Fuzzy hubs and mass extinction
Posted on | April 29, 2010 | 1 Comment
It’s easy to mock the language of the National Climate Change and Wildlife Center Proposed Five-Year Strategy, so I’m going to. Consider it a nervous laugh. This proposed framework for “fuzzy hubs” of various government agencies to cope with collapsing eco-systems and mass extinction deserves at least something that conveys how scary it is. Here is a sample of the kind of language being used by government scientists as the politicians who supposedly direct their activities argue over a climate change bill:
… climate change is already driving observable changes on the landscape, and will bring additional, large-scale changes in the coming decades. Many of these changes will have direct implications to wildlife and fish species and communities, and the habitats and ecosystems upon which they depend. For example, we are likely to see shifts in species’ ranges; changes in timing of breeding seasons and animal migrations; disassembly of current ecosystems and biological communities, and formation of new ones; increased rates of species extinction; more frequent and severe forest fires and drought; and altered expression for wildlife disease pathogens and invasive species. Long-standing assumptions about how we view and manage natural resources are being tested, and concepts such as “recovery,” “critical habitat,” and “historical species range” may become less relevant as ecosystems move in new trajectories. Indeed, climate change and its attendant impacts may represent the greatest natural resource conservation challenge in modern history.
To keep reading, click here. For news of an Environmental Protection Agency confab on water management for us bi-peds in the face of climate change, click here. For a new EPA presentation on climate change indicators, click here. For information on the May 5 meeting of the Climate Ready Water Utilities Working Group, click here, and for links to often water-themed climate change web pages, here.
Tags: chance of rain > Emily Green > US Environmental Protection Agency > US Geological Survey
May fully loaded
Posted on | April 28, 2010 | No Comments
Click here for newly compiled May listings of Southern Californian plant sales, garden tours, lectures, hikes, restoration projects and shows. If you have an event that you would like included, please e-mail the details and links to emily.green [@] mac.com.
Santa Barbara’s asphalt volcanoes
Posted on | April 27, 2010 | No Comments
From National Geographic News: Strange undersea domes spotted off the California coast are extinct “asphalt volcanoes” made from a mixture of hardened crude oil and marine fossils … But there’s little point in harvesting the asphalt mounds for fuel. “The quality of the material is very poor. … It’s not worth something like light sweet crude,” said lead study author David Valentine, an earth scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Click here to keep reading. Via Aquafornia.
Changing the equation
Posted on | April 26, 2010 | No Comments
Los Angeles garden designer Marilee Kuhlmann was one of eighty homeowners who opened their gardens last weekend for the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase. Photo: Emily Green / Chance of Rain
In so many conventional gardens with lawn and hedges, the equation is:
Water = sprinkler run-off and plant growth = Pacific pollution and mowing and pruning = noise and air pollution = green waste = more noise and air pollution.
Most of us know how destructive it is but have little idea how to change. Last week, the Mar Vista Green Garden Showcase in Los Angeles set out to show the way. In what felt less like a garden tour and more like a happening, eighty West Los Angeles homeowners who have taken out turf to create gardens that trap rainwater, produce food and have well-adapted flora opened their homes to the public. Here, the new equation is:
Water = growth = fruit / vegetables / shade followed by dormancy = stasis / leaf fall = soil replenishment / habitat = new growing medium.
Organizers say that people began arriving at noon, even though the tour didn’t begin until 2pm. Click here for photos from the tour.
The week that was, 4/18-24/2010
Posted on | April 25, 2010 | 2 Comments
Alcove, Zion National Park. Photo: Ed Firmage, Jr, the park's photographer in residence. Click on the image for Firmage's website and online presentation "Western Water: The Coming Crisis."
“It was boring! Boring, how could it be anything else? You can’t see out from the bottom of a canyon.” — Federal Bureau of Reclamation Floyd Dominy recounting his raft trip down the Colorado with Sierra Club president David Brower, “Floyd Dominy, the colossus of dams, dies at 100,” High Country News, April 23, 2010
It is simply a matter of time before Lake Powell becomes the world’s largest mud catchment, rendering the 710-foot-tall dam useless. — “Colorado River water policy faces an age of limits,” Salt Lake Tribune, April 20, 2010
Drought, in other words, takes on something of the character of the society it keeps. If that society lives on the edge, then drought shows up as the grim reaper. — Commentary by Ed Firmage, Jr, photographer in residence at Zion National Park, “Will we be ready when drought comes to stay?” Salt Lake Tribune, April 23, 2010
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