[HN Gopher] Farmland practices are driving bird population decli...
___________________________________________________________________
Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across
Europe (2023)
Author : johntfella
Score : 132 points
Date : 2024-01-03 09:17 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (doi.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (doi.org)
| Roark66 wrote:
| Putting the entirety of Europe into one basket of "farmland
| practices" is really not a correct way to approach this. There
| are countries that have lots of tiny farmers, there are countries
| that have small number of huge farms. Practices between the two
| are hugely different. Also in the east where cost of living is
| much lower many farmers don't do farming (like my neighbours) but
| they "keep land culture" for which they are paid by the EU. This
| means essentially mowing the hay twice a year and doing nothing
| else. One of my farmer neighbours plants his fields every year,
| for his bees to make hone from a particular plant he wants honey
| from. He doesn't even collect the results, he just mows it back
| into the earth. Then there is the amount of woodland area.
| Compare my country Poland that has over 30% of its area as
| woodlands and growing with Netherlands(not picking on
| Netherlands, it is better in other ways). You can't. And their
| map really shows it.
|
| So making a statement like "overall decline of bird species due
| to farming practices across Europe" is just untrue.
|
| I'd love to see some sort of comparison of which farming
| practices specifically cause which bird populations to decline.
| Perhaps then we can adapt these tgat work better.
| ImAnAmateur wrote:
| Three of the 51 authors are from Poland. There are breakdowns
| by country and also comparisons of forest cover, urbanization,
| and temperature. There's a button that lets you look at the
| pictures if you want an easy country overview.
| veddox wrote:
| Your first point is partly correct, but your conclusion isn't.
|
| The authors split up their results by country to show exactly
| the differences you mention. However, you have to keep in mind
| that the EU Common Agricultural Policy applies to all these
| countries, and actively promotes large-scale intensive
| agriculture. Bird collapses after a country joins the EU have
| been shown, for example in the Czech Republic [1]. So yes,
| while the magnitude may vary, the negative trend is a Europe-
| wide phenomenon.
|
| There's also been a lot of research done on what aspects of
| farming cause declines [2]. It's partly species-specific, but
| the three major causes are: loss of semi-natural habitat area
| (e.g. hedges, fallows), disturbance mortality (e.g. from
| harvesting), and pesticides (often mediated through the loss of
| insects as food source).
|
| [1] https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12585 [2] e.g.
| https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270919000480,
| https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14400,
| https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13531,
| https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2003.06.004
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| The real danger I think is in the decrease of insect
| population. Anecdotally, 15-20 years ago, a longer trip
| throughout the country (2-400km) the windshield would be
| littered with dead insects, now very very few insects hit the
| windshield.
|
| Is there a study about the effects of decreased pollination?
| veddox wrote:
| > The real danger I think is in the decrease of insect
| population.
|
| That is certainly one of the most important issues.
| However, habitat loss is even more critical (not only but
| also because it also decreases insect numbers).
|
| > Is there a study about the effects of decreased
| pollination?
|
| Pollination and other ecosystem services have been heavily
| studied in the last decade. Putting precise numbers on it
| is tricky though, because there are so many context-
| specific factors that play a role. However, this is one
| important global study that shows a clear effect of
| pollination on yield:
| https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aax0121
| cookingmyserver wrote:
| I used to think the same thing until I started riding a
| motorcycle. I quickly came to the realization that the
| primary reason I was seeing less insects on my windshield
| was because of improved aerodynamics.
|
| I am sure that there has also been a major decline in
| insect population as well though contributing to it.
| hellgas00 wrote:
| Can you elaborate if possible on the comment made about the
| EU Common Agricultural Policy's effects of promoting large
| scale intensive agriculture. Specifically what policy
| attributes support it.
| veddox wrote:
| Principally the direct payments. Farmers in the EU get a
| certain amount of money for every hectare of land they
| farm. This accounts for 40% of all CAP payments, and
| disproportionately benefits large farms, as they not only
| get much more money but also benefit from economies of
| scale.
|
| Adding to that, compulsory environmental regulations are
| quite lax, while voluntary environmental measures are often
| poorly recompensed, and are thus economically not viable.
|
| See here for some further reading:
| https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10080 (There's lots more, but
| this should be a good starting point.)
| lapinot wrote:
| The objectives of the CAP are very much industrial and
| monetary in their orientation, seeing agriculture as a
| resource extraction activity and definitely not as any kind
| of land or biodiversity management. First goal is
| particularly crispy in this regard (number must go up,
| machine good, human labor bad).
|
| > 1. increase productivity, by promoting technical progress
| and ensuring the optimum use of the factors of production,
| in particular labor;
|
| > 2. ensure a fair standard of living for the agricultural
| Community;
|
| > 3. stabilize markets;
|
| > 4. secure availability of supplies;
|
| > 5. provide consumers with food at reasonable prices.
| moby_click wrote:
| It would be interesting, to also compare the output of farmland
| practices. If higher input leads to higher output, demand can be
| met with less land.
|
| Here is one example of that tradeoff: "Scale-dependent
| effectiveness of on-field vs. off-field agri-environmental
| measures for wild bees" -
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S143917912...
|
| Different species and crops may yield different results.
| veddox wrote:
| > If higher input leads to higher output, demand can be met
| with less land.
|
| That is a big debate in conservation biology (known as "land
| sparing vs land sharing"). One of the major problems of the
| land sparing approach, which you outline above, is that there
| is nothing that makes (at least European) farmers as upset as
| the requirement to give up farming on part of their land. So
| while it's neat in principle, many conservationists doubt its
| political practicability.
| jgraham wrote:
| I don't disagree with you, but to give a bit of colour to the
| counterargument, as I understand it, we now have maybe 5
| decades of experience which suggests that the "sharing"
| approach doesn't work at scale. In general, if you want to
| see wildlife in western Europe you go to a nature reserve,
| not a farm, because "spared" land will have nature but
| "shared" land increasingly won't. Of course there are some
| individual farmers who are doing great work and bucking that
| trend, but so far no one has found a magic formula that
| allows land to both be subject to intensive agriculture, and
| also support historically normal levels of wildlife. Or maybe
| someone has, but if so they've failed to convince farmers to
| adopt it unilaterally, or governments to impose it as policy.
|
| So arguably the evidence we have is that if you consider only
| things that farmers like to be politically practical, then
| we're likely to see wildlife declines continue indefinitely.
|
| That is of course why many people are looking for solutions
| that don't depend on the consent of the agricultural
| industry. One approach is to go over their heads and appeal
| directly to government e.g. the biodiversity COP agreement
| requiring 30% of land to be set aside for nature. Another is
| to hope that technological breakthroughs (e.g. precision
| fermentation) can fundamentally alter consumer demand for
| food products in a way that makes them much less land
| intensive (primarily by cutting out meat and other animal
| products, which use a disproportionate amount of land when
| farmed extensively, and produces a disproportionate amount of
| pollution when farmed intensively).
|
| Of course, in the short term, the practical answer is "do
| both, wherever possible". Conservation organisations should
| be encouraged to purchase land so that it can be managed
| directly for wildlife. Farmers should be encouraged to adopt
| wildlife-friendly practices as much as possible. Governments
| should be encouraged to consider wildlife conservation a goal
| in itself when designing incentive schemes for the
| agriculture industry, and the taxpayers who directly fund
| much agriculture through subsidies should be encouraged to
| hold them accountable for their progress in this area.
|
| Easier said than done, of course, but as the original article
| makes clear, the status quo is chronic failure, and there's
| no reason to suppose that can be changed within the current
| paradigm.
| veddox wrote:
| I reference this paper in almost every science-communication talk
| I give as an ecologist.
|
| It was not a new result by any means, we've had a whole range of
| other studies showing the same over the last three decades [1].
| But it was still a very important study, simply for the sheer
| amount of data they collated: analysing 170 species trends across
| four decades across Europe is quite a feat!
|
| Taken together, it really drives home the message that modern
| agricultural practices are shredding the environment, but also
| that there is a lot of nuance behind biodiversity declines that
| we need to look into further, and that offer hope for
| improvement.
|
| [1] e.g. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959270919000480,
| https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45854-0,
| https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12585,https://doi.org/10.1111/c...,
| https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2011.05.006,
| https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2004.00375.x
| toss1 wrote:
| Thank you for your work as an ecologist!
|
| I was really struck on a recent trip to Minnesota. Flew into
| the MSP airport, got the rental car and drove out to a smaller
| city. At first, we thought 'what nice countryside'. Then as the
| drive went on for hundreds of miles of nothing but plowed
| fields, with hardly even a shrub-row between fields, it became
| nightmare-ish -- literally wondering "Where could any creature
| live in this wasteland?", and nevermind the pesticides &
| herbicides. And then considering that such habitat destruction
| visible from an airliner can often extend horizon-to-horizon
| from 36,000 ft altitude, it is horrifying.
|
| Industrial farming may be "efficient" by some parameters, but
| it really is destructive, and also evidently responsible for
| the obesity epidemic.
|
| Something's gotta give.
| loopz wrote:
| Check out the new Netflix documentary series "You are what
| you eat - A twin experiment". It's quite informative and
| comprehensive, plus do a few new studies / experiments on
| identical twins.
| graphe wrote:
| Garbage propaganda. I already know their conclusion by the
| title and it's a documentary style shilling of vegan food.
| The only interesting thing is how they dress their lies
| against serious studies.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| This comment is indistinguishable from the one you would
| write if you simply didn't like the result of the
| experiment.
| graphe wrote:
| You don't need to tell me you're vegan, yours is
| indistinguishable from someone who likes the propaganda.
|
| Merit why it and other fake diet documentaries like super
| size me are legitimate. They are all grifters and
| propaganda, from the full carnivore to the full
| vegetables, most of them are vegan and vegans are
| commonly known to die of malnutrition.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| > the vegan influencers are commonly known to die of
| malnutrition.
|
| Can you provide some backing for this statement? A quick
| search shows a ton of news articles about one specific
| influencer who died last August, but I didn't find much
| that suggested a trend as you indicate.
| graphe wrote:
| Sorry let me amend my statement, I am against a diet that
| promotes malnutrition which is caused by influencers that
| don't know about nutrition. Deaths are commonly
| attributed to vegans from this propaganda, and they are
| common not a trend of influencers but a trend in general.
| https://www.the-
| independent.com/news/world/americas/crime/ve...
|
| Anyone who promotes this unhealthy propaganda should be
| treated with suspicion. The mockumentary propaganda was
| shot in the style of a documentary funded by vegan
| companies. So surprised by what we saw though fake
| science.
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| You put "but a trend in general" in front of your link,
| which describes one specific event.
|
| Your arguments might land better if you put out some
| evidence of a trend. So far you've implied a trend among
| vegan influencers, abandonded that point when it was
| pointed out that one data point isn't much of a trend,
| moved the goalposts to say it's a trend among the general
| population of vegan people, and then linked an article
| with a single data point. There's plenty of isolated
| examples of non-vegans starving their children to death,
| so an isolated example of a vegan starving their child is
| not particularly useful or informative.
|
| For the record, I fucking love steak, I'm not coming at
| this from the vegan perspective. I do have a pet peeve
| against overly broad statements, though.
| graphe wrote:
| Vegans having malnutrition is more common than it is not.
| This vegan killed their child giving them vegan food.
| This is what is happening on a broad scale. The mother
| being careful had fed them a diet that's killed them. You
| didn't read the article; she starved him by carefully
| feeding him vegan food.
| octopoc wrote:
| Not influencers, but I personally know a couple vegans
| who have brittle bones and one who is going blind (albeit
| she is in her 60s I think). Also these are vegans who
| cook almost everything from scratch and probably could
| qualify for a PHD in nutrition based on the amount of
| research they are continually doing.
|
| The reality is you can have a somewhat healthy diet for a
| single generation on a vegan diet, if you source
| ingredients from all over the world and basically stretch
| the variety of plants you eat to the maximum, but if you
| lived 100 years ago you would have quickly become
| severely malnourished. And we don't yet know what the
| impact will be over multiple generations.
| Goronmon wrote:
| I watched a bit of that in passing while my wife was
| watching, even in the few minutes I watched, it spent more
| time cheer-leading for veganism than anything that sounded
| like an "experiment" or providing useful information to
| someone who hasn't already bought into veganism already.
| epistasis wrote:
| This sort of farming is not new to the area, and it has been
| that way since European immigrants settled in Minnesota. This
| land was nearly all plains, so the trees you see around farm
| houses are actually European settler additions.
|
| There has been a drastic increase in wildlife since I was a
| child there in the 90s, however. Whatever is happening over
| all with regulations, it's definitely improving.
|
| But I have never, not once, understood the people that think
| that farming, be it industrial, organic industrial, or
| artisanal hard-labor small scale, is somehow environmentally
| positive. A lot of people who don't understand farming think
| that just buying organic produce is somehow healthy for the
| ecosystem. But any form of mono-crop farming destroys the
| existing ecosystem, organic or round-up drenched.
|
| Solar farms are far better for the ecosystem.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "A lot of people who don't understand farming think that
| just buying organic produce is somehow healthy for the
| ecosystem"
|
| Yes it is. Not using industrial pesticides and herbicides
| is already a huge deal. And not using them actually
| requires a different approach to mono-crop farming. E.g.
| planting shrubs to attract birds, who will then help
| control pests. And in general, smaller fields and more
| diverse.
| epistasis wrote:
| Do you have any studies, review papers, or other evidence
| of this?
|
| There is no increase of organic farming on these fields
| in Minnesota, yet wildlife is coming back. Other
| interventions around habitat preservation and
| restoration, and decreased runoff, seem far more crucial.
| Even organic farms use fertilizer, the runoff of which is
| far bigger contributor to ecosystem destruction than
| pesticides, at least according to everything I have seen.
| Algeal blooms and water ecosystem destruction are caused
| by excess nutrients, not from death by pesticides, for
| example.
|
| I would love to see soemthing new that I have not yet
| been able to find with regards to this evidence!
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "There is no increase of organic farming on these fields
| in Minnesota"
|
| I was not speaking about Minnesota, but the isolated
| claim denying that "buying organic produce is somehow
| healthy for the ecosystem".
|
| Buying organic rises demand for organic farming - and
| organic farming is better for diversity (do you need
| papers about this?) - but obviously only where the farms
| are located and not in the supermarket. And if the land
| you mean has no organic farming yet still increases
| wildlife, well, there are of course also many things
| conventional farming can do different (just using a
| different or less of herbicide/pesticide can have drastic
| effects).
| MeImCounting wrote:
| Some forms of farming may be marginally less apocalyptic
| in their effects on the ecosystem, but that is not even
| close to having a positive effect. Aside from the dubious
| requirements needed to obtain the "organic" label,
| "organic" has long been recognized as a buzzword used by
| well-meaning, misinformed people who, understandably,
| would like to feel good about the produce they eat.
|
| There have been numerous cases of fraud and corruption in
| relation to the "organic" label in the US. Perhaps it is
| different in the EU.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "There have been numerous cases of fraud and corruption
| in relation to the "organic" label in the US. Perhaps it
| is different in the EU."
|
| Well, I actually only know about the situation in the EU
| and there surely is and was also fraud - but overall it
| is working. Organic farmland is way more diverse and
| alive compared to the conventional counterparts.
| soperj wrote:
| Organic farms still use pesticides and herbicides,
| they're just organic ones, like Nicotine.
| midasuni wrote:
| Of course solar farms don't produce the food we require,
| which leads to mass starvation, which I guess ends up being
| good for the ecosystem eventually - but the wars and damage
| caused before then wouldn't be.
|
| Or we could go for less economically efficient methods,
| which would mean more expensive food.
| epistasis wrote:
| There is an over abundance of farming on the great
| plains, and nearly none of it goes to feeding humans.
| It's corn, soybeans, and sugar beets in Minnesota. A lot
| of it is used for industrial purposes, for creating
| ethanol for vehicle fuel, and for feeding livestock.
|
| If we took even a fraction of the fields that are used
| for ethanol and did solar farms instead, we could power
| our entire transportation energy needs. It's hard to
| overstate the inefficiency of using farm fields for
| ethanol. We just have such a huge over abundance of
| farmland that this inefficiency doesn't really matter.
|
| Honestly, it would be best to pay farmers to restore a
| lot of farmland back to plains, instead of subsidizing
| such huge amounts of overproduction of inedible crops and
| sugar.
| 1234letshaveatw wrote:
| Do you prefer drilling for oil over ethanol? it isn't
| overproduction if it is being utilized for livestock or
| fuel. Nobody (besides maybe Jeremey Clarkson) is out
| there farming for fun.
| sleepydog wrote:
| > Do you prefer drilling for oil over ethanol?
|
| This comes off as a rhetorical question, but to me it's
| not obvious that burning ethanol derived from corn
| supported by fertilizer made from fossil fuels is less
| detrimental for the environment than burning fossil fuels
| directly. I expect there are many sets of criteria that
| make one or the other worse.
|
| At least, the efficiency of ethanol vs gasoline seems to
| be a controversial topic, as I can find lots of studies
| and opinion pieces favoring each position. If anyone
| could help shed some light I'd appreciate it.
| toss1 wrote:
| Ethanol contains only about 67% of the available energy
| of gasoline on a gallon-gallon basis [0]. So mixing
| ethanol gasoline into gasoline will result in a
| noticeable loss of mile-per-gallon efficiency.
|
| Agree that both are effectively releasing CO2 from either
| deep in the earth or from the soil, so replacing them
| with solar power generation on the fields would be a net
| plus, and probably a greater energy density. We could
| also use the new-ish practice of installing vertical
| solar panels between tractor rows of crops, which doesn't
| reduce the solar yield too much and allows both 'crops'
| to yield something.
|
| That said, returning a lot to natural ecosystem may be
| necessary to our survival.
|
| [0] https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/properties
| epistasis wrote:
| A lot of people are out there farming for the subsidies,
| however.
|
| I dont know whether ethanol or oil extraction is worse
| for the environment, but solar panels instead of corn for
| ethanol seems like a huge win.
| beambot wrote:
| The insect apocalypse is even more pronounced. In the 1980s
| and 1990s, you couldn't drive through Minnesota without
| your windshield being absolutely covered in bugs. I
| remember driving through the state & being forced to pull
| over to literally scrape the bugs off the windshield. That
| just doesn't seem to exist today...
| voakbasda wrote:
| Worse, the food produced by Big Ag from such practices
| borders on poison.
|
| My wife suffers inflammation when eating most any food from
| the grocery store, with the exception of raw organic
| ingredients that we can prepare ourselves.
|
| Most people do not react at a noticable level, but she has
| autoimmune issues that make her sensitive to trace amounts of
| pesticides, preservatives, cooking oils, and more. After only
| a few bites, her hands will swell up and prevent her from
| removing her rings. Sickness follows if she doesn't take
| heed.
|
| We cannot go out to eat anywhere that uses an inexpensive
| oil; she reacts to most popular varieties. She cannot even
| eat simple table sugar beyond a bite or two.
|
| Without exception, the common denominators are those
| ingredients produced at industrial scales.
| graphe wrote:
| What do you think are the causes? I heard the us has more
| mold in their food normally.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| I think there's another common denominator as well...
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| Have you tried taking her to a doctor?
|
| This sounds like an immense burden and impact on quality of
| life for which modern medicine has likely already found a
| solution.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yeah, no.
|
| My wife has some similar autoimmune issues (thankfully
| less severe than GP), and these have stumped the best
| doctors in the world that we can find. The trips to
| Minnesota were to go to Mayo Clinic in Rochester for
| these issues.
|
| Yes it is a burden and impact on quality of life, and No,
| there is no good solution yet. I wish there would be, but
| it's not there.
|
| And yes, the food supply is poisoned by these monoculture
| and industrial food practices. While most of us are not
| poisoned to this degree, all of us are some. We started a
| garden and my diet has definitely changed, and I notice
| all kinds of subtle improvements. So, avoiding any kind
| of processed food, almost anything with a long artificial
| shelf life (this means using really good olive oil and no
| shelf mayonnaise or oils found in most products; Omega-3
| vs -6), will be to your long-term benefit, and you'll
| feel better.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| We need to feed people. Globally 8 billion now and probably a
| peak at 10 billion.
|
| Ultimately there is no magic recipe to ease our pressures on
| the environment: more people means more resources needed.
| dylan604 wrote:
| What do you think is going to cause a peak to occur? Will
| it be a plateau or a decline? If decline, will be be slow
| or sharp. Sharp as in our attempts to sustain 10 billion
| people leads to total collapse of the environment causing
| the planet to be much less habitable? Putting a number
| seems arbitrary even if you do use the word probably in
| your statement.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I am simply using the well-known UN population forecast
| here...
| wannacboatmovie wrote:
| These people have deluded themselves into thinking the guy
| at the farmers market that shows up with 12 ears of
| 'organic' corn on the back of his cute old pickup truck is
| somehow going to feed the world en masse.
|
| Organic food is a scam enjoyed by rich people whose
| emotions are granted more relevancy than practical
| thinking. It is not sustainable large-scale. People would
| go hungry and die.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > and also evidently responsible for the obesity epidemic.
|
| Where does this connection come from? I've never heard of
| this linking of industrialized farming to obesity. I've
| definitely heard of the linking of processed food to obesity,
| but farming techniques is one that I'm definitely going to
| need to see some supporting evidence for this claim.
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| In the US there has been significant cutbacks in USDA programs
| like the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) that paid farmers
| to keep certain pieces of land fallow and to plant native
| plants and grasses to provide food and habitat for wildlife.
| These programs were popular with small farmers and ranchers as
| it gave them some guaranteed income each year, and allowed them
| to follow good practices like rotating crops etc. Many of these
| programs were created after the dust bowl to provided
| incentives for better land management practices. We've been
| seeing reduced investments in these kinds of programs over the
| last couple of decades with the most recent farm bill in 2023
| being one of the worse cuts yet:
|
| https://www.eenews.net/articles/conservation-cuts-sink-in-as...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Does utility scale solar drive out native species (I am not a
| biologist or ecologist)? If not, tying up ag land with 20-30
| year solar PPAs while preserving habitat (assuming a
| favorable layout of equipment) seems like a funding source.
| 43 million acres of US farmland is used for ethanol
| production, for example.
|
| It's not quite a conservation easement, but agrivoltaics
| might be a possible path to conserving this land versus
| development or factory cash crop production. Farmers get the
| income they need, the impact to the land is minimal (panels,
| racking, and wires can be stripped at anytime), etc.
|
| https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/03/10/solarfood-in-
| ethanol-...
|
| "Of the ~92 million acres of corn planted in the US each
| year, roughly 40 million acres (1.6% of the nation's land)
| are primarily used to feed cars and raise the octane of
| gasoline. If this land were repurposed with solar power, it
| could provide around three and a half times the electricity
| needs of the United States, equivalent to nearly eight times
| the energy that would be needed to power all of the nation's
| passenger vehicles were they electrified.
|
| However, if we were to transition this 40 million acres are
| of fuel to solar+food (agrivoltaics) - we could still meet
| 100% of our electricity needs, and power a nationwide fleet
| of electric vehicles."
|
| https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/northeast/topic/agrivo.
| ..
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/articles/potential-
| agrivol...
|
| https://www.nrel.gov/solar/market-research-
| analysis/agrivolt...
|
| https://www.planning.org/blog/9253223/visual-guide-to-
| agrivo...
|
| https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2022.9320.
| ..
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0364-5
| popol12 wrote:
| The impact on land is not small, you need quite a lot of
| concrete to anchor panels supports to the ground.
|
| Also I wonder how the soil will evolve under solar panels,
| with less light hitting it. Probably better than when
| farmed, but worse than leaving it alone.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| > Also I wonder how the soil will evolve under solar
| panels, with less light hitting it.
|
| It depends on the native ecosystem, but not as bad as you
| might fear. In places with dense grasses (some prairie
| grasses?) or heavy forests, the topsoil doesn't get much
| light.
|
| (Deforestation has encouraged the development of algal
| blooms and other fungal/microbial growth in streams that
| were previously sheltered from light, contributing to
| ecosystem failure and other environmental issues.)
| Fezzik wrote:
| But in dense grasslands and heavy forests the soil
| benefits from the sun, in that as the grasses and trees
| go through their lifecycles they reintroduce nutrients to
| the soil in the form of falling leaves/needles and death
| and decomposition. Grasslands and dense forests are also
| teaming with life, big and small, that nurture the
| environment. Is there really any doubt that if we cover
| massive swaths of land in solar panels the soil will
| become useless? I have not seen more than a few
| firsthand, but the earth under the large solar complexes
| I have seen is mud or dust.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| Very fair rebuttal; I concede the point!
| epistasis wrote:
| > Is there really any doubt that if we cover massive
| swaths of land in solar panels the soil will become
| useless?
|
| To me it is obvious that the soil under solar panels will
| be extremely healthy and useful, which is evidenced by
| the abundance of growth underneath all the solar farms in
| Minnesota fields. But perhaps you think the answer is the
| other way? Where have you seen only mud under solar
| panels? How did they build them such that nothing grows?
| And mud is far far better than current monocrop farming.
| micwag wrote:
| Concrete is rarely used nowadays (at least in Germany).
|
| Usually the metal profiles are just rammed into the
| ground, if the ground is too loose they are screwed in
| and gabions are used if they just need some weight. If
| none of those are possible then concrete is used.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Curiously, nobody seems to be very interested in studying the
| impact of renewable energy projects for bird populations.
|
| Probably hard as hell to get grants for that.
| veddox wrote:
| Sorry, that's just not true. Just type "renewable energy bird
| populations" into Google Scholar and work your way through the
| results. There's tons of research on that out there.
|
| See e.g. here for a recent study:
| https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.211...
| johnnyworker wrote:
| Why not check first if it's true before you claim it? It takes
| the same time, too: I simply copied and pasted from your
| comment and here they are, take your pick:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=the%20impact%20of%20re...
|
| edit: But IMO more importantly, it's not like farmland
| practices that endanger birds and renewable energy somehow
| offset each other. Both are desirable (not the harmful farmland
| practices are, but farming per se is), even vital things, and
| their undesirable side-effects need to be reduced.
| persedes wrote:
| If you are referring to wind turbines killing birds, those have
| been studied. First search result, bunch of studies in the
| footnotes:
|
| https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/do-wind-turbines-kill-birds
|
| And if you want to put in relation to other bird killers:
| https://www.statista.com/chart/15195/wind-turbines-are-not-k...
| hinkley wrote:
| So, so many times.
|
| The upshot is that if we wanted to save birds, we would tear
| down all office buildings and fossil fuel power plants and
| replace them with windmills.
|
| But first, rid the world of cats.
| croes wrote:
| This comes every time when people talk about wind turbines and
| they are far behind the top 3 killers:
|
| Cats
|
| Cars
|
| Windows in buildings
|
| Cats for instance kill billions each year.
| unnamed76ri wrote:
| Strange to include a natural predator in this list.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It seems reasonable given that the vast majority of the
| cats in this case aren't natural per se, they are pets kept
| by humans.
| WhatsTheBigIdea wrote:
| Cats are not a "natural" predator in the modern context.
|
| They have massive advantages over wild animals including
| but not limited to
|
| 1) A guaranteed source of high quality disease free
| calories 2) Veterinary care 3) Safe places to rest and
| recuperate
|
| As a result, the numbers of domesticated cats in most
| environments is radically larger than they would be in
| naturally balanced ecosystems.
|
| The vast majority of modern domestic cats are sport
| hunters. Most will not even eat their prey as they have
| better food readily available.
|
| It is also worth mentioning that domesticated cats are an
| invasive species in any environment outside the Nile Delta
| in Egypt.
|
| Modern domestic cats are not "natural" predators in any
| sense.
|
| They can be very cute though!
| croes wrote:
| By that logic everything human related is natural too.
|
| The number of cats that kill birds is due to the fact that
| humans breed them en masse.
|
| Nothing natural about that.
| rvense wrote:
| Cats aren't really natural in all the environments we bring
| them to. And they're also subsidized to hell by their
| owners, if we weren't feeding them tinned food there'd
| likely be a hundred times less.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Very strange to leave off by far the #1 issue which is
| habitat destruction.
| croes wrote:
| Cats, cars and buildings are part of habitat destruction.
| ajb wrote:
| They all happen in urban areas though, which are a small
| fraction of the country (< 1/10 of the uk, whereas
| farmland is > 7/10. ). Hence, while they might be
| significant for whether you see any birds in your back
| garden, the problems on farmland are more likely to be
| significant for the bird population as a whole.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Building height is actually a tradeoff against habitat
| destruction, since taller buildings use less land but are
| ostensibly struck more often by birds.
| linuxftw wrote:
| This is highly misleading. The birds that are killed by
| windmills aren't the same type of birds killed by feral cats.
| Windmills kill high-soaring endangered predator species.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Ok. I was wrong. Can someone please flag my comment dead? I
| don't stand by it anymore and can't delete it.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| When I do something like this, I edit the comment, and add
| something like the following to the top "Edit: I was
| completely mistaken and no longer stand by this, but I'll
| leave my mistake up for posterity"
| jeffbee wrote:
| No, we should leave your comment alive so we can have a
| larger discussion about why this is a persistent meme in the
| discourse, why people like you are predisposed to write this
| nonsense, and how to counter the scourge of misinformation
| around renewable energy.
| graphe wrote:
| None of these will matter once Ukraine joins the EU. Their soil
| is the richest and has the greatest depth.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernozem
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/15/ukraine-memb...
|
| They will incapacitate the EU's ability to farm without
| subsidies, something they already do heavily.
|
| > E.U. farmers currently receive subsidies of more than $200 per
| hectare farmed. Given its vast arable land, Ukraine would be
| eligible for billions in payments.
|
| >Even with membership many years away, the issue of Ukrainian
| exports entering the E.U. market has spurred protest, with
| farmers in neighboring countries lashing out over a glut of
| grain.
| PakG1 wrote:
| Given what's happening in Ukraine right now, this would imply
| that high-quality soil could become the next resource that
| nations literally fight wars over.
| graphe wrote:
| If you look at the map, it won't be fought over as much as
| Ukraine will dominate agriculture. What the Netherlands did
| for pig farming in the 90s Ukraine will do for the entire
| industry. China buys pork from the Netherlands it's so cheap.
|
| If you mean natural resources it's still water for trade.
| Russia has little outward rivers, Crimea and Ukraine would
| help their trade a lot. The Suez canal and the area around is
| is incredibly wealthy.
| hanniabu wrote:
| And the soil will be filled with lead contamination from it
| being turned into a battlefield
| lukas099 wrote:
| Is this an actual thing? Like are there studies showing
| this and stuff?
| morsch wrote:
| > Ukraine would be eligible for billions in payments.
|
| That stands to reason -- France gets almost 10 billion, Germany
| 6.5, Poland 4.5, to name a few.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Unfortunately a large % of of the richest soils in Ukraine are
| on the Russian side of the occupation line (Zaporizhia Oblast
| mainly).
|
| That and there must be tens of thousands of acres that are
| damaged and poisoned by constant artillery bombardment, and
| full of landmines.
|
| What Russia can't take by force, they are destroying.
| stefan_ wrote:
| EU agriculture is an entirely pretend market heavily subsidized
| for self sustenance - few countries will depend on other states
| for basic foodstuff, no matter the price. Ukraine joining will
| not change that.
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| There is zero chance of Ukraine ever joining the EU.
|
| There is little chance that Ukraine as we know it will even
| survive.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I would like to know why you feel so confident.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Is it because of the lack of trees at farms that is causing the
| decline of birds?
|
| A side query brought to attention the following research paper:
| https://www.extension.iastate.edu/news/iowa-state-university...
| (Iowa State University Research Finds Wind Farms Positively
| Impact Crops).
|
| It seems wind farms hinder winds causing positive effects on
| farms. By a small stretch of the imagination, trees should do the
| same thing, which will help with bird populations. And bird
| sticks on wind towers should also help bird populations.
|
| We are a "best practice" away from helping farms, trees, and
| birds all in one go!
| robocat wrote:
| Hopefully we don't see similar outcomes to the smash sparrows
| campaign: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_campaign
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-03 23:01 UTC)