The Krebs Cycle: The Origin of Life?

 

You probably know Nick Lane for his books, such as the rather famous (among some slightly nerdy people, I read it twice!!) "The Vital Question." An older, but still interesting, book by Lane is "Oxygen, the Molecule that made the World."

Nick Lane was recently interviewed on "Nautilus" about his new book, "Transformer: the Deep Chemistry of Life." It is about the Krebs cycle, the engine that powers all the holobionts on this planet. Here, Lane describes how we may be finally cracking the mystery of the origins of life: an epochal discovery. You probably remember how, in the 1950s, it was discovered that the so-called "primordial soup" could generate aminoacids when exposed to ultraviolet rays or electrical discharges. Then, it became fashionable to think that life could have developed on Earth as the result of the assembling of aminoacids to form DNA or RNA molecules. It also became fashionable to think in terms of the "RNA world" that may have preceded the current molecular structure of cells.

Alas, it didn't work. Aminoacids stubbornly refused to assemble themselves into anything more than short-chain peptides, molecules akin to proteins, but much simpler and smaller. This field was gradually abandoned for lack of success in obtaining any useful results about the origin of life. . But now, Lane is reconsidering the idea with a new take: trying to see if it is possible to self-assemble the Krebs cycle or at least something that resembles the Krebs cycle. (Image from Wikipedia)

Fascinating story. I am going to order Lane's new book, even though I don't guarantee that I am nerdy enough to read it twice (maybe not even once), but I'll try.

And, as usual, onward, fellow holobionts!!

The Role of the Forest Holobiont in Earth's Climate: More Important than it was Believed so far

Above, the talk by Anastassia Makarieva at the International Conference on Basic Science for Sustainability in Belgrade, on Sep 22, 2022

It is about an innovative and important interpretation of the current climate situation. Anastassia is proposing that the warming of the atmosphere may be caused not just by the accumulated CO2, but by a radiative forcing of the same order of magnitude generated by deforestation. Earth's forests are giant holobionts coupled and embedded in the even larger holobiont that's the whole ecosystem. It is not surprising that they strongly affect climate, and not just by the conventional factors, albedo and carbon sequestration. There is much more than that, as you can learn by watching the clip, above.  

I don't have to tell you the consequences of this concept. If it turns out to be true (and I think it might well be), it means that we have done a lot of wrong things in trying to mitigate global warming, for instance proposing "biofuels" obtained from wood. But there is much more: it is a complete revolution in the way we see Earth's climate system. Forests not only cool the atmosphere, but also stabilize the climate. This means not only that we need more forests, but that some ideas such as carbon sequestration and geoengineering could do a lot of damage if not coupled with reforestation.

On the other hand, Anastassia's ideas could also be misunderstood as meaning that Climate Science, as it has been proposed so far, is all wrong. And that's sure to happen if her ideas come into the hands of politically minded people who would use that to propose that there is no such thing as global warming, climate emergency, etcetera.  But if we believe in Science (true science, not TV science) we must not be afraid of the truth.

Onward, fellow holobionts!

The Best Description of Holobionts Ever Written

 

From Prigogine's "The End of Certainty" (1996), citing Bierbacher, Nicolis, and Shuster:

The maintenance of organization in nature is not -- and cannot be -- achieved by central management. Order can only be maintained by self-organization. Self-organizing systems allow adaptation to the prevailing environment, i.e. they react to changes in the the environment with a thermodynamic response which makes the system extraordinarily flexible and robust against perturbations from outside conditions. We want to point out the superiority of self-organizing systems over conventional human technology which carefully avoids complexity and hierarchically manages nearly all technical processes.

What is Science? Figuring out God's Will

Here is an interesting post by Ian Schindler,  It is not directly related to holobionts, but it deals with the way we see the world. Knowledge is something that needs to flow freely among people, just as information flows freely among the nodes of all good holobionts. Ian Schindler teaches at the Capitole University in Toulouse (Fr) and is also a member of the "proud holobionts" discussion group. If you wish to join the group, write me at ugo.bardi(swinglette)unifi.it.

A post by  IAN SCHINDLER:

What is science? To me science is trying to figure out God's will playing by the brutal rules of science which are:

1. God's will is explained using laws.
2. The laws must be precise and significant.
3. If your theory does not agree with empirical evidence, it's wrong.

An immediate corollary of rule 3 is that it is impossible to prove a scientific theory is correct. It is only possible to prove that it is wrong. It is wrong if it doesn't agree with observation. The scientific theories we accept are those that have not yet been proven wrong.

Richard Feynman (who was perhaps not such a fine man but he was a fine physicist and entertaining) on this topic: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp20d8

Remark: The law of supply and demand violates what Feynman calls vagueness and I call significance. It cannot be proved wrong being compatible with all possible price data. Thus nothing can be deduced from it. One can substitute "The price is the will of God" for the law of supply and demand.

Throughout history, good scientists have been spectacularly wrong about many things. In some sense, the smarter they are, the better they can be at fooling themselves. Max Planck (who chose to publish Einstein's papers on relativity) said something quite illuminating: "A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Example: When I was young I was told that the Catholic Church put Galileo in prison for supporting the heliocentric theory of the universe. What my teachers failed to add was that the Church jailed Galileo at the bidding of scientists working on the geocentric theory of the universe. Scientists who had worked very hard on the geocentric theory were understandably more upset by the heliocentric theory than theologians. See https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-galileo-controversy

That is why I pick my fights. I teach mathematics to economists. I do not hide from my economist colleagues that I am very dubious as to the usefulness of their theories. But I waste no time trying to convince them that my theories are more useful. I do try to isolate them. I explain my economic theories to students and non economists. Note that there is a trend that winners of the prize in economics in honor of Alfred Nobel is going increasingly to economists doing empirical work. This is due to the failure of mainstream economic theory to predict events. 

Similarly, I do not waste time trying to convince global warming skeptics that global warming is occurring. I do use probability. I ask them what they think the probability of global warming is. I also nail them for vagueness. If someone talks about "natural temperature variation", I immediately substitute "the will of God". Moreover, I tell them that I will believe that global warming is not occurring through increased greenhouse gas emissions when they provide a mathematical model that explains the earth's change in temperature over time independently from the composition of the atmosphere.

Mathematics is the language of science because of the precision of mathematical statements. A revolution occurred in science (and mathematics) when Newton wrote down a differential equation to describe gravitational attraction.

Of much concern to me is the amount of censorship occurring just about everywhere and the false news disseminated by mainstream media. Because it is so easy to document falsehoods perpetrated by mainstream news media, it is difficult to know who to trust. This makes it easier to get suckered into a
conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Note that Mark Zuckerberg recently stated that the FBI influenced Facebook to censor the (true) Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election. This is a major reason that I support substack. I think it is much healthier to have a place where controversial ideas, scientific or otherwise, can be openly debated. Glenn Greenwald who worked for The Guardian when he helped break the Snowden story, helped found The Intercept because of editorial pressure at The Guardian. He resigned from The Intercept because of editorial pressure there and now publishes out of substack. He has documented how mainstream media disseminates false news stories, see for example

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-do-big-media-outlets-so-often,
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-news-outlets-again-confirm,
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/corporate-medias-double-standard

Matt Orfalea makes videos documenting fake news disseminated by mainstream media: https://rumble.com/search/video?q=orfalea It is a bit shocking to see with what fervor the media can insist a falsehood is true.

Note that I linked Orfalea's rumble channel rather than his youtube channel. I support rumble for the same reason I support substack, no censorship.

I will add that the censorship extends to peer-reviewed scientific papers. Many papers are rejected not for any scientific reason but because either the result is contrary to an accepted result, the references are not those of the referee, or the author is unknown. One only has to look at the difficulties Lynn Margulis encountered in her career.

Reality is real no more. Whom to trust in science?

 

The "World Climate Declaration" returns. It is a document that has been around in various forms since 2009 that has all the appearance of "legitimate" science. It is not, but how to judge? We face an unsolvable epistemological problem.

Recently, one of the members of the Holobiont Group posted the link to a document titled "There is No Climate Emergency" on FB. He defined it as "bonkers" -- it was clearly irony. Yet, Facebook's Fact-Checkers don't know irony, and the post was promptly censored and branded "false information."

That highlights, I think, the problem we have with science. Place yourself in the shoes of a person who has no training in science, and knows only what can be read in the media about climate. What should she think about this story? 

We have a document that, at first sight, it looks legitimate. The signatories are bona fide scientists, although one may notice that some of them are a little old (actually, more than a little) (*). But being over 90 does not mean being automatically wrong. And what to say about the anonymous "fact checker" who so peremptorily deemed the document to be "false"? The link provides leads only to a post in Croatian, written by a young lady named Melita Vrsaljiko (https://www.linkedin.com/in/melita-vrsaljko/). She has a degree in journalism awarded by the Faculty of Political Science in Zagreb. Probably she is the "fact checker" hired by Facebook who struck down the post. If this is the case, one could reasonably be a little vary of a fact check based on something written by the fact-checker alone. 

Machine-translated into English, the "fact check" is not much better than the documents it purports to check. Among other things, we are told the document is "false" because it was diffused also by a site that diffuses "anti-vaxxer" information. And also because only a few of the signatories are climatologists. The accusation of the authors not being climatologists is a little perplexing since it comes from someone who has no other qualifications than a degree in journalism. (**)

The problem, here, is that when we deal with climate change, most of us, even scientists competent in our fields, are unable to comprehend the immense complexity of the story. The only way that people can do that is based on the principle of authority. But are 1200 old scientists signing a document titled "There is no Climate Emergency" a sufficient authority? Or you'd rather trust the large number of scientists who adhere to the IPCC (I don't know how many, but surely many). But truth, as we all know, is not based on the majority of believers and from the time when Karl Rove said that "we create our own reality, reality has ceased to be real. So, why should trust FB's fact checkers? Or anyone else?  

This is just not possible. We cannot do science in this way. We need to rethink the whole idea. You may think that I am a little manic (probably I am), but I think we should apply the concept of holobiont to science, too. Maybe we could think of a "horizontal" science, where facts and ideas are shared among peers, that is all of us. That is they do not arrive from the sky, screaming, "trust me, I am Science!!!" They come from our peers, whom we trust. Science cannot come as a revealed trust. It must come from all of us. 

We keep at it. Onward, fellow holobionts!

(*) The Nobel prize at the top of the list is 93. The Italian member of the group (Prof. Zichichi) is 92. About this Italian member, I can tell you that he has made a fool of himself in public so many times that there is an entire popular literature dedicated to his mistakes (for those of you who can read Italian, there is a popular term "Zichicche," not literally translatable, but more or less meaning "Zichichi's gems" -- intended as howlers). On this, though, I can tell you that I have no respect for the people who have made money and a reputation for themselves by selling books that ridicule a scientist who, with all his idiosyncrasies and naivety, has some merits.

(**) I am not criticizing Ms. Vrsaljiko. She did her best, and her article is good in many respects. But the task she was charged with was basically impossible. 

The "Prescribed Burning" of Forests. Is it a Good Idea?

Fires have accompanied forests from the beginning of their existence, hundreds of millions of years ago. We are not completely sure of the role that fires play in the ecosystem, but it is not necessarily always bad. The resulting formation of "pyrolytic carbon" (PyC) removes carbon from the ecosystem and has a cooling effect on climate. 

In recent times, the concept of "prescribed burning" or "controlled burning" became fashionable. The idea is that a small fire now may prevent a larger fire later, especially since it removes the debris on the forest floor. But the question is hugely complex and, as always, the discussion becomes political and unhinged from the reality of facts and models. So, are prescribed burnings a good idea, or just an attempt of politicians to show that they are "doing something" on the problem of forest fires

Overall, the opinion of the experts who intervened on this subject in the "Proud Holobionts" forum is that prescribed fires are a bad idea. Nevertheless, the debate is ongoing. If you allow me a personal opinion, I tend to think that the validity of prescribed burning depends on where it is practiced. In forests, it may be awfully bad. In savannas and grasslands, it may be a good idea, at least in some circumstances. It may be that humans have been forced to take control of fires in grasslands and savannas after they exterminated the megafauna that thrived there. The megafauna had a beneficial effect on grass and helped maintain the fertility of the soil, whereas it probably did only damage to forests. But, once the large animals were eliminated, humans had to take upon themselves the same tasks. This is one more fascinating facet of the way Earth's ecosystem works. In any case, eventually, humans and forests must learn to live with each other as good holobionts are known to do.  

Here, I reproduce first a message that was posted on the "Proud Holobionts" discussion forum by Natalia Novoselova, coordinator of the “Stop the Harmful Forms of PrescribedBurnings!” It is an ISEU (International Socio-Ecological Union) public campaign. Afterward, I am passing to you another posting to the holobiont forum by Helga Vierich, an anthropologist, who argues that the ancient practices of burning as implemented by the native people of the Kalahari and the Sahel are good for the local environment. These two viewpoints are not necessarily in contrast with each other. They just examine the problem in different environments and conditions (UB).

Should you be interested in joining the "Proud Holobionts" discussion group, write me at prudentlobster(twinklything)gmail.com

On prescribed Burnings

By Natalia Novoselova (ISEU) "Stop the Harmful Forms of Prescribed Burnings"

(slightly readapted from a post to "The Proud Holobionts" discussion group)

It is a false statement that, since the native ancient people of North America (Indians) had implemented the practice of burning, the same burning practice must be used in our time. The correct understanding is that, no, it's not. The prescribed burning industry uses the idea of the “wise experience of burning” of the native folks to promote the practice of burning. Criticism of this opinion is considered in Part III of the campaign against prescribed burnings. The following text is a summary of the one presented there. 

The paradigm of prescribed burning is based on a dangerous belief about the necessity to continue the tactics of burning the natural territories of ancient native people. Many apologists of prescribed burning believe, that in current times people should continue the burning tactics of ancient native peoples (American Indians, Australian, and African Aborigines) who, for thousands of years burned natural territories for hunting and agriculture. The confidence that the ancient burnings were great wisdom that brought benefits to nature is one of the cornerstones of a philosophical system of prescribed burning paradigms in North America and Australia. Also, it is one of the principal arguments used in the propaganda of prescribed burning practices around the world. These arguments are often found in the press, scientific papers, websites, and social network groups devoted to prescribed burnings and wildfire fighting (see the references at this link).

However, the authors of the texts about the wisdom of the ancient traditions of burning and the need for their continuation in our days, do not explain the reasons for these beliefs. They do not explain why they think that the burning of ancient people did not harm wild nature, and why they think that modern people need to continue this practice. They do not try to analyze the ancient burning and comprehensively assess their impact on wild nature. The ancient practices of burning are called “wisdom and benefit for nature”, only because the ancient native peoples implemented them for a very long time, several thousands of years. Thus, these beliefs have the character of propaganda, the only purpose of which is to justify the modern methods and scale of the prescribed burning industry and convince society to burn more and more.

The book “Fire in Nature” authored by Ed Komarek (American enthusiast and propagandist of prescribed burning practice, founder of several Facebook groups dedicated to prescribed burning propaganda in the world) is a clear example of the exaltation of the ancient Native American burning practice, and justification of the mass prescribed burnings implemented in the USA by this ancient experience. Even in terms of the science that accompanies the modern practice of prescribed burning, Ed Komarek describes his proposal as a transfer of the experience of the ancients to modern realities. The same author fiercely criticizes the academic opposition to prescribed burning (that is, those scientists who reject the usefulness of prescribed burning practice) without giving rational arguments for his criticism. Actually, it is known that the impact of ancient people was a real catastrophe for the biological diversity and natural ecosystems of the planet on all continents and on most of the islands where people settled.

According to archaeological data (Harari, "A brief history of humankind" 2011), since the separation of modern humans (Homo sapiens) from other hominins, about 70-100 thousand years ago – humankind has become the most destructive species for ecosystems on the planet. As soon as people arrive at a new continent or an island – the result is the quick (in terms of hundreds or thousands of years) loss of about 60-90% of the species diversity of large animals (mammals, reptiles, and birds). Ancient people were the direct or indirect cause of the death of hundreds of species of insects and mollusks. Most of the megafauna of mammal and bird species disappeared on all continents and islands because of ancient humans which spread there. In particular, it is known that the human colonization of Australia (45 thousand years ago) and both Americas (16 thousand years ago) caused there an environmental catastrophe, the disappearance of the majority of large animal species, and significant changes in natural ecosystems. For example, the fossils of plants confirm that 45 thousand years ago eucalyptus trees grew in a small area in Australia. But after the arrival of Homo sapiens on this continent, the eucalyptus trees suddenly spread everywhere, displacing all other trees and bushes. This change in the vegetation composition affected significantly the animals of Australia. Many species of animals of all sizes could disappear in Australia because of changes in their habitat, caused by ancient people. Similar processes can be supposed on all continents and islands inhabited by people. The main instruments of this influence of ancient people on natural ecosystems and biodiversity were the burning of forests and hunting, and later – the cutting of trees. Some huge deserts of the planet may have been, in part, the result of such activities of ancient people (the Saharan desert, the deserts of central Australia, and others).

It can be concluded that the ancient human practices of burning on all continents and islands were catastrophically destructive to natural ecosystems and the biological diversity of the planet. Ancient people caused the extinction of a huge number of animal species of all sizes and almost all the megafauna of the planet. In our time, there are no rational reasons to continue the destructive practices of ancient people – the burning of natural lands and hunting. Therefore, the confidence that, currently, people should continue the burning tradition of ancient people - is another false postulate or misconception at the base of the prescribed burning paradigm, which contradicts common sense and worldwide objectives of nature conservation.

It is important to say that ancient people burned natural areas for survival; it was their way of life and the method of food production. In early times, the burning of wild forests was implemented for hunting purposes. Later, the burns were conducted for primitive slash-and-burn agriculture. These actions caused catastrophic destruction in the nature of all territories, where people lived. Since burning was necessary for the survival of ancient people, we (modern people) can forgive them for the damage they caused to the natural ecosystems and biodiversity of the planet. But, obviously, it is impossible to idealize these activities and consider them as useful practices that should be continued in our time! But this is exactly what the apologists of prescribed burning do, who have made the ancient practice of burning the cornerstone of their philosophy.

Also, the pyrophytic ecosystems formed as a result of the burning of ancient people (natural territories with a predominance of flora and fauna adapted to frequent fires and a state of constant pyrogenic succession) cannot be considered a benefit. Maybe some of these artificial natural landscapes can be preserved by special measures, but the main territories should be free from the anthropogenic pressure of burning because modern people do not need to burn natural lands for their survival. Modern society is organized according to principles that did not exist in ancient times and modern people do not need to get their food and clothes by hunting and slash-and-burn farming. Therefore, there is no rational reason to continue the destructive practice of burning. On the contrary, now there is an opportunity to finally free wild nature from this long destructive anthropogenic pressure – artificial burning and hunting.

 

Ancient Cultural Burning Methods

Helga Ingeborg Vierich (Anthroecology.com)

(from a post to "The Proud Holobionts" discussion group)

Out-of-control Wildfire is a killer. It may well have been one of the first and most overwhelming challenges faced by our distant ancestors - learning to reduce the scale and scope of such a menace... "taming" fire was more than creating campfires and cooking fires, and using it as a tool. It was figuring out how it interacted with life and developing strategic practices that turned it into a useful tool in making our beloved natural world and fellow creatures safe from the worst risks it posed. You know what else the Bushmen told me? They said that there were only two things that crossed the barrier between the material world where we exist, and the spiritual immaterial unknown realm beyond, where the creator dwells. These two manifestations were FIRE and LOVE... and by carefully deploying both of these humans can learn the truth about themselves - why are we here??.  I have always found this a comforting thought. 

I studied the use of cultural burning, both in the Kalahari and in the Sahel. In both locations, people set small "cool" fires to remove excess dry leafy, and grassy material. This is done to reduce the risk of extreme wildfires, which can apparently get so hot they will kill the organisms under the surface of the soil, including fungal networks and living roots of vegetation.

Humans evolved as a keystone species of ecological engineers, and tend to manage each ecosystem by encouraging greater plant and animal diversity. They do this not just by creating mosaics of secondary growth by periodic burning, but also by replanting many species of plants, including trees and shrubs, that provide them with food. They also recognize important species that fix nitrogen. They are aware that these are critical in keeping soils healthy and restoring soils in areas that are recovering from drought. In the Kalahari, I was told that the giraffe was rarely hunted because it was essential in spreading the seeds of the tall acacia - a nitrogen-fixing species. 

Here are some further references:

New research in Arnhem Land reveals why institutional fire management is inferior to cultural burning

Indigenous knowledge reveals history of fire-prone California forest

Study offers earliest evidence of humans changing ecosystems with fire | YaleNews

'Fire is medicine': the tribes burning California forests to save them | US news | The Guardian

Never has there been a greater need for Aboriginal fire-stick farming - » The Australian Independent Media Network

(1) Controlled Aboriginal Fires: Australia's Experience - YouTube

Reassessment of the use of fire as a management tool in deciduous forests of eastern North America. - PubMed - NCBI

Indigenous impacts on North American Great Plains fire regimes of the past millennium | PNAS

Fire responses to postglacial climate change and human impact in northern Patagonia (41–43°S) | PNAS

Research suggests First Peoples were firestick farming in North Queensland for up to 140,000 years | Sovereign Union - First Nations Asserting Sovereignty

fire ecology Table of Contents — June 05, 2016, 371 (1696) | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Fire history in a western Fennoscandian boreal forest as influenced by human land use and climate - Rolstad - 2017 - Ecological Monographs - Wiley Online Library

Savannas and Grasslands: Holobionts Adapting to a Changing Earth

 

The Savanna of the Tarangire Park, in Tanzania (image from Wikipedia)

A recent paper by Carla Staver and Carolyne Stromberg on Savannas, recently appeared on "Science" -  It is a fascinating, although brief, review of what we know about savannas and grasslands. The interest in this kind of studies lies, in my opinion, in their "deep time" perspective. We are used to the existence of savannas and grasslands, but we often tend to forget that they are a relatively recent innovation in the biosphere. Staver and Stromberg estimate that they appeared "just" 20 million years ago. To compare, the forest biome is at least 400 million years old.

In evolutionary terms, if something exists, it is because it has a reason to exist. Savannas and Grasslands are mostly a reaction of the ecosystem to the profound changes that occurred during the Cenozoic, the past 66 million years. Earth emerged out of the End-Mesozoic disaster, the one that destroyed the dinosaurs, as a hot and lush planet. But, some 50 million years ago, a phase of cooling started, and it is lasting in our times (except for the recent human perturbation). 

My personal interpretation of this cooling phase is that the outgassing of CO2 from the mantle could not compensate for the carbon sequestration operated by the biosphere and that the cooling is the result of the gradually lower CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. (image from Zhang et al.)

At some moment, plants had to adapt to a CO2 concentration as low as 170 ppm -- never seen before in Earth's history. This adaptation led to the appearance of the "C4" mechanism of photosynthesis that uses less water and less CO2. The result was a major rebalancing of the ecosystem: for some reasons, probably linked to the water pumping mechanism from roots to the leaves, trees are not happy to use the C4 mechanism, preferring instead the older "C3" one. That led to the widespread appearance of savannas and grasslands, better adapted to a CO2-poor climate. 

From then on, two different holobionts have populated Earth: Forests and grasslands. The main difference is that a Forest has a closed canopy, whereas a savanna has an open one. The effects on the water cycle management are profound: the forest can trigger the biotic pump mechanism to carry water vapor from the oceans, while the savanna, probably, cannot. Both biomes are adapted to the conditions that they themselves create: forests thrive in humid environments and they tend to create it using the biotic pump. The savannas prefer a dry environment: they create it to keep forests away. Savannas also tend to thrive in the presence of mega-herbivores, which instead may be a cause of damage to forests. We may see this situation as a tug of war between the two biomes, although it is also true that the ecosystem knows no "war," only adaptation. Those holobionts that adapt best, survive. It may be possible that grass and trees are two sides of a single, large holobiont that includes savannas, grasslands, and forests. The concept of holobiont is fractal. 

And now? The savanna monkeys (aka "humans") have changed everything. They have methodically razed the forests but, at the same time, they recently engaged in a major re-forestation effort. They have destroyed forests by fires but have also done incredible efforts to suppress forest fires. They have also damaged grassy ecosystems turning them into pastures and removing the large herbivores, but they are also trying to preserve the remaining herbivores. In short, they can't decide what they want to do! The only sure thing is that they have been raising the CO2 atmospheric concentration by burning fossil carbon, gradually returning it to the levels of the early and mid-Cenozoic. That favors trees against grasses. Indeed, we are seeing a remarkable defined reforestation trend all over the Earth. 

So far, we cannot say how this heavy intervention of the savanna monkeys will affect the ecosystem in the long term. The pumping up of the CO2 levels in the atmosphere may be a short-lived pulse, or it may affect the planet for millions of years. Whatever the case, Gaia has been around for a few billion years, and she surely knows what to do. She can deal with these monkeys as they deserve. 

h/t Mara Baudena. To know more of the evolution of forests and savannas, see this post on "The Proud Holobionts" If you cannot access the paper by Staver and Stromberg, ask me for a copy at ugo.bardi(thingamajig)unifi.it