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Post by castanea on Apr 6, 2012 18:47:04 GMT -5
I promised myself I wouldn't do another post on this topic. This is it. Soapbox I don't care much about island ecosystems, they are rather fragile, ephemeral, and transitory to start with, since islands tend to arise nearly lifeless from the water and then to erode back into the waves. That's a great recipe for creating new species, but its a bugger for keeping them around. If island species are of value, the best way I can imagine for preserving them is the wholesale export of their ecosystems to the mainland. This is just wrong. You are welcome to your continental biases, but that's all they are. Islands don't just arise lifeless from the water, then erode back into the waves - Australia, Papua Newguinea, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Greenland, Madagascar, New Caledonia, New Britain etc etc. (Do I detect a teensy hint of North American myopia in his assertions he self righteously thinks...) The shield areas of Western Australia are the oldest rocks on the surface of the earth. The 40 million year lineage of australian ecosystems is hardly ephemeral. As for the experiment on Ascension - who is to say that what exists there now is actually more desirable than what was there before the British navy started meddling? I'd prefer the original, thanks. Darwin didn't get everything right. Stop fiddling with ecosystems, just leave 'em alone to get on with their own business, at their own pace, instead of trying to 'improve' them. That just seems so presumptuous. (promises self - I will NOT get sucked into this debate again... ) T I think Joseph was referring to very small islands. But from my prespective, it has nothing to do with "improving" anything. It's simply what I like and what I want to do. I am not trying to make judgment calls about plants and animals. I have my own ideas about what I want to plant and I am OK with other people having their own ideas. I just don't want them enforcing their ideas on me out of some completely fictitious attempt at morality. It's generally the folks who fixate on a certain place in time and in space who make judgments about what should be growing in that space at that time. Then they make more judgments about how it's OK for a bird or the wind to spread seeds but not for humans. Then they try to put Joseph and me in jail because we have different opinions about what we want to plant than those who are fantasizing that nature has moral rules for the propagation of life. Nature has no moral rules about the propagation of life forms. Human beings are free to have their own personal opinions about what they like, but that's all it is - their personal opinion. Nature does not care whether human beings or birds cover New Zealand with kudzu seeds.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 6, 2012 19:12:38 GMT -5
It's generally the folks who fixate on a certain place in time and in space who make judgments about what should be growing in that space at that time. Then they make more judgments about how it's OK for a bird or the wind to spread seeds but not for humans. Then they try to put Joseph and me in jail because we have different opinions about what we want to plant than those who are fantasizing that nature has moral rules for the propagation of life. Oh my heck! No wonder I love this group... Y'all are constantly teaching me. This gets to the heart of what drives my dislike for the "natives only" philosophy. It is usually extended to threatening violence against me to collect taxes to buy poison and pay labor to destroy plants and animals that I have no reason to believe are causing harm to me nor to anything else... Or seed is stolen from me at the border.... Or violence is threatened against my neighbors to coerce them to cut so-called weeds... Then there is all the human and biotic collateral damage caused by the eradication chemicals and processes.
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Post by castanea on Apr 6, 2012 19:26:51 GMT -5
It's generally the folks who fixate on a certain place in time and in space who make judgments about what should be growing in that space at that time. Then they make more judgments about how it's OK for a bird or the wind to spread seeds but not for humans. Then they try to put Joseph and me in jail because we have different opinions about what we want to plant than those who are fantasizing that nature has moral rules for the propagation of life. Oh my heck! No wonder I love this group... Y'all are constantly teaching me. This gets to the heart of what drives my dislike for the "natives only" philosophy. It is usually extended to threatening violence against me to collect taxes to buy poison and pay labor to destroy plants and animals that I have no reason to believe are causing harm to me nor to anything else... Or seed is stolen from me at the border.... Or violence is threatened against my neighbors to coerce them to cut so-called weeds... Once you give people power, they ALWAYS abuse it and they ALWAYS make stupid decisions. I can't bring in seed of Ipomoea aquatica because the plant has annoyed some people in the southeastern US. So why exactly is it prohibited for those of us outside the southeast? Ipomoea aquatica is a very nutritious food source widely grown all over southeast Asia (funny how it hasn't destroyed those countries yet). It cannot reproduce in areas with short summers, cold winters, or cool summers. So why can't I grow it?
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bertiefox
gardener
There's always tomorrow!
Posts: 236
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Post by bertiefox on Apr 7, 2012 5:34:56 GMT -5
In general terms plant and animal species spread around the planet by their own means, but VERY slowly. What has created each crisis is the human intervention which brings seeds in imported produce, insects in swarms on ships, and fungal diseases in materials flown in on people's shoes and clothes. Eventually, the spread of some extremely lethal organism will cause some pandemic which will take out a half or so of the world's human population as a result. So I think the argument that penguins could be brought to the Arctic or kangeroos to North America or whatever is fundamentally flawed. Ecosystems usually adjust slowly over thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years. With human intervention it can create major changes in a decade or so, leading to species extinctions. As human beings are the agents of these changes, they also have a responsibility to be the custodians of the ecosystems in which they live. Of course the world and various ecosystems will all adjust to some 'balance' in the future, no matter what we do, but it will be a balance in a world much impoverished by the loss of a myriad of species, families, and sub species.
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Post by MikeH on Apr 7, 2012 6:32:10 GMT -5
Some nice humour in this thread - kangaroos in body cavities. What exactly are you growing on your property, steev? And some cute hyperbole. While I agree with Joseph that we can't know what is the "right" natural system because it is not static, even without our presence, I completely and totally disagree with him when he says "that more diversity is always an improvement ". While this is difficult to argue with, "moving species to new areas is a noble undertaking" implies carte blanche to do whatever the hell we want to the Natural World under the noble banner of increasing biodiversity. Wherever we have stuck our fingers in, we have screwed it up. That seems to be a case for less is better. It seems to me that treading lightly on the land is a more noble, and safer, undertaking.
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Post by castanea on Apr 7, 2012 10:40:31 GMT -5
In general terms plant and animal species spread around the planet by their own means, but VERY slowly. What has created each crisis is the human intervention which brings seeds in imported produce, insects in swarms on ships, and fungal diseases in materials flown in on people's shoes and clothes. But from the perspective of nature, there has never been a crisis. Anywhere. At any time. The concept of a "crisis" exists only within the personal opinions of human beings and every single human being on earth will have different opinions about what a "crisis" might be. You have decided there are certain results you do not like from plant introductions and use the word "crisis" to describe them. Fine. That is your right. But that is just your opinion. Nature also does not care about time. Human beings care about time. Nature does not care whether a savanah is turned into a forest in 50 years or 5000 years. Humans may or may not care, because every single lving human has a different opinion and that's all they are - opinions. It's very clear that major extinctions in the world have occurred very quickly as a result of cataclysmic earth changes. The end of the last ice age resulted in widespread loss of species. Ecosystems may adjust rapidly when these types of massive earth changes occur, but again, nature does not care and other species have replaced the lost species. Nature does not care whether it took 50 years or 5000 years. Only human beings become personally obsessed by these changes. Nature does not care.
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Post by orflo on Apr 7, 2012 14:59:24 GMT -5
This will be locked until further notice...
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Post by johno on Apr 10, 2012 8:58:20 GMT -5
Unlocked now.
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Post by steev on Apr 10, 2012 21:23:07 GMT -5
Returning to earlier speculation, what I am growing on my land is nobody's business but my own. I will only say that were it transported to Mars, it would not displace native species. I will unleash it (no, that sounds harsh); I will reveal it to a wondering Earth when the time is ripe. Bwaahaha!
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Post by castanea on Apr 10, 2012 21:32:53 GMT -5
Returning to earlier speculation, what I am growing on my land is nobody's business but my own. I will only say that were it transported to Mars, it would not displace native species. I will unleash it (no, that sounds harsh); I will reveal it to a wondering Earth when the time is ripe. Bwaahaha! Unfortunately Mars appears to be too dry for kudzu, but seaberry might do OK.
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Post by MikeH on Apr 11, 2012 5:20:23 GMT -5
After I posted my comments in the Disappearing Bee population thread, I started thinking about how they relate to this thread. Apis mellifera is a species introduced to North America. It would seem to be a beneficial introduction. The introduction may have come at a cost; I don't know. Nonetheless, the positive benefits of Apis mellifera are huge. On the other hand, there has been extreme cost associated with the introduction of the parasitic mites varroa destructor and Acarapis woodi (Rennie), and to a lesser degree, the invasive species, A. mellifera scutellata. Apis mellifera might argue that the statement every plant and animal is welcome to live wherever it finds a micro-environment that meets it's needs is highly risky, perhaps even dangerous. I'm not an native-species-only purist by any measure. I believe in introducing as much biodiversity as I can, even some species considered to be invasive (purple loosestrife, black locust, autumn olive) in order to help counteract the ongoing and increasing destruction of habitat. Notwithstanding, I am very cautious and concerned about upsetting the Natural Balance.
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Post by castanea on Apr 11, 2012 8:48:39 GMT -5
After I posted my comments in the Disappearing Bee population thread, I started thinking about how they relate to this thread. Apis mellifera is a species introduced to North America. It would seem to be a beneficial introduction. The introduction may have come at a cost; I don't know. Nonetheless, the positive benefits of Apis mellifera are huge. On the other hand, there has been extreme cost associated with the introduction of the parasitic mites varroa destructor and Acarapis woodi (Rennie), and to a lesser degree, the invasive species, A. mellifera scutellata. Apis mellifera might argue that the statement every plant and animal is welcome to live wherever it finds a micro-environment that meets it's needs is highly risky, perhaps even dangerous. I'm not an native-species-only purist by any measure. I believe in introducing as much biodiversity as I can, even some species considered to be invasive (purple loosestrife, black locust, autumn olive) in order to help counteract the ongoing and increasing destruction of habitat. Notwithstanding, I am very cautious and concerned about upsetting the Natural Balance. The concept of a natural balance is a concept fabricated by humans. A natural balance in reality is simply whatever exists at any given time. The concept of "cost" exists only in tne eyes of humans. Cost is in reality simply change, and there is always change. Life on earth is a history of change.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 11, 2012 9:31:32 GMT -5
After I posted my comments in the Disappearing Bee population thread, I started thinking about how they relate to this thread. Apis mellifera is a species introduced to North America. It would seem to be a beneficial introduction. The introduction may have come at a cost; I don't know. Nonetheless, the positive benefits of Apis mellifera are huge. I don't know if there is any way to measure whether the introduction of the honeybee to the Americas is objectively beneficial... I don't even know how one would go about defining what a benefit is... Or how we would calculate the detrimental effects they might be having on the Americas. Have the plants here changed to the detriment of wild bees? Are the honeybees taking too many resources that the wild bees depend on? I'm certain that other species are capable of pollinating the California Almond crop if they were allowed to. So I'll resort to metaphysics: More diversity is better. I agree that a huge contributor to colony collapse disorder is the commercialization of the queen rearing process which promotes weak unhealthy bees, just like the commercialization of seeds produces weak non-resilient cultivars of plants.
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Post by steev on Apr 11, 2012 10:43:56 GMT -5
Regarding the almond's pollination: I doubt other species would take up the slack if honeybees weren't available. I think it's a question of resources available to be brought to bear on the task. The problem, as I see it, is that the almonds are a time-limited demand that has been blown out of naturally-solvable dimensions; populations of other pollinators are not available on stand-by, nor can they multiply rapidly enough to satisfy the demand. As with other monocropping agribusiness, the sheer unnaturalness of the situation demands very artificial measures to sustain it.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Apr 11, 2012 16:37:56 GMT -5
Regarding almonds; if low cost honey bee pollination was not available, then I suspect that farmers would find some other solution: They would domesticate other pollinators, or they would leave fallow strips for other pollinators to thrive, or they would modify the ground cover, or they would modify their spray schedules to not harm other pollinators, or they would not mono-crop so extensively... Something would be worked out, it's not like it's necessary to use honey bees, it's just economic at this time.
I wonder if there would be any economy in trucking domesticated mason bees around the country in the same way that honey bees are currently moved?
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