Environmental_Science – Page 5

Permian Basin Texas

There are plenty of sights to see on the road through Texas. The country is starkly beautiful. It’s early Spring and some color is beginning to come to the grasses that line the roads and cover the fields. But one thing that I thought I would see, cattle, well I don’t see too many. But what I do see in the area around Midland Texas are pumps. I am driving through the area of the Permian Basin. Rank upon rank of oil pumps as far into the distance as I can see. If I use Google Earth I can see the area is covered with white specks. Each speck is an area around a pump or derrick where the grass has been beaten down and trucks are parked and various pieces of support equipment lay about. One thing of note is there are a lot of pickup trucks on the road and most are towing an open bed trailer. And they are all in a hurry. They are not being driven unsafely, just in a hurry. Out here time is truly money. it’s the ranks of pumps that draws my attention. As I drive down Interstate I-10 most of the pumps are nodding up and down driven by a massive cam and engine. Each one pulling crude oil out of the ground.

The Permian Basin contains more crude oil than any other location within the United States and is one of the great oil resources of the world.

Like it or not oil and gas extraction is part of our world. It drives industry. It enables us to get around. And this will continue until a different economically dependable energy source is developed. What is the good of extracting and burning the essence of years that passed millions of years ago? The resources that lie in the Permian Basin under Texas and New Mexico were lain in that place during the Permian age. This age preceded the time of the dinosaurs, and ended approximately 250 million years ago. Its end came with in a mass extinction of more than 90% of the species on earth. Then as the continents separated, the remnants of the age were overlain by the sediments of the following eras and were compressed onto the hydrocarbon slurry that is drilled for today.

That drilling provides jobs in Texas. The taxes derived from those jobs built the road I drove down. But the economic reach of the oil extracted from the Permian Basin extends well beyond to local area. It enables many American to drive and to produce and to build. It enables us to create and to sell. But this comes at a substantial price. The burning of the refined extract causes pollution in our neighborhoods and smog in our cities. It pollutes the air and dumps chemicals into the atmosphere. These chemicals included CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” which are causing global warming and causing the acidification of the oceans.

But today I see work and prosperity. I see people going to their jobs, being proud of the work they are doing, and doing good work. But beyond here, the same companies that are operating the wells and refining the oil into the world’s fuel, are also working on what may be “a different economically dependable energy source”, which may power people’s jobs and give them economic independence, and provide them with food, shelter, heathy lives, and pride in their existence.

All 8 Billion of us!

Bent Tree

A snow knee? No, I don’t think so.

When I see a snow knee I know it is the result of massive snows bending a tree over. It is also on a down-hill slope. The tree has been bent by the weight of winter snows in the mountains pushing down, laterally, on its trunk. The tree is generally straight above the knee, as in the Spring it shakes off the snows and grows true. But the knee remains, a tell-tale bend in the tree that shows its survival of passing winters.

This was different. The tree had a bend, but it was lateral to the slope, not down-hill. And here in the rolling hills of Virginia we have not had the amounts of snow generally associated with the snow-kneed trees of the Rocky Mountains of the western United States. Something else had bent this tree.

It was clear what had happened. I could see that the tree had been bent over early in its life. Some other tree or a large limb had fallen and caught the little tree and forced it down to the ground. But the smaller tree’s thin trunk had been flexible, and it did not split. The little tree was pushed done, nearly to the ground, under the weight of it fallen sister.

All signs of the other tree are gone, but the bent tree tells the story of the fall, the crushing blow, and the aftermath.

Sometime in the past, disease or a windstorm caused a tree to fall in these woods. It was likely a large tree, not huge, but about 10 inches in circumference. Or it was a limb that was downed by the same causes. It fell from a tree that may still stands in the forest. When it – tree or branch – fell, it hit the little tree. It bent the smaller tree over and pinned it to the ground. And there they lay. The smaller tree would never be able to right itself due to the weight of the large tree/branch.

But the smaller tree did not give in. Its root structure had not been torn out of the ground and was still intact. The smaller tree was still viable could grow even under the weight of the tree/branch that had crushed it. The top of the smaller tree which lay pressed to the ground died and fell away. Today there is a scar of healed wood that surrounds the rotted spot now so close to the ground. The scar is partially covered by a round, rolled callus of wound-wood. This callus is the tree’s natural response to the injury. The callus seals off the damaged area and protects it from infection.

Today the larger tree/branch is gone. But the smaller tree still lives. It is twisted to be sure, yet even in its captive state, it threw off a new branch that reaches vertically up from its twisted trunk and each year leafs and blossoms with some of the prettiest flowers in the forest. It is a dogwood. Its dense wood helped it survive the blow. Its resilience helped it to live and to grow. And its nature gives flowers and brightness to this patch of the deep woods.

Now it is Winter. In the Spring the tree will again show its toughness and determination, and it will flower.

(*Just_a_Note) – Wallace Broecker

News sources around the world have reported the death of Wallace Broecker. As a climate scientist, he penned an article that was published in the journal Science in 1975. This article was among the early warning calls of the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) to cause a rise in the global mean temperature. Dr. Broecker titled the article “Are we on the brink of a pronounced Global Warming”. Through his article, and many others that followed, the term “global warming” has come into common use and is readily understood by all to imply a continuing rise in the global temperature to the point that it has a detrimental effect on the oceans, wildlife, agriculture, and human society.

As Broecker stated in his 1975 article, “… the exponential rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide content will tend to become a significant factor and by early in the next century [the ‘next century’ started in 2000] will have driven the mean planetary temperature beyond the limits experienced during the last 1000 years.”

Further in the article Broecker predicted, “As the CO2 effect will dominate, the uncertainty … lies mainly in the estimates of future chemical fuel use and the magnitude of the warming per unit of excess atmospheric CO2.” When any of us is outside we can see and often smell the exhaust of the continuing use, and increased use, of fossil (chemical) fuels by the world’s expanding population.

So when in his article Broecker asks, “Are we in for a climate surprise?”, the answer is both yes and no. Yes, it is happening, CO2 continues to clog our atmosphere. But no, in 2019 it is not a surprise.

The 1975 article may be found at – https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu//files/2009/10/broeckerglobalwarming75.pdf

The picture is taken from the 1975 article.

CO2 – the Keeling Curve

Many things lie at the heart of climate change. Fundamental in this is global warming due to the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). The primary source of the CO2 is the consumption of fossil fuels by each and every one of us. We drive our cars, and CO2 is emitted in the exhaust. We turn on lights and use electricity generated from burning coal or gas. These methods of generating electricity result in the emission of CO2. These emissions have a direct effect on wildlife, the oceans, and the weather.

The mention of automobiles might put us in the mind that this problem only started since cars have been around. But it is not just the recent use of fossil fuels, we have been burning coal for a long time. Once emitted by burning of fossil fuels CO2 does not dissipated; it accumulates. Some of the CO2 may be taken up by trees and other plants in their respiration cycle. They take in CO2 and during photosynthesis the CO2 is converted into oxygen (O2). Carbon can be locked up in dead plant material too. When a tree falls in the forest its use is not over. There are kingdoms of plants and animals that will use the dead tree for food and homes in their own lives. As these plants and animals devour the now decomposing tree, they consume the carbon and lock it in their own bodies. But then as they die their carcasses, as small as they are, store some tiny bit of carbon to be released into the atmosphere and earth as the plants and creatures decompose into the earth. Over millions of years the decomposition of ancient organic matter, dead plants and animals, has produced the current fossil fuels that we use.

But how do we know that the level of atmospheric CO2 is increasing? First we can read the levels of atmospheric CO2 in ice cores. These cores are from specialized drills that penetrate deep into glaciers. When the core is drilled and extracted for examination, the levels of CO2 from past centuries can be measured. As the drill goes deeper and deeper into the glaciers the cores show what the atmosphere was like in the times past. The deeper the core is drilled, the further back in time the sample goes. When snow and ice accumulated on the surface of the glacier centuries ago it captured a signature of the gases that made up the atmosphere. From these cores the CO2 from ancient fires, and human use of wood and coal as a fuel, and emissions by ancient volcanoes can be studied. It has been established that accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere has been going on from preindustrial times, hundreds of years ago. Since the introduction of factories and industry that used fossil fuels to operate and manufacture goods, the CO2 in the atmosphere has increased at a higher rate.

A key tool in understanding the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere has been the work of Charles D. Keeling. In 1956 he began a program to measure atmospheric gases, including CO2, at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii. As these observations are plotted over time, they show an increasing level of CO2 with each passing year. The graph that shows this increase, known as the Keeling Curve, also shows the change of the seasons in the northern hemisphere. The upwards spikes of the saw-tooth curve indicate rising CO2 in the Winter months when the leaves are off the trees and are not converting CO2 into O2. The downward slope of each “tooth” indicates the activity of the trees and other plants in the growing seasons of Spring and Summer as they remove CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into O2. But with each passing year the curve goes every upward.

From these two studies, we can determine that CO2 continues to increase based primarily on human activity. The rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere result in a continually rising average global temperature. This is due to the greenhouse effect as the CO2 and other gases trap energy from the sun in the atmosphere. The rising levels of CO2 also result in ocean acidification.

A copy is the Keeling Curve from the Scripps Institute CO2 program is inserted below.

The Scripps Institute CO2 program website may be found at http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/

to speak of many things – of Streams and the Chesapeake

Have you ever seen the Chesapeake Bay? If not, you need to. It is the largest of the several major salt water estuaries on the east coast of the United States. Others include Narraganset Bay in Rhode Island, and the Pamlico Sound in North Carolina. If you take out a map of the United Sates and look at the east coast, these estuaries look like large lakes attached to the Atlantic Ocean. This is of course what makes an estuary an estuary. There is a continual water exchange between the ocean and the bay or sound. The lower reaches of the bay or sound are tidal as is the ocean. And the upper reaches of these bodies of water may show some tidal rise and fall, but the rise and fall of water on the shoreline is just as often due to wind. However, looking at these waters on such a large-scale map is not the best to way to view them. You need to get up close.

When you look at the Pamlico sound closely you can see that it is fed by rivers that flow from the inland areas of North Carolina and Virginia. The Trent River, the Neuse River, the Tar River, the Pamlico River originate far up-state and pass through towns and farms as the deliver water to the Sound. This is an important aspect of all estuaries. Even though they are salty and brackish from their exchange of water with the Atlantic Ocean, and even though they support fishes that travel back and forth from the ocean in their life-cycle, their sources of water are the streams, and creeks, and rivers that flow down from areas deep inland. The streams that flow into each of these rivers, together with the land they drain, are the river’s watershed. The Chesapeake Bay is fed by several major rivers. They include the Potomac flowing through Virginia and Maryland, the Susquehanna whose watershed is in Pennsylvania and New York and Maryland, the Patuxent in Maryland, the Choptank through Delaware and Maryland, and the Rappahannock River and the James River in Virginia. Again, these rivers flow through towns and farms and in the case of the Chesapeake though major urban and industrial areas.

These watersheds not only carry water to their estuary from the land, but they also carry pollutants. The land that is drained by the streams and rivers of the watershed is the source of the pollution. The pollution, whether debris from erosion or chemical pollutants, degrade the productivity of the estuary. The estuaries have a major role in the success of the fishing industries that depend on their waters for the fish and crabs they harvest. The estuaries provide a habitat for the life-cycle of some of our favorite sea-foods. But don’t look at the center of the bay or sound for this, look at the edges. Get up close to the seagrass beds and the marshes that line the banks of the estuaries – or use to line the banks of the estuaries. In these shallow waters that you can wade into, tiny crabs and fish hide and grow until they are ready to move out into deeper waters of the estuary.

It’s the clarity of the water that is important. The clarity allows for the development and success of seagrass beds. These seagrasses which use to thrive in vast meadows in the Chesapeake Bay collapsed in the 1950s through the 1970s. These fields of underwater grasses which grew near the shore were the home to many of the creatures on the lower end of the food chain and the nursery for the important recreational and cash fisheries that the Bay supported at one time. The much loved Chesapeake Blue Crab and the famed striped bass (rock fish) started their lives here. Without these beds of seagrass the fisheries were disappearing. What caused the grasses to disappear? Uncontrolled development. Development on the share of the Chesapeake but also and more importantly development throughout the watersheds that fed the Chesapeake. From the lawns and farms that were fertilized and on which weed killer was sprayed came the pollutants that were leading to the failure of the seagrass. Weed killers worked against the seagrass, and so did the fertilizers that washed off the lawns which encouraged the growth of algae in the water. The algae blocked the light that the seagrass needed to grow, causing the seagrass meadows to disappear.

Individuals and communities, as well as the states that border the Chesapeake Bay, began to take actions to clean up the problem. One of the actions that was taken was the imposition by the State of Maryland of a stormwater fee, also called the “rain tax”. This was in response to an action by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) through the Clean Water Act to develop methods and funding to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and to protect the Bay from further damage. The law required the states that have watersheds that drain into the Bay to develop local measures to protect the Bay. This included Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Only Maryland established a stormwater fee program. Under the program land owners were assessed a fee based on the impervious, i.e., paved, hard surfaces, that did not allow water to seep into the ground. Rather the rain ran off the hard surfaces and into the streams of watersheds that fed the Bay.

The basic question is does the Bay still need protection. The basic answer is yes.

The Bay showed improvements based on an annual rating. The water quality had improved. Clarity improved and seagrass beds were improving. Other important factors had also been showing improvement over the last decade. However, in 2018 the Bay fell to a grade of D-plus. This was the first decline in quality in the last several years. The decline was blamed on the amounts of heavy rain that had fallen on the east coast watersheds that year. More pollutants including particulates (soil and debris) had been washed from the watersheds into the Bay. There the pollutants will again effect the clarity and productivity of the Bay.

So – again – does the Bay still need protection? Yes!

For more information on the Chesapeake Bay and the Stormwater fee please visit the Chesapeake Bay Foundation at http://www.cbf.org/about-cbf/locations/maryland/issues/stormwater-fees.html#taxes

The 2018 State of the Bay report may be found at http://www.cbf.org/about-the-bay/state-of-the-bay-report/

The picture of the Blue Crab is derived from a photograph taken from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation website. Credit for the photograph is Jay Fleming/iLCP.

Leaf Story

Yesterday I spent the better part of the afternoon outside. What I was doing was not as enjoyable as a good, long hike in the autumn woods with the crunch of leaves beneath my feet. There was the crunch of leaves, but I was raking them and moving them. In my small city, we can rake the leaves to the curb for pickup by the city. It’s nice to be able to do put the leaves at the curb instead of bagging them. That is one of the reasons I enjoy living in the City of Fairfax.

But I remember the time in which the cool Fall air would be mixed with the rich smell of burning leaves. In the Fall, in towns where I grew up, small piles of leaves would dot the yards. Those small piles were often burned in place by the property owner. Or the leaves might have been swept to the curb or edge of the street to be burned. Sometimes a brick bbq pit would be used as a leaf furnace. Every yard had a least one, round, burn circle somewhere in the back. But those days are behind us, and for good reason. The smoke from the many piles of leaves, especially as towns grew and suburbs sprawled, became a choking haze over the houses and the city. The Fall air is cleaner now, and I do not miss the times of dense smoke. But I can remember the sights and the rich, sweet smell that rose up from the fires of our small piles of leaves and fallen twigs.

They were like camp fires. We would gather around the pile and watch as the tongues of flame crept through its depth. We would then stand guard to make sure the fire did not go beyond the pile of leaves and its burn circle. There was always a bucket of water at hand in case the grass began to burn, and maybe a hose if one was available. It was a family event. My parents or my grandmother would be around, and my brother and my cousins and I would poke at the small fire and stare into its flame. We would talk about our lives and dream aloud of our future. It was a time together.

The finest picture I have seen of this is the one by John McCutcheon which he drew in 1907 for the Chicago Tribune. A young boy stands and stares into the smoke while his grandfather relates a tale of years gone by. The language has fallen into disuse, but I believe the sentiments expressed are strong and valuable and worthy of remembering.

There were people who lived on these lands long before the Europeans came. They and their children held the land as sacred. They knew and kept the value of family. They respected the people that had lived on the land before them and who had passed forward the land rich with life. These people also looked with hope into their future.

John McCutcheon’s cartoon and text are no longer published. But each year about this time after I have been raking and preparing the garden with an eye to Spring, I take out my yellowed copy of the art with its history and read it again. And I thank all of the people that lived on this land before and who worked to care for the land and the water and the air so that it might remain a place of beauty. It is a place to remember.

The story of John McCutcheon’s art titled “Injun Summer” can be found at http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-injunsummer-story-story.html

Reef Protector

I had to decide if I wanted to title this post “KILLER ROBOT” or “Reef Protector”. The two different titles convey very different images, one quite provocative as a hunter/killer, and bringing to mind an endless stream of science fiction movies. I chose “Reef Protector”. It brings to mind a quest, and a hero who takes on the challenge. I had already designed the art of a killer robot but added a shield to make it less so – an assassin and a protector.

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF) in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, https://www.barrierreef.org/the-foundation, launched a protective program to defend the Great Barrier Reef against a voracious predator,the Crown of Thorns starfish. This predator is one of the greatest challenges facing the survival of the Great Barrier Reef. Other threats to the Great Barrier Reef include climate change, disease, changes in ocean chemistry, rising ocean waters, pollution, and physical destruction of portions of the reef by fishing gear and boat propellers. These economically valuable and beautiful reefs are threatened wherever they are.

I have not seen any part of the Great Barrier Reef, but I have dived on smaller reefs in the Philippines and in Florida where corals have created habitats for a myriad of other species. I plan on visiting the Great Barrier Reef, but this creates a challenge as well. When I get there I have to ensure that my presence and my activity does not further damage or destroy any part of this magnificent natural wonder. I say that not just as an individual wanderer, but as one of many people who visit the area. We all must ensure that tours and dives we take and services that are provided to us allow for sustainable use and protection of the Great Barrier Reef.

If the Great Barrier Reef were a single organism, it would be the largest living organism on the planet. It is of course a massive natural wonder that is made of countless individuals from a myriad of species,including many fragile and beautiful corals. However, in lore and in stories a coral reef is considered a danger which can crush the hulls of massive ships and tear small boats apart. How can a fragile thing be so dangerous and tear apart the strongest steel? The coral in the coral reef is a tiny animal. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) website, https://coralreef.noaa.gov/, describes the coral animals, called polyps, as being between one and three millimeters across. That means that in the space of an inch, depending on the type of coral, between eight polyps and 25 polyps could exist. A five-inch line of type could span more than 100 polyps. The coral polyps create hard shells out of minerals in the sea water and live in closely packed colonies. When the polyps die their tiny skeletons remain behind along with those of its generation. These skeletons form the base for the following generations of corals to grow on. Over thousands of years these tiny polyps build up into massive reefs of incredible bulk and mass. It is this stony calcium carbonate base that has the mass to tear ships apart.

The Great Barrier Reef is made up of not just the uncountable individual coral polyps but of a huge number of intertwining coral reefs that have built up over the millennia. These reefs provide shelter for undersea communities that form the basis of the vast food webs of the warm tropical waters in which the majority of reefs are found. The reefs provide protection for the land on their inward side as they break the force of the ocean storms as the waves cross over the reef. In adddition, they are a living ecological community of incredible beauty.

The GBRF is working to protect the Great Barrier Reef. As part of their effort the RangerBot program was launched in 2015. Initially and provocatively described in the press, these robots were programmed to find and kill the Crown of Thorns starfish. The Crown of Thorns eats away at the corals and destroys much of the coral community. Without the living corals the other members of the undersea environment living on the reef were deprived of its benefits and either died or migrated to find other living coral reefs that could provide them with a habitat. And of course, the Crown of Thorns would be there too.

Because of nutrient runoff from farms and homes into streams that feed rivers whose waters flow out to and over the Great Barrier Reef, the population of the Crown of Thorns starfish has grown significantly. With this population growth, their capacity to destroy large portions of the Great Barrier Reef has also escalated. To fight this increasing threat the RangerBot program was launched to seek out, optically identify, and kill the Crown of Thorns starfish with a killing agent. But this is not the only capability of the RangerBot. It is described on the GBRF website as a “Swiss-Army knife” for reef protection. The RangerBot was developed by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) as an autonomous, underwater vehicle which can provide a “ranger-like” presence in the coral reef, day and night. It is a new set of eyes and hands for reef managers. It not only can help control the Crown of Thorns, but it can also be used to monitor the health of the reef. A planned modification of the RangerBot will assist in the spread of new coral polyps. The RangerBot will collect millions of spawn from the corals. After the spawn has been raised to a larval stage in large tanks, the RangerBot will return them to the reefs and spread them in an effort to rejuvenate the damaged reefs.

Hooray for the good guys!

Scientific American has an excellent article on the RangerBot’s fight against the Crown of Thorns, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-starfish-killing-artificially-intelligent-robot-is-set-to-patrol-the-great-barrier-reef/.

New Atlas has an article on the planned version of RangerBot, https://newatlas.com/larvalbot-larvae-robot-great-barrier-reef/56966/.

Frosty Morning

What it’s like going out to a bird survey station in the late Fall before the sun comes up.

It’s DARK !

It’s quiet.

It’s cold.

There’s the sound of the frosted grass crunching under your feet as you walk up the hill.

It’s the frosty haze from your breath.

It’s your heart beat as the loudest thing you can hear.

It’s thinking that your backpack is too heavy with too much stuff.

It’s passing the old family cemetery.

It’s stumbling on a root that you’ve stepped over 1,000 time before.

It’s the little bird flying up in front of you as you pass its roosting place in the grass.

It’s your heart rate speeding up.

It’s stopping and standing and listening and hearing the exhale of the Earth.

It’s seeing Venus brighter than you’ve ever seen her.

It’s losing the path and stopping to try to find your way.

It’s finding the path.

It’s thinking that you hear something.

It’s reaching the summit.

And it’s setting down your chair – and sitting in it.

It’s relaxing to the point of being in the dark like everything around you.

It’s looking up and seeing stars you can’t see from your house.

It’s your heart rate slowing down.

It’s knowing that no one else is out there – it’s just you.

It’s recognizing Orion and Spica in Virgo.

It’s having a cup of hot coffee from the thermos you carried in your back pack.

It’s hearing a night hawk close by.

It’s sitting quietly and watching the eastern sky brighten as dawn comes.

It’s waiting – for what you’re not sure.

It’s seeing a deer cross the top of the distant hill.

It’s seeing a fox come out of the underbrush and look at you.

It’s wondering what the fox may think.

It’s seeing the hill and the woods go from grays to the golden browns and reds of the Fall.

It’s knowing that the persimmons can be eaten – if you can find them.

It’s hearing the first bird sing out – and an answer.

It’s recognizing the bird song from your youth.

It’s thinking about what you need to do that day.

It’s the excitement of hearing the bird call you are seeking.

It’s seeing the sun come up.

It’s realizing that what you’re doing now is as good as it gets.

It’s lingering in the early light.

It’s walking down the hill in the morning sun.

It’s saying a prayer for the whole world on a frosty morning.

Virginia Pine

In the late Fall before Winter sets in, I go out to the hills of Manassas to help with a Fall quail count. I arrive before dawn breaks, while the stars are still out. I like moonless nights or when the moon has already set so I can see plenty of stars. I walk up the hills in the dark, picking my way carefully. I have my binoculars and a thermos of coffee. Its rather cold on these frosty mornings, but I can watch the stars pass overhead while I enjoy an early morning cup of coffee.

There is a tree at the top of the hill close to the listening station. It is an old Virginia Pine, Pinus virginiana. I walk to this tree almost every time that I am in the Brawer Farm area of Manassas. It is at the junction of trails on the hill where the Wisconsin men, later known as the Iron Brigade, stood and held their line on August 28, 1862. These are special places, and these are special trees. This particular tree was not growing at the time of the battle; those trees are known as Witness Trees. The Witness Trees are scattered throughout the park, mainly deep in the woods where young men of the blue and the grey moved to battle.

In summer I would often stop at this Virginia Pine and rest in its shade. I was generally a mile or so into my walk and had another mile or more to go, depending on the path I chose to take. In the Winter the frosted grass would crunch under my feet as I walked up the hill to this tree. This Fall as I walked up to the top of the rise in the dark morning, the moon is still up and gives light to the path and the fields around me. But I am surprised that I cannot see the tree’s profile against the sky.

It is gone.

The roots are torn from the crest of the hill. The tree is reduced to a stump. The trunk is sawed apart. The pieces lay where they had fallen. It is clear that the tree had been blown over in an early Fall storm and reduced to this state by the rangers. The bench where I sat and listened for quail coveys had been taken away.

Standing in the area that used to be shaded by the tree I completed the morning’s listening survey. As the sun came up I looked closely at the stump and counted the tree rings. The tree was mature but not old. According to the rings the tree had passed through about 50 years of varying conditions. Some years were good for growth and the rings were wide. Narrow rings showed stressful years in which there might have been a drought.

There have been a lot of trees in my life. Trees that I climbed. Trees that I rested under. Trees that I hung food satchels from to keep the food from bears. Many of these trees are still deeply rooted in the earth and in my time outside.

For each tree that was, I know that there is a tree that is – or will be. A tree that gives hard, sweet pears in Fall or dark china berries in the Summer. A tree that may now only be a sapling that will give shade and a place to sit and look out over the hills. A spreading tree to clamber on, a tall tree to marvel at, each tree has its own uniqueness.

This Virginia Pine may be down, but I will remember it every time I walk up to the crest of the hill where the trails meet. The bench is now across the trail under a stand of cedar. I will sit there and listen to waking coveys of quail in the cold Virginia mornings.

The Last Light Bulb

It was time to relamp my basement rooms because I felt that the level of the lighting seemed too yellow. I decided that some of the older florescent bulbs had worn out and needed to be replaced. As my eyes appreciate brighter light these days, I bought “daylight” bulbs to brighten the spaces; especially the darker corners. When I took the cover off the ceiling light in the furthest back and darkest room, I was surprised to see it contained an incandescent bulb. The bulb had survived the several purges in which I replaced my old incandescent bulbs with new energy saving fluorescents. But here was one that had not only escaped the successive replacements; it looked like it had been in the fixture since the house was built in the early 1980’s.

I’m not saying this bulb was a “long-lasting” bulb. This bulb had likely been in place for a measly 30-some years – mostly in an “off” position. This is nothing when compared to the famous Livermore light in Livermore, California which has been burning nearly continuously since it was installed in Fire Station #6 in 1901 (117 years !!). Now, that’s a reason to visit California!

But this is the last of my incandescent bulbs. It shows its age. There are carbon deposits inside the bulb and the screw base is brass. It has been a long time since I have seen any bulbs like this one. This type of bulb has gone the way of the dinosaur. They burned bright, and they burned hot. When I was young I lost a favorite plastic toy. It was small; small enough to fit down the chimney of a desk lamp and sit on top of the bulb. I was looking around the house for my toy when my mother asked if I knew what was creating a smell of roasting plastic. It turned out to be the lost toy, now an expired blob of plastic on top of the now ruined light bulb. Thankfully there was no fire.

It was the waste heat of the old incandescents that led to their demise. So much of the energy they consumed just generated heat when the light was on. They were not nearly as efficient as today’s newer bulb technologies. The incandescents were replaced by fluorescents and then by LED (light-emitting diode) bulbs whose energy consumption is much less and whose life is much longer. A 60-watt incandescent bulb may last 1,000 hours, but a fluorescent bulb (a Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL)) of comparable light generation may last 10,000 hours. A comparable LED light can last up to 25,000 hours. The comparable function of the different bulbs is the lumens of light that they provide. A Department of Energy site, from which the numbers given above are taken, defines a lumen as the measure of light produced by a light bulb. To get the same 800 lumens produced by the old 60-watt (60w) incandescent bulb we could use a CFL that consumes only 15 watts of electricity or use a 12 watt LED bulb. The energy savings are significant, and the lighting is just as good. But the initial cost of the CFL or the LED bulb is higher than the old incandescent bulbs. However, the cost savings can be more than $3.50 per year, PER LIGHT BULB. If your house has 30 light bulbs that’s a nice annual savings of $105.00 dollars. And better yet, the energy company does not have to generate all that energy you and all your neighbors used in the past. This not only saves energy resources like coal or natural gas, but it also results in less pollution. These are all good things.

But this is my last incandescent bulb. It’s like the dinosaur in more than one way. Its time has passed, but I remember it fondly. I remember the search for my plastic toy. I remember trying to stare at the glowing wire filament inside the naked bulb hanging on the side porch. I remember helping my grandfather change the bulbs around the house and him telling me of gaslights and coal oil lamps.

And now all my light bulbs are changed to the new technologies. Some are CFL; some are LED, depending on the size and use. And I fully intend to make that trip to Livermore, California. Hopefully I will be able to stare up at the bright and hot filament of the Livermore Centennial Light.

More informatization on the Livermore light can be found in the Guinness Book of World Records, http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/ .

More information on lighting and energy savings can be found at, https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/save-electricity-and-fuel/lighting-choices-save-you-money/how-energy-efficient-light