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I think the reality with forests is that how they behave in 'climax situations' is radically different to how they develop.

Permaculture guys have come to understand this through trying to 'reforest' barren areas which have very low rainfall. They have identified 'pioneer species' whose specialty is survival in times of limiting rainfall - their role is to create an initial ground cover which helps to preserve moisture which does fall and to access as much absorbed moisture as possible through their extensive root systems. They are also designed to grow better than other species when moisture is limiting.

Such trees can also be used to create mulch through 'chop n drop' systems, which again builds up the ground cover and leads to further soil creation.

Once such cover is established, then other species, ultimately more fruitful in climax forests, can start to be established. Needing more moisture and better soil to take root, they do however tend to have longer life spans, they more often provide food for humans and they can be the prerequisite to the forest floor developing with climbers, ground cover plants and smaller trees (which again may provide food).

The climax forests, particularly in the tropics, will transpire sufficient levels of moisture that the atmosphere's moisture levels will change radically. At the temperatures usually found in such regions, this can lead to cloud formation and ultimately stormy rainfall.

In a place like Russia, I'm sure the Taiga affects the weather, but probably not so radically as in the tropics.

However, one unique feature of forests is that they moderate the extremes of temperature, as compared to a desert.

You want to 'reduce global surface temperatures', the simplest, best bet long term is replanting trees in ways that Permaculture predicts will be successful and sustainable long term.

Whether billionaires demanding depopulation could consider such sanity is very much up for grabs.

if they can't monetise forest creation, it will be a threat to their very souls....

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Jul 20, 2023·edited Jul 20, 2023Author

The Miyawaki Method plants the pioneer species and all the layers of the climax forest together, somewhat more densly than one might usually do, keeps them watered for the first few years, and gets a "climax forest" much sooner, like 60 years(ish).

This is a TED Talk, so keep that in mind. It glosses over problems and seeks to mass produce a thing which is very specific to each planting environment and TLC for a decade.

https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-to-grow-a-forest-really-really-fast-d27df202ba09

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Modern civilization is generational robbery. Now that too has become bankrupt .. We are Net Zero Really in terms of remaining resources, ecosystems and habitat.

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Somebody robbed the future, which is now arriving.

Losses will need to be assigned.

;-(

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True sir, We collectively robbed the future of incoming generations.

The loss is planetary actually

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"We" did not necessarily do the robbing, but it has been done dishonestly, and there needs to be an honest and reasonable assignment of losses. Nobody should lose what it takes for them to simply live.

Some very large rent-extracting corporations provide the nexus of control, and are a good place to look first when assigning vast losses of notional-wealth.

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True that about "large rent-extracting corporations provide the nexus of control," Indeed is robbery which has ruined lives. However, what I meant was, that a species, we modern techno-industrial humans, have destroyed the planet, robbing all that was to be rob, squander, mined, pilfered and consumed, leaving not much for the incoming generations. Adios!

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I think a little over half is gone at this point.

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Jul 20, 2023·edited Jul 20, 2023Liked by John Day MD

Just because some fascists gutted capitalism, and wore its skin like a body suit, does not mean that these bankers are capitalists.

Banking requires just a few small fixes and it will self-correct. It has a better track record for wealth creation than any other system of resource allocation... better than all other systems combined.

Stuff is wealth. That doesn't make it fungible. When I saw the "Jewels of the Shah" museum exhibit in SF a few years back, I saw how a ruby encrusted dagger handle (we're talking 50 ctw of rubies) had one of the rubies missing. Why? 'Probably to pay someone' said the proctor. But why? India had more gold than the rest of the world combined. Because there is no lending market, just moneychangers. Factories, houses, and highrises need liquidity to be built, but what--the capital is just supposed to disappear? This is the problem with those who complain about financialization: asset creation is capital destruction in their world. It's all about mercantilism, which is really about starving your competitors of specie so their economies lock up from lack of trade, so you can go in there with a handful of silver and buy up everything. Just like Khodorkovsky did with Yukos. You aren't going to pay debt service on an apartment building by pulling out copper plumbing to pay the bank. And this is why financialization exists.

It's the same problem as estates. Are you saying that I can't will my assets to an heir? Ok, so if I can, then are you saying I can't set up a legal entity to manage my heir's stuff, until s/he is ready to inherit? Ok, so if I can do that, then I can set up a dynasty trust and control my estate's tax exposure. This is what the ultra rich do.

The problem is that non-sovereign countries are used as a fiction to allow for tax evasion by citizens of sovereign nations. Non-Sovereign countries are basically the same as Sovereign Countries For The Ultra Rich. That (edit: crushing non-sovereigns) solves most of the problems of financialization.

Keep up the good work!

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Jul 20, 2023·edited Jul 21, 2023Author

What is "owned property" and what is "debt servitude"?

They are not equivalent. Where are the lines?

Wealth exists within a societal context.

There has been an extreme swing of polarization in the world between those with the most wealth/power and those with the least.

This destabilizes society. Society really needs to stabilize and work cooperatively and constructively for the rest of this century as energy, resources and economy decline, and as the environment changes in ways that are not broadly agreed upon.

(Thanks for the "attaboy"!)

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Neo-Confucians wanted stability and all they got was stagnation that ended in conquest. Sometimes society needs to be destabilized.

The problem with 'debt servitude' is it's like pornography: I know it when I see it. Many financial assets frequently denounced are essential and simply not understood, because the instruments are so complex. But we can draw the line as a society. That is why I raise the concern that criminals should not be conflated with capitalism, any more than Stalin should be conflated with communism.

Some of the reallocation of power is just that smart people now get the resources that bullies and thugs used to get. The pie is bigger, even if the share a 'regular' person gets is smaller. You are a doctor. However much wealth you generate for yourself, you generate more value in the form of increasing 'human life value' than you receive in compensation. Yet there are haters who think doctors should get paid by some communist pay scale, because these haters don't understand that it's the health insurance companies, their shareholders, Federal & State Government, and of course subsidies to drug companies/medical device companies and the financial entities that finance them that are to blame for unreasonable hospital bills. My point is that the original sin here comes in the form of you being allowed to do what you want with your money. At a certain point, you might invest so well that you own way more than others. That is not destabilizing. It is the way pensions are supercharged with government money from government employee unions and their thirst for magic money that has created this financial strip-mining you see. Print too much money, be first to bid on assets, get rich and watch everyone else get poor. That's a government problem. More government (I'm not saying you advocate this) will only make things worse.

Space will provide all the resources we need. Just needs access to capital. But TPTB don't want a space future because they can't exert their will across multiple planets, much less solar systems.

As far as inequality is concerned, that will always exist. There will be those who work harder and smarter than others. Society benefits from their efforts more than they do. This is the genius of capitalism. It is the capture of society by an elite that seeks to commodify and financialize humans that poses the greatest moral/evolutionary risk imo. And that is the cool area in which people with different value sets agree. We all see the same danger, maybe like blind men feeling an elephant, but still, aware of danger.

Salute!

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Thanks Aaron. I actually left out about 84% of that Hudson/Desai transcript, but all of the details of rigging the imperial finance system they give are helpful the kind of fullness of picture you are alluding to. I like that Radhika Desai has the background of being Indian, so understanding the Sterling imperial system better than we do, and being able to relate/compare to the current $US system.

Salute!

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"Space will provide all the resources we need. Just needs access to capital. But TPTB don't want a space future because they can't exert their will across multiple planets, much less solar systems."

Space mining, Transition to Renewables, Financialization, Debt-based Economies?

Dr. Tim Morgan - Surplus Energy Economics

https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com

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Jul 21, 2023·edited Jul 21, 2023Author

Space does provide things, like gold, but you have to wait for it to fall down, then it's expensive enough to find it.

Taking big things to space in rockets uses a LOT of fossil fuels and mined-materials, and requires an advanced industrial economy, which may not persist as we have known it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhrQVuKoVh8

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permanence of inequality and violence -

That great ideas (or visions) that proffer to serve humanity, can also be captured and subverted, by the 1% (ruling order) and by the old structures of oppression which have held the majority of humans down, always at the receiving end for eons. In his book ‘The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality (2017)’ Walter Schiedel explains the paradox of our age, with humor. “In 2015, the richest 62 persons on the planet owned as much private wealth as the poorer 50% of humanity = more than 3.7 billion people. If they decided to go on a field trip together, they would comfortably fit into a large bus. The previous year, 85 billionaires were needed to clear that threshold, fitting into a double-decker bus. And not so long ago in 2010, no fewer 398 billionaires together would offset the assets of the global 50% - a billionaires gathering would have required a convoy of vehicles or a typical Airbus 320…” You get the point. Inequality and violence have always been inextricably linked, throughout the history of civilizations. Through the ages, of ancient religions, empires, colonialism, enlightenment, industrial revolution, democracy, science and the current Anthropocene.

The permanence of inequality and violence has also shaped many messianic visions, which rocked the world back then and as of now. However anthropocentric that we are, forces like planetary boundaries, biophysical limits, feedback loops, overshoot and collapse, together shapes our current reality as well as incoming future. Not deals, not visions, not slogans and hashtags, not magic technology or miraculous blueprints. Most definitely not by the billionaire class and the state.

“We are the champions my friend. And we will keep on fighting till the end…”

(Freddy Mercury, Queen) What a Shit Song!

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"Every great fortune is founded on a great crime."

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