It's Autumn reigns time

Despite Friday's scattered rain, we remain in severe drought. That may have started to trigger stress related color change in local trees, or the change could just be because it's that time of year. I've no idea how we might sort out correlation from causation on stress versus less daylight for photosynthesis. Minnesota's actual leaf color progression, starting Tuesday, can be found here.

maple trees displaying early leaf color

Photo by J. Harrington

Hummingbirds continue to show up at the sugar water feeders. Increasing numbers of sandhill cranes and Canada geese are gleaning harvested fields. Whitetail deer coats are trading summer reds for winter grays. The number of birds perched on telephone wires keeps growing, then the flocks will migrate as they get an Urge for Going [Tom Rush cover]. With any luck, we could be about to enjoy eight, ten, or twelve weeks of energetic preparations for winter, leading to an extended period of rest, recuperation, and storytelling until the cycle begins again with the coming of springtime next year, bringing the return of migrants and new growth.

Some of us are hoping we get enough precipitation to break the drought while it's still warm enough to fall as rain. The anticipated "super" El Nino may lead to a milder, wetter winter, or not. As with the upcoming midterm elections, we'll hope for the best, and do what we can to bring such about, while realizing what we think may be best may not put US in the majority. Meanwhile, we're going to do our best to enjoy as much as we can of our favoritest upcoming season.

Poem Beginning with a Line from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Maggie Smith

Just look—nothing but sincerity 

as far as the eye can see—

the way the changed leaves,

flapping their yellow underbellies

in the wind, glitter. The tree

looks sequined wherever

the sun touches. Does anyone

not see it? Driving by a field

of spray-painted sheep, I think

the world is not all changed.

The air still ruffles wool

the way a mother’s hand

busies itself lovingly in the hair

of her small boy. The sun

lifts itself up, grows heavy

treading there, then lets itself

off the hook. Just look at it

leaving—the sky a tigereye

banded five kinds of gold

and bronze—and the sequin tree

shaking its spangles like a girl

on the high school drill team,

nothing but sincerity. It glitters

whether we’re looking or not.

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Time for a change (or two)

It’s actually starting to seem like Spring here in the North Country. Once again the snow has melted and, come midweek next, overnight low temperatures are forecast to stay above freezing. Leaf buds on the maple trees have burst and, but for a few outliers, the oaks have dropped their overwintering leaves as the new buds swell.

maple leaf buds opening

Photo by J. Harrington

I hate to admit this but I spent way too much time last week doom scrolling and being in an absolutely funky mood. Between laying off thousands of federal staff and laying on thousands of tariffs, it was down the rabbit hole time again. We’re going to be years, if not decades, working to recover once we rid ourselves of our first (and only?) FOTUS [Felon Of The United States]. Despite all the madness, I did complete a preliminary, informal, climate action VENN diagram. It turns out to be trickier than I thought it would, especially since the DrawDown listing doesn’t really cover my interest: the relationships among climate change, the hydrologic cycle, and stream restoration. I made some progress and will keep picking away at it. Stay tuned and, meanwhile, if you’re interested, here’s a link to some local postings that explore climate change and trout fishing.

Speaking of changes, I think this will be the week I take the bback blade off the tractor and start to clean up some of the leaves and branches that came down over the winter. It's also time to get this year's fishing licenses and begin some exploring. That's one of the better ways I can think of to shake the residuals of cabin fever.

Also, please note that April is National Poetry Month. Enjoy Paul Simon's lyrics to help celebrate the month and the changing of the seasons.

      April Come She Will

Lyrics:

April, come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May, she will stay
Resting in my arms again

June, she’ll change her tune
In restless walks, she’ll prowl the night
July, she will fly
And give no warning of her flight

August, die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September, I’ll remember
A love once new has now grown old

© 1965 Words and Music by Paul Simon

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Goodbye and good riddance!

Some minutes ago, today’s raindrops turned into snowflakes. They are among the last of the season, since Monday is Spring Equinox, but probably not the last until summer. This is a winter I will not be sorry to see end. We’ve reached the 8th snowiest winter on record for our area and that makes it hard to accept the reports that we’re experiencing global warming which affects Minnesota’s winters more than our summers. It almost comes down to who are we going to believe, the scientists or what we see out the window. Speaking of which, here’s a picture of the owl that’s been visiting, perched on the railing of the deck stairs landing. Would that we were all that wise and able to hang on ’til the current storms blow over.

barred owl perched in snow

Photo by J. Harrington

But then, (Isn’t there almost always one of those?) it’s been reported to have been a winter of poor ice in many locations. Those reporting poor ice conditions obviously haven’t visited our driveway. This may be the snowfall that we decide to let melt instead of clear from our drive. After a cold weekend, we’re forecast to reach the 40's all of next week, but (there we go again) it depends on how much accumulation we end up with. If it’s much more than an inch, we’ll scrape and/or blow snow to expedite getting the drive back to bare dirt as soon as possible.

I’ve noticed more and more during the past week or ten days that I’m far from the only one grumpily commenting on the extent and duration of the winter almost past. Although I don’t have numbers handy, I suspect that this winter has had more cloudy days than usual. That, plus state, national and world events is enough exacerbate Seasonal Affective Disorder with gloominess due to continuing COVID, irrational Republicans, bank failures, stock market volatility, and a level of social, cultural and economic contentiousness not seen for awhile.

Last Snow

By Heid E. Erdrich

Dumped wet and momentary on a dull ground

that’s been clear but clearly sleeping, for days.

Last snow melts as it falls, piles up slush, runs in first light

making a music in the streets we wish we could keep.

Last snow. That’s what we’ll think for weeks to come.

Close sun sets up a glare that smarts like a good cry.

We could head north and north and never let this season go.

Stubborn beast, the body reads the past in the change of light,

knows the blow of grief in the time of trees’ tight-fisted leaves.

Stubborn calendar of bone. Last snow. Now it must always be so.

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“Willow” weep for me!

We are now less than a week from Spring Equinox. The barred owl is again on its perch in the oak tree next to the deck. The sun is shining and the temperatures for the first half of next week begin to approach normal (mid-40’s). Meanwhile, both coasts are getting pounded by severe storms and the country is trying to forestall a collapse of the banking system. We are certainly living in interesting times.

barred owl on its usual branch

Photo by J. Harrington

Since I’m a recovering planner who suffers an occasional relapse, the kerfuffle about whether the Biden Administration should or should not have approved the Willow project in Alaska has me in a planning mode wondering who, if anyone, is responsible for identifying and tracking the progress, if any, toward meeting the requirements to abate greenhouse gas targets by dates certain. The IPCC reports don’t seem to clearly specify a basis on which we can tell what should, or should not, be allowed. Perhaps what I’m looking for will be included in a major report to be issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on the Spring Equinox this year. More likely, the high level language suitable for policy makers will fail to be sufficiently specific to determine whether certain projects are approvable based on meeting policies. The looseness with which “truth” is proclaimed by liberals and conservatives doesn’t much help those responsible for doing the analysis on which projects are deemed consistent, or not, with goals and policies.

I base my assessment and part of my critique on the failure of Minnesota to meet, for an extended period of time, legislatively mandated greenhouse gas reduction goals. I also am sensitive to the egregious failure of the United States to meet its legislatively mandated clean water goals of 1983 and 1985. In fact, we’ve allowed the global economy to go in the other direction and make pollution of water by PFOS and PFAS almost ubiquitous.

There are several relevant quotations that help explain the challenges we face as a species trying to keep our planet habitable. We need to stop electing and empowering folks who think like this:

• “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”     Bill Clinton


• "When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”     Yogi Berra

Instead, we are well advised to empower leaders who think like this:

• “And what is the point of learning facts within the school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly mean nothing to our politicians and our society?”     ― Greta Thunberg, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference 


• “The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield.”     — Bill McKibben

 

Willow Weep for Me

Ann Ronell

Willow weep for me
Willow weep for me
Bent your branches down along the ground and cover me
Listen to my plea
Hear me willow and weep for me
Gone my lovely dreams
Lovely summer dreams
Gone and left me here
To weep my tears along the stream
Sad as I can be
Hear me willow and weep for me
Whisper to the wind and say that love has sinned
To leave my heart a sign
And crying alone
Murmur to the night
Hide her starry light
So none will find me sighing
Crying all alone
Weeping willow tree
Weeping sympathy
Bent your branches down along the ground and cover me
Listen to me plead
Hear me willow and weep for me
Willow
Willow
Weep for me

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A record I wasn’t hoping for

Expectations are that, at some time this weekend, this winter's season snowfall will be sufficient to place us in the top ten snowiest winters. For the current record, I’ve lived in this state for five of the top ten winters. If we just bump the winter of 2017-18 [78.3 inches] then it will still have me here for 5/10 because of simple substitution. However, current winter #9 was in 1966-67, before my time here and only one tenth of an inch more than #10. So, if we end up with 78.5 or more inches, I’ll have lived in Minnesota for more than half of its top 10 snowiest winters. Had I know that could happen before I moved here, would I have? Given how I feel about winter, snow, and cold, it’s doubtful. It appears that I’ve done something terribly wrong in my life to end up with such karma but, other than moving here, it’s not clear what I might have done to deserve this. Did my move create a self-fulfilling prophecy? Am I confusing cause and effect? Will this winter ever end?

it just keeps coming down

Photo by J. Harrington

Since I am neither a meteorologist nor a climatologist, I don’t know if snow that falls after the end of meteorological winter (on or after March 1) is counted in the seasonal record, or if the record is actually based on the period between winter solstice and spring equinox, or, since in Minnesota it’s been know to snow every month of the year except July, the annual snowfall record is based on the period from July 1 through June 30 of the following year.

The flood forecasters have now chimed in with their concerns that moderate or more floods have more than a 50% probability in the Twin Cities and at Stillwater. The combination of snowfall records and flooding is a logical relationship that also relates to climate change/global warming (half or more top snowfalls in the past 5 decades). And yet our elected leaders have continued to play political games with timely responses to greenhouse gas reductions, just as they are currently playing brinksmanship games with the federal budget, debt ceiling and Social Security payments. Do you suppose the Republicans think they have nothing to fear from multitudes of gray-haired citizens whose palsied hands shake so much they would never seek retribution on politicians who stiffed them into hunger-laced homelessness? I hope we never have to find out. If those same seniors have children and grandchildren about whom they care, it could be fun to watch the Republican party get replaced by a Pewter (green/gray) Party by whatever name, perhaps the 7th GenerationParty?

After the Quarrel

Paul Laurence Dunbar - 1872-1906

So we, who've supped the self-same cup,
    To-night must lay our friendship by;
Your wrath has burned your judgment up,
    Hot breath has blown the ashes high.
You say that you are wronged— ah, well,
    I count that friendship poor, at best
A bauble, a mere bagatelle,
    That cannot stand so slight a test.

I fain would still have been your friend,
    And talked and laughed and loved with you;
But since it must, why, let it end;
    The false but dies, 't is not the true.
So we are favored, you and I,
    Who only want the living truth.
It was not good to nurse the lie;
    'Tis well it died in harmless youth.

I go from you to-night to sleep.
    Why, what's the odds? why should I grieve?
I have no fund of tears to weep
    For happenings that undeceive.
The days shall come, the days shall go
    Just as they came and went before.
The sun shall shine, the streams shall flow
    Though you and I are friends no more.

And in the volume of my years,
    Where all my thoughts and acts shall be,
The page whereon your name appears
    Shall be forever sealed to me.
Not that I hate you over-much,
    'Tis less of hate than love defied;
Howe'er, our hands no more shall touch,
    We'll go our ways, the world is wide.

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We have plenty of water on which to cast our bread

There's an old saying among duck hunters that goes:

Fust it rained,
and then it blew,
then it frizz,
and then it snew!

That pretty well covers the last, and the next, twenty-four hours of weather around here. North of us and West of us we hear it's almost all snow. We're going to be in very slippery trouble if roads, walks and driveways don't dry a bunch before the frizz gets here again. As we write this large, wet snowflakes are falling mixed in with the rain drops. Is this a new normal for a North Country December storm?

this is sort of what it looks like today

Photo by J. Harrington

There's another old story about the idiot who kept smashing against a door in a wall, trying to break down the door and escape. Another occupant watches for awhile and then gets up, walks to the door, turns the handle and opens it. The first occupant rages "Why didn't you tell me the door wasn't locked?" The second occupant replies "You never asked."

For years we've been dealing with the national corporate offices of our internet service provider. After abysmal service yesterday, The Better Half agreed to call (the service is in her name) but when she checked, a local number popped up. She called. Today a tech replaced an old, old modem with a fancy new one. We're not going to explain whether it's usn's or the Better Half that's like the first occupant, but we will tell you that we're the ones that have been calling the corporate 800 number for years.

this is what we want to improve on

Photo by J. Harrington

As part of our transition to a better, happier 2019, we're trying a new recipe and procedural adjustments to see if we can get our sourdough bread to have the luscious, big holes we like. We actually went back and (re)read bout making high hydration sourdough dough. There's some rising (first proof) in a bowl now. We used 60 grams of all purpose flour and 440 grams of bread flour instead of our usual 500 grams of bread flour. We also double checked how the numbers turn out when our starter, which is fed with half flour, half water, is added to a 75% hydration flour/water mix. If we strictly follow the recipe and use 50 grams of starter, we end up at 76% hydration. If we, as we frequently do, double the amount of sourdough starter, hydration goes to 77%. What we haven't quite figured out yet is how to interpret the instructions that say "Shape it again..." but, for a change, we'll simply follow the directions in the sequence they're printed and see what happens. Stay tuned for further adventures from sourdough breadland. We'll see if using this blog as a version of a baker's journal works for us and any readers who follow our bread crumbs. For those who want to go to our source, try here.

Bread

By Richard Levine

Each night, in a space he’d make 

between waking and purpose, 

my grandfather donned his one 

suit, in our still dark house, and drove 

through Brooklyn’s deserted streets 

following trolley tracks to the bakery.

There he’d change into white 

linen work clothes and cap, 

and in the absence of women, 

his hands were both loving, well 

into dawn and throughout the day— 

kneading, rolling out, shaping

each astonishing moment 

of yeasty predictability 

in that windowless world lit 

by slightly swaying naked bulbs, 

where the shadows staggered, woozy 

with the aromatic warmth of the work.

Then, the suit and drive, again. 

At our table, graced by a loaf 

that steamed when we sliced it, 

softened the butter and leavened 

the very air we’d breathe,

he’d count us blessed.

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We won, twice over!

Earlier this week the Better Half joined us at a fundraiser -- Local Streams: Art Benefit & Live Music for WaterLegacy, in the Black Dog Cafe in St. Paul's Lowertown. Many of the works presented were offered through silent auctions. We were fortunate enough to have the winning bids on two items, a basket woven from split wood and the print shown below. Actually, this probably means that we were a three-time winner since WaterLegacy benefited as well as the artists. Four times if we lump together and count as one the future pleasure we'll get from seeing and using our acquisitions.

The basket will hold our fresh apples, or, perhaps a fresh loaf of our bread (photos later). The print will help raise our spirits and remind us that our attitude controls much of how we feel about life. We were really pleased to participate in an opportunity to support both local artists and a valuable environmental organization. In fact, we'd like to see more of this kind of fundraiser. We were told it was reasonably successful for both artists and WaterLegacy so there's some incentive and we still have a little wall and counter space available should we make any more acquisitions.

Talking with some of the folks at WaterLegacy reminded us to go back and check some of the basic concepts Donella Meadows wrote, in February 1995, regarding sustainability. We haven't foregone the prospect of helping to move our society to a sustainable basis. That's just one of our many character flaws. Anyhow, Meadows borrowed heavily from Herman Daly and proposed this:

"In my own mind I supplement that official definition of sustainability with Herman Daly’s clear and undeniable explication of what it means in physical terms:

1. Renewable resources shall not be used faster than they can regenerate.

2. Pollution and wastes shall not be put into the environment faster than the environment can recycle them or render them harmless.

3. Nonrenewable resources shall not be used faster than renewable substitutes (used sustainably) can be develo ped.

By those conditions there’s not a nation, a company, a city, a farm, or a household on earth that is sustainable. Virtually every major fishery in the world violates condition 1. The world economy as a whole is violating condition 2 by putting out carbon dioxide 60-80% faster than the atmosphere can recycle it. But to make things worse, I would add two more sustainability conditions that I think are obvious.

4. The human population and the physical capital plant have to be kept at levels low enough to allow the first 3 conditions to be met.

5. The previous 4 conditions have to be met through processes that are democratic and equitable enough that people will stand for them."

Meadows was one of the principal authors of Limits to Growth many years ago. Thirty years later, she was one of the principal authors of an Update.

• Sea level has risen 10–20 cm since 1900. Most non-polar glaciers are retreating, and the extent and thickness of Arctic sea ice is decreasing in summer.
• In 1998 more than 45 percent of the globe’s people had to live on incomes averaging $2 a day or less. Meanwhile, the richest one- fifth of the world’s population has 85 percent of the global GNP. And the gap between rich and poor is widening.
• In 2002, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN estimated that 75 percent of the world’s oceanic fisheries were fished at or beyond capacity. The North Atlantic cod fishery, fished sustainably for hundreds of years, has collapsed, and the species may have been pushed to biological extinction.
• The first global assessment of soil loss, based on studies of hundreds of experts, found that 38 percent, or nearly 1.4 billion acres, of currently used agricultural land has been degraded.
• Fifty-four nations experienced declines in per capita GDP for more than a decade during the period 1990–2001.

As a Christmas present to ourselves, we would do well to pay more attention to those who have demonstrated a track record of being basically correct in their judgements. This does not include any who have, ever, driven one or more casinos into bankruptcy.

The Work of Happiness

By May Sarton

I thought of happiness, how it is woven

Out of the silence in the empty house each day

And how it is not sudden and it is not given

But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.

No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark

Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.

No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,

But the tree is lifted by this inward work

And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.

So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours

And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:

The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,

White curtains softly and continually blown

As the free air moves quietly about the room;

A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall—

These are the dear familiar gods of home,

And here the work of faith can best be done,

The growing tree is green and musical.

For what is happiness but growth in peace,

The timeless sense of time when furniture

Has stood a life's span in a single place,

And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir

The shining leaves of present happiness?

No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,

But where people have lived in inwardness

The air is charged with blessing and does bless;

Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.

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We'll pay for this

Recent weather, plus that forecast for the near term, has been unseasonably warm around here. We foresee one of two options playing out. Either

1. Once astronomical Winter joins meteorological Winter, onslaughts of arctic cold and excessive snowfall will raise the Pain-In-the-Posterior Index (PIP) to astronomical levels; or


2. Climate disruption will proceed to make meteorological mincemeat of much of our remaining seasons next year. Floods and/or droughts, year-round Seasonal Affective Disorder or perpetual sunburns, food shortages and transportation disruptions will beset us. Perhaps most distressing, we could be faced with a walleye opener with lakes still ice covered. Remember, there was almost no tracking snow this deer season.

All because some of us were praying for, and received, relief from the unseasonable cold, cloudy weather we experienced in late November and early December.

Christmas Eve is one week away. Will we have a brown Christmas? The MNDNR calculates, via Paul Douglas' weather blog, that the odds are good for most of our North Country. But those probabilities are most likely based on the "Old Normal."

Coffee Talk Winter Patio

Photo by J. Harrington

We don't think anything we're giving, or getting, requires snow to be enjoyed. In fact, since there's going to be a fair amount of local travel on Christmas Day, we think a lack of snow might be just fine and we find that we're not alone. We were really surprised at the number of folks we say walking around the Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis yesterday when we visited Birchbark Books. Between what we bought for ourselves, including Robert Bly's Collected Poems, (we couldn't resist) and the knowledge that the Better Half also bought some books for us, perhaps we should be wishing for a sequence of blizzards as an excuse to just sit and read. Nah, instead we'd like to sit on the patio at Coffee Talk in Taylors Falls and drink coffee and read outside, but not when there's snow cover. Upstairs might work fine, but not if travel is treacherous to get there.

[UPDATE: Polar vortex could unleash winter wallop by January. Stay tuned!]

Ode to a Blizzard

By Tom Disch

O! wonderful for weight and whiteness!  

Ideolog whose absolutes  

Are always proven right  

By white and then  

More white and white again,  

Winning the same argument year  

After year by making the opposition  

Disappear!  

O! dear miniature of infinity with no  

End in sight and no snow-  

Flake exactly like  

Another, all  

A little different no  

Matter how many may fall,  

Just like our own DNA or the human face  

Eternal!  

O! still keep covering the street  

And sidewalks, cemeteries, even  

Our twice-shoveled drive,  

And all that is alive,  

With geometries that sleet  

Will freeze into Death's  

Impromptu vision of a heaven  

Wholly white!  

For we know who your sponsor is, whose will  

You so immensely serve,  

Whose chill is more severe  

Than any here.  

Though his name may be unspoken,  

His commandments are unbroken,  

And every monument that you erect  

Belongs to him!

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Approaching Winter Solstice

The squash and gourds that served as Thanksgiving table decorations are now scattered under the pear tree. Better the whitetails should munch on them than attack our low-hanging bird feeders. Several nights ago we forgot to bring in the sunflower seed feeder that hangs out front and, come morning, it was again empty with lots of seeds still covering the ground. One observation of a deer at the feeder this Winter, plus an abundance of deer tracks under the knocked-down feeder lat May, leaves us comfortable believing one or more deer are the perpetrators until and unless we get convincing evidence to the contrary. Meanwhile, back at the pear tree, frozen bits and pieces of the Halloween pumpkins were still lying on the ground. We'll see if we can check from time to time to keep track of what, if anything, lasts throughout the Winter.

Winter whitetail headed toward food?

Photo by J. Harrington

The tractor, once we cleared the snow off it, started right up and climbed our snow-covered hill with very little slippage. Driving the tractor seemed like it would be easier than lugging, on foot, a bag full of small squashes, plus, it was fun. Never before have we driven a tractor through a snowy field, in sunshine! The fact that the temperature is above freezing and the sun is shining added to the pleasure we took being out and about. Plus, at least locally, there was no freezing fog/mist this morning. Yesterday, some young fellow put his pickup on its side in a ditch a little North of the house. He said he was ok and that help was on the way, so we wished him well and continued, slowly, with our errands.

We've been noticing that our "failed" loaf of bread from a week or so ago is still sitting in the tray feeder, largely untouched. A couple of smaller woodpeckers hammered away at it once or twice. A gray squirrel snatched one separate slice this morning and ran away with it. Might be time to cut it into smaller pieces and see if they disappear.

Winter sky with moon and bare branches

Photo by J. Harrington

Winter Solstice is now just one week away. In our neighborhood, it will occur on December 21, 2018 at 4:23 pm CST. We're considering having our own little celebration, with a scaled-down bonfire, unless, of course, we get hit with some sort of blizzard. We're overdue. Some light snow flurries would be preferable, just enough so we don't have a brown Christmas, but we'll do our best to enjoy whatever Mother Nature shares with us. It's slowly sinking in that that's one key to a happier life, especially as the climate becomes less stable. We also might want to seriously consider adding a pinch of paganism, druidry, zen, and/or pantheism to whatever else we believe in, especially over the next twelve or so years.

Winter Branches

Margaret Widdemer

When winter-time grows weary, I lift my eyes on high
And see the black trees standing, stripped clear against the sky;

They stand there very silent, with the cold flushed sky behind,
The little twigs flare beautiful and restful and kind;

Clear-cut and certain they rise, with summer past,
For all that trees can ever learn they know now, at last;

Slim and black and wonderful, with all unrest gone by,
The stripped tree-boughs comfort me, drawn clear against the sky.

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No snow job!

There are many downsides to the climate disruption we humans have created: wildfires more intensive and extensive; species extinctions; ocean warming and acidification; declining fisheries and agricultural yields. Most of those are, so far, global and impersonal, as far as we're concerned. Precipitation like freezing mist or rain coating our roadways seems to have been happening more frequently in the past decade or so. This is consistent with reports we read several years ago, that Minnesota's Winters would become more like Missouri's. Mist or rain freezing on our roads fits a category that we consider neither impersonal nor global. Climate disruption is here and we're not doing enough about it. Here's an example.

An interesting new piece in Fresh Energy's blog, about their executive director's new vehicle, Michael finally gets an electric vehicle: why was it so hard?, made us think of past articles we've read which contend the solutions to global climate disruption are not attainable through individuals making incremental changes. At the time we read those articles, we didn't think they let us off the hook, they just focused us on system change. But think about it, oil companies couldn't make huge profits if there weren't markets for their products. Most of the market for fossil fuel products is comprised of individuals like Michael (and us) making decisions about how to satisfy their (our) needs. That brings us to our recent posting about changing our attitude from one of "Yes, but" to one of "Yes, and." Yes, but says, if a collection of actions isn't going to solve the problem, why bother. Yes, and counters being a "Yes, but free rider," or, as we called them when we were younger and less tactful, a moocher. Not being a free rider helps shape markets to better meet our needs. How do we know this? We learned it from a Christmas tale we read several years ago. It goes like this.

"Tell me the weight of a snowflake," a coal mouse asked a wild dove.

"Nothing more than nothing," was the answer.

"In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story," the coal mouse said. "I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its trunk, when it began to snow…Since I didn't have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952.

"When the next snowflake dropped onto the branch—nothing more than nothing, as you say—the branch broke off…"

The dove, since Noah's time, an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while and finally said to herself, "Perhaps there is only one person's voice lacking for peace to come about in this world."

how much do these snowflakes weigh?

Photo by J. Harrington

As we understand it, for there to be peace in the world, there needs be more justice and equity and love as well as those voices that are lacking. That means fewer free riders. There's a number of carbon and/or ecological footprint calculators available. Most of the ones we've seen require moderately detailed information to complete an individual household calculation. If you don't have the necessary information, that would be a place to start, else you're just

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

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What's normal in our New Normal?

The marshes, open water, and even much of what passes for a river channel in Pool 1 of the Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area, have begun to freeze over. At dog-walking time this morning, the local temperature was in the single digits. Even some of the larger lakes are making ice, although none is/are safe to travel on. A couple of years ago these same waters were still mostly open and attracting some southward-bound swans.

Pool 1-Sunrise River, early December 2015

Photo by J. Harrington

At least today we're getting some blue skies and sunshine, enough to warm up our new "blacktop" road and melt the edges of some snow cover left from the snow showers of a couple of days ago. We're slowly but surely coming to the realization that the scientists(?) who called climate change "global warming" would have served us better if they had chosen climate disruption or broken climate or something along those lines. "Warming" sounds very innocuous and, as some deniers have pointed out, the climate is always changing. What we have more and more are hell, as in the current fires in California, and high water from intense hurricanes and rainstorms. In fact, during the past few years, those frozen nearby marshes have had higher water in late autumn than we remember from a quarter century or so ago when we first moved in. We've noted here previously that Minnesota's short term weather and long term climate would be far preferable if the averages weren't comprised of such extremes. A daily average temperature of 50℉ means one thing if it's derived from a low of 40℉ and a high of 60℉ but something else entirely if the low is 0℉ and the high 100℉. We're doing our bit to combine the humanities with STEM type issues. By including the Arts, STEM becomes STEAM.

Meditation on Statistical Method

By J. V. Cunningham

Plato, despair!

We prove by norms

How numbers bear

Empiric forms,

How random wrong

Will average right

If time be long

And error slight,

But in our hearts

Hyperbole

Curves and departs

To infinity.

Error is boundless.

Nor hope nor doubt,

Though both be groundless,

Will average out.

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Jobs? YES! Environment? YES! How?

Before we forget, since it's clouded in again and is starting to snow a little, today we were/are grateful we got to see the sun.  We're also grateful that Ron Madore at MinnPost did the research and wrote the kind of piece we've been contemplating since Tuesday, It’s hard to find much of a ‘green wave’ in this year’s voting on ballot initiatives.

We were particularly interested in, and disappointed by, the two initiatives relative to mining:

Montana voters rejected a measure to deny permits for hardrock mines that lack features “sufficient to prevent the pollution of water without the need for perpetual treatment.”...

Mining interests in Alaska, meanwhile, helped to beat back a protective measure for salmon streams by a nearly 2-1 margin.

Meanwhile, here in our own portion of the North Country, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Duluth for Clean Water, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, and WaterLegacy to request that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency suspend permits for the PolyMet proposal until a court rules on whether the state should consider the possibility of a larger mine plan in its environment review.

a path is made by walking

Photo by J. Harrington

And if it's possible for a project to be even more contentious than the PolyMet NorthMet mine proposal, a federal judge has ruled that the Keystone XL pipeline needs a more thorough environmental review.

All of the preceding, and numerous other issues, have us again contemplating whether society can't devise a better, more efficient and effective process for developing and permitting, and monitoring the operations of projects that have the potential for significant environmental impacts. That's getting to be almost everything these days. We aren't opposed to development. We are opposed to the wrong kind of development in the wrong place at the wrong time based on decisions with greater proportions of politics than science and equity.

Let's start with four basic principles from what's known as The Natural Step:

"In a sustainable society nature is not subject to systematically increasing concentrations of …

1. … substances extracted from the Earth's crust;
2. … substances produced as a byproduct of society ;
3. … degradation by physical means;...and in that society...
4. people are not subject to structural obstacles to: health; influence; competence; impartiality and meaning-making."^[3](Missimer, et al.,2015)

The first principle clearly relates to mining. Natural Step Canada has a presentation that begins to answer the question "Is there Mining in a Sustainable Society?" The presentation dates from 2013 and there have been additional tools developed since then. We'll consider some of those tools another day. They help to address where, if at all, mining should be allowed.

any water pollution from PolyMet would end up here, in Lake Superior

Photo by J. Harrington

We're back at this theme because we are starting to think that the way many of the issues and questions have been raised about pipelines and mines and tar sands and protecting the environment in which we live have been framed in ways that almost beg for negative responses. We don't believe that we have to keep repeating the same failed approaches. Thus, we're back to the basic "It's not a question of jobs versus the environment. It's how do we have both!"

Milton by Firelight

By Gary Snyder

Piute Creek, August 1955

“O hell, what do mine eyes

          with grief behold?”

Working with an old

Singlejack miner, who can sense

The vein and cleavage

In the very guts of rock, can

Blast granite, build

Switchbacks that last for years

Under the beat of snow, thaw, mule-hooves.   

What use, Milton, a silly story

Of our lost general parents,

          eaters of fruit?

The Indian, the chainsaw boy,

And a string of six mules

Came riding down to camp

Hungry for tomatoes and green apples.   

Sleeping in saddle-blankets

Under a bright night-sky

Han River slantwise by morning.   

Jays squall

Coffee boils

In ten thousand years the Sierras

Will be dry and dead, home of the scorpion.   

Ice-scratched slabs and bent trees.

No paradise, no fall,

Only the weathering land

The wheeling sky,

Man, with his Satan

Scouring the chaos of the mind.

Oh Hell!

Fire down

Too dark to read, miles from a road   

The bell-mare clangs in the meadow   

That packed dirt for a fill-in   

Scrambling through loose rocks   

On an old trail

All of a summer’s day.

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Learning from our history?

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Sir Winston Churchill

Forty-six years ago today the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1972 were enacted by the House over the veto of then President Nixon. We have been part of a pilot effort in Massachusetts working on the implications of Section 208, Areawide Water Quality Management Planning, while the Amendments were still known as the Muskie-Blatnik bill. We believe the nation's waters are cleaner than they would have been without the 1972, and subsequent, amendments. We also believe there are some critically important cautionary lessons to be learned, especially when we look at milestones that must be reached to minimize the negative effects of climate change on human beings.

does the St. Louis River meet standards as it enters Lake Superior?

Photo by J. Harrington

Here is the objective and the goals of Public Law 92-500 as enacted:

The objective of this Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters. In order  to  achieve this objective  it  is hereby declared  that,  consistent with the provisions of this Act—

"(1)  it is the national goal that the discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters be eliminated by 1985;

"(2)  it is the national goal that wherever attainable, an interim goal of water quality which provides for the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and provides for recreation in and on the water be achieved by July 1, 1983;..."

does the Mississippi River meet standards as it flows through Minneapolis?

Photo by J. Harrington

As far as we know, we have not come close to meeting either the 1983 goal nor the 1985 goal, and even less so the Act's objective. In fact, in Minnesota about 40% of the waters fail to meet standards. (We can no longer find any data on the EPA web site that provides comparable information at a nation scale.)

It's been 33 years since 1985 and 35 years since 1983. If we make progress toward keeping our green house gases at a level that keeps temperature increases at or below 1.5 ℃ with the same level of success we've met the water quality goals, our descendants will deservedly curse us.

We have seen little, if any, evidence that reaching the water quality or the climate change goals is technologically or economically unfeasible. It's not that we can't do it, it's that we won't do it. We're like the toddler who throws a tantrum when told NO! In reality, we find our approach to protecting the environment has about as much credibility as Senator McConnell's assertion that Social Security and Medicare, not tax cuts for the 1%, are to blame for the growing deficit. Greed is not only unseemly, it is hazardous to our health.

There It Is

By Jayne Cortez

My friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist

a leftist  a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will try to exploit you

absorb you  confine you

disconnect you  isolate you

or kill you

And you will disappear into your own rage

into your own insanity

into your own poverty

into a word a phrase a slogan a cartoon

and then ashes

The ruling class will tell you that

there is no ruling class

as they organize their liberal supporters into

white supremacist lynch mobs

organize their children into

ku klux klan gangs

organize their police into

killer cops

organize their propaganda into

a device to ossify us with angel dust

preoccupy us with western symbols in

african hair styles

inoculate us with hate

institutionalize us with ignorance

hypnotize us with a monotonous sound designed

to make us evade reality and stomp our lives away

And we are programmed to self-destruct

to fragment

to get buried under covert intelligence operations of

unintelligent committees impulsed toward death

And there it is

The enemies polishing their penises between

oil wells at the pentagon

the bulldozers leaping into demolition dances

the old folks dying of starvation

the informers wearing out shoes looking for crumbs

the life blood of the earth almost dead in

the greedy mouth of imperialism

And my friend

they don't care

if you're an individualist

a leftist  a rightist

a shithead or a snake

They will spray you with

a virus of legionnaire's disease

fill your nostrils with

the swine flu of their arrogance

stuff your body into a tampon of

toxic shock syndrome

try to pump all the resources of the world

into their own veins

and fly off into the wild blue yonder to

pollute another planet

And if we don't fight

if we don't resist

if we don't organize and unify and

get the power to control our own lives

Then we will wear

the exaggerated look of captivity

the stylized look of submission

the bizarre look of suicide

the dehumanized look of fear

and the decomposed look of repression

forever and ever and ever

And there it is

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Dot's connecting

without life, Earth would look much life its moon [Earthrise image credit NASA]

One of our long-standing complaints about main stream media [MSM] is the frequently poor job it does connecting the dots. MSM seems to be trained and educated to see and present everything without putting anything into a context. Let's not even begin to consider what MSM tries to present as fair and balanced coverage. Recently, through no effort of our own, we've been encountered a number of dots that we believe need connecting. Consider this a follow up to our short series on climate change behavior change checklists. Here are the five dots we see that are connected but not enough folks know it:

• We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe, warns UN
  
  
• New outlook on global warming: Best prepare for social collapse, and soon
  Ron Meador
  
  
• Don't despair: the climate fight is only over if you think it is
  Rebecca Solnit
  
  
• Leaders move past Trump to protect world from climate change
  
  
• BUSINESS AND THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS:
  Best practices to seize opportunity and maximise credibility
  
  

  

  SDGs align with the top 5 global medium-term risks identified in the WEF Global Risks Report 2016

  
  

Climate change is developing more rapidly and severely than the conservative estimates indicated. The effects may be more severe than anticipated. Giving up is not an option since it means we lose without even trying. Others are flowing around obstacles. There are markets to be won and profits to be made by responding to not only climate change but a number of other emerging issues that could make the world less sustainable for humanity. The options are lose-lose or win-win. Business, and politics, as usual is a losing strategy.

Our natural inclination is to be like Eeyore and look for the worst outcome (see Madore's piece). What we know we need to buy into is Solnit's perspective. Are you connecting any dots these days? Do they lead to a winning or a losing strategy? As a recovering planner, one of the dictums we remember from our days a a practicing planner is that "More of the same never solved a problem." The odds are really good that the earth will continue for quite some time. The question is whether it will do so with or without us humans.

Looking

Robert Kelly, 1935

Once when I read the funnies
I took my little magnifying glass
and looked too close.

Forms became colors and colors
were just arrays of dots
and between the dots I saw the rough bleak
storyless legend of the pulp paper
empty as the winter moon

and I dreaded it.
I had looked right through,
when I wanted a universe
that sustains
looker and looking and the seen
forever, detail after detail
never ending. And all I had found
was between. But between
had its own song:
Find it in the space between—

it is just as empty as it seems
but this blankness is your mother.

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