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81 Comments
- niradg, on 11/03/2009, -1/+24If you read "Collapse," you'll know that most civilizations that failed did so because of environmental reasons.
http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fa ... - gbudavid, on 11/02/2009, -1/+24TIIMMMMMMBERRRRRRRR
- BookaShade, on 11/03/2009, -3/+24Good thing we respect our environment and leave much of the wild unhindered =)
oh wait. - mkriss5681, on 11/03/2009, -2/+20Same thing happened to the people who built the funky head statues on Easter Island. They stripped their whole island for resources to build those statues and it did them in.
- Junkyarddawg, on 11/02/2009, -3/+21Much like Rome, which crashed because soil erosion robbed the empire of its fertile grain lands.
- sonnybobiche, on 11/03/2009, -2/+19Yeah, it didn't have anything to do with Germans.
/s - NoticeDesign, on 11/03/2009, -0/+16You guys might want to know what the ***** you are talking about before you challenge someone. They cut down all their trees to use them as rollers to move the statues from the interior of their island to the perimeter.
- mkriss5681, on 11/03/2009, -0/+15Source: http://www.mysteriousplaces.com/Easter_Island/html ...
A chilling story of resource exploitation and destruction on Easter Island is beginning to come to light. The first westerners to discover the island wondered how any one could have survived on such a desolate, treeless place. Indeed, this was a mystery until recent core samples taken from the crater lakes showed that the island was heavily forested with a giant now-extinct palm while the Easter Island culture was active.
Apparently the islanders were greeted with a lush tropical paradise when they first discovered it. It must have seemed inexhaustible. The trees were cut for lumber for housing, wood for fires, and eventually for the rollers and lever-like devices used to move and erect the moai.
As the deforestation continued the moai building competition turned into an obsession. The quarry was producing moai at sizes that probably could never have been moved very far (one unfinished moai in the quarry is 70 feet tall!) And still the trees came down. With the loss of the forests, the land began to erode. The small amount of topsoil quickly washed into the sea. The crops began to fail and the clans turned on one another in a battle for the scarce resources. The symbols of the islanders' power and success, the moai, were toppled.
Eyes were smashed out of the moai and often rocks were placed where the statues neck would fall so it would decapitate the moai. The violence grew worse and worse. It was said that the victors would eat their dead enemies to gain strength, bones found on the island show evidence of this cannibalism. With the scarce food supplies it may have been a question of hunger as well as being ceremonial. A spooky cave (right) at the southwest corner of the island, Ana Kai Tangata, is translated to "cave where men are eaten." Inside are pictographs painted in ochre and white of ghost like birds flying upwards. With no wood left to build boats, all the Rapa Nui people could do was look enviously at the birds that sail effortless through the sky. The Rapa Nui culture and community, which had developed over the past 300 years, collapsed.
Their island was in shambles, and their villages and crops destroyed. There was no wood left on the island to build escape boats. The few survivors of the conflict, perhaps numbering as low as 750, began to pick up the pieces of their culture. One thing they left behind, however, were the moai.... - MaxxusFlamus, on 11/03/2009, -0/+12three tiny assed saplings do not replace the capabilities of a large tree that was cut down.
- inactive, on 11/03/2009, -2/+14It's not just trees, booger, it's the entire ecosystem. Are the trees which are farmed native to the area? Is the ecosystem a viable one, or just a monoculture? For the most part, tree farms *anywhere* are nothing close to natural forests. I also doubt your tree statistic, as incredible areas of forest were decimated in order to farm the Eastern US, and I doubt enough has been replanted to make up for it.
This is a map of American old-growth forest, the type richest in soil and plant life, from 1925: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oldgrowth3.jpg
Notice the massive deforestation? - inactive, on 11/03/2009, -2/+13This kind of thoughtless exploitation is going on *everywhere*, and if the human race isn't careful, we're going to be in a world of hurt.
For example, large amounts of crops are being grown in the more arid portions of the Great Plains using water from the Ogallala Aquifer. This water is being withdrawn at approximately 10x the natural recharge rate, and the aquifer is already going dry in certain areas. The places which are being sucked dry are the same ones which created the Dust Bowl, and when there's another huge drought, the topsoil is going to be blown away due to no significant vegetation remaining to hold it down. - krymson, on 11/03/2009, -2/+12If we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it
- pinchduck, on 11/03/2009, -2/+11I thought they fell because all those images they downloaded and scratched into the plains were copyrighted by the Massive Picture Association of Aztecs
- macmcraeart, on 11/03/2009, -5/+14....or Christianity teaching its bad-ass legions to be bitches
- mkriss5681, on 11/03/2009, -0/+9Trees were required to move and erect those statues. There are hardly any tree left on the island and the people who built them are pretty much gone.
- captininsanity, on 11/03/2009, -0/+8Or lead piping, overspread forces, seperation of power, bankruptcy, Germans, Goths, and Islam...
- zeiben, on 11/03/2009, -2/+10SNAP.... You're like a giant omniscient head compared to the commenters above. Someone should cut logs to roll your giant genius head onto a beach and worship you.
- angryredplanet, on 11/03/2009, -0/+8Mkriss5681 is right. The palms that grew on the island took centuries to grow to maturity due to the relative lack of soil nutrients on the island. They used trees for building huts, canoes and other vessels, tools, firewood, making rope and textiles etc. There was a lot of demand on relatively non-renewable resources.
- elliotys, on 11/03/2009, -3/+11@boogerthecat, I'm gonna need a reference for that claim.
- Pother, on 11/03/2009, -0/+8Oh we're great at the "not learning"and "dooming" parts.
- Rain12913, on 11/03/2009, -0/+7Well I'm grateful for their sacrifice, that ***** is pretty cool! I've seen it on google and stuff.
- Junkyarddawg, on 11/03/2009, -0/+7No, it didn't really have anything to do with germans.
It's hard to imagine today, when the entire mediterranean region is semi-desert with rocky soil, but the entire region started out covered in dense oak forrests, and these were cut down to get access to the thick, fertile, soil underneath.
Unfortunately the Romans knew exactly jack ***** about crop rotation, fertilizing, or avoiding erosion, and the initial bumper harvests which had attracted the greek colonists to italy in the first place soon declined, while at the same time population exploded. Local production being insufficient, food had to be imported.
The financial center of the empire gradually shifted away from Rome long before the empire crumbled, as the italian agriculture declined and got outcompeted by the far more fertile areas of northern africa. The result was flow of wealth away from the heart of the empire to - at least for a while - thriving cities in what today is desert.
As the process of soil erosion and desertification continued the "wealth-center" of the empire shifted even further, to Egypt and Asia Minor, and eventually it became untenible to have the capital in italy, by then a poor backwater of the empire, and it was moved to Constantinople, where all the action was. The western, impoverished, part of the empire fell soon after, but the eastern half of the Roman empire lasted for another thousand, largely successful, years and didn't fall until 1453.
So yeah, germanic tribes crushed the western half of the empire, but they did so because it could no longer afford to maintain a strong military.
Christianity is interesting. Early christianity had borrowed big chunks of the cult of Mithras, the religion of choice among the Roman military, precisely to make itself more appealing to military servicemen. When Constantine, himself possibly a pagan, decided to mold christianity as a state religion to unify his sprawling empire, christianity had already been accepted by most of the military, something which no doubt influenced Constantines choice. - Pother, on 11/03/2009, -1/+8"I am the Lorax. I speak for trees since the trees have no tongues..."
I'm glad someone wrote a story to remember the concept, however the story was way too late for:
These folk of Nazca.
And probably folk in Northern Africa and the Middle East.
And Thailand. (This one's my favorite, because its a recent example actually cutting down ALL the trees.)
And they're going hard at it in Brazil... and would probably succeed if conservationists weren't around.
America, replanting at a ratio of 3 to 1...
I'll be sure to drive out west and see all those new Redwood forests planted when the old-growth was cut 100 years ago...
And you can drive down into the southeast and I'll take you around acre after acre of recently logged young growth... logged in the past 5 years, and as soon logging equipment was gone, NOT ONE SIGN OF PLANTING... sure they were planted what... 20 years ago... (oh I know, perhaps they have to leave them fallow, for a bit, yeah that must be it...)
I don't have a problem with "tree farming and tree logging"... but that "tree farming" part better be there.
Oh wait, I just realized... we'll just "log", then when our companies are failing because there's no place left to "legally log", we'll whine and get "gov't subsidies and loans" to "plant new tree farms". The gov't will pay for it. Yeah that's the ticket... just like Wall Street and the Banks... only with "trees" instead of "investments and loans". - Math, on 11/03/2009, -0/+7I didn't think that people still believed in the Rothschild / Illuminati / American President conspiracy theories, but you guys always seem to pop up in threads in the environment section.
Like there's a group of powerful Illuminati secretly plotting to create a better environment. I can picture them scheming now. - sonnybobiche, on 11/03/2009, -4/+10All those valuable giant boulder resources.
- inactive, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5Not all ancient cultures were the same. That being said, most of them *were* destructive: the advent of agriculture in the Mediterranean resulted in the region's drastic loss of forest cover, Australian Aborigines decimated the continent's megafauna, and most Polynesian cultures wreaked havoc on their islands' trees and animals, just to name a few.
- JinxCrow, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5I'll point to this when someone tries to make the argument ancient cultures were "better because they were more in tune with the environment".
- prodigitalson, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5hahaha
- GeorgeTirebiter, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5Lesson learned: it is better to be a carnivore than a vegetarian.
- JanTik, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5The REAL reason civilizations go extinct is because humans cannot adequately predict the full consequences (both good and bad) of their actions.
Five hundred years ago, no one could predict how increases in democracy and science would change the world. Two hundred ears ago no one could paint a picture of how colonialism or nuclear power would affect the planet. A hundred years ago no one could foresee how space flight, material sciences, computers, or mathematics would enable the way we live today.
The same thing is still true. From our recent experience, we might have an idea how pollution or population growth could affect the planet, but we still have no clue about the how the change to a hydrogen economy could affect cloud formation and rainfall patterns around the globe – and if more cloud cover would increase or decrease global temperatures. That is just one example.
We simply don’t know what we don’t know. - mkriss5681, on 11/03/2009, -0/+5Apparently so were they. They put their religion in front of their own well-being. Thank god people don't do that today.
- gordeaoux, on 11/03/2009, -1/+5I like Al Gore, and I kind of agree. Native Americans used to burn large areas of the plains to keep them open for hunting, and when small pox hit, trees grew in to a greater extent.
Just because we replant a large ratio (if that's true), doesn't mean the new trees are as robust as the ones we cut down, and the large swaths of clear cuts are ripe for erosion. That doesn't even count non-American tree loss. - Thuktun, on 11/03/2009, -0/+4Humanity is not known for taking long-term over short-term profitability.
- sonnybobiche, on 11/03/2009, -2/+5That's an intriguing interpretation of the English language.
- InactiveUser, on 11/03/2009, -0/+370 years ago loggers went into forests and cut only the best trees.
Now we have corporations who clear fell old growth forests and then replant them as monoculture tree farms with your tax money. They poison the animals and they poison the rivers and streams, your drinking water. Tax incentives should only apply to tree farms grown in marginal lands and no old growth forest should be cut for any reason.
Pulp mills should be small, clean, recycling and caring industries. Not giant behemoths that could swallow Manhattan island.
Why can't we have timber cutters - pump mills and paper mills in the same street, in the right place, using clean technology and not making a single dent pollution wise?
Secondly, why can't we just grow hemp? - angryredplanet, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3I agree - reforestation is indeed the best way.
- geoffderuiter, on 11/03/2009, -0/+3Wow dude way to be ignorant. You have no idea who I am or what I do. I don't deny that there is some level of replanting of our forests and it is a profitable industry but it is definitely not more than what we have been taking and definitely the planting is not in a more ecologically sound the original forest whatever stage of growth it is on, get serious. A degree in Biology tends to inform one of these topics. Have a good day.
- geoffderuiter, on 11/03/2009, -1/+4Trees planted in the deserts of Arizona or NM or Nevada or Cali kept alive by fossil water and not used for any other purpose that just aesthetics is an inaccurate claim of what you are trying to represent. Get your head out of the conservative/republican propaganda machine it's very noisy in there.
- MelvinSchlubman, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2But, whether or not the know-how is applied is a political process. The folks who make a good living for themselves in the present with no care for future generations see this know-how as the enemy.
- Math, on 11/04/2009, -0/+2Or in other words, just another spin of the same old conspiracy theories.
If a small group of powerful individuals who rule the world in secret wanted to make money, there are easier ways to do it than apparently bribing all the scientists (and all the top scientific organizations and top publications) in the world in order to put money into improving the environment. - MelvinSchlubman, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2For your entertainment, here are my flickr Easter Island galleries:
"Easter Island Statues": http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldineen/galleries/ ...
"Easter Island Statues: pop culture references": http://www.flickr.com/photos/pauldineen/galleries/ ... - mcbutterbuns, on 11/03/2009, -2/+4Buried for misuse of the term "literally"
- sodade, on 11/03/2009, -0/+2Having recently picked up TotalWar: Rome for 10$ on steam, I thank you for the concise summary.
- durkadurkajerka, on 11/03/2009, -5/+7Now that's *puts on sunglasses" an intreeging theory.
- prakash1234, on 11/03/2009, -0/+1Ignorant fool...rothschilds carbon credit company is called E3 International
See
http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=90 ... - sleestakslayer, on 11/03/2009, -0/+1Trees are good for the environment. We should plant more.
- InactiveUser, on 11/03/2009, -0/+1Get some beef into you?
- dtele, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1Sounds like they had something in common with the guys from Easter Island
- whoreable, on 11/03/2009, -0/+1Nazca Please!
- prakash1234, on 11/04/2009, -0/+1wasnt iraq war started by a small number of bush cronies by convincing UN.
Unless there is a political agenda, there is less chances to exploit. -
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