[geeks] I really don't get it ...

[Mike Hebel]

wa2egp at att.net wrote:
>>[flamebait] Oh!  You mean like slash/burn farming. [/flamebait] ;-)
>>
>>Just kidding.  I know what you mean.  Still I feel there's more than 
>>minor agriculture at work now.
> 
> 
> Slash/burn farming is minor. Regular farming is major.  How much biodiversity
> is in a field.....very little.  One disease can wpe out a crop.

Hmmm...thus the reason for all the gentically engineered crops.  Both a 
good and bad thing IMHO.  Jury's still out on that one from my point of 
view.

>  Add chemicals to increase productivity which can and will run off into waterways.  

I even see this locally. Some of the local lakes here are clogged with 
algae because of lawn and farm fertilizers.  The main lake here in town 
always smells "green" because of it.

> Irrigation increases the saltiness of the land until it it too salty to farm.  Let's include
> pesticides, whoo boy! We're having fun now!

Don't get me started on how many checmicals we pick up in our 
environment every day.  These have a far bigger effect on people than 
they realize.

> Actually, we created microenvironments inside buildings and are trying to change things outside.
> Unfortunately,  some things are unintentional.
 > The problem with things like global warming is that if it is
> coming and a problem, we might be able to do too little, too late.

It sounds strange but I do still have some faith in our ability to adapt 
to the changes that are caused by our mistakes.  I bet some of us would 
even survive a nuclear war and eventually flourish afterwards.

> We may have caught the thinning of the ozone in time through.

Maybe.  But I still believe that we don't have enough data to make that 
judgement call.

Mike Hebel