#monoculture

[mindblowingscience]

To slow the effects of climate change, conserve biodiversity, and meet the sustainable development goals, replanting trees is vital. Restored forests store carbon within the forest's soil, shrubs, and trees. Mixed forests are especially effective at carbon storage, as different species with complementary traits can increase overall carbon storage. Compared to single-species forests, mixed forests are also more resilient to pests, diseases, and climatic disturbances, which increases their long-term carbon storage potential. The delivery of other ecosystem services is also greater in mixed species forests, and they support higher levels of biodiversity. Although the benefits of diverse forest systems are well known, many countries' restoration commitments are focused on establishing monoculture plantations. Given this practice, an international team of scientists has compared carbon stocks in mixed planted forests to carbon stocks in commercial and best-performing monocultures, as well as the average of monocultures.

Continue Reading.

#monoculture #Forestry #climate change #Botany #Plants #science #biology #stem

[peacephotography]

Monoculture Malaise Photograph: Robin Boardman

#myphotography #monoculture #spain #black and white #travel #landscape #olives #b&w #monochrome #minimal #mountains #sky #clouds #epic #photography #scenery #nature #calm #robinboardman #original photographers #photographers on tumblr

[lookingforcactus]

“How do you supercharge vegetation growth for a reforestation project? Bring in the microorganisms.

That’s the finding from a new study, which shows that incorporating a microbial community of fungi, bacteria, algae and archaea into ecosystem restoration can accelerate plant biomass production by 64% on average.

Researchers say this application holds plenty of promise for restoration work in Southeast Asia, where large swaths of once-forested landscapes have been degraded for large-scale agriculture.

Soil microbiome like fungi carry out a critical task known as soil transplant, moving soil and associated microbial communities from one location to another. But they’re often overlooked in conservation and restoration efforts, said study lead author Colin Averill, a senior microbial and ecosystem scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, or ETH Zürich.

“When we think to plant a tree, we never think to ‘plant’ the microbiome, right? But what if we did?” Averill told Mongabay.

To find out how big a role the microbiome plays in ecosystem restoration, Averill and colleagues from ETH Zürich, the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague and Vrije Universiteit in the Netherlands pored over the date from 27 restoration projects that incorporated microbial restoration.

Their study, published in the journal Nature Microbiology, found that across all the restoration works, there was an average of 64% increase of plant growth. In one case, plant growth was stimulated by 700%.

The study shows that incorporating the microbiome in managed landscapes like farmland and forestry concessions has the greatest potential. This is because managed landscapes account for the majority of human land use, covering half of the global habitable land surface.

But by introducing microbial communities, these agricultural and forestry plantations [and monocultures] that are currently devoid of biodiversity could become reservoirs of it, Averill said.

To increase biodiversity and enrich these managed landscapes, it’s important to avoid using single species or very low-diversity, non-native soil organisms at a large scale, Averill said.

The study notes an increasing number of microbial inoculant companies advocating for just this on the argument that it could improve crop yields. But the mass application of a single species could lead to a loss of genetic and ecological diversity, and is unlikely to account for ecosystem-specific requirements, the study says.

It instead recommends using locally sourced, native and biodiverse communities of soil organisms as these can promote biodiversity in managed landscapes without limiting crop yields.” -via Mongabay, 1/5/23

#mongabay #mongabay environmental news #environmental news #conservation news #fungi #microbiome #monoculture #agriculture #reforestation #forest restoration #southeast asia #good news #hope #microorganisms

[balthazarslostlibrary]

What are your opinions on fertilizer runoff from industrial farming? Its ingredients such as phosphate and nitrogen can facilitate algae blooms, which in turn can cause artificial eutrophication, and or release toxins like microcystins.

My opinions are mixed! Also, this is a long post, so I've put the rest under a keep reading. Please do read! I just don't want to fill people's dashes with a long post every time they scroll lol.

Firstly, I need to say that if we were to broadly ban or heavily restrict fertiliser usage in agriculture, it is undeniable that the agriculture economy would collapse. Most industrialised farming is incentivised to sell the 'ideal products' to consumers, which inevitable means a shitload of food production in order to get the highest amounts of 'perfect' product. This requires a lot of fertiliser usage in order to mass produce and harvest monoculture farmland, and also results in a LOT of food waste. Unfortunately, the agricultural economy, combined with the half century of brainwashing by advertising companies telling people that so called 'blemished' food is somehow bad for you, is so based on this excess that if we did immediate drastic action, it would implode and likely send the prospective country into a recession.

With that being said, the system of heavy use of fertiliser is still not good!! Fertiliser runoff causes eutrophication as you point out, and can lead to toxic algal blooms, or even oxygen dead zones further down stream. However, it is not solely the use of fertiliser products that contribute to fertiliser run-off, as contradictory as that sounds. In fact, soil quality has a large part to play in the production of run-off.

For example, most modern agriculture uses monoculture, which is when one plant species is grown in the same place with little to no diversity in the field. A result of this is that only a single type of root system is grown, which is not enough for a healthy layer of topsoil to develop, especially if it is tilled and plowed every season. This means that the soil is very poor at retaining water, meaning that it requires LOTS of irrigation. With lots of irrigation, the fertiliser nutrients can't stay in the soil long enough to be absorbed by the plants fully, and they get washed away and have to be constantly topped up.

If we used less monoculture in our farming, we could use less fertiliser and still gain the same benefit, with also less runoff, which would be ideal!

I would also note a few things, namely that fertiliser runoff is not the only source of nutrient pollution from farming, and especially in places that have heavy cattle farming like my country, nitrates and phosphates from stock effluent is more of a problem. Cows shitting near streams is a big problem, and can be mitigated by proper filtering and nutrient-recovery technologies. One of these that I think is a big winner in terms of green technology wastewater treatment are Floating Treatment Wetlands, which are essentially artificial wetlands that are engineered to be part of wastewater treatment, and also provide habitats for birds and insects at the same time.

#botany #agriculture #inbox things #farming #sustainability #monoculture

[commiepinkofag]

#mama ganuush #queer #liberation #free palestine #queers for palestine #drag #drag performance #activism #protest #hrc #solidarity #rupaul #monoculture #2024

[galtzagorri-marrazki]

EURIAK HAUTU POLITIKOEI ERANTZUTEN

#queer #direct action #altxa lili #squat #maurizia #american oak #eucalyptus #monoculture #wind turbines #mountain invasion #inondation #survival mode #climate #urumea #aiako harriak #capitalism #basque capitalism #PNV #sortu #real politics sucks #politics #political art #iparraldeko hitza #berria #galtzagorri

[minnesotadruids]

@deckdancer and I were conversing this evening, and he had this question about mass farming practices. My response ended up being a little lengthier than I anticipated, but I was also trying to be concise (which is hard for John the Verbose, lol)

I've been having a lot of thoughts about plants and mass farming practices tonight, and while I know horticulture isn't exactly your specialty, I wanted to hear your thoughts on the disconnect between the symbiosis of nature vs the mass farming practices we use today, and their effects on us today as a society?

One thing I've noticed over the last 10 years is how stressed the corn fields look when we've had year after year of drought conditions. The leaves curl along the edges and look like dessicated spears. Corn is a huge water hog, and an inefficient hog at that. Most of the water is ultimately lost to evapotranspiration meaning the water table doesn't even recharge at all from irrigation.

So much of that corn goes to ethanol plants and livestock feed, so it still has a high demand, but many of the crops just die or are stunted before they can be used. Before irrigation technology was widespread, places like Minnesota grew more wheat. Minneapolis was (and still is) where so many big flour mills are, but now the wheat grain comes in from the high plains. Wheat is what we should be growing for our climate already, but corn became popular because of irrigation. Wheat uses much less water, and some cultivars can be harvested twice a year.

Factory farming of corn has changed noticeably in my own lifetime. I remember the rows used to be a bit farther apart. You could run between the rows and pretend to be the "children of the corn." My dad said he could remember when he was younger there were much wider gaps in the rows of cornfields. We've bred them for higher yield and to be planted closer together that both of those factors mean they need much more water than they used to. Some farmers plant rows so close together you almost can't walk between them now.

A lack of diversification is also a problem as well. The past three years have been really bad for corn, but for many farmers, it's their cash crop. Soy beans have become a novelty... alfalfa a rarity... and I'm shocked if I ever see any wheat at all. Monoculture crops (even beyond grains) are begging for any one-off minor catastrophe to jeopardize the whole crop. If a plant disease or infestation pops up, it will spread much faster than if we had varied crops, and of course it would have a more detrimental effect if that one monoculture crop gets destroyed. Palm oil farming is another example of a fragile monoculture.

Diversification is easier said than done though. You can't use a single type of harvester machine for all crop types. The Cherokee would plant things together: Corn, pumpkins/squash, and vine beans. They understood for generations that those "Three Sisters" thrived better together than by themselves. The beanstalks would climb the corn, the beans would put nitrogen and nutrients back in the soil, and the squash/pumpkins would reduce evaporation from the soil. The large gourd leaves would reduce the amount of sunlight on the ground, inhibiting weed growth. All that today would still require harvesting by hand, and unfortunately it is considered too unprofitable. It would be suitable for people with gardens, self-sufficient homesteads, or small-scale farms (and we gotta WANT to get into that, too).

The big problem is (I think) that first we would need a large-scale, multifaceted cultural shift. Ethanol as biofuel is not as sustainable as the industry wants us to believe. As much as I love beef, we gotta reduce our consumption of large livestock. Cattle need a lot of corn and a lot of water. Other farm animals are more efficient in terms of resources required per pound of meat. That's a statement that sounds great for reducing corn and water usage, but other monoculture crops have their own unique pros and cons.

#permaculture #monoculture #sustainability #ecology #horticulture #symbiosis

[bumblebeeappletree]

🌳 Comment to rewild 1 additional square meter of forest

🌱 Join us to rewild the planet: https://planetwild.com/join/m12

Human activity has turned most of Scotland's beautiful and ancient forests into monoculture plantations. This pushes endless animals and species out of their natural habitat, drastically reducing biodiversity.

That’s why in our twelfth Planet Wild mission, we’re transforming monoculture plantations into real forests, using an unusual reforestation technique. Spoiler alert: not a single tree was planted.

A special thanks to https://scotlandbigpicture.com for providing us with additional footage.

Chapters

0:00 The reality of today’s forests

1:16 Forest vs. monoculture plantation

3:12 What should a forest really look like?

4:31 An unexpected restoration method

7:41 Our support

8:09 How you can help

8:46 The long-term impact

_______________________

What is Planet Wild?

We’re a global community of people who care deeply about nature and want to help our planet bounce back – one mission at a time.

EVERY MONTH, we work with wildlife pioneers worldwide to

🦁 bring back endangered species

🌊 support oceans and aquatic life

🌳 revive forests and rewild landscapes

EVERY MEMBER can vote on how we spend the money, connect with us on our Discord, and collect unique badges for each mission they support.

EVERY MISSION is documented in videos like this. 100% transparency.

EVERYONE can join. The bigger the community grows, the bigger these missions will get!

👉 Become a Planet Wild member: https://planetwild.com/join/m12

👉 Follow us on Instagram:

/ planetwild.official

Find all sources here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O...

#Planet Wild #solarpunk #rewilding #uk #britain #scotland #forest #monoculture #reforestation

[reasonsforhope]

“For the past two centuries, local Ixcatec people in the southern state of Oaxaca have made a living producing mezcal, a liquor which, like tequila, is derived from the fermented juices of ripe agave cores...

But with the skyrocketing global popularity of mezcal, planting, collecting and producing mezcal has boomed across the country. In 2021, the country produced more than 8 million liters of certified mezcal, an approximate 700% increase from ten years ago. Most of this mezcal, about five million liters per year, is designated for international markets... In Oaxaca alone, where 85% of mezcal is produced, 25,000 families rely on its production for at least part of their livelihoods.

To meet the global demand, producers in various states of Mexico are over-harvesting wild agave and expanding monoculture plantations. According to Alfonso Valiente, an ecologist at the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, this is putting pressure on local ecosystems by shrinking the genetic diversity of agave, threatening bats reliant on the succulent species and increasing deforestation...

Valiente and a team of over sixty scientists backed by their respective universities are running a research project across five states in Mexico along with local producers. This collaboration between researchers and farmers started in San Juan Raya, another village in the biosphere reserve...

Incubating a sustainable plantation

In San Juan Raya, Valiente and other scientists hope their research project will inform sustainable plantations in the region by using agroecological systems.

Eight years ago, they first established a nursery surrounded by mesh to ensure the survival of the seedlings from predators. Planted in rows are now about 45,000 young agave plants, the two native species of this place, Agave Potatorum and Agave Marmorata.

Unlike monoculture plantations, where plants reproduce by shoots (small plants that are born at the base of the stems), which are replicas of the main plant, community members here collect the seeds. One agave usually produces thousands of seeds. They plant them in the shade for protection during their first years...

Pictured: In the nursery in San Juan Raya, thousands of little agave plants are covered from the beaten sun.

As the sun sets on the peaks of the hills and canyons of the reserve, Alfonso Valiente guides us through one of two plots in their plantation designated to grow. As of last December, about 8,000 agave plants have been transplanted. Approximately 2,300 of them are marked with numbers to observe which other plants support the growth of transplanted agave.

“What we have noticed until now is that if you plant agave where there is an empty space and no supportive plants around, it dies more easily,” Valiente explains. “Agave grows better if the surrounding plants are genetically diverse.”

According to the latest research, the best plants to plant agave around are legume shrubs, such as e.g. Mimosa Luisana, a nitrogen-fixing plant that supports nitrogen in soil with the help of bacteria...

Pictured: In the agroecological system, agave grows alongside columnar cacti, legume shrubs, succulents and other native agave species.

In agreement with communities that participate across Mexico, up to 30% of the agave plants will be left in the polyculture plantations to nourish bats and other animals dependent on the nectar and pollen of the agave flowers. The other 70% will be sold for mezcal production.

However, as this is a long-term project without immediate economic returns, this also makes a lot of local producers, like those in Santa María Ixcatlán, reluctant to embark on the project.

In San Juan Raya, they still need to wait at least two more years for the agave to mature...

Plantations similar to the ones in San Juan Raya are being prepared in Guerrero, Tamaulipas, and Sonora. Valiente and other scientists are now campaigning in Oaxaca to get more communities involved in their project...

In various Mexican states, mezcal producers have also been searching for solutions to protect ecosystems as the demand for local liquors is growing. In Oaxaca, Guerrero, or even Jalisco—a state famous for its tequila production—some families and companies are exploring the management of agave in forests and ways to protect landscapes where it grows.”

-via Mongabay Environmental News, 2/10/23

#mongabay #mongabay environmental news #environmental news #conservation news #agave #mezcal #sustainable agriculture #monoculture #polyculture #mexico #oaxaca #agroforestry #agroecologia #science and technology #cocktails #mixology #good news #hope

[learnwithmearticles]

Lawns and Variation

Lawns most often consist of grasses and clover kept short by mowing. For decades in the United States of America, they were an important aspect of conformity. To this day, lawn maintenance is a key focus of many Homeowner Associations (HOAs). Through media and HOA policies, lawns grown out of control are associated with neglected land and poverty.

A short, well-kept lawn can be very aesthetically pleasing. It also reduces concerns about ticks and other pests. Maintaining one through regular mowing can provide homeowners a reason to spend time outside, and be part of important routines that help people keep their lives on track. Additionally, a short lawn is ideal for outside activities for pets, children, and adults. Of course, not maintaining one’s lawn can also lead to fines if part of an HOA.

The negatives of monoculture lawns, however, far outweigh the potential benefits.

The Negatives

Reducing biodiversity is the best-known way in which typical lawns cause damage. Persistent mowing keeps many species of plants from succeeding. Low biodiversity directly contributes to low ecosystem resilience1. For example, when a pest or fungus comes along that wipes out one type of plant, an entire field or dozens of fields will be wiped out because they are all the same plant. That leaves the land susceptible to erosion, flooding, and desertification (i.e arid land).

Low biodiversity means worse conditions for other forms of life, as well. Regular mowing to keep the grass short and uniform also keeps different floral plants from growing, thus reducing resources for pollinators1.

Persistent mowing also acts as an unnecessary addition to greenhouse gas production. Gas-powered lawn equipment contributes significantly to CO2, NOx, and volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions3. The amount of carbon equivalent pollution from lawn mowing and fertilizer use more than negates the benefit of carbon sequestration (CO2 kept out of the atmosphere) in grass yards2.

For many, yard maintenance also involves fertilizer and pesticide use. Fertilizer use contaminates waterways, primarily through rainfall, and causes algal blooms and decreased oxygenation in waterways. Pesticides can also pollute waterways. In fact, a majority of applied pesticides end up in soil, water, and air, and end up entering the food chain where they negatively affect a wide range of animals, including humans5. Pesticide contamination in humans has been linked to conditions like cancers, neurological issues, obesity, and neurological issues, to name a few5.

Lastly, lawns can need excessive amounts of water. On average, about 9 billion gallons of water goes to watering lawns in the U.S.A. every day6. This is made worse by poor watering practices, causing much of that water to be lost to evaporation and runoff. Water is considered a renewable resource, but that is contingent on proper maintenance and management.

Grass lawns around the world consume an abundance of resources and toxic materials to maintain. Maintaining a grass lawn is ecologically harmful because of pesticides, fertilizers, petroleum pollution, low biodiversity, erosion, and water use.

Cultivating native flora instead nullifies the need for these measures. Native plants are physiologically adapted to the local climate and conditions, and thus need less, if any, watering7. They are less likely to need pesticides or fertilizers, and their deeper root systems decrease soil erosion8. The reduced use of lawn equipment vastly improves air quality, and provides a much more interesting view than a monoculture yard8.

Clover

Transitioning a lawn from short, uniform grasses into a more biodiverse, environmentally healthy yard can be very difficult, and potentially impossible for some people. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, though. Fostering the growth of clovers instead of grasses, for example, can be a good step for your soil.

Clovers include about 300 species with native varieties in many parts of the world, including Europe, central Asia, North America, and Africa. Clovers generally need minimal maintenance and, if allowed to flower, provide valuable resources for native pollinators9. Clover is also esteemed for its nitrogen-fixing properties. Like many legumes, clover species pull nitrogen from the atmosphere and increase nitrogen availability in soil10.

Converting grass lawns into areas for various native flora has many benefits for the environment and the land-owner, who can enjoy beautiful flowers and bushes while improving air and water quality. While a clover lawn is not as beneficial in these aspects, they can still be an important way for people to start improving their lawn. Fortunately, many more websites now exist to guide land-owners in cultivating native plants. There is always something you can do to help.

Additional Resources

1. https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1365-2664.13542

2. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-012-9967-6

3. https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-09/documents/banks.pdf

4. https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/kaufmana/downloads/Kaufman%20Lawn.pdf 

5. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40726-018-0092-x

6. https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/pubs/outdoor.html

7.https://www.montvillenj.org/DocumentCenter/View/155/Choose-Plants-That-Are-Native-to-the-Area-That-Are-Drought-Resistant-PDF?bidId=#

8. https://archive.epa.gov/greenacres/web/html/index.html#

9. https://www.oneearth.org/the-various-advantages-of-clover/

10. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/its2.19

11. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866715000436

#monoculture #lawns #suburban lawns #grass #clover #flowers #flora #climate change #environment #resources #research #article #soil erosion #runoff #pesticides #fertilizer #planting #garden #biodiversity #ecological resistance

[c0rps3g0bbl3r]

lets admit that skibidi toilet is doing the impossible and reviving monoculture

love it, hate it, or never understand it skibidi toilet is everywhere and you cannot escape it

#skibidi toilet #memes #monoculture #this is only half a joke #and also skibidi toilet is a cool piece of media lets admit that too

[lowcountry-gothic]

In a time of monoculture and monomythology, of tree farms and grocery-store tomatoes, it is important to understand that myths that stay the same don’t survive. Or worse, they make sure we won’t survive by reinforcing extractive behavior no longer tailored to our ecosystems. We must understand that storytelling is not a human event. It is a relationship. An ecstatic reciprocity with the Animate Everything. A relationship that is constantly changing and evolving.

Sophie Strand, The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine, p. 43

#quotes #sophie strand #the flowering wand #monoculture #mythology #myth #humanity #storytelling #relationality #reciprocity #mysticism #change

[snercksketches]

june 2021 - made for my friend @nicholaseymann, who released music under the name MonoCulture in the early 2000s

#monoculture #the animal economy #album art #artists on tumblr #ms paint #art #digital art #pixel art #my art

[sangennaro]

So I just now read the Yudkowsky thing in Time magazine, and it really got me excited.

What if there is going to be an "AI apocalypse”, but it's not an apocalypse for The World, and just an apocalypse for The Internet? What if widespread employment of AI to optimize and simulate and auto-generate and increase and etc etc, what if that results in an internet that is many times more unpleasant than the one we have now? What if all kinds of competing businesses and governments and NGOs and NEETs, all without any kind of clear comprehensive idea of how their own activities fit within the complex and emerging whole, what if they end up stinking up the room, tangling up the cords, and creating an environment so confusing, hostile, deceptive, aggressive, greedy, shallow, etc, that people would prefer to disconnect and take their chances with a more local and physical experience of life?

In a way, it seems just inevitable that this will happen-- look at our most successful contemporaries, particularly the millionaire politicians and billionaire business leaders and their most senior functionaries: Overflowing with confidence, overflowing with strong statements and ambitious goals, always ready with hard statistics and cutting edge theory (from the most qualified experts at the most respected institutions) to support their ironclad certainty and bold optimism and unwavering self-regard, held up by television and newspaper journalists as exemplary citizens and worthy role models, the newest and youngest of their ranks deserving of a respect and reverence granted to only the greatest writers, artists, actors and athletes.

Conventional wisdom declares politics and business as our noblest and most realistic paths to a Better World and Better Future, but aspirational politicians and journalists and tycoons are the only people to be found who would even attempt to argue that prosperity is spreading. Further, the extent and acceleration of prosperity's retraction is clearly in proportion to the intensity of prideful rhetoric about our current crop of elites' achievements. It is obvious to everyone that our tangled political and economic situation rewards sociopathic manipulation of strangers on the grandest scale. It is obvious that contemporary technology (the complexity and ingenuity of which is held up as proof that we are the smartest human beings who have ever lived) is making people miserable and having foreboding effects on children.

All of this is to say, our culture's driving idea of Success-- and by extension the mechanistic models of Universe and Human Mind that provide the foundations for our particular version of Success-- is manifestly twisted. And the people whose use of AI will have the widest and most penetrating effects on our lives are all as deeply invested as anyone can be in this particular conception of Success.

I guess it might not be as easy to extrapolate where we're headed for people that haven't been watching the internet mutate from the second-landline-for-your-modem days into the obligatory-smartphone-on-your-person-and-online-24/7 present. But those of us who have surfed down this surreal seam know what is coming: all the commercial, impersonal, invasive, artificial, inhumane aspects of going online will be stepped up. Our screens will exhibit a new magnitude of aggression. It's hard to imagine personalities more fake than the tryhards currently mining for online Success, but when fully machine-generated content (produced by algorithms that simulate the work of a superhumanly fast hack writer: analyzing large amounts of material with a rigidly predetermined consideration of its quality, then assembling a passable simulacra of intelligence out of the most commonplace patterns--ie, clichés--found therein) becomes industry standard, the ig influencer and Youtube entrepreneur of today will seem like Shakespeare characters compared to the Johnny Cab content that will soon be multiplying like maggots on the corpse of a titan far too huge to bury.

The titan is rotting before our eyes, and it will stink worse and worse, and the same politicians and salarymen that presently pretend there's no level of odor strong enough to drive off a meaningful mass of their dipshit customers will keep pretending that's the case until it's too late, until the web and social media are not only places only a bot could love, but places only bots ever visit, a Potemkin Neom waiting to be wiped off the books by the EMP offensives unveiled in WWIII. An increasing number of people will go looking offline for leisure, community, discovery, and identity, and they will find surprises there, and opportunities for humane interactions that contrast intensely with interactions online, and the internet will be for paying your utility bill and looking up driving directions and ordering cat litter. Yeah, there will be news on it--- there's news on AM radio, too. And CNN, too-- which is maybe leading the pack, but not exactly an outlier, in the involuntary degrowth of our infotainment corporations already underway. Go back to the 1990s and tell a teenager that their town's malls are all abandoned or razed now because people stopped going to them. Or that nobody is buying CDs or even downloading mp3s because it's more convenient to send all that money to a Swedish CEO. The idea that this sort of mass abdication will, going forward, only ever occur in the internet tycoon's favor-- that requires (and is required by) a fanatical faith in technology, in the triumph of the inhumane.

Ultimately, though, the inhumane sucks. It will never not suck to be talked down to by a person who wants something from you and couldn’t give less of a shit about any part of your existence besides your handing over that thing. It will suck to a heretofore unimaginable degree when we encounter these people via cost-cutting automated puppets. And the more the internet sucks-- and the ecstasy over how AI will optimize the ease with which acquisitive organizations manipulate strangers from a distance makes it pretty obvious it's about to suck even more-- the lower the bar gets for a consciously offline life to need to clear in order to be worth the risk of retreating back into meatspace...

#AI #apocalypse #simulacra #monoculture #paradigm shift

[mirrorontheworld]

Le Bois du Chat (Corrèze) pourrait être rasé. Deux fois déjà, les bûcherons sont venus sur place – mais ils ont été accueillis avec bienveillance par les habitantes et habitants de la zone, qui ont empêché la coupe. Pour l’instant, le Bois du Chat est sauvé. Mais cette forêt de feuillus (chênes, hêtres), en Natura 2000, pourrait être entièrement détruite dans les semaines qui viennent et remplacée par une plantation de résineux. Et il ne s’agit pas d’un cas isolé. Cet exemple montre que les règles de gestion sylvicole de Nouvelle Aquitaine (SRGS) doivent évoluer, et interdire la transformation de forêts diversifiées en monocultures. Alors que cette coupe pose plusieurs questions intéressantes sur la gestion sylvicole de demain, certains acteurs de la filière s’obstinent et annoncent : « Il n’est pas acceptable que des phénomènes d’opposition se développent, sous quelque forme que ce soit ». 

#forêt #coupe rase #écologie #France #sylviculture #environnement #monoculture

[josiheys]

It's CORN!

Na animação, a monocultura de milho toma todo o espaço fazendo a diversidade da floresta desaparecer. O desenho é parte da sequência animada do curta que dirigi, o "Cria da Mata"

#Corn #it's corn #digital ilustration #Animation short #Animation #Deforestation #monoculture #enviroment art