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.
Edit : My wild speculation was wrong, not unexpected and happily welcomed. Post left unedited below.
Let me preface this by saying I’m wildly speculating to try to find underlying reason to their statement. But I’ve made the mistake before of applying logic to try to figure out an illogical being, it usually leads nowhere. That said, here we go.
I always suspect that the “too many humans” take is the closest opinion someone can express without coming out as a supporter of genocide. In my opinion, and since they won’t elaborate, they are attempting to be edgy.
Thus why they never elaborate, they’re just trying to guide us to the “logical solution” of genocide? It does seem dumb but the internet is full of enough stupid racists for this not to be unexpected.
In regards to a solution, populations drop voluntarily when a certain standard of living is reached. I doubt the people expressing this would advocate taking care of the poor to speed up the process of natural population decline.
Wild speculation concluded.
Birth control, education and empowerment of women, and secularization. Not genocide. We either do that or we continue on thoughtlessly growing our population until we exceed what the earth can support at our given technological level. Then people will starve, thus decreasing the population with maximum suffering.
Malthusian.
Thankfully the population is increasing at a decreasing rate, and mostly because we are living longer, the fertility rate has already dropped, we just won’t see the benefits (probably benefit) of decreasing population for awhile. Kids as a % of the overall world population has been declining since the 1960s. Steeply. That will play out.
TIL Malthusian.
I’m not looking forward to seeing this play out, I’ve been fortunately and selfishly insulated from most global trauma, but I’m not sure the insulation will hold for this one.
I urge change to the people I know, but they’re mostly convinced the world has reached steady state. Foolish in my view. Appreciate the PoV.
I think there are too many humans.
I advocate taking care of the poor, globally, to speed up the process of natural population decline.
I even have a (general) plan. Promote sexual education, make contraceptives free and easily available, eat the rich. The global side is harder; it’s not like dropping a bunch of condoms on India and China will do anything. But it all starts with education and the elimination of the owner class.
I’m very glad to be wrong, thank you for your clarification. Sometimes I can be a bit too much of a doomer, a fault of mine.
Fuck genocide. I’m not saying I have a solution, i’m just stating the problem.
As a species we are not willing to change the status quo because we’re all too inherently selfish unless it benefits us. The people who have the power to change things all have way too much to lose by taking away from anyone with money power and influence, so it won’t change.
Worldwide net humans will continue to increase until some kind of collapse comes. Human nature will not allow for any substantial change to happen. Maybe at some point some maniac(s) will go the genocide route but it still won’t change the inherent problem: human beings when considered as a whole are inherently selfish when it counts. Genocide is just another example of that selfishness.
I don’t see a selfish solution to the problem though maybe some rich assholes will start a colony on another planet before it ends and they can do it all over again.