Heiko Bleher on the Amazon Crisis

It may have been mentioned many times in the past but lets keep this topic current...

Again the greed of man rears it's ugly head.
How much longer do we bury our heads in the sand.....

www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=3329

Regards
C

There are those that say this is an unavoidable cycle of the earth as it spins on its wobble in the axis, the Sahara every 20,000 years becomes flooded and turns tropic, this will mean another part of the planet or many parts becomes more arid.

Deforestation has a part to play in this, if you look at the picture you can see exactly that all around the river, billions of gallons of water being drained from the river by drainage because of deforestation. Water literally drains away from the river, and the table gets lower and lower each year, add a drought to the mix and it is a catastrophe.


I think it is a combination of both, shifting weather patterns and deforestation that has been emphasized the underlying conditions aslready present before the drought.

Do I tihnk we can actually do anything, imo we have gone beyond that point already in a cycle that cannot be reversed atthis late stage and I don't think that anything bar relseasing something into the atmosphere to block out some sunlight ot cool the planet would have any effect.



Mark

P.S. Nothing can prevent the wobble in the axis of earth so the weather patterns are always going to shift every 20,000 years

So what your are stating (from those that say) we are just mighty unfortunate to be right smack in the middle that 20,000 year criox cycle of events.
I think we are just looking for acceptance and lying down when it comes to these matters, not enough pressure is being put on our leaders to really take this seriously. MONEY is the root of all evil as they say and the thirst and greed of man which is driving this thing forward.
The world is crying out for a petition on a global scale not just localised lobbying by the usual suspect pressure groups We all need to be as one collective.
Too many folks (not the native foresters) are getting rich on such a valuable resource.
I know a lot has been done already...and sites like this go a long way to try and highlight certain situations
www.amazonwatch.org/belo-monte-petition.php
but its not enough to effect total change in attitude at a high level (political fat cats/ bribes and corruption).
We may be looking at this from a fishkeeping aspect as we too are responsible for the rape of certain species, some for the good one might argue. But this controversy has much more implications than just the woes of us merge aquarists.
Keep posting your views on this, sure to be controversial subject matter.
Regards
C

Mark. wrote:

There are those that say this is an unavoidable cycle of the earth as it spins on its wobble in the axis, the Sahara every 20,000 years becomes flooded and turns tropic, this will mean another part of the planet or many parts becomes more arid.

It is well known that there are cycles in the distribution of Water and the changes in temperature but the problem lies in the space of Time, in Chernobyl, the ephemerals such as Butterflies, Flies, Mosquitoes, ie all animal life that is born/hatched, matures and reproduces within the year of birth have shown a great ability to bypass the effects of Radiation whereas, animal life with much longer gestations such as Human kind, Cattle , Sheep etc show horrible signs of abnormal growths, Cancers etc so the sudden changes, not the ones over many many thousands of years are what are worrying, Birds and other migrating species are finding this impossible to deal with.

We can adjust rapidly to our Environment, they can't.

The Earth DOES wobble on it's Axis but not over night, it is a gradual 20,000 + year thing and this is something that would go un noticed like Leaves changing colour, you don't open the Curtains one morning and all of the Leaves Green and healthy and the next morning they are gone, these things happen gradually not suddenly.

Kev.

Folks, this has happened before. About a hundred or so years ago and happened many times before that too. Granted, alot more people a going to be affected by it now because of a surge in population but the folks there will bounce back, as will most of the species affected. They got over the last one right? Life is resillient and though some species may sadly die off, something else will thrive. Who knows, maybe some presently unknown species may fill the niche and they too could make good pets .

Jay

How much more diverse would the Animal Kingdom be if we weren' affecting such huge change on it, we are satient beings , we are aware, we have a duty to respect and secure the future, within our means, of this Planet, we are the only species responsible for extinctions of other species. It really isn't good enough to accept that niches will be afforded to other types of Life forms just because we allow it or induce it. If it were us, Mankind that was being pushed to extinction we'd be seriously irked and we'd take action, this happens to us daily via bacterial infection, Viruses, Cancers, you name it, same thing really so do WE give up and let something take OUR place? Don't think so.
If a group of animals reach a point in reduction of numbers they are red listed and will find it difficult if not impossible to recover and the main problem is the lack of a useful Gene Pool to work with.

People need to be applauded for their efforts in tackling all of the ails but there needs to be coherent and assosciated action before it gets out of hand if it hasn't already.

Kev.

Ok, we are most certainly not the only species to cause the die off of other species. Species out compete others all the time and the loser dies...simple as. No animal just "gives up", and natural selection is a b*tch, but its a proven system given four billion years of evolution. To be clear, Im not saying we shouldnt try to do our bit, but pinning this unfortunate circumstance entirely on us would be a mistake. We are different from other animals, we have totally come to dominate and control most of that which can be controlled, so I agree we have a duty of care for that but we should also take pride in it.

Jay

No one can or should take pride in wiping things out nor should they, We are the ONLY species responsible for actively wiping out species in less than the blink of an eye, where you have natural selection, the fittest survives and adapts but we wipe them out COMPLETELY not over thousands of years allowing the fittest to exist,

Here's a list .


DODO
The most poignant symbol of the word extinction is undoubtedly the dodo. It is said that the dodo was the progeny of the pigeon. When pigeons settled on an island in the Indian Ocean called Mauritius, the abundance of food meant that they were here to stay. But the easy availability of food and absence of any kind of predator also meant that they did not have to fly to procure it. As a result every future generation of the bird started to develop wings that were weaker than the previous generation. This happened, till there was a time when the bird stopped growing wings all together. Thus evolved the dodo, a 14 kg bird, that could not fly, could not defend itself, and had only one home – Mauritius.

It was somewhere in the 16th century that Dutch sailors came upon this island. It was a perfect stopover point for them. The sailors brought along with them, pigs, goats, cats, rats, and monkeys. These animals not only competed with the dodos for food but also began eating the dodo’s themselves. The sailors too found the dodo easy to catch and easier to eat. They named it dodo because the word "dodo" means simpleton in Portuguese. The sailors also cleared the forest and laid foundations of settlements there. All these factors meant that by the late 17th century, less than a hundred years after the dodo was first sighted it was extinct.

DIRE WOLF
The Dire wolf is one such animal, whose extinction is due to a natural calamity. The wolf was unable to survive the Ice Age because of a peculiar reason. It did not have anything to eat. The Ice Age wiped out all its prey. It was found predominantly in the area that today constitutes North America. It was slightly smaller than the modern wolf but less agile. But its teeth are much larger and it had a very strong jawbone. It was a scavenger by nature and its prey included horse, bison, deer and sloth.

PASSENGER PIGEON
In1808, there was a flock of Passenger pigeons, which flew over Kentucky. It is estimated that this flock contained approximately 2 billion birds. Yes, 2 billion that is 1/3rd of today’s world population. On September 1, 1914, the last Passenger pigeon died. The extinction of Passenger pigeons in such a short period of time is a tribute to Man’s destructive capabilities.

Passenger pigeons were so numerous that when they flew from their northern to the southern habitats, the sky would darken and they would stretch for a distance of up to 10 miles. Unfortunately they existed during a period when human expansion was the fastest (18th and 19th century) in a country where this expansion was most profound (The United States of America). In order to construct railroads huge numbers of chestnut and oak trees were cleared, these were the main source of food for the pigeons. When the railroad was constructed they were hunted down and easily transported to markets in the city. They also were a source of food for men and their pets in the rural areas. All these factors contributed to the stunning eradication of this species.

I don't know of any other species capable or responsible for such wipeouts

If we keep fishing every corner of the Ocean, the only things that will be left will be single celled organisms and we have to wait for another 4.5 billion years?



Kev.

Where in my comment did I say we should be proud of our mistakes? I meant we should take pride in the fact that we are, for now, top dogs. In evolutionary terms, we got here very quickly and have only been on top a short time, so in my opinion, we should be living it up, doing what we can to make life better for one and all while we can. Like I said earlier, we should all do our bit, we just shouldnt beat ourselves up at every given opportunity or blame ourselves when a lemming goes over the cliff...

Jay

I never said you said we should be proud of anything Jay, I was just saying we shouldn't be. We are only top dog because we are satient and consume everything in our path.

You said we weren't alone in causing extinction but we are and I think there is a real problem in the world, no responsibility or culpability for anything.

No one can beat themselves up if Lemmings jump off a Cliff, true, but we sure as hell can do so if we are the ones pushing them.

Kev.

stretnik wrote:

No one can beat themselves up if Lemmings jump off a Cliff, true, but we sure as hell can do so if we are the ones pushing them.

Kev.

I totally agree with you on that point bro, very insightful. Fact is, were still not taking care of our own. Until things improve for people, the natural world is going to take a backseat.

Jay

Totally agree Jay.

Kev.

Viperbot wrote:

stretnik wrote:

No one can beat themselves up if Lemmings jump off a Cliff, true, but we sure as hell can do so if we are the ones pushing them.

Kev.

I totally agree with you on that point bro, very insightful. Fact is, were still not taking care of our own. Until things improve for people, the natural world is going to take a backseat.

Jay

But does the natural world really need to take a backseat?
An what might the backseat be a backseat to?

Man is an awful animal in that we are really great at putting emphasis on a few artificial needs.....the one that pops to mind is money.
We are conned into a false sense of believing that artificial needs are actual needs.

Anyway, that is all philosophical stuff for sophists of the world to debate into the early hours.

And, then to another philosophical question......at what stage do we take notice and concern?

If we don't care about a butterfly in a swamp in some far-off place, then when do we start to care?
Shall we say....."it only means a few frogs die-out"...to which we see malaria get a good grip.....
and then do we say....."oh well, it's a problem for the locals in that country...but I still want my cheap cashew nuts"...etc etc etc....
Should we let things get to the stage of never listening to our backseat passengers until we crash?

But here is another problem.......when we do show concern, are our actions really the right choices? are our concerns and actions maybe just another monetary economic goal (eg biofuels.........."green, eco-friendly" etc etc yet needing the stuff to be grown on someone elses land). Sometimes the "green" approach is a little bit too freshly "green" in some cases.

ian

[/quote]

Fact is, were still not taking care of our own.
Jay[/quote]


Hi Ian, I should have done the quotes on that, I am a firm believer in Man's success being it's demise, I feel that at 6 billion we have enough people on the Planet and if sustained around that number , the Planet and it's inhabitants will and can thrive in harmony.

The nitty gritty arrives when you start to get into the poverty and assosciated conditions that abound when one part of the World has and the other has not, if given the wealth that the developed world has, what would the population be? how can it be sustained? what would the draw on resources be? at 6 billion we are consuming the Plnet at an insatiable rate, what rate would it be if the population was double, triple? I don't know the answers but if that is what is meant by, we're still not taking care of our own, we are heading down a slippery slope.

Back to Jay's comment re natural selection, we are preventing natural selection in the Human species because we circumvent it via drugs, medical solutions and procedures and as a result, we are destroying what should be a beneficial part of natural Death and promoting the propagation of faulty Genes and a sicker, weaker species.

As a result of us living through Diabetes, Downs syndrome, Cancers, celiac, Heat attacks and the list goes on, and I have lived, because some Genius discovered Antibiotics ( I got Pneumonia, twice! ) I have dodged the Bullet but I oviously have a predisposition toward catching Pneumonia and if I had Kids I'd be responsible for passing this Gene , Faulty Gene, onto another generation so technically my survival is working against what natural selection is inadvertantly trying to achieve.

I know people will look at what I have said and say How dare he say some people shouldn't live etc but facts are facts, animals live within rules and die passing none of their bad genes on.

Kev.

Interstellar travel.it's the only way.then I can shout "get to the ship! save yourselves!"

on a more serious point I look at it like this,evoloution including man is happening all around us all the time, this includes our own destruction of the planet its creatures and resources.It's a new kind of evolution with us speeding things up.just as the dinosaurs once ruled the earth we now have that place in history..although the dinos were killed (we think by evironmental factors)we seem to be slowly doing the same thing.We're just a doomed parasite that is taking down a bunch of species with us along the way. I'm excited about the prospect about what comes after us on a dusty hot planet.probably wont be much in the way of aquatic life though.

How can you be excited? you won't be here.... or will you????
Hmmmmm.


I agree with you on us being a Parasite but I hate the fact that we always act after the event and the sad thing is, as far as we know, we are the only thing on Earth that can appreciate the aesthetics of this Jewel in our Solar System. While animals are "happy" doing the daily do, we can take time to wonder and be bedazzled by what we have.



Kev.

As you well know kev I'm an interstellar super being so I will of course be here. fact of the matter Is i reckon it's too late to do anything, we are past the midnight and into a new horrible dawn.while I admire all forms of conservation etc it's a finger in the dam situation at this point. (talk to anyone at the front end of projects like frog conservation etc and they will say the same),putting out snall fire while larger ones start.

sean says none of us know what we are talking about anyway as no one knows what is going to happen.He's probably right.He also says he is looking forward to living in the biodome and wont open the door for any of us.nice.

Unfortunately I feel the same so I'll revel in what's here at the moment and will do my damndest to keep it like that for as long as I can. I still believe common sense will prevail.

Kev.

The natural order of things tend to follow something along the lines of....
if we build up a complex ordered system, then that system is forcefully driven towards total destruction much more than a simple less-ordered system.

Entropy.....that's it. When the rate change in entropy of a living system is zero.....that individual is dead.

It is a key driving force in evolution; it determines why a fish dies of ammonia poisoning in high pH; it explains why water is a key killer of humans; why rotenone is a good fish poison; radioactive decay; alcohol uptake from the gut; why an ancient building will fall apart; and why a complex aircraft can crash spontaneously yet never be able to be re-built unless someone puts loads of energy into the re-building (I have never heard of a crashed aircraft suddenly becoming whole and functional again).

The only thing that is difficult to determine is when the time will come unless we give it some form of little push (a catalyst).

Nature can only hold off the inevitable for so long.....it is very good at holding off the inevitable (and that is what makes life 'life')....but there is a fragility (and part of that is never allow entropy change to hit zero not even for a split second)

ian

Coordination, or the complete lack of it. It takes the human race acting in concert, otherwise things as they are, divided fragmented and destructive in their competition between the different groups be them geographically or financially.

Exponential chaos is the outcome of many many independent parts acting without any cohesion or regard for what the other parts are dong, as with any system be it physical or logical independent action without coordination will lead to no good for the whole.


As for what I have already said, we have reached the point of no return regarding the temprature of our planet, there is no going back unless you reflect heat.
Mark

Mark. wrote:
[quote

Exponential chaos is the outcome of many many independent parts acting without any cohesion or regard for what the other parts are dong, as with any system be it physical or logical independent action without coordination will lead to no good for the whole.

[/quote]



Here's a link for that quote if anyone is interested.

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=...&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ie

It's contained within a long PDF but makes interesting reading. Kev.

Coordination, or the complete lack of it. It takes the human race acting in concert, otherwise things as they are, divided fragmented and destructive in their competition between the different groups be them geographically or financially.

Exponential chaos is the outcome of many many independent parts acting without any cohesion or regard for what the other parts are dong, as with any system be it physical or logical independent action without coordination will lead to no good for the whole.

Wise words which should be heeded.......

stretnik wrote:

Mark. wrote:
[quote

Exponential chaos is the outcome of many many independent parts acting without any cohesion or regard for what the other parts are dong, as with any system be it physical or logical independent action without coordination will lead to no good for the whole.

Here's a link for that quote if anyone is interested.

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=...&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ie

It's contained within a long PDF but makes interesting reading. Kev.[/quote]


Interesting stuff indeed Kev, cheers for the link. I notice this every day in my job in IT and it holds true for every entity made up of independent parts. As with IT and a whole lot besides, standardisation is required that all parts need to adhere to, not very likely to happen, especially now with Governments losing control and corporations taking over which is insane as corporations do not even act in their own best interests but rather are fractured by politics to the detriment of the corporation as a whole, the best man does not get the job, the man who can play the corporate game will be more successful in most cases. Nuts!

Leave out morality, would it be better for the entire planet to be under one rule? with one set of laws and rules? Individuality and the constant persuit of pleasure are not conducive to co-operation that is required to manage our planet. In the end humans need to evolve or regress either way this is an embarrassing stage of human history, in the past lessons were taught, and not learned. An Emperor of times gone by would read the lessons of the past with an eye on how their decisions would be seen in the future, today it is all about NOW, no care of the lessons from the past and no thought of how decisions made now will affect anything other than the immediate future.

When you see someone like Berlesconi, one of many, that guy is the eptiome of what is wrong with humans in general and an example of what humans will do if they can, obviously there are far worse examples.


Mark

Mark. wrote:
..............Leave out morality, would it be better for the entire planet to be under one rule? with one set of laws and rules? .................Mark[/quote]

I just pulled this bit out Mark to answer it.

"No" would be my answer.
If we tend to gravitate towards a single rule then a consensus balance will be lost.
However, as nature tends towards a balance then having a singularly ordered system (or rule) would mean that that ordered system would tend to show cracks.
If the single rule is far removed from a dynamic balance of differing rules then the push to drive the singularity apart will be very great; in that initial period there would be an explosion of conflicts....even though 'ideals', 'notions' etc would be initially very similar.
Often we see that some of the biggest problems eg battles are between very similar things.

In evolution, maybe it is with the parents that offspring have the biggest battle for survival of the 'new' gene pool.

Here is an interesting example of going overboard with evolution.....

many orchids mimic a female of an insect in way of look, smell, feel, behaviour;
so, maybe, the orchid that evolves to be the best mimic might be seen as being the 'best and fittest'...but no.
If that orchid has an attractant that is so strong, then males would tend to do nothing but mate with the plant non-stop and not bother ever finding a real female; the insect may become extinct and the orchid may follow closely in extinction.

So, a delicate balance (and often an opposing 'strategy' of balance) has evolved with many orchids....
eg once pollen has been drawn then the orchid may suddenly produce a repellent; or the orchid may start to act mechanically in opposition, upon pollination, to the normal feel of the female insect into one of something physically hammering the insect until it buzzes off elsewhere.
Single and simple rules of attraction may poise towards extinction.

Some good ideas in previous posts...maybe for another thread though.

ian

@ Ian. many orchids mimic a female of an insect in way of look, smell, feel, behaviour;

A quote like that indicates intent on the part of either the Bee or Orchid which we all know is impossible therefore not feasible, this is more like the Egg and Chicken quandry.

How did the Bee know what IT looks like in order to find an Orchid that fit's the Bill? How did the Orchid know what IT looks like to attract the Bee? and the time factor allows for natural extinction so what about all of the hit and misses over many millions of years? this is a question I have asked many times.

I studed this and other symbiotic relationships and found them fascinating. Another example is the Acacia Tree that is host to a colony of Ants, the Trees rewards the Ant by providing hollow Thorns for the Ants to live in and nodules of Protein for them to feed on, in return , the Ant will kill any intruder that ventures onto the Tree.

Not necessarily pertinent to this Thread but interesting I think.



Kev.

Apologies, I was being very unscientific and was using a short-hand way of putting it.....and normally I would hammer such 'intent' if I saw it written.
Yep, there is no intent.....it is a convoluted appearance of intent (but that is all too much of a mouthful...unless this was an academic look at evolution )

Sometimes I have to draw away from the reasoning of science and talk in terms of 'design' to help summarise things.

In reality we don't know what would happen if something in a symbiotic or similar balanced relationship became extinct; we can only guess.

But....I became a scientist to help me understand things....and boy it's left me with so much more that I need to understand.

Actually, when we look at orchid evolution in a seeming attempt to attract a pollinator.....just looking at Orchis simia....what type of animal is that trying to tempt? (here's a picture....www.naturamediterraneo.com/Public/data3/...chis%20simia%207.jpg)

Your example there, Stetnik, is very pertinet here as it is about balanced relationships.

Thinking of another orchid relationship....and balance.....the relationship between an orchid an insect and the brazil nut tree is another quite overt balanced relationship.

I won't go into orchid science....too much temptation for me as it was one of the subjects that I used to write and lecture on.
Orchids are one group of plants that could easily be used as evidence for 'a design on life'. Marvelous.

ian

To lose the Science Cap, I have to err on frivolous and say that an Alien would probably be more than tempted to engage in chromosomal transfer with that Baby

Kev.

I once heard a statement made by or about NASA as to why they don't reveal any UFO information.
It went something like this:
As individuals we are quite intelligent and could easily absorb and deal with such information, but as a whole such information would cause mass hysteria.

Justin, millions believe in a guy in Robes who floated into the Air on a Cloud and is omnipotent and watching over us, I think they should give us way more credit, after all , a majority believed the Fianna Fail party were Gods and will probably do so again in Feb/March too. It seems nothing is too scary for the human Animal.

Kev.

Aliens? Fianna Fail? What the hell happened to this thread? I disappear for a day of COD Black Ops and this is what I come back to .

Jay