Some thoughts about forests
Aug. 14th, 2005 09:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus
Some thoughts about forests. 80% of Gabon is covered by forests.
65% of Japan is forested.
48% of Russia.
45% of Canada.
40% of Germany.
33% of the US.
27% of France.
14% of Australia.
10.7% of the UK.
We each need four trees in order to breathe, I've heard.
A country with very little forest is a country with very little soul.
It's no surprise to me that Japan is the industrialized country with by far the largest percentage of forest. And I think there's a connection with the impression I get in Japan that it's the least toxic modern country I've visited. (Though all that forest
doesn't stop the air in Tokyo from being pretty polluted. Just as well strict anti-diesel legislation has been passed.)
One of the things I love about living in Berlin is that the city is surrounded by lakes and forests. The first thing I noticed when I came back from New York and London this last time was just how fresh the air here felt in contrast. Last forest I wandered around in: Grunewald, in June. This weekend there's a music event out at Schloss Lanke, an "experiment in rundown luxury ambience" set in a forest outside Berlin. Maybe I'll head out there today!England was mostly covered with oak forests. But from the moment axes got strong enough to cut down oak trees, the forests began to dwindle. It's sad to think of these lines from Shakespeare's "As You Like It":
A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest,
A motley fool; a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool
Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,
In good set terms and yet a motley fool.
and reflect that, although there are still fools in England, there's not much forest left. Why couldn't the fools have gone, and the forest stayed?
I remember being told in school that most of Scotland's forests were cut down so that a naval fleet could be built to defeat the Spanish. They were never replaced, those forests. Scotland has been "bald" ever since. We lost our forest soul.
When I was a kid I lived in Auchterarder, in Perthshire. There were pine forests all around. Even after we moved to Edinburgh, we kept a cottage in Auchterarder. I have a particular affinity with pine forests, maybe because of this early experience of living in one. Just yesterday I walked by a fresh pine fence in Berlin and stopped to sniff the wood. That smell is so evocative for me! I love places with lots of pine.
I love forest mythology in culture. Fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, or the Japanese myth of the phallic-nosed tengu.
The tengu are, according to Wikipedia, "tall beings with wrinkled, red skin or red faces, their most unnatural feature being their extremely long noses. These tengu typically dress as mountain hermits (yamabushi), Buddhist monks or priests. They often carry a staff (bo) or a small mallet. They sometimes have birdlike features as well, such as small wings or a feathered cloak. Some legends give them hauchiwa fans made from feathers or the leaves of the Aralia japonica shrub, which they can use either to control the length of their noses or to cause gale-force winds. Tengu can change their appearance to that of an animal (often a tanuki or a fox) or a human being, though they usually retain some vestige of their true form, such as an unusually long nose or a bird-like shadow... Legends often describe tengu society as hierarchical. The karasu tengu act as servants and messengers for the yamabushi tengu. At the top sits the tengu king, the white-haired Sojobo who lives on Mt. Kurama... Though invariably pictured as male, tengu lay and hatch from eggs. Tengu are capricious creatures, and legends alternately describe them as benevolent or malicious. In their more mischievous moods, tengu enjoy playing pranks that range from setting fires in forests or in front of temples to more grave offenses, such as eating people (though this is rare)."![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 08:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 04:20 pm (UTC)i've been wanting to play that all summer, but have been too disciplined to allow myself into that world.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 08:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 09:01 am (UTC)forested percent + country name
I can't vouch for the accuracy of the stats, but I tried whenever possible to cross check them with what people elsewhere were saying and they mostly tallied within one or two percentage points.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 02:26 pm (UTC)fashion tengu
Date: 2005-08-14 09:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 10:55 am (UTC)northern africa, the middle east, etc. very little soul?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 11:18 am (UTC)Momus is a soul man.
Date: 2005-08-14 03:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 04:22 pm (UTC)Funky life, like the south James Brown records! Getting down!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 11:32 am (UTC)The forests are expanding in Britain and the U.S., most definitely. Those countries, as well as Japan, are massively deforesting third-world countries, though.
What effect does it have on a country's soul to preserve its own forests at the expense of forests in poorer, warmer countries?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 01:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 04:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 06:59 pm (UTC)"I think there's a connection with the impression I get in Japan that it's the least toxic modern country I've visited"
is an absolutely ridiculous sentence, and serves only to reinforce his position as dear but blinkered Momus who for all his generally inspired cultural insights, consistently refuses to scratch very deep at all below a certain depth of Japanese society, choosing to rely instead on the comfortable yet skewed interpretation he is afforded by his status as an artist when he visits there.
Rob.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 11:08 pm (UTC)Japan spent a long time ripping out native forest in favor of planting sugi trees (Japanese cedar monoculture) in anticipation of using the wood in the building boom...but foreign wood became cheaper to import, so the entire mountainsides of sugi trees grow in orderly rows and release a noxious pollen cloud every year that the Japanese endure as best they can. In the little hamlet where I lived, you could almost see it as a tangible mist, hovering over the town. A lot of people wear masks during this pollen season; you can see them all over the country.
Yes, Momus. Please continue to believe that Japan is the model of environmental friendliness and conservation. Don't worry yourself too much.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-15 03:16 pm (UTC)So...ah, I`m no expert. I guess I have to take your word for it. After all, righteous indignation feels great!! And hell, how long have the people waited for someone to blame for hayfever!! Can`t pass it up.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-16 06:11 am (UTC)Many Japanese have really bad allergies to sugi pollen as opposed to other sorts of pollen, so the yearly release from the monoculture forests is hell for some people (me included.) The fact that the pollen count is imbalanced from its natural state by Mankind's action is bad enough, but anything that affects a large part of the population in an adverse way could be classified as a pollutant or an irritant. In places with no sugi, pollen might still indeed be classifiable as a pollutant...I was just pointing out Momus's lack of research when he made his "Japan=friends of the forest" statement.
I might have chosen the wrong word for the pollen, but it IS an irritant and it didn't used to be that way there,but now it is because of Japanese interference.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-20 11:19 am (UTC)Also, Sugi is the national tree of Japan, and were being planted in great avenue by a Daiymo centuries ago near the tomb of Ieyasu. You find them near temples as well.
Also, lately, because of the hayfever problems, the Ministry of Agriculture has been felling those trees.
To be fair, I see nothing wrong with trying to be critical - but I think you sacrificed your science for your position here.
And what`s wrong with being juvenile? You can be juvenille back? I don`t mind.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 03:29 pm (UTC)Have you ever been to the forests in the Cascade mountains in Oregon? They're stunning. Enormous, ancient trees covered in dripping moss, maple leaves 18 inches across, waterfalls. Ahhhhh.
Thanks for posting this. I want to go hug a tree now!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 06:14 pm (UTC)forests in europe seem a lot better than forests in the u.s
they seem more mysterious and ancient,like forests in norway and finland..
maybe there are forests in the u.s like that..
it's hard to imagine as i am looking at my window..seeing the forest in my backyard of dead,short trees and tree stumps.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 06:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 09:36 pm (UTC)W
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 06:42 pm (UTC)Design Observer
Date: 2005-08-14 07:13 pm (UTC)best.
andrew
Re: Design Observer
Date: 2005-08-14 09:59 pm (UTC)Will have more time now to whitewash criminal "original sin" Japan, and other important things that were getting neglected.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-14 08:42 pm (UTC)Speaking of Japanese forests. Take a look at the map from the relay in the World Orienteering Championships 2005 in Aichi. Stone Buddha figures have their own sign.
Sharewood Forest
Date: 2005-08-14 10:01 pm (UTC)would you be able to share the new BD record or any rusty santos?
it would be much much apperciated.
kindly,
acorn
acorncoral@hotmail.com
was wondering...
Date: 2005-08-15 07:34 am (UTC)Re: was wondering...
Date: 2005-08-15 07:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-15 08:04 am (UTC)There are in fact places in the world where forests don't grow, for example the tundra lands.. adding that into the mixture we should actually count up places where humanity has left untouched.. Arctica, Antarctica... Far Notherner Canada, Siberia even Svälberg island.. and many places in Iceland..
People and polution? Japan is like a rape victim in that sense.. I mean the most poluting thing and totally deadly to humans as we know is radiation.. Plutionium..the Atom Bomb and yet someone thought it would be a good idea to drop one or two on Japan and their own country.. look what happened..
With Japan, when the most horrible thing happens to your envirionment, what is one to do? Let the doors fly open.. think of industry and duty first, and think what comes next can't be as bad as what has happened..
My thoughts obviously are on the aniversery of the droping of the A-Bomb on Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki..and to think humanity still hasn't learned from these terrible mistakes.
I guess I'm leaving my door open for a large amount of critique I don't need nor want..
Dorian
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-15 09:02 am (UTC)Wow...
Date: 2005-08-15 09:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-15 12:38 pm (UTC)War IS Hell. The Japanese started the fight and we ended it before it could cost the lives of millions. Tens of thousands is a fair price for millions.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-15 04:01 pm (UTC)Ok then what about the down winders from the Nevada test site smarty pants?... What? For every agressive action the US has EVER taken remember that there has always been about 6 steps of covert operations behind it all that the American public has not been aware of.. call me a "liberal" or a "tree hugger" (apropriate for the title of the thread) but remember how many people deserve to be appologized to in many other countries who didn't do anything but sadly get in the way of progress and the American Dollar..
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-16 01:53 am (UTC)Check Communism's body count if you want someone to carp on about apologizing. Good luck getting Red China to even ACKNOWLEDGE that its atrocities were even committed!
....
Date: 2005-08-16 06:04 am (UTC)this is just some information to varify the idea that it wasn't a neccessity: I recall there was a CONDITIONAL surrender previous to the dropping of the bomb according to the documentry I saw the previous Sunday on Swedish Television to mark the aniversery of the Hiroshima bombing.
http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/atomic.htm#Real (in case the link does work:
Critical Dates for Understanding Truman's Decision
"1. Truman delays Potsdam meeting with the Soviets until he is informed that the atomic bomb was successfully tested. The atomic bomb exploded in Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16th, and the Postdam meeting began on July 17th, 1945.
2. At Postdam, Truman gets the Soviets to agree to enter the war a week later than they had originally promised, moving the date from August 8th to August 15th, 1945.
3. After Soviets agree to enter the war against Japan on August 15th, Truman then orders that the Atomic bombs be dropped on August 6th and 9th, 1945.
4. If Truman thought that the war would be over as soon as the Soviets entered the war against Japan, why did he drop the atomic bombs on Japan before the Soviets could enter the war on August 15th, 1945?
5. Recognizing that the United States had misled them, after the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6th, the Russians entered the war against Japan on August 9th. After the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and the Russian entry into the war on August 9th, the Japanese surrendered on August 10th and the U.S. accepted their surrender on August 15th--the day the Russians were scheduled to enter the war against Japan.
6. In order to keep the Russians out of any peace settlement with Japan and prevent any Russian claims on Asia, the United States accepted the Japanese offer of conditional surrender on August 10th.The Japanese surrender wasn't an unconditional surrender, which President Truman had demanded of the Japanese since May 1945.
7. Had the United States allowed the Japanese to keep their emperor the Japanese would have surrendered much earlier, as early as June 1945 when the Japanese offered a conditional surrender through Russian and Italian intermediaries."
...................................................
Back to trees-- I was told about this Yew tree and the resiliance of the wood made it perfect to use for making bows, but when the cross bow was first invented, it was a different time of humanity where one actually questioned if it were chivlerous to actually use such a devistating weapon.. due to not only its devistating power but also its ablility to make warfar, impersonal..why is it we do not think about things like this today?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-08-16 06:55 am (UTC)ah funny thing about that is, America who joined in everything during world war 2, did not go about stopping Stalin from ripping up his portion of the world (not until much later) before that he considered for the most part on the same side against Germany.
No one seemed to notice until much later (on the other side) that people were dying or disappearing.. however there were also people executed in the US because they were confessed "Communists" This also has to deal later on with the development of the atomic bomb and trying to get that information first.
I think one of the biggest atrocities inacted under Mao's govermnent was the idea that "China would have to become "modern"." In his idea of what modern was, it meant the slaughter of several benifical innoccent animals: House sparrows (the sparrows house themselves in the rafters and sometimes cause a dreadful mess and he for some reason thought that getting rid of these animals he considered "vermin" would propell China into the 20th centrury rather than being a group of old farmers with sparrow nests in the rafters of their houses...
As a direct result of killing these animals, China was thrown into one of the worst insect plague their history had ever known.. understandning that the farms and fields although unpredictable in their wealth of food, were in fact supporting the lives of MILLONS of people.. when the insect population grew to the lack of sparrows, those millons of people who were once supported by the fields and farms died of starvation or were controled by the armies who would supply them food..
Japan vs. UK
Date: 2005-08-15 11:55 pm (UTC)Re: Japan vs. UK
Date: 2005-08-16 08:13 am (UTC)Japan 65% forested and mountainous.
Re: Japan vs. UK
Date: 2005-08-16 12:15 pm (UTC)... and very nice to see from the air and the ground.