Would it really hurt?

Even if you would want to argue that we're not the worst invasive species the world has ever experienced, and if you want to deny that we are responsible for environmental devastation and climate change,  you can not deny that we play a significant role.  We dump 717,500 to 1,242,500 tons of trash into landfills each day.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area of ocean between California and Hawaii that is filled with mostly plastic garbage is now 600,000 square miles and still growing.  That is twice the size of the state of Texas.  The US alone emitted 5.14 billion tons of CO2 in 2017.  In 2009 the EPA reported that Chromium-6 is prevalent in at least 35 US cities' drinking water.  In 2017 it was found in the drinking water of over 200 million Americans.  Need I continue?   

We do know that mass extinction is cyclical.  What we are doing is bringing about the next extinction at a staggering rate.  

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that humans aren't making as big an impact as we think.  Would it really hurt us to stop filling our world with garbage?  Would it really hurt to stop being the cause of  the extinction of thousands of species of life each year?  Would it hurt us to stop making our air unbreathable?  Would it hurt us to stop polluting our water and killing our land?  Would it hurt us to leave our children and grandchildren a world that is as clean and beautiful as the one we inherited?  

The problem with glass and recycling

We had friends for dinner and the evening and enjoyed these two bottles of wine. Today I'm facing the sad reality that these bottles will probably end up in a landfill. What a waste! What a horrible contribution to our environmental crisis.  What can we do?

     I don't really expect a definitive answer to the question because there are so many variables and problems. Recycling is great but does take tremendous energy and does pollute. Better than most options, it still isn't the best. Selling wine in other types of containers such as aluminium or plastic isn't really viable because they have the same problem as glass -disposal.  Any form of recycling requires extensive energy and has unavoidable pollution.  

    Of course, one of our biggest disposal problems is the great number of people who dispose of anything by such simple methods as putting it in the back of an open pickup truck bed and driving down the road. "Oh, did that fly out?"  Litter doesn't get there on its own.  Currently we 'officially' create 4.1 pounds per day per person of trash. That's about 717,500 tons a day.  Unofficially the number goes as high as 1,242,500 tons of trash per day.  The Great Pacific Garbage Patch off the coast of California is 600,000 square miles or twice the size of the State of Texas.  But we all know these problems.  

    When I was a boy we could make a little money by collecting "pop" (soda, coke) bottles and turning them in at a grocery store.  Back then bottles were sterilized and reused.  What a novel idea.  What modern ever thought of reusing anything. We're a throwaway society because that's what makes the giant corps and one-percent richer. And we know that we want to make them richer, don't we? 

    When my children were young we had a large garden. We filled 1,000 Ball jars with food each fall. The jars were saved, washed and used many times over their life.  Who woulda thunk it?  

    Yes, such a uniquely old fashioned idea would cost money and it would cut into the profits of the super-rich, but it could help us deal with our environmental disaster.  

The Hills are Alive with the song of the Carolina Wren

When I am sitting at my writing table I am less than twenty feet from a bird feeder.  The birds don't seem to pay any attention and the feeder is generally busy with quite a variety of birds.  Today I was sitting at my writing table when my attention was caught by the most beautiful song.   I looked up to see a Carolina Wren sitting on the suet feeder singing its heart out.  The song was loud and strong and I'm sure it could be heard at quite a distance.  Watching the lovely bird feeding in our meadow somehow made me think of Julia Andrews singing "the hills are alive with the sound of music."  

    You know, a lot of people poke fun at that scene from the movie Sound of Music.  I really don't know why.  Besides being a magnificent setting, it is a nice song.  What made me think of the song was not only the Carolina Wren at our feeder but also a country song that I had just heard where it spoke of the mountain sky at night being black.  That song writer had never been in the mountains on a moonless night. The sky is a mass of stars. You can even see the Milky Way.  

    So what do these things have to do with each other?  They point to a sad reality.  It seems that so many people really don't see nature.  They don't hear the marvelous song of the wren because they don't get outside or those who do carry devices to play loud rock or rap totally covering up the sounds of nature.  There's no wonder so many believe there's nothing to hear in the wilderness.  They don't see the unbelievable night sky on a moonless night because they never get away from city lights so they assume that the sky in the mountains would be black.  When was the last time you saw someone stumble as they walked because they were looking up at the sky?  No, they probably stumbled because they were looking down at their cell phone.  

    The song writer for Sound of Music was right. The hills and indeed all of nature is alive with the sound of music.  It's there for you. You merely have to stop and look and listen.  Maybe a Carolina Wren will sing for you.  The sights and sounds of nature can revive you and give you hope. 

Picture: I didn't have a camera handy. Thanks for this pic to backyardbirdingblog.com  

#birds #environment  #oldconservationist 

Wilderness is not a renewable resource

This quote makes a simple but very fundamental and important point that we should cherish and protect the wilderness.  In doing so it side-stepped a fundamental flaw in human thinking; viz that wilderness is a resource.  Since there is no way that the author of this statement was going to convince modern homo sapiens that wilderness is not a resource, he focused on the fact that, were it a resource, it is not renewable. The end result is the same.

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Resource is more than a late-twentieth and early twenty-first century buzz word.  In our super capitalistic society everything is a resource.  A resource is "a stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively."  (Google dictionary)  It all goes back to money.  When your employers says that you are their most valuable resource or asset; since asset is a synonym; it means you are theirs to use to make money.  But we're not here to talk economics.  In fact, the reality of the capitalistic use of the word resource is central to the problem.  Capitalism treats everything like a resource.

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You are not a resource unless you are okay with slavery and accept that you are controlled and exploited for someone else's financial gain.  The wilderness is not a resource.  It does not exist to be controlled and exploited for anyone's financial gain.  The wilderness is actually what is left of the way Earth developed; the way it existed for billions of years before the homo sapiens. Made up of a plethora of ecosystems, which together we call nature, the Earth developed a balance which enables and promotes the perpetuity of life.  When some event disturbs that balance, nature must adapt.  The problem we create for this phenomenal and complex system is that we destroy and create a disturbance in the natural balance so fast that nature isn't able to adapt quickly enough. Our arrogant attitude and behavior toward the Earth results in the extinction of thousands of species of animals, most of which play an important part in the balance of nature. As Chivian and Bernstein write in their book, Sustaining life: how human health depends on biodiversity,   "Although extinction is a natural phenomenon, it occurs at a natural 'background' rate of about one to five species per year. Scientists estimate we're now losing species at 1,000 to 10,000 times the background rate, with literally dozens going extinct every day." (i) (ii)

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Then we have to consider what we are doing to plant life. We are destroying the world's forest at. the rate of 58 million square miles every year.  That's an area 14.5 times larger than the entire United States, or 48 football fields every minute. (iii)  How long can nature survive under that type of onslaught?  Currently only about a quarter of the Earth's land surface is wilderness and only 13.2% of our oceans are "free from intense human activity." (iv)   Only five percent of the United States is wilderness and the State of Alaska is three of that five percent. (v)

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Wilderness is not a resource there for us to use to make money.  Even if you want to believe that the wilderness is a resource, you can not deny that it is not a renewable resource.  Once destroyed by human arrogance it is gone forever.  When you clear millions of square miles and replace the natural ecosystem with factories, buildings, houses, roads, farms, plantations, mines, stockyards and other human amenities,  the wilderness will not come back until the humans are gone.  It is going to take millions of years for nature to recover from the damage we've done even if we stop being destructive today.  We have to admit, that for the sake of the earth, it would be better if we were to be extinct.  Sound harsh?  It is just basic fact. Nature has the power to eradicate the human infestation.  That may be its way of adapting and fighting for survival if we don't change our behavior.

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The only way we can make a difference is through our individual behavior.  We must cherish and protect the wilderness. We must fight for the wilderness for our children and their children.  Nature is not, as the super-capitalist would have us believe, a problem, resource or something to be controlled.  Nature is our source of life.  Nature is our hope for the future.

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"The wilderness is essential to our existence and our survival. The wilderness is not a renewable resource. Once it is destroyed by human arrogance, it is gone forever.  Therefore it is up to us to cherish and protect it."

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FOOT NOTES:

(i)  Chivian, E. and A. Bernstein (eds.)  2008. Sustaining life: How human health depends on biodiversity. Center for Health and the Global Environment. Oxford University Press, New York.

(ii)  https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_crisis/

(iii)   https://curiosity.com/topics/how-fast-are-humans-destroying-the-worlds-forests-curiosity/

(iv)  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness#Conservation_and_preservation_in_20th_century_United_States

(v)  https://www.wilderness.org/articles/article/wilderness-designation-faqs

 

 

#wilderness  #saveourplanet  #nature  #oldconservationist