for the children

 Leaf buds are burst. Leaf out has begun. The creeping Charlie in front of the house  has pretty little blue flowers. The lily of the valley patch along the driveway is about half a foot tall. Spring is sprunging everywhere. Today's temperature is in the upper 70's approaching 80. Next Sunday is Mother's Day. The humming bird / oriole feeder has been filled and hung.

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi
NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

I'm trying, and sometimes failing, to not let the craziness emanating out of the state and national capitols sour me on the world and many of its inhabitants. When I stop doom scrolling and look around I can find beauty and goodness. Let's see if I feel optimistic enough this week to go buy a fishing license. 🤞

I bet you know that Minnesota's constitution has provisions governing spending lottery funds on environmental projects but doesn't have a "Green Amendment" establishing our right to clean air, clean water and a healthy environment. That strikes me as being a cart before the horse kind of deal. There's an organization / movement, Green Amendments For the Generations, with the mission:

to ensure every person and community across the United States is able to experience the health, quality of life, education, joy and economic prosperity provided by a clean, safe and healthy environment; to end environmental racism; and to help ensure that nature itself is able to thrive, by constitutionally empowering all people to secure and enforce their inalienable human right to pure water, clean air, a stable climate, healthy ecosystems and environments.

Minnesota is not listed as one of the states active in the Green Amendment movement. I'm curious to see if I can get a handle on why and how we might be able to change that. Please feel free to share thoughts in the comments

The Green Amendments movement is similar to but not the same as the Rights of Nature movement. The former focuses on anthropocentric values and the latter on nature's intrinsic values. I think we should look toward a "both and" approach rather than an either / or situation, but it may well turn out to be a one step at a time movement. Now that Minnesota is the headwaters of America's Most Threatened River, the Mississippi, perhaps the powers that be may become more amenable to the proverbial "clean up our act" effort. Stay tuned.

Today's poem is one of my own that I was fortunate enough to find a home for in a book by a friend of ours, Krista Detor's Flat Earth Diary. Most of those who will benefit from Green Amendments aren't yet born or grown up.

        A Way 

Earth's children grow
leave home
go away where
dragons roam

dragons fly aweigh
to lands on maps
filled with children grown
away from home

Hubble captures dragons a way from home
away from children
aweigh in space

children young and old
pass away as dragons fly
where earth aweigh
finds a way
to roam
home 

J Harrington

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Nature's rights are human rights!

I haven’t yet had my fill of watermelon or ripe peaches. I have reached my limit on humidity, temperatures of more than 89℉, drought, and cloudy days. Sounds like we’re in a late August phase and matching mood. Tired of summer, not quite ready for autumn. The good news is we hadn’t retired to Maui or southern California or British Columbia. Meanwhile, the foot-dragging and minimal response to reducing greenhouse gas emissions continues. There are too many folks engage in magical thinking and that’s dangerous for the rest of us. There is an alternative to magical thinking.

Minnesota isn’t immune from wildfires

Photo by J. Harrington

Earlier today I was pondering which might be a better approach: advocating for the adoption of a green amendment to Minnesota’s constitution, along the lines being followed by members of the NCEL, or advocating for the legal establishment of nature’s rights and personhood. It didn’t take too long for me to realize that the question isn’t an either / or choice, it’s a both / and effort. States, including nation states, that wish to demonstrate environmental leadership need to incorporate into their Bill of Rights language that guarantees a healthy environment. They also need to establish legal personhood for their ecosystems. There are no markets on a dead planet. Our entire gross domestic product can’t be “health care.” We’re better off making our environment healthy than repairing all the damage an unhealthy environment does to our bodies, minds and souls.

At a local level, and a more immediate time frame, you might want to consider adding your voice in favor of the removal of both dams on the Kinnickinnic River in River Falls. The Kiap-Tu-Wish chapter of Trout Unlimited has on their web site a nice summary of the recent open house held by the Corps of Engineers and the city of River Falls. Take a look and share your thoughts. If you have questions, feel free to drop them in the comments and I’ll do my best to post an answer.

Remember, all of this is done--

For the Children

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

Gary Snyder
From: Turtle Island

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Late June #phenology

Common milkweed is beginning to bloom. Black-eyed Susans have started to flower. Butterfly weed has erupted across one local hillside field. June is about to bust into July, so we could claim June is busting out all over, but we won’t.

meadow with black-eyed Susans

Photo by J. Harrington

It looks as though, at least temporarily, the smoke / PM 2.5 alerts have subsided. We may actually get to spend time outside and enjoy it if the mosquitos and deer flies aren’t too bad. Living in Minnesota and getting the equivalent of cabin fever [shack nasties] during the Summer is the pits.

We’ve lost about 3 minutes of daylight since the solstice. Have you noticed the difference? We’ll keep losing until we get to Winter Solstice, when the days will then begin to grow longer. Meanwhile, I’ve not really been able to get into a routine or a rhythm all year. Before that, COVID was responsible for many disruptions. Now, is it simply a post-pandemic adjustment period, plus the increasing effects of climate breakdown, or is something else at work? I don’t want to turn into a mindless automaton, but constantly adjusting to whatever’s next has become wearing. Plus, thanks mostly to the weather and climate-related disruptions, we’ve not yet wet a line this summer.

Back in the old days, if we threw out something that had gotten broken, or worn out, or used up, my mother and/or grandmother used to say “May all bad luck go with it.” June ends tomorrow. May all bad luck go with it.

June Sunset 

Sarojini Naidu
1879 – 1949

Here shall my heart find its haven of calm, 
By rush-fringed rivers and rain-fed streams 
That glimmer thro’ meadows of lily and palm. 
Here shall my soul find its true repose 
Under a sunset sky of dreams 
Diaphanous, amber and rose. 
The air is aglow with the glint and whirl 
Of swift wild wings in their homeward flight, 
Sapphire, emerald, topaz, and pearl. 
Afloat in the evening light. 

A brown quail cries from the tamarisk bushes, 
A bulbul calls from the cassia-plume, 
And thro’ the wet earth the gentian pushes 
Her spikes of silvery bloom. 
Where’er the foot of the bright shower passes 
Fragrant and fresh delights unfold; 
The wild fawns feed on the scented grasses, 
Wild bees on the cactus-gold. 

An ox-cart stumbles upon the rocks, 
And a wistful music pursues the breeze 
From a shepherd’s pipe as he gathers his flocks 
Under the pipal-trees. 
And a young Banjara driving her cattle 
Lifts up her voice as she glitters by 
In an ancient ballad of love and battle 
Set to the beat of a mystic tune, 
And the faint stars gleam in the eastern sky 
To herald a rising moon. 

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Fishing for Summer

Most of southern Minnesota is under an air quality alert for ozone this afternoon and evening. Since I’m a diligent environmentalist, I’lll follow the guidance and forego doing yard chores today. Tomorrow will be soon enough to collect more dead branches scattered about the yard. There’s no rain in the forecast for the next week or ten days, so open burning in the southern half of the state isn’t allowed yet. I wonder if spring burning restrictions will continue into summer this year. Perhaps Mother Nature is sending me a message that this would be a good time to go fishing.

a fine place to spend the summer

Photo by J. Harrington

While running an errand today I confirmed another absolute sign it’s summerish. The roads are full of triple- and quadruple-axle dump trucks and side-dumpers. Road construction season, Minnesota’s alternative to winter, is underway. Congestion and slowdowns, here we come.

Moments ago I learned from the Better Half that, among other things, we’re having strawberry pancakes for dinner tonight. I don’t recall ever having had strawberry pancakes. It will be, at a minimum, summery. And that’s as it should be since we are now less than a week from Memorial Day. In preparation, I should plan to give the Jeep it’s summer bath sometime this week.

Golden Rainbow

by James A. Tweedie 

Silver shimmers swirl and eddy,
Gurgle, splash, slip-slide away.
Rounded river rocks unsteady
Underneath my feet today.

Hiding in the water’s shadows
Hungry trout are standing by
Hoping that the nearby meadows
Feed them with a juicy fly.

Carefully I creep and tarry
With my fishing pole held tight.
Hoping the dry-flies I carry
Trick the trout to take a bite.

With a practiced flick of wrist
I cast my line and float my fly.
Rising trout has hit—but missed!
I’m ready for a second try.

With my fly adrift I’m jerking
It to make it look alive.
Splash from where the trout is lurking—
Barbless hook—it takes a dive.

Carefully the fish is landed,
Lifted to the light of day.
As the fish is held wet-handed—
Golden rainbows on display.

Quickly now, the fish will be
Released into the rushing stream.
Then, when it has been set free,
I’ll ever hold it as a dream.

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We need a “bigger" picture

The year now ending included elections. Many politicians, or the political party to which they belong, like to ask US “Are you better off now than you were four, or two, years, or even one year, ago? What’s usually missing from that question are such considerations as:

• Is your water supply polluted?
• Is the air you breathe clean?
• Is the rain that falls on you full of PFAS?
• Does your government listen to you?
• Are the officials you elect telling you the truth?
• Are there more species endangered now than a year or two ago?
• Has more money brought an improved quality of life?
• Are you and your family more or less stressed than you were a year or two ago?
• Do you have a future you can look forward to leaving for your children?

soon, a new year will dawn

Photo by J. Harrington

Many years ago, a politician I admired, Robert F. Kennedy, raised such issues in a 1968 speech. From what I can see, we’ve continued for more than fifty years to elect those who would prefer to ignore such questions. Maybe next year we can prepare oursellves to do better in 2024? That’s only a short portion of seven generations.

University of Kansas, March 18, 1968

Even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task, it is to confront the poverty of satisfaction - purpose and dignity - that afflicts us all.  

Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.  Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.  

It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them.  It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.  

It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.  It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.  

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  

It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.  

And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
     
If this is true here at home, so it is true elsewhere in world. 

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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Were fossil fuels just a bridge?

July certainly has been an interesting month this year: record-setting heat waves, wide-spread drought, smoke-filled skies from hundreds of wildfires in Canada, and a third surge of the COVID-19 virus, Delta variant this time. Now that the Democrats are letting the federal eviction ban expire, the homeless population is likely to expand or we'll see a strange case of musical chairs, but, as I've read, landlords are hesitant to rent to those who've been evicted so I can't begin to guess how that may play out.

Is it possible that  we've reached a point at which the  new normal is that there is no normal, and won't be for some time? A dictionary definition if normal is "conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern : characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine." Do you foresee a near future in which  we can characterize anything as usual, typical or routine? The "rock" is the need to transform our society and economy to become carbon-neutral within a generation or so. The "hard place" will be found as the consequence of not rapidly completing those transformations, plus the continuing disruptions to what was considered normal during  the last millennium. We're caught between them. Some may think we are approaching the time of the rapture or the end of days. I'm wondering if genesis might not be a better model to consider.

Western "civilization" is being cast out of its paradise founded on fossil fuels, which supplied energy to do the work of moving and warming things between the time of feudalism and whatever comes after where we are. We may have initially responded to the discovery of how to use oil in a manner similar to that of animals no longer constrained by predators or food shortages. [See, e.g., Kaibab Deer Herd and table below] 

World population milestones in billions (Worldometers estimates)
Population	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Year	1804	1927	1960	1974	1987	1999	2011	2023	2037	2057
Years elapsed	—	123	33	14	13	12	12	12	14	20

 The question now becomes, will we exhibit enough sense and cooperation and collaboration to structure a soft landing, or will we resolve our  imbalances through a devastating crash. The choice is ours.

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

I'm old enough to remember Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb. I found the approach and analysis in Limits to Growth to be more persuasive. In fact, "In 2020, analysis by Gaya Herrington (Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead at KPMG in the United States but in a personal capacity) found that current empirical data is broadly in line with the 1972 projections.^[50][51]" Unfortunately, our "world leaders" seem more interested in contesting who's going to get to be the captain of our Titanic earth as it sinks, rather than checking the radar screen and the rearview mirror. As Yogi Berra has told us, "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."

Olympic Drive

By Kyle Dargan

Los Angeles

Across from the gorgeous dog park,

men dream against poodle-pissed trees — 

their pillows made from breath captured

in milk cartons. Only arid, temperate

climate offers respite. Let us suppose

they have tales, here in this city

where filmed stories turn a mint.

All around, one wide screen — the dark hills

due north pixel-pocked with villa lights.

Below, streets hemmed with haggard

brown men — jack-in-the-box bodies

ever unfolding. Who is pitching

this script? Title: “The Child of 1968.”

Voiceover: After the Integration Apocalypse,

one man must find his way in a land

where the sole survivors who look or speak

like him are those rendered disturbed

and indigent. Assume the Motion Picture

Association eager to levy a “Rated R,”

then remember that those who judge

violence never shared your definition

of savagery. A culling is all your eyes

decipher — your herd thinned. No urban

wildlife anywhere to be found,

yet hunger for a hunt remains.

Tagline: A hero must choose — 

between starving or bartering one’s own

skin. Plot: Amidst the solar famine, bio-

electric studies revealed melanin’s subtle

charge — the brown population gone

mad from being sapped like CopperTops.

Imagine The Matrix without the extra-

terrestrial machines. Imagine that among us

there have lived men churning statistics,

devising a human harvest, a brutal method

to subsist off fellow men and leave their bones

for the gnawing of next century’s mutts.

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Time to extinguish a few crises

So, yesterday's good news is that I had enough sense to begin wearing a COVID-19 face mask while outside for any period of time in the smoke-filled air of east-central Minnesota, such as when walking the dogs. We all know the bad news, that we're setting Minnesota records for bad air quality from forest fires to our north and others to our west. If face masks are a means to help keep teeny, tiny virus particles out of my airways, they should also work to reduce inhalation of smoke and/or fine particles (PM 2.5).

this time last summer, spotted horsemint was more abundant

Photo by J. Harrington

Meanwhile, the drought continues; the current administration continues to avoid the implications of not suspending or revoking the permits allowing  construction to continue on Enbridge's new Line 3 tar sands transport pipe; folks are beginning to suffer whiplash from "adjustments" to indoor mask "guidelines" related to the delta variant of COVID; and, in a much lesser vein, I became thoroughly embarrassed to learn that Minnesota's sharp-tailed grouse range extends much further east and south than I ever knew. (I know about the Northcentral zone and have almost since I moved to Minnesota. Somehow, the East-central zone has stayed off my radar screen until this morning.)

It's no doubt timely for information affecting hunters and hunting seasons to begin to be released by the Department of Natural Resources in late July, since Sunday, two days from now is Lughnasadh, the beginning of Gaelic harvest time in the Druid Way. As we continue toward autumn, may the wildfires and their smoke be contained and extinguished; may all of US who can safely do so get vaccinated, extinguishing the COVID virus; and may the state and/or federal governments extinguish the Line 3 permits and honor the treaties which Line 3's construction fails to honor.

Tiger Mask Ritual

By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

When you put on the mask the thunder starts.

Through the nostril’s orange you can smell

the far hope of rain. Up in the Nilgiris,

glisten of eucalyptus, drip of pine, spiders tumbling

from their silver webs.

The mask is raw and red as bark against your facebones. 

You finger the stripes ridged like weals

out of your childhood. A wind is rising

in the north, a scarlet light

like a fire in the sky.

When you look through the eyeholes it is like falling.

Night gauzes you in black. You are blind

as in the beginning of the world. Sniff. Seek the moon.

After a while you will know

that creased musky smell is rising

from your skin.

Once you locate the ears the drums begin.

Your fur stiffens. A roar from the distant left,

like monsoon water. You swivel your sightless head.

Under your sheathed paw

the ground shifts wet.

What is that small wild sound

sheltering in your skull

against the circle that always closes in

just before dawn?

Note

The poem refers to a ritual performed by some Rajasthani hill tribes to ensure

           rain and a good harvest.

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On Earth Day, it's restoration time

It's fitting that this Earth Day the technician is coming to check our air conditioning and make sure it's efficient. It's also fitting that today is the day yard cleanup from last autumn's leaf drop and last winter's branch fall begins. Now, if only we can find an ecological method to eliminate all the damn moles and voles in our yard...anyone have gopher snakes they want to donate?

 Feeders for Baltimore orioles and ruby-throated hummingbirds have joined the sunflower chip feeders for all the other species and the free-riding squirrels. It's going to be fun watching to see how soon the colorful migrants arrive. Still no signs of bluebirds or swallows at the bird houses out back but we just decided it's finally safe to hook up a hose and turn on the outside faucet today. April is a very frustrating month in the North Country.

There's an encouraging amount of progress beginning to occur in responding to some of the Earth's crises we're creating. Today we hope it doesn't become a question of a response that's "too little, too late."

Now, on a brighter side, if ferns that emerge in the spring all curled up are called fiddleheads, does that make ferns that  have grown several inches "straight up" fiddlesticks?

are these fiddlesticks?

Photo by J. Harrington

After a year+ of COVID-19 and more than four years of an orange idiot in the White House, I have developed an angry attitude. In honor of this year's Earth Day, and its theme of restoration, I vow to do my best to follow our poet laureate's guidance (see below) from now until next Earth Day. That means I'll be restoring myself as I continue to work to restore our Earth. May your next year be restorative for you, those around you and the Earth on which we depend.

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

By Joy Harjo

I am the holy being of my mother's prayer and my father's song

                                                      —Norman Patrick Brown, Dineh Poet and Speaker

1. SET CONFLICT RESOLUTION GROUND RULES:

Recognize whose lands these are on which we stand.
Ask the deer, turtle, and the crane.
Make sure the spirits of these lands are respected and treated with goodwill.
The land is a being who remembers everything.
You will have to answer to your children, and their children, and theirs—
The red shimmer of remembering will compel you up the night to walk the perimeter of truth for understanding.
As I brushed my hair over the hotel sink to get ready I heard:
By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.
Do not parade, pleased with yourself.
You must speak in the language of justice.


2. USE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS THAT DISPLAY AND ENHANCE MUTUAL TRUST AND RESPECT:

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

The lands and waters they gave us did not belong to them to give. Under false pretenses we signed. After drugging by drink, we signed. With a mass of gunpower pointed at us, we signed. With a flotilla of war ships at our shores, we signed. We are still signing. We have found no peace in this act of signing.

A casino was raised up over the gravesite of our ancestors. Our own distant cousins pulled up the bones of grandparents, parents, and grandchildren from their last sleeping place. They had forgotten how to be human beings. Restless winds emerged from the earth when the graves were open and the winds went looking for justice.

If you raise this white flag of peace, we will honor it.

At Sand Creek several hundred women, children, and men were slaughtered in an unspeakable massacre, after a white flag was raised. The American soldiers trampled the white flag in the blood of the peacemakers.

There is a suicide epidemic among native children. It is triple the rate of the rest of America. "It feels like wartime," said a child welfare worker in South Dakota.

If you send your children to our schools we will train them to get along in this changing world. We will educate them.

We had no choice. They took our children. Some ran away and froze to death. If they were found they were dragged back to the school and punished. They cut their hair, took away their language, until they became as strangers to themselves even as they became strangers to us.

If you sign this paper we will become brothers. We will no longer fight. We will give you this land and these waters in exchange "as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers run."

Put your hand on this bible, this blade, this pen, this oil derrick, this gun and you will gain trust and respect with us. Now we can speak together as one.

We say, put down your papers, your tools of coercion, your false promises, your posture of superiority and sit with us before the fire. We will share food, songs, and stories. We will gather beneath starlight and dance, and rise together at sunrise.

The sun rose over the Potomac this morning, over the city surrounding the white house.
It blazed scarlet, a fire opening truth.
White House, or Chogo Hvtke, means the house of the peacekeeper, the keepers of justice.
We have crossed this river to speak to the white leader for peace many times
Since these settlers first arrived in our territory and made this their place of governance.
These streets are our old trails, curved to fit around trees.
 

3. GIVE CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK:

We speak together with this trade language of English. This trade language enables us to speak across many language boundaries. These languages have given us the poets:

Ortiz, Silko, Momaday, Alexie, Diaz, Bird, Woody, Kane, Bitsui, Long Soldier, White, Erdrich, Tapahonso, Howe, Louis, Brings Plenty, okpik, Hill, Wood, Maracle, Cisneros, Trask, Hogan, Dunn, Welch, Gould...

The 1957 Chevy is unbeatable in style. My broken-down one-eyed Ford will have to do. It holds everyone: Grandma and grandpa, aunties and uncles, the children and the babies, and all my boyfriends. That's what she said, anyway, as she drove off for the Forty-Nine with all of us in that shimmying wreck.

This would be no place to be without blues, jazz—Thank you/mvto to the Africans, the Europeans sitting in, especially Adolphe Sax with his saxophones... Don't forget that at the center is the Mvskoke ceremonial circles. We know how to swing. We keep the heartbeat of the earth in our stomp dance feet.

You might try dancing theory with a bustle, or a jingle dress, or with turtles strapped around your legs. You might try wearing colonization like a heavy gold chain around a pimp's neck.


4. REDUCE DEFENSIVENESS AND BREAK THE DEFENSIVENESS CHAIN:

I could hear the light beings as they entered every cell. Every cell is a house of the god of light, they said. I could hear the spirits who love us stomp dancing. They were dancing as if they were here, and then another level of here, and then another, until the whole earth and sky was dancing.

We are here dancing, they said. There was no there.

There was no  "I"  or "you."

There was us; there was "we."

There we were as if we were the music.

You cannot legislate music to lockstep nor can you legislate the spirit of the music to stop at political boundaries—

—Or poetry, or art, or anything that is of value or matters in this world, and the next worlds.

This is about getting to know each other.

We will wind up back at the blues standing on the edge of the flatted fifth about to jump into a fierce understanding together.


5. ELIMINATE NEGATIVE ATTITUDES DURING CONFLICT:

A panther poised in the cypress tree about to jump is a panther poised in a cypress tree about to jump.

The panther is a poem of fire green eyes and a heart charged by four winds of four directions.

The panther hears everything in the dark: the unspoken tears of a few hundred human years, storms that will break what has broken his world, a bluebird swaying on a branch a few miles away.

He hears the death song of his approaching prey:

I will always love you, sunrise.
I belong to the black cat with fire green eyes.
There, in the cypress tree near the morning star.


6. AND, USE WHAT YOU LEARN TO RESOLVE YOUR OWN CONFLICTS AND TO MEDIATE OTHERS' CONFLICTS:

When we made it back home, back over those curved roads
that wind through the city of peace, we stopped at the
doorway of dusk as it opened to our homelands.
We gave thanks for the story, for all parts of the story
because it was by the light of those challenges we knew
ourselves—
We asked for forgiveness.
We laid down our burdens next to each other.

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Forcing EV's? Do range anxiety! (and recharge times) support #OneMN?

I'm all for adapting to the effects of the climate we've broken and for doing whatever we can to minimize the amount of green house gases we continue to emit into the atmosphere. I'd be much more optimistic about the future of the human race if more governments and corporations read and acted on the Project Drawdown solutions. Instead, once we get away from the deniers and the charlatans, there seem to be many folks who fail to take a look at solutions as part of a system. Today's posting is prompted by the recent announcement of "Clean Cars Minnesota—adopting advanced clean car standards to significantly reduce climate change-causing pollution from Minnesota’s transportation sector."

"The effort would enact California-like strict fuel standards in the state. Under the rules, vehicle manufacturers would be forced to offer more electric vehicles for Minnesota consumers to choose from."

It's the part about "manufacturers forced to offer more electric vehicles" that has me concerned. Maybe we need to let some of the transportation-related road dust settle. Here's an example of why:

climate solutions, in isolation, may just raise dust

Photo by J. Harrington

The distance from our house to Ely, one of our favorite destinations in Northern Minnesota, is about 225 miles. That's more than the range of one popular EV, about equal to the range of another and more than half the range of the remaining examples. So a drive to Ely, that requires about 4+ hours at 50 mph, one way becomes a problem. None of the vehicles listed here has sufficient range to return home without a recharge. According to this comparison, only a Tesla could, at maximum rates, recharge in an hour. Most recharge scenarios would take between 6 and 11 hours. (Reminds me of the waiting lines at gas stations during the oil embargoes of the early 1970s.) So, we're looking at scenarios in which, for most vehicles, the recharging time is equal to or more than the travel time for a day trip excursion. I don't know about you, but that kind of situation would certainly result in a severe cut back in my travel for pleasure, or fishing, or hunting, or other tourist-related travels that have, historically, been day trips. In fact, thinking about weekend trips, local travel by a tourist may well be very limited because the battery needs to be charged.

Now, we could play the chicken and egg game about the need to sell more electric vehicles to support more charging stations. That's part of the system and may be relevant for local travel. But, that's not the scenario we're talking about. Think about this:

• How long did it take to develop a system with the number of gas stations we have?
• How soon can we expect to be able to recharge a battery in about the same time it takes to pump 20 gallons of gas?
• Why does Project Drawdown include a long list of transportation solutions, see below, and not just emphasize Electric Vehicles?

Solutions

Included in the Project Drawdown list are 11 of the most impactful solutions for reducing emissions in the transport sector. The list excludes some solutions that are impactful, but future work of Project Drawdown will include as many other solutions as possible.
Airplanes – increased use of technologies to reduce aircraft fuel burn
Cars – increased use of hybrid cars
Electric bikes – increased use of electric bikes instead of cars for urban travel
Electric vehicles – increased use of battery and plug-in hybrid vehicles
High-speed rail – track construction for increased use of high-speed rail for intercity travel
Mass transit – increased usage of mass transit or public transport to get around cities
Ridesharing – increased ride-sharing when commuting in North America
Ships – the use of technologies to make maritime shipping less fuel-intensive
Telepresence – replacing flying for business meetings with telepresence technologies
Trains – increased electrification of freight railways
Trucks – increased use of fuel reduction technologies and approaches for trucking

As a locavore / localist, I'd love to see better economic development in many parts of greater Minnesota. Several questions remain, among them: are local populations sufficient to support local economies? We've not had enough conversations about that yet, so trapping families at home due to range and recharge limitations doesn't seem to be a very holistic way to solve the climate problem in a way to enhance #OneMN.

[UPDATE: MinnPost article on EVs]

A Mancunian Taxi-driver Foresees His Death

by Michael Symmons Roberts

On a radio show some self-help guru says

the earth will burn out in a hundred years

so treat each day as an eternity.

I am in a taxi when I hear this news,

airport-bound on the flyover

with my home town spread like a map below.

So my driver slams his foot to the floor,

and tells me that when the oil runs out

he will ship this cab to Arizona,

find the last fill-up on the planet,

drain the pump and power out into the wilderness

until the car coughs, then abandon it.

He will take from the dash this shot of his daughters,

his shark’s tooth on its chain,

then leave the radio with an audience

of skulls and vultures. I wind the window down

to catch my breath and ask what kind

of funeral is that? Then him: It’s just a made-up one.

He drops me by the long-haul sign

and I give him a tip well over the odds.

As I stand with my bags it begins to rain.

A man smiles down from a floodlit billboard

- well insured, invested, sound -

which leaves me feeling heartsore, undefended.

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Should we subsidize new farmers to become water quality (and carbon) certified?

According to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, only 1% of the farms in Minnesota farm organically and only 5% sell directly to consumers. Between 1997 and 2017 the number of farms in Minnesota declined by almost 13%, nearly 10,000 farms. Since 96% of the farms in Minnesota are classified as "family farms", there's an implied loss of 10,000 farming families over a 20 year period, an average loss of 500 families per year. About 30% of Minnesota's farmers (producers) are 65 years old or more. From what we've read, not too many farmers of retirement age are willing or able to move to new styles of farming. As of early 2019, the 600th Minnesota farm received its water quality certification. That means that less than 1% of Minnesota farms have been certified. At the rate we're going, the sun may burn out before all of Minnesota's agricultural lands get certified.  We need to consider how to facilitate and accelerate transitions to water quality certified farms for newer, younger farmers.

September corn field

Photo by J. Harrington

Most of Minnesota's cropland produces corn and soybeans. (I never eat field corn but munch too many snacks made with corn products.) According to the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the following represents a breakdown of the end uses for corn:

Corn Uses: Iowa Corn Growers Association

We're still looking for comparable information for soybeans. From this quick overview, we can think of no reason why row crops should be exempt from water quality requirements. We strongly question whether American farmers are "feeding the world" (27% of corn goes to ethanol production). If some of the oil and gas production facilities are subject to stormwater discharge permits, why aren't the larger farms subject to similar requirements? For that matter, as the world moves toward eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels, the US should aggressively consider imposing more stringent water quality discharge requirements on oil and gas production facilities. It's past time we followed the basic strategy of taxing and regulating what we want less of more onerously than those things we want more of, things we depend on to provide us with clean air and water. The way we produce row crops needs transformation.

Corn Maze

By David Barber

Here is where 

You can get nowhere 

Faster than ever

As you go under

Deeper and deeper

In the fertile smother

Of another acre

Like any other

You can’t peer over

And then another

And everywhere

You veer or hare

There you are

Farther and farther

Afield than before

But on you blunder

In the verdant meander

As if   the answer

To looking for cover

Were to bewilder

Your inner minotaur

And near and far were

Neither here nor there

And where you are

Is where you were

Clear choice: clean air, clean water, clean jobs

This morning's Star Tribune has two pieces that, it seems to us, clearly frame Minnesota's future, sort of the way last November 8 framed our present. The parenthetical notes list the section of the paper in which each piece can be found. That, in itself, should give us a clue. Herewith are the pieces in question:

• Growth of green energy sector surges in Minnesota [business]


• Enbridge's Line 3 project is necessary and prudent [commentary]

The commentary reads like an attempt to counter Minnesota's Department of Commerce expert analysis, released early last month, of the proposed pipeline project. (The Commerce Department's mission includes protecting the public interest and serving as a trusted public resource.)

"Oil market analysis indicates that Enbridge has not established a need for the proposed project; the pipeline would primarily benefit areas outside Minnesota; and serious environmental and socioeconomic risks and effects outweigh limited benefits" [emphasis added]

clean air

Photo by J. Harrington

The business story emphasizes how rapidly Minnesota is outgrowing its historic reliance on foreign energy sources, and growing its economy at the same time.

...Minnesota’s clean-energy jobs grew 5.3 percent in 2016 to 57,351 jobs. That compares with all-industry growth of 1.4 percent and 4.2 percent for professional and business services, the fastest-growing of the 11 major industrial sectors tracked by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Those claiming the need for and prudence of a replacement pipeline (primarily to serve non-Minnesota interests) claim that it would put "...6,500 Minnesotans to work over two years..." That would be roughly equivalent to two or three years worth of clean energy job growth, many of which would be "permanent" jobs. Which do you think is more sustainable?

clean water

Photo by J. Harrington

If there's a solar spill, we get a sunny day. Oil spills are a whole different story. Enbridge has a history of oil spills at their facilities. (If some argue that clean energy jobs are different than pipeline construction jobs, please talk to Republican legislators about fully funding Minnesota's transportation system and create beneficial construction jobs.)

clean jobs

Photo by J. Harrington

The preceding, we hope, should help reinforce the realization that an alleged choice between jobs or the environment is a false choice. A wise choice is to create a future that protects our environment, reduces health costs by contributing to cleaner air and water, and build a better Minnesota with a New Economy.

                     Statement on Energy Policy

By Carter Revard

It’s true we have invented quark-extraction,

and this allows our aiming gravity at will;

it’s true also that time

can now be made to flow

backward or forward by

the same process. It may be true as well that

what is happening at the focal point,

the meristem of this process,

creates a future kind of space,

a tiny universe that has

quite different rules. In this, it seems,

whatever one may choose to do or be becomes

at once the case. In short,

we have discovered heaven and

it’s in our grasp. However,

the Patent Office has not yet approved and cites

less positive aspects of this invention. First, it

does not generate profit, and

it does make obsolete all present

delivery systems for our nukes. Then,

it will let private citizens do things that only

a chosen few, that is, OUR sort, should be allowed—

fly freely from one country

to any other, spreading diseases

and bankrupting transportation.

Home-heating, auto-making industries will be trashed,

employment shelled, depressions spread worldwide,

sheer anarchy descend.

For these and other reasons,

no one must know of this. . . .

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Let's have a not so Silent Spring!

It's less than two months until astronomical Spring (vernal equinox) and only a little more than five weeks until meteorological Spring. Minnesota's meteorological Spring begins March 1, and shortly thereafter begins Mud Season. Except, this year's extended January thaw has given us a Mud Season already, plus rotting ice and, in some places, enough snow melted to show last Autumn's green grass and ground cover.

Spring will eventually get here. Will it be silent?

Photo by J. Harrington

I mention these facts because our extended spell of damp, dreary, depressing weather has me grasping for any straw that may contain optimism: Spring, mud, ephemerals, flowing waters, sunshine? All of this brought to mind the following paragraph from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

"Then, one spring, a strange blight crept over the area, and everything began to change. Some evil spell had settled on the community; mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens, and the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was the shadow of death. The farmers told of much illness among their families. In the town, the doctors were becoming more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness that had appeared among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among the adults but also among the children, who would be stricken while they were at play, and would die within a few hours. And there was a strange stillness. The birds, for example—where had they gone? Many people, baffled and disturbed, spoke of them. The feeding stations in the back yards were deserted. The few birds to be seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. In the mornings, which had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, and wrens, and scores of other bird voices, there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marshes. On the farms, the hens brooded but no chicks hatched. The farmers complained that they were unable to raise any pigs; the litters were small, and the young survived only a few days. The apple trees were coming into bloom, but no bees droned among the blossoms, so there was no pollination and there would be no fruit. The roadsides were lined with brown and withered vegetation, and were silent, too, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were lifeless. Anglers no longer visited them, for all the fish had died. In the gutters under the eaves, and between the shingles of the roofs, a few patches of white granular powder could be seen; some weeks earlier this powder had been dropped, like snow, upon the roofs and the lawns, the fields and the streams. No witchcraft, no enemy action had snuffed out life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves."

The chemical industry vilified her, or at least tried to. She was correct. Despite the industry's concerns, the sky has not fallen, collapsing the American economy. Now we have a new administration and the fossil fuel industries making claims about climate change similar to those the chemical industry made about Ms. Carson. The scientists are again correct and our new government is incorrect.

Carson, however, offers us even more telling guidance for these issues we face in this Winter of Our Discontent. More than fifty years ago she brought to our attention our misplaced priorities, values and practices:

"Additionally Silent Spring suggested a needed change in how democracies and liberal societies operated so that individuals and groups could question what their governments allowed others to put into the environment. Far from calling for sweeping changes in government policy, Carson believed the federal government was part of the problem. She admonished her readers and audiences to ask “Who Speaks, And Why?” and therein to set the seeds of social revolution. She identified human hubris and financial self-interest as the crux of the problem and asked if we could master ourselves and our appetites to live as though we humans are an equal part of the earth’s systems and not the master of them."

As near as I can tell, we haven't fully addressed the environmental issues Carson warned us about, and we're even more remiss in attending to the health of our democracy. In an age when our federal government wants us to accept "alternate facts," it's way past time to settle down between now and Spring 2017 and read (or reread) Silent Spring. Then we must organize to act on the social revolution we need, just as we did for the first Earth Day and the enactments of the Clean Air and Water Acts, the Endangered Species Act. We did it once. It's time to do it again before we find ourselves living(?) in Carson's imagined community.

UPDATE: [don't forget to check your local PBS listings for Rachel Carson, the movie]

Silence

By Billy Collins

There is the sudden silence of the crowd

above a player not moving on the field,

and the silence of the orchid.

The silence of the falling vase

before it strikes the floor,

the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.

The stillness of the cup and the water in it,

the silence of the moon

and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.

The silence when I hold you to my chest,

the silence of the window above us,

and the silence when you rise and turn away.

And there is the silence of this morning

which I have broken with my pen,

a silence that had piled up all night

like snow falling in the darkness of the house—

the silence before I wrote a word

and the poorer silence now.

    

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Fools rush in.

By the looks of the low spot behind the house, we might have experienced a micro-climate frost this morning. I can see sun shining less than 20 feet uphill from what looks like frost-whitened grasses. Our low temperature, at a slightly higher elevation, was in the mid-30s, so I can believe there might have been a "soft" frost, or not. Since our average first frost usually occurs within the next ten or twelve days, we seem to be generally on schedule.

wind farm, southwestern Minnesota

Photo by J. Harrington

Yesterday, I mentioned coming across a reference to a desire for a sketch of more sustainable Minnesota. Later, as I was walking the dogs, I finally remembered where I had seen it (confirming the theory that a good way to remember something is to not think about it). Specifically, Scott Strand, ED at the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, blogged "we need some kind of honest shared visualization of what a decent future looks like" in regard to climate change, air pollution and water pollution. Keep in mind William Gibson's observation that "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed." (To which I would add: "nor is it being well tended to.") Much of what we can sketch of a future has been around for a while, in one form or another, just not very evenly distributed.

I wouldn't presume to offer a fully developed, shared solution, but I'm foolish and hardy enough to sketch out some of my thoughts and see if they generate any kind of response. If enough folks like any of the ideas presented, we get to the beginning of a shared vision. In polite circles this is referred to as the start of a dialogue, or, even better, a conversation, something sadly lacking in most of our political discourse these days.

Since I'm a firm believer that everything is related to everything else, some things more directly than others, I'm going to start by suggesting we need to start our conversation from a premise that we need to do more systems thinking, including better and more frequent use of integrative design as an an ongoing process for creating and implementing our vision. We need to focus on solutions that do good instead of settling for doing less bad (Cradle to Cradle). We need to seriously incorporate the four Natural Step system conditions for a sustainable society into our conversations. Those are the ultimate system constraints we're faced with. Here's an example that begins to respond to the climate change and air particulates concerns Scott raised.

solar panels, northeastern Minnesota

Photo by J. Harrington

ENERGY VISION: In the foreseeable future, Minnesota will become free from using fossil fuels and will be powered solely by distributed energy, generated primarily from renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, at community-based networked facilities. Electric car batteries and related storage technologies will play an increasing role as supplemental sources.(The internet, and its development, is a "mental model" for this kind of system.) To achieve this vision, Minnesota will need to change its Public Utilities Commission's mindset and decision-making processes, not easy but doable. We will also need to revise or eliminate zoning or land use controls that would inhibit neighborhood energy facilities. Attaining this vision will be a major response to climate change and, by ultimately eliminating the need for and use of diesel engines, will eventually eliminate a major source of fine air particulates. Creating, installing, maintaining and replacing our energy system over time will create many new types of jobs, so the state's universities and community and technical college systems will need to work with existing businesses and entrepreneurs. Significant changes in the way society underwrites and finances power production and transmission facilities will be needed, creating opportunities for risk sharing, job creation and new sources of profit for Minnesota's financial sector. Minnesota's Iron Range could become a leadership center, through creative partnerships, that develops, tests and adapts electric power technology for heavy industrial and agricultural and, ultimately, over-the-road use. That's not a complete picture, but it's a start. We can take a similar approach to other systems, food production being another example. Our purpose here isn't to get everything perfect as we sketch scenarios. Those details can come later. Let's see if we can take the proverbial "broad brush" and paint some kind of picture of the future we'd like, instead of spending as much energy as we do fighting about what we don't agree about. Since the US military acknowledges that climate change presents national security threats, maybe some creative, political soul could successfully approach DARPA for funding of some parts of this system.

[UPDATE: Several hours after today's blog posting was uploaded, the guardian published the story linked below, which reads to me like an argument for replacing our current generation / transmission system.

World's energy systems at risk from global warming, say leading firms

Lines from the Reports of the Investigative Committees

By Joel Brouwer 

The Department of the Interior and Department of Homeland Security announced a joint enquiry into the explosion and sinking of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon on April 22. The us House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources have also announced investigations.
    Last week bp launched its own investigation into the incident and has an investigation team at work in Houston, Texas.

—bp.com, April 28, 2010

Beneath three thousand feet, the sea is wholly dark.

The shuttle feeds hydraulics to the blind shear ram

and represents a single failure point for disconnect.

Recommendation: Declare selected points on earth

invisible. Affected communities have been provided

with limited quantities of powdered milk

and other staples. Many questions remain. Some

close their eyes under water instinctively.

Imagination can create a sense of peril where

no real peril exists. Safety equipment tests

were necessarily imaginary; mechanisms in question

were wholly inaccessible. A journalist sinking

into the mud was told to toss his camera

to a colleague and hold extremely still. In this

sense, we are our own prisoners. Investigators

have salt in their hair and sand in their teeth.

The hotel pool is empty. Yet questions remain.

Barbeque billboards depict grinning pigs in aprons

and toques. Cleanup crews recover thousands

of plastic milk jugs from the shallows. Do these

images appeal to the death drive? Care should be

taken to ensure the highest possible reliability

from that valve. Thousands in affected communities

have been evicted and live in tents. Demonstrators

have prevented investigators from accessing

hotel stairwells. 1900: Rudolf Diesel

demonstrates an engine fueled by peanut oil

at the Paris World’s Fair. The Vietnamese owner

of Bad Bob’s bbq Buffet tells a journalist

she last drank powdered milk in a refugee camp

“a thousand years ago.” Items available only

in limited quantities are found in Appendix C.

Cleanup crews have stacked thousands of drums

of dispersant in hotel parking lots. Dominant

failure combinations for well control suggest

additional safety mechanism diversity

and redundancy provide additional reliability.

Bank of America will offer limited foreclosure

deferments in affected communities. Thousands

of years ago, a pronghorn ram slipped beneath

the surface of a tar pit, jerking its snout

for air. Recommendation: Live at inaccessible

elevations. Recommendation: Close your eyes.

Recommendation: Prevent access to the invisible.

Engineering reports noted required safety

mechanisms were unlikely to function yet were

required for safety’s sake. If the committee

may offer an analogy, a blind surgeon is dangerous,

an imaginary surgeon harmless. Still, questions

remain. BP’s 2010 Q1 replacement cost profit

was $5,598 million, compared with $2,387 million

a year ago, an increase of 135%. Unlimited

quantities of peanuts are available. However,

care must be taken to ensure continued high

reliability of the shuttle valve, since it is

extremely critical to the overall disconnect

operation. Phenomena not meant to be accessed

or imagined are found in Appendix E. Cleanup crews

are sometimes idled for lack of fuel. 1913: Diesel

found dead, drowned under suspicious circumstances.

The investigators’ hotel toilets won’t flush.

Midas turned everything he touched to gold.

In this sense, seabirds cloaked in oil are rich.

Cleanup crews live in tents and are provided

with limited quantities of barbeque and wear

white canvas jumpsuits like prisoners on furlough.

If the committee may offer an analogy, the death

drive resides at wholly dark depths of imagination

and fuel issues from a wound we’ve opened there.

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