"We did not weave the web of life, we merely are a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves." -- Chief Seattle
Alaska An Alaskan Brown Bear walks on the shore of Kodiak Island in southeastern Alaska. He is severely malnourished. Two weeks ago, he emerged from hibernation, and has been subsisting on berries and roots. He finds a blueberry patch that, surprisingly enough, has not yet been consumed by another bear. Competition is fierce during this time of year. He tears the bush apart, starting with the berries, but soon progressing to the lush foliage, ultimately ripping the entire shrub out by the roots and devouring it. He continues to stagger along the beach. A little mouse scurries across the shoreline and into the nearby beach grass. The bear attempts to pounce on it with the limited strength he has left, but the mouse is too keen, and escapes the exhausted bear unharmed.
Within weeks, the salmon will be spawning. They will leave the protection of the oceans and fjords and swim up rivers and streams to reach mountain lakes; this is the spawning ground for these salmon. The hungry bear knows that the days until the beginning of the spawning season are numbered, so he eagerly checks all the best hunting streams, not to miss the first run. Spring is a critical time of survival in the life of a bear.
During hibernation, his pulse goes down enough to minimize the effect of not eating, but he burns much of his fat to sustain his body functions throughout the winter anyway. When the bear emerges from his deep sleep in the beginning of the short Alaskan summer, he is ready for a nine course meal, but only minuscule amounts of food greet him. He now has little or no fat and, if he is lucky, can sustain this state until the salmon swim upstream to mate. If he is unlucky or less rigorous in finding food, he will begin digesting portions of his muscle to stay alive. This is the first step in starving to death. This state continues for about two more weeks without change.
Just when the daily rounds to his hunting areas are slowing, and food for him and the rest of the bear population is nearly gone, he spots the first salmon majestically leap out of the water as it tries to overcome a small waterfall. He assumes a dominant position to capture the creature. The bear is standing in the middle of the stream waiting anxiously for the first salmon to pass him. He sees it approaching under the surface and stands alert and ready. It is merely an arm's length away. When the moment is right, he cuts into the water with his last ounce of power and sideswipes a two-foot salmon onto shore. There it thrashes back and forth, with one large gash in its side from the bear's mighty claw. He chases it onto shore, jumping, tearing, ripping, and shredding the lifesaving salmon. It is a long-awaited meal for the famished beast. Within hours, he indulges in hundreds of pounds of fish in this manner. He is gorged. He sleeps on the stream bed.
The bear has started his long-awaited recovery on Kodiak Island. Within days of his initial indulgence he gains hundreds of pounds. The salmon nurse him back into the eight-hundred pound brute he was last fall. The crucial time period of survival has ended for the bear and he can rest easy until next spring.
Long Island, New York, USA On Route 25A, a main road through Long Island, New York, traffic jams are a common sight as cars slow to a dead stop in all of three lanes flowing in either direction. Plastic bags blow across the road like tumbleweeds. Remnants of exhaust pipes litter the shoulder. Shattered remains of tires blown out from tractor trailers, with steel reinforcements exposed, also come to rest here. Beer cans, fast food wrappings, candy bar wrappers, and cigarette butts all find a home on the shoulder of this road.
Route 25A has been a two lane highway until recently, when they added a third lane. Even with this expansion, the volume of the five o'clock rush cannot be handled. How do we solve this problem? Do we build another lane? Maybe we can build four, five, or even six new lanes? Long Island is an island, and at some point, its inhabitants will have nowhere else to go.
I was born and raised in the Long Island suburbs, and 25A is the main road entering my home town. My development of environmental awareness was stunted because of the geographic isolation from untouched parts of the world, which I experienced as a result of living there. When I visited Alaska for the first time in my life, during the summer after my senior year in high school, I was ready for a nine-course meal in wildlife. The pristine environment enticed me and I thoroughly engrossed myself in it. I ripped apart the lush environment that surrounded me, like a long awaited meal. Long Island had starved me of the opportunity to develop this fire in my heart for the environment that now burns like a conflagration.
My Alaska Tour The air in Alaska is cool and fresh. My tour group and I land on an uninhabited island for a day hike to the top of a small peak nearby. As we begin our ascent, I stop to pick up a male deer skull, still wearing horns. Our guide explains that although there are no deer on the island now, we will find many remains of the animals as we climb. In the early part of this century, a small group of adventurers came to the island with a number of deer as food for the winter. Inevitably, a few deer escaped and began living on the island. They exploded into a huge population, because of the lack of land predators. At some point, they became so numerous that they exceeded the carrying capacity of their environment, and starved to death.
We continue to hike the mountain, and finally reach the summit after several hours. The 360-degree view is dramatic and incredibly beautiful. From the summit we can barely see the mainland on the horizon. With binoculars, we spot a mother harbor seal teaching important life lessons to her two pups on a protruding rock just offshore. A sea otter floating on his back is cracking open clam shells as if they were aluminum cans. A female bald eagle soars majestically overhead, as she searches for prey to feed herself and her chicks. Her mate is sitting on their nearby nest, tending to their young. Despite the area's isolation, a rubber boot on the mountain summit of this uninhabited island causes me to wonder whether it is possible to visit a truly uninhabited area.
An After Thought I once heard some statistics claiming that if Manhattan Island, which is the central part of New York City and about thirty miles west of Long Island, had the same population density as Alaska, only four persons would inhabit Manhattan. This idea led me to the conclusion that the most important difference between Alaska and Long Island is how many humans live there. I usually don't have too much trouble keeping my bedroom clean when only I live in it. If seven other people were to move in, with a limited amount of space to utilize, it would be impossible for me to keep my room clean. The same holds true for our Earth. The Earth is an island in the Universe, with limited amounts of space and resources. It is on its way to reaching its capacity to support life. The planet will not be able to support the number of humans that will live on it, regardless of energy saving, recycling, or other efficiency measures we invent. When this happens, we will have nowhere to go. These efficiency efforts can only postpone our destiny. Like the deer on the uninhabited island, we may well become extinct, leaving only signs of our existence on this planet.
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