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Humanity making progress like it always does (mbin.grits.dev)

submitted 11 months ago by mozz@mbin.grits.dev to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] chetradley@lemmy.world 143 points 11 months ago

We're undoubtedly in the midst of another mass extinction, caused by human activity. Here's another one that will freak you out:

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 114 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Here's a fun one about the fish:

[-] ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml 58 points 11 months ago

That is not fun. That is the opposite of fun 🤕

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 18 points 11 months ago

😢

[-] Mavvik@lemmy.ca 27 points 11 months ago

This is kind of misleading since they closed the fishery (I think in the 90s), so the amount of cod catch would naturally plummet. The fishery did, however, need to be closed due to overfishing.

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 55 points 11 months ago

Not exactly; it collapsed, then they closed it once it was too late, and now it's still fucked, 30 years later.

In the early-1990s, the industry collapsed entirely.

In 1992, John Crosbie, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, set the quota for cod at 187,969 tonnes, even though only 129,033 tonnes had been caught the previous year.

In 1992 the government announced a moratorium on cod fishing.[12] The moratorium was at first meant to last two years, hoping that the northern cod population would recover and the fishery. However, catches were still low,[16] and thus the cod fishery remained closed.

By 1993 six cod populations had collapsed, forcing a belated moratorium on fishing.[14] Spawning biomass had decreased by at least 75% in all stocks, by 90% in three of the six stocks, and by 99% in the case of "northern" cod, previously the largest cod fishery in the world.[14] The previous increases in catches were wrongly thought to be due to "the stock growing" but were caused by new technologies such as trawlers.[13]

[-] Mavvik@lemmy.ca 11 points 11 months ago

That's a fair point. It still is a misleading plot since it isn't an estimate cod population, and isn't representative of population after 1992. As you said the numbers are still bleak. I found this plot , Source , which does tell a similar story around the early 90s but indicates greater recovery in more recent years.

[-] humbletightband@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 11 months ago

Fuck. Fish near China, India and Indonesia are doomed

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 21 points 11 months ago

You can see where they decided "Profit, with no consideration of anything else!" was the answer

[-] oo1@lemmings.world 9 points 11 months ago

I'm going to guess it wasn't a decision, so much as tech availability and pricing. radar, sonar, more powerful boats with bigger trawl nets.

If they'd had that stuff earlier it'd be the same tragedy of the same commons.

[-] otp@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago

Fair.

If we could've fucked things over a decade ago, we definitely would've!

[-] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 1 points 11 months ago

Somewhere there was an asshole who made a decision, one of our failures as a (global, makes it harder) society is failing to hold responsibility accountable. Do the crime, do the time.

[-] brisk@aussie.zone 22 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

There's something wrong with this data.

The fraction of asses should be way higher.

[-] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This makes no sense... It says pets aren't included.

There are 500-700 million dogs worldwide. There are only just under 59 million horses.

I don't believe any of this as a result.

Edit: and 35 million camels ...and only a billion cattle. This entire thing is demonstrably bullshit.

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 31 points 11 months ago

700 million dogs x 17 kg per dog = 12 Mt of dog

59 million horses x 700 kg per horse = 41 Mt of horse

If horses are 2%, then dogs are 0.5%, less than 1% just like they said

35 million camels x 500 kg per camel = 17 Mt of camel, a little less than 1%

I think the key thing is they're measuring biomass, not just the number of animals, otherwise it would all be stuff like mice and rats (not to say that wouldn't be a valid thing to look at also)

[-] stebo02@sopuli.xyz 16 points 11 months ago

BioMASS is not about the number of animals but about their mass. Sure there's a lot of dogs and cats but they don't weigh as much as a camel.

[-] freijon@lemmings.world 7 points 11 months ago

TIL there are animals called Ass

[-] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 11 months ago

Isn't it just another word for donkey?

[-] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 7 points 11 months ago

Mammal biomass is 1% ass

And yeah, they're donkeys. We have wild donkeys where I live, they're feral asses

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Why is that supposed to freak me out? We cultivate animals for consumption and there's not a 1:1 absorption/usage ratio. Now add insect biomass.

[-] stebo02@sopuli.xyz 4 points 11 months ago

And that's only because whales and elephants are so massive.

[-] meowMix2525@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

It doesn't help that we chose the meatiest animals to keep as livestock and then made sure they got even fatter than they started by any means necessary. One factory farmed cow probably weighs like 12 wild deer and a few wild rabbits for good measure.

[-] stebo02@sopuli.xyz 1 points 11 months ago

yes exactly

[-] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 1 points 11 months ago

Presumably subway rats and other vermin count as wild?

[-] stebo02@sopuli.xyz 1 points 11 months ago

and how is that relevant to what I said?

[-] Viper_NZ@lemmy.nz 2 points 11 months ago

How isn’t it relevant? Large animals like whales make up a disproportionate amount of ‘wild animal’ biomass. But rats, mice etc will make up a sizeable proportion too while being human centric pests in much of the world.

4% is actually worse than it looks.