Friday, January 03, 2003

From In The Language Of Ecology: Die-off and, in its final form, die-out, is a phenomenon common in the history of zoology and botany, and the dodo and the passenger pigeon are not exceptional. There is, for example, the everyday but suggestive experience of yeast cells introduced into a wine vat. Enormously successful as a species, they gobble up nutrients from the sugary crushed grapes around them and expand their population without a thought to the consequences of drawdown; within weeks, however, the 'pollution' they produce—alcohol and carbon dioxide, which of course is what the fermentation is all about—have so filled their environment that they are unable to survive. The resulting crash, in that vat at least, means an acute die-off and then extinction. In the Bible, the word for winepress (lyvos) is used metaphorically with reference to the execution of divine judgement upon the gathered foes of the Jews at the close of this age preliminary to the establishment of the mellennial kingdom. 8:03:30 AM     Comments