[HN Gopher] We should build for wildlife as well as people
___________________________________________________________________
We should build for wildlife as well as people
Author : NotSwift
Score : 144 points
Date : 2021-07-28 15:58 UTC (3 hours ago)
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| throwawaysea wrote:
| This is a lot harder than people anticipate. While we can "patch
| up" gaps in supporting wildlife with things like highway
| crossings (example: https://apnews.com/article/north-america-
| mountains-us-news-w...) we have bigger ecological problems that
| are harder to fight. For example, invasive species of plants and
| animals are very hard to manage and require concerted efforts to
| establish native species while removing non-native species.
| Whether Asian carp or Scotch Broom or whatever, the widespread
| footprint of invasive species has distorted our ecology so much
| that minor accommodations from how we build may amount to a blip
| on the radar. My point is not to say this isn't worth talking
| about, but to draw attention to a larger need for something like
| an "environment corps", funded to just put in the hard labor
| required to address these other widespread issues affecting
| health of wildlife and our environment.
| neolog wrote:
| There's really interesting research on integrating native ecology
| into the human environment. Douglas Tallamy's recent book on
| native-plant ecosystems [1] stands out.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NMH5GH5
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I've been researching how to make my yard more insect friendly,
| and a couple themes have crept up:
|
| 1. Don't mow your lawn, or mow less of it less frequently. Bugs
| need tall grasses, and tall grasses hold moisture, attract other
| bugs (ie prey). They flower and help pollinators. Mowed lawns are
| like a desert for them.
|
| 2. Change outdoor lights to be motion activated, instead of
| always on. Light pollution interferes with all kinds of bugs,
| given their attraction, and some bugs like fireflies use light
| for their own purposes
|
| 3. Don't spray insecticides or treat your lawn
|
| 4. Turn over part of your garden to wildflowers and native
| plants, let it get a little overgrown in that boundary. Even a
| few square meters can make a difference
|
| 5. Try to learn to tolerate / love insects more. They're closest
| thing we have to aliens to interact with! There's of course
| exceptions (ticks, mosquitos...), but so many of them are
| beneficial.
|
| And I wish we had vaccines for malaria, lyme, etc so we had to
| stress about insect caused maladies :(
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Great points. FYI, at least in NorCal, native plants are
| typically much hardier than regular grass and other plants used
| for landscaping. In other words, they're well adapted to
| periodic drought conditions, so, you probably won't have to
| water them at all.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| Although it's restricted by HOA in many areas, one alternative
| is also to not have a lawn. Grow native species, food, anything
| that homogeneous non-native grass.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Bear in mind, in many suburban neighborhoods, you will get
| fined for not mowing your lawn, and then the city will mow your
| lawn, and charge you for doing it.
| sailorganymede wrote:
| Build for problems means everything gets encompassed surely? Good
| solutions will take into different facets of a problem.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| Specifically for roofs, I'm curious how much more expensive and
| lasting a nature-roof is. For example, take a residential house.
| The roof needs to be able to sustain the weight of the soil and
| collected water. Roofs are typically built with slopes so that
| the water doesn't collect. Now you have to design the structure
| to support that. Drainage is an interesting problem too. How do
| you drain the water without losing your soil and soil nutrients?
|
| I think a solar roof is a better use of the roof, if installed
| properly.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| Oh jesus christ, "green roofs"? "Bee bricks" ?? This is
| ridiculous turd-polishing. The problem isn't that we haven't made
| our buildings more freaky, it's that we've destroyed natural
| ecosystems. _So restore the natural ecosystems._
|
| Have less buildings. Leave more undeveloped land. Reintroduce
| predators. Remove invasive species. Allow nature to take over (it
| will). And news flash: hedgehogs and bees are only being saved
| because humans think they're cute. What we actually need more of
| are creepy crawly insects, weeds, grasslands, bushes, forests,
| wetlands. You know, that "undeveloped" land that was here before
| we bulldozed it all and installed strip-malls on top.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| If you read the article it tells you that only 1% of the
| earth's habitable land has human development on it. There's
| plenty of space for nature to thrive, and it does.
|
| The big problem for me is externalities that affect that
| untouched world. Industrial and agricultural runoff, different
| pesticides and things like that.
| rkique wrote:
| I agree with your sentiment but oftentimes small interventions
| are the only kind possible. And I wouldn't say that something
| like a pollinator strip is ineffective -- bees and other
| pollinators are losing habitat, pollinator strips restore them.
| It may only be one dimension of wildlife but it's a critical
| one.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Need a green corridor across the continent, instead of border
| wall. Border river with crocodiles. That way we can be
| environmentally friendly with the migrants escaping climate
| change down south
| duxup wrote:
| I like this idea, but once you build something with some given
| wildlife in mind... what happens to the rest of the wildlife?
|
| I live in an area where open areas often have a lot of trees.
| That's great, lots of deer, people like deer ... problem is the
| deer have no predators. The deer don't have to move around and
| love to eat certain tree saplings in particular. Result? The
| forested areas simply don't have those trees or bushes that the
| deer like to eat anymore. Forested areas that would have thick
| underbrush are absolutely clear cut (as far as underbrush goes)
| by the deer. It's so complete you'd think humans went through and
| clear cut the brush, but it's the deer.
|
| Worse, that impacts other animals who rely on those trees and
| bushes.
|
| I feel like there's WAY more balance to be considered here and
| second order effects we don't understand.
|
| We like to help animals we like to see / are easy to help (there
| are some rabbits outside my window now, I like them) but helping
| them might not be the best choice.
| gerbilly wrote:
| Sounds like your area doesn't have a deer problem. It has a
| wolf problem. In other words there aren't any.
|
| You might like this essay on this very topic:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_like_a_mountain
|
| https://www.ecotoneinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/aldo-l...
| asciimov wrote:
| I live in one of these areas (Texas). Wolves were taken out
| by 1970. I do wish we would introduce them, but I'm not
| certain that my neighbors would be so happy about it.
|
| In my area, we have city deer. These are deer that live in
| the green belts and navigate through the city. I wonder what
| would happen if wolves were reintroduced. Wolves normally
| keep to the outskirts of human civilization, but would they
| drive more deer into the city. Or would smart wolves head to
| the city for the easy pickings.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| This really seems to be a problem of suburbanization (which
| also drives of natural predators). If cities had strong urban
| growth boundaries we could avoid a lot of this sort of
| human/animal conflict.
| duxup wrote:
| If there was no sub-urbanization ... there would be same
| issues on the edge of urbanization.
|
| It's a development thing, not a category I don't think.
| mapster wrote:
| Generally speaking, ecosystems should be managed for 'focal'
| species, those with the largest requirements and pivotal role.
| In this case, deers natural predators. a re-introduction or
| deer culling may be paired with this approach.
| johnrob wrote:
| Chilling thought: Deer:Underbrush::Humans:Earth
| Angostura wrote:
| > I like this idea, but once you build something with some
| given wildlife in mind... what happens to the rest of the
| wildlife?
|
| You don't build for a particular species in mind. You build for
| biodiversity.
| duxup wrote:
| By it's nature you can only be so diverse when you've decided
| to build.
|
| The system is wonky to begin with, the opportunity to put
| wolves in my area is ... pretty much 0.
| Angostura wrote:
| I'm not sure what you are saying. You plant a wide range of
| pollinator and native trees designed to offer roosting and
| nesting space for birds, bats and insects. etc. Wy jump
| straight to wolves?
| drewburg wrote:
| Demonstrative example in practice of re-introduction of
| predators is the wolves in Yellowstone[0][1]. There are also
| studies which say that this instead destabilizes the
| ecosystem[2]. For what it's worth, I think more data from
| investigation is needed in more diverse ecosystems and
| including different scopes of time.
| [0]https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-
| do/wildlife/wolf-r...
| [1]https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolf-restoration.htm
| [2]https://phys.org/news/2019-04-effects-reintroducing-
| predator...
| Schiendelman wrote:
| The concept of "building for wildlife" doesn't mean picking and
| choosing the cutest animals - it means trying to understand
| that balance and maintain it. The people who study ecosystems
| understand a lot of these second order effects well, and we're
| always learning more. The concept here is to start listening to
| those people.
| soperj wrote:
| i live in an area with lots of deer. They don't shoot the
| cougars that come into town, they tranq them and relocate
| them. So there are no predators for the deer. What's the
| answer?
| anonAndOn wrote:
| The cougars don't just eat the deer, they also change the
| behavior of the deer (as one would if they were constantly
| worried about killers hiding in the bushes). The only way
| to restore balance is to bring back the keystone species.
| soperj wrote:
| I know. I used to be able to walk right up to the deer
| when I moved here. I've chased them off the property
| enough times though now that as soon as they hear the
| front door, they run, and they actually go quicker
| through the yard then they used to.
| liveoneggs wrote:
| shoot the deer
| duxup wrote:
| The wildlife evolved to operate in an ecosystem with other
| wildlife that building alone makes impossible.
|
| I don't buy into the idea that they can just 'balance' it
| without many of the species.
|
| You can't tell deer to stop eating what they like, or
| raccoons to stop breeding / living in denser populations in
| suburban areas.
| user-the-name wrote:
| We're already messing up the balance massively by existing.
|
| The point here is to reduce the harm we are already doing.
| edgyquant wrote:
| This is a weird idea I've had but... would it be possible to
| e.g. breed domestic dogs who will eat the deer but won't be
| aggressive to humans? I have a pitbull who is really nice to
| people, other dogs and even cats but absolutely goes crazy when
| it sees one of these city rats coming out of a bush. I raised
| her obviously she wasn't a wild animal.
|
| Just a thought
| duxup wrote:
| Would be interesting just to breed dogs to chase them ... a
| lot. Sounds like a lot of work, but interesting idea.
|
| Some studies have found that just "scaring" some prey animals
| reduces their breeding and encourages them to move around
| more.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Lol, you don't really need to selectively breed dogs to
| chase animals. All dogs have what's called a "prey drive,"
| to an extent, which is essentially their inborn desire to
| hunt other animals. It's left over from when they were
| wolves. Different breeds have higher or lower prey drives,
| so it's not at all uniform from breed to breed or dog to
| dog.
| duxup wrote:
| I'm thinking breed them to chase them... I'm thinking in
| a manageable way.
|
| Any dog will chase them, and then the dog will also run
| out into the road. We don't want dogs doing that ;)
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| You're talking about training, not breeding. Training is
| what makes a herding animal herd rather than run off in
| the woods and chase deer. :)
| duxup wrote:
| Valid point. Although I'll be picky and say that breeding
| plays into that .... but admit I don't want to bread a
| whole new dog for this imaginary and possibly
| unproductive job ;)
| h2odragon wrote:
| Sounds like my hounds. One of our dogs has an arrangement
| with a deer who got hit by a car a couple years ago, she
| and her fawns can hang out under the dog's favorite oak
| tree, but any other deer gets chased off with much noise.
|
| However, I can't say we've noticed any reduction in the
| deer fecundity here because they get chased around. They
| simply learned to tolerate the occasional chase as a cost
| of living in our valley, which is evidently not too
| burdensome on them.
| cmh89 wrote:
| The animals that traditionally hunt the deer aren't
| aggressive to humans. It's trying to solve a problem that
| doesn't exist.
|
| Most apex predators are hunted out of existence to protect
| the marginal amounts of cattle they kill. See the great wolf
| slaughter happening in Montana currently. After they kill off
| all the wolves, the negative externalities of that action
| will become apparent, yet again, and the federal government
| will spend millions rehabbing the wolf populations until some
| populist conservative decides to decimate the population
| again. Rinse, repeat.
| Aissen wrote:
| I have often wondered if it wouldn't be cheaper for the
| government to pay for the occasional lost cattle instead of
| costly rehabilitation. Of course there would need to be
| safeguards in place to prevent abuse of the mechanism, and
| to prevent predators from getting used to easy preys.
| ianai wrote:
| Or, and this is just a personal opinion, but the world
| could stand to lose some meat production. We could give
| them a stipend for moving away from ranching to protein
| production through plants or other goods. I know this is
| controversial, but meat does require orders of magnitude
| more water and resources and doesn't seem reflective in
| the revenue realized.
|
| Edit-but definitely start by paying them for whatever
| wolves eat.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| The wide ranging public pasture ranchers aren't where the
| biggest ethical problems are in meat production, and
| wolves aren't generally an issue with factory farming.
|
| Let's pump the brakes on torture box meat before we start
| trying to solve something many people don't even consider
| a problem (I believe ranching and free range meat are an
| almost unmitigated good. )
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've proposed this many times, but the idea gets no
| traction. I don't really know why. I bet paying for a cow
| now and then would be even cheaper than paying government
| hunters to use helicopters, etc., to hunt the wolves.
|
| It's an appropriate use of tax money.
| Someone wrote:
| https://www.mda.state.mn.us/business-dev-loans-
| grants/wolf-d...: _"the 1977 Minnesota Legislature
| authorized the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA)
| to reimburse livestock owners for losses caused by
| wolves"_
|
| Reading
| https://www.minnpost.com/environment/2020/02/heres-how-
| much-..., that gets around 100 claims per year, for a
| payout of about $100,000.
|
| The EU has a similar program
| (https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46153727)
| WalterBright wrote:
| Sounds like a good program.
|
| In Washington State, the newspaper articles on it always
| present it as one of:
|
| 1. the state sends out the helicopters and gunmen
|
| 2. the rancher eats the cost of the dead cows
| Someone wrote:
| And yet, there's https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/at-
| risk/species-recover....
|
| I wouldn't know whether that compensation is fair or how
| bureaucratic the procedure is.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Me too. Compared to all the other subsidies agriculture
| receives worldwide this would probably be pretty small.
|
| One problem with cattle is that they are being held in
| one place, can't escape which makes them easy and
| reliable prey . So once a predator has figured that out
| they will come back more often. I have read about people
| having good success with dogs that are trained to
| confront predators like mountain lions and bears so they
| won't come back.
| theli0nheart wrote:
| Urban deer--especially those with young--are very capable of
| defending themselves. They can and do kill aggressive dogs.
| It happened just a few weeks ago where I live.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| The problem I see is that wildlife don't pay property tax.
|
| It seems more and more trees are being torn down in my city to
| make way for new buildings--houses, stores, etc. And I thought
| about why it might be happening and I stumbled on the idea that
| buildings increase property value, property value increases
| property tax, cities (in the US) often run on property tax.
|
| Perhaps some wildlife areas can have economic value, such as
| tourism, but I struggle to see how leaving certain places wild
| and untouched fits with the incentive of property tax.
|
| Any suggestions?
| h2odragon wrote:
| Recognize the monetary value of the civic services they
| provide! Raccoons should be paid at least half as much as a
| human "sanitation engineer", right?
| marapuru wrote:
| Growth is the thing cities and business focus on. They may call
| it sustainable growth but it's still growth at it's core.
|
| If you could somehow prove that wildelife areas generate some
| sort of growth, short and long term, economically focused.
| asdff wrote:
| Natural areas can increase property values. Look at the
| property values of the houses abbuting griffith park or
| anywhere along the san gabriel mountains vs those in south
| central LA. The difference in price for an otherwise identical
| 3br home might be $1.5mm between areas with easy access to
| nature and those without. I'm sure this is true in just about
| any city, where neighborhoods near parkland are generally more
| valuable than areas far from parkland surrounded by
| development.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| > Any suggestions?
|
| How about we recognize the inherent value of green space and
| nature to humans?
|
| For instance:
|
| Mental Health Benefits: * Stress and violence
| reduction. * Improved concentration.
|
| Physical Benefits: * Enhanced health.
| * More rapid healing. * Improved environmental
| conditions.
|
| Social Benefits * Crime reduction.
| * Increased workplace productivity. * Safer
| driving. * Economic stimulation. *
| Positive effects on children.
|
| (Details and citations at
| https://www.udel.edu/academics/colleges/canr/cooperative-
| ext...)
|
| People in general are way too quick to reduce things to dollars
| and cents.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| I agree it has those benefits and if I imagine those would
| create a higher quality of life, then each property that does
| have homes or businesses could be worth more. So city revenue
| could go up because 1) each parcel is higher in value or 2)
| the city could even charge more premium property tax rates to
| be in such a high quality city.
|
| In other words, the city maintains itself more as a luxury
| good than a commodity.
| tellmedoyouread wrote:
| That's a good idea but first we should fix ourselves. Daily we
| produce so much toxins that ultimately harm the animals, so if we
| want to fix anything we should fix ourselves.
| megablast wrote:
| Can we build for people?? And not cars??
| darrenf wrote:
| " _As well as people_ " being in the headline certainly implies
| that the article's author would answer yes to the former.
| kfarr wrote:
| Yes, my initial reaction as well -- we don't really build for
| people in the US, we build for cars. If we truly built for
| people, we wouldn't have sprawl and ridiculous vehicle
| infrastructure that affects wildlife so much.
| foxyv wrote:
| Oddly enough, this would probably also solve a lot of problems
| for wildlife as well. Reducing sprawl and increasing habitat.
| fmajid wrote:
| French highways have built-in crapauducs (toad-ducts) to allow
| toads to safely cross:
|
| https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crapauduc
| sandworm101 wrote:
| This is all well and good in the UK. Bee bricks and bat boxes are
| great. But the largest predators in the UK are badgers. The real
| difficulty is how one accommodates bear and cougars. Even large
| deer can be a problem. Up to 200 Americans are killed by road
| accidents involving deer every year. Do we continue to close
| schools and break out the dart guns every time someone sees a
| bear in a tree? Or do we develop neighborhoods with pathways
| through which the even non-cuddly animals can pass without
| conflict. That costs far more than the occasional bee brick.
| rmah wrote:
| In fairness, I got the feeling that the author of the article
| was writing in the context of western Europe. While Western
| Europeans have a hard time understanding the large and
| dangerous wildlife populations that exist in North America,
| it's hardly surprising since they don't live there. The
| author's prescriptions sound like nice and (relatively) easy
| things people in the UK can do to make life a bit richer there.
| It's doubtful he'd suggest pathways for bears through American
| or Canadian suburbs :-).
| notatoad wrote:
| there's simply no way to build cities in a way that accomodates
| bears or cougars, because they need a territory far larger than
| the area we could possibly provide in a city.
|
| building for cougars or bears means building dense cities that
| perserve as much wild space outside the city as possible for
| animal habitats.
|
| i like the idea of adapting buildings to be less hostile to
| animals that find themselves in the city, but anything that
| increases sprawl is the worst thing you could possibly do for
| wildlife.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| I appreciate seeing more people understand that density is
| our way to preservation. Thank you! :)
| bigthymer wrote:
| I think it is starting to be one of those things that most
| people on this site have come around to realizing. I'm
| eager to see whether it permeates the rest of society and
| what actions we start taking in that direction.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I lived in a neighborhood (Vancouver) where bears were
| regular back yard visitors. Cougars were around but rarely
| seen. Many California suburbs seem to get alone with local
| predator populations. I think the key is not to fence things
| off in a manner than gives them no easy escape route when
| confronted.
| asdff wrote:
| The big issue with California and predators is in what they
| end up eating in the suburbs: trash and poisoned rats. A
| lot of businesses in CA have a box in the back full of rat
| poison. The rat eats that then walks off and dies
| someplace, the coyote/couger/bear/owl/hawk/vulture finds
| the carcass, eats the poison, and also dies. There aren't
| many sources of high quality food in CA suburbs for
| predators. You don't get large populations of deer, like in
| suburbs out east that were clearcut from forest, since
| suburbs in CA are developed out of farmland or pasture or
| oil fields generally and there isn't much habitat
| surrounding most of these developments that support larger
| game populations like out east (compare satellite imagery
| of Sacramento to Cleveland and see how stark the
| differences in forest cover are in CA vs a typical eastern
| city.
| Angostura wrote:
| There's a lot you can do in terms of building for biodiversity
| that will benefit 10s of thousands of species before you have
| ti to worry about the handful of apex preditors that harm
| humans.
| zabzonk wrote:
| > Even large deer can be a problem.
|
| In the UK also - I've had several near-death experiences in a
| car at night with deer in North London.
|
| Not that I want to get rid of them.
| edgyquant wrote:
| This happens a lot in the Midwest also. Deer are really
| dangerous because they walk across roads in the night and
| they freeze up when they see a bright light.
| ehnto wrote:
| Adelaide is an interesting case study. There is a river and
| nature reserve that stretches from the hills to the coast that
| cuts right through the city. They do incur on the edges of it
| in a few locations but for the most part it's got native
| vegetation for the full length of it. It's one of the many
| nature corridors there, and the network of nature corridors
| continues to expand throughout suburbia. They also have a ring
| of parklands around the CBD all of which have native vegetation
| in at least some areas if not quite the whole area.
|
| They're not unique in having a river cutting through the city,
| but they were lucky to have the foresight of a city planner who
| felt there was some value in keeping the native vegetation all
| the way back at the city's inception.
|
| There is beautiful and diverse birdlife throughout the city and
| that's in no small part due to the amount of native vegetation
| kept around throughout the city and suburbia. From the
| surrounding hills, the suburbs just look like a regular forest
| with some buildings poking out here and there, it's incredibly
| green. There is about as much parklands as there is real estate
| in the CBD itself.
|
| https://d31atr86jnqrq2.cloudfront.net/images/aerial-city-ade...
| zabzonk wrote:
| Surprisingly, London has a huge amount of parkland and
| multiple rivers - you only have to fly over it to see it all
| (or live there to experience it). And lots of varied
| creatures living there.
| r00fus wrote:
| Holy cow that looks paradisiac compared most major US cities.
| sjf wrote:
| The aerial view says otherwise:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@-34.9082898,138.5203148,29616m
| /...
| big_curses wrote:
| This is going to come across as a nitpick on the title, the idea
| is taken farther in the article and I think it's an important
| distinction.
|
| No, we should not build for wildlife. We should only build for
| people and what is good for people's lives. The only question
| then is, "what is good for people?". If not harming the
| biodiversity in a region and having more green spaces are good
| for people (which they likely are), then we should do it, but it
| is not the case that, as the article says, "whenever we build
| something...it's our responsibility to accommodate wildlife that
| would be displaced otherwise". Our only responsibility is to our
| own lives and the rights of others, animals do not have rights
| and cannot even conceive of them. If people want to help animals
| because it makes them happy, that's great, but we don't owe any
| moral responsibility to them.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| This is called anthropocentrism. When you consider the amount
| of biodiversity loss and other land-use changes that've
| happened over the past 100 years, along with the civilizational
| collapses that've happened in prior history with that view,
| perhaps you'll change your mind.
|
| Start with learning about the planetary boundaries framework:
| https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-bound...
| big_curses wrote:
| Yes, but if biodiversity loss and changes in the land caused
| by some action we've taken leads to civilizational collapse,
| then obviously that's not good for our lives and we should
| stop doing it. If biodiversity has effects that are good for
| us, then we should build things with that in mind (I only say
| "if" here because I have not read much in depth on the
| effects of lessening biodiversity, although it's pretty
| obvious how it could be destructive). I support
| infrastructure that promotes biodiversity, but disagree that
| we should do it for the animals, we should do it for us.
| asdff wrote:
| What is good for biodiversity is good for us because we rely on
| biodiversity to generate crop varieties to feed ourselves.
| big_curses wrote:
| Exactly, so this would be a legitimate reason for us to
| support biodiversity.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| The good news is that what is good for humans is to maintain
| biodiversity and what's good for biodiversity is good for
| animals. We are currently deficient in this area, so even if
| the world was full of big_curses we would still need to make
| some progress in protecting wildlife, if even for our own
| selfish reasons.
|
| But you are wrong that animals don't have, or cannot conceive
| of, having rights and that we don't "owe" them anything. The
| truth is that we owe all living things the right to exist in
| the same way your rights are granted by the constitution. It
| may be a tough to shake off a barbaric mindset like the one
| expressed above, but if you don't want society to leave you
| behind, I suggest you try.
| big_curses wrote:
| > The good news is that what is good for humans is to
| maintain biodiversity and what's good for biodiversity is
| good for animals.
|
| Exactly, which is why I'm generally in support of building
| things in a way that maintains biodiversity. But we should be
| doing it for us as the principle driving this action, even if
| the outcome seems the same.
|
| > But you are wrong that animals don't have, or cannot
| conceive of, having rights and that we don't "owe" them
| anything. The truth is that we owe all living things the
| right to exist in the same way your rights are granted by the
| constitution.
|
| Which animal can grasp a philosophically grounded conception
| of rights? If they can't do that, they do not know of rights.
| Certain species of primates may react to what they perceive
| as fair and unfair, but this is founded in emotion and social
| habits, not reason, which is required for a conception of
| rights. You will never see an animal respecting your rights,
| they simply happen to act in a way that doesn't directly
| infringe on them, but only sometimes. Also, I should clarify,
| just because animals don't have rights doesn't mean it is
| good for us, as individuals, to do anything we want to them
| at any time. Unnecessary cruelty is not good for an
| individual psychologically, in addition to the fact that it
| does not add to your life in any way.
| agentultra wrote:
| Sounds like a great idea. One of the many factors increasing tick
| populations in Canada are roads. They subdivide forested areas
| and migration paths for deer which are the primary hosts for deer
| ticks. Which means deer stay closer together and so do the ticks.
| Along with the warmer climate it's turning into an epidemic.
|
| It may not be perfect but starting to build affordances for
| wildlife seems like a fantastic idea for our health and theirs.
| asdff wrote:
| If we can build an overpass over a freeway for some teensy town
| of 400 people, it should be no issue at all to construct a
| handful of overpasses for wildlife. Imo the issue with these
| proposals is that these wildlife bridges are almost always
| dramatically overbuilt and overlandscaped to look natural for
| humans, and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, when just a
| simple bridge and a fence funneling wildlife to the bridge
| would do. A deer doesn't need the bridge to look like a perfect
| natural feature. They walk along roads as it is just fine if
| that's where they are heading. We just assume they want some
| natural looking thing but I don't think there is data
| suggesting that these sorts of wildlife overpasses are more
| effective than a simple cheap ugly one.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I like the idea of biodiversity on the roof. I would like it
| better if they'd consulted some roofing contractors about what
| that might do to the roof.
|
| Like, for example, the rain getting into your house because some
| animal has forced a hole in the surface.
| kderbyma wrote:
| I would love to see more hybrid building in areas which can
| support them natively, which is the key (native species) - but I
| also would love to see combinations of aquaponics and LEED
| engineering coming together with new biomaterials to build more
| forest like ecosystems inside of our cities
| kderbyma wrote:
| and combined with reusable structures and prefab components
| like DIRTT and others
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