trees – Page 3

Wisdom

September 11, 2016 — leslie dean brown

“The tree breathes what we exhale. When the tree exhales, we need what the tree exhales. So. We have a common destiny with the tree.” — Oren R. Lyons

Wiser words have never been spoken. I think we need to really start listening to these people. Science will never be able to invent a more beautiful, efficient or sustainable oxygen factory… as the humble tree. That’s why I agree that we should all plant more trees (and also avoid cutting down any to begin with). It was also a reccommendation of the book “small is beautiful”.

LOCAL PETITION: Save Spring Gully from development, Royal National Park.

May 28, 2016 — leslie dean brown

The federal heritage listed Royal National Park is the world’s oldest purpose dedicated National Park.

Upon dedication, in 1879, it was simply named “The National Park”. The “Royal” designation was added after the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1954. It is the birthplace of the National Park movement in Australia. If we can’t protect the Royal National Park and if we can’t protect threatened species and ecological communities within National Parks, what can we protect?

VIDEOS:

Bundeena Landscaping and clearing – my comments PART1
Bundeena development approval – my comments PART2
Bundeena recreational facility – my comments PART3
www.springgully.org

The land clearing will significantly impact the dense Bloodwood mallee which has been cited as supporting the scientific justification for a world heritage listing of the Royal. It is habitat to threatened species and supports a local sugar glider population which extensively feed on the sugary sap of the trees that comprise this dense woodland.

There are over 1,500 trees in the before drawing on the left that are missing from the after drawing on the right. Can you find them all? Read about the trick that has been used in the development application to hide the true extent of tree and canopy removal! They only show the tree canopies with trunks larger than 15cm. Trees with trunks smaller than this are just marked with a small brown circle that is almost invisible.

These diagrams substantially misrepresent the amount of existing tree canopy to be removed.

These drawings only show the trees in and around the proposed inner asset protection zone. Hundreds more trees will be cleared in the outer asset protection zone not shown in these drawings.

Detailed data has only been provided for the largest 237 trees to be removed or pruned, including 34 large, mature, potentially hollow bearing, angophoras (important fauna habitat) that will be pruned to leave only 31% of their current canopy. The amount of canopy to be removed from these 237 trees alone is 8,687 square metres. The other 1,300 odd trees to be removed appear on the drawing provided but without details of how much canopy loss they represent.

Many hundreds more trees, possibly another 1,500, will be destroyed in the Outer Asset Protection Zone. An accurate estimate cannot be provided because most of this area has been omitted from the tree removal plan provided (appendix 16). See diagram below for location of outer asset protection zone.

The entire Bloodwood woodland along the top, southern side of the gully will be decimated. Every tree in this dense woodland bears scars from sugar glider feeding. The gliders chew through the soft bark to release the sap below. These unique stands of bloodwood growing in the deep sands at the base of the Jibbon Hill relic cliff dune have been cited as supporting the scientific justification for the world heritage listing of the Royal National Park. They demonstrate scleromorphic adaptation in response to the unique local geomorphology that developed in this area as the sea level began to rise some 10,000 years ago and the coast receded, pushing the relic cliff dunes, including Jibbon Hill, to their present location.

Sutherland Shire Council has recommended the former Scout land be acquired for addition to the Royal National Park.

On 10 November 2014, Council resolved to write to local state and federal parliamentarians asking them to support the acquisition of the former Scout land by the state government for addition to the surrounding Royal National Park.

What this scientist thinks of NASA’s 2035 mission to Mars…

May 11, 2016 — leslie dean brown

The 2035 Mars space mission is said to cost an estimated US$1.5 trillion.

What are my thoughts on this? That sounds like an aweful lot of money to me — to keep four to six people alive on another planet— in my view it’s money that could be put to far better things, like keeping 7 or 8 billion alive on this one.

To put things into perspective, it’s the equivalent of spending 94% of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product… for what? A dozen or so people to have the trip of a lifetime… at the most? That’s one hell of an expensive postcard!

If I personally had US$1.5 trillion dollars to play with and I wanted to ENSURE the future surivial of the human race, why, do you know what I’d do? I’d buy up all the wilderness areas up in poorer countries. I’d abandon that silly space mission. That’s what I’d do. And this is coming from someone that liked reading Carl Sagan’s cosmos… [Read more…]

The solution to climate change?

May 3, 2016 — leslie dean brown

I was recently asked my opionion about this article on LinkedIn.

What are my thoughts? Well, I think it is citizens that have to change. Citizens are the ones using energy from coal. Citizens are the ones using oil. Citizens are the ones filling their tanks with petrol. How can you expect government to change when it is really all the people in society that cause the demand for such things?

I think we can change without our government’s help. I don’t think there is a technical solution. I think the real solution lies in being happier with less. I think we’re going to have to simply be happier with less. I think we should drive cars less. Use less water. Less electricity.

Hopefully this year I plan on powering my computer with a small off grid solar setup. But even the semiconductors used in solar panels have to come from somewhere… and the inverter. And the batteries. But at least it is clean energy with no constant emissions once it has been made.

I think it’s actually far better for the environment to make do with less. It’s the obvious solution, but it’s the one that people just don’t want to hear. People want to have their cake and to eat it too. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Because even if we start making eco cars, if we have to make 50 billion eco cars (or whatever), we’re still going to have to chop down trees in the Amazon basin to make new plantations for the eco fibres.

I think if we don’t all start changing soon, we’re all going to start becoming even more depressed than we are now. Depression is partly caused by dilemmas. And we’re in the midst of a really big fat one

High definition destruction

March 17, 2016 — leslie dean brown

It always amazes me how all of these latest technologies showcase *nature*. I find that quite ironic. I find it ironic because we get the copper and other elements that are contained within electronics from mines. And it is frequently places like the forests in Papua New Guinea that are mined to get these elements.

What is the point of high-definition television, holograms, visual special effects, if we are just going to watch the destruction of nature in ever-greater detail? Or fake representations of nature? I can go outside and see it in higher definition than any screen will be able to display. It’s called “atomic resolution”. I.e. real life.

I don’t understand people. Watching nature makes us happy. As we distance ourselves further and further from nature, we think that we can live separate from it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yet most of us carry on our daily lives almost in fear of the natural. We go on poisoning it. Controlling it. Dominating it.

What is the point of faster or more comfortable airlines if the destinations are not as pristine as they used to be?

What is the point of creating high definition televisions, sharper lenses and ever-more megapixels, if we’re only going to witness the destruction of nature in ever-greater detail and clarity?

A common observation is that nature provides much inspiration even for 3D models. So I encourage people to donate to environmental charities instead of buying the latest technologies all the time. Half the reason we are in so much shit with the planet is because we have forgotten how to give back to nature. We are always taking and never giving back. So I encourage you to stand up, speak up . That way, you might *truly* feel better about ourselves, our civilisation, instead of feeling this ‘guilt’ for what we are doing.

The truth is, unfortunately we do not value nature as much as we should. We do not see the work that it does for us. Trees create oxygen for us for free. If we had to extract our own oxygen from carbon dioxide, how much do you think that would cost us?