Michael Shermer vs. "alternative history" Hancock and Crandall

[John Jones]

That first one is Dalby Forest between Pickering and Scarborough, it extends quite a way up into the Moors.
The second one is the area around Littlebeck, the valley is all natural woodland with plantations to the east and west surrounded by open moorland. All the planting was started in the 50s and has been added to and cropped since then.
Your last one with the obvious avenue running from top to bottom is the parkland and estate at Castle Howard. the avenue is the main drive through the grounds, it's actually a public road.
Most pine plantations are Forestry Comission. It was formed after WW1 to build up a strategic reserve of timber so their oldest plantations date back to the 1920s and 30s but any that were planted then would be on their third growth by now.

Estate plantations put in on country estates to encourage pheasants, provide a cash crop or improve the view. they tend to be hardwood and can date back to the 18th century.

Thank you for refreshing fact-based and woo-free statements on forest plantations. They are quite interesting.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Thank you for refreshing fact-based and woo-free statements on forest plantations. They are quite interesting.

As I say, the North Yorkshire Moors are my back yard. Castle Howard is in the Wolds rather than the Moors but I go Pike Fishing on the castle lake from time to time.

 

[King of the Americas]

That first one is Dalby Forest between Pickering and Scarborough, it extends quite a way up into the Moors.
The second one is the area around Littlebeck, the valley is all natural woodland with plantations to the east and west surrounded by open moorland. All the planting was started in the 50s and has been added to and cropped since then.
Your last one with the obvious avenue running from top to bottom is the parkland and estate at Castle Howard. the avenue is the main drive through the grounds, it's actually a public road.
Most pine plantations are Forestry Comission. It was formed after WW1 to build up a strategic reserve of timber so their oldest plantations date back to the 1920s and 30s but any that were planted then would be on their third growth by now.

Estate plantations put in on country estates to encourage pheasants, provide a cash crop or improve the view. they tend to be hardwood and can date back to the 18th century.

England is AWESOME! TONS of old unoccupied structures.

How old is the forest around Black Loch?

Can you get here?

Lat. 55°20'4.54"N
Long. 3° 3'12.30"W

 

[John Jones]

nvm

 

[Andy_Ross]

England is AWESOME! TONS of old unoccupied structures.

How old is the forest around Black Loch?

Can you get here?

Lat. 55°20'4.54"N
Long. 3° 3'12.30"W

That's Scotland not England, I can't get there although I have driven past up the A7.
That is all Forestry Comission plantations of pine all post ww2

 

[King of the Americas]

Or Here:

Lat. 55°32'47.90"N
Long. 3°42'46.16"

 

[Craig B]

England is AWESOME! TONS of old unoccupied structures.

How old is the forest around Black Loch?

Can you get here?

Lat. 55°20'4.54"N
Long. 3° 3'12.30"W

Black Loch is not in England, but in Scotland. There are many "unoccupied structures" here too, resulting from rural clearances and other regrettable events. If you consult Black Loch's entry in wiki, you will find that

The surface area of the Black Loch was enlarged in the early 1790s. A small canal was cut at the western side, so that run off from the moss would feed the loch and a dam built to enclose a larger volume of water which was required by the Monkland Canal at Woodhall. Therefore, this loch or reservoir to be more precise is not only the source of the North Calder Water but also an important source of the water supply for the Monkland Canal and further downstream, the Forth and Clyde Canal at Glasgow.​

It is open to you to demand to know the name of the chief engineer on that project, or to insist that the waterway was built by an advanced civilisation 12,000 years ago, as it was beyond the capacity of 18th century Scottish industry to create; but I nonetheless think that the evidence that the area was substantially remodelled in the 1790s is both compelling and accurate.

The Loch is part of the canal water supply, and was substantially enlarged for that purpose.

 

[Craig B]

The closest old woodland to Black Loch is estate woodland at Callendar House^WP 55.99464°N 3.76711°W. This woodland is said to be over five hundred years old, which is possible as the house is mediaeval in origin, extended in the nineteenth century.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Or Here:

Lat. 55°32'47.90"N
Long. 3°42'46.16"

New Oleans?

 

[Craig B]

The closest old woodland to Black Loch is estate woodland at Callendar House^WP 55.99464°N 3.76711°W. This woodland is said to be over five hundred years old, which is possible as the house is mediaeval in origin, extended in the nineteenth century.

Here we are informed that some oaks are 250 years old but other trees are younger, and that the woodland contains some North American species, presumably planted in the nineteenth century.

 

[Reality Check]

Denies the reality that trees die

That's the way things work in deserts...

That is the way things work in a ignorant fantasy of a desert with trees that live forever !

24 November 2017: Denies the reality that trees die!
Trees are not eternal. They age and die. They are attacked by pests and die. They get diseases and die. They run out of water and die. Other trees cut out their sunlight and they die. They get struck by lightning end die. Thus abandoned man-made forests lose trees at different ages and locations to age, disease, etc. It is maintained man-made forests that retain the grid pattern that you are so obsessed with !

The main species of tree planted in Chile starting in 1963 was Prosopis tamarugo. As above some Prosopis trees will be killed early on by pests, disease, etc. The rest will die at a range of ages. But the uses of the trees include firewood and furniture making. That suggests that the trees are harvested periodically, e.g. 20 year intervals.

24 November 2017: The idiocy of an image from a document on the post-1963 tree planting.
Fruit production.

24 November 2017: A lie about the image which is captioned "Aerial views of the forest planted by the Corporación de Fomento on the Refresco property. Tamarugal Pampa" and so was planted after 1963.

 

[Reality Check]

Historic Transparency.

An irrational demand that you can read every government document of any age online.

There is the rational world where governments have billions of documents gathered over centuries and generate millions more paper documents each year. It costs time and money to put a paper document online. Thus it is important documents that go online. They cannot all placed online to cater for the whims of anyone, especially someone with:
67 items of ignorant assertions and fantasies from 9 November 2017 to 23November 2017

 

[Reality Check]

Supports his ignorant fantasy with ruins of modern? adobe farm buildings

Ruins from one of the farms...Yup, that's 1960's design alright...pfft.

24 November 2017: Supports his ignorant fantasy with ruins of modern? adobe farm buildings in some random photos !
People build today with adobe. People have been building with adobe for centuries. It would take an expert to date them accurately. That is not a lawyer deluded about trees documented as planted after 1963 being per-Columbian.

But what I see is adobe with not weathered construction marks so I will estimate then as fairly modern, a few decades or couple of centuries.

KOTA: Are you brave enough to give the source, including captions, for those photos?

 

[Reality Check]

Supports his ignorant fantasy from a document on the post 1963 tree planting

... In the photos I've provided via Google Earth trees are planted 45 feet apart, NOT 10 or 13 feet apart.

24 November 20176: Supports his ignorant fantasy with a misunderstand graph from a document on the post 1963 tree planting!
AGE/CROWN DIAMETER RATIO BY SPACING: PROSOPIS TAMARUGO has spacing that are 10 by 10 meters and 13 by 13 meters. That is a spacing of 32 feet and 42 feet respectively.

The graphs contain real spacing used in real farms which were from 6 by 6 meters to 13 by 13 meters in 1968, published 1971.

Studies were made in 1968 attempting to relate tamarugo growth to the controlled variables: age, plant spacing and groundwater depth (Instituto Forestal, 1971).

This is little to do with the current spacing used today 49 years later. It is possible that this study or others made the largest spacing standard for new plantings and replacement of the 1963-1968 plantings.

 

[Reality Check]

KOTA has posted countless ignorant fantasies about documented recent plantings

To recap:

24 November 2017: KOTA has posted countless ignorant fantasies about documented recent plantings that do not "pre-date colonization"

24 November 2017: A delusion of "oldest rainforests were artificially planted" when he finds a clearing in a rainforest.
You can see a road leading past the clearing and tracks within the forest. The clearing is possibly a cattle or sheep ranch since there is grassland, scattered trees and maybe a farmhouse.

 

[King of the Americas]

Lost City of the Rainforest- Africa

Lat. 0°50'34.76"N
Long. 15°50'41.68"E

 

[Reality Check]

Irrelevant question and images derailing from a tree planting delusion

...Could you date these?

24 November 2017: Irrelevant question and images derailing from a "post 1963 tree planting were planted pre-Columbian" delusion .

 

[Reality Check]

Emphasizies how idiotic his use of the prosopis tamarugo document is

Here's the problem...

The real problems include
24 November 2017:Emphasizes how idiotic his use of test and images from the prosopis tamarugo: fodder tree for arid zones document is!

Yes KOTA,
prosopis tamarugo: fodder tree for arid zones is not about the 2017 images of plantations you see in Google Earth.
prosopis tamarugo: fodder tree for arid zones is not about any tree spacing used in the last 49 years.
prosopis tamarugo: fodder tree for arid zones was published in 1980 and the spacing data was from trees planted up to 1968, published in 1971 (Instituto Forestal, 1971).

The fact that prosopis tamarugo: fodder tree for arid zones documents the tree planting up to 1980 is why it is idiotic to apply it to 2017 images.

24 November 2017: The repeated ignorance of an unsourced photograph presumably from a post 1963 tree planting document.

24 November 2017: The delusion that what he sees in Google Earth matches an old photograph taken on the ground.

24 November 2017: Lying about the photograph by not giving a source or including the caption.
Which is Unpruned tamarugos

 

[Reality Check]

A "NO ONE has found or produced a SINGLE shred of evidence" lie

NO ONE has found or produced a SINGLE shred of evidence...

24 November 2017: A "NO ONE has found or produced a SINGLE shred of evidence" lie.
You have been using images from the prosopis tamarugo: fodder tree for arid zones documenting the tree planting up to 1980.

 

[Reality Check]

10 = 30 feet. These were planted 45 feet apart. Those two numbers are NOT equal. ...

An ignorant assertion become no one who can read expects the numbers to be equal. prosopis tamarugo: fodder tree for arid zones was published in 1980 and the spacing data was from trees planted up to 1968, published in 1971 (Instituto Forestal, 1971).

A small error: 10 m = 32 feet.
A small lie by omission: There is also a spacing of 13 m = 42.65 feet. With some planting in triangles ("15 × 15 m in triangular") = 49.2126 feet.

Given your history, we have to ask whether that "45 feet" is a lie? And the answer is not quite.
You first wrote with plants spaced about every 40 feet which later becomesThe trees are 45 feet apart and there have been 8 days of this unsupported assertion.
You know that previous planting before 1980 in squares went up to 13 meters or 42.7 feet spacing. That happens to be between your 2 estimates.