(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . “6 ways Mushrooms can help save the planet.” Mycelium is the mother of land based life. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-27 “6 ways Mushrooms can help save the planet.” Mycelium is the mother of land based life. Sometimes you make a choice that you initially regret, but that ultimately provides a path to new perspectives Recently, I screwed up my courage to view a link someone had amended to the comments thread of my recent Greta Thunberg diary and chose to read the transcript provided for the source article of the YouTube video. It is called, “10 Reasons Our Civilization Will Soon Collapse” and it is not for the environmentally faint hearted (which is in excess of 90% of this site). I have chosen not to provide the link for it as it is against my nature to subject anyone to suffering on this level, and I have doubts about the motivations behind its creation as well as the neutrality and objectivity of the shaping of its information. It left me drowning in a tsunami of conflicting emotions, not the least of which was raw fear. But the more balanced view of environmental issues imparted to me by the efforts of M.B. and others on this site, along with my own innate abilities to process information, enhanced by the multi-disciplinary outlook I’ve developed throughout my life, helped keep my head above water. Shortly after reading ‘10 ways’, as I struggled to process the nightmarish scenario it laid out, I was already recognizing the gaps in information and logic it contained as the result of what appeared to be a doom bias, which could trigger subconscious prioritizing and an editing or even omission of the facts to be presented. It focused on the horrendous damage we have wrought and if it provided any ideas about what could be done, it wasn’t enough to leave any imprint in my memory. One thing that troubled me was the lack of vision, as so often the descriptions of such things as soil degradation and resource depletion came across as soon to be fait accompli and so far advanced as to be essentially unfixable. Innovative solutions were given short shift and scarcely mentioned, as if the world being described was static and would remain so into the future. Although the author repeated several times that it was important to try to save the planet, his contextual undercurrent suggested that as things now stand, our efforts would be futile. There was little to advocate in the article that innovative solutions carried any weight in the current state or even future state of the planet. The picture presented was of inevitable collapse because we’d let things go past the point of ‘no return’. All 10 ‘ways’ were stupefyingly grim. I felt as if I’d been paralyzed by injection, before being consumed by a giant utterly horrifying spider, while remaining conscious, alert and helpless. Nevertheless, from my own knowledge, I already knew of innovations, unmentioned in “10 ways” that could potentially change the paradigm and I could even formulate other solutions on my own. The next day, a dear friend that I go through long periods of non-communication with, happened to send me a link to a Ted Talk given by Mycologist Paul Stamets, entitled “6 ways mushrooms can save the world”, which is the sort of thing that can lead to the ‘dangers’ of magic thinking — with the serendipity of “10 ways” vs “6ways” reaching me within 1 day providing a jumping off point. :-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY But in this case there was no cause for concern, as these ‘ways’ were grounded in science and experimentation and in no way related to mushrooms dancing to the “Nutcracker” in Fantasia”. So when I went to view ‘6 ways’, the solutions presented by our advancing understanding of ‘mycelium’, provided a comforting bath of reassurance and invigorating rinse off of encouragement. These instantly reestablished my inner equilibrium, as well as verifying deeply held convictions about the current and ongoing revelatory rethinking of our ‘understanding’ of life. Through a veritable ‘pileup’ of epiphanies, our comprehension of life is being completely reshaped from the ground up as we shake off firmly held beliefs colored by our species ego and prejudicial thinking. It can be easy to forget in the face of the glamour of technological innovation, that our knowledge in other fields is morphing every bit as dramatically, with profound results, implications and most importantly, applications! That is what ‘6ways’ is pregnant with…revelations, revealing possibilities, providing innovative solutions. Mycelium is a subterranean fibrous matrix of interconnected cellular strands very much like our neural synapsis network. Mushrooms are the reproductive organs of this extraordinary organism. According to Dr. Stamets, mycelium was the first organism to move onto land 1.3 billion years ago and it did so fully armed with the ability to turn rocks into soil. 400 million years later, various organisms evolved into existence due to this chemical and physical process preparing the land for them and many maintained their direct interrelatedness with mycelium. This has grown more complex and interconnected over the eons. Mycelium covers all the land masses of our planet and affects all other land life, either directly or indirectly. It can be argued that it is our ‘earth mother’ incarnate. As Paul Stamets and others unravel its secrets, more and more beneficial applications reveal themselves. Perhaps the most remarkable, involves its ability to ‘reclaim’ petroleum byproducts and waste, through chemical alteration on a molecular level, produced by the mycelium, which turns toxic sludge into a nutritionally beneficial component of healthy soil. Dr. Stamets demonstrated this with four piles mixed with diesel and petroleum waste. In his talk, he does not specify the base composition of these piles, but his photos appear to show coarse soil. One pile was a control, one was infused with enzymes, another with bacteria and the last with mycelium spores. The mycelium produces specific enzymes which break down hydrogen carbon bonds. All the piles were covered and left for six weeks after which they were uncovered. Three of the piles were “dead, dark and stinky”, while the 4th pile was covered with oyster mushrooms and the soil had changed to a lighter color. The mycelium enzymes “had remanufactured the hydrogen into carbohydrates”. Then the mushrooms sporulated attracting insects, which laid eggs, attracting birds bringing seeds, quickly transforming the pile into an “oasis of life”. A similar process of ‘claiming’ has been observed on newly formed volcanic islands composed of only cooled lava. If I remember correctly, the speed at which this takes place can surprise scientific specialists in this field. I would intuit, that this process is expedited with the arrival of mycelium spores, of which our atmosphere is saturated. One of the most devastating sections of “10 ways” focused on the destruction and desiccation of the world’s topsoils. It would appear that mycelium provides a powerful, safe and natural method for reversing the damage we’ve done through our ignorance and greed. It can repair the damaged soil and replace the losses. It can also be used to intercept runoff toxins and convert them before they spread into the environment at large. Dr. Stamets goes so far in this Ted Talk to state that he considers Mycelium as sentient. As it works to heal the planet, perhaps it will prove itself to be more intelligent than we’ve been. It should have little trouble in this, as we’ve set the bar so low. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY www.themtnear.com/... https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/21/2200887/-If-you-think-things-are-bad-now-some-perspective?utm_campaign=trending [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/27/2201987/--6-ways-Mushrooms-can-help-save-the-planet-Mycelium-is-the-mother-of-land-based-life?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/