Friday, January 18, 2008

Environmental Disaster

Where most people occupy themselves with the inner cave society, I prefer to watch the earth we live on. I pay attention to what is happening around me. I observe the seasons by watching the ground. I observe how the weather effects the ground under our feet. I study moss and treebark, or how the forests regenerate.

Small is beautiful, in my world and I pay close attention to the planet. Over the last few years I have noticed something easily overlooked by people - unless you pay attention to the details. Each year the fall of leaves in the local forests totally disappear [extracted by humans], leaving a bleak - well hoovered - disturbed and exposed soil.

It used to be that some remnant of leaves were left behind, but technology has improved and now all of the leaves disappear in the yearly gathering of fuel. Who is doing this? Well, the forest is a National Park and so there has to be local government involvement. Now the disappearing leave syndrom has spread to all local parks, green zones and anywhere inside and around the town.

These organisations are removing dirt and waste, every last particle of cut grass, every last leaf (from under the bushes even); and it is done with surprising last of the leaves type greed as though these dead and decaying leaves are some kind of green-gold.

They are green-gold to the environment. "The environment" is anything under your feet and above your head that existed long before mankind arrived on this planet, including the trees! Environmental green-gold is the billions of year old self-renewal process. Trees create leaves, a blend of sunlight and water. The leaves fall to the ground in Autumn and decay back into the earth, creating nourishment for all aspects of the forest, woods, fields and parks.

The nothing-is-left-behind policy will have a long term environmental impact in a world where biofuel-grass, biofuel-leaves and biofuel-hay are no longer part of the self-renewal cycle of the earth. With ethanol fuel production increasing, poorer nations will go hungry as the price of basic foods continues to rise. The land around us will also go hungry as the nutrient rich cycle is broken, and the food-of-the-earth is burned as fuel.

"Ethanol is an agribusiness get-rich-quick scheme that will bankrupt our topsoil. Fertile soil will be destroyed if crops and other "wastes" are removed to make cellulosic ethanol." Peak Soil

Keywords: Deforestation, Extreme Weather, Deforestation Fuel,
Wiser Earth