The earth as humanity's garden
John McCarthy
ourselves as trespassers in someone else's garden. Then we (humanity)
should decide how we would like it to be and so arrange it. On a
smaller scale, we should decide what we want in the way of songbirds
in the U.S. and arrange that. On a much smaller scale, families can
decide what forms of life they want on their own land.
In order accomplish such goals, mankind needs to counter unpleasant
natural fluctuations as well as those caused by our own activity.
This will often involve controlling the populations of animals and
plants.
When Leland Stanford established Stanford University, he imported
every plant he thought could be made to grow here and employed
gardeners to that end. After his death, or maybe it was after
Mrs. Stanford's death, there was a shortage of money and a loss of
interest. Nevertheless, many of Stanford's exotics have survived.
I see Stanford's idea as just as legitimate as the currently popular
idea that nothing should grow in an area except those species regarded
as native to the area. Since it is a matter of preference it is a
suitable matter for voting.
I suppose many will disagree. I hope they will be polite.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
Rich Puchalsky
: Suppose we regard the earth as our garden rather than regarding
: ourselves as trespassers in someone else's garden. Then we (humanity)
: should decide how we would like it to be and so arrange it. On a
: When Leland Stanford established Stanford University, he imported
: every plant he thought could be made to grow here and employed
: gardeners to that end. After his death, or maybe it was after
: Mrs. Stanford's death, there was a shortage of money and a loss of
: interest. Nevertheless, many of Stanford's exotics have survived.
There you have it; one of the major problems with this idea. Active human
management is susceptible to change of plans, loss of funds, mismanagement,
or any of the other problems attendent on planned economic activity.
Management "by ecosystem" is self-sustaining and will continue whether or not
human society happens to be functioning on any particular day. It's always
amusing when people who would never dream of central human planning -- say,
deciding how to invest all of society's money by vote -- think ecosystem
planning would work fine.
Note the incredibly bad planning in the Stanford example. Exotics were
introduced with no long-term plan for them. As a result, predictably
most eventually died off, as soon as artificial supports ceased. What
McCarthy doesn't mention is that some of them may have become invasive,
lowering the productivity of the ecosystem. The end result could be
a drastic loss of wealth to humanity because of Stanford's little hobby.
: I see Stanford's idea as just as legitimate as the currently popular
: idea that nothing should grow in an area except those species regarded
: as native to the area. Since it is a matter of preference it is a
: suitable matter for voting.
The problem is that the universe obeys scientific laws, not McCarthy's
ideas about which social modes should be legitimate and which shouldn't.
Those scientific laws, which McCarthy seems to be entirely ignorant of,
cause bad results for human society if heedless introduction
of exotic species is practised. As an example, take the list of expensive
sources of damage from exotic marine species whose WWW link was recently
posted.
: I suppose many will disagree. I hope they will be polite.
If you post this kind of thing in a sci. group, you should expect people
to point out that you have made an expression of your own personal ideology,
and that this ideology conflicts with the way that biological science tells
us that ecosystems really work. Whether you consider this to be polite
or not is another matter of personal belief, I suppose.
--
my new sci.environment web page - http://www.upx.net/user/richp/sci_env.html
John McCarthy
Stanford was a 19th century hobbyist. However, he did found a good
university, and his exotic plants are not known to have been harmful.
More seriously, I think systematic "gardening" has worked out better
than leaving things to nature. The unintended side-effects have
almost always been less than the intended main effects, and the costs
of reasonable correction are cheap enough so that there is usually no
reason to be sorry about the original actions.
I'll take the mining and use of coal as an example where there were
considerable side-effects that were expensive to correct. However, we
shouldn't be sorry our ancestors started along that path. There was
little choice, and we can see that, because the undeveloped countries
today see little alternative to following approximately the same path
as was followed by the advanced countries.
An example with few side-effects was the 19th century provision of a
clean water supply.
Like it or not, the world is humanity's garden; there is no other
owner with a plan of his own.
Rich Puchalsky
: More seriously, I think systematic "gardening" has worked out better
: than leaving things to nature. The unintended side-effects have
"Systematic" in the sense of having out biological scientists advise us on
what to do? There are advising us to leave things alone; and in the case
of exotic species, not to introduce them (except in certain special cases,
where they are needed to control another exotic that has already been
introduced).
: Like it or not, the world is humanity's garden; there is no other
: owner with a plan of his own.
Gee, it must be easy to prove your arguments if you simply re-state
the point you're arguing for at the end, in such a way that implies that
you think no one can argue against it.
If you can prove that God doesn't exist, you can prove the above statement.
And, what's more to the point in a science group (since the point of view that
you're arguing against is not a religious one), environmentalists advocate
that natural systems be left to run homeostatically as much as possible, so
that we don't have to keep tinkering with them to keep them working. Natural
systems need not have any owner to run well. In fact, if you define "well"
in this case as "supporting human civilization", one can make a strong
argument that natural systems run better without a micromanaging and
uneducated owner in the McCarthy style. Therefore thinking of the world
as humanity's garden and treating it like a garden may be counterproductive
for humanity.
Torsten Brinch
HYAKUTAKE! Its COMET time!
Let us make a garden on Hyakutake , while we have the opportunity!
;-)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian Ridpath (in 'The Comet' ed. Douglass Hill, 1973) quotes
professor Freeman J Dyson, then at Institute of Advanced Study in
Princeton, New Jersey, for the possible option for Mankind to be
the Gardener of the Galaxy.
According to Ian Ridpath, Freeman J Dyson shared his thoughts in a lecture
commemorating the late J D Bernal, given at Birkbeck College, London, 1973.
That was the year of the comet Kohoutek. It is comet time again.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
quote Dyson:
"It is generally considered that planets are important. Except for Earth
they are not. Mars is waterless, and the others are for various reasons
basically inhospitable to man.
It is generally considered that beyond the Sun's family of planets there
is absolute emptiness extending for light-years until you come to
another star. In fact, it is likely that the space around the solar system
is populated by huge numbers of comets, small worlds a few miles in diameter,
rich in water and the other chemicals essential to life."
Dyson has calculated the combined surface of the comets as 1,000 or
maybe even 10,000 that of Earth, Ian Ridpath notes, and continues with
a description of Dyson's thoughts on how to grow trees on comets.
[My note:Dyson apparently views trees as a unique indispensable ressource]
To grow trees on a comet, you simply have to apply modern biotechnology
to redesign the skin of their leaves.
quote Dyson:
"Once leaves can be made to function in space, the remaining parts of a tree,
trunk, branches and roots, do not present any real problems."
To be able to grow trees beyond the orbit of Saturn a simple solution
could be compound leaves with a mirror part to focus sunlight on the
light-using parts, Dyson suggests.
quote Dyson:
"The branches must not freeze, and therefore the bark must be a superior
heat insulator. The roots will penetrate and gradually melt the frozen
interior of the comet, and the tree will build its substance from
the materials which the roots find there. The oxygen which the leaves
manufacture must not be exhaled into space; instead it will be transported
down to the roots and released into the regions where men will live among
the tree trunks."
"On any celestial body whose diameter is on the order of 10 miles or less,
the force of gravity is so weak that a tree can grow infinitely high.
Ordinary wood is strong enough to lift its own weight to an arbitrary
distance from the centre of gravity. This means that from a comet of 10
miles diameter trees can grow out for hundreds of miles, collecting
the energy of sunlight from an area thousands of times as large
as the area of the comet itself."
"We shall bring to the comets not only trees but a great variety of
other flora and fauna to create for ourselves an environment as beautiful
as ever existed on Earth. Perhaps we shall teach our plants to make seeds
which will sail out across the ocean of space to propagate life on comets
still unvisited by man. Perhaps we shall start a wave of life which will
spread from comet to comet, until we have achieved the greening of
the Galaxy."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
That's all folks.
There is nothing comical to say about this winter, it was horrible.
*Today* is a sunny day in Denmark. For 4 months we have been longing for
some decent nuclear power. Here comes the sun. I'll go out in my garden.
Light, daze my mind and heat my body! UV, penetrate my skin!
Readers, please excuse me for posting this nonsense!
It's Spring.
Kind regards,
Torsten Brinch
James G. Acker
: Suppose we regard the earth as our garden rather than regarding
: ourselves as trespassers in someone else's garden. Then we (humanity)
: should decide how we would like it to be and so arrange it. On a
: in the U.S. and arrange that. On a much smaller scale, families can
: decide what forms of life they want on their own land.
Not to spend much time on this, but the matter is one of
alteration & mitigation vs. preservation & restoration. You
are basically an A&M advocate. There are many places now
in which this is the only alternative. If suburban dwellers put up
many more birdhouses that allow some songbirds to escape nest
parasitism, then those birds will be aided, so the effects of
alteration will be somewhat mitigated. It is not entirely
effective, as some songbirds will not use bird houses at all.
Nesting boxes and platforms for ducks (to allow safety from raccoons
and opossums) are another mitigation strategy.
I advocate A&M only after strenuous P&R efforts. The
preservation and/or restoration of natural ecosystems maintains more
diversity, and natural ecosystems are much more
resistant to "attacks" by exotic species and severe conditions.
The reason natural systems are natural is due to the interacting
adaptations of a functioning ecosystem. Alteration, even subtle,
(such as runoff fertilizer in streams, causing increased
eutrophication), causes many effects that are hard to predict.
===============================================
| James G. Acker |
| REPLY TO: jga...@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov |
===============================================
All comments are the personal opinion of the writer
and do not constitute policy and/or opinion of government
or corporate entities.
John McCarthy
No. Regarding the earth as humanity's gardens is not just alteration
and mitigation. It is a question of arranging the earth as we want
it, not necessarily or even mainly as it was in the past. I should
emphasize that how we want it should be mainly how individuals and
families and voluntary groups want to arrange their shares. Grand
plans should be limited to what cannot be done individually. Many,
perhaps most, will want songbirds in their gardens, and it should be
made possible.
The theory that natural systems are "more resistant to
`attacks'", seems like wishful thinking to me.
Andrew Taylor
John McCarthy <j...@cs.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>Stanford was a 19th century hobbyist. However, he did found a good
>university, and his exotic plants are not known to have been harmful.
I seem to remember a number of old Eucalypts on Stanford's campus.
These have certainly been harmful in California.
>More seriously, I think systematic "gardening" has worked out better
>than leaving things to nature. The unintended side-effects have
>almost always been less than the intended main effects, and the costs
>of reasonable correction are cheap enough so that there is usually no
>reason to be sorry about the original actions.
Many biologists believe we do not know how to predict the consequences
of modifications to ecosystems or how to correct our mistakes.
What is jmc's solution for zebra mussels. It must be an easy problem
to fix just the addition of a single species to an ecosystem. Surely
its trivial to fix. There is plenty of incentive, the economic costs
are enormous.
Andrew Taylor
Andrew Taylor
>in the U.S. and arrange that.
I want Bachman's Warbler (and I'm far from alone).
Andrew Taylor
John McCarthy
If zebra mussels are harmful in many places, and I suppose they are,
then we gardeners should get rid of them.
Mark A. Friesel
They seem to be a severe problem in the Eastern Great Lakes. I expect
that viable suggestions for eliminating them would be appreciated.
Craig Mohn
>Explain Eucalyptus trees being harmful in California.
I recall a major firestorm fed largely by Eucalyptus trees in the
Oakland (CA) hills a few years ago. I don't recall the casualty count
and property damage totals, but I suspect that they are higher than
those which John attributes to the Sierra Club's efforts to prevent
the expansion of the coastal highway.
Eucalyptus leaves are surprisingly flammable, because of their high
oil content. I believe that is a primary reason Aboriginals in
Australia (where Eucalyptus are naturally found) developed the
practice of annual controlled burns of low brush. This keeps the
chances of accidental ignition of the Eucalyptus to a minimum. There
are other reasons for annual burns, such as allowing the emergence of
new growth which attracts certain (apparently tasty) varieties of
wallaby. The practice is continued by the European-descended
Australians today, at least that is what the people doing the burns in
Litchfield National Park in the Northern Territory told me last
August.
Eucalyptus also displace native species, and I'm told by friends who
used to have several adjacent to their backyard that they are terribly
messy, dropping obnoxious things all over. These people seemed to
think that native species were preferable.
Craig
_______________________________________________________________
Craig Mohn
mo...@are.berkeley.edu
John McCarthy
windbreaks. They grow tall quickly, don't require much water and
smell nice. I enjoyed being around them when I was a child.
Unfortunately, the species grown in California don't make good lumber.
Apparently some species grown in Australia are used for lumber and
others are used for firewood. Those who favor biomass for energy
should consider Eucalyptus. They can't stand cold weather, and there
was a massive die-off in Northern California during one very cold
winter.
I believe they are also planted in Israel.
The on-line Britannica says there are 500 species and links to a site
in Australia that lists all 500.
Steinn Sigurdsson
The theory that natural systems are "more resistant to
`attacks'", seems like wishful thinking to me.
There was an old paradigm in ecology to that effect.
One of May's claim to fame was to show this was
mathematically inconsistent (roughly speaking).
There is some recent data and tentative theory that
suggests in fact diverse systems, as systems, are more
robust - but that individual species within the system
may be more vulnerable in diverse systems. Game theorists
may care to toy with the implications of that one and
the implied optimal "diversity" species from both the
view of a particular species and a "meta-species"...
James G. Acker
This seems self-evident (but might spawn interesting
research).
Take, for examples, a natural (unaltered) coral reef
system and one that has been affected by excess nutrients,
causing die-off of the upper coral levels (usually staghorn
coral, some elkhorn. Die-off is induced by reduced light
levels caused by higher light extinction coefficients due to more
phytoplankton in the water column.
The upper corals acted as a wave break, reducing the
erosive and destructive effects of powerful waves. Natural
reefs are littered with broken elkhorn and staghorn
branches, because these corals are fast-growing. Below and
behind the corals, in calmer water, a wide variety of
benthic organisms (and pelagic species that browse them)
forms a thriving ecosystem.
With the die-off of the upper corals (note, star
and brain corals are deeper coral species), wave action
affects the area behind the reef and to greater depths in the
reef. Thus, these areas will be denuded of many of the
species that can't withstand strong wave action. The loss of
diversity due to alteration (i.e., the loss of the upper
corals) opens up the reef to greater devastation in the
event of a catastrophic event, such as a tropical storm or
hurricane.
Note that diversity will be reduced in the areas
that are affected by wave action. However, in a natural
reef, the much greater diversity means that there is a
immense struggle for living space. A few species may have
only a foothold in small areas, and this is tenuous. Greater
species diversity also means greater numerical diversity as
well. Thus, the species that are represented in low numbers
could be wiped out by a minor catastrophe (like an accidental
anchor drop that knocks off their only safe coral ledge), but
overall the reef community has a healthy level of diversity.
A new exposed surface will be rapidly colonized by *something*.
Mark A. Friesel
On 25 Mar 1996, John McCarthy wrote:
>
> No. Regarding the earth as humanity's gardens is not just alteration
> and mitigation. It is a question of arranging the earth as we want
> it, not necessarily or even mainly as it was in the past. I should
> emphasize that how we want it should be mainly how individuals and
> families and voluntary groups want to arrange their shares. Grand
> plans should be limited to what cannot be done individually. Many,
> perhaps most, will want songbirds in their gardens, and it should be
> made possible.
>
> The theory that natural systems are "more resistant to
> `attacks'", seems like wishful thinking to me.
> --
Unfortunately, ecosystems are larger than individual's, family's, and
voluntary group 'shares'.
John McCarthy
Unfortunately, ecosystems are larger than individual's,
family's, and voluntary group 'shares'.
In so far as this is true, then some aspects of the arrangement of the
garden have to be done on a larger scale.
I was somewhat surprised that no-one has yet challenged the notion of
humanity as a gardener rather than a trespasser. Where is McGowen
when we need him?
--
Andrew Taylor
>I believe they are also planted in Israel.
>
>The on-line Britannica says there are 500 species and links to a site
>in Australia that lists all 500.
Well if you want trivia.
Eucalypts are planted in most of the world's countries. A large
recently compiled dataset of Eucalypt records (which I have lying about)
has 831 species. No doubt some of these names aren't good but 800+
is what I've heard from botanists. I've also been told
genus is likely to be split
Andrew Taylor
Andrew Taylor
Well apart from there harmful effects on native flora and fauna they
are supposed to increase bushfire problems (at least this was being
said last time I was in California).
>If zebra mussels are harmful in many places, and I suppose they are,
>then we gardeners should get rid of them.
As you haven't answered the question I guess you, like everyone else,
don't have a way to remove them. You are proposing to run a planet
of 10e7+ species, yet you can't remove 1 recent introduction from
a small part of the planet. Don't call us, we'll call you.
Andrew Taylor
Jan Schloerer
John McCarthy (j...@Steam.stanford.edu) wrote:
I was somewhat surprised that no-one has yet
challenged the notion of humanity as a gardener
rather than a trespasser.
What about toddlers in the control room ?
1/2 :)
Jan Schloerer
jsch...@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de
Rich Puchalsky
: I was somewhat surprised that no-one has yet challenged the notion of
: when we need him?
The whole notion that environmentalists generally think of humanity as a
trespasser is a straw man. And the notion that there are only two
possibilities, trespasser or gardener, and that we have to choose between
them is a false duality. So all you've really done is combine two
argumentative fallacies; this hardly requires a lot of response.
But note that I at least have challenged the notion of ignorant,
incompetent gardeners in the McCarthy technocratic style. We may need
to intervene in certain instances to fix some of the environmental wreckage
we've created, but if that's going to be done I'd want it to be done by
experts like McGowan, not by people like McCarthy who think that the only
thing they have to decide is whether they would like songbirds or not.
Mark A. Friesel
I propose that the same observations may be applied to systems involving
humans as well. Species that were once populous now have only a tenuous
foothold - the reef of isolation that once protected many species from the
wave of humanity no longer exists. Gad! what potential!
Andrew Taylor
James G. Acker <jga...@news.gsfc.nasa.gov> wrote:
>in which this is the only alternative. If suburban dwellers put up
>many more birdhouses that allow some songbirds to escape nest
>parasitism, then those birds will be aided, so the effects of
>alteration will be somewhat mitigated. It is not entirely
>effective, as some songbirds will not use bird houses at all.
Less than 15% of US passerines are cavity nesters and some of these
species may not use nest boxes. The problem is not lack of nest sites
but lack of cowbird-free nest sites. The disturbed areas where nest
boxes are usually erected will usually have higher cowbird densities.
Unless the nest boxes are somehow cowbird resistant they may worsen
the problem.
Andrew Taylor
John McCarthy
>I was somewhat surprised that no-one has yet challenged the notion of
>humanity as a gardener rather than a trespasser.
species to be succesfully conserved. Control of ecosystems of
thousands species is distant fantasy.
If you want me to take you seriously explain how you will "arrange" for
the Eskimo Curlew to be restored to something resembling its former
population. Surely not a difficult piece of "gardening", restore a
single species which could be seen in the US in flocks of tens of
thousands last century. Useful amounts of its habitat remain.
Solve some simple problems like this and we can discuss whether your
"gardening" techniques scale up to a planet of 10^7-8 species.
I wasn't supposing that humanity could be an omnipotent gardener.
Maybe it would cost more than humanity is prepared to spend to restore
the Eskimo Curlew to its former population. A gardener arranges his
garden as he wants it within the limits of his resources.
Andrew Taylor
>Maybe it would cost more than humanity is prepared to spend to restore
>the Eskimo Curlew to its former population. A gardener arranges his
>garden as he wants it within the limits of his resources.
The Eskimo Curlew has (apparently) sufficient remaining habitat. It
has (now) no serious conflict with humans. Many thousands of birdwatchers
would provide volunteer labour. There are large amounts of conservation
conservation resources available in the US and Canada.
You can't "arrange" for the Eskimo Curlew population to increase to 10,000.
This is most trivial of planetary "gardening" operations but we can't
perform it. As "gardeners" we are almost powerless. All we can do
currently is ecosytems in the best approximation to their natural state
we can manage.
Andrew Taylor
John McCarthy
You can't "arrange" for the Eskimo Curlew population to
increase to 10,000.
This is most trivial of planetary "gardening" operations but
we can't perform it. As "gardeners" we are almost
powerless. All we can do currently is ecosytems in the best
approximation to their natural state we can manage.
The gardener analogy does not suggest that the goal is always to put
ecosystems into what we suppose is their "natural state". Sometimes
people will want to do that, but usually they will want to do otherwise.
The most attractive flower gardens are very far from natural
ecosystems. For example, Stanford University puts flowering plants
from nurseries into its flower beds when they are about to flower and
replaces them with others from nurseries when they are done flowering.
Rich Puchalsky
: Andrew Taylor includes:
: You can't "arrange" for the Eskimo Curlew population to
: increase to 10,000.
: This is most trivial of planetary "gardening" operations but
: we can't perform it. As "gardeners" we are almost
: powerless. All we can do currently is ecosytems in the best
: approximation to their natural state we can manage.
Good example, AT.
: The gardener analogy does not suggest that the goal is always to put
: ecosystems into what we suppose is their "natural state". Sometimes
: people will want to do that, but usually they will want to do otherwise.
Well, people want to put Eskimo Curlews back. Come on, McCarthy, where
is that gardening power you keep harping on?
: The most attractive flower gardens are very far from natural
: ecosystems. For example, Stanford University puts flowering plants
: from nurseries into its flower beds when they are about to flower and
: replaces them with others from nurseries when they are done flowering.
If we had the power to control natural ecosystems that McCarthy thinks we
do, we wouldn't need to keep shuffling a steady stream of resource-intensive
flowers from nurseries into our flowerbeds. Flower gardens are resource
sinks. There is an obvious contradiction inherent in the proposal that
we turn the entire Earth into "our garden" -- i.e. a big resource sink.
Those resources have to come from somewhere.
Aren't false duality arguments fun? I'll propose another one along McCarthy's
model. Technocrats of McCarthy's type often seem to be malicious, but I
think they're just clueless. Now, I expect everyone to weigh in on either
the malicious or clueless side. Any lack of response will lead me to
conclude that I must be right: they are clueless.
Dean Myerson
>
>The theory that natural systems are "more resistant to
>`attacks'", seems like wishful thinking to me.
I've read it in biology books. It isn't necessarily always true but the
tendency is due to the fact that manmade "biological systems" (gardens,
farms, etc.) tend to be monocultural so they are less likely to have
whatever it takes to resist a threat. Secondly, they tend to have evolved
in the presence of the more common threats and so they may have already
evolved to resist the threat. I imagine there are counterexamples but
this is a rule of thumb, not a law.
--
-- Dean Myerson
(de...@vexcel.com) (http://www.vexcel.com)
Michael Tobis
: Mark Friesel includes:
: Unfortunately, ecosystems are larger than individual's,
: family's, and voluntary group 'shares'.
: In so far as this is true, then some aspects of the arrangement of the
: garden have to be done on a larger scale.
So all we have to decide is how far "in" this is true.
Certainly migratory birds can't be promoted beyond the level of support
they find in the most inhospitable part of their range.
I don't think it's reasonable to conclude that the majority of species
can thrive without large scale efforts to limit human impact OR
large scale efforts to actively support them. I have seen very little
discussion that attempts to find the correct level of support
for species and their habitat. Biologists on the one hand treat any
change in the environment as catastrophic, while economists treat
any restraint in the same way. Politicians pretend that protecting
the environment has no costs. No one seems to have a sensible way
of thinking about how much of the resources of the public sector
should be applied to this problem.
"In so far as this is true" is well and good, but how far is it true?
mt
Andrew Taylor
Michael Tobis <to...@skool.ssec.wisc.edu> wrote:
>I have seen very little discussion that attempts to find the correct
>level of support for species and their habitat.
One thing you can consider is what fraction of natural habitats we
should aim to retain or re-establish in approximations of their
natural state. I don't have any arithmetic but if you're still
interested:
I think we should be aiming in the long term in Australia for 50%
of the former extent of each vegetation type in an approximation of
its natural state. Of this we should aim to have perhaps one third
as completely undisturbed as possible by man. The remaining two thirds
could have uses partly compatible with the areas natural state.
This would suggest a significant contraction in the area we
devote to agriculture but I don't believe it would stop us being a very
prosperous country.
I would worry that the decline in global food supply would cause problems
except I'm continually told here there are no global food problems.
Some vegetation types we may need to conserve more of, e.g. alpine
areas, others we may not be able to conserve 50% of because
of substantial conflict with human activities.
I'm suggesting this as a goal not as short term policy. Obviously
its not something you accomplish overnight. I expect most
Australians would suggest more modest goals but I also expect the
views of Australians to move closer to my suggestion.
Andrew Taylor
Dean Myerson
> If zebra mussels are harmful in many places, and I suppose they are,
> then we gardeners should get rid of them.
I would appreciate some arithmetic here. How many are there? How much
will it cost to get rid of them? What is the cost of the damage they
have caused? Might it have been smarter not to have introduced them
in the first place? Mathematical minds want to know!
Dean Myerson
but it is now considered a major nuisance and I once reported that a mob
was so upset with the continued subsidization of a eucalyptus nursery that
they burned it. Eucalyptus is very good at finding the water that it needs
and often takes water from other plants which, in India's case, were far
more useful and beneficial.
John McCarthy
On 26 Mar 1996, John McCarthy wrote:
> If zebra mussels are harmful in many places, and I suppose they are,
> then we gardeners should get rid of them.
I would appreciate some arithmetic here. How many are there? How much
will it cost to get rid of them? What is the cost of the damage they
have caused? Might it have been smarter not to have introduced them
in the first place? Mathematical minds want to know!
--
Paul Farrar
You haven't been reading your _Zebra Mussel Update_!
It's archived on:
gopher://gopher.adp.wisc.edu:70/11/.browse/.METASGIZM
They should be in California before long.
--
Paul Farrar
http://www.datasync.com/~farrar/
far...@datasync.com
70053,3464
John McCarthy
but it is now considered a major nuisance and I once reported that a mob
was so upset with the continued subsidization of a eucalyptus nursery that
they burned it. Eucalyptus is very good at finding the water that it needs
and often takes water from other plants which, in India's case, were far
more useful and beneficial.
--
When a mob burns something, it is risky to ascribe to it noble
motives. Might there have been a competitor of some kind? Obviously
not everyone considers eucalyptus a nuisance or there wouldn't have
been a nursery to burn.
Dean Myerson
>humanity as a gardener rather than a trespasser.
Your persistance challenges the best of us. Most of us will post on an
issue only so many times. IMO, we are neither gardener nor trespasser
but just another inhabitant.
>Where is McGowen when we need him?
Undoubtedly reading this an not wasting time responding to it. If you
insist, you could probably bring him back by organizing a vote on group
mediation.
Mark A. Friesel
On 2 Apr 1996, John McCarthy wrote:
> In article <1996Apr2.1...@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Myerson) writes:
> Eucalyptus was introduced to India. I forget the reason for the introduction
> but it is now considered a major nuisance and I once reported that a mob
> was so upset with the continued subsidization of a eucalyptus nursery that
> they burned it. Eucalyptus is very good at finding the water that it needs
> and often takes water from other plants which, in India's case, were far
> more useful and beneficial.
> --
>
> When a mob burns something, it is risky to ascribe to it noble
> motives. Might there have been a competitor of some kind? Obviously
> not everyone considers eucalyptus a nuisance or there wouldn't have
> been a nursery to burn.
What appeared to be a good idea at one time may have turned out to be
otherwise. This situation obviously wouldn't require anyone to consider
Eucalyptus other than a nuisance at present.
Michael Tobis
: In article <4jpnoi$b...@spool.cs.wisc.edu>,
: Michael Tobis <to...@skool.ssec.wisc.edu> wrote:
: >I have seen very little discussion that attempts to find the correct
: >level of support for species and their habitat.
: One thing you can consider is what fraction of natural habitats we
: should aim to retain or re-establish in approximations of their
: natural state. I don't have any arithmetic but if you're still
: interested:
: I think we should be aiming in the long term in Australia for 50%
: of the former extent of each vegetation type in an approximation of
: its natural state.
Interesting. I tend to agree that large areas should be returned
to nature over a reasonably long time. Deciding how much and how
long is an extremely complicated question, similar to and not
unrelated to how much and when we should restrain fossil fuel use.
What I'm interested in is finding a way to justify such policies
given the enormous uncertainties. Similarly, I'm interested in
identifying cases where further modification of the environment
IS a good policy. I find it impossible to believe that refraining
from do anything is always preferable to doing something.
The lack of overlap in the terms of discourse makes me worried
that a consensus is infeasible even in the unlikely event that
a modicum of mutual respect is somehow injected into these discussions.
The biologist's definition of wealth and the economist's definition
are not only mutually incommensurable, they also have very little to
do with what people in general want out of life. The increasing public
impatience with a choice between two transparently incomplete models
of the world doesn't seem sufficient to motivate a useful synthesis.
mt
John McCarthy
the mob to burn if no-one found them useful.
Bruce Hamilton
>John McCarthy (j...@Steam.stanford.edu) wrote:
>: Andrew Taylor includes:
>: You can't "arrange" for the Eskimo Curlew population to
>: increase to 10,000.
This is defeatist. If we ( humanity ) *really* wantled the Eskimo
Curlew population to increase we probably have sufficient resources
to do it. *But* the reality is that most of us don't care enough about
the Eskimo Curlew to do anything.....
>: This is most trivial of planetary "gardening" operations but
>: we can't perform it.
" Can't " as in " can't be bothered "...
>: As "gardeners" we are almost
>: powerless. All we can do currently is ecosytems in the best
>: approximation to their natural state we can manage.
Wild gardens are all the rage here :-). People have gardening
styles that give them personally the most benefit. Commercial
gardeners grow the products that gives then the best return
( like roses = grow roses, like money = best commercial crop ),
whereas hobby gardeners want to demonstrate their ability to
control their environment to produce the desired outcome
( flowers, vegetables, landscape scenes etc ). We put aside
some resources for protecting the environment, but then
everybody wants to see or share what they got, which usually results
in even more mishaps in the garden. I suspect that in $ terms many people with
discretionary spending power use it for their own pleasure, rather than the
general good of humanity. I suspect that spending on hobby agriculture
is larger than on greenie environmentalists. Does that make garden centres
more malicious to the planet than greenies?.
As I see it, we ( humanity ) have much greater concerns about
our individual existances, and saving wildlife is part of the
discretionary concerns ( like helping people in Africa ) that is
available only after the necessary concerns have been addressed.
What has to happen is that planetary gardening has to become
a necessary concern if you wish to have me worry about the
Eskimo Curlew and the Eskimos to also worry about the Kiwi and Kakapo.
Some of the youth of today have grown up with technology as their handtool,
it will be interesting to see if they use it to help convert discretionary
environmental concerns into necessary concerns.
>: The gardener analogy does not suggest that the goal is always to put
>: ecosystems into what we suppose is their "natural state". Sometimes
>: people will want to do that, but usually they will want to do otherwise.
>Well, people want to put Eskimo Curlews back. Come on, McCarthy, where
>is that gardening power you keep harping on?
You aren't all people. Only some people want to put the Eskimo Curlews
back, and obviously even they aren't providing the resources, they are
demanding we should all put the Eskimo Curlew back. Wot about the
Kakapo... I want the Kakapo put back...
>: The most attractive flower gardens are very far from natural
>: ecosystems. For example, Stanford University puts flowering plants
>: from nurseries into its flower beds when they are about to flower and
>: replaces them with others from nurseries when they are done flowering.
>If we had the power to control natural ecosystems that McCarthy thinks we
>do, we wouldn't need to keep shuffling a steady stream of resource-intensive
>flowers from nurseries into our flowerbeds. Flower gardens are resource
>sinks. There is an obvious contradiction inherent in the proposal that
>we turn the entire Earth into "our garden" -- i.e. a big resource sink.
>Those resources have to come from somewhere.
Exactly, but then those members of humanity who control the Stanford
purse strings have decided that the beauty of the garden justifies the
expense. Presumably the the people using Stanford want the gardens
the way they are. Maybe the gardens replace concrete. As I see it, you
are trying to tell the the people at Stanford that they should not waste
money on their resource sink. It's their money, you should wonder why
they decide to fritter the money away, rather than give it to the Eskimos
to solve their disappearing Curlew problem :-). Maybe John has undue
influence over the Stanford body that funds the gardens, and what he
considers "most attractive" are pretty horrible to other beholders.
>Aren't false duality arguments fun? I'll propose another one along McCarthy's
>model. Technocrats of McCarthy's type often seem to be malicious, but I
>think they're just clueless. Now, I expect everyone to weigh in on either
>the malicious or clueless side. Any lack of response will lead me to
>conclude that I must be right: they are clueless.
Everybody is clueless and also selfish :-0. Why environmentalists should blame
technocrats for convincing people to part with their discretionary resources on
highly technical accoutrements like Computers, Internet, Usenet, Cars etc.,
rather than assisting the environmentalists saving the natural world has
always interested me. The problem is that I usually personally gain something
with my use of resources to buy technology. What do I gain helping the
Esmiko Curlew? - it's nice, and if I had sufficient discretionary resources it
might come higher up my shopping list than turning the Sahara into a giant
sandcastle. Badmouthing people because we haven't moved the extra 10,000
Eskimo Curlew onto todays "To Do" list is unlikely to change much.
Too often we attribute inaction to cluelessness, whereas in reality it may
solely be because we see no personal advantage in the action, and a possible
disadvantage if a competitor takes a different position. We are selfish...
Bruce Hamilton
Andrew Taylor
Bruce Hamilton <B.Ham...@irl.cri.nz> wrote:
>This is defeatist. If we ( humanity ) *really* wantled the Eskimo
>Curlew population to increase we probably have sufficient resources
>to do it. *But* the reality is that most of us don't care enough about
>the Eskimo Curlew to do anything.....
Mayve some taxa but not birds. The National Audubon Society has
500,000 members. Government agencies in the US and Canada
implement expensive recovery plans for other endangered birds species.
Little is being done for the Eskimo Curlew because there are no
obvious ways to assist it. Maybe you have some suggestions?
One of the "grand plans" that John McCarthy derides, the migratory bird
treaty, would have saved the Eskimo Curlew if it had come 50 years
earlier. It would have been easy to prevent the Eskimo Curlew becoming
endangered. It is now very difficult, perhaps impossible, to restore it.
Andrew Taylor
John McCarthy
I never mentioned the migratory bird treaty and do not deride it. I
don't praise it either. I don't know enough about its effects
including its effects on human activities and the lawsuits it may have
led to. It doesn't count as a "grand plan" in my book, just a bit of
tinkering. Actually it can be fitted into either the "humanity's
garden" model or the "no trespassing" model. Given that both models
have support, I suppose it is likely that what can actually be
negotiated will have elements of both.
I noticed that the "wise use" movement hasn't been mentioned in this
group recently. When it was mentioned it was derided by people who
never quoted what it actually said, only caricatures. Since I haven't
heard from it directly, I don't know what it actually advocates.
However, I agree with the slogan.
Rich Puchalsky
: What has to happen is that planetary gardening has to become
: a necessary concern if you wish to have me worry about the
: Eskimo Curlew and the Eskimos to also worry about the Kiwi and Kakapo.
If global environmental concern rises, there will probably be some slopover
such that efforts to save the Curlew will aid efforts to save other birds.
Some ways this could work: government efforts in one country serve as a
model for other countries; environmental groups with donor bases in one
country start to take on world-wide efforts; media coverage in one country
causes media in another to look for similar stories.
As an example, an activist here in the U.S. recently told me that New
Zealand's environmental statutes were the current favored model that many
international environmental activists were pushing for other countries.
Maybe you should tell us where they are on the Web?
Me:
: >If we had the power to control natural ecosystems that McCarthy thinks we
: >do, we wouldn't need to keep shuffling a steady stream of resource-intensive
: >flowers from nurseries into our flowerbeds. Flower gardens are resource
: >sinks. There is an obvious contradiction inherent in the proposal that
: >we turn the entire Earth into "our garden" -- i.e. a big resource sink.
: >Those resources have to come from somewhere.
: Exactly, but then those members of humanity who control the Stanford
: purse strings have decided that the beauty of the garden justifies the
: expense. Presumably the the people using Stanford want the gardens
: the way they are. Maybe the gardens replace concrete. As I see it, you
: are trying to tell the the people at Stanford that they should not waste
: money on their resource sink. It's their money, you should wonder why
No, I'm not saying that. I'm just pointing out the obvious (to anyone but
certain technocrats) fact that you can't have every part of a system be
a resource sink. Some part of it has to be a source. Turning the entire
Earth into "our garden", as McCarthy recommends, would mean that there
are no sources of resources to supply sinks like Stanford's flower gardens.
: sandcastle. Badmouthing people because we haven't moved the extra 10,000
: Eskimo Curlew onto todays "To Do" list is unlikely to change much.
I think you've missed the point of the thread. The Eskimo Curlew was
brought up not to badmouth McCarthy for not doing something about it,
but to illustrate the limits to what we can do as "gardeners". I think
Andrew Taylor has demonstrated that the Eskimo Curlew has a large pool of
people with a large amount of money who would like to save it, as well as
a relatively supportive government. It is always possible to argue that
maybe if we weren't by nature selfish, we would spend 10% of GNP on
saving the Eskimo Curlew and therefore could do it in a snap, but I don't
think this argument has much real-world value. Rather, McCarthy likes to
use this argument as a smokescreen, claiming effectively that we can
always spend huge amounts of money later to fix anything that goes wrong,
so we should do nothing now. The environmentalist's argument is that it is
not only cheaper in the mid-to-long term to leave things alone now rather
than fix them later, but also that some things can never be fixed later.
Scott Nudds
: It seems unlikely that there would have been a eucalyptus nursery for
: the mob to burn if no-one found them useful.
When was the last time you found a tie to be a useful part of your
wardrobe?
- Hoover Hypocrite ---------------------------------------------------
"The Biomass Alliance doubtless includes farm organizations. The image
that comes to mind is that of a large number of piglets squirming to get
at a teat of the sow." - John McCarthy in SCI.Energy
2 weeks later...
"My research has indeed been supported by the Government - almost
entirely by the Defense Department..." - John McCarthy in SCI.Environment
--
John McCarthy
"gardener" with the word "trespasser". It seems to me that the latter
expresses the attitude of people like Michael Vandeman and Alan
McGowen as well as other people who denounce humanity in general or
white men in particular.
It is stretching the meaning of "humanity's garden" to suppose that it
means making the whole world like Stanford's flower beds. Stanford
also has the Jasper Ridge nature reserve.
The main point of the phrase "humanity's garden" is that we should
make the world the way we want it (within our capabilities of course)
and not regard ourselves as trespassers who should change nothing or
even restore it to some idealized previous condition.
We should have global analogs of the Israeli slogan, "Make the deserts
bloom".
Bruce Hamilton
>In article <457cc$91ea.393@hermes>,
>Bruce Hamilton <B.Ham...@irl.cri.nz> wrote:
>>This is defeatist. If we ( humanity ) *really* wanted the Eskimo
>>Curlew population to increase we probably have sufficient resources
>>to do it. *But* the reality is that most of us don't care enough about
>>the Eskimo Curlew to do anything.....
>Mayve some taxa but not birds. The National Audubon Society has
>500,000 members. Government agencies in the US and Canada
>implement expensive recovery plans for other endangered birds species.
>Little is being done for the Eskimo Curlew because there are no
>obvious ways to assist it. Maybe you have some suggestions?
Ownership. If people believe that they have a responsibility for something,
then they are more likely to help it. 500,000 members sounds impressive,
but in reality that means that 249,500,000 people don't care enough to
join ( assuming US population is 250 million ). In the case of the NZ
kakapo, the government ( Conservation Department ) also arranged
a large corporate sponsor who was willing to spend significant sums
of money ( which probably would have been spent on advertising ) in
return for the image of good corporate citizen. The tragedy of the
kakapo programme ( according to an in-depth article in a monthly
general interest magazine ), is that the young female Conservation
Department manager in charge of the programme was ( is still? ) more
intent on improving her management status, rather than helping the birds.
She inhibited the work programme of her well known and respected
junior ( Don Merton - responsible for the programme that saved the
black robin ). You could ask any NZer whether we should save the
kakapo ( a large green parrot ), and the answer would probably be yes.
But if you asked them how to save the kakapo, they probably wouldn't
be able to suggest detailed programmes - they leave that up to the
"experts". If you asked them how much of their tax money should be
spent saving endangered species, they would probably not be able
to say. It is interesting that the Treasury has just suggested that the
Conservation Department should sell off some of their land, rather than
ask for more money. ( Readers should note that the Conservation
Department request for more money is partially a consequence of a
tragic collapse of a viewing platform resulting in the deaths of a lot
of school children - the platform was built without the appropriate
permit, not to adequate engineering standards, and didn't have a
sign limiting the number of people. Despite a huge outcry, neither the
head of the department or the minister resigned. The public outcry
caused a formal Commission, which noted that some of the problem
was the lack of financial resources. Instead of fronting up with the
money, Treasury wants the department to sell some land instead,
and there really isn't such an outcry anymore. Note that the extra
money is really to help humans enjoy nature, not endangered
species. :-( )
If you are asking me for technical suggestions on how to save the
Curlew, I'm afraid I'd have to decline on grounds of total ignorance
about the bird and habitat. You state there are no obvious ways to
assist it, that seems to indicate that more resources have to be
spent identifying the problem(s) and possible solutions first, before
embarking on remedial action. My comment still applies, humanity
has a lot of resources, but unless sufficient people want their resources
to be used to save the Curlew, it will be left cope as best it can.
>One of the "grand plans" that John McCarthy derides, the migratory bird
>treaty, would have saved the Eskimo Curlew if it had come 50 years
>earlier. It would have been easy to prevent the Eskimo Curlew becoming
>endangered. It is now very difficult, perhaps impossible, to restore it.
Once again, treaties have to be owned, and they have to be negotiated,
and obviously that one wasn't.
Now you are saying that the treaty would have prevented the Curlew
from becoming endangered - that implies you know the cause ( habitat
or food loss? ). If that is the case, then perhaps the Curlew is a victim of
human encroachment, and the only way to reverse that is for sufficient
people to be concerned enough that the politicians will take action
( not just on the treaty, but also on the encroachment ). It is seldom
that environmental issues triumph over commerce issues, and it only
happens when the scales are weighted by obvious extensive public
concern. Good guys, gals and birds often do come last....
Bruce Hamilton
Bruce Hamilton
>As an example, an activist here in the U.S. recently told me that New
>Zealand's environmental statutes were the current favored model that many
>international environmental activists were pushing for other countries.
>Maybe you should tell us where they are on the Web?
Note that there are several government departments responsible for
different aspects of our environment. The department concerned with
preserving endangered species is the Department of Conservation,
and I'm not certain they are on the Web.
What you are introducing is the NZ Resource Management Act, which
is applied by regional councils and the Ministry for the Environment, which I
did discuss last year. To get information on it, try the home pages of
1. The Ministry for the Environment
http://www.mfe.govt.nz/
It discusses the Resource Management Act and Environment 2010 Strategy.
2. A typical regional council, eg The Bay Plenty Regional Council
http://www.boprc.govt.nz/www/resman1.html
It also discusses the RMA and their use of it.
>I think you've missed the point of the thread. The Eskimo Curlew was
>brought up not to badmouth McCarthy for not doing something about it,
>but to illustrate the limits to what we can do as "gardeners".
Not to me. It shows that few people with limited resources haven't
managed to succeed, but it doesn't mean that better resourced
endeavours will fail.
> I think Andrew Taylor has demonstrated that the Eskimo Curlew
> has a large pool of people with a large amount of money who would
> like to save it, as well as a relatively supportive government.
Possibly. But how much resource has actually been used to try
and save the Curlew? ( Apologies if it has already been defined,
Usenet is intermittant here ). I doubt the 500,000 all have the
Curlew on today's "To Do" list.
> The environmentalist's argument is that it is not only cheaper in the
> mid-to-long term to leave things alone now rather than fix them later,
> but also that some things can never be fixed later.
Nobody disputes the cases where that applies, but often there is an
economic penalty in leaving a resource/environment alone. In general,
the vast majority of people do want to step lightly on the planet, but they
also want to ensure they do not miss opportunities. The doctrine of " user
pays " means that almost everything is given a monetary value, and then
"owners" ( often the government ) can demand a rate of return. Many of
the resources are not plundered by huge, evil multinationals, but by hordes
of small businesses ( from fishermen to real estate developers ) who have
their own assessment of the balance between $ and resources.
Human greed means that attempts to prevent depletion whilst there still
is a market are probably doomed. Tigers, rhino, fish etc. Has there ever been
a successful long term business based on leaving an owned resource alone?.
Tourism still damages the environment, and is subject to fashion. Sustainable
agriculture isn't. Some "businessman" will appear to exploit a valuable
resource, unless strong cultural pressures prohibit it. The businessman will
claim the resource is an asset, and should be used as such, and will claim
that approval ( govt, landowner, public etc. ) means they are acting
responsibly - if they comply with the terms of their permit - it's not the
businessman's fault if his permit results in the demise of the resource, or
an associated, dependant resource. He would claim the owners are
responsible for his permit, and they took his money on the understanding
that he could use their resource. That's what the NZ RMA attempts to address,
it allows for public imput and independant reviews at several stages to assess
the impacts of specific human-induced change - it's not perfect, but it's the
best we currently have here. That's also why the GP actions in attacking the
"businessman" rather than the owner ( usually govt ), isn't a long term
solution. Another businessman will appear....
Bruce Hamilton
Rich Puchalsky
: I noticed that the "wise use" movement hasn't been mentioned in this
: group recently. When it was mentioned it was derided by people who
: never quoted what it actually said, only caricatures. Since I haven't
: heard from it directly, I don't know what it actually advocates.
: However, I agree with the slogan.
That's funny. But then McCarthy's history of joining extremist political
movements would indicate that he's a sucker for propaganda.
By the way, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his
need" sounds really good to most people. In fact, I heard of a survey
in which many people thought it sounded like some official motto connected
with the U.S. government. They must also have cluelessly agreed with the
slogan.
John McCarthy
writes:
By the way, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his
need" sounds really good to most people. In fact, I heard of a survey
in which many people thought it sounded like some official motto connected
with the U.S. government. They must also have cluelessly agreed with the
slogan.
There is not too much wrong with the slogan as a description of a
desirable state of affairs. However, what Marx and Engels meant by it
in the _Communist Manifesto_ is that the state would determine your
needs, and what it came to is that people with power would determine
how your needs compared with their own.
Craig Mohn
>We should have global analogs of the Israeli slogan, "Make the deserts
>bloom".
To someone who has an open mind, the deserts already bloom. In an
irreplaceable way. Beauty is not equal to control.
_______________________________________________________________
Craig Mohn
mo...@are.berkeley.edu
John McCarthy
j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
>We should have global analogs of the Israeli slogan, "Make the deserts
>bloom".
To someone who has an open mind, the deserts already bloom. In an
irreplaceable way. Beauty is not equal to control.
open mind.
Andrew Taylor
Bruce Hamilton <B.Ham...@irl.cri.nz> wrote previously:
>This is defeatist. If we ( humanity ) *really* wantled the Eskimo
>Curlew population to increase we probably have sufficient resources
>If you are asking me for technical suggestions on how to save the
>Curlew, I'm afraid I'd have to decline on grounds of total ignorance
>about the bird and habitat.
So your first statement is empty arm waving just like John McCarthy.
Anyway you are missing the point of the debate it is not about our
desire to save the Eskimo Curlew but our ability. My point is that for
a planetary gardener, this is the most trivial of operations but it
is at or beyond the limit of our abilities.
It is not a question of resources because the Eskimo Curlew is a bird
breeding in the US and Canada the resources are available from in
government agencies and non-government organisations including an
astonishing amount of skilled volunteer labour already employed in bird
conservation in North America.
> ( Don Merton - responsible for the programme that saved the
>black robin ).
Interesting example. This recovery program was very inspiring. The
work of Merton et al. is much admired including by me. But it doesn't
give me much confidence in our ability as planetary garderners.
The Black Robin is a small sedentary passerine which is very tractable
to work with. The important recovery actions were relocations from
between islands and cross-fostering - moving eggs and chicks to
the nest of other species to be raised. The recovery program was
very lucky to succeed - only the extraordinary longevity of "Old Blue"
saved it.
This was very minor tinkering not planetary gardening but it is,
rightly, seen as great achievement with important lessons globally for
bird conservation.
[For those who don't know about the Black Robin see Merton & Butler,
The Black Robin, Oxford Uni Press (1992)]
>Now you are saying that the treaty would have prevented the Curlew
>from becoming endangered - that implies you know the cause ( habitat
>or food loss? ).
Neither, hunting last century as it migrated through the US and Canada.
Andrew Taylor
Dean Myerson
>
>On 2 Apr 1996, John McCarthy wrote:
>
>> In article <1996Apr2.1...@vexcel.com> de...@vexcel.com (Dean Myerson) writes:
>> Eucalyptus was introduced to India. I forget the reason for the introduction
>> but it is now considered a major nuisance and I once reported that a mob
>> was so upset with the continued subsidization of a eucalyptus nursery that
>> they burned it. Eucalyptus is very good at finding the water that it needs
>> and often takes water from other plants which, in India's case, were far
>> more useful and beneficial.
>> --
>>
>> When a mob burns something, it is risky to ascribe to it noble
>> motives. Might there have been a competitor of some kind? Obviously
>> not everyone considers eucalyptus a nuisance or there wouldn't have
>> been a nursery to burn.
>
multilateral agency and was giving the trees away. The "competitor" was
the local trees that were already common. These trees were a part of
the local peoples economy providing fodder for animals, wood for people
(low population density area in the mtns) but didn't suck up all the water
the way the eucalyptus did. Eucalyptus tends to dominate an area and
replace other trees, at least in that area.
One particular thing I remember from premonsoon India when it is dry and
very hot was that all of the plants stayed green where I was. They didn't
grow but they didn't turn brown either. When the rains came, they
started growing like crazy. A lot of India suffers with exceptionally
dry dry seasons and followed by exceptionally wet monsoons. Bombay gets
less than 5 mm of rain per month in March, April and May and many
thousands of mm per months in July and August. Many plants are adjusted
to this extreme climate. (So are the cows but thats another story:
imported high yield dairy cows need ac [and get it sometimes]).
Mark A. Friesel
On Mon, 8 Apr 1996, Craig Mohn wrote:
>
> To someone who has an open mind, the deserts already bloom. In an
> irreplaceable way. Beauty is not equal to control.
>
A well-stated comment - both concise and correct.
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________
> Craig Mohn
> mo...@are.berkeley.edu
>
>
Jan Schloerer
such difficulties ? I presume the problems arise during migration
or from its winter quarters, but the sources available to me let
me down.
For the next question, I apologize in advance, in case I muddled
up who said what: I lost the posts. There was some talk on whether
a given environmental stress may have less effect on those species
that manage to survive it for a while, a recurrent theme in
Lawton & May (Extinction Rates, Oxford Univ. Press 1995).
John McCarthy (I think) summarized chapter 6 "Extinctions in
Mediterranean areas" by Werner Greuter, which suggests that plant
extinction rates for 'Mediterranean' floras - Mediterranean,
South Africa, California, West Australia (no data for Chile) -
are negatively correlated with the time passed since European
settling, that is, since the arrival of large-scale agriculture
and grazing. Andrew Taylor (I think) said he thought the numbers
didn't fit. My impression on rereading was that, while the quality
of the extinction data is poor, the numbers, as far as they go,
do indeed fit. So I wonder why you think they don't. Provided
that I don't confuse you with someone else, see above.
Jan Schloerer jsch...@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de
Uni Ulm Klinische Dokumentation D-89070 Ulm Germany
Bruce Hamilton
and...@cs.su.oz.au (Andrew Taylor) writes:
>In article <B.Hamilton....@irl.cri.nz>,
>Bruce Hamilton <B.Ham...@irl.cri.nz> wrote previously:
>>This is defeatist. If we ( humanity ) *really* wantled the Eskimo
>>Curlew population to increase we probably have sufficient resources
>> [and more recently]
>>If you are asking me for technical suggestions on how to save the
>>Curlew, I'm afraid I'd have to decline on grounds of total ignorance
>>about the bird and habitat.
>So your first statement is empty arm waving just like John McCarthy.
No more so than your initial claim that " You can't "arrange" for the Eskimo
Curlew population to increase to 10,000." If you wish to selectively
extract items from my posts, then please recognise that I don't claim
to be " humanity " as your selection suggests. I believe we do have the
ability, but not yet the inclination, to assign appropriate resources, you
believe otherwise.. We aren't going to agree...
>Anyway you are missing the point of the debate it is not about our
>desire to save the Eskimo Curlew but our ability. My point is that for
>a planetary gardener, this is the most trivial of operations but it
>is at or beyond the limit of our abilities.
If it was trivial ( "of small value or importance" ), why be concerned?.
You want me to believe that we ( humanity ) can not perform this
operation just on your opinion, whereas I currently believe we are
treating it as "trivial" and are not seriously applying resources to this
particular gardening problem - unfortunately this happens all the time....
>It is not a question of resources because the Eskimo Curlew is a bird
>breeding in the US and Canada the resources are available from in
>government agencies and non-government organisations including an
>astonishing amount of skilled volunteer labour already employed in bird
>conservation in North America.
I asked for a quantitative estimate of the actual resources applied to this
"trivial" operation.
>Interesting example. This recovery program was very inspiring. The
>work of Merton et al. is much admired including by me. But it doesn't
>give me much confidence in our ability as planetary garderners.
When people inherit a garden, they try to convert it as it pleases
them. The previous owners counted the black robin existance as trivial,
Don Merton and the Dept. of Conservation didn't, and applied their
resources.
[ The Black Robin recovery programme ]
>This was very minor tinkering not planetary gardening but it is,
>rightly, seen as great achievement with important lessons globally for
>bird conservation.
What is gardening, if not tinkering? The old saying that "a weed is a plant in
the wrong place" implies that the gardener knows what they want, and
applies their resources to achieve it. Planetary gardening would not be a
huge monoculture agriculture, but selective operations to obtain the
desired outcome ( food, biodiversity, beauty etc ). I believe humanity can
perform that role better than they already do. I think we already
are planetary gardeners, but we haven't learnt how to garden properly.
Humanity has had such a profound effect on New Zealand over the last 1000
years that we currently do not have the resources to undo much of the damage
caused. Using offshore island as safe havens is the only viable strategy until
we do know how to garden the main three islands successfully. The deliberate
introduction of the possum, rabbit, deer, stoat, weasel etc. means that our
garden is in far more disarray than elsewhere, but we ( NZs humanity ) have to
proactively garden to try and restore some balance. Trying to wipe out 90+
million possums is not currently perceived as practical, given the resources
allocated by the representatives of NZ humans ( politicians ).
The introduction of the rabbit calcivirus into Australia means that our
wildlife is under renewed threat. If the rabbit population plummets, their
predators will switch to other food sources such as bird eggs and chicks,
before both the predators and prey populations also plummet.
How long before RCV reaches NZ, given the huge traffic between the two
countries, and the vested interests of farmers on marginal lands wishing
to reduce their rabbit problem?. ( They should not be farming that land - the
land should be allowed to revert, and then it would not be suitable for
rabbits, but hey, the farmers are also humanity, and all have a vote too )
I'm not suggesting that NZ should ultimately be a large version of Stanford
flower gardens, but even those gardens are both a resource source and sink,
and gardeners are often more in harmony with their local environment that
the general populance, and perhaps even more than some environmentalists.
The act of successful gardening is also an act of learning about that small
region of the planet - humanity is pervasive, so we have a lot of
untapped knowledge about gardening of the planet - we also have a lot more
to learn, but gardeners can also contribute to conservation, as well
accidentally harming conservation efforts. Gardeners are usually not malicious
plunderers of the planet, and environmentalists are not the sole glorious
defenders....
>>Now you are saying that the treaty would have prevented the Curlew
>>from becoming endangered - that implies you know the cause ( habitat
>>or food loss? ).
>Neither, hunting last century as it migrated through the US and Canada.
You previously wrote " the migratory bird treaty, would have saved the Eskimo
Curlew if it had come 50 years earlier ". Would that have been early enough?.
The problems getting the Malta gunmen to stop their slaughter of migrant birds
doesn't necessarily imply we all dislike migrant birds, but it does show that
what one potential gardener might want will be different to another. Humanity
is diverse, and so the garden will always not match all peoples wishes...
I agree that it would be silly to say that we can save anything by applying
sufficient resources, because we never will always do that, we prioritise
our resources. Humanity today does not use our discretionary resources for
such operations, that has to change at least a little. But I'm not so negative
as to say that we couldn't be sucessful planetary gardeners, if the
inclination and desire were there. Small successes ( such as the Black Robin
), are indications that we are taking our gardening role more seriously.
Because of earlier folly, we first have to make the garden healthy, and in
doing that we become better ( more informed ) gardeners. This is just a
holding action in the hope that our successors will be better gardeners, and
surely that is better than leaving the endangered to their own devices?
Given the inevitable role of humanity to continue to use the Earth as our
garden, we should not be defeatist, but recognise that to survive we have to
ensure the garden remains as healthy as possible. It is certainly true that
environmental issues only tend to be addressed when we have discretionary
resources available ( after having satisfied our basic needs ). Somehow
we have to make the transition so that environmental/biodiversity issues are
also accomodated, as the majority of humanity should appreciate that a
healthy planetary garden is required to sustain humanity, however they
usually are preoccupied with just meeting basic needs.
Do you feel uncomfortable with the concept that humanity should move
from the opportunist gardening we currently perform to a more informed
gardening?. We aren't going to disappear and leave the planet alone.
Bruce Hamilton
Andrew Taylor
Jan Schloerer <JSCH...@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de> wrote:
>Could someone, please, briefly explain why the Eskimo Curlew poses
>such difficulties ? I presume the problems arise during migration
>or from its winter quarters, but the sources available to me let me down.
The Eskimo Curlew breeds in the North American arctic tundra. It winters
in southern South American grasslands. It was reduced almost to
extinction last century by hunting along its migration routes through
Canada and the USA. Since then there have been occasional sightings
particularly in Texas.
I've never seen anyone even guess as to why its population has
apparently remained at tiny levels through this century. I haven't read
much on american birds for several years though.
Andrew Taylor
Andrew Taylor
>Mediterranean areas" by Werner Greuter, which suggests that plant
>extinction rates for 'Mediterranean' floras - Mediterranean,
>South Africa, California, West Australia (no data for Chile) -
>are negatively correlated with the time passed since European
>settling, that is, since the arrival of large-scale agriculture
I've never questioned the numbers because I've seen the numbers.
I haven't been able to get Lawton & May here. I did question
the inferences jmc made. I don't know if Greuter made the same
inferences. My point was there are important differences between
these 4 areas.
Notably bovids and lagomorphs are native to the first 3 areas. their
introduction to WA is implicated in some of the extinctions.
Many of the WA plant extinctions were of species with very small ranges
and their entire range was suitable for large scale agriculture. What
I know of SA suggests it might have similar diversity patterns to WA
but I'm doubtful about California or the Mediterranean.
Patterns of agriculture would also be very relevant.
Changes in fire regime I suspected in some of the WA extinctions. Man
has been modifying WA fire regimes for 40,000 years so the change was
from one artifical to another artificial fire regime. Were there
comparable changes in other areas?
>There was some talk on whether a given environmental stress may have
>less effect on those species that manage to survive it for a while,
This is largest cause of extinction of WA plants was having their entire
range turned into wheat fields or crops. Hence I don't think the
WA plant extinction numbers are telling us much about this.
Andrew Taylor
Andrew Taylor
Bruce Hamilton <B.Ham...@irl.cri.nz> wrote:
>I asked for a quantitative estimate of the actual resources applied to this
>"trivial" operation.
Very little gets spent on the Eskimo Curlew specifically I expect
because there just aren't viable options to spend money on. I'd guess
at least US$100,000,000 of conservation spending p.a. is important to
conservation of shorebirds like the Eskimo Curlew. I'd guess
100,000 volunteer man hours are spent per year for the purpose
of collecting data on shorebirds useful for conservation.
>You previously wrote " the migratory bird treaty, would have saved the Eskimo
>Curlew if it had come 50 years earlier ". Would that have been early enough?.
Huge flocks of Eskimo Curlews still existed in the the 1860s. Small
flocks were still being destroyed into the 1890s. The Migratory Bird
Treaty came in 1916
>The introduction of the rabbit calcivirus into Australia means that our
>wildlife is under renewed threat. If the rabbit population plummets, their
>predators will switch to other food sources such as bird eggs and chicks,
>before both the predators and prey populations also plummet.
I'll bet this claim is purely speculation. The same claim has been
made in Australia with little no evidence. It is certainly a
possibility but one of many. It may also be prudent to take actions on
the basis of this possibility but to present it is as certainty is highly
misleading.
>Do you feel uncomfortable with the concept that humanity should move
>from the opportunist gardening we currently perform to a more informed
>gardening?. We aren't going to disappear and leave the planet alone.
I believe our only current option for most species conservation is to
leave/restore areas of the planet close to their natural state. I (and
many others) also see the conservations of the ecosystems themselves as
important and also the conservation of wilderness areas as undisturbed
by man as possible.
No doubt we will acquire eventually more ability to modify ecosystems
but currently John McCarthy's "planetary gardening" is the empty hand
waving of someone who knows little of conservation.
Andrew Taylor
Jan Schloerer
in Lawton & May, eds, Extinction Rates, Oxford Univ. Press 1995
In <4khqlf$2...@staff.cs.su.oz.au>
Andrew Taylor (and...@cs.su.oz.au) wrote:
> In article <4kgslu$1...@rigel.rz.uni-ulm.de>,
> Jan Schloerer <JSCH...@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de> wrote:
>
>> [...] which suggests that plant extinction rates for
>> 'Mediterranean' floras - Mediterranean, South Africa, California,
>> West Australia (no data for Chile) - are negatively correlated
>> with the time passed since European settling, that is, since the
>> arrival of large-scale agriculture and grazing. [...]
>
> I've never questioned the numbers because I've seen the numbers.
> I haven't been able to get Lawton & May here. I did question
> the inferences jmc made. I don't know if Greuter made the same
> inferences. My point was there are important differences between
> these 4 areas.
Thanks for a diligent reply. You'd perhaps better occasionally
take a peek at the chapter yourself, though what you brought up
suggests it may be a bit short on local colors.
To be fair, Greuter stresses that his hunch "species elimination
peaks in the initial phases of dramatic change induced by human
implantation" is hypothetical, for the floras in question.
He cautions that he is well familiar only with the Mediterranean
area proper. Also, for what they are worth, the rates of threatened
plants Greuter quotes don't fit:
Extinction rate (%) Threat rate (%)
Mediterranean proper 0.13 14.7
Cape Province 0.3 15.2
California 0.4 10.2
Western Australia 0.66 17.5
> Notably bovids and lagomorphs are native to the first 3 areas.
> Their introduction to WA is implicated in some of the extinctions.
> Changes in fire regime I suspected in some of the WA extinctions.
> Man has been modifying WA fire regimes for 40,000 years so the
> change was from one artifical to another artificial fire regime.
> Were there comparable changes in other areas?
As far as I could see, Greuter doesn't bring up these points,
nor similarity or dissimilarity of agricultural patterns.
> Many of the WA plant extinctions were of species with very small
> ranges and their entire range was suitable for large scale
> agriculture. What I know of SA suggests it might have similar
> diversity patterns to WA but I'm doubtful about California or
> the Mediterranean.
Same for the Mediterranean proper: "... richness is not caused by
high local species density ... but by many small mean distributional
ranges, reflected by a remarkable number of narrow endemics."
Couldn't spot anything explicit about California.
James G. Acker
: In article <4kgslu$1...@rigel.rz.uni-ulm.de>,
: Jan Schloerer <JSCH...@rzmain.rz.uni-ulm.de> wrote:
: >such difficulties ? I presume the problems arise during migration
: >or from its winter quarters, but the sources available to me let me down.
:
: The Eskimo Curlew breeds in the North American arctic tundra. It winters
: in southern South American grasslands. It was reduced almost to
: extinction last century by hunting along its migration routes through
: Canada and the USA. Since then there have been occasional sightings
: particularly in Texas.
Why was it hunted? Food source, I presume.
===============================================
| James G. Acker |
| REPLY TO: jga...@neptune.gsfc.nasa.gov |
===============================================
All comments are the personal opinion of the writer
and do not constitute policy and/or opinion of government
or corporate entities.
Bruce Hamilton
>In article <B.Hamilton....@irl.cri.nz>,
>Bruce Hamilton <B.Ham...@irl.cri.nz> wrote:
...
>>The introduction of the rabbit calcivirus into Australia means that our
>>wildlife is under renewed threat. If the rabbit population plummets, their
>>predators will switch to other food sources such as bird eggs and chicks,
>>before both the predators and prey populations also plummet.
>I'll bet this claim is purely speculation. The same claim has been
>made in Australia with little no evidence.
From the Wellington "The Evening Post", 10 April 1996 p.10
" A senior Department of Conservation officer for protected species in Otago,
Bruce McKinlay, said rabbit predators would be forced to switch to other
wildlife for their staple diet after RCD decimated rabbit numbers. He expected
one or two species to become extinct.
It would take take three to four years for the numbers of stoats, ferrets and
wild cats to decline but in that time the population of native wildlife was
likely to be decimated. " As they [ predators ] starve to death they will eat
everything else," he said.
Otago wildlife most at risk included three species of giant skink, yellow-eyed
penguins, royal albatross, sooty shearwater, little blue penguins, wrybill,
black fronted terns, banded dotterel, fours species of beetles, a species
of grasshopper and a ground dwelling weta. "
Naturally it is speculation, but it's not mine, and I've no reason to believe
this senior DOC officer is incompetent or wrong. If my earlier comment
misinterprets the article, then I apologise. As far as I'm aware only a few
species ( kiwi and ? ) that were considered directly at risk have been tested
for adverse effects of rabbit calicivirus. One of the kiwis showed some effect,
and so more were tested. This is the first article I've seen that suggests we
should also look at what the predators will do. It seems to me that the
deliberate introduction of RCV more closely resembles a can of worms than
the simple, obvious solution to the rabbit problem that it was initially
presented as.
One also has to wonder at the competence of the Australian officials in charge
of the programme that resulted in the accidental release of RCV. If they didn't
know enough about it to properly quarantine it, can they be expected to provide
informed assessments of risk if released onto a whole continental ecosystem?
We should learn from our past mistakes of introductions....
Bruce Hamilton
John McCarthy
virus moved from the island where it was being quarantined was an
Australian farmer with a rabbit problem dissatisfied with the pace of
the study.
Andrew Taylor
Bruce Hamilton <B.Ham...@irl.cri.nz> wrote:
>Naturally it is speculation, but it's not mine, and I've no reason to believe
>this senior DOC officer is incompetent or wrong.
No it doesn't have to be speculation, ecologists address questions like
this. Frankly it doesn't even sound a good guess to me although its
certainly a possibility that it would be prudent to insure against.
>This is the first article I've seen that suggests we should also look at
>what the predators will do.
The effect of rabbit control on predators has been discussed for a long
time in Australia, well before RCV was considered as an agent.
>One also has to wonder at the competence of the Australian officials in charge
>of the programme that resulted in the accidental release of RCV. If they didn't
>know enough about it to properly quarantine it, can they be expected to provide
>informed assessments of risk if released onto a whole continental ecosystem?
I'm not sure how you can link unexpected efficacy of a vector to assessing
impact on native flora & fauna. The risk of release has to be compared
to the risk of no action. Rabbits are doing continuing damage, both
to our agriculture and our native flora and fauna. I would have been
happy to release RCV on the basis of the testing that occurred before the
field trials where its accidental release occurred.
Andrew Taylor
Dean Myerson
>
>>I think you've missed the point of the thread. The Eskimo Curlew was
>>brought up not to badmouth McCarthy for not doing something about it,
>>but to illustrate the limits to what we can do as "gardeners".
>
could have been focused on any particular problem but there is a practical
limit. If it required 80% of world GNP to save the Eskimo Curlew, would
that be a demonstration of our capability to be a gardener? 80% is
extreme but my point is that any measurement of our "capabilities" must
include practical factors such as resource limitations. Maybe 2% beyond
the current expenditure would be magically adequate but given the myriad
problems that need to be addressed, saying that we just didn't spend enough
money and time is a copout. Maybe finding that extra 2% means another species
doesn't get it. If we don't have the financial resources to fix the problem,
then we simply can't fix it (for now, at least).
Steinn Sigurdsson
In article <B.Hamilton....@irl.cri.nz>,
Bruce Hamilton <B.Ham...@irl.cri.nz> wrote:
>I asked for a quantitative estimate of the actual resources applied to this
>"trivial" operation.
Very little gets spent on the Eskimo Curlew specifically I expect
because there just aren't viable options to spend money on. I'd guess
at least US$100,000,000 of conservation spending p.a. is important to
conservation of shorebirds like the Eskimo Curlew. I'd guess
100,000 volunteer man hours are spent per year for the purpose
of collecting data on shorebirds useful for conservation.
Hmm, that should be easy - you said 500,000 people were
committed (less than 0.2% of the US population, but still).
Assuming these people would committ 2 hours per week to
the project, and that most of them are not personally
in a situation to do so so will contribute by proxy,
(under)valuing their contribution at the minimum wage,
the contributions would be US$ 10 per week per person.
That is $260 million per year. Since viable options are
not currently known, spend $10 million per year on research
for 8 years, investing the rest (that buys about 100 science
manyears per year). After 8 years you have a pot that
can sustain $100 million per year indefinitely, or you
could wait a couple of more years, spend $500 million on
a one-off capital expense (like land purchase) and still
have the $100M p.a.
I presume the 500,000 really are that committed. This is
apparently an important issue.