I Really Cannot Believe I Have To Do This

I was talking to a friend yesterday who was honestly convinced that the environment was better off now than in the past. I decided the best way to combat this strange, and untrue, assumption was with photos. I gathered all of these via Google Images (or referenced where I got them).

Above is an image of clear cutting in the Boreal Forest. Destruction continues to this day.

Above is an image of a whale beached and dead. It was killed by navy sonar use, which continues.

Whaling continues year after year even with depleted populations and a public outcry from many for it to stop.









Depleted Uranium Birth Defects (Above). "Also in 1999, a United Nations subcommission considered DU hazardous enough to call for an initiative banning its use worldwide. The initiative has remained in committee, blocked primarily by the United States, according to Karen Parker, a lawyer with the International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project, which has consultative status at the United Nations." See this article.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - Polar bear populations in and around Alaska are declining due to continued melting of sea ice and Russian poaching, according to reports released Thursday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Space Trash. "It is estimated that hundreds of millions of pieces of space trash are now floating through our region of the solar system. Some of them are as large as trucks while others are smaller than a flake of paint. There are a couple of relatively famous pieces of space trash. One is the glove that floated away from the Gemini 4 crew during the first spacewalk by U.S. astronauts. The other is the camera Michael Collins lost during the Gemini 10 mission. Rocket boosters, pieces that came loose from spacecraft, and fragments and particles created by space collisions or explosions are other examples of the types of trash whizzing around Earth at speeds of up to 36,000 km per hour."

Oil Spills. Oil continues to be accidentally spilled into waterways around the world. With each spill environments are destroyed. Here are some links to more recent oil spills (there are obviously many more):
Pine River
Brazil
Queensland
West Cork, Ireland
Des Plaines River



Coffee Farming. This requires people to clearcut their land to create space to grow coffee, which in turn destroys the soil. (Picture from WWF article).
















Manatees. "The population of manatees in Florida (T. manatus) is thought to be between 1,000 and 3,000, yet population estimates are very difficult. The number of manatee deaths in Florida caused by humans has been increasing through the years, and now typically accounts for 20%-40% of recorded manatee deaths.^[10] There were 417 manatee deaths in Florida in 2006 with 101 attributed to human causes according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission."



I could go on and on, but this (The 15 most toxic places to live) article seems to sum it up pretty well.


-Amelie

My Great Nine-Day Adventure

Day 3
Soaking up the sun this morning as well, there are more fishermen out now than there were yesterday however. It’s 10:20am and the loons are already singing. I’m not sure I ever want to leave this place. I think the north is where I want to buy a house, not here, there are too many houses, but somewhere like this place likely was one hundred years ago.

The loons are my alarm clock calling strong as they mourn, requesting another day’s protection from the motors, from the scorn.

If you go an entire summer without a mosquito bite in Wisconsin you most definitely need to get out more. Last night alone I think I ATE about ten of them on my run.

I saw a squirrel fall out of a tree this morning and calmly paddle back to shore. I think it was my pissed off little friend from yesterday who with a morning starting with a fall from a tree will likely not be any more friendly today.

I love how everyone waves up north. I was running yesterday and each car I passed waved, each boat that drives by the pier I now write on waves. Hell, I have conversations with strangers up here. A man was walking his dog yesterday during my early morning run and I STOPPED RUNNING to discuss the unreasonably warm weather. I’ve told friends before that morning people everywhere are more friendly—seem more trusting of those that get up at six in the morning than those that stay up until 4am.

Up north people are morning people all of the time. I think it’s the winters up here that do it. We all know that in two months we might be relying on a stranger to pull us out of a tough place (namely a ditch). In four months the ditches will be so full of snow that they won’t be distinguishable—but the snow BANKS then prove an even bigger danger because when it goes from “warm” (about 32 degrees) to “chilly” (about ten degrees) they freeze into solid walls of ice. At this point going into the ditch can result in the same amount of damage (and injuries) as a front end collision. You had better hope you waved to your neighbor in September.

My hands might be shaking a bit from the caffeine but I feel GREAT. I heard two gunshots this morning. I wonder what they were shooting at.

As you zoom through the water in your high-fangled state-of-the-art speed boat you fail to see the loons floating gracefully upon the bay. The loons have been there for hours—teaching their young one how to hunt on his own, calling encouragement at his failures and successes.

But you don’t see. Your boat is too fast to notice—the motor too loud to hear the mournful calls that mark their alarm at your fast approach. You fail to see. Spend several hours, days, years on the bay with no motors and no speed. Then tell me of the loons. I will tell you of the silence broken by the unnatural wake of your boat. I will tell you of the floating cigarette butts that washed upon shore after your departure. AND I WILL TELL YOU how close the loons came to bid their thank you to a friend who told you to stop and listen.

Later, 4:30pm:
I was taking a nap upstairs in the house when I heard the loons calling, I didn’t see them on the bay at first. I saw a mink running along the shore, but now I see a loon about one hundred yards from the pier. The loons really are my alarm clock this week.

I now understand all of the grooming I’ve seen them doing and the strange activity of the loons. It looks like they are molting their summer plumage for winter feathers. Their backs are more dull right now than usual, it probably itches. I’ve never been up here at this time of year so it makes sense that I’ve never seen it before.

Wildlife seen today:
Loons
Vultures
Squirrels
Mink
Blue jays
crows
Chipmonks
Wildlife heard today:
Loons
Crows
Ducks
Squirrels

My Great Nine-Day Adventure

Day 2
I put some corn out last night and this morning I’m watching all of the critters prepare for winter as they bury it all around the yard.

Just gathered two buckets full of kindling for the winter-would gather more (there’s plenty for the taking) but I’m not sure where I’d put more of it. I’m sure it’ll be much appreciated when the ground is covered with four feet of snow in a couple months.

Came within a foot of a little chipmunk that had his cheeks packed to the max with corn I’d set out. He looked at me as if to say “thank you”.

I’m beginning to wonder if the loons have gone for the year already. I have yet to hear or see th em. Perhaps just the young are left here now. I’m not sure if the babies would call out at all—even if they did have a sibling on the lake.

I’m now sitting on the pier up north with a tray table, Endgame, a banana, a camera, a phone, and binoculars (oh, and a water bottle). I suppose that the phone is a breach in the ‘cut off from technology’ security—but I justified it by saying my mother would be worried if she called and I didn’t answer. It really is amazing how sound travels on this lake.

I haven’t seen any mammals larger than squirrels yet up here, but there are some strange droppings in the yard that make me think something larger—a badger or something of comparable size—is nearby.

I’m wearing a tube top-trying to get a last ditch attempt at a tan before the six month winter sets in. I think I’m still in denial about summer being almost over.

I was just thinking—how many mascots are endangered in their home states? The Badgers for instance—I’ve lived my whole life in this state and have not once seen one in the wild—not that running into one would be a fun filled experience per say. But, it would be one I should have had by now if they were so prevalent as to name a team in my state after them.
There’s a Musky fishing competition today so there are more boats than usual on the lake. I can see two right now in our small bay alone.

I sat, peaceful, serene, on the aluminum pier—not considering at all how unnatural the metal was—then with a glance toward the brown water lake I saw, clearly and without question the top from a soda or beer can about four feet down. What careless individual would go through the trouble of pulling the top off just to toss it into the lake and where is the can?

An airplane sounds so out of place in these woods, yet there it goes heading somewhere north of here.

“Even the trees in cities are in cages” Derrick Jensen

They are cutting down trees across the lake from me. Two have crashed to their deaths so far and they are working on a third. All I can see from here are their top branches as they fall and then I hear the crash as they touch the ground for the first time. The leaves would have fallen naturally in about two weeks, but now at least 30 years of growth lies dying on the ground. What purpose does this serve? Likely nothing more than a better view. Yet I myself write these words on a processed downed tree.

2:50pm Day 2
I got my answer to the loon question. There’s at least one I just heard it.

There are now two mature loons in the bay and one is acting quite strange. I’ve seen them “dance” before but this is different than anything I’ve ever seen. It will sink partway under water then flap its wings like mad as if to swim or take off but at the wrong depth for either. At first he was actually rolling in the water and I thought something like a musky might be attacking him. I was really worried but then I saw what I can only assume is a mate in the bay too—about one hundred yards from him and I felt much better.
Later: Two parent loons and a full grown baby-still in his/her adolescent plumage. That’s who they were calling to earlier I assume.

They may have stayed in the bay for hours if not for the asshole boat of fishermen that basically drove right at them. Grr! Motorboats, another way we are fucking up nature. The row boat promoted fitness, didn’t pollute—and didn’t scare the shit out of wildlife.

“The best and most courageous and most sincere of our efforts are never sufficient to the task of stopping those who would destroy.” Derrick Jensen

Red squirrels are far from quiet as they move about in the early fall. I just saw one in the yard behind me (I tried to film this with my camera but messed something up). I turned around and he froze, looking at me. He then rose to his hind legs (all five inches of his height) and started making these high pitched chirping sounds at me. He sprinted to the tree overlooking the lake by me, ran up and down it continuing his noises and glared at me for a good two minutes!

Later yet: WOW is all I can say. Who in their right mind drives a pontoon boat directly at an animal? ESPECIALLY a protected animal like a loon? What the fuck, I’m livid. I wish I had a boat right now so I could go fucking punch that guy driving the two jackasses that were and the boat who didn’t tell the driver to stop. The poor loons dove at the last minute.

Two hours later: I just sat for two hours watching the loons in our bay, always from a distance, smiling and totally at ease. They never went near a pier and then, just now, the mates came up within 20 feet of me. They looked at me, spread their wings for me and with one short call from one to the other they dove away. I feel that somehow they knew that even if it took swimming out to that boat that I would have kept them safe one way or another.

The squirrel is chirping to me again as if to tell me that I am right.

I love it when it’s no challenge to imagine a place as it was one hundred years ago. It’s so simple here. Remove the piers and you’re pretty much there. The loud motor boat and water skier that just almost took out the loons would have to go as well. I wish this was a non-motorized lake. Or one with an idiot test to enter.

Wildlife seen today:
Red Squirrels
Loons
Blue Jays
Grey Squirrels
Wildlife heard today:
Ducks
Loons

My Great Nine-Day Adventure

Day 1

Got up here at around 4pm today and already (it’s 8:30) I find myself settling in. The simplicity of the days ahead of me is exciting. A jigsaw puzzle, perhaps a swim, early morning runs. Not opening a computer for days—ah—it’s like I’ve finally exhaled after two years of holding it in.

I’m alone up here (not counting the neighbors who are up now too). It will be my first time up here entirely alone as well as my first time doing a lot of things alone. I don’t feel alone in this house though. There are too many happy memories filling it up for that.

I look to the backyard and don’t see an empty lake—no—I see luges coated with water while our parents weren’t looking. I see my Little Mermaid saucer sled zipping down the luge at the front of a train. (The way that memory ends isn’t particularly happy, but with over ten years to dull it, it’s funny now).

I sit now at the dining room table and I don’t see three empty chairs. To the contrary—I see it full with a blue Fischer Price table nearby holding several more bodies. I hear laughter at the first play through of Apples to Apples—I hear my younger brother’s cries as he tries to explain he broke his arm on a four wheeler.

I see all of this and so much more. I’m far from alone. I have twenty years worth of memories to fill these walls.

I think that this will be a fruitful week as far as writing goes. I hope to get some amazing photography as well—both passions that I have allowed to lay dormant for far too long.

I also need to think about what I plan to do next year. School in Minnesota? Or the more drastic choice to move west to Oregon—a state I have never been to but somehow know is a place I belong. I need to stop even considering staying in Wisconsin in my wage slave technical writing job as an option. I need to remember to dream before I forget how to altogether.

Wildlife seen today:

2 Bald Eagles

2 Blue Jays

3 Bats

Animals heard today:

Ducks on Lake

Vacation Withdrawal

As most of you know I just got back from a nine day retreat north a few days ago and since I have been going through the typical vacation withdrawal I’m sure all have experienced. I now sit at a desk in an office with no windows. A week ago I sat on a pier on a northern lake watching the loons teach their young to fly.

I now write manuals about an industry I’m not sure I agree with. A week ago I was working on an environmental novel that made me feel truly alive for the first time in what feels like years.

I get home from work and I take a nap, then maybe go outside for a run, or a little reading. A week ago I was only inside after dark, up until then I was outside listening to the languages of nature and learning more about life than I could ever find in a fluorescently lit room.

I wrote a lot while I was up there and I’m going to start (hopefully tomorrow) posting my musings from the north.

Thanks,

Amelie

Die Willy Die

I recently saw a commercial for the U.S. Navy that was promoting how environmentally friendly they were. I have searched for over an hour and can’t find the ad anywhere online. If you watch TV with any regularity however I’m sure you have seen it or will soon. (There’s a jogging woman talking about how great the Navy is). First of all, the only premise they seem to base this on is the use of nuclear power in their ships and submarines. Don’t even get me started on how bad that is. The waste product of nuclear power (spent fuel rods) remain toxic for thousands of years and we have yet to know what to do to detoxify them.

I am not so much here to talk about why nuclear power is horrible and no reason to call yourself green (yes, I’m talking to you US Navy) but here to talk about the other atrocity they have been a part of for years—killing marine life. I’m sure you all remember Keiko and your love for the character, Willy, he played in the box office hit Free Willy. Well, how would you feel about a bunch of dead Keikos? We all cheered as they freed him in the movie yet we sit passively by while whales and other marine life are killed for unnecessary training exercises.

Here’s a video about the danger to marine life from these loud noises (sonar) used by the Navy.

There was a temporary ban on these harmful uses of Sonar that were killing marine life, but that ban was lifted in November of 2008.

Here’s an excerpt from the article linked above:

“For the [environmentalists], the most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals that they study and observe,” he wrote. “In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained antisubmarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet.”

In an important caveat, the chief justice added: “Military interests do not always trump other considerations, and we have not held that they do. In this case, however, the proper determination of where the public interest lies does not strike us as a close question.”

In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the court-ordered mitigation measures were “manageable” and justified. She said the Navy’s own assessments predicted “substantial and irreparable harm to marine mammals.”

So, I’m just wondering how exactly the U.S. Navy is so environmentally responsible?

Here are some more articles you should check out:
US Navy Admits Its Sonar Killed Whales

Whale Killed During Navy Sonar Exercises

Sonar from Navy likely killed whales in the Bahamas

Just Friends? Oh Please.

I know you have all heard it before (and lived it for that matter). The girl who has been friends with a guy for years—feels like she knows him well enough that there’s absolutely no chance in hell he’ll “like like” her. Then, surprise, surprise, he confesses his love in one way or another. This not only ruins the “great friendship” but forces the girl to hurt one of her friends. Awkward, unwanted, unwarranted—all of the above. Yet guys seem to be watching too many chick flicks to realize that guy friends shouldn’t be more.

So here’s a list for those guys who are desperately in love with one of their girl FRIENDS to refer to when deciding whether or not to make the leap and go for them.

1. If you have known her for more than six months and you have both been single and she has yet to make any sort of move let it remain just a friendship.
2. Just because she asks you about you and your girlfriend doesn’t mean she has a thing for you.
3. She comes to you when guys hurt her? Yeah, she goes to her girl friends too—this doesn’t mean she has a thing for you.
4. She gets along just GREAT with you and your guy friends. Why not just have her fit in as your girl? Yeah, that’s a horrible idea. She fits in great because she doesn’t feel the pressure of being in a relationship. It’s probable that she just likes to kick back with you (and I don’t mean kick back the sheets).
5. You tried it once and it didn’t work. She said it was “weird”. Take her hint, don’t try it again.
6. She flirts with your friends. Okay guys, I highly doubt she is trying to make you jealous, quit justifying it that way. She wants to make it clear to you she’s not interested.
7. You did it, you made the move—and she ran away (literally). Please just let her be for a month or two, you just messed with her view on the world. Her processing the fact that you like her does NOT mean that she secretly loves you and is preparing for a relationship.

If you decide not to take my advice and, heaven forbid, tell her you like her. Don't do it during a night out with friends. If alcohol is involved, even worse idea. Do it sober, and alone. Not with a ton of people to witness her ignoring you.

Remember Roller Slides?

I was talking to my best friend last night about her new neighbors who put a Tupperware looking swing set outside her window. We started talking about the awesome swing sets we had as children that weren’t built to prevent injury, but almost to promote it. Swing sets used to teach lessons. I then started thinking about the playground my brothers and I used to beg to go to as children. It was at the local public elementary school (we went to private school) and we actually took field trips to it sometimes.

The playground had a stand up teeter-totter and a roller slide (among many other awesome things). If you don’t remember the roller slide, or never experienced it, you were missing out. It was a slide that was filled with a series of medal tubes that would rotate to propel you down. The tubes would get scorching hot in summer and would pinch your legs if you even thought of wearing shorts while careening down them. The slide was wide enough for two to go down side by side. It was extreme playing, and we LOVED IT. I know they took the roller slide out a few years ago—and I am afraid to go examine the playground now. I suspect it will be another Tupperware replica that makes playing so cautious it’s barely fun.

We wonder why children don’t want to be outside anymore. Playing isn’t fun if it’s totally safe.

Let’s bring back the roller slide, the stand up teeter-totter, the swings with concrete underneath them. Let’s bring back the pain of playing, the skinned knees. My younger brother broke his arm while playing on monkey bars in winter. It was an injury to be bragged of. Let’s bring back cast signing as a regular activity in classrooms.

I’ll Take Another Shot of That

Intoxication is the only way I know to describe it. It started happening almost a year ago when I first opened Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Before that point I had never known that there were people that thought so much like I did. With each word I read I slowly found myself almost falling in love with the concepts. It was like everything that had been abstract for so long fell into place perfectly, a jigsaw completed. I finally realized I wasn’t alone, crazy, or naive. Or maybe I was all of those but alone.

With that book I continued on a quest to read more like it, and I started pummeling through them like they were Fudgescicles in July. How was I supposed to stop when each page opened my eyes and heart wider—I was having an affair with a genre of books. I found myself nearly in love with authors I knew nothing about—except that they agreed with me. For the first time in far too long I wasn’t the only “crazy” one.

I am still reading books by these authors, and others like them. Now it is not so much the shocked love I experienced when reading them at first, but a type of reverence. I know that this knowledge is not only useful, but necessary. I have a request list about three pages long at the library and six unread books at home from them. I have one being shipped to me from half.com right now. I just cannot stop. But could you?

If you opened a book that reflected back at you all of your deepest secrets, hopes, fears, and dreams would you put it down and walk away? Some may be addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex; I am addicted to books that seem to be written by my future self.