Kings Canyon & Sequoia National Park mega-sequence ...
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Kings Canyon & Sequoia were so spectacular they merited five folders:
Kings Canyon National Park - General Grant sequoia grove
Boyden Cave - entrance of Kings Canyon and Boyden Cave
Boyden Cave, Pt. 2 - Boyden Cave & South Fork of Kings River
Waterfalls of Kings Canyon - Roaring and Grizzly Falls
Sequoia National Park - a trip up the mountain to the Giant Forest and General Sherman tree, largest living thing on the Earth
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Don't take any comfort in the stock market going up. For the sake of the planet's health and humankind's future it is best that capitalism & consumerism & greed & gluttony die. Don't shop. Don't spend. Don't waste. Don't pollute.
Live differently.
The remarkable thing about this world is not that there are humans and that humans are intelligent and tool-making animals. What is remarkable about this planet is that it is alive. There's no problem with intelligence and tool-making so long as the planet remains alive, but unfortunately the humans seem intent upon destroying, despoiling and polluting everything. It seems that humans think that there is only space on this Earth for humankind alone.
This is not a healthy nor a sustainable manner of life for a species. Under such circumstances, since it is nearly impossible for Nature to die, what must inevitably happen is that the species which is at war with Nature must go extinct. Extinction is, of course, the natural fate of all species ... as natural and inevitable as death for the individual.
So humankind's behavior isn't changing the outcome of humankind's existence at all. What humankind has done is merely accelerate the process. The rocket shines so bright only because it exhaust its fuel at an extremely fast rate, hence the rocket doesn't shine for very long. In the same sense, humankind dominates the Earth for a brief moment and then our species wipes itself out and Nature moves on.
There is a way for animals to survive for millions of years on the Earth -- see, for example, the dolphin manner of life -- and there is a way for an animal to push itself over the cliff to immediate extinction. Humans have chosen this second path and unfortunately the damage which humans have done to the Earth preclude a return to that other path, the path to long-term survival.
Of course, humans don't really care whether the species survives much longer beyond our own individual life span. Humans are victims of our own short-term thinking.
So don't blame Nature for what is going to happen in the coming decades and centuries. Humans have chosen a dead-end path and we're going to follow it to its tragic conclusion.
David Mathews
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