Hi Island 1000,
You talked about the ecological parts of my post in your reply about keeping diaries. I would like to reply to that here.
It may be possible to use a bacteria that only makes grasshoppers sick to control them, and thereby also to control locusts, which I understand originate from grasshoppers when numbers become too high and they rub together and suddenly change type and behaviour. For a long time it wasn't know where locusts came from. They seemed to appear so suddenly, but now it is known that they were grasshoppers first.
Scientists are experimenting with releasing sterile male grasshoppers to mate with females with no offspring from the mating. This doesn't work very well because they can't use enough radiation to sterilize the insects. Too much of it makes them too feeble to mate, and when lower doses are used it was found that often they can still reproduce.
There is a sterile insect program here now being used against the "Coddling Moth" that ruins apple crops in our area. It has been in force for about three years. For it to work all homeowners who had even one apple tree, or one decorative crab-apple tree in their yard had to either remove it, or have it treated several times a year and also pick up all the fallen fruit so that it could not harbour Coddling Moth.
I wrote a previous post today about how it may be possible to completely do away with mosquitos, and with what care that is being considered. The same has to be considered when proposing the elimination of any species. The elimination cmay be done by changing a gene in mosquitos so that they will all eventually become sterile after a certain number of cycles of reproduction, 27 I think. We have great power in our hands, and must be very careful with it.
You have a balanced view about pesticide use, and I agree with you. One way to keep ourselves and other creatures safe is to use types that do no damage to the soil and its organisms. Another way is to use certain things on fields, but keep workers safe while using it, but not to use it where children play, such as schoolyards, or for purposes of monoculture, which is what people do with their grass lawns that are kept without a single weed. Monoculture as is found in lawns isn't good at all, even if it is efficient. It is bad for crops, too, and has been used over vast areas in factory farms, and probably it will continue to be used for a long time to come. The companies that sell it are very powerful and it becomes a necessity when it is used long enough.
The world is eventually going to have to change a lot. Probably this will only happen through learning from many difficulties. There are insects like that little black beetle they are trying on the Purple Loosestrife that may do good by eliminating it as a new pest, and may not harm anything else. That may be a good way to go with other similar problems as long as it works as it is suppposed to.
I have seen trees and plants here badly eaten away by grasshoppers, and also by Tent Caterpiller. Right now we have a terrible problem with our great pine forests. They are all dying off because of an insect. Many huge stands of trees are being harvested because they are dying. The insect leaves long blue streaks in the wood, so their wood is being called something like "Denim Blue" in order to sell it. It attacks mature trees. Small ones stay healthy untill they grow tall enough. There is no known way to stop the destruction. Right now it is a growing disaster.
They have been injecting tree plantation pines with arsenic to kill the beetle. Now a lumberman has arsenic poisoning because he cut trees and got it that way. Not good. The trees are rapidly turning reddish brown all over as they die.
The same thing happened some years ago to all the Elm trees in Canada. They were very beautiful trees but they all got Dutch Elm Disease and died. There are no more beautiful elms like that in this country any more. Such wonderful trees they were, too. Very tall, strong and graceful, with a wide and beauful canopy.
This passing around of diseases in the world, from places where they are kept in check by the natural balance, to other places where there is nothing to keep themin check because such a system hasn't grown up there, is a very great and growing problem. We will eventually wisely overcome it, but before that there will be real trouble. About those pine trees: lumber from pine is one of our major industries and sources of employment in my province. There are a lot of people who will lose their livlihoods due to Mountain Pine Beetle infestation.
A great problems exists in the fisheries on both our coasts, and in many places in the world. Fish farms allow Atlantic salmon to escape that are not native to this Pacific ocean. They can also breed disease. Overfishing has fished out the fish stocks all over the world. Soon all the oceans will be barren of fish. Can you imagine -- they are now beginning to harvest JELLYFISH! for food purposes, since all the better fish have been fished out and there are at least still lots of Jellyfish left. It is another very great disaster in the making, and people are so slow to understand it, and so stupid as to fight among themselves, instead of honestly cooperating with each other throughout the world, while there is still time.
Once the Cod stocks of The Grand Banks of Newfoundland, off Canada's east coast, were legendary everywhere. They were truly one of the great wonders of the world. It was thought they were inexhaustable. There were so many fish you can hardly imagine it. They have been disasterously over-fished. Factory ships came in and have scraped up almost everything in the oceans. They scrape the bottom bare so that it is inhospitable to most sea creatures that are part of the chain of life. They throw out what they don't want, when they catch it along with what they do want.
Another important creature, sharks, are badly depopulated, and on their way to being extinction because they are heavily fished for their fins and tails. Just the fins and tails are cut off, for soup or medicine. The living fish arethrown back into the water to fall to the bottom and drown. In this regard, it has recently been scientifically proven that fish certainly do feel pain. Now I know we don't really want to meet a shark when we are swimming, but they are the wolves of the sea, and are much needed in the food chain and web of life. They keep things healthy, as wolves do the animals in the forests.
Humans are in for a lot of trouble. You mentioned religion. One of the things Baha'i has done for me is to give me hope and faith that the human race is actually going to survive, and eill eventually mature and have a great future, even if it drives itself so far to the wall that there are only very few left in remote place to carry on it, will rise again in a less greedy, more cooperative and thoughtful way. Isn't that what we do if we respond well as individuals to the inevitable troubles we go through in life? I hope it won't come to that.
I usually don't write about such scary things. I keep my posts upbeat, hopeful and encouraging for the sake of all of us. I suppose this one is a mixture of concern plus hope and encouragement. Today it is important build anything you can into your life that is positive and happy, in order to keep inner balance. Doing so will also help everybody and hopefully Earth herself.
The next thing that is necessary is to be informed and take steps to lighten your own damage to this planet.
Another is to support positive movements.
A further thing is to help others to become informed and concerned about the difficulties facing the human race and how we can survive. I feel I can talk about it because Ben and I have long been doing our best to do what we recommend to others.
It is necessary that we become unified as a human race and begin to work together to save ourselves. I don't say "to save the planet", because the planet is perfectly capable of saving itself. If all we humans were to kill ourselves off, I assure you, the planet will go on very well without us. It did after it lost the dinosaurs, didn't it? We humans are not necessary to the planet any more than the dinosaurs were. However, in our case there is some thought that the planet may backlash against us as we upset so many of its equilibriums. Not because it has intelligence, but because some of the upset systems will go into chaos before they reestablish into a new and balanced pattern.
If, and when we grow up and become mature, wise human beings and excellent caretakers of this beautiful home of ours, Earth, we will be like the soul of thisplanet. That will make the planet complete, as it will have all the levels of life and spirit represented. We will do so, but it may be that only a few people will eventually be left to continue on and do what has been learned the hardest way of all -- if we don't smarten up.
Warm greetings to you, wise friend. Hopeful greetings too, Mary
