Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major report finds

Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by uxcolumbo on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @07:06AM (#18335392)

> I'm afraid the problem will fix itself soon enough. WW3 could be around the corner according to the people behind the Doomsday Clock[...]

I wouldn't call WW3 a fix (short term anyway).

Even a small nuclear exchange would have devastating ecological consequences [0]

[0] "Radioactive fallout from these weapons’ debris clouds would reach the stratosphere, where it would travel worldwide, potentially contaminating crops and livestock as well as causing radiation sickness and cancer directly. Later, this fallout would cause genetic mutations in plants, animals and human beings, as it has in the vicinity of the Chernobyl nuclear accident."

From: https://medium.com/freeman-spogli-institute-for-internationa...

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by travisoneill1 on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @08:11AM (#18335743)

This has been tested and disproven by the very large nuclear exchanges that have already taken place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=856fWEltiXo

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by code_duck on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @07:36AM (#18335539)

I think the idea is that the massive depopulation caused by what you describe would function as a ‘fix’.

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by pvaldes on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @08:27AM (#18335837)

A fix or an end. It is said that without enough population to watch and repair the current nuclear systems, the problem would quickly scalate in a few years when nuclear plants in the planet would deteriorate, get out of control and explode one after one.

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by CalRobert on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @08:38AM (#18335921)

That would be devastating for individual organisms, but what would the large scale ecological impact be? Chernobyl is home to quite a bit of wildlife as I understand it.

Also, if we're talking about a world after the exchange of thousands of ICBM's I'm not sure how much relative impact the melting down of the world's nuclear power plants would have.

The problem has been considered before, though probably as a general safety issue rather than trying not to further irradiate a barren world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by code_duck on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @12:17PM (#18338219)

Wildlife thrive near Chernobyl because normal human activity is more destructive than that radiological disaster has been.

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by pvaldes on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @12:26PM (#18338349)

And because there is a replacement outside. Chernobil is acting as a sink for some species with individuals inside being killed faster but replaced with immigrants constantly.

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by code_duck on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @10:28PM (#18342897)

I thought studies said that mortality wasn’t significantly increased, though some deformities were?

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by drb91 on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @07:35AM (#18335529)

Dark. I can see the immediate consequences would be atrocious. How would nuclear fallout affect wider gene pools and extinction rates? I’ve always envisioned the “apocalyptic” scenario to be a nuclear winter. Is that accurate?

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Re:Humanity has wiped out 60% of animals since 1970, major r... by deialtrous on Tuesday October 30, 2018 @10:16AM (#18336630)

The fallout myth isn't true. And chernobyl is a perfect example. It caused the accidental creation of a huge nature preserve where species thought to be locally extinct are now thriving. Most wild animals don't live long enough for the slightly increased cancer rates to matter. The lack of humans destroying everything makes a huge difference on the other hand.

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