I heard today that oak trees are dropping 60% less acorns in the North East, in some areas, none at all. Tough luck for squirrels, said the DJ. Now they’re saying that it’s just coincidence… that different species of oak have different cycles wherein they produce more or less in different years, and that this is nothing out of the ordinary, though it’s a phenomena that’s been documented from Nova Scotia all the way down to Virginia.
It’s been a weird year…. I’ve seen so many dead animals by the side of the road, late into the year. Usually it’s a spring thing to see so many animals dead because they’re hungry from the long winter or they’re looking for a mate. This year, I’m still seeing “fresh” carcasses by the side of the road. Squirrels mostly, but also deer and it’s pretty late in the season for deer to be showing up by the side of the road. I suppose the dead animals are the lucky ones. They won’t starve this year from lack of acorns.
I love how they always try to downplay any odd thing that occurs in nature. It’s not abnormal, it’s cyclic… but if it wasn’t abnormal and was clearly cyclic, why would this be the first time that it’s caused a raised eyebrow? Are we just more aware of how we’ve trashed our environment and so this event makes the “experts” aware enough of public concern to head off any doomsday sentiment at the pass?
No, but seriously… doesn’t the fact that they’re trying to write this off as a cyclic coincidence that’s never happened before strike any one else as too pat an explanation? I’d be the first to admit that I am a paranoid sort of person, but I’ve got good reason not to trust an explanation that came before we even knew there was an issue. Seems like they waited to inform people of the oak tree issue until they had a pat answer. Seems like that to me any way. Global warming? Pollution? A new tree disease? They seem like much more reasonable explanations that a random cyclic syncing of acorn output. Maybe the fay are angry and told the trees to keep their nuts to themselves. Maybe Thor or Zeus are mad (both are gods of oak trees)… everyone keep an eye on the sky for lightning….
All this got me to thinking… one of the reasons deserts spread is due to human intervention. In western America, we uncovered an ancient desert under farmland in what has popularly been called the “dust bowl.” Changes in the topography cause changes in weather patterns. A desert dries the air above it and reduces rainfall in surrounding areas. The desert spreads.
It got me to thinking of Terra-forming. Certain plants catch the earth and hold it from erosion. That’s what happened in the dust bowl. Years of irresponsible and uneducated farming on land that couldn’t support the type of farming that was being done caused the topsoil to be blown away by high winds and uncovered the desert beneath. So what if we reintroduced heat loving ground cover at the edges of the desert and progressed inwards, moving from light ground cover to heavier as we progressed. The ground cover would reduce erosion and increase water retention making it easier for less hardy plants to gain a foot hold. Eventually, we might restore the land to what it was before it was blown away.
I know this doesn’t have anything to do with acorns, but I think we as a species really do need to take more responsibility for the changes we cause to the surface of our planet. We are only caretakers for the next generation and how we treat the world pretty much dictates whether there will be a next generation or not. There are changes to be made, not just in how we handle our waste products (pollution, excrement, etc) but in how we reverse damage that our forefathers caused. We can’t just sit around and say it wasn’t our fault because we weren’t there. It is our fault if we consider them of our people, even if they were not of our generation. Don’t you agree?
I don’t think the lack of acorns is natural. I don’t think it was cyclic. I think it was us, if not directly, then indirectly through a variety of issues that lead back to us. The longer we “let things go” the more serious these interruptions in the natural order will become. But something to keep in mind… when you break the food chain, it’s broken. It may become so broken that the environment will no longer sustain us, even if our population is reduced intentionally or by happenstance.
Hey…. pass me some of that Soylent Green….
December 4th
St. Barbara, identified with Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom and the arts, was honored today. She is also patroness of California.
Comments (12)
I do agree. But when you study history, you tend to get pretty cynical about humankind’s tendency to act responsibly when it comes to the environment. I once had an anthropology professor tell me that all archaeologists are pessimists because everything they study has destroyed itself; and in some ways, he had a point. I mean, look at the Middle East–it used to literally be the Garden of Eden. Hmmm, I wonder what happened there? Civilization, that’s what happened.
The only thing that’s saved humankind from being killed by its own stupidity so far is that we’ve been able to move on to new places, ones that haven’t been desecrated by our presence and total disregard for the environment we live off of. But today, with the population growing, that’s not really much of an option anymore, unless people want to move to Antartica. I would like to believe we’d become more responsible as a result, but based on what I’ve observed so far, I think it’s more likely we’ll either run ourselves into the ground or find a way to move to another planet and fuck that one up, as well.
“I think we as a species really do need to take more responsibility for the changes we cause to the surface of our planet. We are only caretakers for the next generation and how we treat the world pretty much dictates whether there will be a next generation or not.”
Precisely. Buuuuut, I do still have faith in Earth herself, I think she’s so strong, and I think she will make it through, it would just be nice if she doesn’t have to rebuild herself from scratch in order to do it. Would also be nice if our species could stick around. I know I’d appreciate it
Coincidence actually plays a huge part in nature, because it happens so friggin’ often–heck, look at the odds of every single thing that could possibly happen at any time, and it’s no wonder. The article you linked to was desperately short of actual facts, so I can’t really respond to your views either way.
If it’s any comfort, here in the South there were many MORE acorns than usual. I mean, WAY the heck more. And hickories. But fewer squirrels. I hypothesize that the bumper crop of nuts was due to the fact that this year we got a lot of rain and the previous year was a very bad drought year, and maybe the squirrels declined as a result of the drought. But I’m not an ecologist, with solid data from controlled observation; so I couldn’t say.
@heidenkind - I can see his point too. And I’ve read that one of the reasons the ancient cities of the Middle East went to dust is that they mowed down the ancient forests of the region to plant farms and olive groves. There was no more ground cover to keep the moisture in and thus a desert was created.
I do hope that some day humanity is advanced enough to reach the stars. Then all the idiots will leave and the rest of us can get back to cleaning up this fouled nest we call Earth. On the other hand, have you ever seen Independence Day? Those aliens had the exact outlook we have now, and if our species goes into space with that outlook intact, we will become like locusts, devouring the worlds as we discover them. Eventually, even if we who remain restored the Earth, we’d have to worry about those who left coming back to harvest the fruits of our labor.
@Jemstone05 - Oh I have plenty of faith in the earth. Have you ever read the World Without Us? Excellent book. The world doesn’t need us, but we need it. If we push it too far out of whack, I have no doubt it will continue. Us? Not so much. But then, I have no faith in my own species.
@le_vegetalien_timide - One of the theories about why there were no acorns this year was the rain. They said it may have washed away the pollen. It seems like they have all kinds of theories, but no plausible explanation. Maybe I’m jsut paranoid after finally seeing The Happening, but it’s just too strange and most people aren’t even aware of it. But here is a better article I found…
From what I know about biology/ecology, and from what that article implied, answers don’t come overnight. It sometimes takes many years of observation to notice cycles, abnormalities; and even then the data aren’t always clear. However, my feeling is that it will take a lot more than one bad year in the northeast to show that humans are somehow responsible for the diminishing health and disappearance of deciduous trees (which may not, in fact probably is not, even happening).
Even so, life on earth has survived much worse than we are exerting on it now. Sure, we may be responsible for our own extinction, and for the extinction of many other species – in fact, I doubt very much we will last much longer on this earth – but I think that if life still clung on and multiplied and became what it is now after such cataclysmic events as the Permian-Triassic extinction, which killed almost 95% of life on Earth, it will survive for some time yet, and certainly outlive our own species.
@le_vegetalien_timide - I totally agree with you, but it’s not like I want my species to go extinct, especially not from our own stupidity. I mean, there are some of us I think are deserving of being here. lol On the one hand, if it’s our own fault then we deserve what we get. Even if we (you and I) are not directly responsible for the extinction of our species and others, we’re indirectly responsible because we know what’s going on (pollution, industrial waste, overconsumption of resources, etc) and do nothing to stop it. If we go extinct, we deserve it. On the other hand, it would be more comforting to me if we went extinct for some reason not or fault. I like to think I came into this world and will leave it the same or better when I die. If my actions contribute to the destruction of my own and other species, then I haven’t got much to brag about in the afterlife.
The squirrels around here on campus are lucky because people feed them. I had heard/read that story about the acorns, and meant to ask our grounds guy if he noticed any difference.
Ugh, we really have a tendency to do a number on the earth!
We have very few, if any, acorns this year. It is disheartening for the squirrels and the deer. My ma-in-law says that it does occur every so often and she’s lived here for over 20 years. Fortunately for the wildlife, we have plenty of pine nuts laying around for them to munch on.
Don’t eat that! It’s peeeooopppllleee! And, you don’t know where they’ve been.
@Broom_Service - lol, don’t worry. I only eat soylent green made out of vegetarians.
I just think it’s curious that the trees are mainly confined to a specific geographical area. If it was just one type of oak or oaks along a specific longitude, maybe. But these trees are all in the Northeast. Why? Did they see The Happening too and thought pollen induced suicide was too extreme but still wanted to show solidarity by protesting? Next they’re going to learn how to release their nuts as people are walking beneath them so as to rain down woodsy inconvenience from above. It’s just strange. People need to pay more attention to the world. This is one of the ways the gods used to send us messages.
@harmony0stars - On this, I think I whole-heartedly agree. As a species with intelligence and some kind of sense of our own place in the world, it would be immensely sad if we didn’t use that to our advantage to try and survive, live the best lives we can, and treat the earth as best we know how. Of course it is impossible to be alive on this planet without having some blood on our hands – but we should be aware of it, and at least try our best.
@harmony0stars - I’m going to have to watch The Happening now. I agree that people need to pay more attention. Sadly, there are too many who feel it’s their right to do as they please with the Earth. Have you ever checked what your footprint is on the planet? I like that site except they still don’t take certain things into consideration when they are calculating the results. It’s still cool to check and see what your mark on the planet is.