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Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future

posted by martyb on Saturday January 23 2021, @08:31AM   

t-3 writes:

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)

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Original Submission

• Re:Skeptical (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 25 2021, @06:18AM

  by khallow (3766) on Monday January 25 2021, @06:18AM (#1104628) Journal

  The areas affected by the 1988 Yellowstone fires

  Fires started by what?

  Multiple causes [wikipedia.org], some man-caused like someone dropping a cigarette into combustible materials, abandoned campfire, or power lines. And natural - lightning strikes. There were 250 identifiable fire starts in that year in or near Yellowstone.

  And how long have the wolves been allowed back into Yellowstone? Have they reached pre-Lewis and Clarke levels of population even now? Predators very much influence the species mix of forests. Without over-grazing by "cute cuddly" deer, what would regrow in the lodge pole pine forests after the next fire?

  Lodge pole pines. The trees are well optimized for spreading through fire.

  Counting Alaska now, are we? Interior Alaska, while more habitable for humans than Antarctica, is still clearly not the most representative collection of "cradle of humanity" species.

  Since when has "cradle of humanity" species been at all relevant to this discussion?

  And 500 years is nonsense. There's huge swaths of the US forest that never had old growth forest of that age in the first place, because the forests burn down every few decades naturally, even without humans of any sort present.

  In the South East forests were fire adapted. They would burn every few years at times, but the old growth trees would survive those fires. The 20 acres we owned north of Arcadia Florida was forested with old growth pine until the 1890s, then they built a sawmill 6 miles downriver, then they cut and floated the logs to the sawmill (some logs sank and were recovered by our neighbors in the 1980s, sold for thousands of dollars a piece), those that floated to the sawmill were used to build a small town, which burned down in the early 1900s. The area has been "fire controlled" since then and is regrown with non-fire adapted oaks which will, as soon as the fire department quits responding, burn down after then next drought+lightning storm. Fire adapted old growth pines would live hundreds of years, 500 was not unusual, until the 1890s.

  So there was old forest in the US? Who knew?
  
  I don't think that's relevant.

  And what's supposed to be the big deal with "F that landscape" for a 1000 years. The ecosystem doesn't care.

  Doesn't it? Care to comment on what has happened to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico around Deepwater Horizon?

  Bunch of oil entered the ecosystem. Sounds like it's in the process of leaving the ecosystem though those natural systems that don't care. I certain don't expect it to stick around for a thousand years, given that the gulf has a lot of oil enter the ecosystem naturally. If oil wasn't being digested or buried, there'd be a vast amount of it in the gulf depths already.

  Parent