tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55493064279644597402024-03-13T04:18:24.980-04:00Wit's EndGail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.comBlogger1329125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-38004590860217473272019-11-22T09:53:00.000-05:002019-11-22T09:53:21.697-05:00Well well well... I can hang up my hat<h2>
<b><i>Were other humans the first victims of the sixth mass extinction?</i></b></h2>
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~<span style="color: purple;"> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nick-longrich-209117"><span style="color: purple;">Nick Longrich</span></a></span>, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-bath-1325">University of Bath</a></em><br />
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<img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302005/original/file-20191115-66945-1ccxz9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C291%2C830%2C485&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" />
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A Neanderthal skull shows head trauma, evidence of ancient violence.
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/fossils/saint-c%C3%A9saire">Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History</a></span></figcaption></figure><em></em><div>
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Nine human species walked the Earth 300,000 years ago. Now there is just one. The Neanderthals, <em>Homo neanderthalensis</em>, were <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-neanderthals-may-have-been-more-sophisticated-hunters-than-we-thought-new-study-98870">stocky hunters</a> adapted to Europe’s cold steppes. The related <a href="https://theconversation.com/fresh-clues-to-the-life-and-times-of-the-denisovans-a-little-known-ancient-group-of-humans-110504">Denisovans</a> inhabited Asia, while the more primitive <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-snapshot-of-our-mysterious-ancestor-homo-erectus-101122"><em>Homo erectus</em></a> lived in Indonesia, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/108371a0.pdf"><em>Homo rhodesiensis</em></a> in central Africa. <br />
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Several short, small-brained species survived alongside them: <a href="https://theconversation.com/homo-naledi-fossil-discovery-a-triumph-for-open-access-and-education-47726"><em>Homo naledi</em></a> in South Africa, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-evidence-is-enough-to-declare-a-new-species-of-human-from-a-philippines-cave-site-115139"><em>Homo luzonensis</em></a> in the Philippines, <a href="https://theconversation.com/fast-evolution-explains-the-tiny-stature-of-extinct-hobbit-from-flores-island-124747"><em>Homo floresiensis</em></a> (“hobbits”) in Indonesia, and the mysterious <a href="https://theconversation.com/bone-suggests-red-deer-cave-people-a-mysterious-species-of-human-52437">Red Deer Cave People</a> in China. Given how quickly we’re discovering new species, more are likely waiting to be found.<br />
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By 10,000 years ago, they were all gone. The disappearance of these other species resembles a mass extinction. But there’s no obvious environmental catastrophe – volcanic eruptions, climate change, asteroid impact – driving it. Instead, the extinctions’ timing suggests they were caused by the spread of a new species, evolving <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6363/652.abstract">260,000-350,000 years ago</a> in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1714-1">Southern Africa</a>: <em>Homo sapiens</em>. <br />
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The spread of modern humans out of Africa has caused a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn">sixth mass extinction</a>, a greater than 40,000-year event extending from the disappearance of Ice Age mammals to the destruction of rainforests by civilisation today. But were other humans the first casualties? <br />
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302000/original/file-20191115-66925-p0qco1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302000/original/file-20191115-66925-p0qco1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302000/original/file-20191115-66925-p0qco1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302000/original/file-20191115-66925-p0qco1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302000/original/file-20191115-66925-p0qco1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302000/original/file-20191115-66925-p0qco1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302000/original/file-20191115-66925-p0qco1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302000/original/file-20191115-66925-p0qco1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" /></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Human evolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Longrich</span></span>
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</figure>
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We are a uniquely dangerous species. We hunted <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Quaternary-Extinctions-Prehistoric-Paul-Martin/dp/0816511004/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=prehistoric+extinctions+martin&qid=1573645985&sr=8-3">wooly mammoths, ground sloths</a> and <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/287/5461/2250.full?_ga=2.156387641.382776719.1573642705-28080894.1573476299">moas</a> to extinction. We destroyed plains and forests for farming, modifying over <a href="https://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/22/12/article/i1052-5173-22-12-4.htm">half the planet’s land area</a>. We altered the planet’s climate. But we are most dangerous to other human populations, because we compete for resources and land.<br />
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History is full of examples of people warring, displacing and wiping out other groups over territory, from Rome’s destruction of Carthage, to the American conquest of the West and the British colonisation of Australia. There have also been recent genocides and ethnic cleansing in <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-srebrenica-more-than-20-years-on-99122">Bosnia</a>, Rwanda, <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-states-genocidal-crimes-demand-justice-how-can-it-be-done-97646">Iraq</a>, Darfur and <a href="https://theconversation.com/rohingya-crisis-this-is-what-genocide-looks-like-83924">Myanmar</a>. Like language or tool use, a capacity for and tendency to engage in genocide is arguably an intrinsic, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Third-Chimpanzee-Evolution-Future-Animal/dp/0060845503/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+third+chimpanzee&qid=1573645399&sr=8-1">instinctive part of human nature</a>. There’s little reason to think that early <em>Homo sapiens</em> were less territorial, less violent, less intolerant – less human.<br />
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Optimists have painted early hunter-gatherers as peaceful, <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-myth-of-the-noble-savage-55316">noble savages</a>, and have argued that our culture, not our nature, creates violence. But field studies, historical accounts, and archaeology <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Constant-Battles-Why-We-Fight/dp/0312310900/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=constant+battles&qid=1573829278&sr=8-1">all show</a> that war in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Before-Civilization-Peaceful-Savage/dp/0195119126">primitive cultures was intense, pervasive and lethal</a>. Neolithic weapons such as clubs, spears, axes and bows, combined with guerrilla tactics like raids and ambushes, were devastatingly effective. Violence was the leading cause of death among men in these societies, and wars saw higher casualty levels per person than World Wars I and II. <br />
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Old bones and artefacts show this violence is ancient. The 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man, from North America, has a spear point embedded in his pelvis. The 10,000-year-old <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16477">Nataruk site</a> in Kenya documents the brutal massacre of at least 27 men, women, and children. <br />
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It’s unlikely that the other human species were much more peaceful. The existence of <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13727">cooperative violence in male chimps</a> suggests that war predates the evolution of humans. Neanderthal skeletons show <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0696-8">patterns</a> of <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/99/9/6444.short">trauma</a> consistent with warfare. But sophisticated weapons likely gave <em>Homo sapiens</em> a military <a href="http://www.paleoanthro.org/media/journal/content/PA20100100.pdf">advantage</a>. The arsenal of early <em>Homo sapiens</em> probably included <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544030500230X">projectile weapons</a> like javelins and <a href="http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/bitstream/handle/2246/2613/N2403.pdf?sequence=1">spear-throwers</a>, throwing sticks and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16477">clubs</a>.<br />
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Complex tools and culture would also have helped us efficiently harvest a wider range of animals and plants, feeding larger tribes, and giving our species a strategic advantage in numbers.<br />
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<h2>
The ultimate weapon</h2>
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But cave <a href="https://theconversation.com/borneo-cave-discovery-is-the-worlds-oldest-rock-art-in-southeast-asia-106252?fbclid=IwAR38kVzZ5Pa1zSZH7ZGWz1jFwJBRt_m035lvW-H6coqc8evaHWD1Ba6HisI">paintings</a>, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07995">carvings</a>, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08169">musical instruments</a> hint at something far more dangerous: a sophisticated capacity for abstract thought and communication. The ability to cooperate, plan, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/War-Carl-von-Clausewitz-ebook/dp/B005R9EB68/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=clausewitz+on+war&qid=1573644303&s=digital-text&sr=1-1">strategise</a>, <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1232">manipulate</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Art-War-Sun-Tzu-ebook/dp/B07YRX3MBM/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=sun+tzu+giles&qid=1573644250&s=digital-text&sr=1-2">deceive</a> may have been our ultimate weapon.<br />
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The incompleteness of the fossil record makes it hard to test these ideas. But in Europe, the only place with a relatively complete archaeological record, fossils show that within <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13621">a few thousand years</a> of our arrival , Neanderthals vanished. Traces of <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/710/tab-pdf">Neanderthal DNA in some Eurasian people</a> prove we didn’t just replace them after they went extinct. We met, and we mated.<br />
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Elsewhere, DNA tells of other encounters with archaic humans. East Asian, Polynesian and Australian groups have <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09710">DNA</a> from <a href="https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30218-1">Denisovans</a>. DNA from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.3621#ref23">another species</a>, possibly <em>Homo erectus</em>, occurs in many Asian people. African genomes <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/108/37/15123">show traces of DNA</a> from yet another <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867412008318">archaic species</a>. The fact that we interbred with these other species proves that they disappeared only after encountering us. <br />
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But why would our ancestors wipe out their relatives, causing a mass extinction – or, perhaps more accurately, a mass genocide?<br />
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301300/original/file-20191112-178506-5fhhk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301300/original/file-20191112-178506-5fhhk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301300/original/file-20191112-178506-5fhhk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301300/original/file-20191112-178506-5fhhk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=639&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301300/original/file-20191112-178506-5fhhk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301300/original/file-20191112-178506-5fhhk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301300/original/file-20191112-178506-5fhhk2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=803&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" />
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">13,000-year-old spear points from Colorado.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution</span></span>
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</figure>
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The answer lies in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Constant-Battles-Why-We-Fight/dp/0312310900/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=constant+battles&qid=1573829278&sr=8-1">population growth</a>. Humans reproduce exponentially, like all species. Unchecked, we historically <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4239">doubled our numbers every 25 years</a>. And once humans became cooperative hunters, we had no predators. Without predation controlling our numbers, and little family planning beyond <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4239">delayed marriage</a> and <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.es.06.110175.000543">infanticide</a>, populations grew to exploit the available resources.<br />
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Further growth, or food shortages caused by drought, harsh winters or overharvesting resources <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Constant-Battles-Why-We-Fight/dp/0312310900/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=constant+battles&qid=1573829278&sr=8-1">would inevitably lead tribes into conflict</a> over food and foraging territory. Warfare became a check on population growth, perhaps the most important one.<br />
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Our elimination of other species probably wasn’t a planned, coordinated effort of the sort practised by civilisations, but a war of attrition. The end result, however, was just as final. Raid by raid, ambush by ambush, valley by valley, modern humans would have worn down their enemies and taken their land. <br />
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Yet the extinction of Neanderthals, at least, took a long time – thousands of years. This was partly because early <em>Homo sapiens</em> lacked the advantages of later conquering civilisations: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Third-Chimpanzee-Evolution-Future-Animal/dp/0060845503/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+third+chimpanzee&qid=1573645399&sr=8-1">large numbers, supported by farming</a>, and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Plagues-Peoples-William-McNeill-ebook/dp/B0047747QK/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=plagues+and+peoples&qid=1573645434&sr=8-1">epidemic diseases like smallpox, flu, and measles</a> that <a href="https://theconversation.com/european-colonisation-of-the-americas-killed-10-of-world-population-and-caused-global-cooling-110549">devastated their opponents</a>. But while Neanderthals lost the war, to hold on so long they must have fought and won many battles against us, suggesting a level of intelligence close to our own.<br />
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Today we look up at the stars and wonder if we’re <a href="https://theconversation.com/evolution-tells-us-we-might-be-the-only-intelligent-life-in-the-universe-124706">alone in the universe</a>. In <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Lord-Rings-Fellowship-Towers/dp/0345538374/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=the+lord+of+the+rings&qid=1573645527&sr=8-2">fantasy</a> and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060028/">science fiction</a>, we wonder what it might be like to meet other intelligent species, like us, but not us. It’s profoundly sad to think that we once did, and now, because of it, they’re gone.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126638/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" width="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --><br />
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/nick-longrich-209117"><span style="color: purple;">Nick Longrich</span></a>, Senior Lecturer, Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, <em><a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-bath-1325">University of Bath</a></em><br />
<br />
This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com/"><span style="color: purple;">The Conversation</span></a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/were-other-humans-the-first-victims-of-the-sixth-mass-extinction-126638"><span style="color: purple;">original article</span></a>.</div>
Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-89067207546604789952019-07-04T11:44:00.000-04:002019-11-07T08:19:04.540-05:00In Praise of Themis<div class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Few people have the imagination for reality."</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ~ von Goethe</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Never underestimate the human capacity for denial."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ~ moi</span><br />
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<b>1. Consciousness and Denial</b>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In tandem with consciousness, humanity developed a deeply embedded penchant for denial. It's a terrific survival strategy that evolved to help blind us to the pain of animals we hunt and eat, the terror of the victims of wars we wage on our neighbors, </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">the monstrosity of slavery, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">the injustice of male chauvinism, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">the senselessness of death, and ultimately</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the fearsome gaping maw of meaninglessness in the vast unfeeling universe.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our denial, entrenched in our genes, also enables - even requires - us to believe fantasies, to embrace spirits, to shun truth, to subscribe to the illusion of free will, to follow charlatans, and to pretend our hopes and prayers can shape reality.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #14171a;">Take a </span><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/16/us/divers-largest-underwater-cleanup-record-trnd/index.html?" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">recent example</span></a><span style="color: #14171a;">. The CNN headline reads: "</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">633 divers collect over 1,500 pounds of trash at a Florida beach -- and set a world record" while further along we learn that "</span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #262626; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Divers came from as far away as Europe and South America to participate in the event". You have to be through the looking glass to see this as a net win for the environment and yet this, and the current obsession with plastic straws, is the typical myopic depth of understanding of our colossal planetary overshoot.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #262626; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I thank Alan Cree, who shared this painting, with its implicit allusion to the quote from </span><span style="background-color: white;">Democritus “Of truth we know nothing, for truth is in a well”. T</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">he "laughing philosopher" often </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">expressed ridicule for the follies of humans, which he regarded as mostly an unthinking atomic collection. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #3d3e40; font-family: "Droid Serif", serif; text-align: start;">Truth Coming out of her Well to Shame Mankind</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d3e40; font-family: "droid serif" , serif;"> (1896)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #3d3e40; font-family: "droid serif" , serif;">~ Jean-Léon Gérôme</span></span></td></tr>
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<b>2. WASF</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; letter-spacing: normal;">Fact: there exists no natural mechanism that will slow the acceleration of anthropogenic global heating in any timeframe useful to life on earth. It is only reasonable to expect that it's going to get hotter and hotter, faster and faster, for at least hundreds of years. Even if anthropogenic emissions cease today or in a decade, heating will still increase at an accelerating rate. Amplifying feedbacks such as albedo and forest die off and methane release from melting permafrost combined with the longevity of CO2 already released assure an uninhabitable climate in the fairly near future.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; letter-spacing: normal;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; letter-spacing: normal;">Once you understand that greenhouse gases will <i>continue</i> to trap energy from the sun as long as they persist, everything else - climate sensitivity and latent ocean warming and inertia in the system - is so much hoohah. The idea that technology yet to be invented will remove CO2 is no better than a religious tenet, and it will never be deployed at a scale that matters given the vast quantities that have already been released (and continue to be released).</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">source</span></a></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Innumerable articles, studies, and books have been published detailing how humanity has run out of time, and again and again the deadline is farcically pushed ahead so we still have decades, or at least, now, a few years, to turn the tide. In </span><a href="https://www.apnews.com/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0?" style="background-color: white; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">one article</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> from 1989, "A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000...He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control."</span><br />
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In an <span style="color: purple;"><span style="color: purple;"><a href="https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2019/03/29/concerning-humanitys-future-interview-with-nick-humphrey-climatologist-and-geoscientist/" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">interview</span></a> </span></span>in March this year, meteorologist Nick Humphrey put it succinctly:</div>
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"I do not think it is possible to transition to a net-zero carbon emission civilization within a decade. The idea itself is simply absurd because it would require basically returning to a pre-industrial society with none of the benefits which came from building the society provided by fossil fuels. There are some economists and environmentalists who believe you can have “green growth” but such growth leads to further environmental destruction as population and energy demands continue to grow exponentially...there is already much damage in the pipeline."</blockquote>
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"At 500 parts per million of equivalent carbon dioxide concentration, enough greenhouse gases are currently in the atmosphere to ultimately warm the planet 4-5 degrees C/7-9 F above 1700s temperatures, raise the sea level by 220 feet/67 meters (assuming 1 ppm CO2 equivalent = 1 ft sea level rise, based on past longer-term paleoclimate change response), remove significant amounts of soil moisture, leading to the destruction of agriculture. And this is without any other carbon releases or feedbacks. Building more in an attempt to maintain civilized society with high energy consumption makes this all worse."</blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>3. Humans are incapable of change</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As convincing as the physical effects documented by science are, it's also and crucially ever more irrefutable that humans are simply not equipped to behave any other way than to grow without voluntary restraint, until we deplete the resources we need to survive, and overwhelm the environment with pollution until it is so toxic that it is poisonous to virtually all forms of life. We are basically an invasive species with no more self restraint than yeast.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0.3px;">This is where even the most dire voices about climate change often err. It's not libertarianism, or capitalism, or western civilization that has led us to this predicament - rather it is humanity's exponential growth, in numbers and complexity, in technological capability, medical advances, and consumption. The imperative to grow and consume is primordial and we cannot eliminate that biological trait despite our desire to believe in free will.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;">Over a year ago Harvard professor James Anderson was quoted </span><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2018/01/15/carbon-pollution-has-shoved-the-climate-backward-at-least-12-million-years-harvard-scientist-says/#4e4e5d24963e" style="font-family: Times; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">in Forbes</span> </a><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;">as saying we have five years to save ourselves. Of obstructionists he said, </span><span style="color: black; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;">"I don't understand how these people sit down to dinner with their kids...because they're not stupid people." And this is why chemists and physicists and geologists who study climate shouldn't ignore evolutionary biology and ecology.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Doomers know that more and more precise information will not inspire "action" on the part of politicians or influence public sentiment to vote for politicians who endorse "action". It's well established that people don't base their actions on intellectual arguments. They base their intellectual arguments on emotions, and emotions are based on the inchoate but overwhelming urge to grow. So even people who are "not stupid" will not be swayed by rationality. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most people may never be able to acknowledge this perfectly obvious trend, which has been in existence since we first went into overshoot in our warm cozy niche in the tropics and were forced to migrate outward, and to colonize inhospitable terrain - driving dozens of species of unprepared megafauna to extinction as we expanded, while deforesting swathes of territory with stone axes and fire. We've been destroying ecosystems since we climbed out of trees and first found rocks so useful to throw and smash.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't expect the sentimental majority will ever be able to acknowledge this dystopian view of human "progress". Even most self-proclaimed doomers leaven the horror with some form of Woo, generally with spurious references to mythical utopic, egalitarian indigenous hunter-gatherers. </span><br />
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<b>3. Who are the doomers?</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Doomers (doomours, doomists) come in various stripes, some devoid of any hope, some clinging to one or another path towards survival or a least a cosmically moral salvation. A few years ago there was a conversation among some subset of the online array of climate/ecological pessimists/realists about how to label ourselves, and no satisfactory unifying word was found. Catastrophists, Cassandras, collapsniks, alarmists, ecopocalypsists and other monikers were considered and rejected. Lacking a better designation, I made the <a href="http://doomfordummies.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">DoomForDummies</span></a> site five years ago, which I discussed on a Collapse Chronicles <a href="https://youtu.be/sBv36JRUkL0" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">interview</span></a> in December.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Of course since then the evidence of imminent disasters on many fronts - the sixth mass extinction, habitat destruction, pollution of myriad types, peak water, ocean acidification and coral bleaching, extreme weather disasters...ad infinitum - has vastly increased, making the trend towards collapse of civilization (at the very least) an outcome more difficult to ignore, and more challenging to pretend that humanity will rectify the damage even assuming that's still possible. The tragedy is playing out on television and computer screens, which has catapulted the small but growing cadre of doomers from our private corners of the internet into the public light like never before.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;"><b>4. Apocaloptimists attacking doomers - as worse than deniers </b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.27px;">Overwhelming evidence - that impacts are faster and sooner than predicted, that tipping points have been irrevocably crossed, that amplifying feedbacks are beyond human influence, that global warming is run amuk with no natural mechanisms or magic technology to ameliorate inexorable heating - is leading more people to conclude that civilization (if not our species and most others) is doomed. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right now, there is an increasingly vocal contingent who are vigorously attacking the nebulous doomer community. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.27px;">Much of the sniping and scapegoating begins with the hostile accusation that doomers, merely by existing, are encouraging inaction. This is patently absurd, since inaction has been and remains the default position ever since humans first noticed that burning fuel has consequences. No contribution by doomers towards defeatism accounts for the ever-increasing Keeling curve that measures CO2 concentrations, or the refusal of governments to meet climate treaty goals.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "times"; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;"><br /></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;">Still, this </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">parochial view</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> has engendered a more virulent and frequent backlash against those who have borne witness to the inevitability of collapse, and even very prominent Celebrity Climate Scientists and Activists have joined the rampage to bash doomers with numerous epithets and accusations ranging from Nihilism to hedonism to cruelty, bolstered by distortions and lies.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaycA2IWG47fhW8FnLRGIvi3-7zxUpkeJnTaUB3T-OMzW_iT6RHlU_QIoDe8tHiu08gCu_8rJ7w9kFt_S3LciDwHVXaVlALX6XOs2wlOaJeFtqvEaSs2-jL58SVmLPb974vCOPKaBvbTN3/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-06-10+at+1.04.44+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Times; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="420" data-original-width="1242" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaycA2IWG47fhW8FnLRGIvi3-7zxUpkeJnTaUB3T-OMzW_iT6RHlU_QIoDe8tHiu08gCu_8rJ7w9kFt_S3LciDwHVXaVlALX6XOs2wlOaJeFtqvEaSs2-jL58SVmLPb974vCOPKaBvbTN3/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-06-10+at+1.04.44+PM.png" width="320" /></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take one opening salvo from a 2014 </span><a href="http://planet3.org/2014/03/13/mcphersons-evidence-that-doom-doom-doom/" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">blogpost</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by Michael Tobis, who went to inordinate lengths to disparage an academic refugee who is relatively obscure although well known to the doomosphere, Prof. Emeritus Guy McPherson.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">A commenter there noted with pithy acumen:</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Apneaman says:<br /><a href="http://planet3.org/2014/03/13/mcphersons-evidence-that-doom-doom-doom/#comment-77951">March 14, 2014</a> Since you first wrote about McPherson, I have been trying to figure out why? Why burn up energy on someone with such a small following? At first I thought it was jealousy or anger at losing followers to him. That's not it. No I think it's frustration. You have spent your entire adult life studying climate change and trying to warn the powers that be and the general population and no one really listened. In fact things have only gotten worse. The world just keeps burning everything it can to make stuff we don't need. De-forestation, soil loss, peak everything, etc, etc, you know it all. Nothings changed and no one listened, nor will they ever. Maybe McPherson and his gang of "dangerous" doomers are a fight you can win. Hell there must be at least 20,000 people listening to him. If you can just stop his message, somehow that will stop the insanity of the other 7 billion mass consumers. Good luck with your new dragon.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">A typical attack is an <a href="https://thebaffler.com/latest/carbon-ironies-stephenson" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">essay</span></a> by Wen Stephenson, reviewing Volmann's book <em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Carbon Ideologies</em>, in which he sanctimoniously decries the conclusion that it's too late to avert catastrophe and lists all the wonderful accomplishments of climate activism. What he fails to include is that emissions continue to rise, population continues to grow, consumption levels continue to increase...and physics doesn't care how many people turned out for a pipeline protest. He ends with this </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">pusillanimous snark:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292b2c;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Unfortunately, many of the sort of educated, literate folks Vollmann is writing for don’t seem to understand all this. Or maybe they don’t want to understand. Perhaps they prefer to look away. It’s so much easier to tell oneself the game is up, that nothing can be done, that nothing ever could have been done, so why bother? It’s perversely comforting to wallow in tragic-ironic guilt over one’s carbon complicity, using it as a pathetic excuse."</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-catastrophe-green-new-deal-democracy-revolution/" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">The Nation</span></a> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">he writes of Bill McKibbon's latest book, "...it</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; word-spacing: 0.3px;"> affirms him as among a very few of our most compelling truth-tellers about the climate catastrophe </span><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-spacing: 0.3px;">and </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; word-spacing: 0.3px;">the ideological forces driving it—most notably, in his account, the hyper-individualist, Ayn Randian libertarianism of the Kochs and free-market true believers."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This blame game is rampant and represents a form of desperate bargaining - if we can point fingers at corporations, or capitalism, or modern consumerism, then maybe there is some solution. But they never get close to advocating substantive action, because they know perfectly well that people would never support the kinds of revolutionary policies that would be required - such as, no flying, ever, for anyone; no long distance shipping; no military; a world population reduction plan; rationing, etc. This is articulated in "The Empty Radicalism of the Climate Apocalypse", a satiric but ironically and unintentionally accurate <a href="https://issues.org/the-empty-radicalism-of-the-climate-apocalypse/" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">spoof</span></a> by Ted Nordhaus:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"...it has become fashionable to call for a World War II style mobilization to fight climate change. But virtually no one will actually call for any of the sorts of activities that the United States undertook during the war mobilization—rationing food and fuels, seizing property, nationalizing factories or industries, or suspending democratic liberties." </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"The vagueness and modesty of the Green New Deal is not proof that progressives and environmentalists are closet socialists. It is, rather, evidence that most climate advocates, though no doubt alarmed, don’t actually see climate change as the immediate and existential threat they suggest it is."</span></blockquote>
...Or, maybe it's because they know damn well the public will never acquiesce to the extreme sacrifices that would be necessary - and they worship the dogma of technological miracles. Miracles, by definition, don't happen in the real world.<br />
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Faith in technology and an endless supply of limited resources underlies hope and is exemplified in the following passage from a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/opinion/climate-change-hope-solutions.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">NYTimes </span></a>article titled "Maybe We're Not Doomed After All" based the absurd premise that the abomination of geoengineering will save us, because *it will have to*.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;">"In the past few years, some commentators have warned that modern society’s faith in technology has led to a mistaken belief that it will save the world. They embrace solutions that encourage widespread behavioral changes, like consuming less, traveling infrequently and adopting a plant-based diet. We’re likely to need both technological and personal transformations. But in the end, it’s technology that will save us, not only because it can but also because it will have to."</span></span></blockquote>
<b>5. No fun</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Unlike well-funded professional deniers, never mind legions of the willfully ignorant and uninformed, genuine doomers are vanishingly rare creatures.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;">As pointed out <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jul/09/there-are-genuine-climate-alarmists-but-theyre-not-in-the-same-league-as-deniers" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">in the Guardian</span></a> by Dana Nuccitelli, it's rather pointless to revile doomers for the failure of climate policy when we are such a tiny proportion of those who take the threat of climate change seriously, and have virtually no influence anywhere - especially compared to professional deniers funded by multinational corporations. Most doomers are acutely cognizant of their personal impact on the earth and exercise great efforts to be conscientious, far more so than the average person. It's ludicrous to suggest that doomers are in even the remotest way responsible for political inaction on climate issues, since much of the electorate is voting for fascist exploitative governments quite happily, of their own volition.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292b2c;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292b2c;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">An especially pernicious assertion by this "shoot the messenger" crowd is the common claim that doomers are secretly desirous of a catastrophic end for humanity. I doubt there is a single doomer who finds any comfort whatsoever in either the inevitability of extinction or their own individual role in it. Every doomer I've ever interacted with, and there have been many, has agonized and mourned - and some have even gone crazy with grief and guilt and committed suicide. <i>It's not fun being a doomer</i>, which is why there are so few of us.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292b2c;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292b2c;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Many doomers began as former devoted progressives, who fought long and hard before awakening with enormous ambivalence to the sad verity that humanity is not going to change. </span></span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #262626; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I personally learned about the tenacity of denial the hard way, first from trying to alert the world to the death of trees (a massacre that seemed perfectly obvious to me over a decade ago but invited unending ridicule) and second, from encountering so many "light" doomers - who will forever remain convinced, no matter how much archeological evidence refutes it, that the noble primitive and peaceful and sustainable indigenous savage was ever really a thing.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #262626; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is me, back in the days when I thought there was a chance homo eradicatus would wake up to self-inflicted ecopocalypse and do something to prevent it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.wonkette.com/nasa-zombie-alliance-hosts-climate-change-apocalypse-rally" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">2010</span></a>, NASA-Zombie Alliance Climate Change Apocalypse Rally<br />with James Hansen in Washington DC</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2011/09/snobby-illiterati-to-protest-wall-st.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">September</span>,</a> 2011 - Occupy Wall Street</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://grist.org/climate-energy/behind-the-scenes-at-a-big-mountaintop-mining-protest-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">Grist Magazine</span></a>: Behind the scenes at a big mountaintop-mining protest August 2012</td></tr>
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<b>6. The taboo - violating hope</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">A fundamental reason for the mountains of scorn being heaped upon doomers is the sanctity of hope in human culture. Hope is often sacred even to secularists, who put their faith not in god(s) but just as fervently in technology and human ingenuity. The hopeless doomer is an affront to their beliefs and is usually received with anger, resentment, and insults. I have been asked with tedious regularity why I don't just kill myself, since I have no hope. When I respond - if I had a diagnosis of terminal cancer, would you expect me to kill myself right away? - that is generally when the conversation ends.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Doomers usually have gone through prolonged periods of political activism, personal carbon foot-print reducing exercises, and then become pariahs, often losing friends and family who decide we are at best deluded and at worst insane or evil.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">All such designations seem fodder for mainstream activists and scientists to castigate our loosely coordinated ranks as little better than "death cults". Unfortunately and inevitably, there IS a contingent of conspiracy theorists who are best ignored. But it is utterly inaccurate to assail every person who has concluded, following extensive study, observation, and searching, that human civilization is nearing its expiration date as being desirous in some perverse way for a global catastrophe, or of being misanthropic.</span></span><br />
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<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hope</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">~ George Frederic Watts, 1886</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">from<i> The Paucity of Hope</i> - Wit's End <span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-fine-frenzy-universal-dance-of.html" target="_blank">July 2014</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The painting at the top of this essay, Hope, was the subject of a lecture where it was described as a "study in contradictions". That academic talk was attended by the pastor Jeremiah Wright, who in turn used the painting as the focal point for a sermon in 1990, which was attended by a young Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama. Aspiring to the presidency, he took the title of the sermon as inspiration for a book and the campaign slogan that turned out to be so hollow, "The Audacity of Hope". </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In his sermon, Wright concluded that "...hope is what saves us." I would submit that Hope, while once a useful trait, is what has condemned us, because we literally cannot see the cliff as we dance off it. Instead of celebrating the failed audacity of hope, it might be prudent to contemplate, in the time we have left, the paucity of hope - because the most we can realistically hope for, trapped by forgone conclusions, is to vanquish fear...and find the grace of acceptance.</span></blockquote>
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<b>7. Who is Themis</b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #292b2c;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And that brings me to the title of this post, In Praise of Themis. The term "doomer" and its relatives has a pejorative connotation, but until a friend (Malcolm Waugh, thank you!) brought the Greek goddess Themis to my attention, I had never found a better substitute.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292b2c;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #292b2c;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Every culture has traditional cautionary tales but the Greeks are particularly splendid, perhaps because their deities embody the same flaws that characterize the humans who invented them. They can be shortsighted, vain, greedy, foolish, venal, lustful, narcissistic, and cruel.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Particularly relevant at this time of fossil fueled overshoot is the account of Prometheus, who enraged Zeus by giving humanity the gift of fire. Another especially resonant account is that of Pandora's Box from which escaped the peculiarly double-edged sword, that of hope - the promise; the curse. When hope enables denial, it becomes dangerous.</span></span><br />
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Pandora's Box</div>
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Walter Crane</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Like any complex legend shrouded in ancient time, the attributes of Themis are myriad and sometimes contradictory, with multiple interpretations of her role. For my purpose, which is to embrace her prescience, her courage and her wisdom, I rely on these interpretations listed in wiki:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Themis is "...the personification of divine order, fairness, law, natural law, and custom. Her symbols are the Scales of Justice, tools used to remain balanced and pragmatic."</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: white;">"The ability of the goddess Themis to foresee the future enabled her to become one of the Oracles of Delphi, which in turn led to her establishment as the goddess of divine justice."</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Some classical representations of Themis showed her holding a sword, believed to represent her ability to cut fact from fiction; to her there was no middle ground."</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br style="content: ""; display: block; margin-top: 10px;" /></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">"In the play Prometheus Bound, traditionally attributed to Aeschylus, Themis is the mother of Prometheus, and gave him foreknowledge of what was to come." [of course!]</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And also this passage, From <i>Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion</i> ~ Jane Ellen Harrison (1912).</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">'The Greek word Themis and the English word Doom are, philology tells us, one and the same; and it is curious to note that their development moves on exactly parallel lines. Doom is the thing set, fixed, settled; it begins in convention, the stress of public opinion; it ends in statutory judgment. Your private doom is your private opinion, but that is weak and ineffective. It is the collective doom, public opinion, that, for man's common convenience, crystallizes into Law. Themis like Doom begins on earth and ends in heaven. On earth we have our Doomsday, which, projected into high heaven, becomes the Crack of Doom, the Last Judgment' (483)."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; letter-spacing: 0.27px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #1d2228; letter-spacing: normal; white-space: normal;">So I will no longer refer to myself as a doomer, but rather as a Themist - which to me, means struggling for the capacity to endure the unbearable lightness of being, that great paradox of being human, to have the knowledge that we are hurtling towards the Endocene but can do nothing to slow the trajectory...to see our death looming and to realize it cannot be prevented....to face the soul crushing tragedy of the horrendous truth that our fate is sealed - and like </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Democritus, still be able to laugh.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As the essence of gallows humor, I will end with a special version of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> by Elton John (lyrics below) as shared by fellow doomer-now-Themist Andrew Beck:</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>To celebrate Mike Mann's elevation from Chief Climate Whiner to Chief Climate Fucktard, I have composed a ditty in his honour.</i></span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i></i></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>And I guess that's why they call us doomours</b> - El Ton John</i></span></blockquote>
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<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h6KYAVn8ons" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">don't wish us away</span></div>
<div class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; display: inline;">
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">don't look at us like we're forever</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Between you and me</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I can honestly say</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that things can only get doomier</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So quit being a troll</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">dust out the denial inside</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And it won't be long before you and me run</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">up that hockey stick we've denied</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
And I guess that's why they call it the blues</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Time on my hands - I'm on twitter with you</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
dealing with children</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
why do we bother?</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
responding to blunders</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
but we're not your Mothers</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
And I guess that's why they call us doomours</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Just debunk deniers</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
And stick to the science</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
silly Mann,</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
live for each second, without any bargaining</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
And throw all your toys out the pram</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Learn some respect!</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Cry in the night if it helps</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
But more than ever</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
learn to simply love Gaia</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
more than you love tweeting yourself</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
And I guess that's why they call us doomours</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Guy's out of our hands</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
We spend time outside doom</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
loving like children</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
dooming like lovers</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
the end is yonder,</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
you've lost your cover -</div>
<div style="color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
And I guess that's why they call us doomours</div>
</span></div>
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</style>Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-10630920048330154572019-04-03T13:26:00.001-04:002019-04-03T13:26:24.945-04:00Playing with Fire<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaosiM8C15gYTQIenaelJ5yTsPEl3e1qobDIxh3Ne_5EcHxFNx4dKg3SjbbWAmzj-l6U2qOXM5xTn__UoPZMLYW2RuyT4cyeg9Ddixq9jMoISlqbMOfsudlafvdMuF-x9L6jP_i_aaCNBP/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.07.00+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="1512" height="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaosiM8C15gYTQIenaelJ5yTsPEl3e1qobDIxh3Ne_5EcHxFNx4dKg3SjbbWAmzj-l6U2qOXM5xTn__UoPZMLYW2RuyT4cyeg9Ddixq9jMoISlqbMOfsudlafvdMuF-x9L6jP_i_aaCNBP/s640/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.07.00+PM.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These <span style="color: purple;"><a href="https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/trending/photos-romanian-youth-spin-burning-tires-as-part-of-an/collection_f4e53ca5-7334-52dd-bfd8-ece4240c4596.html#11" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">scenes</span></a> </span>are from the Romanian Orthodox version of Burning Man</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Humans love to play with fire. It yields so many benefits, what's not to like? Cooked food, heat, light, insanely rapid transportation - and back in the good old days, predator deterrence.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHs5r_mWzKooOa8LaBlKCMLLUu8dHax2owa3zNh0s1VjUl2Ma21mPCBUK_Zhyphenhyphenz5euAfTbQ6bwVrfcdFM8YfGJEGNRQEvqax1y3QkkL1EkWVLawJbqQ9ok3HEZpcD6PMNJtFunrPpRnTDIo/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.06.49+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="972" data-original-width="1518" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHs5r_mWzKooOa8LaBlKCMLLUu8dHax2owa3zNh0s1VjUl2Ma21mPCBUK_Zhyphenhyphenz5euAfTbQ6bwVrfcdFM8YfGJEGNRQEvqax1y3QkkL1EkWVLawJbqQ9ok3HEZpcD6PMNJtFunrPpRnTDIo/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.06.49+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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As medical researchers are discovering however, smoke particulates are extremely dangerous to human lungs, and can pass into the bloodstream to wreak havoc in organs throughout the body. Injury passes through the placenta, and permanently adversely affects the young, who are still developing. Persistent damage extends all the way from impaired cognitive ability in children to Alzheimer's in the aged.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmMgEKf8Repx13na9dIHySxGNBkTwi8rjp15T_U_qMICl6uv8ZzAq84KPRSQgURTlwSiicWc-jcaFEjoYrDsAA3mTGOTKzhaSVqO0LsH8avym4ne_NhVZLwrjxHpEOQfkq-zHNPQWjdGL/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.06.34+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="1356" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkmMgEKf8Repx13na9dIHySxGNBkTwi8rjp15T_U_qMICl6uv8ZzAq84KPRSQgURTlwSiicWc-jcaFEjoYrDsAA3mTGOTKzhaSVqO0LsH8avym4ne_NhVZLwrjxHpEOQfkq-zHNPQWjdGL/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.06.34+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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It seems quite likely that transitioning from open wood and coal fireplaces to modern heaters in homes played a significant role on the increased life expectancy, particularly among infants, that has occurred in developed nations. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgewUOk09KlXi4asUUWlH5knxpcz2jtFbZ8G-7uHeH3sW7BgbSkHlCQHeiuf-eAljanN_zaDipVarYqmNqcnMAOuhN2Z2r5Gl10BnA1R7j-9PzhAELyQpkXAHC8xYvASLV39sFQeuZ5McyB/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.18.32+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="953" data-original-width="1514" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgewUOk09KlXi4asUUWlH5knxpcz2jtFbZ8G-7uHeH3sW7BgbSkHlCQHeiuf-eAljanN_zaDipVarYqmNqcnMAOuhN2Z2r5Gl10BnA1R7j-9PzhAELyQpkXAHC8xYvASLV39sFQeuZ5McyB/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.18.32+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Though it is becoming more widely recognized that pollution underlies premature mortality and widespread chronic disease in humans, there remains almost no interest in what that same pernicious toxicity means for mammal species, insects, birds, amphibians - and forests - despite ubiquitous reports of biodiversity loss and tree decline all over the globe. These losses are found irrespective of localized weather, temperatures, habitat encroachment or pesticide use.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjUJmzPttL1YEJT1CUTkRKwrxN_rsJHO-v20hSLZO1TzpKld1dD8ZVeXut48yZeeWQo7otmCtIx1GizTYVC-iNo7Yf74jlW0Mz834Xoh2dX79QxEJ6jDRW1jdsApk2LKuCf-JgBeHOSYEI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.08.23+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1038" data-original-width="1512" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjUJmzPttL1YEJT1CUTkRKwrxN_rsJHO-v20hSLZO1TzpKld1dD8ZVeXut48yZeeWQo7otmCtIx1GizTYVC-iNo7Yf74jlW0Mz834Xoh2dX79QxEJ6jDRW1jdsApk2LKuCf-JgBeHOSYEI/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+1.08.23+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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The World Meteorological Organization has, however, managed to sneak a few hints into its newly released <a href="https://library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?explnum_id=5789" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">report</span></a> on the "State of the Global Climate". Since this blog is maintained (sort of) by an unabashed Ozonista, we'll skip everything else to zero in on what they say about ozone, starting on page 36, under the subtitle <i>Air pollution and climate change</i>. Following are excerpts, with yellow highlighting references to the impact of ozone on "ecosystems" or "the environment" by which they mean damage to trees, plants, and agriculture - and also on their accurate observation that climate change studies rarely take into account the feedback of pollution on temperature, extreme weather, and the production of yet more ozone. The section also points out a longtime complaint, that advocates of biofuels as "green" sources of energy neglect to include their significant increase in ozone precursor formation.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9P46lJuyVu003cVNndjtX5Vis9glbLuJHQgE90CDftxaQ3gr5r9H24Ws3CpGr280BXwbF8F4o1VG0IbP5Xx-lsCwBFY6yZzXL5FlXt2DcbMWsmifE36i1HZv6zVjjrnQvu0BLVbd4HG6I/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-02+at+8.40.13+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1278" data-original-width="1022" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9P46lJuyVu003cVNndjtX5Vis9glbLuJHQgE90CDftxaQ3gr5r9H24Ws3CpGr280BXwbF8F4o1VG0IbP5Xx-lsCwBFY6yZzXL5FlXt2DcbMWsmifE36i1HZv6zVjjrnQvu0BLVbd4HG6I/s400/Screen+Shot+2019-04-02+at+8.40.13+AM.png" width="318" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: yellow;">Although climate change and air pollution are
closely connected, these two environmental
challenges are still viewed as separate issues</span>
and dealt with by different science communities and within different policy frameworks.
However, it is not possible to separate the
anthropogenic emissions into two distinct
categories – atmospheric pollutants and climate-active species – as many air pollutants,
such as tropospheric ozone or aerosol, have
direct or indirect impacts on climate. <span style="background-color: yellow;">Air pollution itself has detrimental effects on human
health and the environment </span>(see following figure). According to a report by WHO,1
over 90%
of the urban population of the world breathes
air containing levels of outdoor air pollutants
that exceed WHO guidelines. Air pollution
inside and outside the home is the second
leading cause of death from non-communicable
disease worldwide.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Air quality and climate change are not only
driven by common constituents, they are also
closely interlinked through diverse atmospheric processes. The second figure, below, depicts
the complexity of these interactions.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The effects, both direct and indirect, of air
quality on climate change are related to the
interactions of atmospheric pollutants with
solar radiation. The global average radiative
forcing of ozone is similar to that of CH4, and
about one quarter of that due to CO2. <span style="background-color: yellow;">Tropospheric ozone negatively affects ecosystems
and reduces their capacity to absorb CO2.
</span>Another indirect impact of ozone on radiative
forcing has the opposite effect: production of
the hydroxyl radical increases with increasing
ozone concentration, shortening the lifetime
of CH4
in the atmosphere. Particulate matter,
which has adverse effects on human health, has
both direct and indirect influences on radiative
forcing. Depending on its composition, it can
scatter or absorb incoming radiation directly,
but particles can also act as cloud condensation
nuclei and thereby affect radiative forcing and
weather patterns indirectly. Deposition of the
particles on snow and ice changes their albedo.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4SihrDlz9M8z1FAb5oIU49NohpHOyTpOXWxKcC0k4gXlV8LnPYqORCuGYcV2zXJh_eqp9AaYTjOdRYPWNk2ywB-KeTJo1fi5N2SgWqZrMh8fd0SFucWQod-Qj1lqlAWLuqejpFvYCfcpe/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+12.28.34+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1108" data-original-width="1600" height="441" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4SihrDlz9M8z1FAb5oIU49NohpHOyTpOXWxKcC0k4gXlV8LnPYqORCuGYcV2zXJh_eqp9AaYTjOdRYPWNk2ywB-KeTJo1fi5N2SgWqZrMh8fd0SFucWQod-Qj1lqlAWLuqejpFvYCfcpe/s640/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+12.28.34+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Climate change also affects air quality through
changes in meteorology (including temperature, precipitations, boundary-layer dynamics, humidity and cloud cover) and through the
impact it has on natural emissions. Increasing
temperatures lead to increasing emissions
of volatile organic compounds that are the
precursors of tropospheric ozone and aerosols. Higher temperatures are also favourable
for faster ozone formation. As the climate
changes, ozone in peak episodes is expected
to increase – the so-called “climate penalty”.
Climate change is also associated with changing
transport patterns and mixing and can lead to
more frequent extreme pollution events due
to stagnation. Changes in wildfire frequencies
could lead to increasing levels of pollution,
particularly aerosols. Changing precipitation
patterns affect the deposition of pollutants.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: yellow;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: yellow;">Despite a growing recognition of the strong links
between the two areas, policies addressing air
pollution and those focusing on climate change
remain weakly linked.</span> The major challenge is to
identify policies that provide “win–win” solutions, as not all climate policies are beneficial
for air pollution reductions and vice versa. <span style="background-color: yellow;">One
example is the use of biofuels that leads to a reduction of CO2
but contributes to increasing
levels of tropospheric ozone.</span> An integrated
approach is therefore needed to evaluate the
air quality and climate policies that take into
account the factors outlined above. Such integrated policies are likely to constitute the best
environmental policy strategies in terms of
both social and economic costs.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE4xUF93RmirGwmoasbKhyOsNZz5qny7VrCwVbp9TcVuO6GlAFzGsq240TgNiuhrqe46oMNvKNqXqOwOjjiel09RNf1MEDQLOXjosxxhKs9bu4q6Eag8zshDEXDAGo-F-qGlrgm3NIIxlg/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+12.25.51+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1049" data-original-width="1600" height="417" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE4xUF93RmirGwmoasbKhyOsNZz5qny7VrCwVbp9TcVuO6GlAFzGsq240TgNiuhrqe46oMNvKNqXqOwOjjiel09RNf1MEDQLOXjosxxhKs9bu4q6Eag8zshDEXDAGo-F-qGlrgm3NIIxlg/s640/Screen+Shot+2019-04-03+at+12.25.51+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Caption for above figure: An overview of the main
categories of air quality
and climate change
interactions, including a
depiction of an example
interaction or feedback
for each category.
Depicted emission
sources are examples
but do not encompass
all emission sources
relevant to the depicted
interaction. The most
relevant components
are listed in the brackets
following the category.
PM (particulate matter)
indicates all aerosol
sources, including OA
(organic aerosol), BC
(black carbon), and SO2;
O3 (ozone) includes
O3 and its precursor
compounds, NOx, nonmethane volatile organic
compounds (NMVOCs),
and CO.</div>
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Below, enlarged, is the section from the middle right, above, depicting "plant damage" which = "decreased CO2 uptake by plants" AND "crop losses". How much you want to bet that nobody pays any attention to the existential threat posed by ozone to all life forms which are dependent upon vegetation - including, of course, us??</div>
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-20896776615970828582019-03-02T09:25:00.000-05:002019-03-02T09:56:08.955-05:00Methane ManiaWhen it comes to abrupt climate change, the ominous prospect of massive, sudden, catastrophic methane release from melting permafrost and explosive pingos is dramatic and daunting; meanwhile, a more humble but current source of dangerous intensification is flying under the radar even as it constitutes a profoundly existential threat.<br />
<br />
On the first of March, the LA Times published <a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-methane-atmosphere-accelerating-20190301-story.html?fbclid=IwAR0vdwfCLA4YWhLLguAVRjHa4bGtXxBTERmKlvx8rJnf7wsb4l_RKQfS7so" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">a story</span></a> about the recent accelerating increase of methane in the atmosphere which began to rise, after a lull, in 2007. Fossil fuel burning and gas leakage results in "heavy" methane, and the research sought to but could not determine whether the rising percentage of "light methane" is accounted for by agricultural practices or natural processes. The scientists were also unable to conclude whether it could be attributed to a loss of atmospheric reactions that break down methane, although they do not believe it is from permafrost melt.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“It’s just such a confusing picture,” Rigby said. “Everyone’s puzzled. We’re just puzzled.”</i></span></div>
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This flurry of concern is due to the alarming fact that if this rise in methane is not properly identified so that it can be halted and reversed, there is no way to stay within even the dubious safe limits for temperature increase outlined in the Paris accords - no matter what is achieved by way of CO2 reductions - due to the much intensified impact methane provides as a greenhouse gas.<br />
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This research hardly began with <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018GB006009?fbclid=IwAR2qLRUHyaMxESAkmp8Og8_YIn9suGlIP6nsBpFcD5Ox9I_z2FAXQF8DoUg" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">that study</span></a> in Global Biogeochemical Cycles; Fred Pearce summarized several similar avenues of pursuit in a 2016 e360Yale <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/methane_riddle_what_is_causing_the_rise_in_emissions" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">article</span></a> which likewise conclude that the increase is due to microbial emissions as opposed to fossil fuel, biomass burning, or (so far) permafrost release.<br />
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Since I have been concerned for over ten years that trees of all species are dying prematurely, everywhere around the earth, from absorbing pollution - a global trend that is utterly ignored by climate scientists, foresters, and atmospheric physicists alike - it occurred to me that there might be a connection between the inability of scientists to account for increased methane and their universal ignorance of widespread forest decline due to ozone.<br />
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I remembered a 2012 study in the Yale Forest that found "outwardly" healthy but diseased trees were emitting methane in "flammable concentrations" - which they <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/10/hysteresis-and-vile-conspiracy-to-blame.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">refused to acknowledge</span></a> meant something was terribly awry even though this is a quote from the Yale newsletter <a href="https://news.yale.edu/2012/08/08/diseased-trees-are-source-climate-changing-gas" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">article</span></a> :<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; letter-spacing: -0.17px; word-spacing: 0.85px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Diseased trees in forests may be a significant source of methane that causes climate change, according to a study by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) published in Geophysical Research Letters.</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>“If we extrapolate these findings to forests globally, the methane produced in trees represents 10 percent of global emissions,” said Xuhui Lee, a co-author of the study and the Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor of Meteorology at Yale. “We didn’t know this pathway existed.”</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The trees producing methane are older — between 80 and 100 years old — and diseased. Although outwardly healthy, they are being hollowed out by a common fungal infection that slowly eats through the trunk, creating conditions favorable to methane-producing microorganisms called methanogens.</span></i></div>
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...and so I decided to see if anyone else had found similar results.<br />
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Google is such a good friend because it turns out that yes, yes indeed, other researchers have detected methane being emitted by trees, but their results are generally shrouded in obscurity. This is what happens to ecological studies, in contrast to climate change research, due to deep-seated biases and consequent lack of funding.<br />
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A March 2017 <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170330190304.htm?fbclid=IwAR2a02tWCFX5krFuBxB3F5gD98N-TlvPWSMFE3b6McEjzMnVXB5Vb5SE_qc" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">article</span></a> in Science Daily describes research of a plot in Maryland and proclaims:<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><i>A new study from the University of Delaware is one of the first in the world to show that tree trunks in upland forests actually emit methane rather than store it, representing a new, previously unaccounted source of this powerful greenhouse gas.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The other mechanism that could be causing methane fluxes from trunks is internal rotting or infection inside the tree, which produces an environment where methanogenic bacteria can survive and then methane diffuses out of the tree.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>At this moment, the mechanisms of methane production in upland forests are not clear. Methane can be either transported from the soils upward inside the stem and diffused to the atmosphere or produced inside the stem by fungi or archaea -- single-celled microorganisms...</i></span></div>
The research quoted above was published in the journal <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10021-016-0106-8" target="_blank"><i><span style="color: purple;">Ecosystems</span></i></a> and has an extensive list of references. Knowledge of this goes back to at least 1974 when the magazine <i>Science</i> <span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/184/4142/1181" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">published</span></a> </span>"<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Methane Formation in Living Trees: A Microbial Origin" which stated:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: #333333;">Visibly healthy hardwood trees located on poorly drained soils contained high pressures of methane. Heartwood from these trees was water-soaked, neutral to alkaline in </span><span style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #333333;">p</span><span style="color: #333333;">H, fetid in odor, and infested with a diverse population of obligately anaerobic bacteria. the bacterium responsible for methane formation in tree. was isolated and characterized as a member of the genus Methanobacterium.</span></i></span><br />
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In January, 2018, <a href="https://massivesci.com/articles/methane-trees-greenhouse-gas-wetlands/" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">an article</span></a> was published titled "Scientists were long baffled by a methane surplus in our atmosphere. The culprit? Trees" about two studies of wetlands, one in the Brazilian Amazon and one in North Carolina, in which both find trees are significant sources of methane unaccounted for in climate budgets. That wetlands produce methane is well known due to anaerobic conditions; other forests that are silently but inexorably dying are potentially a much vaster source.<br />
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In 2009, in <i>Global Change Biology</i>, the abstract for <a href="http://aspenface.mtu.edu/pdfs/Wittig%20et%20al%20GCB%202009.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: purple;">a study</span></a> about ozone's impacts on trees said:<br />
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<i>The northern hemisphere temperate and boreal forests currently provide an important
carbon sink; however, current tropospheric ozone concentrations ([O3]) and [O3] projected for later this century are damaging to trees and have the potential to reduce the
carbon sink strength of these forests...This implies that <b>a key carbon sink currently
offsetting a significant portion of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions could be diminished
or lost in the future</b>.</i><br />
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Between the loss of a critical CO2 sink, and the unmeasured increase of forest methane emissions, the ongoing massacre of trees will ensure the 6th mass extinction proceeds much faster than even the most dire expectations. Methane-fueled wildfires will rage...and the scientists will continue to be puzzled.<br />
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<br />Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-10441718208594923902018-12-01T14:55:00.005-05:002018-12-01T14:56:35.168-05:00The Lighthouse<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigNrjahj5u4TTG4RWgU9UV2Pzk42usbgI9RObZLvnN8428T9R4dDCXQ6tN1sGzNZrylGhhAMVzRQ7t5QX8gZS70pEuw4fr40SNgTp1XcPOniFtrKP6S6HMxn2AA1R8GQ5iYO7BC2v9aWwC/s1600/IMG_5664.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigNrjahj5u4TTG4RWgU9UV2Pzk42usbgI9RObZLvnN8428T9R4dDCXQ6tN1sGzNZrylGhhAMVzRQ7t5QX8gZS70pEuw4fr40SNgTp1XcPOniFtrKP6S6HMxn2AA1R8GQ5iYO7BC2v9aWwC/s640/IMG_5664.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse<br />on a light, lovely November 30, delightfully sans tourists</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">1850</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> And on its outer point, some miles away,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The Lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Even at this distance I can see the tides,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Upheaving, break unheard along its base,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> In the white lip and tremor of the face. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Through the deep purple of the twilight air,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> With strange, unearthly splendor in the glare! </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Not one alone; from each projecting cape</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> And perilous reef along the ocean's verge,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Holding its lantern o'er the restless surge. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Like the great giant Christopher it stands</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Wading far out among the rocks and sands,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> The night-o'ertaken mariner to save. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">And the great ships sail outward and return,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Bending and bowing o'er the billowy swells,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">And ever joyful, as they see it burn,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> They wave their silent welcomes and farewells. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">They come forth from the darkness, and their sails</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">And eager faces, as the light unveils,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The mariner remembers when a child,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> On his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">And when, returning from adventures wild,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> He saw it rise again o'er ocean's brink. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Year after year, through all the silent night</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Shines on that inextinguishable light! </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The startled waves leap over it; the storm</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">And steadily against its solid form</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Press the great shoulders of the hurricane. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Of wings and winds and solitary cries,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Blinded and maddened by the light within,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Dashes himself against the glare, and dies. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Still grasping in his hand the fire of Jove,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">It does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> But hails the mariner with words of love. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">"Sail on!" it says, "sail on, ye stately ships!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> And with your floating bridge the ocean span;</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> Be yours to bring man nearer unto man!"</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">Even though I </span><a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-blame-prometheus.html"><span style="color: purple;">routinely blame</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> Prometheus for the impending spectacular downfall of humanity, it's worth remembering that the discovery of fire is at the genesis of our consciousness - with all the myriad blessings of intellectual and artistic creativity, even as it is inextricably entwined with the curse of knowing mired in the trap of evolved behavior.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is most likely that Longfellow wrote that poem inspired by his many treks to the Portland Lighthouse, which I finally visited, a year and a half after moving to Maine. After spending the holiday with my family on New Jersey, I stayed in Portland on the way back to Stockton Springs. Following are photos of paintings I saw at the museum - art is wonderful because it's possible to interpret it, like dreams, in whatever lens the viewer chooses. What I saw led me to musings on some of my favorite topics: glorious abundance, motherhood, depravity, death, and extinction. Also of course along the way I had some yummy food.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;">Asian slaw at BaoBao - delicious!!</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This plate is from Duckfat - it was so good that MuMu didn't get even ONE TINY MORSEL (but I did share some confit from the poutine).</span></span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmOgfJLymmDJCNuKxyzx9cjrgr2bHdUOfMfyttA6UnL7FHIYx5UpzKA2Xt6K4HgTPvJXolSJXwdsv_WRFnfc0SPpKutDabZ3JIa8IogC43zw3y3pBVpFVD7JEOf00c2aLrHUKXQxhlo-Ie/s1600/IMG_5667.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmOgfJLymmDJCNuKxyzx9cjrgr2bHdUOfMfyttA6UnL7FHIYx5UpzKA2Xt6K4HgTPvJXolSJXwdsv_WRFnfc0SPpKutDabZ3JIa8IogC43zw3y3pBVpFVD7JEOf00c2aLrHUKXQxhlo-Ie/s400/IMG_5667.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Rabbit Rillettes - apple curried mustard seed, apple butter & rye crisps</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">MuMu N Nogu</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The museum has exhibits from around the world but naturally with an emphasis on New England scenes, and most especially Maine artists and inspirations. This one evokes the intensely glorious colors of autumn that have already ceased to exist, and never will return.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhadZ91ytTDGCEg3COTk-zKilR-1BrMFc7dpsG6OdYuSPH6zfT96rsTGBbsihe-_biuPa32XidVVW1n3jkQNLDNdRaaugXnicG3LlpnVL5SYNYahMeXF5n8CDZbVRiDPqpdlf2VQ2Ri97YO/s1600/pending+storm+birches.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="729" data-original-width="1024" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhadZ91ytTDGCEg3COTk-zKilR-1BrMFc7dpsG6OdYuSPH6zfT96rsTGBbsihe-_biuPa32XidVVW1n3jkQNLDNdRaaugXnicG3LlpnVL5SYNYahMeXF5n8CDZbVRiDPqpdlf2VQ2Ri97YO/s400/pending+storm+birches.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Albert Bierstadt<br />United States, 1830-1902<br /><i>Autumn Birches (Approaching Storm)</i>, 1860<br />Oil on board</span></td></tr>
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With all the concern about the 6th mass extinction, scientists would like to but <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/07/a-road-trip-to-the-end-of-the-world/532914/?"><span style="color: purple;">don't understand</span></a> why the end-Permian was so much worse than any other. That's because they don't account for the death of trees and other vegetation, unique to the "Great Dying". They realize there must have been acid rain from the volcanic activity, but ignore toxic ozone in the air - just as they do now. With plants dying, CO2 is no longer absorbed. Seems kind of obvious that climate change would rapidly accelerate as a result, destroying the delicate web of life in bottom up trophic cascades.<br />
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One of many Wyeths in the collection depicts a thriving tree of the sort that can no longer be found.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYWrwHLvNGHYEcPgjhVIZ6EwzaSLZCDF0juH8ZAG4tW7z2avt66eWDivOFQq6xwU1Yi7ic1B8_Y5iOiwRoxg4mURSjss_T4g9W91xA-8zNfhI1FV4Zd39ZiXbI3mVBH5Zsp-5v8fcwvEqh/s1600/IMG_5582.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1437" data-original-width="1600" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYWrwHLvNGHYEcPgjhVIZ6EwzaSLZCDF0juH8ZAG4tW7z2avt66eWDivOFQq6xwU1Yi7ic1B8_Y5iOiwRoxg4mURSjss_T4g9W91xA-8zNfhI1FV4Zd39ZiXbI3mVBH5Zsp-5v8fcwvEqh/s400/IMG_5582.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">N.C. Wyeth<br />United States, 1882 - 1945<br /><i>Georges Islands, Penobscot Bay, Maine</i><br />1928-29<br />Oil on Canvas</span></span></td></tr>
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Likewise, a recent interest in the loss of insects elicits many theories but <span style="color: purple;"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html?"><span style="color: purple;">researchers are still puzzled</span></a> </span>as to the cause. If it's pesticides, why are areas in the tropics far from any agricultural spraying experiencing the same extirpation? None of the scientists considers that the ecosystem is collapsing because plants are dying from ozone, the background level of which IS distributed fairly evenly in the atmosphere.</div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaf-zsOt5uMhHi_0X4XS67xeqZhTyxR_O4su-iZMe2IJdFXQfFmNdmS0ARTrOLJSu33vhzLmS0PDNBiPP8rdEqB9c6FqKoOS_8JFyW2SDSmJasozxrZXazIJuj_xpnVAydXFjRi5AUAXqL/s1600/IMG_5591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1297" data-original-width="1600" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaf-zsOt5uMhHi_0X4XS67xeqZhTyxR_O4su-iZMe2IJdFXQfFmNdmS0ARTrOLJSu33vhzLmS0PDNBiPP8rdEqB9c6FqKoOS_8JFyW2SDSmJasozxrZXazIJuj_xpnVAydXFjRi5AUAXqL/s400/IMG_5591.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Frederick Childe Hassam<br />United States, 1859-1935<br /><i>Isles of Shoals,</i> 1915<br />oil on canvas</span></span></td></tr>
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A recent <a href="http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/stellers-sea-cow-first-historical-extinction-of-marine-mammal-at-human-hands.html?"><span style="color: purple;">examination</span></a> of the extinction of Steller's Sea Cow, which occurred in a matter of decades during the fur trade, ignores the evidence that the <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steller's_sea_cow?"><span style="color: purple;">species was endangered</span></a> from indigenous hunting before the trade began, in a pattern that reflects evolved tendencies stretching back through prehistory.<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggq4wwmsmlnZQB3koUaCBrTws1MfBdX35D7l-U_bislsP_RSHZuS_IztVewV_kpP0pvfvO3FSO6ItynufA03SpiGYdaVOVpWaQPCgmW91okiYlo057GrhrU9xebfkEv5I60I8LBUGLyK_z/s1600/IMG_5621.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1464" data-original-width="1600" height="365" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggq4wwmsmlnZQB3koUaCBrTws1MfBdX35D7l-U_bislsP_RSHZuS_IztVewV_kpP0pvfvO3FSO6ItynufA03SpiGYdaVOVpWaQPCgmW91okiYlo057GrhrU9xebfkEv5I60I8LBUGLyK_z/s400/IMG_5621.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">N.C. Wyeth<br />United States, 1882-1945<br /><i>Dark Harbor Fishermen</i>, 1943<br />Tempera on panel</span></span></td></tr>
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Very soon, wild animals will be known only as figurines, in illustrations or movies. If you haven't seen <a href="https://youtu.be/9UP_-Bvf5fU"><span style="color: purple;">the lecture</span></a>, "Are human like a virus", you probably should - it's so refreshing to hear from a scientist who doesn't lie about our prospects for survival.</div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwY5RIoG_z_whMyRXx6SbMq2VeoNmduimHlsYEZTtzC5qjDHBfZz4jVUnyZv4vo-iDFJ_AYgDHWJvjYELmCrKnUBp7Acyte2znxIObTrkdeiiOZwfZvvKs4sZ5WoiqWrJZ6IY_NaCo1G2L/s1600/IMG_5615.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1375" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwY5RIoG_z_whMyRXx6SbMq2VeoNmduimHlsYEZTtzC5qjDHBfZz4jVUnyZv4vo-iDFJ_AYgDHWJvjYELmCrKnUBp7Acyte2znxIObTrkdeiiOZwfZvvKs4sZ5WoiqWrJZ6IY_NaCo1G2L/s320/IMG_5615.jpg" width="275" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Leopard, antique European porcelain</span></span></td></tr>
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As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQOfbObFOCw"><span style="color: purple;">Albert advises</span></a>, it's left to each of us to forge meaning, however absurd and false and pointless, from the purposeless void of existence. This is particularly difficult in the shadow not just of death, but of extinction...something which I doubt he had reason to seriously contemplate.</div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UUKHD5rdBHbFk1x6M2c43jm5kfrS4ADxViUFV2qCE-sevhq5UW72sMrWI3MthHiCfILIdIWTYcqtv0X2NBBTc6mSiyQ3-U_6YNFyS21fJngcInp_jDO11G7cFvmXgpTxgE-1JOX3MNmz/s1600/IMG_5625.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1268" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2UUKHD5rdBHbFk1x6M2c43jm5kfrS4ADxViUFV2qCE-sevhq5UW72sMrWI3MthHiCfILIdIWTYcqtv0X2NBBTc6mSiyQ3-U_6YNFyS21fJngcInp_jDO11G7cFvmXgpTxgE-1JOX3MNmz/s320/IMG_5625.jpg" width="253" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Henri Manguin<br />France, 1874-1949<br /><i>Decorative Fruit</i>, 1919<br />Oil on canvas</span></span></td></tr>
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Why write, or blog, or paint? How to take joy in being a grandmother?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg2IhShNa7yYTbj3sJxDW4I51Z-xt1lIUGxY7bQUafMojsRH5LRphRbkOqjQOxUGoDoKOnaW04cIrurTj5Uah6Zcbfa1C5lXvcpBqxMw145Rogmj_m0SutyqqoIMxeQ43D-gPhEoglYm3Z/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-12-01+at+9.28.49+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="978" data-original-width="1600" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg2IhShNa7yYTbj3sJxDW4I51Z-xt1lIUGxY7bQUafMojsRH5LRphRbkOqjQOxUGoDoKOnaW04cIrurTj5Uah6Zcbfa1C5lXvcpBqxMw145Rogmj_m0SutyqqoIMxeQ43D-gPhEoglYm3Z/s320/Screen+Shot+2018-12-01+at+9.28.49+AM.png" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's a good idea to keep historical perspective ever in mind, whether the long history of bad behavior humans exhibit, or the many obstacles we have overcome, or ignored. Until very recently, parents had every reason to expect their baby would not make it past infancy, but they had them anyway - risking a short existence for them, and the heartbreak of loss.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdfpsxGzXNfwv0amwLfjOyNgEsp3cGHNMqrvcrksB-BhIWbgf0DKy0glG-UI858-rjWgfbck1L7y3A9QhVUU4uu9ycgIy-xc8l7Lw0vM4ZLl9u8sfiK3E7GnY1fKgZvU86kjhBEjb66_VH/s1600/IMG_5593.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1216" data-original-width="1600" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdfpsxGzXNfwv0amwLfjOyNgEsp3cGHNMqrvcrksB-BhIWbgf0DKy0glG-UI858-rjWgfbck1L7y3A9QhVUU4uu9ycgIy-xc8l7Lw0vM4ZLl9u8sfiK3E7GnY1fKgZvU86kjhBEjb66_VH/s400/IMG_5593.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Edward Henry Potthast<br />United States, 1857-1927<br /><i>Children Wading</i>, 1920<br />Oil on canvas</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Children are adorable but also demanding and purely selfish, and motherhood is fraught with pangs of separation.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowVUuUrHKDbUYm1jxGh61q686HsbMxhNP5lcBwRfeyJpGiwjcQhryv5wBDedoFwLx8dOUIhWNC01Pi6gQ7PiPVA8oohrmyuxT2WJszt0zzqYfgqMuGTPOgoBbHObf-rjGOTlx4ga_xBCo/s1600/IMG_5597.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1288" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiowVUuUrHKDbUYm1jxGh61q686HsbMxhNP5lcBwRfeyJpGiwjcQhryv5wBDedoFwLx8dOUIhWNC01Pi6gQ7PiPVA8oohrmyuxT2WJszt0zzqYfgqMuGTPOgoBbHObf-rjGOTlx4ga_xBCo/s400/IMG_5597.jpg" width="321" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Mary Cassatt</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">United States, 1844-1926</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Hél</span></i><span style="font-size: small;">è<i>ne</i></span><i style="font-size: medium;"> is Restless</i></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">, 1890</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i>Oil on canvas</span></td></tr>
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> What is Picasso saying with this decapitated rooster and bloody knife, just after WWII?</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9a0GBp1xh-oIvNneSfKoB14jzO6AxOxb-GFp1ps1FBxNgc62sX7cJKzw1RzCRXY7BH_lac7644VNVFmqX9X4yurA0yA-RDyindV5LRcpMp1K0eIHn1xXXBUJARbcnrZXw6HIj3pVks5bu/s1600/IMG_5602.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1323" data-original-width="1600" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9a0GBp1xh-oIvNneSfKoB14jzO6AxOxb-GFp1ps1FBxNgc62sX7cJKzw1RzCRXY7BH_lac7644VNVFmqX9X4yurA0yA-RDyindV5LRcpMp1K0eIHn1xXXBUJARbcnrZXw6HIj3pVks5bu/s320/IMG_5602.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Pablo Picasso<br />Spain, 1881-1973<br /><i>Cock and Knife</i>, 1947<br />Oil on canvas<br />[sold by the artist to a NY gallery in exchange for a 1948 Oldsmobile convertible]</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This Maine "vacation" could be shorthand of my entire life.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI7gHy91Tn5Zxo4kYhkjTq-dSn9myqTrLQvQMCaUPlz8CJthxkDds2DW3j7GSyRygSFhmGMAWw_jSfgcUmI1qxRXeXyXW_ri38HEmeZkY4WipLIrOqFRTifCaNB6zH5OB5YElqIRQL_ffG/s1600/IMG_5605.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1318" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI7gHy91Tn5Zxo4kYhkjTq-dSn9myqTrLQvQMCaUPlz8CJthxkDds2DW3j7GSyRygSFhmGMAWw_jSfgcUmI1qxRXeXyXW_ri38HEmeZkY4WipLIrOqFRTifCaNB6zH5OB5YElqIRQL_ffG/s400/IMG_5605.jpg" width="328" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Matt Blackwell<br />United States, born 1954<br /><i>Vacation</i>, 2002<br />Oil on canvas</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In a very large work, the same artist places a bewildered moose in the center.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOYgw2kPTmnV8lWVXKRlFro58z1Nm7InINjfw13kYYg9MzDFqiYRaSNZfiZ360_CPRz9_ySe-ZvWPCtRIhyphenhyphenb0vsE0c4sO-R_t2aLhAsuLLRlUl_aSsWRO34LnkX5nlKnWbBq5u8J4ldgOT/s1600/IMG_5609.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1407" data-original-width="1600" height="562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOYgw2kPTmnV8lWVXKRlFro58z1Nm7InINjfw13kYYg9MzDFqiYRaSNZfiZ360_CPRz9_ySe-ZvWPCtRIhyphenhyphenb0vsE0c4sO-R_t2aLhAsuLLRlUl_aSsWRO34LnkX5nlKnWbBq5u8J4ldgOT/s640/IMG_5609.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">Matt Blackwell<br />United States, born 1954<br /><i>Moose, 2015</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The human pandemonium rages beneath him.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkGBdItQhNiI2Ipv-yUBX33RWKs_QJ660VWH6nvaZEQVuMZUUtEraBGoUe1P8lz5VoZ_0QQm_YAnyMcfYirCMGAiDaoAaq27miPi1r0hN_bntTEhyphenhyphenhWfflbQvHsFnlfTYr0sz-zaW70uM/s1600/IMG_5611.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1600" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkGBdItQhNiI2Ipv-yUBX33RWKs_QJ660VWH6nvaZEQVuMZUUtEraBGoUe1P8lz5VoZ_0QQm_YAnyMcfYirCMGAiDaoAaq27miPi1r0hN_bntTEhyphenhyphenhWfflbQvHsFnlfTYr0sz-zaW70uM/s400/IMG_5611.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Moose</i>, detail</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> It looks like a modern Pieter Bruegel </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">to me.</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidEm7D4xCER87S-cx31J6Y-1Yhzqz5NtcW0XXLRAYZexaF_mTek-la-5NPKPSylKe01l9y6h8xbZxZwDsHtBXFZmSsI74ilVaDf7t-KL74iIrpV7GOYrCBwwJmwHQD83VMa432Hr0ioczN/s1600/IMG_5613.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidEm7D4xCER87S-cx31J6Y-1Yhzqz5NtcW0XXLRAYZexaF_mTek-la-5NPKPSylKe01l9y6h8xbZxZwDsHtBXFZmSsI74ilVaDf7t-KL74iIrpV7GOYrCBwwJmwHQD83VMa432Hr0ioczN/s400/IMG_5613.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><i>Moose</i>, detail</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I suppose it might be much nicer to go through life believing in human progress, and innate goodness, and a future. But either I prefer the truth, or I just tell myself that to feel better.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr-YjVX7KIyuB_o3xRmeksV66w1O-a62VbVh4SL1kNF84yvwHveRtJCkL7IkQ7NsPegBy4HLX01rBzf3Z4Db7IsLwIuZ0F01BsNqtWUeD62DpeIx46aweZSWP0gRn3qdH03w1VsdMIiEyP/s1600/IMG_5589.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1018" data-original-width="1600" height="404" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr-YjVX7KIyuB_o3xRmeksV66w1O-a62VbVh4SL1kNF84yvwHveRtJCkL7IkQ7NsPegBy4HLX01rBzf3Z4Db7IsLwIuZ0F01BsNqtWUeD62DpeIx46aweZSWP0gRn3qdH03w1VsdMIiEyP/s640/IMG_5589.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Frederic Edwin Church<br />United States, 1826-1900<br /><i>Mount Katahdin from Millinocket Camp</i>,<br />1895<br />Oil on canvas</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: center;">The accompanying plaque says: "The solitary paddler gliding toward a grove of trees suggests Church's contemplation of his own mortality. As he wrote to his wife: 'Your old guide is paddling his canoe in the shadow, but he knows that the glories of the heavens and the earth are seen more appreciatively when the observer rests in the shade.'"</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3wlJPslQJyitlsBEAPSEFb3uYn0g-75MZD8L1gCPmygijIQs629URPr46WyoWrf07B4JFls0Ve6IOAxCvVeUGmMpDpyQecwGoCrsoF3tqRnVK4nFEtIE7PWs2lNqqNO7ZFSI6HHYw7hCr/s1600/IMG_5636.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3wlJPslQJyitlsBEAPSEFb3uYn0g-75MZD8L1gCPmygijIQs629URPr46WyoWrf07B4JFls0Ve6IOAxCvVeUGmMpDpyQecwGoCrsoF3tqRnVK4nFEtIE7PWs2lNqqNO7ZFSI6HHYw7hCr/s320/IMG_5636.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Negroni Bianco at Fore </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Bottoms up!</span><br />
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-24627900610492932852017-11-04T16:30:00.001-04:002017-11-04T16:30:47.829-04:00Regent of the Hotel<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 6px;">
A member of The Panic Room, who wishes to remain anonymous (I mean, who would want to be publicly associated with this?) -<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVUL2d-xGWo2T4JjLW53iU8t78QeGFmSWspmspX4wFqQXaWwUxjiKHUb37xBGN37zw3BD-gladP-iOVW2gOzVkquB0mjz8m9WUKBv7UWNFEAPPu1OXpj2D2N0YPEnILKFVEMzfgohcdFI/s1600/hotel12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="564" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTVUL2d-xGWo2T4JjLW53iU8t78QeGFmSWspmspX4wFqQXaWwUxjiKHUb37xBGN37zw3BD-gladP-iOVW2gOzVkquB0mjz8m9WUKBv7UWNFEAPPu1OXpj2D2N0YPEnILKFVEMzfgohcdFI/s320/hotel12.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
<br />
Okay! That's not even really me, it's me in my dwindling mind - skinny still, with lots of hair remaining (and cats instead of Camus, whatevs) living out my remaining days of shabby desperation in the silvery damask-walled room of an abandoned hotel. Everyone knows I love decaying buildings - so how appropriate to have a friend replace the lyrics to this classic song. Many of the references are insider jokes but hopefully anyone can get the drift...thanks, Anon, for a truly glorious spoof!!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDDbRC6kitxUnbU9KEbxaDykEzS6evzLY0iXwiOecEXDvDEkHZv5gSYr2aHE5pBI4eA-YRdg_fe-GRorAZfVWlzvEI8Hwgz3qarT8NWdhlEvJmCJmrIOdkSkU1FDv5LypdpMgVi0wQLOE1/s1600/hotel21.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="736" data-original-width="1058" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDDbRC6kitxUnbU9KEbxaDykEzS6evzLY0iXwiOecEXDvDEkHZv5gSYr2aHE5pBI4eA-YRdg_fe-GRorAZfVWlzvEI8Hwgz3qarT8NWdhlEvJmCJmrIOdkSkU1FDv5LypdpMgVi0wQLOE1/s320/hotel21.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Hotel Ozonista</div>
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~</div>
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On the internet highway, Doom wind in my hair<br />
warm smell of the Trumptards, wafting up through the air<br />
Up ahead in the distance, I see a Room for the night,<br />
It says 'Panic' but I'm not too fussed - I have to stop for a shite<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMnuSa0T0qVD8zdnJ02lfjM6HKt6PoeT4GfWziasxA_ygxKSm6id4uPpCBeKd-Mwyu3EU7YgPnVjcvMuPIVQNnXeud1iLUmH6pGzcy3WI__DxS84p4fe4LTtrHs4hO2SLZ_AkOMunpklak/s1600/hotel7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="469" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMnuSa0T0qVD8zdnJ02lfjM6HKt6PoeT4GfWziasxA_ygxKSm6id4uPpCBeKd-Mwyu3EU7YgPnVjcvMuPIVQNnXeud1iLUmH6pGzcy3WI__DxS84p4fe4LTtrHs4hO2SLZ_AkOMunpklak/s320/hotel7.jpg" width="234" /></a></div>
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There she stood in the doorway, I heard the mission bell<br />
Then I was thinking to myself this could be Heaven or this could be Hell<br />
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way<br />
There were voices down the corridor I thought I heard them say<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd6kiL8bHuYg43u9bZ21XMfCriSgqXRpJCawfI7Asba3sxQI_Ff-zH_nNdAPsQEgi1x7IjSv5EANhI_OFnoUjBJryfmlNcOhvGzDBxk28UEBsm2VzYSbHN4q1H3VufDcN-jdo51twELAsy/s1600/hotel2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="284" data-original-width="640" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd6kiL8bHuYg43u9bZ21XMfCriSgqXRpJCawfI7Asba3sxQI_Ff-zH_nNdAPsQEgi1x7IjSv5EANhI_OFnoUjBJryfmlNcOhvGzDBxk28UEBsm2VzYSbHN4q1H3VufDcN-jdo51twELAsy/s400/hotel2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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'Welcome to the Hotel Ozonista<br />
Such a lovely place<br />
Just not a 'safe space'<br />
Plenty of Doom at the Hotel Ozonista<br />
I'll just grab a beer,<br />
Where's the toilet here?'<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEW2mPzS_eNsSmYCDppsVBlIt0uonPuCzv7RkMtHT5YD8udfiFNIJCMe5tTmvrjDAZh725JOTraowcGfRxD4AiZ809BTR8dR4zmFU-k-g7OSfht8wwruHR8QJxUIRICsBB4fGd8yO14hgz/s1600/hotel4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="481" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEW2mPzS_eNsSmYCDppsVBlIt0uonPuCzv7RkMtHT5YD8udfiFNIJCMe5tTmvrjDAZh725JOTraowcGfRxD4AiZ809BTR8dR4zmFU-k-g7OSfht8wwruHR8QJxUIRICsBB4fGd8yO14hgz/s320/hotel4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Her mind is Tiffany twisted, she at her total wits end,<br />
But lots of pretty helpful doomour pals - to keep her Zen<br />
How they dance in the comments, sweet keyboard sweat<br />
Some type to remember, some type to forget<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnwwVptnGu1Knf0rIXn-RsADAjPcg0NscAhP7BXrZWje-c0aeL2NTVeyUXvsEYhRjk4onF7Co-gemidKnKShAXqJsO3JGc8dK_TWsF7e72YC-rKh7vGkZxNmv33UF_7payK6WGo1dKwUl4/s1600/hotel8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="427" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnwwVptnGu1Knf0rIXn-RsADAjPcg0NscAhP7BXrZWje-c0aeL2NTVeyUXvsEYhRjk4onF7Co-gemidKnKShAXqJsO3JGc8dK_TWsF7e72YC-rKh7vGkZxNmv33UF_7payK6WGo1dKwUl4/s320/hotel8.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: -0.12px;">So I call up the Captain, please bring me my whine, he said</span></div>
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We've haven't had McPherson here since January the 9th<br />
And still that butthurt is calling from far away<br />
Wakes you up in the middle of the night<br />
With a libel ca-a-se.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQ37IbEAl6EXCvp8VBc71gp6ot9YXXfI3Cr8V6VA4U6xlPBX9XRbUhiRJELtS1EJt7DbfnBcJOI2JJNh6F-bDRNCGy9l8ON-cJKknvMlH9_0pNvaQ3JLnnBAwjquCFwjgXPHFhJek4B4H/s1600/hotel9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="376" data-original-width="564" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioQ37IbEAl6EXCvp8VBc71gp6ot9YXXfI3Cr8V6VA4U6xlPBX9XRbUhiRJELtS1EJt7DbfnBcJOI2JJNh6F-bDRNCGy9l8ON-cJKknvMlH9_0pNvaQ3JLnnBAwjquCFwjgXPHFhJek4B4H/s320/hotel9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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'Welcome to the Hotel Ozonista<br />
Such a lovely place<br />
Such a snarky space<br />
We're pimpin' it up at the Hotel Ozonista<br />
Any time of year<br />
You can find us here.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzxHYNs2ZTco5yOEZ_79wn_i2MazIonQQIlRfA5htQYa7quzd6LKrHNb8KZaecCugH3gUWUZSgAAuywBGWQs6Sx_fcwP-ZNKirIqEAhpxBZK9OMHTM1G_tKxD7Qz-VVBo_tEnMDTKIG_p4/s1600/hotel10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="564" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzxHYNs2ZTco5yOEZ_79wn_i2MazIonQQIlRfA5htQYa7quzd6LKrHNb8KZaecCugH3gUWUZSgAAuywBGWQs6Sx_fcwP-ZNKirIqEAhpxBZK9OMHTM1G_tKxD7Qz-VVBo_tEnMDTKIG_p4/s320/hotel10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Szmereda hurts your feelings, while Rex is cool as ice<br />
But we are all just prisoners here, of our own device<br />
And in the Queens new chambers, they gather for the feast<br />
they stab Guy with their steely knives,<br />
but they just can't kill the beast</div>
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Next one up is Hester, he is running for the door<br />
'we have to get extinction back, to the way it was before!'<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAsEK4MUAMxlQDAKsAQuBeY5XkWBWSe4glRswqyQQMgEIjPjUfZc1cP3iw2gtqEGXVCOi5EpfGvlLkskO2Z6ACPZt4KhL0IA_-T25R_6yNuyRflpwPHZiEL-ysCSHJyZyqxHlrAGqzIopr/s1600/hotel6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: medium; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="366" data-original-width="564" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAsEK4MUAMxlQDAKsAQuBeY5XkWBWSe4glRswqyQQMgEIjPjUfZc1cP3iw2gtqEGXVCOi5EpfGvlLkskO2Z6ACPZt4KhL0IA_-T25R_6yNuyRflpwPHZiEL-ysCSHJyZyqxHlrAGqzIopr/s320/hotel6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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'Goodnight' says Zawacki, 'We are all out of reprieve;<br />
You can check out any time you like,<br />
and this time - fuckin' leave!'</div>
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(solo).<span class="_5mfr _47e3" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle;"><img alt="" class="img" height="16" role="presentation" src="https://www.facebook.com/images/emoji.php/v9/ff0/2/16/1f603.png" style="border: 0px; vertical-align: -3px;" width="16" /></span></div>
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<span class="_5mfr _47e3" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle;"><span class="_7oe" style="display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0px; width: 0px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="_5mfr _47e3" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 0; margin: 0px 1px; vertical-align: middle;"><span class="_7oe" style="display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0px; width: 0px;">😃</span></span></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hQ-6Ztpe7Tw" width="560"></iframe>Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-766119334039828402017-05-16T18:50:00.001-04:002017-05-16T18:50:53.172-04:00Schadenfreude<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o6CsL3cPxkk?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-1347256708989855572017-03-06T12:21:00.001-05:002017-03-06T12:21:59.009-05:00All Begins to Wither<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Twenty years have flowed away down the long river</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="font-size: 18px;">And never in my life will return for me from the sea</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="font-size: 18px;">Ah years in which looking far away I saw ages long past</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="font-size: 18px;">When still trees bloomed free in a wide country</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="font-size: 18px;">And thus now all begins to wither</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="font-size: 18px;">With the breath of cold-hearted wizards</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="font-size: 18px;">To know things they break them</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="font-size: 18px;">And their stern lordship they establish</span><br style="box-sizing: inherit;" /><span style="font-size: 18px;">Through fear of death</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"> ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, <span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noble-smith/jrr-tolkien-reveals-the-t_b_5373529.html">Rotterdam 1958</a> </span><span style="color: purple;"></span></span></span></div>
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It was too blustery yesterday to stay on the beach, so I took Camus for a walk in a birdless bird sanctuary instead. Well, nearly. I saw three, and heard one. Add to that one butterfly, one terrified armadillo and one insouciant deer, and that is the entire sum of wildlife we found.</div>
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The twisted live oaks and bristly palms have their odd Florida charm, so different than the environment I grew up in. It's easier for me to observe the decay in this alien landscape than to be a witness under duress, amongst the hardwood species whose majesty inspired me from my earliest memories.</div>
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There were some vermilion wildflowers in bloom...</div>
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...but, the same painfully thin crowns are here as they are everywhere.</div>
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A surprising amount of sun reaches the woodland floor, and the ferns that should blanket the ground, according to a park nature guide, are vanishingly absent.<br />
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Entire swathes of trees are completely dead.<br />
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Their fate will be what ultimately happens to the entire preserve.<br />
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Stark skeletal remains are sentinels of the graveyard that is transforming what was once a vibrant ecosystem.<br />
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The infamous nitrogen pollution-fueled lichen explosion is ubiquitous.<br />
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As if to assuage any qualms that might spook the hikers, the signs along the path declare "Nothing alarming to see here, all perfectly normal, move along!"</div>
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And yet there is no question that those branches that have crashed the ground are smothered.<br />
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It amazes me that even as it has become impossible to deny the toxic effects of excess nitrogen pollution in Florida's water, in the rivers, canals, ponds, lakes and along the coasts, nobody seems to have noticed that the vegetation is also dying. One <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Bite/2016/1011/Toxic-algae-blooms-in-Fl.-linked-to-too-much-fertilizer-and-to-climate-change"><span style="color: purple;">article</span></a> about the putrid algae blooms describes the problem:<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.32px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"Recent blooms of toxic algae in southern Florida, which have provoked Governor Rick Scott to announce a state of emergency, may be tied to fertilizer chemicals from agricultural and residential origins."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px;">"Waterways and beaches along Florida’s Treasure Coast, Lake Okeechobee, and the Everglades have been experiencing massive blooms of toxic algae since May. The cyanobacteria algae—described as thick, pea-green, and foul-smelling—is </span><a href="http://www.tcpalm.com/news/indian-river-lagoon/health/massive-lake-okeechobee-algae-bloom-getting-more-toxic-35cbbef1-2593-2c2f-e053-0100007fb3d2-383879671.html" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_self"><span style="color: black;">intensely toxic</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px;"> and poses health risks to people and wildlife in the area. At its peak, the bloom in Lake Okeechobee covered </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/science/algae-blooms-beaches.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_self"><span style="color: black;">33 square miles</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px;">—or about one-third of the lake's surface. </span><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/toxic-algae-blooms-florida-1915716568.html" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_self"><span style="color: black;">One source</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px;"> estimates the total area of the algae to be roughly the size of Miami."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px;">"The impact of these algae blooms has already proven disastrous. Tourism, a main source of income for residents around Lake Okeechobee and along the coast, is down. Contact with toxic algae blooms “</span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/01/us/florida-algae-pollution/" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_self"><span style="color: black;">can affect the gastrointestinal system, liver, nervous system, and skin</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px;">.” Fish are dying, and many have raised concerns about manatees and other large wildlife in the area."</span><br />
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And yet, everyone is sleepwalking blindly past corroded, rotting trees and blistered foliage.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px;">Is it any wonder that the Florida scrub is incendiary tinder just waiting to burn?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: 0.32px;">I came across an artist whose paintings I love - impressionistic visions of trees that remind me of how gorgeous they were, not that long ago. (I would give anything to be able to paint that brilliantly, to be honest.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Her name is Erin Hanson, and her website is </span><a href="https://www.erinhanson.com/Portfolio" style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: purple;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. Obviously, I'm not blogging much anymore, because it's far too late to stop the 6th mass extinction, which sooner or later is going to include trees, and us.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But when I see another story chronicling the increasing incidents of death by tree, I feel obliged to document it. The CDC does not. Nobody else does either, as best I can determine. Falling branches and broken trunks are simply becoming normalized, and the overall trend is ignored.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A 21 year old woman was killed by a falling tree in Yosemite Park yesterday. So far, the victim has not been named. But I can't help thinking that she has a family and friends who loved her, and are in shock and will be for a long time.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">According to</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/california/articles/2017-03-05/tree-falls-kills-woman-in-yosemite-national-park" style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: purple;">one article</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">about the incident, she is the third person to die in California already this year:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"In December and January, at least two people in California were killed by falling trees. In January, one woman who struck and killed by a tree while walking on a Northern California golf course. In December, a woman posing for photographs as part of a wedding party was killed and five others were injured by a falling eucalyptus tree in Southern California."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">It turns out that 2013 the camp counselor who </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/08/local/la-me-ln-tawonga-tree-yosemite-20130708"><span style="color: purple;">was killed</span></a><span style="color: #333333;"> in the same park, was the same age of 21:</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333;">"</span><span style="background-color: white;">The sudden toppling of a</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/03/local/la-me-yosemite-20130704" style="border: 0px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">black oak tree at a summer camp</span></a> <span style="background-color: white;">outside Yosemite National Park last week was a "freak accident," said Jamie Simon, director of Camp Tawonga.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjClVdeAUdD8JFP7wuBVueCT_uxIzu6ClxdDq6uvApmE8HPfwHHZfZVgObanlhBcSgqT0EsfKY_Iq708KOAb-rXu6LO45liTbF4tl1zTI1wEu7RUB1ZoX_JZm1PIsLZELTmx5dXf8qF12Q/s1600/tree6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjClVdeAUdD8JFP7wuBVueCT_uxIzu6ClxdDq6uvApmE8HPfwHHZfZVgObanlhBcSgqT0EsfKY_Iq708KOAb-rXu6LO45liTbF4tl1zTI1wEu7RUB1ZoX_JZm1PIsLZELTmx5dXf8qF12Q/s320/tree6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"The giant tree fell near a building,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-camp-counselor-tragically-killed-mother-mourns-20130703,0,2550840.story" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: black;">killing 21-year-old camp counselor</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Annais Rittenberg and injuring others."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"A private arborist checks the trees at the camp every 12 to 18 months, Simon said. The same arborist returned after the accident and, after inspecting the fallen tree, "deemed the tree healthy," she said."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"The tree was described by Tuolumne County Sheriff's officials as a black oak tree that measured nearly 4.5 feet across and about 70 feet tall. It broke in half about 32 feet off the ground, Sgt. James Oliver said."</span></div>
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This reluctant post is dedicated to the trees that are dying, and the people whose lives are ruined because of it.</div>
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-41872157531723326072016-12-29T18:34:00.002-05:002016-12-29T18:43:29.000-05:00David T. Lange, Au RevoirDavid T. Lange was one of my earliest readers, and a staunch supporter of the conclusion that pollution from ozone derived from fossil fuels and excess reactive nitrogen is killing trees - as well as people and other life forms on our planet. He had his own blog on the subject, WindSpiritKeeper, where he posted wonderful photographs, and gritty videos, documenting the damage - so obvious to us and yet so invisible to almost everyone else.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aspen ~ DT Lange</td></tr>
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I never had the fortune to meet David in real life, but we corresponded via email, and comments on each other's sites. I followed him in his travels as he sought solace in nature, from Santa Barbara to Arizona to Portland, Oregon, where he died in a hospital last November 9, from cardiac arrest and organ failure. His lungs had troubled him for years.<br />
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Tomorrow would have been his birthday. I will remember him as a sensitive, caring, perceptive and wry fellow traveler, who felt all the pain of our dying biosphere but still marveled at its lingering beauty. He walked cautiously the precarious line between integrity and condemnation, morality and respect, bitterness and compassion.<br />
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I can give no better tribute than to link to one of his last posts - <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A Rambling Letter of Confession to Extinct Children in a Dying Climate</span></i> <a href="http://windspiritkeeper.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-rambling-letter-of-confession-to.html"><span style="color: purple;">here</span></a> - and also, to say that as soon as I found out from his wife today that he had passed, a song I haven't thought of for a long time came immediately to mind. It is one I have always loved, only now I think of it as Green Leaves...because of him, in his search for peace, from the mountains to the sea. Goodbye my friend. The earth was a better place for your presence.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P5ItNxpwChE" width="560"></iframe>Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-85938107343247598582016-10-02T11:21:00.000-04:002016-10-02T11:22:54.593-04:00An audition for Apocalypse, The Musical<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/THDb0W8DyEU" width="560"></iframe>
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Thanks for the memory<br />
Of butterfly and bird<br />
Whose songs we barely heard<br />
Our propensity
for multiplicity<br />
Our egos so absurd<br />
How selfish it was<br />
<br />
Thanks for the memory<br />
Of nature that we spoiled<br />
How determinedly we toiled<br />
For acid seas
And dying trees<br />
Stewardship we foiled<br />
How greedy it was<br />
<br />
We thought we were the crown of creation<br />
Or at least the pinnacle of evolution<br />
We wonder if we’ve destroyed it<br />
That’s extinction I guess<br />
There’s no redress<br />
<br />
Thanks for the memory<br />
Of atmospheric pollution<br />
Of climatic dissolution<br />
And delicious megafauna<br />
Who knew of any limitation?<br />
Thanks Earth, so much<br />
<br />
Thanks for the emptiness<br />
Of hope that springs eternal<br />
Ignorance infernal<br />
Absurd WooWoo
Tribal ballyhoo<br />
Escape from the paternal<br />
How meaningless it was<br />
<br />
Thanks for the fantasy<br />
Of free will inspiration<br />
When biological determination<br />
Lacking any shame<br />
We’re all to blame<br />
A divine abomination<br />
<br />
We thought that agriculture<br />
And our marvelous innovations<br />
Made us homo sapiens sapiens<br />
But our consciousness<br />
Made mockery of us<br />
<br />
Strictly entre nous<br />
We Doomours are so blue<br />
To think of all
Our children’s dreams<br />
That never will come true<br />
Awfully glad Gaia we met you<br />
Even though we’re through<br />
Thank you<br />
Thank you so much<br />
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~ The Three Doomours<br />
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With fond thanks, gratitude and apologies to the inimitable original...<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nKgUq5dziEk" width="560"></iframe>Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-14833321125337188852016-09-25T11:45:00.001-04:002016-09-26T10:38:21.721-04:00The Waste Land<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
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What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow</td><td align="right" valign="top"></td></tr>
<tr><td>Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,</td><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td>You cannot say, or guess, for you know only</td><td align="right" valign="top"></td></tr>
<tr><td>A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,</td><td align="right" valign="top"></td></tr>
<tr><td>And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,</td><td align="right" valign="top"></td></tr>
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<tr><td>There is shadow under this red rock,</td><td align="right" valign="top"><br /></td></tr>
<tr><td>(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),</td><td align="right" valign="top"></td></tr>
<tr><td>And I will show you something different from either</td><td align="right" valign="top"></td></tr>
<tr><td>Your shadow at morning striding behind you</td><td align="right" valign="top"></td></tr>
<tr><td>Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;</td><td align="right" valign="top"></td></tr>
<tr><td>I will show you fear in a handful of dust.<br />
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~ T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land<br />
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<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My last post here at Wit</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s End received some thoughtful queries which deserved an answer in kind, a response I have assiduously procrastinated making - an avoidance which was made easier by a ten day trip with minimal access to the internet. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most of the photos in this post are from my journey to the UK earlier this month.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What follows is my belated reply (with apologies), especially to Michael Jensen</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s question,</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></span>“<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">How has your personal mission changed, as the likelihood of your minimal longterm impact on the trajectory of global collapse has become clear?</span>”</div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Most often, writing on a blog feels to have no more effect than idly dropping a pebble in the ocean, and watching the tiny ripples disappear; lately it seems that climate heating has gone exponential, and in my imagination I anticipate the moment I will hear an official NASA announcement on the radio - that it</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s too late to mitigate climate change because irreversible amplifying feedbacks have taken over and there</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s nothing left but to listen to the orchestra play on the deck.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">For years once I realized humans have despoiled the glorious biodiversity it took millions of years of evolution to achieve, I grieved. I was angry and horrified and mostly wracked with guilt about being oblivious of my own contribution to the Endocene, including having children. I wanted to know how and why our species is so destructive, and I needed to understand why most people persist in believing humanity is ecologically sustainable when we so patently are not. So I read a lot about history, archaeology, psychology, evolution and biology.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">I came to understand that human behavior is as immutable as the leopards</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> spots, and that </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-southamerica-idUSKCN0X32J1" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: purple;">humans are fundamentally an invasive species</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span></div>
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“Humans are just like any other invasive species,” Stanford University biology professor Elizabeth Hadly said. “If we use up our resources, we will decline. It is stating the obvious, but our study shows that even over vast geographic areas such as continents, humans can consume too much, too fast.”</blockquote>
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The researchers reconstructed the history of human population growth in South America using radiocarbon-dating data from 1,147 archaeological sites.</blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Our species first appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago, then spread to Europe and Asia and eventually crossed into the Americas roughly 15,000 to 20,000 years ago using a land bridge that once connected Siberia and Alaska. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first phase of colonization in South America coincided with the extinction of many large animals including elephant relatives, saber-toothed cats, big ground sloths, armadillos and huge flightless birds. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">During this period, human populations underwent “boom-and-bust cycles” as people exhausted local plant and animal resources, Stanford anthropologist Amy Goldberg said.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">Proof that the sixth mass extinction began 15,000 years ago with the hunting of megafauna on every continent and island on earth has become irrefutable to all but the resolutely religious and stubbornly WooWoo. Examine for instance the hunting of the Persian gazelle, which was driven down corridors to mass graves in decidedly NOT sustainable, respectful, non-wasteful methods, as documented in </span><a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/108/18/7345.full?sid=e34e7253-ad5c-428d-94a4-03e635c20f1a"><span style="color: purple;">a study</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129;"> titled </span></span></span>“<span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Role of mass-kill hunting strategies in the extirpation of Persian gazelle (</span><em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #202020; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline-style: none; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Gazella subgutturosa</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">) in the northern Levant</span>”<span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. It describes how </span>“<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">hunting strategies of post-Neolithic societies involving the mass killing of wild ungulates contributed to the eventual extirpation of a number of wild species.</span>”</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I still grieve - but it helps to have learned, from following the latest discoveries in neurobiology, that our behavior is no more a matter of individual choice than that of a lizard. Free will is an illusion and the idea that our ancestors were once upon a time consciously in harmony within natural confines is a myth. Once humans found fire it enabled us to grow beyond any countervailing constraints and just like any species given the opportunity to expand endlessly, that</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s exactly what we have done, periodically bumping up against limits that led to starvation, war and genocide. We now live in the unique moment where we have reached the end of global resources, and although a few of us can see where this will lead, most will remain in denial to the very end. It</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s an unsolvable predicament. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Carpe diem.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The panoramas I admired in the Lake District and Scotland</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s island of Islay brought into sharp focus the impact that even very primitive humans had upon wilderness and biodiversity in a way I had not anticipated. The 866 square mile Lake District is part of the National Trust and has been assiduously preserved - there are no visible wires, no motor boats, no flashy signs and almost no traffic lights. It</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s blissfully quiet.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The spectacular views draw hikers to countless trails leading to dizzying vantages from which to gaze upon the quaint villages far below in the valleys. They can contemplate the gleaming clear lakes, sweeping vistas across to the velvety folds of the mountain slopes where even the highest peaks are punctuated by artfully constructed stone walls. Sparkling waterfalls spill down every crevasse while pockets of forest dot the pastures, and acres of green bracken ferns were turning an alarmingly bright vermilion amongst the verdant grass shorn by flocks of sheep.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">The vistas I saw were so exotic and unfamiliar, so entrancingly romantic, that I was mesmerized and fascinated even though I could not ignore the poor condition of the trees, which was all too familiar. It was amazing to me that when examined individually many of the leaves looked like someone had taken a flame-thrower to them...the damage was not one iota less than those I see by summer</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s end at home in New Jersey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Even the notorious nitrogen-loving lichen that is swarming over branches at home is festering across the Atlantic.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">I found it incredible that everyone else seemed utterly oblivious to what looked to me unmistakably like a graveyard.</span></span></div>
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A gathering of artists painted the landscape, seemingly unaware of the brown tones of foliage, the sickly specimens and spectral corpses right next to them.</div>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">What was even more deeply disturbing was the near total absence of any wildlife whatsoever. In five days all I saw were a few crows, two little songbirds, and some mallard ducks feeding off scraps from the tourists at the ferry dock. Not one squirrel, chipmunk, no butterfly or other insects. In a land of crystalline lakes I saw not one fish jump in the water, nor one waterbird dive for food. The sterile stillness was uncanny and profoundly unsettling.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">I was startled by the coincidence that the </span><a href="https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/whatwedo/stateofnature2016"><span style="color: purple;">2016 report</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129;"> from State of Nature by the RSPB (Royal Society for the Preservation of Birds, originally created by women to halt the decorative use of feathers in hats), a comprehensive analysis by 50 conservation organizations was released while I was pondering the depauperate countryside.</span></span></div>
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Of biodiversity intactness, the UK was rated 189 out of 218 countries assessed, 29th lowest. The blame for species that are threatened and endangered was placed squarely on agricultural practices, including overfertilization, pesticides, and decimation of marginal habitat. Here is how <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/14/one-in-10-uk-wildlife-species-faces-extinction-major-report-shows"><span style="color: purple;">one article</span></a> assessed the findings:</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">More than one in 10 of the UK’s wildlife species are threatened with extinction and the numbers of the nation’s most endangered creatures have plummeted by two-thirds since 1970, according to a major report.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The abundance of all wildlife has also fallen, with one in six animals, birds, fish and plants having been lost, the State of Nature report found.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Together with historical deforestation and industrialisation, these trends have left the UK “among the most nature-depleted countries in the world”, with most of the country having gone past the threshold at which “ecosystems may no longer reliably meet society’s needs”.</span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVXUoU_D_hyphenhyphenIorILlA7AQxuFtx23z0Bhccnb2cQ5-Z63FlD3nndURFsmP-iIBW59Ge4-QAG4Q3gXsip-C5Z2PlLUhFQ7gMDNu2jEBwlFwqkw04M1Drg2m7gfiCi2Ipzs7spyGV9C1eWQ/s1600/25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVXUoU_D_hyphenhyphenIorILlA7AQxuFtx23z0Bhccnb2cQ5-Z63FlD3nndURFsmP-iIBW59Ge4-QAG4Q3gXsip-C5Z2PlLUhFQ7gMDNu2jEBwlFwqkw04M1Drg2m7gfiCi2Ipzs7spyGV9C1eWQ/s400/25.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
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The depletion in the UK is all the more starkly harrowing considering that the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/09/14/15-billion-birds-missing-from-north-american-skies-alarming-report-finds.html"><span style="color: purple;">latest report</span></a> on North America, a report from Environment Canada documents:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">North American skies have grown quieter over the last decades by the absent songs of 1.5 billion birds, says the latest summary of bird populations</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The survey by dozens of government, university and environmental agencies across North America has also listed 86 species of birds — including once-common and much-loved songbirds such as the evening grosbeak and Canada warbler — that are threatened by plummeting populations, habitat destruction and climate change.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">After a few days in the Lake District, I began to suspect that, like Iceland (you can read about that in </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Reykjavik Imperative</i></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2013/08/awaiting-greatness.html"><span style="color: purple;">here</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">)</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, the entire area had been deforested.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I wondered because while most of the District is endless fields, I did see enough very large, very old trees in far-flung copses to indicate that it <i>could</i> be forested, absent human interference.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZX-IlfPU1OMFGyooPjtiPNKWfkOTz8s02TDvE8uu7d3COnLJAGfXk5ECNaQqxfOJcr5sIFXJaN779avc5m0mF1wyjbGcEzpgwuxzgb4FWDmV-cM44pnzogrUvklf1bz5HHA5VAO7SO54/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZX-IlfPU1OMFGyooPjtiPNKWfkOTz8s02TDvE8uu7d3COnLJAGfXk5ECNaQqxfOJcr5sIFXJaN779avc5m0mF1wyjbGcEzpgwuxzgb4FWDmV-cM44pnzogrUvklf1bz5HHA5VAO7SO54/s400/3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Not only were there very old large trees, but a great variety of species were to be found, some of them planted from Europe and America.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGI0kuuADCAbm-A2Fv3MEVz3T7GU39l9FrDUFAGrIfGOExXJtcZBWaD4_gvzHZfbD-BGiv5Pk1dSVXCaUtZd2BZkB23xVT95KIDAHcq7ejEVzOy2Iz3gmbHjiYgGP2hxTmjzuK4n81ubM/s1600/anne+hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGI0kuuADCAbm-A2Fv3MEVz3T7GU39l9FrDUFAGrIfGOExXJtcZBWaD4_gvzHZfbD-BGiv5Pk1dSVXCaUtZd2BZkB23xVT95KIDAHcq7ejEVzOy2Iz3gmbHjiYgGP2hxTmjzuK4n81ubM/s400/anne+hat.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">While it seemed that all the open space denoted a wilderness, I gradually realized the National Trust land was in fact a gigantic meticulously manicured Disneyesque stealth imitation of bucolic paradise - a time-capsule tourist mecca - where practically every inch of land was devoted to pasture for sheep and cattle, and every charming domicile a bed and breakfast. After making some inquiries I learned that indeed, the Cumbrian region and all of Scotland and the island I would soon visit had long since been denuded of trees going back to the Norse invasions following the Roman incursion, and even earlier - a horrific massacre that continues today due to the UK appetite for </span>“<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">sustainable biomass</span>”<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> energy.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXkDZpN_ZDdExJsEsc_x5VRJZLXhZOvv72cTOBDEDuDHNV5bgMrsqBhHmesNy7O2gVs8layU_1CNnQbqsNMFqfxwF6I92wb9R948-VV03_J1F8AeL5tPuNZS5DyI04EQPZoYgywqF0EMs/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXkDZpN_ZDdExJsEsc_x5VRJZLXhZOvv72cTOBDEDuDHNV5bgMrsqBhHmesNy7O2gVs8layU_1CNnQbqsNMFqfxwF6I92wb9R948-VV03_J1F8AeL5tPuNZS5DyI04EQPZoYgywqF0EMs/s400/4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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There are plantations of pine trees that were planted in rows decades ago, that are spindly and weak. It seems nobody likes their ugly monotony, and it was a failed attempt at restoration. Huge swathes are being logged.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">The Inner Hebrides island of Islay, which though endowed with beautiful beaches and rocky cliffs and an almost tropically turquoise ocean, was also originally forested over the entirety of its 25 mile length. This massive deforestation for agriculture and building began, astonishingly, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_British_Isles"><span style="color: purple;">in the Neolithic</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129;"> 5,000 years ago, and was accomplished with ring barking, burning, and felling all with stone axes, by the same industrious peoples who built the 13,000 stone circles scattered across the UK.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The current population on Islay of 3,400, a fraction of earlier times, is largely supported by producing copious amounts of </span><a href="http://www.winemag.com/2005/10/01/islays-malt-whiskies/" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"><span style="color: purple;">whisky</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> harvesting the local peat bogs, some 10,000 years old, and growing barley with which to produce it.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjK_3j7M-mf0ClKOONeTPWaZMp_7JI3dyL7VMUb8cUhMXOhn-wM4ZnckNelB7nnBEADuh9cmtpRU7tY4rVoLklk23fwHsIs8ShXDn4YtdOoxwO9DYbf-A-I6bjHVYvrQOfSVfi71w5tjo/s1600/whisky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjK_3j7M-mf0ClKOONeTPWaZMp_7JI3dyL7VMUb8cUhMXOhn-wM4ZnckNelB7nnBEADuh9cmtpRU7tY4rVoLklk23fwHsIs8ShXDn4YtdOoxwO9DYbf-A-I6bjHVYvrQOfSVfi71w5tjo/s400/whisky.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s apparent both these places can independently only support very few people, which is why most of them left long ago - and that it is only with inputs of tourist money and other imports from outside the region, of food and fuel and consumer goods, that the contemporary communities are sustained.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">It astonished me that the ancient legacy of this very early ecosystem slaughter remains mutely evident on a wasteland that is successfully masquerading as nature today. Except that the original logging is now exacerbated by invisible pollution, most of it imported as well, which is poisoning the vegetation in a location so remote it should be pristine. By another remarkable coincidence, on the day I departed, I was catching up on some reading from </span><a href="http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789401790994"><span style="color: purple;">a book</span></a><span style="color: #1d2129;"> chapter about ozone and plants that I have been intending to write about (and more follows below) </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and section 7.4 on page 142 caught my eye.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Chapter Seven of </span>“<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Trees in a Changing Environment</span>”<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> is titled </span>“<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Forest Trees under Air Pollution</span>”<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(citations removed, emphasis added):</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Global Dimensions</span></i> </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Many regions of the globe are currently exposed to levels of surface O3 and other air pollutants that are high enough to promote plant damage in natural ecosystems, cultivated forests and agricultural fields, also affecting human health. Reductions in crop yield, pasture and in forest productivity have important economic consequences, being responsible for losses of several billion dollars per annum in the USA, EU and East Asia. Such detrimental effects of O3 have caused countries to establish increasingly stringent air quality policies. However, <i><b>due to the high mobility of air pollutants in the atmosphere, plumes of anthropogenic O3 and its precursors can be transported into the free troposphere and across country boundaries to expand over large geographical scales. Regions located very distant from the pollutant source are now suffering from enhanced O3 background levels or episodes</b></i> (<i><b><u>e.g. Ireland within the lee of North America</u></b></i>).</span></blockquote>
Did I mention I could see Ireland from the shore of Islay?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT7Lx7m59jstfug7qVFJ79Lh1kBeuY_O2B6NxM1YCMP6lLERP_UkBzgjToo3-HpzZqskoRdX57Ce0_y6jnCc4DxZnVp7-3TDzPAZUlRG9pWPmUhY1mzlen_w9MO01Cu8qj92Jc1Fo-1hM/s1600/Harry%2527s+family.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT7Lx7m59jstfug7qVFJ79Lh1kBeuY_O2B6NxM1YCMP6lLERP_UkBzgjToo3-HpzZqskoRdX57Ce0_y6jnCc4DxZnVp7-3TDzPAZUlRG9pWPmUhY1mzlen_w9MO01Cu8qj92Jc1Fo-1hM/s400/Harry%2527s+family.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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I was directed to that book by one of its editors, Gretchen Grulke, who is a plant physiologist employed at the US Forest Department. I wrote her having discovered her work described in a seminal <a href="http://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_sp014/psw_sp014.pdf"><span style="color: purple;">brochure</span></a> produced in 2010 (I recommend taking a look at it for the pictures). </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcKjZPNO2nE6toVtQ-HgacotY5zNM41rketjPC5KYhTg1nI0c4rFC7grUAcGgGBZ0gsUFLMPf1PUzyJ0tY_g5zUh-xbKc4uOekUzVyUjgemaULMtNkykWUtDtVPSh5j9MnWOZi6Ljh-jA/s1600/39.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcKjZPNO2nE6toVtQ-HgacotY5zNM41rketjPC5KYhTg1nI0c4rFC7grUAcGgGBZ0gsUFLMPf1PUzyJ0tY_g5zUh-xbKc4uOekUzVyUjgemaULMtNkykWUtDtVPSh5j9MnWOZi6Ljh-jA/s400/39.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
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Following are excerpts, and the last line, bolded and red, is precisely and pithily what I have been going on about for years (and don<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span>t ask me how I never saw this until now):</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPq5t30s28QfT75aJZflw24RjHxi4zrHtZNna7bB9vGdS9DXgDILEqVKiKxLuHmWW-wyVeenYl6jo8PZpXb1er41DljhjXSEy3nxRtJ9I7xQuMqdWGkG9hn9lRGeT6S8h0rmF5WGEjVjE/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPq5t30s28QfT75aJZflw24RjHxi4zrHtZNna7bB9vGdS9DXgDILEqVKiKxLuHmWW-wyVeenYl6jo8PZpXb1er41DljhjXSEy3nxRtJ9I7xQuMqdWGkG9hn9lRGeT6S8h0rmF5WGEjVjE/s400/12.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• Chronic exposure to high levels of common air pollutants like ozone and nitrogen oxides is damaging to forest health. The effects of air pollution mimic drought and have the potential to increase fuel loads in forests, exacerbating the risk of wildfire, especially near urban centers where air pollution is more concentrated. </blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnSvrANuKVm2HL5EP-IfpLAynwQjIlKDPjtP6mynS2h_4iZN_AEqyY2QlAHGi1m9ukWxEBTcjemKGM9yJthAGvYgHOh0dflQ4JJB-mNl02ERziwfg3K1v1XOJLNdWEJyPrQWPgqxXqdyc/s1600/18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnSvrANuKVm2HL5EP-IfpLAynwQjIlKDPjtP6mynS2h_4iZN_AEqyY2QlAHGi1m9ukWxEBTcjemKGM9yJthAGvYgHOh0dflQ4JJB-mNl02ERziwfg3K1v1XOJLNdWEJyPrQWPgqxXqdyc/s400/18.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
• When Jeffrey pine trees are stressed by drought, they send biochemical signals that may be an attractant to bark beetles. Since the signaling trees are already significantly stressed, they are easily overwhelmed by beetles, setting the stage for an outbreak. The same biochemical signaling may also happen in other important forest species.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4bowTmPvSt4M8D1NGqera4fIONz84J35b8YtIZU9RPfBETBFQAk8PdK4hZHg3ROLU6DIv71s1GF32e1sHi-QXI2P2Q8m2yjiYTupPhHPmbRd6uQfp3WNrl72WA5UcnWYR3E3kRuhWsj4/s1600/17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4bowTmPvSt4M8D1NGqera4fIONz84J35b8YtIZU9RPfBETBFQAk8PdK4hZHg3ROLU6DIv71s1GF32e1sHi-QXI2P2Q8m2yjiYTupPhHPmbRd6uQfp3WNrl72WA5UcnWYR3E3kRuhWsj4/s400/17.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The San Bernardino Mountains, which help define the Los Angeles Air Basin, are one of the most polluted mountain ranges in North America. The air pollution is the result of a combination of emissions from vehicles, industrial manufacturing, and agriculture production. These greenhouse gas emissions, ozone and nitrogen oxides in particular, are especially damaging to forest health. Increased ozone and nitrogen deposition change the chemical composition of individual trees and have significant impacts on fuel loads at the stand and forest level.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZs8wlQz72SwBr8z9pIAwcJFuem_mWBGPEbRJDyP_xZdAHMYTbZNbSY1omw2xKu0dUQ18Dy31mGkkQpaFLfDKPw4MK_IU1UKYIFfIwU2BpUDBO68fSV-UZkaetnaStk7OvXDytx2lhH1Q/s1600/34.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZs8wlQz72SwBr8z9pIAwcJFuem_mWBGPEbRJDyP_xZdAHMYTbZNbSY1omw2xKu0dUQ18Dy31mGkkQpaFLfDKPw4MK_IU1UKYIFfIwU2BpUDBO68fSV-UZkaetnaStk7OvXDytx2lhH1Q/s400/34.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...Inside the leaf, ozone changes the way trees transpire, or exchange gasses. Leaves, or needles in the case of conifers, have pores called stomata. Properly functioning stomata are crucial to a tree’s ability to regulate water loss, uptake carbon dioxide, and produce energy. In the presence of high concentrations of ozone, trees lose stomatal control and the ability to manage their water and nutrition. <i><b>Too much air pollution can kill a tree outright. But what’s more likely, with high but not excessive exposures to ozone, is the slow dwindling of health. Since water is lost from the tree, the results of chronic ozone uptake mimic or exacerbate tree drought stress</b></i>.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRCoMXXB5O3o1ghvSAIDcTaeB9EYFkXBV22K1Oi8SLv7zuafaiUAVn1_KyD-_ibhs44e41oLAE3GwFV02Jm4uANXMUCoTjkliIzqzBNxWLLyHXGzP5H49sbwQVfHP4l6PTahz_aD-rjI/s1600/15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRCoMXXB5O3o1ghvSAIDcTaeB9EYFkXBV22K1Oi8SLv7zuafaiUAVn1_KyD-_ibhs44e41oLAE3GwFV02Jm4uANXMUCoTjkliIzqzBNxWLLyHXGzP5H49sbwQVfHP4l6PTahz_aD-rjI/s400/15.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Nitrogen deposition is also a problem facing forests. Some nitrogen is generally good for trees, but too much nitrogen can change the amount of growth, the timing of growth, and resource allocation within the tree that can compromise its health and ability to withstand stress. Working in concert with ozone, increased nitrogen may affect the way carbohydrates—the energy needed for growth and survival—are stored and used, and stunt root growth. <i><b>These two factors can also make a stressed tree much more susceptible to drought and its follower— beetle outbreaks</b></i>.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdWv87V-LmBRGLt_YRjHymsaSsgOnrsRNfCHQIrBc99UC3wPCvbW70cfRUrGVrdg5-qthT1Uli9IGafbM9M-YuvWFh974UQDi8mjBfmfdory-6fu7Sg-5bgHdWO0s85RQrSp7f02EvkI4/s1600/21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdWv87V-LmBRGLt_YRjHymsaSsgOnrsRNfCHQIrBc99UC3wPCvbW70cfRUrGVrdg5-qthT1Uli9IGafbM9M-YuvWFh974UQDi8mjBfmfdory-6fu7Sg-5bgHdWO0s85RQrSp7f02EvkI4/s400/21.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Both ozone and nitrogen deposition cause increased leaf turnover and self-pruning, which lead to more litter on the forest floor. Nitrogen deposition also acts to slow the decomposition of forest floor litter, particularly the excess branches and leaves being shed. <i><b>As a result there is a potential to have more fuel in a drying forest, enhancing the potential for catastrophic wildfires</b></i>.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimkmhJdb2zz6PruM4X0WfZdxwm3Bwcu_-6OfLUIz3xQKBrvkDZAIAnaHzDSzpU5fvlPOkhUAPx_rT0Gp7NUOXVUtQwChwo3xI_fXHYrOLrZuotvWaZKCDp-ygPjNS-Sbfus2qkzY5ULbg/s1600/23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimkmhJdb2zz6PruM4X0WfZdxwm3Bwcu_-6OfLUIz3xQKBrvkDZAIAnaHzDSzpU5fvlPOkhUAPx_rT0Gp7NUOXVUtQwChwo3xI_fXHYrOLrZuotvWaZKCDp-ygPjNS-Sbfus2qkzY5ULbg/s400/23.jpg" width="265" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Nancy Grulke has been studying the effects of air pollution on forest health for the past two decades for the Pacific Southwest Research Station. Her research reveals links between high doses of ozone and nitrogen to forest stress, and shows there is a compounding relationship between stressed trees, beetle outbreaks, and wildfire. </blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibS0bF9c4CsJfuUO3ja1PtkKlGVLKejUzzqkK1JZjsaUUDXy6ZE5a3kFc3t8CLDJLi0Stbh0Epf_wGjMeav7O1e5zT6mICvibsaXKW7YxzU-3OifEKMXM2WT0_Iq8bYIdnwhasyt3Ej8I/s1600/31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibS0bF9c4CsJfuUO3ja1PtkKlGVLKejUzzqkK1JZjsaUUDXy6ZE5a3kFc3t8CLDJLi0Stbh0Epf_wGjMeav7O1e5zT6mICvibsaXKW7YxzU-3OifEKMXM2WT0_Iq8bYIdnwhasyt3Ej8I/s400/31.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
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Air Pollution in the Background </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Thanks in large part to regulation and education in past decades about air pollution in the Los Angeles Air Basin, sources of pollutants are now better controlled. On any given day, there is less air pollution being emitted than there was a decade ago.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN5UdyI4S05F7R5xT9aJ_iMATmZLbLTjOSQijqqXnRVGV6NY3wviC5ZTdOjSH2K5334UO52eWaOAux3npKIE5udoZo-DpaOmWNPzrgOhgrUbkCqmZKumAqGfKVuQiMvOdqJJma_4LB5Qs/s1600/19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN5UdyI4S05F7R5xT9aJ_iMATmZLbLTjOSQijqqXnRVGV6NY3wviC5ZTdOjSH2K5334UO52eWaOAux3npKIE5udoZo-DpaOmWNPzrgOhgrUbkCqmZKumAqGfKVuQiMvOdqJJma_4LB5Qs/s400/19.jpg" width="265" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b>The problem though is that the overall dose is steadily climbing, not only around Los Angeles, but across the globe.</b></i> The current atmospheric background rate of ozone is 50 parts per billion (ppb), up from 10 to 12 ppb in preindustrial times, and it is expected to increase another 50 percent between 2020 and 2050. “We have continuously increasing ozone,” says Grulke. Pollution is worse in some places than others, for example, downwind from large urban areas. But even forests far from urban centers are showing higher levels of ozone. The Sierra Nevada, generally synonymous with clean mountain air, now has a background rate of 67 ppb during the summertime when plants grow.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAYH1gUcPdUqiCZ9S89GvAdNI0rNQIF0XjX03o-cOW0t7JErsqTyz5VmyDeEqAS-luFW8okWrO_7SSoVeQEXYpix0KAc9m3W2p43RohkWoWLOqBobhW-6xVVDVtZblD-GzMfavLNOlfbE/s1600/27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAYH1gUcPdUqiCZ9S89GvAdNI0rNQIF0XjX03o-cOW0t7JErsqTyz5VmyDeEqAS-luFW8okWrO_7SSoVeQEXYpix0KAc9m3W2p43RohkWoWLOqBobhW-6xVVDVtZblD-GzMfavLNOlfbE/s400/27.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“We’re dealing with completely different atmospheric chemistry,” says Grulke, “when ozone is greater than 70 ppb, stomata function very differently than they do when ozone is 50 ppb.” At some of her study sites of ponderosa pine scattered throughout the San Bernardino Mountains, the rates of summertime ozone uptake ranged from 62 to 80 ppb. The higher ranges are closer to urban Los Angeles, whereas the lower exposures are farther east, out toward the Mojave Desert...</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGnXVyiI4wjpEgsDeW1_niKuL-SLmh2GYeKgSz31DalrFocjyFBXosKIgD6oYfZSa8An9v1QwCeRj-rzg4C7pOkiZsLZOCU0fPv0pnnxlJ4cBoQAal-pns1B_zcDw5jMBfsznFpyyswDk/s1600/26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGnXVyiI4wjpEgsDeW1_niKuL-SLmh2GYeKgSz31DalrFocjyFBXosKIgD6oYfZSa8An9v1QwCeRj-rzg4C7pOkiZsLZOCU0fPv0pnnxlJ4cBoQAal-pns1B_zcDw5jMBfsznFpyyswDk/s400/26.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Models </blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The effect of ozone and nitrogenous pollutants are often left out of climate models, which favor measuring and predicting the rise and consequences of increased carbon. Not quantifying and including ozone and nitrogen in models, according to Grulke, may be a big oversight. Unlike some other greenhouse gasses, there is still little understanding about specific plant thresholds of ozone and what happens after that threshold is exceeded. Besides ponderosa pine, Grulke has also measured the tolerance in a handful of other plants and trees, but a wholesale cataloging of “what proportion of plants are in trouble,” she says, is still lacking.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinMq7fV6n33pw_LMvLrjpmXIxAkO7MvPsJObsvrvnM26Kd-n4lvyStx1aUQnfR21NYHlxUZgSsSY8hn6GomSAP7xFTErcc43Z4AwuTACgHWxLZ_M6qoMsm48C5i62dvoX75dtQn9z5jOo/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinMq7fV6n33pw_LMvLrjpmXIxAkO7MvPsJObsvrvnM26Kd-n4lvyStx1aUQnfR21NYHlxUZgSsSY8hn6GomSAP7xFTErcc43Z4AwuTACgHWxLZ_M6qoMsm48C5i62dvoX75dtQn9z5jOo/s400/11.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In addition to modeling, Grulke’s research can also inform other forest management strategies, like thinning. At some study sites, she’s looking at whether stand density plays a role in buffering the effects of air pollution and how those stands deal with the subsequent stress of drought and beetles. The effect of air pollution on plant health is not just a forestry issue. In Europe, researchers are trying to figure out ozone tolerances for important agricultural products and certain types of heritage trees. <b><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: red;">“Air pollution is the one link that ties everything together,”</span></i></b> says Grulke.</blockquote>
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When I asked her why there wasn't more hue and cry from scientists and foresters about something so fundamentally crucial to all forms of life on earth as trees, she said (drumroll) there<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span>s no funding.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OqZZTPHoCu1pGEeFP2b5XMEHcrxjropfbM9SiGRSvf-HaH3CjoD8v0orsDbxMB3-anoO23KcHYI5Cs3Q-IH8KycncEGTLhpS3jCRy3av6BcRcLHkrzKcE7vDKaUJRHgc5MrkHrSnnuo/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3OqZZTPHoCu1pGEeFP2b5XMEHcrxjropfbM9SiGRSvf-HaH3CjoD8v0orsDbxMB3-anoO23KcHYI5Cs3Q-IH8KycncEGTLhpS3jCRy3av6BcRcLHkrzKcE7vDKaUJRHgc5MrkHrSnnuo/s400/2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><span style="background-color: transparent;">“</span>We are and have been [jumping up and down with hair on fire]. Research budgets have significantly dropped over the last 15 years. For example, there have been no new federally- supported research projects on the effects of air pollutants on natural vegetation since 2002...</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;">With no funding for research, we move to other things…</span></span>”<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrh3Gejw2Jk3qG62to_3avf-zgXipGz8wNimCE-5bXQlQ7u3jFou0Jx_HMyYj9TIGYi1I-uqfEs8IAI7XvPffDUO5jxhUSnnK1RPMYNC-wcjjNVEkxbrvumLdJfghjqZCvRetZDDbyPJE/s1600/32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrh3Gejw2Jk3qG62to_3avf-zgXipGz8wNimCE-5bXQlQ7u3jFou0Jx_HMyYj9TIGYi1I-uqfEs8IAI7XvPffDUO5jxhUSnnK1RPMYNC-wcjjNVEkxbrvumLdJfghjqZCvRetZDDbyPJE/s400/32.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">She also answered, in regards to the oft-cited mitigation against harm, that stomata close when exposed to moderate levels of ozone thus limiting its damaging effects </span></span>“<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">...</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">at higher levels of exposure, the stomata open when they are not supposed to (the O3 must be affecting the guard cell membranes directly), and more water is lost than should be. Also the stomata become sluggish – don’t open or close at the right speed … so there is a lag to any changing environmental conditions. This phenomenon is not included in any of the models. Ooops.</span>”<br />
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<span class="s1">Probably by now everyone has noticed at least one story about toxic algae and anoxic zones in a lake or in an ocean or a canal. There seems to be a growing global incidence, and it doesn't make sense that the main reason would be warming - or warm tropical places would always have runaway algal growth. I have lately suspected that much of problem derives from deposition of atmospheric reactive nitrogen, on top of fertilizer runoff on the ground. Given the exponential growth in reactive nitrogen I would not be surprised if we haven</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span>t reached a classic tipping point, on land and in the water. I<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span>m not going to go any further about it, but for anyone unfamiliar with the severity of the nitrogen cascade, a good starting point is with <a href="http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/4/341.full"><span style="color: purple;">the research</span></a> of James Galloway - keeping in mind that like climate change, and ozone, the impacts are even far worse and faster than generally acknowledged in the published literature. [Update: a <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/toxic-algae-has-shown-up-in-more-than-40-california-lakes-waterways/"><span style="color: purple;">recent news report</span></a> states "<span style="background-color: white; color: #202022;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Toxic algae has shown up in more than 40 state lakes and waterways from Los Angeles to the northern reaches of California, the highest count in state history."]</span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFpMMh0HDL4fSFJGA6HwGrp5AtvqQOXoPWCo-8Sa2K4iM5z1zE0qDDhH6vboPUea5YwWfMN4xcoWBs2TDCqKbpi7ih2IsYIo6QiAlIT0cNvt2MSOwdjQKq-5Lj8klc3PnBHkZGtyYaNk/s1600/c8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFpMMh0HDL4fSFJGA6HwGrp5AtvqQOXoPWCo-8Sa2K4iM5z1zE0qDDhH6vboPUea5YwWfMN4xcoWBs2TDCqKbpi7ih2IsYIo6QiAlIT0cNvt2MSOwdjQKq-5Lj8klc3PnBHkZGtyYaNk/s400/c8.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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There ought to be a word that expresses in a few syllables the totality of ecocide - not just the horror in recognizing the physical manifestations of looming extinction, but the ensuing pain upon realizing the futility and meaninglessness that has been wrought by human folly, hubris, stupidity and blindness. But I don<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span>t know what it is.<br />
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<span class="s1">It especially seems useless to bear witness to the final countdown when headlines proliferate along the lines of </span>“<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/19/tree-death-california-hawaii-sudden-oak"><span style="color: purple;">An American tragedy</span></a>: why are millions of trees dying across the country?”<br />
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<span class="s1">Don</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’t</span> these idiots notice that trees are dying not just in America but ALL OVER THE WORLD?</div>
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<span class="s1">And then there</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span class="s1">s the equally myopic subtitle: </span>“A quiet crisis playing out in US forests as huge numbers of trees succumb to drought, disease, insects and wildfire - much of it driven by climate change”.<br />
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<span class="s1">Won</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span class="s1">t they ever get Grulke</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span class="s1">s statement: </span>“Air pollution is the one link that ties everything together”. What is so hard to understand about that?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4dYffIxH7uA-bQJDWhMwNt-aM-JXsa-a8b8F_Z07fZgw4WNPg-4BsoMbGt25QCS54gg6PEVwmcN4cPeXUojIBQ8Mne_f3nDHyRh08xq9HnWEpKC_er__Ua03SWw9h9iru5s3Lbn5K8w/s1600/moikayak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH4dYffIxH7uA-bQJDWhMwNt-aM-JXsa-a8b8F_Z07fZgw4WNPg-4BsoMbGt25QCS54gg6PEVwmcN4cPeXUojIBQ8Mne_f3nDHyRh08xq9HnWEpKC_er__Ua03SWw9h9iru5s3Lbn5K8w/s400/moikayak.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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What is the dubious value of cataloguing the endless stream of stories, about how bad <a href="https://www.rt.com/business/358683-air-pollution-global-economy/"><span style="color: purple;">air pollution</span></a> is to human health and the economy;<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="color: #181818;"> large animals dependent on healthy vegetation are dying off, </span><a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/moose-climate-change-2009675555.html"><span style="color: purple;">like moose</span></a></span>, a disease is impacting the <a href="http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/apple-growers-start-harvest-after-summer-of-fighting-disease-1.3067981"><span style="color: purple;">apple tree</span></a> harvest, fungus is killing <a href="https://weather.com/en-GB/unitedkingdom/editors-picks/video/could-bananas-become-extinct"><span style="color: purple;">banana trees</span></a>, beetles are killing <span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/living/food-drink/article92690152.html"><span style="color: purple;">avocado</span></a> </span>trees, so many trees are dying that some scientists want to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/09/08/so-many-u-s-trees-have-died-that-some-scientists-want-to-burn-them-instead-of-coal/?utm_term=.c6123e6e4655"><span style="color: purple;">burn them</span></a> instead of coal; Seattle<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span>s <span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/from-mountain-forests-to-city-parks-trees-are-stressed-and-dying/"><span style="color: purple;">park trees</span></a> </span>are dying, everything from <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #231f20;">big leaf maples to cottonwoods, birches and more, (absurdly blamed on a drought in 2015 when one year of drought is not nearly enough to kill mature trees);</span> </span>the ever-growing litany of <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Woman-critically-injured-when-tree-branch-falls-9140103.php"><span style="color: purple;">injuries</span></a> and <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/wind-toppled-tree-that-killed-man-at-seward-park-was-rotten-arborist-says/#comments"><span style="color: purple;">deaths</span></a> and <a href="https://weather.com/news/news/north-haven-connecticut-tornado-reported"><span style="color: purple;">property damage</span></a> from falling, clearly rotted branches and trunks;<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmMQ2RTgpkfItYWT3BPDEBrVI_qx-0R6aBkJaA_0HdFen1Hts-zpbuRILDqnsExwofHcVO5QTVBIx2wL8qkyQTO5LZ04ntpotI98VwSVxN4BJ_DqzOdBi791lyQvp4HvR2cBnPmgY4ucg/s1600/newhaven.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmMQ2RTgpkfItYWT3BPDEBrVI_qx-0R6aBkJaA_0HdFen1Hts-zpbuRILDqnsExwofHcVO5QTVBIx2wL8qkyQTO5LZ04ntpotI98VwSVxN4BJ_DqzOdBi791lyQvp4HvR2cBnPmgY4ucg/s400/newhaven.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a “<span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://news.trust.org/item/20160704103323-lj6dg/?source=fiHeadlineStory">mystery disease</a></span>” is killing Zimbabwe</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s baobabs; there is vast dieback of</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-10/unprecedented-10000-hectares-of-mangroves-die/7552968?WT.tsrc=Facebook" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: purple;">mangroves</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> in Australia; over 50 black walnuts described as </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333;">dead, damaged, split, decaying, leaning, fallen over, among other conditions</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">”</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"> are</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <a href="http://www.chicoer.com/general-news/20160128/chico-ready-to-take-out-50-ancient-black-walnut-trees"><span style="color: purple;">being removed</span></a><span style="color: #333333;"> in Chico and </span><a href="http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/walnut_tree_killer_thousand_cankers_disease_on_the_march_toward_upstate_ny.html"><span style="color: purple;">warnings</span></a><span style="color: #333333;"> that thousand canker disease - a fungus spread by a beetle - will wipe them out along with butternuts in the Eastern US, California;</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">the keystone</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/13/travel/shenandoah-hemlocks-nps100/index.html" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: purple;">hemlocks</span></a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">, some up to 500 years old, dying in Shenandoah;</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7HtDH1pdHJOMYO_MpLnGS9LWpQLu9WfF6GS5S6sPWo9vCWW12Kv7swoXmoRlHJQKQMo8GOo2lik7I8tDM5K_j0DkMRjnXaqbbVzBWs1NTfjYoF_1kn5ig1UcXmHo8f1-Po88jW5PBYEU/s1600/ga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7HtDH1pdHJOMYO_MpLnGS9LWpQLu9WfF6GS5S6sPWo9vCWW12Kv7swoXmoRlHJQKQMo8GOo2lik7I8tDM5K_j0DkMRjnXaqbbVzBWs1NTfjYoF_1kn5ig1UcXmHo8f1-Po88jW5PBYEU/s400/ga.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/rome/news/local/tree-falls-clips-house-on-cedar-avenue/article_87fee68c-112b-11e6-8cef-fb1612446228.html"><span style="color: purple;">Georgia</span></a></td></tr>
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...and then there<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span>s the inability of insects to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231016305210"><span style="color: purple;">forage efficiently</span></a> when pollution interferes with their ability to follow scents:</div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; word-spacing: -1.24453px;">Flowers emit mixtures of scents that mediate plant-insect interactions such as attracting insect pollinators. Because of their volatile nature, however, floral scents readily react with ozone, nitrate radical, and hydroxyl radical. The result of such reactions is the degradation and the chemical modification of scent plumes downwind of floral sources...</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; word-spacing: -1.24453px;">Results indicate that even moderate air pollutant levels...substantially degrade floral volatiles and alter the chemical composition of released floral scents. As a result, insect success rates of locating plumes of floral scents were reduced and foraging times increased in polluted air masses due to considerable degradation and changes in the composition of floral scents. Results also indicate that plant-pollinator interactions could be sensitive to changes in floral scent composition, especially if insects are unable to adapt to the modified </span><em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #2e2e2e; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-spacing: -1.24453px;">scentscape</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #2e2e2e; word-spacing: -1.24453px;">. The increase in foraging time could have severe cascading and pernicious impacts on the fitness of foraging insects by reducing the time devoted to other necessary tasks.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8oqHreTlnj2i-lPhtYivcEt2OKVX3NF6IE3UDGhvQCk2UnXGAEe0UQWf9XEKzwwit2wE2K6VJOIId4J3iaWN4vcvKhtedhx8sLw5RVfxvWTgPeDdIjc-c-S2DSm1ZZRwVePb__vR3hKQ/s1600/40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8oqHreTlnj2i-lPhtYivcEt2OKVX3NF6IE3UDGhvQCk2UnXGAEe0UQWf9XEKzwwit2wE2K6VJOIId4J3iaWN4vcvKhtedhx8sLw5RVfxvWTgPeDdIjc-c-S2DSm1ZZRwVePb__vR3hKQ/s400/40.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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For <strike>dedicated</strike> obsessive Ozonists and Ozonistas, following are some excerpts from the afore-mentioned <a href="http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789401790994"><span style="color: purple;">book</span></a> “Trees in a Changing Environment”, chapter 7, “Forest trees under Air Pollution”, by Rainer Matyssek et al.<br />
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Abstract:<br />
Air pollution and climate change are inherently linked to each other. After introducing into the presently prevalent air pollutants and their relevance for forest tree and ecosystem performance, the account focuses on nitrogen deposition and troposphere ozone (O3), the latter being regarded as potentially most detrimental to vegetation, and hence, as negating carbon sink strength and storage. Mechanisms of O3 action in trees and stands are highlighted, stressing interaction with other abiotic and biotic factors, including volatile organic compounds, as a fundamental pre-requisite for understanding O3 effects. O3 is emphasized as a globally effective agent of climate change, regarding relevance for forest productivity, in particular, at hot spots of air pollution in the southern hemisphere, prognosticated for the upcoming decades. Adaptation capacities of forest trees are discussed in view of the rapidity in the progression of environmental change. </blockquote>
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Given the paramount role O3 currently plays in air pollution at global scale, the major focus of this chapter will be on tropospheric O3 and its impact on forest trees and ecosystems.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinw28EMrOht4Fe9gl6hxXJkkK51WR_J2zKFUbn7b7lw7ZSAXrNDlq1VGXKVKB4yf9kFdZ1pJNpyPS1sal3T5YyAPjlWAClfVYKMj09qzSLrCwI6aMx6L0ziGJUjjV6a0eOhhu3-yv05Js/s1600/14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinw28EMrOht4Fe9gl6hxXJkkK51WR_J2zKFUbn7b7lw7ZSAXrNDlq1VGXKVKB4yf9kFdZ1pJNpyPS1sal3T5YyAPjlWAClfVYKMj09qzSLrCwI6aMx6L0ziGJUjjV6a0eOhhu3-yv05Js/s400/14.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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p. 123 - At this level of ecosystem N saturation, tree mortality may increase, and the once stimulated NPP is now suppressed, as the proportions among nutrient elements gradually shifts to an imbalance dominated by nitrogen (Aber et al. 1998). However, a balanced nutrient supply is crucial for tree growth. Imbalance is indicated by lowered Ca/Al and Mg/Al ratios (reinforced by a high affinity of roots to passive Al uptake) as indicators of forest decline. A shortage in Ca can restrict radial stem growth (Lautner et al. 2007), limiting water transport capacity. In this way, the development of tree foliage may be reduced, which can lead to progressive crown transparency. In addition, leaves may become yellowish as a consequence of Mg limitation (Schulze et al. 1989). Mg is crucial for chlorophyll functionality so that shortage reduces photosynthesis and C gains and is accompanied by the loss of chlorophyll. In particular, advanced needle age classes of evergreen coniferous tree species can turn yellow, as the retranslocation of Mg from old needles to new represent a strong sink during needle growth. Further adverse effects of luxurious N availability may be an increasing attractiveness to herbivores and pathogens and an enhanced susceptibility to early and late frosts, as high specific leaf area is induced during differentiation at the expense of leaf robustness. High N supply in addition favours aboveground relative to belowground organs in whole-tree C allocation, so that trees may become susceptible to soil drought.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_voZs7HvYxzR3Fkhajag4Wt0AulnH8egwYPtKHgw8MqnDhkjlvcnAsLyqfpC74SWG62yV16sTxM5OWjOL1RQI5VIo0fMliSPVDApGhIb2FmY1Hi3m2gm-jiJ6Tet4aEbM5ZJCgiuhidA/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_voZs7HvYxzR3Fkhajag4Wt0AulnH8egwYPtKHgw8MqnDhkjlvcnAsLyqfpC74SWG62yV16sTxM5OWjOL1RQI5VIo0fMliSPVDApGhIb2FmY1Hi3m2gm-jiJ6Tet4aEbM5ZJCgiuhidA/s400/13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
p. 128<br />
Air pollution is one component of climate change. Among other anthropogenic pollutants, tropospheric O3 is the ecologically most significant compound, given its toxic potential for plants and widely spread occurrence at enhanced concentrations (see Sect. 7.1). O3 impact, therefore, must be understood in concert with other factors of relevance in a changing environment (addressed in this section), because multiple interactions determine the plants’ sensitivity to stress (Mooney and Winner 1991; Ska¨rby et al. 1998; Matyssek and Innes 1999). Because of this, principles of O3 action in trees, as highlighted in Sect. 7.2, may be moderated or even masked (Matyssek and Sandermann 2003).</blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_NtxIO43KfY_GJpaWBs6kZ7rxKe4wvYt6ilddt9qy5mXYNsh9xzftmmxEWr0L_himGgEgv10WyQdi7deMSW9kyO8qvjiw73t5Cr-xBEDy2TDmk_Jnwpc9KIMmN9DlxnVBfMBJFg_NQ_c/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_NtxIO43KfY_GJpaWBs6kZ7rxKe4wvYt6ilddt9qy5mXYNsh9xzftmmxEWr0L_himGgEgv10WyQdi7deMSW9kyO8qvjiw73t5Cr-xBEDy2TDmk_Jnwpc9KIMmN9DlxnVBfMBJFg_NQ_c/s400/10.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Still, our judgement largely relies on findings from young trees and chamber experiments, although evidence has increased recently on tree performance at advanced ontogenetic stages and under ecologically relevant field conditions (Kubiske et al. 2007; Matyssek et al. 2010a, b). Section 7.3.1 will highlight interactions of O3 with temperature, drought, and irradiance, followed by Sect. 7.3.2 on the relevance of nutrition. Sections 7.3.3 and 7.3.4 will address such interactions with VOCs and CH4, and between O3 and CO2 respectively. Biotic influences on the O3 response of trees will be highlighted in Sect. 7.3.5, comprising the significance of tree genotype and effects by competition, host-pathogen/herbivore relationships and mycorrhizospheric interactions.</blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFffVzy9wHBP8Y68rLVCsm6F2wTqjWTH-ye8kbr00Oj6gUqye1mMD1TVUzeHyyPdGPNwh7wuVbHVhFFnXAHtdIWI9ZWei7FPq9MrWTS1L9iTRglMP5rsy7gUHRW6WfL-yQU18i9rxhn1A/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFffVzy9wHBP8Y68rLVCsm6F2wTqjWTH-ye8kbr00Oj6gUqye1mMD1TVUzeHyyPdGPNwh7wuVbHVhFFnXAHtdIWI9ZWei7FPq9MrWTS1L9iTRglMP5rsy7gUHRW6WfL-yQU18i9rxhn1A/s400/13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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One final word about the cause of forest decline and then barring some truly earth-shattering revelation, I seriously doubt I will find any reason to bring up the subject again. The drought in California that is so widely blamed for tree deaths is <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/srep33325"><span style="color: purple;">not considered</span></a> to have become severe, certainly not unprecedented, until 2012 - and the trees were dying long before then. What IS widely acknowledged is that deforestation <i>causes</i> droughts and ultimately desertification, and this has been known throughout history, back to the <a href="https://www.eh-resources.org/the-role-of-wood-in-world-history/"><span style="color: purple;">story of Gilgamesh</span></a> in the third millennium BCE - and even earlier. See a “<span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://scienceheathen.com/2015/01/05/desertification-effects-causes-examples-top-10-list/">top ten</a></span>” list of examples from the past.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHZQ0XIQED1pJR5zhlK7nWYlgl3HuueyOqfXIibqeWAGF9UJ6TuCn5bbgF-81bPhkff281gDqLf_Mbwf21kk-ygPNUOBfn6buulc32zkRNcuiyXdjOCaX-sI7WS6xnxUqzou6I28cBFt4/s1600/32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHZQ0XIQED1pJR5zhlK7nWYlgl3HuueyOqfXIibqeWAGF9UJ6TuCn5bbgF-81bPhkff281gDqLf_Mbwf21kk-ygPNUOBfn6buulc32zkRNcuiyXdjOCaX-sI7WS6xnxUqzou6I28cBFt4/s400/32.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<br />
Consider that by poisoning trees with ozone we are, in effect, deforesting the entire world and THIS is causing the droughts, in a hellish cycle of destruction.<br />
<br />
Here is a current example in <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/world/africa/africas-charcoal-economy-is-cooking-the-trees-are-paying.html?smid=fb-share&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com"><span style="color: purple;">Madagascar</span>,</a> which like the rest of Africa, is logging to produce charcoal for fuel:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWV2mvW771Q78c3HJALNCHcnw4ijZ0N0PoF14vHpYcTNTcu0JjlOk0F4amNTQm4eIrNSMuHwNg7D1TuEMspDc-9U1L-IiS-TDQuSHhcWud7U4DN1oqT3wbE51P2HT9ZqMLdKOyOeE4Sgw/s1600/charcoal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWV2mvW771Q78c3HJALNCHcnw4ijZ0N0PoF14vHpYcTNTcu0JjlOk0F4amNTQm4eIrNSMuHwNg7D1TuEMspDc-9U1L-IiS-TDQuSHhcWud7U4DN1oqT3wbE51P2HT9ZqMLdKOyOeE4Sgw/s400/charcoal.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Charcoal — cleaner and easier to use than firewood, cheaper and more readily available than gas or electricity — has become one of the biggest engines of Africa’s informal economy. But it has also become one of the greatest threats to its environment. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...The village chief, Evomasy, 48, said he believed that <i><b>the trees’ disappearance had caused the recent severe droughts</b></i>. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“We cut down everything,” he said, looking at the shrub land now surrounding his village. “We used to have trees all around us.”</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPQW802cElGGis3XsFbsp3Oc1ADoYUItFlTjD0io9I7EgEHvAYJwN-KSGCkYed4RLweu0g4e3rmKZYSO5rOnNdTtdNsn3oCyrviEgpRsd2Sna50RK6xbaloXiQZ38fF9u8Zxf95BEaoDY/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPQW802cElGGis3XsFbsp3Oc1ADoYUItFlTjD0io9I7EgEHvAYJwN-KSGCkYed4RLweu0g4e3rmKZYSO5rOnNdTtdNsn3oCyrviEgpRsd2Sna50RK6xbaloXiQZ38fF9u8Zxf95BEaoDY/s400/1.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
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<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Another <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/opinion/sunday/deforestation-and-drought.html"><span style="color: purple;">article</span></a> from the New York Times explains the mechanism by which deforestation creates drought:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">Humans have long settled in places where there is adequate and predictable precipitation, and large forests play a crucial role in generating dependable amounts of rainfall. Trees take up moisture from the soil and transpire it, lifting it into the atmosphere. A fully grown tree releases 1,000 liters of water vapor a day into the atmosphere: The entire Amazon rain forest sends up 20 billion tons a day.</span> </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA8foT9ERmiVOZlWQD6EWjSDlYWxqTD0-_AXjfDF-FyUdMJyVAmFdj8ZWYxhvd3beElWIvr0Xegv4a0Zfc87TM1dDFD8tRDsgkOXbbjU_10xPTH9jOEO8CNitXWxgLyQrO96bpgxOqzNc/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA8foT9ERmiVOZlWQD6EWjSDlYWxqTD0-_AXjfDF-FyUdMJyVAmFdj8ZWYxhvd3beElWIvr0Xegv4a0Zfc87TM1dDFD8tRDsgkOXbbjU_10xPTH9jOEO8CNitXWxgLyQrO96bpgxOqzNc/s400/6.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">The water vapor creates clouds, which are seeded with volatile gases like terpenes and isoprene, emitted by the trees naturally, to form rain. These water-rich banks of clouds travel long, wind-driven distances, a conveyor belt for the delivery of precipitation that scientists call <span class="s2">flying rivers</span>.</span> </blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmjq-uQVvoKPsogJlRlpjniW38waRMVFgrBl426iG57HaAdadGAu4s8vCuqESTi5jbzgYsQ5a88PiRGxFO3P13HONZjnZD39Me75mZ0rrjwBJJtq5bVqSKkA93sgDNdJlG99M-4F9Lq1Q/s1600/43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmjq-uQVvoKPsogJlRlpjniW38waRMVFgrBl426iG57HaAdadGAu4s8vCuqESTi5jbzgYsQ5a88PiRGxFO3P13HONZjnZD39Me75mZ0rrjwBJJtq5bVqSKkA93sgDNdJlG99M-4F9Lq1Q/s400/43.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">The sky-borne river over the Amazon carries more water than the Amazon River itself. It begins as moisture that builds over the Atlantic Ocean, and then flows westward over the emerald crown of the Amazon, where it picks up far more moisture. The laden clouds eventually bump up against the Andes and are steered south and then east, which means rain for Bolivia and Brazil.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">One way forests may move water is known as “biotic pumping.” As water transpires into the atmosphere above the forest, the theory holds, it creates a low-pressure system that sucks in air surrounding it, eventually and continually pumping moisture inland from the ocean. Cutting down forests degrades these low-pressure systems, essentially turning off the pump. Large-scale deforestation is thus believed to be a major contributor to the extreme drought in Brazil. </span><span class="s1">Scientists have long known that vegetation has a profound effect on weather.</span></blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwKbbvg4h0xZiTa5baU4-mrPFcenUtBlCMiKc2PXNQkiKQe461n5hBzFUf9CGdfJ8NxyhW3DqzIVKmRnRIu17BhMU4Ap46fiKzUAZZsMXWzbJqWbgnWGl3-k25fE5S4VmZf_8G5K3X_Ks/s1600/31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwKbbvg4h0xZiTa5baU4-mrPFcenUtBlCMiKc2PXNQkiKQe461n5hBzFUf9CGdfJ8NxyhW3DqzIVKmRnRIu17BhMU4Ap46fiKzUAZZsMXWzbJqWbgnWGl3-k25fE5S4VmZf_8G5K3X_Ks/s400/31.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">In 1907, officials built a 2,000-mile-long fence across Australia to keep invasive rabbits from crossing from the wild outback into farms. On the side with native vegetation, rain clouds formed in the sky above, but the farm-field skies were clear. The “bunny-fence experiments” charted a decline in rainfall of 20 percent on the cultivated side.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="s1">Researchers are still trying to explain why, but the leading theory is that the darker native plants absorb more heat and release it into the atmosphere, along with energy and water vapor to form clouds.</span></blockquote>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi63JFk1nVrGEKG-5-H8-GPbQtFu3arVm_HcrkWnxp6z8lvqCA1IOjZcPEZuDUZ7Dwj6Yp-RHuGB8Rubn097CdcAPKINNpQYicnx1qkCr5npGbrDP6Vczpn-94mdznQKESnCwVl0ETlKgU/s1600/35.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi63JFk1nVrGEKG-5-H8-GPbQtFu3arVm_HcrkWnxp6z8lvqCA1IOjZcPEZuDUZ7Dwj6Yp-RHuGB8Rubn097CdcAPKINNpQYicnx1qkCr5npGbrDP6Vczpn-94mdznQKESnCwVl0ETlKgU/s400/35.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Here is <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/maya-civilization-fall-droughts-climate-change-mexico-2016-6"><span style="color: purple;">another example</span></a>, the Mayan civilization:<br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the past few years, scientists have been gathering evidence that drought and deforestation made life in the cities unsustainable, leading to the collapse of not only Tikal but dozens of cities in the southern part of the empire. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...when the population density reached 2,000 people per square mile — similar to that of Los Angeles — the Maya were engaged in a massive clear-cutting of the surrounding forests, unintentionally amplifying drought conditions.</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcEyAJlJAdd6kF-U0bMmCx3bKDwksso0ZyIGdYumRLia_Xo7kiaJQE8hUfyhtAo1__8GvcOe5CAPm2yVUrquLq39ZbWA-pMMFz3q4XfQ4x2J3uokzwk0deARVe3bXgK7nJGI3zSyYMIXU/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcEyAJlJAdd6kF-U0bMmCx3bKDwksso0ZyIGdYumRLia_Xo7kiaJQE8hUfyhtAo1__8GvcOe5CAPm2yVUrquLq39ZbWA-pMMFz3q4XfQ4x2J3uokzwk0deARVe3bXgK7nJGI3zSyYMIXU/s400/11.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
While the rainwater Mayan cities depended on for drinking and irrigation was becoming more and more scarce, they were also clear-cutting their forests using a<br />
“slash-and-burn" technique similar to the one used today. The method is exactly what it sounds like: They cut down the surrounding jungle and set it ablaze to make room for crops. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...For centuries, Mayan civilization practiced environmental management successful enough to build a powerful, sophisticated, and possibly most advanced society of the precolonial Americas. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But in the end, unchecked growth hastened the demise of the empire, even before conquistadors landed.</blockquote>
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A <a href="http://planetsave.com/2016/08/29/nearly-30-indias-land-now-undergoing-desertification/"><span style="color: purple;">recent article</span></a> about India laments the trend towards desertification:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUK2xlqTQlPogZo6n6K01pn8mkhqELvq6QJ0GE0b8tJL5Kje6y89k2m6RkH_U72EIaM7ivIV-M_HqsZGRXGQqZmP2lv7HH75AWhvsadysayURP9rgcM5Fu55TMk2YfNZJkoD9fDkP_Ho/s1600/india-desert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkUK2xlqTQlPogZo6n6K01pn8mkhqELvq6QJ0GE0b8tJL5Kje6y89k2m6RkH_U72EIaM7ivIV-M_HqsZGRXGQqZmP2lv7HH75AWhvsadysayURP9rgcM5Fu55TMk2YfNZJkoD9fDkP_Ho/s400/india-desert.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">Nearly 30% of India’s land is now undergoing desertification, primarily as a result of the land degradation accompanying overcultivation, overgrazing, deforestation, and the overexploitation of water resources in dryland regions, according to a new report from the Indian Space Research Organization.</span> </blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">The root causes of the situation, though, are fundamentally linked to growing population levels and the inevitable growing exploitation of the land, so there are no easy, effective actions that can be taken. Any potential “solutions” are likely to be very costly, whether with regard to resources, economic systems, or society.</span></span> </blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;">The </span>findings<span style="background-color: white; text-align: justify;"> are the result of an analysis of satellite images over an 8-year period of time.</span></span> </blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Land degradation and desertification has been a major issue throughout the Holocene for agricultural cultures and civilizations. Land degradation through the actions of agriculture, deforestation (and triggered changes in aridity and rainfall patterns), overgrazing, and accompanying desertification are thought to have played a prominent role in the decline and fall of a great many notable cultures and civilizations.</span></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcHf6xN7TiLXWZoUddQejgIwW38NBIMfbAFu3dcegdtWx0DrwDZTNhTjUlZNVyN2s2YJ3IobW-tlUShPgzIXE0ar3JyBkImDQW7UxDX-m603AE8uHTUBeWbO7_vm16uV20Nraf6I6ovsE/s1600/51.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcHf6xN7TiLXWZoUddQejgIwW38NBIMfbAFu3dcegdtWx0DrwDZTNhTjUlZNVyN2s2YJ3IobW-tlUShPgzIXE0ar3JyBkImDQW7UxDX-m603AE8uHTUBeWbO7_vm16uV20Nraf6I6ovsE/s400/51.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Several stories have appeared in my <a href="http://www.newjerseyhills.com/bernardsville_news/news/is-ancient-oak-tree-in-basking-ridge-dying/article_200f3305-411c-5b2a-b9a9-4d7c49bc2660.html"><span style="color: purple;">local media</span></a> about an ancient beloved oak tree in nearby Basking Ridge suddenly dying. Even though it is undoubtedly, venerably old, it should have another century or two. It<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;">’</span>s just another heartbreaking example of the collapse of the biosphere. I <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2010/02/shakespeare-and-noam-chomsky.html"><span style="color: purple;">wrote about</span></a> the impending demise of this particular tree six years ago, but almost no one notices such losses until far, far after the inevitability of death becomes too apparent to ignore.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xeczpjUXAwxwz1PCnHTu7ilhbzRfPfQew-sIGGz0XByIK-fuaVpIi1OXAJ_oNuAyUGkjrr7_mnvtUno0C47Ql4VqCwic5KtM9fn_cKRcZcA0JGOdXU_Fq3DcYyIx-CfRlpwC8K4lvto/s1600/oak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-xeczpjUXAwxwz1PCnHTu7ilhbzRfPfQew-sIGGz0XByIK-fuaVpIi1OXAJ_oNuAyUGkjrr7_mnvtUno0C47Ql4VqCwic5KtM9fn_cKRcZcA0JGOdXU_Fq3DcYyIx-CfRlpwC8K4lvto/s400/oak.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px;">“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; line-height: 21px;"> ~ </span><a class="authorOrTitle" href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13560.Leonardo_da_Vinci" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 21px; text-decoration: none;">Leonardo da Vinci</a></span><br />
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Many thanks to my fellow travelers from The Panic Room.<br />
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-50994452739406099872016-08-20T15:41:00.000-04:002016-08-20T15:41:38.919-04:00Deeply Dystopian<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Based on a <a href="https://blog.longreads.com/2016/08/04/mass-extinction-the-early-years/"><span style="color: purple;">free excerpt</span></a> captioned "A quick rundown of the ecocidal empires that came before us", I purchased the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Extinction-Radical-History-Ashley-Dawson/dp/1944869018"><span style="color: purple;">electronic version</span></a> of "Extinction: A Radical History" by Ashley Dawson. Upon reading the entire book I was not surprised, having been forewarned, to see the typical finger pointing at capitalism - but it was more disappointing than usual since the author, who is a superb writer, did an excellent job delineating just how destructive humans have been ever since we emerged from Africa and learned to use fire and weapons to extirpate dozens upon dozens of animals we preyed upon or whose habitat we burned. It's worth reading if only to follow up on his bibliography and find works such as "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ecocide-Short.../dp/0745319343"><span style="color: purple;">Ecocide</span></a>" published in 2004 and "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Food-Crisis-Prehistory-Overpopulation-Agriculture/dp/0300023510"><span style="color: purple;">The Food Crisis in Prehistory</span></a>: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture" from 1979.</div>
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<span class="s1">He started off on sound footing based on archaeological facts but then veered into the usual illusions about human behavior to be found in the writings of just about every apocaloptimist offering stealth hope to the steadily increasing numbers of petrified witnesses to the Great Convulsion of our deteriorating environment.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Overshoot, hand in hand with destruction of the natural world, culminating in societal collapse, war, and migration, is essentially what our species does perpetually and recurringly, with monotonous repetition, over and over. To frame the global precipice we now teeter upon as a recent, especially gluttonous aberration based on the modern financial system and consumer culture is to willfully ignore the pattern that Prof. Dawson himself elucidates so comprehensively. It also exposes a sad lack of understanding of the exponential function that is almost universally ignored, one prominent feature of which is to look FLAT for far, far longer than a sudden acceleration revealed in various hockey stick graphs - whether population, global temps, fresh water depletion or species extinction.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The contortions he employs to make his thesis work are unconvincing, citing for example the Egyptians as having been "sustainable" for thousands of years while ignoring their use of slaves to fuel their economy (unless perhaps he considers slavery some sort of balance). Humans have been driven by greed, a desire for status, and have exhibited a thorough lack of concern for preserving natural resources throughout our existence - a heedless exploitation that was limited only by technology and energy, despite what the tenets of almost all religions like to proclaim is our genesis from a sacred mother Earth.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">He reveals the reason for his bias quite clearly in this statement: "An anti-capitalist perspective also prevents us from attributing ecocide to humanity as a whole." Like others who blame capitalism and ignore the brutality and devastation perpetuated by societies around the world including primitive, indigenous tribes, from ancient Asia to the Maya and Inca and Mound people of North America - he is willing to believe in fantasies rather than admit the rather obvious fact - ecocide IS being wrought by humanity as a whole. His further statements make this agenda even more clear: "Such a perspective is truly hopeless," and </span>"Understanding that capitalism is responsible for the lion’s share of the sixth extinction helps us avoid the deeply dystopian idea that human beings are innately destructive of the natural world."</div>
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<span class="s1">Yes, yes indeed it is hopeless. That's because there IS no hope. Yes, it is deeply dystopian, but preposterous to suggest otherwise since these statements followed one of the most compelling reconstructions of human-caused mass extinctions going back over 15,000 years I have yet to see. The leopard can't change its spots, and humans can't avoid the Tragedy of the Commons, because we are hard-wired for short term self-interest and optimism bias...and it is that desperate desire for hope that insulates us from an ability to take the necessary steps to save ourselves and most of the rest of the living things on this planet. Take away the top 1% and there will be a good 75% and probably far more who will happily replicate their level of consumption.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">He is correct in this pronunciation however: "We face a clear choice: radical political transformation or deepening mass extinction."</span></div>
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<span class="s1">However, there is absolutely no objective evidence there will be any sort of radical political transformation, or even if there were, that it would be sufficient to stave off mass extinction (which is already well under way) including ourselves. This is because politics is not the fundamental problem. The problem is the genetic imperative to grow, a trait we share with every other living thing. The problem is there's not much external holding us in check, and believing we should be able to rationally do things differently is just another form of anthropocentrism. We're not much better than yeast, or at least, not better enough.</span></div>
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According to Werner Herzog <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/16/werner-herzog-it-s-not-unthinkable-that-we-will-become-extinct-as-a-species.html"><span style="color: purple;">interviewed</span></a> in the Daily Beast, humans might quite likely go extinct, but there's no need to panic - it won't be for a thousand years! Infatuation with technology is the reverse side of the coin of demonizing modern industrial society and romanticizing wilderness, and equally limited. I just watched <a href="http://fusion.net/story/118016/ex-machina-is-the-best-movie-about-artificial-intelligence-in-40-years/"><span style="color: purple;">X Machina</span></a>, a creepy fictionalized account of a robot takeover that delves uncomfortably close to the misogynist tendencies of AI enthusiasts, and there's also a more decorous (but equally fantastical) documentary in Herzog's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeG6vwGTd4I"><span style="color: purple;">latest film</span></a>, "Lo and Behold, Reveries of a Connected Age". <br />
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Dread of nature perhaps underlies a powerful desire in human consciousness to control, even destroy it, and is a strong theme Herzog described about making his 1982 film, "Fitzcarraldo," mirroring Conrad. The clip he narrated is below this transcript, mesmerizing (in a deeply dystopian way).<br />
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<i>Werner Herzog</i> ~ "...Kinski always says it's full of erotic elements. I don't see it so much erotic. I see it more full of obscenity. It's just - Nature here is vile and base. I wouldn't see anything erotical here. I would see fornication and asphyxiation and choking and fighting for survival and... growing and... just rotting away. Of course, there's a lot of misery. But it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they - they sing. They just screech in pain. It's an unfinished country. It's still prehistorical. The only thing that is lacking is - is the dinosaurs here. It's like a curse weighing on an entire landscape. And whoever... goes too deep into this has his share of this curse. So we are cursed with what we are doing here. It's a land that God, if he exists has - has created in anger. It's the only land where - where creation is unfinished yet. Taking a close look at - at what's around us there - there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of... overwhelming and collective murder. And we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle - Uh, we in comparison to that enormous articulation - we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban... novel... a cheap novel. We have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery and overwhelming fornication... overwhelming growth and overwhelming lack of order. Even the - the stars up here in the - in the sky look like a mess. There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony as we have conceived it. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment."<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3xQyQnXrLb0" width="420"></iframe>Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-47753918672594788152016-04-01T10:00:00.001-04:002016-04-07T08:21:20.552-04:00Earth Embalmed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There are so many calamities - fish kills in Florida and birds falling out of the skies, epic floods and droughts, the slowing of the ocean currents - that when I prepared the 26th <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dispatch From The Endocene</span></i> I left out a major incident I had intended to include - the abrupt and near total coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The fact that it is just one item on the roster of grotesque environmental disasters that will catalyze NO change whatsoever in the engine of human civilization - even though it has to be the most egregious, most atrocious, most stunningly heinous example of anthropogenic ecocide - is astonishing. It is proof, were any to be needed, that nothing - nothing, not an ice free Arctic, not a huge ice shelf breaking off Antarctica raising sea levels a foot in a week, not thousands of deaths in a heat wave, not storms so violent they lift boulders from the bottom of the sea - NOTHING will stop people from availing themselves blindly and greedily to the bounteous largess of Earth...until it is all gone, and there is none left. The debacle in the reef is the latest example of humanity ceaselessly rendering the biosphere into a morgue. It’s as awful as though all the forests were dying, and we managed to ignore it.</div>
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Following is the transcript for the April 1, 2016 broadcast, and no, sadly, it’s not a joke. You can listen to it streaming at the <a href="http://www.extinctionradio.org/"><span style="color: purple;">Extinction Radio</span></a> website tonight, where it will be archived with the rest of the show, or listen <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/ikivg90rr8vujle/dispatch%2026%20-%203%3A31%3A16%2C%206.38%20PM.mp3?dl=0"><span style="color: purple;">here</span></a>.<br />
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<span class="s1">Thanks as always Gene, and welcome listeners to the 26th Dispatch From the Endocene.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Even in the best of times, people search for meaning and crave a sense of purpose in their lives. It seems a very human trait to wonder who we are and why we are here, effectively alone as we drift through the universe. So often, we find ourselves helpless victims to the incoherent caprice of nature, and it is difficult to find the stability we desire when we are buffeted by forces we cannot control. Sometimes we respond with despair, and sometimes with hope, when we are confronted with the randomness and cruelty of an arbitrary fate.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">How much more difficult is it then, to contemplate the irrevocable loss of species due to our own actions, not to say our own extinction from relentless destruction and pollution. The prospect of human extinction lays waste to all philosophy and faith that places humanity at the center of cosmic consciousness, and posits existence beyond materialism. How can we respond when we acknowledge the shrapnel of our explosive growth has rendered the biosphere unsalvageable? In the midst of ever more evidence of horrifically accelerating climate change, from <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2082628-unexpected-antarctic-ice-melt-may-trigger-2-metre-sea-level-rise/"><span style="color: purple;">melting Antarctica and sea level rise</span></a> to the lack of any remaining carbon budget, the ecological tipping points are fast receding into the past. We have entered a phase of universal, rancid toxicity in the air, water and soil, ultimately to become inhospitable to all but the most intrepid simple organisms.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">The conundrum of being authentic in a contrived system has always been absurd, and for many who are aware of the ubiquitous ominous trends it becomes an insurmountable task to detect joy in face of the Tragedy of the Commons. That parable is one of the most potent descriptions of how intractable the plight of humanity has become, now that we are suffocating and squeezed on this fragile, finite beleaguered planet. The interests of the individual must eventually doom the entire community, and then of course the individual with it.</span></div>
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In 1651 Thomas Hobbes published Leviathan, where he wrote “…in the first place, I put forth a general inclination of all mankind a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.”<br />
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<span class="s1">The response as formulated by Albert Camus still resonates; make your own meaning. Find what you love to do, and do it. In these times careening towards collapse of many sorts, I would add, bear witness. It is a futile act, but I feel it is my moral obligation to the life we are consuming…and I don’t know what else to do.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">So this Dispatch is going to consist of acknowledging some events and issues that deserve to be known, starting with the absolute inevitability of human extinction. All of the links will be posted on my blog, Wit’s End. It will be illustrated with the art of Ruud Van Empel. I first saw <a href="http://web.ruudvanempel.nl/works/130-world-7.html"><span style="color: purple;">his work</span></a> on a Facebook post, accompanied by fatuously enthusiastic endorsements from commenters who were certain that the ridiculously large lotus leaves are from an actual, idyllic forest on a Caribbean island.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Suspecting there was something more enigmatic being communicated (albeit too esoteric for the average face booker), I looked him up and discovered a fascinating hyper-realist whose digital collage photographs were described by one critic as “</span><span class="s2">the subtle undermining of true Paradise”. Another observed: “Everything is so consistently, motionlessly, too beautiful to be true that it seems immediately suspicious and perhaps even threatening. Ruud van Empel makes technically perfect use of these ambiguities.” Look carefully at the mask of serenity and you will find themes of innocence and historic guilt, exploitation and redemption, wilderness and artifice.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">Probably one of the most important and penetrating articles that will be swiftly forgotten was published in, of all places, Climate Network News. With the ominous title, “Renewable energy demands the undoable”, <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/renewable-energy-demands-undoable/?"><span style="color: purple;">the article</span></a> discusses a study called “</span><span class="s3">The 21st century population-energy-climate nexus” published in the journal Energy Policy</span><span class="s1">. This analysis decisively shatters the fairytale that humanity can power modern civilization with renewable energy in anything like the timeframe required to spare us from utterly catastrophic climate change. Right now nearly 1/5 of the world’s population lives without access to electricity yet, we need to reduce emissions immediately. Currently renewables are only a tiny portion of the mix - just 10.3% of electricity and that’s including hydropower, a highly damaging source. Obviously, all transport is almost completely dependent on burning fuel.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvDvCugEPtdRzy4XUPgofVuVgPKFyxWXoj_NmkQ4bvPrzkU3_Fby5Ymk0gSfLoEKGkW3IUra3Cz2ZEtb847vw80j1I9qvmVj8_Hv-VK26SF151ee2aKiDq9vd-HHsS4PK7-x20e3IjZY/s1600/20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvDvCugEPtdRzy4XUPgofVuVgPKFyxWXoj_NmkQ4bvPrzkU3_Fby5Ymk0gSfLoEKGkW3IUra3Cz2ZEtb847vw80j1I9qvmVj8_Hv-VK26SF151ee2aKiDq9vd-HHsS4PK7-x20e3IjZY/s400/20.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">This is the sort of factual reality that climate crusaders don’t want to hear, because it completely refutes the ability of their idol, new technology, to save the day and enable industrial civilization to continue - never mind extend to those people who have yet to enjoy its benefits, equivocal though they may be.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxKDHqi0IXWSw7MFLL5h-gpWSwPQ4o2frJDtvW-GBKztdG1wLXZIGkE2VsUahgJLFmIgbkzK5ZuqqboKBkHgoAFMLW7SfS54Au1sgRPP23oisqxiTaK22M6dWqKTJZSOR7Ca21N6VR81A/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxKDHqi0IXWSw7MFLL5h-gpWSwPQ4o2frJDtvW-GBKztdG1wLXZIGkE2VsUahgJLFmIgbkzK5ZuqqboKBkHgoAFMLW7SfS54Au1sgRPP23oisqxiTaK22M6dWqKTJZSOR7Ca21N6VR81A/s400/12.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">The study echoes and reinforces the conclusions made by Ozzie Zehner, the author of “Green Illusions”. In <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/15588-power-shift-away-from-green-illusions"><span style="color: purple;">an interview from 2013</span></a>, he was quoted as follows:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“The modern environmental movement has rolled over to become an outlet for loggers, energy firms and car companies to plug into. It is now primarily a social media platform for consumerism, growth and energy production - an institutionalized philanderer of green illusions. If you need evidence, just go to any climate rally and you</span>’ll see a strip mall of stands for green products, green jobs and green energy. These will do nothing to solve the crisis we face, which is not an energy crisis but rather a crisis of consumption.”<br />
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_zy5pXOQ2fPJKnto6SNPCgLQepfAqwKKZnyM8JObvAMtK6XVPgj04Wi-vSGMQWpuILOrVT7_sHxxEBCtPBmXbwnt_x3EPNUO-HAcL-LpkoXv4MmDipWBcuq-Q_xr1nAEMERI0Z-RDfRI/s1600/19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_zy5pXOQ2fPJKnto6SNPCgLQepfAqwKKZnyM8JObvAMtK6XVPgj04Wi-vSGMQWpuILOrVT7_sHxxEBCtPBmXbwnt_x3EPNUO-HAcL-LpkoXv4MmDipWBcuq-Q_xr1nAEMERI0Z-RDfRI/s400/19.jpg" width="286" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“There is an impression that we have a choice between fossil fuels and clean energy technologies such as solar cells and wind turbines. That choice is an illusion. Alternative energy technologies rely on fossil fuels through every stage of their life. Alternative energy technologies rely on fossil fuels for mining operations, fabrication plants, installation, ongoing maintenance and decommissioning. Also, due to the irregular output of wind and solar, these technologies require fossil fuel plants to be running alongside them at all times. Most significantly, alternative energy financing relies on the kind of growth that fossil fuels drive.</span>”<br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsrb4QBRjfRENDHIrtJH3WjhuhVhhOZfdheaBzZT58802c61sRaQz5JRGFr0X58Aw5ja0ErEDtvAOo6YAbhssdzcA-BIGHWJhXGxPbA6ZNyAIbpS64WvkCMCcjQ2czhlgJxtZs5q2hms4/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsrb4QBRjfRENDHIrtJH3WjhuhVhhOZfdheaBzZT58802c61sRaQz5JRGFr0X58Aw5ja0ErEDtvAOo6YAbhssdzcA-BIGHWJhXGxPbA6ZNyAIbpS64WvkCMCcjQ2czhlgJxtZs5q2hms4/s400/7.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">In his book of philosophy “Straw Dogs”, John Gray wrote in 2007: “The destruction of the natural world is not the result of global capitalism, industrialisation, “Western civilisation” or any flaw in human institutions. It is a consequence of the evolutionary success of an exceptionally rapacious primate. Throughout all of history and prehistory, human advance has coincided with ecological devastation.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTx9ch9OPyOXOh4mBTxqhukCf24E0CyJSGLSBGtv_okVK9HQjiFh1-G6eOe_ha8R_2dBx7ItAeL08mplzkJBzoHMlEzSDmrQCyt6Ujoun-r0MC5yeaYRtFoLk-524qHxDciw6SIT9Emic/s1600/14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTx9ch9OPyOXOh4mBTxqhukCf24E0CyJSGLSBGtv_okVK9HQjiFh1-G6eOe_ha8R_2dBx7ItAeL08mplzkJBzoHMlEzSDmrQCyt6Ujoun-r0MC5yeaYRtFoLk-524qHxDciw6SIT9Emic/s400/14.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">This brings us to the latest example of celebrity hypocrisy, in which Jeff Bridges stars in <span style="color: purple;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/JeffBridgesOfficial/videos/vb.110874942334341/1004864046268755/?type=2&theater">a video</a> </span>urging a reduction in the use of disposable plastic products with an emphasis on shopping bags, water bottles and straws. Somewhat disingenuously, the emphasis is on "single-use" plastic, as though the earth cares how many times plastic is used before it enters the landfill and ocean for eternity. Not to mention, that the footprint of replacements like metal water bottles isn</span>’t insignificant either. Coincidentally or perhaps due to some internet spying algorithm, after I watched that video <a href="http://celebritymozo.com/2016/03/23/jeff-bridges-magnificent-home-is-beyond-stunning/"><span style="color: purple;">a link popped up</span></a> on my home page urging me to check out Jeff Bridge’s “magnificent home beyond stunning” which turns out to be an obscenely enormous mansion full of expensive furniture, carpets and paintings each one of which, I am certain, was delivered swathed in protective single use plastic wrapping.<br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdYK6w81bWrY-XZqly01tjfmjgdDSypYI_AoZW0BAlKDbwPmR1bUvyXjt4v_VSZAGK6BZYqF3zih3b58eA2hFnwIIqu3TyNe0OlJi1Tu0xr7BfStnCo0ejPxmffAqevUXCoa7-HQAV9K0/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdYK6w81bWrY-XZqly01tjfmjgdDSypYI_AoZW0BAlKDbwPmR1bUvyXjt4v_VSZAGK6BZYqF3zih3b58eA2hFnwIIqu3TyNe0OlJi1Tu0xr7BfStnCo0ejPxmffAqevUXCoa7-HQAV9K0/s400/10.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Meanwhile, a <a href="http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/post-mortem-thirteen-sperm-whales-found-stomachs-full-plastic"><span style="color: purple;">post-mortem</span></a> on thirteen stranded whales found they were emaciated, their stomachs full of plastic, and <a href="http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/blog/posting.asp?ID=1917"><span style="color: purple;">a study</span></a> finds that we all, especially the adventurous nature-loving campers, hikers, skiers, and other outdoor enthusiasts among us, are sending 2,000 plastic microfibers into the water system every time we wash one article of fleece clothing…and indeed </span><span class="s4">fleece and Gore-Tex clothing is the biggest source of the more than 100 million particles of microplastic being deposited via wastewater into the fiord from a community of a mere 2,000 <a href="http://svalbardposten.no/index.php?page=vis_nyhet&NyhetID=6902"><span style="color: purple;">on the island of Svalbard</span></a>.</span><span class="s5"> 100 million particles. EVERY DAY.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHFYuvMDfv5nOY2PALPuBO-slb7D6dtMEFK723rM5IQshAJlRCyeyQwwBtBtN5C8xIfB-K6qAijv71_aLc7szAqCznpBVwqM-qniVpZBRDr-BHDe8uVgi4n9X3xy_JNyHJbvly-1xmGuc/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHFYuvMDfv5nOY2PALPuBO-slb7D6dtMEFK723rM5IQshAJlRCyeyQwwBtBtN5C8xIfB-K6qAijv71_aLc7szAqCznpBVwqM-qniVpZBRDr-BHDe8uVgi4n9X3xy_JNyHJbvly-1xmGuc/s400/13.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Hungry killer whales are looking for the salmon they usually eat off the shores of the Pacific Northwest at this time of year, but <a href="http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/hungry-killer-whales-waiting-for-columbia-river-salmon/"><span style="color: purple;">they’re not finding any</span></a>. At the mouth of the Columbia River spring chinook are at around 1% of their historic numbers, and 96% of sockeye died before finishing their journey up the Snake River last year. In March it <a href="http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/massive-algae-bloom-kills-23-million-salmon/64879"><span style="color: purple;">was reported</span></a> that a massive algae bloom killed 23 million salmon in Chile. “</span><span class="s6">Oceana, an environmental group in Chile, says the problem has been made worse by nitrate-rich runoff from livestock from nearby land around the salmon farms, which are typically offshore or in estuaries.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9chYBxmMkaN5VQFBW01Rv7ImNDugvJFTQnwVMcXlLAcvyOngtKivc9wjIGKMeiiQOepKlcoFbjZjvbFmYeUxwARWF7rnR3N8A9mv66BNVA_9tkKCaCQT1mZULVrTo053HTOuMuoBsHhw/s1600/dawn1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9chYBxmMkaN5VQFBW01Rv7ImNDugvJFTQnwVMcXlLAcvyOngtKivc9wjIGKMeiiQOepKlcoFbjZjvbFmYeUxwARWF7rnR3N8A9mv66BNVA_9tkKCaCQT1mZULVrTo053HTOuMuoBsHhw/s400/dawn1.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
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<span class="s7">And small wonder. “</span><span class="s1">Nitrogen fertilizer applied to farmers</span>’<span class="s1"> fields has been contaminating rivers and lakes and leaching into drinking water wells for more than 80 years. <a href="http://phys.org/news/2016-03-fertilizer-fields-today-pollute-decades.html?"><span style="color: purple;">The study</span></a>, published this week in a special issue of the journal <i>Environmental Research Letters</i>, reveals that elevated nitrate concentrations in rivers and lakes will remain high for decades, even if farmers stop applying nitrogen fertilizers </span><span class="s8">t</span><span class="s1">oday. The researchers have discovered that nitrogen is building up in soils, creating a long-term source of nitrate pollution in ground and surface waters.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NGv8AY65hz29h7zEMKejfZwM1f_5Pq9C11rRDEwhsH3ZVRp5tyPZtlfeujlsLGyA10CKxF8eSuK6prPiA9UGVktBq2gmHyIKepR_3oe8oSZyUqXlGKBxyXZor4dUjc_mzUFWD0QhjnM/s1600/30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5NGv8AY65hz29h7zEMKejfZwM1f_5Pq9C11rRDEwhsH3ZVRp5tyPZtlfeujlsLGyA10CKxF8eSuK6prPiA9UGVktBq2gmHyIKepR_3oe8oSZyUqXlGKBxyXZor4dUjc_mzUFWD0QhjnM/s400/30.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Lastly I would like to make a few remarks about our corroded trees and embalmed forests. Of course, we continue the tradition of chopping trees down, either for their lumber or to make room for so-called development or mining. The Atlantic magazine has a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/03/the-violent-remaking-of-appalachia/474603/"><span style="color: purple;">shocking layout</span></a> of images in an article titled “The Violent Remaking of Appalachia”, which is well worth a visit. Recently it has <a href="http://m.phys.org/news/2016-03-poland-europe-primeval-forest.html"><span style="color: purple;">been reported</span></a> that over the objections of many in the public, the government of Poland is going ahead with plans to raze parts of Europe’s last primeval forest. The article says “</span><span class="s9">It is home to 20,000 animal species, including 250 types of bird and 62 species of mammals—among them Europe</span>’s largest, the bison.<br />
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<span class="s9"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbpYvM7FH6AhyAlcz2jUgDjHEZ6KQs4Kti3eo83O1xEPqRKpQdA5Rp-oyZQ3P5ayetN_ywD-VbGDVxDDXVI-Me2cgRX81IH3AZDrhtFcY8wGknGgKh9Sln9Dw5wwNOfXvNlNoMOi2v7Eg/s1600/25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbpYvM7FH6AhyAlcz2jUgDjHEZ6KQs4Kti3eo83O1xEPqRKpQdA5Rp-oyZQ3P5ayetN_ywD-VbGDVxDDXVI-Me2cgRX81IH3AZDrhtFcY8wGknGgKh9Sln9Dw5wwNOfXvNlNoMOi2v7Eg/s400/25.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">...Europe</span>’s tallest trees, firs towering 50 metres high (164 feet), and oaks and ashes of 40 metres, also flourish here, in an ecosystem unspoiled for more than 10 millennia.” The government claims they have to log it to protect the trees that haven’t yet been infested with beetles…and in this instance they might not be lying.<br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjllOV23awKnQqMLbSKKeLo32_Z0e-VlEJ6OZ_LKDuuTo5lXf63pYExVX3PYBWhPlhr4XbAeB7TfUD0ObQ195zo71ZvzsI_0stf3vsCcnSVEZQEwdK9tBd6M0C7GUGS2tTZavAXLBVW0w/s1600/24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjllOV23awKnQqMLbSKKeLo32_Z0e-VlEJ6OZ_LKDuuTo5lXf63pYExVX3PYBWhPlhr4XbAeB7TfUD0ObQ195zo71ZvzsI_0stf3vsCcnSVEZQEwdK9tBd6M0C7GUGS2tTZavAXLBVW0w/s400/24.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s10">Biotic attacks are epidemics everywhere in the world. The UK Guardian <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/23/ash-dieback-and-beetle-attack-likely-to-wipe-out-all-ash-trees-in-uk-and-europe"><span style="color: purple;">reports</span></a> that between a disease and a beetle, the ash tree is likely to be “wiped out” in the UK and Europe and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/14/uk-alert-phony-peach-disease"><span style="color: purple;">separately</span></a>, that a disease with a “massive list of different host plants” is mutating and migrating. “</span><span class="s1">First confirmed in Europe three years ago when it ran rampant across olive plantations in southern Italy, a subspecies of <i>Xylella</i> has since been detected in southern France, where it has destroyed vines and lavender plants, and in Corsica. <i>Xylella</i> <i>fastidiosa</i> has also been found in both South and North America where it is commonly referred to as “phony peach disease” and where it has caused severe damage to citrus and coffee plantations. In New Jersey it has attacked more than a third of the state’s urban trees.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMAhIXxtmfMnMbQW5Dt0PhURyYfHVhVJqjw9Hja9VAmYRuOb7kCnBMNW314xFSkfYHtlJDGi0PkjN6s1HMKyspbg7C5ia_6qdduEgFV1cUxORQdnn_MaHlgot4E3dscLNWt6xj_H_k-w4/s1600/23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMAhIXxtmfMnMbQW5Dt0PhURyYfHVhVJqjw9Hja9VAmYRuOb7kCnBMNW314xFSkfYHtlJDGi0PkjN6s1HMKyspbg7C5ia_6qdduEgFV1cUxORQdnn_MaHlgot4E3dscLNWt6xj_H_k-w4/s400/23.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s11">Over in Hawaii a previously unknown fungus is decimating that state’s most iconic tree, the Ohia. <a href="http://www.outsideonline.com/2060691/whats-killing-hawaiis-trees"><span style="color: purple;">One article</span></a> says, “</span><span class="s1">In 2012, diseased ohia covered about 2,300 acres in Puna. By 2014, dead ohia littered more than 15,000 acres of pristine rainforest. The disease was marching across the island of Hawaii, uncontained.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">If you want to see truly harrowing documentation of forest decline, check <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xts0efS_XB4"><span style="color: purple;">a video</span></a> at the site Ready For Wildfire where you can learn about the bark beetle in California. There are some interesting facts there about the 29 million trees that have died in this four year drought and 58 million more suffering from “severe canopy water losses”. <a href="http://www.readyforwildfire.org/bark-beetle-faqs/"><span style="color: purple;">It says</span></a>, “Ponderosa pine, Jeffrey pine, and pinyon pines are most impacted by bark beetles, but many trees have died just from lack of water in the current drought. Most other pine species, white fir and incense-cedar are also heavily impacted by the prolonged drought and by bark beetles. There is also an increase in tree mortality among oaks, although it is primarily attributed to drought, not bark beetles.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wE9Qd5NXY-8hl4g0GA8QQWJpADSaFfGEta2cRLKUaVXFnzKUlBOB7nNqG8SZM9PnzkhzDMpcYF9aqhaBGaWUzjYMwA_IoAzXPGPMz_wAXxNrpIV09B4EZ7V3lKDWrxnVFzDO3xjzOYg/s1600/27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wE9Qd5NXY-8hl4g0GA8QQWJpADSaFfGEta2cRLKUaVXFnzKUlBOB7nNqG8SZM9PnzkhzDMpcYF9aqhaBGaWUzjYMwA_IoAzXPGPMz_wAXxNrpIV09B4EZ7V3lKDWrxnVFzDO3xjzOYg/s640/27.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Maps of mortality by year can be seen at the state government <span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://egis.fire.ca.gov/TreeMortalityViewer/">Tree Mortality Viewer</a> </span>[click on continue at the bottom of the page]. Interestingly, there is almost no documented dieback in their earliest graphic from 2012, yet, when I visited California before that, it was quite obvious to me that the trees were in serious decline already. The bark beetle faqs page states: “Under normal conditions, bark beetles renew the forest by killing older trees and those weakened by disease, drought, smog or physical damage.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Exactly. Beetles are opportunistic, preying on trees weakened by pollution, just like all the fungus and disease rampant in the world today. A thirteen-year study in China determined that smog-creating nitrogen emissions in the atmosphere are causing a “<a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2015/06/scorched-earth.html"><span style="color: purple;">silent massacre</span></a>” of the entire world’s forests.</span><br />
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<span class="s12">Seattle meteorologist Cliff Mass <a href="http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2016/03/avoiding-falling-trees-during-windstorms.html"><span style="color: purple;">posted a blog</span></a> warning about the dangers of falling trees. He stated “</span><span class="s1">During virtually every major windstorm that has hit our region, someone has died from a falling branch or trunk,” and went on with the assumption that it is perfectly normal for that to occur. IT IS NOT. The trees are dying; that is why they are falling on people and killing them. In <a href="http://www.concordmonitor.com/News/Police-Fire/Tree-falls-on-truck-killing-driver-1229653"><span style="color: purple;">one article</span></a> about a death in New Hampshire just this week, it was stated that in wind gusts at the highest 46 mph, a tree killed a man in his truck, adding “The tree did not seem to be rotted”. This was an idiotic statement since anyone looking at the pictures that accompany the article can see that, indeed the trunk was black with rot.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Unfortunately, it seems that almost the only people who realize our trees are being poisoned are convinced that it is from a chemtrail conspiracy, or radiation of some sort. You can watch one woman, in South Carolina, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP10d8ghNzM&app=desktop"><span style="color: purple;">demonstrate</span></a> how pathetically sick they are in her neighborhood.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">The New Internationalist published <a href="http://newint.org/features/1988/06/05/dying/"><span style="color: purple;">an article</span></a> by Chris Rose in 1988 in which he discusses “tree blindness”. I will let him have the last word on what is happening to our forests, and why still, nothing is being done about it, with some excerpts. He gave it the simple title:</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Forest is Dying</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In conifer trees the needles fall years early, often first turning a sickly yellow indicating a shortage of essential metals such as magnesium. As the decline progresses the tree loses its ability to feed itself through photosynthesis (because the leaf area is reduced) and in its weakened state falls victim to diseases. In deciduous species such as the beech and oak the pattern is similar. Official surveys show that over half of Britain</span>’<span class="s1">s broadleaved trees have lost a quarter or more of their leaf area. In fact Britain</span>’<span class="s1">s oak and beech are probably the most damaged in Europe.</span>”<br />
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<span class="s1">“Like the much-cited canary in the coal-mine, the dying forests are potent indicators of what is to become of us, for the chemicals that cause acid rain also attack people. Water on already slightly acid rocks and sands becomes more acid with pollution, releasing toxic metals such as cadmium, lead, mercury and aluminium. This last, it is claimed, accounts for the high rates of Alzheimer</span>’<span class="s1">s disease (senile dementia) in southern Norway.</span>”</div>
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“Vehicle exhausts spew out oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons which include cancer-inducing chemicals. Diesel is particularly rich in such pollution. Together in the air, these chemicals react in sunlight to form ozone, a substance which is essential outside the atmosphere where it protects the earth from harmful ultra-violet rays. Inside the atmosphere, however, it is a pollutant which eats through leaf-cell walls, making them permeable to acidic rainfall, and leaching out key nutrients. Ozone also attacks the lungs of mammals and birds. The American bald eagle used as a mascot at the Los Angeles Olympics died from lung disease caused by air pollution.”<br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4rmd5nDqc37XtcbXJwDj105y0msHOQbS9w0XNhfBdAAdiLCMLNuIFCgZPHIZZD0kITHuyykbAYgxPiFALS9dG99pAVBhlxGiBcZw-Z-LHLtLm6k4RYcuwyTi1AtaT0QE1EtfTjofDOO4/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4rmd5nDqc37XtcbXJwDj105y0msHOQbS9w0XNhfBdAAdiLCMLNuIFCgZPHIZZD0kITHuyykbAYgxPiFALS9dG99pAVBhlxGiBcZw-Z-LHLtLm6k4RYcuwyTi1AtaT0QE1EtfTjofDOO4/s400/6.jpg" width="280" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">“…air pollution once concentrated in urban areas is now spread thinly over the previously clean countryside. Ice cores analyzed from the Arctic and Antarctic show that eventually it reaches there too.Only recently have the effects of acid rain on trees begun to be recognized, which may be one reason why the implications of acid rain for humans have not really hit home. As Canadian Gilles Gagnon wrote in 1986: </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">‘</span><span class="s1">Each year the beauty of the forest is somewhat diminished but one gets used to it and finds it natural to see trees withering along the roadside</span>’<span class="s1">. The same could be said of almost every country in which the insidious decline has taken hold.</span>”<br />
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<span class="s1">“When the blight first started to be recognized in West Germany, slogans were daubed on the rocks of the worst affected Black Forest hillsides. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">‘</span><span class="s1">Do not weep forest,</span>’<span class="s1"> said one, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 16px;">‘</span><span class="s1">the desert will not last forever</span>’<span class="s1">. Others referred to the Christmas carol, <i>Oh Tannenbaum,</i> which celebrates the beauty of the silver fir tree, a tree which not only occupies a central place in German folk-mythology but has been hardest hit by <i>waldsterben.</i> Yet within a year or so, the trees were being felled and others planted. After all, they look healthy. The signs were scrubbed from the rocks at the request of the local hoteliers. Acid rain and dying forests, they said, were bad for business. If it couldn</span>’<span class="s1">t be cured then perhaps it should at least be denied.</span>”<br />
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<span class="s1">“The prospect of a civilization which can happily accept the Black Forest without trees is more than unsettling. On this basis attacks of tree blindness become an act of mass delusion as society turns its back on an apparently insoluble problem. The question is whether we open our eyes before the delusion becomes suicidal.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1">I made <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn1Xy_j48k0"><span style="color: purple;">a video</span></a> called <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Silent War on Trees</span></i>, which ends with a poem by Stanley Kunitz, written in 1958.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">In closing, I’d like to read it.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The War Against the Trees</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The man who sold his lawn to standard oil<br />
Joked with his neighbors come to watch the show<br />
While the bulldozers, drunk with gasoline,<br />
Tested the virtue of the soil<br />
Under the branchy sky<br />
By overthrowing first the privet-row.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Forsythia-forays and hydrangea-raids<br />
Were but the preliminaries to a war<br />
Against the great-grandfather of the town,<br />
So freshly lopped and maimed.<br />
They struck again and again,<br />
And with each elm a century went down.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">All day the hireling engines charged the trees,<br />
Subverting them by hacking underground<br />
In grub-dominions, where dark summer</span>’s mole<br />
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Rampages through his halls,<br />
Till a northern seizure shook<br />
Those crowns, forcing the giants to their knees.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I saw the ghosts of children at their games<br />
Racing beyond their childhood in the shade,<br />
And while the green world turned its death-foxed page<br />
And a red wagon wheeled,<br />
I watched them disappear<br />
Into the suburbs of their grievous age.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Ripped from the craters much too big for hearts<br />
The club-roots bared their amputated coils,<br />
Raw gorgons matted blind, whose pocks and scars<br />
Cried Moon! on a corner lot<br />
One witness-moment, caught<br />
In the rear-view mirrors of the passing cars.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Thanks for listening.</span><br />
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-80531600432553103092016-03-04T18:44:00.001-05:002016-03-18T12:41:39.496-04:00Love Is Not Enough<div class="p1">
Following is the transcript for the 25th Dispatch From the Endocene, which can be heard at ExtinctionRadio.org <a href="https://soundcloud.com/xtinctionadioorg/extinction-radio-episode-50-march-4-2016"><span style="color: purple;">43 minutes in</span></a>. The artwork is by Arthur Rackham, whose depiction of trees rendered them veritable sentient characters in his illustrations of fairy tales.</div>
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Thanks as always Gene, and welcome Listeners, to the 25th Dispatch From The Endocene. The transcript and pertinent links will be found on my blog, Wit’s End, under the inspirational title, “Love is Not Enough”.</div>
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Last fall, the organization Conservation International launched a glitzy campaign to save the world with a sophisticated video series featuring wealthy superstars like Robert Redford and Julia Roberts. After I did a little research about the actual lifestyles of their environmentally conscious celebrities, I wrote <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-endocene.html"><span style="color: purple;">a post</span></a> excoriating their monumental hubris. It struck me as amazing that people who travel on luxury jets and own multiple mansions and vehicles can simultaneously believe that while THEY can buy their way out of responsibility, they have no shame in telling everybody else to consume less and respect Mother Nature.<br />
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<span class="s1">Robert Redford is described in an interview as having a life-long love affair with the American West and is quoted: “</span><span class="s2">I love to explore and love to drive”. Isn’t that perfect? That must be why he built the Sundance Resort in Utah, where countless affluent airheads fly in annually for the Film Festival, and even more prosperous tourists take private planes to ski down the slopes of the mountains, denuded of trees. Apparently he had to kill them to save them.</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqBp-VNZBfx_UWTK9kR8WUSFguY-wmflGEli0r_sWy8hp_MVdA5PtXugfOqhK3oO1NPXDBNaKNAOt660qpA9KxCpqa0gJQuuJQFOsPR5g7IOgPvcaMyrAZFUx1XtmQ0tzcYUSe1Y29kiY/s1600/36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqBp-VNZBfx_UWTK9kR8WUSFguY-wmflGEli0r_sWy8hp_MVdA5PtXugfOqhK3oO1NPXDBNaKNAOt660qpA9KxCpqa0gJQuuJQFOsPR5g7IOgPvcaMyrAZFUx1XtmQ0tzcYUSe1Y29kiY/s400/36.jpg" width="287" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">Harrison Ford, another spokesman for Conservation International, said “There's nothing better than seeing a herd of elk right outside the window of my house in Wyoming. <b> </b>My land gives me an opportunity to be close to nature, and I find spiritual solace in nature, contemplating our species in the context of the natural world.” Apparently he finds no irony in adding “All of my planes are great to fly, and that's why I've got so many of them. <b> </b>I have a Citation Sovereign, a long-range jet; a Grand Caravan, a turboprop aircraft capable of operating on unimproved strips; and a De Havilland, a bush plane. I have a 1929 Waco Taperwing open-top biplane; a 1942 PT-22 open-top monoplane trainer; an Aviat Husky, a two-seat fabric-covered bush plane; and a Bell 407 helicopter. I also have more than my fair share of motorbikes - eight or nine. I have four or five BMWs, a couple of Harleys, a couple of Hondas and a Triumph; plus I have sports touring bikes.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvYLjhMG_sjmpSA2-Mvn083SCkbWAJ1q_seFAvCVudXrKGi6r5iKT8MjULzGU83zkl06ZvOohWXkVi-Y_2d1nBuuVIGrKtps-apR-IhXSjSvQuUsUimV3xPAEleRsL6Bfv3T9tglk69rg/s1600/26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvYLjhMG_sjmpSA2-Mvn083SCkbWAJ1q_seFAvCVudXrKGi6r5iKT8MjULzGU83zkl06ZvOohWXkVi-Y_2d1nBuuVIGrKtps-apR-IhXSjSvQuUsUimV3xPAEleRsL6Bfv3T9tglk69rg/s400/26.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">Trust-fund baby Edward Norton probably feels he is helping the earth by promoting healthy soils in the campaign, and no doubt feels he <i>needs</i> a Mercedes and a couple of Range Rovers because, hey, he has several mansions scattered around the world and besides, he also has a hydrogen-fueled BMW.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUJPjA3IEfYkJRN6jxY78dkvJ-2hOjdylpoNKLryeIO6Ro6FqMgdTNHWYFBG_OFsyjSQJCDsIKCAxOOeWvlQx72QmbfS8u4IBomqCfuRQjaPJHi-Tp7oIaTRnSz8FYd0vlOiamDFPV87I/s1600/23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUJPjA3IEfYkJRN6jxY78dkvJ-2hOjdylpoNKLryeIO6Ro6FqMgdTNHWYFBG_OFsyjSQJCDsIKCAxOOeWvlQx72QmbfS8u4IBomqCfuRQjaPJHi-Tp7oIaTRnSz8FYd0vlOiamDFPV87I/s400/23.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>
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A comical vanity enables us to reconcile our supposed love for nature with helping ourselves to whatever abuse of it that suits our wishes - and it seems to apply to just about everyone, not only the 1%, to one degree or another. I was reminded of this when the professional activists got into an excited dither because Leonardo DiCaprio used the occasion of his Oscar win to pontificate about climate change. Meanwhile, he has bought an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/realestate/an-idea-hits-the-beach.html"><span style="color: purple;">entire island</span></a> off the coast of Belize with the intention of “restoring” it - while building an extremely high-end eco-tourist resort. His reason? He said, <span class="s3">“As soon as I got there, I fell in love.”</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTw0Dqrce1BalUFX9Mq1eLQNQsDXr8XJ_Y80eWtLkPwimYZXS6Ie-A6nqMMfSqJPRvJqtpKzawEpu-mxZc46Zwtz40oJ6OkLjsgF7a6pFfDNk6_f4zTP31s0sPfbOYJOz3h_jtOKo4Jjg/s1600/32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTw0Dqrce1BalUFX9Mq1eLQNQsDXr8XJ_Y80eWtLkPwimYZXS6Ie-A6nqMMfSqJPRvJqtpKzawEpu-mxZc46Zwtz40oJ6OkLjsgF7a6pFfDNk6_f4zTP31s0sPfbOYJOz3h_jtOKo4Jjg/s400/32.jpg" width="348" /></a></div>
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Never mind that any benefit to the local flora and fauna will be more than obviated by the construction. Plus, in perpetuity, the destination will generate emissions from travel. Likely much of it will be by even more impactful private jet - since hardly anyone who can afford to spend $2,000 per night, or to purchase one of the 48 opulent vacation villas valued between 5 and 15 million, surely can’t be expected to fly commercial with the hoi polloi. Mr. DiCaprio apparently sees no conflict in choosing to work with a builder who is a former partner at Goldman Sachs, and his architect was quoted:</div>
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<span class="s2">“The goal was to create something that wasn’t contrived — a tiki hut or some image of a Hawaiian getaway — but rather the history of the place, the Mayan culture, with a more modern approach,” Mr. McLennan said. “We want to change the outlook of people who visit, on both the environment writ large and also their personal well-being.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2">[<i>update</i>: I have learned that Leo felt it was just essential for him <a href="http://climatecrocks.com/2016/03/03/leo-dicaprios-dark-snow-connection/"><span style="color: purple;">to go to Greenland</span></a> to see the melting ice for himself. No doubt this raised so much awareness, that dozens upon dozens of people have given up flying, thus offsetting his emissions.]</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikiae1nLhApXkq40nOYKDyhx-tjXVXTpffG9Zt3zG9KdJodiOMZ1FN0qkN8nlhUi02K1bKY7x-hyh1wphj7Iqci3PD0Ez8W3b2po8WyvDcyj3DQeKY74QjwqfOeF1hLZkV-H13lVodvu4/s1600/34.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikiae1nLhApXkq40nOYKDyhx-tjXVXTpffG9Zt3zG9KdJodiOMZ1FN0qkN8nlhUi02K1bKY7x-hyh1wphj7Iqci3PD0Ez8W3b2po8WyvDcyj3DQeKY74QjwqfOeF1hLZkV-H13lVodvu4/s400/34.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">According to the [oxymoronic] <span class="s4"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Center for Responsible Travel</span></i></span> “The ecotourism market is large and growing, with eight billion ecotourist visits a year worldwide. Ecotourism is travel that minimizes negative impact on a location and seeks to preserve its natural resources.”</span></div>
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Does anyone but me see how ludicrous this is? There seems to be a peculiarly common human ability to be utterly blind to one’s own self-justifications - much like hunters, whether contemporary or ancient, offer a prayer to whatever god or spiritual entity they believe in before they shoot, bludgeon, or stab their prey - as though that means the animal they kill is any happier about dying.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02KF-ndtEfXX99Gpf0s1VHAVY-dzeiCQjMOzmEDsC8uK6E28Uwwe7YpcNTZ-wRKZ1z733Vub9R-9G12e1-iqn1zH3PjnMD88fIlbtuOiJ9Vofu5Z8pt9WFt42iHhlCzpk3l3Z1z6B1Vs/s1600/15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi02KF-ndtEfXX99Gpf0s1VHAVY-dzeiCQjMOzmEDsC8uK6E28Uwwe7YpcNTZ-wRKZ1z733Vub9R-9G12e1-iqn1zH3PjnMD88fIlbtuOiJ9Vofu5Z8pt9WFt42iHhlCzpk3l3Z1z6B1Vs/s400/15.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
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I wonder if the people who colonized Pedro Gonz<span class="s5">á</span>lez Island in the Pearl Archipelago off of Panama thanked the spirits for their prey. Scientists have <a href="http://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/03/tiny-island-deer-in-panama-hunted-to-extinction-thousands-of-years-ago/"><span style="color: purple;">just discovered</span></a> that settlers arrived there 6200 years ago and for perhaps 8 centuries remained, “…farming maize and roots, fishing, gathering palm fruits and shellfish and hunting…opossums, agoutis, iguanas and large snakes - the major predators”. Oh and the dwarfish, tiny deer they hunted to extinction. The scientists discovered that:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigk-jqFG6M9JCmvGs8g5Fi3eMkUfhnOKZCIBYdU6zOVarF23svAQDno2AZO8NYC9asIHOX_DDpMvXwsphqbYqHiH7FVF9WnowS4m9h_OSu27IXDvJ6DP_TeUuvZ937qDMWS0H9rDurhh4/s1600/30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigk-jqFG6M9JCmvGs8g5Fi3eMkUfhnOKZCIBYdU6zOVarF23svAQDno2AZO8NYC9asIHOX_DDpMvXwsphqbYqHiH7FVF9WnowS4m9h_OSu27IXDvJ6DP_TeUuvZ937qDMWS0H9rDurhh4/s400/30.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">“Some deer bones had cuts indicating butchering, such as disarticulation and slicing meat from the bone, or had the marks of human teeth. Others had been burned or smashed to get at the marrow. Antlers and long bones were often cut for making everyday tools and ornaments. Hunting appears to have been indiscriminate, including adults as well as juveniles.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjesBMntlIJonYjijPopxh5N7znQ9CPy8I2_ZvtBxgJn78A-yPcsiprFIGgK_H48V77v8c0Cy2WyQbN42IP5cb6VWytdKlNSKlAoH4DzdP7f0kO6__AkTxo0k6BTjkDnDvqBZM5JCFRoJg/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjesBMntlIJonYjijPopxh5N7znQ9CPy8I2_ZvtBxgJn78A-yPcsiprFIGgK_H48V77v8c0Cy2WyQbN42IP5cb6VWytdKlNSKlAoH4DzdP7f0kO6__AkTxo0k6BTjkDnDvqBZM5JCFRoJg/s400/9.jpg" width="292" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">“The number of deer bones decreased in the youngest layer of the midden, and those of older adults were absent, suggesting that the species was becoming scarcer and life expectancies lower. No deer bones were found in later layers left by pottery-using people after 2,300 years ago, indicating that the species had become extinct on Pedro González by then.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXclFSlepd7HyBiy5PdVES6eiu0j5AM73k4kySsF_iEFRibcBPoZM2s1jMwP0bb7CTNBLqsKBPwZp1BID4Aj7xBmrI2wraOVD-AQrKKFeUOPBNf9zI3mWIIZkSn5ynk_jooEr7Lp8KH94/s1600/16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXclFSlepd7HyBiy5PdVES6eiu0j5AM73k4kySsF_iEFRibcBPoZM2s1jMwP0bb7CTNBLqsKBPwZp1BID4Aj7xBmrI2wraOVD-AQrKKFeUOPBNf9zI3mWIIZkSn5ynk_jooEr7Lp8KH94/s400/16.jpg" width="268" /></a></div>
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Islands are often illustrative microcosms, analogous to the whole of planet Earth. They become hot-beds of biodiversity, as they are cut off from outside competition - and when humans arrive their species are especially vulnerable to extinction. No matter how much the people love the animals and plants they encounter, too often it doesn’t stop them from overwhelming the ones they value the most. Native Americans, north and south, had no horses and few domesticated animals, because their ancestors ate them all soon after they migrated to the continent.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPK4lqd0oll8aSR6hQSjzS4X3oGKzSEYps4UVoSkvA96ZCX9nyM4CSARndNFgqkDz0i41nD0dyWSkAFaErQY6lMdjI_jYlCwRLnC4Bd6ql0yJ6JZ8Dmx_Jp2sZ1yMdGYwB2A_exq2LBPU/s1600/21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPK4lqd0oll8aSR6hQSjzS4X3oGKzSEYps4UVoSkvA96ZCX9nyM4CSARndNFgqkDz0i41nD0dyWSkAFaErQY6lMdjI_jYlCwRLnC4Bd6ql0yJ6JZ8Dmx_Jp2sZ1yMdGYwB2A_exq2LBPU/s400/21.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
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This is a pattern that repeats throughout history, around the world, writ both large and small. I’ll give you a <a href="http://www.embassynews.ca/news/2016/03/02/First-major-cruise-ship-sails-icy-Northwest-Passage-this-summer/48306"><span style="color: purple;">current example</span></a>. Wilderness enthusiasts have already bought out all the berths on the lavish new cruise ship “Crystal Serenity”. The first luxury liner of its size to navigate the northwest passage, it is scheduled to depart next August. A mere $22,000 is all that was required, unless you wanted a penthouse for $120,000 - based on double occupancy - plus insurance up to $50,000 per person in case an emergency evacuation is required. So now for the very fist time, thanks to ice melting from global warming, 1,070 passengers and at least an equal number of crew can pollute the pristine arctic ocean with their shit, piss, vomit, and fuel emissions AND add to the underwater cacophony that has already <a href="http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/02/22/arctic-noise-pollution?cmpid=tp-rss"><span style="color: purple;">made it difficult</span></a> for orcas to feed and right whales to communicate. The passengers will no doubt love the view of the collapsing glaciers from their privileged vantage on the deck.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr9EtrKpAdgHM9l5xQPAMbqT6WPVsBgBEmOF_rwFCIRfL0WN8iC1C_LE_P99RoTb49laBDlSF1I4ZlgkQZI7hHV9bjOFnfbcqbrvcWOAngQfCGYOVDEF7ccWDrDReh6vgxpDEk5c8tmuo/s1600/17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="376" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr9EtrKpAdgHM9l5xQPAMbqT6WPVsBgBEmOF_rwFCIRfL0WN8iC1C_LE_P99RoTb49laBDlSF1I4ZlgkQZI7hHV9bjOFnfbcqbrvcWOAngQfCGYOVDEF7ccWDrDReh6vgxpDEk5c8tmuo/s400/17.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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It’s not only the famous and fatuous who think they are so special that the rules they would impose on everyone else don’t apply to them. Each and every human is convinced that their needs are sacred and must be fulfilled - and that the definition of their needs is determined by their own desires, without regard to the requirements of other forms of life. In an earlier Dispatch I mentioned the delicate alpine wildflowers being trampled to extinction by mountain hikers and bikers. It turns out that prickly cactus are no safer.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhErhJwsLaJuiBEj4eU4VjT3wVK0auusLh__BBNsvIcn7Q8PH1W2Olvn6QgMknTgh9QyjDYHrMyJqLkaHd3Dzwmh9KdPOjEPtX3cb75mASuvvwVSp9acUU_ehqPBjEaLQgBfLfQIZPVM/s1600/24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqhErhJwsLaJuiBEj4eU4VjT3wVK0auusLh__BBNsvIcn7Q8PH1W2Olvn6QgMknTgh9QyjDYHrMyJqLkaHd3Dzwmh9KdPOjEPtX3cb75mASuvvwVSp9acUU_ehqPBjEaLQgBfLfQIZPVM/s400/24.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">Smugglers posing as hobbyists travel through the American west and elsewhere in the world, using satellite coordinates to mark the locations of especially rare, endangered - and therefore more expensive - specimens. Like other illegal wildlife products, the internet has facilitated the trade, and the numbers are staggering. Collecting is endangering the very survival of many prized varieties, as they are plucked from deserts in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina and Mexico. Customs officials can’t keep up with the volume of material. Some hunters steal or trade in the market for money, but there wouldn’t be any money in it if there weren’t people who feel what <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/cactus-thieves/470070/"><span style="color: purple; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Atlantic</i></span></a> called a “spiritual affinity”, an “obsession”, a “passion” and, yes, love - some for the tremendous size of the iconic saguaro, and others for the seldom but spectacular blooms of more diminutive varieties. The article notes that cacti are particularly vulnerable to what humans call “love”, because they they “…tend to grow slowly, live a long time, reproduce infrequently, and concentrate in one area.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhT_xcKTck8Fh6pM340lMmWku8qIEYDIFpThGxjoZoJD2WmDE4H9Pc7mT2WcT7ECXrvcCFDAJlY1kSyp4DhC_R5lkZc_5l-nQ8HdWp6meBKm_MdyHum_nqfNAtnelLDCQHqSAo3F2nEk/s1600/33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilhT_xcKTck8Fh6pM340lMmWku8qIEYDIFpThGxjoZoJD2WmDE4H9Pc7mT2WcT7ECXrvcCFDAJlY1kSyp4DhC_R5lkZc_5l-nQ8HdWp6meBKm_MdyHum_nqfNAtnelLDCQHqSAo3F2nEk/s400/33.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">This conviction that each person carries within them - that their priorities are exceptional and that the rules don’t apply - leads to absurdities such as taking air travel off the table at the climate negotiations in Paris. Nearly everyone who participated, obviously, had flown there. Flying is the third rail of climate activism - the organizations with a mandate to avoid catastrophic climate change won’t touch it, because there is no way to reduce emissions by even the unrealistic thresholds agreed to by negotiators without drastically reducing if not eliminating the exceptionally high impact of airplane emissions.</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJioNoR36JYi00qxoK8ZagaKTJaY11UrqhBW5uCW-C8huN8qKJ3TxlHVu_8T2tKJSj0cwRDm0NRCfTmkbjtPDFouwd5vB4cpvUfgb2bSLon7i0VbJMvv9Jlni9EDV0c2V6rr1xUAyrJVY/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJioNoR36JYi00qxoK8ZagaKTJaY11UrqhBW5uCW-C8huN8qKJ3TxlHVu_8T2tKJSj0cwRDm0NRCfTmkbjtPDFouwd5vB4cpvUfgb2bSLon7i0VbJMvv9Jlni9EDV0c2V6rr1xUAyrJVY/s400/13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">About a year ago at the American Geophysical Union conference, James White from the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research gave an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZdhPnsp4Is"><span style="color: purple;">inspired lecture</span></a> about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change#Abrupt_climate_shifts_since_1976"><span style="color: purple;">abrupt climate change</span></a>. I’m going to paraphrase his compelling description of a tipping point. His analogy begins with an explorer traveling downstream by canoe on the Niagara River . He can hear an immense roar in the distance, but doesn’t recognize it as being the massive falls. The current becomes faster and more irresistible, and by the time he realizes that he is going to cascade over the immense verge plunging to certain death, it is too late to paddle to the shore. The time to have done so was behind him.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">In other words, tipping points are by definition seen only in hindsight. They aren’t recognized ahead of time, or even as they occur, except possibly by a few odd Cassandras, who are borderline insane by normal standards. </span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitAXqLMevSCIZQpEUZGCamg9TOk4bSrDv8JCpthilXekxs04aDKCVsv6P2S6buv7_2vQO56HClYSdR8BTCDRxYsgxwQOfrrKEJNL-inNXlX0APZ9egqu4idZsGffrTc-w42pdr72cDiY0/s1600/20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitAXqLMevSCIZQpEUZGCamg9TOk4bSrDv8JCpthilXekxs04aDKCVsv6P2S6buv7_2vQO56HClYSdR8BTCDRxYsgxwQOfrrKEJNL-inNXlX0APZ9egqu4idZsGffrTc-w42pdr72cDiY0/s400/20.jpg" width="276" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">Probably one of the foremost scholars on ecological tipping points is Anthony Barnosky of UC Berkeley. He was lead author with 22 colleagues of a pivotal study <a href="http://news.berkeley.edu/2012/06/06/scientists-uncover-evidence-of-impending-tipping-point-for-earth/"><span style="color: purple;">published in Nature</span></a>, warning of impending tipping points in reductions to biodiversity. Their point of reference in 2012 was the time frame of “within a few generations”. Now he and his wife Elizabeth Hadley, also a paleobiologist from Stanford, have published a book, titled “End Game - Tipping Point for Planet Earth?”. This time around, according to <a href="http://europe.newsweek.com/have-we-reached-tipping-point-planet-earth-329165"><span style="color: purple;">a review</span></a> in Newsweek, they have upped the ante and warn that the world will tip into environmental and social catastrophe within 20 years. Interestingly, the snarky reviewer inquires:</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Do we really need a wake-up call? Another one? Because the world arguably woke up to the Barnosky message long ago. The canon of eschatological literature is old and long. The trouble is that we've stopped listening to the warnings. Indeed it sometimes seems as though the louder the alarm clock, the more inclined we are, these days, to roll over and hit the snooze button.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocgsqK7lThZhiUn0i51ep99J5RJGnepROnBb5PDmVcgsBlDc17V_6_4ZzKPtmghP5eNEizgjk9W3StOVO7afHYir3eLnWbo83yBi08aPJco-FZhuBfP0Fc48hrCUAj3gie9rWmhc5A-w/s1600/22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjocgsqK7lThZhiUn0i51ep99J5RJGnepROnBb5PDmVcgsBlDc17V_6_4ZzKPtmghP5eNEizgjk9W3StOVO7afHYir3eLnWbo83yBi08aPJco-FZhuBfP0Fc48hrCUAj3gie9rWmhc5A-w/s400/22.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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<span class="s6">He then describes the </span>Barnosky/Hadley juggernaut to effect their research:</div>
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<span class="s2">“There is more than a touch of missionary zeal in the way they have travelled the world, sometimes with their two young daughters strapped into baby carriers (the authors are Californian, after all), in order to attend international conferences in Africa, measure the retreat of the Himalayan pika, or record the blood toxicity of Costa Rican bats. Each chapter is prefaced with another illustrative tale from this adventurous and enviable life, to jolly along the science.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2">So despite their long-held conviction that earth cannot sustain the current level of population and consumption, they have two young children and travel around the world to prove it. That makes sense, right?</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXMShEFFWul9vaPAk7XfZDxW_7Xt5CTp4DgeX3knEgGi0Egdvo0YI05r1avvGq5XTUasFQVbzBw133effDE5ZUP39bZHCPfaT91snL_fkxAimmbaGzrhloSz8pQ-1sV_nabehlLu8gm3Y/s1600/18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXMShEFFWul9vaPAk7XfZDxW_7Xt5CTp4DgeX3knEgGi0Egdvo0YI05r1avvGq5XTUasFQVbzBw133effDE5ZUP39bZHCPfaT91snL_fkxAimmbaGzrhloSz8pQ-1sV_nabehlLu8gm3Y/s400/18.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">The review ends with the following:</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“When tipping points are reached, the change can be violent as well as sudden, like the moment that water reaches boiling point. Endgame may amount to a triumph of hope over experience, but you cannot fault the authors' determination to try to warn us.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr5AAfFNL3mZ-RJ450hA6m8_We3PkrU1k2Pb73eRB1YJt5LR-MY_f_JeBDqmEVQl5UEv8ndRat6QeGNUQWK4oe5qam3VFOf8-t_uvGU-25_puXBZscKOvPU_c4O_PO5qvD3SRAsUopM5o/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr5AAfFNL3mZ-RJ450hA6m8_We3PkrU1k2Pb73eRB1YJt5LR-MY_f_JeBDqmEVQl5UEv8ndRat6QeGNUQWK4oe5qam3VFOf8-t_uvGU-25_puXBZscKOvPU_c4O_PO5qvD3SRAsUopM5o/s400/10.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">Can’t we? They warn us, but they do not heed their own warnings. I think that is quite likely because, deep down, they know that the tipping point for maintaining the healthy, thriving, magnificent panorama of life has already been passed, some time ago. The exquisitely complex tapestry of life is unraveling, it is inevitable and irreversible - scientists now know that marine animals are dying of <a href="http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/news/features/algal_blooms_in_arctic_waters/index.cfm"><span style="color: purple;">domoic acid</span></a> from toxic algae, that corals are already doomed <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/landmark-experiment-confirms-ocean-acidification-s-toll-on-great-barrier-reef-1.19410"><span style="color: purple;">by acidification</span></a>, that climate chaos <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/03/01/february_2016_s_shocking_global_warming_temperature_record.html"><span style="color: purple;">will worsen</span></a>, that we have poisoned the air, water and soil. It’s risible that they justify their travel and grant money by claiming more research is needed, and continue the farcical pretense that the tipping points await perpetually in the future.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh93Umu9kzvYqDnx-Hx2cf6NFR-iDE8HEJm41JGqE8XxgWIdheS3YqaLh1SGOcZ0dAxa5adslgJvQnXUmsfw6Wvgk7Kih5oUpU-LBWD1orGIVT2Dqa8SrbO1mC2E4BQn7GR1hu-GNwi-4/s1600/14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh93Umu9kzvYqDnx-Hx2cf6NFR-iDE8HEJm41JGqE8XxgWIdheS3YqaLh1SGOcZ0dAxa5adslgJvQnXUmsfw6Wvgk7Kih5oUpU-LBWD1orGIVT2Dqa8SrbO1mC2E4BQn7GR1hu-GNwi-4/s400/14.jpg" width="277" /></a></div>
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I recently re-connected with an old friend, I’ll call her Meredith. She has retired as an agricultural studies teacher for high school students, and now that our children are grown and we have more time on our hands, we’ve been catching up once a week, having lunch together and taking our dogs for walks in the woods.</div>
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Meredith is the product of an ultra-conservative background, and is even a Donald Trump supporter - but in that increasingly common bizarre confluence of far right and far left, I discovered that she’s a bit of a catastrophist too.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiy7V5yhkeSTpF6sGxfq6fxfkS7TZRYVj4lH-iv-85M8yLgb6oBKJeC7c6wzfWUGoQCrCPktch0XsAcGCCqzBN0E3rMSDqoQhiH7-tyMSaxSXWCDiA3_ZS65OcSVWeHl1kOgEfpr5YN5k/s1600/31.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiy7V5yhkeSTpF6sGxfq6fxfkS7TZRYVj4lH-iv-85M8yLgb6oBKJeC7c6wzfWUGoQCrCPktch0XsAcGCCqzBN0E3rMSDqoQhiH7-tyMSaxSXWCDiA3_ZS65OcSVWeHl1kOgEfpr5YN5k/s400/31.jpg" width="267" /></a></div>
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In her case, the suspicion that the future will be less than rosy derives from her concern about agricultural pesticide and growth hormone use. She thinks that the government agencies aren’t doing anything to protect the public from toxic accumulations in our food, and thinks not only are humans being poisoned but so is the rest of nature. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/was-a-usda-scientist-muzzled-because-of-his-bee-research/2016/03/02/462720b6-c9fb-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html"><span style="color: purple;">recent exposé</span></a> about how a senior researcher at USDA was hounded out of his laboratory for reporting on the relationship between chemicals and the disappearance of pollinators like bees and butterflies corroborates her fears.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvoIhV0zgd8vFrFhmvHthus9asD6UZxyh_z-DPZ6AmZpj4OVu6NW0C4GhpCVPL3gjaqvRGwC9oSSS91SJN-oCONZ7Al6IeRBTj7D6TIhN3MS24dorfdD3-X4WjFpdyteCAEJmdgYGxfDk/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvoIhV0zgd8vFrFhmvHthus9asD6UZxyh_z-DPZ6AmZpj4OVu6NW0C4GhpCVPL3gjaqvRGwC9oSSS91SJN-oCONZ7Al6IeRBTj7D6TIhN3MS24dorfdD3-X4WjFpdyteCAEJmdgYGxfDk/s400/1.jpg" width="336" /></a></div>
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Unlike most people who are oblivious to the phenomena of shifting baselines, Meredith has also noticed the incremental deterioration of the landscape. She grew up on a dirt road, riding horses every day, and the subsequent development which has obliterated the fields and woods she once roamed as a child has led her to conclude that there are far, far too many people in the world - and that we are bumping up against implacable limits.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQWNXGFYLN7aVFlbWaoZvy1aiQ8_MJ765FRQ_y1vR761gcCFHLbrfvfhUxUUXjwGjfyoLZnEI7P_itCes6QIi49HZei-dP-A06WQiOvodw7RAbCHTOQxzMXWDq1f45s7A795W8yjYREDY/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQWNXGFYLN7aVFlbWaoZvy1aiQ8_MJ765FRQ_y1vR761gcCFHLbrfvfhUxUUXjwGjfyoLZnEI7P_itCes6QIi49HZei-dP-A06WQiOvodw7RAbCHTOQxzMXWDq1f45s7A795W8yjYREDY/s400/6.jpg" width="306" /></a></div>
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I can’t explain why but Meredith ate a tuna fish sandwich every day for lunch since she was a kid, and she found out her mercury levels are trending through the roof. So when I said that there is some pollution you can see, and some you can’t, she readily agreed. Thus it wasn’t much of a leap for her when I said that all the fallen trees and broken branches she noticed around her home and in the woods around mine during our walks was the result of invisible airborne ozone and acidic depositions in the soil and water.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicP-w6IN7SCZh8LyN33gO-HULQL03p5ApaMnTYwbgKXoPVJ6bjprmfXdjsf1H4GUX4wXTW5paRVi3xvtcKeMCS34N5FwQkORE7KwpJ4Q3Elx6BEZm2ojcxNXicnsffDG0pA-oD6xNRgCk/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicP-w6IN7SCZh8LyN33gO-HULQL03p5ApaMnTYwbgKXoPVJ6bjprmfXdjsf1H4GUX4wXTW5paRVi3xvtcKeMCS34N5FwQkORE7KwpJ4Q3Elx6BEZm2ojcxNXicnsffDG0pA-oD6xNRgCk/s400/12.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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She told me that she first noticed trees in decline around her house about five years ago, and initially worried that it was a result of discharge from a water softener she had installed. But then she quickly added that she realized the trees far away from the septic system were just as sickly. I was surprised to find someone whose observations mirrored mine, because I am usually scoffed at. At the end of our conversation she said ruefully that she had long suspected something was very wrong with the forests, but hadn’t wanted to articulate it. Because it’s really scary, and depressing. I told her I cried almost every night for months when I first realized the trees are all dying.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-73hqLvNwnT_Ddn2FNBY8ZQ68gbIgNfunp0bRFmJH-TvnpO9u3NTRViBjswvIB7ofDPYSRvndhzyIqtlNU1dJqj8ahaNjO0q2u_Tro5C1A1F8zlbdgnL7RFtDMIvK-oiOPlVXFyyY-7U/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-73hqLvNwnT_Ddn2FNBY8ZQ68gbIgNfunp0bRFmJH-TvnpO9u3NTRViBjswvIB7ofDPYSRvndhzyIqtlNU1dJqj8ahaNjO0q2u_Tro5C1A1F8zlbdgnL7RFtDMIvK-oiOPlVXFyyY-7U/s400/7.jpg" width="310" /></a></div>
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Last fall <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yale-study-of-trees-on-earth-2015-9"><span style="color: purple;">a census</span></a> by Yale foresters demonstrated that even without pollution, humans have removed half of earth’s trees already, and we are losing 15 billion trees every year. At this rate, they calculate there would be NONE left in 300 years. Much of the loss is due to logging, but even before that, humans burned forests to improve hunting and foraging. People <a href="http://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/02/humans-settled-set-fire-to-madagascars-forests-1000-years-ago/109791"><span style="color: purple;">set fire</span></a> to Madagascar’s forests 1,000 years ago, turning it into grassland for pasturing cattle. Worse still, researchers <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/hunting-mammals-adds-to-forest-fragility/"><span style="color: purple;">have found</span></a> that even without logging and burning, the hunting of large mammals that is occurring in places like the Amazon and Africa would eventually doom the forests even if they’re not cut, because those animals are essential to disburse the seeds. Without them the rest of the ecosystem system will collapse.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1g3NUbAv3lChklY-KMpk5ClEcTpqT7EfOlOPq9nnu9OnWf8aypRgkm4fJHiO7u3RZjAkaeUsU3NDX_2Z0aAzKqnVCZS1o_8bxpblchmaHwiHX8sDWM4anL9dl63_bxBpFK2LDIH30v5w/s1600/8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1g3NUbAv3lChklY-KMpk5ClEcTpqT7EfOlOPq9nnu9OnWf8aypRgkm4fJHiO7u3RZjAkaeUsU3NDX_2Z0aAzKqnVCZS1o_8bxpblchmaHwiHX8sDWM4anL9dl63_bxBpFK2LDIH30v5w/s400/8.jpg" width="302" /></a></div>
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Meanwhile the concentration of nitrous oxide, a byproduct of burning fuel and agricultural fertilization, and a primary precursor to ozone, <a href="https://static.secure.website/wscfus/9167827/2288251/16-feb-2016-ghgs.png"><span style="color: purple;">is skyrocketing</span></a>. Air pollution is already linked to heart disease, cancer, emphysema and asthma - now doctors are finding it is connected to the <a href="http://fusion.net/story/271344/air-pollution-obesity-epidemic/"><span style="color: purple;">obesity epidemic</span></a> and <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/05/air-pollution-dementia-alzheimers-brain"><span style="color: purple;">Alzheimer’s</span></a>. How could we expect it to be any less injurious to trees that absorb it year after year? Several decades ago, there was widespread concern about the health of forests and then, a memo went out to the foresters that the problem had been solved, long-term fumigation and monitoring experiments were cancelled, and much of the funding evaporated. Yet, a few experts persisted and in 2012 <a href="http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/jrnl/2013/nrs_2013_duarte_001.pdf"><span style="color: purple;">a report</span></a> was published which analyzed 4,057 plots from national and regional forest health surveys.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmIb8CXLWofCAxyUgTl_TPP9_1ytMfovBQh2K4qqSDKQVKV_woa7yeVxPT_UIvzGEW2gSpxeIhSBXQuHQ3IeenWQWl9Holg7KaH7LQgR10iC16L-3oxjeKs6rgNVJiFFDbDA_yRmOAc8U/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmIb8CXLWofCAxyUgTl_TPP9_1ytMfovBQh2K4qqSDKQVKV_woa7yeVxPT_UIvzGEW2gSpxeIhSBXQuHQ3IeenWQWl9Holg7KaH7LQgR10iC16L-3oxjeKs6rgNVJiFFDbDA_yRmOAc8U/s400/11.jpg" width="271" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">Titled “Susceptibility of Forests in the Northeastern USA to Nitrogen and Sulfur Deposition: Critical Load Exceedance and Forest Health”, the abstract states:</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“We observed significant negative correlations between critical load exceedance and growth and crown density; we observed significant positive correlations of exceedance with declining vigor, with crown dieback and crown transparency. These results indicate that significant detrimental responses to atmospheric deposition are being observed across the northeastern USA.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipKTKZ7ulPo-JcgyCOUuGCaOZopsJ-6YNa7szDWJZ_W4ZtPR1BJ7d2gWXKYN8s99p0CqESo8y-Ih8eGG7B-Pbdmf2xhegrXa8ECSgsp_t-H2uqMBfmy3rd4YDEC78gVSbhF_J64dcqm9s/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipKTKZ7ulPo-JcgyCOUuGCaOZopsJ-6YNa7szDWJZ_W4ZtPR1BJ7d2gWXKYN8s99p0CqESo8y-Ih8eGG7B-Pbdmf2xhegrXa8ECSgsp_t-H2uqMBfmy3rd4YDEC78gVSbhF_J64dcqm9s/s400/5.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">“…projected emissions of acidifying S and N compounds are expected to have continuing negative impacts on forests. Atmospheric S and N deposition have contributed to acidification of soils and surface waters, export of nutrient cations, and mobilization of aluminum in soils, which can be toxic to plants and other biota. When exports of nutrient cations are greater than inputs to an ecosystem, soil nutrients may decrease to inadequate levels, a condition known as cation depletion. Cation depletion may result in a wide range of forest health problems: reduced growth rates and increased susceptibility of forests to climate change; <b><i>pest and pathogen stress, which results in reduced forest health, reduced timber yield, increased mortality</i></b>; and eventual changes in forest species composition.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Twenty-one tree species in the northeastern USA exhibit detrimental impacts from atmospheric deposition.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2">So, it’s not all in my imagination.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">If only love remains - whatever that means - it’s not, and has never been, enough. Not when, like its close cousin hope, it is an intellectual construct that merely serves to enable humanity to rationalize the destruction of the rest of life on this exceptional, extraordinarily and perhaps even uniquely glorious planet.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">Thanks for listening.</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span>Bonus for readers: <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3472627/Greatest-collection-medieval-oak-trees-Europe-growing-unheralded-Winston-Churchill-s-old-garden-Blenheim-Palace.html"><span style="color: purple;">click here</span></a> to see pictures of newly discovered ancient oaks in a forgotten castle park in England. And then ask yourself why trees that huge aren't found everywhere.</div>
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-51841542207267430962016-02-22T09:20:00.001-05:002016-02-22T09:20:10.447-05:00A Borrowed Poem<div style="background-color: white; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em;">
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<span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; line-height: 17.0667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">With his kind permission, please find below a poem written by Lee McCormack, a hermit living in the dank and moldy primal forests of Martha</span></span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17.0667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">’</span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17.0667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">s Vineyard. Writing poetry for 55 years, he is the first ever Martha’s Vineyard Poet Laureate in the island</span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17.0667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">’</span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #373e4d; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 17.0667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">s history, nominated from 162 members of the MV Poetry Society. He is also a member of the Cleaveland House Poets.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Late For the Dance?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you believe the sense of shame, the ash</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">falling over us from a discolored atmosphere,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">all that's left of plants and animals, everything<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br />we have begotten? Did it occur that somewhere<br />in the past this was foretold by the heads and skins<br />hanging in the halls of museums and other public<br />places, as if, turned inside out we hung ourselves out<br />to be dried on opaque walls of unconscious humanity?</span></span></div>
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Oh, there was no doubt we had missed the mark<br />
and somehow failed to heed the warnings, our time<br />
spent seeking, not recovery or truth from history,<br />
but simple physical pleasure? And yet even weeks<br />
in the country can not completely dispel or erase<br />
the lingering bad taste of something beneath this<br />
surface that is decayed. Perhaps a lapse of judgment<br />
left us grudgingly avoiding the planetary shift</div>
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from life to its significant abbreviation,<br />
for, like the body, all civilizations rise and fall.<br />
It is all in motion, nothing is static, nothing ever still. . .<br />
Even in our aberrations, we remain wholly unsure<br />
of this Nature, its Earth, and the cycles rearranging<br />
all matter it is made of, always believing human will<br />
can mutate its deadly transformation and reverse the weather.<br />
If you don't know where the dance originated, you cannot dance.</div>
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~ Lee McCormick, February 20, 2016<br />
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Please find more of his work at his Facebook Page, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/MarthasVineyardPoetLaureateEmeritus/"><span style="color: purple;">here</span></a></div>
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-30300516630529016112016-02-19T20:01:00.000-05:002016-02-19T20:02:57.035-05:00I think we're in real trouble<div class="p1">
~ Mitch Brenner, from Alfred Hitchcock's <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>The Birds</i>, 1963</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Following is the transcript for my contribution to this week's installment of <a href="http://www.extinctionradio.org/"><span style="color: purple;">Extinction Radio</span></a>.</span><br />
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Thank you Gene, and welcome listeners, to the 24th Dispatch From the Endocene.<br />
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As winter is drawing to a close, I thought I would quote from <i>Silent Spring</i>, which Rachel Carson published in 1962. She described the changes to a bucolic town…</div>
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<span class="s1">“...a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death”.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">About the birds, she wonders: “where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the backyards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1">Carson was concerned about DDT pervading the environment, and the chapter titled “And No Birds Sing” describes the misguided attempt to save elm trees in Michigan by spraying the insecticide, resulting in “a lethal trap in which each wave of migrating robins would be eliminated in about a week.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Ironically, now both birds and trees of all species face much more widespread and insidious multiple threats. The entire ecosystem is collapsing from a miasma of anthropogenic insults. Carson was only one of the more recent Cassandras warning humanity of hubris and excess. There is a long tradition in Greek myths, including the stories of Pandora, Icarus and Prometheus. Even further back in time, in the 6th Century BC, Lao Tzu wrote in <i>Tao Te Ching</i>:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When man interferes with the Tao</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the sky becomes filthy,</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the earth becomes depleted,</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> the equilibrium crumbles,</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> creatures become extinct.</span></i></span><br />
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<span class="s1">One articulate contemporary Cassandra is Madeline Weld, who is President of Population Institute Canada. She penned one of the most succinct summaries of our predicament recently for the Montreal Gazette and summoned up Malthus. I’m going to read it, and I’ll post <a href="http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-sadly-malthus-was-right-now-what"><span style="color: purple;">a link</span></a> at my blog Wit’s End, because it will surely come in handy when you are talking to those troublesome deniers at the office or around the dinner table.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Saturday marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Robert Malthus. I would like to wish him many happy returns.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">And he does keep on returning, doesn’t he, despite those who say he is wrong or passé.</span><br />
<span class="s1">His <i>Essay on the Principle of Population</i> argued that, if left unchecked, human population growth would encounter limits: “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the Earth to produce subsistence for man.” He foresaw famine, disease and much suffering, especially among the poorest. But in addition to these “negative checks,” he also recognized “preventive checks” like limiting birthrates and later marriage. As a cleric, he advocated “the chaste postponement of marriage.”</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Some 218 years after the first edition of his controversial treatise was published, we are still arguing about it. In 1798, the world population was under one billion. Now it’s 7.4 billion and counting. For the last 40 years, it’s been increasing by one billion every 12 to 13 years.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Some people say that’s no problem, that we’re better off than ever. The Green Revolution staved off the starvation in India predicted by Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb. Advances in agriculture, medicine and other technology have made us richer and healthier. The late Julian Simon even said that ever more people is a good thing, since humans are “the ultimate resource” and every mouth to feed comes with a pair of hands to work and a brain to solve problems. What could go wrong?</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">But things are going seriously wrong. To provision our ever-growing population, we are, in Ehrlich’s words, turning the planet into a “feedlot for humanity.” We have taken over about one-third of its land surface and scoured its oceans, wiping out several major fisheries and depleting the rest. Our “solution” of farmed fish creates other problems. High-yield Green Revolution crops require pesticides, fertilizer and water; the first two are becoming more expensive, the last scarcer in many areas.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Homo sapiens’ appetite is gargantuan. As we strive to get at dwindling resources for ever more people, we dig deeper into the Earth, blow the tops of mountains, divert rivers, cut down forests and pave over swaths of land. We fill the land, water, and air with our pollution. We’re driving record numbers of species to extinction and decimating others with activities from chemical poisoning to hunting for bushmeat, or simply by taking over their habitat.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Greenhouse gases from our industry are changing the Earth’s climate, with such dangerous consequences as ocean acidification, rising sea levels and flooding, changes in rainfall patterns including in vital “breadbaskets,” and loss of forest cover.</span><br />
<span class="s1">While the word “sustainable” has become popular, growing human numbers and activities are anything but. Increasing awareness of our impact has led to developments in renewable energy, recycling, earth-friendly farming and more. There have also been spectacular advances in family planning. But powerful —notably religious — opposition has kept governments and international bodies from actively promoting small families and prevented hundreds of millions of women who would plan their families from having access to modern methods.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">Those who deny that overpopulation is a problem say the poor don’t consume much. Yet the poor want nothing more than to consume more, as proved by India and China. Who can blame them? And a burgeoning number of desperately poor people does have a major impact: they cut down forests to grow food, drain rivers, deplete aquifers, and overfish and over-hunt in their local area. But make these points and you’ll be accused of blaming the poor for the problems of the rich.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">We seem bound to learn the hard way that there really is a limit to how many people the Earth can support.</span> </blockquote>
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<span class="s1">We wish it weren’t so, but it really is starting to look as if Malthus was right.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="s1">To conclude this Dispatch I would like to mention, for those who haven’t heard of it, a website called the <i>Apocalypsi Library at the End of the World</i>. It’s meant to be a repository of all things doom, in categories ranging from art and music to science and philosophy. The internet address is doom for dummies dot blogspot dot com. I set it up a while ago as a resource that might be useful to those who are just encountering the bewildering issues and nomenclature around collapse and extinction, whether they arrive via concerns about peak oil, climate change, or from an economic perspective. I haven’t updated it lately because the amount of new information and articles and scientific reports has become a staggering avalanche, but if you take a look and want to nominate a book, a blog, a painting or a movie, please email me and I’ll include it.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Thanks so much for listening.</span></div>
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-49046271129610920362016-02-12T17:04:00.000-05:002016-02-12T17:43:24.806-05:00Always the Hell…And a Little Bit of Heaven<div class="p1">
The title for this post is taken from a video about the artist Jheronimus Bosch, which can be seen in <a href="http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/02/interactive-bosch/"><span style="color: purple;">an article</span></a> that will send you to a wonderful interactive site, created to enhance appreciation for the exquisite details in his triptych, <i>Garden of Earthly Delights.</i> This masterpiece is unparalleled for its depiction of humanity's progression as it was seen in 1500, beginning with creation and original sin on the left,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFEWUST5V996tOEVNULIGSX5lXvfPkWoaq15lg6D5lbh1SpxeUsLjLKZ6EXbt9F_AnexpOE8Ijxz1DsVZ18xNb1HV2h2ORiPOPFzA3q1gvIbOtB48LzHZGIU_QUrC_0gwQ3s-WoWu604Y/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFEWUST5V996tOEVNULIGSX5lXvfPkWoaq15lg6D5lbh1SpxeUsLjLKZ6EXbt9F_AnexpOE8Ijxz1DsVZ18xNb1HV2h2ORiPOPFzA3q1gvIbOtB48LzHZGIU_QUrC_0gwQ3s-WoWu604Y/s640/3.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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through a voluptuous orgy of carnal decadence in the center panel,<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZktfJNURmHoVfRJMlfjgPd-XOo0NSBTQXmIMkJxJXuiaL47gnpUiqc5WdpqoF40l3RbOLbhtVq8Xs2m10duq628ZKLjdhdMZ-ycIoXoTkYIDmL0am_n92MABbFakOdKSLv9A8eXI6cM/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZktfJNURmHoVfRJMlfjgPd-XOo0NSBTQXmIMkJxJXuiaL47gnpUiqc5WdpqoF40l3RbOLbhtVq8Xs2m10duq628ZKLjdhdMZ-ycIoXoTkYIDmL0am_n92MABbFakOdKSLv9A8eXI6cM/s640/2.jpg" width="577" /></a></div>
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to the deeply dark horror and tortures of hell on the right. Not at all unlike how reality is shaping up.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjppOFpGMVh8DHqt98fV3C1QsEwpEMruP9xYSBapMYPH0qaWkFtoSHxpxlq_FXNvdWDH5w88JIimUfidJaZfy9OeX1dPylsUftXFA6gCdAYOBvre7MMaJRpOTaYQkcdzeT_k_KLQtJQ9jc/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjppOFpGMVh8DHqt98fV3C1QsEwpEMruP9xYSBapMYPH0qaWkFtoSHxpxlq_FXNvdWDH5w88JIimUfidJaZfy9OeX1dPylsUftXFA6gCdAYOBvre7MMaJRpOTaYQkcdzeT_k_KLQtJQ9jc/s640/4.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
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Following is the transcript for the 23rd <i>Dispatch From the Endocene</i>, which can be heard at the archives of <a href="http://www.extinctionradio.org/"><span style="color: purple;">Extinction Radio</span></a>.<br />
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Thanks Gene, and welcome listeners. Trying to incorporate love into this 23rd Dispatch From The Endocene in recognition of Valentine’s Day wasn’t an easy assignment for me. Not in the midst of the Sixth Mass Extinction, which feels a lot more like loss than love, much of the time. But in deference to our fearless producer Mr. Gibson, for this episode I will set aside the growing catalogue of existential threats in the ecopocalypse - the beached whales and rotting trees, the <a href="https://weather.com/science/environment/news/mercury-increasing-in-rainfall"><span style="color: purple;">mercury in the rain</span></a>, a world where it seems that everything (except pollution and human population) is dwindling, from phytoplankton to Arctic ice.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOIfSpaPlCdiwloOm2LsrjkYogt7Iu0B5p-HCI5l3Bnpjfv4umScVFKAL8mcLnDe-Zrz0VVK7GlxN3IB7MfsI2c31KZ9E_AeOgdlajI8LS4wh54OHXhXI2XzUa9M3TsKCgP9UN3InDXfQ/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOIfSpaPlCdiwloOm2LsrjkYogt7Iu0B5p-HCI5l3Bnpjfv4umScVFKAL8mcLnDe-Zrz0VVK7GlxN3IB7MfsI2c31KZ9E_AeOgdlajI8LS4wh54OHXhXI2XzUa9M3TsKCgP9UN3InDXfQ/s400/13.jpg" width="343" /></a></div>
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While thinking about love in the end times, a well known but eternally powerful quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem <i>In Memoriam A.H.H</i>. came to mind. In this requiem for a lost friend, the poet explores his long journey of mourning over a 17 year period, completing the voluminous work in 1849. He wrote: </div>
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<span class="s1"><i>I hold it true, whate'er befall;</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>I feel it when I sorrow most;</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>'Tis better to have loved and lost</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Than never to have loved at all.</i></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXklPBWig7j9PaGf2BBuik_w2266SX7C1mZDGuRoUWEWNj0Ae8LjSXB8bNfUV9fpWOtFmRfH6GgD-HPL9RrPGAUchuWCTKM0FZAYTr_nXO8Vnh1Xxgfk0SVeo7QcNX-Xw0uHi2MGFAgY/s1600/15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXklPBWig7j9PaGf2BBuik_w2266SX7C1mZDGuRoUWEWNj0Ae8LjSXB8bNfUV9fpWOtFmRfH6GgD-HPL9RrPGAUchuWCTKM0FZAYTr_nXO8Vnh1Xxgfk0SVeo7QcNX-Xw0uHi2MGFAgY/s400/15.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>
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only slightly less well known is from Canto 56, where he referred to humanity:</div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Who trusted God was love indeed</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>And love Creation's final law</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>With ravine, shriek'd against his creed</i></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><i></i></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwwc0oz5XSe4E26qY2jn2WiNi-FJanaKwCPKR80xp-36y6h_qpqqvsO_g6_5T4XfykbGTb2pptNgiNG_-IMVSNzGOs4qIGoxOPqGZF7n0_Oc-AwvsFhkybf-wRfmuSV6asNWeKn293LFo/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwwc0oz5XSe4E26qY2jn2WiNi-FJanaKwCPKR80xp-36y6h_qpqqvsO_g6_5T4XfykbGTb2pptNgiNG_-IMVSNzGOs4qIGoxOPqGZF7n0_Oc-AwvsFhkybf-wRfmuSV6asNWeKn293LFo/s400/1.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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While Tennyson retains his religious faith, he aptly describes the conflict between the emerging science of evolutionary biology, and faith in a creator:</div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Are God and Nature then at strife,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>That Nature lends such evil dreams?</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>So careful of the type she seems,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>So careless of the single life;</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9yLSX-N9FcpWiZZbtuveTKL3taZ0TtMwTypewRmJy3gGKYgTj8dsluJ32z8o0Y5JL14OhyjJ_sWzyUdaY99DthbOqsI_VNvb5fM0ZqNQ4pnN64VuFurTOLplyGwH0-AXFznc4Ccy2zx4/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9yLSX-N9FcpWiZZbtuveTKL3taZ0TtMwTypewRmJy3gGKYgTj8dsluJ32z8o0Y5JL14OhyjJ_sWzyUdaY99DthbOqsI_VNvb5fM0ZqNQ4pnN64VuFurTOLplyGwH0-AXFznc4Ccy2zx4/s400/10.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>That I, considering everywhere</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Her secret meaning in her deeds,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>And finding that of fifty seeds</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>She often brings but one to bear,</i></span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN5dNhwjGEnQ78ZE4DzSSLE1HJZTOePUccRQBh6iQihL75wcDuaxnTKW1RJtt7XmDgmBtBT8m3g2ZaxLl3bakMJ_mJ7YbjqccAYvpofWml2kSyU2QTZWCj1nrbmri2PF341Pf63ROyMvc/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN5dNhwjGEnQ78ZE4DzSSLE1HJZTOePUccRQBh6iQihL75wcDuaxnTKW1RJtt7XmDgmBtBT8m3g2ZaxLl3bakMJ_mJ7YbjqccAYvpofWml2kSyU2QTZWCj1nrbmri2PF341Pf63ROyMvc/s400/12.jpg" width="305" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>I falter where I firmly trod,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>And falling with my weight of cares</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Upon the great world's altar-stairs</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>That slope thro' darkness up to God,</i></span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6lInWQtsRZjs_0xlWuIJn_jRhFHa_2N3Ph9nxe31s8yoBA18QPJOw2PbJTFncT-RBOrmVNhqHNxgr1_H1ZsP11D0ifRlPSeQOEmXzOMgGvkCY2JtyVlzX7QmPxDCv-jHPok7hTNcMhI/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6lInWQtsRZjs_0xlWuIJn_jRhFHa_2N3Ph9nxe31s8yoBA18QPJOw2PbJTFncT-RBOrmVNhqHNxgr1_H1ZsP11D0ifRlPSeQOEmXzOMgGvkCY2JtyVlzX7QmPxDCv-jHPok7hTNcMhI/s400/11.jpg" width="318" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>And gather dust and chaff, and call</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>To what I feel is Lord of all,</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>And faintly trust the larger hope.</i></span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2oQycLS35RfCaA0ZeWqK3JkY4OC_ZxBPKpIreiELgCFch9z8NIv6ex3GHgopy2wEg1PahBL5_sOyt9Ygj-fcDJ8wA9MJTmNTvUiIHl90mk6cQcx8-iDq-iBIro3ya9MJbMk0TNKEsYFY/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2oQycLS35RfCaA0ZeWqK3JkY4OC_ZxBPKpIreiELgCFch9z8NIv6ex3GHgopy2wEg1PahBL5_sOyt9Ygj-fcDJ8wA9MJTmNTvUiIHl90mk6cQcx8-iDq-iBIro3ya9MJbMk0TNKEsYFY/s400/6.jpg" width="343" /></a></div>
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While Tennyson describes his trust as faint, he still retains the hope. I can’t say I feel the same, but I do feel <i>’tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all</i>. On a personal level, I wouldn’t trade the love I have known even for a place in eternity. When I contemplate extinction and grieve for the loss of so much splendid flora and fauna on our precious planet earth, it helps to recall with gratitude how unlikely it is for any of us to have had a chance to live and love at all - and how marvelous, no matter how ephemeral it turns out to be.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwO8WmQDa7jQbMV8DzGWAERgb2obW1V4BjGqwgZZsuz2jQjgwsUNUMGd56bMNDX2LnUaR5n0qnlJnKjvhc-x8zoQl8zu4sJ39iWYlMKB-Q3cIBMmAs7IdcFwhVPiM7XbdZYjLJDIektYU/s1600/7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwO8WmQDa7jQbMV8DzGWAERgb2obW1V4BjGqwgZZsuz2jQjgwsUNUMGd56bMNDX2LnUaR5n0qnlJnKjvhc-x8zoQl8zu4sJ39iWYlMKB-Q3cIBMmAs7IdcFwhVPiM7XbdZYjLJDIektYU/s400/7.jpg" width="306" /></a></div>
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In honor of Valentine’s Day I have also posted on my blog, Wit’s End, some other gifts. One is a genuinely inspiring video essay about Wisdom, which describes the wise person as “…being alive to moments of calm and beauty, even extremely modest ones” and “…realizing that we are barely evolved apes and that half of life is irrational…”. It tells us it is wise to “try to budget for madness” and “be slow to panic when it reliably rears its head”. It reminds us to laugh at the “constant collisions between the noble way we’d like things to be and the demented way they in fact often turn out”. It observes that the wise understand that most hurt is not from malice, but rather derives from “…the constant collision of blind competing egos in a world of scarce resources.”<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgIvvtuq6aMYZoifLk1AE42OoBwCMV6LpZnhqXNFxRKiBlIzBjqBGhKSifb9dS9BZnJUcgvKIDLMyTMuXD8jNCjtn6fZecLcSnFeEoM2V9bEjYvHLHZP6FvZVzwE3P_W5sDzLZX4Pdc04/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgIvvtuq6aMYZoifLk1AE42OoBwCMV6LpZnhqXNFxRKiBlIzBjqBGhKSifb9dS9BZnJUcgvKIDLMyTMuXD8jNCjtn6fZecLcSnFeEoM2V9bEjYvHLHZP6FvZVzwE3P_W5sDzLZX4Pdc04/s400/9.jpg" width="325" /></a></div>
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I’ve also posted a few paintings in newly published, extraordinarily high resolution from Jheronimus Bosch. I hope you visit and enjoy it all.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbs9VpZG6FWQScLgpQP-pdoxScZDQ9NH4h2RuuQI3ee8kq7W507_O3E-yyVwTLbND7X7M0tO9k_EQoUXmS_TSXr4v_RpKWjjwgudGsqBwT9ZzQRoCkBffl23avM0cDC4Q9ar6IvjU2DII/s1600/5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbs9VpZG6FWQScLgpQP-pdoxScZDQ9NH4h2RuuQI3ee8kq7W507_O3E-yyVwTLbND7X7M0tO9k_EQoUXmS_TSXr4v_RpKWjjwgudGsqBwT9ZzQRoCkBffl23avM0cDC4Q9ar6IvjU2DII/s400/5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Happy Valentine’s Day, and thanks for listening.</div>
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-26997449911236338942016-01-29T18:40:00.000-05:002016-01-29T18:54:15.771-05:00Histories Etched<span style="background-color: white;">The title of this post is taken from the winning poem of <a href="http://www.versefest.ca/2013/about/poetry-for-the-end-of-the-world/"><span style="color: purple;">2013's contest</span></a> at <i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Poetry for the End of the World</span></i>.</span><br />
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</span><br />
<div style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Letters From the Ice Age</strong><br />
<strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong>
<strong style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> ~</strong><em style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </em><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ian Ferrier</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Cities buried streets forgotten</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">warehouses ransacked and abandoned for the south.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">We love we breathe</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">light footprints of our passing through the snow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">What would we say? And how say it?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">Who would we talk to? And how could they answer?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Buildings break beneath the ice</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">the bridges fall and there are less of us each year.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Like arctic animals we burrow through the wreckage</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">of the city underground.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">And high above where once the escalators climbed into the light</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">the tunnels terminate in breathing walls of ice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Here in the dark</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">within the stone walls of the ancient hospital</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">below the copper roofs</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">and buried by the glaciers on all sides</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Here in blood and wailing</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">anchored in breathing and inflexible resolve</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">we have sent this letter to the next world.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Archangel of the frozen colony</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">whose sign is fire whose feet are locked in ice</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">We leave you more than this than blowing snow</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">or permafrost a football field below.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">This is the breath of the last words spoken</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">bubbling up</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">the frozen evidence of love</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">like nitrogen in glass</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">our histories etched into the worlds</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">we will not live to know.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;">There are also worlds we lost long ago, so long ago we can not even remember. Yet another nail has been pounded in the coffin of those who deny human agency in megafauna extinction, back in the halcyon (not!) days of purportedly sustainable tribal spiritual aboriginal hunting and gathering. </span><a href="http://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/01/ancient-extinction-of-giant-australian-bird-points-to-humans/"><span style="color: purple;">A new study</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> documents 200 sites across Australia where ancient peoples harvested and roasted the eggs of </span><i style="color: #444444;">Genyornis</i><span style="color: #444444;">, a 500-lb bird that was nearly 7 feet tall...driving it to oblivion some 50,000 years ago. It has been particularly difficult to make the physical (as opposed to the obvious circumstantial) link between human predation and megafauna in Australia, because little remains to be recovered in the archeological record to document causation - unlike other continents and islands, where fossils are readily found with weapons at kill sites. Now, the scientists find this evidence is absolute proof (</span><a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2015/09/if-only.html"><span style="color: purple;">as if any more were needed</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">) that humans alone were responsible for the extinction of dozens upon dozens of animals as we migrated around the world:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Genyornis</i> depicted in Prehistoric Art</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;">“<i>Genyornis</i></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 24.8px;"> roamed the Australian outback with an astonishing menagerie of other now-extinct megafauna that included a 1,000-pound kangaroo, a 2-ton wombat, a 25-foot-long-lizard, a 300-pound marsupial lion and a Volkswagen-sized tortoise. More than 85 percent of Australia’s mammals, birds and reptiles weighing over 100 pounds went extinct shortly after the arrival of the first humans."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><a href="http://new%20evidence%20tightens%20the%20noose%20on%20humans%20as%20the%20decisive%20factor%20in%20the%20extinction%20of%20the%20last%20of%20the%20megafauna%20in%20australia%20and%20north%20america./"><span style="color: purple; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">New evidence tightens the noose on humans as the decisive factor in the extinction of the last of the megafauna in Australia and North America.</span></a></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="" style="background-color: white; line-height: 24.8px;"><span style="color: #222222;">Following is an expanded transcript from this week's 22nd <i>Dispatch From the Endocen</i>e, which can be heard </span><a href="http://www.extinctionradio.org/"><span style="color: purple;">at the archives</span></a><span style="color: #222222;"> for Extinction Radio:</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia";">Thanks Gene, and welcome listeners, to the 22nd </span><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dispatch From the Endocene</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia";">. As always, links for further reading to all topics mentioned can be found on my blog, Wit's End, which will be illustrated with incomparable art created by Maria Sibylla Merian. <i>[If you click on them, they will enlarge with marvelous detail.]</i> She was born in Germany in 1647 to an artistic legacy, and grew up with a passion for collecting caterpillars. From an early age she displayed a flair for botanical subjects, flowers as well as frogs, lizards, snakes, spiders and beetles - painting with watercolors, as women were prohibited from using oils. At the age of 52, she sold much of her collection to raise funds to leave her home in Amsterdam, where she had immigrated to escape the legal reach of her estranged husband, when she took the bold step to voyage to Surinam in search of exotic insects and plants. Hers was likely the first privately funded expedition to the New World for purely scientific purposes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;">The publication of handpainted engravings in her major work, </span><i style="color: #252525; line-height: 20.3636px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium</span></i><i style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.3636px;">,</i><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;"> from this remarkable journey marked a unique and pioneering depiction of the metamorphosis of moths and butterflies together with their host plants. Each etching was matched with scrupulous documentation. </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;">Although Lineaus, the father of modern zoological classification cited her hundreds of time, her accurate renderings were later ridiculed by British naturalists in the 18th century as amateurish. Yet, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;">her work was instrumental in refuting the contemporary belief that insects arose spontaneously, and ushered in the field of entomology. Placing insects in their native habitat was an example of an understanding of ecology before the term existed, and the interactions of species as she composed them together illuminated natural selection, competition, and survival of the fittest long before Darwin's journey on the Beagle enabled him to articulate and refine those concepts.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlTuz9OlM7Vvf6tWEjY5L57z6LE8YxdsBtLRhMhnEkgpjumNIjOXsn4xp1Nn0FVwmzItF-0ew759VCkhor7cAxQaex9zMcvw9SIwd7Yupn8m4G9wWfkR1ToF41pVeSMLHk51SqoWwR-Lo/s1600/17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlTuz9OlM7Vvf6tWEjY5L57z6LE8YxdsBtLRhMhnEkgpjumNIjOXsn4xp1Nn0FVwmzItF-0ew759VCkhor7cAxQaex9zMcvw9SIwd7Yupn8m4G9wWfkR1ToF41pVeSMLHk51SqoWwR-Lo/s400/17.jpg" width="295" /></a></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444;">Such images that celebrate the complexity, ferocity and diversity of life are all by way of introduction to </span><a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=bDrV3F6TYCMC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&ots=_1StK90Vai&sig=wWyd76cbzdWdohbj6EsnSf7EU9w#v=onepage&q&f=false"><span style="color: purple;">a monumental book</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> I have been reading, that chronicles the opposite in devastating detail - called </span><i style="color: #444444;">Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis</i><span style="color: #444444;">. It is an enormous scholarly work, published by Michael Williams in 2002. It's way beyond the scope of one broadcast to include even a fraction of the deforestation he catalogues, so I'm going to concentrate on the earliest evidence he has amassed, because it pertains to the pivotal role of our species in affecting the entire cycle of life and climate on Earth.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444;">The prehistoric human activity exhaustively documented in the book emphasizes two revelations that become critical as more people awaken to the ongoing and accelerating obliteration of Earth's biodiversity, when they often wonder how our species, which I call </span><span style="color: #444444;"><i>Homo Eradicatus</i>,</span><span style="color: #444444;"> can be simultaneously so conscious, and so stupid.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWLm9sQzkNWsZHZimmBbD7cg4ZInKqSvt3APafe9sq_etbhNYHmPWiQHZiLjdZzSgyp5N32bky6nc4IbS8bW5P0W-K7PY55YEAGDWTPiwquS8goLGZcYGNDlynOv4sfIM8pliJqAl3baU/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWLm9sQzkNWsZHZimmBbD7cg4ZInKqSvt3APafe9sq_etbhNYHmPWiQHZiLjdZzSgyp5N32bky6nc4IbS8bW5P0W-K7PY55YEAGDWTPiwquS8goLGZcYGNDlynOv4sfIM8pliJqAl3baU/s400/13.jpg" width="306" /></a></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;">One is, that we were never any more considerate of the environment, in some fanciful romantic past era of peaceful hunter-gathering tribes. This is borne out by the </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/20/stone-age-massacre-offers-earliest-evidence-human-warfare-kenya" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px;"><span style="color: purple;">recent gruesome discovery</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;"><span style="color: #444444;"> of a brutal stone age massacre widely regarded as the first irrefutable evidence of warfare between non-sedentary tribes 10,000 years ago - and by the way there is a fascinating </span><a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/archaeological-fine-points-to-ancient-human-violence/"><span style="color: purple;">radio interview</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> with one of the researchers, where she describes herself as </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;"><span style="color: #444444;">almost overwhelmed</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;"><span style="color: #444444;"> by the savagery, the elaborate weaponry, and the ruthlessness of the attack, which she attributes to competition over resources. Also interesting is the number of fossilized bones of animals - </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;">everything from giraff</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 15px;">e to rhinos and zebras</span><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 15px;"> - left after being </span><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 15px;">butchered on the shores of Lake Turkana, which was lush, fertile and ver</span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;">dant at that time. Since then it has become a parched barren landscape, a progression of desertification repeated at sites around the world.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-SESnTpw67dPtKPOdtgtw9kvZ0_w3c0GRYzkt0BdGFzmRYZo0DIqhUr8COJtF6r2u6JgJ58OL7e17keU9943gzfJ4Y6CY3FwBc527uIbtGA1GdWbPc0AG_97RBNSsEBIfSQFLnrxEQE4/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-SESnTpw67dPtKPOdtgtw9kvZ0_w3c0GRYzkt0BdGFzmRYZo0DIqhUr8COJtF6r2u6JgJ58OL7e17keU9943gzfJ4Y6CY3FwBc527uIbtGA1GdWbPc0AG_97RBNSsEBIfSQFLnrxEQE4/s400/3.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;">The other striking conclusion from the book is that, contrary to popular impression, humanity never made a sudden fatal turn to agriculture - that we could have chosen to avoid had we only been wiser or less greedy. There never was a magic moment when our species could have taken a different path away from increasing complexity and civilization. Rather, it was a long, slow, incremental and inevitable process embedded initially in the simplest acts of hunting and gathering. It began with selectively collecting beneficial plants, encouraging their habitat, and eliminating less favorable forests - first with fire - to facilitate access to preferred prey animals, then to horticulture and animal husbandry, and eventually to factory farms.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;">A study just </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/24/plastic-new-epoch-human-damage"><span style="color: purple;">published</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> in the journal </span><i style="color: #444444;">Anthropocene</i><span style="color: #444444;"> proposes that the astounding penetration of plastics into all aspects of the world should mark the beginning of the geologically measurable impact of humans, but after reading about the extent of deliberate deforestation beginning over 10,000 years ago, and the vaster consequences to other forms of life, I find ever more reason to think the geologists should dispense with the Holocene altogether and replace it with Endocene, beginning with the extinction of the megafauna and concurrent deforestation.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: #444444;">So great was the deforestation in the Americas that </span><a href="http://phys.org/news/2011-10-team-european-ice-age-due.html"><span style="color: purple;">scientists theorize</span></a><span style="color: #444444;"> when the Europeans brought diseases that decimated indigenous populations, the continents reforested so rapidly that somewhere between 2 and 17 billion tons of CO2 were rapidly sequestered from the air, leading to the sudden cooling in Europe known as the Little Ice Age between 1500 and 1750. This may or may not be the primary cause, but what is true and indisputable is that pre-Columbian indigenous people had caused massive deforestation, biodiversity alteration, and species extinction.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">The first chapter of the book </span><i style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">Deforestation</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"> expounds on the development of forests as they emerged and spread at the end of the ice age. The meticulous research is amazing. Scientists reconstruct the shift of species from studies of pollen, and track the extensive travel of seeds by river and wind, as well as animal dispersal. The changing flora reminds us that there has always been extensive transport even before explorers like Maria Merion collected thousands of samples and sailed them over the oceans. The book details what it calls the “dynamism of vegetation taxa in the continent as it adjusted to the retreating ice and changing temperatures”. This marks a sharp contrast to the wholesale, universal decline of forests that began with acid rain in the last century and is currently worsening with the deposition of airborne pollutants.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">I'm going to read now selections from the book. This is from the section in the first chapter, subtitled,</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">THE HUMAN IMPACT, p. 12</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1" style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">“As the forest changed, so humans colonized the newly vegetated land with remarkable rapidity, doing all those things that humans do: foraging, firing, hunting, selecting species and rejecting others, turning the soil, fertilizing it, trampling it, and mixing it. In the course of this manipulation of the biota some tree taxa moved, flourished, or were eliminated, just as surely as if they had been affected by changing climate. </span></span><span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">So, even as the forests were changing in the climatic see-saw of the millennia of the early Holocene era — slowly assuming their modern, historical distribution and form — the people who witnessed and survived that Ice Age were in the active process of changing their composition and density. From the boreal forests of the cold north of Canada and Siberia, to the hot, humid rain and monsoon forests and savannas of the tropics, via the intermediate mixed deciduous, pine, and mediterranean forests and prairie, steppe, and pampas of the temperate middle belt, hunters and foragers were changing the distribution, density, and composition of biomes just as surely as was the climate. It was a coevolution.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">“Thus, during the last 6,000 years, if not longer, many of the changes in vegetation reflect adjustments to human disturbances, brought about by the increasing density and spread of population, the use of fire, technological advances, the cultivation of exotic plant species, and the introduction of grazing animals. </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">In Europe, forest clearing, cultivation, the cutting of tree sprouts and limbs for fodder, and the localization and intensification of grazing all had their effects on opening up the forest canopy and thus creating opportunities for invasion by early succession forest taxa, such as fir, birch, spruce, and particularly the mediterranean pine. The deliberate clearing of the forest accompanied by cultivation of cereals by Neolithic and post-Neolithic peoples led to forest fragmentation, the introduction and inadvertent spread of disturbed-ground weeds and ruderals, like plantain. Some trees such as the walnut, the olive, and the pistachio became naturalized well beyond their native ranges as cultivation and grazing eliminated native plant competitors, and they were even deliberately spread and planted for their food value…</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“Similarly, in North America humans played an important part in shaping the vegetational development, quite contrary to some ecological accounts that see change as a purely post-Columbian event. Bottomland forests in the central Mississippi, lower Illinois, and Tennessee river valleys were cleared extensively as cultivation expanded along floodplains and lower terraces. The cultivation of squash began as early as 7000 BP, to be followed by other exotics such as the sunflower and bottle gourd , and later still by exotic cultigens such as maize and beans , and useful fruit- and nut-bearing trees were protected and hence propagated. The story of weeds and ruderal invasions paralleled that of Europe. Other changes, far greater than are generally acknowledged, occurred in the forests at the oak—savanna transition, the forest generally being eliminated by fire to be replaced by more valuable grasses.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“Less is known about the tropical world, but all the indications are that the impact was no less. The changes affected the forest in all continents, and are explored in greater detail in the following two chapters. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“In sum, then, in addition to the natural, climatically induced changes, the human impact was early, widespread, and significant, and the forests of the world changed accordingly. Across the globe the first halting steps toward deforestation were under way. In the space of 10,000 years (a mere 500 generations) humans were going to have an effect on global vegetation only slightly less dramatic and widespread than that of the Ice Age in the 100,000 years before.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><b style="background-color: white;">Chapter 2</b></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-weight: bold;">Fire and Foragers </i>[begins with three quotes]</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;"><i>Wherever primitive man has had the opportunity to turn fire loose on a land, he seems to have done so, from time immemorial; it is only civilized societies that have undertaken to stop fires.</i> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">—CARL SAUER, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: small;">“</span><span class="s1">The Agency of Man on Earth</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">” </span>(1956)</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><i style="background-color: white;">By the time of European arrival, North America was a manipulated continent. Indians had long since altered the landscape by burning or clearing woodland for farming and fuel. Despite European images of an untouched Eden, this nature was cultural not virgin, anthropogenic not primeval.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">—SHEPARD KRECH, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: small;">“</span>The Ecological Indian: Myth and History<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span> (1999) </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i style="background-color: white;">There are no virgin forests today, nor were there in 1492.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">—WILLIAM M. DENEVAN, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; font-size: small;">“</span><span class="s1">The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span> (1992)</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“EVEN BEFORE the climate, vegetation, and landscape had achieved their modern character, humans were at odds with nature, changing it, manipulating it, and attempting to tame it. Vast areas of forest and grassland were burned, vegetation was altered irretrievably, soils were changed, and fauna were eliminated. Indeed, it is increasingly difficult to think that any forests, from the tundra margins to the tropics, were ever pristine and untouched; all were being changed in form and composition.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"><span class="s1">“However, the long-held view has been that prehistoric peoples were a nonfactor in environmental change and degradation. Their numbers and densities were too low to bring about significant change; their technology was insufficient to cause alteration; and their livelihood (particularly that of non-Western </span>“<span class="s1">primitive</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span><span class="s1"> peoples) was in perfect harmony with nature: </span>“<span class="s1">we must understand, in their minds, all aspects of life are harmonized into a whole,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span><span class="s1"> Janaki Ammal asserted of early India. Not all agreed: Carl Sauer was more realistic, and had no doubt that widespread fire was endemic and integral to early human life, and that with domestication </span>“the natural land became deformed, as to biota, surface, and soil, into unstable cultural landscapes.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“Whatever the true character of the natural mechanisms of succession, climax, and vegetational change, the role of humans in bringing about change in the </span>“deep<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span> past should not be in doubt. Each shift in the complexity and sophistication of technique and culture merely made the human impact more certain and more pronounced. And even the mildest and slowest change could be cumulative, leading to dramatic long-term effects. At the very simplest level, hunter-foragers manipulated vegetation by fire in order to round up and slaughter game, causing irreversible change to forest extent and composition. The hunter-foragers gave way to agricultural and/or complex irrigation societies that deliberately manipulated the soil and water supply, thereby radically altering and replacing one vegetation cover by another. In turn these gave way to urban /industrial societies that sent out shock waves of innovation, modernization, and change into their surrounding hinterlands in the form of fuel demands, crop productivity, and land use change.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“In many ways the distinction used in this and the next chapter between foraging and farming as a means of altering the forest is a difficult one to sustain. In many societies there was, and is, a seamless continuity between the two, with the validity of the distinction decreasing the nearer it comes to the present. In reality, both used fire, the foragers, almost certainly more than the farmers. Nevertheless, it is a convenient distinction which underlines a particular emphasis in the subsequent account.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">FIRE: </span>“<span class="s1">THE FIRST GREAT FORCE</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">[I love this section, because it expounds on one of my pet convictions, that learning to use the elemental force of fire is the major accomplishment that set humans outside of nature, which I wrote about in <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-blame-prometheus.html"><span style="color: purple;"><i>I Blame Prometheus</i></span></a>]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“Fire was, in the words of Omer Stewart, </span>“the first great force employed by man,<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span> and it was crucial in the story of deforestation. Along with stone tools and language, fire was the first nonhuman force incorporated into human society, and one of the key features that distinguished humankind from the rest of the primates as they evolved from the beginning of the Pleistocene. With fire humans accomplished the first great ecological transformation of the earth, to be followed much later by two others of the same order of magnitude: the development of agriculture and animal husbandry 10,000 years ago, and the rise of large-scale industrial production a little less than 200 years ago. Humans assimilated fire into their biological heritage, thereby gaining access to the world's biota, and the biota, in turn, acquired a new regimen of fire transformed by human society. Fire, suggests Stephen Pyne, was the first of “humanity's Faustian bargains.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span>...</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“To the early hominids, fire was complex, subtle, and dynamic; it was also destructive, irreversible, purposeless, and self-generating. But they also were to learn that the many negative qualities of this destructive force could be turned to positive and productive uses.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“First and foremost, if humans could mimic nature's own fire drives caused by wind-storm and lightning, the world was made more habitable and usable. Land was cleared and plant and animal resources were increased. Even the most primitive of aboriginal peoples seemed to grasp intuitively the idea that deliberate burning improved vegetation by promoting and maintaining the growth of favored plants such as grasses, forbs, tubers, wild fruits, wild rice, hazelnuts, sunflowers, cama, bracken, cassava, and </span>blueberries. The yields of all these plants increased, which encouraged greater numbers and densities of animals. Burning also helped to control the distribution of animals, making hunting more predictable and thus more efficient because less time and energy were expended on stalking individual animals into areas of dense forest. From a wide variety of evidence Paul Mellars suggests that controlled burning could not only alter species variety, but increase the yields of browse and herbaceous forage in deciduous forests by between 300 and 700 percent, with a corresponding increase of animal populations of up to 400 percent. Additionally, fire opened up the tangle of woodland and jungle by removing the dense understory of brush and small trees, so that visibility was improved, travel facilitated, and surprise attack from animals and other humans minimized. Simply put, widely spaced trees and clear meadows offered greater mobility, and more productive and safer hunting.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“The reduction of vegetational cover for rousing and driving game is one of the most frequently cited reasons for deliberate burning throughout the historical aboriginal world, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the further back one extends into the past, the more frequently it would have been used. Anything to facilitate the hunt was desirable. Early hominids had only sharpened and fire-hardened wooden spears for hunting; not until later, when the more versatile and long-range bow and arrow were perfected, could the task have become more efficient and safer. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“Not only were large mammals </span>“flushed out<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span> by fire, so too were nutritious insects, lizards, and rodents from trunks, holes, caves, and burrows, and even honey could be safely collected from combs. Night fishing by torch was very productive. The opposite was also true of fire: it had a purgative effect, ridding the ground of poisonous snakes, scorpions, and spiders and a host of ticks and bugs, while many peoples in the Americas learned to live in perpetual smoke to ward off flies and mosquitos.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“One also can speculate as to whether more accessible herds allowed a selective culling of animals, which might ultimately have affected the age, sex, and species components of herds. Such deliberate manipulation might have been the first step in the herding- husbanding-domestication of animal populations and would have contributed to the emergence of concepts of ownership and territoriality. </span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“Further, there are few foods that do not benefit from the application of heat. Therefore, the second great benefit of fire was in cooking and boiling, which leached out toxins, softened tough fibers, and reduced bacteria and fungi, extending the range of foods available and leading, presumably, to better health. In addition, it does not take too much imagination to realize that cooking became the model for ceramics and metallurgy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“Finally, fire became embedded in human cognition and sociocultural behavior. It is, says Pyne, </span>“a maddening amalgam of human and ecological history.<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">” </span>Fire could be used for protection as well as aggression; it accompanied ceremonies and entered belief systems as a purifier and atoner through sacrifice and ordeal; it has entered into concepts of creation and damnation in many religions. Certainly it made life more comfortable and sociable, and contributed to civilization. Fire was a source of heat and light, giving protection against cold and darkness and warning off predators, thus facilitating territorial expansion and population increase. Because of the comfort and security it offered it became a focus for group and community life, and enhanced communication and solidarity. Fire may have encouraged such practices as meat eating, food sharing, the division of labor, and new forms of sexual behavior, thereby helping to weld early groups into coherent units. It is most likely responsible for the formation of the characteristics of the family unit in society, the hearth being a potent image of (and in) family life and sedentariness, and the focal point for gathering, discussion, and dissemination of group wisdom.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“J</span><span class="s1">ohann Goudsblom suggests that learning to control and domesticate fire inevitably involved foresight, cooperation, the renunciation of "primary impulses," and the exercise of discipline in the tasks of gathering fuel, keeping it dry, and feeding the fire with it. Thus, he goes so far as to suggest that the care of fire was a cultural mutation that required a civilizing process. Moreover, the taming of the wild force of fire must be the first example of the tending, guarding, and exploitation of a natural force. Once fire was incorporated into human life, it was a natural progression to think of extending care and control over other nonhuman resources by selecting plants and animals, and guarding and protecting </span>them against competing species and parasites. If that is so, then the use and control of fire may have initiated the second great ecological transformation of the earth —plant and animal domestication — giving it a significance way beyond the mere burning of vegetation for hunting. It was an integral part of civilizing and civilization.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8h2p3UkcqDaPE9rfdqe6wmypVpBAn8v6wSWyoFBWhOXTYeLHkLiYvLsv0y2XXU3t7vwGxig9EvGoafukbcqxM-Xn7o7KSRX55SQQmyiuxFdyJ6YzdUg0H22rmJcb3Z7f7bZZ2cbD8pDQ/s1600/22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8h2p3UkcqDaPE9rfdqe6wmypVpBAn8v6wSWyoFBWhOXTYeLHkLiYvLsv0y2XXU3t7vwGxig9EvGoafukbcqxM-Xn7o7KSRX55SQQmyiuxFdyJ6YzdUg0H22rmJcb3Z7f7bZZ2cbD8pDQ/s400/22.jpg" width="290" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“Be that as it may, all the practical benefits enumerated led to repeated and regular use of fire in most societies in the world, creating high concentrations of plants and animals that could provide humans with useful products, primarily food. The human monopoly of fire separated homo sapiens from all other beings, and made them the dominant species on the earth and its ecological manipulators. The implications for deforestation were enormous...</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAFpEEqTFhMpv7oexNaxLpEbpCz2tttKYE1gATtgHG6wgNuvacshESbT4N3itMfPE8W2-Ok_lhTRY4gQDMl8INnDeR9UNiBn6sf1cYIjHK8sDfXfOar_wIoVk3MNdzaFodsWiNKw7A18/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaAFpEEqTFhMpv7oexNaxLpEbpCz2tttKYE1gATtgHG6wgNuvacshESbT4N3itMfPE8W2-Ok_lhTRY4gQDMl8INnDeR9UNiBn6sf1cYIjHK8sDfXfOar_wIoVk3MNdzaFodsWiNKw7A18/s320/6.jpg" width="231" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="background-color: white;">[The book offers a number of examples of the dramatic change wrought by prehistoric hunter-gatherers, who availed themselves of nature's bounty with impunity - they are presented from around the world, including North and South America, and Europe, here is but one:]</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“The Polynesians reached Madagascar between about AD 100 and 500, Easter Island about AD 400, Hawaii about AD 800, and New Zealand between AD 900 and 950. In the 117 km2 of Easter Island, clearing for agriculture, firewood, and large timbers for moving the moai, or massive stone face statues, together with frequent fire, resulted in </span>“<span class="s1">[a] deforestation which must surely be one of the most extreme examples of its kind anywhere in the world,</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span><span class="s1"> leaving scarcely a single tree. Dramatic as it was, however, this deforestation came nowhere near the destruction by fire </span>“<span class="s1">of almost half of the forest" in New Zealand by the Maoris. The Maoris brought no plants with them and came as hunter-gatherers. The moa, a large, ostrichlike, flightless bird standing up to 16 ft high, was their principal source of protein, without equal in any of the Pacific Islands. Moas also provided material for clothing and for most implements, so much so that they were known as kuranui, </span>“<span class="s1">the great treasure</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span><span class="s1"> or </span>“<span class="s1">primary source.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span><span class="s1"> In the absence of any large predators moas were present in vast numbers, tending to congregate on the forest edges and clearings. The Maori soon learned the value of fire in pushing back the forest edge and in driving the moas to places where they could be slaughtered more easily.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhX9BkFvnsBd4ICFLt_qkO4DCGme9MpwClN4aFM2Kqsf384H432uTijaG_QcHQW75MR7oPw7jHvT-azCIs1hQTz6_F-zkE1PBxMZ_w8dw72RgJkTkXAyuA6dDcEPWeD6EuS73_h-L3vQ/s1600/24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhX9BkFvnsBd4ICFLt_qkO4DCGme9MpwClN4aFM2Kqsf384H432uTijaG_QcHQW75MR7oPw7jHvT-azCIs1hQTz6_F-zkE1PBxMZ_w8dw72RgJkTkXAyuA6dDcEPWeD6EuS73_h-L3vQ/s400/24.jpg" width="318" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“Once </span>started, the fires were fanned by the desiccating nor'westers that then, as now, sweep from the mountain across the foothills and the rain-shadow plains on the eastern side of the South Island during the hot, dry summers. The mixed broadleaf-conifer forests were completely destroyed. It could not withstand fire, did not regenerate, and was replaced by bracken, fern, tussock, and scrub. The denudation initiated the first great cycle of humanly induced soil erosion that buried old forests near present-day Christchurch under 12 ft of detritus. About a hundred years later the interior beech forests went the same way. By 1250 there were barely any moa left to hunt, and by the time of European colonization they were extinct. Thus, by the mid-thirteenth century a mere 8,000—12,000 people in South Island had destroyed "not less than 8 million acres of ... forest," and driven the moa to the verge of extinction. By the time of the fairly precise European vegetation surveys of circa 1800, the forest, particularly in the North Island, had been reduced even further; subsequent clearing for extensive agriculture and sheep grazing completed the task of denudation begun 1,500 years earlier by the Maoris.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“With such evidence, one can well believe Captain James Cook's comment during the 1770s that throughout his voyages between the Pacific Islands </span>“<span class="s1">we saw either smoke by day and fires by night, in all parts of it.</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span> However, because of the prevailing myth of the harmony of preindustrial peoples with nature there has been a “marked reluctance to accept” what he saw and its consequences.</span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSbqqHD9uPffUaoonC8U-RMfubLzpVz1WWLQEU9LKOki5fRTB2iZmwvr9ACbNG0PRbtVSJKLsq3X1zkRXusUp7dj2JYjLUTB23Af7rnzddDqdQVimq9BbHz9OZbOFIY4tjGWlwYORUDJk/s1600/19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSbqqHD9uPffUaoonC8U-RMfubLzpVz1WWLQEU9LKOki5fRTB2iZmwvr9ACbNG0PRbtVSJKLsq3X1zkRXusUp7dj2JYjLUTB23Af7rnzddDqdQVimq9BbHz9OZbOFIY4tjGWlwYORUDJk/s400/19.jpg" width="262" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i style="background-color: white;">AFTER THE ICE: EUROPE</i></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“The deliberate burning and elimination of the forest was not the only manipulation of the resource. Wood was the most valuable and versatile raw material available in the past. Not only did it furnish shelter and heat, but also the material for a vast range of tools and weapons necessary for survival. Given its importance, it is ironic that wood has played little part in the traditional, outmoded, but convenient Three Ages system of European prehistory—Stone, Bronze, and Iron. There is barely a tool or weapon that did not have a wooden part, and the latter two ages would not have existed without the wood for smelting ore. The organic nature and perishability of wood, contrasted to the permanence of stone, metal, and pottery, have led to its neglect.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwj9WryXZnXRpP_M_l-fwidfEt7yhOpDEFFzs0jh1qjpAogWhXJVx8buWm6ND_FXwnhIflG49ndPvIV_K12vy6heW00ZCqzoBtn-fOOYYnD7OMUR-VVZ1N_SKQ8WPdF1T_CKV5mxtnbw/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRwj9WryXZnXRpP_M_l-fwidfEt7yhOpDEFFzs0jh1qjpAogWhXJVx8buWm6ND_FXwnhIflG49ndPvIV_K12vy6heW00ZCqzoBtn-fOOYYnD7OMUR-VVZ1N_SKQ8WPdF1T_CKV5mxtnbw/s400/4.jpg" width="293" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“Yet Mesolithic societies had acquired considerable knowledge and appreciation of the qualities of different timbers and their suitability for different functions—the elm and yew for bow staves, pine for arrow shafts, hazel for spear shafts, and tough root wood for ax hafts. Bark quality was also understood: the resistance of birch bark to water and its usefulness for hut floor insulation and net-float construction; the use of its pitch for caulking artifacts and preparing leather; and the use of willow bark to provide the thread for making the nets. Even tree fungus (Fomes fometarius) was stripped of its outer skin and used for tinder...</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGKNT9eGK6_FolVMxPEO6Zfcx5_jlUcUBVWY4-wCeaS3_Wr5hrDLXoTX7nsIcUCtZB3BNoio-r7C09K7jPZTJrn8zfaNFxHc4qrMefxdtL3saI6TLqlYfzFoT4bPSzYbU25ESQ3FPO1dQ/s1600/41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGKNT9eGK6_FolVMxPEO6Zfcx5_jlUcUBVWY4-wCeaS3_Wr5hrDLXoTX7nsIcUCtZB3BNoio-r7C09K7jPZTJrn8zfaNFxHc4qrMefxdtL3saI6TLqlYfzFoT4bPSzYbU25ESQ3FPO1dQ/s400/41.jpg" width="323" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="background-color: white;">“This catalogue excludes the palisades and structures in forts, and the worked rods, brushwood hurdles, pegs, and planks that went to make up the prehistoric trackways and platforms that straddled the low-lying wetlands in the Somerset Levels and the Fens— literally millions of pieces. Perhaps even more impressive than the intricacy and magnitude of these trackways is the evidence of the conscious management of the surrounding woodlands by coppicing to stimulate the growth of long, straight poles from the trees' stools.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-0x8lb-si7EYxaemFhrpAG4RY_ucvR_5ZUIjhxnWsiIPunFkuFCmP7JxOfxlKZ2nYGHfYnth4Jbw6lvB3k2BI-VJ9fmkdqK9hsFONjr31p_9nBV_XmVr74W2yKyU6biZmZq2pjH67zDA/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-0x8lb-si7EYxaemFhrpAG4RY_ucvR_5ZUIjhxnWsiIPunFkuFCmP7JxOfxlKZ2nYGHfYnth4Jbw6lvB3k2BI-VJ9fmkdqK9hsFONjr31p_9nBV_XmVr74W2yKyU6biZmZq2pjH67zDA/s400/3.jpg" width="312" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="s1">“All the evidence of clearing and wood use points to the fact that a greater continuity of technology occurred between the Mesolithic and Neolithic than is often supposed. The later Mesolithics were not, as Gordon Childe thought, the primitive fag end of the hunting and gathering Paleolithic age who became absorbed by the superior new Neolithic agriculturalists; rather, they were the sophisticated and innovative precursors who not only heralded the Neolithic agricultural age but hastened its establishment. Indeed, Mesolithic and Neolithic are "definitional nightmares" that are more likely to obscure than to clarify. As far as the clearing of the forest is concerned, these </span>“ages<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span> mask a continuity of ceaseless change and modification that began over 6,000 years ago.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZwqKWOYlMEVZycevOnak8erhVrKbHk0DJDAr35GiZ9pY3Z6EaK0BEHZ9qwfRbz_YJQ2ZdFXuZs_z_zd_AqeVhP-FAuvLFcMO4_o5aYIhmY0m-IPJ3Wja-cUwK07clSN3Ri308535iKcM/s1600/20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZwqKWOYlMEVZycevOnak8erhVrKbHk0DJDAr35GiZ9pY3Z6EaK0BEHZ9qwfRbz_YJQ2ZdFXuZs_z_zd_AqeVhP-FAuvLFcMO4_o5aYIhmY0m-IPJ3Wja-cUwK07clSN3Ri308535iKcM/s400/20.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;">Another exposition of the profound way humans altered the environment is found in a </span><a href="http://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/"><span style="color: purple;">short article</span></a><span style="background-color: white;"> called </span><i>The Trees that Miss the Mammoths</i><span style="background-color: white;">, which explains how the prehistoric hunting of megafauna to extinction drove trees that relied on them for seed dispersal to the edge, and sometimes over, the cliff of extinction.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBdWuzwiPP7xRthXdZMTGK4V7bT7cu8W_YZQqoq7DpMOeaHKWHIlaJfusrhJxflCrY78pIQO7wvVpnZNih5lWwkfrt4j8hIOZA0A_KwwYLPKJOEbcHl59ZsVkh04hS_oV9mYzOphezb4/s1600/23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsBdWuzwiPP7xRthXdZMTGK4V7bT7cu8W_YZQqoq7DpMOeaHKWHIlaJfusrhJxflCrY78pIQO7wvVpnZNih5lWwkfrt4j8hIOZA0A_KwwYLPKJOEbcHl59ZsVkh04hS_oV9mYzOphezb4/s400/23.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;">A rigorous assessment of this sort of human behavior during the earliest times of our past tends to lead to a deterministic analysis of our inherent tendency to overshoot natural constraints - but it is only depressing to those who harbor the illusion that we are somehow special and superior to other species, whose imperative to grow is also only inhibited by outside limits. If you accept that we are biological organisms propelled by instincts that took a few million years to evolve, it shouldn't be surprising to find that we have outstayed our welcome on a finite planet, unable to defy our collective innate programming. It is worth thinking about the staggeringly long period of time it required for us to become us, and </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/sorry-vegans-eating-meat-and-cooking-food-is-how-humans-got-their-big-brains/2012/11/26/3d4d36de-326d-11e2-bb9b-288a310849ee_story.html"><span style="color: purple;">how essential fire, and cooking meat</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">, was to our evolution.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">If it is still too hard to accept that humans have never been a benign force, and you feel afflicted with a bitter disappointment in our performance, it might help to look at several studies examined in </span><a href="http://www.desdemonadespair.net/2016/01/is-epoch-of-habitability-on-earth.html"><span style="color: purple;">a post</span></a><span style="background-color: white;"> at Desdemona Despair, which separately and from disparate vantages suggest that the habitability of earth has been in an inexorable decline for far, far longer than mere human mortals could hope to influence. I highly recommend deep contemplation of each of the metrics exposed in the research. And if that's not calming enough, consider the meaninglessness embedded in the notion that there is not only no end, but, according to a new theory, </span><a href="http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html"><span style="color: purple;">there is no beginning</span></a><span style="background-color: white;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMN_bjZ1ioGNgvolKwtfFHyUEnXMYi3uTJYbAJX7VKVbXactL5Mnz5xWW34jo-sf5pCR2YVdTQW3sqhzMsydXJkCcDJ4eN7PKLX3ascwA67aa1Y8TEnw1Y5hYgGM9bgWmQFZU9654-WAg/s1600/27.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMN_bjZ1ioGNgvolKwtfFHyUEnXMYi3uTJYbAJX7VKVbXactL5Mnz5xWW34jo-sf5pCR2YVdTQW3sqhzMsydXJkCcDJ4eN7PKLX3ascwA67aa1Y8TEnw1Y5hYgGM9bgWmQFZU9654-WAg/s400/27.jpg" width="308" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It is paradoxical that many of the very people who insist we exercise free will - and therefore should have or could still stop our stampede towards eventual ecocide - seem unaware that the primitive cultures they often point to as more connected to nature didn't subscribe to the notion of free will, or were even aware of it as a concept. It is a western invention aligned with a capitalistic concept of individualism and the domination of nature. Prior to the triumph of advanced technology, most people had no option but to accept that natural forces shape our fortunes. Logically, “free will<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">”</span> must be limited by what is possible as determined by the environment, and no one freely chooses the circumstances and perimeters within which their decisions are constrained - including the ability to entertain the existence of free will in the first place. Neurologically, study after study has shown that the unconscious part of your brain makes decisions before the conscious brain is aware of the process, and the perception of free will is actually utilized to rationalize what was dictated by the unconscious. Many people find this antagonistic, and I found it confusing for years, so alien it appeared to me - but I have finally come to understand it as rather obvious that we are subject to immutable laws beyond our influence and immune to wishful thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYn4bwFofX1ecbh83kP44-GVxMxdpAZk27_MoqH8vJJpm7pqpRk2otOi1OT5PnbpV2C02QGxeeGIipPrCNzKXEJXlM5wK19SFGl6l6VMC6OtclqYKP2L5h71qegmgdsWVs8tVGR1JoGG4/s1600/21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYn4bwFofX1ecbh83kP44-GVxMxdpAZk27_MoqH8vJJpm7pqpRk2otOi1OT5PnbpV2C02QGxeeGIipPrCNzKXEJXlM5wK19SFGl6l6VMC6OtclqYKP2L5h71qegmgdsWVs8tVGR1JoGG4/s400/21.jpg" width="303" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Finally, an update on the trees dying from pollution.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;">Scientists </span><a href="http://phys.org/news/2016-01-ozone-elevated-presence-wildfire.html" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px;"><span style="color: purple;">have noticed</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;"> that wildfire emissions in the American west directly contribute to ozone levels in far off places like the Northeast Corridor. Recently they have been surprised </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;"><a href="http://phys.org/news/2014-08-ozone-colorado-mountains.html"><span style="color: purple;">to discover</span></a> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;">high levels of ozone in the Rocky Mountains, bark beetle central. One </span><a href="https://eos.org/articles/human-made-fires-pollute-air-with-ozone-half-a-world-away" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px;"><span style="color: purple;">article</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;"> about a study of how ozone travels in the tropics to the western Pacific from burning biomass almost half a world away in Africa begins, </span><span style="color: #141823; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Ozone, a common air pollutant and greenhouse gas, harms lungs and plants and has contributed almost as much as methane to global warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution," and "Whenever fires burn once-living organic material, such as wood or fossil fuels, they emit ozone into the atmosphere." Additional </span></span><a href="http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/15/2791/2015/acp-15-2791-2015.html" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px;"><span style="color: purple;">research</span></a><span style="font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 15px;"> finds that biomass burning creates enough ozone to damage forests, as measured by a significant decrease in net primary productivity in the Amazon. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfc8JQNKA3ssSoki4HbaOsZCWVfonbNfILGefYqKG8KS1EnkXTHHapLPSUxLk42RnXnFrwGWm06FeKbBeSHNhX9coXqo93PhO3ZDoOmXchIHuAOBQRGto8S8KGYL7UIPbzli-XFU6APZo/s1600/30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfc8JQNKA3ssSoki4HbaOsZCWVfonbNfILGefYqKG8KS1EnkXTHHapLPSUxLk42RnXnFrwGWm06FeKbBeSHNhX9coXqo93PhO3ZDoOmXchIHuAOBQRGto8S8KGYL7UIPbzli-XFU6APZo/s400/30.jpg" width="311" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Together with the unprecedented fires in California, places like Spain, and most recently <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/jan/22/tasmanian-bushfires-worst-crisis-in-decades-for-world-heritage-forests"><span style="color: purple;">the disaster</span></a> of over 80 fires raging in the remote wilderness treasure of Tasmania, it looks like a menacing feedback loop has been established between ozone killing trees, forests burning, making more ozone. And so it's not unexpected for reports of dying trees continue to make anecdotal news, like valuable <a href="http://tribune.com.pk/story/965353/rosewood-trees-dying-a-slow-mysterious-death/"><span style="color: purple;">rosewood</span></a> dying a “slow, mysterious death<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span> in Pakistan, or that the World Health Organization <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/16/world-heslth-organisation-figures-deadly-pollution-levels-world-biggest-cities"><span style="color: purple;">has proclaimed</span> </a>a global "health emergency<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">”</span> because pollution kills over 3 million prematurely each year from heart disease, strokes, cancer, asthma, pneumonia and dementia.</span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTsTiikkuulgSzylrqGZDwX7PdKbBy1qYtrIPUB-0tc3MXNAB0FdKft8gvY3AGVv82Yej8hI9M4-qkiD2NkDDTb4DRRGWO0vRMXylApgGQV-jwGlxMM4tjAklKPMisSNgxwJTtgb6jT4/s1600/peril1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTsTiikkuulgSzylrqGZDwX7PdKbBy1qYtrIPUB-0tc3MXNAB0FdKft8gvY3AGVv82Yej8hI9M4-qkiD2NkDDTb4DRRGWO0vRMXylApgGQV-jwGlxMM4tjAklKPMisSNgxwJTtgb6jT4/s400/peril1.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">Front cover for a 1913 booklet advertising Peps tablets for coughs and colds brought on by smog. A skull-faced Death appears in a swirling cloud of pollution over a city from which terrified inhabitants are fleeing</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The long history of biomass burning as presented in the <i>Deforestation</i> book, together with the understanding of extreme pollution even as long ago as the early 20th century, lends credence to the speculation by George Mollison, Australian known as the father of permaculture, and Charles Little, author of <i>The Dying of the Trees</i>, that even the early fungal epidemics which felled most chestnut and elm trees can be traced to anthropogenic sources.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">Coloured aquatint, ca. 1862, depicting a man covering his mouth with a handkerchief, walking through smoggy London</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">As long ago as 1880, the scourge of bad air is imagined in the title of a novel, <i>The Doom of the Great City</i>. A wonderful <a href="http://publicdomainreview.org/2015/09/30/bad-air-pollution-sin-and-science-fiction/"><span style="color: purple;">review</span></a> can be found at <i>Bad Air: Pollution, Sin and Science Fiction, </i>which has evocative pictures from newspapers of the 19th century you can find on my blog.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">“Important Meeting of Smoke Makers”, a cartoon featured in </span><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">Punch</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;"> (1853)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">Cartoon featured in </span><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">Punch</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">, November 1870</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">‘”Old king Coal” and the Fog Demon’, a cartoon featured in </span><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: Times, serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">Punch</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f5f5f; font-family: "times" , serif; font-size: 12.75px; line-height: 18.2143px;">, November 1880, the year in which Hay’s novella was published</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;">In the novel, it is speculated that a miasma of putrid air causes a mass dieoff, which brings to mind the latest from Elizabeth Kolbert, author of <i>The Sixth Extinction. </i>She wrote <a href="http://e360.yale.edu/feature/whats_causing_deadly_outbreaks_of_fungal_diseases_in_worlds_wildlife/2949/"><span style="color: purple;">an article</span></a> for Yale360 with the tantalizing title, <i>What's Causing Deadly Outbreaks of Fungal Diseases in World's Wildlife?. </i>After tracking down an email address, I wrote her the following:</span></div>
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<i style="background-color: white;">Dear Ms. Kolbert:</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;">Very few people realize that trees of all species are dying prematurely, all over the world. Even fewer understand that because pollution is weakening them, they have lost immunity to insects, disease and fungus. Ozone is invisible, so it is easily ignored, but it is highly toxic to vegetation, and the background level has reached a level (appx 40 ppb) that is intolerable, as precursors travel around the globe. If you look at almost all trees now, you will see their bark is covered with nitrogen-loving lichen (which is primarily a fungus), a sure harbinger of decline. One study in Yale Forest found the majority of trees, only average age of 85, were rotting from fungus and producing methane in flammable concentrations.</span></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj13tqjYE7chFtaHSBs6IDJnuySDcm5r3Cu6T-B40BFfjRsSzM150VV6rJrLLn0RNyAK_jpFgZSQ-vDwEuMnj6Ood6R4vgDmm8cpAcf2EijIfdQErwBWS3vZqfn_9SEXgEpkBg0QD6nlL4/s1600/28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; line-height: 21px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj13tqjYE7chFtaHSBs6IDJnuySDcm5r3Cu6T-B40BFfjRsSzM150VV6rJrLLn0RNyAK_jpFgZSQ-vDwEuMnj6Ood6R4vgDmm8cpAcf2EijIfdQErwBWS3vZqfn_9SEXgEpkBg0QD6nlL4/s400/28.jpg" width="307" /></a></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 21px;"><span style="line-height: normal;">Specifically I thought you might want to consider the 6th mass extinction as more precisely an analog for the Permian, not the PETM. This is what I wrote about it on my blog last fall:</span><br style="line-height: normal;" /><br style="line-height: normal;" /><span style="line-height: normal;">The Permian-Triassic extinction (265 mya), the worst of the past big five and the only one in which trees and insects died off significantly, is a closer analog to the current 6th extinction, which is usually compared to climate change in the PETM event (65 mya). The earlier extinction also was precipitated by massive poisoning of plants, from erupting traps, leading to the same spread of fungus/algae (rampant lichen) that can be seen today. Now, humans are erupting prodigious amounts of toxic aerosols.</span></span></i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;">[I included links to r</span><span style="line-height: normal;">esearch about the Permian extinction and role of fungus:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/39/9/883.abstract and http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/43/2/159.abstract ]</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">and continued:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: normal;">Losing trees is a complete disaster for life on earth for a multitude of reasons, just as losing coral reefs is the death knell for the oceans. Unfortunately, there is a tremendous amount of resistance to acknowledging the poor condition of plantlife, let alone curbing the emissions that are poisoning it.</span><br style="line-height: normal;" /><br style="line-height: normal;" /><span style="line-height: normal;">I am writing you as I am hopeful that, should you choose to investigate, you have a voice that is not easily dismissed.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Tf_6u6fab4h5L59vBIhw4Gpol1f3iQBERMUXZzHHc2_hJbF83LIVpdhxL7fqUBaLSJJCzIgGQNbIUZ30e8PaUgDeWgaS3OGL5WUn9nTsfGFkGPEalgfNIr8GwVtwZwNGAw5tnF6Qt6k/s1600/40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Tf_6u6fab4h5L59vBIhw4Gpol1f3iQBERMUXZzHHc2_hJbF83LIVpdhxL7fqUBaLSJJCzIgGQNbIUZ30e8PaUgDeWgaS3OGL5WUn9nTsfGFkGPEalgfNIr8GwVtwZwNGAw5tnF6Qt6k/s400/40.jpg" width="322" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I added a post script:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><i>This is </i><a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/10/torches-of-freedom.html" style="font-style: italic;"><span style="color: purple;">a quote</span></a><i> from Issues in Ecology Magazine, 2011:</i></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br style="line-height: normal;" /><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;">“</span><span style="line-height: normal;">Biodiversity of plant communities is sensitive to N added by air pollution. Nitrogen-loving species are often favored and increase in prominence as ecosystem nitrogen availability increases. Forests and woodlands in many regions of the world show large changes in epiphytic lichen communities in response to chronic atmospheric nitrogen deposition. These lichen community impacts occur at [low] nitrogen pollution thresholds ...it can also have adverse effects such as increased soil acidification, biodiversity impacts, predisposition to insect infestations, and effects on beneficial root fungi...</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">”</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">Sincerely,</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">Gail Zawacki</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;"><i style="background-color: white;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijtncuIPYKbu27U8z1r9mI_EsTdQH9Jh3mpEszLJY3pkXbU41g2Su3EJLGDThbPh79KMWjWE93hU2tJeTinBMSG5KKLeaIkzcbh9JeA4x71T1BQsOT2xZ6GBKd0NdwUx7C-mywsKe1yGc/s1600/44.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; line-height: 21px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijtncuIPYKbu27U8z1r9mI_EsTdQH9Jh3mpEszLJY3pkXbU41g2Su3EJLGDThbPh79KMWjWE93hU2tJeTinBMSG5KKLeaIkzcbh9JeA4x71T1BQsOT2xZ6GBKd0NdwUx7C-mywsKe1yGc/s400/44.jpg" width="275" /></a></i></span>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">A book <a href="http://www.springer.com/us/book/9781461583523"><span style="color: purple;">published in 1985</span></a>, titled </span><span style="line-height: normal;"><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Acid Deposition: Environmental, Economic and Policy Issues</span></i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> was obviously pushed to the back of the shelf because it raised some uncomfortable and unanswerable issues, as described thus:</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">“</span>Concern about acid deposition, commonly referred to as acid rain, as a widespread pollution problem with severe ecological consequences has heightened public awareness. Many authorities fear that acid deposition may be the worst environmental crisis of our industrialized society because of both the global implications and possible widespread, irreversible damage to lakes, soils, and forested ecosystems. Neither state nor international boundaries are exempt from the transport and deposition of airborne pollutants resulting from local and distant emission sources. The dilemma and debate will continue as long as society requires fossil fuels for its energy needs without regard to emission constraints. This book started as a modest attempt to provide a status report on atmospheric transport, the chemical processes which produce acidifying agents, and resultant ecological and economic consequences. The materials in this book have been substantially revised from those presented at the conference in 1983. It became obvious that additional chapters were required when sudden and profound changes occurring in European forests were reported. It is felt that perhaps such damages could be an early warning to forested ecosystems in the northeastern United States and Canada as well as other places throughout the world.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: normal;">”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Back in 2012</span><span style="background-color: white;"> I posted</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"> </span><a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/08/nature-debauched.html"><span style="color: purple;"><span style="background-color: white; color: purple;">an article</span></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">in Scientific American which</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"> </span><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fungi-wreak-havoc-across-species-globally-slide-show/" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: purple;">quoted</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"> </span><span style="background-color: white;">the same scientist as Kolbert, with a similarly alarming title</span><span style="background-color: white;">,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #444444;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;">“</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;">Invasive Fungi Wreak Havoc on Species Worldwide</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;">. </span><span style="background-color: white;">At the time I wrote: It needs to be considered in light of the research about </span></span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;">Hissing Trees</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="background-color: white;"> being consumed by fungi and releasing methane, linked to in <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/08/define-truth-our-mandatory-obligation_10.html"><span style="color: purple;">an earlier post</span></a>, which is said to be ubiquitous in forests around the globe. Could this have anything to do with <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2011/10/ponder-pond.html"><span style="color: purple;">the study titled</span></a> </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">Acidification of Earth</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: black; line-height: normal;">The Scientific American article observes, “In almost all organisms, fungi are opportunistic pathogens that attack compromised immune systems.” This is essentially what Kolbert quotes the scientist as saying when she wrote: </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">“As an individual body becomes weakened or sick from any sort of process it’s more likely to get an infectious disease,” </span><span style="background-color: white;">Allender, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, observed</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">.</span><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white;">“</span><span style="background-color: white;">So the same thing is going to be happening in ecosystems. Fungi are really efficient and are the ones that are popping up.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">”</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDr6FWSR2TP06ZIADzSqMIMSA3enCR8LMPoWuGGgFftPZH4HEqCxvM0u_IAkqUK1vBEna2ATJhV2AQ4A8hvUXxJDoYqajhr5reQ1WDAOjR3UGSUWe7QYRgy0DHlaaHsXRDnlp3CpSlq2I/s1600/26.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDr6FWSR2TP06ZIADzSqMIMSA3enCR8LMPoWuGGgFftPZH4HEqCxvM0u_IAkqUK1vBEna2ATJhV2AQ4A8hvUXxJDoYqajhr5reQ1WDAOjR3UGSUWe7QYRgy0DHlaaHsXRDnlp3CpSlq2I/s400/26.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #444444;">In </span><a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2014/07/there-goes-neighborhood.html"><span style="color: purple;">another outbreak</span></a><span style="color: #444444;">, a forester discusses </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">a beetle in California that is spreading a fungus, which is killing hundreds of different species:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif; line-height: 21px;">“</span>If we can't control them,</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">”</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;"> <a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-beetle-trees-20140530-story.html#page=1"><span style="color: purple;">[he] said</span></a>, </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;">“</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: normal;">they are going to wipe out all our trees.</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: normal;">”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i style="background-color: white;">Such pests typically feast on a small group of plants. But this one doesn't seem to discriminate.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><i style="background-color: white;">When [he] and his colleagues surveyed the 335 species at the Huntington and the Arboretum, in Arcadia, they found the beetle had attacked 207 of them and 54% of these victims were infected with fungus. Nearly two dozen of the trees were being used as reproductive hosts — places where the beetles can raise their brood. </i></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmAURacQ7BNwjOkc9J_-TZKuiRuK-8_wTHkAC8Q-jcCNmBdlOnRKN7NPWvZr6I208l6HTggGWQE9h6vhqJCIAqxSB0dG-P0v-U60amT9UEJMEWcDjqLdGcasF_fN-4n1_CicELKvz-lPY/s1600/43.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmAURacQ7BNwjOkc9J_-TZKuiRuK-8_wTHkAC8Q-jcCNmBdlOnRKN7NPWvZr6I208l6HTggGWQE9h6vhqJCIAqxSB0dG-P0v-U60amT9UEJMEWcDjqLdGcasF_fN-4n1_CicELKvz-lPY/s400/43.jpg" width="292" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 21px;"><span style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: black; line-height: normal;">The consequences of a wide-ranging infestation could be enormous. Common city trees, such as American sweetgum and maple, would become public branch-dropping hazards. Native trees such as the California sycamore and the coast live oak have started to succumb, creating a fire risk in the form of dead, dry tinder. Avocados and other crops could face huge financial losses.</span></i></span><br style="color: black; line-height: normal;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">So far, Kolbert hasn't written back. Maybe it's because, as</span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">the lead author of the study cited earlier, about ozone impacting the western Pacific stated, with apparent sangfroid, “...people in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia rely on slash and burn farming and igniting cooking fires as essential parts of daily life. Prohibiting those practices would be like telling Americans you aren’t allowed to drive cars.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perish the thought!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">That's it for this Dispatch, thanks for listening.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHBQ070E2A4wZvY8AUhK3GaeCBACPQYTthYo22WbBjw3-FptHdyyszd2ADJHnpnZMP2vwpo0RHXDw0e82EUCeeyqyaT1EyNdi5zqwnbuqUei75nnNgxgfHd8Paw5DCSjs7dEVlq1cnWtQ/s1600/25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHBQ070E2A4wZvY8AUhK3GaeCBACPQYTthYo22WbBjw3-FptHdyyszd2ADJHnpnZMP2vwpo0RHXDw0e82EUCeeyqyaT1EyNdi5zqwnbuqUei75nnNgxgfHd8Paw5DCSjs7dEVlq1cnWtQ/s400/25.jpg" width="293" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;">Update: Even the rich nations, today, cannot seem to refrain from destroying the most precious and irreplaceable old growth tracts that remain - see <a href="http://www.desmog.ca/2016/01/26/islands-sky-how-chopping-ancient-forest-walbran-valley-would-spell-extinction-treetop-species"><span style="color: purple;">the story</span></a> about logging currently proposed on Vancouver Island.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #141823; line-height: 17.8667px;">The sad thing is, humans actually have improved in some ways. If you realize how horrible the lives of primitive people were, instead of romanticizing them, it's simply a fact that the advent of advanced civilization, thanks to abundant cheap energy, finally outlawed slavery and infanticide, made revenge murder a</span><span style="color: #141823; line-height: 17.8667px;"> crime, granted equal rights to women, and sets aside areas of wilderness for protection. Just too little, too late, and TOO many people for earth to support. The third speaker is especially amazing, but the entire video is instructive:</span></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZRsQDfgwP08" width="560"></iframe>Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-72528413967111961902016-01-22T18:47:00.000-05:002016-01-22T18:51:51.973-05:00Nothing but sky, the sound of the water, and the water's reply<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><b>The End of the World</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">~ Dana Gioia</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">“We're going,” they said, “to the end of the world.” </span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">So they stopped the car where the river curled, </span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">And we scrambled down beneath the bridge </span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">On the gravel track of a narrow ridge.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">We tramped for miles on a wooded walk</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Where dog-hobble grew on its twisted stalk.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Then we stopped to rest on the pine-needle floor </span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">While two ospreys watched from an oak by the shore.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">We came to a bend, where the river grew wide </span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">And green mountains rose on the opposite side. </span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">My guides moved back. I stood alone,</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">As the current streaked over smooth flat stone.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Shelf by stone shelf the river fell.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">The white water goosetailed with eddying swell. </span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Faster and louder the current dropped</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">Till it reached a cliff, and the trail stopped.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">I stood at the edge where the mist ascended, </span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">My journey done where the world ended.</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">I looked downstream. There was nothing but sky, </span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">The sound of the water, and the water’s reply.</span></span></div>
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To listen to many <a href="http://e360.yale.edu/feature/how_science_can_help_to_halt_the_western_bark_beetle_plague/2944/"><span style="color: purple;">foresters</span></a>, you would think the threat to trees is limited to the bark beetle epidemic in the American West - even though all species of trees, all over the world, are dying from absorbing ozone and exposure to reactive nitrogen from industrial processes. The pictures below, of Saguaro National Park, are from the US Park Service. Bark beetles aren't a factor in this very obvious reduction of health and vigor. Yet the condition of the cacti reflects the decline of the largest specimens of vegetation - which is occurring in every biome on earth. You would think some savvy researcher would realize that it is no coincidence, and look for the common factor, which is the toxic composition of the atmosphere. The reduction in air quality isn't any mystery - just compare the wild mountain slopes in 1935 to the proliferation of buildings in 2010, with accompanying roads and pollution.<br />
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Below are olive trees in Corsica, dying of a pathogen that is expected to infect the rest of Europe. I will have much more next week about the death of forests, but for now, what follows is the transcript from this week's Dispatch from the Endocene at <a href="https://soundcloud.com/xtinctionadioorg/extinction-radio-episode-44-jan-22-2016"><span style="color: purple;">Extinction Radio</span></a>.</div>
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Thanks Gene, and welcome listeners to the 21st Dispatch From the Endocene.</div>
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Each time when I prepare this program I find there is a multitude of new evidence that our species, called sapiens, or wise, would be better named Homo Eradicatus.</div>
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Following are a few reports which in their diversity remind us of the myriad and unexpected ways that we are eradicating other species on our planet.</div>
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First, some ecologists are warning that one third of the world’s freshwater fish are at risk if the dozens of dams being planned are ever built. Despite the reputation hydroelectric generation enjoys for being a source of clean energy, it is anything but. I will leave a link on my blog to the excellent movie “Damnation”, which looks at consequences in the US. This latest report refers to government intentions to construct 450 dams in places once considered too remote to access - in the Amazon, Congo, and in Asia. We apparently have learned nothing from the disasters that have already been built.</div>
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One of the most amazing recent studies tells us that melting ice means more than rising sea levels and loss of albedo. Thick ice blocks light from reaching the water below, and the creatures that inhabit that unique environment are not adapted to the light that will increasingly penetrate the depths. Researchers are attempting to model what the change will mean if algae displaces invertebrate communities, and what impact that will have in turn for fish populations such as herring, capelin and mackerel. The bottom line is no one knows exactly how this will interact with stratification of fresh and salt water as the ice melts, acidification, and warming temperatures. What IS crystal clear is that the reach of Homo Eradicatus extends even to places we have never actually been.</div>
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But perhaps this is irrelevant, as we are emptying the seas, according to a report published in the journal Nature Communications. The researchers analyzed the global fish catch and determined that between 1950 and 2010, more than 35 billion tons of fish were caught than was reported. Around nine percent is discarded as unwanted bycatch from mass trawlers looking for more marketable products like shrimp. This illegal or unregulated plunder is reflected in the difficulty now encountered in locating healthy populations to fish. Many species are on the brink of collapse which is resulting in what one of the authors called the “luxurization” of, for example, the once common cod.</div>
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Many people live their entire lives without ever seeing a bat and perhaps without giving them a thought, even though they are vital pollinators, seed dispersers and consumers of insect pests. According to an article published by the Climate News Network, there are more than 1,100 types of bat that many under threat from human activities ranging from wind turbines to drought from global warming. Researchers suspect warming may interfere with their ability to detect prey. Populations have been decimated by a fungal disease, and it is unknown what stress has caused them to become so vulnerable.</div>
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A comprehensive study of mass mortality events, handily acronymed as MMEs, looked at 727 published reports around the globe and found a major intensification for numerous animal species. First consider the enormous magnitude of an episode that qualifies for the designation:</div>
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<span class="s1">“…removing more than 90% of a population, resulting in the death of more than a billion individuals, or producing 700 million tons of dead biomass in a single event</span>.”</div>
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The abstract states:</div>
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<span class="s1">“…the increase in MMEs appears to be associated with a rise in disease emergence, biotoxicity, and events produced by multiple interacting stressors…In addition, MMEs with the largest magnitudes were those that resulted from multiple stressors, starvation, and disease.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">That study is from 2014, and as recorded in an article in the Washington Post recently, the MMEs are continuing to increase. You can read about sea birds, bees, whales, antelope, and corals, and more - including of course, trees.</span></div>
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I noticed that Sam Carana posted in his Arctic News blog that “Annual mean carbon dioxide levels measured at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, grew by 3.17 ppm in 2015, a higher growth rate than in any year since the record started in 1959.”</div>
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This is despite the global slowdown in the economy, and it is exactly what you would expect when trees are being poisoned by pollution and the forests are in decline around the world, subject to opportunistic attacks from epidemics of insects, disease and fungus. </div>
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Perhaps this impending scarcity of trees explains why no fewer than dozens of companies in Spain have been digging up thousand year old olive trees for the last two decades, and selling them to wealthy foreigners who want them as garden ornaments in northern Europe and even in places as far off as the US and the United Arab Emirates. This despite they often don’t survive the journey, and if they do, often die prematurely. To top it off, a pathogen has been killing olive trees in Italy and is expected to spread across Europe. Strains of the bacteria are able to infect forest trees such as <span class="s2">oak, sycamore, ornamentals like oleander, and orchard crops like citrus, cherry, almond, grapefruit, and peach. As usual, foresters blame recent invasive species instead of pollution, even though bacteria spores have been found to literally travel on the wind.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">An article in Smithsonian explains that “r</span><span class="s1">ecent research suggests that microbes are hidden players in the atmosphere, making clouds, causing rain, spreading diseases between continents and maybe even changing climates.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">A NASA scientist was astonished when he sampled air collected in Oregon and found living bacteria and fungus that originated in Asia.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">"I regard the atmosphere as a highway, in the most literal sense of the term," he was quoted in the article. "It enables the exchange of microorganisms between ecosystems thousands of miles apart, and to me that’s a more profound ecological consequence we still have not fully wrapped our heads around."</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Thanks for listening to Dispatch from the Endocene - at the close of the hottest year in human history, and the beginning of what NASA anticipates will be an even hotter 2016.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">Links:</span><br />
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Movie Damnation: <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2014/06/dammed.html"><span style="color: purple;">http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2014/06/dammed.html</span></a></div>
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Dams in tropics: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/08/hydro-dam-boom-threatens-third-of-worlds-freshwater-fish"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/08/hydro-dam-boom-threatens-third-of-worlds-freshwater-fish</span></a></div>
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Loss of sea ice: <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930543-200-polar-ecosystems-face-disruption-from-light-as-sea-ice-melts/"><span style="color: purple;">https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930543-200-polar-ecosystems-face-disruption-from-light-as-sea-ice-melts/</span></a></div>
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Fishing: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/overfishing-worse-than-we-thought_us_569f0ddae4b00f3e98636892?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science&section=science"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/overfishing-worse-than-we-thought_us_569f0ddae4b00f3e98636892?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science&section=science</span></a></div>
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Bats: <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/warming-adds-to-pressure-on-bats/"><span style="color: purple;">http://climatenewsnetwork.net/warming-adds-to-pressure-on-bats/</span></a></div>
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MME: <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1083.full.pdf"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1083.full.pdf</span></a></div>
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Mass dieoff: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/13/how-climate-change-could-be-contributing-to-animal-die-offs/"><span style="color: purple;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/13/how-climate-change-could-be-contributing-to-animal-die-offs/</span></a></div>
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Sam Carana: <a href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/01/greenhouse-gas-levels-and-temperatures-keep-rising.html"><span style="color: purple;">http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/01/greenhouse-gas-levels-and-temperatures-keep-rising.html</span></a></div>
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Olive trees sold: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/31/spain-ancient-olive-trees-threat-garden-ornaments"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/31/spain-ancient-olive-trees-threat-garden-ornaments</span></a></div>
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Olive tree pathogen: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/08/europes-olive-trees-threatened-spread-deadly-bacteria"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/08/europes-olive-trees-threatened-spread-deadly-bacteria</span></a></div>
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Microbes travel in air: <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/living-bacteria-are-riding-earths-air-currents-180957734/"><span style="color: purple;">http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/science-nature/living-bacteria-are-riding-earths-air-currents-180957734/</span></a></div>
Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-36573172277269542622016-01-08T16:42:00.000-05:002016-01-08T16:42:56.169-05:00To Rise Above Nature<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">“Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"> ~ Katherine Hepburn, as Miss Rose Sayer, in <i>The African Queen</i></span><span class="s2">, 1951</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3zhxNbAjxAI2Wy5gpxS2N3WTNa3UeCr7_5BtHI3xL6yBkyk9YEl2HQC6TCaRS7zchv3MHRI0a8KNZ1Vj-xTKsJ-1Sr43xh3NtXw2RwVcxyQ2IQcziV04MJPDQs8K1R-HypJ8Uol0mif8/s1600/lionbaby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3zhxNbAjxAI2Wy5gpxS2N3WTNa3UeCr7_5BtHI3xL6yBkyk9YEl2HQC6TCaRS7zchv3MHRI0a8KNZ1Vj-xTKsJ-1Sr43xh3NtXw2RwVcxyQ2IQcziV04MJPDQs8K1R-HypJ8Uol0mif8/s400/lionbaby.jpg" width="331" /></a></div>
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Following is the transcript for my segment this week on ExtinctionRadio, which can be heard <a href="http://www.extinctionradio.org/home.html"><span style="color: purple;">at the website</span></a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcRM8fUFuNR8rXn07IwqZ2i3U1ezCp4AO2X-w1pY86mO9yFOdrxcjznpGEIpsArRHMWnUO-dNvJ328J8GhVArIvxUlfdP-etcPtPMTIi0wIqNAQd4XX3fjZUcR0AUXP7T5UTCFpLEnm5E/s1600/1lion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcRM8fUFuNR8rXn07IwqZ2i3U1ezCp4AO2X-w1pY86mO9yFOdrxcjznpGEIpsArRHMWnUO-dNvJ328J8GhVArIvxUlfdP-etcPtPMTIi0wIqNAQd4XX3fjZUcR0AUXP7T5UTCFpLEnm5E/s320/1lion.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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Thank you Gene, and welcome listeners. I would like to dedicate this 20th Dispatch from the Endocene to David MacPhail, a much respected member of a Facebook group called The Panic Room. He passed away in November, in his adopted country of Nicaragua.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp3tTGEUsnK93iBRpu49KrppMqJBCQkFiFM0D7DCxitSPwP2ZsaPCXUkV_FSRj60HgIOVbkqjVn5AU7EcwuNBmIuaV548OVFAE3Qf9TDlt8PnlpnvuIa_slEVf43APpQgsxz-Z4WHHtHU/s1600/lion5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp3tTGEUsnK93iBRpu49KrppMqJBCQkFiFM0D7DCxitSPwP2ZsaPCXUkV_FSRj60HgIOVbkqjVn5AU7EcwuNBmIuaV548OVFAE3Qf9TDlt8PnlpnvuIa_slEVf43APpQgsxz-Z4WHHtHU/s320/lion5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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David typically chose, almost daily, a photograph of an endangered or extinct species to post online with a brief description.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_4aBTgMMdaA_zrAXhAV6jJyBH3twTX2iLiePbDCYPTdjArEw7NYE4eKftz43uOKVc0lkpkC9ZpVfE_cWHb7pusnavZsx2iGVbU3yZDJac6wHlBwD8vCl45R1zYL6KVwJYth8YjOelxT8/s1600/4lion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_4aBTgMMdaA_zrAXhAV6jJyBH3twTX2iLiePbDCYPTdjArEw7NYE4eKftz43uOKVc0lkpkC9ZpVfE_cWHb7pusnavZsx2iGVbU3yZDJac6wHlBwD8vCl45R1zYL6KVwJYth8YjOelxT8/s320/4lion.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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To honor his effort to commemorate each lost creature or plant, from the most majestic whale to the most humble snail, in its own unique diversity and splendor, I thought I would focus this episode on just one species, the lion.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1LlfpAqM7wwbAbmgkTcqh1LtIRZ_RGacl8H-C9ZJ45U94uhOG9DGYcruUoX0spgSl7Al5KQJj2N6tEJccfidBaxWpKgXQkd-eDQ9SPk6wpNlikCI7eSv7CSJ41gC9Qf5pl3RagAun8M/s1600/lion12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM1LlfpAqM7wwbAbmgkTcqh1LtIRZ_RGacl8H-C9ZJ45U94uhOG9DGYcruUoX0spgSl7Al5KQJj2N6tEJccfidBaxWpKgXQkd-eDQ9SPk6wpNlikCI7eSv7CSJ41gC9Qf5pl3RagAun8M/s640/lion12.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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It would be impossible to mention with any depth even a small fraction of the instances in human history when lions have occupied a prominent role of cultural significance.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimmStasJh92MoBXjeSQf06lr_r088VYzQutOcmIZUNQCe4ZqlU36cUois3laWNgB_85mr2l32Nk9klDPOPcFtIjjNj1LF2DnXIbJdqU-ImnlE1_I6uuPJ2YqMLjjTv9DyEyC8nF3MSozU/s1600/lion21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimmStasJh92MoBXjeSQf06lr_r088VYzQutOcmIZUNQCe4ZqlU36cUois3laWNgB_85mr2l32Nk9klDPOPcFtIjjNj1LF2DnXIbJdqU-ImnlE1_I6uuPJ2YqMLjjTv9DyEyC8nF3MSozU/s400/lion21.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The earliest drawings are found in the Chauvet Cave of southern France, from some 30,000 years ago.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYuD5-HHI1ZUCmmncBLCk0Quan1TTGIcp_i6PkOoAd20RhM1Mu0tw_i6XX-1mafmHMtnpDQlcF7OqfxT1QX0sf8dPlInK9ZYbm0cdMQqnR-0gwhjush7OpZr8pY8f7tFkTgZzovKMRkEM/s1600/5lion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYuD5-HHI1ZUCmmncBLCk0Quan1TTGIcp_i6PkOoAd20RhM1Mu0tw_i6XX-1mafmHMtnpDQlcF7OqfxT1QX0sf8dPlInK9ZYbm0cdMQqnR-0gwhjush7OpZr8pY8f7tFkTgZzovKMRkEM/s320/5lion.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Lions are depicted in the ancient Egyptian sphinx, and contemporary value is still placed on beaded manes and tails collected by Maasai hunters.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUx6dGVRbqSGZOwx7tWCoxZVfilffNbjL9HTbc2jJhC16VUW3zRu1QSVIyzpNqmB1FpsB6sqfeQHgo8pCNBN3yEWLZYJcTu0hYoczTNZlYy_Mg6888BlzEacwrhsJKxX2rebmbtUdEFdk/s1600/lion14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUx6dGVRbqSGZOwx7tWCoxZVfilffNbjL9HTbc2jJhC16VUW3zRu1QSVIyzpNqmB1FpsB6sqfeQHgo8pCNBN3yEWLZYJcTu0hYoczTNZlYy_Mg6888BlzEacwrhsJKxX2rebmbtUdEFdk/s400/lion14.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
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Across time and continents, lions have symbolized courage and bravery, and the power of both nature and man.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO-sGDRq_uB8dhfZyXWaCqX44Z32RNAl5iKfeXJ6EjtnsMbfsru2QRxHSEGud-gNJSugto8NSf3aoeur-CLx2mLAgCRj7ja2_IUaAbY8RrZyDh9BWdsXKuYEUNyxDHVBouOMxjNgPnQjg/s1600/lionstubbs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO-sGDRq_uB8dhfZyXWaCqX44Z32RNAl5iKfeXJ6EjtnsMbfsru2QRxHSEGud-gNJSugto8NSf3aoeur-CLx2mLAgCRj7ja2_IUaAbY8RrZyDh9BWdsXKuYEUNyxDHVBouOMxjNgPnQjg/s400/lionstubbs.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Lions have been sculpted and painted. Their image adorns fine Limoges porcelain, golden cups, pottery vases, hand-woven rugs and iron gates.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1y-nn2wcNuTakYEo4qqOStWohns5fRkD9uGNC7FW5jxiNgxgf7NznxdAmLraYQEsgtDKlQxRYYHDjxY2jvVK_V1T8gW7xjaosmUO83Ti22G5dLUdAZONiGTAkjn8_nvHj73N-0wNrd8/s1600/lioin28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil1y-nn2wcNuTakYEo4qqOStWohns5fRkD9uGNC7FW5jxiNgxgf7NznxdAmLraYQEsgtDKlQxRYYHDjxY2jvVK_V1T8gW7xjaosmUO83Ti22G5dLUdAZONiGTAkjn8_nvHj73N-0wNrd8/s320/lioin28.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Lions are on the coat of arms of England, while the pair known as Patience and Fortitude flank the stairs to the New York Public Library.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKkRfEs18VyENwOo83yd3r_iueXq-JLvpCI_i3AnMgRh6vuOdisSBxlgLuryfCTteexBiA083UezIIRM4PSPPOJjcyUbbdTZPJ2UMd6LWba0xki7JhuftKUEqM8rmno0-_dCs27PXOXjM/s1600/7lion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKkRfEs18VyENwOo83yd3r_iueXq-JLvpCI_i3AnMgRh6vuOdisSBxlgLuryfCTteexBiA083UezIIRM4PSPPOJjcyUbbdTZPJ2UMd6LWba0xki7JhuftKUEqM8rmno0-_dCs27PXOXjM/s400/7lion.jpg" width="183" /></a></div>
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Lions are sacred as guardians in China even though they aren’t indigenous.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglVnEfZyfF6aOLrYeg3tEjKmT6CIy3Oi2jngpWqpwjdPgb51IIFaKDxbFkkB6Utg0T04PupszotojXBhGVcPuvbhArbw1EnZdeeT8lRziDm6J8SUBluOy4rvujUr8BXw6Ncl8DFeRVGWo/s1600/lion8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglVnEfZyfF6aOLrYeg3tEjKmT6CIy3Oi2jngpWqpwjdPgb51IIFaKDxbFkkB6Utg0T04PupszotojXBhGVcPuvbhArbw1EnZdeeT8lRziDm6J8SUBluOy4rvujUr8BXw6Ncl8DFeRVGWo/s320/lion8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Around the world lions are part of timeless myths - we see them at the movies as a Hollywood studio mascot, and in a beloved Disney cartoon and Broadway show.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0l4bjuew49S9l01tBzqVa0pa8tRkPXKCqvjFvZIKIqz6ELESYhZP0L3by0jXCEw7MU2Pr-LUg_fey9OCbEtbHk6DYVrIUT5vSejOqUdxrUOBPg8fliWCXgZNUhdHprjGSf17Hv14f2iQ/s1600/lion20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0l4bjuew49S9l01tBzqVa0pa8tRkPXKCqvjFvZIKIqz6ELESYhZP0L3by0jXCEw7MU2Pr-LUg_fey9OCbEtbHk6DYVrIUT5vSejOqUdxrUOBPg8fliWCXgZNUhdHprjGSf17Hv14f2iQ/s320/lion20.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The Lion is, well, lionized in literature from Nietzsche’s <i>Thus Spoke Zarathustra</i>, to the Wizard of Oz, and Narnia.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnulligthA4JwPcjy8PQIRHWdciZBXemBTaZ5r_rPn4xP12v5o7-BMvcSrATxOcwQxcM9-YU-MwScUF5DA7NdcP4GYupv19vVUhbbOb5iqCjzoJzt_4jhdVDZxydIgHJWlItSED0mvBHc/s1600/lion13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnulligthA4JwPcjy8PQIRHWdciZBXemBTaZ5r_rPn4xP12v5o7-BMvcSrATxOcwQxcM9-YU-MwScUF5DA7NdcP4GYupv19vVUhbbOb5iqCjzoJzt_4jhdVDZxydIgHJWlItSED0mvBHc/s400/lion13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The Greeks gave us the lion as a constellation, and in the Bible the lion represents Christ as the son of God.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4rxNlSjNxhruMay7n4h0sCsf5_z0Evn0PjQ5YA6-bWXx73OxWFo-aPMOy0Mxlw6CkDstHw_Yb2XnyrwuT4Xop9BEtyyLSEYGVzo9YEeYjKAhPUwx4FMu8zoQUWwLKuF8Q2SoaWs_q_0U/s1600/lion10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4rxNlSjNxhruMay7n4h0sCsf5_z0Evn0PjQ5YA6-bWXx73OxWFo-aPMOy0Mxlw6CkDstHw_Yb2XnyrwuT4Xop9BEtyyLSEYGVzo9YEeYjKAhPUwx4FMu8zoQUWwLKuF8Q2SoaWs_q_0U/s400/lion10.jpg" width="323" /></a></div>
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The four bronze Barbary lions, now extinct, that guard Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square stand mutely in rebuke to humans, who can and do annihilate that which what we most revere.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH9tA7oB0nuL4xUvZT5eP4j_PSoiFXA723N5JO1a3gmA94AKIewuhtUX6Dyh756yd_5Ymu0e2GwuPRvT6CjjIbpLsOouQfMTa634hUJQ-SWNj2ySCxB_v9k_mKEA_Yq04mkLDe-LjnzOo/s1600/lion23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH9tA7oB0nuL4xUvZT5eP4j_PSoiFXA723N5JO1a3gmA94AKIewuhtUX6Dyh756yd_5Ymu0e2GwuPRvT6CjjIbpLsOouQfMTa634hUJQ-SWNj2ySCxB_v9k_mKEA_Yq04mkLDe-LjnzOo/s400/lion23.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The following passage is from an article about a <a href="http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcseriesblog/2014/04/08/ancient-dna-reveals-the-lions-past-and-perhaps-future/"><span style="color: purple;">genetic study</span></a> of extinct lions:</div>
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<span class="s3">“</span><span class="s1">Lions once roamed across the world. Until relatively recently, various sub-species could be found across Africa and all the way from the Indian subcontinent, through the Middle East and into modern day Greece and Turkey. Visitors to the British Museum in London can see engravings from Assyria (in modern day Iraq) made as recently as 635 BC of large scale lion hunting by the local people."</span><br />
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7ztx5O-d2AxdR2SvrZS5mpVuVIYElpRq5I6QNCBGRMb-wcEyjnOv6G-tJ1RPSInYTNcoSh5XqbIiOeD-QD14-SJXK5PWYQA_nNMnKAuuzrcMyjpdmMMIUCvHW7Is3S3pHggiSSBzppY/s1600/lion7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX7ztx5O-d2AxdR2SvrZS5mpVuVIYElpRq5I6QNCBGRMb-wcEyjnOv6G-tJ1RPSInYTNcoSh5XqbIiOeD-QD14-SJXK5PWYQA_nNMnKAuuzrcMyjpdmMMIUCvHW7Is3S3pHggiSSBzppY/s400/lion7.jpg" width="275" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">"Sadly these hunts, and others like them, were rather too successful. Along with increasing human </span>encroachment on their habitats, persecution has resulted in the virtual extinction of lions outside of sub-Saharan Africa. The Asian lion lives on only through a small and highly endangered Indian population of approximately 400 individuals; all other lions outside of sub-Saharan Africa are extinct.”</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFEQs8-FDP6QCXF6RpjRu3dArgxSJfcDKHGJ0qj5U4J91q-JMlAiInm0Af2_raHu1BZbOCvrpIeYwHfWvBB6d8KnyYcqpfmySOvF7_Ogtq1J-hDkTRyzYH8QE-UHQYMy-YnjwYfx5MHFI/s1600/lion25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFEQs8-FDP6QCXF6RpjRu3dArgxSJfcDKHGJ0qj5U4J91q-JMlAiInm0Af2_raHu1BZbOCvrpIeYwHfWvBB6d8KnyYcqpfmySOvF7_Ogtq1J-hDkTRyzYH8QE-UHQYMy-YnjwYfx5MHFI/s400/lion25.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Although the hunt in Assyria mentioned in that quote was by no means unique, it is remarkable because images of the slaughter were meticulously and absolutely gorgeously recorded in limestone bas relief. Archaeologists excavated the walls from the great palace in Nineveh, located in present-day Iraq. You can find photos and an astoundingly exquisite short video of the carvings on my blog, Wit’s End.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9JVSqrgOn1H0ha9a5vRwIHl9EvqnErwyYCY8TchgWwRO7i_KJAUJG_IY4Z7rkQ0imisfhmZOI92IObmgGJ-JodGVgiUI2MkUU8hL04KK3lznmJGXc-KbWwoNIl2Zqd5v3TtlLnjQ9_zA/s1600/lion22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9JVSqrgOn1H0ha9a5vRwIHl9EvqnErwyYCY8TchgWwRO7i_KJAUJG_IY4Z7rkQ0imisfhmZOI92IObmgGJ-JodGVgiUI2MkUU8hL04KK3lznmJGXc-KbWwoNIl2Zqd5v3TtlLnjQ9_zA/s400/lion22.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The rest of this dispatch are excerpts taken from <a href="https://faceintheblue.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/assyrian-lion-hunting/"><span style="color: purple;">a blogpost</span></a> I came across while researching these now-extinct lions. The author, Geoff Micks, first viewed the carvings in the Museum at the age of seventeen. In hindsight, he expresses some poignant observations that reflect the visceral beauty and savage barbarity in the artwork. He begins:</div>
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<span class="s4">“</span><span class="s1">The lion’s expression of suffering –of great dignity struck low– was so palpable that I felt compelled to sit down and sketch it.</span><span class="s4"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1">“At the time of this frieze’s construction, the Assyrians ruled over the entire Fertile Crescent, the Holy Land, and much of Egypt.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">As might be expected from a powerful militaristic monarchy, the Assyrian Kings were avid hunters when not campaigning. <span class="s5">Ashurnasirpal II</span> claimed in one of his epithets: “I killed 30 elephants with the bow. 257 powerful wild bull I killed them from my war chariot. I killed 370 strong lions just by spear like birds in a cage.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVNxFQIGWvAvxA4bPb_Y-q_AqFMwamfhrFcnBMHJN9bf8eeUP0pDG4L-IT9exhuMGHcYxBAKv7Y_qF-T_fRurcXZmzYyrOKgN1cZUXKRlOjc5hTVvrRPOJtwtFFPVCHZG16MxnliMOnmY/s1600/lion15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVNxFQIGWvAvxA4bPb_Y-q_AqFMwamfhrFcnBMHJN9bf8eeUP0pDG4L-IT9exhuMGHcYxBAKv7Y_qF-T_fRurcXZmzYyrOKgN1cZUXKRlOjc5hTVvrRPOJtwtFFPVCHZG16MxnliMOnmY/s640/lion15.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">While all men and beasts were prey to the Assyrian nobility, lions were the particular sport of kings, symbolizing the ruling monarch’s duty to protect and fight for his people as well as his dominion over everything within his borders. The palace of the new capital at Nineveh was decorated with these sculpted reliefs to illustrate the prowess of the last great Assyrian king, <span class="s5">Ashurbanipal</span> (668-631 BC). That’s him thrusting a sword into the belly of a wounded lion, an image he duplicated for his royal seal.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2w85yhiwyJMO790NpgwlA_vWlfgBL4diK7lae9XylGs-Q9cw7ITO9_EV1uDOBWXFwfv5F4xPlXVjeSoPFDRbJtNse2tc3tyWwppt_032kpzEkG6kN7jdJNoS74RkMfA0C7KAVkzZhda0/s1600/lionstabbing.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2w85yhiwyJMO790NpgwlA_vWlfgBL4diK7lae9XylGs-Q9cw7ITO9_EV1uDOBWXFwfv5F4xPlXVjeSoPFDRbJtNse2tc3tyWwppt_032kpzEkG6kN7jdJNoS74RkMfA0C7KAVkzZhda0/s400/lionstabbing.tiff" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">The hunt itself was highly organized and orchestrated. The animals were collected ahead of time and kept in cages in the royal menagerie. When the King had time to indulge in his sport the cages would be transported out of the city by his soldiers. Infantry would serve as beaters to keep the prey within a level killing field, and cavalry would drive the lions towards the royal chariot, where the King would use arrows and spears to wound the lions before dispatching some with his sword. Although little was left to chance, much of the sport was based around how dangerous the wounded lions were, and the friezes show a number of scenes where the lions are mauling the backs of retreating chariots.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSKuED1pCThuBD2mM_2wYEsyAXtmAiDwwUvwcet9OcQXxnNrGJ3NMX6llfclTNcLVWxhIZdyDkExIIkr0TZzwQLgrdlZGT8-LuX7ZxgBBw32JRu4tZD9TufW2xRcbG3JK3mcVBD4Vj3xw/s1600/lionfight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSKuED1pCThuBD2mM_2wYEsyAXtmAiDwwUvwcet9OcQXxnNrGJ3NMX6llfclTNcLVWxhIZdyDkExIIkr0TZzwQLgrdlZGT8-LuX7ZxgBBw32JRu4tZD9TufW2xRcbG3JK3mcVBD4Vj3xw/s400/lionfight.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">I’m afraid the pictures I’ve found don’t really convey the true feeling of the frieze. The room in the British Museum is set up much as it would have been in Nineveh: A great hall, with life-sized scenes of the hunt all around you. The bas reliefs weren’t just for the edification of the King. Embassies and visitors would have walked past these scenes while waiting for a royal audience. The power and authority of the King is obvious even more than two and a half thousand years later.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAHxyffeCPJvWf8T6xnCqAJ7v8pBXFIDiW6dJ-U-QGnkLMOV2JjNFSsqoflw76dSthfYu9N_Fk9cpKAPv_0yEknuczQCDb7Gdy0Z79p3IzyfFT9JAQ5-gmGdZeEqQvOeZavo0X553p8wQ/s1600/lion1a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAHxyffeCPJvWf8T6xnCqAJ7v8pBXFIDiW6dJ-U-QGnkLMOV2JjNFSsqoflw76dSthfYu9N_Fk9cpKAPv_0yEknuczQCDb7Gdy0Z79p3IzyfFT9JAQ5-gmGdZeEqQvOeZavo0X553p8wQ/s400/lion1a.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">I took a course of Greek sculpture in university, and it talked a lot about <span class="s5">pathos</span>: The conveying of emotion and suffering through art. I didn’t know the term at the time, but you could feel it, coming out of the rock. The Assyrian artists gave great dignity to their suffering subject matter.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAERh-VEkl2fZoXHirKLJBm0ZZbh6cwEzedQFZ-E5FvxZS-bzOhSBqH_2bLqUMunCNEXNYVlqEEpmBXuo93fOcOrNrx2fg2Vfl5Ts85VY2YBGzEopDVCc6cFqOz6TofYC_0n7xvA6-9O4/s1600/lion28.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAERh-VEkl2fZoXHirKLJBm0ZZbh6cwEzedQFZ-E5FvxZS-bzOhSBqH_2bLqUMunCNEXNYVlqEEpmBXuo93fOcOrNrx2fg2Vfl5Ts85VY2YBGzEopDVCc6cFqOz6TofYC_0n7xvA6-9O4/s400/lion28.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The lions are shown with every sinew in their legs and paws straining; face after face is twisted in a rictus of pain; most of them bristle with arrows, and many vomit up blood from punctured lungs.</span><br />
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9w70W3DlncIULDT3BcagtKdpk6Ygrsb2dZbC_0wint19Am5BanEZJfEyy1pKPJq_koU-pvq_ZCQBc7DcrrLbcR7O-nnxHhswXL7rxzvDJQq8_aJmfsQpcKe1Ezy_3bQbiSvIqLfIK4Cc/s1600/lionvomiting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9w70W3DlncIULDT3BcagtKdpk6Ygrsb2dZbC_0wint19Am5BanEZJfEyy1pKPJq_koU-pvq_ZCQBc7DcrrLbcR7O-nnxHhswXL7rxzvDJQq8_aJmfsQpcKe1Ezy_3bQbiSvIqLfIK4Cc/s400/lionvomiting.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">You can almost hear the roars and snarls, the thunder of hooves, the curses and cheers in a language lost to time. It’s magnificent and horrifying, all at the same time.”</span></div>
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Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-46347723040906640742016-01-07T17:22:00.004-05:002016-01-07T18:22:52.703-05:00A Guest Post, from Shaheer<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1452101695208_2523" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">
This is an essay by a friend of mine, Shaheer. He documents his exploits into the world of climate change and activism, <span style="font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">and relates the state of climate change as we stand today.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">My introduction to climate change came from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #666666;">Al Gore</span></a></span><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">, in his 2006 award winning An Inconvenient Truth. I became aware of the issue, but never gave it much more thought. It wasn’t until I heard former head of NASA's Institute for Space Studies, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #888888; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">James Hansen</span></b></a><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">, on CBC in 2009 that I became really interested in the issue, and started researching it online and reading avidly about it on The Economist. Over the next 3 years I would read over 100 books on climate, energy and related, and countless websites. For my favorite books and documentaries see my </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/05049365647624045680" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #888888; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">blog bio</span></b></a><span style="color: #666666; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">The books that hit me hardest was James Hansen’s </span><i><a href="http://climatebooks.blogspot.ca/2014/05/james-hansen.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">Storms of My Grandchildren</span></a></i><span style="color: #666666;">, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">James Lovelock's</span></b></a><span style="color: #666666;"> </span><i><a href="http://climatebooks.blogspot.ca/2014/05/james-lovelock.html" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">The Vanishing Face of Gaia</span></a></i><span style="color: #666666;">, and </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Flannery" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">Tim Flannery's</span></b></a><span style="color: #666666;"> </span><i style="color: #666666;">The Weather Makers</i><span style="color: #666666;">. Of countless documentaries, the best were </span><i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va_MVxpboqg" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">The Age of Stupid</span></a><span style="color: #666666;">, </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_pb1G2wIoA" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">6 Degrees Could Change The World</span></a><span style="color: #666666;">, </span></i><span style="color: #666666;">and </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdBSWjxKJOE&list=PLPblR4bWCoxlsJu2u5HDXEfGxCOltc7_f" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;"><i>Collapse </i>by Jared Diamond</span></a><span style="color: #666666;">. I was flabbergasted. The injustice! We were screwed. There was little to no hope. Serious scientists were predicting famine and war caused by climate change in the near term. In his books, James Lovelock presented evidence that the IPCC is highly conservative, and what they're predicting for 2040 might well come by 2025. This spells disaster for Africa. My family lives there. Then the Occupy movement erupted in 2011. I was ecstatic. Change! I met tons of great fellow activists there and made life long friends. I finally had a place to express my activism. I’d do activism with the Occupy group but sometimes I’d also go alone to the university and show off my climate artwork. These were full size 1 metre tall paintings.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Some students stopped to look, others didn't. It didn't matter, activism was the only thing giving me hope and in mind felt like the only thing that mattered. One day</span><b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1452101695208_2821" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_J._Weaver" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1452101695208_2820" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Professor Andrew Weaver</a> </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">walked by and stopped to look at my artwork and quotes. He was impressed and chatted with me. I was ecstatic – I got to talk to Andrew Weaver! Suddenly it was all worth it. To do more climate activism, and get a sense of accomplishment, I intended to cycle across Canada in 2011, and made it from Victoria to Calgary with flyers and a trailer that advertised climate change, but I fell incredibly hard and injured myself when I raced downhill without holding the handlebars. My dogs in the trailer flew overhead and I crashed hard into the rocky roadside. There were tons of cars on the highway so I'm glad I or my dogs didn't topple into traffic. Lesson learned - hold the handlebars! I didn't hand out any flyers because I didn't like what I had to say, and also I'm quite shy to approach people.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I saw my puppies fly.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">In 2012 a particularly disturbing piece of news arrived, the discovery of thousands of methane plumes, some over a km in diameter, erupting from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. This can be seen </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/vast-methane-plumes-seen-in-arctic-ocean-as-sea-ice-retreats-6276278.html" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">here</span></b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">. I, and many of the people on the forums I went to, genuinely believed we were at the start of runaway climate change, and if you asked me today, i'd still say there is strong evidence that we may have multiple </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><a href="http://guymcpherson.com/2014/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">passed tipping points</a> </b><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">that will trigger runaway climate change, the biggest being the Arctic sea ice albedo change, the snowline albedo change, and the subsea methane hydrates. Some within the climate movement argue there is no danger of large methane releases. These people include David Archer and Gavin Schmidt. We must remember that these two are climate modelers, making theoretical models on computers. People like Natalia Shakhova, Igor Semiletov, and Peter Wadhams have been in the Arctic and East Siberia the past ~15 years via ships and submarines, studying the conditions, and they have observed great changes and are warning society about it. Their warning come not on models but through physical observation. Before the ozone hole was discovered, modelers too claimed an ozone hole wasn't possible. Once James Lovelock invented the tool to detect CFCs a hole was discovered above Antarctica that proved modelers wrong. In the near future, large methane releases will prove the methane modelers wrong.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Anyway, in 2012 I wanted to start up the idea that we should shoot for not an earth hour or earth day, but an earth year, a year in which everyone on earth devotes their attention to solving the crises of climate change, pollution, deforestation, over-fishing, ect. I once again attempted to cycle across Canada. I left with the Occupy group walking across Canada, but soon broke off to hit Camosun college. Again, I didn't have any success handing out flyers. My bicycle broke down soon after so I walked home. I became ill from stress and spent some time in the hospital psyche ward.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me, at the start of my trip. Victoria, BC, Mile 0.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">Summertime Arctic sea ice is in rapid decline and could be gone by the end of the decade. When the Arctic sea ice is gone this is known as a blue ocean event. Heat a pot of water with ice in it and you will see the temperature hovers around 0 while there is still ice, then rapidly warms up once the ice is gone. It takes an enormous amount of energy to melt ice. This is because of ice's energy of fusion. This means things get very hot very fast once that ice is gone, and this can lead to methane hydrate destabilization. The result of this according to </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wadhams" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">Peter Wadhams</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;"> (eminent world expert on sea ice) is an abrupt climate change that civilization could not withstand. The blue ocean event will only last a few weeks at first, and within a decade or two might be year-round. Under such circumstances, </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">it is inconceivable how methane hydrates will stay locked up on the Arctic ocean floor</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">. According to </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulHBeckwith/videos" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">Paul Beckwith</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">, (Professor at the UofOttawa doing his PhD in abrupt climate change) this process could raise temperatures to 6 C by 2025-2035, unless geoengineering is applied. Paul describes us as being at the beginning of an abrupt climate change phase that could continue rising to 10 or 11 C. New Zealand's pre-eminent climate scientists Jim Salinger says we are now in abrupt climate change. Temperature rise might not stop at 6 C, and might continue to rise to 8 C and beyond by 2200, according to </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Joachim_Schellnhuber%5DHans%20Schellnhuber" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">Hans Schellnhuber</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;"> (directer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) which would mean hydrogen sulfidication of the atmosphere and oceans, and complete extinction of land mammals. Hans Schellnhuber assumes a slow release of methane in his calculations. According to </span><a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/dr-malcolm-light-interview-on-climate-change-extreme-national-emergency" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">Malcolm Light</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">, sea ice loss and methane hydrates could push temperatures to 4C by 2030 and 8C by 2050. It might not stop there. There are such massive methane reserves below the Arctic Ocean floor (more than 5000 billion tons of methane carbon) that they represent around 100 times the amount that is required to cause a Permian style major extinction event, should about </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">one percent of the sub-sea Arctic methane</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;"> be released into the atmosphere.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">According to Malcolm Light a 50-90% emission reduction by 2020 and a variety of geo-engineering techniques can dramatically slow down or even reverse the extinction process. Even if we believe the highly conservative IPCC's targets of 85% reduction by 2050 to have a 50% chance of limiting warming above 2 degrees, it's still a tall order. And it`s certain the IPCC is wrong. The IPCC is a highly conservative organization in their predictions, and their "carbon budget" is heavily influenced by special interests. We can't burn anymore fossil fuels. We have to stop today. Once you pass 2 degrees, positive feedbacks that cause a runaway climate are sure to occur in full force. They are occurring right now at 0.85 C. Another problem, g</span><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1452101695208_3123" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-align: center;">lobal dimming, caused by sulfur released during coal burning and bunker fuel burning, reflects sunlight and so temporarily combats global warming. Over the past 15 years, China has so massively increased their coal burning sulfur pollution that global dimming is masking the full effect of global warming by about 1.2 degrees,</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> so we're already well past 2 degrees C if civilization suddenly stops industry and doesn't replace the aerosols with geoengineering. And aerosols only stay in the air for months, while CO2 stays for tens of thousands of years. Recently the IPCC chair </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_K._Pachauri" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">Rajendra Pachauri</span></b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> said parts of Africa will lose 50% of their crop production by 2020. Seriously? This is a disaster. But is it really too late? Is doing something better than doing nothing? Is activism still worth it? I believe the near term climate collapse argument but I also believe we will geo-engineer in desperation, and it will somewhat work, buying us precious years. The proof is in global dimming. Sure there will be losers, but maybe the world will come together, people will eat vegetarian, and there will be enough food to spare to the starving countries. Maybe I'm just dreaming. Is Jeremy Rifkin right that we are an </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empathic_Civilization" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">Empathic Civilization</span></b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">? Or are we crude, selfish, short-sighted, and greedy? If i'm 99% sure that we’re going to experience an extinction event in the coming decades, can I live off 1% hopium? Don’t take my hopium away. James Lovelock, you took our collective hopium. You left us bare and naked. And then you have the gall to retract your two books, saying you, Tim Flannery, Al Gore, and whoever else were alarmist? Did you retract because you genuinely believe things will progress slower than you predicted in your alarming books, or because you feel bad about making people hopeless? Are the recent death plunges in Arctic sea ice, and methane erupting from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf not evidence that things are progressing much faster than expected?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Canada will be one of the most favorable places in the world to experience climate change, and Africa one of the least favorable. As James Lovelock would say, "move north young man". I wish I could find a way for my African family to migrate. Mostly likely, they will remain stuck behind when Africa collapses. Nonetheless, if society collapses because of a 3-4 degree C rise in temperatures, or does not massively engage in geoengineering, everyone will most likely die. We are only buying time. According to Dr. Ira Leifer world carrying capacity is predicted to be just a few thousand at 4 degrees C. Do we really want to test his prediction? And don't think we will revert to hunting and gathering in the Arctic and Antarctic - most large edible animal species will be dead and the hydrogen sulfide coming out of the oceans will be poisonous to breathe.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Packing up and migrating, leaving old friends behind, is hard work. Those people who are heavily invested in the land will probably stay behind and suffer first from climate change. Those with nothing to lose and are willing to travel, will survive the longest. The world isn't going to fall apart overnight. But the time to move is now. Abrupt climate change is now. </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx1Jxk6kjbQ" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Natalia Shakhova</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">,</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> <a href="http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/people/igorsm" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Igor Semiletov</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wadhams" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">Peter Wadhams</span></b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">, Sam Carana, </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"><a href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.ca/2013/01/anthropogenic-arctic-volcano-can-calm-climate.html" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Paul Beckwith</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">, </span><a href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.ca/p/global-extinction-within-one-human.html" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1452205078660_2458" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1452205078660_2457"><span style="color: #666666;">Malcolm Light</span></b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">James Lovelock</span></b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">, </span><a href="http://www.apollo-gaia.org/ArcticDynamics.html" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1452205078660_2451" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b id="yui_3_16_0_1_1452205078660_2450"><span style="color: #666666;">David Wasdell</span></b></a><b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">, </b><a href="http://guymcpherson.com/climate-chaos/climate-change-summary-and-update/" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">Guy McPherson</span></b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> and </span><a href="http://ameg.me/" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #666666;">AMEG</span></b></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> can't all be full of shit. It would be really easy to simply paint their work as shit. The prediction of a</span><b style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> <a href="http://arctic-news.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-time-has-come-to-spread-the-message.html" rel="nofollow" style="background: transparent; color: #888888; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">50 billion ton pulse of methane</a></b><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;"> releasing from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf any time after 2008 was posited from decades of research. Peter Wadhams, Natalia Shakhova and Igor Semiletov describe it as a high probability event. It's not simply shit. What would be the immediate effect of a 50 Gt release? Well over the short term it would have the power of 5000 Gt of CO2. For comparison, humans emit about 30Gt of CO2 a year. The methane will be localized to the Arctic initially, causing abrupt arctic warming and the release of more methane hydrates.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">For quotes from climate books, see </span><a href="http://climatebooks.blogspot.ca/" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1452205078660_2460" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #888888; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #666666;">climate books blog</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">.</span></div>
Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-55298993213326539412016-01-01T15:01:00.001-05:002016-01-01T15:01:33.192-05:00No Mercy<div class="p1">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">“I think we are just insects, we live a bit and then die and that’s the lot. There’s no mercy in things. There’s not even a Great Beyond. There’s nothing.”</span><br />
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~ John Fowles, <i>The Collector</i><br />
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Following is the transcript to my 19th Dispatch from the Endocene which aired on the Extinction Radio <a href="http://www.extinctionradio.org/"><span style="color: purple;">episode</span></a> of Friday, January 1, 2016. Happy New Year!</div>
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Thanks Gene and greetings listeners. Welcome to the 19th Dispatch from the Endocene, a new epoch in Earth’s history when life is on the verge of ending. We conscious wanderers find ourselves in a time of extreme cognitive dissonance - when material luxury is juxtaposed with abject deprivation and hunger; when the myriad glories of nature are accessible on smartphones but are overshadowed by images of unimaginably violent storms; and a temporary abundance is stalked by grotesque desecration. For me, it’s a time of grief and gratitude…and occasionally, suffocating guilt and stark terror.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj604JRK5nC_z7E-YQU1mdlanG3ZRzEXWG2-gfPcCvI4pzNw891m2buALxQt9x_3jk7Y98ckSQ876xPCsfl5hJd7hQo2eIdFNOXu1RWIJEs6cXxzohl4uF8XsgmoFdXP856ua7_tCgR-TQ/s1600/6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj604JRK5nC_z7E-YQU1mdlanG3ZRzEXWG2-gfPcCvI4pzNw891m2buALxQt9x_3jk7Y98ckSQ876xPCsfl5hJd7hQo2eIdFNOXu1RWIJEs6cXxzohl4uF8XsgmoFdXP856ua7_tCgR-TQ/s400/6.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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In one of the many paradoxes that engulf modern civilization, science is becoming ever more fabulous - and simultaneously woefully inadequate. The ability of research to specialize in minutiae unveils more mysteries of chemistry and biology and physics every day; but it also compartmentalizes each subject into extreme isolation. Too often, our expanding base of knowledge resembles the blind describing different parts of an elephant with no concept of the whole animal. One field lacks substantive relevance to the others.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6j2l_09Ld6s031mYlx1W7ic2YaRvEG-ewqYLyrs4q5NlGJuvQnM8xDAwVc_Os10tbV-1LJmBTcz7kCeqXzZAtmSxR6tPT1FtMMn9okCxk8HybXf1TjPYRRPb9CQJyGiuFyij69HpDA9E/s1600/20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6j2l_09Ld6s031mYlx1W7ic2YaRvEG-ewqYLyrs4q5NlGJuvQnM8xDAwVc_Os10tbV-1LJmBTcz7kCeqXzZAtmSxR6tPT1FtMMn9okCxk8HybXf1TjPYRRPb9CQJyGiuFyij69HpDA9E/s400/20.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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This trend was discerned years ago and discussed in a wonderful essay titled “Whatever Happened to Ecology”. You’ll be able to find a link to that article and all other references in this Dispatch posted with a transcript on my blog, Wit’s End.</div>
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<span class="s1">The author, Edward Goldsmith, wrote: “</span><span class="s2">The science of Ecology has been taken over by the cult of scientific reductionism and has become a weapon in the war on the living world being waged by industrial man.”</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMUvfvakLkkGrlWkAAQGXi-Fi6AzKSFbJ9g6NRzRFWaPOiLdI_HyO1kJuVNxcoGm3z10A20qLsM8XirgPDNcl9Xfo2TzWfoPQ1hPHFdmYJKVb2bEauy40_Nbmm5P4Z434Rujo34X5GzE/s1600/21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMUvfvakLkkGrlWkAAQGXi-Fi6AzKSFbJ9g6NRzRFWaPOiLdI_HyO1kJuVNxcoGm3z10A20qLsM8XirgPDNcl9Xfo2TzWfoPQ1hPHFdmYJKVb2bEauy40_Nbmm5P4Z434Rujo34X5GzE/s400/21.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Thus we see that recent research traces a reduction of trees and forest carbon storage to the extirpation of large mammals being hunted as sport or bushmeat. But this is really nothing new, because a vast transformation and degradation of tree diversity occurred many thousands of years ago, when humans hunted the megafauna to extinction as we migrated to continents and islands around the globe. The persimmon, pawpaw and osage orange trees barely survived through clonal root reproduction, while many other species of tree that relied on large herbivores for seed dispersal disappeared. Their predators also went extinct, and other vast ecological disturbances occurred as a result.</div>
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Another new study examines an ancient transformation of the structure of plant and animal communities by analyzing fossils. It revealed what is described as a “dramatic switch” in diversity that is linked directly to human influence, even at low levels of agricultural activity.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUSPaRG3gcbloiEld8lF8_ClbEkQKCrgcVeeHy6oEG4nUpO6ka4kAhvVHpsLgVH499wVaK-UYIq_Ud1CDVp0UXuD-MTIoZXAWth69k4wqoFgJ35FsHMfg_mmwtKvgKeEDVY714u3AI3I/s1600/15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYUSPaRG3gcbloiEld8lF8_ClbEkQKCrgcVeeHy6oEG4nUpO6ka4kAhvVHpsLgVH499wVaK-UYIq_Ud1CDVp0UXuD-MTIoZXAWth69k4wqoFgJ35FsHMfg_mmwtKvgKeEDVY714u3AI3I/s400/15.jpg" width="333" /></a></div>
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From an article quoting co-authors of the study:</div>
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<span class="s2">“The pattern of co-occurring species remained stable through the evolution of land organisms from the earliest tetrapods through dinosaurs, flowering plants and mammals,” said Anna K. Behrensmeyer, co-director and paleobiologist… “This pattern didn’t change because of previous mass extinctions or ancient climate variability, but instead, early human activities 6,000 years ago suddenly began resetting a basic property of natural communities. Isolating species has consequences — it can catalyze evolutionary change over hundreds of thousands to millions of years, but it also makes species more vulnerable to extinction.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2">A member of the team of 29 scientists explained:</span></div>
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<span class="s2">“Human impact on the environment has intensified deeply since that early-Holocene transition, but it is important to understand that we began altering ecosystems long ago…I think that modern human-driven forces, like climate change and pollution, are orders of magnitude more destructive than what early humans were doing,” she said. “But more and more, research into the Holocene and the Pleistocene is showing that when humans started migrating around the globe, they started having major, unprecedented impacts.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2">Another observed: “We humans have influenced the landscape, but perhaps for a lot longer than we had previously recognized. When we look at landscapes and say, 'this is pristine or unaltered,' that's not necessarily true. We may have changed the rules over a much larger scale than we appreciate."</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizCzzQ6u0hc0PJyLDM-LucMhg9Gk1OMVfCJ9MkKvSZYzzW-Qb5A9t0d6qwr2e6AKMRJHNnoRPrrdIPvaqHz9q43IFO74CVwqIndn1VgWPn-3HFl8LLZkQapXwKl6wHVukW9kHMf8ljYSo/s1600/8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizCzzQ6u0hc0PJyLDM-LucMhg9Gk1OMVfCJ9MkKvSZYzzW-Qb5A9t0d6qwr2e6AKMRJHNnoRPrrdIPvaqHz9q43IFO74CVwqIndn1VgWPn-3HFl8LLZkQapXwKl6wHVukW9kHMf8ljYSo/s400/8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">An underwater fossil site discovered in a flooded sinkhole by a scuba diver in the Bahamas yielded yet more unequivocal evidence that the arrival of humans, and not even extreme climate change with attendant changes in flora and sea level, led to mass extinctions. This is most starkly clear on islands as it has occurred in conjunction with the arrival of humans whether it occurred 2,000 or 10,000 years ago.</span></div>
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For the earliest times, the devastating consequences of such changes, known in ecology as a trophic cascade, were most likely completely inadvertent, and ultimately inevitable once our ancestors discovered they could control fire and with it, much else. However, we continue blundering towards the obliteration of the biosphere and ruination of our own health - even when it has become perfectly obvious we are doing so.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wg-HaXV6aILTPh_BOUQ2pbw508zf2JEoxUX2AoYwoQGvh59I72_D4MvZzf4OgwO78abW_UcMVgXH3WmyrRqg5lX5vozBdphJSejinsgSRFodWiQxIkPJO6su0QqdOh1EvONKdRU5h8k/s1600/17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3wg-HaXV6aILTPh_BOUQ2pbw508zf2JEoxUX2AoYwoQGvh59I72_D4MvZzf4OgwO78abW_UcMVgXH3WmyrRqg5lX5vozBdphJSejinsgSRFodWiQxIkPJO6su0QqdOh1EvONKdRU5h8k/s400/17.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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In particular, we are creating trash and pollution with reckless abandon. I encourage you to visit the Waste Atlas, an interactive website that has amazing visualizations of the staggering volume of garbage of various sorts. As for the air, it continues to worsen almost beyond belief. Cities from Beijing to Rome have declared states of emergencies and restricted vehicular traffic due to levels of pollution so high that places like Madrid become shrouded in perpetual darkness, while Delhi has given up trying to restrict traffic even though their air quality is horrific. Researchers suspect other regions may be even worse, but there is simply a lack of monitoring in remote locations such as Africa and parts of the Mid-east.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiquOXWOBwMDNlYX4aAJC0l0JJSl2XvpeyiLUraHQydFQ1UG0I7H-IjrTfZw1ghdWK7JReUf9vblrFCli1dlS80Ahfktjwtfw3JKp-MCXoDudiE_xQdR0cm44Qm4bYYBHAB5AwL96rnW6Q/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiquOXWOBwMDNlYX4aAJC0l0JJSl2XvpeyiLUraHQydFQ1UG0I7H-IjrTfZw1ghdWK7JReUf9vblrFCli1dlS80Ahfktjwtfw3JKp-MCXoDudiE_xQdR0cm44Qm4bYYBHAB5AwL96rnW6Q/s400/2.jpg" width="307" /></a></div>
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Meanwhile medical research is inching closer to declaring air pollution the main cause of Alzheimer’s disease, a burgeoning epidemic that will join cancers, heart disease, and asthma as collateral damage from contemporary pollution. Even children and dogs exhibit cognitive impairment, and it is also linked to reduced fertility, low birth weight babies, and obesity.</div>
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The death toll, estimated by WHO in Europe to be 500,000 people yearly, is actually much worse because NO2 emissions from diesel aren’t factored into that figure.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWbr_IuohoYhbXl_zA9MgR_37t2M3-kl0DhvOrr5iQjhv_y0brxAFeH-rc3XSYm59Cq589WzSlrll6d-ij8pkmfwI_Vj_H2E2ugTWzH45-hDI50mmLSBW2X7RDK5_XkIUdHJGrTTMduK0/s1600/18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWbr_IuohoYhbXl_zA9MgR_37t2M3-kl0DhvOrr5iQjhv_y0brxAFeH-rc3XSYm59Cq589WzSlrll6d-ij8pkmfwI_Vj_H2E2ugTWzH45-hDI50mmLSBW2X7RDK5_XkIUdHJGrTTMduK0/s400/18.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Usually when we hear of premature deaths in heat waves, the news reports leave out the really scary part. But in a book, <span class="s3"><i>The Climate Bonus: Co-benefits of climate policy</i>, IPCC contributing scholar Alison Smith explains:</span></div>
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“In the first 2 weeks of August 2003, Europe was hit by an extreme heat wave and drought. Record high temperatures up to 40°C were reached, and slow air movement from the east allowed extra pollution to drift into Western Europe and the UK. In the UK, ozone levels were more than twice the air quality target. The poor air quality was estimated to account for around 700 of the 2,000 heat-wave-related premature deaths over a 7-day period. The UK deaths were concentrated in the London area and South East England, where ozone levels were highest…</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYiJTubG_l2WHtLgKfWjQWZvRDY4Ju5dIRxaLvmlAPSlLJenyPImZ3gLqFcQgT7zKluwU7BS9uL_bjJ5Szx9ZpJtamsnkohOwfmnPLRaASsQFRoJslMSCM02EZzjQfzWEcoK8CO0VR-Hw/s1600/11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYiJTubG_l2WHtLgKfWjQWZvRDY4Ju5dIRxaLvmlAPSlLJenyPImZ3gLqFcQgT7zKluwU7BS9uL_bjJ5Szx9ZpJtamsnkohOwfmnPLRaASsQFRoJslMSCM02EZzjQfzWEcoK8CO0VR-Hw/s400/11.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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“The high ozone levels were partly related to the effect of the high temperatures on vegetation. Plants respond to heat stress by producing large amounts of isoprene, which is a volatile organic compound and ozone precursor. High isoprene levels were thought to be responsible for around a third of the UK ozone production during the heat wave…</div>
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“Across Europe, temperatures and ozone levels were even higher, resulting in an estimated 45,000 extra deaths, of which around a third were probably due to air pollution. In the Paris area, the death rate doubled; and on the worst day, mortality was six times higher than normal, with half of these deaths attributed to high ozone levels.”</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg3zCxI9_qjKENIdg3J172k-Dy0wKsj_EfZKbNVkX6Wgr0wCL5neB0qmFSUlWUjfiBCr8-JvmhWBd1kJMWglVdCHYhm9TFvwEG27h2W44wzjvWZy7jlwQNyJJRlEQjPRgurvNo6YkJXsQ/s1600/10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg3zCxI9_qjKENIdg3J172k-Dy0wKsj_EfZKbNVkX6Wgr0wCL5neB0qmFSUlWUjfiBCr8-JvmhWBd1kJMWglVdCHYhm9TFvwEG27h2W44wzjvWZy7jlwQNyJJRlEQjPRgurvNo6YkJXsQ/s400/10.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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Similar to human mortality, we are seldom advised that it is a toxic gas and not a warmer temperature that is lethal to trees. Although it’s no secret that pollution is damaging to the ecosystem and crops as well as human health, researchers overwhelmingly tend to ignore it completely when assessing forests.</div>
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When I first started writing about trees drying around the globe, I was ridiculed and ostracized as being an hysteric. Scientists and foresters unanimously told me I was imagining the symptoms of an alarming decline. Merely pointing out the consequences to carbon storage was enough to antagonize virtually everyone from obscure peak oil preppers like John Michael Greer to prominent climatologists like Gavin Schmidt. Mostly I was ignored by everyone from journalists like George Monbiot to the physicist blogger Joe Romm.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mlRm7s5SrWgtSnW8LhyphenhyphenGPksMftdjWLgU6wwMpNOWsUxopg-pcSX5F2jlVa29GM8dqLbM-xM1PEDtNh1_Z2z5xno1tn4jNRjRkyW0JWGWfQ0uECWM5xjM4LyGI9-rDan-L82tO7f8fKc/s1600/13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9mlRm7s5SrWgtSnW8LhyphenhyphenGPksMftdjWLgU6wwMpNOWsUxopg-pcSX5F2jlVa29GM8dqLbM-xM1PEDtNh1_Z2z5xno1tn4jNRjRkyW0JWGWfQ0uECWM5xjM4LyGI9-rDan-L82tO7f8fKc/s400/13.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Now, however, the swathes of dead trees are too ubiquitous to deny. The Ecological Society of Australia claims that “climate change is killing our trees”. <span class="s2">Science Magazine devoted their August issue to forests, which is summed up by one overview article as “</span><span class="s4">Every forest biome on Earth is actively dying right now”.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">Since it has become widely acknowledged that trees are threatened and dying prematurely, researchers persist in blaming drought. One widely distributed study predicting that</span><span class="s5"> drought is going to cause massive tree mortality in the Southwest US bases it on the distant year of 2050, which is ludicrous since trees are demonstrably dying right now. Another equally limited survey reveals that up to 58 million trees in </span><span class="s2">California are estimated to have experienced water loss due to drought. Unfortunately, that survey only looked back four years, to 2011 - had they bothered to look earlier, they would have found damage prior to the drought.</span></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0tcov9hfIX9tvjpFcnp1BgYbDsn1gyPmQ33BETxYTsDmBI4idOx8POoD1apjmt7SbNr-nh0m2UPSkm9VFeDjNvlqtrR0rfGT95JayFRgrYcFYtTjm5gp1z-Y5qSXFrbIhPYbl5ZJ1hog/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0tcov9hfIX9tvjpFcnp1BgYbDsn1gyPmQ33BETxYTsDmBI4idOx8POoD1apjmt7SbNr-nh0m2UPSkm9VFeDjNvlqtrR0rfGT95JayFRgrYcFYtTjm5gp1z-Y5qSXFrbIhPYbl5ZJ1hog/s400/1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">There is no question that megadroughts and higher temperatures will eventually kill forests. Climate change is irreversible, and accelerating far too fast for trees to adapt. However, they are dying ahead of predictions AND in places not in drought. Indeed, trees dying from pollution are themselves contributing to drought. Consider that researchers who predicted trees dying from pine beetle attacks would cause increased stream flow, found out the exact opposite has occurred. And it has been established that ambient ozone reduces stream flow, as well, “…due to an enhanced water loss via the leaf pores.” - and nobody has any idea just how bad the combined effects of elevated ozone and enhanced nitrogen deposition from fertilizers and combustion will be. But it’s not auspicious.</span></div>
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Meanwhile an iconic tree species faces imminent extinction in Hawaii, and it’s being blamed on a rampant fungus. Interestingly, the article notes that the trees play a crucial role in absorbing water.</div>
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There have been three significant studies published recently that highlight this discrepancy between the purported cause of vegetative decline - drought - and the more likely influence, of ozone.</div>
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First, scientists are perplexed having discovered that the Arctic, which had been steadily greening with warming temperatures, is now suddenly and inexplicably turning brown. The scientists at NOAA who produce the annual Arctic Report Card are at a loss as to why.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpMwlV53er08zlPluhhJYl2j52gd_pcFDGRjvynhQKlDjlFLsMUvSp5bD28RSUTqipqwjt-ZRgGQUizDABvujb5xT5kubXQJ76fIIFk6jLAHJACITCX2rMbLlOEnTQp7a7EtvfMeV5G0o/s1600/9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpMwlV53er08zlPluhhJYl2j52gd_pcFDGRjvynhQKlDjlFLsMUvSp5bD28RSUTqipqwjt-ZRgGQUizDABvujb5xT5kubXQJ76fIIFk6jLAHJACITCX2rMbLlOEnTQp7a7EtvfMeV5G0o/s400/9.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s5">“</span><span class="s2">In one of the more surprising parts of the Report Card, the authors say that Arctic tundra greenness − a measure of the productivity and biomass of live vegetation such as grasses, sedges, mosses, lichens, and shrubs − had been increasing over the past two to three decades, as shown by the satellite record. But, “for reasons that remain to be identified, tundra greenness has been declining, or browning, consistently for the past two to four years.”</span></div>
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<span class="s6">This is the directly contradicts what was predicted, especially since the Arctic is wetter. </span><span class="s2">“We're looking at, depending on where in the Arctic, a two- to four-year consistent drop in vegetation. It's something that's actually just gotten on our radar from a terrestrial ecology perspective," said Howard Epstein, an environmental scientist at the University of Virginia.</span></div>
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<span class="s7">Second, a most instructive example of decline that is unrelated to drought is that of sugar maples in the Adirondacks, which is described by new research using tree ring analysis. The pattern the researchers discovered is described as one of “…</span><span class="s2">poor vigor, regeneration failure, and elevated mortality across much of its range” and that the “majority of sugar maple trees exhibited negative growth trends in the last several decades, <i>regardless of age, diameter, or soil fertility</i>…Such growth patterns were unexpected, given recent warming and increased moisture availability, as well as reduced acidic deposition, which should have favored growth.”</span></div>
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<span class="s2">This was all the more remarkable because most of the 242 trees sampled were between 75 and 125 years of age, the prime growth interval for a species that typically can live for 300 to 400 years.</span></div>
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<span class="s8">The lead author said:</span><span class="s2"> “Reduced growth rates are completely unexpected…It's not supposed to happen.”</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7sHzz4qQTLTh9xtuhFdG9dnu1WQQ87p-FC8ZgNEpnOHGYpfTfS3FA7o3oKmN4QTMW6MCDXCNLSal0y2K19QZjVjNPc-gW2B8OmbXwakFdU0w90f3sYI6pZcK9GVDLtvddL6KtwCKDGHQ/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7sHzz4qQTLTh9xtuhFdG9dnu1WQQ87p-FC8ZgNEpnOHGYpfTfS3FA7o3oKmN4QTMW6MCDXCNLSal0y2K19QZjVjNPc-gW2B8OmbXwakFdU0w90f3sYI6pZcK9GVDLtvddL6KtwCKDGHQ/s400/3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="p14">
<span class="s2">Since the scientists can’t explain this by blaming any of the usual suspects - insects, climate, soil acidification, disease, fungus, etc - they conclude “further study is needed”, despite the fact they didn’t even examine the influence of ozone, which is elevated in the entire Northeast. They also didn’t seem to notice that, in an enormous coinkydink, ALL OTHER SPECIES in the region are also in decline, as are all species in the UK and northern Europe - another area that is wetter, not drier, from climate change.</span></div>
<div class="p4">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6-p6VlqP6FOwqIsk7vhtSlM12oOsDkUMFf5omvFuV4bWqf_qaLOID6hCQalCfA6h3RkC0_K40V3_vOiCc7BzMYy7IJCYWQSX0RiyX3RQTqGt_zQ7Zy1RbGKEEI6LRWevz-uTT0FNn8vw/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6-p6VlqP6FOwqIsk7vhtSlM12oOsDkUMFf5omvFuV4bWqf_qaLOID6hCQalCfA6h3RkC0_K40V3_vOiCc7BzMYy7IJCYWQSX0RiyX3RQTqGt_zQ7Zy1RbGKEEI6LRWevz-uTT0FNn8vw/s400/2.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="p3">
I sent the authors a letter, as yet unanswered, in which I pointed out that o<span class="s2">zone is well known to be the most poisonous phytotoxin to vegetation, and that the damage from background concentrations is cumulative over time.</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">I sent them a link to a 2012 paper published by the Swedish EPA examining tree growth in Europe which found that ozone reduces carbon sequestration by 10%, AND that it can induce a shift in resource allocation into height growth at the expense of diameter growth, resulting in spindly, weak branches.</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWSkMwX0UA8ItY58tnKLhoLdZ-5zSy58yNbCBvYo7hwkFv81chKxHu4wTdwOpS8pDCMqc_6ZY2pnueQ9ZAeZcJBmF0WUardgMSP7Fs0837-Hn7TwUS-pnevrJIH8_YwK-IhmPVd62hT7M/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWSkMwX0UA8ItY58tnKLhoLdZ-5zSy58yNbCBvYo7hwkFv81chKxHu4wTdwOpS8pDCMqc_6ZY2pnueQ9ZAeZcJBmF0WUardgMSP7Fs0837-Hn7TwUS-pnevrJIH8_YwK-IhmPVd62hT7M/s400/5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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</div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">It sources a US paper documenting that "In the San Bernardino Mountains, reduction in the volume growth due to chronic ozone exposure of up to 60% has been documented for Ponderosa Pine".</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">Further support is in the findings of a report from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology to the Working Group of Effects of the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution which concludes:</span></div>
<div class="p4">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBIS4C5sDwc_0sbOd7fyXHYyq6qTWgzegyRDGNLWO7BAzo3GgIMEgTwg49RfdALMlMIRP0TydKvVhxZxHIPchuN5hjiQEgTd6Mz5puVT_Ss6YGnl-oJg_kjudLC5cFj-l6oVbbC5bJoBk/s1600/1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBIS4C5sDwc_0sbOd7fyXHYyq6qTWgzegyRDGNLWO7BAzo3GgIMEgTwg49RfdALMlMIRP0TydKvVhxZxHIPchuN5hjiQEgTd6Mz5puVT_Ss6YGnl-oJg_kjudLC5cFj-l6oVbbC5bJoBk/s400/1.JPG" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
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<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">"Whereas peak concentrations of ozone have declined in recent decades in some (but not all) parts of Europe, an increase in background concentrations at the same time has contributed to no change in median or average ozone concentrations across Europe. The rise in background concentrations can contribute significantly to impacts of ozone on vegetation…</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">Ozone pollution in Europe in the future is critically dependent on changes in regional emissions and global transport of ozone precursors."</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0x_3PRwTKMxEPn95oHpoD6qieFvyNwho0UoJ72nhyumfu8qdQr8c8WvQOAe5bOGyy1Vb_mJFTUSHPPCIUxZPHZgI5H235d9ZTgHEcVN8BZzGbIhRT33n9ekDDAFZ8KBwyMSoedOcIOwo/s1600/12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0x_3PRwTKMxEPn95oHpoD6qieFvyNwho0UoJ72nhyumfu8qdQr8c8WvQOAe5bOGyy1Vb_mJFTUSHPPCIUxZPHZgI5H235d9ZTgHEcVN8BZzGbIhRT33n9ekDDAFZ8KBwyMSoedOcIOwo/s400/12.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">In yet another and third surprise to scientists, a study comparing modeled expectations for increased net primary productivity GLOBALLY found a major discrepancy when compared to actual satellite data. The researchers guess this could be due to unanticipated climatic feedbacks and/or nutrient constraints. Too bad it didn’t occur to them that our era of the sixth mass extinction most closely resembles the Great Dying of the Permian, when emissions from erupting volcanic traps released toxic gases and poisoned vegetation - just as our cars, ships, planes and smokestacks are poisoning it now.</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">The scientific consensus is that damage occurs to plants when ozone levels reach 40 ppb, a level that has become close to the persistent background everywhere on earth. With the EPA’S ozone standard lowered from 75 to 70 ppb in the US as of this fall, still well above that threshold, more counties and National Parks are in noncompliance. According to US News, “</span><span class="s9">the biggest violator is Dinosaur National Monument…on the Colorado-Utah border. Its ozone level is 114 ppb. The runner-up at 90 ppb is the 631-square-mile Sequoia National Park in Northern California, a pristine forest boasting 3,200-year-old trees that are among the tallest in the world.”</span></div>
<div class="p13">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="s2"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAS04ZWLhivBORDY3AcRO5MEP0wWJ0af29AJ4aRTtDsaso4YnO7yanRNxoKRp9Cq_F-GISbsaF4h0leWgzy6kZ1x0LYb_Jfpjp3f-OjAqmKyWGLFpqpXeJtjaEm7y0E7mel_2TCHGrAqA/s1600/16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAS04ZWLhivBORDY3AcRO5MEP0wWJ0af29AJ4aRTtDsaso4YnO7yanRNxoKRp9Cq_F-GISbsaF4h0leWgzy6kZ1x0LYb_Jfpjp3f-OjAqmKyWGLFpqpXeJtjaEm7y0E7mel_2TCHGrAqA/s400/16.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="p16">
<span class="s2">You almost have to feel sorry for states like Texas filing suit over the tighter standards. They actually are correct - it is unfeasible to reduce ozone levels and continue business as usual, particularly with so many precursors traveling around the world from coal and transportation, plus agricultural burning and wildfires. The emissions from fires in Indonesia alone, the worst ever in 2015, are spectacular.</span></div>
<div class="p17">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s10">I will end this Dispatch by quoting from a comment written by Paul Kingsnorth, author of </span><span class="s2"><i>Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist </i>and founder of the Dark Mountain project</span>. This was his response to Wen Stephenson, a climate activist who was dismayed by Paul’s apparent nihilism. It is well worth reading the entire thing, which can be found at the second link on this post.</div>
<div class="p4">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKf0qCCH83mkG3kUw2uR1HhHFP4wK0OPwQNrfVfBvQkOCpmx0UCezNyVy0kglutqcVxVb_ymZZTHTrBrmi6Tat4CiItxOCfIQnDpO_IWVdoz2O83lq1ZZnyrLNZ-jQPdwv6x5OhYMst4k/s1600/14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKf0qCCH83mkG3kUw2uR1HhHFP4wK0OPwQNrfVfBvQkOCpmx0UCezNyVy0kglutqcVxVb_ymZZTHTrBrmi6Tat4CiItxOCfIQnDpO_IWVdoz2O83lq1ZZnyrLNZ-jQPdwv6x5OhYMst4k/s400/14.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="p3">
“<span class="s2">I am not yet 40 but I have seen things that my children will never see, because they are already gone. This is my fault, and yours, and there is nothing that we have been able to work out that will stop it…How do we live with this reality? Politics is not going to do anything about it, Wen, because politics is the process of keeping this Machine moving. What do we do? I don’t know. The reality is that we have used the short-term boost of fossil fuels to give us a 200 year party, which is now coming to an end in a haze of broken bottles, hangovers and recrimination. We have built a hugely complex society which now can’t be fuelled and is, in any case, responsible for a global ecocide. Living with this reality — living in it, facing it, being honest about it and not having to pretend we can ‘solve’ it as if it were a giant jigsaw puzzle — seems to me to be a necessary prerequisite for living through it. I realise that to some people it looks like giving up. But to me it looks like just getting started with a view of the world based on reality rather than wishful thinking.”</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">Thanks for listening.</span><br />
<span class="s2"><br /></span>
<span class="s2">Bonus Video - links follow below:</span><br />
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/--RB1ZmF_B4" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Whatever Happened to Ecology: <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/02/prosaic-and-amenable-endochronometer.html">http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/02/prosaic-and-amenable-endochronometer.html</a> (for more on ecology and the Kingsnorth letter, see this post <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2013/08/awaiting-greatness.html">http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2013/08/awaiting-greatness.html</a> about <span class="s2"><i>The Reykjavik Imperative)</i></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Defaunation affects carbon storage in forests: <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/11/e1501105.full">http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/11/e1501105.full</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Osage orange, etc. survival: <a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/10/hysteresis-and-vile-conspiracy-to-blame.html">http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2012/10/hysteresis-and-vile-conspiracy-to-blame.html</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Study about early human alteration of biodiversity: <a href="http://smithsonianscience.si.edu/2015/12/smithsonian-scientists-trace-anthropocene-root-to-early-human-activity/">http://smithsonianscience.si.edu/2015/12/smithsonian-scientists-trace-anthropocene-root-to-early-human-activity/</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
and</div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151217143546.htm">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151217143546.htm</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
original study: <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature16447.html">http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature16447.html</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Bahamas extinctions: <a href="http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ice-age-fossils-bahama-island-extinction-climate-change-20151019-story.html">http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-ice-age-fossils-bahama-island-extinction-climate-change-20151019-story.html</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Trophic cascade: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_cascade">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_cascade</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Waste Atlas: <a href="http://www.atlas.d-waste.com/">http://www.atlas.d-waste.com/</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
No2 emission death toll: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/02/air-pollution-may-cause-more-uk-deaths-than-previously-thought-say-scientists">http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/02/air-pollution-may-cause-more-uk-deaths-than-previously-thought-say-scientists</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Italy air pollution: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2015-12-rome-milan-clamp-cars-smog.html">http://phys.org/news/2015-12-rome-milan-clamp-cars-smog.html</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Delhi pollution and traffic: <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/plan-clean-delhis-air-fizzle-auto-rules-eased-35938530">http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/plan-clean-delhis-air-fizzle-auto-rules-eased-35938530</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Beijing pollution: <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-29/half-million-square-kilometers-heavy-smog-forces-beijing-issue-orange-alert-close-fa">http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-29/half-million-square-kilometers-heavy-smog-forces-beijing-issue-orange-alert-close-fa</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Madrid air pollution: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/29/traffic-madrid-spain-air-quality">http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/29/traffic-madrid-spain-air-quality</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
lack of monitoring: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/where-is-the-worlds-most-polluted-city_56606378e4b08e945fee3fdc?utm_hp_ref=world">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/where-is-the-worlds-most-polluted-city_56606378e4b08e945fee3fdc?utm_hp_ref=world</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Pollution causes Alzheimer’s: <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/05/air-pollution-dementia-alzheimers-brain">http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/05/air-pollution-dementia-alzheimers-brain</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
trees dying from California drought: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2015-12-tens-millions-trees-danger-california.html">http://phys.org/news/2015-12-tens-millions-trees-danger-california.html</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<a href="http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2015/12/californias-drought-could-spell-death-58-million-trees">http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2015/12/californias-drought-could-spell-death-58-million-trees</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Climate change killing trees: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2015-11-climate-trees.html#nRlv">http://phys.org/news/2015-11-climate-trees.html#nRlv</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Tree die-off predicted in SW US: <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/12/21/scientists-say-climate-change-could-cause-a-massive-tree-die-off-in-the-southwest/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/12/21/scientists-say-climate-change-could-cause-a-massive-tree-die-off-in-the-southwest/</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
arctic tundra turning brown: <a href="http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/12/21/green-tundra-turning-brown-as-arctic-warms/">http://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/12/21/green-tundra-turning-brown-as-arctic-warms/</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Arctic vegetation brown despite wetter: <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/arctic-temperatures-rising-breakneck-speed-155146987.html">http://news.yahoo.com/arctic-temperatures-rising-breakneck-speed-155146987.html</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
predicted greening of Arctic: <a href="http://www.livescience.com/28406-arctic-tundra-turning-green.html">http://www.livescience.com/28406-arctic-tundra-turning-green.html</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
Science Magazine forest issue overview:</div>
<div class="p3">
<a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/en_au/read/every-forest-biome-on-earth-is-actively-dying-right-now">http://motherboard.vice.com/en_au/read/every-forest-biome-on-earth-is-actively-dying-right-now</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
“When trees die, water slows”: <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151216082911.htm">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151216082911.htm</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
ozone reduces stream flow: <a href="http://icpvegetation.ceh.ac.uk/publications/documents/Brochureozonenitrogenandclimatechange.pdf">http://icpvegetation.ceh.ac.uk/publications/documents/Brochureozonenitrogenandclimatechange.pdf</a></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">Hawaii trees: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2015-12-fungus-tree-critical-hawaii-native.html">http://phys.org/news/2015-12-fungus-tree-critical-hawaii-native.html</a></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
sugar maples: <a href="https://www.insidescience.org/content/case-slowing-sugar-maples/3431"><span class="s2">https://www.insidescience.org/content/case-slowing-sugar-maples/3431</span></a></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">original study: <a href="http://www.esajournals.org/doi/10.1890/ES15-00260.1">http://www.esajournals.org/doi/10.1890/ES15-00260.1</a></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">Swedish EPA Ozone report: <a href="http://www.ivl.se/download/18.343dc99d14e8bb0f58b763d/1445517584027/B2065+.pdf">http://www.ivl.se/download/18.343dc99d14e8bb0f58b763d/1445517584027/B2065+.pdf</a> (and an earlier bonus study from 1998 Ground-Level Ozone - a Threat to Vegetation: <a href="https://www.naturvardsverket.se/Documents/publikationer/91-620-4970-4.pdf?pid=2790">https://www.naturvardsverket.se/Documents/publikationer/91-620-4970-4.pdf?pid=2790</a>)</span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">Centre for Ecology Ozone Brochure: <a href="http://icpvegetation.ceh.ac.uk/publications/documents/Brochureozonetrends.pdf">http://icpvegetation.ceh.ac.uk/publications/documents/Brochureozonetrends.pdf</a> and Final Report 2012: <a href="http://icpvegetation.ceh.ac.uk/publications/documents/Csequestrationreportfinalwebversion.pdf">http://icpvegetation.ceh.ac.uk/publications/documents/Csequestrationreportfinalwebversion.pdf</a></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s2">Declining NPP: <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2879.html">http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2879.html</a></span></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s2"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s2">Ozone levels in National Parks: <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/04/national-parks-fail-epa-ozone-mandates">http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/04/national-parks-fail-epa-ozone-mandates</a></span></div>
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<span class="s2">lawsuits against EPA ozone standard: <a href="http://www.texastribune.org/2015/12/28/texas-targets-epa-smog-rule-latest-suit/">http://www.texastribune.org/2015/12/28/texas-targets-epa-smog-rule-latest-suit/</a></span></div>
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<span class="s2">Indonesia fires: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/nov/11/indonesia-forest-fires-explained-haze-palm-oil-timber-burning">http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/photography/2015/12/indonesia_s_fires_an_environmental_catastrophe_and_a_climate_change_nightmare.html</a></span></div>
Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-26621251043028689562015-12-13T16:13:00.004-05:002015-12-13T16:13:58.348-05:00An Exercise in FutilityNow, you no longer need to wade through the analyses of COP21, whether critical or congratulatory, - as we all try to forget the obscene excesses of the misguided activists.<br />
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In one brief cathartic series of his signature limericks, Benjamin the Donkey has the most astute commentary imaginable. Dramatized in poignant settings with inimitable disarming sincerity and humor, enjoy his latest foray into the world of youtube, and hope for many more.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ufIz23d-tws" width="560"></iframe>Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-56119716810689252922015-12-04T15:52:00.001-05:002015-12-05T11:00:33.333-05:00Extinction Goes Glam<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Following is the transcript for the 18th Dispatch from the Endocene, which will air on <a href="http://www.extinctionradio.org/"><span style="color: purple;">Extinction Radio</span></a>. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Thanks so much for producing Extinction Radio, Gene - and welcome listeners, to the 18th Dispatch from the Endocene.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">In conjunction with the Paris Climate talks, the Discovery Channel has broadcast a film called <i>Racing Extinction</i>. It is no doubt a well-intentioned effort, and a cinematic dazzle - but for all that, it unwittingly embodies the very human blindness that imminently condemns our species - and most others - to the dustbin of evolution.</span></div>
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<span class="s2">According to a review in <i>The Verge</i>, the director conceived of the movie as an “eco-thriller”, believing that “…imagery is the ultimate motivator to incite change”. That sort of hubris and infatuation with technology is also expressed by one of the participants in the documentary, </span><span class="s1">a NASCAR driver, who is described evidently without irony as an environmental activist in Rolling Stone.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">According to the magazine, she “…races a tricked out Tesla through city streets, projecting huge images of endangered species onto buildings…”</span><span class="s2"> and is quoted as saying: “</span><span class="s1">The most important part of my journey is that I can drive a racecar. The car is the only thing that gives me the ability to talk to 75 million race fans. If I was just a biology grad…trying to get people to give up meat, put solar on their roof and buy an electric car, they'd never hear me.”</span><br />
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<span class="s1">There doesn’t seem to be any excuse too ludicrous when it comes to justifying the use of modern wizardry.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Of course, this attempt to educate people about the crisis in biodiversity and the Sixth Mass Extinction is laudable, since most people remain oblivious - in fact most people, even the director of this film, are unaware that humans first embarked upon the Sixth Mass Extinction at least 15,000 years ago. And bravo for the emphasis on hunting and habitat in a world obsessed with the political debate over climate change from CO2. But there is a fatal flaw that renders just about all of their efforts ineffectual. What underlies the apparently altruistic desire to stop the destruction of nature is a simultaneous belief that this can be accomplished while maintaining the most privileged of lifestyles. And I really mean the absolutely MOST privileged of all time.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">You can’t find a more stark example of this than last year’s campaign by Conservation International, in which Hollywood celebrities narrated a series of videos collectively titled, “Nature is Speaking.” I’m going to read excerpts from the post about it on my blog, Wit’s End.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">The claim of human exceptionalism is familiar - the notion that our species is special, the crown of creation, subject to different rules and even unique evolutionary influences, than other more lowly animals - or plants for that matter. This idiotic conceit underlies everything from fanatic veganism (if only we didn't eat meat we could save the world and feed 10 billion people!) to techno-worship (we can have infinite growth on a finite planet!).</span><br />
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<span class="s1">But there is deeper variant of human exceptionalism that presents a final irrevocable obstacle to any prospect (long since obsolete anyway) that we might mend our ways.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">We EACH think our own individual selves are exceptional, even within the already exceptional human race. Which of course is why it is so perennially droll when Garrison Keillor introduces his Lake Wobegon radio show with "...all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average".</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Or think about the environmental icon who inspired Earth First!, Edward Abbey, who loved the wilderness so much he was against immigration, calling for "...a halt to the mass influx of even more millions of hungry, ignorant, unskilled, and culturally-morally-genetically impoverished people", but had five children himself - and loved the desert so much he liked nothing better than to tear around off road in his pickup truck.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This brings us to the absurdly ignorant, painfully ironic campaign to save nature AND humanity, concocted by the group known as Conservation International which debuted at the beginning of the week. An executive vice president and senior scientist at CI describes the project as an attempt to "rebrand" environmentalism to be less about preserving wildlife and more about preserving humans, by emphasizing that people are dependent upon nature. Like the World Wildlife Fund, also founded by royalty and other elites, the leadership is so steeped in privilege that they have no clue at all what a bitter taste emanates from their efforts.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Julia Roberts as Mother Nature sternly warns us naughty children that she doesn’t need us - oh no, we need her - and she is going to take away our toys if we don’t take better care of the gifts she has given us. That's alright as far as it goes but then she declares: “One way or the other, your actions will determine your fate, not mine. I am Nature. I will go on. I am prepared to evolve. Are you?”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This is ignorant on at least two levels. First, humans cannot willfully evolve. Evolution has no purpose, and it doesn't happen because we decide we want it to, and certainly not in any timescale that could matter. Conflating natural selection with a wish that humans had a different brain wired for more altruistic behavior should not have made it through an organization that employs scientists. Second, it isn't at all clear that Nature will go on, once we are no longer capable of trashing her, if we have unleashed amplifying feedbacks that will lead to a runaway greenhouse Venus effect.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">But to the more interesting question (at least, as long as humans are alive and capable of curiosity) which goes to the heart of the problem of consciousness, it seems fair, even requisite, to inquire - how are Julia and the other movie stars in these videos doing at reducing their impact on Planet Earth? Well, let's see…Julia has three children and at least four houses - Hawaii, New Mexico, Malibu and New York, which she shuttles between via private jet.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Hey though, she makes up for it, as described in <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/culture/julia-roberts-gets-on-the-bus.html"><span class="s3" style="color: purple;">TreeHugger</span></a>:</span></div>
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<span class="s1">"The pretty woman will be helping biodiesel producer Earth Biofuels promote a program to encourage the use of biodiesel in more than 500,000 diesel school buses nationwide. A recent addition to the Earth Biofuels board of directors, Ms. Roberts will serve as a spokesperson for the eco-fuel. ''It's very important that we expand our use of clean energy and make a long-term commitment to it. Biodiesel and ethanol are better for the environment and for the air we breathe,'' Roberts said in an announcement about her new role. She will be joining current Earth Biofuels celeb board members Willie Nelson and Morgan Freeman.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">The idea that biofuels are better for the environment is so discredited it is astonishing to see it being promoted, but keep in mind that this series was screened on Virgin Air, and Richard Branson’s $25m reward for carbon capture is still unclaimed. Airplanes won’t run on solar or wind. To see how deep the corruption is, take a look at the webpage for Virginearth/The Prize where you will find him jointly holding a globe with Al Gore, their faces beaming with tender reverence.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Speaking as the Ocean in another of the series, Harrison Ford recites: "It’s not their planet, anyway. Never was. Never will be. But humans, they take more than their share. They poison me and then expect me to feed them. Well, it doesn’t work that way."</span></div>
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<span class="s1">"I’m only going to say this once, 'If nature isn’t kept healthy, humans won’t survive. Simple as that. I mean, I could give a damn. With or without humans, I’m The Ocean. I covered this entire planet once and I can always cover it again.'"</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Let’s just check how Harrison is doing in terms of responsible stewardship, by reading his own words in <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1251762/Harrison-Ford-I-love-flying-planes-riding-bikes-Thats-Ive-got-of-nine.html"><span class="s3" style="color: purple;">an interview</span></a>. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">1. There's nothing better than seeing a herd of elk right outside the window of my house in Wyoming. My land gives me an opportunity to be close to nature, and I find spiritual solace in nature, contemplating our species in the context of the natural world.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">2. All of my planes are great to fly, and that's why I've got so many of them. I have a Citation Sovereign, a long-range jet; a Grand Caravan, a turboprop aircraft capable of operating on unimproved strips; and a De Havilland, a bush plane. I have a 1929 Waco Taperwing open-top biplane; a 1942 PT-22 open-top monoplane trainer; an Aviat Husky, a two-seat fabric-covered bush plane; and a Bell 407 helicopter. I also have more than my fair share of motorbikes - eight or nine. I have four or five BMWs, a couple of Harleys, a couple of Hondas and a Triumph; plus I have sports touring bikes.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">3. I'm a big fan of Prince Charles. I met him because I worked on a little film project for The Prince's Trust last year, and he's a charming man, very nice and a very smart guy. We may be working together on an environmental project this year for Conservation International. I'm on the board, and we're very happy because Prince Charles asked to join us. A few weeks ago we voted to place him on our board of directors. We'll probably do something together soon connected with the protection of the environment.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Kevin Spacey is the voice of the rainforest. I can't find much about him although I will say, staying on the 37-meter superyacht The Tango while in Sydney for performances of Richard III might have been less than ecologically prudent.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Edward Norton, who is honest as dirt and humble too in the “Soil” segment, inherited millions from his grandfather, inventor of the modern American mall (thanks, Grandpop!). In addition to the houses around the world he was left, he has since acquired more of his own - a pad in NY, a few houses in Malibu and a mansion in the Hollywood Hills. He has a Mercedes and a couple of Range Rovers - but they don’t count because he also, being a passionate environmentalist, has a hydrogen-fueled BMW.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Penélope Cruz, who represents “Water” travels by private jet between her houses in LA, Madrid and NY - and various vacations spots like the Bahamas. She takes helicopters for shorter jaunts.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Perhaps avid skier Robert Redford's claim to environmentalism is the most egregiously, outrageously hypocritical of all when he speaks to us as “The Redwood”. <a href="http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/robert-redford-the-sundance-kid-rides-again-20130808"><span class="s3" style="color: purple;">Men's Journal</span></a> recounts the adorable story about how he fell in love with Utah and single-handedly turned it into the luxury resort, Sundance, which is somehow presented as modest because it doesn't serve the numbers of Vail.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">“…His master plan for the resort – which he insists is named for the way sunlight dances off the peaks and not his mustachioed character in 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid' – tops out at 106 artist studios and homes, none marring the open areas above the tree line. The ski resort is small – four lifts, 450 skiable acres, and a top elevation of 8,200 feet – and that suits him just fine.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Redford considers Sundance home. “…a great, great part of it is still untouched, still pure. I came because I like being around hardworking agricultural people. I like the contrast of moving from an urban, edgy place like New York to this place with people working the land for generations."</span></div>
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<span class="s1">"Utah is not the only landscape that has a hold on Redford - he's building a house in Napa and owns another in Santa Fe". </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Take a look at a picture of nighttime Sundance on my blog - it’s as bright as a Christmas tree, and the forest on the mountain is slashed with trails.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">The Sundance Airport website - which claims “The skies are meant for flying” - says they have 190 T-hangars for everything from single-engine aircraft through small corporate jets, in addition to a main terminal. Redford also chose the name out of respect for the Native American Sun Dance, while the Institute is ostensibly “committed to the balance of art, nature and community.” Does he really think that nature is served by 50,000 people descending into the town for an annual film festival?</span></div>
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<span class="s1">This is the hubris and blindness inherent in our unwise species of which I speak. I would not characterize it as evil, or shameful - because it is immutable and endemic.</span><br />
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<span class="s1">Elizabeth Kolbert - author of <i>The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History</i> - sums it up. In one clip from <i>Racing Extinction</i> linked at the Rolling Stone article, she says in a voice of weary resignation, “We have these prehistoric brains, and we have this god-like technology…and when you bring them together, the result is not necessarily a happy one”.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Prehistoric brains…god-like technology…not necessarily happy results.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Perhaps that is the understatement of all time.</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Thanks for listening.</span><br />
<span class="s1"><br /></span>Elizabeth Kolbert at 2:14 in:</div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p6y0p3DqNuE" width="560"></iframe>
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<span class="s1" style="color: purple;"><a href="http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-endocene.html">http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-endocene.html<span class="s4"></span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="color: purple;"><a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/1/9826810/racing-extinction-documentary-review-endangered-animals-climate-change">http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/1/9826810/racing-extinction-documentary-review-endangered-animals-climate-change<span class="s4"></span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="color: purple;"><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/how-racing-extinction-could-save-the-world-20151202">http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/how-racing-extinction-could-save-the-world-20151202<span class="s4"></span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1" style="color: purple;"><a href="http://www.virginearth.com/the-prize/">http://www.virginearth.com/the-prize/</a></span></div>
Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5549306427964459740.post-64201534789906202922015-11-20T20:51:00.001-05:002015-11-20T20:51:21.782-05:00That Feathered Thing<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"></span>This fall I finally visited the Storm King Art Center, an enormous rambling sculpture park north of New York City I have driven past many times, on my way to somewhere else, wishing I had time to stop. </div>
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It is debatable whether some of the gigantic pieces enhance the landscape - or detract from the rolling hills and forest...</div>
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...but some were thought provoking, and powerful - conjuring thoughts about deep time and our place in the universe.</div>
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It was the last day of a special exhibit of whimsical fountains.</div>
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Even though these are made of petroleum-derived plastic, I admired the bright, garish color flaming against the natural backdrop - and the playful organic moldings.</div>
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This gravity defiance was breathtaking, and I’m sorry I can’t supply the movement and sound of the water, or the wonderful clear sky and sunshine on that windy afternoon.</div>
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One permanent installation is a memorial, a lovely tribute to someone the sculptor must have cared deeply about. Every time a visitor rings the bell, it is a vibrating resonant reminder of a life that once existed but is now over. Of course I never knew the man this iron poem was dedicated to, nor do any others who pass by. But, this sort of profound gesture of love reaches each of us, even when we can't have ever known the individual the artwork commemorates. This expression of love is one of many that make humans unique in the animal kingdom, and very much part of the theme for my latest Dispatch From the Endocene on Extinction Radio. You can<span style="color: purple;"> <a href="http://www.extinctionradio.org/">listen to it online</a></span>, and/or read the transcript below. Links follow the text:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriWtML6zmkiKINC0jTNnULzbd_-D3fPBgwWmheV1VvyXRjFECI1JNnZa-Oa1KJAnKriw-i_YFAUxS8EIkX4hDOcSZTm0SZpQmvpikxVrgbAUnGdvn5aTZMpPu3F0OhhZXwet26WEcKC0/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiriWtML6zmkiKINC0jTNnULzbd_-D3fPBgwWmheV1VvyXRjFECI1JNnZa-Oa1KJAnKriw-i_YFAUxS8EIkX4hDOcSZTm0SZpQmvpikxVrgbAUnGdvn5aTZMpPu3F0OhhZXwet26WEcKC0/s400/1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Thanks Gene, and welcome listeners, to the 17th Dispatch From the Endocene.</span></div>
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It seems a natural and common reaction when people encounter the certainty that the sixth mass extinction has begun - and the likelihood that the human species will not be spared - to wonder why and how this has been allowed to happen. The concept of mass extinction, especially our own, challenges the deepest cherished faith we nourish - in progress, in the ultimate perfectibility of fallible humanity, in divine forgiveness of our sins and foibles. It is the end of all that. It requires confronting our worst enemy, ourselves.</div>
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Even the few people who are able to understand that our species is doomed by our own actions often remain in denial that, sooner or later, it was inevitable. Instead of accepting the immutability our self-imposed destruction, it is comforting to turn to the illusion that things might have turned out differently. This is a tempting fallacy because embedded within this rationalizing is an implicit desire, that we might yet change and improve our fortunes, perhaps even avert our untimely demise as a species. To truly accept our role in the 6th mass extinction, it is essential to understand the human propensity to deny and to hope, and how such delusions arose, inextricably and genetically entwined, in tandem with a consciousness of our individual selves, language, symbolism, and the foreknowledge of death.</div>
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One pertinent indication of our inability to overcome the primal instinctual behavior that developed over countless generations is the tendency of populations to become obese and develop related diseases once the supply of fatty, salty, sweetened food, scarce for most of our evolution, becomes readily available and inexpensive. Usually the notion of free will is invoked and industrial civilization is blamed, along with individuals for their “life-style choices”, while our evolved imperatives are overlooked. Similarly, we compulsively binge on power from cheap energy and on the products that derive from it.</div>
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Present-day culture is frequently reviled as overly preoccupied with status, as expressed by rampant consumerism - but like culinary excesses, the urge to flaunt possessions is simply an extension of behavior that evolved long ago. Humans began bargaining with fate as soon as they started to bury their dead, something no other species does, entombing remains with offerings starting with simple bones, shells, then clay figurines, and ultimately fantastic, elaborate and ostentatious objects such as are found in the ancient pyramids of Egypt. Rituals and ceremonies arose as religions and worship of spirits permeated cultures from primitive to the most complex and are always accompanied by tangible objects of value. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesCQzF7yl8H1ckuOWOlq9TdTpgu0CvPyL1aNsvncKIaPtzfvvNbHSi3RqwEXwD6USMDDtfDQJ-660_2gB4rk6XUXl_7qZp92kp-N4idiW0Plr8c58Ac4vRSX-nQwFdSNjL4sDWiHbU84/s1600/buriala1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesCQzF7yl8H1ckuOWOlq9TdTpgu0CvPyL1aNsvncKIaPtzfvvNbHSi3RqwEXwD6USMDDtfDQJ-660_2gB4rk6XUXl_7qZp92kp-N4idiW0Plr8c58Ac4vRSX-nQwFdSNjL4sDWiHbU84/s400/buriala1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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It’s amusing that current obsessions with fancy watches and cars, body sculpting and plastic surgery are denounced as a shallow fetish, when the same impulses in native tribal cultures are lauded as “indigenous spirituality” and considered sacred “ethnic traditions”. Among some of the more outlandish practices have been crippling and painful bodily re-configurations such flattened heads, bound feet, corsets, the insertion of enormous lip plates from as long ago as 8700 bc, requiring the removal of teeth, earlobe gauging and let’s not forget some horrible genital mutilations. More often relatively benign self-ornamentation has been used to denote membership in a tribe, and one’s position within it, such as tattoos, piercings, jewelry, headdresses and clothing style. To expect that people in today’s society eschew such symbolic displays of reproductive fitness, or to forsake totemic possessions that defy death, is to ask humans to stop being humans. We have brains big enough to understand how meaningless and futile it is to appease mythical gods in hopes of immortality…but not big enough to stop us doing it.</div>
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We have driven species to extinction not just for the necessities of life, but because they were collected purely for trivial decorative purposes, such as tree-dwelling snails in Hawaii, sea turtles, horns from animals of all sorts, ivory, abalone, coral. The enchanting nautilus has been depleted in the Philippines by 80 percent since 1980. Thanks, US, for importing more than 100,000 a year! But this frivolous collecting began at dawn of time. When people blame civilization, or capitalism, or the neolithic revolutionary turn to agriculture for the trashing of the natural world, they forget that it was civilization that finally enabled people, albeit too late, to deem our behavior wrong and attempt to ameliorate prior and ongoing damage. Modern people have deliberately set aside large tracts of land for wilderness, and designated species endangered in an attempt to protect them. Our ancestors thoughtlessly took until there was nothing left, and then resorted, when they could, to some other resource or location.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3I3o0TMpo_RQppCKzV2S2NkKyeg9rkmqTqedDtduE7mLCtQKdlhcUdOEgD-edaGTGanMc9TyxcSwRrnB7pTtVjitdro2fJ49uf3MybgIMHZJlckKSRLh6zXKUjNR8fQp5Z1XWBKHUS2Q/s1600/treesnail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3I3o0TMpo_RQppCKzV2S2NkKyeg9rkmqTqedDtduE7mLCtQKdlhcUdOEgD-edaGTGanMc9TyxcSwRrnB7pTtVjitdro2fJ49uf3MybgIMHZJlckKSRLh6zXKUjNR8fQp5Z1XWBKHUS2Q/s320/treesnail.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Shells aside, there is probably no finer illustration of the phenomenon I am describing than to trace the use of feathers. R</span>ecently my daughter informed me with a fine sense of outrage that down comforters and pillows are an evil indulgence, because the feathers are cruelly yanked from living geese and ducks. I checked and unfortunately, she’s right. But this atrocity isn’t an invention of contemporary manufacturing. It has been a world-wide habit. Nobody can know how long ago it started, because it began before records were kept.</div>
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The following is some history from BirdLife International. It may seem a tedious recounting, but I feel like it is important to acknowledge the scale and ubiquity of the carnage, to honor the unique and dazzling creatures we have mercilessly exploited for tens of thousands of years.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix09XboW-32762k8AAUlTcQb5zfJoj6h71pewXW-8irKdVRFe9qgtgsh38-9Jd4fLi8mWeVlFQeI-xazh7dv4xsa9NrWW87ShGQS4EO0xGFvfecrhLNZM5dF7vnc4aVGdQ1tLNwNT3Hg4/s1600/2F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix09XboW-32762k8AAUlTcQb5zfJoj6h71pewXW-8irKdVRFe9qgtgsh38-9Jd4fLi8mWeVlFQeI-xazh7dv4xsa9NrWW87ShGQS4EO0xGFvfecrhLNZM5dF7vnc4aVGdQ1tLNwNT3Hg4/s400/2F.jpg" width="237" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">“Feathers have always been part of human self-adornment, betokening status, wealth, vitality, ardour and defiance (Diamond 1986). Across the world, tribal peoples had used the most colourful and extravagant plumes of the birds they hunted to decorate themselves. Zulus once wore turaco feathers as headdresses. The King of Swaziland and traditional Masai men still do. In West Africa, a porcupine quill and red flight feather from Bannerman’s Turaco in a man’s black hat indicate his position as a traditional council member.</span>”</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgny0H-jti6LKcVnszaGRSNJveTp84v0YpZOEPnBw1CYN6d-pxrmwr5dcFukXuCrk4BJnJyoeye7qX1HhdhuEaMV3y9mbsZiUGrWzlI3RnszfqvJF3PT2kXOGRNw7JDKc837S2CYoB5wzY/s1600/7F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgny0H-jti6LKcVnszaGRSNJveTp84v0YpZOEPnBw1CYN6d-pxrmwr5dcFukXuCrk4BJnJyoeye7qX1HhdhuEaMV3y9mbsZiUGrWzlI3RnszfqvJF3PT2kXOGRNw7JDKc837S2CYoB5wzY/s400/7F.jpg" width="221" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In the Palas valley in northern Pakistan, people wear the colourful plumes of the near-endemic Western Tragopan in their caps. In Borneo the tail-feathers of the largest hornbills are used in ceremonial dances and rituals. In New Guinea the birds of paradise were (and again still are) the chief targets, and dried skins were used in trade as far east as mainland South-East Asia and as long ago as 3000 BC; but cassowaries are used more completely—their feathers used in ceremonial headdresses, their bare quills carved into nose-pins and ear-rings, their leg-bones fashioned into implements and their sharp claws fitted to arrow-tips (on top of all this, they furnish a spectacular amount of food).</span>”</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyoSGrkzIdQllL7jga-mQ3RldyrHBy4v98dp_baAkp_BU16nqvG9thFDC0J3ClXW-Lof70Pw4uvw0LabHCWUblCpErdYRfoKDu9iYCw4nQoG2kk4swMu0g-2c-9qmUdK876sxEo6I5qBk/s1600/5F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyoSGrkzIdQllL7jga-mQ3RldyrHBy4v98dp_baAkp_BU16nqvG9thFDC0J3ClXW-Lof70Pw4uvw0LabHCWUblCpErdYRfoKDu9iYCw4nQoG2kk4swMu0g-2c-9qmUdK876sxEo6I5qBk/s320/5F.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In New Caledonia, Kagu feathers were used in the war headdresses of chiefs, and their calls mimicked in war-dances. Polynesians trapped Red-tailed Tropicbird on the nest, plucked their long red streamers to wear in their hair or nose, and—with admirable self-restraint and forethought—let the birds go.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Sf9eBk7hc_0hX4RZiUddKm1h-hK_i1HA5df9z72d0qMWM-1qz32Nzg9kb-vdtZ8CrBgUaco9WYmqA-Mkc6J2fxbcRs9676M793DtaSekETNwd-gKDdCKNOhxYaNNSC_X7U7oS2wUkOI/s1600/3F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Sf9eBk7hc_0hX4RZiUddKm1h-hK_i1HA5df9z72d0qMWM-1qz32Nzg9kb-vdtZ8CrBgUaco9WYmqA-Mkc6J2fxbcRs9676M793DtaSekETNwd-gKDdCKNOhxYaNNSC_X7U7oS2wUkOI/s400/3F.jpg" width="266" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“Rulers in Hawaii made capes out of now-extinct drepanid finches, and probably contributed heavily to their demise: the ceremonial cloak made for Kamehameha, the first king of all the islands, is composed—to the most exacting of standards and to memorised incantatory rituals—of nearly half a million yellow feathers from an estimated 80,000 birds belonging to one species, the Hawaiian Mamo.</span>”</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7B6QABdT3J2ETOf1buVGvABT_vjWg6i9n5WQMK8QR1YF9ZDr8v3XMHGtLdG0A6KfXthX3_lAgDTwyQiLpOPesgqYan5TYWT2aRF-s1mg2pTDmHQHfIrQDGFaG4WZ3s1kvrOvDjSlVCzk/s1600/mask.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7B6QABdT3J2ETOf1buVGvABT_vjWg6i9n5WQMK8QR1YF9ZDr8v3XMHGtLdG0A6KfXthX3_lAgDTwyQiLpOPesgqYan5TYWT2aRF-s1mg2pTDmHQHfIrQDGFaG4WZ3s1kvrOvDjSlVCzk/s400/mask.jpg" width="266" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In North America the feathers of the Bald Eagle formed the almost legendary headdresses of native Indians, but they also made necklaces and tiaras from the feathers of Red-headed Woodpecker, quails and hummingbirds, with one surviving cape being made entirely of the red head-plumes of Acorn Woodpeckers, several thousands of which would have been needed for the purpose. In Central America, the extraordinary blue-green iridescent snaking back-plumes of the Resplendent Quetzal were woven into royal gowns; besides quetzal plumes, the gown belonging to the Aztec king Moctezuma had many hundreds of trochilid feathers, interspersed with tiny platelets of gold.</span>”</div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF0coR1RJ1IQx0r_zSU6quapIdPW8LIAYhKuH9tHg0jIzyd-SDsEK2pmrPsfcYTXXwBLQL0s7W7WZGnHXLB1lq9SHzOdwmILpm9mnt8fBTmNSqcFgaWlaU43dzi2tpIwmnOmIUXHNwG80/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF0coR1RJ1IQx0r_zSU6quapIdPW8LIAYhKuH9tHg0jIzyd-SDsEK2pmrPsfcYTXXwBLQL0s7W7WZGnHXLB1lq9SHzOdwmILpm9mnt8fBTmNSqcFgaWlaU43dzi2tpIwmnOmIUXHNwG80/s320/1.jpg" width="233" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“In South America, many kinds of exquisite feathers were used by native tribes, notably from cotingas, hummingbirds, toucans and parrots: certain tribes made headdresses from the wings of the Hyacinth Macaw, and the Emperors of Brazil had cloaks made from Channel-billed Toucan plumes and mantles made of Guianan Cock-of-the-rock feathers.</span>”</div>
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg70LlrSwue7bHx_0InNJoY51-ufYsGObCHZhwcY5sfp78mQ32pMGbBbc0lNknXenWDGfPirpTdL9y8IPo-JCsX7NA_HUBYz83ho36p5HC1xQ6Yu6879vaWRJH5bGQcq3Dc8dzm8jTIYmw/s1600/6F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg70LlrSwue7bHx_0InNJoY51-ufYsGObCHZhwcY5sfp78mQ32pMGbBbc0lNknXenWDGfPirpTdL9y8IPo-JCsX7NA_HUBYz83ho36p5HC1xQ6Yu6879vaWRJH5bGQcq3Dc8dzm8jTIYmw/s400/6F.jpg" width="267" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">“At the height of the Aztec empire, five provinces which contained cloud-forest were compelled to furnish tributes in the form of as many as 2,480 “bunches” or “handfuls” of mostly tail-streamers from Resplendent Quetzals. If it is assumed that each “handful” contained 10–50 such feathers (four from each bird), this would have meant a harvest of 6,200–31,000 Resplendent Quetzals per year! Even if the lives of the birds were spared (and despite the edict of death on those who killed them, it seems inevitable that a large proportion might have been seriously injured in the capture/plucking process), the figure is still astonishing, and indicates that the species must have been very much more abundant in pre-Columbian times than it is today.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZIRTOYu_-5eNdPADCzQelnN5G0cPLGLAzfLLr7ZQph9u0bwv3RaGcy-t66Gdry0zB8zz2KEdCbI5yPJhWMB7HFk_N7s8fO9S4h5y2Ek5ZwvEJcOtUL8mVZz4lZmkLXQApTEAKYsmPvKM/s1600/8F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZIRTOYu_-5eNdPADCzQelnN5G0cPLGLAzfLLr7ZQph9u0bwv3RaGcy-t66Gdry0zB8zz2KEdCbI5yPJhWMB7HFk_N7s8fO9S4h5y2Ek5ZwvEJcOtUL8mVZz4lZmkLXQApTEAKYsmPvKM/s400/8F.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Elsewhere I learned that Plains Indians obtained feathers for their war bonnets by capturing young eagles from the nest. Once the bird reached maturity they could pluck tail feathers three times, until they no longer grew back, yielding a total of thirty-six feathers. The same nest could be raided annually. I could find no information on the fate of the thrice-plucked birds that could no longer fly but I doubt it was auspicious.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMVVKTvN2DR5ZCxXoFcRL7L39nz2Z-LFu1NSdmynuFZ1aKtwKCLLuW7NPHg4XEsqW-TZXX2hVFVEBzX15XIQDhzWxSlbExbmMK_p3TWUqxJd9yV3QBR7hla0QZxrDPfSnYvf0CruzHsyI/s1600/9F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMVVKTvN2DR5ZCxXoFcRL7L39nz2Z-LFu1NSdmynuFZ1aKtwKCLLuW7NPHg4XEsqW-TZXX2hVFVEBzX15XIQDhzWxSlbExbmMK_p3TWUqxJd9yV3QBR7hla0QZxrDPfSnYvf0CruzHsyI/s400/9F.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>
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<span class="s2">Feathers are still somewhat popular, but nothing today approaches the absolute mania around the turn of the 20th century </span>for exotic feathers - to adorn hats, as well as for fans and other accessories<span class="s2">.</span></div>
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<span class="s2"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4lTBrdSw7oZONysQFUi4ItphiBL10OXhQLaJeHnebqUxEUEJjqD63y9U5jGqsPyk_Djqz6nrZdwNABKbzYmVrLsKu0coxYDS_JXKL319iSsNuRfNzBfKizQWyX_AhqrrGgP2eaZeygA4/s1600/1hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4lTBrdSw7oZONysQFUi4ItphiBL10OXhQLaJeHnebqUxEUEJjqD63y9U5jGqsPyk_Djqz6nrZdwNABKbzYmVrLsKu0coxYDS_JXKL319iSsNuRfNzBfKizQWyX_AhqrrGgP2eaZeygA4/s400/1hat.jpg" width="266" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s2">For that </span><span class="s1">history a wonderful resource can be found at a blog that highlights a traveling museum exhibit, titled “Fashioning Feathers”, which was a collaboration between several artists and scholars.</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi3q2Vntg-vJ7oh3w__bbLOEH8-z2paR8QkNyje1g2xKDXp8Kd9MOU9zIizFhSvWaByqz-cqTMmcId23eOziN6VrpKYRWPsUYGCxXBEZGXi_KPyv6dRRl6DXfnLKrsXcYI7Ja0l2cleVQ/s1600/4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi3q2Vntg-vJ7oh3w__bbLOEH8-z2paR8QkNyje1g2xKDXp8Kd9MOU9zIizFhSvWaByqz-cqTMmcId23eOziN6VrpKYRWPsUYGCxXBEZGXi_KPyv6dRRl6DXfnLKrsXcYI7Ja0l2cleVQ/s400/4.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">That global massacre was only possible because indigenous people were already skilled at trapping or killing birds to obtain their feathers. The hunt for bird of paradise plumage in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and New Guinea was described in 1869 by naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace, who, like Darwin - to whom he proposed the concept of natural selection - was searching for the origin of species. Over eight years he traveled 14,000 miles collecting 125,660 specimens, mainly insects but also birds, plants and animals. Following is an excerpt from the book that chronicled his findings, “The Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-utang and the Bird of Paradise”:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakv37aZGcWuLytv6Ia9IHWgmHk9Ogu8aJno4YGfk4T9f5Izu-ZvxW9NytaTZprl5ijBZOD3Y5G1F4GDq9fzzqeeG6yA62_ksP4bOaeJIDMprprxaGSS0BIsDYj5gR-Asv-ZEILT67Dac/s1600/4F.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjakv37aZGcWuLytv6Ia9IHWgmHk9Ogu8aJno4YGfk4T9f5Izu-ZvxW9NytaTZprl5ijBZOD3Y5G1F4GDq9fzzqeeG6yA62_ksP4bOaeJIDMprprxaGSS0BIsDYj5gR-Asv-ZEILT67Dac/s400/4F.jpg" width="266" /></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">“…the males assemble early in the morning to exhibit themselves in the singular manner already described…This habit enables the natives to obtain specimens with comparative ease. As soon as they find that the birds have fled upon a tree on which to assemble, they build a little shelter of palm leaves in a convenient place among the branches, and the hunter ensconces himself in it before daylight, armed with his bow and a number of arrows terminating in a round knob. A boy waits at the foot of the tree, and when the birds come at sunrise, and a sufficient number have assembled, and have begun to dance, the hunter shoots with his blunt arrow so strongly as to stun the bird, which drops down, and is secured and killed by the boy without its plumage being injured by a drop of blood. The rest take no notice, and fall one after another till some of them take the alarm…The indigenous mode of preserving them is to cut off the wings and feet, and then skin the body up to the beak, taking out the skull. A stout stick is then run up through the specimen coming out at the mouth.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">I’ve put an etching from the book of that scene on my blog, Wit’s End ~</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHZ0QdxCsMOazo_7IbFXpLtzIwqU7aioE2OFroJCd-2WHJRj5wHfTJRsteUm8JG-JKp3uumLol2wmlTc51GGifmJHV9tU63Iws6KPci-Q0E7pUxFtRrQi6qlSQTm-iUN9pSPTLb2ozZ8/s1600/wallace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHZ0QdxCsMOazo_7IbFXpLtzIwqU7aioE2OFroJCd-2WHJRj5wHfTJRsteUm8JG-JKp3uumLol2wmlTc51GGifmJHV9tU63Iws6KPci-Q0E7pUxFtRrQi6qlSQTm-iUN9pSPTLb2ozZ8/s400/wallace.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">The website describes the extent of the “harvest”. The market was worldwide, but the industry centered in the UK:</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="s1">“At the height of the ‘Plume Boom’ in the early part of the 20th century the business of killing birds for the millinery trade was practiced on a large scale, involving the deaths of hundreds of millions of birds in many parts of the world…around 1901-1910, 14,362,000 pounds of exotic feathers were imported into the United Kingdom at a total valuation of £19, 923, 000…The overwhelming majority of egret plumes (at their finest during the breeding season) were obtained by shooting the birds as they nested, with the inevitable result that the young slowly starved to death.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFulKNHd2On2X_blSSIO-5PPPtZfv5_4yO9riwPO5lF1LuzDjrFN3HtP3h0rCJxnAj8K-Uf0NTdr84jmxlYtg6-i3AxMY0NfyzEkSqyf3vrm3nEhMQ5DP48pm7HbhpaQCEAonQpHOYinY/s1600/3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFulKNHd2On2X_blSSIO-5PPPtZfv5_4yO9riwPO5lF1LuzDjrFN3HtP3h0rCJxnAj8K-Uf0NTdr84jmxlYtg6-i3AxMY0NfyzEkSqyf3vrm3nEhMQ5DP48pm7HbhpaQCEAonQpHOYinY/s320/3.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
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Eventually the obscene carnage inspired protest, leading to the formation of the first Audubon Societies and legislation in the US and UK protecting wild birds.</div>
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<span class="s1">And so we read on the website: “W. H. Hudson, a representative of the Society for the Protection of Birds (SPB,) recoiled with horror as he witnessed the sale of 80,000 parrot and 1,700 Bird of Paradise skins late in 1897:</span><span class="s4"> </span><span class="s1"><i>Spread out in Trafalgar Square they would have covered a large proportion of that space with a grass-green carpet, flecked with vivid purple, rose and scarlet</i>.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span></div>
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<span class="s1">It also quotes W. T. Hornaday, author of <i>Our Vanishing Wildlife</i>, published in 1913.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIgYVORYER7Eyct71Tpi6ZyA2BZYwEUyQhkZx6RcI5bI5jylYSBALgBEH-xZ00dWSjJvSRMsIARpi4Kh6rVv5E3t0xCw3k6ZZXzIDq02SU7V2f08BNuKrlAPRm66phmDELvyvkCicVJ_M/s1600/feather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIgYVORYER7Eyct71Tpi6ZyA2BZYwEUyQhkZx6RcI5bI5jylYSBALgBEH-xZ00dWSjJvSRMsIARpi4Kh6rVv5E3t0xCw3k6ZZXzIDq02SU7V2f08BNuKrlAPRm66phmDELvyvkCicVJ_M/s400/feather.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">“From the trackless jungles of New Guinea, round the world both ways to the snow-capped peaks of the Andes, no unprotected bird is safe. The humming-birds of Brazil, the egrets of the world at large, the rare birds of paradise, the toucan, the eagle, the condor and the emu, all are being exterminated to swell the annual profits of the millinery trade. The case is far more serious than the world at large knows, or even suspects. But for the profits, the birds would be safe; and no unprotected wild species can long escape the hounds of Commerce.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">But it was not noble efforts at conservation that finally spared surviving species. A sad footnote records the reason that millionaire ostrich farmers in Australia lost their mansions, some driven to suicide by the bubble collapse:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIvaOOpONFDkVSHU0nt9uSEdP_FEY8MO_xASkjWU96eh4Opqz2w1slof6l9PB-B_stXsy5iIGLS2qps6eblzULrvtGpHfLrCSi5Hoxt86Fyb6dCDS9phGMQfyUB-PyeR8lSaujU_yGZYs/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIvaOOpONFDkVSHU0nt9uSEdP_FEY8MO_xASkjWU96eh4Opqz2w1slof6l9PB-B_stXsy5iIGLS2qps6eblzULrvtGpHfLrCSi5Hoxt86Fyb6dCDS9phGMQfyUB-PyeR8lSaujU_yGZYs/s400/1.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">“Yet, as absurd as it may sound, it was really a fashionable new hairstyle that ultimately saved the birds. In 1913, the bob and other short hairstyles were introduced—cuts which would not support large extravagant hats. Plain slouch hats and ‘cloches’ became very popular, and it was for this reason that most plume-hunters were forced to abandon their trade.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKI3tbiGVCg-8ohRMyL6s25PE9i6TrDqp96SCv41eemGqT0mP-xkBfGPfQqp1JQUA3iZYIDAI2rM0nIHB8mbWJGIgfi4CdPbVt73IdQLqUYcpMx3YNpzD9EM5fu6IrYQPJPhn9ynOSKw/s1600/5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpKI3tbiGVCg-8ohRMyL6s25PE9i6TrDqp96SCv41eemGqT0mP-xkBfGPfQqp1JQUA3iZYIDAI2rM0nIHB8mbWJGIgfi4CdPbVt73IdQLqUYcpMx3YNpzD9EM5fu6IrYQPJPhn9ynOSKw/s400/5.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Feathers have been symbols of eternal life, ascension, and wisdom in many cultures. An inscription on a Egyptian tomb from nearly 3500 years ago is translated “May I walk every day unceasing on the banks of my water, may my soul rest on the branches of the trees which I have planted, may I refresh myself in the shadow of my sycamore.” But in those days, it was believed that after death, the Goddess Ma’at would weigh the purity of a soul’s heart, and only those lighter than the white feather of truth would reach the afterlife.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9eWzUgYJ_Q4cXHX-XNhGodM4Y0gMv1NmMLkaE3Ud6dJLRniEKz0hzfbJoqV7quSiLR2Yn3wEoO82U3qP0KGlgBPJfSVe2kXE_7fw-_zlADkMWYFqe96_k0AS1WltuVKkKzaBvO9tsnZ4/s1600/2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9eWzUgYJ_Q4cXHX-XNhGodM4Y0gMv1NmMLkaE3Ud6dJLRniEKz0hzfbJoqV7quSiLR2Yn3wEoO82U3qP0KGlgBPJfSVe2kXE_7fw-_zlADkMWYFqe96_k0AS1WltuVKkKzaBvO9tsnZ4/s320/2.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">One of Emily Dickinson’s most beloved poems begins with the line, <i>“Hope” is the thing with feathers - that perches in the soul.</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBEi3dmKVt2F6BSTO4uddYJCRG3ZjCtjtuzsKLjtBTwnp57ObBmb9mJPXbd6onVIaQlMZjH56eEGmcT7tYl8jXU32_HZrt5ohULEzjMDVmicQI0ZXXL5ltABGU1lr_CO4T8N3IoIgRxNw/s1600/1f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBEi3dmKVt2F6BSTO4uddYJCRG3ZjCtjtuzsKLjtBTwnp57ObBmb9mJPXbd6onVIaQlMZjH56eEGmcT7tYl8jXU32_HZrt5ohULEzjMDVmicQI0ZXXL5ltABGU1lr_CO4T8N3IoIgRxNw/s400/1f.jpg" width="301" /></a></div>
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It was very disappointing to me to find that so many reviews, even very sophisticated critiques, take it to be a childlike affirmation of the value of hope in the human experience. Almost without exception readers depict her portrayal of hope as sentimental, if not saccharin trope. But, it seems to me that her self-imposed exile from society was at least partly related to her refusal to accede to the strong familial pressure to accept the religious fervor of her time. She eschewed hope and eternal salvation through a deity in favor of a devout pagan worship of nature, and instead embraced a stubborn delight in the natural world, and a felicitous desire to experience life as it is. As a subtle but profound sense of irony wends through her oeuvre, and a playful mockery of dogmatism, I imagine her reflection on “Hope” was intended to be sardonic. When it is unrealistic, which it so often is, hope is an inescapable, stifling trap that humanity can never escape - and I suspect that Emily was shrewd enough to know that.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaCBRp08VPE_xIZZUsr2J9wPPAJ0jWm8NNXKAbTmP0eqo10GHxc2ZAtce4lkgW7m1h3xbFDDgcw3-tzT2CaNwcIJnCY4VkUe88V6qjW3ELVofWMrHFEPPINRJclOXDxv0F_Py9G3zUWC4/s1600/2f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaCBRp08VPE_xIZZUsr2J9wPPAJ0jWm8NNXKAbTmP0eqo10GHxc2ZAtce4lkgW7m1h3xbFDDgcw3-tzT2CaNwcIJnCY4VkUe88V6qjW3ELVofWMrHFEPPINRJclOXDxv0F_Py9G3zUWC4/s400/2f.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">I thought I was alone in this interpretation until finally I came across author Derek Murphy, who wrote the following on his unique and intriguing blog, <i>Holy Blasphemy</i>: “Emily Dickinson strikes me very much like Camus’ character in<i> The Stranger. </i>Facing death for murder, a preacher comes to save him, and he yells, “leave me alone! I don’t have much time left, I want to focus on this life, not the next!” (Or something like that, I’m paraphrasing and it’s been awhile since I’ve read it.) A common mistake is to take each of her poems separately and tug out a stand-alone meaning. In this way the body of work Emily produced can mean anything to anybody. But taken at face value, and read collectively, Emily’s anti-organized religion stance and outspoken blasphemy is clear.”</span></div>
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I will leave a link to that post with the only others I located that venture into the darker side of Dickinson, on my blog for anyone interested to read more. Thanks for listening to this Dispatch from the Endocene.</div>
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<a href="https://www.themedicalbag.com/bodymodstory/pucker-up-lip-plating-still-in-vogue-in-remote-tribal-villages">https://www.themedicalbag.com/bodymodstory/pucker-up-lip-plating-still-in-vogue-in-remote-tribal-villages</a></div>
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snails</div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27ahu_tree_snail">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27ahu_tree_snail</a></div>
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<br /></div>
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nautilus shells</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/should-we-stop-selling-nautilus-shells/">http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/extinction-countdown/should-we-stop-selling-nautilus-shells/</a></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/thefeatherplace/indigenous-feathers-native-american-mayan-aztec-tr/">https://www.pinterest.com/thefeatherplace/indigenous-feathers-native-american-mayan-aztec-tr/<span class="s5"></span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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funny - appropriating native headressess</div>
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<a href="http://nativeappropriations.com/2010/04/the-hipster-headdress-abounds-at-coachella.html">http://nativeappropriations.com/2010/04/the-hipster-headdress-abounds-at-coachella.html</a></div>
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<a href="http://nativeappropriations.com/2010/02/the-strange-case-of-the-hipster-headdress.html">http://nativeappropriations.com/2010/02/the-strange-case-of-the-hipster-headdress.html</a></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/1837578/why-you-should-not-wear-headdresses/">http://www.mtv.com/news/1837578/why-you-should-not-wear-headdresses/</a></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="http://nativeappropriations.com/2010/04/but-why-cant-i-wear-a-hipster-headdress.html">http://nativeappropriations.com/2010/04/but-why-cant-i-wear-a-hipster-headdress.html<span class="s5"></span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">Eagle, war bonnet: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_bonnet"><span class="s5">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_bonnet</span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1">BirdLife International:</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sowb/casestudy/94">http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sowb/casestudy/94</a></div>
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<span class="s1">quetzetl, Aztec: </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sowb/casestudy/93">http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/sowb/casestudy/93<span class="s5"></span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Museum Exhibit on feathers:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://fashioningfeathersdotcom.wordpress.com/murderous-millinery/"><span class="s5">https://fashioningfeathersdotcom.wordpress.com/murderous-millinery/</span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1">Egypt: <span class="s5"><a href="http://www.ancient.eu/article/42/">http://www.ancient.eu/article/42/</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="s1">photos: https://www.pinterest.com/thefeatherplace/vintage-feathers/</span></div>
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<span class="s1">more on Emily:</span></div>
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<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
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A 2010 post from me, about Emily Dickinson and her poems about the garden and nature:</div>
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http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2010/06/emily-dickinson-and-language-of-flowers.html</div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="s5"><a href="http://www.holyblasphemy.net/the-poetry-of-atheism-emily-dickinson-celebrates-international-blasphemy-day/">http://www.holyblasphemy.net/the-poetry-of-atheism-emily-dickinson-celebrates-international-blasphemy-day/</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="https://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/was-emily-dickinson-an-atheist/">https://santitafarella.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/was-emily-dickinson-an-atheist/<span class="s5"></span></a></span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><a href="http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/emily.htm">http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/emily.htm</a></span></div>
Gail Zawackihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01800944469843206253noreply@blogger.com7