In March 2009 , I noted in<i>Foreign Affairs</i> http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/65159/russell-seitz/the-next-top-model that
*Geoengineering ... has been an integral part of the landscape of history. > Although Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1751,* > * "We are, as I may call it, scouring our planet, by clearing America of > woods, and so making this side of our globe reflect a brighter light," * > *little credit is due to young George Washington's hatchet work. Fire in > the hands of Neolithic man had already transformed the ecology -- and the > albedo -- of Australia and the Americas eons before.* Working in the opposite sense, by converting woodlands into black water ponds, a Holocene population some population biologists estimate to have run into the hundred millions globally, may have engaged in wholesale SRM by darkening some millions of square kilometers before <i> H. sapiens</i> even evolved. This unlicensed landscape transformation was perpetrated by *Castor faber* in the old world and * C.canadensis* in the new. Ken also notes that " > >> *It is not clear to me that the language of "state shift"adds much to >>> this review of threats to (mostly) land ecosystems. However, whether you >>> think it is a "state shift" or not, we surely are impacting Earth's biota >>> on a grand scale.* >> >> > >> > I fear Malcolm Gladwell's 'Tipping Point' trope is itself approaching the > 'ONeilling Point', beyond which all use of an environmental cliche' is > political. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/geoengineering/-/3kwHS6VLVOsJ. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
