“But the question is, Did John Brown fail? He certainly did fail to get out of Harpers Ferry before being beaten down by United States soldiers; he did fail to save his own life, and to lead a liberating army into the mountains of Virginia. But he did not go to Harpers Ferry to save his life.
“The true question is, Did John Brown draw his sword against slavery and thereby lose his life in vain? And to this I answer ten thousand times, No! No man fails, or can fail, who so grandly gives himself and all he has to a righteous cause. No man, who in his hour of extremest need, when on his way to meet an ignominious death, could so forget himself as to stop and kiss a little child, one of the hated race for whom he was about to die, could by any possibility fail.”
Frederick Douglass, 30 May 1881, oration on the fourteenth anniversary of the raid on Harpers Ferry
Planet of the Vampires is most notable for being an apparent
influence on Alien. The 1965 science fiction horror film not only shares a set-up but also some key imagery with the 1979 classic. Although
Alien director Ridley Scott claims to have not seen Planet of the
Vampires, writer Dan O'Bannon has admitted its inspiration. But even if
the similarities were mere coincidence, any movie with Mario Bava (Black Sunday, A Bay of Blood) in the director’s chair is worth discussing.
Known
internationally as Terror in Space, Planet of the Vampires finds Bava
applying his Gothic horror sensibilities to a space opera, written by Ib
Melchior (Death Race 2000) and Louis M. Heyward
(Witchfinder General) and based an Italian short story by Renato
Pestriniero. The result feels like a unique blend of Hammer’s signature
Gothic horror with ‘50s sci-fi in the vein of Forbidden
Planet and This Island Earth.
The focus should not just be on planting huge numbers of trees, but rather on restoring habitats. There are, after all, grasslands and peatlands that store a significant amount of carbon and yet typically have no trees.
A project’s success also depends on planting the right trees in the right place, otherwise the result can be damaging.
“If you plant trees on carbon rich soils like peat, for example, then more carbon will actually be emitted from the soil than you’re gaining from the growth of the trees,” Hardwick said. “So in that case, you’re actually contributing to carbon emissions.”
[…]
The Kew researchers’ golden rules say protecting existing forests should be the number one priority. When it comes to carbon sequestration and biodiversity, new tree plantations can’t beat complex forest ecosystems that have developed over centuries.
Hardwick stresses that any reforestation efforts should also involve local communities and allow them to derive some economic benefit from keeping the trees intact, for example, through sustainable forestry or eco-tourism.
Reforestation projects should aim to replicate what was naturally there before, because tree species will be more likely to survive if they’re already adapted to an area. Hardwick also recommends planting a mix of native species rather than just one variety.
Monocultures are “vulnerable to fire, storm damage, and to pests and diseases, whereas a mix of species will be more stable,” she said. This resilience will become increasingly important in the future, with forests coming under mounting stress from climate change, drought and insect attacks.
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