The HSSB Secular Circular – February 2021 1 Newsletter of the Humanist Society of Santa Barbara www.SBHumanists.org FEBRUARY 2021 Please join us for our February Speaker Event on Zoom… The Apostate Prophet Our Speaker: Ridvan Aydemir, better known online as The Apostate Prophet (or simply “AP”), is an Ex-Sunni Muslim, Turkish- German YouTuber known for critiquing Islam and other religions. With 256,000 subscribers and over 300 on-line videos, his is a powerful and courageous voice. Ridvan was born to a Turkish family in Germany. He moved to Ridvan Aydemir a.k.a. “AP” Turkey as a teenager where he went to high school and served his mandatory military service. Ridvan emigrated to the United States and is now living freely in the West. “I'm a learned former Muslim who focuses on factual and fair criticism of my former religion, Islam, in the light of experience, knowledge, and reasoning accompanied by a healthy amount of satire…Don't take it personally.” Program: Ridvan will speak about a variety of topics including • recent cases & consequences for ex-Muslims, • the contrast between being ex-Christian and ex-Muslim, • the de-secularization of Turkey, • the dilemma in opposing Islam for atheists in the West, • progress being made; hopes for the future. Saturday February 20, 2021 at 3:00pm PST. Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81267182593 2 The HSSB Secular Circular – February 2021 February COVID-19 Update Dave Flattery will present an update on the State of the COVID-19 Global Pandemic with a special focus on virus Dave Flattery mutations. When: Sunday February 14 at 3pm Pacific / 6pm Eastern. All are welcome. Zoom link: Dr. Anabel Ford’s Area of Study https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82598900099. Ford does not claim to be an authority on everything about the Maya Forest. She works with Dr. Anabel Ford: citizen scientists in the region and collaborates with Heroes of the Maya Forest – 1/16/21 scholars from diverse fields, including Ronald By Robert Bernstein Nigh. Nigh is an ethnologist who co-authored their book, The Maya Forest Garden: Eight Millenia of UCSB Professor Anabel Ford offered the Humanist Sustainable Cultivation of the Tropical Woodlands. Society a history of Maya Forest agriculture that continues to this day and that can teach us lessons Dr. Ford had to learn to to use in sustainability in our modern world. navigate the forest trails as the locals do. They use She has very kindly shared her presentation slides. the sun as a reference. [Note: If you would like to watch the presentation, you can find it here on the new HSSB YouTube Humans arrived in the channel. Closed captioning is available. Click region more than 12,000 on the CC icon at the lower right of the YouTube years ago. They were video window to enable closed captioning]. free of encumbrances, like beasts of burden, and adapted with skill, knowledge, and practice. Her research is centered on a site called El Pilar which straddles the border of Belize and Humans were skilled Guatemala. The site is part of a Peace Park with stone and fire. Initiative along a frontier that had been in dispute They expanded rapidly Book by Anabel Ford & by both nations. across the Americas as Ronald Nigh showing Chaco hunters and gatherers on the cover with the The study area is much larger than the Peace Park, and adapted to the mahogany tree that will provide for his retirement. extending through the Yucatan Peninsula of changing climate from Mexico, the region of famed Maya sites such as the Pleistocene Ice Age to the Holocene thermal Chichen Itza. maximum. It only took 2,000 years to reach the southern tip of South America at Tierra del Fuego. The HSSB Secular Circular – February 2021 3 When Ford first Breadnut or Ramon is an important plant in this learned of this region. It is the only dominant tree that is wind region as a student it pollinated. Wind-blown pollen is what makes you was thought that no sneeze. Wind-pollinated plants make up only 1% one lived in the of tropical forest and only about 10% of Maya Forest area angiosperms (flowering plants) today. 12,000 years ago, but, she states, “That About 4,000 years ago came climate changes is impossible.” impacting the predictability of rainfall. This brought development of permanent houses and use Climate change has of ceramics in this region. People were settling been the theme of down in communities rather than being nomadic. the region: 12,000 years ago, the area The area came to have a dry season from February was unlike the forest to June (“Yaxk’in”) and two wet seasons annually: we see today; it was one from June to September (“Chaak Ikal”), which cold and dry, like was influenced by the warm hurricanes from the Human migration from Asia through- an arid savanna Caribbean, and a second one from November to out the Americas (population with pine. February (“Ikal Ixpelon”), which was influenced by distribution map modeled after Steele, Adams, & Slukin 1998) the cold Atlantic winters. Despite having two wet 8,000 years ago, seasons, the permeable limestone in the region as the climate warmed and precipitation increased, made surface water scarce during the dry season. this began to change. 12,000 Years of Climate. Cold & dry >8000 years ago with annual plants and few trees. Warm & wet since then with megathermal plants. Early settlements were small. Around 3,000 years ago we see a few temples. By 2,000 years ago, civic centers began to develop in this area. It became warm and wet, with no dry season. We know this history by The time from 1400-1100 years ago is called the looking at layers in the ground. Late Classic Period of the Maya. It is what we Titanium trace element deposits serve as a proxy think of as the Maya Period when such sites as for rainfall. Chichen Itza, Tikal, and El Pilar were built and The HSSB Secular Circular – February 2021 4 fully occupied. Typical communities were at a that provide medicines, construction materials, roof density of about one house per acre, each with its thatching, kitchen tools, latex, paper, and poison. own garden. The Terminal Classic period was from 1100-800 years ago. For some reasons, people in the area stopped maintaining their civic centers. The reason for this is in dispute. Dr. Ford likened it to ghost towns in the western U.S. or areas in city centers like Detroit which has torn town thousands of buildings and replaced them with gardens. One of the most important points that Ford makes is about the term "arable" land. The term is often to mean “land that can be farmed” but it really means “land that can be plowed”. The Maya had planting techniques that did not require plowing. Ford talked about the people who live at El Pilar. Alfonzo Tzul said they learned little of their history in school. They were taught that the Maya were a thing of a past that went away. He came to realize that they didn't go away: "We are the Maya!" Why did the people who came to the Americas thousands of years ago stop in the El Pilar area in Ford went on to talk about the Milpa Cycle. the first place? Because it is an area of fertile soil. In contrast, the Amazon rainforest soil has no bedrock under it and overall is not very fertile. The Maya forest uplands are fertile. A limestone base has an abundance of calcium and other minerals which are good for growing maize (corn). The area does not just produce food. Ford “From the Forest to the Milpa, From the Milpa to the compared the forest with our Costco, although that Forest Garden, From the Forest Garden to the Forest” demeans the forest! She offered this chart of plants The HSSB Secular Circular – February 2021 5 We hear the term "slash and burn" agriculture and think it sound brutal: like "rape and pillage"! But the slashing and burning is only four years of a 20- year cycle. Planting in rocky soil: plowing is not required for farming in the Yucatan. Yum ik’ob, Fire Tender, Chichimila’ Yucatan, Mexico Yum ik'ob is the fire tender. This is a skilled profession. "Ik" means "wind". They set back-fires to limit the spread. The area can be very dry and people who don't know what they are doing can do real damage. In a good burn, plenty of trees remain. There are shoots; it is not all dead. Some trees do better after Diego, Maya Forest Gardener with corn and beans a fire. A certain palm was an example. We can eat the heart of that palm. She showed an image of seemingly dead corn, but in fact, the corn ears are preserved on the stalks and beans grow up the stalks, so it is very much alive. Quintana Roo, Mexico As noted earlier, this area is not suitable for plowing. There are too many rocks. It is not Allspice forest garden keeps ground beneath clear "arable" but that does not mean it can't be farmed. The farmers also plant perennials. Today this might The farmers plant with a stick as in this image: include bananas, but there were other perennials in ancient times. The Climate Crisis represents a challenge as seen below. Not only is the temperature rising, but the The HSSB Secular Circular – February 2021 6 land is experiencing greater extremes in Ford is concerned that the Heroes of the Maya precipitation than in the past.