Coming to Terms

Please take time to watch Robert Kennedy's testimony in the House of Representatives on December 12 about the egregious roll back of environmental law by the Bush Administration in its parting weeks. In particular, he outlines what is happening to the Appalachian Mountains - the oldest mountains in America and communities of great cultural value.

Southcrop Forest: A new genre of environmental writing

Every once in a while a new book comes along that resets the compass of writing. Lorne Rothman’s tale, Southcrop Forest, sets a new standard for ecological literature.

An exciting tale about Auja, a young red oak, and Fur— a collective conscience from a colony of tent caterpillars—Rothman has created an eco-fable as magical as a Tolkien adventure even as he teaches forest ecology. We learn about the imperiled state of the forests at the hands of “hewmans.”

Auja lives in Southcrop Forest where trees retain the ability to communicate across the land through their roots, soil, and leaves—Southcrop Vision. Forests were once connected across the world and could communicate by feeling each others sensations. That was before the hewmans cut down the trees, separating forests by false rock (roads or highways) and their rapacious machines chewed down ancient trees and killed the farms that had kept them alive for eons.

As the story opens, we learn that Southcrop Forest is on the verge of destruction. Auja awakes full of hope and joy, glorying in the sunlight, when the remembrance of their doomed future makes her boughs droop. She is watching a group of fuzzy caterpillars nibbling away in her canopy when suddenly a voice speaks to her! At first Auja thinks it is her fellow trees who whisper continuously but then she realizes the voice is coming from the colony of tent caterpillars. Fur introduces herself to Auja and explains that her colony is a Rune—an ancient being that arose at a Gathering of trees and people a thousand years before.

Guide Oak, a wise being, guides Auja to engage Fur to travel to the Dark Forest (Boreal Forest) to obtain a special gift and take it to Deep Sky where it will save the forests to the north of Southcrop. And thus, the epic journey begins.

Along the way readers learn about the life cycle of the tent caterpillars, their viral and insect predators; the ancient geological history of the land and how trees repopulated the earth after the Big Ice (ice age.)

The mysterious “gift” is the Holy Grail Fur toils to find. He must cross the false trails, battle rogue wasps and a viral plague that infects the forests he travels through.

Rothman, a zoologist, provides young readers with endnotes rich with scientific nomenclature; Old Norse lore; Native American history; chemistry and climate change science which can be easily used in a classroom or enrich the understanding of young and adult readers alike.

This book offers the reader a blend of the magical with the hard realities of the human ecological footprint on the natural world. Through nonhuman characters we see the folly of the “hewman” (a brilliant play on words) from wisdom that understands the web of life as the source of life itself.

The last sentence in the story makes me believe Rothman plans a sequel. I hope so. Southcrop Forest should be required reading for all youth—a textbook and a legend for a new generation and an ecological age.

Rothman, Lorne. Southcrop Forest. New York: iUniverse, 2006.
http://www.southcropforest.ca/index.html

Burning it up for a renewal of the landscape: a Florida tale

In September I was invited to accompany staff scientists from The Nature Conservancy in Milton, Florida to take a boat trip on the Perdido River along TNC land newly deeded for restoration. As we motored along the tranquil, broad river on a cool, misty morning, I learned that the forest I observed is greatly changed from its natural state.

The lands along this broad river were continuously logged, passing through three paper companies before being returned to the original owners, a founding family in Pensacola, FL. They were disturbed at the state of the forests that had grown back and donated 2800 acres to The Nature Conservancy for restoration and preservation.

Had the scientists not told me, I would have accepted it as the natural condition. Knowing the natural history of a place is critical. Without that knowledge, newcomers like me, and new generations will not be motivated to act on behalf of the living communities of trees, plants, and animals that maintain the well-functioning of the places we live and come to love.

The Nature Conservancy has begun a program of burning down forest riddled with nonnative species to awaken the fire-dependent seeds of native plants lying dormant in the soil. When the new forest comes back, it is the forest of old: long-leafed pine, live oak, magnolia, Atlantic white cedar, palm cypress, water oaks, willow oaks, diamond oaks, etc. It's encouraging to know this land at least will eventually be restored.

One of our companions is the last living descendant of the Wind Clan of the Musogee-Creek community. He told us stories about his people and pointed out places where burial mounds were developed over with homes and condominiums. We learned about his days on the river fishing and exploring and how it has changed as people buy up lots, remove the wetlands to build boat docks and plant sloping green lawns in front of beautiful, big vacation homes. They want a view of the river, too. But, at what cost do we all render our personal dreams?
Without his stories, how would we know what went before us? What has been lost that we should strive to save or bring back?

Along the way we measured the water depth, checked on sites where campers had chopped down trees, and trashed TNC sites to make temporary campsites, leaving trash behind. What a legacy we modern humans leave! Where is our sensibility that we are spoiling our own nests? These scientists and this tribal elder and myself, a little floating tribe of its own, need to hook up our separate boats with all the other defenders of this river and this land, and make a stronger tribe than the tribe of spoilers!


For more information, visit these sites:
www.nature.org/florida
www.eowilsoncenter.org
www.coastalplains.org
www.gulfspecimen.org

Of such is the kingdom of Heaven

Sinking Roots in Shifting Sand

On Santa Rosa Island the sunrise provided much needed centering for my soul. I've been in Pensacola just seven weeks but I want to feel more rooted. The sands of the barrier island shift with the tides and that is how I feel these times are for my family and I as we face more frequent storms and for this nation as an awful rent in our political and cultural ground opened with the Republican Convention.

There is an elephant in our living rooms, and it is not wearing red, white, and blue. Like any dyfunctional family, we are not talking about the bigger issue facing us as a species: a warming planet.

To look at these photos is to question that anything could ever destroy such beauty and wildlife.

The waving golden sea oats and barrier dunes are all but gone except on the Gulf Shores National Sea Shore parkland. These dunes, gone for development on these fragile islands where water carves their contour with every incoming tide, once held the fierce hurricane winds in check along with wetlands. In these grassy fingers loggerhead babes hatch and waddle to the sea, terns, skimmers, and pipers all lay their eggs in the white sand and tangled roots. When the dunes go, a whole chorus of animals will go with them.

When visitors or children come to these islands they do not know what should be here, what may be greatly reduced in number or diversisty. Each generation is losing a priceless memory of what was created over eons of evolution and experiment, the earnest strivings of untold numbers of plants and animals striving and thriving through the good times and bad, living and reproducing Wonderkind to populate and join a pageant of life on our planet. Will the knowledge of how to live properly on the earth, with respect for all living things, with appreciation for the very soil, rock, lake and ocean upon which we have found our fortune ... will it become like the ghost crab, a faint outline on the shifting sands of time?

Tripping the Light Fantastic

Water came to our desert three nights ago with the advent of the first monsoon rains in Tucson. Since then we have had another afternoon deluge to wash the trees and skiies clean of dust. The light sparkles on damp vegetation and lingering pools of precious rainwater before it disappears in the sandy soil or transforms to its gaseous form and wafts away. More Tucsonans caught rain in big aluminum or concrete cisterns decorated with bright colors or whimsical designs ... or just shiny silver columns hugging their home. Some caught thousands of gallons of water that will be metered out to trees, shrubs, and vegetable gardens in the dry times. This is a wise way to live in desert lands. It makes me feel content to leave now, to finally journey back east.

Rains are falling in Pensacola, Florida, along the Gulf shoreline. Rain runs down the gnarled trunks of oaks, drips off gray haired moss, sets up in quivering droplets on the leaves of the magnolias. Out in the Gulf dolphins jump into the pouring rain. It must feel strange to leave the heavier salt-laden oceansphere to leap into the lighter ocean of air where fresh water falls in sheets, pelting their skin. I wonder what it sounds like, feels like? Like an outdoor shower after an ocean swim?

Places like Pensacola, where so much water is concentrated, must be affected by its energy. The shoreline (Pensacoleans call it sugar sand beaches) is a divide of sorts, between one set of life circumstances and another, between a water world and an earth world. Dolphins connect these worlds, intercessaries. They come by that honestly as their ancestors once walked the land.

Santa Rosa Island is a magical intersection between sea and land a mixing of elemental things, sanctuary to creatures large and small including four sea turtle tribes. WriteForChange will serve people along this beautiful shore and perhaps the intercoastal waterways of Florida, too. Whatever this move brings, it will surely trip the light fantastic. This Earth is truly a magical place. Whether desert, ocean, plain or mountain, its magnificence is beyond the powers of this writer to truly express. But I feel it everyday, have fallen in love again on each of my 22,421 days walking in its beauty.

To learn more about beautful places along the Gulf Coast go to http://www.beachcalendar.net/.
Another good link to learn about Pensacola's community activities: http://www.pensacola.com/

Failure is NOT an option!

The Apollo Moon Program took Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon’s surface in 1969. During the third mission to land men on the moon (1970) an explosion left the Apollo crew in grave danger.

The story of Apollo 13 offers an important message for humankind as we face up to climate change: “Failure is not an option.”

These words were uttered by Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director, when he addressed the engineers and scientists responsible for returning the three crewmen to Earth under what appeared to be impossible circumstances and limitations.

As we learn more about the daunting task of reducing carbon emissions well below 1990 levels even while the world’s population grows exponentially, the challenge feels every bit as awesome as that faced by Krantz on that fateful mission.

Kranz advised his team to not be emotional but to “work the problem.” It seems to me that is good advice. We have to cut through the arguments and individual beliefs that each of us holds to create a sustainable human enterprise on Earth.

And like Apollo 13, the clock is ticking for us, too. Beyond a certain point we will not be able to reverse the physical adjustments of Earth’s atmosphere and oceans and of living communities most vulnerable to them.

So just how did these scientists and engineers “work the problem?” Well, to begin with they erased the previous flight plans and went back to the drawing board. Then, they looked at what was on hand that could be used in new ways to meet the needs of the moment: “We’ve got to take this square battery pack and make it fit into this round receptacle,” the engineer explained to his team.

And what were they attempting to solve? Chillingly for us, the crew was experiencing a lethal build-up of carbon dioxide on board their small craft, and the engineers were attempting to build a carbon scrubber with the stuff on board the spacecraft.

Cutting through all preconceptions, the team put their heads together and managed to build a new scrubber with a square end that fit into a round hole.

Without being simplistic, much of what we have to do to come together as communities, nations, and international bodies seems just like that: a square peg in a round hole. So far nothing fits very tight.

But here is a simple example of how a great accomplishment was achieved:

1. Work the problem, skip the rhetoric;
2. Gather what is on hand and if necessary use it in new ways that can get us the solutions we seek;
3. Failure is not an option – we do not have the luxury to try this another time, therefore our leaders, social institutions, and citizens must all come to the table with sobriety and willingness to think anew.

Apollo is the Greek god of reason, morality, and maintenance of society. Perhaps in our cultures these have not always been united. Just as the Apollo crew was buoyed by the worldwide prayers and hopes of people and nations, we could look at the human community, and all the living communities that keep us alive and happy, as a crew on an endangered spacecraft that we have got to bring home safely.

Let’s work that problem.

Climate Code Red - a Mandate for Action

Dear Visitors to My Site,

I am sending two things this morning out of the passion in my heart for this Earth and out of my profound sense that we must acknowledge climate change and get to work to save our planet and our lives.

Think of living in the desert as Ground Zero for climate change. We are running out of water and everyone knows it but is afraid to talk about it for fear of causing panic. Yet citizens here are panicking because they do not see one leader with gumption enough to face facts. Only doing that will we have a chance of turning this around in time.

First watch this video of a elephant who paints her image:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LHoyB81LnE

Is this not a message? What are we losing if life on Earth is destroyed?

Then go to this link to read the Climate Code Red Report. It is long and comprehensive but it is a MUST read for all of us. Put aside your doubts. We are at a point of no return and our job now is to create the political and social will to act together to reduce carbon emissions dramatically.
http://www.climatecodered.net/ Save the PDF then read it over the next week.

The consensus is that we must reduce carbon parts per million to 320 ppm to enter a safe climate zone. We are at 385 parts per million now. What is happening is a series of interrelated factors that are reinforcing heating so that events are happening much faster than predicted. Most scientists now say the IPCC reports that won the Nobel Peace Prize were too conservative and racked by political and economic pressures to be conservative in their estimates.

The catastrophic impacts we predicted for future generations will happen (are happening) in our generation and nothing short of the survival of the biosphere is now in question. Business as usual is over. Don't be fooled.

I am no longer worried about being called crazy or overly dramatic. That attitude and not paying attention to world wide events such as the loss of polar ice (50% reduction in just two years!) - that is insane.

Please read this. Let's discuss what we each need to do to create that will to change course, and what each of us must prepare for in our various regions. Those of you living in the east where decent public transportation is available are so lucky you have no idea.

Don't panic. Just sit down and read. Action will help us stay settled. But we all need to get ready to show up at our leaders' doorsteps. Use your intuition. Ask questions. Why aren't we leading the world in dealing with this?

See the link on this blog for the Pew Climate Center where you can find other important research results and recommended policy decisions.

In faith that we will act as a human community for not only ourselves and our own, but for all life on this Earth we share. It's time. The time is NOW.

Susan

Gestalt

Santa Cruz River at Saint Mary's Bridge circa 1930




Thoughts over coffee on a midweek-day-dawning

Not long ago I hiked up A Mountain. Standing atop that old rounded place with its mute green denizens – the sturdy, tall saguaros – I looked across the sea of houses floating on the valley floor. Beyond them the towering blue Catalina Mts. and rocky Rincon’s rimmed the valley, and in the south I could see the Santa Rita Mts. through a dusty haze thrown up by thousands of vehicles steaming in both directions. I turned north and there before me the traffic seemed to emerge from the horizon, sky beings coming at high speed. I couldn’t imagine how it could be stopped. Turning south my eyes gazed into a developing plain at the curve of Interstate 10 where it meets Highway 19 in arching rivers of cement.

Standing still with the saguaros, I felt the thunderous vibrations in the land and realized how the trees and rocks must be perpetually jiggled by the cars and trucks. My mind could see the combustion of gas in all the engines all at once. I saw streams of fire moving across the land. The air danced above the inferno, waving ominously.

Then, I turned west toward the rounded backbone of the mountain itself and a line of low rounded hills covered with native vegetation. Beyond, the Tucson Mts. filled the sky. It seemed cooler, less on fire, and it seemed a place where one might find silence again.

Looking down at the coarse soil under my shoes, I studied the stones left by volcanic action and imagined the fiery birth of the region’s modern topography - a very different kind of fire. On this mountain and all along its base are the places where humans first lived and loved in what we now call Tucson (the place of black stones). There was a river at the bottom of this mountain, a river lined by small, densely growing trees. And there was an ocean of silence that lay over the land. For a long, long time this was so.

Then I turn to the east and look deeply into what has been created since that early time. And I wonder, “What were we thinking?”



Word Count: 368

All Quiet on the Western Front

"All Quiet on the Western Front" is still as relevant today as it was in 1929, on November 18, Armistice Day commemoration, when the filming began. It was filmed on forty acres of ranch country near Los Angeles where a full scale French village was recreated along with realistic battlesfields pocked by explosives. Over 2,000 men played in the battlescenes, all of them veterans of war. Eventhough they were from many countries, they all fought together in the movie as Germans or French. Lew Ayers, who played the lead role as Paul Baumer, was a pacificist, refusing later to fight in WWII for which the film was banned in many U. S. theaters. The film is adapted from Erich Maria Remarque's novel of the same name. He fought in WWI for Germany and then took ten years to absorb the experience and write the story. It is a classic anti-war film and more. I do not remember the last time I saw it, years ago.

My family and I have long been touched by war. Mom's father drove an ambulance in WWI in France; the family stories portray someone who, like Paul Baumer and his friends, came back disillusioned, a little "off his rocker." My grandfather, Dudley Jones, carried schrapnel in his legs. He became an alcoholic after returning home and died before I was born. I wonder if he was in pain or just depressed... or both. Later my own father flew B-29 Superbombers in the Pacific, participating in the fireraids that brought Japan to its knees in the latter days of the war and just before the atomic bomb was dropped... twice... by my country. Dad was a career pilot in the USAF after the war. I grew up a military "brat" submerged in the idealism and patriotic hype within the American defense community. Then my husband flew Hueys in Vietnam with the Americal Division, U.S. Army. The experience profoundly shaped him emotionally for decades until he began to meet up with other Vietnam vets and talk things out.

War made a pacifist of my father. The military made a pacifist out fo me and my whole family. As in the film, when you are touched personally by war, it changes your mind about it. There is just nothing good about it ever.

All Quiet on the Western Front explores the basic question every soldier must ask him or herself in the middle of carnage and destruction: who wants this? who benefits from this? who started this? At one point in the film, a character suggests a way to work out differences between leaders and business interests (the "kaiser and the manufacturers"): clear off a large field and sell tickets; dress all the politicos and business tycoons in their underwear and let them duke it out with clubs. I think it makes more sense.

Read an excellent review of the film: http://www.filmsite.org/allq.html

Susan