Reply To: Shock treated nanocrystalline copper allows reduced anode radius

[Rezwan]

As for Ice Ages, one could call them a calamity, but a geologist would say they were necessary for the rich soils of Europe, Asia, and North America. The key in deciding whether a phenomena is positive or negative is to define what nature is, what role the phenomena plays in nature, and define our place in nature along side the phenomena.

A million years of ice age seems like a really inefficient way to build rich soils. (Not even sure how that works). But speaking of working with nature and the way to make soils rich, have you heard of Allan Savory and the Holistic Resource Management (“HRM”) folks: http://www.holisticmanagement.org/

Among other things, these folks introduced me to the concept of the herd effect on soils. Here is a simplified version: herbivores are out there grazing. Chewing away at the grass. They all hang out in a tightly clustered group because of predators. So they’re eating, and dropping dung as well. But that’s gross, they don’t want to eat where they drop, so, en masse, they move on. And they don’t come back to that place until the dung is good and decomposed. This is great for the plants, because they get fertilizer and they don’t get bothered until they’ve had a chance to grow back. Now, the herbivores return, and eat again. The herbivores act like a nice, uniform lawn-mower and fertilizer with built in regeneration waiting period. Allegedly, the plains of America had thundering herds of over a million buffalo doing this sort of thing.

Now, add mankind. We kill the predators, and leave the herbivores to graze without fear. So the animals disperse, no longer in their huddle. And they eat a plant, walk away. the plant starts to regrow – nice green fresh stuff. The creature comes back and eats it again – because they’d rather eat the newest growth than the older, tougher growth. So, eventually, the landscape gets irregular. Patches of overgrazing and tufts of overgrown undergrazed vegetation. There’s a lot of runoff, water not being absorbed in the ground, wind erosion, etc.

The HRM folks say this is why human and modern range management is a major cause of desertification. Overgrazing is not so much about HOW MANY animals are grazing, but HOW they are grazing.

Some books they sell: http://holisticmanagement.org/store//page1.html – Hey, there’s one called “Gardener’s of Eden” – must check that one out!