Australia's Environment In 'Shocking' Decline, Report Finds (bbc.com) 146
Australia's environment is in a shocking state and faces further decline from amplifying threats, according to an anticipated report. The BBC reports: The survey of Australia's ecological systems -- conducted every five years -- found widespread abrupt changes. These can be blamed on climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and mining, it said. The threats are not being adequately managed - meaning they are on track to cause more problems. Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said the document paints a "shocking" and "sometimes depressing" story, vowing to implement new policies and laws.
The 2,000-page State of the Environment report, commissioned by the government, found or reiterated:
- Nineteen ecosystems are on the brink of collapse
- There are now more non-native plant species in Australia than native ones
- Australia has lost more species to extinction than any other continent
- All bar one category of environment examined has deteriorated since 2016, and more than half are now in a "poor" state.
The koala and gang-gang cockatoo are among more than 200 animal and plant species with upgraded threats since 2016. Many of those species are unique to Australia. In recent years, Australia has suffered severe drought, historic bushfires, successive years of record-breaking floods, and six mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef. The report found Australia lacks an adequate framework to manage its environment, instead relying on confusing systems that straddle different tiers of government. Federal government spending on sustaining biodiversity has dropped at the same time risks have been increasing, it said.
The 2,000-page State of the Environment report, commissioned by the government, found or reiterated:
- Nineteen ecosystems are on the brink of collapse
- There are now more non-native plant species in Australia than native ones
- Australia has lost more species to extinction than any other continent
- All bar one category of environment examined has deteriorated since 2016, and more than half are now in a "poor" state.
The koala and gang-gang cockatoo are among more than 200 animal and plant species with upgraded threats since 2016. Many of those species are unique to Australia. In recent years, Australia has suffered severe drought, historic bushfires, successive years of record-breaking floods, and six mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef. The report found Australia lacks an adequate framework to manage its environment, instead relying on confusing systems that straddle different tiers of government. Federal government spending on sustaining biodiversity has dropped at the same time risks have been increasing, it said.
Don't worry (Score:2, Insightful)
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Maybe the sugar refining company will save them
Thanks (Score:2)
Thanks, one mod who got the joke.
I note that complaining about the world and our resources literally being set on fire is somehow flamebait. If you don't suck capitalism's cock on Slashdot, you're punished for it.
Re:Thanks (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks, one mod who got the joke.
I note that complaining about the world and our resources literally being set on fire is somehow flamebait. If you don't suck capitalism's cock on Slashdot, you're punished for it.
I just don't think there are that many Aussies on ./.. even Ex Aussies.
Almost no-one else is familiar with Midnight Oil.
For the Humour impaired, Drinkypoo refers to a lyric in the Midnight Oil song, Blue Sky Mine. A song about the exploitation of workers by corporations, based primarily on those who contracted debilitating diseases from working in asbestos mines (the "blue" part of Blue Sky Mine).
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I've definitely noticed a clear pattern that blaming things on even highly-studied and generally acknowledged failings of capitalism will get you modded down here on Slashdot. It has happened to me many times. After all these years, as a rule I can make a pretty good guess as to which comments are going to be modded, and how, and for what, if not specifically why. The situation has actually improved over the years from what I can tell — Slashdot used to be a lot more libertarian than it is now, but I
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And the mines were owned by The Colonial Sugar Refining Company (CSR), who had a virtual monopoly on sugar production in Australia at the time.
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Maybe the sugar refining company will save them
Who's gonna save me.
Burning some Midnight Oil.
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About the only Midnight Oil song we heard in the US was that "beds are burning" song.
Bit one hit wonder on MTV here back in the day.
Wow, I feel old...remembering when MTV actually played music videos...
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About the only Midnight Oil song we heard in the US was that "beds are burning" song.
Bit one hit wonder on MTV here back in the day.
Wow, I feel old...remembering when MTV actually played music videos...
Not much Aussie rock from the heyday (80's and 90's) made it outside of Oz, which is a bit of a shame.
Midnight Oil did protest songs back in the early 90's (Beds are Burning refers to the treatment of Australian Aborigines) before the frontman, Peter Garrett went into politics eventually becoming the Environment minister in the Aussie govt from 2007 to 2010.
I can also remember when that song was released...
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We got AC/DC, INXS and Split Enz, not sure what else we needed.
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Men at Work. Crowded House. And some solo acts that probably a lot of people associate with the US, like Olivia Newton John.
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But I don't think they're a band anymore...broke up?
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Men at Work. Crowded House. And some solo acts that probably a lot of people associate with the US, like Olivia Newton John.
Men At Work kinda made it internationally with Land Down Under and Who Can It Be Now. Crowded House is from New Zealand. I was thinking more along the lines of the Screaming Jets, Choirboys and Noiseworks.
Silverchair's eelier works are practically unknown (before they went soft with Neon Ballroom), the albums Frogstomp and Freakshow were underappreciated gems of grunge but no-one outside of Oz has ever heard them.
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Not much Aussie rock from the heyday (80's and 90's) made it outside of Oz, which is a bit of a shame.
We got AC/DC, INXS and Split Enz, not sure what else we needed.
ACDC is Metal, INXS isn't rock and Split Enz is from New Zealand.
I'm talking about the Screaming Jets, Choirboys, Noiseworks, Silverchair (Before they became soft and emo), a whole bunch of stuff from before the 80's like the Angels and the entire category of what Aussies call "pub rock" like Ian Moss and Cold Chisel.
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Not much Aussie rock from the heyday (80's and 90's) made it outside of Oz, which is a bit of a shame.
I think they were somewhat better known here in Canada - I have seven of their CD's and had no difficulty getting hold of them back in the day. The first album I had was the one whose title I always abbreviate as "10 to 1". First heard it in an Aussie bar in downtown Toronto. Awesome band.
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Blue Sky Mine was big too.
Re: Don't worry (Score:2)
Yes because technocratic communism has never done environmental damage said no one ever
Re: Don't worry (Score:2)
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Holy shit, dude.
I mean, holy shit in a time when many people are real-ly secular.
Yet, I bet Sam Kinnison could read your screed in his Episcopalian Bible-Bashing Preacher voice, and somehow... somehow make you funny.
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You and Tesla profits. There's no one side to this trade, both sides profited. If you didn't gain something from buying that stuff then you would not have gone through with the purchase. Capitalism is just a series of people trading up. One person puts in time and effort to produce stuff that someone else trades for some other stuff that they produced with their time and effort. Capitalism means everyone wins.
Bzzzz.
That doesn't explain the Shopping Channel or gym memberships (which are the purist form of capitalism).
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Capitalism is a term thought up by Marxist as an insult to people that want a free market.
Your etymology is 200 years out. Don't you fact check anything?
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Profit is a very powerful motivator. Far more powerful than telling people that if they don't do something different then in 100 years their great grandchildren will see a warmer planet. That doesn't concern them nearly as much as having money to buy food and fuel so their children don't freeze or starve to death. If there is no profit in the solution then it is not going to happen.
You're right, profit is the motivator, the only motivator, there is no motivation in Capitalism to protect the environment b
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Profit is a motivation, I am sure.
Also, love, beauty, principles, religion, anger, hatred. All of these things provide often powerful motivations for actions and have more impact that the desire for profit. This is why we have a charity sector. Or an education sector, because parents do not profit from educating their children; or even producing children in the first place.
These motivations are important too. Sometimes with capitalism, everyone wins. But, sometimes one person simply exploits another -- most
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Profit is a motivation, I am sure.
Also, love, beauty, principles, religion, anger, hatred. All of these things provide often powerful motivations for actions and have more impact that the desire for profit.
wat
Maybe you should consider looking around sometime.
This is why we have a charity sector.
The world is going to shit, actually shit would be an improvement because you can grow plants in that, but you won't be able to grow plants on this planet in the fairly near future if we keep going the way we're going. Well, that's false. You will be able to, but not on land.
Or an education sector, because parents do not profit from educating their children;
wat
Seriously wat
or even producing children in the first place.
So just to be clear, parents get nothing out of producing children? God damn you're thick.
Most capital is not owned by anybody, even if it is controlled by somebody.
There is literally no practical difference. Are you new?
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Or an education sector, because parents do not profit from educating their children;
wat
Seriously wat
You put time, money and effort into educating your children. And what do you get out of it in terms of profit? Nothing, as far as I can see. Most of the benefit goes to the child.
So, why do people do it? Well, because they have a strong motivation to do so that is not based on profit.
or even producing children in the first place.
So just to be clear, parents get nothing out of producing children? God damn you're thick.
Just to be clear, parents get no profit out of producing children. And, yet, they still do. It appears to me that biology is a stronger motivator than economics.
Thanks for the gratuitous rudeness; not sure quite why that helps
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New? I have been around a fair amount of time. I think my slashdot account was created about 20 years ago. Again, not quite sure why this is of value.
I don't mean new on Slashdot. I mean new on this planet.
You put time, money and effort into educating your children. And what do you get out of it in terms of profit? Nothing, as far as I can see. Most of the benefit goes to the child.
So, why do people do it? Well, because they have a strong motivation to do so that is not based on profit.
Yeah, that's the thing. Your prior comment didn't make any sense because you were measuring everything in terms of economic return. Even that is wrong in many cases however, because people still use children for labor even today. It's still legal to make your kids work in your business for no money, and what's more, you can make them start working in your own business at a much earlier age than someone else's kids. You can also make them do more danger
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New? I have been around a fair amount of time. I think my slashdot account was created about 20 years ago. Again, not quite sure why this is of value.
I don't mean new on Slashdot. I mean new on this planet.
Yes, well, I have been on this planet for somewhat longer than I have been on slashdot.
Yeah, that's the thing. Your prior comment didn't make any sense because you were measuring everything in terms of economic return.
I was measuring things in terms of profit which is what the OP was about, specifically in the context of ownership and capitalism. In that context "profit" means economic return. It doesn't mean the warm feeling that you get from seeing your children growing. It means economic return.
Even that is wrong in many cases however, because people still use children for labor even today.
It's still legal to make your kids work in your business for no money, and what's more, you can make them start working in your own business at a much earlier age than someone else's kids.
Yes, no doubt in some jurisdictions it is. I suspect that even in those, they rarely make up for the expenditure. Even if they do in some ca
Re:Don't worry (Score:5, Insightful)
Profit is a very powerful motivator.
Correct. It has motivated us into destroying the ecosystems of the planet on which our existence wholly depends. Good job capitalism.
If there is no profit in the solution then it is not going to happen.
Correct again, but unless this changes (unlikely) our species will be extinct within the next dozen generations.
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Profit is a very powerful motivator.
Correct. It has motivated us into destroying the ecosystems of the planet on which our existence wholly depends. Good job capitalism.
It also motivated us to produce enough food and other goods to feed our population and elevate our standard of living. And if we can find a good way to internalize the environmental externalities (a big if, granted), it'll motivate us to fix that, too. Capitalism is by far the best system we've yet found to optimize our systems to deliver what people want -- not what they claim to want or should want or anything fuzzy like that, but what they actually care to focus their time and resources on acquiring.
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That's a good one! Hate to kill a joke by explaining it, but for anyone who doesn't know already that blindseer's citations don't say what he claims they say MBNH and won't get it anyway
DOOOMMM!!! (Score:1)
Most of the country has no human presence.
The population is distributed around the coast.
If you're talking just the coastal regions, well, guess what, you can't fix that without killing everyone.
If you're talking the interior of the country?
You're looking at phenomena not related to human habitation.
And until you understand the ACTUAL stresses on those ecosystems, again, you're not going to fix it.
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>> If you're talking the interior of the country?
>> You're looking at phenomena not related to human habitation.
You mean the part that's affected by the introduction of non-native species, climate change and mining operations - the part that also has declined significantly in the last 6 years?
You think that's just an unfortunate non-human related activity?
Humans have a larger effect than the pavement they walk on you know.
not surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: not surprising (Score:1)
Nothing about drought followed quickly by flooding is unusual in Australia. Australiaâ(TM)s climate is full of extremes, and was before the colonisation by Europeans.
Someone even wrote a poem about it. Quite a famous one.
Re:not surprising (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing normal about mass coral bleaching events. That can be almost entirely blamed on humans. And sure Australia has always gone from fire to drought, hell some of our national plants rely on fire to germinate, but the severity and frequency of such events can well and truly be traced to *human* actions.
Also there's nothing natrual about devastating a forest to make space for open cut coal mines either.
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No. Minor coral bleaching events have been. Maybe you're using the word "mass" differently to everyone else, but at no point in recorded history has the great barrier reef lost as much as it has lost now.
By the way, what do you think caused crown of thorns to be such a problem? Did you guess human over fishing of their predators?
Kiddo. The CSIRO has a lovely website describing everything that has happened to the great barrier reef. And pretty much nothing isn't attributed to something *we* have done, most o
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Land clearing... And cattus cattus (Score:3)
Climate change will get all the headlines but the real problem is quite simple:
Habitat loss via land clearing. A lot of it is mining companies, but the Australian Dream of a weekender "up the coast" and subsequent urban sprawl up and down the coastal fringe - from Brisbane along the coast all the way down to Melbourne.
Gotta keep them new apartments coming into the market. Gotta keep inflating those house prices. Gotta have a "sea change".
Bulldozers and chains transform the bush into another subdivision. Then they pour the concrete, build it up and move the millionaire bogans in. With their cats to clean up any straggling wildlife.
It's madness.
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Re:Land clearing... And cattus cattus (Score:4, Informative)
Very little land is cleared by mining, it is barely a rounding error on the issue
I send you this cordial invitation to visit the Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia. Home of the world's busiest coal port. And massive open-cut coal mines [newcastleherald.com.au].
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Area of all mines divided by total area of Australia?
I've heard the same complaint in the US too, the truth is that golf courses cover more of the land.
And remember you need mines to produce solar panels and windmills too.
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Area of all mines divided by total area of Australia?
That's called whataboutism. The total area of Australia is mostly desert with no clearing required. The reality is coal mines have devastated unique habitats and do so massively. To say nothing of coal mining activities causing pollution that has among other things cause rivers to become acidic, devastated coral reefs from the run-off and shipping movements, and are hugely energy intensive since the coal is in the middle of fucking nowhere and also needs to be shipped somewhere.
And remember you need mines to produce solar panels and windmills too.
Yes we do. The world's larges
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I've heard the same complaint in the US too, the truth is that golf courses cover more of the land.
Okay, but collectively golf courses are an environmental crisis all by themselves, so are you really helping your argument here? Like maybe it's best not to compare to an industry which is using up our drinking water so that rich fucks can whack a tiny ball.
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So, let's destroy Sidney and restore the natural habitat in there.
Just under-reported (Score:5, Informative)
This just... isn't news, to many of us in Australia. The koala situation (the main one I'm aware of) has been dire for years, but without actual rules, or enforcement of the rules, developers just keep destroying their habitats for more, tinier, housing. It's way down the ladder of things to action. It's fucked, and in the long term it's hard not to feel that we are too.
This guy seems to know what's going on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Environmentalist paradox (Score:1, Interesting)
Humans seem unique in all of nature in that everything we touch changes the environment for the worse. Never does it seem that our actions have ever led to anything positive ever happening in nature. I find that highly suspicious.
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Why is the same not true for every species on earth? It seems that species that are pervasive today we simply consider normal, but that's just bias: there was a point in time when they weren't pervasive, and thus at some point they were invasive. Trees are invasive, ants invasive, spiders invasive, mitochondria invasive, amoebas invasive.
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Humans seem unique in all of nature in that everything we touch changes the environment for the worse. Never does it seem that our actions have ever led to anything positive ever happening in nature. I find that highly suspicious.
Changes to the environment WRT to nature are neither better nor worse. Nature does not work like that.
Human population has increased from half a billion 500 years ago, to 1 billion 100 years ago to 8 billion now. As we've spread out, we've changed the environment to suit us. There are some species other than humans (rats, pigeons, cows, thistles, corn, etc) who's fitness for survival is improved by these changes, but far, far more species who's fitness decreases in human-changed landscapes.
So think instead
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Humans seem unique in all of nature in that everything we touch changes the environment for the worse.
That is not even remotely true. There are many animals that devastate their environments and then move on. Humans even battle strongly against some of them as we compete for resources.
We are however the most efficient at what we do.
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Human efforts have accomplished many positive things "in nature". But there are many, many more negative "accomplishments", so it reasonably seems like our impact is uniformly negative.
Right now human activities have led to AGW, which is perturbing every formerly stable system on the planet, and that does sort of make everything else irrelevant. But it's not that we're not capable of positive things, only that the dominant paradigm is unsustainable extraction for profit... and most people are cheering it on
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If all you do is cherry pick to your bias, you shouldn't be surprised that the "evidence" seems overwhelming.
Of course, some might observe that's fairly circular.
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I would've said that by definition everything we do is natural, including labeling things unnatural
"Invasive species" = cats (Score:2)
Not surprising (Score:1)
Given that every native species in Australia is designed to kill human beings, I'm not surprised that there are more non-native than native species there now. It's us or them.
In other "news" water is wet. (Score:1)
SEO clickbait, a Dicedot specialty with even more views because Australia.
Who didn't know this already and under what rock were they living?
civilised...? Nope (Score:2)
Government (Score:5, Informative)
Time to create an inland sea in Australia (Score:2)
https://www.canberratimes.com.... [canberratimes.com.au]
It can be done.
and of course its conservatives (Score:2)
Re:Tiny population (Score:5, Insightful)
Australia has a tiny tiny population. Most of the country is uninhabited. Many species went extinct before appearance of man. Many of these changes are just natural, even if not comfortable for man.
No. Just No.
First no one in Australia gives a fuck. If they did all cat owners would be legally obliged to have cat runs that kept them completely enclosed. Dogs are limited to backyard but somehow cat owners are allowed to let their cats go anywhere. If you've every heard a parrot being killed by a cat in the middle of the night you would understand why this is important as it's not just birds but miriad's of marsupials.
Then there is a prevalence of mining and conflicting farming interests. If miners are digging up something pristine, farmers are poisoning it with herbicides or the water with over fertilization. Then there are corporate interests like Coca Cola who drain the local spring water just up the road from my house so people everywhere can drink it - and fuck the locals or the local farmers who were here long before they were.
Then there are loggers and land developers, whose idea of land development is to take two D10 bulldozers a few hundred metres apart with a ship anchor chain attached to both and simply annihilate everything in their path. There isn't even any time for the wildlife to go somewhere else as dozens of trees are simply mowed down. Having seen this I was close to tears at the obscenity of it.
If that isn't enough you have morons with fire starting bushfires which also kill people in houses. That's the stuff off the top of my head, the list just keeps going.
Having wandered around Australia and gazed up in wonder at rainforest trees as tall as 70-80 metres high all I could note to myself was "No wonder Aboriginals are so pissed off at what was taken from them - Terra Nulis". Australia has a plethora of beer swilling 4WD owning morons that only care about themselves. Just ask anyone in Bali.
And that's why everything here is dying.
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Then there are corporate interests like Coca Cola who drain the local spring water just up the road from my house so people everywhere can drink it - and fuck the locals or the local farmers who were here long before they were.
You're a funny bastard. Coca Cola just uses tap water, sometimes with additional filtration but mostly not, to fill its "spring water" bottles. It's been up before the ACCC many times for this.
Even as a cat owner I agree with you that people need to take more responsibility for their cats. When our cat isn't inside with us she is outside in a rather large cat run.
Australia has huge problems with invasive species. But the retarded greenies are their own worst enemy (and ours) because they actively prevent cu
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You're a funny bastard.
Thanks cobber!!
Even as a cat owner I agree with you that people need to take more responsibility for their cats. When our cat isn't inside with us she is outside in a rather large cat run.
Why is that so hard for other cat owners to understand? This is how to be a responsible pet owner.
Australia actively prevent culling of invasive species such as blackberry (which Bunnings sells in its nurseries, for fuck's sake), boars, cane toads, carp, foxes, rabbits (which are still available as pets in most states, for fuck's sake), Indian mynahs, water buffalo,
So true. I used to shoot them - until the government took all our rifles. I mean bring the English Fox hunters here and tell them that if they don't shoot at least five foxes each they're going home in a box. They're so crafty that when you're spotting them at night and sight them, they close their eyes and walk a metre then open them again, aim repeat - the foxes that is. Don't forgot goats
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>Even as a cat owner I agree with you that people need to take more responsibility for their cats. When our cat isn't inside with us she is outside in a rather large cat run.
Fack that 100%. Eagles eat cats too. Most birds eat shrimp and other animals. Fack the stupid greeniacs who's main achievement will be mass murder via mass famines.
Not everywhere in Australia has Eagles, when you're in their territory, you'll know it because Eagles in Australia are pretty big. I have them where I live, Sea Eagles with a two metre wingspan is not unusual, they're not as big as the Wedge tail Eagle that lives inland which I have seen take juvenile Kangaroos.
To give you an idea of how big this high speed killing machine is, I am just under 6ft and when I had one stand beside me (in a zoo) it's - I'm going to fuck you up - eyes would be looking at my
Re:Tiny population (Score:4, Insightful)
Being born and raised in Australia, but having lived and worked in Europe as well, I'll say this much; Australia has a long way to go before you see the scale of human interference that Europe has.
With that said though, Australia has a political problem, in that certain interests are intertwined with the countries political classes and system, to the detriment of regular opinions, debate or democracy. There's a myriad of reasons for it, but I think Australia hasn't got a developed and thriving innovation sector, rather throughout history, and currently, Australia's wealth has primarily been derived from what could be extracted from the ground, be it agriculture or mining. Agriculture, to some extent is destructive, but in general, I think a large amount of farmers recognise that destroying the land is destroying their future prospects, so generally speaking, I have seen many farmers who are conservationists in their own way. Mining, on the other hand, it's destructive, and the companies that do it merely greenwash everything they do, as in reality, they'd probably have to spend more than the profit they make, to undo all the destruction they cause. But, mining is Australia's biggest industry (ok maybe after property speculation), certainly biggest export, and it's thanks to mining why Australia has a high standard of living and its wealth.
Re:Tiny population (Score:5, Insightful)
Australia has a plethora of beer swilling 4WD owning morons that only care about themselves. Just ask anyone in Bali.
And that's why everything here is dying.
So, you're saying it's like Texas but with scarier spiders and snakes?
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Re:Tiny population (Score:4, Informative)
Australia has a plethora of beer swilling 4WD owning morons that only care about themselves. Just ask anyone in Bali.
And that's why everything here is dying.
So, you're saying it's like Texas but with scarier spiders and snakes?
Apparently we've got cattle stations here bigger than Texas, which is true, however some arsehole sold them to the Chinese. Yeah, snakes, spiders are pretty bad, but what is worse is this little motherfucker [wikipedia.org] up north, you don;t even see it coming and some die just from the pain before the toxic shock kicks in. If only the water wasn't so nice on a hot as fuck - hey wow the wiring in my Audi melted - day.
No where near as bad as one of those bastards, I had Portuguese man-o-war (or a blue bottle) stingers wrap around under my arms, chest, back and legs as I caught a wave body surfing and I was fucked - wishing I wore a rashy. The clubbies told me they saw it happen and grabbed me when I finally made it to the beach where they had to put me in a hot shower, like only hot water, to dislodge as many stingers as possible. 3 impossible hours of agony as I went into shock begging them not to call the ambulance. They told me another 17 or so people also got stung and they had to close the beach. I was squeezing those fucken things out of various parts of my body almost two years later.
Then there was the time I got bitten by a white tailed spider, I thought it was a mosquito bite - at first then the necrosis kicked in - fuck I was sick. Doctor gave me an anti biotic that messed my guts up for weeks and at one stage I literally *poured* pus out of the wound it left. I think it took 6-8 months to heal. I still have a little white patch on my arm where it got me. I atomize those things whenever I see them now.
I kill the redbacks, steer clear of the funnel webs in the garden, do my best to avoid the southern cross and it's sticky yellow web (they actually make a *thud* sound when you bat them airborne), freaked out when I realised the Huntsman Spider was *inside* the car and resisted pleas from my wife to kill the Brown Snake [wikipedia.org] sunning itself on my office window which are docile - until you fuck with them.
Come to think of it, there are a few things here that can fuck you up, I'd never really paid too much attention to it, just kept a lookout for them. But the worst, most venomous, deadly, vicious, callous, mean spirited creature is the Suburban Bogan Slapper, can usually be recognized by their call "fuken buy me a drink ya cunt". If you hear this - run.
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Crikey! (dunno if you people still say that) -- that's a whole lot of insanity. Good god.
Jeez mate, I dunno how long ago I heard anyone say that. Now people tend to say "oh that's remarkable" :)
Question though, why didn't you want the ambulance called? I thought healthcare was free?
Yeah, it's free. However it's also a pain in the arse when all I had to do is stop myself from slipping into unconsciousness, which I almost did a few times. If that happened then I would wake up in the hospital, whilst I was talking the clubbies could see I was aware. At the time I was working on my Masters and I was preparing for exams. I had been studying since morning when I decided that, as a rew
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So, you're saying it's like Texas but with scarier spiders and snakes?
And less sugar in the food, but yes, essentially. Australia and America draws a lot of parallels. In many examples the cars are almost as big too, cites are equally poorly designed, public transport is a fucking shitshow, and all political parties are trying to fuck everything up equally.
Oh except our women can get abortions.
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Australia has a plethora of beer swilling 4WD owning morons that only care about themselves. Just ask anyone in Bali.
And that's why everything here is dying.
So, you're saying it's like Texas but with scarier spiders and snakes?
If you're from rural parts of the US, you'll find the people in rural Australia to be extremely relatable and similar, yeah. Driving around the towns in the Snowy River mountains, I felt like I could be in rural Georgia or Utah, from the red dirt to the pickups and fishing boats in every driveway. The pickups were smaller and had snorkels, and the vegetation was a bit different but that's all. And the pickups are getting bigger.
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Please...Cats don't go into your yard and kill your other Cats and Chickens. Dogs do. Cats aren't out stalking and killing Koalas either.
Why don't you make up something else, say the OP said it and go on arguing with yourself.
Re:Tiny population (Score:5, Insightful)
Australia has a tiny tiny population.
Probably more than the carrying capacity of the continent, nevertheless. There's a lot of desert in the outback.
Many species went extinct before appearance of man.
Dude. This continent was colonised by man over 40,000 years ago.
Many of these changes are just natural, even if not comfortable for man.
From the article, third sentence: These can be blamed on climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, pollution and mining, it said.
Re:Tiny population (Score:4, Interesting)
Dude. This continent was colonised by man over 40,000 years ago.
Yep, and it lost a lot of species back then, including most large land animals. (Only kangaroos and emus remain.)
We are repeating the same mistakes, but much more quickly this time.
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Australia had three waves of extinctions.
The first occurred 40,000 years ago with the arrival of humans.
The second occurred 4,000 years ago with the arrival of dingoes (dogs).
The third started 250 years ago with the arrival of Europeans and is continuing.
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The biggest problem with Australia has been the introduction of invasive species. You know, like all the rabbits and foxes that were imported by men, so they could enjoy their lovely midday sport of shooting animals purely for fun.
Turns out, those rabbits escaped, ate everything in sight, and turned most of Australia into a desert. The foxes preferred the native wildlife to the rabbits, as the locals were easier to catch. After the environment was decimated, everything died out, and will probably stay th
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The biggest problem with Australia has been the introduction of invasive species.
That is far from the biggest problem. Foxes and rabbits are harmful, but well under control, at least where I live.
Loss of habitat is the big problem. But as TFA says, the problems amplify.
Climate change would be less of a danger if wildlife populations could slowly migrate, instead of being locked into limited, isolated natural habitats.
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Australia has a tiny tiny population. Most of the country is uninhabited. Many species went extinct before appearance of man. Many of these changes are just natural, even if not comfortable for man.
You underestimate the power of a single person to pollute and/or introduce foreign species.
You're also ignoring global effects, which are what's causing the barrier reef to die through ocean acidification.
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Remember when wide spread usage of CFCs caused a hole in the ozone layer?
Yet how is that possible, when no humans even live in the ozone layer?! Therefore the hole was a natural change, even if not comfortable for man.
Unless of course environment issues can have some kind of effect outside of direct population centres.
Maybe like global warming, invasive species and mining operations. Just could be zany enough to make sense.
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Dude, my "finger waging" was zombiephysicist believed that the environmental destruction in Australia was not man-made.
I brought up the ozone layer because zombie missed the basic point that people affect things outside of their arm's reach.
I agree, it is a great example of when the planet bands together to fix something, it can get fixed.
So you're saying zombiephysicist could be arguing in bad faith, because he assumes that my proposal to fix this this won't work and will require 15th century peasant lifes
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Warning against using meme insults: They just make you sound like you need to take your own advice.
Re: Tiny population (Score:2)
Re: Tiny population (Score:5, Informative)
You'll be surprised to learn Republicans are Liberals
The word "liberal" means completely different things depending on where you are.
In America, a liberal is a progressive.
In Europe, a liberal is a libertarian.
In Australia, a liberal is a conservative.
Only in Australia would a member of the American Republican Party be considered a "liberal".
In an international discussion, it is best to avoid the word "liberal" and say what you mean instead.
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You'll be surprised to learn Republicans are Liberals
The word "liberal" means completely different things depending on where you are.
In America, a liberal is a progressive.
In Europe, a liberal is a libertarian.
In Australia, a liberal is a conservative.
Only in Australia would a member of the American Republican Party be considered a "liberal".
In an international discussion, it is best to avoid the word "liberal" and say what you mean instead.
Australian English is just designed to be confusing.
A Liberal is a conservative (originally from economic liberalism but have been lurching every further right with each passing year). A republican is someone who wants to do away with the monarchy and a Democrat doesn't exist any more (there is a party called the Australian Democrats, I'm not sure if they exist any more).
So Australia's current prime minister, Anthony Albanese leader of the Labor party (yes, it's spelled the American way) is a republic
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TIL the BBC has expanded into producing scientific reports for governments of other countries [dcceew.gov.au]
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Go away asshole. You are advocating self-destruction.
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Yep. Nuclear power is so bad, we shouldn't even dream of it. We should just keep mining coal, make deals in the Middle East, and for those in Europe, keep ceding sovereignity to Russia for more cheap natural gas, all the while wondering why each year is hotter than the last.
Lets all just quietly go into the dark night, rather than actually do something. You are right, like the Georgia Guidestones said, we need to get to a population of 500 million, or even 500,000.
Re:If you believe this⦠(Score:5, Insightful)
thanks for the zero references to back that up...
I, for one, live here, and can tell that's bullshit.
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I live in Australia too, and bullshit it ain't.
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Hey, look, somebody is telling us everything is fine! Lets just believe him with no fact-checking whatsoever in order to feel good!