I will not address your reply in sentence-parsing mode. I will instead address the implications of
the mythologies you are holding dear.
Humans are believed to have a common ancestor with gorillas dating some guesstimated 8 million
years. Humans are believed to have a common ancestory splitting from the chimpanzes some 5 million
years ago. Bonobos are so closely similar to chimps that they are called "pigmy chimps" but split
from a common ancestor maybe 4 million years ago. It took 30 million years to go from lemur to
human, and at least 65 million to get from reptile to human. Diversity takes time. Any erasure takes
as long to re-evolve as the original evolution. The width and breadth of biodiversity in the
tropical rain forest cannot have occurred in the time spans since the first "ice age". No quantity
of references can support your thesis that there were near-zero modern forms in the tropics as
recently as one million years ago.
Fish are particularly vulnerable to ice ages, as they cannot migrate from fresh water prisons.
Ciclid fish occur only in South America and Africa, deriving from some common ancestor before the
Atlantic rift broke apart the parent continent back in the time following the peak age of dinosaurs.
Hundreds of unique species of ciclids are found in Lake Victoria in Africa and hundreds more unique
species in the Amazon. These fish of common ancestry are living proof that the tropics have been
comfortable for their kind for dozens of millions of years. Any theories or myths which do not take
into account these self-evident truths are false, self-delusional, error, misleading, and (possibly
intentionally) deceptive.
It is important for the "team" who wants to treat biodiversity as disposable and of little value to
concoct and spread stories about how easy it is to replace what is now being slaughtered. The other
opposing "team" uses the truth to show how the extermination of biodiversity removes the evidence of
which tells the truth. The human-introduced Nile Perch as a sport game fish into Lake Victoria has
led to the extermination of half of the species of Ciclid fish in a couple of decades. Possibly 200
species are already gone or at dire risk. When the Ciclids are all extinct on one continent or the
other the proof of the longevity of life in the tropics will be gone. The liars will win because the
proof that refutes them will be extinct and erased from memory. That is a particularly hideous way
to "win" an argument.
Why is this important on a "SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE" message group? Because it refutes Ludwig von
Biglie's Big Lie. The climate in the tropics is drenched with slightly acidic rainfall. The
conventional nutrients "beLIEved" to be necessary for plant community life and health are swiftly
washed away by two stories (200+ inches) of water annually. The rainforest perserveres ignoring
Biglie, never getting a break for winter, never getting a break day-in, day-out for millions of
years on the same soil. Every nutrient within the trees' rootzone is presumed mined by previous
generations and washed away by torrents. According to established and accepted agricultural theory
the tropics cannot have existed for very many millenia, so to protect a flawed paradigm it
imperative that the "team" gang up to drown out their opposition. REAL SCIENCE is not a "team"
effort intent on shoring up a flawed paradigm -- when it is time for a paradigm to die, let it go.
When the Einsteinian physics paradigm was doomed, it went away despite the many sentimental feelings
that the man himself evoked.
You all are being asked to take another look, once again, about the truth of the world, and revise
obsolete paradigms. It is time. I am sorry that you paid good money to a university for an education
and instead got mis-educated -- sue them for a refund, but don't punish biodiversity with mass
extinctions just because of the fact that your teachers THEN didn't know what we know NOW!
Bart: your prior message, which I took opposition to had a second poison-pill embedded in it. I
didn't take that one to task, but it was in the SAME "TEAM" SPIRIT of badmouthing the only human
experiments ever conducted in biodiversity measurements. On the one hand is a tenured Harvard
professor, holder of an endowed chair, who wheedled money out of NIS to conduct island biodiversity
experiments, and on the other hand there is your TEAM. Opposed to you are the actual physical
experiments conducted in the field. Where are YOUR experiments? Give those references!
It took the whole human race 12,000 years of civilization emerging to get to the point where we are
today, and the very best minds, with the best of the best training, to produce these experiments
which shout the dangers of recklessness to the global life-support systems. Even at our very best,
the cream of the cream, there is possibility of error, and more experts need to be trained and more
experiments need to be financed. These are such important issues that we have to reckon with them,
and not live in denial and self-delusion. We ought to double check, triple-check the experiments.
But defrauding people that the experiments never happened, deceiving that the results were less or
different than they in fact were, of self-delusion that we are immune from the consequences of our
own behavior is not honorable or even tolerable behavior.
There are two "teams". One team says "look the world is flamable, let's burn it down". The other
team says "look the world is flamable, let's require licences for possession of matches".
You are a strong team player, Bart, consistent in your statements that biodiversity is of negligable
worth, and farmers can use biocide chemicals which leak into the greater environment "causing no
great harm". You have armored yourself with your factoids and references. You cannot be converted or
subverted to the "other side". I write to oppose you because the millions of voiceless species being
injured by your team have no ability to opposde you here. I am their voice telling you that your
team is killing important parts of the global life-support systems which sustain ALL forms of life.
The BIOSPHERE II experiments also refute you: the only experiment ever done in the history of the
planet Earth to build sustainable ecosystems based on current levels of human scientific ecology
knowledge failed, and nearly killed the eight "bionauts" involved in the experiment. Your team has
bad information and no humility -- it is a deadly combination.
Nothing I have written is a "flame". I tried to arrest you for the crime of dissemination of faulty
paradigms on public channels, but not out of anger AT YOU, but out of protective interest to my
co-species who will not die without a champion to fight for their lives. Too bad you chose the other
team, but that is your free-will right to chose to be wrong. Americans have a constitutionally
protected right to be as ignorant as they they chose to be, and a university education is not a
guarantee that you will not be IGNORE-ant of true facts scientifically verifiable by anyone of
decent intelligence.
Signed: Lion Kuntz
LIFE SAVIORS WEBSITE:
http://homepages.msn.com/VolunteerSt/lifesaviors/index.html
------Original Message------
From: "Bluestem Associates" <bluestem@webserf.net>
To: "sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu" <sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu>
Sent: July 6, 2000 12:14:37 AM GMT
Subject: Amazon paleo-climate (was "Most False Statement")
On Wed, 5 Jul 2000 16:44:39 -0400 (EDT), Lion Kuntz wrote:
>This below is the Most False Deceptive and Misleading Statement I Have ever seen on SANET-MG. The
>implications of this statement are that somewhere between one million years ago and 12,000 years
ago
>the entire Tropical Ecology suddenly mutated into existence, and did not have any prior existence.
>You are very explicit with the statement "post-glacial" phenomenon.
I stand by every word of it. My undergraduate degree is in geology, and
paleo-climatology is a longstanding interest of mine. What I said about
the Amazon rain forest has been known in one form or another for 30
years. For people that deal with this stuff professionally, what I said
is nothing new or radical. I guess it hasn't filtered down to the
environmental movement yet, perhaps because they don't want to hear it.
18,000 years ago, there was but a tiny snippet of tropical rain forest
in the Guyana-Suriname area. Most of the immediate Amazon basin was
savanna. Most of Brazil south and east of the Amazon was grassland.
There were several patches of extreme desert in the rain shadow of the
Andes. The Recife region, as well as the transitions into the extreme
desert were semi-desert.
By about 7,000 years ago the tropical rain forest had expanded
considerably, but there was still a significant percentage of savanna
in the region.
The only maps for which I could find a URL on short notice come from
the web version of the Global Atlas of Paleo-vegetation.
for 18,000 years ago --- http://www.soton.ac.uk/~tjms/sa18k.gif
for 5-8,000 years ago --- http://www.soton.ac.uk/~tjms/sa8_5.gif
Partial key to these maps ...
1 -- Tropical rain forest
2 -- Monsoon dry forest
3 -- Tropical savanna
4 -- Thorn scrub
5 -- Semi-desert
6 -- Grassland
7 -- Extreme desert
8 -- none
9 -- Savanna
10 - Temperate evergreens
11 - Temperate rain forest
(there are more, but these cover the Amazon basin)
>No matter how much intelligence you believe you have, the absurdity of your statement has
>illustrated deep flaws in your educations, which can be remedied by humility and application of
>generous amounts of time at quality libraries.
O golly, it causes a kerfuffle when sacred cows end up on the grill.
I suggest, on the other hand, that instead of flaming me you devote
your energy to some study yourself. You might wish to start with any or
all of the references below.
In the meantime, I won't hold your tirade against you.
Bart Hall
========
Absy M.L., Cleef A.M., Fournier M., Martin L., Servant M., Sifeddine
A., Ferriera M.F., Soubies F., Suguio K., Turcq B. & Van der Hammen T.
(1991) Mise
en ‚vidence de quatre phases d'ouverture de la forˆt dense dans le
sud-est de l'Amazonie au cours des 60,000 derniŠres ann‚es. PremiŠre
comparison
d'autres r‚gions tropicales. C.R. Acad. Sci. Paris t.312, S‚rie II
p.673-678
Absy M.L. & van der Hammen T. (1976), Some palaeoecological data from
Rondonia, southern part of the Amazon Basin. Acta Amazonica v.6
p.293-299.
Campbell K.E. (1989b). Late Pleistocene history of the Altiplano and
southwestern Amazonia and its bearing on faunal interchange. p.267-268.
Abstract;
5th International Theriological Congress. Rome.
Colinvaux P.A. (1987). Environmental history of the Amazon Basin.
Quaternary of South America and Antarctic Peninsula. v.5. A.A. Balkema,
Rotterdam,
Brookfield.
Colinvaux P., Bush M., Liu K-b, De Oliviera P., Steinitz-Kannan M.,
Reidinger M. & Miller M. (1989). Amazon without refugia: vegetation and
climate
change of the Amazon Basin through a glacial cycle. p.99-105 in; papers
of International Symposium on global changes in South America during
the
Quaternary. Sao Paulo, Brazil
Colinvaux P.A. (1993). History of the Amazon lowlands. p.255-301 in;
Biological relationships between Africa and South America. Ed;
Goldblatt P., Yale
University, USA.
De Oliveira P.E., Bush M.B., Miller M. & Colinvaux P.A. (1995). A
40,000 year record from the Amazonian lowland forest of Brazil.
Abstracts, 14th INQUA
Congress, Berlin.
van der Hammen T. & Absy M.L. (1994), Amazonia during the last Glacial.
Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclim., Palaeoecol. v.109 p.247-261.
Latrubesse E. M. & Rancy A. (1995). Late Quaternary alluvial sediments
and vertebrate palaeontology indicative of aridity in southwestern
Amazonia.
p.226, Abstracts 14th INQUA Congress, Berlin.
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