Cairns of H

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.

Cairns of H.O.P.E. #33

Beginning of the Long Days, 2003

A New Work of H.O.P.E.

For several years I’ve dreamed of making movies about the ideas I write about. I love a good movie and because many of my ideas are based on “seeing” things, making movies feels like a natural to me. So I’m delighted that I’ve finally completed my first movie. Spirals of Hope is based on the talk I gave to the Association of Environmental and Outdoor Educators in early April. It began as two cameras filming the talk so that I could edit back and forth between the two perspectives. But then I started adding occasional visuals to the talk and there were certain sections of the talk that I thought could be stronger so I redid them. It’s homemade but I think it is pretty good.

Spirals of Hope is 33 minutes long and presents many of the ideas I’ve been writing about here: feedback spirals, reversing spirals of soil erosion, life creating possibilities on the Earth, and our role within this creation. The movie costs $10 which includes shipping and tax. If you like it, feel free to make copies to pass on to friends. You can order it as either a video or a DVD.

However, we’ll be leaving for a 6 week vacation in Alaska in less than two weeks. So if you would like a copy, email me soon. I’ll send you a copy before I leave and you can mail a check later.

Growing Longer Shortily

One activity I’ve been doing to teach my 8th graders at Chrysalis about time lags - and give them an introduction to calculus - is maintaining two graphs throughout the school year. The first graph is of daylength. The second graph is of change in daylength. At the beginning of the school year in late August, both the graphs were moving downward. But after Autumn Equinox, the change in daylength started moving up (from a very down position) while the daylength graph was moving down for three more months. And now, in May, as the daylength graph is moving towards its peak (Beginning of the Long Days), the change in daylength graph has been heading down for several weeks. (If this is confusing, that’s why I am giving kids this experience. Time lags are one of the great conceptual challenges for our species.) For example, the change in daylength graph last week went from a weekly change of the days growing longer by 14 minutes to a weekly change of the days growing longer by 12 minutes. So the graph of the change dropped from 14 to 12 even though the meaning of the graph is that days are still growing longer at a rate where the daylength today is 12 minutes longer than the daylength of a day one week ago. We periodically have discussions of why the two graphs can be moving in different directions at certain times of the year. Tanya summarized the April-May situation nicely in her immortal phrase: “It’s growing longer shortily.”

Accurately describing underlying dynamics like this is challenging. For example, last week I got clearer on two of the effects my erosion work is actually having. When I diverge runoff and slow it down so that more of it soaks in, what I am doing is “decreasing the rate at which the rain’s potential energy transforms into kinetic energy.” And one of the consequences of that is “decreasing the average distance eroded material travels before being deposited.”

When I am sloppy in my thinking, I say that my work reduces erosion and increases deposition. But that is inaccurate because deposition is the ending phase in a cycle of erosion. The only way to increase deposition is to increase erosion (somewhere else). So increasing deposition is not my goal. Decreasing the averge distance travelled is. Soil is moving down “shortily”. And the effect of that is slowing down the gravity-powered conveyor belt which has the effect of the soil cycle “backing up”. Soil accumulates on the slopes and the earth rises.

Wings on Point

Issues of Cairns written during the rainy season tend to be full of comments on water and erosion dynamics. So it is with this issue in spades. The rainy season is lasting longer, allowing our temporary streams to flow longer. As I write this in early May, it is showering outside. Thunderstorm last night. Forecast of showers through Mother’s Day weekend. Marginal pieces of land that are normally full of low-lying filaree (Erodium) are knee-deep in clovers and lupines this year. When I drive our country roads, I feel like I’m driving in England.

This year I began playing with the flood waters in our main stream. I’ve avoided that in the past, feeling any such efforts are wasted. In my book, I write that if I move far enough upstream, I will find a place where I can shift the balance. That shift will then begin transforming "enemies" into allies. So I have consciously stayed upstream of the main streambed. Also, it’s really hard to tell if one’s work is making a difference in the main stream because several years of moderate rains can make you feel like you are reducing erosion and then one intense flood with exponentially greater power comes along and dramatically undoes in a few hours that which you prided yourself helping build up over several years.

But this winter, I went down to the stream during very high water and this time I saw patterns in the flow that invited interactions. Any structures I create during very high water will survive any lower water flood so this winter’s high water became an invitation to come wading within the floods and rake wing dams onto the heads of point bars. This different work led to different thoughts, some of which now follow. They won’t flow sequentially: I’m still working on them. This whole section might be obscure to all except those of you working with streams.

There is a spiral of cause and effect between stream velocity (at a particular point), stream substrate, and vegetation. Fast moving water will transport away all but the larger cobbles. It’s very hard for plants to get established along these stretches - at least here where we receive almost no rain during a 5-6 month summer period during which temperatures regularly are in the 90’s and occasionally the 100’s. Large rocks have very little surface area for holding on to water. Between them are large air pockets that dry out roots.

As stream velocity diminishes, smaller particles also drop out. This can fill the pockets between cobbles with sand. This diminishes the drying out and increases the water holding capacity. Some plants can gain a foothold here. In slower areas, silt can settle - and probably also seeds judging from the abundance of plants that grow in these areas. The silt stays moist and squishy for weeks after the rains because the small particles hold onto water more strongly than larger sandy particles.

This is where we get into interesting feedback. As plants get established, they can slow the water further, leading to deposition of smaller particle size which increases the moisture holding capacity of the streambed thus fostering greater plant growth. - which increases the erosion-buffering capacity of the streambed.

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As a stream flows, the erosive power of the water converges and focuses its power on one strongly scoured spot. Then the power diffuses (during which it drops some of its scoured load). Then, later, the water converges again. Back and forth goes this flowing water dance.

I believe this dance involves a fascinating feedback spiral between the power of the water and the shape of the streambed. The power gathers together and scours the channel deeper. But the deeper channel offers less resistance and so water can flow faster so more water can move through that area so the area gathers the water. Did the water flow shape the streambed or did the streambed shape the water flow?

Similarly, downstream of these scoured areas, the water’s power moves apart again. As a consequence, rocks drop out. They pile up to form an underwater alluvial fan. The shape of this fan spreads the water out. Again, does the fan create the slowing of the water or does the slowing of the water create the fan?

And then what if I join this dance by wading into the high water and raking into existence rock channels that exaggerate the spreading influence of the fan? Two effects I can imagine. One is that finer material will settle out between the rocks, making the fan more solid and resistant to future erosion and also making it more hospitable to plants (which will help make the fan even more resistant to erosion). The second is that the fan will build up a bit higher which will pool more water after the flood, making more groundwater available for the plants growing afterwards. Both these imagined effects suggest that such work could make these fans more resistant to future floods so that “100 year floods” won’t create as much erosion as they would without such work.

I’m noticing more and more of these alluvial fans in channels of all sizes (from inches to many meters). They split the main channel into several parallel channels. The streambed takes on a convex cross-section that spreads the water out. I am noticing that the terraces on either side of an eroding gully often retain the remnant shape of this convex cross-section. This leads me to hypothesizing that the streams around me were once alluviam-filling, high watertable, riparian bottomlands. I imagine that historically, probably with grazing, a more concentrated converging channel has been eroded into this shape so that this spreading topography is now perched a few feet above a converging topography and the watertable has been drained down several feet. If so, then there exists the intriguing possibility that if the eroding channel can fill in with a few feet of material, then the waters will be able to access the broader, diverging bottomland and a very different hydrology begins to happen: one in which water flows broader and slower, erosion is reduced, and a rising watertable supports more plant growth all along the stream.

One tricky thing in thinking about such things is that stream channels are “four-dimensional”. When I sit in the dried streambed of an ephemeral stream, it is easy to see the cross-sectional area of the streambed and think of the stream in that way. However, “discharge” is the key concept shaping the streambed and that involves stream velocities which involve change through time. The deeper channels, for example, do more than hold more water. Their deeper water is usually moving much faster than the shallower sections. So the actual amount of water flowing through the deeper channels is far, far more than the stream cross-section would imply. So, if for some reason, that deeper channel fills in, more than simple displacement of volume occurs. The displaced water will have to flow slower and therefore must spread out over a broader area than one would initially think.

What do interest rates do to housing prices?

Being in the midst of a “hot” real estate market led me to an interesting shift in perception. I always thought of the monthly payment on a house as being derived from the price in relation to interest rates. However, the chatter I hear around me is of “getting in”. If one believes that the price of real estate is going to always be going up so that real estate is a good investment, then price becomes irrelevant. The critical thing is the monthly payment, “getting in”. In this case, the price is derived from the monthly payment in relation to interest rates.

Though these two relationships seem mathematically equivalent, they are psychologically very different. In the first situation, when interest rates go down, the monthly payment will go down. In the second situation, when interest rates go down, the total price will go up. If one is in the second situation, then it becomes “smart” to invest in real estate when interest rates are going down. This influx of speculative money drives the “getting in” price higher. The “getting in” price starts detaching from the budgetary limits of a working family and starts being driven by investor perceptions of “rate of return.” However as the influx of speculative income drives prices upwards, working people grow psychologically more willing to put a greater percent of their income into a house because (a) the rising prices will evenually allow them to refinance their large debt burden and (b) if they don’t “get in” now, the opportunity to own a home will soon move out of reach. As this working income competes with speculative income, prices go higher.

For the bubble to continue, interest rates can’t rise. If interest rates become steady or even start to go up. then everything shifts. The total price starts to decline. When that happens, the speculative motive for investing in real estate disappears. As that money starts pulling out, prices drop further. When that happens, the consumption driven by home equity loans dries up.

A huge portion of America’s wealth resides in real estate. Economists talk about lower interest rates stimulating the economy but I think what is really going on is the need for lower interest rates to keep the bubble from collapsing. People think the government can control interest rates. But foreign investors are starting to pull their money out of an America that they see as having lost fiscal restraint as this administration pursues tax cuts for its contributors at the expense of the future. This administration talks of being able to control interests rates and being able to lower them still further if they so choose. I don’t think so. There is going to come a time when interest rates have to go up because it is the only way to convince someone else to cover your ballooning debts. And when interest rates go up, I think a real estate bubble will burst. That will create challenging times but the challenge will be easier to meet if we have an accurate understanding of how we came to face it.

1984 Telescreens

My literature class chose 1984 as their last book of the year. Reading it, I’ve been struck by how many of Orwell’s elements are manifesting in our culture, especially since 9/11. I don’t know if it is happening around you but I am noticing more and more TV monitors in public places broadcasting 24 hour news channels. Bank lines, waiting rooms, supermarkets, post offices. Many of them have a political bias. One of them, Fox, broadcasts in a myriad ways the message of “Be afraid.”

Remembering my dad

My dad died last year, as I shared in Cairns a couple of issues ago. I think about him a lot. A month ago, I realized that almost every time I thought about him, I was thinking about the last few months of his life, after his injury from falling. Dad would probably hate that. He was such an amazingly autonomous man that those last few months of significant dependence were hard for him and he would hate for them to be the image that I retained from all the years of our being together. And yet those memories dominate because they were the last. Becoming aware of this led me to resolve last week that it is my responsibility to keep alive all the other memories of Dad in his prime. So when thoughts of Dad arise in my mind - and the image is usually of Dad in those last few months - I am now consciously choosing to actively expand my awareness to other memories. Perhaps conscious decisions like that are part of the process of adjusting to the world flowing on without a loved one.

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Business Stuff

My book, Seeing Nature: Deliberate Encounters with the Visible World, may be ordered from me. Prices are $16 for one book, $29 for two books, $64 for 5 books, or $112 for 10 copies. My movie, Spirals of Hope, is available for $10 ($25 for three) as either a video or DVD. All prices are postpaid and include any sales tax. Mail orders to Paul Krafel, P.O. Box 609, Cottonwood, CA 96022-0609

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© 2003, Paul Krafel, 18080 Brincat Manor, Cottonwood, CA 96022-0609
Permission is granted to copy and distribute (for free) this material as long as you attach this copyright notice and my addresses so that a future reader can track down the source.