Solar Power

[Duckshot]

Many trees have a lifespan shorter than 200 years.

My friends and I fell a silver maple a couple years ago that needed as three foot chain bar from both sides at the base. I forget the exact diameter, but it was probably around 55"-65". It was a big full grown tree that was at the end of its lifespan. I counted the rings on the stump and expected it to be a two hundred at least. Nope, only 93 years.

Couldn't get lumber from it because the mill won't take logs from residential areas due to nails or fencing in the wood, which could kill an expensive blade and maybe hurt a sawyer. I would guess we got about 2-1/2 3 full cords of good firewood out of that old maple.

 

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[TheGreenBoy]

It is beautiful!

Perfect detector land!

 

[Duckshot]

Kantuckeean- I suspect this is the image you found your "29% decrease in bird population" statistic. I found it in a New York Time article displaying a graph from the bird advocate group called The Audubon Society.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/...is-graph-north-american-bird-populations.html

i don't disagree that the 29% decline might be correct. However, that number is a misleading statistic because it does not organize birds by the type of bird. While songbirds may have decreased dramatically, raptors and predatory birds have increased dramatically, as have ducks, geese, and some other wetlands birds as the wetlands have been protected and restored.

It takes a heck of a lot of songbirds to feed one raptor. Eagles have been taken off the endangered list, and red tail hawks are to be found in any field with fence posts. Canine predators such as coyotes have also increased in population as have feral cat populations.

It is likely that this graph is purposely misleading. After all, it is from The Audubon Society wich depends on public and private funding. In short, the graph and statistics were used to secure money for The Audubon Society, a bird advocate group. The statistic might be correct, but it is misleading information because it does not tell the whole story.

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Duckshot,

I got it from: https://www.stateofthebirds.org/2019/ Audubon Society, American Bird Conservancy, NABCI, Cornell Ornithology Lab, the Joint Ventures, and many, many, many others are partners in putting it together. I know some of the wildlife biologists who conduct point counts every year to add to the dataset. I stated that it was an "overall" decrease. The website listed has the report and it breaks out the declines by category of bird, for those who are more interested.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Duckshot]

Yeah...

Like I was saying before it takes a lot of song birds to feed one raptor. Remember the story I told about the paregines on the tower crane? I seen them drop into pigeons frequently, sometimes multiple times a week. If each paregrine added to the bird population eats one pigeon week that is a net loss of 51 birds per a year. As the birds that prey on birds increase, which they have done, the total population of birds decreases. A falcon has got to eat, and they eat other birds.

The Audubon is being decptive, or at least they are letting patrons jump to false conclusions- misinformation or "hot air" as you put it.

 

[Fat]

the Cherry and Pear fruit trees are an invasive species to North America they also need a invasive species to pollinate them.

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Let's apply this concept to you personally.

Very soon, all of the coal mines in your area are going to close down (again). When that happens, Indiana Michigan Power will be forced to buy coal from South America, where there are ZERO environmental laws. And as mentioned before, they are going to load that coal on ocean freighters that SPEW diesel as they travel up the Atlantic Ocean. Then they will load that coal onto trains that SPEW diesel across the country as it travels to the coal fired power plants in Indiana.

In short, every time you turn on a light in your house, you are outsourcing your pollution. Even worse, it is being done as IRRESPONSIBLY as possible. You understand that right?

I realize coal is not environmentally friendly. However, as you said, it must be done to maintain our way of life. What I want to know, and I am asking this very sincerely, what exactly is the goal of environmentalists? It's obviously not to save the planet from global warming because nearly everything proposed produces MORE CO2.

Wouldn't it be better to reduce CO2 by mining here so there is no carbon footprint for transporting coal to the plants?

And wouldn't it be better to create jobs here at home, then spend the increased tax revenue on R&D for new energy sources?

While I disagree with some of your premises, I'll leave those and address others.

Many of our mines have recently closed, but there are others that will remain open. There are metallugical coal, and a few thermal coal reserves in Appalachia that haven't seen much of a decline and the Powder River Basin operators in Wyoming and elsewhere here in the US are still pulling coal out of the ground and sending it overseas. A big part of the reason for Appalachian mines closing, is because the easy coal is gone... largely mined out over the past 100 years. It's now "less expensive" to mine coal elsewhere. Even if we mined here, there is still a carbon footprint for transporting the coal to the generating facilities (trucks or conveyors haul coal to the trains... trains to the barges... then offloading at the facilities). It's just less than ships crossing the oceans.

I agree that other countries should have much more strict mining regulations. I've already agreed with you that outsourcing pollution is bad on a number of fronts.

The goal of environmentalists depends upon the environmentalist. I cannot speak for them all. Some here have mentioned plastic pollution and there are groups working on that. Some environmentalists focus on fish, some on birds, some on native ecosystems... I'd guess that for most, the objective is conservation or restoration. Since you asked about me personally: My goals are restoration and to reduce my ecological footprint, which is why I try to reduce my personal consumption of resources and I'm restoring native forest and prairie on my property, as well as other properties. I've started by killing exotic species and restoring native wildflowers and warm-season grasses and planting native trees, which will eventually have an intact canopy for much of it. I do a lot more professionally, but I'll just leave it at that. I'm also installing rooftop solar and a battery here in a couple of weeks. Initially, it should produce ~60% or more of our electricity consumption and I've got quite a bit of sq. footage to slap more up there if it becomes more economically viable. I'd say that I could overproduce and may in the future. My parents installed theirs years ago and have produced more than 100% of their consumption since the end of 2015.

Your last question is a difficult one to answer and one that would obviously be criticized here... even if tax dollars created a perfectly clean energy source, the Negative Nellies here on TNet would say that it wouldn't exist without subsidies.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Yeah...

Like I was saying before it takes a lot of song birds to feed one raptor. Remember the story I told about the paregines on the tower crane? I seen them drop into pigeons frequently, sometimes multiple times a week. If each paregrine added to the bird population eats one pigeon week that is a net loss of 51 birds per a year. As the birds that prey on birds increase, which they have done, the total population of birds decreases. A falcon has got to eat, and they eat other birds.

The Audubon is being decptive, or at least they are letting patrons jump to false conclusions- misinformation or "hot air" as you put it.

The majority of the declines have been attributed to habitat loss.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[Kantuckkeean]

the Cherry and Pear fruit trees are an invasive species to North America they also need a invasive species to pollinate them.

We have several native cherry trees... Prunus serotina, P. virginiana, P. angustifolia, and P. pensylvanica are a few. I would be willing to bet that some of our native pollinators utilize the flowers and leaves of domesticated cherries, but I don't know. I'm not an entomologist.

The absolute worst of the "pears" are Bradford pears and their relatives and cultivars. I despise those things.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[releventchair]

While I disagree with some of your premises, I'll leave those and address others.

Many of our mines have recently closed, but there are others that will remain open. There are metallugical coal, and a few thermal coal reserves in Appalachia that haven't seen much of a decline and the Powder River Basin operators in Wyoming and elsewhere here in the US are still pulling coal out of the ground and sending it overseas. A big part of the reason for Appalachian mines closing, is because the easy coal is gone... largely mined out over the past 100 years. It's now "less expensive" to mine coal elsewhere. Even if we mined here, there is still a carbon footprint for transporting the coal to the generating facilities (trucks or conveyors haul coal to the trains... trains to the barges... then offloading at the facilities). It's just less than ships crossing the oceans.

I agree that other countries should have much more strict mining regulations. I've already agreed with you that outsourcing pollution is bad on a number of fronts.

The goal of environmentalists depends upon the environmentalist. I cannot speak for them all. Some here have mentioned plastic pollution and there are groups working on that. Some environmentalists focus on fish, some on birds, some on native ecosystems... I'd guess that for most, the objective is conservation or restoration. Since you asked about me personally: My goals are restoration and to reduce my ecological footprint, which is why I try to reduce my personal consumption of resources and I'm restoring native forest and prairie on my property, as well as other properties. I've started by killing exotic species and restoring native wildflowers and warm-season grasses and planting native trees, which will eventually have an intact canopy for much of it. I do a lot more professionally, but I'll just leave it at that. I'm also installing rooftop solar and a battery here in a couple of weeks. Initially, it should produce ~60% or more of our electricity consumption and I've got quite a bit of sq. footage to slap more up there if it becomes more economically viable. I'd say that I could overproduce and may in the future. My parents installed theirs years ago and have produced more than 100% of their consumption since the end of 2015.

Your last question is a difficult one to answer and one that would obviously be criticized here... even if tax dollars created a perfectly clean energy source, the Negative Nellies here on TNet would say that it wouldn't exist without subsidies.

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

A complete canopy is the death knell for ground species.
Diverse habitat has savannas or similar spaces for a reduced density of canopy.

Browse tonnage here under mature hardwoods is a fraction of openings where sunlight can reach the ground. And in /on non mast crop years are a type of desert for practical purposes.

I manage for forbs mostly on a small scale.. But what we manage for is diverse as our habitats should be.

I'm tolerating Russian olive , to a point.
It kills easy enough where I don't want it , but meanwhile on my fallow former ag land it is producing some nitrogen.
And yields a very high volume of fruit compared to other species that are lacking on site.
A variety of bees enjoy them. Combined with the abundant goldenrod , bees often number in the many thousands on the right days.
Native pollinators may be expected in the mix.
Compared to the mature hardwoods , much more life.
Deer , fox, coyote, (rivals and enemies of sorts)rabbits, a turkey on occasion , voles , mice , the attendant hawks and owls , muskrats , leopard frogs , moles , snakes ,and who knows what else..
Meanwhile next to my home in the hardwoods , the pileated woodpeckers leave often to visit the more open yard.
A deer or bear is a rare sighting. Squirrel numbers seldom change, and trend few. It's a groceries vs residents thing , with few groceries.

 

[Kantuckkeean]

Nice! My advice is to not tolerate the Russian olive. I don't know where you're located, but I'm sure that there's a native substitute that would be much preferred (although it may not be a nitrogen fixer). By producing abundant berries, autumn olive and Russian olive are extremely invasive, and I'm sure that there would be a native dogwood (grey, silky, roughleaf?) or other native shrub (elderberry?) that would benefit native pollinators, birds, bears, and other mammals.

When I acquired our property, it had been utilized as pasture and woodland with a small, shallow pond (mud hole) that had been filled in by cattle. I immediately set to work digging out the pond, building up the impoundment and I build a small island in the middle for geese and ducks. The vegetation had been degraded by grazing and what was left was a bunch of toxic stuff that the cattle wouldn't eat (e.g. poison hemlock, Jimson weed) and thorny stuff (multiflora rose, autumn olive) and a bunch of other fast growing invasives like bush honeysuckle. I'm working to restore native shortgrass prairie, but it's a constant battle as new invasives are pervasive on surrounding properties and occasionally colonize here. Whenever invasives pop up, I eradicate them and replace with native grasses and wildflowers and plant trees. Once the trees get large enough, they'll really help to suppress the invasives. I've planted oaks (white, black, northern red, bur, chinkapin, chestnut), Ohio buckeye, sycamore, river birch, silky and roughleaf dogwood, common elderberry, American hazelnut, American basswood, sassafras, hickories, eastern redbud, and probably a bunch of other stuff that I'm forgetting...

Closed canopy is often the natural condition in many areas and isn't a death-knell, depending on the ground species that you're hoping to conserve or restore. I agree that occasional openings are a good thing and occurs naturally through loss of overstory trees, but the understory teems with flora and fauna. Around me, higher quality forest patches contain diverse spring ephemeral wildflowers and a diversity of shrubs. The landscape is a mosaic dominated by row crop fields, pasture, riparian corridors, and small forest patches, in a state that historically would have been dominated by forest (~85%). There are many more areas in my area that would be considered savannah or woodland (albeit degraded), rather than intact, closed-canopy forest. I don't own a huge area, but I'd like to convert as much to tree cover as possible (so long as the trees don't shade my solar... which won't be an issue for decades).

Kindest regards,
Kantuck

 

[releventchair]

Ah . tree city there! Congrats on the opportunity/site. And the patience.

No trilliums here. (Deer).
Alder is the predominant specie.
Young succession since the ag. was the main activity.

I hear ya on the Russian olive. Again , I don't find it too hard to control.
The caution of it being foreign is sound.
However , hundreds (?) of acres of it around my site. Including adjacent land.

Planted black spruce seedlings. No know survivors.
At my age I'm not too gung ho about trying more , though I will bring a maple or two out there and fence them.
Maybe someone will enjoy the shade someday. Plus a decent leaf P.H. as they decompose.
O go past a former co-workers homestead we took a couple saplings out of my yard for his yard. One died and was replaced. But , nice trees today decades later.