Working with wood; a Gypsy tradition

Photo description: Bottom: Veshtike Rom spatula, Left to Right: Bertike style spoon (oval bowl), Romanian Roma spatula, traditional Gypsy clothes peg (clothespin), Veshtike Rom stirrer, Veshtike Rom spoon (round bowl), Top: Honey/jam spreader (jam spreader does not, actually, have holes)

The Romani People (Gypsies) have had a knack of making a living from many activities in which they used the materials that were and are found in the environment around them, be this wood or others. Some of those activities today have died out, others continue, such as spoon carving and basket making.

Carving spoons, and the making of other kitchen and household items from wood, is just one of them, another is making baskets from osiers (thin branches), grasses and such.

Neither of those activities are invention of the Romani People, that is true, but the Rom carved – pardon the pun – themselves in many places a niche here and then, later, also in the recycling field well before recycling was even cool and a word.

The various different Romani groups, when it comes to carving spoons, and other kitchen utensils, developed their very own styles which, for instance, differed from the styles of the general Russian (and other) spoon carvers and also those of the Scandinavian ones.

On the other hand, however, the Romani craftsmen and even -women, created many of their own designs of spoons and kitchen utensils from wood, such as the stirring woods and spatulas, which are so very different from those that are found in Western Europe per se.

Designs and styles of the spoons vary too from group to group. The Romanian – and “Balkan” in general – spoon carvers make the bowls, while egg-shape, with the point towards the from while the Bergtike Rom in Poland have the “tip” of the egg towards the handle and the Veshtike Rom spoon has a more or less round bowl, similar to those of the Doukhobors (a Russian sect).

It was also the Gypsies, the Rom, who seem to have been the first, though whether it can be proven is another question, to have created the clothes peg, or clothespin, as our American cousins call it. When exactly the current design of the Romani clothes peg, and with that I mean the one made from a stick and banded with tin, has come about I cannot say but it will have been, I should guess, when strips of metal could be found or made.

When it comes to the Gypsy clothespins there are then also at least two design variations, at least among the Romani People in Western Europe, both Sinti relations. The Romanichals in Britain, and from Britain, use a strip of tin, which is affixed with short nails (pins) near the top end, in general, while the Manouche in France tend, at times, to use wire which is wrapped around and tightened with pliers of sorts. The latter version has a slight safety issue in that there tends to be a little bit of wire sticking out to the side.

Among the designs of wooden kitchen tools designed and made by the Rom craftspeople are many that have never been known before as such. The ever so useful stirring wood (stirring paddle, or stirdle, as I have termed it) is just one of them, as is the rather narrower trapezoid shaped spatula, narrower than the traditional Western European spatulas, both of Rom Polska origin apparently.

The Romanian Roma of the lowlands have a different spatula design, which is akin to the stirring paddle but more of a triangular shape, and the honey and jam spreaders, in both design variations, follow the stirring paddle, or the Romanian spatula design, depending on the makers, but are much smaller, obviously.

Other wooden articles were also made by Romani woodworkers and the wooden flasks that were so very common in Romania were, in general, made by very skilled Rom on a foot-powered lathe. Alas, today, there is probably not one maker left and those that are turned out today are badly made in factories.

“Wood, Leather & Recycled” produces wooden spoons and other wooden kitchen utensils, plus some other wooden and carved products, including also Gypsy clothespins.

Wood, Leather & Recycled

Encouraging planting trees will sequester carbon and conserve habitat

by Michael smith (Veshengro)

Oh my G-d! They have needed a university study again to “discover” something that every proper forester has known for ever and a day. They, however, needed a study for it again. Talking about stating the obvious.

Rewarding landowners for converting farmland into forest will be key to sequestering carbon and providing wildlife habitat, according to a new study by Oregon State University and collaborators.

Current land-use trends in the United States will significantly increase urban land development by mid-century, along with a greater than 10 percent reduction in habitat of nearly 50 at-risk species, including amphibians, large predators and birds, said David Lewis, co-author of the study and an environmental economist in OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences.

"One of the great challenges of our time is providing food, timber and housing, while also preserving the environment," said Lewis. "Our simulations show our growing appetite for resources could have cascading effects on wildlife and other vital services provided by nature."

"Policymakers have tools to increase tree cover and limit urban sprawl, such as targeted taxes, incentives and zoning," he added.

Paying landowners $100 an acre per year to convert land into forest would increase forestland by an estimated 14 percent and carbon storage by 8 percent by mid-century, the researchers say. Timber production would increase by nearly 20 percent and some key wildlife species would gain at least 10 percent more habitat, they added.

Yet this subsidy program would also shrink food production by 10 percent and comes with an annual $7.5 billion price tag, said Lewis.

Another policy option — charging landowners $100 per acre of land that is deforested for urban development, cropland or pasture — would generate $1.8 billion a year in revenue. More than 30 percent of vital species would gain habitat. Yet carbon storage and food production would shrink slightly, according to the study.

What is worrying in our age is that we seem to need a scientific study, conducted by some researchers, to “discover” the things that we have, actually, known for a long time already; in some cases for ever and a day.

Foresters through the ages have known the importance of trees and their habitat for the Planet, even though they may not have expressed it, or been able to express this, in a scientific way. But is that really necessary. We need more trees, period! It is that simple. And we need them not just for carbon capture (carbon sequestration) but also for raw materials. After all wood is made by trees and not in some factory.

© 2015

For more on woodland management, especially coppicing and why, etc. see “Managing our Woods”, a small book that explains the whys and wherefores of managing our woods in this way and calls for us to return to that way.

The Carbon Underground: Reversing Global Warming

If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current levels [398 ppm.] to at most 350 ppm " ~ Dr. James Hansen

Since Dr. James Hansen, a leading climatologist, warned in 2008 that we need to reduce the amount of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere to 350 parts-per-million (ppm) in order to preserve life on Earth, little has been done to get us there.

It's getting late. If we're going to preserve a livable Earth, we the global grassroots, must do more than mitigate global warming.

We must reverse it.

How?

Hint number one: not by politely asking out-of-control corporations and politicians to please stop destroying the planet.

Hint number two: not by pinning our hopes for survival and climate stability on hi-tech, unproven and dangerous, "solutions" such as genetic engineering, geoengineering, or carbon capture and sequestration for coal plants.

Hint number three: not by naively believing that soon (or soon enough) ordinary consumers all over the planet will spontaneously abandon their cars, air travel, air conditioning, central heating, and fossil fuel-based diets and lifestyles just in time to prevent atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases from moving past the tipping point of 450 ppm or more of CO2 to the catastrophic point of no return.

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/09/18/carbon-underground-reversing-global-warming

One Weird Trick to Fix Farms Forever

Does David Brandt hold the secret for turning industrial agriculture from global-warming problem to carbon solution?

CHATTING WITH DAVID BRANDT outside his barn on a sunny June morning, I wonder if he doesn't look too much like a farmer—what a casting director might call "too on the nose." He's a beefy man in bib overalls, a plaid shirt, and well-worn boots, with short, gray-streaked hair peeking out from a trucker hat over a round, unlined face ruddy from the sun.

Brandt farms 1,200 acres in the central Ohio village of Carroll, pop. 524. This is the domain of industrial-scale agriculture—a vast expanse of corn and soybean fields broken up only by the sprawl creeping in from Columbus. Brandt, 66, raised his kids on this farm after taking it over from his grandfather. Yet he sounds not so much like a subject of King Corn as, say, one of the organics geeks I work with on my own farm in North Carolina. In his g-droppin' Midwestern monotone, he's telling me about his cover crops—fall plantings that blanket the ground in winter and are allowed to rot in place come spring, a practice as eyebrow-raising in corn country as holding a naked yoga class in the pasture. The plot I can see looks just about identical to the carpet of corn that stretches from eastern Ohio to western Nebraska. But last winter it would have looked very different: While the neighbors' fields lay fallow, Brandt's teemed with a mix of as many as 14 different plant species.

"Our cover crops work together like a community—you have several people helping instead of one, and if one slows down, the others kind of pick it up," he says. "We're trying to mimic Mother Nature." Cover crops have helped Brandt slash his use of synthetic fertilizers and herbicides. Half of his corn and soy crop is flourishing without any of either; the other half has gotten much lower applications of those pricey additives than what crop consultants around here recommend.

But Brandt's not trying to go organic—he prefers the flexibility of being able to use conventional inputs in a pinch. He refuses, however, to compromise on one thing: tilling. Brandt never, ever tills his soil. Ripping the soil up with steel blades creates a nice, clean, weed-free bed for seeds, but it also disturbs soil microbiota and leaves dirt vulnerable to erosion. The promise of no-till, cover-crop farming is that it not only can reduce agrichemical use, but also help keep the heartland churning out food—even as extreme weather events like drought and floods become ever more common.

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/09/cover-crops-no-till-david-brandt-farms

Forest and wood are protectors of the climate

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Within the framework of photosynthesis trees extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thus reduce the CO2 content.

In order to produce one ton of wood trees extract from the atmosphere around 1.9 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) detrimental to the climate and lock up 500 kg carbon in the wood. Thus our woods and forests perform a critical and crucial contribution to the protection of the climate. The proper utilization and development of our woods and forests together with a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions form an important measure in the fight against the greenhouse effect.

Woods and forests give us air to breathe and raw materials for our life. Without forests and woods there would be no life possible on Earth for every human and every animal requires oxygen in order to be able to breathe. A single say 100 year old beech tree produces every year about 4,600 kilograms of oxygen; enough for one adult to breathe for 13 years..

For trees oxygen is sort of a by-product in the production of timber and foliage. By means of photosynthesis the tree absorbs carbon-dioxide and together with water and the energy from the sun turns this into sugar molecules, required for the production of wood. The oxygen left over during this process the tree exhales into the atmosphere while it locks carbon up in its biomass.

Different to most plants trees do not just grow upwards but also outwards as far as the trunk is concerned. Responsible for the growth of the girth of the tree trunk is the so-called cambium, a material that created the cells of the wood. During winter it takes a little break and this can be seen by the growth rings of the tree.

Carbon-dioxide storage with triple effect

Alone in the forests and woodlands of Germany are currently around 2.6 billion tons of carbon fixed in the wood of the trees. This is equal to a sequestration of 9.5 billion tons of carbon-dioxide.

Woodlands and forest play an important role in combating the effects of the greenhouse effect and climate change and in relation to that directly threefold. First they remove carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere and stores it in the wood. This storage is extended, secondly, when the wood is used in new buildings, renovations of old buildings and for the production of furniture where the carbon stored in the timber is then locked in for as long as the timber remains timber and is neither burned or disposed off in the waste stream.

A low energy house built to a great extent from wood, for example, relieves the atmosphere of around 80 tons of carbon-dioxide.

And thirdly does wood, when used in building, replace other energy intensive materials such as steel and concrete which are produced on the basis of finite raw materials.

This means that – and this is the case in Germany and other countries – if our woods and forests are managed in a sustainable manner, that is to say that never more timber is being harvest than regrowth available, the resource wood never going to be exhausted and permanently renewable. The ratio between harvest and regrowth is always regarded to be at least a 1:3 that is to say one felled tree is replaced by at least three new ones, either already growing as natural regeneration or being planted. In fact, the ideal scenario is to plant, in addition to the natural regeneration existing.

Sustainably managed woods and forests make an enormous contribution towards combating the greenhouse effect and climate change through their ability of reducing the carbon-dioxide content of the atmosphere and they are thus protectors of the climate.

We need to manage our woods and forests properly so that not only do they do the job as they do now but to increase the CO2 sequestration by means of trees. The more trees the greater this absorption and at the same time we get wood as raw material.

© 2013

WWF wades in onto carbon capture debate

The World Wide Fund for Nature, once upon a time known and World Wildlife Fund, the world's biggest environmental charity has recently called for a moratorium on new coal-fired power stations in the UK until carbon capture and storage technology has been shown to work and can be installed from the outset.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is the process of trapping a power station's emissions at source and pumping it into suitable underground sites - often the empty spaces left by drilling oil.

CCS can, however, only be seen as a stop-gap solution in the transition to clean energy generation but as yet no large-scale demonstration projects have come to fruition.

In the UK, the government has said that all new coal-fired power stations must be 'carbon capture ready', or suitable for the retro-fitting of the technology at a future date, which effectively means very little.

"Currently, claims of CCS readiness do little more than refer to the need for power plants to leave space on the site for CCS equipment to be retrofitted in the future," said Keith Allott, head of WWF-UK's climate change programme.

"There's no deadline for conversion to full scale CCS, let alone any guarantee that this would then be met. Reliance on an as yet unproven technology, however promising it may be, is a risky business - the future of the planet's climate cannot rely upon good intentions.

"To avoid dangerous climate change, there needs to be a rapid decarbonisation of the power sector and a radical shift in the way in which the UK and indeed the world sources its energy.

"Renewables and greater energy efficiency should form the bulk of that shift, but fossil fuels using proven and strongly legislated CCS could also play a role."

The charity has commissioned researchers at Edinburgh University to explore what 'capture ready' actually means and how best to ensure that readiness translates into action on CCS.

The findings are detailed in a WWF report, Evading Capture.

WWF is calling for the introduction of an emissions standard similar to that already in force in California, which will set legal limits on the amount of CO2 that new and replacement power stations can emit.

While no one seems to talk about it there should be a way, and I am sure that there is, one that would not even involve that mush effort, to make the burning of coal in power station a much cleaner effort. Scrubbers could, for starters, be employed with which to remove the sulfur and other elements. This is already being done in other countries. So if it can work there then it should be able to work here assuming the political will is there.

In addition to that why do we have to use coal anyway in such power stations? There should be, once again with the right political will, for a large number of years at least, enough wood to burn in such station if we would be just prepared to do a “Dutch Elm Disease eradication program”. Such a program would yield lots of seasoned elm wood for such stations, a very clean burning wood of very great heat value.

This, as a stop-gab, during which time cleaner energy still could be looked at, developed and put on stream.

We also, and this is most important, get away pronto from the large electricity generating power stations in this country currently and get over to power generating at a much more local level and that for more than one reason. The studies and suggestions from the book “Small is Beautiful” by Fritz Schumacher should be a guide in this. The floods of 2007 and the fact that those came close to shutting down power for hundreds of thousands should be a reminder of the fact that large power stations are a disaster waiting to happen.

And local electricity generation then gives the chance for clean energy generation at a local level, whether by CHP units, fuelled by wood chips, straw, methane, etc. or by wind, solar and water; all can be used.

Due to the fact that local power generation does not require the long overland lines the power generated can be of a much, much lower AC voltage than what must, by needs, be the kind from the huge power plants.

We must, in everything, and this includes heat and power, think local rather than regional or bigger even. Tine we cut things down to size again.

M Smith (Veshengro), June 2008