Entropy

Last night I was watching a science program on the teevee, all about electrons, protons and neutons, the particle zoo, quarks and quantum mechanics, super conductivity, particle acceleration, the search for a theory of everything, and the beginning of time.

It all made me feel very stupid since I can sort of understand it when it's being explained to me - but I couldn't possibly describe any of it coherently to anyone else. But it is a cheery distraction from the disaster that all of us stupid humans are busily perpetrating on ourselves and our all the other species with whom we share our host, Earth.

And here's something I do know, for sure. Last Thursday, October 8, when I was taking pictures around this pretty church in the center of the village of Pottersville, was supposed to be the beginning of the prime season for fall color, here in NJ.

Instead, leaves are falling to the ground.

This treeline should still be verdant and dense.

Around the church are mostly maples and oaks. Perhaps most people will be fooled into thinking some are turning the proper hues of autumn, but the brown spotting on these maple leaves, which is typical of any tree you can find now, results from damage to the stomata from toxic greenhouse gas emissions.

Some of the leaves are going straight from green to brown.

This stump is from a very large, old tree...my keys are in the forefront for scale. Such a tragic loss.

These leaves are turning in the characteristic stippling, in the case of oaks, a greyish cast.

Very soon I won't be able to blog about the trees since we will have reached the season where it is normal for them to be leafless. I expect there will be conifers that are losing needles like crazy but except for specimens isolated in parks or yards, their dead branches will just disappear into the bare branches of the deciduous trees in the woods, and no one will notice their passing.

I expect many branches will be falling, leading to record numbers of crushed cars and roofs, injured people, and extended power outages. But the average Ignorer will find excuses, like the wind, or ice.

And so what will be left to say, for me, a person who loves and records the heartbeat of the natural world?

Well, I suppose I could write about the neglected oceans, which most people blithely infer are perfectly healthy because they don't see the fish under the water any more than they see the leaves for the trees.

So let's consider three problems about the oceans. The links are all fascinating reads.

1. Overfishing. How many people know that 90% of large predatory species, such as tuna and cod, have already vanished, since 1950? And that disrupting the balance in the ecosystem can have ramifications that will cause it to collapse?

2. Acidfication, which is detroying all calcium based life forms: "Remember the carbon dioxide that we left dissolving in the oceans? Billions and billions of tonnes of it over the last 150 years or so since the industrial revolution? While mankind has squabbled, delayed, distracted and dithered over the impact that carbon emissions have on the atmosphere, that dissolved pollution has been steadily turning the oceans more acidic. There is no dispute, no denial, about this one. Chemistry is chemistry, and carbon dioxide plus water has made carbonic acid since the dawn of time."

3. Heating which causes coral bleaching, and ultimately kills the fish that depend on the reefs.

Any one of the above is enough to cause anoxic (dead) seas all by itself but the 3 together??

Let us keep in mind that, aside from providing food and employment for literally BILLIONS of people, the life in the ocean gives us an atmospere that we humans and terrestrial creatures can breathe (oxygen!). Without it we shall expire. Dead ocean = dead people.

I will leave off with that happy thought and venture outside for a beautiful sunny afternoon.

Boundaries

Imagine that! Constraints? Where is Ronald Reagan when you need him? We don't need no stinkin' limits!

“We’re sitting on top of a mesa right now, and we’re driving around, but we don’t have our lights on and we don’t even have a map,”

The Ignorers

To the Trustees of Willowwood Arboretum and the Upper Raritan Watershed Association:

I am writing to you in the assumption that you are concerned with horticulture, conservation, and nature.  I am hopeful that you will consider taking a stand in the community and with our elected officials to address the existential threat posed to our environment from greenhouse gas pollution.  I welcome your comments and suggestions, and please visit or search the blog for links to scientific research.

As an introduction to my concerns, below is a comment I left this morning on the Huffington Post, regarding a story celebrating autumn trees:

I'm sorry to say that fall foliage isn't what it used to be. The trees on the East Coast of the US are being rapidly poisoned by greenhouse gasses from fuel emissions such as ozone and peroxyacetyl nitrates, which are toxic to plants (and humans - causing cancer, emphysema, and asthma). Take a closer look at the leaves and it is quite evident that they are not lovely colors of red and gold, but rather are mottled with brown spots, from damaged stomata. This is equally true for plants in pots and annual crops. Every species that needs to photosynthesize has been damaged and unable to produce chlorophyll thanks to the deteriorated atmosphere. I highly recommend that people take an objective look at the shrinking biomass and consider what must be done to preserve it. Ecosystem collapse and mass extinction will be the result if we continue burning petroleum products and ethanol.

I might have added that, no doubt, most people to the extent they notice at all, will hypothesize perhaps that too much rain has somehow led to early leaf drop and lack of color, or attribute it to some other nonsense - but that will hardly suffice to explain why the coniferous trees are losing their needles, permanently.

This pastel sketch was for a larger oil painting (long since traded for an Oriental carpet), that I made over 20 years ago.  When my children were growing up, I  often brought them to this meadow, to pick wild strawberries, and to walk through the gardens and along the trails of Willowwood and Bamboo Brook.

Here is the same spot, photographed on Tuesday, October 6, 2009.  The little pines were planted after I drew the sketch.  In the center are bare branches, and the trees are dull.  Even the grass, which used to turn from bright green to glorious shades of red and purple, is an ugly brown.

Trees are losing leaves before they even turn fall colors.

I've included some flowers even though those that remain are looking fragile and are diminutively small.

And some of their leaves are tiny, and mottled or shriveled.

Here is the entry from the parking lot, and below, closer views of the leaves from this same cedar and trees.

A weeping birch and its leaves below.

The needles of this species of conifer have begun turning yellow in just the past two weeks.

They are falling off so fast it is amazing.  Here, they have blanketed the top of a hedge.

A perfect example of atmospheric poisoning - seared edges, loss of green color, veins standing out, pockmarked stomata, and overall shrinkage of tissue.

A shrub and its leaves.

In an earlier visit, in July, I recorded the condition of the plant which were already showing symptoms of severe stress.  This tree is in that post, as is the boxwood in front of the house.

A tall cryptomeria and the condition of the branches.

Leaving the arboretum, a very thin tree and its leaves.

They litter the ground beneath.  On October 6th!

There is little agreement about lichens.  I do not know if this particular lichen harms trees.  But I do know it likes to grow on dead wood, stone, and dying trees.  It is spreading everywhere.

This particular tree is completely bathed in lichen and obviously, quite deceased.

I don't know the name of this exotic plant, but the flowers are luscious.

Over at Greenfyre and elsewhere there is often debate about how to - or whether to - talk to deniers. I left this on the thread:

Here's a thought about keeping comments open to deniers. I have this theory that perhaps the most rabidly fanatic deniers are actually closest to recognizing how serious are the challenges we face from climate change. I think the more hysterically they argue the science, is due to their implicit recognition that there is a terrifying threat. Thus there may be some point in engaging them, because a bigger problem are the many more persons who don't deny climate change exactly - they just IGNORE it. Let's call them the Ignorers. They ignore because otherwise they would have to consider making radical changes to their lifestyles! And confront ecosystem collapse, and extinction. Ouch! Consider this analysis.

Movie Star Trees

Here are videos of trees in Missoula, and Alaska.  Look at the difference compared to the East Coast US!  The trees in Missoula are full, leaves in Alaska are brightly colored - even those on the ground.  Where I live, they are brown, just look at the Forensics post below.

trees, they move. from rc cone on Vimeo.

Falls Creek, Alaska in Autumn from Dennis Zaki on Vimeo

found here, thanks Gryphen!