Blue Ecology

Poetry e-book: Oceaness available on iTunes

If you like humour, music, love and life, with an environmental focus on water, then Oceaness is for you.

 

• Oceaness is now available as an e-book on iBookstore @iTunes!

 

 

 

Haida: A freshwater spring and an earthquake?

I listened carefully, this past Sunday, to  Robert Budd, on the CBC radio show, North by Northwest.  He introduced the Imbert Orchard, 1962, interview of Anges Russ, Haida Elder, 105 years old. Robert has written a book "Voices of British Columbia".

She told of how a flood came to her family's village on the West Coast of Haida Gwaii.  This story was passed down by her grandmother's grandmother. The flood came and they got in their canoes and tied to the rocks on mountain top, behind the village.  There, her ancestor put her cane in the ground and she began singing songs belonging to her family.  When she was done, she pulled the cane from the ground and a freshwater spring shot up.  It is still there today, on the mountain behind the village.

I began to do the math backwards from 1962, to when the grandmother's grandmother would be alive.  I figure it would be a circa 1700 story.  Interestingly enough, there is evidence of an earthquake of 9.0 on the richter scale in 1699, that caused a huge Tsunami along the coast of British Columbia.  Very interesting!

If there are some Haida folk out there reading this, I would like some help locating the spring and pursuing this story, further. E-mail: michael@blueecology.com

14,000 London Aquatics Centres per day needed for the world

Yes, on Oct 31st, 2011 there will be  a population of 7 billion human water users in the world. The  UN suggests that each person needs 20-50 liters of safe water for drinking and sanitation, per day.

Doing that math for 20 liters/pp/day = 140 billion liters of water needed each day in the world for drinking and sanitation.

To put that in perspective, as you watch the 2012 Summer Olympic's aquatic events, you will now know it would take the equivalent of at least 14,000 London Aquatics Centres worth of safe water each day, for humanity. 

 The Blue Ecology vision discussed on this blog is a means towards sustainable survival, with dignity.

 

Oceaness now available as an e-book

Michael Blackstock's new book "Oceaness" is now available as an e-book (ePub)!

Oceaness is a book of short essays, short stories and poetry, accentuated by the author's art.

Water is the theme running through the book. Social commentary is dappled with entertainment and humour.

Submarine freshwater springs, intertidal zones, and melting icebergs

What do these three things tell us about "salt" water: submarine freshwater springs, intertidal zones, and melting icebergs?  To me it speaks to the salinity gradient between "salt" and "freshwater".  The tidy separation of salt and freshwater, obscures the elegant nuances of water.  Submarine springs, for instance were described by Pausanias [Greek geographer] "unmistakably fresh water rising up in the sea" ( second century AD). The Syrians developed methods to harvest freshwater welling up in the sea to supply their island city of Arvad.  

Taxonomy has played its role, in the time of Linnaeus, but now we need to be more sophisticated, and think of water as "one", with a spectrum of temperament and character.  Blue Ecology functions under the spectrum notion, not the taxonmical. 

Reference:

Kohout, F.A. 1966. Submarine Springs: a neglected phenomenon of coastal hydrology. USGS.

Women and water

In many indigenous cultures, the women have a special role as water keepers.  Their gift of life is intimately tied to water in the womb, and thus they have greater insight into the role of water in our lives.

Kim Anderson has written a great paper which shares this insight from the point of view of eleven Grandmothers.  Kim captures the spiritual essesence of water in a poignant manner, by quoting the grandmothers' stories and teachings. The Anishinabek Nation's blue ribbon campaign to protect their water, is an interesting story, as well.

Rita Wong is an active water keeper in British Columbia, and she has just published an interesting report that shares the water keeper's vision.

 

China and water

Pay attention, close attention to what is going on in China.  They have massive cultural, engineering, and geo-politcal water interests.  For example about a third of their water is sourced in the Himalayan water towers, thus China and India's, among others, geo-political interests.

Here are four  articles to get you started: overview, water pricing, Tibet and south to north project.

The China Dialogue is a good site to keep up to date. 

 



 

 

State of the Oceans, and Oceaness

I am very worried about dire warnings expressed in the recent IPSO report on the state of our Oceans.  The seas and oceans are the life breath of our planet.

My recent book "Oceaness" is a poetic exploration of water, encouraging a Blue Ecology vision, which is a new human attitude towards water.  It costs nothing to change our attitudes.

The Pacific Institute has a good introduction to climate change.

 

UN Ocean Stresses Report (2011): Sight and Blindness

We see the ocean but we are blind to its pain.  Furthermore, we are blind to the pain we cause, and fatally perhaps, ultimately to the pain we self inflict.

In the June 20th, Rogers and Laffoley, Oceans report, our scientists share what they see happening to the Oceans, and plead to humanity's blindness as follows:

"Technical means to acheive the solutions to many of these problems already exist, but current societal values prevent humankind from addressing them efectively.  Overcoming these barriers is core to the fundamental changes needed to achieve sustainable and equitable future for the generations to come and which preserves natural ecosystems of the Earth..."

Perplexing, is humanity's minor excuse making and rationalizing of short term "fouling-the-nest-behavior"; it is ultimately a naive way to save face in the long term:  saving face, perhaps, in front of the next generation, despite the growing evidence that fouling the nest is a tragic flaw or error.   Aristotle, in Poetics, first described Hamartia, and Peter Struck elucidates as follows:

"The character's flaw must result from something that is also a central part of their virtue, which goes somewhat awry, usually due to a lack of knowledge...A truly tragic hero must have a failing that is neither idiosyncratic or arbitrary, but is somehow more deeply imbedded -- a kind of human failing and weakness."

We see the trees(information) but are blind to forest (knowledge).  We see the waves (information and weak signals), but not the storm (internalized knowledge about our actions).

So I completely agree with Rogers and Laffoley's main conclusion that: it is human attitudes towards water and oceans that needs to change, and that is why I focused on developing the Blue Ecology vision.

Take a moment: Nature Deficit Disorder

Take a moment to enjoy calming waters. Find a refugia, removed from the sensory overload of our urban bustle.  And, listen to this CBC podcast to find out what my prattle means.

One solution to Nature Deficit Disorder, is to, first hydrate your brain, and second to promote my challenge to design water back into our homes and communities (see my earlier post on Art and Architecture).