Thursday, June 10, 2010

Ents & The Entities Become Nomadic

If a keyword on this post is biomimicry, why is "Ent" in the title?

Before the answer begins, let's contemplate some statements by scientists from a few years ago.

At that time the study was probably poo pooed by the climate change deniers.

But we can't debate the undebatable, so let's move on and reflect on the words of those scientists:

"Geographers have projected temperature increases due to greenhouse gas emissions to reach a not-so-chilling conclusion: climate zones will shift and some climates will disappear completely by 2100. Tropical highlands and polar regions may be the first to disappear, and large swaths of the tropics and subtropics will reach even hotter temperatures. The study anticipates large climate changes worldwide."

(Completely New Climates). Ok, so how does that tie in to the Ents and Nomads?

For those who do not know what an "Ent" is, let's start off with this:

Ents are an old race ... Shepherds of the Trees to protect the forests from ... perils ... the Ents were sentient beings ...

(Wikipedia - Ent). They are tree-like mythical creatures that could move their locus from place to place, making them totally unlike the real trees.

Right?

Wrong.

New scientific studies, following up on the climate change studies linked to and quoted above, show that in fact the trees are moving out of Dodge:

Vegetation around the world is on the move, and climate change is the culprit, according to a new analysis of global vegetation shifts led by a University of California, Berkeley, ecologist in collaboration with researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

In a paper published June 7 in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, researchers present evidence that over the past century, vegetation has been gradually moving toward the poles and up mountain slopes, where temperatures are cooler, as well as toward the equator, where rainfall is greater.

(Major Vegetation Shifts, emphasis added). The Earth's vegetation has enough sense to move when it is in danger.

Biomimicry is what the human species does when it sees some beneficial behavior in the biosphere that helps us.

Could this be a harbinger of things in store for us?