Balls and Wheels

By the time she was in grad school at Oregon State University, however, Simard understood that commercial clearcutting had largely superseded the sustainable logging practices of the past. Loggers were replacing diverse forests with homogeneous plantations, evenly spaced in upturned soil stripped of most underbrush. Without any competitors, the thinking went, the newly planted trees would thrive. Instead, they were frequently more vulnerable to disease and climatic stress than trees in old-growth forests.

When Europeans arrived on America’s shores in the 1600s, forests covered one billion acres of the future United States — close to half the total land area. Between 1850 and 1900, U.S. timber production surged to more than 35 billion board feet from five billion. By 1907, nearly a third of the original expanse of forest — more than 260 million acres — was gone. Exploitative practices likewise ravaged Canada’s forests throughout the 19th century. As growing cities drew people away from rural and agricultural areas, and lumber companies were forced to replant regions they had logged, trees began to reclaim their former habitats. As of 2012, the United States had more than 760 million forested acres. The age, health and composition of America’s forests have changed significantly, however. Although forests now cover 80 percent of the Northeast, for example, less than 1 percent of its old-growth forest remains intact.

And though clearcutting is not as common as it once was, it is still practiced on about 40 percent of logged acres in the United States and 80 percent of them in Canada. In a thriving forest, a lush understory captures huge amounts of rainwater, and dense root networks enrich and stabilize the soil. Clearcutting removes these living sponges and disturbs the forest floor, increasing the chances of landslides and floods, stripping the soil of nutrients and potentially releasing stored carbon to the atmosphere. When sediment falls into nearby rivers and streams, it can kill fish and other aquatic creatures and pollute sources of drinking water. The abrupt felling of so many trees also harms and evicts countless species of birds, mammals, reptiles and insects.

Ryan told me about the 230,000-acre Menominee Forest in northeastern Wisconsin, which has been sustainably harvested for more than 150 years. Sustainability, the Menominee believe, means “thinking in terms of whole systems, with all their interconnections, consequences and feedback loops.” They maintain a large, old and diverse growing stock, prioritizing the removal of low-quality and ailing trees over more vigorous ones and allowing trees to age 200 years or more — so they become what Simard might call grandmothers. Ecology, not economics, guides the management of the Menominee Forest, but it is still highly profitable. Since 1854, more than 2.3 billion board feet have been harvested — nearly twice the volume of the entire forest — yet there is now more standing timber than when logging began. “To many, our forest may seem pristine and untouched,” the Menominee wrote in one report. “In reality, it is one of the most intensively managed tracts of forest in the Lake States.”

Trees have always been symbols of connection. In Mesoamerican mythology, an immense tree grows at the center of the universe, stretching its roots into the underworld and cradling earth and heaven in its trunk and branches. Norse cosmology features a similar tree called Yggdrasil. A popular Japanese Noh drama tells of wedded pines that are eternally bonded despite being separated by a great distance.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/02/magazine/tree-communication-mycorrhiza.html

Monday, September 19, 2022

deserves further looking in to.

https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/economy-politics/story/this-economist-says-britain-took-away-usd-45-trillion-from-india-in-173-years-111689-2018-11-19

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Victorian_Holocausts

https://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2006/06/getting-into-it-with-niall.html

"The British fundamentally changed patterns of land and resource ownership. Furthermore, they changed the taxation system in a way that imposed onerous burdens on the average farmer. This change of taxation is remarked upon by Adam Smith in his wealth of nations. Previously, taxes by most kings was in proportion of earnings. The British imposed absolute tax requirements, and given the nature of agriculture, this meant that the tax burden could often not be met."

Balls and Wheels

Sunday, September 25, 2022

Cheo Hernandez

Friday, September 23, 2022

Quality of early Mexican League

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Nov shmoz ka pop?

Do trees talk to each other?

Monday, September 19, 2022

An Exploratory Guide of Minor League Statistics

The Dutch and Indonesia

Did Britain Stole $45 Trillion From India

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