Dark skies, water quality and #phenology

This morning, over my second or third cup of coffee, I was reading the Nearshore section of North Shore: A Natural History of Minnesota's Superior Coast. I was startled to read this paragraph:

"In some ecosystems, the intrusion of lights may have subtle but far-reaching effects. In 2000 limnologist Marianne Moore and her colleagues published research demonstrating that light pollution may have serious consequences for aquatic food webs. The scientists studied lakes located in lighted conditions ranging from inner-city lakes in Boston to remote, rural bodies of water. Moore points out that these bodies of water are highly susceptible to the effects of artificial light encroachment since they often are not shaded by trees or buildings. Suburban lakes, for example, register artificial light intensities that are five to thirty times greater than that of the full moon."

Winter evening, Duluth Harbor

Photo by J. Harrington

The section goes on to talk about how excess light shortens feeding periods which reduces feeding on algae by Daphnia and includes this quotation from another report "algae populations could explode in response to reduced predation, ..."

Due to excess nutrients or ...?

Photo by J. Harrington

Have you noticed increasing news articles about algae blooms affecting water quality and the need to not go in, or drink, the water? About problems in Lake Erie and the water supply in cities like Toledo? I don't recall any of those articles mentioning light pollution or Daphnia, do you? Now I'm not suggesting that a major driver of the problem isn't excess fertilizer from agricultural runoff. I am questioning whether that's the only major factor. The world we live in is a lot more complex and interrelated than we find it convenient to acknowledge. It seems so much easier to work toward simple solutions for what we want to deem to be simple problems.

The "inconvenient truth" we need to acknowledge is that there are few simple problems these days. That there's much more truth than it's convenient to deal with in H. L. Mencken's observation that "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." If we really want to reduce toxic algae issues, maybe we need to stop feeding the algae and turn down the lights so Daphnia can feed on the algae and do some other things we haven't yet included. You know, just like the answer to climate change might involve much more than "leave it in the ground." We also need to become more efficient in our use of energy and more effective in our conservation and land use patterns. Similar complexities are emerging in our efforts to protect our bee populations. It's becoming more and more clear to me that the Native American respect for reciprocity with the earth deserves to become central to our values if we want to survive, let alone thrive in the twenty-first century. We need to change direction. The question is whether we choose to have a hard or a soft landing.

One Train May Hide Another

By Kenneth Koch

(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)

In a poem, one line may hide another line,

As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.

That is, if you are waiting to cross

The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at

Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read

Wait until you have read the next line—

Then it is safe to go on reading.

In a family one sister may conceal another,

So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view

Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.

One father or one brother may hide the man,

If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.

So always standing in front of something the other

As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.

One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide

The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another

On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;

One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia Antica

     one tomb

May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide

     another,

One small complaint may hide a great one.

One injustice may hide another—one colonial may hide another,

One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath

    may hide another bath

As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.

One idea may hide another: Life is simple

Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein

One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory

One invention may hide another invention,

One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.

One dark red, or one blue, or one purple—this is a painting

By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,

These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin

May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The

     obstetrician

Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but

One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.

A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides

Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in

A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag

Bigger than her mother's bag and successfully hides it.

In offering to pick up the daughter's bag one finds oneself confronted by

     the mother's

And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker

May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee

Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love or

     the same love

As when "I love you" suddenly rings false and one discovers

The better love fingering behind, as when "I'm full of doubts"

Hides "I'm certain about something and it is that"

And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the

     Garden of Eden

Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.

Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.

When you come to something, stop to let it pass

So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,

Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory

Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,

The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading A

     Sentimental Journey look around

When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see

If it is standing there, it should be, stronger

And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore

May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk

May hide another, as when you're asleep there, and

One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs

Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the

     foot of a tree

With one and when you get up to leave there is another

Whom you'd have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,

One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man

May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.

You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It can be

     important

To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.

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