Aghast!

I wish I could communicate something profound - important thoughts that will resonate - when I make a post here on this blog. But when I come across scenes like this, I become inchoate. I recall the first time I saw a dead tree - long before I reflected on the cause - and how shocked I was.

Now look, whole swaths of pines are dead, in just the past 2 years.

Trunks are rotting.

And bark is splitting. Why is shell putting nitrogen into gasoline - don't they understand how delicate the nitrogen balance is in nature? I guess not!

Sunday was such a gorgeous day I decided to return once again to Willowwood, a nearby arboretum. I expected the witchhazel to be blooming, and I wasn't disappointed. It doesn't look very impressive but as a plant in the garden has several advantages - it blooms very early and has a wonderful, pervasive scent that travels great distances.

This particular arboretum has many varieties, as they do with other trees and shrubs. I last took some pictures of damaged trees in October, and earlier as well, posted in July 2009.

Many areas were carpeted with the blossoms of a cheery yellow groundcover.

I began checking the trees for BALDness - which is a revolutionary new diagnosis for the symptoms of bark atrophy lichen decline - in which the bark of branches and trunks of trees lose begins to split, fray, curl, and fall off, which often but not necessarily is accompanied by the rampant growth of one or more lichens, and either way, foretells a decline heralding the imminent death of the tree.

This very large hickory is a good example. Different trees have bark that responds to BALDness in their own peculiar fashion. Hickories have long, vertical, curls of bark that look like they are about to spring off into space.

In fact they are popping off.

When pieces of bark jump off, the vulnerable underneath is revealed.

Conifers are going BALD as well.

This Japanese Red Pine has a very thin crown, and the trunk clearly has BARK.

The branch has the same problem.

The arboretum is a useful venue for examining the effects of toxic greenhouse gases that interfere with photosynthesis and the production of chlorophyll, because there are so many varieties of trees. Foresters and nurserymen and the USDA like to blame individual pathogens, insects, or fungi for the rampant dying of particular trees.

But a survey of an arboretum like this makes clear that every form of vegetative life is equally impacted. For instance this thinning

Cedar of Lebanon

which of course has lichen gnawing on its branches

as does this Western Yellow Pine that has raw exposed bark

and the same can be observed on this exotic import

a Chinese fringe tree with BALD branches.

The original home of the landscape architect has boxwoods that look like this now:

I wrote to the trustees in October, when the boxwood looked bad, but not as bad as they do now! Not one of them answered me. October:

July:

This is incredibly fast deterioration.

In the formal beds, the yew hedge is suffering.

Take a look at the inner branches.

An euonymus bush should be green all through the winter.

Instead, it is fading and the leaves display the classic effects of toxic greenhouse gas poisoning: loss of pigment, and stippling from damaged stomata.

Most of the plants and trees are labeled, but this one isn't. I'm including it as an example of BALDing, even though it had no label and maybe it is supposed to peel like this, because, while trying to get a picture, I slipped into the creek and suffered from a rather serious mud attack. And besides, it's amazing coloration!

There is a grove of various apple and crabapple trees. Here is a spokestree for the rest:

Hello? I am being smothered with a voracious lichen! Is anyone listening? Excuse me I'm dying! Hello?

This is another rather exotic tree, a Chinese Elm.

losing bark and exposing raw wood.

This pine has no nametag, it is on the outskirts of the park.

It has really gone downhill just since last October:

The trunk is drenched with sap.

Here is a picture of a low branch last July

already thin, but now it is just about totally bare.

As is this row of pines. They are black:

The woods are so foreign to me now. They used to be robust and suddenly, they are bleak.

Here is a mesmerizing and infinitely sad tale of how human activity is driving the sixth great extinction event, described at this guardianUK article. It's really only necessary to think about it a minute or two to realize in all its bathos the fact that we are a predatory species which is not only causing untold species to go expire but is well on track to cause the extinction of ourselves. Rather annoyingly however, they list the reasons humans are causing extinctions and never even mention pollution!

"Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the "sixth great extinction" of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change."

There is never any lack of links to stories along these lines at DesdemonaDespair but this one about the disappearing oysters in the Pacific northwest in particular reminds me that what is happening in the oceans is mirrored on the land.

A comment found at this post at Greenfyre's blog is quite likely the most deeply cynical explanation for the complacency of deniers I have yet to come across; and also quite likely to be the most accurate assessment!

Berbalang

A couple of things I’ve discovered over the years and some observations:

1) Conspiracy theorists never investigate real conspiracies because the fake ones are much safer to investigate. Investigating real conspiracies can get you hurt or killed. This is why Monckton can safely rant about Global Warming being a conspiracy by what essentially comes down to the Illuminati, but we see very little in the mainstream media about how the deniers function.

2) The professional deniers know what the consequences of their actions will be if they are successful, in fact they are counting on them. If large areas of the Earth are turned into lifeless desert that opens up all kinds of opportunities for oil and coal exploration. Besides we will need those energy resources to survive in a world growing more hostile to life. So what if a large portion of the Earth’s population dies, it will mostly hit the poorer people who don’t buy much coal and oil anyway. This is the way they are thinking.

3) Drawing parallels between “Climategate” and Watergate may not be a bad thing. I recall that there were a series of other break-ins before the Plumbers were caught that caused all kinds of problems for the Democratic party and helped Nixon get elected. But the investigation of Watergate break-in eventually revealed the truth. I expect that a similar series of events can be made to happen by investigating who was behind the hacked emails.

BALD

Saturday under a clear sunny sky, I decided to take a walk down Cold Brook Road, a dirt lane across from Wit's End.

From a spring along the way, daylilies are already emerging.

Mr. Peacock is making a racket!

I was very sad to note that the katsura tree I planted in front of the chicken coop is going BALD. That stands for Bark Atrophy Lichen Decline, a lethal syndrome.

Since nobody offered a better name, I made one up myself to describe the condition of trees.

Cold Brook Road isn't quite a mile long.

All along, the trees uniformly are shrinking, shriveling, and going BALD.

Some of them are completely denuded of bark already.

This young pair of cedars are typical. The one on the left is totally brown; the one on the right soon will be.

I used to love to walk down these country lanes and did just so about every day, for years.

Now it is really depressing to see the universal deterioration.

This group of trees has been culled for some time. There are stacks of logs on the ground.

The tops of the crowns have many broken branches.

This tree is listing, as are many - their root systems are rotting.

Here is an example of the Lichen in BALD.

Lesions like this are to be found wherever the lichen is this advanced.

Up until now lichens were spreading but stayed fairly flat against the bark.

They are starting to grow thicker.

Holes like this are appearing on trunks and branches everywhere.

Grotesque gnarling is becoming more common.

At the far end of Cold Brook is a large farm that has been in the same family for generations.

There is a big pond on the other side of the creek.

This young tree with BALD has the bright green lichen, and splitting bark.

This area of Oldwick is beautifully preserved. For the most part, newer structures are in keeping with the colonial style.

Here is a black maple.

The bark is curling away from the trunk.

Another is weeping - the lower left is wet.

The air looks so clear it is hard to believe it is dirty.

I read one complaint from a woman who lost power in the last blizzard and was melting snow over a fire for water. The pan was filthy, she said.

This row of pines is very thin.

The ground beneath is covered in cones.

Sap is pouring out, and the bark is splitting, revealing the red beneath.

Old barns dot the fields.

A little Jack Russell defended his terrain.

When a place has so much charm,

why would anyone build a monstrosity like this energy-gobbling hulk?

Snowdrop!

Yesterday I noticed the snowdrops are up, and so this morning I picked one. There is a very old dump in the woods behind Wit's End, where farmers have been throwing trash for generations, and we've got a nice collection of old glass bottles that turn up now and again as the ground freezes and thaws. Next, I went to visit a friend, to help him set up the first post for his new blog, Expect Eric, about Georgia O'Keeffe.

Eric is staying temporarily in a lovely house not far away from mine, with a broad vista of the dying landscape. Click on it for a full view, it is quite spectacular!

Along the way I passed scores of dead trees, big old ones,

medium sized ones,

and young trees as well.

Really the trees on exhibit here are quite representative of the condition of all of them.

Maples in particular seem to be turning black.

This huge one is next to the house where Eric is visiting. The bark is quite black, and shrinking away from the trunk.

Scattered around the lawn and at the base I found more snowdrops, and they are like miniatures. They should be about 4 or 5 inches high at least, but they are shorter than the brick. I found last year that individual leaves on trees were much smaller than normal, as were acorns and chestnuts. This year, for those plants and trees that emerge from dormancy, I expect even more shrinkage.

Most bizarre were swarms of bees - for the beginning of March, that seems aberrant, to say the least.

Here is an article in the Monthly Review, about the characteristics of capitalism that render it an unsustainable economic system. The analysis of climate change and resource depletion is guaranteed to scare the daylights out of you!

Splendid!

RPauli sent me this link. Remember, anyone who is agonizing over the impending collapse of human civilization, that we can count ourselves so fortunate to have enjoyed, however briefly, an era that allows us to visit that site and play with motion in pure, ecstatic freedom. It starts out black but every time you click on the mouse it changes color. Enjoy!

Methane

Here's a little red finch, perched outside my kitchen window this morning. I was advised many years ago by a Japanese lady that this variety of tree, with red branches and pale green foliage, was the only maple she would consider planting in the garden; the kind with red leaves was just too vulgar! It took some searching to find it as instructed, and since I planted it outside the back door, it has gone from three feet to about fifteen.

The other night over dinner I was asked by a friend why I bother to blog about dying trees, and climate change, when there is nothing I can do about either one. He suggested I would be better off applying my efforts where they might have some impact.

I replied that, first of all, blogging about dying trees and climate change doesn't mean I do it to the exclusion of all else.

Then I posed this question: if I were alive in 1929, and I knew that the Nazis were planning the Holocaust, and also knew that there was really nothing I could do to prevent it, what should I have done? Gone shopping?

Should Miep Gies have hid Anne Frank for two years even though ultimately she perished in a concentration camp?

To me, the answer is obvious. In the end, it is a moral choice. You do the right thing, regardless of the outcome. I have always liked to think I wouldn't have been one of the ignorers in 1929, but there's no way to know for certain.

For anybody who hasn't been following the conversation in the comments at climateprogress.org about the methane release, it provides an on-going, riveting glimpse into the rawest reactions of those who are among the most informed about amplifying feedbacks - and it's pretty scary. The thread is developing into a rich source of excellent links.