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Jack Alpert's avatar

Rachael this accounting view of responses to injuries created by past and present human activity suggests that nothing but a contraction of human activities below natural regeneration rates will pay back the debt accrued. This is maybe the most important thread you have produced. Jack Alpert www.skil.org

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Eclipse Now's avatar

I agree with so much here and in the episode - but am also conflicted over a few things.

Dumping the idea of "Conservation" and reserves. While I love National Parks etc, did you know they suck at maintaining their biodiversity? They're just too big for biologists and park rangers to 'police' effectively. Australia has a horrible history of species extinction etc because of all our feral cats and dogs and pigs and camels etc running amok in our ecosystems, wiping stuff out. National Parks don't fix that. NGO's are having better outcomes - and it is precisely BECAUSE they fence off an area, remove all the feral species, set up the right ecosystem in there, and create the right conditions for the threatened species to grow.

https://theconversation.com/the-new-major-players-in-conservation-ngos-thrive-while-national-parks-struggle-199880

If everything is "nature" - nothing is. If 'everything is rewilding' - what does that actually mean? Good intentions and a 'paradigm shift' and having 'appreciate nature' classes more do not save various species from going extinct. While I love National Parks and WANT Wilson's 50% of nature protected - I have to admit that we have already let loose pollutants, predators, pests (both fauna and flora) etc and basically messed up the global ecosystem. It's too late. We are already on "Spaceship Earth" and wishing we were not is not going to fix the situation. We now have a globally artificial ecosystem - and pretending we can just rewild it will ENSURE various species go extinct. Read the link above.

Another case in point - New Urbanism teaches that we need our towns to be MORE like cities, and could house the same number of people on 10% of the land with fantastic parks and walkable communities and access to nature just a short train ride away. But thinking we're going to mix the functions of the town and country together is how we got traffic dependent suburbia - so spread out that many public transport systems are not really that economically viable. With nearly 10 billion of us by 2050 - we're going to need more New Urbanism. It's going to be a very HUMAN space. Pretending it isn't may just miss the point!

So much more to say - but I have to sleep on it. A very thought provoking conversation - it's making me work hard!

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