The Terrible Cloud

SUJATA MASSEY 

When the cloud came, I didn't know what to expect.

The Mid-Atlantic Area is known as a middling kind of place. It serves up four seasons, none unduly extreme. My city, Baltimore, usually has a hot and humid summer, but quite bearable. The area doesn't have the disaster experience connected with the Caribbean, Asia, and parts of the US like California and the Mississippi Delta.

So last week, when the smoke from wildfires in Nova Scotia clouded our skies for almost a week, it was a shock. The sky wasn't blue anymore--it was a kind of grayish. It's hard to believe the picture of Baltimore's Inner Harbor above is in color!  

Just to the south of us in Washington DC, the cloud of smoke obscured the monuments.

New York City got the temporary rating of "worst air in the world' last week. And the sky there went orange. 

I went out for a short look around one evening in Baltimore. The sky seemed to be vibrating, and I realized I was witnessing the falling of almost invisible particles of smoky air. The thickness of the downpour reminded me of a blizzard. Back inside, I showered, but I could not wash away the feeling of dread.

A lot of people with asthma felt their throats close after just a few moments outside. I don't have that illness, yet my breathing was uncomfortable. The birds weren't singing as much--and it being a new baby bird season, I worried about the tiny avian airways. Our dog walker sent us a list of danger signals for asthma and respiratory problems that dogs can experience. Daisy's walks shortened to 5 to 10 minutes, and I wore a mask. 

All over the East Coast, swimming pools closed, and so did parks and zoos. The gutter cleaners didn't come, and lots of people who do outdoor work had their jobs cancelled for reasons of safety. I postponed a planting event that I wanted to work with someone in my yard and instead concentrated on watering the hundred or so native seedlings that I'd put in the previous week. I  And of course, it hadn't rained for weeks.

Drought is often a contributor to bad air events. The "dust bowl" years of the 1930s in the Great Plains were tied to four separate drought events, making the topsoil of aggressively farmed prairie land blow great distances. The photo below shows the drama of the clouds in Kansas in 1935.

Nova Scotia was also suffering from drought, and the increase in temperatures globally conspired to give longer and wider burning time for the wildfires that occur there naturally every summer. And we've had drought in Maryland, too, without rainfall for weeks. The first drops finally fell this past Monday, building into a tumultuous downpour that gave us back our first 'good air' day--  and what looks to be a resolution of this crisis in Maryland.

 And that's for the time being. Global warming means more episodes like this, more changes in the way we live. 

You Can Help Save the Earth

Annamaria on a Crusade

Great thanks to Michael for his encouraging and hugely informative post this past Thursday.  If you haven't read it, you can find here his words about some important counter climate-change strides.  His theme is that while governments may be recalcitrant, individuals and corporations are inventing ways to work against the rising tides.  I want to piggyback on this  subject, which—like Michael—I believe is the most important issue before us as human beings.

Michael focused on plastic as one of the major pollutants so I will start there.  When I first learned about the mass of plastic floating on the Pacific Ocean, I became so alarmed that I turned into a warrior against plastic.  My enemy is all those innocent-looking zip-lock bags, easily portable bottles of water, and yogurt containers.  Here are the facts, as of March 2018, about the that floating mass:

The giant accumulation of plastic called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch contains at least 79,000 tons of discarded plastic, covering an area of about 617,800 square miles (1.6 million square kilometers), according to a study published in Scientific Reports.

It's probably larger now, two years later! 

For perspective, this mass is larger than all but the 17 largest countries on earth.  According to National Geographic Magazine, some of the that mass will biodegrade in 450 years.  The rest will last FOREVER.

The most daunting (and for me personally disgusting) fact about plastic is that micro beads of it have been found in human breast milk.  If this doesn’t scare the begeezes out of you, I don’t know what would.


What can we do?  isn't it obvious?  We need to move as fast as possible toward 100% biodegradable packaging materials.  Europe is doing a much better job of this than the USA.  I started working on this post in Italy, where plastic bags for carrying food purchases are, by law, biodegradable. 

Until our country comes to its senses, those of us who live in the USA and other backward countries can at least buy products that are packaged in cardboard—dishwasher detergent and raisins for instance.  And soap in bars that comes wrapped in paper will get you just as clean as the liquid stuff in plastic bottles.

There are alternatives to plastic film and baggies for storing leftovers.  And we can get your takeaway from places that package our lunch in cardboard cartons instead of plastic containers.  I could go on and on, but you get the idea.  

Michale’s blog made a point of the amount of water and energy that goes into recycling.  I’d like to focus on the energy issue in another important way.  

Even if it is generated through solar panels, wasting electricity is economically and environmentally insane.  In the US, just about 100% of hotels and apartment buildings have hallway lights that are burning 24/7.  In Italy, and I imagine other European countries as well, the norms are aimed at curbing overconsumption of electricity.   Lights in hallways are wired to motion detectors.  If someone is walking by the lights go on.  Otherwise the place is dark.  In hotel rooms, lights automatically go off when you take your key from its little slot as you leave the room.  No waste. 

Speaking of waste, in the US, there is also the insanity of indoor temperature settings.  Typically, thermostats are set at 74 degrees F in winter and 68 degrees in summer.  One has to wear a sweater to feel comfortable indoors in summer and to strip off layers to keep from overheating in winter.  I recently heard a climate-change denier on the radio, pooh-poohing the potential benefits of electric cars because, he said, “The power grid in the United States does not have enough capacity to charge all those automobiles.”  I wonder how that prediction would fare, if all those hallway lights went on only when someone needed them, and those temperature settings were reversed: in winter 68, when we are wearing winter clothes.  And 74 in summer.  If 74 is comfortable in winter, why is it too hot in summer?

Changing the habits of a nation is a daunting task, but ordinary people make environmental decisions everyday.  We can decide what kind of car to drive.  Or better yet, to use mass transit.  One by one we can start to reduce our own consumption and waste production, especially when it comes to using plastics and power.  We can choose food gown locally.  Or set our own thermostats at rational levels.    We can keep or precious planet in mind when we decide what to buy at the supermarket and what kind of bag we use to tote our purchases home.  We can try to influence others to join the fight.

We can become a climate activists.  Write letters, attend rallies, make speeches, and make noise about this issue.  Vote only for politicians who give solving climate change a high priority.  When a corporation acts insensitively, or public officials make wrong decisions, we can stop buying their products or shopping in their stores.  We can write to corporate CEOs, store owners, board chairmen, politicos and tell them that we are boycotting them for their behavior.

Are these actions guaranteed to solve the problem.  No.  Of course not.  But we must try.

My father, who died twelve years ago, wept when he thought about the mess humans were making of the Earth.  “My generation,” he said, in tears, “is leaving the world so much worse off than we found it.”  He felt personally guilty about that.  So do I.


Some people’s religion tells them that there will be a Last Judgment—a time when the saved will be separated from the damned.  I think the people of this planet need to stage a Next to the Last Judgment.  We need to start damning those who do not see the crisis.  And especially those who, for their own personal gains, ignore it.

This sacred planet is the home we all share.  This is a trite statement, as is the title of this blog.  BUT.  What other battle cries might we adopt at this juncture.  Can we look at deaf and dumb politicians and say, "We who are about to die salute you."  Shall we eat, drink, and be merry? 

 We can continue to act like a virus infecting our planet, crawling all over it, acting like we are in charge.  Climate change looks to me like Earth's immune system sending the forces of wind, flooding, fire, and drought (the real four horsemen of the Apocalypse) to delivery a grim message.

Save the planet is not the real issue, of course.  The Earth will still be here, even if we go on abusing its and ignore its warnings.  It, as an ecosystem, will continue to fight back.  If humans, as a species, fail to heed the dire warnings of our living home, it will kill us.  The same way any living organism's immune system destroys an infection.

We are marvelous.  Whether you think we are the creation of an intelligent God or the result of a series of splendid accidents, we are a wonder species.  Wouldn't it be great if we were also smart enough to save ourselves.  I hope we are.

Mangroves are Everywhere (For Now): Redux

Annamaria on Monday

Today, I am posting a repeat from a few years ago.

Here are my excuses for not having a new subject today:  Three weeks of dental woes which have included nine visit to two dentists, one of which was emergency surgery this (SUNDAY!) morning.  {I have renamed my dentist's office GUM-tanimo} The accountant forgetting about my tax return which is due as you read this.  The people downstairs returning last Wednesday after five months in Florida to report a hole in their ceiling from a leak in my radiator, which never showed as water in my living room; along with concomitant insurance adjusters, plumbers, and building managers visiting and tsk-tsking.  The deadline for Tolliver 2 and a long meeting with my publisher.  Trying to untangle some long-term family financial issues with a great deal of finger pointing.  And finally, having my brain freeze after learning of Ted Cruz's incomprehensible campaign against sex toys as a public nuisance.

Anyway, my publisher says (and I believe her) that I have to make clear in the story of THE IDOL OF MOMBASA what a mangrove forest is all about, because most people don't know much about those marvelous places.  She is right.  So, if you haven't already read this, BooBoo, here is your chance to be smarter than the average bear.

At the shoreline of land masses, the earth wears, around its middle, a green belt of perhaps the most adaptive living things on the planet.

In my research into Mombasa, British East Africa (now Kenya), I found them growing along a beach in 1905.  I set a few scenes in my book near Mombasa's coastline mangrove forest.  In one my hero has to tell his new wife some provocative news.  In an attempt to break it to her gently, he takes her for a romantic walk along the beach.  I liked having the mangroves nearby them as they stroll and talk, because they symbolize the tangle of trouble that awaits the young couple.

All along the earth’s beaches within about 30 degrees of the Equator, mangroves form an largely impenetrable shield between the salt water and the land.  They are not one species of plant but somewhere around seventy depending on which continent.  The forests include palms, acanthus, myrtle, even relatives of holly.  Some are timber trees  two-hundred-feet tall; others are mere undergrowth.  The thing all the plants have in common is that they have adapted to growing half in and half out of salt water.  Typically they are partially under water in high tide and in swampy land during low tide—when their environment becomes even more salty than the sea, which would kill ordinary plants in hours.  They have all sorts of magical ways to rid themselves of salt, even a way of “sweating” it from their leaves.

Around the globe these fascinating ecosystems nourish or provide habitats for many creatures:  fish, monkeys, deer, kangaroos.  Crabs climb up them to eat their fruit and bats and honeybees take nectar from their flowers.

Some have roots like flying buttresses that hold the tree trunks upright in soft muddy soil.  All have roots that trap silt and build up land.  They stabilize shorelines and protect them from erosion, especially in storm surges.  They act as a buffer against tsunamis.  In 2004 during the tidal waves in the Indian Ocean, mangrove forests protected lives and property.  Damage was far worse where mangroves no longer existed.

Unfortunately, these strategically important plants are threatened around the globe.  The deadliest creatures—human beings—are bulldozing them to create salt pans, fish (largely shrimp) farms, and a bunch of other development projects that could easily be located elsewhere—like housing, golf courses, hotels, and roads.  In poor areas—many of which are in the tropics—the move toward development often means an end to mangroves.

Then there is death from pollution—oil spills, agricultural chemicals, and the predicted danger of rising sea levels.  The push back against this destruction is insufficient so far, but it has begun.  Notably in Kenya, fishing villagers along the Indian Ocean are using discarded tin cans pressed into damp sand  to plant seedlings and build up new forests .  Those fisherman know that without the mangroves to harbor fish eggs, there will soon be no fish in the sea for them to catch.  Optimistic efforts are underway also in Eretria and Bangladesh.   Sadly in South America, both on the west coast in Ecuador and on the eastern shores in Brazil, mangroves are falling prey to shrimp farmers who are in it for the quick buck.

As with other potential environmental disasters, it is difficult to fight off the commercial interests in favor of long-term good for the local people and for the planet.