The End of 2010

And here we are, on December 31st, 2010. Time has been ticking, the climate keeps in changing, and we human beings have started to do something about it. The UN talks in Cancun at the end of this year may not have done anything concrete or tangible, but they did succeed in demonstrating a new climate (excuse my pun) of climate change negotiations. For the first time, the world seemed to agree that we are going to have to pull up our bootstraps and do something about this problem, in a way that is just and fair to developing countries who need our help. For the first time, it feels like the world, in some way, shape, or form, "gets it."

A movement is rising.

The purpose of this blog has been to serve as my outlet to weigh in on the environmental movement and its present-day challenges, in a personal way. Even if no one reads this blog, it still allows me to reach outside that college bubble and stay present, stay a part of this movement. I am proud to be a part of this; it is rising. Thanks to, in my opinion, Bill McKibben, "green" is starting to be more than a color or a policy in Washington DC, and is looking more and more like a successful social movement. The 350.org campaign published this beautiful collage of the best moments of 2010 in the 350 campaign, which you can view here: http://www.350.org/2010/index.html

2010 has had its ups and downs, of course, from the BP oil spill to the Republican take-over of congress. But it's nice to know that the people who are the grassroots, the people who understand and who care, aren't going to give up. In fact, we're getting stronger.

So what would I like to see next?

I believe that environmentalism is a broad movement that encompasses all people- all ages, all classes, all races, all ethnicities, etc. It encompasses social and civil justice issues. The more we can embrace these characteristics, the more powerful and stronger we will become. I want to see a full-on social justice movement, complete with spiritual and empowering music, and marches. While this may seem old-fashioned, and out of date, we can't win this fight on the internet. It's got to feel like a living, breathing movement, grabbing people in from all walks of life. The past has proved that the grassroots are an effective force for change. The bottom-up strategy works.

Hopefully, this time next year, I will be even more proud of my movement. Because time will be ticking, and the climate will still be changing. Hopefully so will we.

Yosemite Valley

Took a trip camping in Yosemite Valley two weekends ago with the Environmental Sciences Students Association (ESSA) of Berkeley. Here's the writing that came out of that short, but incredible trip.

After waking up in the morning, the surrounding new faces of sheer grey cliff greeted us. Yellow, green, grey, blue- the colors of Yosemite November. Big leaf maples, brilliantly yellow and smelling like fall. The Mist Trail, to Vernal Falls, to Nevada Falls, back down to the John Muir Trail around switchbacks and back to the campground.

The hike took us to some of the most beautiful places- beautiful is such a limited word. Powerful. Humbling. Breathtaking. Spiritual. Maybe real beauty is feeling small. Feeling tiny in a world that is so much bigger. Maybe that is what the world needs- for humans to feel a little smaller. We tend to feel so big, powerful, able to harness and even change the environment to suit us. That attitude rarely leads to good outcomes, because the truth is, we really don't know what we're doing. We really aren't big.

This is maybe the best argument for wilderness. We need places to go where we are reminded that we are small. How could anyone visit Nevada Falls, among cliffs shaped by geologic forces, huge pines pointing upward, water pushing down, and still feel like humans can, and should, triumph over nature? We need wilderness to humble us. Every basic education must include a wilderness experience, however simple. We need to foster a better attitude toward the earth.

And a poem:

Drive to the Sunrise at Glacier Point.

Orange, grey.

Wonder.

Cross-legged in flannel pajamas

on cold Yosemite rock

waiting for glow,

in silence,

It Came.

Observation, reflection from the drive out of the park:

Before we knew it, we had crossed the border. Out of Yosemite, and into Stanlaus National Forest. What does that border mean? Out of the realm of preservation and into the realm of conservation. Muir's fantasy to Pinchot's. After two days in pristine wilderness, altered only for accessibility to limited recreation, I was now in a National Forest. Here resources are used as well as appreciated. Rangeland, timber, fishing, camping. America does need these things in addition to Muir's "temples." I found it beautiful, in a way, that Yosemite and Stanlaus are able to live shoulder to shoulder in a way that Muir and Pinchot never could. Stanlaus seems to serve as a buffer between the agricultural and developed land into the national park. A buffer for the human senses, and a buffer for wildlife populations as well, which don't understand a boundary line between protected and non-protected. Stanlaus takes conservation and stewardship seriously, and so, there lives a happy marriage between the "forest" and the "park."

Quotes from my Environmental Journal

For my Intro to Environmental Studies class, I am required to keep an "Environmental Journal." Here are some quotes / snippets from it, coming from the adventures around Berkeley I've been having.

Tall, silent pines create kaleidoscopes where the light manages to sneak in. The bugs dance in the light, mesmerized by something... the silence, and occasional conversation of birds, feels eternal. Trees feel eternal. The red trunks of trees have eyes here- de

ep, powerful eyes and wrinkles. Wrinkles of age? Or are trees born with wisdom? What do others feel when they sit here, and watch, and listen? Is it possible to sit here and feel nothing?

To what extent is my experience as a hiker and nature enthusiast disturbed by evidence of human? A chain fence, a house on a hill, a flat and wide path - where is the line? Can an invasive species be beautiful? Should I stop myself from admiring the elegance of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir because knowledge that my brain, but not my eyes, holds? How do we see? What can we allow ourselves to admire?

What empowers each foot to step farther into unknown territory?

When do you turn around?

What force begs you up, closer to the peak, closer to the sun?

What draws you in?

There is spirituality in our feet every time they choose to take a step.

On the Wooded Metoale Grove of Redwoods off the Berkeley fire trail:

This is a grove that could teach any city dweller what John Muir preached as the religion of nature. These stoic giants that surround me, filtering light, give the mystical rays that do reach the floor infinitely more meaning. Light and dark, silence and sound, stillness and movement... a delicate balance that makes me realize how everything that is here is meant to be here, in these very spots, where time is eternal. The way the needles on the floor glisten with dusty sunlight, and pieces of spiderwebs flicker like stars in a Disney midnight. Gnats float and dart in random pattern. Every fallen log is a line that moves my eye across the hill to other demonstrations of beauty. The sun reigns supreme here, and he knows it- the giant pines must eventually succumb and the sun reaches through. I am belittled.

Ominous

As this year's 350 event comes closer, I must remind myself to stay aware and focused on the problems beyond the bubble of the life of a college student.

Seeing this photo pop up on my Facebook newsfeed helped to snap me out of the daze associated with midterms and pages and pages of reading.

This group took pieces of ice receding due to global warming in Svalbard. A poetically tragic photograph illustrating the ominous threat that is terrifyingly close to changing life as we know it. If this can't stir up emotions in the skeptic or apathetic, I don't know what will. Please make 10/10/10 a special day in whatever way you can. If you care, care enough to make others care. Inspire with words, with art, with music, with science- whatever you do, inspire.

Looking forward as The Teen Environmentalist heads to UC Berkeley

In about two weeks, I'll be heading to California to embark on my next adventure: college. More specifically, the University of California, Berkeley. Known for it's history of activism, energy, and passion. While this summer has left most of us environmental people feeling pretty depressed, between the biggest environmental catastrophe in American history and the death of what was supposed to be the US's first climate bill, I think I still deserve to keep some optimism. I'm going to Berkeley! I'm going to study in the College of Natural Resources! I have 25,000 other young people whom I can rally to fight with me, and I'm sure I'll be meeting some amazing people that will help me learn and build this movement. So... as I look ahead, I'm going to compile a list of things I want to learn at UC Berkeley :

- natural resource management

- in depth science of climate change

- ecosystem restoration

- environmental sampling

- environmental economics

- wilderness philosophy

- attitudes toward climate change

- reasons why political and cultural change is so hard to come by

- how to build a movement

- how to organize and energize people. lots, and lots of people

- persuasive writing

- how to really do something with my life (that one pretty much sums up it all)

So what's on the horizon for the environmental movement (hopefully this blog will help to make sure I don't get stuck in a college bubble - the global movement pushes on!) ?

10/10/10 is the next 350 International Day of Climate Action. It's like last year's event, but more urgent. More urgent because another year has gone by without significant change. A year has gone by without a U.S. climate bill. A year has gone by without a global treaty to bind us into changing our lifestyles. With the world's ecological balance in danger, I've learned that every single year, every single week, every single day matters more than we an even fathom.

So it's time for me to make these next four years matter.

Right now I don't know what the Berkeley campus is going to do for 10/10/10, but with me there, something is going to go down. The wheels are turning - we'll see where they go!

The Killer Whale Kills: What Now?

On Wednesday, February 24th, Tilikum, an orca whale at Sea World in Orlando, killed his trainer Dawn Brancheau. The killer whale killed, while horrified visitors who had come to "Dine with Shamu" watched the woman drown. No one is absolutely sure how it happened, as differing accounts have been recorded. Some say Brancheau fell into the tank; others say Tilikum pulled her in. It is unclear whether the fatal attack was an act of rage, anger, instinct, or simply play on the part of the whale, although many experts believe that the whale intended to kill or at least injure Brancheau. The orca has been linked to other deaths in the past; however, SeaWorld has announced that Tilikum will neither be euthanized nor released into the wild. The event has inspired heated debate regarding the issue of "wild" animals in captivity, which extends far past what goes on in SeaWorld's turquoise water tanks. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) responded to the incident with characteristic outrage, lashing out that all of these incidents could have been avoided by getting rid of the captivity of wild animals, which to the organization qualifies as animal cruelty. Others have taken the opposite stance, demanding that Tilikum be put down before he kills someone again. So where do we go from here? Is it ethical, or even safe, to keep animals in captivity? Do we humans believe ourselves more powerful over nature than we are? Where is the line between domestication and unfair treatment of "wild" animals? What is a "wild" animal?

As someone who rides and works with horses, this is an issue that I think about everyday. While I agree that maybe it is unfair of us to use animals for our own enjoyment, I think that we should not stop all together. I don't really feel bad for Dawn Brancheau. She had a lifelong job something she loved to do, and I'm sure she knew the risks. She was able to touch lives of people like me, people who as kids dreamed about becoming one with nature and forming a bond with an animal. People like Steve Irwin and Dawn Brancheau are invaluable in our culture because they spark passion inside us- a passion that will lead to a stewardship toward animals and nature.

Rodney Fox is lucky to be alive. He is an Australian survivor of one of the worst recorded non-fatal shark attacks- and also a shark conservationist. Fox was attacked in 1963 and miraculously lived, needing over 450 stitches and various surgeries. Yet he devoted his life to the protection of the very species that almost killed him. While the shark was of course not in captivity, and thus cannot be directly compared to the Tilikum incident, his reaction sheds some light on why I believe that keeping whales in captivity is not so bad.

Think about Shamu. Even with freak incidents like Brancheau's, people love Shamu. If "Shamu" (and I mean orcas, of course), were to go extinct, people would be upset. Charismatic species like orcas boost the marine conservation movement, because protecting orcas, or sharks, or dolphins, by extension protects plankton, and shrimp, and coral, and barnacles, and other species that tourists don't want to pay to "dine with.” In my opinion, keeping animals in captivity is directly beneficial to conserving the world’s biodiversity. We need zoos and aquariums to keep the general public concerned.

Of course, there are definitely precautionary steps that can be taken to avoid deaths like Brancheau’s as well as augment the well-being of our captive animals. Living conditions should obviously be optimal, and we need continued research on animal behavior and enrichment. In addition, I believe that, whenever possible, “performer” animals like SeaWorld’s orcas should be raised in captivity. Wild animals generally stay wild, and that occasionally leads to attacks. Tilikum was born in the wild. Every time an animal kills someone, we take a couple of steps backwards in terms of public support for conservation. But it’s a risk we must take, and I sincerely hope that people can take Brancheau’s death in stride, understanding that it was a freak accident, something that can happen when someone works in close proximity to such a magnificent creature. Please, continue to support “Shamu,” and continue to support aquariums and zoos- they need you.

Trouble in the Rockies

So at risk of making this a depressing blog about the terrible effects of global warming, this post is about an alarming consequence of climate change that I witnessed firsthand this past weekend. (Who knows, maybe all these depressing posts will get the message out to someone, somewhere. Or maybe it's just me venting)

This past weekend I took a trip with my family to go snowboarding at the gorgeous ski resort of Breckenridge, Colorado. I was thrilled to get out west and into the mountains- it had been too long. As we drove up the highway with mountains on both sides, I began to notice more and more that something was wrong with the trees. Thousands of them were dying! My heart sunk as I watched through the window as the car zoomed past more and more of these reddish brown trees, that should be evergreens.



I asked around, and did some research, and found out that this epidemic was caused by invasive pine beetles that are eating the trees away. Apparently, extremely cold winters have historically managed the beetle populations. And people, let's connect those dots. Why haven't the winters been cold enough? Could it be..... global warming? Dare I make that connection?

Of course. People need to start allowing those connections to be made. An estimated 90% of the pines in the Colorado Rockies will die in the next few years because of this infestation. And of course, trees are an essential carbon sink. When they disappear, global warming intensifies even more. A scary snowball effect, for sure.

During that car ride, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the same mountains but with only 10% of the trees. It was a sad image- both aesthetically and in terms of the consequences to the ecosystem and to the climate.

Who, and what, has rights?

A question recently occurred to me: what would a human do if, hypothetically, he or she had to choose between saving THE last of a species or a human child?

Coming from the background of ecology (and as an animal-lover) I know what I would do- I would save the species. Even if it wasn't a charismatic species like a polar bear or dolphin. I would sacrifice ONE human child for a species, an essential link in the food web, the ecological balance.

Of course, one could argue the point of evolution and survival of the fittest- that as humans our sole purpose is to promote the life of our own species to ensure its survival. This would have made perfect sense thousands of years ago. But by now, we humans have declared ourselves exempt from the laws of such "wild" and "uncivilized" things such as survival of the fittest, carrying capacity, etc. We are definitely in no danger of going extinct (unless we ultimately decimate ourselves by destroying other species and toppling the ecological pyramid). We have developed our brains, technology, and philosophy to think as a culture in a way that is totally removed from Darwinian instincts.

So... save the baby or the species?

This brings into question our ethical values as modern-day people. We have laws protecting human rights, and now environmental rights- but are our environmental protection laws only justified because they ultimately protect humans? Yes, you can argue for almost any kind of environmental protection by pointing out its advantages for humans.

But does an animal, or even a mountain, tree, rock, or river have rights that we as ethical people should respect? Does a rock have the right to exist simply because it is a rock, and not because it's beautiful to people? Had the Grand Canyon been considered ugly by our species, would it have had no right to remain preserved as a national park? We have gotten to an advanced philosophical stage where these questions are going to emerge. In the age of destruction of all that is not human, who will speak for dirt, bugs, trees, sky, wolves? Who will fight for the rights of the wilderness to exist simply because it is wilderness?