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Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

nytimes.com

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Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#211

Post by avar »

b1gnasty wrote: post #190

I spent years working in the forestry industry in Canada planting trees. The first picture says a lot in respect to why the process might be going slowly for them. It is an athletic endeavour that takes efficient tools and the mindset to endure a lot of suffering. It says they are planting 3 million trees a year; that is a tiny amount. I've worked with many planters who have planted over a million trees themselves. H…

I worked (among other things) in tree planting as a teenager in Iceland. We weren't doing it very efficiently, but one reason we didn't have these huge bags is because generally your crew is planting this on land that has no existing trees, so you can just drive a pick-up truck alongside the crew.

Which looking at this Canadian video of the forestry service might explain the difference, i.e. if you're planting in an existing forest it makes more sense to carry everything with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkjeC1rxRt0

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#212

Post by rconti »

diego_moita wrote: post #28

For someone that lived in tropical places it is very awkward to see those videos on Iceland Air flights promoting tourism to Iceland and advertising its "rugged beauty", with lots of glaciers, geysers, volcanoes and ugly cold beaches with black sand. Sorry Icelanders, you seem to be lovely people but your country looks very ugly, barren, dead, sad and desolate. I can't see natural beauty without life.

Upvoted because you're welcome to your opinion and I'm a bit sad to see this buried.

You should visit. That doesn't mean you'll like it, but it's the most amazing place I've ever been. On the final approach to KEF, I looked out the window and all I could say was "no way". It's like nothing else. I found it absolutely stunningly gorgeous, and loved the place. It's at the top of my list of places to go back to -- over and over. There's life everywhere. The people are wonderful, there are animals everywhere, there are grasses and mosses and all kinds of life. So some of your statements are opinions, and others are merely factually wrong.

I've only been a few tropical places, but frankly, I don't like them. Humidity is like hell on earth. I get as much enjoyment out of a cold black sand beach as a warm white sand one -- it bores the piss out of me to lay on a beach and do nothing, so I'm no more likely to spend time on a "nice" beach than on an "ugly" one. In fact I'd more happily spend an hour on a black sand beach photographing ice formations and looking for puffins than sitting in a beach chair sipping a pina colada.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#213

Post by the8472 »

peeters wrote: post #183
krallja wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

11Mbps is less than half the FCC's definition of broadband: 25Mbps down.

IIRC Netflix's absolute highest bitrate is 15.6 Mbps (for 4k). This is ~5 seconds of much less than 4k.

> 15.6 Mbps (for 4k)

That must be laughable quality. 1080p blurays easily clock in at more than 22Mbit/s for grainy content, the spec allows 40Mbit/s. And that's not even including the audio. UHD discs must deliver at least 82Mbit/s.

And a lot of content is not even using the things that UHD standards allow to deliver (4:4:4 chroma instead of 4:2:0, higher framerates). So even if they're delivering in HEVC is suspect that the compression is not source-transparent.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#214

Post by twothamendment »

ckinnan wrote: post #40
avar wrote: post #6

For reasons I won't go into the farming lobby is really strong in Iceland. Sheep run free-range around the entire island, if you'd like to grow something that sheep like to eat you need to fence it in. It's not like pretty much anywhere else in the western world where people who own grazing animals need to fence them in. Thus the sheep range far and wide and destroy Iceland's native low-lying forests. Iceland's nativ…

There is actually a similar problem in the Northeastern United States. Deer are overpopulated (in my area 6x traditional level) because they have no predators and hunting is restricted. The deer eat all of the hardwood saplings. In many mid-Atlantic forests there are very few 10-20 year old hard wood trees, they don't survive the deer.

Deer can be quite the issue. There are a handful of cities in Utah (and I'm sure other places) who have opened up hunting to archers - within the city limits because the deer population is out of control.

Back to the tree side of the story - I'm in NW Montana where trees are like weeds. In the spring I could find 1-2 fir tree seedlings per square inch and sometimes 4-5 in an inch! Despite having quite a few deer, forests are thick. I should rent some sheep to keep down the "weeds" we call trees.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#215

Post by mljoe »

twothamendment wrote: post #214
ckinnan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is actually a similar problem in the Northeastern United States. Deer are overpopulated (in my area 6x traditional level) because they have no predators and hunting is restricted. The deer eat all of the hardwood saplings. In many mid-Atlantic forests there are very few 10-20 year old hard wood trees, they don't survive the deer.

Deer can be quite the issue. There are a handful of cities in Utah (and I'm sure other places) who have opened up hunting to archers - within the city limits because the deer population is out of control. Back to the tree side of the story - I'm in NW Montana where trees are like weeds. In the spring I could find 1-2 fir tree seedlings per square inch and sometimes 4-5 in an inch! Despite having quite a few deer, for…

I always felt it was kinda unreal that a tiny plant barely larger then the surrounding grass can become a huge tree given enough time of poor lawn maintenance. It doesn't even seem to take very long until tree saplings gain the ability to do some damage to your lawn mower.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#216

Post by hduwvzvshsuz »

rconti wrote: post #209
openasocket wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding was that Bundy was grazing his cattle on federal land and was refusing to pay grazing fees. He argued in United States v Bundy (1998) that he didn't have to pay grazing fees. https://www.scribd.com/document/218116757/1998-U-S-Dist-LEXI...

Which is an effing joke, as the federal government charges pennies on the dollar for grazing rights compared to what a private landowner would charge. And yet, the Bundys want the taxpayers to take it in the shorts even more for their privilege and profit.

How exactly are taxpayers paying anything?

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#217

Post by vram22 »

njarboe wrote: post #124
avar wrote: post #6

For reasons I won't go into the farming lobby is really strong in Iceland. Sheep run free-range around the entire island, if you'd like to grow something that sheep like to eat you need to fence it in. It's not like pretty much anywhere else in the western world where people who own grazing animals need to fence them in. Thus the sheep range far and wide and destroy Iceland's native low-lying forests. Iceland's nativ…

I was in Iceland a few weeks ago and the people, museums, info plaques, etc. talked about deforestation and how the early settlers chopped down all the forests. Also mentioned was forestation and how they were slowly replanting. The grazing by horses and sheep were never mentioned as a problem. I did hear about how flocks of sheep are just let loose in the highlands in the summer to graze and the sheep herders separa…

Interesting. Speaking of those fosses, Gulfoss is pretty cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullfoss

Images:

https://www.google.co.in/searchq=gullfoss&tbm=isch

Often when I read about Iceland, it reminds me of the Jules Verne novel "Journey to the Centre of the Earth", which I read as a kid. Good novel.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#218

Post by tomohawk »

avar wrote: post #6

For reasons I won't go into the farming lobby is really strong in Iceland. Sheep run free-range around the entire island, if you'd like to grow something that sheep like to eat you need to fence it in. It's not like pretty much anywhere else in the western world where people who own grazing animals need to fence them in. Thus the sheep range far and wide and destroy Iceland's native low-lying forests. Iceland's nativ…

In West Virginia there's a similar thing going on with deer. There's so many deer that there's actually a browse line up to where the deer can't reach, and the forests are pretty unhealthy as a result.

Re: Iceland's attempts to replant its forests

#220

Post by CanSpice »

b1gnasty wrote: post #190

I spent years working in the forestry industry in Canada planting trees. The first picture says a lot in respect to why the process might be going slowly for them. It is an athletic endeavour that takes efficient tools and the mindset to endure a lot of suffering. It says they are planting 3 million trees a year; that is a tiny amount. I've worked with many planters who have planted over a million trees themselves. H…

If you haven't read it already, you may be interested in Eating Dirt, a book about planting trees in BC: http://charlottegill.com/?page_id=10
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