February 11
When I scribbled a note or two to think about this post, I titled it, "Just Plants," because all I really wanted to do was show some pictures of plants that bookmark the passing year. And I certainly wanted to dodge the scorn and snorts of actual biologists, since I'm not trying to identify anything, nor study any process. Biologists: Real Science. Equally I need to dodge the derision of the biogeographers, who would study location, distribution, other processes, and would have nifty, interactive GIS displays faster than I'll be able to type this out.
However, "Just Plants" gave way to the bigger claims of "Time Capsule." Here's why. 2 reasons. The first--although this isn't science, neither rocket-, genetic-, nor atomic-, let's put this in the context of our shifting, ever-more-chaotic climate. That is, not just that the weather is weird, but that weather, patterns of rainfall, episodes of cold and drought, what the birds do, which insects thrive or don't, which flowers they visit, and how all those line up with everything on the ground, especially our not-so-mobile weed and tree neighbors, really matters. The weeds, and some of the trees, are pretty resilient--robust, dynamic, whichever jargon you want to be in--but not infinitely so. A lot of them will likely survive the collapse (that is, the chaotic rearrangement of the climate systems we grew up with, this last 10,000 years), a far off collapse, about 15 or 20 years, I'd guess. However,we aren't likely to understand the landscape that comes out the other side of this intense change.
And more not-good-news, human agriculture is way more fragile than these "natural" systems. Oh, you've heard the recent concerns in Missouri about getting the soybeans planted, or getting the first haying done, or crops washed out by too much rain. And we might worry whether our later summer will stay wet enough, or suddenly shrivel into a long dry stretch like last year, or the grim 2012. A long totally dry summer is only swell if you think your Saturday BBQ has nothing to do with what happens on the farm,
Sure, maybe we'll develop some drone technology, happy little mechanical dragonflies set to hover over the fields and spit seeds into the ground, or maybe we'll come up with some down-home version of Star Wars Imperial Walkers to wade through the mud, planting soybeans and shooting down the Jetsons' hovercars that are bothering the cattle in the north 40. That's the technophile, modernist scenario for how the Anthropocene turns out--this new geologic age in which the planet and all its systems are human-influenced. Machines to fix all our problems, with no changes in how we think or act? Cool science fiction, if you're rich enough to play those games. Most of the world isn't, and that's a problem, if we want reliable food, and plenty of it.
Here's an article worth looking at: "Opinion: Stephen Hawking's catastrophic end for Planet Earth." Lots of advice for us humans, but let's focus on a passage from Mark Cackler, "the World Bank’s manager for global agricultural and food security." He tells us that:
The human race is “trapped in a vicious circle” according to the World Bank’s agriculture manager, “we will need to grow 50% more food by 2050 to feed 9 billion people … but agriculture, which is paradoxically vulnerable to climate change, generates 25% of heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change.”
This is essentially a no-win scenario, a zen koan, the ultimate question that has no real answer: The more food “we grow using conventional methods, the more we exacerbate the problem. It’s time for a climate-smart agriculture. But first we must address a few manmade problems.”Hawking, meanwhile, is urging us to hurry up and get off Earth. I don't disagree, and I liked Interstellar, despite that actor who can only talk Texan. In that film, humanity at the last possible moment, our crops collapsing, our atmosphere shifting, manages to reach the stars, and somehow afford to transport enough folks to new worlds. (Do read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy sometime, for amazing insights into arguments about our expansion, terra-forming, who survives and who doesn't, respect for the place itself vs. pressing human need...With trepidation, I'll also report that it may become a TV series. But read the books first!)
Yes, survive, explore, learn. But not abandon. I'm not ready to give up on Earth, much as I'm eager to soar off to Mars, as long as I can come back for my dogs. Even less am I ready to take the same wrong thinking with us, the thinking that put us on a bad path. Hmm...am I (and my captive students) the only ones who make it to the end of A Canticle for Leibowitz? I'm left almost thinking that we need enough human collapse, just enough hard slap in the face, to recognize that all this is already underway. That we need to see what's going on before we destroy the very ground that future humans will need to build a better civilization. But wishing for collapse puts us on a much darker trail...
Better, Aidan Davidson, in an article Soren is having me read, "Beyond the Mirrored Horizon: Modern Ontology and Amodern Possibilities in the Anthropocene," in Geographical Research, 2015. There, Davidson talks about different paths for the Anthropocene, one being
washing away modern hubris, opening up realms of choice within planetary dynamics that are inherently human but not reducible to human agency. This is to accept that the mysteries of geology and biology and the mysteries of politics and culture fully inhabit each other (2).I much like Davidson's description of global warming as our "ongoing industrial accident" (6), and "amodern" is a great term. A lot more to explore here, seeing our place-time in frameworks like that.
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April 27:
May 9
(yes, these are the despised bush honeysuckle)
May 12:
May 14:
June 6:
June 7:
June 9:
June 11:
June 14:
June 16:
June 17:
June 18:
June 19:
June 20:
June 22:
June 28:
July 1:
July 2:
July 6:
Back at the start, I said "2 reasons." Here's the second, something "easy" for us to deal with, right here, right in our very own ditch, our own cranky drive to work: relearn what is beautiful. That is, there is a beauty we don't control, beauty we don't plan. Beauty that is part of us, but beautiful because it exists with its own agency, its own life, however much enfolded with ours.
Just that. And everything starts to change.
later, bob
July 3
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