While it's sad the devastation we've had on native species, this also feels like a testament to the ideas of permaculture. The article says the new ecosystem is full of cinnamon and guava. With just enough management to allow sustainable harvesting, such an ecosystem can be beneficial to the environment and people. It'd be better if our farms were freakosystems instead of ecological dead zones.
A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
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Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
#32>for millions of years before the arrival of humans. Actually the islands are only a few million years old, the Big Island is only about 400000 years old. So chaotic flux is the name of the game there.
If you’re going to play the “actually” game, at least check Wikipedia first. That quote is about Oahu and it’s correct:
> Like all other Hawaiian Islands, Oʻahu was formed from the volcanism associated with the Hawaii hotspot; it started to grow from the sea floor 4 million years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oahu
Your broader use of “few” is also dubious since 28 is not normally considered small enough to include in that number:
> From this study and others,[14][15] it is estimated that the northwesternmost island, Kure Atoll, is the oldest at approximately 28 million years (Ma); while the southeasternmost island, Hawaiʻi, is approximately 0.4 Ma (400,000 years).
Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was it George Carlin that joked something like “maybe the earth conjured up humans in order to put all this plastic in its crust for some purpose we don’t understand”?
Maybe that's just the sidequest. The real quest is getting multi planetar.
Is it? No other animal seems obsessed with getting off this beautiful rock.
Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
#34It's always odd to me how people tend to think that human-created ecosystems are "freakish" or "unnatural". Humans evolved in the same environment as the ecosystems we're modifying. The buildings and cars and roads we make are made of materials we find on earth, similar to how birds build nests or ants make anthills. (Whether all the things we build are good and healthy for us and our environment is another story.) M…
It reminds me of people who won't eat certain foods because it contains "too many chemicals".
There’s a big difference between a real strawberry and a vat of chemicals called strawberries.
Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
#35It's always odd to me how people tend to think that human-created ecosystems are "freakish" or "unnatural". Humans evolved in the same environment as the ecosystems we're modifying. The buildings and cars and roads we make are made of materials we find on earth, similar to how birds build nests or ants make anthills. (Whether all the things we build are good and healthy for us and our environment is another story.) M…
Incidentally, this concept of modifying one's ecosystem comes up in Richard Dawkins' book The Extended Phenotype, which is a follow up to The Selfish Gene. One of the illustrative examples is beavers turning fast moving streams into convenient slow moving fisheries by building dams. The ecosystem the beavers built is "natural" in the sense that beavers are animals and it's in their nature to chew through trees. But presumably, at least some other animals were pushed to extinction when their habitat was modified by the beavers.
Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
It reminds me of people who won't eat certain foods because it contains "too many chemicals".
There’s a big difference between a real strawberry and a vat of chemicals called strawberries.
Seems akin to the Ship of Theseus.
Is an entirely artificial--but indistinguishable down to the atomic level--strawberry not a strawberry?
Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
#37It's always odd to me how people tend to think that human-created ecosystems are "freakish" or "unnatural". Humans evolved in the same environment as the ecosystems we're modifying. The buildings and cars and roads we make are made of materials we find on earth, similar to how birds build nests or ants make anthills. (Whether all the things we build are good and healthy for us and our environment is another story.) M…
I do think there is a difference when you can cause rapid global change. And most animals are benefitting their ecosystem in some way whereas we’re just extracting resources for the highest bidder 3000 miles away. Our ecosystems are struggling to replenish themselves because we lack harmony with nature. We live in an unnatural society that clearly cannot sustain our changes.
Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
#38Kind of weird that they only seem to acknowledge changes by humans in the last few centuries. This despite the fact that the Hawaiian islands have been deliberately shaped by people for well over a millennium prior to Europeans ever setting for there.
Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
#39It's always odd to me how people tend to think that human-created ecosystems are "freakish" or "unnatural". Humans evolved in the same environment as the ecosystems we're modifying. The buildings and cars and roads we make are made of materials we find on earth, similar to how birds build nests or ants make anthills. (Whether all the things we build are good and healthy for us and our environment is another story.) M…
Was it George Carlin that joked something like “maybe the earth conjured up humans in order to put all this plastic in its crust for some purpose we don’t understand”?
Or to release the energy in oil and coal. When you get a build up of stored energy something evolves to use it up.
I'm not being serious, but it's an interesting thought.
Re: A wild 'freakosystem' has been born in Hawaii
#40It's always odd to me how people tend to think that human-created ecosystems are "freakish" or "unnatural". Humans evolved in the same environment as the ecosystems we're modifying. The buildings and cars and roads we make are made of materials we find on earth, similar to how birds build nests or ants make anthills. (Whether all the things we build are good and healthy for us and our environment is another story.) M…
There are several competing, and sometimes complementary perspectives on what 'nature' means. Some include humans and their activity within it, others do not.
One thing you can ask yourself: if human activity and the impact it has on its environment is included in what you call 'natural', then what even does remain of the word 'unnatural'? What do people refer to, when they use that word? If you don't have any sensible explanation for it, then the whole thing collapses, yet evidently a lot of people really want to keep using the word nature and even seem to have no problem in making themselves understood when doing so.