October heat wave adds to global warming fears
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Posted on October 7, 2007
Filed Under Global warming/Climate change, Deep ecology, Greenhouse gas emissions, Consumer culture, Environmental disasters, Earth spirituality, Inspiration and reflection
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Well, it is sweltering here in the upper Midwest, so it’s appropriate to reflect again on the global warming aspect of our ecological crisis. Some folks keep reassuring us that 80s are unusual but do occur now and then in October in Wisconsin. Right. Along with near-70-degree dew points? And persisting for so many days in a row?
Record warm summer. Record warm waters.
Have you heard about the sudden uptick in the appearance of a brain-eating amoeba in lakes in Texas? They get into the brain through the nose and victims die within a week or two. They thrive in waters above 80 degrees, so climate change and public health experts are deeply concerned about this as a perhaps permanent part of our future.
My beloved upper Great Lakes are receding. 
Lake Superior is already at record low levels and dropping steadily. Lake Michigan is approaching record low levels. Huron is also receding. One cause is my favorite nemesis, the best metaphor in all the world for what is wrong with the human relationship with our Earth – the Army Corps of Engineers. They’ve been dredging the St. Clair River for shipping, causing severe erosion of river banks. One result: water from the Great Lakes draining in huge amounts directly into the ocean.
But there is also the global warming aspect, particularly relevant with this record warmth and chronic drought. Winters are shorter, there is less snow and therefore less snow pack for the spring melt. There is less ice, more open water, which is increasing the rate of evaporation. These warm air temperatures also increase the rate of evaporation.
Now here’s a kicker for any of you who have been following the Bill Richardson presidential campaign. He is governor of New Mexico, a dry desert state. He wants more development, taxes, and jobs in his poor state. But it is desert. He wants water. He wants Great Lakes water. He said the other day that Wisconsin has more water than it needs. He wants to pipe Great Lakes water to his desert to support more inappropriate development.
A desert has limits. A desert does not want development beyond the limits of its ecosystem. We must live within the limits of our bioregions. He cannot destroy the most precious fresh water ecosystem on the face of the Earth for his state’s economy. He cannot have Great Lakes water. And I hope he has lost every vote in the Great Lakes states.
A few days ago, there was a column in the New York Times business section (sorry, I lost the link) about all those plastic bottles to which we have become so attached, as bad an addiction as tobacco or cocaine could ever be. We do not know how to live without them, to go a single day without them. Enormous amounts of fossil fuels, which means release of carbon emissions, are involved in the production of these bottles – not just water, but soda, sports drinks, and other beverages – and the waste involved is tragic and criminal when one considers the future of this planet.
The article ends with a bleak conclusion that I wish I did not agree with completely. If we can’t change even this one little bad habit, what are the chances we will change our larger patterns of behavior and lifestyles in time to keep a terrible end from arriving for the human species and all our fellow creatures on this precious and beloved planet?
Yesterday, I went with my brother to see the documentary on the Apollo astronauts, the ones that flew to the moon. I heartily recommend it. They get it. I was so moved by some of the testimonies. Michael Collins, commander of the Apollo 11 mission, the first human steps on an alien world, the Neil Armstrong mission, speaks of how the world came together then, felt it to be an accomplishment of all humanity. With sorrow in his aging eyes, he spoke of how it turned out to be ephemeral.
Kind of like 9/11.
Others spoke of ecstasy, of moments of awakening when you realize we are all made of molecules from the same stardust that exploded in the beginning of time. Others spoke of the 10,000 feet worth of atmosphere above the surface that contains all life, all we know, all that makes life possible, and how fragile it is. One of the astronauts spoke of how from his first flight in orbit to his last to the moon, he could see the increase in the damage we were doing to the Earth.
Can we expand our vantage point to that of these men? Can we look back at see what we are doing? Can we wrest our small gaze out of our superficial empty consumer values and small narcissistic frameworks of meaning – okay, our selfish lives – to see what we are about to do to all of life on this Earth?
Technorati Tags: midwest heat wave, brain-killing amoeba, Great Lakes receding, army corps of engineers, St. Clair River, bill richardson, inappropriate development, plastic bottles, In the Shadow of the Moon
Photo credit: John Flesher/Associated Press
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