Category: Sustainability

Nuclear abolition, climate change, environmental degradation, nature, peace and justice.

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Sustainability

Will Lady Conductors Sing Karaoke for Kim Jong Un?

On June 14, 2018 PSR Board member Ira Helfand, MD met with South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon in Seoul, urging South Korea to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

The main nuclear weapons threat on earth is increasing tension between the United States and Russia over Syria, Ukraine, Crimea and other issues. Not far behind is the ongoing dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Either conflict, if escalated to nuclear war, could end life as we know it.

So what the hell was the Hanoi Summit between Donald J. Trump and Kim Jong Un?

As a drill sergeant in the U.S. Army often described our duty performance when it did not meet his refined standards, it was a “goat screw.”

We don’t know what preparations the North Korean dictator made, in fact we know little about his country except what we might read in books like Barbara Demick’s Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. He presumably prepared for the summit, and had a 60-hour train trip from Pyongyang, North Korea to Đồng Đăng, Vietnam, in case last minute changes and consultations were required. Kim traveled by rail for security considerations according to Associated Press.

Air Force One’s 20-hour trip to Hanoi, with two refueling stops, was also very long. We don’t know what preparations the U.S. President made either, but it was clear from the news coverage it wasn’t much. Here’s CBS News reporter Mark Knoller:

Couldn’t this have been discovered and vetted long before the actual, expensive in person meet up? Isn’t that why we have diplomats? Why elevate this meeting to a “summit” if we didn’t know the basis for an agreement beforehand?

While Air Force One was enroute home, North Koreans disputed this characterization of the summit. Why cut the meeting short before agreeing what happened and would be said to the press? Seems like basic diplomacy is missing from this administration.

What a bunch of knuckleheads. I’m not referring to the North Korean dictator and his staff. Why would the U.S. elevate this guy to this level of prominence on the world stage? Importantly, it was a staged distraction from Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton’s dismantling of the U.S. – Russia arms control protocol. There is other stuff going on the the country to be distracted from as well. The tail is wagging the dog.

We don’t know but Kim must have been feeling good on the long trip home to Pyongyang after the president failed to find common ground for denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. We do know something about his green, bullet-proof train with yellow trim on the cars.

“Kim Jong Il, who was Kim Jong Un’s father, was known to have hated flying and traveled by train on several trips to China,” Eric Talmadge and Adam Schreck of AP wrote. “He is said to have fitted his train out to accommodate lavish parties and karaoke sessions.”

His father is also said to have kept four female singers on the train when he traveled, referring to them as “lady conductors.” Will lady conductors sing karaoke for Kim Jong Un on the trip home? Since the U.S. president won’t hold him to account, there may be something for a dictator to celebrate.

Categories
Environment Writing

Bird of Prey

Sheet of Ice

There was no time to stop and get a photograph.

While eastbound on Highway 382, a large bird lifted from the ground within my headlights and dropped a recently killed rabbit. It hesitated, perhaps wanting to return to its prey, but not long enough for a collision.

I don’t know what species it was, but suspect it was an owl since it was two hours before sunrise. Owls live all around us in Big Grove and at night use the peak of our roof to observe the neighborhood and dine on small rodents.

As I continued around the lakes, then westbound on Mehaffey Bridge Road a deer crossed the road in front of me. I tapped the brakes. It was less dramatic than the bird of prey. I’m used to living with wildlife after so many years. I know what to do.

The lakes are covered with a smooth surface of ice, perfect for skating. With a couple more days of deep freeze, conditions should be excellent. The problem is no one I know ice skates any more and it is not a solitary activity. Time was we would clear a rink and sometimes start a bonfire. Importantly, it was fun. We’re getting older and other things occupy neighbors, busy looking at screens, I cynically suppose.

Wildlife appears to be flourishing. Maybe I’m just noticing. It is possible to step away from the screens and observe nature… a nature adapted to the built environment humans made since settling here in the 1830s. There was no risk of roadkill when there were no motorized vehicles or roads.

I don’t have much to say about the world outside our ecosystem today. Aren’t others saying enough? Suffice it that the 25-minute trip to work provides a window to the world around us.

I wonder if the owl returned for it’s dinner?

Categories
Environment Kitchen Garden Work Life

Wind Howled All Day

Squirrels Dining on Sunflower Seeds

The store manager from the home, farm and auto supply store phoned Sunday afternoon to ask me to work on Monday. The colleague who assumed my full time job last spring was visiting family in Nebraska and bad weather closed roads across the state, including Interstate 80. She couldn’t make it back in time for her shift.

In Iowa, helping out is part of our culture. I said yes I’d work and rearranged my plans so I could.

In addition, the farmer decided the weather was bad enough she didn’t want people venturing out to the farm. The roads were iced over and the wind howled at 30 miles per hour all day. Her sister, the shepherdess, posted social media photos of installing a new anemometer and weather station. Its LED panel displayed the digital message, “hold onto your hat!”

As I was settling in last night, the Washington Post put up an article about White House plans to form an “ad hoc group of select federal scientists to reassess the government’s analysis of climate science and counter conclusions that the continued burning of fossil fuels is harming the planet.”

In other words, the Fourth National Climate Assessment told the story of how dire our future could be without climate action. Rather than doing something, the administration is arguing with their own scientists that global warming is not caused by burning fossil fuels. These are times that will fry men’s souls.

Which part of yesterday’s howling wind was an amplification caused by global warming? The answer doesn’t matter because it’s the wrong question. We know the deleterious effect of burning fossil fuels. We also know thawing permafrost, agriculture, methane releases during oil production, building construction, manufacturing processes, air transport, deforestation, landfill decomposition and other human activities contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. We can’t get bogged down in details when the bigger picture is we have an obstructionist government led by Republicans and their conservative, dark-moneyed think tanks who would interpret the howling wind as something else. The better question is when will voters do something to fix this?

Yesterday’s wind was the kind that calls for hunkering down until it ends. Eventually we will have a calm, sunny day and the opportunity to work as normal. Or maybe it is something else, as Bob Dylan sang in the 1970s,

Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

Categories
Environment

Hard Winter

Through the Window

This weird weather is unsettling. Wild variations in temperature made it a damaging winter… it’s not over.

The driveway buckled a few feet from the garage door because of temperature swings. Water must be trapped underground with inadequate drainage before refreezing. The buckled pavement is directing rain under the door, flooding the car park.

Everything is off the floor as I advance plan for water emergencies. I found all the parts for the wet/dry vacuum and removed about 60 gallons from the floor. I let the water settle for a while, then will go at it again.

I’m supposed to soil block at the farm today. Temperatures are dropping and a coat of ice is expected on roads, on everything, as the wind howls 30 miles per hour until sunset. I’m to text the farmer before leaving for my shift to make sure roads are passable.

With the ground still frozen, snow melt and rain have nowhere to go. It is pooling near the main intersection a few dozen yards south of our home. The culvert under the road must be blocked with snow and ice. There will be river flooding later in the week as everything drains to the Mississippi basin.

I’m not freaking out… yet. I don’t know what to do but mitigate water damage and wait it out. Fixing the cause of this weird weather is not something to address in a day or two.

Media discussion of climate change seems more frequent. I reviewed Google Trends and there was a spike in searches about global warming the first week in February. Every day or so local newspapers carry a story about climate change. A lot of it has to do with the Green New Deal resolution proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives. Who doesn’t like what the resolution says? It seems toothless until a Democratic majority returns to the U.S. Senate. We are at least two years away from the possibility of that happening.

What will the Congress do to act on climate? More importantly, what will they do that the president will not veto? These are dark times if we rely solely on politicians.

Water may have settled in the car park, so it’s time to vacuum up a few more five-gallon buckets. Hopefully spring is on the horizon, even if it hasn’t arrived.

Categories
Environment Living in Society

Freezing Rain and a Green New Deal

Earthrise by Bill Anders, Dec. 24, 1968

Ice turned to mush as rain fell Thursday morning. The surfaces of Lake Macbride and the Coralville Lake appeared to remain frozen as I drove on Mehaffey Bridge Road.

When I arrived at the home, farm and auto supply store it continued to rain. By the end of my shift a layer of ice had formed on my windshield and morning slush had frozen.

I started the engine and chipped at the ice. It took half an hour to gain enough visibility to drive. I decided to skip a monthly political meeting, emailed the secretary of my absence, and headed home.

Iowa is a red state now. Voters had an opportunity to return balance to state government in 2018. Instead they chose Republican control of the governor’s office and state legislature. Taking advantage of their mandate, Republicans plan to take more control of the appointment of judges by changing the composition of a commission that selects nominees for Iowa courts. We’re a red state now, and we don’t like it.

We’re not leaving the state. To even consider it would be an anomaly in lives we’ve come to accept. In the end, politics is something, but not everything. It is definitely not important enough to get stuck in the county seat as the world freezes.

I’m interested in what the Congress does to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Yesterday New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a resolution recognizing the federal government has a duty to create a Green New Deal. A draft of the resolution indicates the following goals for a Green New Deal during a ten-year national mobilization period:

  1. to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers;
  2. to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States;
  3. to invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century;
  4. to secure for all people of the United States for generations to come—
    (i) clean air and water;
    (ii) climate and community resiliency;
    (iii) healthy food;
    (iv) access to nature; and
    (v) a sustainable environment; and
  5. to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous communities, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this resolution as ‘‘frontline and vulnerable communities’’).

Who wouldn’t like these goals? Senator Edward Markey introduced the same resolution in the U.S. Senate.

It doesn’t take an advanced degree to understand a Green New Deal is dead on arrival in Mitch McConnell’s senate. While such goals need to be met to slow global warming, politics has ceased to be an endeavor of doing what needs to be done to ensure our mutual survival. Success of any legislation designed to advance a Green New Deal depends on recognizing the threat the climate crisis poses to society. Today, more people recognize there is a climate crisis. Our politicians, not so much.

Al Gore remained positive in his press release supporting the resolution:

The Green New Deal resolution marks the beginning of a crucial dialogue on climate legislation in the U.S. Mother Nature has awakened so many Americans to the urgent threat of the climate crisis, and this proposal responds to the growing concern and demand for action. The goals are ambitious and comprehensive – now the work begins to decide the best ways to achieve them, with specific policy solutions tied to timelines. It is critical that this process unfolds in close dialogue with the frontline communities that bear the disproportionate impacts today, as this resolution acknowledges. Policymakers and Presidential candidates would be wise to embrace a Green New Deal and commit to the hard work of seeing it through.

Failure to act on climate is the same as denial. I’ll support a Green New Deal while recognizing we can’t place all our hopes on a single, political solution. As we discovered during negotiations leading up to the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, political solutions are far from perfect. They may be inadequate. Yet they are something and have value if they can be achieved.

Categories
Environment

Out of the Polar Vortex

Snow Melted First over the Septic Tank

The ambient temperature is 45 degrees, a 73 degree swing since early Thursday morning. Warming is part of the polar vortex, just as the cold was. Temperatures are forecast to return closer to normal after tomorrow.

I had planned to prune trees today but am concerned about rapidly changing temperatures. If the sap starts flowing the purpose of waiting until winter to prune would be defeated. Maybe next week will be better once temperatures stabilize below freezing for a week or so.

Feb. 5 is the Iowa Environmental Council’s lobby day in Des Moines, followed by the Sierra Club’s lobby day the 6th. I noticed IEC scheduled 30 minutes for discussions with legislators. That’s about right because very little gets decided in one-on-one lobbying sessions, regardless of whether one’s legislators are supportive of climate action. What’s needed for change is a broad coalition and a dominant issue.

With the polar vortex we are living in a changed climate. Mitigating its effects is beyond the scope of the Iowa legislature. What can be done?

“In my view, the actions we take over the next 2-3 years are critical,” State Senator Rob Hogg wrote in an email. “The need for climate action has never been more urgent. Please take action personally and in public. Invite more people to get more informed, more involved, and do more.”

Hogg was trained by Al Gore as a Climate Reality Leader in 2008. He enumerated ideas with which to approach legislators for climate action, including “energy efficiency, renewable energy, electric vehicles, forests, prairies, soil conservation, and pre-disaster hazard mitigation to safeguard our people and our property.” Each of these items has its own constituency and many of the groups supporting them will be at Tuesday’s lobby day. What will get done?

There is a stability of operations among IEC members that works against substantial change. Some organizations, including some to which I belong, seem caught in a rut around a specific solution to the climate crisis. These formal, recurring events seem ineffective to me. I wrote about a 2015 trip I made to a similar lobby day in the Iowa City Press Citizen here. I’m not sure what, if anything was accomplished.

Some advocates believe climate denial among members of the legislature and elsewhere stands in the way of changing human behavior regarding climate change. I believe it is something different.

“I’m convinced that the greatest threat we face isn’t climate change denial,” climatologist and geophysicist Michael Mann wrote. “It is the weaponization of ignorance and apathy that is at its core…”

The weaponization of ignorance and apathy is something better to work on than any pet project. How does one do that when calcified lobbyists and citizen advocates petition the legislature for such issues? We need a more diverse group of stake holders than are in the IEC. Something bigger needs to happen to bring people together. I don’t know if the polar vortex is big enough even if it should be. What I know is if we wait to address climate change until it is too late the question will be moot.

This polar vortex is drawing to a close but it’s easy to predict there will be others. Many will have forgotten the polar vortex as they get absorbed in the big football game this afternoon. It is up to us to remind people of our common interest in sustaining our lives in a turbulent world. If we don’t, who will?

Categories
Environment

Dispatch from the Polar Vortex

Winter in Iowa

Editor’s Note: This email was sent to members of our home owners association at the beginning of the polar vortex of 2019. As I write this note, the outdoors ambient temperature is 26 degrees below zero and one person in the county seat has died from exposure.

Member,

As you likely know, ambient temperatures are forecast to get down to -25 degrees by 8 a.m. tomorrow morning and to -30 degrees overnight tomorrow. After that temperatures are expected to warm through Saturday and Sunday when it is forecast to be in the 40s.

That’s a seventy degree swing in a couple of days, which can be hard on things like water and sewer lines.

19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli said, “Be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”

We will do everything reasonable to get service back up as soon as possible if it is interrupted. Asking a contractor to work in wind chills like we haven’t seen since we moved here is not reasonable. I plan to contact our main contractor Wednesday and discuss the situation so we know our options in the event of a breakage.

What you can do to prepare for a potential outage is keep a temporary water supply if you don’t already.

In our household we keep a large Rubbermaid beverage container filled with water to use for washing hands and cooking in case we lose water.

We used to buy bottled water to have on hand but quit doing that over the years. It is an option.

If we know there will be an outage ahead of time, we fill up our two stock pots and keep them on the stove to be boiled and used to wash up in lieu of a shower, or as otherwise needed. We have also filled up coolers in the bathtub to use to flush the toilet.

Fingers crossed we will make it through the cold spell without a line breakage.

If something does happen, the procedures for reporting a water problem are below.

I hope this is helpful.

Paul Deaton
President

Categories
Environment

Dealing with Cold Temperatures

Outdoor ambient temperature Jan. 26, 2019, at 6 a.m.

Images depicting ambient temperature reports have been ubiquitous on social media the last few days.

According to the Weather Channel, temperatures plummet to 25 degrees below zero by Tuesday thanks to a polar vortex.

It’s what I’ve been waiting for to prune apple and pear trees as sap flow is halted by the temperature. Considering the forecast, the best day to prune will be Friday, Feb. 1.

Not everyone likes the cold but I don’t mind. I’ve never had frostbite or chilblains, even while living outdoors in subzero temperatures for a week at a time during military service in Germany. If one takes precautions, risks are minimal.

Once trees are pruned, I’ll be ready for it to warm up.

The cold spell began just as my shifts at the home, farm and auto supply store ended. We are bunkered in with plenty of food, a working furnace and water supply, and an internet connection. As president of our home owners’ association I worry that cold weather will cause a water line break, so fingers crossed. Later today I’ll drive my spouse to work in town so the car doesn’t sit in the snowy cold while she’s there.

Today’s cold weather is like what I recall from childhood. If there is no wind, it is tolerable and welcome. Like every year, winter will turn to spring and everything that means.

Categories
Environment Writing

Lunar Eclipse

Lunar Eclipse on Jan. 20, 2019. Photo Credit – Van Allen Observatories, Iowa City, Iowa.

Refracted light creating a reddish-orange hue on the moon’s surface looked pretty cool last night.

It was an event to remember, one that transcended daily life. It drew many of us together with a shared experience.

In the eclipse it was easy to imagine and literally see the vast emptiness of the universe. It reminded us of how reliant we are on our only home with its thin layer of atmosphere. No human hand played a role in the astronomical phenomenon except to warn us, as astronomers have since ancient times, it was coming.

Lunar Eclipse Taken with Mobile Device

The event had a long name: super blood wolf lunar eclipse. I don’t need or want a name, just memory of the image enlarged on my retina with a pair of unsteady binoculars.

After sunset the sky was as clear as it gets. The full moon illuminated everything in bright, silvery light. A few years ago I would jog on the lake trail in such light. As the eclipse progressed, the landscape darkened. The moon moved above the house so I went out to the driveway to see it. It was below freezing and I returned inside several times to warm up.

Witnessing the lunar eclipse lacked profundity, it being a function of celestial mechanics. If I was inclined to howl, that’s on me and my humanity. The experience asks the question why can’t we get along when we have so much in common? No answer was forthcoming.

I thought of Juliet’s speech to Romeo:

Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract tonight.
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say “It lightens.”

I cling to the shared experience even if my view is blurred by an intervening atmosphere, inadequate lenses, and less than perfect eyesight. If the shared experience serves a human purpose, I’ll assimilate it, becoming the eclipse. Maybe it could transcend physics to help sustain our lives in a turbulent world.

Categories
Environment

A Winter Sort

Garden Seeds

A majority of the garden seeds wait in a corner on the lower level of our home.

I cleared a sorting table and next month will plant celery and kale at the first greenhouse shift. There is no immediate need to plan more.

The seven garden plots have stands of seed-spent foxtail and last year’s fencing. Clearing the plots will begin after a long period of subzero temperatures, assuming we have one. The first traditional planting is Belgian lettuce on March 2, although last year there was no early lettuce because of frozen ground during a spell of weird weather. The weird weather was related to global warming. A gardener, like a farmer, must adapt.

The 2018 vegetable growing season was challenging for farmers I know. However, to a person they responded to the challenges of late start, crop failures, uneven moisture, and other farm-related issues to produce an abundant harvest. They meet 2019 with renewed optimism and energy as the new cycle begins with the annual Practical Farmers of Iowa conference Thursday through Saturday in Ames.

Experience tells me not to worry about what might be during the upcoming gardening season. To deal with its actuality is sufficient. So much of what may happen this year is beyond our control. It’s best to deal with it as we go.

This approach is part of sustaining a life in a turbulent world.