Faith in The Era of Post Truth

Climate Refugees, Habitual Rituals, and The Cult of Modernity

https://gregorypettys.substack.com/p/faith-in-the-era-of-post-truth

"The trees encountered on a country stroll reveal a lot about that country’s soul…A culture is no better than its woods.” W.H.Auden. I'm gathering information and resources for a new subreddit about Guerilla Forestry focusing on how planting perennial woody species in land not belonging to us has not just positive physical, mental and emotional health effects or the ecological benefits for the environment but that also has social, political and economic consequences for the people where guerilla rewilding through trees and ultimately forests has taken root and is thriving. Help me cultivate the next generation of Johnny Appleseeds, so that someday your children and their children will be able to reap the rewards of which you've sewn.

My place of work is looking into using a helitorch to burn mostly willow (Salix sp.) In a wetland area. I'm interested in the possible side effects of chemicals used in this process since we are connected to many water ways. Has anyone employed a helitorch to assist with prescribed fires or decided not to use one due to environmental risks? I'd love to get some input!

Heres a set of regenerative water principles

WATER PRINCIPLES

1. Groundwater, surface water, and atmospheric water are coupled by land cover.

2. Groundwater dampens river and soil moisture variability, which in turn dampens rain variability.

3. Land cover and geomorphology modulate continental water amount, rivers, floods, and sea-level rise. Continental water, rivers and floods modulate land cover and geomorphology.

4. Wind modulates vegetation by influencing distribution of rain. Vegetation modulates wind through friction, heat, and convection.

5. Soil moisture and vegetation hydration modulate droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, and floods. Droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, and floods modulate soil and vegetation.

6. Animals affect vegetation and soil. Vegetation and soil affect surface water distribution. Surface water distribution affects animal geography and biodiversity.

7. Vegetation modulates heat through evapotranspiration of water and cloud formation. Heat impacts vegetation.

8. Heat at the earth’s surface can transform into latent heat via vegetation evapotranspiration , ascend via convection, and radiate into space via thermal radiation without getting absorbed by greenhouse gases below.

9. Ecological succession is in feedback loop with water cycle evolution.

10. Vegetation, soil absorbency, and groundwater affects the size frequency, power law distribution of floods, droughts and wildfire.

For more on this, see article at https://climatewaterproject.substack.com/p/in-search-of-a-foundational-set-of

Glyphosate must be a last resort. I was thinking a combination of mowing/weed whip and pulling. Maybe after some strategic hand wicking or “buckthorn blasters”. The area is heavily overgrown with English ivy.

I found a fucking fish ladder , salmon specifically in my neighborhood WTF my mind is totally blown.

My parents have a big buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) issue on their property in Southeastern Wisconsin. My father has resolved to manually remove the bulk of it with a tractor. The remaining forest is sparse hardwoods, mostly red and white oaks. I studied restoration ecology, but not in the Midwest. I am curious what follow up treatments would be advised, specifically what natives could be planted to most effectively compete with the buckthorn. Should they seed with a general native mix? I haven’t been able to find any information regarding buckthorn management in a similar system. Based on my experience, I suggested they mulch the new bare areas and see what the seedbank already holds. Is this a good primary plan of action or is it just allowing for the buckthorn to bounce right back? For more context, they are interested in improving wildlife habit, especially forage for whitetail deer.

I live in Southeast Pennsylvania, United States. The house, and more to the point of this post, the land, we purchased has been neglected and abused for a couple of decades.
There are about a dozen red and white oaks from 30-100 years old (estimate), some American Beech, a few hickory, and a few sassafras. The topsoil has been almost completely denuded, basically it's marl clay with a smattering of moss. The trees are suffering, four of them were beyond saving and had to come down. Our goal is to entirely reforest the ground (about 2000 square meters/half an acre) with an accelerated process.
Our first step was collecting the leaves from neighbors houses and covering the entire ground with 10cm of leaves, resulting in about 2cm of packed down leaves after settling. We have about 40 yards of wood chips from local arborists, and we are going to mix/layer the chips with the leaves. We are also terracing the sloped part of the property and backfilling with wood chips. We are planting trees that are currently (for our area) at the northern end of their range to allow for global warming. We are going to be encouraging a healthy forest network by planting mushrooms, ferns, mosses of different sorts, water retention spaces (think small rain-fed marshes.) The 'marshes' are simply built up unlined clay concave areas to retard runoff and allow the water time to seep into the soil. Where there is sufficient sun we will plant clover and will be delaying the wood chips in those areas until late in the year and put the chips over the knocked down clover. After careful consideration, we are going to be using urea to kickstart the decomposition process in the chips. Yes, I know where it comes from. My concern is getting a layer of healthy humus over these trees as rapidly as possible. We are not a fan of urea, but we cannot afford the alternatives on the scale required.

Specifically, we could really use help with: Supporting documentation or advice on how to protect the trees from wood boring beetles (that is what killed the first four) including but not limited to medication, but ideally less chemically dependent methods. I think we are going to lose a fifth tree because I saw evidence of boreholes in a damaged area of the trunk.

Tips and tricks for accelerating the decomposition process of the wood chips would be helpful.

Sources for fern and mushroom spores is a big help. Other planting ideas that will help rapidly recreate a healthy, mature forest environment would be welcome.

Several of our neighbors have already noticed the work we are doing and have stated an interest in the process and are asking questions about the overall project; very encouraging!
Any ideas or advice is welcome.

If you had it to do over again, would you choose a career in ecology restoration? Why or why not? How would you advise a person (in their 40’s) considering a career change toward ecology restoration? It seems like it will require returning to school for another undergrad degree and possibly a masters to do what I envision, which is helping lead restoration projects. Am I on the right track? Apologies if this is the wrong forum. I’m happy to ask this elsewhere if it would be more appropriate.