comp.risks Risks Digest 31.39 wrote:
Subject: Sometimes simplicity is dangerous ...
From: Rob Slade <rmslade>
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2019 10:28:40 -0800
We, in security, hate complexity.
Complexity is the enemy of security.
KISS, for us, isn't just an admirable principle, it's almost a way of life.
We want to keep things as simple as possible, since they are going to get
complex enough eventually anyway, and we *hate* that.
But sometimes life is just complex, and there's nothing we can do about it.
So, what has prompted this rumination on my part?
Well, suddenly everyone has become aware that the Amazon rainforest is
burning. This isn't new, of course. We should have been aware that the
rainforest was burning some time ago. It's been burning for quite a while.
But, hey, so what? There have been forest fires in other places, and we've
survived. And most of us don't even know anyone who speaks Portuguese, so
what's the problem?
To understand that, you need to know about geology.
There are different types of soils in the world. They have different
components, one of which is regolith. Regolith is the breakdown product of
the underlying rock. It contributes elements which, in turn, fix or release
nutrients that plants need to grow. There are different soils, but they all
have regolith.
Except for tropical soil.
The soil in the Amazon rainforest has so little contribution from regolith
that it doesn't matter. So how do things grow, without the nutrient boost?
To understand that, you need to understand biology and ecology.
Trees grow in the tropical rainforest. Other plants grow on the trees.
Because they have no roots, they collect water in pouches and cups. The
water, as well as watering the plant, collects and kills bugs to get
nutrients that those plants use to grow. The insects eat fruit and leaves
up in the trees. Other animals eat fruit and drop the husks and leaves down
to the ground. The leaf litter gets cut up by ants who use it to farm mold.
Et cetera, et cetera until we get back to the trees. All of the huge
complicated process has to go on to provide nutrients for the tropical soil,
without which none of it lives.
That's why ten percent of the *total* biodiversity on the planet is in the
Amazon alone. They need it.
Stand in a hemlock forest, and all you have is the canopy above you. Except
for the dead branches that poke you and grab your clothes, there is nothing
to impede you below that. Tropical rainforests have five separate and
distinct layers, starting at the top canopy.
But what does this have to do with the fires?
Well, we (most of us) live in temperate rainforests. We don't understand
the problem with forest fires. Fires go on all the time. Fires are
actually useful in some ways. In the eastern forests, the First Nations
used to set fires to make the land more productive. In the west, we know
that, even if we weren't throwing cigarette butts around with gay abandon,
the storms from the ocean (that bring the rain), also bring thunderstorms,
and therefore lightning, and therefore, even without us, forest fires are a
natural part of the forest growth, ecology, and procession.
That's not the case in tropical rainforests.
In temperate rainforests, after the fire goes through, all we have to do is
plant douglas fire, and, within a few years, the trees are taller than we
are and there are mice and salal and mule deer and blackberries and bears
are pooping in the woods fertilizing the douglas fir.
(And we have to hurry to plant the douglas fir, because, if we don't, five
minutes after the fire goes through alder starts growing. We'll still have
a forest, just with a different economic value.)
That's not the case in tropical rainforests.
After a fire, you can't just plant some trees. You've got this whole
complex system that means that the fact that some insect you can't even name
is missing means that *that* frog doesn't pollinate *that* bush which
doesn't feed *that* fish and the whole thing falls apart. (Or, more likely,
doesn't start in the first place.)
In the tropical forest, after a fire, the grass (and crops, if you plant
them), grow spectacularly. The first year. The second year, the grass is
great. The third year, it's pretty good. After that, it's crap. Because
the system isn't putting anything back into the soil.
In the temperature rainforest, the rains come from the ocean. (Remember?)
Even if we burned down all the trees, the rains would still come. Not in
the tropical rainforest. Most of the rain comes from the forest itself.
The trees are lifting tons of water into the atmosphere every day. It takes
energy. And that's part of the reason that tropical rainforests have so
much rain, and are four or five degrees cooler than tropical savannah.
If we leave burned areas in the tropics alone, they might recover. But,
whereas in the temperate rainforests it takes years, in the tropics it takes
an equivalent number of millennia. The soil is dead, the land is in
drought, and isolated stands of forest will probably die, unless they are
miles in extent.
OK, now look at a map of the world. Can you find the Amazon? Remember that
not all of that bump is, in fact, the Amazon. Not even all of Brazil is all
Amazon.
And that part of that bump recycles 20% of all the oxygen in the
atmosphere. And when we lose that oxygen recycling capacity, we lose that
carbon sequestration capacity, all that rain, and that biodiversity (and all
the undiscovered pharmaceuticals it contains). And it won't grow back.
That's why a few fires in another country far away are important ...
From: Rob Slade <rmslade>
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2019 10:28:40 -0800
We, in security, hate complexity.
Complexity is the enemy of security.
KISS, for us, isn't just an admirable principle, it's almost a way of life.
We want to keep things as simple as possible, since they are going to get
complex enough eventually anyway, and we *hate* that.
But sometimes life is just complex, and there's nothing we can do about it.
So, what has prompted this rumination on my part?
Well, suddenly everyone has become aware that the Amazon rainforest is
burning. This isn't new, of course. We should have been aware that the
rainforest was burning some time ago. It's been burning for quite a while.
But, hey, so what? There have been forest fires in other places, and we've
survived. And most of us don't even know anyone who speaks Portuguese, so
what's the problem?
To understand that, you need to know about geology.
There are different types of soils in the world. They have different
components, one of which is regolith. Regolith is the breakdown product of
the underlying rock. It contributes elements which, in turn, fix or release
nutrients that plants need to grow. There are different soils, but they all
have regolith.
Except for tropical soil.
The soil in the Amazon rainforest has so little contribution from regolith
that it doesn't matter. So how do things grow, without the nutrient boost?
To understand that, you need to understand biology and ecology.
Trees grow in the tropical rainforest. Other plants grow on the trees.
Because they have no roots, they collect water in pouches and cups. The
water, as well as watering the plant, collects and kills bugs to get
nutrients that those plants use to grow. The insects eat fruit and leaves
up in the trees. Other animals eat fruit and drop the husks and leaves down
to the ground. The leaf litter gets cut up by ants who use it to farm mold.
Et cetera, et cetera until we get back to the trees. All of the huge
complicated process has to go on to provide nutrients for the tropical soil,
without which none of it lives.
That's why ten percent of the *total* biodiversity on the planet is in the
Amazon alone. They need it.
Stand in a hemlock forest, and all you have is the canopy above you. Except
for the dead branches that poke you and grab your clothes, there is nothing
to impede you below that. Tropical rainforests have five separate and
distinct layers, starting at the top canopy.
But what does this have to do with the fires?
Well, we (most of us) live in temperate rainforests. We don't understand
the problem with forest fires. Fires go on all the time. Fires are
actually useful in some ways. In the eastern forests, the First Nations
used to set fires to make the land more productive. In the west, we know
that, even if we weren't throwing cigarette butts around with gay abandon,
the storms from the ocean (that bring the rain), also bring thunderstorms,
and therefore lightning, and therefore, even without us, forest fires are a
natural part of the forest growth, ecology, and procession.
That's not the case in tropical rainforests.
In temperate rainforests, after the fire goes through, all we have to do is
plant douglas fire, and, within a few years, the trees are taller than we
are and there are mice and salal and mule deer and blackberries and bears
are pooping in the woods fertilizing the douglas fir.
(And we have to hurry to plant the douglas fir, because, if we don't, five
minutes after the fire goes through alder starts growing. We'll still have
a forest, just with a different economic value.)
That's not the case in tropical rainforests.
After a fire, you can't just plant some trees. You've got this whole
complex system that means that the fact that some insect you can't even name
is missing means that *that* frog doesn't pollinate *that* bush which
doesn't feed *that* fish and the whole thing falls apart. (Or, more likely,
doesn't start in the first place.)
In the tropical forest, after a fire, the grass (and crops, if you plant
them), grow spectacularly. The first year. The second year, the grass is
great. The third year, it's pretty good. After that, it's crap. Because
the system isn't putting anything back into the soil.
In the temperature rainforest, the rains come from the ocean. (Remember?)
Even if we burned down all the trees, the rains would still come. Not in
the tropical rainforest. Most of the rain comes from the forest itself.
The trees are lifting tons of water into the atmosphere every day. It takes
energy. And that's part of the reason that tropical rainforests have so
much rain, and are four or five degrees cooler than tropical savannah.
If we leave burned areas in the tropics alone, they might recover. But,
whereas in the temperate rainforests it takes years, in the tropics it takes
an equivalent number of millennia. The soil is dead, the land is in
drought, and isolated stands of forest will probably die, unless they are
miles in extent.
OK, now look at a map of the world. Can you find the Amazon? Remember that
not all of that bump is, in fact, the Amazon. Not even all of Brazil is all
Amazon.
And that part of that bump recycles 20% of all the oxygen in the
atmosphere. And when we lose that oxygen recycling capacity, we lose that
carbon sequestration capacity, all that rain, and that biodiversity (and all
the undiscovered pharmaceuticals it contains). And it won't grow back.
That's why a few fires in another country far away are important ...
