America's Last Truly Great Wilderness

“To be a wilderness then was to be “deserted,” “savage,” “desolate,” “barren”—in short, a “waste,” the word’s nearest synonym. Its connotations were anything but positive, and the emotion one was most likely to feel in its presence was “bewilderment” or terror. ”

— William Cronon - The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature

Wednesday Thoughts

Arctic Wildlife Refuge

1002 Area

A whole different story from the chanting of “Build that Wall” that I wrote about last week, but still almost the same is going on in the most northern parts of Alaska. The development of the 1002 area, better known as "The Sacred Place Where Life Begins". I have written about it before, but it’s worth mentioning again. It’s been up for debate several times during the past 40 years, but now we are facing the reality of this government and the development of this area. Several articles have been written about Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and that we need to protect it. One of the, for me, most famous instances is the first minute or so in Patagonia’s video the Refuge below. It’s an old recording from hearings in the house, clipped together with environmentalists and other callers to a tv-show. One of the people talking over the phone, who clearly has never been up in Alaska or ANWR describes the "The Sacred Place Where Life Begins" as “Tundra known as wasteland, there is nothing out there, virtual plains as far as the eye can see”. Its a very strong moment in the video and it also highlights the problem of people’s perceptions about wilderness and nature, just look at the old perception about wilderness quoted above from Bill Cronon’s The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.

The Porcupine Herd

The Arctic Refuge now contains the largest area of designated Wilderness within the National Wildlife Refuge System, covering about 19.64 million acres of land and water. The history behind the name “The Sacred Place Where Life Begins" that the Gwich'in people call it has to do with how the Caribou utilizes the large area. The porcupine herd utilizes a far greater area than the 1002 area, but come spring and early summer this is THE area all the Caribou from the Porcupine herd utilize as calving area, which makes it a very important area. Click on this LINK if you want to see the migration of the Porcupine herd with beautiful images. If you want to read the absolute latest (as of early January 2019) about the development in ANWR follow this LINK, or read this blogpost for more detailed information. To comment on the draft of Environmental Impact Statement that BLM put together follow this LINK, and you can read more about how to comment and why HERE, also in the actual Environmental Impact Statement. You have until February 11 to submit a comment. You can also submit your comment by mail:

Coastal Plain Oil and Gas Leasing Program EIS
222 West 7th Avenue, Stop #13
Anchorage, Alaska 99513 -7504

Image Source: http://northern.org/media-library/maps/arctic/arctic-refuge-maps/1002AreaWlifeWEB.jpg/

I find it important to think about and share the issues we are facing in this day and age. I tend to focus on the environment and wilderness since those areas lay very close to my heart. What current issues are you burning for?

Build That Wall

Canyonlands National Park, January 2013

“No, wilderness is not a luxury but necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself”

— Edward Abbey - Desert Solitaire 1968

Wednesday Thoughts

Destruction of Humanity and the Ecosystem

I get scared when I hear the chanting from Trump and his supporters of “build that wall” that echoes the building of walls in other places, such as Germany during the Hitler era. It upsets and scares me when some people fail to see the resemblance between Trumps building of the wall, and Hitlers wall. In the past, different presidents have modified and created bills that are then being put into laws, for instance the Wilderness Act or the Clean Water Act. Most presidents have worked for, and not against the environment. Currently with this government we are moving backwards and not forward. We are bypassing laws that longterm is supposed to benefit us, laws like the Clean Air Act that was put into place to reduce the amount of air pollution, to make the world a better place for us. After all we (the US) now have a president who doesn’t believe in global warming or at least fails to understand what the difference between climate and weather really is. He fails to acknowledge the importance and the value of nature, as many environmentalists were trying to describe as “the New Eden” to others back in the day. The very reason that made many areas protected during the 1800’s.

Saving an Ecosystem

But it is not only areas like the Rio Grande (as you can see in the video above) that are facing a milestone change under this current government. Areas like the Big Bend would face an equally devastating effect of a physical border wall between the US and Mexico. How do you build a wall but still allow animals to travel through? How do we save something so precious from being further developed? At the same time we have to start thinking about our protected areas, our National Parks. Right now people are allowed to roam free through these protected areas because of the government shutdown, that is specifically caused by the wall. People currently destroy these areas, litter here and there, toilets are not available, and many many people are just blown away by the fact parks remain open. No one runs the parks. During previous longer (although this is the longest in history) shutdowns, National Parks and Monuments have been closed for this very reason, but that was also under other presidents. We are facing an even bigger problem though. With nature and the wilderness experience becoming such a popular thing, many National Parks are breaking visitation records every single year, and with that comes the problem of overcrowding. Yellowstone National Park has seen an increase by almost 40% since 2008 (well, the real number is 34%). They have already started to struggle with the number of toilets available for so many visitors. We have also seen issues where people lack understanding about wildlife, and how you should behave in the park and around wildlife. At the same time as the visitor numbers are increasing, Trump wants to cut the funding to National Parks. Even though some of Trumps proposals get shutdown before he can say “National Park”, it does show his true intentions regarding wilderness. The coming years will be crucial for determining how our parks, monuments, and forests will be taken care of and preserved.

Yellowstone National Park, May 2014

Do you have a favorite park you are starting to feel concerned about?

Where Chambers Street ends and Rockefeller Park Starts

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Big City Life

Rockefeller Park and Bronze Statues

    Today we have been promised really hot temperatures, and they have issued a heat advisory, with temperatures up to 95F, and the so called real feel up above 100 degrees F. I’m pretty sure we had days like this in Madison too, but maybe not as frequent. In Fairbanks and Alaska on the other hand, these things never happened. Instead we could hear about the air quality advisories on the radio while sipping coffee in the morning. Smoke from all wildfires which created this grey to yellow smoke that hovered over Fairbanks, sometimes for weeks, or air quality advisories in the wintertime because of pollutions that stayed atop the city for months. Now that I have lived here for a couple of weeks I am used to this heat (not true) and the heat advisories, or rather I know when to venture out and what to expect versus times when it's probably best to stay at home. One thing about New York that always surprise me when I do venture out, are all these small parks spread across the city, and all the trees and bushes you can see where you least expect it.  The other day I took the train south, to Brooklyn Bridge. I got off, and followed Chambers Street towards the water on the west side of Manhattan. Once there I stumbled upon Rockefeller Park, that joins up with Hudson River Park if you continue north along the water(Hudson). The first thing I noticed was this large bronze statue to the left of the stairs leading down into the park. As I continued towards it, I suddenly saw all of these other bronze statues scattered across the area. Statues of creatures, people, bankers and robbers, laborers and pilgrims, predators and prey. If you ever find yourself in New York City, I would definitely recommend this park, to find some shadow and to relax and enjoy all these sculptures. New York is such a large city with so many tourists, but you can still come across areas like Rockefeller Park that is close to empty. I guess I can compare it to when people visit National Parks. Most people stay on the road, in the car, and hardly anyone actually get off the road, and if they do few people hike more than 1 mile from the road system, or the most popular places. If it is off the beaten path, fewer people go there. 

Urban Parks and Urban Heat Islands

    Did you know that woodlands are cooler than urban areas? And that city parks can be as much as 5 F cooler than surrounding areas during the day, and even cooler during the evening and night time? The concept of buildings being hotter than parks is often referred to as the Urban Heat Island. Dark non-reflective buildings absorb heat, and will re-release the heat throughout the day, making the surrounding area warmer. Vegetation cool the surrounding area through a process called evapotranspiration, and hence a park with moist soil and a lot of vegetation will have a cooling effect. Of course the urban heat island concept is more complex than comparing dark and non-reflective buildings to vegetation, but overall the outcome is cooler parks, compared to surrounding buildings, as you can see in the temperature and vegetation map of New York below, from NASA. So, think about the cooling effect next time you walk in a large city and encounter a park.

Image Source

Views along Chambers Street, Rockefeller Park, and Hudson River Park:

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    Do you have a favorite park in the (any) city you always visit?