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Thread: Giant African baobab trees die suddenly after thousands of years

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    Administrator Aragorn's Avatar
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    Lightbulb Giant African baobab trees die suddenly after thousands of years

    Source: The Guardian


    Demise of nine out of 13 of the ancient landmarks linked to climate change by researchers




    Some of Africa’s oldest and biggest baobab trees have abruptly died, wholly or in part, in the past decade, according to researchers.

    The trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years and in some cases as wide as a bus is long, may have fallen victim to climate change, the team speculated.

    “We report that nine of the 13 oldest … individuals have died, or at least their oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died, over the past 12 years,” they wrote in the scientific journal Nature Plants, describing “an event of an unprecedented magnitude”.

    “It is definitely shocking and dramatic to experience during our lifetime the demise of so many trees with millennial ages,” said the study’s co-author Adrian Patrut of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania.

    Among the nine were four of the largest African baobabs. While the cause of the die-off remains unclear, the researchers “suspect that the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated at least in part with significant modifications of climate conditions that affect southern Africa in particular”.

    Further research is needed, said the team from Romania, South Africa and the United States, “to support or refute this supposition”.

    Between 2005 and 2017, the researchers probed and dated “practically all known very large and potentially old” African baobabs – more than 60 individuals in all. Collating data on girth, height, wood volume and age, they noted the “unexpected and intriguing fact” that most of the very oldest and biggest trees died during the study period. All were in southern Africa – Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, and Zambia.

    The baobab is the biggest and longest-living flowering tree, according to the research team. It is found naturally in Africa’s savannah region and outside the continent in tropical areas to which it was introduced. It is a strange-looking plant, with branches resembling gnarled roots reaching for the sky, giving it an upside-down look.

    The iconic tree can live to be 3,000 years old, according to the website of the Kruger National Park in South Africa, a natural baobab habitat.

    The tree serves as a massive store of water, and bears fruit that feeds animals and humans. Its leaves are boiled and eaten as an accompaniment similar to spinach, or used to make traditional medicines, while the bark is pounded and woven into rope, baskets, cloth and waterproof hats.

    The purpose of the study was to learn how the trees become so enormous. The researchers used radiocarbon dating to analyse samples taken from different parts of each tree’s trunk. They found that the trunk of the baobab grows from not one but multiple core stems. According to the Kruger Park, baobabs are “very difficult to kill”.

    “They can be burnt, or stripped of their bark, and they will just form new bark and carry on growing,” it states. “When they do die, they simply rot from the inside and suddenly collapse, leaving a heap of fibres.”

    Of the 10 trees listed by the study authors, four died completely, meaning all their multiple stems toppled and died together, while the others suffered the death of one or several parts.

    The oldest tree by far, of which all the stems collapsed in 2010/11, was the Panke tree in Zimbabwe, estimated to have existed for 2,500 years. The biggest, dubbed Holboom, was from Namibia. It stood 30.2 metres (99 feet) tall and had a girth of 35.1 m.


    Source: The Guardian
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    Amen to that...but then climate change doesn't exist...
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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    Quote Originally posted by NotAPretender View Post
    Amen to that...but then climate change doesn't exist...
    Well, climate change is definitely real, but the question remains to what extent it would be anthropogenic. Earth's climate has never been static. There have been periods of global warming and global cooling in the past as well, and we also know from observations that Earth isn't the only celestial body in orbit around the sun that exhibits strong climate changes at the moment.

    Personally, I do think that the degree of pollution mankind has caused through its industrial activities and its earlier periods of neglect — as opposed to in later years, when we've committed ourselves far more to recycling, or at least, here in Europe — will have had an impact. And then there's the threatening extinction of certain species through over-fishing and over-hunting. We've already caused multiple species to become extinct, either by killing them directly or by upsetting the natural food chain in other ways, and this will undoubtedly have its repercussions on the environment as a whole as well.

    That all said, it is also well-known — and well-denied by the climate change scaremongers — that some of that climate change research has been falsified, and that the vilification of carbon dioxide emissions — with carbon dioxide only making up 0.04% of the atmosphere, while there are far more dangerous greenhouse gases floating about up there — just so happens to be politically and economically very convenient. That's where the whole carbon capping, carbon taxing and carbon trading comes in. The whole system has been as corrupt as can be from the get go — no surprise, given that Al Gore was involved.

    Carbon dioxide also happens to be to plants what oxygen is to animal life. Under the influence of sunlight, plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. So it's not like carbon dioxide would be a poisonous gas or "pollution" — notwithstanding the fact that certain brainless idiots in the mainstream media have been depicting it as such — because without carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, all plant life on Earth would become extinct, and that means that all herbivores would become extinct as well, followed by the carnivores that feed on those herbivores.

    So instead of carbon capping, carbon taxing and carbon trading, what they should be doing is put a stop to the thousands upon thousands of acres of rainforest that are being cut down every day, and instead start planting trees (or other vegetation) again. Evergreens are probably a very good choice, since they engage in photosynthesis all year around, and thus they will be converting carbon dioxide into oxygen all year long.

    Finally, mankind should also stop playing god. I've already alluded to that in the thread about CRISPR gene-editing possibly causing cancer, but it's true. Mankind — and specifically that of the political and/or financial-economical persuasion — seems to think we're gods who can control nature.

    And in their stupidity, they also overlook the fact that — as I've already said higher up in this post — Earth is not the only celestial body of our solar system to exhibit a general warming trend. Even the moon, which doesn't even have an atmosphere to speak of, is observed to have been warming up over the past decades. And I doubt that anyone would be driving a vehicle with an internal combustion engine around up there.

    The history books are full of tunnel visions and pipe dreams. Only in humbleness can a holistic notion of our existence in the universe be understood — not in arrogance, nor in profit margins, fame or prestige.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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    So, one group wants to believe climate change is manmade and therefore we have a chance of changing or reversing it.

    The other chooses simply to not believe. That way they aren't responsible for the event or any fix, and they don't have to change anything until the SHTF.

    So far, these groups look really irresponsible.


    We know scientifically that we've been in a calm period climate-wise and that harsher times are to come.

    So do we choose to divide against ourselves or work together to survive? 'Cause that's what it's going to be about.


    My son doesn't contribute to political, social or economic divides. In any way.

    He is learning to be self-sufficient in many ways. He's good at navigating in rough country like the Sierras or Tetons. (He's faced and yelled at a mountain lion).

    He and his girlfriend cook and if they continue life together they will likely be living somewhere where they will grow food.

    They'll be adaptive. If droughts and fires and floods and storms and more continue to increase they will live a lifestyle with less stuff and more ability to move if necessary.

    We're gonna need to be working with the 'other team' (whatever that is) if we expect to actually survive climate change that is going to happen whether or not we're in denial.

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    As I mentioned before, the sun is heating up and the Deep State is trying to mask the effect by chemtrails.

    Sun was yellow 20-30 years ago, now it is white.

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    It was white bright through the kitchen window a couple days ago.

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