Netiquette swearing query....
Graham Burnett
I've used the 'ef' word a couple of times on this ng & have recieved no flak
for that- but I've noted others use f*** (asterisks)- please advise of
protocol, as I wouldn't want to offend others, but on the other hand
(personally) find the asterisks a bit twee & coy when we all know what they
mean and we're all adults (it's like the beeps on Jerry Springer at 3 am
which are a real wind up), personally I'd rather just swear if that's what I
mean...
This isn't a sarcastic mailing, but a genuine attempt to understand the
ground rules...
Cheers,
Graham
Myk Rushton
What, you! swear? I'd never of thought it ;->
I supposed masking swear words such as F********** :-) we can say what we
want but no offend others out right. I have no objections either way.
> It's like the beeps on Jerry Springer at 3 am
> which are a real wind up),
Early morning worship of the telly godz hey? :-)
Myk
--
Higham
'golly gosh' it is their choice and their style.
The first is in the dictionary, the second could be fart and the third (also in
the dictionary) as both euphemisms for God. So, f*** is probably extremely
safe as it could be fart and the first and last could offend either the more
'conservative' (to borrow Tara's phrase) or fundamantalist Christians. Perhaps
the choice is lack of clarity or who to offend??? I dont care what expletive is
used, I think it's more important what is said and why.
This is an unmoderated ng and (given our latest skirmish) I guess if anyone
objects strongly enough to what anyone says or does then it is up to them to
take a stance and have their say. Whether anyone agrees with them or not is
another matter.
As for you having already used the 'ef' word here in posts, then I didn't even
notice and I think I've managed to see all of them since you joined.
Fran
John Neale Baraclough
from "Graham Burnett" <gbur...@unisonfree.net> contains these words:
> Just a query...
> I've used the 'ef' word a couple of times on this ng & have recieved no flak
> for that- but I've noted others use f*** (asterisks)- please advise of
> protocol, as I wouldn't want to offend others, but on the other hand
> (personally) find the asterisks a bit twee & coy when we all know what they
> mean and we're all adults
Really? I thought it was only pubescent boys who say fuck a lot in
public... the asterisk lot must be the real hard core guys.
Yawn.....
Janet
Keltic
<janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> Really? I thought it was only pubescent boys who say fuck a lot in
>public... the asterisk lot must be the real hard core guys.
Well, no... I'm in my thirties and swear plenty. It's no more a sign
of maturity or intelligence than the area you grew up in or the
clothes you wear.
Cheers, Keltic
John Neale Baraclough
from Keltic <kel...@SPAM.zip.com.au> contains these words:
You said it :-)
Janet
Keltic
<janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>The message <411tlssan6999ei1s...@4ax.com>
> from Keltic <kel...@SPAM.zip.com.au> contains these words:
>> Well, no... I'm in my thirties and swear plenty. It's no more a sign
>> of maturity or intelligence than the area you grew up in or the
>> clothes you wear.
> You said it :-)
Not quite sure which way you mean that, Janet :)
The expanded version of my comment above is that I grew up in an area
of Sydney that, supposedly, produces little but crime and violence. I
swear a lot, particularly when narked. That being said, I've made the
honour list two years running, and I know plenty of similar people
with similar achievements. I don't see swearing as any way indicative
of a person's intelligence.
Cheers, Keltic
Graham Burnett
> swear a lot, particularly when narked. That being said, I've made the
Oh narked- I thought you said naked when I first read this :-)
Keltic
LOL! Well, that too :)
Cheers, Keltic
John Neale Baraclough
from Keltic <kel...@SPAM.zip.com.au> contains these words:
> On Sun, 2 Jul 2000 02:41:07 +0100, John Neale Baraclough
> <janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >The message <411tlssan6999ei1s...@4ax.com>
> > from Keltic <kel...@SPAM.zip.com.au> contains these words:
> >> Well, no... I'm in my thirties and swear plenty. It's no more a sign
> >> of maturity or intelligence than the area you grew up in or the
> >> clothes you wear.
> > You said it :-)
> Not quite sure which way you mean that, Janet :)
You're pretty confuded all round :-)
> The expanded version of my comment above is that I grew up in an area
> of Sydney that, supposedly, produces little but crime and violence. I
> swear a lot, particularly when narked.
My city is Glasgow, they don't come much tougher, and among some of
its denizens fuck is used every other word, even by 3 year olds.That
is sheer poverty of imagination and expression.I swear when I hammer
my thumb ; there's some point to that.I'd draw a distinction between
what I call swearing, an understandable knee jerk expression of
anger and frustration, and the mindless repeated use of the same word
for no particular reason when another would express the idea more precisely.
I don't see swearing as any way indicative
> of a person's intelligence.
Do you ever vary your vocabulary...when you're with a child, or your
grandmother, or writing a business report? Intelligent people are
capable of adapting their vocabulary to their audience and using
appropriate language for different circumstances.
In writing to a ng,we aren't talking about swearing as a response to
a minor crisis; there's a degree of deliberation about all replies
(very obviously, when Graham offers not to say fuck if it isn't
accepted protocol, and others carefully substitute asterisks).In this
situation, when we're trying to communicate subtleties across
different cultures, I maintain that a person of intelligence and
education can choose better than a dull expletive.If they don't,
that indicates a certain intellectual lack of subtlety.
Janet
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
<gbur...@unisonfree.net> wrote:
>Just a query...
>
>I've used the 'ef' word a couple of times on this ng & have recieved no flak
>for that- but I've noted others use f*** (asterisks)- please advise of
>protocol, as I wouldn't want to offend others
>, but on the other hand
>(personally) find the asterisks a bit twee & coy when we all know what they
>mean and we're all adults (it's like the beeps on Jerry Springer at 3 am
If you watch that garbage you are definitely in need of help.
>which are a real wind up), personally I'd rather just swear if that's what I
>mean...
>This isn't a sarcastic mailing, but a genuine attempt to understand the
>ground rules...
The ground rules were established for all time when this newsgroup was
created:
alt.permaculture: Statement of Purpose
-------------------------------------------------------------
Section 2. Usage Guidelines
Item 3: Netiquette in alt.permaculture
Rule 5: If you must swear, do it in Latin.
LL
Lawrence F. London, Jr. Venaura Farm ICQ#27930345
lflo...@mindspring.com lon...@metalab.unc.edu
metalab.unc.edu/intergarden InterGarden
metalab.unc.edu/permaculture PermaSphere
metalab.unc.edu/intergarden/orgfarm AGINFO
Keltic
<janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Do you ever vary your vocabulary...when you're with a child, or your
>grandmother, or writing a business report? Intelligent people are
>capable of adapting their vocabulary to their audience and using
>appropriate language for different circumstances.
Of course. However, I'm referring to my most common "voice". I'll
moderate myself for "special" situations, and my written
communication, unless I happen to be writing fiction, is much more
formal and complex.
>different cultures, I maintain that a person of intelligence and
>education can choose better than a dull expletive.If they don't,
>that indicates a certain intellectual lack of subtlety.
But is subtlety an intellectual measure? What you've described above
isn't, for me at least, an issue of subtlety. It's an issue of
adaptability or vocabulary. Even then, I wouldn't necessarily see a
lack of vocabulary as a mark of low intelligence either. My father,
for example, was only schooled up until the age of ten. He might not
know the jargon to explain how a certain piece of machinery or a
system works, but I don't know of anyone with a better grasp of such
things as him.
As a side issue... Glasgow... does anything actually *grow* that far
north? :)
Cheers, Keltic
Tara Deen
personal choice. I choose not to swear (but I'm a snob, and I admit it
;-) ), but I have no desire to stop other people from doing so. My
husband swears. Regularly. My objection is similar to Janet's: the
poverty of one's vocabulary shown.
Having said that, I'm not sure I'm smart enough to swear in latin! ;-)
Tara
--
______________________________________________________
Tara Deen
School of Earth Sciences
Division of Geology and Geophysics
Building FO5
University of Sydney NSW 2006
Phone: 61-2-9351 4271
Fax: 61-2-9351 0184
email: ta...@es.usyd.edu.au
______________________________________________________
Keltic
wrote:
>Having said that, I'm not sure I'm smart enough to swear in latin! ;-)
It's easy... when I was a computer techie (in another lifetime :) ) I
had a sign hanging over my desk that read "Phage copro et expire".
Luckily enough, the boss didn't understand it.
Some of our expletives come from latin (including, I think, the one
that starts with "C" that seems to offend almost everyone), but from
memory a lot of them have Saxon roots. I remember reading somewhere
that the Saxon words were used in common parlance until the Normans
invaded and decided that they were far too uncouth for genteel persons
to use, at which point they became swearwords.
Cheers, Keltic
Tara Deen
Even I understand Phage copro et expire. Guess I did too much Biology,
Geology and Palaeontology not to understand latin. ;-)
I've heard before that a lot of profanities have Saxon roots. I used to
have this great old bush poem about expletives and their less offensive
substitutes: I can only remember the line "The Angles and Saxons, those
bawdy old birds/Used far more common words...". It was hilarious.
Hmmm....wonder if I still have that, tucked away somewhere...
John Neale Baraclough
from Keltic <kel...@SPAM.zip.com.au> contains these words:
> Of course. However, I'm referring to my most common "voice". I'll
> moderate myself for "special" situations, and my written
> communication, unless I happen to be writing fiction, is much more
> formal and complex.
So, are ng's written or spoken language?
> I maintain that a person of intelligence and
> >education can choose better than a dull expletive.If they don't,
> >that indicates a certain intellectual lack of subtlety.
> But is subtlety an intellectual measure?
Whyever not,when I used it in that context?It means, fine discrimination.
What you've described above
> isn't, for me at least, an issue of subtlety. It's an issue of
> adaptability or vocabulary.
I think both ideas and their expression can be subtle, but if you
don't, tant pis.
> As a side issue... Glasgow... does anything actually *grow* that far
> north? :)
Oh, not a celtic Keltic then?
Even further north, Inverewe, Findhorn, Achiltibuie,Castle of Mey,
the Caledonian Forest.Look them up, especially if you like
subtropical plants and palms, biodynamics, hydroponic solar bananas,
Queen Mum's garden, and the most beautiful landscape in the world :-)
Or I'll show you mine
http://www.tmac.clara.co.uk/janets/janets01.htm
Janet
Tara Deen
All I can say is, wow! Wish I had that!
What a beautiful garden. How many different habitats do you have in
there? I counted woodland, flower meadow, vege garden. Have any more?
Keltic
<janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> So, are ng's written or spoken language?
Obviously, the format is written. However, it's equally obvious that
the voice that people employ on usenet varies widely. Some use a
voice that would seem to be very close to colloquial or informal
usage, others are very formal. I'm somewhere in the middle, depending
on mood, phase of the moon and the newsgroup I happen to be
frequenting at the time.
Anyways, I don't think we're going to find any common ground here,
which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Opinions vary an every subject
under the sun.
> Oh, not a celtic Keltic then?
Hell no :) About as far from the auld sod as you can be without being
a scientist or a penguin :) Near Sydney. Rainy and windy Sydney, at
the moment. Where plants have gone up 10% in price overnight, as I
discovered when we wandered up to the nursery on Sunday.
Cheers, keltic
Keltic
wrote:
>Even I understand Phage copro et expire. Guess I did too much Biology,
>Geology and Palaeontology not to understand latin. ;-)
Handy stuff to know, anyway - helps you work out the meaning of words
you don't necessarily know. My boss, however, had no soul. Only ever
studied economics and computing, neither of them in any great depth.
>bawdy old birds/Used far more common words...". It was hilarious.
>Hmmm....wonder if I still have that, tucked away somewhere...
If you have, a copy would be great...sounds like fun :)
Cheers, Keltic
John Neale Baraclough
from Keltic <kel...@SPAM.zip.com.au> contains these words:
> On Mon, 3 Jul 2000 03:07:40 +0100, John Neale Baraclough
> <janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> > So, are ng's written or spoken language?
> Obviously, the format is written. However, it's equally obvious that
> the voice that people employ on usenet varies widely.
We write and edit our own scripts here.
Some use a
> voice that would seem to be very close to colloquial or informal
> usage, others are very formal.
Just as other media news or discussion is a scripted,
directed,edited and carefully presented version of something that we
haven't usually seen in real life, (sometimes almost unrecognisable
to anyone who did), people on the net present a self edited version
of themselves.There's some variation in how aware they are of doing
that, how deliberate it is, and what skills they have. It's for the
rest of us to judge if we're seeing an honest documentary, a soap
opera or a party political broadcast :-)
Janet
John Neale Baraclough
from Tara Deen <ta...@es.usyd.edu.au> contains these words:
> Janet,
> All I can say is, wow! Wish I had that!
> What a beautiful garden. How many different habitats do you have in
> there? I counted woodland, flower meadow, vege garden. Have any more?
Thankyou. We've also got hedgerows,small copses (nuts and fruit)
and drystonewalls (hideout/pathway for many small animals and birds,
where lichens grow..for Myk, lichens are a natural indicator of air
purity).What's missing is a pond; I'd love one but finding a
convincing location is difficult on a hillside,and we have no way to
fill it except rain or buckets.Much of the wildlife associated with
pond habitats is just over the back wall in the moorland bog, or in
the river across the road, so at least we get the borrowed spinoff.
Janet
Reedbed
> convincing location is difficult on a hillside,and we have no way to
> fill it except rain or buckets.Much of the wildlife associated with
> pond habitats is just over the back wall in the moorland bog, or in
> the river across the road, so at least we get the borrowed spinoff.
A series of ponds, terraced into a slope, gives lots of creative
possibilities.
Any possibility of using a hydraulic ram to pump the river water up to your
pond ?
Mark
Higham
> Thankyou. We've also got hedgerows,small copses (nuts and fruit)
> and drystonewalls
I'd love to have a drystone wall but they make such lovely snake houses.
> (hideout/pathway for many small animals and birds,
> where lichens grow..for Myk, lichens are a natural indicator of air
> purity).
We have lichen growing on our 4 year old birches at our otherplace. The
old farmer complains about the lichen on his garden trees as he thinks it's
an indicator of how slow growing the trees are and is not consoled by our
comments about air purity.
> What's missing is a pond; I'd love one but finding a
> convincing location is difficult on a hillside,and we have no way to
> fill it except rain or buckets.Much of the wildlife associated with
> pond habitats is just over the back wall in the moorland bog,
What about a rill with a small pond/bog garden at the lowest point. Any
way of syphoning/overflow/directing some of the bog water into a tiny rill
to enlarge the bog habitat?
> or in
> the river across the road, so at least we get the borrowed spinoff.
So that's where you get your eye of newt!
Fran
Keltic
<janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
>that, how deliberate it is, and what skills they have. It's for the
>rest of us to judge if we're seeing an honest documentary, a soap
>opera or a party political broadcast :-)
Or, as seems to be the case from time to time, a psychotic episode :)
Second the comments above BTW, a very nice looking property. Looks
lovely and lush - I presume you get fairly good rainfall?
Cheers, Keltic
Wesley Trotman
Love your place, thanks for the peek.
Is that a black and white cow lying in the middle field?
Wes.
John Neale Baraclough <janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:200007030...@zetnet.co.uk...
> The message <h0hvlsc5td81ke4c4...@4ax.com>
> from Keltic <kel...@SPAM.zip.com.au> contains these words:
>
> > Of course. However, I'm referring to my most common "voice". I'll
> > moderate myself for "special" situations, and my written
> > communication, unless I happen to be writing fiction, is much more
> > formal and complex.
>
> So, are ng's written or spoken language?
>
> > I maintain that a person of intelligence and
> > >education can choose better than a dull expletive.If they don't,
> > >that indicates a certain intellectual lack of subtlety.
>
> > But is subtlety an intellectual measure?
>
> Whyever not,when I used it in that context?It means, fine
discrimination.
>
> What you've described above
> > isn't, for me at least, an issue of subtlety. It's an issue of
> > adaptability or vocabulary.
>
> I think both ideas and their expression can be subtle, but if you
> don't, tant pis.
>
> > As a side issue... Glasgow... does anything actually *grow* that far
> > north? :)
>
> Oh, not a celtic Keltic then?
>
Wesley Trotman
havent seen any drop.
It seems that any items from which you make or build with have gone up in
price, food and consumer goods have come down in price, we try and grow a
lot of our food and try and not need consumer items. So its all going the
wrong way.
Wes.
Keltic <kel...@SPAM.zip.com.au> wrote in message
news:9950ms8ug40ou983j...@4ax.com...
>
Snip
Tara Deen
not enough food, TVs, stereos, jewellery, luxury cars, beluga caviar,
etc....
And just wait until your rates, power and phone bills come in, with 10%
added!
John Neale Baraclough
from Keltic <kel...@SPAM.zip.com.au> contains these words:
Looks
> lovely and lush - I presume you get fairly good rainfall?
60 inches a year and rising, in UK that's seen as a fairly bad thing :-)
Janet
John Neale Baraclough
from "Wesley Trotman" <trot...@camtech.net.au> contains these words:
> Hi Janet
> Love your place, thanks for the peek.
> Is that a black and white cow lying in the middle field?
No, Wes, it's the washing :-) on a line between 2 trees I grew.
When we came here we had no trees to tie a line between and I had
to use one of those rotary metal washing lines. I grew the washing
line support trees (an aspen and an alder) from a sucker and a
seedling, both about 6" high, planted in 1988.
The day I could sling a washing line between the two adult trees I'd
grown was a real red letter one, and hanging out the washing is
always a small pleasure because of that.Funny what tiny things affirm
your efforts.
What ordinary little thing that you made or grew pleases the rest of you ?
Janet
John Neale Baraclough
from Higham <ma...@mak.com.au> contains these words:
> > What's missing is a pond; I'd love one but finding a
> > convincing location is difficult on a hillside,and we have no way to
> > fill it except rain or buckets.Much of the wildlife associated with
> > pond habitats is just over the back wall in the moorland bog,
> What about a rill with a small pond/bog garden at the lowest point.
I'd already planted trees there as a road screen
Any
> way of syphoning/overflow/directing some of the bog water into a tiny rill
> to enlarge the bog habitat?
and Mark said
A series of ponds, terraced into a slope, gives lots of creative
possibilities.
Any possibility of using a hydraulic ram to pump the river water up to your
pond ?
The bog is peat, "sink to your knee" wet in winter,dry and hard in
summer, so it's continuity of the draining water supply that's the
problem, we tried that.A field drain comes under the garden from
next doors earlier attempt to drain his own land,it used to end in
a huge mud pit it had washed outin the field on the other side of our
garden.When we bought the field ,and the drain end ,the children were
keen fishers and spent weeks excavating and damming the pit to make
themselves a trout pond. In winter, the drain can deliver hundreds of
gallons per hour; all summer it's mostly dry.Hundreds of gallons per
hour flooding out of the pond and into the garden turned out to be a
Bad Thing, and in summer it was dry.In the end we just connected a
foot wide pipe to the drain outlet and trenched and buried the whole
thing to a culvert that leaves the bottom of the garden, goes under
the road and empties into the river.
Filling a pond from a river ram is on John's list of distant
dreams, (along with generating power from the waterfall), held back
only by the public road both would have to cross :-). He's got an
idea about that, involving threading a pipe down the culvert...
Janet
emmap...@my-deja.com
John Neale Baraclough <janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote:
> What ordinary little thing that you made or grew pleases the rest of
you ?
>
> Janet
>
Every time I walk past a tree I grew from seed. it really does lift
you.
emma
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Reedbed
Janet <janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote >
> Filling a pond from a river ram is on John's list of distant
> dreams, (along with generating power from the waterfall), held back
> only by the public road both would have to cross :-). He's got an
> idea about that, involving threading a pipe down the culvert...
>
An easier, if slightly more costly way, would be a PV panel driving a 12v
pump - you could thread pipe and cable through the culvert, keep the panel
on your land, and no-one will know it's there. We had a small caravan pump
running directly from a 55W panel, and there's be plenty of flow to replace
evaporation losses in a pond if it was lined. The ram pump is much more
elegant if it's viable - they're a wonderful invention (Invented,
apparently, by Monsieur Mongolfier of hot air balloon fame).
Mark
hthomas
Janet wrote
> 60 inches a year and rising, in UK that's seen as a fairly bad thing :-)
We get about 55inches and it is not a good thing
Heather (Ireland)
Keltic
<trot...@camtech.net.au> wrote:
>Why is it that most of the items I buy have gone up by the tax hike, I
>havent seen any drop.
The only thing I've noticed that's cheaper so far is rail authorities
to travel, which dropped a grand thirty cents or so.
>It seems that any items from which you make or build with have gone up in
>price, food and consumer goods have come down in price, we try and grow a
>lot of our food and try and not need consumer items. So its all going the
>wrong way.
Basically, except I think the broad trend is that consumer electronics
have gone done - TVs, VCRs, that sort of thing. You know... everyday
items ;)
Cheers, Keltic
Tara Deen
Our little effort to sae the planet has resulted in a train fare rise
from $37.50 per week for both of us, to $40.50.
So thanks to GST we are now paying more for the privilege of reducing
particulate in our air.
Wesley Trotman
is the evaporation rate of about 3 foot pa.
Wes.
hthomas <hth...@gofree.indigo.ie> wrote in message
news:b9v85.4234$r4....@news.indigo.ie...
Keltic
wrote:
>Our little effort to sae the planet has resulted in a train fare rise
>from $37.50 per week for both of us, to $40.50.
>So thanks to GST we are now paying more for the privilege of reducing
>particulate in our air.
Hmm... pretty steep rise, but that's not bad for two of you - wife
spends some 29 bucks a week on her ticket, I'm lucky enough to have a
student card. No idea what it's gone up to post-tax, I'll have to ask
her.
Cheers, Keltic
Peter Wibberley
Wesley Trotman <trot...@camtech.net.au> wrote in message
news:RcB85.29182$N4.11...@ozemail.com.au...
> In South Oz, lower Eyre Peninsula, we receive 18 inches pa but the problem
> is the evaporation rate of about 3 foot pa.
Hi Wes
I know what you are saying is correct.... but I've never fully understood
it...
Our evap rate is 4 times our rainfall...... now... you would think the
ground would just get drier and drier at the rate of about 750 mm per
year... how come we have any moisture left at all? ... have you ever had an
official explanation about this?
Does anyone else understand this ?
Is the underground water evaporating ? ... and if so.... surely this has
been going on for centuries.....
I know in summer some areas of my ground are as thirsty as can be... I could
leave the hose on in some of the cracks for a week and still not see where
the water went..... but in other areas the ground water is still fairly
high..... is this water being evaporated through the drier areas ? and if
so.... why doesn't the water table reduce every year ???
puzzled
Pete
Reedbed
> What ordinary little thing that you made or grew pleases the rest of you
?
The first thing I made in blacksmithing class - a tool for taking the
hotplate off the range, poking the fire, splitting peat briquettes etc.
There's nothing fancy about it, but I like it's simplicity and
every-day-ness.
Mark
Tara Deen
It's been a busy week for the geo-type on this ng!
Just to add to your confusion, don't' forget that a lot of your rainfall
will just run off the soil, not staying to balance the hydrological
equation! You have two queries there, I'll attack them one at a time:
If your evaporation rate is higher than your rainfall rate, you would
logically think that the ground water would be drawn to the surface and
evaporated, and this is indeed happening, by pore pressure and also by
plant roots. But what will be happening is that water will be replaced
by water which is travelling underground, which may have come from a
very long way away, and may have been precipitated hundreds of thousands
or even millions of years ago. This ground water is often recharged in
another, wetter place. And back then, Australia was a wetter place. Even
as recently as a few tens of thousands of years ago. There are a lot of
reserves there. The big problem is, a lot of this water is saline, and
as fresher water is drawn out of bores, this saline water is often drawn
to the surface, which is one of the causes of dryland salinity (The
other is the concentration of salts in the soil above water tables). The
big differential between rainfall and evaporation is what has saved SA
from soil salinity problems in the past, and irrigation raising those
water tables is a major factor in the aridisation of rural land. This is
a gross simplification, of course, but the water table doesn't' reduce
because it will be recharged by migration of water.
The other issue you raised was the differing height of the water table.
Once again, logic suggests that this should be flat, like a lake, but
that is not the case. The height of the water table is influenced by
many factors, such as the pore spaces available between the grains in
the soil or rock, and the ability of these spaces to hold that fluid.
There may also be hydrological connections between the ground water and
other bodies of water, such as nearby dams or lakes. It could also be
that you have the sediments of old river or creek channels buried under
your soil. I did some work last year that showed that ground water
preferentially flows through the sediments that filled old channels.
Something to do with the availability of space, and the fact that the
channels usually sit in the easiest way to flow, which water does
preferentially. So the short answer is, the moister areas either have a
higher water retention capacity, or they sit above sites of
palaeo-channels (keep your eyes out for my upcoming paper in Geophysics,
which I have been swearing at for weeks, now!). The drier areas, well,
don't.
Have I waffled excessively, or is that clear?
hthomas
--
Peter Puzzled wrote
> Our evap rate is 4 times our rainfall
> Does anyone else understand this ?
I was hoping your post was going to enlighten us >:-)
I can't see how that works at all, I doubt if underground water will be
evaporating. At some point/depth the temp' in the soil is not affected by
atmospheric temps'.
Heather
Tara Deen
That is not all that is going on. It's hard to know exactly what's going
on without actually being there.
Basically, water is evaporated from the soil surface or from leaves of
plants. A 'vacuum' is caused by this, which draws up some of the the
water below it, by pore pressure. Some, not all, ground water is
evaporated this way. The fact that most ground water is not lost through
evaporation is the main reason it is so valuable as a water source. But
if Peter has large amounts of evaporation causing extreme soil dryness
in one area of his land, while the water table is still close to the
surface in others, that suggests to me that migration of ground water is
a factor here.
Anyone want to comment or have any further questions, I welcome
discussion on this. I'm really interested in the effects of groundwater
on the viability of land.
Wesley Trotman
The evaporation rate refers to an open container which has straight sides
and the water is freely exposed.
In the soil the water adheres to soil particles and is soaked up by
alginates (from VAMs) and carbon based materials like humus. This moisture
has to migrate to the soil surface to be then evaporated. As you know by the
end of summer , most of our top soils are as dry as a lime burners boot.
Mulching insulates the top soil and provides fodder for the soil biota.
Wes.
Peter Wibberley <mailto:pe...@twpo.com> wrote in message
news:AKB85.29197$N4.11...@ozemail.com.au...
>
> Wesley Trotman <trot...@camtech.net.au> wrote in message
> news:RcB85.29182$N4.11...@ozemail.com.au...
> > In South Oz, lower Eyre Peninsula, we receive 18 inches pa but the
problem
> > is the evaporation rate of about 3 foot pa.
>
> Hi Wes
> I know what you are saying is correct.... but I've never fully understood
> it...
> Our evap rate is 4 times our rainfall...... now... you would think the
> ground would just get drier and drier at the rate of about 750 mm per
> year... how come we have any moisture left at all? ... have you ever had
an
> official explanation about this?
>
> Does anyone else understand this ?
Wesley Trotman
snip
> >
>
>
Tara is also correct when she says that not all water is retained in the
soil. In scrub (treed areas) there could be 15% run off or recharge of
aquafiers, in annual pastured areas this goes up to say 85%. Being an
academic type Tara hides the obvious in the details though. Do you agree
Tara?
Wes.
Peter Wibberley
Tara Deen <ta...@es.usyd.edu.au> wrote in message
news:3963D43C...@es.usyd.edu.au...
> Having read my post again, I've given the wrong idea.
Thanks for both posts Tara
I've saved em so I can absorb both of em
> Anyone want to comment or have any further questions, I welcome
> discussion on this. I'm really interested in the effects of groundwater
> on the viability of land.
I may need to get back to you on further observations and experiments... :-)
You realise you'll have to spend the rest of your life answering my
questions now don't you ? :-)
see ya
Pete
Peter Wibberley
> Hi Pete
>
> The evaporation rate refers to an open container which has straight sides
> and the water is freely exposed.
Aha...real life scientific experiments :-)
thanks Wes... I never understood where the measurements came from
> In the soil the water adheres to soil particles and is soaked up by
> alginates (from VAMs) and carbon based materials like humus. This moisture
> has to migrate to the soil surface to be then evaporated. As you know by
the
> end of summer , most of our top soils are as dry as a lime burners boot.
> Mulching insulates the top soil and provides fodder for the soil biota.
You've seen my place Wes.... I find it hard to believe that water could
migrate through that stuff to reach the surface...cos it finds it pretty
hard to migrate downwards :-)
see ya
Pete
Toby Hemenway
> And back then, Australia was a wetter place. Even
> as recently as a few tens of thousands of years ago.
Taking a tangent here, this leads to a (politically incorrect) observation
I've made, that the arrival of aboriginals in Oz and Native Americans in my
continent dried the place up tremendously. There's a book, "Burning Bush"
(author's name escapes me) that documents the loss of wetter vegetation in
Oz 40-80,000 years ago when humans arrived and set fire to the place. And
the same happened here on America's west coast. My area (Pac NW) was largely
oak savanna in the valleys when whites arrived; my hillside has huge old
oaks that are dying under a thick canopy of 100-year-old conifers that grew
once the Indian's burning was stopped (by exterminating them). The oaks were
a product of repeated burning. The conifer forests are far wetter places,
and are associated with higher rainfall. So the vegetation that occurs
without fire seems to be making this area wetter.
Many of the landscapes in North America and Oz are fire-adapted, yet I think
that's a human-induced condition. It makes we wonder if there's anything
wrong with large-scale revegetation projects to shift the landscape to
fire-resistant. We'd see an increase in rainfall in drylands, I'd bet.
Of course, we non-indigenes are doing our own job of drying things out,
particularly by building lots of roads, which act as a huge network of
drainage canals to pipe water out of the hills and into the rivers quickly.
Toby
John Neale Baraclough
from Toby Hemenway <heme...@jeffnet.org> contains these words:
> Tara wrote on 7/5/00:
> > And back then, Australia was a wetter place. Even
> > as recently as a few tens of thousands of years ago.
> Taking a tangent here, this leads to a (politically incorrect) observation
> I've made, that the arrival of aboriginals in Oz and Native Americans in my
> continent dried the place up tremendously. There's a book, "Burning Bush"
> (author's name escapes me) that documents the loss of wetter vegetation in
> Oz 40-80,000 years ago when humans arrived and set fire to the place. And
> the same happened here on America's west coast. My area (Pac NW) was largely
> oak savanna in the valleys when whites arrived; my hillside has huge old
> oaks that are dying under a thick canopy of 100-year-old conifers that grew
> once the Indian's burning was stopped (by exterminating them). The oaks were
> a product of repeated burning. The conifer forests are far wetter places,
> and are associated with higher rainfall. So the vegetation that occurs
> without fire seems to be making this area wetter.
I thought that burning (from lightning strikes)was a natural
phenomenon in areas dry enough to combust, and man only copied the effect?
Is it possible that it was grazing animals that helped preserve
savannah,and the end of large herds, rather than the end of burning,
was the factor for change?
Janet
Wesley Trotman
John Neale Baraclough <janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:200007070...@zetnet.co.uk...
> The message <B589F6C5.7EB%heme...@jeffnet.org>
> from Toby Hemenway <heme...@jeffnet.org> contains these words:
>
>
> > Tara wrote on 7/5/00:
>
> > > And back then, Australia was a wetter place. Even
> > > as recently as a few tens of thousands of years ago.
>
The reference I have says Oz was almost a desert with half of todays
rainfall 15,000 yag. but when I see the dry water worn river depressions
here and in central Oz it must have been very wet at some distant time.
> I thought that burning (from lightning strikes)was a natural
> phenomenon in areas dry enough to combust, and man only copied the effect?
> Is it possible that it was grazing animals that helped preserve
> savannah,and the end of large herds, rather than the end of burning,
> was the factor for change?
>
> Janet
>
The Oz aboriginies had definite strategies to keep large areas as savanah
and as said by Tara, they used fire to keep to tree growth repressed. It
favoured kangaroos which they hunted. Oz had many very large mamals in the
past probably hunted to extinction. Oz animals have small brains adapted for
energy conservation so they would have made for easy hunting. ( Im not
including the human animal in this category, but then when you see what we
do sometimes i do wonder)
Wes.
>
>
>
> --
> janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk
>
>
Toby Hemenway
>
> I thought that burning (from lightning strikes)was a natural
> phenomenon in areas dry enough to combust, and man only copied the effect?
> Is it possible that it was grazing animals that helped preserve
> savannah,and the end of large herds, rather than the end of burning,
> was the factor for change?
I've got a couple of papers that suggest that lightning-caused fires only
account for 1/6 or less of the fires occurring before the whites' arrival in
North America. So humans copied the fire pattern, and accelerated the trend
apparently. And, yes, grazing animals are a big factor in savanna creation
and/or maintenance. But here it's believed that the deer herds are at least
as big as they were before the whites. My suspicion is that humans enlarged
the area of savanna by burning, which expanded the range and number of
herds, and this was of course a benefit to hunting peoples.
I haven't done the research that would support my notion that humans dry out
landscapes by burning, but to me it's an intriguing one. A question I'm
curious about is "what is a natural landcape?" Is a fire-suppressed forest
natural? Is an Indian-burned one natural? If humans disappeared, wouldn't
there be some really huge fires in many places due to our fire suppression,
and would that be natural? I pursue this because permies are often
castigated by enviro types for wanting to manipulate the landscape, and for
all those damned exotic plants we like. I don't think the term "natural
landscape" really has much meaning, not since we harnessed fire (sort of) a
million years ago or so. So I'm pretty comfortable with manipulating the
landscape, with the caveat that we have much to learn about how to do it
wisely. At least that's how I justify it to environmental "purists" (whom I
consider ecologically naive, I must admit)
Toby
John Neale Baraclough
from Toby Hemenway <heme...@jeffnet.org> contains these words:
A question I'm
> curious about is "what is a natural landcape?"
Me too, which is why your idea interested me.It's quite an issue in
the northern half of Scotland, don't know if you have been here or
seen the pics of bleak bare rocky mountain tops? People wrongly
assume that is Scotland's natural landscape, and in the past I've
been berated by hillwalkers for interfering with nature,as we
replanted previous native woodland on a hill top!
This was and still is partly caused and mainly kept that way, by
animal grazing, sheep and deer, introduced and protected by man, and
also by that useful standby of man,burning (of heather, to maintain
shooting and stalking landscapes).North
Scotland was once mainly afforested and that rich landscape
supported far more people and diverse fauna than it does now.We're
not a country in a position to criticise the cutting, burning, beef
introduction etc in Amazon or Indonesian native forests,while proudly
calling our own ecological desertification a natural landscape and
tourist attraction.Erosion is now accelerating where many people are
encouraged to walk on those bare surfaces.
Is a fire-suppressed forest
> natural? Is an Indian-burned one natural? If humans disappeared, wouldn't
> there be some really huge fires in many places due to our fire suppression,
> and would that be natural? I pursue this because permies are often
> castigated by enviro types for wanting to manipulate the landscape, and for
> all those damned exotic plants we like. I don't think the term "natural
> landscape" really has much meaning, not since we harnessed fire (sort of) a
> million years ago or so. So I'm pretty comfortable with manipulating the
> landscape, with the caveat that we have much to learn about how to do it
> wisely. At least that's how I justify it to environmental "purists" (whom I
> consider ecologically naive, I must admit)
Well, there's a lot of argument here about how far "natural" goes;
among those who do want to reforest Scotland, some want to
re-introduce vanished inhabitants like the beaver (already starting)
followed by the wolf, wild boar and bear.(Good thing the woolly
mammoths legged it out of existence, then..)Possibly this is just as
arrogant and misconcieved as slashing /burning/grazing, because it's
a man determined imposition too? Our predecessors were all just as
convinced they knew best :-)
Looking at the past we see that people who burned and flattened
their landscapes, Aborigines, native Americans and Scots,and now
south Americans and Indonesians, ultimately paid the price for doing
it.I've got a funny feeling that the message we should be heeding
might not be , "take action to save the planet", but "You messed up,
byeee " :-)
Janet
Tara Deen
talking a bit older than that, around 15 million years ago. Of course,
Australia was also a bit further south than it is today, as well.
Wesley Trotman
problem today is that there are so many of us and have access to cheap
energy, we can make very large changes to our ecology.
Fran are your tree planting on the hills working. I would have thought most
of the top soil was lost after the tree removal.?
Cant you blame the sasenachs (spelling?) for taking all the large trees to
smelt their ores or build war ships?
Wes.
John Neale Baraclough <janet.a...@zetnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:200007091...@zetnet.co.uk...
Toby Hemenway
7/9/00 11:44 AM:
> It's quite an issue in
> the northern half of Scotland, don't know if you have been here or
> seen the pics of bleak bare rocky mountain tops? People wrongly
> assume that is Scotland's natural landscape,
Yes, before I knew much about ecology I would gaze at those photos or video
shots of the lovely Scottish landscape and swoon. Now I see the same
pictures and think "boy, we've really hammered that land." I remember
reading that most of the forests in the British Isles were cleared back in
the bronze age to smelt metals. And I've heard of the reforestation
projects--I hope they can work.
Toby
pm
Don't only blame people for the deforestation and desertisation (?)
There have been big swings of climate in the recent past. These have
lowered the tree line by some 400 metres. The doldrums have moved with
movements of the planet and caused certain climes to become desert ie
Baghdad. It was once the fertile crescent and look at it now.
The Aborigines do use firestick methods, but not every year like they do
now. This causes lots of little fires that don't allow seedlings and
suckers to grow. A big fire every ten to fifty years allows them to
develop. With all the smaller marsupials pretty well gone, there are no
animals to eat, dig up etc, the grass to prevent big fires.
It is also not PC to draw conclusions that the disappearance of the
megafauna kinda coincides with the appearance of humans around 60K yrs ago.
People do cause problems but this is also often as a result of climactic
change...
Paul
"Toby Hemenway" <heme...@jeffnet.org> wrote in message
news:B5920EFB.87A%heme...@jeffnet.org...
Toby Hemenway
AM:
> Don't only blame people for the deforestation and desertisation (?)
>
> There have been big swings of climate in the recent past. These have
> lowered the tree line by some 400 metres.
I didn't mean to imply that there were no other causes of desertification.
But humans cleared the British Isles, much of northern Europe, Italy,
Greece, North Africa, and then introduced grazing animals, which eat tree
seedlings. Since these areas are no longer forested, while islands of forest
exist within them in protected or replanted areas (i.e. the climate clearly
supports trees), it's difficult not to draw the conclusion that humans bear
much of the responsibility.
> The doldrums have moved with
> movements of the planet and caused certain climes to become desert ie
> Baghdad. It was once the fertile crescent and look at it now.
Again, humans removed vast areas of forest from the fertile crescent, salted
the soil with irrigation, and overgrazed. This would tremendously exacerbate
the effects of a climate shift that might otherwise not cause
desertification. Of course, separating out all the variables is very
difficult, and allows a wide variety of positions to be argued on the
subject. But it's interesting that desertification seems to follow on the
heels of early agriculture (middle east, parts of China, American
southwest).
North Africa was once a huge forest. Then the Romans cut the trees to build
ships, and it's been desert ever since. Yes, perhaps the climate just
shifted coincidentally. But since trees cause rain (very well
documented--40% of all rainfall derives from tree transpiration, and tree
pollen provides cloud nuclei) and trees condense enough moisture from air to
raise total water harvest by 300%, removal of the trees could be enough to
create desert. One could successfully argue that deforestation was what
caused the doldrums to move in.
I live in the US Pacific Northwest, and am seeing firsthand, as nearby land
is logged, how temperature rises, humidity declines, fog disappears, soil
dessicates, and streams dry up when forest is removed. The effects over
large areas are profound; over even small areas they are very noticeable. My
land, with its trees, is far cooler and wetter than my neighbor's equal
sized clearcut.
Toby