_"Tina here. If you have no idea which one's are the 5. here!"_ Deforestation 5:37 -6:55 Desertification 6:56 -7:41 Global warming 7:42 - 8:44 Nonnative species 8:54 - 9:20 Overharvesting 9:21 - 9:42 _"If I am incorrect, tell me! Like if you want everyone else to see this!"_ EDIT: _"Guys I know it's in the description but not everyone checks that, so here it is in the comments."_
Hey! Biology teacher here: I always enjoy your videos, Hank, but this series on Ecology has been my favorite! Your masters in Environmental Science shows through your passion.
The key is "few hundred thousand years." As he says in the video, the things we have been doing and the things that are happening are taking place at an astoundingly fast pace.
hello MJ Lock I saw your comment and see that you care about the environment and the climate therefore I wonder if you are open to see what we do and help us together do something concrete to improve the environment?
All of these things are important for people to know whether you are a student or teacher. We have to be aware of what we are doing to the environment, for the long haul.
And how do you propose to make people care about anything other than their massive endless privileges? They want MORE not LESS. They will never give up their Hedonism, until there is nothing left to eat, and then they'll all enter into massive mental instability, and start killing each other by the masses. It'll be total carnage, and nobody will learn anything from the whole event. End of story, everybody loses.
I wish everyone would watch this video. People don't realize how dependent we are on the environment. A lot of people think humans and nature are separate but that isn't true at all.
Not at all. I wrote this comment because it's my honest opinion. I didn't even watch this for school, or because anybody told me too. I watched it because I honestly care about the enviorment.
Imagine watching this again and realize that the Amazonian Forest is almost gone due to extreme wildfire. And imagine how many biodiversities were eradicated due to that phenomenon.
Wow, this is such a great video. I learned that humans have caused so many problems to happen such as littering, cutting trees and etc. If we had to do what the environment does for us as of today it would take us longer and a lot more time. The ecosystems are a combination of old and new things that create the environment we are in as of today.
Good presentation... "We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions." -Shoghi Effendi, Baha'i Faith
I went to Humboldt State University to study Environmental Science, and this is incredibly dumb... At 0:25 he says that human activity "could be" responsible for the extinction of "nearly" 1,000 plant and animal species in the last 100 years. The real numbers are way higher than that. "Scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is nearly 1,000 times the “natural” or “background” rate." Don't get me wrong, crashcourse makes some really cool stuff, I've seen it... But this guy made a 10 minute presentation on environmental science, and within 30 seconds he shows that he fundamentally misunderstands the magnitude of the crisis he's talking about. We're not just cutting down a few trees and changing the temperature a bit. We cut and burn 40 football fields of trees per minute. We redirect so much water and till so much soil that we have created deserts the size of countries. Misinformation like this makes me furious because it makes people think, "well if only 10 species a year have become extinct over the last 100 years, then maybe this is something we can solve next year if we just try a little bit harder. I'm sure that environmental group or whatever has it on lock..." People need to understand that by doing as much damage as we have, we have committed ourselves to fix it, and it's going to be expensive and controversial and it's going to take decades, and if we don't, this extinction event that we've created will continue to spiral out of control, decimating all the most beautiful things we know and love or want to discover. Want to know what happens when you cut down a very old tree? Here's a tree centuries old, and looks nothing like the other trees around it, and covered in a strange moss, and sweet smelling purple flowers. Only one species of bird in the forest is adapted to suck nectar from these flowers, touting a ridiculously long and otherwise impractical needle of a beak everywhere they go. When this tree falls, its flowers become extinct because they can only grow on that particular tree. The birds return to find the tree and its flowers dead, and they too become extinct... and the bugs that can only survive on the feces of the birds, and the fungus which only grows on the corpses of the poop eating bugs, and the bugs which only eat that particular fungus, and the spider which primarily eats the fungus eating bugs, and so on. The effects ripple through the forest, and hundreds or thousands of other species become extinct because of the felling of this one tree. You guys need to understand... We can't keep doing what we're doing and expect everything to be okay. Everything we love came from the rainforest- Chicken, bananas, strawberries, corn, wheat, prozac, marijuana, cocaine, opium, coffee, the list goes on- basically everything good comes from there, and what most people don't know is that's just the tip of the iceberg. We have yet to discover so much amazing food and medicine that exists in the rain forest, it would be a shame to lose it. Of course the rest of the world is also in jeopardy, but it isn't nearly as valuable, and I think this is the end of my soapbox. Look elsewhere for your education.
I think if people at least know the situation we all face that's a start. But if we idiots like Trump etc and OZ PM who deny this is an issue we are on a downward spiral.
Alec Thornburgh totally agree with you. We need to change our lifestyles and paradigms. Science and EIA should come before policy making but unfortunately it doesn't. Ex: the massive tar sands in Canada one of the worst planned irreversible environmental damage in the world under the Harper government.
This is an amazing video and I'll surely watch this again. The part when you show the deforestation in the Amazon rainforest was kinda sad to me, since the majority part is contained within my country.
Thank you for this 'basic' education on the problems that we (humanity) have caused. WE ALL NEED this info to understand the problems and, their poss solutions. PLEASE keep up the good work ! Keep spreading the news and, assisting mother Earth in such ways. TY !
I feel like I need to mention that there are already logging restrictions in the rainforest. Nearly all the trees we use for lumber are grown on tree farms. The people cutting down trees in the rainforest are low income native populations who are trying to make farms and grow food for their families. If we help those people with better farming technology, less land will have to be cleared.
And in August 2019 this video becomes incredibly sad that 6 years on we watch the Amazon being burned due to agriculture and our obsession with consuming meat/animals. We never learn and therefore deserve the extinction we are bringing on.
And around the 4:30 mark, not only is biodiversity important, but functioning ecosystem cycles are also important. Gotta have all them carbon, nitrogen, and water cycles working together on top of high biodiversity for a fully intact ecosystem!
Thank you for your videos...You got me through biology... Grade: A...Now I need you to get me through environmental science...core concepts of John Muir, Rachael Carson and Charles Darwin...If you can recommend certain videos to me --I would greatly appreciate...
Would you be able to make a video on the possible mitigations or human interventions that can help the ecosystem, the benefits this could do or the harm it could possibly do?
Hank, you mention cattle as the primary cause of deforestation (in the Amazon and globally) and desertification. I've been wondering if you're vegetarian. As a biologist, you know the industrial meat system is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, desertification, ocean acidification, use of petrochemical fertilizers/pesticides (for animal feed), use of arable land & fresh water, and the bulk of environmental problems we're wreaking upon this earth. As one who has studied psychology, why do you think people are so opposed to switching to a more sustainable plant-based diet? There seems to be a lot of resistance.
Great video Hank! To to the people calling him an "alarmist": it's called facts. People get all worked up over the economy, over healthcare... so why not the environment? There are just as many problems, if not more, that have to do with the environment. Frankly, the environment is the root of the poor economy, poor health, and almost everything else. So yes, you should be alarmed. You should be scared. And you should be excited to create solutions and care about your home.
This isn't depressing! Not for me at least. It gives me a better understanding of these problems. And I NEED a better understanding. Please, please, please! Make more in depth videos about this subject!
I guess that's true. But maybe Hank could have linked to a site about ways to help the environment or something? I guess I'm just so used to Hank and John talking about ways in which we can help the environment, that it's just weird to have a video without that.
There is applied research that suggests significant grazing isn't damaging in all cases. In fact the lack of sufficient grazing herds can degrade the environment. I have linked a TED talk regarding this below. ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html
In Poland we have increased the total area of forests from 20% to around 30% since WWIII. So it's possible to do something good for the climate and quality of living while still being able to make good profit out of it. For an example, we make a lot of furniture for Ikea. Currently we're having problems with overpopulation of boars (300,000 of them) so reforestation is not only good for wood but also for food... =)
You know what's more important than trying to find out flaws in others' claim? By actually listening to them first before putting our own claims on the table. John Green specifically told us that it's pointless to disprove for the sake of argument, unless the person arguing is inherently wrong.
Farmers and ranchers are perhaps one of our best and strongest advocates for environmental protection (in Canada, Alberta is considered 'dirty' for its oil sands, and yet it has some of the strongest environmental laws around other industries because of their heavy farming). The trouble with ranching is, as Hank mentioned, overgrazing. Regular farms keep plants in the ground, while overgrazing can result in no plants in the ground AND heavy hoof traffic, a dangerous combination if not managed.
You know they're brothers, right? They've been doing vlogs for the same amount of time and we're both instrumental in creating thin series. If anything, Hank has done more for Crash Course and Sci Show than John has.
From the journal Earth System Dynamics billed as “An Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union” comes this paper which suggests that the posited AGW forcing effects simply isn’t statistically significant in the observations, but other natural forcings are.
Hank & co - please please please do a video on what we as individuals can do to reduce the negative human impacts on climate change, be it by wasting less, changing habits, getting out and campaigning or whatever. I try to do as much as I can but I often feel I don't know enough about the related issues to act effectively, and I'm sure your knowledge base could provide some very helpful pointers to us all ^_^
I think everyone in the entire world should watch this video. it's really sad First Nations came here 25 000 years ago, no TV's, no Computers, no picky eaters or anything. Pure Masculinity. Now, we, humans are single handedly destroying this world and not giving a damn. We should be ashamed we're abusing our intelligence for more landscaping. Don't even get me started about Asia. I know they want to have a son, and it's their religion but honestly we need to start not having children
LOL. ok I'll put it just like George Carlin put it. And THINK for a second when you read this next statement WITH COMMON SENSE...mathematically...chronologically and historically. " The EARTH is NOT going anywhere. WE ARE.lol. This planet has been here for over 400 million years. Humans have been on this planet around 200 to 250 thousand. Do the math. This planet can shake us off like a mild case of fleas anytime it wishes. Earthquakes, tsunami's, hurricanes, tornadoes are all ways in which it does it." It cracks me up everytime I here people bowing down in fear thinking they are afraid they are effecting the lifeforce of this planet when we can't even combat against the planets methods of killing us. Some of us have the nerve to think we are a threat to this great 10 thousand mile wide ball of gases, and soil.
chronofusion We are direct and indirect threats to innumerable living things on the planet; and some of us care deeply about them, in addition to how those changes will affect our species. I typically love George Carlin, even saw him in concert; but I hate it when people use that bit of his to mock the legitimate efforts of those of us who care deeply about life on this planet.
Y'all who're getting mad at him for giving false info need to go after the schools, not him. He's just teaching what we're learning. If he were to give me all of your guys' info from your universities and degrees I'd have different info than what's on my test and I'd fail. If you want our education on this matter to change, go after the schools, not Crash Course
The CO2 we exhale is what plants inhale to exhale the Oxygen that we inhale, in case no one has informed you about that fact. Your comparison of CO2 and Arsenic is as good as comparing water to hydroiodic acid to then conclude water is a pollutant. Kudos.
Thank you for your comment. What I wrote was rude and I stand corrected. John is very funny and penetrating and the subjects he talks about interest me more. Which doesn`t give me the right to judge his brother. Thanks!
Why are people alarmed when they are made to face that we have an affect and it's not always good. This is actually a thing. The content is the content, watch it, or don't. Whether you like it or not, the truth is the truth.
Overpopulation is a big problem but human being can be so selfish. I remember I red in a Christian channel in Spanish promoting having lot of kids. He says that the population is so small that the entire human being specie could be living in Texas. Could you imagine a church leader so ignorant being follow for so many people? It's embarrassing.
It really makes you consider that what we put into our bodies and do with our bodies is not the only thing that affects how we function. We have an innate need for nature, and and time spent in green space has been said by some scientists to be as important as a healthy diet and physical activity.
Brilliant video!+! "When I say 'effect', I don't mean in a good way." Hah hah hah. Yes, this video is definitely depressing, but it motivates us to fight these changes as much as we possibly can!-!
See Allan Savory's TED Talk on reversing desertification. It was very enlightening, and was one of those things that seem so obvious after you hear it.
+Kalexambing I need to watch food inc. too. I think we need to get rid of BPA and petrol based plastics, they're developing plant based biodegradable plastic
A recent thing I saw going around Facebook ... you show someone from the past an iPhone and say "With this device I can access entire libraries of knowledge from out of thin air ... and yet I use it to look at pictures of cats and get into arguments with people I will never meet."
What I would add, is the scale of the impact we have, like 60% of all landmasses are used for farming. this might be obvious to most of us who are engaged in the debate but i learned in many discussions that people often don't think mankind has come to the point where we are a determining factor on ted: jonathan_foley_the_other_inconvenient_truth
I've never understood why extinctions are always considered bad. If a species isn't robust enough to adapt then it should die out and free up that niche for another species to evolve over the next few hundred thousand years to fill it. The idea that an ecosystem should stop changing and stay as it is right now is as arbitrary and silly as the Amish approach to technology.
Even though some people may disagree with the whole 'global warming' thing, it is undoubtedly an obvious trend that is only going to get worse with time and neglect. You need only look at the trends in the Keeling Curve to see this. I agree with Mr Stanton on the fact that there was a substantial rise in temperature in the Medieval Warming Period, however the rise in temperature in the last century or so is much higher because of increased human activity. Also, the sun's activity of nuclear fusion has not changed in its history. Leading to the cause of the Earth heating up to be due to holes in our ozone layer due to our release of Green House Gases combined with the consistent removal of trees; NOT the sun on its own. I understand not every one will agree with my point of view, but only a simpleton overlooks the blindingly obvious truth.