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

by Carl Safina

  Federal funds to Alaska run twenty-five times the national average: usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-05-17-alaska-edit_x.htm.

  Salmon and temperature: Richter, A., and S. A. Kolmes. 2005. “Maximum Temperature Limits for Chinook, Coho, and Chum Salmon, and Steelhead Trout in the Pacific Northwest.” Reviews in Fisheries Science 13:23–49. Ichthyophonus: Weiss, K. 2008. “Alaska Salmon May Bear Scars of Global Warming,” Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2008.

  Water shortage due to lack of snow: Martin, G. 2007. “Snow Pack in Sierra Is Way Low.” San Francisco Chronicle, March 29, 2007, available online.

  Beetles are destroying tens of millions of acres: Fox, D. 2007. “Back to the No-Analog Future.” Science 316:823.

  Number of people dependent on Himalayan glaciers: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, p. 54. Norton. “Full-scale glacier shrinkage”: G. Lean. 2006. “Ice-Capped Roof of World Turns to Desert; Scientists Warn of Ecological Catastrophe Across Asia as Glaciers Melt and Continent’s Great Rivers Dry Up.” Independent, May 7, 2006. “Maybe God is unkind”: Sugita Katyal. 2005. “Water Crisis Looms as Himalayan Glaciers Melt.” Reuters U.K., September 2, 2005.

  Global warming could displace 200 million people: Myers, N. 2002. “Environmental Refugees: A Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 357:609–13.

  OCTOBER

  Reducing poverty … “cannot be achieved”: “Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Synthesis.” Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Island Press; also available online. Also: “The Ability of the Planet’s Ecosystems.” Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005. And: “Living Beyond Our Means: Natural Assets and Human Well-Being.” Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005.

  Something like four hundred times in the Bible: Various authors. 2002. Ethics for a Small Planet, pp. 65–66. Biodiversity Project.

  “All the bad things that happen” and Milton Friedman quote: Bakan, J. 2005. The Corporation. Constable.

  Real cost of gasoline: International Center for Technology Assessment. 1998. The Real Cost of Gasoline. International Center for Technology Assessment. Taxing gas and autos: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, p. 270. Norton. “Market failure on the greatest scale”: The economist Lord Nicholas Stern in remarks associated with release of his Review on the Economics of Climate Change, a 700-page report for the British government released in 2006; available online.

  The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary: Timothy E. Wirth, under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs, Department of State, from a speech entitled “Our Global Future: Climate Change,” September 15, 1997; available online.

  Distinguishing good from bad: See Sagoff, M. 1990. The Economy of the Earth. Cambridge University Press.

  Economic measures cannot distinguish: Based on Speth, G. 2008. The Bridge at the End of the World, p. 138. Yale University Press. Its measured economy would look “robust”: Based on Repetto, R., et al. 1989. Wasting Assets: Natural Resources in the National Accounts. World Resources Institute.

  TRAVELS SOLAR: RAINBOW’S END—PALAU

  Dishonesty in whaling: Baker, C. S., and S. R. Palumbi. 1994. “Which Whales Are Hunted? A Molecular Genetic Approach to Monitoring Whaling.” Science 265:1538–39.

  Lack of resilience of stressed reefs to bleaching: See Carilli, J. E., et al. 2009. “Local Stressors Reduce Coral Resilience to Bleaching.” PLoS ONE 4:e6324, available online. More grazing fish mean less leafy algae: Newman, M. J. H., et al. 2006. “Structure of Caribbean Coral Reef Communities Across a Large Gradient of Fish Biomass.” Ecology Letters 9:1216–27.

  Species numbers on coral reefs: Reaka-Kudla, M. L. 1997. “The Global Biodiversity of Coral Reefs: A Comparison with Rainforests.” In Biodiversity II: Understanding and Protecting Our Natural Resources, ed. M. L. Reaka-Kudla, et al., pp. 83–108. National Academy Press.

  Calcification has declined 14.2%: De’ath, G., et al. 2009. “Declining Coral Calcification on the Great Barrier Reef.” Science 323:116–19. Charlie Veron quoted in: “Scientists Say World’s Coral Reefs Doomed.” United Press International, July 7, 2009. Ocean temperature warmest measured: Borenstein, S. 2009. “World Sets Record for Ocean Temperature.” Boston Globe, August 20, 2009.

  40 percent of U.S. train freight is coal: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, p. 260. Norton. Bottled water; more water to make the plastic bottle; oil in the bottle: Azios, T. 2008. “The Battle over Bottled vs. Tap Water.” Christian Science Monitor, January 17, 2008, available online. Fossil fuel use and appliance efficiencies: Brown, Plan B 3.0, pp. 214–31.

  Auto and gasoline statistics and auto efficiency: Brown, L. 2008. Plan B 3.0, pp. 228, 244. Norton. Power of sunlight and Earth’s crust compared to energy needs and oil and gas: Brown, Plan B 3.0, p. 252. Wind potential of central U.S. states: Brown, Plan B 3.0, pp. 237–40.

  Ethanol’s food trade-offs: Brown, L. R. 2009. “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?” Scientific American, May 2009, available online. Algae as fuel: “First Flight of Algae-Fuelled Jet.” BBC News, January 8, 2009.

  Announcements of aid by Australia and the United States to Micronesia: available online.

  Climate refugees: Friedman, L. 2009. “How Will Climate Refugees Impact National Security?” Scientific American, March 23, 2009. Sinking Indonesian islands: “Mass Relocation Planned as Seas Rise.” Financial Times, November 1, 2008; available online.

  Well over half a million: Barnett, J., and W. N. Adger. 2003. “Climate Dangers and Atoll Countries.” Climatic Change 61:321–37. Something approaching 100 million: Brooks, N., et al. 2006. Sea Level Rise: Coastal Impacts and Responses. German Advisory Council on Climate Change; available online. Cities exposed to the sea: German Advisory Council on Global Change. 2006. The Future Ocean: Warming Up, Rising High, Turning Sour. German Advisory Council on Global Change; available online. 30 million in Bangladesh: Chopra, A. 2009. “Salt Surge Puts Crops in Peril.” National; available online.

  Pernicious security implications: See, for example, the press release by Islands First, October 31, 2008; available online.

  At risk from rising sea-level: Myers, N. 2002. “Environmental Refugees: A Growing Phenomenon of the 21st Century.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 357:609–13. India is building a fence: Friedman, L. 2009. “How Will Climate Refugees Impact National Security?” Scientific American, March 23, 2009. “It gets real complicated”: Broder, J. M. 2009. “Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security.” New York Times, August 9, 2009.

  NOVEMBER

  Fromm, Illich, Shitovsky: Summarized in Jackson, T. 2005. “Live Better by Consuming Less? Is There a ‘Double Dividend’ to Sustainable Consumption?” Journal of Industrial Ecology 9:19–25. See also: Speth, G. 2008. The Bridge at the End of the World. Yale University Press.

  Indices of social health and social progress: Summarized in Speth, G. 2008. The Bridge at the End of the World. Yale University Press, pp. 134–40. Also: Jackson, T., and S. Stymne. 1996. “Sustainable Welfare in Sweden.” Stockholm Environment Institute; available at www.sei.se. Also: Venetoulis, J., and C. Cobb. 2004. “The Genuine Progress Indicator, 1950 to 2002,” available at www.rprogress.org. Also: Miringoff, M. L., and S. Opdycke. 2007. America’s Social Health. M. E. Sharpe. See also the New Economics Foundation’s happyplanetindex.org.

  Well-being literature reviewed: Diener, E., and M. Seligman. 2004. “Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-Being.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 5:1. Also: 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.

  Per-person GNP in the United States: See Earthtrends. WRI.org/text/economics-business/variable-638.html.

  Expanding wealth and shrinking spirit: Myers, D. G. 2000. The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty. Yale University Press. “Famine of warm interpersonal relations”: Lane, R. 2001. The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies. Yale University Pres
s.

  Number of lobbyists and corporations, plus related statistic: Summarized in Speth, G. 2008. The Bridge at the End of the World, pp. 168–70. Yale University Press.

  Thomas Jefferson to John Hay: In Foley, J. P. 1900. The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, p. 57. Funk and Wagnalls.

  Walt Whitman: First published in the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass as “Walt Whitman’s Caution,” a title he later changed to “To the States.”

  A spirited culture of refusal, a counterlife: I’ve taken this phrase from White, C. 2007. The Spirit of Disobedience. PoliPoint Press.

  Two-thirds of Americans and “the biggest threat.” Esty, D. C., and A. S. Winston. 2006. Green to Gold. Yale University Press.

  TRAVELS POLAR: COPA CABANA—ANTARCTICA

  How many whales were killed: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2003/august6/whales-86.html. Also: Reeves, R. R., and T. D. Smith. 2003. A Taxonomy of World Whaling: Operations, Eras, and Data Sources. Northeast Fisheries Science Center Reference Document 03-12, available online.

  Pack ice and plankton changes: Montes-Hugo, M., et al. 2009. “Recent Changes in Phytoplankton Communities Associated with Rapid Regional Climate Change Along the Western Antarctic Peninsula.” Science 323:1470–73. Chinstraps and Adélies are both down by more than half: Trivelpiece, W., et al. “Chinstrap Penguins: Vulnerable Monitors of Ecosystem Changes in the Scotia Sea Region of Antarctica.” Unpublished manuscript.

  Various penguin declines: Agence France-Presse. 2009. “African Penguin Numbers in Sharp Decline,” May 20, 2009. Also: Dean, C. 2008. “A New Twist in Penguins’ Already Uncertain Future.” New York Times, July 1, 2008. And: MSNBC. 2009. “Penguin Species Nears Extinction.” MSNBC.com. See also: Jenouvriers., et al. 2009. “Demographic Models and IPCC Climate Projections Predict the Decline of an Emperor Penguin Population.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106:1844–47.

  JANUARY

  Our factories could mimic: Hawken, P., et al. 1999. Natural Capitalism. Little, Brown. Enter the life process itself: Adams, W. M., and S. J. Jeanrenaud. 2008. Transition to Sustainability: Towards a Humane and Diverse World. IUCN.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many generous people supported parts of this work. They include the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; the Wallace Research Foundation; anonymous homeland generosity; Julie Packard; Marjie Findlay and Geoffrey Freeman, Repass-Rodgers Family Foundation, West Marine; Eric Gilchrist; Angus Gilchrist; Marshall Gilchrist; Andrew Sabin; Yvon Chouinard; the Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation; Shari Sant Plummer and Dan Plummer; the Code Blue Foundation; the Claneil Foundation; Patagonia; Vicki Sant and Roger Sant; the Summit Fund of Washington; Royal Caribbean; Chantecaille cosmetics and the Chantecaille family; the Moore Charitable Foundation; the Vital Spark Foundation; Swiss Re America; Lindblad Expeditions; the National Geographic Society; the Susan A. and Donald P. Babson Charitable Foundation; the Vervane Foundation; the R. K. Mellon Family Foundation; the Community Service Society; Bob Campbell; Henry Jordan; Michael Freedman; Leo Hindery; Rose Safina; Patrick Martin; Jeffrey Miller; Paula Cooper; Joanne Prager; Gale Mead; Patrick Luke; Catherine Rasenberger, Dimitri Sevastopoulo; Birgit and Robert Bateman; Mercedes Lee; Mark Glimcher; Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences; the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program; the Avalon Park and Preserve; many others—and Furthermore, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund. I thank you deeply.

  For very insightful comments on drafts, I thank John Angier, Gary Soucie, Cynthia Tuthill, Steve Dishart, and Lorna Salzman. For sage counsel in fields of Arctic cotton, Peter Raven. For faith that clarity would come, Jean Naggar. And for floating this vessel, the unsinkable Jack Macrae.

  My neighbors John, Marilyn, Linda, and Robbie Badkin, Janice Elze, and Dennis Curles provided clams, anchors, bonfires, wine, driftwood, and whales.

  For keepin’ it all together, Myra Sarli. Megan Smith more than ably assisted with research and all manner of logistical grace. Special thanks, also, to Todd Gardner and Chris Paparo and the Atlantis Marine World aquarium in Riverhead, Long Island. For varied assistance: Flora Lichtman, Eric Salzman, Peter Osswald, John DeBellas, Bob Leonti, John DeCuevas, Ken Mades, Augie Brown, Matthew Milmerstadt, Chris Miller of Westlake Marina in Montauk, Alan Duckworth, and Kate McLaughlin. My copyeditor, Bonnie Thompson, was great as always. Jon Luoma of Alna, Maine, did the maps. Trudy Nicholson of Maryland rendered the equisite drawings.

  I thank Bob Steneck for painting the big picture of tropical reefs and, with Susie Arnold, for terrific camaraderie in Belize, Bonaire, and Palau. I greatly thank the Smithsonian Institution for facilitating my visit to the Carrie Bow Cay research station in Belize. Researchers Nikki Fogarty and Raf Ritson-Williams provided my coral sex ed. In Palau, I learned loads from the world-class reef experts Rob van Woesik and (secret agent) Peter Mumby. I thank Palau’s visionary conservationist (and ’cuda chaser) the Hon. Noah Idechong, along with Yimnang Golbuu and the staff of the Palau International Coral Reef Center, and also Ron Leidich of Planet Blue Sea Kayak Tours, Mesikt Idechong, Perpetua Tmetuchl, Takashi Mita, Leonard Basilius, Olai Polloi, Nyk Kloulubak, Hilve Skang, Baudista Sato, Sunny Ngirmang, Isor Kikuo, Umiich Sengebau, Bernie Ngiralmau, Jordan Ewadel, and Kassi Berg.

  Regarding Svalbard, I thank Julian Dowdeswell, Stefan Rahmstorf, and Stefan Lundgren for coloring in the white spaces, Chevy Chase for Waltz for Debby, and Sylvia Earle for being Sylvia Earle. And for inviting me and arranging travel, Mary Jo Viederman, Amy Cadge, the outstanding staff of Lindblad Expeditions, and the unique vision and astounding commitment of Sven Lindblad.

  For facilitating my visit to mainland Alaska, I thank the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. For ecological interpretation, I thank Carmen Field, Sue Mauger, and Ed Burg.

  My visit to Southeast Alaska would not have been possible without the thoughtful consideration of the photographer Amy Gulick and her publisher Mountaineers Books. Part of that chapter, some terrific writing by other authors, and Amy’s marvelous photos of the one-of-a-kind region are in Amy’s book Salmon in the Trees: Life in the Tongass Rainforest, published by Mountaineers Books–Braided River in 2010. Chris Gulick, a.k.a. the Prince of Heat, taught me Dolly Varden’s secret handshake and performed magic upon the grill that made our time delicious. Wade Loofbourrow was simply the best possible captain for that trip; Legend was the perfect boat. I also thank Matt Kirchoff for generously sharing time and space during his surveys of murrelets, and Bart Koehler for his unique and gentle wisdom and hard-earned insights into Southeast Alaskan logging politics and reform.

  Wayne and Sue Trivelpiece made Antarctica feel warm and were superb facilitators, guides, brewmasters, and krill gurus. I thank also Shiway Wang and Laina Shill. And the penguins.

  As always, I thank Patricia and Alexandra for creating my harbor, and for leaving my cage door open and my wings intact. Our parrots, happy though they are, have it only half as good.

  * * *

  One note on style: There are many kinds of white-throated sparrows, but only one is the White-throated Sparrow. So for clarity, and to acknowledge their uniqueness, I capitalize the full common names of species. Since copy editors demand that “Dumpster” be capitalized because it’s a “product,” I insist on capitalizing Yellow-rumped Warbler and Blue-spotted Salamander. There are products, and then there are products. Fair’s fair.

  * * *

  In memory of Kenzie.

  INDEX

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Abalone

  Abbey, Edward

  abundance of birds

  decline and recovery and

  endangerment and

  need for

  resilience and

  adaptations


  Admiralty Island

  Africa

  agriculture

  Alaska

  Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve

  Alaska Lands Act (1980)

  albatrosses

  Wandering

  Alewives

  algae

  coralline

  crusting

  internal coral (zooxanthellae)

  oil from, for fuel

  amphibians

  amphipods

  Anan Creek

  Anchorage Daily News

  anchovies

  Andes

  angelfishes

  Blue

  French

  Queen

  Rock Beauty

  animal-rights movement

  Antarctica

  Antarctic Peninsula