Reposting Wesleyan University Pricing Carbon Conference

What follows was originally posted last November in 2010, as "Pricing Carbon at Wesleyan U - and the Mournful tale of a forlorn, rejected Fox."  I repeat it because this morning a new comment appeared, which includes a photograph of the same beech trees I took pictures of last fall.  If you've already read this, you can just scroll to the end to see the comparison.  Bring a hanky with you.

By way of introduction on this blogpost, I am going to paste my comment to a link initially provided by Highschooler, about a story that made the rounds on the web last week claiming that an experiment by Dutch researchers indicated that radiation from Wi-Fi networks is responsible for killing trees.  Here's my comment:

NASA, the EPA, and the US Dept. of Agriculture all report that toxic tropospheric ozone (the kind derived from fuel emissions, not the beneficial and naturally occurring stratospheric layer that protects from UV radiation) is the cause of BILLIONS of dollars in crop yield losses annually.

Ozone is poisonous to vegetation, visibly damaging the stomata of foliage.  Long-term, cumulative exposure such as is experienced by trees and other perennial vegetation is gradually, incrementally killing them.

check out www.witsendnj.blogspot.com.  There's a link at the top to "Basic Premise" and a long list of peer-reviewed, published scientific research documenting this topic.

People notice that trees are dying and it's scary.  They latch on to crazy theories like contrail conspiracies and radiation because it's too painful to acknowledge that every day we pour tons of pollutants into the atmosphere to the point where the level is intolerable to the ecosystem.

Oh, the WHO estimates that ozone kills more Americans every year than breast and prostrate cancer combined - more than automobile accidents.  I guess that's the price we are willing to pay to live our cheap-energy-gobbling lifestyle.

Without any more ado, now to our weekend of non-stop fun at the Pricing Carbon Conference, which took place at Wesleyan University in Connecticut.  Anybody who knows me knows I am a timid paranoid driver so it always takes quite a bit of fortitude for me to undertake a long-distance trip.  But I had been working on my tree costume and hand-out for several weeks, not to mention the expenses were piling up between the sonotube and fabric, the printing, registration and hotel, and gas.  Auughh!  The total amount will go with me to my grave. I was committed.  I packed up the fox and left Friday, with spare needle and thread, anxious to explain to people that it's time to look beyond carbon.

So after all that, I'm still in a bit of a state of shock - since, if it weren't for a couple of stalwart friends and the impressive and inspiring presence of many student activists...it would have been a more-or-less unmitigated horror show.  I think I would have gotten a more welcoming reception at a tea party gathering than I received from the carbon cappers.  In fact, that may be my next appearance as a tree.

I asked one of the volunteers if there was some place in the lobby during lunch where I could hand out leaflets and not be in the way.  She took a copy (which is more or less identical to the "Basic Premise" page at the top of this blog, minus the list of links to scientific research) to one of the organizers who, after reading it, approached me with barely concealed outrage.  Here is what he said, staring at me with a withering intensity:

"This is not the appropriate venue for you to be pushing your own agenda."

...Whereupon I thought, a collapsing ecosystem is "my" agenda?  Really?

"This is a serious conference about putting a price on carbon."

Ah that makes me frivolous?...So, so reminiscent of Jim Bouldin telling me that "knowledgeable" people are the only ones deserving to make comments at Real Climate!

And lastly my favorite, pronounced without a hint of irony from the midst of reams of pamphlets and brochures and stacks of xeroxed directions and schedules:

"The University is very conscious of not wasting paper."

It's a safe bet he didn't personally pay for any of that printing, whereas I spent hours perfecting the proof at Staples and paid $.85 per copy x 500 copies = $425.00 to produce that flier...so if anybody thinks those pieces of paper are too valuable to be wasted, it's me!

I successfully resisted a fleeting urge to smack his supercilious, smug, condescending face and inquired as sweetly as I could muster, "Is it okay if I stay outside on the sidewalk...is that university property or a public space?"

He conceded it probably is a public space where he couldn't prevent me from leafletting - but as a courtesy he thought I should let him consult with a University representative first.

I said, fine, that's why I asked in the first place.  To be courteous.

So, we met about an hour later and he had grudgingly changed his tune.  "You can do whatever you like outside," he informed me stiffly.  Somebody affiliated with the university must have told him to stop parading around like a petty tin-pot dictator.  Free exchange of ideas, anyone?  Contrast that to what he might have said, alternatively:

"Gee, that's really interesting.  I didn't realize NASA has determined that ozone causes billions of dollars of damage to crops every year.  If cumulative damage to trees is enough to affect the forest carbon sink, that would have a very significant impact on climate change.  I would like to learn more about this after the conference when I'm not so preoccupied, to see how this information should be incorporated in our strategy.  Meanwhile please stay in the corner so you don't impede traffic."

Instead he kicked me outside on a cold blustery day.  Imagine my dismay, especially because I could have been at that very moment at the Metropolitan Opera with my dad, enjoying the matinee of Cosi Fan Tutte!  Oh did I mention that I could have gone that night with first two daughters to the Amwell Valley Hunt Ball, drinking champagne and dancing the night away, instead of sleeping in a hotel where all my belongings teetered on the teevee because I read that bedbugs can't climb up there?

Anyway...Soon enough I was established on the patio with my tree costume and my fliers and my daughter's stuffed fox, which she had taken to a taxidermist after finding it dead on the side of the road.  Next thing you know, along comes said organizer, to inform me I couldn't keep the fox because an animal rights person was complaining, which was really unfortunate, because the fox got a lot of attention.  People are so unfamiliar with nature these days.

Besides, was that really true?  If so, why didn't he say to that person, "I'm sorry, but this is not the appropriate venue to push your own agenda?"  He had no problem saying that to me, and at least "my" agenda is not tangential, but integrally related to climate change!  For that matter, why didn't he say, "I'm sorry, but I cannot tell her she cannot have a stuffed fox any more than I can tell her she can't wear a fur coat - or for that matter, tell every participant at the conference that they cannot attend sporting leather shoes, belts, wallets, purses or briefcases!"  He should have told them if they have a problem with the fox they could tell me directly about it, and then I would have explained of course, that the fox was roadkill by automobile, much as the trees.

All of this pales in significance of course to the massive failure of the conference, which with a few notable and heroic exceptions was mainly a useless parade of posturing, mewling pontificants, each so wedded to their own approach and branded organizations (not to say funding), that it was readily apparent that nothing significant is going to change despite the more honest speakers at the podium.

The most tragic aspect of all was the lack of anything other than lip service to the ideas presented by the valiant and earnest students - who to my mind had a right to feel chagrined at the glacial (or rather, what used to be thought of as glacial, before they sped up) pace of action.

Some of the speakers clearly understand the imminent enormity of catastrophic amplifying feedbacks, such as the methane from melting permafrost, not to mention the destabilization of society by climate refugees, but others appeared to believe we have decades to convert from burning fuel, and are oblivious to the determination of people to extract every last smidge of dirty fuel no matter the consequences to the environment and climate no matter how much we cajole them.

Luckily after Sunday morning's concluding session, the sky had cleared and it was a beautifully calm, sunny, pleasant afternoon to roam the Wesleyan campus.  This magnificent oak was the sight that greeted us when we emerged from the auditorium.

This institution was established in 1831, and so there are many very large old trees of quite a few varieties, and numerous younger trees planted more recently.  I couldn't take a picture of every single one, but if I had, every single one would exhibit serious, terminal, fatal damage. Following are the photos, one after the other, as I walked along...and some interesting stories that have emerged since my last post at Witsend.

The evergreens next to the big oak have peeling bark.

It is so raw, it is painful to look at.

I really do not know what exact mechanism is causing bark to split, peel, flake, and fall off.

It goes hand in hand with oozing sap - and the loss of needles.

These particular pines have almost none left.

Here's that big oak again.  The almost invisible "evergreens" are right next to it, on the left.

First in our roundup, a brief article from USA Today, contributed by Highschooler, adds ash trees to the near universal list of tree species dying off, of course blaming insects, drought and weather:

Ash trees already under attack by the emerald ash borer are dying at rate much faster than expected in Fort Wayne after a 2008 ice storm and a recent drought.

The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne reports that city arborist Chad Tinkel expects Fort Wayne to lose 3,000 ash trees through 2013 on top of the normal annual tree deaths of about 500.  That's twice as many as was projected two years ago.

The city's park board was told Monday it would cost more than $5 million through 2017 to remove and replace all of the ash trees along city streets and in city parks. Park officials said there isn't money to complete such a project.

In addition to damaged bark, gaping holes are to be found in almost every tree, old or young.

This maple has it all - holes and splitting bark.

Of course, there have always been trees with holes - where else would owls and flying squirrels live? - but they were centuries old trees, before clear-cutting.

Depending on the species, bark peels in different configurations.  The pine bark falls in patches that look like a jigsaw puzzle.  Maples peel off swirly writhing strips.  I think the vast majority of people have no idea how abnormal this is.

This sad story warns that chocolate trees are under attack.  I eat chocolate rarely, and only when it is very dark and rich.  The best place I have ever found is Woodhouse Chocolates in California.  They are very expensive to have mailordered, but so densely flavorful that 1/2 of one per day is pure unadulterated luxury.  I suggest you splurge now before the impending chocolate crisis hits as described at Alternet:

You can see how huge some of these trees are by comparing this sycamore to the pedestrian on the lower left.   It is truly humbling to see a life form so gigantic and heartbreaking to see them on the wane.

In a world that takes for granted the availability of delicious and affordable chocolate, it's easy to forget that the popular product actually comes from trees - not magical elves of free-flowoing cocoa rivers, sadly.  But, some experts are predicting that in a matter of decades a drop in production due to changing weather and agriculture incentives may make chocolate 'as expensive as gold'. "In 20 years chocolate will be like caviar.  It will become so rare and so expensive that the average Joe just won't be able to afford it," says one researcher...

This is typical of the crowns of trees.  Branches are missing or broken.

Cocoa production also faces competition from other crops which farmers may find more financially appealing, like for palm-oil, driven by an increasing demand for biofuels, and rubber.  Changes in weather patterns, too, have crippled production in places like Indonesia that might normally be there to pick up the slack.

High up, is a large hole.  They start from rot within.

In the last few decades, these factors have already led to higher cocoa prices, but in the coming years they could put chocolate out of reach for the average consumer.

Lovely example of missing bark, and garish green growth.

"Production will have decreased within 20 years to the point where we won't see any more cheap bars in vending machines," predicts Marc Demarquette, a British confectioner who a advised the BBC on a story about the coming chocolate crisis.

This tree has a hole in the very center at the top of this trunk.

Many of the high branches produced no new growth this season.

Highschooler also sent some links about the disappearing Amazon - a story from treehugger that validates the IPCC report:

Thomas Lovejoy, biodiversity chair of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment, as well as biodiversity advisor to the World Bank, says the Amazon is "very close to a tipping point." By 2075 the forest could shrink to 65% of its original size.

Lovejoy says that the tipping point for the Amazon is 20% deforestation, and we are currently at 17-18% deforestation.

Main factors in the decline include climate change, deforestation and fire--sounds mighty like what the IPCC 4th assessment report said.

As for what the forest will turn into: "The forest eventually converts to cerrado (savannah) after a lot of fire, human misery, loss of biodiversity, and emission of carbon into the atmosphere."

The Wesleyan campus is spacious and elegant, but a little to the right of this view of the stadium, the entire row of hemlock and spruce is transparent.

Another study documents the rivers disappearing due to drought.  I have always wanted to go there and see the spectacular waterfalls, but I guess I never will:
In places throughout the Amazon, some stretches of the region's most important rivers and tributaries have dried up almost entirely, reducing the normally flowing waterways to a vast plain of broken clay and mud. For some people who live and work in this part of the world, life has come to a screeching halt amid the worst drought in recent memory. It is estimated that more than 62 thousand families have been affected by thelack of rainfall with over half the municipalities in the region having enacted a state of emergency. And, on the heels of a recent report about the global droughts to be expected due to climate change -- one can only wonder if such scenes will become more common elsewhere.

Whereas this contradictory study from - who else? - researchers with the Smithsonian Institute claims that the Amazon trees can adjust just fine to higher temperatures and CO2.  All the evidence suggests that the SI is hopelessly corrupted by Koch brother financing.  It's interesting how they grasp at data from the past and hazard guesses as to what it means for the future, compared to the stories above that are based on empirical current observations.

It is generally acknowledged that a warming world will harm the world's forests. Higher temperatures mean water becomes more scarce, spelling death for plants – or perhaps not always.

According to a study of ancient rainforests, trees may be hardier than previously thought. Carlos Jaramillo, a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), examined pollen from ancient plants trapped in rocks in Colombia and Venezuela. "There are many climactic models today suggesting that … if the temperature increases in the tropics by a couple of degrees, most of the forest is going to be extinct," he said. "What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn't find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn't find that the precipitation decreased."

Another reader forwarded this horrible article about birds disappearing, in England.  I know they are disappearing here as well.  I miss hearing their delightful songs.  We have taken what was literally paradise and trashed it.  There are more trees that follow, but only little else to say.  Scroll down to the beeches.

I'm not sure, this might be a fraternity.  Below are closeups of the two large trees in the foreground.

This is the maple, on the right.  It is seeping, bark is breaking off, you can see it on the ground.

Here's the tree on the left.  The entire outer layer has already fallen from the trunk.

The peeling is working its way up to higher branches.

Here's another big maple, close up below revealing holes.

The tree below has many small cankers, with suckers protruding from them, a signal of distress.

the high branches are dead.

This tree has a large patch of missing bark, on it's way to developing a big hole.

Lest anyone bring up the tired argument that trees are dying from old age, here's a row of recently planted young trees.

They have gaping holes also.

And their bark is splitting to the same degree as the old trees.

A tree tour just wouldn't be complete with some lichens.

It's interesting that they cluster around lesions.

Oh, perennial geranium is blooming in November but global warming is a hoax!

Many trees are stained in various shades from seeping sap.

This tree has lost the entire center of it's crown.

There is - or rather was - a spectacular collection of beeches in this area of the campus.

Upon closer inspection they are all dying back, the center of the crowns lost.

Cracking bark and below, a nascent canker protrudes.  These are growing on all species at a mind-boggling rate, and are generally from an opportunistic, lethal fungal infection.

This is some sort of fruit - a crabapple likely.  It too has suckers, and is an excellent demonstration of the degradation of bark.  The left limb has smooth bark along the right hand side - that's how it should be.  To the left and on the lower right limb, the bark is heavily corroded and coarsened.

Here is my favorite scene.  The romantic in me can imagine generations of passionate students stealing kisses concealed under the glowing canopy of these two weeping willows in the spring.

Now though, the nearest has cankers clustered up and down its trunk.

And the one on the left, further back, has lost so many branches it is lopsided.

This squirrel was quite annoyed by my camera...or perhaps because the pine tree in the back is almost completely bare.

This has to be the pinnacle - nadir? - of extreme tree bizarro.  Maybe we should have a contest?

Here are more of the pathetic beeches:

When I was heading back to my car for the long journey home, the light was fading and this tree was just a silhouette...so I debated whether it was worth climbing the marble stairs.

I did anyway, and sure enough, there was a hole at the base of the trunk.

 I just so happened to come across a macabre picture of a fallen tree that I rather like, so here it is, and that's all for now, folks...except this reminder:  Zawacki is a verb that means I Told You So.

Oh, and as a footnote, I did send a very rough draft of this post to the organizers of the conference, offering to incorporate their perspective - and have yet to receive a reply.  If they ever decide to respond, I'll update.

Update:  I received an email from the Wesleyan Grounds Manager in  response to my questions in which he stated:

Over the last 30+ years, we've had to take down the oldest trees, some with storm damage and some with terminal disease.  The estimated oldest that we have now is probably only around 150-175 years old.

Update 2:  Tom Stokes sent me an exceedingly kind and gracious response early on Thanksgiving Day morning, for which I am extremely humbled and grateful:

Dear Gail Zawicki,

I read your account of the Pricing Carbon conference,
and regret having caused you such grief. Rather than
trying to once again explain and justify the stance
we took re your efforts to convey justifiable alarm at
what is happening to our trees, I merely say that I
was trying to do a lot of things at once, adhere to
University ground-rules, and respond to multiple
concerns different people had. Had I not been under
so much pressure, overseeing many events at once, I
certainly would have taken more time to listen to you,
understand your cause, and to seek a mutual agreement
and accommodations that might have been more satisfactory
for you and for all of us concerned.

More that the understandable anger you feel toward
me, I regret the part that our interaction had in
contributing to your overall negative impression of
the conference. It was something that many of us worked
on extremely hard (with dedication approaching yours
towards threatened trees), and we remain heartened that
we were able to provide an event that so many found to
be worthwhile (notwithstanding a couple of notable
exceptions!).

In my travels and work, I have often identified with
that forlorn and rejected fox.

A number of the pictures that you posted are beautifully
taken, moving and compelling. I admire your dedication
and wish you well.


Tom Stokes

UPDATE June 7, 2011:  Below is a new photograph of the beech trees sent by commenter Tennessee J:

Sarah Palin - Apocalypse Nut

And now for a break from the regularly scheduled broadcast!  This afternoon will mark "4th daughter" Laura's graduation party from Pratt Institute (congratulations Laura!).  Pending that event, I will temporarily ignore trees dying from ozone, and the cancer, asthma, and other diseases that result from burning gas, coal, and biofuels and instead just post an immortal image from the superbly nimble Newscorpse.   The terrifyingly ignorant quote from Palin has haunted me all week since I first read it in astonishment, so indicative is it of the utter stupidity that pollutes her brain - and an ignorant mindset that hurtles well beyond mere denial, into defiance, as it exposes the willfully dangerous anthropocentrism that threatens to destroy the entire ecosystem...and human civilization with it.  This masterpiece of condensed satire is followed by a video with the exasperated Piper pleading:  "Can we please go-oooow?"  Pulease Sarah?  Gooooo!

Wibble and Watermelon and more Tornados

In hindsight it would appear undeniable that following first daughter's wedding I took a respite from chronicling environmental disasters on a daily basis.  Never fear though - the death of trees continues unabated!  In some ways, catastrophe seems to be unfurling in slow motion, as ponderous as this disoriented snapper, who probably lost her way from the Cold Brook in the incessant rain, and appeared on the walkway at Wit's End.  At other times, the intemperate warnings of cataclysmic disaster hurtle forward with incomprehensible velocity, like the fatal tornados that have hit even Massachusetts, just yesterday, prompting the declaration of a state of emergency.  You couldn't have asked for more poorly timed inanity than this article published in Boston.com immediately before the storms hit, sanctimoniously pooh-poohing any scientific connection between climate change and violent weather!  Haha!  Please, go leave a comment to jeer at the moron who penned that drivel!

On Sunday we took a sail on the Hudson, where we could measure the progress on the so-called "Freedom Tower" rising in lower Manhattan (never mind our eroding civil liberties in our halcyon protofascist daze)...and the foreboding hulk of Goldman Sachs on the Jersey side.  Of course this blog is primarily about the collapse of the ecosystem - but as an aside, the market economy is going to implode too - soon, and permanently.  Rather than explain why it is foolish to have money still invested in stocks I defer to expertise at the Decline of the Empire.

In the interim between wedding and sailing, I happened upon two blogs that were new to me, both of them delightfully erudite, engagingly witty, with penetrating, original and fresh perspectives.  (Luckily they came to my attention at a critical moment of personal distress, as our Romm'n'Leader solicits new recruits, and something of a mutiny among the loyal legions has occurred.  Never mind!  In many ways it is time for true doomers to look beyond unwarranted hope.)

Anyway, one is Australian David Horton's Watermelon Blog, and the other, originating from the opposite side of the world in Britain, is known variously as pedantry dot wordpress...just another glitch in the matrix...or even more inscrutably for an American as Wibble, a word which evokes such a wealth of associations (from an erratically wobbling chin to faking insanity to escape battle) that my fellow countrymen who may be as unversed with the term as I was, can click here for various definitions (and then for further exposition, watch scenes from Blackadder on the youtubes at the end of this post, for fun!).

I gleaned two eminently useful phrases from these writers, so I will digress temporarily from the topic of trees languishing in atmospheric pollution and insert some photos of more pleasant images from our gardens which finally decided to bloom - after weeks of gloomy rain, having been mercilessly replaced by days of vicious, suffocating, humid heat.

How fortunate am I to live in the age of the intertubes where such content is freely available and instantly accessible, and the authors so generous to share their trenchant observations.  I highly recommend both of those blogs, from which I expect their very useful phrases will go far to help me cope with the recurrent pain of enlightenment.

From the Watermelon Blog I discovered the term "jamais vu" which is in contrast to the more familiar "deja vu".  It means the opposite of an eerie perception of having been in the same place or situation before, to describe NOT recognizing a place that should be familiar.  I have mentioned before that I often have that bewildering discombobulation now that the landscape is altered beyond recognition, where trees are missing and hills or houses that were obscured beyond their cover have suddenly loomed into view, and I feel abruptly marooned  and lost even in places I have been on an almost daily basis for decades.  Now I have a name for that sensation, by which I intend to control it.

From Wibble I learned of the dismissive term "c'est la guerre" which refers to irrational behavior excused because it derives from the craziness endemic to war.  This I shall substitute as more evocative than "it's the insanity" which I had been mentally repeating with alarming frequency to describe all sorts of lunacy, my own especially, that is antithetical to rational thought, but rather an often unavoidable consequence of inhabiting the parallel universe where bounty masks the coming crisis.  Here's the definition according to urbandictionary:

"This French phrase of resignation gained widespread use during World War II. It provided the universal excuse for everything that was broken, no longer functioned, was unavailable or could not be accomplished. It also explained away all unusual behavior. That it is in the language of a nation whose life and joie de vivre was being crushed by an occupational army gives it an aroused sensibility."

"The phrase lingered into European reconstruction and then into modern times in all nations. It is spoken with a wry acknowledgement of its former literal meaning even though it may currently describe any other interfering force preventing accomplishment of a task, even laziness."  Or the cognitive dissonance and intermittent paralysis that results from helplessly witnessing a train wreck you cannot stop?

The first leaves to emerge in the spring, lowest on annual weed stalks, are already exhibiting symptoms of exposure to ozone.

They are losing the ability to photosynthesize and produce chlorophyll, hence the lack of color, and the brown damaged stomates speckling the surface.

While I am still diverging from ozone, I will post some thoughts by another virtual acquaintance, a correspondent by the name of Clive, who lives and ponders deep thoughts in faraway New Zealand.  He had contributed extensive comments to Climate Progress incorporating the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, which with his kind indulgence are partially reproduced below along with some emailed embellishments (as usual blogger plays havoc with fonts, sorry!):

"Krishnamurti was greatly concerned with the destruction of the environment, which he described very passionately many decades back. Taking the liberty of paraphrasing the essence of his words, he said man was destroying the environment because he has no relationship with it. There is really only one crisis, not many, and that is the crisis in human consciousness. All mankind’s problems stem from there; they are a result of his greed, his desire for power, his fear, his pursuit of illusory security. These are all manifestations of the self, the ego. Because Man is divided in himself, he cannot help but create a world that is divided, separated into nations, religions, beliefs. And when there is separation there must be conflict.

I think it is clear that as long as these separations exist, we cannot work together to meet the many challenges facing us.

Thus, the only way for all the chaos of society to come to an end, Krishnamurti said, the only real solution of the endless problems that mankind creates, – that is a transformation of human consciousness. That seems to me self-evident.

Less easy to understand is Krishnamurti’s insistence that each of us is totally responsible for all the problems of the world. Not the Americans, not the politicians, the capitalists, etc...  I quote:


'We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us. And only when we realize, not intellectually but actually, as actually as we would recognise that we are hungry or in pain, that you and I are responsible for all this existing chaos, for all the misery throughout the entire world because we have contributed to it in our daily lives and are part of this monstrous society with its wars, divisions, its ugliness, brutality and greed – only then will we act. '”

Upon reading this I wrote back:

These excerpts [those two sections where I added italics] are very powerful to me and help me to understand my own personality and partially answer a question I wonder about constantly - what enables some few unlucky people (me included) to recognize the self-destructive course humanity has been on ever since we started exterminating species and multiplying exponentially (and you are right it goes far back in time before the Industrial Revolution, which has merely accelerated it - and even catastrophic climate change I would venture, since we started cutting forests and burning wood) which link to two seminal experiences when I was young.

The first is that from as far back as I can remember I have been afraid of animals - afraid they have a collective conscious and resentment for our exploitation and cruelty towards them, and will one day turn on us in a vicious but well-deserved revenge.

The other is that ever since I found out about WWII and the Nazi deathcamps - and from there all the other atrocities throughout the ages not least Lord of the Flies - I have had an inescapable inkling that people are really nasty critters underserving of our position as top predator, entwined with a deep and unshakeable sense of guilt.
Both these suspicions have made me profoundly uneasy throughout my life.

Clive responded:

"I have read a fair amount about human atrocities. And it's not a matter of studying history – they are happening all the time. It is a fact that man, or at least some men (?) is capable of great cruelty, brutality. I suggest, tentatively, that that is a result of the hurt he has received. Hurt and violence, another cycle repeating itself endless in human consciousness.

This cruelty is also very much tied up with the great tendency of people to take on beliefs. That seems to make them 'inhuman', and able to justify just about any action on those who do not share their beliefs.

It is interesting to me to communicate with someone who accepts totally that the future is going to be very very grim. Full Stop. Now I say that and just yesterday I read an article about the 'mini ice age' and the Maunder Minimum which suggested there is just a chance that the sun's emissions could fall at any time, producing cooling. Of course this would not reverse the growing acidity of the ocean, or solve any other of the crises mankind has created. In fact it might introduce even greater problems like food production.

And in his present state of consciousness, mankind is going to create ever more problems, corrupting whatever he touches. That is so obvious, surely?"

Next Clive forwarded this quote from JK:

"Human beings, each one, right through the world, go through great agonies, the more sensitive, the more alert, the more observant, the greater the suffering, the anxiety, the extraordinary sense of insoluble problems."

and later added:

"I read Krishnamurti used to have a picture on the wall of a tiger. He would talk to it, although he was actually using as some sort of focus to communicate with tiger consciousness. 'Stay deep in the jungle. Keep away from man', he would say."

I think the reason I have long mistrusted animals, and most especially pets, derives from the possibly fanciful idea that their unnatural dependence breeds resentment.  (This goes a long way to explaining the unruliness of the American teenager.)  Having said that, Wit's End has long reluctantly been a veritable menagerie which has spawned, it would appear - between the veterinarian in training, the sea otter dissertation, and the Frenchtown horse farm - a cult of animalia.  So here are pictures - I can't resist! - of the newest members of the family, Nishisaka and Wick, named for the creek that runs through Bramblefields.

Nishi on the left is known as a Red Pearl fox for her white coat.

She reluctantly allows herself to be fitted to a harness.

Foxes are solitary, not herd animals.  Lacking the instinct to run in a pack or pay obeisance to an alpha leader, they are impossible to train.  But how cute can they be!?

I cannot conclude a post without more reference to our noble suffering trees.  A facebook friend of a friend, who lives in Ontario, Canada, has lately become alarmed by the number of dying trees, so following are a few of the photos she shared.  There has been an impressive amount of discussion on her entry about the possible causes for these trees to die, as she is not the only person to notice.

She has described these as "red pines" although I thought they were white.

In any event, to my eye the clearly dying pines in the forefront are not in significantly better condition that the other conifers to the rear - I believe those are hemlock.  Which apparently, are disappearing.

Perhaps as more people realize there is a global trend that affects all species and ages of trees - in all sorts of locations - there will be some wider understanding of the underlying reason that is causing insects and fungus and disease to run amuck, and there will be some hope of intervening to save them.

A local Pacific Northwest newspaper report quotes plants pathologists and aborists speculating that madrona, a lovely native variety, is also dying - from "blight" and cankers:

"Many are diseased, with brown or missing leaves and ugly black cankers on their trunks and limbs.

Lopez Island arborist Fred Ellis said canker-causing natrassia and fusicoccum fungi stop up the capillaries in the cambium so that fungicides cannot penetrate and protect the trees.

'It’s a choking disease,' he said.  Elliot is currently researching whether climate change and management practices like fire suppression may be a factor for the disease.

'We have seen 18 or so leaf diseases and two major cankering diseases over the past few years, and it's been getting worse,' said Orcas arborist Herlwyn Lutz."

You would think scientists would suspect something fundamental has gone awry when ONE species alone is being attached by 18 leaf and 2 major cankering diseases!  Tree AIDS perhaps?  In this recent photo, new growth is seen above the older, damaged leaves.

When I visited the PNW last summer, and found that the leaves of all sorts of species, not only madrona, exhibited severe, life-threatening damage - for anyone with the time to spare, those pictures can be seen by clicking here and here.  In the first link, there are extensive excerpts from the writings of Dr. Garg, a botany professor from India, one of which describes effects of the acid rain resulting from ambient ozone as:

"Increased susceptibility to pathogens:  Acid rains damage the surface cuticle of leaves and other plant organs and thereby make the plant more susceptible to attack by pathoggenic fungi and bacteria which can now enter through the damaged surface."

Dr. Garg also observes there are three stages in the decline of trees from exposure to pollution, the last and most visible of which is:  "...toxic aluminium is released at pH 4.2 leading to destruciton of tree roots and deterioration of natural defense mechanisms of trees that prevent the entry of pathogenic bacteria, fungi and viruses.  The trees thus gradually die due to nutrient deficiency, heavy metal toxicity and various pathogenic diseases."

Of course Dr. Garg is not the only scientist to note this connection and make it explicit.  American researchers at the Free Air Carbon Enrichment experiments demonstrate the same opportunistic mechanisms of decline in a video, which is embedded at the end of this post.

Is there any reason the photos from Washington State U's research web page look so similar to the leaf damage on the east coast?  Nah...must be coincidence!  Or could they have a little problem with nitrous oxides encouraging inordinate quantities of lichen to proliferate as in this image, too?

That is enough for today...As promised, for those in need of some bleak humor, here is the final Blackadder episode in two parts, about The Wibble - where it's deceptively tempting to while away quite a bit of time laughing at others...I did!

Naomi Klein - Addicted to Risk