I heard that Earth was once inhabited by intelligent trees who had
mighty empires, but where destroyed after a big war.

Is that true?

In article ,
(Bruno Beam) wrote:
I heard that Earth was once inhabited by intelligent trees who had
mighty empires, but where destroyed after a big war.

Is that true?

Nope. I've still got one in my backyard -- a pawpaw with ESP.

Cheers, Phred.

--
LID

I heard that Earth was once inhabited by intelligent trees who had mighty
empires, but were destroyed after a big war.

The war is still going on. Ask the nearest redwood. The trees are losing.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Yogi Berra

Advanced tree civilizations on ancient Earth? What a tease! And here I
thought I was going to get into a good discussion about how ancient
tribal societies used advanced agro-forestry techniques to maximize
biodiversity.

schreef
And here I thought I was going to get into a good discussion about how
ancient tribal societies used advanced agro-forestry techniques to maximize
biodiversity.

***
There never were such societies
PvR

I am sure these were very commendable but surely they did not raise
biodiversity above the level that was there before. They reduced the damage
they did rather than adding anything.

This is exactly what I was talking about. Thank you for taking the time
to explaine myself better than I would have. I love that you included
"three sisters" planting techniques, it's one of my favorite examples
of low investment/high return sustainable ag.

"before" What? Before humans? Life feeds on life. Everything that lives
does "damage" just to occupy space on the planet. Each species lives in
a symbiotic/competitive balance with all other species/individuals in
it's ecosystem. The point I was making is that these societies managed
to suport large populations SUSTAINABLY. This means that they could
live the same comfortable, enjoyable, and stable lifestyle, in the same
place, for thousands of generations, without destroying the
biodiversity of the ecosystem they depend on. Humans have lived all
over the world in thousands of sustainable (tribal)cultural
adaptations, for the past three million+ years. It is only one culture
of unsustainable totalitarian agriculture that has spred across the
world in the last ten thousand years, that is destroying all cultural
and bio-diversity.

"before" What? Before humans? Life feeds on life. Everything that lives
does "damage" just to occupy space on the planet. Each species lives in
a symbiotic/competitive balance with all other species/individuals in
it's ecosystem. The point I was making is that these societies managed
to suport large populations SUSTAINABLY. This means that they could
live the same comfortable, enjoyable, and stable lifestyle, in the same
place, for thousands of generations, without destroying the
biodiversity of the ecosystem they depend on. Humans have lived all
over the world in thousands of sustainable (tribal)cultural
adaptations, for the past three million+ years. It is only one culture
of unsustainable totalitarian agriculture that has spred across the
world in the last ten thousand years, that is destroying all cultural
and bio-diversity.

Another question arising from this is whether the total amount of
chemical diversity has increased with this spread of 'totalitarian
agriculture'. If there is more diversity then at some point won't
mutating bacteria evolve to fill the gap and make use of the man-made
chemicals? Or is the chemical factory represented by say, a mammal
species, already such a diversity that our new chemicals are a poor
substitute?











In article . com,
writes
"before" What? Before humans? Life feeds on life. Everything that lives
does "damage" just to occupy space on the planet. Each species lives in
a symbiotic/competitive balance with all other species/individuals in
it's ecosystem. The point I was making is that these societies managed
to suport large populations SUSTAINABLY. This means that they could
live the same comfortable, enjoyable, and stable lifestyle, in the same
place, for thousands of generations, without destroying the
biodiversity of the ecosystem they depend on. Humans have lived all
over the world in thousands of sustainable (tribal)cultural
adaptations, for the past three million+ years. It is only one culture
of unsustainable totalitarian agriculture that has spred across the
world in the last ten thousand years, that is destroying all cultural
and bio-diversity.


--
Martin Cragg-Barber

Martin Cragg-Barber schreef
Another question arising from this is whether the total amount of
chemical diversity has increased with this spread of 'totalitarian
agriculture'.

***
Obviously, agriculture decreases total amount of chemical diversity.
Also the effect of what diversity remains.
PvR

Martin Cragg-Barber said:
Another question arising from this is whether the total amount of
chemical diversity has increased with this spread of 'totalitarian
agriculture'.

Aikicrow says:
I have very little use for the idea of chemical diversity, unless you
are reffering to the humus molecule; which is the foundation of
terrestrial life. If we had known about humus after WW2, the suicidal
repercussions of dumping our left over munitions chemicals on our farm
lands could have been easily foreseen.

Martin Cragg-Barber said:
If there is more diversity then at some point won't mutating bacteria
evolve to fill the gap and make use of the man-made chemicals?

Aikicrow says:
No.
Totalitarian agriculture began in mesopotamia ten thousand years ago.
At the time of the "agricultural revolution" the fertile crecent was a
lush green paradise, packed with biodiversity. After less than two
thousand years of totalitarian agriculture; the soil structure and
biology (which took millions of years to build) had been competely
destroyed. The practice of totalitarian agriculture spread across the
world like a horrific wild fire. This fire spread because the practice
of totalitarian agriculture, both increases population and reduces the
land's carrying capacity at the same time. Most of the deserts of the
world are the destructive footprints of agricultural empires. The use
of modern chemical fertilizers is literally like dumping rocket fuel on
this world-consuming fire! We now send our chemically produced
surpluses to increase populations that already far exceeds their land's
carrying capacity.

Totalitarian agriculture has as it's ultimate (but mostly unspoken)
goal: To turn the entire planet's biosphere into humans and human food.
This operating philosophy is a perfect recipe for rapid mass
extinction.

In article ,
Martin Cragg-Barber wrote:

Another question arising from this is whether the total amount of
chemical diversity has increased with this spread of 'totalitarian
agriculture'. If there is more diversity then at some point won't
mutating bacteria evolve to fill the gap and make use of the man-made
chemicals? Or is the chemical factory represented by say, a mammal
species, already such a diversity that our new chemicals are a poor
substitute?

Hi, Martin. Long time no post.

Microorganisms are already diverse enough to metabolize most synthetic
organics. Wood-rotting fungi are among the best, since anything that
can decompose lignin can decompose almost anything. A successful
technique of bioremediation is to plow an inoculum of wood chips
infected with appropriate fungi into contaminated soil, where the fungi
will break down even awful stuff like PCBs with remarkable speed, e.g.
95% in one growing season.

Although mammalian livers are fairly good at breaking down synthetic
organics, they often do so by converting it to worse stuff, and they
aren't very efficient or durable especially in this role.

I don't think there's anything out there that can consume common
plastics, though. Perhaps in a few generations landfill sites will
become valuable open pit mines for low grade fuel for industrial and
power generation purposes, with recovered metals a valuable side
product. No doubt people of that era will hate us for our selfish
wastefulness.

As for the original poster, who appears to be starting to foam at the
mouth, it's still possible to live as a hunter-gatherer in a few parts
of the world, albeit not very well or very long. Even in its Edenic
state before agriculture or even before the genus Homo arose, the world
wasn't capable of integrating more than a few million or perhaps tens
of millions of humans imperceptibly into the system. Considering that
the entire Pleistocene megafauna of North America, which persisted a
good deal longer than that of Eurasia, and almost all other large
mammals, vanished rapidly after the advent of humans to the western
hemisphere, maybe intelligent animals are just a Really Bad Idea, even
in small numbers.

So the original poster, to prove his sincerity, should pick an
alternative: (1) go live as a hunter-gatherer himself (2) abstain from
all products of totalitarian agriculture and the material culture it
supports (3) be one of the first to join the six or so billion people
who are going to have to vanish to make a world without agriculture or
(4) work to ameliorate the existing situation.

Note that even the superficially idyllic Eastern Woodland culture I
described persisted only on the scale of centuries, and would likely
have reached its limit due to population growth in a few centuries more
had it not been obliterated by European diseases and the Europeans who
extirpated the survivors. People always destroy their environments to
the limit of their technology, and then develop more technology, expand
their population, and repeat. The endpoint is a population living in
misery on the edge of famine, limited by periodic epidemics, wars and
crop failures, exploiting their environment to the limit of their
technical ability, resorting to desperate measures like infanticide.
This situation has occurred through out history and can be seen in
parts of the world today. Who isn't following this Malthusian
pattern? Western culture, of course, with its low birthrate, high
standard of living, extremely high technological level, and massive
consumption of the world's nonrenewable resources.

Happy New Year.

Hi Beverley, (et al)
Thank you for your last posting on this subject. This will obviously
take some time to digest but I'm still wondering how much of
biodiversity is contained within the bacteria compared to higher forms
of life. Is there some text pitched at not-too-technical a level which
you could suggest?
Is there some point at which the dominance of Western or Mesopotamian
agriculture feeds into a growing awareness of diversity, i.e. if we
didn't endanger it then we wouldn't value it.
--
Martin Cragg-Barber