NEW CHAPTERS-IN IT TOGETHER

PLANET KINDRED

     We're in new territory now. California is in the fourth year of a drought and experts say the state has never been drier, though that may not be true. It's problematic.

      The tree above is a neighbor, one of many Monterey Pines in this area's unique pine forest, one of three natural such forests. I'm worried about the tree and many of its kindred.

     The drought has exacerbated other problems and some predict a mortality rate of 40-80% of the forest. When trees die and suffer so does the abundant wild life in the area.

      We've shared the ridge with this tree and a few that have died and thinned the copse. We've watched a marvelous cycle of life now in peril. 

      First we hear the plaintive cry of a young hawk, then in time we watch flying lessons and still later we watch the aerial combat of hawks and families of crows who have also lived here for generations. Wild turkeys seek refuge in the shade, bob cats, fox, deer and many species of birds roam or roost here. Skunk, raccoons and squirrels are here. Mushrooms spring in the under thicket, wild flowers patch their way into and share the sun. When an old tree goes, life changes in profound ways.

      This blue planet is in the midst of changes and so it has always been. Woodworkers and scientists tell us areas of California have endured droughts that extended decades. Decades! Historians have written of extended droughts that ended eras of cattle ranching. There is a theory the last 100 years have been the anomaly, wetter than normal. 

      We are all in this mystery together and largely we are powerless. We can respond and we have. People of our village have reduced water use by as much as 45%. A newly built system uses waste and brackish water to supply a percentage of our needed supply.

      Meteorologists discuss a Pacific Decadal Oscillation, intense high pressure and variations in the jet stream though, regardless of cause, we live with uncertainty. In our time on the ridge we've seen 37 inches of rain in a season and as low as 8. The last four have been the driest and that brings us again to our trees. 

      It has become necessary to thin the forest of dead trees, to reduce danger. Problems; how to get it done, how to pay for it, what to do with the old wood? Citizens, elected representatives and a variety of experts are in a kind of scrum to chart a course of action.  
     California Governor Brown has renewed the water restrictions and serious people are asking even more serious questions about what this means to California's agriculture, which feeds the nation. Many look to the Pacific and see what could be a water supply, but not without cost and process and politics.

     The good citizens of this marvelous and vast state move toward a future with unmeasured dimensions and uncertain challenges. This is a state of enjoyment where so much of life is lived outside, where the light is vivid and saturated like the colors, aromas and flavors of diversity. These are people who have built technology empires, entertainments and lifestyles where relaxation, kicking back, hanging out bespeak attitudes and spirit.  But it's a new time. Changes are coming.

      Our approach to forest management is likely one of those changes.  Neglect and inattention did not create the problem, but they did not help.  Earlier cutting, thinning, better stewardship and management would have dialed back the fire danger.

      In our village a forest management plan was written years ago, agreed to by levels of government and regulatory agencies, but it has never been funded.  Shame on us!  It is too late for too many trees. I hope my neighbor will survive and I hope we may learn in the uncertain future that we all have a stake in every aspect life on this blue marble.
      Pollution in China, nuclear radiation in Japan, overwatered golf courses in the desert, neglected forest management, toxic waste in rivers, whirlpools of plastic in the oceans, chemicals on lawns, lack of conservation, and on and on, are all ultimately local issues in every community and threatening problems to all life. They respect no boundaries.

   We are all in this together.

    See you down the trail.

DESPITE THE CLIMATE DIVIDE--NOT WHAT IT SEEMS--DIVINE COLOR?

Warning-this post includes notes on climate science.
TREES AS ART

    Cambria artist Bruce Marchese said he was experimenting with an abstract work. Bruce is best known for his rich color and realistic capture of people and scenes so I was intrigued. His vivid abstract piece now hangs at the Art Center. It's a brilliant representation of Eucalyptus bark. I see why he was so captivated.

    These Eucalyptus stand in a grove at San Simeon state park. They have competition in the color department though.

    This living abstract is the peeling bark of a Madrone.

   Hey Bruce, if you have success with the Eucalyptus you might consider the Madrone as your next model!

NEW WORRIES IN CLIMATE CHANGE

   This grand citizen of planet earth is one of the largest living things and one of the oldest.

     The only place in the world where you find these 2,000 to 3,000 year Sequoias is in the Sierra Nevada. Jim Robbins of the New York Times has published an article linked here that details the concern of biologists that climate change, especially longer or more frequent droughts, may peril the existence of these masters of the mountains.

    Sequoias, a type of redwood, have no disease or insect enemies and they can survive fire, but they need water, either in rain or snow melt.

    I've pondered if there isn't a message in this for humankind. Could there be something in the bark or essence of the largest and oldest living things on earth that could provide a molecular blessing?  Disease free, survive fire? What other living thing has such a resume?

    There is something else to these living spires. I am never  in a redwood forest or among the Sequoias that I don't sense a palpable spirit. Yes, there are differences on questions of the Divine, spirituality and faith, the degree and nature of climate change, but there can be no dissent on the overwhelming awesomeness of the power and survivability of the big trees. I think of them as the planet's silent sentries. What wisdom do they hold?

 See you down the trail.

HOW DO YOU WANT TO LIVE & IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?

EARTH NEWS

     A service of this blog is the link, just to the right, to the Scientific American blog, an incredible source of real news and valued information.  Mainstream and social media are buzzing today with "news" that last year was the hottest on record.  Scientific American has been on, into and all over the facts for several months.  They posted earlier.  Do yourself a favor and keep an eye on their site.

       Now what are we going to do about the climate and the implications of continued change?

WHAT DO YOU THINK? 

      Have you followed the proposed changes at one of this planet's treasures, Yosemite National Park? 

      To help protect the wild nature of the Merced River and environs, the park plans to eliminate a 1920's skating rink, bike and river raft rental, while rerouting some roads, using more shuttle buses and constructing a pedestrian underpass to connect the lodge with the falls.  

      The plan has been years in developing.  Public comment is accepted until mid April.

     Visiting Yosemite, and nearby Sequoia National Park is a profound experience.

HEARST GRAZING

      A drive on the scenic Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1)
is even more amusing when the Hearst zebra are grazing.

     Spotting zebra in a heard of cattle prompts tourists to brake suddenly.  Did I really see that?  Is that what I think it is?

     The Hearst Castle, built by Julia Morgan for William Randolph Hearst sits atop a mountain on the 80 thousand acre San Simeon-Piedras Blancas ranch.  It's an impressive stretch of California central coast.

Photo Courtesy of Creative Commons

    The zebra are a vestige of the old man's penchant for wild animals.  Thru the years, the heard has grown and often grazes along side the Hearst grass fed beef.

  Hearst zebras were the center of a shooting incident almost two years.

    A commercial talks about California cows being contented.  Must be true for California zebras too, don't you think?  Fewer predators than Africa and a great ocean view.

    See you down the trail.     

AN IGNORED WARNING

LIFE IN FAST FORWARD

PHOTO FROM JIMMY CARTER LIBRARY

    The "hot line" direct communication link between Moscow and Washington went into service on this day in 1963.  It took 12 hours to decode, translate and respond to Nikita Kruschev's message months earlier during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

    By the time the hot line was on Jimmy Carter's desk, the technology had evolved. The dinosaur phone in the picture, once was the picture of modernity.

     49 years after the groundbreaking channel of instant communication we have come to this:

YouTube's Election hub, a child of the internet, which has revolutionized communication. Social media fueled the "Arab-Spring" and now Phillip DeFranco, the lad on the left who began his program in his basement, has more viewers than Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow and even Jon Stewart's daily show.

     DeFranco is one of the multiple offerings on YouTube's election site which puts the director's call of what to air into your hands, truly at your finger tips and on the screen of your choice.

SO IN SUCH A WELL WIRED WORLD
A WORRIED WHY?

     The story of shrinking arctic sea ice, the largest melt since tracking data began, was reported two days ago and barely drew a notice. Arctic sea ice is disappearing more quickly than any time we know of and more rapidly than predicted.

Graph courtesy of Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and THE WASHINGTON POST

     The increasingly warm summer trends indicate earth's warming and the probability the sea ice will disappear in a future summer.  Warmer Arctic waters can cause Greenland's ice sheet to melt and that can lead to many problems. The shrinking of the Arctic Sea Ice and the diminishing of Greenland's Ice sheet will likely lead to more extreme summers and winters everywhere.

    Man made?  Nature's cycle?  A combination?  Don't you think it's worth exploring?  Still you had to search to see or hear anything.

    About the time the hotline was established a network of radio and television stations, produced a docudrama. Set in the future it was the story of how a news organization covered an environmental and ecological disaster that threatened all human life.  In one chilling passage the anchor does a voice-over of historic clips, listing a litany of warning signs of impending doom, sighting years, and failed international conferences.  Warning after warning went ignored while the people occupied themselves with buying and wanting more.  Until it was too late to hide from the impending end.

     How are we using or listening to our great communication tools? Is mother earth calling our hotline?

DAY FILE

A CORNER OF THE STUDIO

   I was looking around Lana's studio when I became intrigued by the corner near the window.  It's got "personality."

   I'm fascinated by the, texture, lines, divisions and proportionality of the frame below.

See you down the trail.

AFTER THE SUN & PLANET TEARS

TWILIGHT COLORS

Once the grandiloquence of 

the sun's evening departure is fixed

in our mind, in the hour of 

myth and dreams, the land becomes a 

subtle scape of texture and hues.

The summit of the pass over the Santa Lucia range is a portal.

 A place of exquisite subtlety.

HISTORY WILL CARRY THE VERDICT

Imagine December 2111.  Is it possible that humankind

will look back to us and say we had a choice between

money and life and we chose money?  Children born

between now and the next 10 years will be the elders of that humankind.  What will they endure, because of our

devotion to economic structure as we know it instead

of care for the planet?

I don't believe our science, as good as it is, fully understands the continual changes, shifts and evolutionary forces at work on our blue planet. But some of the maladies are man made.  Poisons in rivers, lakes and oceans. 

Trash and debris that takes generations to degrade and 

often leaves an altered earth and water supply behind.  Global climate changes may not all be man made, but there are apocalyptic warnings about changing temperatures, animal and insect migration changes, extreme weather changes.  It is also undeniable that carbon emissions are rising. Maybe they don't matter. But what if they do?

10 Thousand government ministers and experts from 194 nations are meeting in Durbin for a conference on our 

planet's future. From the most rational and reluctant to the most strident, there is a consensus things are changing

and those changes will force biological and botanical  reactive change.  How we live will change, in ways 

we can only speculate.

But, because the planet is gripped by economic fear,

there will be no agenda, no plan of action, no

muscle to try to change the course we are on.

Socialist, Capitalist, Communist, Feudal, Tribal-

no matter how the nations of the world practice

economics, this age is too wed to evaluating

life and human endeavor by those standards to 

instead put a value on the life of the planet we

inhabit or the lives of our descendants.

December 2111.  Will they regret the choices 

we have made?

See you down the trail.