Can the World Really Set Aside Half of the Planet for Wildlife?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/can-world-really-set-aside-half-planet-wildlife-180952379/?all&no-ist

by benbreen • 12 years ago

237 192 12 years ago

chiph• 12 years ago

He needs to talk with the Florida DOT about building wildlife bridges so the animals can safely cross roads and rail lines.

burtonator• 12 years ago

It needs to be a HARD set aside.. perhaps only trials and fire roads too.

NOT what the US does with "national forest"... IE it's pseudo wilderness. They let ranchers use it to raise their cattle and lets companies harvest trees and mine it.

tgb• 12 years ago

Harvesting of trees can be both very profitable and of low impact. There's very high biodiversity on the edges transitioning between forest and clearings. Of course, it's easy to do it poorly, but it's a very useful source of income for many preserved areas.

hyperbovine2• 12 years ago

Also, everybody still wants and needs wood. It's just an incredibly useful material, as well as being renewable and generally carbon-negative. So, trees are going to be cut down somewhere. Better the national forests where there is at least some stewardship going on than elsewhere.

wavefunction2• 12 years ago

And as the perennial summer fires show us year after year, the forests need to be turned over more frequently than they have been to prevent these cataclysmic fires.

sliverstorm3• 12 years ago

Sounds like what you want is designated wilderness areas?

They mention them in the article, but not everyone is familiar with them. Wilderness areas are not the same as national parks, though a national park may have wilderness area.

People are generally allowed to hike or ski, but you need a permit to camp and sometimes even a permit just to be there.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Wilderness_Preservatio...

jessaustin5• 12 years ago

The problem lots of people have with wilderness areas is that one isn't allowed to just drive right in. Of course, if one could, they wouldn't be very wilderness-y. b^)

Someone1234• 12 years ago

Plus excessive hunting in some areas (where wildlife is unable to regain the numbers lost).

Illegal hunting is also an issue too but that won is harder to handle than legal hunting where too many permits are granted (and granted for too small of an area, wiping out a population in that area).

Over-hunting is also a massive problem for fishing (both inland and open water), we're wiping out whole species of fish.

wmeredith• 12 years ago

As someone who spends a fair amount of time in National Forests (Mostly dispersed camping in Colorado and camping/canoeing in Missouri) I think the national park system is incredibly well managed as is.

maxerickson2• 12 years ago

National Parks in the U.S. are a distinct thing from the National Forests. They are even organized under different federal departments (parks are part of the Department of the Interior, forests are under the Department of Agriculture).

Smudge3• 12 years ago

I recently tried to go hiking in Colorado with my dad in an area that he remembered being a great hike ~20 years ago. Well, we get there, and we realize the majority of the area has become an RV camp littered with dirt bike trails, despite it being managed by the National Forest Service. We still had an okay time hiking once we got to the main trail, but the whole area around it was a dust bowl, certainly not helped by all of the erosion.

As we were leaving, he remarked that this is what happens when your country's forest service is part of the Department of Agriculture (tasked with policy on farming, agriculture, food, and using resources economically) instead of the Department of the Interior (housing the National Park Service and the Fish & Wildlife Service, among others, and tasked with conserving federal land and resources).

It's a real shame that the Forest Service, while doing an okay job maintaining much of the land, is part of a wider branch that is incentivized to promote economic growth and treat resources as things to be used instead of preserved. It just doesn't seem to fit in with that branch of the government.

sliverstorm3• 12 years ago

That structure isn't a mistake. The USFS & the NPS have distinct goals.

Borrowing from Wiki:

Land management of (national forests) focuses on conservation, timber harvesting, livestock grazing, watershed protection, wildlife, and recreation. Unlike national parks and other federal lands managed by the National Park Service, extraction of natural resources from national forests is permitted, and in many cases encouraged.

USFS does not exist for pristine preservation of deep wilderness. The goal of the NPS is preservation & low-impact recreation. The goal of the USFS is responsible resource exploitation.

Both goals have their place. We need both organizations. The key then is wise choices in designating the land.

jessaustin5• 12 years ago

...instead of the Department of the Interior...

Before praising that department too much, you might want to visit some BLM land. You might be disappointed. The rule seems to be that locals can do or dump anything they want there, unless it interferes with mineral extraction.

ejain• 12 years ago

US National Forests also include 400+ out of the 700+ designated wilderness areas in the US. These areas have no ranchers or loggers or miners, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Wilderness_Areas.

grondilu12• 12 years ago

the sixth mass extinction event, the only one caused not by some cataclysm but by a single species—us.

Not so sure. IIRC there are reasons to believe that the big one, the Permian-Triassic extinction, was due to methanosarcina, an archaean genus. OK, that's not a species but a genus, but still.

It's a bit naive to think that all extinctions events happen because of some geologic or celestial event. Sometimes, evolution goes terribly wrong and sh.t hits the fan. Either it is by releasing nefarious gazes in the atmosphere, or creating a Primate intelligent enough to rule and consume most of biosphere.

hyperbovine2• 12 years ago

Said primate could potentially avert its own extinction, is I think the point of this article.

grondilu12• 12 years ago

That may be the point of the article, but I was commenting on a very specific assertion.

wyager3• 12 years ago

Said primate could potentially avert its own extinction

There is no reason to believe that a mass extinction of other species would effect a human extinction.

Even now, with only a few decades of genomics under our belt, we could probably replace every single food source humans currently rely on with genetically engineered algae/fungi/etc.

That is the worst-case scenario for mass extinction caused by habitat shift, and doesn't result in the extinction of humans.

protonfish• 12 years ago

The largest environmental impact the Earth has ever seen was caused by its original life form (probably some type of cyanobacteria.) They depleted most of the atmosphere's CO2 and replaced it with toxic gas. (O2) It caused the oceans to rust. It is hard to know the exact scope of the effects, but they were significant.

Retric• 12 years ago

The earliest life forms where not photosynthetic. Further the change was slow enough to give life plenty of time to adapt.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_photosynthesis

gizmo6864• 12 years ago

In addition to poisoning the atmosphere, Cyanobacteria's oxigination of the atmosphere is also thought to have caused a major global cooling event by reducing CO2 concentrations.

grondilu12• 12 years ago

Well, I was thinking about it when I talked about releasing nefarious gazes, but I did not want to digress too much.

DodgyEggplant8• 12 years ago

These kind of arguments were used not only for the animals issue, but also among humans, to justify killing by the most monstrous regimes in history. Taking out any moral stand, and classifying these issues as a given "scientific" or "force of nature" phenomenon, is wrong. Very wrong. Living elephants are more important than ivory jewels. Although it's a possible (devastating) path, it's our duty to avoid consuming of the biosphere.

grondilu12• 12 years ago

I'm not trying to justify anything and if other people did, it's not my fault. I was merely questioning an assertion made in the article. It is not necessarily true that the current extinction is the only one caused by a particular species, and anyway it's almost certainly not the only one with a biotic cause.

krick3• 12 years ago

Funny thing is that "these kind of arguments" are arguments enough — that is, be they true or false, they are logical. And the only argument from the opposing side is "this is wrong!". Which is not argument enough.

manifestsilence• 12 years ago

Regardless of what is natural or has occurred before, reduction of biodiversity is dangerous to our own safety as a species - monocultures are more easily wiped out. If there were a terrible cow virus, we might be thankful to have emus around for example. Edit: and far more pertinent, particularly in the American Midwest, is our reliance on large quantities of single strains of corn...

gizmo6864• 12 years ago

Hopefully our seed vaults, and cataloging DNA of species before they die off, will let us re-introduce biodiversity into our agriculture.

Of course, I doubt we will attempt to do so until after the first monoculture collapse, but that is a (relativly) short term catastraphy.

DennisP• 12 years ago

There are also reasons to think the Permian-Triassic was caused by volcanic activity burning a lot of coal.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110123131014.ht...

junto2• 12 years ago

The joker in me wants to say that they already have more the half, but most of them can't swim.

The serious me thinks that trying to prevent a mass extinction is noble, and should be widely supported.

bloaf• 12 years ago

I was going to take it a step farther and say we divide on a volume basis, and the wildlife gets the inner half.

gizmo6864• 12 years ago

Preventing a mass extinction is impossible; at this point we are in damage control.

To your first point, aren't most species ocean-dwelling?

junto2• 12 years ago

To your first point, aren't most species ocean-dwelling?

Indeed, it part if the joke that most people think of elephants and rhinos as animals under threat before they think about the abundance of life on our oceans.

I believe that the highest concentration if species is found in the rainforest though.

dfc4• 12 years ago

This would have been a terrible joke considering the state of our oceans.

sxp• 12 years ago

Humans only live on a small fraction of the planet even when you limit the area to dry land.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NPP/news/earth-at-night.ht...

nly• 12 years ago

A lot of that land happens to coincide with the areas most hospitable for other mammals though. It's not like you can ask all the deer and bison to go live peacefully in the mountains.

adamnemecek• 12 years ago

But it's not just those areas that are impacted by human activity. You also have to include fields that produce grows on, grazing grounds etc.

drzaiusapelord• 12 years ago

I can't imagine us doing something like this for animals when we can't even do it for Ukrainians. From a political perspective, aggressive nations will always be seeking out annexations/territorial control and limiting the amount of land for human use would only encourage this. I mean, we're already discussing oil territorial disputes in multiple locales as well as upcoming "water wars" as unavoidable.

I don't think humanity is up to the task. This proposal sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel where everyone is a Marty or Mary Sue or some benevolant engineer dictator is running the show. In real life, guys like Putin don't give two shits about life and will march troops on a whim to obtain resources.

fdsary2• 12 years ago

When speaking about aggressive governments, the elephant in the room is the US, waging war everywhere with a military bigger than all other countries combined...

How can we citizens of the world figure out a way to if not stop then exterminate this brutal force that has grown out of proportion? Can we do it without human sacrifice, and in a way that does not harm the american people who the US military is "protecting"?

Ninja edit: No I'm not saying a good solution is for the worlds government to wage world war against the US. Just trying to say that there is little difference between Ukraine and Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan, except that the war in Ukraine is a piss in the ocean in comparison to the sins of the American government and military.

therealdrag0• 12 years ago

It's a far off goal to be sure. But they're already making progress. Changing it to "Half of North America" seems quite doable as more and more people are living in cities. We just need wealthy benefactors to continue buying up useless land and committing it to the cause.

transfire3• 12 years ago

This will only become possible when a couple for important milestones are reached --and they a biggies. First we have to get rid of a lot of the roads. And that can't happen until personal flight becomes common place. Second human population has to stop growing, in fact it needs to shrink even now. We are already reaching upper limits on agricultural and water availability. Unfortunately, while the former is difficult enough, the later is near impossible due to the dominance of infantile religions.

landryraccoon• 12 years ago

What does religion have to do with it? It's just evolution, isn't it? If you choose not to reproduce, your less conscientious neighbors who choose to have 7 kids will simply replace you. We are all descendants of a long line of individuals that reproduced successfully.

dmritard96• 12 years ago

"We are already reaching upper limits on agricultural and water availability. "

Water availability is a big one although hopefully we can at least handle some of that with clean energy an desal. The economics don't work yet, but water scarcity seems like something that will not stop for economics.

Agriculture scarcity - HAH. The only reason we have scarcity is because we consume too much meat, especially in the developed world. If we ate less meat, our spaces dedicated to farm land would feed at least an order of magnitude more people per square meter and would use less water in the process.

ctdonath• 12 years ago

Human population growth tapers off, even decreases, when a sufficiently advanced level of technology & luxury is reached.

We are hardly "reaching upper limits on agricultural and water availability". The problem with food is distribution, not production. Water is an issue, but desalination is very possible once the demand reaches sufficient levels.

And your "infantile religion" snipe is a non-sequitur.

transfire3• 12 years ago

The two most widely practiced religions in the world, Catholicism and Islam (~3 billion people) are both opposed to birth control. In most nations these institutions hold sway. So it is not a "swipe" nor a "non-sequitur".

seanflyon2• 12 years ago

human population has to stop growing

Nearly all first world nations have a birth rate insufficient to sustain their populations. It seems that a few generations after people are wealthy enough to ensure their children's survival, they stop having more than 1 or 2 kids.

transfire3• 12 years ago

Unfortunately that's not exactly true. Even at a measly 1% (about the U.S. rate). It only takes 72 years to double a population. But the bigger problem is 2nd and 3rd world nations. The planet cannot support their reaching the economic levels of 1st world nations in order to achieve this natural population leveling.

spodek2• 12 years ago

The question is not can we.

The question is what standard of living do we want for species in the long term.

We can always live more comfortably today by consuming non-renewable resources that make our world sustainably enjoyable, but at the loss of the benefit that resource would later give. Slash-and-burn farming does this. As do putting up a mall over untouched land, burning fossil fuels, and overpopulation, for example, all of which do the opposite of setting aside part of the planet.

Business people know the concept better than anyone. They know a company is in trouble if it sells an asset whose operation produces profit to pay for current operations.

We can set off as much of the planet as we like and live in as much abundance per person as the planet can sustain indefinitely, though not as much abundance per person as we can today by consuming non-renewable resources. Using up those resources today only impoverishes future generations.

We can do either. What do we choose?

msluyter• 12 years ago

I think the problem is that it's not possible (or rather, extremely difficult) to choose in any global sense, due to co-ordination problems. A very interesting (though long and occasionally whimsical) essay called "Meditations on Moloch" dwells on this problem:

"A basic principle unites all of the multipolar traps above. In some competition optimizing for X, the opportunity arises to throw some other value under the bus for improved X. Those who take it prosper. Those who don’t take it die out. Eventually, everyone’s relative status is about the same as before, but everyone’s absolute status is worse than before. The process continues until all other values that can be traded off have been – in other words, until human ingenuity cannot possibly figure out a way to make things any worse."

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

So, basically we can't choose your former path above because we're stuck in one of these "multipolar traps." I recommend checking out the entire essay. It's long but rewarding.

spodek2• 12 years ago

Sounds like a Nash equilibrium.

I think you're saying the path of using up non-renewable resources and maximally populating is a Nash equilibrium so stable we can't get out of it, I admit it could be a possibility.

Daishiman2• 12 years ago

One of the purposes international treaties and organizations attempt to solve is this very coordination problem. The fact that such organizations have had a certain level of success as far as deweaponization (as far as biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons), commerce treaties, and pollution control guidelines means that a global framework for reducing carbon emissions and increasing land conservation efforts is possible.

A minor example of this is the UNESCO World Heritage Sites, which have a certain protected legal standing, which has been fairly effective in its goal. Maritime laws and emissions control for large ships is another one where global legal frameworks have worked.

7952• 12 years ago

If you assume that the basic intent of human life is to grow population then we self organise very effectively. The only way we will ever make room for nature is if population growth becomes dependant on other forms of agriculture that do not need large amounts of land and sunlight.

angersock• 12 years ago

That quote is a perfect summation of all software engineering projects.

qq66• 12 years ago

Obligatory: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/01/why-john...

civilian• 12 years ago

So. It might not need to be a global effort. A handful of large countries could foster their forests and get near half. Here's an article about Brazil successfully reducing the destruction of their rainforests: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2160340...

jessriedel• 12 years ago

The question is what standard of living do we want for species in the long term.

Your framing assumes a fixed supply of non-renewable resources and rough stability in our technology for both extracting and consuming them. Yes we should minimize irreparable harm to the planet, and yes we should obey the precautionary principle, but it would be silly to plan our current consumption of resources as if we will have the same technology in a thousand years.

monsterix2• 12 years ago

It is possible.

One of the discussions that spurred here in my cubicle was: How? How can we set aside half of the planet for anything other than ourselves? It's impossible! With almost every nation, state or person out there worrying about their piece of land it surely must be impossible.

But not quite.

Use Nuclear Leakage & Irradiation. Like the one that led to the Red Forest in Chernobyl [1].

'Radiological Reserves' are probably the only way to set aside a large area for animals/plants with a guarantee that humans will not come by. Not in the next 10,000 years!

Eat that! :)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Forest

marcosdumay• 12 years ago

One way or the other, the solution goes through nuclear energy :)

monsterix2• 12 years ago

It actually does tie up all the parameters together: Evolution, Creation, Destruction, Energy, Disorderliness etc. etc. :)

Jekyll• 12 years ago

I'd recommend this book by the way: 'Time to Eat the Dog?: The Real guide to Sustainable Living' by Thames & Hudson - search it up if you want a read.

We essentially need to return to a lifestyle that is described by the 'Lark Rise to Candleford' Trilogy, with comparatively recent local communities in 'developed' countries growing their own food, helping each other, making their own entertainment, travelling little, and generally living within the resources of their immediate environment. Such a way of life could be said to reduce our land needs and potentially allow us to set aside half the planet.

Whilst the solution is arguably obvious, with the advocation of mass-consumerism and with many people having a vested interest in the continuous extraction of fossil fuels - that change will always be thwarted.

bmh100• 12 years ago

There are fundamental cultural issues that will need to be addressed for civilization to reach sustainable, large populations. Yet, even if we do undergo a mass extinction, it may be slow enough that we can actively intervene in the ecology to prevent the collapse of civilization. With the rise of synthetic biology, advanced genetic engineering, realistic ecological simulations, and perhaps AI-engineered organisms, it may be exiting. We could be on the cusp of an unprecedented explosion in new genes, phenotypes, biochemistry, and general biodiversity.

DodgyEggplant8• 12 years ago

We should consider a single plastic toy, bought from Amazon, used for a few months and thrown away: The material and minerals are taken from the ground, factories to produce it, ship to the harbour, overseas, to stores, to the consumer, and then - disposal? For what? Animals are living creatures, that inspired (and still inspire - so many movies, stories, sport teams, logos, metaphors) humanity for ages. Many, many daily things we can really live without. Think shoedazzle. Do we really need new shoes monthly, or "get obsessed"[1] about shoes? Can we at least buy something with better quality that lasts for years? This shopping and comforts have a cruel irreversible price tag on animals and wildlife. Add to this wars and conflicts all around the world, and the results are devastating.

[1] Home page of http://www.shoedazzle.com/

judk• 12 years ago

Higher taxes on the wealthy will reduce wasteful spending.

robertfw• 12 years ago

The need for more pervades everyone, it is not a matter of "I have spare cash, lets spend it!", our society revolves around the accumulation of crap. It is a broad cultural change that is needed, not a tax code tweak.

mrfusion2• 12 years ago

Right or move to a sales tax that discourages consumption. Instead of an income tax that discourages working.

fooqux• 12 years ago

I'd argue it isn't the wealthy buying disposable goods. They have the money to buy the good stuff. If any demographic is buying more often than the other, it's actually the poor, who don't have the money to spend $1,000 for a blender that may last.

UrMomReadsHN• 12 years ago

For what?

Money.

I think that you just described the tragedy of the commons.[1] Individuals acting in their own self-interest contrary to everyone's long-term best interests by depleting common resources.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Htsthbjig• 12 years ago

In the future, yes I believe so.

Today I believe there is no way.

The world approaches population stabilization. Japan 's population is going to go down. So is China, Germany, Spain...

As we reduce illness in Africa and increase automation people need less children.

Population will get a peak and then not grow anymore.

If we solve fusion energy we will be able to plant vegetables or plankton underground, in floors, in a much more efficient way, as we will be able to have a stable temperature all day long, with pests controlled without using chemical products, just controlling physically the access, and very near the places they are consumed.

DodgyEggplant8• 12 years ago

The effect is not only population, but resources dilution. The same population can consume different amounts of forests, nature areas, or elephants for their ivory [1]

[1] http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/09/15/opinion-c...

rasz_pl• 12 years ago

just nuke some land, worked great for wildlife in Cernobyl

dfc4• 12 years ago

It is strange that modern agriculture employs crop rotation in order to increase yields but we do not do the same thing for harvesting food from the ocean. CBC's The Nature of Things recently had a series about the state of the oceans. During one of the episodes they showed the success of marine reserves in New Zealand. I am having trouble finding a good link but the turn around was amazing.

Currently less than 1% of the ocean is protected. Greenpeace has been campaigning to set aside a large amount of the ocean as a "marine reserve." http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/...

e402• 12 years ago

It is strange that modern agriculture employs crop rotation in order to increase yields but we do not do the same thing for harvesting food from the ocean.

Crops are grown on private property and the ocean is a shared resource. See tragedy of the commons[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

dfc4• 12 years ago

There are two problems with your response. The first is that not all of the ocean is a shared resource. Within national boundaries the ocean is anything but a shared resource. See Fisheries Management[1] and for a specific example see Stellwagons Bank[2].

The other problem is that just because something is a shared resource does not mean that it is automatically a lost cause. See tragedy of the commons[3]:

   Elinor Ostrom found  the tragedy of the commons  not as prevalent
   or  as  difficult  to  solve. She and  her  coworkers  looked  at
   how  real-world communities  manage communal  resources, such  as
   fisheries ... and  they identified a number  of factors conducive
   to successful resource management.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisheries_management

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellwagen_Bank_National_Marin...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

ancap• 12 years ago

If only the oceans were privatized, then Greanpeace could buy up as big of a chunk as they could afford.

icebraining• 12 years ago

And even if they didn't want to own it, they could pay the owner to not overfish. A good example of that is the work of Hank Fischer and the Defenders of Wildlife, who on seeing ranchers endanger the wolves population (since they'd eat the livestock), raised money to pay the ranchers for the losses, on the condition they wouldn't kill the wolves.

http://perc.org/articles/who-pays-wolves

ilaksh3• 12 years ago

Not sure why I bother trying to talk to you people anymore, but I will go ahead and throw out an idea that I assume you will simply reject because it goes against your belief system.

We should not worship nature to such a high degree. Yes, we should try to conserve wild areas as a buffer against mistakes and for basic enjoyment. And we are not doing a good enough job of that.

But the assumption is that basically the wild areas have some sacred process or system going on that we cannot possibly ever aspire to understanding or surpassing.

First of all, there is absolutely no separation between the "wild" world and the "human" world. The idea of a natural world that is separate from a human world is an oversimplification that has become misleading.

Everything in the world, including people and the things that we make, from human feces, to plastic trash bags to rocket ships and computers, is the result of the same natural physical laws and processes involved in the universe.

The planet sees itself with billions of eyes. The planet thinks with billions of tiny minds.

The cities, roadways, and agricultural fields that cover increasingly large areas of earth are part of the natural evolution of the planet.

Its hard to really convey especially since we are so far down the line of nature worship, but part of what I am trying to get across is that humans have already surpassed nature in some ways, and if we haven't already done so then we can create environments that do.

I think it will be easier to appreciate this type of thing once we become a multi-planet species. Or at least get a colony on the moon or something.

Because part of the nature worship is the reality that we only have one biosphere to support us. We need to fix that.

But another thing -- this does tie into Malthusian population control, eugenics, classism, etc. There is an inherent disgust for the dirty masses that is hidden behind the earth worship. We have to remember the value of human life.

wavefunction2• 12 years ago

First you say that humans and artificial human works are products and part of Nature. Then you say that humans have surpassed Nature and can create environments outside of Nature, which is what you just spent the first half of your post arguing is impossible.

I think you need to figure out what you're trying to say.

guard-of-terra• 12 years ago

Rather humans can extend Nature to places where it could not be before. Think greenhouses today, domes tomorrow.

ilaksh3• 12 years ago

Don't think I said that environments would be outside of nature. That's not what I meant.

I wouldn't capitalize "nature". We are part of it, we can consciously direct its evolution if we do it in a sophisticated enough way.

We are not separate from nature and we are not inferior to nature.

My point is that instead of sort of shutting down and reverting to feudalism in the face of environmental challenges, we can continue to create a more sophisticated technological system that integrates information about the biosphere and continues to evolve it in new ways. My point is that humanity should not worship untamed wilderness. Rather, we should continue to respect the fragility and complexity of the biosphere, but still recognize our own abilities and shape the universe.

fdsary2• 12 years ago

Well two things: we need some of the things in our environment that we also destroy. We need to global temperature to stay below certain levels, but I fucking love flying to nice vacation destinations. My personal interests are in conflict with what is good for humanity.

Also: we need to respect other forms of life. Just like I can't kill someone from another family, even if we are unrelated, it is immoral to kill or damage the environment of another species. I can't kill a human from another family, or other country, without being an asshole. That extends not only to other humans, but also to other forms of life.

ilaksh3• 12 years ago

Please read again what I wrote carefully.

Almost everything that you said, to a certain degree, is understood as a starting point.

The place where I differ is I believe that now that everyone understands those things that you say, we can use our science and technology to overcome some limitations.

Think about what nuclear power means, especially fusion.

thisjepisje• 12 years ago

Majority of the planet is ocean, so maybe they could.

squozzer• 12 years ago

I guess it depends upon how many humans one must move or exterminate.

MrZongle2• 12 years ago

...which then becomes, "oh, I didn't mean these particular humans, try those over there".

At some point, the NIMBY mindset comes into play.

kolev• 12 years ago

Our society is very irresponsible. Every holiday is a nightmare for the planet. The tons of junk, wrapping, and throwaway stuff we consume will be ridiculed from future generations. Not to mention the time and energy (literary, too) wasted for shopping. I stopped buying birthday decorations and try to educate my kids to stop having these merchant-inspired "festivities". All junk from Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the endless kids' birthdays piles up to a ton per year. Be responsible as we're leaving a huge liability to the future generations and our children and grandchildren, which we care the most about! I'm really disappointed at the Waste Management Recycling Centers who refuse to take anything, but CRV just recently. I invest time and pile up tons of non-CRV recyclables and they do not take it anymore.

futbol4• 12 years ago

according to NOAA http://www.noaa.gov/ocean.html 71% of the earth is Ocean leaving only 29% land. So the goal is for 14.5% of the earth to be set aside for Wildlife? That is a terrible title for an article. 14.5% != 50%

EA• 12 years ago

No even close: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/pos...

naringas• 12 years ago

Can the World Really Set Aside Half of the Planet for Wildlife?

no.

jccooper• 12 years ago

See also: http://www.americanprairie.org/ -- an effort to link public and private lands to create a 3 million acre preserve of the Great Plains ecosystem. That's pretty big, but not even close to the scale this article considers.

lotsofmangos• 12 years ago

We could set aside 90%, if we turned agriculture over to nuclear powered subterranean farms.

It isn't so much what can we do, as what can groups of people be bothered to do collectively and whether anyone else is going to complain.

tatterdemalion• 12 years ago

I think the only ultimately sustainable solution is not to "set aside" any percentage of the planet for wildlife, but to develop ways of living that are not based on a differentiation between spaces of civilization and spaces of wilderness. Our species is naturally a node in a complex set of ecological systems, and instead of trying to detach ourselves from that system we should find a way to achieve our goals while living within it.

electromagnetic• 12 years ago

I think developing a grid system where there can only be so much average population density in a given area would be the best way to handle it.

Setting aside half our land is kind of absurd in that it's inevitably going to be undesirable land - look at Canada. The population clings to the boarder, so we preserve the boreal forest, but not the more southern parts.

If we create a grid pattern we either end up with a low general density where wildlife is free to move though our popylation or we end up with isolated areas of ultra high density (eliminating the urban sprawl) surrounded by nature allowing wildlife to freely move around our population.

My example is here in southern Ontario we generally don't see things like bears or wolves. However we can go south into the states to find them or north.

Southern Ontario homes 95% of Ontario's population and 35% of Canada's. Being from England where overpopulation wiped out many of the native species, being in southern Ontario feels the same. We're one of the least populated countries on the planet, but the Greater Toronto Area has an extremely high population density for how large of an area it covers. There literally is no room for anything bigger than a raccoon.

If we started developing rapid transit systems it would reduce the impact of confining urbanization.

zaroth• 12 years ago

"Without any human intervention, here is a forest with tall, straight trees that are rather widely spaced, plenty of sunlight and lots of open, grassy meadows. Longleaf branches out only after it’s high overhead, where glistening needles up to two-and-a-half-feet long are arrayed in pomponlike sprays. Below the branches is empty space a hawk can glide through."

Sounds beautiful!

nroets• 12 years ago

A good starting point would be scrapping agricultural subsidies. Since South Africa scrapped it, a lot of farm land was turned into wildlife farms.

Can the World Really Set Aside Half of the Planet for Wildlife?

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