Trying to tell us something?
I love and dread the syndicated series Earthweek, a diary of the planet compiled by Steve Newman. A mere ten paragraphs sum up the week’s events across the planet: earth movements, disease outbreaks, floods, climate change, pollution, and unusual animal behavior. This week a squib entitled “Smog refugees” details how crows, those hardy, adaptable creatures, recently abandoned the smoggy air of Tehran for the countryside, where they will encounter “unfamiliar predators and possibly extinction.” The paragraph concludes: “Their departure accompanies changes in Tehran’s plants, which some say have lost their aroma and color due to the smog.” (As an aside, this story was carried in Britain’s Guardian newspaper and website, but I could not find it in the New York Times, the Washington Post or the LA Times. Is this another small sign of our national disinterest in the rest of the world?)
Bird flu cases, expanding snow melt caused by soot in the air, warmer ocean waters disrupting CO2 absorption, all exemplify the cascading list of potential problems we face, most often caused or intensified by the activity of 6.7 billion human beings, and most especially those few hundred million in the “developed” world.
At The Idea Hive, we spend a lot of time thinking and talking about the inter-relatedness of nature, and our place in, not outside of, this complex system. We have observed over and over again how addressing single symptoms in a turbulent situation leads only to more severe problems. The first step is to recognize we can only solve the whole problem. Oh, and to pay attention to the common crows before they become uncommon.
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