Interesting article on front page of Pioneer Press today, Sunday 1/8/12, from the Washington Post, “If we can fix the world, should we?”
It addresses the emerging need to “manage” ecosystems in the post-wild world. As inept as humans have been in the past in attempts to positively manipulate the natural world, I think we need to try again. Aggressive fire suppression in the caribou range of the sub-arctic being one example, clearing blowdowns and careful reseeding efforts after BWCA fires being another.
Change is happening too fast for slow poke Mother Nature to react quickly enough to positively adapt. A sliver of proof is we have already, this January, recorded the highest night time low in Minneapolis since those warm “greenhouse” years following the Krakatoa eruption in 1883. In the past few years states are recording new record low barometric pressures at an alarming rate. So the near future looks like more storms, more droughts, more burn-to-the-rock wild fires, more bugs and runaway opportunistic invasives.
We mucked up this planet, it’s up to us to now to mitigate the carnage.
Instead of leave no trace we need to start making things better and helping the planet heal.
On a selfish note I am working to get Lifetime to open their large indoor pool in Lakeville for freestyle canoeing a couple times this winter. Anyone one out there game? Warm water!
A friend shared this Wabikimi wildfire pic from last summer