The History of the Future

        We'll share a few moments here on the idea of drought, a drought of spirit and intellect as well as the obvious, depicted here in California's Lake Isabella in Kern County.

        I've been watching Lake Isabella disappear since we became Californians in 2007. These photos were taken recently.

        The stonework in the left of the frame above is the dam.

        There is no recreation in a lake where water levels have dropped to expose the ghost trees that once filled the valley before they were covered. This is an agricultural area too. Similar scenes are visible all over the west.

        We know this, right? It's a global issue. Even if droughts break, it will take years to return to "normal," an idea that is itself probably non-existent. Climate change, for whatever reason, is just that, change!

       From the view of someone who was there to cover the first Earth Day and who has chronicled the ensuing decades, we are not ready for what is coming at us.

        To the northeast of Lake Isabella is a perfect example.

        The great Owens Valley, the deepest in the US, sits at 4-thousand feet rimmed to the east by the Sierra Nevada, west of the White and Inyo Mountains at the western edge of the great basin.

        This vast wilderness is a poster of the moral and ethical drought that can destroy humankind.

        The California Water Wars are legendary, told well in the book and documentary series Cadillac Desert, fictionalized in the film Chinatown, and subject of litigation and battles that go on.

         That island, the remnant of a volcano, sits in the middle of a lake that remains at the middle of the public awareness of theft, deception, chicanery and shortsightedness perpetuated by Los Angeles officials. It began in the late 19th century and to this day LA exists becasue of the water theft.

        Mono Lake, subject of some of the most complex litigation in history, is the largest lake that remains in what once was an Owens Valley flowing with rivers, tributaries, small lakes until LA movers and shakers, destroyed them to feed a real estate boom that led to city of LA we know today. 

        It is a city still dependent on other people's water and those waters like those that feed Phoenix, and so much Southern California, and Arizona, are disappearing.

        Drought should change how we live, but golf courses remain green, builders continue to develop, swimming pools are filled, mindless irrigation continues. When the last drop is used, civilization in those places face a darkness where the drought of spirit, morality and ethics will rise up and create a force that will savage life and society.

        After years of wrangling, Mono Lake is beginning to rise and LA has learned to deal with it. While that may seem to be  good news, LA has instead begun to draw water from subsurface sources in the Owens Valley. 

        Owens Lake is a dry lake bed, as are others. Still the modernity of life in a big city is sucking water from aquifers in a parched area.

        In the early 1900's modern life began the theft. The Paiute tribe and other first citizens had relied on the water for centuries. Settlers had also begun a thriving agriculture that used the accessible water.

        There is no thriving agriculture today. The Paiute and other tribes have watched their paradise be stolen.

        LA is not the only place where this drought of conscience has blinded us to the consequence of our actions. It's a global problem.

        Documentary maker Gabriela Cowperthwaite who produced the expose Blackfish is out with a new investigation that is profoundly shaking up those who have seen it. 

        Based on the seven years of work by Nate Halverson of the Center for Investigative Reporting, it relates how commercial and national interests are buying land with water and food resources around the planet, essentially gaining control. As one analyst wrote "... it is a race against the clock to control food and water..." as climate continues to change humanity. 

       What permits, and what feeds such a sinister effort? A drought of morality and ethics.

       I've tried to avoid head on political analysis for a while. I'm sick of returning to the topic, depressed by the unnecessary division in the US, and anguished about the blatant ignorance and stupidity that is rampant. I've said most of what can be said.

       While we may be appalled and angered by the story of the Owens Valley, and the continued blindness of places like LA, the drought of conscience is apparent in too many places. One place is in the logic of a Republican party that will tolerate a candidate like Herschel Walker, or field candidates who deny the election and who continue to behave as cowards and ethical cripples. 

        We are a people at risk, all of us on this planet. Most of us have a capacity to act. We should.

       See you down the trail. 

       

    

 

BURNING ISSUES and VISUAL JOY

    A photo journey to the Monterey Bay Aquarium is just ahead.

   And likewise, a few looks from the "sparkle shop."  But first...

burning issues

    While this has particular application to California and the US West, it is truly a global concern. Fires threaten more of the population and do so with an increasingly lethal ferocity. 

     Debate and discussion about causal factors are important but of equal "life and death" significance is dealing with on the onset.

      REVEAL, an NPR broadcast from the Center for Investigative Reporting, provided a compelling and eye opening examination of several aspects of the worst wildfire in California history, the Camp Fire, just extinguished, and the previous worst fire that ravaged Santa Rosa. 

       It was chilling but more importantly illuminating to hear the emergency communication as the inferno ramped up and to hear the actuality of the desperate attempt to evacuate and to battle the blaze. After study, planners will better understand patterns of on scene emergency communication, plans for evacuation and coordination. It is clear a better system of multi agency communication is needed. It is clear also phone service providers need to be on the same page with each other and with emergency agencies so alerts are sent to all and with timeliness. And it is clear that evacuation routes and methods need a lot of study.

bury the lines

      When I was a daily deadline journalist I wondered privately why in the then 20th Century, power lines ran from pole to pole in much the same fashion as those early telegraph lines in the 1830's. Surely there is a better technology. As power lines are the suspected trigger of these last two deadly fires, the matter is even more critical.

       All power lines should be buried. Power companies will fight it and protest cost and difficulty, but given the cause of the largest and most deadly fires, the complaints don't matter. There are many advantages to buried power lines and simply put the government can and should mandate their burial.

build? rebuild?

       Cities and towns need to find a way to enforce building codes that make sense. In the last century we've pushed deeper into undeveloped areas, into quake zones, fire zones, on mountain sides, near rivers, lakes and oceans. 
       I recall standing on a volcano with a USGS scientist who decried that humans have a desire to live in places that are fundamentally unsafe. It's difficult to put the Genie back into the bottle, but we need to better consider where and how we build. There maybe some places where we should not be.

      Santa Rosa is on the threshold of rebuilding. The council passed an application to build again in an area where fire has devastated at least twice before. Business interests and developers got their way. It is understandable and even laudable that a community wishes to rebuild. But it is laudable to not repeat past mistakes. There may be someplaces that should not be home sites again. A dissenting Santa Rosa councilwoman said it is just a matter of time before the historic burn zone, will burn again.

giving shelter

         Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, fires, avalanches and mudslides happen. We know that even despite our best plans, disasters will visit us time and time again. 
        Helicoptering into and over the aftermath of a particularly wicked tornado and flood, looking at acres of destroyed buildings and infrastructure, I thought how good it would be for those who had lost everything to have access to something other than an extended shelter existence in a gymnasium, church basement or parking lot. Why don't federal and state agencies or volunteer relief groups create what amounts to a rapidly deployed and quickly built emergency modular community? Those infamous "FEMA trailers" are a well intended but clumsy response. 
       In a time of IKEA, 3D printing and modularization, pre-fabricated units, something between a tent and a trailer that can be assembled into an instant "relief city" with water supplies and generated power would be vital relief to people who experienced loss and the worst moments of their life. Devastated residents could have a modicum of privacy and basic shelter as they pick up the pieces and begin to repair their lives. The concept has been tested in battlefield medical units and command/logistic shelters.
       The modular units could be used again and again. Until folks connect with family, friends or find new or more permanent temporary housing they could have, at least, a safe place to sleep and decent facilities that do not otherwise
create a public hassle or health and sanitation crisis.
       Survivors are emotionally wounded. Just recently in Chico a kind of mutual support "evacuation village" cropped up on a Walmart parking lot. You understand how people  bond with others who have experienced such tragedy, but they need something more than camping tents or shambles on a parking lot as they try to recover.
       Evacuees, refugees, and victims of disaster are an ever present part of the human family. We can and should do better in the early aftermath to provide shelter and facilities during the early recover.

water life
delights of the Monterey Bay Aquarium

 The frame below contrasts how a moment can be experienced.

The frame below is a rare face to face with a kind of sea worm/eel comedian.

  Can you spot the fish in the frame below?

He or she is the character that appears to be a rock to the far right of the screen. In the frame below you can see the fins.

faces from the sparkle shop

      See you down the trail.