National Geographic’s Dennis Dimick

Photograph by Mark Thiessen

   To celebrate Earth day 2008 a bit early, I took the family (husband and two teenage sons) to Seattle’s Benaroya Hall to hear National Geographic executive editor Dennis Dimick present a program on global climate change. Dennis has overseen the magazine’s coverage and reporting of this complex scientific issue–working side by side with senior writers, photographers, scientists, and research teams as they gathered and analyzed decades worth of data on carbon emissions, sea levels, air and water temperatures, and fuel consumption.

    The well-attended program stimulated a rather heated discussion in my family as we seem to fall on all sides of the issue of what–if anything–we can do to reverse more than 200 years of abuse or our planet’s natural resources. I imagine this is very typical and likely part of the problem–how to get everyone on the same page of the songbook to prevent the “Soylent Greening” of the earth. (If you haven’t seen Soylent Green recently do so. We watched it for Earth Day 2006 and found it brilliant, bleak, and sadly still relevant).  

   My 13-year-old son doesn’t see that there’s a problem. We live in a beautiful part of the country, in a beautifully wooded neighborhood. He walks to school in 4 minutes. His newly renovated school boasts dozens of green building features. He rides his bike as far as 4 miles to friends’ houses. He spends his time running around outside and playing Halo (ack) in equal measure. We swim in local lakes and go boating on Puget Sound in summer. He complains about the ‘cold’ weather here, but refuses to wear a coat or sweatshirt. Global warming? Huh? Not a problem here!

   I’m not sure my 16-year-old son gets it either. He’s quick to point out his parents’ hypocricy to serve his own purposes (e.g.: you drive to the store, why can’t you drive me half-mile to school?). Since he isn’t personally suffering from effects of climate change, it is not a problem. We joke that teens live in a one-foot square of “me” and are in a phase of self-absorption unrivalled by anyone in the original Me Generation. My husband and I console ourselves by repeating our mantra “This, too, shall pass.” Our hope is that if we continue to appear to be ”obsessed with recycling” (and CFLs, biking for transportation, buying organic, using cloth shopping bags, turning off/down the heat, etc) the kids will eventually give in and see the benefits of the lifestyle they refer to snidely as “hippie.”

     My husband and I are butting heads on the issues of what we can do as individuals, as a family, as a society to save the planet from inevitable disaster and doom. We both acknowledge that climate change is real and that our unchecked consumption and waste are destroying our planet. The post-Dimick discussion put my husband (the greenest family member) on the side of: as long as we are a consumer culture we are doomed; a growth economy is not a sustainable economy; we cannot change our culture; we are doomed; we can buy all the compact fluourescent lightbulbs and organic tofu we want, but it won’t help; unless it hurts, our efforts are squat; we are deceiving ourselves to think that simply buying green is going to save the planet; our only hope is to stop buying, stop consuming, stop thinking the solution is going to be painless. He wants change now.

   Perhaps since he survived his mid-life crisis with flying colors, he is hankering for another crisis–some big wrench thrown into the ”cushy” lifestyle we have so that everyone is forced to walk, bike, bus, give up meat, turn off lights, pay $10 a gallon for gas, cancel vacations requiring airplane flights, grow kale, and wear big ugly itchy sweaters like hair shirts.  

    Nothing on that list would “hurt” me except not flying as my parents, brothers, nieces, nephews, cousins, aunts, old friends life on the East Coast and in California. So, because airplane travel is one of the biggest carbon no-nos and I am not willing to give it up…should I just not bother with other planet-saving measures? Are my efforts to recycle, reduce, reuse pathetic? measley? a joke? three warning signs of a hypocrite?

   I’ve been trying to change my personal consumption culture in small ways daily. I’ve got a clothes rack for drying clothes (when it’s not raining). I wear sweaters inside and cling to a mug of hot water to keep my hands warm when I am writing. I use cloth grocery bags. I clean windows with white vinegar and unbleached paper towels. I use cloth napkins. I use both sides of the paper. I shop at our local co-op and try to buy organic produce from the closer Safeway when I shop there. I just bought a “town cruiser” bike so I could do errands without a car. I donate clothes and household things to the Salvation Army and local salvage stores. I’m on the board of our Native Plant Salvage Foundation. I helped install an outdoor classroom and waterwise garden at my son’s school.

   I also just bought a hot tub. It’s made of plastic. It arrived on a truck from Seattle. We keep it hot. We put chemicals in it. I drain all 300 gallons of water when it gets dirty. I use it all the time. I love it. I love being outside looking at the sky, clouds, trees, stars, lunar eclipses from it. I get ideas out there sitting in hot water. My kids have their friends over to enjoy it. They talk, they laugh, they relax. Whoever invented hot water should be given the Nobel Peace Prize. My hot tub is a monument to my hypocrisy. Sadly, I seem to be okay with this. I have convinced myself that my time in hot water makes me a better person, that it allows me to connect to the natural world more often because I am not cold and miserable and jogging in place to stay warm. I can lie there in 104-degree water and really look at clouds and be awestruck and amazed and grateful. 

   So tell me, do my small (some might say puny) gestures count for anything? Can I keep the hot tub if I give up red meat? Can I help plant 1000 trees and enjoy a guilt-free soak afterwards? If I ride my bike to do the grocery shopping, can I feel a) okay, b) somewhat okay, c) not okay, but who cares as I fly across the continent to visit my family?

   What a ramble. Seems like talking about it is a good first step. The sign of a good lecture–thank you Dennis Dimick–is that it makes us talk, and think, and feel uncomfortable, and challenged, and frustrated. This is only the beginning.

   Saving the planet doesn’t have to hurt. We just need to raise our pain threshold.

Tonite (Thursday, April 17) I’ll be at this elegant mansion in Olympia for the monthly meeting of the Black Hills Audubon Society. This is the State Capital Museum where I’ll be giving a presentation on my book, Rare Bird,  and the strange life history of the marbled murrelet. Socializing starts at 7 p.m., the program at 7:30. Everyone is welcome, parking is plentiful, cost is free.

“Personally, I believe that there is a divine spark in us that binds us to creation but as caretakers, with an earthly responsibility like the one we imagined for God. I’m not saying you can’t be a a conservationist without this feeling–it’s just harder for me to understand what we owe the ivory-billed woodpecker without it.”

This from Jonathan Rosen’s new book, Life of the Skies. Click this link to read the New York Times review:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/books/review/Sullivan-t.html. 

Oh heck. Live dangerously. Go pick up a copy from your local bookstore. It’ll put all those field guides and life lists into perspective.

“The real work of planet saving will be small, humbling, pleasing, and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, and too small to make anyone rich or famous.”              –Wendell Berry

   The lilting song of the American Robin is certainly one of our most welcome signs that spring has come. They have been a presence in Olympia for several weeks now, but it was only yesterday that my 13-year-old son heard their calls in our yard and said, “Hey! I feel like I’m in the redwoods listening for marbled murrelets. Weird!” 

     I couldn’t believe it; I thought he had forgotten the experience entirely. When he was 7 years old, we went on our first marbled murrelet expedition in California’s Santa Cruz Mountains. I had signed on to help conduct pre-dawn surveys of the birds for a few days in July. I brought the entire family along with hopes that they would be as taken with the murrelets as I was. We huddled in a meadow surrounded by ancient Douglas-firs and coastal redwoods.

    But not 20 minutes into the survey, he and my husband decided they were too tired and too cold, and went back to the cabin.  They returned later, when the sun was up and when the robin-dominated dawn chorus of songbirds (and a some ravens and Stellar’s jays) had all but drowned out the “keer” calls of the murrelets.

   Young teens plow under so much of their childhood on their way to becoming adults. I am relieved and happy that he rememebered his chilly morning in the meadow. I am grateful to the robins on our suburban lawn and their power to evoke an old-growth forest, the dawn sky, and a glimmer of murrelets.

 This exquisite glass form of a marbled murrelet is the work of artist Joseph Rossano who created more than 250 of these birds during his January residency at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA. Rossano will exhibit his murrelets (to be silvered on the inside) in and on top of the Plaza Pool at the museum in May. Photographer Bill Ruth (no relation) captured the image above at the museum’s Hot Shop and is currently preparing a documentary film on Rossano, which will travel with the exhibit. For more images of Rossano’s work, visit his website at http://www.rossanostudio.com

The Olympian’s John Dodge talks with WMS Leadership teacher, Samantha Chandler.

  Not to be scooped by the city paper, Leadership students prepare to film WMS daily news report during John Dodge’s visit.

     The fickle spring weather showed its sunny side in the Washington Middle School garden last Tuesday–a lucky break as The Olympian’s environmental reporter, John Dodge, and photographer, Steven M. Herppich, were on site for a tour. 

       Seventh- and eight-grade Leadership students made hay while the sun shone–planting dozens of sword ferns, sedum, and lichnus donated by WMS substitute teacher, Mary Lee Andrews. Most of the plants and trees featured in the garden were planted in January during three work parties that drew more than 100 volunteers from the school, neighborhood, and Olympia High School biology classes, which require service hours. 

      Most of the plants in the garden are deciduous and therefore looked pretty twiggy while they spent their winter in dormancy. But, a few days of warm temperatures and sunshine last month brought out new leaves and blossoms on the trees and tiny leaves on the perennials such as snowberry, red-flowering currant, lavender, and mock orange.

       John Dodge’s article (complete with photos of busy students and frowning me) was the feature story of the Monday “Environment” page on Monday, March 24. To read the article, follow this link: 

http://www.theolympian.com/environment/story/396024.html

On Thursday, April 17, I’ll be talking about my favorite rare bird–the marbled murrelet at the Black Hills Audubon Society meeting in Olympia.

     I’ll be showing images and rarely seen video clips of this endangered seabird, reading a few excerpts from my book, Rare Bird, and answering questions afterward. There will be absolutely no information presented via PowerPoint. Yay!

    Copies of Rare Bird will be available to purchase at the event…and are now on sale at Orca Books in downtown Olympia.

   For more information on the event, go to www.blackhillsaudubon.org

Black Hills Audubon  membership meetings are held on the third Thursday of the month at the Capitol Museum , 211 SW 21st Ave. in Olympia. Social hour is at 7pm, with programs beginning promptly at 7:30. Driving directions: From I-5 in Olympia, take Exit 105 following the State Capital/City Center route. After the tunnel, turn left (south) onto Capital Way. Follow brown and white signs “State Capital Museum” to 21st Avenue. Turn right and proceed two blocks to museum (stucco mansion).

   Tender new leaves are emerging on the twelve beautiful trees donated to the Washington Middle School garden by the City of Olympia’s Street Tree program.  The trees–and dozens of native and water-wise plants–were planted in January 2008 during three work days.

  WMS students, parents, teachers, staff, and hordes of students from Olympia High School volunteered to help transform 6000 sq. ft of grass (yawn!) into an Outdoor Classroom and Garden. Workers cut sod, built berms, hauled mountains of compost/soil, cardboard, mulch, and gravel to create winding pathways and gently mounding planting areas. Ten benches have just been installed along the pathway to encourage students to spend part of their school day outside–writing, reading, studying the plants and burgeoning ecosystem, drawing, painting, and talking (quietly-ish).

   The Outdoor Classoom is Phase 1 of a project to create a Puget Sound Friendly campus at Washington Middle School. The garden will ultimately be the starting point for a walkable watershed trail that will lead students from campus to Puget Sound.