Wyzga On Words

A March In Manhattan & A Trek Across The Gobi Desert: What Do They Have In Common?

I'm a big believer in "timing & location" being applicable to more situations than real estate.  Helen Thayer has been pulling off explorer-naturalist excursions for decades and only a few weeks ago did I hear her name. She was being interviewed on NPR prior to a speaking engagement in San Diego.  What caught my ear was her plans for an upcoming trek with her husband, Bill: 1500 miles across India to study the culture.  Never mind that Bill is 82 and Helen is 71. She was 63 and he was 74 when they walked across the Gobi Desert: 1,600 miles in 80 days with temperatures often topping 110 degrees.

"Walking the Gobi" is part thriller, part adventure story, part feat of endurance.  And a very early call about the disastrous effects of climate chaos/global warming. Remember that Thayer walked in 2001.  She published her book in 2007. Back when she and Bill were making their way west to east across a forbidding landscape, Mongolian nomads who make their homes here, raise their children, raise herds and flocks of sheep and goats, had been telling her there had been no rain in three years.  Mongolians date to at least Genghis Kahn.  These people are desert nomads. They know the climate of their home.

You might wonder why a desert needs rain.  Green things grow in the desert.  Animals adapted to this ferocious life find sources of water and forage.  As do people.  When there is no rain and winds kick up to 50, 60 , 70 more miles per hour, huge sandstorms fill the sky and carry beyond borders.  The natural equilibrium of the desert is thrown off balance and everyone suffers.

Believing that grass roots efforts are what really get things done, thousands of men and women and children met up in Manhattan on Sunday to march for correcting climate chaos.  As reported in the NYTimes, Taking a Call for Climate Change to the Streets, legions of marchers with no more affiliation than this one shared planet demonstrated that the time had come for ordinary people to turn things around. Marches were also held all over the world as ordinary people on every continent realized that the heating up of Planet Earth is not some joke of the scientific community.

I am gearing up for a pre-trial legal research, otherwise known as a focus group.  As one of a series of political compass questions I am posting to the potential participants, there is this one: "Is climate chaos/global warming some error of science or a real disaster in the making?"  To my astonishment, well over half of those being recruited in SoCal call it a scientific error. Here in California we are looking at Year 3 of a record drought. At a time when other folks are getting ready to don wool socks and prepare soup for dinner, we are reeling from weeks of triple digit temperatures. As reported in the NYTimes:

Last week, meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that this summer — the months of June, July and August — was the hottest on record for the globe, and that 2014 was on track to break the record for the hottest year, set in 2010.

It was concern about the consequences of that warming that drew people to the march, organized by a dozen environmental, labor and social justice groups, and that inspired some of the event’s most sober and most outrageous expressions, some of them not even on the route.

Whether you are two elderly foreigners leading camels across the Gobi or one of many marching in Manhattan or your corner of the globe, the message is still the same: this is real - do what you can with what you have.  There is no Plan-et B.  

 

Who Will Stand For The Grey Wolf?

Somewhere on my bookshelves is a slim volume entitled, Should Trees Have Standing?  It came to mind as I was reading an exquisite report about the return of a single grey wolf who slipped across the border from Oregon into California and caused a stir. 

Joe Donnelly writing for ORION magazine goes in search of this Lone Wolf.  Along the way he explores our attitudes toward this predator and celebrate the fact that like it or not Life continues to rear its head despite all we seem to do to crush it; much like the slender green stem of a plant that pushes up through concrete seeking the sun.  

To get a sense of the temperament out there, you might wish to begin by reading the diverse views and then taking those (along with your own) into the article.

For me, I hope this one lone wolf finds his mate and those standing in his way learn that Nature bats last. 

Breast-feeding & Chemicals. What's A Mother (& Baby) To Do?

    There are a million and one reasons why breast-feeding a newborn beats formula.  As reported by Pam Belluck writing for the NYTimes, "Hospitals Ditch Formula Samples to Promote Breast-Feeding," it's generally healthiest for mom and baby.  Excerpt.
  

"Breast-feeding decreases babies’ risk of ear infections, diarrhea, asthma and other diseases, and may reduce risk of obesity and slightly improve I.Q., experts say. "

So why send mom home from the hospital after giving birth with some nifty little gift bags packed with sample cans of formula?  Some argue that the samples are too convenient at helping to deter a mother from breast-feeding when she learns how easy it is to just pop the top.  Others argue that babies do just fine on formula.  And still others argue that hospitals should be in the business of health - spelled mother's natural breast milk - and not canned formula.  Excerpt.

 

"The question is whether samples tempt mothers who could breast-feed exclusively for the recommended six months to use formula when they’re exhausted or discouraged if nursing proves difficult. The C.D.C., the World Health Organization and breast-feeding advocates say samples turn hospitals into formula sales agents and imply that hospitals think formula is as healthy as breast-feeding. Health experts warn that even small amounts of formula dilute breast-feeding’s benefits by altering intestinal micro-organisms and decreasing breast milk supply, since women produce less when babies nurse less. They say that while some women face serious breast-feeding challenges, more could nurse longer with greater support, and that formula samples can weaken that support system."

Moms, like each of us, should know what's in what we ingest.  Click here to read more about the political nature of "Ban the Bags" program designed to eliminate samples of formula distributed by hospitals to new moms.

Then ask yourself about the more complex story of toxic chemicals that are passed through breast milk to nursing babies. Chemicals like DDT, PCBs, mercury, lead, benzene, perchlorane, and others.

For that information you will have to turn to Florence Williams' book, Breasts, recently reviewed by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez for ORION magazine, September/October 2012.  Excerpt:

 

"Yes, human milk is like ice cream, penicillin, and the drug ecstacy all wrapped up in two pretty packages.  But, women "off-load" up to90 percent of their own chemical loads  through their breast milk, prompting Norway, the country with "the single highest breast-feeding rate in the world," to consider recommending that women limit their breast-feeding to six months. Firstborn infants are at particular risk of chemical exposure through breast milk."

"Not only are babies and toddlers with high toxic levels of contaminants scoring lower on tests of mental, verbal, IQ, and physical development, chemicals are disrupting puberty.  "Today, half of all the girls in the United States start popping breasts by their tenth birthday," a statistic that is particularly  disturbing when paired with this one: "If you get your first period before age twelve, your risk of breast cancer is 50 percent higher than if you get it at age sixteen."

I guess like the canaries in the mine, womens' breasts are a window to an increasingly toxic world that calls for tighter regulations on food, chemicals, bottled water.  Maybe before banning formula samples we take another look at overall environmental, food and water health to learn who is feeding what to whom.   

 

 

50 Years - 50 Steps - How We Silenced Rachel Carson.

Books change us.  50 years ago this September Rachel Carson published Silent Spring.  The Environmental Protection Agency is a product of Carson's book.

How did this woman take on the chemical companies?  Click here to read more.

How have we repaid that debt?  We fracked her.

Take time now to read ORION Magazine's report on fracking, how the chemical companies can turn land into a toxic waste dump, convert kitchen faucet tap water into methane, and force families to take it on the chin in the name of natural gas for energy.

Over the weekend I was talking with a family member who was extolling our recent Mars accomplishment.  The idea, I was told, is to investigate that planet as the next Earth. 

I am curious to know how come we would spend all that time, money, ingenuity, effort, creativity, imagination, and intelligence to land a scooter on Mars when we could apply it to figuring out how to heal the wreckage we've caused on this planet and make it a sustainable place to live.  

Sometimes, I have no explanation.

What will we do when we can no longer suck a million gallons of water out of a river to open the gullet of each fracking station?

What will we do when lethal gases trapped a mile under the Earth's crust continue to leak into what used to be clean air?

What will we do when the natural gas runs out? 

What can we rape and pillage then?

 

 

Wilderness As Antidote To Postindustrial Self-Absorption.

The message after 200 miles, getting lost, snow pits, mosquito attacks, and slogging with backpacks is still the same: get out in the woods.

Nicholas Kristof and his daughter headed for the Pacific Crest Trail.  Their adventure is recounted in his NYTimes OpEd piece, "Blissfully Lost in the Woods."  Apart from a nice father-daughter saga, their experiences illustrate how much we need the outdoors and Nature needs us.  Excerpt.

"This trip, even more than most backpacking slogs, was a reminder that we humans are mere bricks in a vast natural cathedral. As we tumbled in snow pits, as rain fell on us, we mused that we’re not landlords of our planet, or even its prime tenants. We’re just guests.

In short, the wilderness humbled us, and that’s why it is indispensable.

In our modern society, we have structured the world to obey us; we can often use a keyboard or remote to alter our surroundings. Yet all this gadgetry focused on our comfort doesn’t always leave us more content or grounded. It is striking how often people who are feeling bewildered or troubled seek remedy in the wilderness. That’s the point of the best-selling new book “Wild,” by Cheryl Strayed, about how she escaped from heroin and grief over her mother’s death by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail.

“Wild” is a terrific yarn, opening with a moment in which Strayed loses one precious hiking boot over a precipice — and then angrily hurls the other after it. Over time, the forests tame her, providing free therapy and the setting for her maturation. Strayed’s book has been successful, largely by word of mouth, partly because it reflects a truth we recognize.

For decades, youth programs have found benefit in sending troubled adolescents to drink from wilderness streams and lap up truths about themselves. Outward Bound takes a similar path, for everyone from at-risk kids to returning veterans to corporate executives.

Perhaps wilderness is an antidote to our postindustrial self-absorption. It’s a place to be deflated, humbled and awed all at once. It’s a window into a world larger than ourselves, one that doesn’t respond to a remote. It’s an Olympiad for all of us."

I can testify to the life changing experience of Outward Bound treks into the Canadian Rockies with a 50 pound backpack and another two week adventure kayaking Baja, Mexico with what I could stuff in a duffel.  I was exposed early on.  My family always camped in a tent with sleeping bags on the ground - where can you take 7 kids for cheap?

Kristof's parting message is urgent: Folks are just not out there like they used to be.  Excerpt.

"To guarantee wilderness in the long run, we first need to ensure a constituency for it. Environmentalists focus on preserving wilderness, because that’s the immediate priority, but they perhaps should be as energetic at getting young people to interact with it. We need more Americans working through their challenges, like Cheryl Strayed, by hurling boots off precipices. We need more schools and universities to offer classes on the wild, in the wild — with extra credit for students who get lost."

 

The Place Where You Live. Citizen Activists May Have Had Something To Do With It.

 

ORION Magazine carries a lovely section called The Place Where You Live.  Readers are invited to submit a contribution telling about the place where they live.  This following piece was printed in the July/August 2012 issue of ORION.  You should be able to access it on line when the September/October issue is in print.

Meanwhile, here is Gary Pace's beautifully spoken homage of gratitude to those who stood up to a nuclear site even after construction had begun and halted it - for good:

"Bodega Head, California.  I come to the Bodega Headlands often to make offerings and prayers.  Offerings to the land - the wild northern California coast - and prayers of gratitude to people who, fifty years ago, had the vision to block construction of a nuclear plant on this spot straddling the San Andreas Fault.  During the 1906 earthquake, this coastline moved 15 feet.

Tucked behind dramatic cliffs, and close enough to the ocean for me to hear sea lions and glimpse migrating whales, is a small pond called "Hole in the Head."  This crater is the site initially excavated for the plant's foundation; now it only hints at the disaster that could have unfolded.  The largest nuclear reactor of its era would have been built on the edge of the fault.

What outrageous hope gave people the courage to believe they could halt construction of a nuclear site even after construction had begun?  Who could have predicted their unlikely success, outlined in this understated park sign?

'Proximity of the San Andreas Fault would have significantly increased risks to marine, tidal, and atmospheric environments.  Citizens and scientists collected signatures, filed lawsuits, wrote letters, and appeared at hearings ranging from Sonoma County to Washington, D.C.  The project was finally abandoned in 1964 after 8 years of controversy and citizen action.'

If it had opened as planned, the reactor would have outlived its utility by now.   I would be standing here before the shuttered structures of cooling towers, looking out over the yard littered with barrels of spent fuel rods, a lonely witness to the radioactivity that would persist for scores of human lifetimes.  The electricity produced would have long since passed through local residents' light bulbs and dishwashers, and we'd be tapping new sources of power for our contemporary needs.

My thoughts drift to those folks who worked for such a reasonable outcome.  As the sea breeze blows across my face, I arrange flowers in honor of the legacy these activists left behind, an ephemeral monument to something that never came to pass."

 

Sometimes You Just Need To Step Away. And Rescue A Swarm Of Bees.

So there I was working away on business at the computer in the office when the call came.

A swarm had taken up residence in a plum tree in a backyard.  The family's two-year old toddler had been sitting at the base of the tree playing happily when the parents noticed what was over his head about 6 feet up.

I was told that the swarm measured about 18 inches across and 12 down. 

So now what?

Sometimes you just need to step away and rescue a swarm of bees.

I waited til mid-afternoon, suited up, put my gear in the trunk of the car and drove over to the home.  I gotta tell you, this was a beautiful swarm: healthy, quiet, peaceable, looking for a place to call home, raise their brood, have something nutritious close by to eat and a source of water to drink.

Before a swarm leaves the colony with the old queen, maybe some virgin ones, the worker bees gorge on honey.  Who knows when and where the next meal will be.  The queen is starved to slim down so she can fly.  At a signal, the queen and a number of her worker daughters leave home.  They may go only 200 yards away and alight in a safe rest stop while scout bees seek new real estate.

In this situation the bees are relatively calm: they are exposed, perhaps chilled, protecting the queen.  Of course, it's no excuse to go up and poke them.  But the homeowner and I stood just underneath the swarm and watched and listened to the quiet hum.

When I was ready to get to work as a volunteer bee rescuer, the homeowner and her toddler son watched from inside the house.  I like to spritz a little honey water on the swarm to give them a bit of food and distract them as they lick off their bodies.  I don't use smoke - there is no need.  After positioning a tall step ladder under the swarm I balanced a hive body on top and climbed up on the stone wall you see in the photo.  Once close to the swarm I gave the branch a big WHACK! to encourage as many of the honeybees as possible to drop into the box in a clump.  There was quite a flurry of bees in the air but they were not interested in me.  Many of them regrouped on the limb before they realized that the queen was in the box. 

Over the next hour we watched as bees stood along the rim of the hive box fanning their wings to let the rest know that the queen was in the box and they better hurry "home."  When I was sure that I had just about all of them I covered and secured the hive box, slid it into the trunk of my car and took the swarm to my apiary.  Finding a good spot to locate the new colony I removed all the screening and duct tape, reduced the hive entry to the size of a single bee so the colony could defend itself against any robbers, and then sat for a while realizing that at that moment I was the luckiest Lady Bee Wrangler in the world.

It's not a waste of time to break up the day, get outside, take in a breath of fresh air, listen to natural sounds, or even rescue a swarm of bees.  Our souls need such times.

 

What's Really In That Plastic Bottle Of Bottled Water You're Drinking?

There's nothing odd about 3 corporations taking control of our drinking water.  It's just business.

Nestle, Coke and Pepsi have their eye on the future.  The future is water: who has it, who controls it, who needs it.

Mahatma Ghandi said, "There is enough water for human need, but not for human greed."

This is where we have arrived: corporate greed.

Yet, it's not all their fault.  Corporations sell what we buy.  When we stop buying we change things.

Water covers 75% of planet Earth; only 1% of that is drinkable.  In the next 15 years almost two-thirds of the human race will be struggling for clean drinking water.

Water is the new oil.

Now does it make sense?

Nestle, Coke and Pepsi are sucking the earth dry, bottling the water and selling it back to you at 1900 times the original cost to them.

What do you think goes into a bottle of Arrowhead, Ozark, Dasani or Aquafina water?  Pure mountain stream refreshment?

Over 40% of the bottled water on the shelves is merely good old-fashioned municipal tap water.

Recall a few years back when Atlanta was suffering the drought?  Lakes were down to dirt?  But the local Coke plant kept on bottling?

The joke's on us.

Compounding the problem is the petrochemicals that make up the plastic bottles that hold the water.  These cancer-causing petrochemicals leach out into the water you drink, you give your kids to drink.

And it doesn't stop there.  Not everyone gets curbside recycling service.  And even if we did there are not enough recycling plants or uses for the bottles.  So they end up in landfills where the petrochemicals leach into the soils and ground water.

And it doesn't end there.  Our oceans are becoming a toxic plastic stew as more and more bottles are swept into the lakes, rivers, streams and sea.  Marine life eats the broken down plastic pellets.

Here's a few sources you can check out to begin your research and then decide for yourself if it's time to give up the bottle:

Tapped - the movie. This 2009 Indie Winner examines the role of the bottled water industry and its effects on our health, climate change, pollution, and our reliance on oil. The high cost -- to both the environment and our health -- of bottled water is the subject of this documentary that enlists activists, environmentalists, community leaders and others to expose the dark side of the bottled water industry. Americans may rethink their obsession with bottled H20 when they learn of the unregulated industry's willingness to ignore environmental and health concerns, and the problems that arise as a result.  Produced by Atlas Films.  Trailer.

We made it easy for you: click here to watch Tapped, all 75 minutes of it.

Just to balance the argument a bit, here are Top 10 Reasons why bottled water is a blessing.  And from a Quaker.

Grading your bottled water.    

When Is A Barn Not A Barn?

Decorah, Iowa, home to the Decorah Bald Eagles of global Internet fame, is also a place of particularly notable old barns.  Some still fill their traditional purpose.  Others have been re-purposed to hold church meetings and family reunions.

Take a break from whatever it is you are working on and visit with Ceil Miller Bouchet as she takes us on a tour of her home state with its barns that are so much more than a structure built to hold hay and shelter animals: "If These Barns Could Talk."  Excerpt.

"Because I’m a granddaughter of Iowa farmers, I have a soft spot for old barns. Maybe it’s in response to the big sky of the Midwest or the vast expanses of land, but the barns of my home state seem particularly notable. Traditionally the centerpiece of any Iowa farm, these solitary structures always remind me of the labor-filled lives rural families led before agribusiness was even a concept."

 I am not a child of farmers.  But on the wall of my office is a faded photograph of two giggling sisters side-by-side on a wooden seat rope swing hanging from a sturdy tree and in the background an old barn and stacked wood pile.  My sister and I are maybe 5 and 6.  The setting is the old Meserve farm in New Hampshire.  Our father served in the USNavy with the Meserve's son.  We spent a week on their farm during haying season.

To keep us kids from getting in the way we were "banished" to the barn to climb on hay bales, chase chickens that found their way inside, stroke the broad flank of the milking cow that was patiently waiting near the milking pan, and make believe.

My very own make believe will come true one of these fine days when I get my own barn.  I hope you come and visit.  Nature and dreaming are the best rejuvenators.

Green Reduces Stress.

 

Environmental psychology researches the value of open space on humans.  Apparently, a stroll in the out-of-doors or just looking at green spaces helps reduce our stress level as well as supplying  much-needed time for exercise, solitude, contemplation, reflection, perspective, a break from the daily, noise-driven routine, and the like.

Check out GardenVisit.com to get away for a week or a moment.

And summer being the time of fresh produce plenty, visit pick-your-own places at Pick-Your-Own.org. As children and gardeners can attest, there's a special joy in getting our hands dirty.