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Ancient farmers spared us from glaciers but changed Earth's climate: study
- jefflombardjr 8y agoAnyone fascinated by this article, I highly suggest reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I just recently picked it up after seeing it recommended on a couple of threads here and it did not disappoint. Humans have been affecting ecology for a long long time. If you are like me, you're probably wondering what you can do to mitigate some of the effects, while legislation and societal action is important. I also recommend checking out permaculture. Portland state has a great free online course [0]. I like to think of permaculture as ecosystem building, which you can do on a micro level. Enough microecosystems change the larger surrounding ecosystem. [0] https://open.oregonstate.edu/courses/permaculture/ https://open.oregonstate.edu/courses/permaculture/
- bambataa 8y agoThanks for this. I’ve been interested in permaculture since coming across it at festivals but I’ve been put off how everyone seems to be selling courses. This is the first free one I’ve found. It feels a bit like minimalism where everyone tried to practice it by selling ebooks about minimalism.
- mooreds 8y agoI took two courses. It is electrifying, and a great new way of looking at the world. But of course, when I was done with the course, I looked at where I could make some money doing permaculture. There were, as far as I could see, two ways: * teach * do landscape design The first is much much easier to get into and isn't as hard as the latter. I think that is why you see so many courses. I have applied permaculture to my land and my life, even though I can't make money from it directly.
- george_kaplan 8y agoCheck out Richard Perkins of Ridgedale Permaculture. While he also does offer courses and has written a book (which I can recommend), he also puts out a lot of information for free on Youtube. A major emphasis of his work is to run his farm as a profitable business while using Permaculture design principles. Is Regenerative Ag Profitable? Looking at Return on Investments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A0uNUN9UG0&ab_channel=RichardPerkins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A0uNUN9UG0&ab_channel=Richa...
- bambataa 8y agoThat’s really interesting, thanks. Can you share any more about how you’ve applied permaculture to your daily life?
- jefflombardjr 8y agoTotally agree, with the minimalism analogy. And the whole ebook thing is quite frankly off-putting. There is a ton of hive mind/group think in this field which I find very off putting as well... I was at a Native Plant nursery and asked if they had any apple trees. Now as a computer programmer, permaculture is a hobby to me, I don't have the time to study it full time. But if I'm interested in something, I do read as much as I can about the subject. I had just read "Beyond the War on Invasive Species: A Permaculture Approach to Ecosystem Restoration" [0] which explores who defines native plants (pesticide industry) and why (to sell more pesticides). So rather than having a friendly dialog, my request was met with a snarky and dismissive "Apple trees aren't native." I replied, "Define native." knowing this is actually a quite controversial subject. But honestly permaculture is like any other field. There are some people who identify with their tightly held beliefs and don't question them. It bugs me but it doesn't take away from some of the great things are doing in this field. I've found that the best thing to do is to focus on people not topics. For example, if someone asks me to learn Javascript. I tell them to focus on people like Eric Elliot, Douglass Crockford, Dan Abramov, etc. You will learn more doing guided learning from what they think is important than some random blog post on arrow functions. In the permaculture world, I recommend reading as much as you can from these people: - Bill Mollison - Elliot Coleman - Mark Shepard These people are great, and reading from them will produce more of a knowledge than any course. (Still recommend doing a course to meet other people interested in this stuff)... but some of the best recommended reading to me from permies wasn't about permaculture at all: - Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows - It is dry but well worth it. Permaculture in a way is systems thinking applied to environment. Understanding the underlying science is the difference between knowing Javascript programming and just knowing one Javascript Framework. - Hard Rain by Tim Egan - Beautiful anthropological history of the PNW. - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/opinion/against-sustainability.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/opinion/against-sustainab... - https://grist.org/article/doe-reprint/ https://grist.org/article/doe-reprint/ - https://e360.yale.edu/features/environmental_failure_a_case_for_a_new_green_politics https://e360.yale.edu/features/environmental_failure_a_case_... - https://monthlyreview.org/2002/09/01/capitalism-and-ecology/ https://monthlyreview.org/2002/09/01/capitalism-and-ecology/ I've found that people willing to dive into the science and areas that influence permaculture is the difference between someone who actually cares and someone who is an instagram farmer. And speaking of which, beware of biodynamics, it's a total pseudoscience [2] that people are starting to conflate that with permaculture. Biodynamic farmers will often tell you stuff like "oh it's like organic farming" or "You can do both permaculture and biodynamics". Maybe. But to me, new age mysticism isn't going to fix the environmental problems we have. At the end of the day, the best way to learn permaculture is to get your hands dirty and start caring for plants. Even if you live in a city apartment with hardly any sun, treat it as a environment and find plants like peace lily's and devil's ivy that will grow just fine. [0] https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/beyond-the-war-on-invasive-species/ https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/beyond-the-war-on-invas... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malus [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture#Effectiveness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodynamic_agriculture#Effecti...
- Ar-Curunir 8y agoSapiens seemed very pseudo-scientific to me. It seemed like Hariri had one agenda and was trying to push that desperately.
- jemfinch 8y agoWhat agenda did you think he was pushing? I think you may be confusing "agenda" with "perspective". He was pushing one perspective: his own, as all authors do. But it's our job as readers to understand the author's perspective and recognize it as such. Neither history nor anthropology permits storytelling without a perspective. There's always a perspective. Reading for learning means understanding that perspective and determining which aspects (if any) we'll choose to adopt ourselves.
- whatshisface 8y ago>I think you may be confusing "agenda" with "perspective". He was pushing one perspective: his own, as all authors do. If you're used to science, it can come as a surprise that a person can willfully ignore (not just focus away from, ignore), all but one option for an entire book, and it still be considered an intellectual effort as opposed to a sales pitch or campaign tool.
- close04 8y agoTo be honest most of the times he lists the multiple concurrent theories and simply points out why he believes one of them to be closest to reality. Of course, sometimes none of the theories can be proven or disproved. So unless you want to leave a black hole you simply choose the theory that fits best, with the risk of it being overturned in the future.
- lacker 8y agoHe is a historian, not a scientist. I don't think there is a good way to analyze the past scientifically, because you can't run experiments.
- 8y ago
- adrice727 8y agoA Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright is another good one that touches on this quite a bit. https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Progress-Ronald-Wright/dp/0786715472/ https://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Progress-Ronald-Wright/...
- adreamingsoul 8y agoInstead of courses, I recommend to get a couple books on Permaculture and also look to see if any universities have extension courses for Permaculture or any topic related to it. Chances are, most of the teachers are now familiar with Permaculture and can speak to the “historical” methods and the “Permaculture” methods. Yes, a lot of people have been trying to make money of the cerificstion courses, which I think is a waste of money. I started with my backyard and have used Permaculture design to re-approach working with nature. My end goal is to have a diverse forest garden that has it’s own ecosystem. But, that’s at least 10 years of work to achieve, but well worth it. I’m almost two years into this and have zero regrets. If anyone is interested to know more, I can try to share what I’ve learned or answer any specific questions.
- mey 8y agoThe referenced link is for a free online course
- adreamingsoul 8y agoAwesome! I will add that to my list of things to check out.
- Jamesbaxter29 8y agoWhat books do you recommend do a university student without much familiarity in the subject looking for practical design advice?
- george_kaplan 8y agoNot OP, but I can recommend these two books: "Making Small Farms Work" by Richard Perkins and "Restoration Agriculture: Real World Permaculture for Farmers" by Mark Shepard Then there are the books by Bill Mollison that arguably started it all: "Permaculture: A Designers' Manual", and "Introduction to Permaculture"
- adreamingsoul 8y ago
- Ueland 8y agoThe author just released a new book called "21 Lessons for the 21st Century". It's in my TODO pile so no comment on the content of it yet, tought you might wanted to know.
- Rubinsalamander 8y agoRises the question which temperature is the "right" one. Assuming we can control climate change at some point in the future Like having a clima-council which votes to lower or rise the temperature. Would definetly cause conflicts between very hot and cold nations
- fifnir 8y agoImagine the entire planet fighting for the thermostat
- dalbasal 8y agoThis is not impossible. There are a bunch bunch of ideas for how to build a "thermostat." Some of them might be affordable for even a mid sized economy. We could find ourselves in a world where 26 different countries have competing climate control agendas and toolkits. Presumably Vanuatu has a different take that Latvia. Perhaps this will be the 22nd century's alternative to resource wars.
- credit_guy 8y ago“Give me a half tanker of iron, and I will give you an ice age.” - John Martin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Martin_(oceanographer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Martin_(oceanographer)
- gaius 8y agoWhat’s the downside to that strategy? It seems like a no-brainer at first glance
- gameswithgo 8y agotoo many whales!
- coldtea 8y agoThat we barely know enough about how our changes will affect the ecosystem at large, and can get feedback loops that get out of control.
- andriesm 8y agoGeeze this conclusion seems rather counter intuitive, a much smaller human population's pre-modern agriculture had enough of an impact on climate so much as to prevent an ice age?
- paganel 8y agoMainly because of deforestation (one of the causes mentioned in the article). French Gaul in Roman times had already been largely deforested in the previous centuries, some historians even suggest that the process had been underway since Neolithic times, that’s about 4,000-5,000 years ago. It’s relatively unconmplicated to get rid of large swaths of forrest without having to have access to modern industrial tools, you just need to put some good old physical work into it. As a reference, I’m doing a mapping of Southern Romania’s forrests as they showed up in a 1860s Austrian map (it’s a hobby project that I work on during my spare time) and it’s crazy when comparing it to more modern times. As early as the 1920s (that is in less than 60 years) 60-to-80% of the forrests from the plane areas had disappeared, and that was not because of the introduction of modern technology, because most of the tree-cutting was being done with good old axes, but only because Romania had entered the international agricultural markets and that land was more economically valuable with grain or cows on it compared to trees (the same thing is now happening in Brazil).
- jaclaz 8y agoSure, but the study places the "pivot point" much back in time in the 7,000 to 5,000 years ago range (probably give or take a thousand years): >"I noticed that methane concentrations started decreasing about 10,000 years ago and then reversed direction 5,000 years ago and I also noted that carbon dioxide also started decreasing around 10,000 years ago and then reversed direction about 7,000 years ago," says Ruddiman. "It alerted me that there was something strange about this interglaciation ... the only explanation I could come up with is early agriculture, which put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and that was the start of it all."
- paganel 8y agoYeah, I had noticed that, too. To give a totally unsubstantiated opinion (i.e. mine) I'd say that that only helps make the case for the massive deforestation happening as soon as the Neolithic Revolution got under way in earnest, starting about 5,000 BCE, that would explain the rise in CO2 concentration (also see the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni%E2%80%93Trypillia_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni%E2%80%93Trypillia_cul...). The rise in methane concentration which happened 2,000 years after that might be explained by people raising a lot more cows around 3,000 BCE (the start of "civilization" on the Nile and Euphrates, for example).
- coldtea 8y agoIf indeed ancient farmers (that were like 1/100 our population) already had "profoundly changed Earth's climate", so much for the "human activity couldn't be the reason for climate change today" argument...
- wavefunction 8y agoWell the argument that human activity isn't the reason for climate change isn't completely ruled out by this historical evidence but I think it provides compelling evidence that only the dishonest can disregard.
- empath75 8y agonobody making those arguments is making them in good faith and no amount of evidence will stop them from making it.
- coldtea 8y agoBad faith means not believing what you say ("with the intention of deceiving someone or doing harm"). One could very well imagine (and some of us actually know) people that legitimately believe that the climate change we're through is not man made -- they say it cause they believe it, they don't try to knowingly deceive anyone. It's another thing to say something because you do not trust scientists (including scientific consensus) because e.g. you believe that they extrapolate from incomplete data and not enough understanding, or to prefer this or that fringe researcher to the majority opinion, and another to be in bad faith.
- specialist 8y agoI now believe, but cannot prove, that most people's professed beliefs are not rational, logical, reality-based, sensical. Rather, beliefs appear to be more about identity, virtue signaling, and tribal acceptance. If true, reason is impotent. To change belief systems, one must use psychology, rhetoric, propaganda, evangelism. The lesswrong.com crowd is calling this "belief as attire". I don't know what to call "Popperian beliefs" (true until proven false) vs "aspirational beliefs" (make our own reality). My greatest fear is that my self-image of being a Popperian is actually just aspirational.
- jajag 8y agoAs mentioned in the article, one of the interesting things about this is that it provides support for an earlier date for the start of the anthropocene, as opposed to a date in e.g. the 50s.
- edoo 8y agoThe end of glaciers also opened up huge swaths of land to methane producing life. Large percentages of the earths habitable land.
- TSiege 8y agoThis new research is definitely intriguing, but at the same time I think it's fair to be skeptical of this new science. During the times of increase in global temperatures, human populations are estimated to be between 5 to 20 million for the whole planet. That is a very low density. Not to mention human farming began before the Younger Dryas (a sudden return to cold temperatures), which briefly ended agriculture for over a millennia. Also, during more recent times the earth has swung into cold spells that had dire consequences for human populations, such as the Little Ice Age which began in the 1300s and only ended during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It's likely Earth would have continued getting colder had it not been for the mass expelling of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere at that time. So maybe humans had an impact on the global atmosphere during the second beginning of agriculture, but it's also possible other natural phenomena lead to an increase in CO2 and Methane that just haven't been discovered yet. And as a disclaimer, I personally believe that humans have had a major impact on shaping environments for as long as we inhabited them. I'm just a little skeptical until more research can solidify these findings and explain other changes in global temps in the opposite direction when there were more people and more intensive agriculture.
- hinkley 8y agoThere’s some evidence that the Little Ice Age was caused by a sudden decrease in farm acreage cause by sudden depopulation during the Black Death. I hesitate to call it anthropogenic because it’s the opposite of that. I suppose the delay of the cold period counts, though.
- pdonis 8y agoA glaring omission in this study is the effect of farming (and human activities more generally) on land use and albedo.