“This may sound blasphemous, but maintaining native biodiversity is less important than maintaining a functioning ecosystem. What matters is that soil is protected, that water gets cleaned, that trees filter the air, that a canopy regenerates new seedlings to keep nutrients from draining away into the Bronx River.”- Chuck Peters of the New York Botanical Garden in The City Without Us, page 39

I think this statement is a very controversial one that would cause a big fight among people that strive to protect biodiversity. In EVST Capstone we read an article about a writer named Johnathan Franzen who thought that protecting biodiversity was more important than preventing climate change. According to Franzen, Climate change has gone too far and there is nothing left to be done about it. Franzen believes that we should continue individual biodiversity efforts for threatened and endangered species. I think Peters’ point is that if we want to sustain the earth in such a way that humans can continue to prosper, we should care less about biodiverstiy and more about just protecting green spaces in general. I would be very interested to see a Franzen response to Peters’ statement. I am surprised that Peters, as someone who works at NTBG, would have such a statement about biodiversity.

“Our perception has always been that, no matter how many subdivisions we build, or how much land we put to the plow, or how many roads we construct, there will always be plenty of undisturbed space left” No Place to Hide, page 27

I can’t remember what passage it was that we discussed but this makes me think a lot about the closing of the frontier. In the 19th century there was this perception that the wilderness went on forever. In 1890, the US Census Bureau declared that the frontier officially closed. Still today, people are ignorant of the fact that their cannot be endless development. We will eventually run out of resources and space.

After reading several blog posts about microbeads and their impact on the environment I found myself in a dilemma. The face wash I use contains microbeads in it and my first instinct of course was to stop using it because it was bad for the planet. Upon further contemplation however I thought, will this bottle be any better off in a landfill? By not using the rest of it, its bottle would end up in the trash rather than the recycling. The liquid would probably ooze out someplace and end up in a stream anyway.

So I elected to keep my face wash, finish out this bottle and find a more eco-friendly product for my next purchase. As consumers it is our responsibility to take charge of what we are buying. A simple change in the way we buy things can have a huge impact on the world.

I had heard about Mt. Trashmore in my Environmental Engineering Classes and on my way back from vacation this morning I spotted a sign for it on the side of the highway. We got off the highway and entered the park. It was a huge park and full of a lot more people than I expected on an early tuesday morning. People were climbing to the top while others jogged around. My mom and I walked about 1/4 of the way around it before we turned around to head back to the car. It seems to be a semi-hidden fact that this used to be a landfill. There are no signs that indicate a history of the site and I wonder if people are just ignorant of the naming or they just don’t really care.

The park was created in 1974 and is an example of landfill reuse as its creation consisted of the conversion of an abandoned landfill into a park.

This is another picture from First Landing State Park in Virginia. The place where the park sits used to be the beach hundreds of thousands of years ago. This is just a cool picture of moss growing on top of sand, over a mile from the shore.

On this Columbus Day weekend I took an appropriate excursion to First Landing State Park which is located in Norther Virginia. Although Christopher Columbus did not actually discover the continental United States, we still have a federal holiday to celebrate (Hooray!). First Landing State Park was the location where Captain John Smith and his crew (yes, Pocahontas was still incredibly historically inaccurate even though they got one name right) first landed in 1604.

The Bald Cyprus trail is a pleasant 1.5 mile loop through and around cypress swamps. Areas that separate the various sized low wetlands are parts of the trail that cross over forest covered dunes, making for a few slight uphill and downhill climbs. The trail has a number of boardwalks and observation platforms that carry you over and allow you to look into the swamps.

While on the loop I saw these “knees” of the Bald Cyprus trees, for which the trail is named. The knees are of unknown value to the tree: some believe they provide stabilization for the trees while others think it may contribute to its oxygenation. Scientists remain unsure of their function, but they certainly add a little wonder to nature. 

On our fourth site visit we noticed the leaves had started to shift colors more obviously on our walk to the site. We passed the construction site on 611 where no progress ever seems to be made and over the Bushkill as we do every week.

We did not encounter the Homeless Person we usually see changing his shirt by the sign at 2:30 pm because we did not get there until 3:00 pm. Instead we were greeted on the path down to where the Delaware meets the Bushkill by a heavy-set man and his slender friend. They were both sopping wet and wore neutral colored clothing, they had beards and shaggy hair but they approached us in a friendly matter. “Getting the last swim in of the season,” the heavier man said in response to his moist appearance. He explained to us that it was quite beautiful on the other side once you pass the “Hobo hideaway.” We smiled and headed down the path; the more we come here, the more it changes.

The water level had risen significantly from the last time we had been there. A basketball floated in the water, stuck between the currents of the Bushkill and the Delaware. There was a significant increase in litter since the first time we had come here four weeks ago.

On the Delaware we observed our first look at some wildlife, some visitors from north of the border. Canadian Geese were floating in the Delaware about 200 yards upstream. I have never seen geese float on a river, I am used to see them in ponds and in big open fields as they migrate.

Over the past four weeks we have become braver in approaching the Homeless person’s dwelling. This afternoon, we were quite startled by what we discovered. There were skull face targets shot with paint guns lying out to dry. There was also a comforter lying on rocks. We wonder if the homeless person who lives here will stay here all winter, It is much to exposed to the elements for anyone to survive.

This weekend I went to my beach house on the Jersey Shore to close it up for the season. While there, I walked to the beach where they had piled up the sand to prevent the beach from eroding. It was high tide and mid day on Saturday and the waves were 15 to 20 feet high because of the storm. The waves were frothing brown foam and few brave souls had gone onto the beach to take pictures. Even where there is such danger, people are always intrigued by the ocean.

The winds are whipping and are at least 40 mph. Some of the sand has made its way on to the street and will need to be swept back underneath the boardwalk. After Super Storm Sandy this beach had to be replenished by adding more sand from the deep ocean and pumping it up onto the shore. So is this man made beach really still nature? Or is it artificial?

“I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades” (Leopold 140).

I like this analogy because it is a good representation of the destruction humans have caused to our environment. Humans are extremely overpopulated because they have no natural predators. It’s weird to think about it that way but the only predators we have are with the technology we create: cars, boats, planes. We destroy and exploit the environment so that it is no longer there. If humans did not exist, the earth would continue to thrive, but if humans continue to exploit the earth for its resources, the effects of climate change will continue to get worse.

“We need to honor the Other within and the Other next door as much as we do the exotic Other that lives far away- a lesson that applies as much to people as it does  to (other) natural things” (Cronon 89).

“The removal of Indians to create an “uninhabited wilderness”- uninhabited as never before in the human history of the place- remind us just how invented, just how constructed, the American wilderness really is” (Cronon 79).

“The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends” (Thoreau 188).

In class today Professor Brandes brought up pets in nature. I have a cat named Sam and he loves the outdoors more than anything. As soon as my mom gets home from work she lets him outside. If she doesn’t let him out right away, he will cry and scratch at the front or back door until he gets let out. He will venture back in around seven to eat dinner, but will go back out until my mom calls him in around ten. Sam lives a pretty comfortable kitty life indoors. He however would prefer to be outside every day, playing in our gardens and chasing chipmunks.