Great Lakes Breathing

I have lived along the banks of several estuaries in my time here on Earth. The difference between the great oceanic tides and the seiches produced by winds are also interesting because rather than salt water and freshwater mixing in these zones, the waters that mix are both fresh (non-saline) and that changes the character of the relationship between the bodies of water a great deal. Often the colder and more dense saltwater that intrudes into estuaries hugs the bottom and creeps upriver in relatively static waves, oscillating on a cycle with the position of the moon and her gravitational pull. where I come from, on the edge of the inland seas, wind drives the water levels and the intrusion of great Lakes water into estuaries that I am familiar with.
A friend, who lives on an Island in Lake Superior recently told me about a local lake on her island that has a spring fed lake upon it that intermittently gets additional water from Lake Superior depending on the strength, duration and direction of the wind. Water flows both ways along the outlet/inlet stream. This, she described as the lake breathing. Anyone who has spent time along the shores of any of the Great Lakes, and truly paid close attention to what they were experiencing knows that these vessels are alive. They live and breathe as surely as we do, just at a different pace and in a slightly different manner. These massive bodies of water eat (consume), excrete (empty), exchange gasses and reproduce themselves in mysterious ways. Not only are there the original progenitors, ancient beings who have been around through great spans of geologic time, but there are their children and grandchildren who live amongst us as our unique perspectives and relationships, chips as one might say off the old blocks. Whatever we think of when the term great Lakes is the product of our life bumping up against them and how we have become one with and generated our image is intimate and in a unique pairing becomes a living organism in and of itself.
For better and worse, we often forget that we are partners in the recreation of the lakes. The procreation of  future generations of each of them depends on our participation. My own intimate knowledge about these five jewels spread out across Northern North America has spawned a lifetime of struggle, trying to put to words just who they are, just how much they mean to me and just how much we have lost through ignoring the bounty which they hold, if we would just quiet ourselves enough to listen, we can hear their voices, understand some of their great gifts and understand that they create us just as we help create them.

What Is At Stake?

The largest wetland complex on Lake Superior is at risk and the native people who depend on it for their survival are threatened by the development of a strip mine in Northern Wisconsin. Despotic mining interests from Florida seek to strip mine low grade taconite ore to be processed and shipped off to produce iron. The boom and bust cycle of metal prices has led once again to greed and corruption of our good sense as well as the erosion of our values. More iron and steel are rusting away across the Northern tier counties of Wisconsin than will ever be produced by the mine. The depression that has been caused across the Northwoods is the result of just this sort of extractive approach to economic activity and the last thing the region needs are 700 short term jobs that leave behind the legacy of toxic waste and dislocation caused by extracting the very things that make people want to live and vacation here.
The wild rice beds, (menomin) that form the basis of a culture that has been relatively stable in spite of the onslaught of white "civilization", are part of the prophecy that led these native people on their westward trek centuries ago. The grass that grows on water has not only been repeatedly harvested year after year in an unbroken chain of events since the Ojibwa came to this area, but the nutrient rich grass has flourished under their care as well. The drainage basin that feeds the marsh lies exactly where the proposed mine would be. The ore body that interests the mine owners is only part of the body of Mother Earth that the native people recognize as life giver and sacred being. If the rice beds form the heart of their culture, the water that falls upon the Penokee Range is the blood. The interactions between the atmosphere and the living cycles of life in this region are undeniable. Cursory glances over the maps of the area show that the Penokee Hills are riddled with streams and rivulets that are fed by lake effect snows during the winter and localized thunderstorms during the rest of the year. The rice and the people depend on this very wet area to feed them, nourish them and allow them to sustain not only themselves but one another. An example of the timeless symbiosis of an intact culture is at stake. The fact that the greed inspired "developers" are interested in digging a 900 foot deep hole, 23 miles long and four miles wide in this relatively unpopulated area makes the damage that they plan all the more heinous. By poisoning the wetlands and removing the mountain tops, the entire future of the native people will become untenable. It would be like poisoning all the cattle of the west in terms of our culture, or making all the wheat, corn and soybeans that we base our culture on dangerous to eat. The fact that we may be doing just those things is not a reason to allow the damage to occur but rather a wake up call for us to stop poisoning ourselves.

Don't take my word for it, check out what the Nature conservancy has to say about this most recent attack on the Penokee Range.
When I rode my bicycle around the Great Lakes in 1987, there were hundreds of environmental disasters that I could point to around the lakes, hundreds of examples of what not to do. In my way, I took the trip to share ideas about sustainability with the people who have to live with those disasters day in and day out. Back then, I didn't use those words exactly, I called it living better lifestyles with less negative impacts. The same message needs to be heeded today, especially by the multimillionaires that are proposing this strip mine, their friends in the Wisconsin  Capitol, and the people who worry about long-term unemployment across the Northwoods. The reasons for the unemployment, that is endemic to the area, is rooted in the fact that extractive processes in the past are still affecting those who continue to live here. This proposed mine is all the more heinous because not only the native people stand to lose the basis of their food system, but that local groups and governments have committed to transitioning to sustainability. For those of us who love the region, honor the natural cycles of both the forest and the lake, it feels like our "representatives" are trying to punish us and attack our sensibilities. Grinding the low grade ore to powder is the first step in the process. Not only is this extremely energy intensive, requiring increased electric generating capacity, (read dirty coal) but refining and transporting this material has already led to high rates of cancer and poisoning of the land with hazardous chemicals in other areas where this sort of "economic" activity has been tried. Until we realize that the ecosphere is not a bank to be raided at will, we will not stop the titans of industry from raping Mother Earth. Allowing foreign interests to dictate how we choose to make our living is tantamount to treason and this mine must be stopped. 

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/wisconsin/mining-in-the-penokee-gogebic-range-whats-at-risk.xml

Earthday at 40

I remember my parents not allowing me to attend the first Earthday. They said it was part of the conspiracy to placate the masses and distract the public from what was really going on. The river in our backyard was a colloidal suspension, (like mixing milk and orange juice, but it was green) After forty years, dredging toxic compounds that accumulated all those years ago has begun. The fish are still not safe to eat, nor the waters to swim. I have seen a vast improvement in the look, but not the smell of our river. As a child I wondered how large must the Great Lakes be, to be able to handle the incredible volume of toxic waste that flowed past our door.

In 1987, I got a chance to ride bicycle around all five Great Lakes and all I can say is that they are not very big! Even now the water that we drink contains prescription drugs. We didn't even know about the possibility of these contaminants being able to "make it" into the environment back then. I was able to get the message of sustainability , though we called it living better for less back then, to about ten million people. Six million on a single day through CBC radio during a morning commute. Cheap and simple ways to "Go Green" like substituting baking soda for chlorine tainted cleansers, combining trips, carpooling or bicycling rather than firing up the old fossil fuel burner unnecessarily. Back then, a family could save about seven thousand dollars per year by going from two cars down to one.

The air when I was a child was terrible, and is no better today, in spite of effectively cutting new lead emissions, sulfur dioxide and dry cleaning compounds many other contaminants have increased. We did score a noteworthy victory when the local electric generating station wanted to raise their smoke stack to "protect local air quality". Public interest groups said in court that the air farther away should not be negatively impacted to keep our air cleaner, so the stack raising project was put on hold. The courts interpreted the clean air act rules to mean that pollution should be reduced, not just diluted and to this day, the stack remains unfinished.

Burning of fossil fuels has increased exponentially at times in the last forty years. Each time we increase mileage standards, we increase the fleet size to offset any ecological gains. Infrastructure improvements have created millions more miles upon which people can now drive. Current government incentives go to larger and larger interests who more and more people drive farther to patronize.

Soils are still under attack. Mega-farm agribusiness is not concerned at all about naturally stable and ecologically diverse micro-climates. Drive through any agricultural land and you will see the stark reality that nearly every farmer has sterilized the soils and tilled wet and /or erosion prone areas to the point of having only dirt where a complex relationship of organisms once existed.

I truly hope that in forty more years my children won't say "Things are as bad as they ever were." At least when the first Earthday happened, there were still old timers who had not given up the old ways of farming that respected the earth, understood stewardship and at least rotated crops and left fallow land that "needed a rest." Farmers are under such pressure today that they can't possibly do what is best for their land. It would cost billions to reestablish hedgerows, intersperse forest cover to protect the fields from the ravages of wind and extremes of hot and cold as well as wet and dry.

We have had forty years to make a difference, but have mostly chosen to look the other way. If you are a child reading this, hold your parents to a higher standard. If nothing changes, protest like we did against the Vietnam War. If you are adults, hold your elected officials to the task of cleaning up the mess, stabilizing the cities and allowing local areas to support themselves. No one is served when the cities collapse. Before the next Wal-mart is subsidized, we need to make sure the urban core has decent food, water, shelter and air. If that means mass transit, so be it. If that means high speed rail, lets step up. We are living in a country whose people were told that the Erie Canal was just a pipe dream, The Mississippi could not be tamed, that they would never be able to lay railroad track over the Rockies, that a Trans-Atlantic cable was impossible, and other things that could have limited us, or what we could do. If anyone can reclaim a mutually beneficial relationship with Earth, it only makes sense that it should be us.

We have been lucky to have people looking out for us through the last forty years, but the lack of effective action to reign in the destruction of our planet has been staggering. Our efforts need to be more than redoubled. Effective action is much more than fair-trade coffee and reuse-able shopping bags. It lies in a complex matrix of relationships with one another, with community and with resources. As we learned as children about the water cycle, we need to look at the cycles of capital, of energy, of nutrients and of all the gifts that the natural world provides each discreet location. The give back needs to be reintegrated into our daily lives. That is what enriches community and raises our quality of life while reducing costs.