PEELING THE TREES FOR OUR HOUSE

We had a peeling party on our land this week. 

Monday through Wednesday there were from six to nine people selecting and prepping the trees that will hold up the house we build next summer.

On Monday most of the trees were selected from our 44 acres.  (See The First 100 Trees )

As the trees were recorded on Della’s clipboard, a work party of 3 peelers started to work.  (Each tree was numbered, and its location and length was determined so the crew would know how many feet up it needed to have branches removed and have the bark peeled.)

The building process practiced by Whole Trees Architecture and Construction selects trees from the woods by considering both the building’s needs and the needs of the forest.  This is nothing like clear cutting.  After these trees are removed, the woods will be healthier for it.

To support a truly green, forest-friendly process, the selected trees are immediately peeled.  After its bark is removed, the tree will die and dry to a much lighter weight by the time it is cut sometime this winter.  Felling takes place after the ground freezes to cause minimum damage to the forest floor.  The lighter timber is easier to handle and requires less power equipment to move around, and that in turn minimizes disruption to the surrounding growing area.

Peeling the trees also allows us to see any flaws, holes, disease and structural damage before dragging them out of the woods.

At this point, after having as many as nine people working from Monday to Wednesday, we have peeled about half of the 140 selected trees. The biggest are about 11” in diameter at chest height, and even these are smaller than anything that would normally be harvested in a conventional logging operation suitable for milled lumber to make a house.

Every one of the trees was chosen purposefully with the health of the forest in mind.

Many of the trees we will use will be pines and spruce because we have a lot of those, and they badly need thinning. Other trees selected include elm, walnut, oak and cherry.

Some were in overcrowded groupings, and their removal will help their neighbors thrive.  Some had died of disease of unknown causes in the last year.  Some are in areas bordering our prairie remnants that we would like to expand for ecological reasons.

So far, I have only worked on trimming off the branches off pines and spruce for the peelers.  Using our really neat hand and pole saws (see posts singing their praises: tree herders upgrade and saws-the-sequel) makes the job go easier.

Most of the branches I have cut are brown and brittle because the trees badly need thinning, and their lower branches have all died. Cutting branches 17 feet in the air can get a little hard on the back of your neck, as you continually gaze skyward, but it’s a satisfying job.

Peeling is a dramatic step.

We are learning that different species of trees will let their bark go with more or less resistance.  Walnuts are clad very lightly. while Red Pine turned out to be much too labor intensive. 

A 6” diameter cherry gave off such a strong, sweet aroma of cherries as its bark was removed that those working on them said, it almost made them queasy.  I could smell the cherry when they were done from 20 feet away.

Spruce peel well.  Walnuts are like unwrapping a birthday present.

After participating in the tree-choosing process, Doug joined the crew on some of the trimming and peeling.

With the right tools, he found peeling to be a slow but steady process towards revealing each tree’s inner post, beam or rafter.  Using a draw knife, bark spud or glancing blows from a hatchet allowed him to get a start, slicing through the outer bark, the cork cambium and importantly, the secondary phloem that allows nutrients to flow from the photosynthetic leaves or needles down to the roots.  (check out a great cross section view at arborday.org )

After getting a good start, a sturdy blade at the end of a 5 foot long handle can be used to remove long strips of bark.  Eventually, slipping the handle into a 10 foot long electrical conduit can extend a peeler’s reach to 17 feet or so off the ground.  

The exposed woody trunk is quite wet and slimy at first, reflecting the amount of sugar-laden water that was in the process of being transported down the trunk.

The peeling process is like tree girdling on steroids.  Once the complete circumference of a tree has these crucial layers removed, revealing the true wood beneath, the fate of the tree is sealed.  It will continue to show a healthy flush of life above ground for the rest of the year, but below the soil, the roots will slowly die, and there will be no leafing out come spring.

After three days of having the crew working on our land, we were shut down by rain.  We are hoping they will be able to come for a few more days, and then Doug and I will finish up the stragglers ourselves.

We’ve been honoring our chosen trees as we go, and admiring their inner beauty.  There’s no getting around the fact that trees will die for the sake of our new house, but we are comforted with by the thought that their absence will soon leave the forest and the prairie healthier than when we started, and give us the structure for our new home in the bargain.

THE FIRST 100 TREES FOR OUR HOUSE

Today was an exciting day.  Doug and I cleared overgrown trails and created new ones for the past few days so that today we could walk our woods with Roald Gundersen of Whole Trees Architecture and Construction  and with  his assistant Della Hansmann, who is designing our house.

We were looking for the trees that will be stripped of bark and allowed to season till mid winter, when they will be cut and dragged to the building site.  These trees will form the joist and rafters and beams of our house.  This is a wonderfully green way to build.

No transportation of lumber.

No energy consumed in milling and marketing it.

No waste product.

But even beyond that, the trees that we are removing from the woods to build our house will leave the forest more healthy and strong.  Every tree is selected with the dual purpose of being the right member for house construction and being a tree that was crowing others, or being crowded, or had some other reason why it’s removal will benefit  the trees growing near it.  Roald calls it “weeding the carrot patch.”

We identified 100 trees today, and we’ll be back tomorrow to  select the rest of the 140 specific timbers we will need to build our home.  Next they will be trimmed and peeled  so they can begin to cure as they stand.

These two oaks died of oak wilt last year. Many of their curved and forked branches will fit well into our house.

Part of our land was planted by the previous owner in pines, cedar and spruce that are crowding each other. They will make great roof rafters, and are being selected to open the woods.

Roald labels a pine after checking to see how easily it will peel.

This elm is starting to die from disease. It is a perfect candidate for the house construction.

This tree would make a great rafter, but this tree is not crowding anyone and has a great future in the woods. We won't use this one.

This tree would not fit the pulp lumbering equipment, but it will fit fine in our house.

Another tree whose unusual branching pattern will work in a whole tree house.

Della checks the list as trees are selected.

It’s a complex process to select lumber this way, but a very gratifying one.  So many times we paused to appreciate and express gratitude to these trees as we selected and labeled them.   Tomorrow when I start peeling, I will thank each tree I work on.

Peeling the bark off the trees reveals a smooth, sculptural beauty.  I know that there will be timbers in the house that I will identify, remember where they stood and how a team of green builders worked together in cheerful camaraderie as these beams were selected, prepped and moved along the short steps from forest to structure.

Roald estimates that we could remove enough timbers each year from our 44 acres to build up to four houses and that the woods would be healthier for it.

My post on Friday will detail the peeling process.

CHOOSING WHOLE TIMBERS FOR OUR HOME

GUEST POST BY DELLA HANSMANN

Read more of her thoughts on green building and design at Dwelling Places.

Denise and Doug have been planning to build a house for a long time.  They were thinking about this natural dream home from the time they bought land in rural Wisconsin in 2004 and planning for it all during my years of architecture graduate school (from which I graduated in 2008).  I was introduced to my current employer, Whole Trees Architecture, by my mother, when she read this article about them in Natural Home Magazine and contacted Roald Gundersen to see about his building the house for them.  Two years ago I started, under the watchful eye of my mentor and boss, to design it for them.  Its been a long time coming, sure but its been coming steadily and now that time has nearly come.

Nothing more to take away

Perfection is achieved, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This time has allowed for many iterations and adaptations of the design.  Its shrunk significantly from its first version, with three full floors and nearly 2000 square feet (still less than the average new home today) to a compact main 900 sf main floor with a partial basement holding an earth sheltered guest room, office and mechanical space and a small loft accessed by ladder over the den.  The current design will have a living roof, passive and active solar heating and cooling, straw bale walls and a whole tree structure.  It will be quite the natural building sampler when finished!

The first step

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao Tzu

Identifying the first step of building a house is difficult.  Is it intention or action?  Wishing for one? Obtaining land?  Beginning to design?  I’m going to draw a line in the sand and say that the first step of building this house will take place next week.

On Monday, A crew from Whole Trees will come to the building site for a week of tree preparation.  Unlike a conventional house, built from anonymous lumber yard 2x4s, this house will have a round wood, timber frame structure harvested from the land that surrounds it.

Tree Harvesting, Whole Trees style

When Whole Trees cuts the lumber for this house, there won’t be any clear cutting – just a healthy thinning of the abundant forest resource, rather like weeding a garden, and leaving the remaining trees with more room to grow.  Meanwhile, we will be availing ourselves of an increcibly local, sustainable building material.  The trees will actually be harvested in the late fall (after the ground has frozen and the forest floor plants have died back) but this week every tree to be used in the house will be chosen, tagged and as many as possible will be “peeled” – their bark stripped off – and left standing so that they can cure over the next few months.

For more on the benefits of Whole Tree Structures, check this past post!

This house design will use 118 individual round wood pieces: branching columns, curving beams and (many, many) relatively straight joists and rafters.  The “framing plan” of the roof is shown below, detailing round rafter timbers every 2 feet to support the roof, and resting in turn on a timber frame structure of columns and beams.  You can also see my outline for the way the branching columns will be expressed in the house above in the section drawing.  Of course, we don’t know exactly how those branches will look until we select the actual trees next week.

Tune in next week for exciting progress reports on the peeling progress!

B

MAKING FARMERS’ MARKETS AFFORDABLE

Have you ever found yourself singing the praises of your farmers’ market only to have your conversation mate say they can’t afford such expensive food?

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nataliemaynor/2539937014/ )

There are so many answers to that statement.

In most cases, it’s merely a matter of priorities and grasping the real cost of agribusiness food-like substances.

But there are people who can not afford to share the bounty of farmers’ markets.  That’s a tougher question, but in some cases there are starting to be answers. Our Dane County Farmers’ Market holds regular donation days where shoppers can buy and donate extra produce that will be distributed to those who need access to fresh food.

I just learned about four-year-old organization called Wholesome Wave.  Their goal is to get good food to economically-deprived communities, especially those defined as urban food deserts.  We all know what this is.  It’s that part of town we don’t tend to go into with the boarded up shop windows and no green spaces.  Most of us have never tried to shop there, but if we did, we’d quickly learn that there is no way to get fresh, healthy food.

Wholesome Wave works in several ways.  They are working to create connections between the food deserts by combining private funds with government funding to benefit underserved communities and build the market for local farmers.

Their core program is Double Value Coupon Program, which doubles the value of Federal Food Stamps, called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) when these coupons are used at participating farmers markets.

I just read in my brother’s AARP bulletin that 68 percent of those who are elegible for SNAP don’t sign up.  If you think you or someone you know might qualify, here are some helpful web resources that Wholesome Wave has collected for you.

• SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)
  Visit the USDA’s SNAP Pre-screening Eligibility Tool here.

• WIC (Women, Infants, and Children)
  Visit your state’s WIC State Agency. For a list visit here.

• WIC FMNP (Women, Infants, and Children Farmers Market State Agencies)
  Visit your state’s WIC Farmers Market State Agency. For a list visit here.

• Senior FMNP (Senior Farmers Market State Agencies)
  Visit your state’s SFMNP State Agency.  For a list visit here.
  

  States where Wholesome Wave is at work.

There are a lot of states that are still blank on the Wholesome Wave map.  If this seems like something you want to get involved with bringing to your area, keep in mind that Wholesome Wave is only able to provide funding for communities specifically targeted by donors.

If you are interested in launching a Double Value Coupon Program in your community and your community has not been identified by Wholesome Wave for a program, they recommend the following steps:

1. Contact the manager of your local farmers market, or a local nonprofit operating organization such as Experimental Station, Human Services Coalition, or International Rescue Committee, and determine if there is interest to operate such a program.
2. Contact your local Community Foundation or other funding foundation or group and determine if there is interest to fund such a program. If there is interest, contact the Wholesome Wave office.

CAPITALISM + FOOD = OBESITY?

GUEST POST BY KJ HANSMANN. Read more healthy recipes and thoughts on how communities approach food at Cooking Between Classes.

This graphic from the CDC shows how obesity rates have increased across the country in the past few decades. A professor in my biochemistry class this spring shared this with us, and it was pretty shocking to say the least. Click on the image for more information from the CDC's Web site.

I have been thinking more about the roots of the obesity epidemic since I read The End of Overeating by David Kessler a few weeks ago. And one theme that Kessler touched on his book but never stated outright is that the goals of the food industry and of healthy living are counter to each other. If the measure of success for restaurants and food producers is to increase profits from year to year then it should be no surprise that we’re increasing our waistlines. Especially when you consider that food innovations in the past few decades have been to make what we eat cheaper. We’re eating more food for less money up front – but it’s costing us in terms of health.

This isn’t just true in America though. As the Western (read Capitalist) Diet is spread to other countries, they are beginning to face increasing rates of obesity as well. This opinion piece points out the changing food culture in Brazil and makes some interesting points about how capitalism benefits from “obesity-causing behaviors.” The changes in diet may appear at first glance to be cultural – eating in the car, eating between mealtimes, eating during business meetings, etc. – but they all add up to a culture that supports eating more. Fast foods haven’t just made it more convenient for us to get the daily nutrition we need, they’ve made it convenient for us to eat whenever, wherever. And when these foods are high in sugar, fat and salt, three things we are hard-wired to find desirable because they used to be so hard to come by, we start eating them all the time.

I personally think there needs to be a little more attention paid to how the industry of food intersects with our daily experience of health. Now, I’m not trying to vilify the whole notion of capitalism here. I’m just saying it might be worth considering that an economic system built on increasing consumption might be at odds with the human body, which has negative health consequences associated with consuming more calories than it uses. What we eat is important and if the charts at the beginning of this post are any indication, we haven’t been taking this food consumption conundrum seriously enough.

Is the food industry trying to make us fat? I doubt it’s quite that diabolical. But their gain is, well, our weight gain.

OLD AND NEW INSECTS BUGGING WISCONSIN

Because it was my birthday yestersday, and I was making rather merry, I am sharing this fascinating press release from UW-Madison News by David Tenenbaum.

The mosquitoes are back, the Japanese beetlesare starting to devour the 300 species of plants they call “food,” and a flock of invasive insects are poised to make headlines in Wisconsin, says Phil Pellitteri of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Insect Diagnostic Lab.

Japanese beetles are exanding to new areas of Wisconsin. (Photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueridgekitties/4718524876/

Some “insect problems” are minor, says Pellitteri. People who pull out a spray can to kill millipedes may not realize that they may be annoying, but are not harmful.

The Japanese beetle, which attacks a wide range of cultivated plants, including roses, shrubs and grapes, is more serious.

“Japanese beetles are like a superstar in an amateur league,” says Pellitteri, due to their broad taste in host plants, their ability to fly half a mile, and their two-month feeding season.  ”Many insects are around for only a few weeks, so these have an impact on gardeners unlike anything else.”

But as Japanese beetles have expanded into new areas of Wisconsin, they have declined elsewhere.

An insect with even more potential for harm, the brown marmorated stink bug, may already be breeding in Wisconsin.

Last year this new invader hit New Jersey corn, soybeans, peaches, cherries, peppers and tomatoes hard, and it may already be breeding in Wisconsin. (photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/e_monk/5379784698/

“This is like a marriage of the multicolored Asian lady beetle to the Japanese beetle,” Pellitteri says. “Last year, the stink-bug population went crazy in New Jersey, causing significant damage in corn, soybean, peaches, cherries, peppers and tomato.”

While the Japanese beetle mainly attacks ornamental plants, the stink bug “hits fruits and vegetables, and it’s a nuisance as well. A feeding stink bug causes a white blemish on tomatoes and ruins the taste of a raspberry. It causes brown corky spots on apple, and people have concerns about cranberry. This one can cause major fruit loss,” Pellitteri laments.

Fruits are also threatened by the spotted-wing drosophila, which, unlike most fruitflies, attacks unripe fruit.

“The female has a saw-like egg laying device that can force growers to put on chemicals just before harvest, which is not where anybody wants to go,” Pellitteri says. “This is a big disappointment; has big potential for damage.”

Meanwhile, Lyme disease, transmitted by deer ticks, continues to expand in Wisconsin, with a 35 percent increase in human cases in 2010.

Deer ticks are tiny but do big damage. (photo credit PestControlRx.com)

“We’ve never had a decline in cases in the last dozen years,” says Pellitteri.

The emerald ash borer continues to threaten billions of ash trees in Wisconsin, Pellitteri says.

“In some pockets, the ash borer has grown a little bit. Kenosha now has dead trees, and the infestation in Vernon County has reached 20,000 acres, but I was pleasantly surprised last year that we did not have three or four new counties with the ash borer,” he says.

The ash borer is finally facing a counterattack, Pellitteri adds.  ”Ken Raffa in the UW-Madison entomology department, along with the Department of Natural Resources, has released three parasitic wasps against the emerald ash borer, although we don’t yet know whether they will effectively control this pest.”

Nature often tends to restore some form of balance in the long term. For example, the number of pestiferous multicolored Asian lady beetleshave begun to decline at some sites.

The emeral ash borere threatens billions of ash trees in Wisconsin. (photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlucier/4499299140/

“This is common with invasives, when they first get here, they have the biggest impact, and in time come into more reasonable balance” as predators and competitors adjust to it, says Pellitteri.

There is other good news from the insect world. Mosquitoes have generally been mild so far this year. The honeybee, one of more than 400 bee species that performs essential pollination services, seems to be defying the worst fears about colony collapse disorder, Pellitteri says.

“Normally we lose 30 percent of honeybee colonies over the winter, and most of the  problem here is due to winter weather and varroa mite, not colony collapse,” he says.

And 2011 is shaping up as a banner year for fireflies, Pellitteri adds. Because fireflies feed on millipedes and slugs, “We’d expect that having so much rain last year would have favored their prey, and that seems to have made this a good year for fireflies. I hear people say there are not as many fireflies as when they were kids, but in my memory, we don’t get many years like this one for fireflies.”

What insect bugs you most?

CLEAN AIR PUBLIC ENEMIES NUMBER ONE AND TWO

We’ve been regulating air quality since 1970, and it’s a huge environmental success story.  The air has been getting cleaner and cleaner, according to Tracy Holloway.  She is director of the Environmental Studies Center for Sustainability and Global Environment (SAGE) at Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison, and she spoke this week at Wednesday Nite @ the Lab.

Holloway mentioned a Presidential Report to Congress that just came out.  It states that the EPA, and specifically its Office of Air, is both the most costly and the most beneficial.  The largest benefits come from the reduction in public exposure to fine particulate matter.  They estimate health savings to be from $19 to $167 billion a year which costs the nation a mere $7.3 billion per year.

 PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE: Fine Parcitulate Matter

 Particulate matter is the term for solid or liquid particles found in the air. Some particles are large or dark enough to be seen as soot or smoke, but fine particulate matter is often too small to see with the naked eye. Mobile source particulate emissions consist mainly of these very tiny particles, also known as PM2.5, because they are less than 2.5 microns in diameter.  To get an idea of how small that is – the diameter of a a human hair is much bigger: 18 to 180 microns.

Point sources include things like factories and electric power plants.

Mobile sources include cars and trucks, of course, but also lawn mowers, airplanes and anything else that moves and puts pollution into the air.

Well, if this is a success story, I would hate to see what failure looks like.  Oh yeah, it looks like ….

  PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER TWO:  OZONE

Ozone  is a double-edged sword.  Ground-level ozone the main ingredient in smog. Motor vehicle exhaust and industrial emissions, gasoline vapors, and chemical solvents as well as natural sources emit NOx and VOC that help form ozone. Sunlight and hot weather cause ground-level ozone to form in harmful concentrations in the air.

“Good” ozone occurs naturally in the stratosphere approximately 10 to 30 miles above the earth’s surface and forms a layer that protects life on earth from the sun’s harmful rays.  If they are too entense, UV rays from the sun leads to skin cancer, cataracts and impaired immune systems.

The good ozone is being depleted by manmade chemicals, and even though there has been a global effort to turn this around, satellite measurements show that the ozone layer is thinning – particularly over the Polar Regions.

Since 1990, the risk of developing melanoma has more than doubled.  Crops like soybeans are sensitive to UV, and too much can reduce crop yields.  The EPA says there is evidence that marine phytoplankton are under stress from increased UV radiation.  That’s a biggie because phytoplankton are the base of the ocean food chain.

Air pollution is not a local problem.  We are breathing particulate matter from Chinese coal-fire power plants, and they are breathing pollution from our agribusiness enterprises.  Holloway says it akes about 5 days for pollution to move from Asia to the West Coast and about 5 days to cross the U.S.

If you want to see what the air quality in your area is, you can check it out at this cool site AIR NOW that is updated daily. 

Holloway concluded with some suggestions that we all can do to clean up the air.

1. Buy green energy from your power company.
2. Make sure your car and home are efficient.
3. Use less energy.
4. Bar-B-Q less.  “When you see smoke, you are seeing particulate matter,” she said.
5. ANY TIME WE ARE CAUSING FOSSIL FUEL TO BE BURNED – WE ARE MAKING AIR POLLUTION.

What do you think makes the most sense to cut back on in your life?

5 WAYS TO BEFRIEND FIREFLIES

I spent the evening of Independence Day sitting in front of my barn.  The sunset was a gift of deep color fanning out across the entire western sky.  The crescent moon set through narrow bands of cloud.  And then the real show began as the fireflies lifted off from grass blades and pine needles and filled the air with a silent and dazzling spectacle.

Fireflies - their fate is in our hands. (photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/idua_japan/2580158947/ )

You don’t have to get out of town to enjoy this show.  Eric Johnson, whom I met researching an article on citizen science (read it here  ) wrote me last week to tell me about a drama that has been unfolding in his yard since the mid 1990s.  He wrote:

Back in 1994, when we got a black Labrador puppy, my wife & I decided not to use any toxic chemicals on the lawn.  We wanted to protect the dog, and we also wanted to prevent the dog from bringing herbicide into the house, on her paws.  

Around that time, I began growing everbearing raspberries, and mulching these with shredded tree leaves every fall.  

We have a large maple tree in the front yard, and it drops something like 10 cubic yards of leaves every year.  I used to put them on the terrace and wait for the city to come along and remove them, but it was often a long wait, and it was difficult to keep the leaves neatly piled until the work crew showed up.  So, I began shredding the leaves with our lawnmower, and looking for places in our yard to make use of them.  Shredding will reduce 10 cubic yards down to maybe three or four cubic yards, but that is still a lot of leaves.  Some of the leaves went on the raspberry patch, others were used around our blueberry shrubs, and the rest went on the compost pile, tucked away in an unobtrusive corner of the back.  

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamelah/23522284/

I don’t remember when we saw the first firefly, but they were a rare event up ’till 2000. Since then, they have gradually increased in number every June, and this year they are taking over the lawn, every evening, around 9 pm.  I have done some research into firefly habitat, and have learned that they like to live in “leaf litter,” so I guess that they are finding our yard to their liking.  I often find them perched on the raspberry canes during the day.  

Our dog passed on in the fall of 2008, but the fireflies continue, so I think of them as Midnight’s fireflies.  We also see them in the wooded strip of land along Lake Monona, along Lakeland, between Olbrich Park and Hudson Beach.  There are a few yards in the neighborhood, as well.  But I never see them in and around weed-free lawns.

 

(photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theloushe/3622541416/ )

According to a firefly website  fireflies are disappearing all over the world – for the usual reasons.  We are crowding fireflies out of existence as we keep developing their natural habitats.

If you want to make your yard a refuge for fireflies and a delight for yourself — here are some things to keep in mind.

The male flies about flashing a code specific to his species.  The female lounging on a plant will flash her response.  Eggs are laid about five days later preferably near water.  In about a month larvae emerge and burrow into damp soil or slip into water.  Later (depending on the species fall or spring) they form a cocoon and next summer develop into an adult.  The adults only a few weeks of life to find flash up a mate and start the cycle again.

(photo credit: http://serenityknitters.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html )

1.  Do NOT use chemicals in your yard.  An organic approach creates the kind of rich, loamy soil they need to lay their eggs.  Let logs and litter accumulate. 

2. Fireflies  like an area that is dim and damp in the daytime and extra dark at night.   Make sure you have some wild areas where the grass is tall and branches hang low.  That’s where the females like to sit.

3.  If you have a place for a pond or even a puddle, they will appreciate it.

4. Reduce light in and around your yard.  Make it easy for fireflies to find each other.

5. You can go one step further to help our flashing friends.  If you want to plug into what we know about fireflies, there is a great way! Become a firefly monitor.

Firefly Watch was launched in May 2008 by the Museum of Science, Boston.  You can register, log in and report observations of fireflies from your own yard, or someplace you like to go to watch them in action.  Fill out an observation sheet each time you spend a bit of time observing them.

With any luck, our children and their children will still be enjoying the magic of fireflies on a summer’s night.

OUR CURRENT CLIMATE AS SEEN FROM DEEP TIME

Sometimes it makes sense to step back and look at the big picture.  At a Wednesday Nite at the Lab lecture on the UW-Madison campus recently Todd LaMarskin of the Wisconsin Geological and Natural Survey detailed how paleoclimatology studies earth’s climate before we started keeping measurements with instruments.  That means everything before about 150 years ago.

Monument to a geologist (photo credit http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/625967

LaMaskin began by noting that most geologists are employed by the oil, gas and mining industries, and have a different perspective than academic geologists.

For example, the consensus of academic geologists is that things are happening to the temperature, sea level, distribution and length of the seasons that are not natural, and are best explained by the atmospheric abundance of greenhouse gases – while  the American Association of Petroleum Geologists on April 6 came out with a statement supporting recent Congressional action to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gasses.  Humm.

Photo credit http://satellite.ehabich.info/

We may think waiting for a red light to change takes a long time.  Geologists look at time a little differently.  LaMaskin compared geologic time to a 24 hour clock.

The first 21 hours of life on earth are very difficult for us to know much about.  The final 3 hours is when multicellular life forms developed and when things start to get interesting to us mammals.

The single largest extinction event, in which 96% of all marine life disappeared form the planet, occurred a mere 76 minutes ago on the geologic clock (or 250 million years ago).

The famous extinction event that killed the dinosaurs was occurred with 20 minutes left to the present or only 65 million years ago.

We have an excellent fossil record during the mammal dominant period.  We can learn from the l fossil record how animals have responded to climate change in the past.  We know these temperature swings cause dramatic variations in the biota in the earth.  Major migrations of species.  Major changes in forest and amount of forest fires.  What we don’t have is any record of what happened to human civilization because there was no human culture.

When you like your ice 400,000 years old! (photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/automationtx/5484499864/ )

Our oldest ice records only go back 14 seconds.  The Industrial Revolution (which started our current deadly spiral) occurred just .004 seconds ago.

Scientists use many methods to study ancient climate including the rate that minerals decay, and they have synchronized rock clocks around the world to understand earth history.  They also use precipitated calcium in cave deposits, tree rings and sediment cores from the ocean floor.

Zoom in on last 20,000 years and see that in general we have experienced a long-term warming.  13,000 years ago there was a big increase in snow accumulation.  The leading theory about why this cool period was disruption of Thermohaline Circulation.  Warm water from equator makes its way to northern Atlantic to heat and moderate the climate of Europe.  If the Thermohaline Circulation is cut off in the north, warm water will not make it’s way to Europe, plunging it back into a very cold state.  We think that happened before because of a disruption of the Thermohaline because of a sudden influx of fresh water during deglaciation of North America.  Some people see that occurring again now.

As glaciers melted from 18000 years ago, we have seen sea level rise by hundreds of meters.  It was about 120 meters lower during glaciation.

The sea level then became steady.  Now it’s rising again over the past 150 years.

And as for temperature and CO2 levels, if we look back to the year 1000, 2000 and today, the graph looks like a hockey stick with a large and abrupt increase in temperature.

We are creating a climate for ourselves that humans have never experienced before.

Here is a quote from Climate Progress.com  about what is going on in Oklahoma at the moment:

• Today marks the 29th consecutive day over 90. That is a record.
• Today is forecast to be the 10th day above 100 in June. That is a record.
• Today marks the 34th consecutive day above normal.
• June 2011 set or tied single-day record high temperatures on the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 27th. Those record temperatures were 103, 104, 101, and 103 degrees, respectively.

These statistics beat those of the dust bowl.  Texas is hoping for a hurricane that might bring rain to their parched earth.  Arizona and New Mexico have both had their biggest forest fires ever this summer.

Dust Bowl 1936 (photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/24842486@N07/4375175725/

Not cool