Urban? Rural? Who knows? Do you care?

It seems to me that Dee Davis’ (publisher of the Daily Yonder and president of the Center for Rural Strategies). review of White Rural Rage plays a little fast and loose with terms, especially conflating metropolitan with urban. Here’s some examples scattered throughout the review:

• "They do not talk about national Democratic Party decisions in 2000 and 2004 to move resources away from the rural battleground and to metropolitan strongholds, opting for base strategies over outreach."


• "Nor do they mention that Texas which is 83% metropolitan, and Florida, which is 91% metropolitan, both rejected Obamacare."


• "Two would-be terrorists living in major metropolitan urban areas with over a million residents each, yet the rage narrative is about rural insurrection."


• "Those relatively few Capitol insurrectionists were disproportionately metropolitan, not rural, but who’s from what Zip code is not what’s alarming."

It is unfortunate, to put it mildly, that the Federal Government has something in the neighborhood of three dozen different definitions of rural. However, the distinction between urban, rural, and metropolitan becomes clear if one scans the maps of Minnesota displaying Three rural definitions based on Census Urban Areas and compares it to the map of Rural definition based on Office of Management and Budget (OMB) metro counties. It looks to me as though there’s quite a bit of nonurban area in metro counties.

is this road urban or rural?

Photo by J. Harrington

If, as I hope we do, we truly want to manage to bridge and heal the urban rural divide and/or split, I strongly suspect it would be helpful if all of US were talking the same places. I’m disappointed Dee Davis doesn’t appear to share that perspective.

Full disclosure: I live in what, not long ago, was a township in an OMB "metro county" that’s not part of the official 7 county Twin Cities Metro Council area. The township in which I used to live has been annexed [in]to a city because, in Minnesota, townships are considered little more than holding areas awaiting urban development. If it’s not clear, that’s not my view of what  should be the role of rural area townships. My perspectives are more in alignment with those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison in The Founding Gardeners.

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.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Walk? Chew gum? Simultaneously?🤣🤣

A growing number of cities have or are eliminating single family zoning to increase density and make housing more affordable and cities more walkable and bikeable. In a comparable effort, Minnesota is considering eliminating minimum parking requirements. Neither of these, not similar efforts, come close to addressing the growing awareness that it benefits people, a lot, to be in direct contact with nature. Creating an appropriate balance between the built and the natural environment, and incorporating that in a  physical design used to be one of the primary purposes of a community's comprehensive plan. These days such plans seem to be focused on meeting legal requirements for state and/or federal funds, unless that involves environmental review.

nature in the city -- equitably distributed?

Photo by J. Harrington

We seem to have lost, or given up, the ability to think coherently and holistically. As further evidence, without mentioning Israel, Ukraine, Jordan, etc., I call to your attention our inability, right here in Minnesota, to resolve what appears to me to be a reasonably straightforward issue regarding School Resource Officers.

Perhaps all these types of irresolvable conflicts can be sorted (sordid?) out once Artificial Intelligence has finished pawing through our private messages to learn how people (not persons) think and feel.

If it appears I’m getting increasingly disgusted and disgruntled with how the contemporary world is (dys)functioning, you’re reasonably perceptive. Worldwide General Strike anyone?

"The world is a beautiful place"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti     1919 – 2021

                The world is a beautiful place 

                                                           to be born into 

if you don’t mind happiness 

                                             not always being 

                                                                        so very much fun 

       if you don’t mind a touch of hell

                                                       now and then

                just when everything is fine

                                                             because even in heaven

                                they don’t sing 

                                                        all the time

             The world is a beautiful place

                                                           to be born into

       if you don’t mind some people dying

                                                                  all the time

                        or maybe only starving

                                                           some of the time

                 which isn’t half so bad

                                                      if it isn’t you

      Oh the world is a beautiful place

                                                          to be born into

               if you don’t much mind

                                                   a few dead minds

                    in the higher places

                                                    or a bomb or two

                            now and then

                                                  in your upturned faces

         or such other improprieties

                                                    as our Name Brand society

                                  is prey to

                                              with its men of distinction

             and its men of extinction

                                                   and its priests

                         and other patrolmen

                                                         and its various segregations

         and congressional investigations

                                                             and other constipations

                        that our fool flesh

                                                     is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all

                                                           for a lot of such things as

         making the fun scene

                                                and making the love scene

and making the sad scene

                                         and singing low songs of having 

                                                                                      inspirations

and walking around 

                                looking at everything

                                                                  and smelling flowers

and goosing statues

                              and even thinking 

                                                         and kissing people and

     making babies and wearing pants

                                                         and waving hats and

                                     dancing

                                                and going swimming in rivers

                              on picnics

                                       in the middle of the summer

and just generally

                            ‘living it up’

Yes

   but then right in the middle of it

                                                    comes the smiling

                                                                                 mortician

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

“It’s the system, stupid” or “It’s the stupid system"

I may be uncharacteristically optimistic in my thinking about this, but it seems to me that the world and its inhabitants may be in better shape than we realize. Here’s my rationale:

• The world is a complex, self-organizing, emergent system.
• Most folks aren’t prepared to think about how such systems function.
• Mass media is focused on mass audiences that include most folks.
• Therefore, mass media rarely, if ever, reports on the complex, self-organizing, emergent system in which we all live interdependently. (See: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Also the movie “Network.”)
• Consequently, much of the world is adjusting and adapting in ways that rarely get reported and the implications of the emergent properties of those adjustments and adaptations won’t be evident for some time.

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

Examples of such changes include the removal of dams from the Klamath and other rivers; the inclusion of Native Americans in the management of some public lands. (If Ed Abbey were still with US, I’d love to read what he’d have to say about that.) The quantity and quality of pushback to business as usual is growing rapidly. It may be that Artificial Intelligence, and its implications, will be the straw that breaks the technology camel’s back. Let me know in the comments if you think I need to cut down my dosage of happy pills.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers

By Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Time for poetry, rural and urban

As I hope you know, April is National Poetry Month. I do not now, and were I to live forever would never, have enough time to discover and read even just the poetry I want to. I’ve learned I need to read lots of poetry to discover good to great poetry that matches, or expands, my taste, and often then I reread my better discoveries. Meanwhile, it seems as though more and more poets keep writing more and more poems and publishing poetry collections. There’s no way to keep up and I haven’t yet found a way to further limit my foci.

Just this morning I found mention of the works of Gary Lark in Getting By. Then I learned that a review of another of his volumes, Daybreak on the Water, includes favorable comparisons with Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It and with “John Prine, Ted Kooser, Edgar Lee Masters.” I have  a feeling my stack of unread books may remain so for awhile as others cut to the head of the line stack.

farmers market: rural or urban?

Photo by J. Harrington

Of all the fragmentations currently occurring among US, I am most troubled by the growing urban-rural divide. Back in the early 20th century, Edgar Lee Masters Spoon River Anthology (1915) was published. “The aim of the poems is to demystify rural and small town American life.” [wikipedia] More recently, actually, a century after Spoon River, Hick Poetics joined the club. [“There is no other assemblage of rural voices this broad; there is no other collection so fully exploring and celebrating Nowhere, USA.”] Much of what might be considered nature or eco poetry occurs in rural settings, although I have, and have read, an anthology of Urban Nature, Poems about Wildlife in the City. Urban and rural lives have much in common and depend on each other. Perhaps someone could remind our major political parties they are to serve the common good?

All of this has me wondering about the possibilities of using poetry and poems to help bridge our urban-rural divide, sort of like a “compare and contrast” using poems. First, I suppose, is the challenge of getting more people to read poetry and then we need to address the conundrums posed in today’s poem by insisting all answers include an option for “both, and.” Can we protect what we share as we fight about what divides US?

Questionnaire

By Charles Bernstein

Directions: For each pair of sentences, circle the letter, a or b, that best expresses your viewpoint. Make a selection from each pair. Do not omit any items.

1.a) The body and the material things of the world are the key to any   

       knowledge we can possess.

   b) Knowledge is only possible by means of the mind or psyche.

2.a) My life is largely controlled by luck and chance.

   b) I can determine the basic course of my life.

3.a) Nature is indifferent to human needs.

   b) Nature has some purpose, even if obscure.

4.a) I can understand the world to a sufficient extent.

   b) The world is basically baffling.

5.a) Love is the greatest happiness.

   b) Love is illusory and its pleasures transient.

6.a) Political and social action can improve the state of the world.

   b) Political and social action are fundamentally futile.

7.a) I cannot fully express my most private feelings.

   b) I have no feelings I cannot fully express.

8.a) Virtue is its own reward.

   b) Virtue is not a matter of rewards.

9.a) It is possible to tell if someone is trustworthy.

   b) People turn on you in unpredictable ways.

10.a) Ideally, it would be most desirable to live in a rural area.

    b) Ideally, it would be most desirable to live in an urban area.

11.a) Economic and social inequality is the greatest social evil.

    b) Totalitarianism is the greatest social evil.

12.a) Overall, technology has been beneficial to human beings.

    b) Overall, technology has been harmful to human beings.

13.a) Work is the potential source of the greatest human fulfillment.

    b) Liberation from work should be the goal of any movement for   

       social improvement.

14.a) Art is at heart political in that it can change our perception of   

       reality.

    b) Art is at heart not political because it can change only

       consciousness and not events.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

The wonder of water

The last place I lived in Massachusetts, I could launch my boat and be fishing the Atlantic ocean or I could drive about 20 miles inland and be fly fishing for bluegills and bass, either within about half an hour of leaving home.

At one time in Minnesota, the Better Half and I lived on a lake and I (we) could be fishing in five or ten minutes. Unfortunately, our family outgrew that house, plus we had the misfortune of having a world class barefoot water skier move in a few houses away. (At least this was before the invention of wake boats.)

Living on a lake tended to make me take for granted a bit the pleasures of fishing. If you can do something every day with little effort required, how special is it? These are not concerns that haunt me daily, but when I take time to think about them I realize how little I really know about myself and my fellow human beings and our relationship to each other and the world on which we live.

rivers bring more than fishing and swimming

Photo by J. Harrington

I share these thoughts because where we live now is about an hour’s drive from good to great trout waters and I’m now working as a volunteer on a project that, when completed, should greatly enhance some urban waters as a trout fishery. I’ve started wondering how that may relate to the urban quality of life. The planning profession has become more interested in integrating “nature” into the urban matrix. [My initial reaction to that was to wonder if that integration was to include mosquitoes and ticks.]

I’m in favor of having nature and the built environment complement each other. Christopher Alexander, in his book A Pattern Language, proposes several patterns on the relationship between the city and nature, for example:

71 STILL WATER    To be in touch with water, we must above all be able to swim; and to swim daily, the pools and ponds and holes for  swimming must be so widely scattered through the city, that each person can reach one within minutes.

I’m tempted to suggest we consider substituting fishing for swimming as another way to be in touch with water.  His pattern also suggests that there’s much to be gained by having nature be so much a part of daily life that enjoying nature as something special is then up to us when it’s regularly available. [Check Rachel Carson’s The Sense of Wonder.]

"If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder." Writes Carson, "he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in."

It’s important to remember to ask the right questions in the right way, right?

The River

By Gregory Orr

I felt both pleasure and a shiver

as we undressed on the slippery bank

and then plunged into the wild river.

I waded in; she entered as a diver.

Watching her pale flanks slice the dark

I felt both pleasure and a shiver.

Was this a source of the lake we sought, giver

of itself to that vast, blue expanse?

We’d learn by plunging into the wild river

and letting the current take us wherever

it willed. I had that yielding to thank

for how I felt both pleasure and a shiver.

But what she felt and saw I’ll never

know: separate bodies taking the same risk

by plunging together into the wild river.

Later, past the rapids, we paused to consider

if chance or destiny had brought us here;

whether it was more than pleasure and a shiver

we’d found by plunging into the wild river. 

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

The value of beauty

At least today the weather is a delight although, as usual, I could do with a gentler breeze, unless, of course, I’m trying to burn some of our dead, broken branches in the fire pit. Then a stronger breeze from a consistent direction is helpful. There I go again, reducing nature to its utility function.

Perhaps I’m just displaying my crass, self-centered side, but it seems to me that trying to value, in non-economic terms, the multiple values of nature, including other people, makes more sense than reducing ecosystem services to a dollar value. Where’s the dollar value of beauty? Seeing something beautiful, such as a flock of swans emerging from a cloud-filled sky, makes me feel good, makes me happy. I don’t have to put a dollar value on it. In fact, “paying" for beauty in terms other than time, effort, and attention, might well diminish its value to me.

Recently, I’ve been reading a book by Jackie Morris, The Quiet Music of Gently Falling Snow. It’s one of a number of books she’s written and / or illustrated, including several done to illustrate Robert MacFarlane’s writing, including The Lost Words and The Lost Spells. Each, and work based on them, have had a magical, transformative affect on me and many others.

The pleasure I’ve derived from reading those  books and ...Falling Snow is far greater than their purchase price. Meanwhile, back in the world that could use more magic these days, Morris’ web site shares a current posting about a different kind of purchase price, that for housing and the problems gentrification can create for artists in rural locations. (I suspect many of us are more familiar with the issues associated with urban gentrification.) The entire question of attaining any sort of balance between urban and rural, rich and un-rich, tinkers, tailors, soldiers and spies, seems to become more complex by the day. What ecosystem services do humans provide that there should be so many of us, and why do we keep reproducing at a rate that can’t be sustained? See what the past 50 years look like:

Project Drawdown: Setting the stage

In America, we often teach  children that they can grow up to be anything they want. Now, perhaps it’s time to teach them that they can’t grow up to be everything they want. Maybe, actually, we need to begin by teaching that to the  adults. We’re all in this together, like it or not.

The Lost Words Blessing

Composer & Copyright

Original song by Julie Fowlis, Karine Polwart, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever, Rachel Newton, Beth Porter, Jim Molyneux, Kerry Andrew.

Enter the wild with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you travel far from heather, crag and river
May you like the little fisher, set the stream alight with glitter
May you enter now as otter without falter into water

Look to the sky with care, my love
And speak the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you journey on past dying stars exploding
Like the gilded one in flight, leave your little gifts of light
And in the dead of night my darling,
find the gleaming eye of starling
Like the little aviator, sing your heart to all dark matter

Walk through the world with care, my love
And sing the things you see
Let new names take and root and thrive and grow
And even as you stumble through machair sands eroding
Let the fern unfurl your grieving, let the heron still your breathing
Let the selkie swim you deeper, oh my little silver-seeker
Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker
And in city and in forest, let the larks become your chorus
And when every hope is gone, let the raven call you home

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

'Hoppy' Amphibian Week! #phenology

According to the amphibian foundation, amphibian week began yesterday. The U.S. Park Service joins in the celebration. While working on this year's spring plantings yesterday, in the pots next to the stoop, the Better Half got a startle when she dug up a toad, which was relocated promptly to the leaf-covered flower garden nearby. Perhaps it was a sign to alert us to amphibian week.

The first week in May is a prime time for many of our local amphibians to breed, according to the calendar (above) from a habitat guide once part of Trout Unlimited's Driftless Area Restoration Effort, undertaken with a number of partners.

Photo by J. Harrington

The first week in May is also prime time for tom turkeys to strut and display and gobble and try to breed hens. This morning we watched one do his best with the two hens he was following through the field behind the house. From what we could see, they were having none of it, or him. Perhaps they wanted more privacy.

It must be close to summer. We practically can't get out of our neighborhood, due to construction on a handful of roads in the area. City, and state and/or county are all actively blocking passage and failing to do much to post actual detours. The signs either state "road construction ahead," usually well past an option to take an alternate route, or "road closed. use alternate route," without giving a hint of where  or what such an alternate route might be.

The Frog

By Hilaire Belloc

Be kind and tender to the Frog,

   And do not call him names,

As ‘Slimy skin,’ or ‘Polly-wog,’

   Or likewise ‘Ugly James,’

Or ‘Gape-a-grin,’ or ‘Toad-gone-wrong,’   

   Or ‘Billy Bandy-knees’:

The Frog is justly sensitive

   To epithets like these.

No animal will more repay

   A treatment kind and fair;

At least so lonely people say

Who keep a frog (and, by the way,   

They are extremely rare).

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

More food, forethought?

It's mid-January. We don't have a root cellar. Our winter Community Support Agriculture [CSA] shares ended several weeks ago. Our spring CSA shares won't begin for several months. We won't go hungry though because we have access to several food co-ops, although at a distance of more than twenty miles. Our local grocery store offers fresh fruit, vegetables, and meats. It isn't organic but it's only a little more than five miles away. A larger "big-box" grocer is available ten miles beyond that. As long as we have money, vehicles and travel time, we shouldn't go hungry.

rutabaga, a root vegetable

Photo by J. Harrington

If we lived in the city, how far would it be reasonable for us to walk or bike, and how often, to refresh our food supply? Presumably, one of the advantages of city living is the ability to limit vehicle usage. There's also food delivery services available in some areas. For some frozen and/or prepared foods, there's companies like Schwan's.

Not long ago, Minnesota had a number of folks and organizations involved in crafting a Minnesota Food Charter. Apparently, there was insufficient interest ($$$) to provide for ongoing staffing from any of the state organizations. We wonder if the Walz administration even considered food supply and availability as an issue when they shaped their vision for "One Minnesota." It seems to us that one of the most significant dividing lines in demography and health is the one between those with access to sufficient, healthy foods, and the time and knowledge and place necessary to prepare and eat those foods, and those without. Some states have food system plans. Minnesota doesn't appear to have one. Of course, Minnesota used to have a state planning agency at one time, too. Separate departments of  agriculture, commerce, and health do not a food system yield.

onions in a basket

Photo by J. Harrington

If we were really concerned about a rural-urban divide, we'd give lots of thought to linking producers and consumers and processors and wholesalers and retailers together to talk some more about how we can best feed ourselves. If there's anything we can be sure democrats, republicans, independents, anarchists and others all have in common it's that they (we) all have to eat. Right now we're all depending on someone else to make sure our plate is full.

Onions

By William Matthews

How easily happiness begins by   

dicing onions. A lump of sweet butter   

slithers and swirls across the floor   

of the sauté pan, especially if its   

errant path crosses a tiny slick

of olive oil. Then a tumble of onions.

This could mean soup or risotto   

or chutney (from the Sanskrit

chatni, to lick). Slowly the onions   

go limp and then nacreous

and then what cookbooks call clear,   

though if they were eyes you could see

clearly the cataracts in them.

It’s true it can make you weep

to peel them, to unfurl and to tease   

from the taut ball first the brittle,   

caramel-colored and decrepit

papery outside layer, the least

recent the reticent onion

wrapped around its growing body,   

for there’s nothing to an onion

but skin, and it’s true you can go on   

weeping as you go on in, through   

the moist middle skins, the sweetest

and thickest, and you can go on   

in to the core, to the bud-like,   

acrid, fibrous skins densely   

clustered there, stalky and in-

complete, and these are the most   

pungent, like the nuggets of nightmare

and rage and murmury animal   

comfort that infant humans secrete.   

This is the best domestic perfume.   

You sit down to eat with a rumor

of onions still on your twice-washed   

hands and lift to your mouth a hint

of a story about loam and usual   

endurance. It’s there when you clean up   

and rinse the wine glasses and make   

a joke, and you leave the minutest   

whiff of it on the light switch,

later, when you climb the stairs.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Whatever happened to our hinterland?

Before we answer the question, we have to update this week's leaf color report. We still estimate local color to be less than 25%. That's consistent with the state's report for this area (Southwest corner of Chisago county). Maples are showing more yellows, oranges and reds. Oaks haven't been doing much besides dropping acorns. Black cherry trees seem to have not read the memo that its Autumn. Last night the Better Half covered the flowers in case we had our first frost of the season. False alarm but understandable since, for the first time locally this season, snow has appeared in the forecast for a week from tomorrow. Meanwhile, to be candid and grumpy, Yr. Obt. Svt. has begun to feel what, this year we've had the typical crappy Spring, hardly any real Summer, and now Autumn is becoming a washout. Maybe we'll ask Santa for new and improved rain gear for Christmas.

Then, have you heard the rumors that, sometime near mid-afternoon around here, a huge, strange, bright, yellow light will appear in the Western sky? I, said the doubting Thomas, will believe it when, and if, I see it. Now, finally, let's look at how the corruption of language, e.g., hinterland, can contribute mightily to social issues.

once, urban grain silos made the linkage to farms obvious

Photo by J. Harrington

The aforementioned rain and clouds have given us more time than is advisable to sit and read and think. We've been rediscovering Wendell Berry and catching up with his more recent writings and writings about him. For example, there's a really interesting interview with Berry in the July 14, 2019 issue of The New Yorker. That and a number of other things have us once again thinking about cities, hinterland (does anyone else remember that term?) and urban-rural mutual dependencies (that are too often portrayed only as two sides of a divide). Wendell Berry is one of those who seem to be able to write faster and better than we can read. We recently, and belatedly, finished reading The Unsettling of America. We find we're in agreement with about 80% or more of what Berry writes but still struggle to understand how an agrarian culture fits with a global economy. Are they mutually exclusive? Berry farms with horses but drives a pickup truck. If, as we hope and suspect, fossil fuels have been a bridge to a renewable society, where and how does technological innovation arise in an agrarian economy? Or should we depend on serendipity such as the discovery of penicillin?

I've long loved cities, country and wilderness. I've developed an extreme aversion to suburbs. Christopher Alexander, in A Pattern Language, writes about interlocking fingers of farmland and urban land. It's been some time since I've seen consideration of regional land use patterns as an consideration in an urban-rural divide. Of course, it's been some time since Minnesota has had a state planning agency, too.

without rural-grown grain, what uses would mills and railroads serve?

Photo by J. Harrington

Something I believe I learned when I was active in the green building field is that all the elements, design, construction, materials, siting, operations and maintenance need to work together for the built environment to be truly sustainable. I also gained lots of insight into how challenging it is to get that kind of alignment and how rarely building owners and/or developers think that holistically. More to think about unless it stops raining, or snowing, for more than 20 minutes.

The Real Work

by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

A Green New Deal for Minnesota?

August is the month of the Sturgeon Moon

Photo by J. Harrington

Today is the day of August's full moon, the Sturgeon Moon. Yesterday we posted about the federal efforts to establish a national Green New Deal. Today we call to your attention the fact that Minnesota could have its own, locally grown, version. Last April HF 2836 was introduced. The Revisor's Office web site lists no companion bill in the Republican-controlled Senate and there's no House Research summary available. If you follow the House File link above, you can read the entire bill as introduced.

For today, let's limit ourselves to taking a look at Section 2 of the bill, the findings:

1.9  Sec. 2. FINDINGS; CLIMATE CHANGE; GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS.
1.10  The legislature finds:
1.11  (1) Minnesota is already experiencing the impacts of climate change, as evidenced by 
1.12  changes in climate and weather patterns, temperature, rain and snowfall events, water 
1.13  availability, and alteration of the variety of plant and animal species present in the state;
1.14  (2) climate change is the result of increased levels of greenhouse gases entering the 
1.15  atmosphere, largely as a result of human activity;
1.16  (3) the Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued in 
1.17  October 2018 found that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced from 2010 levels by 
1.18  45 percent by 2030 and to net zero by 2050 in order to limit the rise in atmospheric 
1.19  temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a level that results in severe ecological, health, and 
1.20  economic impacts;
1.21  (4) the impacts of burning fossil fuels are spread unequally, reinforcing economic 
1.22  disparities that reduce the capacity of some Minnesotans to cope with the impacts; and
2.1  (5) the urgency to address the challenge of climate change compels the state to accelerate 
2.2  the greenhouse gas emissions-reduction goal established under Minnesota Statutes, section 
2.3  216H.02, subdivision 1, by establishing a goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 
2.4  2030.

We find the Findings to be pretty straightforward and, even for us, contain nothing to quibble about. On Finding (1), ask a farmer how usual this Spring's weather was. Or track the amount of money being provided to farmers who suffered planting prevention or have and or will be experiencing crop loss due to weather and muddy fields. Finding (2) is now a scientific consensus of 99% or more of climate scientists. Finding (3) simply restates a major conclusion of the October 2018 IPCC report, that a rapid reduction in greenhouse gases is needed to limit the disruptions and economic costs of breaking the current climate's patterns. Finding (4) is consistent with assessments by the U.S. Global Change Research Program that

Vulnerable groups of people, described here as populations of concern, include those with low income, some communities of color, immigrant groups (including those with limited English proficiency), Indigenous peoples, children and pregnant women, older adults, vulnerable occupational groups, persons with disabilities, and persons with preexisting or chronicmedical conditions.

That doesn't seem to leave very many populations to not be concerned about, does it? Finally, Finding (5) requires acceleration of the attainment of a previously adopted goal in light of the new information and the increased urgency of a response to protect Minnesotans, their economy, their environment and their well-being.

Even putting our curmudgeon hat on as tight as we can, we can't find anything to really argue about in the proposed legislative findings. If you can, please feel free to submit a comment so we can consider responding. All of the preceding, and yesterday's posting, and the fact that the Project Drawdown book has a copyright in 2017, leaves us wondering how long our leaders and elected officials will continue to argue about what colors the deck chairs on the Titanic should be painted before they have us start to rearrange those same deck chairs.

If those politicians that get much of their campaign financing from corporations can't realize that corporations depend on workers and customers, each group of which is at significant risk from the effects of a broken climate, then it's up to us voters to find wiser and better informed elected leaders.

Who's leading the push to get Minnesota's Green New Deal introduced in the Senate and on Governor Walz's desk by the end of the 2020 session?

The Question

by Theo Dorgan

When the great ships come back,
and come they will,
when they stand in the sky
all over the world,
candescent suns by day,
radiant cathedrals in the night,
how shall we answer the question:

What have you done
with what was given you,
what have you done with
the blue, beautiful world?

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Should more Minnesotans support a Green New Deal?

If you follow these pages at all irregularly, it will come as no surprise that we rarely find opportunity to thank Minnesota politicians. For the most part, we have a perspective that too many of today's Democrats aren't good (progressive) enough and Republicans are much, much worse. That's why we were delighted to discover today that Representative Betty McCollum [CD-4] is a co-sponsor of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria [D-NY-14]'s Green New Deal resolution [H.Res.109 - Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.]

We would be severely remiss if we didn't also note that Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota's senior senator, and current candidate for president, joined many of the other senatorial Democratic presidential candidates in becoming an original cosponsor of of Senator Markey's S.Res.59 - A resolution recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal. Could there be something in the resolution that Senator Smith doesn't support? [see below]

We now return to our curmudgeonly review of the House and find, when we do the math, that only 20% of Minnesota's Democratic members of the House of Representatives have signed on as cosponsors of H.Res. 109. Is there something the matter with the content of the resolution or is it something wrong with representatives:

• Angie Craig
• Dean Phillips
• Ilhan Omar, and
• Collin Peterson

Here, in summary from the Congressional Research Service, is what the resolution calls for:

• achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions; 
• establishing millions of high-wage jobs and ensuring economic security for all; 
• investing in infrastructure and industry; 
• securing clean air and water, climate and community resiliency, healthy food, access to nature, and a sustainable environment for all; and 
• promoting justice and equality. 

The resolution calls for accomplishment of these goals through a 10-year national mobilization effort. The resolution also enumerates the goals and projects of the mobilization effort, including

• building smart power grids (i.e., power grids that enable customers to reduce their power use during peak demand periods); 
• upgrading all existing buildings and constructing new buildings to achieve maximum energy and water efficiency; 
• removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation and agricultural sectors; 
• cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites;
• ensuring businesspersons are free from unfair competition; and
• providing higher education, high-quality health care, and affordable, safe, and adequate housing to all. 

We wonder if the four members of Congress listed above oppose any or all of the goals or the mobilization efforts, of if it's simply that enough of their constituents haven't made it clear to their representatives how important the Green New Deal can be to Minnesota and Minnesotans. If any of you readers think you have good reasons to contact your member of Congress to encourage them to sign onto H.Res 109 as a co-sponsor, please feel free to do so. If you're not sure why it might be important in your congressional district, check back here from time to time. In future postings we'll point out what we believe are many of the benefits that a Green New Deal can deliver to Minnesota.

A Language of Change

by David Sergeant 

‘as late capitalism writhed in its internal decision concerning whether to destroy Earth’s biosphere or change its rules’ – Kim Stanley Robinson

We’re sat by the ocean and this
could be a love poem; but that lullaby murderer
refuses each name I give it
and the icebergs seep into our sandwiches,
translated by carbon magic. And even this might be
to say too much. But the muse of poetry
has told me to be more clear – and don’t,
s/he said, for the love of God, please, screw things up.
Ambiguous, I didn’t reply; as we’re sat
by the ocean and I could make it
anything you wanted, for this moment
of speaking – but we have made it
something forever. Together
the weather
is a language we can barely understand;
but confessional experts detect
in the senseless diktat of hurricane
a hymning of our sins, our stupid counterpoint.
Love has served its purpose, now must be
transformed by an impersonal sequester
of me into the loves I will not see,
or touch, or in any way remember.
Perhaps it was always like this – take my hand,
horizon – ceding this land.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

A bridge too far?

It's the time of year when we used to see lots of Canada geese along and about the road edge going through the Sunrise River pools in the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area. This year we've seen very few geese or their goslings. We're not sure why but we have a prime suspect. The water in the Sunrise pools has been unusually high all Summer, but we don't think that's the basic problem. The geese used to hang out along the shoulder and into the road near where the river flowed under the highway. We surmise that a few too many motorists had close, or too close, calls with a goose or geese.

Canada geese "roadside"

Photo by J. Harrington

Several years ago, the county replaced the bridge crossing the river and the conduits through which the river flowed. When they did that, they added very long stretches of guard rail, separating the roadway from most of the shoulder. The geese no longer hang out along that stretch of roadway and marsh. We can sort of understand that, but what leaves us scratching our head is why the geese didn't decide to congregate on the North side of the road, where there's still quite a bit of marsh and shoulder not separated by a guardrail.

bridge construction: bulleting board

Photo by J. Harrington

We admit that the new and improved road is probably safer for both motorists and geese, but we also admit we would have much preferred to see a lower speed limit and a "goose crossing" sign instead.

The Bridge Builder

By Will Allen Dromgoole

An old man going a lone highway,

Came, at the evening cold and gray,

To a chasm vast and deep and wide.

Through which was flowing a sullen tide

The old man crossed in the twilight dim,

The sullen stream had no fear for him;

But he turned when safe on the other side

And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,

“You are wasting your strength with building here;

Your journey will end with the ending day,

You never again will pass this way;

You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,

Why build this bridge at evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head;

“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,

“There followed after me to-day

A youth whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm that has been as naught to me

To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;

He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;

Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Where are Turtle Island's turtles this May? #phenology?

our township probably needs more signs like this

Photo by J. Harrington

To many Native Americans and First Nations people North America is known as Turtle Island. We live in an area, once inhabited by the Dakota and the Anishinaabe, that has many wetlands and water bodies. Many years during May we see, at various times, a number of turtles crossing local roads as they go to lay their eggs. This year we've seen none.

Blanding's turtle crossing our formerly gravel road

Photo by J. Harrington

In part, we're wondering if some part of the turtles' life cycle is occurring later this month, along with many other Spring events. Or, is the lack of sightings due, in part, to our recently blacktopped township road?

snapping turtle crossing a paved road

Photo by J. Harrington

Blanding's turtles, which we've seen nearby a number of times in years past, typically nests in June, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. A similar pattern is followed by snapping turtles. Blanding's, snapping and painted are the three turtle species we've seen crossing roads, but there are many more species native to Minnesota.

painted turtle crossing our formerly gravel road

Photo by J. Harrington

Turtle Island is also the title of Gary Snyder's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of poems but, as far as we can recall, there's no poem in it mentioning a turtle. Snyder's homage to Turtle Island in a poem comes in a different volume (Axe Handles) with the poem:

For All

Gary Snyder

Ah to be alive
on a mid-September morn
fording a stream
barefoot, pants rolled up,
holding boots, pack on,
sunshine, ice in the shallows,
northern rockies.

Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
cold nose dripping
singing inside
creek music, heart music,
smell of sun on gravel.

I pledge allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the soil
of Turtle Island,
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.

Who's snowing whom?

On the trees and covering the fields, last night's snowfall was beautiful. Although each flake is unique (think about that for a moment), the snow that we admired and enjoyed in fields and wood we disliked, intensely, on the driveway, road and path. The snow hadn't changed. It was the "improvements" we've made to the land that shifted out attitude and perspective. How much does that tell us about our larger ability to accommodate nature when she inconveniences us? Does it suggest motivations for why we're not responding to climate disruption as rapidly as we need to, because to do so would cause inconvenience?

this morning's trees, before the wind rose

Photo by J. Harrington

Do you remember Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth? We have a copy in one of the downstairs bookcases. It would be interesting to see how many, if any, of the predictions or projections made in the book have been validated. How much is our convenience worth to us? What are we willing to sacrifice for convenience? Perhaps more to the point, how much will we end up sacrificing to the impacts of climate disruption, willingly or not?

As for us, we're going to take a chance on a little inconvenience and see if we can get away with letting the snow melt from the driveway without burning gas to run the snow blower. The extended forecast anticipates rain and temperatures near 40℉ for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Meanwhile, today the wind is still gusting like hell, which is another reason to avoid blowing snow (read that whichever way you want). We're kind of old to be foregoing our perfectionistic tendencies, but maybe we'll turn out to be one of those old dogs that can learn at least some new tricks. If our children, and their children, are going to have any kind of opportunity to lead a really decent life, it's time we learned to adapt to a few inconveniences. If you don't believe us, or Al Gore, you can think about why so few are adapting to even longer-standing warnings of trouble, contained in Limits to Growth, and its sequel.

Mortal Limit

Robert Penn Warren, 1905- 1989

I saw the hawk ride updraft in the sunset over Wyoming.
It rose from coniferous darkness, past gray jags
Of mercilessness, past whiteness, into the gloaming
Of dream-spectral light above the lazy purity of snow-snags.

There—west—were the Tetons.  Snow-peaks would soon be
In dark profile to break constellations.  Beyond what height
Hangs now the black speck?  Beyond what range will gold eyes see
New ranges rise to mark a last scrawl of light?

Or, having tasted that atmosphere’s thinness, does it
Hang motionless in dying vision before
It knows it will accept the mortal limit,
And swing into the great circular downwardness that will restore

The breath of earth?  Of rock?  Of rot?  Of other such
Items, and the darkness of whatever dream we clutch?

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.