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https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419/full
Humanity is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and, with it, Earth's ability to support complex life. But the mainstream is having difficulty grasping the magnitude of this loss, despite the steady erosion of the fabric of human civilization (Ceballos et al., 2015; IPBES, 2019; Convention on Biological Diversity, 2020; WWF, 2020). While suggested solutions abound (Díaz et al., 2019), the current scale of their implementation does not match the relentless progression of biodiversity loss (Cumming et al., 2006) and other existential threats tied to the continuous expansion of the human enterprise (Rees, 2020). Time delays between ecological deterioration and socio-economic penalties, as with climate disruption for example (IPCC, 2014), impede recognition of the magnitude of the challenge and timely counteraction needed. In addition, disciplinary specialization and insularity encourage unfamiliarity with the complex adaptive systems (Levin, 1999) in which problems and their potential solutions are embedded (Selby, 2006; Brand and Karvonen, 2007). Widespread ignorance of human behavior (Van Bavel et al., 2020) and the incremental nature of socio-political processes that plan and implement solutions further delay effective action (Shanley and López, 2009; King, 2016).
We summarize the state of the natural world in stark form here to help clarify the gravity of the human predicament. We also outline likely future trends in biodiversity decline (Díaz et al., 2019), climate disruption (Ripple et al., 2020), and human consumption and population growth to demonstrate the near certainty that these problems will worsen over the coming decades, with negative impacts for centuries to come. Finally, we discuss the ineffectiveness of current and planned actions that are attempting to address the ominous erosion of Earth's life-support system. Ours is not a call to surrender—we aim to provide leaders with a realistic "cold shower" of the state of the planet that is essential for planning to avoid a ghastly future.
Journal Reference:
Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Paul R. Ehrlich, Andrew Beattie. et al. Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future, Frontiers in Conservation Science [OPEN] (DOI: 10.3389/fcosc.2020.615419)
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Saturday January 23 2021, @06:30PM (37 children)
Another bit of dishonesty here is construing every good thing humanity has done in the worst possible light, such as the "export the pollution" narrative.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 23 2021, @06:37PM (34 children)
:-) Even more dishonest are those who deny it. "Exporting the pollution" is precisely the intention. Out of sight, out of mind
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 23 2021, @07:40PM (32 children)
What's being denied, fusty?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 23 2021, @07:49PM (31 children)
What's being construed?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Saturday January 23 2021, @08:21PM (30 children)
A fantasy which transferring blame for the many ills of the developing world on the developed world. The glaring flaw with that fantasy is that there would be no developing in the developing world without the economic trade with the developed world, the knowledge discovered/created by the developed world, and the developed world as a living example of what can be.
(Score: 0, Troll) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 23 2021, @08:28PM (29 children)
Exporting pollution is a common practice. We go in to colonize and pillage resources and enslave the population, not "develop" anything.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 23 2021, @08:54PM (28 children)
Remember when I spoke [soylentnews.org] of "your glaring tendency to ignore people doing things right". Here it is again. Billions of people wouldn't be living better lives now, if your words were true.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 24 2021, @12:42AM (24 children)
Define better lives. The librul agenda curriculum being taught in our high schools about Vietnam these days paints the French as an exploitative abusive conquering force who destroyed the existing different, but no less noble, Vietnamese civilization and replaced it with little copies of Paris in which the natives did the hard work for little pay and the French lorded over them reaping the benefits. Are the Vietnamese living better lives today after the French "civilized" them? After the U.S. brought them "freedom"? Of course, they were somewhat under China's influence before the French arrived but China wasn't nearly as heavy handed in Vietnam as the French.
If you choose to believe that history. Opinions largely depend on the lens used by the storytellers.
I met a South African in 1989 (in Belgium) while their revolution was going on back home in JoBerg. They had "white man's burden" on them in spades, really thought they were doing the South Africans a huge favor by continuing to rule them, and I think they really believed that. Clearly, the South Africans disagreed - and I don't notice them begging for their white ex rulers to come back in the last 30 years, even if some of their Euro-style cities have turned to shit, by Euro standards.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 25 2021, @06:20AM (23 children)
Nobody bothers continuing propaganda that no one believes.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 25 2021, @12:03PM (22 children)
That's the thing though - these expat South Afrikaners weren't just parroting a line, they really believed in their hearts that they were doing the natives a massive favor by governing how they live. Of course those same people also thought they were doing good work, God's work even, by translating the Billy Graham crusade to French live as it happened.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Monday January 25 2021, @03:50PM (21 children)
Finally, this ties back into the story. Why should we care that some dispossessed researchers, living in their own little bubble, are concerned that we're not buying into some purely imaginary "ghasty future"?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 25 2021, @04:19PM (1 child)
Those elites were living a very middle class lifestyle in Belgium, small apartment, wife and daughter working as nurses. It matters because it's real - weeks of personal contact experience, as opposed to bullshit sociological cooked observations ground up and regurgitated through approved review channels.
Me, personally, I care about and relate to those researchers and the personal experience they gather through their travels and work than some dispossessed crank on the internet, living in a bubble in BFE, pontificating about what the rest of the world should be doing and not doing when they rarely experience anything beyond the propaganda traded back and forth in their local valley.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:51AM
It's a shaggy dog story [wikipedia.org]. And that dog isn't very shaggy!
Being wrong for 50 years indicates that experience isn't sticking, assuming they're getting it in the first place.
Also, why are you continuing to emphasize subjective experiences and feelz over science and knowledge? It's easier for you to just change your experiences and feelz than it is to change actual evidence!
I take it you think there's an optics problem somewhere on my end? Show me the evidence! Not some cool fantasy, bro.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 25 2021, @10:01PM (18 children)
Huh, never took ya for such a liar. I'll be gracious and say you are merely mistaken, and, closed minded, and obtuse, for personal reasons of course...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:41AM (17 children)
Multiple times you've outright dismissed injustices by China and Russia. The typical approaches are either dismissing the injustice as outright propaganda, conflating the injustice with some perceived injustice on the part of the US (which is traditionally called "whataboutism"), or your typical ad hominem attack of accusing the person of lying. For a glaring example of both in the same post, conflating [soylentnews.org] a 2014 staged referendum in the Crimea after its invasion by Russia that rationalized annexation with normal presidential elections in the US.
A brazen display of dishonesty with all the usual components (the accusations of lying come shortly afterward). And of course, imaginary US propaganda is more important than real Russian belligerence (and propaganda, of course).
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @01:51AM (13 children)
:-) You merely exhibit comprehension problems due to your own personal biases and choice to believe propaganda that suits them
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:26AM (4 children)
Long words. I imagine everyone who reads your stuff eventually develops "comprehension problems". What's the common factor?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:49AM (3 children)
98% reelection rate. Clearly you gotta problem
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:35PM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:36PM (1 child)
This is your world. You can't blame me for what you put on the ballot. Tried to warn ya...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @07:03PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:44PM (7 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @04:39PM (6 children)
:-) The truth justifies itself, there's nothing to add. Just remove your blinders
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @09:54PM (5 children)
False. We don't start with an innate understanding of what is true or false. Even you.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @11:11PM (4 children)
Yes, we do. Or do you deny gravity?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @11:16PM (3 children)
What is the truth about gravity? I only have a PhD in mathematical physics, so use short words please.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @11:31PM (2 children)
Its self evidence. Do you deny the existence of mass attraction?
See, it's not that you aren't able to comprehend what I write, you just refuse because of the conflict with your preconceptions and biases. Your mind is a monkey trap of conformity. Learn to let go of your false idols.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 27 2021, @12:14AM (1 child)
What is "mass attraction"? Can't deny something exists when we don't know what it means in the first place.
It's not. I hope you're not going to lecture me on self-evident economics next and how usury fits into all that.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 29 2021, @01:27AM
:-) Wasted effort... Pearls to the swine
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:05AM (2 children)
There's something wrong with the narrative, you lying asshole!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 26 2021, @02:52AM (1 child)
:-) Never took you seriously as one. Still don't really, but you are when you say those things about me. But, you know, knock yerself out...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Tuesday January 26 2021, @12:38PM
In other words, you just lied again either in your accusation "never took ya for such a liar" or now (I'm betting on both). Clean your own bullshit first.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday January 24 2021, @01:04AM (2 children)
:-) If that made any sense, I could respond...
So you stand with the war mongers, I am not surprised. Your head is full of garbage
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 24 2021, @03:15AM
Suggested improvement for the use of headspace.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Sunday January 24 2021, @04:48AM
"War mongers"? That's quite the ass pull.
Sounds like you're projecting hard again.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2021, @09:55PM
Nobody is denying that China is exporting more pollution than widgets. (Except maybe those whose pocket are lined by China.)
China! One of the good guys! A third-world country exempt from the Paris Accord that will cripple the US economy.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday January 24 2021, @04:17PM (1 child)
On the list of Great Human Achievements, I'd put palm oil soap, well, not very high on the list: Humans have had soap for a very very long time, most of it not palm-based, so at best I'd consider that a minor incremental improvement.
And if you think "Well, it must be great, lots of people are buying it", I'm pretty sure that's because they aren't aware of the costs they aren't paying for, e.g. environmental damage.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 25 2021, @06:44PM
Or are they from crops which are growing where there used to be forests before and the forests were cleared but that's fine because white people were doing the clearing and not brown people thousands of miles away?
And that way you can whitewash it and call it "sustainable"?
How about before making such a big fuss about palm oil, the UK, Western European countries and the USA replace their oil crops with forests till they have a higher forest percentage than the forest percentage of the palm oil producing countries? Then they won't look as big hypocrites as they already are.
Go check out the forest percentage of the UK, France, Germany, USA sometime.