Part Two of a pictorial account of our recent trip to Klamath Falls and Crater Lake.
Covering Sunday, 18th March, when we travelled from Klamath Falls up to Crater Lake and then Monday, 19th March, when we returned back from Klamath Falls to Merlin, OR.
Over the weekend Jean and I went up to Klamath Falls to spend two nights in the company of good friends, Trish and Andy, who live in Tucson, Az.
Last Sunday we all jumped into our car, a GMC Canyon with 4WD, and drove the 60-odd miles from Klamath Falls to the Rim Village Visitor Center.
Talk about impressive!
Here are three photographs that I took that are presented untouched, as in no post processing, that I wanted to share with you.
More details coming along, plus more photos for the next Picture Parade.
The first was taken during Saturday afternoon when Jean and I were on our way to Klamath Falls.
On the road to the high country!
The next photograph was taken when we stopped in one of the many ‘turnouts’ along the highway going up to Crater Lake. In fairness, the high snow bank was more a result of the snow blowers than falling snow … but still!
Rumour has it that it had snowed in these parts!
This last photograph, for today anyway, is the sight of Crater Lake!
Heavy snow affecting southwest England and parts of Wales is extending further east across parts of southern and central England. The snow will be accompanied by very strong easterly winds leading to blizzards and considerable drifting. From Thursday evening some places could also see ice build up due to freezing rain, mainly across southwest England. Long delays and cancellations of public transport seem very likely. Some roads may become blocked by deep snow, stranding vehicles and passengers. Long interruptions to power supplies and other utilities are likely to occur, along with possible damage to trees and other structures due to heavy snow or ice. This is an update to extend the amber area northeastwards.
Then here’s a photograph taken by Neil Kelly, a good friend from my Devon days, from half-way up Totnes High Street yesterday morning.
Or more specifically the cleansing power of indoor plants.
Back in 2012, I published a post called Clean, clean air. I am going to republish it tomorrow because Kelli sent me an email setting out that over on her blog site she has a much more comprehensive list of plants that purify the air.
We need fresh air to live a healthy and full life, but it’s fast becoming a luxury. Residents of many major cities around the world are plagued with smog and poisonous gases from motor vehicles, fossil fuel based power plants, and factories.
The good news is there is a simple solution you can use at home to make your air much cleaner. While air purifiers might help, air purifying plants are a great and natural way to clean your home’s air supply. In this article, you’ll learn more about air pollution, its dangers, and how to choose the best air purifying plants for your home.
Anyway, if you wish to read more then go here and, as I mentioned above, my post of August, 2012 will be republished tomorrow.
For just two days ago I published a post under the heading of Meat is Heat. It featured an essay by Michael Greger. He of the website NutritionFacts.org. That essay promoted the message:
What we eat may have more of an impact on global warming than what we drive.
Just cutting out animal protein intake one day of the week could have a powerful effect. Meatless Mondays alone could beat out a whole week of working from home and not commuting.
Many of you read that post.
On the same day that I published that post, George Monbiot published an article in The Guardian newspaper that offered the same message, albeit coming at it from a different place but nonetheless just as critically important.
Here it is republished with Mr. Monbiot’s very kind permission.
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We Can’t Keep Eating Like This
This is the question everyone should be attending to – where is the food going to come from?
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 11th December 2017
Brexit; the crushing of democracy by billionaires; the next financial crash; a rogue US president: none of them keeps me awake at night. This is not because I don’t care – I care very much. It’s only because I have a bigger question on my mind. Where is the food going to come from?
By mid-century there will be two or three billion more people on Earth. Any one of the issues I am about to list could help precipitate mass starvation. And this is before you consider how they might interact.
The trouble begins where everything begins: with soil. The UN’s famous projection that, at current rates of soil loss, the world has 60 years of harvests left, appears to be supported by a new set of figures. Partly as a result of soil degradation, yields are already declining on 20% of the world’s croplands.
Now consider water loss. In places such as the North China Plain, the central United States, California and north-western India – among the world’s critical growing regions – levels of the groundwater used to irrigate crops are already reaching crisis point. Water in the Upper Ganges aquifer, for example, is being withdrawn at 50 times its recharge rate. But, to keep pace with food demand, farmers in South Asia expect to use between 80 and 200% more water by 2050. Where will it come from?
The next constraint is temperature. One study suggests that, all else being equal, with each degree Celsius of warming the global yield of rice drops by 3%, wheat by 6% and maize by 7%. This could be optimistic. Research published in the journal Agricultural & Environmental Letters finds that 4°C of warming in the US Corn Belt could reduce maize yields by between 84 and 100%.
The reason is that high temperatures at night disrupt the pollination process. But this describes just one component of the likely pollination crisis. Insectageddon, caused by the global deployment of scarcely-tested pesticides, will account for the rest. Already, in some parts of the world, workers are now pollinating plants by hand. But that’s viable only for the most expensive crops.
Then there are the structural factors. Because they tend to use more labour, grow a wider range of crops and work the land more carefully, small farmers, as a rule, grow more food per hectare than large ones. In the poorer regions of the world, people with less than 5 hectares own 30% of the farmland but produce 70% of the food. Since 2000, an area of fertile ground roughly twice the size of the United Kingdom has been seized by land grabbers and consolidated into large farms, generally growing crops for export rather than the food needed by the poor.
While these multiple disasters unfold on land, the seas are being sieved of everything but plastic. Despite a massive increase in effort (bigger boats, bigger engines, more gear), the worldwide fish catch is declining by roughly 1% a year, as populations collapse. The global land grab is mirrored by a global seagrab: small fishers are displaced by big corporations, exporting fish to those who need it less but pay more. Around 3 billion people depend to a large extent on fish and shellfish protein. Where will it come from?
All this would be hard enough. But as people’s incomes increase, their diet tends to shift from plant protein to animal protein. World meat production has quadrupled in 50 years, but global average consumption is still only half that of the UK – where we eat roughly our bodyweight in meat every year – and just over a third of the US level. Because of the way we eat, the UK’s farmland footprint (the land required to meet our demand) is 2.4 times the size of its agricultural area. If everyone aspires to this diet, how do we accommodate it?
The profligacy of livestock farming is astonishing. Already, 36% of the calories grown in the form of grain and pulses – and 53% of the protein – are used to feed farm animals. Two-thirds of this food is lost in conversion from plant to animal. A graph produced last week by Our World in Data suggests that, on average, you need 0.01m2 of land to produce a gram of protein from beans or peas, but 1m2 to produce it from beef cattle or sheep: a difference of 100-fold.
It’s true that much of the grazing land occupied by cattle and sheep cannot be used to grow crops. But it would otherwise have sustained wildlife and ecosystems. Instead, marshes are drained, trees are felled and their seedlings grazed out, predators are exterminated, wild herbivores fenced out and other lifeforms gradually erased as grazing systems intensify. Astonishing places – such as the rainforests of Madagascar and Brazil – are laid waste to make room for yet more cattle.
Because there is not enough land to meet both need and greed, a global transition to eating animals means snatching food from the mouths of the poor. It also means the ecological cleansing of almost every corner of the planet.
The shift in diets would be impossible to sustain even if there were no growth in the human population. But the greater the number of people, the greater the hunger meat eating will cause. From a baseline of 2010, the UN expects meat consumption to rise by 70% by 2030 (this is three times the rate of human population growth). Partly as a result, the global demand for crops could double (from the 2005 baseline) by 2050. The land required to grow them does not exist.
When I say this keeps me up at night, I mean it. I am plagued by visions of starving people seeking to escape from grey wastes, being beaten back by armed police. I see the last rich ecosystems snuffed out, the last of the global megafauna – lions, elephants, whales and tuna – vanishing. And when I wake, I cannot assure myself that it was just a nightmare.
Other people have different dreams: the fantasy of a feeding frenzy that need never end, the fairytale of reconciling continued economic growth with a living world. If humankind spirals into societal collapse, these dreams will be the cause.
There are no easy answers, but the crucial change is a shift from an animal to a plant-based diet. All else being equal, stopping both meat production and the use of farmland to grow biofuels could provide enough calories for another 4 billion people and double the protein available for human consumption. Artificial meat will help: one paper suggests it reduces water use by at least 82% and land use by 99%.
The next Green Revolution will not be like the last one. It will rely not on flogging the land to death, but on reconsidering how we use it and why. Can we do this, or do we – the richer people now consuming the living planet – find mass death easier to contemplate than changing our diet?
As many of you know Jeannie and I changed our diet to a vegan diet some four weeks ago. It was done more for personal health reasons than from an awareness of the difference that it made to the future of the planet. But over the last few weeks we have had our eyes opened to the broader benefits of not eating meat. George Monbiot spells out the urgency of change for all of us, especially the richer people in the richer countries.
Am I hopeful that there will be a mass awareness of the need to change? I truly just don’t know. I will close be repeating Mr. Monbiot’s closing sentence.
Can we do this, or do we – the richer people now consuming the living planet – find mass death easier to contemplate than changing our diet?
A counter-intuitive approach to stopping global warning.
About three weeks ago, the 22nd November to be precise, I published a post under the title of Our Beautiful Planet. It included the reply to an email that I had sent to Prof. Bill Ripple or, to give him his full nomenclature, William J. Ripple, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon.
I reached out to the good Professor because I wanted to share with you what he thought were the top priorities in terms of how each and every one of us should change our lifestyle. You may well recall his reply (my emphasis):
Paul, Consider suggesting that if people want to help, they could have fewer children, reduce energy consumption such as driving autos and flying, avoid meat and eat mostly plant-based foods and avoid wasting food. Below are quotes from our paper. Bill
“It is also time to re-examine and change our individual behaviors, including limiting our own reproduction (ideally to replacement level at most) and drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources ….
… reducing food waste through education and better infrastructure; promoting dietary shifts towards mostly plant-based foods
I am keeping my fingers crossed that Dr. Michael Greger is happy for me to republish this article in full. For it so underlines what Professor Ripple is promoting. (Indeed, further browsing on the NutritionFacts website showed that articles are published under the Creative Commons License arrangement.)
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Image Credit: Andrew Walton / Unsplash. This image has been modified.
Meat is Heat: The Effects of Diet on Global Warming
One of the most prestigious medical journals in the world editorialized that climate change represents “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” Currently, chronic diseases are by far the leading cause of death. Might there be a way to combat both at the same time? For example, riding our bikes instead of driving is a win-win-win for the people, planet, and pocketbook. Are there similar win-win situations when it comes to diet?
As I discuss in my video Diet and Climate Change: Cooking Up a Storm, the foods that createthe most greenhouse gases appear to be the same foods that are contributing to many of our chronic diseases. Researchers found that meat (including fish), eggs, and dairy had the greatest negative environmental impact, whereas grains, beans, fruits, and vegetables had the least impact. And not only did the foods with the heaviest environmental impact tend to have lower nutritional quality, but they also had a higher price per pound. So, avoiding them gives us that triple win scenario.
The European Commission, the governing body of the European Union, commissioned a study on what individuals can do to help the climate. For example, if Europeans started driving electric cars, it could prevent as much as 174 million tonnes of carbon from getting released. We could also turn down the thermostat a bit and put on a sweater. But the most powerful action people could take is shift to a meat-free diet.
What we eat may have more of an impact on global warming than what we drive.
Just cutting out animal protein intake one day of the week could have a powerful effect. Meatless Mondays alone could beat out a whole week of working from home and not commuting.
A strictly plant-based diet may be better still: It’s responsible for only about half the greenhouse gas emissions. Studies have suggested that “moderate diet changes are not enough to reduce impacts from food consumption drastically.” Without significant reduction in meat and dairy, changes to healthier diets may only result in rather minor reductions of environmental impacts. This is because studies have shown that the average fossil energy input for animal protein production systems is 25 calories of fossil energy input for every 1 calorie produced—more than 11 times greater than that for grain protein production, for example, which is around 2 to 1.
Researchers in Italy compared seven different diets to see which one was environmentally friendliest. They compared a conventional omnivorous diet adhering to dietary guidelines; an organic omnivorous diet; a conventional vegetarian diet; an organic vegetarian diet; a conventional vegan diet; an organic vegan diet; and a diet the average person actually eats. For each dietary pattern, the researchers looked at carcinogens, air pollution, climate change, effects on the ozone layer, the ecosystem, acid rain, and land, mineral, and fossil fuel use. You can see in the video how many resources it took to feed people on their current diets, all the negative effects the diet is having on the ecosystem, and the adverse effects on human health. If people were eating a healthier diet by conforming to the dietary recommendations, the environmental impact would be significantly less. An organic omnivorous diet would be better still, similar to a vegetarian diet of conventional foods. Those are topped by an organic vegetarian diet, followed by a conventional vegan diet. The best, however, was an organic vegan diet.
The Commission report described that the barriers to animal product reduction are largely lack of knowledge, ingrained habits, and culinary cultures. Proposed policy measures include meat or animal protein taxes, educational campaigns, and putting the greenhouse gas emissions information right on food labels.
Climate change mitigation is expensive. A global transition to even just a low-meat diet, as recommended for health reasons, could reduce these mitigation costs. A study determined that a healthier, low-meat diet would cut the cost of mitigating climate change from about 1% of GDP by more than half, a no-meat diet could cut two-thirds of the cost, and a diet free of animal products could cut 80% of the cost.
Many people aren’t aware of the “cow in the room.” It seems that very few people are aware that the livestock sector is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. But that’s changing.
The UK’s National Health Service is taking a leading role in reducing carbon emissions. Patients, visitors, and staff can look forward to healthy, low-carbon menus with much less meat, dairy, and eggs. “Evidence shows that as far as the climate is concerned, meat is heat.”
The Swedish government recently amended their dietary recommendations to encourage citizens to eat less meat. “If we seek only to achieve the conservative objective of avoiding further long-term increases in [greenhouse gas] emissions from livestock, we are still led to rather radical recommendations” such as cutting current consumption levels in half in affluent countries—“an unlikely outcome if there were no direct rewards to citizens for doing so. Fortunately, there are such rewards: important health benefits…” By helping the planet, we can help ourselves.
There are tons of articles on diet and sustainability. It’s such an important topic that I may review the new science once every year or two. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture entered these waters, the meat industry appeared to freak out, and the Dietary Guidelines debate continues.
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Just reflect on the key message from this article (my emphasis):
“A study determined that a healthier, low-meat diet would cut the cost of mitigating climate change from about 1% of GDP by more than half, a no-meat diet could cut two-thirds of the cost, and a diet free of animal products could cut 80% of the cost.”
In other words, the most cost-effective way of mitigating climate change is to change to a diet free of animal products. Plus, it’s a damn sight healthier for you and me!
The reason I am posting this is simply because it might help someone else out there.
I go bike riding three times a week; weather permitting. Usually with a group from close by: Jim; Richie; Pam; Dordie; Ken.
Two days ago there was a break in the wet weather and Jim rang round seeing who was up for a ride. It turned out that four of us could go riding: Jim, Richie, Dordie and myself.
We decided to ride down Hugo Road, turn left onto the Merlin-Galice Road, follow that right to the end of Galice Road, very close to Junction 61 on Highway I-5, then turn left along Monument Drive, left again down past Grants Pass airport then back on to the Galice Road this time heading west back through Merlin to meet up with the foot of Hugo Road and then home.
All had gone very well for all four of us and it was a great ride and already we had some 14 miles under our belts.
Coming back into Merlin there is a railway track that crosses Galice Road. It has quite a wide shoulder to stop us cyclists having to mix it with the road traffic. But the tracks across that shoulder are not the smoothest of rides for a cyclist.
I did my best to cross the tracks square on but didn’t manage it. My front tyre slipped on the wet, metal rail and in that instant I lost my balance. Tried to recover but just a few yards later went down falling heavily on my left side and knocking myself out.
Luckily I was not riding on my own (Lesson Number One) and Jim and the others were quick to check me out. Jim said later that many drivers stopped including an off-duty medic who quickly summoned the ambulance.
But I was still out!
Dordie had the presence of mind to capture what was going on and it is her photographs that are in today’s post.
I continued being unconscious and later Jim said that I was out for eight minutes.
I was placed in a gurney with a neck brace because the medics were concerned that I might have damaged my neck.
Then carried across to the ambulance.
I only properly regained consciousness when the ambulance was speeding its way to Three Rivers Hospital in nearby Grants Pass.
The attendant caring for me in the ambulance remarked how lucky I was to have been wearing a safety helmet, for had I not been: “We wouldn’t be taking you to the accident ward!”
Plus, I realised that the other stroke of fortune is that I was riding with a group of friends. Had I been riding alone, something I have been doing, I might not have been helped in such a prompt and timely way.
So that’s my lesson for today! If you ride a bicycle don’t go out alone and never, ever ride without a safety helmet!
Oh, nearly forgot! Lesson Number Two: Don’t ride across wet railway tracks – Get off and walk!
UPDATE 14:20 Friday, 24th
In view of the many helpful ideas and suggestions I thought it would be good to present the follow information.
When I was discharged from the Emergency Department at our local Three Rivers Medical Center, I was given 4 pages of guidance and information. Page 3 of those notes included:
WHEN SHOULD I SEEK IMMEDIATE MEDICAL CARE?
You should get help right away if:
You have confusion or drowsiness.
You feel sick to your stomach (nauseous) or have continued, forceful vomiting.
You have dizziness or unsteadiness that is getting worse.
You have severe, continued headaches not relieved by medicine. Only take over-the-counter or prescription medicines for pain, fever, or discomfort as directed by your health care provider.
You do not have normal function of the arms or legs or are unable to walk.
You notice changes in the black spots in the center of the colored part of your enemy (pupil).
You have a clear or bloody fluid coming from your nose or ears.
You have a loss of vision.
Thought it might be useful including those.
Plus when I saw the pharmacist at our local RiteAid, he took a look at the wounds on my left knee and recommended a transparent dressing; namely a product called Tegaderm. It is a product made by 3M and more details may be read about it here.
That ‘we’ being all the animals, plants, insects and humans there are.
I’m not saying anything new and not making this plea for the first time in this place.
But just take a few minutes out of your busy day to reflect that for you, for me, for everyone wherever they are in the world, physically and culturally, doing nothing is not an option.
More of that in a minute.
First I want to share with you a few autumnal photographs of our home here in Oregon.
Below was taken at 9am on October 24th showing the mountain mist right down to the tops of our trees that mark the edge of our driveway from the house to our Hugo Road entrance.
Next, a sunrise photograph with the camera pointing to the East. The tree line follows the ridge of some hills the other side of Hugo Road. The picture taken on the 19th October at 07:20. Now a close-up of the remains of a very old tree trunk with the trees that border Bummer Creek, that runs through our land, just showing through the morning mist. Taken on the 24th October at 09:05.
Final photograph I wanted to share with you is this beautiful sight of the moon taken from our property at 16:05 on the 25th. October.
Regular readers will know that Jean and I are not believers in any religion; we are atheists. But to my way of thinking that puts even more pressure on me and Jean to try to make a difference. We do all that we can but there’s no doubt that we can do more.
Yesterday, I referred to Bill Ripple, or to give him his full signature: William J. Ripple, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon.
I sent Bill an email:
Dear Bill (and forgive the over familiarity if that offends),
I am a Brit, just turned 73, living with my beautiful wife, Jean, London-born as I was, down in Merlin, Oregon.
We live on 13 wonderful acres of rural property with 6 dogs (down from 12 when we moved here 5 years ago) and 4 horses, the majority of whom are ex-rescues.
I am the author of the blog Learning from Dogs and want to publish a post highlighting that viewpoint article. Because I believe with every neuron left in my ageing brain that the political changes that this world so urgently needs can only come when 99.9% of the public are screaming out “enough is enough”!
But there’s another saying that comes to mind, the one about being the change you want to see or something like that.
Is there information anywhere online that spells out, almost in words of one syllable, what lifestyle changes each of us can and need to commit to today? Changes that are as appropriate for elderly authors living in the country as young people seeking their first job or those up to their necks in working and raising families?
For that is what I want to publish on my blog!
If it would be easier for me to make an appointment to call you and take notes over the phone then I am just as happy to do that.
Sincerely,
Paul Handover
Hugo Road, Merlin,
Bill promptly replied:
Hi Paul, how long of a list of lifestyle changes do you want to make? Would three or four be enough? Bill
then followed that up with another email:
Paul, Consider suggesting that if people want to help, they could have fewer children, reduce energy consumption such as driving autos and flying, avoid meat and eat mostly plant-based foods and avoid wasting food. Below are quotes from our paper. Bill
“It is also time to re-examine and change our individual behaviors, including limiting our own reproduction (ideally to replacement level at most) and drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources ….
… reducing food waste through education and better infrastructure; promoting dietary shifts towards mostly plant-based foods
Now watch this video
I will close this post by listing out all the things that you and I can do now!
Set a target for reducing your car mileage next year compared to 2017,
If you are a regular aircraft passenger, then set a target for flying fewer hours in 2018 compared to 2017,
reduce or stop eating meat,
do not waste food,
reduce the use of heating and cooling in your home/s for next year,
commit to a dietary change away from meats and processed foods to a plant-based diet.
Then for younger couples who want a family around them, limit the number of children to a “replacement level” at most. Adopt??
Then carried across to the ambulance.
I only properly regained consciousness when the ambulance was speeding its way to Three Rivers Hospital in nearby Grants Pass.
Next, a sunrise photograph with the camera pointing to the East. The tree line follows the ridge of some hills the other side of Hugo Road. The picture taken on the 19th October at 07:20.
Now a close-up of the remains of a very old tree trunk with the trees that border Bummer Creek, that runs through our land, just showing through the morning mist. Taken on the 24th October at 09:05.
Regular readers will know that Jean and I are not believers in any religion; we are atheists. But to my way of thinking that puts even more pressure on me and Jean to try to make a difference. We do all that we can but there’s no doubt that we can do more.
Learning from Dogs 