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

[wa2egp at att.net]

> What I always find funny about agriculture is just how many people think 
> the resultant landscape is natural ... English people looking at 
> rolling green fields. It isn't natural at all as it was originally 
> mostly covered in forest.

I just hate that old British holdover...the lawn. (No offense to
our friends across the pond.)

> Just how much "global warming" is due to iron age axes ?

Got me.  But I think we pumped a lot more nto the air since then.
 
> > > 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.
> 
> What I don't like about GE crops is the lack of diversity ... they've 
> engineered them to be immune to the known crop diseases. What happens 
> when a new crop disease springs up ?

All agriculture has limited biodiversity.  I'm really up in the air about GE
since if you think about it, we've been doing it for centuries by breeding
plants.  Putting genes in a plant so it creates its own pesticides...I'm not
too sure about that. 

> We know the answer to that one ... an Irish Potatoe famine (yes that's 
> at the extreme end of the possibilities).

Yep.  

> > > We may have caught the thinning of the ozone in time through.
> >
> > Maybe.  
> 
> I'd go so far as to say probably, but that doesn't mean we should start 
> using ozone-depleting chemicals again.
> 
> > But I still believe that we don't have enough data to make
> > that judgement call.
> 
> We never really do.

Unforch we haven't discovered a good substitute for freon so the
limited use seems to have reduced leakage into the atmosphere.  I'd rather be
safe than sorry.   Bob