Hayduke Blogs

How to Respect the Rights of Nature

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:33:00 +0000

The City of Santa Monica recently passed an ordinance, directing the City to “recognize the rights of people, natural communities, and ecosystems to exist, regenerate and flourish,” joining a rapidly growing international "Nature Rights" movement. "Nature Rights" recognizes that healthy ecosystems and biodiversity are critical to all life on the planet, including humans, and human priorities do not automatically take precedence over natural habitat and ecosystem health.

Undeveloped lands in Santa Cruz City and County are rapidly diminishing, even those lands designated as Greenbelts and Natural Areas, such as Arana Gulch targeted for development by the City, ironically in the name of environmentalism. Although Arana Gulch is designated Critical Habitat for the endangered Santa Cruz tarplant, the City has successfully argued that human desire for a paved bike route is more important than protection and preservation of undeveloped natural habitat.

It's time for the City and County of Santa Cruz to recognize that it cannot destroy natural habitats in its jurisdiction without severe consequences to the web of life that sustains us all. There is no department in our government bureaucracy that speaks up for non-human consideration in planning development projects. Regional regulatory bodies are increasingly dominated by development interests, resulting in an accelerating loss of natural habitat. The County's Commission on the Environment is an advisory body for the County Board of Supervisors and has no regulatory powers to protect natural habitats in the County.

In order to maintain a balanced regulatory environment, we must have City and County Environment Departments, just as we have Planning, Public Works and Economic Devlopment Departments. The job of the Environment Departments would be to see that biodiversity, natural habitats and undeveloped lands are not diminished, degraded or lost to human economic development, guided by City and County regulations similar to that of Santa Monica and other enlightehed municipalities.

Recognition of Nature Rights would not stop human development, but would place consideration of the health of non-human species on par with human economic growth.

How to Live, Simply!

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:41:00 +0000

I recently read, in a blog, of a writer who says he needs $5,000 a month to live. I was astonished. My mouth literally hung open.

Yes I know, many people make a lot of money, and many people spend a lot of money that they make, and many people work long hours to make the money they spend. But I never had thought of someone "needing" $5,000 a month to live.

Here's my perspective: I live in Santa Cruz, California about a mile from the beach at the north end of Monterey Bay. The Chamber of Commerce types call this a "destination community," meaning, I suppose, everyone wants to come here. And they do, every day, in long lines of cars coming across the mountains from San Jose and the Bay Area. Yes, it's beautiful, and sunny (except for three months in the winter), and warm, and there's beaches and surfing and the Boardwalk, and all the accoutrements of a modern, upstanding, resortical… destination.

But not all of them want to live here, year round, because it's a small community with little industry, and not many high paying jobs. So they buy second houses here, rent them out to other visitors for exorbitantly high daily and weekly rents and have a place to stay for a week or two when they're on vacation. Consequently, the price of housing here is astonishingly high. I mean, knock you in the eyeballs, blow out your pockets outrageous. You think that mansion out at the edge of town is expensive, try to buy a two-bedroom fixer-upper on a postage stamp lot in Santa Cruz. We're talking half a million dollars here, and that's US not Canadian, eh?

Now to let out my secret. Don't tell anyone, OK?

My wife and I live here on less than $1000 a month. SHHHHH! Not so loud!

How do we do it? We live simply.

This has nothing to do with Voluntary Simplicity ™, monk-like asceticism, vows of poverty or counter-culture Luddite extremism.

We live a normal life in our 800 square foot mobile home on a 60 by 40 foot lot in a normal mobile home park. We grow vegetables in containers around the outside of our home. We have fruit trees, berry bushes and ornamentals in the soil at the margins of the lot. We have rotating compost piles to return food leftovers to the soil. But we don't grow all of our food all year round.

We have one car, a 1972 VW Bug, my wife bought used in 1973. We drive it to the store on the weekend for groceries and wine, less than 1,000 miles a year (yes, that's right, year, not month.). We walk everywhere else. We both work part-time, my wife just a half-mile from home. I work at home now, but when I was employed, my job was a short mile from home. We walk or bicycle anywhere we need to go around town, and rent a car or take public transportation for once or twice a year longer trips.

But that's just living, doing the things that everyone else does. The main difference in the way we live, and I hesitate to let this particular cat out of the bag, is that we, uh, well, we just don't buy things. I know, I know, sounds unrealistic, Utopian, impossible, but it's largely true.

OK, we do buy a new toothbrush every year or so, and we do buy new underwear occasionally. But most everything else we consume, if that's the word, we get for free or for next to nothing at thrifts stores.

Also, we don't have television, so no cable bill. We do have an old analog TeeVee and a DVD/VCR that we use to watch movies from the Public Library. (The TV was free, and OK, we bought the DVD/VCR new a couple of years ago when our old (free) VCR conked out). We each have a laptop computer, for work and environmental/social activism and we have a DSL account with our local ISP.

We use 35-45 kwh of electricity per month, and 5-6 therms of gas. Our mobile home is situated east-west, so we get solar gain in the mornings through most of the day. We supplement this passive solar gain with a small wood stove, we gather firewood on our daily walks among nearby eucalyptus groves, and we add the ashes from the fire to the garden beds and compost piles.

We don't have cell phones, iPods, iPads, Androids, Blackberries or other electronic devices to separate us from the world. We can't imagine what anyone has to say that's so important that they have to check their cell phone eleventy times an hour so they don't miss out.

Since we don't watch TeeVee, we're not exposed to the bombardment of ads telling us every little thing we simply must have to live a full and complete modern life, so, we just don't know what we're missing.

And we're happy with that.

OK, I'm not trying to say that we're good and everyone else is bad. It's just astonishing that in my lifetime (I was born when Harry S. Truman was President… of the United States) life has gone from adequate and sufficient to "needing" $5,000 a month to live!

We've found that when we live, simply, we have more time to engage with our neighbors, take part in our community and participate in the complex web of life that surrounds us. We take joy in each sunny morning, and each evening sunset. We delight in the brilliant stars at night, the positions of the planets, the phases of the moon. We welcome the various colorful species of birds that pause by our bird feeders on their migrations, and those who decide to stay. We wake up laughing every morning and we go to bed laughing every night.

Some people think we're missing out, but we know we're just living, simply.

Who is gagging our meteorologists?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 19:33:00 +0000

Some one or some organization is attempting to influence the upcoming annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

According to Urging American Meteorological Society to Get Tougher on Climate Change, a program called Forecast the Facts is attempting to lobby the AMS to change their 5-year policy on climate change to a new policy "drafted by a panel of [unidentified] experts" (emphasis added). The "Campaign Director" is identified as Daniel Souweine.

The Forecast the Facts web site turns out to be a product of "Citizen Engagement Laboratory (CEL)."

And who is the Chief of Staff of CEL? You guessed it: Daniel Souweine.

The web site describes CEL as: "a non-profit, non-partisan organization that uses digital media and technology to amplify the voices of underrepresented constituencies. We seek to empower individuals to take collective action on the issues that concern them, promoting a world of greater equality and justice in the process."

The CEL web site lists 350.org as a "Partner," which describes itself as: "building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate crisis. Our online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public actions are led from the bottom up by thousands of volunteer organizers in over 188 countries."

Sounds like birds of a feather, even though they are both attempting to lobby a major national organization to change a policy that affects all of its members... from the top down. Hardly grass roots organization. And hardly on behalf of "underrepresented constituencies."

Evidently, grassroots meteorologists are insufficiently toeing the line when it comes to laying weather patterns at the feet of "global warming." Someone unnamed wants them to publicly join the global warming bandwagon in blaming human CO2 emissions for observed climate change, ignoring the uncertainty of climate science, ignoring all evidence to the contrary, insisting on one single simplistic explanation for climate change.

TeeVee weather presenters, even those who are qualified meteorologists, are the most visible source of public information about weather and climate. They appear daily to billions of people, and whether or not it is a good idea, their "opinions" about climate change carry a lot of weight in popular culture. It's no wonder that those whose interests are served by spreading fear of climate change in support of a predetermined economic outcome are after these "grass roots" who fail to tremble in fear of natural climate phenomena.

This is not grass roots, this is Big Money come to the service of shadowy figures in the background of international politics and economics. Who profits from fear of climate change? Who is funding this program to gag independent meteorologists and TeeVee weather presenters?

This is part of a concerted behind-the-scenes program funded by monied interests to subvert all elements of environmental awareness and activism to the cause of money and power, political and economic influence. Global warming hyperbole has been used to discredit free-thinking, independent scientific research, free expression, free thought and free action. The individuals and corporations funding this movement are laying the ground work for society controlled by corporate-government-military oligarchies to maintain the economic and political status quo.

Follow the money...

Radical Environmentalists

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:56:00 +0000

We environmentalists have rarely been highly regarded by mainstream America, especially by those who profess to mold public opinion and political discourse. We get in the way of "progress," whatever that is, and complicate and delay development projects with inconvenient discoveries of endangered species, critical habitats and other impediments to the free flow of commerce. When we can't be ignored, we are vilified, excoriated and otherwise marginalized, accused of heinous tonsorial practices, dumpster diving and offensive body odor.

Lately, over the past five years or so, opponents of environmentalism have stepped up the ante at the table of public opinion. There is now an orchestrated effort to discredit environmentalists and environmentalism by calling us "radical environmentalists" and associating this appellation with "ecoterrorism."

The right-wing, free-market, property rights web sites and blogs are replete with articles about radical environmentalism. Many such authors speak of environmentalism in religious terms, branding us as irrational religious believers, fundamentalist proponents of animal rights, vegetarianism and deep misanthropism. Most decry the Deep Ecology perspective that humans are but one species among many and, as such, have no inherent right to habitat and natural resources at the expense of other species.

It doesn't do us or the biosphere any good to back away from Deep Ecology and claim that our environmentalism is for human benefit, as most of the Big Green organizations now claim. We seek to preserve wilderness not for future generations but for itself, for habitat preservation and protection of maximum biodiversity. This benefits the human species only as it benefits all species on Earth.

Economic arguments in defense of environmentalism have become tainted with the specter of socialism and Marxism, discredited by the collapse of the Soviet Union and further sullied by the inept bungling of latter-day socialists. Still, much of the cause of our modern environmental ills lie at the feet of our dominant economic system. Regardless of how individuals act within any economic system, it is the means and the mode of production that provide the incentives and limits to individual economic activity.

In any sense of the overused words, capitalism is unsustainable, because it is based on the private ownership of finite natural resources, which are the natural legacy of all life, not just those whose position in human society give them preferred access to those resources. It is capitalism that is threatened by environmentalism and it is capitalism that is fighting back to preserve its preferred way of life.

Simply put, there are too many human beings on this planet, consuming too many resources, individually and collectively, in a political and economic system that rewards production and consumption. Our societies do not embrace protection of non-human habitat in their social organizations. Local and regional governments do not have departments that are tasked with speaking for habitat and biodiversity preservation as a factor in community planning. In human societies, community is defined only in human terms.

It is up to us as environmentalists to speak for non-human species that have no voice in human society. It is not our job to collaborate in the development of critical habitat for the web of life, nor to apologize for our world view that embraces and defends non-human life.

If that is radical, then so be it. Let's wear our "Radical" badges proudly and defend our "Radical" position at every opportunity.

Building Community

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:20:00 +0000

The New Year is a traditional time to reflect on the previous year and look forward to the new. While there is much to look forward to, there is also much that carries over from the last year and clouds the next.

Despite a relatively calm New Year's Eve celebration, the news in Santa Cruz was dominated by crime and mayhem: a body found in a car trunk in Moss Landing, stabbings in Watsonville, stolen cars, burglaries, homelessness. It seems to be a high rate of crime reportage for our small community.

What's behind the headlines? Is there more crime in Santa Cruz County than elsewhere? Do our local news sources concentrate on crime stories more than others? Is there no good news to report?

Much of the crime reported locally is gang related, a result of cultural clash, lack of economic opportunity, traditional family breakdown. Despite a well-financed and active Gang Task Force, gang activity continues, even though active gang members are well known to the local constabulary. Drive-by shootings, stabbings, robbery, graffiti and gang member confrontations have increased exponentially in the 10 years that I've lived in Santa Cruz.

The rising number of individuals living on the fly, camping out in town and out, and dependent on homeless shelters and mission meals, increases conflicts on our streets, in our neighborhoods and in our greenbelts and undeveloped margins. Those who cannot, or will not, contribute to local society create a further drain on the economy and community.

The declining U.S. economy contributes to all of these social problems, pulling money from our states, counties and municipalities, straining local budgets, businesses and banks. This creates a social discontinuity, since our consumer culture still tells us that personal worth is dependent on personal possessions. If we can't have the possessions: new cars, large homes, wide-screen TeeVees, influential jobs, the latest clothing styles, we are told that we are worth less than those who do have these things.

How do we respond to this apparent downward social spiral?

Human beings are social animals, evolved to live together in supportive social communities. It is the lack of community that creates a feeling of despair, loss and hopelessness. It is through community that we rebuild supportive relationships for our youth, our working families and our elders.

Our central government can't help us build community. It's up to us. We can work together on the ground where we live, work, shop and play, to build cooperative social support structures to replace fading government institutions. Health care, child care, elder care, food supplies, housing, transportation, work and play can all be organized communally, not for personal profit but for community good.

As we work together to support ourselves, our families and our community, we will, quite naturally, work together politically, to insure that our neighborhoods, towns and counties support our communities. Democracy is the community talking to itself and deciding, together, on a course of action for the greater good.

In this new year of 2012, let's take a close look at everything we do. Does it support community or personal benefit? How can we change our individual lives to help improve the lives of those closest to us?

Happy New Year?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:53:00 +0000

This is one of the iconic images of 2011, the Wall Street bull guarded by riot police festooned with plastic handcuffs. What started out as a rational police response to peaceful demonstrations, suddenly, at the impetous of industry and government, turned into violent oppression of peaceful demonstrations by a small, vocal and highly visible decentralized dissent.

What is the threat to Wall Street that necessitates this overwhelming militarized police response?

Is it this?

Or this?

Surely not this.

The new year of 2012 threatens to return us to the old years of 1969, 1970, 1972, when the United States government sought to repress a population discontented with the immoral war in Southeast Asia, and to cover up unconstitutional activities within the White House in pursuit of political and economic control.

Thanks to those who persisted in dissent, the rotten core of our government was laid bare, Nixon was forced to resign and the United States was defeated in VietNam.

Unfortunately, nothing changed in the halls of Washington, DC, nor in the corridors of corporate power leading to the Pentagon. Those in power learned the value of patience, learned how to control access to information, and developed enhanced propaganda and opinion control techniques.

It's surprising that a government/corporate oligarchy that has such totalitarian control of its populace without force, has suddenly reversed direction and resorted to overt displays of illegal and unconstitutional force to quell an uprising that seeks only to lay bare the inequality of the present economic regime.

Such is the power of imagery.

We can only hope that the images of 2011 are not replaced in 2012 with images of the past that haunt us still today.

Happy Christmas, whatever it is

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 19:26:00 +0000

Not that it matters much, to anyone other than curmudgeonly writers and historians, the day celebrated today, and throughout the Christian world, if there is such a thing, is at best misunderstood.

Most everyone knows that Jesus was not born on December 25th. We overlook this slight calendaric inaccuracy in the spirit of Christmas, the recipients of 1700 years of pagan and Christian history, from Saturnalia to mangers on courthouse lawns. No one really knows when the historic Jesus was born, or where, or if at all.

In fact, if the general populace were to become aware of the real history of Saturnalia and the activities that took place thereupon, Christmas would be a much different occasion than is celebrated now in shopping malls across the world.

It's not that Christians took over a pagan festivity to attract more adherents, although there is an element of that in all Christian holidays. It is more a blending of cultures in our society's distant past, an amalgam that is obscured through the excess of totalitarian culture at this time of year.

One not need dwell overmuch on the self-evident consumerist nature of 21st Century Christmas. This is part and parcel with the consumerist society we inhabit and create from moment to moment. It's entirely appropriate that we celebrate this most special occasion of the year in an insane frenzy of meaningless consumption, rather than the sexual and ethnic frenzy of our distant Roman ancestors.

The most meaningful part of this Christmas season is the world around us that doesn't recognize religious and social norms. That is, the non-humans on the planet, the birds that grace the air with their wings and song, the trees that provide haven and exemplary sunset views for the birds, the grasses that decorate the feet of the trees, the living soil that pushes up the grasses into the sun and the ever changing and always present bedrock of the whirling planet that supports us all.

If there is meaning to this season to be derived, contemplated and written about, it is in this, the natural world, from which we featherless bipeds emerged and to which we inevitably and permanently return.

To that prospect, I raise a glass of juniper tea and say to all,

Happy Christmas, one and All!

Of Strings and Christmas and Things Universal

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 18:40:00 +0000

The String-theorists are right: we do live in a Multiverse.

At least, I don't live in the same Universe as those people who fight in stores over $180 running shoes, at Christmas, even if there is some real connection with a baby born in suspicious circumstance 2,000 years ago... which there is not.

Christmas is a Dickensian fantasy, dredged up from the depths of our cultural consciousness, feeding our desires for a world that doesn't exist, at least in this Universe. Maybe in some other Universe love that passeth understanding is greater than greed, acquisitiveness, competition, authority, ignorance, outright stupidity and intolerance. But not in this world. In this world, the very basis of our society is inequality between those who have little and those who have most of everything else.

While the majority quietly sing Christmas carols with their families, the rich minority make a profit from the sale of Christmas products at a high mark-up and artificially limited availability.

Humbug, in deed.

If we celebrate anything, let's celebrate the seasons that make this such a beautiful Universe in which to live. The incredible diversity of all life on this whirling ball of stone and gas, the slow turning of our planet, the year-long journey around our sun, the millennial precession of our planetary system and the incomperable drift of our galaxy through the only Universe we can know. These are the realities of our world that deserve celebration.

Merry Universe!

The Truth that Must NOT be Told

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 16:38:00 +0000

We all know about The Shocking Truth About the Crackdown on Occupy. We've seen the pictures and the viral videos of Darth Vader militarized police pepper spraying unresisting protesters. defenseless Young girls, and 85 year-old women.

Noami Wolf reveals the underlying story of why the 1% are pressuring Homeland Security to stop the popular protests that threaten to reveal the truth:

"Occupy has touched the third rail: personal congressional profits streams."

It's bad enough that banks too big to fail monopolize Congress and have their way with their depositors. It's bad enough that corporations now have unlimited influence on national elections.

Now we learn that our "representatives" in Congress are using insider information to amass obscene profits from Wall Street. When they leave the hollow halls, they step through the revolving door right into lucrative lobbying deals where they make their way further up the 1% power pole.

The 99% have given up on elections, aware that a corrupt government cannot be changed by a corrupted political process. Unlimited economic influence has poisoned the well of democracy in the United States.

Two quotes by Thomas Jefferson come to mind:

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive."

Grazing Through Climate Change

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 18:35:00 +0000

Tarplant in 2007

Today's article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Coastal panel staff back Arana Gulch plan, includes the following from the California Coastal Commission (CCC) Staff Report for the upcoming hearing on the Arana Gulch Master Plan:

"The report notes that tarplants in the former dairy site have dropped from 100,000 in the 1980s to 32 this year. The report cites the end of grazing, invasive species and "unmanaged public access" that led to unauthorized trails."

Tarplant numbers were not studied in the 1980s during grazing on Arana Gulch, therefore we have no baseline on which to compare current trends. A contributing factor that has not been studied is change in the timing and amount of precipitation in the area.

Tarplant in 2011

We have just come out of a multi-year drought and we are observing a significant change in precipitation patterns, for example, earlier rains in the fall/early winter season, and extended rains into late spring and early summer, in addition to increased precipitation in our normal winter rainy season. Tarplant numbers at the airport and Tarplant Hill in Watsonville, and in Twin Lakes State Park, have fluctuated in parallel with those of Arana Gulch, yet the other sites have not had large scale grazing that ended in 1989, coincident with declines in tarplant numbers. This would argue that some factor other than cessation of grazing is responsible for the decline in tarplant numbers at all of these sites.

It is more likely that the decline has as much to do with natural local climate variation as with changes in herbivory with the removal of dairy cattle from Arana Gulch.

The recent increase in tarplant individuals suggests that changes in precipitation patterns is a possible contributing factor to tarplant success or decline and would therefore influence the success of the City's plans for industrial scale grazing on Arana Gulch..

Fo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-gee

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 02:08:00 +0000

Yes, the season continues to change. Yesterday the weather was sunny and warm, a splendid Fall day.

A lone walker enters the fog at the south end of Arana Gulch

Today on Arana Gulch, thin tendrils of fog slipped silently among the oak leaves most of the day. There is a remarkable absence of birds about, very calm and still, all the normal sounds of the coastal prairie terrace are muted by the encompassing fog. Even the dogs and dog walkers are unusually still, wrapped in their own bit of mystery, carrying their quiet stories with them.

Arana Creek reflects the transition from fog to blue sky.

Down in the riparian habitat, Arana Creek slips softly among willow and looming eucalyptus. The rippling waters reflect a leaden sky, with wisps of blue around the edges. The reflective surface of the creek hides a world unseen by those restricted to open air. The wee creatures, plants and squirmy things that live in the creek look out in wonder at the empty spaces on the other side of the water surface. How could anything live out there with no water to breathe?

Willows give way to eucalyptus along the banks of Arana Creek.

Occasionally, a ray of sunshine breaks through, illuminating a lone willow, shining clear and golden bright against the darker forest backdrop. The fog thins, begins to lift, to pull back beyond the beach, where it waits patiently for its return in the dark of the night.

Two 8 to 12 foot wide paved bicycle routes across this fairy landscape would change the magical scene forever from one of calm mystery to the everyday world of whizzing metal, demanding deadlines, noise and distraction, the very things we come to Arana Gulch to escape.

Click here to go the Friends of Arana Gulch website and sign the petition to remove the Broadway-Brommer Bicycle Connection project from the Arana Gulch Master Plan.

Seasonal Shifts on Arana Gulch

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:10:00 +0000

Thanks to Ma Nature, we've had gorgeous sunny weather on Arana Gulch this week, warming the soil, mixing with the great early rain we've had these past two seasons, getting those tarplant and Molina seeds ready to germinate after the winter rains.

The red-tailed hawk mother has had her children out practicing their soaring over the coastal prairie terraces, what's left of them at least. We hear their high, shrill cries every day, wafting down from the quiet, cloudless sky.

Now that the City has mowed the entire upper terrace, the wee beasties that live there have less cover to hide in, making their lives more perilous, but causing the predators to lick their lips in anticipation. Life goes on in balance.

The creatures of Arana Gulch pause briefly during this time between seasons, pulling the last whisps of warm air about their shoulders, stocking up on supplies to last through the coming rains, putting on some weight, bulking up on carbohydrates for the long wet and cold to come. The bushes are filled with golden crowned sparrows and SBJs (small brown jobbies), gobbling the ripened seeds, stocking up on warming oils from tar-weedy indigenous plants. Their chittering warbles fill the quiescent air.

Putting an industrial scale bike road through this quiet and contemplative habitat would change its character forever, slicing through this interdependent circle of life with a paved pathway for skirling skateboard noise and rushing bicycle wheels as they whiz by the interpretive displays without notice. A high speed bike road is incompatible with this designated Natural Area.

To put a stop to the City of Santa Cruz Broadway-Brommer Bicycle Pedestrian Connection project, visit Friends of Arana Gulch at http://members.cruzio.com/~arana/ and sign the petition to the California Coastal Commission to take the Broadway-Brommer project out of the Arana Gulch Master Plan.

A Plethora of Pathway Possibilities

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:31:00 +0000

It's official! We read in Street Smarts | Navigating Santa Cruz County that the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail (MBSST for acronym aficionados) will pass through Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties on the Rail Trail, now in process of negotiation by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission (SCCRTC).

This is good news for everyone concerned with non-automotive transportation in Santa Cruz County, and good news as well for those of us concerned with preserving our natural, undeveloped sensitive habitats.

With the MBSST planned for the rail corridor just 1/4 mile from Arana Gulch, there is no longer any justification for building a paved bicycle connection through Arana Gulch from Broadway to Brommer Streets through Critical Habitat for the endangered Santa Cruz tarplant. The MBSST will add yet one more cross county bicycle-pedestrian connection to the already existing network of dedicated bike lanes criss-crossing the County and City.

Even better, the MBSST will provide a car-free route through the City and county, unlike Brommer and Broadway Streets, which are busy city streets with parking on either side. This will be truly safe bicycling and walking. The MBSST will travel through developed and undeveloped areas of the county and city, providing bicyclists and walkers of every stripe an opportunity for convenient, hassle free transportation and recreation, from one side of the county to the other, even unto Monterey County and beyond.

With cross-town traffic safely accommodated on the MBSST Rail Trail, Arana Gulch can be left in its natural area state, and the City Parks and Recreation Department can continue its good work of managing Arana Gulch for the Santa Cruz tarplant and other native species.

Occupy Arana Gulch

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 19:07:00 +0000

While we're busy occupying the public sphere, declaring our independence from corporate and government dominance, pause and give a thought to our natural areas that cannot speak for themselves in the public, human forum.

Arana Gulch is a greenbelt, set aside by a vote of the people of Santa Cruz as a natural area surrounded by human development. Arana Gulch is a tiny fraction of what once was a prevalent coastal prairie terrace environment along the Central Coast of California.

Before European humans arrived on the scene some 250 years ago and took over the neighborhood, including the neighbors, Arana Gulch was home to a variety of interdependent species: elk, deer, mountain lions, bobcats, gophers, red-tailed hawks, Coopers hawks, turkey buzzards, swifts, golden-crowned sparrows, field mice aplenty, steelhead, tidewater gobie, several species of salmon, popcorn flower, Molina, Live Oak, willow, Himalayan blackberry, and the Santa Cruz tarplant.

Years ago the tarplant grew by the hundreds of thousands in Arana Gulch, pollinated by a variety of insect species, its seeds spread by grazers such as elk and deer, tiny birds and the winds they fly on. In recent years, land use changes have caused the tarplant to diminish severely, until recently, when discovery of less than forty living plants was a cause for celebration. As a result, the Santa Cruz tarplant was declared endangered by the State of California and threatened by the United States government. In 2002, the US Fish and Wildlife Service declared all of Arana Gulch as Critical Habitat for the Santa Cruz tarplant.

Since 1971, the City of Santa Cruz has planned and attempted to build a paved roadway across the sensitive habitat of Arana Gulch, connecting two city streets on either side of the greenbelt, first for automobiles, and, since 1991, for bicycles. The paving would be eight feet wide with two feet of gravel shoulder on either side, carving a twelve foot wide gash across the Critical Habitat for the endangered tarplant.

Friends of Arana Gulch has worked for over sixteen years to stop the city from building this project. Since much of Arana Gulch is in the California Coastal Zone, the City must apply to the California Coastal Commission for a development permit to build this cross-town bicycle connection through Arana Gulch. Friends of Arana Gulch is asking for your help in appealing to the Coastal Commission to stop this development project and produce an Arana Gulch Master Plan that sets City policy to manage the Arana Gulch Greenbelt to restore and preserve this sensitive habitat for the endangered Santa Cruz tarplant and all the species that inhabit Arana Gulch.

Go to Friends of Arana Gulch to learn more and sign up to help out.

The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Year

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:12:00 +0000

This is a special Armistice Day this year, though we call it Veterans Day today.

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh year of the Twenty-First Century, we celebrate the end of World War I ninety-three years ago.

What better way is there to support this celebration of the end of a war than with a renewed dedication to end the United States' prosecution of war and conflict in the Middle East, Africa, Korea, and numerous "limited conflicts" throughout the world.

Let's honor the soldiers who died in exotic places far from home by vowing that no more will so die. Let's honor the soldiers who are killing and dying on this day by bringing them home for good, where they can be with family and friends and contribute meaningful, positive work in their home communities.

Instead of a day off from work and a shopping holiday, let's make Veterans Day, once again, a time of reflection and dedication to the cause of peace.

Ode to the Edmund Fitzgerald

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 16:21:00 +0000

Lest anyone think that "EPIC" storms are a product of modern "global warming, note that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank 36 years ago, in an epic storm in its own right, a pretty common occurrence on the stormy Great Lakes.

Winter storms, even early winter storms, are the norm, not the exception. That's why we distinguish winter from other seasons, at least in most parts of the world (even though they get it backwards in the Southern Hemisphere.

Just as weather varies from year to year, climate varies from decade to decade, century to century, millennia to millennia. Variation is the norm, stability is the temporary exception.

As long as there are ships at sea, there will be shipwrecks, lost lives and widows. And as long as there is weather, there will be climate variation.

Beyond Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:59:00 +0000

Re-imagining Work in the Motor City is an uplifting article about a conference in post-industrial Detroit, where participants are re-examining the idea of jobs and their relationship to necessary and fulfilling work done by city residents.

Focus on jobs emphasizes work for pay rather than work for personal satisfaction and community contribution. It fosters competition, hierarchy, individualism, and, above all meaningless consumption.

Placing the emphasis on meaningful work fosters self-reliance, self-fulfillment, community involvement, responsibility and mutual aid. The entire community benefits from meaningful work, both in the products from that work and in the sense of community built by sharing the work necessary to support the community.

As we build and support local economies, meaningful work for everyone becomes a product we can all cultivate and harvest.

Epic Alaska Weather is the Norm

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:58:00 +0000

'Epic' storm rips off roofs in Alaska

Yes, "Epic," as if that means something.

When I was an archaeologist in Alaska, I spent three days stuck in Nome, on my way back to Fairbanks from St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait. I had just made the last flight off the island before the storm moved in, barely found the airport at Nome before it socked in as well.

For the next three days, the storm raged and battered at the breakwater just outside my century-old hotel room window. With each crash of the surf, the building rattled and rocked on its foundation. Phones were out, the electricity flickered ominously but never went out for more than a few seconds at a time. The street filled with snow and snow machines were the only vehicles moving. The bar and restaurant downstairs did a thriving business for those of us huddled in the hotel and a few who braved the wind and cold to join us.

It was a typical winter storm in northwest Alaska, just like the one today.

"Epic?' No more so than Alaska has always been to folks who don't live there.

Deposit Change in Your Local Bank: A Step Forward

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:51:00 +0000

Sometimes it seems overwhelming.

What can I do to make a difference?

The government is so huge and I am just one person. The economy is out of control and there's nothing I can do about it. I need a job to provide food and shelter for my family. I can't march on Wall Street, I have responsibilities.

Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Here's a simple thing you can do, without shirking your responsibilities, without marching on Wall Street, without jeopardizing your future or your family's well-being.

You can take your money out of large, international "too big to fail" banks, and you can put it safely in accounts in local, community banks and credit unions.

It's a great American tradition, to keep your money in local banks, where Jimmy Stewart can lend it to Giuseppe Martini to buy a house for his wife and family, to Mrs. Wainwright for her new kitchen, to Joe to open a new luggage store.

Local banks invest in your own community, not in international profit ventures in far-away countries. Your money stays to work for you, providing jobs right here at home. Your money circulates throughout the town several times, building friends, multiplying like the two dollar bills George Bailey and Uncle Billy put back in the safe to make more dollars for everyone.

Just think of the change you will start when you walk into your imposing BIG BANK, take out all your money, and walk down the street to a modest and sufficient Local Bank or Credit Union, and proudly deposit your funds in your local institution.

It's an act for you, as well as for your family, your community, your friends and neighbors.

Don't look now, but there's something funny going on over at the bank."

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:21:00 +0000

The idea is spreading. Just as in It's a Wonderful Life, people are taking their money out of the "Too Big to Fail" banks and bringing it home from Wall Street to Main Street, where it can work in our communities, supporting our local economies, helping our own families, friends and neighbors.

It just might catch on!

What bank is your money in?

Fascism Wrapped in the Flag and Carrying a Cross

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:43:00 +0000

The Advent of the Surveillance Society lucidly explores the depths to which the United States government has stooped in changing a free and open society into a gilded fish bowl, surrounded by the peering eyes of authoritarian rule.

The central government is rapidly changing from a constitutional republic to a fascist corporate oligarchy, fascist in the technical sense of government support of capitalism, to the point of armed oppression, domestic and abroad.

The militarized police force takes the form, if not the identity, of the local arm of government oppression, all in the name of patriotism and security, in the process destroying that which made the United States a unique and exemplary form of representative government.

International relations have devolved into "do what we want or we'll bring democracy to your country." The United States government has become the bully in the world playground, pummeling into submission any country that dares to stand up to its demands. All resources are "United States interests" subject to US control and exclusive appropriation. Popular uprisings against despotic rulers are quickly overwhelmed by US force and bent to the will of the last remaining "superpower.

Topped off with overwheening domination by far-right, Christian Dominionists, the fate of the people of the United States is in the hands of religious and economic zealots, who are quickly bringing this country to its knees... perhaps the goal of the engineers of the corporate coup d'état.

Fortunately, Mother Nature has other plans, spelled out clearly in Peak Oil and on-going climate change, human caused or natural. The days of central authority are numbered, as global rule requires unlimited energy supplies, unavailable in a world of finite resources.

As energy supplies diminish, control shifts from central authority to local anarchy, true democracy.

It's Natures way.

A Myth is as Good as a Mile - of Bike Road

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 15:36:00 +0000

It's time, once again, to dispel the myths that have accumulated to date over the city's 2006 Arana Gulch Master Plan and the 16-year-old Broadway-Brommer Bicycle Path Connection Project, around which the entire Master Plan was unfortunately conceived.

Proponents of the Broadway-Brommer project have continually maintained that a quarter-mile long, 8-foot wide with 4 feet of gravel shoulders paved bike roadway across Arana Gulch would "get people out of their cars" and reduce automobile air pollution in the Monterey Bay area.

However, in an Aug. 9 article in the Sentinel, we learn this turns out not to be the case. The Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District has halted all major bike projects because "while the projects have been popular among recreational cyclists, the district hasn't seen a dent in emissions." Actually, the city was informed by Caltrans years ago, in writing, that it could not make the unsubstantiated claim that building a bike project across Arana Gulch would get people out of their cars.

Proponents of the Broadway-Brommer project hold that the wide, paved bike roadway would provide handicapped access to the Arana Gulch Greenbelt, plus public interpretation of the natural area. If the city really wants handicapped access to the Greenbelt, nothing is stopping it from providing such.

The existing two access entrances to the greenbelt can be easily reconfigured and an ADA compliant real "path" around the perimeter of tarplant habitat can be easily designed and built. ADA access and interpretive signage don't require a bike road with a footprint of 12 to 15 feet and two bridges over two creeks, through federally designated critical habitat for an endangered species. As for interpretive signage, there used to be a gorgeous sign at the northern entrance to the greenbelt, gone for years, that showed a red-tailed hawk circling above and gave great botanical information about the endangered tarplant. The sign sits safely at the city's Parks and Recreation building for now.

Proponents have repeatedly claimed that the wide paved bike roadway is necessary to fund required restoration for the endangered Santa Cruz tarplant. This is not true. The city has been conducting tarplant restoration activities yearly since 1995, with no bike road in sight. And city Public Works officials have told the Coastal Commission that tarplant restoration is to be funded through the sale of property adjoining Arana Gulch, the proceeds from which will go into a dedicated restoration fund. The money for Broadway-Brommer comes from Federal transportation funds.

The Broadway-Brommer Bicycle Path Connection Project contained in the Arana Gulch Master Plan remains just what it is: a bicycle connection from one part of the urban county to another part, through Arana Gulch. In other words, a transportation project. As such, it cannot be considered a "resource dependent," interpretive trail, as is required by Section 30520 of the Coastal Act.

Michael Lewis and Jean Brocklebank, on behalf of Friends of Arana Gulch.

Science is not ruled by consensus

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 17:12:00 +0000

"Most climate scientists say the steady increase in the concentrations of human-generated greenhouse gases like CO2 play a decisive role in this climate change, by trapping ever-more solar energy in the home planet’s atmosphere."

This sentence demonstrates the danger of interpretation of science by non-scientists.

"Greenhouse" gases do not trap heat in the atmosphere. They absorb energy at certain wavelengths and reradiate it in all directions, some down to Earth, some out in space.

Recent satellite measurements show that heat energy leaving the Earth's atmosphere to space is much greater than that predicted by global climate models, and adopted by the IPCC in their prognostocations. This means that all of their "predictions" of future climate are called to question, including those parroted by "most scientists."

Fortunately, science does not advance by consensus. If ten scientists are wrong and one scientist is right, do we ignore the correct interpretation of data anyway? The findings of one scientist can completely negate the findings of hundreds. It is the data, methodology and conclusions that are critical in scientific investigation, not the number of scientists who agree.

Whether or not Antarctica respond to climate variation has no bearing on the source of climate change. Antarctica and the Arctic have been changing for millennia with no help from human society.

Climate variation is natural, spurred and limited by natural cycles within the biosphere.

If we don't know about it, is it a conspiracy?

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:19:00 +0000

Who–and What–Are Behind the “Official History” of the Bin Laden Raid?:

"What we’re looking at, folks, is the reality of democracy in America: A permanent entrenched covert establishment that marches to its own drummer or to drummers unknown. It’s exactly the kind of thing that never gets reported. Too scary. Too real. Better to dismiss this line of inquiry as too 'conspiracy theory.'"

Climate Variability vs. Climate Change vs. Global Warming

noreply@blogger.com (Michael A. Lewis) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 19:28:00 +0000

This article, It’s Not About Feedback by Willis Eschenbach, is critical to understanding the nature of climate variability and the mistaken direction taken by political organizations, such as the IPCC and others, in interpreting observations based on a preconceived misunderstanding of climate dynamics.

In our shared mechanistic world, we operate on the common sense principle that "If you push something hard enough, it will fall over." This is the linear world of everyday expectations, in which a given action always results in the same outcome, and it works pretty well in most situations, such as getting out of bed, drinking a cup of hot coffee or stepping off the front stoop.

However, when we deal with complex systems such as weather, atmosphere, oceans and climate, this principle serves us poorly. In the world of complex and chaotic systems, when you push something hard enough, sometimes it does indeed fall over. Other times, when you push that same something with the same force, it stands resolutely unmoving. And even other times, the same push results in the object flying off into a corner of the room and whining piteously to itself.

This is because in the complex world, there are far more variable and unpredictable factors than one's simple push acting on the object and affecting the outcome.

This is the case with climate variability. The IPCC, and other political and science organizations, operate as if climate changes in reaction to one simple push, the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. They have put together a body of observations: increasing average temperature at many surface temperature measuring stations; a decline in extent and thickness of Arctic ice; melting of glaciers and ice fields in some parts of the world; and increasing atmospheric concentration of CO2 (and other "greenhouse" gases). They have entered these data into their computers and the computer ground on them a bit and spit out a Douglas Adams answer: 42. Unfortunately, just as in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, they neglected to formulate the appropriate question to the ultimate answer.

The basic assumption in these computations, well refuted by Eschenbach, is that there is a linear relationship between the total concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and average surface temperature, and further, that human production of CO2 is responsible for the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. In other words, if humans continue to push up CO2, temperatures will continue to rise, glaciers will continue to melt, and, in short, the global Popsicle will be no longer lickable.

As Eschenbach points out, this turns out not to be the case.

The Earth's biosphere, including the oceans, landmasses, atmosphere and all the biological and geophysical bits that hang about within them, is a pretty clever place. Over unimaginable millennia, the biosphere has developed a homeostatic system that works to keep conditions on the Earth within a narrow range of temperature, humidity and atmospheric gas concentrations, hovering around the freezing point of water. Even odder, this range of conditions is uniquely maintained at just the right combination for the establishment and maintenance of life, as we know it, as it has been fruitful and multiplied across the face of the earth, in pursuit of its own unique form of happiness.

This has caused a great many philosophers to scratch their thinning pates in consternation. Is the Earth and this Universe designed just so, for Life and human beings to evolve and contemplate the wonder of its creation? Or, on the other hand, paw or various appendages, if the Universe were not so ordered would there be anyone around to scratch their thinning pates wondering about it?

This is known as the Anthropic Principle, over which much ink and dead trees have been sacrificed in sorting it all out.

What's important for those of us getting out of bed in our mechanistic world, contemplating steaming cups of coffee and slippery front stoops, is this: Climate variability has no constant rate of change or direction; climate changes constantly, as it has since there first were oceans and atmosphere; and global warming is a misperception of cause and effect caused by overdependance on computer models and insufficient attention to the complexity of global climate systems.