What follows is an aside email to my family to bring them into the mix, HoJo
Hi All!
I thought you might like to read parts of an exchange I am having with members of SFN about our rapidly degrading environment and the book, "Collapse": by Jared Diamond. It is one of my greatest concerns and is much much broader and menacing than "global warming." There are links to several of my constantly upgraded blogs related to the subject.
Professor Diamond is not using his book to chastize specific individuals or groups and gain political advantage, but is examining past collapses and encouraging us to look for viable solutions to the very real menace facing humanity. My position and words take a similar, non-political or blaming stance, hoping to convince people to consider and work for real, viable solutions to a very real, monstrous, unavoidable and rapidly growing problem. Isn't it about time we stopped all the name calling and got down to solving this problem? After all, we're all in the same boat and that boat is in deep trouble.
______________________________________________________
Factors in the collapse and demise of isolated populations - There are many, usually on lands isolated by geography such as islands - or the earth, an island in space. What humans have done in the past to exterminate themselves and continue to do on a global scale. These factors are not listed in any particular order, but some are directly linked to others and all are accelerated and expanded by population pressures.
1. Elimination of large animals, predators first (they compete with us for food) prey animals later.
Examples: North America - bear, cougar, wolves, buffalo, deer. (I know, some of these have come back, but how much predation of humans by large predators will we be willing to tolerate?) Pacific islands - land birds, sea birds, large mollusks, fish, etc. Specific examples: the moa - New Zealand, the dodo - Mauritania, the passenger pigeon US, the giant palm - Easter Island, many land birds - Pacific islands. Easter islanders eliminated virtually all land animals, birds and near shore sea life. Their only remaining source of animal protein was chickens which they carefully maintained. The man eating tigers of the Zondervan in India are still preying on humans as the people there have decided to accept an amount of predation on local people rather than exterminating them. How much predation on American citizens would we be willing to accept in order to live with predators like grizzly bear and cougar?
2. Deforestation - A major factor in nearly all societal collapses, deforestation inevitably leads to some or all of the following: lowered rainfall, loss of habitat for wild food animals and birds, soil erosion and loss of agricultural viability, soil depletion, desertification and even climate change. Virtually all island collapses included the complete elimination of trees. Easter Islanders eliminated the largest palm tree on the planet as well as all woody growth more than ten feet tall. The Anasazi eliminated all trees in Chaco Canyon resulting in greatly lowered rainfall, crop failures and subsequent abandonment after many hundreds of years of successful occupation. Worldwide deforestation (now well underway) would lead to major climate change, probably far more devastating than the currently popular, global warming scenario.
3. Unsustainable harvesting of wild seafood - Over harvesting of wild food populations was a major factor in all Pacific Island collapses. The largest and most easily harvested disappeared first until finally, only very small shellfish remained. Currently, all ocean fisheries, except the Indian Ocean, are declining. In fact, the North Atlantic area fisheries have collapsed and will take many decades, perhaps centuries, to restore. The use of new technologies has enabled commercial fishermen to decimate the most productive fish populations with uncontrolled harvesting. While there is a tentative world accord aimed at this problem, the worst offender nations have not signed the accord and continue to plunder the oceans with ever expanding fishing fleets harvesting far more than the fisheries ability to renew the resource. A byproduct of this gross harvesting of wild fish for food is the destruction of sea floor habitats by heavy bottom nets and the killing of millions of tons of non-food sea creatures. Add to this the destruction of many areas where ocean fish spawn and their young can grow, protected from predation. Our wild ocean food source is declining at an accelerating rate with many popular species already virtually non-existent. Without a concerted effort at managing this dwindling resource it will be virtually gone in another thirty or forty years.
4. Soil depletion - Seriously affecting our ability to grow food crops, depletion of soil nutrients has resulted in many problems world wide. Perhaps the best summary is by Dr. William A. Albrecht, Chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri, who said,
"A declining soil fertility, due to a lack of organic material, major elements, and trace minerals, is responsible for poor crops and in turn for pathological conditions in animals fed deficient foods from such soils, and that mankind is no exception." Dr Albrecht goes further to unequivocally lay the blame:
"NPK formulas, as legislated and enforced by State Departments of Agriculture, mean malnutrition, attack by insects, bacteria and fungi, weed takeover, crop loss in dry weather, and general loss of mental acuity in the population, leading to degenerative metabolic disease and early death."
To read the entire article, (one of several hundred thousand Googled) goto:
Click Here! To see the article.
5. Soil salinization often results from irrigated agriculture, and it is generally a problem in arid areas. Water used for irrigation contains small amounts of salt, and when water evaporates from the soil surface or from the leaves of plants, it leaves salt behind in the soil. In arid areas, these salts can accumulate and cause problems. In areas with greater rainfall, salts are drained from the soil by the larger volumes of water flowing through the soil, and tend not to accumulate to high levels.
To read the entire article, (one of several hundred thousand Googled) goto:
Click Here! For article.
6. Destruction of wild habitat - This often results in loss of wild fruit, vegetable, animal and bird sources. For instance, fruit bats once common throughout the Pacific islands are now extinct on most. This was cause by a combination of the destruction of forests (their habitat) and human predation. Virtually all land birds were also driven to extinction by the same forces, Flightless pigeons, once common on may islands are all now extinct. One once common, but now very rare one may still be surviving in New Zealand.
From an article on the Internet: Habitat loss takes several forms: outright loss of areas used by wild species; degradation, for example, from vegetation removal and erosion, which deprive native species of food, shelter, and breeding areas; and fragmentation, when native species are squeezed onto small patches of undisturbed land surrounded by areas cleared for agriculture and other purposes. In the latter case, ecosystem functions such as the hydrological cycle might be interrupted, native species may be crowded out because habitat fragments are too small, and fragment edges may prove uninhabitable to plants and animals associated with the habitat type because of exposure to wind, sunlight, new predators, and other factors (referred to by ecologists as edge effect).
To read the entire article, (one of several hundred thousand Googled) goto:
Click here! For article.
Hi All!
I thought you might like to read parts of an exchange I am having with members of SFN about our rapidly degrading environment and the book, "Collapse": by Jared Diamond. It is one of my greatest concerns and is much much broader and menacing than "global warming." There are links to several of my constantly upgraded blogs related to the subject.
Professor Diamond is not using his book to chastize specific individuals or groups and gain political advantage, but is examining past collapses and encouraging us to look for viable solutions to the very real menace facing humanity. My position and words take a similar, non-political or blaming stance, hoping to convince people to consider and work for real, viable solutions to a very real, monstrous, unavoidable and rapidly growing problem. Isn't it about time we stopped all the name calling and got down to solving this problem? After all, we're all in the same boat and that boat is in deep trouble.
______________________________________________________
Factors in the collapse and demise of isolated populations - There are many, usually on lands isolated by geography such as islands - or the earth, an island in space. What humans have done in the past to exterminate themselves and continue to do on a global scale. These factors are not listed in any particular order, but some are directly linked to others and all are accelerated and expanded by population pressures.
1. Elimination of large animals, predators first (they compete with us for food) prey animals later.
Examples: North America - bear, cougar, wolves, buffalo, deer. (I know, some of these have come back, but how much predation of humans by large predators will we be willing to tolerate?) Pacific islands - land birds, sea birds, large mollusks, fish, etc. Specific examples: the moa - New Zealand, the dodo - Mauritania, the passenger pigeon US, the giant palm - Easter Island, many land birds - Pacific islands. Easter islanders eliminated virtually all land animals, birds and near shore sea life. Their only remaining source of animal protein was chickens which they carefully maintained. The man eating tigers of the Zondervan in India are still preying on humans as the people there have decided to accept an amount of predation on local people rather than exterminating them. How much predation on American citizens would we be willing to accept in order to live with predators like grizzly bear and cougar?
2. Deforestation - A major factor in nearly all societal collapses, deforestation inevitably leads to some or all of the following: lowered rainfall, loss of habitat for wild food animals and birds, soil erosion and loss of agricultural viability, soil depletion, desertification and even climate change. Virtually all island collapses included the complete elimination of trees. Easter Islanders eliminated the largest palm tree on the planet as well as all woody growth more than ten feet tall. The Anasazi eliminated all trees in Chaco Canyon resulting in greatly lowered rainfall, crop failures and subsequent abandonment after many hundreds of years of successful occupation. Worldwide deforestation (now well underway) would lead to major climate change, probably far more devastating than the currently popular, global warming scenario.
3. Unsustainable harvesting of wild seafood - Over harvesting of wild food populations was a major factor in all Pacific Island collapses. The largest and most easily harvested disappeared first until finally, only very small shellfish remained. Currently, all ocean fisheries, except the Indian Ocean, are declining. In fact, the North Atlantic area fisheries have collapsed and will take many decades, perhaps centuries, to restore. The use of new technologies has enabled commercial fishermen to decimate the most productive fish populations with uncontrolled harvesting. While there is a tentative world accord aimed at this problem, the worst offender nations have not signed the accord and continue to plunder the oceans with ever expanding fishing fleets harvesting far more than the fisheries ability to renew the resource. A byproduct of this gross harvesting of wild fish for food is the destruction of sea floor habitats by heavy bottom nets and the killing of millions of tons of non-food sea creatures. Add to this the destruction of many areas where ocean fish spawn and their young can grow, protected from predation. Our wild ocean food source is declining at an accelerating rate with many popular species already virtually non-existent. Without a concerted effort at managing this dwindling resource it will be virtually gone in another thirty or forty years.
4. Soil depletion - Seriously affecting our ability to grow food crops, depletion of soil nutrients has resulted in many problems world wide. Perhaps the best summary is by Dr. William A. Albrecht, Chairman of the Department of Soils at the University of Missouri, who said,
"A declining soil fertility, due to a lack of organic material, major elements, and trace minerals, is responsible for poor crops and in turn for pathological conditions in animals fed deficient foods from such soils, and that mankind is no exception." Dr Albrecht goes further to unequivocally lay the blame:
"NPK formulas, as legislated and enforced by State Departments of Agriculture, mean malnutrition, attack by insects, bacteria and fungi, weed takeover, crop loss in dry weather, and general loss of mental acuity in the population, leading to degenerative metabolic disease and early death."
To read the entire article, (one of several hundred thousand Googled) goto:
Click Here! To see the article.
5. Soil salinization often results from irrigated agriculture, and it is generally a problem in arid areas. Water used for irrigation contains small amounts of salt, and when water evaporates from the soil surface or from the leaves of plants, it leaves salt behind in the soil. In arid areas, these salts can accumulate and cause problems. In areas with greater rainfall, salts are drained from the soil by the larger volumes of water flowing through the soil, and tend not to accumulate to high levels.
To read the entire article, (one of several hundred thousand Googled) goto:
Click Here! For article.
6. Destruction of wild habitat - This often results in loss of wild fruit, vegetable, animal and bird sources. For instance, fruit bats once common throughout the Pacific islands are now extinct on most. This was cause by a combination of the destruction of forests (their habitat) and human predation. Virtually all land birds were also driven to extinction by the same forces, Flightless pigeons, once common on may islands are all now extinct. One once common, but now very rare one may still be surviving in New Zealand.
From an article on the Internet: Habitat loss takes several forms: outright loss of areas used by wild species; degradation, for example, from vegetation removal and erosion, which deprive native species of food, shelter, and breeding areas; and fragmentation, when native species are squeezed onto small patches of undisturbed land surrounded by areas cleared for agriculture and other purposes. In the latter case, ecosystem functions such as the hydrological cycle might be interrupted, native species may be crowded out because habitat fragments are too small, and fragment edges may prove uninhabitable to plants and animals associated with the habitat type because of exposure to wind, sunlight, new predators, and other factors (referred to by ecologists as edge effect).
To read the entire article, (one of several hundred thousand Googled) goto:
Click here! For article.
posted by HoJo | 4:24 PM
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