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#2
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
Once upon a time on usenet Brooklyn1 wrote:
The following news release was issued by Macquarie University in Australia. It describes a project incorporating data collected in ecosystems around the world, including data from the Arctic tundra acquired by Alistair Rogers, a biologist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory as part of DOE's Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE Arctic) project. For more information about Rogers' work, see the accompanying sidebar and links. Media inquiries about the overall study should be directed to Amy MacIntyre at Macquarie University: +61 (2) 9850 4051, . [snipped] Interesting, thanks. There's a factor in global temperture variation that's rarely mentioned (and is often used to explain the Gaia hypothesis) - that growing plants cool the area in which they are growing due to transpiration, sequestering and slowly releasing water and absorbing solar radiation (that otherwise just heats the ground up). This was mentioned here; "Vegetation plays a really major role in the Earth system, by storing carbon, moving water around the landscape and cooling the planet's surface. It's always amazed me how, as a race we seem to be fixated on reducing carbon emissions only as a way of preventing a large swing in global temperatures. Surely another useful method would be to start to replace all of the large swathes of vegetation that the planet has lost in the last few millenia? England used to be covered almost from coast to coast in forest if we go back six or seven thousand years. Here in New Zealand it's been much more recently that the forests that cloaked the country have been decimated (only six or seven hundred years since polynesians arrived and started deforestation, there are artists here who specialise in making furniture and objet d'art out of 500 year old wood sourced from tree stumps dug out of farm land. The last remains of some of the giants which dominated this land). We all know about the decline of the South American rain forest and the way the South-east Asian rain forests are being cleared to grow oil palms.... Heck, in old testament times large areas of the Middle East was largely 'forested' - or at least covered in scrubland Goats were the biggest agents of 'deforestation' there, grazing on young trees until there wasn't enough re-growth and the old trees died off. Goats raised by humans for food. Ok, we need to reduce the amount of carbon that we're putting into the atmosphere but that's going to happen as we run out of fossil fuel anyway. More importantly we need to get into massive planting programmes so that the plants will sequester the excess carbon that's already there as quickly as possible and get the planet back into the state of balance that it was at before we started geoscaping. Anyone who's kept a (semi)closed aquatic system knows that for every gram of animal life you need 50g of plant life to keep things in even a semblance of balance. With the human population growing exponentially (and meat animals being raised to satiate our destructive desire to eat too much flesh) we *really* needed to be increasing plant growth on the planet. Instead we've reduced it to maybe 10% of what it was 10,000 years ago. How much would we all weigh? Then add in our food beasts.... The only significant large masses of vegetaion left on the planet (other than remnants of forests) are the algal masses in the oceans and, while they *do* sequester carbon they don't contribute to global cooling. We've just had the hottest, driest January and Febuary on record in NZ (yet again!) with major horticultural irrigation systems around the country having to be shut down due to reservoirs running dry. I wonder why? I suggest that we need to start growing forests and, when we've got enough start 'ploughing (some of) them under' then re-planting. Put all of that carbon back underground where we got it from. Or (and this just popped into my head) use it for making massive amounts of cheaper (goverment/s subsidised? Economy of scale?) carbon-fibre and use it to make light strong structural materials that will last for a very long time. shrug Sorry for the OT stream-of-consciousness writing provoked by that one sentence. -- Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) |
#3
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet Brooklyn1 wrote: The following news release was issued by Macquarie University in Australia. It describes a project incorporating data collected in ecosystems around the world, including data from the Arctic tundra acquired by Alistair Rogers, a biologist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory as part of DOE's Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE Arctic) project. For more information about Rogers' work, see the accompanying sidebar and links. Media inquiries about the overall study should be directed to Amy MacIntyre at Macquarie University: +61 (2) 9850 4051, . [snipped] Interesting, thanks. There's a factor in global temperture variation that's rarely mentioned (and is often used to explain the Gaia hypothesis) - that growing plants cool the area in which they are growing due to transpiration, sequestering and slowly releasing water and absorbing solar radiation (that otherwise just heats the ground up). This was mentioned here; "Vegetation plays a really major role in the Earth system, by storing carbon, moving water around the landscape and cooling the planet's surface. It's always amazed me how, as a race we seem to be fixated on reducing carbon emissions only as a way of preventing a large swing in global temperatures. Surely another useful method would be to start to replace all of the large swathes of vegetation that the planet has lost in the last few millenia? England used to be covered almost from coast to coast in forest if we go back six or seven thousand years. Here in New Zealand it's been much more recently that the forests that cloaked the country have been decimated (only six or seven hundred years since polynesians arrived and started deforestation, there are artists here who specialise in making furniture and objet d'art out of 500 year old wood sourced from tree stumps dug out of farm land. The last remains of some of the giants which dominated this land). We all know about the decline of the South American rain forest and the way the South-east Asian rain forests are being cleared to grow oil palms.... Heck, in old testament times large areas of the Middle East was largely 'forested' - or at least covered in scrubland Goats were the biggest agents of 'deforestation' there, grazing on young trees until there wasn't enough re-growth and the old trees died off. Goats raised by humans for food. Ok, we need to reduce the amount of carbon that we're putting into the atmosphere but that's going to happen as we run out of fossil fuel anyway. More importantly we need to get into massive planting programmes so that the plants will sequester the excess carbon that's already there as quickly as possible and get the planet back into the state of balance that it was at before we started geoscaping. Anyone who's kept a (semi)closed aquatic system knows that for every gram of animal life you need 50g of plant life to keep things in even a semblance of balance. With the human population growing exponentially (and meat animals being raised to satiate our destructive desire to eat too much flesh) we *really* needed to be increasing plant growth on the planet. Instead we've reduced it to maybe 10% of what it was 10,000 years ago. How much would we all weigh? Then add in our food beasts.... The only significant large masses of vegetaion left on the planet (other than remnants of forests) are the algal masses in the oceans and, while they *do* sequester carbon they don't contribute to global cooling. We've just had the hottest, driest January and Febuary on record in NZ (yet again!) with major horticultural irrigation systems around the country having to be shut down due to reservoirs running dry. I wonder why? I suggest that we need to start growing forests and, when we've got enough start 'ploughing (some of) them under' then re-planting. Put all of that carbon back underground where we got it from. Or (and this just popped into my head) use it for making massive amounts of cheaper (goverment/s subsidised? Economy of scale?) carbon-fibre and use it to make light strong structural materials that will last for a very long time. shrug Sorry for the OT stream-of-consciousness writing provoked by that one sentence. Don't be sorry for that. This kind of thing is on topic because too few gardeners understand very much about how plants work. At least you are not rambling about the latest social issue (that may be very noble and worthwhile) but that has absolutely nothing to do with gardens. I think I have seen some studies that considered how much carbon could be sequestered by re-planting forests but I can't recall where. IIRC the conclusion was that it would help but it would not be sufficient. -- David - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Corporate propaganda is their protection against democracy |
#4
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
On 3/03/2015 9:42 AM, ~misfit~ wrote:
Once upon a time on usenet Brooklyn1 wrote: The following news release was issued by Macquarie University in Australia. It describes a project incorporating data collected in ecosystems around the world, including data from the Arctic tundra acquired by Alistair Rogers, a biologist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory as part of DOE's Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments (NGEE Arctic) project. For more information about Rogers' work, see the accompanying sidebar and links. Media inquiries about the overall study should be directed to Amy MacIntyre at Macquarie University: +61 (2) 9850 4051, . [snipped] Interesting, thanks. There's a factor in global temperture variation that's rarely mentioned (and is often used to explain the Gaia hypothesis) - that growing plants cool the area in which they are growing due to transpiration, sequestering and slowly releasing water and absorbing solar radiation (that otherwise just heats the ground up). This was mentioned here; "Vegetation plays a really major role in the Earth system, by storing carbon, moving water around the landscape and cooling the planet's surface. It's always amazed me how, as a race we seem to be fixated on reducing carbon emissions only as a way of preventing a large swing in global temperatures. Surely another useful method would be to start to replace all of the large swathes of vegetation that the planet has lost in the last few millenia? England used to be covered almost from coast to coast in forest if we go back six or seven thousand years. Here in New Zealand it's been much more recently that the forests that cloaked the country have been decimated (only six or seven hundred years since polynesians arrived and started deforestation, there are artists here who specialise in making furniture and objet d'art out of 500 year old wood sourced from tree stumps dug out of farm land. The last remains of some of the giants which dominated this land). We all know about the decline of the South American rain forest and the way the South-east Asian rain forests are being cleared to grow oil palms.... Heck, in old testament times large areas of the Middle East was largely 'forested' - or at least covered in scrubland Goats were the biggest agents of 'deforestation' there, grazing on young trees until there wasn't enough re-growth and the old trees died off. Goats raised by humans for food. Greece too used to well covered with trees in ancient times and now much of it is like parts of Oz - olives and poor land because the top soil went along with the trees. Ok, we need to reduce the amount of carbon that we're putting into the atmosphere but that's going to happen as we run out of fossil fuel anyway. More importantly we need to get into massive planting programmes so that the plants will sequester the excess carbon that's already there as quickly as possible and get the planet back into the state of balance that it was at before we started geoscaping. Anyone who's kept a (semi)closed aquatic system knows that for every gram of animal life you need 50g of plant life to keep things in even a semblance of balance. With the human population growing exponentially (and meat animals being raised to satiate our destructive desire to eat too much flesh) we *really* needed to be increasing plant growth on the planet. Instead we've reduced it to maybe 10% of what it was 10,000 years ago. How much would we all weigh? Then add in our food beasts.... The only significant large masses of vegetaion left on the planet (other than remnants of forests) are the algal masses in the oceans and, while they *do* sequester carbon they don't contribute to global cooling. We've just had the hottest, driest January and Febuary on record in NZ (yet again!) with major horticultural irrigation systems around the country having to be shut down due to reservoirs running dry. I wonder why? We all know the answer to that one. Or should I say, those who haven't been put in our Bozo bins, know the answer to that. I suggest that we need to start growing forests and, when we've got enough start 'ploughing (some of) them under' then re-planting. Put all of that carbon back underground where we got it from. Or (and this just popped into my head) use it for making massive amounts of cheaper (goverment/s subsidised? Economy of scale?) carbon-fibre and use it to make light strong structural materials that will last for a very long time. shrug Sorry for the OT stream-of-consciousness writing provoked by that one sentence. What you had to say was both interesting and relevant IMO. I agree with you about trees. I'm always propagating trees of some sort or other. And even if we just restricted the planting of trees to urban areas because they are so good for shade and lowering the temperatures in the city deserts, then I'd still see the value in what you have to say. But we certainly need far more trees on this planet. We could get rid of at least 50% of the population and we'd still have too many humans. |
#5
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
Fran Farmer wrote:
~misfit~ wrote: .... It's always amazed me how, as a race we seem to be fixated on reducing carbon emissions only as a way of preventing a large swing in global temperatures. Surely another useful method would be to start to replace all of the large swathes of vegetation that the planet has lost in the last few millenia? i dunno what you've been reading, but there are plenty of people who are working on reforestation and restoration of habitats. the problem is that the balance is still tipped too heavily in favor of the exploitation of natural resources. until the poisoners and destroyers are put back into balance the system will continue to degrade. unfortunately, with most people on the planet living in cities there is little knowledge any more at the cultural level about what topsoils and ecologies are like and what they need. England used to be covered almost from coast to coast in forest if we go back six or seven thousand years. Here in New Zealand it's been much more recently that the forests that cloaked the country have been decimated (only six or seven hundred years since polynesians arrived and started deforestation, there are artists here who specialise in making furniture and objet d'art out of 500 year old wood sourced from tree stumps dug out of farm land. The last remains of some of the giants which dominated this land). We all know about the decline of the South American rain forest and the way the South-east Asian rain forests are being cleared to grow oil palms.... Heck, in old testament times large areas of the Middle East was largely 'forested' - or at least covered in scrubland Goats were the biggest agents of 'deforestation' there, grazing on young trees until there wasn't enough re-growth and the old trees died off. Goats raised by humans for food. Greece too used to well covered with trees in ancient times and now much of it is like parts of Oz - olives and poor land because the top soil went along with the trees. the Greeks and Romans did quite a number, but it just followed on the agricultural practices of peoples in the middle east or northern Africa. however, by upping the extractive practices a notch and never returning organic materials to the soils they soon stripped the topsoils bare. when you have renters instead of owners there is little incentive to treat the land well. the overall culture must change to get land restoration to work over the longer term. .... I suggest that we need to start growing forests and, when we've got enough start 'ploughing (some of) them under' then re-planting. Put all of that carbon back underground where we got it from. Or (and this just popped into my head) use it for making massive amounts of cheaper (goverment/s subsidised? Economy of scale?) carbon-fibre and use it to make light strong structural materials that will last for a very long time. shrug Sorry for the OT stream-of-consciousness writing provoked by that one sentence. What you had to say was both interesting and relevant IMO. I agree with you about trees. I'm always propagating trees of some sort or other. And even if we just restricted the planting of trees to urban areas because they are so good for shade and lowering the temperatures in the city deserts, then I'd still see the value in what you have to say. But we certainly need far more trees on this planet. We could get rid of at least 50% of the population and we'd still have too many humans. until more people start dying from ecosytem failures i don't see much changing on the larger scale. there are localised small patches where people are working to restore and improve things, but it isn't yet a large enough effort to counter the destroyers and poisoners. songbird |
#6
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
songbird wrote:
when you have renters instead of owners there is little incentive to treat the land well. Ain't that the truth. Today most people rent/lease most everything and few pay their debts, and everything they touch they destroy... under the presenty system those responsible few are punished for the destruction caused by the renters/leasers. The only way to save this planet is to bring back debter's prison, this needs to change, and most importantly institute sterilization of the non productive because the primary cause of this planet's destruction is over population... CULL! Every productive person who volunteers for sterilization is to be totally supported by society; fed well, housed well, clothed well, treated well medically. Debters recieve minimal nourishment and no medical care whatsoever. |
#7
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
On 5/03/2015 3:24 AM, songbird wrote:
Fran Farmer wrote: Greece too used to well covered with trees in ancient times and now much of it is like parts of Oz - olives and poor land because the top soil went along with the trees. the Greeks and Romans did quite a number, but it just followed on the agricultural practices of peoples in the middle east or northern Africa. however, by upping the extractive practices a notch and never returning organic materials to the soils they soon stripped the topsoils bare. when you have renters instead of owners there is little incentive to treat the land well. Well the Greeks were the owners and they screwed their own topsoil and I can't see that modern agriculture is a great deal different. To much of it is like strip mining over a long term. the overall culture must change to get land restoration to work over the longer term. Yep. What you had to say was both interesting and relevant IMO. I agree with you about trees. I'm always propagating trees of some sort or other. And even if we just restricted the planting of trees to urban areas because they are so good for shade and lowering the temperatures in the city deserts, then I'd still see the value in what you have to say. But we certainly need far more trees on this planet. We could get rid of at least 50% of the population and we'd still have too many humans. until more people start dying from ecosytem failures i don't see much changing on the larger scale. Many people are already dying from ecosytem failures. We well fed rich ******* in the western world just aren't listening and nor do we care so long as we can still get cheap shoddy products from whatever low wage country can be convinced to take on the job. there are localised small patches where people are working to restore and improve things, but it isn't yet a large enough effort to counter the destroyers and poisoners. Nope. Denial and/or ignorance and/or self interest is alive and well and living amongst us. |
#8
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
Fran Farmer wrote:
On 5/03/2015 3:24 AM, songbird wrote: Fran Farmer wrote: Greece too used to well covered with trees in ancient times and now much of it is like parts of Oz - olives and poor land because the top soil went along with the trees. the Greeks and Romans did quite a number, but it just followed on the agricultural practices of peoples in the middle east or northern Africa. however, by upping the extractive practices a notch and never returning organic materials to the soils they soon stripped the topsoils bare. when you have renters instead of owners there is little incentive to treat the land well. Well the Greeks were the owners and they screwed their own topsoil and I can't see that modern agriculture is a great deal different. To much of it is like strip mining over a long term. not nearly as badly during that time period as compared to what came afterwards when they were taken over by the Romans, and the same thing goes for much of the rest of Europe, northern Africa, etc. the Romans turned marginal lands into deserts because they exported so much grain and ruined the croplands to do it. many of those areas have never had a chance to recover. the remaining people who could survive did so by keeping goats, counting much of their wealth by the number of animals, not by improvements in topsoil or pasture diversity. the overall culture must change to get land restoration to work over the longer term. Yep. What you had to say was both interesting and relevant IMO. I agree with you about trees. I'm always propagating trees of some sort or other. And even if we just restricted the planting of trees to urban areas because they are so good for shade and lowering the temperatures in the city deserts, then I'd still see the value in what you have to say. But we certainly need far more trees on this planet. We could get rid of at least 50% of the population and we'd still have too many humans. until more people start dying from ecosytem failures i don't see much changing on the larger scale. Many people are already dying from ecosytem failures. not nearly as many as what will be coming. We well fed rich ******* in the western world just aren't listening and nor do we care so long as we can still get cheap shoddy products from whatever low wage country can be convinced to take on the job. sadly, ******* is a very apt word for what happens to most of that junk too. if we could get to a more heavily recycled system i wouldn't mind it as much, but we're still a long ways from what it should be. there are localised small patches where people are working to restore and improve things, but it isn't yet a large enough effort to counter the destroyers and poisoners. Nope. Denial and/or ignorance and/or self interest is alive and well and living amongst us. i keep hoping for bigger changes. a lot of people want them to happen too, but it isn't a majority yet. songbird |
#9
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
On Tuesday, March 3, 2015 at 12:32:22 PM UTC-8, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 3/03/2015 9:42 AM, ~misfit~ wrote: Once upon a time on usenet Brooklyn1 wrote: [...interesting stuff...] What you had to say was both interesting and relevant IMO. I agree with you about trees. I'm always propagating trees of some sort or other. And even if we just restricted the planting of trees to urban areas because they are so good for shade and lowering the temperatures in the city deserts, then I'd still see the value in what you have to say. But we certainly need far more trees on this planet. We could get rid of at least 50% of the population and we'd still have too many humans. Copy that. Seen the estimates for the next century or so? Food riots. Powerful eat, vulnerable don't. The fastest growing segments of the world population are the poor, the minorities, those in totalitarian societies. What these have in common are inadequate, unreliable or NO access to planned parenthood. Behind this factor lurks the millennial denigration of females by males. A very large element in rendering females powerless to control their fertility has, of course, been religious dogma, used to support males' right to dominate females by invoking "divine" authority and by blaming females for their own sexual urges. However, most of these factors over the last few centuries in the West have operated, as above suggested, to the detriment of the "wretched of the earth". Prosperous (largely secular or non-observant) societies have had no problem limiting their families, religious dogma or not. Do we have time to educate the ignorant masses? And will education enable them to become prosperous enough to demand to share power with their former masters -- "religious" and political -- to raise the masses world-wide to where they can control their fertility? One can only hope that for the sake of future generations, people in the US will concentrate less on the next electronic toy and more on how to defang Our Corporate Masters and their Fundamentalist lackeys in Congress. As a card-carrying space freak, I still think exporting our current values to Mars or other Earth-like planets might not be such a good idea. Much easier to restore our original"garden of eden" right here on Earth. Nobody said it better than Benjamin Franklin: "We must all hang together or we will surely hang separately!" HB |
#10
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
Once upon a time on usenet songbird wrote:
Fran Farmer wrote: ~misfit~ wrote: ... It's always amazed me how, as a race we seem to be fixated on reducing carbon emissions only as a way of preventing a large swing in global temperatures. Surely another useful method would be to start to replace all of the large swathes of vegetation that the planet has lost in the last few millenia? i dunno what you've been reading, but there are plenty of people who are working on reforestation and restoration of habitats. Rather than plenty of people I'd say a relative few who get a lot of media exposure. I commend them for what they're doing but it's a drop in the ocean compared with the amount of forested land the world needs to regain balance. Especially when you consider that the animal bioload (us and our foodbeasts) has increased massively in the last ten thousand years or so as the trees have vanished. the problem is that the balance is still tipped too heavily in favor of the exploitation of natural resources. until the poisoners and destroyers are put back into balance the system will continue to degrade. Exactly. [snipped the rest - I mainly wanted to address the "i dunno what you've been reading" comment]. -- Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) |
#11
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Plants Use Water Wisely - Mostly
Once upon a time on usenet Brooklyn1 wrote:
songbird wrote: when you have renters instead of owners there is little incentive to treat the land well. Ain't that the truth. Today most people rent/lease most everything and few pay their debts, and everything they touch they destroy... When I injured my back a couple decades ago after just starting my own business I ignored my accountant's advice to declare banckrupcy and instead paid off everything I owed. However I was left a pauper having lost my home, my ability to work and my life savings. under the presenty system those responsible few are punished for the destruction caused by the renters/leasers. The only way to save this planet is to bring back debter's prison, this needs to change, and most importantly institute sterilization of the non productive because the primary cause of this planet's destruction is over population... CULL! Every productive person who volunteers for sterilization is to be totally supported by society; fed well, housed well, clothed well, treated well medically. Debters recieve minimal nourishment and no medical care whatsoever. I have no children and am hardly likely to now. My sister has four and I've always said she's done the breeding for this generation of our family. She 'got in' before I did - I was waiting until I'd got my business running well and was financally secure. So much for that plan. -- Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long, way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) |
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