The Silence of the Bugs

                 
“All winged insects that go on all fours are detestable to you.
Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours
you may eat those that have jointed legs above their feet,
with which to hop on the ground.
Of them you may eat: the locust of any kind,
 the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind,
and the grasshopper of any kind.
But all other winged insects that have four feet are detestable to you.

Leviticus 11:20-23 ESV 

We have a lovely, fairly large backyard which is too much work but still a pleasure. During these unexpectedly hot May days we've attempted to get out there to tend to flower beds and raised vegetable beds alike. The mosquitoes see it differently. They welcome us alright, as breakfast. Our back neighbours' sump-pumps spew water down to our lot line creating the perfect breeding ground for the flying vacuum pumps. Of course it's now more than the annoyance of being vampired. We're warned about West Nile, when those in the know can grab our attention away from the terror to ticks.



Insects, you can't live with them, and actually we can't live without them. Silence may be golden when you're lying in a tent on a camping trip, but we need the hum of bugs around us. There is both scientific and anecdotal evidence that insects are on the decline, and just about every healthy ecosystem needs them to be creeping and crawling around and on us. A German study published last fall found that there was a 76% decline in bug biomass over the past three decades. The summer percentage is even higher and that is cause for real concern. Bee species pollinate plants and so do blackflies (don't cover your ears.) Birds rely on insects for food, as do bats. Yet insects seem to be on the decline.

Several writers, including Michael McCarthy in his wonderful book The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy, note that vehicle windshields just aren't smeared with creatures of the night the way they once were. He has a chapter called The Great Thinning, which says it all.

The bible is not a fan of insects, to be sure. Locusts and moths and hornets are God's punishment, not our friends. The Genesis creation stories do not mention bugs, although creeping things get lots of press. Still, scripture does celebrate the diversity of Creation and, like it or not, insects are part of our lives.

This  buggy pondering makes me think of the insect discovered recently embedded in one of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings. He worked outside a lot, and one grasshopper met its end in a tomb of paint.

Read Curt Stager's Silence of the Bugs in the New York Times. The artwork above is from that article https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/26/opinion/sunday/insects-bugs-naturalists-scientists.html 

Then go eat a cricket and say a prayer for the insects of the planet while you're at it.



Grasshopper embedded in Van Gogh's The Olive Trees

Maria, Puerto Rico, and Noah

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. 
And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth,
and it grieved him to his heart. 
 So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created
—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air,
for I am sorry that I have made them.” 
 But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.

Genesis 6:5-8
Some of you have seen that I have revived my Groundling blog over the past month, now that I am gainfully unemployed and have more time to reflect x 2. The irony is that I have a passion for faith connected to the environment, and a conviction that " to live with respect in Creation" is God's call to all of us and vital to our survival as a species.

There are days when I wonder whether an emerging story is grist for this Groundling blog or Lion Lamb, and of course it can be both. In fact, today I have posted the same blog entry on both.


Yesterday the outcome of a study into the effects of last year's Hurricane Maria indicate that it may have been more devastating that Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Washington Post reports the findings this way:

More than eight months after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, the island’s slow recovery has been marked by a persistent lack of water, a faltering power grid and a lack of essential services — all imperiling the lives of many residents, especially the infirm and those in remote areas hardest hit in September.

 

A new Harvard study published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine estimates that at least 4,645 deaths can be linked to the hurricane and its immediate aftermath, making the storm far deadlier than previously thought. Official estimates have placed the number of dead at 64, a count that has drawn sharp criticism from experts and local residents and spurred the government to order an independent review that has yet to be completed.

 

This is a reminder that the warnings of climate scientists about the increasing severity of weather events must be heeded. It is also a story about perceptions of justice and the gap between haves and have-nots in the United States. Puerto Ricans are American citizens but the response to their plight was woefully inadequate and it would be hard to imagine that people along the Gulf Coast of the continental United States would be treated with the same disregard. The enduring image of President Trump tossing packages of paper towels into a crowd when he visited in the immediate aftermath of Maria is frankly disgusting and racist. Politicians in the US who were of Puerto Rican background knew this and spoke out, but were largely ignored.

 

 

The biblical story of Noah is a powerful myth, one which may not be factual but is true. We are inclined as humans to entertain and distract ourselves from the essentials of our existence and when we ignore the hardship of others with issues which don't really matter (kneeling during the national anthem at a sports event?) then we offend God. While the story of Noah ends with a rainbow and God's promise not to inflict such a cataclysm on humanity again, there is no assurance we won't do this to ourselves.

 

Well, this may be a rather ominous start to your day, but surely we need to be paying attention. It's never too late, is it?

Kinder Morgan Crazy!

Finance Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are now off my Christmas card list and the Liberals will probably be off my ballot because of a decision announced today. Federal governments of every stripe have been gaga over the oil industry for decades but the decision to essentially take over the financial burden of the contentious Kinder Morgan pipeline is astounding.

There is currently a Trans Mountain pipeline carrying unrefined oil products from the tarsands of Alberta to the British Columbia coast. The Kinder Morgan project would "twin" that pipeline, except that it wouldn't be immediately alongside the existing pipeline for significant distances. It will transport diluted bitumen (chemically liquefied bitumen) to shipping terminals on the Pacific Ocean.

This new project, proposed in 2013, is contentious for a bunch of reasons, including the resistance of some First Nations, other communities, and those who are concerned that the ships carrying the dilbit will be travelling through sensitive ecosystems.

Now the feds are willing to spend 4.5 billion of taxpayers dollars to buy the Kinder Morgan stake. So much for the earnest commitment to the Paris Accord and sunny ways statements from our environment minister. This represents about $125 for every Canadian, which will likely be at least twice that amount given that the money must be borrowed and there will be delays and overruns.

What is it about oil that mesmerizes governments? The NDP government in Alberta has become an aggressive "all-in" pitbull for the fossil fuel industry and apparently the federal Liberals are willing to lose their red shirts over this project. We could argue all day about the safest way to transport oil and how much fossil fuels mean to the Canadian economy. But since when is the Canadian government in the pipeline business? Well, today, apparently.



Green Party leader Elizabeth May was just fined $1500 for protesting the pipeline project and faith leaders were part of demonstrations and may have been arrested as well. As quixotic as this may seem, it ain't nearly as nuts as spending billions on what is a sunset industry.

Thoughts?

Rachel Carson and The Sense of Wonder

Yesterday was the 111th birthday of the environmental icon, Rachel Carson. Of course she died relatively young (in her fifties), only two years after publishing her groundbreaking book, Silent Spring, Carson was a credible scientist, even though the companies which made the pesticides she "outed" did everything in their power to discredit her. She also had a deep sense of wonder, an ability to delight in the natural world and rest in its mystery, even as she searched out its scientific processes. That sense of wonder made her a hugely popular writer with books such as The Sea Around Us written well before she wrote Silent Spring.



Life Magazine 1962 Carson chatting with children

I'm reading Lisa Sideris' deeply thoughtful book called Consecrating Science, and in it she cites Carson and Loren Eiseley, as well as others who were grounded in science but resisted "scientism." the glorification of science to the place of religion. They were able to appreciate that reality is mystery and that the two are not in conflict.



I want to be open to wonder, to immerse myself in wonder, all of my days. When we went to Iceland a couple of years ago, and when we spent a month on an island off the coast of Newfoundland last summer, wonder was our daily companion. Glaciers and icebergs will invoke this! Yet catching the fleeting carpet of trilliums close to home, or seeing indigo buntings at our bird feeders for the first time recently I am invited into wonder as well. I love when I can explain the scientific processes at work around me, but I would be impoverished if I lost my delight in the beauty of --dare I say it -- the miraculous nature of Creation.

I have a copy of Carson's final essay, The Sense of Wonder which was published posthumously and is available as a book. I've pulled it out and will honour her memory by finally reading it.

Thank God for wonder.