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Plants pull CO2 out of the air and use around half of it to build their bodies. They exude the rest of the carbon into the soil as simple sugars to feed the microbes that live in the soil. The microbes eat the sugar and excrete acids into the soil, breaking down the rock to get the minerals they need in addition to carbon to build their bodies. When the microbes die, the plants can absorb the minerals the microbes collected.
People have degraded topsoil so much that we have a huge opportunity to remove CO2 from the air and store it in soil by restoring soil health, which would happen if we could/would restore the native ecosystems. David Mongomery has some great books and videos explaining where we are and how we got here.
Trees have an enormous amount of solar collecting leaves powering the photosynthetic machinery that converts atmospheric CO2 to wood and carbon in the soil. Compare that to the photosynthesis a lawn cut a few inches high can do. People need to plant as many trees as possible, and even more importantly save every bit of old growth ecosystems we can.
While we can assert the cultural importance of lawns, their inherent cultural value pales in comparison to their ecological harm. Biodiversity and human health are inextricably linked, this isn’t something we can ignore because it’s inconvenient. I’m not advocating for everyone to have their lawns or private “green spaces” reforested, rewilded, or go fallow but rather a reduction in their scale and prevalence to best facilitate a sustainable and just future.
Unfortunately, with arguments of this type it just comes down to a philosophical argument of short term gain vs long term flourishing and anthropocentrism/chauvinism vs environmentalism; not everyone is going to agree.
Edit: for a better understand or a greater appreciation of the rationale behind this I’d recommend reading these two books. My synthesis of political theory, ecology, conservation, and anthropology was affirmed after reading these-more so than any paper I’ve read. The first is accessible and touches upon this topic directly in its closing chapters but is largely culturally agnostic. The works of James C. Scott truly brought this all together-while his writing is academic, it’s absolutely brilliant in aggregating seemingly disparate content into an appreciable argument. His other work Seeing like a State is also relevant to this discussion.
>And severe winter and spring floods take another toll that’s much more difficult to quantify: Soil loss, on a grand scale, right in the region that provides a huge amount of our food supply. The Midwest boasts one of the globe’s greatest stores of topsoil, more than half of which has been lost in the past 50 years. Topsoil is the fragile, slow-to-regenerate resource that drives agriculture. As University of Washington ecologist David Montgomery explained in his terrific 2007 book *Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization*s: “With just a couple feet of soil standing between prosperity and desolation, civilizations that plow through their soil vanish.”
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some new material to keep me up at night... wow.
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Math doesn't need all these things to be modeled directly. That is the beauty of math. Econophysics works amazingly well simply because it looks at the data and creates mathematical models to make predictions based only on price because all the things you mentioned actually are expressed on price. It works. I write algos for a living that use mathematical models like this one and I can show they are predictive from a statistical point of view. Sornette has predicted crashes in the past. We don't want to believe that humans act as physical forces but they do, in particular when you look at many agents. They act exactly like interacting physical forces and these things can be modeled with physics methods and techniques.
Ah, you want to Lie with Maps, gotcha. Now you have the link to the book.
There are a lot of people in California since they are the largest populous state, which has around 40 million right now, so it's not surprising that 6 million people voted for the former pres but that large number is still not the majority of the state.
Wallace and Hobbs is definitely the go-to for most freshman and sophomore-level meteorology classes.
Even had a few upper-level courses that referenced it. Maybe a bit more advanced for what you're looking for, but still is an excellent textbook. Still have mine in my office.
The thread we are discussing this in is about an article about fungicide coated seeds...? That is what you got upset about - me commenting that we should reduce the use - for the environment's sake. Chemicals such as fertilizers also degrade topsoil in various ways. Ask Haney e.g. and others. No/low till farming is an exciting route. But it isn't the only route nor is tilling/plowing the only explanation for topsoil degradation. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend Dirt by David R. Montgomery about how and why topsoil is degraded and the historical consequences of it. This stuff is complex and there are a lot of nuances.
LOL you obviously don't know the difference between north and south.. I said down south, i.e. below Canada is the United States ("Americans"). Take a look at this, it'll help you out in the future... Here ya go bud - Geography For Dummies https://www.amazon.com/dp/0764516221/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_NTZTPWD602A19NRTYMJE
Is there an updated link for https://www.cbbc.us/contradictions/darwin? (I get a 404) Would like to learn more about it, thanks
Reminds me of this nice read: “In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation” https://www.amazon.com/dp/0890513414/
first few seconds of the universe’s life
Very Stephen Baxter!
I’m agnostic on whether or not there’s really anything non-human behind “the phenomenon” - but I’ve got an open mind because (a) some of the seemingly credible reports are *very*strange, (b) there’s no reason there couldn’t be, even though evidence is currently lacking, and (c) if there is, it’s hugely significant, which is why I always supportED SETI. Otherwise I reached the same conclusion as Stephen Webb in his excellent book on solutions to the Fermi Paradox.
But yeah, if another intelligence was aware of us, my feeling is that it/they would be something almost inconceivably advanced and alien. Not nuts-and-bolts saucers (although they could presumably manifest such things, if desired).
Thanks for the link, there is a link in my forum too but I will also analyze recent data and give a commentary. Sornette, one of the authors is an amazing econophysicist and actually predicted bubbles in the stock market before. Here is main work, it is not just about crashes but understand markets from a mathematical point of view:
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Stock-Markets-Crash-Financial/dp/0691175950
"for simplicity sake" sounds like you've got a pre-decided point you are trying to make, and chose the visualization that supports that.
Man muss einfach die Grenzwerte für die Farbübergänge und den Zeitraum geschickt wählen. Gibt sogar Bücher über sowas: https://www.amazon.de/How-Maps-Third-Mark-Monmonier/dp/022643592X/?tag=dsble-21
Und falls es nicht offensichtlich war: das ist ein Spaßpost über Scheinkorrelationen.
https://www.amazon.com/Elementary-Surveying-14th-Charles-Ghilani/dp/0133758885
Good book that I think every surveyor should own.
Your situation is becoming a more common problem these days with robots and 1 man crews. There is a lack of teaching and passing knowledge throughout the profession.
Generally, I'd say you learn more getting thrown into the fire. In your special case without even knowing what control points are I'd say you need a job where you are an i-man and able to learn the basics. Your last company never did boundaries? Never staked property lines? I'm surprised they were able to stay afloat without turning traverse.
Sounds like the company you are at now does the jobs and has the tools to grow. Your ready when you're ready. Don't tell someone you can do something if you don't know how. Be honest about what you know and willing to learn.
This book was mentioned on a podcast I listen to. It goes over various scenarios for exactly the question of "why haven't we noticed the aliens?" and is written by a pretty well-known astronomer. Might be of interest to you.
The standard intro to atmospheric science I believe is Wallace & Hobbs; this book focused on the physical science and quantitative aspect of atmospheric science. I don't have anything for general geophysics however.
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I once heard from a guy having a physics PhD now working in weather forecasting said "Even the most theoretical ideas in meteorology is nowhere as sophisticated as in theoretical physics." Atmospheric science is more of an applied science much like engineering. So I think all the really high-level theoretical tools in GR, QFT, etc. will unlikely be used there, and I suspect this is the same for geophysics as well. The more immediately applicable background knowledge to have, I would say, is fluid dynamics.
I'm actually working on writing a research paper on the paradox (although I'm a high school junior so take "research paper" as you wish). It's really nice that kurzgesagt uploads a video in the midst of my planning for the essay.
To anyone interested in this stuff, I reccomend If the universe is teeming with aliens... Where is everybody? by Stephen Webb, it does a great job with approaching the issue from many fields.
Here is the post for archival purposes:
Author: Time_Value_of_Money
Content:
>The underlying conditions that drove BCH up and BTC down in price last weekend do not exist this weekend. Namely, last weekend, there was an imbalance of on-chain transactions between BCH and BTC (in BCH's favor) building up from Tuesday, November 07 to Friday, November 10. When the imbalance hit a critical point, the prices corrected as nature abhors a vacuum. This imbalance is actually in BTC's favor at the moment.
>I will not reveal my precise indicator - as it is proprietary - but read Didier Sornette's book "Why <del>Stock</del> Markets Crash" to understand how the underlying state of a complex system determines how it behaves when faced with critical events.
Here is the post for archival purposes:
Author: Time_Value_of_Money
Content:
>The underlying conditions that drove BCH up and BTC down in price last weekend do not exist this weekend. Namely, last weekend, there was an imbalance of on-chain transactions between BCH and BTC (in BCH's favor) building up from Tuesday, November 07 to Friday, November 10. When the imbalance hit a critical point, the prices corrected as nature abhors a vacuum. This imbalance is actually in BTC's favor at the moment.
>I will not reveal my precise indicator - as it is proprietary - but read Didier Sornette's book "Why <del>Stock</del> Markets Crash" to understand how the underlying state of a complex system determines how it behaves when faced with critical events.
Here is the post for archival purposes:
Author: Time_Value_of_Money
Content:
>The underlying conditions that drove BCH up and BTC down in price last weekend do not exist this weekend. Namely, last weekend, there was an imbalance of on-chain transactions between BCH and BTC (in BCH's favor) building up from Tuesday, November 07 to Friday, November 10. When the imbalance hits a critical point, the prices corrected as nature abhors a vacuum. This imbalance is actually in BTC's favor at the moment.
>I will not reveal my precise indicator - as it is proprietary - but read Didier Sornette's book "Why <del>Stock</del> Markets Crash" to understand how the underlying state of a complex system determines how it behaves when faced with critical events.
You'll be hard-pressed to find a better introductory textbook than Wallace & Hobbs. It's a comprehensive and informative introductory tome that still manages to have lots of judiciously chosen pretty pictures.
That book is a great resource. The fs test is a national test so no need for anything state specific. I recommend getting a basic survey textbook like wolf and ghlani or moffit and bouchard. Also get a construction surveying text.
It is a very math heavy test. Make sure you are comfortable slopes and grades, slope staking, hz and vt curves, areas and volumes, levelling, reading maps, and cogo.
Get an HP 33 or 35, and program it. Then practice with it.
Edit- sp and added link
Different ones but also this: http://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Civilizations-David-R-Montgomery/dp/0520248708
He claimed that Mesopotamia went through cycles of salinification and topsoil loss which coincide with the cultures coming and going. Many cultures in Mesopotamia have collapsed and disappeared, you know. It's not an unbroken chain of culture there.
At least Montgomery makes the point that the Greek valleys went into decline after a few hundred years of farming and took the larger civilization there into decline with them. After about 300-1000 years natural erosion and wildlife would have replenished the soil again enough to restart the civilizational cycle. (The length of the cycle depends on the climate and soil types.) Top soil loss doesn't mean that everyone dies. It just means that a few valleys can no longer sustain a city of 20000 people and the farmers supporting it.
Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization
Is a fantastic book about soil, soil degradation and it's relationship to the fall of civilizations.
I'll just leave this right here: Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making of the National Parks
I have read The Omnivore's dilemma, I don't think it offered good solutions to the problems it brought up. thank you for the other book recommendations.
have a book recommendation from me Dirt seems to do a better job of offering workable solutions to the problems of soil conservation and sustainable crops.
I don't think I'm likely to change my opinions regarding human rights.