Trade-offs

Aldo Leopold once wrote, "One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds."

We live in a world that demands more and more trade-offs between socio-economic interests (I think it was Jeremy Rifkin who called our species Homo Economicus) and ecological health. Through my life it has led to a values trade-off between my compassionate concern for other people and my deep seeded resonance for the wilds. It is the compromise between leaving this property and going cross country skiing an hour and a half away. It is the trade-off between a newer camera and the environmental devastation in China. Years ago, when I was more actively engaged in the environmental movement, I wondered how long it would take to alter the environmental landscape when people's pockets and their way of life were impacted. We are now seeing the decrease in support for environmental conservation as the standard of living is being challenged.

The trade-off that hit home very recently had to do with trees. Weyerhauser clearcut the trees across the road. It wasn't a large stand nor was it a healthy ecosystem with the trees so tightly bunched (they were never thinned). They were of poor economic valley to the company, but they needed to plant a better crop. But I loved to walk through the thick canopy and feel the moss beneath my feet. I could walk in any direction- very little poison oak, no blackberry thickets, very little brush.

Up on the hillside, looking toward Green Peak, are dozens of checkerboard parcels that have been cleared. It is such a changed landscape that on a bike ride I got disoriented about which road to take- my forest landmarks were gone. (Thankfully I guessed right.) I read a hard copy newspaper, read magazines and books, and use paper in the bathroom. It is a trade-off.

The concept of NIMBY ( not in my backyard) is a part of most of us. We want what we want when we want it and don't want anyone to mess with it. However, we live in a world of divergent needs and ideas. I am not the center of the world. The children of the employees of Weyerhauser need their families to have family wage jobs (not low-paying service sector jobs). Environmental justice requires that we make compromises.

But where and when will it stop? I have immense respect for our innovation and creativity to find solutions. We need to encourage innovation to figure out how to deal with the rising population of the world. Will it mean we reassess our priorities when the system crashes? Will it crash like some of the disaster theorists proclaim? Do we need a crisis to truly change? What will happen when the Ogalla aquifer dries up? What happens when people don't have good jobs and nutritional intake for children decrease?

A few years ago I went on a tour of a Willamette Industries active harvest site. The forester explained that they go into an area and harvest the seeds of that place and grow them for replanting. What a change from the past- the recognition the power of the local ecosystem and the importance of replanting something from that area. Change helped them alter their way of working.

I do get concerned for the young today and the environment. For me it is not just climate change, but the loss of the valuing of wild areas and being in touch with nature. It saddens me that fewer children feel the grass beneath their bare feet and the scent of a forest on a Fall day. I do not think there is a final solution because that assumes there is an end state for ecosystems. However, we must find a balance between jobs and environmental health because the alternative isn't pretty

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