LSA News

No. 82, June 2007

If you have anything you want in the next newsletter, send it to lsaweb@lists.uoregon.edu .

Index Our Living History: Campus Tree Walk by Laura Damiani Dreaming at My Desk: Heat Wave by Harriett Smith May Tea Honors Former Employees Life Interrupted: the Sentence and Stigma of Mental Illness by Jennifer Rowan Answers to "Fact File" Events of Interest Announcements People in the Library

Raina Smith serves cake at the May Tea photo by Jen Lindsey

Our Living History: Campus Tree Walk

story and photos by Laura Damiani

Whitey Lueck presents a giant sequoia

It was one of those afternoons we Oregonians dream about all winter long. (Well, except maybe the allergy sufferers!) It is the time of the year we start to bounce off the walls with spring fever, when we would rather be outside than anywhere else. On this particular day in early May, the lawn in front of the library could have been mistaken for a beach with its flying frisbees and scantily clad sunbathers. Luckily, library staffers got to escape the daily grind of being trapped inside and join in the outdoor fun by attending an LSA Program Committee sponsored campus tree walk with landscape architecture professor and arborist Whitey Lueck.

Whitey has led LSA tree walks in the past and they always prove to be a popular event. To keep things interesting for those who have attended his walks before, he mapped an all new route for this occasion. He began by sharing a few historical facts about the surrounding landscape.

European beech cultivar

We learned that for thousands of years before European settlers arrived, Native Americans had regularly set fire to the valley floor to maintain a treeless landscape, which they found desirable. In the 1840s, the local area was mostly treeless prairie except for trees growing by the Willamette River including cottonwoods, maples, alders, firs and scattered trees in the surrounding hills including oaks and a few conifers. The land upon which the university was built lies is on a rise overlooking the downtown Eugene area. The view is now obscured by all the trees. At the time the university was founded in 1876, the only trees on campus were two Oregon white oaks near Villard Hall, one of which still stands today. All of the many other trees we now enjoy were planted after the founding. The campus now has a mix of native and exotic species from around the world creating what is considered an informal arboretum.

In the short hour that we had, we viewed an interesting mix of trees that were well representative of the variety found on campus and were kept entertained with interesting facts and stories about them. A few of the many beautiful and unique trees we visited included a Japanese maple in front of Johnson Hall. This type of tree is common in the Willamette Valley but is of course a native of Japan. With its cascading and uniquely shaped maroon leaves this particular tree has been left to grow in its natural state with its branches and leaves reaching down to the ground and thus creating a magical space inside under the cover of the branches. The tour group filed inside for a peek. We also learned about a very rare cedar of Lebanon tree by Friendly Hall. This true cedar hails from the Middle East and is pictured on the Lebanese flag. Two other very majestic trees we saw included a giant sequoia south of Deady Hall and a very large Douglas-fir near the Robinson Theater. Giant sequoias can live from 1000-2000 years. The Douglas-fir is our state tree and is loved by people and squirrels alike. The last tree we viewed was an absolutely glorious European beech cultivar on the southwest side of Johnson Hall. A very tall and robust tree with unusual springtime coloring, its leaves are shades of orange and gold with the sunlight shining through like stained glass.

(story continued)

Dreaming at My Desk

by Harriett Smith

Heat Wave

Many of you are used to seeing my colored Christmas lights year-round. People tend to check to see if they are lit, in order to tell if I'm in the office. But on May 29, I took them down.

In last month's LSA News, I mentioned the problems Australia's farmers have been facing as they try to cope with crippling drought. This month I have taken down the lights and turned off my space heater, which means you'll be seeing me around the office in a coat since the HVAC is apparently not working correctly (has it ever?). Although I have spent my adult life trying to be conscientious about energy use, recycling, and so on, I have ramped it up after reading Mark Lynas' Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. If you followed my link to the article in the UK Guardian last month to read about "Six Steps to Hell", this is the book that article was based on.

Also on my reading list over the Memorial Day weekend was Elizabeth Kolbert's Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, which grew out of a series of articles in the New Yorker. The library doesn't own Six Degrees yet; I had to get it through interlibrary loan. We do have Field Notes, at KNIGHT QC981.8.G56 K655 2006. We also have Lynas' first book, High Tide, at KNIGHT QC981.8.G56 L98 2003. It too is grim, heavily-footnoted reading.

Each book looks at the current state of research into climate change. Kolbert's is written in a more "popular" style. Lynas' are more obsessively thorough. All point out the same things that many scientists have been pointing out fruitlessly for some time now: we have affected the climate, the changes are now under way and visible, those changes are not small in importance, and their effect on humanity will not be benign. We are devastating the natural world upon which we depend for survival. The amount of carbon dioxide and methane currently in the air is higher than it's been for 650,000 years, yet many of us continue to live as though this doesn't matter.

When I say "we", I'm referring primarily to the "first-world" countries. We have led the way in fossil fuel use and in living unsustainably. But right behind us are coming up a host of other countries, like China, who see how we live and want the same. (China is actually set to outpace the rest of the world in pollution before too many more months.) For those of us who have children or grandchildren, or who dislike thinking of Earth becoming the second Venus in our solar system, this is a sobering thought, and these books make sober reading. Their conclusions, based on current science, are depressing. For anyone who loves the beauty of the natural world, wants to work for the betterment of their fellow humans, or just dislikes the idea of widespread starvation in sweltering conditions, the time for personal and political action on this issue seems to be overdue. Our actions over the past century have already doomed certain species, islands, and rivers to extinction.

As I write this, the news is that my country's current administration has, in the lead-up to the June G8 meeting, opposed the draft proposals on greenhouse gas emissions by Germany. The BBC online reports that "Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to use Germany's presidency of the G8 to secure a major climate change deal, including: agreement to slow the rise in average temperatures this century to 2C, a cut in global emissions by 50% below 1990 levels by 2050, [and] a rise in energy efficiency in power and transport by 20% by 2020." But, "White House aides have made clear Mr Bush will oppose demands for the US to cut emissions and join a global carbon trading system". Continuing his administration's policy of lip-service and foot-dragging, Bush doesn't want to set "goals" til the end of 2008, and insists that technology will solve all the problems. China, India, and Russia "had also expressed their own reservations". Great Britain, as a small island already noticing the impact of more flooding and the movement of species, seems to be far more aware of the urgency than the United States. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands floating houses are being built. They aren't designed to stand up to the hurricane-like storms that some predict will become more common in Europe, however.

According to Lynas' research, as reported in the Times Online,

When temperatures were last between 1 and 2C higher than they are now, 125,000 years ago, sea levels were five or six metres higher too. All this "lost" water is in the polar ice that is now melting. Forecasters predict that the "tipping point" for Greenland won't arrive until average temperatures have risen by 2.7C. The snag is that Greenland is warming much faster than the rest of the world—2.2 times the global average. "Divide one figure by the other," says Lynas, "and the result should ring alarm bells across the world. Greenland will tip into irreversible melt once global temperatures rise past a mere 1.2C." The ensuing sea-level rise will be far more than the half-metre that the IPCC has predicted for the end of the century.

We last saw temperatures 2C higher than today's about 3 million years ago. Our very distant ancestors were alive back then. Given the destructive nature of our species, I'm not sure whether to hope our descendents will still be around three centuries from now. The problem is, so many other species may be gone by then too, along with much of the beauty of this earth we have taken for granted.

Lynas and Kolbert point out that we still have a very small window of opportunity in which to prevent global warming of 2C or higher. On June 7, 2007, climate change and what we can do about it will be the topic of discussion at a free event on the UO campus. It sounds like it will be interesting and informative. See Non-LSA events below.

The Basics of Climate Prediction
Some climate change myths from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre, an excellent source of information.
marklynas.org
A map of Global Warming: Early Warning Signs
A "Climate Map of Europe 2071" showing where some European cities would be located on today's globe with tomorrow's temperatures
Billions Face Climate Change Risk and Climate Change Around the World from the BBC online
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

A handy-dandy Carbon calculator

Some links detailing what you can do about global warming on the personal level:
Union of Concerned Scientists
Stopglobalwarming.org
About.com
Ecobridge.org
Time Online has ideas for 51 Things We Can Do to Save the Environment. They don't put a lot of emphasis on political action but do have some handy suggestions.

Senator Gordon Smith's page
Senator Ron Wyden's page
Congressman Peter DeFazio's page

May Tea Honors Former Employees

photos by Jen Lindsey

The annual May Tea honoring recent library retirees and former staff took place on May 16. This year’s honorees were Charlotte Conlin with 23 years of employment, Aimee Yogi, retiring after 35 years, and Tom Matney with 7 years. Unfortunately, Tom was ill and could not attend, but was later fêted by his department with a separate reception. Cake and punch were served and beautiful spring flower bouquets were provided by Victoria Mitchell and Marilyn Mohr. Many thanks go out to the LSA Social Committee for hosting yet another lovely May Tea.

Aimee Yogis enjoys the celebration	Faye Chadwell, Charlotte Conlin, Pam DeLaittre, and Megan Dazey reminisce

(click here for more pictures from the event)

Life Interrupted: the Sentence and Stigma of Mental Illness

by Jennifer Rowan

But the celebration was shortlived. Within two months, Eve had fallen into severe depression. She completely withdrew from friends and family, hid in a dark room or closet and would not eat, sleep, change her clothes or answer the phone. By September, her parents were so alarmed at her deterioration that they brought her back to Portland where she began to exhibit symptoms of extreme psychosis. As she was technically a legal adult, her parents could not force her into treatment; they watched helplessly as she quit their house and began living on the streets. It took a tortuous series of psychotic episodes over the next few months before Eve could be institutionalized. She was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder, but resources and support for those afflicted with a mental illness in Oregon are woefully inadequate. No Portland psychiatrists were accepting new patients, and it was some time before outpatient treatment could be arranged. With psychiatric counseling and medication, her condition slowly stabilized, but it was heartbreaking to see this lovely young woman whose personality had been engaging, intelligent and vivacious now so foggy and slowed by medication that she could not follow nor contribute to a general conversation.

(story continued)

Bonamici proves "streetwise" in newsletter contest

In our last Fact File contest, we asked you to identify famous streets and avenues whose names denote more than just a postal address. Three staff members correctly named all ten from our list of clues; by random drawing, Andrew Bonamici, of Library Administration, was picked as the winner of a gift certificate worth $10.00 toward purchases at the UO Bookstore. Let's sound the klaxon for Andrew, and also for Dvora Robinson and Kay Brooks who also scored perfectly in our contest!

The answers:

1. Broadway
2. Fleet Street
3. K Street
4. Harley Street
5. Main Street
6. Quai d'Orsay
7. Downing Street
8. Madison Avenue
9. The Beltway (Capital Beltway)
10. Wall Street

Allium Cristophii
by Laura Damiani

Events of Interest

As well as featuring upcoming LSA events, we'd like to get the word out about events staff are involved in that might be of interest to co-workers. If you'd like the world, or at least your co-workers, to know about something cool coming up, please email Harriett Smith or lsaweb.

LSA EVENTS

Tuesday, June 19, 2007: The 4th Occasional Tofu Challenge will feature UFO TOFU at noon in the Beach Conservation Lab. Save the date, look for more information about special guests and prizes, and don't miss the passing of the torch!

NON-LSA EVENTS

Thursday, June 7, 2007: Why are we failing to respond adequately to climate change? What can we do to really make a difference? These are some of the topics explored in Professor Peter Walker's Environmental Sciences class, "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Nature and Society" this spring. The class will conduct a free "teach-in" on climate change from 7 to 9 p.m. in 100 Willamette Hall. Global Warming: What You Need to Know, What You Can Do will feature UO President Dave Frohnmayer, who recently signed the University Presidents' Climate Commitment, Mayor Kitty Piercy on the Mayor's Climate Challenge, Prof. Pat Bartlein on climate science today, Prof. Greg Bothun on alternative energy, Law Prof. Mary Wood on climate policy, as well as information from the class on what we can do.

Announcements:

Are you a party maven? Do you have a flair for food, decor, or details? The LSA Social Committee is avidly seeking new members to help with the annual May Tea and Holiday Potluck events. This friendly and fun group of people would love to be joined by some new people with good energy and ideas. Email Raina Smith or phone her at 6-1837 for more details or to join.

People in the Library

edited by Jen Lindsey

Welcome:

Staff announcements and photos by Jen Lindsey unless otherwise indicated

Last updated: 5 June, 2007
lsaweb@lists.uoregon.edu