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The evil Chinese are planting trees! Trees! (hexbear.net)
submitted 8 months ago by to c/slop@hexbear.net
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https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a69638301/china-reforesting-changed-hydrology/

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[–] 8 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Ah, but how long was it grassland? Humans have been changing the landscape for tens of thousands of years, on top of major climate changes before and during that. Much of what we call "natural" or "wild" was/is actually curated and lived in.

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  • [+] 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (5 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (4 children)

    The point is that this land was not immutably grassland historically, and so the prior point re: its prior state is not inherently valid. The only question is how long it was the case, if that's what we are meant to care about.

    I haven't said anything about whether it's strategically better in this case, that's just a category error re: your reply. I am highlighting that one should avoid the (often settler naturalistic fallacy mindset) that the right thing is what it "used to be", where "used to be" tends to be a somewhat mythological description of the place 50 years ago.

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  • [+] 1 point 8 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 8 months ago (2 children)

    So is the assumption I was responding to, which assumed that there were trees there to cut down in the first place.

    Both the comment you responded to and the comment you made had that kind of assumption. And I'm not replying to what they said...

    I wasn't making any normative claims about what the land should be, just pointing out that this process appears to have been afforestation of an area that, prior to this intervention, was grassland, and so the implicit assumption in the original comment that the local water cycle had already been perturbed may be wrong.

    I don't think that's what you communicated, actually.

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