The mission of H.O.P.E. is to turn the prow of our entropyship, the Earth, back upstream so that Earth's evolving consciousness may explore the headwaters of the Universe for billions of years to come. The work of H.O.P.E. is to make visible the larger relationships we live within - relationships that inspire visions of wonder and works of hope.

Catching Cottonwood Leaves
I challenge my students to try catching cottonwood leaves as they fall. Kids love the game and I love watching golden leaves against blue sky and seeing kids exulting in the spirit of Fall. After kids have run about for several minutes, I add another level. I tell the kids that I have noticed that falling cottonwood leaves usually fit within three categories: tumblers, spinners and gliders. I challenge them to try catching leaves from each category with special emphasis on the gliders. Depending on the weight and orientation of the stem,cottonwood leaves have an aerodynamic shape that can glide serenely far, far from the launching tree. Their flights inspire aesthetic delight. If you have never watched individual cottonwood leaves fall, watch them and watch for the incredible gliders.

Salmon Carcasses
In the last issue, I mentioned Hollingís idea of agencies monitoring only a single factor in their management of a ìresourceî, blind to the increasing brittleness of the mother ecosystem until something crashes. A good example Iíve been learning more about involves salmon carcasses.

Resource agencies have been focused on maximizing the number of salmon that people can catch sustainably. So they calculated the minimum number of salmon needed to reach the spawning streams in order to lay enough eggs so that enough juveniles would go out to sea so that enough adults would return years later so that the salmon population would remain stable. ...  Fish above that minimum number could then be harvested by people. Sounds fine on the face of it.

However, what we are learning is that the spawning streams are not rich enough in nutrients to nourish enough young salmon. 40-60% of the biomass of juvenile salmon comes directly or indirectly from the decomposing bodies of their parentsí generation. If you limit the number of spawners to only those mathematically needed to lay enough eggs (so that you can maximize in the short run the number of salmon people can catch), you will deplete the drainage of the nutrients needed to successfully raise those eggs. Many more salmon need to make it to the spawning streams than those that successfully spawn. The tendency pointed out by Holling of agencies to focus on a few, human utilization measures of the resource and thereby lose track of the bigger picture is expressed in the following quote from an article publicizing the resource implications of a recent salmon study.

ìThroughout the past century of decline, salmon managers evaluated the results of their efforts primarily through quantitative indices of production. These performance measures include catch (sport and commercial), anglers days, economic value of the catch, licenses sold, pounds of fish released from hatcheries, and escapement (Lichatowich 1996). While these statistics are useful measures of performance, they are incomplete because they ignore the ecological processes that determine ecosystem health and ultimately the production of salmon. They focus primarily on economic ends while ignoring ecological means.

Several recent studies suggest that salmon escapement is significant beyond its obvious importance for the reproduction of the species (Wipfli et al. 1998; Bilby et al. 1998; Bilby et al. 1996; Larkin and Slaney 1997). For example, decomposing salmon carcasses are now recognized as a source of marine-derived nutrients (MDN), which play an important role in the ecology of the Pacific Northwest.

Reduced MDN transport to the watershed is another consequence of the past century of decline in salmon abundance. The MDN are delivered by adult salmon returning to fresh water to spawn in what historically was a mass transfer of biomass and nutrients from the ocean to fresh water. In individual river systems from Alaska to Washington, MDN link the abundance of salmon escaping to spawn to the ecological productivity of the stream system (Kline et al. 1990; Bilby et al. 1996; Larkin and Slaney 1997). For example, the growth and survival of young salmon depends, in part, on the marine-derived nitrogen, carbon and phosphorous delivered to nutrient-poor systems by adult salmon (Wipfli et al. 1998; Bilby et al. 1998; Bilby et al. 1996; Larkin and Slaney 1997). Until recently, the decline of Pacific salmon was primarily treated as an economic or aesthetic loss. Biologists now suspect that salmon depletion is also an enormous ecological loss.î

Peeps
Several years ago, I read Childrenís Special Places by David Sobel. The book talked about children in middle childhood universally creating forts, dens, special personal places - usually out beyond the domestic boundaries. The book was saying this is an essential manifestation of the developmental drive to become an autonomous individual. The book suggested that education should utilize this drive. The book mentioned an activity called The Village in which children built small figures  (the peeps) and then they went out in nature and built places for their peeps. According to the author, the kids can start creating an entire world for their peeps.

This was an idea that felt so right that Iíve wanted to try it ever since. This year Iíve finally had a chance at Chrysalis. Eight fourth graders and I have put in three sessions so far. I am being much more open-ended with the idea than its description in the book. Rather than setting up opportunities that lead the students to wrestle with governance or economic factors, we just went out and built homes for our peeps.

The kids are enthralled with the activity. I hope to set aside at least two hours on our next visit. Kids are busy all the time while they are working on their village. There is virtually no squabbles and there is tremendous amount of helping one another. On their own, different kids are creating property lines, money, businesses. Kids are noticing that structures settle into the earth over a few weeks, that grass grows back in cleared areas, that different plants are useful for creating different miniature things. The activity is an absolute joy. I have no idea what will grow from it.

Dream of the Tree
Last issue I mentioned a ìdream prayerî Iíve evolved. I continue using the prayer as I drift off to sleep and I continue finding sleep a blessing. The other day I had a dream which gave me a fresh jolt of energy and understanding. I experienced a shift of consciousness while I was within a tree. The best way I can describe it is that at first, the tree was an object, a thing all around me. As an object, it felt dead. For the vast majority of a tree is dead tissue, accumulating each year. And then I switched to the tree being a conduit between earth and sky. And suddenly I was within a fantastically powerful flow of energy. Those layers of living matter, only a few cells thick, extending from the root hairs up to the topmost leaves contain the magic. Good metaphor for life.

Two science stories
The first is from the early days of astronomy. When European people first started debating whether the Sun went around the Earth or whether the Earth went around the Sun, the following argument was set forth to prove that the Earth could not be circling the Sun.

If the Earth is circling the Sun, then the position of the Earth must be changing all the time and in six months time, the Earth would be on the opposite side of its orbit from where it currently is. If our position changed that much every six months, then we should see an apparent shift in position of the stars (in the same way that the view of a finger held before the eyes seems to jump back and forth if one closes first one eye and then the other). But such a movement can not be detected. Therefore the Earth can not be circling the Sun.

This argument was scientifically accurate and so had a forceful argument on rational people. If the Earth did circle the Sun, there should be an apparent shifting of star position. The only thing wrong with the argument was the totally unthinkable (at that time) possibility that the stars might be so far away that their shift in apparent position would be so tiny as to be undetectable by naked eye observations. So a valid argument armed with an incorrect assumptions helps lock in another incorrect assumption.

 The other story is from my geology classes in college. I really enjoyed Geology 101. It made so much sense and it amplified my vision of the world through time so that I could see changes and patterns I was previously oblivious to. So I followed up with another course, Historical Geology. It was taught by the melancholy chairman of the department. That class did not hold together so well. The older text had maps of how North America had changed through time but there was no continuity, no fundamental rightness to it. And then the text got to a section on mountain building. And that section lost me. It was so academic and so abstract and it just didnít amplify the world the way 101 had. Mountain building did not resonate and deepen my experience of mountains like stream dynamics or coastline processes had. Nevertheless, I took another geology class the next semester. It was taught by new, young geologists and their brand new text was full of the evidence for plate tectonics. And the ideas sang and mountains again became a visible hymn.

Not until 15 years later, having read Kuhnís The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and  McPheeís Assembling California did I fully realize that I had been a student right in the midst of one of the great scientific revolutions in history- that of continental drift and plate tectonics. Now I suspect the chairman was so melancholy because he was part of the old school fading. Now I know why those older texts lost me; because they were wrong at a deep paradigm level. More importantly, my aesthetic response to the two theories strengthens my belief that science is guided by an aesthetic   fundamental to the nature of the world. The deep nature of the world is of pieces fitting together because the universe is interconnected multi-dimensionally. We have a stereotype of the scientist as dispassionate. On the contrary, scientists are enthusiastically passionate, guided by an aesthetics open to all, repeatable over and over . It is one of the things I love about being in the presence of a scientist.

Corporate globalization as feedback loop
Last issue I wrote in support of those working to reverse ìcorporate globalizationî. As I try to deepen my awareness of these many issues, I find myself sidestepping the phrase ìcorporate globalizationî. The phrase does not lead to what feels like the heart of the matter. The phrase overly focuses on corporations which are just easily visible players. For me, the issue is the snowballing feedback loop of concentrated wealth using its power with humans to alter human topography so that even more of the flows within this world will flow towards that wealth in the form of more wealth. The internal logic of this feedback loop leads concentrated wealth to direct part of its power to reshape or diminish political and cultural institutions that resist that concentration so that there are more opportunities to concentrate wealth even further. This then gives these concentrations of wealth even more power to reshape the cultural landscape even more. Many of the institutions being reshaped by this concentrated wealth are ones that have evolved to protect and enhance the commons. The issue of ìcorporate globalizationî is what this expanding feedback loop is doing to the entire constellation of socializing forces that help shape who we are, how we see ourselves within the universe, and how we define our purpose. This snowballing feedback loop feels like the hypnotizing or anathaetizing of a historically great species for wealthís sake.

The potential anathaetizing of our entire species is, I think, why people use the phrase ìglobalization.î It tries to capture the world-shaping power that the feedback loop is acquiring; that is why the issue is so crucial. And I think the word ëcorporateí arises because corporations symbolize large forces of money that are wielded by legal, non-living entities that are especially prone to becoming disconnected from human needs and becoming warped towards short-term interests. I donít necessarily object to the rich growing richer. There is a certain cybernetic wisdom in giving greater power to people who have demonstrated with their life some ability that others view valuable enough to give money towards. This snowballing feedback loop, however, is kept in check by the fact that everybody eventually dies. That is part of the reason for the emphasis on  ìcorporate globalizationî. Currently, corporations donít die. This allows the snowballing feedback loop of concentrating wealth to cycle far more times, accumulating amounts of power harder for mortal humans to control.

Focusing on snowballing feedback loops leads me to see these issues as systemsí problems that donít necessarily require villains. For example, one factor feeding into the loop of concentrating wealth is population growth. Because of the dynamics of supply and demand, a growing population shifts power from employees towards employers, diminishing the power of citizens and enhancing the power of money. Many times a community will sell out the long term health of its citizens in order to attract jobs. In a declining population, power will shift towards the citizenry.

Focusing on snowballing feedback loops leads one beyond the specifics to pay more attention on the direction and momentum of the changes. Snowballing feedback loops sets off warning lights because such feedback loops, if unchecked, accelerate in a way that send them hurling out of control in a destructive way. (The historically correct phrase for these loops is ìpositive feedback loopî but the words ìpositiveî and ìnegativeî have emotional overtones that override the mathematical meaning of these words. So I shall use ìsnowballingî and ìstabilizingî feedback loops.) Realizing such loops can spin out of control helps one step out of the internal logic of the snowballing loop and ask ìwhat purpose is being served by this loop?î

Stepping outside of the logic is important. Some people defend ìcorporate globalizationî by saying it is inevitable, that there is a overwhelming logic to it that guarantees its destiny and that those who oppose this are misinformed people out of step with the direction of history. From within the logic of money, it all seems inevitable. But there are greater logics. There are greater accounting systems. Money is a tool created by us. It is to serve us in the creation of human aspirations. We do not have to sacrifice human aspirations to money.

Stepping outside the loop of internal logic is one of the lessons the fields taught me. Erosion is a snowballing feedback loop, a downward spiral with an internal logic that implies that greater erosion is inevitable. I described this loop in my book. Erosion leads to less vegetation which leads to greater runoff which leads to greater erosion which leads to less absorption which leads to declining water tables which leads to less vegetation which leads to greater erosion which .... All I see within this feedback loop are factors that contribute to the loopís perpetuation and growth, making it feel inevitable.

But life has ignored the ìresistance is futileî proclamations of this loopís internal logic. Lichens grow on rocks, soil-anchoring grasses grow on slopes, beavers build dams. A whole host of living things exert their energy to reroute the power of rain onto paths which nourish more life. And as they exert their efforts, forces come into existence which dramatically alter the feedback loops of erosion until grasses and willows grow in the gullies. What seems inevitable at close hand is seen from the hilltops as one set of forces among many shaping the land. On the slopes, other feedback loops with their own particular logic and perspective are supported. Less water flows down the gullies: more water soaks in.

I feel this image is also relevant to ìglobalizationî. Fields that are managed to deliver as much rain as possible downstream will be very different (paved) from fields that are managed to absorb as much of the rain as possible. Similarly, a country that is managed to convert as many of its ecological and community flows as possible into money will be very different from a country that is managed to recycle flows in ways that increase the amount of flows.

I am a blade of grass. I will live my role undaunted by those who say there is only one inevitable destiny. I see a different way that soil and rain, human spirit and the Earth can dance. I will interact with this feedback loop to lead it in a direction that enhances rather than reduces life.
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Business Stuff

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© 2001, Paul Krafel, 18080 Brincat Manor, Cottonwood, CA 96022-0609
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