Alaska's famous crabs suddenly disappeared....

[onlyTheObvious]

You get done with that assessment yet? Can I have a liberal check your figures? 😉

It’s ok. Saying you care is enough for most.

also China discharges most of the plastic into the ocean. Not republicans.

 

[lonestar50]

There are some amazing science deniers on hort.

That's not the adjective I would use

 

[billanole]

It’s ok. Saying you care is enough for most.

also China discharges most of the plastic into the ocean. Not republicans.

I kinda doubt that rural villagers in China use very many single use plastic bags or plastic silverware.

 

[fsu1jreed]

This is how/why I become exceedingly cynical about this planet and our role on it. Humans do everything that we can to keep our foot on the gas pedal of causing this planet to become uninhabitable as quickly as we can. It's not like it's just one thing that, if we could only address this thing, that everything would be okay. It's everything, like:
- This example of over-fishing crabs until their population seems to have collapsed
- Overfishing many other species of food fish
- The effluence of chemicals and poisons down the Mississippi out into the gulf, causing a huge "dead zone"
- Deforestation to create more grazing land for cattle or urban sprawl
- The continued lack of concern for the "greenhouse" gasses that help warm the planet
- The mismanagement of forests that causes more, and bigger, fires that kills off vegetation and wildlife
- The continued urban sprawl that pushes wildlife further and further, or causes them to adapt to living closer to us, which we freak out and kill them for
- Continuing to deplete the planet of fossil fuels like there's never going to be an end, while at the same time wearing that as some kind of badge of pride
- We keep turning out more and more single use plastics like it's no big deal, and it keeps ending up everything on the planet, and no one seems to care, like it'll never make a difference.
- Overpopulation - we keep multiplying at a rate that's not sustainable, while simultaneously propping up groups like the poor and the elderly that nature would take care of for us

Nothing is going to change on a scale where it's going to make any difference. The trees aren't going to replace themselves, the water's not going to clean itself, all that plastic's not going to decompose, and there's not going to magically be more food. And if anyone tries to care enough to do anything about it, they're labeled as environmental extremists and derided for caring more about the planet and it's future than the rest of us do - yes, myself included.

This planet is effed and I don't blame it for wanting to get rid of us through larger and more frequent disasters. We deserve it. I wish there was a Thanos-like event where 1/2 the population could instantly be wiped out: it's at least a decent place to start. Short of that, I can at least keep hoping for bigger and better diseases to wipe us out, or a big-ass meteor.

Unless we get off this planet or a natural disaster, etc. wipes out 99% of the population, humans won't be around in 500 years

 

[Colonoscopy]

If you have no other explanation, it must be climate change.

I do wonder about this sometimes. May very well be climate change. But are we paying a lot closer attention to things we never paid close attention to in the past? How long have we been tracking crab activity in this region?

The same with certain weather events.

For example... tornado data really only goes back to the 50s, and even then, for a good while it wasn't very quality data.

I think climate change is an issue, for sure... but pointing to discrete events without a good history of data around said events and making bold proclamations that climate is at work where the change is concerned leaves me a bit skeptical.

 

[GOHOX69]

That's not the adjective I would use

You are correct!