Friday, August 23, 2019

The Amazon is Never Far From It's Tipping Point



One fact distinguishes the Amazon from other forests. It's also the Amazon's Achilles Heel.

While other forests hold a good deal of their biomass in the soils, almost all of the Amazonian biomass is in the trees and plants. The soil is all but barren, leached out by millennia of torrential rains.
Nowhere else in the world is the number of animal and plant species as high as in the Amazon rainforest. Not even the rainforests in Asia or Africa can compare. The Amazon region has more species per square kilometer than in the whole of Europe.

Beyond that, there are tens of thousands of plant species, including countless medicinal plants, over 2.5 million insect species, 1,300 kinds of birds, 430 mammals, over 3,000 fish species, hundreds of different amphibians and reptiles. Numerous species are discovered every year, and many have yet to even be been seen by us humans. 
These rainforests are a gigantic accumulation of biomass. Their plants grow on several levels, like floors in a building. There are tree giants that grow to a height of 60 to 80 meters. Then, there is the middle tree level. Below, it is very dark and humid, because the crowns of the trees are so close together that they act as a green blanket. 
In this rainforest "universe," there are infinite niches for animals — thanks to an abundance of food, like leaves, seeds, fruits and nutrients. Everything is in the plants. As is the CO2 the trees extract from the atmosphere and store as they grow. All the while, they produce oxygen. 
The amazing thing is that the soil is as poor in nutrients as the vegetation is rich. The humus layer, which is that dark, organic stuff in the soil that develops when plants or animal matter break down, is minimal nearly everywhere. The soil in the Amazon rainforest is the poorest and most infertile in the world. If one cuts down the forest, it is irretrievably lost. The humus layer is quickly washed out. Three years after clearing the forest (at the latest, nothing will grow there. What remains is washed out, worthless soil.
This accounts for why the Amazon is populated by small tribes each village a considerable distance from the next. Agriculture is impossible leaving the villagers dependent on hunting and gathering, each tribe in its own territory. It's why they have not formed a culture, a civilization.

However, researchers have found evidence that, some 2,500 years ago, there did exist a civilization in the rainforest.  The evidence is in the form of carbon, biochar, that was tilled into the soil to a depth of several feet by some unknown people who once lived in that area.

More than two thousand years later these soils remain rich, fertile and black. The researchers have named the area "Terra Preta" or black soil.



The lesson from this is one that can serve the entire world. We are facing a food security disaster due to the degradation of our farmland. Through reckless application of agri-chemicals (fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides) and exhaustive farming we've depleted the essential carbon from the soil in some places, such as China or India, to the point of desertification. We're cutting our own throats.

It has been argued that the Amazon is reaching a tipping point beyond which it will not be able to recover, gone, in practical terms, forever. It may be too late for the Amazon but it's not too late for Europe or the United States or Canada. It's really a matter of finding the political will to act but, given our pathetic response to climate change, it's hard to imagine we'll ever find that essential will.

6 comments:

  1. Too bad that there's more political will and concern for Notre Dame than this essential part of sustaining life while the world watches helplessly as it is destroyed at an alarming rate. At least the capitalists can rest easy that they will extract even more value from the rest of us. We have no idea what the consequences will be but we can surely kiss goodbye any hope of turning this disaster around.

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  2. The planet burns -- quite literally -- and, like Nero, we continue to fiddle.

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  3. https://www.livescience.com/we-should-retreat-from-coastal-cities-now.html

    Well, more nature news. It gets a little worse each time. 30 years to retreat from the coasts due to an estimated foot high rise in waters.

    I honestly worry over this most of all. Forced mass migration always has dire consequences. Middle Ages, American expansionism. Mass migration tends toward migration of disease as well.

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  4. Troy, it's always good to hear from you. I recall a time, not that many years ago, when you were having trouble. Rarely do I see someone with so much ability just needing to break through something.

    There's always been an uncommon honesty in you. Metaneos, eh? There are probably few places better for your energies than groups like that.

    Good on you. First Nations need young people to steer a course through what is bound to be a particularly rocky road for the First Nations. I'm convinced there's a role there you have to play.

    Good luck.

    MoS

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    1. Thanks MoS. I'm doing well these days. I've recovered fairly thoroughly from many of my difficulties. Much of it was the physical feeding into the mental and spiritual, as well as vice-versa. Feedback loops.

      I'm near completing my English Lit major and History minor. Might go work somewhere overseas after I'm finished and then return for Honours somewhere. And then perhaps law if I have success in Honours. But that's years out.

      Doing well. Thinking about applying myself to move into leadership, but it's a nasty profession. I'd have to become pretty ruthless. Even First Nations poltics is a harsh environment. It's hardly idealic.

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  5. The First Nations are going to be our salvation for those of us who listen and give them the breathing room they need to coach. Next in line, I would like to add , most Newfounddlanders born before 1975 will also know a lot about sustainability however, they are not as well informed when it comes to knowing what wild herbs are best for illnesses as do the Indigenous Peoples of this country. The people who possess these skills still, will be made to work their asxxx off for those with the guns to force it so. Anyong

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