting on the sidewalk...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @04:20PM
Installing a bidet changed my life. I dread having to shit outside of the house, and my TP expenses have been cut by half at least.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Some call me Tim on Saturday April 13 2019, @05:14AM (3 children)
I agree, the fact that humans can't do anything to effect the global climate is a huge reason not to worry about that crap. If the earth gets tired of us it will eradicate us and move on. The entire wealth of the planet could be put into the effort to somehow stop climate change (who are these idiots that think the climate doesn't change?) and nothing would happen.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @10:56AM
fact? you keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
effect? you keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 13 2019, @01:39PM
Ok, evidence as opposed to unsubstantiated facts indicates that we can and do influence the climate through such things as our ability to change the albedo of land on a massive scale (for example, roughly a ninth of all land is used for growing plants which tends to increase the sunlight absorbed by the land) and of course, the green house gases (and their opposite) we've put into the atmosphere.
So it is natural to suppose that since we can change climate, we can similarly resist climate change both man-made and natural, particularly, if the part of the climate we're trying to stabilize is something relatively simple like global mean temperature.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @01:42PM
You're a flat earther.