Vida Enigmática – Page 52 – "Who speaks for Earth?"

A word about forest efficiency

September 25, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Scientists are hard at working devising new ‘technologies’ that can strip carbon dioxide out of the air. There is even a prize for the most efficient inventions that can capture this carbon and put it to good use; twitter is abuzz with the hashtag #reimagineCO<sub>2</sub>. But you know, I already know that the most efficient, sustainable oxygen factory (that also happens to double as a carbon sink) is none other than a natural forest:

Imagine this robotic-like device that can adsorb CO₂ molecules at the ppb level directly out of the Earth’s atmosphere through a process of reverse-osmosis and then transmorgify those carbon atoms into stiff and lightweight fractal-laminar-nano-composite material that is 100% biodegradeable, 100% compostable and 100% renewable! Once the carbon dioxide molecules are split into their atomic components, one of the only gaseous waste byproducts is diatomic oxygen²!! It gets better. It’s solar powered, of course!!! And believe it or not, but it uses *self-assembling technology*!!!! Really — this thing, it just unfolds itself to the final shape in front of your very eyes!!!!! Literally all you do is wait and let it do its thing!!!!!! And did I mention that it is self-repairing? Meaning it will heal its own damaged components!!!!!!! It’s that simple!!!!!!!! And it works!!!!!!!!!! It actually works!!!!!!!!!! This incredible machine, okay, will keep on going even if sections of it are completely hacked off!!!!!!!!!!! And it is like a 3D printer, so it will literally print practically unlimited copies of itself!!!!!!!!!!!! I am going to be the world’s first trillionaire!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have almost lost count of how many exclamation points I am using here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ²And if you’re paying atttention, even the fineprint is good—the only other byproducts are aromatic hydrocarbons that are shown to enhance mood levels in the general human population.

I might be wrong about this but I’m willing to bet that the more biodiverse a forest is, the more carbon it can absorb. Simply because a dense tropical rainforest has more biomass than a ‘monoculture’ crop (soil is another matter).

So. We already have the ‘technology’ in the form of trees. All we have to do is reverse the landclearing. That’s why when someone tells you the best advice they can give is to “plant a tree”, they are almost certainly correct.

What’s new with GMO?

September 24, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Today I’m going to do things a bit differently.

I‘d like to encourage my followers to read several articles I just found out about. So here are several interesting pieces of news regarding CRISPR, a new gene-editing technique and a couple of links to the first ever completely synthetic, artificial cell:

Please read all of the above articles and educate yourselves. This isn’t in the mainstream news, but it should be.

I should probably state here that I don’t even pretend to know about genetics. I’m not a geneticist, I studied Materials Science.

All I do know is that nature has laws and you cannot break those laws. Bacterial diseases are lifeorms too and they are just as robust and ‘innovative’ as even the cleverest of humans.

I think that scientists often tend to overestimate their own intelligence level, and at the same time, underestimate the resourcefulness of nature itself. I don’t think we can ever fully predict the “revenge effect”. But it is there. The risk is always there.

I’m sure the field of genetics is really, really advanced by now. I’m not saying that it’s not. But the big worry for me is just that— as science becomes more and more and more specialised, people get ‘cleverer’ but they don’t always become ‘wiser’. So to put that another way, the greatest geneticist minds may claim to know all about genes, and they might even be right, but then they cannot also be the greatest experts in ecosystems. The fields of science are that big today that no one can know everything. It’s impossible! That’s the big worry.

“I don’t think it represents the creation of an artificial life form,” said biomedical engineer James Collins at Boston University. “I view this as an organism with a synthetic genome, not as a synthetic organism. It is tough to draw where the line is.” [source]

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A message from Tim Flannery

September 22, 2016 — leslie dean brown

Development is not progress

September 20, 2016 — leslie dean brown

I believe we cannot save the world by simply buying things all the time.

Illustration by Leslie Dean Brown. © 2015. All rights reserved.

Even if we all bought 100% eco things 100% of the time instead of the plastic crap that everyone buys today, they are still ultimately things and it will mean that the demand for timber and other eco fibres will go up further, leading to further deforestation elsewhere (more plantations of whatever crop, be it corn for renewable plastic, bamboo or hemp for fibres, etc).

Personally I think the only real ‘solution’ for the entire human civilisation is … to do nothing. And by that I don’t mean “don’t change”. I literally mean: do nothing. For people to simply work less. Work a four day week. Work a four hour week.

We should be more like the Aborigines! We should look up to the Aborigines! The original (and best) custodians of this land.

More sleep and more meditation. That’s the only hope for humanity, for people to be more mindful. And that is the best that I can think of (after several years of thinking I might add).

And I can tell you first hand that it’s very hard to live with less, because we have all been brainwashed with “more more more”.

Of course it’s a huge problem because half the global economy is based on blatant overconsumption. I think one of the best things I ever did was to live in Spain — it taught me to be happier with much less.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t all try to be more eco, but what I am promoting these days is simply minimalism. So I would rather buy a wooden broom than have a vacuum cleaner (for example). Because I see the broom as being much less wasteful over the long term.

Unfortunately, when you begin to look at where all of our starting chemicals come from, the industrial processes used to get them, and where everything else is mined from, you realise how big the problem is.

People don’t want mines in their own backyard. And so the ONLY other place to get them is the natural spaces that are left. That is a very big problem. If only because “accidents happen”.

From my point of view as a former materials scientist, I find that life is so special, we should be fighting for every shred of biodiversity on this planet. We couldn’t even hope to artificially make anything like near as complicated as a fly or a worm from first principles using artificial methods (without cheating using genetic engineering etc).

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A message from our great elder, Savid Suzuki.

September 19, 2016 — leslie dean brown

I went to see David Suzki talk about our planet’s health earlier this year at an event called ‘Hope for the Planet’. I’ve always been aware of the enviornment, ever since I did general studies way back in 1991.

So I paid to see this talk “hope for the planet”. I think all business owners, CEOs, directors, managers, millionaires, billionaires, developers, miners, indeed the entire human race should hear what David Suzuki has to say here. He speaks as a grandfather, an elder. Indigenous peoples will of course already know what he has to say.

“Nature couldn’t care less about human boundaries.” — David Suzki

Watch it & share. Because the fact that it only has a thousand views is unfathomable. Our future as a species depends on how many people listen to a talk like this.

We need to work collectively towards a better future. Otherwise, what’s the point of even working so hard on our businesses?

It’s so true when David Suzuki speaks about the most important things for us humans in this world: clean air, fresh water and uncontaminated, healthy food. Without aire, we’d all be dead in two minutes!

It is absolutely ridiculous that corporations can poison our world and get away with it. They are encouraged to do so by our own government. Workers in such industries are paid HUGE amounts of money and I see that as a form of environmental corrruption. When you pay your workers $100k, $200k, $1M, $10M salaries, it’s a way of getting them to forget about their conscience.

Anyway, I think seeing his talk [which is not quite what this video is about] made me realise my place in the world. I studied materials science so I know better than anybody where all these materials come from, how they are mined, extracted and used. I know that every time you buy something physical, something mandmade and synthetic, you are directly supporting the mining industry.

And I’m sure if mining industries had their own way, no areas would be safe on this planet. They don’t truly care about this world. They only seem to care about profit. And that’s one of the many reasons why I try to reduce my consumption and materialism in all areas of my life. Ever since I decided to do this, it has made me much, much happier as a person.

I think that the whole concept of the “7 generations” that Indigenous American Indians have is way more evolved than the concept of industrialisation. I think that in that respect, Indgineous Australian Aborigines are probably a thousand years ahead of us in terms of sustainability. I think we need to look to them on how to best protect our world.