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  1. #16
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    BobL

    Our civilization will die this is the nature of things. By preserving knowledge and passing it to the next generation. Those who will survive the collapse of our civilization will not need to start from zero. I am pessimistic, I feel that the end is unavoidable. Even if I may not see the end in my lifetime. However people will always survive as we have done so for 150000 plus years. They may however do so in a world that we would not recognize.

    When I was traveling up in Northern NSW coffee bushes grew all over peoples farms the problem, they never harvested it, easier to go to Coles.

    Education of woman is the top contraceptive followed by TV and now the internet.

    Splinter

    Economic growth and population growth are married at the hip. If we stop immigration with negative population growth, the economy would stall and politicians would not get elected, and that is something politicians could never accept. Look at Japan, they have negative population growth yet refuse immigration, and their economy has been tanking for years. The Japanese feel that it is better to racially pure and poorer because of it. Its a question - what do you want more - food on your table or that all your neighbors look like you. You can only have one.

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  3. #17
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    imo, if there's an argument to begin with, with people, then the subject is probably too grey to be resolved properly. Doesn't matter how mature sounding or better than the other person you want/need to be.

    Because there's really only one improvement to people problems……less people……zero population growth…....cause people will always find a way to justify their excessive needs.

    just an opinion. not an expert on people. 2 cent with.

  4. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Skew's_Girl View Post
    A well built, well maintained piece of furniture can and will last an extremely long time. That IS sustainable.
    Manufacturing intended to only give a piece of furniture a short lifespan, bad maintenance and obsession for the latest trend. That's unsustainable. .
    This is a very good point and the word "furniture" can even be replaced with other items like toys and quality kitchen ware, but less so with clothing and furnishings.

    The other aspect of this problem is space. I'm watching several of my siblings not in their late 50s downsizing in terms of housing. Like most of us their current houses are filled with "stuff" and they have to rationalise what they are going to take with them to their new places so quite a bit of furniture has to go. They have tried unsuccessfully to give stuff away but most of it has ended up on the front verge. One of my sisters had a large set of 70's look jarrah built in shelves which they took out of the house before the one they now have to empty and stored in their garage for 15 years. They have offered them to the rest of the family but no one has room and they too will end up on the verge.

  5. #19
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    Default Nature always wins

    Sorry to read the sadness in some of the threads here.
    Now in my 60's, I've never been a sage but I've seen many things and want to make a few comments.

    I've seen the regrowth of the red cedar as a common tree species. I've seen nature take back old dairy farms on the mid north coast. I've seen the kangaroo expand in volume due to our clearing efforts and I've seen the demise of the cute koala and other cute animals and environments we love to hold dear.

    We are romantics.

    We like pretty animals and nature as a garden, we don't like lantana or viney weed growths along rivers, we don't like urban growth or non sustainable anything, we long to have rain forests and English countryside.
    But weeds and viney growths are part of nature as well, perhaps not our preference, but so what!

    Nature is cruel and doesn't play favourites.
    It is survival of the fittest. Species come and grow, climate changes occur with or without our assistance.
    With change there will be winners and losers.
    We may end up a loser, probably will, but not for a long time yet.
    It is only that we are sentient beings, that we can even consider this subject and in the long run, we are not really that important as a species.

    So, please don't fret, let's not get above ourselves in the species table. We only have the capacity to comprehend a time line of around 100 years, perhaps a thousand. But a million? No way; and nature works in time spans of millions and billions.

    99% of the biosphere is vegetative, plants are not fitted with brains but they rule. They are a diverse lot and can even reafforest emerging volcanic islands in time, if you've time, google how they took over Rome and its Colosseum after Rome's population fell from over 1 million to 30,000 in the past millennium.

    So please have another wine and relax. We will strut the stage for a while longer yet, but nature will win in the end.

    Greg

  6. #20
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    FenceFurniture is offline The prize lies beneath - hidden in full view
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    Default Furniture is carbon capture

    There are many others on this forum with far more knowledge of forestry and milling than my very limited amount (such as Greg Ward, John G, Bob Whitworth et al) but I would make the following observations:
    • Much of the commercial furniture is made from Crapiata, which is more or less a plantation industry (although forests have been cleared, and will continue to be cleared in the future for them to grow). I'm not sure how many rotations can be grown in the one place, but it's certainly more than one.
    • As Greg points out, many farms that are no longer used for their original purpose are being "recycled" into plantation forests of furniture grade timber (i.e. proper furniture). Again, I don't know how many rotations can be grown. There would be a vast amount of hectares of now disused or under-used farms that could be converted to timber plantations. We need to get a bit smarter about that land.
    • Much of the fruits of small miller's work becomes furniture, although I suppose many of the trees that they mill are on an opportunistic basis (trees that have fallen over, or have to be removed for whatever reason). This would be a drop in the bucket of carbon capture.


    So, leaving out the question of whether or not some of the forests should be unlocked (because there are many more considerations before knocking over virgin forest), any plantation grown timber results in more carbon capture. As Greg points out, our time frame is a mere blip on the scale of ecology, although in some areas we seem to be outpacing it (climate change and other pollution, resource usage).

    Surely the idea of carbon capture would please the OP's taunter.

    There may be holes in my argument, so feel free to point them out.
    Regards, FenceFurniture

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  7. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Greg Ward View Post
    . . . . . So, please don't fret, let's not get above ourselves in the species table. We only have the capacity to comprehend a time line of around 100 years, perhaps a thousand. But a million? No way; and nature works in time spans of millions and billions.
    It sure does but don't forget that planets like Venus and Mars are also natural. It is likely that the earth has a tipping point beyond which it may not be able to return to any form life as we know it.

  8. #22
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    Default red giant

    In around 3-4 billion years as the sun's fuel is used, it will grow into a red giant before shrinking to a dark warm 'rock'. The red giant will destroy any possibility of life remaining on earth on any form

    So there is a time limit on nature and life on this planet as well.

    Sad?

    Does this mean that nothing really matters?

    Or that God does or doesn't exist?

    Just be kind to each other, enjoy your morning walk, talk to your kids and the dog and continue to yell at the politicians on the television to reduce stress.

    Greg

  9. #23
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    A lot of what has been written here reminded me of something I watched on youtube not long ago. Simply titled "Get Back To Me" by QLD country life. Ill try to attach the link.

  10. #24
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    In the end we could all just be part of some Alien kids school project

  11. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by mach70 View Post
    In the end we could all just be part of some Alien kids school project

    Thanks for that! now my life finally makes some kind of sense. It's the only hypothesis that I have heard so far that even comes close to explaining it all.

    But wait! what if that alien kid is part of an even larger and more bizarre science project. Then it all REALLY starts to make sense...

    Cheers

    Doug
    I got sick of sitting around doing nothing - so I took up meditation.

  12. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by Greg Ward View Post
    In around 3-4 billion years as the sun's fuel is used, it will grow into a red giant before shrinking to a dark warm 'rock'. The red giant will destroy any possibility of life remaining on earth on any form

    So there is a time limit on nature and life on this planet as well.

    Greg
    Greg, while I have great respect for your point of view, using our inevitable disappearance in geological time as a reason to sit on our hands now is like a person with a weight problem saying "well I'm not that big when you consider me in the context of the vastness of space, so pass me the chocolate."

    There were koalas where I live twenty years ago and a host of birds and other animals. Dogs and fences saw to the koalas and ride on mowers removed the food and shelter for almost everything else. We were to blame as much as anyone else.

    But, realising that we'd ruined things for a hundred or more species of fauna and flora we didn't just say, oh well s**t happens, survival of the fittest. We planted plants, let the grass grow and modified our behaviour slightly and in a matter of years regained much of what we destroyed and many species have returned and are breeding again.

    The trees we share the rock with deserve a chance to be sent extinct in geological time, not because we insist on the right to turn every last stick, no matter how rare into trashy mags, acres of knotless unblemished floor boards, or furniture.

    I use wood. I use heaps of it but that doesn't mean I wash my hands of responsibility for its continued existence.

    Matt
    ...I'll just make the other bits smaller.

  13. #27
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    Default Pet nature

    Trees on our property were removed one hundred years ago.
    It's a battle there to limit their return and they are winning, much of the property has returned to what you may regard is a natural original state.
    But several hundred years ago the aboriginals on the north coast used fire to manage the bush; that we consider normal, they would consider abnormal.

    Time varies nature as does man's presence, rainforests wax and wane as climate and seasons change, they compete with eucalypts, eucalypts compete with grasses, fires have their own agenda as well, and camphorlaurel and shrublands also wish to play their parts.

    The point I'm making is that we all play favourites and have our pet loves, whether it be whales or pretty marsupials.
    Lantana and and camphor and weeds are as much a part of nature as the pristine woodlands and trees you are planting, foxes and catfish and ugly insects are only doing what comes natural, but we don't respect them.
    Feeling good about your actions is laudable and normal, but is ignores the fact that you are also playing favourites, not only with the woods you plant, but with your own love of certain species as distinct to those that have replaced them.

    Regards

    Greg

  14. #28
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    I have lantana, dragon fruit and two types of asparagus which I leave because the birds and a bandicoot use them. I'm not advocating a return to some pre-european idyl. But I have a far greater impact on my surroundings than anything I share them with. I can either be a good neighbour or a bad one. Same goes with the materials I use. I can at least source material from suppliers who are trying to be good stewards.

    Just to say everything is always in flux so there's no point trying to save anything goes beyond fatalism. Perhaps I will see it your way when I'm a bit older, somehow I hope not.
    ...I'll just make the other bits smaller.

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