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.

Guest Post by Will Kautz

This is a story of redemption.  I know that word can mean different things to different people but sometimes redemption shows itself in strange places.  Sometimes a person’s pain can be redeemed. Sometimes the anguish we’re carrying might actually be the very thing that opens our eyes to something disarming and unexpected and transformational…  

When my son died in an avalanche, he was 25 years old.  Justin was healthy, happy, loving and mature. We had a camaraderie that I valued a lot.  Shortly before he died, he sent me an email.  In it he wrote, “Dad, you’re the most honorable man I know.  Thank you for teaching me how to love.”  Those are the words that a parent longs to hear and so, when the news came of his loss, I was devastated.

I think I probably grieved in the usual way during the next two or three years.  There was nothing exceptional about it. I was basically an emotional basketcase during the first year and gradually, over time, my mind adjusted to the "new normal" even while that big gaping hole remained in my soul.

Then one day, I realized that I wasn’t accomplishing anything of value.  I was focused only on my losses.  It was like I was viewing my pain through a camera with a zoom lens attached to it.  I couldn’t see peripheral things.  I think it’s healthy for a grieving person to focus on a loss.  But there comes a time when we’re ready to take off the zoom lens and begin viewing life through a wide-angle lens because redemption is often found hiding in the peripheries where no one thinks to look.  

But… how do we do that?  How do we begin searching for something that we’ve never experienced before – especially when we don’t even know what it is?

Something told me that I needed to find people who had suffered more than me.  So one day I sat in front of my computer and began googling things.  I didn’t even know where to start.  I forget how my search began but at the end of several hours I found myself viewing a video of a little girl living in a garbage dump in Latin America.  The place was called "La Chureca" and there were hundreds of kids in that dump.  I had never been to Latin America but when I saw that little girl, a mysterious feeling came over me that just said, “Go.”

Ordinarily, I’m not the kind of person who says, “God told me this, or God told me that.”  There have been so many kooky people saying so many kooky things in the name of God and I just never wanted to be one of them.  But when the word “Go” began reverberating in my soul, I recalled the day after Justin died.  I remembered sitting on my bedroom floor with my face in the carpet, sobbing my heart out, and another mysterious feeling came over me then as if I was being told, “This isn’t an accident, Will.  I am doing something.  Trust me in the darkness.”

So after reading about that garbage dump, I bought a ticket, got on a plane and headed to a place that travel agencies never tell you about.  As soon as I arrived, I knew my life would never be the same.

Sometimes we encounter things that profoundly change our outlook on life and when it happens, it doesn’t matter that former joys have lost their allure or that our foundations have been shaken.  All we know is that the walls we’ve built around ourselves have crumbled into dust.  Somehow, our unsatisfied yearnings no longer throb inside us and something restorative is taking place deep inside our souls.

Sitting on the outskirts of Managua, the dump has been called one of the most wretched places on earth. A few thousand people make their homes there. They sift through the rubbish for food to eat or things to sell.  The children begin their careers early.  You can see them with their sticks – poking and prodding the soil for plastics or metal or something of value.  Girls as young as nine years old prostitute themselves to the garbage truck drivers in exchange for the first pick from the truck. 

This is a world where violence and innocence live together and where a young girl’s best protection against a sexual predator is an emaciated body.  The poverty is relentless.  The shame is merciless.  Disease pocks the scalps of tiny little heads.  But despite all the danger, the place is strangely disarming.  How can we poke our lives into such a world without lowering our guard?  What is the point of my fortress when a daddyless girl wants to play with me?  Brick and mortar melt like wax in the warmth of her smile and the glow of her eyes.  It’s like falling in love with grace itself – and I found myself not wanting to leave that miserable place.

Maybe I was nuts.  Maybe I touched something unclean.  Maybe I contracted a strange disorder.  Maybe the heat got to me.  Maybe I hadn’t felt so alive in decades.  Maybe I had to be emptied before I could ever be filled…

I have a faith.  I don’t go to church anymore because the tradition that I grew up in isn’t very healthy these days.  But… I began praying that I could adopt one of those kids from Nicaragua.  It was an impossible prayer.  I knew it.  The Nicaraguan government doesn’t allow Americans to adopt anyone.  I was also a single male who wasn’t getting any younger and no agency would ever allow me to adopt a little girl anyway.  But I prayed that prayer because I thought maybe God is the God of the impossible and I was crazy enough to believe anything could happen.

I eventually had to fly home but on my third trip to Nicaragua, something unexpected happened…

I had made arrangements with a Nicaraguan woman named Diana to translate for me.  I was learning Spanish but…  Es difícil porque mi cerebro está viejo y decrépito.  So Diana was a life saver.  

As soon as I arrived at the airport, Diana began telling me about her kid sister named Jenny.  Diana was one of those super-organized women who wanted to plan my itinerary by the hour - months in advance.  I was the free-spirited artist who just wanted to go with the flow and Jenny, well… Jenny was a wreck.  Her dad had died when she was two years old.  The family lost everything.  She spent her childhood in a Third World hell.   She had slept on floors as a child, gone days without food, suffered various indignities, developed an anxiety disorder with debilitating panic attacks and an extra dose of depression on the side.  Diana wanted Jenny to just pick herself up and earn some money for the family but Jenny was having a tough time of it.  She was 25 years old when I met her – the same age as Justin when I lost him.  

The good news is that Jenny was very creative. She wanted to be a photographer but she had no camera – just a cheap cell phone that took pictures.  She also had the disorganized personality of an artist.  She didn’t mind chaos in the bedroom she shared with her sister and that drove Diana absolutely nuts.  It was an amusing spectacle to watch.

So one evening I took Diana and Jenny and their mom out to dinner.  When we were on our way to the restaurant, Jenny began to talk.  She said, “My family doesn’t want me to say this but I’ve been having problems.  I have panic attacks and depression and I don’t know how to fix myself.”  Those few words almost made me cry.  Not because they were sad, but because I wasn’t used to the beauty of her honesty.  Most people can’t do what Jenny did.  She was open and transparent and she had no interest in cultivating a fake veneer of perfection.  

When we arrived at the restaurant, she took out her cell phone and showed me her photos.  I was impressed.  They weren’t just pretty pictures.  I could tell that she had an eye for composition and light and she also had one other thing that brought life to her work.  She had a heart for vulnerable people.  The more I listened to her, the more I saw how intelligent and analytical she was.  By the end of the evening, I was in awe.

Sadly, after ten days, I had to fly home. Jenny surprised Diana by waking up at 5:30 in the morning to go to the airport with me.  Ordinarily, Jenny was too depressed to get out of bed before noon.  Some days she didn’t get out of bed at all.  So… Diana couldn’t believe her eyes when her sister accompanied us to the airport.  When we were there, I could tell that Jenny wanted to ask me something.  But she didn’t.  So I got on the plane and flew home.

Once back in Vermont, I received an email.  It was from that crazy girl with the cell phone camera.  She wrote… “I have an unusual question for you.  All my life, all I ever wanted was a dad.  I never cared about toys.  I just wanted a dad to spend time with me and encourage me and protect me.  Would you be my dad?  Would you help me to believe in myself?  Would you help me overcome my problems?”  My heart melted.  I realized immediately that my impossible prayer was answered and that her humble cry for help would begin one of the sweetest chapters of my life. 

After telling Jenny how honored I was to be her dad, I sent her a camera with lenses and a computer too.  Then I asked her if there was a school in Managua where she could learn photography.  She told me about a photo academy run by the French government as part of a cultural exchange effort.  We enrolled her.  A few weeks later, I received an email from a psychiatrist in Managua who had been helping Jenny for free.  She said, “I cannot believe the transformation that is happening to your daughter!  She wakes up early each morning, goes to school, does her homework, and teaches herself photo editing online.”   A few months later, Jenny’s professor said, “Your daughter is a frickin’ genius!”

Jenny graduated at the top of her class and has since established a name for herself in her field.  When she visits me in the US, she is full of joy.  She loves being in my workshop as I sculpt and paint.  She says, “Teach me Dad!  I want to learn!”  When we go places, She brags about me to others.  She says, “My dad is an honorable man!”  I can’t begin to express the joy this brings after years of mourning.  She tells everyone our story.  People cry.  It is a story of redemption.  In some mysterious way, the most heart-breaking events of our lives gave birth to the most beautiful events of our lives.   

So I’ll leave you here with perhaps the only words that really matter because… there are mysteries also hidden in the peripheries of your life.  They are waiting to be found with a wide-angle lens while you mourn your losses and bear your pain. There is also a voice calling from the deep and offering to redeem that pain with words that are disarming, unexpected and transformational:

“This isn’t an accident.”

“I’m doing something.”

“Trust me in the darkness.”

“Go.”

*Read more of Will Kautz's work at his Facebook page. 

Climate Reality Pushback

Used with permission of marine biologist Chris Harley.

Kabir wrote, "people won't wake up -- Not until they feel death's club inside their skulls." It's a good quote for many facing climate reality that "killed or harmed three billion animals" in Australia according to a July 28, 2020 bbc.com news article, and "More than one billion marine intertidal animals [that] may have perished along the shores of the Salish Sea during the record temperatures at the end of June, [2021] said University of British Columbia researcher Chris Harley" according to Canada's nationalobserver.com journalist Rochelle Baker. 

In related matters, Shafiq Najib reported today at krcrtv.com on a press release of California State Senator Mike McGuire's upcoming July 27 hearing: "River conditions wherever salmon are found are so bad here in California that baby fish are being cooked alive or wiped out by heat-driven disease. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife estimates that 100% of the endangered winter-run Chinook salmon could die off this year." Covering nearby southern Oregon, Molly Hennessy-Fiske reported in today's Los Angeles Times "Bootleg fire [. . . .] consumed more than 400,000 acres of forest." and other sources noted it could grow from 500,000 to a million acres depending on conditions. The current 400,000 acres equals 625 square miles or about 1619 square kilometers. 

Amy Graff at sfgate.com reported today "California's Dixie Fire straddling Plumas and Butte counties was 18% contained and 142,940 acres as of Friday morning, making it the largest wildfire in the state so far in 2021, Cal Fire said."

My favorite climate article this week, "Top US scientist on melting glaciers: ‘I’ve gone from being an ecologist to a coroner’," appeared in The Guardian in a revised form July 22, 2021. 

I was glad to see in thecrimson.com, "Mass. State Reps. Introduce Bill Seeking To Compel Harvard To Divest From Fossil Fuels" which may be a useful model for other students, professors, and alumni seeking fossil fuel divestment. 

The heat is seriously affecting the Global North. Jason Samenow wrote at The Washington Post July 20, 2021, "In recent days, all-time record highs have been set in Turkey, northern Japan and Northern Ireland, while the mercury reached 110 in Montana." 

One of the main reasons for this blog has been to create awareness of, and help for, people in developing nations most affected, and least responsible. I have written about how, according to Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, "Rising Seas Could Affect 1.4 Billion People by 2060" and necessary "Climate Grief." Similarly, I wrote "in addition to making fossil fuel companies pay for mitigation and adaptation, and colleges/universities and pension funds divest, we must also find ways to increase capacity for caring in developed nations before many more human and nonhuman inhabitants globally will be forced to migrate and/or die early and awfully." Regarding "people in developing nations," I am grateful to Will Kautz for permission to repost his essay above. 

Climate Culling and Healing

July 18, 2021 Update: Thank you to the 127 visitors from Myanmar (Burma) yesterday. The “Translate” tool in the lower right frame offers these languages: 

Afrikaans Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian

Bulgarian Catalan Cebuano Chichewa Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Corsican Croatian Czech Danish Dutch

Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Frisian Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati

Haitian Creole Hausa Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish

Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer Kinyarwanda Korean Kurdish (Kurmanji) Kyrgyz Lao

Latin Latvian Lithuanian Luxembourgish Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Maori Marathi

Mongolian Myanmar (Burmese) Nepali Norwegian Odia (Oriya) Pashto Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian

Russian Samoan Scots Gaelic Serbian Sesotho Shona Sindhi Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali

Spanish Sundanese Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Tatar Telugu Thai Turkish Turkmen

Ukrainian Urdu Uyghur Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba Zulu

Imagine Earth reaches 5 C above 1850 preindustrial baseline "within 80 years or so at our current trajectory" as noted by Dave Borlace if we don’t cut enough carbon. Before that, with a 4 C world, Earth’s population is reduced “below one billion people” as predicted by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), quoted by Paddy Manning July 9, 2011 in The Sydney Morning Herald. One third of the global human population migrates to survive. Next, imagine large-scale negative carbon emissions such as direct air capture (DAC) don’t work, large-scale aerial geoengineering remains technically impossible over 1 C, and targeted country-scale or part-of-country aerial geoengineering in the Global North are not options because India and Pakistan, which both have nuclear weapons, simply say “No.” due to how they may be affected. Think this sounds like a Hollywood disaster film? It gets worse. Ordinary citizens lose trust in governments to provide water security, food security, employment, and protection. In the U. S. the National Guard fails to report to work to distribute food and water, and maintain order. How will Earth’s citizens, many of whom in privileged countries never wanted to be global citizens, decide who survives?  

If things get near that bad, I propose a 100-question exam designed by 3rd graders in Bangladesh, Nigeria, Haiti, Yemen, The Philippines, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and The Marshall Islands tuned by leading academics so only one eighth of the global population can pass. Everyone else dies. This would be far more equitable than “politics of the armed lifeboat” described by Amitav Ghosh in The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. I chuckled when I read a September 8, 2016, article about that book in The Guardian by Kavitha Rao noting “So chilling was Ghosh that the local paper reported – only half in jest – that a disturbed audience had to be soothed by a subsequent talk by Buddhist monks.” The point is Jonathan Swift cared deeply about starvation in Ireland in 1729 so he wrote “A Modest Proposal” suggesting Irish babies be raised for meat and gloves as a way to draw attention from wealthy London investors. Here is a short film adaptation of Swift's “A Modest Proposal” made by THE NORWEGIAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY in 2013.

Similarly, Edward Abbey, who wrote about preservation of wilderness, wild creatures, and biodiversity gave a 1985 speech at the University of Montana “One Life at a Time, Please” to cattle-raising people suggesting “we open a hunting season on range cattle” to eliminate livestock damage. He added “If there’s anyone still present whom I’ve failed to insult, I apologize.” I quoted Abbey on this blog, and imagined his ghost speaking about the climate issue in my book Hawk on Wire.

Thanks to Olympic Climate Action's "Hot Off the Wire" for posting a June 23, 2021 Phys.org article by Marlowe Hood with Patrick Galey and Kelly MacNamara, "Crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared: draft UN report."

In this post I am arguing for nonviolent creativity like Ghosh, Swift, and Abbey in response to our climate emergency to act fast globally. I deeply respect musicians on the Titanic because they had no other options. We do. 

Regarding the "healing" in my title, I enjoyed U. K. Psychotherapist Rosemary Randall's Six short videos on Coping with the Climate Crisis. She focused on emotional heath, and has been working with climate-stressed patients 15 years. It's a great series to share with students, professors, or anyone stressed about climate inaction and/or delay. Watching the videos, I was reminded of Pink Floyd's song "On the Turning Away," because of how she said "turning away," and encouraged us to get on with the necessary work of personal and global healing without ignoring our feelings, or escaping into illusion of "control" by endlessly telling disaster scenarios. Pink Floyd's song reminded me of another fitting song, "Learning to Fly."  Teaching creative writing for about 30 years, I had many students who, while young, dreamed of flying.  It is time to recall those dreams. Of course, since I mentioned those two songs, I must include "High Hopes." Virgil wrote "In the lives of mortals, the best days are the first to flee." Now, this applies as much to biodiversity loss as it does to unrestrained magic of childhood. In other words, for human existence to be more than a technicality, our animal brothers and sisters are needed.

In a related matter, I have long used writing and wilderness to balance, heal, and cause constructive trouble. Ray Bradbury said “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” Long ago he gave me written permission to use his story "A Sound of Thunder" in my classes without any copyright restrictions.

Here is my short fiction "Crew," published by the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) in their “Quick Fictions” episode in honor of EcoCast’s first birthday July, 2021. The icon to play the stories is at the bottom of that page. I'm grateful to join authors from England, India, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Spain, Pakistan, Australia, and Nigeria writing about "ecological issues, climate breakdown, or mass extinction."

As I wrote at the end of my previous post, "['Crew']was inspired by friend and longtime Tradewinds captain of the Debbie Lynn, Bill Wagner, formerly of Depoe Bay, Oregon [ . . . . who] told me a background story about his near-death at sea [ . . . ]"  Anyone who has water, food, air, and real human and nonhuman community has much to be grateful for. Circling back to my agreement with Rosemary Randall's work, I recall the end of Voltaire's novel Candide, when Candide says "let us cultivate our garden," and the end of Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock" (with lyrics):

Billion year old carbon

Caught in the devil's bargain

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

We Are All in a Ford Pinto

A September/October 1977 Mother Jones article by Mark Dowie noted "For seven years the Ford Motor Company sold [Pinto] cars in which it knew hundreds of people would needlessly burn to death." An October 17, 2008, The Spokesman-Review article "The Pinto Memo: ‘It’s Cheaper to let them Burn!’" added "Critics argued that because the Pinto did not have a true rear bumper or adequate reinforcement between the rear panel and the fuel tank, it was an exploding accordion waiting to compress." and "Adding to the fun, the Pinto’s doors also lacked stable reinforcement, meaning that they could crumple and jam shut, drawing the fiery coffin routine to a close." The article ends with "The general public came up with the unofficial Pinto slogan, 'the barbecue that seats four.'" The sad reality is, after looking at top-rated and eco-centered universities, colleges, and programs in the U. S., U. K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, nothing explains the climate emergency as well as the Ford Pinto.

In other words, don't expect U. S. corporate leadership to help the most vulnerable when short-term money is at stake. It's great dutchnews.nl reported May 26 "[Shell] oil company is required to reduce the carbon dioxide emitted by the Shell group and its customers by 45% net by the end of 2030, compared with the level in 2019." and many other sources reported the story. However, as I wrote before, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research) said in a May 4th, 2018 video that has been removed "The CEO of Shell once told me 'The climate problem is real but it is completely intractable. You can not solve it. So, let's get rich quick before the world ends, huh?'"

While big oil and U. S. corporate leadership have been obstacles to solutions, I similarly wrote about apathetic political leaders and some students. In my April 22 post "Documenting a Vanishing Pacific Northwest Ecosystem and Culture" I wrote "the INDC (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) agreed to in Paris in 2016 of 3.5° C (6.3° F) over pre-industrial levels are insanely irresponsible to present and future generations of all species" and "Robert Wilson’s essay 'Will the end of the world be on the final exam?' in the book Teaching Climate Change in the Humanities [mentions] One of Wilson’s 'teaching assistants [led] a discussion section about climate change: ‘My soul is crushed’ she began. ‘I thought we were going to have this fabulous conversation about framing arguments, the role of science, finding allies and figuring out how to effectively communicate [climate science to the public]. The class – and I don’t just mean two or three vocal people – basically came up with this: all of Bangladesh could die, the temperature could increase six degrees, tons of species could die, and people in other places could suffer from drinking water and crop shortages, and we wouldn’t care at all [ . . . . ]’” I added, "This means in addition to making fossil fuel companies pay for mitigation and adaptation, and colleges/universities and pension funds divest, we must also find ways to increase capacity for caring in developed nations before many more human and nonhuman inhabitants globally will be forced to migrate and/or die early and awfully."

My previous post was "Kevin Anderson Hits the Target About Academics 'Running Scared.'"

Dowie's 1977 Mother Jones article includes a story based on "police reports" about a woman burned to death, and boy "badly burned," after the Ford Pinto they were in "exploded in a ball of fire." The article noted Ford engineer Lou Tubben tried to prevent this. His "presentation on safer tank design [ . . . . ] invited all company engineers and key production planning personnel [but] When time came for the meeting, a grand total of two people showed up—Lou Tubben and his boss."  Sound familiar? 

The article cites an anonymous Ford engineer, "there are a few of us here at Ford who are concerned about fire safety. [ . . . ] They are mostly engineers who have to study a lot of accident reports and look at pictures of burned people." Later, the article asks "Ever wonder what your life is worth in dollars? Perhaps $10 million? Ford has a better idea: $200,000 [in 1977]."  As I wrote before, the number is much lower for future climate victims.  "As noted elsewhere, 'Dr. Ramanathan said it would take $450 per person per year in the top one billion people to change from our carbon economy to renewables' saving over 3 billion people that may otherwise die from exposure to 130 degree plus heat 35 years from now if humans fail to convert energy sources from coal and fossil fuels to 'solar, wind, hydro, and possibly nuclear. [ . . . . ]'" 

Dowie's 1977 Mother Jones article ends "One wonders how long the Ford Motor Company would continue to market lethal cars were Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca serving 20-year terms in Leavenworth for consumer homicide."  Similarly, one wonders how long big oil executives would continue to destroy coral reefs, rainforests, and human and nonhuman health, and threaten future humans with catastrophic sea rise and tropical heat, if the most guilty were tried, convicted, and sentenced for "ecocide," with a statue of limitations of 1,000 years, in The International Criminal Court in The Hague. While the U.S., China, and India are not members, corporations and politicians in those countries could be affected when operating in member areas. For a moment I forgot, according to Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of "TIME TO WAKE UP" fame, oil companies own a significant part of the U. S. Congress. Whitehouse said "The International Monetary Fund [ . . . ] with no apparent conflict of interest, put the subsidy to fossil fuel each year in the United States at 700 billion dollars. [ . . . ] To protect a prize like that, an industry can put up a lot of front groups, and spend a lot of that Citizens United unlimited money."

George Clooney said the Ford Pinto case inspired the film Michael Clayton. Clooney said "That ['internal document'] got into the hands of a judge. And he said, 'Okay, now you're all dead.' And everybody was fired. And huge, huge class-action suit."  What happened when big oil was similarly caught? Not much. At least, not yet. Bill McKibben wrote at The Guardian October 14, 2015 "To understand the treachery – the sheer, profound, and I think unparalleled evil – of Exxon, one must remember the timing. Global warming became a public topic in 1988 [ . . . . ] No corporation has ever done anything this big and this bad."

Regarding climate-related films, I saw Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet starring David Attenborough and Johan Rockström. In the June 2021 documentary Rockström said "[. . . ] perhaps the most dire message to humanity is [ . . .] we have, in just 50 years, managed to push ourselves outside of a state that we've been in for the past 10,000 years. Are we at risk of destabilizing the whole planet?"  Agreeing with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, in Rockström's sentence I would change "we have" to "big oil companies have." My point is big oil companies must be forced to act by national and/or international laws for information in the documentary to matter. In simple terms, otherwise it will be like an honors student at the school bus stop pounded unconscious by an illiterate bully with no parents, caring adults, or police officers in sight.

Later in the documentary Rockström explains the danger of climate "tipping points" "[ is . . .] once you've pressed the on button, you can not stop it. [ . . . .] It's not like you could say 'Oops, now I realize I didn't want to melt the Greenland Ice Sheet. [ . . .] Then, it's too late [for many coastal cities  . . . . ]" On a more positive note, I enjoyed his fishing scenes but shared the grief of loss of large fish in the Baltic Sea. I respected Terry Hughes for his willingness to bring his whole self to the film, even to the point of uncontrollable grief stopping him from talking about coral bleaching of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. I have written about other climate scientists showing similar honest emotions, and Australia’s 2019-2020 fires in the film that killed or destroyed habitat for nearly three billion animals. At the end of the last item, I wrote "I recall in the film I Am, the Dalai Lama said the most important meditation of our time is critical thinking followed by action."

In better news, Hawaii declared a climate emergency April 29, and I expect many other states to follow. States have been too slow to act, but better late than never as each species/place that can be saved matters.

Continuing that "emergency" theme, I'm grateful the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) accepted my short fiction for their “Quick Fictions” episode in honor of EcoCast’s first birthday July, 2021. That piece was inspired by friend and longtime Tradewinds captain of the Debbie Lynn, Bill Wagner, formerly of Depoe Bay, Oregon. Bill told me a background story about his near-death at sea after, at age 26 in 1989, I challenged a big oil rep in the Spouting Horn Restaurant who was asking locals to support drilling off the central Oregon coast. I later wrote The City of Depoe Bay’s Memorial Against Offshore Oil Drilling to the Oregon Governor’s Ocean Resources Management Task Force to help stop all oil rigs off the Oregon Coast. It is the one thing I am most proud of in my life, even more than the big halibut and salmon I caught in Alaska and Oregon. Since then, I discovered there are those who live in the truth, and those who don't. When meeting those who don't, keep rowing. 

Kevin Anderson Hits the Target About Academics "Running Scared"

Kevin Anderson is to some global leaders and many academics what Tiresias was to King Oedipus in the Noble Prize Summit -- OUR PLANET, OUR FUTURE April 27 performed by Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Frankie Faison, David Strathairn, Corey Hawkins, and Nobel Prize-winning scientists, including Elizabeth Blackburn and Harold Varmus among others. In another performance of Sophocles' Greek tragedy, starring Michael Pennington & Claire Bloom, Tiresias says, "You compel me to speak. [ . . . . ] You are the man, the unclean thing [causing the plague . . . .]"  There are obvious differences in that Anderson, a previous Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, is a top climate scientist relying on best available data to warn about effects of a possible 4 C [above 1850 preindustrial baseline] Earth, while Tiresias uses intuition to warn about the continuing plague in Thebes until Oedipus accepts responsibility. The suffering is similar in that possibly 4 billion humans, or more, face early death in a 4 C world, that may, or may not, happen depending on action primarily among top CO2 emitting citizens of Earth, and historically top CO2 emitting nations of the U. S., China, India, Russia, and Japan. 

Anderson, in a May 13, 2021 interview by Dan Miller (posted May 23, 2021), makes several excellent points. When I watched his interview May 24, it had 84 views. Based on Anderson's integrity (he hasn't used an airplane since 2004), clarity, and honesty, it deserves 84 million views. For example, the interview notes he took an 11-day train trip to China, one way, instead of boarding a plane when he was required to attend a ceremony as Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. It reminded me of when my students said "We know you wrote books about climate change, but what else have you done?"

In the Anderson interview, starting at 11:07 on the timeline, he says about the Paris Climate Agreement, "So it then talks about the sort of levels of emissions that need to be achieved at certain times during the century, take 2030 and 2050, but in doing that it is sort of hiding the fact that it is relying on huge amounts of [ . . . ] negative emissions technologies, or carbon dioxide removal, actually some way that we can remove carbon dioxide. [ . . . ] When I say 'we,' [ . . . ] I mean our children and our children's children. So we're already passing that burden to another generation. Can remove huge quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the future, and that allows us to [ . .  ] paint a relatively politically palatable picture for the nearer term [ . . . . ] That part is highly misleading. [ . . . . ]  But actually, if you played out the temperature thresholds themselves, and [ . . . ] were not to rely rather on our children deploying these huge numbers of technologies in the future, then the political challenge is an order of magnitude different than what most people would interpret from the Paris Agreement."  

At 18:50 on the timeline, he continues, "There are no non-radical futures. The future is radically different to the present either because we make huge rapid shifts in reducing our emissions with profound shifts in our society or we hang on to the status quo for a few more years while we lock in huge impacts from climate change. [ . . . . ] The climate doesn't respond to targets. The climate only responds to less CO2 emissions, and other GHGs [Greenhouse gases]. [ . . . . ] If you assume there is an increased number of commitments after 2030, but not the dramatic levels that would be necessary, then I think it's fair to say that the [Paris Climate Agreement] NDCs [Nationally Determined Contributions] are somewhere between 3 to 4 degrees centigrade of warming [above 1850 preindustrial baseline] so a different planet [ . . . . ] It's occurring so quickly [to a 4 C rise] that human systems, ecological systems, can not evolve that rapidly in any sort of stable form so [ . . . ] you could not adapt to that level of change and still hold a moderately organized civilized, if we are civilized, [society . . . ] You couldn't live in the sort of reasonable levels of security that we have today. [ . . . . ] And it also wouldn't be stable so you wouldn't be stopping at 4 degrees centigrade. [ . . . . ] I regularly say in talks that I would like to see significant funding of negative emissions technologies, and some of the other carbon dioxide removal techniques, and deployment of them if they meet strict stringent sustainability and equity criteria. But to rely on those, rather than actually reducing our emissions today, that is the moral hazard. [ . . . . ] It's the reliance on these [carbon capture] technologies being deployed at global scale. [ . . . . ] If you look at most of the scenarios that are informing governments on reducing emissions, and if you look at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group Three, [ . . . and] if you look at all the scenarios in the IPCC, virtually every single one of them, they're awash with some sort of way of removing huge quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the future at a scale that is not that dissimilar to the size of the current oil and gas industry. [ . . . .]" 

Two nights ago I watched Merchants of Doubt, one of Anderson's favorite films, which complements my note two posts below about evidence "fossil fuel companies have known this [climate distaster] would happen since 1959." While fossil fuel companies are primarily responsible, Anderson makes it clear some cowardly global leaders, and many cowardly academics are also to blame. Specifically, a June 16, 2020 press release about a paper led by Anderson in the journal Climate Policy noted he "draws a damning conclusion from the research: 'Academics have done an excellent job in understanding and communicating climate science, but the same cannot be said in relation to reducing emissions. Here we have collectively denied the necessary scale of mitigation, running scared of calling for fundamental changes to both our energy system and the lifestyles of high-energy users. Our paper brings this failure into sharp focus.'” Bull's-eye. 

Steven Koonin vs Climate Reality

It would be wonderful to discover NASA scientist James Hansen's June 23, 1988 warning to the U. S. Congress about climate change, and his 2016 video "Ice Melt, Sea Level Rise and Superstorms [ . . .]," were wrong. I could change this fishing/climate blog into just a fishing blog. I could write about many other social justice/nonhuman issues that need attention. I could breathe more deeply, relax, sleep better. Unfortunately, each new IPCC report shows Hansen was right, and it would be wise for global leaders and citizens to listen to him and others like him. 

Steven Koonin's new book Unsettled argues, as his publisher's page suggests, various climate-concerned "statements are profoundly misleading." Dean Myerson wrote a helpful Amazon review: "As more scientists look at Koonin's work, it is not faring well. Global fire decreasing? Apparently he is using figures that mostly measure manmade fires set by farmers, which are decreasing. Wildfire is increasing. Greenland not melting faster than 80 years ago? Well it is melting faster than 60, 70, 90 or 100 years ago. But there was a brief heat wave 80 years ago, making the statement true but irrelevant. It goes on an on like that." A May 3, 2021 Climatefeedback.org article edited by Boris Bellanger gives more details, noting "Twelve scientists analyzed the [Wall Street Journal] article [praising Koonin's book] and estimate its overall scientific credibility to be very low." Bellanger's article further refutes the Wall Street Journal April 25, 2021 article by Mark P. Mills. 

Mills' wrote "Mr. Koonin makes clear, few areas of science are as complex and multidisciplinary as the planet’s climate." I must disagree. As I wrote in one of my most recently-visited posts, "What is the Best Way to Explain the Climate Crisis?," "astronaut and former Director, Earth Sciences Division, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Piers Sellers says 'the ice is melting, the Earth is warming, the sea level is rising – those are facts.'" Sellers continues,  "Rather than being, 'oh my god, this is hopeless', say, 'OK, this is the problem, let’s be realistic and let’s find a way out of it'. And there are ways out of it. If we stopped burning fossil fuels right now, the planet would still keep warming for a little while before cooling off again.' At the time he says this, he has 'pancreatic cancer, stage four,' and dies December 23, 2016, about two months after the film [Before the Flood was] released October 21, 2016.  I observed people close to death get rare perspective and honesty, and Sellers gives both."

Mills' comments "the right response is to debate the science" and "basis of claims that are so unsettled" are the same tired arguments oil giants made long enough to turn a treatable disease, to use the metaphor of a human body, into a possible terminal illness. More recently the tactic, according to Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes, has been to reframe/redefine responsibility away from oil companies to consumers. Derrick Jensen in a video Forget Shorter Showers, based on his 2009 Orion essay, showed why this oil company ploy is ridiculous. 

Supran and Oreskes wrote in the May 13, 2021 paper "Rhetoric and frame analysis of ExxonMobil's climate change communications" at One Earth, "Smerecnik and Renegar have shown that subsequent BP branding activities similarly 'plac[e] participatory emphasis on consumer conservation behavior as opposed to corporate responsibility.'”  In a related matter, BP, Koonin's former employer where he was Chief Scientist "from 2004 to early 2009," notoriously "featured a TV ad 'We will get this done. We will make this right.' as oil gushed 87 days [in the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill], and highly toxic dispersants were used to hide devastation from the public.  Tim Wall of news.discovery.com noted December 3, 2012, in an article “BP Oil Highly Toxic When Mixed with Dispersants,” “When the oil was combined with the dispersant, the mix became up to 52 times more toxic than the oil alone, according to the study Martinex conducted at Georgia Tech.” I wrote about this, and more, in my 2014 "Manifesto from Poet on a Dying Planet" at Split Rock Review. 

Similarly, Naomi Klein wrote at pbs.org July 1, 2010, expressing concerns about geo-engineering "Steven Koonin [ . . . . was] the man who [ . . . ] was overseeing the technology behind BP’s supposedly safe charge into deepwater drilling." Jim Thomas noted June 28, 2010, at theecologist.org, "Koonin was intimately acquainted with the very technologies that have failed so spectacularly on the Deepwater Horizon rig in his former job as BP’s chief scientist. While his current employer, Barack Obama [was] trying to figure out 'whose ass to kick’ over the spill, he [may have found it] instructive to zip back to a presentation by Koonin at MIT in 2005, in which we [saw] Koonin-as-oilman boasting of his company’s technological prowess in taking oil exploration and production into the ultra deep waters of the gulf.[ par break]  In particular, he [said] that $50 million to bore a hole in the gulf’s seabed [would] yield a million barrels a day, describing the technical challenges of depth and pressure. A small note on the bottom of his slide [read] ‘marine environment creates integrity challenges’ - engineering-speak for ‘accidents likely’. [ . . . .] Koonin’s much lauded role at BP was precisely to apply cutting-edge science to the problem of declining oil reserves and growing climate crisis. Koonin led a team of researchers that would allow for the more economical extraction of hard-to-get oil (e.g. tar sands, deep water drilling)." As I noted in my aforementioned "Manifesto [. . .]," "Maybe BP could have prevented The [BP] Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill if it would have bought acoustic oil switch cut offs like those required by law in Brazil and Norway." In short, when it comes to transparency, Koonin has proven unreliable.

Given all this, how do I explain the popularity of Koonin's book with some readers? One answer is Merchants of Doubt Movie CLIP - Hard Pill to Swallow (2015).

Thoughts and Prayers for Thousands of Klamath Falls, Oregon, Farmers/Ranchers, Facing Water Shut Off for "First Year in History" as "Millions of Migrating Birds" Suffer and "70% of [ . . . Downriver Salmon Smolts Are] Already Dead in the Traps Used to Collect Them"

My all-time best fishing buddy was my second cousin Gary Starbuck who lived in Kamath Falls, Oregon, so I made visits there the past five years.  I had dinner with ranching families, and found them hardworking, honest, with an uncommon joy in life.  So, my thoughts and prayers go to the thousands in Klamath Falls, Oregon, facing, for the first year, complete water shut off, and all that means for their farms, ranches, children, bank loans, crops, livestock, futures, and culture. I can't in good conscience criticize these people for wanting water to survive. I won't criticize upriver or downriver Native peoples for wanting to survive either, or "half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor millions of migrating birds each year," or estimated "70 percent of the fish [ . . .] already dead in the traps used to collect them and 97 percent [ . . . ] infected by the bacteria known as C. shasta" according to Yurok fish biologists cited by The Associated Press on May 14, 2021.

"[Oregon] state climatologist [Larry] O’Neill said mounting evidence suggests [ . . . this is] the driest 20-year period in the past millennium" according to Bradley W. Parks's May 13, 2021 article at opb.org. A similar drought situation happened in 2001 according to Eric Bailey's Los Angeles Times article "Water War Pits Farms Against Fish." The article noted "[Rob Crawford] and the 1,500 other farmers and ranchers in the Klamath Basin, a productive agrarian region straddling the Oregon border, have been denied water [in 2001]. They are casualties of a drought and efforts to save endangered fish. In the long history of Western water wars, it is the first time a community has been forced to stop farming, experts said. [ . . . . ] Many face bankruptcy or outright ruin." The article continues "Crawford drives by a reminder each day. Just up the road from his modest home, the farmer points to a big clapboard house. It’s a lovely spread, but the farmer who lived there, he says, committed suicide last year. Couldn’t pay his loans."

Bailey also wrote "On the road into Tulelake, population 1,000 and shrinking, signs have been erected by angry farmers. '73 Years With Water . . . Until Now!'  [ . . . . ] At Tulelake Elementary, Principal Patty Reeder [ . . . . ] said, 'kids went home crying': ‘I’m going to move. I’m going to move.’ [ . . . . ] Venancio Hernandez [ . . . . ] worked up from farm hand to manager to his own crops on leased land. [ . . . . ] He said 'I like to stay here for the kids.' [ . . . ] He turns his back, raises his head to the dusty heavens. The tears come forth. [par break] 'For someone to just come and say you can’t have water,' he sobs, 'it just feels like they cut you in half.'”

In a related climate liability matter, on April 8 I participated in Coastal Shores Specialist Meg Reed's excellent presentation "Preparing for Sea Level Rise in Oregon" in the Lower Nehalem Watershed's Speaker Series. Reed, according to tillamookcountypioneer.net, is based in Newport, Oregon, "for the Oregon Coastal Management Program, administered through the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development." The tillamookcountypioneer.net announcement quoted Margaret Treadwell, the Program Coordinator for Friends of Cape Falcon Marine Reserve, "A certain amount of sea level rise is unavoidable, even if we were to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” she said. "Adapting to sea level rise can feel like an overwhelming problem, so I think it will be very interesting and heartening to hear about the ways that it’s being planned for in Oregon and around the world.”

After that presentation, I emailed Reed, and Clatsop County Commissioner Pamela Wev, who also participated, "[ . . . . ] I asked the question about legally making fossil fuel companies pay for sea walls, raising roads, etc. I mentioned fossil fuel companies have known this would happen since 1959. [ . . . . ] I hope Astoria and other Oregon/Washington coastal cities will join together to make fossil fuel companies pay." The same concern obviously applies to the aforementioned "driest 20-year period" in a thousand years causing human and nonhuman disaster in the Klamath Falls, Oregon, area. 

In my 2015 book Industrial Oz, I wrote about the 2001/2002 drought in the Klamath Falls area:

My friend says 5 ranchers near Klamath Falls
shot themselves when water was cut. [ . . . . ]

"I knew them.  They were all good men.” 

Looking at Mr. Steelhead in our raft,
I think of 30,000 salmon, mostly chinook, that died in 2002 

from suffocation and disease brought by drought.  [ . . . . ]

Floating on summer silence, casting below alders,
I say “We have to do better for ranchers and salmon.” 

and think, but don’t say, it will take uncommon vision,
sacrifice, and planning this world has never seen.