I stick to my opinion that there is no overpopulation. Population densities are high in a few places, but that’s because people concentrate there instead of “colonizing deserts”. But if you think that there aren’t enough resources for a certain group of people, you will probably agree that this overpopulation will die out. Second thing: IN MY OPINION: the goal is to create / maintain an environment that provides us and our children with healthy and decent living conditions. One means of achieving the goal is to maintain high biodiversity. For the same reason, we should fight global warming, pollution, etc. We cannot kill everything, we do not have this ability (instead of mammals or amphibians think of bacteria, nematodes, extremophiles etc. etc. - it would be hard to kill them all). And why exactly a species and not a subspecies or a genus - this grading is a human invention. Following this line of reasoning If we treat the dog as a subspecies of Canis lupus, we can stop worrying about wild wolves. If the dogs survive, so will the wolves.
I think the worst is land clearing. Ecosystems can adapt to a changing climate, fishing/hunting, introduced species, etc (not saying those are good), but once you pave it over and build a concrete jungle on top then there’s no ecosystem left. It’s basically a blank spot on the map where nothing except rats and pigeons can survive, and why perserving natural land is so important. A heavily degraded environment is still better than no environment at all.
29 July 2021 was Earth Overshoot day this year.
https://www.overshootday.org/about-earth-overshoot-day/
We are too many (I’m a GINK - green no kids)
We take too much from nature and leave too much ‘waste’ and pollution.
Cape Town’s fynbos is perched on a little green corner way down South in Africa. Our biodiversity cannot escape up - Table Mountain is big, but not on that scale. Nor can ‘we’ escape heat and drought by heading even further South … South Atlantic Ocean next stop Antarctica. Inland over the mountains is the Great Karoo which is semi-desert - and threatened with fracking, polluting groundwater.
Exactly (except for the kids - I’ve got three!). But don’t buy stuff. Especially things made far away and are cheap. Buy local - harder in Northern Climates, but frozen is better than imported. Build stuff with wood rather than concrete. Plant forests. Have a garden. Prod politicians to change their minds about Urban sprawl, protecting and enhancing green spaces. I sit here writing this on a computer purchased in 2012, wearing clothing that are several years old (except for my moccasins which I needed because my 20 year old ones finally fell apart). Yes, all this puts the onus on the consumer, but if the demand falls, supplies will hopefully follow suit.
Above all, advocate. I’m as guilty as anyone for not doing that, but if there is a general reluctance to accept change for change sake, then we might have a chance.
for me the biggest problem is pollution of the environment with a gigantic amount of waste, people generate huge amounts of waste, the worst is pollution of the oceans, this is terrible, unacceptable
I will add: learn to repair things, machines and electronics. Today, many things are designed this way so that they break down after a few years, just to get us to buy a new one. Increasing the demand for durable things will definitely help. Why bulid stuff from wood not concrete?
I agree with you on overpopulation. Half of humanity lives in cities anyway. And no, we will not eliminate ‘nature’, but humans will inherit a place where children cannot be healthy and live decently. “Life” will survive, but we will likely start from zero, invertebrates that cannot be killed, perhaps some vertebrates that have evolved to live on our garbage and toxins. As Stephen Jay Gould postulated in “Wonderful Life”, if we replay the tape of evolution, it there any guarantee that humans will even come into being? We still have the chance to stabilise things, and I believe that we should work towards that.
I wrote my reply below before I read your latest post, and again, I cannot disagree.
Due to timing I Can’t edit the poll so it would fall under “other”.
Changed part of the main title to “Biggest human related treats to biodiversity”
I don’t get why you focused so much on species, I can just said taxa, dogs are not subspecies and even if they were this example doesn’t show anything as I never said anything about non-species taxa not being valuable.
Cities and their building is one of the main reasons all other problems are happening, there wouldn’t be as much pollution without as many people as we have now, people are not ready to deal with that, in some utopia numbers wouldn’t matter, but in real life society is not as advanced to do anything with it.
Biodiversity has a right to exist and be protected independently from the services it offers to us, as a form of natural and cultural heritage to preserve for the future.
‘colonising deserts’ as @nemo10000 suggested, would add an additional layer of destroying delicate and diverse habitat in favour of … even more people, needing desalinated sea or ground water.
@fffffffff That’s the point. In real life taxon don’t matter so much, only individuals. Taxa is a tool to describe biodiveristy, species subspecies etc., are just models. thus we can divide organisms into species, subspecies, races, forms and varieties, etc. etc, but if we want to protect taxa, we will always miss something, so when thinking about protection, I think about a space where life can develop freely, and not about saving species that cannot adapt. Moreover, if one species goes extinct, a new species will emerge in the empty ecological niche. Therefore, the goal as you wrote “not to kill species / taxa” is not for me.
@dianastuder I never said it should be done. The point is, people like to be crowded and there is a free place.
Some of you are writing here about how much people are pests and that it would be best if there were fewer of us (the forced castration of Uighurs in China is pro-environmental in this regard). The only real view of environmental protection is anthropocentrism. What @F.S wrote sounds nice, but anyone can say “No It hasn’t” and the discussion is over. Try to say to someone “Hey you should die as soon as possible and not have children because in 150 years there will be no forests in the Amazon” it doesn’t seem to appeal to anyone. But if you say, “Hey, take care of the environment, thanks to that your children will have a better life”, then a mature person is unlikely to answer, “So what?”
It may be not for you, but you answered to my point of view which this topic is about, telling what we all think, and I shouldn’t prove what I think is right or wrong, it’s my own opinion.
Assuming that I’m suggesting people should die young and childless because I see inherent value in nature conservation is a pretty big stretch, is it not?
habitat loss unless you can wrap that under ‘colonialism’
That is linear neo-Darwinian thinking, and does not reflect the messiness of life. In this discussion, nothing has emerged to fill the niche vacated by the Parakeets:
Carolina Parakeet; are non-native parakeets filling this niche? - Nature Talk - iNaturalist Community Forum
In reality, humans have no idea what will happen if species go extinct. If the clearing of rainforests stops today, and the agricultural land left alone, what would re-inhabit that land?
While I can see your points, I do not think humans have to moral right to destroy habitats and biodiversity just because we want big houses with pools and nice big lawns. Especially since we have a chance to halt and regroup. Especially in the rich world - the environmental impact of a subsistence farm in a poor nation is minimal compared to the acquisitive consumption in rich nations.
well, i would argue that niche no longer exists anyway
Agree on that. The niche was basically eliminated by humans.