It's easy to imagine that most remaining species would go extinct if civilization were to suddenly collapse, as people armed with guns would go out into the wild and kill whatever wildlife they can find.
I'm skeptical of this suggestion. The first point to make is that a lot of species don't actually have an option anyway. In Central Africa, 64% of Elephants were lost in a decade. Between 2000 and 2005 Nigeria lost 55.7% of its primary forest.
I'm sure that if civilization suddenly collapses, some species will go extinct, but it's likely that these are species that stood no chance to begin with, as their populations had declined so much as a result of human activity. In this case, an earlier collapse may actually increase their chances of survival, as it means there are more left of them.
There are some reasons for optimisim. Although it's known that occasionally an African tribe poaches an elephant using poisonous arrows, generally speaking poaching is done by professional teams. These are organized crime groups armed with night-vision goggles, helicopters, high powered rifles, tranquilisers etcetera.
Most poaching is an entirely high tech dependent business, depending upon complex international chains of logistics. A rapid collapse of civilization is possible, with a lot of disruption caused simply by the supply chains falling apart. The peak oil story doesn't exactly work, as the whole modern oil supply business that would enable the continued delivery of fuel is fragile and dependent on just in time delivery. These are chains that fall apart rapidly.
A lot of species are threatened not by poaching, but simply by the fact that humans use cars. Since 1994, 89.5% of bear deaths in Florida are due to vehicle collissions. Climate change and its consequences are another problem that would be solved within decades as a result of a collapse of civilization.
The oceans would do much better as well. Without modern logistics, it's simply not possible to empty the oceans using bottom trawlers. The fuel, the ability to freeze the fish on the boat, sonar technology to locate the fish, GPS to help navigate, all of these technologies made the massive death we witness in our oceans possible. These are all technologies that can be lost within years.
Of course there are other factors to consider that humans have influence over. More guns means more hunting, thus more extinctions. The type of people who prepare for collapse tend to do so by buying guns. I understand why people would want to have guns for self-defense purposes, but the impact on wild species will be massive when civilization collapses. If you think you need guns because you're going to survive by hunting, you haven't been thinking correctly. The main argument in favor of gun ownership I see is that people will have a relatively humane way to euthanize themselves if they end up in a situation nobody should go through.
As I mentioned earlier on this subreddit, the total weight of all wild vertebrates on land is 12.5% of all human beings. A predator population normally weighs 10% of the population it eats, we weigh 800% of the population we think we're going to eat (assuming you're willing to eat rats and squirrels that is). People who think they're going to hunt after the collapse, are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They feel entitled to meat in their diet and will not allow any impoverishment of their lifestyle. Even the deer that are now overpopulated would be extinct within years.
Knowing how to hunt or fish isn't really part of any legitimate preparation strategy. I know cases of apple trees of friends that gave no fruit until after a deer had showed up that munched on the apple tree, so hunting can very well be a disadvantage to your own survival. Does this sound ridiculous to you, or perhaps like an urban myth? Studies have shown that plants increase their biomass in response to saliva from sheep. For humans to hunt under present conditions is a case of burning your clothes to keep yourself warm. Skills and activities that are far more useful for you to learn are as following:
-If you're so desperate to have meat in your diet, learn to eat insects. They're much higher in protein than regular red meat. Get yourself over the taboo that's part of our culture. Many other cultures have no problem eating insects. Some African tribes gather large amounts of mosquitos and bake them into some kind of hamburger.
-Learn to gather and grow mussels. Again, if you're looking for meat in your diet, mussels are a good way to go. They're high in taurine and likely protect against diabetes.
-Learn how to keep honeybees. Keeping honeybees provides a net benefit to your local ecosystem, something you will benefit from indirectly as well, as you will most likely find more fruit. Honey can also provide you with a source of calories in winter. You live in the suburbs? Doesn't matter! In much of the civilized world bees will do better in the city or the suburbs than in the countryside. It's mandatory here for government buildings to have a beehive on the roof. The countryside consists after all of endless hideous fields of grain, while we try to maintain an environment near our houses that is not completely suicide-inducing. Keeping honeybees without damaging their hives is a skill we only learned in the late 19th century. It's a skll we will be thankful for however.
-If you have a garden with brick tiles, the first thing to do is obviously to get rid of the brick tiles. Any plants that can grow there are an improvement over the present situation. Dutch people used to have gardens, but these days they just put down a bunch of brick tiles.
-Learn how to ferment food. Most of the stored food you buy on http://ift.tt/1FaCTr6 doesn't have vitamin C. If you learn how to ferment food, you will have access to healthy food with vitamin C in winter. I can recommend fermenting cabbage, you get Sauerkraut. To preserve the vitamin C, don't boil it before eating. We're spoiled by having refrigerators, which have caused us to forget how we used to survive winter.
-Learning how to brew beer may be useful, because access to clean water is not a certainty.
-Learn to ride a bicycle and get one. This may sound silly to some, but a bicycle is essential if you don't plan to turn your current location into a fortress. When I use a bicycle, the range of places in my neighborhood where I can gather food is much larger, while the calories I spend to travel there are less as well. When I forage, I always take my bicycle with me. A bicycle allows you a degree of freedom, independence and mobility that a car doesn't, yet still represents an improvement over traveling by foot.
-Get healthy and in shape. 50.1% of Chinese adults have prediabetes. Prediabetes can still be addressed, but most people with prediabetes develop real diabetes within years. If you develop a lethal chronic disease and have no access to modenr medicine, you're dead. If you're overweight, this issue really deserves priority above everything else.
-You're probably still going to die. Accept that knowledge. The human population was about 6 million before the neolithic revolution. I don't expect to survive for very long after it all goes down. The same actions you take that enable your survival are likely to draw suspicion. A better goal than surviving is to leave a positive impact. If a local apple tree gives fruit because you had a beehive or you teach people how to ferment food, that's something worthwhile. Humans are social animals, we desire to contribute to our community.
Submitted October 17, 2014 at 04:21PM by obamaswifepegshim http://ift.tt/11BJ346 deep_ecology
No comments:
Post a Comment