[Hawkcreek]

I would bring the idea of national reserves directly into the US Constitution so that some 10-20 percent of every state would have been a nature preserve from the very beginning of the nation. If they had always existed many species like the passenger pigeon would probably not be extinct because they would gave had safe habitat to maintain a breeding population in.

Animals like the Nitny Lions of Pennsylvania are fascinating to me, and what the early settlers and homesteaders did everywhere east of the Mississippi is amazing and appalling. We went from broad forests to clear cut in almost every state. I have seen pictures from the late 1800's from lumberjacks in Michigan posing in front of huge old growth oak trees they were clear cutting. Trees that were up to a thousand years old, cut down for lumber and paper pulp and steam engine fuel. It's kind of stunning if you think about it.

This I can identify with. I stopped last weekend at 'Deception Falls", off Hwy 2 in Washington state. They had one red cedar stump that had holes showing that had been used for springboards. Loggers would stand on these to allow them to cut the tree well above the base, to allow a two man crosscut saw to do the job. I just wished I could have seen and camped in some of the forests of 500 years ago, before we ruined them all.

[Outcast_Searcher]

For those who like science fiction, the book "Spin" by Robert Charles Wilson is speculation about what might happen if intelligent alien life interceded to prevent intelligent species from destroying their biosphere once it became apparent that they were clearly going to do just that.

I found it clever, thought provoking, and entertaining.

There are two other books in the series (Axis and Vortex) -- I'm about halfway through the second one.

Since we're clearly not going to do enough, and religious entities show no evidence of interfering with people beyond their imaginations, helpful advanced aliens looks like the best shot we have (and no, I'm not expecting that).

[careinke]

I would eliminate the discovery of agriculture.

[Hawkcreek]

And besides some hard to follow gaming metaphor (?), H calls for death to all the seek to impinge freedoms. But are all freedoms equally uninfringeable? Are some people's 'freedom' not to serve people who their religiously rationalized prejudice tells them are the devils spawn an infringement on the latters' rights to said basic services?...

Good point. But some would say that one mans freedom ends where another mans freedom begins.
I would say that tolerance by the many of the few is something to work towards, even though I know it will probably never come. Should someone be free to stone a non-believer or adulterer to death, because of their faith?
With every dish of freedom, a side dish of responsibility towards others should also be served.
I realize that there is no such thing as complete freedom, unless it is like Janis Joplin said, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose".
And that wasn't a gaming metaphor. It is a philosophy! In fact, it is the only one that makes sense to me.

http://www.space.com/30124-is-our-universe-a-fake.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RMOGFaOLSQ

[GHung]

You can still see the huge hardwoods of the eastern forests at Joyce Kilmer Wilderness Area, not far from me in Western North Carolina.



These two trees aren't particularly large for this forest.

Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is an approximately 3,800-acre tract of publicly owned virgin forest in Graham County, North Carolina, named in memory of poet Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918), best known for his poem "Trees". One of the largest contiguous tracts of old growth forest in the Eastern United States, the area is administered by the U. S. Forest Service. The memorial forest is a popular family hiking destination and features an easy two-mile, figure-eight trail that includes a memorial plaque at the juncture of the two loops. In 1975 the memorial forest was joined with a much larger tract of the Nantahala National Forest to become part of the Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Kil ... ial_Forest

It's hard to get a sense of scale from the photos, but this is what much of the Eastern US looked like before white folks showed up with their axes and saws.

[evilgenius]

I think there is only one answer to this question, to make it so that I was never born. I am the one who judges this world. It's only right or wrong in my eyes. Take me away and there is left only what you see. Of course, the answer is the same for everybody. For who are you? The real challenge is, therefore, to take what you learn from realizing what the answer means and apply it toward others, now. Throughout history that resolution has almost always meant trying to override everybody else and impose one's own will, for you must be right since you know you exist. Love has, historically, always been about possession. I think that now we are beginning to come to a different answer. We can question our own assumptions. We can contravene our own imperatives. We can admit our own faults, and the faults of others. Becoming one with a thing need not mean possession. This world does not have to be the world we were born into. It can be something else.

[dohboi]

Thanks for the pictures. Hard to tell by just looking at them, but I think the ones Bartram saw in Georgia were even bigger.

Here's one relevant passage about a black oaks:

eleven feet in diameter five feet above the ground, as we measured several that were above thirty feet girt...below five or six feet, these trunks would measure a third more in circumference

So up to about 15 feet in diameter near the ground!

https://markgelbart.wordpress.com/2011/ ... nt-forest/

Your trees look like the may be six or even eight feet in diameter (depending on how big the girl/kids are), which is very big, but not quite what is being described here, I think.

[Hawkcreek]

Ghung, I typically don't like going east too much, but your pictures have convinced me that I need to change my ways.
Thanks

[Tanada]

Try this one dohboi, it came up when I searched "Michigan Lumberjack Image 1890"
You can see from the pile of chips this was done with axes, not saws.



Now back to gunpowder :D With improved mining and infrastructure the western Roman Empire is liable to have survived much longer, possibly spreading out over all of Europe as a result. That would create one of the largest common language areas on the planet, much like ancient Chinese in east Asia. Romans were masterful engineers, there are places even today where structures they built 2000 ybp more or less, are still in common use. Improved mining gives them the potential for many more developments in metallurgy and building materials as well. With gunpowder and iron tools you can quarry granite, just as one example. Or you can go all the way to 1860's level spar torpedoes where a fast light galley rams a spar with a gunpowder torpedo on the end into a much larger enemy ship, sinking it with all hands without the need to send boarding parties and engage in hand to hand combat.

[dohboi]

Great image, T. Thanks.

And thanks for the added perspective on gunpowder. Not sure I see an extension of the Roman Empire as an entirely desirable thing--lots of slaves, etc--but to each his own historical fantasy, I guess!

[Hawkcreek]

I think there is only one answer to this question, to make it so that I was never born. I am the one who judges this world. It's only right or wrong in my eyes. Take me away and there is left only what you see. Of course, the answer is the same for everybody. For who are you?

That is the big question for everyone. You are not the name that you give yourself - that can be changed as often as you want. You are not what you do - engineer, electrician, carpenter. That is only a description of activities you experience.
You are the observer behind your eyes that experiences all these things.

[Shaved Monkey]

I would eliminate the discovery of agriculture.

This would solve virtually every problem.

[Newfie]

Cook state forest in pa is another with old growth trees but not as big.

[GHung]

Ghung, I typically don't like going east too much, but your pictures have convinced me that I need to change my ways.
Thanks

Yeah, Hawk, folks tend to give "back east" a bad rap, but it's as diverse as "out west (been there; done that too). The Southern Appalachians are a real gem, including the Smokies. This was the halfway point of my commute, when I was still commuting:



It's looking east toward Asheville; somewhere over the farthest range. The Smokies are off to the left somewhere; about 30 miles:


(This photo of Great Smoky Mountains National Park is courtesy of TripAdvisor)

Not much I would change around here except, perhaps, to get rid of the Florida drivers. They frequently forget that they're driving a car

Y'all come visit!

[Plantagenet]

The forests and national parks on the east coast are nice, but they are fragments----they are no longer part of complete ecosystems. Go a few tens of miles down the valleys and the wilderness ends and you hit farms, towns, suburbia, cities, industry, pollution and way way too many people.

One of the best things about Alaska is that we've still got complete ecosystems in pristine conditions---you go from oceans with fish and whales to wilderness beaches and pristine deltas with bears fishing for salmon and then up remote valleys with untouched forests to the mountains and the glaciers---and everything is just as it should be and just as it has been for millions of years.


A l a s k a

[Lore]

The ecosystem is what it is. If farms and cities are a part of it, that is the ecosystem you get.

[GHung]

Yes, Plant; we all know how everything in your life; where you live, where you go, what you think, is better than the rest.

We get it now. Enjoy your long, dark, frozen winters, your melting permafrost, your volcanoes, and your earthquakes. I'll pass.

[jedrider]

I would make the Universe cyclical so we can all start over again.

[Lore]

Yes, Plant; we all know how everything in your life; where you live, where you go, what you think, is better than the rest.

We get it now. Enjoy your long, dark, frozen winters, your melting permafrost, your volcanoes, and your earthquakes. I'll pass.

You forgot all those out houses.

[GHung]

Indeed, Lore. Thanks. Seems to me that the turning point wasn't the discovery of fire or agriculture. It was when outhouses became necessary.

I've heard it said that you're not a true Alaskan until you live with an outhouse. Once again, I'll pass, and I doubt Plant braves below-zero weather to make its way to the outhouse.