Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 295 posts

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#171

Post by ordu »

eastof wrote: post #167
sclarisse wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we want to make the temperature on Mars like the one on Earth, it’s not going to take 2C and a feedback loop. It’s going to take like 75C.

This is such a dangerous perspective. Why would we want to make the temperature on Mars like the one on Earth!?! We already have 7 Billion people here to take care of and we're already witnessing mass heat, flooding, and famine deaths from climate change. People focusing on colonizing Mars when we have such an immediate problem to address TODAY are delusional and actively endangering the most vulnerable people in the…

I believe that your reasoning misses one crucial detail: we do not exactly know how to climate control a whole planet, we have almost no experience with that.

Attempts to terraform Mars allow humans to try some things and to see what happens. It will allow to make our models of climate more precise.

For now our understanding of a climate based on observational studies. Not a controlled experiment. So when we start to do something having some climatic goals in mind, we'll start to learn a lot. And it would be better for Earth if we started with Mars.

Though we have no time, but it doesn't seem a sufficient reason not to try get at least some experience from terraforming Mars. It may reduce risks.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#172

Post by akvadrako »

pil0u wrote: post #7
tsunamifury wrote: post #2

I think it’s wild and deeply inspiring to imagine how the surface of the earth had radically different forms over billions of years. Huge landscapes of unrotted dead plants. Then massive landscapes of fungus and decomposing bacteria breaking that down into dirt. And on and on. I think it is wise to understand that earth has been through many eras and is not as homeostatic as our narrowly imagined “natural” state we s…

Changes are static or not depending on the scale of time you consider. In a time span of billions (even millions) of years, our planet indeed went through different eras. For a duration of one human life, the state of nature is expected to remain quite static. The problem with climate change is that we started to witness the planet entering in a new era in such a small time frame - roughly 200 years.

This isn't true. For most of history we just don't have the resolution to see changes over a few hundred years.

But we do have recent examples of much quicker temperature changes. During the Younger Dryas the global average temp dropped about 5°C over a few decades and about 1000 years later, rose again just as quickly.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#173

Post by 1attice »

The HN headline edit obscures the point of the article, which amounts to an argument that prototaxites were basically fungus.

It's like taking an article that says "dinosaurs are related to birds" and changing it to read "the ancestors of birds are related to birds." It reduces a new, interesting claim to a tautology which is not, in any way, what the article concerns itself with.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#174

Post by sclarisse »

eastof wrote: post #167
sclarisse wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we want to make the temperature on Mars like the one on Earth, it’s not going to take 2C and a feedback loop. It’s going to take like 75C.

This is such a dangerous perspective. Why would we want to make the temperature on Mars like the one on Earth!?! We already have 7 Billion people here to take care of and we're already witnessing mass heat, flooding, and famine deaths from climate change. People focusing on colonizing Mars when we have such an immediate problem to address TODAY are delusional and actively endangering the most vulnerable people in the…

I don’t understand what you’re saying is dangerous exactly, because the thread you’re replying to is full of people pointing out the ludicrousness of “terraforming Mars” compared to doing anything-at-all on Earth: pointing out the massive gulf between “massive” human impact and what is necessary for Mars (far, far greater).

I interpret this as you misinterpreting the opinions here, confusing them with the opinion of unrelated colonization-fanatics, via an unknown mechanism; I will not attempt any defense of either perspective right now.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#175

Post by jacob019 »

mcguire wrote: post #163
beginnings wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Some days I wish I could contemplate the possibility of roughly 80,000,000 deaths with such equanimity.

Right? We should consider the added worth of each life saved by slowing down the virus's spread, which allowed time to develop vaccines. Although the worldwide response was far from perfect, I'm truly thankful for the technology and measures that protected numerous people. While I value freedom and individual rights, it's challenging to compare those principles to the importance of preserving a life.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#176

Post by mecsred »

ask_b123 wrote: post #159
tsunamifury wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s taken me half a lifetime to even learn enough to start to appreciate her wisdom.

I might not have lived enough to appreciate it, how do I do so?

Try not to die anytime soon!

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#177

Post by hinkley »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #151
hinkley wrote: post #81

I think over time we will eventually set the beginning of “agriculture” to be in the age of fungi. The more we learn about trees the more they resemble an evolutionary step up from lichen. Lichen is a symbiosis between fungi and single celled chlorophyll owners. Forests are multicellular lichen. Like the cyanobacteria, trees can often function without their host, but they do better things with them.

Do you have any more information on what led you to this idea? I'm not an expert by any means, but when I look at trees I see 100% plant, with some fungus in the soil and roots and what not, somewhat akin to animals' gut bacteria.

The fungi are underground. Out of sight, out of mind.

Suzanne Simard was one of the first to draw attention to it. She has a book now, as does Paul Stamets, but there’s also The Secret Life of Trees and a few others. Healthy forests are a network, the fungi arbitrage sugars and water, and sometimes minerals between the trees. But in addition some of these fungi can still degrade stone to make minerals accessible to the plants. There was a study where they found nano holes in forest sand particles that are consistent with the dimensions of mycelia. No direct observation yet that in know of, but the pathways exist so it’s “worth further study” as they say.

Biological weathering of rock, as in lichen, was critical to how plants got a foothold on land.

I think we’ll find that it was also critical to the development of mega flora, and that fungi and trees are a case of coevolution, where the fungi take a less overt role in the partnership.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#178

Post by nunobrito »

carlmr wrote: post #83
tommywg7 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a weird comment. The ozone hole WAS a huge problem… and then the world banned CFCs and we fixed it. But it took years of lawsuits, journalism, and scientists speaking up. Similarly, global warming is a huge problem today and threatens our future. We will fix it just like we did the ozone hole, but again it will take decades of lawsuits, science, public outcry. The problem this time is twofold: the rise of conspi…

>The problem this time is twofold: the rise of conspiracy theorists in the Republican Party, who refuse to even acknowledge the problem, and the stranglehold that globalist neoliberal corporations have on the economy. Well this time it's a lot worse because not using CFCs had a comparatively small impact on the world economy, with a big payoff. There is currently no realistic path to keep somewhat decent living stand…

Wood was once used to power engines, then coal, then oil and in current days electricity. The sooner you move to the next stage of evolution, the more efficient you can become and better afford to preserve natural resources.

What most people forget is that pollution comes from the basic need of survival and improving life quality. So you need efficiency and balance what matters for most humans.

Instead of forcing everyone to become vegan and to stop flying, how about supporting the industries that create artificial meat cheaper than the real thing and airplanes that run on electricity? (both of these things already exist nowadays)

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#179

Post by daniel-cussen »

tsunamifury wrote: post #2

I think it’s wild and deeply inspiring to imagine how the surface of the earth had radically different forms over billions of years. Huge landscapes of unrotted dead plants. Then massive landscapes of fungus and decomposing bacteria breaking that down into dirt. And on and on. I think it is wise to understand that earth has been through many eras and is not as homeostatic as our narrowly imagined “natural” state we s…

There were fires then too.

Re: Long before trees overtook the land, Earth was covered by prototaxites (2013)

#180

Post by nunobrito »

morsch wrote: post #73
nunobrito wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I doubt there is much of a discussion to be had here, but at least you could try to get easily verifiable dates right. Global cooling: 1970s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling Ozone layer depletion: succesfully mitigated starting in the 1980s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_for_the_Pr... Anthropogenic global warming: scientific consensus…

Don't really care. Basically the same old tricks with new faces. Even worse when you try to use the word "consensus" when it was everything except that.

End result for europeans is paying more taxes while other places keep doing far worse. I'll be damned to yet see any of those groups advocating for more nuclear power around here to save the environment.

Sure this isn't binary and plenty has improved in regards to ecology when you want to nitpick on reddit-style, what truly bothers me is the sheer percentage of green washing instead of focus on real improvement.

Post reply on HN