Gardening: Reasons to Garden 3

In Gardening: An Ecological Approach I list several important reasons to grow a garden. My post on April 12, 2013 briefly explained reason #1) (to grow food for health) and my post on May 1, 2013 outlined reason #2 (to enhance soil fertility).  

Here is reason #3...

To produce next year's seeds

One of the more conservative activities associated with ecological gardening is raising "heirloom" plants. In addition to producing food, these plants also yield seeds that more faithfully replicate the parent plants. In other words, they breed "true." This is in contrast to growing hybrid plants from most commercially-grown seeds.  ​Unfortunately, seeds saved from hybrid plants tend to produce offspring that are unpredictable regressions to ancestral forms. The gardener who saves seeds from her best heirloom plants is conserving (and even increasing) biological diversity while becoming more self-reliant.

Illustration from Gardening: An Ecological Approach​. © Fred Montague

From the Sketchbook: Another Way to Visualize Global Change

Here are more brainstorming exercises to help visualize stability and change.​

Images 1 and 2 depict two stability states, one robust and one tenuous.​

Image 3 seems (to me) to be a reasonable representation of our current circumstances.​

Images 4 and 5 are a bit more ominous (especially image 4) because they suggest abrupt changes. For large organisms and complex cultures adapted to relatively stable conditions, abrupt change is troublesome.​

Ways to visualize stability and change. © Fred Montague

From the Gallery: Whitetail Buck

"Whitetail Buck" is a limited edition photolithograph that measures 20" by 24" matted. The original ink drawing was made with a radiograph technical pen and the prints were produced by a custom printer under the artist's supervision. The edition size is 200, and the price is $65. Ordering information can be found in the "Photolithograph" section of the Gallery.

​"Whitetail Buck," a limited edition photolithograph. © Fred Montague

Environmental Commentary: Biological Diversity

The circular image below is from my handmade book One Earth. The current array of organisms on the planet, numbering about 2 million described species, is the product of more than 3 billion years of evolution. Scientists estimate there may be 5 million to 20 million total. Most of the undiscovered species are small organisms such as insects and microbes. Quantitatively speaking, most of life on Earth is undiscovered. We've found the easy, big beings. Unfortunately, many of those easy, big beings are declining in numbers as one particular species' population growth and resource demands continually increase and intensify.

​Illustration from the artist book One Earth​. © Fred Montague

Gardening: Reasons to Garden 2

In Gardening: An Ecological Approach, I offer five reasons (of hundreds) to grow a garden. My post from April 12, 2013, stated Reason #1 (to grow food for health). 

Here is Reason #2.​

To Enhance Soil Fertility

"Nature cycles nutrients and other materials in functioning ecological communities. Where life exists on Earth, the general long-term trend has been for soils to increase in depth and fertility under the influence of the plants and animals that the soils support. Where industrial agriculture prevails, however, the tendency has been for soils to erode or to be degraded and for fertility to diminish. The Earth should not lose its natural productivity because humans have lived there."​ (from preface, Gardening: An Ecological Approach)

Here is our opportunity to offset a little of the detrimental impact of industrial agriculture in our own backyards or community gardens. Composting garden and kitchen "wastes"​ and actively seeking out the "clean" organic wastes that others would otherwise send to a landfill with the trash are two ways to increase the biological capital (fertility) on our small plots of ground. Some coffee shops may donate their coffee grounds, some grocery stores may donate their past-prime organic produce, some juice bars may donate their organic waste, and your neighbors who don't spray and don't garden (yet) may give you their grass clippings and autumn leaves.​

​Illustration from Gardening: An Ecological Approach​. © Fred Montague

Wildlife Commentary: "Let 'em Be"

In my 1992 FoxSense series of environmental graphics (cartoons), I offered several related to wildlife conservation and wildlife values.​

This one, as it applies to large, free-ranging carnivores, proposes a challenge to humanity, with its ever increasing demands on Nature, to live in such a way that we can not only let 'em be (leave them alone with enough space to be the animals they have evolved to be) but also to let 'em BE (continue to exist at all). ​

​Foxsense environmental graphic: "Let 'em Be". © Fred Montague

Gardening: The Natural-Non-toxic Garden

My essay for the Spring 2013 issue of edibleWASATCH centers on gardening in the chemical age. It is an argument to keep toxic chemicals out of the ecological garden.

Here are the concluding paragraphs from that piece.​

"In terms of dealing with the novel chemical environment that increasingly affects our landscapes, neighborhoods, work places, homes, and bodies, my advice is to avoid any unnecessary, avoidable exposure. In industrialized countries, we have immersed ourselves in a chemical milieu with which we have had very little biological experience and essentially no evolutionary experience. We cannot wishfully adapt to tolerate exposures to toxic substances. And we, as a population, can't immediately breed fast enough to adapt genetically."​

"In some ways, it's choosing for ourselves and our families not to be test animals. The experience we have had in the past 68 years is alarming enough to justify exercising some commonsense skepticism. In the face of possible risk and with insufficient information about that risk, avoid the risk. Avoid the dangerous, the expensive,and the uncertain, especially if safe, economical, and certain methods are available."​

"Take responsibility for your food. Grow as much as you can, and grow it organically. Make your natural, safe and non-toxic garden the foundation of your approach to health."​

The section immediately below is from Gardening: An Ecological Approach where I briefly describe a dozen ecological concepts as they apply to gardening. The Edible Wasatch essay expands on this "no toxics" concept.

​The "no toxics chemicals" concept, excerpted from ​Gardening: An Ecological Approach. © Fred Montague

Human Population VII: Urbanization

As countries move through their development phases, not only do they industrialize and institutionalize, they also urbanize-- an increasing proportion of their populations move from rural areas to urban centers. The notebook page reproduced below shows the global trend from 1850 through 2011 and the prediction for 2050. The page is based largely on data from the U.N. World Urbanization Prospects: The 2011 Revision.

I have seen some U. N. estimates for 2100 suggesting that by then 99% of humanity will live in urban areas. ​

This raises some interesting questions.​

1. Will present urban areas simply grow larger to accommodate the increase?​

2. Or, will new urban areas germinate to cover portions of the Earth's surface otherwise required either to supply resources to urban dwellers or to provide refuges for the wild?

3. Is there a tipping point between the demands of urban populations for vital resources (food, fuel, water, raw materials, etc.) and the ability of the non-urban areas to provide them?  (Non-urban areas = croplands, rangelands, forests, wilderness, etc.)​

An increasing global human population offers significant challenges; increasing urban (dependent) populations adds another dimension to these challenges.

​Human Population VII: Urbanization. © Fred Montague

Environmental Science Classroom: Human Population VI "Vulnerable States"

The Fund for Peace (FFP), using thousands of reports, articles, and intelligence documents, ranks the world's countries with respect to their political, social, and economic stability. The results (the" Failed States Index 2012") appear on FFP's website, and are published annually in Foreign Policy magazine.

For the page below, I have chosen the 14 countries with scores above 100 (our of 120 possible) and added demographic data from the Population Reference Bureau's "World Population Data Sheet 2012." Scores are tabulated from an analysis of 12 categories of risk factors for each country. The higher the score, the more unstable and vulnerable the country.​

I have also included, for comparison, the United States, and the four most stable countries, according to the index.​ (Note: South Sudan will likely have a score greater than 100, but a complete year's worth of data has not been analyzed.)

Over the eight years the rankings have been published, some countries have improved and some have deteriorated. ​In 2006 there were 12 countries with scores greater than 100.

Vulnerable states increase and intensify the population challenges we face-especially as we add another two billion people in the next 37 years.​

​Table of vulnerable states as compiled by the Fund for Peace combined with data from the Population Reference Bureau's World Population Data Sheet 2012.

Gardening Basics: Planning the Garden on Paper

It's fun to plan a garden on paper. And the activity is not weather-dependent.​

With a piece of graph paper (or plain paper) and a pencil, anyone can visualize the most wonderful garden. Use the guide below (from Gardening: An Ecological Approach) to lay out your garden beds and determine the number of plants and their spacings.​

The dashed-line squares are 2' x 2'.​

The dotted-line squares are 1' x 1'.​

The space required for some common garden plants is indicated. For example, the first plant (lettuce) suggests 1 to 2 plants per square foot or 4 to 8 plants per 4 square feet. You may grow lettuce more densely than that, but the example explains my method. A broccoli plant requires 4 square feet (2' x 2').​

I like these garden plans. They always grow. Have fun.​

​"Garden Planning" from Gardening: An Ecological Approach​. © Fred Montague

From the Sketchbook: Change

Here's an example of what started to be a sketchbook exercise-with-letters turning into an environmental science commentary.​

In the context of evolved systems and engineered systems, change is destabilizing.​

This was a perennial final exam question in my environmental science/environmental issues classes at the university.​

I rationalized that the correct explanation for students was that currently thriving evolved systems (such as ecological communities, global climate systems, etc.) are the products of a period of relatively stable conditions.​ ​ Yes, change happens continually, but usually on small scales and of short durations. Beyond the range of benign, creative change, drastic change is destabilizing. And the greater the change, the more extensive the change, and/or the more rapid the change, the more destabilizing the change is.

The logic of the concept is demonstrated in a simple experiment with a familiar engineered system. The next time you take your internal combustion car in for an oil change, make a change. Have the mechanic drain the oil from the crankcase and replace it with coolant. Have him drain the coolant from the cooling system and replace it with oil. This represents a change from the normal conditions. See if it affects the car's performance; see if this change destabilizes the engineered system..

Now, on a larger scale, we could see if we could destabilize the Earths's climate system by increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 35%. For the planet, this experiment, in its effect, is similar to the exercise with the car. The big difference is that most people have more sense than to drive a car with no coolant, but those same people don't understand the effect of their activities on the energy balance of the planet. We have reached the 35% increase mark and are heading for 50%.

Dramatic change is not the end of the world for all organisms- just for those that were adapted to the "relatively stable" previous conditions.​

Unfortunately, the playfulness of the graphic (below) downplays the seriousness of the concept.​

"​Change is destabilizing" graphic. © Fred Montague

Environmental Science Classroom: Climate Change & Soil Moisture

We humans are largely dependent on plants grown on land-- cropland.  Our most important croplands are the planet's former grasslands, typically located in the middle of continents: the U. S. Great Plains, the steppes of Eurasia, the pampas of South America, etc.​

The essential climate-derived ingredient required to grow crops anywhere on land is soil moisture.​ Except in times of extreme drought, I doubt if many of us dependent on plant food (with the exception of farmers) ever think about soil moisture.

Below is an illustration I prepared that links climate change (as predicted by scientific models and as borne out by the experience of the last few decades) with soil moisture. The prediction that continental interiors will be warmer and drier is particularly significant.​

You can use your imagination to link soil moisture with what's on your dinner plate.​

​Diagram showing relationships between climate change and soil moisture. © Fred Montague

Gardening: Reasons to Garden 1

In the preface to my book, Gardening: An Ecological Approach,​​ I offer five reasons to grow a garden. Of course, there are as many reasons as there are gardeners. My list is biased by my interest not only in human health, but also in ecology, global environmental issues, and wildlife/wilderness conservation. 

Here's reason #1:​

To Grow Food For Health

"People in developed nations (like the U. S.), where food is grown, processed, and distributed industrially, are subjected to a counterfeit form of nutrition where mass production efficiency and corporate profitability are most likely the driving forces in food production.​ That people acquiesce to this situation is evidence of the persuasive power of advertising, the 'busy-ness' of people's lives, and the general failure of education at all levels to make people aware of the incontrovertible link between food, diet, nutrition, and health" (p. xi).

A personal garden, or a personal plot in a community garden, is one of the most economical, reliable, and satisfying ways to provide oneself with safe, nutritious, organic food. ​

Learn more in Gardening: An Ecological Approach.​

​Illustration from Gardening: An Ecological Approach.​

From the Sketchbook: Visualizing Dynamic Stability and Variable Change

In the overworked sketchbook page below I have shown several (of many) examples of how a variable such as mean annual surface temperature of the Earth might change over time (years, decades, centuries).​

As we continue to struggle with the science and the impacts of climate change, it is important to understand the commentary presented by the various factions in the debate.​

The fact that people are debating the science of global change is of concern, especially for a culture describing itself as enlightened.   ​

Perhaps the variable nature of the change itself confuses those desiring consistent and smooth trends from year-to year.​ For matters of climate, tens and hundreds of years of data eventually provide the definitive smooth trend. Now we experience normal variability with an upward trend, somewhat like that depicted in Example E below.

What many climatologists and ecologists fear is a combination of Examples D and E. This is an increasing trend with normal variability that passes a "tipping point" and then the Earth system resets at a higher average temperature.​

When we consider just the five climate feedback loops described in recent posts on this website, it almost seems inevitable that we will cross thresholds to novel conditions (for us who are used to the "old normal").​

Whether or not we move to a new "stable state" or continue the upward trend of increasing temperatures depends on the actions we take now to reduce (eliminate) carbon emissions and re-establish global carbon sinks (forests, grasslands, and fertile soils).​

This sketchbook page helps me visualize the concept of trends.  When trends appear with adequate data, their extrapolations into the future serve much as simple computer models--but without a computer. Both help us see possibilities for the future without having to go there immediately. These are predictive because, as the saying goes, 'unless we change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.'​

​Visualizing trends. © Fred Montague

Environmental Science Classroom: Climate Feedback Loop 5

The distribution of grasslands, forests, and deserts across the Earth's surface is the result of many variables, among which climate is a major determinate--especially mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation.​

Climate warming affects the world's vegetation.​

As the Earth's average annual temperature trends upward under the influence of modern industrial human activity, vegetational communities like forests and grasslands find themselves, as climatologist Stephen Schneider explains, ' stranded in the wrong climate.'​

Rapid climate change (i.e. over decades and centuries) provides stresses that overwhelm plants adapted to the previous 'normal' conditions. Many die. Dying forests present a double impact, as explained in the illustration below.  One is that dead trees either burn (increased forest fires in a new drier climate) or if they don't burn, they decompose. In either case, the fast burn of fire or the slow burn of decomposition both release all of the carbon that had been stored in the trees themselves. The second impact is that regions that previously supported forests no longer have trees that serve as a carbon sink.​

Logical action to minimize this climate feedback loop would involve eliminating carbon emissions (the source of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) and planting trees where trees can grow (the sink for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere).  Eliminate the source; re-establish the sink.​

​Climate Feedback Loop 5. © Fred Montague

Environmental Science Classroom: Endrocrine Disrupting Chemicals

Recommended reading: The State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals 2012 ​published by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. Read the "Summary for Decision-Makers."

​The cover of the WHO-UNEP report, "State of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals 2012".

Environmental Science Classroom: Climate Change and U. S. Agriculture

My posts concerning climate change so fare have described various feedback loops associated with our modern-day modification of the chemistry of the atmosphere.​

There are predicted effects of global warming and there are demonstrated effects.​

In February 2013 the U. S. Department of Agriculture released Technical Bulletin 1935 titled Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation.​

The report's 56 authors represent USCA, UCAR (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research), and NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research).​

The "Key Messages" from the Executive Summary are shown below.

​Key Messages from USDA Technical Bulletin 1935, "Climate Change and Agriculture in the United States: Effects and Adaptation."

Environmental Science Classroom: Climate Feedback Loop 1

I have recently posted two "climate feedback loop" fact sheets. One described the ice/albedo feedback and the other discussed the methane loop. These are examples of positive feedback (or runaway feedback), effects that tend to amplify climate change.

The feedback effects shown below deal with humans causing an increase in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.​  Here are two positive feedback loops (increased water vapor and increased cirrus clouds) and one negative feedback loop that tends to counteract global warming (the formation of low, thick, stratus clouds that reflect sunlight). There is uncertainty about which types of clouds will form, but it is likely that both are possibilities, depending on meteorological conditions.​

​Climate Feedback I: Water Vapor. © Fred Montague

Environmental Science Classroom: Human Population V

Most Populous Countries

The population fact sheet reproduced below shows the world's 17 most populous countries as compiled from the Population Reference Bureaus' "2012 World Population Data Sheet."​

I arbitrarily selected all the countries in the world with populations of more than 75 million citizens.​

The most rapidly growing of these large countries are all U.N. "developing countries" with gross national income/capita and rates of population increase greater than the world average.​

"​Human Population V" © Fred Montague.

From the Gallery: "Stone Circle"

There is a woodcut in the gallery on this website titled "Stone Circle." I used this design previously as an illustration in my handmade artist's book One Earth.​ ​That page is reproduced below with its caption.

​"Stone Circle," a page from the handmade artist's book One Earth. © Fred Montague