Living in the Past

Change underlies nature. Rainstorms don’t last forever, they pass and leave room for a new cycle of growth to begin. Not so with man-made products. They may pass from view but they never go away. Waste products often don’t breakdown ..they become part of the landscape ..entering landfills, the food chain and water supply. What defies nature becomes toxic. The same with information. Digital records never go away. They follow us around. Without change, information becomes stagnant and obsolete. In the brain, rumination creates like whirlpools where information circles but is not allowed to escape. When this happens we become stuck and live in a time that doesn’t exist anymore.

So Cal

“What is softest in the world
overcomes what is hardest.”
Lao Tzu

Communities in Southern California aren’t developed in tune with the coastal surroundings. They’re invasive. Homes are built over tidelands that are there to replenish the water and beaches. As a consequence ..homeowners are losing their homes to erosion while the rest of us are losing our health and livelihood to foul water. I admit I don’t have much sympathy for the homeowners. My sympathies go out to the surfers who get sick. They’re much more tuned in to coastal conditions.

biosphere

Phoenix is more of a biosphere than other U.S. cities. Infrastructure is what makes it habitable on most days. It’s an air-conditioned city. Like other U.S. cities, its infrastructure is alien to the surrounding ecology. Masonry, concrete and asphalt retain the heat far longer than desert sand, which is why it doesn’t cool down as much it used to at night. Before, nighttime temperature rarely approached 90 degrees. Today 100 degree temperatures are more common.

Interdependent originations

according the journal science [ link ]

Interdependence

Living in California you cannot fail to recognize the interdependence of life on the planet. What we’re now seeing is tuna that originated near Fukushima Japan ..traveling halfway across the globe ..carrying trace amounts of radioactivity .. being served at Sushi Bars on the coast of California.

Pathways

“The cerebral cortex, of all parts of the central nervous system, must be regarded as the most plastic in recent evolution, reflecting new behavioral requirements of niches carved out by increasingly complex relations between predator and prey, and the increasing demands for more subtle relationships within the species.” Harting (1973)

I have a theory. I believe present-day verbal abilities are an extension of our sense of tracking in the wild. Our female ancestors must have found a way to code and convey this experience before their young hit the road on their own and either got lost or devoured. A test of concept would be to see if a short course in wilderness tracking offered by Outward Bound significantly improves verbal skills. I don’t expect it will do much for phonics or vocabulary but it may help students track and comprehend discourse better as well as improve their ability to speak and write coherently. Although these skills may seem dissimilar on the surface ..they do share some common components of cognition. They both require attention, orientation and ‘signal detection’ .. or the ability to focus and distinguish between relevant and irrelevant/distracting information. Granted outdoor tracking is largely ‘spatial’ and ‘visual’ while language is ‘conceptual’ and ‘auditory’ .. the cerebral cortex responsible for conceptual thought did evolve from the sensory areas of the brain, which in humans is largely visual. Anyway, it’s just a theory.

Hot and sour soup

“By the end of the century the oceans will become hot, sour and breathless.” ~ French oceanographer Jean-Pierre Gattuso

The West Coast already provides a jarring glimpse of this. Acidic waters from the deep ocean slosh onto the continental shelf off of California and Oregon. Acidic waters melt away the bottom rungs of the food chain that nourish salmon and other fish. Rising acidity is also toxic to fish larvae and can bring on bizarre behavior. It scrambles the senses of the orange-and-white clown fish making them vulnerable to predators. It’s already looking like the beginning of the end of the seafood industry in California. Ask any salmon fisherman

Arctic transformation

I think the oil boom in Wainwright Alaska will definitely make converts out of the Inupiat Eskimos who live there. They subsist largely off the bounty of the ocean. In one generation, a population of fish-eaters will become sugar-and-burger-eaters. Their health will deteriorate and they’ll lose their teeth. They have co-existed with the ice and tundra for thousands of years .. providing them with a precarious but steady supply of salmon, caribou and wild berries. Drilling operations will drive fish farther out to sea and excavating operations will plough-up the tundra driving caribou elsewhere and burying whatever edible plants and berries exist. The tundra never comes back. Shell Oil Co. hosted a kick-off event serving hamburgers and beans and boasting economic progress. Next they’ll be building roads, hotels, strip malls, bars, brothels and Burger Kings. I think the flood of strangers will turn out to be more toxic than the release of hydrocarbons.

Ecology of mind

I’m asking myself why I just spent the entire f**king day trying to figure out something I read this morning in a psych journal [link]. It’s such an esoteric subject I’m wondering how it captured my attention in the first place. They say they’ve discovered where ‘context-dependent’ learning has advantages not found in modern society. Economists and educators consider context-dependent learning an impediment to optimal decision-making. Now psychologists are finding out that it has adaptive value in nature that you don’t see in a classroom or on the trading floor. Context-dependent learning actually helps people make ‘optimal choices’ about which trail to take and what foods to eat in the wild. 

I guess I’ve always been cursed by my own curiosity ..trying to imagine what the world must have been like for our tribal ancestors. Since so much of our evolution took place then, I’m constantly wondering what is native to our lives and what are the inventions of modern society that we weren’t designed for. I’ve been asking these questions since I was ten. Looking back, I see how they unknowingly led me to my field of study in college ..my career choice ..and a lifelong fascination with the findings of neuroscience.

I remember speeding down an LA freeway one morning on my way to college going “we weren’t designed for this ..sitting in transport vehicles rushing over highways elevated far above the savannah that was once our home ..arriving at destinations in a matter of hours where it would have taken them a lifetime .. making decisions at speeds that would have been mind boggling back then.” I often wonder what challenges this presents our psyche that we’re not even aware of. What tasks routinely disturb the balance of homeostasis and cause things like stress, anxiety and hypertension.

For some reason I feel it’s important to know the difference between nature and man-made conventions. Not that I think one is better than the other ..they each come with their own set of consequences. Perhaps it’s the reason I take an ‘ecological perspective’ to events in life, which drives my father crazy. There’s a reason why we’re tuned to the context of information ..it prepares us for the events most likely to occur in nature. Storing and using contextual information has greater ecological value than most economists and educators give it credit for.

Prophesies of Mad Max

In the science fiction epic ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome’, there was a post-apocalyptic town located in the middle of the desert called Bartertown. Underneath Bartertown was a huge operation that converted hog waste into energy needed to fuel the town ..providing inhabitants with electricity for light and utilities. Turns out the prophesy of Mad Max has been fulfilled. A hog farmer in North Carolina, with the help of Duke University ..has installed a new processing plant that converts hog manure into energy he can use to run the farm. It provides the additional benefit of producing more nitrogen-rich fertilizer, which allows the farmer to grow more profitable crops.

Coastal zone

Ok, the way I look at it ..we can continue fighting the tide or we can step back and come to grips with a changing coastline. Looks like we’ve chosen to bunker down and fight. I believe this kind of old-school mentality just leads to faster erosion, more polluted water and fewer homes we can claim as beachfront property. What we end up with is a barrier that’s in constant need of repair and beaches that sicken us. That’s what happens when you build out to the edge. Ask anyone who lives on Broad Beach in Malibu or on the bluffs in Santa Barbara. The beach has receded hundreds of feet since I moved here in the 1990’s. Ask any one who still surfs the river jetty in Newport. Respiratory ailments, skin rashes and diarrhea come with the territory. You might say it’s nature’s way of restoring balance. I agree with UC Santa Cruz Oceanographer Gary Griggs and the Pacific Institute. We gotta’ retreat. Move the fucking concrete and asphalt back a couple hundred yards and replace it with cobblestones and sand. Restore a wetland that once acted as a natural filter and did a much better job at keeping the sand on the beach. Or just sit back and watch the ocean reclaim its property. What we’ll be left with are beaches of upturned asphalt, concrete pillars, rusted-out rebar and other detritus of a civilization that, for centuries, crammed its most valuable homes and businesses to the edge of the ocean.

Social ecology

I grew up in the safety of a middle class neighborhood, which didn't seem all that safe to me. Housewives visited each other in the middle of the day carrying coffee mugs filled with Vodka. I could hear them downstairs complaining about their kids ..and how they’d like to “..really rip into them sometimes.” However, it was usually the mothers who were not present that got to be the subject of ridicule .. spouse and children included. So, it was very important that I be raised not to be a topic of housewife gossip. But I knew it was inevitable ..they spared no one ..everyone got his or her turn on the ‘chopping block’. They knew it too ..I could feel the tension. I could definitely hear it in the grief my mother gave me. Expressions like “What will the neighbors think..!?” were often used in reference to the length of my hair or the style of my clothes. Then there was “Look, I’m not talking Little Lord Fauntleroy or anything ..but it wouldn’t hurt if you wore something other than Levis or corduroys to school everyday ..what about those nice gray slacks I bought ..how come you never wear those ..?” Because I’d be mortified, I thought. I was more concerned with what a group of vicious classmates would do than what a flock of housewives might say. Which reminds me, the expression “birds of a feather” was one of the choice clichés my mother frequently hurled at me. So, you could say I was raised on a diet of clichés and hackneyed expressions. I guess it’s no wonder I don’t have an original thought to my name.

Drop in the ocean

The broken BP rig is leaking about 8,820 tons of crude oil into the Gulf every day. It is sickening the ocean and killing marine life. Believe me, I grieve. However, what worries me even more is what we don’t see. A little over half that amount gets burned and released as auto emissions into the skies of Los Angeles every day. That’s somewhere in the vicinity of 4,740 tons of hydrocarbons a day. It is sickening the air we breathe and causing debilitating respiratory problems. Sustained exposure to hydrocarbons compromises the body’s defense system resulting in ailments such as chronic bronchitis and pneumonia. If you don’t believe me, check out an emergency room in L.A on a smoggy summer day. What is even more insidious is what crosses the mother’s placenta, and gets absorbed by the human fetus. Toxins related to hydrocarbons are known to impair prenatal development. This accounts for a higher incidence of developmental disorders such as autism, attention-deficit and dyslexia. Sometimes impairment doesn’t show up until later in life when it becomes visible as signs of depression or schizophrenia. I believe the human suffering caused by addiction to fossil fuel is immeasurable. It makes the Gulf oil spill seem like a drop in the ocean.

Biodynamic wine

Do California wineries really pack cow-horns full of cow manure and crystals, then plant them at various locations selected by a Shaman, during the autumnal equinox ..? Yes they do. Is that the whole story ..? No it’s not, otherwise I’d have to agree with folks from out-of-state who call us loco. No wait, I may have to agree with them anyway. The point is, manure from dairy cows is superior to shit from horses or chickens. Why?

“Because a dairy cow has an unequaled digestive process which is enhanced by cosmic life-giving forces in her hooves and horns that enable the nitrogen in her manure to rekindle life within the earth.”>

Does the story end there ..? No, otherwise I really would have to concede lunacy. The story continues:

“When vintners dig up the horns six months later, they find the manure transformed into a dark, rich, moist substance that smells surprisingly sweet and earthy. Then they mix it with water and spray it over the crops like regular fertilizer.”

Does it work ..? Research is slim, but it has been practiced in Bavaria since 1924, when Austrian scientist Rudolf Steiner introduced biodynamicsto the farming industry. I mean, there’s good reason why Bavaria scores the most stellar dairy products on the planet.

Information courtesy of the folks at
Barefoot Winery

HAPPY EARTH DAY EVERYONE ..!

Crazy Charlie

I’m lying on the roof, looking up at the stars ..when I get a get a call from Charlie who's underneath a bridge .. in a tent community by the L.A. River. It’s a place he knows well, which concerns me because it’s probably the first place they’ll look for him. “Nah” he says “..it’s terra incognita.” I try Googling it with no luck. It’s like wild kingdom down there. He spends his time sitting in squalor behind a wall of cattails .. reading and repairing his bicycle ..while freeway traffic rushes by overhead. His new lady friend ‘Musgrove’ prepares coffee while he plans his next destination. I tell him he sounds awfully comfortable for a man on the run. He says it’s OK, people down there come and go ..no one really knows who you are ..but everyone takes care of each other. He tells me there’s a string of communities like this running up and down the river. Some really reek ..but others are almost picturesque. He says he wants to go to one where, he hears ..elderberry and willow trees grow wild ..and you can watch the egrets nest. I tell him he ought to write a travel guide to the swamps and waterways that run below the city of L.A. They’re sort of a blank spot that most people either miss ..or glimpse from an overpass ..then instantly forget.

Shade grown

My friend Joey spends a lot of time in Indonesia helping coffee growers organize co-ops. Says he's surprised whenever he sees nature taking matters into it’s own hands. Tells me if a coffee grower isn’t practicing ‘shade-grown’ farming techniques ..elephants will actually appear at the edge of his plantation and eat whatever coffee bushes are growing outside the shady area. Occasionally he hears stories about tigers killing farmers who inadvertently cross into federally protected forestland. When he mentioned this to the National Park Service in Sumatra, they told him it’s the law of the jungle ..when wild animals sense that their habitat is shrinking ..they begin defending their territory more aggressively. When he talks to the encroaching farmers however ..he gets another story. They believe that the tiger is a deity enforcing proper human behavior. They tell him the killing was more likely a punishment for breaking a tribal taboo such as adultery. “Maybe the victims did something bad, like sleeping with someone who was not their wife. Cutting the trees is OK. There's no problem with that.” They cannot conceive of the notion that the attacks are related to the destruction of the animal’s habitat.

North West Passage

The ice age is melting and the Arctic is turning into water. On some days temperatures can hover around 70 degrees fahrenheit ..turning ice shelves into tropical zones. For me, this conjures up images of smooth sailing, sunbathing on sandy beaches and swimming in emerald lagoons. But I’m a fucking idealist who needs to see things the way they are. What this really means is greater opportunity for fortune-seekers looking for trade routes to China. What is now home to Eskimos, who still hunt whales and live in igloos ..is about to become an international trade zone ..occupied by oil barons ..land developers ..and casino operators. I have the feeling we are looking at the next wild frontier. Now I picture myself sailing through the North West Passage like it was California during the gold rush ..shooting polar bears instead of buffaloes.

Coastal zone

We used to call them swamps. Oil companies dumped sludge into them. Real estate developers excavated them ..and built pricey coastal communities like Marina Del Rey. Just north of there, surfers in Santa Monica began getting sick ..with symptoms ranging from skin rashes to heart attacks. I used to get ear infections. Investigators discovered high levels of toxins in the water ..both natural and man-made ..and began closing beaches for like months at a time. We don’t call them swamps any longer. They’re ‘estuaries’ ..and they serve a purpose .. filtering runoff before it goes into the ocean ..removing contaminants .. keeping the shoreline hospitable ..and the ocean sustainable (ask a fisherman). The Bolsa Chica wetlands is the only one remaining in Southern California that hasn’t been developed to the point where it’s lost all of that. A 40-year old feud between developers and environmentalists has kept it that way. Fanatical environmentalists. I’ll bet you there’s not one person surfing the river jetty who hasn’t gotten sick.

Wine country

Water from the Pacific Ocean hits the coast and vaporizes ~ the vapor gets sucked up by thermal drafts and separates into molecules ~ the water molecules get carried away by the jet stream and turn into clouds that rain over the vineyards of California ~ the rain water gets sucked into grapes and the grapes are turned into wine ~ the wine is consumed by people on the coast who dutifully return it to the Pacific Ocean where it crashes into warm coastal air and vaporizes again ~ so, I think what I’m trying to say is ~ the next bottle of wine you drink may have originated in your own backyard.

Monster calamari

God-awful, gigantic, flesh-eating squid are swarming off the coast of California. They’re so big that, if you made calamari rings out of one of their tentacles ..they’d be as big as tractor tires. What‘s more, they don’t limit their diet to fish ..they will devour human flesh just as fast as a school of piranha. I always thought that ‘monster squids’ ..the kind that could crush ships and eat people ..were myths ..the things that horror stories were made of. Apparently not ..they’ve been around a long time ..but only in water so deep we never see them. That’s changed. Pollution and agricultural run-off have tilted the balance in their favor. By depleting the ocean of oxygen, water at the surface is beginning to resemble water in the deep ..allowing these foul creatures to rise up ..escape the grasp of their natural predators and multiply like crazy. They’ve been piling up on beaches in San Diego, Orange County and Palos Verde. I guess that means it won’t be long before I see them in the waters off the coast of Santa Barbara and Monterey ..joining the ranks of all the other horrors that populate my nightmares.