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Networking the Redwoods
linuxwrangler writes "SF Gate is reporting that ecology researchers are outfitting a grove of trees with tiny "micromote" sensors to monitor the light, humidity and other conditions as the trees grow. The sensors, running the open-source Tiny OS, form and maintain their own network. This test of the "Smart Dust" concept (mentioned on /. earlier) only uses 50 sensors but scientists hope to be able to deploy the sensors on a large scale to help figure out why California's Redwoods are dying off at an alarming rate."
to help figure out why California's Redwoods are dying off at an alarming rate.
Umm, last time I was in the area a few months ago, given the amount of pollution and traffic in the Bay area and north of the Bay area, I am not surprised the redwoods are dying off.
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You're right, it probably doesn't, considering they make up about 0.000001% of the population. It probably has more to do with everybody else driving their nearly as fuel-inefficient suvs and generally having way more power than they could possibly have a use for.
New trees might not grow without fire, but that shouldn't mean that old ones that should still be living for hundreds of years yet would be dying.
Ah yes, forestry by hearsay. Always a recipe for success. :)
I think the concern is more about the rate that mature trees are dying off than the rate replacements are germinating.
It doesn't fucking help that we chopped down a great deal of California's redwoods. Gee I wonder who's fault it is that they're disappearing, eh?
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
This isn't going to help us that much in figuring out why these redwoods are dying, because we have no climate conditions from when they weren't dying at an alarming rate to compare the current ones to. I'm not saying they won't be damned useful, but how about we sensor-network the things we would like to preserve before it's too late?
Do we even need to bother doing this research to know why they are dying?
They are dying for the same reason 90% of our large fish are gone, frogs have 7 hind legs, mussels are jamming our water pipes, forest fires are ravaging our towns, and we are running out of fresh water.
That reason is that we are too fucking stupid to do anything except what gratifies us the most. So fight cancer with your shark cartilage, infest us with foreign species, empty out those ballast tanks, fight those needed forest fires, and take those 20 minute showers, cause we both know you are not gonna change a fucking thing you do to save the planet from yourself.
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I'm not a forester either, so I don't know if it's really true, but I did grow up in Santa Cruz which is quite filled with redwoods. Besides being told repeatedly that fire is what opens the redwood's cones, and that the trees are quite fire resistant in general, I'm also told that the reason they only grow on the coast is that they need morning fog. Early in the mornings, the fog coming in is somehow channeled by the odd-shaped leaves (they are leaves, and not needles) and it falls on the forest floor as rain. This rounds out California's collection of biomes to include everything but tundra, because it's a rainforest. (There is more to the term, but redwood forests are rainforests.)
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Pure oxygen, particularly at pressure - is poisonous to humans. Only when it's diluted and at the relatively low pressure of our atmosphere does it become our life-blood.
This is sort of the same issue. Human pollutants may account for 3% of the CO2 and other pollutants [*] worldwide - but it's likely to have a *huge* local effect in the area that it's released before it disperses. Don't forget that California's economy (if ranked alongside other countries separate from the rest of the US) - would be the 5th largest in the world.
I've also not seen many thriving redwood forests remaining after active volcanos have errupted or forest fires passed through an area - probably the major causes of CO2 release. So if humans can look after those natural resources that are left - we should. Gone is forever. They won't come back once the area has been paved over.
[*] The emphasis should probably be on the "other pollutants" killing the plants - especially since plants feed on carbon dioxide and sunlight to photosynthesise - this is basic biology (although some plants don't do this). CO2 levels damage other factors of the climate (eg: weather) more than plants - but the deforestation problem only makes the CO2 problem worse.
Seriously, '90% of our large fish are gone'? If that's the case, then I have to assume we ate them, otherwise there would be a whole lot of stinking fish laying around. Do you cry when a shark eats a fish, or a killer whale eats a baby seal? 'But wait,' you say, 'those are part of a natural, balanced, eco-system.' What do you suppose we are? Animals? That's right. Did you know that over 90% of all species that have ever existed are extinct, due to 'natural' causes, before humans existed. Must have been those darn proto-human hominid thingies, huh.
And for your information, those mussels clogging our water pipes are there becasue they LIKE IT . Usually they hang out there because the heat makes them reproduce faster. You see, the survival drive is as fundamental to them as it is to us.
Lastly, don't assume that I'm completely against enviromentalism, or conservation. I'm against wacko-enviromentalists who twist data and make up facts to preach what usually boils down to communism or some other crazy scheme. Nobody really wants to destroy the environment. This isn't Captain Planet, where people want to destroy the Earth for the sake of being evil. I'll admit that often, while pursuing other goals, humanity has been irresponsible about pollution, but we all have to live here too. Tycoons don't want to drink dirty water anymore than you do, and most of them probably bathe in the same water that you do.
So, any non foaming-at-the-mouth comments?
> 'But wait,' you say, 'those are part of a natural, balanced, eco-system.' What do you suppose we are? Animals? That's right.
Humans are not part of one natural, balanced eco-system. We are the only species on Earth that can and has become a significant part of every eco-system. We are the only species that has ever changed the face of the earth so drastically in under 200 years. (meteors aren't species)
"Did you know that over 90% of all species that have ever existed are extinct, due to 'natural' causes, before humans existed."
Since humans have only been on earth for less than 1% of its 4.54 Billion years I would expect that that MUST be true. If we killed off every living thing on the planet leaving only people and machines your statement would still have to be true. 4.54 billion years is a long time. So now that we know it must be true, what does that have to do with anything? According to your logic since we're animals then if we blight the soil, pave the forests, pollute the air, and end up living shoulder-to-shoulder on a steady diet of soylent green, that too is then a natural process of animals. Yes it sure is, but certainly it's not the one we're shooting for.
"I'll admit that often, while pursuing other goals, humanity has been irresponsible about pollution, but we all have to live here too."
Capitalism by definition and in practice, is the pursuit of profit. There's your goal. Protecting our environment under a system that discourages it at every turn, (e.g. it cuts into short-term profits to do things in an ecologically conscience and sustainable way,) is extremely difficult. You don't need to be evil to consume a vastly disproportionate amount of resources compared to just about everything that came before you on this earth (Since you like that comparison). You just need to be born into the system. The very best you can do is try to fight it, e.g. bike to work along a busy road, eat vegetarian, turn off lights, etc.
And when we're extinct I'm sure a zenobiologist from Vogon 3 will come down some day and conclude that "due to the insurmountable drive built into the human animals by their own evolutionary process to consume and breed as successfully as possible, they quickly reached the same fate as many such species throughout the galaxy, they outgrew their planet before they could get off of it."
Conquering nature is, by definition, suicide.
P.S. - Yes, we ate them.
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