Floods in Germany and Japan. Record-setting heat domes. Fires in Turkey, Greece, Siberia and all around me in Northern California. Tornadoes in December. I want to describe what I think is happening with ”jerk”, a term used in the last chapters of my online book, Roaming Upward. There it was abstract, not specific. But now, these recent specific events might make it easier to think with the term “jerk.”
I see climate change as an emergent property of an unsustainable culture. We have to change direction but how do we do that? This question leads me to use two of Newton’s Laws of Motion somewhat metaphorically.
A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force (which includes friction). A body at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an external force.
Force equals mass times acceleration. (F=ma)
I think of our current organization of humanity as “the body in motion.” The implication of the first law is that nothing changes unless there is a change in the forces so we need to change the forces that drive our current organization of humanity. The second law, F=ma, links force and acceleration. If we want to change the forces propelling our current organization of humanity, we will be working at the level of acceleration. Acceleration is a change in velocity. Velocity is both the speed of an object and the direction of its speed. Therefore, a change in velocity can be either a change in speed, a change in direction, or a simultaneous change in both. We are most familiar with acceleration as a change in speed (especially while accelerating in a car, train, or plane) but I’ll be focusing on that other part: a change in direction.
In physics, there is a mathematical “cascade” from position to velocity to acceleration. A car is at one position at one time. Later, at another time, it is in a different position. The average velocity is the change in distance between those two positions divided by the change in time between those two positions. (If the distance was 60 miles and the amount of time the change took was one hour, you would come up with 60 miles divided by one hour which we pronounce as 60 miles per hour. That’s the speed and if we included what direction that speed took, we would have the car’s average velocity.)
So: Position
Velocity – Change in position divided by change in time
We can do the same mathematical thing to velocity to get to acceleration. The car at one time has a velocity of 0 mph. Ten seconds later it has a velocity of 60 mph. If we divide the change in velocity (60 mph) by the time needed for that change (10 seconds), we end up with an average acceleration of 6 mph per second.
Acceleration – Change in velocity divided by change in the amount of time needed to create that change in velocity.
According to Newton’s law, it is down there at the level of acceleration that forces do their work. (I say “down there” to imply a certain invisibility. That’s because it is easy to see a car’s position and it is easy for us to see its velocity as it changes its position. Acceleration is harder to see; it takes more time to see.
Position
Velocity – Change in position divided by change in time
Acceleration – Change in velocity divided by change in the amount of time needed to create that change in velocity.
I loved this cascade when I learned it in my introductory physics course. Position down to velocity down to acceleration.
A body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by a force. Since we don’t like the current motion of our culture, we need to change the forces acting upon it. We need to steer in a new direction. If we change the direction of some of these forces, we are creating a change in acceleration.
A change in acceleration over time should set up the same mathematical cascade, dropping to an even lower level below acceleration. I don’t remember anything from college about a level below acceleration but when I looked it up, there it was and it has a wonderful name for itself: Jerk. I love “jerk” because that is what you experience when a smooth acceleration changes. Think of shifting gears in an accelerating car. In the time during the gear shift, you experience a mild jerk forward and then backward. Or driving over a road full of potholes. Jerk occurs when there is a change in either amount or direction of the force that is driving the current acceleration.
That is what is happening now globally. Increasing global heat energy is altering the magnitude and direction of the seasonal forces that have underlain and maintained our world’s climate that we’ve been assuming as stable. These changes in forces create jerk. The Earth is jerking us in ways we’ve never experienced before. Hundreds of millions of people are being jerked out of climate complacency. They might have felt secure until 17 inches of rain fell in a single day, washing them away. People are starting to understand the implication of climate science’s predictions: following years will jerk us even more severely. It might keep getting worse throughout our lives unless something is done and maybe even that won’t be enough.
I was jerked a few Februaries ago when a wobbly polar vortex from the north collided overhead with a warm wet storm coming from the south. It started as a gentle snow around 9 PM. I awoke at 3 AM to our dog barking at the sound of evergreen live oak branches cracking every minute under the weight of wet snow piling up on them. I woke in the morning to an alien landscape. Hundreds of branches had cracked and tipped downward, creating the structure of well-laid campfires that, come summer, would carry fire quickly up the dead, summer-dried branches to create a devastating crown fire.
All my “free time” for the following five months involved dragging and burning branches before the wildfire season arrived. Brush dragging jerked me hard. I had written about climate change for decades. I had deep confidence in the science. Alysia and I had done many things to reduce our carbon footprint like solar panels but the aftermath of that storm smacked me down to a sweaty, tired, hands-on level where a significant part of my remaining life span was spent doing something I had no warning I would have to be doing.
Alysia’s sister and her husband lost their home in the Paradise fire, escaping with only two vehicles, their dogs, and their computer hard drives. They and tens of thousands others fled to the valley floor. It’s been very hard on her sister but they had homeowner’s insurance. They have rebuilt. Its construction was delayed and more expensive because of lumber shortages but they will be able to return, albeit to a sadder, gap-riddled Paradise. What happens if mega-fires continue year after year? I find myself losing faith in a previous assumption that the forests will grow back in forty or fifty years. Young plants are dying around us, desiccated by our record-setting summer heat. We had to erect shade cloths over much of Alysia’s garden to prevent her plants from withering in 115˚ air. Some of this summer’s fires burned so hot they burned the roots of the trees. What if the forests can’t grow back? What if the supply of lumber dwindles as the need for rebuilding burned homes grows year from year? Tens of millions of us in the urban/wilderness interface seeking refuge in the valley towns but with nothing to rebuild with. In ten years, I can envision sprawled congregations of tents or metal storage containers (assuming metal storage containers will be available?) – broiling in daily summer temperatures of 115˚, millions of people pushing north.
Jerks of weather are increasingly severe, jerking hundreds of millions of us out of the unconscious acceptance of cultural paradigms (like forests will grow back) we were born into: paradigms that guide and constrain our sense of what we should be doing with our lives, paradigms about what we are capable of and what is possible. We find ourselves in unfamiliar, disturbing terrain. We start questioning what we are doing with our time here on Earth. Getting jerked out of our cultural paradigms starts changing the direction of the forces we exert within our daily lives. Changing the direction of our force is, by definition, a change in acceleration which, by definition, is a jerk in response to the initial jerk. The world jerks us and we, in response, create additional jerks in the collective forces that shape the organization of humanity.
Jerk is down deep in the cascade of change. Mathematically, the rate of jerk is small compared to velocity and acceleration and usually transitory but if sustained, it accumulates greater and greater power as it ripples up the cascade of acceleration like a tsunami through velocity to position. The math of that accumulation is so great, we don’t know what is possible. That is the main message of this article: the accumulative power of sustained jerks is hard to reckon. And sustained jerk is the situation we are in.
Scientists are predicting that the consequences of unheeded climate change will accelerate, snowballing through a growing series of feedback loops. So each year, each season, parts of the globe will be jerked, harder and harder which will create greater and greater responsive jerks in our life energies..
This doesn’t make me feel secure or confident but it also keeps me from sinking into despair. More and more people are experiencing the effects of climate change. More and more people now know it is real and, accepting that, wondering why our species is, thus far, incapable of surmounting its challenge. We increasingly share observations and questions.
I’ve learned that “magic” lies in responsiveness. The power for change is proportional to how responsive the system is. It’s what I love about roaming the land. Each step changes my view which can change where I place my next step. The more responsive I am to every step, the more beauty I walk within. Or when eyes make contact and a wordless energy of understanding shines between them. Or dancing in which leader and follower swirls back and forth. Or teaching that grows powerful by responding to the questions and emotions of the learners. I dig my diversion channels in the rain because the runoff quickly responds to each trowel thrust, guiding my trowel along a highly efficient contour line with an accuracy that only the flowing water can enable. In such responsive situations, change can happen so much deeper and so much faster than we realize.
The power of responsiveness does not comfort me because these powerful “dances” can spiral upward or downward and the Second Law tilts the balance towards the downward spirals. Food riots, suppression of dissent, civil war, rape of Gaia and plundering of the Commons are possible. To spiral upwards requires work – and wisdom to guide that work. Life has evolved wisdom over its hundreds of millions of years’ dance with this planet. I’ve described one example in Roaming Upward.
“A raindrop possesses a high amount of potential energy, thanks to the sun’s energy evaporating the water and lifting it higher within the earth’s gravitational field. Up there, its distilled pureness is so highly reactive that it starts dissolving carbon dioxide as its falls through the air. As the drop falls, some of its potential energy becomes kinetic energy that comes to a splatting stop when it hits the ground.
“If the rain falls faster than the soil can absorb (inflow greater than outflow), then some of the rain starts to puddle and then run off. Its potential energy starts transforming into kinetic energy again. As it converges with other runoff and flows faster, ever more of its potential energy becomes kinetic energy to erode soils, to tumble rocks down streambeds, to cut gullies. It can start the whole downward spiral I knew from Kiet Siel.
“But if the water soaks in, its energy creates a much more energetic soil chemistry. Within this “broth”, roots absorb soil moisture, some of which is pulled up through the plants’ veins and into the leaves. In the leaves, this moisture can follow one of two creative pathways.
“The first path is to be transpired as water vapor back into the atmosphere. Leaves spread water molecules through a thin but broad, energy-absorbing surface. Some of these molecules evaporate, carrying heat away from the leaves which prevents the leaves from overheating. This allows photosynthesis to proceed at maximum rates while also increasing the rate at which the fallen rain is recycled back to the sky. Transpiration was never mentioned when I learned a simplified water cycle in fourth grade. But when I, as an adult, looked at the measured numbers of the actual water cycle, several amazing truths emerge.
“The blue-grey numbers reveal that more than 90% of the water that evaporates from the ocean falls back into the ocean before it ever reaches land. (413,000 cubic kilometers per year evaporates from the ocean / 373,000 cubic kilometers of it falls back on the ocean per year.) Water is heavy and it is hard to move it over great distances.
“A second truth (red numbers) is that approximately the same amount of moisture that falls on the land (40,000 cubic kilometers per year) also flows back to the sea per year. Inflow and outflow are in balance for the ocean/land interaction.
“The magic lies in the evaporation/transpiration numbers (green numbers). Only 40,000 cubic kilometers of water per year come from the ocean and yet 113,000 cubic kilometers falls upon the land. That additional 73,000 cubic kilometers per year (65% of the total precipitation) is the water being recycled again and again back up into the clouds.
“The thin, broad surface areas of leaves has tremendously increased the rate at which fresh water transpires back into the sky. This brings me back to my Glacier Bay question: “How did the emergence of Life onto land change the land?” In this case, the emergence of life onto land has evolved canopies of leaf surfaces that almost triple the amount of rainfall the land receives. The amount of precipitation coming directly from the ocean is only about 11 inches of rain per year on average, barely enough to sustain desert grasslands. A wise biosphere hangs on to that precious gift. Life recycles it through the leaves and now the land receives around 27 inches per year on average, enough to support forests. Life recycles the rain, creating more rain that nourishes more plant growth which transpires more rain. It’s a reinforcing feedback spiral until it reaches a dynamic equilibrium. Our environment is not a given, fixed and unchanging. It’s in dynamic equilibrium with the Earth and Sun and with all the life that both depends on it and helps sustain and increase its vitality.
“The second path that water flowing into the leaves can follow is into photosynthesis. The energy of sunlight powers photosynthesis, the rearranging of six water molecules and six atmospheric carbon dioxide molecules into a high-energy sugar molecule and a by-product of six molecules of that way-out-of-thermodynamic-equilibrium atmospheric oxygen (O2) (what most life needs to breathe).
6 CO2 + 6 H2O + solar energy → C6H12O6 + 6O2
“Each sugar molecule contains chemical energy. Some of the sugar molecules will have their energy tapped, step by incremental step, within the cells to fuel the growth and maintenance of the plant. Some of this energy will be stored for later use, either by the plant or within its germinating seeds. Some of this stored energy will be eaten by animals and will power the food pyramid.
“But the pathway for sugar that constantly delights me is that in which hundreds or thousands of sugar molecules are brought together to form cellulose, the building blocks of cell walls that will create surface areas. Through photosynthesis, formless liquid water and formless carbon dioxide gas combine into sugar molecules that can then create solid surfaces from cellulose. Many rates of flow are proportional to surface area. By creating solid surfaces, plants have the power to change the world in so many ways.”
This upward spiral between plants and fresh water of life has almost tripled the amount of fresh water on land. This spiral suggests a similar approach for the flow of money within the economic culture of humans. Much of what becomes money begins within the Commons. The recycling dance between water and life suggests a similar dance between the money flowing within a culture and the Commons. True wealth comes from The Commons so keep recycling the money back into nourishing The Commons so it grows ever more productive and develops more pathways by which more upward spirals are nourished. By wealth I mean more than money. A culture rich in hope, for example, has a wealth of creative participation whereas a culture rife with exploitation or corruption ekes by on coercive participation.
Discussions on altering money flows are often seen as attempts to take money from some to give to others. (Not necessarily from rich to the poor. Regressive taxes and tax shelters take from the poor and give to the rich.) Altering money flows is seen as a zero-sum game in which one side must lose in order for the other side to win. But recycling the money high in the drainage is different. The goal is not to take money from some people to give to other people. The goal is to increase the wealth within the entire system. This reminds me of a lesson taught me by flowing water: “offer a new path before opposing the current path.” With climate change looming, it’s easy to be swept into opposition against fossil fuels, billionaires, political corruption. But opposing creates resistance. Better to turn the water onto a better path.
What do I mean by a “better path?” Rain falling on an undisturbed slope has its downward plunge deflected and scattered with each collision with a leaf. By the time it reaches the grass, the rainwater slides down a stem and touches absorbent topsoil. Much of it soaks in. On the other hand, all the rain falling on impermeable pavement immediately starts flowing across the pavement. It quickly converges with all the other runoff. As the runoff converges, it deepens, speeds up and exponentially increases in erosive power. Which is better, the power of rain to soak in and nourish more soil or the power of rain to wash away topsoil to the sea?
Similarly, if we pave the economy with corporate stores that try to maximize profits for shareholders by minimizing the money to the workers in those stores, then much of the money within a town will flow away within a few transactions to corporate headquarters in large cities. The money converges and looses its ability to nourish the Commons as it flows away to stockholders who “invest” in overpriced art locked into climate-controlled storage containers in duty-free ports. It’s a clever investment strategy for a zero sum game where one person wins and the entire Earth loses. There are far better paths for life on Earth than that. We can do better than that if we allow the wisdom in the Commons to rejuvenate our imaginations.
Part of the challenge for our imaginations is what I call the profit-driven economy. Most people work for wages in jobs that can exist only if the employer makes a profit with which to pay the wages. We need the wages to pay the rent or make the 20 years of mortgage payments. Many of us have been focusing our life forces on doing work that creates profits for ourselves or someone else. Profit is not necessarily bad (though prioritizing it can lead one to avoid the cost of maintaining The Commons). For many of us, debt, wages, and profits form an economic Gordian knot that binds us to the present path, that resists any deviation from the current momentum. And it is not just workers. Many of the wealthy are even more bound by leveraged investments (such as in fossil fuels) . How do we change course?
Much of the work that needs to be done for the Commons does not create a profit so it tends to not be done. For example, the work of chipping dead trees to reduce catastrophic fuel loads in forests does not create a profit. It only reduces liability and future expenses – which makes it worth doing but still does not make a profit. The expense of this work of reducing future liability and expenses is an example of infrastructure work that government should be doing. Though governments often talk about it, they tend to avoid raising the revenue needed to fund it.
People pay for the work now but the benefit lies in the future. Therein lies what I think of as a lobster trap (easy to enter but difficult to escape) for civilization. Why should I pay for work that benefits someone else in the future? And others in the past asked why they should pay for work that would have now been benefiting me. The work doesn’t get done.
The underlying reality is that upward spirals require work, require sacrifice, a giving of oneself to something other than oneself. But if you put yourself first, then you can get more. You can have more than others. And that is the second lobster trap. Because of time lags, it is possible for a culture to embark on paths that provide rich rewards in the short run but will eventually collapse the culture. Exhausting the top soil until it can no longer produce much. Overfishing the oceans until stocks dwindle. Corrupting politics until there is nothing left to believe in, nothing to summon people to work together.
Not willing to do the work that benefits others. Focusing only on short-term benefits (quarterly earning reports). If we as a species learn to recognize and avoid these two lobster traps, then we can leave behind many thousands of years of rise and fall of empires, wars that destroy so much in pursuit of short-term gains. Beyond that lies a whole new territory for humanity. That is the new path being offered by climate change. As climate change jerks us harder and harder, can we respond with our own jerks towards upward spirals of nourishing the Commons, not giving in to a downward spiral of fear of others taking from us? Do we repeat our history yet again or do we learn and set a new course?
Below are two pieces that fit with this article. On the downside is this article from The Guardian that packs many of the challenges of climate change into one dense, somewhat grim article. (If the link doesn’t work, you can email me and I’ll send you a PDF of the article.)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/capitalism-is-killing-the-planet-its-time- to-stop-buying-into-our-own-destruction
On the somewhat upside is this that I received from Michael Furniss, a kindred spirit I am just getting to know, just starting to work with.
In October of 2018, hydrologic engineer Mark Weinhold and I went to the Republic of the Congo at the request of the US State Department to help discern solutions to a severe gullying problem in the capital city of Brazzaville and neighboring towns. What we saw left a mark on us, so we continue to work toward a solution.
We were blown away when we saw how large, active, and serious the gullies were, threatening the very existence of this city of millions of people. The city and surrounding area are built on rolling sand deposited by the Congo River at the Malebo Pool. Across the mighty Congo River, in the “other Congo” — the Democratic Republic of Congo — The capital city of Kinshasa is built on the same rolling sand and is suffering the same destructive gullies, and is also asking for help. These two cities are transforming from livable to uninhabitable badlands as hundreds of these gullies advance.
Here are just two examples of the giant gullies, the result of development that creates impervious surfaces that concentrate runoff.
The good news? This can be solved.
Local Congolese experts at the University know how the gullies work and what needs to be done, but it took outside consultants like Mark and me to trigger the politicians to address the problem at the source before both capitals are rendered uninhabitable. So, we have described the solutions, and have made sure the responsible officials listen to their own academics and get organized to effect the solutions.
Vegetation and added debris cannot stabilize these giant gullies. The tropical storm runoff that drives the gullies must be captured before it flows across these super-sensitive slopes. The sandy soils that engender the erosion problem also hold a lot of the solution– they are highly permeable and can accept the runoff with simple vegetated detention basins. There are several ways to detain, spread, slow, and sink the runoff, and they are feasible with focused and smart efforts. One essential measure is to capture roof runoff and detain it during storms. This is a big job, but looks feasible with the right combination of technology, social buy-in, and very modest amounts of funding. Mark has designed a simple, low-cost, 3D-printed gutter clip and rain catchments that will detain the runoff as well as provide much-needed water storage for chronically water-short households … A big win-win.
A non-profit has been set up to help get this done:
The Terra Firma Rainwater Collective We have participation from many key folks and agencies at this point. Now the TFRC needs a modest amount of funds to lead the way on the technologies and engineering solutions.
Please give this short film a watch and consider chipping in some green energy to help this ailing part of the world and lift its suffering people to a better life and future.
==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj9VnvuGGNM
You may donate here: https://fundrazr.com/TerraFirmaRainwaterCollective?ref=ab_4hGbAOt4TTR4hGbAOt4TTR
Thanks very much and may you have a great 2022.
—Michael J. FurnissAdjunct Professor Department of Forestry & Wildland Resources Humboldt State University MJ Furniss & AssociatesSacred Family Groves project 01-707-616-5254
More detail for erosion geeks (2018 outbriefing): https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1J_Jcm0fN5Z3FDdziU95Ddv0CTkvh2ShOWwsY6hnSAvI/edit?usp=sharing
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