The Blue Notebook

Thought I’d post another teaser for my eventual full report on this summer’s weekend at the beach with microscope and plankton net.

This little beastie is at least clearly identifiable. An amphipod like this is actually visible to the naked eye, and fills the entire field of view at 40x magnification. Although I don’t think this is one, the most familiar amphipod is the so-called sand flea or sand hopper.

I’ve been reading a lot of books on conservation lately, and even though I agree for the most part with their stated aims, I’m having a hard time getting excited about the various reasons people give for putting up with the cost, inconvenience, and in some cases rude awakening that a true commitment to conservation might require. Here are some of the reasons I’ve come across lately:

Preserve our natural heritage for our children and future generations.

The sad fact is that we are programmed almost down to the cellular level for short-term gain. The history of our country is based on the “use it up, move on” ethos. And we haven’t even started talking about money yet. The profit motive is what has powered most of the devastatingly efficient large scale environmental degradation efforts of the last 100 years.

There are economic advantages to going green.

John Lombard, in his book Saving Puget Sound, makes the point that reducing conservation efforts to just laws or just money won’t work. “Something that affects our lives in so many ways has to make sense in non-economic terms as well.”

If we put things back the way they were 100 years ago (or before the Europeans came) everything will be great again.

Sounds too much like empty nostalgia, wishful thinking. Doesn’t take into account one very big change that isn’t going away any time soon: three million people in the Puget Sound area, projected to double in the next 50 to 100 years.

When nature becomes degraded, something of what it means to be human is lost as well.

This is the main idea behind ecopsychology. I like this point of view, as it gets down to the fundamentals. I like it so much I’m taking it as the organizing principle for my own work. But it’s not effective as an argument for convincing other people about the importance of conservation. We don’t want to hear that we’re addicted to rampant materialism, and that everything we do supports the reduction of the natural world to an eventual theme park. We especially don’t want to be told that the only way we’ll be truly happy is to “get back to the garden.”

We’re losing valuable ecosystems.

This line of reasoning can be dramatic and somewhat effective. But that’s because I know what an ecosystem is. I have been told so many times by conservationists that this or that habitat is slowly disappearing. We haven’t done a good job, however, explaining why this is such a tragedy. We talk in hushed tones, nod gravely, try not to let despair overtake us–but who cares about eel grass beds anyway, and why should I lose sleep over the loss of a few sub-alpine meadows? It’s not enough just to say these things are disappearing, and then expect the people we are trying to convince to immediately get the whole picture and feel the same sense of impending doom we do. (By we, in case it isn’t obvious, I mean people working in conservation). Which brings me to my last point:

Everything’s connected.

Now, maybe it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of E. O. Wilson lately, but I think that with this approach we are finally getting somewhere. Certainly, as an organizing strategy for a concerted campaign to inform people and change their behavior, it has just as many problems as some of the other reasons to care that I have so cavalierly dismissed. But I like it because I think that of all the possible ways to approach conservation, this might be the explanation that is the easiest for people to understand. They won’t get it right off, for the same reason that “we’re losing valuable ecosystems” doesn’t connect.

But I’m just wondering: if we took “everything’s connected” as a theme, and just stayed on that message, piling up example after example of how the web of life works (or doesn’t work as the case may be)–without even saying anything about conservation or “you’ve made a mess now clean it up” or anything like that–I’m just wondering if that wouldn’t eventually give people a generated-from-within reason to care.

In a box of prepared slides from La Bonita’s second-grade classroom, I found this stained cross-section of a woody plant stem. I’ve got an 8×12 of it taped to the wall above my computer, and like to contemplate the complexities whenever Ergonomix kicks me off the keyboard.

Almost a month since I’ve posted here, hard to believe it. Well, I did have a nice little contract to keep me busy week before last, with last week to recover. Tonight I worked some on the images from my improptu research project in August, which involved a home-made plankton net, an $80 microscope from the Discovery Store, and a Canon PowerShot S70. Oh and don’t forget A Guide To Marine Coastal Plankton and Marine Invertebrate Larvae, by DeBoyd L. Smith and Kevin B. Johnson.

My certainty level as to the identity of the critters I was able to photograph is definitely in the low range, but then my guide book has a lot of “unknown X,” where X is the probable family or genus. So I don’t feel so bad. This one’s probably a diatom, although it could be one of the annelids. I love the delicacy and grace of the cilia coming off the sides.

It was hard to decide which one to post as a preview. Guess I’ll just have to get my PhotoPress installation up and running sooner rather than later, so they can all be on view.

Whoa! Everything I wanted to know about using and abusing paper products. My inner engineer is so happy: http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/askpablo-napkins-002511.php

 Unfortunately, after reading all this stuff I’m still not sure what to do. No really. La Bonita has already told me she “doesn’t want to be a martyr or an eco-peasant”  and so I’m tempted to stay up late at night worrying about paper towels and paper napkins and plastic freezer bags. On the other hand, maybe it is possible to go too far.

 More later….

A recent addition to my reading pile is Best Science Writing 2007, (this year’s book with last year’s writing, a little confusing for the literal-minded folks in the crowd) and it’s a real treat because I’ve been on a media fast (or at least a very austere diet) for a few years now and so missed most of these wonderful pieces.

One I was sure to have caught back in the old days is Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker article “Butterfly Lessons,” first  because I was so capitvated by Field Notes from a Catastrophe,  and second because ever since La Bonita and I went out with Bob Pyle on one of his field seminars, I’ve been very tuned in to all things lepidoptera-ish.

I say this article is science writing done brilliantly because Kolbert uses story so expertly to both frame what she’s trying to convey, and to increase its impact, and its persistence in memory.

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