ClimateCrisis

Cape Hatteras National Seashore

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There are three main outer banks—‘OBX’—islands in the park: Bodie, Hatteras and Ocracoke, from north to south. Each has a lighthouse: Bodie is currently open for climbing, Hatteras is tallest and Ocracoke is oldest. I brought my kayak and stayed at Oregon Inlet campground across from the Bodie harbor which has a kayak launch, but there was some construction, commercial traffic, and strong, cold winds in May. Also, since the islands are so long and thin, it’s easiest to see the main sights by driving the 70 miles, including the free vehicle ferry to Ocracoke.

Hatteras island is the biggest, with several year round towns and thousands of residents outside summer, when hundreds of thousands visit the OBX. The road gets damaged in storms, and wind often blows huge drifts of sand onto the road. Many of the residents have anti-Biden signs, which is counter intuitive, since he is trying to defend them from the Climate Crisis, which will steal their land, take over their businesses and even invade their homes. But they ignore the science, the melting glaciers and ice caps, the strengthening storms, the sea level rise and the increasing erosion. The lighthouse has already been moved many times. The OBX is one of the fastest growing real estate markets on the NC coast, worth tens of billions of dollars, even as homes are falling into the sea. Money appears inversely related to intelligence.

The delightful nature walk above is Springer’s Point Trail at the southern tip of Ocracoke nearer Cape Lookout, the northern tip of which can be visited by passenger ferry leaving from Ocracoke’s picturesque Silver Lake Harbor. There are some ‘banker’ (OBX) horses on Ocracoke, but they’re penned, not really wild.

Johnstown Flood National Memorial

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150 years ago, a few of the wealthiest men in the world (Carnegie, Mellon, Frick, et al.) enjoyed relaxing in their fishing & hunting club on the shores of their huge private lake. The lake was held back by raising a dam, but the industrialists ignored recommendations for spillways to avoid overflowing. In the smoky valley below, their workers lived in the fast growing industrial city of Johnstown. The rains came, the waters rose, warnings were issued too late and the dam failed. Over 2,200 people died in Johnstown and the neighboring towns.

As with the Climate Crisis today, people just went about their business and assumed their bosses would not carelessly risk their lives. By the time they realized the danger they were in, it was too late.

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site

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There are three sites along the interstate: a visitor center, a missile silo and a launch control facility for multiple silos. Apparently the whole area was like a prairie dog town of silos. For decades, all the sites were manned and secured continuously, so that we could annihilate our enemies many times over, as they could to us. The cost of this ludicrous overkill capacity was staggering.

But what interests me most is the claim made in Life magazine above that only 3% would die. Actually, we’d be lucky if 3% survived. How could we have been so wrong? We listened to the wrong scientists. Physicists designed the nuclear bomb, so they had the full attention of the military. They analyzed the problem by describing payload, flash of light, shockwave and fallout. Only when someone asked whether nuclear war would blot out the sun for years did we realize that the physicists completely underestimated the risk to life on earth. Why? Because the study of life on earth isn’t physicists’ job. That’s the job of biologists. We were listening to the wrong scientists.

Our public understanding of the climate crisis is very similar. We’re still not listening to the right scientists. Whenever I ask a physics expert about global warming, I always get the same answer: ”the planet will be fine”. They mean that it will continue spinning. Geologists answer that temperatures vary naturally within large ranges over eons. Meteorologists say that it won’t tell you if you need to bring an umbrella today. Again we are listening to the wrong scientists.

Biologists study life on earth, so they will tell you that the climate crisis will extinguish most forms of life on earth, either directly, by changing their environment more quickly than they can adapt, or indirectly, by collapsing some critical part of the ecological networks they rely on for food, reproduction, or any other part of their existence. These are the scientists who study whether life on earth will survive, and they’re the ones who are telling us that the risks are too great to continue carbon pollution. As living, supposedly sentient beings on this planet, we naturally should be interested in the survival of life here. We need to listen to the right scientists who know and are telling us what we need to do to avert the coming catastrophe.

Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail

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The “trace” or trail from Natchez to Nashville is now a parkway, under strict protection of the park service which limits development. I’ve more or less driven the length now, with lots of side trips to nearby sights, and the dense spring foliage is beautiful, soothing and seems endless.
The first stop traditionally is at Mount Locust pictured above, and the route was typically used northbound, returning by boat. The trail is far older than our country, as French fur traders followed Native American trading routes that had been used for thousands of years. After the steamship was invented, most people stopped walking, which put an end to the proprietor’s lucrative business of selling whiskey, food and basic shelter at the ”stand” or simple roadside inn.

We tend to see history as inevitable, and don’t often think about what might or should have been different. But the people back then were constantly trying to learn, make changes and adapt. The land in the photo belonged to Native Americans, then was claimed by England, then by America, then worked by slaves who turned sharecroppers, and is now run by the park service. At each transition there was loss and opportunity. Only fortunate and adaptable people made it through turbulent changes. Injustice was resolved by war. No success or failure was inevitable. In hindsight, better choices could and should have been made.

I need to believe that we’re capable of learning, making changes and adapting. Dramatic change is inevitable, common behaviors suddenly become unthinkable, and those who can’t change usually suffer most. The extent of damage from the climate crisis has not yet been determined. Not all the coming extinctions are inevitable. The actions we take today make a difference to our future. We must stop burning carbon now, no matter how inconvenient, and we must prepare for the coming challenges.

Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve

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This is a large, multi-purpose, multi-unit park. On a previous visit I visited one of the Acadian (Cajun) cultural centers and the Chalmette Battlefield (1812), so this time I figured I should see the swamp at the Barataria Preserve. I didn’t see any alligators, but the ranger said they were probably under the boardwalk. He also said I might find one if I went on a more remote trail, explaining logically that no tourists had returned from that section today.

Folks around here are under a lot fewer illusions about the Climate Crisis than other places, out of direct experiences. The signs were more blunt than in other parks, explaining that the beautiful ecosystem above is being killed by rising oceans. If we had time to adapt, then we could learn techniques for dealing with storm surge, flooding, etc. But it doesn’t seem like enough people care.

Waco Mammoth National Monument

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While not quite as large as the mammoth site in South Dakota, this is the largest fossil nursery of mammoths in North America. Unearthed by creek erosion, the first bone brought to nearby Baylor University confirmed the mammoth find. There’s now an active dig site enclosed inside a lab building. The rangers answer questions outside, due to Covid. The city of Waco extracts a small management fee, despite this also being a NPS unit.

The ranger explained that there’s some confusion over the term used to describe the mammoths, “Columbian”. First, it’s not Colombian, meaning from the South American country of Colombia. Second, it’s not “pre-Columbian” which is used by anthropologists to describe Native American civilizations in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus. It’s Columbian, meaning found in the Americans, either before or after Columbus visited. It’s not known exactly when the last mammoth was extinguished by humans, but we do know that humans will drive a massive wave of species to extinction with our carbon pollution, unless we confront the crisis now.

Chaco Culture National Historical Park

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This site is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There are numerous pueblos located in the park, and the largest one pictured is actually missing a few rooms due to a rockslide from the cliff above. These great houses were several stories tall, including storerooms for trade and many ceremonial kivas. Due to the well preserved nature of the site, it’s easier to get a sense of the scale of human activity a thousand years or so ago. At other more degraded sites, you’re really looking at the small basement room foundations. Here, you can see that some of the rooms above were much larger with windows and wider passages. The road out here is miles of washboard dirt, which helps reduce human impact.

There’s an interesting display at the visitor center showing several of the other great builder civilizations around the world at the time Chaco thrived. For me the comparison that comes to mind is Rapa Nui, or Easter Island. They were also a civilization of great travelers and explorers who build large stone markers and then move on to other locations. Manmade ecological collapse contributed to the rapid population declines at these sites. Chaco no doubt boomed when it improved its agricultural yields by building a vast network of canals, but natural systems have natural limits that can break when pushed too far. Obviously, when the natural limits are pushed too far globally, the problem is that there will be nowhere to move that’s unaffected. And the crisis part of climate change is that we won’t have enough time to respond. For those unable to think more than a year or two into the future, it’s worth looking back over centuries since Chaco’s population collapsed due to over exploitation. We may think of ourselves as advanced, but we’re not (and won’t be) if we can’t avoid the coming climate catastrophe we created.