Some important things happened in the last couple of months that will impact the pipeline decision. First, the State Dept published the final version of their revised EIR. They accepted comments (millions, twice as many against building the pipeline as for it. Next, they need to report on whether the pipeline would be in the U.S.'s interest, then decide whether or not to approve it. Then President Obama has to decide whether to sign off on it or not. There have been indications that the finsl decision would come by the beginning of May.
But...a couple weeks ago a court in Nebraska ruled that the state's use of eminent domain against some landowners was unconstitutional, because the state bypassed the agency that was supposed to decide the issue. So as of now there is no legal pipeline route in Nebraska, and resolving this will take months, probably many months. More months to fight this thing.
But back to the State Dept. They again concluded that the pipeline, if built, would have no impact on the environment or the climate.
Huh? Leaving the important issue of climate change to other bloggers, let's look at the effects the pipeline would have on wild animals and land, not even in Canada, just along the U.S. portion of the pipeline route.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, there are 10 documented species that would be put at risk. These are: American Burrowing Beetle, Northern Swift Fox, Greater Sage Grouse, Whooping Crane, Black-footed Ferret, Sprague's Pippet (a bird), Piping Plover, Western Prairie Fringed Orchid, Pallid Sturgeon, and the Interior Least Tern. The threats to them include habitat destruction due to clearing the land for the pipeline, new roads and power lines built specifically for the pipeline, light and noise pollution while building it, and human presence in general.
When (not if) leaks occur, direct poisoning of land and water plus additional loss of habitat would further harm wildlife.
Ranchers have already noticed that in areas already affected, the land isn't being properly reclaimed, and invasive species spread.
The power lines deserve a special explanation. A lot of birds fly into them and get electrocuted. Whooping Cranes are particularly at risk due to their size. The power lines would need to be there in order to pump the heavy, sticky tar sands sludge through the pipes.
This is in addition to the destruction in the area of the tar sands mining, and the worsening of the rate of climate change, that the pipeline would enable.
One way that thousands of people are sending the message that, for a whole slew of reasons, building the pipeline is unacceptable, is pledging to get arrested if the pipeline is approved. To sign on to this, go to www.credoaction.com.
For a healthy, diverse planet,
Possum
Friday, March 14, 2014
Monday, December 23, 2013
Poem: Imagined Oil Spill in the Midwest
Floating, floating on the current.
Air pushes my back, pushes me
Toward the next piece of home.
Toward restlessness, old needs,
Toward the timeless endless journey.
Toward birth, new lives growing
Into mastery, into familiarity,
Into the next link.
Midway.
Shimmering lake, red-berried bushes,
Bug-filled mud, cooling water.
The promise of rest and a full belly,
That old-new burst of energy,
Re-ascent into the forever air.
Something is off.
Hot air oddly stagnant.
Black ooze reeking of not-mud,
of not-bugs, of undefined danger.
The silent scream of Don't!
But the body's long memory, exhaustion take over
And it's too late to stop.
Air pushes my back, pushes me
Toward the next piece of home.
Toward restlessness, old needs,
Toward the timeless endless journey.
Toward birth, new lives growing
Into mastery, into familiarity,
Into the next link.
Midway.
Shimmering lake, red-berried bushes,
Bug-filled mud, cooling water.
The promise of rest and a full belly,
That old-new burst of energy,
Re-ascent into the forever air.
Something is off.
Hot air oddly stagnant.
Black ooze reeking of not-mud,
of not-bugs, of undefined danger.
The silent scream of Don't!
But the body's long memory, exhaustion take over
And it's too late to stop.
Whooping Cranes
Tell me what you think of when I say, Midwest. Exotic animals? Five foot tall birds with a wingspan of seven and a half feet flying overhead? That are native to the Midwest? That perform elaborate courtship rituals? I thought not.
You came close to being right. As recently as 1941 there were only 15 whooping cranes left in the world. All current whooping cranes descend from these 15 birds. The population is still very small and highly endangered even as it grows.
The main flock, about 250 - 300 birds, migrate between a wildlife preserve in Texas (Aransas Wildlife Refuge near Corpus Christie) and northern Alberta, Canada (Wood Buffalo National Park), where they breed. In the Spring and Fall they cross 2,500 miles to get to their summer and winter homes. In the winter, in Texas, they fill up on crustaceans, especially blue crabs, enough to prepare them to migrate and give birth to the next generation. During migration they eat insects and other animal protein when the can, though they will make do with grain from agricultural fields if necessary. In summer they eat seafood, make nests in swamps and raise their young. They lay two eggs a season. Usually, only one survives.
Like other large predators, whooping cranes were never numerous. Before Europeans colonized the Midwest there were about 2000 whooping cranes according to the latest estimates. They lived across the American Midwest, north into Canada. Agriculture took away almost all of their preferred habitat. Hunters who sold their feathers for fashionable hats decimated a large part of the population. Interestingly, the other major cause of their near extinction was the collection of their eggs for scientific research.
This flock, the Western flock, is the original, and the only truly wild flock in the world. Scientists worked and work hard to establish other flocks in order not to put all the whooping crane's eggs in one basket, so to speak. They've tried techniques from fostering whooping crane eggs with sandhill crane mothers to using light planes to establish new migration routes. As a result there's an eastern flock that migrates between Florida and Wisconsin and a few non-migratory flocks, but none of these are self-sustaining yet. Some are also in captivity (zoos, etc.). Nevertheless, the Western flock of about 279 birds is the only self-sustaining, truly wild flock in the world. That small number, all migrating at around the same time, is vulnerable and could easily be wiped out by one oil spill.
Unfortunately, the route of the proposed KXL pipeline follows the migratory path of the Western flock from one end to the other. The endpoint of the proposed pipeline route is across Texas at Port Arthur, but the most of the rest is on the migration path. In Canada the same. Currently, their biggest cause of premature death is collisions with power lines.If the KXL pipeline was to be built, there would necessarily be hundreds of miles of pipeline specifically for the pipeline, to power pumping stations. In Alberta the birds travel up the Athabasca River, stopping to rest at Ft. McMurray (ground zero for tar sands extraction) before continuing to their breeding sites, downstream from tar sands mining operations. In addition to the high possibility of spills along their migration route, they are in danger from ordinary tar sands operations.
These birds don't use the oil. How much do they have to sacrifice for our unwillingness to change our habits? How much are their lives worth? The answer is in our hands.
Possum
You came close to being right. As recently as 1941 there were only 15 whooping cranes left in the world. All current whooping cranes descend from these 15 birds. The population is still very small and highly endangered even as it grows.
The main flock, about 250 - 300 birds, migrate between a wildlife preserve in Texas (Aransas Wildlife Refuge near Corpus Christie) and northern Alberta, Canada (Wood Buffalo National Park), where they breed. In the Spring and Fall they cross 2,500 miles to get to their summer and winter homes. In the winter, in Texas, they fill up on crustaceans, especially blue crabs, enough to prepare them to migrate and give birth to the next generation. During migration they eat insects and other animal protein when the can, though they will make do with grain from agricultural fields if necessary. In summer they eat seafood, make nests in swamps and raise their young. They lay two eggs a season. Usually, only one survives.
Like other large predators, whooping cranes were never numerous. Before Europeans colonized the Midwest there were about 2000 whooping cranes according to the latest estimates. They lived across the American Midwest, north into Canada. Agriculture took away almost all of their preferred habitat. Hunters who sold their feathers for fashionable hats decimated a large part of the population. Interestingly, the other major cause of their near extinction was the collection of their eggs for scientific research.
This flock, the Western flock, is the original, and the only truly wild flock in the world. Scientists worked and work hard to establish other flocks in order not to put all the whooping crane's eggs in one basket, so to speak. They've tried techniques from fostering whooping crane eggs with sandhill crane mothers to using light planes to establish new migration routes. As a result there's an eastern flock that migrates between Florida and Wisconsin and a few non-migratory flocks, but none of these are self-sustaining yet. Some are also in captivity (zoos, etc.). Nevertheless, the Western flock of about 279 birds is the only self-sustaining, truly wild flock in the world. That small number, all migrating at around the same time, is vulnerable and could easily be wiped out by one oil spill.
Unfortunately, the route of the proposed KXL pipeline follows the migratory path of the Western flock from one end to the other. The endpoint of the proposed pipeline route is across Texas at Port Arthur, but the most of the rest is on the migration path. In Canada the same. Currently, their biggest cause of premature death is collisions with power lines.If the KXL pipeline was to be built, there would necessarily be hundreds of miles of pipeline specifically for the pipeline, to power pumping stations. In Alberta the birds travel up the Athabasca River, stopping to rest at Ft. McMurray (ground zero for tar sands extraction) before continuing to their breeding sites, downstream from tar sands mining operations. In addition to the high possibility of spills along their migration route, they are in danger from ordinary tar sands operations.
These birds don't use the oil. How much do they have to sacrifice for our unwillingness to change our habits? How much are their lives worth? The answer is in our hands.
Possum
Caribou
Rudolph has American cousins. Tar sands mining is killing them.
Caribou are kissing cousings to reindeer. Some experts even consider caribou to be the American version of reindeer. Or reindeer to be the European cousins of caribou. Depends on one's perspective.
There are three major types of caribou: tundra, mountain and woodland. Tundra caribou are the ones most like Rudolph. They live in the open spaces of the north country and migrate long distances at a fast pace (they "fly" across the tundra). Woodland caribou can run fast but they live in smaller groups and migrate shorter distances, from 9 - 50 miles between the summer and winter grounds. However far they migrate, the boreal forest is their only home; they don't leave the forest. Unlike some of the animals we'll meet in this blog - moose, wolves - these caribou don't easily co-exist with us humans. We stress them out.
Children of the forest, woodland caribou need intact old growth forest, lots of it, to survive. In addition to the stress of being anywhere near us, their major source of food, lichen, depends on intact old-growth forest. Edges, breaks in the forest (roads for example), provide easier access to them by wolves, their most important predator. As animals dependent on lots of wild forest, woodland caribou are an "umbrella species". If they are doing well, chances are everyone else is doing well, also.
October ramps up the excitement - mating time! The impressive antlers on males are used to keep away competitors. Though the male antlers are much more impressive than the female's, in December the guys shed theirs. Mating season is done, and there is no need for these cumbersome appendages but the antlers of the pregnant females, used for driving aggressive males from their feeding territories and invaluable when you're eating for two, stay. Incidentally, caribou are the only animals where both sexes have antlers. Makes me wonder how the female of other deer species deal with aggressive males.
May to June is birthing season. The mothers give birth alone, but they all give birth in the general area, and all within a few days of each other. This helps protect newborns. Safety in numbers. Wolves, the main predator, have more live caribou flesh than they need so a good portion are spared. Wolves do take a lot, though, up to 40% in some populations.
A tragedy for an individual can strengthen the group. Wolves can only kill the vulnerable; weak, old and sick. By culling out the weaker animals they leave the collective gene pool stronger, while helping keep the caribou/food numbers in balance.
Human industry, specifically logging and energy extraction, are disrupting this balance. Roads multiply forest edges, facilitating the introduction of invasive species, wolf and human hunting, and creating barriers in caribou territory. Woodland caribou are migrating north, away from areas of human disturbance, and roads as barriers make that more difficult. As they lose habitat to logging and tar sands mining, the caribou need to aggregate closer together, making it that much harder to find food and that much easier for wolves to find them.
Climate change, hastened by tars sands mining and use, also impacts caribou. In the winter they can find fungus under the snow by scent but deeper snow makes this harder and caribou starve. In the summer the increase of annoying insects take energy that should be being used to feed.
So Rudolph's cousins in Alberta are in sharp decline, on their way to extinction. In 2011 scientists proposed changing their status from threatened to endangered but industry intervened. The courts instead ordered that major steps be taken to protect the caribou, but so far the only intervention has been to kill wolves, not to protect critical habitat.
Because woodland caribou can't adapt to our unwillingness to change, they lose. As I've said before, we, individually and collectively, need to make it a priority to live with other species, not just use the earth as a commodity.
Possum
Caribou are kissing cousings to reindeer. Some experts even consider caribou to be the American version of reindeer. Or reindeer to be the European cousins of caribou. Depends on one's perspective.
There are three major types of caribou: tundra, mountain and woodland. Tundra caribou are the ones most like Rudolph. They live in the open spaces of the north country and migrate long distances at a fast pace (they "fly" across the tundra). Woodland caribou can run fast but they live in smaller groups and migrate shorter distances, from 9 - 50 miles between the summer and winter grounds. However far they migrate, the boreal forest is their only home; they don't leave the forest. Unlike some of the animals we'll meet in this blog - moose, wolves - these caribou don't easily co-exist with us humans. We stress them out.
Children of the forest, woodland caribou need intact old growth forest, lots of it, to survive. In addition to the stress of being anywhere near us, their major source of food, lichen, depends on intact old-growth forest. Edges, breaks in the forest (roads for example), provide easier access to them by wolves, their most important predator. As animals dependent on lots of wild forest, woodland caribou are an "umbrella species". If they are doing well, chances are everyone else is doing well, also.
October ramps up the excitement - mating time! The impressive antlers on males are used to keep away competitors. Though the male antlers are much more impressive than the female's, in December the guys shed theirs. Mating season is done, and there is no need for these cumbersome appendages but the antlers of the pregnant females, used for driving aggressive males from their feeding territories and invaluable when you're eating for two, stay. Incidentally, caribou are the only animals where both sexes have antlers. Makes me wonder how the female of other deer species deal with aggressive males.
May to June is birthing season. The mothers give birth alone, but they all give birth in the general area, and all within a few days of each other. This helps protect newborns. Safety in numbers. Wolves, the main predator, have more live caribou flesh than they need so a good portion are spared. Wolves do take a lot, though, up to 40% in some populations.
A tragedy for an individual can strengthen the group. Wolves can only kill the vulnerable; weak, old and sick. By culling out the weaker animals they leave the collective gene pool stronger, while helping keep the caribou/food numbers in balance.
Human industry, specifically logging and energy extraction, are disrupting this balance. Roads multiply forest edges, facilitating the introduction of invasive species, wolf and human hunting, and creating barriers in caribou territory. Woodland caribou are migrating north, away from areas of human disturbance, and roads as barriers make that more difficult. As they lose habitat to logging and tar sands mining, the caribou need to aggregate closer together, making it that much harder to find food and that much easier for wolves to find them.
Climate change, hastened by tars sands mining and use, also impacts caribou. In the winter they can find fungus under the snow by scent but deeper snow makes this harder and caribou starve. In the summer the increase of annoying insects take energy that should be being used to feed.
So Rudolph's cousins in Alberta are in sharp decline, on their way to extinction. In 2011 scientists proposed changing their status from threatened to endangered but industry intervened. The courts instead ordered that major steps be taken to protect the caribou, but so far the only intervention has been to kill wolves, not to protect critical habitat.
Because woodland caribou can't adapt to our unwillingness to change, they lose. As I've said before, we, individually and collectively, need to make it a priority to live with other species, not just use the earth as a commodity.
Possum
Sunday, August 11, 2013
What is to be Done?
No KXL, no tar sands extraction. Most definitely, most absolutely.
Houston, we have a problem.
The problem is, we're running out of "easy oil". And energy consumption is, in the big picture, rising. In 2012 world energy consumption rose by 3.7% over 2011 while world energy producton rose by 2.1%. "The International Energy Outlook 2013 projects that world energy consumption will grow by 56% between 2010 and 2040." (www.eiu.gov) Although the U.S. is still the largest consumer of energy, the fastest growth is among people who haven't had access to what we in rich countries do, and we can hardly tell someone that high consumption is acceptable for me but not for you. The problem is, for everyone to consume as much as we do (not just energy this time but everything), we would need 5 earths. Plus, we are not the only species on the planet.
So, no tar sands extraction. Instead, fracking? Nukes? Coal...mountaintop removal? Um, no.
Alternative energy? I just finished a book, Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers. She devotes a chapter to biofuels from, in her example, palm oil. The use of palm oil as a biofuel contributes to deforestration in Indonesia (and, not incidently, to climate change).
Since one of the demands of the Chevron action on August 3 was that they switch to renewables, I searched their website to find out what they're working on now. They discussed two projects, neither of which uses foodstock, which they're trying to avoid. One is a 50/50 partnership with the Weyerhauser Corporation (Catchlight Energy) to interplant tree farms with "perennials, short rotation trees, understory and residuals". Weyerhauser compared cellulose based biofuels with cellulose based paper, though I wasn't sure if they were using the same plants for both. Chevron's other project involves the use a certain type of algae. This has potential, for small businesses as well, as a more sustainable source of energy, though it's not practical yet. Industrial algae (also a source of human nutrition, i.e. a food) is at this point grown most efficiently in the desert in ponds and is a heavy user of water. Need I say more?
Electric cars don't emit carbon directly but they use electricity, which comes primarily from coal. They also require heavy batteries, which requires extra light bodies to offset the extra weight, which requires the use of metals such as aluminum, which is destructively mined in open pits...
The bottom line is that there are a lot of humans on this planet who are locked into the use a lot of energy, and without sharply reducing both population and consumption, when we demand and end to tar sands extraction and all other unsustainable energy sources, we're putting the governments of the world in a terrible bind. The fact that we're encouraged to use the energy needs to be addressed, but doesn't negate the problem. It's yang and yin, production and consumption.
Hydrogen escaping from hydrogen fuel cells into the atmosphere could make the ozone hole larger.
Some of these or other alternatives could mitigate some of our impact but none of them are cure-alls and they're sure not sustainable substitutes for tar sands now.
The bottom line is, to keep the carbon in the ground we need to not depend on that carbon.
It's that simple. And that complex.
Possum
Houston, we have a problem.
The problem is, we're running out of "easy oil". And energy consumption is, in the big picture, rising. In 2012 world energy consumption rose by 3.7% over 2011 while world energy producton rose by 2.1%. "The International Energy Outlook 2013 projects that world energy consumption will grow by 56% between 2010 and 2040." (www.eiu.gov) Although the U.S. is still the largest consumer of energy, the fastest growth is among people who haven't had access to what we in rich countries do, and we can hardly tell someone that high consumption is acceptable for me but not for you. The problem is, for everyone to consume as much as we do (not just energy this time but everything), we would need 5 earths. Plus, we are not the only species on the planet.
So, no tar sands extraction. Instead, fracking? Nukes? Coal...mountaintop removal? Um, no.
Alternative energy? I just finished a book, Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy is Undermining the Environmental Revolution by Heather Rogers. She devotes a chapter to biofuels from, in her example, palm oil. The use of palm oil as a biofuel contributes to deforestration in Indonesia (and, not incidently, to climate change).
Since one of the demands of the Chevron action on August 3 was that they switch to renewables, I searched their website to find out what they're working on now. They discussed two projects, neither of which uses foodstock, which they're trying to avoid. One is a 50/50 partnership with the Weyerhauser Corporation (Catchlight Energy) to interplant tree farms with "perennials, short rotation trees, understory and residuals". Weyerhauser compared cellulose based biofuels with cellulose based paper, though I wasn't sure if they were using the same plants for both. Chevron's other project involves the use a certain type of algae. This has potential, for small businesses as well, as a more sustainable source of energy, though it's not practical yet. Industrial algae (also a source of human nutrition, i.e. a food) is at this point grown most efficiently in the desert in ponds and is a heavy user of water. Need I say more?
Electric cars don't emit carbon directly but they use electricity, which comes primarily from coal. They also require heavy batteries, which requires extra light bodies to offset the extra weight, which requires the use of metals such as aluminum, which is destructively mined in open pits...
The bottom line is that there are a lot of humans on this planet who are locked into the use a lot of energy, and without sharply reducing both population and consumption, when we demand and end to tar sands extraction and all other unsustainable energy sources, we're putting the governments of the world in a terrible bind. The fact that we're encouraged to use the energy needs to be addressed, but doesn't negate the problem. It's yang and yin, production and consumption.
Hydrogen escaping from hydrogen fuel cells into the atmosphere could make the ozone hole larger.
Some of these or other alternatives could mitigate some of our impact but none of them are cure-alls and they're sure not sustainable substitutes for tar sands now.
The bottom line is, to keep the carbon in the ground we need to not depend on that carbon.
It's that simple. And that complex.
Possum
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
The Life of the Planet
Dave here. I am writing on an aspect of the Tar Sands issue which is
very personal to me: the potential and current climate effects.
Most of us have noted the news about climate effects of fossil fuel use and overuse; that we've been using the atmosphere as a sewer for the last 150-plus years and that we are now seeing the effects of this. I did not altogether see this personally until this year. But it is very clear that some things have changed: now my boysenberries are ripening in May (which they never did, earliest had been around June 7); my apple trees are blossoming in late March/ early April, which they never did until this year.
We now know that mining and using more gigatons of fossil fuels - at the rate we're going, up to 500-plus gigatons in the next 15 years - means a global rise of 2 degrees Celcius in overall global temperature. This means the severe effects we've seen already will greatly increase. In the Boreal forest, migrating birds won't find their food sources of insects at the right or normal times, with potentially devastating effects. The forest will - and is already - suffering.
I have spent many months of my life in the Boreal forests in our mountain ranges here in the western U.S.; they have a number of commonalities with similar forests in Canada and Siberia: besides offering feeding and nesting to millions of migratory birds, they protect the skin of the earth. They absorb solar radiation in their tree bodies and convert it to cellulose, sequestering carbon for decades or even hundreds of years. The forests cool the earth also by by keeping snow from melting rapidly in the Spring, rather letting it melt slowly and gradually to fill the rivers and lakes of the North and the mountain heights and providing vital water sources for people and wildlife. The water held, for example in the Sierra Nevada range as snow and ice, is of far more ecological and money value than anything else the Sierra produces; our multibillion farm business as well as water for major cities comes from there, and the water also feeds wetlands necessary to waterfowl and other wildlife.
Climate disruption is largely about water in addition to season change; but it is all of a piece. And the Boreal forest is a major component of the systems which keep the climate stable, keep the rivers flowing, keep the seasons predictable for agriculture and for the wild creatures among us. These forests cover more surface area than any other forests do, and are less disturbed as a whole than any other forest type. But with Tar Sands exploitation and other industrial-scale projects, this is changing.
We cannot know what all the effect of our actions are. But we do know the extreme kinds of fossil fuel exploitation now being employed are harming the Earth in ways not seen before. Thousands of us are waking up to these facts and are acting, to push back against the energy status quo and take personal responsibility. I hope it's enough!
In solidarity,
Dave
Most of us have noted the news about climate effects of fossil fuel use and overuse; that we've been using the atmosphere as a sewer for the last 150-plus years and that we are now seeing the effects of this. I did not altogether see this personally until this year. But it is very clear that some things have changed: now my boysenberries are ripening in May (which they never did, earliest had been around June 7); my apple trees are blossoming in late March/ early April, which they never did until this year.
We now know that mining and using more gigatons of fossil fuels - at the rate we're going, up to 500-plus gigatons in the next 15 years - means a global rise of 2 degrees Celcius in overall global temperature. This means the severe effects we've seen already will greatly increase. In the Boreal forest, migrating birds won't find their food sources of insects at the right or normal times, with potentially devastating effects. The forest will - and is already - suffering.
I have spent many months of my life in the Boreal forests in our mountain ranges here in the western U.S.; they have a number of commonalities with similar forests in Canada and Siberia: besides offering feeding and nesting to millions of migratory birds, they protect the skin of the earth. They absorb solar radiation in their tree bodies and convert it to cellulose, sequestering carbon for decades or even hundreds of years. The forests cool the earth also by by keeping snow from melting rapidly in the Spring, rather letting it melt slowly and gradually to fill the rivers and lakes of the North and the mountain heights and providing vital water sources for people and wildlife. The water held, for example in the Sierra Nevada range as snow and ice, is of far more ecological and money value than anything else the Sierra produces; our multibillion farm business as well as water for major cities comes from there, and the water also feeds wetlands necessary to waterfowl and other wildlife.
Climate disruption is largely about water in addition to season change; but it is all of a piece. And the Boreal forest is a major component of the systems which keep the climate stable, keep the rivers flowing, keep the seasons predictable for agriculture and for the wild creatures among us. These forests cover more surface area than any other forests do, and are less disturbed as a whole than any other forest type. But with Tar Sands exploitation and other industrial-scale projects, this is changing.
We cannot know what all the effect of our actions are. But we do know the extreme kinds of fossil fuel exploitation now being employed are harming the Earth in ways not seen before. Thousands of us are waking up to these facts and are acting, to push back against the energy status quo and take personal responsibility. I hope it's enough!
In solidarity,
Dave
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
The New Blog of the Lorax Affinity Group
On the Fourth of July I took a bus to the Marin Headlands, just north of
San Francisco. I spent much of the day hanging out by the lagoon,
taking advantage of the opportunity to observe, up close, a Snowy Egret
foraging for lunch. I mused that when I'm hungry, I have the opportunity
to buy a snack somewhere pretty easily, but the egret, no matter how
hungry it is, has to wait until it can catch something. No corner store.
I further mused that wild animals, especially wild predators, don't
have food security in the sense that most American humans conceptualize
it. When the world functions as it should this works. It certainly
seemed to be working for my buddy the egret, who regularly broke out in a
short run followed by a sudden dip of mouth to water. I left with a
renewed respect for the life of the wild and a new resolve to do my part
to ensure that our wild kin have a fair chance at feeding themselves.
That egret was among the lucky ones. We humans have taken over so much
of the world's habitat, hardly aware of the toll this takes on the
ability of the others, the wild ones, to meet their needs. Everyday we
take more and more to satisfy our wants.
We have choices. One choice is to admit our addictions, to take stock of
how we got to this point, of how we can free ourselves of our unhealthy
habits and take the painfully difficult steps needed for our currently
industrial culture to live clean and sober in terms of how we interact
with the larger world. Another, infinitely easier in the short term but
ultimately a murder/suicide, is to hide under a pillow about the
consequences of our past choices and do whatever is necessary to
maintain the status quo. This is where expensive, environmentally
devastating energy sources come in. Gas and oil from fracking, coal from
mountain-top removal, oil from tar sands are at once shining examples
of human inventiveness in the face of strong incentives, and admissions
that we've sunk to the level of someone who steals from their mother in
order to get their next cocaine fix.
Some of us are choosing the first option, or at least attempting to
create space for it. We actively oppose actions that further destroy the
earth, including tar sands extraction. We have a tangle of reasons for
doing so. For many the deal breaker is the increase in climate-changing
CO2 that results from tar sands oil extraction. Other major reasons
include the destruction of cultures, and individual bodies, of the First
Nation peoples living where the tar sands are being mined. For others
it's the sacrifice of individual autonomy of people who live along the
proposed Keystone pipeline to the needs of the pipeline. There is also
the very real danger of pipeline ruptures, as has been experienced in
Michigan, Arkansas, and other places.
This blog extracts one thread from the tangle, the attacks on wildlife
from the old-growth boreal forest the Canadian tar sands is located in,
and along the proposed pipeline. The blog is an outgrowth of an affinity
group formed to educate ourselves and others about the threats to
wildlife from tar sands extraction. In order to present a variety of
perspectives, we will take turns writing blog posts. We invite your
feedback, activism, an most of all, your engagement in protecting other
species from the effects of human excesses.
For the wild ones, and the wild in us all,
Possum
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