Monthly Archive for April, 2006

The smell wheel?

Published on April 27, 2006 in Community and Mysteries. 0 Comments

Today I learned the most amazing fact: there is a counterpart of the color wheel for the sense of smell. Thanks to Maria Sparsis of Tea and Chi (the friendly tea shop downstairs from my office in downtown Vero Beach, Florida) for this Deep Insight.

In her words, “Cinnamon oil is the opposite of dead. And, grapefruit is the opposite of mold.” Odd choice, you think? Not. We have a dead rat rotting somewhere in the inner recesses of our old building, and needed a landlord-free, quick-fix. It worked, too, though how remains a mystery.

Hidden wires of the ecosystem

Published on April 27, 2006 in Environment, Mysteries and Science. 2 Comments

Ecosystems ecology and population genetics have had a fundamental disconnect since both fields were created. Early ecologists who used the term ecosystem (Tansley, 1937; Lindeman,1943; Odum, 1952) had nothing to say about the genetics of the populations that were included in their conceptions of ecosystems. And, likewise, population geneticists who were forging the so-called “evolutionary synthesis” had a notably ecosystem-free view of nature (Dobzhansky, 1943; Fisher, 1932; Mayr, 1943; Lack; 1947; Simpson, 1944).

Disciplinary biases and blind-spots are typical. The gene-free ecosystem and its counterpart, the ecosystem-free evolving population, have both survived remarkably well down to the present. Each has played an important role in the development of related sub-disciplines of biology, and each has had its own distinctive history disconnected from the other.

Ecosystems ecology remained untouched by the evolutionary synthesis. To the extent that the notion of ecosystem evolution was explored by ecosystems ecologists, it was framed in terms of information theory. This approach led its proponents into realms of theory far removed from either the biology of organisms and populations, or the interests of non-systems oriented biologists, including ecologists.

Ecosystems ecologists understood information in terms of either entropy, energy, or computer control theory. The revolution in bacterial and molecular genetics, propelled by the elucidation of the structure of DNA (Watson and Crick, 1953), had virtually no impact on ecosystems ecology. Thus, the emerging view that information was contained in nucleotide sequences of DNA and RNA, was not extended to ecosystems. The implications of this limitation were, and are, far-reaching.

Outside the domain of ecosystems ecology, ecosystems were generally viewed as non-evolving. Hence, their status as units of biological organization was somewhat problematic. At a time when evolutionary theory was making great strides at the molecular and population levels of organization, population geneticists and evolutionary biologists were pretty much silent about ecosystems. Some denied that ecosystems even existed, much less thought that they evolved.

Did the secondary informational network or “hidden wires of the ecosystem” that Odum and Patten posited refer to wires in the sense of electrical wires, as in a vast computer, or wires in the sense of a puppeteer running a complex show from above?

How to stop dumb growth

Published on April 18, 2006 in Community, Environment, Growth, Mysteries and Sustainability. 0 Comments

Concerned citizens stand up to oppose dumb growth in their town. That surely has a familiar ring. Local chapters of environmental groups, like Audubon Society and Sierra Club, assorted nimby groups and others, often respond to growth-induced challenges. Respond is the key word.

All too often in the drama of local land use planning, substantially affected citizens find out about what’s happening to their community, the plot, only in the final scene. And that is what makes the Bee Gum Point initiative different.

A group of concerned citizens in the Town of Indian River Shores, Florida (next to Vero Beach, on the Atlantic Coast), has organized and mounted an active opposition movement to a future development before it has specific site plans, and before its necessary environmental permits have been applied for.

These forward thinking activists have been busy making a buzz by talking up how this development threatens their environment and their quality of life. They have sent letters, written a brochure for targeted mailing, and have a media management plan. The bottom line: they intend to get out in front of the developers, frame the issue, and shape community opinion and action.

Again, they are doing this before specific development plans for the environmentally sensitive land, Bee Gum Point, have been submitted. They have an articulated plan that has stages, and professionals on retainer to back them up. I’m one of them.

I wonder: are there other groups of concerned citizens who are tired of the “too little, too late” approach to opposing dumb growth? Is there a market out there for ethical environmental professionals to serve?

Joint fact finding and spin

Published on April 14, 2006 in Community, Governance, Growth, Mysteries and Sustainability. 2 Comments

Multi-stakeholder groups advising local governments on growth issues can have a potentially important role to play in opening, or sharing, governance. They function all the better if joint fact finding is on their agenda. Agreeing upon a shared foundation of information to be used for decision-making is a desirable goal for groups that otherwise may be polarized, pulling this way and that.

Being an “expert” serving such a group has its “special challenges,” however. One of the more common problems is how not to have one or another stakeholder group hold you and your information hostage until they feel assured that what you and it say supports their interpretation of the facts, and their overall position. Since all multi-stakeholder groups are comprised of disagreeing interest groups, the danger is that any one of them can try to stop progress if they feel threatened. That’s what I learned in school today.

Southern whites migrating again

Published on April 11, 2006 in Mysteries. 0 Comments

I know, I know. It’s the butterflies, stupid. The Southern White butterflies are starting to fly north along the Atlantic coast of Florida, as they do every April. An amazing scene: masses of white confetti flitting and winging on spring winds. Where do they come from? Where do they go? And, how is their passage timed just so?