Environmental Sustainability - It Hurts to Act Slowly Quickly

(The red 1960 MGA was mine: beautiful car, horrible dependability.)

Larry Neal Gowdy

A man of words and not of deeds
is like a garden full of weeds.
-English proverb

In an environmental slant the proverb might read:
A man of endless words and aimless deeds
reduces the magnificence of forests to that of polluted weeds.

Currently there is much activity by local government employees towards 'fixing' environmental problems. In a river region of central USA non-Native humans arrived in the late 1800s, cut down almost all of the native trees for fencing and firewood, and then with the idea to 'fix' the problem of erosion due to almost no trees remaining, non-Native humans imported non-Native salt cedar brush from China. The salt cedar partially helped slow some of the erosion, but within the brush were venomous foot-long black Chinese centipedes that now plague the region. Adding to the problems, dams were built upstream so as to help provide water supplies to another booming human population 200 miles away. For over 20 years the river region has now had very little water allowed to flow from the dams, which has resulted in the thirsty salt cedar brush consuming much of what little water might have otherwise been available for new tree growth. With the dams preventing surface water from flowing, killing many more trees due to lack of water, and the trees not providing a natural moistening of the top soil through condensation, rainfall has now greatly diminished in the region and a harsh drought has gone unabated for over seven years. Adding in another problem of salt leeching into the river basin due to erosion and lack of quantities of fresh water, the region's soil surface is now often visibly white with deposits. Due to the high salt content, the more moisture a tree drinks, the faster the tree dies.

Every fix only makes matters worse.

Without trees, few birds can find a safe height to build nests. Attempting to build nests in the salt cedar brush results in reptiles and rodents eating the eggs. Without the trees, there are now few birds, and without a sufficient number of birds there is now a strong infestation of insects, and without a sufficient quantity of moisture for the existing insect-eating birds and dragon flies, there is now a severe problem with flesh-eating insects biting all animals (including humans) for survival.

Though the land has a good location, has good scenery, and once was a comfortably inhabitable region capable of growing crops and providing entertainment to countless previous generations of Native humans, many parts of the region are now unhealthy, intolerable, and generally uninhabitable due to the insects, heat, cold, and lack of water. All of the problems are non-Native man-made, and no quick fix can remedy any of the problems. At this point not even replanting the millions of cedar and cotton wood trees that were cut down will help unless all human fixes are also dismantled, including the dams, and there is a sufficient quantity of time allowed for Nature to heal itself.

The idea of removing all man-made obstacles, replanting trees, and then waiting fifty to a hundred years, sounds slow and incomprehensible to the common thought process that is too anxious to give knee-jerk reactions rather than diagnose the real problems, but there is no other solution.

Humans destroyed approximately 600 square miles of wonderfully inhabitable resource-rich land to provide heating fuel and water for about 40 square miles of otherwise uninhabitable land. Validating the stupidity of the non-Native humans' actions, the 40 square mile region is currently once again experiencing serious water shortages. Now both the 600 and the 40 may die because humans could only see fixes, never a cure, and never a logic. Countless other regions of the world have been laid waste with the similar senselessness of feeding a cancer while allowing the living host organism to die.

Local government employees recently released 'salt cedar eating beetles' into the region with the idea that somehow the beetles will fix the salt cedar problems. The new problems caused by the introduction of yet another non-Native specie into an environment where it does not belong will not be known for a few years, but it is a safe bet the problem will be as equally invasive as all the other fixes.

Whatsoever invasive humanity touches, dies. Thousands of years have passed, humanity's cleverness continues invading and destroying the very foundations of life itself, and no quantity of quick fixes will solve any problem. It is faster to invest fifty to one hundred years into correctly remedying a problem than to continue throwing quick fixes for another 100,000 years without a cure.

With tremendous pleas for all creatures, living and yet to live, please stop fixing the environment.

Update for March 22, 2013 — the new prodigies book's information is based on SesquIQ's SQ project, and since the book details some of the features within the SQ classifications of cognition then the previous SQ tests have now been halted and no scoring will be given except for the new SQ tests.

Update 04-08-2005

The National Park Service is currently burning a proposed 12,000 acres of land along the river bottom as a reported measure to control salt cedar brush (too early in the season, after a heavy rain, during a wetter than normal season, and in winds of 25 to 31 mph). All individuals experienced with salt cedar know that it vigorously grows back after a fire. Documented studies in New Mexico specifically state that fire will do little damage to salt cedar unless the fires are during hot dry seasons with little moisture and minimal wind. The government employees are either too inexperienced and incompetent to know better, or else the fires are directed towards killing nested 'salt cedar eating' beetles.

The temporary fix will predominately only hurt native plants, native animals, native soil, native water, and native air.

Update 10-03-2006

Another knee-jerk reaction, now approved by the USA Congress by a vote of 84-19, is to build a Berlin Wall type of fencing along much of the USA/Mexico border. The Great Wall will not stop illegal immigration, but it will destroy the habitats of many animals, some of which are already on protected lists. Humans made a mistake, and now all life must suffer for the humans' mistakes because the humans are not competent enough to recognize the mistakes nor how to correct the mistakes.

The temporary fix will predominately only hurt native plants, native animals, native soil, native water, and native air.

Update 02-20-2007

The Osborne Reef Waste Tire Removal Pilot Project article (no longer an active link) is but one of the countless examples of profound ignorance perpetrated by 'experts'. The Tire Reef Off Florida Proves to Be a Disaster article (also no longer an active link) provides additional information. "No one can say with certainty why the idea doesn't work ... Some scientists also believe the rubber leeches toxins." How is it possible for anyone with healthy senses to not know that tires are toxic? The only thing dumber than believing that old tires are good for the environment would be to cut down the oldest living tree on earth to measure its rings.... oh wait, that's already been done.

Update 06-06-2008

As a boy in 1967, two friends and I walked home from the Tri-State Fair. Approximately six of the ten mile walk was in the west-bound lane of the unfinished Interstate 40 highway. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) participated in the construction of Interstate 40 that now crosses through Amarillo east to west, and Interstate 27 that runs north to south. The highways cut through neighborhoods that had thousands of mature elms and other types of trees. Almost forty years later, TxDOT and city employees planted approximately one-hundred young trees along the Interstates near the center of town, and TxDOT then announced that it was behaving with the environment in mind. Forty years of lost benefit from thousands of mature-sized trees can never be replaced by a score of little trees.

In 2004 TxDOT made plans to destroy trees along rural panhandle highways with the excuse that fewer fatalities would occur if no trees were present for drunk and sleepy drivers to run into. The Texas panhandle is relatively flat, mostly populated with farms and ranches, and very few trees exist near rural highways. It is common to drive twenty miles or more without seeing any tree near a highway. The trees are often home to birds, some of which were protected species. TxDot received a negative public response, but TxDOT still destroyed every tree it wanted. "If it saves only one life" is the typical phrase used by liars who know that their actions will cause far more harm than good. The general mindset of government is that if a thing cannot be controlled, then tax it. If the thing cannot be taxed, then ban it. If it cannot be banned, then destroy it. Free-growing trees cannot be controlled, nor taxed, and the only option left to government employees was to destroy the trees.

If it was so important to cut down the trees along the rural highways, then why are trees now being planted along the sides of urban highways? What happened to the "if it saves only one life" excuse?

TxDot and other government agencies continue destroying the environment, and as long as the current government is in power, there is nothing that anyone can do to stop the destruction. Regardless of what government agencies might claim, they may not be here to help you.

Update 07-07-2019

The photo at the top was taken during an era when many young people openly voiced the need to replant new trees. From the 60s to today, over 50 years have passed, and — with the exception of South Korea having reforested about 11-billion trees — nothing notable has been done by governments, organizations, nor by the general public.

Today's March For Science protests are similar to the marches of the 60s... both wanted someone else to fix the problems, but neither would lift their own finger to do anything. The world's pollution has grown intensively worse, the social paranoia of 'climate change' has been fanned by organizations wanting more donations, and still the public itself has done nothing notable. It would be easy to rant for days about the donation-begging false doomsday prophets, but words and reasoning never have and never will be useful for changing the public's self-destructive behaviors.

An ideological intervention might appear to be plausible...

Thou shalt plant and nurture one-hundred new trees each year of thine life.

Junzi, him ten-thousand tree person-ist.

Tao person-ist, him give birth ten-thousand trees.

The problem with ideologies, however, is that almost no one actually follows the ideologies' teachings. Unless an ideology is enforced by the government, the public will not do anything unless there is a promise of financial profit.

Self-thinking, and self-participation, both necessary, but neither done at a social level (again South Korea might be the sole exception).

Environmental sustainability is a nice fantasy, that, except perhaps for South Korea, will never come true, because, almost no one on earth will willingly lift their own finger to plant trees.

The Mixteca region of Mexico, about 1 million trees reforested... Gaviotas, Columbia, about 20,000 acres reforested... Kenya, about 51 million trees...Tanzania, about 6.4 million new trees... Appalachian region on the USA, replanting of about 60 million trees... South Korea, about 11 billion new trees... the numbers illustrate who is serious (South Korea) and who is merely pretending to care (getting paid to plant trees). If Americans cared about the environment, then we ought to have no less that around 4-billion new trees planted each year in the USA. As Fermi allegedly asked about space aliens: "Where is everybody?"

Environmental sustainability requires thought, requires active thinking, and requires firsthand participation... the very things that the general public does not possess the potential to do. Known 'environmental' organizations only exist to collect money from donations, and if it were not for the money-making schemes, then neither the organizations nor their employees would care about planting trees.

Of the common philosophies of Tao, none give importance towards caring for other people, nor caring for anything beyond one's self. All known ideologies and philosophies are similar: no one cares. To not care to have air to breathe and water to drink, it proves beyond all reasonable doubt that the normal human animal is extraordinarily stupid.

In the 60s it was relatively common to hear tree-huggers and many other individuals openly speak of the need to plant trees. Over fifty years have passed, and still there is no public interest in planting trees... the public does not care. The public cries, whines, whimpers, and participates in March for Science protests while expecting governments to pass laws that can somehow magically-supernaturally 'stop global warming', but only an infinitesimally tiny percentage of the public will lift their own finger to do anything.

Eleven years, one month, one day since the last update (numerologists find interest in things like 11-1-1) I accidentally saw a news picture of trees, which caught my attention, and the picture's title of "One-trillion Trees" caught my interest. My first knee-jerk reaction was to invent an imaginary belief that the news article must be about some organization that planned to plant a trillion trees, which would be an astonishingly wonderful thing for an organization to do, but as quickly, logic jumped in and invented the history-based probability that the trees, if indeed planted, would be planted in regions of the world where the trees would have no useful effect, plus the trees requiring continuous watering, planting, and other labor-intensive participation that would burn thousands of times more carbon-based energy than what the trees would be able to absorb.

Ignoring the news article itself, I went straight to the organization's website that was, allegedly, going to plant the trillion trees. As usual, the fake news was, fake... the organization (WWF) has no plans to plant a trillion trees.

WWF (World Wildlife Fund) is a government-endorsed 501(c)(3) charitable organization whose sole existence is for its administers to make money (for their own pockets of course). WWF claims that it does many things... protecting wildlife, protecting oceans, protecting forests, protecting fresh water supplies, and increasing food availability. WWF reports itself as having existed for about 60 years, and its administrators have been paid large salaries for 60 years, but wildlife species continue to go extinct, oceans are insanely more polluted than 60 years ago, forests continue to be depleted of trees, most all fresh water supplies have been polluted (by science of course), and non-polluted food is so scarce that most people in large cities may now live their whole lives without ever eating a non-contaminated food.

On my rural land, we threw unfit vegetables into the compost pile to later be mixed with soil. Entering a city grocery store, the food offered for sale to customers was seen to have been of lower quality than what I used to throw away as garbage. Humans are eating garbage, and do not know it. Where is WWF's betterment of food availability? Larger quantities of chewable garbage is not a betterment of anything except prolonged human suffering.

Feeding upon the recent and on-going public hysteria over global warming, WWF's donation drives are now claiming to be focused on bettering the global climate through goals like more trees and by using renewable energy. But is that not so very similar as what all false prophets have claimed? False prophets claimed that the world would end thousands of years ago, also claimed the world would end in the 1800s, in the 1940s, in the 1960s, and most every year since, and the false prophets still say the world is about to end, all while the false prophets beg for more donations.

If the WWF is concerned about the planet and life itself, then where was WWF during the public hysteria over the 'new ice age' of global cooling in the 70s? Yes it was fake news, not sizably different than today's fake news, fake doomsday prophets, and all the other fake 'experts' grubbing for donations while feeding on the public's paranoia.

If, in 60 years, the government-endorsed for-profit WWF has failed to help the planet, then why would anyone be so gullible as to believe that the WWF's new claim of 'one-trillion trees by the year 2050' could possibly be truthful? Similar is the way of false prophets... to claim that the world will end several years into the future, far enough that the false prophets can receive many donations of money, but when the prophesied year arrives, the false prophets pretend that the year was either not actually claimed, or else say that the date was a mistake, and that the right date is another several years away... the false prophets have perpetual monetary donations, and the public never wises-up.

Today the false prophets are many... the false prophets being employed in governments, universities, ideologies, science institutions, and others, the false prophets claiming the end of the world within the next twenty to fifty years unless new magical-supernatural laws are passed. No known individual within the gaggle of 'prophets' has yet said a word about the need of people to participate in their own lives.

According to the WWF's own statements, the 'one-trillion trees' goal actually means 'one-trillion trees protected and prevented from being cut-down, including a relatively few newly planted trees'. Or, in other words, WWF will continue begging for donations for another 31 years while prophetically promising that its 'one-trillion tree' goal will somehow come true, somehow better Earth, and somehow save humanity.

Where was WWF when TxDOT was cutting down trees and destroying the habitats of protected species'?

If global warming is true, then it is assured that neither WWF nor any other organization will do anything but to claim 'the end is near' while begging for donations to pay their administrators' salaries.

Alternative and renewable energy sources have been widely available for over 30 years. How many people are now fully self-sufficient of energy? Seriously, how many people have chosen to use alternative energy sources for 90-100% of the people's own energy consumption? The answer, is, of course, almost none. The public does not care about alternative energy (nor so much as know what 'alternative energy sources' are, nor know how the devices work), the public only wants someone else to shoulder the problems that were created by the uncaring public.

But the evils of government-endorsed for-profit 'non-profit' charities are only able to exist because of the public being gullible and slow enough of mind to believe in the organizations' 'end of the world' claims. If the public were to wise-up, the fraudulent organizations would quickly disappear because the organizations' administrators would not use their own money to plant trees and help wildlife. Any individual who will not devote their own life — without pay — into the same ideals as what the individuals claim for their 'non-profit' organization, is a liar and a fraud.

On the other end of the scale, some individuals have indeed exerted effort to plant new trees. One individual, a large land owner in the Texas panhandle, the CEO of a very well-known oil company, his name also being well-known throughout the country, and a customer of my own, he has been reported to have recently paid to have about 25,000 trees planted on one area of one of his properties. The man's speech and mannerisms are of a high level of intelligence, and of a focused conscious awareness that is very rare today.

Why are the CEOs and administrators of other companies not doing similar? Why is Google® doing nothing? Why is Microsoft® doing nothing? Why is Apple® doing nothing? Why is Facebook® doing nothing? Why are politicians doing nothing? Why are governments doing nothing? Why are you doing nothing?

If the public's outcry about climate change were sincere, then we would be seeing millions of new trees each year in all cities throughout the world... where are they? We see none.

Why are mathematicians doing nothing? Cannot mathematicians count? Cannot a mathematician count the number of trees destroyed to build and power each mathematician's house, and then replant a similar number of trees? No, mathematicians cannot count... mathematicians do not count towards the betterment of Earth.

Care about other people... such a simple little statement... also so simple to do, but, almost no one on Earth is able to do it. All ideological philosophies preach selfishness, self-gain, self-profit, self-rewards, self-glory, and magical supernatural powers, but no known ideology preaches to care about other people.

If the claimed 'end of life on Earth because of climate change' is true, then all ideologies are false because all ideologies taught the wrong teachings.

According to a 2010 USDA moratorium, the salt cedar eating beetle is now known to destroy some birds' habitats (no duh, I wrote about it in 2005... all healthy minds can reason similarly), resulting in fewer insect-eating birds (again no duh). New Mexico is said to have spent around $100-million to buy-up agricultural water rights, concerns of soil erosion are back due to some salt cedar bushes dying, the rise of salt in fresh water due to salt cedar continues, and the government 'experts' solved absolutely nothing whatsoever with their 'science', but made all things worse. Thank you 'experts'!

Around my city house, on a tiny lot of about 50'x100', I have about fifty trees growing that shade the house and lawn (all grown from seed except one). During summers the yard is about 15 degrees cooler than outside of the lot. The trees also reduce the energy requirements to cool the house. Save 10-30% energy consumption, plus cut 15 degrees off the ambient temperature. Imagine if everyone Earth did something... but that is the key word, 'imagine', because there is absolutely no possibility that humans would exert the effort to stick a tiny seed into the ground for the purpose of saving the planet.

Environmental sustainability at a global, or even at a city level, is an imaginative fantasy that cannot and will not happen. Once humans begin hoarding, they cannot stop. Hoarding is a mental disease, but how many humans are able to stop increasing their use of microwave? Able to stop increasing the use of insecticides? Able to stop believing that they can be saved by the same science that has caused all global problems?

If everyone on earth were to plant only one-hundred new trees, that would be about 700-billion new trees. Repeating the planting once every two years, would have around 10.5-trillion new trees before WWF could 'save' only one-trillion. If so many people sincerely do believe in global warming, then why are the people not doing anything themselves? The believers whine and complain about the deforestation of the Amazon jungle, but the same people never say anything about how their own cities and homes deforested the land that they sit on. Are the people liars, hypocrites, or just stupid? All three?

Yes, there is no question that humans will kill most all life on the planet, it is pretty much unavoidable. How long will it take? Depends... thousands of years ago old men said that the world would not last beyond a few generations, but the world did last, while the men's world did die. The world, as it is known today, will no longer exist within several generations, and in its place will exist another world of further-devolved man, suffering a much harsher life while believing that their world is as good as what had ever existed on the planet.

Might an ideological intervention be plausible?

Thou shalt plant and nurture one-hundred new trees each year of thine life.

Junzi, him ten-thousand tree person-ist.

Tao person-ist, him give birth ten-thousand trees.

Update 02-26-2021

While updating files on the private network, I ran across different versions of this article in the backup directories. The following includes a portion of one version's update, plus a few words relative to the current date.

The tao philosophers are little different than any other philosophers of any other ideology... the philosophers only want self-gain, while not caring about other people. The tao philosophers' ideology is false, as are all ideologies false if they do not emphasize caring about other people. Destroying the planet while torturing and killing countless living beings, the behavior possesses no value whatsoever, and cannot in any rational measure be interpreted as being 'enlightened'.

君子萬木者...小人不憂者

'Superior man, ten-thousand tree person-ist... tiny people, not care person-ist'.

Imagine... paradise planet for all life.

Voicing one's concerns about the environment is a known waste of time. For hundreds of years, many individuals have spoken about the need to care about the environment, but seven concerned individuals cannot prevent the damage caused by seven-billion uncaring individuals. Nevertheless, the concerned individuals will continue to speak-out if for no other reason than to appease their sense of need to at least attempt to achieve the impossible.

Bluntly, the normal human being is not mentally capable of reasoning. Dogs cannot build their own dog houses, nor make their own clothes, nor keep their areas clean. The normal human cannot build their own houses (skilled carpenters have to hired), nor make their own clothes (skilled seamstresses have to be hired), nor keep their areas clean. The normal human is no smarter than a common dog. Dogs cannot be expected to protect the environment, nor can humans be expected to protect the environment. The environment will continue to be destroyed until the humans finish destroying themselves.

Spiders can build strong webs, bees and wasps can build strong nests, and birds can build strong nests. The normal human intelligence is lower than that of a spider's, bee's, wasp's, and bird's. If a person disagrees, then, let's see how many trees the person has personally planted. Let's count the numbers. How many have you planted? Zero? The number is the score of one's intelligence. If an individual does not like being told that they are dumber than a bug, then the individual has the choice to clean and protect the environment under their own feet, or else prove that they are indeed dumber than an insect. We already know which choice that over 99% of the human population will choose.

And some people still believe that intelligent space aliens want to come meet the 'superior specie' named "man" whose functional intelligence is less than that of a bug's.

Update 05-06-2021

While preparing this page for upload, I wanted to add a little note. On my rural properties I never used any forms of insecticides, herbicides, nor any other 'science-made' toxins. On one property I pruned-back a six-foot wide opening in-between a dense row of shrubs, enabling spiders to thickly weave six-foot wide webs. Within a couple months the spider webs had very noticeably reduced the quantity of flying insects, especially the annoying gnats and blue flies. Generally, the one one-hundred foot-long strip of spider webs had reduced the flying insect population about 80% within a thousand-foot radius. It is estimated that if the full forty acres had rows of shrubs every one-hundred yards or so, then there would be almost no gnats, blue flies, nor other flying insects that harm vegetables and people.

It took less than half an hour a year to prune the shrubs back to the six-foot spacing, and a full forty acres might require two or three days a year to prune, but no other maintenance was required. Normal people spend more time than that spraying toxic chemicals on their land, plus spend more time working a job to earn enough money to pay for the toxic chemicals, and continue doing so several times a year. The toxic chemicals go into the soil, pollute the soil, pollute the water table, pollute the vegetables, and then pollute the eater. Spider webs have no toxic pollution. Nature is smarter, cleaner, and more efficient than what science will ever be able to achieve.

There are many ways to be smarter than a bug, but, it does require self-thinking and self-participation in one's own life.