[SeaGypsy]

I don't know that Ludi.
It is really impossible to predict an unprecedented situation and how people will react to it.
When I speak of greater society I am not particularly describing anything beyond a connected network of communities beyond the frontier so to speak. I think there is going to be drastic population reduction some time this century brought about by a combination of factors. How drastic and when this century I would not have much of a clue. If the birds are falling out of the sky for lack of oxygen, it could be sooner than later.

[Ludi]

Ok, thanks!

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')If the birds are falling out of the sky for lack of oxygen, it could be sooner than later.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')What it appears to me, however, is that life, and civilization, does a pretty good job of hanging on. I guess I believe in Greer's catabolic collapse. I just think we're talking a few decades instead of centuries for this to play out. Long enough for doomers who watch the 24-hour news cycle to feel like it's taking forever, but short enough that future generations (of femur-eating Olduvai neo-stone-agers living in the arctic circle) will talk about it as us having gone over a sudden cliff.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
'), whereas Ibon seems to be saying civilization and - maybe even modern civilization especially - is essentially collapse-proof in its resilience.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')As far as I'm concerned, once we've trashed the planet, we've failed as a species.

[SeaGypsy]

Failing as a species is painting with a very broad brush. I felt like that by the late 1970's when it became obvious that sensible planning was being thrown out the window as an option while open slather free market capitalism took over the world. We failed as a species to prevent that dominance over the last 40 years.
Energy and minerals policy case in point.
Population policy case in point.
Growth economics with no exit strategy on a finite planet case in point.
These things were very well understood by scientists, intellectuals and garden variety human beings for all this time. Yet they had almost no influence on what happened. They were reduced to tokenism by the left and hissed at by the right.
Thus the 'we' doing the failing is our lower selves dominating the higher. Of course this will not end well.
However, I do not believe the higher self has been destroyed.
I still believe in human adaptability being our greatest strength as a species.
The lessons we are learning now in this generation are absolutely epic.
A humanity which survives all this mess will be like no previous humanity.
I think Ibon's point is that you can't simply write off the Kudzu ape.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')I think Ibon's point is that you can't simply write off the Kudzu ape.

[papa moose]

Great thread guys, very interesting to read.
One question "Kudzu ape", i understand it's use in this context, i am just curious to it's origins.
Is it a reference to the japanesse vine which is something of a vigourous weed in foriegn ecosystems.
I would take this to equate to "humans as a pestilence" or the humans=mould over growing the petri dish.
Am i right or have i completely missed the point?

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')I think Ibon's point is that you can't simply write off the Kudzu ape.

[papa moose]

SeaGypsy, i knew if i sent did nothing at work all day except read your posts i would finally catch you making a mistake!
Kudzu ape's have never settled the South Pole, no one set foot on Antarctica till the 19th century whaler's, certainly not stone age people ( i guess i should qualify this with a "not yet").
Your factoid that every Pacific Island with permenant water has been settled is interested. The navigation abilities of the polynesians was amazing, they would set out in one or two boats with fruits and grains, pigs, rats and dogs. If they got somewhere suitable before their food ran out, bingo new colony, if not game over.
One concept i have come across was that if they had eaten the rats first instead of their dogs whilst enroute to Easter Island then the island would still be covered in tropical rainforest.

[SeaGypsy]

Yeah Antarctica was a stretch, but it was explored at first using very old world technology, ever read Mawson's tales? They didn't do things easy.
The Polynesian story is fascinating; especially the controversy over Thor Hyerdahl's theory that they came from South America fleeing some catastrophe.

It is said that the early exploration was done in groups of breeding age people who needed to keep very precise records of their travels on star maps made of grass, in order that if successfull they or their descendents could return to the mother colony. It is said the first Aotearoans (NZ Maori) took two hundred years to get word back to Fiji that they had founded a new colony; by then they needed some fresh genetic material. Then there are the mysterious Maori Oris, who may or may not have been wiped out in a genocide over 800 years ago. The courage of these early explorers is astounding.

In both desert and ocean environments, humans followed birds. In many cultures, birds are regarded as gods.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('papa moose', '
')One question "Kudzu ape"

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('papa moose', '
')One question "Kudzu ape"

[Ibon]

I would clarify that humans started morphing into Kudzu Ape since the oil age. They have been a resilient species as Sea Gypsy commented further up this thread in having adapted in all but one continent in such a varied range of habitats. For 99% of our species history humans dominated but did not cause major disruptions to the habitats they occupied and with few exceptions stayed within carrying capacity. It would not be accurate to call humans Kudzu Ape for this period. Really we are referring to this last 200 years or so.

Think of the exponential doubling three times since 1900 when we went from 1 billion to 7 billion today as we spread and expanded and replace native habitats all around the planet with man made degraded environments.

We are Kudzu Ape not only in how we behave like an invasive species but in how we have accidentally or intentionally introduced non native flora and fauna in our terrestrial and marine ecosystems and further marginalized and degraded native habitats.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', ' ')whereas Ibon seems to be saying civilization and - maybe even modern civilization especially - is essentially collapse-proof in its resilience.

[SeaGypsy]

Reading that page is freakish, we really do qualify, even if the term is 'imprecise'.
Also I just googled it and it does appear Ibon is the originator of the term.
While not a pleasant association, I find it works so naturally it instantly entered my vocablulary.
Will this term find it's way to the Oxford?

I would choose to debate the idea that this aspect of our species is in any way new, however.

Ship building and glass industries deforested most of northern Italy by the 1700's.

Early industry and Roman paranoia of geurilla warfare stripped most of the United Kingdom of forest before AD 1200.

Overgrazing may have been the cause of ancient Egypt being overwhelmed by sand and salinity thousands of years ago,

What ever happened to the 'Garden of Eden' between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in ancient Mesopotamia?

There is a strong possibility aboriginal people did massive geo engineering using fire, specificly in Australia approximately 15,000 years ago.

Easter Island. etc.

Oil tech has massively increased our natural ability to conquer our environment and make it work for us, for a time. It has not changed the overall problem which has always been with us as a species, we eventually deplete our environment and need to move on to 'greener pastures'. That was ok while there were greener pastures to move to, but we have now found and exploited almost all, almost simultaneously.

[Ibon]

I just reviewed a chapter in Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond around the questions of how complex societies came about. Increased population densities brought about by food production is what drove societal arrangements from tribal to the level of chieftains which represented the first level of human societies organizing around a central authority. This all started sometime around 13000 years ago. From there human society started evolving in more complex arrangements brought about by war and other external factors of increasing central authority to bring us to where we are today. These past 13000 years has been a slow but steady replacing of hunter gatherer egalitarian human societies with cultures and societies based on central authority. Sometimes referred to as kleptocracies.
Our planet has been large enough to contain within relative carrying capacity the larger populations that accompanied human civilizations during 12800 of these past 13000 years until the age of oil, Louis Pasteur and modern technology brought about the exponential population explosion doubling three times since 1900 from 1 to 7 billion.

This century Kudzu Ape stands before the precipice.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '
')
Oil tech has massively increased our natural ability to conquer our environment and make it work for us, for a time. It has not changed the overall problem which has always been with us as a species, we eventually deplete our environment and need to move on to 'greener pastures'. That was ok while there were greener pastures to move to, but we have now found and exploited almost all, almost simultaneously.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')It is an accurate description of our species