sk47
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Hello; In the Amazon basin there has been a slash and burn sort of farming going on for decades. Some background on the jungle ecosystems. Because of the warmth year-round and the rainfall there is not a growing season as in temperate zones. Things grow all year. Most of the nutrients are tied up in the living plants, animals and fungi. If a large tree dies it is broken down quickly compared to a temperate forest or plains ecosystem. The soil turns out to be thin of nutrients. A poor man with a family cuts and burns off a few acres to grow crops for subsistence living.Have you ever visited and dealt with third world country people on their level? I don’t think in any of your endeavors you had to. Literally live and deal with these folks daily for months and years on end. I can tell you this, from personal experience, no one is going to change the way destitute people think in places like the continent of Africa or countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and many other countries in South America. Their daily life consist of doing what ever they need to do in any way possible to put food on the table and feed their families. They don’t care about saving the world for anyone. They care about today and care less about tomorrow. No amount of education is going to change that because that’s the way it is.
What impact do you think you’re going to have in a country like Afghanistan with an illiteracy rate of 98%?
That’s a serious question. I want to know what you would do in a country like that.
The soil gives out in a few years and he has to slash and burn a new patch in five to ten years. Starts the process all over again. Thousands of such families have been at it for decades. As you say they are not able to think about noble causes. They struggle to live day to day.
A fellow I knew In Harlan County KY had experience running heavy machinery. He went to Brazil in the 1970's and helped build the initial trans Amazonian highway. Find some aerial photos of that in time lapse over the decades. Every few years more and more side roads have branched off the main road, then smaller roads branched off them.
Back in the 1970's and early 1980's I took some graduate level ecology classes and attended summer study programs. One thing learned is how roads, water lines and electricity open up formerly pristine rural areas to development. Roads are usually first and the least overall impactful by themselves. They do set the stage for development. Electricity, when it follows is usually the more impactful thing. With electricity and a road, we can set up homes, shops, motels and small shopping centers. Add a water line along the route and extensive development usually follows. Forget the thermology for this.
I made this point a few times already but sense that those who call and consider me a moron and or unable to understand things, do not respond. The human population is nearly three billion above what could be fed with pre- industrial types of agriculture. Not just the massive machinery, though that is needed, but also the fossil fuel natural gas. Artificial fertilizer is made from natural gas. Ammonium nitrate I believe. The soil cannot support the crops on its own. Lots of side effects of course as the application is a gross endeavor. So much runs off and winds up in rivers and lakes. I think the massive dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi River is due largely to this runoff. Of course, the massive earth churning farm machinery also adds soil erosion to the mix. A looming crisis far greater and peaking much sooner than climate change.
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