“We are difficult to come by and a danger to ourselves.” Carl Sagan
On this day when we celebrate Earth, I begin by inviting you on a brief journey through a tiny bit of Earth history via the magnificent lyrical composition of Carl Sagan from his classic, bestselling book entitled, Cosmos.
“Single-celled plants evolved, and life began to generate its own food. Photosynthesis transformed the atmosphere. Sex was invented. Once free-living forms banded together to make a complex cell with specialized functions. Chemical receptors evolved, and the cosmos could taste and smell. One-celled organisms evolved into multicellular colonies, elaborating their various parts into specialized systems. Eyes and ears evolved and now the cosmos could see and hear. Plants and animals discovered that the land could support life. Organisms buzzed, crawled, scuttled, lumbered, glided, flapped, shimmied, climbed and soared. Colossal beasts thundered through the steaming jungles. Small creatures emerged, born live instead of in hard-shelled containers, with a fluid like the early oceans coursing through their veins. They survived by swiftness and cunning, and then, only a moment ago, some small arboreal animals scampered down from the trees. They became upright and taught themselves the use of tools, domesticated other animals, plants and fire, and devised language. The ash of stellar alchemy was now emerging into consciousness. At an ever-accelerating pace, it invented writing, cities, art and science, and sent spaceships to the planets and the stars. These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do, given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution.”
I find it difficult to imagine anyone reading this passage and not finding inspiration in Sagan’s words. This world has taken eons to evolve into the fantastic place of wondrous creatures existing, even thriving, in unimaginably diverse and beautiful ecosystems. Yet, what we have lost, and are losing through habitat destruction, pollution, and more extreme natural disasters due to climate change is equally unimaginable. Our human mind and our very human nature preclude most of us from truly grasping the magnitude of what is being lost, and how quickly it is all occurring. Sagan’s Cosmos book is his enduring gift to the world, written at a time when the realization of climate change was only beginning to unfold. His sense of awe and reverence for the unique, life giving beauty of this Earth only increase in poignancy as the years since the book’s original publication pass by.
My own love affair with the natural world is a longstanding one with the inevitable ups and downs, and loss and return of connection as with any love affair of longstanding duration. My deep sense of connection began in childhood when, thanks to my nature loving parents, I was given the freedom to spend countless hours outdoors. My love is rooted in the same sense of reverence and awe as Sagan. I simply cannot believe how wondrous and endlessly amazing the natural world is! The grace, the sheer desire for survival, the beauty of the myriad species living in an inextricably interconnected web of life defies my human understanding, though try I do at times, and earnestly so. Yet, my most graced moments in nature are not those moments when I am caught in a desire to understand, rather, almost without fail, they are those moments when I become transfixed by the antics of wildlife in my yard going about the important minutiae of their day, or when I am stopped in my tracks, spellbound, by the beauty of the changing face of a woodland through the seasons. These are heart centered moments when I sense my own small place in the vastness of that which surrounds me. The love which emanates from these experiences is what prompts me towards speaking out to protect that which I hold dear.
The right of wildlife for habitat in a healthy, living environment is not enshrined in any constitution just as an intrinsic right of a river to exist and not be exploited is only beginning to be considered by some of the most forward thinking, inclusive nature lovers the world over. These are things we all must consider in the face of species extinction and climate change.
Science has brought us into a far greater understanding of the complex interconnectedness between ecosystems, yet too oft we fail to implement much more than the most basic measures to protect ecosystems vulnerable to development, such as our local watersheds.
Civic, provincial, and national governments repeatedly want to seem as though they are taking sustainable leadership on issues of soil, air, and water protection, but often miss the mark when it comes to the kind of large scale actions which are required to stem the tide of climate change, large scale species extinction, and habitat loss.
When I consider my own small town, so alive with wildlife when I was a young girl bicycling to the beach in the summertime, wandering the neighbouring fields, and sitting by “the Pond” to watch the dragon flies land upon the arrowheads, I find it almost incredulous to see the changes wrought upon the environment here, thanks in large part to a frenzy of development. Who speaks for the creatures whose homes are being destroyed in the process and at an unprecedented rate? If not you, or I, I ask, then who?
As fields and woods become neighborhoods, wildlife here is being pushed further to the perimeter, and into existing neighborhoods such as our own. My parents have lived in their home for almost fifty years, and had not ever had a chipmunk in their yard until last summer. At the same time that a large acreage of nearby woodland and meadow was turned into an upscale neighborhood we too had a chipmunk frequenting our sunflower seeds for the first time. We welcome all wildlife to our yard, but not everyone feels as we do when the encroachment of wildlife on human residential areas increases as natural, undeveloped areas turn into parking lots or human housing.
We watched in recent years as a flock of Killdeer which used to feed in a farm field near our home moved to a grassed area by a local grocery store until that grocery store increased their pavement for parking thereby removing essentially all the grass which the Killdeer previously enjoyed. Who speaks for the Killdeer and the myriad insects who have lost their feeding grounds?
Governments need to be encouraged and supported in their effort to be stewards of the lands in the regions they represent. This is most effective when approached in a collaborative rather than combative manner. By learning about your municipal bylaws surrounding development, for example, you can better speak to issues of concern regarding those creatures unable to speak for themselves. You can speak to the need for developments to retain a higher percentage of greenspace per each new development as a means of mitigating habitat loss. You can request that developers plant native trees and shrubs on their new developments. Towns welcome public input from citizens, and it helps to educate counselors on the need for habitat protection within their jurisdiction.
At a natural areas workshop in my town two years ago participants recognized the urgent need for wildlife corridors to help connect wildlife with areas within the town which support habitat. Yet there is still a marked dis-connect between recognizing such a need, and seeing it be implemented in town plans, or considered in development approvals. Even when the town wants to portray the image that they are taking steps towards sustainability the situation still requires the vigilance of, and an ongoing conversation between concerned citizens and town officials to ensure that wise actions are occurring.
Every time a developer turns the earth to reveal the red topsoil beneath is a time of concern for watersheds near the development. Because I learned about the negative effects of phosphorus net loading on watersheds my heart nearly breaks each time I see stormwater runoff racing from a new construction site, bypassing meager and even concerted mitigation efforts, and entering nearby waterways.
Having worked on behalf of a local watershed with developers in effort to protect an important and visible pond system from nearby development I know how slow and difficult such processes are. It also makes me sad for all the less visible, but equally as important watersheds being affected by developments the world over. I recognize that sometimes the simple willingness of developers to have conversations must be viewed as progress. But such progress is slow, and we really don’t have a lot of time left to make the kind of change we so urgently need.
What we truly need are persons within government at all levels who have a heart connection, like Sagan, to the natural world. We need persons who see ecosystems as more than resources for humans to exploit. We need an increase in our own sense of responsibility and caring. And we need it all soon.
This Earth Day 2019 I welcome you to consider getting active for Earth, perhaps by supporting a watershed near you. Watersheds are largely run by volunteers, and they are doing extremely valuable, front of line, climate change mitigation and education. Next to changes you can make as a consumer and homeowner, supporting a watershed group through a small donation, or during one of their beach cleanups, or tree plantings, is a very worthy undertaking, and one which you can feel really good about.
Because, after all:
“We are all downstream. We are all upstream. We are all part of a watershed.”
https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/sites/default/files/publications/we_are_all_downstream_we_are_all_upsstream.pdf
“The cosmos may be densely populated with intelligent beings. But the Darwinian lesson is clear: There will be no humans elsewhere. Only here. Only on this small planet. We are a rare as well as endangered species.”
In Love and Peace, Happy Earth Day 2019!
Jill
Comments