The United States has gone fracking crazy, a phrase that can be interpreted in a number of ways. Fracking is the latest assault by the oil and gas industry to extract product fossil fuels from the ground. It has been very lucrative, and is also highly controversial. Fracking requires lots of water and is often happening in areas where there is little water. There is growing evidence that the mixture with chemicals for extraction is affection water sources. It also appears to trigger frequent earth tremors and quakes in regions which have little history of these events.
I think fracking is crazy, because outcomes aren't known, and it encourages dependence on fossil fuels rather than developing energy alternatives It also makes me angry to read that fracking is going on in New Mexico's stunningly beautiful Chaco Valley, in the state's northwest. This was a place of inspiration for the artist Georgia O'Keefe, an Easterner who fell in love with the landscape of New Mexico.
Some of you will recall that I made several trips to Ghost Ranch, a conference and retreat centre in the high plateau of northern New Mexico. I loved it there and it turned out that the retreat house I stayed in twice was spitting distance to the adobe house O'Keefe used as home base for painting forays, including those to the Chaco Valley. Her view to Padernal mountain (below) was virtually the same as from the Ghost Ranch retreat house called Casa del Sol.
It seems that energy extraction trumps safety and beauty and common sense in the States these days. None of these have value anymore because they can't be measured by money. Of course we have our own claim to non-sense in Alberta these days.
There is also a rich cultural history for the aboriginal peoples of this region:
...the massive buildings of the ancestral Pueblo peoples still testify to the organizational and engineering abilities not seen anywhere else in the American Southwest. The canyon that was central to thousands of people between 850 and 1250 A.D
Do you know anything about this region? Are you familiar with the paintings of Georgia O'Keefe? Are you concerned that fracking may be coming to a backyard near you?
There is a project in its initial stages to revive the passenger pigeon using DNA from the preserved remains in collections such as the Royal Ontario Museum. While it would be a fascinating scientific exercise, wouldn't we agree that that this bird has flown?
When Europeans arrived in North America there were hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of passenger pigeons. They may have represented a quarter of all the birds in North America. The travelling flocks were miles long and would darken the sky. They would also create their own snowstorms of droppings, which couldn't have encouraged looking up to witness their migration. The massive flocks would descend on oak forests to consume acorns from oak trees, not maples, as was suggested in a recent Toronto Star article.
They were shot by the thousands to be consumed, but also for the sheer bloody sport of it. This reckless killing and loss of habitat eventually destroyed what may have been the most common bird on the planet. It seemed impossible that they would become extinct because of their extraordinary abundance, but the last known passenger pigeon, named Martha, dying in captivity 100 years ago today.
There is an exhibit about the passenger pigeon at the ROM right now, and while I think I would like to go, it might just make me sad. One speaker will be Dr. Joel Greenberg who will talk about his book A Feathered River Across the Sky: The Passenger Pigeon's Flight to Extinction. The title is poetic and painful.
We hear a lot about species extinction these days, yet I wonder how much we take in. While extinctions may not be as dramatic, humans are undermining the balance of the created order. Our Judeo-Christian story emphasizes God's work in creating biodiversity and we have the Noah story as the myth of species preservation. But we are reminded regularly in scripture that our selfishness and greed are destructive and that we must change our foolish ways.
If we don't protect the diversity of living things it may be a human Martha as the last living creature. We can do better and God wants us to do better.
Thoughts?
