It's Time to Remove the Lower Four Snake River Dams to Save Salmon and Orca

I agree with Don Sampson of Northwest Tribal Salmon Alliance, "We're in a salmon crisis. [ . . . . ] They're suffocating. They're weakened. [ . . . . ] We need cold, clean water, and we've got to take the Snake River Dams down to make that happen." Please share. 

Driving Through the Climate Apocalypse

For many years people asked me for good climate news, and I expect this to increase with the haunting new sixth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Regarding this, I like Mary Annaïse Heglar's tweet she gave me permission to repost January 2020: "My wish for 2020 is for people to stop asking climate activists what gives us hope and start asking 'how can I help?'”

Here is my weak attempt at good climate news. While we are losing vast numbers of trees and salmon, Bendix noted your car tires will not begin to degrade until 195 Fahrenheit. That is a joke, for anyone who missed it. 

It's no joke that today Northwest Oregon will have, according to the National Weather Service, "Dangerously hot high temperatures 95-105F expected." I often see idiots walking dogs on these hot days, and yell "YOU'RE BURNING HIS PAWS!" Responses range from terror, to utter guilt, to anger. Friends asked me to lower the volume and sweeten the language as in "If it's not too much trouble . . .," or "You may want to consider . . .," or "Friend, please rethink walking your dog on hot pavement." 

I've never been good at that kind of diplomacy, but, regarding phys.org's August 12, 2021 summary of the sixth report of the IPCC by Simon Torok, James Goldie, and Linden Ashcroft, I will try. "Friend, humans are torching Earth, and all life on land, and in the sea and sky. If it's not too much trouble, maybe we could, uh, you know, rethink doing absolutely nothing about oil companies and industrial society killing most humans, and nonhuman species." One option is to support divestment of fossil fuels. Another option is to help those trying to stop the worst effects of "climate destruction" such as Extinction Rebellion, 350.org, and local groups like Olympic Climate Action if you are in the Pacific Northwest.

Gauguin and July 2021

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897-1898 --Paul Gauguin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

August 5, 2021 Update -- My favorite recent climate article is by Thom Hartmann in Salon "Civilization-ending climate change is knocking on the door — unless we act now" featuring Dr. Jason Box who "Last week [ . . . ] Skyped into [his] show from Europe." Box responded to Dr. Michael Mann's position voiced by Hartmann "We are not anywhere close to that kind of disaster scenario [ . . .] wiping out major chunks of life on Earth [ . . .]" Box said "This catastrophe is in slow motion [ . . . .] We are looking at a future of 15 Celsius warming [59 Fahrenheit] in the Arctic by end of century, [ . . .] 25 Celsius in winter [77 Fahrenheit]. [. . . .] Those projections don't have these abrupt processes [of wildfires and thermokarst lake collapse] in them so the path that we're on is most definitely a catastrophic path. How soon does the world become unlivable? I think we're approaching that when [ . . .] the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. that was 120 Fahrenheit (49°C) [ground surface temperature in Seattle, June 25, 2021, and 121.2 Fahrenheit (49.6°C) air temperature in Lytton, B. C. June 29, 2021] shattering records [ . . .] That's basically unlivable, at least for nature. [ . . . .] We have to prepare [for] extreme disruptions to our lives. [ . . . ] I don't think anyone knows just how soon the [ . . .] civilization [ . . .] falls apart. [ . . . ] We are resilient. When you put this species under threat it acts very well to preserve its own future, but that won't come without a tremendous amount of suffering, especially for poor people who lack the resources to mitigate [ . . .] I like the analogy of applying brakes so we're slowing down and so the crash becomes less hard. [. . . .] So, halting carbon emissions and removing [. . . ] 500 gigatons of carbon from the atmosphere is the project of the century. [ . . . ] I don't see that happening anytime soon."  

In my June 13, 2019 post "Universities, Colleges, and Schools at All Levels Must Focus on Climate Literacy and Action," I wrote about Box. I wrote "I recall Jason Box was far ahead of many scientists in his accurate warnings about Greenland. Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, wrote in Rolling Stone July 25, 2013, "In 2009, [Box] announced the Petermann glacier, one of the largest in Greenland, would break up that summer – a potent sign of how fast the Arctic was warming. Most glaciologists thought he was nuts – especially after the summer passed and nothing happened. In 2010, however, Petermann began to calve; two years later, it was shedding icebergs twice the size of Manhattan. Another example: In early 2012, Box predicted there would be surface melting across the entirety of Greenland within a decade. Again, many scientists dismissed this as alarmist claptrap. If anything, Box was too conservative – it happened a few months later." 

A few days ago I drove up the Clackamas River in Oregon where I was raised before I was owner/captain of The Starfisher in Depoe Bay. Fire damage, as expected, was severe, and the road above North Fork Reservoir was closed. I recalled when I was about 17 Terry Gray and I saved Dave Traxler from drowning there when his boat capsized, and he was clinging to the hull. Terry and I borrowed a boat over the objections of onlookers who said "It's not your boat! Wait for help! You two are going to drown!" They were like Gauguin's white bird near the old woman above, which Gauguin said "represents the futility of words[ . . .]" as cited by Albert Boime on the Wikimedia site.  The same can be said about the climate emergency now. From Hawaii to Turkey, and north to the Yukon and Siberia, the pattern of more talk/not enough action is becoming obvious as CO2 in the atmosphere increases with longer and worse fire seasons, etc. Gauguin's painting deserves more thought.

Below is an overview of July 2021, Portland, Oregon:

332 miles south, "hundreds of thousands"

of salmon smolts are dying, infested with

drought-enhanced shasta parasites,

 

and nearby Columbia River sockeye,

paused on their upward journey,

bloom sores like dogwoods.

 

Low numbers of Yukon chum,

leaving Alaska tribes hungry,

chant to us “You’re next. You’re next. You’re next.”

 

Here in Portland it was 116 degrees June 28

shocking many climate scientists

and weather forecasters.

 

Allison Mechanic at katu.com reported

“July 31, 2020, there were 23 fires

and more than 40,000 acres burning.”

 

She contrasted “As of July 31, 2021,

there were 50 fires

and more than 20 times the acreage burning.”

 

Since 1959, while Oregon farmers ploughed and planted,

men from oil companies

slaughtered future wives and children.

 

While trollers I knew joked about mermaids,

enemies in suits invented fracking

poisoning town wells.

 

In the hot smoky morning,

a dried frog stuck in a door jamb

is an omen of bigger changes.