It is one of the difficulties of our day that the unthinkable nature of the future towards which we are sliding makes it mentally invisible to many of us. "How bad could it get?" we think, trusting that because we've muddled through so far, all will probably be okay in the end, no matter how badly we mess up the planet. But the planet, we're coming to realize, is chock-a-block with non-linear systems: systems in which things go okay, they go a little poorly, they go a little more poorly, and then come flying apart in utter chaos. Climate, it turns out, may be the most dangerous non-linear system of all. Put enough carbon in the atmosphere and all manner of dark weirdness (from melting ice caps to ocean currents gone awry to the biological death of undersea life) erupts.

Ward takes us into the deep past, to the end of the Triassic, as a guide to what atmospheric carbon of 1,000 ppm (a concentration we will hit within the century if we don't change our ways) might be like if we believe the paleontological record:


Waves slowly lap on the quiet shore, slow-motion waves with the consistency of gelatin. Most of the shoreline is encrusted with rotting organic matter, silk-like swathes of bacterial slick now putrefying under the blazing sun... [W]e look out on the surface of the great sea itself, and as far as the eye can see there is a mirrored flatness, an ocean without whitecaps. Yet that is not the biggest surprise. From shore to the horizon, there is but an unending purple color -- a vast, flat, oily purple. No fish break its surface, no birds or any other kind of flying creatures dip down looking for food. The purple color comes from vast concentrations of floating bacteria, for the oceans of Earth have all become covered with a hundred-foot thick veneer of purple and green bacterial soup. ...There is one final surprise. We look upward, to the sky. ... We are under a pale green sky, and it has the smell of death and poison. We have gone to Nevada of 200 million years ago only to arrive under the transparent atmospheric glass of a greenhouse extinction event, and it is poison, heat and mass death that are found in this greenhouse."

In other words, despite what some conservative pundits have written, you might not want to vacation in an extreme greenhouse world, after all. Forget "breeding couples" camping out in the Arctic, we may not have flowering plants or any but the toughest insects left (the cockroaches from my first apartment will almost certainly make it).

The basic take away? Climate can go crazy, and when it does, you don't want to be in the room (or on the planet). As Wallace Broecker says, ""The climate is an angry beast, and we are poking it with sticks" Or, as Ward tells it:

"Our world is hurtling toward carbon dioxide levels not seen since the Eocene epoch of 60 million years ago, which, importantly enough, occurred right after a greenhouse extinction."
This could begin to happen as soon as 2100, Ward says. Many babies today will be alive then. This is not some woo-woo future: this is the world we may be cooking up for our children.

Here on the west coast they tell us our summers are so dry that the cedars will die of thirst. So much for this trees majesty. I can see this is a real problem, as water supplies dry up or turn sour- toxic as it were to all life.

Either way, the article is awfully interesting.

Deodar Cedar – Cedrus deodara (Pinaceae) An evergreen conifer native to the Himalayas. Deodar Cedar is one of four species which are the “true” cedars in the genus Cedrus. Deodar Cedar is distinguished by leaves up to 5 cm long borne on short shoots like larch, but the leaves of Cedrus are not deciduous. The cones are upright at maturity, similar to Abies, but they take 2-3 years to mature. Unlike our native conifers which shed pollen in the spring, Cedrus sheds pollen in the late summer or autumn. The specific name deodara is derived from the Sanskrit name, 'devadara', meaning timber of the gods. It is the national tree of Pakistan. The related Cedrus libani is the Cedar-of-Lebanon, and BC’s native western red cedar and yellow cypress (also known as yellow-cedar) are not considered “true” cedars as they are in different genera and a different family. Although this individual lost most of its needles after cold damage in the winter of 2006/07, it is now recovering.

Forgot you were here greenie. Western Red Cedar- Thuja plicata-

Right now with the amount of summer rain we don't get anymore, they are going into shock and their foliage is turning brown.

Ever heard of the Chamaecyparis nootkatensis- Yellow-cedar?

Yellow Cedar is very desirable and commercially valuable for its straight grain, yellow color and its resistance to decay. Prized in Japanese temples and shrines for its dignity and elegance, It is also used extensively for boat building, sauna manufacturing, fine cabinetry and interior and exterior millwork.

This is a map of the UVic campus and a forest biology tree map. Our campus is so beautiful.

web.uvic.ca/forbiol/news/Treewalk.pdf

Sad we will possibly lose these giants. Sad we have to ignore our needs to feed our greeds. That may be our epitaph.

Well, I haven't forgotten you're here, greenie...and it's welcome you are, to be sure!

Ok...I have many hemlocks which I want to protect from the murderous adelgeds. Late October is the recommended time to do the protecting, which is usually spraying the trees with insecticidal soaps or horticultural oils. Some people in the western end of my state are putting an insecticide into the ground around the base of the trees. (I have far too many hemlocks to afford to do that, as it's rather expensive).

Any recommendations as to the best insecticidal soaps or oils I can buy? I'd like to protect them organically if I can...