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It’s The Crapping Season Again, Otherwise Known as Summer.

REPOST
Oh that I wouldn’t have to post this every summer !

I want to thank Dr. Jeff from Goodreads for reminding me, it’s that time of year again!

I have never seen it this bad, then again, there have never been so many people in our back-country as there are now.

TOILET PAPER AND HUMAN WASTE IN AND ON THE SHORES OF OUR CREEKS AND LAKES.

Anyone that urinates/craps in or near water has to be a complete and total moron, right? Because they are knowingly(?) contaminating their own water supply. As an ecology teacher these days, I can tell you many people do not know this! Common sense but you see, it’s not.

Hey Dummy, There’s a Bathroom Right Across The Street!

As I say to my agency friends (U.S. Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, State Parks, etc.), if you’re not doing Environmental Education, then what in the hell are you doing? In other words, posting a shit-load of signs does not replace the need for an active environmental education program that INCLUDES telling people not to crap/urinate in the water. I offer up Exhibit A:

Signs From God? No. God Would Put Something Up About Not Crapping In/By the Water.

HOLY CRAP! Lord but we love our signs! The information board in the photo above is across the street from where I took the T.P.-on-the-creek photo. This information board is next to some very nice bathrooms so the idiots that crapped by the creek are indeed, total idiots, but also, no where on these bastions of government guidance does it say anything about how to care for water when you are in the out of doors–something like, “HEY MORON! DON’T CRAP IN THE WATER! IT CAN MAKE YOU AND OTHER ANIMALS SICK! THANKS!”

In traveling to public lands all over California, I have not seen ONE SIGN that addresses proper treatment of water when one is camping or hiking and I am seeing more of the scene above every where I go. Again, hey Statie, Freddie, IF YOU’RE NOT DOING ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? In California, would this not be a great campaign for our Water Boards to take on? Perhaps every bathroom, Porta-Jon, outhouse could be fitted with the near classic, How To Shit in the Woods.

Tying into all this is the need to make sure the Land and Water Conservation Fund gets fully reauthorized and funded. This little pot of money (of course, it’s a little pot because it comes from corporations/corporate fees and of course certain members of our Congress want it to sunset because we can’t possibly make corporations that drill, mine, explore, etc. on our public lands actually PAY/COMPENSATE Americans for the right to do this! Gosh, no! Let them just take all the profits while we clean up the mess with taxpayer dollars! OK!)–anyway, ahem, this teeny tiny pot of money is used exclusively to buy new public lands and/or maintain them, FOR US. This includes putting in bathrooms. Again, it uses no tax payer dollars.

Time is of the essence. Please send an email to your legislators as soon as possible. If you love our Public Lands, you need to do this. You can learn more about this important program at this link or just let Katy explain it. Thanks!

Note: Since the original post from last year, the program that asked corporations to pay their fair share for use/profit off OUR public lands is dead. Read more at the link: https://www.lwcfcoalition.com/press-releases/.
NO IT’S NOT DEAD. YES IT IS. NO IT’S NOT. Please make up your mind, the planet is waiting. NO IT’S NOT! As of 2020, the LWCF has been given PERMANENT funding by Congress except, uh…nothing is permanent from Congress but for now, YEAH. Stay vigilant, however. Thank you!

https://www.doi.gov/lwcf/permanent-funding

Land and Water Conservation Fund
Listen to Katy

Stay Wild! Fight for the Wild!

The Simple and Fitting Justice of Being Chased Off a Hilltop By Butterflies, Vultures, and Ants.

Old manzanita with its own stories to tell. Much of it being cut out and killed in California for “fire safety”.

Stranger in a strange land is where I live, preferring isolated little corners. I stuff in a beer and a book of poems, oh you poor nostalgic slob not posting to your Facebook page (don’t have one); instead you walk down the more remote roads, with the dogs, if “remote” even applies in California.

I hope everyone has little places they can go to. If you don’t, find one; nobody needs to know where it is but it’s best if it’s a little hard to get to, maybe on the edge of something, with a view out–of your head that is.

I have a lot of these places I can steal away to, thankfully a few miles from my home. One of them is a dirt road that leads to granite outcrops with a view to the east, towards the Sierras. I walk this road with trepidation, not because I am afraid of anything like mountain lions, but because I can tell the owner is going through that inevitable process all new landowners go through–what to do with the land once you own it because you can’t just LEAVE IT ALONE! You have to CUT SOMETHING DOWN, mow, spray, buy a bright red tractor then drive it around on the land for no good reason but to declare to the world that can’t see you, this is MY land. It ALWAYS goes this way, and I always have to brace myself for it because I know once I find a patch of something pretty and wild, forgotten about, it will be destroyed sooner or later. So it goes with the antsy human primate.

I approach the opening of the manzanita that borders the crude new path with a stone of dread in my gut, prepare myself for the grief…last time it was one older ponderosa pine, cut down for absolutely no reason I could tell, left sprawling in pieces all over the ground, like a dismemberment; then a grove of manzanita, also left in heaps, once living browse for deer, cover for their babies, nectar for bees, butterflies, and ants…I try to spy to see what has been done before we get there so I can prepare myself emotionally. I see two more young pines on the ground, again, as far as I can tell, cut for absolutely no reason except for the sheer “fun” of it (?), because he has to do something with that new chainsaw? We walk through and over the carnage. I am relieved to see he has not yet made it to the top of the outcrop where one can see out to the snow-capped Sierras. It’s nothing spectacular (which is why nobody has found it yet); it’s only about 2800 feet up, but for now anyway, it’s ours.

The dogs and I settle down on an outcrop surrounded by wise old manzanita and shrubby oaks. Lupine blooms on the edges and I can smell the native ceanothus but I can’t see it. Towhees “tweet” and retreat. The outcrop is covered in wash from raptors and vultures, particularly from the vultures that soar at eye level whenever I am there. I get up to check out the wildflowers in bloom and within seconds, a riot (literally) of butterflies is in my face, around my body. They’re hill-topping meaning the males are fighting for territory/females on top of this outcrop and I am in the way, annoying them, threatening their very important and essential ritual. Skippers, swallowtails, lady’s, and buckeyes are fighting it out, flying furiously. They land in a sunny spot to open and close their wings, then they’re off again. I am in the way so I go back to my original spot where the dogs are tethered but then a turkey vulture buzzes the top of my head so close, I am sure he/she is going to graze my hair. Another languidly passes over from the other direction. I notice there is a lot more wash than the last time I was here. Maybe they are breeding. I look up and see two more launch from Douglas firs and son of a bitch if the first one doesn’t seem to be coming back around, and lower. I duck just in time. Shit, I say to the dogs. It is becoming obvious we are not particularly wanted up here right now.

We move to a lower spot on the outcrop, a ledge. I finish my beer and take out some peanuts. The dogs settle in next to me but after a few minutes the littlest one, a fearless pom mix, starts to freak out, trying to bite his own belly while the beagle abruptly stands up and snaps at his back. Soon, I am smacking my back and lifting my sock where a red and black ant has just sunk his mandibles into my ankle. I flick him off and notice my backpack is covered with his buddies…the smell of formic acid fills the air around us–the ants be pissed. The dogs plead with their eyes, “Can we please go now?”

I laugh. Antsy human primate indeed! We are definitely not wanted here, and how glorious! I pack up and we head back down the dirt path. Oh to be driven off in this way, from this yet to be destroyed place! They will not go without a fight! How I love them for this. What joy, what perfect justice, what hope! My heart is light.

Why Aren’t You At the Climate March, Little Miss Environmentalist?

First of all, you know I HATE that word, designation-“environmentalist” and second, more to the point, because, uhm, I care about the climate?

Thank you if you do pack a bag, buy a ticket, fill up with gas (or plug in?), pump carbon into the atmosphere for the worthiest cause of all but unless it’s regional or local, I’m not going because the best thing we can do to “stop” climate change (I feel it’s too late but hey planet, please prove me wrong) is STAY HOME.

In watching the news coverage of the events in D.C. this weekend, I am indeed heartened that the generations most represented are the ones we are currently screwing over, the Millennials and my generation, Gen X. (I straddle two generations and per my disdain for the Boomers, have claimed Gen X as my generation; I rejected the Boomer paradigm though maybe should have bought in if it wasn’t for those morning breakfasts with my dad and my tearful mom, neither college educated, who I watched get screwed over by the corporations they gave over two decades of their lives to. I made the decision to reject their Babbittian paradigm but being “self-employed” in a country dead-set on going third-world hasn’t been a blast either).

There they all are, with their signs and matching T-shirts, funny costumes–required thousand and thousands of pounds of carbon to create in order to tell everybody to stop using so much carbon but folks, I’m sorry, blame the scientist in me…

the earth doesn’t know the difference between “carbon for a good cause” and “bad carbon”, so as an ecologist, a clifer, I can’t do it.

Democracy or whatever the hell we have right now (last I checked a ‘precedent’ that caters to cronies for favors, skips the pesky citizens of his own country, and completely bypasses Congress is called a dictator or qualifies as authoritarian say like, I don’t know, Putin, or at its most extreme, Jong-un?)–democracy requires constant vigilance and all that get-off-your-phat-ass stuff and what I feel is and has been far more effective is acting locally which of course, saves the climate.

Who are your representatives in Congress? Find out and make them into your own little research project. Study their websites (if they function anyway; gotta’ love those “403 errors”); go to any public meetings (“town halls”) if they actually hold any. Participate in their online “events”. Call them (“sorry, the mailbox at this number is full” no kidding, this is what I got this week for my own representative in Northern CA). They are supposed to represent us so FIND OUT WHAT IN THE HELL THEY ARE DOING. YOU PAY THEIR SALARIES AND HEATH BENEFITS. Keep notes.

My representative is latching hard and fast onto the horrible Bush Jr. era “Healthy Forests Act” to start logging for “biofuels”, projects that have continuously failed in CA but who cares (four biofuel plants have been built, NONE of which are operating but the consultants made a killing building them). According to my sources, he met with the timber industry last week. This is really important information!

This is what I am doing–finding out what my “representatives” are doing then writing to the local paper about it (guest columns, opinion columns, letters to the editor, blog.). I am letting them know how I feel all the time in emails, letters, and phone calls (they still get mail I assume). They want to cut deals, nix environmental regulations while “grandpa” is busy quite frankly, doing the same thing, degrading our democracy, making a mockery of it, and disrespecting us. They are making a mockery of our country because all the country is to them right now is a great chance to cut some deals and make a lot of $$$$$$$$$. (Tillerson? Exxon-Russo pipeline? Anybody?). (Evolution-wise, biologically speaking, this is a textbook demonstration of primitive human primate behavior).

If there is a regional or local protest, go to it as long as it isn’t a waste of time (or of course, organize your own but read on). There was one last week in my town that walked through downtown on Saturday at 10 a.m. No one was there. It felt a little silly so some of us left–one has to be SEEN if one is going to publicly protest–the “protest” was organized by comfortable retired boomers who quite frankly are extremely well-off–so they do recreational activism but the rest of us have to protest or die. Figure out, truly, if participating will accomplish anything other than making you “feel” like you did something. Walking down empty streets on a Sat morning…well I have better more effective things to do.

If it is worth your time, the protest is on a street corner, visible, and yes, a few people may tell you, ironically, ignorantly, to “go back to Russia” (not kidding here) yes, it may feel a little uncomfortable, then go but the most important thing you can do right now to bring Grandpa Orange Hair up to speed is dog your representatives as many of them fully embrace abandoning democracy to feather their own nests, and of course, always remind them, YOU VOTE.

Finding the Courage to Call Yourself a Cli-fer.

As far as I can remember, I have always known I am part of a destructive species and I have always lived my life to minimize my impact, the greatest decision of which was to not have children. As far as I am concerned, I’m free and clear with this decision as I could not possibly consume as many resources as if I had kids, and they had kids, etc. (Maybe this was from coming up in the 70’s, the greenest time in America, or maybe it was being born a “wise child”. I don’t know. I only know that I have “always been like this.” Maybe you can relate).

I live my life to minimize my carbon output and this includes suffering financially. I few years ago, I quit my position teaching ecology at multiple community colleges because I had to drive at least 100 miles a day to tell people not to drive…It was absurd. I was offered a great opportunity recently to make some good money doing something I am good at but it required me to drive 150 miles a day (round trip) for a month. They refused to compromise allowing me to work from a home a few days a week, use Skype, Webinar, etc. I did the math on just how much carbon I would pump into the air (not to mention the hell of commuting into a large city, mass transit not being an option at their location). I turned it down and as a result, lost out on a substantial sum. Nobody earns money for me but me.

We need a name for those of us that live our lives as if climate change matters. We will sacrifice socializing (driving to do it), shopping, money–maybe we stay home a lot. Shop online (does this minimize our footprint?) We may get laughed at. Try telling someone “I’m sorry but I can’t do it because I am worried about climate change and I want to minimize my carbon footprint.”

In order to institutionalize climate change, those of us like me, need to start SAYING this on a day to day basis. There are other ways to institutionalize climate change but the INSTITUTIONS that should be doing it right now ARE NOT–SO IT FALLS TO US. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE ON A DAILY BASIS and unfortunately, this is how I think we will slow climate change down. I think the larger institutions are and will fail to right our eco-ship in time.

I needed a way to describe myself to people to negate constantly having to EXPLAIN…so I call myself a CLI-FER (long “i” sound)= I live my life according to climate change.

Be prepared to get laughed at.

“I’m sorry. I am very interested in helping you with your project but I am not driving 150 miles every day for a month to do it. I need to work from home, or drive less. I’M A CLI-FER.”

“You’re a WHAT?”

“A Cli-fer. I try to live my life in such a way as to minimize my carbon footprint.”

Silence. Scoff. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. You shouldn’t be surprised. I am a professional ecologist and even if I was not, I would be a Cli-fer. I’m sorry. If you change your mind or we can work something out so I don’t have to pump so much CO2 into the air, please call me.”

This is what we have to do. Call it a form of climate change civil disobedience.

I am convinced nobody else is going to do it if we don’t.

Signed off,

Virginia Arthur, Cli-fer

Shouldn’t the Union of “Concerned” Scientists Be Ramping It Up A Few Notches At This Point?

The other day I got yet another mailing from the Union of Concerned Scientists (versus the Union of Unconcerned Scientists–they’re out playing golf, hitting the bar afterwards, driving around in their Hummers, spraying pesticides wherever the hell they want…they’re a bunch of assholes).

The organization was founded in 1968 by MIT science faculty, no doubt many of them have since gone atomic, as in died…the point being, the Union of Concerned Scientists have been “concerned” about 50 years and well, things are a lot worse…

I am suggesting they ramp it up a few notches to reflect the pending reality of our planetary “situation”. Here are some possibilities (note: if not already added, “alcoholic” can be added to any listed below).

JUST ADDED! (Thanks Sci Fri!)– Union of Terrified Scientists
Union of Panic-stricken Scientists
Union of Angst-Ridden Scientists
Union of Anxious Scientists
Union of Perturbed Scientists
Union of Bothered Scientists
Union of Troubled Scientists
Union of Distressed Scientists
Union of Uneasy Scientists
Union of Desperate Scientists
Union of Frustrated Scientists
Union of Depressed Scientists
Union of Depressed Alcoholic Scientists
Union of Depressed, Frustrated, Alcoholic Scientists
Union of Depressed, Frustrated, Desperate, Alcoholic Scientists
Union of ‘I Can’t Sleep At Night’ Scientists
Union of “Hey, I’ve Got Grand-kids!” Scientists
Union of ‘Hello, Anyone? We’re Freaking Out Over Here?’ Scientists
Union of ‘We’re Fucked’ Scientists
Union of ‘Smoke ‘Em if Ya’ Got ‘Em’ Scientists
Union of ‘What Will the Evolution of Humans Into Subterranean, Cave-dwelling Creatures Be Like?’ Scientists
Union of “We’re Looking For Another Planet Very Quickly” Scientists
and my personal favorite: The Union of Pissed Off Scientists.

Any one will do but will any one do…anything about it? This is the real question.

Hint: we could reject the current paradigm, demand change immediately, and stop driving our cars, like, tomorrow. Tomorrow.

(Oh but the car industry…whose tentacles reach out…)

They’re At It Again.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/525/565/558/

Call your House and Senate Reps.

Send an email.

Are any of them guaranteed kickbacks, profit? Shouldn’t an investigation of this for possible conflicts of interest be mandatory?

Greed is a primitive behavior of the human primate. It must always be kept in check if we are to live in peace.

Native Flora as Native Art, History.

Oh Madia, we barely knew ye'.

Oh Madia, we barely knew ye’.


“Can we not go anywhere without…?”

When George Clooney and I were dating…wait a minute.
When I first saw George Clooney’s monument…wait…no.

When Monument Men staring, er, starring George Clooney came out, my friend and I decided any excuse to see an oversized George Clooney is worth the almost ten bucks meaning I saw this movie in a theater. I love every movie my former lover, wait, no, George Clooney is in but it did set me off into thinking, once again, how narcissistic and self-obsessed the human primate is. We just love love love ourselves–and now, we are loving ourselves to death (i.e. the planet is becoming uninhabitable because we love ourselves so much).

As you likely know, the movie is about humans risking their lives for art made by humans–but no one is really making any peep about the devastation of nature’s art, namely our native flora.

I asked my friend why a native wildflower, say, Madia elegans which I adore and can break your heart, is any less art than a Picasso? In fact, wouldn’t native plants be even more significant as ART because nature “made” them, “designed” them over thousands of years, for and in a particular place, and if you kill them, you kill them not only as ecosystem-supporting organisms, but you kill them as ART too?

(See first sentence of this post). No we cannot. Drink your wine and listen to me.

So, this movie about George Clooney’s monument, no, wait, (stop making that joke; it’s getting old; ok), this movie about people almost killing themselves to save stuff made by other people while every day, another population of NATURE’S ART get destroyed–this is the norm for the human primate.

Yesterday, a population of native trout lilies was permanently destroyed for the expansion of a mobile home park here–the entire area of native flora is gone, forever, as of yesterday, and this is OK. “NORMAL”; but putting your life at risk to rescue stuff fabricated by your own species, monkey stuff, is the story here. The point of the movie. Touching, poignant, important, the preserving of our “culture”…

But every day we lose nature’s ART is ok. No one puts themselves at risk to save this…perhaps a sad feeling as we drive by in our cars, a “tsk tsk”…”and it was so pretty”.

Why is the definition of ART, HISTORY, not extended to the natural world? Is it because nature does not hold the imprint of the human species getting back to my point that we are a self-obsessed, narcissistic species?

Look at Madia elegans, look at the trout lily, look at the steer’s head (population just decimated here for “fire safety”), and tell me that these wildflowers are not art. Tell me they are not HISTORY; tell me why it’s ok to so glibly destroy them.

Vice Presidential Candidate for Bernie Sanders Debuts At Portland Rally. Implores Hysterical Crows, er Crowd, to “Feel the Wind Beneath My Wings” and “Rise to the Occasion”.

I have been waiting and waiting for either Hillary or Bernie to announce their running mate and though rumor is she was off with her timing, it appears Elizabill Surein is in fact, Bernie Sanders running mate. A female finch of 3.7 years, Elizabill refused to apologize for standing up her possible new boss in what appeared to be near hysteria following her debut.

Mrs. Surein, somewhat preoccupied with three little ones still in the nest (literally), has already made it clear that she will coordinate with Birdie Sanders regarding her priorities but she does insist one of them will be
insuring the rights of birds all over the world to raise their families in safe and secure environments so that they may rise to lofty heights as adults. She is also patently anti-pesticide and feels a world-wide conference should be held regarding bird banding and mist netting. Lifting her tiny bird leg, she pointed out how difficult it was to get a band with “JC451” off her leg. “Eventually it did fall off but we resent being just a number.”

Tweet on the street is Sanders has officially asked Elizabill to join him on the campaign trail. Asked if he can handle the hysteria for his new running mate, Sanders replied, “are you kidding?” Elizabill plans to fly in to join him in between regurgitating with the little ones.