The Myth of Our Stewardship of the Planet?

Photo from the 1870s of a pile of American bison skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer.
source of image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison_hunting

The way we are burning through fossil fuels and creating a climate that will have (and has already had) devastating effects on the planet, its people, its animals, its plants, its countries reminds me of what I read in a book about Red Cloud, leader of the Western Sioux during those peoples' last fight with the U. S. government. I recalled this bit of history when I read Bob Drury's and Tom Clavin's The Heart of Everything that Is: The Untold Story of Red Cloud, an American Legend. In 1840, though already depleted, the bison of North America still "number[ed] upward of 25 million to 30 million, nearly double the 17 million Americans counted in [the U.S. census of that year]." By the early 1860s, the buffalo had disappeared from the Platte River Valley, where Red Cloud had spent his younger days, "having lost the battle for the corridor's already scarce water and vegetation to the 100,000 head of cattle and 50,000 sheep that passed through the territory annually."

Drury and Clavin describe the rapid demise of the massive buffalo herds:

A solitary hunter equipped with an accurate large-bore Sharps rifle could fell up to 100 buffalo in a single stand, and this technology marked the beginning of a Plains-wide slaughter that within four decades would reduce an estimated 30 million animals to less than 1,000. It was the greatest mass destruction of warm-blooded animals in human history, far worse than what the world's whaling fleets had already accomplished, and, as Sitting Bull was to lament years later, "A cold wind blew across the prairie when the last buffalo fell. A death wind for my people."

 In 1869, the Union Pacific Railroad was completed across southern Wyoming, Northern Utah, and into the goldfields of Montana. The wide open West suddenly became even more accessible to buffalo hunters with those 50-caliber Sharps rifles who could kill thousands of buffalo in a short amount of time. The white hunters took only the fur and the tongues, leaving the huge carcasses to rot on the prairie. The U. S. government promoted this massive slaughter as a way to subjugate the Plains Indians, who depended on the bison for food and clothing, and to force them on reservations. The slaughter also made way for cattle ranching--with its own devastating impacts on the environment of the West. 

It is difficult for me to read this history and not get depressed over our current grappling with massive environmental degradation: we seem to be systemically unable to curb or control our voracious appetite for destroying this planet. We dress up our dreadful maw in words we hope to disguise the rotting carcasses of our environmental rampage: "Manifest destiny," "civilizing the natives," "economic growth," "job opportunities," "regulation over-reach." We slaughtered the bison that once were so numerous a herd could thunder by for days; for our sins, we then put the image on our coins and in nostalgic paintings that represent a West we say we yearn for yet willfully destroyed. 

The negative reactions to President Obama's climate deal with China underscore my worries that we will not be able to face successfully the greatest challenge of our time: global climate change caused largely by fossil fuel usage. Even as a supporter of this initiative and of other movements to curb carbon emissions, I can't completely subdue the doubts I have about our real commitment to mitigate the negative effects of the dangerous levels of carbon in the atmosphere.  The article to which I have linked above in Mother Jones notes that the deal with China includes "[e]xpanding funding for clean energy technology research at the US-China Clean Energy Research Center, a think tank Obama created in 2009 with Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao." All of this sounds wonderful, but I am also reminded that during the Obama administration, hydraulic fracturing (or, fracking) has been touted as  a "clean" fossil fuel. Another Mother Jones' article, "The Chevron Communiqués," explores how "[u]nder [then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's] leadership

the State Department worked closely with energy companies to spread fracking around the globe--part of a broader push to fight climate change, boost global energy supply, and undercut the power of adversaries such as Russia that use their energy resources as a cudgel.

How "clean" fracking is, however, is very much open to debate, as research suggests the environmental consequences of this process, from an increase in earthquakes to  well water contamination to methane leaks to the possible health hazards posed by the chemicals used in fracking. The fossil fuel industry's protective tendency to downplay any hazards makes many people all the more suspicious of those claims to "clean energy." In a public forum that I attended last night at Lakeshore High School in Mandeville, Louisiana, one person testifying for a local oil company unequivocally stated that contamination of St. Tammany Parish's drinking water by fracking was "absolutely" impossible. The industry's secrecy also raises suspicions. The U. S. State Department's first shale gas conference in August of 2010 included "delegates from 17 countries," other departmental agencies, and industry representatives--but the media was barred from attending. And the fact that U. S. oil companies are "snapping up natural gas leases in far-flung places" calls into question just what our government is promoting--good stewardship of the earth or the bottom line of industry giants such as Halliburton and Chevron, in their world-wide attempts to wring the last bit of profit from diminishing fossil fuels?

Government and industry fail to engender the trust and commitment needed to make real changes in energy use, and few people seem to understand the global impact of their energy choices. This short-sightedness was particularly brought home to me in a single event at the public forum in Mandeville, Louisiana, led by the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources but requested by the town of Abita Springs and Concerned Citizens of St. Tammany. One of the representatives of Helis Oil and Gas Co., had just described all the extra efforts the company "promised" (but has not committed to legal contract) to ensure the safety of its fracking operation and asked what more could the company do. "Drill somewhere else!" a local citizen yelled. Many in the crowd shouted and clapped in agreement, waving "Don't Frack St. Tammany" signs. It was difficult not to be sympathetic--such is the pull of tribal allegiance--but at that moment my support wavered and disillusionment increased. If we are concerned only with our little patch of paradise, we've learned little about global environmental degradation. Will it take the last drops of fossil fuel, just as it did the few remaining bison of the millions that once roamed the American West, to teach us the folly of our rapacious plunder of the earth? Too bad the lesson doesn't seem to stick.

Science has proven that global warming is driven by fossil fuel usage, and we need a united front--citizens, industry, countries--to cut our carbon emissions to prevent massive changes to the planet as we know it--but we may be too late. We already may be standing on the bones of our failure to fulfill what must have been a fantasy of our stewardship of this planet.

Why I Won't Vote Republican

In May of this year, I began writing on this blog about why I won't vote Republican. I had intended to carry that explanation through several blog posts, but here I'm keeping my reasons to a list:

• I don't believe in governments' torturing prisoners of war, or any other type of prisoner. Mitt Romney's national advisers are some of the same assholes who advised the Bush administration to torture prisoners.  [See Charlie Savage's article in The New York Times: "Election May Decide When Interrogation Amounts to Torture," 27 September 2012.] While I am not at all happy with how President Obama has continued some of the Bush national security policies, I know that a Republican-led government would not improve on these issues. President Obama has, at least, banned "enhanced interrogation" (torture!) and closed the CIA black sites. A second Democratic presidency will give us the opportunity to argue for re-examining those other issues. In addition, Mitt Romney's foreign policy technique, as illustrated by his visit to Great Britain during the London Olympics, dispels confidence in his ability to represent our country.

•  I don't trust a party that refuses to compromise for the good of the country, that is so focused on gaining power for itself that it is willing to damage or to destroy the lives of its citizens. I have written more about that here: "Reasons not to Vote Republican: Part 1."

• I believe that we are ALL mutually interdependent upon government (which is WE, the people).  This idea so loudly trumpeted by Republicans that citizens are divided between the Makers and the Takers, between those who are dependent upon government and those who are independent Boot-strappers-by-God-built-that-myself-ers is a skewed perception of democracy. As my husband so eloquently puts it: "That whole world view is bullshit!"  (This world view is particularly laughable in that all those titans of finance who imagine themselves "Makers" took a lot--even individuals' life savings--from folks to whom they condescend and just about bankrupted the country. WHY DO PEOPLE NOT REMEMBER THIS?) Public education that provides people with knowledge to become workers and business owners; police forces that maintain law and order; state and interstate highways (subsidized with our taxes) that guarantee national commerce;  a coast guard to protect those waters full of off-shore drilling rigs, commercial fishing boats, and pleasure and sport craft; a huge military complex that provides protection to many U.S. businesses abroad as well as those of us at home--these are just a few things from which we all profit, even the 1%. So, no, I don't support someone who denies this interdependency by disparaging, condescending to, or demonizing those who are so poor they don't pay federal income taxes (though they pay other taxes--state taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes). [See David Corn's article in Mother Jones, "Secret Video: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors what He Really Thinks of Obama Voters," 17 September 2012.] And Romney's last minute apology about his categorization of half of the U.S. is not convincing, especially since he double-downed on that statement several times immediately after it became public.

• Along with the condescending attitude toward the poor comes a willingness to deprive the poor of government support in healthcare. I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian culture that promoted the idea that one was required to help those less fortunate, and so I don't get all bent out of shape about my taxes' going to welfare programs, such as Medicaid. Though I no longer participate in organized religion (a disaffection that came to a head during the Bush administration, as I witnessed church leaders and their congregations hurrahing torture and a war based on lies), I still believe in the ethic to care for those who cannot care for themselves, and I think government (which means US--corporations, whose wealth depends upon a stable government, and citizens) has a moral obligation to help those in need. One of my grandmothers spent her last years in a nursing home, her care supported by Medicaid. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would gut Medicaid. [See Kevin Drum's comments here: "The Romney-Ryan Plan to Obliterate Medicaid."] Medicaid is not just there for the very poor; it's available for the elderly who live middle-class lives and who find their life's savings destroyed by medical costs as they age. Mitt Romney's statement that the poor can always get medical care in the emergency room is bitterly out-of-touch. President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction in providing healthcare for most Americans and in reducing costs of healthcare. Mitt Romney has promised to repeal what could use some tweaking, not destroying.

•  I am dismayed by the increasing hostility toward science in the Republican Party. From climate change to contraception, Republicans have loudly and vociferously denied scientific research and the consensus of scientists. In the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney criticized over and over President Barack Obama's economic support of green energy, and his running mate, Paul Ryan,

  has consistently voted against government efforts to tackle climate change. Like many House Republicans, he has voted to block efforts by the EPA to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions. He approved an amendment that would bar the Department of Agriculture from studying how best to adapt to a warmer planet. Ryan voted to defund various climate-advisory positions within the White House. He also voted for an amendment, proposed by Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), to cut $50 million from funding for ARPA-E, which funds long-shot energy research and development. [Brad Plumer, on Ezra Klein's Wonkblog, 14 August 2012]

  I mean, really.... voting to bar studies and research to determine how we can adapt to a warmer planet? How short-sighted is that!?

• Despite the financial crisis of 2007-2008, created in large part by the high-risk excesses of Wall Street and a corresponding lack of regulation, the Republican platform still calls for minimum regulation of Wall Street. I guess this explains why a CNNMoney Survey found that "[a]n overwhelming majority — 70 percent — of investment strategists and money managers in the survey say a Republican president would be better for the stock market"--even though, "as CNNMoney notes, stocks have historically performed better during Democratic administrations" [Michael Kling, "CNNMoney Survey: Wall Street Wants a Republican in the White House," 6 April 2012.]  See also how Republicans have worked to prevent implementation of the 2010 Dodd-Frank's Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by slashing the budget of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission: Jack Kemp, "Wall Street and Republicans Team Up to Curb CFTC," Reuters, 7 June 2012.  Or you can read Public Citizen's report of May 2012: "Forgotten Lessons of Deregulation: Rolling Back Dodd-Frank's Derivatives Rules Would Repeat a Mistake that Led to the Financial Crisis."

•  Barack Obama and Joe Biden are not perfect men or perfect leaders, but I am not going to vote for president of this country a man who made millions of dollars saddling companies with debt. You can do a song and dance about that choice of careers all you want, claim that it's all-American in its worship of profit for investors (while workers lose their jobs), but I can't admire it. I'll choose the community organizer, conciliator, post-post partisan, introverted lawyer and current president. Also, as his chameleon performance in the first presidential debate illustrates, Mitt Romney's real beliefs are tough to pin down. Romney governed as a moderate Republican in Massachusetts but became increasingly more conservative on the campaign trail, eschewing even his own Massachusetts healthcare plan. Then, in the debate, he suddenly became moderate again, walking back on claims he had made over and over in the previous months. His running mate? Paul Ryan's world view seems to have been too much influenced by Ayn Rand. And, really, is Paul Ryan vice-presidential material, a heartbeat away from the White House?

•  I support environmental regulations; the Republican party would like to gut the Environmental Protection Agency. [See: David Roberts, "The Environment," in The Washington Monthly; Politico's "Mitt Romney Intensifies EPA Attacks"; and Think Progress' response to the Politico article, "Things Mainstream Reporters Can't Say: Mitt Romney is Lying about the Environmental Protection Agency".] Anyone who lived through the 1960s and 1970s (even I, who was only just old enough to vote in 1976) remembers the ecological damage that our country suffered--acid rain, polluted rivers, chemically-fogged skies, Love Canal, lead gasoline. The Environmental Protection Agency gives government a necessary tool to regulate pollution and to prepare for climate change (if we and our leaders only had the political will to do the latter).

•  I am a strong supporter of public lands; today's Republican Party (no longer the party of Teddy Roosevelt) and Mitt Romney are not so much. [See Timothy Egan's "The Geography of Nope; "Giving Reins to States over Drilling," in The New York Times; "Conservation Update: Romney Energy Plan Would Give Drilling Control on Federal Lands to States," in Field and Stream.]

• I am appalled by the Republican tactics of voter suppression. See Ruth Rosen's piece at George Mason University's History News Network: "Voter Suppression: The Unraveling of American Democracy." Or listen to local voices, such as those of The Plain Dealer's editorial board in Cleveland, Ohio: "Republicans want to limit last-minute early voting, which in 2008 was most heavily used by less-affluent, minority voters." Or listen to the voices of state Republican leaders--links in Timothy Noah's piece: "'47 Percent'--Voter ID Link Proved." See The Atlantic's piece on True the Vote: "The Ballot Cops,"; Common Cause's "Bullies at the Ballot Box"; Justin Levitt's "The Truth About Voter Fraud," on the Brennan Center for Justice website.  Get updates on voter ID laws here: "Voter Identification Requirements," on the website of The National Conference of State Legislatures.

• I support marriage equality. Making it legal for adults of the same sex to marry neither threatens our democracy nor my own (34-year) heterosexual marriage, and it provides legal protection for gays and lesbians who want to raise families, to support one another financially, and to care for one another in sickness and health. Although there may be "a growing awareness among prominent Republicans that embracing marriage equality could broaden the party’s base and soften the party’s image in crucial ways," the leaders now on marriage equality are Democrats [Frank Bruni, "The G. O. P.'s Gay Trajectory," The New York Times, 9 June 2012].

•  I believe that abortion should be legal and that the decision to have an abortion be a private matter between a woman, her medical provider, and her own conscience. The Republican Party's platform states that "the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed" and that "the 14th Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children."  That strongly-worded statement pretty much turns over a pregnant woman's decision making to the federal government. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or mother's medical condition. Imagine the consequences if such a view became law. 

• I am mightily suspicious of the support of these guys and these guys of the Republican Party. What they expect to gain can only hurt the rest of us democratic, freedom-of-religion types.

•  We had eight years of a disastrous Republican presidency under George W. Bush. Mitt Romney is proposing nothing substantially different from a Bush presidency.  His message contains the same warmongering, regulation cutting, tax cutting mantra that brought us two wars, a horrendous deficit, and a financial crisis that almost blew up the country. As my husband says, "Willard" is just W-2.

Yes, It's Hot Outside

zinnia in my garden

One of my goals when living in the South--and except for the almost three years my family and I lived in northern Minnesota, that would be my entire life--is to make it through May without turning on the central air. Most of the homes my husband and I have purchased in our thirty-four years of marriage (we married young!), have been older homes with lots of windows, so my goal is not impossible.  Had we an attic fan in addition to all those windows, the goal of being comfortable without central air would be even more possible. But this year I didn't come close to meeting my goal. I set the thermostat to 78° F the first week of May. The house can be comfortable with the thermostat set at 80°F if we're in one room, sedentary, with a fan circulating the air. We do live in south Louisiana, where the humidity is almost as high as the thermometer reading.

Our last home before moving to Louisiana (again, after 24 years), was near Atlanta. The average temperatures between Atlanta and New Orleans are just a few degrees difference, but those few degrees feel a lot greater when humidity is factored in. My husband moved to south Louisiana nine months before I did, and the first time my daughter and I drove south to visit him, we were staggered by the heat and humidity of a late June evening. After a year, I am acclimatized, but yesterday's heat (in the low 90s) was still brutal as I worked outside in the afternoon, edging my flower, herb, and vegetable beds and mowing the yard around them.

According to climate scientists, the weather is going to get even more brutal. This spring has been the warmest since 1895, when the first national weather data was collected on a regular basis. The previous national record for warmest spring was set in the spring of 1910. We've broken that record this year. In 1910, most of the country's temperatures were below average--tremendous heat in the West brought the national temperature up to that record-breaking high. But this year, nearly all of the country's temperatures have been above average. You can view these comparisons at Capital Climate's website: "Fat Lady Preparing to Sing: Crushing Warmest Spring Record," posted 28 May 2012.

Last summer, the PBS NewsHour created a new widget that tracks record-breaking high temperatures across the United States. I've added that widget to my blog in the upper left-hand corner.

Now I think I'll get a little earlier start on the yard work today, beginning with eliminating as many as I can of the nymphs and adult forms of the Leaf-Footed (Stink) Bug that are attacking our Creole tomatoes.

nymph of Leaf-Footed Stink Bug on my creole tomatoes this a.m.

adult Leaf-Footed Stink bug on my tomatoes this morning

Reflections on Gulf Sea Life, Ocean Trash, and Oil

heart-shaped oil deposit we found on the beach at Grand Isle, LA

This past weekend my husband and I spent a couple of nights on Grand Isle, Louisiana, where we walked the beach and the mosquito-infested trail in Grand Isle State Park and toasted our 34th wedding anniversary over a dinner of shrimp and flounder. (The shrimp was so-so, my husband's flounder the better choice.) Except for the occasional balls of oil we found on the beach and the oil platforms we could see from the beach, nothing much reminded us of the huge BP oil spill of two years ago.

Every morning the public beach is mechanically swept clean, and a person in a motorized cart picks up the larger pieces of trash that might otherwise clutter the sweep of sand where folks set out their towels and beach chairs and unfurl their umbrellas and aluminum-poled sunshades. And BP is doing its part to lure tourists to the Gulf states, assuring us all that everything is just wonderful on the coast.

On the surface, things don't look so bad. A closer look provides a more disturbing view.

On strolls behind the mechanically-swept beach, we noticed hundreds of small pieces of plastic and swaths of the terribly invasive water hyacinth that clogs bayous, rivers, and lakes, and, when washed out to sea, dies in the salt water that then deposits the stuff on beaches. In the state park one morning, we watched some guy on a tractor disk the beach and pile the water hyacinth in drifts of sand behind the reach of surf and tide, and on the public beach, we watched plastic water bottles, Styrofoam, and a huge plastic bag wash up in the surf in a matter of minutes. In the debris behind wind-deposited sand, we noted hundreds of colorful plastic bottle caps, faded by salt and sun, and occasional tar balls.

On the beach in the state park, Tom and I were glad to see dolphins cavorting in the surf just beyond the rock jetties. But then I spied something large, gray, and fleshy protruding from the shallow water between the beach and the rock jetties, near where people were setting up their fishing lines. A closer look with binoculars indicated a dead sea mammal, probably a dolphin.

In March of this year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report that describes "'unprecedented' harm to dolphins in the area of the 2010 spill, a vast stretch of the Gulf south of the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama coasts and the Florida panhandle," according to an article on the environment in National Journal. The article provides some of the horrifying statistical details:

Carcasses of 675 dolphins were recovered in the region between February 2010 and February 2012, or roughly 337 each year, the report said; the average number of “strandings” annually in the northern Gulf from 2002 to 2009 was 74.  And the 159 carcasses recovered in Louisiana waters after the spill was eight times higher than the historical average, the NOAA scientists reported.

In addition, nearly all of the 32 live dolphins captured and studied in Barataria Bay, one of Louisiana’s hardest-hit areas during the spill, were underweight, anemic, and suffered from liver or kidney disease, and half had abnormally low levels of hormones, the study said. The symptoms “are consistent with those seen in other mammals exposed to oil,” the scientists said.

Other damages to sea life have been observed, as well, including "horribly mutated shrimp, fish with oozing sores, underdeveloped blue crabs lacking claws, eyeless crabs and shrimp," according to an investigative piece on Al Jazeera's website.  We're being told, of course, that Gulf seafood is safe to eat, but the impact of BP's Gulf oil spill of April 2010 won't be fully known for years. For instance, scientists have also found higher concentrations of heavy metals in oysters, but they "don't yet know how trace metals like those found in the oysters move through food chains, or what effects they could have on high-level consumers, including people."

Tom loves oysters, and I know he will be unhappy to learn that other threats beside oil spills may be taking oysters off the menu. We focus on local and regional threats such as the BP Gulf oil spill, but that oil spill is just one horrific drop in the ocean. Climate change is affecting ocean acidification and threatening oyster reproduction, coral reefs, and other kinds of ocean life.

Our throw-away lifestyle threatens ocean life, as well. I am currently reading Moby Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them," which is full of astounding bits of information, such as the following:

Depending on where they sample, oceanographers have found that between 60 and 95 percent of today's marine debris--the preferred bureaucratic term for flotsam and jetsam--is made of plastic. Despite the Ocean Dumping Reform Act, according to a 2004 EPA report, the United States still releases more than 850 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm runoff every year, and in that sewage are what the Environmental Protection Agency charmingly calls "floatables"--buoyant, synthetic things: Q-tips, condoms, dental floss, tampon applicators. [I spied two pieces of pink plastic tampon applicator pieces on the beach at Grand Isle.]

and

Globally, we are currently producing 300 million tons of plastic every year, and no known organism can digest a single molecule of the stuff, though plenty of organisms try.

When Tom and I toasted our 34 years of marriage at The Lighthouse on Grand Isle, I added a hopeful wish for 34 more years of married life. I wonder what a stroll on the beach will be like in 34 years. Will there still be a beach at Grand Isle? Will oysters be on the menu?

other links:

"'Hug the Monster: Downplaying the Climate Threat Won't Work as a Survival Strategy," by Joseph Romm, at grist.org, 7 May 2012.

"Afloat in the Ocean: Expanding Islands of Trash." by Lindsey Hoshaw, for The New York Times, 9 November 2009.

"Fish Consumption Advisories," for the state of Louisiana, on the website of Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Anthrax, Climate Change, and Cloning: Animals in the News

• Ted Turner's bison herd has anthrax. Eighty-five head of bison have been destroyed:"85 of Ted Turner's Bison Destroyed," in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• A South American stork has been spotted near Marigouin, Louisiana: "South American Stork Spotted in Louisiana," in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
• Increasing abundance of jellyfish suggests problems with the world's oceans. Scientists are saying that "the increasing reports from around the world" indicate "that the trend is real, serious and climate-related": "Stinging Tentacles Offer Hint of Oceans' Decline," in The New York Times.
• The Gulf Stream is bringing many more tropical fish north. These fish abandoned by the Gulf Stream in northern waters become a boon for aquarium collections. They may also suggest effects of climate change: "For Aquariums, the Small Fry Swept North Become a Big Catch," in The New York Times.
• A California woman has her pet dog cloned in South Korea. This is the first successful commercial cloning of a dog: "Pet Cloning Service Bears Five Baby Boogers," in The Guardian.