Searching for Dragons: La Vista

Blame it on The Boy

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 10:15:00 +0000

Well, I think I spoke a little too soon about the beauty of the snow and the gentile folk frolicking in the street. Although those things were present, it is hard to deny the damage that a moderate snowfall can do in a place like Barcelona, where people just aren't prepared for it. To start with, in our garden, the lettuce was severely damaged and the broad beans cracked at their stems under the weight of the snow! There goes 3 months of growing... and to think it would have been harvest time in a month. The onions were not affected, but the celery was pretty much gone and the artichokes took a beating.

This winter has been a little strange climate-wise. We have had much more rain than normal. Normally this is great, because we can then fill up the rainwater collection deposit under the house which would be enough to get us through the summer, which is typically pretty dry. We have had so much rain that they ground is water-logged and soggy. This means we can't plant the potatoes just yet, else they go putrid in the ground before sprouting. It also means the recently planted trees won't be duly challenged to thrust their roots into deeper ground in search of moisture, meanwhile supporting their above-ground height and helping prevent soil erosion as well. Anyway, we are hoping that things will start to dry out now and we can have a nice spring.

All this climate variability is ostensibly due to ENSO, or the El Niño Southern Oscillation, better known as just "El Niño", the Spanish word for "The Boy". ENSO is a quasi-periodic climate event which occurs every 3-7 years due to increased concentration of heat in the south-east Pacific ocean resulting in a major redistribution of tropical convective rainfall. The causality of El Niño and how it influences global climate are not well understood. Indeed, the phenomena was only reported a few years ago, so we are still researching and trying to better understand it. In any case, it seems to cause increased droughts, floods and other extreme weather.

Canada this year had much less snow than normal (at least in the areas I visited), Newfoundland, Quebec and Ontario. And, the Vancouver 2010 Olympics were seriously threatened by low snowfalls. Barcelona on the other hand has been stricken with unseasonable cold weather, rain upon rain culminating recently with this large, sudden snowfall. It has collapsed power lines, with many still in the dark, 3 days later.

But, like I say, we should not rush to judge this as evidence for or against "global warming" (more accurately, "climate change"). Weather is not the same as climate. The evidence for climate change is substantial, but it's not found in an informal census of remembered or reported weather. Humans are pattern seekers and we tend to see relationships between things even where they don't exist. For this reason we need to be rational about how we reach conclusions about the nature of things.

Peace,

Grant

Let it snow

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:05:00 +0000

Snow brings out the best in people here in Barcelona. Well, at least that's my experience. As I sit here writing this blog I look onto the hordes of people on the street below laughing, baguettes lodged under their arms, throwing snowballs, dogs barking playfully and running about freely in streets now vacant of traffic.

Snow in this part of Spain is a once-every-few-years type of thing. Although the roads are now officially treacherous, people don't mind. This amount of snow (50 cm at the higher elevations) is indeed rare, and these days amid the growing rhetoric of "climate change" people must resist the urge to cite an occurrence such as this as evidence for or against it. Granted, it will probably be used as 'proof' that there is no global warming. Some will accept that bland argument, others will reject it outright. It should be rejected outright on its own. It may be that this weather is a symptom of an ever changing planet, but taken alone as an argument for or against the well established theory of climate change, it is rendered meaningless. Taken together within the larger picture of increasing incidents of weather variability and, most especially with the now mounds of relatively long-term data that have been collected globally that show an anthropogenically changing climate, it can be significant. Climate change deniers are generally the non-scientific types, that is, superstitious, supernaturalists and frankly, irrational. I don't want to paint many of them with the same brush, but that is my observation of the frequency of such weak arguments.

Before climate change appeared on the public radar, any given weather event would be considered an 'act of god'. Funnily, you can still probably even insure your car under such a clause. Act of nature? Better. Nature's intentional vengeance for sinful humans? Decidedly no.

Now that I got that off my chest I 'm heading out to make snowman! :)

Peace,

Grant

Howard Zinn (1922-2010)

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:17:00 +0000

Howard Zinn was truly an inspiring man whom advocated always for peace and human rights best known for his seminal book, A People's History of the United States. His family and friends will surely miss him and many more will miss his insights. Here, is a great extended interview with him from 2008:

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=33&Itemid=74&jumival=247

And, his website:

http://howardzinn.org/default/

Peace,

Grant

The Known Universe

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:30:00 +0000

Science and Society

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:46:00 +0000

Arguably, science has contributed more to society through its intrinsic skepticism than any other thought process. Science is not ‘beakers and lasers and lab coats’ as society may perceive. Instead, science is a thought process. It is humanity’s rational method of describing and explaining our ambient natural surroundings and the laws of physics (often vaguely called ‘the environment’) through a lens of questioning curiosity. Science is a form of modern philosophy. It is the ultimate expression of what separates humans from our animal cousins, the ability to envision the concept of ‘future’ and to affect it. But, with this capacity comes a profound responsibility, one that we are just coming to accept. This responsibility I broadly describe as survival within wise limits. The survival of humanity, yes, but underscoring it with the knowledge that we ought not exist alone, but rather as a part of the Earth systems within which we have biologically and culturally evolved. Moreover, we must grant that although our ability to affect the environment is entropically grand, it is not unbounded, thus our optimism to uniquely steer the course of the natural history is incongruous with physics. One thing we can be sure of is that the Universe and the Earth within it existed long before us humans were able to begin to contemplate it, probably shortly after our discovery of controlled fire, which allowed us to consume a higher variety of nutritious, cerebral foods and to stay up at night, safe, warm and alone with our thoughts.

Nowadays science, through its discoveries, has become more esoteric and increasingly specialized. In the meantime, the human brain ever remains a generalist, adept at addressing many different tasks, from food preparation to philosophy, from elementary particles to the grandest scales of the Universe. This disparity is widening the epistemological gap between science and society, and correspondingly between scientists and global decision makers.

Science proceeds thoroughly and meticulously via reductionism to a rational conclusion that is necessarily testable and falsifiable. This long process of introspection is sometimes incompatible with the pace of decision-making at government or corporate levels, where many are affected. The most obvious contemporary case is that of Climate Change. In this case, society implores of science nothing less than to determine the future state of the biosphere and whether it will be habitable to humanity or not. The global scientific statement by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on this vital matter is firm:

Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values determined from ice cores spanning many thousands of years. The global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil fuel use and land use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture.¹

The report goes further to conclude:

Continued greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th century.¹

Very likely. That's the operative word. The words "very likely" in climatology are basically paramount to full affirmation. Nevertheless, in the nearly three years that has passed since the release of this statement, little has been done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sadly, should science wait for a more comprehensive consensus, we may enter a time when positive feedback mechanisms commence and further climate mitigation is no longer possible. The proverbial point of no return. This is why I say that our ability to affect the environment is “entropically” grand, meaning we can chaotically continue to emit greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere without acknowledging consequences, but to which end? Do we have the will to wield that power responsibly? The Earth is supremely indifferent to the affairs of humans. So, to ensure survival we would do best to adopt a precautionary approach when warranted by scientific analyses as in the current case with Climate Change.

Peace,

Grant

More about Cap and Trade

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:27:00 +0000

Please visit and read this in-depth article by James Hanson about the climate problem. It's worth the read.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2010/20100112_PeopleVersusCap.pdf

Peace,
Grant

The Story of Cap and Trade

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 13:11:00 +0000

Find out why "cap and trade" is really a lot of hot air.

http://storyofstuff.com/capandtrade/

What we really need are REAL cuts to carbon emissions, not just moving the carbon to another industry. Cap and Trade is attractive in principal, but it leaves open too many loop holes that circumvent actual carbon emissions cuts.

THE solution is explained very well by the well known former NASA scientist who first got the world thinking about antropogenic effects on climate, back in the 80's, James Hanson. Back then, environmental solutions were focused on acid rain and pollution. While these are worthy causes and have been largely dealt with in some ways, climate change is much bigger and global in scope.

See James Hanson interview here:

Tom Freidman has the right idea about making an Apollo sized effort to transform the global economy to be about creating alternative (soon to be called standard, we hope) energies, such as wind, solar, tidal etc... These will not save our sorry asses, but they will mitigate society's collapse. What about all those workers laid off from automobile factories? Well, they all have useful, transferrable skills such that can used to create a better more efficient energy infrastructure. But we mustn't be fooled into a false sense of techno-triumphalism, thinking that technology is the answer. It's part of the answer, but technology does not equate to energy. We need to scale-back and re-localize our economy. Localization not globalization. Localism not globalism. This doesn't mean that we can't promote international trade, but should we make trade the very purpose of our existence? Should we define ourselves simply as "consumers"? What about citizens? ...or humans?

Peace,
Grant

Eating Animals and Industrial Organic

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:06:00 +0000

To be honest I have been having trouble eating animals lately. This has been bothering me most notably since mid-August when we returned to Catalonia. Anyway, to start off I realized it was too hard for me to just give up meat... err... cold turkey... so I started by avoiding mammals. Now, I just eat outside my taxonomical class. To tell you the truth, chicken doesn't do it for me anymore either... but so far, I still haven't switched to tofurkey.

My recent ruminations (so to speak) on eating animals have really be the result of wanting to eat and live more sustainably, not per se for any particular moral rejection of eating them. It's much harder here in Spain than it North America, I would say. Here, if you don't eat "meat", they serve you "lamb"... ;) When it comes down to it, I would much prefer to eat a hunted wild animal than one that has been mass produced like a cheap piece of plastic or fabric. That's the essence of factory farming... bottom line. As Jonathan Safran Foer's recent book taught me, when it comes to eating animals, we'd do good to ask the question where it's all coming from, and in Western society at least, the majority of beef, poultry and fish is in fact factory farmed. What does that mean? Isn't "Factory Farm" a contradiction in terms? Yes. If you look at how meat is marketed, it still portrays the utopian farm life, with your typical grazing animals and chicken coops. But, in reality this is not so. It is far far from the truth. In reality animals are herded into massive abattoirs, or, in the case of chickens, either left on floors together by the 10's of thousands in their own filth, pumped with steroids, hormones and antibiotics to technologically fix the diseases that results from their abnormal lives or for "broilers", (chickens you eat, as opposed to just their eggs), in cages too small to turn around. Cows are fed a diet of corn, even though their stomachs have evolved to only digest grass. This also means we need to technologically fix them. Rather than working with nature, we again oppose it.

This leads me to the book I am currently reading, "The Omnivore's Dilemma", another great book by Michael Pollan. Pollan follows the food of the typical American diet from seed to plate, in three different ways, the industrial, the pastoral and the hunter/gatherer. He rightly decries fast food in favor of slow food, he suggests avoiding any advertised food and as a rule of thumb trying to avoid buying food with more than 5 ingredients. It's harder than you think.

“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants”.

Pollan's treatise on "Organic" in which he notes does not mean what you think... if you think it means, "no synthetic chemicals" or "peacefully grazing animals". At least in the US (and I can only imagine from the artificially cheap price, the same in Europe), animals are only required "access to the outdoors", a seemingly deliberately vague statement that allows manufacturers the liberty to determine when and if their animals live natural lives.

Simply stated, Organic doesn't necessarily mean "Sustainable" (another overused and often misused word), especially if you happen to buy a 70 calorie Organic lettuce produced 4000 miles away... it consuming in the meantime some 4600 calories of petroleum to get on your plate (shipping, refrigeration, etc...). In any case, the true definition of "organic" is any member of a large class of chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon. But, it's meaning has come to mean something different in terms of Organic Food.

All I advocate in most of these blogs is to focus on the local, because whether we like it or not, our age of cheap oil, when all this unsustainability was possible, is coming to an end in the coming years and decades. It's up to you to ensure that you local realm of control is in check.

In the words of Hughes Mearns:

As I was sitting in my chair,

I knew the bottom wasn't there,

Nor legs nor back, but I just sat,

Ignoring little things like that.

Peace,

Grant

Full Circle

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:20:00 +0000

Evolution is the key to why humans think in terms of "full circle", a concept that Dan espouses well. Of course not all of us think circular. We are fed gigabytes of "green" concepts that are the farthest thing from it. Instead of "thinking green", humanity needs to "Think Full Circle", to modify its way of thinking with regard to our relationship to the Earth and the "changing circumstances".

Now, I'm not a mystic. I'm not superstitious. I'm a skeptic. I am a naturalist. My wish (using this word with caution, since a wish... is just wishful Thinking) is for civilization to think full circle, even if the loop is measured in times longer than we can comprehend. You can't run the linear system we have now, on finite resources.

Anyway, to use a recent example of how I am phasing in full circle thinking. At night, when the hens are going to sleep it's fun to watch how they will, little by little, make their way back to their perch for the night, one after the other in a quasi-societal heirarchy, some more dominant than others. They sleep all together, for safety, warmth or just plain fraternity. For them, the day has come full circle, and the pattern repeats, just as it does for us.

Likewise, the relationship between the garden (aka. the earth) and the chickens is... starting an an arbitrary point in the circle, they lay eggs, we eat them, we give them what we don't want from the harvest, they eat it, they produce eggs with the molecules in the garden harvest, we eat those molecules again in their eggs, compost the shells and other veggies, the compost fertilizes the garden, and so on.

The full circle is full of holes, though. There are things coming in and out of the circle all the time. In fact, there are many circles on the Earth, overlapping, interacting in unfathomable numbers of combinations. The Universe has been contemplated for ages.

Until we realize that an individual's realm of influence is actually quite small. We are all living organisms, with no preferential direction. Our small influence, interacting with circumstances, etches a path into what we have come to call the future.

The Earth doesn't care about us! (sorry to be so dispassionate :) ) We may make gestures to care about the Earth, but it really has no meaning beyond sustainment of life in the biosphere. No matter what our actions (above all, intustrial civilization's actions) have on the biosphere, the Earth will be fine without us, not better off, not worse off, just off. James Lovelock describes well through his Gaia theory the emergent nature of the planet.

Happy New Year!

Peace,

Grant

The Orange Tree

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:38:00 +0000

Well, the end of an era has come. We finally decided to cut down the orange tree in our garden that, though bearing lots of fruit, gave only bitter and sour tasting oranges and were, thus, simply not edible. If you are going to have a tree in your garden, it should bear good fruit. We thought about first doing a technique called grafting, which involves attaching a 'good' branch to the old tree, but not only was this done a few decades ago by my wife's grandfather without much luck, the tree was also in a bad position, growing up through a concrete structure that is there. Now that it's gone we do notice the concrete is badly cracked and in need of repair. It will now serve as the structure to support the growth of grapes and, if all goes well, kiwifruit. The growth around the structure caused the tree to pick up infections where its branches bent around the concrete. It was also surrounded in parasitic vines that were slowly killing it anyway... perhaps this is what lead to the bad oranges.

Anyway, in its place there will be, two kiwi trees and more grapes vines, both of which should wrap nicely around the concrete structure. We will plant another orange tree, off to the side, and hope that it does much better. The missing tree sure changes the look of the garden. It brings in a lot more light to the area where the chickens are. Good news for them, especially as things are cooling off a bit these days... about 10 degrees or so. More later... but now it's garlic planting time and Julio is looking to the moon for guidance.

Peace and happy holidays!

Grant

Climate Talks in Barcelona

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:26:00 +0000

The Status Quo

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:57:00 +0000

Here is a recent conversation with the eminent linguist, philosopher and social dissident, Dr. Noam Chomsky, who discusses, among other things, democracy, media, the current economic situation, geopolitics and human nature.

In my opinion, Noam Chomsky is the rightful recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. He is the world's most cited living author and has been advocating for peace his whole life. He has published an astounding 95 books, and yet his publications have never been cited in the New York Times. Hmmm... I wonder...?

This is essential watching. So, steep yourselves a cup of tea and enjoy his insightful wisdom about the current state of affairs.

Peace,
Grant

50 Million Farmers

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:41:00 +0000

Here's a rather long article by Richard Heinberg.

Peace,

Grant

Editor's Note: This is the abbreviated text of a lecture by Richard Heinberg delivered to the E. F. Schumacher Society in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on October 28, 2006

There was a time not so long ago when famine was an expected, if not accepted, part of life. Until the 19th century — whether in China, France, India or Britain — foodcame almost entirely from local sources and harvests were variable. In good years, there was plenty—enough for seasonal feasts and for storage in anticipation of winter and hard times to come; in bad years, starvation cut down the poorest and the weakest—the very young, the old, and the sickly. Sometimes bad years followed one upon another, reducing the size of the population by several percent. This was the normal condition of life in pre-industrial societies, and it persisted for thousands of years.

Today, in America, such a state of affairs is hard to imagine. Food is so cheap and plentiful that obesity is a far more widespread concern than hunger. The average mega-supermarket stocks an impressive array of exotic foods from across the globe, and even staples are typically trucked from hundreds of miles away. Many people in America did go hungry during the Great Depression, but those were times that only the elderly can recall. In the current regime, the desperately poor may experience chronic malnutrition and may miss meals, but for most the dilemma is finding time in the day’s hectic schedule to go to the grocery store or to cook. As a result, fast-food restaurants proliferate: the fare may not be particularly nutritious, but even an hour’s earnings at minimum wage will buy a meal or two. The average American family spent 20 percent of its income on food in 1950; today the figure is 10 percent.

This is an extraordinary situation; but because it is the only one that most Americans alive today have ever experienced, we tend to assume that it will continue indefinitely. However there are reasons to think that our current anomalous abundance of inexpensive food may be only temporary; if so, present and future generations may become acquainted with that old, formerly familiar but unwelcome houseguest—famine.

The following are four principal bases (there are others) for this gloomy forecast.

The first has to with looming fuel shortages. This is a subject I have written about extensively elsewhere, so I shall not repeat myself in any detail. Suffice it to say that the era of cheap oil and natural gas is coming to a crashing end, with global oil production projected to peak in 2010 and North American natural gas extraction rates already in decline. These events will have enormous implications for America’s petroleum-dependent food system.

Modern industrial agriculture has been described as a method of using soil to turn petroleum and gas into food. We use natural gas to make fertilizer, and oil to fuel farm machinery and power irrigation pumps, as a feedstock for pesticides and herbicides, in the maintenance of animal operations, in crop storage and drying, and for transportation of farm inputs and outputs. Agriculture accounts for about 17 percent of the U.S. annual energy budget; this makes it the single largest consumer of petroleum products as compared to other industries. By comparison, the U.S. military, in all of its operations, uses only about half that amount. About 350 gallons (1,500 liters) of oil equivalents are required to feed each American each year, and every calorie of food produced requires, on average, ten calories of fossil-fuel inputs. This is a food system profoundly vulnerable, at every level, to fuel shortages and skyrocketing prices. And both are inevitable.

An attempt to make up for fuel shortfalls by producing more biofuels—ethanol, butanol, and biodiesel—will put even more pressure on the food system, and will likely result in a competition between food and fuel uses of land and other resources needed for agricultural production. Already 14 percent of the U.S. corn crop is devoted to making ethanol, and that proportion is expected to rise to one quarter, based solely on existing projects-in-development and government mandates.

The second factor potentially leading to famine is a shortage of farmers. Much of the success of industrial agriculture lies in its labor efficiency: far less human work is required to produce a given amount of food today than was the case decades ago (the actual fraction, comparing the year 2000 with 1900, is about one seventh). But that very success implies a growing vulnerability. We don’t need as many farmers, as a percentage of the population, as we used to; so, throughout the past century, most farming families—including hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions that would have preferred to maintain their rural, self-sufficient way of life—were economically forced to move to cities and find jobs. Today so few people farm that vital knowledge of how to farm is disappearing. The average age of American farmers is over 55 and approaching 60. The proportion of principal farm operators younger than 35 has dropped from 15.9 percent in 1982 to 5.8 percent in 2002. Of all the dismal statistics I know, these are surely among the most frightening. Who will be growing our food twenty years from now? With less oil and gas available, we will need far more knowledge and muscle power devoted to food production, and thus far more people on the farm, than we have currently.

The third worrisome trend is an increasing scarcity of fresh water. Sixty percent of water used nationally goes toward agriculture. California’s Central Valley, which produces the substantial bulk of the nation’s fruits, nuts, and vegetables, receives virtually no rainfall during summer months and relies overwhelmingly on irrigation. But the snowpack on the Sierras, which provides much of that irrigation water, is declining, and the aquifer that supplies much of the rest is being drawn down at many times its recharge rate. If these trends continue, the Central Valley may be incapable of producing food in any substantial quantities within two or three decades. Other parts of the country are similarly overspending their water budgets, and very little is being done to deal with this looming catastrophe.

Fourth and finally, there is the problem of global climate change. Often the phrase used for this is “global warming,” which implies only the fact that the world’s average temperature will be increasing by a couple of degrees or more over the next few decades. The much greater problem for farmers is destabilization of weather patterns. We face not just a warmer climate, but climate chaos: droughts, floods, and stronger storms in general (hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, hail storms)—in short, unpredictable weather of all kinds. Farmers depend on relatively consistent seasonal patterns of rain and sun, cold and heat; a climate shift can spell the end of farmers’ ability to grow a crop in a given region, and even a single freak storm can destroy an entire year’s production. Given the fact that modern American agriculture has become highly centralized due to cheap transport and economies of scale (almost the entire national spinach crop, for example, comes from a single valley in California), the damage from that freak storm is today potentially continental or even global in scale. We have embarked on a century in which, increasingly, freakish weather is normal.

I am not pointing out these problems, and their likely consequences, in order to cause panic. As I propose below, there is a solution to at least two of these dilemmas, one that may also help us address the remaining ones. It is not a simple or easy strategy and it will require a coordinated and sustained national effort. But in addition to

averting famine, this strategy may permit us to solve a host of other, seemingly unrelated social and environmental problems.

Intensifying Food Production

In order to get a better grasp of the problems and the solution being proposed, it is essential that we understand how our present exceptional situation of cheap abundance came about. In order to do that, we must go back not just a few decades, but at least ten thousand years.

The origins of agriculture are shrouded in mystery, though archaeologists have been whittling away at that mystery for decades. We know that horticulture (gardening) began at somewhat different periods, independently, in at least three regions—the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Central America. Following the end of the last Ice Age, roughly 12,000 years ago, much of humanity was experiencing a centuries-long food crisis brought on by the over-hunting of the megafauna that had previously been at the center of the human diet. The subsequent domestication of plants and animals brought relative food security, as well as the ability to support larger and more sedentary populations.

As compared to hunting and gathering, horticulture intensified the process of obtaining food. Intensification (because it led to increased population density—i.e., more mouths to feed), then led to the need for even more intensification: thus horticulture (gardening) eventually led to agriculture (field cropping). The latter produced more food per unit of land, which enabled more population growth, which meant still more demand for food. We are describing a classic self-reinforcing feedback loop.

As a social regime, horticulture did not represent a decisive break with hunting and gathering. Just as women had previously participated in essential productive activities by foraging for plants and hunting small animals, they now played a prominent role in planting, tending, and harvesting the garden—activities that were all compatible with the care of infants and small children. Thus women’s status remained relatively high in most horticultural societies. Seasonal surpluses were relatively small and there was no full-time division of labor.

But as agriculture developed—with field crops, plows, and draft animals—societies inevitably mutated in response. Plowing fields was men’s work; women were forced to stay at home and lost social power. Larger seasonal surpluses required management as well as protection from raiders; full-time managers and specialists in violence proliferated as a result. Societies became multi-layered: wealthy ruling classes (which had never existed among hunter-gatherers, and were rare among gardeners) sat atop an economic pyramid that came to include scribes, soldiers, and religious functionaries, and that was supported at its base by the vastly more numerous peasants—who produced all the food for themselves and everyone else as well. Writing, mathematics, metallurgy, and, ultimately, the trappings of modern life as we know it thus followed not so much from planting in general, as from agriculture in particular.

As important an instance of intensification as agriculture was, in many respects it pales in comparison with what has occurred within the past century or so, with the application of fossil fuels to farming. Petroleum-fed tractors replaced horses and oxen, freeing up more land to grow food for far more people. The Haber-Bosch process for synthesizing ammonia from fossil fuels, invented just prior to World War I, has doubled the amount of nitrogen available to green nature—with nearly all of that increase going directly to food crops. New hybrid plant varieties led to higher yields. Technologies for food storage improved radically. And fuel-fed transport systems enabled local surpluses to be sold not just regionally, but nationally and even globally. Through all of these strategies, we have developed the wherewithal to feed seven times the population that existed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. And, in the process, we have made farming uneconomical and unattractive to all but a few.

That’s the broad, global overview. In America, whose history as an independent nation begins at the dawn of the industrial era, the story of agriculture comprises three distinct periods:

The Expansion Period (1600 to 1920): Increases in food production during these three centuries came simply from putting more land into production; technological change played only a minor role.

The Mechanization Period (1920 to 1970): In this half-century, technological advances issuing from cheap, abundant fossil-fuel energy resulted in a dramatic increase in productivity (output per worker hour). Meanwhile, farm machinery, pesticides, herbicides, irrigation, new hybrid crops, and synthetic fertilizers allowed for the doubling and tripling of crop production. Also during this time, U.S. Department of Agriculture policy began favoring larger farms (the average U.S. farm size grew from 100 acres in 1930 to almost 500 acres by 1990), and production for export.

The Saturation Period (1970-present): In recent decades, the application of still greater amounts of energy have produced smaller relative increases in crop yields; meanwhile an ever-growing amount of energy is being expended to maintain the functioning of the overall system. For example, about ten percent of the energy in agriculture is used just to offset the negative effects of soil erosion, while increasing amounts of pesticides must be sprayed each year as pests develop resistances. In short, strategies that had recently produced dramatic increases in productivity became subject to the law of diminishing returns.

While we were achieving miracles of productivity, agriculture’s impact on the natural world was also growing; indeed it is now the single greatest source of human damage to the global environment. That damage takes a number of forms: erosion and salinization of soils; deforestation (a strategy for bringing more land into cultivation); fertilizer runoff (which ultimately creates enormous “dead zones” around the mouths of many rivers); loss of biodiversity; fresh water scarcity; and agrochemical pollution of water and soil.

In short, we created unprecedented abundance while ignoring the long-term consequences of our actions. This is more than a little reminiscent of how some previous agricultural societies—the Greeks, Babylonians, and Romans—destroyed soil and habitat in their mania to feed growing urban populations, and collapsed as a result.

Fortunately, during the past century or two we have also developed the disciplines of archaeology and ecology, which teach us how and why those ancient societies failed, and how the diversity of the web of life sustains us. Thus, in principle, if we avail ourselves of this knowledge, we need not mindlessly repeat yet again the time-worn tale of catastrophic civilizational collapse.

The 21st Century: De-Industrialization

How might we avoid such a fate?

Surely the dilemmas we have outlined above are understood by the managers of the current industrial food system. They must have some solutions in mind.

Indeed they do, and, predictably perhaps, those solutions involve a further intensification of the food production process. Since we cannot achieve much by applying more energy directly to that process, the most promising strategy on the horizon seems to be the genetic engineering of new crop varieties. If, for example, we could design crops to grow with less water, or in unfavorable climate and soil conditions, we could perhaps find our way out of the current mess.

Unfortunately, there are some flaws with this plan. Our collective experience with genetically modifying crops so far shows that glowing promises of higher yields, or of the reduced need for herbicides, have seldom been fulfilled. At the same time, new genetic technologies carry with them the potential for horrific unintended consequences in the forms of negative impacts on human health and the integrity of ecosystems. We have been gradually modifying plants and animals through selective breeding for millennia, but new gene-splicing techniques enable the re-mixing of genomes in ways and to degrees impossible heretofore. One serious error could result in biological tragedy on an unprecedented scale.

Yet even if future genetically modified commercial crops prove to be much more successful than past ones, and even if we manage to avert a genetic apocalypse, the means of producing and distributing genetically engineered seeds is itself reliant on the very fuel-fed industrial system that is in question.

Is it possible, then, that a solution lies in another direction altogether—perhaps in deliberately de-industrializing production, but doing so intelligently, using information we have gained from the science of ecology, as well as from traditional and indigenous farming methods, in order to reduce environmental impacts while maintaining total yields at a level high enough to avert widespread famine?

This is not an entirely new idea (as you all well know, the organic and ecological farming movements have been around for decades), but up to this point the managers of the current system have resisted it. This is no doubt largely because those managers are heavily influenced by giant corporations that profit from centralized industrial production for distant markets. Nevertheless, the fact that we have reached the end of the era of cheap oil and gas demands that we re-examine the potential costs and benefits of our current trajectory and its alternatives.

I believe we must and can de-industrialize agriculture. The general outline of what I mean by de-industrialization is simple enough: this would imply a radical reduction of fossil fuel inputs to agriculture, accompanied by an increase in labor inputs and a reduction of transport, with production being devoted primarily to local consumption.

Once again, fossil fuel depletion almost ensures that this will happen. But at the same time, it is fairly obvious that if we don’t plan for de-industrialization, the result could be catastrophic. It’s worth taking a moment to think about how events might unfold if the process occurs without intelligent management, driven simply by oil and gas depletion.

Facing high fuel prices, family farms would declare bankruptcy in record numbers. Older farmers (the majority, in other words) would probably choose simply to retire, whether they could afford to or not. However, giant corporate farms would also confront rising costs—which they would pass along to consumers by way of dramatically higher food prices.

Yields would begin to decline—in fits and starts—as weather anomalies and water shortages affected one crop after another.

Meanwhile, people in the cities would also feel the effects of skyrocketing energy prices. Entire industries would falter, precipitating a general economic collapse. Massive unemployment would lead to unprecedented levels of homelessness and hunger.

Many people would leave cities looking for places to live where they could grow some food. Yet they might find all of the available land already owned by banks or the government. Without experience of farming, even those who succeeded in gaining access to acreage would fail to produce much food and would ruin large tracts of land in the process.

Eventually these problems would sort themselves out; people and social systems would adapt—but probably not before an immense human and environmental tragedy had ensued.

I wish I could say that this forecast is exaggerated for effect. Yet the actual events could be far more violent and disruptive than it is possible to suggest in so short a summary.

Examples and Strategies

Things don’t have to turn out that way. As I have already said, I believe that the de-industrialization of agriculture could be carried out in a way that is not catastrophic and that in fact substantially benefits society and the environment in the long run. But to be convinced of the thesis we need more than promises—we need historic examples and proven strategies. Fortunately, we have two of each.

In some respects the most relevant example is that of Cuba’s Special Period. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba lost its source of cheap oil. Its industrialized agricultural system, which was heavily fuel-dependent, immediately faltered. Very quickly, Cuban leaders abandoned the Soviet industrial model of production, changing from a fuel- and petrochemical-intensive farming method to a more localized, labor-intensive, organic mode of production.

How they did this is itself an interesting story. Eco-agronomists at Cuban universities had already been advocating a transition somewhat along these lines. However, they were making little or no headway. When the crisis hit, they were given free rein to, in effect, redesign the entire Cuban food system. Had these academics not had a planwaiting in the wings, the nation’s fate might have been sealed.

Heeding their advice, the Cuban government broke up large, state-owned farms and introduced private farms, farmer co-ops, and farmer markets. Cuban farmers began breeding oxen for animal traction. The Cuban people adopted a mainly vegetarian diet, mostly involuntarily (Meat eating went from twice a day to twice a week). They increased their intake of vegetable sources of protein and farmers decreased the growing of wheat and rice (Green Revolution crops that required too many inputs). Urban gardens (including rooftop gardens) were encouraged, and today they produce 50 to 80 percent of vegetables consumed in cities.

Early on, it was realized that more farmers were needed, and that this would require education. All of the nation’s colleges and universities quickly added courses on agronomy. At the same time, wages for farmers were raised to be at parity with those for engineers and doctors. Many people moved from the cities to the country; in some cases there were incentives, in others the move was forced.

The result was survival. The average Cuban lost 20 pounds of body weight, but in the long run the overall health of the nation’s people actually improved as a consequence. Today, Cuba has a stable, slowly growing economy. There are few if any luxuries, but everyone has enough to eat. Having seen the benefit of smaller-scale organic production, Cuba’s leaders have decided that even if they find another source of cheap oil, they will maintain a commitment to their new, decentralized, low-energy methods.

I don’t want to give the impression that Cubans sailed through the Special Period unscathed. Cuba was a grim place during these years, and to this day food is far from plentiful there by American standards. My point is not that Cuba is some sort of paradise, but simply that matters could have been far worse.

It could be objected that Cuba’s experience holds few lessons for our own nation. Since Cuba has a very different government and climate, we might question whether its experience can be extrapolated to the U.S.

Let us, then, consider an indigenous historical example. During both World Wars, Americans planted Victory Gardens. During both periods, gardening became a sort of spontaneous popular movement, which (at least during World War II) the USDA initially tried to suppress, believing that it would compromise the industrialization of agriculture. It wasn’t until Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden in the White House lawn that agriculture secretary Claude Wickard relented; his agency then began to promote Victory Gardens and to take credit for them. At the height of the movement, Victory Gardens were producing roughly 40 percent of America’s vegetables, an extraordinary achievement in so short a time.

In addition to these historical precedents, we have new techniques developed with the coming agricultural crisis in mind; two of the most significant are Permaculture and Biointensive farming (there are others—such as efforts by Wes Jackson of The Land Institute to breed perennial grain crops—but limitations of time and space require me to pick and choose).

Permaculture was developed in the late 1970s by Australian ecologists Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in anticipation of exactly the problem we see unfolding before us. Holmgren defines Permaculture as “consciously designed landscapes that mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fiber, and energy for provision of local needs.” Common Permaculture strategies include mulching, rainwater capture using earthworks such as swales, composting, and the harmonious integration of aquaculture, horticulture, and small-scale animal operations. A typical Permaculture farm may produce a small cash crop but concentrates largely on self-sufficiency and soil building. Significantly, Permaculture has played an important role in Cuba’s adaptation to a low-energy food regime.

Biointensive farming has been developed primarily by Californian John Jeavons, author of How to Grow More Vegetables. Like Permaculture, Biointensive is a product of research begun in the 1970s. Jeavons defines Biointensive (now trademarked as “Grow Biointensive”) farming as:

. . . an organic agricultural system that focuses on maximum

yields from the minimum area of land, while simultaneously

improving the soil. The goal of the method is long-term

sustainability on a closed-system basis. Because biointensive is

practiced on a relatively small scale, it is well suited to anything

from personal or family to community gardens, market gardens,

or minifarms. It has also been used successfully on small-scale

commercial farms.

Like Homgren and Mollison, Jeavons has worked for the past three decades in anticipation of the need for the de-industrialization of food production due to accumulating environmental damage and fossil fuel depletion. Currently Biointensive farming is being taught extensively in Africa and South America as a sustainable alternative to the globalized monocropping. The term “biointensive” suggests that what we are discussing here is not a de-intensification of food production, but rather the development of production along entirely different lines. While both Permaculture and Biointensive have been shown to be capable of dramatically improving yields-per-acre, their developers clearly understand that even these methods will eventually fail us unless we also limit demand for food by gradually and humanely limiting the size of the human population.

In short, it is possible in principle for industrial nations like the U.S. to make the transition to smaller-scale, non-petroleum food production, given certain conditions. There are both precedents and models.

However, all of them imply more farmers. Here’s the catch—and here’s where the ancillary benefits kick in.

The Key: More Farmers!

One way or another, re-ruralization will be the dominant social trend of the 21st century. Thirty or forty years from now—again, one way or another—we will see a more historically normal ratio of rural to urban population, with the majority once again living in small, farming communities. More food will be produced in cities than is the case today, but cities will be smaller. Millions more people than today will be in the countryside growing food.

They won’t be doing so the way farmers do it today, and perhaps not the way farmers did it in 1900.

Indeed, we need perhaps to redefine the term farmer. We have come to think of a farmer as someone with 500 acres and a big tractor and other expensive machinery. But this is not what farmers looked like a hundred years ago, and it’s not an accurate picture of most current farmers in less-industrialized countries. Nor does it coincide with what will be needed in the coming decades. We should perhaps start thinking of a farmer as someone with 3 to 50 acres, who uses mostly hand labor and twice a year borrows a small tractor that she or he fuels with ethanol or biodiesel produced on-site.

How many more farmers are we talking about? Currently the U.S. has three or four million of them, depending on how we define the term.

Let’s again consider Cuba’s experience: in its transition away from fossil-fueled agriculture, that nation found that it required 15 to 25 percent of its population to become involved in food production. In America in 1900, nearly 40 percent of the population farmed; the current proportion is close to one percent.

Do the math for yourself. Extrapolated to this country’s future requirements, this implies the need for a minimum of 40 to 50 million additional farmers as oil and gas availability declines. How soon will the need arise? Assuming that the peak of global oil production occurs within the next five years, and that North American natural gas is already in decline, we are looking at a transition that must occur over the next 20 to 30 years, and that must begin approximately now.

Fortunately there are some hopeful existing trends to point to. The stereotypical American farmer is a middle-aged, Euro-American male, but the millions of new farmers in our future will have to include a broad mix of people, reflecting America’s increasing diversity. Already the fastest growth in farm operators in America is among female full-time farmers, as well as Hispanic, Asian, and Native American farm operators.

Another positive trend worth noting: Here in the Northeast, where the soil is acidic and giant agribusiness has not established as much of a foothold as elsewhere, the number of small farms is increasing. Young adults—not in the millions, but at least in the hundreds—are aspiring to become Permaculture or organic or Biointensive farmers. Farmers markets and CSAs are established or springing up throughout the region. This is somewhat the case also on the Pacific coast, much less so in the Midwest and South.

What will it take to make these tentative trends the predominant ones? Among other things we will need good and helpful policies. The USDA will need to cease supporting and encouraging industrial monocropping for export, and begin supporting smaller farms, rewarding those that make the effort to reduce inputs and to grow for local consumption. In the absence of USDA policy along these lines, we need to pursue state, county, and municipal efforts to support small farms in various ways, through favorable zoning, by purchasing local food for school lunches, and so on.

We will also require land reform. Those millions of new farmers will need access to the soil, and there must be some means for assisting in making land available for this purpose. Conservation land trusts may be useful in this regard, and we might take inspiration from Indian Line Farm, here in the northeast.

Since so few people currently know much about farming, education will be essential. Universities and community colleges have both the opportunity and responsibility to quickly develop programs in small-scale ecological farming methods—programs that also include training in other skills that farmers will need, such as in marketing and formulating business plans.

Since few if any farms are financially successful the first year or even the second or third, loans and grants will also be necessary to help farmers get started.

These new farmers will need higher and stabilized food prices. As difficult as it may be even to imagine this situation now, food rationing may be required at some point in the next two or three decades. That quota system needs to be organized in such a way as to make sure everyone has the bare essentials, and to support the people at the base of the food system—the farmers.

Finally, we need a revitalization of farming communities and farming culture. A century ago, even in the absence of the air and auto transport systems we now take for granted, small towns across this land strove to provide their citizens with lectures, concerts, libraries, and yearly chautauquas. Over the past decades these same towns have seen their best and brightest young people flee first to distant colleges and then to the cities. The folks left behind have done their best to maintain a cultural environment, but in all too many cases that now consists merely of a movie theater and a couple of video rental stores. Farming communities must be interesting, attractive places if we expect people to inhabit them and for children to want to stay there.

If We Do This Well

We have been trained to admire the benefits of intensification and industrialization. But, as I’ve already indicated, we have paid an enormous price for these benefits—a price that includes alienation from nature, loss of community and tradition, and the acceptance of the anonymity and loss of autonomy implied by mass society. In essence, this tradeoff has its origins in the beginnings of urbanization and agriculture.

Could we actually regain much of what we have lost? Yes, perhaps by going back, at least in large part, to horticulture. Recall that the shift from horticulture to agriculture was, as best we can tell, a fateful turning point in cultural history. It represented the beginning of full-time division of labor, hierarchy, and patriarchy.

Biointensive farming and Permaculture are primarily horticultural rather than agricultural systems. These new, intelligent forms of horticulture could, then, offer an alternative to a new feudalism with a new peasantry. In addition, they emphasize biodiversity, averting many of the environmental impacts of field cropping. They use various strategies to make hand labor as efficient as possible, minimizing toil and drudgery. And they typically slash water requirements for crops grown in arid regions.

We have gotten used to a situation where most farmers rely on non-farm income. As of 2002 only a bit less than 60 percent of farm operators reported that their primary work is on the farm. Only 9 percent of primary operators on farms with one operator, and 10 percent on farms with multiple operators, report all of their income as coming from the farm.

The bad side of this is that it means it’s hard to make a living farming these days. The good side is that we don’t have to think of farming as an exclusive occupation. As people return to small communities and to farming, they could bring with them other interests. Rather than a new peasantry that spends all of its time in drudgery, we could look forward to a new population of producers who maintain interests in the arts and sciences, in history, philosophy, spirituality, and psychology—in short, the whole range of pursuits that make modern urban life interesting and worthwhile.

Moreover, the re-ruralization program I am describing could be a springboard for the rebirth of democracy in this nation. I do not have to tell this audience how, over the past few years, democracy in America has become little more than a slogan. In fact this erosion of our democratic traditions has been going on for some time. As Kirkpatrick Sale showed in his wonderful book Human Scale, as communities grow in size, individuals’ ability to influence public affairs tends to shrink. Sociological research now shows that people who have the ability to influence policy in their communities show a much higher sense of satisfaction with life in general. In short, the re-ruralization of America could represent the fulfillment of Thomas Jefferson’s vision of an agrarian democracy—but without the slaves.

If we do this well, it could mean the revitalization not only of democracy, but of the family and of authentic, place-based culture. It could also serve as the basis for a new, genuine conservatism to replace the ersatz conservatism of the current ruling political elites.

What I am proposing is nothing less than a new alliance among environmental organizations, farmers, gardeners, organizations promoting economic justice, the anti-globalization movement, universities and colleges, local businesses, churches, and other social organizations. Moreover, the efforts of this alliance would have to be coordinated at the national, state, and local level. This is clearly a tall order. However, we are not talking about merely a good idea. This is a survival strategy.

It may seem that I am describing and advocating a reversion to the world of 1800, or even that of 8,000 BC. This is not really the case. We will of course need to relearn much of what our ancestors knew. But we have discovered a great deal about biology, geology, hydrology, and other relevant subjects in recent decades, and we should be applying that knowledge—as Holmgren, Mollison, Jeavons, and others have done—to the project of producing food for ourselves.

Cultural anthropology teaches us that the way people get their food is the most reliable determinant of virtually all other social characteristics. Thus, as we build a different food system we will inevitably be building a new kind of culture, certainly very different from industrial urbanism but probably also from what preceded it. As always before in human history, we will make it up as we go along, in response to necessity and opportunity.

Perhaps these great changes won’t take place until the need is obvious and irresistibly pressing. Maybe gasoline needs to get to $10 a gallon. Perhaps unemployment will have to rise to ten or twenty or forty percent, with families begging for food in the streets, before embattled policy makers begin to reconsider their commitment to industrial agriculture.

But even in that case, as in Cuba, all may depend upon having another option already articulated. Without that, we will be left to the worst possible outcome.

Rather than consigning ourselves to that fate, let us accept the current challenge — the next great energy transition — as an opportunity not to vainly try to preserve business as usual, the American Way of Life that, we are told, is not up for negotiation, but rather to re-imagine human culture from the ground up.

Tree: A Life Story

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 11:06:00 +0000

This interview with David Suzuki is essential to see if you care about the Earth and how we interact with the natural world.

Peace,

Grant

Searching for "Dragons"... a world of wonder

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:33:00 +0000

I receive weekly science news emails from the David Suzuki Foundation. Just last week I got a great one: a scanned pdf file from a magazine in 1956 of an article by Rachel Carson. It is called, "Help your child to wonder", and its message is just as pertinent today as it was 53 years ago.

Here it is: carsonwonder2.pdf

This article got me thinking again about a blog I wanted to write for some time now... about the little things you can find in nature if you just look closely enough. Now, we tend to think of "nature" like we do for "environment", just somewhere, out there, intangible. But, we are as much a part of the natural world as is "nature", it's just that we have surrounded ourselves with so much technology and electronics that we think of ourselves as in little isolated bubbles unaffected by the natural world. Well, as you will read in this article, we are in danger of losing our sense of wonder about nature. We are still living in a Cartesian world, where we are situated as the users and usurpers of nature, not part of it and subject to its ebb and flow, as Dan aptly points out.

In Spanish, lizards are colloquially known as "dragons", so to borrow Dan's metaphor for ancient wisdom, I set out a while back to search for these elusive dragons, while rediscovering my repressed sense of wonder.

Just below our balcony there is a little enclosed area where we keep the hens and partridges.

Here, there is an old wooden door kept locked with a skeleton key. Upon this door, near the hinges there hide dragons. These dragons are small. perhaps about 4 inches long, but they dominate their world of insects and spiders.

You have to look closely and carefully to find them, else they slither away faster than you can react. In the summer months, at least. The dragons come out mostly in the summer, and are much more active and faster moving in the heat. Being cold-blooded they thrive upon the heat. They need it to survive. In the summer evenings they can be seen briskly crawling quickly up and down and side to side along the walls of buildings chasing smaller insects and finding food for their young. They stick to the walls using little minature suction cups and claws on their feet. They seem to defy gravity. From the perspective of these dragons, what, to us seems like a smooth stucco wall, is in fact filled with grooves and bumps and is easy to grip. They move stealthfully after their prey, but if you are patient and observent you can see them snatch a juicy fly out of mid-air and munch it up in a few seconds. In the winter, the dragons go into semi-hibernation, I would say. This is my observation. I'm not a biologist, so I can't say I read this in a book, but I know one thing... they are easy to catch in the winter. They are silient, but sluggish, preserving their energy until the spring when the bounty of life begins to multiply once again. This is the ebb and flow of the seasons. The ebb and flow of heat and light from the sun that provoke the ebb and flow of life.

Here in northern Spain, we are at about the latitude of New York City, the extreme southern tip of Canada (Pelee Island), Northern California, the Northern tip of Honshu, or Beijing. So, our seasons are quite pronounced. While we don't get much snow in the winter, that is more a function of the moderate Mediterranean climate, rather than the latitude. It can get quite chilly in the winter. But, the dragons survive. It's at this time, that a curious, child-like mind of wonder can reach out and gently pick up one of these beautiful creatures, being careful not to squeeze too hard. Although they are the masters of their domain, their world of insects and spiders, even a small child has the power to easily kill one without realizing it. These dragons are beautiful, but fragile, like nature itself.

Nature abounds wherever you look... you just have to look. Outside the old wooden door, I have found there are more dragons, swallow nests, bats, cats, fruits, vegetables, a microcosm of nature itself. Living. If you just open the door, there is nature, the whole world, waiting for you to explore it, waiting for you to wonder. It's more important to teach ourselves how to wonder than to learn simple, boring facts. This could very well be the problem with the whole western education system, fact after fact crammed into your brain, limited standardized testing without being taught how to learn, to wonder.

The best thing about searching for dragons is... the searching!

Peace,

Grant

Anna Roig i l'Ombre de ton chien

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:07:00 +0000

Tonight, Anna and I are going to see a Catalan band called "Anna Roig i l'ombre de ton chien". Which translates to "Anna Roig and the shadow of your dog". But, here's the thing... this is actually a mix of French and Catalan. Like I mentioned in the blog "Le Soleil", Catalan and French are closely related and share some words. Chien is not one of them. The Catalan word for dog is, in fact "gos". But, anyway, like I find sometimes over here, sometimes language is spoken as a blend of two or more languages. I don't mean just randomly mixed, of course, but it may be common to speak some sentences in one and some sentences in another, depending on the persons involved and with what they are most comfortable. Here, in Barcelona, you are more likely to hear people speaking a Catalan and Spanish interchangeably. Near, the border with France, more a blend between Catalan and French, or among other languages of the region, such as Occitan. In some ways and between some peoples, the languages are mutually comprehensible. This is how languages have evolved and spread throughout antiquity, by people speaking and expressing in their own way, what they mean. Another interesting example I came across was how, between Catalan, French and Spanish, there is a consistent difference in the spelling of some words. For instance, the English word "flour" is "Farina" en Català, "Farine" en Français, and "Harina" en Español.

Another example is:

English: Bean
Català: Fava
Français: Fève
Español: Haba

Ostensibly, the reason for this is due to the Arabic influence on the Spanish language, given the similarity of the Arabic letter "F" to the Latin letter "H". For 700 years much of modern Spain and Portugal was governed by Moorish peoples from the North west of Africa (modern Morocco, Algeria...) until the Christian Reconquest starting in 1492. So, when Latin-based characters were again used after the Reconquista, the letter had already become integrated into the Spanish lexicon. The full story may be much more complex that this, but I'll leave it to the reader to research it more. Portuguese was also heavily influenced by Arabic in many various and complex ways that I don't fully understand, but, by which I am eternally fascinated. Catalonia, much of the Northern parts of modern Spain and France, were not as influenced by the Arabic, due, at least in part to geographical and morphological features of the Earth that formed natural borders, such as the Ebro River (in the case of Catalonia) and the Pyrenees Mountains (in the case of France). On the map to the left, Catalonia and France are coloured grey. If you travel to the south of Spain, which I highly recommend, you will see this culture (eg. flamenco music and dance) still vibrant, alive and well in cities such as Granada, Sevilla and Córdoba. Granada, for example has a Moorish Quarter where you can buy different teas and items you might associate with Morocco.

So, where was I going with all this? Tonight, we are going to see Anna Roig. The following cute video clip is mostly in the Catalan language, but with French words and expressions, the title being, "Je t'aime"... Jo t'estimo... Yo te quiero... I love you. Music is truly without borders.

Peace,
Grant

The Mediterranean Undercurrent

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:52:00 +0000

For the past few years I have been studying the Mediterranean Undercurrent. At the Strait of Gibraltar, there is an exchange of waters. Warm, salty Mediterranean Water flows out into the Atlantic Ocean, and cooler, fresher Atlantic Water flows in at the surface maintaining the volume of the Mediterranean Sea. Why is the Mediterranean so salty? While, it's not the saltiest sea in the world, it is quite saltier than the oceans because of higher evaporation due to the intense sunlight. Why is water salty at all, you might ask? That's because of the slow accumulation of different mineral salts that run into the seas or oceans from rivers, eroded off rocks over long geological times.

The Mediterranean Undercurrent flows out under the surface in pulses. It then cascades down over the continental shelf between the Iberian peninsula (Portugal, Spain, Gibraltar and Andorra) and settles out between 500 and 1500 m depth, moving westward guided by sea floor topography and it's own buoyancy. The Earth's rotation produces an effect known as the Coriolis force, that coerces the current northward along the continental shelf of the Iberian peninsula as far north as Ireland and even Iceland, where it is all the time mixing with the Atlantic waters while cooling off and being diluted. We set out to image this current using seismic waves.

This technique is a rather new tool to oceanography, but it has proved to be incredibly adept at imaging layers within the ocean. For decades, seismic techniques have been used to image layers within the solid earth by observing how sound reflects differently from different layers (different rock types). Basically what they are, are boundaries of different physical properties (different densities and elastic properties) such that sound travels differently through them and reflects to the surface at different angles and with different intensities. By measuring these varying intensities, seismologists are able to "map" the subsurface by "listening" to how long sound takes to travel from the surface, to an interface and back.

As our ship steamed along at about 6 nauts, we fired off an air gun at the back, which produces a bubble of air as the source of the sound. Further behind the ship we towed a long cable filled with hydrophones, basically highly sensitive microphones, which record the reflected sound. On-board there is a marine biologist. He is continuously on the lookout for whales and other marine mammals that may venture near the ship. Indeed they do on a regular basis, and we often see dolphins surfing on the bow wave. The air gun produces a pretty significant sound that no doubt is heard by the dolphins and whales. It doesn't seem to bother them however, but we take precautions anyway. In fact, given the long distances that sound can travel through water (since it is a lower-loss medium than air), whales can communicate with one another over thousands of kilometres. With the increasing ship transport due to globalization, the amount of noise in the ocean from ship engines has increased tremendously over the years such that some people believe it is affecting whale migration routes because they are not able to communicate as well over the background hum of diesel engines.

Anyway, we are out there to study the Mediterranean Undercurrent and to calibrate the new seismic oceanography method against conventional oceanographic techniques that explore the ocean using dropped probes which measure temperature, conductivity (thus, salinity) and pressure. While these provide a great measure of the vertical variability of ocean property contrasts, they are usually only dropped about every 1 km or so. So, the seismic method really helps out here because we can provide horizontal resolution on the order of about 10 m.

In the end, the image looks like this:
First of all, I should explain... number 1, these colours are artificial. The ocean, of course doesn't really look like this. Well, not visually, if you could see it at such dark depths. What you are looking at here is a vertical slice of the ocean, as seen by reflected seismic waves. The grey at the bottom is the sea floor, the yellow is what's known as the North Atlantic Deep Water, water of the North Atlantic in the Bathypelagic and Abyssal Zones. The red represents the Mediterranean Water and the green, above is the North Atlantic Central Water. The colours are totally arbitrary and have no meaning except to show the boundaries between the different water masses (these are seen as the darker patchy colours throughout, that define the ocean structure). While, these water masses have been known for some time by probing the ocean with instruments, we see that the seismic wave amplitude also changes from shallow to deep. This is due to the property contrasts between the different waters. Because the Mediterranean Water is warmer and saltier than the others, sound reflects to a higher or lower degree. The amplitude of the seismic wave is a measure of the amount of reflection (as opposed to transmission through the water). If you had an uniform water of the same density and temperature, none of the sound that we generate at the surface would reflect and we wouldn't see anything at all! But, because of the differences of the properties of the water masses, we can create an image of the physical structure of the water. Notice, how in the Mediterranean Water (red zone), there is a large lens type structure. This is what is know as a "Meddy", or an eddy (whirlpool) composed of Mediterranean Water, hence the name. They are formed as the Mediterranean Undercurrent turns north at Cape St. Vincent, the extreme southwest edge of Portugal. Here, part of the Mediterranean Water starts to spin and translate roughly westward. This structure is about 80 km wide and 1.5 km thick (so, this image is not to scale, it's actually much thinner, vertically). It spins slowly in a sort of solid body rotation.

We are developing this new method of Seismic Oceanography to try to introduce seismics into the well-established field of physical oceanography. There are a number of hurdles to overcome, but we think it adds a new tool to physical oceanography that may tell us something about the large scale structure of the ocean and in comparison with historical data, maybe something about the temporal variability of ocean currents, which may influence opinion on climate change. You can find my paper on the Mediterranean Undercurrent, here.

Peace,
Grant

But... what about coal?

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:57:00 +0000

That guy Bush, famously said, "Do you realize we have 250 million years of coal?" Stumbling on his words once again, he was really told to say, "250 years", but nonetheless surprising coming from someone who thinks the world is 6000 years old. But, really? 250 years? Well, yes and no. Like, depleting conventional oil stocks we have used up all the "good stuff", the high grade anthracite, and we have even plateaued on our bituminous coal production. That leaves, sub-bituminous coal and, finally, lignite... after that, it's pretty much, just rocks. That is, there's less bang for the buck, the lower the grade. So, yes, we might have 250 years left, but it won't be clean and it won't be cheap. So, we should really start thinking about bringing alternatives into the public discussion. I have no doubt that coal will be used, and it does have a place, but I think we will be disappointed with what it can do for us, as a civilization, compared to how we have organized our societies on cheap conventional fossil fuels. There is a firm place in the future for all types of alternative energy, wind, solar, tidal, hydro, wave action, fusion (and maybe even conventional fission, if we want to keep the lights on), but we should also be making "other arrangements", as James Howard Kunstler says. That is, we should be reorganizing our cities, finding better, more efficient ways to carry doing the things we are doing. But, we should also keep in mind, that there will be no solution that will make things, "like oil was". So, we should also try to pull ourselves psychologically from the addition to oil. That may be the hardest of all.

I just spoke with Dan and it looks like he will have an interview with Richard Heinberg, one of the foremost authorities on Peak Oil. You can check him out here:

as well as Jim Kunstler, here:

Peace,

Grant

Le Soleil

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:32:00 +0000

Well, a few weeks ago Anna and I arrived back in sunny Spain. And, sunny it is! I knew it was going to be a little challenge getting used to the temperature change over St. John's (Fog City), Newfoundland, but I didn't think it would be this bad. Here in Catalonia we have had record temperatures again. Not so much record highs, but records for continuous days of blistering heat. We spent the first few days going to the beach, but I quickly found out that that was even worse. There is no shade and, well it's just too hot for my fair Canadian skin. So, we decided to head to the mountains instead for our last days of vacation before getting back to work on Monday. We went to the little Pyreneean town of Puigcerdà, just on the French border, where the daytime highs were more like 25-27 degrees, and in the nights it dipped to a comfortable sleeping temperature of 13 degrees.

I called this blog "Le Soleil" because of our daily excursions into France, where we visited two solar power plants. But, let me explain a little about the region first, it's quite interesting. Puigcerdà was founded by King Alfonso I of Aragon, Count of Barcelona in 1177, although it was inhabited in pre-Romanic times. It is part of the region known as "La Cerdanya", in Catalan, or "La Cerdagne" in French. In the middle ages, the region belonged to the country of Catalonia and was constantly in the middle of fighting between France and Spain. During the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, to end the 30 Years War, between France and Spain, the Cerdanya region was divided up almost equally, with a part remaining in Spain, and a part in France. Interestingly, due to the wording of the treaty, only villages were divided up, not cities. As such, the city of Lliva (which is not a city in a modern sense - population: 1388) became an "exclave" of Spain and an "enclave" of France. It is an island territory of Spain surrounded by France, about 2 km from the border. You would scarcely notice this distinction today, however, since the European Union borders are so open - there is no stopping at borders as there is between, say Canada and the United States. In any case, cultural boundaries are not as evident anyway. The Catalan language doesn't stop at the border of Catalonia and France, nor does any language, really, follow any given political border. Many people in this part of the south of France, in fact speak Catalan as a mother tongue and identify strongly with Catalan culture and history. You can get by equally with French or Catalan, here. Having said that, the two languages resemble one another greatly, as would be expected, anyway. The example I like to give when I speak about Catalan is the verb form, "I speak" (though there are many other examples). French: "Je parle"; Catlan: "Jo parlo". In contrast, Spanish speakers say: "Yo hablo". In any case, the Catalan language is alive and well in Catalonia, some of the bordering regions in France (Roussilion) as well as being the official langauge of Andorra, the nearby principality. Curiously, Catalan is also spoken south of Catalonia in the Spanish region of Valencia, on the Balearic Islands and in a little town of Alghero on the Italian island of Sardinia.

So, for a couple of days we explored the history of La Cerdanya, meanwhile stumbling upon some modernity, which got me thinking more about the Sun and our visceral attachment to it. Because of the high number of days of sunlight in the Cerdanya valley, there is the world's largest solar furnace. in Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via and, in nearby Targassonne, the Themis solar power tower.

The Odeillo solar furnace, is more of an experimental contraption used to bring metals to high temperatures and to forge different alloys. It is experimental in nature, but does demonstrate the potential of harnessing the sun in another way than solar panels to generate electricity. Like the Themis solar power tower, water can be boiled and driven into a turbine to generate electicity. The water is not destroyed in the process and it doesn't require any fancy, fragile technology, as solar panels do. But, of course you need a good source of water nearby. It does show the power of the sun and for anyone who ever burned things with a magnifying glass as a kid, this process is similar, except it uses a parabolic mirror (or set of adjustable mirrors) to accomplish the task. Themis works in a similar fashion, with a series of mirrors on the ground focusing the light and heat up to the top of the tower to create steam, thus turning a turbine in a magnetic field, thereby forcing electrons down a wire... et voilà... electricity!

In the south of Spain there is a similar project, called "La Platforma Solar de Almeria", which illustrates the need for sustainable renewable energy sources.

According to investigative reporter and blogger George Monbiot, in his book, Heat, if we could cover half of the world's deserts with solar panels, or other solar generators of electricity, we could supply 18 times as much energy (216 times as much electricity) as the world now uses. Aside from the political and corporate constraints to starting a renewable energy future (and they are significant), there are a couple of problems with wind, solar, wave and tidal power - they are not constant. When the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine, there is no electricity produced. Unfortunately, electricity cannot be easily stored. You can't just save up a big vat of electrons, so you need other ways. So, for example, when there is an excess of power generated, you could use that to create hydrogen gas from sea water, to be stored and used later in hydrogen fuel cells to generate electricity again. Or, you could simply use the energy to pump water up a mountain to a reservoir, where, in times of low production, the flood gates could be opened, turbines spun and more energy produced. Monbiot explains lightheartedly how

"During the 1990 World Cup semi-final, for example, demand rose by 1.6 GW [1.6 thousand million watts] within a couple of minutes at half-time and at full-time, and rose by 2.8 GW after the penalty shoot-out . . . because most of the population got up to put the kettle on . . . I like to picture a man in a booth with his television on. As the match draws to an end, the phone rings. 'It's the last penalty. Open the gates.' He pulls down a great red lever and the water roars out of the upper reservoir just as the ball thumps into the corner of the net"

But, this example underscores the problem of electricity demand. While renewable generation is not constant, neither is demand. These are serious challenges, but they are not insurmountable.

Peace,
Grant

Back of the Envelope

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:27:00 +0000

I've been flying a lot recently. It has made me think. So, I sat down one and tried to remember all the flights I took in my life. I went through and carefully came up with a list of each flight. It took a while and I forgot some but eventually filled in the gaps. Before I decided to count the flights I have taken, I made a guess... maybe 80 flights in my life... 100? Well, it turns out I have taken 153 flights! Now, I am sure there are people that have taken many more, but still, it seriously gave me pause for thought. 153 flights, I wonder how many times around the world that is? Or, how much CO2 I have personally released into the atmosphere?

So, I sat down again the other day and did a "back of the envelope calculation". Ok, well, I actually used a spreadsheet, which is a way more efficient and organized way to manipulate that much data. But, the results of the simple arithmetic were eye opening.

Since 1996, so far I have taken 153 flights, which translates into:

292,690 km (182,931 miles)
over 7.3 trips around the world
24,364 L (6,412 gal) of jet fuel
or, 153 barrels of crude oil - a dump truck full of fuel!
which cost me over $10,000 USD (just for the jet fuel burned)
which has a mass of 17,000 kg (37,400 lbs)
equal to 149,600 McDonald's quarter pounders ("pre-cooked weight", of course!)
the energy I was personally responsible for burning released 1 trillion joules
or, 250 billion calories! Note to self: call Weight Watchers!
This is the energy in about 250 tons of TNT
or, the equivalent of a magnitude 4.8 earthquake
or, 1.6% of the energy in the bomb which, destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
while adding 54,000 kg (118,800 lbs) of CO2 to the atmosphere.

Of course, this is just the energy I have used. Me. Just, one pretty typical Occidental guy, who, believe it or not, still considers himself an "environmentalist", whatever meaning that has these days. This calculation just takes into account the energy I have used in jet fuel only. Not to mention, the amount I have burned in cars over the years, or the fuel burned indirectly through the manufacture of the stuff I have bought over the years.

Peace,

Grant

"Doomers"

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:53:00 +0000

I was reading Dan's blog the other day called "Our World Is Ending..." and I was thinking about how people perceive all my rants and so forth about peak oil or climate change, human greed and corruption, etc... And, it can get pretty depressing if you look around and see all the bad stuff. There's plenty of it. I think there are a lot of changes that can be made in the world for the better, including the western world, and I probably complain a lot about the so called project of civilization. But, I'm not a "doomer". I'm actually pretty optimistic. I'm not optimistic that we will be able to continue on doing things the way we're doing them regarding our access to cheap oil. And, I think there will be some major discontinuities coming in the world because of our deep dependance on that access to cheap oil. A big part of me however, welcomes those changes. Such as, getting back to a simpler way of life, pruning our competitive edge a little, being happy with what we have and being in tune with nature and our local communities. Maybe coming realities will force me to adjust my thinking on that, and I reserve the right to change my mind as more facts become available. However, I think we can benefit (when all's said and done) from a world without cheap oil.

Something to think about... the natural world

In any case, that's peak oil... I'm actually not optimistic that we will do anything substantial to stop climate change. Not, that we shouldn't try. We can. It is possible, but I just don't think we have the will, as a civilization, I mean... The majority of us (or, at least the ones in control) are too myopic. Of course, I personally do a lot to reduce my carbon dioxide emissions. But, like I have said before (and it's not a cop out) it's the governments and corporations that need to take the lead on this. Afterall, they are the oligarchs of society. But, it's up to us citizens to pressure them to do that. Social change comes in baby steps (usually). That can come through reducing our demand for consumer goods. We don't have to be a "consumer society". D emocracy doesn't end when you mark your X.

I think the post peak oil world can be better in many ways... in the spirit of Transition Towns, an inititiave in Ireland and the UK that is putting forth a better way, a local way. Also, check out Post Peak Oil Living, where you can register to do courses that will inform you and prepare you for a life without cheap oil.

So, while I know there will be discontinuities and I assert that we won't be able to sustain this fast paced life as we know it, I remain optimistic that post peak oil living can be preferable to living in a world of plentiful oil. The keys are learning how to grow and preserve your own food, having access to clean drinking water and friends, family and things that keep us together, give us an outlet of expression, such as music, art, science and philosophy.

You may have noticed that I put up a couple of 'widgets' on the right of the blog. One is an up-to-date oil price graph. The other is a weekly show called the "Kunstler Cast", by author James Howard Kunstler. Jim, along with Duncan, its host like to talk about, among other things, suburbia, peak oil, art, social issues. It's a really well done show and fun to listen to also. Check it out here. There is a new episode every Thursday.

Peace,

Grant

Michael Jackson, king of pop culture

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:55:00 +0000

I must admit my first reaction upon hearing about the death of Michael Jackson, was not profound sorrow, nor joy, but cynicism on how it all will be portrayed in the mainstream media. Michael Jackson was this, Michael Jackson was that... anything to grab the ratings. But, the grand irony of this all is how it was the media, the paparazzi, tabloid culture that drove him to his death. He lived a life without freedom, without choice, in a house run by a dominant father who physically and mentally abused him, how he oh so sadly was led to believe that he would be better off, "de-negrified" (although his change in skin colour was really due to vitiligo), thinking in the deep mindset of an anorexic that, "life is really not worth living, so I will slowly waste away to nothing".

Happy and Sad

Michael Jackson was a great performer, a prolific song writer and despite his tormented life, a kind, caring human being. He loved children for one simple reason, children didn't mock him. They loved him back. Because, in spite of his many fans, I would argue his detractors far out-weighed them. You see, Michael Jackson was like the fat, nerdy, anti-social (what have you) kid with glasses in grade school, whom the others find just too easy to tease and ridicule, because that takes the attention away from their own faults and imperfections. He was our "Wacko Jacko", "a great performer, but simply weird", said CNN.

People are so quick to believe the remotest of rumors without any proof. Why do people believe weird things? We believe them because we want to. Take that rumor from yesterday, for example, that Michael Jackson died "totally bald". Come on, just give us something to talk about, that's it! The information age? How about the "gossip age"? What is it with humanity, anyway? Popular Culture? Oh I see... Is there some gene in us that makes us want to HATE, to have someone to blame for OUR problems? How quickly a lie becomes the truth! Too bad the autopsy won't reveal the real reason for his death... our preoccupation with celebrity in America.

And mother always told me be careful of who you love And be careful of what you do 'cause the lie becomes the truth -from Billie Jean, 1982

Rest in Peace Mr. Jackson,
Grant

Life, Inc.

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:06:00 +0000

Life Inc. The Movie from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

The Garden - update

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:55:00 +0000

While we wait for the buds to turn into leaves here in St. John's, Julio, the farmer that works on our land in Catalonia, is busy working his magic. He recently emailed us a few photos he took of the garden and the new hens he installed. The hens' eggs will be a welcome addition when we return in August as well as the fresh fruits and vegetables.

Onions and beans (background by fence), garlic (right, foreground)

Tomatoes, just starting (under bamboo supports to be used for vines to climb up)

Strawberries (foreground), potatoes (mid), lettuce and Julio (background)

5 hens in their coop

Peace,
Grant

Iceberg hunting

sfdwindpath.lavista@gmail.com (Grant) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:10:00 +0000

Anna and I went hunting on the weekend... iceberg hunting. Being in St. John's, Newfoundland for a few more months, we thought it would be great to try to see some of these rare, beauties of nature. So, we rented a car and made our way up and down the extreme east coast of Newfoundland, an area known as "Iceberg Alley". From about now until the end of June or thereabouts, icebergs that have cracked off the Arctic Ocean ice shelf migrate south until they melt, usually in some place a bit south of here.

Sometimes, like in about 1996 or so, I remember an iceberg that came aground near St. John's harbour. I was so big that once it settled there, it remained fixed for the rest of the summer and slowly melted, meanwhile creating a little micro-climate (left) in the eastern Avalon region (a few degrees colder!). This year, we haven't seen anything so massive and imposing yet, but we did, still see some impressive mountains of ice in the distance and some near-to-shore, so called "Bergy Bits", or "little" icebergs, with an above surface expression of approximately the size of a house!

We located these icebergs with the help of a neat website called icebergfinder.com. They give some information about icebergs in general, but notably, the location of icebergs identified either by eye, or even satellites. This information really narrows down your hunting locations. The best location by far, was in a place called Bay Bulls, just south of St. John's. We parked the car and hiked for about 45 minutes along the East Coast Trail to a wonderfully, secluded, peaceful place, where the sun shone brightly in the spring sky and not a cloud was in sight. The waves lapped along the craggy rocks and we sat in awe of our little Bergy Bit. Just, a little over a stone's throw away, we could see the iceberg gently rocking with the waves, with a beautiful green tint around it's base.

Newfoundland is well-known for its icebergs. Not surprisingly, in this globalized world, we even bottle Iceberg water. Note the hint of cynicism.

It's a spectacular thing to witness to tell you the truth, the iceberg. And, we did spend quite a while ruminating over and discussing how much longer we have until the last icebergs travel down the coast of Canada. Will we live to see a day when there are no more in the Northern hemisphere? At the rate of ice melting in the Arctic, and assuming at least some positive feedback mechanisms kick in, it is likely that by mid-century, the Arctic Ocean will be ice free in summer. That means, more or less, no icebergs. I'm not sure if Iceberg Alley has become more crowded over the years, but it would be an interesting thing to look into. I will probably look into this in more detail.

Peace,
Grant