Appalachian Murder Ballads
I was standing in the rock garden last night sometime well after dark, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Geminid meteor showers. Chaco the dog, something of a mut with obvious guard breed in him and a penchant for scaring the postman so bad he now carries an air horn with him at all times, was snuffling about in the dry leaves near the edge of the fern bank, the cat was watching it all from a perch by the garbage cans at the corner of the house his big ole moon beam eyes reflecting the little blue lights that rim the house for the Christmas season.
A Chilly December Morning in the Rock Garden
I usually pop on the blog to say happy solstice, but this year I have some business to attend to this holiday season so this may be the last post of the year.
A friend asked me the other day what my generations discussions about climate change look like, she is a good bit older than me and definitely in a different generation. I thought about it for a minute, and I had to say honestly, we talk mostly about how it’s the next generations problem. Since historically generations pass problems down to the next the same way a university professor passes knowledge down. Now don’t get me wrong, I think some of the boomers did something when they learned that the climate was changing due to the planet wide burning of fossil fuels. In the tiny bit of spare time I make I have been restoring a 1967 International Harvester Company Scout 800, same rig that they drive down to that ill fated canoe trip in the movie ‘Deliverance’, they are actually filling it with leaded gas in the famous dueling banjos guitar/banjo duet scene. Open the hood on that truck and it’s just an engine, no EGR valves, no catalytic convertors, evaporative controls, or air injection systems that make modern cars less polluting. Credit has to be given to the folks that started the process of the Clean Air Act under president L.B. Johnson as early as 1963. But the major change agents would come with revisions to the act between the late 1970’s through the 90’s. Our generation (Gen X) has made contributions, despite electric vehicles having been a real and actually practical thing as early as 1890! Google William Morrison for more on that. Our generation adopted the battery, we started using walkmans as soon as they were invented, and then we had discmans, we went from acid to alkaline, to nickle metal hydride, to lithium and cobalt and so on and so on. It's my generation that has had to face the true gripping reality of climate change, since we were the first generation to have the power of computers and the models they can generate, we watched the waning of the analog and welcomed the digital. With all it’s grim realities. We were also exploited as a generation by the horde of corporate profiteers who bought there way so firmly into control of the American political system that to believe your vote will make a difference at anything other than figurehead or overlord level is meaningless, but that is really another seperate and equally frightening discussion. The next generation will undoubtedly have more tools at their disposal, with the advent of AI and machine learning, possible solutions to the changing climate may become a reality as the desperation of the situation sinks its’ dire wolf size fangs deeper into the collective consciousness.
Climate Battery Greenhouse Construction
So in my tiny little corner of the world, I’m trying to do something that might make the slightest, little change. I’m building a Climate Battery Powered greenhouse to be the main propagation house at the nursery. Most greenhouses that are heated in Oregon, burn propane or natural gas, as the liquified dinosaurs and tree ferns of the Jurassic exact their toll on our ever warming climate. A climate battery utilizes the magic of phase change from liquid to vapor and back again to drive the Climate Battery, or Subterranean Heating and Cooling System (SHCS). The system functions like a simple refrigeration system, moving heat from one place to another. In the greenhouse, we pump the hot air from the days heating into a serious of pipes buried deep underground at the relatively stable soil temperature level. During the cool of winter, we can then reverse the simple solar powered fan at night to pump the warm air from the soil back into the greenhouse to heat it and avoid the use of fossil fuels to keep a stable growing temperature. The soil acts as our battery, storing the difference in temperature to be used as needed. A small fan is all that is needed to keep the system running.
The new propagation house at Illahe will continue our goal of being a leader in environmentally sensible nursery design, by utilizing the Climate Battery Concept of ground source geothermal heat reserve heating and cooling.
If you ask me it’s up the billionaires to tackle the environmental problems on a global scale, since they exploited our working class labor to their never ending gain, but until the massive greed is cauterized in this country the tiny little business like mine operating on a shoestring budget that may never find profitability with the current inflation rates, has to the agent for change. Stay tuned for updates on the build project as we break ground on the Climate Battery. If you like the idea and want to help support it hit me up. It takes a village and with the billionaires acting like the village idiots currently focused on a space race, maybe we can come together at the bottom of the ladder and build something that works for the future generations.
Appalachian Murder Ballads
If you don’t hear from me on the Solstice, I’m probably taking a break from building a climate battery greenhouse and standing in the rock garden looking for shooting stars, humming the fiddle line to an Appalachian murder ballad while the dog snuffles about in the leaves and the cat watches it all from the perch on the garbage can.
Have a very merry Holiday season!
Mark