Half the day yesterday was one of our first shots of winter, just a seeping mass really, but the massive bolus of arctic air brought temperatures which were to go below freezing for the first time. The Earth is still alive and some plants continue to hold on, out of stubbornness, or the luck of a coincidental upwelling of warm moist air. We lost forty degrees Fahrenheit (Twenty C), during the course of an afternoon and night. When the climate is tempered by one of the greatest lakes, that's a big deal. Some of my favorite places, one long day bicycle ride North are fifty per cent water, holding vast reserves of heat much longer than dry areas. Edge is the mystical area that is defined by changeability and flux. In so many ways we are all engaged in riding flux waves between edges, most just have not been defined or delineated yet. This alone is worth it's own post, but I digress.
I have heard the term stress line, roughly girdling the planet along the 45th parallel, used to describe an area where industriousness is not an option. If you are not putting something by at every possible opportunity, you won't make it 'til Spring. Here there is a portion of the curve of the surface that has, or used to have smaller farms, "Fortys", roughly one quarter mile by one quarter mile (402.3m X402.3m) were common and if you had eighty or 160, that was grand. just a short distance north, or at higher elevations, land parcels become larger and farms up to several hundred acres are not only common, but the rule. Beyond this it is forest only and not much is made of agriculture. The combination of soils, or lack of them and growing season create waves and pockets of atmosphere that either favor a farmer or undermine productivity, as small parcels in the North have failed, neighbors bought them out increasing their holdings. Remember, in the North, range and feed in the winter is the rule. This edge is breaking down as more land is put into grass fed meat production. Buying cattle that do not need to be overwintered allow land to survive without grazing pressure, perhaps even without the impacts of hay harvesting equipment.
The edge that I ride may be different than the farmer making decisions about how best to "use" their land, but a giant cadre of individual land owners are realizing that smaller scale and more sustainable practices can save money, reduce fuel and other off farm costs, hone away inputs of chemicals and water/energy, thus increasing profitability. The word culture, in agriculture is a testament to the difficulty that exists in bringing change. Many agricultural sector forces, like Monsanto or Cargill, banks and government agents, sway practices in the direction of doing, mostly what has always been done. The edge right now is occupied by those who take their responsibility to future generations seriously, creating a sacred space for food production, sustainably managed with miniscule inputs of petro-chemically derived inputs. The true steward of land protects the integrity of as many acres as possible, and one look at the way most farmers treat the living organism that supports all life on the planet, tells even the casual observer that they can't tell the difference between soil and dirt.
My garden will remain productive, long after the areas outside my fence have ceased, just because there is so much going on there, so many millions of organisms each full of water and metabolizing. Because my tiny little house sidles up next to a park, what surrounds me is mostly estuary, about 120 acres (48.56ha) lying in a corridor through which water flows both ways. This year, the water is so low, that we are entering new territory. Vast mudflats will be exposed and frozen in a different manner than they are used to for perhaps the first time ever.The edge has shifted so far in this one aspect that the outcome or magnitude of change cannot be calculated. When submerged, mud freezes and thaws very slowly and perhaps only changes phase, from frozen to thawed two times each winter. When exposed, there is the possibility of freezing and thawing daily. This spells the end for many organisms and when they die off, a clean up crew will be fed, perhaps overfed, peak and die off as well, cascading effects will follow. Organisms dependent on the stability of the environment will either move on or face hunger.
The relative stability of edge, even though it is by definition, the flux between two or more ecotones is necessary to develop species dependent on that specific habitat. The watershed of the Great Lakes is relatively small compared to the size of the lakes themselves, when drought reduces the creeks, streams and rivers to a relative trickle, appropriate habitat often swings wildly, not even allowing migration time for the organisms best suited to inhabit it. The new normal is dislocation and inability to thrive at best. Inevitably, death awaits. This is why, rather than vast monocultures, sustainable approaches favor diversity. Nature never has a sole interest in "mind" God/dess, or whatever you call it designs for exponential increases until climax is achieved. It is most difficult to imagine the concept of climax lasting for hundreds, or perhaps tens of thousands of years, but for a forest, this is the rule, not the exception. What we have done to the face of the Earth is an aberration, facilitated by using up fossil fuels that took millions of years to produce in just 150 years.
When we first looked back at Earth from space, the Great Wall of China was the only man-made object that could be distinguished. That entire edifice was created with human power. Now we have several structures that dwarf both mass and square area disturbance visible from beyond the ecosphere. These newer structures and scars are made possible by burning vast quantities of diesel fuel, and reducing nearly infinitely the amount of brain that has to be trained to do the work. It took over a century after the advent of "modern mining" technology for ecologists to realize that if we stockpile soil at a higher elevation than the mine, covering the scars made later will be easier and at least create the possibility of reclamation. For all of time before that, we just threw soil downhill to choke the streams and leave the site forever.
Our knowledge has increased, but the people who do mountaintop removal just don't care. The line that we are left to follow lies between two regions. One side leads to continued exploitation and despotism, rampant raping of the Mother Earth and listening to her eternal voice and ability to bring forth life with two major differences from the approach of the colonizing exploiters. The earth first creates no waste, all is part of a great redistribution of wealth, of minerals, of nutrients, of oxygen and aerosols that increase health, life and vitality. Second, it is progressively enriching even the most remote areas, making the appearance, strength and interactions between organisms ever more stable and diverse. An exploiter always looks to bigger and better ways of getting something, nature gives everything away, knowing full well that it will be returned many-fold.
Whatever we can do to tip the scales in favor of stability, must be done. It may not be enough to save our species, but if we are lucky, we may be left with a somewhat inhabitable environment. With what we have learned, we can surely see that spewing toxic compounds into the air is not helping anything. The future may require more change in a shorter time than we can fathom, but our development through the ages only proves that this is what we should expect. We must begin to take stock of our environment in ways that may not be easy to calculate or record. Native populations the world over recognize the sacred nature of the environment and it is high time we all learn to see where we are more clearly.
I have heard the term stress line, roughly girdling the planet along the 45th parallel, used to describe an area where industriousness is not an option. If you are not putting something by at every possible opportunity, you won't make it 'til Spring. Here there is a portion of the curve of the surface that has, or used to have smaller farms, "Fortys", roughly one quarter mile by one quarter mile (402.3m X402.3m) were common and if you had eighty or 160, that was grand. just a short distance north, or at higher elevations, land parcels become larger and farms up to several hundred acres are not only common, but the rule. Beyond this it is forest only and not much is made of agriculture. The combination of soils, or lack of them and growing season create waves and pockets of atmosphere that either favor a farmer or undermine productivity, as small parcels in the North have failed, neighbors bought them out increasing their holdings. Remember, in the North, range and feed in the winter is the rule. This edge is breaking down as more land is put into grass fed meat production. Buying cattle that do not need to be overwintered allow land to survive without grazing pressure, perhaps even without the impacts of hay harvesting equipment.
My garden will remain productive, long after the areas outside my fence have ceased, just because there is so much going on there, so many millions of organisms each full of water and metabolizing. Because my tiny little house sidles up next to a park, what surrounds me is mostly estuary, about 120 acres (48.56ha) lying in a corridor through which water flows both ways. This year, the water is so low, that we are entering new territory. Vast mudflats will be exposed and frozen in a different manner than they are used to for perhaps the first time ever.The edge has shifted so far in this one aspect that the outcome or magnitude of change cannot be calculated. When submerged, mud freezes and thaws very slowly and perhaps only changes phase, from frozen to thawed two times each winter. When exposed, there is the possibility of freezing and thawing daily. This spells the end for many organisms and when they die off, a clean up crew will be fed, perhaps overfed, peak and die off as well, cascading effects will follow. Organisms dependent on the stability of the environment will either move on or face hunger.
The relative stability of edge, even though it is by definition, the flux between two or more ecotones is necessary to develop species dependent on that specific habitat. The watershed of the Great Lakes is relatively small compared to the size of the lakes themselves, when drought reduces the creeks, streams and rivers to a relative trickle, appropriate habitat often swings wildly, not even allowing migration time for the organisms best suited to inhabit it. The new normal is dislocation and inability to thrive at best. Inevitably, death awaits. This is why, rather than vast monocultures, sustainable approaches favor diversity. Nature never has a sole interest in "mind" God/dess, or whatever you call it designs for exponential increases until climax is achieved. It is most difficult to imagine the concept of climax lasting for hundreds, or perhaps tens of thousands of years, but for a forest, this is the rule, not the exception. What we have done to the face of the Earth is an aberration, facilitated by using up fossil fuels that took millions of years to produce in just 150 years.
When we first looked back at Earth from space, the Great Wall of China was the only man-made object that could be distinguished. That entire edifice was created with human power. Now we have several structures that dwarf both mass and square area disturbance visible from beyond the ecosphere. These newer structures and scars are made possible by burning vast quantities of diesel fuel, and reducing nearly infinitely the amount of brain that has to be trained to do the work. It took over a century after the advent of "modern mining" technology for ecologists to realize that if we stockpile soil at a higher elevation than the mine, covering the scars made later will be easier and at least create the possibility of reclamation. For all of time before that, we just threw soil downhill to choke the streams and leave the site forever.
Our knowledge has increased, but the people who do mountaintop removal just don't care. The line that we are left to follow lies between two regions. One side leads to continued exploitation and despotism, rampant raping of the Mother Earth and listening to her eternal voice and ability to bring forth life with two major differences from the approach of the colonizing exploiters. The earth first creates no waste, all is part of a great redistribution of wealth, of minerals, of nutrients, of oxygen and aerosols that increase health, life and vitality. Second, it is progressively enriching even the most remote areas, making the appearance, strength and interactions between organisms ever more stable and diverse. An exploiter always looks to bigger and better ways of getting something, nature gives everything away, knowing full well that it will be returned many-fold.
Whatever we can do to tip the scales in favor of stability, must be done. It may not be enough to save our species, but if we are lucky, we may be left with a somewhat inhabitable environment. With what we have learned, we can surely see that spewing toxic compounds into the air is not helping anything. The future may require more change in a shorter time than we can fathom, but our development through the ages only proves that this is what we should expect. We must begin to take stock of our environment in ways that may not be easy to calculate or record. Native populations the world over recognize the sacred nature of the environment and it is high time we all learn to see where we are more clearly.
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