A Spring of Disruptors and Hope

On these fine mid March mornings there is clear evidence spring is progressing.  Never mind the temperature or weather, the bird song is our cue. Days are lengthening and life in its infinite forms is awakening.  An age old force is at work, adjusting, refining, weeding out the ill suited, favoring the most qualified. As long as basic elements exist, spring comes with new life in one form or another.  

We humans are occupying this wondrous blue sphere in a tiny snapshot of time.  It’s hard to wrap our heads around the eons of geological and ecological seasons that led to this utopia, these perfect conditions that allow for our existence.  It’s hard to imagine the poles clothed in vegetation, the great inland seas, the dinosaurs, but there is no arguing with geology and the fossil record.  We are much more comfortable with our grasp of the past century or two, a period when our history and influence has been most evident, when everything lined up to support a rapid increase in population and an explosion of technological development.  As a result, we tend towards an illusion that this is how it’s always been and our plundering of resources and waste generation will not lead to insurmountable consequences.  We believe we are the superiors, the ones gifted with advanced intellect and unwavering spirits.  We will surely find a way to carry on without sacrificing our comforts or want of stuff. 

Dr Shanna Swan is a broadly recognized and respected environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.  Her work has focused on the recent decline in human reproduction stemming from widespread environmental contamination of “forever chemicals'' known as PFAS.  They are considered “forever” because they don’t break down in the environment or the human body but instead accumulate. They are used extensively in common household products, waterproof clothing, and carpeting.  They are in dust, plastics, breast milk. In her new book, Count Down, Dr Swan lays out evidence of reduced fertility in both men and women due to PFAS, and warns that sperm counts in men will diminish to zero by 2045 if the current trajectory holds (there has been a 60 percent decline since 1973).   And, yes, a zero sperm count would effectively mean the end of the human species aside from those we choose to clone.  PFAS are endocrine disruptors that lead to a host of physiological and some anatomical changes, including decreased penis length in newborn boys.  Imagine if adult males were similarly affected; the crisis would command a level of urgency heretofore unseen in human history. 

It is correct to assume that widespread endocrine disruptors have repercussions beyond the human species. Successful reproduction in mammals, birds, fishes, amphibians, and many other organisms requires a balanced and functioning endocrine system.  A few years ago we attended an off campus talk in Lafayette where the speaker, a Purdue professor, summarized her work with fishes and reptiles in the Wabash River.  She found the river high in endocrine disruptors and traced them to multiple sources, including wastewater treatment plants and a local pharmaceutical company. The disruptors were found to change the sex of some fish postbirth, shifting the normal 50:50 sex ratio to 80:20, and were also linked to deformities in amphibians such as an extra appendage on frogs.  The researcher shared the frustrations and difficulties with findings that pointed an accusatory finger at a corporation that provided major funding for her work.  Biting the hand that feeds you has repercussions, and too often scientific findings are modified in the interest of financial survival.

In the past couple decades my wife and I have watched precisely two documentaries that have given us genuine hope for the future of the planet.  Both focused on broad scale adoption of agricultural practices that would effectively rewrite our approach to soil health and food production and result in a cascade of ecological benefits. The most recent is entitled Kiss the Ground, and it is wrought with evidence and advice for restoring soil health while improving operator profitability. Credibility is lended by a long time federal soil scientist and a salt of the earth grain and livestock producer from North Dakota who is willing to bet his farm that permaculture methods will work anywhere for anybody.  They are common sense, proven strategies that are largely held at bay by chemical companies and tax dollar subsidies aimed at encouraging the status quo.  Tying into the work of Shanna Swan, there is no shortage of endocrine disruptors in modern agriculture, including such popular chemicals as atrazine and glyphosate (roundup).  Adopting a more sustainable and permaculture based approach to farming promises a greatly reduced reliance on harmful persistent chemicals, healthier, more nutritious, more localized foods, cleaner air and water, and a massive sequestration of carbon from the atmosphere.  The concept is being held back by familiarity and a misguided confidence that current practices will stand the test of time, that crops will continue to be produced given the right chemical concoction, that soil is healthy enough, and loss to erosion is not an existential threat.  A vastly superior alternative lies at the ready.

It rained almost 2.5 inches today, a real soaker, badly needed, and as it slacked off in late afternoon I took the dog on a walkabout.  The mercury hovered around 40 degrees but it felt strangely warmer.  Bird song was crazy, as if the rain had flushed away any lingering hesitations and the breeding season was now officially underway.  Spring Creek was up and running hard until it hit the beaver flowage where it slowed, fanning its volume wide over willow hummocks and the remains of last year’s grasses and sedges.  A pair of barred owls hooted and cawed from a patch of evergreens.  The air smelled of earth awakening.  The peepers were screaming.   Spring is happening as it has from time immemorial, but if land use practices remain unchanged, if the planet continues to be awash with endocrine disruptors and a nearly endless stream of man-caused environmental threats, the season of grand awakening will one day soon look and sound much different.

A Seasonal Transition and an Ongoing Concern

We are in the transition of winter to spring, the time when our acclimation to cold is quickly undone and we’re less comfortable with a north wind and 40 degrees than we were at 10. There’s a lot going on. Sandhill cranes are winging northward, redwing blackbirds are singing, daffodils are breaking ground, sap is running, geese are bickering over prime real estate. The list is long and timeless, understood yet filled with mystery. 

It’s a fickle time of year for weather. Warm and cold air masses combine to spawn storms, some severe. Too much warm too soon pushes buds to break then the frost returns and a season’s fruit is lost and sadness settles on the orchardist. All this is complicated by a climate that has changed so normals are no longer, predictions are often “unprecedented”, and weather events are breaking long established records. 

Our old dog, from all indications, is unconcerned. As long as the weather is not brutally hot her contentment is certain and predictable. Early spring, late frost, weather weirdness, all are meaningless as she is singularly focused on loyalty, friendship, and squirrel patrol, and from these she does not venture. It appears she lives solely in the moment and lacks the capacity to consider or recognize changes or threats that are forthcoming. There is one exception, that being when we are about to leave without her, and she’s melting into the floor even before we’ve made the announcement. 

I suppose wild species are similar. Some have the foresight to cache food for hard times ahead but most subscribe to a carpe diem philosophy. Adapt or die is their motto, which they follow without plan or fret. They are totally innocent as we cripple or destroy the environments we share with them, yet hold no recognizable ill towards us, even as some are facing certain extinction or dramatic population declines due to our actions. They are, in a sense, old dogs: highly responsive to our activities and in simple need of recognition, appreciation and respect. 

In the absence of humans, wild species would be just fine, but our influence on global ecology is complete so no place or living thing has gone untouched. It’s a relatively new development in human history, with the greatest impact occurring in just the past couple hundred years. The future of almost everything alive rests on us. We don’t turn on our phones, switch on a light, or hop in a car without an impact that ripples across the planet. Dominion, it appears, we can claim. 

The old dog feels frisky after her morning breakfast and bounces her front paws on the floor and stands with ears perked, looking expectant. She clearly has a message but I’m clueless and in need of coffee, a brew made from a bean likely raised in South or Central America where lush forests once stood and migrant birds once wintered; a bean that was processed and shipped, accruing a handsome carbon footprint, so I could grind and prepare it in my kitchen using appliances and gadgetry that were produced from mined metals that were smelted then poured into molds or stamped into products deemed essential for comfort in modern society and demanded by hundreds of millions of anxious consumers. And in the process of getting my beans countless people profited and they, too, wanted to buy more stuff, so to satisfy this new demand more mines were opened and the whole industrial complex was given a boost. The stock market reacted favorably and the money poured disproportionately to those already holding the greatest wealth and a beautifully capable planet became slightly less capable all because I felt a need for a cup of coffee. 

I recently read about a new lithium mine scheduled to open in the great state of Nevada. The mine, located at Thacker Pass, is promised to be a mile long and two miles wide and produce 179 million tons of lithium to help satisfy the world’s growing desire for electric cars and green energy storage. The mine will bring jobs and a valuable source of lithium from within our own borders. It will also wreak environmental disaster on a remote area of Humboldt County which, oddly enough, is named for one of the world’s most influential naturalists. One article I read states that electric cars are not the solution and cars of any sort are not the solution and we should go back to walking like humans have for 99.9 percent of our time on earth. And that made me think of an interview I heard on NPR with a man who had lost his job and car due to the pandemic and was forced to turn down a new job because he had no way to get to it. And I thought of my old roommate who has been diagnosed with ALS, and in a recent video, there he was taking a test drive in an electric wheelchair which was no doubt powered by a lithium battery. He was grinning from ear to ear. 

We’re in a seasonal transition, looking forward to the end of a pandemic, waiting to see how the world reacts, setting our hopes on something that is new and just while holding the promise of prosperity. A magnificent blue globe spins in her orbit around the sun. She gives us free reign to all she has, not contesting our decisions but reacting to them. She supports every living thing, and like an old dog looking to her master, is asking for respect and appreciation. No one said it’d be easy.