Today I Learned (TIL)

6546 readers

1 users here now

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?

/c/til is a community for any true knowledge that you would like to share, regardless of topic or of source.

Share your knowledge and experience!

Rules

Information must be true
Follow site rules
No, you don't have to have literally learned the fact today
Posts must be about something you learned

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Kokomheart@lemmy.ca

JCSpark@lemmy.ca

108

TIL that there is a flourishing business consisting of digging up mammoth tusks from the Siberian permafrost and selling it to China, as a substitute for prohibited elephant ivory. (www.nhm.ac.uk)

submitted 1 year ago by garfaagel@sh.itjust.works to c/til@lemmy.ca

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

While this is better than killing elephants, I still don't like it...

[–] yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean, they're probably destroying a lot of Siberian ice to do this, so it might even have the same ecological impact as something like mining, I think

[–] xoggy@programming.dev 9 points 1 year ago

Just in general, mammoth fossils hold a lot of information that could tell us about the history of the local environment of those areas or new insights into the creatures' lives as well. Also it's not like more of this finite resource is still being produced or anything.

[–] lvl7susceptible@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah. Permafrost has a lot of carbon stored in it. The more digging humans do, the more is released into the atmosphere.

It also starts a chain reaction and causes more to melt.

https://youtu.be/HvKpnaXYUPU

[–] Igotz80HDnImWinning@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Defrost the extinct zoonotic infections, can’t wait!