From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Edith Crowther, July 5, 2023 at 9:23 am   
   Superb overview Gaia. What the French call a “cri de coeur”, but a cool   
   and rational    
   one. Laying out all the problems like that, all in one go, might assist us to   
   admit    
   that there is no solution that mankind can provide, or even dream up in   
   theory. All    
   too often we indulge in what Britons call “salami-slicing” – chopping up   
   the overall    
   problem into little bits so that we can pretend to have some hope of solving a   
   small    
   part of the general (and global) predicament. But “solving” one part   
   always seems to    
   mean making another part worse. It is now beyond doubt that we have already   
   entered    
   the Sixth Mass Extinction of species (flora and fauna). A few species do   
   survive Mass    
   Extinctions – which ones will they be this time? We do not know. Darwin and   
   his    
   colleagues thought adaptability was the key to species survival – but when   
   changes    
   are fast and furious, species find it hard to adapt enough or at least fast   
   enough.    
   And there is evidence that some species which stubbornly did not adapt –   
   ferns and    
   clams, for instance – have survived previous Mass Extinctions. Bacteria,   
   viruses,    
   algae and other tiny life forms are also likely to be more invincible than   
   more complex    
   creatures. But no-one really knows, just as no-one seems to know WHY Darwin   
   spent 40 years    
   of his life studying earthworms, often to the complete exclusion of other   
   creatures    
   towards the end of his life. He seems not to have known himself, it was just   
   an obsession.   
      
   What we do know, is that having the courage to face up to and describe the   
   sheer size    
   of the problem is producing some fine writing and videos from you and many   
   other people    
   – so thanks to them, humanity is collapsing with dignity at least. Some of   
   the fine    
   writing and film may survive everything, you never know, and some humans may   
   also    
   survive to marvel at it like we marvel today at some very ancient examples of   
   human    
   writing and creativity. Human creativity is paltry compared with Nature’s   
   – but it is    
   still pretty impressive.   
      
   If humans could survive on their own without other animal species, I for one   
   would not    
   mind too much – I cannot have conversations with other animals, or do   
   anything much with    
   them and their very basic forms of communication. If only one could live on   
   music and    
   the vast botanic world, for instance, what a wonderful world this would be.   
   Sorry Darwin,    
   but even earthworms leave me cold.   
      
   But of course I am wrong because humans are wholly dependent on millions of   
   other    
   animal species and the habitats which sustain them – and many or even all   
   plants also    
   depend on animals for their survival. This is really the first lesson we all   
   have to    
   learn, even if we are farmers. Farmers are liable to create monocultures of   
   both    
   animals and plants these days with the aid of technology, and also to use up   
   too much    
   groundwater.   
      
   In England the government asked all citizens not to mow their lawns during   
   May, to give    
   insects a chance of survival. There has now been an explosion of all sorts of   
   annoying    
   little insects and of course, people are blaming “No Mow May”. Hallo –   
   could it be the    
   warming climate (the hottest UK June since records began, e.g.), plus the   
   absence of    
   things that eat insects? And what about the crashing numbers of insects   
   overall, which    
   “No Mow May” will do little to redress? I do like humans as I said – but   
   really, some    
   of us need to get a better understanding of what it is that gives life to us.   
   It is    
   certainly not our lawnmowers, ingenious though they are.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)