Just Say "NO"

AHH, yes. Protecting the Lubec environment. Never-minding Lubec for the moment, we, as a nation, seem to have abrogated all responsibility to the health of the people, the beasts, and the very planet on which those beings depend on. A sick environment will have—is having—dire effects on all living beings. The overall insect population has decreased by nearly 50% in the past few decades and we are losing more every year (except, of course, the toxic viral and microbial life forms who are enjoying a resurgence across the globe) Perhaps this decline is not apparent to most folks, but the salamanders, frogs, and flowers sure feel it. The amphibians are disappearing even faster than the bugs and though we may not notice that either, the birds, turtles, snakes, and small animals that eat frogs sure do. Starving shrews and garbage wild raccoons are characters in an ongoing tragedy.

            Having already decimated the populations of cod, whales, herring, swordfish, et al through over-fishing, and, rather than abate our wholesale slaughter of the large sea creatures, we simply change our diets and consume mud-bugs (it must have been a feat of marketing genius that raised the lobster from a poor person’s diet and prison food to global high cuisine), urchins, and other real low hanging fruit—weeny little invasive green crabs, jellyfish, and zooplankton—can’t wait for a bowl of that! We of the Downeast region will soon notice the demise of mussels (already gone from Johnson Bay in the short decade that I have lived here), clams, bait-fish, and lobsters, all threatened by warming waters and increased frequency of algae blooms. The HABs (harmful algal blooms) are lethal to fish and produce neurotoxins which can be equally fatal to humans who ingest contaminated shellfish. A prominent cause of such blooms is the presence of high concentrations of nitrogen in the water. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of all oceans waters and that is the largest threat to our lobster industry and also the reason that fishery collapsed in all of Southern New England and Long Island Sound. Lobsters need cold, clear water yet we keep allowing more penned fish into the bays to cause even more rapid warming of the seas. Doesn’t make too much sense, but I guess good sense has never been an attribute in high demand. However a laundry list of the environmental woes we face is not the focus of this missive. It is, to borrow a line from Axel Rose, “Where do we go now?” (imagine this to be wailed in a plaintive Valkyrien lamentation)

            The government has never been too effective regarding environmental issues and seems to be even less inclined to “go green” today, so the task for cleanup and keeping our world healthy reverts back to the people, the individuals impacted by climate change, those looking to slow climate change, and those who simply don’t like living in a toxic environment. We can affect the emissions of fossil fuels by buying and using less than the consumer driven ad-masters of today are trying to peddle. Way less. Think plastic pumpkins, splorks, and personal rocket-ships—I’ll leave it to your creative imagination how that might work...

            Eventually we might even free ourselves from the burdensome and outrageous costs of medical assistance by a few simple life-style changes: eating healthy, forgoing booze, butts, and recreational drugs (nearly 50% of all deaths are related to poor choices, habits, or environmental conditions ~1.5 million/yr). More difficult but equally effective is, less dependence on vehicles, (get just one truck for your neighborhood and share the costs and use) the reduction of home energy (turn off those lights, hang out your clothes to dry, launder less) and so endlessly on… Build an outhouse if you have a spot of land. Conservation starts in the home. Then moves to the ballot box, if that well-weathered and not entirely productive enterprise survives the coming shifts in societal regulation.

            We the Humans have brought the mightiest of the wild beasts, lions, buffaloes, sharks, an apex predator for a mind-boggling four hundred million years, to the teetering edge of existence. Now we bring the lesser beasts (lesser only in size and import to human consideration) to that brink. Sure, we can pump out a few mammoth clones or cobble together a sanctuary for the song birds, but that will not suffice to fill the skies with thousands of migrating birds or seed the swamps and forests with the wildlife and fill the seas with the fish and whales once so prevalent on this great earth.

            Long ago, in another world, Nancy Reagan put forth an original idea: “Just Say No.” This was intended to help young people stay off of drugs. It did not work too well and Nancy was pilloried for this simplistic perspective. Yes, it was simple, just as lifting a ten-pound pumpkin is simple. But when you bend down to heft that 400 lb barbell, that same simple action becomes overwhelmingly difficult, impossible for most, heroic for those who manage. So it is with saying no to drugs—or donuts, cake, candy, twenty gallons of water for a wash, two-hundred mile “Sunday drives,” one for the road, and everything.  Yet I will take up that slogan again as a query. “Can we just say “No.”? Will we set aside our drink and drugs, snub out that butt and forgo the next? Is it possible for a soldier or a terrorist to put down their weapon and just say no? The only reason we are not living in the dreaded zone of a nuclear winter is because one Russian Naval Officer had the nerve to just say “NYET” during the Cuban missile crisis. Can’t we forgo the extra doughnut with our morning coffee? If we can do none of these simple things because life is too difficult, then what becomes of our world is left to the wildest imaginings and inane cravings of those who hold the strings to all of these small favors that keep us tearing up the planet in search of the next cheap thrill or mind-numbing addiction…Just say “NO!”

By: CA Kniffen