open fires, fireboxes, hobo stoves and environmental responsibility?
- Thread starter myotis
- Start date
I disagree, we would not be alive today if not for natural resources, even man made ones were natural at some point as you can make nothing from nothing. Food is a natural resource as is water and oxygen,. Every single thing on this planet bar none is or was a natural resource.
As for fair share, i think we had ours a long time ago.
Too many wars happened
WAR = Wastes All Resources.
Somewhere in these posts you will see where I address this. Its nothing to do with "knowing" about the effects a few fires will have on insects.
It is about the precautionary principle of avoiding a practice (which after all is just a hobby) that might have an impact on a specific group of insects under threat from a loss of dead wood (or living wood that could become dead wood)
Once a population is under threat for other reasons, then actions, which would normally be insignificant, can become significant.
However, my friends views aren't really relevant to this discussion, I was more concerned, that given this was how she had rected, about how the conservation lobbby might over react to bushcraft campfires should it become the focus of the media.
Graham
I did read the thread; however, my point stands.
Your friend has an issue, and is prepared to state her view. The reality is that we have always used the woodlands, and I fail to see how the situation, the constant use of those resources which she considers vital to insect life, has changed for anything but the better.
I would also argue that the tiny proportion of materials that bushcrafters use, a few kilos each per year as opposed to mega tonnes of actual volume available, is a total non issue.
I accept that just by living I damage something else, I accept that my chosen lifestyle impacts upon the natual environment; I would argue that I have a place within that environment, that life is 'vital' in that it will constantly strive to exist; that it will fill every available niche and habitat.
Wonderful really, isn't it ?
cheers,
Toddy
Your friend has an issue, and is prepared to state her view. The reality is that we have always used the woodlands, and I fail to see how the situation, the constant use of those resources which she considers vital to insect life, has changed for anything but the better.
I would also argue that the tiny proportion of materials that bushcrafters use, a few kilos each per year as opposed to mega tonnes of actual volume available, is a total non issue.
I accept that just by living I damage something else, I accept that my chosen lifestyle impacts upon the natual environment; I would argue that I have a place within that environment, that life is 'vital' in that it will constantly strive to exist; that it will fill every available niche and habitat.
Wonderful really, isn't it ?
cheers,
Toddy
Yes, exactly, as I said in the original post I "suspect" that within the broader environmental question a fire would seem to be the best choice. And a small fire a better choice again.
And although I advocated fire boxes and hobo stoves, a full life cycle analysis would also need to take into account the manufacture and transport of these metal items. So maybe small open fires are actually the better option.
Of course the broader environmental best practice, might not be best practice locally, where you might be concerned with very narrow and specific issues.
Life cycle analysis can throw up some surprising results such as the energy used by industrial level dishwashers means that cafes/resturants would be more environmentally friendly to use paper cups and bin them, than use China cups and re-use them.
I have in the past tried to get life cycle analysis information on various products and found it impossible to do. The example cited above is from a book I have.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Scientific-...=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235564944&sr=1-3
Graham
Within the context of my posts, it is no longer a matter of life and death that we can go in to the woods and have a play at being wild's woodmen camping.
Manmade by its nature is not natural, that is why it's called man made.
Toddy
I think a few dozens /hundreds people willing to go into the wood, and more to the point protect and nurture the woods and fields, is probably the only reason the woods are there now. Given mans appetite for wanton wholesale destruction of anything and everything that he no longer has a use for, we as wild-campers/bushcrafters have to be having a positive affect on the environment. But saying that gleening the last few fallen branches from the denuded forest floor of your local 20 acre woodland/parkland to burn in a bonfire, just so you can say “I boiled my brew natures way” has to be a negative and not a positive thing.
Mmmm, everything I have read about woodland animals whether it be insects, bats or birds that make use of dead or dying wood in some form, talk about changing woodland management posing a threat to their survival and at least partially explaining their declining numbers.
Having said that, I obviously agree, and I am sure my friend would as well, that the tiny amount of wood we use for campfires is insigificant compared to other uses. She isn't in anyway making a general argument that the wood we use for fires is vital for insect life.
But its still removing part of a resource, and all of the mega tonnes you describe is unlikely to be available. It may be that size of twigs that we use for fires is within a critical size range in terms of the rate that wood decays and the effect we are having is bigger than we think.
I don't really think it is, but often our lack of ecological understanding means we don't have the information to make these assessments, henc ethe Government Policy that we should be adopting the precautionary principle over environmental issues, where possible.
Graham
True, but the materials needed to make man made things were natural before we processed them.
Please, give me one example of a man made thing that was never natural in its base forms?
Everything has to be, or it would not exist.
Bushcraft is a hobby and i agree with you about it not being a life or death thing for us (yet). Just the same as a squirrel ringing a tree or a fox killing all the hens in the hen house are not life and death things. But, it is natural for them to do it according to the experts. So does that make the squirrels and foxes wrong and a negative force?
Me, I'm an archaeologist and I want a green burial
Chucked on the compost heap eh Toddy? My dad's been saying that for so long we're starting to take him seriously.
You are trying to trap me in to playing Semantics.
Manmade as in made by man rather than found in nature. as for examples of thing that are not found in nature Just about everything from LSD to plastic, are not natural. 300M steel alloy is not natural. An apply pie is not natural, as it is not found in nature.
You are trying to trap me in to playing Semantics.
But the materials used to make them are. There is nothing truly man made in existence. Well apart from this depression.
Not trying to argue semantics, so i'll leave it be
I think to be honest they survive because we don't need them for our daily lives anymore. To most folks they are waste ground. I know that around here they are perceived as a damned nuisance simply because they try to seed in every plant pot, space in paving, and gutter in the street.
At times of the year the windows are shut tight to keep the birch seeds, the willow down, the sycamore wings, the ash keys, the wych hazel papery seeds, out of the houses.........and the washing
Autumn is a perpetual clear up of leaves, birch twigs and fallen branches.People don't seem to know just what volume of materials a woodland produces. It's an incredible amount of growth every year. 20 acres of woodlands around here couldn't be denuded of fallen timbers by bushcrafters wee fires supposing they lived here all the time. Besides, fallen timbers are wet, the bark burns so badly that it's worth stripping it off and leaving it for the buggits. Dry standing small stuff, the trees that smothered for lack of light is best for burning. Ash, willow, birch (messy though it is); the pioneer species.....there's always masses of them. Well, around Lanarkshire there is, I know there's lots of dead standing pines in some areas of Perthshire.........surely it must vary across the country? It's back to know your area, I suspect.
I still think that the sheer volume of woodlands, and I include the straggly stuff that grows along lanes and industrial estates, is greater than it has been for an awful long time.
cheers,
Toddy
What is plutonium made out of? I'm not sure.
Originally though it would have been some form of natural material that has been processed many times.
Steel is iron and carbon, so the natural materials would be iron ore and wood, processed to make iron and charcoal then mixed to make steel.
It is not possible for something to exist that was not once a natural material found in nature.
Man made is just natural materials turned into something not natural.
From wikiedia
Trace amounts of two plutonium isotopes (Pu-239 and Pu-244) can be found in nature. Tiny amounts of Pu-244 occur naturally because it is formed as a minor decay product in uranium ores and it has a comparatively long half-life of about 80 million years.[25] Even smaller traces of Pu-239, a few parts per trillion, and its decay products are naturally found in some concentrated ores of uranium,[26] such as the natural nuclear fission reactor in Oklo, Gabon.[27] The ratio of Pu-239 to U at the Cigar Lake Mine uranium deposit ranges from 2.4 × 10−12 to 44 × 10−12.[28]
This thread has covered some ground !!
Thanks Myotis. As bushcrafters in particular we can't escape reflecting on all this.
Worldwide it appears that local people everywhere still using traditional open fires or variants to cook and be warm are now considered as significant polluters and deforesters on a global scale. While in fact all they do is bushcrafting 24/7 all year long...
Well it will not stop me bushcrafting pretending this is Stone Age and all is well......just for the sake of happiness!
Worldwide it appears that local people everywhere still using traditional open fires or variants to cook and be warm are now considered as significant polluters and deforesters on a global scale. While in fact all they do is bushcrafting 24/7 all year long...
Well it will not stop me bushcrafting pretending this is Stone Age and all is well...
...just for the sake of happiness!
