[HN Gopher] All-natural geoengineering with Frank Herbert's Dune
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All-natural geoengineering with Frank Herbert's Dune
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 70 points
Date : 2025-10-10 14:11 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.governance.fyi)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.governance.fyi)
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| This is one of the substacks I'm increasingly paying attention to
| photon_garden wrote:
| If you liked this article, I recommend Robin Wall Kimmerer's
| Braiding Sweetgrass. She's a professional plant scientist and
| researcher, and her books are both informative and a delightful
| read.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I hated that book. It's science filtered through a double dose
| of woo mixing unsubstantiated nonsense with plant science.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| I on the other hand, loved it. She strikes, in my view, a
| perfect balance between plant science and folk wisdom. A very
| refreshing view bridging two worlds, and overall an
| optimistic one at that.
| colechristensen wrote:
| This is a disagreement I understand at least. I don't think
| it accomplishes that goal well but to each their own.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| I thought a notable omission was discussion of releasing iron or
| other minerals into the ocean to stimulate algal growth. It
| mimics natural processes such as wind blowing sand from desserts.
| Its been tried by a rogue effort that didn't seek permission but
| saw some success and had the effect of restoring fish numbers in
| the area.
|
| I've gone back and forth on whether the potential for unintended
| consequences is too risky. Lately I've been in favor of slow,
| carefully controlled efforts. We've already geoengineered the
| oceans into a bad situation and are about to take things to a
| whole new level with ocean mining. Mineral release could be
| considered analogous to tree planting restoration work.
| colechristensen wrote:
| One thing I think we need to do is intentionally trigger algae
| or jellyfish blooms in low biodiversity ocean deserts. Usually
| they're thought of as a bad thing but they could be done in the
| right way to be significantly carbon negative.
|
| A bloom sucks a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere to make
| biomass which then dies and sinks to the bottom of the ocean as
| marine snow and then gets buried fixing the carbon under
| natural sedimentation. Finding places we can make this happen
| with minimal biome impact and minimal leverage needed to
| trigger (some missing nutrient which is cheap and readily
| available)
| zdragnar wrote:
| That's how you get the dead zone off the shore of Louisiana.
| The algae doesn't get to the bottom before it starts
| decomposing, and during calm periods (especially the summer
| months) the deep waters don't get mixed and replenished with
| oxygen faster than the bacteria decompose the algae.
|
| You'd need lots of careful planning to avoid causing more
| harm than good.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The point is to do this in the marine deserts where it is
| already mostly a dead zone
| SpicyUme wrote:
| With regard to the sections about beavers, I went to an event
| this year where a beaver scientist mentioned that many European
| settlers in North America showed up after beavers had been nearly
| extirpated by trappers. So they would come across open flat areas
| with a stream flowing through which had likely been dammed by
| beavers in the past. This caused problems with flooding and water
| damage, and problems as beavers have been reestablished in much
| of the US (and Canada?)
| sampo wrote:
| Not related to the article, but related to Frank Herbert's Dune:
|
| The Dune ecosystem is much less thought out than it appears to
| be. Herbert drops bits and pieces about the Dune ecology here and
| there so getting an overall picture is difficult, so we don't
| realize how silly it is.
|
| * We don't know where sand plankton comes from.
|
| * Sand plankton lives in the top layers of desert sand, eats
| spice.
|
| * Some of the tiny sand plankton individuals grow larger, migrate
| deeper down, and become sand trout.
|
| * Sand trout excrement combines with water pockets deep below, is
| biologically active, grows, releases gases and explodes,
| transporting it back to surface, becomes spice.
|
| * We don't know what sand trout eats, but it should eat something
| in order to produce excrement.
|
| * Some sand trouts grow larger, become sand worms.
|
| * Sand worms eat sand plankton.
|
| So the thole ecosystem consists only one species, with 3 life
| stages: (1) sand plankton, (2) sand trout, (3) sand worm. And
| stage 1 lives by eating the excrement of stage 2, and stage 3
| lives by eating stage 1.
|
| Ecologically and energetically this is silly. The species just
| eats itself and its own excrement, and there appears to be no
| energy input to the system.
| zem wrote:
| it may indeed be silly, but as far as energy input to the
| system goes, all you need to do is postulate that one stage can
| photosynthesise sunlight.
| dmbche wrote:
| Where did you find this? I don't remember reading about it -
| could it be in his son's books?
| Mistletoe wrote:
| There is a lot of silly stuff in Dune, you just have to roll
| with it. A still suit would kill you from heat because your
| sweat is never evaporating.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| If the environment temperature is lower than body temperature
| and the suit has air cooling with fins or something, it could
| work.
| ftkftk wrote:
| This summer I helped for a few hours to build Beaver Dam
| Analogues (BDAs) at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. I am
| really looking forward seeing the positive ecological impact when
| my future grand children trek Philmont. Building BDAs is good
| fun. You should try it.
| skylissue wrote:
| Frank Herbert was inspired to write Dune after hearing about the
| sand dunes on the coast of Oregon, which were growing out of
| control until their spread was controlled by the introduction of
| European beachgrass
|
| https://www.pdxmonthly.com/arts-and-culture/2015/07/how-the-...
| araes wrote:
| At least on the part about the Nootka lupine (Lupinus
| nootkatensis), seems they're edible in seed and root form
| [1][2][3] as long as they're leeched properly beforehand to get
| rid of bitter (possibly toxic) alkaloids. Grizzly bears
| apparently also relish the roots. Some butterflies feed off the
| lupine. Medicinally, with less references, used for digestive
| disorders, skin conditions, and infections.[4]
|
| Can probably just farm them, or harvest the fields that exist,
| and then store the seeds / roots or make flour out of them. Seems
| like a possible farm crop personally. Go out with a harvester
| designed for beans / peas. There's not that much that grows in
| Iceland anyways.
|
| [1] USDA,
| https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_lu...
|
| [2] Sierra Club, https://sierraclub.bc.ca/ecomap/nootka-lupine/
|
| [3] Plants for a Future,
| https://pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Lupinus+nootkaten...
|
| [4] Wild Flower Web,
| http://www.wildflowerweb.co.uk/plant/2579/nootka-lupin#:~:te...
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