What I’m Doing To Save The World
I’ve been ruminating on this question for 40 years, waiting to see the path forward. My lifelong question has been about ethics and what is the right way to live. Dissatisfied with what humans (mostly men) have had to say about ethics, I decided to look to the expert — nature. Jane Jacobs taught me that values come in systems. Her research posited two systems, one for safety and the other for expression. I knew there was another, waiting to be born, so I spent the next 20 years researching. I explored science, systems thinking, indigenous ways of seeing and understanding the world, poets and artists, anyone who spent time seeing and thinking about the natural world. Nature has spent over 65 million years experimenting with life, so I am sure SHE knows how to make it work.
What I learned has been distilled into what I call the Resilient Values set.™ These are four intents and sixteen values /principles/patterns that all life uses to live ethically, on this planet. I have worked with these values for years now, and the spiritual understanding they have brought me has only deepened by understanding and appreciation for nature, humans, and all other living beings. That said, this time, this time when the Earth herself, is working so hard to heal, seems to require new actions, and new ways of being.
The excuse we use to not get involved, the Earth will outlast us, the Earth will continue on after we are gone, is true, but it allows us to abdicate our responsibility and withhold our gifts. SHE will abide, but the real question, is will we? If we want to be here, then we much change, we must do things differently (the values), and we must do different things.
The only place to act is locally, and the only time is now. I live in Spokane, Washington, and I’m working to work with the City of Spokane to become resilient. We are in a purple city surrounded by a sea of red. Therefore, I have chosen to work on soil! We live over one of the largest aquifers in North America. We use more water than most other cities of our size. Like most cities world-wide, we are designed to get rid of excess water. We use about 53 million gallons a year. We are gifted with about 17 billion gallons a year of rainfall. What’s wrong with this picture?
Keeping the water we get, is a rational approach, given the changes in the weather and the real possibility that our normal rainfall may change. What IS changing is snowfall, and much of our water in our rivers comes from that. That, we know, is changing so, our summer water will not be coming from melted snowpack. We need to manage our water from rain very seriously, because of that.
While the aquifer is very important, the biggest storage for rainfall is soil. Living soil (scientists now think that 2/3 of all life on the planet is in the soil) holds water, and releases it, slowly, over time. This allows rivers and creeks to run, even in drought. So, the first order of business is soil and compost is the first, easy step in making dirt come alive. If you wish to speed up the process, or just get better at it, then you can amend the soil by adding specific bacteria and biochar.
Biochar is charcoal created by burning organic waste in a specific way so that it doesn’t burn up, but chars. That char is an incredible carbon sink, and it is porous, so it holds both water and nutrients. This ancient technique actually grows soil and helps soil increase by feet a year. It is possible for individuals to make biochar and biochar can also be made commercially. There is a wonderful company in Oregon already doing this. Going beyond soil remediation, the next step is holding water long enough so that it sinks into the ground.
Landscape design mimics nature. She has already contoured the land to channel and hold water, we make it flat. We can follow what nature did, or if we have already removed that memory we can redesign, in alignment with the natural slope, the land in such a way that water has a place to be. I water sits long enough, it goes down, into the soil and into underground streams and aquifers. This allows streams to run, even in drought.
Did you know that trees make rain? Actually, forests make rain. The transevaporation that trees do by bringing water up and letting it go through their leaves creates that wonderful, atmospheric fog we treasure, and that fog becomes clouds in the sky holding water, which then moves inland and rains. The atmospheric rivers they talk about on the evening news are created this way. That means that deforestation becomes desertification, and that is well documented. The really good news is that, using the Miyawaki Method, it is possible to plant a forest in a day, tend it for three years and then in 25 you have an ‘old growth’ forest. Bang!
These mini forests can be planted in places as small as 6 parking places, so you can put one in your backyard. This is a place where indigenous people can lead, as they have the knowledge of the original plants that make this work. They grow much faster than normally planted trees and by using biochar treated compost, you can speed it up even faster. As we replant forest, we bring back native species of animals and insects that have long disappeared (how do they know to come back?) and revitalize everything around them, while helping to bring back rain. A real win, win, won!
Can I save the world? I can save my part and if enough of us did the same thing…
