Happy New Year!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A Long Line of Anal Retentive Shovelers
I was thrilled to be in the middle of some snowy weather on my trip! I even got to go sledding. Of course, this also meant I was additional shoveling labor for those I was staying with. My first stop had lots of snow and people who were too busy to really fret about it. They have a big tractor too, and I suppose that can solve pretty much all snow problems in rapid fashion. Next stop saw a dusting turn to 6" which required some maintenance of the walkways and unplowed areas. Getting the snow off was the name of the game and I was laughed at for trying to get the driveway clear to the pavement...it was then that I realized I was pulling a Dad.
Well, my final stop taught me that shoveling perfection is not only one generation deep--instead, I come from a long line of anal retentive shovelers! As the snow turned to wintry mix (my least favorite New England concoction), I periodically broke away from the Patriots game to clear the porches and sidewalk. No problem. A short time later, wintry mix turned to rain and made the snow impossibly heavy to move. The trouble was, I could not be outdone by my octogenarian Babci who had decided she needed some fresh air. So, shovel to the pavement I did, until I was soaked and my biceps were about to pop. The best part was that Babci was out there in her high heeled fashion snow boots--the least functional winter footwear I could imagine--and she seemed to be enjoying herself!
Well, my final stop taught me that shoveling perfection is not only one generation deep--instead, I come from a long line of anal retentive shovelers! As the snow turned to wintry mix (my least favorite New England concoction), I periodically broke away from the Patriots game to clear the porches and sidewalk. No problem. A short time later, wintry mix turned to rain and made the snow impossibly heavy to move. The trouble was, I could not be outdone by my octogenarian Babci who had decided she needed some fresh air. So, shovel to the pavement I did, until I was soaked and my biceps were about to pop. The best part was that Babci was out there in her high heeled fashion snow boots--the least functional winter footwear I could imagine--and she seemed to be enjoying herself!
I Got Licked By A Cow
With a load of work looming for January, I decided to sneak away after my final exam (which I think I passed!) for the wilds of the snowy north. Travel from our present spot on the globe to New England just couldn't be easier--no more 5 hour plane rides and strandings in various mid-country airports! I left home exactly 1 hr. and 15 mins. before my flight and still had time to park the car, get checked in, and enjoy (?) a cup of shwag airport java before my flight. A bit over an hour later, I was over Boston Harbor.
First stop was a few days on the farm. I consider myself pretty agrarian when it comes to gardening and landscaping, but animals (other than a nutty dog, a few squirrels, and some ornery raccoons, the latter two of which I'm not really responsible for) are not in my picture, despite my best wishes to acquire some hens. So, when on the ride north, I discovered I'd be palling around with a bevy of animals (more in the summer, but they're dinner now), I was pretty excited.
With the snow falling and the light fading, I got to assist as farmhand--which, really is not all that different from fish biology: you carry lots of buckets filled with water. Thankfully, I got to duck the stall mucking in favor of child care (which sometimes may not seem that much of a trade, but at this time was a favorable exchange). The next morning it was bright and sunny with several inches of fluffy snow everywhere, so I took another stroll outside and introduced myself to "Bob" and Buddha, two steers (not cows!). Before I knew it Buddha gave be a big old wet one right across the belly--he lifted up my 6 layers of down, fleece, and wool, and got me! The girly scream was perhaps unnecessary but hilarious all the same. Steers have raspy tongues! Funny dudes, these two are.
Also on tap was to check in on the ladies--17 hens of various colors, sizes and plumage--and pick up some breakfast. Apparently, according to the farmer, I must have lost the Easter egg hunt when I was a kid, as I left a few tucked-away, hidden eggs un-gathered. Ooops. Good thing for quality control. These are some fluffy chickens living in a pretty deluxe coop--and they must be happy because they lay lots of very yummy eggs! Apparently, I'm not the only visitor to the farm that got excited about collecting eggs, I guess I just need to hone my technique.
With a storm looming, everyone's plans were thrown into high gear and I had to say goodbye to Crooked Rainbow Farm--I will for sure be back!Of course, I couldn't leave before getting a few good runs in on the hill with the old flying saucer. The snow was perfect sledding snow and with the dogs chasing me down the hill, I let out another girly scream before filling my farm boots full of snow and lodging myself in a snow drift downslope.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
A Energy Ethic--Is There Hope Still?
An exam I'm writing had me pondering the finer points of Aldo Leopold's call (in 1949) to take up a "Land Ethic." I'm really not sure we're there (but read below, as I've decided my exam response-which was really an extra credit question-could serve double duty as pontificating blog post too). However, I got a bit distracted while writing that response and stumbled upon the news that Obama has assembled his environmental and energy team. After reading the article and doing a little deeper research, I am hopeful: I am thinking we may be headed toward an energy ethic.
This crack team (notably lacking any marine or biological scientists, I might add, not to diminish the credentials of the selected few, but to point out that it's still not perfect), will be headed by Dr. Steven Chu from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (who, while not trained in biology, has shown an increasing interest in biosciences in recent years). This guy is a smarty-pants. He won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 and has written a ton, taught a ton, innovated a ton, and seems kind of engaging to boot (see video of him at the National Energy Summit). Additionally, he was a part of ScienceDebate2008, showing that science and public support of science is a priority. I hope, despite the falling gas prices and distraction of the flailing economy, that as we move into 2009 we will take energy efficiency, energy policy, energy dependence and more importantly, energy and non-energy science, in general, more seriously.
--------------
In “A Sand County Almanac” Aldo Leopold wrote of his observations of nature, the changes that had befallen much of the American West, and he culminated with his chapter “The Upshot,” a call to arms about what the future could hold, given a commitment to “The Land Ethic.” He wrote:
“An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence…In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it…A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of ecological responsibility for the health of the land.”
What Leopold was invoking was the need for each citizen to be a part of the land and to act accordingly as a steward—he observed that we saw the land too much as a commodity belonging to us and needed to view it “as a community to which we belong.” Leopold was a forester by trade and had seen the destruction not only to the landscape, but also to the waterways, resulting from poor agricultural and forestry practices. In 1949, when he published this book, he acknowledged a fundamental flaw of natural resources: that when the emphasis is put on the economic value of the land and the products we extract from it, comes detriment to the land itself. This was obviously before the era of off-road vehicles, large-scale industrial agriculture, and off-shore drilling, yet his message seemed as urgent and timely then as it seems now, 60 years later.
Sadly, we (the collective “we”) have not grabbed ‘hold of “The Land Ethic” of which Leopold wrote. The current spate of research and published papers describing “ecosystem services” (see Costanza 1997 and Balvanera 2001) in effect acknowledges our need to see the environment as a commodity in order to justify conserving, protecting, and restoring it. This is as true in the marine system as it is on land. Off-shore drilling, industrial fisheries, eutrophication and contamination of our coastal waterways are evidence of our continued role as conquerors rather than stewards.
Leopold wrote that “The ordinary citizen today assumes that science knows what makes the community clock tick; the scientist is equally sure that he does not. He knows that the biotic mechanism is so complex that its workings may never be fully understood.” Our role as marine scientists is to communicate to Leopold’s “ordinary citizen” that science doesn’t know what makes the community clock tick in its entirety, but that the discipline of science, in its compartmentalized fashion, is learning more and more with each question asked and it is the ordinary citizen’s responsibility to be as keenly interested in the “biotic mechanism” as he is in his 401K. Additionally, with this “biotic mechanism” changing so rapidly due to our actions, we must devote increasing efficiency to the pursuit of understanding, lest we have no land-community and water-community to write about in 60 years.
Balvanera, P., G.C. Daily, P.R. Ehrlich, T.H. Ricketts, S.Bailey, S. Kark, C. Kremen and H. Pereira. 2001. Conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services. Science 291: 2047.
Costanza, R., R. d'Arge, R. de Groot, S. Farber, M. Grasso, B. Hannon, K. Limburg, S. Naeem, R.V. O'Neill, J. Paruelo, R. G. Raskin, P. Sutton, M. van den Belt. 1997. The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387(6230):255.
This crack team (notably lacking any marine or biological scientists, I might add, not to diminish the credentials of the selected few, but to point out that it's still not perfect), will be headed by Dr. Steven Chu from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (who, while not trained in biology, has shown an increasing interest in biosciences in recent years). This guy is a smarty-pants. He won a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 and has written a ton, taught a ton, innovated a ton, and seems kind of engaging to boot (see video of him at the National Energy Summit). Additionally, he was a part of ScienceDebate2008, showing that science and public support of science is a priority. I hope, despite the falling gas prices and distraction of the flailing economy, that as we move into 2009 we will take energy efficiency, energy policy, energy dependence and more importantly, energy and non-energy science, in general, more seriously.
--------------
In “A Sand County Almanac” Aldo Leopold wrote of his observations of nature, the changes that had befallen much of the American West, and he culminated with his chapter “The Upshot,” a call to arms about what the future could hold, given a commitment to “The Land Ethic.” He wrote:
“An ethic, ecologically, is a limitation on freedom of action in the struggle for existence…In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it…A land ethic, then, reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in turn reflects a conviction of ecological responsibility for the health of the land.”
What Leopold was invoking was the need for each citizen to be a part of the land and to act accordingly as a steward—he observed that we saw the land too much as a commodity belonging to us and needed to view it “as a community to which we belong.” Leopold was a forester by trade and had seen the destruction not only to the landscape, but also to the waterways, resulting from poor agricultural and forestry practices. In 1949, when he published this book, he acknowledged a fundamental flaw of natural resources: that when the emphasis is put on the economic value of the land and the products we extract from it, comes detriment to the land itself. This was obviously before the era of off-road vehicles, large-scale industrial agriculture, and off-shore drilling, yet his message seemed as urgent and timely then as it seems now, 60 years later.
Sadly, we (the collective “we”) have not grabbed ‘hold of “The Land Ethic” of which Leopold wrote. The current spate of research and published papers describing “ecosystem services” (see Costanza 1997 and Balvanera 2001) in effect acknowledges our need to see the environment as a commodity in order to justify conserving, protecting, and restoring it. This is as true in the marine system as it is on land. Off-shore drilling, industrial fisheries, eutrophication and contamination of our coastal waterways are evidence of our continued role as conquerors rather than stewards.
Leopold wrote that “The ordinary citizen today assumes that science knows what makes the community clock tick; the scientist is equally sure that he does not. He knows that the biotic mechanism is so complex that its workings may never be fully understood.” Our role as marine scientists is to communicate to Leopold’s “ordinary citizen” that science doesn’t know what makes the community clock tick in its entirety, but that the discipline of science, in its compartmentalized fashion, is learning more and more with each question asked and it is the ordinary citizen’s responsibility to be as keenly interested in the “biotic mechanism” as he is in his 401K. Additionally, with this “biotic mechanism” changing so rapidly due to our actions, we must devote increasing efficiency to the pursuit of understanding, lest we have no land-community and water-community to write about in 60 years.
Balvanera, P., G.C. Daily, P.R. Ehrlich, T.H. Ricketts, S.Bailey, S. Kark, C. Kremen and H. Pereira. 2001. Conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services. Science 291: 2047.
Costanza, R., R. d'Arge, R. de Groot, S. Farber, M. Grasso, B. Hannon, K. Limburg, S. Naeem, R.V. O'Neill, J. Paruelo, R. G. Raskin, P. Sutton, M. van den Belt. 1997. The value of the world's ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387(6230):255.
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