Judging a Book by it's Cover: How Mankind & Nature have both gotten the shaft from the beginning

On that note regarding nature, first of all you need to know that for successful detailed observation of Nature it does NOT require a Scientific Lens. You do NOT need to be Credentialed. You do NOT need Alphabet Soup Intitials behind your name on some business card. Same thing when it comes to making judgements about people, you don't need to be a psychologist. The old saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover," is a metaphorical phrase that means one shouldn't prejudge the worth or value of something (or persons) by its outward appearance alone. In other words people will often not take the time to open a book to find out it's true contents if the cover & title do not have that eye candy appeal. Humans have done this for centuries and the result has brought us our present world of disunity & intense hatred which has further resulted unintended consequences of our present planet's degraded natural world. Yup, we are at a crossroads of where our planet's natural world is collapsing at an ever increasing rate because living things are being judged for the same reasons that people throughout history judged by other people from the very beginning. As imperfect human beings we all do it. We can't help it. We're predominantly visual creatures. Much like the advertisement on any product's wrapper in which consumables are packaged, this appeal to the eye not only powerfully affects what interests us, but also how we react when we open and view the contents we find inside. Scary isn't it ? 😟

Here's where often Nature falls Flat in the Eye Candy Appeal Department

The Hidden Life of Trees - Peter Wohlleben

Years ago in the early 1970s while in High School, I became intrigued with how various plant ecosystems functioned aside from all those narratives stated in all the science-based textbooks in my Ornamental Horticulture class. What I noticed was that people basically chose plants based on looks, colour, fragrance, food source, money making ventures, etc. Still there were 1000s of others out there that I reasoned must serve some type of useful function & purpose within the environment. Below here I stumbled upon a list somebody jotted down about important qualities for people to cultivate which they considered necessary for getting at the truth about how the natural world really works. Mainly it takes a lot of patience and careful observation in arriving at the truth which may even may lead one to alter their previous worldview on matters regarding Nature.

Illustration - Keri Smith

The one thing you have to appreciate is that Nature has basically been successful for countless 10s of 1000s of years, long before the 1950s Green Revolution where scientists insisted mankind could be saved from itself if they only gave unquestioning obedience and allegience to the prevailing Scientific Orthodoxy. Most of my Agricultural & Ornamental Horticultual textbooks back in the early 1970s were heavily influenced and inspired by the well known agro-chemical 1950s green revolution introduced by the former industrial munitions manufacturing corporate giants of World War II (both Allies & Axis Powers), now using those same bomb making chemicals for peace time agricultural business interests who claimed they only wanted to feed the world. Think I'm kidding ??? Look at this memory lane video from this 1977 Chevron commercial where they reminded us of just how harsh and unforgiving nature really was and without the help if industrial science to save us from an unforgiving planet, we had no chance.

Most of that technology was based on gross ignorance of how Nature actually works out in the wild. Pause and consider, for countless 10s of 1000s of years our planet's natural world operated like a well oiled finely tuned machine. What happened later was a little thing called human ignorance & arrogance (you can also throw in greed). Amazingly what Chevron did was use a soft warm reassuring voice of a well known actor & voice-over artist named, Mason Adams. You may remember Mason Adams was the Character Actor that starred on the TV Show "Lou Grant'. He was also the famous voice of those Smuckers Jams and Jelly TV commercials. Remember, "With a name like Smuckers, it has to taste good" ??? And people believed it and responded by throwing their hard earned money at what was advertised. He was also the famous voice behind that 73 AMC Matador Dealer Film or 64 Buick Wildcat Commercial. Indeed, so comfortable and reassuring was Mason Adams' voice, that back in the 1950s/60s that same warm Mason Adams' voice could get you to believe that Chesterfield Cigarettes were good for you and millions followed that lead much to the unintended consequences of bad health and early death. It's all marketing folks and Science has been good at marketing junk for decades and now we have Climate Change as a result. Most of the green people won't admit that of course, but it's true. Bad Science led us all here. Let's fast forward and visit another subject known as "Plant Blindness."

Plant Blindness: Why Scientists Who Know Nature Are Becoming an Endangered Species

Image by Martin Cothran

Back in September of 2018 of last year, the Memoria Press published an article by Martin Cothran dealing with the subject of plant blindness. The article was interesting in that it revealed far too many college students taking plant science courses are incapable of actual identification of plants (trees, shrubs, etc). But instead these students are studying plants from a commercialized applications perspective. Nobody, really seems interested in the plants and how they function and what purpose they serve within any ecosystem anymore. Like the illustration on the right, today's average student has those racehorse blinkers on which prevent them from having a peripheral view. One of the best quotes in that article was this one below:

"Not only are there fewer university botany programs, but those who graduate from them may not be well versed in plant identification. The cutting edge of plant science, which has commercial applications, is molecular. Students and universities are following the significant money." 

One of the most demonized Chaparral Plants in California - Chamise (Adenostoma fasticulatum)

Photo - Gabi McLean (Eaton Canyon)

In the historic past, many ancient peoples were very familiar with a great variety of plants. Many Native Americans for example well knew which plants they could derive potions, pultices, and/or poisons, and eventually most European would have learned and recognised these same plants for food, medicine, etc. By comparison, research has shown that most modern day people can’t even name more than a few wild flowers. This is sad because it means people no longer take the time and patience to find out what good and beneficial qualities many plants serve either for us or their value and purpose within any ecosystem. Of course there’s a name which has been created for this inability to notice or recognise plants in one’s own environment, it's called “plant blindness.” Most of Earth's population resides in major large cities and urban centers, so generally speaking most city dwellers over time have been separated from nature. So there is very strong  disconnect between humans and the environment, and we’re basically blind to the natural world around us. This is further exacerbated by the fact that humans spend less time outdoors in favour of their addiction to electronic devices. 

Fathers are supposed to take the lead

Without giving a long list of the so-called ugly plant examples where people have judged certain plants worthless based solely on outward appearances, let's just take one classic example from California where I am from, Adenostoma fasciculatum (Chamise or Greasewood). This plant is often admittedly rugged and rangy looking, hence not even on a choice list of garden ornamentals. The second common name given to this plant, "Greasewood," is meant as a derogatory term describing it's explosive flare up in the event of wildfires because of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present within it's woody stems. Of course what many people forget is that most all plants do burn ferociously under the right insanely windy weather conditions. Look at the tropical Amazon rainforests.  Who would have thought wet humid tropical plants would easily go up in smoke so ferociously ??? Many also consider Chamise to be competitive towards other more desirable plants even considering it invasive in it's own native habitat, often because it dominates the wild landscape where it is native. In other words none of the desirable plants can get a foothold because of Greasewood's presence. This is totally false of course and I have my own personal experience with the plant to testify to that.

Image - Mine 2015

First, from a purely observational viewpoint, I've seen California Holly, Parry Pinyon, Coulter & Jeffrey Pines including both Cuyamaca & Tecate Cypress on steep southern slope exposures in direct sunlight exposure thrive where the plant community is dominated by Chamise. I found that curious and odd decades ago when I first noticed this in the San Jacinto Mountains above Palm Springs, California, because I also at one time viewed Chamise as an aggressor. But apparently it's not an aggressor as much as a facilitator of other plants ability to survive. One other remarkable thing about Chamise is that it will grow where most other plants will not. It has an incredibly deep root system (several meters deep). This is important for erosion control. Chamise's deep root systems will penetrate fractured rock and facilitate hydraulic life & redistristribution of water to other plants during the summer hot months and pump excess water into subsoils during the rainy season to be used later and shared with other plants if conditions are right. AND during acceptionally wet period events, this normally Endo-Mycorhizal host plant will become Ecto-Mycorrhizal by sending out chemical messages through it's root exudates to alert ectomycorrhizal fungi to colonize it's roots which will in turn help all oak and pine seedlings to pioneer and colonize into chaparral plant communities where they did not exist previously. The seeds themselves being incredibly heavy were placed there by the common ScrubJay. Same with it's relative the Redshank or Ribbonwood (Adenostoma sparsifolium) chaparral shrub. Major changes in one's worldview is drastically needed here.

A little thing called "Plant Blindness" all begins with Man's judgement of fellow Man

The majority of mankind are traveling on a broad and spaceous motorway where fast paced lifestyle, impatience and lack of being content dominate. Like literal motorways or freeways, these expressways were purposefully created to replace what was viewed as slow, outdated & old fashioned. Yet the old curvey and twisting two lane highway never offended the land. Rather they moved with the landscape, around obstacles rather than blasting through them. Yes, it was slower and took more time, but you got more out of the travel through adventure. Mankind in general needs to slow waaaay down and ditch the broad and spaceous Motorway and opt for the narrow and curving cramped one. We hear today about all these paradigm shifts and progressive movements, but in actuality these are nothing more than the same old recycling of failed ideas dressed up to look enlightened and sophisticated. Our world continues on a sharp decline. Getting back to that laundry list above on how to be a better explorer, let's just look at that first jotted down point. 

#1 Always be looking (notice the ground beneath your feet)

Photo is mine from 2013 (south of Julian, CA)

I love this first suggestion of always be looking at the ground beneath your feet as you walk or hike. It took some years before I really started doing this more and more. A lot of that habit came from slowing down, observing and later doing more research about things that interested me. The photo above is of a Pisolithus tinctorius truffle or mushroom I saw on a small game trail in the Chaparral brush habitat off Hwy 79 south of the town of Julian at the Desert Viewpoint Overlook. Had I not slowed down decades ago and taken time to gain experience and do research, the intuitiveness to spot what was hidden in plain sight, this truffle would have gone unnoticed. Like the average person on a hike, I probably would have passed over this truffle thinking it was nothing more than another stone. But lo & behold I was able collect a large sack of dried curred PT Mycorrhizal truffles whose chocolate spore powder I would use for injection into my landscape on host trees back down in El Cajon. Below here in the 2nd photo of the same truffle, but I've cleared away the debris from the truffle to reveal it's true nature in the second photograph as compared to image above where it's almost camoflaged.

Photo is mine from 2013 (south of Julian, CA)

image - Wikipedia

It took me a long time to develop deep appreciation for what some call the Dog Turd Fungus (Pisolithus tinctorius) you see above. I mean it's not the most photogenic of Mushrooms or truffles. Not as popular as the Christmas mushroom icon & Mario Bros Game energy mushroom known as Amanita muscaria or more commonly known as the fly agaric or fly amanita pictured to the right. This popular forest mushroom is known for it's distinctive eye candy appearance, known for bright bright red (sometimes bright yellow) with white spots, and for their hallucinogenic properties. Here in Sandinavia where I now live, the Saami & Siberian Shamans originally dressed up in Santa Claus type outfits & used this drug trip inducing mushroom to get in touch with the spirit world. Hence the reason for so many ancient myths continuing to live on.

But getting back to the uglier Pisolithus tinctorius truffle, it too has some remarkable qualities. Although not being as pretty as other mushrooms, it has amazing  purpose and function in forested ecosystems where they are found. In the High Desert Mountain ranges and Chaparral plant communities of California where I come from, a healthy plant community and forested ecosystem thrives where these fungi are present. Why ???

Image - UGA Pecan Extension (Lenny Wells)

Image -  Mike's Fab Shop

Shouldn't take a genius to see the advantages of a symbiotic fungi colonized on the root system of a specific host. PT Mycorrhizae will increase water and nutrient uptake for it's host tree by anywhere from 200% to 1000% depending on the health of the system. Of course in turn the tree feeds if sugars manufactured through photosynthesis. I've provided in the past when writing about this very subject with an illustration of the performance enhancing qualities of exhaust headers on a 1960s muscle car compared to the plain old stock factory exhaust system. Take the example of exhaust headers on this racing dragster in the photo on the right. They eliminate backpressure and increase horsepower with the industry’s finest selection of air-pushing, muscle-pumping performance exhaust headers compared to common factory showroom stock engine exhaust system. That's what the lowly Dog Turd fungus does for a Pine, Oak, Cottonwood, Eucalyptus or Pecan tree. Like our own gut bacteria, they can process and refine mineral nutrients from the surrounding soil which are locked up in a physical form not available to a tree on it's own. They can also send chemical messages into the tree to boost the immune system. I save money when installing an urban landscape or in habitat restoration by rejecting science-based synthetic chemicals for this natural option which has worked for countless 1000s of years. This is the same PT Mycorrhize I mentioned above which will colonize Chamise roots in exceptionally wet periods allowing forest trees to increase by pioneering into dense chaparral cover. When the fungal grid is present and pine nut or oak acorn germinates, it's taproot will immediately connect to the fungal grid establishing the trees and eventually replacing the chaparral 100s of years later. This understanding did not come over night and it certainly was not enhanced by the truffle's rather drab appearance. But seriously, if you saw at first glance this basket of Pisolithus tinctorius (dog turd) truffles, what would be your first impression minus all the knowledge we now possess as to their real worth ??? 😐

Pisolithus tinctorius photo by Tanya Riedel

Without all that knowledge of all these trees, shrubs and fungi you lose so much value for practical application in restoration work, landscape installation, etc. What is even more amazing is that even the credentialed people who champion the cause for Chaparral plant ecosystems don't even discuss this phenomena. Mainly it's mostly politics which offers no value in understanding our natural world. And yet researchers have written about it for decades, but to be fair, most environmental organizations push politics over education and that too is killing this planet. This very same thing works when it comes to judging people for their real worth by taking time and getting to know them, irrespective of their race, colour, ethicity, tribe, clan, culture, language, economic social background, etc.

Let's take some simple Illustrations from Familiar Situations that can actually Teach

Image - Pebble Shore Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana

Think back when you were a kid out on a camping trip or on a day picnic outing with family and friends along a lake or seashore. What was it that motivated you to chose the rocks you collected ? Was it the rock's colour, shape, size or pattern ? 😍 Whatever it was, it start with the natural eye candy visual of outward appearance. And as in the case of the photo above, there are so many options to choose from.

Image - The Rock Shed

But what about these stones in the photo above ??? Based on outward appearance, would any of you chosen any of these ??? You and I both know almost no one would ever collect such rocks when out on a hiking adventure, unless of course they had acquired knowledge of the true value of such rocks. And right there is the biggest problem. Actually taking the time and effort needed in getting to know the truth about any subject is looked upon as laborious and boring.

Animation - WikiHow

These rocks of course are called Geodes. Here is the Wikipedia explanation of what Geodes are.

"Geodes (derived from the Greek word "γεώδης" meaning "Earth like") are geological secondary formation within sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Geodes are hollow, vaguely circular rocks, in which masses of mineral matter (which may include crystals) are secluded."

Since I come from the desert (volcanic) regions of the Southwestern USA, I learned about Geodes and hunted for them since I was a kid in the middle 1960s. That's because somebody older took the patience and time to teach my friends and I such things. I am very familiar with many different types, but only because I learned from someone else who was experienced and taught me about them. Of course when it comes to collecting nothing is certain, so you need to be patient by taking a rock hammer and chisel or rock saw and very carefully opening and looking inside to reveal the true contents of the rock or stone.

Image - kabeeragate.com

So what is inside ? Could be a number of beautiful colours and patterns. Every geode is unique and different. Many are hollow while others solid. But in most cases beautiful patterns and colours emerge. Hollow geodes have various beautiful crystal formations known as Amethyst. You may even recognize many of these types of rocks from your past when you saw beautiful bookends on someone's bookshelf, although you may not have known at that time they were called geodes or where they came from.

Photo - Marie Douce

The whole point of this post is to illustrate how all things can have real value and worth though not immediately revealed by it's outward appearance. Mankind's mistreatment of each other has also been a reflection on why they fail miserably to hold value on all things in the wild. Many things in Nature have suffered because they were not immediately eye pleasing or perhaps no monetary value could be found in them, hence this is where biodiversity suffers and monocultures are desired. The effects on the planet have been devestating as a result. So who's responsible for a young person's appreciation of nature and fellow human beings ??? Environmentalists ??? Social Justice Warriors ??? Churches ??? Government or Public Schools ???

It's a Parent's responsibility to instill appreciation for Nature at an early age. Not the State's, not the Public School's, not some militant non-profit radical environmentalist group. It's all on Parents.

Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew (Credit: Getty)

It is important to get children involved with plants early, such as on nature walks, like the one shown here at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew in the United Kingdom. There is a biblical example which illustrates this beautifully. You don't have to believe in the bible to get the point here. The nation of Israel wanted a King so that they could be like all the other nations around them. They in effect wanted to reject theocracy (God rule) in favour of democracy or human rule. The almost impossible task of choosing was given to the Prophet Samuel. Notice how that went at 1 Samuel 16:6-7:

6 As they came in and he saw E·liʹab, he said: “Surely here before Jehovah stands his anointed one.” 7 But Jehovah said to Samuel: “Do not pay attention to his appearance and how tall he is, for I have rejected him. For the way man sees is not the way God sees, because mere man sees what appears to the eyes, but Jehovah sees into the heart.”

Humans of course do not possess supernatural abilities when it comes to sizing up another person and determining who and what they are as far as worth as to character. We have to work harder at that, but that's the point, it takes time and energy on our part to get to know what qualities another person posesses as to their true value and worth or whether association with them should be rejected altogether. Ponder over this info the next time you make a judgement call towards another human being or something else out there in the natural world. 😉

Burn Baby Burn - Fire Ecologist Celebrate Fire Season

"Life goes on though, and fires are not unnatural"

Margarethe Brummermann

Image - CNN

Annimated Graph - USA Today

The quote at the top of the post is from Margarethe Brummermann, Biologist from Dortmund Germany who resides in the Tucson area. She had written a post about Mount Lemmon which towers above Tucson to the north. I made a comment on her page about how my wife and I had driven up to Mount Lemmon last year May 2016 and how sad we were to see so much of the forest destroyed by wildfires. I made mentioned how I had first visited Mount Lemmon back in the late 1970s and there was hardly ever a scene where wildfire had damage anything. There was always the occasional snag here and there, but forests and even the high desert scrub were always able to recovery properly. That has all changed now. But her reply to me was simply, "Life goes on though, and fires are not unnatural." Her viewpoint is reflective of most all fire ecologists who champion fire as natural, yet often times have a hard time differentiating between human (especially if Native American) and lightning caused fires. Earlier this year, Fire Ecologist, Jennifer Balch, and other researchers revealed that 84% of all wildfires are human caused. Oh, but it get's even worse. They found that the actual figure for California, Oregon, Washington and on up to British Columbia in Canada is actually a figure at 90% human caused. So it question begs, is that something we should consider natural or unnatural ??? I only ask because humans today are considered unexceptional and nothing more than animals if you read the latest scientific literature on the subject. Don't get me wrong here, I don't believe anything as asinine as that. But it does reveal how an ideologically driven worldview can infect and distort the practice of Science and create ignorance as opposed to understanding. Historically, the majority of wildfires on Mount Lemmon have had a human cause. This has also exacerbated theproblem of  human introduced non-native, Buffel Grass, to invade clear up through the Saguaro Forests into the mid-elevation ranges of the Mount Lemmon. Here is that interesting finding regarding the human 90% origined cause of most wildfires at present.

Science Magazine: "Who is starting all those wildfires? We are"

Aaryn Olsson, University of Arizona

Last year when we traveled up the Mount Lemmon highway, we were greeted all along the way by an overwhelming sea of Buffelgrass which blanketed all areas of the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson. Researchers say warming temperatures and fewer winter freezes are helping the invasive plant spread, posing a threat to saguaro cactuses and other native plants. The Tucson Sentinel even had an article with a chilling title, "Arizona without Saguaros? As climate warms, desert's future uncertain." The Saguaros are such an iconic symbol of Arizona and the Sonoran Desert. But they cannot take wildfire. They have no protection against it. I can't hardly imagine them being eliminated permanently.

Grant Martin/Cronkite News Service

Bromus tectorum, an invasive species commonly called “cheatgrass,” grows in an area of the Coconino National Forest burned in a 1996 wildfire. I strongly dislike Cheatgrass. This is the invasive noxious weed whose stickers you have to pull out of your socks every so often down the trail when you go on a hike.

Grant Martin/Cronkite News Service

Researchers say this area of the Coconino National Forest, which burned in 1996, is decades away from returning to its native state, if it ever does. They say rising temperatures have weakened trees, raising the potential for devastating wildfires that will open the door to invasive species. Don't expect recovery anytime soon.

Image - Getty Images

I remember reading the fire ecology literature some time back in 2006. There was an account written by Arizona Historian Marshall Trimball of the old west in New Mexico, when a Cavalry Officer was complaining to his superiors about his men smoking cigarettes and dropping them along the trail as they all rode horseback. The problem was they were starting grass fires from their careless bad habit. Of course this was in the 1800s, when Indians still existed and practiced their ecological conservation with fire. Yet hsitorical writings from the 1800s relay that they used fires to war against their enemies. Not exactly eco-friendly. I know, it destroys the narrative. This 1800s is the time period for celebration for most fire ecologists who champion how natural the forested ecosystems all were back then because of Indians. But as I've questioned this before, if fire ecologists were looking at the world back then and telling us how natural wildfire played in ecology of all plant community systems, how did they reconcile white European Soldiers starting fires with their cigarette butts ? Was that a good thing for Nature ? How did this factor into their research of what was good for the plant community environment ? Native Americans generally get a free pass on why they started fires and they really shouldn't. See the post, Dances With Myths. But now what about the white man back then ? Today there is a movement to down grade human beings as not being so exceptional. Mankind is now being considered nothing more than animals equal to everything else. Does this now mean that the research on wildfire causes being 84% human fault provide us a new designation of the term, "Natural"   ??? 😲 Would it mean that humans carelessly throwing down a cigarette butt today should now be considered perfectly normal behaviour ??? 😟 We seem to be living in a time period of redefining everything from it's historical normalcy.

But what about all those heavy Rains 🚿 ??? Didn't things get better ??? 🌳

Image - Pismo Hotels

This year's rainy season of 2017, California experienced one of those unprecedented rainy seasons, after four years of serious intense drought. But everyone cheered Hooray 🙌 and celebrated with waving pom poms that all was well again in California again. The drought was now over, or was it. Indeed, heavy rains came, even to the point of major flooding events up and down the state. While there were some very clear catastrophic negatives, one of the great joys of all that rain brought out a spectacular display of wildflower blooms. Starting in early March, flowers popped up all across Southern and Central California and produced some seriously spectacular scenery. The photo opportunity didn't go unnoticed nor wasted by many of the non-profit eco-activist groups hoping to cash in on a fund raising opportunity by posting pics on their website's & Social Network pages indicating that Nature seemed to have rebounded from the jaws of death. Or you know, that old Jurassic Park Cliche (a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought) "Life found a way." Except that things really were'nt all that rosey as they advertised. First, some of the people were a little too anxious about getting out there first with they cameras. Then it appears that much of the water came in so fat and furiously, that most of it raced back to the Pacific Ocean like a bullet train. Some water did fill up many of the State's reservoirs, but the surrounding landscape didn't have great percolation into the hills and mountains. 

Roger C. Bales

Even Merced hydrologist, Roger C. Bales, who advocated & pushed for increased logging in the Sierra Nevadas which he claimed would stop water hog trees from gulping down precious water which would have otherwise ended up in streams and rivers causing reservoirs to fill for his agricultural buddies to use downstream (See the Modesto Bee article: Overgrown Sierra forests gulping water that could flow to Valley ), jumped up and down when the rains came. Why ??? Because now his story has changed. He now claims to have been proven right because the 130+ million dead trees caused by the out of control bark beetle outbreak didn't have a chance to suck all that water which ended up in the streams and rivers and filled all the reservoirs. This is a farce folks. The great lack of water over the past five years had zero to do with there being too many trees sucking & gulping all the water down and had everything to do with the State's worst mega-drought in years. It hadn't rained in those five years (or extremely little rain coupled with high Temps) and with or without trees water eventually won't run in creeks, streams and rivers to fill reservoirs. Even a child gets that. I knew this from viewing early on all the photographs of dried dead invasive weeds and not all that long after the flowers died that the drought was not over. Now look where they are over there with heat waves and no more rain. Plus as indicated at the top of this post, lookie where we are now with the 2017 Wildfire season stats. So have things really changed for the better ? Nope, same old same old. 😏

Look, I refuse to celebrate and worship fire as some kind of animist Creator the way most fire ecologists worship it. Yes fire has always existed and is a reality in the natural world and can be used as an excellent tool for correcting problems along with other management tool like thinning forests in any ecosystem if done properly. And I've actually done that. But mostly humans have misused and abused fire, even the so-called experts. Prior to 2006 I never read much of anything about the science discipline of fire ecology, although I worked with people in the US Forest Service back in the 1980s who did prescribed burns. But I've also fought them tooth and nail against many of their ideas which are complete failures when it comes to reforestation techniques. Take the Fire Ecologist insistence that fire is needed for the wild seed germination. For example, Tecate Cypress is one of those trees in which Fire Ecologist have insisted for decades needs fire in order to propagate itself. Prior to reading their literature, in all my 30+ years of outdoors exploration experience and seed collecting, I never found this to be true of Tecate Cypress. There are numerous circumstances under which the seed is dispursed or spread and germinates fine without the need of fire within old growth chaparral which hasn't burned in a couple of hundred years. Same with Arizona Cypress. Fire is not always necessary, but you cannot tell them this. Science is not supposed to be about working in a Lab and venturing outdoors once in a while on a couple token field trips to make the research look legit. You have to live outdoors with nature. Look, I am not credentialed. I have no alphabet soup initials behind my name, nor some fancy coveted title before my name. Thank God. That allows me the freedom of not being shackled to a dogma and infected by the worldview biases and flawed presuppositions common to the Scientific Orthodoxy's industrial business model. I'm just one of 6+ billion people on Earth subjected to the negative consequences of inept decision making from a world leadership which has been weighed in the scales and found deficient. But it's allowed me to view things from a periferal viewpoint as opposed to tunnel-vission. 

Image from H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock

BTW, here is an example of Prairie Fire and a Steam Locomotive, 1872, whose smoke stacks belched cinders (pre-spark aresters) and started numerous prairie and forest fires in the days of the old west. Wonder if that was ever factored into the fire ecologist fire is a creator research ??? This video below from China's still operational locomotives servicing coal mines just question begs, "Do fire ecologists who insist that  fire is a natural necessary healthy component of plant ecosystems ever factor in human stupidity as part of that natural component mechanism ???" I know I know, because the Indians did it! 😕

Fire sparks of Steam in Sandaoling Coal Mine Railway China

References I've written for seed germination, not entertainment, just practical real world application and fun:

Seed Germination & Old School Ideology vrs How Nature Actually Works

How do ecosystems regenerate when Fire is absent ? Aw, the possibilities!

Breaking News: Fire Ecology Updates, Bird digestion aids Seed germination & Ed Morgan deserves an Acquittal

What We Need Here is Wildfire to Propagate !!!

Millions of dead/dying trees have nothing to do with Climate Change ???

Bark Beetles Decimating Forests as Industrial & Eco-Activist Ideologues scramble for position on who owns the "Science" ??? Don't hold your breath that both sides will soon be holding hands singing 'Oh Lord Kumbaya"  and "We are the World" in celebration of  a viable "Climate Change Solution" anytime soon!  

2 Timothy 3:1-5

But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, haughty, . . . unthankful, disloyal,  , , , not open to any agreement, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, without love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, , , , and from these turn away." 

 Yup, that just about sums up the disfunctional times we  live under today.

Illustration by Bill Mayer

I just read a great post by John Ikerd of Fairfield Iowa who writes about sustainable economics and particularly on agricultural subject matters. But he wrote a piece about how there really is no such thing as scientific consensus and why that is true. Ever notice that all sides of any debate always insist that they have the prevailing *cough-cough* settled science behind them ? So at the very beginning of his post John Ikerd poses a few relevant questions about science in his opening paragraph:

"Do you ever wonder why scientists can’t seem to agree? Why do nutritionists reach different conclusions regarding the risks and benefits of eating fats, carbohydrates, red meats, eggs, and sugar? Why did it take scientists so long to reach a consensus concerning the causes of climate change or the health risks of tobacco smoke? Why do competent economists disagree about causes of and solutions to just about any economic problem that arises?"

For the most part those are very interesting questions. Like other human endeavours when it comes to leadership and authority [Politics, Business, Religion, Etc], why should Scientists be any different than any other average human being in positions of authority ? They're not. They are as equally flawed as any other human being on this planet, despite the fact that they often blow their own trumpet about personal qualifications. He goes on further to say this:

"With respect to environmental problems, such as global climate change, the first principle of ecology is that “everything is interconnected” – you can’t do just one thing. So by definition, ecological causes and effects cannot be isolated. It is impossible to isolate the human contribution to greenhouse gasses from contributions of soils, oceans, on other animals because human activity affects everything else on earth and everything else affects human activity. Again, addressing the problems of global climate change will affect just about everything, and the economic stakes are enormous."

"The data necessary for social and economic studies inevitably reflect the choices of people. People are not machines. They do not all make the same choices and don’t necessarily repeat the same choice and actions over time. People are continually trying to solve old problems and exploit new opportunities. As they do, their choices, actions, and reactions change. Scientists are also people. It’s impossible for scientists to isolate their particular worldviews and belief systems from their scientific observations and conclusions, particularly when those observations involve other people and their conclusions effect their Professional $ucce$$." (emphasis mine)

JOHN IKERD.COM - Solving Wicked Problems

Yes, varying ideological beliefs or business fortunes do tend to colour whatever version of science you want to believe. In the whole history of science there has never been any such thing as neutral unbiased science from any side of a matter. Now fast forward to a group of ideologues who claim to have the 'real science' behind their opposition to climate change. The group is from the site, "Watts up with That?" [created by major climate change denier, Anthony Watts] and as per their usual modus operandi poked fun at climate scientist like Michael Mann who honestly stated that people shouldn't need climate computer models or scientific data to inform them something is wrong with the Earth's climate mechanisms. He stated that everyone should be capable of observing it for themselves that something is radically wrong with the Earth's natural forces regarding climate disruption.

Alfonso Bedoya in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

“Fundamentally, I’m a climate scientist and have spent much of my career with my head buried in climate-model output and observational climate data trying to tease out the signal of human-caused climate change,”

Yeah okay, you've all heard about these Climate Scientists reliance on computer models ? I remember back when this subject first hit the proverbial fan and the earliest created climate models said things would be irreversible within 100 years. Then the following year things were updated, corrections were made and it was going to be 75 years, then 50, then 40, 30, 25 years etc. Now in the latest News Reports many are saying we are now past the point of no return. But do people really need computer models by scientists to tell them something is seriously wrong ? Do you really need volumes upon volumes of data to tell you something isn't quite right with Earth's environment ? Unfortunately climate change computer models are always tentative, which basically means they are subject to change without notice pending newer discoveries.  

Climate Change: Should we put our trust in Computer Models ?

Well that appears to be the conclusion of Climate Scientists Michael Mann in this next paragraph taken from his speech and he is correct. The average human being doesn't need the so-called sophistication of computer science to reveal to them things they should be clearly observing with their very own eyes.

“What is disconcerting to me and so many of my colleagues is that these tools that we’ve spent years developing increasingly are unnecessary because we can see climate change, the impacts of climate change, now, playing out in real time, on our television screens, in the 24-hour news cycle,”

Climate Scientist - Michael Mann

The above quotes and commentary from Michael Mann make perfect sense. But most people are out of touch with their surroundings or the dangerous times we are living in. Hatred of another side's political worldview blinds many people to the real issues and the natural world itself couldn't care less about the belief systems from the Fundies of either side. But the evidence for disruption is all around us. I dare say that many who do understand the scope of climate disruption also have no clue as to the massive scale of the problem out there in the real world other than what they read about in Media or on Social Networking sites. Take this year's fire season which every year continues getting worse. Many blame the dead trees, others say no that has nothing to do with it. But facts are, the photographic evidence is everywhere, even if you do not personally visit such forest sites of mass dieoffs. The ecology problem is all due to failed leadership when it comes to land mismanagement resulting from uninformed Science policies which are  shackled to industrial business interests. Criticize any of this and you are labeled as being Anti-Science, which is a coward's way out of accepting responsibility.

Image - Inciweb.nwcg.gov

The report from the Inciweb explains that the Beaver Creek Fire is burning in heavy beetle killed timber. The infested trees are subject to blowing over with large amounts of down timber, making the forest unsafe for firefighters. For the safety of firefighters, the Incident Management Team is allowing the natural process of the fire to occur while focusing their resources on the property values at risk. This suppression strategy apparently has provided for both firefighter safety and the protection of life and property. It's also allowing the elimination of the dead and dying trees which will hopefully come back, but that looks unlikely as there is not really any viable seed being released from cones of dead trees. That process is far different than when live trees with healthy viable cones open up after fire blows through to reseed the area destroyed. Even planting bare root stock will be ineffective if normal rainfall patterns do not return.

Image - Inciweb.nwcg.gov

This is an image of the massive beetle killed trees which are mostly Lodgepole, Fir etc. They have smaller needles which fall off easily and quicker. And they have died by the millions in the interiors of North America. But most photographs do not capture the true immensity of just how massive a scale and widespread the problem really is.

Image - Inciweb.nwcg.gov

The U.S. Government's Incident Informaton System (Inci-Web) has posted the above photograph to illustrate the scale of the problem in fighting the Beaver Creek Fire in Colorado's Routt National Forest on the border with Wyoming. Many shout it has nothing to do with Beetle killed trees. Yes green trees and dead trees burn equally well given current weather anomalies. But these kills are not normal kills as past historical outbreaks which were always localized. This scenario plays out all across the globe. So the strategy in fighting this fire is to allow it to burn and protect only human infrastructure. The natural forest infrastructure which regulates and moderates climate is effectively dismantled and nonfunctional here. No amount of fungal spores are going to create rain clouds and save the day. While I love the subject of mycology, contrary to promotion, they are not going to save the universe. The entire healthy system works together as a functioning whole. So allowing this dying forested system to burn is not destroy anything that isn't already gone. Still, many don't or won't grasp this.

Photo: Craig Kohlruss

These large patches of dead and dying trees in the above photograph are in the Sierra Nevada mountains are viewed from a helicopter back on December 2015. Mostly Ponderosa and Sugar pine trees are dying off in large numbers around Bass Lake and throughout the Sierra Nevada due to a bark beetle infestation brought about by four years of extreme drought in California. Now we are going on a year five. The dead conifers in California are different from those in the Rockies that we saw from the Beaver Creek Fire which have smaller needles which fell off easier. The Ponderosa Pines seem to keep their dead needles for two or three years. So fires blitzes very well through such materials. The debate however is ongoing in how to manage these dead trees. Leaving them or logging them will change nothing. The forests of the Sierra Nevada Mountains will not return unless the climate machanisms normalize and that is unlikely. Chaparral plants will replace these forest trees and like the pine beetles, they will be blamed for the loss of forests. Lousy land management and terrible industrial Science policies will get a free pass as usual. 

Image - Arborwell

Photo - Pail Chinn

AGRICHEM - Phosphite Product

Of course pines and other conifers are not the only trees dying by the thousands in California. The west coast is being hit hard with Sudden Oak Death (SOD). Pictured here in the photo above (clockwise from top left): dying oak tree, several Sudden Oak Death affected trees and bleeding kankers on the trunks of an Oak tree. And believe it or not, their answer is not doing anything about the cause, but rather more synthetic chemicals to kill the nasty insects as Park Ranger, Tracey Walker, for the City of San Diego Open Space calls them. While I understand the sentiment in blaming the insect for the sudden oak dieoffs, it's the overall misuse and abuses of scientific innovation shackled to big business and political interests which have brought us the present global climate disruption. This has completely changed the environment which in turn has triggered epigenetic responses within the spotted oak borers, pine bark beetles, etc. They are only responding to changes in the environment. Any checks and balances they once were subject under have now disappeared or in some way been altered. Humans are ultimately to blame, but that's hard for most people to swallow. Even for many in the environmental crowd who believe correction comes from saving land from development and creating eco-green rules enforced by a type of socialists police state brutality will not be the answer either. But the fact remains that humans have brought down the environment when they didn't have to for the economic good. And any solutions you keep reading about deal only with treating symptoms and offer nothing as far as stopping the cause. They're using the same failed business strategy as human healthcare models. If no money can be made on the fix, then it's abandoned. The simple fact is, many things should be corrected not because of making money, but because it's the right thing to do.

Finally, don't expect any Improvement or help from differing political ideologies, both are happily wedded to their Industrial Agricultural business interests who keep them in power.

Image - Miami Herald

Well, you've all heard about the big joke down in Florida of it's waters being likened to green guacamole ? Apparently it's industrial agirculture [sugar industry] which is the original cause of the pollution. Over decades they have dumped millions of tonnes of science-based synthetic fertilizers and other chemicals into Lake Okeechobee and other waterways. Both political sides are at fault here if you read the latest Miami Herald article and nobody can finger point or spit vitriol at the other side's ideology or worldview. They're the mirror image of each other. Seriously, read the article and appreciate how disgusting both sides really are here in this. Take a look at the article's title and these subheadings, then click the link and read the article.

Sugar’s decades-long hold over Everglades came with a price

The industry spent more than $57 million over 22 years to influence Florida campaigns   

Records show Big Sugar was consistently one of the largest contributors to both Republicans, Democrats

Industry’s clout helped it to transfer clean-up costs and postpone deadlines

(Source: Miami Herald)

And finally here is an aerial view of several vast locations throughout the Sierra Nevadas

The video below is of an aerial fly over of major sections of the California, Sierra Nevada Mountains and miles upon miles of dead and dying trees. It looks like almost 74% to 80% Beetle kill. Both the Timber Industry and Environmental Eco-Activists lose this one here. Both sides are at fault for supporting a system of human rule which allows for this scenario whether or not one thinks they are immune from responsibility. There are no winners, only losers. Nature loses too. Four years of extreme drought which actually followed decades of irresponsible decision making in land management. In those four years very little seed was likely produced and if any was released during that time period, then there was little annual moisture to sustain the seedlings and saplings. At this point there is no seed for regeneration. 

The News doesn't get any better from what reports are saying about the long term effects of deforestation. If all the bad decision making and stupidy of actions were to stop right now forwards, the Earth is already past the point of no return in the healing process. What's scary is that knowing this, we also know things will not change anytime soon. Here is a July 29, 2016 Update:

"Even if people completely stopped converting tropical forests into farmland, the impacts of tropical deforestation would continue to be felt for many years to come. That's the conclusion of researchers who have used historical rates and patterns of tropical deforestation around the globe to estimate the resulting carbon emissions and species losses over time."

The main character to blame here is Industrial Agriculture, controlled completely by the power obsessed Biotechnology and Agro-Chemical Corporations. Next time they call you an Anti-Science Luddite for critizing them, start showing them the evidence. And remember, you DO NOT need any Scientist to give a seal of approval to be on the right side.

Science Daily: Effects of past tropical deforestation will be felt for years to come