Loss of intensity and diversity of noises in ecosystems reflects an alarming decline in healthy biodiversity, say sound ecologists
Sounds of the natural world are rapidly falling silent and will become “acoustic fossils” without urgent action to halt environmental destruction, international experts have warned.
As technology develops, sound has become an increasingly important way of measuring the health and biodiversity of ecosystems: our forests, soils and oceans all produce their own acoustic signatures. Scientists who use ecoacoustics to measure habitats and species say that quiet is falling across thousands of habitats, as the planet witnesses extraordinary losses in the density and variety of species. Disappearing or losing volume along with them are many familiar sounds: the morning calls of birds, rustle of mammals through undergrowth and summer hum of insects.
Today, tuning into some ecosystems reveals a “deathly silence”, said Prof Steve Simpson from the University of Bristol. “It is that race against time – we’ve only just discovered that they make such sounds, and yet we hear the sound disappearing.”
“The changes are profound. And they are happening everywhere,” said US soundscape recordist Bernie Krause, who has taken more than 5,000 hours of recordings from seven continents over the past 55 years. He estimates that 70% of his archive is from habitats that no longer exist.
We can probably manage at our population level with better habits. Most of this loss is linked to pesticide use and our impact on the climate imo.
Our population levels amplify this but it would be fine if we weren’t spitting out poison.
With 8 billion humans it’s too hard to centralize control or do anything to realistically get people to follow the rules. Things being technically possible is one thing, but human nature means it’ll never actually happen. Humans are awful.
We’re so obsessed with rules that nobody actually follows and covering up how things actually work. Whistleblowers have their lives ruined and these giant multibillion dollar conglomerates get a slap on the wrist. This is the world we live in and the systems we push for actively dissuade it from getting better.
All we have to do is get off oil and find a better solution than pesticides. 8 billion humans aren’t individually fracking their backyard.
I think the problems go much, much deeper than oil and fracking. American QOL is not sustainable for 8 billion people, and it only exists for a couple hundred million really anyway.
I’m all for making big sweeping changes but I am not one of the rich stakeholders who control how things work in this world.
Space stations. Space is full of space, so much so its named after the stuff. We need to get off planet
Getting people into space is very resource intensive though. I’d rather go towards ultra dense cities or even underground ones if it’s feasible.
It is, but once we’re set up, its getting back onto Planets that will be resource intensive and not the other way around. Ultra Dense cities would be a good temporary solution until we can set up a stable society in space, but we’ll never escape having a population cap or having to think of the nock on effects of any new piece of technology or infrastructure project until we’re off this planet