10% of Earth's Wilderness Areas Gone in Last 20 Years

[BillT]

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/we-ve-destroyed-one-tenth-earth-s-wilderness-just-2-decades?utm_campaign=news_daily_2016-09-08&et_rid=33537079&et_cid=789320

[Mugwump]

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/we-ve-destroyed-one-tenth-earth-s-wilderness-just-2-decades?utm_campaign=news_daily_2016-09-08&et_rid=33537079&et_cid=789320

...just think the Amazon basin...

[wallace]

This kind of study is highly subjective, depending entirely as it does on the way the researcher wants to define wilderness and quantify it. It falls in a category of hyperbolic research work that has been increasing as the grant money for such work increases. There is a mindset, increasingly fixed in the scientific community, that leans toward gloom and doom prophesies. All these environmental threats to our future are real ones, but the way they are presented and exaggerated these days is counterproductive... it causes reasonable, thinking people to brush it all aside as just another attempt to get our attention.

[BillT]

Saying:

depending entirely as it does on the way the researcher wants to define wilderness and quantify it

seems contradictory to me.

If they are defining and quantifying what they are talking about it is by definition objective rather than subjective. The way they are defining wilderness and how they quantify it are open to discussion and can be revised if appropriate.
Subjective is based up "feelings".

If the threats are real, what exactly is exaggerated about it?

If the threats are real what is counterproductive about getting people's attention on them?
Seems to me that it would be irresponsible for someone who knows this stuff to not try to get people to think about it.

[wallace]

If I measure the height of people and compare those measurements to the height of people in the same community in a past study, and then say that the height of these people has decreased by 10%, that could be seen as an objective study.

But if I measure the intelligence of people, I am not being objective. The test itself, the very parameters by which I am measuring, are subjective. There is no universally applied yardstick that stays the same length over time. Similarly with "wilderness", whatever that is. If the same researcher was to make the same evaluation ten years from now, using the same methods, that might be something... but we would still need to look closely to see if it is meaningful. I have seen too much of Henny Penny research lately, and look at all of it with a doubtful eye.

[BillT]

if I measure the intelligence of people, I am not being objective.

If you clearly define the way you measure intelligence so that others could replicate your findings and discuss it, you would be. In a sense, by doing this, you are making a definition of intelligence based on how you are doing your measurement, but you are also saying that is what you are doing by describing how you are making your measurement. This may lead to problems if someone is using a very different definition from what is normally accepted, but that too is open to be scrutinized and discussed.

The test itself, the very parameters by which I am measuring, are subjective. There is no universally applied yardstick that stays the same length over time.

I do not understand your point here.
If you were to measure "intelligence" in some way, and then repeat it, it should show similar results (within statistical variability) if given to the same people at the same time. If their "intelligence" changes.
That seems OK to me.

"wilderness", whatever that is.

They did that in the article to a reasonable extent:

Wilderness is defined as pristine landscapes mostly free of human disturbances, including roads. So for the new work, Watson?s team adjusted the wilderness detected in satellite images to exclude places experiencing these human pressures to come up with the total area of wilderness. They also excluded Antarctica and similar ?rock and ice? habitats, the oceans, and large lakes.

They got their information from:

determined the extent of the ?human footprint? on Earth by incorporating maps and data on crop lands, pastures, night lighting, railways, roadways, navigable waterways, population densities, and ?built? environments, which included urban areas and other settlements. For most of these threats to wilderness, they had satellite and other data from the early 1990s and for the late 2000s.

It makes more sense to read something before you criticize it.

If you want more detail (which most people don't) than you can go look at the original article where all the details of how they got and analyzed their data should be published.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)30993-9
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160823/ncomms12558/full/ncomms12558.html

[Mugwump]

They got their information from:
Quote

    determined the extent of the ?human footprint? on Earth by incorporating maps and data on crop lands, pastures, night lighting, railways, roadways, navigable waterways, population densities, and ?built? environments, which included urban areas and other settlements. For most of these threats to wilderness, they had satellite and other data from the early 1990s and for the late 2000s.


It makes more sense to read something before you criticize it.

If you want more detail (which most people don't) than you can go look at the original article where all the details of how they got and analyzed their data should be published.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)30993-9
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160823/ncomms12558/full/ncomms12558.html

...exactly...and it differs from what any previous test could detect because the same parameters could not have been applied then.....and it'll be the same on the future when technology is further advanced...

Also, another team using the same testing procedures will not necessarily come to the same conclusions....there hasn't appeared to be any benchmark set...so even the same testing criteria can be interpreted to any desired option considered.

..just like all of us reading the article taking different views....because my view doesn't match the others reading it....just means that one can read the same thing and draw different options.....no right or wrong involved....

[BillT]

Also, another team using the same testing procedures will not necessarily come to the same conclusions....there hasn't appeared to be any benchmark set...so even the same testing criteria can be interpreted to any desired option considered.

They should get the same result from their analysis of the data if they follow the same procedures the original guys used. Same info in, same analysis, should yield the same result.
The conclusions someone derives from the data collected will depend on the logic they apply.

There can be a right and wrong in how they do that.
For example just ignoring the results because you don't like them would be considered wrong by most people.

[Mugwump]

Also, another team using the same testing procedures will not necessarily come to the same conclusions....there hasn't appeared to be any benchmark set...so even the same testing criteria can be interpreted to any desired option considered.

They should get the same result from their analysis of the data if they follow the same procedures the original guys used. Same info in, same analysis, should yield the same result.
The conclusions someone derives from the data collected will depend on the logic they apply.

There can be a right and wrong in how they do that.
For example just ignoring the results because you don't like them would be considered wrong by most people.

..you're forgetting human nature...one man's interpretation can vary from another.....weight of relevance to criteria....and disagreeing with results is why scientist write peer papers for their community.....because the same theory by one can be viewed differently by others...and even improved upon.....yes/no..cut and dry, aren't the norm ...  and 'wrong' ?....not a chance...it's the 'raison d'etre'

[wallace]

The first word in the article is "Catastrophic".

From the author's (James Watson) bio:

"All the science I lead and collaborate on is about understanding what makes biodiversity threatened and what actions can we do that best overcome these threats."

Does the use of the word 'threat' tell us anything about the mindset of the author? When I go outside to water my field, I don't think of myself as a threat to my surroundings. I don't insist that the author be free of values, but we have to recognize that there is a political cause underlying the work.

Watson is a staff biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society...

"WCS's goal is to conserve the world's largest wild places in 15 priority regions, home to more than 50% of the world's biodiversity."

We are rightly suspicious of research conducted by corporations on their own products because they have an interest in the outcome, and while I don't ascribe sinister motives in this case, I do think there is a cause being promoted here, and therefore an incentive to inflate the 'threat'. Is this disinterested science, free of bias and self-interest?

In a recent publication, Watson et al write:

"Target 11 aims to put 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine regions under PA [protected area] status by 2020....   We argue that the conservation science community can help establish ecologically sensible PA targets to help prioritize important biodiversity areas..."

https://www.gpem.uq.edu.au/james-watson

https://www.wcs.org/about-us

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12645/abstract

[Mugwump]

The first word in the article is "Catastrophic".

From the author's (James Watson) bio:

"All the science I lead and collaborate on is about understanding what makes biodiversity threatened and what actions can we do that best overcome these threats."

Does the use of the word 'threat' tell us anything about the mindset of the author? When I go outside to water my field, I don't think of myself as a threat to my surroundings. I don't insist that the author be free of values, but we have to recognize that there is a political cause underlying the work.

Watson is a staff biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society...

"WCS's goal is to conserve the world's largest wild places in 15 priority regions, home to more than 50% of the world's biodiversity."

We are rightly suspicious of research conducted by corporations on their own products because they have an interest in the outcome, and while I don't ascribe sinister motives in this case, I do think there is a cause being promoted here, and therefore an incentive to inflate the 'threat'. Is this disinterested science, free of bias and self-interest?

In a recent publication, Watson et al write:

"Target 11 aims to put 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine regions under PA [protected area] status by 2020....   We argue that the conservation science community can help establish ecologically sensible PA targets to help prioritize important biodiversity areas..."

https://www.gpem.uq.edu.au/james-watson

https://www.wcs.org/about-us

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cobi.12645/abstract

I agree, companies, and scientists, influenced by ulterior motives can present skewed research counter results too....imho. it's all about who controls public opinion, and gets the dollars...or survives..

It's not a perfect world when such issues are at stake for corporate survival...ie...coal industry vs pollution....fracking vs earth/water problems...big oil vs sea drilling...

[BillT]

Seems you have an issue with people talking about threats to biodiversity.

I don't see why you are taking it so personally. Is there something you doing when you water your field that would be interpreted as a threat to biodiversity?

A threat is just a word describing something.
Threat (definition from my computer's dictionary): a person or thing likely to cause damage or danger: hurricane damage poses a major threat to many coastal communities.

We are now living through what may be one of the greatest extinction events in the history of the earth. Biodiversity is decreasing in many places for many reasons on a large scale.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2015/oct/20/the-four-horsemen-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
It has even been proposed that the earth is entering a new geologic era, the Anthropocene (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene, http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/atomic-bombs-and-oil-addiction-herald-earth-s-new-epoch-anthropocene) where geological evidence the presence of humanity is being left in the new rocks being formed for future geologists to find.

You may not care about any thing beyond what you are growing in your field, but it seems strange to demand such lack of concern in others. Being worried about a threat the stability of the world's ecosystems, which keep us all well, does not seem to me to be a good reason to get all upset about.

To put your concerns about Watson in perspective, E.O. Wilson (big time biologist at Harvard U.) thinks 50% of land show be some kind of wildlife preserve. Watson is mild compared to that.

I do think there is a cause being promoted here, and therefore an incentive to inflate the 'threat'.
Following this logic, since almost anything anyone does is done for some purpose, a person could therefore be accused of having some kind of incentive behind it. If you are so concerned about biodiversity issues, you might want to understand those issues before you make attacks on the people researching them. Ad hominem attacks (attacks on a person rather then the ideas under discussion) are often used when one's arguments (or understanding) of the ideas themselves are inadequate.

This is occurring a lot in politics right now.

[BallAquatics]

I'm surprised it's only 10%.  Like Jon said, with all the carnage we hear about just as it is related to the hobby of tropical fish keeping, I would have thought the number to be higher.

Dennis