General Discussion Thread

[Noodles]

Do I remember correctly that you are in the Pacific Northwest? Times I have been there I've found it mostly pleasantly cool and moist, rainy enough for lots of mosses and ferns and lichens and fungi. Windy, too - I quite liked it.

That's accurate, yes! The weather's just being a bit capricious and springy lately. And yeah, the mosses and ferns are lovely -- I was just up in the mountains today for a field trip and the bigleaf maples are just blooming so between them and the moss and the evergreens it's quite lovely. I also saw a little cluster of morels in a parking lot median thingy today, which was exciting since I hadn't seen them in person before.

[Róisín]

Noodles, our forest produced morels last winter for the first time in about twenty years, probably because our area has had several major bushfires recently, and many species of morel are fire-followers. They are delicious, just make sure you don't pick False Morels instead. Those are supposed to be edible with a lot of preparation, but I don't trust them. Your Spring forest sounds lovely.

Sc0ut, yeah, the climate change apocalypse is a real thing. I've been trying for years to get people to take it seriously, because there are so many things that are happening downstream from the obvious changes that will not become apparent until they actually hit us. Stuff like the loss of pollinating insect and bird species and the decline of soil biota on which depend things like seed germination and plant nutrient uptake. All we can do is plant a wide range of food species, keep trying new things, conserve water, protect the soil surface (mulch, mulch, mulch), and do our best to limit the damage we cause. I think we can survive as a species, but we need to think more about the consequences of our actions.

Peter Cundall, a gardener whom I greatly respect, calls it 'climate disruption' rather than 'climate change'. I reckon he has a point. Look him up online, he has a lot of good advice on how to garden in current conditions, and he is just a very nice man as well as a skilled gardener. He isn't giving up either.

[Grade E cat]

Concerning the food production, one of the problems is that at least in France, things have ended up in such a way that many farmers simply can't afford to not use the methods that are profitable in the short term, but destructive in the long term because they are barely breaking even and sometimes working at a loss as it is, and can't afford the short-term cost of changing their methods. Actually, I think a lot of people have basically been made to have their livelihood depend entirely on an environment-destroying activity, and because of this, when authorities do try to change things, the message they get is "the goverment is trying to destroy your livelihood because they care more about the environment than you". Cue protest and resistance.

[midwestmutt]

Easter Island has gone global. I believe they resorted to cannibalism towards the end. It's always nice to have something to look forward to.

[Mélusine]

Easter Island has gone global. I believe they resorted to cannibalism towards the end. It's always nice to have something to look forward to.

Hum, it's one assumption but several are existing for Easter Island and if I remember well we're still not sure about what happened exactly. (Sorry, the historian in me reacted.)

[Ana Nymus]

They are delicious, just make sure you don't pick False Morels instead. Those are supposed to be edible with a lot of preparation, but I don't trust them.

Even with heavy preparation, false morels still cause poisonings. Some people eat them with no ill effect, but others have pretty severe symptoms, even when the mushrooms are cooked. Morels also contain a fair amount of toxins, but they're volatile and a thorough cooking will get rid of them.

Actually, cook all of your mushrooms. Very few species don't have something in them that will cause stomach upset if eaten raw.

This has been culinary advice from someone who can't stand mushrooms, but still knows lots about how to prepare them!

[Róisín]

Indeed, Ana. I generally cook all my mushrooms except for champignons, and those I don't need to cook because the friend who grows them has impeccable cultivation hygiene, and his champignons are delicate enough to use in salads. Otherwise I cook all wild fungi, both for the removal of toxins and because I have no way of knowing what has crawled over them on the forest floor.

Grade E Cat, you're right about the farming problems. It's not a problem that can be solved by legislation, not without governments doing a lot more than just waving a hand and saying 'make it so'. The transition is hard, especially if the soil has been denatured by years of bad farming practice. Transition has to be gradual. The model that seems to work best here in SA is successful organic farmers teaching and mentoring farmers who want to change. We have a number of farms in transition here. It can be done. Same for home gardeners. I intend to keep right on doing my best to save the world, one backyard and community garden at a time!

[refract3d]

Róisín I'm glad that the mentorship seems to be working! I did environmental studies in college and many of my classes covered these issues, but I don't have as much practical knowledge as I would like (maybe that will change if I can decide on what I want to do if/when I go to grad school). I wish I could somehow help... honestly, that field of study in this climate (ha, ha) is rather depressing and frustrating. Things will change, environmental disasters will strike, people will die, species will disappear, and the steps we need to take to mitigate the damage are not the steps people with power are willing to take (at least here and now ;-; )

So it's always good to see some success on a more grassroots level.
(I still have hope)

[Róisín]

The problems are made worse because for the most part the people making the rules or ignoring the problems are not the people who are directly affected by those problems. They are mostly wealthy, upperclass folk who don't live on the drowning islands or crumbling coastlines or next to the toxic waste dump. They are sufficiently prosperous that when places like Flint get their water supply poisoned, they can buy in water, and so long as food is available at all they won't go without. It will all come apart eventually, of course, but they will be the last to go.

About fifty years ago, I remember having a discussion with my then mother-in-law. She owned large tracts of brigalow scrub (a now critically-endangered Queensland ecosystem), which she was about to sell to a mining company. I pleaded with her to at least set aside a few hundred acres of the part where the rarest bird and reptile species lived as a reserve. Certainly she could have afforded to do so, given the price she was being offered per acre, and the fact that she was rich already. I raised the argument that her grandchildren might never get to see some of the beautiful wildlife that she had had a chance to enjoy there. Her reply? "If my grandchildren can't afford to buy any land they may want when they grow up, they aren't worthy to be my grandchildren."

She wasn't even a particularly evil person, just rich, spoiled, entitled and completely oblivious. And didn't even have the concept that sooner or later land would run out and there would be no more to buy. Sadly, a lot of our decision-makers have similar attitudes.

[Grade E cat]

It does tend to be a little hard to convince people that we are running out of something for which they can still do some form of going out and buying. We were growing cherry tomatoes in the garden at some point, but it didn't stick, I suspect in part because we have both a supermarket and a market within a ten-minute radius around our house. Now all we have is a small strawberry plant that been there forever.

[midwestmutt]

It's 3:00 am. The weather must finally be breaking because my back just went out on me. This happens every Spring. Fortunately I still had a couple of pain pills held in reserve from my last bout but until they kick in it's the heat pad for me. Ow! Good thing I have the day off already so I can get to the doc without delay for a change.

[Róisín]

Midwestmutt, that sounds like no fun at all. I know how you feel - sudden weather changes affect me too, what with both rheumatoid and osteo arthritis and a lot of old injuries. And of course when it's cold and damp with a sudden pressure drop, every pin, plate and wire in my leg makes itself felt.....

Hope the doctor can do something helpful.

[Sc0ut]

Thank you for recommending Peter Cundall, Róisín! I am looking him up as we speak.

Concerning the food production, one of the problems is that at least in France, things have ended up in such a way that many farmers simply can't afford to not use the methods that are profitable in the short term, but destructive in the long term because they are barely breaking even and sometimes working at a loss as it is, and can't afford the short-term cost of changing their methods. Actually, I think a lot of people have basically been made to have their livelihood depend entirely on an environment-destroying activity, and because of this, when authorities do try to change things, the message they get is "the goverment is trying to destroy your livelihood because they care more about the environment than you". Cue protest and resistance.

That's sadly true for a lot of parts of the world. Strangely enough, it appears that countries and the EU more often subsidize damaging types of agriculture (industrial farming, crops that rely heavily on pesticides etc) than encourage healthier practices like more traditional farming methods, smaller plots alternating with natural landscape and so on. Money and a desire to help agriculture exist, except they're not applied where most people would benefit from it (probably due to industry lobbying). Something I'd add is that, in fact, a lot of risks go unnoticed because nobody is aware of them, even the most exposed people. My grandma still does agriculture in a pretty big garden around her house, and she had no idea the weed killer she used on her potatoes causes cancer in people who handle it. It was easy enough for me to google it, but she has no internet access. Why are people not warned about the risks when they buy these products?

refract3d, it's great that you had the chance to do environmental studies. I'm actually contemplating going back to school for this, since it's been weighing heavily on my mind for the last few years and I've been leaping at any opportunity to do sustainable gardening and absorb the knowledge of more experienced people. I know, I know, I'm a walking cliche, the Milennial who wants to work on an organic farm and save the world. But hey, people will always need to eat, and clean food takes a lot of manpower, so there's no harm in there being a lot of us.

[Róisín]

I think you are right about the lobbying from big agricultural and chemical industries being a factor. They tend to push it as 'we need the chemicals, the genetic engineering, the central control etc etc to save the world and grow enough to feed everyone'. But we do that now, and more, if you look at the actual numbers, and consider how much subsidised crop is dumped every year to keep the prices up. Our major problem is one of distribution and access rather than production.

And of course these hybridised and GE crops need special fertilisers and pesticides, and saved seed doesn't come true to type, unlike the old fashioned open pollinated crops, so farmers in the poorest environments, where this stuff is most heavily pushed, have to buy new seed every year, and can't get ahead by saving their own seed as they have done for millenia.

I think one of the more obscene aspects is the big companies sueing adjoining farms where seed or pollen from their GE crops has blown onto someone else's land. This not only puts a huge extra burden onto farmers in surrounding areas, but if the farms nearby are organic, or in an area where 'clean and green' is a big selling point for produce (as it is around where I live), those businesses are destroyed. I'm not kidding, this happens. Cases from Canada and Australia have been in the news in recent years.

Sorry about the rant, but I get pretty angry at how much of this stuff is slipping under the radar.

[thorny]

I've been leaping at any opportunity to do sustainable gardening and absorb the knowledge of more experienced people. I know, I know, I'm a walking cliche, the Milennial who wants to work on an organic farm and save the world.

Sc0ut, I lose track of who's where in the world, so I don't know which organizations are active in your area; but, just in case you didn't know, pretty much every place has at least one group listing internships on organic farms. It's an excellent way both to learn more about the subject, and to find out whether one wants to do such work long term (though remember that different farms do things differently, so if you're not suited to a particular farm, it doesn't mean you're not suited to the work at all.)

I think you are right about the lobbying from big agricultural and chemical industries being a factor. They tend to push it as 'we need the chemicals, the genetic engineering, the central control etc etc to save the world and grow enough to feed everyone'. But we do that now, and more, if you look at the actual numbers, and consider how much subsidised crop is dumped every year to keep the prices up. Our major problem is one of distribution and access rather than production.

I think a lot of it is poor news reporting -- stories are often written by people who know little about the subject, and they take news releases put out by the people pushing this stuff and print them uncritically.

Some of the rest of it is probably due to the society's assumption that physical labor jobs are horrible (at least when done as a living -- the same work done as "recreation" or as "exercise" is often highly praised), and therefore recommending methods of farming that use more human labor and fewer human inputs makes sense. You hear fairly often that "modern" farming is "more efficient" -- but more efficient according to what criteria? The amount of food that can be produced by one farmer, the amount that can be produced with a given amount of outside inputs, and the amount that can be produced per acre, are three different criteria; and they're generally only considering the first. (Not to mention that the yield's often considered only in terms of tons/weight units produced per acre, and not in terms of nutrients.)