Serendipitously (or was it that?), before reading your post just now, I had just downloaded all three of Rachel Carson's three New Yorker magazine articles in 1962 (June 16, 23, 30) entitled Silent Spring I, II + III. Rachel was mocked, ridiculed, and shamed by men from DuPont, the government, the press - while she was dying from breast cancer - and yet, she put on a wig, and faced their withering scorn, and Mike Wallace. She was a woman of a "certain age" who dared to find her true love, and still care for her adopted nephew after her sister's death. She did all this because she knew she had to. And then she died, two years later at age 56. Today, we all the better for her courage. Where did she find that?
“Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”-Robert F. Kennedy
Rachel Carson knew she was right, and morally so. I believe Courage springs from curiosity. Reading. Learning. Discussing. Testing.Defending. Each carries a certain risk and an unknown reward.
After reading all these lovely comments, I returned to Christy's link on Courage. It sent me down a "rabbit hole" of discovery. And it made me resonate with Susan Lorraine Knox's statement above that "Courage is a learned skill."
The DeVries article reminded me of something my 50-year old friend, a police officer/detective, Shane Harris, taught his daughter. She spoke about this at his Memorial this past Saturday morning. Being a member of the Force since he was 19 years old, Shane offered her training in how to use a gun and how to Own A Room using The Slice of Pie tactic. It moved me deeply and it is one of the gifts that Shane, who died way too soon, left all of us who are not in the military or the Force to ponder, and hone, as a life lesson. And it made me have such respect for all the men and women in dark blue uniforms who showed up, stood at attention in the hot sun while the rest of us sat under the safe canopies of shelter during that hot summer morning to pay respects to one of their own.
The two police and military tactics reminded me I know nothing about military strategies nor the Courage these men and women know and must use daily and probably had to use standing there in the heat for several hours. Maybe, I thought, it is time for me to learn how to use them. If only as metaphors for Life. But also maybe to know how the insurrectionists, Proud Boys, Qanoners and rogue police and militia have been trained to think and act. If made me think how important Eugene Goodman's judgment and Courage to lead the insurrectionists away from our elected officials. Brilliant tactical strategy and quick thinking in a crisis.
Shane told his daughter, whilst teaching her how to shoot targets or hostiles, how to enter or pass a room using the Slice of Pie technique (I watched a short video on that: https://dailyshooting.com/slice-the-pie-tactic/). You deal with the hostile/s there. Once you have "cleared a room"— YOU OWN IT. You enter the room fully and you completely Own The Room. This young woman said that she will take this important lesson from her father and look at her life, in all he taught her, and keep learning how to Own the Room as her Life progresses without him there to protect her. He taught her the skills to raise her Courage and be self-confident. This is an incredibly important lesson in life. And though I would prefer to talk about observing and preserving our beloved ospreys and my deep love for kayaking today, my/our Courage must also be honed to protect our Democracy in whatever way our Courage directs us to learn and show up. I share this for those of you who are scared and anxious about these strange days.
We need to step into our Country right now and Own The Room. I love how so many of you are doing that with your actions, writing and calling our elected officials. I also love how others focus on our animals and environment. Thank all of you for showing up and sharing your actions for our critical natural environment and animals, for people and for our Country. We need everyone to choose something, anything, and Own That Room.
Do you see how I just used a brainwashing technique in repeating the message (Own the Room)? We need to use those techniques to unwash brains-- like over at Fox and Qanon. Make sure they get the opposite messaging to their constant brainwashing by flooding them with reality.
Profound, Penelope. You got my attention so that’s “owning the room”. It’s all about framing intent. An excellent counter strategy to Fox News and their smarmy arrogance.
What a beautiful testament to Shane Harris and his daughter who was a loving daughter and his good student. It's comments like this that keep me coming back to this portion of HCR's Letters. I love Heather's optimism within the facts and I love all of your responses. You are good company and I crave good company. Thank you too to Penelope for sharing this with us today. I shall be pondering owning the room, courage and somewhere in this thread I read about curiosity which I hold in high regard. A bow to you all and of course to Heather.
Thank you for the link. IT is like the Natura v future argument. I was always a shy timid child and teen. Slowly began blooming the older I became. My first husband once told me that he felt like Dick Diver in Tender is the Night. He was watching me grow as he stayed still. I always wonder if was in me from birth or I became a different person.
Neuroscience has demonstrated that our brains are modifiable to a much larger extent than has been previously thought. It may take work (like healing early traumas), but we can change our brain. Googling neuroplasticity will turn up lots. I started with Norman Doidge.
thank you for linking this. I would never have seen it otherwise. I'm in the final third of my life (optimistically) and saw up close too many CEOs who made selfish, childish, cowardly choices during the pandemic. I take great hope from this example!
I forgot caring and compassion for something, someone, or for ALL. Courage comes from caring. Courage like Rachel Carson’s springs from recognizing injustice and suffering, and the willingness to work to alleviate both.
You're a national treasure, Heather— hell, an international treasure. I honestly don't know what so many of us would do without your clear vision, innate ability to articulate even the most hidden truths, and your integrity.
I hope that you hear this from many others. We all feel it, and are grateful...
This post touched me. I read Silent Spring in 1967, a senior in high school. 35 Years later I saw my first bald eagle. Today I survey nesting eagles & osprey for our natural resources dept (volunteer). I feel so utterly fortunate to live in a place where eagles fly over my house, as do pelicans, nighthawks, osprey. At night owls talk amongst themselves in our pines. Every Single Day of my adult life I eagerly wait for morning bird song and hope to never, in my lifetime, witness a silent spring.
I observe nesting osprey and great blue herons regularly at our off-leash dog park. It's astonishing! One recent day as I arrived at the park, I heard discordant cries of the herons so I hurried my hound dog to the heronry. Sure enough, there was a bald eagle sitting in one of their trees carefully calculating which heron chick to take. Not sure what transpired, mainly because I was witness to an eagle attack a couple of years ago and didn't want to be witness to another. I just hope the eagle found different prey to feed its young!
It's so refreshing to talk about Nature and not politics! Nature has been my lifesaver the past 4-1/2 years!
Something like 20 years ago while kayaking in Washington state’s Clear Creek, some splashing on the bank caught my attention. It was an injured bald Eagle, struggling in the shallow rocky water at the rivers edge. I thought he must’ve injured himself while trying to do what the ospreys do so gracefully. diving into the river to catch a fish. Being a bit curious I paddled over closer and closer and I could see the eagle was in serious duress. I talked my friends into a quick action rescue plan. I would lead. They would watch ( thinking I was about to be in need of first aid myself). From my days bird hunting, I knew that a bird would be calm if I could just cover his head and eyes. In kayaking we cover the cockpit of or little boats with what we call a spray skirt. It’s a neoprene tube of neoprene that fits tightly around your waist and has neoprene rubber deck with a tight rubber rand that seals water out of the kayak. So I took my spray skirt off, ( now friends thought I had lost it), and I tossed the skirt over the Eagles head and then quickly grabbed what was about the size of a thanksgiving g Turkey …carefully …very carefully.
An Eagles talons are something to behold and when they’re that close to your own flesh, they do get your full attention. I have done this with quail, chucker and occasional doves …but I wasn’t 100% sure it would work but it did and I was glad and relieved. My white water kayaking buddies we’re pretty surprised that it worked thus far. The next part of the plan I hadn’t thought through very well. I talked one of my friends into holding the eagle while I got back in my kayak and they placed the bird in between my legs. head still covered , the Eagle stayed calm, almost asleep! But I could see those talons that close to two things that were very concerning to me! you see in a whitewater kayak you sit in the cockpit with your legs spread and your knees high and engaged in your “thigh braces”for added control. To say I was vulnerable would be an understatement. But the eagle was compliant and calm and we paddled all the way to take out to out parked cars. we kept the Eagles head covered, walked up the trail, placed him in a friends van and took him to the bird sanctuary. I’ve only told the story to a couple of people and it’s the first time I’ve written about it. And I still have a bird dog, but I stopped hunting after that.
OH, Ted!!! I have seen bald eagle talons up close, when one died near my friend's place on Lake Huron. They are huge! Your bravery is amazing!! Thank you for this.
The eagle was really wet when I got to him. which is strange For a bird. birds have oil in their feathers that keeps them dry and insulated and warm. This eagle was really soaking wet, all the way to the skin. So I think he was in the water for a long time. where we found him was right where the river sort of ended and the reservoir/lake began. So he might’ve been used to diving in the deep lake and maybe tried to dive but it was shallow in the river. I’m not sure if he had a broken wing or not, he was using his wings like a crab legs, just trying to get out of the water at the edge, exhausted/spent. I think he probably just hit the water too hard too fast, possibly too shallow a spot and injured himself on a dive, but there’s no way to really know for sure how he got hurt. He was so hurt, cold, and the eyes don’t lie, he was going to surrender. The locals we were with had a van and they volunteered to take him to the raptor sanctuary nearby outside Vancouver, WA.( where I am now fir biz. Maybe that’s why I remembered this tonight?) This was before social media and cell phones and I’m not sure what happened after that.
There was a wonderful NOVA program on KPBS2 here in San Diego last night: "Eagle Power". Episode #4707. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in PBS Passport. It's from 2020. Check your local PBS stations. And yes, those talons are incredibly strong and scary - great explanation for how and why in the video.
There is likely politics going on in the jurisdictions that are doing the spraying. I learned nearly 50 years ago that spraying is counterproductive, as it kills off the predators of the organisms, such as mosquitos, that are the targets of the spraying. Follow the money.
The mechanism is that the predators of mosquitos and other target insects eat many of their prey critters, and thus absorb many times the amount of pesticides that get into an individual prey insect.
This might not be there with ospreys and eagles, but it strikes me HCR saw those birds in a clear blue sky. 40 years ago, when I would fly down to Los Angeles, the only way I could find the airport in the smog was to fly directly over it, look down and see it, then circle to the landing pattern keeping it in sight so I didn't lose it. Nowadays, just about every day it isn't raining or there's a temperature inversion, I can see all the way across the San Fernando Valley in all directions. The other week, I was going through my photo records - back in 1978 I took photos at an air show at Chino where the background was just a grey nothing. Three years ago, I stood in the same spot taking photos, only there were mountains to the north and south and big hills to the east and west to be seen - they were there back then, too, but you couldn't see them for the smog. 40 years ago in the winter up in the Central Valley, they used to get what was called "Tule Fog" and there were regular reports at least once a winter about a major pileup with 100+ cars damaged when the fog closed in. That was due to dust in the air, humidity, and "particulate matter." I can't remember the last time I saw a new report of one of those kind of accidents.
All that stuff people started doing 45-50 years ago has had an effect. On just about everything, from the birds to the air they fly in.
Reminds me of a story i heard from colleagues...who did a lot of airport planning studies around the world...about a new airport developed for Halifax, NS. This was pre- the first oil price hike so passenger and traffic forecasts were going off the charts. Halifax wanted a new airport as the "city" one was very frequently fogged in. They discovered a forested area about 30 miles out of the city where there apparently was no fog. So the cut the tress and build the airport....and discovered why there wasn't any fog....before. Trees are wonderful things. What would we do without them?
I remember, in the late 70's, driving back to LA from Topanga Canyon, and up there it was clear, sunny and fresh air - driving down (about 3 pm) LA was blanketed in smog - suddenly on the down path there was a sudden shift, we entered a purple haze and the burnt oil smell was almost overpowering. All in less than 1/2 mile! Luckily I was living in Costa Mesa, so it wasn't so bad there. Occasionally the sky cleared enough to see Mt Wilson - wow there are snow covered mountains to the west! Hope it's better now.
Driving back from Provence to Paris, you can start to smell Paris at Corbeil-Essonne.....25mile out! I also remember driving back into Montreal from weekends in the Laurentians and seeing the "Mountain" in the evening sun surrounded by a halo of black....gasoline with lead! When the gasoline lost the lead, the halo turned orange. Looking out over Paris from the Parc de St Cloud (on top of an escarpment overlooking the West of the city), the horizon is a dark gray on working days, less on weekends....but getting a little better. One's always tempted to think that we are better off out of it but you know very well you are breathing it too.
TC, see my post from earlier today. I grew up in the 60's in Hollywood and later Glendale. I remember looking across the football field and the far end was hazy with smog. This was our own personal 'smog alert' back then.
These days the air looks cleaner, the number crunchers are telling us what we want to hear, yet my last trip down to LA was about 5 years ago. Instead of tanning golden brown in the 3 days I was there, my skin turned orange. The only other place this has happened to me was in New Zealand where there is an 'ozone hole' in the atmosphere (also in Chile). There seems to me to be something going on that we're not being told about. Why would my skin turn orange in the city that I grew up in? Curious minds want to know.
It appears that the improved air quality in the LA Basin has reversed course to some degree though not as bad as in the 60s-70s. I moved to San Diego in 1970 and we used to have some terrible smog days - due to LA smog because LA is actually to the northwest of SD and the prevailing winds would blow it down here.
I spent a couple of summers with my grandmother in Highland Park (an old LA suburb) in the late 1960s and got to go hiking above the city smog in the Angeles mountains with my uncle and aunt a few times. Whenever we returned to the car to drive back to the city, it looked like we were driving into a used cigarette filter. I'm happy to learn that the air has cleared so much!
My first time in California was a visit to a distant cousin in summer 1962. She lived in Pasadena in a no-longer extant bungalow court 1/2-block off Colorado Blvd. After I had been there a few days, I walked out of the kitchen door one morning and suddenly realized there were *mountains* right there! Also, I've long worn bangs and while I was there, my forehead broke out in pimples - the only time (thank heavens) I've had facial skin problems. I've no doubt that was because of the smog.
I have come across several passionate environmental professionals whose mission was launched after reading Silent Spring, myself included. It warms my heart. For me, I found her book on a shelf in my middle school library and took it home. It became the motivation for my “DDT and the Peregrine Falcon” report, handwritten on notebook paper and tied up with aqua yarn and then, later, years of study and work to reduce energy use and climate degradation. Thank you for sharing your Father’s story and your deep understanding. There are many successes.
My thought—reading (which I did and do endlessly from the time I learned how) opens so many vistas to a child, and the right book read in middle school can jumpstart one’s adulthood!
Silent Spring inspired me to focus my career in enforcement of environmental laws. I worked for the State of California for 35 years, inspecting hazardous waste handlers, prosecuting violators, and I cleaned up hundreds of sites contaminated with chemicals or abandoned hazardous waste. I am so thankful for people like you who are blessed with the rare tools to articulate the innumerable wrongs bad people do to society, to assuage their egos, or for their own personal gain.
Heather, your spirit shows us that, even in dark times, we should still have hope. Things can change for the better. It should also encourage us to refuse to stay silent, speak out, and stay strong, regardless of our opponent's size. Thank you.
I live in South Florida and raise butterflies on my pesticide free property. Every summer, the county mosquito fog trucks make their rounds through my neighborhood…killing ALL of the pollinators. My calls and letters fall on deaf ears to those in charge of making the decisions to spray. It’s heartbreaking to wake up on the same property that was buzzing with life yesterday to find the garden completely still and to find butterflies floating in my pool. Thank you for sharing this lovely story of hope and possibility. Without that, what do we have?
Terrible. They’ve stopped fogging in Pinellas County, FL. Instead they focus on standing water and education about eliminating sources of standing water.
I’m really sorry, I wish I was nearby and could help you banging on doors and heads! Go all the way up! Don’t take ‘no’ from someone who can’t say ‘yes’! It’s going to continue to be a fight, but also try letters to your local papers! Maybe you can find a sympathetic journalist to help make the message widespread! It’s so pathetic that these guys are so ignorant, defiant, or both. Don’t give up!
Some of those pesticides--nerve poisons--have been found likely to cause Parkinson's, and possibly other neurological diseases. They also kill creatures that eat the target creatures (mosquitos), such as birds and frogs, as I learned in introductory biology. My guess is that your local gov't may be cozy with the insecticide purveyors.
I love that notion: "growing habitats." That's exactly how I look at my yard. I also have little "eco systems" in various locations - some for the baking hot sun, some for the windy areas, some for the tropicals...something for every critter that needs a bite or some juice! I don't have a big yard, but size isn't what counts to them!
Our gardens are indeed not just for ourselves. This spring, "owning" my home for the first time in my 66 years (the quotation marks are because I don't believe we ever can really own a piece of the earth, and because though I own my manufactured home, someone else owns the land on which it sits), I have spent many calming moments watching the bees busily gathering pollen from my rhodendrons, various wild flowers (and weeds to some), and deciduous shrubs. Later in the season, I'm enthralled by the cliff swallows that skim the water and the land hunting mosquitoes. The bald eagles seem to have moved on for awhile - and I'm wondering if it's because there have been sightings of even larger golden eagles just to the south of the lake. (Sadly, if those giant golden brown raptors I stopped to watch twice in recent weeks are indeed goldens, it might mean they have moved into bald eagle territory because so much of their habitat was destroyed in last year's wildfires.)
My neighbors have told me that rabbits and deer will likely nibble at the bush peas we have planted in the unfenced part of our yard, and I tell them in return, "Good, because that's who we planted them for!"
Having a place of your own means so very much. I have a doublewide on 4 acres of my "very own". Love every inch of it - the entire place was lawn when I moved there into a single wide trailer. I now have brush & trees below my side lawn - more up above the field & paths that I keep mowed so I can walk up by the woods & loop around the brush. Many deer, squirrels(of course), chippies & judging by one sighting, a red fox. Love it Love it, Lanita and its MINE. I make the decisions & no one else. I know your home & the flowers & other creatures means just as much to you as this place does to me. It IS calming!
I care for bees in my four homebuilt hives. I don't collect their honey, just offer the bees a sustainable home. I sometimes sit and watch them for an hour or two with a cup of tea.
And still, Home Depot sells flowers and shrubs sprayed with neonicotinoids, a known cause of 'CCD' or 'colony collapse disorder'.
Sister Lanita, I'm with you, owning the house, not the land. I just ignore that and act like I am steward of the land. I'm on the last lot, up against the forest, and what a blessing, all the birds, winged beings, doug squirrels... haven, habitat for frogs, snakes, and my food as well as phacelia and other flowers. What a local paradise! We can create habitat and health on our little piece of Earth.
I know what you mean.. I live here too and signed a similar petition. We still deal with chemicals being sprayed on us and our forests and food. The fight still goes on.
That is devastating! Perhaps if area farmers, affected by the absence of pollinators, could join your efforts? Low farming yields = lower income = lower tax revenues for the county.
And that is why the Monarchs are gone ... but somehow, the gulf fritillaries, the gold rimmed swallowtails and of course, the broadwing zebras (Florida's State butterfly) have managed to survive.
Maggie, I was at our cottage on Lake Ontario last week for the day and saw a couple of monarchs and 3 tiger swallowtail that were traveling together. I mentioned that to our neighbor and she said there just aren't the numbers anymore. One of her gardens is specifically for butterflies. She said she has few visitors. 😥
Several years ago, I started seeing what I thought at first were hummingbirds on my beebalm flowers. Turned out they were Sphinx moths! As big as humming birds. They were amazing - but only saw them that one summer. As far as I know, there is no spraying done here where I live. The fields get hayed but thats it. And I dont use any kind of chemical crap. Its beyond shameful what we humans have done and are doing to this planet.
Maggie, yes! We would get those glorious moths. I had no idea what they were wonder what they were until I further researched them. Because of the pandemic, we weren't able to go to the cottage last year. I often wonder what showed up in our absence.
Humans are absolutely to blame for what our planet has become.
Several years ago, I started seeing what I thought at first were hummingbirds on my beebalm flowers. Turned out they were Sphinx moths! As big as humming birds. They were amazing - but only saw them that one summer. As far as I know, there is no spraying done here where I live. The fields get hayed but thats it. And I dont use any kind of chemical crap. Its beyond shameful what we humans have done and are doing to this planet.
Enjoy them. When your milkweed goes to seed, save the seeds and scatter them where they might grow, but not along maintained roadways which get treated with pesticides.
I ordered seeds couple years ago, but couldnt get them to start. Now I see 2 plants in back of my house & a smaller one up at the edge of a field. So maybe they will live & flourish. Hope so - certainly not cutting them down.
The numbers of insects generally are down by about 75% over the last 50 years, both in the US and Europe (to my knowledge we don't have measurements in other places). The numbers of wild vertebrate animals in the US are similarly down over the last 50 years. when the population of people rises, as it has donw by about 120 million people over that time (equivalent to six NY States), the numbers of animals goes down.
That is a story similar to the experience of a dear friend who is no longer with us. He was mayor of his little town in south AK and expert in many things - organic farming being one. His produce was so prolific, he literally gave it away by the bushels. A few years ago when I visited him, he showed me what remained of his sad vegetable garden. He told me he didn't think he would have any tomatoes because the little airport adjacent to his property was spraying its fields and the drift had killed all the bees that pollinated his plants. This practice of spraying cotton fields is still occurring to this day. His fertile paradise is long gone and sadly so is he.
I grew up in South Florida. Summers we were at Lake Wier, one of the largest freshwater sand bottom lakes. Pure and clear water then... Now that the rich have gobbled up the land surrounding the lake, it has become the color of green slime: the death rattle perpetrated by chemical fertilizer. I was there three years ago and could only cry. It was the haven of my childhood.
That is so sad, Rosalind. I didn't know that about Lake Weir, and it must have been just a wonderful time to be there in your youth and to enjoy a pristine lake in the summer. Old Florida is such a beautiful place and time. I envy those who got to enjoy it and I am angry at the rich and powerful for ruining it. I have been in south west Florida for 30 years and I continue to see the destruction of habitat and the mega-mansions going up, replacing the charming bungalows. And of course, the water everywhere in Florida is being ruined, as you have mentioned.
What a shame. I’m sorry for your loss. I think it’s predominantly chemical run off from sugar cane fields. It effects the lakes and rivers here too. We are surrounded by waterways where I live and I wouldn’t want to put my toe in any of them.
Could you organize local residents to force the county to stop? Admittedly, the following was on a much smaller scale, but I lived in a residentially zoned area where a company bought up some properties and started parking trucks there and starting them up very early in the morning. I organized the neighbors, and we put a stop to all this, ultimately forcing the company to sell the property if I remember correctly.
Mother Earth will survive and thrive, that is not the concern. she will evolve into a different place after eliminating the invasive species we have become. She will spin on, after the human experiment has burnt itself out.
Naomi Klein asks, “What is wrong with us?” in her recent book. Although the word ‘absolute’ is rarely in my writing or thoughts because it means "a value or principle that is regarded as universally valid or that may be viewed without relation to other things” and I find little 'universally valid’ or 'without relation.’
Pondering the question posed, a possible answer woke me in the middle of the night with the notion of ‘absolute greed’ as the driving force behind the recalcitrant, intransigent actions related to continuing, in the face of catastrophic changes already upon Earth, burning carbon. We continue to drill, dig, frack, and by any means obtain fossil fuel. We burn increasing amounts of biomass. [This is certainly not a complete exegesis—add your own issue or concern.]
We are evidencing hatred of the biophilic, distracted by the latest post, the most recent atrocity, our navels...
Despite the urgent need, in order to protect an environment in which humans can function [certainly not the one we now know to be transforming at a fairly rapid clip] to make a 180-degree pivot in how we live, this is not universally happening. One person, even one million persons transforming from a fossil-fuel-based life will change very little. We have claimed ignorance and gone too far toward destroying the human-viable atmosphere of our planet.
The children suing local and federal governments for clean air and water, for “not doing all they can do to protect our future,” is such a sad comment on our greed-based humanity, ever further from origins and sustenance and balance within the Gaiaic systems that nurtured our evolution.
A human life is brief, merely a moment in time, no matter how long we live. Perhaps this brevity is one way we have moved so far from our place on the planet so rapidly that we disconnected from Earth as anything but potential profit.
The masses of people—billions of us—where are our heads and hearts? Are we medicated? Religion as the opiate, although some would have it be television or social media or whatever numbs and nulls us. We dance about the head of a pin while Rome burns. Perhaps it is my own ignorance…but this is a rabbit warren of conjecture. Whatever obscures the reality, we are simply not making the radical, as in to the root, changes required. There is no compelling narrative of focus or transformation of the dominant paradigm which is subversive to life.
This apathy is making me crazy, so beyond making changes in my personal life [which are totally inadequate to the need] I am compelled to give voice to the anguish I feel as grandchildren are born. Beautiful beings, old souls, innocent of the rape of Earth but certain to live and die in the consequences.
The urgency is palpable. We are melting, storming, drying, flooding, quaking—Earth is offering messages, alerts, warnings—and there are many who heed. We are, simultaneously [as we burn, drill, dig, and frack] re-learning how to forage, grow our own food in the circular nature of Demeter, clean our water, re-center community, power our own movement [e.g., bicycles], turn to air and sun and water for biophilic energy, heal without violating, add your own contribution here.
I once had a teacher who taught that the actions of one was revolutionary and significant—and contributed to changing the world. I no longer believe that the quiet, solitary, changed life will change the world. Too many people are living that life, or as close to it as they can get, and the world is not changing. We no longer have the luxury of each one teach one.
Entire systems of government, industry—all the complexes working in concert to extract evermore; maintenance of fossil fuel-based economies; the focus on 'growth' at any cost; the “free” markets—which are supported and rigged so as to no longer actually be anywhere close to free; the obsession for the profits of making war; the fractured “health care” system; [enter your own concern here]—Earth and our continued existence [in some type of very altered, but supportive to human life environment] need all this to change in rapid fashion, in response to the emergent messages we are getting that we have gone too far.
kimceann, The storm of your words, observations, frustration, recognition, fury, CRY, WHY, and knowing -- hurt. It appears that Heather's story unleased our experiences with wildfires, ruined spaces, youthful adventures in nature and desperation about the earth, the greed and human nature. I wanted to hug you at times as I read this comment; your feelings burned brighter as your mind kept looking around. This time and place are very difficult to contain because we see and hear and learn what we wish was not so. There are lights and models and qualities that call us to persist. I thought of Elizabeth Warren at the same time my mind found 'persist'.
One of the group of kids suing the government is from Eugene, and during my time as court security, I had the opportunity to be present when their case was remanded to the Lane County Circuit Court (we had two courtrooms dedicated to that; one where the plaintiffs sat at the jury box, because their table was full of attorneys) and the other as an overflow gallery. (My job was keeping order in the gallery.) I had given them an introductory talk about how the judge was going to come in and call them to order, and to listen to what she had to say. My best guess is that there were over 100 people crowded into an area that normally tops out at 60.
Judge Moony (now an appellate judge here in Oregon) came in, did just as I said she would ("all rise, the circuit court of the state of Oregon is now in session, the Honorable Josephine Moony presiding") but did not give them the "be seated" right away. She gave them a lecture on decorum, and how to conduct oneself in a courtroom. She finished with "I charge Deputy House with maintaining this conduct, and should she need to eject anyone from the courtroom for bad conduct, it will be brought to my attention." It was the most well-behaved group of kids and parents that I've seen at the courthouse.
As I recall the progress of that case, they got a non-positive Circuit Court ruling, it went to the 9th Circuit, it was denied, and they've appealed to SCOTUS, so it is still in limbo.
I agree - had to be fascinating to see and hear. Thanks for the link. Sadly, I dont remember ever reading about that before. And it should be reported LOUDLY>
The tragedy is the one of the human condition - we have always sought comfort - a cave, the lee of a big rock, our humpy - but now our comfort expectations are incredible - and have become the normal expectation -so we will fight to the death to retain them. As, I think, George Monbiot has said .. "No one has ever rioted for austerity".
Yes and the binary choice between comfort and survival is false. We can have comfort without destroying the planet by making more sustainable choices and controlling population. All it takes is will and cooperation. If we can’t work together for our own survival, we don’t deserve to be here.
We have been kayaking the past month+ along some local rivers in metro west MA where eagles, blue heron, osprey, swans, geese, ducks, etc. dot the waterways. While the scourge of DDT has dissipated, residential and farm/orchard fertilizer/pesticide run off, heavy metals from manufacturing, munitions from military, all have left residual pollution.
And, we are just discovering the extent of PFAS (forever chemicals) in drinking water supplies in many communities across the state. We desperately need more “Rachel Carsons”!
Yes and I just heard a story on NPR about a woman in Washington state whose farm animals were born horribly mutated, and her children were very sick. Turns out it was from aerial spraying of an Agent Orange derivative used to clear the forests of underbrush so the loggers could more easily harvest the trees. That battle is currently being fought.. why are we still doing these things when we know how deadly these chemicals are?
My father began his career as an environmental engineer at Dow Chemical Company in 1951. Always between a rock and a hard place, he secretly reported the company to the state health department whenever he discovered illegal dumping. I have his cooy of Silent Spring.
Thank You. He wrote a book before he died, which is in need of editing (and a good attorney to prevent the company from suing: "That book will NEVER be published!") called "Too Soon Green." Revealing. But when he became Dow's Global Environmentalist, he was able to prevent a "Love Canal" and a "Bhopal".
MaryPat, your stock is stout, indeed! And green to boot 🍀😎. What a remarkable fellow. Well, if I am not correct, don’t you have an editor ... in yourself?
Thank you for writing of a father who taught you about the natural world. My dad did the same, taking the three of us kids camping in western and eastern WA and BC multiple times each summer. We participated in the Ranger programs, learned about all kinds of bugs, slugs, critters and creatures. Because of his influence, as an adult, I studied native plants and habitat restoration and continue to derive great pleasure from the natural world. I am working in my own neighborhood to repel the invasive species (ivy, Himalayan blackberry, English holly, etc.) on our forested common areas while encouraging the native species. I taught my kids to appreciate nature and am absolutely delighted that my granddaughter would rather be outside collecting rocks and leaves than watching YouTube. She recently said that every time she's outside enjoying herself, she usually gets wet. She's 4 years old and loves lakes, rivers, streams and her little backyard swimming pool. She's my Hope For The Future.
While Dad was a staunch Republican, that was at a time when the Republican national platform included preservation of nature. He would be absolutely devastated by what the party has become. As am I. I hope I am carrying on the dedication to Nature that Rachel Carson espoused.
What a beautiful tribute to your father's parenting of you, then parenting your children then parenting their children...yes, creating Hope For The Future! Working to make this a better world.
I have had pairs (one pair at a time) of osprey nest at my place for the past 20 years. Watching nature daily like that is hard at times, joyful at others, but of course, the parts that aren't man made are just part of the deal, which we humans have such a hard time with. One year a microburst swept through and knocked the babies out of the nest before they had fledged. They landed on the ground beneath the nest. The parents flew around aimlessly, lacking their purpose, for the next couple of months. One year, the babies did not survive. No idea why. This year it seemed to take much longer than normal for them to produce eggs and settle into brooding. One year, there were three babies! When they started flying, it seems like there were osprey everywhere I looked! Watching the young start standing up and stretching out their wings for the first time is such an awesome sight. There used to be a big dead elm near the nest. The dad would sit in the elm, the mother in the nest, shrieking flight instructions at their kids. One mom dive-bombed me when I walk the dogs by, but mostly they get used to us and keep sitting quietly. I talk to her in a friendly and supportive way hoping that helps. Sometimes the pair is very quiet. Sometimes other osprey stop by to visit. The other day I had five circling over my house. I always miss them when they leave and am always relieved and thrilled when they return on April 1st, almost to the day. So much we don't know. But I have the utmost respect for their focus and commitment to their life. The mom sitting on that nest through cold, heat, rain, hail, thunder and lightning. The dad always sitting nearby or going over to the lake to bring back a meal.
I love to garden, and l talk to all the plants and critters as l work in the yard. I don’t spray as I work hard to attract pollinators to my garden. I love to watch the birds splash in my birdbaths. They enjoy doing that so much.
Serendipitously (or was it that?), before reading your post just now, I had just downloaded all three of Rachel Carson's three New Yorker magazine articles in 1962 (June 16, 23, 30) entitled Silent Spring I, II + III. Rachel was mocked, ridiculed, and shamed by men from DuPont, the government, the press - while she was dying from breast cancer - and yet, she put on a wig, and faced their withering scorn, and Mike Wallace. She was a woman of a "certain age" who dared to find her true love, and still care for her adopted nephew after her sister's death. She did all this because she knew she had to. And then she died, two years later at age 56. Today, we all the better for her courage. Where did she find that?
“Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”-Robert F. Kennedy
Rachel Carson knew she was right, and morally so. I believe Courage springs from curiosity. Reading. Learning. Discussing. Testing.Defending. Each carries a certain risk and an unknown reward.
Courage is a learned skill.
This is interesting. Is there research regarding?
A discussion on this. Not sure if there is actual research as much as experiential knowledge from living it. https://hbr.org/2020/05/how-to-find-and-practice-courage
After reading all these lovely comments, I returned to Christy's link on Courage. It sent me down a "rabbit hole" of discovery. And it made me resonate with Susan Lorraine Knox's statement above that "Courage is a learned skill."
The DeVries article reminded me of something my 50-year old friend, a police officer/detective, Shane Harris, taught his daughter. She spoke about this at his Memorial this past Saturday morning. Being a member of the Force since he was 19 years old, Shane offered her training in how to use a gun and how to Own A Room using The Slice of Pie tactic. It moved me deeply and it is one of the gifts that Shane, who died way too soon, left all of us who are not in the military or the Force to ponder, and hone, as a life lesson. And it made me have such respect for all the men and women in dark blue uniforms who showed up, stood at attention in the hot sun while the rest of us sat under the safe canopies of shelter during that hot summer morning to pay respects to one of their own.
The two police and military tactics reminded me I know nothing about military strategies nor the Courage these men and women know and must use daily and probably had to use standing there in the heat for several hours. Maybe, I thought, it is time for me to learn how to use them. If only as metaphors for Life. But also maybe to know how the insurrectionists, Proud Boys, Qanoners and rogue police and militia have been trained to think and act. If made me think how important Eugene Goodman's judgment and Courage to lead the insurrectionists away from our elected officials. Brilliant tactical strategy and quick thinking in a crisis.
Shane told his daughter, whilst teaching her how to shoot targets or hostiles, how to enter or pass a room using the Slice of Pie technique (I watched a short video on that: https://dailyshooting.com/slice-the-pie-tactic/). You deal with the hostile/s there. Once you have "cleared a room"— YOU OWN IT. You enter the room fully and you completely Own The Room. This young woman said that she will take this important lesson from her father and look at her life, in all he taught her, and keep learning how to Own the Room as her Life progresses without him there to protect her. He taught her the skills to raise her Courage and be self-confident. This is an incredibly important lesson in life. And though I would prefer to talk about observing and preserving our beloved ospreys and my deep love for kayaking today, my/our Courage must also be honed to protect our Democracy in whatever way our Courage directs us to learn and show up. I share this for those of you who are scared and anxious about these strange days.
We need to step into our Country right now and Own The Room. I love how so many of you are doing that with your actions, writing and calling our elected officials. I also love how others focus on our animals and environment. Thank all of you for showing up and sharing your actions for our critical natural environment and animals, for people and for our Country. We need everyone to choose something, anything, and Own That Room.
Do you see how I just used a brainwashing technique in repeating the message (Own the Room)? We need to use those techniques to unwash brains-- like over at Fox and Qanon. Make sure they get the opposite messaging to their constant brainwashing by flooding them with reality.
Profound, Penelope. You got my attention so that’s “owning the room”. It’s all about framing intent. An excellent counter strategy to Fox News and their smarmy arrogance.
What a beautiful testament to Shane Harris and his daughter who was a loving daughter and his good student. It's comments like this that keep me coming back to this portion of HCR's Letters. I love Heather's optimism within the facts and I love all of your responses. You are good company and I crave good company. Thank you too to Penelope for sharing this with us today. I shall be pondering owning the room, courage and somewhere in this thread I read about curiosity which I hold in high regard. A bow to you all and of course to Heather.
Thank you for the link. IT is like the Natura v future argument. I was always a shy timid child and teen. Slowly began blooming the older I became. My first husband once told me that he felt like Dick Diver in Tender is the Night. He was watching me grow as he stayed still. I always wonder if was in me from birth or I became a different person.
Neuroscience has demonstrated that our brains are modifiable to a much larger extent than has been previously thought. It may take work (like healing early traumas), but we can change our brain. Googling neuroplasticity will turn up lots. I started with Norman Doidge.
Transformation versus “going to seed”.
thank you for linking this. I would never have seen it otherwise. I'm in the final third of my life (optimistically) and saw up close too many CEOs who made selfish, childish, cowardly choices during the pandemic. I take great hope from this example!
Transforming Leadership by James MacGregor Burns
Or
Barbara Kellerman
I think courage comes from the determination to bring about change for the common good.
I forgot caring and compassion for something, someone, or for ALL. Courage comes from caring. Courage like Rachel Carson’s springs from recognizing injustice and suffering, and the willingness to work to alleviate both.
It's Doing the Next Right Thing!!!!😊
Too bad the republicans don't have an ounce of It!!😡
Agree. Republicans only do what gets them more campaign $ from…? (Hint…it has nothing to do with there constituents, only donors and dark donor PACS)
Rachel Carson was one incredible woman. Regardless of the scorn she received, perseverance was key …..plus she was right!
In other words - she persisted - as have many courageous women in this world!
One person can change the world…. And you are one of them….Thank you Professor.
You're a national treasure, Heather— hell, an international treasure. I honestly don't know what so many of us would do without your clear vision, innate ability to articulate even the most hidden truths, and your integrity.
I hope that you hear this from many others. We all feel it, and are grateful...
Piggybacking off your post, Susan, because you said it so well. Thanks, and morning!
Yes, beyond grateful. I am finally getting an advanced degree… I guess it’s a degree in ‘what is going on and how did we get here?!’
This post touched me. I read Silent Spring in 1967, a senior in high school. 35 Years later I saw my first bald eagle. Today I survey nesting eagles & osprey for our natural resources dept (volunteer). I feel so utterly fortunate to live in a place where eagles fly over my house, as do pelicans, nighthawks, osprey. At night owls talk amongst themselves in our pines. Every Single Day of my adult life I eagerly wait for morning bird song and hope to never, in my lifetime, witness a silent spring.
I observe nesting osprey and great blue herons regularly at our off-leash dog park. It's astonishing! One recent day as I arrived at the park, I heard discordant cries of the herons so I hurried my hound dog to the heronry. Sure enough, there was a bald eagle sitting in one of their trees carefully calculating which heron chick to take. Not sure what transpired, mainly because I was witness to an eagle attack a couple of years ago and didn't want to be witness to another. I just hope the eagle found different prey to feed its young!
It's so refreshing to talk about Nature and not politics! Nature has been my lifesaver the past 4-1/2 years!
Something like 20 years ago while kayaking in Washington state’s Clear Creek, some splashing on the bank caught my attention. It was an injured bald Eagle, struggling in the shallow rocky water at the rivers edge. I thought he must’ve injured himself while trying to do what the ospreys do so gracefully. diving into the river to catch a fish. Being a bit curious I paddled over closer and closer and I could see the eagle was in serious duress. I talked my friends into a quick action rescue plan. I would lead. They would watch ( thinking I was about to be in need of first aid myself). From my days bird hunting, I knew that a bird would be calm if I could just cover his head and eyes. In kayaking we cover the cockpit of or little boats with what we call a spray skirt. It’s a neoprene tube of neoprene that fits tightly around your waist and has neoprene rubber deck with a tight rubber rand that seals water out of the kayak. So I took my spray skirt off, ( now friends thought I had lost it), and I tossed the skirt over the Eagles head and then quickly grabbed what was about the size of a thanksgiving g Turkey …carefully …very carefully.
An Eagles talons are something to behold and when they’re that close to your own flesh, they do get your full attention. I have done this with quail, chucker and occasional doves …but I wasn’t 100% sure it would work but it did and I was glad and relieved. My white water kayaking buddies we’re pretty surprised that it worked thus far. The next part of the plan I hadn’t thought through very well. I talked one of my friends into holding the eagle while I got back in my kayak and they placed the bird in between my legs. head still covered , the Eagle stayed calm, almost asleep! But I could see those talons that close to two things that were very concerning to me! you see in a whitewater kayak you sit in the cockpit with your legs spread and your knees high and engaged in your “thigh braces”for added control. To say I was vulnerable would be an understatement. But the eagle was compliant and calm and we paddled all the way to take out to out parked cars. we kept the Eagles head covered, walked up the trail, placed him in a friends van and took him to the bird sanctuary. I’ve only told the story to a couple of people and it’s the first time I’ve written about it. And I still have a bird dog, but I stopped hunting after that.
That’s such a cool story. So glad you did that and that you didn’t get hurt. I hope the eagle made it.
Ted, you are a treasure ❤️
ted, I followed your story with excitement and concern (for you). Sensational rescue -- thank you.
Fern, it was nice reading and Sharing outdoor Adventures instead of politics for a change 😎🙏
Fern, this is home.
https://youtu.be/q6T94iS9m2g
Ted, thank you for this. Wondrous!
Your welcome!
They need help to increase access and participation in this program.
You and your friends, Ted, gave nature a mighty boost that day by your heroic action!
OH, Ted!!! I have seen bald eagle talons up close, when one died near my friend's place on Lake Huron. They are huge! Your bravery is amazing!! Thank you for this.
🙏. Those talons were huge! And so sharp. I was a lot younger then. The group thought I was crazy. But everybody did something to help.
Beautiful and touching story, Ted! Did you ever learn what had injured the eagle? Did it recover?
The eagle was really wet when I got to him. which is strange For a bird. birds have oil in their feathers that keeps them dry and insulated and warm. This eagle was really soaking wet, all the way to the skin. So I think he was in the water for a long time. where we found him was right where the river sort of ended and the reservoir/lake began. So he might’ve been used to diving in the deep lake and maybe tried to dive but it was shallow in the river. I’m not sure if he had a broken wing or not, he was using his wings like a crab legs, just trying to get out of the water at the edge, exhausted/spent. I think he probably just hit the water too hard too fast, possibly too shallow a spot and injured himself on a dive, but there’s no way to really know for sure how he got hurt. He was so hurt, cold, and the eyes don’t lie, he was going to surrender. The locals we were with had a van and they volunteered to take him to the raptor sanctuary nearby outside Vancouver, WA.( where I am now fir biz. Maybe that’s why I remembered this tonight?) This was before social media and cell phones and I’m not sure what happened after that.
Thanks for the additional details. Hope the eagle did survive; if so, it was thanks to your brave efforts!
There was a wonderful NOVA program on KPBS2 here in San Diego last night: "Eagle Power". Episode #4707. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in PBS Passport. It's from 2020. Check your local PBS stations. And yes, those talons are incredibly strong and scary - great explanation for how and why in the video.
My heart. I love this share.
Here's a video of a lady near me of the eagles nesting close to her yard. She's been posting pictures for a couple of years.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y-O09oYJ6BU
Eagles are opportunistic bullies. Ospreys are the real deal hunters.
There is likely politics going on in the jurisdictions that are doing the spraying. I learned nearly 50 years ago that spraying is counterproductive, as it kills off the predators of the organisms, such as mosquitos, that are the targets of the spraying. Follow the money.
The mechanism is that the predators of mosquitos and other target insects eat many of their prey critters, and thus absorb many times the amount of pesticides that get into an individual prey insect.
As usual…grrrr
We have had a few very curious baby owls in our back yard over the years. Twilight cocktail hour or a glass of wine, owl calling as the moon rises.
Twilight cocktail hour
Owl calling as moon rises
Baby owls respond
Some haiku for you Ted.
This might not be there with ospreys and eagles, but it strikes me HCR saw those birds in a clear blue sky. 40 years ago, when I would fly down to Los Angeles, the only way I could find the airport in the smog was to fly directly over it, look down and see it, then circle to the landing pattern keeping it in sight so I didn't lose it. Nowadays, just about every day it isn't raining or there's a temperature inversion, I can see all the way across the San Fernando Valley in all directions. The other week, I was going through my photo records - back in 1978 I took photos at an air show at Chino where the background was just a grey nothing. Three years ago, I stood in the same spot taking photos, only there were mountains to the north and south and big hills to the east and west to be seen - they were there back then, too, but you couldn't see them for the smog. 40 years ago in the winter up in the Central Valley, they used to get what was called "Tule Fog" and there were regular reports at least once a winter about a major pileup with 100+ cars damaged when the fog closed in. That was due to dust in the air, humidity, and "particulate matter." I can't remember the last time I saw a new report of one of those kind of accidents.
All that stuff people started doing 45-50 years ago has had an effect. On just about everything, from the birds to the air they fly in.
Reminds me of a story i heard from colleagues...who did a lot of airport planning studies around the world...about a new airport developed for Halifax, NS. This was pre- the first oil price hike so passenger and traffic forecasts were going off the charts. Halifax wanted a new airport as the "city" one was very frequently fogged in. They discovered a forested area about 30 miles out of the city where there apparently was no fog. So the cut the tress and build the airport....and discovered why there wasn't any fog....before. Trees are wonderful things. What would we do without them?
Thank you for this historical perspective, TC. Been reading your comments for months and appreciate your salient points.
Flattery will get you *everywhere*! :-)
I remember, in the late 70's, driving back to LA from Topanga Canyon, and up there it was clear, sunny and fresh air - driving down (about 3 pm) LA was blanketed in smog - suddenly on the down path there was a sudden shift, we entered a purple haze and the burnt oil smell was almost overpowering. All in less than 1/2 mile! Luckily I was living in Costa Mesa, so it wasn't so bad there. Occasionally the sky cleared enough to see Mt Wilson - wow there are snow covered mountains to the west! Hope it's better now.
Driving back from Provence to Paris, you can start to smell Paris at Corbeil-Essonne.....25mile out! I also remember driving back into Montreal from weekends in the Laurentians and seeing the "Mountain" in the evening sun surrounded by a halo of black....gasoline with lead! When the gasoline lost the lead, the halo turned orange. Looking out over Paris from the Parc de St Cloud (on top of an escarpment overlooking the West of the city), the horizon is a dark gray on working days, less on weekends....but getting a little better. One's always tempted to think that we are better off out of it but you know very well you are breathing it too.
Much better now.
Whoops - to the east!
TC, see my post from earlier today. I grew up in the 60's in Hollywood and later Glendale. I remember looking across the football field and the far end was hazy with smog. This was our own personal 'smog alert' back then.
These days the air looks cleaner, the number crunchers are telling us what we want to hear, yet my last trip down to LA was about 5 years ago. Instead of tanning golden brown in the 3 days I was there, my skin turned orange. The only other place this has happened to me was in New Zealand where there is an 'ozone hole' in the atmosphere (also in Chile). There seems to me to be something going on that we're not being told about. Why would my skin turn orange in the city that I grew up in? Curious minds want to know.
You're probably a full Seattle-ite now. (:-)) Nobody I know here has that problem.
Except that it's the only place that I tan that colour. I get out to Yosemite each year and have the expected tanning colour.
It appears that the improved air quality in the LA Basin has reversed course to some degree though not as bad as in the 60s-70s. I moved to San Diego in 1970 and we used to have some terrible smog days - due to LA smog because LA is actually to the northwest of SD and the prevailing winds would blow it down here.
I spent a couple of summers with my grandmother in Highland Park (an old LA suburb) in the late 1960s and got to go hiking above the city smog in the Angeles mountains with my uncle and aunt a few times. Whenever we returned to the car to drive back to the city, it looked like we were driving into a used cigarette filter. I'm happy to learn that the air has cleared so much!
My first time in California was a visit to a distant cousin in summer 1962. She lived in Pasadena in a no-longer extant bungalow court 1/2-block off Colorado Blvd. After I had been there a few days, I walked out of the kitchen door one morning and suddenly realized there were *mountains* right there! Also, I've long worn bangs and while I was there, my forehead broke out in pimples - the only time (thank heavens) I've had facial skin problems. I've no doubt that was because of the smog.
Thanks, TC, for this uplifting story. Shows that sometimes "we" do get it right.
Sacramento still had Tule Fog in the 1990s. It was scary stuff.
I have come across several passionate environmental professionals whose mission was launched after reading Silent Spring, myself included. It warms my heart. For me, I found her book on a shelf in my middle school library and took it home. It became the motivation for my “DDT and the Peregrine Falcon” report, handwritten on notebook paper and tied up with aqua yarn and then, later, years of study and work to reduce energy use and climate degradation. Thank you for sharing your Father’s story and your deep understanding. There are many successes.
My thought—reading (which I did and do endlessly from the time I learned how) opens so many vistas to a child, and the right book read in middle school can jumpstart one’s adulthood!
Silent Spring inspired me to focus my career in enforcement of environmental laws. I worked for the State of California for 35 years, inspecting hazardous waste handlers, prosecuting violators, and I cleaned up hundreds of sites contaminated with chemicals or abandoned hazardous waste. I am so thankful for people like you who are blessed with the rare tools to articulate the innumerable wrongs bad people do to society, to assuage their egos, or for their own personal gain.
Namaste.
Thank you for your service!
Amen!
Deep gratitude to you for your work.
Heather, your spirit shows us that, even in dark times, we should still have hope. Things can change for the better. It should also encourage us to refuse to stay silent, speak out, and stay strong, regardless of our opponent's size. Thank you.
Even when you take the day off, you have an important story to share... thanks - sleep well
I live in South Florida and raise butterflies on my pesticide free property. Every summer, the county mosquito fog trucks make their rounds through my neighborhood…killing ALL of the pollinators. My calls and letters fall on deaf ears to those in charge of making the decisions to spray. It’s heartbreaking to wake up on the same property that was buzzing with life yesterday to find the garden completely still and to find butterflies floating in my pool. Thank you for sharing this lovely story of hope and possibility. Without that, what do we have?
Terrible. They’ve stopped fogging in Pinellas County, FL. Instead they focus on standing water and education about eliminating sources of standing water.
That’s the way to do it.
I’m really sorry, I wish I was nearby and could help you banging on doors and heads! Go all the way up! Don’t take ‘no’ from someone who can’t say ‘yes’! It’s going to continue to be a fight, but also try letters to your local papers! Maybe you can find a sympathetic journalist to help make the message widespread! It’s so pathetic that these guys are so ignorant, defiant, or both. Don’t give up!
Some of those pesticides--nerve poisons--have been found likely to cause Parkinson's, and possibly other neurological diseases. They also kill creatures that eat the target creatures (mosquitos), such as birds and frogs, as I learned in introductory biology. My guess is that your local gov't may be cozy with the insecticide purveyors.
This makes a lot of sense based on the night they sprayed..there were a few butterflies flying around at 11 pm with a very strange erratic fluttering
regressive action without vision--horrible
I can hardly believe people still do this
so sorry for the repeated losses of butterflies
and that still garden haunts me
I have learned that I'm not really "gardening"
but growing habitats
I love that notion: "growing habitats." That's exactly how I look at my yard. I also have little "eco systems" in various locations - some for the baking hot sun, some for the windy areas, some for the tropicals...something for every critter that needs a bite or some juice! I don't have a big yard, but size isn't what counts to them!
Yes, indeed...shade gardens, sun gardens, and whatever in between. Winged beings, frogs, snakes, all welcome and supported.
Our gardens are indeed not just for ourselves. This spring, "owning" my home for the first time in my 66 years (the quotation marks are because I don't believe we ever can really own a piece of the earth, and because though I own my manufactured home, someone else owns the land on which it sits), I have spent many calming moments watching the bees busily gathering pollen from my rhodendrons, various wild flowers (and weeds to some), and deciduous shrubs. Later in the season, I'm enthralled by the cliff swallows that skim the water and the land hunting mosquitoes. The bald eagles seem to have moved on for awhile - and I'm wondering if it's because there have been sightings of even larger golden eagles just to the south of the lake. (Sadly, if those giant golden brown raptors I stopped to watch twice in recent weeks are indeed goldens, it might mean they have moved into bald eagle territory because so much of their habitat was destroyed in last year's wildfires.)
My neighbors have told me that rabbits and deer will likely nibble at the bush peas we have planted in the unfenced part of our yard, and I tell them in return, "Good, because that's who we planted them for!"
Having a place of your own means so very much. I have a doublewide on 4 acres of my "very own". Love every inch of it - the entire place was lawn when I moved there into a single wide trailer. I now have brush & trees below my side lawn - more up above the field & paths that I keep mowed so I can walk up by the woods & loop around the brush. Many deer, squirrels(of course), chippies & judging by one sighting, a red fox. Love it Love it, Lanita and its MINE. I make the decisions & no one else. I know your home & the flowers & other creatures means just as much to you as this place does to me. It IS calming!
Oh Maggie, how wonderful! Such a lovely picture of health!
I care for bees in my four homebuilt hives. I don't collect their honey, just offer the bees a sustainable home. I sometimes sit and watch them for an hour or two with a cup of tea.
And still, Home Depot sells flowers and shrubs sprayed with neonicotinoids, a known cause of 'CCD' or 'colony collapse disorder'.
Yes, they do. I believe, Lowes does as well.
😔
Oh, Stephen, how wonderful you are! Deepest gratitude to you!
Sister Lanita, I'm with you, owning the house, not the land. I just ignore that and act like I am steward of the land. I'm on the last lot, up against the forest, and what a blessing, all the birds, winged beings, doug squirrels... haven, habitat for frogs, snakes, and my food as well as phacelia and other flowers. What a local paradise! We can create habitat and health on our little piece of Earth.
I guess if all people felt that way AND were fortunate enough to have their own little piece of Earth - our problems would be much smaller!
I agree growing habitats. And a steward of the property
I know what you mean.. I live here too and signed a similar petition. We still deal with chemicals being sprayed on us and our forests and food. The fight still goes on.
That is devastating! Perhaps if area farmers, affected by the absence of pollinators, could join your efforts? Low farming yields = lower income = lower tax revenues for the county.
And as I said above, there's probably some link between the gov'ts that do the spraying and the pesticide sprayers. Follow the money.
I agree. It’s very corrupt.
I hadn’t thought of that approach. Small farms maybe. Thank you
And that is why the Monarchs are gone ... but somehow, the gulf fritillaries, the gold rimmed swallowtails and of course, the broadwing zebras (Florida's State butterfly) have managed to survive.
the ones that survive are probably in much lower numbers. And the ecosystems that are getting sprayed are definitely less productive.
Jack, we have some Monarchs here in Central New York, but the numbers are dwindling.
So few anymore - recent summers I'm lucky if I see one.
Maggie, I was at our cottage on Lake Ontario last week for the day and saw a couple of monarchs and 3 tiger swallowtail that were traveling together. I mentioned that to our neighbor and she said there just aren't the numbers anymore. One of her gardens is specifically for butterflies. She said she has few visitors. 😥
Several years ago, I started seeing what I thought at first were hummingbirds on my beebalm flowers. Turned out they were Sphinx moths! As big as humming birds. They were amazing - but only saw them that one summer. As far as I know, there is no spraying done here where I live. The fields get hayed but thats it. And I dont use any kind of chemical crap. Its beyond shameful what we humans have done and are doing to this planet.
Maggie, yes! We would get those glorious moths. I had no idea what they were wonder what they were until I further researched them. Because of the pandemic, we weren't able to go to the cottage last year. I often wonder what showed up in our absence.
Humans are absolutely to blame for what our planet has become.
Several years ago, I started seeing what I thought at first were hummingbirds on my beebalm flowers. Turned out they were Sphinx moths! As big as humming birds. They were amazing - but only saw them that one summer. As far as I know, there is no spraying done here where I live. The fields get hayed but thats it. And I dont use any kind of chemical crap. Its beyond shameful what we humans have done and are doing to this planet.
Enjoy them. When your milkweed goes to seed, save the seeds and scatter them where they might grow, but not along maintained roadways which get treated with pesticides.
I keep planting milkweed, but so far have not had great success. Four years on, trying to figure out what the milkweed wants...
I ordered seeds couple years ago, but couldnt get them to start. Now I see 2 plants in back of my house & a smaller one up at the edge of a field. So maybe they will live & flourish. Hope so - certainly not cutting them down.
Kimceann: Have you checked out https://www.growmilkweedplants.com/washington.html
GRATITUDE for this link, Jack. There may yet be a milkweed in my future...
Looking at the NY section - ALL the seeds are sold out! Maybe thats a good sign - that people are buying & planting them.
The numbers of insects generally are down by about 75% over the last 50 years, both in the US and Europe (to my knowledge we don't have measurements in other places). The numbers of wild vertebrate animals in the US are similarly down over the last 50 years. when the population of people rises, as it has donw by about 120 million people over that time (equivalent to six NY States), the numbers of animals goes down.
Devastating.
That is a story similar to the experience of a dear friend who is no longer with us. He was mayor of his little town in south AK and expert in many things - organic farming being one. His produce was so prolific, he literally gave it away by the bushels. A few years ago when I visited him, he showed me what remained of his sad vegetable garden. He told me he didn't think he would have any tomatoes because the little airport adjacent to his property was spraying its fields and the drift had killed all the bees that pollinated his plants. This practice of spraying cotton fields is still occurring to this day. His fertile paradise is long gone and sadly so is he.
AK is the abbreviation for Alaska. Did you mean ARkansas?
Yes. Thank you for the correction!
I was briefly confused because I have friends--former high school mates who married--who live in Alaska and have amazing gardens.
You're welcome!
I grew up in South Florida. Summers we were at Lake Wier, one of the largest freshwater sand bottom lakes. Pure and clear water then... Now that the rich have gobbled up the land surrounding the lake, it has become the color of green slime: the death rattle perpetrated by chemical fertilizer. I was there three years ago and could only cry. It was the haven of my childhood.
That is so sad, Rosalind. I didn't know that about Lake Weir, and it must have been just a wonderful time to be there in your youth and to enjoy a pristine lake in the summer. Old Florida is such a beautiful place and time. I envy those who got to enjoy it and I am angry at the rich and powerful for ruining it. I have been in south west Florida for 30 years and I continue to see the destruction of habitat and the mega-mansions going up, replacing the charming bungalows. And of course, the water everywhere in Florida is being ruined, as you have mentioned.
What a shame. I’m sorry for your loss. I think it’s predominantly chemical run off from sugar cane fields. It effects the lakes and rivers here too. We are surrounded by waterways where I live and I wouldn’t want to put my toe in any of them.
Could you organize local residents to force the county to stop? Admittedly, the following was on a much smaller scale, but I lived in a residentially zoned area where a company bought up some properties and started parking trucks there and starting them up very early in the morning. I organized the neighbors, and we put a stop to all this, ultimately forcing the company to sell the property if I remember correctly.
That’s so horrific!
do you mind saying what county you are in?
Martin County
Mother Earth will survive and thrive, that is not the concern. she will evolve into a different place after eliminating the invasive species we have become. She will spin on, after the human experiment has burnt itself out.
Naomi Klein asks, “What is wrong with us?” in her recent book. Although the word ‘absolute’ is rarely in my writing or thoughts because it means "a value or principle that is regarded as universally valid or that may be viewed without relation to other things” and I find little 'universally valid’ or 'without relation.’
Pondering the question posed, a possible answer woke me in the middle of the night with the notion of ‘absolute greed’ as the driving force behind the recalcitrant, intransigent actions related to continuing, in the face of catastrophic changes already upon Earth, burning carbon. We continue to drill, dig, frack, and by any means obtain fossil fuel. We burn increasing amounts of biomass. [This is certainly not a complete exegesis—add your own issue or concern.]
We are evidencing hatred of the biophilic, distracted by the latest post, the most recent atrocity, our navels...
Despite the urgent need, in order to protect an environment in which humans can function [certainly not the one we now know to be transforming at a fairly rapid clip] to make a 180-degree pivot in how we live, this is not universally happening. One person, even one million persons transforming from a fossil-fuel-based life will change very little. We have claimed ignorance and gone too far toward destroying the human-viable atmosphere of our planet.
The children suing local and federal governments for clean air and water, for “not doing all they can do to protect our future,” is such a sad comment on our greed-based humanity, ever further from origins and sustenance and balance within the Gaiaic systems that nurtured our evolution.
A human life is brief, merely a moment in time, no matter how long we live. Perhaps this brevity is one way we have moved so far from our place on the planet so rapidly that we disconnected from Earth as anything but potential profit.
The masses of people—billions of us—where are our heads and hearts? Are we medicated? Religion as the opiate, although some would have it be television or social media or whatever numbs and nulls us. We dance about the head of a pin while Rome burns. Perhaps it is my own ignorance…but this is a rabbit warren of conjecture. Whatever obscures the reality, we are simply not making the radical, as in to the root, changes required. There is no compelling narrative of focus or transformation of the dominant paradigm which is subversive to life.
This apathy is making me crazy, so beyond making changes in my personal life [which are totally inadequate to the need] I am compelled to give voice to the anguish I feel as grandchildren are born. Beautiful beings, old souls, innocent of the rape of Earth but certain to live and die in the consequences.
The urgency is palpable. We are melting, storming, drying, flooding, quaking—Earth is offering messages, alerts, warnings—and there are many who heed. We are, simultaneously [as we burn, drill, dig, and frack] re-learning how to forage, grow our own food in the circular nature of Demeter, clean our water, re-center community, power our own movement [e.g., bicycles], turn to air and sun and water for biophilic energy, heal without violating, add your own contribution here.
I once had a teacher who taught that the actions of one was revolutionary and significant—and contributed to changing the world. I no longer believe that the quiet, solitary, changed life will change the world. Too many people are living that life, or as close to it as they can get, and the world is not changing. We no longer have the luxury of each one teach one.
Entire systems of government, industry—all the complexes working in concert to extract evermore; maintenance of fossil fuel-based economies; the focus on 'growth' at any cost; the “free” markets—which are supported and rigged so as to no longer actually be anywhere close to free; the obsession for the profits of making war; the fractured “health care” system; [enter your own concern here]—Earth and our continued existence [in some type of very altered, but supportive to human life environment] need all this to change in rapid fashion, in response to the emergent messages we are getting that we have gone too far.
What will it take?
kimceann, The storm of your words, observations, frustration, recognition, fury, CRY, WHY, and knowing -- hurt. It appears that Heather's story unleased our experiences with wildfires, ruined spaces, youthful adventures in nature and desperation about the earth, the greed and human nature. I wanted to hug you at times as I read this comment; your feelings burned brighter as your mind kept looking around. This time and place are very difficult to contain because we see and hear and learn what we wish was not so. There are lights and models and qualities that call us to persist. I thought of Elizabeth Warren at the same time my mind found 'persist'.
Yes Fern, she is who I think of whenever I hear the word "persist"!
Oh, YES!
Deep gratitude to you, Fern. And hugs back!
One of the group of kids suing the government is from Eugene, and during my time as court security, I had the opportunity to be present when their case was remanded to the Lane County Circuit Court (we had two courtrooms dedicated to that; one where the plaintiffs sat at the jury box, because their table was full of attorneys) and the other as an overflow gallery. (My job was keeping order in the gallery.) I had given them an introductory talk about how the judge was going to come in and call them to order, and to listen to what she had to say. My best guess is that there were over 100 people crowded into an area that normally tops out at 60.
Judge Moony (now an appellate judge here in Oregon) came in, did just as I said she would ("all rise, the circuit court of the state of Oregon is now in session, the Honorable Josephine Moony presiding") but did not give them the "be seated" right away. She gave them a lecture on decorum, and how to conduct oneself in a courtroom. She finished with "I charge Deputy House with maintaining this conduct, and should she need to eject anyone from the courtroom for bad conduct, it will be brought to my attention." It was the most well-behaved group of kids and parents that I've seen at the courthouse.
As I recall the progress of that case, they got a non-positive Circuit Court ruling, it went to the 9th Circuit, it was denied, and they've appealed to SCOTUS, so it is still in limbo.
https://www.courthousenews.com/kids-climate-suit-headed-to-the-us-supreme-court/
Ally, what a wondrous story. I love that you were involved in this amazing story. Blessings.
I agree - had to be fascinating to see and hear. Thanks for the link. Sadly, I dont remember ever reading about that before. And it should be reported LOUDLY>
The tragedy is the one of the human condition - we have always sought comfort - a cave, the lee of a big rock, our humpy - but now our comfort expectations are incredible - and have become the normal expectation -so we will fight to the death to retain them. As, I think, George Monbiot has said .. "No one has ever rioted for austerity".
Yes and the binary choice between comfort and survival is false. We can have comfort without destroying the planet by making more sustainable choices and controlling population. All it takes is will and cooperation. If we can’t work together for our own survival, we don’t deserve to be here.
It will take a vast collective effort where “me” defers to “we”.
We have been kayaking the past month+ along some local rivers in metro west MA where eagles, blue heron, osprey, swans, geese, ducks, etc. dot the waterways. While the scourge of DDT has dissipated, residential and farm/orchard fertilizer/pesticide run off, heavy metals from manufacturing, munitions from military, all have left residual pollution.
And, we are just discovering the extent of PFAS (forever chemicals) in drinking water supplies in many communities across the state. We desperately need more “Rachel Carsons”!
Yes and I just heard a story on NPR about a woman in Washington state whose farm animals were born horribly mutated, and her children were very sick. Turns out it was from aerial spraying of an Agent Orange derivative used to clear the forests of underbrush so the loggers could more easily harvest the trees. That battle is currently being fought.. why are we still doing these things when we know how deadly these chemicals are?
My father began his career as an environmental engineer at Dow Chemical Company in 1951. Always between a rock and a hard place, he secretly reported the company to the state health department whenever he discovered illegal dumping. I have his cooy of Silent Spring.
Another lovely Father's Day tribute!
What a beautiful story MaryPat of your father!
Thank You. He wrote a book before he died, which is in need of editing (and a good attorney to prevent the company from suing: "That book will NEVER be published!") called "Too Soon Green." Revealing. But when he became Dow's Global Environmentalist, he was able to prevent a "Love Canal" and a "Bhopal".
MaryPat, your stock is stout, indeed! And green to boot 🍀😎. What a remarkable fellow. Well, if I am not correct, don’t you have an editor ... in yourself?
600 plus pages! I am a little too close to it. But, thanks, Frederick. I have a friend of a friend who has offered.
Hmm...maybe I will try again...
Please do. I've been know to offer editing. Seems like a book needing to see the light of day.
Thank You.
Thank you for writing of a father who taught you about the natural world. My dad did the same, taking the three of us kids camping in western and eastern WA and BC multiple times each summer. We participated in the Ranger programs, learned about all kinds of bugs, slugs, critters and creatures. Because of his influence, as an adult, I studied native plants and habitat restoration and continue to derive great pleasure from the natural world. I am working in my own neighborhood to repel the invasive species (ivy, Himalayan blackberry, English holly, etc.) on our forested common areas while encouraging the native species. I taught my kids to appreciate nature and am absolutely delighted that my granddaughter would rather be outside collecting rocks and leaves than watching YouTube. She recently said that every time she's outside enjoying herself, she usually gets wet. She's 4 years old and loves lakes, rivers, streams and her little backyard swimming pool. She's my Hope For The Future.
While Dad was a staunch Republican, that was at a time when the Republican national platform included preservation of nature. He would be absolutely devastated by what the party has become. As am I. I hope I am carrying on the dedication to Nature that Rachel Carson espoused.
What a beautiful tribute to your father's parenting of you, then parenting your children then parenting their children...yes, creating Hope For The Future! Working to make this a better world.
I have had pairs (one pair at a time) of osprey nest at my place for the past 20 years. Watching nature daily like that is hard at times, joyful at others, but of course, the parts that aren't man made are just part of the deal, which we humans have such a hard time with. One year a microburst swept through and knocked the babies out of the nest before they had fledged. They landed on the ground beneath the nest. The parents flew around aimlessly, lacking their purpose, for the next couple of months. One year, the babies did not survive. No idea why. This year it seemed to take much longer than normal for them to produce eggs and settle into brooding. One year, there were three babies! When they started flying, it seems like there were osprey everywhere I looked! Watching the young start standing up and stretching out their wings for the first time is such an awesome sight. There used to be a big dead elm near the nest. The dad would sit in the elm, the mother in the nest, shrieking flight instructions at their kids. One mom dive-bombed me when I walk the dogs by, but mostly they get used to us and keep sitting quietly. I talk to her in a friendly and supportive way hoping that helps. Sometimes the pair is very quiet. Sometimes other osprey stop by to visit. The other day I had five circling over my house. I always miss them when they leave and am always relieved and thrilled when they return on April 1st, almost to the day. So much we don't know. But I have the utmost respect for their focus and commitment to their life. The mom sitting on that nest through cold, heat, rain, hail, thunder and lightning. The dad always sitting nearby or going over to the lake to bring back a meal.
Great story, thanks. We never tire of watching osprey and pelicans dive for fish. One is like a bullet, the other more like freight train.
Loved reading this. I talk to animals, too.
I love to garden, and l talk to all the plants and critters as l work in the yard. I don’t spray as I work hard to attract pollinators to my garden. I love to watch the birds splash in my birdbaths. They enjoy doing that so much.
It's been so dry, that birdbath must be so appreciated! I need to set one up, do you change the water every day? And clean it?
I clean my birdbaths once a week. I check daily to be sure there’s water. Tropical Storm Claudette took care of the water for a couple of days.
I re-fill mine about twice a week, just spraying it out and filling it. Minor effort for major results.
That's great! They understand more than we have been taught they do.
Oh I forgot, one day the dad had caught a gold fish (or koi?) from someone's pond!
Thank God for the Rachel Carsons in our world. Wish I could have seen the ospreys and eagles.
Next best thing are videos. But forewarning, the Osprey is piscivorous, a carnivorous animal that feeds primarily on fish.
https://youtu.be/J5O9l7aXI3Y
https://youtu.be/SLR34AuH4DI
Ospreys can out fish any other bird of prey. It’s only that Eagles are bigger that they can an frequently steal the Osprey catch.