The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World

by Carl Safina

  The Anthropocene: Crutzen, P. J., and E. F. Stoermer. 2000. “The Anthropocene.” Global Change Newsletter 41:12–13. See also: Zalasiewicz, J., et al. 2008. “Are We Now Living in the Anthropocene?” Geological Society of America Today, available online.

  Gannets and trawler discards: Grémillet, D., et al. 2008. “A Junk-Food Hypothesis for Gannets Feeding on Fishery Waste.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B, doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.1763.

  Using resources 25 percent faster than the world can replace them: WWF Living Planet Report: Humanity’s Footprint, available online.

  Mill: John Stuart Mill. 1848. “The Art of Living.” Principles of Political Economy, book IV, chapter VI, section II.

  Number of people the world could support: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, p. 188. Norton. Chinese refrigerators and China’s resource consumption: Plan B 3.0, p. 219, and elsewhere. Forests largely gone by around 2025: Plan B 3.0, p. 88. See also: FAO. 2006. Global Forest Resource Assessment 2005. Rome: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

  Comparisons of Americans with other nationalities: Pearce, F. 2009. “Consumption Dwarfs Population as Main Environmental Threat.” Yale Environment 360. April 13, 2009, available online.

  4 billion people live on less than $2 per day: Lierowitz, A., et al. 2005. “Sustainability, Attitudes, Values, and Behaviors: A Review of Multinational and Global Trends.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 31:413. Inadequate caloric intake and two and a half Earths: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, available online. See also: “Number of World’s Hungry Tops a Billion.” United Nations World Food Programme, 2009, available online.

  Grain harvests tripled since 1950: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, p. 176. Norton. Nitrogen: Fryzuk, M. D. 2004. “Ammonia Transformed.” Nature 427:498–99.

  Groundwater and grain: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, pp. 68–69, 71, 82. Norton.

  Demand for water: Pearce, F. 2004. “Asian Farmers Sucking the Continent Dry.” New Scientist, August 18, 2004. See also: Pearce, F. 2006. “The Parched Planet.” New Scientist, February 26, 2006.

  “When the balloon bursts”: Pearce, F. 2004. “Asian Farmers Sucking the Continent Dry.” New Scientist, August 28, 2004.

  Water tables dropping: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, pp. 72, 74. Norton. See also: Brown, L. R. 2008. “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?” Scientific American, May 2008, available online.

  Water in Asia: Pearce, F. 2004. “Asian Farmers Sucking the Continent Dry.” New Scientist, August, 28, 2004.

  Two-thirds of all people will suffer water scarcity: U.N. Thematic Initiatives. 2006. “Coping with Water Scarcity: A Strategic Issue and Priority for System-Wide Action,” available online. Water: United Nations Web site waterforlifedecade.org. See also: Globalfootprint.org.

  Grain a proxy for rain: Pearce, F. “Water Scarcity: The Real Food Crisis.” Yale Environment 360, available online. See also: Myers, N. 2002. “Environmental Refugees: A Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 357:609–13. And see: Sachs, J. D. 2007. “Climate Change Refugees.” Scientific American, June 2007, available online.

  Africa populations, relation to Nile water, population projections and tensions, and Rwanda: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, pp. 117–19. Norton. See also: Brainard, L., et al., eds. 2007. Too Poor for Peace? Brookings Institution Press.

  Education and reduction in fertility: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, pp. 109, 134. Norton.

  Getting worse at a slower rate: Longman, P. 2006. “The Depopulation Bomb.” Conservation in Practice 7:40–41. Fifty countries will likely have fewer people: Lierowitz, A., et al. 2005. “Sustainability, Attitudes, Values, and Behaviors: A Review of Multinational and Global Trends.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 31:413.

  FDR quote on conservation as basis for peace: Pinchot, G. 1947. Breaking New Ground. Harcourt, Brace.

  How we think of problems: See Lovins, A. 1991. “Technology Is the Answer (but What Was the Question?).” In Environmental Science, ed. G. Tyler Miller, pp. 56–57. Wadsworth.

  APRIL

  Last time our planet was free of polar ice: Barrett, P. 2003. “Cooling a Continent.” Nature 421:221–23. Also: Zachos, J., et al. 2001. “Trends, Rhythms, and Aberrations in Global Climate 65 Ma to Present.” Science 292:686–93.

  Václav Havel: editorial, “Stalin’s Legacy of Filth,” New York Times, February 7, 1990.

  Shell out $700 in subsidies and “The world taxes itself” from: De Moor, A., and P. Calamai. 1997. “Subsidizing Unsustainable Development: Undermining the Earth with Public Funds.” The Earth Council, available online.

  Quotations from Thomas Jefferson: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1320.htm.

  History of corporations in the United States: http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/history_corporations_us.html.

  “The most fundamental redesign”: Mander, J. 1996. The Case Against the Global Economy. Random House. See also: Speth, G. 2008. The Bridge at the End of the World, pp. 166–68. Yale University Press. 195 countries: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0932875.html.

  Supreme Court of Michigan in 1919 and what a corporation is for: See the history of Ford vs. Dodge at: http://everything2.com/node/1768159.

  Twentieth century growth numbers and amount of “annual stuff” consumed: McNeill, J. R. 2000. Something New Under the Sun. Norton.

  Fully half the transformation of earthly materials: Turner, B. L., et al. 1990. The Earth as Transformed by Human Action. Cambridge University Press.

  “It is impossible for the world economy to grow”: Daly, H. E. 1993. “Sustainable Growth: An Impossibility Theorem.” In Valuing the Earth, ed. H. E. Daly and K. Townsend, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. See also: Simm, A. “Does Growth Really Help the Poor? New Scientist, October 15, 2008.

  MAY

  Ben Franklin quotes: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, available online.

  Tern foraging ecology: Safina, C. 1990. “Bluefish Mediation of Foraging Competition Between Roseate and Common Terns.” Ecology 71:1804–9. And: Safina, C. 1990. “Foraging Habitat Partitioning in Roseate and Common Terns.” The Auk: A Quarterly Journal of Ornithology 107:351–58. Also: Safina, C., and J. Burger. 1988. “Prey Dynamics and the Breeding Phenology of Common Terns.” The Auk: A Quarterly Journal of Ornithology 105:720–26. And: Safina, C., and J. Burger. 1988. “Ecological Dynamics Among Prey Fish, Bluefish and Foraging Common Terns in a Coastal Atlantic System.” In Seabirds and Other Marine Vertebrates: Competition, Predation, and Other Interactions, ed. J. Burger, pp. 95–173. Columbia University Press. Also: Safina, C., and J. Burger. 1985. “Common Tern Foraging: Seasonal Trends in Prey Fish Densities, and Competition with Bluefish.” Ecology 66:1457–63.

  Horseshoe crabs 450 million years old: Rudkin, D. M., et al. 2008. “The Oldest Horseshoe Crab: A New Xiphosurid from Late Ordovician Konservat-Lagerstätten Deposits, Manitoba, Canada.” Paleontology 51:1–9. American horseshoe crab eggs poisonous to humans: Iverson, E. S., and R. H. Skinner. 2006. Dangerous Sea Animals. Pineapple Press. Horseshoe crab commerce: Angier, N. 2008. “Tallying the Toll on an Elder of the Sea.” New York Times, June 10, 2008. Number of people licensed to take horseshoe crabs in New York and horseshoe crab prices going over a dollar: Wacker, T. 2008. “Restrictions Reduce Horseshoe Crab Fishing.” New York Times, June 10, 2008, and Long Island Weekly Section, p. 5. Red Knots: Red Knot and Shorebird Facts: Imperiled Shorebirds on Delaware Bay. Pamphlet by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, available online. Also: Niles, L., et al. 2007. Status of the Red Knot (Calidris Canutus Rufa) in the Western Hemisphere. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Fish and Wildlife. Horseshoe crabs and shorebirds including the Red Knot: Red Knot: An Imperiled Migratory Shorebird in New Jersey. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Newly maturing female crabs dropped nearly 90 percent: Eilperin, J. 2005. “Horseshoe Crabs’ Decline Further Imperils Shorebirds.” Washingto
n Post, June 10, 2005. Crabs appear to be up slightly: “Horseshoe Crab Population on the Rise.” Reuters, May 29, 2008.

  JUNE

  Plosive, gasping breaths: photos of the dolphin and a recording of its breathing are on YouTube as “Dolphin’s Last Dance.”

  Mosquito Plan: http://www.suffolkmosquitocontrolplan.org. Malaria in Suffolk County: http://www.cdc.gov. Malaria and encephalitis in New York City and State: www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/. Encephalitis: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/arbor/eeefact.htm.

  Cell phone driving accidents: Richtel, M. 2009. “Driven to Distraction: U.S. Withheld Data on Risks of Distracted Driving.” New York Times, July 19, 2009, p. A1.

  TRAVELS POLAR: BEAR WITNESS—SOUTHEAST ALASKA

  “Hey, what about all these salmon?” and information about salmon carcasses washing downstream, and a bear carrying forty salmon and Sitka Spruce growth: Gende, S., and T. P. Quinn. 2006. “The Fish and the Forest.” Scientific American, July 2006. Bears move more than half of the salmon: Reimchen, T. E. 2000. “Some Ecological and Evolutionary Aspects of Bear–Salmon Interactions in Coastal British Columbia.” Canadian Journal of Zoology 78:448–57. Bears feeding on abundant salmon often have three cubs: Gende, S. M., et al. 2002. “Pacific Salmon in Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecosystems.” BioScience 52:917. Bears threatening financial and social collapse: see “The Fish and the Forest,” above.

  John Muir: Muir, J. 1993. Travels in Alaska, Penguin.

  Jefferson Moser of the U.S. Fish Commission: Moser, J. 1899. “The Salmon and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska: Report of the Operations of the United States Fish Commission Steamer Albatross for the Year Ending June 30, 1898.” U.S. Fish Commission Bulletin for 1898. Government Printing Office. See also: Moser, J. 1902. “The Salmon and Salmon Fisheries of Alaska: Report of the Alaska Salmon Investigations of the United States Fish Commission Steamer Albatross in 1900 and 1901.” U.S. Fish Commission Bulletin for 1901. Government Printing Office.

  Southeast region physical statistics and canneries history, and history of salmon fishing in Alaska: Schoen, John, and Erin Dovichin, eds. 2007. A Conservation Assessment and Resource Synthesis for the Coastal Forests and Mountain Ecoregion of Southeastern Alaska and the Tongass National Forest, chapter 9.5. Available online at: conserveonline.org/workspaces/akcfm. Alaskan boats catch 80 percent of the salmon: Schoen and Dovichin, chapter 8.1. Five thousand streams in Southeast Alaska support salmon: Schoen and Dovichin, chapter 8.4.

  Problems with Canadian Kings: Hopper, Tristin. 2008. “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.” Yukon News, September 3, 2008. Canadian salmon down 80 percent: www.stateofthesalmon.org/iucn/. Chronic mismanagement of Canada’s salmon: Hume, M. 2008. “Bureaucracy’s Bad Decisions Share Guilt for Depleting Wild Salmon.” Globe and Mail, May 19, 2008. Stocks are in wide decline; bears are starving: Hume, M. 2008. “We’re Killing Too Many Salmon, and It’s Time to Take the Blame.” Globe and Mail, September 3, 2008. Eagles eating garbage: Rolfsen, C. 2008. “Bald Eagle Count Lowest Since 1990; Shortage Blamed on Lack of Salmon in Area Rivers.” Vancouver Sun, January 7, 2008. What salmon brought so naturally, for free: Gende, S. M., et al. 2002. “Pacific Salmon in Aquatic and Terrestrial Ecosystems.” BioScience 52:917.

  Summary of world temperate rainforests: Kellogg, E. L., ed. 1995. “The Rain Forests of Home: An Atlas of People and Place.” Ecotrust, available online.

  Cutting a tree for the price of a cheeseburger; only 4 percent of the Tongass is capable of supporting giant trees; and the region’s thirteen mills: Servid, C., and D. Snow, eds. 1999. The Book of the Tongass. Milkweed. Tongass Timber Reform Act history: Bart Koehler, personal communication. Tongass logging history and tourism in Southeast Alaska: Chadwick, D. H. 2007. “The Truth About the Tongass.” National Geographic, July 2007. A third of the remaining big-tree forests are unprotected: Schoen and Dovichin, cited above, chapters 2 and 3.

  Brown Bear densities: O’Clair, R. M., et al. 1997. The Nature of Southeast Alaska. Alaska Northwest Books. Bear population of the ABC islands and Congress designating most of Admiralty as the Kootznoowoo Wilderness: Schoen and Dovichin, cited above, chapters 6, 2.

  JULY

  Eskimo Curlew and killing of other shorebirds: Mowat, F. 1986. Sea of Slaughter, pp. 52–74. Bantam. Mowat quotes much from A. C. Bent’s Life Histories of North American Shore Birds, Parts One and Two, 1922 and 1929, Smithsonian Institution.

  TRAVELS POLAR: SVALBARD

  Yield declines in grain: Peng, S., et al. 2004. “Rice Yields Decline with Higher Night Temperature from Global Warming.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 27:9971–75. “Difficult to feed Earth’s growing population”: National Academy of Sciences. 2004. “Warmer Evening Temperatures Lower Rice Yields.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences News Archive, June 28–July 2, 2004. Reduced corn and soybean yields with increasing temperatures: Lobell, D. B., and G. P. Asner. 2003. “Climate and Management Contributions to Recent Trends in U.S. Agricultural Yields.” Science 299:1032. Sorghum seeds viable up to 20,000 years: “Arctic ‘Doomsday’ Seed Vault Opens Doors for 100 Million Seeds.” ScienceDaily, February 27, 2008; available online.

  These results demonstrate: Baker, C. S., and S. R. Palumbi. 1994. “Which Whales are Hunted?” Science 265:1538.

  Bowhead Whale: Norwegian Polar Institute, http://npweb.npolar.no/english/arter/gronlandshval. Stone harpoons and age of bowhead: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF15/1529.html. Walrus, Bowhead, and other marine mammal facts: Folkens, P. A., et al. 2002. Guide to Marine Mammals of the World. Knopf. Bear hunting in Nunavut and Greenland: “Unbearable Pursuits: Saving Canada’s Polar Bears.” Economist, November 22, 2008.

  Polar Bear movements, denning and fasting, breeding, and other aspects of their biology: Amstrup, S. C. “The Polar Bear, Ursus Maritimus: Biology, Management, and Conservation,” polarbearsinternational.org/polar-bears-in-depth/denning/.

  Polar Bears’ hunting success rates, weight of pregnant bears versus those with cubs, Ringed Seal pup growth rate, Ringed Seal density in years of ice shrinkage: Rosing-Asvid, A. 2006. “The Influence of Climate Variability on Polar Bear (Ursus maritimus) and Ringed Seal (Pusa hispida) Population Dynamics.” Canadian Journal of Zoology 84:357–64. Also: Gjertz, I., and L. Christian. 2007. “Polar Bear Predation on Ringed Seals in the Fast-Ice of Hornsund, Svalbard.” Polar Research 4:65–68. And: Angier, N. 2004. “Built for the Arctic: A Species’ Splendid Adaptations.” New York Times, January 17, 2004.

  Polar Bears forced to swim: Joling, D. 2008. “Observers Spot 9 Polar Bears in Open Ocean.” Associated Press, August 21, 2008. And: O’Carroll, E. 2008. “Polar Bears Spotted Swimming in Open Seas.” Christian Science Monitor, August 22, 2008.

  PCBs and DDT: Cone, M. 2003. “Of Polar Bears and Pollution.” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2003. And: Cone, M. 2006. “Polar Bears Face New Toxic Threat: Flame Retardants.” Los Angeles Times, January 9, 2006. Contaminants and Polar Bears: Dietz, R., et al. 2006. “Trends in Mercury in Hair of Greenlandic Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) During 1892–2001.” Environmental Science & Technology 40:1120–25. Svalbard polar bears exposed to a flu virus and PCBs: Lie, E., et al. 2004. “Does High Organochlorine (OC) Exposure Impair the Resistance to Infection in Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus)? Part I: Effect of OCs on the Humoral Immunity.” Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A 67:555–82.

  U.S. Geological Survey and Anchorage Daily News quoted in: Knickerbocker, B. 2007. “Charismatic Bears on Thin Ice.” Christian Science Monitor, September 13, 2007.

  Ocean temperature warmest measured: Borenstein, S. 2009. “World Sets Record for Ocean Temperature.” Boston Globe, August 20, 2009. Sea ice extent: National Snow and Ice Data Center, at nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/.

  Svalbard ice cap melting: Dowdeswell, J. A., et al. 2008. “Iceberg Calving Flux and Mass Balance of the Austfonna Ice Cap on Nordaustlandet, Svalbard.” Journal of Geophysical Research 113:F03022, available online. Greenland ice melting: Dowdeswell, J. A. 2006. “The Greenl
and Ice Sheet and Global Sea-Level Rise.” Science 311:963–64. Greenland melting rate change and Los Angeles uses one cubic kilometer of water: Rincon, P. 2006. “Greenland Ice Swells Ocean Rise.” BBC News, February 16, 2006, online. Between 2001 and 2006 Greenland’s ice sheet tripled its rate of loss: Reach, J. 2006. “Greenland Ice Sheet Is Melting Faster, Study Says.” National Geographic News, August 10, 2006, available online. Also: Howat, I. M. 2007. “Rapid Changes in Ice Discharge from Greenland Outlet Glaciers.” Science 315:1559–61; published online February 8, 2007.

  Storm flooding in New York City: http://stormy.msrc.sunysb.edu/. See also: Bowman, M. J., et al. 2005. “Hydrologic Feasibility of Storm Surge Barriers to Protect the Metropolitan New York–New Jersey Region,” p. 5, available online.

  AUGUST

  Monarch Butterflies: www.fs.fed.us/monarchbutterfly/biology/index.shtml.

  TRAVELS POLAR: BAKED ALASKA

  Arctic Ocean will be practically ice-free in summer: Wang, M., and J. E. Overland. 2009. “A Sea Ice Free Summer Arctic Within 30 Years?” Geophysical Research Letters 36, available online.

  Since the last ice age, sea levels have risen: Bindoff, N. L., et al. 2007. “Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level.” In Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. S. D. Solomon, et al. Cambridge University Press. Available at: http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html.

  Great decoupling: Grebmeier, J. M., et al. 2006. “A Major Ecosystem Shift in the Northern Bering Sea.” Science 311:1461–64. Also: Beaugrand, G., and P. C. Reid. 2003. “Long-Term Changes in Phytoplankton, Zooplankton and Salmon Related to Climate.” Global Change Biology 9:801–17. Also: Lovvorn, J. R., et al. 2005. “Organic Matter Pathways to Zooplankton and Benthos Under Pack Ice in Late Winter and Open Water in Late Summer in the North-Central Bering Sea.” Marine Ecology Progress Series 291:135–50. Starving ducks: Lovvorn, J. R., et al. 2003. “Diet and Body Condition of Spectacled Eiders Wintering in Pack Ice of the Bering Sea.” Polar Biology 26:259–67. Lost and abandoned Walrus pups: Dawicki, S. 2006. “Lost Walrus Calves Stranded by Melting Ice.” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, April 13, 2006, available online. Also: Perryman, W., et al. 2002. “Gray Whale Calf Production, 1994–2000: Are Observed Fluctuations Related to Changes in Seasonal Ice Cover?” Marine Mammal Science 18:121–44. Also: Koeller, P., et al. 2009. “Basin-Scale Coherence in Phenology of Shrimps and Phytoplankton in the North Atlantic Ocean.” Science 324:791–93. Also: Moore, S. 2007. “What Is Happening to Whales in the Bering Sea?” Alaska Fisheries Science Center, NOAA. Available online. For North Sea cod: Beaugrand, G., et al. 2003. “Plankton Effect on Cod Recruitment in the North Sea.” Nature 426:661–64. Copepod shifts in Atlantic: Beaugrand, G., et al. 2002. “Reorganization of North Atlantic Marine Copepod Biodiversity and Climate.” Science 296:1692–95. And more generally: Parmesan, C., and C. Yohe. 2003. “A Globally Coherent Fingerprint of Climate Change Impacts Across Natural Systems.” Nature 421:37–42. And: Root, T. L., et al. 2003. “Fingerprints of Global Warming on Wild Animals and Plants.” Nature 421:57–60.