I just read the other day that new climate models show short term cooling trends buried within the general upwards climb of global temperatures.

It has to do with shifting ocean currents and their effect on rain and circulation patterns.

This spring here in the ARK certainly confirms that analysis. We have been recording the arrival of the first hummingbird for 22 years. He ( it is always a male) usually shows up between April 18th and 23rd. I remember one year, down at the “Glad Cab”, (where we lived while building our present home), being strafed several times one spring afternoon until the feeder was hung on the old hame we used for such purposes. After that we always made sure we have the feeder up and hanging by the 18th—it’s safer that way!

The first hummer is joined a couple of days later by another male, which then begins the usual aerial battles, then another male appears in the next day or two and finally, a few females come to check the summer accommodation. This sequence never varies; the process is the same each year.

But the arrival times do change. One year the first hummer arrived on April 9th, so we had to scramble to find the feeder, make the solution and put out the food. On the other end we have had arrivals as late as April 26

This year things were quote cold, with minus 7 or 8 each night and the snow and ice taking forever to disappear. We put out the feeder on the usual date and as the days went by we started to become concerned. By the 30th of April we really began to worry. Maybe the whole flock of hummingbirds that know our feeding station—the only one for many kilometers—had been wiped out.

Rosemary sent out a few emails, and yes, others had noticed late arrivals, but at least theirs were there. Each night we would bring the feeder in to stop it from freezing, and put it out early in the morning, hoping to catch the first arrival.

I was in the office on the phone about 10 in the morning on May 1st, when the first hummer flew into the window, trying to get at my red sweatshirt. What a relief to see that little guy! I alerted Rosemary, and a few minutes later she reported that he’d arrived at the feeder, drinking and drinking and drinking.

So, a late cold spring, as part of global warming, caused our hummers to be 8 days late. I wonder where they hung out for that extra week. Did they sit on the coast checking the forecast on the web? Did they sniff the oncoming winds? What did they do?

Because the very day it warmed up, was the very day the first one arrived, a little bird with a big mystery.

The journal Nature, April 24, 2008 issue, published an article on the Mountain Pine Beetle epidemic and carbon feedback to climate change.  This paper has received a great deal of media attention and is  an excellent source of statistics.  It concludes that nearly a billion tonnes of CO2 will be released into the atmosphere over the 21 year period of the attack, death and partial decay of beetle-killed trees. This is a lot of CO2, as much as all of Canada emitted in 2005.

The question though is, as always, what is an appropriate response to this new information?  How should we assess it in terms of our carbon emissions?

The report finds that with wildfires and non-beetle harvest included, the unattacked healthy forest modeled as the control in the analysis is a net carbon sink overall, even with the huge fires of 2004. So this research clearly demonstrates that logging to control wildfires is an unnecessary and inappropriate response which will only increase CO2 emissions.

The analysis also shows that clearcut logging to address the MPB increases CO2 emissions beyond the release in the natural processes of decay.

On the forest products side, the assumption is made that “Harvesting results in a loss of carbon from the ecosystem, but only some of that carbon is emitted into the atmosphere; the remainder is stored in wood products and landfills.”

Let’s take a look at that. Typical breakdown of the wood that is taken to the mills for processing is 45% forest products, 35% chips, and 20% hog fuel. This means that 55% of the wood that goes to town has its carbon released as CO2 in the short term, obviously more than “some”.

Secondly, when the forest that is logged is burned for electricity, over 95 % of the wood that goes to town has its carbon converted to CO2.  This is a two-fold increase in CO2 emissions over the current mix of product and chips/hog fuel. These relationships  hold whether you are considering Beetle harvest or pre uplift harvest.  The beetle uplift harvest of course puts more CO2 into the atmosphere in proportion to the increased amount logged.

Yes the numbers are significant.  My point is that logging makes them more significant and logging to burn for electricity is the most damaging of all.

We can’t do anything about the beetle-killed trees.  But we can decide to reduce emissions to the lowest possible level by adopting a selection-only logging system, and by refusing to burn trees for electricity.

When it comes to Biofuels, by all means replace beehive burners and use the processing waste to generate electricity.

However, to log and bring trees to town to produce electricity cannot be justified under any mitigation/adaptation scenario whatsoever, especially when it is understood that a beetle-altered forest is not a dead forest.

The picture below shows a > 50% attacked stand just behind our home on the ridge.  The attack is over, taking three years to run its course. You can see there is last year’s red attack, and the previous year’s grey along with numerous green, healthy trees.

This forest is not dead.

The Redwing Blackbirds are back. This year we have more than ever, a small flock of about ten to twelve birds. Now I know that for many of you this is tiny. I have friends in Anahim Lake who boast ( or is that curse?) groups of up to 100 or more.

Some feel they are noisy, territorial birds that disrupt others including those who want to lie abed on these spring mornings when the dawn arrives about 5:30 am.

I grew up with Redwings. We lived by a marsh on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Each spring the Redwings would arrive in droves and I would listen for hours to their liquid silver songs, enchanted with them and the new life they seemed to be serenading.

Now I know that the calls are just about territory, mating and all that practical stuff, but I still get a tingle at the base of my skull and a rush of pleasure when I hear these sopranos sing their hearts out, and I don’t believe it is just about practicality. If you have ever seen a male sitting on top of a small fir, overlooking the valley and giving full throat, then I think you would agree there is more going on than sheer mechanics.

When we first moved here there were no Redwings. Since the valley bottom didn’t have the marshy habitat they like, we were out if luck.

Until the beavers moved in that is. For years the previous owner had dynamited beaver dams, trapped the animals and burned their lodges. He felt that the dams would destroy meadows, cause flooding and otherwise interfere with his small scale ranching operation.

I must admit, for the first few years I dynamited the dams, but I never trapped or burned lodges. Why? Good question, it was just how you managed the place. Beavers were up to no good and they had to go.

One year I decided that the beavers were just as much a part of the valley as I was, so I stopped blowing up dams, the result being that after about three years, there were two big dams in place and the ponds behind them began to develop marshy edges and swamp habitat.

Well, you guessed it, about five years ago a solitary Redwing showed up. You can’t image the pleasure it gave me to listen to its call which peeled away half a century of life and took me straight back to my childhood.

He stayed around for a few days , feasted on black oil sunflower seeds and went on his way.

The next year he came back with a couple of buddies and the rest is history. Now, this year, there is an established flock. As I say, it is small, but they have been here for about ten days and the pleasure I get out of listening to them, seeing the scarlet slash on wing shoulder as they fly, watching the young males and the females joust on the feeder, the flock making this place their home, is immense.

All thanks to the beavers, who are still here, who still repair their dams and who still provide a home for the Redwings.

And I’m in the middle of it all. And what did I do? I just left things alone, left them to interconnect the way wild things do. To get the miracle of Redwings to serenade my Precipice spring, all I had to do was…nothing.

As a summary to the briefing information I previously posted on this blog, please note the following points:

1 .Burning wood to create electricity releases more CO2 per KWH produced than burning fossil fuels

2. CO2 created by burning interior forests will take more than 100 years to be resequested

3. It is impossible to resequester all the CO2 released when burning forests to create electricity

4. Logging disturbance releases more CO2 than leaving forest intact, beetle killed or not.

5. Logging forests to burn for electricity reduces Adaptation options

6. There is no comprehensive analysis of the carbon cycle in interior dry forests to inform policy makers

7. Decisions have been made and will be made in the short term to entrench burning forests as part of the long term provincial energy strategy

8. Serious, large scale research into solar, tidal or geothermal energy sources for the Province to move beyond carbon in any meaningful way are not being implemented.

Who is making the decision to go down the path of continued carbon dependance and increased CO2 emissions in spite of all the evidence that this direction is not only CO2 loading, it erodes adaptation options, is contrary to provincial target reduction legislation, IPCC policy and global direction?

Who is responsible? Who are the decision makers? Who benefits? Why are decisions being made without full analysis?
What are the political ramifications of this policy direction? Is it consistent with Western Climate Change Initiative goals and principles?

I came around the corner and there she was, lying in the middle of the road, looking for all the world like a small Brontosaurus with a big distended body and a slender snakelike neck extended. Instantly, I could tell she was dead. The unnatural angle of the shoulders, the feet straight out, the tail curled over her back.

Annie was her name. Born in the Precipice in 1981, she was the last of the old time Precipice horses. She was sired by one of the Three Circle studs that came from Lester Dorsey’s bunch. A Percheron draft horse, she was a big, strong animal, weighing over a ton.

She had a personality to match her size. Although she could pull with the best of them if she felt like it, she was not fond of dogs, geldings or too much work. Nasty at times, she was a biter, not a kicker and she definitely had a mind of her own.

Annie was already in harness, still a dappled grey when we moved into the Precipice in 1986. On those hot summer days, when the dust devils staggered across the meadow, she would be leading the team, pulling the mower or the rake across field.

In the last few years, pure white now and retired by a 65-horsepower tractor and old age, Annie hung out around the winter feeder, gossiping with the new guys, telling stories and grabbing just a little more than her fair share of grub. Old mares are like that.

She never left the valley, never ventured up the road and into the great beyond. She was born here and never had any interest in the outside.

That is why I was so surprised to see her, three miles out on the trail, dead as a beached whale. Well, at least finding her solved part of the mystery. I was on my way to town, and all along the route, I could see several horse tracks heading out of the valley as well. What was going on?

When I found Annie, I could see where the other horses had been milling around her, then moved up the track a hundred metres or so, then yarded up again. It looked like they’d been there for a long time; the snow was really beaten down; without Annie to lead them, they were confused so they had finally turned around and traveled back to the Precipice.

What had happened? Annie as the old mare had surely led them here, out into the back of the beyond. But why? What had killed her?

After several conversations, the best explanation seems to be that horses tend to run away from pain, so perhaps Annie was looking for a pain-free place. The pain must have been bad for her to travel so far, to leave her birthplace, the only world she had ever known. The place where she had listened to the wolves’ full moon howls, tasted the beauty of tender spring grass, felt the bite of winter wind and chased all manner of bears, black or brown, mommas and cubs alike, across the big meadow and into the timber.

Old, out of shape, not used to the heavy exercise, she probably had a heart attack, dropping dead on the trail.

On the way home, as I came over the rise, there were at least a dozen eagles settled on the carcass. Coyote tracks abounded and it won’t be long before the wolves and the spring grizzlies show up for their share.

Perhaps this is the most fitting epitaph for Annie. To return to the wild of the ARK in which she was born, to be part of the eagles, wolves, coyotes and bears that she spent her life being aware of and entwined with as part of living here in this great wild place.

How many times a day or week do you get the now familiar message, “Your call is important to us, please stay on the line and you will be looked after faster than if you hang up”?  Then you get 10 to who knows many minutes of either gag reflex elevator music or some kind of unintelligible atonal squeal that passes for the top ten these days.

I am old enough to remember when a human answered the phone.  These people had well modulated voices, you could hear the smile in their greeting, you could visualize a company that really wanted your business.

In another life I was a marketing manager for good old Ma Bell in Ontario.  We used to give courses on telephone manners.  Things like “The person who answers your incoming calls is very important. He or she can make or break a possible customer by the way the person calling in feels.”

Not anymore.  Click, and on comes the tape, or more likely these days a computer, a neutered computer that tries to sound female but usually sounds more like a cat with a fur ball caught in its throat.

Customers have fallen below the bottom line in importance.  Companies now purposely run 10 to 15 percent short staffed.  This cuts costs, gets more work out the employees left on the job, and keeps the share price up.

So now, helping the business we are trying to communicate with to be more profitable, we sit like so many monkeys on a limb, phone or headset clamped to our skulls, multitasking, while the dreadful music drones or clangs in our ears.

What ever happened to the style, the sense of customer service that used to be the hallmark of good business?  Gobbled up in the stock price, in that new bonus package for the poor, overworked CEO I guess.

And  here I sit, typing this rant, still waiting for some one, anyone to talk to me.

“Due to unusually high call volumes …”

Hello, is there anyone out there?  Hello…..

It all starts with the owls.  Great horned owls.  You rarely see them, but on those mid-March nights when the moon is large they start their mating ritual.   Part of the performance is to call to each other, the forest and anyone else who cares to listen, with a series of deep hoots that sound just like a dog woofing.

Chilko thinks they sound like a dog too.  So he answers, and answers, and answers, all night long.  And it doesn’t help that his voice echoes back from across the valley!  I think the owls really get into it.  It seems the more Chilko barks, the more the owls woof in reply.

We let this go on for a few nights, then each time Chilko started the sequence, we would open the door and tell him “NO!”.  Poor dog, all that activity out there and he couldn’t take part.

Well, almost couldn’t.  He figured he had developed a way to be in that action and still not keep us awake.  He’d go up to the fir tree, about 30 feet from the door, where he would sit and give a swallowed sort of bumph non-bark.  It was really hilarious.  He’d sit there bumphing away, trying so hard to talk to the owls and yet do what we wanted him to.

But when the coyotes come calling it is just too much.  He can’t help himself and he starts to howl along with them.  He can’t really howl like a coyote; the song dog has it perfected, but he sort of moans and wails, sounding for all the world like a teenage boy whose voice is breaking.  We get quite a kick out of it.

It is a different story when the big boys are on the block though. When the wolves howl, Chilko just sits and listens, doesn’t even try to get in the act.  I guess he knows better than to mess with the bikers.

Owls that woof, coyotes that sing , wolves that howl and a dog that bumph barks, all are   just part of the things that go on here in the ARK.

The topic of discussion around the morning cup of tea was “How many dustings does it take to make a skiff?”

Bushed? Well some might say so, but when you live where we do, such discussion is generated by the events taking place outside your window.

Last night was a little colder, about minus 13 C, and we got a dusting of snow.  Think of a chocolate cake, where just the merest amount of icing sugar has been blown across its surface.  You can see the bumps and lumps of the cake beneath the white powder, yet the covering is still there in a transparent sort of way.

That is what a dusting of snow does, gives a delightful, scant coating over everything.   Heavier than a thick frost, yet still semitransparent so you can see the gold of the old grasses, the green leaves of the kinnickinick and the darker soil surface beneath, suspended in time and space, waiting for the morning sun to free them.

A skiff?  We decided that is about a quarter inch or so.  Definitely not see through, really gives a white coating to the ground and the trees and adds to the solidity of the existing snow areas.  We had one of those a few days ago.

This morning we concluded that at least four heavy dustings might make up a skiff, but the jury is still out.

Pass the tea please.

Dave.

Last night we watched “Global Currents” on T.V. They were investigating the seed industry and the fact that so much control of the world’s seed stock is owned by so few companies. The statistics are staggering, but the principle of corporate control is consistent.

In this so-called developed world we live the Religion of Profit. Our church is the stock market, the Manse is the bank, the high priests are the lawyers, and the choir is made up of corporate leaders, with government playing the organ. Sound cranky or disjointed?

Maybe, but no one can deny that the fundamental catechism of current industrial capitalism is to make profit. All else falls in behind this overarching brand of fundamentalism. In the last half of the twentieth century market after market was developed. First it was the homemaker, then the working Mom, then the teenager, then the preteen, and now we have marketing campaigns aimed at five year olds.

The monster cannot help itself, it has to feed. Now it is turning on itself, devouring its fellows as fast as it can, take over after take over. Like the beaver who cannot stop chewing because his teeth will grow into his mouth, capitalism has to grow, it is what it is.

Right now, the forest companies in B.C., looking at a future of diminished wood supply and collapsing markets due to global competition, have plans to turn themselves into energy producing companies. The take overs, the consolidations, are nearly complete. There are now just two forest companies in Williams Lake. One of them is currently under great pressure and has “temporarily” closed all of its mills.

Bigger players are buying up forest licences and closing mills. Just like the seed companies, they want control. Control of what ? The forests of British Columbia. OUR forests.

In the fifties, consolidation took place from many small family-run outfits to larger tenured companies. The idea was to put the management of forests under companies that the government could regulate. Mills were built, towns grew around them, a stable workforce was created, local economies benefited and the companies made profit.

Since then the system has gradually changed to the point that all bush work is contracted out, with only 6 to 8 months per year of employment. Now mills are closing as “rationalization” takes place. B.C. has lost 10,000 jobs in the forest sector in the last year. And what of the companies? They still have evergreen licences, and the government has continually reduced oversight so that now the companies have enormous control of forest policy.

We are now threatened with another step in the evolution of capitalist control of our forests. The new plan is to burn the trees to make electricity. Aside from the huge negative climate impacts I have described elsewhere, once tree burning plants are installed, we will lose even more control of our forests. These plants willl have lifespans of 20 to 40 years and come with a ‘force majur’ clause , which, simply put, means that they have the right to log for the trees they need irrespective of any controls. It assures the banks that the operations have a secured supply of timber, for at least 20 years.

This was not the vision of managed forest land that created local economy and jobs. This is the vision of corporations bent on profit and nothing else.

Where will it stop? It won’t until it collapses. Unmitigated growth with no social control has always been the end of any society. Like the pyramid builders, cathedral builders and builders of sun castles before them, the profit builders will eventually squeeze the system so much it will implode.

So keep your own seeds, make your own garden, fight for forests, to do whatever you can to keep a little bit of green, to keep a little bit of non-profit sanity alive. To do this is a truly sacred thing in a millennia old spiritual tradition of which all life is a part.

As I write this, the liquid silver call of the season’s first Redwings float through my open window, borne on spring’s sweet scented zephyrs.

Where is the dollar profit in that? What seeds does it sow?

A “Quick” Trip to the Dentist

*Rosemary wrote this description about our excursion the other day…*

We awoke at 6 and peered anxiously at the sky–clear, thank heavens.  The clouds the night before, with the promise of warm weather, had been a worry, as   our ailing snow machine wouldn’t be happy running in above-zero temperatures.  But this morning it is -5 C (about 22F) and running should be fine.

We hurriedly dress in warm clothing and eat, the cats tearing around the house and fighting each other, knowing our changed routine was bad news for them.  Chilko had breakfast, looked gloomily at us, and climbed up on the couch with a big sigh.  He knows that at this time of year, he must stay home.

Dave goes out to start up the skidoo, hoisting up the rear end with a chain hoist  so that the track could break free on the slide rails without being frozen to the ground, and then hooked up the skimmer, a dog-sled looking trailer we pull behind the skidoo.  He checks that the axe, shovel, and chainsaw are all in place, and ties down a cooler we’ve already packed with outgoing mail and library books (we have a mail library service), and which we need for bringing back the treat of fresh vegetables.

Meanwhile, I’m doing a final check list–heater stoked up, trail mix and water packed, a few necessities in case we don’t make it home today, dog-run in place, his water bucket filled, cat dishes full.  Bedroom door closed to foil the unwelcome gifts the cats like to leave on the bedroom carpet; carnivorous offerings to the gods that might otherwise keep us away too long.

We climb into our outer wear–this is worse than gearing up for a Scuba dive!  Dress too warmly, because you never know when you might be stranded.  Cover it all with rain gear, because the inch of  fresh snow on the track will blow up and cover us–and melt.  Take extra gloves.  Take the radio phone.  Driver’s licence, money.

Call Chilko to the door.  He slouches out onto the front porch and climbs up on his bed, submitting resignedly to the lead connecting him to the run.  The cats sit in the hall window and glare.  And finally, we get onto the skidoo to make a quick trip to Bella Coola, to the dentist.

It’s an easy run out to the ploughed logging road, under an hour.  The trail hasn’t started to break down yet and aside from a few impressive moguls it’s smoother than traveling our summer road.  We reach our vehicle and it starts–another relief.  We peel off the layers of clothing and put on unlined boots–after all, it’s March!

Another half hour and we’re in our nearest town, Anahim Lake.  Too early for mail, but we stop at Mort’s to drop off a few things he requested–a dish for Charlie-the-Goat and a plant hanging bracket.  And then the drive down to Bella Coola, down the Big Hill (known for its 12%-18% grades,  single lanes, and 2,000′ drop-offs).  A lovely drive through the Bella Coola Valley and finally we arrive at the dentist, just 5 hours after we started our day.

It’s a quick, easy-solution visit and we celebrate by Going Out for Lunch.  Wow!  Food we didn’t have to prepare ourselves!  And then stops at the hardware store (for Klaus), the Co-Op (for Chris), and the Mercantile (for Mort and us).

Spring is coming to the Bella Coola Valley, although there are still patches of snow.  But the sun is shining–a rarity here in this wet, narrow valley–and the views are wonderful.  We enjoy our drive back up the Hill to Anahim Lake, where we leave the goods purchased for other people at Mort’s, have a quick cuppa, and then drive back to the skidoo to reverse the whole process.

We get home at 6, just 12 hours later.  Not bad!  One of our faster trips, and no problems.  And we have fresh greens, to supplement the buckwheat, peppercress and spinach I’ve been growing, and the sprouts we’re getting very tired of, after 5 months.  (Note that “fresh” is a relative term, given how far they traveled to get to Bella Coola.)

Houdini Chilko has magically unhooked his lead, and rushes joyously down the driveway to meet us.  The cats are relieved that our absence was so short, and there’s only one dead creature in the hallway.

So it was a good trip to the dentist.  Now if only my teeth would stop hurting!