"You don’t have to be a genius to understand that if these negative environmental trends continue, and we go on with business as usual, we’re toast. The energy guru Amory Lovins [chairman of the Rocky Mountains Institute] was once asked about how to think outside the box, and he said, ‘There is no box.’ That’s exactly the thinking we need to deal with these new problems. The kind of thinking that got us into the mess we are in is not the kind of thinking that is going to get us out. The exciting thing is that we are beginning to see people think about renewable sources of energy on a scale that we have never seen before. I find that very exciting." Lester Brown*
Well, Lester. I found that very exciting as well. Until last April. Until I realized that just because there isn't ‘a box,’ doesn’t mean there is an answer. There will be no justice for the Gulf of Mexico. It was our responsiblity to listen, watch and learn. To navigate and align ourselves with natural systems design to ensure the survival of all creatures on this planet-sized Petri dish. Our home. The only one we have to nest in. And we blew it.
We used to have an old-fashioned phone tree set up back on the Bolinas Mesa in the 90s. Some rancher on the ridge'd catch sight of a bobcat or a mountain lion crossing his turf and call the next ranch over. Many's the time I recall stopping off to pick up my daughter at Vanishing Point Ranch to see Sally Stearns Peacock, thumbs hooked in her breeches, gazing off across the Niman Schell's field -- which ran straight to the ocean -- in search of some huge cat. Never did stop to wonder if she'd head in for a shotgun if her horses or the kids were threatened.
What I do remember though, as if it was yesterday, is chatting with my next door neighbor Jack one evening, after the most recent sighting. He is sipping a glass of home made red as the sun sets still in an eerie spray of orange behind the Agate Beach Bluff. And me sayin' how if it came down to it, I'd move before I'd support taking a mountain lion out.
"They're hungry," he says. "They're searching for food. It isn't their natural habitat."
A newly released study tries to quantify the rate at which global warming is moving across the world, and shows that the average ecosystem will need to shift a quarter of a mile each year in order to stay in its ideal temperature range. Scientists at a group of institutions in California note that creatures in flatter areas, including coasts and deserts, will have to move even farther, up to a kilometer a year, in order to stay ahead.
Of course, plants and animals have been adapting to changes in their environment for thousands of years, through both evolution and migration. However the newly released models show that many species in as many as one-third of the habitats studied will be unable to keep up with the projected rates of change. An even more serious issue, and one that cannot be ascribed to natural forces, is the fragmentation of so many natural habitats by human activity. Many animals and plants seeking cooler areas will be blocked by fences, roads, farms, and other barriers. The study's authors note that the provision and expansion of wildlife corridors and reserves and other assistance to plants and animals may be required to preserve as much of the planet's biodiversity as possible.
Maybe its a year or two later. I'm writing a story on birding for the Sunday supplement of our county newspaper. Chatting it up with a locally esteemed birder when he starts talking about deforestation in the Amazon and how every bird comes home to its very own tree after migrating each year. If the tree's gone, they got nowhere else to call home. It's a surefire death, he says.
And then there'd be that secret Monarch butterfly grove up behind my house, alongside one of several secret staircases Jack built over the years. We're talking twenty years ago here. A huge cypress tree, its bewildered bark and branches swimmin' with hordes of wing-batting butterflies. Haven't visited that tree in maybe ten years now. But in Pismo Beach's Monarch Grove butteryfly count twenty years back, there were 230,000 Monarchs. Ten years ago, the number dropped to 40,000. This past year? 26,060.
Damn.
As if saving the beauty of earth's plants and creatures weren't enough of a reason, a new U.N. report quantifies the economic case for restoring the world's damaged ecosystems. Wetlands treat wastewater; crops depend on the pollination of bees; tropical forests remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere--each ecosystem service contributes a vital and uncounted contribution to our wellbeing and that of future generations, yet every year the press of human activity is destroying the very systems upon which life on earth depends. UN Environmental Program (UNEP)'s Dead Planet, Living Planet showcases 30 initiatives that are transforming the lives of communities while restoring ecosystems around the world.
Pre Deepwater Horizon
The State of the Birds- 2010 Report on Climate Change
All 67 oceanic bird species, including albatrosses, petrels, tropical terns, tropicbirds, frigatebirds, and puffins are vulnerable because of their low reproductive potential, use of islands for nesting, and reliance on rapidly changing marine ecosystems. Seabirds such as Laysan Albatross and Bonin Petrel that are restricted to nesting on low-lying islands are in danger of losing their breeding habitat as sea levels rise. To provide oceanic bird populations with the best chances of adapting to climate change, we must reduce existing threats from overfishing, fisheries bycatch, and pollution. We must also take proactive measures such as removing invasive species and protecting existing or potential breeding colonies on high islands.
Sea Level Rise and Increased Storm Activity Threaten Coastal Birds
Rising sea levels are expected to inundate or fragment low-lying habitats such as salt marshes, sandy beaches, barrier islands, and mudflats. Increasing frequency and severity of storms and changes in water temperatures will impact quality and quantity of coastal habitats and alter marine food webs. Beach-nesting terns, highly specialized Saltmarsh Sparrows, and birds dependent on marine waters are among the most vulnerable species. Migratory species such as shorebirds are also vulnerable to changes in stopover and wintering habitats. Conserving coastal habitats will require planning and management to facilitate birds’ movement and resilience.
Disappeared. Just ... disappeared
I am reminded of a comment by Lester Brown about the 600,000 climate refuges living in post-Katrina America: Only 300,000 of the 1 million who fled the region after the levees broke returned home.
Exactly where have all these people gone? Lost in the perilous quagmire of 21st century America? Fallen through the cracks into oblivion?
Invisible.
Remember that hopeful waiting period after all the disasters preceding this one? That time in between, when we could wait with hope as volunteers and trained rescue teams delved into the rubble to serve up miracles, awing us with the resilience, the fortitude, the selfless heroic aspect of what it means to be human.
The recent horror in Port-au-Prince preshadowed Deepwater. The bulldozers arrived beforehand to shovel god-knows-how-many unidentified bodies into mass unmarked graves. Lost forever. Victims to oblivion. Hidden in the darkness. Faceless.
It is this vision that haunts me. That makes me wonder, what gall we possessed to venture into outer space when we were so utterly severed from the essential symbiotic connection to that which has lived alongside us for millions of years. Just out of eye’s sight, clothed in an equally vast and dense aquatic cover. All those billions of dollars. All the fossil fuels. The mining of resources. For what? A space station? A fleet of shuttles? Thousands of satellites?
Damn.
"The vast nature of the spill means scientists are able to locate only a small fraction of the dead animals. Many will never be found after sinking to the bottom of the sea or getting scavenged by other marine life. And large numbers of birds are meeting their deaths deep in the Louisiana marshes where they seek refuge from the onslaught of oil." Oil Spill Forces Animals To Flee To Shallow Water Off CoastScientists Warn Of 'Mass Die-Off'
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And, in a recent interview with YaleEnvironment360, Marine Biologist Thomas Shirley of Texas A&M University, says most of the damage from the ongoing oil dispersing in the Gulf of Mexico is below the surface "as creatures succumb to the toxic effects of the rapidly spreading tide of oil. We see a portion of the damage and you have to realize that many more of them have died. So, yes, for most whales you’ll never see them if they die."
So the BP Official death toll for Day 63 – 957 dead birds, 387 dead sea turtles, and 47 dead mammals -- tells us nothing, absolutely nothing.
Growing up in the Mongolian province of Arkhangai, Chatrabal Choijamts never imagined he would one day live in the country’s capital. Like his ancestors before him, he was a nomadic herder with nearly 100 cows, sheep, goats and horses.
Then four years ago, Choijamts and his wife had to end their family’s herding tradition. The last of their livestock had died after a series of droughts and dzuds (a Mongolian term for severely cold environmental conditions). In search of work, the family of 12 made the trek to Ulan Bator.
"I saw cattle everywhere frozen solid that were still standing in the fields," says Choijamts. "People were weeping. Without our animals we have no life." link
I used this photo before in a diary I wrote about a year ago, a diary about my love affair with Bolinas. You see, watching the pelicans arrive each summer was as much a part of our life for 20 years as hiding Easter eggs along the secret path down to the beach or rushing to the docks for the first salmon catch of the season. I know these birds. There are a primordial part of my soul.
And so we are both an endangered species. We are the same mass of oil-slicked feathers, struggling to breathe. Batting our wings helplessly against an incoming toxic tide. Sinking. Faceless. Horrified.
Photocredits
White Egret by konaboy
Bolinas Lagoon by konaboy
Loggerhead Turtle Swimming in Oil by Greenpeace USA 2010
Elephants in the Dust by Krazy Konga
*Lester Brown
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