Category Archives: Extinction

Big on Small

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I’m big on small and have been for much of my adult life. Not just small but tiny if at all possible. What might it mean to be small?


I’d suggest that we just start by acknowledging our own smallness. We spend much of our lives in a relentless effort to find or create our identity which is a part of proving our worth to the world around us. It might be that we do this with good deeds or, as often seems to be the case, with accumulation of one sort or another. It’s this latter bit that leads so many to a lifetime of bigger houses, faster cars, prettier clothing.

Spring Peeper

But really, we are, each of us just a tiny being sharing a tiny planet with 7 billion other tiny beings such as ourselves. And, of course, our tiny planet is just one of many billions in our galaxy which is itself just one of many billions in the known universe. To say that we are small is an understatement. And yet, our scale, both in physical size as well as in time, is what we experience day to day. It’s what we know and what we function in.

Earthrise

Our lives are small in so many ways. In the span of humanity we are but a tiny blip. Humanity itself is just a moment in the larger span of time. It’s easy to feel insignificant and in a strange way we many of us spend much of our lives trying to prove ourselves otherwise. Steve Jobs referred to it as “putting a dent in the universe.” The striving to leave a mark, to leave our mark. Sadly, in our striving to leave a mark, the collective mark we may leave is more a scar on the tiny planet we inhabit. Our mark might well be not just our own extinction but it is, as I write these words, the extinction of many other species.


Another example of small is small as in intimate, which is to say, being aware of the simple things up close. When I take a walk in the woods I walk slowly. I’m happy to take a long hike for exercise but to truly explore I only need to venture out a few hundred feet outside my door. More often than not we miss the little detail going on all around us. It might be a cluster of tiny fungi growing in a carpet of moss. Or a snail moving across a rock. Those tiny things are easy to miss, especially for adults. We get busy with making life complicated and we tower so far above our toes that we rarely take the time or make the effort to see the world around us from a different perspective. Some of the most interesting stuff of life happens on this small scale.


What begins as awareness can grow into appreciation and respect. It’s been my experience and observation that in the hustle and bustle of “modern” life we have disconnected from many important processes that are obvious if we’re paying attention but easily invisible if we’re not. Everything from soil building via decay to the hatching of turtle eggs to the transformation of a Monarch from larvae to butterfly. Life and death is happening all around us.

Spicebush Swallowtail nectaring from Butterfly Weed

I’ll admit here the limits of these words. As much as I respect science and the scientific method I’m not a scientist and what I can offer here is personal perspective based on observation. Like many of the words shared throughout history, be it on paper or pixel, I am, in my own way, reaching out. Not so much to convince as to connect. Might I suggest we might do better embrace small? It is really just another way of suggesting that we embrace fragility. That we acknowledge that the life on our planet rests precariously on a tiny edge that we are collectively tipping out of balance.

So, how might this embrace manifest itself in how we live our lives? I’ve got a list! By no means exhaustive. Just a few of the things I try to implement in my life. Just something to get you started.

  • Take more time eating breakfast
  • Make it a point to go outside and get on your hands and knees. Find something tiny, something fragile.
  • Observe the processes going on around us, especially those of the natural variety.
  • Find nature even if you’re in an urban setting. Seek it out, preferably on foot.
  • Plant a seed and make sure it grows. Best if it is something you can eat like a tomato.
  • Be okay with being small.
  • Think about your use of resources, especially fossil fuels. Reduce travel especially if it requires a plane or auto. Embrace trains and bicycles for travel.
  • Reduce your use of resources. Then reduce it again. And again. Don’t stop.
  • Increase your capacity to renew life around you. Start small. That tomato plant needs friends. Why not grow a pepper and some basil too?
  • Take time to learn about the non-human species that inhabit your region.
  • Mulch something. Mulch some of your grass lawn if you have a lawn. Grass lawns are a waste of resources. *Plant fruit trees or fruit bushes.
  • Compost your organic waste. Don’t forget to dig into the pile every so often to check out the process.
  • *Your tomatoes, peppers and basil are probably a little lonely. Plant some native wildflowers. There’s a bird or a butterfly just waiting to be fed by the flowers you plant.
  • Remember, smaller homes require fewer resources to build, maintain, heat and cool.
  • Share resources with your friends and neighbors.

All images by me except “Earth Rise”

Of Monarchs and Birthdays

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It’s Royal’s birthday so I’ll put on a happy face. But this. This. I’m having a real hard time imagining a summertime without Monarchs. What else will we kill off because we don’t know how to live within limits, don’t know how to live as species that recognizes the needs of other species. Every grass lawn, every golf course is a problem.
Prime example, I’ve just had a bit of a family kerfluffle because now that I’m not living at the lake they are making changes. Gone are the native wildflowers, including the butterfly milkweed I planted (the exact food source mentioned in this article), the coneflowers, etc…. replaced by? Grass. Every area we humans occupy (at least those of us I have come to know in my life) we insist upon wiping nature clean with a green lawn or concrete.
Of course I often hear “Oh what does this one little patch matter”? There’s more growing over there (wave hands in some direction). It is as though we each live in a bubble and unwilling to acknowledge that what we do matters because millions (in this nation) of others are doing it as well. The denial of collective behavior and collective effect is very intentional.
So, today Monarchs. Tomorrow?

On giving up

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I’ve not been posting much recently in part because I’ve spent more time outside in the garden. But really, that’s only half of the story. I suppose the truth is that I’ve just given up. Since leaving Memphis, and to some degree before that, I’ve lost hope. I can’t help but think that it is over and there is nothing that can be done and I mean that on many different levels. The political system in the U.S. is completely fucked. Climate change is probably what I worry about most and it is on my mind constantly throughout each day. Peak oil and Iraq as well. Of course within each of these there are many layers.

I’m finding that I don’t know how to feel. I’m depressed but really that’s only part of my reaction. I feel numb. I want to hide. In fact, that is what I’m doing I suppose. I’ve come to the conclusion that all I can do is minimize my negative impact which means I don’t go out much at all. I don’t want to interact with people… we humans, at least those I know and have known in my life… we’re selfish busy-bodies. MORE, MORE, MORE, MORE. We cannot be satisfied. We refuse to acknowledge the truth of our lives. We lie to ourselves and our children and our grand children. We humans are selfish, greedy liars.

I long ago made the decision not to have children. I cannot imagine bringing one into this world. Not only for the sake of the child, but also in terms of adding to the problem. In terms of ecology and planetary recovery we need about 4 billion fewer humans, not one more. Even better, I’d guess the planet would be best served by our extinction. If I believed in god that’s what I’d pray for.

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Polar bears to get ‘threatened’ listing thanks to climate change

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And to think I know people that still think global warming is a natural cycle… they much prefer to gloss over the effects of what we are doing. Much easier to watch tv, go shopping, etc. and pretend that this is all natural… no need for guilt or responsibility. It’s far too much trouble to consider reality and the possible need to change one’s lifestyle.

I’m increasingly convinced that human beings are fucking monsters. At the very least, we’ve become nature’s delete key. Sad to say but it will be a good thing for the rest of the planet when we manage the task of deleting ourselves… something that will not likely come soon enough.

Polar bears to get ‘threatened’ listing:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Polar bears are in deep trouble because of global warming and other factors and deserve federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, the Bush administration is proposing Wednesday.

Pollution and overhunting also threaten their existence. Greenland and Norway have the most polar bears, but almost 5,000 live mainly in Alaska and travel to Canada and Russia.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne plans to announce later Wednesday that polar bears should be listed as a “threatened” species on the government list of imperiled species, a department official confirmed Wednesday. The “endangered” category is reserved for species more likely to become extinct.

Such a decision would prevent the U.S. government from allowing any activity that could jeopardize polar bears or the sea ice where they live.

Thinner sea ice reduces the amount of food polar bears can find, including ice seals that are their main prey.

Environmentalists hope that invoking the Endangered Species Act protections eventually might provide impetus for the government to cut back on its emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping “greenhouse” gases that are warming the atmosphere.

The proposed listing also marks a potentially significant departure for the administration from its cautious rhetoric about the effects of global warming.

President Bush’s steadfast refusal to go along with United Nations-brokered mandatory controls on carbon dioxide, the chief global warming gas, has contributed to international tension between the United States and other nations.

Polar bears, an iconic and cold-dependent animal, are dropping in numbers and weight in the Arctic. In July, the House approved a U.S.-Russia treaty to help protect polar bears from overhunting and other threats to their survival.

That vote put into effect a 2000 treaty that sets quotas on polar bear hunting by native populations in the two countries and establishes a bilateral commission to analyze how best to sustain sea ice. It also approved spending $2 million a year through 2010 for the polar bear program.

The Polar Bear Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union, based in Gland, Switzerland, has estimated that the polar bear population in the Arctic has dwindled to 20,000 to 25,000.

The group lists the polar bear among more than 16,000 species threatened for survival worldwide, and projects a 30 percent decline in their numbers over the next 45 years. It says sea ice is expected to decrease 50 percent to 100 percent over the next 50 to 100 years.”

The Interior Department plans to allow up to 90 days of public comment on its proposal, which was first reported by The Washington Post on its Web site on Tuesday night.

A little over a year ago, three environmental groups — the Center for Biological Diversity, Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace — filed suit to force such a proposal from Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees endangered species. Fish and Wildlife officials have been reviewing the status of polar bears more than two years.

They were pleased by the decision Wednesday.

“This is a victory for the polar bear, and all wildlife threatened by global warming,” Kassie Siegel, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Wednesday. “There is still time to save polar bears but we must reduce greenhouse gas pollution immediately.”

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China’s white dolphin called extinct after 20 million years

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Incredibly sad but as I’ve said before, this is going to get much worse. Climate change, combined with all the toxins we’ve released, is creating a very different planet earth. I’m convinced we won’t be around much longer. Within 15 years, probably 10 we will no longer recognize our planet. Yes, I think it’s happening that fast. China’s white dolphin called extinct after 20 million years:

BEIJING, China (AP) — An expedition searching for a rare Yangtze River dolphin ended Wednesday without a single sighting and with the team’s leader saying one of the world’s oldest species was effectively extinct.

The white dolphin known as baiji, shy and nearly blind, dates back some 20 million years. Its disappearance is believed to be the first time in a half-century, since hunting killed off the Caribbean monk seal, that a large aquatic mammal has been driven to extinction.

A few baiji may still exist in their native Yangtze habitat in eastern China but not in sufficient numbers to breed and ward off extinction, said August Pfluger, the Swiss co-leader of the joint Chinese-foreign expedition.

“We have to accept the fact, that the Baiji is functionally extinct. We lost the race,” Pfluger said in a statement released by the expedition. “It is a tragedy, a loss not only for China, but for the entire world. We are all incredibly sad.”

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