"Green side Up"

OK.  I'm posting a lot lately.  Seems I'm teeming with thoughts that need some symbols around them so the casual observer can see into the beast.  I'm thinking about this most unusual August in Northwestern Minnesota, at least on our farm, between doing lint inspections in my belly button, working this years wonderful garden with Lyn, moving the cows between paddocks and chatting with drop-ins at the Richwood Farmer's Market.  I don't remember an August like this since I lived in Anchorage and Kenai, Alaska in the early 1970's.  Temperatures in the 70s in Minnesota in August can make one wonder what's up.  This past week we've been pretty dry, not so unusual for August, but the temperatures being relatively cool this August does make me wonder about climate change.  So, has the climate in Minnesota changed since I was a kid living with my parents in White Bear Lake through the 1960's?  How long does it take to grow a "climate" anyway.

I first heard the term "green side up" while working with a biologist named Carl Madsen.  Carl wasn't a fan of Industrial Agriculture in the late '70s when I first met him and his fellow habitat restoration buffs.  They were working the area of Minnesota I now live in and collectively they were working with farmers and others in this area to restore wetlands and grasslands primarily for ducks.  Sure they knew they were benefiting all sorts of little live things with their mantra and dogma to retard the declining numbers of ducks in Minnesota and the region (they knew it was happening everywhere, but they were keen on focusing in the area they lived in).  Carl was a great salesman for the idea that doing more for ducks had to happen off protected Federal and state lands and had to involve private landowners who owned drained wetlands and plowed ground that they might be willing to set back into a more natural situation than corn, soybeans and wheat. 

So, the idea of keeping the 'greenside up' came from their dogma of cooperative ideas generating better stewardship of the land in areas where ducks used to have adequate wetlands and uplands during the breeding season to do what ducks are supposed to do up north.  Eventually the ideas of these few hayseeds spread to a nationwide program of habitat restoration within the US Fish and Wildlife Service and became known as the Partners for Wildlife Program.  But I digress....

My point in all this finger pecking I'm doing tonight is to linger on this idea of the "green side up" in relation to some pretty radical weather we've seen across the US and the world lately.  Sure, severe weather on any given day is not an indication that global warming has arrived, but I'm thinking and writing here more about the patterns we're supposed to expect based upon findings by climatologists that we have increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to a point where climate patterns or weather events are likely to change in ways that are detrimental to our well being, no less everything else on earth.  Green side up is now a great way to think about it's corollary, brown side down or better still, carbon sequestered rather than burned and/or released into the atmosphere as CO2.

What's this thing about the arctic permafrost melting.  Seems to me there is a huge amount of methane stored under that permafrost and methane is more serious as a global warming agent that CO2.  There isn't any serious number of folks living on permafrost you know.  So who's going to notice when the tundra starts belching methane into the atmosphere at a rate that makes the methane released by all the  cows on the planet barely a fart in the bucket.

Having lived in Montana a good long time and not that long ago, I can't help but think about all those Rocky Mountain glaciers that are melting like marshmallows over an open fire.  I wonder if my pals and family in Montana might find their backyards warming up faster in the summer.  Hey, think of those glaciers as huge ice cubes dropping cold air down those headwaters into valleys and prairie areas.  Less glaciers has to mean less of that cold air sinking down.  And less reflective ice in those heads also means faster warming of mountains by sunlight.  Collectively doesn't that spell some pretty warm days in Western Montana during the summer than in the good old days?

Lets not get into Somalia and Kenya right now, OK?  We're talking about a migration of people away from some pretty serious drought that, across the board in Africa, China, Texas+, and elsewhere, looks like a pattern that spells serious trouble for local folks with spill over effects on others: like moi.  And, anyway, why are all those Mexicans crossing the boarder into the US of A anyway?  Worse yet, think of all the cops we've put on that boarder to keep them out.  How about the conflicts in Somalia?   Ever stop to think about why they raise poppies in Afghanistan?  Drought, that's why.  Any conflict going on in that country that hits close to home?  Three guesses why China is building some really big dams.  Sure hydropower, but also to stop some of the water leaving China because there is less of it coming down the pike.  Yup, I suspect the issues in Tibet are about water shortages too.  Crap, man, Pakistan is one of the driest places in the world and India is building dams to keep the water from going to Pakistan.  Wonder if that is a climatological iron curtain between those two countries.  I think humans get pissed when the climate goes south.  What do you think?

I'm thinking 'green side up' has come full circle for me, but what to do about global warming is still a bit out of sight for most of us.  For now I'm going to keep grass on this farm and do less driving in my GMC Subdivision.  I do wish our government under Obama would be more aggressive in implementing change in it's purchases of climate friendly buildings, vehicles, etc., etc.  Well, maybe after the election, right?  What the hell, when in doubt buy local food, that'll help.

When in doubt, keep the green side up.