Soil Science Journal Club : conservation

Astonishing reasoning on Greenland from U.S. scientists

Andrew.Rate — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 05:47:00 GMT

The good news (for some of the approximately 57,600 Greenlanders, at least): Greenland now has much more control over its destiny, following the decision from Denmark to allow self-rule for Greenlanders (see the article at the Sydney Morning Herald).

The not-so-good news: the following excerpt from this, and other, articles on this event is a real jaw-dropper:

"US scientists believe Greenland's northern tip is especially rich in oil and gas and they say global warming could help unlock the untapped wealth under the ice-cap and provide a solid foundation for an independent economy."

Let's just hope that these are the same ubiquitous and apocryphal "U.S. scientists" who seem to crop up occasionally in news articles to justify not-to-be-disputed points of view. Let's also hope they have sufficient integrity to be greenhouse sceptics.

It's hard to imagine a more cynical and blithely pragmatic approach to the issue of global warming, whether or not one has doubts about the anthropogenic hypothesis (which would be too large a can of worms ever to be opened on this blog).

Image from cartophilia.com

Journal club Christmas

Andrew.Rate — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 04:25:00 GMT

Two quotes from Bruce Cockburn appropriate to the Christmas season (and the mood it gets me in):

"This bluegreen ball in black space
Filled with beauty even now
battered and abused and lovely"

from the song "Planet of the Clowns" on the album The Trouble With Normal (1983)

This was written in the early 1980s, and there seems little doubt that the "bluegreen ball" has suffered more battery and abuse since then.

In an article "US consumerism poses global recession threat" on the ABC news website, Richard Vietor (Professor of Environmental Management at the Harvard Business School) warns that unbridled (American) consumerism may lead to "catastrophic recession". Easy to point the finger at the USA; there are lots of Americans, but other western countries should not feel too righteous either. I have pessimistic moments when I worry a lot about humanity's impact on our planet. I had one cycling to work this morning in fact, dodging traffic until the sanctuary of the cycle path through the King's Park bushland, prompting me to include Cockburn's bittersweet lyrics above. What will become of Earth? -- the weary Terra may shrug her scarred but resilient skin yet, and rid herself of parasites...

...but Christmas is still a time for hope, as an older Cockburn observes:

"Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe"

from the song "Cry of a Tiny Babe" on the album Nothing But A Burning Light (1991)

Images from www.cockburnproject.net

Occasional poetry No.1

Andrew.Rate — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:13:00 GMT

1958

that spring, there was a terrible drought
no one could stop
the earth from cracking open
and spilling its shrivelled guts

mice jumped out of rice jars
not a single grain was harvested
but so as not to make the higher-ups lose hope
our considerate village headman

sent people out night after night
first to paint the ground grass-green
then to paint it gold

SONG XIAOXIAN
Translated by Simon Patton

Poem of the week:
http://china.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=973&x=1

Baiji update - alive?

Andrew.Rate — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 02:48:00 GMT

It now seems as though someone may have seen a Baiji, and that perhaps they're not extinct after all!

Read more of the good news at http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/30/2019106.htm.

The New Nature

Andrew.Rate — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 01:58:00 GMT

Just read Tim Low's book...

Low, Tim. 2003. The New Nature. Penguin Books Australia.

Overall the thesis of this book seems to be that nature includes humans - whether we like it or not, we're intimately involved in ecosystems -and therefore what humans have done and will do needs to be factored into our understanding of "nature".

Recurrent ideas (bursting some sacred balloons)

human activities and disturbance of ecosystems / creation of new ones (urbanisation, agriculture) can benefit many species including some endangered ones;
"wilderness" as a concept does not really exist (but is more likely based on wishful thinking);
animals can be as destructive as humans (sometimes because human activity forces them into different or more crowded spaces);
some conservation practices have been damaging (e.g., reintroductions, focusing only on few [animal] species); culling (of animals and plants) may be necessary;
we favour the adaptable species over the niche dwellers...

And why is this book discussed on a Soil Science blog? Mostly because I wanted to (and enjoyed the book), but Tim Low does discuss the impact of the "new nature" on soils, if not soil functioning, as in the following quotes:

p. 53 - "Seabirds evidently bred colonially back in Jurassic times, and dinosaurs in the Triassic era, which means that soil pollution dates back 200 million years."

p. 305 - "... nature as the sum total of wild plants and animals, with rocks, soil, water, weather and tectonic forces often thrown in."

p. 228 - "Multiplying kangaroos cop the blame for many crimes. I've heard them accused of destroying endangered plants, eroding soil, eliminating the understorey, preventing regeneration, degrading habitat for birds, and encouraging invasive native plants and birds."