The best way to clean up may be the natural way.

One of the most interesting TED talks I’ve seen was about a fungus that could sequester hydrocarbons. Now I’m even more concerned about deforestation.

This is an organism that people could actively use. The EPA could suggest it for use in cleaning up inland spills. The fact that this isn’t common knowledge makes me think that it competes with proprietary “solutions”. That type of intuitive conjecture is so often vindicated that I’m already confident in it. :frowning:

Heh, yeah don’t trees and grass convert carbon-dioxide to oxygen? Probably not a whole lotta money to be made letting the ecosystem take care of itself though.

Did you see the sawdust + forms + mycylium = bricks that can connect together and are very strong for weight?

@BPR: I didn’t actually watch the video, but after seeing your post I decided to take a look see. I stopped the video after the guy said “we’re now entering the sixth great extinction.” Not buyin’ it, even if it were true, and I’m not saying it’s not, I’m among the my time comes when it comes crowd. If we are actually witnessing the sixth mass extinction then so be it, if our time is up there’s no sense getting all bent out of shape about it.

I was talking about a different story.http://inhabitat.com/phillip-ross-molds-fast-growing-fungi-into-mushroom-building-bricks-that-are-stronger-than-concrete/

Mycologist Philip Ross is seriously into mushrooms, but not as a food – instead, he uses fungi as a building material. Beneath the surface of the ground, fungi form a wide network of thin, rootlike fibers called mycelium. That part of the fungus isn’t particularly tasty, but Ross discovered that when dried, it can be used to form a super-strong, water-, mold- and fire-resistant building material. The dried mycelium can be grown and formed into just about any shape, and it has a remarkable consistency that makes it stronger, pound for pound, than concrete. The 100% organic and compostable material has even piqued the interest of NYC’s MoMa PS1, where the award-winning Hy-Fi Mushroom Tower pavilion is currently being built.

Read more: Phillip Ross Molds Fast-Growing Fungi Into Mushroom Building Bricks That Are Stronger than Concrete | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building

@atr1337: Passionate people tend to advocate at least some nonsense. I agree with you on the extinction event hysteria. This is probably just lack of confidence in human ability to change when it’s direly needed. I think part of the guys’ passion is rooted in his pessimism.

Sometimes you just have to recognize the nonsense and concentrate on what might be a feasible solution. Everyone makes those types of mistakes.

@BPR: Now that is pretty cool and I anxiously await the large scale implementation of such a discovery. A few points of note though. If someone ever wanted to market such a product I imagine, and I could be wrong, they’d first want to find a way to make it more aesthetically appealing, not only visually, but verbally as-well. Market it as bricks made from fungus and it might get stigmatized as being nothing more than a bunch of hippy-dippy who-ha. You know how it is, it’s not small it’s cozy haha.

@Blonder: Understood. Personally I think it’s great that there are people out there who are concerned about our environment and want to do something to minimize any possible negative impact they or we may have upon it. I may have mistook over-enthusiasm for one’s views as an attempt to wield fear as a means to manipulate others into acting according to one’s own ideology. Unfortunately I find that fear is all too often used as a weapon against the will of others, a means to manipulate and coerce others to fall in line with a particular course of action.

I’d much rather have someone give me their honest opinion, not attempting to convert me, but instead attempting to make me aware of what they believe and afford me the opportunity to take that new information and formulate my own opinion. If I so choose to agree and take action in accordance with their ideas then so be it, if not then they can act upon their own ideas as they see fit and I can act upon my own ideas as I see fit.

P.S. Really that is peace then now isn’t it? If war is trying to force, one way or another, yourself upon others than peace would be the opposite of that.


enjoy vacations in exotic destinations… :smiley:
Well, some of us like to live in garbage free environment. Don’t you?

I personally like to live in a relatively garbage free environment yes, and I do what I can as an individual to help that become a reality. I am, however, aware that there are those that don’t care so much and I don’t see why they should be made by force to fulfill the desires of those that do.

If there are those who do not wish to clean up the environment then they are free not to clean up the environment. If there are those who wish to clean up the environment then they are free to clean it up.

There are things that the ecosystem needs, for instance there is a need for flowers to be polinated and there are bees to polinate them, but the bees don’t go around trying to make the other animals polinate flowers too. It is necessary yes, but it is not necessary that all animals participate, just those who desire to participate.

Many of the carbon-dioxide generating companies don’t want to pay to clean up after themselves, so much so that they fight vehemently against those that would try to make them do so. Instead of fighting over it and making them pay for something they don’t want to pay for why don’t the environmentalists put their money together and pay for it themselves. If they cared so much about the environment why don’t they do it themselves? Why waste their time putting their resources towards a war with the oil companies and instead use those resources to help clean the environment.

The electric companies don’t want to buy expensive carbon filters, why don’t the environmentalists then by those filters for them? Are they too expensive, if so then the environmentalists would have the very same complaint that the electric companies have. Why make someone else do something you’re not willing to do yourself?

P.S. Many animals dump feces everywhere, but they don’t clean it up themselves, other animal do that such as the dung beetle and they don’t bitch about it either.

Imagine tons of little cublets, that are placed by a 3d printer over time, and compacted on site from scrap wood and tree clippings.

Also, I am pretty sure you could ‘dress’ it in ceramic after it’s ‘cured’ and make the exterior smooth and curvy.

@BPR: I got ya, most houses these days use wood as the underlying structure and dress that up with drywall and siding, don’t see why this material couldn’t use the same or similar.

I think China has recently made some complexes of 3D printed houses using concrete, they might be better positioned at this point to develop your thoughts on this.

:rolleyes: Yeah, you probably don’t garden… and comparing self to an animal just makes your obvious arrogance an apology in own ignorance. Enjoy it.

I’m not sure I understand, it seems to me that comparing people to animals is more humble than arrogant, the idea that we are somehow above the rest of nature is arrogant, the idea that we are of nature is humble. For the record my girlfriend and I do garden, although we haven’t been able to start a new garden in our current place of residence.

Again, suggesting that one knows how others should be made to live their lives is, in my opinion, arrogant. To suggest that one’s own self does not know how others should live their lives and has no business forcing others to live their lives according to one’s own ideology is humble.

I mean this with no offense, but I personally believe you have it backwards friend.

Yeah, the path to enlightenment, is to realize your faults and work on them.

We are shaved apes in suites pretending we don’t come from a large tree of ancestors.

we are 98% the same genetically as chimps. Maybe they think we are the stupid ones, and they

are just hanging out enjoying total inner peace?

Only by admitting that we don’t know, can we begin to ask.

In your case, you suggested that humans are comparable to dung beetles. I know of the concept of humility and understand the danger of pride, but thinking you’re no better than the things that creep along and eat waste is pushing it to timidity and the feeling of being worthless in the greater sense of things.

That by no means suggests you trash nature and kill every animal you see, people are on the Earth to maintain it and take care of the things that are alive, not to pollute it (and in my view, one of the ways of doing good for the Earth is pumping up the CO2 levels as it basically is aerial fertilization).

We are shaved apes in suites pretending we don’t come from a large tree of ancestors.

Another example of the rabid push by some to dehumanize themselves and others as far as possible and in turn lead to them thinking that you are just a disposable pile of meat. People in the 20th century have used this to justify their will to commit murder and even genocide, so be very careful with such statements.

@Ace Dragon: Not exactly what I was doing, I was comparing human civilization to nature’s ecosystem. The ecosystem has various different animals that fill various different roles necessary for the proper function of everything, so too does human civilization have various different roles necessary for the proper function of everything. In the wild there are ants that aerate the ground and there are bees that pollinate the flowers, in civilization there are people that mine coal and there are people that deliver mail.

The ‘wild’ ecosystem would fail miserably if all animals were made to be the same, if all animals were made to pollinate like the bees then the other roles would go unfulfilled and the ecosystem would collapse. So too is human civilization. I am grateful for the discoveries made by scientists, but if everyone were made to be a scientist there would be no garbage collectors, no computer technicians, no farmers, no construction workers… Are you better than the garbage collector? What if there were no garbage collectors? What if everyone were made to be a garbage collector and there were no engineers or farmers?

Where the ‘wild’ ecosystem needs diversity so too does the human ecosystem require diversity to function. An attempt to make others in the human ecosystem conform to one role or another is, quite frankly, suicide.

All of our totems and idols fall flat when we zoom out to the bigger picture. Our aspirations seem to be nothing more than the motivational systems of a primitive culture that is all but nothing to the bulk.

Coordination seems to be the only constant in natural systems. It’s the basis of Evolution and Emergence Theory in that; emergent systems are required to coordinate with the mass of existing systems in order to sustain themselves. Entropy normalizes to yield novelty. The lack of normalization puts the system of interest at risk of extinction. This is however complicated with respect to the most complex natural system that we are aware of. A system with a value based motivational system. Teasing out what is entropy in the current state or what is to be novelty in a future state is extremely difficult.:spin:

Yeah, the path to enlightenment, is to realize your faults and work on them.

There’s many paths to enlightenment, admitting one’s faults and working on them is only one method. Asking questions and understanding how to learn is another.

No, some people like to think they’re ‘shaved apes in suites pretending we don’t come from a large tree of ancestors.’ Anyone with any degree of knowledge and understanding should realise that they’re not above nature, but apart of it.

we are 98% the same genetically as chimps. Maybe they think we are the stupid ones, and they

are just hanging out enjoying total inner peace?

I always wonder with this kind of a point; we as humans generally assume animals are at inner peace. Is it wrong to assume that it’s actually the opposite, animals in nature also have to battle internal problems just the same as many humans do? The only difference between humans and animals is the ability to put into legible words what they’re thinking at a certain time. I try to avoid the word ‘communicate’ in this instance because animals do communicate with each other in nature, both via body-language and through vocals albeit in a much more primitive way. How would a human tell if an animal is suffering internal conflict? I find with many species, especially those we keep as pets, we can learn a lot about our animals friends. Dogs will let you know when they’re in mourning, need food and people have even said they know they’re missing their companion. What we need to bare in mind is that the way we interpret our pet’s language is through translation which we have had to learn over an amount of time. The more we know our animals, the better our translations get to be. We can never tell, however, exactly what an animal is thinking, nor can we ever tell what another human being is thinking. We can get rough educated guesses, but never pinpoint accurate. How do we know, therefore, if animals do or do not suffer internal-conflict? How do we know some animals don’t (or do) desire greater things in life? If we take out human-language from the equation, how would we know humans have internal conflict?

Do animals in nature have it harder or easier than humans? Take the bear for example, they have to hunt down food and store it for the winter in order to survive through it. If there’s no food availabe, they’re simply buggered. Humans can arguably have it easier by outsourcing their food from another location and we have the capacity to do so. Bears don’t have this luxury. However, bears don’t have to earn a living in a society, they can play whenever they want and mate whenever they want. They do have to follow rules, but instead of societal rules they’re governed by nature herself. Realistically, the only rule for a bear is to stay away from predators and other bears except when looking for the opposite sex, stay out of competitors territory (where possible) and ensure they have enough food stored ready for winter. Humans have laws, societal norms, office-politics, work-politics and home-politics to contend with. We also have our own version of territories; the mapped borders.

Language has given us humans the gift of elaborate communication. If our vocal chords were the same as that of a dog, we’d probably be seriously restricted by our vocabulary at this point and the written language would unlikely have been formed. People say the wheel is man’s greatest invention, I wonder instead if it’s language itself? Language is also our curse. We create problems for ourselves that could easily be resolved. Many laws that people obey are written in language and obeyed that shouldn’t be for example. All of our inventions as a result of the ability to communicate ideas have both their fair share of good and bad in the world. The wheel has given us the ability to move vehicles forward, but it’s also cursed with causing untold deaths over the years on the simple basis people get run over, for example. Bearing this in mind, there’s a price for every asset (or curse) we’re given. What was the price of the written language?

Really what I was getting at is that I’m glad there are environmentalists out there keeping an eye on the environment, but I don’t believe everyone needs to be an environmentalist or act as the environmentalist acts. Environmentalists have as much right to exist as everyone else, but so too does everyone else have as much right to exist as environmentalists.

I don’t see why things environmentalists desire to be done should be voted upon and others then made to do. If there is something the environmentalist desires to be done then the environmentalist should then do it, to each their own.

Of course that doesn’t mean the environmentalist shouldn’t seek help if he so desires, only that he should not force others to help. When he goes the forceful route he creates ire and disdain that often manifests itself as mighty wrath.

@Kurtis: I agree we are of nature, I don’t believe that means we are shaved apes though. It is believed by evolutionists that the ant evolved from the wasp, but the ant is hardly a wasp without wings, ants are their own entity with their own traits. And so too then are humans as unique as any other specie.

global warming has steered California’s rain north, in 1 more year we will not be able to grow crops, we are in a LONG drought

more then 50% of the fruit and veggies in the usa come from california…