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.
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.