"we have no mechanism to digest cellulose". "
"we need to be eaten in as much as we need to eat. the grazers need their daily cellulose, the the grass also needs the animals. It needs the manure, with its nitrogen, minerals, and bacteria; it needs the mechanical check of grazing activity; and it needs the resources stored in animal bodies an freed up by degraders when animals die." "need each other in as much as predator and prey".
"its mineral cycle and carbon trade, its balance points around an ancient circle of producers, consumers, and degraders"
"with humility, awe and respect"
Moral Vegetarians:
"glaring anthropocentrism"
"why are we humans allowed to take without giving? Isn't that called exploitation?"
"Fruit trees are grafted, not sprouted" 6
"Ruth Stout" 8
"a square meter of topsoil can contain a 1,000 different species of animals" 10
"on the side of righteousness, and like any fundamentalist, i could only stay there by avoiding information".
"...humic acid...breaks down plant compounds and stores them inside itself". "when it gets the right signals from its ecosystem it recombines and releases the needed nutrients. 'through tightly coupled feedback processes information on the chemistry reserves stored in humic acid feeds back into the above ground plant communities, indicating what plants should grow in what combination in what ecosystem and what kind of chemistries they should produce to keep the soil healthy." 14
Nyle Brady "the genesis of a natural body distinct from the parent materials from which the body was formed." 15
"NPK" nitrogen phosphorus and potassium
"my garden wanted to eat animals, even I didn't".
"Bill Mollison"
'phosphorus' "bone meal from land animals is a traditional source, and most farms (up to 1949) kept a flock of pigeons as their source".18 ..."seabirds and salmon do try to recycle it back to us.."
"the apple grower by Michael Phillips"
"relationship, one of mutuality and respect"
Michael Pollan's "the Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World."
"bovine experiment"
"agriculture as something the grasses did to people as a way to conquer the trees" 22
"without predators the land dies"
"and large ruminants changed humans"
"human hunting...literally helped form the American Plains bison, which...changed both physically and behaviorally after the arrival of the Indians." 25
'the megafauna of the prehistoric world, literally made us human"
"plants using animals" 'these flowers need animals to pollinate them'
'sex from the beginning has been an orgy of color and scent and taste, brilliant red for hummingbirds, sweet nectar for bees'
'plants co evolved with their animal cohorts'
'human harvest unintentionally disburse and protect he plant'
David Rindos "incidental domestication" 27
"nature loves an opportunist"
'exorphins' G Wadley and A. Martin
'in concert' 'perennial poly culture' 'how nature protects and builds topsoil' 'how life has organized itself to produce more'
"this is what agriculture is: you take a piece of land and you clear every living thing off it, down to the bacteria. then you plant it to a human use with a tiny handful of species, often endless miles of a single plant like corn, soy, wheat. The animals are killed, often into extinction. They simply have nowhere to go. There where somewhere between 60-100 MILLION bison in the U.S in 1491. Now there are 350K bison, and only 12-15K of those are pure bison that were not crossbred with domestic cattle. The land held between 425K and a MILLION wolves; only 10K remain. Some species of ground-dwelling birds were wiped out before thy even had names ("I'm sure the indigenous peoples knew what to call them). The North American prairie has been reduced to 2% of its original size and the topsoil- once 12 FEET DEEP is can now only be measured in inches~ " 37
'Steven Stoll' 38
'Tom Paulison-"the planet is getting skinned alive" 39
'this is the earth protecting itself, covering its body in a living armor of green' 'the trees keep trying to make a forest, the grasses want their prairie, and the waters ache for a wetland. Abandon cleared land in New England, and you'll get pokeberry and brambles, then sumac and birch, then maples and oaks and pines. In 5 years, it'll be covered in saplings; in 10 they're too big to cut with a handsaw.'
"the hills of Israel, Lebanon, Greece, Cyprus, Crete, Italy, Sicily, Tunisia, and eastern Spain" where dense with trees and topsoil a meter deep" 43 'Stripped of its protective trees, the soil washed to sea. All that's left now is scrubby brush clinging to dry rocks browsed by goats and desiccating in the sun'.
"fuel for industrial processes'
Richard Manning-"malaria" 48
'N. America was once covered in forests so thick that a squirrel could theoretically travel from Maine to Texas without touching the ground.'
'...native prairies 99.8% gone'
'Illinois once swaddled in 22MILLION acres of prairie" 51 "in Nebraska, 98% o f the native tallgrass prairie is gone" 52
'there's no place left for the buffalo to roam. Only corn, wheat and soy.'
"Indiana once home to over 2MILLION acres- now fragmented 1k remain.
'Most trees suffocate under water. Their roots need oxygen. But tupelo gum (can live over 500 years) and bald cypress (relatives to redwoods) grow a spongy tissue above the waterline, tissue that absorbs oxygen from the air like you and I do. "there's actualbreathing goin on' Richard Hines, wildlife biologist at the White River National wildlife Refuge." 54
Wes Jackson's answer is an agriculture based on perennial grasses' 56 "should we not strive to create an agriculture which makes unnecessary the example of exemplary people the current agriculture tradition?" ..."both the police and military do exist and are sings of failure within and of civilization...but should we not be constantly looking for ways to make them unnecessary?"
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