This award winning video describing a wonderful program by the Snow Leopard Trust shows the effectiveness of working with local communities, especially those who lose livestock to snow leopard attacks, can do amazing things to prevent the number one threat to these beautiful animals today, retribution killing.
The video made by a staff of three beat out videos from such major organizations as BBC to win the best video showing the interaction of big cats and people.
Be forewarned, there is a disturbing scene that does show dead snow leopards.
But, the outlook for this program is fantastic, especially since it is run by the community that it helps and that in turn helps the snow leopard to survive.
Watch the 2017 Asimov Debate from the American Museum of Natural History. It was a great one. I did not expect the answer to the question of whether we can do this. No spoiler from me. Settle down for a couple of hours with a good drink for this one.
This debate discusses a wide variety of issues, including genetically modified organisms, agriculture, environmentalism, extinction, quality of DNA from preserved extinct animals, morality, animal welfare, legal issues, etc.
For a sample, just consider the question, if we brought back a mammoth (or mammophant) from extinction, is it automatically an endangered species? What is its “natural range”? What are its natural habitat and food? Is it moral to bring back a species adapted to the arctic in an age of climate change?
P.S. Neil is a bit out of his element on this first Asimov Debate that is NOT related to cosmology, astronomy, or astrophysics in any way. But, as he points out Isaac Asimov wrote about a variety of sciences, some of which did not even really exist at the time he wrote about them, such as robotics. So, de-extinction is perfectly within lines to honor the late Isaac Asimov who spent many hours at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
“Our research is very preliminary, but it’s possible that they will become more receptive to facts once they are in an environment without food, water, or oxygen”
Perhaps. Or, we’ll become less resistant to facts by being less alive.
On this day 15 years ago, the United States experienced the largest terror attack in our history. It is a day that we will long remember. My heart goes out to the families of the victims.
On this day, I would also like for us to remember that Osama bin Laden who orchestrated the attack was of the house of Saud. 16 of the 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. In response to our attack by Saudis, we attacked Iraq in what is now considered to be an enormous blunder of epic proportions.
We still treat Saudi Arabia as a friendly nation in that region. I don’t know why. We still talk about selling arms to Saudi Arabia. I don’t know why. We still buy oil from Saudi Arabia. I don’t know why.
Further, if we assume that every 3,000 lives lost prematurely is “one 9/11” then we have ten 9/11s on our highways every year. We have another ten 9/11s every year as a result of lax gun laws and a nationwide obsession with the damn things (should we consider the NRA a terrorist organization? perhaps). We have sixty-five 9/11s every year as a result of air pollution which we might have reduced tremendously if we took action on climate change (is ExxonMobil a terrorist organization? perhaps).
So, will we do anything for safer roads, stricter gun regulations, and strong regulation of pollution to actually prevent some or all of these 9/11s going forward?
I am not hopeful.
I grieve not only for the 3,000 victims 15 years ago, but also for the 3.9 million lives lost prematurely just from these causes and from many other causes as well since then. And, I grieve for the 260,000 we will lose in 2016.
Perhaps I should subtract out the highway deaths? We do, last I heard, have the safest roads in the world. Maybe we are already doing as much as we can about that. But, the other 230,000 every year can certainly be reduced by at least several 9/11s, if we were to pretend to care.
I’m glad to see this question becoming more public. Though it seems to still be considered radical. It is one of many factors that went into my (and my wife’s) decision not to have children decades ago.
P.S. I should really correct my statement above. Neither I nor my wife ever really wanted children. But, while we were still of breeding age and before my vasectomy, when we’d hear a wailing infant, we’d make comments like “Reason number 837 not to have kids.” But, we’d also make comments on hearing about overpopulation or some environmental crisis, especially climate change and ocean acidification, like “won’t be our kids dealing with this.” Actually, we still make such comments.
I’ve been talking about the Great Human Die-off for years and have felt like somewhat of a crackpot for doing so. I’ve usually qualified it as just my opinion based on hearing and reading a lot of environmental science.
Now, it seems that the idea of human extinction within the time frame of those alive today is no longer such a crackpot idea.
There are a number of excellent points about a holistic look at farming in this film. Farming can produce high yields and increase top soil instead of depleting it. And, in some cases, it may not even need irrigation. This is a really interesting film showing a number of ways permaculture can be practiced in farm country, in the suburbs, and even in cities.
Much like middle class Americans voting Republican, polar bears in Russia are acting against their own self-interest. In this case, they are attempting to stop climate scientists from doing their jobs. </snark>
Apparently, if you have the cash up front to buy one of these things without a mortgage, you can survive whatever humans do to the planet, theoretically. I can’t personally really imagine how many years of food they could have stored in there.
For me though, I’m not sure life under such conditions, even in a luxury condo, is necessarily better than the alternative. I think I’ll stick with an overdose of insulin if it comes to it.
President Obama is seeking an international climate accord that would not require cooperation from either the Senate or the House of Representatives. I don’t love the idea of completely going around our political system on this. But, with the survival of humanity and most of the multicellular life in the biosphere and in fact, the health of the biosphere as a whole on the line, it may be necessary.
We all know that if he tries to get this through even the senate, he’ll never get the required 67% for a treaty. After all, the repugnicans have proven that they would rather kill off humanity and cause another Permian/Triassic level extinction (where 95% of all multicellular species go extinct) than actually allow Obama to accomplish so much as brushing his teeth.
So, for now, with the means being not too bad and the ends being necessary for survival, I’m going to go with the ends justify the means on this limited case, even though I strongly disagree with the philosophy for most issues.
There has long been a scientific debate about what caused all of the extinctions that just seemed to follow humans wherever we went. Some said climate changes, despite the same species of animals having survived about a half dozen such changes previously. To me it has long been obvious that those arguing that we were innocent were simply insufficiently misanthropic and were in denial. Most scientists from whom we hear tend to be human themselves after all.
Now there’s a new study showing, of course, that we’re guilty as charged on all counts. And, this is just the relatively large species. It’s not even counting all the cute little critters we bulldoze over before we even know they’re there. OK, the speciescides referenced here predate bulldozers. So, maybe we didn’t kill off as many little species when we were still using clovis point weaponry, not as many as we are now anyway.
I hope the good folks at wordpress don’t get upset that I didn’t put in an ass-sterisk. Does anyone really think the asterisk obscures the word sufficiently that it suddenly becomes OK? For that matter, does anyone really think it’s not OK even without the asterisk? It’s just a word. Get over it. Anyway, onto a song with which almost everyone would agree, even if we don’t agree about exactly what is fucked up or what unfucking it up might mean.
I agree! Reagan was an excellent leader who changed the paradigm. We’ve been following his voodoo economics and deregulation for 32 years with the result of the complete destruction of the American economy. Yes, Ronald Reagan changed everything in the U.S. to the point where a bill like Graham-Leach-Bliley could pass with bipartisan support. That created the current great bank depression that we are still stuck in the middle of. It created the conditions that led to the exploding income inequality in this country. It’s time to recognize Reagan for what he was, the original tea-bagger.
Ronald Reagan is single-handedly responsible for getting the Christian wrong Right to unknowingly worship an atheist named Ayn Rand and to become as patently un-Christian as it is possible to be. The Ayn-Randian Christian Right now believes that Jesus rode into town on a dinosaur wielding an AK-47 to heal the sick who could afford his care and to deport those who did not have citizenship papers.
It would be laughable if not for the utter destruction of America that Reagan has caused over the last 32 years.
Also, check out the incredibly impressive Heart of the Adirondacks project in the Adirondack State Park, the largest park in the continental United States at twice the size of Yellowstone.
Posted by Misanthropic Scott 
