Your oceans of the world are truly breath-taking. The power you can display in the odd wave or million through to the tranquility you so often also display defy rational explanations.
I have had the profound experience of sailing upon your waters, dear Mr. Neptune, over a number of years sailing back and forth between Cyprus and Turkey. Not a long distance but still sufficient to experience being solo on a yacht day and night.
Tradewind 33 – Songbird of Kent. My home for five years.
Then on my way sailing back to Plymouth, SW England, the magical, almost primeval, feeling of being alone on the Atlantic Ocean. Looking up at the night sky, feeling so insignificant, so infinitesimally minute with 500 miles of open ocean in all directions and those stars above my head.
No question, that practically everything about your oceans is beyond the understanding of us humans. Indeed, I had to look up online how much water there is on Earth to discover there is:
It’s roughly 326 million cubic miles (1.332 billion cubic kilometers), according to a recent study from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Because I simply didn’t have a clue.
And knowing there are approximately 326 million cubic miles of water doesn’t help because I am still left not having a clue as to what that means!
So, thank goodness, Mr. Neptune this is all a ‘walk in the park’ for you!
But I do have a question for you.
What do you make of this?
The image is cropped from the following:
The description of these figures is:
Figure. (upper) Change in global upper-level (0–2000 m) ocean heat content since 1958. Each bar shows the annual mean relative to a 1981–2010 baseline. (lower) Annual mean ocean heat content anomaly in 2017 relative to a 1981–2010 baseline.
And it was taken from research undertaken by Lijing Cheng and Jiang Zhu and found on the web here.
Ocean Heat Content
Owing to its large heat capacity, the ocean accumulates the warming derived from human activities; indeed, more than 90% of Earth’s residual heat related to global warming is absorbed by the ocean (IPCC, Cheng et al. 2017). As such, the global ocean heat content record robustly represents the signature of global warming and is impacted less by weather-related noise and climate variability such as El Niño and La Niña events (Cheng et al. 2018). On the other hand, ocean thermal expansion due to ocean temperature change contributes substantially (30%~50%) to the sea level change, which can considerably influence human populations in coastal and island regions and marine ecosystems. Therefore, monitoring the OHC changes and understanding its variation are crucial for climate change.
Is it possible, Mr. Neptune, that even you as the master of all our oceans is worried about the future?
A male and a female wolf have been photographed with their two pups on the northern part of the reservation.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF WARM SPRINGS – Two wolf pups with the adult male of the pack are caught on a remote trail camera on the Warm Springs Reservation. The wolf pups are believed to be the first born on the reservation since the 1940s.
For at least the past four years, a large male wolf has been observed roaming parts of the Warm Springs Reservation. Now, the wolf, his mate and two pups have also been seen on trail cameras.
On Aug. 27, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Branch of Natural Resources confirmed that the single male first observed in 2014, and his mate, first seen in 2016, have produced two pups.
“In early September 2014, biologists suspected that a large male wolf of unknown origin, more than likely from Northeast Oregon, had a mate on the Warm Springs Reservation and Mount Hood National Forest, when remote cameras captured several images of two or more wolves in the area,” said wildlife biologist Austin Smith Jr., of the tribes’ Natural Resources Branch.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF WARM SPRINGS – A female gray wolf from the Warm Springs/White River pack seems to be caught on a remote trail camera teaching her pup, on the right, how to howl. In August, the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs’ Branch of Natural Resources caught the photos of the two adult wolves and two pups, which are estimated to be 3 to 4 months old.
“Initially, last year, we had been getting multiple reports from technicians and contractors working in the area, that there was a group of wolves in the area,” said Smith. “We were trying to verify that, but we couldn’t confirm that there was a pup.”
In August, Smith thought there might be new pups, so he and a high school intern walked to the “rendezvous site,” where the wolves had been seen last year. “We managed to track them to an area and we saw a pup, about the size of a dog. We saw it take off, and ended up setting up a camera.”
After they saw the pup, Smith notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which keeps track of wolf activity. At the end of 2017, Oregon had at least 124 gray wolves, including two known as the White River pair.
“They are in the southern portion of Wasco County, the northern part of the reservation, and the White River wildlife management area,” said Smith. “ODFW named the pack off of what area they’re covered in. We call them the Warm Springs pack.”
With assistance from USFW Biologist John Stephenson, the tribes set up remote trail cameras, which have been yielding numerous images of the wolves, including the pups.
“I was pretty surprised,” said Smith, noting that the pups are the first verified instance of wolves reproducing on the reservation since the mid-1940s. “It was the first time we had officially seen wolf pups.”
Gray wolves, which had historically been common in Oregon, were eradicated in the late 1940s. In 1974, wolves were listed as endangered by the federal Endangered Species Act. The state enacted its own Endangered Species Act in 1987, requiring the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to conserve wolves.
According to ODFW, the wolves in Oregon are part of the Northern Rocky Mountain wolf population, which was reintroduced in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s. The first wolf made its way to Oregon in the late 1990s.
Over the past decade, the documented population of wolves in Oregon has increased from about three in 2008, to 14 at the end of 2009, to 124 at the end of 2017. Most packs are located in Northeast Oregon.
Wolves have been wandering through Oregon for years, but the new group seems to have established itself on the reservation, said Smith. “Once they’re a breeding pair, they officially become a pack.”
Smith said that the wolves are an important resource on the reservation. “They’re a culturally significant and sensitive species,” he said. “They usually pick an area where they have enough food source. The numbers of deer and elk have increased on the reservation.”
The wolf pups are probably 3 to 4 months old, and weigh 75 to 100 pounds, he estimated.
“Typically, when they’re in the denning period, it runs from spring until early summer,” said Smith. “During that time, the female will stay in the den, while the male and siblings are out hunting. They will bring back food for the female.”
“Typically, they’re out of the den after a couple months, and pretty mobile by then,” he said. “These pups were probably born in June.”
The tribes’ Branch of Natural Resources will continue to monitor the pack and its movements to ensure an accurate population count.
ooOOoo
I must repeat what was quoted as being said by Austin Smith Jr. because it so perfectly explains what we see in our dogs. (My emphasis.)
Smith said that the wolves are an important resource on the reservation. “They’re a culturally significant and sensitive species,” he said.
I closed yesterday’s Letter to the Moon with the last sentence from a recent essay from George Monbiot: “Defending the planet means changing the world.”
Shortly, I will be republishing, with Mr. Monbiot’s generous permission, the whole of that essay.
But first I am going to reproduce in full what arrived via email from George in the early hours of yesterday morning.
I’m contacting you because you’re one of the people who emailed me as part of the overwhelming response to my columns In Memoriam, and Incompetence By Design, where I mentioned that ‘some of us are now mobilising to turn the great enthusiasm for wildlife and natural beauty in this country into political action, and to fight the dismantling of the laws that protect our precious wild places’.
Many of you asked what I meant by ‘Watch this space’. The mobilisation starts next Saturday, in London, with The People’s Walk for Wildlife. It’s not a demonstration, nor a rally – it’s a gentle, family-friendly day. The only kind of strength we need is strength in numbers – to show that many thousands of us care deeply about the vanishing of wild mammals, butterflies, mayflies, songbirds and fish, and that we want the Government to commit properly to protecting those that remain.
On Saturday 22nd September, we’ll gather at Reformers Tree, Hyde Park at 10.00am; entertainment will start at 12 noon. At 1pm we’ll walk from Hyde Park Corner, via Piccadilly, St James, Pall Mall, and Cockspur St, to Whitehall. Please come along if you can. Download the birdsong app to play as we go. Bring friends, dress up as your favourite plant or animal or just come as yourself!
I’m looking forward to walking for the missing millions – I hope you can join me!
George
P.S. If you can’t make it, you can still contribute by adding your message of support to the Walk’s Wonder Wall – every post is valuable proof that you care.
Now on to that post.
ooOOoo
Plastic Soup
The problem is not plastic. It is consumerism.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 5th September 2018
Do you believe in miracles? If so, please form an orderly queue. Plenty of people imagine we can carry on as we are, as long as we substitute one material for another. Last month, a request to Starbucks and Costa to replace their plastic coffee cups with cups made from corn starch was retweeted 60,000 times, before it was deleted.
Those who supported this call failed to ask themselves where the corn starch would come from, how much land is needed to grow it or how much food production it will displace. They overlooked the damage this cultivation would inflict: growing corn (maize) is notorious for causing soil erosion, and often requires heavy doses of pesticides and fertilisers.
The problem is not just plastic. The problem is mass disposability. Or, to put it another way, the problem is pursuing, on the one planet known to harbour life, a four-planet lifestyle. Regardless of what we consume, the sheer volume of consumption is overwhelming the Earth’s living systems.
Don’t get me wrong. Our greed for plastic is a major environmental blight, and the campaigns to limit its use are well-motivated and sometimes effective. But we cannot address our environmental crisis by swapping one over-used resource for another. When I challenged that call, some people asked me, “so what should we use instead?”. The right question is “how should we live?”. But systemic thinking is an endangered species.
Part of the problem is the source of the plastic campaigns: David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II series. The first six episodes had strong, coherent narratives. But the seventh episode, which sought to explain the threats facing the wonderful creatures the series revealed, darted from one issue to another. We were told we could “do something” about the destruction of ocean life. We were not told what. There was no explanation of why the problems are happening, what forces are responsible and how they can be engaged.
Amid the general incoherence, one contributor stated “It comes down, I think, to us each taking responsibility for the personal choices in our everyday lives. That’s all any of us can be expected to do.” This perfectly represents the mistaken belief that a better form of consumerism will save the planet. The problems we face are structural: a political system captured by commercial interests and an economic system that seeks endless growth. Of course we should try to minimise our own impacts, but we cannot confront these forces merely by “taking responsibility” for what we consume.
Unfortunately, these are issues that the BBC in general, and David Attenborough in particular, avoid. I admire Attenborough in many ways, but I am no fan of his environmentalism. For many years, it was almost undetectable. When he did at last speak out, he consistently avoided challenging power, either speaking in vague terms or focusing on problems for which powerful interests are not responsible. I believe this tendency may explain Blue Planet’s skirting of the obvious issues.
The most obvious is the fishing industry, that turns the astonishing lifeforms the rest of the series depicted into seafood. Throughout the oceans, this industry, driven by our appetites and protected by governments, is causing cascading ecological collapse. Yet the only fishery the programme featured was among the 1% that are in recovery. It was charming to see how Norwegian herring boats seek to avoid killing orcas, but we were given no idea of how unusual it is.
Even marine plastics is in large part a fishing issue. It turns out that 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, that has come to symbolise our throwaway society, is composed of discarded nets, and much of the rest consists of other kinds of fishing gear. Abandoned fishing materials tend to be far more dangerous to marine life than other forms of waste. As for the bags and bottles contributing to the disaster, the great majority arise in poorer nations, without good disposal systems. But because this point was not made, we look to the wrong places for solutions.
From this misdirection arise a thousand perversities. One prominent environmentalist posted a picture of the king prawns she had just bought, celebrating the fact that she had persuaded the supermarket to put them in her own container, rather than a plastic bag, and linking this to the protection of the seas. But buying prawns causes many times more damage to marine life than any plastic in which they are wrapped. Prawn fishing has the highest rates of bycatch of any fishery: scooping up vast numbers of turtles and other threatened species. Prawn farming is just as bad, eliminating great tracts of mangrove forests, crucial nurseries for thousands of species.
We are kept remarkably ignorant of such issues. As consumers, we are confused, bamboozled and almost powerless. This is why corporate power has gone to such lengths to persuade us to see ourselves this way. The BBC’s approach to environmental issues is highly partisan, siding with a system that has sought to transfer responsibility for structural forces to individual shoppers. It is only as citizens, taking political action, that we can promote meaningful change.
The answer to the question “how should we live?” is “simply”. But living simply is highly complicated. In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, the government massacred the Simple Lifers. This is generally unnecessary: today they can be safely marginalised, insulted and dismissed. The ideology of consumption is so prevalent that it has become invisible: it is the plastic soup in which we swim.
One-planet living means not only seeking to reduce our own consumption, but also mobilising against the system that promotes the great tide of junk. This means fighting corporate power, changing political outcomes and challenging the growth-based, world-consuming system we call capitalism.
As the famous Hothouse Earth paper published last month, that warned of the danger of flipping the planet into a new, irreversible climatic state, concluded, “incremental linear changes … are not enough to stabilize the Earth system. Widespread, rapid, and fundamental transformations will likely be required to reduce the risk of crossing the threshold”. Disposable coffee cups made from new materials are not just a non-solution. They are a perpetuation of the problem. Defending the planet means changing the world.
The idea of writing a letter to the moon is not a new one and it came to me when listening to an item yesterday morning, Pacific Time, broadcast by the BBC on Radio 4. The item was the news that Elon Musk has announced that:
Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has unveiled the first private passenger it plans to fly around the Moon.
Japanese billionaire and online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa, 42, announced: “I choose to go to the Moon.”
The mission is planned for 2023, and would be the first lunar journey by humans since 1972.
On September 18, 1977, as it headed toward the outer solar system, Voyager 1 looked back and acquired a stunning image of our Earth and moon.
You will surely remember that first image taken of the Planet Earth and your good self in the same frame.
Here is the 1st-ever photo of the Earth and moon in a single frame. Voyager 1 took the photo on September 18, 1977, when it was 7.25 million miles (11.66 million km) from Earth. Image Number: PIA00013 via NASA/JPL.
Now here we are some 41 years later and, my, how things have changed.
But something, dear Mr. Moon, has never changed for you. That is the sight of our most beautiful planet. Plus, I would go so far as to venture that what makes our planet such a beautiful sight, one that has captivated us humans when we have gone into space and looked back at home, is the magic of our atmosphere.
Picture taken by a NASA satellite orbiting the earth some 200 miles above the planet’s surface.
So, so thin …. and so, so fragile.
It is akin to the thinness of the skin of an onion.
In fact, Mr. Moon, that layer that we earthlings call the troposphere, the layer closest to Earth’s surface varies from just 4 miles to 12 miles (7 to 20 km) thick. It contains half of our planet’s atmosphere!
Everything that sustains the life of air-breathing creatures, human and otherwise, depends on the health of this narrow layer of atmosphere above our heads. Now the thickness of that layer varies depending on the season and the temperature of the air. But let’s use an average thickness of 8 miles (say, 13 km) because I want to explore in my letter to you some comparisons.
In your infinite gaze down upon your mother planet you will have seen the arrival of H. sapiens, out of ancestral H. erectus, that took place roughly 315,000 years ago.
You will also have seen from your lofty vantage point the growth of both CO2 levels in the planet’s atmosphere and the average land-ocean temperature. Forgive me quoting something at you, but:
OBSERVABLE CHANGES IN THE EARTH
SINCE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
While politicians have been busy debating the merits of climate science, the physical symptoms of climate change have become increasingly apparent: since the industrial revolution, sea level has grown by 0.9 inches, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has risen to unprecedented levels, average global temperatures have increased by about 1.0 degree Celsius and, to top it off, the global population has jumped by nearly 600 percent; 15 of the 16 hottest years on record occurred in the 21st century, and 2016 is likely to be the warmest year ever recorded.
Now the Industrial Revolution was all but over back in 1840 and the last 178 years have seen an explosion in the way we use energy, in all its forms. Plus we have to accept that back then the global population was around 1 billion persons. It is now over 7 billion.
Between 1900 and 2000, the increase in world population was three times greater than during the entire previous history of humanity—an increase from 1.5 to 6.1 billion in just 100 years.
So on to my comparisons.
The radius of our beautiful planet is about 3,959 miles (6,371 km). The average thickness of the troposphere is 8 miles (13 km).
Thus the ratio of thickness of our liveable atmosphere to the radius of the planet is 8 divided by 3,959. That is a figure of 0.002! Our atmosphere is 1/1000th of the size of the radius of our planet.
Hang on that figure for a moment.
In the last 178 years humanity has transformed our consumption of energy and especially carbon-based fuels. H. sapiens has been around for 315,000 years.
Thus the ratio of these present ‘modern’ times (the last 178 years) to the arrival of us back then (315,000 years ago) is 178 divided by 315,000. That is a (rounded) figure of 0.0006. Our modern times are just 1/10,000th of the time that so-called modern man has been on this planet.
So, dear Mr. Moon, you must despair that in so short a number of years, proportionally ten times smaller than the ratio of the troposphere to the radius of our planet, we funny creatures have done so much damage to what we all depend on to stay alive – clean air!
Or maybe, my dear companion of the night sky, because you are celebrating your 4.1 billionth year of existence, what we humans are doing is all a bit of a yawn.
Sincerely,
This old Brit living in Oregon.
ooOOoo
My dear friends (and I’m now speaking to you dear reader, not the moon!) when you reflect on the fragility of our atmosphere, well the layer we depend on for life, you realise without doubt that each and every one of us must make this pledge.
“I promise to do everything possible to reduce my own personal CO2 output and to ensure that both to my near friends and my political representatives I make it clear that we must turn back – and turn back now!”
Or, as George Monbiot writes in closing a recent essay (that I am republishing tomorrow): “Defending the planet means changing the world.”
Jeannie and I decided to take a few hours away from the house and go and do some local exploring.
Just 10 miles North of us, indeed the next exit (71) from Highway I-5, is the famous Grave Creek Covered Bridge.
We parked up and soaked it all in.
While there was an information board next to the bridge it was very easy to find the details online on the Southern Oregon travel site.
The Grave Creek Covered Bridge is one of the few covered bridges that remain in southern Oregon. From Vancouver B.C. to the Mexican border, it is the only one visible from the I-5 freeway. Be sure to visit the Applegate Trail Interpretive Center while in Sunny Valley. It provides a first hand look into the local area, history, fabulous displays, theatre & more.
In the fall of 1846, the first emigrant train from Fort Hall, Idaho, to travel the southern route to the Willamette Valley camped on the north side of this creek, then Woodpile Creek. Martha Leland Crowley, 16 years old died of typhoid fever during this encampment and was buried 150 feet north of the creek on the east side or a white oak tree that was later removed for the present roadway, Thus the name “Grave Creek”.
When James H. Twogood laid out his land claim in the fall of 1851 and filed it on May 1st 1852, he named it the Grave Creek Ranch in memory of that unfortunate incident.
McDonough Harkness, his partner, was the first postmaster of Josephine County in the newly named town of Leland on March 28,1855. Harkness was killed by the Indians in April 1856 while riding dispatch for the Army during the second Indian War of southern Oregon which started in October of 1855.
The bridge was built in 1920 and is 105 feet long.
Unsurprisingly, the creek had very little water in it.
But that didn’t diminish in the slightest the magic of this place out in the vast Oregon countryside.
A covered bridge is a timber-truss bridge with a roof and siding which, in most covered bridges, create an almost complete enclosure. The purpose of the covering is to protect the wooden structural members from the weather. Uncovered wooden bridges typically have a lifespan of only 10 to 15 years because of the effects of rain and sun. The brief moment of relative privacy while crossing the bridges earned them the name “Kissing Bridges”.
The latest news is that our Klondike Fire is now burning an area larger than 100,000 acres. Or to use the words from the incident webpage(my emphasis):
The Taylor Creek and Klondike Fires were split into zones on Saturday, Aug. 18. The fires are now referred to as “Taylor Creek Fire” and “Klondike Fire East,” managed by the Northwest Incident Management Team 12 out of Lake Selmac, and “Klondike Fire West” managed by California Interagency Incident Management Team 4 out of Gold Beach. A transfer of command of the Klondike West Zone will occur at 6:00 AM Friday when the Southern Area Red Team who arrived on Wednesday will take over.
As of the morning of Aug. 30, the Taylor Creek Fire is estimated 52,839 acres and is 95 percent contained. The Klondike Fire is estimated at 100,996 acres and is 40 percent contained. There are 1,214 personnel working on the Klondike Fire and 126 personnel assigned to the Taylor Creek Fire.
Courtesy Jeffersen Public Radio
Then just over a week ago, The Conversation blogsite published a reminder that I wanted to share with you today, under the permissions offered by The Conversation site.
ooOOoo
Many native animals and birds thrive in burned forests, research shows
But the idea that wildfires should be suppressed by logging the forest is far too simplistic. Most scientists agree that large hot wildfires produce many benefits for North American forests. Notably, they create essential habitat for many native species.
Fifteen years of research on Spotted Owls – a species that has played an oversized role in shaping U.S. forest management policies and practices for the past several decades – directly contradicts the argument that logging is needed to protect wildlife from fires. Wildlife biologists, including me, have shown in a string of peer-reviewed studies, that wildfires have little to no effect on Spotted Owls’ occupancy, reproduction or foraging, and even provide benefits to the owls.
The Northern Spotted Owl in the Pacific Northwest was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. At that point, about 90 percent of U.S. old-growth forest had already been lost to logging. Every year in the 1980s the U.S. Forest Service sold about 7 to 12 billion board feet of public lands timber.
Figure 1. National forest timber sales (1905–2017). FY 1905-2017 National Summary Cut and Sold Data USDA Forest Service
Listing the owl drew attention to the dramatic decline of old-growth forest ecosystems due to 50 years of unsustainable logging practices. In response the U.S. Forest Service adopted new regulations that included fewer clearcuts, less cutting of trees over 30 inches in diameter and fewer cuts that opened up too much of the forest canopy. These policies, along with vast depletion of old-growth forests, reduced logging on Forest Service lands to about 2 billion board feet per year.
During the 1990s, national forest management policy for the Northern Spotted Owl included creating old-growth reserves and designating critical habitat where logging was restricted – mostly within half a mile of a Spotted Owl nest. In spite of these protections, populations of Northern Spotted Owls, as well as California and Mexican Spotted Owls, continued to decline on forest lands outside national parks. This was most likely due to ongoing logging outside of their protected nesting areas in the owls’ much larger year-round home ranges.
Fire and owls
Over the years the Forest Service shifted away from treating Spotted Owls as symbols of old-
Historical range (burgundy) of the Northern Spotted Owl, which also extended north into British Columbia. One hundred fifty years of logging, agriculture and urbanization have reduced the amount of old growth forest (potential Spotted Owl habitat) in this zone by 85-90 percent. NASA Earth Observatory
growth forest biodiversity, and instead started to cite them as an excuse for more logging. The idea that forest fires were a threat to Spotted Owls was first proposed in 1992 by agency biologists and contract researchers. In a status assessment of the California Spotted Owl, these scientists speculated that fires might be as damaging as clearcuts to the owls.
This perspective gained popularity within the Forest Service over the next 10 years and led to increased logging on public lands that degraded old-growth habitat for Spotted Owls.
Academic scientists, including some with Forest Service funding, published peer-reviewed studies of Spotted Owls and fire in 2002, 2009, 2011 and 2012. All four studies showed either no effects from fire or positive benefits from fire for Spotted Owls. Subsequent research on Spotted Owls in fire-affected forests has showed repeatedly that the owls can persist and thrive in burned landscapes.
(The U.S. Forest Service says wildfires harm wildlife habitat, but wildfires actually create rare and important habitat.)
Many wild species thrive in burned landscapes
I recently conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis that summarized all available scientific research on the effects of wildfires on Spotted Owl ecology. It found that Spotted Owls are usually not significantly affected by mixed-severity forest fire. Mixed-severity forest fire, which includes large patches with 100 percent tree mortality, is how wildfires in western forests naturally burn. The preponderance of evidence indicated that mixed-severity wildfire has more benefits than costs for Spotted Owls.
In 2017 I submitted an early version of this analysis with the same conclusions to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during the agency’s peer-review process for its Conservation Objectives Report for the California Spotted Owl. My conclusions were not included in the final report.
Decades of science have shown that forest fires – including large hot fires – are an essential part of western U.S. forest ecosystems and create highly biodiverse wildlife habitat. Many native animals thrive in the years and decades after large intense fires, including deer, bats, woodpeckers and songbirds as well as Spotted Owls. Additionally, many native species are only found in the snag forest habitat of dead and dying trees created by high-severity wildfire.
Pileated woodpeckers excavate nests within snags, bringing life to charred forests in Oregon. NASA/S. Russell, CC BY-ND
Wildfires threaten homes, but wildlife and water supplies benefit
It is also time to reform Forest Service management goals to emphasize carbon capture, biodiversity, outdoor recreation and water supply as the most important ecosystem services provided by national forest lands. These services are enhanced by wildfires, not by logging.
ooOOoo
These last two paragraphs are key lessons: 1. Logging does not stop the biggest, hottest fires, and, 2. It is time to change the goals under which our forests are managed emphasising carbon capture, biodiversity, recreation and water supplies!
… not to be in such a hurry to shut the garage door!
I went out to the garage yesterday morning to sort out a few things and found a small bird almost fast asleep in a trolley cart I use about the place.
It clearly had got caught inside the garage when I closed the electric door the previous evening. (Some of the local birds do come in to the garage to feast on insects and spiders that they come across.)
(That’s sawdust in the bottom of the cart.)
I called Jeannie to come out and look at the little chap and she had the brilliant idea of feeding the bird some of the bird food we give our two parakeets. Plus, she brought out a bowl of water.
It worked!
In next to no time the aforesaid bird had had sufficient to eat and it was time to relax in the warm air.
Twenty minutes later he had flown away!
OK!!
The real point of today’s post is to advise you that my son, Alex, and his longterm partner, Lisa, are staying with us for a few days and quite naturally blogging is going to be on the back-burner.
Rather than go ‘silent’ I am going to share with you over the next six days a beautiful series of posts on the clouds.
I wasn’t planning to publish a post for today. But then a recent post from Patrice Ayme spurred me to so do.
Let me explain.
Our nearest town, Grants Pass, has the wonderful Rogue River flowing through it and alongside it there is Riverside Park. To quote:
Riverside Park in Grants Pass was set aside by our founders for the enjoyment of our citizens and guests.
People come from all over to Riverside Park to watch the majestic Rogue River as it courses its’ way through our city.
As you can see it is a popular place for ducks and geese.
Last Tuesday, we had a contractor completing some new guttering for the house. Terry, the owner of TC Gutters, ran out of the coated aluminium he was folding into the correct shape using a rather cute machine!
Terry apologised and said that he would need to run back into Grants Pass to pick up some more of the sheeting.
He returned a little later and I went over to chit-chat with him.
He was unexpectedly downcast.
“Terry, is there a problem?”
“Paul, when I was in town, down at the bottom of 6th Street near the bridge, there was a flock of ducks crossing the road.”
Terry paused for quite a while; I stood there next to him with not a clue as to what was coming.
He sighed, and continued: “Instinctively, I slowed down along with a number of other drivers. But what really upset me was the fact that a few drivers were clearly gleefully driving into the ducks and killing them!”
It hurt me to hear that; very much so!
Is it too strong for me to regard those drivers who thought it great fun to drive into those ducks as being evil?
Those poor souls who keep on calling in to this place will most likely be aware of my very long-term friend Dan Gomez.
For all of the nearly forty years that I have know Dan he has always had a dog in his life.
Just a few days ago, Dan sent me an email with some pictures of Lexi, a young dog that he has had since she was a puppy.
Lexi! (Photograph taken at the Sante Fe ski basin.)
Or in Dan’s words:
Lexi has been a magnificent example of an adventurous Flat-Coated Retriever.
She’s a wonderful hiker, swimmer, hunter and a great greeter on the trail. She’s happiest when she has her leash clenched in her teeth, parading around from person to person before continuing on her way.
What a great breed these dogs are!
Lexi came from the Brazilian breeder Keli: “Keli is the breeder, a fantastic Brazilian living in a wonderful estate in the hills of San Jose.“; to use Dan’s words.
Apparently, Keli plans for pups that year were taken out of her hands. For the reason that Lexi’s parents, Schmee and Party, decided to creep off into the bushes one day, and:
Schmee and Party are the popular names for the sire and dam and they were free from the kennel one day when Keli was off on a trip and they mated. So, the pups were “accidents”. But, most assuredly, great accidents!
While this repeat of our G litter was not planned … We welcomed these ten pups with open arms after seeing the success of the 3 intact G puppies and the stories from owners of other G pups who just adore their dogs. Not surprising at all, based on Schmee and Party being complete mushballs who just want to hold on to you, be with you and be loved by you. This litter has surprised and delighted us already with three pointed puppies … Juice, Callie & Popper in their first year of showing. I cannot wait to see what 2017 holds for them.
She will be three in October and her health and performance has been great. She had Rattlesnake aversion training last year in Palm Springs and did very well. She ran a gauntlet of four snakes to learn sound, site and smell.
She’s had two rattler encounters. On one hike, she encountered a rattler, approached it but stopped on a dime when it rattled loudly. I was someway behind, heard the rattle and whistled to her and she backed away, came immediately to me.
Nature vs. training worked perfectly.
We are still hiking two times daily between 3 and 7 miles total all over the West. Addicted.
Schmee and Party were a great “accident”!
Garden of Gods, Colorado
oooo
Sheridan, Wyoming.
Again and again, our lives are so incredibly enriched by having a dog (or six) in our lives!
Back in April, Mother Nature Networkcarried a wonderful item about the amazing fractals that can be found in nature.
Nothing to do with dogs but all to do with loving and caring for our planet!
I am not going to republish the full article with all the wonderful photographs so if the following piques your curiosity then go here to read the full piece.
ooOOoo
14 amazing fractals found in nature
Take a tour through the magical world of natural fractals and discover the joy of simple complexity.
A chambered nautilus shell is an example of a fractal found in nature. (Photo: Jitze Couperus/flickr)
When you think of fractals, you might think of Grateful Dead posters and T-shirts, all pulsating with rainbow colors and swirling similarity. Fractals, first named by mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975, are special mathematical sets of numbers that display similarity through the full range of scale — i.e., they look the same no matter how big or how small they are. Another characteristic of fractals is that they exhibit great complexity driven by simplicity — some of the most complicated and beautiful fractals can be created with an equation populated with just a handful of terms. (More on that later.)
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
One of the things that attracted me to fractals is their ubiquity in nature. The laws that govern the creation of fractals seem to be found throughout the natural world. Pineapples grow according to fractal laws and ice crystals form in fractal shapes, the same ones that show up in river deltas and the veins of your body. It’s often been said that Mother Nature is a hell of a good designer, and fractals can be thought of as the design principles she follows when putting things together. Fractals are hyper-efficient and allow plants to maximize their exposure to sunlight and cardiovascular systems to most efficiently transport oxygen to all parts of the body. Fractals are beautiful wherever they pop up, so there’s plenty of examples to share.
on the 
Learning from Dogs 