{"id":2858,"date":"2022-05-26T04:39:30","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T04:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regenesis.org.au\/?p=2858"},"modified":"2023-09-25T04:53:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T04:53:00","slug":"regenesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regenesis.org.au\/2022\/05\/26\/regenesis\/","title":{"rendered":"Regenesis"},"content":{"rendered":"
Recognising the Fractal Nature of Our Wondrous World<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our world is not the linear world of euclidian geometry and the Western idea of PROGRESS as a linear pathway through time.\u00a0 Our world is a complex system of fractals. A fractal is a never-ending pattern. Fractals are infinitely complex patterns that are self-similar across different scales. They are created by repeating a simple process over and over in an ongoing feedback loop. Driven by recursion, fractals are images of dynamic systems \u2013 the pictures of Chaos. Geometrically, they exist in between our familiar dimensions. Fractal patterns are extremely familiar, since nature is full of fractals. For instance: trees, rivers, coastlines, mountains, clouds, seashells, hurricanes, etc.<\/p>\n In Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet<\/em> (Penguin 2022) George Monbiot reveals the wondrous world of soil and what it means for all of us. He draws our attention to its living complexity and fractal nature. I have always been fascinated by the mathematics of non-linear systems revealed in the fractal systems of Mandelbrot diagrams, that exist in marked contrast to the linear mathematics of geometry.<\/p>\n The more we understand about the complex systems which comprise our world, the more we realise the limitations of the linearity of conventional Western cultural thinking\u2014from understanding the nature of time to understanding the management of opportunities and problems.<\/p>\n Complex systems have counterintuitive properties. They are resilient under certain conditions, as their self-organising properties stabilise them. But as stress escalates, these same properties start transmitting shocks through the network. Beyond a certain point, a small disturbance can tip the entire system over its critical threshold, whereupon it collapses, suddenly and unstoppably. We have seen this in ecological collapses in denuded environments, and in species extinctions.\u00a0 The great fear is that climate change might trigger certain systems collapses, such as the Atlantic current that modifies the climate of Western Europe.<\/p>\n Scientists represent complex systems as a mesh of nodes and links. The nodes are like the knots in an old-fashioned net; the links are the strings that connect them.<\/p>\n The following blog is a series of extracts taken from some of the leading thinkers and organisers working in the REGENESIS policy space\u2014from regenerative agriculture and design to regenerative economics and society, to place-based community activation.George Monbiot – Soil<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Soil might not be as beautiful to the eye as a rainforest or a coral reef, but once you begin to understand it, it is as beautiful to the mind. Upon this understanding our survival might hang. Beneath our feet is an ecosystem so astonishing that it tests the limits of our imagination. It\u2019s as diverse as a rainforest or a coral reef. We depend on it for\u00a099% of our food<\/a>, yet we scarcely know it. Soil, the thin cushion between rock and air on which human life depends, which we treat like dirt.<\/p>\n But more arresting than soil\u2019s diversity and abundance is the question of what it actually is. Most people see it as a dull mass of ground-up rock and dead plants. But it turns out to be a biological structure, built by living creatures to secure their survival, like a wasps\u2019 nest or a beaver dam. Microbes make cements out of carbon, with which they stick mineral particles together, creating pores and passages through which water, oxygen and nutrients pass. The tiny clumps they build become the blocks the animals in the soil use to construct bigger labyrinths.<\/p>\n Soil is fractally scaled, which means its structure is consistent, regardless of magnification. Bacteria, fungi, plants and soil animals, working unconsciously together, build an immeasurably intricate, endlessly ramifying architectureMonbiot: The Rhizosphere<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The rhizosphere lies outside the plant, but it functions as if it were part of the whole. It could be seen as the\u00a0plant\u2019s external gut<\/a>.<\/p>\n When a plant root pushes into a lump of soil and starts releasing its messages, it triggers an explosion of activity. The bacteria responding to its call consume the sugars the plant feeds them and proliferate to form some of the densest microbial communities on Earth. There can be a\u00a0billion bacteria in a single gram of the rhizosphere;<\/a>\u00a0they unlock the nutrients on which the plant depends and produce growth hormones and other chemicals that help it grow. The plant\u2019s vocabulary\u00a0changes<\/a>\u00a0from place to place and time to time, depending on what it needs. If it\u2019s starved of certain nutrients, or the soil is too dry or salty, it\u00a0calls out to the bacteria species<\/a>\u00a0that can help.<\/p>\n Just as human breast milk contains sugars called oligosaccharides, whose purpose is to feed not the baby but the bacteria in the baby\u2019s gut, young plants release large quantities of sucrose into the soil, to feed and develop their new microbiomes. Just as the bacteria that live in our guts outcompete and attack invading pathogens, the friendly microbes in the rhizosphere create a defensive ring around the root. Just as bacteria in the colon educate our immune cells and send chemical messages that trigger our body\u2019s defensive systems, the plant\u2019s immune system is\u00a0trained and primed<\/a>\u00a0by bacteria in the rhizosphere.Monbiot: The Challenge of Soil Degradation<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Soil degradation is bad enough in rich nations, where the ground is often\u00a0left bare and exposed to winter rain<\/a>, compacted and wrecked by overfertilisation and\u00a0pesticides<\/a>\u00a0that rip through its\u00a0foodwebs<\/a>. But it tends to be even worse in poorer nations, partly because extreme rainfall, cyclones and hurricanes can tear bare earth from the land, and partly because hungry people are often driven to cultivate steep slopes. In some countries, mostly in Central America, tropical Africa and south-east Asia, more than 70% of the arable land is now\u00a0suffering severe erosion<\/a>, gravely threatening future production.<\/p>\n