Benches

Benches are awesome. If there is one simple object every city should install everywhere, it's benches. Benches allow for people to chill together outside. A good abundance of benches can mean the difference between a country where people go outside and meet one another, and a country where everybody stays indoors playing video games and watching television forever.

 

I think every block should have at least one or two benches. There are several logistical issues which come with benches. In no particular order, they can include:

 

Who will build these benches? What materials will be used? Where will they be placed? Will there be enough shade? What will they be looking at?

 

I propose a few things.

 

First, we should have public workshops in the middle of town where people are welcome to come and participate in carpentry projects. The city will sponsor them. In these workshops, teachers, students, and regular townspeople will come together to build:

 

- Canoes and kayaks

 

- Playground equipment

 

- Musical instruments

 

- Printing presses and more complex tools like pantographs

 

- Sustainable vehicles for enhanced mobility, such as wagons and chariots, and maybe even bamboo train tracks

 

- Furniture: Desks, cabinets, dressers, even design work spaces for the townspeople

 

- Pots, for plants, compost containers, and short barriers, such as around paths and gardens

 

- And, of course, benches

 

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The second big deal is what materials will be used. Wood and bamboo are big ones, and they should be harvested both locally and sustainably. There is a thing called silviculture, which is a fairly ancient method of sustainably harvesting trees. It is related to permaculture, which is a thing everybody should at least know exists.

 

In silviculture, trees are planted and harvested in cycles, ensuring continuous forest growth, and attention is paid to local ecology. Hardwood and native species can be grown on lots within two or three blocks from the workshop. They should be grown on multiple lots, of course - the more the better. Aside from wood, this will produce many benefits to the city, including cleaner air, higher quality of life, shade, fruits, leafy groundcover, better soils, and wildlife habitat. The tree-growing lots can also function as parks, full of paths and benches. Using deciduous trees in colder climates will ensure that people will be able to sit in the sun in winter, and in the shade in summer. The Earth is quite the engineer, when you think about it.

 

Many cities are beginning to plant trees around the streets, which is excellent, but some problems arise. One problem is that sometimes cities will plant trees without paying attention to whether or not they are invasive. Another problem is monoculture - sometimes the city will plant exactly the same tree way too many times when others can be used. Another, specifically for fruit trees - which should be planted in absolute abundance everywhere possible - is that fruits can fall down and splatter all over the street. Eventually, with some good design, we can progress to the point where cities are entirely pedestrian and have no need for cars, but until then, it is not that easy to plant as many fruit trees as we should. Planting them in parks should eliminate this problem. If the fruits are heavy maybe the trees should have nets or something to catch the fruits.

 

As I mentioned in another article, some cities (Buenos Aires in particular, but maybe some North American cities, too) have an abundance of Fraxinus pennsylvanica, a very short-lived tree with a thirty to fifty-year lifespan. This creates an opportunity to harvest these trees every now and then.

 

As we begin to harvest our own wood and produce our own benches, we can start to improve the city. More benches will bring more people outside and encourage human interaction. Strangers will meet. Neighbors will get to know one another. It'll be great.

 

 

This image is from the Public Bench Project, a project in San Francisco which is making benches. Good job guys.
 

Who cares about Alaska?

Everyone cares about Alaska!

First of all, Alaska is awesome. It's this enormous territory almost free of humans, except for a few cities and villages, and a lot of mining activity.

Okay second, it's cold. I am from a subtropical climate, and I adore the cold. It reminds me of leaving home, and getting away from the heat.

Third. It's mythical. Alaska man, you know? Actually, I have been there twice. It is quite a place.

Fourth. Have I already included mountains? Plus, its proximity to Asia. And the wildlife. Wildlife is a veritable fifth (actually first) but I'll let it slide. The wildlife in Alaska is absolutely awesome. There are foxes, moose, there are rivers, I bet they have beavers, wolves, bears, insects, permafrost... and the plants! Alaska is full of awesome plants. The ecosystem there tends to be boreal, I guess, and into tundra, which is a breathtaking landscape. It is important not to walk around on tundra too much because the plants there are very sensitive so it is best to form a line, or a path, and keep using the same one for centuries. There are also several groups of indigenous peoples in the region. These peoples have amazing art, histories, and understandings about the region, in some cases. There are also "Europeans" there, or "Euro-Americans." There are probably many different groups - maybe even black people - and one can probably go on the first Wikipedia page and it will give you all those statistics. In fact, "Alaska" is a topic I may read about this week.

Alaska also carries a unique global position at the top of the Pacific Ocean. To its south is Antarctica, the South Pacific, Easter Island, Poleynesia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Hawai'i; to its east, Canada; to its west, Russia; to its southeast, Japan, to the southwest, Cascadia; and further along, Australia, Chile, Mexico, the Koreas, Peru, New Zealand, coral reefs, volcanoes, the Submerged Continent of Zealandia (actually exists, Google it), whales, dolphins, and a huge plate - from the perspective of Alaska, the entire Pacific Ocean is a pond.

Alaska's strategic location is further strengthened by its relative obscurity. Nobody suspects Alaska. People who want to conquer the world routinely forget that Alaska exists. Russia didn't even want it. Alaska's reputation - or lack thereof - protects it from the huge crowds of people which have ravaged similar places, like Charleston.
 

Alaska also has very unique sports. One unique Alaskan sport is dogsled racing. Dogs generally enjoy running, and as long as all animals are treated with respect, dogsled racing is a fun and exciting pastime, as well as a great strategy for advanced mobility. Down in the "Lower 48," dogsleds have been retrofitted with bicycle tires, to create an obscure sport known as dryland dogsled racing (Attachment 1). The dogs in the photo look similar to pit bulls. Could you imagine riding around with a bunch of pit bulls? Nobody would fuck with you. You would be gooning.

 

Alaska also hosts the highest mountain in North America, Mount Denali. Named by an indigenous group, Denali is white and creates its own weather. There is a higher mountain in Argentina, which is the highest mountain in the Americas. Both mountains are part of a long mountain chain which more or less circumnavigates the Pacific Ocean. In North America it is the Rockies. It travels down through Central America, into Colombia where it becomes the Andes. Then it circles back up around through Antarctica, underneath the ocean as the South Pacific. Then it travels up China, Japan, maybe the Philippines, and back into Alaska through Kamchatka. Mountains are a lot of fun. Being from a flat place, I've come to really admire mountains. One day I want to climb mountains, especially forested ones. Down in the Andes, the mountains are forested on one side and dry on the other side (Attachment 2).

 

Alaska also, of course, plays a major role in climate change. Being at such a high latitude, Alaskans will be the among the first to see major fluctuations in weather.

 

Alaska is also a big deal in the mining industry, which ultimately creates major problems for everybody. Industries of all kinds are eyeing Alaska's fragile ecosystem and open plains, wanting a piece of that action. Alaskans are under increasing pressure to fight back against these interests with their false promises of long-term wealth. Hopefully the people of Alaska will be able to preserve much of its biodiversity and cleanliness into the post-industrial age.

 

Alaska also has great potential for permaculture. Sustainable horticulture and applied ecology have a lot of potential in Alaska's landscape. Alaska also provides great options for mobility across long distances, by land and by sea. Also, lots of people who live in Alaska don't even own cars. They just own small propeller airplanes to get to and from work. That sounds made-up, but it's true. Google it.

 

At Alaska's northern coast is the Arctic Ocean. This ocean is home to awesome dudes such as polar bears, walruses, and narwhals. Here you can see different animals who have traveled through Alaska at various times, back and forth from Asia to the Americas. And here you can read about the Great American Biological Interchange, which occurred when Central America formed and joined the two continents, opening fifty million years of isolated evolution in South America.to the world.

 

So that is a short list of people who care about Alaska.

 

The City Government has planted many specimens of Fraximus pennsylvanica around on the sidewalks.

These trees have a thirty to fifty-year lifespan, according to Wikipedia. They appear to be between ten and thirty years old, in general. They have beautiful "helicopter" seeds which actually twirl around on their way down. These trees have a lifespan of maybe forty to ten years left.

 

The City will have to deal with two issues, as these trees begin to die out. Actually, three. So far. First, what to do with the dead trees? I recommend: Harvest them. Harvest the wood, and make a lot of benches. One or two trees could probably make hundreds of sheets of paper. Do they make inks? Fruits? Let's find out! The trees are native to North America.

 

Second: There will be hundreds of spaces opening up as the trees are harvested. What to put in these new spaces? Okay, this leads us to the third issue.

 

Third, either (a) re-establishing the populations of Fraximus pennsylvanica, or, (b) planting new, additional species. The new species should be limited to (in order of general importance): (1) being native or non-invasive to the region, (2) ability to survive in the region (a given for natives, but climate change will require experimenting with other climates), (3) useful in some way: providing tools, fruits, foods, shelters, wood, firewood, wood products, inks, dyes, playgrounds, and so on.

 

I have attached a photograph of Fraximus pennsylvanica from Google images.

A cool landscape

This is in Telluride, Colorado. It would be cool to fly through there, or to live there and explore the place, or to plant some apples or whatever grows there. Native plants, too, if there are any missing.