[HN Gopher] The "Dying Seas" of the Anthropocene
___________________________________________________________________
The "Dying Seas" of the Anthropocene
Author : dnetesn
Score : 72 points
Date : 2020-11-13 10:44 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (oceans.nautil.us)
(TXT) w3m dump (oceans.nautil.us)
| jandrese wrote:
| Does this article have a point? It talks about several attempts
| to save the seas, some of which it claims were ill-conceived but
| seems to lack a central thesis.
| varenc wrote:
| > "If we are not careful, fear may hamper conservation efforts
| or fuel hubristic interventions."
| jandrese wrote:
| But the rest of the article doesn't support that. It talks
| mostly about failed conservation efforts, which weren't
| stopped by fear but because they were ineffective.
| dzmien wrote:
| It is an excerpt from a book: Neptune's Laboratory by Antony
| Adler.
| (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674972018)
| zxcmx wrote:
| I think the point is that viral "dying oceans" memes and
| stories may be undermining conservation efforts.
|
| They are too emotionally powerful and pull our collective focus
| away from the science.
|
| It frames the problems we face as impossibly bad and tragic,
| which makes some people give up, while others want drastic
| experiments that can cause more harm than good.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| It's undoubtedly tragic, so, what's your evidence that it's
| not impossibly bad?
| zxcmx wrote:
| It can be hard to orient / frame that conversation in a way
| that's productive. This resource might interest you though:
|
| http://www.oceanhealthindex.org/news/Ocean_Isn't_Dying
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| I think this is characteristic of the time we are in. People,
| being connected by the internet, have a new level of
| awareness about the world around us.
|
| We don't yet (collectively) know what to do with this
| knowledge. It is a reorienting time. Memes are one way people
| are trying to orient, they are probes being sent out to
| encounter reality.
|
| But I agree with what you're hinting at, we will step out of
| this place with concrete meaningful steps. And science is a
| very good way to find meaning.
| ajarmst wrote:
| 'Some theorists and scientists advocate greater inclusion of
| nonhuman actors in debates about ecological crisis. Bruno Latour,
| for example, argues that "a science of objects and politics of
| subjects" must be replaced by a "political ecology of collectives
| consisting of humans and nonhumans."'
|
| Uh-huh. Why should I take that more seriously than an evidence-
| based assessment that there's a pretty good chance that it's too
| late and we're fucked? The latter at least has the advantage of
| not being gibberish.
|
| Most people get that talking about a "dying" ocean isn't an
| animistic assertion of some new form of hive life. They
| understand that it's a metaphor, and a particularly appropriate
| one. Anyone who's even a little familiar with the current state
| of them research is perfectly comfortable with models that treat
| complex systems like ecologies and economies as an entity with
| many similarities to an organism. Those models account for
| reality better than static ones. Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis
| wasn't based on some hippy religious creed, it was based on his
| criticism that existing climate models did not account for the
| fact that earth's biosphere was perfectly capable of modifying
| climate, and that it reacts when disturbed. You might recognize
| that as a fundamental principle in modern Climate Science.
|
| The article doesn't seem to offer much but a call to police each
| other's language and avoid appearing pessimistic. That's a
| difficult challenge given the nature of the problem and our
| success thus far in addressing it. James "the earth and I are
| both in the last 1% of our lives" Lovelock developed the Gaia
| Hypothesis _in the 1960s_. James Hansen made his first forecast
| about these issues _thirty-two years ago_. Yet we have done
| nothing substantial to address it. As our scientific
| understanding of these complex systems improves, we don 't apply
| it to ameliorating the problem---as near as I can tell, we
| primarily use it to demonstrate that earlier estimates lowballed
| the problem and it's really going to be much worse and sooner.
|
| When promoters of a 'Green New Deal' and Al Gore---the mightiest
| unexamined motive in Christendom---agree that nuclear energy must
| be excluded without examination because "nuclear bad, sun
| pretty", I find it pretty hard to take the whole thing as
| anything but theatre. The problem isn't that we're being too
| pessimistic---it's that it's becoming increasingly clear that our
| most pessimistic projections might be wildly optimistic.
|
| Staying optimistic in the face of a difficult project to solve a
| problem might be productive. Staying optimistic in the face of a
| problem that no one is doing anything to solve is more of a
| learning disability than a strategy. Maybe the best path for a
| solution is less "hey, we need to stay upbeat and positive" and
| more "it's time to start slapping some sense into some of these
| people."
|
| My parents' generation went to the moon. My generation decided
| that we'd rather get rich and then let our kids choke to death on
| our waste products. At least we'll deserve whatever happens to
| us.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > The ocean has thus become emblematic both of a natural world
| victimized by humanity and of nature's possible vengeance.
|
| Nature is not cute and cuddly. Nature has always been dangerous
| to humans. The Ice Age almost wiped out humanity. And this was
| before any modern industrial developments or pollution. Plagues
| have been ravaging humanity for millenia. Mothers and infants
| died by the millions. Even for other species, most members end
| their lives either starving to death, or being eaten, many times
| while they are still alive and sensate.
|
| It is humanity learning to control and harness nature that has
| made us what we are. We learned to get more food that nature
| would naturally give. We learned to treat diseases. We learned
| how to control plagues. We learned to control maternal and infant
| mortality. We learned to fly. We learned to go to space. We
| learned to tame and control nature for our benefit.
|
| For the future, we are going to have to go all in on science and
| technology. It is our only hope. Harmony with nature is life that
| is nasty, brutish, and short.
| hacknat wrote:
| To echo this article's sentiment I have always really disliked
| the anthropomorphization of the natural world. I think a lot of
| people think that it's a politically effective tactic, but I
| think the opposite is true. Getting human beings to even look at
| each other as being equally worthy of dignity and respect is
| already a tall order.
|
| Human beings spend a lot more time perceiving the social
| structures they are in (even when they're not aware that they are
| doing so) than they do reacting to "objective" reality or nature.
| A lot of people in the world see themselves as being cast aside
| or outside the current dominant social structures. Convincing
| them to make sacrifices for the future when the present already
| seems irredeemably shitty is a losing political argument. Casting
| nature as yet another political constituency that they need to
| pay deference too is foolish.
|
| Messages of hope are the only ones that will work to build
| consensus (even if hope seems irrational at this point).
|
| _Edit:_
|
| Personally, I think the only rational message of hope right now
| is that we should be ploughing as much money into science and
| technology as we can. We certainly shouldn't take our eye off the
| ball for dealing with climate change, but it seems obvious that
| we're going to need some pretty amazing technological
| breakthroughs if we're going to survive as a species.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| _Messages of hope are the only ones that will work to build
| consensus (even if hope seems irrational at this point)._
|
| Consensus is a bad goal, because it can be upset by a tiny
| number of people willing to act in bad faith. Strategically
| speaking, it's better to press ahead in pursuit of the large
| goal and buy off key potential objectors.
| notabee wrote:
| Hope, yes. And yes, we basically need to invent wings before we
| go plummeting off of this particular cliff because the stopping
| option was probably lost over a decade ago. But too much
| forcing of positivity comes off as dishonest as well. We don't
| need to convince deniers at this point. They're dug in
| emotionally, and it's not likely they'll change their minds
| even if some natural disaster takes their home or loved ones.
| We do need people to know that this is it: it's now or never to
| start acting on the problem.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-11-13 23:00 UTC)