A balanced view?

We're having one of those days when we're not sure if the cup is half empty or half full. Here's some examples:

• Governor Dayton claims he now supports the proposed PolyMet NorthMet project but not the Twin Metals proposal. Duluth for Clean Water wonders why the Governor "has said that he believes copper sulfide mining is inherently too risky for the Boundary Waters, but of Lake Superior and our drinking water, he says "it's a very different watershed."


• First the Iron Rangers got the Legislature to give money to the Pollution Control Agency and ordered more scientific research to be done on the long-established sulfate water quality standard intended to protect wild rice. Now a new standard has been proposed and both some Iron Rangers and some environmental organizations are claiming the old standard, if enforced (environmental organizations insist) would be better. Meanwhile, the proposed PolyMet NorthMet project claims that meeting the old standard is no big deal.


• It seems to us that the work done so far, and the proposed new standard, appear to miss or downplay the relationship between sulfate levels and mercury bioaccumulation in fish. PoylMet's discharges would be to the St. Louis River, an already impaired water for fish consumption.


• Meanwhile, in Washington, DC.... NO! we won't go there.

without night, would dawn be as beautiful?

Photo by J. Harrington

Years ago (last millennium) one of the books we read was A Moment on the Earth. (If memory serves, that wasn't the book that pointed out that most environmental claims that life as we know it will soon end were about as accurate as industry's claims that environmental regulations will bring about a world-wide economic depression. Although perhaps it was that book, or maybe we're thinking of the skeptical environmentalist.) In the years since Moment's publication, we don't seem to have developed any better penchant for rational, or even reasonable, commitments to solving our mutual problems. We all need clean air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat and some feeling of security. The problems always seem to belong to those who are our "others." Let us here acknowledge our own level of guilt on that front, but our point is that, given the choice, we choose a cup that's half-full. We doubt that human-perceived and human-caused problems will ever be fully resolved in our little corner of an exceedingly dynamic universe. If it's not sabre-tooth tigers or an atmosphere full of ammonia, it's global warming or nuclear war or terrorism. This isn't paradise and wouldn't a life without any significant challenges be really boring? It would be like a Halloween with all treats and no tricks, nor ghosts, nor goblins. We think we're now advocating for one of the most difficult of all goals to attain: BALANCE!

would Jack-O-Lanterns glow in daytime?

Photo by J. Harrington

                     Balance

By Alice B. Fogel

Balance is everything, is the only

way to hold on.

I've weighed the alternatives, the hold

as harbor: It isn't safe                                                                             

to let go. But consider the hover,

choices made, the moment

between later and too late.

Hesitation is later, regret

too late. You can't keep turning

and turning, or expecting

to return. This earth

is not a wheel, it is a rock

that erodes, mountain by mountain.

And I have been too soft,

like sandstone, but there is a point

where I stand without a story,

immutable and moved, solid

as a breath in winter air.

I have seen my death and I know

it is my neighbor, my brother,

my keeper. In my life

I am going to keep trying

for the balance,

remembering the risks and the value

of extremes, and that experience

teaches the length of allowable lean;

that it is easier — and wiser —

to balance a stone as if on one toe

though it weigh a hundred pounds

than to push it back against the curve

of its own world.

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