I feel impelled to provide a complementary view. The very concept of "homogocene" is paradoxically anthropocentric. I feel sorry for the rats, cane toads, sheep, grasses, mosquitoes, who are "homogenizing" previously separated biomes. They are simply doing what they are supposed to do: adapting, spreading out, thriving. They are only invasive in our frame of reference, i.e they are robust, hardy generalists that happen to be interfering with ecosystem services that we like. The criticism that we are reshaping the entire biosphere to our needs could just as easily be applied to other major "order of life" innovations like aerobic bacteria, viruses, etc.
--- Fred Zimmerman Geoengineering IT! Bringing together the worlds of geoengineering and information technology GE NewsFilter: http://geoengineeringIT.net:8080 On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 6:25 AM, Oliver Tickell <oliver.tick...@kyoto2.org>wrote: > An interesting thought, but of course there is much more to it than > botanical gardens. Commercial introductions, seeds in shoes, gardeners, > military usage ... and then of course all the animals, from rats to cane > toads to sheep to anopheles mosquitos ... and let's not forget the fungi, > such as the phytophera now causing havoc. Oliver. > > > On 14/07/2013 01:05, Russell Seitz wrote: > > In writing of " homogocene issues " Oliver Morton has floated a variation > of the theme of the 'anthropocene ' that might take on a life of its own > . > > Though Greek-Latin portmanteau words are deservedly suspect , there has > long been a need for an adjective to designate and reify a very important > ecological consequence of the age of exploration-- the nonchalant > homogenization of the biosphere that arose from the intercontinental > exchange of flora via the botanical gardens of the imperial powers of the > 18th and 19th centuries. > > By darwin's day, every nation had one , and they collectively > transferred such no-longer-exotics as rhododendrons, eucalypts and > arucaria, to name but a few, together with their symbionts and soil fauna, > from uninhabited regions and obscure refugia to the four corners of the > earth. > > There's no getting around it- the Homogocene is to the Anthropocene as > the Pleistocene is to the Holocene > > > >> -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "geoengineering" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
