65 Years Later
I was going through some things at work one day for a purge. Our offices were moving from one part of the D.C. area to another, and the mandate from on high was to get rid of all the paper we could (within reason) and scan in the rest. So, I set to work going through old Federal Policy documents and memoranda from the last 75 years. I poured through document after document of directives and interpretations of the law, comments from interested politicians and citizens alike. Most of the documents were boring and painful to go through, but, once in a while, I came across impassioned letters or saw a name or two that registered for me, and hearkened back to general environmental courses in college where we discussed those figures in history that broke the meniscus of paradigm, and transcended the mundane conversation to make a real different in the world of environmental justice. One day, my fingertips held a tissue-thin piece of beige-brown paper that held the name of Aldo Leopold. The Sand County Almanac is one of my favorites, and I pontificate at all available dinner parties that everyone should read it at least once.
Among his wonderful descriptions of habitat, trees, and all of the wonderful nuances of a life of natural solitude, Leopold tells the story of a sawyer who cuts through the tough rings of a Bur Oak, and he tells everything that happened during that tree's existence. Everything that happened to the environment, when some birds became endangered or extinct, and when habitat was lost to farming and over harvest. The book hearkens to what has been lost to waste and ignorance, and what we stand to gain with sustainable development from here on out. (At least that's what I take from it.)
I sometimes hunt in the saddle of a Faulkier County, Virginia mountain, where a huge tree lies across the access trail. I've battled this hulking 4-foot-in-diameter tree before and lost, so yesterday I returned with a longer bar on my saw and a shiny sharp chain to cut through it's bowels. As my saw cut through the rings of that Northern Red Oak and my saw spit shavings over cool leaves, I looked at the tree's past through the lens of Leopold. The tight rings must have numbered 175 or 200, as many as that Bur Oak that the Wisconsin sawyer had cut through in the conservationist Almanac, and I wondered if the last 65 years of wise growth have yielded any better results than the 150 that the sawyer recounted. Have we learned from Leopold and Carson, Thoreau, Roosevelt, Muir, Pinchot, and all of the other environmental leaders, or are we retooling the same old philosophies? I'd like to think that we are wiser because of our leaders, and that we've made fundamental change. Sixty-five years should be long enough to not only hit the pause button, but to reverse old trends in development and zoning and consumption.
Definitely we are living more sustainably in some ways. Urban areas are cleaner, and new development is more sustainable. We've promulgated regulations to minimize the effects of asbestos exposure, lead, and some other heavy metals in new construction and renovations, and LEED building standards are being used more and more. Some would say, however, that development and innovation outpaces that of regulation and health research. New York recently took the economically unpopular stance of prohibiting fracking within it's borders due to unknown environmental and health consequences of new extraction technology.
The poverty rate has flatlined, and 40% of US kids are living in impoverished conditions. Chances are, the environmental reforms and advances in development in clean urban areas isn't benefiting them. What's the connection, you might ask. Income level is directly correlated with standard of living. So that means that 40% of kids are living in substandard conditions...in this country! The 2008 recession hit middle and lower class household incomes hard, and the rich-poor discrepancy in the United States continues to increase. The takeaway is that high and upper-middle class households will realize environmental advances and policy efforts at raising the quality of life for those since they can afford it, but increasingly, those in poverty in this country are slipping further and further behind, and these past 65 years haven't done much for them.
And not to be Debbie Downer, but if that's the prognosis for the United States, what about the rest of the world?
All this to say that the fight is not over, and if you're a conservationist watching the tube thinking all that can be done has been done, you're kidding yourself. Get out and do what you can. Speak out for policy reform if you're in a position of power, and get involved in local meetings, and try to encourage city councils to direct their resources towards alleviating local poverty by invigorating impoverished communities. Help out at the community rec center, travel somewhere that's not comfortable, and live it. Separate recycling from your trash, start composting, and drive less, not because it's going to make a big difference in the scheme of things, because it probably won't, but rather because living with intention in little ways will lead to a much higher intention in the things that will change the world.
But, if all of that other stuff is a little too far outside of your comfort zone, just give a smile and listen to somebody that you wouldn't have otherwise. It's amazing to think what would we'd get if all of those thoughts out there came together and blew up.
And read A Sand County Almanac, dammit.
Among his wonderful descriptions of habitat, trees, and all of the wonderful nuances of a life of natural solitude, Leopold tells the story of a sawyer who cuts through the tough rings of a Bur Oak, and he tells everything that happened during that tree's existence. Everything that happened to the environment, when some birds became endangered or extinct, and when habitat was lost to farming and over harvest. The book hearkens to what has been lost to waste and ignorance, and what we stand to gain with sustainable development from here on out. (At least that's what I take from it.)
I sometimes hunt in the saddle of a Faulkier County, Virginia mountain, where a huge tree lies across the access trail. I've battled this hulking 4-foot-in-diameter tree before and lost, so yesterday I returned with a longer bar on my saw and a shiny sharp chain to cut through it's bowels. As my saw cut through the rings of that Northern Red Oak and my saw spit shavings over cool leaves, I looked at the tree's past through the lens of Leopold. The tight rings must have numbered 175 or 200, as many as that Bur Oak that the Wisconsin sawyer had cut through in the conservationist Almanac, and I wondered if the last 65 years of wise growth have yielded any better results than the 150 that the sawyer recounted. Have we learned from Leopold and Carson, Thoreau, Roosevelt, Muir, Pinchot, and all of the other environmental leaders, or are we retooling the same old philosophies? I'd like to think that we are wiser because of our leaders, and that we've made fundamental change. Sixty-five years should be long enough to not only hit the pause button, but to reverse old trends in development and zoning and consumption.
Definitely we are living more sustainably in some ways. Urban areas are cleaner, and new development is more sustainable. We've promulgated regulations to minimize the effects of asbestos exposure, lead, and some other heavy metals in new construction and renovations, and LEED building standards are being used more and more. Some would say, however, that development and innovation outpaces that of regulation and health research. New York recently took the economically unpopular stance of prohibiting fracking within it's borders due to unknown environmental and health consequences of new extraction technology.
The poverty rate has flatlined, and 40% of US kids are living in impoverished conditions. Chances are, the environmental reforms and advances in development in clean urban areas isn't benefiting them. What's the connection, you might ask. Income level is directly correlated with standard of living. So that means that 40% of kids are living in substandard conditions...in this country! The 2008 recession hit middle and lower class household incomes hard, and the rich-poor discrepancy in the United States continues to increase. The takeaway is that high and upper-middle class households will realize environmental advances and policy efforts at raising the quality of life for those since they can afford it, but increasingly, those in poverty in this country are slipping further and further behind, and these past 65 years haven't done much for them.
And not to be Debbie Downer, but if that's the prognosis for the United States, what about the rest of the world?
All this to say that the fight is not over, and if you're a conservationist watching the tube thinking all that can be done has been done, you're kidding yourself. Get out and do what you can. Speak out for policy reform if you're in a position of power, and get involved in local meetings, and try to encourage city councils to direct their resources towards alleviating local poverty by invigorating impoverished communities. Help out at the community rec center, travel somewhere that's not comfortable, and live it. Separate recycling from your trash, start composting, and drive less, not because it's going to make a big difference in the scheme of things, because it probably won't, but rather because living with intention in little ways will lead to a much higher intention in the things that will change the world.
But, if all of that other stuff is a little too far outside of your comfort zone, just give a smile and listen to somebody that you wouldn't have otherwise. It's amazing to think what would we'd get if all of those thoughts out there came together and blew up.
And read A Sand County Almanac, dammit.
Comments
Post a Comment