>> Unless carnivorous plant have rhizomes than purely seed, sure. But that's the thing! <<
Many plants can spread their seed some distance away. I meant the current plant learning to change its location. For example, a Venus' flytrap can open and close its traps, so it might use that appendage to drag itself along the ground. A bladderwort has bladders to suck in prey; it could use those to squirt water and travel by jet propulsion. And so on.
>> We can look the mass extinctions occurring and rising water temperatures, but how do we slow it down at the very least? <<
* The biggest bang-for-buck: reduce or eliminate eating beef. Cows fart methane, a devastating greenhouse gas, and people are clearcutting rainforests to make more room for cows, mostly beef cattle. But it's entirely driven by economics; if consumers stop buying beef, then companies will quit raising beef cattle.
* Plant trees in places that are still wet enough for trees. In most areas the highest value to wildlife is your local type of oak.
* The usual Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Restore also applies.
>> The average person is trying their best, but I've learned that a massive overhaul needs to happen.<<
The average person isn't causing the problem, and thus can't solve the problem. Individual efforts just absolve you of moral responsibility for cooking off the planet. Governments and corporations are causing the problem, so if they don't solve it, then it won't get solved. If you look at a pie chart of sources for greenhouse emissions, or water usage, etc. you'll see that by far the biggest portion is megacorps (like factory farms) or municipal or larger governments. They scream at consumers to take shorter showers, but won't tax factory farms or make the government move water-wasting activities to a state with more water.
>> And it's one that people just let it happen over decades long before we were even a thought in people's minds. <<
Most of the worst problems started with the Greatest Generation. They can be excused for some of that because, for instance, they didn't know that plastic doesn't break down, cascades through the ecosystem, and messes with hormones. They couldn't know; it was too new.
It was the Boomers who were supposed to fix things. Gods know, the hippies tried, but they couldn't reach critical mass. They had the right ideas. Diet for a Small Planet is just over 50 years old; if people had listened to the hippies, we wouldn't have millions of cows farting up the atmosphere.
By the time it got down to my generation, the activist branch was falling apart and the resource shortages were starting to make it harder to fight the system. I've spent my life protesting other people's dogged determination to follow the path that Earth is on, and nobody listened. And it's only gotten worse from there.
>>The one thing I've noticed time and time again is when governments let corporations lobby for certain things, like road construction, money and profits is the biggest part of equation for there products. Everything else is an after thought to them. And then, you have government officials having stocks in said companies and that's even worse with the bias.<<
2) Corporations are not obligated to be useful or even avoid destroying people and planet. In today's legal environment, their only obligation, other than following background laws in public, is to make money for their shareholders. And you get what you reward.
>> The best solution is to separate the two and corporations should be held accountable like everyone else, and government positions should treated like civic duty; not a career path. <<
I agree. We need separation of corporations and state. Because when those two merge, that's fascism.
If you want to fight this, there are many useful tools. Favor other economic models, such as cooperatives and credit unions and barter.
>> But at the current state of things, it can make anyone feel so small staring at the madness of this system. <<
There are several common approaches to this:
1) Build a coalition big enough to fight on the same level as governments and corporations.
2) Construct an alternative, from scratch or retrofit. Intentional communities, cooperatives, and Strong Towns or Transition Towns are examples of this.
3) Ignore the large scale and focus on the small. There's work that needs doing on all levels. If you can build a thriving backyard ecosystem, that's valuable. You won't know if you're saving a species, but it could happen.
>> I guess it's just the stubborn problem-solver in me talking, and I hate to see people give up and get sucked up in constant negativity of the world.<<
Acknowledging the direction in which people are currently steering the world is not the same as agreeing with them. I may not be able to stop them, but I can damn well make the bastards work for it.
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dancing_serpent
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2024-04-17 07:30 pm (UTC)Many plants can spread their seed some distance away. I meant the current plant learning to change its location. For example, a Venus' flytrap can open and close its traps, so it might use that appendage to drag itself along the ground. A bladderwort has bladders to suck in prey; it could use those to squirt water and travel by jet propulsion. And so on.
>> We can look the mass extinctions occurring and rising water temperatures, but how do we slow it down at the very least? <<
* The biggest bang-for-buck: reduce or eliminate eating beef. Cows fart methane, a devastating greenhouse gas, and people are clearcutting rainforests to make more room for cows, mostly beef cattle. But it's entirely driven by economics; if consumers stop buying beef, then companies will quit raising beef cattle.
* Plant trees in places that are still wet enough for trees. In most areas the highest value to wildlife is your local type of oak.
* The usual Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Restore also applies.
>> The average person is trying their best, but I've learned that a massive overhaul needs to happen.<<
The average person isn't causing the problem, and thus can't solve the problem. Individual efforts just absolve you of moral responsibility for cooking off the planet. Governments and corporations are causing the problem, so if they don't solve it, then it won't get solved. If you look at a pie chart of sources for greenhouse emissions, or water usage, etc. you'll see that by far the biggest portion is megacorps (like factory farms) or municipal or larger governments. They scream at consumers to take shorter showers, but won't tax factory farms or make the government move water-wasting activities to a state with more water.
>> And it's one that people just let it happen over decades long before we were even a thought in people's minds. <<
Most of the worst problems started with the Greatest Generation. They can be excused for some of that because, for instance, they didn't know that plastic doesn't break down, cascades through the ecosystem, and messes with hormones. They couldn't know; it was too new.
It was the Boomers who were supposed to fix things. Gods know, the hippies tried, but they couldn't reach critical mass. They had the right ideas. Diet for a Small Planet is just over 50 years old; if people had listened to the hippies, we wouldn't have millions of cows farting up the atmosphere.
By the time it got down to my generation, the activist branch was falling apart and the resource shortages were starting to make it harder to fight the system. I've spent my life protesting other people's dogged determination to follow the path that Earth is on, and nobody listened. And it's only gotten worse from there.
>>The one thing I've noticed time and time again is when governments let corporations lobby for certain things, like road construction, money and profits is the biggest part of equation for there products. Everything else is an after thought to them. And then, you have government officials having stocks in said companies and that's even worse with the bias.<<
1) Corruption is legal in America. That's behind a lot of problems.
2) Corporations are not obligated to be useful or even avoid destroying people and planet. In today's legal environment, their only obligation, other than following background laws in public, is to make money for their shareholders. And you get what you reward.
>> The best solution is to separate the two and corporations should be held accountable like everyone else, and government positions should treated like civic duty; not a career path. <<
I agree. We need separation of corporations and state. Because when those two merge, that's fascism.
If you want to fight this, there are many useful tools. Favor other economic models, such as cooperatives and credit unions and barter.
>> But at the current state of things, it can make anyone feel so small staring at the madness of this system. <<
There are several common approaches to this:
1) Build a coalition big enough to fight on the same level as governments and corporations.
2) Construct an alternative, from scratch or retrofit. Intentional communities, cooperatives, and Strong Towns or Transition Towns are examples of this.
3) Ignore the large scale and focus on the small. There's work that needs doing on all levels. If you can build a thriving backyard ecosystem, that's valuable. You won't know if you're saving a species, but it could happen.
>> I guess it's just the stubborn problem-solver in me talking, and I hate to see people give up and get sucked up in constant negativity of the world.<<
Acknowledging the direction in which people are currently steering the world is not the same as agreeing with them. I may not be able to stop them, but I can damn well make the bastards work for it.