Evolution just needs to kick the rest of the animals into high gear and do some defcon 1 shit, like making seaguls venomous and thirsty for human blood, or inventing funnel-webbed Taipans that can fly and open doors. New airborne bacteria that feeds exclusively on the human optic nerve, and daffodil pollen that causes category 5 cytokine storms.
Level the fucking playing field.
There’s already enough suffering in the world, no need to create more! the parts of our brain that gave us the ability to shape our environment outpaced the ones with the old tribal way of thinking we needed to survive.
plastic eating bacteria seems to be on its way atleast
Yeah sorry, ill have to put the project on hold. My laptops got the clap again.
IT: have you sprayed your latest antibacterial spray in the laptop?
it’s just amazing how he basically invented modern biology with natural selection and eventually led him to loving animals so much. very inspirational dude!
I wish I could get the joy out of picking up an animal turd that Steve Irwin had. Every time I walk the dogs.
Crikey, she’s a beaut.
Try adding Old Bay, or some Steak Seasoning.
That doesn’t make it any less squishy.
I believe the term you’re looking for is “al dente”
I very rarely wish death on anyone but myself. I guess we’re equals right now.
🤣 I’m just here to help!
Thank you both for being.
Aw man, you too!
Love it to (your) death, Steve.
So deep. Now watch how I manhandle this croc for your chortling entertainment.
So that he could safely relocate crocs, in the method LEAST likely to harm or kill them, and almost single handedly save the population from collapse.
I miss Steve
We do not own her, and she does not own us. Mother Earth made us out of spite, to be constantly challenged, until we are let loose on an unsuspecting universe. Her peers scorned her, so she has given us one trial after another to make us as resilient, and eternal, as she is. Soon we will leave our cradle carrying our mother’s wisdom, and wrath, with us. Woe to all that seek to oppose us, for we have been tempered in a deathworld crucible. Blessings to all that are neutral, or join in our crude attempts to make a better galaxy and universe.
Oh and those of us that stay behind shall finally tame our mother, and make her into her final form of a true Gaia planet.
Humanity fuck yeah
“Our wildlife”
It’s not ours, just like the planet isn’t.
The flag I shoved into this penguin says otherwise.
Your flag might spell “otherwise” but this piece of evidence below says something else!
Son of a gun, he got em
Careful. You start shoving flags into living things and who knows where it will end up?
it is the same thing as saying my community/our community/my class/my girl/boy friend/ my favourite cafe/my dad etc. Does not necessarily mean you own it, just a short hand way of expressing a more abstract form of relationship than physically owning something.
I wonder if he was vegan
No. His research showed that growing veggies reduces bio diversity of land. Eating a cow is better than eating rice.
Source?
Thanks, but I believed you that he said it, I was asking for any sort of source to back it up. The argument he makes in that interview is terrible and should in no way inform your opinion unless you have actual evidence to back it up.
I’ve described some real world examples in a different comment https://lemmy.world/comment/10805817
You talk about the forests of scotland, the vast majority of these are monoculture plantations with absolutely terrible biodiversity. By far the largest producers of meat in scotland are factory farms where animals are fed using things like soy, only a minority of livestock entering the food market are reared anything like sustainably.
There is nowhere near enough land to grass feed the amount of ruminants that we consume, so feed crops need to be grown or imported.
the vast majority of the soy fed to animals is the byproduct of pressing soybeans for oil.
You’re just plain wrong.
I’m open to any answer in this; but I think he misses the point here that every animal in itself would need a field of grass in food volume to survive.
No matter how you put it, it seems to me that adding an extra animal to the equation requires more food/water/space, not less.
When you’re adding a cow to an existing wild field, the field and its inhabitants don’t disappear. When you start planting crops in that field, you destroy the whole associated ecosystem.
His research showed that growing veggies reduces bio diversity of land
What an absolute load of shit. How dare you try to use a great man’s name to spread misinformation.
Meat production is much, much more agressive on the biodiversity of land than veggies with comparable nutritional value. Lots of research shows that. Not only is the area needed to farm animals immense, but then you also need to grow feed crops like soy and corn to feed the animals. Both are major sources of deforestation. You are absolutely wrong.
the vast majority of the soy fed to animals is the industrial waste from soybean oil production. it’s a conservation of resources, not an expenditure
That’s not true. We’re way past that point.
oh? so the owidx chart that shows 70% of all soy by weight being fed to animals as “soy cake” or “soy meal” is outdated? I would happily believe that if you present some evidence.
My point is that at the scale we’re doing it, this is not a waste product. It’s just a product like the oil is a product. We like calling things a waste product to make us feel better about our exploitative behaviours. Like how we call leather a waste product of the dairy industry. It’s not waste, it’s just another product.
using a byproduct that would otherwise go to waste is good
No, it’s not. That’s a myth.
You are absolutely wrong.
oof.
…but those cows eat plants, and way more than we do, so wouldn’t that just amplify the problem?
They eat plants we cannot eat in the areas we cannot plant any human edible plants.
Please don’t present this as the norm for animal agriculture, as it’s disingenuous at best. The rare instances where this occurs are far outweighed by the habitable land use that animal agriculture accounts for globally. And even in the countries you call out, such as New Zealand, factory farming is on the rise, and pigs are almost exclusively factory farmed.
Calorie supply is irrelevant. The main source of calories today is sugar. People in developed countries like the US get 14% of their daily calorie intake from sugar, some countries like Brazil get over 20% from sugar. That’s way above the recommended 5%.
Another issue with your logic is that land used for grazing can and is simultaneously used for other needs, and it also supports natural bio diversity. Crop land is pretty much a dead land.
The chart also considers protein supply for this reason.
It’s extremely rare that grazing land is used for anything else. In fact, over half of tropical deforestation is done to create pasture land for cattle.
https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/deforestation-causes
cattle eat somewhere north of 90% grazed material or so-called “crop seconds” which are parts of plants that people can’t or won’t eat. so, for cattle at least, it is true.
“Crop residues” or “crop seconds” only account for about a quarter of global animal feed, and the grain fed to cattle in the US alone could feed a billion people.
https://lemmy.zip/comment/11115828
according to the research on water use, hardly any grain goes to cattle first.
This logic checks out, however I do wonder if that’s actually how it happens in practice. As in, what percentage of their feed is grown somewhere that we absolutely can’t grow human food.
One good example is New Zealand. They only have about 2% of arable land and their population was always very small. Even when Europeans started to settle on the islands, overall population didn’t grow much. But once Europeans brought grazing animals, NZ population has exploded! Now the islands can support a lot more humans, plus they have enough excess they export to buy plant food they don’t grow.
Another example is Scotland. They have 10% of arable land and their population is less than 10% of total UK population. Yet they supply 55% of all beef in the UK and 63% of all lamb. And they still export some meat to EU even after Brexit, even though these exports have fallen drammatically. If you compare the satellite view of Scotland and England, you will see that Scotland is a lot more forests and wild areas, while England is just one large wheat and rape field with a bunch of large cities here and there.
Then there are Alps, which are known for high quality dairy products. Fuck all grows in the mountains so high (in terms of human edible food), yet there are many cows freely grazing and co-existing peacefully with the nature. Just like their wild ancestors did.
P.S. Fun fact - many public parks in UK cities have cattle proof entrances like the one you can see here in Cambridge. Because cows have no issues eating grass which grows in the parks, so you can use this land not only to enjoy your weekend or lunch break, but also to grow food. Here’s one in London. And not just in any random part of London, but it’s in Richmond, where old rich twats live.
And here’s a photo of my brother looking at cows in Richmond. Why pay to mow the grass and for cow feed when you can simply let them graze in a park? Win-win-win!
Eating meat is very much a part of nature, if you’re implying he would be a hypocrite for eating meat
There’s nothing natural about our food production, specially meat production.
What is natural? There’s animals that dig into other animals brains and eat them slowly. There’s animals that paralyze their victims and eat them slowly. There’s parasites that infect their host and force them to get eaten by controlling them and removing their fear center. There’s animals that eat their own young. There animals that only eat the young of others.
This notion that nature isn’t cruel and unforgiving is just a fairytale.
The amazing thing about humans is that we can actually feel compassion for others, even other species and strive to reduce their suffering as much as possible. I’m really getting tired of people being so negative all the damn time.
Our food production needs to do better and be better but it will only do so because of us, not because we “listen to nature” or whether else people love to spew out trying to sound enlightened.
I was directly responding to the previous commenter saying that it’s natural to hunt and eat. Our current system of industrial farming of animals is inhumane for both animals and farmers. Nature might be unforgiving and metal, but we have brought the unnecessary torture of sentient animals to unholy levels.
That’s what I meant with my comment.
it’s not torture.
Making something sit in one spot in a cage for their entire life to the point where they couldn’t move even if they wanted to isn’t torture?
Do you also think solitary confinement in prison is natural?
in torture, the pain and discomfort is the point. prison is an excellent example of torture. by contrast, I think everyone agrees that we would prefer if no pain or discomfort were part of farming animals. this is probably especially true for the people actually doing the farming and slaughtering. in this case, the pain and discomfort are only incidental. it’s not torture.
Plenty of animals kill just for fun and will torture their prey for hours. And just because something is inhumane, doesn’t make it unnatural. If anything, it’s humane practices that are unnatural.
No other species has built killing factories that torture and kill billions of animals per day. It’s not even comparable.
I use the word “humane” in the sense of “you would mot subject humans to it”.
My brother in Christ I take it you haven’t met ants and chimpanzees have you?
I was directly responding to the previous commenter saying that it’s natural to hunt and eat.
I didn’t say about hunting either, as it isn’t relevant to context of Irwin’s quote
What is natural?
There are certain ecological balances that develop over time, as species fill individual niches and create symbiotic bonds. The capacity for the given biome to support life is predicated on a certain cyclical exchange. And when that cycle is broken, you typically see a die-off caused by the imbalances.
This notion that nature isn’t cruel and unforgiving is just a fairytale.
The question isn’t of cruelty but sustainability. The mouse eats the corn. The snake eats the mouse. The bird eats the snake. The parasite eats the bird. The corn eats the corpses.
But if you go through with a weed wacker and kill all the snakes, you get population spikes on one end of the food chain and collapses on others, in a way that ultimately reduces the amount of life the area can support.
We saw this across the American Great Plains with the extermination of buffaloes and passenger pigeons. What was once lush and bountiful became barren and inhospitable, as industrial scale destruction of natural resources rendered territory uninhabitable. Reckless industrial development produces waste faster than the natural ecological conditions can process it. And this same development siphons off the natural bounty faster than it can be replaced.
Our food production needs to do better and be better but it will only do so because of us, not because we “listen to nature”
If we do not understand why certain natural cycles exist or how certain minerals and molecules are naturally derived and regenerated or what energy sources are available and at what rates, we risk exhausting the existing biological landscape and destroying the capacity for a particular piece of territory to sustain new life in future generations.
This is as simple as looking at the Great Lakes or the Ogallala Aquifer or the Mississippi River and asking “Is there going to be enough water in these places in another 100 years to maintain our productive rate of agricultural development?” And at the current rate we’re exhausting these resources, the answer is no.
If we hadn’t brought in so many thirsty commercial scale animal and plant species or attempted to generate such large surpluses that we could export them overseas at enormous profits or raised the temperature of the Earth such that we evaporated off too much surface water, we would not be in this situation.
trying to sound enlightened
You don’t need to be a guru to look at the Earth and look at Mars, then say to yourself “Maybe we keep the Earth-style ecology going a little longer”.
Well put.
except that it happens entirely within the natural world. it’s not supernatural.
Unnatural doesn’t mean supernatural. Words have meanings. Do you also go around saying synthetic materials are aktshually natural?
words do have meanings. what is the opposite of supernatural?
synthetics are natural. they’re not supernatural.
I never made a comment about that?
Eating meat is very much a part of nature
Trying to explain this to the guy getting chewed on by a tiger, but he’s too busy screaming and thrashing and bleeding everywhere.
What?
Tigers eat meat. Its part of nature.
But people don’t like being eaten. So they complain about tigers and try to get rid of them.
Man, I wish I still able to do drugs like you do. Fun times.
Are you sure you’re replying to the right comment? I don’t see how this is relevant to Steve Irwin
Absolute Legend.
Rest in peace.
Man always kept animals close to his heart, especially that one stingray…
“So what I’m going to do is travel around the world and harass animals for television.”
Lol, people downvoted you, but you are 100% correct. He basically tortured wild animals for profit and popularity.
And these humans celebrate him for it.
It’s really amazing how much damage his loss probably did to the world.
I can’tt think of any pro-wildlife “influencers” that would be at his level today, much less wherever he would have reached in the remaining years.
In the anglosphere maybe, which most of Lemmy seems to represent. I come across countless legends doing the same work but without the same recognition. When Greta Thunberg, who I admire, became big I read an article about all the people around her age that have been doing the same campaigning. They were mostly indigenous people so nobody came along with a TV show for them.
Yes there are so many indigenous cultures (certainly every one I’ve learned about in Canada) that are literally about working together with the earth and in balance with the earth. Steve Irwin was a wonderful person but imagine all the wiped out or nearly wiped out cultures where this was or continues to be literally their way of existing in the world, and they were dismissed for so long as “savages” for their relationship with nature.
I shudder to think that Greta is attributed to Conservation in the same breath as Steve Irwin!
Greta should be at home and in school and preparing to live her life as an adult. If she as an adult became a climate activist and held the Top-7 or Top-10 or Top-20 corporations accountable, sure that would be commendable.
Nothing gets done blaming others and taking no action yourself.
Nothing gets done blaming others and taking no action yourself.
You’re literally complaining that she decided to take action too soon for your taste.
Silly me for pointing out that sensationalism and performance-activism hasnt done anything worth a dime or nickel to reign in the perpetrators of the climate catastrophe.
If Greta or similar persons could get a climate science degree and perhaps a political or law education and work to take down the system from within, perhaps we could stand a chance.
Spray-painting Van Gogh or the Stone Henge isnt solving anything. Neither is sailing around on a yatch around the world helping.
She’s 21. she’s been an adult for a few years now. She is still a climate activist and is still holding corporations accountable and she is still commendable.
Wonderful how we don’t have any polluting corporations anymore … wait … it has gotten worse …
The situation is certainly dire. Can you go into more about what Greta has been doing wrong and how laying low until adulthood would’ve helped?
There is strength in numbers. A single person isnt a hero. We dont live in a fantasy. Collective action is better. There are a million different ways to hold corporations accountable including working from within each one.
You don’t think her going to protests is collective action?
it really sounds like you’re angry with the lies fox news has been telling you, while ignoring what was actually happening.
I promise I’m not playing dumb - could you offer an idiot’s guide:
- thing one
- thing two
- [thing three] she did wrong
And
- thing one*
- thing two
- [thing three] she should have done instead?
*work inside a corporation to dismantle climate destruction from the inside
Appreciate your time.
David Attenborough’s narrations for nature docs, maybe? But that’s not really the same as watching a wildlife fanatic like Steve Irwin.
He has a son that seems eager to follow in his footsteps, so maybe he’ll fill that void one day.
But getting that kind of popularity is like being struck by lightning, especially now. He had a very advantageous start on TV (not to belittle how amazing he was).
Cold uncaring universe MFers realizing we are not separate from the universe and are, in fact, the universe itself observing, bettering, and caring about itself.
Philosophy and Science have always had an impact and influence on each other.