[Ibon]

Human landscapes are fixed entities. Today there is a massive physical infrastructure that supports humanity covering more than 50% of the terrestrial land on the planet and increasingly exploiting marine environments. Cities, agricultural lands, mining, roads, etc . For all other life forms (maybe bees, termites and beavers as exceptions) home is the very habitat they live in. Home for humans is the landscape they create and this has been true for the majority of our species history. Initially the human landscape was the tribal village, outside of which was the natural habitat we moved in to extract resources. Starting some 10,000 years ago we increased our footprint with agriculture and we all know more or less the history since then.
Tribal arrangements in the past would locally over exploit their habitats and move to new areas. Many tribal cultures persisted for hundreds of thousands of years in a rotating equilibrium staying within carrying capacity by allowing over exploited areas time to regenerate. Modern human overshoot has pretty much used up all available habitats and like a huge straw we are sucking out resources in a one way direction not allowing any regenerative processes to occur. Aquifers that took hundreds of thousands of years to form are being exploited and not regenerated. Fossil fuel exploitation has reached volumes that it has affected the regenerative ability of our biosphere to sequester carbon fast enough to maintain stasis. Fossil fuels have also been the primary energy source allowing the build out of the current infrastructure which is highly dependent on these fuels for its maintenance. Fuels that are nonrenewable and approaching their peak of exploitation. Biodiversity is being lost with permanent extinctions as we do not allow enough conservation of forests, wetlands and marine fisheries in order to regenerate. That is really the definition of overshoot when you degrade your resource base down to a minimum beyond which it can regenerate with a population bloom that only is then corrected with a crash. In the case of industrial civilization it is population boom plus consumption boom. Add to this that technology allowed us to overcome our predators, germs and famine for the past two hundred years through germ theory and sanitation, antibiotics etc. Nature does not tolerate a one way linear exponential growth for long without corrections. Ours has lasted more than 200years.

Human landscapes are made up of our species plus our domesticated crops and livestock. This “habitat” is made up of very few players, about a hundred species at best. In addition, the genetic diversity within these domesticated crops and livestock has been reduced as we have applied selective breeding and recently GMO techniques to maximize yields. These techniques have greatly increased yield but at a huge cost in vulnerability to the resiliency of these modified crops. You only have these phenomenal yields of corn and soy or beef and milk or chicken because of the codependency these crops and animals have with specific chemical inputs and specific industrial methods. Left alone these crops and livestock would die off in less than two generations, taken over by pioneer species in nearby fields (keep this point in mind).
Like their modified domestic crops and animals humans are equally codependent on the technology that supports industrial civilization. Not only are we dependent on the low resiliency crops mentioned above but also on the very technology that has built our modern civilization. There is very little redundancies in modern civilization in terms of scalable alternatives to the food we eat, the energy we consume and the resources we exploit. Rare earth elements, water, soil, fossil fuels, copper, helium, you name it , we are at critical thresholds.

Due to our dependency on a very limited number of primary resources that lack redundancies and alternatives our species is highly vulnerable to disruptions especially as we approach the bottom of the barrel on many resource fronts. It is well known that there are higher inputs of energy required to extract resources in severe depletion and this applies to all resources not just oil. It is also well known that there are higher maintenance costs as a civilization ages. The very physical infrastructure of human landscapes have no alternative places to move or go in the event of external vulnerabilities. Rising sea levels as an example effecting coastal areas where by the way the majority of humanity lives.
The above is a summary of humanity’s current habitat and its inherent vulnerabilities. Now let’s contrast this with native intact ecosystems.

Unlike human landscapes there are no clear boundaries in native ecosystems. Edge habitats between field and forest, desert and riparian habitat, marine, brackish and freshwater are fluid. There is gradual transition between habitats and many species have genetic variability that is a response to this gradual transition. Go from a valley to an alpine mountain top and you will see within the same species and genus, genetic variability in size, growth habits and temperature tolerances the higher or lower you go. This is natural selection at work.
Any given habitat has few players that are keystone in the role in the ecosystem. In every function of the food chain, be it producers, consumers, parasites, predator or prey there are many redundancies present with multiple players filling the same role. Toward the top you do have keystone predators whose presence or lack thereof can have a profound effect on the habitat but generally habitats have many players and therefore many redundancies.
So within each species we have broad genetic variation as outlined above and within each ecosystem we have the redundancies of many players fulfilling the same role. The web of life in a healthy intact ecosystem is therefore highly resilient.
A real world example would be helpful to explain the above principals, it is one I have mentioned before on this site but it is worth repeating as it is highly relevant to rising sea levels which we can expect with reasonable confidence this century.
The army corps of engineers created a vast canal system in The Everglades in Florida in the 40’s and 50’s. The vast flow of fresh water moving south from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay was disrupted by this massive drainage project of canals. In 1930 Florida Bay in the Everglades was a fresh water lake lined with sawgrass and bald cypress trees. As the flow of fresh water moving south was disrupted this allowed the encroachment of sea water. Today Florida Bay is salt water and brackish and the shoreline is pure red mangroves, black mangroves, buttonbush and other salt tolerant vegetation.
In less than 50 years a vast area of freshwater became a marine habitat. What is interesting is that the marine habitat is as healthy as the former fresh water habitat. Perch and bass have been replaced with red fish, snook and sea trout. Cypress and sawgrass replaced with mangroves. A resilient ecosystem remains having adapted to this short term abrupt change caused by humans draining the flow of fresh water. This resiliency we see has everything to do with the redundancies mentioned above and the inherent resiliencies present in natural ecosystems.
Take a moment and reflect on how several billion humans will be displaced from coastal areas this century and consider the migration, the infrastructure and energy required to undertake this massive migration, the available resource base to support such a change in the human landscape. Look how natural ecosystems coped in the example of the change in Florida Bay. Now consider humans forced to make a similar adaptation. This illustrates a principal that human landscapes are far more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than natural ecosystems are.
I am not saying that natural ecosystems will be spared climate change. They wont. There is likely to be a massive extinction event. But even within this extinction event we will see the inherent redundancies and resiliencies at work to mitigate the disruption which is totally lacking in human landscapes.
This takes us to the next conclusion. As we all recognize the monumental catch 22 inherent in the advanced stages of human overshoot as our poster Onlooker recently outlined, we have to look square in the face at the reality that we are too deep in the territory of human overshoot to maintain the energy hungry status quo at the same time as we attempt the drastic mitigation that is required. We are effectively check mated any painless solution.
This has lead me to the counter intuitive conclusion that the very consequences that we are fearing actually become the solutions to the catch22 we are trying to figure out. Climate change being the sexiest consequence at the moment will serve this purpose well exactly because it will be somewhat more selective in disrupting human landscapes vs than natural ecosystems.

That is why I embrace climate change as an agent of mitigation of human overshoot. Desperate times require desperate measures and our biosphere is serving up a cornucopia of consequences to selectively depopulate our species. We should embrace climate change and all the other external human agencies that are coming our way.

Not from a fatalism. But from a deeper understanding that these external human agencies in the forms of consequences will do their work on two fronts, first in physical reducing our population and consumption and secondly molding our ethics and morals around our relationship with our biosphere. These are the very two fronts that we are hamstrung to do ourselves on our own. It is the portal through which we have the only chance of coming out on the other side with a set of cultural tools to live in balance with our biosphere.

[dohboi]

Impressive. I'll have to take a bit more time later to more fully digest it all.

But for now, could you tell me: Is your definition of 'human landscape' restricted to the physical,visible 'landscape,' or does it include human structures such as economic systems, etc?

Also, some of this kind of reminds me of the book 'The World Without Us.'

Are you familiar with this work, and if so, do you think it has influenced your thinking here at all?

[onlooker]

Very engaging and informative post Ibon. It is my understanding that we are already inexorably on this path of external consequences acting upon human overshoot. We desperately need to reduce population and consumption. The problem as I see it, is that it is difficult to be aloof to the all the death, suffering and mayhem this entails. Yet regardless we seem inevitably headed to just such an outcome. As this is so, I can only hope that mankind finds ways to comfort each other and reduce as much as possible unnecessary suffering. In fact in light of all this, I foresee I revival of our traditional religions as one purpose they serve is to assuage our fears of sickness and death. Finally after time on the other side of the bottleneck, I too believe if the Earth permits we can resurrect some measure of social cohesion with a much smaller population that from personal experience and anecdotes can in stark terms realize the sanctity of Nature as well as its callous cruelty and thus once again hold up Nature in awe and respect.

[Pops]

Ibon, do I have to read the entire thing? Can we get the Cliff Notes? Or a sentence summary?

We're dead.
Good riddance.
.

[Ibon]

Ibon, do I have to read the entire thing? Can we get the Cliff Notes? Or a sentence summary?

In this day and age were nobody reads and every thing is sound bites you have to insure that your writing style engages the reader otherwise there is no chance that folks will read anything longer than 200 words. I tried my best to make this engaging.

[onlooker]

I read it all !

[Ibon]

But for now, could you tell me: Is your definition of 'human landscape' restricted to the physical,visible 'landscape,' or does it include human structures such as economic systems, etc?

Only physical. Cities, suburbs, roads, mining sites, industrial crops like palm oil and rubber trees, livestock acreage, crop acreage, reservoirs, land fills, industrial parks, pipelines, etc.

[Newfie]

Well, if you modify that list significantly you have also pretty well made our financial systems kaput. Kinda tied together, no?

[onlooker]

Yes, the whole physical infrastructure is tied to energy and other key resources availability which Ibon mentioned. Again the point being that the key resources such as fossil fuels enable the whole of civilization. Which of course is why Peak Oil is so important as it literally is the lifeblood of civilization. Also, the point of Nature being able to rebound ties in to our inability at this point to radically diverge from or reconstruct civilization. The resulting chaos in logistics and capacity to attend to the needs of our huge populations would render such a transition to almost certain failure especially given that limited amount of energy exists both to transition and to maintain adequate functioning of key parts of our economy. So human landscapes and their dependent systems and processes are completely now vulnerable to external consequences as well as internal disturbances and attempts to alter business as usual

[Ibon]

Well, if you modify that list significantly you have also pretty well made our financial systems kaput. Kinda tied together, no?

Yes of course the are tied together and you can include the financial system as part of the organizational structure of the human landscape. Like government or religion. I was focusing mainly on the physical components.

[sjn]

Ibon, do I have to read the entire thing? Can we get the Cliff Notes? Or a sentence summary?

In this day and age were nobody reads and every thing is sound bites you have to insure that your writing style engages the reader otherwise there is no chance that folks will read anything longer than 200 words. I tried my best to make this engaging.

You did. It was very well written, although perhaps I'm biased because I agreed with all your points!

It is imperative that we adjust our ideas of morality and ethics to being ecologically centred, rather than simply re-enforcing our beliefs in human or meta-human [patriarchal-deity] derived values. It's going to be a painful transition.

[Tanada]

Ibon what do you think of the theory of keystone species? From all my studies on the topic of the ecosystem it seems to me the 'keystone' concept is very weak because nearly every set of interlocking factors studied was in an already deeply disturbed location where humans had been causing significant changes for centuries to millennia. My personal viewpoint is the ecosystem is extraordinarily robust and it was only after generations of interference from humans that a system in a given location became so fragile that there was a single 'keystone' species left which would cause the web to unravel if removed.

I say that because every process that occurs naturally has multiple vector species causing that effect to occur. For example before Humans came along the Bison roamed the Great Plains in the millions, but they were far from alone. There were deer, antelope, North American camels and dozens of other herd forming grazers and browsers even as far back as Mastodon and Mammoth. By the time the first European saw the Great Plains and wrote down their observations at least three of those species had become extinct and possibly many more that have not been studied in enough depth for total confidence. Then some scientist living in an industrial age where it is the cultural viewpoint that Humans can change things by pulling or pushing on the 'keystone' species comes along and writes down how significant the wild horses and donkeys of Yellowstone Park and other areas are. This completely ignores the fact that many earlier plains dwelling species have already been removed from the web, and that several others besides the Donkeys and Horses have been added because the scientist focused their attention on just those two species.

[dohboi]

"Only physical. Cities, suburbs, roads, mining sites, industrial crops like palm oil and rubber trees, livestock acreage, crop acreage, reservoirs, land fills, industrial parks, pipelines, etc."

Thanks for the clarification.

We tend to think of keystone species as those near the top of the chain.

But at the 'bottom,' there are Fungi, an overlooked set of keystone species--if certain fungi are wiped out, the critical process of turning old rotting matter into soil usable to plants is interrupted and the whole system falls apart eventually.

This seems to have happened in the area around Chernobyl--an example of another category of human landscape likely to keep causing disruptions long after we're gone.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next ... 180950075/

[Tanada]

"Only physical. Cities, suburbs, roads, mining sites, industrial crops like palm oil and rubber trees, livestock acreage, crop acreage, reservoirs, land fills, industrial parks, pipelines, etc."

Thanks for the clarification.

We tend to think of keystone species as those near the top of the chain.

But at the 'bottom,' there are Fungi, an overlooked set of keystone species--if certain fungi are wiped out, the critical process of turning old rotting matter into soil usable to plants is interrupted and the whole system falls apart eventually.

This seems to have happened in the area around Chernobyl--an example of another category of human landscape likely to keep causing disruptions long after we're gone.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next ... 180950075/

I smell a serious case of confirmation bias. look at the distribution map for where the leaf bags were placed for the study. To get a good statistical sample they should be distributed in a grid or circular shell pattern and the radiation count should have been taken at beginning and end of the study for each specific random location. If they had done that they would have a robust data set of how the microclimates, including the radiation factor, impacted the decay rate in each location of the grid/spherical shell.

Instead you can see from the distribution they used that they concentrated the sample bags in locations where they had observed low decay rates with only two control samples in the 'normal' zone green. Compared two just two green samples they have 13 red zone samples, many of them so close together they are effectively the same location. Compounding the problem they have just 5 samples distributed in yellow zones. They have 11 radiation levels delineated in their study area, green plus gradations from very light yellow up to very dark red. With 20 samples in total they should have two in each of the gradations of radiation in widely separated places plus two control samples in the green zone, or a completely random distribution in the grid or spherical shell pattern so that samples were equidistant from one another.

If you do a study the way they demonstrate they did then you can only find the answer you already believe you will get because you do not allow for contrary data to be collected.

If I were designing this study I would have taken say a 20 liter soil sample from the green zone and placed those in 1 liter piles in the varied radiation zones and then studied how the fungi and bacteria in those samples changed over the course of one year in their new zones. That would have provided valuable insight into what the current levels will do to decay for the time period between today and when the area will fall below the threshold that limits the decay rate of the materials. One thing the authorities could do in the future would be to overspray the locations with a critically low decay rate with fungi and bacteria to encourage decay and promote a healthier under story in the woods around Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. I suspect that throughout the yellow zone and possibly the lower end of the red zones spraying beneficial fungi and bacteria around would help correct the situation without a great risk to humans who would have to go in and physically remove logs and deadfall branches to reduce fire risk. I am also curious if vermiculture would help, in my area worms do most of the reduction of the leaf litter turning it into worm casting that feed the bacteria and fungi.

[dohboi]

Look, it's only one study, and follow up studies will certainly determine more clearly where the issue was most severe and what other factors were involved.

But do you really think that radiation had nothing to do with the failure of decay in these areas? Do you have another theory? Do you really think you could replicate this study anywhere in the world and just by choosing your location properly come up with the outcome you want?

Confirmation bias bites both ways, my friend!

[Subjectivist]

Look, it's only one study, and follow up studies will certainly determine more clearly where the issue was most severe and what other factors were involved.

But do you really think that radiation had nothing to do with the failure of decay in these areas? Do you have another theory? Do you really think you could replicate this study anywhere in the world and just by choosing your location properly come up with the outcome you want?

Confirmation bias bites both ways, my friend!

Isn't the point of a properly randomized study that you can replicate it in other locations so you can compare the results?

[dohboi]

Welll, in this case, it will be hard to replicate it in just any other place, unless there was a major nuclear accident there.

But yes, there should be other studies around the area, and around Fukushima, too, to see if this as consistent pattern.

[ralfy]

Thanks for sharing that, Ibon.

(I think "ibon" means "bird".)

[Ibon]

There are some great questions here and I will address them. Right now I am swamped in preparation for a very busy holiday season here. My wife will kill me if she sees me "wasting time on that damn peak oil website" again

I will be back in a day or two to continue this discussion