1. When you put the onus on the individual, powerful organisations will jump at the opportunity to absolve themselves of blame. Look at recycling and how it was pushed by the plastics lobby or the idea of a “personal carbon footprint” that was pushed by oil companies. There is a fact that these are systemic problems, that require systemic solutions.
2. History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes. Which massive threat to human life has been solved through bottom-up grass roots action (I.e. not protest to drive systemic change)? Look at small pox, the ozone and cfcs, covid, lead pipes, asbestos, etc. these all required huge top down programmes to deliver results.
Powerful organizations already absolved themselves. Check out the headline.
Also, this doesn’t put the onus on individuals. Individuals aren’t responsible for the change, but they are powerful enough to do something.
Doing something doesn’t mean doing everything.
Time and energy are finite resources and taking political action to drive systemic change has proven results (see previous examples).
I don’t know of any transformative movement against mass threat to human life that hasn’t relied on some form of top-down implementation to achieve its aims. Maybe environmental vegetarianism in the west? But that’s hardly been an unqualified success…
Sustained political movements that drive results build upwards through the layers outlined, because that’s how you change culture — and politics is downstream of culture.
We live in a democracy, so if you don’t convince your neighbors first, then politicians will correctly respect the majority’s wishes over yours.
COVID is a great counter example:
The reason that it destroyed our society and has led to years of bitter fighting that’s doing massive damage to public health is precisely because it was authoritarian policy lacking public consensus — and now is likely to destroy many of the institutions that supported it in the backlash, as the public investigates gain of function, PSYOPs, ineffective policy interventions, etc.
But let’s assume that I must choose one thing to focus my energy. Birds are better off with me working on a habitat in my back yard that maybe homes 10 birds over my lifetime, the next 70 years.
That will have a greater impact than any way I can influence top-down implementations.
But fortunately, I can both build a habitat, donate to environmental charities, advocate for improvement, and vote for political parties.
If we look at every issue an article like that wants to point to they all have mostly systemic causes, big Ag pushing factory dairy farms, heavy water subsidies for almond growers on land that otherwise wouldn’t support growing almonds, etc.
I hate that in the name of “conserving the earth” there’s this sort of endless game of shame and blame. Switch from cow milk to almond milk, not good enough. Recycle plastic, oh but you need to be aware of which plastics you’re recycling. You can switch to reusable containers. Oh but don’t buy aluminum, the carbon footprint for producing it is too high.
If we just decided to regulate one thing, like the diesel fuel container ships use, that would have a bigger effect than any of those environmental “tips”.
Our society/species is pretty terrible with problems that involve diffuse responsibility. Part of the problem is that we don't have social technologies equipped to handle diffuse responsibility, and another is that we have social agents who exploit this social bug to make money.
It happens time and again throughout various geographies and histories, Homo Sapiens arrive somewhere and then a ton of species go extinct. Abstract ideas evolve faster than genes, and the evolution of the ability to process such ideas allowed our species to jump to the top of the food chain too fast for the typical checks and balances in nature to take place.
I think the best we can probably do is to continue to invest in education, science and technology. If people (particularly women) are educated and empowered enough, then it seems to drive down birth rates. Science and technology because if we can drive the costs of fixing these issues low enough, then we might be one day be able to “undo” some of the tragedies that we’ll have caused along the way.
And to add to that, virtually every externality of our consumption is invisible at the point of sale, and it requires abstract thinking to even get the idea that there might be something wrong with it. But even with an inquisitive mind finding out the concrete externalities is really difficult when the deed is done and hidden in complex supply chains.
Really our best bet I think is to define minimum untouchable habitat and have the effects of that ripple through the economy on its own (the effects of this will be really unpopular, I fear; wonder how 30 by 30 will turn out). Not sure (hard) technology or education could help us in a way or on a timespan that matters by now, but I guess one needs to do appropriate things on all fronts, fit-for-purpose for the various societies/target groups.
Agreed about driving down the cost of fixing these problems. They’re so complex and universal that there is no simple solution everyone can just vote on.
Does anyone know a good reference that discusses technology in the context of evolution? I think it's less abstract ideas and more technology that evolution can't keep up with. It's likely many other animal species can think abstractly, such as whales. But it is our technology development that surpasess everything, even our own emotional ability and intelligence.
Good luck selling that line when people like Musk are on record saying that it's better for the planet and for humanity to have more kids
it’s more confusing to me given the fact that Musk literally commercialized and made viable the idea of a car that has a true chance to reduce pollution.
https://www.thisoldhouse.com/solar-alternative-energy/review...
https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/solar-panel-s...
In the United States has been an intentional, systemic, and documented propaganda campaign (their term even!) from the 1900s, with an even larger emphasis since the 1930s, to today by the National Association of Manufacturers -- the funders of hayek and Friedman -- to delegitimize any attempt to put any regulation as not only antibuisness, but antifreedom, and it's bullshit. It's to trick people into thinking they aren't just powerless, but being powerless is actually good.
For example, consider what would save more water: 10 million people stopping showering completely or one corporation stopping production of water-intensive crops in a desert.
Much of it is alfalfa which gets exported to foreign cattle farms.
We can very much stop raising these water intensive crops in the desert and affect exactly 0 people’s access to food.
Like let's talk about food, how we get bananas from across the globe. Who the hell needs bananas when you can buy fresh, seasonal fruit from the farmer an hour away? Yeah you might not get to have banana cream pie for Christmas, but you made a new friend (the farmer) had a good time (with your family at the peach orchard) and ate something that didn't need to be coated in poison to survive a f'ing trip through the Panama Canal! (I know I'm pulling this out of my ass – but you get the gist)
Probably the only easy life change individuals can do is not eat meat and not buy ethanol. That would return tons of land to natural uses.
Millions of people have a yard right now, today. Telling them to not do a little something for birds right now, and instead they should feel bad unless they uproot their life this instant to become one micron in what would be at best a generational reurbanization project is the kind of thing that gets people to just tune this stuff out.
The rational choice of an individual, if the “real answer” is disruptive to their life and will take massive state incentives and/or coercion, is to wait for the carrot & stick to actually be produced. So why not put some, idk, whatever is bird friendly in the yard in the meantime?
We don’t need complete wilding or any bad feels, just learn to appreciate the beauty of a wilder native section of a property.
No, I am not an expert but this seems to be the easiest thing to do.
But when I was a kid I never saw hawks, now I can usually spot 5 or 6 when I’m out during the day.
Makes me wonder what the baseline count should be.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Once_And_Future_Wor...
> Researchers report that an insect's ability to find food and a mate is reduced when their antennae are contaminated by particulate matter from industry, transport, bushfires, and other sources of air pollution.
So catalytic converters, catalytic combustors, AGR Acidic Gas Reduction, Net Zero homes and vehicles etc. may be pretty impactful.
(In addition to planting and allowing clover and dandelions for the bees; and leaving longer grass for fireflies and ticks and CO2 capture and grasshoppers)
An herbicide that doesn't kill clover would make for prettier lawns; but the non-grass plants in the lawn are the food of the insects, which are the food of the birds.
You want magic. The thing you are describing is called magic.
Here’s another example for you: it would’ve been unthinkable in 1996 when a Democratic President signed the so-called and repugnant “Defense of Marriage Act” into law that about 26 years later, support for gay marriage among Americans would be over 70%, and that a bipartisan coalition of Senators could get behind a bill to enshrine same-sex marriage into law, but here we are. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respect_for_Marriage_Act
Nihilism doesn’t do any good for anyone. If you live in a heavily gerrymandered state with climate deniers elected to a majority of seats, start volunteering with a group that seeks to eliminate gerrymandering in your state with independent redistricting commissions.
Government is useless and f*cks up nearly everything it touches. People need to do it themselves now.
Conservative freedoms never seem to be about my freedom to enjoy listening to the birdsong of native birds because we saved their habitat.
The implication is that if someone actually wanted to save the birds, you should support them, but actually everyone is just looking to curtail your freedoms and nobody is actually looking to save the birds. Therefore don't even bother trying to save the birds, if you care at all about your freedom. Otherwise you're a soft gullible mark, you wouldn't want to be a mark, would you?
That such propaganda tends to align with consumption and/or antisocial and/or selfish behavior is a big clue, but it's not the end goal.
> The original forest was nearly completely clearcut...just a few species of timber trees.
So clearcutting and planting non-local, dominating plants isn't the problem,but clear cutting and planting non-local, dominating plants is the problem.
This is obviously two sides of the same coin, when you remove native plants, native wildlife goes away. Just because certain species of wildlife can make it work in the suburb doesn't mean that large lifeless lawns, especially in areas without intermixed native green space, are not killing off birds, insects, etc.
That is basically the Conservative rank and file line for why Canada shouldn’t reduce emissions. They say “we are only 1.5% of emissions, so it won’t matter.”
I am not arguing that your way is bad, but that there will be stiff resistance either way. At least with government, you just need to win once and inertia means that it likely sticks.
On the other hand, when it comes to fighting actual Nazis in WW2, every bullet counts.
This isn't remotely true. Regulatory bodies are chronically underfunded and undermined in north America because they're villainized by corporate donors and the politicians they pay for.
It’s working as intended, when you get out of the bubble.
For these huge environmental problems humanity is facing, I'm sorry to say the only way it to do huge drastic unrealistic changes that will never occur because humanity doesn't have the will power to pull it off.
The real honest answer is that there no "solutioning" the worst case scenario will likely play out.
https://64.media.tumblr.com/8fc53eb231b08f8476b5a8f76eb20ef9...
https://www.lantmannen.se/44bdd3/siteassets/images/06-innova...
This initiative is supported by Birdlife Sweden and has had a proven effect.
How can this compete with the dozens of neighbors in a half-mile radius that have removed in excess of hundreds of trees, big ones like oak, pine, maple, hickory and up to five feet in diameter, and turn their yards into grass wastelands? I never even see my neighbors use most of their yards. How do you compete against that level of narcissisim and lack of empathy?
It is exhausting on me both physically and emotionally. There's no one I can call to get help with my own yard because every landscaper knows nothing about ecology and uses loud and polluting gas-powered machinery.
I am to the point where I consider my actions as pissing into the wind and spitting into the ocean. Seeing bees where I hadn't seen them before using native plants that I planted is amazingly fullfilling. But I know that it basically has no greater impact, and it is completely against the tide.
Unless governments take action and penalize corporations for the harm they've done and take measures to prevent further harm, we won't be able to stop what's coming.
> Unless governments take action and penalize corporations for the harm they've done and take measures to prevent further harm, we won't be able to stop what's coming.
What corporations? It sounds like your neighbors are just individuals? And can you clarify "what's coming"?
What's coming? Ecological collapse. That's what happens when you kill all the pollinators, when you kill all base prey animals.
None of this is complicated, nor unforseen. We've known this about pollution and pesticides for decades, even longer when it comes to climate change.
But somehow it’s the industry that’s at fault.
But “how do you dare say no to more humans!” is somehow at fault. I get it, we can be 10bn if we all ate crickets, but surprise, food is not even the reason why land gets urbanized and overexploited and polluted. Plus, creating more high-density humans, the kind who never sees any patch of earth, the kind who believes travelling across the world to see Kylie Minogue in a casino and buy some flamboyant clothes, is the best way to get voters who understand and care nothing to nature.
Ruling class just executed what you wanted. Guess what, what we want is to leave no human behind, help everyone, and raise them all to high levels of consumerism, whether in the West or in the third world. I really don’t see how the ruling class has any stake in pollution. Every time they try to get us to reduce our lifestyle, we vote them out.
In terms of what corporations, just open the so-called phone book with your eyes closed and point. Our worship of scale has us destroying the environment at scale.
What's coming is more headlines like the one here and what the other commenter mentioned of ecological collapse. Without pollinators, how will we grow food?
The only way the things that were done by mass action can be undone is through mass action. Who are the people who can invoke mass action? Basically there’s only one answer: governments.
Maybe if governments hadnt spent the last 60 years destroying labor movements (at the behest of corporations) there would be another option. But here we are in the year of our lord 2023 after decades of successful union busting.
Like for example, a two dudes in my hood have swapped their lawns over to micro clover because I did it three years ago; I never have to mow, the lawn is packed with wildlife, and it looks great. Wouldn't have happened had they not come over for BBQ one day and asked about it.
Grassland is long grass, and it shelters a lot more than just insects and birds. It can be cover for small dogs, cats, beavers, possums, moles, mice, snakes, etc...
Understandably most "neighborhoods" don't want snakes, raccoons, or possums in their yards, but that's the level of "wilderness" we need to return to. Might make living a lot more difficult for a lot of folk...
Did you have a natural (or learned) revulsion for bugs? If so, how did you get over it?
I’ve gotten over mice completely, never felt right killing one in the first place.
I’ve been trying to make peace with bugs; I unplugged my mosquito zappers last summer shortly after getting them when I realized they were zapping mostly everything but mosquitoes.
Still something inside of me that has such a visceral reaction to bugs. I wish they would just stay away from me and I’d happily respond in kind :’(
Anything in the house is fair game. I don’t feel good about it, but mice, insects, or anything else that’s in my living space has to go. I’ll do what I need to to keep my living space mine.
Anything outside… that’s shared space. As much as I can I try and co-exist. I see the bugs as much a part of the nature I appreciate as the bunnies, the deer, the turkeys, the foxes, the ducks, and everything else. None of it exists without the rest. Anything that isn’t an existential threat to myself or my property I leave alone. If I can’t personally handle them right now, I can always go back in the house.
Where I can, I try and balance my use of the space with everything else. I appreciate the nature where I live, so I only do what’s necessary to make it livable for me. I mow only enough space around the house for us to use. I’ve been working on evicting some groundhogs because they’re trying to turn the ground under my garage into swiss cheese. I get rid of poison ivy when it encroaches in our space but we don’t “weed”. When the mosquitos got so bad we were scared to open a door I did spray some pesticide immediately around our house, but made sure to keep the space I sprayed well mowed to discourage the bees from coming here and getting caught in the crossfire.
I guess it’s just a small mindset shift—I still want the bugs to stay away from me, but I can’t be pissed about bugs when I wander into their home any more than I could wander in to a bear’s den and be annoyed that a bear attacked me.
Oh, except ticks. Fuck ticks. Those are kill on sight.
So far I've been primarily relying on permethrin. A gallon of 36.8% was something like $100 and dilutes out to ~600 litres of spray for my purposes. It's not water soluble and binds strongly to soil so I don't need to worry about it getting into the water table and spreading beyond where I spray it (or into my well water). I've been spraying just around my house (and, well, _on_ my house) to make a moat to keep away the mosquitos, ticks, ants, and all the other bazillion things that kept finding their way in.
We've also invested in a couple of the CO2 traps for mosquitos. Have those out in the yard a little ways out.
End of the day though... we live in the middle of a forest situated on wetland. That's part of how I got to a place of picking my battles. I know I'm not going to make much of a dent. As long as my house isn't overrun, it is what it is.
I have seriously considered it, but I do wonder about the neighborhood response. Although I don't think there's any danger and that there's actually more danger from the mosquitoes carrying every disease under the sun, I'm not sure if it's a battle I want to take on if someone has an issue with it. Once the bats are in place, I believe it requires engaging with state wildlife authorities to relocate them. Maybe I'm being too paranoid. I mean, there are already bats in the area anyway. They probably just have a hard time finding shelter.
Thanks!
WRT other things taking over the yard, it's been rainy as hell here past few weeks and so the weeds have deff. sprung up unaccounted for; I just spend a day weeding mechanically, using a weed grabber tool.
Both count as my workout. Headphones + podcast = no gym membership required.
You'd be interested to know that this month I'll be finishing a huge trellis on the south wall of our house to let vines grow. This will reduce cooling costs and look beautiful (I hope).
What reel mower do you use? Does it have height adjustments?
to
> I mow it with a reel mower once a week.
Maybe you mean you don't use a 2-stroke engine to mow as the point you were making, but if not, what the huh? There's evangelizing, and then there's just being the crazy guy on the corner making stuff up that sounds like evangelizing. You're leaning towards the latter with these kinds of non-ambiguous contradictory statements.
I’ve used one from https://scythesupply.com/
I would assume the start is stop labelling your neighbours as narcissists and anti-social.
And what do you call displacing hundreds of birds, animals, plants, insects by planting literally wastelands made of grass just so that the grass can be looked at? How is that not narcissism, a lack of empathy, and vanity? It's the very definitions of those words.
We must first come to terms with what we as humans do and how we interact with and perceive the world.
Look up Benjamin Vogt and Douglas Tallamy. They say the same thing. I can't remember who it was, but someone said that it was a disservice to the diversity of life found in deserts to call lawns green deserts.
You know, I can admit to myself that I am vain and a narcissist in this context. The part that I have left as a lawn, I do like looking at it. It has been a journey for myself to gain empathy for things that are not human and for many things I can't even see, much less communicate with. It takes time and effort, but it also takes accepting the situation and saying "what am I going to do about it?". I do still mow the parts of my property that is a lawn, and I generally realize its general destructiveness and disruptiveness. But I try to address that, and see what I can differently.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
1. Set up a bird-friendly/enviro-friendly environment in your yard. You could do this by planting micro-clover instead of grass, building bird houses, adding safe sources of water for birds, planting pollinator-friendly flora.
2. Evangelize. Plan a block party or even a birdwatching 'club'. This doesn't have to be as formal as it sounds; you could just take pictures of birds and evangelize them on a local group, or maybe point out to a few of your neighbors that they have really interesting specimens on their property.
3. Connect with the local Audubon chapter (or equivalent) and give them encouragement or support; help them with their website or social media, invite them to a BBQ, show them that you care and will help out.
Obviously I don't know your situation and can't predict all the reasons this might not work – and I'm not suggesting that you have to do all this – I'm really just trying to get your juices flowing, show you that there's ways that you can at the local level that might even benefit you – like getting to know your neighbors, having a beautiful and unique home, or even just making friends!
Is he intentionally psyop'ing an environmental message? He's pretty smart, so maybe. Is it effective? Maybe.
But I will tell you this: I have been on more hikes with this guy than I would have normally thanks to the majesty he documents... so it's worked on me!
The open space here has a ton of animals and biodiversity but humans have actually increased the biodiversity. For example the squirrels on my property eat dates off my date trees. Date trees and eastern squirrels aren't native here but they do feed the hawks and owls. Bees are harvesting on my property constantly.
If that's even true, I would say that it is exceedingly rare, even on small local levels. And it would be dwarfed by the rest of human activity killing off biodiversity. I have squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, voles, foxes, raccoons, owls, hawks, several species of birds like woodpeckers, cardinals, nuthatches, etc., bats, coyotes, fisher cats, deer, bees, wasps, moths, butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds, and more all on my properly. Some are there every single day, like the chipmunks and bees, and the others are frequent visitors. But even with all that, the diversity is absolutely lower than what this area would have been like just 200 years ago. For example, mountain lions are gone and bobcats are on their way out. Same with bears. And there are several native plant species that are on their way out as well.
Also, deserts actually can be teeming with biodiversity. It's just not the biodiversity that we recognize.
So your actions alone can be valuable.
Your may inspire others or be part of a chain of things which inspires them.
Your hard won knowledge awaits their questions.
You may have to fight HOAs and disaproval. Your battles lay the groundwork for those that follow to succeed - setting precendent and raising issues, sometimes even by losing.
Even if others don't follow your practice you may pique their interest - which may change their opinions. Opinions are the mandate by which local officials and politicians act?
Many of these good consequences may be invisible to you. Doing good is never useless. The causes of change can be unpredictable and subtle. The future can be radically altered by small effects in the past.
Perhaps the life of a native bumble bee that survives by virtue of your planting may be the one that mutates enough so his descendants survive the coming changes.
Increase the luck surface for a good future.
Stay hopeful.
Thank god that I do not have an HOA. Luckily things are different here, although I am very surprised that someone recently was able to cut down literally every tree on the property. (It appears the house was bought by an investor or someone quite wealthy.)
I honestly can't imagine the stress that an HOA would bring to my life.
Thanks for the kind words! I'm definitely still learning and making lots of mistakes along the way.
What do you think about this? Does anything like that exist currently?
I go home to my parents' neighborhood in Florida and more and more of the trees are disappearing in a 100-year-old neighborhood. It's not even new houses being built. These are 50-year old houses.
There is 1 house in the entire neighborhood (has to be at least 1,000 houses) that had a "no mow may" sign for the bees and isn't a purely St. Augustine grass yard. This is an upper-income higher education neigborhood too.
The culture is changing to be even less tree friendly from what it was a few decades ago.
Honestly I don't have hope in general for our future environment. I do not think we will be able to stop what is coming (both temperature-wise and species-wise). Humans are desperate for money and unfortunately making money means making things as easy and convenient as possible to get/buy.
This is oft repeated, but it fails short of anything meaningful. The planet, as in a rock floating around in space, will be fine, yes. But what about the untold amount of species of plants and animals that are suffering and will continue to suffer in our wake?
Getting rid of or drastically reducing oil use would be a huge step in the right direction, and probably one of the most meaningful things we could do today. That will never happen by choice though, we're way too dependant on cheap energy and the conceniences (and economics) it provides.
I can only speak to the people I've engaged with in the US and parts of Europe, but people aren't really willing to make the changes that really seem most important to me. Drastically reducingoil use, for example, would make a big difference but would destroy the GDP measure that many countries value so highly and would cause a huge shock to most every industry in the world. We've grown too dependant on industrialized food, easy access to products, and the power of leveraging cheap energy to go back to doing most things manually or with the help of animal power.
That can absolutely be depressing as well, but that's where I have to remind myself that the environment functions on the scale of thousands of years rather than decades. This planet and the life on it is an absolutely amazing thing, and amazingly resilient. I hope we can pull out of this nosedive so that we can continue to see what humans come up with, but I rest assured that we can't literally destroy the planet and that "the end" for us will be well down the road.
In the meantime, I just try to do my part to minimize my impact and partner with nature rather than fight it. I want to enjoy my life, and for me part of that is pushing myself to the point of some frustration and discomfort. I live in a small house with simple utilities and hope to have it off grid soon. Yes I still have a car and buy some things from Amazon or the grocery store, but I do without when I can and at least a few times a week I get annoyed that I don't have more storage in my tiny house. I figure if I'm feeling a bit of that pain I must be doing something right and can better enjoy the good parts of life.
Humans may be the only species to understand the concept of a species, and it seems some members don't care at all if the whole species disappears, as long as 'the planet' is fine. Intelligence may be an evolutionary dead end.
I don't understand why someone always has to respond to climate apocalypse discussion with "but actually the planet will be fine."
For me the fact that the planet will love on regardless is a sign of optimism though, not doomsday apocalypse or some kind of perverse nihilism. It's like looking up at the stars, it reminds me of how small we are and that we're just a part of history rather than the start and end of it.
My yard is 30x50m => 1500sqm => 1275sqm must be kept as earth, I must have 18 trees (thick-trunk) (and 2 parking spots and the street must have 0.5 guest parking spot).
On the other hand, I know places where companies can’t rent a house, they must stick to commercial-zoned areas. THAT’s enforcing the 10km-every-morning-to-go-to-work rule.
But again, suburbia is a pleasant lifestyle, we wouldn’t have to ruin landscapes if we could live downtown, but you guys make it horrible (Oh, hi Grégory Doucet). Sometimes intolerance bears a cost.
You don't even need to go to Japan or the Netherlands to understand that this is not true, you just need to spend a bit of time on YouTube: I recommend "Life where I'm from" for the former, and "Not just bikes" for the later.
> But again, suburbia is a pleasant lifestyle, we wouldn’t have to ruin landscapes if we could live downtown, but you guys make it horrible (Oh, hi Grégory Doucet). Sometimes intolerance bears a cost.
I don't think anyone is arguing about whether it's pleasant or not. I personally hate this lifestyle even though that's where I grew up, but that's irrelevant, the only thing that matters is that a car-centric suburbia is unsustainable at scale...
I do understand the practicalities and constraints of homeownership, but I do wish we, as a species, did a bit more thinking ahead and had more empathy for literally anything else besides us.
Sure, it sucks. That's called eminent domain.
That would be a huge HOA violation in many places.
It's where there's no direct benefit, or the species is uncharismaric that it gets tricky. It's a lot harder to motivate people to preserve habitat for a stick insect or mudfish.
It’s pretty wild to me that cats aren’t mentioned at all in this article since they’re absolutely massacring wild birds. They’re the leading cause of both bird and small mammal deaths in the US. They kill 10% of all US birds every year.
I do agree personal responsibility isn’t enough but it can certainly help.
[edit] in fact a cursory google shows the population of cats in the US is almost a perfect mirror of the bird population graph in the article since 1970.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/outdo...
However, when you also have articles stating that migratory fish and insect populations have declined by 75% over the last 50 years [1,2] (which clearly isn't caused by outdoor cats) it would seem to me there are larger forces at work.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/migrator...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/25/the-inse...
Outside of birds, cats kill rodents. I live in rural Quebec, near farms, a massive nature preserve, and a national park larger than small US states.
When I first moved here, I had no cat, and several other neighbours were new to the area. Old houses, not fresh builds, just changeover of owners... they too with no cats.
The first year I was here, I became aware of the problem, and started to lay traps. And I caught 100+ mice, sometimes several per day for months, all inside my house.
Once Spring arrived, I tried to find entrances, and did! I blocked them, but anyone that knows rodents, and owns wood houses, that won't help if you have an out of control, local colony, and once the winter comes, do they ever want in!
I spent 3+ years with traps, sometimes reducing the population a bit, but each winter more than 50 mice.
Then a neightbour got a siamese cat.
I now catch a mouse or two a year.
If you look at mouse breeding and brood numbers, and you live in a area with loads of food in the summer (near farms, nature), you need something like cats. It's not an option, it just isn't.
There's a reason farmers have loads of semi-wild cats in their barns. And both the mice they catch, and the cats that catch them, are invasive.
And with the hantavirus often touted as 50% lethal, you do NOT want the moral responsibility of trap and release, nor do you want mice in your house. At all.
And yes, it is in the local population.
Once we accepted DDT as a problem we found alternative solutions. But there’s also localized solutions. A few spayed/neutered farm cats aren’t the end of the world.
You like to eat, yes? Because I assure you, without cats, or something to replace them that does what cats do, you and I will starve to death.
Farmers don't have cats because they're cute. 3They have them to stop rodents from eating silo, seeds, fields bare.
What do you plan to do? Spray death chemicals all over the place, as a replacement?
And no, trapping won't work. It never kills enough, and there are never enough traps.
Honestly, I sincerely doubt cats are the issue. Cats do very poorly away from human settlements, and therefore there's loads of area without cat habitat. In Canada, most of the land is cat free, there is so much land without cats, it would be impossible for them to wipe out a noticeable percentage of birds.
There's no way they're the problem, as a result of this, when we're talking about 1/3 of the birds.
A far better explanation is insect population collapse. Missing food.
You could have made the same argument about DDT. You have to acknowledge the problem before you can find a different solution.
With enough determination it’s quite feasible. You know as a Canadian that Alberta is the only place in the Americas without rats. They have a very successful management program. [1]
Cats are an invasive species, so are rats. Alternatives exist, please stop being so defensive. Given this topical counterexample it hardly seems like a case of “cats vs food and hentavirus” since Alberta has no rats, plenty of food and no hentavirus without relying on cats.
> There's no way they're the problem, as a result of this, when we're talking about 1/3 of the birds.
… they kill 10% of birds per year. Times 3 years is just about 1/3. Given it occurred over 50 years I’d say we’ve got us a good candidate. Especially since there is documented evidence of them leading to the extinction of entire species. You can see how the math here is within the ballpark yeah?
[1] https://www.alberta.ca/history-of-rat-control-in-alberta.asp...
And rats are not mice. And Alberta has plenty of cats around farms.
And the replacements for DDT are destroying insect populations. The problem is NOT cats. I notice you didn't explain why birds, in all the areas without cats, which is all areas in Canada without human settlements very close by, which is most of Canadian land, are dying too.
You're attributing cats to the problem, then explaining how it's proof it's cats.
Once again no sources cited on your part other than, I guess, your gut, and "poking around."
> The problem is NOT cats.
You haven't made a case for that. The studies I dug up say quite the opposite, that cats are a massive source of wild bird mortality, that they've driven several species to extinction. I have cited sources and you seem to just be shooting from the hip?
> ... in all the areas without cats, which is all areas in Canada without human settlements very close by, which is most of Canadian land, are dying too.
What makes you think cats aren't in areas without human settlements very close by? This map shows they're all over the place. [1] And if that doesn't convince you check out the invasive feral cat population map in Australia where they actually wanted to cull the population. [2] They live on every square inch of Australia, and let me tell you, people do not.
"In some cases, house cats have singularly contributed to the virtual disappearance of Vancouver Island bird species. The streaked horned lark, once a resident of southern Vancouver Island, is now likely locally extinct in Canada, and cats were cited as one of the main causes of nest failure." [1]
"The coastal vesper sparrow has seen its population drop by 85 per cent over the past decade, and a federal government analysis cited a “high concentration of domestic and feral cats” as factors in their decline." [1]
Stop just repeating "nuh uh" and dig up some studies or lets end this conversation here, because the fact is, you are wrong on this one.
> You're attributing cats to the problem, then explaining how it's proof it's cats.
No, I'm cities studies that attribute it to cats.
[1] https://www.capitaldaily.ca/news/cat-victoria-songbird-feral...
[2] https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/invasive-species/feral...
There are native cats in Canada, skilled at even detecting prey under feet of snow, but house cats are not that.
There is no significant cat presence in Canada, outside of human habitats.
I notice you cited Vancouver Island, the most temperate place in Canada. And there are deserts in Australia, cats don't live there without humans, yet there are birds adapted to the desert.
No, they help the people who are putting food on your plate. Good luck living your life if the farmers can’t do their job.
I wonder how humanity would deal with a 75% of our food supply disappearing by 2050. Cats would certainly take over us...
Rustin Cohle, True Detective
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25433840-800-how-a-bi...
"Birds, it turns out, seem to be particularly sensitised to dogs – even on leads. In woodlands outside Sydney, for example, a study found that people walking leashed dogs caused a 'dramatic' reduction in the diversity and abundance of birds – more than double that caused by the same number of people walking without pets."
Housecats are not native to most countries, and feral cat colonies are not healthy either (lots of disease). They are not part of "natures balance" and we're not eradicating them to extinction. That's just utter nonsense.
This is like saying the argentine black and white tegu is a natural part of the food chain in Florida. Please understand that humans bringing a species to a new location doesn't suddenly convert them to part of nature.
Food for thought [0] - 269 million bird deaths a year in Canada alone is asserted. Cited reasons for death include: feral and pet cats, agriculture, oil and gas activities, and collisions with buildings.
As noted outdoor cats are domestic and thus kept alive by humans. Who's responsible in this scenario - the cat or the human? I suppose some feral cats are the result of/spawn of domestic cat abandonment as well.
[0] https://windsorstar.com/news/human-activity-killing-birds-by...
Yes, wind turbines kill birds.
Collisions with vehicles kill 1000 times more birds than wind turbines do.
Collisions with glass buildings kill 3 times more still.
And cats kill 4 times more still [0].
Wind turbine bird deaths are deep in the noise as sources of bird deaths. Yes, we should keep trying to reduce that number further. But if we really care about saving birds we have a lot more dirty laundry than wind turbines.
For my own yard, in Washington State, I've interacted with a half dozen arborists and landscapers. Every one of them has been an expert in local species, has had concrete suggestions about what to plant and how to maintain, and is generally very excited to engage on the problem at the homeowner level.
But ideally in addition to doing things yourself and being an example you should also try to convince and encourage others to do it by raising awareness, supporting legislation, not using suppliers and not working for companies that violate those rules etc.
What would those measures look like?
Actually that metaphor works rather well…
Moving might be an option. There are places where this doesn't happen and while you might have other problems, you probably won't have those problems.
Do local solutions work? Yes, they absolutely do. I've been working with state and local foresters on a habitat improvement project on land that I own and it is producing real results. Since 2018 I've been converting ag land to forest and meadows. I've planted over 6000 trees with my own hands and constructed and curated scrapes (ponds) and meadow areas with local grasses and flowers. It took a couple years but the turnaround is evident. I have families of ducks living on my land that never used to be there before. The area has become popular with migrating geese and sandhill cranes. I have a healthy array of woodland creatures who took up residence including a family of bobcats. Local wildflowers have attracted and given a home to more bees than I've ever seen out on that property. By all measures my project is a success and I'll continue it for as long as I can, but all monies that fund this come out of my own pocket. I can enroll in the state's managed forest program to receive tax breaks on my property, but that's about it. I could solicit donations and look for grants to help foot the bill, but even then I'd still be in the red. The only ROI I will get from these actions is the belief I'm doing my part for a social cause. And just like governments or social groups or even corporations, when times get tight the feel-good programs and dollars are the first to get cut since they don't show a return that can be expressed on a balance sheet. If I reach a point where I can't pay for more trees or spend time planting them, I just won't plant more trees. I have 42 more acres of trees to plant but I also won't starve myself and my family to make it happen. I've talked to lots of people about the options I have for funding this work but it all comes down to either pay for it yourself or take charity.
Everyone wants to save the trees. Everyone wants to save the birds and the bees and all the furry woodland creatures but no one wants to pay for it. You're not fighting against goodwill, you're fighting against capitalism and you'll always lose because there are no objective returns on investment for the preservation of natural habitat.
I'm looking for a new gig and have been shocked at how few companies seem to understand the types of solutions that stand a chance at making a difference re: these sorts of problems.
Don't have outdoor cats: https://abcbirds.org/program/cats-indoors/cats-and-birds/
From the cited source: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
> We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely __the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.__
(emphasis my own) Besides this, your cats will live longer and healthier. Like the average cat lives twice as long (or more) when indoor. Do it for the birds, do it for the squirrels and other small mammals, and do it for your own fucking cat.
So I would argue dishwashers are demonstrably more efficient than hand washing dishes. Whether that means better for the environment is an entirely different question that has to take into account manufacture and use.
Yeah my argument is that this is nonsense. Just turn the tap off often when you’re scrubbing the dishes (use the water for rinsing) and it should be obvious that you’re using less water — particularly when you take into account the fact that a dishwasher uses 4 gallons of water no matter how many dishes are in it.
Under ideal conditions perhaps a modern dishwasher comes out ahead, but again maybe the ideal Rambo bird-killing-machine cat is also capable of decimating local bird populations.
How did I measure it? I had the DW drain into a bucket.
The DW won hands down. I also learnt to wash dishes without the water running when I was a kid.
Yes, the proviso that you should only run it when it is full is important, but I assumed everyone knew that.
Cities often have systems, we're in rural Australia and are water conscious- as far as dish and clothes washing go that's grey water discharge which goes onto a near house mulch pit for household rottables and garden waste, the water that reaches the pit bottom hits a crushed stone bed with slotted pipe that drains water to above the vegetable garden and fruit trees (between the leach drains ) where it moves through the soil making tomatoes, potatoes, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, etc.
No dishwasher, no tap running - but regardless of how much water we use in the kitchen none of that truly goes to waste, if we use more we just put less on the garden from the same source tanks (which are all level gauged).
Mulch on garden with microplastics is likely ok as plants extract the minerals | elements they need.
I'd have to sample and check.
A great deal of our clothing, bedding, towels, etc is natural fibre in any case.
Where it probably falls down is where they have dishwashers in office kitchens where they don't fill it up and chuck it on anyway so they have their favourite coffee mug ready for the morning.
Like at least make some critique about the study instead of: claims bullshit, refuses to elaborate, leaves.
30-90 birds/cat/year seems extraordinarily high when considering the behavior of all the cats I know who spend time outside.
I'm guessing massive cities and suburban sprawl are a big part of the problem. Most yards are literally just grass which often requires tons of weed killer and fertilizer in some areas. As a society we're so dumb sometimes. My mother also has a bunch of cats and they've killed dozens of birds over the years. That probably adds up.
does building a bird-friendly yard actually accomplish anything? does building a bird-friendly park actually accomplish anything? is there any science that backs up an argument that people have the power to do anything at all about this, or are these just individual actions that make people feel like they're helping to solve the problem while diverting their attention away from actual practical solutions?
individual actions aren't free. making people feel like they're doing something is counterproductive if it's not helping in a meaningful way. we've all been sorting our plastic recycling for the last 30 years, and the only practical outcome of that is that we feel better about creating more plastic waste. if planting "bird-friendly" gardens doesn't do anything beyond make people feel better about killing birds, then let's not do that.
What would be the bottom-up way to handle, say, the acid rain crisis, which was caused by excessive sulfur dioxide emissions and was resolved by top-down legislation.
Or alternately, what would be the bottom-up solution to World War 2?
1. Eliminate poverty worldwide (this is essential because desperately poor people will not let environmental concerns keep them from basic survival) 2. Radically reduce resource consumption by rich nations and individuals 3. Eliminate government corruption 4. Stop human population increase
Obviously achieving this will require upending many power structures and confronting many deficiencies of human nature. But when you see it laid out like that, it seems obvious that is task ahead of us.
Vote for RFK? Honestly and respectfully?
I love this idea. Affecting large change is best done by embracing the status quo of large power structures. Few have the fortitude to ask “What if everybody individually just sort of came up with their own ideas of what solutions to problems are and eschewed organization”
5. Exterminate all stray/unlicensed cats, exterminate all indoor cats if caught outside and fine the registered owners $50,000.
If I posted this on reddit, I'd have maniacs stalking me and issuing death threats. Maybe here it'll only be hatemail.
I just said "keep tight control of your songbird-murdering organic robots"... and you replied with "it's a bluff, you can't convince people to do that!"
Filing this under no-shit-sherlock.
Birds are left with no place to live near / in cities if there's so little gardens and trees.
But put some water, grass and trees and birds show up.
Having a water source is also huge. Saw migratory birds too, multiple years.
I don't think it's on purpose or not but our small towns and back yards are just not welcoming for nature. If there's a little room, animals do come.
But real estate is all about room! People need to keep storing stuff. My neighbors on basically all sides keep building sheds and extending their homes. Pretty soon they will have no grass to speak of. But plenty of room for storage.
Other way around really.
"The hardest hit were grassland birds, down by more than 50 percent, mostly due to the expansion of farms that turn a varied landscape into acres of neat, plowed rows."
You're not going to do anything about that individually.
You could opt out of the whole system and grown your own food, but that isn't viable as a solution across the entire population. It would take literally everyone doing that and most people simply will not.
And focusing on the individual as the solution lets corporations and governments off of the hook. We've been trying to "reduce, reuse, recycle" our way out the problem at a local level and it isn't remotely sufficient.
>All too often the "solutioning" defaults to the highest concentration of power, e.g. government/regulation – but that obviously isn't working at the speed it has to, and I suspect its because it's very easy to say "they should/we should" instead if "I will/we will".
That's the entire point of having concentration of power though. The decision makers can coordinate and manage things in ways the individual cannot. That alone gives them the responsibility to seek out a solution for worldwide issues. The lone individual is bound to follow basic instincts, rule of law and economic opportunities.
My next step for a new age take on an old man hobby is to get some cameras hooked up to an NVR that can do object detection and point them right at the bird feeders so I can get a stream of recent visitors.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oi...
Is there a version of Poe's law for idealists (which I assume you are) and shills?
Renters all over have restrictions on what they can do with a yard. You simply cannot rent and "build a bird-friendly yard" in most places. Sometimes, you cannot dig to add a garden, let along replace things. And why would you? It would just give the landlord even more money.
And the landlords aren't going to do it without some pressure, which isn't going to come. Renters don't really have power in most places and we can't even get some of the folks to keep up a safe place.
Do you think a neighborhood can just "build a bird friendly park"? Many neighborhoods don't have parks, at least not in the Midwest. Who is going to donate their house or yard to do this? Are poor neighborhoods just out of luck? Where are folks and small towns going to get the money?
Don't architects and urban planners work with these "powerful forces" in general? How are they going to do anything without the government - especially a city planner?
What do you expect small groups to be able to do without a larger force? How do you expect any of these organizations to actually do anything?
All of your suggestions reek of things like "jaywalking", which came from pro-auto propaganda, and "litterbug campaigns", which were propaganda from companies to shift the blame from them to the consumer.
One single supermarket with open fridges and unreasonable AC settings nullifies several families’ worth of energy saving efforts. And that is one trivial example.
we are like bacteria in a petri dish of agar. eventually we will consume all and destroy our own thriving habitat. it's inevitable. go to any developed area of the US! watch the highways in that area everyday! tell me that we don't have an impact after seeing how many cars pass you that day (i bet you couldn't even count them all)! the massive amounts of energy consumed, toxic chemicals that enter the water tables, runoffs, and larger bodies of water, the emissions from each vehicle, and the amount of natural resources consumed to make each car. this is just one example of our gigantic impact we have, yet we treat it as if it was nothing.
1. don't build bird friendly yards! you draw in predators to a centralized location, and can lead to a large localized food-source dependency that is detrimental avian health, and what happens when that location is no longer maintained? stop building!!!
2. see #1 and don't draw natural beings into an artificial environment, but do the reverse. these are beings of nature, not downtown.
3. these things already exist and is not helping (i birdwatch while hiking. good for me, useless to ailing birds).
4. see #1 and #2
this is solutioning. sorry to point that out. my point being, lessen your impact don't increase it
1. Take arms and do the revolution
The one thing thats not mentioned in the article that might make a difference at a smaller level is pesticides. Many people love to have a yard without weeds and without bugs. Without some flowering weeds, many bugs have no food. Pesticides kill the rest. Now what will the birds eat? There aren't any flowering or seed producing plants and there aren't any bugs.
I hate ticks and mosquitoes, but there are some targeted solutions for those.
It’s not fun to hear this. It’s a lot more fun and rewarding to build a bird house or start a local bird park. These aren’t net zero effect things but if we’re ultimately concerned about efficiency and impact, they are nominal.
We are clearly at the stage of human civilization where we have to start looking beyond immediate gratification. Is that possible? I don’t know.
Yes, we should recycle and reduce carbon emissions and learn to live in a more integrated fashion with earth. But the problem is so diffuse and requires substantive work against powerful forces (government, business, apathy).
What I'd like to see more of, when presented with these sorts of problems, is viable solutions proposed that can be implemented bottom-up, and in the following hierarchy:
1. Regular Individuals like me e.g. "build a bird-friendly yard"
2. Influential individuals like architects, urban planners,
3. Small groups, e.g. birdwatchers, Boy Scouts, churches, schools
4. Small towns & neighborhoods, e.g. "build bird friendly parks"
All too often the "solutioning" defaults to the highest concentration of power, e.g. government/regulation – but that obviously isn't working at the speed it has to, and I suspect its because it's very easy to say "they should/we should" instead if "I will/we will".