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Noah's Descendants
In a recent column, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times discussed how the planet is entering the “Noah phase.” In a first for humanity, we will be witness to the disappearance of species due to climate change, habitat loss, new patterns of disease, and other factors. Friedman’s column brought to mind Rick Bass’s recent essay in OnEarth, in which he ruminated on a similar thought: As he introduces his daughters to the natural wonders in their corner of the planet—the “salmon surges of late summer….the floating bogs around the lake we paddle each autumn… great gray owls in the garden, the grizzly tracks at marsh's edge”—he feels a poignancy none of his ancestors had to experience: that one day the marvels he introduces to his daughters won’t exist anymore.
His ruminations remind me of a comment that Gloria Flora made when OE brought together a bunch of experts to discuss solutions to some of the challenges facing the planet. Gloria spent 22 years with the U.S. Forest Service, much of that time being heroically outspoken against the pillaging forestry policies of the Bush administration. She then founded Sustainable Obtainable Solutions to continue her work to protect public lands. During the conversation that day, which was moderated by Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker, and included climate scientist Gavin Schmidt (check out his website, RealClimate.org), Oberlin environmental studies professor David Orr, and environmental justice advocate Michel Gelobter (you can also watch some video clips from the discussion), Gloria wondered aloud about “the human grief, the pain in your heart, when the landscape that you love, all the elements that connected you to place, change irrevocably and dramatically: forests burning up, the wildlife populations that you closely identify with gone… That is going to have a very serious effect on our psyche,” she predicted. “I think a lot of people will not be able to bear the knowledge of what we’ve done to the future.”
I think she’s right. I’ve felt some intimations of this when gazing out at the magnolia tree in our front yard. I live an hour north of New York City, and when January temperatures soar into the 60’s , or hover around the 50’s for days at a time, I wonder about our magnolia. I observe its plump buds and find myself urging the tree not to bloom, because this is not the real, hard-earned spring we all yearn for after months of snow and cold, but a strange, false spring. I want the magnolia to bloom in early spring, as it’s supposed to, when it heralds the dawn of a new season, a new beginning.
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Drained Lake, Heron in Mud