Thoreau's Legacy

by Richard Hayes

  At least, that was once the case. Now more and more southern species are creeping up around the point, displacing northern species. As stories of expanding and contracting ranges become more common, I struggle with the picture of what my beloved California coast will look like in fifty or a hundred years.

  Thoreau wrote, “The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters.” In his time the sea was perceived to be a place that human activity could not touch or transform, an endless natural resource, “equally wild and unfathomable.” Today, to our sorrow, we find that the ocean is more fragile than we thought. Overfishing has vastly depleted, sometimes extinguished, the awe-inspiring “monsters” of the sea. Global warming is causing sea levels and sea-surface temperatures to rise inexorably, shifting species’ ranges and endangering those that fail to adapt.

  I love the beauty, diversity, and abundance of the California ocean. I wonder how it will weather the global changes already under way. Will Monterey look more like Catalina when my children learn to dive?

  Danna Staaf is a Ph.D. student at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station, in Pacific Grove, California. Her dissertation research is on the development and dispersal of the Humboldt squid.

  For the Love of Alaskan Ice

  Susan Carol Stein

  EVERYONE SHOULD LICK A GLACIER. IT TASTES A little bit like dinosaurs and looks a little bit like God, whatever that is. Take a good, long lick. You are just one person meaning no harm.

  Everyone shouldhug a glacierwith bare hands spread wide. Go on, do it. Run up to it with your arms open, as if it were your favorite grandma. Push your hands into the ice. Feel the old, old cold pulling away even as you make contact. It’s not your imagination. The loss is subtle but sincere. Stare at the thin line of black rock between your boots and the glacier’s edge. No one has seen that sliver of earth before this moment. No one. It’s been buried, protected, unexamined. You begin to feel responsible for exposing the hidden skull of the planet.

  How could you know, living all your life in the bellies of cities, that you would fall in love with Alaskan ice? This beautiful blueberry Slurpee that stretches across the top of the earth is changing you.

  You learn the size of your carbon footprint and begin to minimize it. You telecommute as often as possible, walk wherever you can. You grow your own organic veggies, buy local, and avoid franchised food. You plant trees and flowers that attract bees and birds. You notice that wildlife now throngs to your healthy back yard, your tiny spot of earth. You use earth-friendly cleaning products and you recycle. You cut plastic out of your life whenever possible. You share your bath with someone special. Conservation is loads more fun than you ever imagined.

  You put on another sweater and lower your thermostat. You join the Sierra Club. You pay close attention to what businesses, scientists, and politicians are doing to shift gears, lower the heat, slow down the melt, take full responsibility, and protect what is left. It’s time.

  Don’t feel guilty. Don’t blame anyone or blow hot air—we don’t need more of that. And don’t be overwhelmed, don’t panic. These are all petty indulgences. Rather, hold the image of a healthy glacier in your heart and the taste of ancient ice on your tongue. It will change you and gently lead you to make change.

  Susan Carol Stein owns a fair-trade Internet business that donates its net profits to global organizations that aid women and children. She lives in Seattle, where she also volunteers to protect indigenous land in Siberia.

  The author at Exit Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska. Photo by Jackie Stratton.

  Through a

  Sailor’s Eyes

  Edward C. Brainard II

  AS A SAILOR, I VIEW THE WORLD FROM THE SEA, gaining a perspective often lost on land. I feel very close to the sea, where life was created, for my blood runs deep with the balance of its salts.

  I have made many Atlantic crossings in small yachts and have seen many storms. You learn to be prepared, to make sure that your yacht is well founded. At the mercy of nature, you develop a profound respect for her power. You are in her realm, and after each storm you are thankful to have survived. You have been given another chance, and deep inside yourself you promise to show her respect and a willingness to give back all she has done for you.

  Many wonderful memories come to me. During a dark, foggy night I saw the phosphorescent trails of a mother dolphin and her baby flowing abeam without effort, ribbons of undulating fire. In the morning the two dolphins were still there. They seemed content to be at our side. We developed a fondness for this marvel, a feeling of closeness and respect, a bond that they would be safe in the future.

  In 1986 I was planning my first double-handed transatlantic OSTAR race with the help of a meteorologist. We were deciding on a route from Plymouth, England, to Newport, Rhode Island, for the next summer. Normally we see Mercator projections as viewed from the equator, but I spotted one projection looking down from the North Pole. Like magic, I could see three very large storms equally spaced around the globe above the mid-latitudes. The system looked like the planetary gear in an automobile. That one image suddenly made me realize that a storm is not just an isolated event, it is part of a marvelous weather machine driven by the heat of the sun. Everything is interrelated.

  The surface temperature of the sea is rising, and violent hurricanes are increasing. Higher ocean acidity threatens the development of shells and corals. Sea level is rising. We know we will see major shifts in weather patterns and ocean currents. Although the future is not clear, there will certainly be immense changes that will have profound effects on future generations. There will be major dislocations of human populations and of all life on our planet. There will be no safe haven.

  Only the wise use of our environment and resources will ensure that we can continue. Our efforts to adjust to change will strengthen our role as stewards of our planet, helping to preserve this world so that future generations can enjoy seeing the rising sun at sea, with gales to keep us on our guard. A well-prepared yacht has a much better chance of surviving. Using our planet and its resources intelligently will similarly give us all a better chance of survival.

  Edward C. Brainard II, an inventor and retired executive whose previous company makes oceanographic and environmental instruments, lives in Marion, Massachusetts. He is a Corporation Member of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a member of the Cruising Club of America.

  Chukchi Sea

  Ice-Out

  Bruce Wright

  I LIVE IN ALASKA, AND MY CLIMATE-CHANGE RESEARCH projects are devoted to understanding changes in the distribution of harmful algal blooms, paralytic shellfish poisoning, and domoic acid. I also study highly migratory sharks (salmon sharks and great whites). However, in June 2007 I was teaching a 7 Generations environmental education class in Wainwright, an Inupiat village of about 550 people on the Chukchi Sea. Wainwright is a whaling community and is very connected to the sea for both spiritual and physical sustenance.

  My classroom was a hall in the community building, about a hundred meters from the beach, but no waves pounded the shoreline because it was sealed in ice. After class I had plenty of daylight to go exploring; in June the sun is up twenty-four hours a day. Two Inupiat boys playing in the sand above the ice-covered sea asked who I was and what I was doing. We quickly became friends and talked about our communities; mine was Wasilla. I asked about the boats and the meat piled on the ice. They said it was shares of whale meat and muktuk (whale skin and fat) that the community elders had not yet picked up, and they convinced me we should go investigate. I brought my pocket knife, and the three of us shared a little bit of muktuk.

  During class on my third day in Wainwright, a man opened the door and excitedly said, “The ice is going out! The ice is going out!” Sure enough, half an hour later, while on break, the entire class walked to the beach and saw that the sea ice had retreated miles offshore. I was especially surprised because there
was no wind; the ice seemed to be moving by some strong unseen force. By the end of class the sea ice was no longer visible; it was at least twenty miles out. So I went to my room to unpack the folding fishing rod that always accompanies me in my travels and returned to the shore of the Chukchi Sea to fish.

  After a while an elder came up behind me and silently watched for about five minutes, then asked, “Catch anything?” I waited a minute, then responded, “No.” After making five more casts, I asked if there were any fish here. Five minutes went by while the old Eskimo thought of an appropriate response. Finally he said, “Don’t know.” Then, after another brief wait, “You are the first human being to fish here in June. Ever.”

  In 2007 the sea ice at Wainwright went out six weeks earlier than had ever been recorded in local knowledge.

  Bruce Wright lives and works in Alaska as a senior scientist for the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association and executive director of the nonprofit Conservation Science Institute. When not spending time with his family, he enjoys being in the wilderness, where he is regularly close to wolves, bears, and moose.

  Climate Change and Creature Comforts

  Terril L. Shorb

  IN THE HIGH DESERT OF THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST, we know what global climate change sounds like. It is the sound of many tongues lapping. When we moved to central Arizona seventeen years ago, one appealing feature was the presence of wild javelina, deer, foxes, coyotes, tarantulas, and a rainbow of birds, from scrub jays to roadrunners. We put out a wet welcome mat in the form of a shallow steel pan of water, which was used mostly by birds for bathing. The pan was usually three-quarters full the next morning.

  In the past decade, the “pan index” has changed. Our central Arizona highlands typically receive nearly twenty inches of precipitation annually, but in many of the past ten years we have received significantly less. Foothills and grasslands once glittered with natural catch basins year-round; most are now dry. It is possible to wander twenty thousand square miles of central and northern Arizona and scarcely get your boots wet.

  While some pundits wag their tongues to deny that humans are a causative factor in global climate change, the tongues of the wild creatures in our midst lap at our water pan, which now shows up empty most mornings. We put out more pans. By day javelina sip daintily, and dozens of juncos and white-crowned sparrows perch on the rim, bending low to dip thirsty beaks. At night we have seen a white-throated desert pack rat slake its thirst. Desert hares, gray foxes, a coyote, wasps, beetles, and other wild creatures are regular visitors to the pans.

  Another visible effect of the prolonged drought is the precarious drop in a local aquifer, drying up springs that once trickled over parched ground across the region. And that brings us back to the tiny oasis in our back yard. We realize that we must offset the water we provide for wildlife by conserving water elsewhere. We have installed low-flush toilets. We consolidate household washing chores. When exotic trees and shrubs planted by previous owners succumbed to drier conditions, we replaced them with native species that provide forage and shelter for native creatures.

  One unexpected form of resource conservation is that we drive fewer miles for entertainment or purchase of “things” for the household, because we love to stay home and observe the never-ending drama of local wildlife. There is a direct correlation between our heightened happiness from interacting with nature and the decline in our material consumption.

  Conserving water is a small sacrifice compared to the enormous joy of seeing wild creatures slake their thirst at the little steel water holes. Looking out for other-than-human beings in our natural neighborhood is our way of responding positively to global climate change. The presence of these critters is integral to our daily life. Our small act moderates our consuming ways and gives new meaning to the phrase “providing for creature comforts.”

  Terril L. Shorb grew up on ranches and farms in the northern Rockies and now teaches at Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona. He cofounded and directs the college’s Sustainable Community Development Program.

  Calving

  Tidewater Glacier

  Trude McDermott

  My perceptions as a working artist are strongly influenced by the changing landscape. In the last few years I have tried to capture the complexity and beauty of these receding icy giants, visual reminders that we humans must align ourselves with the balance of the natural world.

  Trude McDermott has been a painter and mixed- media artist for the past twenty-five years. She lives with

  her husband in Coarsegold, California, near Yosemite National Park.

  In Defense of Ice

  Carol Ellis

  HAVING BACKPACKED ALL MY LIFE, I AM BOUND TO

  ice and glaciers over rivers of time. Today I see clearly how global warming threatens them. My connection to Glacier National Park began in the summer of 1966. On my days off from work, I hiked hundreds of miles, past Blackfoot Glacier, up to Sperry Glacier, and over Siyeh Pass with its three glaciers. At Grinnell Glacier my friends and I jumped crevasses, glancing down the yawning cuts into blue ice. We climbed along the bottom edge of a snow field, trying to reach the western slope of Salamander Glacier, which lies cradled in the sheer crest of Mount Gould. The rugged terrain stopped us.

  In 1971 my husband and I packed our young daughter along the Continental Divide on the back side of the mountain wall, where we scrambled up the notch to look down on Grinnell. From that elevation the glacier looked grayer than I remembered—perhaps because the sky was overcast, I thought. But in 1987, when we hiked from Swiftcurrent Valley toward Grinnell and Salamander, I was shocked. In twenty-one years Salamander Glacier had visibly shrunk. The tail had atrophied, the neck was strangled, the head was more diminutive, the belly had tucked and flattened up toward the spine. Grinnell had also changed. Its contracted surface area looked dirtier and grayer from the melting that had occurred. Many more rocks lay on the surface, as in the Himalayas today. The National Park Service had cordoned off more areas of instability. Where in 1966 we had hopped crevasses and hiked closer to the Salamander, now visitors walked with a ranger. And in 2000, when I crossed over Gunsight Pass past Blackfoot Glacier, I saw that same kind of assault on the compressed ice of the glacier’s core.

  If I want to confirm that rising temperatures threaten the glaciers, I can look at the winter ice on Waitts Lake in Washington, where I have a cabin. The omens in the ice are grim. Waitts Lake freezes later and melts earlier, often turning into pools of mush rather than thick, jagged icebergs, as it used to in the 1970s. The warm water in the pools drizzles through the mass of ice and softens it. Forty years ago, as fishing season approached toward the end of April, we’d wonder if the ice would clear. We’d sled or skate our children across the lake in January with no qualms. In February we could still hear the ice whoop as it split to allow more freezing. But by the late ’80s the ice was usually gone in March, and by the ’90s sometimes sooner. Rarely can the ice bear the weight of walkers or snowmobiles as it used to. Also the lake temperatures have risen; swimming season lasts one month longer than it did in the ’70s.

  As the winters get shorter and the grasses green earlier, the deer multiply. The blackbirds chortle in the cattails sooner. We entertain more clouds of midges in May. Long V’s of Canada geese honk their way south even in December. Both wildlife and humans have changed their patterns.

  All life flows with the cycles of water. I fear my grandchildren will not be able to enjoy glaciers in Glacier Park or whooping ice at Waitts Lake. I watch warily as we approach the tipping point for saving glaciers, ice, and life on this blue planet.

  Carol Ellis has taught first grade in Spokane, Washington, for over twenty-five years. She raised her own three children to hike, swim, and skate at Waitts Lake.

  Disappearing Coral

  Craig Quirolo

  In 1993 during a Reef Relief Photo Monitoring Survey dive, yellow-band disease was discovered and documented for the first time (top). Coral bleaching is often asso
ciated with rising ocean temperatures (middle). A five-hundred-year-old coral has died in a single decade (bottom). It would be a shame if the first generation of divers turned out to be the last to see living coral.

  Craig Quirolo, a photographer and artist who founded the environmental group Reef Relief in 1985.

  He lives in Brooksville, Florida.

  Disappearing coral, Key West, Florida. Photos by Craig Quirolo.

  Change Is in the Air

  Kristan Hutchison

  A FAMILIAR STENCH BLEW ACROSS THE ARCTIC TUNDRA. My three fellow hikers wrinkled their noses while I looked around with uneasy recognition.

  In our travels north of the Arctic Circle on a journalism fellowship to learn about research in Alaska, we had smelled little but dry lichen and the occasional plume of diesel and dust from trucks headed to oil fields at Prudhoe Bay. This new odor reeked of grass clippings and coffee grounds rotting in a swamp. I scanned the ground and horizon for its source, expecting to find moist piles of manure and a few heifers chewing their cud.

  This was a smell I remembered from my childhood thirty years ago and 2,780 kilometers south, in the cow pastures of our family farm near Seattle. The moist odor carried memories of idyllic summer afternoons, splashing in a creek as cow pies oozed into the mud and crusted in the sun. But here on Alaska’s North Slope there were no cows, no alders leaning over lazy streams, no snakes to catch in the grass.