We've succeeded with eagles and sandhill cranes, now let's tackle GHGs

Small flocks/families of sandhill cranes (adults and colts) are foraging in local fields that have been harvested of small grains, or weren't planted at all this year. We're not sure where or when our fondness for sandhill cranes originated, we do know A Sand County Almanac had a lot to do with it. Although, when Leopold wrote his Marshland Elegy essay, he was quite concerned about the prospects for the survival of the species. They've recovered from their population low points, as have many endangered species. It's important to learn and remember about our past successes in conservation and restoration of our lands, waters and wildlife as we continue to be beleaguered by reports of melting glaciers, Western wildfires, flooding rivers, the burning Amazon and Australia's persistence in coal mining.

sandhill crane families foraging in a field

Photo by J. Harrington

We've seen and read a little about granting legal rights to rivers. As an alternative, perhaps we should consider making ecocide and related behavior a crime against humanity. Several major fossil fuel companies have known the implications of using their product for many decades and withheld that information, putting humanity at risk of a severely diminished existence. It seems increasingly clear that our international institutions aren't sufficiently robust to promptly limit the actions of one nation, such as Brazil or Australia, that threaten the health and prosperity of many others. It will be interesting to see what happens at the upcoming G7 meeting that begins tomorrow.

Remember in the old time Western movies and tv series how the "town folks" were at the mercy of the rowdy bad guys until a good guy with a fast gun bought law and order to town. Well, these days the world needs to tell nations and corporations to "check their GHGs when they come into town," or something like that. If the world as we know it has become too much like Dodge City, Kansas in "Gunsmoke," who's going to be Marshal Dillon? Or would the movie "High Noon" better fit our current situations?

One reason we believe that much stronger international regulations and enforcement are required can be found in the fact that the United States, since at least 1972, has been relying on farmers' voluntary behavior to limit pollution from agricultural runoff. A news story this morning tells us that "MPCA reports show need for dramatic reduction in soil entering rivers." As noted in those reports,

While none of the area watersheds or Minnesota River meets standards in a variety or areas, the Clean Water Act does not generally allow for regulatory action against “nonpoint souce” pollution, which includes runoff and erosion. “Point source” pollutants — typically things like a pipe coming out of a factory or a city’s wastewater treatment plant — are regulated.

But states are required to develop programs to manage nonpoint source pollution and meet standards if they want to get certain federal funding.

Unfortunately, not enough of us think or act like the poet W.S. Merwin, who noted that:

On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree
– W.S. Merwin

Remember, if we all behaved better we wouldn't need the highway patrol to enforce speed limits. We're more like the mother and father in the following poem.

Native Trees

By W. S. Merwin

Neither my father nor my mother knew

the names of the trees

where I was born

what is that

I asked and my

father and mother did not

hear they did not look where I pointed

surfaces of furniture held

the attention of their fingers

and across the room they could watch

walls they had forgotten

where there were no questions

no voices and no shade

Were there trees

where they were children

where I had not been

I asked

were there trees in those places

where my father and my mother were born

and in that time did

my father and my mother see them

and when they said yes it meant

they did not remember

What were they I asked what were they

but both my father and my mother

said they never knew

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