tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41366265900978011692024-03-17T20:02:15.189-07:00What Is SustainableWhat Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.comBlogger355125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-84952426245926439112023-07-21T13:55:00.001-07:002023-08-01T13:12:50.344-07:00Wild New World<div style="text-align: center;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmKzyydGiWBlD2G0ORt2tKuDMvgttdKW4hqzMf3qbFrruy9FF267lrktVANNWVusmogG7itQZ8bS3UfrxOM2Nbm3YPPKgrt2jkXnBCyVEJA2aKNLGn4ew-lz3Hvf1iT8B36Wc7B4aWOEL0XiFVHjmWUqGbABz0MqqsQ9fF8nQJaY5fs3Uo6mOqmgoFfIPh/s352/Wild%20New%20World.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="235" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmKzyydGiWBlD2G0ORt2tKuDMvgttdKW4hqzMf3qbFrruy9FF267lrktVANNWVusmogG7itQZ8bS3UfrxOM2Nbm3YPPKgrt2jkXnBCyVEJA2aKNLGn4ew-lz3Hvf1iT8B36Wc7B4aWOEL0XiFVHjmWUqGbABz0MqqsQ9fF8nQJaY5fs3Uo6mOqmgoFfIPh/s320/Wild%20New%20World.PNG" width="214" /></a></div><br /></div><p class="BlogText">Dan Flores is a historian who has been studying the stormy relationship
between humans and the family of life for many years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He calls this subject Big History.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Wild
New World</span></em> is a fascinating and disturbing masterpiece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a thick book loaded with ideas gathered
over a long career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The core focus is on
North America, which was once an Eden-like paradise of abundant wildlife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What happened?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Our species emerged in beautiful Mother Africa maybe 300,000
years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe 60,000 years ago, adventurous
folks began wandering off into the outer world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our exploration of the planet was underway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folks went east to Asia, and north to
Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By maybe 45,000 years ago, folks
were in Siberia and northern Asia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
far, the earliest evidence of humans in America dates to maybe 25,000 years
ago. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flores described two important discoveries in New
Mexico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At Folsom (1908), the bones of
32 extinct giant bison, 12,450 years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At Clovis (1914) the bones of extinct mammoths, 13,000 years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At both sites, flaked flint points were found
with the bones, smoking gun evidence of human hunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A huge surprise!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Humans were team hunters skilled at killing delicious wild
animals, preferably jumbo sized megafauna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As bands of pioneers migrated into new frontiers, a number of megafauna
species gradually went extinct, in one region after another, a sequence
corresponding to the timeline of human arrival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Today, our culture celebrates human brilliance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re simply too smart to disrupt the planet’s
climate — global warming is a hoax!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
deny responsibility — not our fault. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, we’re too smart to cause mass
extinctions — not our fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">It’s much more comfortable to blame prehistoric climate
change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the wiped-out species in
America had survived for millions of years, including numerous eras of unusual
heat and cold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They weren’t dainty
weaklings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why did this killer climate
shift only exterminate large animals, not small?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why did it just affect America, but not other
continents at the same time? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hmmm…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the 1960s, Paul Martin began using a new technology,
radiocarbon dating, a better tool for dating prehistoric artifacts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This enabled him to compare the dates of
human presence in North America with the dates of extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He learned that human arrival came first, and
extinctions came later — during a process that took maybe a thousand years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Stunned, he referred to this process as “blitzkrieg overkill,”
because of its unusual speed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To Native
Americans, this implied that their venerable ancestors foolishly hunted too
hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ve never been fond of the
paleface settlers who foolishly obliterated their ancient homeland, and they
especially disliked Martin. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">We’ve now learned that as the human diaspora advanced around
the world, the same pattern followed: arrival first, then extinction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 2006, Martin had learned more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wrote, “I argue that virtually all
extinctions of wild animals in the last 50,000 years were anthropogenic.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yikes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The indigenous white folks of Europe had done it too!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Evolution had fine-tuned us for living in tropical
climates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the new lands we
wandered into had uncomfortably chilly non-tropical climates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were forced to develop innovative
solutions, like needles, awls, sewn clothing, and protective shelters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When we arrived in new regions, the wildlife was clueless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mysterious bipedal primates did not trigger
danger alarms, because we didn’t fit the standard predator template.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We were a brilliant new predator with
sophisticated weapons, dogs, and fire.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For a while, hunters enjoyed the pursuit of fearless prey, many of whom
became victims of fatal tameness, like dodos. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the Lewis & Clark expedition, Clark
once bayoneted a wolf that calmly walked past. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Hunting focused on jumbo sized animals that didn’t breed like
bunnies, or zoom like gazelles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Small
groups of humans roamed across vast roadless wilderness on foot, armed with
Stone Age weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Game was depleted
over the course of centuries, and the process of decline could have been
imperceptible to living generations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As game
got scarce, the diaspora advanced into new regions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Everywhere we migrated, the megafauna had evolved large
strong bodies, a traditional defense against fierce predators, like sabertooth
cats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, when the predators
were bloodthirsty primates from outer space, jumbo size was a vulnerability,
and high speed escape was not an option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The big guys could be killed with primitive spears.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">America was the last major stop of the human diaspora, which
had begun maybe 35,000 years earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During
this long process, pioneers had become highly skilled survivalists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the Beringia land bridge emerged from
the sea, they advanced from Siberia into the “American Serengeti.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">I was shocked to realize the very long time spans of
evolutionary history prior to human arrival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The camel family in North America blinked out 10,000 years ago, ending a
40 million year residence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Horses went
extinct 9,000 years ago, after enjoying four million years here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mammoths wandered in from the Old World 1.5
million years ago. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s heartbreaking to
comprehend the impact of the blitzkrieg.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">IMPORTANT!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, a
number of species blinked out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the
American megafauna extinction surge wound down, what came next was 10,000 years
(100 centuries) of relative stability, according to Flores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The human pioneers remained, and eventually coevolved
with the species that survived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This preserved
the continent’s downsized wildlife community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Humans learned ecosystem limits, established wise taboos to avoid
overhunting, and nurtured a culture of profound respect and reverence for the
entire family of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Species that survived extinction now had less
competition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the giant bison gone
forever, the much smaller bison we know today exploded in number.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They reached reproductive age faster, and
successfully coevolved with the remaining survivors. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Sadly, the 100 centuries of stability zoomed off a cliff 500
years ago, when visitors from the Old World began washing up on the Atlantic
coast — something like a bloody asteroid strike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The aliens brought with them an assortment of
deadly infectious diseases for which natives had zero immunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were maybe four million natives in
1492.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Epidemics rapidly spread westward,
killing about 90 percent of them within 100 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">This die-off sharply reduced hunting pressure on the
wildlife, which was free to grow explosively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In 1585, Thomas Hariot was astonished by the fantastic abundance of animals
he saw in Virginia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an Eden
created by disease. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Settlers were free
to hunt like crazy in a wilderness where there were no rules or
regulations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In addition to diseases, colonists also imported their infectious
worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their religion had roots in a
herding society that treasured enslaved livestock, and detested predators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their Old World culture was built on a
foundation of human supremacy, domestication, civilization, manufacturing,
fanaticism, patriarchy, environmental devastation, and pathological self-interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">From time to time, Flores stopped to take a long hard piss on
the notion of self-interest, a demonic quirk in the settler’s worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect it emerged with the rise of
farming, herding, personal property, and individual salvation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its one all-consuming question has been “how
can I get what I want?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We suffer from
an insatiable lifelong pursuit of social status, to the fullest extent
possible, by any means necessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nothing else matters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry kids!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry wolves!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The traditional worldview of most tribal cultures majored in
cooperation instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It nurtured mindfulness,
and profound reverence for the family of life, the mother of their
existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were something like the
folks who made the passionate cave paintings at Chauvet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With few exceptions, the named gods of Native
Americans were animals — coyote, raven, rabbit, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the Old World religion, humans were very special critters,
the other animals were not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By and by,
settlers from the Old World flooded into America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had domesticated animals and religions
and economic ideas wherein “animals were not kin but resources.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their lives had no sacred significance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the more hides, pelts, and furs you could
take to market, the more cool stuff you could get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yippee!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Native folks thoroughly detested the monstrous colonists, but
were fascinated by the unusual stuff they had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fifty deerskins could be traded for a metal pot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hatchets, axes, and knives were more
expensive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whiskey was
intoxicating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The desire for this stuff
was powerful, but it wasn’t free.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">It was in the self-interest of the market, and the colonies, to
leave nothing of monetary value unmolested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Wild animals were pests that stood in the path of progress, and their extermination
would continue until it was no longer profitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For natives, all options sucked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They struggled to do their best.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 1972, I was a roller coaster operator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Riders slowly went up the steep hill, and then
rapidly zoomed downhill screaming their brains out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flores provides readers a similar
experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of his book describes
the terrifying mass insanity that ravaged America in the last 500 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Readers will scream their brains out as they
plunge deep into the cesspool of Big History, our horrifying monster closet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flores wrote that the invaders forced “a transformation of a
hundred centuries of Native America into a re-creation of Old World
civilization on a new continent.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five
centuries ago, Old World folks and animals arrived, “and then, like some new
contagion spreading inland from the coasts, proceeded to effect a widespread
demolition of almost all that was here.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In one year, 1743, the port at La Rochelle, France “took in
127,000 beaver pelts, 30,300 marten furs, 12,400 river otter furs, 110,000
raccoon pelts, along with its big haul for that year, the stripped skins of
16,500 American black bears.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">“In 1874 Bozeman market hunters were hip-deep in the big
bonanza.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That year they shipped out 48
tons of elk skins, 42 tons of deerskins, 17 tons of pronghorn skins, and 760
pounds of bighorn skins.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">“Governments at all levels paid money for the heads or ears
or scalps of a suite of animals — wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, grizzly and
black bears, jaguars, bobcats, lynx — for the single purpose of promoting
agricultural economies.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dead animals
(or meat chunks) injected with strychnine were put everywhere to poison
scavengers — wolves, coyotes, eagles, vultures, ravens, magpies, foxes,
skunks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was sold in bulk in every
store.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">To delight ranchers, Montana put out 3,567,000 poison baits
to kill predators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Between 1883 and 1928
Montana shelled out payments on 111,545 wolves and 886,367 coyotes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In one year, a wolf killer earned enough to
buy a ranch and livestock.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-passenger-pigeon.html">Passenger
pigeons</a>, had been in America for 15 million years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father was in diapers when the last one
died in 1914.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The largest nesting site
ever reported, near Sparta, Wisconsin, in 1871, spread across 850 square miles
(2,200 km<sup>2</sup>).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One flock was
estimated to have 3.7 billion birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Life on Earth is powered by energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sunbeams feed the plants, and plants feed the
critters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Agriculture and herding
amplified the energy flow for humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>More recently, the flow has been explosively accelerated by burning fossil
hydrocarbons, which are not limitless or harmless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can now temporarily feed more than eight
billion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re heating the planet into a
toasty concentration camp crematory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
machine’s guiding force is insanely clever childish self-interest, which is
dumber than dog shit, but far more powerful than foresight, wisdom, cooperation,
and mindful self-control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>SCREAM!!!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flores, Dan, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Wild
New World: The Epic Story of Animals & People in America</span></em>, W. W.
Norton, New York, 2022.<o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-52612519721189069232023-02-07T14:54:00.001-08:002023-02-07T14:55:25.989-08:00Wild Free and Happy sample 84: Wild Free Isolation<p>[Note: The following is some new and updated material from my
rough draft of <i>Wild, Free, & Happy</i>.
It is primarily expansion or revision of subjects related to samples 52,
53, and 54. The other samples of this
rough draft can be accessed <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/04/free-brain-food.html">HERE</a>. If you prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd has
been reading and recording my book <a href="https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sets/richard-adrian-reese-wild-free-happy">HERE</a>.]</p><p><br /></p><p class="BlogText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p> </o:p>We live in interesting times.
Bunnies aren’t acidifying the oceans.
Salmon aren’t blindsiding the climate.
Geese aren’t nuking rainforests.
Even our closest relatives, the chimps and bonobos, remain absolute
champions at sustainable living. The
human mob, on the other hand, has been making quite a mess.</p><p class="BlogText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">During my years of studying and writing, I have enjoyed
learning about wild cultures that preserved elegant low impact simplicity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They hold up a mirror so we can fully
appreciate the incoherence of modernity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let’s take a quick peek at a few of those cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Sentineli<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Andaman group of islands is located in the Bay of Bengal,
and belongs to India.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>North Sentinel
Island is inhabited by the <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/12/sentineli.html">Sentineli</a>,
a society of negrito pygmies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Outsiders
can sometimes view them from offshore boats, or from helicopters, but the natives
want nothing to do with outsiders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Intruders who get too close are showered with arrows, rocks, and rude
comments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some have been killed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>India has outlawed all visitors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today the Sentineli enjoy a complete
separation from the modern world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Their island is 14,700 acres (5,949 ha), a bit smaller than
Manhattan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The interior is forest,
surrounded by sandy beaches, surrounded by reefs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Treacherous currents make landing on the
island impossible for ten months of the year, and extremely dangerous for the
other two. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The island has nothing that
is attractive to greedy parasites from elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For these reasons, the Sentineli remain wild
and free in the twenty-first century.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flyovers have noted the existence of several villages with
clusters of small huts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No evidence of
agriculture has been observed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There may
be 50 Sentineli, or 500, nobody knows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They survive by foraging, fishing, and gathering shellfish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may also hunt for turtles, birds, and
invertebrates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their small canoes are
used in the lagoons, but not for open-sea travel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They fish with spears and nets.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Long ago, two expeditions were able to land on North
Sentinel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They brought along folks from
a nearby island to serve as translators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the brief and hostile meetings, the Sentineli spoke a language that
the translators did not understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Obviously, they have been living in isolation for a long time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may be descendants of the folks who
first settled in the Andaman Islands 60,000 years ago. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Imagine what it would be like to live in a society that was
not at war with the planet and the future — a genuinely sustainable way of
life, a tropical culture with a year round supply of food, where your wardrobe
consisted of a g-string, headband, and a couple leaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine a life without money, clocks,
calendars, automobiles, airplanes, sirens, internet, locks, fences, bosses,
salesman, presidents, police, classrooms, guns, dogs, nuclear weapons, taxes,
racism, billionaires, and religions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Imagine a paradise where the diseases of civilization were unknown.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Contemplate the enormous load of information stored in your
brain, accumulated during a lifetime of existing in a highly complex society,
and your constant struggle to keep pace with competitors in the endless quest
for status, wealth, and power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, imagine
being blissfully unaware of absolutely everything happening in the outside
world — and the entire outside world knowing almost nothing about your
society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine having a healthy,
simple, sane life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Imagine living on an island where there were no strangers,
where the soundtrack was waves, birds, breezes, and the voices of your friends
and family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We weren’t meant to live
like consumers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are better paths.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">New
Guinea Highlands<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">New Guinea is a land base much larger than Oregon and
California combined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Around 1930, white
folks from elsewhere began wandering into the highlands, in search of mineral
treasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that time, the highlands
were home to a million uncivilized folks unknown to the outer world. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson wrote that native groups
spoke maybe 800 languages, of which several hundred were unique, having
absolutely nothing in common with any other language in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Communication between tribes was limited or
impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t easy for
innovative ideas to spread from group to group.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This helped tribes preserve traditional cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Long distance travel (10+ miles) was also difficult or
impossible because of the rugged mountain landscape, warlike enemies, and
deadly fevers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were no roads,
wheels, or beasts of burden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One group
might be completely unaware that other groups resided just a few miles
away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">So, many groups may have existed in complete isolation,
living as they had always lived, in their ancient time proven manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody in the highlands knew that they lived
on an island, or that the Pacific Ocean existed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There may still be uncontacted groups that
remain wild, free, and unknown to the outer world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As mentioned earlier, when interaction between groups creates
regional webs, and more and more webs share more and more ideas with a widening
circle of other webs, shit happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over
the passage of centuries, accumulations of cleverness can trigger explosive
snowballing chain reactions, creating situations like the world outside your
window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How clever was that?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Pirahã<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">I was especially fascinated to learn about the <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/03/wild-free-and-happy-sample-54.html">Pirahã</a>
(pee-da-ha) people of the Amazon rainforest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are hunter-gatherers who live in a few jungle villages along the
Maici River in northwestern Brazil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Estimates of their population range up to 800.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They hunt, fish, and forage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fish provide about 70 percent of their
diet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Over the years, I’ve read about many wild cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Pirahã are among the simplest and lowest
impact of all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know a lot about their
culture, largely because of <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/10/dont-sleep.html">Daniel Everett</a>,
a missionary sent to save them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over
time, it became painfully clear to him that they didn’t need to be saved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was the one who was lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He concluded, “I would go so far as to
suggest that the Pirahãs are happier, fitter, and better adjusted to their
environment than any Christian or other religious person I have ever known.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Pirahã knew the usefulness and location of all important
plants in their area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They understood
the behavior of local animals, and how to take them, or avoid them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could walk into the jungle naked, with
no tools or weapons, and walk out three days later with baskets of fruit, nuts,
and small game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the age of nine, all
of them were capable of surviving in the jungle on their own, feeding
themselves and making shelter.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Pirahã were able to effectively communicate via speaking,
singing, humming, and whistling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
hunting, whistles were less likely to spook monkeys and other game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whistled words allowed conversations between
folks who were not close together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their
language has nothing in common with any other language in the world. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Pirahã had no leaders or social hierarchy, all were
equal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was taboo to tell someone to
do something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were amazingly
content, tolerant, and patient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Children
were never spanked or given orders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
were free to play with sharp knives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Adults spoke to them as equals, no baby talk.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the tribe, memories of ancestors or historic events were
not preserved, they evaporated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their
realm of reality was limited to stuff that they could personally see or hear,
or things seen or heard by their living parents, grandparents, friends, and
kinfolk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>History was strictly limited to
living memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a missionary had not
actually met Jesus, then jabber about Jesus was meaningless.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Pirahã people were remarkably easygoing and infectiously
happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They wore bright smiles, and
laughed about everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folks didn’t
worry about what happened yesterday, or what might happen tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had no word for worry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They lived entirely in the here and now. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had no cultural folklore, legends, fables,
or worship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wonders if they might be
the only group in the world that has no numbers, and no creation myth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Everett wrote, “Committed to an existence in which only
observable experience is real, the Pirahã do not think, or speak, in
abstractions.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(“Abstract” is the
opposite of concrete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abstractions only
exist as ideas or thoughts.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have
no concept of heaven, hell, sin, god, creation, apocalypse, devils, angels,
guilt, punishment, salvation, damnation, sustainable, rich, poor, overshoot, democracy,
capitalism, and on and on. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Modern folks spend their entire lives with their heads
constantly buzzing with swarms of abstractions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Pirahã spend every day of their lives being highly attuned to the
incredible living paradise that they are so lucky to inhabit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They enjoy living in a stable, low impact,
time-proven culture where everyone shares the same belief system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Everett was amazed by them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“This is a culture that’s invisible to the naked eye, but that is
incredibly powerful, the most powerful culture of the Amazon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody has resisted change like this in the
history of the Amazon, and maybe of the world.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">They were lucky to have enjoyed centuries of isolation in a
vast tropical rainforest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had very
little contact with clever outsiders who had bad habits, odd tools, dark
impulses, and heads slithering with brainworms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, the outer world has found them, and wants to “help” them
enjoy the wonders of modern living.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Every morning, I listen to news reports describing a world that
is out of its mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think about the
Pirahã, who are also getting up, smiling and laughing, down by the river,
welcoming the beginning of a new day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Same species, same morning, same planet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They have not forgotten who they are, or how to live.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">If you are curious about the Pirahã, and have a couple hours
to invest, I recommend that you listen to the 52 minute <a href="https://thehumanist.com/multimedia/podcast/humanist-hour-183-dr-dan-everett-dont-sleep-snakes">The
Humanist Hour #183</a> podcast (2015), and watch the 2012 documentary, <a href="https://youtu.be/5NyB4fIZHeU" target="_blank">The Grammar of Happiness</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p> </o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-9115782960004723562023-01-31T14:12:00.001-08:002023-01-31T14:34:22.533-08:00Wild Free and Happy sample 83 Update: Human Web<p>[Note: The following is some new and updated material from my
rough draft of <i>Wild, Free, & Happy</i>.
It will be included in the revised Human Web section, which was
originally released as samples 52 and 53.
The other samples of this rough draft can be accessed <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/04/free-brain-food.html">HERE</a>. If you prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd has
been reading and recording my book <a href="https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sets/richard-adrian-reese-wild-free-happy">HERE</a>.]</p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Magical
Thinking<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Imagine living in an era when bubonic plague epidemics were
common and horrific.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/07/epidemics.html">Geoffrey Marks</a>
noted that the Black Death arrived in England in 1348, and was followed by
epidemics in 1349, 1361, 1363, 1365, 1369, 1371, 1373, 1375, 1378-1382, 1390,
1399-1400 …and on and on… until the Great Plague of London in 1665-1666.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the course of several months, the Great
Plague killed about 100,000, almost a quarter of London’s population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 1772, Daniel Defoe (author of “Robinson Crusoe”) published
“A Journal of the Plague Year.” He was a
young boy during the Great Plague, and had a front row seat on the horror show. As an adult, he interviewed a number of
survivors. His uncle kept diaries during
the nightmare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc36741385;">The city was a fantastically
filthy nightmare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sewage was dumped in
ditches along the streets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Horseshit and
garbage everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone had lice, bathing
was rare, and great mobs of rats enjoyed a wonderful life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc36741385;">When folks heard news
of an approaching contagion, anyone who had options (nobility, clergy,
physicians, officers, etc.) fled London in a great stampede.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poor folks were left behind to experience
what the fates would deliver.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc36741385;">Efforts were made to
slow the spread of disease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When someone
was known to be infected (or so suspected), a red cross was painted on the
door, and the dwelling was guarded day and night by a watchman, to prevent escapes,
and to provide necessities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, the
entire family was condemned to die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Folks were infuriated, and there were riots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc36741385;">Bell ringers moved
through the streets, shouting “bring out your dead.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were followed by buriers or bearers who
loaded the dead carts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Large pits were
dug in which to dump the corpses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Defoe
wrote, “It is impossible to describe the most horrible cries and noise that the
poor people would make at their bringing the dead bodies of their children and
friends out of the cart.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc36741385;">Doctors had no cures,
and prayers got no response.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>Johannes
Nohl reported that during plague years, a number of communities in Europe
engaged in ceremonial dances, hoping to drive away the evil spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hundreds danced until they collapsed from
exhaustion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folks were overwhelmed with
despair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People rolled in filth, begging
others to beat them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Otherwise modest
maidens and matrons lost all sense of shame, sighed, howled, made indecent
gestures, and uncovered obscene parts of their bodies.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">It was obvious to everyone that the plague was killing the
clergy at especially high rates (it was their job to visit the dying).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why did God have no interest in protecting
his own special agents?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many priests
lived with concubines, an abominable sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Did this mean that the baptisms they performed were worthless?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many lost their faith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While large crowds danced, the churches sat
empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A furious mob of Germans went to
Liège, determined to massacre all clergy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">One tradition noted that in 1424, a lad named Maccaber
arrived in Paris, and took residence in an ancient tower next to a
cemetery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folks believed he had
supernatural powers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He initiated an
ecclesiastic procession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day, for
months, crowds of men and women danced in the cemetery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folks wore scary masks to drive away the evil
spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Over time, in many places, during many plagues, folks
experimented with a wide variety of rituals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Despite good intentions, their efforts failed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rats and fleas remained alive and well,
and the grim reaper worked overtime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blind
faith in rituals is called magical thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, beautiful wishes don’t always come true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Today, of course, global telecommunication systems and the
internet allow magical beliefs and assorted conspiracy theories to spread
through large populations at astonishing speeds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Societies become fiercely polarized, echo
chambers roar, intolerance punches, courtesy vaporizes, bullets fly, and daily
life becomes a surreal tragicomedy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Elections no longer have losers — every candidate claims victory!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Humanism<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Many humans imagine that our species enjoys a superior status
in the family of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, many hiss
and snarl at the notion that humans are animals (!!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are obviously smarter, stronger, and
greater in every way!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A number of
religious traditions assert that humans are something like the glorious crown
of creation, the managers of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Earth is our playground.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">These beliefs typically emerged in cultures that became
addicted to the exploitation of domesticated plants and/or animals — turbulent
societies that cleared forests, planted fields, raised birds and herds, and
radically altered (and damaged) the ecosystems they inhabited. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Our wild ancestors were far more humble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were hunters and foragers, not planet
smashing thunder beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter Ungar
wrote that when an anthropologist in Tanzania asked some Hazda hunters how
humans were different from other animals, they were completely baffled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a stupid question!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all eat, drink, breathe, excrete, wander,
and reproduce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many carnivores think
we’re absolutely delicious, and they eagerly enjoy every opportunity for having
us for lunch.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/06/make-prayers-to-raven.html">Richard
Nelson</a> spent time (1976-77) with the Koyukon people of Alaska.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their often quoted proverb is: “Every animal
knows way more than you do.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
believe that animals can understand everything we say, regardless of
distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Koyukon were not a culture
of motor vehicles and glowing screens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They were a hunting culture that had an amazingly deep understanding of
nature, and absolute respect for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Modern folks have lost this intimate wild connection to home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nelson wrote, “We live alone in an uncaring
world of our own creation.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">David Ehrenfeld wrote <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The
Arrogance of Humanism</span></em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was an aggressive critique of the widespread belief in human supremacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wrote that humanism was “the dominant
religion of our time.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s essentially
the air we breathe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans are absolute
geniuses, and our technology is amazing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is no problem we cannot solve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have no limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As resources
become depleted, we’ll readily develop excellent alternatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our children will enjoy even better lives
than our own, and the best is yet to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yippee!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ehrenfeld wrote back in 1978, when pollution controls, if
any, were weak, and the air and waters were heavily contaminated with noxious
substances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The entire city of Gary
Indiana was hidden in a stinky orange fog of steel mill filth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught on fire. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the ’70s, numerous eco-disasters were occurring around the
world, but the general mob paid little attention to stuff happening elsewhere —
out of sight, out of mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Network
television avoided the yucky stuff, and hypnotized folks with generous servings
of sports, entertainment, and happy news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>School systems tirelessly preached the holy gospel of humanism, and
celebrated the age of miracles that students were so lucky to enjoy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">While the thundering human juggernaut was beating the living
shit out of the planet, the mob barely noticed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They were busy polishing their new cars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most remained zombie-like cheerleaders of the wonders of modernity, and
the beautiful future that laid ahead. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">This baffled Ehrenfeld.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nobody <bleeping> cares!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
poor lad apparently suffered from a devastating incurable mental disorder known
as critical thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a sick
pariah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humanist culture has zero
respect for hopeless nutjobs, defeatists, misanthropes, oddballs, and doom
perverts. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ehrenfeld shrugged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Evidence
is growing that the religion of humanity is self-destructive and foolish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the more it fails, the greater our faith
in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We imagine that what we want to
happen is actually happening.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">He was not a misanthrope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He didn’t hate, distrust, and avoid humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually, he was an “anti-humanist.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He detested the ridiculous mass hallucinations
— the enthusiastic celebrations of human genius, and the wondrous technological
utopia that we have brilliantly created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We are so lucky to live in the spectacular gushing orgasm of the entire
human experience!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ehrenfeld noted that pure anti-humanists were rare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most folks who know how to read have spent
their entire lives in fanatical humanist cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve been constantly absorbing humanist
ideas for years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have deep roots in
our minds, and a strong influence on how we think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s sort of pleasant to imagine that we’re
on the path to a better tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Progress will wash away the pain.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">On the other hand, having read a pile of anthropology books,
it’s clear that wild folks who lived undisturbed in their traditional way, in
their ancestral land, tended to be enthusiastic and shameless
anti-humanists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They seemed to be nearly
unanimous in perceiving civilized folks as being absolutely batshit crazy!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could people be so stupid?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How can they have no respect and reverence
for the natural world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why are they so
aggressive and selfish?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ehrenfeld wrote that a general rejection of humanism is now long
overdue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It won’t be easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blind faith in humanist hopes and dreams
remains strong, and the insanely furious war on the family of life rages on,
and on, and on.<o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-23142117159204915242022-11-07T13:10:00.000-08:002022-11-07T13:10:56.812-08:00Finding the Mother Tree<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuRQE_EHbWuPYOYamDdu__NFnDc_lTzidvcUp44JM74ODuHNnEOwYfqqUphxrMbaCK81GSbEOMCv7cw64treJ6zG9liRJLFHySkMe6dlNZFViSCnoZxYKV1JFUv1e90oK-XQKjBYPafAhaMXaohrp_ycB9hPsuF1snwlCBaBznnwjp6EaCVjVLoPTL5g/s347/Mother%20Tree.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="347" data-original-width="221" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuRQE_EHbWuPYOYamDdu__NFnDc_lTzidvcUp44JM74ODuHNnEOwYfqqUphxrMbaCK81GSbEOMCv7cw64treJ6zG9liRJLFHySkMe6dlNZFViSCnoZxYKV1JFUv1e90oK-XQKjBYPafAhaMXaohrp_ycB9hPsuF1snwlCBaBznnwjp6EaCVjVLoPTL5g/s320/Mother%20Tree.png" width="204" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="BlogText">Suzanne Simard wrote an unforgettable book, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Finding the Mother Tree</span></em>.
She was born and raised in the
rainforests of British Columbia, and is now a professor of forest ecology. Her grandfather was a logger who worked back
in the low-tech days, when the industry ran on manpower, horsepower, and
waterpower. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">At age 20, Simard’s first job was with a logging
company. By that time, the industry was using
fossil powered machines — chainsaws, bulldozers, skidders, loaders, trucks, etc.
Selective cutting was being replaced by devastating
clear-cuts.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">At age 23, she was hired to do research for the British
Columbia Forest Service. They wanted to
determine the most effective way to plant seedlings on a clear-cut site. Government regulations required “free to
grow” stocking. So, prior to planting, herbicides
were sprayed to exterminate natural plant life.
Only the moneymaking seedlings were free to grow.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In those days, much of what is now known about forest biology
had not yet been discovered.
Consequently, standard industry practices were often based on a blind
faith in unproven assumptions. This wasted
a lot of money, and unnecessarily damaged the ecosystem. The most important business goal was to
maximize short-term profits. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Simard preferred critical thinking to blind faith, and she asked
questions that the good old boys never considered. Vital clues can often be very hard to
see. She paid close attention to the incredibly
intricate ways in which forests function.
“My instinct has always been to listen to what living things were
saying.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">One of her assignments was to investigate a mysterious
situation. A number of clear-cut sites
had been planted with seedlings, and none were healthy. Plantation after plantation was dying. She found that all of them had been planted
exactly as the rules required. Seedling
roots had to be inserted in mineral soil (sand, silt, clay) because it retained
more water and supposedly boosted survival.
Rules prohibited inserting seedling roots in humus. Humus is a nutrient-rich component of topsoil
in old growth forests. It’s loaded with
fungi, worms, bugs, and decomposed organic material. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Simard noticed that in the dying plantations, seedlings were
failing to produce healthy root systems.
On the other hand, in nearby uncontrolled natural woodland, mature trees
dropped seeds from which young trees sprouted.
The youngsters grew in humus, and they developed fantastically extensive
root systems, intertwined with dense mats of yellow, white, and pink
fungi. This was a crucial discovery! <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">So, she created an experimental plantation. Half of the seedlings were planted in mineral
soil (all died), and the other half in humus (all thrived). Ongoing research confirmed her suspicion that
healthy fungi networks were essential for the survival of healthy forests. Very important!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Industry traditions perceived that the fundamental force of
nature was <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">competition</span></em>
— survival of the fittest. So,
industrial forestry was a game of nurturing the most valuable trees, and
obliterating everything else. The
downside of this belief was that it was remarkably counterproductive in the
real world.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Industry traditions believed that low value alders could
reduce the vitality of high value lodgepole pines. So, alders were chopped down. Actually, pines loved alder, because alders
transformed nitrogen into ammonium, a potent fertilizer that pine roots
absorbed via the fungal networks. Pines
not growing near alders were more vulnerable to pine beetles that bored into
their bark. A fungus carried on beetle
legs infected the pines, and it prevented water from flowing upward in the
trees. Countless pines died of thirst. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Industry traditions declared birches to be low value junk
trees, because they were thought to slow the growth of high value Douglas
firs. Large birch leaves performed more
photosynthesis than fir needles, so they were able to convert more sunbeam
energy into chemical energy — sugar and other carbs. As birch foliage expanded, fewer sunbeams
could reach the firs. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Birches stored surplus carbs in their roots, where networks
of fungi allowed fir trees to tap into it.
The more shade the birch cast, the more sugar it shared with the
fir. Simard eventually realized that
this relationship was not a problem. It
was beneficial. They were working
together, like a system. Healthy birches
promoted healthy firs. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">She wrote, “Fir can’t survive without birch due to the high
risk of infection from Armillaria, and birch can’t survive in the long run
without fir because too much nitrogen would accumulate in the soil, causing the
soil to acidify.” When firs are grown
alone, up to a third are killed by a root disease. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In one experiment, Simard grew birch and fir trees together
in some stands. In other stands, firs
were grown without birches. Twenty-one
years later, the forest where birch and fir had been grown together had almost
twice the productivity of stands with no birches.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The findings of Simard’s research inspired doubts about the
validity of some traditions. She began
to suspect that the real life force of forest ecosystems was more like <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">cooperation</span></em>. Over time, diverse communities of forest
dwelling species apparently coevolved ways of establishing mutually beneficial
win/win relationships. Year after year,
her experiments confirmed these suspicions.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">She suspected that networks of fungi played a major role in
this magic act. Seeking evidence, she
designed experiments to discover how nutrients and moisture were transferred from
one tree to another. This involved using
carbon isotopes as tracers, unique identification tags. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The C-12 isotope is natural, C-13 is unnatural but not
radioactive, and C-14 is unnatural and radioactive. Simard inserted C-14 into birch leaves, expecting
to find that it flowed into Douglas firs.
It did! She inserted C-13 into
the firs to see if nutrients also flowed from fir to birch. They did!<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">When trees are able to intermingle with neighboring trees,
they develop lots of beneficial fungi interconnections. There may be more than 100 species of fungi
in a forest. Some retrieve phosphorus
from humus. Others retrieve nitrogen from
decaying wood. Some carry water. Others send or receive sugar. The function of most fungi is unknown. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Simard found that giant trees played an especially important
role in healthy forests. She called them
Mother Trees because they nurtured others.
Fires generally roasted understory vegetation, while the taller overstory
trees were more likely to survive. Their
bigger crowns captured more sunbeams and produced more carbs. Larger trees shared their surplus carbs with
nearby smaller trees, including those of other species. Young trees might grow for decades in the
shadows. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Some of the seeds dropped by Mother Trees remain nearby,
germinate, and emerge as young trees. Mothers
seem to recognize their genetic offspring, and give them top priority when
sharing nutrients. Unrelated trees, and
trees of different species, also receive gifts from Mother Trees. There seemed to be something like tree to tree
communication. Simard studied a stand of
Douglas fir. Fungi networks connected
the older trees to all of the younger trees around them. Some were as far as 20 meters away (22 yards). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Simard’s book is a chatty discussion of her life, work, and
family. Its target audience is forestry
students, and industry professionals. Her
unconventional ideas remained controversial for a number of years. Today, her work has been peer reviewed, and
is widely accepted.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">General readers (like me) will stumble into the unfamiliar names
of many plant and fungi species. I
didn’t know the meanings of “mycorrhiza” and “mycelium.” Both are important categories of fungi
species. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and living trees
enabled the survival of both. Fungi
contributed water and soil nutrients to the tree roots. In return, tree roots provided the fungi with
carbs produced by photosynthesis. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-hidden-life-of-trees.html">Peter
Wohlleben</a> fondly described mycelium, the largest living organisms yet
discovered. One in Oregon weighs 660
tons, covers 2,000 acres (800 ha), and is 2,400 years old. They provide trees with water, nitrogen, and
phosphorus — in exchange for sugar and other carbs. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Around the world today, relentless industrial scale forest
mining is causing far more catastrophic destruction than ever before. The global economy has no plans to slam on
the brakes. Humankind demands unlimited lumber,
paper products, firewood, etc. We will
eventually win the War on Forests — an idiotic Pyrrhic victory. My short overview on the history of deforestation
is <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/11/forest-rewrite.html">HERE</a>.<o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p class="BlogText">Simard, Suzanne, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Finding
the Mother Tree</span></em>, Random House, New York, 2021. <o:p></o:p></p><p><br /></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-70301729885459592582022-08-18T11:44:00.003-07:002022-08-22T08:28:13.882-07:00Wild Free and Happy Sample 44 Update Nutrients<p> [Note: The following is a significant expansion of the <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">soil nutrients discussion</span></em>
of <a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/08/wild-free-and-happy-sample-44.html">Sample
44</a>.]</p><p class="BlogText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">SOIL
NUTRIENTS<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">All life depends, directly or indirectly, on essentials like
sunlight, water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, soil,
and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In healthy wild ecosystems,
these essentials are not depleted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
magic of evolution nurtures their ability to adapt to changing conditions in the
circle dance of life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Agriculture operates in a far less elegant manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a powerful, rowdy, perfectly unnatural,
manmade monstrosity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its unpredictable
mood swings can range from feast to famine, prosperity to oblivion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Mary Shelley’s classic horror story, the
foolishly clever Dr. Frankenstein got cold shivers when his ghoulish monster
turned to him and spoke these words, “You are my creator, but I am your master.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Wild vegetation excels at recycling essential nutrients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, field crops excel at
extracting and exporting nutrients, a slippery clumsy dance of destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, phosphorus is transferred from
the soil to the corn, from the corn to the hog, from the hog to the human, and
finally flushed down the toilet, bye-bye!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Little if any is returned to the field to replenish what was removed
from the soil.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Poop is precious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Remember that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1588, Anzelm
Gostomski, a Polish gentleman, once proclaimed an eternal truth: “Manure is
worth more than a man with a doctorate.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the modern world, every shipment of food that moves from the local
countryside to faraway consumers is carrying away essential soil nutrients on a
one-way ride, never to return.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">To keep a farm operation on life support for as long as
possible, efforts must be made to replace the deported nutrients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the centuries, farmers have kept soil
fertility on life support by applying stuff like sewage, manure, ashes, lime,
bone meal, seaweed, compost, peat moss, guano, synthetic fertilizer, and so
on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In China, human wastes have been
used as fertilizers for 5,000 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traditionally,
manure has been a popular fertilizer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Gathering and spreading manure was far more fun than depleting the soil
and starving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Even modest sized cities could religiously indulge in rituals
that recycled holy shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1909, <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2011/08/farmers-of-forty-centuries.html">Franklin
Hiram King</a> visited Kyoto, Japan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While traveling down a road one lovely morning, he observed a long
caravan of men pulling cartloads of precious night soil from town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were in the process of returning this
sacred life giving treasure to the fields where their food was grown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Each cart carried six 10-gallon (38 l) covered containers of
delightfully fragrant plant food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>King
noted that he passed 52 of these carts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then, on the return trip, he passed another 61 carts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other caravans moved down other roads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He estimated that 90 tons of sewage was
hauled out of town on that morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
wonder if this was a daily routine.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">With the growth of population and urbanization, returning more
and more human poop to fields that were farther and farther away, became
impractical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, imported
fertilizers were able to save the day (temporarily).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guano, phosphates, and synthetic ammonia were
powerful, but nonrenewable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately,
they accelerated population growth, forcing the jumbo sized mob to zoom faster
down a one-way road to a less than utopian future.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Writing in 2001, when the population was a mere six billion,
Vaclav Smil estimated that 40 percent of the people alive in 2000 existed only
because of the intensive use of synthetic ammonia fertilizer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had succeeded in shattering the population
ceiling (temporarily).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In order to survive in good health, all living plant and
animal organisms must acquire the mix of nutrients that are essential for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Different species prefer different
mixes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/04/dirt-erosion-of-civilizations.html">David
Montgomery</a> explained that there are three absolutely must-have macronutrients
for all plant and animal life (including you), for which there are <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">no substitutes</span></em> —
nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>General purpose “NPK” fertilizers contain portions
of all three.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans acquire these
essential nutrients by eating plant and/or animal foods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Nitrogen
(N)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Vaclav Smil noted that all living organisms require carbon,
hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
world, there are huge quantities of all four, but nitrogen is the oddball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The air we breathe is about 78 percent
nitrogen, but it’s not in a form that most living things can actually use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the air, it’s a gas that consists of tightly bonded pairs
of nitrogen atoms (N<sub>2</sub>) that are too stable to readily intermingle
with other atoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before it can be
utilized by living organisms, it must be transformed via a process called <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">nitrogen fixation</span></em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the soil are <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">nitrogen-fixing</span></em> bacteria that can combine
nitrogen and hydrogen to produce ammonia (NH<sub>3</sub>), a compound that can
nourish natural processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ammonia is 82
percent nitrogen.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">These bacteria grow on the roots of <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">leguminous</span></em> plants,
like beans, soybeans, peas, chickpeas, peanuts, lentils, carob, alfalfa, and
clover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, when you eat beans, your
body is able to absorb the usable nitrogen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After a legume crop is harvested, the leftover plant material decomposes,
releasing fixed nitrogen into the soil, fertilizer for future crops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This “green manure” is plowed back into the
field.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When livestock graze, they absorb usable nitrogen from their
food, and then produce “brown manure” that generously boosts soil
fertility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You and I commonly get our
nitrogen when we digest the amino acids in high protein foods, including beans,
leafy greens, nuts, seeds, eggs, milk, and lean meat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the rear end of the process, we expel a potent
brown fertilizer called poop.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Old fashioned low tech farming could produce modest harvests when
assisted by good luck and determined efforts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unlike modern industrial agriculture, old fashioned farm soil only provided
modest amounts of usable nitrogen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Low
nitrogen content results in low yields, while high content boosts them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, nitrogen is a <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">limiting nutrient</span></em>, something like the
gas pedal in a car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So is phosphorus.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ordinary soil generally contains modest amounts of N, P, and
K.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Applying additional potassium (K) to
the soil does little or nothing to boost crop yields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But synthetic fertilizers can boost the
content of nitrogen and phosphorus beyond normal levels, and this actually promotes
bigger harvests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, bigger
harvests can feed larger mobs of hungry humans. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the short version of nitrogen history, there were two huge
leaps in fertilizer technology — guano and synthetic ammonia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">¶</span> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano">Guano</a>
is an organic fertilizer created by dense accumulations of bird shit or bat
shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seabirds often nest on islands,
where they are less vulnerable to pesky predators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the same reason, bats prefer to shit in the
comfort and privacy of caves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Each day, seabirds gobble up lots of yummy anchovies, return to
their nesting ground, and happily unload magic excrement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Century after century, more and more piles of
crap grew higher and higher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mounds of guano
could have nitrogen content ranging from 8 to 21 percent by mass!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Holy shit!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In arid regions, like the Pacific coast of South America, the
nesting islands were deeply covered with nutrient rich guano.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Islands off the shore of Peru used to be
guano heaven — some deposits were over 200 feet (61 m) deep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In wetter regions, birds also colonize
offshore islands, and shit all over them, but rainy weather and humidity leaches
out vital nutrients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano">Wikipedia</a>,
“The rulers of the Inca Empire greatly valued guano, restricted access to it,
and punished any disturbance of the birds with death.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guano was used for centuries by indigenous
folks.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">By the 1840s or so, in Europe and North America, a persistent
brutally abusive relationship between farmers and their precious dirt was
taking a serious toll on soil fertility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Meanwhile the mobs of hungry white folks continued snowballing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How in the <bleep> are we going to feed
them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trouble ahead!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">White folks first learned about magic guano in 1802, via the
writings of Alexander von Humboldt, which were translated into several
languages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, some ambitious lads
experienced a breathtaking revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Holy shit!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could become filthy
rich guano tycoons!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As we all know, money is a devilish hallucinogen that can
turn kind and decent people into batshit crazy idiots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, humankind began a dramatic
transition from traditional food production that utilized local manure, into a
fast lane powered by imported bird shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In some locations, the guano had an exceptionally high content of
nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
greatly excited the productivity of field crops.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">And so, in the nineteenth century, guano was the world’s
super fertilizer, and a source of great wealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A guano gold rush was born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nations
vigorously competed to claim ownership of guano islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Disputes triggered the War of the Pacific
(1879-1884).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Traditions got tossed on the compost pile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Farmers no longer had to devote lots of time
to nutrient recycling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They didn’t need
to plant cover crops of nitrogen fixing legumes, or do crop rotations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could simply buy what they needed, magic
bird shit, harvest far greater yields, and get rich quick.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Industrial scale guano mining was extremely disruptive to the
seabirds that squirted out the valuable shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On Peru’s guano islands, bird populations plummeted from the 53 million
in the late 1800s to just 4.2 million in 2011.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Of course, guano was a finite resource created over the
passage of countless millennia, and it was being extracted as fast as humanly
possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Production peaked around
1870.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Insatiable greed heads then
directed their attention to the saltpeter deposits in the deserts of
Chile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saltpeter is sodium nitrate, a
compound that contained usable nitrogen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/06/something-new-under-sun.html">J.
R. McNeill</a> noted that by 1900, German farmers were highly dependent on
imported guano.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without it, they could
no longer feed the growing mob of hungry Germans. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gosh!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could produce fixed nitrogen on an
industrial scale?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could it be
possible?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, two Germans figured out how.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">¶</span> Synthetic Ammonia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’d now like to introduce you to Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1909, chemist Fritz Haber invented a
process that could extract nitrogen from the air (N<sub>2</sub>), mix it with
natural gas (CH<sub>4</sub>), and embed it in ammonia (NH<sub>3</sub>), via an
energy-guzzling process of high heat and pressure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://academic.uprm.edu/dsotomayor/agro6505/History_of_Fertilizer_Beaton.pdf">Synthetic
ammonia</a> created a sharp turn in human history. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Years later, Haber invented Zyklon B, the
poison used in Nazi gas chambers.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Carl Bosch figured out how to perform this catalytic process
on an industrial scale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Haber and Bosch
opened the first ammonia plant in Germany in 1911.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ammonia was also a feedstock for explosives, which were in
high demand for countless bloody military adventures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, many new ammonia plants were built.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the end of World War II, large quantities
of ammonia became available for other uses, and the production of synthetic
ammonia fertilizer soared.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the second half of the twentieth century, the production
of synthetic NPK fertilizers skyrocketed: 4 million tons in 1940, 40 million
tons in 1965, and 150 million tons in 1990.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Far more food was produced, and the human population grew at an
explosive rate.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Today, the intended benefits of these fertilizers are maxing
out — applying more of it to a field no longer increases the size of the
harvest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the potent fertilizer runoff
is able to continue increasing the contamination of groundwater, rivers, coastal
dead zones, and oceans.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-05-23/oil-we-eat-following-food-chain-back-iraq/">Richard
Manning</a> noted that when farmers apply synthetic fertilizer on a field, less
than half of it is absorbed by crop plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fertilizer can acidify the soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some
of it dissolves and contaminates the groundwater that folks drink, and lots of
it runs off into waterways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of the
U.S. Corn Belt drains into the Mississippi River, which is an ecological
catastrophe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Fertilizer runoff stimulates the growth of algal blooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the blooms die, they consume oxygen and
emit CO<sub>2</sub>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the oxygen
content of the water is depleted (anoxia), this can cause everything to die
(eutrophication).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Mississippi flows
into the Gulf of Mexico, where it has created a dead zone the size of New
Jersey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Baltic Sea is home to seven
of the of the world's ten largest marine dead zones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About half of U.S. lakes have low oxygen
content, and the number of dead zones in the world continues growing (415 in
2022).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The <a href="https://beta.nsf.gov/news/agricultural-runoff-contributes-climate-change">National
Science Foundation</a> reported that fertilizer runoff is increasing the
nitrogen content in rivers and streams, where microbes convert it into nitrous
oxide (N<sub>2</sub>O), “a potent greenhouse gas, with a warming potential of
approximately 300 times that of carbon dioxide.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nitrous oxide persists in the atmosphere a
long time, and promotes global warming and acid rain (it’s also a pain
reliever, laughing gas).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cow shit is
another source of nitrous oxide emissions, and their belches are a significant
source of methane.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the twentieth century, global population skyrocketed at a
rate similar to the rapid increase in fertilizer use. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nitrogen and phosphorus are limiting nutrients,
and synthetic fertilizers exceled at sweeping away longstanding limits to crop
productivity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2017/09/surviving-21st-century.html">Julian
Cribb</a> wrote that the wellbeing of most of humankind is now heavily reliant
on the use of these potent fertilizers to assure adequate food harvests.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Today, about 80 percent of synthetic ammonia is made using a
natural gas feedstock — a finite nonrenewable fossil energy resource. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As natural gas prices rise, so will the cost
of nitrogen fertilizer, which will increase the cost of food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Political instability in the world is
increasing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few nations have abundant
reserves of gas, while all nations are dependent on reliable access to
food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This presents many opportunities
for heavy handed dog-eat-dog mischief.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Phosphorus
(P)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Like nitrogen, phosphorus is also a limiting nutrient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is always found in mixed compounds, never
in pure form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of the P in soil is
in a form that plants cannot use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This puts
a firm ceiling on crop productivity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
NPK fertilizers, usable P is provided by phosphate (P<sub>2</sub>O<sub>5</sub>),
a mineral compound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When phosphate is applied to a field, crop yields are
boosted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it runs off cropland into
bodies of water, it can trigger eutrophication. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Phosphorus enters your body at the mouth, and
departs via urine and excrement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
possible to recover it from sewage and manure, but not cheap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When mixed 50/50 with water, your urine is an
excellent liquid fertilizer that contains both nitrogen and phosphorus — and
it’s free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Waste not!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/phosphate_a_critical_resource_misused_and_now_running_out">Fred
Pearce</a> noted that every living cell needs P, and there is no
substitute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as essential to plant
life as water is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are great at
misusing it, suck at recycling it, and it’s vital for feeding humans and other
critters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each year, the world mines 170
million tons of phosphate.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The world’s primary source of phosphate rock is an open-cast
mine in the Western Sahara, a region currently controlled by Morocco — an
unpleasant situation that irritates the native Saharans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Political instability in the region could
disrupt the production and distribution of phosphate, and generate a food
crisis in many nations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">So, demand is rising, most of the world’s best phosphate
reserves are gone, and those that remain are in just a handful of countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of these reserves are in hard rock form,
which requires vastly more fossil energy to mine and process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are also large deposits of phosphates
in deep sea locations, but mining them would be deeply expensive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When will phosphate production peak?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a highly contentious question, because
accurately estimating the remaining reserves requires lots of guesswork.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, of the three essential NPK nutrients,
P is the most worrisome to experts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Just as I was about to send this info to the world, my faithful
muse gave me a dope slap and directed me to an important research paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s written in super-cryptic science jargon,
and ordinary readers (like me) may suffer some permanent brain damage, but it’s
a fascinating horror story.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18326-7">Christine
Alewell</a> and team put a spotlight on the latest news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If global heating doesn’t blindside
industrial civilization, phosphorus depletion will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big Mama Nature brilliantly guided the
evolution of wild ecosystems that did a wonderful job of protecting precious
topsoil and perpetually recycling essential nutrients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, cleverness has pulled the rug out from
under this delicate balancing act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tilling
of agricultural soils eliminates the protective covering of wild vegetation, and
exposes the delicate treasure below.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When P is not locked within solid rock, its water
soluble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When rain splatters directly on
pulverized farm soil, gravity carries the P runoff elsewhere, like wetlands and
streams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Erosion causes about half of
the P depletion in farm soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As P
content decreases, so does the productivity of the field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harvests shrink.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Alewell noted, “The world’s soils are currently being
depleted in P in spite of high chemical fertilizer input.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In poor countries, where folks can’t afford
potent fertilizer, the rate of P depletion is even higher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the long run, agriculture is not
sustainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Soil phosphorus (P) loss
from agricultural systems will limit food and feed production in the future.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">To continue producing chemical fertilizer requires continued mining
of nonrenewable geological deposits of P, an increasingly limited resource.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The P moves in a one-way flow from the mines,
to the agricultural land, into freshwaters, and finally into oceans. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The “organic management” of P is also unsustainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A cornfield extracts P from the soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, the harvested grain is sent somewhere
else, along with its P content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Added
manure and compost won’t replace all of the P exported.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, livestock grazing extracts the P
from the greenery consumed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of it
is returned to the land via manure and urine, but some of it is sent away to
the meat processor, never to return.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Potassium
(K)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">In plants, potassium is important for the synthesis of
protein.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The potassium component of NPK fertilizer
is provided by a variety of minerals rich in potash (K<sub>2</sub>O) that are
found in the salt beds of ancient seas and lakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The K added to NPK fertilizer comes from
nonrenewable mined sources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/04/dirt-erosion-of-civilizations.html">David
Montgomery</a> noted that “potassium occurs in rocks almost everywhere in forms
readily used as natural fertilizer.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
don’t have to worry about near term potassium shortages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lots of other future crises are closer to the
front of the line.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Toxic
Sludge<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/civilization-sludge-notes-history-management-human-excreta">Abby
Rockefeller</a> wrote a fascinating essay that thoroughly explored the long and
exciting history of human pooping and peeing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In modern cities, sewage treatment plants regularly generate sludge,
which has to be removed and put somewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Somewhere is often cropland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Besides the holy shit that happily splashes in your toilet,
sludge also contains lots of weird stuff produced by industrial
civilization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, volatiles,
organic solids, disease-causing pathogenic organisms, heavy metals, and toxic
organic chemicals from industrial wastes, household chemicals, and
pesticides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crops grown in fields
treated with toxic sludge produce foods that may be less than wholesome.</p><p class="BlogText">BOTTOM LINE: Bill
McGuire reported that intensive industrial agriculture is depleting the quality
of cropland soils. In many parts of the
world, including in the U.K., E.U., and the U.S., these soils are becoming “effectively
sterile in the absence of regular fixes of artificial fertilizer.” No free lunch. No sustainable agriculture. But eight billion get to pee and poop every
day (for a while). Hooray! <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><br />What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-39046605898352376942022-07-26T14:02:00.000-07:002022-07-26T14:02:52.720-07:00Wild Free and Happy Sample 44 Update<p> [Note: The following is a significant expansion of the <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Soil Destruction</span></em>
section of <a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/08/wild-free-and-happy-sample-44.html">Sample
44</a>.]</p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">SOIL
DESTRUCTION<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/02/pandoras-seed.html">Spencer
Wells</a> lamented the transition to food production, when folks shifted from
foraging to farming and herding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Instead of being along for the ride, we climbed into the driver’s
seat.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Richard Manning agreed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said that in the good old days, “we didn’t
grow food; food grew.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Food production
took an increasing toll on the soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Folks didn’t fully understand the consequences of what they were
doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the good old days, wild ecosystems were complex
communities of plants and animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
wild communities coevolved over time, which kept them fine-tuned for long term
survival in ever changing local conditions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Believe it or not, they could thrive, century after century, without
irrigation systems, synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, fossil powered machinery,
human stewards, and so on.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">With the transition to plant and animal domestication, humans
could produce greater quantities of food, and feed more mouths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the artificial ecosystems they created
(cropland and pasture) commonly reduced natural biodiversity, encouraged
erosion, and depleted soil fertility.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2022/04/geodestinies-2022.html">Walter
Youngquist</a> wrote that the average depth of the world’s topsoil is less than
12 inches (30 cm).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He added that almost
all modern folks consider oil to be a vital strategic resource.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oddly, far fewer have a profound appreciation
for soil, the most precious mineral treasure of all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For almost the entire human saga, our
ancestors left fossil hydrocarbons in the ground, where they belong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soil is vital for the survival of the entire
family of life — yesterday, today, and forever after.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">He warned that, from a human timeframe, topsoil is a
nonrenewable resource, because new topsoil is created over the passage of
centuries, on a geological timeframe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Overall, one-third of the topsoil on U.S. cropland has been lost over
the past 200 years.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans are
destroying it far faster than nature creates it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Youngquist mentioned the work of Peter Salonius, a soil
scientist who performed 44 years of research.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Salonius came to the conclusion that all extractive agriculture, from
ancient times to the present, is unsustainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Environmental history clearly supports his conclusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Writing in 2000, <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/06/something-new-under-sun.html">J.
R. McNeill</a> wrote that the U.S. was currently losing 1.7 billion tons of
topsoil per year to erosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that time,
there were 281 million Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So,
the loss would have been six tons per person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Writing in 2007, David Montgomery noted that each year, the world was
losing 24 billion tons of soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2015,
<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-end-of-plenty.html">Joel
Bourne</a> reported that every year, a million hectares (2.4 million acres) of
world cropland are taken out of production because of erosion, desertification,
or development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/02/against-grain.html">Richard
Manning</a> wrote, “There is no such thing as sustainable agriculture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It does not exist.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David Montgomery agreed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Continued for generations, till-based
agriculture will strip soil right off the land as it did in ancient Europe and
the Middle East.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With current
agricultural technology though, we can do it a lot faster.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Tobacco<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/11/topsoil-and-civilization.html">Dale
and Carter</a> wrote a history of humankind’s war on soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Immigrants who colonized the U.S. behaved
much like civilized colonists throughout history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They caused more waste and ruin in a shorter
time than any people before them because they had more land to exploit and
better equipment with which to exploit it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some ruined their land because they knew no better, and others destroyed
out of greed for immediate profits, but most of them did it because it seemed
the easiest thing to do.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">David Montgomery described the farmers of early America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tobacco was a goldmine, because it reaped six
times more income than any other crop, and it could be shipped across the
Atlantic and arrive in perfect condition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Growing tobacco was labor intensive, and slaves provided the
muscle power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was also a heavy feeder
on soil nutrients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A farmer could make
great money for three or four crops, after which the soil was severely
depleted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">At that point, they often abandoned the useless fields, and
cleared forest to create new ones, for another round of jackpot
moneymaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was easier and more
profitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the early days, frontier
land was abundant and cost little or nothing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Back in Europe, it was foolish to greedily treat topsoil like
a rape and run disposable resource.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over
time, agriculture had eventually collided with serious limits, when it was no
longer easy to expand cropland area by exterminating forests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, respectful consideration was given to
future generations of descendants, who wouldn’t enjoy inheriting a (%@&#!)
wasteland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each generation deliberately made
efforts to slow soil deterioration by regularly adding manure, compost, leaves,
crushed bone, and other fertilizers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Soil was treated like gold.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">On the other hand, in early America, ambitious high achievers
thought that being conservative stewards of the land was ridiculously
stupid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Livestock was needed to produce
manure, and livestock required pasture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tobacco acres earned big money fast, and pasture acres did not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Profit was their god word.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Cotton<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-new-green-history-of-world.html">Clive
Ponting</a> noted that a bit after the tobacco boom, the cotton gin made it
more profitable to manufacture cotton fabric, rather than wool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cotton became a new goldmine for farmers and
slave traders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Africa, slaves were
often purchased by trading cotton cloth for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like tobacco, cotton was very hard on the
soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compared to a food crop, it
extracted 11 times the nitrogen, and 36 times the phosphorus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Between 1815 and 1860, cotton was 50 percent
of U.S. exports.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As with tobacco, depleted cotton fields were abandoned, and
farm country migrated westward, as it devoured ancient forests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was cheaper, easier, and more profitable
to move on, so they did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/04/dirt-erosion-of-civilizations.html">David
Montgomery</a> described how these folks broke every cardinal rule of careful
land stewardship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Farmers did continuous
planting without crop rotation, used little or no manure, and plowed straight
up and down hills (not contour plowing).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Highly explosive ignorance resulted in painful lessons and
enduring destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stripping away the
forests in hill country deleted what had held the soil in place for thousands
of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Damage was extreme in the
Piedmont belt of the southeastern U.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Further north, the wreckage was a bit lighter, because snow protected
the soil during winter months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in
the south, heavy rains were common.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some
regions eventually lost most of their soil, exposing portions of bedrock. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Shockingly huge gullies were created in the wake of
deforestation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Alabama, gullies up to
80 feet (24 m) deep soon followed land clearance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One erosion gully near Macon, Georgia was 50
feet deep (15 m), 200 feet across (61 m), and 300 yards long (274 m).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Montgomery wrote, “By the early 1900s, more
than five million acres of formerly cultivated land in the South lay idle
because of the detrimental effects of soil erosion.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Dust
Bowl<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">As the colonization of the U.S. proceeded, folks continued
migrating westward, moving beyond forested regions to the open prairies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They perceived prairies to be wastelands,
because they were largely treeless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many
pushed onward toward Oregon, hoping to settle in lands having fertile
soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the process, they skipped right
past the tallgrass prairie, home to the nation’s most fertile soil by far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, they realized their mistake, and
the primo tallgrass belt was settled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Latecomers got the less desirable shortgrass prairie, which
had highly fertile soil, but it was lighter in texture, and more vulnerable to
erosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In shortgrass country, strong
winds and periodic droughts were normal and common, but evolution had
fine-tuned the wild ecosystem to survive these conditions. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The natural vegetation was drought tolerant, retained
moisture, and kept the soil from blowing away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, the settlers brought state of the art steel plows, and
proceeded to strip the vegetation off the land, and expose the precious soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unintentional foolishness led to catastrophe.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">David Montgomery mentioned a 1902 report by the U.S.
Geological Survey that classified the high plains as being suitable for
grazing, but not farming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
“hopelessly nonagricultural” because it was ridiculously prone to erosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gullible farmers were encouraged by sleazy
speculators to settle on the land and get rich quick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And many did, for a while.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/07/conquest-of-land-through-seven-thousand.html">Walter
Lowdermilk</a> wrote that much of the time between 1900 and 1930 was a highly
unusual period of above average precipitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>During the wet years, farmers enjoyed big harvests and generous
profits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wheat could do well in the
shortgrass climate, and a thriving wheat field protected the fragile soil from
erosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in drought years, the wheat
withered, and there was nothing to hold the soil in place when the winds began
howling.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tractors were the
latest cool gizmo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lad with a tractor
could farm 15 times more land than a lad who used draft animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cropland area greatly expanded, exposing more
and more soil, which the winds carried away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The stage was set for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl">Dust Bowl</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/02/cadillac-desert.html">Marc
Reisner</a> wrote, “The first of the storms blew through South Dakota on
November 11, 1933.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By nightfall, some
farms had lost nearly all of their topsoil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At ten o’ clock the next morning, the sky was still pitch black.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People were vomiting dirt.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">“If not the worst man-made disaster in history, it was, at
least, the quickest.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From 1934 to 1938,
there were numerous huge dust storms, “black blizzards” that could turn day
into night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1934, congressmen in
Washington D.C. went outside to watch the sky darken at noon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The jet stream carried dust across the ocean
to Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In many regions, more than 75 percent of the topsoil was
blown away by the end of the 1930s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Department of Agriculture estimated that 50 million acres of farmland had been
ruined and abandoned during the Dust Bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Invisible
Disaster<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Humankind’s war on soil continues, and we’re winning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a 2012 article in <i>Time</i> magazine, <a href="https://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/">John
Crawford</a>, a risk analysis expert, wrote that “A rough calculation of
current rates of soil degradation suggests we have about 60 years of topsoil
left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some 40% of soil used for
agriculture around the world is classed as either degraded or seriously
degraded — the latter means that 70% of the topsoil, the layer allowing plants
to grow, is gone.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbm=isch&sxsrf=ALeKk01NyGsDZkZl5uZ_rhRsoBfK12_6DQ%3A1596173234514&source=hp&biw=1920&bih=937&ei=sqsjX5XxHJfx-gTaxKWYDQ&q=severe%20gully%20erosion&oq=severe%20gully%20erosion&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoHCCMQ6gIQJzoICAAQsQMQgwE6BQgAELEDOgIIAFC9C1iqNGCdNmgAcAB4AIAB5wKIAYEYkgEHNS45LjQuMZgBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nsAEK&sclient=img&ved=0ahUKEwiVkpDV4PbqAhWXuJ4KHVpiCdMQ4dUDCAc&uact=5&fbclid=IwAR2nG0WJ9lkBGaEtNXWvYC4WQPRqmkpR0Fex-5B_NddK5wvyHx3kJiZCx8c">LOOK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In some locations, visible evidence of this loss is obvious,
in large clouds of dust, ghastly erosion gullies, or rain shower runoff that
looks like chocolate milk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other
places, the loss may not be readily visible during a lifetime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you gaze at a large field, decade after
decade, you might not notice the gradual loss of tons of soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Walter Youngquist mentioned a study finding that when one
hectare of land lost six metric tons of soil, the surface of the soil dropped
just one millimeter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He thought that
erosion was similar to cancer, a persistent intensifying destroyer.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Soils with less humus absorb less water, which increases
runoff and soil loss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Light soils are
more likely to disappear than dense soils.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sloped land is most prone to erosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some regions of Europe typically receive gentle rain showers, while some
locations in the U.S. often receive heavy cloudbursts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, wild grasslands and forests excel
at absorbing moisture, building humus, and retaining soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When forest is cleared, or grassland is plowed, the soil is
exposed to incoming sunlight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the
soil warms up, microbial activity is stimulated, which accelerates the
oxidation of the carbon-rich humus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Precious carbon built up over the passage of years is dispersed into the
atmosphere as carbon dioxide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soil
fertility declines, and will not be promptly restored, if ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">All tilling, to varying degrees, degrades or destroys
soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The healthy green blanket of
natural vegetation that protects the precious topsoil is entirely torn off the
face of the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The soil dries out,
hardens, and absorbs less precipitation, which accelerates runoff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This increases the chances of sheet erosion,
gullying, landslides, and flooding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
can sometimes take centuries for nature to replace the unprotected topsoil lost
in a stormy hour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Long ago, the Mediterranean basin became a hotbed of civilizations
as agriculture spread westward out of Mesopotamia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Mediterranean climate provided heavy
winter rains, making it a suitable place to grow wheat and barley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of the basin was sloped land, which was
extensively deforested over time, driven by growing demand for lumber and
firewood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flocks of sheep and goats roaming on the clear-cut hillsides
overgrazed, encouraged erosion, and prevented forest recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By and by, the rains leached out the
nutrients, and washed much of the fertile soil off the hillsides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many locations, bare bedrock now basks in
the warm sunshine, where ancient forests once thrived in ancient soils.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/11/topsoil-and-civilization.html">Carter
and Dale</a> noted that, in the good old days, the Mediterranean used to be
among the most prosperous and progressive regions in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when they wrote in 1955, most of the
formerly successful civilizations had become backward, or extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many had just a half or a third of their
former populations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of their
citizens had a low standard of living, compared to affluent societies. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Montgomery noted that these ancient civilizations often
enjoyed a few centuries of prosperity, as they nuked their ecosystems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, the soils of the Mediterranean basin
were heavily damaged by 2,000 years ago, and they remain wrecked today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are quite likely to remain wrecked for
many, many thousands of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of
the region that once fed millions is a desert today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">I never learned any of this in school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, this region was celebrated as the
glorious birthplace of civilization, democracy, culture, and science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had incredible architecture and dazzling artwork.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was home to brilliant writers and
philosophers (no mention of slaves).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many of our public buildings today, with their ornate marble columns,
pay homage to this era when we first got really good at living way too hard.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Of course, progress never sleeps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2000, <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/06/something-new-under-sun.html">J.
R. McNeill</a> published a fascinating (and sobering) book on the environmental
history of the twentieth century, when cultures blind drunk on gushers of cheap
oil spurred a population explosion that probably caused the most destruction to
Earth since the Chicxulub asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In a 2014 book, McNeill narrowed his focus to the
catastrophic changes that have occurred since 1945.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He noted that in the world, about 430 million
hectares (seven times the size of Texas) has been irreversibly destroyed by
accelerated erosion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Between 1945 and
1975, farmland area equivalent to Nebraska or the United Kingdom was paved
over.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1978, erosion had caused the
abandonment of 31 percent of all arable land in China. <o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-76025981838733286922022-07-13T16:31:00.000-07:002022-07-13T16:31:21.597-07:00Nonrenewable Geology<p> These days, we are constantly assured that our leaders and
experts will do what’s necessary to promptly eliminate climate change, and open
the gate to a clean green renewable utopia.
A golden bonus is that spending staggering amounts of money to radically
alter the energy-related infrastructure of the entire world will be great for
the economy, thrill investors, and create jobs, jobs, jobs! If we have a fervent blind faith in this
miracle, we can relax, keep our lives on autopilot, and shop till we drop.</p><p class="BlogText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">According to bright green dreams, the answer to all our
prayers is to simply abandon fossil energy right away, and power the global
economy with wholesome carbon-free renewable electricity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not everyone agrees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mainstream media, and many environmental
activists, have yet to acknowledge the grumpy skeptics who assert that it’s
impossible for today’s industrial civilization, as we know it, to be entirely powered
by any flavor of electricity, whether renewable or conventional.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508">Megan
Seibert</a> and William E. Rees explained why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their report relied heavily on research by <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/05/life-after-fossil-fuels.html">Alice
Friedemann</a>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only fossil fuel can
generate the intense heat needed to mass produce stuff like steel, concrete,
silicon, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s also essential
for keeping the current transport system on life support (trucks, trains,
ships, planes, cars, etc.) — both manufacturing the machines, and fueling their
lifetime operation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A team led by <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/03/bright-green-lies.html">Derrick
Jensen</a> focused additional attention on bright green hopium.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">And now, at long last (sorry!), I shall get to the point of
my message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recently learned about a
thousand page report created by the Geological Survey of Finland, a government
agency that employs 400 experts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Geologists
don’t believe in miracles, they believe in minerals — finite nonrenewable
substances, resources that are diminished with each scoop of the power
shovels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every passing year, the
reserves get smaller, lower in quality, and more expensive to extract. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Finnish geologists wondered if seemingly unbelievable miracles
were actually possible in reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
contemplated what modifications would be needed to 2019 technology, in order to
create a perfectly sustainable utopia by 2050.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The theoretical transition required super-massive global changes to be
made in an unimaginably super-speedy manner. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The heroic geologists stumbled upon an important discovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One minor detail had somehow been overlooked
by the clean green renewable dreamers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their
primary focus had been on carbon, climate, positive thinking, and saving the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems there was little or no
awareness that the miraculous global transition required huge amounts of specific
minerals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the essential minerals
were needed in quantities that far exceeded the world’s known resources and
reserves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The titanic dream smacked into
an iceberg.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The geologist’s report
focused on three subject areas: transport, electricity generation, and industrial
manufacturing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">[A quick vocabulary lesson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Reserves” are the amount of a resource that can profitably be extracted
with existing technology at current prices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Resources” are the currently known amount of a resource, only a portion
of which can be considered reserves.]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Finnish report explained that the planet-thrashing
monster we have created took more than a century to become uncontrollably catastrophic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was only made possible by guzzling
staggering amounts of cheap and abundant oil, an extremely energy dense fuel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our monster has devoured massive amounts of
high quality mineral resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the
peak of the joyride, folks in wealthy nations enjoyed a fantastic orgy of utterly
idiotic waste.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">And now, the monster must be ethically euthanized as soon as
possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Energy is no longer cheap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mineral resources are lower in quality, and far
less abundant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Financial systems are
loaded with debts, and full of surprises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The planet’s ecosystems are disintegrating in front of our eyes, as the
population explosion continues soaring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>World
leaders are busy butting heads, shooting missiles, and cutting throats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alas, the Finnish geologists are not giddy
with optimism for a quick and easy bright green future.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the global energy system of 2018, fossil fuels provided
84.7% of the power, nuclear was 10.1%, and renewables were just 4.05% (solar,
wind, geothermal, hydro, biofuels, etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In other words, nonrenewable energy (fossil + nuke) provided about 95%
of the monster’s life force. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
geologists focused on energy processes that involved minerals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, they didn’t mention humankind’s original energy
resource, muscle power — it’s not a wildly exciting alternative, but it has a
promising future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine everyone wearing
bright green MAWA hats (Make America Walk Again).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Obviously, transport systems should rapidly eliminate carbon
belching Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most green dreamers envision a shift to
Electric Vehicle (EV) technology that utilizes rechargeable batteries or fuel
cells. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">EVs are a very trendy idea today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Battery powered EVs are charged with
electricity from the grid. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if the
grid is delivering electricity that’s maybe 95% nonrenewable, that’s what their
batteries will be charged with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How
green is that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, an EV’s frame,
fenders, battery, motor, etc., are not made of harmless green fairy dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither are solar panels, wind turbines, or
roadways made of asphalt or concrete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Walking has far less impact.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Fuel cell powered EVs use a chemical reaction to generate
electricity from hydrogen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During
operation, they emit only water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hydrogen
in pure form does not exist in the natural world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Energy is required to separate hydrogen from
other compounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The U.S. Department of
Energy says that about 95% of hydrogen is made by processing natural gas (CH<sub>4</sub>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Finnish report mentioned an uncomfortable
fact: “A potential downside is that much less electricity is harvested from
hydrogen in a fuel cell than the electricity required to produce that same
volume of hydrogen.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 2019, the global transport fleet included about 1.416
billion cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles, of which 1.39 billion were
ICE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These ICE machines need to be sent
to the crusher as soon as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is
it possible (or ecologically intelligent) to replace them with EVs?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Batteries are a serious challenge for both transport and electricity
generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll chat more about
batteries shortly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, let’s take a
peek at electricity generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It produces
energy that is the life force of the grid, the stuff that lights the night,
powers appliances, and entrances glowing screen zombies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As mentioned, electricity generation is currently
fueled by energy that is maybe 95% nonrenewable, a huge drawback.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Currently, the grid is designed to reliably distribute
electricity from large centralized power plants, something like a hub and
spokes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A renewable energy grid would
have to distribute electricity produced by numerous, smaller, widely dispersed
facilities (wind and/or solar).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
produce power intermittently, taking naps when the winds go calm, or the
sunbeams stop — sometimes for extended periods.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Meanwhile, the end-user demand for electricity constantly rises
and falls throughout the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today’s power
generation infrastructure is carefully designed to react to the frequent ups
and downs of demand, by quickly delivering less or more electricity into the
grid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this was not the case, life
would have many more technological headaches.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">On the other hand, a wind turbine farm pays no attention whatsoever
to end-user demand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More wind, more
power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No wind, no power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same is true for solar panel arrays, and
the variable inflow of sunbeams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For these
systems to work, large scale battery infrastructure is needed to effectively store
surplus energy when generation exceeds demand, and then later release stored
energy whenever demand exceeds generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In northern regions, demand zooms higher when winter moves in, so the
battery backup buffer would ideally need to store maybe four weeks of
electricity — a huge challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody
knows if this is even possible under real world conditions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">There are two forms of electricity, AC and DC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The grid can only carry AC power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you plug a gizmo into a wall receptacle,
it receives AC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>AC cannot be stored —
once it is fed into the grid, it will either be used or lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surplus AC can be converted to DC, which can
be stored in a backup buffer battery, for later use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When demand rises, DC in the battery can be
converted to AC, and fed back into the grid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Your cell phone and flashlight have batteries, because they run on DC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Solar panels and wind turbines produce DC,
which can be stored in batteries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">And now, the plot thickens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Lithium-ion batteries provide the most efficient storage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To power 1.39 billion EVs, an estimated 282.6
million tons of batteries would be needed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus, vastly more battery infrastructure would
be needed to provide the storage buffer for the grid — an additional 2.5 <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">billion</span></em> tons!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, to enable both EVs and grid buffer
storage, an estimated 2.78 billion tons of batteries would be needed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“This far exceeds global reserves of nickel,
cobalt, lithium, and graphite.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without
adequate storage buffers, “the wind and solar power generation may not be able
to be scaled up to the proposed global scope.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Indeed, the geologists wondered if there are adequate mineral
resources to make batteries for just the 1.39 billion EVs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They wrote, “Preliminary calculations show
that global reserves, let alone global production, may not be enough to
resource the quantity of batteries required.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Oh, and those 1.39 billion EV batteries would have a useful working life
of just of 8 to 10 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the wind
turbines and solar panels also have limited lifespans, 20 to 30 years or
so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything will need periodic
replacement, from now to eternity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
this reason, Alice Friedemann suggests that “renewable” should more accurately
be referred to as “rebuildable.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No free
lunch.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Mineral resources are neither infinite, easily available, nor
cheap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The massive transition to
renewables looks more like a frantic short term plastic bandage, rather than an
effective, well planned permanent cure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
geologists conclude that a transition to renewable energy seems to be seriously
hobbled by the limited availability of nonrenewable minerals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The recipe for lithium-ion batteries requires five essential
minerals: copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and graphite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are there adequate reserves of these minerals
to manufacture all those batteries?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No,
not even close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>EV transport would need 1.39
billion batteries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In theory, there are
enough global reserves of copper if they were exclusively used just to produce
lithium-ion batteries for just one generation of vehicles.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reserves of the other four minerals are not
adequate to make all of those EV batteries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>See the chart on page six of the report’s summary. [<a href="https://mcusercontent.com/72459de8ffe7657f347608c49/files/be87ecb0-46b0-9c31-886a-6202ba5a9b63/Assessment_to_phase_out_fossil_fuels_Summary.pdf">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">So, we’ve looked at transport and electricity generation, and
their theoretical renewable options.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
third focus of the Finnish report was industrial manufacturing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are the theoretical options for running
industrial systems on renewable energy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
geologists can’t think of any.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See the
chart on page two of the report’s summary. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Simon Michaux authored the Finnish report.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wrote, “In conclusion, this report
suggests that replacing the existing fossil fuel powered system (oil, gas, and
coal), using renewable technologies, such as solar panels or wind turbines,
will not be possible for the entire global human population. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is simply just not enough time, nor
resources to do this by the current target set by the world’s most influential
nations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What may be required,
therefore, is a significant reduction of societal demand for all resources, of
all kinds. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This implies a very different
social contract and a radically different system of governance to what is in
place today. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inevitably, this leads to
the conclusion that the existing renewable energy sectors and the EV technology
systems are merely steppingstones to something else, rather than the final
solution. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is recommended that some
thought be given to this and what that something else might be.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Michaux, Simon P., “Assessment of the Extra Capacity Required
of Alternative Energy Electrical Power Systems to Completely Replace Fossil
Fuels,” Geological Survey of Finland, August 20, 2021. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">I did not entirely read the 1,000 page report [<a href="https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf">LINK</a>].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did carefully read the fairly
understandable eight page summary of the report [<a href="https://mcusercontent.com/72459de8ffe7657f347608c49/files/be87ecb0-46b0-9c31-886a-6202ba5a9b63/Assessment_to_phase_out_fossil_fuels_Summary.pdf">LINK</a>].<o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-79828147909451366122022-06-20T10:45:00.000-07:002022-06-20T10:45:46.529-07:00Clean Green Incoherence<p> </p><p class="BlogText">In 2015, I posted my review of <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/02/too-hot-to-touch.html">Too Hot
to Touch</a>, a 2013 book by William and Rosemarie Alley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>William worked for the U.S. Geological
Survey, and he was involved in the search for somewhere to store more than
70,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods, and 20,000 canisters of military
waste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The challenging objective was to
store this extremely dangerous high level radioactive waste in a way that would
be absolutely safe for a million years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository">Yucca
Mountain</a> site in Nevada was an isolated desert location.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was not perfect, but no place was
perfect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the best choice
possible, based on 25 years of research costing $10 billion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The repository was designed to be 1,000 feet (304
m) below the surface.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Alleys wrote that fuel rods are used for about six years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spent fuel rods remain very hot and highly
radioactive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For about five years, they
must be kept submerged in ponds, where cooled water constantly circulates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, the hot rods cool off, and can be
stored in airtight dry casks, which are much safer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dry casks are made of steel and concrete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The concrete blocks radioactive emissions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Casks are designed to last maybe 50 years,
not a million.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Permanent storage requires underground geologic repositories
that will remain very dry forever, and not be disturbed by earthquakes or
terrorists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2022, more than 89,000
tons of spent fuel rods are stored in casks in many states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we ever build a repository, all those
casks of extremely toxic waste will have to be hauled in from distant
locations, with no surprises, if possible.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Alleys wrote that in 2011, about 75 percent of spent fuel
in the U.S. was stored in ponds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Many
of these pools are full, with some containing four times the amount of spent
fuel that they were designed for.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a
booboo happens, and hot rods are exposed to air, the embedded uranium pellets
can oxidize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the rods ignite, massive
amounts of highly radioactive emissions can be released.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This could result in many cancer deaths, and
cost billions of dollars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The meltdowns
at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima were triggered by overheated
fuel rods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When the Alleys wrote in 2013, there were 440 nuke plants in
31 countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that time, no nation
had a permanent high-level waste storage facility in operation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2022, there are 449 plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guess how many nations are using geologic
repositories (zero).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One in Finland
might open in 2023.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">A Wikipedia article on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning">Nuclear
Decommissioning</a> described the aging reactors in the U.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“As of 2017, most nuclear plants operating in
the United States were designed for a life of about 30 to 40 years and are
licensed to operate for 40 years by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As of 2020, the average age
of these reactors was about 39 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many plants are coming to the end of their licensing period and if their
licenses are not renewed, they must go through a decontamination and
decommissioning process.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Decommissioning
is very expensive, and can take many years.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Barack Obama was elected president in 2008.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that time, Yucca Mountain was the widely
supported location for our nuke waste repository.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One crappy day, the Alleys were blindsided by
an unpleasant surprise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In March 2009, Obama’s
new Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, told a Senate hearing that “Yucca Mountain
was not an option.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In July 2009, the
license application was withdrawn, and all funding for the project was
cut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Game over.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Chu cited no issues, and offered no alternatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Alleys wrote, “Virtually all observers
attributed the decision to pull the plug on Yucca Mountain as political payoff
to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nevada was a swing state in the election, and Obama had pledged to kill
Yucca Mountain, if elected.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He needed
Reid in order to push his health care plans through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Republican Senators blasted Chu with sharp
questions about his hasty dumb decision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 2016, Donald Trump was elected president.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository">Wikipedia</a>
described his Yucca Mountain policies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“On
March 15, 2017, the Trump Administration announced it would request
Congressional approval for $120 million to restart licensing activity at the
Yucca Mountain Repository, with funding also to be used to create an interim
storage program. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The project would
consolidate nuclear waste across the United States in Yucca Mountain, which had
been stockpiled in local locations since 2010.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Then, he changed his mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Although his administration had allocated money to the project, in
October 2018, President Donald Trump stated he opposed the use of Yucca Mountain
for dumping, saying he agreed with the people of Nevada.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“On May 20, 2020, Under Secretary of Energy
Mark W. Menezes testified in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee that Trump strongly opposes proceeding with Yucca Mountain
Repository.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In November 2020, voters chose Joe Biden to be the next
president.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Biden did not overturn Trump’s
policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Wikipedia article
continues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In May 2021, Energy
Secretary Jennifer Granholm said that Yucca Mountain would not be part of the
Biden administration’s plans for nuclear-waste disposal. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She anticipated announcing the department's
next steps in the coming months.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">A year later, in May 2022, an <a href="https://apnews.com/article/connecticut-nuclear-power-jennifer-granholm-congress-cd9cdaab3fe18371ba8c6083fc003935">Associated
Press</a> story reported that Granholm had not changed her mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Energy Department is working to develop
a process to ask communities if they are interested in storing spent nuclear
fuel on an interim basis, both to make nuclear power a more sustainable option
and figure out what to do with the waste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Granholm said it’s the best way to finally solve the issue. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A plan to build a national storage facility
northwest of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain has been mothballed because of staunch
opposition from most Nevada residents and officials.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, Obama, Trump, and Biden rubbished the
Yucca solution, and offered no Plan B.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry
kids!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Luckily, hope was on the way!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In February 2019, tree-hugging progressives, led by Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey, were galloping in to rescue us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answer to our prayers was called the
Green New Deal (GND).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a26255413/green-new-deal-nuclear-power/">early
version</a> of the plan rejected the notion that carbon-free nuclear energy was
necessary to fight climate change and keep the perpetually growing economy on
life support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was simply too
expensive, too risky, and there was nowhere to store the waste for all eternity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The best solution was “clean, green,
renewable energy” — mostly solar and wind. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Not everyone agreed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Shutting down the nuclear industry would mean burning even more fossil energy
to keep energy guzzling consumers in the express lane to oblivion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The downside of solar and wind is intermittency
— when the winds calm, or sunbeams disappear, they quit working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nukes can consistently produce lots of
electricity, whilst emitting no carbon during operation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">These were the two possible options: renewables only, or
renewables plus nukes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not worthy of serious
consideration was a third option: mindfully confronting our embarrassing addictions
— sharply reigning in consumption, turning off the lights, unplugging the
gizmos, learning how to walk, and seriously contemplating the dark vibes of our
maximum impact lifestyles.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Anyway, the initial anti-nuke version of the GND generated
resistance from the Sunrise Movement and other folks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They wanted to continue using carbon-free
nuclear energy, rather than burning even more fossil fuel, and belching even
more carbon into the atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On May
6, 2019, Ocasio-Cortez felt the heat, saw the light, and developed an “<a href="https://morningconsult.com/2019/05/06/ocasio-cortez-green-new-deal-leaves-door-open-nuclear/">open
mind</a>” on nukes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was willing to
leave the door open on nuclear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
imagined that newer reactors were far better than the old technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ideally, the long term goal should be to meet
100% of U.S. electricity needs via “clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">OK, so that’s what I’ve learned recently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s been a while since I posted new stuff
here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Revising this book is hard on my
tired brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The above fits into a
bigger picture that’s still under construction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The bigger picture has more components.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We live in an era of conspiracy theories and fake news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The powers that be are working very hard to
assure us that the climate crisis is an annoyance that can and will be solved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the transition to clean, green,
renewable energy, the consumer way of life can happily metastasize
forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re on the path to a brighter
future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t worry, go shopping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">I previously posted four sample sections on climate change: [<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/07/wild-free-and-happy-sample-55.html">55</a>]
[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/08/wild-free-and-happy-sample-56.html">56</a>]
[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/08/wild-free-and-happy-sample-57.html">57</a>]
[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/09/wild-free-and-happy-sample-58.html">58</a>].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those sections describe why I perceive that
the climate is in a positive feedback loop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Atmospheric carbon continues accumulating, polar ice continues shrinking,
Arctic temperatures continue rising, permafrost continues melting, and many other
processes are intensifying in a downward spiral that is out of control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if all eight billion of us suddenly went
Stone Age tomorrow, the avalanche of change we’ve unleashed would continue its
descent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">An enormous shortcoming in the clean, green, renewable future
dream is that it’s essentially electric powered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fossil energy is not invited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Building millions of wind turbines, solar
panels, storage batteries, and radically redesigning the global grid would be
impossible without the use of technology that requires huge amounts of fossil
energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of these gizmos have limited
working lifespans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Periodic replacement
is needed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Electricity cannot generate the intense heat needed to make
metals, silicon, concrete, and other compounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mining, smelting, transportation systems, and many other processes
cannot be entirely performed using electricity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You can’t manufacture stuff like machinery for construction,
agriculture, high technology, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus, the GND is the opposite of carbon-free.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Lately — and very late in the game — some folks are beginning
to push back on the Green New Deal’s magical thinking. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/15/4508">Megan Seibert</a> and William
E. Rees discussed its serious shortcomings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their report relied heavily on the pioneering research by <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/05/life-after-fossil-fuels.html">Alice
Friedemann</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Geologist Walter
Youngquist was my friend. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second
edition of his outstanding <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2022/04/geodestinies-2022.html">GeoDestinies</a>
book is now available as a free 600-page PDF.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Someday my revisions will be complete, and this stuff will
all be presented in a neat and tidy manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thank you for your patience! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have
a nice day!<o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-89662259793314481232022-04-23T13:48:00.000-07:002022-04-23T13:48:28.411-07:00GeoDestinies 2022<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5irHoPQ-ACI_xLffhlHOEOr4l0m-uylYQ1kIhoPXS3_XokzLZtDIXhjRItqDB9XB8M3jDEv8MS-8P-Ogx9KoFpkqELQy7WR84m5JwRnuFPpQV9kmA2cQTeLb97t_sNOmTamw1VmVfx04-4sEizljD02_Dx5isrvXQ9X_DN--0Eo6DPEwAFsjgZaFxow/s359/GeoDestinies.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="250" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5irHoPQ-ACI_xLffhlHOEOr4l0m-uylYQ1kIhoPXS3_XokzLZtDIXhjRItqDB9XB8M3jDEv8MS-8P-Ogx9KoFpkqELQy7WR84m5JwRnuFPpQV9kmA2cQTeLb97t_sNOmTamw1VmVfx04-4sEizljD02_Dx5isrvXQ9X_DN--0Eo6DPEwAFsjgZaFxow/s320/GeoDestinies.png" width="223" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="BlogText">Walter Youngquist (1921-2018) was a petroleum geologist, a University
of Oregon professor, and my friend. His life’s
masterpiece is a 600 page book that’s now available to everyone as a free PDF
download [<a href="https://thegreatstory.org/geodestinies-youngquist-2022.pdf">HERE</a>].
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Geologists study Earth resources, many of which are being degraded
and depleted — aquifers, topsoil, hydrocarbons, minerals, etc. These resources have limits. Every drinker learns that the glass starts
full, ends empty, and the faster you drink it, the quicker it’s gone. Consumers pay little attention to resource
limits, but they’re beginning to comprehend the impact of carbon emissions on
the climate. Mainstream experts repeatedly
tell us not to worry. They preach a fervent
blind faith in miracles — a smooth and easy transition to a clean, green, renewable
utopia. Geologists wince. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Youngquist didn’t believe in miracles or techno utopias. Today, we’re living dangerously fast by destroying
astonishing amounts of nonrenewable resources — a onetime binge that can never
again be repeated. Nonrenewable energy is
finite. We have been soaring in a
beautiful dream world, where the air is perfumed with the intoxicating aroma of
a nonrenewable prosperity. The era of
cheap energy is fading away in the rear view mirror. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In 1973, the Eugene newspaper wrote a story about one of his
lectures, “Dark Picture Painted by Youngquist.”
He gave many talks to Chamber of Commerce groups, trying to introduce
them to the concept of limits. He was
almost never invited back. America
worships perpetual growth at any cost. Growth
is our god word.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In the mid-1990s, a number of the world’s petroleum
geologists became alarmed that the volume of new oil discovered was declining, while
the volume of consumption continued soaring.
This inspired the dawn of the Peak Oil movement, a wakeup call. In 1997, Youngquist published <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">GeoDestinies</span></em>, which
quickly sold out. Folks begged him to
print more, but Walt was reluctant. He
wanted to update the info first, but the story was moving faster than he could
type. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Finally, in 2012, he finished the update. Unfortunately, the process hit some curves. The book did not get to a printer, Walt died,
the publisher went extinct, and the manuscript gathered dust. In 2022, a small group of fans was able to
get a digital copy, and make it available to the world. Most of the content is still timely and very
important. For most readers, this book
is largely going to be a banquet of new information, important stuff that’s
rarely taught in school, if ever.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Today, many snicker at the Peak Oil dimwits. Dudes, we didn’t run out! We’ll always find more! In the ’90s, the industry was primarily producing
cheap and easy <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">conventional</span></em>
oil (insert a straw and suck). It
appears that the global production of this oil peaked around 2005. Unfortunately, mad scientists developed new
technology for extracting oil, like hydro-fracking and horizontal
drilling. This enabled a sharp increase
in the production of <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">unconventional</span></em>
oil from sources including tar sands, heavy oil, shale oil (tight oil), and
deep water wells. This oil was far more
challenging and expensive to extract (and the mother of many bankruptcies). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In addition to declining discoveries, a new boogeyman is EROEI
(energy returned on energy invested). It
takes energy to extract fossil energy.
For example, a hundred years ago, the EROEI for conventional oil was
very high. Ram a drill into a huge pool
of Texas oil, and a geyser of black gold often shot high in the sky. Today, with the shift toward unconventional
oil, the EROEI is far lower and declining.
As the energy needed for extraction approaches the energy content of the
output, the industry moves closer to its expiration date. A lot of fossil energy will be left in the
ground forever. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">It took more than 500 million years for geologic forces to
transform plant and animal residue into fossil fuels — coal, oil, and natural
gas. It will take less than 500 years
for humans to extract it and burn it. We
live during a brief blip in Earth history, an ecological hurricane. Walt’s core message was a blunt warning. “The momentum of population growth and
resource consumption is so great that a collision course with disaster is
inevitable. Large problems lie not very
far ahead. …In some respects, the
twenty-first century will be like the twentieth century in reverse.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The public believes that adequate “renewable” substitutes
will be available when needed. Alternative
energy is not clean, green, and free. The
hardware components have limited working lifespans. Scaling up to replace nonrenewable energy
would require vast land area, roads, power lines, and backup for when adequate
wind or sunbeams are unavailable. Manufacturing
solar panels requires critical minerals like cobalt, gallium, germanium,
indium, manganese, tellurium, titanium, and zinc. Each wind turbine requires tons of concrete,
steel, and other resources. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Walt described the alternative energy options, and their many
limitations. He concluded that renewable
energy will not come close to replacing fossil energy. In 2021, <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/05/life-after-fossil-fuels.html">Alice
Friedemann</a> presented a far more thorough discussion in her book <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/05/life-after-fossil-fuels.html"><em><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Bookman Old Style", "serif"; text-decoration-line: none;">Life After Fossil Fuels</span></em></a>. A renewable utopia seems impossible. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Oil is just one of many Earth resource topics in Walt’s
book. Plants and animals don’t need it. Less than 200 years ago, oil was of no great
importance to anyone anywhere. For many
thousands of years, nomads wandered across the Arabian Peninsula, under which
laid oceans of ancient oil. It never
occurred to them to extract it, burn it, blindside the climate, and race down crowded
highways in powerful motorized wheelchairs.
Naturally, in those days, the planet was in far healthier condition. Then, in the twentieth century, Arabia became
very rich, very fast.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Other resources are genuinely essential for the survival of
the family of life — soil, water, air, and sunlight. Of all minerals, soil is the most precious by
far. Fertile soil is created so slowly
that, from a human perspective, it’s essentially nonrenewable. In his book <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Dirt</span></em>, geologist <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/04/dirt-erosion-of-civilizations.html">David
Montgomery</a> wrote, “Continued for generations, till-based agriculture will
strip soil right off the land as it did in ancient Europe and the Middle
East. With current agricultural
technology though, we can do it a lot faster.”
Peter Salonius studied soil for 44 years. He concluded that all extractive agriculture,
from ancient times to the present, was unsustainable. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The problems associated with soil destruction are widely
understood, and widely disregarded. Nobody
became a billionaire by promoting soil conservation. Globally, billions of tons are lost every
year. Overall, one-third of the soil on
U.S. cropland has been lost over the past 200 years. Half of the excellent topsoil of Iowa is
already gone. The highest quality soil
is close to the surface, and the first to erode. Walt wrote, “Worldwide, the continuing loss
of soil and depletion of groundwater is leading humanity directly over the
cliff.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">All life needs water. Water
allows mineral nutrients in the soil to be absorbed by plants. Your body is about 60 percent water. In some regions, farms receive adequate water
from precipitation. Other regions
require irrigation. About 17 percent of
cropland is irrigated, but it produces 40 percent of the world’s crops. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Some underground aquifers are unable to recharge as fast as
pumps are extracting the water — like the vast Ogallala aquifer in the U.S.
midlands. They are unsustainable water
mines. Several communities in Colorado are
(temporarily) drinking from reservoirs of 10,000 year old water. Forty percent of humankind now lives in
regions with chronic water shortages, especially Africans, with their rapidly
growing populations. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">When ancient aquifers are depleted, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">subsidence</span></em> can occur
— the ground sinks, filling the empty space where the water once was. This makes it impossible for the aquifer to
ever refill again. In some portions of Mexico
City, subsidence has lowered the ground surface up to 28 feet (8.5 m), causing
much damage. Irrigation can also lead to
the accumulation of salt in the soil, which eventually creates a permanent
wasteland. In the cradle of
civilization, the once thriving Tigris Euphrates floodplain is now “a
glistening desert of salt.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Earth resources have played a starring role in world history. They enable the rise of civilizations, and
their limited eras of prosperity. It’s
no coincidence that the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, because they
had abundant deposits of coal, iron, and limestone in convenient locations. The U.S. skyrocketed into a global superpower
by exploiting huge deposits of a wide variety of Earth resources. In World War II, Japan was short on iron,
coal, and oil. Hitler invaded southern
Russia in an effort to seize the huge Baku oilfields.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In coming years, as fossil fuel fades out, agriculture will once
again be muscle powered and low tech (if the climate crisis allows crop production
to continue). Industrial scale food processing
and distribution will fizzle. Potent synthetic
fertilizers and other agrichemicals will no longer be available. As harvests decline, population growth will
shift into reverse. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Finally, a few footnotes.
<em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">GeoDestinies</span></em>
was written on a tiny digital typewriter that allowed files to be saved on a
floppy disk. As Walt typed, the display
presented a single line of text. He
never owned a computer, and never had direct access to the internet or email. He had no spare time. Finishing this manuscript was job one.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">I gave him prints of interesting online stuff, and copies of
my book reviews, including Brian Fagan’s <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-great-warming.html">The
Great Warming</a>, and <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-little-ice-age.html">The
Little Ice Age</a>. The Fagan reviews
reinforced his belief that climate always changed. Back in 2012, the notion that human-caused
emissions were disrupting the climate was still controversial in the mainstream
mindset.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In his 96 years, Walt witnessed remarkable changes in the
American standard of living. These were
only possible because of our maniacal binge of energy guzzling. Modernity’s high standard of living, and
fabulous healthcare was awesome. But the
long term environmental impact of these short term benefits was huge.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">He lacked some sympathy for environmentalists who opposed
energy development projects in America, whilst they were enjoying a comfortable
consumer lifestyle. High impact projects
were often diverted to poor nations that had few regulations, if any. In 2012, Walt was not fully aware of the
serious long term hazards of nuclear energy, and the lack of permanent storage
for high level radioactive wastes. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Walt was especially horrified by exponential population
growth. In his lifetime, the human mob
skyrocketed from 1.9 billion to 7.6 billion.
He was deeply disappointed that overpopulation was a taboo subject for
secular and spiritual leaders. Large
numbers of immigrants to the U.S. came from cultures where large families are
the norm. Their dream was to live a
maximum impact consumer lifestyle.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Youngquist’s book pulls away cultural blindfolds, and
provides a mind-expanding full immersion baptism in the actual facts of life. “The confluence of factors soon at hand may
make this century the most turbulent in human history. There will be adjustment of population
size. There will be a new energy
paradigm. There will be lifestyle
change. There will be great economic
change. There will be environmental
change. Although change has always been
the order of life, the particular confluence of major factors in each of these
areas will make the twenty-first century a fundamental turning point for
mankind.”<o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p class="BlogText">Walt completed the manuscript of the second edition in
2012. Since then, he wrote four papers
for the Negative Population Growth Forum.
<a href="https://npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/OUR-PLUNDERED-PLANET-2014.pdf">Our
Plundered Planet</a> (2014), <a href="https://npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-Geomoment-Forum-Paperrev070715.pdf">A
Geomoment of Affluence</a> (2015), <a href="https://npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Scale-of-Things-2016.pdf">The
Scale of Things</a> (2016), <a href="https://npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/2016_Framework-of-the-FutureFP.pdf">Framework
of the Future</a> (2016). <o:p></o:p></p><p><br /></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-71820997124309944642022-04-14T14:49:00.000-07:002022-04-14T14:49:01.009-07:00The Passenger Pigeon<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAZvdVezOcocpuv7YzKLotyJp4K5QQXk-xa2-tapl8wpOrMnMbDbzfXG1n_y1XHlhFmEp5uzCRbS23DWybXsV0SuS3ab6saqHyyvlg-vUWyiBo063zS02KiNHGbXExv05LQacKTkJkg-tFBARtuO7_gsAmjRyMco0-OaPiIu_0y6_9u-4ve2FI4x5lEg/s371/Passenger%20Pigeon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="230" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAZvdVezOcocpuv7YzKLotyJp4K5QQXk-xa2-tapl8wpOrMnMbDbzfXG1n_y1XHlhFmEp5uzCRbS23DWybXsV0SuS3ab6saqHyyvlg-vUWyiBo063zS02KiNHGbXExv05LQacKTkJkg-tFBARtuO7_gsAmjRyMco0-OaPiIu_0y6_9u-4ve2FI4x5lEg/s320/Passenger%20Pigeon.png" width="198" /></a></div><div><br /></div><p class="BlogText">Once upon a time, North America was home to an estimated five
to eight billion passenger pigeons. They
may have been the most numerous bird species in the world. My father was in diapers when the last one
died in 1914. I was born in Michigan, where
immense flocks had once thrived, prior to the invasion of farmers and loggers
in the early 1800s. Today, our culture
has largely forgotten the saga of the passenger pigeons. We still remember the war on bison, which is somehow
seen as more heroic and dignified.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Lately, some genetic engineers have been talking about
resurrecting the extinct birds. Huh? Would that make any sense? Their natural habitat is long gone, and their
return would not be appreciated by farmers, airline pilots, and many others. Curiosity forced me to read two pigeon
books. It was an illuminating and
disturbing experience. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">A. W. Schorger (1884-1972) wrote <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The Passenger Pigeon</span></em>, which especially
impressed me, because he was totally obsessed with this subject. He devoted 15 years to research, exploring
over ten thousand sources — books, journal articles, newspaper clippings. He actively sought informants, and corresponded
with many old-timers who had been near the front lines in the war on birds. Passenger pigeons inhabited the eastern U.S.,
and southeastern Canada. Wikipedia
provides a good overview, and a map of their habitat [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon">HERE</a>]. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Their primary source of food was <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-style: normal;">mast</span></em> — nuts, seeds, berries,
and fruit produced by trees and woody brush.
The two most important foods were acorns and beechnuts. Acorns were swallowed whole, and up to 17
could be stored in the bird’s crop. By
morning, they would be digested. When
winter grew old and tired, flocks migrated northward, as the retreating snow
exposed a buried treasure of yummy nuts.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Pigeons also raided farms.
In the early days, at planting time, seeds were broadcast by hand
(tossed on the ground surface). Then,
hungry flocks would zoom in and eagerly devour them all. They loved corn and wheat, but buckwheat was
their favorite. Farmers sometimes burned
thousands of acres of trees to discourage flocks from roosting close to their
fields. Later, they switched to sowing devices
that covered the seeds with soil.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flocks did not visit the same areas annually, because oak and
beech forests did not reliably produce nuts year after year. Birds might not return to the same place for
11 years. Nut trees were smart. By being unpredictable, hungry flocks could
not become permanent parasites. This
enabled enough nuts to germinate, sprout, and maintain the survival of the
species. For pigeon flocks, life was a
never ending search for free lunches. They
followed their stomachs to delicious locations.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Observers calculated that enormous flocks zoomed across the
sky at about 60 miles per hour (96 km/h).
They constantly scanned the land they flew over, in search of nourishing
treasures. Flocks were most vulnerable
when on the ground, where they were prey for predators like wolves, foxes,
lynxes, cougars, raccoons, and humans. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">They were far safer when perched in trees, or flying. Airborne predators included eagles, hawks,
and vultures. A solitary pigeon would
have been an easy lunch. It was much
safer to fly within a fast moving mob of a million friends. Large flocks were not one solid mass, they separated
into multiple tiers of birds, layers maybe spaced a foot apart (30 cm). At high speed, these densely packed clusters moved
fluidly in unison — swerving, diving, soaring, and bending. This made predation difficult.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Large flocks of birds required large amounts of food, so they
had to keep moving. Nights were spent safely
roosting in trees. In the morning, smaller
groups scattered across the land to forage.
They might travel 100 miles (160 km) before returning to roost for the
night. If one group discovered a
location that contained abundant food, the larger flock would somehow learn
this, and join the feast. When a banquet
concluded, the flock took wing and searched for a new place to roost for a
while. Passenger pigeons were nomads, no
permanent address.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In Kentucky, observers described a huge roosting site 40
miles (64 km) long, and 3 miles wide. When
large flocks roosted, birds covered every limb, sometimes several layers deep,
standing on the backs of others. Their
weight snapped off large limbs. Sometimes
entire trees fell over. Some forests
looked like a tornado had passed through — thousands of acres of dead trees.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Descriptions of migrating flocks, in unbelievable numbers,
strain the imagination. But millions of
people saw them. Flocks often stretched
as far as the eye could see, from horizon to horizon. They might block out the sun for several
days. People could hear the approach of flock
that was still 4 miles (6.4 km) away. The
sound of a million wings was deafening, “like the roar of distant thunder.” John James Audubon, naturalist and artist, calculated
that one flock had more than a billion birds.
Someone else watched a flock in Kentucky that sped across the sky for 14
hours. It was a mile wide and more than
300 miles (483 km) long. The flock
continued on the following day. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Roosting</span></em>
sites were inhabited until food in an area became scarce, then the flock moved
on. <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Nesting</span></em>
sites required a longer stay, so they were located where food resources were
especially abundant. They were close to
water, sheltered from the wind, and often on islands. A vital process was performed at nesting
sites, reproduction. Nests were built in
trees, eggs laid, and squabs (chicks) hatched.
Flocks nested at least once a year, and most observers reported that
just one egg was laid per nest. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Nesting sites varied in size, but large colonies were
typical. There was safety in
numbers. Pigeon cities could have a
hundred million birds or more. They
might inhabit an area ten miles long and three miles wide (16 by 4.8 km). Tree limbs were crowded with nests. If a winter storm blew in, or if hunters began
shooting, the entire colony might suddenly abandon their nests and squabs. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Nesting was synchronized.
Colonies gathered and nests were built.
Almost all of the eggs were laid on about the same day. Parents took turns keeping the squabs warm
under wing, while the other parent brought back food. Squabs grew rapidly, remaining in the nest
for 13 to 15 days. At this point,
parents brought squabs their last meal, and then departed from the nesting area
in a great mass. It was up to the squabs
to learn how to fly. They were fairly
helpless, and predators were happy to eat them.
Their bodies were loaded with fat.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Native Americans were grateful for the pigeons. They caught birds with nets. Nesting sites were primary locations for
getting birds. They used poles to knock
squabs from their nests. Nesting trees
were sometimes cut down to access the numerous squabs. Tribes collected the fat from squabs, stored
it, and used it like butter. Pigeons
played starring roles in tribal myths and legends. There were taboos against prematurely disturbing
nesting sites, and scaring away the adults before the young had hatched. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Early explorers (1534) reported large passenger pigeon
populations. They were the most common
birds on Manhattan Island in the 1620s.
In the 1800s, the tide changed. Settlers
were encouraged to conquer and demolish the wild frontier. In 1849, free land was given to folks who
drained wetlands (prime nesting habitat).
New telegraph systems enabled social networking, announcing the location
of nesting sites. New railroads enabled
industrial scale pigeon hunting.
Millions of birds could be quickly shipped from rural areas to big
cities. Sometimes tons of squabs were
dumped in the river due to spoilage. Unsold
birds were fed to pigs.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Hunters used ducking guns with six foot barrels, double
barrel shotguns, and large blunderbusses. A single shot might kill 132. A Wisconsin hunter shot 1,458 birds in one
day. Lads skilled with nets could
capture up to 6,000 birds per day. Many
birds were killed for their feathers alone, which were used for bedding. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">By the 1870s, bird numbers were obviously declining. Some folks suggested conservation efforts,
but few really gave a <bleep>. Money
makes civilized people crazy, and an ambitious lad could make big money selling
squabs for 30¢ a dozen. The last wild
flocks were gone by 1889. They had been
massacred far faster than they could reproduce.
Schorger sighed, “Persecution was unremitting until the last wild bird
disappeared.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Over and over again, natural history teaches us that genetic
evolution works slowly and beautifully. When
the species in an ecosystem coevolve over the course of thousands of years, the
journey is far more likely to develop a sense of balance and harmony. Over and over again, reality teaches us that a
society obsessed with wealth and status is a fast path to a dead end. Why don’t schools teach this? How can we see where we’re going if we don’t
know where we’ve been?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Schorger, Arlie William, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The
Passenger Pigeon</span></em>, 1955, Reprint, University of Oklahoma Press,
Norman, 1973.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Greenberg, Joel, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">A
Feathered River Across the Sky</span></em>, Bloomsbury, New York, 2014. <o:p></o:p></p><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-56287716415463768262022-03-31T13:08:00.000-07:002022-03-31T13:08:40.810-07:00Under a White Sky<p> </p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNx2BmQZJ7-z8_mpdXNiVQgtQ3Mw5P-QzIfTwv6SXrRxcHpeaLhjdp9DLZW8quGex3HAObnBV2NczzIMVYsyButSn2bdyGBGHSTiJ5fRsAxg0xpPD0AdurQXqsFL1BP82nObtGF88nFKlTOdjWgsnj7i6oKrVYL-_PjFQ0RoWpvjcHL3RNXplDhqjmLg/s385/White%20Sky.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNx2BmQZJ7-z8_mpdXNiVQgtQ3Mw5P-QzIfTwv6SXrRxcHpeaLhjdp9DLZW8quGex3HAObnBV2NczzIMVYsyButSn2bdyGBGHSTiJ5fRsAxg0xpPD0AdurQXqsFL1BP82nObtGF88nFKlTOdjWgsnj7i6oKrVYL-_PjFQ0RoWpvjcHL3RNXplDhqjmLg/s320/White%20Sky.png" width="213" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal">Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the Pulitzer Award winning <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-sixth-extinction.html">The
Sixth Extinction</a>, has written a potent new book, <em><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Under a White Sky</span></em>. She sums it up as “a book about people trying
to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems.” So much of what we do echoes the plot of the <a name="_Toc98745666">Sorcerer’s Apprentice folktale</a> — vivid imaginations, half-baked
cleverness, dangerous overconfidence, and zero foresight result in frightening unintended
consequences. Kolbert puts on a
journalist uniform, and visits the wizards on the cutting edge of ingenious
technology. She presented eight
scenarios of human hubris. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Two are about climate change. The title, “Under a White Sky,” is a
reference to her discussion of SRM. Solar
Radiation Management is what is usually meant by “geoengineering.” The goal of SRM visionaries is to reduce the
rate of atmospheric warming by bouncing away a significant portion of the
incoming solar radiation. To do this,
they envision dumping a million tons of highly reflective particles into the
stratosphere each year — 40,000 planeloads of sulfur dioxide, calcium
carbonate, or something. Some fear that
SRM would turn the blue skies white. What
could possibly go wrong? I need to put
this in context.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Petroleum geologist Walter Younquist noted that in less than
500 years, we’re going to burn up the oil, gas, and coal that took more than
500 million years to create. It took 109
years to consume the first 200 billion barrels of oil, ten years for the second
200 billion, and six and a half years for the third. Of all the oil ever consumed, 90 percent has
been used since 1958. We’re taking a
high speed one-way joyride into the deep unknown, with no brakes, and no
understanding.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/05/life-after-fossil-fuels.html">Alice
Friedemann</a> explained why life as we know it would be impossible without
fossil energy. Many core processes cannot
be run on electric power — trucking, shipping, air travel, manufacturing, agriculture,
mining, and so on. Wind turbines, solar
panels, and high capacity storage batteries have limited working lifespans, and
making them requires high impact processes and materials. They are “re-buildable,” not “renewable.” The current electric grids of the world were
not designed to reliably function on intermittent inflows of energy. So, the global transition to happy “green” energy
would be a monumental undertaking.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The atmosphere is already overloaded with greenhouse gases,
and we constantly add more. This leads
to a perpetual downward spiral. As the
gases accumulate, the atmosphere retains more heat, shiny white ice sheets keep
melting, so less incoming solar heat is reflected away, so the atmosphere gets
warmer, so more ice melts…, etc. Vast
regions of permafrost are beginning to thaw, allowing ancient organic material
to decompose, and emit methane. Vast
undersea deposits of frozen methane hydrates are beginning to melt, sending even
more methane into the atmosphere. Consequently,
this is why the planet’s formerly tolerable climate is shape-shifting into a furious
city-smashing movie monster. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s important to understand that the carbon released into
the atmosphere does not quickly dissipate, it accumulates. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill wrote,
“Some proportion, perhaps as much as a quarter, of the roughly 300 billion tons
of carbon released to the atmosphere between 1945 and 2015 will remain aloft
for a few <i>hundred thousand</i> years.”
If all of humankind camped on Mars for 50 years, the warming cycle on
Earth would not promptly stop. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not everyone is an enthusiastic fan of SRM. As the planet continues warming, more flights
will be needed to release more tonnage of reflective particles. What goes up, must come down. Could falling dust harm our lungs? If sulfur dioxide particles were used, this
could damage the ozone layer, and add sulfuric acid to the rain. The bottom line is that SRM does not
eliminate the primary cause of climate change — massive ongoing emissions of
carbon compounds.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kolbert also discussed a theoretical solution to the climate
crisis. She visited the brave new world
of Direct Air Capture (DAC). It involves
extracting the carbon from the atmosphere, and injecting it deep underground at
locations with ideal geology, where it would mineralize into calcium carbonate,
and harmlessly stay there forever. One
plan involved building 100 million trailer sized DAC units around the
world. It sounds like a miracle, the
answer to our prayers. We can save the
world and keep living like lunatics too!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In another scenario, she discussed Chicago’s heroic war on
Asian carp. The city is a ghastly
disaster area that generates enormous amounts of sewage, garbage, pollution,
and toxic waste. Years ago, the Chicago
River was used to conveniently move lots of crud into Lake Michigan, where it
would be out of sight, out of mind, and out of nose. Eventually, a few oddballs began to wonder if
this was intelligent. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Luckily, experts solved the problem by changing the course
of the flow. They began sending the
filthy dreck down the new Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which would
eventually dump it into the Mississippi River, which is far less sacred to many
Americans. Unfortunately, the river is
home to four species of Asian carp, some of which can weigh up to 100 pounds
(45 kg). In the Mississippi, when
motorboats pass by, numerous carp leap high into the air, sometimes injuring
fishermen, and knocking boaters overboard.
Waterskiing has become an especially dangerous activity.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately, Chicago’s alterations to the flow of filth was
not a flawless design. It was
theoretically possible for carp to migrate into the Great Lakes. The carp are so good at extracting plankton
that it was possible they might deplete food resources that enabled the
survival of indigenous lake fish. If
they spread throughout the Great Lakes, it would be a death sentence for sport
fish like walleye and perch. This upset
some folks. Rachel Carson opposed
poisoning the new canal, so they installed electrified underwater fences to
electrocute the carp. What were Asian
carp doing in the Mississippi? In 1964,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imported the fish to control exotic aquatic
weeds. How smart was that?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kolbert also spent time with folks engaged in genetic
engineering. The cool new CRISPR
technology enables them to make green chickens.
Other gene splicers want to resurrect the extinct passenger pigeon. My father was in diapers when the last bird
died in 1914. Some estimate that there
were once 3 to 5 billion passenger pigeons.
In 1800, they may have been the most numerous birds on Earth. The pigeons were forest animals, and their
primary food was mast — nuts and berries that grew on trees and woody
brush. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A. W. Schorger (1884-1972) wrote an outstanding book on pigeon
history. He mentioned a 1663 report from
Quebec, noting that one scattershot blast into a dense flock could kill up to
132 birds. Some migrating flocks, a mile
wide (1.6 km), and miles long, darkened the sky for up to three days. Folks could hear the roar of countless wings
before the flocks came into view. They could
fly up to 62 miles per hour (100 km/h). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Farmers hated the huge flocks that generously assisted at
harvest time. Market hunters adored them
as an easy way to make money. In 1913, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13249">William Hornaday</a> wrote, “In
1869, from the town of Hartford, Michigan, three car loads of dead pigeons were
shipped to market each day for forty days, making a total of 11,880,000 birds. It is recorded that another Michigan town marketed
15,840,000 in two years.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Should we bring the pigeons back from extinction? Forests were where they nested, where they
roosted for the night, and home to their primary food resource, nuts. While the hunters were taking a devastating
toll on the birds, others were obliterating their habitat. Loggers eagerly turned forests into gold. Farmers nuked forests to expand cropland and
pasture. Explosive population growth
converted forest ecosystems into hideous hotbeds of industrial
civilization. Greetings GMO pigeons! Welcome to our nightmare! Enjoy your resurrection!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kolbert’s book is easy to read, not too long, provides us
with a provocative look in the mirror, and encourages us to reexamine our blind
faith in unquestioned beliefs. She gave
us a pair of dueling quotes. Hippy
visionary Stewart Brand once asserted, “We are as gods and might as well get
good at it.” This annoyed biologist E. O.
Wilson, who responded, “We are not as gods.
We’re not yet sentient or intelligent enough to be much of
anything.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A one hour interview with Kolbert discussing this book is [<a href="https://youtu.be/Fo5d_LEDWSM">HERE</a>].
The message is, if you’re not pessimistic about the future, you’re not
paying attention. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Kolbert, Elizabeth, <em><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Under a White Sky: The Nature
of the Future</span></em>, Crown, New York, 2021.<o:p></o:p></p><p><br /></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-44847231082032435382022-03-06T14:52:00.003-08:002022-03-06T14:52:48.031-08:00Wild Free and Happy Sample 59<p> </p><p class="BlogText">[Note: This is the fifty-ninth sample from my rough draft of
a far from finished new book, <i>Wild, Free, & Happy</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Search field on the right side will find
words in the full contents of all rants and reviews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These samples are not freestanding
pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will be easier to
understand if you start with sample 01, and follow the sequence listed <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/04/free-brain-food.html"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">HERE</span></a> — if you
happen to have some free time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you
prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd is in the process of reading and recording my
book <a href="https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sets/richard-adrian-reese-wild-free-happy"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">HERE</span></a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">ISLANDS<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The saga of the family of life is several billion years
old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a story of evolution, from
single celled organisms to a fantastically complex and diverse collection of
living beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a story of climate
change which, for better or worse, never tires of pulling the rug out from
under eras of stability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/12/apocalyptic-planet.html">Craig
Childs</a> noted that drill cores of lake sediments in northern New Mexico
showed droughts that lasted up to ten centuries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Six thousand years ago, the Sahara Desert was
a lush grassland. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The saga is also a story of migration and colonization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All plant and animal species are sometimes nomadic,
remaining in comfortable habitats until conditions become challenging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When their home becomes harsh, the lucky ones
are able to migrate to better locations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The horse family originated in North America about 4.5 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a wonderful place to live — until hungry
humans from Eurasia arrived. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horse-in-human-history.html">Pita
Kelekna</a> noted that the last wild American horse perished in Patagonia 9,000
years ago. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The horse family remains alive and well today because, long
ago, some adventurous herds happened to wander across the land bridge to
Asia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They migrated into new regions, and
found lots of delicious places to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like
the horses, many other groups of megafauna species have colonized large
portions of the world — the elephant-like family, and the bears, cats, canines,
camels, hominins….<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They migrated from
one continent to the next by walking across dry land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of these globetrotting megafauna, only one species
has a reputation for causing numerous extinctions, and severely damaging
ecosystems.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Paul Martin was a pioneer in the study of megafauna
extinctions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Offshore islands were the
last places to be colonized by species that did not fly or swim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He noted that ground sloths were eventually
driven to extinction from Alaska to Patagonia — except on islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, on the islands of Cuba, Haiti,
and Puerto Rico, ground sloths survived 6,000 years longer than on the continental
mainland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mainland and islands had the same climate.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The critical variable was human
presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When watercraft technology enabled
hunters to visit islands, the sloths were finally doomed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">After reading a pile of books and papers, I was convinced
that climate change was not the primary cause for many of the extinctions that
have happened since humans migrated out of Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martin wrote that the megafauna species that
went extinct had been around for a very long time, and had survived a number of
surging and fading glacial cycles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ongoing research largely supports the human impact hypothesis. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In his book <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Europe</span></em>,
Tim Flannery discussed the vast mammoth steppe of northern Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oddly, with the rise and fall of temperature
trends, warmth loving species were not more likely to vanish during periods of
frigidity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cold loving species were not
more likely to vanish when the steppe got hotter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Uncomfortable animals were inspired to
migrate to more pleasant locations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike
today, ice age climate swings happened gradually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living generations would not have been aware
of the changes.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Earlier, I mentioned that megafauna extinctions could
sometimes take a thousand years or more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Living generations were unlikely to actually notice the slow decline of
large game species in a wild frontier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
humans colonized new regions, and unintentionally encouraged extinction spasms,
the largest mammals were usually the first to blink out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were easy to find, provided lots of
meat, and had low reproduction rates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus,
human impact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A climate whammy would
have hammered critters of all shapes and sizes indiscriminately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100610061434/http:/www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/Fieldschools/Kauai/Publications/Publication%204.pdf">David
Burney</a> and Tim Flannery described a 50,000 year pattern of extinctions
corresponding with the arrival of humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/305489176">Fernando
Fernandez</a> wrote an unusually readable paper that described six significant
problems with the climate change theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283686166">Bernardo
Araujo</a> and team agreed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
concluded that if we disregarded all evidence of human impacts, nobody would be
talking about megafauna extinctions today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Over the years, Paul Martin rejected flimsy arguments that blamed
climate shifts, but by 2005, he acknowledged that the climate could have led to
a few extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big Mama Nature may
have sometimes played a direct role, and that’s OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can’t complain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She will always do whatever she wishes,
because this is her circus, and we are her clowns. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Most of the world’s woolly mammoths were extinct by 10,500
years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few lasted longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saint Paul Island is off the coast of
Alaska.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1604903113">Graham Russell</a>
and team noted that woolly mammoths survived there until about 5,600 years
ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A warming climate had elevated sea
levels, which shrank the land area of the island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The climate got dryer, and sources of fresh
water became scarce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thirsty mammoths
vanished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first evidence of human
presence on the island dates to just 230 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here, climate is clearly a primary suspect.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The last mammoths on Earth perished about 4,000 years ago on
Wrangel Island,<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span>north of Siberia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>DNA analysis suggests that the mammoths were
wrecked by a small population and inbreeding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Lately, new research has found evidence of human presence about 3,700
years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The island is huge, and has
not been thoroughly studied. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When more
is learned, this story may add a hunting chapter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stay tuned.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">I’ve been a technical writer for 35 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Accuracy is essential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the realm of prehistory, experts express
theories and factoids that are consistently inconsistent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truth can be a fairy mist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This gives me endless headaches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still can’t understand why more than a few
folks continue to believe that the primary cause of the megafauna extinctions
was climate change, not human impacts.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Today, the world is buzzing with countless conspiracy
theories that throw truth under the bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-myth-of-human-supremacy.html">Derrick
Jensen</a> wrote the book on human supremacy, and the super-spooky mind-altering
power of unquestioned beliefs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans are
the only things that matter, a living planet does not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Earth is a disposable stage prop for the heroic
stars of the show, the comically clever primates.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">From this mindset, the human colonization of Earth (a process
that has left behind a long and bloody trail of extinctions, spurred explosive
population growth, rubbished countless ecosystems, and triggered an onrushing
climate catastrophe) is seen as a wondrous achievement that should fill us with
glowing pride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have blind faith that
technology will always sweep aside every challenge on our path.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, the best is yet to come!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Was I missing something important?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My muse was nervous and perspiring
heavily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She persistently insisted that
I take a deeper look at island extinctions, and butt heads with my doubts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Wow!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been a mind-blowing
experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I now have no doubt that islands
have especially important stories to tell us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, let’s do some island hopping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Enjoy!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Pangaea
the Supercontinent<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">I sometimes look out my window and see an opossum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One day, I was fascinated to discover the
saga of the opossum people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are
marsupial mammals, and humans are placental mammals (see Google).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Opossums originated in the vicinity of
Australia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Around 335 million years ago,
most of Earth’s dry land was clumped together into an enormous supercontinent
called Pangaea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It began to break apart
around 200 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time,
chunks of it drifted all over the place, and arranged themselves into the seven
continents we know today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The plants and animals that had evolved on Pangaea continued
living on the drifting chunks, in varying assortments of species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The chunks migrated in different directions, sometimes
into different climate zones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their
plant and animal communities continued adapting and evolving, creating unique
ecosystems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Opossums had lived on chunks
that used to be connected, now called Australia, Antarctica, and South
America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a long time, South America
was far away from North America, but they eventually wandered close together,
and opossums boogied north across the border, and into my future back yard.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Until this morning, I believed that humans were the only
species associated with mass extinctions, but I was wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A wise woman has now informed me that, three
million years ago, when North and South America finally kissed at Panama, North
American carnivores charged southward, and exterminated numerous marsupial
species.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Anyway, the gradual breakup of Pangaea was rough and
messy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Offshore from the large land
masses were smaller chunks that had broken away from the edges — islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many islands were created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, Madagascar broke away from India
maybe 100 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>East of
Madagascar is Mauritius, a different type of island, created by volcanic
activity (like Hawaii was).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Channel
Islands<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Offshore from Santa Barbara, California are the five Channel
Islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Around 20,000 years ago, when
sea levels were 300 feet (91 m) lower than today, the five islands were united
in one larger island that was just 6 miles (10 km) from the coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time, rising seas altered the coastlines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, the islands are 22 miles from the
coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About 80 percent of their former
dry land area is now submerged.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Among the former residents were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_mammoth">pygmy mammoths</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their ancestors were the huge Columbian
mammoths that lived on the mainland, some of whom decided to swim several miles
to the islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Swim?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
when sea levels were low, there was no land bridge from the mainland to the
islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Asian elephants have been known
to swim to islands 23 miles (37 km) away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their large bodies are buoyant, and their trunks can be used like
snorkels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you know that hippos in
the Old World have also been excellent long distance swimmers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No joke!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Anyway, over the passage of thousands of years on the Channel
Islands, the mammoths evolved into dwarfs, a unique new species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe this was an adaptation to limited
resources.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, maybe it was a lack of
predators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jumbo size improves the odds
for survival when bloodthirsty carnivores live nearby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when predators are not good swimmers, and
live far away, there is less need to be huge and powerful.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Radiocarbon dating is accurate up to 50,000 years ago, and mammoths
were on the islands for at least that long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Humans arrived on the islands around 13,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mammoths went extinct between 13,000 and
12,900 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coincidence?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_mammoth">Wikipedia</a> reports that mammoths
still lived on the islands when humans arrived. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two mammoth skulls with the brains removed were
found near a fire pit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the 100 fire
pits examined, at least a third contained mammoth bones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Climate pleads innocent. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Mediterranean
<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2007.01819.x">Jacques
Blondel</a> was interested in habitat destruction on the Mediterranean islands during
the last 10,000 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Population
pressure on the mainland encouraged folks to colonize the larger islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forests were pushed back to create cropland
and pasture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans deliberately
introduced livestock, and unintentionally released pests, like rats and mice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Long, long ago, isolation from the mainland led several species
of large animals to become dwarfs on multiple Mediterranean islands. There were
pygmy hippos and deer, and at least 12 species of pygmy elephants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The smallest elephants were 39 inches (1 m)
tall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The scarcity of predators also led
to the evolution of giant rodents and flightless owls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Blondel wasn’t sure if the pygmies were primarily eliminated
by hunting, or by feral pigs introduced from the mainland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either way, this was not a climate bummer, it
was a human impact bummer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bottom line: probably
all of the wild mammal species that originally inhabited the Mediterranean
islands were eventually driven extinct following human colonization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://savegiglio.org/pdf/masseti-mammals-mediterranean-islands-biodiversity.pdf">Marco
Masseti</a> was fascinated by the mammals of the Mediterranean islands, and his
report is long, exceedingly thorough, and includes cool maps and illustrations.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Mediterranean basin, several thousand
years of civilization have been fantastically successful at rubbishing the
ecosystem, taking a heavy toll on biodiversity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many islands were once vast jungles of oak trees, now<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span>reduced to “little more than mineral skeletons.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be the most heavily destroyed region
on Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The old theory was that when sea levels were low, large
mammals simply walked across dry land to what are now islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When sea levels rose, and islands became cut
off, the isolated large mammals became dwarfs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Experts now say that the land bridges never existed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Islands were only accessible by swimming,
rafting, or flying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rising sea levels
increased the difficulty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deer are
capable swimmers, and hippos and elephants are champions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Birds and bats can go where they wish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Masseti concluded that human impacts were the
primary cause of Mediterranean island extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, climate pleads innocent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Caribbean<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">There have been two recent studies of extinctions on islands
of the West Indies, in the Caribbean Sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The 2017 paper was written by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110316-022754">Siobhán B. Cooke</a>
and team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On multiple islands, it
compared the dates of human arrival with the extinction dates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It found that humans arrived on the islands
in four waves. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first three were
Amerindian hunter-gatherers, and the fourth was Europeans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each wave generated increased eco-impacts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Access to the full paper is not free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Luckily, <a href="https://www.livescience.com/60870-caribbean-lost-world-ancient-mammals.html">Mindy
Weisberger</a> wrote a news release that summarized the study, and is free to
one and all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prior to human
colonization, there were 150 species of mammals on the islands, including sloths,
giant monkeys, bats, and jumbo rats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans
colonized the Caribbean basin mainland by 12,000 years ago, but they didn’t
begin colonizing the islands until 6,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By this time the climate was stable, well into
the Holocene warm era.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the
extinctions on all of the islands happened after human arrival, not before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Early in the game, hunting was probably the cause of
extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then came forest clearance
and agriculture, which eliminated wildlife habitat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Destruction accelerated 500 years ago, when
Europeans arrived, bringing invasive exotics like cats, rats, goats, and
mongooses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indigenous rodent species got
hammered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not a climate story,
it’s another human impact tragedy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 2021, a second paper was published, written by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2905">Samuel Turvey</a> and team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s online and free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This paper tracked the data on 89 species on
118 Caribbean islands, and explored the pattern of extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of these species were still alive at the
start of the Holocene warm era, which began 11,700 years ago, and has not
cooled off yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conclusion: “Hunting,
landscape transformation, and invasive mammal introduction by successive waves
of colonists following human arrival approximately 6000 years ago are
considered the primary drivers of Caribbean mammal loss.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Larger animals had low reproduction rates, and small
populations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were at the highest
risk of being driven to extinction by the growing human population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The smallest animals were hard hit by the introduction
of invasive predators, like black rats and mongooses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their extinction dates correspond to the
arrival of these predators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again,
climate pleads innocent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">New
Zealand<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The islands of New Zealand were the last large landmass
colonized by humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Polynesian settlers
began arriving somewhere between A.D. 1280 and 1350.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time, almost half of New Zealand’s
original vertebrate species went extinct, including 51 species of birds. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://beta.capeia.com/paleobiology/2017/09/22/the-late-survival-of-madagascars-megafauna">Alexandra
van der Geer</a> wrote that nine species of huge flightless moas vanished in
less than a century, zapped by hunting and habitat destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Moas shared the trait of gigantism with other flightless
birds, like the ostriches of Australia, and the elephant birds of Madagascar. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the extremely distant past, the moas lived
elsewhere, and still had wings that enabled flight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they landed in New Zealand, maybe 60
million years ago, they were delighted to discover that there were no large
ground dwelling predators eager to eat them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The only mammals on the islands were bats and seals, and they weren’t
interested in moas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Until this morning, I believed that the gigantism of
flightless island birds was solely due to little or no predator risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today I learned that there was another
factor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isolated islands had no large
herbivores that feasted on the greenery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, birds that could digest the greenery lived in a heavenly
all-you-can-eat buffet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were free
to grow to jumbo proportions, in a normal and healthy way.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flying is an energy-guzzling way for an animal to explore the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you live in a place where
there is plenty to eat, and little or no risk of getting killed by ground-dwelling
predators, then you might have little or no need for wings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time, evolution completely eliminated
the tiny useless wing bones of the moas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The largest moas stood 12 feet (3.6 m) tall, and weighed 510
pounds (230 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many collections of moa
bones have been found, some containing the remains of up to 90,000 birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evidence suggests that a third of the meat
was tossed away to rot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously, the
birds were super-abundant and super-easy to kill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously, the hunters (like modern folks) did
not comprehend the vital importance of mindfully respecting limits.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Moas were the primary food source for the Haast’s eagle, the
largest eagle that ever lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They weighed
up to 33 pounds (15 kg), and their wingspan was over 8 feet (2.6 m).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not long after the moas were hunted to
extinction, the eagles lost their meal ticket and vanished forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Polynesian settlers also brought with them domesticated food
plants, which required cleared land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Originally, 80 percent of New Zealand was forest. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, forest covers only 23 percent of the
land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along with the trees, many forest
dwelling birds also got wiped out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Europeans stumbled upon the islands in 1642, and substantially
accelerated the eco-destruction. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Folks who colonized islands sometimes brought with them rats,
mice, dogs, ferrets, pigs, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/12/megafauna-review.html">Baz
Edmeades</a> noted that exotic rodents exploded in number, and drove many
island birds to extinction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their chicks
and eggs were no longer safe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rodents
wiped out frogs, flightless songbirds, ground-dwelling bats, and large insects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, climate pleads innocent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Madagascar<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://beta.capeia.com/paleobiology/2017/09/22/the-late-survival-of-madagascars-megafauna">Alexandra
van der Geer</a> described the ecological history of Madagascar, the world’s
fourth largest island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s located in
the Indian Ocean, 250 miles (400 km) east of the African mainland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Isolated from the outer world for maybe 100
million years, it was home to a unique collection of tropical fauna (see the
illustrations in her report).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Several types of exotic mammals mysteriously began arriving
on the island around 60 million years ago, maybe rafting in via ocean currents
— lemurs, tenrecs, fossas, and Malagasy mice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>More recently, just one or two million years ago, hippos arrived, and
eventually shrank to one fourth the size of mainland hippos.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Lemurs evolved into 17 varieties, including giant sloth
lemurs that could grow to the size of male gorillas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The island was also home to the elephant
bird, the heaviest bird in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was flightless, weighed up to a half ton, and stood 10 feet (3 m) tall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their eggs could weigh 22 pounds (10 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the European colonizers arrived in the
1600s, elephant bird eggshells still littered the beaches of the island’s southern
coasts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conclusion: “The combined
evidence suggests that all mammalian species heavier than 10 kg (22 lbs) gradually
disappeared forever from Madagascar’s fauna list.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Baz Edmeades wrote that Indonesian seafarers first visited Madagascar
sometime between A.D. 670 and 920.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
the end of the fourteenth century, many mammals, birds, and reptiles were
gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-sixth-extinction.html">Elizabeth
Kolbert</a> wrote that the lemurs, elephant birds, and pygmy hippos survived
into the Middle Ages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of them
blinked out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She noted that the
extinction spasms in North America, South America, Madagascar, New Zealand, and
elsewhere occurred in a series of pulses, each of which corresponded to the
arrival of human colonists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of the
pulses seem to correspond with unusual climate events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, climate pleads innocent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Mauritius<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Mauritius is a tropical island, east of Madagascar, in the
Indian Ocean, about 1,200 miles (2,000 km) from the African<span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">
</span>coast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is one of the four
Mascarene Islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were created by
volcanic activity about eight million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of its long isolation, Mauritius was inhabited
by an amazing assortment of unique species, including many flightless birds and
large reptiles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">It was home to the famous flightless dodos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dodo lineage was more than 23 million
years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, they were originally from
somewhere else, and arrived in Mauritius by flying there, back when they still
had functional wings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having no natural
enemies, dodos enjoyed a wonderful life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For this reason, evolution long ago reduced the dodo’s wings to tiny
useless stubs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dodos were unable to fly
or swim, but they did enjoy being alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They could grow up to 39 inches (1 m) tall, and weigh up to 37 pounds
(17 kg). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When the Portuguese visited in 1507, there were zero ground
dwelling mammal species on the island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The only mammals were fruit bats and marine animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1598, Dutch sailors were the first to
describe the existence of dodos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Dutch East India Company used Mauritius as a service station for trade
vessels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last mention of dodos was
in 1662.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">There used to be at least ten species of flightless birds on
the island, all are now extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans
imported dogs, pigs, macaques, cats, and rats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some think the imports may have killed more dodos than humans did, by
raiding their nests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also the
matter of habitat destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
humans arrived, the island was entirely forested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dodos were forest birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, just two percent of the forest
remains. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, climate pleads innocent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">There is an old saying that rude folks use to insult others,
calling them “dumb as a dodo.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans
could simply walk up to a happy dodo and club it to death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dodos weren’t dumb, they were fearless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had no concept of predators or
danger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To them, humans were mysterious
funny-looking weird-smelling space aliens.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Eight
Billion Fearless Dodos <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Paul Martin focused much attention on the megafauna
extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were an ongoing process
that began in Africa more than two million years ago, then Australia, then
Eurasia, and then the Americas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Human
pioneers migrated from continent to continent by walking (except for the soggy trip
to Australia).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fifteen thousand years
ago, before the ice age softened, critters could theoretically walk north from
South Africa, through Eurasia, cross the land bridge to America, and go south
to Chile.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In these large interconnected continental landmasses, there
were many species of carnivorous animals, of every size and shape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They regularly enjoyed having lunch dates
with delicious prey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The endless bloody
dance of predator and prey could lead to evolution and/or extinction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As discussed earlier, genetic evolution was something like a
nonstop escalating arms race, encouraging animals to become smarter, larger,
stronger, faster, and/or harder to find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In this process, prey gradually got better (but not too good) at escape,
and predators gradually got better (but not too good) at capture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In continental ecosystems, the existence of these
predators would have made it impossible for flightless moas, elephant birds, or
dodos to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Islands provided a far
safer refuge, allowing lucky critters to enjoy a wonderful life to the fullest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Genetic
evolution</span></em> was an exceedingly slow balancing act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For savannah elephants to evolve into tundra-adapted
woolly mammoths took many thousands of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But for furless tropical primates to adapt to a frosty life in snow country
required a different, turbulent, and high speed process called <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">cultural evolution</span></em>,
which bypassed the limits set by genes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was driven by cleverness and technological innovation — campfires, shelters,
sewn clothing, food storage, deadly weaponry, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Cultural evolution, in countless ways, enabled folks to quickly
pound the crap out of an ecosystem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Using a short spear, a single Mbuti pygmy could kill a full grown
elephant 20 times larger than the hunter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With this clever new killing technology, the elephant’s great size and
thick hide suddenly lost all of its defensive benefits, and became a serious handicap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The improvements provided by millions of
years of genetic evolution were tossed out the window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No more safety nets.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">A number of isolated islands were remarkably different from
continental mainland ecosystems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of
them existed for millions and millions of years without humans, spears, manmade
fire, religion, industry, money, cell phones, plastic garbage, and
eco-catastrophes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine that!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Island critters did not have to live in a state of high
alert, in constant fear of life-threatening surprise visits from lions and
tigers and bears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Island birds could
grow huge, and eventually lose their wings, because flying had no useful
purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On islands, there were no two
ton elephants with thick hides and huge tusks, because elephants were perfectly
safe — no sabertooths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were free to
slim down to pygmy size, so they could dance with ecstatic enthusiasm.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">It is very IMPORTANT to understand that the long term journey
of existence for ALL species is guided by <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">genetic
evolution</span></em>, but just ONE genus (Homo) has seriously fooled around
with <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">cultural
evolution</span></em>, which has become the curse of our existence.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Humans share 98.8 percent of our DNA with chimps, charming
beings that have not been bedeviled by the juju of cleverness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have lived in the same place, in the
same way, for maybe a million years or more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They haven’t trashed it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has never
occurred to them to cleverly obliterate their home and future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you imagine living in a manner that could
glide along for a million years?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Like all wild nonhumans, chimps have a way of life that
remains within the limits defined by genetic evolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, they continue to live in
their ancient, time-proven traditional manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Chimps have not forgotten how to be chimps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The difference between humans and wild
nonhumans is that cultural evolution has enabled us to bypass the limits set by
genetic evolution, and become control freaks and loose cannons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/01/wolf-children-and-feral-man.html">Singh
and Zingg</a> wrote a fascinating book about feral children — kids who had no
language, no tools, no fire, no self-awareness, no directed thinking, no sin,
no guilt, no greed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only thing they
wanted was freedom.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Cultural evolution was born long ago, maybe ignited by the
fire-making Erectus, or another early ancestor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If they had never domesticated fire, and discovered many clever ways of
exploiting its power, our ancestors may have remained something like ordinary
animals — brown skinned, wild, free, and happy tropical primates. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Snow country might still be home to mammoths, sabertooths,
dire wolves, short-faced bears, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Neanderthals were also addicted to cultural evolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So is humankind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can start fires, use projectile weapons,
drive species extinct, travel at high speeds, live underwater, fly around the
world, survive in polar bear country, and spend our lives entranced by glowing
screens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Discovering new tricks can be thrilling — using rocks to
crack nuts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wow!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The discovery of fire making was mind
blowing!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It blasted our ancestors
outside the community of ordinary animals, into a dangerously unstable realm of
existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cleverness snowballs over
time, at an accelerating pace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It never sleeps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day, countless new gizmos and ideas pour
into the world, like a devastating flash flood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>None are clean, green, and renewable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">With the emergence of plant and animal domestication, our
ability to control, exploit, and rubbish ecosystems soared to astonishing new
heights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More and more people got better
and better at living too hard and busting up everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forests were cleared to make space for
fields, pastures, cities, civilizations, freeways, landfills, and barren wastelands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This large scale destruction was turbocharged
by explosive surges in cultural evolution. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">To varying degrees, every human society is addicted to clever
tricks inspired by cultural evolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Indigenous</span></em> cultures
were rooted in a specific region, which set firm limits on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smart groups paid close attention to reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they did not live mindfully, they were on
a slippery path. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Nomadic</span></em> cultures were
free to pack up and move.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While passing
through a region, they might unintentionally damage an ecosystem without
knowing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Consumer</span></em> cultures, like the one I live
in, have no foresight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We live like
there’s no tomorrow. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Low impact does not mean no impact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The humans that colonized the mainland
regions of the Caribbean basin 12,000 years ago, were what we would consider to
be extremely low-tech hunter-gatherers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, what happened to the giant ground sloths, huge rodents, and jumbo
monkeys?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They disappeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, 6,000 years later, humans colonized the
offshore islands, and another extinction spasm commenced. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Sadly, low impact does not always mean safe and secure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back country wild folks with bows and arrows
are not going to have a pleasant future when the folks with guns and diseases
discover them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the painful words of
an old proverb, cultures have no right to what they cannot defend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ancient Story of Ahikar says it more
elegantly, “Oh my son!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Withstand not a
man in the days of his power, nor a river in the days of its flood.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Unfortunately, the serpent in the Garden of Eden encouraged
the first couple to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By doing so, “your eyes shall be opened, and
ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The disobedient duo was immediately hurled out of paradise, and
condemned to spend the rest of their days tilling the soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bye-bye! <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Unfortunately, our blind leap into hardcore cleverness also
inspired the development of mining, smelting, axes, plows, swords, spears, automobiles,
aircraft, toxic pollution, nuclear fission, and on and on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have become techno-kamikazes, skilled at
using turbocharged cultural evolution to blindly zoom down a dead-end road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">I am an American consumer, and it’s extremely painful to
contemplate the enormous amount of stuff I’ve discarded during my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was simply living as Americans are expected
to live (like spoiled two year olds).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other
cultures are far less clever, and far less destructive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No culture is cleverness free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None live with the sustainable simplicity of
chimps and bonobos.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In earlier chapters, I’ve mentioned many low impact
cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be great if the vast human
herd could sharply downsize and return to far lighter lifestyles — deliberately,
wisely, and this afternoon (or sooner).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That would blindside life as we know it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The herd is still growing explosively, and we’re zooming toward energy
limits, water limits, and soil limits, while the rapidly warming climate is preparing
to serve us exactly what our blindfolded cleverness has ordered.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Wild humans had no wings, and could not fly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, most islands remained healthy and
safe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, clever innovation
eventually inspired the development of technology for travelling by water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dodos were doomed!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fearless flightless birds also vanished on
Tonga, New Caledonia, Fiji, Hawaii, Easter Island, the Marquesas, and on and
on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Island by island, the good old days
disappeared in the rearview mirror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Like dodos, mainstream humankind is also fearless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of us are a bit aware of a few
uncomfortable changes in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the preceding chapters, I mentioned the existence of swarms of growing
abnormalities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody comprehends them
all, including me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The future is sure to
be full of exciting surprises. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The notion that our ancestors unintentionally encouraged extinction
surges is uncomfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the
planet’s sixth mass extinction catastrophe is not slowing down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect that blaming climate change might
be an effort to defend our reputation, and conceal embarrassing secrets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can act like children who don’t understand
how the cookie jar mysteriously became empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hey, we didn’t eat the pygmy hippos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Honest!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Luckily, doubt fairies can be chased away with magical
thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re OK!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Miraculous technology will protect us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We just need to make a bunch of clean green
energy, buy a bunch of electric cars, and continue enjoying unlimited
prosperity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we just maintain a
positive attitude, and hope really hard, the clouds will pass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Bon
Voyage!<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Congratulations, you’ve finally made it to the rear end of my
long and tedious rant storm!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You now know
a bit about what I’ve been contemplating for the last 25+ years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I’ve learned has little in common with
the worldview I absorbed during 16 years in classrooms, the standard love story
that celebrates our amazing genius, and perpetual progress.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">This book’s core question was: “How did things get to be this
way?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously, a mob of eight billion critters
fearlessly rubbishing a delightful planet is not exactly a heartwarming portrait
of sparkling intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Limited
knowledge, clever technology, and self-centered thinking helped to conjure the
monster into existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In this book, my goal was to explore the human saga from a
perspective that presents humans as simply one of the gang in the family of
life, rather than the glorious crown of creation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From this viewpoint, we are the family’s crazy
uncle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dodo family enjoyed this
planet for 23 million years, but the human family just stepped off the bus
recently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humankind’s initial colonization
of the planet’s ecosystems established a pattern that has never stopped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Empire builders continue ruthlessly
bulldozing their way over all obstacles in their never-ending quest for maximum
domination — the Romans, Mongols, Spaniards, English, Americans, Nazis, Russians,
and thousands more.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">On the day you squirted out of the womb, you were a wild
animal, ready to enjoy a wild life in a healthy paradise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You were not a fatally flawed animal
genetically, but the culture that taught you everything you know is a train
wreck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The good news, in theory, is that
dodgy cultures can be revised and improved, or hurled off a cliff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are nothing but vivid ideas, fantasies,
and nightmares that live between your ears, and can be highly contagious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As promised, I have presented no sure-fire snake oil cures
for all that ails us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll let you know
if I ever find any.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this book, my objective
was exploring history, not foretelling the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of us accept the notion that we’ll die
someday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So will our way of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sun rises every morning, the stars come
out at night, and all civilizations have expiration dates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They grow like crazy, deplete their resource
base, and become ancient ruins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Several weeks ago, it occurred to me that <i>Wild, Free, and
Happy</i> was a ridiculously inappropriate title for this book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had little to do with the flow of ideas
between the covers, but it sounded nifty a few years back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m going to keep it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Discovering the islands of flightless birds
radically altered my perception of reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These ecosystems evolved in isolation for millions of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were 100% cleverness free, virgins
unmolested by cultural evolution, and they actually existed on this
planet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine that!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">We’ve learned that it’s possible for bird species to live for
millions of years without wings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can humans
live without cleverness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can we forget
everything we know, return to Mother Africa, throw out our clothes, and humbly
start over?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can humans survive the
powerful pandemonium we have conjured into existence?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time will tell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever happens, genetic evolution will
continue, and guide the survivors down the long and winding path to healing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Bon voyage!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Sources<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Araujo, Bernardo, et al., “Bigger kill than chill… (megafauna
extinctions),” <i>Quaternary International</i>, November 2015. [<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283686166">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Blondel, Jacques, “On humans and wildlife in Mediterranean
islands,” <i>Journal of Biogeography</i>, 2008, 35, 509-518. [<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2007.01819.x">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Burney, David and Tim Flannery, “Fifty millennia of
catastrophic extinctions after human contact,” <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">TRENDS in Ecology and Evolution</span></em>,
Vol.20 No.7 July 2005<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">.</b> [<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100610061434/http:/www.anthropology.hawaii.edu/Fieldschools/Kauai/Publications/Publication%204.pdf">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Childs, Craig, <i>Apocalyptic Planet</i>, Pantheon Books, New
York, 2012. [<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/12/apocalyptic-planet.html">Review</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Cooke, Siobhán, et al., “Anthropogenic Extinction Dominates
Holocene Declines of West Indian Mammals,” <i>Annual Review of Ecology,
Evolution, and Systematics</i>, Vol. 48:301-327, November 2017. [<a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-110316-022754">Link</a>] ($$$)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Dávalos, Liliana M., “Caribbean islands reveal a ‘lost world’
of ancient mammals,” <i>Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics</i>,
November 6, 2017. [<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171106100715.htm">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Edmeades, Baz, <i>Megafauna: First Victims of the
Human-Caused Extinction</i>, Houndstooth Press, 2021. [<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/12/megafauna-review.html">Review</a>]
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Fernandez, Fernando, “Human Dispersal and Late Quaternary
Megafaunal Extinctions…,” <i>ResearchGate</i>, July 2016. [<a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/305489176">Link</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Readable & detailed)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flannery, Tim, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Europe:
A Natural History</span></em>, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2019.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Graham, Russell, et al., “Timing and causes of mid-Holocene
mammoth extinction on St. Paul Island, Alaska,” <i>PNAS</i>, August 16, 2016,
vol. 113, no. 33. [<a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1604903113">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Kelekna, Pita, <i>The Horse in Human History</i>, Cambridge
University Press, New York, 2009. [<a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horse-in-human-history.html">Review</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Kolbert, Elizabeth, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The
Sixth Extinction</span></em>, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2014. [<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-sixth-extinction.html">Review</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Lister, Adrian, and Paul Bahn, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Mammoths</span></em>, Macmillan, New York, 1994.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">MacKinnon, J. B., <i>The Once and Future World</i>, Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt, New York, 2013. [<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-once-and-future-world.html">Review</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">MacPhee, Ross, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">End
of the Megafauna</span></em>, W. W. Norton Company, New York, 2019. [<a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2019/09/end-of-megafauna.html">Review</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Martin, Paul, “Africa and Pleistocene Overkill,” <i>Nature</i>,
October 22, 1966. [<a href="http://max2.ese.u-psud.fr/epc/conservation/PDFs/HIPE/Martin1966.pdf">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Martin, Paul, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Twilight
of the Mammoths</span></em>, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2005.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Masseti, Marco, “Mammals of the Mediterranean islands:
homogenization and the loss of biodiversity,” <i>Hystrix</i> (Italian Journal
of Mammalogy), 2009. [<a href="https://savegiglio.org/pdf/masseti-mammals-mediterranean-islands-biodiversity.pdf">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Singh, J. A. L., and Robert M. Zingg, <i>Wolf-Children and
Feral Man</i>, 1939, Reprint, Archon Books, 1966. [<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/01/wolf-children-and-feral-man.html">Review</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Turvey, Samuel, et al., “Where the Wild Things Were,” <i>Proceedings
of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences</i>, March 2021. [<a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2905">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Van der Geer, Alexandra, “The Late Survival of Madagascar’s
Megafauna,” <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Paleobiology</span></em>,
December 13, 2017. (Cool illustrations) [<a href="https://beta.capeia.com/paleobiology/2017/09/22/the-late-survival-of-madagascars-megafauna">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Van der Geer, Alexandra, “The Lost World of Island Dwarfs and
Giants,” <i>Paleobiology</i>, September 22, 2017. [<a href="https://beta.capeia.com/paleobiology/2017/09/21/the-lost-world-of-island-dwarfs-and-giants">Link</a>]
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ward, Peter D., <i>The Call of Distant Mammoths</i>, Copernicus,
New York, 1997. [<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-call-of-distant-mammoths.html">Review</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Weisberger, Mindy, “Humans Doomed Caribbean's 'Lost World' of
Ancient Mammals,” Live Science, November 7, 2017. [<a href="https://www.livescience.com/60870-caribbean-lost-world-ancient-mammals.html">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p> </o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-46407902892205651332022-02-23T14:03:00.000-08:002022-02-23T14:03:25.752-08:00Wild Free and Happy Sample 25.5<p> [Note: This is a new section in my rough draft of a far from
finished book, <i>Wild, Free, & Happy</i>.
It will be inserted before sample 26.
The Search field on the right side will find words in the full contents
of all rants and reviews. These samples
are not freestanding pieces. They will
be easier to understand if you start with sample 01, and follow the sequence
listed <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/04/free-brain-food.html">HERE</a>
— if you happen to have some free time.
If you prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd is in the process of reading and
recording my book <a href="https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sets/richard-adrian-reese-wild-free-happy">HERE</a>.</p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">STUMBLING
INTO DOMESTICATION<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">In his lecture, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Four
Domestications</span></em>, <a href="https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/s/Scott_11.pdf">James
Scott</a> described four turning points that radically changed the course of
the human saga — the domestication of fire, plants, animals, and ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We domesticated ourselves by radically
changing the way we lived, in order to protect and nurture the survival and growth
of crops and herds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We controlled their
lives, and they controlled ours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many
tasks had to be performed at specific times for optimal results — tilling,
planting, weeding, watering, harvesting, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Herders also fine-tuned their ongoing schedules and activities for the
benefit of their livestock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">We’ve already looked at the domestication of fire, and how
this superpower radically altered the human saga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It enabled tropical humans to survive in chilly
non-tropical regions (snow country), colonize the planet, and eventually become
participants in monstrous fire-breathing industrial civilizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This chapter will focus on plant and animal
domestication, which mostly began within the last 13,000 years, and fired up
the turbochargers for our high-speed one-way rocket ride into the unknown.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Supply
and Demand<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Mother Africa was the homeland where hominins first evolved maybe
six million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Experts do not
agree on when humans first emerged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Estimates range from maybe 250,000 to 400,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For almost the entire human saga, our
ancestors were nomadic foragers — hunters and gatherers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Around 60,000 years ago, some pioneers
decided to see the world, and began exploring the tropics of southern Asia, on
a path toward Australia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Around 42,000 years ago, humans were present up north in Europe,
a region with a temperate climate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was a major shift, moving outside of the tropical climate for which evolution
had fine-tuned us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The curiosity of
these explorers helped to accelerate our journey to a stormy future. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long term survival in a non-tropical region required
loads of radical innovations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As mentioned earlier, <a href="https://www.postcarbon.org/publications/human-nature-of-unsustainability/">William
Rees</a> proposed two fundament ecological concepts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1) Every species will expand to all
locations that are accessible to them, where conditions might allow their
survival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2) When they expand into new
habitat, they will utilize all available resources, until limits restrain them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Humans regularly bumped into limits as they colonized the
world, and cleverness often provided ways to bypass the obstacles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As long as wild foods were abundant, there
was no need to pursue farming or herding, which required far more time, difficulty,
and risk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Large game was our ancestors’
preferred food but, over time, hunting a bit too much could gradually deplete
the delicious herds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Efforts then had to
shift to class B and class C foods — small game, forest animals, waterfowl,
fish, shellfish, insects, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/11/europe-between-oceans.html">Barry
Cunliffe</a> noted that as the last ice age weakened, the climate warmed, and
the more comfortable Holocene era began.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The forests of Europe were able to migrate northward from the
Mediterranean, displacing some tundra regions, and their megafauna residents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These forests were home to more solitary game
like aurochs, boars, elk, deer, and small animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The total biomass of these forest animals was
only 20 to 30 percent of the biomass of the tundra herds they replaced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reduced access to easy meat motivated lifestyle
changes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folks learned that it was
easier to survive in locations close to coastlines, lakes, rivers, and
wetlands, where a year round supply of foods might be gathered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This new way of living apparently worked well
enough for a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Diana Muir wrote an environmental history of New England,
from the ice age to today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the
tundra, folks hunted mastodons, horses, bison, and four species of
mammoths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were sabertooth cats,
giant bears, giant beavers, and musk oxen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the climate warmed, forests spread northward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the tundra megafauna declined, folks
hunted for deer, bear, beaver, moose, waterfowl, turkeys, and heath hens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Rivers had huge runs of salmon, shad, and alewives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stuff like acorns and shellfish were reserved
for famine food. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As game got scarce,
shellfish became a mainstay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An adult
male would need 100 oysters or quahogs each day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thousands were dug and smoked for winter
consumption, a tedious job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the lower
layers of huge shell dumps were oyster shells 10 to 20 inches across (25 to 50
cm) — oysters 40 years old. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In higher
levels, the shells got smaller and smaller.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Eventually, the seeds of domesticated corn (maize), squash,
and beans reached New England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tribes
that pursued the new experiment could produce more food, and feed more people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When fields were first cleared, and the
virgin soil was still highly fertile, agricultural land might sometimes produce
a hundred times more food than an equal area of wild land used by
foragers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course, population pressure
is a predictable cause of social friction and bloody conflict.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because they had no livestock, they had no
manure to help conserve soil fertility, which declines over time, shrinking the
harvests.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The big picture here is an endless struggle for survival, in
which limits periodically stomped on the brakes, and cleverness often found new
ways to temporarily sneak around them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Cleverness is not an all-powerful miracle-making magic wand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also has limits, as the folks on Easter
Island discovered, when the last tree fell (whoops!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not easy to cleverly sneak around food
scarcity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Options often boiled down to
starvation, mindful family planning, or a blind leap into the mysterious realm
of food production.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Cradle
of Civilization<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Jared Diamond seriously wondered why some cultures could
remain rich and powerful for centuries, while many others rarely, if ever, had
an opportunity to sniff prosperity’s butt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He invested a massive number of brain cycles in a quest to find answers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1987, he published his boat-rocking essay,
“The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race” [<a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race">Link</a>
or <a href="http://www.sacredlands.org/jared_diamond_01.htm">Link</a>].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">He wrote, “Archaeology is demolishing another sacred belief:
that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of
progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular, recent
discoveries suggest that the adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most
decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which
we have never recovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With
agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and
despotism that curse our existence.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ten years later, in 1997, Diamond published his classic, <a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/06/guns-germs-and-steel.html">Guns,
Germs, and Steel</a>, in which he presented a book length discussion of what he
had learned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Domestication emerged
independently in maybe nine locations around the world, but one region in
Eurasia played a starring role in influencing the chain of events that
eventually led to the bruised, beaten, and bleeding world outside your window.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">It began one day, thousands of years ago, when some intrepid
pioneers happened to stumble into an amazing jackpot known as the Fertile Crescent,
the Cradle of Civilization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gasp!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was as if their wildest dreams had come
true!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The place was home to a great
abundance of wild game and plant foods — a heavenly paradise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Life was grand for a while, but as the mobs grew in number,
they naturally smacked into more and more annoying limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cleverness inspired behaviors and illusions
that put folks on the treacherous path to farming and herding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This generated a surge of temporary prosperity,
while it permanently degraded the ecosystem. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Unfortunately, as centuries passed, the forests, soils, and
wildlife got rubbished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paradise
deteriorated into depleted cropland, deserts, ancient ruins, and persistent
bloody conflicts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Fertile Crescent
(like every other region), was not an ecosystem that could tolerate endless
agriculture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Diamond noted that farming
is a slow motion act of ecological suicide. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 2002, five years after <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Guns,
Germs, and Steel</span></em>, Diamond published a paper, “Evolution,
consequences and future of plant and animal domestication.” [<a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v418/n6898/full/nature01019.html">Link</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It presented some additional thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The emergence of domestication, maybe 10,500
years ago, inspired tremendous changes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It commenced in Eurasia, primarily in the Fertile Crescent and parts of
China, where the whims of “biogeographic luck” provided perfect conditions for seriously
dangerous mischief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Not only were wild foods abundant, but an unusual number of
the plant and animal species possessed characteristics that made them suitable
for domestication. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite centuries of trial
and error, clever humans have discovered that it’s impossible to domesticate
the vast majority of plants and animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To be suitable for domestication, species must have specific collection
of vulnerabilities.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">For example, Diamond listed six obstacles that made it
impossible to domesticate most large animal species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any one of these could prevent enslavement: (1)
a diet not easily supplied by humans, (2) slow growth rate and long birth spacing,
(3) nasty disposition, (4) reluctance to breed in captivity, (5) lack of
follow-the-leader dominance hierarchies, and (6) a tendency to panic in enclosures
or when faced with predators. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Diamond wrote that there are maybe 200,000 wild plant species
in the world, of which about 100 have been domesticated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Fertile Crescent was home several wild
grasses that produced large cereal seeds (barley, einkorn, emmer, and spelt), a
rich source of carbohydrates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were
also several varieties of pulses (peas, beans, and lentils) that provided
protein.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the whole world, purely by random
chance, the Fertile Crescent was the biggest treasure chest of future super
foods, both plant and animal. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
essentially ground zero for the birth of civilization.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Globally, there are 148 species of large land-dwelling
mammalian herbivores and omnivores that weigh more than 100 pounds (45 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 51 of these
species, but none of them have been domesticated, because they luckily failed
to meet all of the six criteria for enslavement.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Of the 148 species, just 14 have been domesticated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nine of the 14 only had regional
significance, but five species eventually became multinational superstars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Fertile Crescent was home to four of the
five: the goat, sheep, pig, and cow (horses are the fifth) — an amazing
coincidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Of the 14 domesticated species, 13 of them originated in
Eurasia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, it’s no coincidence
that Eurasia played a primary role in the growth and spread of acute, highly
infectious, epidemic crowd diseases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Farming and herding created communities of humans that lived in
unhealthy proximity to unnatural concentrations of livestock, poultry, rats, fleas,
mosquitoes, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">This encouraged a number of animal pathogens to adapt to
human hosts, including influenza, smallpox, tuberculosis, plague, measles, and
cholera.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Diamond noted, “Such diseases
could not have existed before the origins of agriculture, because they can
sustain themselves only in large dense populations that did not exist before
agriculture, hence they are often termed crowd diseases.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Nomadic foragers lived in small groups, enslaved no livestock
or poultry, and periodically moved their camps — a brilliant strategy for
avoiding diseases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, humans
who lived in crowded villages and cities made tremendous advances in unsanitary
living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crap and garbage was all over
the place, all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rivers were the
source of drinking water, and the dumping place for sewage and filth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A later chapter will take a closer look at
disease.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Diamond noted four developments that dimmed the future for
hunter-gatherers, and encouraged the expansion of farming and herding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1) Over time, hunting gradually made large
game less abundant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2) We learned new
skills for collecting, processing, and storing foods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(3) Societies competed, spurring innovations
that improved our ability to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(4) Growing populations required large-scale food production.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Folks who inhabited a paradise of plant and animal super
foods, learned lots of tricks for maximizing food production.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Population surged, spurring the emergence of
cities and civilizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Civilization
encouraged the development of stuff like metallurgy, industry, deforestation, soil
destruction, warfare, overcrowding, patriarchy, and slavery.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">So, let’s rephrase what William Rees said about species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1) “Every <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">civilization</span></em>
will expand to all locations that are accessible to them, where conditions
might allow their survival.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As they
expand, they will take along their livestock, crop seeds, weaponry, culture, technology,
religions, and diseases. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2) “When they <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">colonize</span></em> new
habitat, they will <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">utilize</span></em>
all available resources, until limits restrain them.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Eurasia spans from Europe to China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The earliest centers of domestication were
the Fertile Crescent and parts of China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>State of the art food production provided both centers with powerful advantages
over their more humble neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
two centers became hubs for territorial expansion, and their languages, genes,
tools, and cultural influences have spread around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">This is a spooky story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From the two hubs, the realm of farming and herding spread in many
directions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the sixteenth century,
European travelers began noticing striking similarities in Indo-Aryan, Iranian,
and European languages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They appeared to
have a common ancestor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the years
flowed by, scholars noticed that lots of other languages also had
similarities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A category was created to
name this large assortment.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Visit Wikipedia’s discussion of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-european_languages">Indo-European
Languages</a>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>See the maps that show how
this language family spread across the Old World over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Around 500 years ago, the age of global colonization
exported them to the Americas, Australia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, the native language of about 46 percent
of humankind, is an Indo-European tongue. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Drop a pebble in a calm pool of water, and rings of ripples
spread in every direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Diamond wrote
that humankind’s long and stormy story of food production, population growth, civilization,
and global domination, began in the Fertile Crescent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pebble is called domestication.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Diamond lamented, “If they had actually foreseen the
consequences, they would surely have outlawed the first steps towards
domestication, because the archaeological and ethnographic record throughout
the world shows that the transition from hunting and gathering to farming
eventually resulted in more work, lower adult stature, worse nutritional
condition, and heavier disease burdens.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Looking back from the twenty-first century, we can readily
see the many unnecessary wrong turns that our ancestors made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, we can observe the world
around us today, and readily see the catastrophes that those wrong turns
triggered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s heartbreaking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cleverness without foresight is a deadly duo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sure is an interesting time to be alive!<o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-49398363727418576162021-12-28T13:07:00.000-08:002021-12-28T13:07:13.561-08:00Winter Solstice 2021 <span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What
a memorable year this has been. Terrorists
failed in their first attempt to overthrow the U.S. government. The COVID family of viruses was so popular
that it will return for another year of thrills, chills, ventilators, and
conspiracy theories. This has been a
good year for being a writer, spending week after week in a wordsmith cave, largely
isolated from viruses circulating in flesh and blood society.<br />
<br />
Almost every day I spend 60 to 90 minutes biking on pathways along the river. On my route is a 50 acre (20 ha) grove of
forest that hasn’t been cut in maybe a hundred years. It’s lush, green, and alive. Songbirds fill the air with their music of love
and celebration. This is my church, a
sacred place.<br />
<br />
In the last 12 years, I’ve only seen a starry night once or twice. There must be thousands of children in this
city who have never once experienced a sky full of twinkling stars. Moonlight is still able to penetrate the
light pollution. The moon silently
watches our frantic craziness. In years
past, it watched the campfires of hunter-gatherers. It watched the wooly mammoths come and go. It watched the dinosaurs come and go. It watched the dawn of life. It will continue shining down when the lights
of civilization finally blink out, and the family of life struggles to begin a
long and difficult healing process.<br />
<br />
Last year, I hoped that my book would be finished by now, but it isn’t. I completed the rough draft in early
September, minus an unwritten summary chapter, the final item on my to-do
list. Early sections of the draft date
back to March 2016. I’ve learned a lot
since then. I’m now rereading the entire
manuscript, making revisions, and adding new info. I strongly suspect that the newer sections
will need less attention. Maybe the
revisions are half done. We’ll see. Quality is more important than speed.<br />
<br />
Day after day, I slog through endless tedious details, resolving questions,
zapping booboos, and fine-tuning the clarity.
In the end comes the joy of finishing another passage. It’s satisfying to see that this torn and
battered old brain can still produce work that warms my soul, and makes me
smile with satisfaction. <br />
<br />
Since the 2020 solstice, my blog has had 100,000+ more views. This summer, for reasons I don’t understand, I
got a surge of friend requests on Facebook, rapidly tripling my friend
collection. They came from Australia,
Bali, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Cote D’Ivorie,
Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Gaza, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Kashmir,
Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone,
Singapore, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda,
United Arab Emirates, Zambia.<br />
<br />
I wish I had time to chat with them, but the library gives me just one hour a
day of internet access. Right now, my
primary goal in life is to finish this book.
Publishing a book can take years of effort, with no guarantees, and I’m
getting old. These days, publishers
prefer books with generous servings of magical thinking, sustainable solutions,
and maximum strength hopium. That’s
where the money is. I’m interested in
where the reality is, which has become an entirely different matter.<br />
<br />
In my ten years as an author and blogger, I’ve learned that when interesting
writing costs nothing, it reaches far more eyeballs than when the same material
costs money. My current plan is to skip
publishing and give this book away, in digital formats, an Earth Day gift. It’s cheap and easy to send free PDFs to folks
in distant lands, rather than paperbacks.
After so many years of hard work, it would be fun to finally reach an
audience.<br />
<br />
All the best! <br />
<br /></span>
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--></span>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-19125811279610587282021-12-04T11:39:00.000-08:002021-12-04T11:39:44.777-08:00Megafauna Review<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWiI_eyjE1o5zohf2enzR0qN38_7V896SDFp3uzZfVAZdDJLrUgWOO34ovlcziZBPXw62L_03BMBnfX66O3RRCLmQKDlOOGMIUMvEIVXpEEw9lqizEJxa54ldhW4PeYCJNVfWxs1Pj4CrtHzFyWvbvVtNs-_yv9zCNPiwm1IVFouAAl6fiu7Lt_l7iXQ=s379" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="379" data-original-width="256" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWiI_eyjE1o5zohf2enzR0qN38_7V896SDFp3uzZfVAZdDJLrUgWOO34ovlcziZBPXw62L_03BMBnfX66O3RRCLmQKDlOOGMIUMvEIVXpEEw9lqizEJxa54ldhW4PeYCJNVfWxs1Pj4CrtHzFyWvbvVtNs-_yv9zCNPiwm1IVFouAAl6fiu7Lt_l7iXQ=s320" width="216" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="BlogText"><i>Megafauna</i> is an important, fascinating, unforgettable,
one-of-a-kind book. It primarily focuses
on prehistoric megafauna extinctions around the world, and how they
happened. Baz Edmeades (“ed-meedz”) has
been working on this book for 20+ years, and it is impressively thorough. His grandfather was a professor who found a
unique human-like skull that was about 259,000 years old.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Megafauna are mammals weighing more than 100 pounds (46
kg). Hominins are primates that walk on
two legs, like you and I. Hominins have been
around for several million years. Humans
have been around for 250,000 to 400,000 years, depending on who you ask. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">During the last two or three million years, lots of megafauna
species, all around the world, have moved off the stage forever. Why? A
heated debate has been buzzing for 50+ years.
Was it an asteroid strike? No
evidence. Were they zapped by
diseases? No evidence. Was it climate change? It probably strained some regional
situations. Was it human activities? The evidence strongly supports this. In 1966, Paul Martin presented his megafauna
overkill theory (humans did it), which ignited big controversy in
academia. Edmeades became friends with
Paul Martin, and learned a lot from him.
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Hominins originated in Mother Africa, where there used to be
at least nine species of big cats (three today), nine types of elephants (one
today), and four hippos (one today).
There were giant antelopes, giant hyenas, giant pigs, giant monkeys, and
giant baboons — all gone. Extinction
spasms especially surged as humans wandered out of Africa, and gradually
colonized the planet. They migrated
across Southern Asia, to Australia, then Eurasia, and finally the Americas. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Paul Martin coined the misleading term “blitzkrieg overkill,”
which angered quite a few folks. As
humans colonized new regions, the megafauna declined in number, in a process
that could take a thousand years or more, multiple generations. It was not a high-speed massacre. These hunters were Stone Age people, using
simple tools. Many of the large game
they hunted had low reproductive rates, which made them extremely vulnerable to
extinction.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">There is a clear pattern that when hunters migrated into
continental land masses, stuff went extinct — except on uninhabited
(human-free) offshore islands of the Mediterranean, Caribbean, and
elsewhere. On these islands, extinctions
didn’t begin until humans eventually stepped ashore, sometimes thousands of
years later. Understand that offshore
islands have a climate quite similar to the nearby mainland. Climate was not a factor here. Many of the megafauna species that blinked
out had survived multiple ice ages over the passage of several million years.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In 2015, I stumbled across early sections of the Edmeades
book online, and they blindsided me. I
never understood how incredibly alive this planet once was, and how tragically
damaged it now is. None of my teachers
ever explained this, because they never learned it. Our cultural myths celebrate the upward
spiral of humankind’s brilliant achievements.
We live in a technological wonderland, not an ecological graveyard. Life has never been better, and the best is
yet to come. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The ancestors of hominins were originally tree dwellers. Our closest living relatives are chimps, with
whom we share 98.8 percent of our DNA.
Long ago, when the climate changed, and forests shrank, our ancestors
were forced to survive as ground dwellers, a lifestyle for which evolution had
not prepared them. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Over the course of several billion years, evolution has been
a remarkable force that guided the journey of the family of life. When frigid eras arrived, critters evolved
fur coats. When foxes became faster,
evolution selected for faster bunnies.
It was a balancing act. Foxes
needed bunnies, and bunnies needed foxes.
The family of life was continuously fine-tuned at the speed of
evolution, an extremely slow process.
Alterations could take many thousands of years. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Over millions of years, evolution provided giant tortoises
with large bodies, invincible lion-proof shells, and long lifespans. In the blink of an eye, these advantages were
rubbished when hominins moved into the neighborhood, and began killing 200-year-old tortoises with big rocks. This
hunting method was not fine-tuned by evolution.
It was a sudden innovation that popped into the mind of a hungry hominin
— and it worked! Invincible tortoises
were immediately transformed into helpless sitting ducks that didn’t have a
bright future. Evolution was yanked out
of the driver’s seat. Ancient rules no
longer mattered. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Hominin cleverness changed the world. It made it far easier to grab essential
resources, grow in numbers, and avoid becoming cat food. Cleverness had the long term impact of an
asteroid strike. Cleverness enabled hominins
to domesticate fire, plants, and animals.
We colonized the planet, developed industrial civilization, zapped the
forests, polluted everything, and destabilized the climate.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Many folks in the human herd suffer from a blind faith that
the miraculous power of cleverness can easily overcome all challenges. Their vision is to keep our maximum impact
way of life on life support, as long as possible, and hope for the best. Edmeades presents no solutions, but this is a
story that was important to tell. He
laments that cleverness “has given our species the power to transform the
biosphere so profoundly that no other organism on this planet may get the
opportunity of evolving it again.” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">His book does an excellent job of discussing the megafauna
extinctions in an understandable way, with up-to-date information. Its bitter medicine, and good medicine. Many misperceive evolution to be a divine
competition, in which species fight relentlessly to reach the top of the
hierarchy, seeking to wear the Dominant Animal crown. This pyramid-climbing quest for domination is
the engine of civilization. By the end
of the book, you understand that evolution is more about adapting to changing conditions
in a way that is as smooth and balanced as possible. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Evolution has been the great friend of the family of
life. The Dominant Animal game has been
its grim reaper. While the wild
megafauna are now sharply diminished, human-caused extinctions of many other
species continue at an accelerating rate.
Cleverness never sleeps. I’ve
spent 69 years in a roaring hurricane of devastating cleverness. Edmeades book reminded me that this planet
was once a healthy and amazing living paradise.
Some of my genes have their roots in those good old days of abundant
life. That’s a comforting notion.<o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p class="BlogText">Edmeades, Baz, <i>Megafauna: First Victims of the
Human-Caused Extinction</i>, Houndstooth Press, 2021.<o:p></o:p></p><p><br /></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-29794187919808773492021-11-12T13:46:00.000-08:002021-11-12T13:46:38.286-08:00Forest Rewrite<p>Greetings! The following is a rewrite of samples
25 and 41. They will be combined into
one section and moved much later in the manuscript, before Sacred Energy. One more step closer to the end!</p><p class="BlogText"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p> </o:p><b>SACRED FOREST</b></p>
<p class="BlogText">As mentioned earlier, after the last Ice Age wound down,
glaciers and ice sheets melted and retreated, eventually allowing the expansion
of tundra, grassland, and forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grassland spurred the momentum of the human experiment by boosting herds
of game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In wooded regions, hunting was
more challenging, and forests interfered with the growth of trendy new fads
like herding and farming.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">This is why civilization emerged in the grassland regions of
the Fertile Crescent, where wild wheat and barley grew in great abundance, as
did herds of wild game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bountiful lands
made living easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also had a
prickly habit of stimulating population increase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The uncomfortable pressure of crowding and
friction inspired some folks to envision escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe they could create a more pleasant life
in the forest frontier of Europe’s wild west.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some of them packed up and left.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In Europe, <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/11/europe-between-oceans.html">Barry
Cunliffe</a> noted that as the climate warmed, wild folks migrated northward
from the Mediterranean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 7000 B.C.,
they were present in a number of locations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In lean regions they were nomadic, and in places of abundance they
settled down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, forests
were also migrating northward, encouraged by the changing climate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">By around 4000 B.C., forest expansion stopped, when it
finally reached regions that were too chilly for happy trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By this time, folks were raising crops and
herding livestock in a number of permanent settlements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These communities were expanding their fields
and pastures, which required murdering happy trees.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Over time, this increasingly abusive relationship between the
two legs and the tree people led to tremendous destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the good old days, forests originally
covered 95 percent of west and central Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="https://www.wsl.ch/staff/niklaus.zimmermann/papers/QuatSciRev_Kaplan_2009.pdf">Jed
Kaplan</a> and team wrote a paper on the prehistoric deforestation of
Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It included stunning maps that
illustrated the shrinkage of forests between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 1850. [<a href="https://sublimemaps.micro.blog/2019/04/09/deforestation-in-europe.html">Look</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deforestation went into warp drive between
1500 and 1850, driven by the rise of colonization, industrialization, and other
dark juju.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The voracious human swarm was
swerving deeper and deeper into mass hysteria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Humankind’s war on forests has been intensifying for several
thousand years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a huge and complex
subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forests have suffered from many
impacts, including firestick farming, agriculture, herding, industry, warfare,
construction, consumerism, climate change, and population growth.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In this chapter, I’ll share a few snapshots from the ripped
and torn photo album of the relationship between two legs and the tree
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Humbaba’s Roar<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Fertile Crescent was where plant and animal domestication
shifted into high gear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was in this
region that the first civilizations began popping up all over, like a painful
burning rash of deforestation, soil destruction, slavery, patriarchy,
exploitation, aggression, self-destruction, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">It’s interesting that the oldest known written story is the <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2011/09/gilgamesh-long-version.html">Epic
of Gilgamesh</a>, the saga of Gilgamesh, a lunatic king who ruled over the city
of Uruk, located along the Euphrates River in Sumer (now Iraq).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By around 3100 B.C., Uruk was the biggest
metropolis in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, Uruk<!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span> XE "Uruk, city built by
Gilgamesh" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-element:
field-end'></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is a crude
pile of brown rubble sitting amidst a desolate barren moonscape. [<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Uruk_Archaealogical_site_at_Warka.jpg/1280px-Uruk_Archaealogical_site_at_Warka.jpg">Look</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has an important message for folks today:
“Don’t live like we did.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But humankind
is a herd of sleep walkers, wandering lost in a foggy dream world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The story was originally scratched into clay tablets in
cuneiform script.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the course of
2,000 years, components of the story unified into a single narrative by around
1800 B.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the story, King Gilgamesh
was a lecherous slime ball who worked hard to expand low-tech, muscle powered,
organic agriculture along the Euphrates River (a process now known as
Sustainable Development™).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Gilgamesh was probably a real king who lived somewhere
between 2900 and 2350 B.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The growth of
Uruk led to massive deforestation along the valley, which unleashed immense
erosion and flooding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the story,
Humbaba was the sacred defender of the forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Gilgamesh whacked his head off, and proceeded to cut trees like there
was no tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rains then washed the
soil off the mountains, down to bedrock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And so, whenever the floods blast down the river, the noise of
catastrophic destruction is referred to as “Humbaba’s roar.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the first sound I hear every morning.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Beyond Hunting and
Gathering<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="BlogText">Earlier, I jabbered about how some hunter-gatherer cultures
used firestick farming to boost the availability of wild game and special
plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This involved limiting forest,
and encouraging the expansion of customized grasslands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tree people were never fond of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time, this expansion encouraged the
intensification of farming, herding, civilization, industry, and aggressive
deforestation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Other cultures used a different survival strategy, mindful
self-control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They understood the need
to pay close attention to reality, to recognize the signs of approaching
limits, and to avoid scarcity by adjusting current patterns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes reproduction taboos were used to
reduce the birth rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mindfulness could
avoid having an abusive relationship with the tree people, but modern society
displays little interest in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not
good for jobs or the economy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Let’s take a quick peek at the relationships that several
cultures had with the tree people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Prehistoric dates are not certain, different sources cite different
dates.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Britain<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText">When the glaciers of the last ice age began melting, sea
levels were much lower than today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>England was connected by dry land to Ireland, Scandinavia, and
continental Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Barry Cunliffe noted
that most of Western Europe essentially became a vast forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This expansion of forests displaced natural
grazing land, which affected the abundance of large herbivores.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">By 9000 B.C., hunter-gatherers had apparently made some small
clearings in the forest to attract game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By 6500 B.C., rising sea levels had made Britain an island, like it is
today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was no longer connected by dry
land to neighboring regions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 4500
B.C., when farmers and herders began to trickle in, Britain was largely a
forest, except for the highlands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hunters
dined on red deer, wild boar, aurochs, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 3000 B.C., substantial clearances for
cropland and pasture were increasing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
A.D. 1100, just 15 percent of Britain was forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1919, it was five percent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Britannia was essentially stripped naked, a
ghastly painful open wound.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-once-and-future-world.html">J.
B. MacKinnon</a> mentioned a story about Mark Fisher, a British scientist who
visited the U.S.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From an overlook in the
White Mountain National Forest, he could gaze down on 800,000 acres (323,748
ha) of woodland, an overwhelming experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He burst into tears and had a long, hard cry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At Yellowstone, he saw wolves in the wild for
the first time, and he dropped to his knees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fisher dreams of rewilding the U.K. — introducing long lost critters
like beavers, lynx, wolves, and so on. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ireland<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText">The story in Ireland was similar to Britain in many ways, but
Ireland got much more rainfall, annually receiving 50 to 200 inches (127-508
cm) of precipitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The wet climate
encouraged the growth of lush temperate rainforests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Frederick Aalen noted that early
hunter-gatherers arrived about 8,000 years ago, when the isle was covered with
a dense unbroken forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folks lived
along coastlines, lakes, and streams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the forest they created some openings to attract game, but these were
apparently small in scale. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Then came a paradise-killing event of dark juju.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Farmers and herders began arriving around
3500 B.C., and the war on trees commenced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By the end of the 1600s, the destruction of native forests was nearly
complete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Aalen wrote in 1978, only
three percent of the island was occupied by natural forest or tree farms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Deforestation had many unintended consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>William MacLeish noted that in the good old
days, the rainforest wicked up a lot of moisture from the land, and then
released it into the passing breezes, which carried it away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the trees were gone, this dispersal
process wheezed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, the Gulf
Stream faithfully continued delivering warm rainy weather from the
Caribbean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the heavy rain continued,
and the water remained where it landed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Consequently, water tables rose, bogs spread, and the ground turned
acid. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Deforestation blindsided the rainforest ecosystem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new manmade grassland ecosystem seemed to
be a perfect place for raising enslaved livestock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Winters were mild, the grass was green all
year, and there was no need to grow, cut, and store hay for winter feed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Barns were not needed to protect livestock
from the cold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Milk and meat were
available all year round.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Herding worked
well, but the very rainy climate made it rather risky to grow grain, despite
the rich soils.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In A.D. 1185, King Henry II sent <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/10/topography-of-ireland.html">Giraldus
Cambrensis</a> to visit Ireland and produce a report.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He mentioned many beautiful lakes, where some
of the fish were larger than any he had ever seen before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Common freshwater fish included salmon,
trout, eels, and oily shad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along the
coast, saltwater fish were abundant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
woods were home to “stags so fat that they lose their speed.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were numerous boars and wild pigs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wolves had not yet been fully
exterminated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said it was common to
see the remains of extinct Irish elks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their remains were usually found in bogs, often in groups.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The herding life allowed the Irish people to survive, sing,
and dance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They did not have the
slightest interest in the dreary backbreaking work of agriculture, a stupid
fad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cambrensis felt great pity for the
uncivilized natives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Their greatest
delight was to be exempt from toil, and their richest possession was the
enjoyment of liberty.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Maximum Security
Forests<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Rhineland<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-gallic-wars.html">Julius
Caesar</a> roamed around Western Europe and wrote a report in 51 B.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was the emperor of Rome, and his mission
was to expand the Empire, collect tribute payments, acquire military
conscripts, and vigorously spank uncooperative subjects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During this campaign, he focused his
attention on provinces of Celtic people in what is now France, Belgium, and
England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">He had also hoped to conquer the wild Germanic tribes that
lived on the east side of the Rhine, but this fantasy promptly came to an
end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Rhine was a large, treacherous,
swift moving river. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No bridges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It took a lot of effort and luck to get from
one side to the other, and once you set foot on the German side, a super
violent welcoming party was eager to immediately cut you to bloody bits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Each tribe preferred to keep their homelands surrounded with
a barrier of uninhabited wilderness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Germans were primarily wandering herders who built no permanent
settlements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had no granaries
loaded with valuable food for raiders to swipe, and no roads to make invasions
quick and easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When danger threatened,
the people and their herds vanished into the deep forest mists.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">For the German herders, nothing would have been dumber than
to eliminate the vast ancient forests that provided this security system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Roman legions were fine-tuned for open
battlefield combat, where heavily armored lads attacked in rigid
formations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wild Germanic tribes
excelled at hit-and-run guerilla warfare.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">On the west side of the Rhine were the Celts of Gaul
(France), who were subjects of the Empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their forests were mostly gone, roads crisscrossed the land, and folks
were forced to engage in the backbreaking misery of muscle powered organic
agriculture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their granaries stored the
result of months of hard work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Stored grain was treasure that villainous raiders found to be
irresistibly tempting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was impossible
for farmers to hide or quickly move their treasure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Raiding was popular, because it was much
easier than honest work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently,
highly vulnerable farm communities required constant military protection, for
which they had to pay dearly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In several
Western European languages, the words for “road” and “raid” evolved from a
common root.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">So, the Celts that Caesar described did not reside in the
primordial forest that their wild ancestors once enjoyed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were the opposite of wild and free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peasants were essentially wealth generating
livestock controlled by local strong-arm elites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the east side of the Rhine, the Germanic
tribes had not destroyed their forests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They were alive and well, wild and free.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/11/germania.html">Tacitus</a> was
a Roman historian who wrote <i>Germania</i> in A.D. 98 (150 years after
Caesar).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It described several fiercely
independent tribes of that era.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
preferred the thrills and excitement of raiding to the drudgery of
farming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They even think it base and
spiritless to earn by sweat what they might purchase with blood.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps they learned this effective and
profitable strategy from the Romans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Tacitus wrote a fascinating description of the vast Hercynian
forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the Rhine, it spanned east,
across modern Germany, to the Carpathians, and all the way to Dacia
(Romania).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A quick traveler could cross
the forest north to south in nine days, but it was very long, from east to
west.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Caesar noted, “There is no man in
the Germany we know who can say that he has reached the edge of that forest,
though he may have gone forward sixty days’ journey, or who has learnt in what
place it begins.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Pliny also mentioned it:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The vast trees of the Hercynian forest, untouched for ages, and as old
as the world, by their almost immortal destiny exceed common wonders.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In those days, there were still a number of
primeval forests in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Scandinavia<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText">In Sweden, forests also provided freedom and security for the
common folks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-history-of-swedish-people.html">Vilhelm
Moberg</a> celebrated the fact that peasant society in Sweden had largely
remained stable and functional for 5,000 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In most of the regions of Europe, peasants endured many centuries of
misery under the heavy fist of feudalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Many Norse and Swede settlements were lucky to be protected by their
vast, dense, rugged, roadless forests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s simply impossible to kill or rob invisible folks who live in
unknown wilderness settlements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moberg
glowed with gratitude for his nation’s forests, which allowed the rustic
peasants to preserve their freedom until the industrial era metastasized. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Aggressive invaders from elsewhere found no roads, and soon
became perfectly lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Behind every bush
might be a man with a crossbow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
local folks knew every hill and rock in the woods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could pick the ideal time and place to
strike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When trouble was advancing, they
gathered as many belongings as possible, and vanished into the greenery.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">My Norse ancestors told the story of Ragnarök, the twilight
of the gods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some creepy gods had
temporarily subdued nature, but in this great battle, the forces of nature
rubbished the gods, and cleansed the Earth with a great flood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter Andreas Munch described the dawn of a
new era: “Out of the sea there rises a new earth, green and fair, whose fields
bear their increase without the sowing of seed.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">A man and woman survived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From them sprang a new race of people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A few minor deities also survived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One was Vidar, a son of Odin (Viðr means forest).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vidar was known for being strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His home was in a vast and impenetrable
forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rasmus Björn Anderson wrote that
Vidar was the god of wild primordial forests, where neither the sound of the
ax, nor the voice of man, was ever heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He is silent, dwells far away from, and exercises no influence upon, the
works of man, except as he inspires a profound awe and reverence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was a culture filled with a deep respect
and reverence for creation, in its wild and unspoiled form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forests were holy places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Forest Mining<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and
herding, forests had served as a limit to growth — grain, grass, and herds
don’t thrive in shady places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Deforestation cleared away the towering giants and let the sunbeams
shine in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When metal axes came into common
use, lumberjacks could reduce vast tracts of primeval forest into rotting
stumps and erosion gullies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Early
villages and cities were built with the mutilated carcasses of countless tree
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rise of civilizations would
not have been possible without innovative advances in unsustainable forest
mining and soil mining.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2011/09/man-and-nature.html">George
Perkins Marsh</a> was a brilliant American hero that few modern folks have
heard of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He published <i>Man and Nature</i>
in 1864.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This gentleman from Vermont
served as the U.S. Minister to Italy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>While overseas, he visited the sites of many once thriving civilizations
in the Fertile Crescent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What he
observed was terrifying and overwhelming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Each of them had seriously damaged their ecosystems and self-destructed
in similar ways.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Massive levels of soil erosion created surreal
catastrophes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He saw ancient seaports
that were now 30 miles (48 km) from the sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He saw ancient places where the old streets were buried beneath 30 feet
(9 m) of eroded soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He stood in
mainland fields, 15 miles (24 km) from the sea, which were formerly located on
offshore islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>XE "Erosion" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-begin'></span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>XE "Deforestation" <![endif]--><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-element:field-end'></span><![endif]-->He saw the sites of ancient
forests, formerly covered with three to six feet (1-2 m) of precious living
soil, where nothing but exposed rock remained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Far worse, Marsh was acutely aware that every day, back home
in America, millions were currently working like crazy to repeat the same
mistakes, glowing with patriotic pride at the temporary prosperity they were
creating on their one-way joyride to oblivion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In a noble effort to cure blissful ignorance, he fetched pen, ink, and
paper and wrote a book to enlighten his growing young nation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Sales were respectable for a few decades, but America did not
see the light and rapidly reverse course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Folks thought that the cure was worse than the disease (like today’s
climate emergency).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A radical shift to
intelligent behavior would not have been good for the highly unintelligent
lifestyle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tom Brown’s mentor, Stalking
Wolf, lamented that our culture was “killing its grandchildren to feed its
children.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Marsh’s book has stood the test of time fairly well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It presented a wealth of vital information,
none of which I learned about during 16 years of education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forests keep the soil warmer in winter, and
cooler in the summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Springtime arrives
later in deforested regions, because the land takes longer to warm up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forests absorb far more moisture than cleared
lands, so after a good rain, runoff is limited, and flash floods are less
likely.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Deforestation dries out the land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lake levels drop, springs dry up, stream
flows decline, and wetlands are baked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Back in the fourth century, when there were more forests, the water volume
flowing in the Seine River was about the same all year long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Marsh visited 14 centuries later, water
levels could vary up to 30 feet (9 m) between dry spells and cloudbursts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1841, not a drop of rain had fallen in
three years on the island of Malta, after the forest had been replaced with
cotton fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And on and on. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is a feast of essential
knowledge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/07/conquest-of-land-through-seven-thousand.html">Walter
Lowdermilk</a> was deeply inspired by Marsh’s work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the 1920s and 1930s, he visited China,
Western Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His mission was to study soil erosion, and
write a report for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They created a short booklet that was very
readable and filled with stunning photographs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Over a million copies of it were printed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i>Conquest of the Land Through Seven
Thousand Years</i> is available as a free download. [<a href="http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/Lowd/Lowd2.html">Link</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Industrial Wood<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="BlogText">Marsh generally discussed the environmental impacts of
deforestation that he had observed at the sites of extinct or wheezing
civilizations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These catastrophes were
usually the unintended consequences of clearing forest to expand cropland or
grazing land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the passage of
centuries, clever people discovered many new ways that dead trees could be used
to generate wealth and power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/06/forest-journey.html">John
Perlin</a> wrote an outstanding history of deforestation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a modern book (1989), and much easier to
read than Marsh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It devotes more
attention to the political, military, industrial, and commercial motivations
for forest mining.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It visits locations
including Mesopotamia, Crete, Greece, Cyprus, Rome, Venice, England, Brazil,
and America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Dead trees were used to build houses, bridges, temples, and
palaces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wood was made into fences,
docks, wagons, furniture, tools, and barrels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It heated homes and fueled industries that produced metal, glass,
bricks, cement, pottery, lime, sugar, and salt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Staggering quantities of wood were consumed by industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very importantly, wood was used to build
cargo, fishing, and war ships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Navies
sped the spread of colonies, empires, trade networks, and epidemics.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Cultures that mindfully limited their numbers, and continued
living in a low impact manner, had no future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their thriving unmolested forests looked like mountains of golden
treasure in the eyes of civilized sailors cruising by — and civilized people cannot
tolerate the sight of unmolested forests; it drives them nuts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, if you didn’t destroy your
forest, someone else would.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Perlin described the copper industry on Cyprus in around 1300
B.C.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Copper was used to make bronze,
which was in high demand during the Bronze Age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For each 60 pound (27 kg) copper ingot produced, four acres of pine (120
trees) had to be reduced to six tons of charcoal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each year, the copper industry on Cyprus
consumed four to five square miles (10-13 km<sup>2</sup>) of forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, the general society
consumed an equal amount of forest for heating, cooking, pottery, lime kilns,
and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you guess what inevitably
happened to the forests, soils, industry, and affluence of Cyprus?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Shortages also affected the use of firewood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In chilly regions, a city of one square mile
might depend on 50 square miles of forest to provide the firewood it consumed
year after year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the good old days,
this was often possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, as
forest area decreased, and population grew, limits spoiled the party. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">If Perlin’s work sounds interesting, but you can’t get his
book, a similar book is available as a free download.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1955, Tom Dale and Vernon Gill Carter
published <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/11/topsoil-and-civilization.html">Topsoil
and Civilization</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Readers are taken
on a neat journey, during which they discover how a number of ancient
civilizations destroyed themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
free PDF is <a href="https://soilandhealth.org/copyrighted-book/topsoil-and-civilization/">HERE</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not available in some countries, for
copyright reasons, but I once saw a pirate copy on Google.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New World Forest<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="BlogText">Richard Lillard described how early European visitors
experienced the ancient forests of North America. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When standing on mountaintops, they were
overwhelmed by the fact that as far as they could see in any direction there
was nothing but a wonderland of trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The intense experience of perfect super-healthy wildness was surreal,
overwhelming, almost terrifying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Walking beneath the canopy at midday, the forest floor was as
dark as a cellar, few sunbeams penetrated through the dense foliage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At certain times, some sections of the forest
were absolutely silent, a spooky experience that bewildered the white folks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They saw vast numbers of chestnut trees that
were nearly as big as redwoods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">British visitors to early settlements were stunned to see
amazing luxury — wooden houses, sidewalks, fences, and covered bridges!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Commoners were free to hunt large game
because the forest was not the exclusive private property of anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the old country, their diet majored in
porridge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now it could major in wild
grass-fed meat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Commoners were free to
cut as much firewood as they wished, and keep their cottages warmer than the
castles of royalty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/03/deforesting-earth.html">Michael
Williams</a> mentioned one winter night when the king of France sat in his
great hall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was shivering as he ate
dinner, the wine in his glass was frozen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/05/changes-in-land.html">William
Cronon</a> noted that settlers with sharp axes went crazy on the forests,
cutting them down as if they were limitless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Lots of excellent wood was simply burned, to clear the way for
progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They built large houses, and
heated them with highly inefficient open fireplaces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1638, Boston was having firewood
shortages. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As clearing proceeded, summers got hotter, and winters
colder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As stream flows dropped in
summer, water-powered mills had to shut down, sometimes permanently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In winter, upper levels of the soil froze
solid on cleared land, and snow piled up on top of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When springtime came, the frozen land could
not absorb the melt, so the runoff water zoomed away, and severe flooding was
common. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/05/burning-empire.html">Stewart
Holbrook</a> wrote about the fantastically destructive obliteration of ancient
forests in the U.S. upper Midwest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
the same day as the great Chicago fire, October 8, 1871, a firestorm
obliterated the backwoods community of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, killing five times
as many people as in Chicago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On this
day, the new word “firestorm” was added to the English vocabulary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Holbrook interviewed John Cameron, an eyewitness to the
Peshtigo fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cameron noted that there
had been little snow the previous winter, and just one rain between May and
September.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Streams were shallow, and
swamps were drying up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Logging
operations left large amounts of slash in the woods (piles of discarded limbs
and branches).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slash piles were
eliminated by burning, even when it was very hot, dry, windy, and
extraordinarily stupid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The morning of October 8 was hotter than anyone could
remember, and the air was deadly still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At noon, the sun disappeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
nightfall the horizon was red, and smoke was in the air, making their eyes
run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At 9 P.M., Cameron heard an unusual
roaring sound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The night sky was getting
lighter by the minute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A hurricane force
wind howled through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly, swirling
slabs of flames were hurtling out of nowhere and hitting the bone dry sawdust
streets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a flash, Peshtigo was
blazing — maybe five minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Cameron saw horses, cattle, men, and women, stagger in the
sawdust streets, then go down to burn brightly like so many flares of
pitch-pine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He winced when he spoke of
watching pretty young Helga Rockstad running down a blazing sidewalk, when her
long blond hair burst into flame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
next day, he looked for her remains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
he found was two nickel garter buckles and a little mound of white-gray ash.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The river was the safest place that night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People kept their heads underwater as much as
possible, so the great sheets of flame wouldn’t set their heads on fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Within an hour, the town was vaporized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big lumberjacks were reduced to streaks of
ash, enough to fill a thimble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this
village of 2,000, at least 1,150 died, and 1,280,000 acres (518,000 ha) went up
in smoke.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Also on October 8, 1871, numerous big fires raged across the
state of Michigan, where it had not rained in two months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These fires destroyed 2.5 million acres (1
million ha) — three times more timberland than the Peshtigo blaze.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was an era of countless huge fires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, in just the state of Wisconsin,
tremendous fires destroyed huge areas in 1871, 1880, 1891, 1894, 1897, 1908,
1910, 1923, 1931, 1936. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/01/others.html">Paul Shepard</a>
wrote, “Sacred groves did not exist when all trees were sacred.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1990, I chatted on an internet bulletin
board with a Shawnee man named Nick Trim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He talked about a project 300+ years ago, along the Mississippi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a kindly gesture, some French soldiers
were teaching the Shawnee how to build log cabins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This required cutting trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The natives were very nervous about chopping
down living trees, because they were often home to spirit beings, the little
people. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">To avoid spiritual retaliation, a respectful process was
essential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They knocked on each tree,
described the situation, and explained why they wanted to take lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was followed by a ceremony, prayers, and
apologies to the trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then they waited
a day or so, to give any spirit residents adequate time to find a comfortable
new home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This took so long that the
French lost their patience, and the project ended. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-hidden-life-of-trees.html">Peter
Wohlleben</a>, a German wood ranger, developed an extremely intimate
relationship with the forest he cared for, and wrote a precious celebration of
his love for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Modern folks who spend
most of their lives in civilized space stations almost never get to know the
tree people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some do not eat meat
because they sense that animals have souls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In an interview, Wohlleben conveyed a deeper understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Killing an animal is the same as killing a
tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He once oversaw a plantation of
trees lined up in straight rows, evenly spaced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was a concentration camp for tree people.<o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-79661703734654149262021-10-29T15:12:00.001-07:002021-10-30T09:19:22.545-07:00Grassland Rewrite<p></p><p class="BlogText">Greetings! The following is a rewrite of samples
23, 24, and 25, which were originally posted way back in 2019, when I was young
and innocent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The revised version is
shorter, clearer, and adds new factoids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I hope that as my editing process moves into newer sections, fewer
tweaks will be needed, and the blessed finish line will arrive before the sun
burns out.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">MOTHER
GRASSLAND<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The family of life is solar powered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incoming solar energy is received by green plants,
who use it to produce sugar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
process is photosynthesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It converts <i>solar
energy</i> into a form of <i>chemical energy</i> that plants and animals must
have to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Animals acquire this
energy by eating plant material, or by dining on plant-eating animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Photosynthesis splits water molecules (H<sub>2</sub>O) into
hydrogen and oxygen atoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, in a
fancy magic act, hydrogen is stirred together with CO<sub>2</sub> to make a sugar
called glucose (C<sub>6</sub>H<sub>12</sub>O<sub>6</sub>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The process results in some leftover oxygen
atoms, which are released to the atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Notice that animals exhale the CO<sub>2</sub> needed by plants, and
plants exhale the oxygen needed by animals, a sacred circle dance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plants use the sugar to fuel their daily life,
or they can convert it to starch, and save it for later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plants can also make fat, protein, and
vitamins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re much smarter than they
look.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The act of snatching carbon from the air, and incorporating
it into living plant tissues, is called carbon fixation, or carbon
sequestration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As more carbon gets sequestered
into the plants and surrounding topsoil, then less of it remains in the
atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is great, because too
much carbon in the atmosphere can lead to catastrophic climate juju, like the
freaky changes that are beginning to bludgeon the family of life right now. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">There are four primary terrestrial biomes: grassland, forest,
desert, and tundra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grasslands are
communities of different plants — primarily grasses, mixed with a wide variety
of sedges and leafy forbs (wild flowers and herbs).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These mixed communities maximize the capture
of solar energy, make better use of soil resources, and create rich humus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humus boosts soil fertility, and helps retain
moisture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some plants also convert
atmospheric nitrogen into a form that is essential for all living things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others are good at retrieving essential
mineral nutrients.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">There are maybe 12,000 species of grass, and they grow in
many tropical and temperate regions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some
are able to survive extended droughts, or long winters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grasslands have two modes, productive and
dormant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In warm climates, they are
dormant during the dry season, and recover when the rains return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In temperate climates, they are dormant
during the frosty months, and green when the soil thaws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Following an intense disturbance, grasslands can recover in 5
to 10 years — far faster than a wrecked forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Evolution has done a remarkable job of fine-tuning grasslands for rugged
durability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They can recover more easily
after wildfires because only a third of grassland biomass is above ground, and most
vulnerable to flames.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plants send roots
far underground, to acquire moisture and nutrients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some roots grow as deep as 32 feet (10 m).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The seeds of many grassland species can
remain dormant for an extended period, postponing germination until appropriate
conditions return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some seeds can
survive a hot and slippery ride through an herbivore’s gut and remain fertile,
enabling the colonization of new locations.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Grass
and Herbivores<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Grassland communities run on carb energy that moves from
species to species, up and down the food chain, and enables the existence of
the family of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Large grass eating
herbivores were a favorite source of nutrients for our prehistoric
ancestors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the effort invested in
hunting, they provided the biggest jackpots of meat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our strong desire for these animals, and our
ongoing dependence on them, eventually resulted in some hominins evolving into <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Homo sapiens</span></em>, the
last surviving hominin species.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">It’s important to understand that herds of large herbivores
do not usually reside in forests or jungles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Large body size can be an important advantage on grasslands, but a
disadvantage in dense woodlands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
terms of vegetation, forests contain much more plant biomass than grasslands,
but most of it is elevated out of the reach of hungry herbivores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, grasslands annually produce
much more new biomass per acre than forests, and it’s conveniently located
close to the ground.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">To herd critters, grassland looks like a candy store where
all the goodies are free and delicious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grasslands are the best place to dine on high quality greenery, hang out
with friends and relatives, produce cute offspring, and enjoy a wonderful life
of fresh air, travel, and adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Consequently, grasslands are home to far more large animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would expect that most land-dwelling
megafauna species originated in grasslands.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Grass
and Hominins<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Miocene Epoch spanned from 23 to 5.3 million years
ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that the early Miocene was
wet and warm, and many ecosystems were forests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Much of Antarctica was covered with temperate forest 20 million years
ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, maybe six to eight million
years ago, it got cooler and dryer, and a different type of ecosystem evolved
and expanded — grasslands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compared to
forests, grasslands generally need less precipitation to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, the Earth’s forest area is 80 percent
smaller than it was in the Miocene’s golden age of trees.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">This transition had a significant impact on the human
saga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As forests shrank, there was less
habitat for our tree-dwelling ancestors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A number of forest species tumbled off the stage forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some primates moved onto the savannah, and
figured out how to survive as ground-dwelling primates, in open country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They included the ancestors of baboons and
humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans are hominins, primates
that walk on two legs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About four
million years ago, hominins originated on the savannah grasslands of tropical
Mother Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Our tree-dwelling ancestors were primarily frugivores, fruit
eaters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They ate stuff that grew or lived
in trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they became
ground-dwelling critters, they needed a new diet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Large herbivores became a popular choice. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hunting was the path to success, and grassland
was the place to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, as
humans migrated out of Africa, and colonized the world, they preferred to
select routes that majored in grasslands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their journey took them to grasslands in the Middle East, and then
Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Barry Cunliffe noted that a vast steppe grassland began in Hungary
and ended in Manchuria, providing a grassy highway that was 5,600 miles (9,000
km) long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As an added bonus, the steppe
was largely carpeted with vegetation that was drought-resistant and
frost-tolerant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once established in northern
Asia, intrepid pioneers were eventually able to wander from Siberia, over the
Beringia land bridge, and then explore the incredible Serengetis of the
Americas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 1872, Kansas senator <a href="https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/IND43894989/PDF">John James Ingalls</a>
celebrated the power of grass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wrote:
“Grass is the forgiveness of nature — her constant benediction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…Streets abandoned by traffic become
grass-grown like rural lanes, and are obliterated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers
vanish, but grass is immortal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…The
primary form of food is grass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grass
feeds the ox: the ox nourishes man: man dies and goes to grass again; and so
the tide of life with everlasting repetition, in continuous circles, moves
endlessly on and upward, and in more senses than one, all flesh is grass.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Super
Grass<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">And now, the plot thickens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are several ways that photosynthesis fixes carbon in plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The conventional process is called C<sub>3</sub>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It produces a compound that has three carbon
atoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The turbocharged process is C<sub>4</sub>,
and it produces a compound that has four carbon atoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe 85 percent of the plant species on
Earth are C<sub>3</sub>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their method of
carbon fixation is simpler and less efficient than C<sub>4</sub>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both types are very old, but when climate
change favored the expansion of grassland, C<sub>4</sub> species got an
important boost.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(13)00507-1.pdf">Elizabeth
Kellogg</a> studied C<sub>4</sub> plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In one experiment she found that, under ideal conditions, C<sub>3</sub>
plants could theoretically capture and store up to 4.6 percent of the solar
energy they received, while C<sub>4</sub> plants could get up to 6 percent (30
percent more). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, provided
with the same inputs of sunlight and water, C<sub>4</sub> produces more
calories than C<sub>3</sub> — carbs that fuel the family of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also produce more root biomass, which
increases their tolerance for drought and fire.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Kellogg calls the C<sub>4</sub> process a turbocharger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While only 3 percent of flowering plant
species are C<sub>4</sub>, they account for 23 percent of all carbon fixation
in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the 12,000 grass
species, 46 percent of them are C<sub>4</sub>, and they include corn (maize),
sugar cane, millet, and sorghum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Mad
scientists are now trying to alter DNA to make rice C<sub>4</sub> too.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">There are four conditions under which C<sub>4</sub> plants
have a big advantage — high temperature, high light, low moisture, and low nutrients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because they need less water, C<sub>4</sub>
plants better conserve soil moisture, so their growing season is longer in arid
regions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kellogg wrote, “In the last 8
million years, C<sub>4</sub> grasses have come to dominate much of the earth’s
land surface.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">C<sub>3</sub> grasses are better adapted to moist forest
floors and limited sunlight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are
less able to thrive in arid grasslands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Out on the savannah, C<sub>4</sub> grasses enjoy some important advantages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When conditions are right, they are able to
manufacture generous amounts of chemical energy (sugar), and this increases
their odds for survival.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">[Important!]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The big
picture here is that climate change radically altered the family of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It encouraged the substantial expansion of
grassland, which boosted the expansion of C<sub>4</sub> grasses, which
propelled the evolution and expansion of large grazers and carnivores, which
boosted the global tonnage of living meat, which set the stage for the arrival
of our hominin ancestors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today’s
climate crisis seems likely to unleash far bigger changes in something more like
the blink of an eye.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Grasslands can support more large animals than forests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grassland megafauna migrated and settled on
five continents (not Australasia).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Around
the world we find varieties of horses, bison, elephants, antelope, deer, hyenas,
wolves, bears, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grasslands
support far less biodiversity than rainforests, which are home to fantastic
numbers of different species.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-forgiveness-of-nature.html">Graham
Harvey</a>, a grass worshipping wordsmith, noted that growth is actually
stimulated by grazing and fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a
brilliant design, new blades of grass emerge from growing points located close
to the ground, where they are less likely to be damaged by hungry teeth or
passing flames.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The faster that grasses
can send up new blades, the more sunlight they can capture, the more sugar they
can make, and the happier the whole ecosystem becomes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joy!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Another benefit of grazing is that herbivores often nip off the
rising shoots of woody vegetation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
trees and brush were allowed to grow and spread, they would compete for sunlight
with the grasses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, the herds of
hungry herbivores would have less to eat, and so would the carnivores that
adore red meat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Herds religiously
offered their deep gratitude to the grass people by lovingly depositing
nutrient rich manure and urine all over the place.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Grass eaters are called grazers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Browsers are critters that eat leaves, woody
shoots, bark, and saplings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some species
are both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The elephant family loves to
dine on young green leaves, and they sometimes knock trees down to get
them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each day, elephants eat 550 pounds
(250 kg) of grass and leaves, and then turn it into magnificent
fertilizer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Giraffes are top feeders
that specialize in leafy vegetation that elephants and rhinos are too short to
snatch.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Browsers can limit the expansion of trees and woody brush,
but they aren’t fanatical mass murdering exterminators.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Savannah ecosystems are grasslands dotted
here and there with trees and shrubs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grass provides food for the grazing herds, and woody vegetation
nourishes the browsers — and it provides shade and hiding places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Home sweet home!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Harvey concluded that, in many ways, humans are creatures of
grass country, like the bison, hyenas, and vultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We still are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We take immense pride in the brilliant triumph of humankind, but if we
turn off the spotlights and loudspeakers, and pull back the curtains, we see
that the Green Mother of this grand and goofy misadventure is our intimate and
enduring dependence on grassland ecosystems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grass is Superman’s momma.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Manmade
Grassland<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">All flesh is grass, but grass is not limitless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the old days, there were no hunting
licenses, rules, bag limits, or game wardens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The hunting fad was able to grow until it eventually smashed into rock
solid limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flesh is not
limitless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folks began missing dinners,
and going to bed with growling tummies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Overshoot
is never sustainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too many hominins
spoil the party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 100% guaranteed,
always effective, least popular cure for overshoot is die-off.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Another cure is migration, pack up and move.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This medicine worked for thousands of years, as
folks colonized the regions uninhabited by humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, the happy hunters learned a
painful new lesson: Earth is not limitless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Shit!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cultural taboos that limited reproduction
could provide some pressure relief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
could perpetual inter-tribal warfare, bloody the competition whenever possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cleverness is the persistent gift and curse
of humankind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It conjured another idea,
a magic wand call the firestick.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Shortgrass prairie grassland needs between 10 and 30 inches
(25 to 76 cm) of annual precipitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most of its plants are less than one foot (30 cm) tall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tallgrass prairie needs more than 30 inches
(76 cm) of annual precipitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
tallgrass, prairie plants can sometimes grow up to 13 feet (4 m) high — tall
enough to hide a horse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tallgrass can
produce far more food for grazing animals, which enables larger herds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the precipitation needed by
tallgrass is also adequate for the survival of forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While browsing and grazing helps to maintain
open grassland, it’s not enough to fully prevent the existence and spread of
forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When Big Mama Nature gets in a stormy mood, she sometimes
ignites wildfires with lightning bolts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fire
can be a good tonic for the health of grass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It burns up accumulated dead foliage and debris, allowing more solar
energy to empower the grass people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also,
with the dead junk burned away, the exposed ground warms up faster when the
snows melt, enabling the growing season to begin earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soon after fires end, tender green shoots
emerge from the ashes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fresh greenery
looks heavenly to the grazing critters, and hunters love grazing critters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://keep.konza.k-state.edu/prairieecology/TallgrassPrairieEcology.pdf">Jill
Haukos</a> noted that fire happily stimulates the growth of fresh new grass, but
it has zero concern for the health and safety of trees and shrubs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grass productivity is 20 to 40 percent higher
on burned land, compared to unburned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
tallgrass prairie is deliberately burned every few years, it will not
transition to forest, because the seeds, sprouts, and saplings can’t survive the
cruel abuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natural wildfire doesn’t
faithfully follow regular burn schedules, but regular manmade fire is able to
trump the tree people.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Wild folks clearly understood that maintaining extensive
grasslands improved their hunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
deliberately controlling nature, they could eat better, and feed more
bambinos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So they did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For hunters, fire was a powerful beneficial servant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the rodents, birds, and insects of the
grassland, fire could be a viciously powerful master.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shepard Krech mentioned that when the first
humans settled Hawaii and New Zealand, they cleared the land with fire, driving
many bird species extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it OK to
rubbish a thriving ecosystem for selfish reasons?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only human desires matter?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Haukos wrote about bison grazing in tallgrass prairie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hungry herds have little interest in seeking
un-grazed locations<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> that are covered with lots of old and skanky </span>low calorie
grass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They much prefer fresh new grass,
and they pay close attention to recently burned landscapes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Bison maintain large grazing lawns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They return again and again to the same
‘lawns’ to eat the new growth of grass, which is highly nutritious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These areas may look overgrazed but actually have
new growth continually, providing the nutritious grass bison need, even if only
one inch high (2.5 cm).”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The practice of using periodic burns to maintain and expand
superb grazing land is often called firestick farming, because it uses burning
to increase the harvest of life-giving meat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a powerful, easy, low tech way to benefit large game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/03/throwing-fire.html">Alfred
Crosby</a> noted that firestick farming had transformed much of six continents
long before the first field was planted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Let’s look at a few examples.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">North America<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The chilly Pleistocene ended about 11,700 years ago, with the
arrival of the warmer and gentler Holocene era that we currently enjoy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ice sheets melted and retreated, creating
space for tundra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the climate further
warmed, expanding prairies displaced regions of tundra.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prairie ecosystems can support more complex biodiversity,
as different communities of species adapt to different mixes of soil types,
moisture, and climate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where changing
conditions favored the existence of trees, forest expanded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Forests tend to trump grassland, because they
allow less sunlight to reach the ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Once established, a forest can thrive for thousands of years, if not
molested by murderous terrorists.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">One way or another, Native Americans learned the benefits of
grass burning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They understood that
regular burning could inhibit forest regeneration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As centuries passed, tallgrass regions
expanded, much to the delight of large herbivores, and hungry hunters.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/06/fire-brief-history.html">Stephen
Pyne</a> wrote that when white colonists were settling in the eastern U.S., the
western portion of the Great Plains was shortgrass prairie, too dry to support
forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But much of the eastern portion
was tallgrass prairie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had rainfall
and soils suitable for forest, but over the centuries, Native Americans had
gradually pushed back forest territory to greatly expand the prairie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They maintained this highly productive prairie
by burning it every few years, to kill young saplings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It provided excellent habitat for bison and
other delicacies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Burning was a common practice in many regions of North
America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By A.D. 1000, the expansion of
manmade tallgrass prairie had enabled bison to migrate east of the Mississippi
River watershed for the first time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
the 1600s, several million bison lived in a region spanning from Massachusetts
to Florida.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Shepard Krech wrote that along the east coast, there were oak
openings (meadows with scattered trees) as large as 1,000 acres (404 ha).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Manmade grasslands in the Shenandoah Valley
covered a thousand square miles (2,590 km<sup>2</sup>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He noted that Indian fires sometimes had
unintended consequences, when they exploded into raging infernos that burned
for days, sometimes killing entire bison herds, up to a thousand
animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://wildsouth.org/the-cherokee-landscape-and-buffalo-economy/">Lamar
Marshall</a> described the relationship between the Cherokee people and the
bison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tribe resided east of the
Mississippi River, and lived by farming and hunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Legends suggested that bison did not live
there until sometime around A.D. 1400.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By then, the natives had significantly expanded grassland for hunting,
and cleared forest for farming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Game was
especially attracted to rivercane pastures (canebrakes) that were burned every
7 to 10 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marshall provided a map
showing how huge North America’s bison range was in 1500. [<a href="http://wildsouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Slide7.png">Look</a>] <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/03/deforesting-earth.html">Michael
Williams</a> noted that as the diseases of civilization spread westward,
Indians died in great numbers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had
zero immunity to deadly and highly contagious Old World pathogens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Diseases spread westward far faster than the
expansion of settlers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, the
traditional burning was sharply reduced, and forests were returning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1750, they may have been bigger and denser
than they had been in the previous thousand years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When whites eventually arrived to create
permanent agricultural communities, the happy regrown forests had to be
savagely euthanized.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://images.library.wisc.edu/WI/EFacs/transactions/WT1937/reference/wi.wt1937.awschorger.pdf">Arlie
Schorger</a> wrote about the vast manmade tallgrass prairies of southern and
western Wisconsin, and the last bison killed there in 1832.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some prairies spanned 50 miles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prairie was almost continuous from Lake
Winnebago to the Illinois border.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Natives had been expanding and maintaining grassland for a very long
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1767, white visitors observed
“large droves of buffalos” on the fine meadows along the Buffalo River.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">By and by, devastating epidemics hammered the indigenous
people who had maintained the grassland and hunted the bison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regular burning sputtered out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The last bison seen crossing the Mississippi River,
and entering Wisconsin, was in 1820.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By
1854, dense groves of 25 year old trees were joyfully reclaiming their
ancestral homeland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, these
recovering forests had a bleak future, because they stood directly in the path
of a rapidly approaching mob of merciless pale-faced axe murderers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shit!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Over the passage of centuries, the tallgrass prairies created
topsoil that was deep and remarkably fertile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then came the settlers, with their plows and ambitions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plows are magnificent tools for destroying
soil, and creating permanent irreparable damage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.npg.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/OUR-PLUNDERED-PLANET-2014.pdf">Walter
Youngquist</a> wrote, “In the United States, half the topsoil of Iowa is now in
the Mississippi River delta.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today,
tallgrass prairie ecosystems are in danger of extinction, maybe one percent of
them still survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exotic freak show grasses
like corn and wheat are far more popular and profitable than the indigenous
tallgrass.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In his book <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Collapse</span></em>,
Jared Diamond mentioned his visit to a wee remnant of the ancient prairie that
had somehow survived the plowman invasion, an old churchyard in Iowa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was surrounded by land that had been
farmed for more than 100 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
wrote, “As a result of soil being eroded much more rapidly from fields than
from the churchyard, the yard now stands like a little island raised 10 feet (3
m) above the surrounding sea of farmland.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Australia<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-biggest-estate-on-earth.html">Bill
Gammage</a> described the Australia that British colonists observed in 1788,
when they first washed up on shore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
landscape was radically different from what it is today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Early white eyewitnesses frequently commented
that large regions looked like parks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
those days, all English parks were the private estates of the super-rich.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oddly, the Aborigines who inhabited the
beautiful park-like Australian countryside were penniless illiterate bare-naked
Stone Age antifascist anarchist heathens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Their wealth was their time-proven knowledge.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 1788, large areas of Australia had been actively managed
by firestick farming, which greatly promoted habitat for the delicious critters
that the natives loved to have lunch with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Aborigines used both hot fires and cool fires to encourage
vegetation that was fire intolerant, fire tolerant, fire dependent, or fire
promoting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Different fires were used to
promote specific herbs, tubers, bulbs, or grasses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When starting a fire, the time and location
was carefully calculated to encourage the desired result.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to Gammage, most of Australia was
burnt about every one to five years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
any day of the year, a fire was likely burning somewhere.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The natives generally enjoyed an affluent lifestyle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had learned how to live through hundred-year
droughts and giant floods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No region was
too harsh for people to inhabit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their
culture had taboos that set limits on reproduction and hunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the breeding seasons of important
animals, hunting was prohibited near their gathering places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lots of food resources were left untouched
most of the time, a vital safety net.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Dreaming had two rules: obey the Law, and leave the world as you
found it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The white colonists were clueless space aliens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their glorious vision was to transfer a British
way of life to a continent that was highly unsuited for it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Australia’s soils were ancient and minimally
fertile, and the climate was bipolar — extreme multi-year droughts could be
washed away by sudden deluges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, they
brought their livestock and plows and gave it a whirl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They believed that hard work was a
virtue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Aborigines were astonished
to observe how much time and effort the silly newcomers invested in producing
the weird stuff they ate.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The new settlers wanted to live like proper rural Brits —
permanent homes, built on fenced private property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They freaked out when the natives set fires
to maintain the grassland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before long,
districts began banning these burns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This led to the return of saplings and brush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, in just 40 years, the site of a tidy
dairy farm could be replaced by dense rainforest.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Without burning, insect numbers exploded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without burning, fuels built up, leading to
new catastrophes, called bushfires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Black Thursday fire hit on February 6, 1851.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It burned 12 million acres (5 million ha), killed a million sheep,
thousands of cattle, and countless everything else.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Mark Brazil shared a story that was full of crap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Britain, cow manure was promptly and
properly composted by patriotic dung beetles, which returned essential
nutrients to the soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Australia,
none of the native dung beetles could get the least bit interested in cow
shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was too wet, and too out in the
open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cow pies could patiently sit on
the grass unmolested for four years, because nobody loved them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This deeply hurt their feelings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adding insult to injury, Brook Jarvis noted
that fussy cattle refused to graze in the vicinity of neglected pies, so the
herd needed access to far more grazing land than normal.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Australian flies, on the other hand, discovered that cow pies
made fabulous nurseries for their children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Each pat could feed 3,000 maggots, which turned into flies — dense
clouds of billions and billions of flies — which the hard working Christians
did not in any way fancy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being outdoors
was hellish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the 1960s, folks
imported British dung beetles, which loved the taste and aroma of cow
pies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oddly, this is one example where
an introduced exotic species apparently didn’t create unintended
consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they ran out of pies
to eat, the beetles simply died.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Anyway, a continent inhabited by Stone Age people was
substantially altered by firestick farming and hunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Australia of 1788 was radically different
from when the first humans arrived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We’ll never know if continued firestick farming would have eventually
led to severely degraded ecosystems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Some serious imbalances can take a long time to fully develop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many attempts to deliberately control and
exploit ecosystems have spawned huge unintended consequences over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ultra-conservative indigenous kangaroos
and wallabies were not control freaks, they simply adapted.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Gammage was fond of the Aborigines, because they were highly
successful at surviving for a long time in a challenging ecosystem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was much less fond of the British
colonists who, with good intentions, combined with no wisdom, were highly
successful at rubbishing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/03/megafauna.html">Baz Edmeades</a>
viewed the entire Australian experience through ecological glasses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fire reshaped the continent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When humans first arrived, the north coast
was home to dry forests that majored in araucaria trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before long, they were displaced by
fire-promoting forests that majored in eucalypts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The original dry forests went up in
smoke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Extremely low-tech Stone Age
people substantially altered the ecosystem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We may never have a clear understanding of the early extinctions of the vertebrate
megafauna and giant reptiles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-49152248796352792182021-10-06T13:29:00.001-07:002021-10-06T13:51:47.669-07:00Megafauna Extinction Rewrite<p></p><p class="BlogText">Greetings!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After three
years of sharing rough draft sections, I’ve begun rereading the book from page
one, and cleaning it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first 70
pages went pretty smoothly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then came
the discussion related to megafauna extinctions (samples 18 to 21).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It needed attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following is a shorter and clearer rewrite.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">MEGAFAUNA
EXTINCTIONS<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">This morning, during your invigorating walk to work, school,
or wherever, you probably didn’t worry about being devoured by a hungry saber-tooth
cat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you see a single cave bear or woolly
mammoth?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the human herd has expanded,
the population of wild megafauna has sharply declined, and many species have
gone extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Megafauna are mammals
weighing more than 100 pounds (45 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Megafauna
critters include herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores — both wild and
domesticated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are a megafauna, and
so am I. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Large herbivores have played a starring role in our ancestors’
evolutionary journey, because they enabled the survival of our lineage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look in the mirror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look at the folks on the sidewalk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our bodies are far different from our closest
relatives, the chimps and bonobos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
have the bodies of persistence hunters, folks who can run for hours in pursuit
of a hot lunch, folks skilled at killing large animals. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These hunting skills gave us the ability to
colonize six continents, and radically alter their ecosystems. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Before we proceed, please understand that prehistoric dates and
extinction counts are estimates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Different sources present different numbers.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Blitzkrieg
Overkill<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Paul Martin is essentially the poster boy for megafauna
extinction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sparked intense
controversy with his theory that many of the extinctions in North America
essentially took place during a thousand year “blitzkrieg” (lightning war) of overhunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most estimates date the North American
extinction spasm somewhere around 13,500 to 10,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 1956, Martin’s research involved visiting caves in
multiple locations and analyzing piles of ground sloth turds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he dug through the dung, he focused his
attention on the pollen and fungal spore contents in each layer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he dated his findings, he noticed an odd
pattern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sloths in Arizona had
disappeared several centuries earlier than in South America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, on the islands of the West Indies, they
survived an additional 3,000 years longer than in mainland regions (hunters didn’t
have boats at first).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dates of
extinctions indicated how hunters had colonized the New World — from Alaska, they
migrated southward, to Central America, and then throughout South America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">By 1966, a daunting new hypothesis had hatched in the space between
Martin’s ears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Megafauna extinctions
were not just an American thing, they had happened around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this updated hypothesis, extinctions began
more than a million years ago in Mother Africa, the original hominin homeland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, like a gradual cascade of falling
dominos, they moved on to Australia, Eurasia, North America, and finally South
America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Australia lost 15 out of 16 genera of vertebrate megafauna,
including giant reptiles and marsupials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Europe lost 21 of 37 genera of megafauna, Asia lost 24 of 46, North
America lost 45 of 61, and South America lost 58 of 71.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s a genera?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the plural of genus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A genus is a category of closely related
species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, the <i>Homo</i>
genus includes <i>Homo sapiens</i>, <i>Homo neanderthalensis</i>, <i>Homo
erectus</i>, and so on (12 different species).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Australia and the Americas got hit especially hard because
the megafauna had not lived for thousands of years along with humans, Neanderthals,
or other hominins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had not
coevolved with humans, and learned that we were dangerous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martin created a chart showing the
correspondence between human colonization and extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_S._Martin#/media/File:Extinctions_Africa_Austrailia_NAmerica_Madagascar.gif">LOOK</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/305489176">Fernando
Fernandez</a> described the bottom line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“About two thirds of all animal species larger than 50 kg (the so-called
megafauna) were extinct from the late Pleistocene onwards, starting in
Australia at about fifty thousand years ago and following humans’ footsteps in
their expansion throughout Eurasia and the Americas.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the era between 50,000 years ago and 500
years ago, at least 97 of 150 genera of the world’s large terrestrial mammals
blinked out forever. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The scope of his
paper did not include the earlier extinctions in Africa, which were also severe
(more on them below).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">For mentally alert critical thinkers, it’s difficult to
imagine folks with spears and arrows, traveling by foot, in a roadless
wilderness, wiping out all the horses, mammoths, saber-tooth cats, and so on,
across an entire continent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martin’s
theory can sound utterly ridiculous — until you evaluate the less compelling alternative
theories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s very important to
understand that few, if any, extinctions were quickies, many took more than a
thousand years.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Native Americans were especially offended by Martin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The overkill hypothesis implied that their
ancestors had foolishly hunted way too hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His theory was racist, hateful, and wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, anyone can see that the ultimate
champions of furious destruction were the civilized settlers who stole their
ancestral homeland, and went totally berserk on the ecosystem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his book, <i>Red Earth, White Lies</i>,
Lakota historian Vine Deloria described, with righteous vigor, why Martin’s
overkill hypothesis was absolutely wrong.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Native Americans are also not fond of the notion that their
ancient ancestors originally came from the Old World.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In their traditions, America has been their
home forever, since the dawn of creation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Similarly, the white settlers remain extremely uncomfortable with the
notion that the roots of their family tree lie deep in Mother Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many thousands of years, most generations
of their ancestors had beautiful brown skin and curly hair (gasp!).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Obviously, Native Americans lived far more simply and gently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the good old days, they had no horses,
wheels, or iron.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Early white colonists
were astonished by the vitality of New World ecosystems, with their expansive forests,
clean water, and fantastic abundance of wildlife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Lewis and Clark, and other pioneers,
mentioned events when natives killed more game than they needed, wasting meat
and hides. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-natural-west.html">Dan
Flores</a> wrote that the Cree tribe believed that the numbers of bison were
essentially infinite, and that the animals they killed in no way diminished
their abundance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>William Dobak mentioned
an Assiniboine legend that the bison will live as long as the people, and there
will be no end of them until the end of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Shepard Krech wrote that the Powhatan tribe hunted throughout the year,
and killed animals regardless of their age, sex, or breeding state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Cherokee believed that every deer they
killed was reanimated, each would be replaced.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17748/17748-h/17748-h.htm">William
Hornaday</a> wrote about the American bison (commonly nicknamed buffalo).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Genuine buffalo live in sub-Saharan Africa
and south Asia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the good old days,
white observers described bison herds 25 miles wide, and 50 miles long (40 by
80 km), that took five days to pass — maybe 480,000 animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1889, when the bison were close to
extinction, he wrote, “No wonder that the men of the West of those days, both
white and red, thought it would be impossible to exterminate such a mighty
multitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Indians of some tribes
believed that the buffaloes issued from the earth continually, and that the
supply was necessarily inexhaustible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And yet, in four short years the southern herd was almost totally
annihilated.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wondered if elk, moose,
caribou, mountain sheep, mountain goat, antelope, and black tail deer would
still exist in 25 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/03/megafauna.html">Baz Edmeades</a>
noted that the fantastic number of bison on the U.S. prairie in the 1840s was
made possible by the fact that bison didn’t have to share the grassland with 12
species of large herbivores that went extinct earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Charles Mann suspected that bison numbers
exploded as a result of the sharp decline in the number of Native American
hunters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smallpox travelled westward far
faster than the white settlers, arriving on the plains by the 1730s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indians had no immunity.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">For more than 40 years, many disgruntled experts have worked hard
to disembowel Martin’s overkill hypothesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/113/4/886.full.pdf">Todd
Surovell</a> and team, writing in 2016, were surprised to see that such a
radically unusual idea could survive so many years of intense scrutiny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, for the most part, it has.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">It was a wacky-sounding idea, but it was lucky to be less
wacky than the alternatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s vital
to bear in mind that this isn’t a story about a few generations of fanatically
insane exterminators (like U.S. bison killers).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Indeed, a thousand year process can take a very long time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What were your ancestors doing a thousand
years ago?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where did they live?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What did they hunt?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Imperceptible
Overkill<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03115510609506854">Brook and
Johnson</a>, studying Australia, disliked the notion of “blitzkrieg overkill.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They thought that “imperceptible overkill”
was a much fairer description.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
created a computer model to analyze possible extinction paths for the giant
marsupial, <i>Diprotodon opoptatum</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
extinction process could have been very slow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“We show that remarkably low levels of exploitation of juveniles (the
equivalent of one or two kills per 10 people per year) would have been
sufficient to drive these large species to extinction within centuries, as a
consequence of their ‘slow’ life-histories.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Martin’s notion of blitzkrieg overkill can only be seen as
speedy when it is viewed from the mountaintop perspective of geological
timeframes that span many thousands of years, even millions of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the perspective of living hunters around
a campfire, it’s possible that the megafauna extinctions may have never been
noticed by the passing generations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Imperceptible
overkill” is a more open-minded label, and it doesn’t have the stinky scent of
Nazi invasions (“blitzkrieg”).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-once-and-future-world.html">J.
B. MacKinnon</a> wrote about “shifting baseline syndrome,” or ecological
amnesia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each of us tends to perceive
the world of our childhood as the “normal” state of the ecosystem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Florida Keys, photos of fishermen in
the 1950s show the biggest fish as being as long as wide as the fishers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Photos from 2007 show that most fish are
about a foot long (30 cm).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have
“change blindness.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t notice
changes that we aren’t paying direct attention to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2017/07/sea-of-slaughter.html">Farley
Mowat</a> compared five centuries of old journals that mentioned wildlife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Based on this, biologists concluded “that
biomass — the total weight of living things — off North America’s east coast
may have declined by 97 percent since written records began.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five hundred years ago, cod grew to seven
feet long (2.1 m), and weighed up to 200 pounds (91 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1984, the average cod was 6 pounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fishery blinked out, and has never
recovered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No generation knows the land
as their grandparents knew it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305489176">Fernando
Fernandez</a> noted that “the extinctions were a long process that took several
millennia to occur in most continents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…Killing
large animals just slightly above their fertility rate could wipe them out over
the passage of centuries.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t so
much about the intensity of the hunting as the fragility of the hunted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prey often had no instinctive fear of humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over a thousand years, and many generations
of hunters, extinctions may have been essentially invisible.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-sixth-extinction.html">Elizabeth
Kolbert</a> noted that modern elephants do not reach sexual maturity until
their late teens, each pregnancy takes 22 months, and there are never
twins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because they reproduce so slowly,
mammoths could have been driven to extinction by nothing more than modest
levels of hunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doug Peacock
estimated that taking only 4 or 5 percent of a slow breeding species could put
them on a gradual path to extinction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter
Ward calculated that if hunters had regularly taken just two percent of the
mammoths each year, the extinction process would have taken 400 years — too
slow for each generation of hunters to notice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Regardless of climate conditions, hunting alone would have wiped them
out.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">While the front lines of human colonization advanced, the yet
to be explored human-free regions remained wild, free, and happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Small isolated bands of people were living in
a vast wilderness, unaware of the current conditions in every surrounding hill
and valley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was no way they could
accurately monitor the populations of game animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When hunting was bad, they couldn’t know
exactly why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was it a temporary dip, or
time to move?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As long as the hunting was good, folks could stay where they
were, and enjoy the delicious abundance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Later, when the hunting eventually wheezed, the solution was to wander
into the unmolested frontier and resume the feasting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the engine of colonization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They followed their stomachs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For thousands of years, during the era of our
species’ dispersal, few could foresee that they would eventually reach the end
of wild abundance. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">By the twentieth century, the wide open wild frontier was a distant
memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were now limits,
boundaries, and regulations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To carefully
survive, if possible, tribes had to live with acute foresight and
mindfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/06/make-prayers-to-raven.html">Richard
Nelson</a> spent time with the Koyukon people of Alaska, and learned that
moose, caribou, and salmon numbers varied from year to year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When deer numbers declined, they stopped
hunting them for several years, and ate other critters instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, when game was abundant, they would stop
hunting in a portion of their domain, creating a refuge where game could get a
break from hunting, and recharge their numbers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Megaherbivore
Decline<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Beware!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The science
jargon now gets a bit slippery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Megafauna</span></em> weigh
100+ pounds (45+ kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A subset of
megafauna is <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">megaherbivores</span></em>,
plant eaters that weigh more than a metric ton: 2,200+ pounds (1,000+ kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Megaherbivore extinctions have rocked every
continent. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/03/throwing-fire.html">Alfred
Crosby</a> concluded that the human colonization of the world caused a general
disaster among the rest of the family of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Nothing this devastating had happened in millions of years.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was especially hard on huge animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When the die-off ended, all land mammals of
one metric ton or over, of which there had been numbers of species — mammoths,
mastodons, ground sloths, woolly rhinos, giant kangaroos, and more — were gone,
except in southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These megaherbivores were the most desirable
critters to kill, because they were slow, easy to find, and provided lots of
meat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In the good old days, the megaherbivores’ massive body size
and strength had boosted their ability to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then came the humans with projectile
weapons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are the only predators that
use atlatls, which allow us to kill from a distance, at far less risk of
personal injury and premature death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
modern hobbyist with an atlatl can hurl a dart right through a car door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Darts can break elephant bones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1961, Colin Turnbull wrote, “The Pygmies
today still kill elephants single-handed, armed only with a short-handled
spear.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, because of this advanced
technology, jumbo body size lost much of its defensive advantage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It became a disadvantage, often a death
sentence, a trap door to extinction.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As the world’s megaherbivores blinked out, so did the carnivores
that specialized in hunting the giants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For example, several large cat species had long upper canine teeth or
fangs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These saber-tooth and
scimitar-tooth cats were specialized for killing huge herbivores with very thick
hides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As their traditional large prey
declined, the cats’ long fangs may have become a handicap for hunting smaller
varieties of prey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were doomed by
overspecialization, and were escorted off the stage by bad luck.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In Europe, several sites indicate that Neanderthal hunters had
focused on nursery herds, consisting of mothers and their offspring. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was much less dangerous to kill a young
aurochs or steppe bison than to attack its huge and powerful daddy, who could
easily splatter you into a puddle of bloody mush.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The far less dangerous way of bringing home mammoth steaks
was to kill their smaller, weaker offspring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Baz Edmeades noted that scimitar-tooth cats had a fondness for dining on
youngsters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Friesenhahn Cave in
Bexar County, Texas, excavations revealed the remains of 33 cats, and 300 to
400 young mammoths, mostly two year olds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">He added that the human youngsters 15,000 years ago were
similarly vulnerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their homeland did
not sound like traffic and sirens, it sounded like moaning lions and whooping
hyenas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wandering away from the camp at
night was dangerous and dumb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Babies
instinctively cry when left alone too long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even our chimp and baboon cousins have been known to snatch and devour
unattended infants.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Climate
Shifts?<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Native Americans aren’t the only group that is not fond of
Martin’s overkill hypothesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6202698/">Lisa Naagaoka</a> and
team pointed out that lots of archaeologists are also unconvinced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where is the compelling “smoking gun” crime
scene evidence?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There isn’t much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There aren’t even many sites where extinct
megafauna and humans were found in the same region at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martin pointed out that the archaeological
record is not thorough and complete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
the most part, it’s essentially an impressive collection of holes and gaps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In academia, specialists often work in closed circles,
isolated from ideas buzzing around in the outer world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Archaeologists hang out with archaeologists,
and primarily read journals focused on their field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Experts from a wide variety of specialties
rarely gather together at the same pub every night, and engage in lively
mind-expanding discussions until sunrise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Naagaoka mentioned five theoretical reasons for the extinctions:
hunting, climate change, disease, manmade landscape changes, and a combination
of factors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Archaeologists mostly vote
for a combination, with climate being the primary suspect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ice core research in Greenland has provided lots of
information on climate trends going back 122,500 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It indicates that the extinct megafauna, and
their human hunters, had managed to survive multiple super-frigid climate
periods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is not a pattern of
extinction surges corresponding to the ups and downs of glaciation cycles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When temperatures got colder, cold adapted
species expanded, and heat loving species migrated to warmer locations (and
vice versa).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">There isn’t specific overwhelming evidence linking frigid
eras, disease, or landscape change with megafauna extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the general thinking, outside of the
archaeology club, is that hunting played a role in every extinction spasm, and
climate change may have played a secondary role, sometimes, maybe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If climate change had been a primary cause of
extinctions, then plants and small animals would have also been affected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martin noted that there is no evidence of
this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most common victims everywhere
were animals that had “low reproductive potential” — not species that bred like
bunnies.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2019/09/end-of-megafauna.html">Ross
MacPhee</a> noted that the one possible exception is the extinctions in Sahul,
the landmass of Australia, New Guinea, Tasmania, and neighboring islands when
they were joined together by low sea levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In Sahul, evidence of early human activities is quite scarce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s possible that climate change may have
been a primary factor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.americanscientist.org/article/investigating-a-mega-mystery">Amos
Esty</a> added, “Unlike other parts of the world, nothing in Australia’s fossil
record proves that humans hunted megafauna.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Alfred Crosby wondered why the alleged super-deadly climate
shifts did not strike fast and hard, like an asteroid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why did they selectively zap nearby regions
at different times — mainlands first, and offshore islands much later?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why did extinctions tend to coincide with the
advance of colonization: (1) humans arrive, (2) megafauna blink out?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why did harsh climate events display little
interest in hammering small critters, while almost exclusively focusing on
megafauna?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Crosby wasn’t absolutely convinced that overkill was the one
and only cause of the extinction spasms, but he was certain that humans are
very unusual critters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During every extinction
event, humans are present, and play a major role.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans have become exceedingly clever at
radical high speed change via cultural evolution — a powerful fork in the human
saga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Innovation is our middle name (and
our curse).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Only humans drove herds off cliffs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only humans use fire to trap herds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On a lucky afternoon, a dozen primitive
hunters with atlatls can have a bloody excellent time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our uniqueness can also be a quirky two-edged
sword.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crosby wrote, “<i>Homo sapiens</i>
is arguably the only species that commits genocide, which, we might note, might
easily extend in practice to species suicide.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Smoking
Guns<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The most compelling evidence that humans were the primary
suspects turned out to be island extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Oceanic islands had a climate similar to the mainland, but extinctions
came much later, when hungry hunters were eventually able to travel by
boat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, extinctions happened
merely 4,700 years ago in Cuba, 1,500 years ago in Madagascar, 500 years ago in
New Zealand, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Martin noted
that on the islands of Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, ground sloths survived
5,000 years longer than on the mainland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On the mainland, ground sloths were already extinct from Alaska to
Patagonia. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Humans arrived in New Zealand between 800 and 1,000 years
ago, and by 400 years ago the moas were extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moas were flightless ostrich-like birds that
could grow to 10 feet (3 m) tall, and weigh 550 pounds (250 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many collections of moa bones have been
found, some containing the remains of up to 90,000 birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evidence suggests that a third of the meat
was tossed away to rot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously, the
birds were super-abundant and super-easy to kill, and the hunters had no
perception of limits. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Humans arrived in Madagascar around 2,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The island is located east of the African
mainland, and its climate is similar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Isolated from the outer world for several million years, it has been
home to a unique collection of fauna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seventeen
species of giant lemurs went extinct, some as recently as 400 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also gone are the half-ton elephant birds,
pygmy hippos, carnivorous giant fossas, and others — a heartbreaking tragedy.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Mother
Africa<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Mother Africa was the original homeland of the hominin
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lars Werdelin, an expert on
ancient carnivores, wrote: “Hominins seem to have become routine hunters
between 1.8 and 1.6 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With rapidly evolving intelligence and teamwork, hominins were able to
level the playing field.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, “between
2 and 1.5 million years ago, the number of large carnivore species began to
nosedive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Entire groups of species
disappeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The steep downturn was 1.5
million years ago.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Peter Ungar noted that in the archaeological record, the
quantity of animal remains and artifacts significantly increased around 2
million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that time, there
were at least four different hominin species living in Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hominins were eating antelopes, hippos,
horses, giraffes, and elephants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
indicates the promotion of bipedal primates into the elite club of large
predators.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The African continent was loaded with megafauna 1.8 million
years ago, but many were gone by 1.4 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Edmeades mentioned that at the Olduvai Gorge
site in Tanzania, they have found bones dating back 1.8 million years,
including megaherbivores like rhinos, hippos, and elephants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bones were marked by signs of butchering.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">He noted that in the good old days, Africa had nine species
of big cats (three today), up to twelve species of elephants (one today), and
at least four types of hippos (one today).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There were giant antelopes, giant hyenas, giant pigs, giant monkeys,
giant baboons, and many others — all gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Over the course of many thousands of years, there was a significant
change in the mix of players remaining on the savannah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Saber-tooth cats emerged in Africa around 12 million years
ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time, they spread across
Eurasia and the Americas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Africa,
they went extinct 1.4 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So did most megaherbivores (animals more than 2,200 pounds or 1,000 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Coincidentally, <i>Homo erectus</i> emerged
around 1.5 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Erectus
was the first advanced hominin, having a brain larger than average for its body
size.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This era corresponds to the oldest
known evidence of domesticated fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Today, only two percent of the original African large carnivore species
still survive.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Some species that disappeared in Africa continued to survive
on other continents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Edmeades emphasized
that during the African wave of extinctions, there were no similar extinction
blips in Siberia, Europe, Australia, or the Americas — regions where zero hominins
resided.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In these other regions, many
megafauna species remained fat and happy for maybe another million years or so.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Eurasia<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Eurasian extinctions were far more gradual than those in
the Americas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is likely because the
megafauna had lived around hominin hunters for a long time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Homo heidelbergensis</span></em> lived in Europe
500,000 years ago, and Neanderthals had appeared by 300,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283686166">Bernardo
Araujo</a> and team studied climate models for the last 122,500 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For 19 regions, they compared the dates when
humans arrived, with the dates when megafauna species went extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They found that humans were entering Europe
and Central Russia about 45,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the colonized regions of Eurasia, extinction dates began about 40,000
years ago, and continued until about 10,000 years ago — the longest of the
megafauna extinction cycles outside of Africa.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Araujo emphasized that our colonization of Eurasia was a significant
turning point in the human colonization of the planet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the first time that our fully tropical
species was moving into regions that were colder than the conditions for which
evolution had fine-tuned us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was far
more challenging for humans to survive in snow country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cleverness was mandatory.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305489176">Fernando
Fernandez</a> reported that in Eurasia, megafauna extinctions corresponded with
the arrival of human colonists, not climate swings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the extinctions occurred in two
spasms — roughly from 45,000 to 20,000 years ago in the warmer Mediterranean
south, and from 14,000 to 9,000 years ago in the cooler north.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Two million years ago in Africa, our pre-human hominin ancestors
were smaller, and still learning the tricks of big game hunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the extinctions were a long slow process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hunters who later colonized Eurasia were
bigger, stronger, more skillful, and better armed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s take a brief peek at a few of the species
that blinked out in Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most had
been around for a long time, and survived multiple ice ages. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The elephant-like family originated in Africa, and eventually
colonized the five continents, diversifying into many forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mammoths emerged in South Africa about five
million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 2.6 million years
ago, they had spread across Eurasia and North America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Woolly Mammoths emerged 400,000 years ago in Eurasia, and
went extinct in Europe 10,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In Asia, several hundred dwarf mammoths survived until about 3,700 years
ago, on Wrangel Island, off the north coast of Siberia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Straight-tusked elephants were in Europe by around 780,000
years ago, and vanished 30,000 years ago. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Irish “elk” were actually a species of large deer (not elk). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could weigh more than 2,500 pounds (1,133
kg), and their enormous antlers weighed more than the animal’s skeleton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could spread up to 13 feet (4 m) across.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They survived for several million years,
including 400,000 years in Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
last ones died 7,700 years ago in the Ural Mountains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They lived throughout Europe, east to Siberia
and China, and south to northern Africa.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Cave hyenas were gone by 13,000 years ago, after 3.5 million
years on Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They dined primarily on
horses, steppe wisent, and woolly rhinoceros.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Large hyenas could weigh up to 225 pounds (102 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They inhabited northern Africa, the Middle
East, and much of Europe and Asia. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Cave bears emerged about 1.2 million years ago, and vanished
29,500 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They ranged from
Britain and Spain, east across much of Europe, and into Russia and Iran.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">European cave lions were quite similar to the lions still
alive in Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two lines diverged
about 1.9 million years ago, and the European cats went extinct 13,000 years
ago. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They ranged in a wide belt from
Spain and southern England, to Siberia, Alaska, and the Yukon.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">European hippopotamus ranged across Europe, from Spain to
Britain to Greece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They emerged 1.8
million years ago, and went extinct 24,000 years ago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Woolly rhinoceroses were living on the Tibetan Plateau 3.6
million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were common
throughout Europe and northern Asia, from Spain to China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They survived until 10,000 years ago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In London, buried under the city, construction crews have
discovered the remains of hippos, elephants, Irish elk, aurochs, and
lions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The
Americas<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Edmeades summed it up nicely: “With its giant bears, giant
beavers, giant armadillo-like species, giant tortoises, and its giant ground sloth
species, North America was, without exaggeration, a super-Serengeti containing
many more big-animal species than present-day Africa.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Megafauna in the Old World had lived around humans for a very
long time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were likely to know that
we were terribly dangerous (run!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
was not the case in the New World, where human space aliens had appeared more
suddenly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The New World was hit hardest
of all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In North America, when humans
arrived, there were at least nine species of big cats, and seven species of
elephants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The biodiversity was incredible.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305489176">Fernando
Fernandez</a> reported that the North American extinctions mostly occurred
between 13,500 and 11,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Experts
still disagree when humans first arrived on the continent, suggesting dates usually
ranging from 20,000 to 13,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By the time humans entered North America, they had already developed
effective tools and strategies for succeeding in snow country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These preparations made a faster dispersal
possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>South American extinctions
mostly took place between 13,000 and 7,800 years ago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Fernandez presented a list of arguments why climate change
was not the primary cause of megafauna extinctions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(1) The pattern of extinction spasms had
little association with the preceding pattern of 31 intense glacial
cycles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(2) Many species that vanished
had been around for a million years or more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(3) Extinctions occurred first on continental mainlands, while species
on isolated islands in the same region, with the same climate, survived much
longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(4) When extinctions took place
in a region, there is no evidence that plant species were zapped by climate
swings at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(5) It was the
large animals that blinked out (the preferred game of hunters).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Small animals did not vanish in the same era
(like they might have during a climate shift).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">He did note that glacial cycles could have stressed
ecosystems, making some species less resilient, but he concluded that “low
reproductive potential was the main determinant of the extinct species.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Importantly, “the pieces of the puzzle
immediately fit together when we observe the clear correspondence between the
dates of humans’ arrival and of megafaunal extinction in each landmass.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The reason why human evidence is rarely found close to
mammoth remains is that mammoths spent five million years on Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of them died without ever seeing a
human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big bones are more likely to
survive the passage of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/03/grassland.html">Richard Manning</a>
chatted with Paul Martin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the
North American extinction spasm, some megafauna species survived, and some went
extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The survivors included the
moose, bison, caribou, elk, deer, grizzly bears, black bears, musk ox, and
pronghorn antelope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of these, the only
species that originally evolved in America was the pronghorns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have been here for 25 million years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The others were immigrants from the Old World that had
crossed the land bridge into the New World.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These immigrants had survived for thousands of years in regions where
humans hunted them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were absolutely
aware that humans were dangerous critters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At first, the indigenous American megafauna had no experience with
humans, and no instinctive fear of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They were sitting ducks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Evolution had provided the pronghorns with the ability to
zoom across the land at 70 miles per hour (112 km/h), so they could avoid being
eaten by speedy American cheetahs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dan
Flores noted that the speedy cats had all gone extinct prior to 10,000 years
ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, pronghorns are very well
adapted to a reality that no longer exists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, they are unable to leap fences, a fact that delights
their cowboy neighbors. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1892, Texas
homesteaders found 1,500 pronghorns trapped by a fence and killed them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1900, they had declined from at least 15
million to 13,000.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today there are maybe
700,000.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">To put the North American extinctions in context, let’s take
a peek at some of the evidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Elephant
family species immigrated into America from 1 to 15 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were at least seven varieties
(mammoths, mastodons, etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
survived until 13,000 years ago, with one exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>America’s last mammoths died 5,600 years ago
on St Paul Island in Alaska’s Pribilof Islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This island was once part of mainland Beringia, the land bridge from
Siberia to Alaska.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, as sea levels
rose, it became an island.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Horses originated in North America about 4 million years ago,
and later spread into South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were extinct in North and South America
by 8,000 years ago. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Saber-tooth cats emerged in Africa 12 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some types could grow up to 620 pounds (280
kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have been found in North
America, South America, Eurasia, and Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They went extinct in Africa 1.4 million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In North America they vanished 10,000 years
ago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Scimitar-tooth cats emerged in Africa about 4 million years
ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They vanished from Africa 1.5
million years ago, from Eurasia about 28,000 years ago, and from America about
12,000 years ago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">American lions originated in Africa over a million years ago,
and migrated into North America, expanding as far south as Peru.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were 25 percent larger than modern
lions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They went extinct around 11,300
years ago. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Camels originated in North America maybe 40 million years
ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 2 to 5 million years ago, some
had crossed into Asia, and spread into Africa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In North America, they went extinct 10,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They still survive in the Old World. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Short-faced bears were abundant in California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were among the largest land dwelling
mammalian carnivores on Earth, they could weigh over 1,500 pounds (680 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The species emerged about 1.8 million years
ago, and went extinct about 11,000 years ago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Giant armadillos were mammals that originated in South
America 5.3 million years ago, migrated into North America, and went extinct
about 12,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had an
armor of bony plates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some weighed more
than 1,000 pounds (454 kg), and were as big as a Volkswagen Beetle.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Giant ground sloths could grow as large as elephants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could stand erect up to 20 feet (6 m)
tall, and weigh 2,204 pounds (1,000 kg). They emerged in North and South
America about 4.9 million years ago, and went extinct 11,000 years ago. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Giant beavers were the largest North American rodent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could grow to 7.6 feet (2.3 m) long, and
weigh up to 276 pounds (125 kg) — about the size of a black bear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They emerged about 2.6 million years ago, and
went extinct about 11,700 years ago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Tapirs could grow up to 4.6 feet (1.4 m) long, and weigh up
to 496 pounds (225 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They emerged 20
to 30 million years ago in North America, and went extinct about 11,000 years
ago in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In China, some survived
until 4,000 years ago.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Woodland musk ox could grow to 934 pounds (423 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They lived from Alaska to California, and
east to New Jersey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They emerged about 2
million years ago, and went extinct about 11,000 years ago. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Dire wolves lived in North and South America from 125,000 to
9,440 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The average wolf
weighed about 150 pounds (68 kg).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their
prey included camels, bison, mastodons, ground sloths, and horses.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Perfection
of Hunting<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">While low tech persistence hunting had worked for a very long
time in our original homeland, it didn’t work well everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Up north, in temperate Eurasia, we couldn’t
chase large game for hours in deep snow until they collapsed from overheating
and exhaustion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet these cooler regions
were home to abundant large game, our favorite food — an incredibly vast
treasure of precious nutrients, an irresistible temptation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">How could we hunt them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Necessity” (fear, desire, insanity, etc.) is the mother of invention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We got clever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Technology enabled new possibilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We figured out how to survive in temperate
regions, and became experts at killing big critters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was a major shift away from our
traditional mode of tropical living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cleverness
was the master key to countless treasure chests, and countless disasters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look at us today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Our new and improved weapons increased the risk of
unintentional overhunting, and that’s exactly what happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/03/throwing-fire.html">Alfred
Crosby</a> wrote a fascinating and depressing book on the history of projectile
technology, spanning from sticks and stones to ballistic missiles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Humanity equipped with atlatl and firestick
was instrumental in the elimination of scores of species of megafauna.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As our ancestors expanded into new regions,
they kept learning new hunting strategies, and inventing more and deadlier tricks
and gadgets.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In Greenland, Peter Freuchen and Knud Rasmussen felt sorry
for the primitive Eskimos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two lads
built a trading post so that natives could have access to the wonders of
modernity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guns made it far easier to
hunt (and overhunt).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rifles made so much
noise that they scared caribou away — they abandoned their normal migration
routes, and entire communities starved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Loud gunfire scared seals away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Seals shot with guns often sank, and were lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By 1908, Rasmussen had profound regrets about
the consequences of his good intentions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Eskimos appeared to be on the path to extinction.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Farley Mowat told stories about the Ihalmiut people who lived
in the region around Hudson Bay in northern Canada.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When traders moved in, the natives learned
that they could trade fox furs for stuff like guns and ammunition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These made it far easier to kill deer, so
their traditional mode of low tech hunting was abandoned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prior to firearms, it had never occurred to
anyone that it was possible to kill too many deer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until then, the availability of deer was as
reliable as the dance of the sun and moon.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Long ago, hunters who resided in luxurious mammoth bone huts temporarily
lived very well via overhunting, but eventually starved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mammoth hunters had no way to undo the unintended
consequences of their shortsighted progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-short-history-of-progress.html">Ronald
Wright</a> concluded that this mode of progress was (and is) dark juju.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortsighted progress can be very fun and
intoxicating, for a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wright called
this joyride “the perfection of hunting,” and he declared it to be humankind’s
first <i>progress trap</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like a
ratchet wrench, it’s a one-way process that only moves from tight to tighter,
burning each bridge it crosses, and never looking back.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Eventually, the growing number of megafauna extinctions inspired
us to shift into a new progress trap, plant and animal domestication, which later
led to the trap of industrial civilization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Trap after trap has ratcheted us forward into our ghastly consumer
wonderland — eight billion tropical primates devouring the broken, bleeding, crying
remains of the family of life. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Pleistocene hunters spread around the world, and feasted on
organic grass-fed meat for many thousands of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over time, our ancestors exploded in number,
from a cute and insignificant minority group, into a global horde of Earth
shaking demolition experts (consumers).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Naturally, any joyride of snowballing growth will eventually slam into
game changing limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wright lamented, “We
have already caused so many extinctions that our dominion over the Earth will
appear in the fossil record like the impact of an asteroid.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">I invite you to imagine what the world looked like two
million years ago, when there were a tiny number of hominins, whilst the entire
planet was a thriving paradise of immense biodiversity, abundant life everywhere!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine that!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was the incubator in which our lineage evolved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the environment in which hominins
felt at home, and where they lived in balance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Look at us now.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Sources<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">NOTE: Links often go extinct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Internet Wayback Machine can sometimes find them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Copy the dead URL, and visit <a href="https://archive.org/web/">https://archive.org/web/</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Araujo, Bernardo, et al., “Bigger kill than chill…,” <i>Quaternary
International</i>, November 2015.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283686166">LINK</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Brook, Barry W., and Christopher N. Johnson, “Selective
hunting of juveniles as a cause of the imperceptible overkill…,” <i>Alcheringa</i>,
Volume 30, 2006.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03115510609506854">LINK</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Crosby, Alfred W., <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Throwing
Fire</span></em>, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2010.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/03/throwing-fire.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Davis, Leslie B., and Brian O. K. Reeves, editors, <i>Hunters
of the Recent Past</i>, Unwin Hyman, London, 1990.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2017/05/hunters-of-recent-past.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Deloria, Vine, Jr., <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Red
Earth, White Lies</span></em>, Scribner, New York, 1995.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Dobak, William A., “Killing the Canadian Buffalo: 1821-1881,”
<i>Western Historical Quarterly</i>, Spring 1996.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Edmeades, Baz, <i>Megafauna: First Victims of the
Human-caused Extinction</i>, 2013, unpublished manuscript.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/03/megafauna.html">REVIEW</a>] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>News at
Facebook: [<a href="https://www.facebook.com/MegafaunaDotCom/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Esty, Amos, “Investigating a Mega-Mystery,” <i>American
Scientist</i>, Sept-Oct 2005.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.americanscientist.org/article/investigating-a-mega-mystery">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Fernandez, Fernando, “Human Dispersal and Late Quaternary
Megafaunal Extinctions…,” <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">ResearchGate</span></em>,
July 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://www.researchgate.net/publication/305489176">LINK</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Readable & detailed)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flannery, Tim, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The
Future Eaters</span></em>, George Braziller, New York, 1995.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-future-eaters.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flores, Dan, <i>American Serengeti</i>, University Press of
Kansas, Lawrence, 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/03/american-serengeti.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Flores, Dan, <i>The Natural West</i>, University of Oklahoma
Press, Norman, 2001.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-natural-west.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Hornaday, William Temple, <i>The Extermination of the
American Bison</i>, Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1889.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17748/17748-h/17748-h.htm">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Kelekna, Pita, <i>The Horse in Human History</i>, Cambridge
University Press, New York, 2009.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-horse-in-human-history.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Kolbert, Elizabeth, <i>The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural
History</i>, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2014.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-sixth-extinction.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Krech, Shepard, <i>The Ecological Indian</i>, W. W. Norton
& Company, New York, 1999.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Kurtén, Björn, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The
Cave Bear Story</span></em>, Columbia University Press, New York, 1976.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Kurtén, Björn, <i>Pleistocene Mammals of Europe</i>, Aldine
Publishing Company, Chicago, 1968.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">MacKinnon, J. B., <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The
Once and Future World</span></em>, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York, 2013.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-once-and-future-world.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">MacPhee, Ross, <i>End of the Megafauna</i>, W. W. Norton
Company, New York, 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2019/09/end-of-megafauna.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Mann, Charles, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus</span></em>, Alfred A. Knopf,
New York, 2005.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Martin, Paul S., “Africa and Pleistocene Overkill,” <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Nature</span></em>, October 22,
1966.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://max2.ese.u-psud.fr/epc/conservation/PDFs/HIPE/Martin1966.pdf">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Martin, Paul S., <i>Twilight of the Mammoths</i>, University
of California Press, Berkeley, 2005.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Mowat, Farley, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Sea
of Slaughter</span></em>, Atlantic Monthly Press, Washington D.C., 1984.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2017/07/sea-of-slaughter.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Naagaoka, Lisa, et al., “The overkill model and its impact on
environmental research,” <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho";">Ecology and Evolution</span></em>, John
Wiley & Sons, 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6202698/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Nelson, Richard K., <i>Make Prayers to the Raven</i>, University
of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1983.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/06/make-prayers-to-raven.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Surovell, Todd A., et al., “Tests of Martin’s overkill
hypothesis…,” <i>PNAS</i>, January 26, 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>[<a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/113/4/886.full.pdf">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Turnbull, Colin M., <i>The Forest People</i>, Simon and
Schuster, New York, 1961.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/02/forest-people.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Wallace, Ronald L., <i>Those Who Have Vanished</i>, Dorsey
Press, Homewood, Illinois, 1983.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ward, Peter D., <i>The Call of Distant Mammoths</i>,
Copernicus, New York, 1997.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-call-of-distant-mammoths.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Werdelin, Lars, “Hominids, Carnivores, and the Origin of the
Anthropocene,” Swedish Museum of Natural History, 50 min. video. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD4hiWMUz1E">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Werdelin, Lars, “King of Beasts,” <i>Scientific American</i>,
November 2013, pp. 34-39. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Wright, Ronald, <i>A Short History of Progress</i>, Carroll
& Graf, New York, 2005.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-short-history-of-progress.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p><br /><p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-27846781071817822232021-09-01T13:10:00.000-07:002021-09-01T13:10:21.152-07:00Wild Free and Happy Sample 58<p> </p><p class="BlogText">[Note: This is the fifty-eighth sample from my rough draft of
a far from finished new book, <i>Wild, Free, & Happy</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Search field on the right side will find
words in the full contents of all rants and reviews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These samples are not freestanding
pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will be easier to
understand if you start with sample 01, and follow the sequence listed <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/04/free-brain-food.html">HERE</a> —
if you happen to have some free time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
you prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd is in the process of reading and recording
my book <a href="https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sets/richard-adrian-reese-wild-free-happy">HERE</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">[Continued from Climate Crisis 03 <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/08/wild-free-and-happy-sample-57.html">Sample
57</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a name="_Toc81140623"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Climate
Crisis “Solutions”</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-farewell-to-ice.html">Peter
Wadhams</a>, the melting Arctic expert, is totally freaked out by the expected
impacts of the approaching climate catastrophe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He notes that there are a number of proposed techno-responses, but none
of them provide an effective cure for the nightmare we’ve created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An effective cure, if there is one, will be
something that has not yet been invented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Meanwhile, he thought that we should desperately throw all
caution to the wind, and do whatever we can that might slightly slow the
disaster down a wee bit, until the miracles arrive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He even suggested building more nuclear power
plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I disagree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s take a peek at a few of the proposed
“solutions.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Nuclear
Power<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Some folks advocate for nuclear energy because reactors emit
no greenhouse gases while they operate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams, reactors also
have a limited lifespan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Building new
nuke plants requires large quantities of materials that require fossil energy
for their production — cement and steel for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like coal and oil, uranium is not a renewable
resource.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like coal and oil, the use of
uranium has serious long-term negative impacts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">If the objective is to reduce current carbon emissions,
building numerous new nuke plants is not the most effective approach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every power switch has an OFF position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Satellite photos of the Earth at night reveal
tremendous amounts of wasted energy, and this waste is just the tip of the
iceberg.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/55167/earths-city-lights">LOOK</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My grandparents and mother were born in homes
without electricity, as were 300,000 years of their ancestors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The expiration date for our maximum impact lifestyle is
approaching, as we smack into more and more immovable limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if we immediately and permanently turned
OFF industrial civilization, the ice would keep melting, the Arctic would keep
warming, the permafrost would keep melting, atmospheric carbon would continue
increasing, etc., etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do we need
electric cars?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can we live without cars?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://theecologist.org/2021/jul/14/when-climate-breakdown-goes-nuclear">Paul
Dorfman</a> pointed out the embarrassing fact that climate change is leading to
rising sea levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Greenland ice
sheet is approaching a tipping point that would make accelerated melting
inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If miracles don’t rescue us,
we’re going to see more coastal and inland flooding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“With 41 percent of all nuclear plants
world-wide operating on the coast, nuclear may prove an important risk.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>May?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At least 100 of these plants are just a few meters above sea level.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">“The near-term effect of rising mean sea-levels at coastal
nuclear installations will be felt most profoundly during extreme storm
conditions when strong winds and low atmospheric pressure bring about a
localised increase in sea-level known as a ‘storm surge.’”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inland plants also face warming-related risks
— wildfires, river floods, low river levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If river temperatures get too warm, their ability to properly cool
reactors is diminished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Worldwide, more
than a half billion people live within 50 miles (80 km) of a nuke plant.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/02/too-hot-to-touch.html">William
and Rosemarie Alley</a> wrote the book on nuclear waste storage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2012, the U.S. had generated lots of
high-level radioactive wastes — 70,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, and 20,000
giant canisters of military material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Waste was stored at 121 sites in 39 states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>William worked for the U.S. Geological Survey
(USGS), and it was his job to find a secure place to safely store this stuff
forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">At first, folks thought it would become harmless in 600 years
or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, they realized that
some of the waste would be dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It needed to be stored in a geologic
repository, in strong deep bedrock that would not collapse if a future ice age
put a mile thick ice sheet above it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
had to be dry, seismically stable, accessible to transport, and inaccessible to
terrorists. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">After 25 years of research, costing $10 billion, Alley
recommended the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada, which was as close to perfect as
possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Obama got elected,
and promptly rejected the site, for political reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Trump tried to revive the project,
but failed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now it’s 2021, and there is
far more high-level waste sitting around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The U.S. has 60 nuclear power plants, and there are 443 in the
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guess how many nations are using
geologic repositories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zero.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One in Finland might open in 2023.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People like using electricity, but few fully
trust the honesty of corporate interests, and the integrity of their government
servants. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/ucs-rpt-AR-3.21-web_Mayrev.pdf">Edwin
Lyman</a> wrote a 148 page report on the new generation of “advanced” reactors
that may be put into commercial use at some point in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He works for the Union of Concerned
Scientists, an organization dedicated to objective analysis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is financially and politically independent
of the nuclear power industry’s interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The industry makes a number of impressive claims about the technological
advances of the new reactors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lyman has
reservations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Different is not the same
as better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He labels ten claims,
including improved safety and security, to be “misleading.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The report is a free download.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enjoy! <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><b>Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Sequestration (BECCS)<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="BlogText">BECCSs was another big idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead of burning filthy coal, we could grow, gather, and burn lots of
“replaceable” biomass fuel — grasses, trees, crop residues, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These fuels would absorb CO<sub>2</sub> as
they grew, and then we could burn this renewable resource to make happy green
electricity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The chimney smoke from the
burning would be processed to remove the CO<sub>2</sub>, which could then be
safely stored underground forever in some way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The technology for capturing the CO<sub>2</sub> is expensive, guzzles
lots of energy, and is not yet feasible for full scale deployment.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Net
Zero<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">James Dyke, Robert Watson, and Wolfgang Knorr are three
venerable climate science elders who have been watching the clan of eco-wizards
contemplate possible solutions to the climate crisis for many years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They wrote, “It has been estimated that BECCS
would demand between 0.4 and 1.2 billion hectares of land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s 25% to 80% of all the land currently
under cultivation.” (Land now used to produce food.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The three lads wrote a fascinating and heartbreaking essay on
the elusive goal of net zero emissions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>[<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368">HERE</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The climate crisis is a consequence of having
way too much CO<sub>2</sub> in the atmosphere, and adding more and more every
day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, the apparent solution involved
extracting the excess CO<sub>2</sub> from the air, while also sharply reducing
the rate of current emissions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Holy
Grail was “net zero” — extracting as much carbon as we emit, creating a healthy
balance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In maybe 30 years of net zero,
bye-bye climate crisis, hello happy days!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Until 2021, the three professors kept their opinions to
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The technosphere is a sacred
realm of miracles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Expressing doubts is
heresy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heresy can rubbish your
reputation, and jeopardize future research grants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They understood that the notion of net zero
was daffy — “burn now, pay later.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">If we plant a bunch of trees, they’ll sequester carbon as
they grow, and we can continue living recklessly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This encourages blind faith in future
techno-miracles, and it discourages everyone from making big changes in the
here and now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, carbon in
the atmosphere keeps increasing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
professors finally came out of the closet, and shared their pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hooray!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://theconversation.com/there-arent-enough-trees-in-the-world-to-offset-societys-carbon-emissions-and-there-never-will-be-158181">Bonnie
Waring</a> laments humankind’s hallucination that, with a bit of encouragement,
the world’s forests can absorb enough carbon to end the climate crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“But the fact is that there aren’t enough
trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions — and there never will
be.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Solar
Radiation Management (SRM)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The goal of SRM is to artificially increase albedo by
frequently dispersing tons reflective substances high in the sky, year after
year, forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/07/windfall.html">McKenzie Funk</a>
wrote about Microsoft billionaire Nathan Myhrvold, who was working on a planet
saving miracle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His StratoShield project
would spray 2 to 5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere
every year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would make the sunlight
one percent dimmer, and enable life as we know it to continue a bit longer,
maybe.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">While this might deflect some incoming heat, ongoing CO<sub>2</sub>
emissions would continue building up in the atmosphere and oceans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will vegetation be OK with reduced
sunlight?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will precipitation patterns
change?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently the hallucination is
that by reducing incoming heat, the Artic would quit melting, and humankind
could live happily ever after.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another
variant is cirrus cloud thinning — modifying high-altitude clouds to make them
thinner, less of an insulating blanket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This would allow the planet to release more heat from the atmosphere.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Direct
Air Capture (DAC)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Direct air capture (DAC) is an experimental technology that
removes CO<sub>2</sub> (but not methane) from the atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The captured carbon can be permanently stored
in the ground, at significant expense, or sold for commercial uses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, it could be pumped into active
oil wells to enhance oil recovery, or converted into a synthetic fuel, or used
to carbonate bubbly beverages, etc.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/iceland-carbon-capture-emissions-into-rock/">Alister
Doyle</a> reported on a radical DAC experiment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Climeworks, a Swiss business, is developing a DAC facility in
Iceland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big fans suck in air, the CO<sub>2</sub>
is removed, mixed with water to form a mild acid, and then pumped into basaltic
rock that is 2,600 to 6,500 feet (800 to 2,000 meters) below ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two years later, 95 percent of what was CO<sub>2</sub>
is petrified, turned to stone, where it will safely remain for millions of
years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The basaltic formations suitable
for these operations are only found under about 5 percent of the world’s dry
land, but more are available underwater.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">This is an energy-intensive process, and Iceland was chosen
because it produces cheap and abundant zero carbon geothermal energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2020, there were 15 DAC plants in
operation around the world, capturing more than 9,000 tons of CO<sub>2</sub>
per year, which was “the equivalent of the annual emissions of just 600
Americans, each producing about 15 tonnes of climate-changing pollution.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/12/direct-air-capture-and-big-oil/">Robert
Hunziker</a> wrote about a DAC plant in the southwest U.S. that will begin
operation in 2024.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Powered by natural
gas, it will capture one million tons of CO<sub>2</sub> per year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, worldwide human activities are
emitting 4.2 million tons every hour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
this plant, air is sucked in, CO<sub>2 </sub>is extracted by a chemical
solution (like potassium hydroxide), more chemicals then transform it into
pellets of 50 percent CO<sub>2</sub>, the pellets are heated to 900°C,
producing a gas that can be stored underground forever.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">By building a global system of 100 million of these
processing units (as soon as possible), enough CO<sub>2</sub> could be
extracted from the air to keep up with global emissions (but not the carbon
already in the atmosphere).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Extraction
could be done at the bargain price of $330 to $800 per ton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>DAC is not used for high concentration point
source emissions, like those from the worlds many cement factories, or biomass
power plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These operations can use
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) systems. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Carbon
Capture and Storage (CCS)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75481-z">Jorgen
Randers</a> believed that the excess carbon in the atmosphere could be
successfully extracted by building 33,000 large Carbon Capture and Storage
(CCS) plants, and keeping them running forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Permanently storing huge amounts of a gaseous compound is far more challenging
than storing gold or diamonds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also
challenging is finding enormous amounts of money to build 33,000 plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CCS was a super-delicious fantasy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could keep burning coal, remove the carbon
from the smoke, and avoid the dreadful need to sharply cut other forms of
carbon emissions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not one coal plant got
a CCS system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was too expensive, and
it was not mandatory.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Carbon
Dioxide Removal (CDR)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">CDR is also intended to remove CO<sub>2</sub> from the
atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It uses different methods
than DAC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plant more trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Encourage agriculture to sequester more
carbon in the soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Restore
wetlands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spread nutrients on the ocean
surface to stimulate blooms of phytoplankton (tiny plants) to increase their
intake of CO<sub>2</sub>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One study
found that oceanic phytoplankton declined about 40 percent between 1950 and
2008.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The prime suspect is rising
surface temperatures.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Geoengineering
(Climate Engineering)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Geoengineering is a word used to describe large scale
interventions like SRM and CDR.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If one
or both turn out to be miraculously successful, humans could, in their wildest
dreams, continue burning fossil energy, and living like there’s no
tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In reality, neither is a
proven success, nor cheap, easy, or sustainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both ideas make lots of people nervous, for a
wide variety of intelligent reasons, including expense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unintended consequences are guaranteed.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Green
New Deal (GND)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Every day our minds are blasted with misinformation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans have created a way of life that is so
complicated that it’s impossible for anyone to understand more than a tiny bit of
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most folks are clueless about
sustainability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is why U.S.
legislators promoting the Green New Deal program are not laughed off the stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sounds like a sweet dream.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The GND became a trendy idea around 2018, but legislation to
pursue it was defeated a year later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its
primary objective was to eliminate global warming by rapidly moving away from
fossil energy, and replacing it with clean, green, zero-carbon renewable
energy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believers shouted with joy and
celebration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not too late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can save the world, and still enjoy our
modern consumer lifestyle in an advanced society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s do it!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Mining.com is a news source for the mining industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its editor, <a href="https://www.mining.com/minings-unlikely-heroines-greta-thunberg-and-aoc/">Frik
Els</a>, praised the efforts of frontline GND proponents Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg — “mining’s unlikely heroines.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because the Green New Deal would be a multi-trillion dollar godsend for
mining and manufacturing corporations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The nation’s power system would require massive changes, and lots of new
high-tech infrastructure.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Moving from unsustainable fossil energy to unsustainable
“carbon-free” energy would require enormous amounts of minerals to make the
needed steel, concrete, copper, lithium, silicon, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mining operations and industrial centers
primarily run on fossil energy, not breezes and sunbeams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fossil fuel is the primary energy source for
making solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars, and high capacity batteries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">These “green” devices have limited lifespans, and must be
replaced periodically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This regular
maintenance requires ongoing fossil energy inputs, and carbon emission outputs,
until civilization moves off the stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like Siamese twins, industrial civilization and the climate crisis are
inseparable components of the same unsustainable monstrosity.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 2019, Jeff Gibbs produced the documentary <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE">Planet of the Humans</a>,
which put a spotlight on the GND’s heavy dependence on magical thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Powerful corporate interests are dedicated to
keeping consumer society on life support for as long as humanly possible,
because it is the engine of their growth and profits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They generously fund celebrities that preach
the GND gospel of a limitless beautiful future, 100% clean energy, net zero
emissions, sustainable growth, and jobs, jobs, jobs!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/07/green-billionaires-planet-of-the-humans/">Max
Blumenthal</a> described what happened next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Immediately following the release of Gibbs’ film, a mob of well-known
eco-celebrities exploded with bloodthirsty rage, loudly denounced the demonic
film, and demanded that it be suppressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This explosion of hysterical fury had the unintended consequence of
stimulating a tidal wave of publicity for the film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On YouTube, it got millions of views in a
month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The intense drama also tarnished
the reputations of the noisy ultra-righteous (well paid) censors.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In March 2021, Derrick Jensen and team published <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/03/bright-green-lies.html">Bright
Green Lies</a>, and <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/brightgreenlies">Julia
Barnes</a> released the <i>Bright Green Lies</i> documentary, based on that
book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having learned their embarrassing
lesson, celebrity critics largely took this as an opportunity to quietly go
fishing in North Dakota.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both the <i>Planet
of the Humans</i> and <i>Bright Green Lies</i> devoted significant effort to
describing the dodgy performance of mainstream environmentalism, and its big
money supporters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In May 2021, Alice Friedemann published <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/05/life-after-fossil-fuels.html">Life
After Fossil Fuels</a>, which filled in important missing pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She didn’t spank eco-celebrities, or provide
a “solutions” chapter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She directed her
full attention to simply explaining, in great detail, exactly why the bright green
vision was irrational, impossible, nonsensical, and unaffordable (the inconvenient
truth).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her readers are better able to
see through the fog of misinformation, and keep both feet firmly planted in
reality, where they belong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Climate
Sources<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Alley, William M. and Rosemarie
Alley, <i>Too Hot to Touch</i>, Cambridge University Press, New York,
2013.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/02/too-hot-to-touch.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Andreassen, Karin, “Massive
blow-out craters formed by hydrate-controlled methane expulsion from the Arctic
seafloor,” <i>Science</i>, June 2017.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="doi:10.1126/science.aal4500">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Anthony, Katey Walter, et al.,
“21st century modeled permafrost...,” <i>Nature Communications</i>, August 15,
2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05738-9.pdf">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Barnes, Julia, <i>Bright Green Lies</i>,
Oceanic Productions, 2021. [<a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/brightgreenlies">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Bazilchuk, Nancy, “Giant gas
craters discovered at the bottom of the Barents Sea,” sciencenorway.no, October
5, 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://sciencenorway.no/forskningno-geology-norway/giant-gas-craters-discovered-at-the-bottom-of-the-barents-sea/1458942">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">BBC Newsround, “What are ‘zombie
fires’ and why is the Arctic Circle on fire?” May 20, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/57173570">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Blumenthal, Max, “‘Green’
billionaires behind professional activist network that led suppression of
‘Planet of the Humans’ documentary,” <i>The Gray Zone</i>, September 7,
2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2020/09/07/green-billionaires-planet-of-the-humans/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Cartier, Kimberly M. S., “Climate
Change Uproots Global Agriculture,” <i>Eos</i>, January 25, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://eos.org/features/climate-change-uproots-global-agriculture">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Cribb, Julian, <i>The Coming Famine</i>,
University of California Press, Berkeley, 2010.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-coming-famine.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Davis, Mike, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Late Victorian Holocausts</i>, Verso, New York, 2001.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/08/late-victorian-holocausts.html">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Di Liberto, Tom, “Changes in ENSO
impacts in a warming world,” NOAA, Climate.gov, September 27, 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/changes-enso-impacts-warming-world">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Dorfman, Paul, “When climate
breakdown goes nuclear,” <i>Ecologist</i>, July 14, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://theecologist.org/2021/jul/14/when-climate-breakdown-goes-nuclear">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Doyle, Alister, “Iceland is sucking
carbon dioxide from the air and turning it into rock,” <i>Thompson Reuters
Foundation</i>, February 4, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/iceland-carbon-capture-emissions-into-rock/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Duffy, Katharyn, et al, “How close
are we to the temperature tipping point of the terrestrial biosphere?” <i>ScienceAdvances</i>,
January 13, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/3/eaay1052/tab-pdf">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Dutkiewicz, Stephanie, et al.,
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communities,” <i>Nature Climate Change</i>, July 20, 2015.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.836.4057&rep=rep1&type=pdf">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Dyke, James, et al., “Climate
scientists: concept of net zero is a dangerous trap,” <i>The Conversation</i>,
April 22, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-scientists-concept-of-net-zero-is-a-dangerous-trap-157368">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Ehrlich, Paul and John Harte,
“Pessimism on the Food Front,” <i>Sustainability</i>, MDPI, April 9, 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1120/htm">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Els, Frik, “Mining’s unlikely
heroines: Greta Thunberg and AOC,” Mining[dot]Com, October 30, 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.mining.com/minings-unlikely-heroines-greta-thunberg-and-aoc/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Flis, Andrej, “An unusual Ocean
anomaly is being detected in the Gulf Stream…,” <i>Severe Weather Europe</i>,
February 14, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.severe-weather.eu/global-weather/gulf-stream-amoc-ocean-anomaly-united-states-europe-fa/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Farquharson, Louise, et al.,
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Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic,” <i>Geophysical Research Letters</i>,
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Fox-Skelly, Jasmin, “What is the
hottest temperature life can survive?” <i>BBC Earth</i>, February 10,
2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160209-this-is-how-to-survive-if-you-spend-your-life-in-boilin-water">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Friedemann, Alice, <i>Life After
Fossil Fuels</i>, Springer, Cham, Switzerland, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/05/life-after-fossil-fuels.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Funk, McKenzie, <i>Windfall: The
Booming Business of Global Warming</i>, Penguin Press, New York, 2014.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/07/windfall.html">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Ghosh, Sahana, “A drying Ganga
could stall food security and prevent achieving SDGs,” <i>Mongabay-India</i>,
September 13, 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://india.mongabay.com/2018/09/a-drying-ganga-could-stall-food-security-and-prevent-achieving-sdgs/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Gibbs, Jeff, <i>Planet of the
Humans</i>, Huron Mountain Films, 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Giger, Peter, “Climate change will
be sudden and cataclysmic. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to
act fast,” <i>World Economic Forum</i>, January 19, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/01/climate-change-sudden-cataclysmic-need-act-fast/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Gowdy, John, “Our hunter-gatherer
future: Climate change, agriculture and uncivilization,” <i>Science Direct</i>,
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Gray, Richard, “The mystery of
Siberia’s exploding craters,” <i>BBC</i>, November 30, 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201130-climate-change-the-mystery-of-siberias-explosive-craters">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Halweil, Brian, “The Irony of
Climate,” <i>World Watch</i>, March/April 2005.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>[<a href="http://www.growbiointensive.org/news-0505-notes.htm">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Hatfield, Jerry L., and John H. Prueger,
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Hunziker, Robert, “Boundless Dying
Trees,” <i>Counterpunch</i>, September 29, 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/29/boundless-dying-trees/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Hunziker, Robert, “Direct Air
Capture and Big Oil,” <i>Counterpunch</i>, March 12, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/03/12/direct-air-capture-and-big-oil/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Hunziker, Robert, “Menacing
Methane: An Analysis,” <i>Counterpunch</i>, December 12, 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/15/menacing-methane-an-analysis/">LINK</a>]
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Jamail, Dahr, <i>The End of Ice</i>,
The New Press, New York, 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-end-of-ice.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Johnson, Doug, “Ecological impacts
of solar geoengineering are highly uncertain,” <i>Ars Technica</i>, April 11,
2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04/unknowns-linger-for-idea-of-scattering-sunlight-to-cool-the-earth/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Jensen, Derrick, Lierre Keith, and
Max Wilbert, <i>Bright Green Lies</i>, Monkfish Publishing, Rhinebeck, New
York, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/03/bright-green-lies.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Jones, Nicola, “How Climate Change
Could Jam the World’s Ocean Circulation,” <i>Yale Environment 360</i>,
September 6, 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/will_climate_change_jam_the_global_ocean_conveyor_belt">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Katz, Cheryl, “How Long Can Oceans
Continue To Absorb Earth’s Excess Heat?” <i>Yale Environment 360</i>, March 30,
2015.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/how_long_can_oceans_continue_to_absorb_earths_excess_heat">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Katz, Cheryl, “Why Rising Acidification
Poses a Special Peril for Warming Arctic Waters,” <i>Yale Environment 360</i>,
October 24, 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-rising-acidification-poses-a-special-peril-for-warming-arctic-waters">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Kentish, Portia, “Melting permafrost
is a threat not just to the Arctic, but to the entire planet,” <i>Emerging
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Koirala, Santosh, “Rice paddies
raise methane threat,” <i>Climate News Network</i>, September 10, 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/rice-puddling-raises-methane-threat/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Lamb, Evelyn, “Should We Eat Less
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Liesowska, Anna, “Giant new 50-metre
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Lyman, Edwin, “Advanced Isn’t
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Mann, Michael, <i>The New Climate
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">McDowell, Nate, et al., “Pervasive
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Natali, Susan, “Losing Frozen Earth
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Pearce, Fred, “Why Clouds Are the
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<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Ortega, Rodrigo Pérez, “Trees Are Growing Fast and Dying Young Due to
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Energy Transition,” <i>Energies</i>, MDPI, July 26, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/en14154508">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Shivaram, Deepa, “Heat Wave Killed
An Estimated 1 Billion Sea Creatures,” NPR, July 9, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/09/1014564664/billion-sea-creatures-mussels-dead-canada-british-columbia-vancouver">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Siberian Times, “’Big bang’ and
‘pillar of fire’ as latest of two new craters forms this week in the Arctic,” <i>Siberian
Times</i>, July 2, 2017.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/big-bang-and-pillar-of-fire-as-latest-of-two-new-craters-forms-this-week-in-arctic/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Smith, Tierney, “Warming oceans
face CO<sub>2</sub> tipping point,” <i>Climate Change News</i>, January 24,
2012.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2012/01/24/warming-oceans-face-co2-tipping-point/">LINK</a>]
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Steffen, Will, et al.,
“Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene,” <i>PNAS</i>, August 14,
2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115">LINK</a>] <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Struzik, Ed, “How Thawing
Permafrost Is Beginning to Transform the Arctic,” <i>Yale Environment 360</i>,
January 21, 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-melting-permafrost-is-beginning-to-transform-the-arctic">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Sukhova, Valeria, and Olga Gertcyk,
“Bubbling methane craters and super seeps: is this the worrying new face of the
undersea Arctic?” <i>Siberian Times</i>, November 19, 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/bubbling-methane-craters-and-super-seeps-is-this-the-worrying-new-face-of-the-undersea-arctic/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Sullivan, Cody and Rebecca Lindsey,
“2017 State of the climate: Ocean uptake of human-produced carbon,” <i>NOAA
Climate.gov</i>, August 1, 2018.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/2017-state-climate-ocean-uptake-human-produced-carbon">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Tnau Agritech Portal,
“Agrometeorology: Temperature and Plant Growth,” 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://www.agritech.tnau.ac.in/agriculture/agri_agrometeorology_temp.html">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">U.S. Geological Survey, <i>Thermokarst
and Thaw-Related Landscape Dynamics</i>, Reston, Virginia, 2013.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2013/1161/pdf/ofr20131161.pdf">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Waage, Malin, et al., “Geological
controls of giant crater development on the Arctic seafloor,” <i>Scientific
Reports</i>, May 21, 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-65018-9">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Wadhams, Peter, <i>A Farewell to
Ice</i>, Oxford University Press, New York, 2017.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-farewell-to-ice.html">REVIEW</a>].<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Wadhams, Peter, “The Global Impacts
of Rapidly Disappearing Arctic Sea Ice,” <i>Yale Environment 360</i>, September
26, 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/as_arctic_ocean_ice_disappears_global_climate_impacts_intensify_wadhams">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Wahid, Abdul, et al., “Heat
Tolerance in Plants: An Overview,” <i>Environmental and Experimental Botany</i>
61 (2007) p. 199-223.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="doi:10.1016/j.envexpbot.2007.05.011">LINK</a>]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Wagner, David, et al., “Insect
decline in the Anthropocene: Death by a thousand cuts,” <i>PNAS</i>, January
12, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/118/2/e2023989118.full.pdf">LINK</a>] <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Wallace-Wells, David, <i>The
Uninhabitable Earth</i>, Tim Duggan Books, New York 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The shorter 2017 version is [<a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.htm">HERE</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Waring, Bonnie, “There aren’t
enough trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions — and there
never will be,” <i>The Conversation</i>, April 23, 2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://theconversation.com/there-arent-enough-trees-in-the-world-to-offset-societys-carbon-emissions-and-there-never-will-be-158181">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Welch, Craig, “Artic permafrost is
thawing fast. That affects us all,” <i>National Geographic</i>, September
2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/arctic-permafrost-is-thawing-it-could-speed-up-climate-change-feature/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Witze, Alexandra, “The Arctic is
burning like never before,” nature.com, September 10, 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02568-y">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Wohlleben, Peter, <i>The Hidden
Life of Trees</i>, Greystone Books, Berkeley, 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-hidden-life-of-trees.html">REVIEW</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText" style="tab-stops: 87.45pt;">Woody, Todd, “To save our oceans,
we have to change what we do on land,” <i>Grist</i>, September 25, 2019.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[<a href="https://grist.org/article/ipcc-report-ocean-warming-great-barrier-reef/">LINK</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-46431137804210506412021-08-30T13:30:00.001-07:002021-08-30T16:51:35.284-07:00Wild Free and Happy Sample 57<p> </p><p class="BlogText">[Note: This is the fifty-seventh sample from my rough draft
of a far from finished new book, <i>Wild, Free, & Happy</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Search field on the right side will find
words in the full contents of all rants and reviews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These samples are not freestanding
pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will be easier to
understand if you start with sample 01, and follow the sequence listed <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/04/free-brain-food.html">HERE</a> —
if you happen to have some free time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
you prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd is in the process of reading and recording
my book <a href="https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sets/richard-adrian-reese-wild-free-happy">HERE</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">[Continued from Climate Crisis 02 <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/08/wild-free-and-happy-sample-56.html">Sample
56</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a name="_Toc81140617"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Water
and Climate</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">In <i>The Great Acceleration</i>, McNeill and Engelke
described how a warming climate is disturbing the relationship between water
and the family of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
precipitation patterns of the past are changing, creating new challenges for
ecosystems, human societies, and life as we know it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Extreme weather events are expected to occur more
frequently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When ocean surface
temperatures get warmer, cyclones are more likely to be spawned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Warmer air can hold more moisture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In regions having a moist climate, clouds
bloated with water are more likely to form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>More and more often, storms are dumping huge loads of rain, sudden
deluges that cause destructive floods and landslides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In regions having a dryer climate, warmer air
will create fewer clouds, produce less rain, crank up the air temperature,
intensify drought conditions, and encourage wildfires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">With a warming climate, the glaciers of the world are melting
and retreating more rapidly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Winter
precipitation is delivering more rain, less snow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Winter rain tends to run off promptly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Snowpack retains the moisture longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It melts later, closer to the growing season,
when the water can be used to irrigate thirsty cropland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The water flowing out of the Himalayas feeds the Indus,
Yangzi, Mekong, Ganges, Yellow, Brahmaputra, and Irrawaddy rivers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two billion people depend on this water
arriving in adequate amounts, at the appropriate time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the coming years, more water shortages and
major changes are expected.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1120/htm">Paul Ehrlich</a>
and John Harte wrote that a third of global crop production depends on
irrigation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Melting snow has been an
essential source of irrigation water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“The winter snowpack in mountainous regions such as the Himalayas, the
Rockies, the Sierra, and the Andes is a most efficient reservoir, storing water
through the cold months and releasing it gradually as snowmelt in warm<a name="_Toc442611366"> months when farmers need it.”<o:p></o:p></a></p>
<span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc442611366;"></span>
<p class="BlogText">“In response to severe and prolonged drought in many regions
of the world, including China, India, Thailand, Italy, and California, loss of
surface irrigation water has resulted in excessive pumping of groundwater,
which in turn has led to land subsidence, groundwater depletion, and
irreversible loss of aquifer volume.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Food
production is also challenged by droughts, deluges, super storms, heat waves,
aggressive wildfires, declining insect pollinators, soil salinization, soil
depletion, erosion, and so on.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://india.mongabay.com/2018/09/a-drying-ganga-could-stall-food-security-and-prevent-achieving-sdgs/">Sahana
Ghosh</a> reported that the once mighty Ganges River is wheezing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the years, river volume has been
declining, because farmers have been diverting too much water via their irrigation
canals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The river got shallower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, they switched to tube wells with
motorized pumps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Naturally, overpumping
the groundwater has serious consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the dry months, the river now looks more like a mudflat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reduced flow also concentrates the load of
pollutants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Researcher Abhijit Mukherjee said, “Our prediction shows that about 115
million people can be impacted due to insufficient food availability in the
next few decades.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-wests-great-river-hits-its-limits-will-the-colorado-run-dry">Jim
Robbins</a> wrote about the Colorado River blues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 1,450 mile (2,333 km) watershed starts in
the Rocky Mountains and ends at the Pacific.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It used to empty into the Gulf of California, but not a single drop of
water enters the Gulf today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2018,
river volume was just two-thirds of normal, tied for the record low.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Colorado is one of the most heavily engineered waterways
in the world — designed for the benefit of humans, not nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the source of much contention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It serves 40 million people, and the number
of users keeps growing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A drought since
2000 has reduced its flow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the
most severe drought in 1,250 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Lake
Mead reservoir at Hoover Dam, and the Lake Powell reservoir at Glen Canyon Dam,
are at all-time lows. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Some suspect that climate change is drying out the West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not just a temporary drought, the
West may actually be getting permanently dryer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Worst case, if the reservoirs ever hit ‘dead pool’ — when levels drop
too low for water to be piped out — many people in the region could become
climate refugees.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Agriculture uses 80 percent of the Colorado’s water, cities
use 10 percent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As demand exceeds
supply, some users will be cut off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dewatering agriculture would snuff out many farms and nearby towns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wildlife does not have a top priority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/22/middleeast/middle-east-climate-water-shortage-iran-urmia-intl/index.html">Frederick
Pleitgen</a> and team described an emerging water shortage crisis in the Middle
East, caused by persistent drought and extreme heat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Temperatures sometimes soar to life
threatening levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rainfall mostly
evaporates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rivers, lakes, and wetlands
are drying up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Iran’s once large and
beautiful Lake Urmia shrinks, its water is getting too salty, so farmers are
pumping groundwater for irrigation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Aquifers are being overpumped, depleting the limited reserves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If current trends continue, some regions will
become uninhabitable. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Homes in Jordan receive some water once or twice a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Numerous upstream dams limit the amount of
water that eventually arrives at the end of the watershed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israel has a huge water desalinization
program that requires large amounts of fossil energy to operate, adding still
more carbon into the atmosphere.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a name="_Toc81140618"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Agriculture
and Climate</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Every variety of plant and animal has different environmental
requirements for optimal health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
all have evolved to survive within a limited range of conditions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humans can’t survive extreme conditions, nor
can the livestock and crops we depend on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When reality is shifting into a new and unusual trend, the family of
life will struggle, and some will blink out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Evolution is not a speedy process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">With regard to crop plants, important variables include
temperature, sunlight hours, pH, available moisture, soil fertility, and so
on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As warming proceeds, the regions
that have a tropical climate are expanding from their equatorial homeland
toward the poles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Regions that used to
be temperate are getting hotter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the
good old days, frigid winters used to provide beneficial pest control, by
freezing lots of insects and other things that harmed crops and humans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Winter precipitation was stored in ice and
snow.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://www.growbiointensive.org/news-0505-notes.htm">Brian
Halweil</a> emphasized how important a stable climate is to agriculture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2003, for the first time, the potato
blight fungus came to visit the town of Chacllabamba, Peru.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It almost totally destroyed their crop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Located at an altitude of 13,000 feet (4,000
m), a cool climate had protected the potato fields for thousands of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Spuds had been their staple food.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2015.08.001">Jerry
Hatfield and John Prueger</a> investigated how rising temperatures affected a
variety of crop plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Extreme heat
events may last a few days, and have a big impact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When temperatures are outside of the ideal
range, plant growth, pollination, and reproductive processes can be
affected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pollination is especially
sensitive to rising temperatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>High
temperatures during the reproductive phase of the life cycle can reduce corn
yields by as much as 80 to 90 percent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When wheat is maturing, a frost can cause the grains to be
sterile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too much heat can reduce the
number of grains that form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rice is
especially vulnerable to high heat during the pollination process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the major crops, yields are expected to
decrease as global temperatures rise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://eos.org/features/climate-change-uproots-global-agriculture">Kimberly
Cartier</a> noted that growing conditions are getting less predictable than in
the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rainy seasons may be more
intense than usual, or less.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their
arrival may be earlier than the ideal time, or later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) pattern
is associated with precipitation patterns, and it is a well-known
troublemaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1983, an unusual ENSO
coincided with the largest global failure of corn (maize) crops in modern
records.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>ENSO can also alter wheat and
soybean production on a global scale.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2012/08/late-victorian-holocausts.html">Mike
Davis</a> wrote about a horrific era of ENSO related droughts and famines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the years 1876-79 and 1896-1902 between
12.2 and 29.3 million died of famine in India.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the Madras Deccan, “the only well-fed part of the local population
were the pariah dogs, ‘fat as sheep,’ that feasted on the bodies of dead
children.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the same period, between
19.5 and 30 million died of famine in China, and 2 million in Brazil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Famine hit these three nations the hardest,
but many other nations were also affected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the U.S., churches organized to send relief to hungry farmers in the
Dakotas and western Kansas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://sciencing.com/effect-temperature-rate-photosynthesis-19595.html">Samuel
Markings</a> wrote about the relationship between photosynthesis and
temperature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In plants, photosynthesis
is the process that uses sunlight to transform water and CO<sub>2</sub> into
food (glucose) and oxygen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Optimum
temperatures range between 50 to 68°F (10 to 20°C).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Above this range, higher temperatures slow
photosynthesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The process declines
sharply when temps rise above 104°F (40°C).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When temps persist in this range, plant survival is endangered.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="doi:10.1016/j.envexpbot.2007.05.011">Abdul Wahid</a>
and team wrote an extensive report on heat tolerance in plants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each crop species has a threshold
temperature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this temperature is
exceeded too long, the result is heat stress — irreversible damage to plant
growth and development.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harm varies
based on intensity (temperature in degrees), duration, and the rate at which
the temperate rose.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="doi:%2010.1007/s10584-011-0028-6">Qunying Luo</a>
extensively described threshold temperatures for a number of major crop
species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At different stages of a
plant’s life, they can be damaged by excess heat — leaf initiation, shoot
growth, root growth, sowing to emergence, grain filling, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, “Several studies found that
temperatures of above 35°C (95°F) are lethal to maize pollen viability” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://www.agritech.tnau.ac.in/agriculture/agri_agrometeorology_temp.html">Tnau
Agritech Portal</a> published a report on the effects of high temperature on
plant growth in India.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each plant
species has a thermal death point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
many annual crops, 122°F (50°C) is fatal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Excess heat can reduce yields, and inhibit the absorption and
assimilation of nutrients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can cause
pollen abortion, which reduces the grain set.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even short exposure can affect the growth of shoots and roots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/should-we-eat-less-rice/">Evelyn
Lamb</a> wrote that rice provides 16 to 20 percent of the calories consumed by humankind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Corn and wheat are similarly popular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, more than half of the calories consumed
by humans are provided by rice, corn, and wheat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Growing rice in flooded paddies produces more
greenhouse gas emissions per calorie than corn or wheat, twice the emissions
from wheat. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://climatenewsnetwork.net/rice-puddling-raises-methane-threat/">Santosh
Koirala</a> reported that most rice crops begin by transplanting young plants
in flooded paddies (“puddling”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When
rice is grown under puddled transplanted conditions, paddy soil becomes anoxic
— depleted of dissolved oxygen — and then, in the absence of oxygen, microbes
that break down plant matter produce methane.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Puddling “is becoming less profitable because of the costs of labour,
shortage of water, and high energy costs.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It results in depletion of soil quality, and higher methane emissions.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Methane is the second
major greenhouse gas, after carbon dioxide, and agriculture accounts for 40% of
these greenhouse emissions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although farm
animals are a major source, flooded rice paddies emit as much as 500 million
tons, which is around 20% of total manmade emissions of this gas.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/39/9720.full.pdf">Kritee Kritee</a>
and team noted that rice is a staple food for almost half of humankind, so it’s
especially important to pay attention to its climate impacts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Globally, one third of water used for
irrigation goes to rice farming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rice
receives one seventh of all fertilizer used.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Methane from global rice cultivation currently accounts for one-half of
all crop-related greenhouse gas emissions.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Experts recommended that these methane emissions could be
reduced by shifting from continuously flooded rice fields to intermittent
flooding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, the team was
surprised to discover that this brilliant solution had an unintended
consequence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The emissions of nitrous
oxide (N<sub>2</sub>O) tripled — a greenhouse gas that persists in the
atmosphere much longer than methane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is an unintended consequence of using nitrogen rich fertilizer.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Shifting_Diets_for_a_Sustainable_Food_Future_1.pdf">Janet
Ranganathan</a> and team wrote a hefty and thorough report filled with
recommendations for reducing the environmental harm caused by high impact diets
and overpopulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consumption of
animal-based foods is growing, and these foods (especially beef), result in
higher emissions of greenhouse gases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Meat and dairy foods are not necessary for adequate
nutrition, so less is better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Plant-based foods can be readily combined to provide the full set of
essential amino acids, as with rice and beans or peanut butter and bread.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only essential not provided by a
vegetarian diet is vitamin B12, which supplements can provide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Obesity is a growing trend, even among low-income
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Globally, there are now
two-and-a-half times more overweight than undernourished people. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More than one in three adults are
overweight.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Folks around the world are
overdoing the consumption of calories and protein.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The <a href="https://carbon2018.globalchange.gov/">Second
State of the Carbon Cycle Report</a> is a spellbinding 878 page report on the
carbon cycle in North America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned
a very important fact of life:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Globally, soils contain more than three times as much carbon as the
atmosphere, and four and a half times more carbon than the world’s biota
[living things]; therefore, even small changes in soil carbon stocks could lead
to large changes in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>).”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Carbon compounds are central to the existence of the entire
family of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CO<sub>2</sub> that
plants extract from the atmosphere allows them to live and grow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plants exhale oxygen that animals need, and
animals exhale CO<sub>2</sub> that plants need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Soil is home to an amazing community of fantastic microbes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dead organic material contains carbon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it drops to the ground, soil microbes
eagerly decompose it, and do so in a way that stabilizes the carbon, so it is
more likely to be retained in the soil, rather than float away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soil microbes that encourage carbon retention
do not enjoy unusual shifts in moisture or temperature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They don’t enjoy deforestation, tilling, or
being sprayed with farm chemicals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Livestock production is a significant source of greenhouse
gases — CO<sub>2</sub>, methane, and nitrous oxide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ruminants include cattle, sheep, goats, elk,
deer, bison, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The digestive system
in ruminants includes a process called enteric fermentation, which produces
methane emissions (3% farts, 97% belches).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Poultry, hogs, and horses emit greenhouse gases in smaller volumes via
different processes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Manure stored in
large quantities generates large emissions of methane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pools of deep shit contain little or no
oxygen, so they provide ideal conditions for producing methane.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">“Soils in North America have lost, on average, 20% to 75% of
their original topsoil carbon with historical conversion to agriculture.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of this conversion took place in the
last 200 years or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To add insult to
injury, “On a per-person basis, food loss and waste in North America is 375 to
500 kilograms per year.” (826 to 1,102 pounds)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a name="_Toc81140619"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Arctic
Fires</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/57173570">Zombie
fires</a> were the subject of a BBC story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are also called overwintering fires or peat fires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They occur in Russia, Canada, and
Alaska.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In recent years, temperatures in
the Arctic have been soaring, and permafrost has been thawing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When tundra and forest lands dry out, they
become prone to wildfires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These fires
can ignite ancient peat deposits beneath the surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Toasty peat can smolder all winter, beneath
the snow cover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When spring arrives, the
snow melts, oxygen reaches the embers, and the fire can reignite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They “come back from the dead,” hence the
zombie tag.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02568-y">Alexandra
Witze</a> reported that in the summer of 2020, there were many Siberian tundra
fires, and they emitted 244 megatons of CO<sub>2</sub>, a 35 percent increase
over the intense 2019 fire season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About
half of the fires were burning on peat lands, the most carbon-dense
ecosystems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When shallow layers near the
surface dry out, they are more susceptible to burning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Warmer winters and springs mean the fire
season starts sooner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Arctic, the
fire zone is moving northward, into lands that have traditionally been
fire-resistant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://emerging-europe.com/news/melting-permafrost-is-a-threat-not-just-to-the-arctic-but-to-the-entire-planet/">Portia
Kentish</a> reported that the climate crisis is well underway in Arctic
regions, causing huge and spooky impacts — a powerful warning to the rest of
the world, which is not leaping to action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>During a May 2020 heat wave, locations in Siberia that are normally
close to freezing had temperatures hotter than Athens or Rome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some Arctic permafrost is up to 80,000 years
old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When permafrost thaws, methane
emissions begin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heat waves encourage
wildfires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are burning peat
deposits that have been building up for 15,000 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About half of Russia’s Arctic fires are
consuming peat soil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a name="_Toc81140620"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Forest
Impacts</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">We could sequester lots of CO<sub>2</sub> by planting
enormous numbers of trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That sounds
wholesome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sadly, the current fad is
deforestation — cutting enormous numbers of trees to grow soybeans, create
livestock pastures, make charcoal, produce wood products, and clear the way for
urban sprawl.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">As the planet gets warmer, forests will become more
vulnerable to pests and pathogens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Droughts will become hotter, longer, and dryer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This encourages wildfires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wikipedia is posting pages that, year by
year, document wildfire activity in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The report for the record breaking year of 2021 is [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfires_in_2021">HERE</a>].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As of August 19, fires had been reported in
Algeria, South Africa, Cyprus, India, Israel, Russia, Turkey, France, Greece,
Italy (10 regions), Canada, and United States (9 states), Argentina, and
Australia. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/trees-are-growing-fast-and-dying-young-due-climate-change-180975819/">Rodrigo
Pérez Ortega</a> reported that climate change is encouraging trees to grow fast
and die young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Research suggests that
this may be universal, affecting almost all tree species and climates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Based on tree ring analysis, this trend
corresponds with the exponential growth of human caused CO<sub>2</sub>
emissions, as well as rising temperatures — a combo that stimulates rapid
growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This reduces their potential for
maximum long term CO<sub>2</sub> absorption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6494/eaaz9463">Nate McDowell</a>
and team studied changing forests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Shifts in forest dynamics are already occurring, and the emerging
pattern is that global forests are tending toward younger stands with faster
turnover as old-growth forest with stable dynamics are dwindling.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These shifts are occurring because of
“anthropogenic-driven exacerbation of chronic drivers, such as rising
temperature and CO<sub>2</sub>, and increasing transient disturbances,
including wildfire, drought, windthrow, biotic attack, and land-use
change.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their findings indicate that it
is “highly likely that tree mortality rates will continue to increase.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/29/boundless-dying-trees/">Robert
Hunziker</a> reported on new information linking rising temperatures with the
increase in tree deaths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the U.S.,
giant sequoias are dying from the top down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the Southwest, drought has killed hundreds of millions of trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Africa, 2,000 year old baobab trees are
wheezing and dying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Germany, dead
trees are everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dead and dying
trees are more vulnerable to insects and disease.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They provide abundant fuel for forest
fires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Siberia is burning up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“New studies show drought and heat waves will
cause massive die-offs, killing most trees alive today.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-end-of-ice.html">Dahr
Jamail</a> visited Glacier National Park, home to a formerly thriving boreal
forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A warming climate has delighted
millions of hungry pine bark beetles, some of whom can now have two life cycles
per year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the last 20 years, beetles
have killed 40 million acres (16 million ha) of trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They kill fewer pines now, because fewer
pines remain alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latest serial
killer is white pine blister rust, which has infected almost 85 percent of the
trees in the park.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/35/17371.full.pdf">Songlin Fei</a>
and team studied how insects and diseases are hammering U.S. forests, which are
now home to more than 450 nonnative tree-feeding insects and tree
pathogens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The study focused on the 15
most destructive nonnative forest pests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It found that “41.1% of the total live forest biomass in the
conterminous United States is at risk of future loss from these 15 pests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These results indicate that forest pest
invasions, driven primarily by globalization, represent a huge risk to U.S.
forests and have significant impacts on carbon dynamics.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-hidden-life-of-trees.html">Peter
Wohlleben</a> shared his intimate knowledge of the trees in his beloved German
forest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trees can’t walk, but forests
are always slowly wandering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the
end of the last ice age, a warming climate has enabled the trees of central Europe
to gradually migrate northward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Animals
and winds move seeds away from their source.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Today, the climate is warming way too fast, which presents a mortal
threat to temperature sensitive species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Human tree huggers are working to relocate and transplant as many types
of trees as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_migration_of_forests_in_North_America">Assisted
migration</a> is a heroic effort to “help forests walk.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a name="_Toc81140621"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Climate
and Disease</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The climate crisis is not expected to promote miraculous
advances in the health of humankind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
huge herd is moving into an era of food insecurity, power shortages, water
scarcity, poor sanitation, infectious diseases, deteriorating medical care
systems, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A hotter climate and
extreme weather events will add to these challenges. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The Lancet’s <a href="https://www.lancetcountdown.org/2020-report/">2020 report</a> presented a
competent 42 page discussion on the climate change impacts on health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Warming trends are increasing the frequency
and intensity of floods, drought, storms, wildfire, temperature anomalies, and
food scarcity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These changes are killing
more folks in the 65+ age range.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
2018, heat waves killed about 296,000 people.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">“The climate suitability for infectious disease transmission
has been growing rapidly since the 1950s.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The dengue virus is spreading across South America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“From 1950 to 2018, the global climate
suitability for the transmission of dengue increased by 8.9% for <i>Aedes
aegypti</i> and 15% for <i>Aedes albopictus</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2015 to 2019, suitability for malaria
transmission in highland areas was 38.7% higher in the African region and
149.7% higher in the Western Pacific region compared with a 1950s baseline.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.htm">David
Wallace-Wells</a> added that malaria also thrives in hotter regions because
“for every degree increase in temperature, the parasite reproduces ten times
faster.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, by 2050, up to
5.2 billion people may be infected, according to World Bank estimates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As tropical climates move northward, so will
tropical pathogens. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a name="_Toc81140622"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Tipping
Points</span></strong></a><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">A tipping point in an ecosystem is a threshold that, when
exceeded, can lead to large changes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sometimes an imbalance can reach a level of intensity that triggers an
irreversible cascade of events, like a chain reaction of falling dominoes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The climate crisis is a momentous tipping
point in the human saga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Melting Arctic
ice has busted loose an avalanche of devastating changes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clever humans, with all their gee-whiz
technology, are powerless to refreeze the Arctic, halt the avalanche, put the
carbon back where it came from, and make everything nice again.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Over the millennia, high impact cultures have increasingly
evolved into aggressive control freaks, radically manipulating ecosystems to
satisfy their impulsive whims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are
unencumbered by foresight, and display little respect for the family of life
and the generations yet to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">For a very long time, their enthusiastic cleverness usually
didn’t slam head-on into devastating limits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They kept nature on a short leash, and brutally abused her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The game is different now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve created changes that threaten our
survival, changes we can’t undo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are
no longer in the driver’s seat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Nature has put a tight leash around our necks, and we’re about
to discover what it’s like to be powerless, kicked, and beaten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mistakes indeed have consequences
(ouch!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our seat in the family of life
is not a throne.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are not the Crown of
Creation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re often more like
hyperactive children who get completely lost, confused, and anxious.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Many folks who deliberately pay acute attention to reality
are totally spooked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These hyper alert
folks have developed a special ability to comprehend the obvious — we’re in the
<bleeping> express lane to surprising changes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of them seem to perceive tipping points
to be elements of a remarkable cosmic drama.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tipping points are fire-breathing dragons that we must heroically slay
in order avert runaway warming, and a hellish ecological apocalypse called
Hothouse Earth. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The alert ones are jumping up and down and shouting about
tipping points, in a desperate frantic effort to wake up the clueless
billions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dudes!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s time for action!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We only have ten years to fix this mess!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not too late!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The presumption is that the mess is a
solvable problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are heavily
indoctrinated with the illusion that technology can overcome any
challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">At the same time, the titans of industry assure us that they
are ready and eager to sell us the miracles we need: electric cars, solar
panels, wind turbines — clean green energy, and a prosperous economy that will
grow until the end of time!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can
simply shop our way to a better tomorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everything will be OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Think
happy thoughts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hope will save the
world.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Will electric cars will be so cool that the Arctic ice
refreezes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will the glaciers rise and
shine again?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will green energy be so
cool that the permafrost stops thawing, and the methane seeps go back to
sleep?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is learning how to walk as hard
as they say?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To learn more about tipping
points, check out <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-climate-changes-worsens-a-cascade-of-tipping-points-looms">Fred
Pearce</a>, <a href="https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-019-03595-0/d41586-019-03595-0.pdf">Timothy
Lenton</a>, <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/3/eaay1052/tab-pdf">Katharyn
Duffy</a>, and <a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115">Will
Steffen</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">[Continued in Climate Crisis 04, Sample 58]<o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-4029056781684667362021-08-14T11:05:00.001-07:002021-08-14T11:05:47.180-07:00Wild Free and Happy Sample 56<p> </p><p class="BlogText">[Note: This is the fifty-sixth sample from my rough draft of
a far from finished new book, <i>Wild, Free, & Happy</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Search field on the right side will find
words in the full contents of all rants and reviews.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These samples are not freestanding
pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will be easier to
understand if you start with sample 01, and follow the sequence listed <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/04/free-brain-food.html">HERE</a> —
if you happen to have some free time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
you prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd is in the process of reading and recording
my book <a href="https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sets/richard-adrian-reese-wild-free-happy">HERE</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">[Continued from Climate Crisis 01 <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/07/wild-free-and-happy-sample-55.html">Sample
55</a>]<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Super
Seeps<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/bubbling-methane-craters-and-super-seeps-is-this-the-worrying-new-face-of-the-undersea-arctic/">Valeria
Sukhova and Olga Gertcyk</a> wrote an update on sea floor methane seeps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scientists have been doing research in the Laptev
and East Siberian seas, where there are large deposits of offshore permafrost
and methane hydrates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Numerous seeps are
releasing methane into the atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
the air above the water’s surface, methane levels are 16 to 32 ppm (parts per
million).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is 15 times higher than the
average methane content for the world atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Over a thousand large seep fields (super seeps) have been
found so far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They probably are not
having a large impact on atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> or methane yet.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, the Arctic climate is rapidly
warming, the ice continues melting, the water continues warming, and there are
large deposits of seabed hydrates that have not yet thawed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Methane
Craters<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Methane craters are massive holes in the tundra that are caused
by methane explosions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the climate
warms, thawing permafrost leads to methane releases that can accumulate in
underground pockets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The holes are also
called gas emission craters, blowout craters, funnels, and hydrolaccoliths.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Methane craters not the same as thaw slumps
caused by subsidence, when the land surface softens and sinks due to thawing permafrost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slumps sometimes fill with water, creating
lakes or ponds.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/news/giant-new-50-metre-deep-crater-opens-up-in-arctic-tundra/">Anna
Liesowska</a> reported that methane craters are a recent surprise, appearing on
the Yamal and Taymyr (Gyden) peninsulas of northern Siberia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first one was discovered in 2014, by a
plane passing over tundra in the middle of nowhere on the Yamal peninsula.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Until this sighting, these craters were
unknown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She mentioned this 2014
discovery in a July 2020 article that announced the discovery of the
seventeenth methane crater.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was about
164 feet (50 m) deep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Her article included a number of stunning photographs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They included two photos of pingos, large
mounds created by rising pressure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pingo">Pingo</a> article in Wikipedia will
further illuminate your understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pingos are only found in permafrost regions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There may be 11,000 of them on Earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One region in Canada has permafrost that’s
more than 50,000 years old.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201130-climate-change-the-mystery-of-siberias-explosive-craters">Richard
Gray</a> created an excellent article for the BBC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is recent (November 2020), provides a deeper
discussion of methane craters, and includes a number of dramatic
photographs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Satellite images, taken
over multiple years, indicate that the site of the seventeenth crater (2020)
had previously been a pingo that first appeared in the autumn of 2013.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In northwest Siberia, the exploding pingos are
apparently created by concentrated pockets of methane, and they develop in a
few years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are located in regions
located above deep deposits of gas and oil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The explosions can be very exciting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Local reindeer herders reported seeing
flames and smoke after one crater explosion in June 2017 along the banks of the
Myudriyakha River. Villagers in nearby Seyakha — a settlement about 20.5 miles
(33 km) south of the crater — claimed the gas kept burning for about 90 minutes
and the flames reached 13 to16 feet (4 to 5 m) high.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In this region of northern Siberia, satellite images taken
from 1984 to 2007 indicate a five percent change in the landscape, as the
climate warms, and more permafrost thaws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the global average, so permafrost
will continue thawing in summer months, and more methane will be released.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many more craters will explode in the
coming years?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How much more methane will
be released into the atmosphere?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also
worrisome is that craters are exploding in a region of gas and oil extraction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are many pipelines running across the
land, and some are close to pingos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is potential here for eco-catastrophes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://emerging-europe.com/news/melting-permafrost-is-a-threat-not-just-to-the-arctic-but-to-the-entire-planet/">Portia
Kentish</a> reported on impacts caused by the 2020 heat wave in Siberia, “where
melting permafrost means the ground is no longer able to support structures
built on it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many, this raises
particular concerns over the oil and gas industry, which is the primary
economic sector in the Arctic Circle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pipelines,
processing plants and storage tanks on unstable and thawing ground become a
serious threat to the natural environment.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
released a report.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It found that “45 per
cent of oil and natural gas production fields in the Russian Arctic are located
in the most hazardous and at-risk region. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moreover, areas of discontinuous permafrost
could see a 50-75 per cent drop in load bearing capacity over the period from
2015-25 in comparison to 1975-85.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stuff
like roads, bridges, power grids, and towns are vulnerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Undersea
Craters<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://sciencenorway.no/forskningno-geology-norway/giant-gas-craters-discovered-at-the-bottom-of-the-barents-sea/1458942">Nancy
Bazilchuk</a> reported on research in the Barents Sea, which is a region of the
Arctic Ocean located between Norwegian and Russian territorial waters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the 1990s, scientists discovered craters
that blew out of the seafloor 12,000 to 15,000 years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recent research has discovered hundreds more
ancient craters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some are 300 to 1,000
meters (328 to 1093 yards) in diameter, and blasted out of solid bedrock. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="doi:10.1126/science.aal4500">Karin Andreassen</a>
and team have been doing this undersea research, and they published a very
detailed paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the eons, there
have been numerous glaciations (ice ages).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When regions freeze, methane is trapped beneath ice sheets, and
solidifies into methane hydrates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
warm periods return, some of the frozen methane can thaw and be released.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Releases can be gradual, in streams of
bubbles, or they can be abrupt, with crater-making explosions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The incredible genius of humankind now allows us to cleverly
disrupt the climate in a remarkable number of ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Andreassen assures us that there are still
enormous amounts of methane stored in sea beds and terrestrial permafrost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It is apparent that extensive sub-glacial
hydrate accumulations exist beneath the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets
today.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She expects more methane craters
will explode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Life as we know it is moving into the rear view mirror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Hot Age just got out of bed, yawning,
making coffee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody knows how hot it
will get, how long it will last, and what it will remain when it’s over.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Ocean
Heating<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/how_long_can_oceans_continue_to_absorb_earths_excess_heat"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cheryl Katz</span></a><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> discussed how oceans have
been softening climate impacts by soaking up excess heat that has been trapped
in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By keeping the atmosphere a bit cooler for a while, this has delayed our
inevitable head-on collision with reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Currently, up to half of our CO<sub>2</sub> emissions are absorbed into
seawater.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, heating up the oceans
has accelerated acidification and deoxygenation (more on these below).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Experts
are learning that the surface waters are now warming faster and deeper than
ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The situation was worse than they
thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heat gain had been
underestimated by as much as half — too little attention had been devoted to
the Southern Hemisphere, where 60 percent of ocean water resides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the heat gain was happening well
south of the equator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time,
the Arctic Ocean is heating especially fast, as its ice cover melts and
shrinks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="BlogText">When water gets warmer, it expands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, warmer oceans contribute to higher sea
levels, as does the huge volume of water flowing out of melting glaciers and
icepacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The art of accurately
predicting upcoming sea level changes has yet to be perfected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world is far more complex and capricious
than the programmers of computer models can imagine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are limits to how much heat oceans can
store.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As their ability to absorb heat
maxes out, they may stop absorbing heat, and begin releasing stored heat into
the atmosphere. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1120/htm">Paul
Ehrlich</a> and John Harte noted that in a warming climate, higher ocean
temperatures can power more intense storm events, and the warmer atmosphere has
the capacity to store more water, so rainstorms are more intense.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.climatechangenews.com/2012/01/24/warming-oceans-face-co2-tipping-point/">Tierney
Smith</a> notes that oceans absorb between 35 and 42 percent of CO<sub>2</sub>
emissions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also absorb around 90
percent of the excess heat energy that results from the warming climate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This elevates surface temperatures, and a
warmer surface will absorb less of our CO<sub>2</sub> emissions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, more carbon will continue to accumulate
in the atmosphere, further warming the planet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://media.nature.com/original/magazine-assets/d41586-019-03595-0/d41586-019-03595-0.pdf">Timothy
Lenton</a> wrote, “Ocean heatwaves have led to mass coral bleaching and to the
loss of half of the shallow-water corals on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A staggering 99% of tropical corals are
projected to be lost if global average temperature rises by 2°C, owing to
interactions between warming, ocean acidification, and pollution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would represent a profound loss of
marine biodiversity and human livelihoods.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://grist.org/article/ipcc-report-ocean-warming-great-barrier-reef/">Todd
Woody</a> reported on the findings of the IPCC’s 2019 <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Special Report on the Ocean and
Cryosphere in a Changing Climate</span></em>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It noted that the rate of ocean warming has doubled since 1993.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Extreme flooding of coastal areas will likely
occur at least yearly by 2050. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fish
populations face collapse thanks to a combination of ocean acidification, loss
of oxygen, and warming of the ocean’s surface, which blocks the flow of
nutrients to and from the deep sea.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Ocean
Deoxygenation<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.01.001">Karin
Limburg</a> reported that oxygen levels in the oceans have been declining for
about 70 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is gradually
suffocating saltwater ecosystems (“oceans are losing their breath”). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Low oxygen conditions exist in a number of
coastal sites, semi-enclosed seas, and the open ocean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the extreme, the Baltic Sea has regions of
water with too little oxygen to measure (anoxic).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">More than 700 coastal sites are experiencing low oxygen
conditions (hypoxic).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are
overloaded with nutrients, like nitrogen and phosphorus, runoff from fertilizer
and sewage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We call them dead zones, but
they aren’t completely dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are
home to large mobs of wee microbes that thrive in nutrient rich water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Algae (phytoplankton) are wee aquatic plants
that feast on the nutrients, explode in number, and create algal blooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the process, they emit lots of oxygen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the nutrients run low, the algae die and
decompose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, blooms are often
followed by a surge of wee aquatic animals (zooplankton) that feast on the rich
stew of dead algae and absorb the abundant oxygen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Depleted oxygen = dead zone. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Polluted water is not caused by climate change, it’s the
result large swarms of untidy primates that dump staggering amounts of crud
into waterways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Skanky water is one
cause of deoxygenation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another cause is
climate change, which is affecting open waters that are not nutrient rich.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Rising temperatures make water close to the surface warmer
and lighter, which intensifies thermal stratification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This reduces the mixing of warmer surface
water with deeper water that is denser and colder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Colder water is able to absorb more oxygen, but
the warmer water above inhibits its exposure to airborne oxygen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, climate change is melting more and more
ice, sending lots of freshwater into the salty sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Freshwater is less dense than salt water, so
it stratifies above colder, deeper water — another obstacle. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">So, compared to earlier times, less oxygen is now available
in deeper waters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some sea animals are
able to survive in zones of minimal oxygen, others are forced to move.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Animals having a high metabolism, like tuna
or sharks, move to shallower depths, where they are more likely to be
caught.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Migration introduces some chaos
into traditional food webs, as more species become crowded together. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Ocean
Acidification<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/featured-images/2017-state-climate-ocean-uptake-human-produced-carbon">Cody
Sullivan</a> and Rebecca Lindsey of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Association (NOAA) wrote about how oceans are being affected by human-produced CO<sub>2</sub>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oceans are the only long-term sink for
manmade CO<sub>2</sub> emissions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Colder
waters tend to absorb CO<sub>2</sub>, while warmer waters tend to release it
back into the atmosphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since 2000,
the overall net increase in CO<sub>2</sub> absorption has been trending upward
at a robust rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, the
higher uptake of carbon also encourages ocean acidification. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-rising-acidification-poses-a-special-peril-for-warming-arctic-waters">Cheryl
Katz</a> studies ocean acidification (“global warming’s evil twin”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Arctic, and in the Southern Ocean
surrounding Antarctica, lots of ice is busy melting away, exposing the water
below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In cold polar waters, CO<sub>2</sub>
is more soluble, so more of it can be absorbed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of it reacts with the water to form
carbonic acid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently, the frigid
waters near both poles are becoming highly acidified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Conditions in the polar regions are getting
close to a tipping point into extreme acidification.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The area of increasingly corrosive water is expected to
expand into the North Atlantic and North Pacific, impact the ocean food web,
and threaten important fisheries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Already, oysters are dying off in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shell-building organisms need carbonate
minerals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the past, carbonate ions in
the water provided a buffer against the acids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As these ions are depleted, acidity is able to rise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Creatures with shells are having a harder
time building and maintaining shells, because they corrode.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Increasing ocean acidification is a severe threat to the
planet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is expected to have a big
impact on fisheries in Alaska and throughout the Arctic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As waters warm, species like Atlantic cod are
migrating toward the cooler Arctic, where acidification is high.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fish populations are likely to decline,
impacting the global food supply for humans. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.836.4057&rep=rep1&type=pdf">Stephanie
Dutkiewicz</a> and team studied the impact of acidification on phytoplankton
(algae), the tiny plants that are the foundation of the marine food web.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They absorb CO<sub>2</sub> and emit the
life-giving oxygen that’s necessary for the existence of animal life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oceans absorb about 30 percent of manmade
carbon emissions, and this intensifies acidification.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their analysis concluded, “At the level of
ecological function of the phytoplankton community, acidification had a greater
impact than warming or reduced nutrient supply.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-end-of-ice.html">Dahr
Jamail</a> noted that “phytoplankton photosynthesis produces half the total
oxygen supply for the planet.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Growing
acidification will eliminate some species, and disturb vital ecological
balances.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Thermohaline
Circulation<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Ocean current circulation is a very big deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has a major impact on regional climates,
because it moves heat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In plain English,
it’s called the global conveyor belt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
science speak, it’s called the thermohaline circulation (THC).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The THC moves heat around the world via a
long and winding pathway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wikipedia
provides a nice plain English description of the THC [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation">HERE</a>].<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The flow of the current is driven by seawater density, which
is determined by variations of surface temperature and salt content
(salinity).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Warm water is less dense
than cold, so it rises to the top.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Freshwater
is lighter, less dense, so it stays close to the surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Salt water is denser and heavier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Today, melting ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice are pouring
huge amounts of cold freshwater into the ocean, which throws a monkey wrench
into the traditional operation of the current.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Global warming will increasingly have an impact on ocean circulation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These changes are expected to eventually alter
the traditional patterns of the THC as we know it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some experts are contemplating the
possibility of a slowdown or shutdown of the THC.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wikipedia discusses the possibilities [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation">HERE</a>].<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Atlantic
Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">One segment of the global thermohaline circulation is the Atlantic
Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As the name implies, this involves the currents moving north and then
south in the Atlantic Ocean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The AMOC is
fed by warm and salty water flowing past the cape of Africa, heading northwest
to the Caribbean, then up the coast of North America, then northeast to Iceland
and Scandinavia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the far north, the
current loses much heat, and sends cool water back down toward the South Pole.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The segment of the AMOC that moves warm water from the Gulf
of Mexico toward the Arctic is called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream">Gulf Stream</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It keeps the climate of the eastern U.S. and
northern Europe warmer than is typical at such a high latitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This allows modern agriculture in these
regions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some worry that the melting
arctic will increase the frigid freshwater flowing into the AMOC, and this
could lead to a slowdown or shutdown of the current, and possibly a chillier
future for the eastern U.S. and western Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Some have presented evidence that the AMOC is slowing
down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others don’t find this evidence to
be compelling, and they don’t expect a slowdown in the near term future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much is not known about ocean currents, and
controversies abound.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scientists are far
from full agreement on what is happening, and what might happen in the future.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/will_climate_change_jam_the_global_ocean_conveyor_belt">Nicola
Jones</a> wrote an easy to understand description of current AMOC research and
debates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Undersea instruments that
measure the current’s flow are indicating a significant slowdown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Experts aren’t sure if this is worrisome
evidence of climate change, or simply reflects normal variations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">“Should the AMOC shut down, models show that changes in rainfall
patterns would dry up Europe’s rivers, and North America’s entire Eastern Seaboard
could see an additional 30 inches (76 cm) of sea level rise as the backed-up
currents pile water up on East Coast shores.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This hasn’t happened yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
now, data collection continues, and the debates rumble on. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Overheating<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.htm">David
Wallace-Wells</a> wrote that the five warmest summers in Europe since 1500 have
all occurred since 2002.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rising heat
will have the most dramatic impacts in the Persian Gulf and Middle East, where record
temperatures have soared to frightening heights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2015, temps as high as 163°F (73°C) were
recorded.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/climate-change-wet-bulb-temperature.html">Matthew
Lewis</a> described how rising numbers of people are dying because extreme heat
events are becoming more common.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Deadly
heat is cooking us alive.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When our
bodies get too warm, we sweat, which helps us shed excess heat as it
evaporates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you’re lucky, this keeps your
body temperature in the normal range.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">We evolved our ability to sweat on African savannahs, where
the humidity is typically low (“dry heat”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, we can survive for a few hours of 120°F (49°C) in Death Valley,
California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a different story in
super-humid Florida, where “a single day of 120-degree temperatures in Palm
Beach would be a mass casualty event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dead bodies would pile up in the morgues, victims of hyperthermia, or
heatstroke — cooked, alive, in their own bodies.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alas, the cooling powers of sweating have
limits.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.livescience.com/hottest-temperature-people-can-tolerate.html">Tara
Santora</a> explored the maximum amount of heat that the human body can
endure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Air temperature is the scale of
heat that a thermometer displays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wet
bulb temperature is produced by a thermometer covered in a water-soaked
cloth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes into account both air
temperature and the humidity level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
reported that the limit we humans can endure is a wet bulb temperature of 95°F
(35°C).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You probably wouldn’t last three
hours. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When the air temperature is 115°F (46.1°C) and humidity is
30%, the wet bulb temperature is 87°F (30.5°C).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the air temperature is 102°F (38.9°C) and humidity is 77%, the wet
bulb temperature is 95°F (35°C).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the
wet bulb temperature is close to your normal body temperature, you still sweat,
but this doesn’t cool you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can also
overheat at lower temperatures if you are exercising and/or exposed to direct
sunlight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the climate warms, the
risks of overheating increase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2006/update56">Janet Larsen</a>
noted that a warming climate is expected to increase the number and intensity
of heat waves in the coming years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
2003, a blast furnace heat wave caused the deaths of more than 52,000 people
across Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the hottest
weather in at least 500 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Temperatures were over 104°F (40°C) for up to two weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fatalities rose to 2,000 per day in
France.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The higher the humidity, the
higher the death rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>City folks were
most at risk, because urban areas are heat islands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18241810/">Jean-Marie Robine</a> and team
did additional research and estimated that the actual mortality in 2003 was
more than 70,000.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2019.102488">John
Gowdy</a> added, “During the record heat in Europe in Summer 2003, maize
production fell by 30% in France and 36% in Italy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A 2008 study found that southern Africa could
lose 30% of its maize crop by 2030 due to the negative effects of climate
change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Losses of maize and rice crops
in South Asia could also be significant.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Extreme heat dries out the land, making it more
flammable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_wave">Wikipedia</a> noted that the
2003 European heat wave corresponded with a series of fires in Portugal that
destroyed 1,160 square miles (3010 km<sup>2</sup>) of forest, and 170 square
miles (440 km<sup>2</sup>) of agricultural land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In southern Portugal, the temperatures
reached as high as 117°F (47°C).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/09/1014564664/billion-sea-creatures-mussels-dead-canada-british-columbia-vancouver">Deepa
Shivaram</a> reported on a heat wave that hit British Columbia in July
2021.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along the coastline of Vancouver,
on one beach alone, the rocky shore was covered with hundreds of thousands of
dead mussels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also killed barnacles,
clams, crabs, sea stars, and intertidal anemones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Overall, an estimated one billion sea
creatures died from the heat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other animals
that depend on sea life for food were also affected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the same heat wave, 180 wildfires
ignited.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">[Continued in Climate Crisis 03, Sample 57]<o:p></o:p></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-90926993289971245612021-07-31T13:05:00.000-07:002021-07-31T13:05:36.465-07:00Wild Free and Happy Sample 55<p class="BlogText">[Note: This is the fifty-fifth sample from my rough draft of
a far from finished new book, <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Wild,
Free, & Happy</span></em>. The
Search field on the right side will find words in the full contents of all
rants and reviews. These samples are not
freestanding pieces. They will be easier
to understand if you start with sample 01, and follow the sequence listed <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2020/04/free-brain-food.html">HERE</a>
— if you happen to have some free time.
If you prefer audiobooks, Michael Dowd is in the process of reading and
recording my book <a href="https://soundcloud.com/michael-dowd-grace-limits/sets/richard-adrian-reese-wild-free-happy">HERE</a>.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">CLIMATE
CRISIS<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">The focus of this book is human eco-history. Climate change has influenced our journey
since day one, when our tree-dwelling ancestors had to move onto the
savannah. Today’s crisis is climate
change on steroids. It’s doing things
that humans have never experienced before — countless huge, accelerating,
scary, uncontrollable changes that we don’t fully comprehend. Our beloved techno magic is incompetent to
cleverly swish the bad stuff away. Say
hello to a thrilling future of big surprises.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">For many folks, the climate crisis is not chasing them down
the alley every day, snarling and viciously snapping at their asses. Now and then we hear stories and see some
pictures. News sources tend to quietly
step around the embarrassing subject.
Too much yucky news can make their audience uncomfortable and
unfaithful. We get some peeks at reality
now and then, but most of the story remains behind closed curtains. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">For many, the crisis can seem like a wee dark cloud on the
distant horizon. Day to day life in the
cubicle farm, or the family room, is rarely affected. But, if you make an effort to listen, the
jungle drums are regularly talking about highly improbable flash floods,
hundred year storms, persistent droughts, unprecedented heat spells,
landslides, etc. These weird stories
from outer space can often seem impossible, unbelievable, and deniable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The climate crisis is not a sudden asteroid-strike event,
like the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in 2001. It’s a vastly bigger and stronger disturbance
that will eventually be affecting everyone, everything, everywhere, to a
breathtaking degree, and causing much irreversible damage. It’s the unintentional result of way too many
people, living way too hard, for way too long.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Hopium addicts jabber about “solving” the climate crisis, and
looking forward to a sustainable green future.
There is nothing that the magicians of technology cannot fix. Hope fiends have blind faith that “it’s not
too late.” Buy an electric car, put
solar panels on your roof, shop like there’s no tomorrow, and enjoy a long and
fabulous life. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The dreamy perceptions of these hope fiends reflects a
deficit of understanding, in combination with the Tinker Bell Effect. In the Peter Pan story, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_Bell">Tinker Bell</a> is the
fluttering fairy of magical thinking, “Just think a happy thought and you can
fly!” <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-essential-exponential.html">Albert
Bartlett</a> was amused by the popular fantasy that if you called something
“sustainable” enough times, then <shazaam!> it was!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/en14154508">Megan Seibert
and William Rees</a> did an excellent job of explaining why sustainable
alternative energy visions are neither sustainable nor possible. Their report describes why “the pat notion of
‘affordable clean energy’ views the world through a narrow keyhole that is
blind to innumerable economic, ecological, and social costs.” <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/05/life-after-fossil-fuels.html">Alice
Friedemann</a> examined the alternative energy options, and described why none
of them were an effective or realistic solution.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In addition to the hopium addicts are the shameless bullshit
hucksters. They are supported by wealthy
interests that want to keep the planet-thrashing status quo on life support
ventilators for as long as humanly possible.
Their cash cows produce generous profits, but exist at the expense of
the family of life. Bullshit artists
have been highly successful at sowing the seeds of doubt. Climate change is a hoax promoted by devil
worshippers! We’re regularly splattered
with a firehose of deliberate misinformation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The unfortunate reality is that 7.8 billion people cannot
simply think a happy thought and become ecologically harmless. Climate change is the stinky steaming 100 ton
turd in the swimming pool. It horrifies
us, because it rubbishes our fantasies of human supremacy, endless progress,
and the best is yet to come. It makes
our beloved “high standard of living” look like an insanely stupid
hallucination (which it is) — a reckless high speed joyride that leaves the
planet in ruins.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The climate crisis is an enormous fast-moving subject that is
generating a staggering amount of articles, reports, books, and videos. The future has yet to be written, but a
number of current trends have a clear trajectory — warming climate, melting
ice, thawing permafrost, rising seas, extreme weather events, etc. I’m not going to play the prophet game, but I
do feel obligated to point out some critical climate-oriented trends that
obviously appear to be on a treacherous path.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The information on the following pages is a very rough
sketch, like a cop’s bodycam video of a chaotic crime scene. It’s written at one moment in time, from one
perspective, and is far from complete.
My plan here is to present a sampler of core ideas, and toss in links to
interesting sources. Readers who want to
further explore the issue can follow the links, and feed their hungry
brains. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Albedo<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">When incoming sunbeams hit white regions of ice and snow,
some of the heat is reflected away from the planet, back into outer space. This ability to reflect is called
albedo. Fresh snow, which is very white,
reflects 80 to 90 percent of incoming heat.
So, it has an albedo of 0.8 to 0.9.
Ice that has been bare for a while accumulates soot and dust, which
makes it darker, less reflective. It has
an albedo of 0.4 to 0.7. Sea water and
dry land are darker, absorb more incoming heat, and then radiate it. Open water has an albedo of 0.1. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">When albedo reflectivity is diminished, more heat can enter
the atmosphere and accumulate. Ice gets
thinner, breaks up, and retreats. Then,
more solar heat can hit more open water or bare ground. More of the thick ice that used to exist
year-round now melts away during the warmer months. The duration of ice-free summer periods is
lengthening. This pattern is called a
positive feedback loop — more warmth, more melting, more warmth, etc…. It’s the engine of runaway warming, the
arctic death spiral.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Arctic
Ice <o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 1968, the Apollo-8 mission orbited the moon, and took the
first photo of the Earth rising above the moon’s horizon. In that photo, Earth was white around both
the north and south poles. Today, when
it’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the view from outer space shows a white
Antarctic, and a blue Arctic. As it
melts, the ancient northern ice sheet is gradually becoming an open ocean. With a stampede of well-intended, highly-destructive
booboos, human cleverness and runaway warming are changing the planet, and the
future.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-farewell-to-ice.html">Peter
Wadhams</a> has been studying Arctic ice for 50 years. He has a way-above-average understanding of
the danger we’re in. He’s been working
hard to alert us, but not many are getting the message. Arctic ice is extremely precious, because
it’s essential for maintaining vital climate balances. Its cool temperature, and highly reflective
whiteness, have enabled the existence of life as we know it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Over the last 70,000 years, climate trends have typically
been a zigzag pattern of frequent erratic swings, hot-cold-hot-cold…. Today, we are living in the rear end of an
11,700 year era of unusually stabile warm temperatures — a weird deviation that
enabled the emergence of fairly reliable agriculture, and allowed 7.8 billion
people to survive at the same time (temporarily). The long-term trends imply that we’re long
overdue for a new ice age. Fat
chance! Instead, we’re speeding out of
control down the hot lane.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The planet is sliding down the path to a largely ice-free
Arctic. A few decades ago, the North Pole
as covered with ice 10 to 12 feet thick.
No more. “With the steady
disappearance of polar ice cover, we are losing a vast air conditioning system
that stabilized the climate for thousands of years.” We have been living in “the Goldilocks
climate” — not too hot, not too cold, just right! That pattern has been disrupted by rapidly
overloading the atmosphere with ancient carbon.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Wadhams lamented, “We are fast approaching the stage when
climate change will be playing the tune for us while we stand by and watch
helplessly, with our reductions in CO<sub>2</sub> emissions having no
effect.” In 2016, he wrote a short and
easy to understand summary of his findings, with excellent illustrations. I strongly recommend checking it out [<a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/as_arctic_ocean_ice_disappears_global_climate_impacts_intensify_wadhams">HERE</a>]. YouTube also has many Wadhams videos.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://africa.businessinsider.com/tech/greenlands-ice-is-melting-at-the-rate-scientists-thought-would-be-our-worst-case/d6d612s">Morgan
McFall-Johnsen</a> described the rapid melting of Greenland’s ice in 2019. That year, in just five days, 55 billion tons
of melt water rushed out of Greenland’s ice sheet, “enough to cover the state
of Florida in almost 5 inches of water.”
In their most pessimistic scenario, scientists had predicted that this
level of melting would not be reached until 2070. We did it 50 years ahead of schedule! “The Arctic is warming almost twice as quickly
as the global average.” The times are changing. Trouble ahead. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Greenhouse
Gases<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">Under normal natural conditions, CO<sub>2</sub> is precious. If there was no CO<sub>2</sub>, there would
be no plants or animals. During
photosynthesis, plants take in CO<sub>2</sub> and emit oxygen. At the same time, animals breathe in oxygen
and exhale CO<sub>2</sub>. It’s a
harmonious circle dance, normally. But
the balance gets blasted when we extract millions of years of ancient carbon
from deep underground, burn it, and totally overload the atmosphere.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The atmosphere is also precious. It allows incoming solar heat to pass
through, and warm the planet below, which enables the survival of the family of
life. It also allows some heat to escape
back into outer space, but not as much as it lets in. So, the atmosphere acts like a comfortable
greenhouse. Wadhams noted that if Earth
had no atmosphere, it would be a lifeless frozen planet. The moon is a frigid place because it has no
atmosphere, and its average temperature is -4°F (-18°C). Earth’s lovely atmosphere enables an average
temperature of 59°F (15°C). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">There are several compounds that help the greenhouse maintain
a happy climate. In normal times, the
greenhouse is wonderful magic act. In
crazy times, greenhouse gas overloads can disrupt the global party. The four main greenhouse gases are carbon
dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) methane (CH<sub>4</sub>), nitrous oxide (N<sub>2</sub>O),
and water vapor (H<sub>2</sub>O). CO<sub>2</sub>
is responsible for maybe 55 percent of the current imbalance. In preindustrial times, CO<sub>2</sub> levels
in the atmosphere were 280 ppm (parts per million). In 2021 they reached 420 ppm — estimated to
be the highest concentration in more than 3 million years (or 4 million, or 15
million).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Methane levels are also soaring, from preindustrial 700 ppb
(parts per billion) to around 2,000 ppb in 2019. Methane remains in the atmosphere for 7 to 10
years, during which its impact can be 100 to 200 times worse than CO<sub>2</sub>. Then, it breaks down into CO<sub>2</sub>,
which can remain in the atmosphere much longer.
When methane’s brief existence is calculated within a hundred year
timeframe, its impact is 23 times worse than the hundred year impact of CO<sub>2</sub>. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Nitrous oxide is a minor offender, found at about 300 ppb in
the atmosphere, where it can remain for 120 years. Its source is primarily synthetic nitrogen
fertilizers. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Water vapor can act like an insulating blanket. As the Arctic warms, its air can hold more
moisture, and a layer of water vapor (clouds) helps to retain warm air.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The bottom line here is that manmade carbon emissions have
been working hard to turn the delightful greenhouse into an overheated
hothouse. Too much heat is being
retained in the atmosphere, frigid regions are melting, and a slippery hideous crisis
has popped out of the womb screaming.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The good news here is that we are beginning to learn a very
important lesson. Mistakes can be
fabulous teachers. The bad news is that
we are learning this at a time when a growing number of experts believe that
the crisis is already past the point of no return, off the leash, sprinting
away, disregarding our frantic commands.
Far too late, the wizards have discovered that the unusually warm and
stable climate that we used to enjoy was possible because of a priceless
treasure of snow and ice, which is now riding off into the sunset. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Clouds<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-clouds-are-the-key-to-new-troubling-projections-on-warming">Fred
Pearce</a> described how clouds also play a role in the greenhouse magic
act. When the sun is shining, bright
clouds can reflect away 30 to 60 percent of incoming solar heat. Over the seas, stratus and stratocumulus
clouds shade the ocean, so less heat is absorbed by the water. During the day, low clouds provide cooling
shade, but after sunset they become a heat retaining blanket. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Whether clouds make shade or trap heat “depends on how
reflective they are, how high they are, and whether it is day or night.” Until recently, experts believed that the
conflicting effects of clouds were about equal, so they balanced out. That belief is going extinct.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Satellite data from NASA indicates that since 2013, cloud
cover over the oceans has declined, at the same time that global average
temperatures have risen sharply. Other
studies indicate that in warmer years, there are fewer low-level clouds in the
tropics. This indicates that in a
warming climate, clouds are expected to get thinner, completely burn off, or
not form at all. This would lead to even
higher temperatures, and faster global warming — a positive feedback loop of
more heat, less clouds, more heat….<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Pearce wrote, “Recent climate models project that a doubling
of atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> above pre-industrial levels could cause
temperatures to soar far above previous estimates.” In pre-industrial times, CO<sub>2</sub>
levels in the atmosphere were 280 ppm.
Double that would be 560 ppm. In
2021 they reached 420 ppm. The higher
they go, the hotter it gets, the fewer the clouds….<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Carbon
Emissions Skyrocket<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">As described in earlier chapters, our ancestors began acting
like odd animals long, long ago. Our
quirky path picked up momentum with fire making, the domestication of plants
and animals, and the emergence of civilization.
The turbo thrusters ignited with the arrival of the Industrial
Revolution, when we plunged headlong into the brave new world of fossil
energy. With this shift, more and more
carbon was emitted by human activity, and absorbed by the oceans, atmosphere,
and greenery.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The twentieth century was radically different from all
previous time. Foolishly raiding a
massive 500 million year treasure chest of highly potent energy enabled the
rapid development of countless planet-thrashing technologies. Unencumbered by foresight, dangerously clever
humans looted the ancient hydrocarbon cemeteries, hauled much of the buried
treasure into the daylight world, and burned it — to enjoy a brief,
fantastically ridiculous, explosion of childish decadence.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In 2000, environmental historian J. R. McNeill wrote an
eco-obituary for the twentieth century, <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/06/something-new-under-sun.html">Something
New Under the Sun</a>. This book
revealed the nightmares that exploded during that century from hell. Later, as the years clicked past, McNeill
realized that his book did not say enough.
The years following World War II were so spectacularly insane that they
made the first 45 years of the century look somewhat wholesome. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">So, in 2014, McNeill and Peter Engelke published <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The Great Acceleration</span></em>,
which focused on the era after 1945, when the poop slammed hard into the
fan. This era was the freak show in
which I have spent my life’s journey, the freak show when the human population
more than tripled, the freak show that the living generation perceives to be
the normal way of life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">They wrote that in 1750, when the Industrial Revolution was
still in diapers, 3 million tons of carbon were released into the atmosphere
each year. By 1850, emissions soared to
50 million tons. It was 1,200 million
tons in 1950, 4,000 million in 1970, and 9,500 million by 2015. How smart was that? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/06/unsettled.html">Steven Koonin</a>
noted that of the CO<sub>2</sub> we emit today, between 30 and 55 percent will
still be in the atmosphere 100 years from now, and between 15 and 30 percent
will remain for 1,000 years. It does not
promptly dissipate, so ongoing emissions ratchet up the concentration in the
atmosphere. Reducing emissions only
slows the increase. The gearshift has no
reverse.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Each year, about 37 billion tons of CO<sub>2</sub> are
emitted. At this rate, the concentration
in the atmosphere would increase by about 2 ppm in a year. Year after year, more is added. A portion of these emissions remain in the
atmosphere for centuries, so their concentration continuously grows. The current trajectory of greenhouse gas
emissions is on a path to double by 2075. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Billions continue living like its 1999. Ignorance is bliss. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2019.102488">John Gowdy</a> concluded,
“The effects of fossil fuel burning are irreversible on a time scale relevant
to humans.” We’ve started something we
cannot stop. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Terrestrial
Permafrost<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-farewell-to-ice.html">Peter
Wadhams</a> noted that permafrost is buried under dry land across the Arctic,
spread across an area of 7.3 million square miles (19 million km<sup>2</sup>),
something like the combined land area of Russia and Argentina. As Arctic temperatures soar, the permafrost
is rapidly thawing (it does not “melt”).
Soils in this permafrost contain lots of organic carbon, plant material
that lived in ages past, but froze before fully decomposing. Unlike offshore (sea bottom) permafrost,
terrestrial permafrost does not contain frozen methane. But when it thaws and decays, microbial life can
then create and emit CO<sub>2</sub>, methane, and nitrous oxide. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=15-P13-00024&segmentID=1">Susan
Natali</a>, an Arctic ecologist, studies permafrost, climate change, and
greenhouse gases. In the Northern Hemisphere,
about 25 percent of the land area sits above permafrost, a layer of frozen
soil, rocks, water, and organic material.
Some of it has been frozen for up to 40,000 years. Permafrost contains about 1,500 billion tons
of carbon — twice as much as the carbon already in the atmosphere, and three
times as much as the carbon stored in the world’s forest biomass.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Temperatures in the Arctic are rising twice as fast as they
are in the rest of the world, a trend likely to continue indefinitely. This warming is thawing the upper layers of permafrost. “Not all of the carbon that’s in permafrost
will be released. Our current
expectations is about 10 to 15 percent of that carbon will be released into the
atmosphere. That said, if all of the
carbon of permafrost was released, at that point, this is not going to be a habitable
planet for humans.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/arctic-permafrost-is-thawing-it-could-speed-up-climate-change-feature/">Craig
Welch</a> also commented on the daunting speed at which Arctic permafrost is
thawing. Until recently, scientists
expected the rate of thawing to be gradual.
Reality disagrees. When forest
soils thaw and soften, trees get wobbly as root systems destabilize. These “drunken trees” will eventually fall
down. When frozen slopes thaw, landslides
happen, exposing the bones of mammoths and other ancient critters. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Abrupt thaw increases the number of massive ground
slumps. These depressions collect melt
water and rain, creating new ponds and lakes.
Bubbles of methane and CO<sub>2</sub> rise up out of the mud beneath the
water. As the climate warms, and Arctic
lakes grow in size and number, greenhouse gas emissions from permafrost could
triple. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-melting-permafrost-is-beginning-to-transform-the-arctic">Ed
Struzik</a> notes that permafrost consists of up to 80 percent frozen
water. When permafrost thaws, the land can
turn to mud. Craters up to the size of
football stadiums are forming in the tundra, as the land sinks. The Batagaika Crater in the Yana River Basin
of Siberia is 0.6 miles (1 km) long, and 109 yards (100 m) deep. These thaw slumps or landslides are
increasing. Stream flows are changing,
and seashores are collapsing. In the
Northwest Territories, when a rapidly thawing cliff bordering the shores of a
tundra lake collapsed, the 800,000 gallon lake drained in two hours. In the Mackenzie River Delta, up to 15,000 of
the 45,000 lakes are expected to dry up.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">With warming, willows and shrubs are now displacing tundra
vegetation, which includes cranberries, blueberries, cloudberries, shrubs,
sedges, and lichen. This is affecting
wildlife. In 2006, there were 3,000
caribou on the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, now there are half as many. They have less lichen to eat. Musk oxen in Canada and reindeer in Siberia
seem to be dying from ancient pathogens that are coming back to life. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">The <a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2013/1161/pdf/ofr20131161.pdf">U.S. Geological
Survey</a> wrote an excellent 68 page report on thermokarst. This is a fairly new landform in the Northern
Hemisphere that has come into existence since the 1980s. Thermokarst is created as permafrost thaws,
and the land surface changes in 23 different ways. Common characteristics include lakes,
sinkholes, pits, landslides, collapsed pingos, etc. (See Wikipedia’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermokarst">thermokarst</a> page for
breathtaking photos of massive permafrost melting.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019GL082187">Louise
Farquharson</a> and team studied thermokarst development in the Canadian High
Arctic. They studied land that had been
frozen for thousands of years. Until
recently, the buried permafrost had been in equilibrium with the climate. They were surprised to find that, thanks to
rising temperatures, permafrost thawing was reaching depths that were not
predicted for another 70 years. “Our
data show that very cold permafrost (<10°C) at high latitudes is highly
vulnerable to rapid near<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">‐</span>surface
permafrost degradation due to climate change.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-end-of-ice.html">Dahr
Jamail</a> is a nomadic journalist who writes powerful stories from the front
lines of the climate blitzkrieg. He
visited the Inupiat village of Utqiagvik, Alaska. The original village is collapsing into the
sea, because the solid permafrost it was built on thawed and turned to
pudding. The new village is also
destined to tumble into the sea. Polar
bears are gone.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">A gravedigger said that in the past, solid permafrost was
close to the surface. It used to take
three days of chopping to dig a grave.
Now it takes five hours. “Roads,
railroads, oil and gas infrastructure, airports, seaports, all these things
were built across the Arctic on the assumption that the permafrost would stay
frozen.” Ooops!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><strong><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Offshore
Permafrost<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="BlogText">In addition to terrestrial permafrost, there is also offshore
permafrost, which lies beneath seabed sediments. It originally formed under dry land thousands
of years ago, when sea levels were much lower.
Offshore is what gives <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-farewell-to-ice.html">Peter
Wadhams</a> screaming nightmares. It
contains substantial amounts of methane hydrates (also called methane
clathrates), and it is especially vulnerable to thawing as sea ice retreats,
and water temperatures rise. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Methane hydrates are frozen crystals of methane that will melt
and burn when close to a flame. They
look like ice. An estimated 10,400
gigatons of methane are stored in hydrate deposits. When hydrate crystals melt, the methane is
released. In the entire Arctic Ocean,
the hydrate deposits are estimated to contain 13 times the amount of carbon
currently present in the atmosphere. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">Wadhams is especially focused on the East Siberian Arctic
Shelf. In the East Siberian Sea, this
shelf consists of 810,000 square miles (2.1 million km<sup>2</sup>) of shallow
water, of which 75 percent is less than 130 feet (40 m) deep. In the good old days, the entire sea used to
be covered year round with surface ice, which kept the water frigid or
frozen. This changed in 2005, when
summer sea ice began disappearing, exposing seawater to the atmosphere. Sunlight could now penetrate directly into
the water and warm it. Shallow waters
warm faster than deeper areas.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">For the first time in tens of thousands of years, warmer
water could reach shallow regions of the seabed, causing permafrost to
thaw. As permafrost thawed, the frozen
methane hydrates began melting, releasing plumes of methane bubbles. In waters deeper than 330 feet (100 m), the
methane oxidizes while rising, and the plume disappears before reaching the
surface. In the shallows, bubble plumes
make it to the surface, and methane is released into the atmosphere. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">In a 2016 article, <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/as_arctic_ocean_ice_disappears_global_climate_impacts_intensify_wadhams">Wadhams</a>
described the possibility of a sudden catastrophic methane release from the
East Siberian Sea. Researchers “fear
that a pulse of up to 50 gigatons of methane — some 8 percent of the estimated
stock in the Arctic sediments — could be released within a very few years,
starting soon.” This would generate a
surge of warming. Russian scientists on
site calculate that the probability of this is at least 50 percent. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p></o:p></p><p>[To be continued. This
chapter will contain 3 or 4 more segments.] </p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-50129633553590546562021-06-22T07:59:00.000-07:002021-06-22T07:59:58.503-07:00The Art of Not Being Governed<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7VfbQgZyDTAUk742fcXOaQLz3wsH_nn_YqgRRYS7p2WnCJ5GrY7b5u_OUcgbLxrwF4C6ezgC2CyOod0CVh3DzkXnLQmjNjmnCNg5gO8Mo7jonEWmv2oSW9Zo4ZyApgwUCuMFKufqYTjyb/s375/Art+of+Not+Governed.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="246" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7VfbQgZyDTAUk742fcXOaQLz3wsH_nn_YqgRRYS7p2WnCJ5GrY7b5u_OUcgbLxrwF4C6ezgC2CyOod0CVh3DzkXnLQmjNjmnCNg5gO8Mo7jonEWmv2oSW9Zo4ZyApgwUCuMFKufqYTjyb/s320/Art+of+Not+Governed.png" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p class="BlogText">James Scott is a political scientist at Yale University, an
advocate of anarchy lite — not “smash the state” but “make the state more wise
and fair.” Originally, the ancestors of
all humans were wild folks living in sweet freedom on open lands owned by no
one. Then came agriculture, private
property, inequality, and the rise of creepy states, in which well-fed rulers
exploited mobs of unlucky subjects and slaves.
<i>The Art of Not Being Governed</i> examines the power dramas between
free folks and states in Southeast Asia.
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In this region, states first arose in the valleys and
lowlands, especially in locations suitable for growing rice in flooded
paddies. Rice produces high yields, but
is labor intensive. Land that is ideal
for raising crops only generates wealth when there is an adequate workforce of fairly
obedient taxpayers and slaves. Alas, wading
in paddies, in clouds of mosquitoes, baking in the heat, constantly bent over, was
not everyone’s idea of a good time. Persistent
misery inspired many non-elites to envision a beautiful alternative — escape!!!
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Most of the landscape surrounding the valley states was
mountainous and rugged, unsuited for conventional agriculture, but ideal terrain
for state-evading sanctuaries of freedom.
So, the higher elevations were home to small groups of hill people who
preferred autonomy to subservience. They
hunted, foraged, and grew food in scattered locations. Root and tuber foods, like yams, cassava, potatoes,
and sweet potatoes, did not ripen at once, or require storage. They could be left in the ground up to two years,
and dug up as needed. Scattered amidst
the natural vegetation, they were not easy for outsiders to discover.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">These scattered communities of hill people often had little,
if any, contact with outsiders. Their primary
desire was to live in freedom. All of
them were refugees, coming from a diverse mixture of cultural, ethnic, and
religious traditions. Hill folks had no official
name, so a scholar invented one. He
called them Zomians, the people of Zomia (highlands). The numerous remote hill communities that
comprised Zomia were widely dispersed across an area the size of Europe. Zomian groups inhabited a region that spanned
across five nations, and four Chinese provinces. [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asian_Massif#Zomia">MAP</a>]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Down in the valleys, the rice producing states were often
disrupted by ongoing conflicts and instability.
Scott noted that these states “tended to be remarkably short-lived.” The lives of subjects and slaves were
miserable, which is why they never stopped running off into the hills. From most rice paddies, the hills of Zomia
were always visible. In a prison without
cages or walls, freedom was just a walk away.
Physical flight was the primary check on state power. It was usually less dangerous than revolt. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The constant loss of manpower was a serious challenge that
required constant efforts to snatch fresh replacements. Military campaigns brought home prisoners who
were forced to begin exciting new careers in slavery. States often sent slave raiders into the hills
of Zomia, in efforts to find free folks and drag them back to the rice paddies.
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Classroom history books focus on stuff like wars, empires,
heroes, and progress. Slavery gets
slight mention, if any. Students will read
about classical Greek intellect, art, and architecture; not slavery. There were times when the population in
Athens had five times as many slaves as full citizens. Around the world, slavery was a standard
component of most agriculture-based civilizations, until recently, when
mechanization sharply reduced the need for two-legged farm implements. Your extended family tree likely contains
more than a few slaves. Visit
Wikipedia’s article on slavery. [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery">HERE</a>]<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText"><a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-new-green-history-of-world.html">Clive
Ponting</a> published an excellent history that focused much attention on how
the hungry dirty commoners actually lived, suffered, and died. He wrote, “Until about the last two centuries
in every part of the world nearly everyone lived on the edge of
starvation.” <a href="http://wildancestors.blogspot.com/2014/06/something-new-under-sun.html">J.
R. McNeill</a> noted that in preindustrial times, horses and oxen were often
luxuries that were too expensive for poor farmers. Humans were far more energy efficient than
draft animals, and they were capable of performing clever tricks, like digging
up spuds, or planting rice. Having a
gang of slaves boosted the net profits for their masters. Lords adored hoards of gold.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In the hills, Zomians were wizards at utilizing “geographical
friction” to make it harder for slave raiders to find them. Rather than courteously providing their
pursuers with smooth well-marked paths, they deliberately preferred to reside
in locations that were not highly visible, or easily accessible. Some locations were perfect for defensive
warfare, because they enabled a small number of guardians to block or ambush a
larger force of aggressors. The most
secure refuges were places “only accessible to monkeys.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Geographical friction is an interesting idea. Our wild ancestors lived in lands where free
movement originally had many natural obstacles.
Friction was provided by rugged mountains, swamps, dense jungles, vast
deserts, rivers, seas, etc. Friction
hampered the expansion of early states. It
wasn’t quick or easy to suppress a revolt ten miles away. Friction could be reduced by roads, bridges,
boats, beasts of burden, and contraptions with wheels. Today, far less geographical friction
remains. We have long distance travel
via highways, railroads, air travel, and cargo ships. We can instantly send info anywhere. Scott refers to these as “distance demolishing
technologies.” With great pride, we have
dumped trash on the moon. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Scott was fascinated by the deep human desire to live in
freedom. Genetically, we are alert and intelligent
wild omnivores, not dimwitted feedlot critters, or hive insects. His discussion of Zomia revealed patterns
that parallel a similar downward spiral of trends around the world. Folks went from nomadic to sedentary, which
led to plant and animal domestication, slavery, patriarchy, population growth,
perpetual conflict, civilization, industrialization, and our remarkably
victorious world war on everything.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">For almost the entire human saga, our ancestors enjoyed the
freedom of living in small nomadic groups.
Our mental equipment is fine-tuned for this way of life. The hill people of Zomia focused on equality,
autonomy, and mobility. For them, the
concept of “chief” was incomprehensible. Lads who got too assertive sometimes had to be
ethically euthanized, in order to maintain the coherence of the group. Smooth cooperation worked far better than compulsory
obedience to sharp orders from big daddy buttheads. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Societies took a sharp turn for the worse with the shift
toward private property, when the open commons got chopped into chunks of exclusive,
inheritable, real estate. Equality was
displaced by hierarchies based on wealth, class, and status. Social rank was based on wealth. More was always better. Strive to climb the social pyramid. Primary emphasis shifted from “we” to
“me.” It’s like a silly goofy bratty children’s
game.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">When our wild ancestors evolved in the tropics, food was
available year round, nobody owned it, and it was acquired when needed. Later, when folks colonized temperate
regions, food storage was required for winter survival. This eventually inspired plant and animal
domestication, which created food that was owned, and held in concentrated
locations — granaries and enslaved herds.
These treasure chests of valuable grain, meat, and muscle power were “appropriable
and raidable.” They provided
irresistible temptation to ruthless geeks who were allergic to hard work and
honesty.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Indeed, this led to the creation of a new career path. Stealing food required far less labor than
producing it, and raiding was far more adventurous and exciting for adults who
had testicles. At this point, the need
to eradicate looters led to the emergence of armed defenders, a military class. These warriors could also serve as armed
aggressors, looting the treasure chests of other communities. Since then, the military sphere has never
stopped growing in size and power. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">With the transition to hierarchy, the old fashioned tradition
of mutual support took the back seat to a competition-based, winner take all
culture. When you’re a slave in a rice
paddy, and your master is a cruel bastard, and your foreseeable future is
perpetual misery, you begin to contemplate the meaning of life. You can go crazy, you can flee into the
hills, or you can float away into magical thinking. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The hill people were primarily animists. They enjoyed a life of freedom in places of
healthy wild nature. They developed
intimate relationships with the surrounding flora, fauna, and landscape — here
and now reality that you could see, touch, and smell. For them, the living world was spiritually
alive. Directly experiencing this profound
coherence did not require imagination or belief. It was deeply meaningful.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The stressed and oppressed valley people were more inclined
to seek solace in salvation religions, primarily Buddhism and Islam. Christianity arrived more recently. Slavery was an institution with deep roots in
many cultures around the world. Until
recently, salvation religions treated it as normal. Slaves must be obedient. What these religions promised was that the
sucky life you have today will pass, and your soul will continue its journey
forever via reincarnation, or admittance to a beautiful eternal paradise (if
you weren’t too naughty). Religion
provided something to hope for, a better future. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Multinational salvation religions can be practiced anywhere
on Earth. They are highly portable
because their focus is on great mysteries.
Worship often takes place inside buildings, shut away from the family of
life. Paradise is somewhere unseen, a
faraway realm. Some preach millenarian
visions of a new and enduring era of peace, justice, and prosperity — a
miraculous transition that is inevitable, and may arrive soon. Wickedness will be destroyed, and the righteous
will receive their just rewards.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Even though the hill people enjoyed some advantages over the
valley slaves, nobody in the realm of Zomia enjoyed a life of bliss. Hill folks were frequently pursued by hostile
outsiders, and valley slaves were frequently abused by their masters. Many folks passionately dreamed that their painful
way of life would somehow someday be completely turned upside down, and then move
in a new and better direction. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Prophets and messiahs often fell out of the sky, describing
their divine revelations, fanning the flames of resentment, and triggering
thousands of uprisings and rebellions.
Make Zomia great again! Folks desperate
for any possibility of emancipation were vulnerable to the tempting promises of
ambitious, slick talking, charismatic blowhards.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Sadly, a better tomorrow missed the bus somewhere down the
road. States got bigger and more
powerful, and then they got blindsided by steamroller colonizers from outer
space, like the empire-building British, French, and Japanese. By 1945 it was pretty much bedtime for Zomian
freedom. Variations of this tragic drama
took place around much of the world. Today,
virtually all humans are subjects of states.
Fleeing to zones of refuge is nearly impossible. Tyrants now have fighter jets, helicopters, tanks,
missiles, cluster bombs, land mines, drones, satellites. Good luck with that rebellion. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Scott laments the outcome. “The future of our freedom lies in the
daunting task of taming Leviathan, not evading it.” He says that our best tool for the challenge
is representative democracy. Good luck conjuring
virtuous government. He was writing in
2009, back in the happy days when there were a billion fewer primates on the
ark. More recently, hopping mad, power-hungry,
nationalist psychopaths have been popping up in nations all over the place, like
mushrooms after an autumn shower. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Oh wow! Look! A pair of 800 pound gorillas has jumped into
the brawl — the climate crisis and resource limits — two invincible giants
spawned by the unintended consequences of our obsession with idiotic cleverness.
Their plan is to act like bulls in a
china shop, and smash up Fantasyland. This
should be interesting.<o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p class="BlogText">Scott, James C., <i>The Art of Not Being Governed</i>, Yale
University Press, New Haven, 2009.<o:p></o:p></p><p><br /></p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-64285370975353170812021-06-18T11:17:00.000-07:002021-06-18T11:17:33.072-07:00Dear Subscriber<p class="BlogText">Howdy! I’m writing to
inform you of some upcoming technical issues here. This blog allows readers to become subscribers,
so you’ll automatically receive notice of future posts/comments (see the upper
right corner of this page). At the end
of June, the “Follow by Email” function (provided by Feedburner) will join the
dinosaurs. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">If you are currently subscribed via Netvibes, My Yahoo, or
Atom, nothing should change.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">I’ve downloaded the 1,380 email addresses of my Feedburner
subscribers, and I’m trying to transfer them to a different service (a HUGE
pain in the ass!). If it works,
great! A new “Subscribe To” icon will
appear, and the “Follow by Email” option will go to the compost pile. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText">I have no idea how well Feedburner has actually served
subscribers. I have subscribed using two
of my email addresses, and I have received nothing from them in the last few
years. Maybe nobody has.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="BlogText"><o:p></o:p></p><p>I apologize for any inconvenience, and I thank you for your
interest in my work. This blog is
approaching 600,000 page views. </p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-68440119700534971702021-06-07T09:19:00.006-07:002021-06-07T22:23:59.512-07:00Unsettled<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1eywBqxxWnwfQVnMt8qWiIyoqreNTBUSQYMgcI55R5FC2G6sBO3lrPClZF-mzCfcOkZpm7PDyV-V0gBYmqK5Z0QMTfBj6voYBRzH9_GuztzPs2kWDeCryl2s1xZ5WQRNdOhej_yDqIg9v/s375/Unsettled.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="251" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1eywBqxxWnwfQVnMt8qWiIyoqreNTBUSQYMgcI55R5FC2G6sBO3lrPClZF-mzCfcOkZpm7PDyV-V0gBYmqK5Z0QMTfBj6voYBRzH9_GuztzPs2kWDeCryl2s1xZ5WQRNdOhej_yDqIg9v/s320/Unsettled.png" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="BlogText">Steven Koonin’s <i>Unsettled</i> is an unsettling
book. I learned about it via a Facebook
post, clicked my way over to Goodreads, and listened to the reader comment jungle
drums. Folks seemed to like it. A few climate deniers wrote that the book had
convinced them that the climate was actually warming. Wow!
What could a book say that might communicate with them? I promptly downloaded a copy of the Kindle
version.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Koonin is a physicist who has worked for BP, Obama’s
Department of Energy, and in academia.
He enjoys an unblemished reputation as a contrarian. For him, climate change is “a possible future
problem.” The mainstream mindset
constantly tells us that the science on climate change is settled (huge
threat!). Koonin insists that “The
Science” is unsettled — reputable climate science has been highjacked by doom
mongerers (but he does acknowledge that the climate is indeed warming). The Trump administration once wanted to use
him in a proposed media campaign to challenge mainstream perceptions about
climate change. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Koonin is an expert at computer modelling, and he’s very
interested in climate science. Models
are given a set of rules, and then selected data is fed into them for
processing. If significant trends
appear, they can provide a basis for projections of the future. Armed with compelling graphs, and a blizzard
of statistics, he shines a spotlight on little known truths. For example, “The net economic impact of
human-induced climate change will be minimal through at least the end of this
century.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Actual reality is more complex than a collection of data
points. In the Arctic, bright white
surfaces, like snow and ice, are very reflective (high albedo). Earth is bathed with incoming solar heat
every day, but albedo bounces about 30 percent of the heat back into outer
space, so we don’t bake. Darker
surfaces, like forests or open water, reflect much less heat (low albedo). The 70 percent of solar heat that reaches the
planet surface helps to keep the climate at temperatures that enable life as we
know it. This is an amazing balancing
act.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Because the climate is warming, especially in the Arctic, the
glaciers, ice pack, and sea ice are busy melting and retreating — exposing darker
surfaces, like dry ground and seawater.
So, less heat is bounced away, and more is absorbed, leading to rising
temps. The warmer it gets, the faster
the melting, which raises the warming, which speeds the melting — a vicious circle.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">The atmosphere also plays a starring role in the balancing
act. Greenhouse gases include carbon
dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) methane (CH<sub>4</sub>), nitrous oxide (N<sub>2</sub>O),
and water vapor (H<sub>2</sub>O). In the
atmosphere, they provide a comfortable insulating blanket that retains much of
the heat radiating upward from the Earth’s surface. This process beneficially contributed to the balancing
act until the industrial era, when greenhouse gas emissions intensified, and
heat retention began increasing.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Warming affected permafrost.
Consider the area of the 48 U.S. states that lie between Canada and
Mexico. In the Northern Hemisphere,
permafrost underlies an area almost 2.5 times as large as the 48 states. In the Arctic, vast deposits of it, which can
be many thousands of years old, exist beneath both dry ground and offshore
waters. Permafrost is a mix of frozen
soil and organic material (plant and animal).
When it warms, it thaws (not melts).
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">With thawing, land that was once strong and solid becomes
more pudding-like. Towns decompose,
villages slide into the sea, pipelines fall apart, and hills release landslides
(exposing mammoth bones). Microbes feast
on the defrosted organic matter, and then emit methane. Methane is an extremely potent greenhouse
gas. In the atmosphere, it survives for
7 to 10 years before breaking down into CO<sub>2</sub>, which is less potent,
but can remain airborne for many centuries.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">On the bottom of northern seas, permafrost lies beneath layers
of sediment. Sediments contain frozen
crystals of methane hydrates (or clathrates), which look like ice, but can burn. Seabed hydrate deposits in the Arctic are
estimated to contain 13 times the amount of carbon that’s currently present in
the atmosphere. As rising temps melt the
bright surface of sea ice, darker seawater becomes exposed to daylight, and
absorbs heat. When seabed waters warm, the
crystals melt, and methane gas is released.
In deeper waters, the plumes of methane bubbles dissolve while rising. In shallow waters, methane bubbles make it to
the surface, and enter the atmosphere. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">As the Arctic climate continues warming, it’s possible that a
catastrophic release of methane could be triggered. Folks who pay attention to this stuff are
nervous. They are monitoring the East
Siberian Arctic Shelf — 810,000 square miles (2.1 million km<sup>2</sup>) of
shallow waters in methane country. The
shelf covers an area more than five times larger than California.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">So, why don’t we just slow down greenhouse gas
emissions? Here, we collide head-on with
a monumental bummer. Koonin wrote (2020)
that in the atmosphere, CO<sub>2</sub> levels are 415 parts per million
(ppm). Each year, about 37 billion tons
of CO<sub>2</sub> are emitted. At this
rate, the concentration in the atmosphere would increase by about 2 ppm in a
year. Year after year, more is
added. These emissions remain in the
atmosphere for centuries (!) — so their concentration continuously grows. He calculated the trajectory of current greenhouse
gas emissions, and concluded that they would double by 2075.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">In his book, <i>The Great Acceleration</i>, environmental
historian J. R. McNeill said it differently, “Some proportion, perhaps as much
as a quarter, of the roughly 300 billion tons of carbon released to the
atmosphere between 1945 and 2015 will remain aloft for a few <em><span style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">hundred thousand</span></em>
years.” By 2008, concentrations had
grown by 25 percent in just 50 years. Of
the emissions caused by humans, about 85 percent was related to fossil fuels.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Koonin contemplated where the path of continuous accumulation
would lead. He reflected on humankind’s
massive addiction to fossil fuels. Would
we ever willingly back away from our high impact way of life, as long as it’s
still possible? No! We’ll bet heavily on hope, and patiently wait
for technological miracles, until the lights go out. Suddenly, a divine revelation arrived. The notion that we could stabilize current CO<sub>2</sub>
emissions in the coming decades was simply not plausible — and forget actually
reducing them.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">“Modest reductions in emissions will only delay, but not
prevent, the rise in concentration.” If greenhouse
gases continue their out of control accumulation, less heat will escape, the
climate keeps warming, the Arctic keeps melting, albedo keeps decreasing, and
the climate keeps getting warmer and warmer. We’ve started something we can’t stop. Yikes!
Never fear! Koonin pulls three “solutions”
out of his magic hat. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Solar Radiation Management (SRM) would artificially increase
albedo by frequently dispersing tons reflective substances high in the sky,
year after year, forever. The Artic would
quit melting, and humankind could live happily ever after.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) uses technology to extract the
surplus CO<sub>2</sub> from the atmosphere, and put it somewhere secure, where
it will cause no mischief for a million years.
A few small pilot projects are underway, and they have serious limitations
so far. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Geoengineering is a word used to describe processes like SRM
and CDR. If one or both turn out to be miraculously
successful, humans could, in their wildest dreams, continue burning fossil energy,
and living like there’s no tomorrow. In
reality, neither is a proven success, nor cheap, easy, or sustainable. Both ideas make lots of people nervous, for a
wide variety of intelligent reasons.
Unintended consequences are guaranteed.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Luckily, there is one tried and true, all-purpose solution
that humans have relied on for countless thousands of years — adaptation. Courage!
Migrate to a region where you won’t starve, turn to ice, roast alive, or
drown in rising seas. Learn how to
walk. Become a great forager. And so on.
<o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Doom mongerers warn that human influences will eventually
push the climate beyond a tipping point, at which time catastrophe will ring
our doorbell. Koonin writes that it’s
unlikely that human influences will push the climate over a tipping point. “The most likely societal response will be to
adapt to a changing climate, and that adaptation will very likely be
effective.” If adaptation isn’t enough,
we can always throw all caution to the wind, and fool around with
geoengineering. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">So, Koonin introduced readers to the notion of albedo, rising
temperatures, melting Arctic, less albedo.
Great! He came extremely close to
the powerful punch line, but then suddenly swerved off into a head spinning whiteout
blizzard of statistics and graphs. His viewpoint
is based on data collections — statistics on temperatures, precipitation,
storms, etc. — stuff that computers can process (36 red dots, 55 blue dots…). <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">A great benefit of Kindle books is that they are
searchable. I searched the book for a
number of essential climate science keywords, and discovered zero hits for:
Peter Wadhams (Arctic researcher), permafrost, methane hydrate, methane clathrate,
methane craters, ocean acidification, ocean deoxygenation, East Siberian Arctic
Shelf, pine beetles, tree death, threshold temperatures (too hot for
agriculture), etc. A whole bunch of essential
information is absent in the book, and it may be an invisible elephant in the
room. Could doom mongerers actually be reality
mongerers? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="BlogText">Reading this book was an interesting experience for me. It made me question my views (all survived). I learned a few new things. Koonin is a purebred scientist, absolutely
dedicated to the holy quest for truth.
The long and winding upward path to sacred certainty passes through
numerous challenges and arguments that eventually weed out the dodgy ideas. The Steven Koonin article in Wikipedia [<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Koonin">HERE</a>] provides
ringside seats to the debate — links to commentaries by some of his critics who
also have respectable credentials.<o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p class="BlogText">Koonin, Steven E., <i>Unsettled</i>, BenBella Books, Inc.,
Dallas, Texas, 2021.<o:p></o:p></p><p> </p>What Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.com0