Page 5 - BRN April 2021

The Environment by Taylor Streit
Although global warming is becoming quite unkind to planet Earth, it has been positive in some respects; especially in cold climes where a longer growing season means more fruit, fish, or crops. The delicious lobster’s range has expanded. The Northwest Passage is more often open now, should you want to take a long boat ride whenever.
But it’s tenuous, and small or big potatoes not withstanding, the rest of the world is going down the tubes. Extremes have become commonplace. For instance, after the horrible drought of 2018, when water levels on the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico were the lowest on record, the following year, 2019, had nearly the highest recorded flows. (The lowest ever —by a lot— was in the summer of 2020. Followed closely thereafter by the great songbird die-off in the Rio Grande corridor.)
Small streams have dried up in the Southern Rockies. This is not that unusual and, normally, these little creeks bounce back in just a year or two — if it should happen to rain. But more concerning is that some of these smaller streams and lakes — especially in the lower elevations — are experiencing significant algae growth, high temperatures, and loss of fish and, probably, insect life. This is exacerbated by too many homes along waters with outdated septic systems. These are often extraneous second homes. And over it all is human want and greed — the 1960s vision of an
America where people would discover that they had enough money has not quite come to fruition!
And the huge catastrophes of climate change make it sort of passé to even notice the little infractions of mankind’s upon the earth. Clean water is attacked by mining, development of all sorts, overgrazing, erosion, and pollution (in its thousand forms). All allowed, if not encouraged, by a government that appears to be our enemy. All such a bore!
Global warming is about myriad items, some big and splashy like an iceberg crashing into the sea, and some local that make only ripples — like your neighborhood trout stream turning green.
Recently, I had two folks remind me of my place in these plain old “environmental issues.” First was Greta Thunberg on the tele, and the second was a visit from an old friend — Steve Harris of Rio Grande Restoration.
We all love Greta because her face seems incapable of showing lies and denials. Maybe that girl was just “raised right,” or perhaps deception forms in our faces later in life — after years of trying to survive in a phony world. She had already floored that world with her UN speech the week before, and then I saw her on TV with Michael Moore. She seemed pretty much bored with the interview and split early. I wondered if she hasn’t learned that adults can’t handle — or fathom — what is happening. The best-intentioned “grownups” have a profound — and perhaps healthy — denial system that says, “World ending? Sure!”
Taylor Streit - photograph courtesy of Nick Streit 4