• uphillbothways@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    De-desertification by burying clean biomass in increasingly arid locations could be a thing, as could wetlands restoration and a lot of similar ecological enterprises. There’s plenty of opportunities for humans to make the planet better. We know how. There’s just no will to do so.

    It’s not that humans can’t leave the planet better than they found it, it’s that they don’t want to.

    It’s not that humans couldn’t be good, it’s that they are in practice bad.

      • uphillbothways@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        “Can We Save the Redwoods by Helping Them Move?”

        Yes, we can. While it’s easy enough to plant trees, their survival requires a certain amount of work and ecological transformation. Whether moving them ahead of trends already happening in local climates and anticipating where they will be able to exist later, or helping preserve their current ranges, extremely long lived species in particular need stability. That stability isn’t going to be found in climates that continue to be affected by human’s interaction with the environment.

        The air was moist and cool, suffused with the briny scent of the sea. “This is a tree paradise,” Stielstra said. Barnes concurred: “This is a gold mine.”

        For how long? For long enough that the mother trees they discuss in the article can become established over hundreds to thousands of years. Absolutely not.

        The problem is people.

        Could we? Yes. Will we? No.

        Humans have always and will always care about their meager lifespans in preference of the longer lifespans of things like trees and species and ecologies. Where they have ability, they lack perspective.

        ‘We can just move them,’ they’ll say, over and over and over.