Gray & Silver Plants to Brighten up your Landscapes ???

"Gray is a cool, neutral, and balanced color. The color gray is an emotionless, moody color that is typically associated with meanings of dull, dirty, and dingy, as well as formal, conservative, and sophisticated. The color gray is a timeless and practical color that is often associated with loss or depression."

Bourn Creative: Meaning of the Coloer Grey 

Image - Texas A&M AgriLife Research & Extension Center at Uvalde

Agave neomexicana - image, Grootscholten

Growing up in San Diego county, I was surrounded by adults, many of whom came from the midwest. Their midwest biased choices for landscapes were predominently massive lawns, a few trees, some flower beds, but mainly their choices were based on preferences of rich greens like the environments they were transplanted from. I can relate. I grew up around a much more rugged landscape of drier Mediterranean chaparral & desert ecosystems. Hence the patterns and colour schemes regarding my preferences in landscaping are a puzzle over here to most Swedes who no doubt would relate to people from the eastern United States. Take the photo above of the Texas A&M research station. Most people in a Retail Nursery in California will still prefer plants which offer the most brilliant of greens over greys if given a choice. Very few would choose what they would consider the dull grey-blue New Mexico Agave seen above right. But I think mainly it's a lack of ability of visualizing such a specimen in the correct location and with the perfect companion plant which can offer accented colour hightlights which can bring out the richest most effective colour scheme within their gardens. Let's take some examples of human taste in decoration of interiors with greys & whites. Two of the most used colours here in Sweden.

Image - Decoist.com

Somewhere somehow a human a designer of home decor observed this gray and red accent highlight colour pattern before making their decision in use of these colour schemes. The various shades of grays and charcoals on their own would appear boring and depressing, but add splashes of red here and there and the complete picture is beautiful. The opposite would be true of red, overused and it would be too loud, busy and hardly relaxing. But how does nature handle this problem ???

Image by Wyoming Game Warden Bill Bish

Image - Susan Pedrini

My favourite combination of these colour schemes is found in the rugged beauty of a Silver Sagebrush (Artmisia tridentata)  dry high desert habitat interspersed with the bright reds of Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja sp.) In many cases the Silver Sagebrush can be found in a high desert monculture which for most people would be boring. But almost always the Indian Paintbrush requires a host. Some say the Indian Painbrush plant is semi-parasitic plant, but not in the negative way you may consider parasitism. The idea behind a parasite is that it only takes without giving anything back, but I believe there is more to this than meets the biased scientific researcher's eye. As with everything else of course.

Image - City of Monterey Park

These are the beautiful flowers of the California Zauschneria (California Fuchsia) which is another of those very gray foliage plants which no one would ever give a second look at were it not for it's lipstick candy red flowers. 

Image - Yerba Buena Nursery

And yet another plant with dull gray-green foliage would be the native state flower known as California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica). Without the flowers, who would be interested ???

Exotics we wouldn't bother with either if it weren't for their Flowers 😁

Image - Arizona Flowering Plants

Image - Las Aventuras

In the hotter regions of the Southwestern United States (Arizona, California, New Mexico & Texas), there are some popular exotic shrubs from the Caribbean we would not give a second look at were it not for their spectacular colourful flower displays. One of them is Mexican Red Bird of Paradise or Pride of Barbados (Caesalpinia pulcherrima). The compound leaves and pattern of the shrub is interesting, but again it is the flowers which provide the eye-candy people want. Other similar types of Caesalpinia are also attractive, but only with the flash colour of their flowers. So with numerous examples of what nature does with colours, we can biomimic in our designs in our gardens and large urban landscapes utilizing other plants as companion plantings if all the desirable qualities do not exist on the same plant.

Image - Dave's Gardens

Same is also true of this South American native, Desert Yellow Bird of Paradise - (Caesalpinia gilliesii). Nobody would ever plant it were it not for it's flowers. Because the otherwise dull gray-green foliage is not overly remarkable other than the decorative pattern of it's compound leaves.

Accenting large Chaparral Shrubs with beautiful red flowering vining natives.

Image - proyectos11

Image - Tree of Life Nursery

Many chaparral shrubs around the globe have been described as dull and mundane, but they have interesting partners which provide interest for both wildlife and humans. Take this example. This beautiful native plant to California's interior hills and valley's in it's Mediteranean climate is called, Bush Snapdragon (Galvezia juncea). A coastal or Channel Island variety of this is Galvezia speciosa (Island Bush-Snapdragon). Whenever I have seen this in native plant in the plant nurseries, the people purchasing them usually want them as a specimen plant all by itself. After they get older they generally look like nothing more than a large mounding shrub ball. While the plant is beautiful, the setting is boring. Of course you can do that, but that is not necessarily how I have found them when out hiking in the wild. In landscape design, I want a more wild natural look in the landscape. I deliberately chose both these photos which reveals a pampered plant which is happy because it has all it's favoured conditions met. Notice they have lots of long leggy streaming vine-like branches ??? Where I have found this plant in wild chaparral biome canopy, these long leggy streamers are usually poking straight up through the shrub canopy with vine-like branches flowing over the top of the shrubs from openings. Not overwhelming the shrubs, but just enough to provide wonderful accent of that lipstick red colour. Here is a link to information on this native plant from Tree of Life Native Plant Nursery about them.

Tree of Life Nursery: Bush-Snapdragon – Galvezia

Pipestem Clematis & Chaparral Clematis (Clematis lasiantha)

Image - Las Pilitas Nursery

Image - Philip Bouchard (2010)

This is another one of those interesting vining plants in the chaparral plant community called Clematis. This Pipestem Clematis (Clematis lasiantha) is deciduous and grows to 8-20' and has showy, creamy white flowers from March-August. Pipestem or Chaparral clematis is native in the coast ranges and Sierra Nevada mountains. I've found it previously when I lived in western Riverside County in California just east of Temecula right along Hwy 79. It apparently grows as far south as Baja California. The Clematis fruits are plume-like which you can see here on the right. Another type of Clematis is Clematis ligusticifolia which is a little more vigorous. But it needs a chaparral lattice or tree ladders to climb and support it's vining habit needs. I've never seen anyone use this plant in the landscapes, but for me it has good potential.

Las Pilitas Native Plant Nursery in Santa Margarita California has a link on their pages to a long list on native plant vines.

http://www.laspilitas.com/groups/native-vines.html

Dallas Texas Lanscape - Lee Ann Torrans

Image - Burger's Onion

The landscape above has Santolina and native grasses in a perennial garden. That is Russian sage in the background just about to burst forth in lovely feathery blooms and Salvia Greggii in the front with pink blooms. But in SoCal you can also use various native Sages and even the exotic Mediterranean Lavenders. Also keep in mind SoCal has other native plants like Aloes, Agaves, numerous succulents, even San Diego's native Dudleyas. A good write up on San Diego Dudleyas Yuccas and other native Southern California succulents can be found below.

Burger's Onion: "Succulents of Coastal Southern California: Dudleya"

Challenge yourself next time with landscape design ideas and concepts bordering on those gray areas 😉 

Rain Water Harvesting Infrastructure Design Concepts

Meandering Floodplains provide Real World Biomimetic Blueprints for Infrastructure Designs vrs Engineering Inspireded by Ambitious Human Business Venture Schemes

Image - ourwellnessway.com

The iconic classic movie, Chinatown, makes it abundantly clear that humans have always disrespected designs found in Nature, especially when their wouldview (based on blind faith) believes that such designs are an impedement to their economic business successes. This is certainly true with the history of Los Angeles where business development and growth hinged on aquisition of water, both it's abundance and controling it. LA’s legendary water superintendent William Mulholland was driven towards channeling this water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. But stealing water from far away north wasn't enough. Vast floodplains in Southern California had potential economic value for both agriculture and the creation of an industrial infrastructure. So the natural meandering physics of flowing water on floodplains had to be tamed and harnessed. Take for example this photograph above  with the meandering switchback pattern of the river. From a politics and businessman perspective, this impedes quick transportation of both people or goods. Logically (from a flawed human perspective) a straight channel direct line would seem to be the obvious choice. Same logic for getting rid of stormwater quickly from cities to prevent flooding, straight channeling seems the better choice. This is evident by all the straight floodcontrol channel infrastructure you can find throughout all of Southern California like the Los Angeles River below. Unfortunately, the path of least resistance hasn't always been the safest or most efficient route for moving human economic goals forward.

Photographed by Lane Barden

Industrial corridor of the Los Angeles River at the
Seventh Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles, California

Image - Nature Conservancy - Stream Restoration

In my other post on Beavers and slow water movement, I had a cartoon at the top of the post of a beaver/builder constructung his dam. Other Beavers in the cartoon were on the river bank looking like eco-activists with protest signs demanding to have the dam torn down so that ALL of the river water could be used to irrigate the Pacific Ocean. But that really is no joke, because that is exactly how southern California has mandated it's floodcontrol infrastructure be designed for quick water movement supposedly to prevent flooding and endangering human beings and their businesses. But how well has that really been working for us ??? Often times channeled rivers, especially those in agricultural valleys channeled by earthen levees have been breached on many sides during high flood waters due to exceptional rainfall years. Like the photo here on the right where human modifications to the landscape strongly influences triggers to instability, accelerating the erosion potential and altering sediment transport and flow regimes of channels. Pay close attention to this picture of the Walla Walla River back in December of 1964 which defied human attempts at channelization and re-created it's former meanders, point bars, pools, and riffles. Can you click on the image and count how many right and left breaces there are ? That's just the nature of water and physical natural laws. By their very nature many people not only resent laws by humans, but also disrespect natural laws. These disastrous events are not so much the fault of nature as they are exposure of inept decision making by the elites among humans who believe they are above fault. After all, most of the scientific orthodoxy believes nature is flawed, imperfect and badly designed. (Okay, I won't go there, but you know it's true) In their worldview's paradigm the floodwaters should be managed as a waste product as something that should be gotten out of the system as quickly as possible. And so all floodcontrol infrastructure is really being considered as a greywater infrastructure with it's system of concrete pipes, culverts, channels, etc to facilitate water out of the urban environment as fast as possible to it's final destiny, the oceans. In reality, this is simply gross scientific ignorance where researchers have bought into their flawed worldview. Here's one man who battled the prevailing scientific orthodoxy in Germany & Austria while championing natural designs based on Nature most all of his life.

Institute of ecological Technology

In the early 1920s, Austrian Forester, Viktor Schauberger, also a self taught physicist and river engineer, was given the task of helping an Austrian Prince who became broke after World War I to improve his economy by finding a way to bring valuable virgin Timber down from remote mountain properties he owned which had no easy access. Timber in those days would had to have been hauled out with mule teams on less than ideal narrow roads through rugged country. Viktor Schauberger had a nature based scheme for building a unique log flume for transport which was very unconventional for the times. As with anything, logging flume design then consisted of straight walls and flat bottoms or at best flat bottoms with 'V' shaped design for the sides. But the flow dynamics were horrible. Schauberger's design was to be biomimic designs he had observed in Nature. He went with a half egg shaped design in which the flume would twist here and there like a snake in biomimicry of the meandering habit of a large river on a massive floodplain.

Very crudely designed log flume
Quebec, Canada

As the story was been told, Viktor Schauberger acquired the contract for building the flume caught the attention of the Estate Administrators and the Institute of Hydraulics at the University of Vienna. He was considered an anti-science Luddite by the science orthodoxy of his day. They hated the man. The day before it was due to be commissioned, Viktor decided to make a preliminary test of the flume's performance. An average-sized green beech log was ushered into the mouth of the flume and to his horror it stranded on the bottom after a few metres and would not budge. This wasn't supposed to happen according to he Natural designed flume calculations. Important dignataries, including his mocking critics were all going to be there at the grand celebration. After his workers were sent away to give himself some space to think, Viktor sat on a rock to ponder the situation. As he sat down he felt something scrabbling underneath his leather trousers and sprang up to his feet to find a snake. Grabbing it quickly, he flung it into the log holding basin, which supplied the flume with water and where the logs were to be assembled before being guided into the flume. As he watched it swim to the other side, he wondered how it was able to swim so fast. 

Illustration - giewasser.ch

Then he suddenly became aware of its peculiar serpentine 'S' shaped movement. It appeared like Nature had again came to his aid again. Calling his workers back, he ordered the holding basin to be drained and the log jammed up withing the flume removed. He then gave them instructions on how to attach thin wooden slats to the curved sides of the flume walls, which would act like the rifling in gun-barrels and cause the water to rotate anti-clockwise at left hand bends and clockwise at right hand bends. You can see the illustration blueprints here on the left. Working all through the night with the promise of double wages, the work was finished by early next morning ready for commissioning at the Grand Opening. The pond holding basin for the logs was refilled the next day in preparation for releasing the first logs. His critics were said to be dumbfounded by his unconventional flume design. Eventually the time came for the flume sluice-gates to be opened and the logs guided into the mouth of this half-egg-shaped channel. One particularly large beech log (which they did not want to test) managed to get itself included with the first few logs and, half way into the flume it suddenly jammed and the water began to back up behind it. While everyone there watched with anticipation, all at once with a loud gurgling sound it was sucked forwards and departed round the first bend. The other logs followed, passing easily down the flume, being kept away from the sides at the bends by those longitudinal vortices induced by the rifling slats which they installed the night before. Needless to say, it was a success, but maybe too much of a success. The Prince and his Princess got greedy and clear cut almost all the forest to increase their fortunes. Funny, nothing's changed one iota since the 1920s. Well, that's not true, it's actually worse.

Image - LifinLapland.com - Nellim Log Flume

While the early history of true biomimetics regarding hydrology is interesting, how does any of this benefit the average person today, especially in view of the further degradation of our planet's natural world that has been accelerated through the misuse and abuse of science ??? While there are some who truly believe in biomimicry of Nature, they are still greatly outnumbered by those who would trash Nature through the worldview argument of Nature being badly designed and only intelligent free-thinking humans can fix those flaws through scientific shortcuts. Okay, so change of pace here. There is an organization whose mission is to revitalize the contrete channelized L.A. River bed. who are known as the "Friends of the L.A. River". That's a tough assignment they've given themselves. Even during the lightest rainstorms, the greater L.A. infrastructure is human designed & engineered to rapidly facilitate storm water off the streets, parking areas, rooftops etc and efficiently send it rapidly on it's way down to the Pacific Ocean. This is an incredible waste of valuable freshwater resources. But believe it or not there are viable real world natural solutions to reduce runoff and redirect water into public and private landscapes and possibly percolate much of in into the subsoil layers of the ancient floodplains to be used later as well water. How much depends really on people being interested in change for the better. Below I'll provide a gallery of photos demonstrating how street rainwater harvesting techniques through biomimetics can change the present Hydraulic infrastructure and save disappearing fresh water resources from the outside of the region. Take a look, much of where this is already practiced is from areas with higher rainfall averages than Southern California like up north and back east.

Large City Street Landscaped Medians

Image - svrdesign.com

This is the central California city of Paso Robles, who are successfully positioning themselves at the leading edge of this municipal rainwater harvesting technology which biomimic's nature by the use of "baffles" which creates a switch back motion replicating the meandering pattern in the design & using periodic low dams called weirs (replicates beaver dams on small scale) which deliberately slows & backs up water raising the water level behind the weir in the planting bed that allows a good percentage of water to percolate deeper into deeper subsoil layers. Top photo illustrate what happens during storms and lower photo reveals an attractive look when dry. Utilizing native plants and having knowledge of how to encourage one gallon containerized seedlings to develop deeper root systems would truly help such plants make it without any further water assistence the rest of the year. There could be a minimal irrigation infrastructure of  deep irrigation designs, which would be utilized only in emergency summer situations to supplement and apply water three or four foot below the soil surface where most healthy California native plants want and prefer it. 

Image - svrdesign.com

Here in this picture above you can see the baffles which look to be recycled small guage railway track with a center concrete guide on top of a bed of cobblestones which allows the waters to slow down and remain clean prior to easing into the actual planting beds. Further cobblestones downstream are both functional for keeping soil intact, allowing further percolation and have a decorative purpose that biomimics a dry streambed which are common in California.

Image - hawkinspartners.com

Curb and Gutter Rainwater Harvesting for Landscapes in Business Areas and Residential Main Streets

Image - State Collage Pensylvania

Curb cut-out inlet to rain garden on west side of Allen Street near Pennsylvania State College. Just like a forest with meandering water courses and beaver dams, the goal here would not be to prevent water from reaching the oceans, but slow it way way down and make it work for the benefit of all sorts life along the way down.

Image - State Collage Pennsylvania

This rain garden is demonstrating weir flow during rain event. For those who may not understand what the word "weir" means. The term "weir" is a Dam-like barrier across the horizontal width of a landscape bed that alters the flow characteristics of the water and usually results in a change in the vertical height of the water level. There are many designs of weir, but commonly water flows freely over the top of the weir crest before cascading down to a lower level section of the landscape bed. Again, the purpose here is not to prevent water movement down stream, but rather to slow water movement down and percolation with drainage at the end for major storm runoff.

Image - State Collage Pennsylvania

Now here is the full entire length-wise view of rain garden on west side of this Allen Street. Everything here is functional and decorative all at the same time. The concrete weirs again back the water up in a small pond behind the artificially replicated beaver dam. With a series of weirs, this would also prevent erosion of planting bed materials just the way a series of beavers dams would accomplish on a real life floodplain in the wild.

Residential Neighbourhoods and other low Traffic Side Streets

Image - progress-project.eu

Image - greywateraction.org

Sidewalk bioswale treats street runoff in Portland, Oregon

In cities like San Francisco California and Portland Oregon, their storm drains are connected to their sewer treatment plants, and the potential for hazard for such infrastructure design is that heavy rains cause the sewer plant to overflow with raw and partially treated sewer water into the bay or river. Other cities connect their storm drains to underground creeks, and the polluted oily water runs straight into the bay or nearby river. By cutting curbs and digging sunken basins into the “right-of way” or “parking strip” area of the sidewalk, you can turn street rainwater from a problem into an actual resource. Diverted rainwaer that falls on streets can nourish plants, protect creeks, and contribute to cleaner cities as a result of the planter bed's healthy microbial community taking care of the pollutants & turning them into safer elements.

Image - svrdesign.com

Preventing and reducing water pollution can be as simple as building a rain harvesting curb cut for the garden. Once again, this runoff water from streets can come in contact with various substances to pollute it like chemicals from fertilizer, oil from cars and garbage, etc. Before this polluted water makes its way into storm drains and our riparian ecosystems, we would filter it through a natural rain collecting garden with a strong healthy microbial soil community to digest & process it. Rain gardens can also add to a home’s curb appeal and allow runoff water to filter naturally and deeply down through your yard’s soil. Keep in mind also that many of these structure as also designed with outlets and/or drains into runoff water pipes to allow for those extreme weather downpour events.

Commercial Parking Lot Medians and Dividers

Image - landskapsarkitektur.no

What amazes me with many of the beautifully designed landscape medians in many places like these parking lots is the fact that they exist in mainly higher rainfall areas like the northern & eastern parts of the USA, Canada and Europe, like this example above in Norway. What about Southern California where it is even more needed because they lack water ? Free water that is otherwise facilitated rapidly down the drain so that they basically are forcing themselves to use public utility provided clean drinking water to irrigate their commercial and home landscapes.

Bioswale parking lot created by Lynn Capouya Landscape Architecture

This is the kind of thing that really makes sense. Love the plant selection for the area and keep in mind that mulch is an important part of this bioretention system to really work effectively. Rocks and other smaller cobblestones are perfect for the slowing down of water movement and work perfectly as a mulch to keep the ground cool and retain moisture levels in soils. This is extremely important in parking lots where they create a massive heat islands.

Image - grownative.org

These Natives plants within the planter accompanied by a species abundant microbial community within the soil system are able to filter the runoff and protect streams. They can recycle the pollutants & turn them into nutrients that the plants can use. No stream or river pollution to kill aquatic critters in the water environment. Also runoff volume is greatly reduced (not stopped) which prevents the violent scouring of the natural local creek or riverbeds which allows the system to be stable, much like it was prior to human pavement. I would love to do something like this picture (minus the parking lot) for my mother's property with street curb back in El Cajon California. Unfortunately I'd have to be living back there permanently to maintain it. However having said that, look below at this Walmart parking lot in Santee California. 

Image - Google Earth

Walmart parking lot in Santee California

Last year in May/June 2016, my wife and I went back to my home town area of San Diego California and visited my mother who lives in the El Cajon/Santee area. Ignore the 2017 dates on the Google Earth picture, I just posted this to illustrate how illustrative it is of ir's improper design when they took this parking lot photograph. When we visited this exact parking lot (May 2016), it was 100+ F (40+ C) and I waited in the car while mum and wife went shopping. Half of those trees, irrigated by inefficient bubblers in a tiny planter median were dead or dying because they stopped watering them. Why did they cut back the water ? Because prices out there are outrageous, even when people have cut way back on watering like they were asked to in order to help buffer the shortages create by drought, the Water agency went and raised the water rates big time. Hence, the management decided the landscape was not worth the effort and expense. so the parking is nothing more than functional in purpose. Too bad and every customer who visits fights for that small shady spot for their car because of the effect of direct sun in 100+ degrees pushes inside temps 160+ degrees. 

The Landscape median mechanism designs for Successful Water Harvesting

Image - Empowerhouse

These are just some simplified animated illustrations to help provide an easy way to comprehend the design of the soil system withing the planter. Water enters into the cells through curb cuts and flows to an area planted with native plants (preferably native to the region that are attractive and ornamental looking) & a microbial community system that are known to remediate heavy metals and toxins that vehicles usually leach on to the street, not to mention the totally unnecessary Agro-Chemical products used by commercial & home owner landscapers. The water is filtered through the topsoil where most of the roots are and then into a type of mixed gravel bed which will hold and store the bulk of the floodwater only then to seep slowly back into the subsoil layers and possibly as far as the moist ground water supply which helps to alleviate runoff to local waterways.  Usually this rain water runoff would enter directly into the storm system, where it could lead to an increase in combined Sewer Overflows that contribute significantly to the pollution in our rivers and streams.

(Image courtesy of GeoSyntec Consultants)

Stormwater runoff flows into this type of bioretention area like the other one above, percolates through the soil (which acts as that bio- filter) and eventually drains into the groundwater; some of the water is also absorbed by the plants. Bioretention areas are usually designed to allow ponded water and with an overflow outlet to prevent flooding during larger storm events which are becoming more common. Where soils have low permeability or where faster drainage is desired, designers may incorporate a perforated underdrain that routes to a storm drain system. If you have a soil profile like my mother's place which is built on top of an ancient alluvial floodplain, then such drains may not be necessary. But if you have a clay or adobe type soil profile, then I'd recommend the drainage. 

Nice Video Resources

This video surprisingly comes from the State of California. I say it's a surprise because you cannot see very much in the way of people practicing this water harvesting technique out there, with the exception of the Palm Springs & Coachella Valley areas.

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/stormfilm

This video below is excellent as it provides a how to for boring a hole through the curb and sidewalk to allow a inlet for stormwater to enter into the landscape strip.

This final link comes from Arizona. Actually it is a separate post I created because Arizona is much further along on this biomimicry and their climate almost mandates such a practice be done over there. And besides I thought it would have cluttered this post up with more info than it already has. 😏

Tucson Arizona: Regenerating Parks & Parkways through Biomimicry of Floodplains

How dumping the "Argument from Poor Design" dogma might just help the planet

Fact: Trashing Designs found in Nature for the biased purpose of scoring Brownie Points against conventional Religious Fundies has had a Degenerative Trashing effect on the Earth's natural world

Illustratiom by bookofbadarguments.com

https://bookofbadarguments.com

The online 'Book of Bad Arguments' link above is an interesting read if you've got the time. It really illustrates just how twisted this world has become when it comes to people coming up with all sorts creative ways to justify another failed worldview. The lengths and idiocy to which many people use to win arguments or pimp a worldview is nothing but time wasting because it so often falls well short of reality. Today I watched a video posted by the California Native Plant Society's chapter of San Diego. It's an organization which is dedicated to the promotion of native California plants. But only Cal-Natives. That's kool, I love cal-native plants. But like so many organizations championing any kind of cause today, they are generally intolerant of any other types of ecosystem plants being introduced into the urban landscape within California. Okay, I get not wanting something to escape into the wild and becoming a terrible invasive problem, but not every exotic plant is going to be a problem plant. Well anyway, watch the video below, it's only about a couple of minutes.

I understand the benefits of planting natives into the historical range for the purpose of attracting all manner of native wildlife to your landscape. My mum's yard has both natives and non-invasive non-native plants accompanying them which have similar environmental requirements. The various local wildlife (birds, insects, reptiles, animals, etc) also utilize them as well. We've never experienced any problems. But now take special note here of what the narrator in the video, Lisa Novick, stated in this quote below:

"What if people said, 'We should just wait for the Monarchs to throw a random gene that will make their caterpillars be able to eat something other than Milkweed. I'm not willing to take that chance."

Seriously, a random mutated gene ??? Do people still think this way now ??? This old archaic dogma is so outdated in view of newer understanding. Unbelievable, especially in this day and age with regards the increased study and understanding of how the genome really works and the part of genetics termed "epigentics" which in actual fact purposefully engineers incredibly ordered changes influenced by any number of stimuli from environmental cues as opposed to the past historical ignorant belief of random copying errors caused by dumb luck creating wonderful amazing outcomes for no logical reason or goal oriented purpose. But why would she use such unscientific nonsense terminology which started out decades ago as nothing more than some group minority's worldview ??? Brilliant scientific research by dedicated serious scientists have long since proven this to be false. Random copying errors do not innovate, they cause sickness, diseases, cancers & death. Nevertheless, such religious dogmas diehard. This thinking is so ingrained into the average psyche of many folks as a consequence of early indoctrination at elementary school. Clearly many people later in life need to go through some type deprogramming therapy before being re-educated about how our natural world really works. The big question here is, how does one go about experimenting or testing for random mutations caused by dumb luck and expect to obtain any beneficial innovation which results in practical application ??? You don't and that's why we experience a natural world where various ecosystems that are completely unraveling before our very eyes because we have a Scientific Orthodoxy out there promoting nature as flawed, imperfect and badly designed and that only the superior intellect of humans can fix those flaws and save us. But insisting Nature is flawed only seems mask the gross imperfection of human ignorance on the subject about how our natural world really works. Take for example the world's biotechnology industry. Biotechs justify their existence and methods of technology because they say changes in life happen all the time by means of something called Horizontal Gene Transfer. Hence their transgenic manipulation of organisms is justified in their worldview because it happens in Nature anyway. Except that leads to the assumption that their services really are needed or the world fails. Take the following example below of this subject, "Argument from Poor Design" which like Junk DNA, does nothing more than hide and sweep under the rug the scientific community's past ignorance and stupidity from decades past. Take note of the first person most responsibe about Argument from Poor Design. His writings in his first book are loaded with what he imagined as perfect examples.

One would have to ask, what scientific experiment the Father of Evolutionary Theory, Charles Darwin, use or create in arriving at this conclusion ??? Indeed, how could any scientist have created a verifiable repeatable empical data laced experiment to get into the mind and motivations of an intelligent agency which he already has a bias against in believing a Creator doesn't even exist ??? And by what code of morality is Darwin using ??? By what authority does his version of morality equate truth ??? Really Chuck ??? His followers have grabbed hold of this same strategy and taken this narrative to new lows. I hope everyone understands Nature cannot be judged by human views of morality or in other words, what's right and what's wrong. For example take this grossly flawed blind faith assertion, CRISPR Co-Inventor Jennifer Doudna: 

"It amazes me to realize that we are on the cusp of a new era in the history of life on earth—an age in which humans exercise an unprecedented level of control over the genetic composition of the species that coinhabit our planet. It won’t be long before CRISPR allows us to bend nature to our will in the way that humans have dreamed of since prehistory."

In that very same interview which contains that quote above, Jennifer Doudna, also spoke about ridding the planet of disease carrying mosquitoes thru CRISPR where sterilized GMO Mosquitoes would make sterile eggs and kill off the majority. Since then and against protest they have already done their dirty work and released their Franken-Mosquitoes despite angry cries not to release. And the results ???

UPDATE: September 17, 2019 (Below)

TheScientist.com: GM Mosquito Progeny Not Dying in Brazil: Study

Today's GMO apologetics are also based and indeed justified on this unscientific dogma, "Argument from Poor Design," which is exactly why these geneticists, biologists and other researchers employed by the various biotechnology companies confidently justify all their valuable time playing the gene manipulation game because in their corrupted view of the natural world, it's Nature that is flawed, poorly designed and only their collective credentialed genius can fix those glaring imperfections. The reality is, very few of these Biogeneticist engineers have any clue or understanding of how whole plant ecosystems actually function and maintain themselves out in the wild. Yet, in their worldview, Nature is still flawed and only their collective genius can provide a correction. Seriously ??? 😨 Take a look at this promotional advertisement below on Monsanto's work to gene manipulate crop plants to withstand the present and future global warming.

Advertisement - Monsanto

This is Monsanto's latest development of their infamous "Droughtgard Hybrid" crop seeds. They've informed the public that they only want to feed the world and there's this new problem that hinders this goal and it's called Global Warming. Okay, I understand that. But take a look again at their promotional advert above. They explain that in order to create drought resistant crops like maize or corn or soy, they need to acquire a special stress response gene for encoding cold shock protein B (cspB) from a soil bacterium, Bacillus subtilis, and then insert it into some corn variety's genome. It's also known as “RNA Chaperone” RNA Chaperone from Bacillus subtilis. Yet one wonders why they went to all that time and expense in developing such drought tolerance when Nature has already had these drought resistance tools for countless 1000s of years ??? 😲 Research time is lengthy and expensive because the seed patenting most often runs into the millions of dollars for biotechs. The real problem is that these researchers are in charge of providing their corporations with a regular consumable product. That ensures an annual profit year after year. Utilizing a practice and tool from Nature is free and that is unacceptable. These transgenic seeds are also engineered to work in conjunction with a plethora of other consumables like synthetic science-based fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, miticides, etc. This further ensures huge annual profits for their employers. Yet nature while complex, takes an easier road and is far more sustainable when left alone. Take this mycorrhizal Corn field experiment below by the University of Florida on drought resistance and heat stress with Corn. Here, nutrient and water uptake are improved between 200% to 800% depending on environmental soil conditions and drought tolerance is achieved in one single season, not decades of transgenic manipulation and cross breeding.

Image - Mycorrhizal Applications Inc

So what do you observe above here. Clearly there is a stark contrast. lower left and upper right are Corn whose root systems are colonized by mycorrhizal fungi and creating a network or grid of mycelial strands extended well beyond the plant root zone. At the upper left and lower right is the science-based conventionally grown corn which as been fertilized with synthetic fertilizers. This soil also is a sandy soil which is not known for it's water holding capacity. Do you notice the fungal strands moving under the soil ??? No ??? At the bottom right look at the first two corn rows in the control corn. Notice how thet have improved in vigor over their partners in the conventionally grown field ??? The mycorrhizal fungi has move from the healthy field square on the left and colonized their rot systems. There is no elusive drought gene for Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta or any other Biotech to acquire and insert in the genome of crop seeds. It's a scam and it effects the health of our planet, 

I have absolutely no problem with any kind of business venture researching, developing, manufacturing and selling a product for profit. But at least when a company like Mycorrhizal Applications Inc develops, manufactures and sells a product for profit, their product doesn't trash our planet. This reminds me of that discussion line of debate from a scene in the Sci-Fi film Jurassic Park. 😆

John Hammond: "All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!" 

Dr. Ian Malcolm: "Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists."

Oddly enough, most all of these biotechs know and understand that the microbial community within the soil is the most efficient and safest way to accomplish good farming, but until now have refused to admit this to the public just how dirty their formula for industrial farming really has been to our natural world. Interestingly, some are now attempting a public relations stunt to colour green their image as promoting that they were always on board with microbes all along, but they then spin how it may not have always looked that way at the beginning. It's all about smokescreen folks. It's about public relations green washing. The facts bare out that their version of worldview about nature being inept and flawed has brought incredible ruin to our planet through their industrial rose coloured vision of things. 

Now while many are now just starting to admit designs copied from nature really have brought incredible advancement, economical savings and enhanced ecological benefits, more has to be done in a hurry. Here are just three more examples of incredible design copying from Nature which has saved some industries millions of dollars and helped vastly improve the environment.

Airbus A380 winglets, inspired by the Steppe Eagle

During an Eagle's flight, the feathers on the tips of it's wings are practically verticle. This configuration gives maximum lift with minimum wing length. Engineers have studied such soaring birds such as eagles with a view of designing more efficient aircraft. The introduction of modified wing design that includes winglets has improved aircraft performance by as much as 15%. Planes can now fly farther and carry more passengers while saving fuel. In the decade following the introduction of up turned wing tips, airlines worldwide saved six thousand seven hundred million liters or two billion gallons of jet fuel. But the eagleäs amazing design is not limited to flight. As the eagle descends upon it's prey, it's eyes continuously adjust to maintain sharp focus throughout the approach. What man made camera ever comes close to this rapid refocus ?

Mercedes-Benz bionic car

"The concept models of the Mercedes-Benz bionic car are appearing as part of the "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which showcases innovations in the fields of design and science. 

Bionic Car ConceptOne of the highlights of the exhibition is the Mercedes-Benz bionic car, which was first unveiled in June 2005 at the Innovation Symposium organized by Daimler AG in the US capital, Washington DC.   

Engineers, designers and biologists at Mercedes-Benz worked hand in hand to develop the Mercedes-Benz bionic car. Its template was a sea dweller from tropical latitudes: Ostracion Cubicus – more commonly known as the boxfish.  

Despite its unusual-looking shape, the fish is extremely aerodynamic and can therefore move using a minimal amount of energy. It is also able to withstand high pressures and, thanks to an outer skin consisting of hexagonal bone plates, can survive unscathed following collisions with corals or other sea dwellers."

(Source: carbodydesign.com)

"The Shinkansen Bullet Train which belongs to the West Japan Railway Company is the fastest train in the world which can travel up to 200 miles per hour.   

While they were designing the bullet train, they had a massive problem. The train was very noisy. Every time the train came out from the tunnel, the air pressure changed which resulted in large thunder claps. This noise caused residents a quarter of a mile away to complain.   

The train’s chief engineer and a keen bird-watcher turned to nature to see if they could find something travels quickly and smoothly between two very different substances. They found out that the shape of a kingfisher’s beak was ideal for this situation. Their beaks were ideal because a kingfisher will dive into a body of water to catch a fish with very little splash.   

Once they had copied the shape of the kingfisher’s beak, they modelled the front of the train from that design. Not only did this design result in a quieter train, it also made the train use 15% less electricity while travelling at a speed 10% faster than what it was originally designed for."

(Source: technologybeyond)

Suddenly now we are seeing a surge in all types of Biomimcry organizations claiming they've known all along about the benefits of designs found in nature, but they often refuse to disassociate themselves from the "Argument from Poor Design" dogma. When I've read some of the nature design celebratory articles published by the Biomimicry Institute and their author Janine Benyus, and asked this question aout past worldviews, all I ever get are 'cricket sounds.' Any time I've ever pressed any of the other so-called Biomimicry organizations about this same subject, they too simply refuse to respond. It would appear that deep down inside there is just a little bit of nostalgia for that old time religion. But that old time religion's days are numbered. The Earth can't handle their worldviews anymore. While there has been some push forward in a positive direction from the examples above, it's more than likely not enough. This respect for natural designs in nature should have been followed decades ago.

Now for those who think I'm kidding or exaggerating about the degenerative side effects of pimping one worldview over another causing a serious infection within the Scientific Community, take real close look back at an old well known animated TV commercial from 1977 by Chevron promoting their Ortho Agro-Chemical Division's products which were created & justified based on the blind faith religious concept of Nature being poorly designed until their industrial science White Lab Coats stepped in and saved the day. Seriously, pay real close attention to an example of their twisted worldview they had of nature back in the 1970s where they actually marketed to the public that Nature was completely harsh, unforgiving and inept at growing things and making the consumer wonder how life was even able function prior to these guys at ORTHO coming along and saving the day with their synthetic chemical wonders.

Those of us who are old enough to remember these worldview re-programming indoctrination infomercials saw this barage of propaganda day in and day out for a couple of decades. This infection came out of World War II when bomb  producing chemical corporations could use those same bomb chemicals to grow plants. In the 1950s this was called the Green Revolution and everybody fell for it because Scientists said it was okay. Nobody questioned anything. For many today the answer for correcting the mistakes of the past is unbridled angry Eco-Activism protesting everything and anything that they imagine to be offensive. But that isn't a viable answer either. I'm finding that eco-activism is turning more and more people off towards an ecological stewardship of the earth far more than it's converting the public to get on board. Why ??? Because we are now living in a time where people find it hip to promote themselves as overly sensitive and outraged at the drop of a hat. Any little news report item today that even remotely has the mere appearance of being out of place according to the new rules of definition shell gaming, must be watered down, because even if it's the glaring in your face factual indisputable Truth people still freak out. There are however many sincere ecology minded people who genuinely do care about the environment, but they are paying the price for some of the people they've invited or have allowed to come on board their Cat Stevens "Peace Train" to fight the evil industrialists. Here's one glaring spotlight example below that's recently been in the News and caused incredible anarchy which has resulted in terrible ecological destruction.

Trust me, many of the Native Americans did not feel the same way about the white outside protesters who took the initiative and invited themselves to the Dakota 'Burning Man Festival', I mean Standing Rock Pipeline Protest. Actually the Native American tribal elders were so upset by the outrageous conduct of all the white protester who came out from New York, California and Oregon who brought in loud music, booze, drugs and sponged off the donated food. When the protesters left they left abandoned 200+ plus junk cars they used to get there and many cars even ended up leaking oil in the very river they were supposedly claiming to want to save. Not a happy outcome when the Natives were left with the responsibility and cost of cleaning up their filth. And amazingly these anarchists are supposed to by the ultimate Ecology People.

Here's an interesting observation by Dr. Michio Kaku and the Problem with the learning system in school especially where science is concerned.

 

Stay tuned! 😸