Friday, November 19, 2010

Walden Pond Revisited


 I haven’t really reflected much upon Henry David Thoreau since the beginning of the semester. But recently flipping through my American Earth book, it’s difficult to miss the selections he contributed. Unlike some of my cohorts, I didn’t hate Thoreau, I didn’t love him, but he wasn’t the worst. Writing style aside, I agreed with Thoreau on a lot of important points. One example of this is the idea that learning through experience is much more valuable than reading a book about a subject. You could read an entire book on living in the woods, but if you’d never actually been there, you might find that you’d be completely lost. On that note, Thoreau also brings up the important point that, because of our culture and society, humans are losing our innate ability to do things, make things, and survive. When I try to conjure up some kind of skill-set for myself, all I can come up with is knitting, riding a bike and making grilled cheese sandwiches. A hundred years ago what would a girl in my place be doing? Thinking about my lack of survival ability makes me feel like an individually packaged little bag of Doritos: over-processed and cheesy with an absence of nutritional value.
I hate what Thoreau says about our society because it’s so true. “If rail roads are not built, how shall we get to heaven in season,” he notes. Why does our society stress “progression” so much? We certainly can’t truly take in what the natural world has to offer when it appears that all people care about is the newest Apple product. However crazy Thoreau may have been, his thoughts and ideas are something we should all take note of. Acknowledging his warnings would remind our society that maybe we are born into this earth with everything we’ll ever need. And maybe that doesn’t include cell phones and laptops. 

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Who needs it?


When Bill McKibben described Edward Abbey as “a master of anarchy and irreverence and one of the funniest writers America has produced since Mark Twain,” I was intrigued, but skeptical (Mark Twain, really?!?). But I actually did enjoy “Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks” an exert from Desert Solitaire, quite a bit. Even better, it was funny while being about the environment, truly a noble subject.
Polemic, by definition, means a controversial argument or someone who argues in opposition to another. In this way, even before reading the piece, the title suggests to me a war of some proportion. Industrial Tourism Versus the National Parks? Essentially this was, and is still, the case. In Edward Abbey’s situation, the problem was that his comfortable way of life and the land he loves was being invaded by the future, big business and industrial tourism. I’m both interested and embarrassed by the idea of industrial tourism. Abbey presents this type of tourism as a kind of enemy, but I sincerely love seeing the world through a car window. It’s just something that’s always been enjoyable for me- by riding in the car and looking out the window you can see so much. Upon reflection though, I guess this is just a surface experience, it’s seeing without actually gaining anything or really taking anything in.
I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as an industrial tourist (no, I don’t vacation in a “camper-truck of Fiberglas and molded plastic”) but I’m certainly no Edward Abbey. That being said, I can definitely see Abbey’s argument that society is tied to cars. Though I can’t help but enjoy long car rides, maybe I’ll put off getting a car for a little longer.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

“The real and proper question is: why is it beautiful?”
-Annie Dillard Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

During Bill Davis’ lecture last Thursday I was reminded how beautiful the work of Ansel Adams is. In this day and age, most people exclusively use digital photography. And though digital is convenient and accessible to nearly everyone, the depth and image quality will never be as special as original black and white photography. I feel like so much can be captured in a black and white image. The contrast between the darks and lights and all the shades in between give his images an intense profoundness that a digital camera, no matter how high resolution is it, can’t recreate.

To me these images are so beautiful to me because of the grandness they represent. When you see an overwhelming scene in nature you know you can never fully relay what you’re seeing to someone else; not in pictures and not in words. However, Adams’ photographs can capture a lot. He somehow relays so much emotion and beauty in his images. We’ll never know exactly what he saw, but his work can almost bring us there.

Monday, November 15, 2010

I've never seen so many electric jellyfish in all my life!

To be completely honest, I had no idea who Jacques Cousteau was until I saw the movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. But The Life Aquatic became my favorite movie the first time I saw it, so when I learned that it was actually loosely based on/had some parallels to an actual person I was literally overwhelmingly excited. And if I’m still being completely honest, one of my initial main attractions to Cousteau was his red cap.  I loved that his crew also wore the same red caps. But on a less superficial level, I also loved the idea of being an explorer. In the twentieth (and twenty-first ) century it seemed to me that there was nothing new to discover, but apparently the earth holds more wonder than I could fathom. I haven’t felt like an explorer since I was a little girl, wandering the woods surrounding my house. Cousteau’s adventures made me remember mine. He was finding new things, things that people had never seen or imagined before. BREATHING UNDERWATER! He was making the alien lives of undersea creatures of the ocean accessible. That’s so cool.

Working from his vessel Calypso, Cousteau and his colleagues pioneered the Aqualung, the original scuba dive tank without which modern scuba technology couldn’t exist. Cousteau is also well known for his many films and books pertaining to the sea. His team’s photographs and film footage opened the eyes of many people who both had lived by the ocean their entire lives, yet had never truly witnessed what happened beneath the surface, and people who had never even seen the ocean itself before.

But what Cousteau did that inspires me the most is how he used his knowledge to reach out and educate the world. Cousteau’s book The Human, The Orchid and The Octopus was what convinced me to major in biology and environmental studies, in case you didn't already comprehend how much I admire his work. In The Human, The Orchid and The Octopus I was fascinated with the way Cousteau looked at the earth so lovingly, with stern words for the people who inhabit it. I’m excited to read it again for my upcoming research paper! I’ll save some of my Cousteau-enthusiasm for that!



Why Hawks Should Replace Eagles as Our National Bird

Walking through a cornfield on a winter day,
Hearing the rasping scream of a hawk.
That screech is exactly how a raptor should sound.
Human feet cease crunching in the deep snow,
Listening for the beat of wings,
Waiting to see the swift outline cut the clear sky above.
It seems so unreal for such a huge being to float so effortlessly.

But as the sun shines thought long cinnamon feathers,
A huge hawk looms above.
As far as majesty goes in the animal kingdom,
Red tailed hawks are some of the grandest.
Buteo jamaicensis, broad wings and a rusty colored tail,
Flying slowly, in controlled swoops and loops.
Wings stretch from one end of the sky to the other.
Warm, smooth feathers that only he can preen
Cover the hollow bones of this Herculean bird.

The soaring circles become a steep dive into the dead woods,
Disappearing for now, he will not roam far.
There are his woods, his home.
It's amazing how he adapts to us.
Using our telephone poles as perches,
Overseeing the highways we speed to work on and
Plunging from skyscrapers, slicing between buildings.
His shrill cries go unheard by human ears.

Nature knows no limit when it comes to wonder.
Humans fly around the world in airplanes,
But we'll never be able to compare ourselves
To the natural overwhelming prowess,
The sheer power and grandeur,
Or the aeronautical dexterity
That is the flight of a hawk.