113 the interdependence of all things

A few weeks ago, I took some pictures of trees to include in this blog. They never made it, because events of the day took over. 

Yesterday, I wanted to snap a picture of the Berkeley lagoon, a small bit of water amid the landfilled former wetlands of the East Bay. But all I got was this picture of the freeway, built upon a former riparian zone.

Here's what I wanted to say about those two things, the trees and the wetlands.

Lately, I've spent a fair amount of time pruning trees. And doing so, you learn a couple things. 

First, trees lean on themselves. All those branches help hold each other up. 

Second, trees lean on each other. Maybe not every species, but most. The lone tree is the exception, on average, they prefer to be relatively close to another of their species. The branches bump up against each other, and sort of lock together. This, in my mind and certainly from the looks of it, helps them stay upright.

Humans, of course, like to keep the trees separated, and cut out any crossing branches, because we like a world that looks under control. Of course, when that lone oak comes crashing down in the next windstorm, we never blame ourselves, always the tree.

And how about wetlands? Oh boy. Oh boy. Let's take a moment to think about how all nature is sort of the same, on different scales. 

Think of your body, and every mammals' body. We have veins and arteries, and a heart that pumps blood through them with a pulsing action. 

Now, think of Earth. She too has veins and a heart. The veins are rivers and streams, the heart, pulsing water in and out, up and down, is the moon. Twice a day, all the water on Earth moves this way, then that, then back, then in again.

Now, think of our river systems. As far as I know, every river flowing into the sea in the USA has some sort of dams, levees, and more. The idea was to control flooding, allow irrigation, and reclaim wetlands for human development. The result has been that, plus killing fish and creating drought.

Think what would happen if we attached a tourniquet to one of our limbs to cut off the blood flow, or had a blood clot. The limb, or our entire body, will die. Fairly quickly.

This is what we have done to nearly every river on Earth. Choked them off. And we have done this again, relatively quickly, within a few millenia, on a planet whose rivers have been pulsing with life for five billion years.

They're all dead now. Sure, a river here or there still has a few fish, but every river used to be teeming with them. I can remember seeing fish swim upstream when I was a kid. Now, forty years later, that barely happens.

All of which is a long way of saying, the hijinx of #45 ain't nothing, kids. We're in much, much deeper shit than he can dig with his tiny hands. Our response to Covid-19 has sucked, but what's worse is that Covid-19 is nature's response to us. 

We are, in a very real way, only seeing the tip of the iceberg. (Although maybe a bad analogy, because in this instance, the rest of the iceberg isn't lingering under the surface to get us, it is instead, melting away.)

It's all interconnected.

And now, back to chasing headlines.

Guess they've never heard of Vine or Snapchat. The beast has many heads!

Missing seeing my mom this summer. She really picked a nice place for us to grow up.

Speaking of "just disappearing."

Well, at least dear leader doesn't have his own picture on his mask. (Yet.) And shoot, I guess he'll use this as evidence that masks don't work.

Let's all really, really get used to the idea that we're not going to be getting together indoors for a while.

Is that a tiny violin playing "We all need somebody to lean on?"

Let's fit it all in one (terribly tragically sad) headline!

Well, she might not have to wear a mask on the campaign (virtual) trail.

The virus doesn't want to play ball. What a party pooper!

Some people choose to see 2020 as an anomaly. Personally, I am hearing a quiet, peaceful warning.

Again, it's all interconnected.