Category: environment

‘The Land’s Wild Music: Encounters with Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Terry Tempest Williams, and James Galvin’ by  Mark Tredinnick 

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment

I should have read this book sooner because I would like to talk to Barry Lopez (via Ouija Board), Peter Matthiessen (same Ouija board), James Galvin, and Terry Tempest Williams. And also, I like the wild music the land sings to us when we walk slowly and listen. The awareness one finds when listening to Earth’s music and, perhaps, the Creator’s music is what I was talking about in yesterday’s post about “gnosis.” That music is more difficult to hear inside a building, no matter how sacred the structure.

From the Publisher

“‘The Land’s Wild Music’ explores the home terrains and the writing of four great American writers of place―Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Terry Tempest Williams, and James Galvin. In their work and its relationship with their home places, Tredinnick, an Australian writer, searches for answers to such questions such as whether it’s possible for a writer to make an authentic witness of a place; how one captures the landscape as it truly is; and how one joins the place in witness so that its lyric becomes one’s own and enters into one’s own work. He asks what it might mean to enact an ecological imagination of the world and whether it might be possible to see the work―and the writer―as part of the place itself. The work is a meditation on the nature of landscape and its power to shape the lives and syntax of men and women. It is animated by the author’s encounters with Lopez, Matthiessen, Williams, and Galvin, by critical readings of their work, and by the author’s engagement with the landscapes that have shaped these writers and their writing―the Cascades, Long Island, the Colorado Plateau, and the high prairies of the Rocky Mountains. Tredinnick seeks “the spring of nature writing deep in the nature of a place itself, carried in a writer’s wild self inside and resonated over and over again at the desk until it is a work in which the place itself sings.”

About the Author

Mark Tredinnick is an essayist, poet, and writing teacher. He is the author of The Blue Plateau: A Landscape Memoir and the editor of A Place on Earth: An Anthology of Nature Writing from Australia and North America. His essays and journalism have appeared in Island, ISLE, Orion, Resurgence, the Bulletin, and the Sydney Morning Herald. Winner of the 2005 Wildcare Tasmania Nature Writing Prize, Tredinnick lives in the highlands southwest of Sydney, Australia.

–Malcolm

Last Oil and Gas Lease in the Montana’s Badger-Two Medicine Retired

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment, writing

National Parks Conservation Association

News Release – September 1, 2023

Washington, D.C. – Blackfeet leaders and conservationists celebrated today that they, along with the federal government, have reached a negotiated agreement with Solenex, LLC to permanently retire the last remaining federal oil and gas lease in the 130,000-acre Badger-Two Medicine area of the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest.

The settlement agreement marks the culmination of a 40-year effort by tribal leaders, conservationists, hunters and anglers, and other Montanans to prevent oil and gas drilling in the Badger-Two Medicine. Located adjacent to Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, the area is considered sacred ground by the Blackfeet Nation due to its deep cultural and historical significance to Blackfeet people as well as vital habit and a migration corridor for some of Montana’s most treasured wildlife species including elk, wolverines, grizzly bears, and westslope cutthroat trout.

The 6,247-acre lease held by Solenex was one of 47 oil and gas leases originally issued by the Reagan Administration in the Badger-Two Medicine in the early 1980s. With today’s settlement agreement, all of these leases in the area have now been permanently eliminated without any development having occurred, ending the threat of drilling in this wild, roadless area once and for all. Read more here.

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The existence of these leases was bad in multiple ways, two of them being that they threatened Blackfeet land and Glacier National Park as well the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Great Bear Wilderness.

Some years ago, when I was part of a group fighting a mine in British Columbia that released polluted water into the Flathead River on Glacier’s western boundary, we successfully used the US/Canada Boundary Waters Treaty to argue that the outflow from this mine would negatively impact lands and waters within the U.S. It took a while, but we got the mine closed.

The lesson of this is that activities outside protected lands can bring pollution and other negative impacts to the flora and fauna inside those protected lands. Like the mine, the Solenex leases had that potential. Water and air pollution can be ubiquitous in that protected land boundaries don’t magically stop the inflow of pollution. At the time, I pushed an idea forward that would place concentric “circles” around protected areas in which nothing “dangerous” could be constructed. Naturally, this wasn’t passed.  Development, such as that impacting Manassas National Battlefield Park aren’t always mines and oil pipes lines, but are commercial and neighborhood encroachments that that not only spoil views from with a park, but bring dust, traffic, and noise to areas that aren’t equipped to handle them.

The proposed Everglades Jetport was another example of this: development near a protected area that negatively impacts a protected area. It’s hard to protect that which we want to protect when nearby construction, commercial and residential projects, and superhighways threaten what we have set aside as “sacred.”

When we protect land, we think, “there, that’s taken care of” as we move on to other issues. No, it’s never taken care of. Developers are always on the porch trying to get a foot in the door.

–Malcolm

If we stick our heads in the sand, maybe the oceans won’t rise enough to drown us

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment, writing2 Comments

“One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

As for climate change, what do you think? Is it an excuse for more goverwent overreach, dire predictions from environmental groups who want your donations, or the reality we all face?

Let’s suppose NASA developed a shuttle system to transport people to a distant planet that is more or less exactly like Earth was before we screwed it up. I wonder how many people would leave.

Would you?

I don’t think I would, but I suppose there would be a long line of people looking for a cheap and easy fix. That is, to leave the sinking ship.

I remember the title of a long-ago novel called Earth Abides. Personally, I think the earth will last, though most of us may not be here to see it. It’s just easier to keep doing what we’re doing. That’s my  guess. As George Stewart wrote, “Men go and come, but earth abides.”

Let’s suppose we believe Earth is bigger than the problems we have wrought, does that justify continuing to destroy it? Or, is it easier to keep destroying it and let the end come when it will?

We should be smarter than that, allowing the world to go down hill into chaos, but I wonder if we are.

What do you think?

–Malcolm

Many calendars, limited walls

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment2 Comments

Every place there I’ve ever donated money sends me a free calendar. I don’t know where to put them, so most end up in a desk-top organizer since I don’t like throwing all those cool pictures away.

This week, I received a free copy of the National Park Foundation’s 2022 calendar. It came with a letter tht let me know I was their kind of people and, that being the case, I might want to join up or send them a donation. I support their work, but I can’t possibly send money to everyone who sends me a calendar.

Even though Facebook lists wall calendars among the archaic items nobody ever uses any more, we have two wall calendars in our house. The calendar next to my desk in the den always comes as part of my membership in the Montana Historical Society. The calendar next to the kitchen sink often comes from my brother Barry and his wife Mary, frequently a scenic from their latest travels. 

That’s it, unless we put up a calendar in the garage, the bathrooms, and the closets. That seems a bit crazy. So, if you’re part of the fundraising department of a nonprofit organization, there’s no need going to the expense of sending me a 2022 calendar in hopes that “gift” will shame me into send to $100000000000000. Not happening.

—Malcolm

Florida Folk Magic Stories: Novels 1-4 by [Malcolm R. Campbell]You can save money by purchasing all four novels of my Florida Folk Magic Series in a set, These stories feature a conjure woman, her cat, and her friends in a battle against the KKK in the 1950s when the Klan was strong in the Sunshine State even though it wasn’t included in a list of our tourist attractions.

Facing the Climate Catastrophe

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment, writing2 Comments

On August 9, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its assessment of the state of the climate — the panel’s grimmest yet. The window to stop some of the worst effects of the climate crisis is rapidly closing, the report found, and world leaders must act with urgency to prevent catastrophe.

The report, prepared by more than 200 top scientists around the globe and approved by the 195 UN member states, is the first of three expected this year to inform emission reduction commitments at the 26th annual international summit known as the Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) this November in Glasgow, Scotland.

Photo: Sunset over St. Mary Lake at Glacier National Park. The namesake glaciers at this park are rapidly melting as a result of climate change. In 1850, the region had 150 glaciers. There are now just 25 left. Photo © Kan1234/Dreamstime.

Source: Facing the Climate Catastrophe: What We Do Now Matters · National Parks Conservation Association

Do most people worry about climate change? Apparently more people are taking it seriously as shown, in part, by their willingness to switch to products that they think are better for the environment.

In this article, the NPCA suggests four critical areas we can focus on:

  • Reducing emissions from cars.
  • Retiring power plants to clear skies of haze pollution.
  • Reducing methane, one of the most potent climate-warming emissions, from oil and gas development.
  • Securing critical climate provisions in the federal budget.

Climate change is such a huge issue, it often seems outside the power of the individual to address. Articles like this one help us narrow down target areas where we can focus our efforts.

—Malcolm

Loving our parks to death

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment, Glacier National Park4 Comments

You’ve heard the old story, one version or another, about a family who builds a cabin next to a lake or on a high hill where there’s a spectacular view. Their friends visit, some build next door, then one day a restaurant appears and a gas station and a traffic light and a hotel and, in time, the place is just as crowded as the neighborhoods in town everyone tried to escape.

The national parks are suffering a similar death, one in which most people consider humans to be the most invasive species with the once pristine preserve. Years ago, Glacier National Park was considered the most threatened park in the NPS system, primarily from air and water polution that arose outside its borders. Now the new threat comes from within as the NPS continues to resist putting a cap on the number of visitors allowed each year.

Glacier started a ticketed entry system this year. So far, it seems to be managing the traffic. The sad thing is this: it’s not reducing the traffic. A recent story said visitor counts on Sun Road in Glacier are up 41% over 2019. I had hoped the NPS would manage to reduce the number of visitors based on the premise that too many is too many if the park and its flora and fauna are to be preserved.

When a new building goes up in town, the fire marshal establishes a maximum occupancy in the name of safety. We  need a similar limit for parks because once our invasive species of humans have overrun the place, it will lose everything the NPS was supposed to be preserving. In Glacier, there are traffic jams not only to get into the park, but of hikers waiting to use popular trails like the High Line which, I suppose, will one day have a turnstile at each end to control access.

Unfortunately, the most viable way to reduce visitor counts is also the most unfair: charging so much that people cannot afford the bill. This means the rich get in and the poor do not. The ticketed entry system seems to be helping at Glacier. I look forward, though, to the next viable and democratic system that truly keeps each year’s visitor counts to a safe level.

In the 1960s when I worked in Glacier as a seasonal employee, we said, “Thank goodness nodody knows where this place is.” Unfortunately, they’ve found out. The park was overcrowded several years ago: letting more people in is not the answer we need.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell

Publisher: Thomas-Jacob Publishing

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Goodbye Charlie, now on the rainbow bridge

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment

Charlie died of kidney failure. I can’t know this for sure, of course, but based on the speed of this whole thing, his eventual refusal to eat, and the anemia that was apparent from his tongue (it got progressively pale and was nearly white by the end), my vet said all signs pointed to kidney failure, too advanced by the time he showed symptoms to have done anything about. Charlie seemed to be improving for a couple of weeks which is why I thought it was arthritis and which, frankly, was the only reason I was capable of sharing that first update – and I’m so glad I did. Having you all looped in has helped me more than I ever could have imagined. We buried Charlie under his favorite tree.” – Shreve Stockton, weblog, 10/27/2020

I’ve been following Charlie’s exploits in Stockton’s blog “The Daily Coyote” from the beginning when she adopted the orphaned coyote pup in Wyoming in 2007, knowing that his life depended on her. They became companions (co-pilots, as she says, rather than master and pet) for the rest of Charlie’s life. Raising a wild thing: others said it couldn’t be done, but she did it well. You can find the story of her first year with Charlie in her 2008 book, also called The Daily Coyote.

Charlie came to Stockton’s ranch about the time I was researching my novel Sarabande.  A coyote has an important role in the book. I soon found that the up-close-and-personal research I needed didn’t exist–until Shreve was gracious and answered my e-mail questions. I included her name in the book’s acknowledgments, but that never seemed to be enough.

Inasmuch as I was reading about Charlie every day, I continued to learn about coyotes and should say that, though it wasn’t my intention, Charlie was the role model for Apí’si in my novel. So I will miss my “online friend” named Charlie though he doesn’t know me.

Early on in her blog, Shreve said that many people were asking how they could see Charlie. Her answer was simply this: “Charlie doesn’t want to see you.” That’s as it should be, and I understand.

—Malcolm

P. S. You can see the 2022 Charlie Calendar here.

We could have ended the world sooner and at a lower cost

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment

Apparently, the movers and shakers of humankind have been working diligently to end the world. If not, we wouldn’t be where we are on so many fronts.

Except for various clans of deniers, including those who think history, science, and the notion of a round earth are bunk, most people are accepting climate change as inevitable. How do we know this? Because they’re keeping quiet, just watching it happen. Some people are fighting, speaking out, but it’s too little, too late.

The movers and shakers who–for reasons of insanity or short term gratification of the riches gained from habitat destruction–want the world to call it a day missed their chance to end life as we know it years ago. They could have kept the U.S. out of World War II, let Hitler and Hirohito have it all, and head toward the resulting, predicted ruin.

We had enough nuclear weapons to do the job, but we didn’t. It would have been quick, possibly a spectacular sight to aliens watching from a universe far away. Instead, we’ve opted for the slower annihilation of climate change–the fires, the hurricanes, the rising oceans, the diseases, the chaos. Where is the honor in that?

We’re all accomplices, though, aren’t we? We’ve accepted the notion that we were somehow different than the rest of the world’s flora and fauna and that “taming the land” was okay even if it meant destroying the land because we’re superior to mere rivers and forests, much less the problems of oceans with plastic and rivers with toxic waste..

The land is having its say, but we’re not listening. I’m surprised that the molecules that make up human beings haven’t fled the planet out of guilt and embarrassment to return to the dying stars whence they came. Many have spoken on the land’s behalf, individuals like Edward Abbey, John Muir, Wendell Berry, David Brower, Rachel Carson, and organizations like Audubon, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club, National Parks and Conservation Association, Wilderness Society. Many like what they hear from these people, but then they go back to sleep.

I don’t have any answers. I can suggest that every time the current administration rolls back environmental protections that took decades to put in place, that we put a stop to it. I can suggest that when we hear of measures–getting rid of plastic, for example–that are good ways to combat climate change that we implement them in our lives rather than saying, “No worries, that’s just climate change BS.”

When it comes down to it, I suspect a lot of people have suggestions for things we can do thwart those who are intent on ending the world. Sure, most of those suggestions are inconvenient and cost money. But then, the impact of climate change is also costing money–for example, the lives and money lost due to the western wildfires along with the cost of fighting the fires.

Doomsday-clock-wise, we have 100 seconds left. So at the end of this rant, let me say that it’s time to shift our attention away from our celebrities and cell phones and cars and focus our concerns on saving the planet. Once we accomplish that, we can watch the next season of “Survivor” with the proven knowledge that the show is about us.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell’s latest novel is “Fate’s Arrows.” His novel “The Sun Singer” is free on Kindle through September 18th.

 

 

 

 

Florida Plants: Black Titi

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment, Florida

Black titi (pronounced tie-tie), Cliftonia monophylla, sometimes called the Buckwheat Tree, is a perennial evergreen shrub/tree found in Florida’s wet flatwoods and bogs. Deer and bees like it a lot. Sometimes native plant nurseries can find it for your garden. The flowers are generally white and bloom in the spring.

I refer to it often in my Florida Folk Magic Series because it’s ubiquitous in the Florida Panhandle along with slash pines, longleaf pines, scrub oak, and saw palmetto. The word drives proofreaders crazy because they think it’s scandalously pronounced as titty.

Plant Distribution

In spite of this map, I see titi has more of a western Florida Panhandle plant with fewer occurrences in Peninsular part of the state.

I like the plant’s description in the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s database: “Native from southeastern North America south through Central America and the West Indies to northeastern South America, this deciduous tree stays under 30 ft., and, though it looks shrubby for several years, eventually makes a slender tree with smooth, cinnamon-colored trunks; abundant, showy, whorled clusters of airy, white blooms; and dark-green leaves. In the northern part of its range, the leaves turn rust-red in fall, dropping in spring just as the new leaves unfurl. Farther south, plants are nearly evergreen. Summer fruits are yellow-brown.”

—Malcolm

 

 

 

Pay it Forward, Give Back

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn environment, Life

Nice concepts. But, there are so many worthy causes not even counting family and friends. Hard to choose. And then, if you’re so inclined, there are political campaigns now on top of all the charities, funds, non-profits, and other organizations asking for cash.

Some say every dollar helps. So they ask for $25. That’s not too bad–unless you tally up how many requests for $25 you get every month. Sometimes I get multiple requests from the same place and feel like sending back a note that says, I’m not Jo Rowling, Bill Gates, James Patterson, or an oil baron from Saudi Arabia. How much do you think I have after paying the rent?

Some requests bother me, and those are the ones from everyday people like me who get behind on their mortgage payments (or whatever) and put up a crowdfunding link on Facebook and we’re all rather shamed into kicking in to help somebody we don’t know make ends meet. Yet, I read how they got into debt–because I’ve been there–and wish I could contribute.

I tend to contribute to environmental causes–the National Parks, a “Friends of” group for a specific park, the National Parks and Conservation Association, etc. Like many, I try to keep up with which general charities use an exorbitant amount of the money donated for administrative costs (and goodness knows what).

There’s so much to be done, doing it seems overwhelming. Personally, I don’t care for the size of the defense budget and think a lot of that money could be better used in other programs. All of us probably have our own pet peeves about “bad” uses of government funds that we think could be put to better use somewhere else. So, as a lover of National Parks, it ticks me off that Congress won’t appropriate enough money to keep them running, and this causes those of us who really can’t afford to do it to contribute to programs the government ought to be funding.

Whatever your favorite causes are, there’s always a chain of events that created the problem, e.g., people with high medical bills going bankrupt and needing help. Yes, we can and should speak out for change, but until that change occurs, we have a lot of pieces to pick up that aren’t being covered by the government, churches, charities, and “Friends of” organizations.

I felt rather discouraged when some financial organization or other said, in response to “tax the rich” campaigns, that even if the government took all of the rich’s money, it would be a drop in the bucket insofar as the deficit and/or funding needs are concerned. That makes my $25 contribution to Glacier National Park seem rather inconsequential. All I can hope is that my $25 along with a $25-dollar check for several thousand other people actually will help make things better whether we’re paying it forward or giving back.

Does anyone else wrestle with the amount of money needed vs. the amount anyone of us can contribute?

—Malcolm

My novels “The Sun Singer,” “Mountain Song,” and “Sarabande” are te in Glacier National Park, so I try to support the park’s projects when I can.