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            The man often called “the first ecologist” is Gilbert White, British clergyman, gardener and naturalist, born July 18, 1720 (died 1793).  White lived most of his adult life in the English village of Selborne in the county of Hampshire, about an hour south of London.  He was educated at Oxford and was ordained in 1749, soon to become the vicar of Selborne.

            White was an ardent gardener and gained an early reputation as a keen observer of the environmental factors that impacted cultivated crops.  He published a calendar of his observations that became a guide for farmers and gardeners in the region.  He loved animals and kept a menagerie, including a pet tortoise named Timothy.

            His true legacy, however, has come from his similar keen observations of nature itself.  Unlike naturalists of his time, who mostly examined dead specimens of animals in order to describe their appearance, White focused on living animals and their interactions with others and their environment—hence his recognition as the first ecologist.  For example, he differentiated three species of birds based on their songs and behavior, presaging the work of Charles Darwin in the next century.  Despite being a clergyman, he didn’t shrink from the realities of the natural world:

“As the swift or black-martin is the largest of the British hirundines, so is it undoubtedly the latest comer. For I remember but one instance of its appearing before the last week in April: and in some of our late frosty, harsh springs, it has not been seen till the beginning of May. This species usually arrives in pairs…. If any person would watch these birds of a fine morning in May, as they are sailing round at a great height from the ground, he would see, every now and then, one drop on the back of another, and both of them sink down together for many fathoms with a loud piercing shriek. This I take to be the juncture when the business of generation is carrying on.”

            Over a period of twenty years, he recorded his observations in a series of letters to fellow naturalists.  With the help of his brother, he compiled 110 of those letters into a book, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, published in 1789.  The book instantly became a classic of natural history.  It has remained in print continuously since then, in more than 300 editions, and is said to be the fourth most published book in England (after The Bible, The Complete Works of Shakespeare and The Pilgrim’s Progress)

            White’s home in Selborne, The Wakes, is now a National Trust Property in England.

References:

Come Step Back In Time (blog).  2013.  Gilbert White—The Parson Naturalist of Selborne, Hampshire.  Available at:  https://comestepbackintime.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/gilbert-white-the-parson-naturalist-of-selborne-hampshire/.  Accessed July 18, 2017.

Encyclopedia Britannica.  Gilbert White, English Naturalist and Clergyman.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gilbert-White-English-naturalist-and-clergyman. Accessed July 18, 2017.

Gilbert White House & The Oates Collection.  The Reverend Gilbert White 1720-1793.  Available at:  http://gilbertwhiteshouse.org.uk/Gilbert-White/. Accessed July 18, 2017.

If the game show Family Feud asked contestants which species of wild animals Americans most loved and hated, I’m sure that the giant panda and sharks would make the list.  Fortunately, they both made a much more important list on this date in 2006—the list of World Heritage Sites.

            UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; learn more about UNESCO here) maintains a list of unique areas around the world that should be preserved for their cultural or natural heritage.  About half those sites are recognized for their natural features.  Each year, UNESCO reviews and makes changes to the list.  At the 2006 meeting, on July 16, only two sites were added to the list, both for their natural heritage—the Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary in Colombia and the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries in China.

            The Malpelo Sanctuary is a small island (about 800 acres) about 300 miles off the coast of Colombia.  The land area is important, but the surrounding marine reserve is massive, covering nearly 2 million acres.  This “marine wilderness”  is remote and largely unaffected by human modification. The water is deep, with rugged underwater canyons, cliffs, walls and other features.  Several currents converge there, funneling richly nutritious water into the area.  Consequently, the density and diversity of marine organisms is exceptional, especially for shark species and other top predators.  The sanctuary is also home to 17 marine mammals, 7 marine reptiles, nearly 400 fish species and more than 300 mollusks.

            UNESCO also added the Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries in 2006.  These sanctuaries provide the largest contiguous area of giant panda habitat remaining in China (which also means in the world).  Giant pandas once lived over a much larger portion of China, but now are restricted to a series of mountain ranges in the southwestern province of Sichuan.  The sanctuaries, which encompass a number of separate nature reserves and parks, cover about 2 million acres and another 1.2 million acres of buffer zones.

            The sanctuaries are home to 30% of all giant pandas living in the wild (the total is getting close to 2,000 individuals).   The ecosystem is described as a relict of tropical forests that existed millions of years ago during the Tertiary.  It has exceptionally high plant diversity for a temperate region, with nearly 6,000 described species.  Hundreds of traditional Chinese medicinal plants grow there, making the sanctuaries especially important as a refuge from overharvest.  The diverse flora supports a similarly diverse fauna.  Over 100 mammal species live there (20% of all Chinese mammals), including the red panda, snow leopard and clouded leopard.  Bird species number over 300, including many endemic species. 

            The Chinese government’s efforts to conserve the giant panda have worked well.  These large sanctuaries have been accompanied by reforestation of buffer zones and establishment of travel corridors between preserves, extending the available habitat for wild giant pandas.  Captive breeding at several research centers has produced hundreds of young available for re-introduction into natural habitats.  The success is real:  In the 1980s, IUCN assessed the giant panda as rare; in the 1990s, its status was upgraded to endangered; and in 2016, its status was upgraded again, to vulnerable. 

References:

IUCN.  Red list – Giant Panda, Ailuropoda melanolecua.  Available at:    https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/712/121745669#assessment-information.  Accessed March 27, 2020.

UNESCO World Heritage Centre.  Malpelo Fauna and Flora Sanctuary.  Available at:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1216/.  Accessed March 27, 2020.

UNESCO World Heritage Centre.  Sichuan Giant Panda Sanctuaries—Wolong, Mt Siguniang and Jiajin Mountains.  Available at:  https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1213/.  Accessed March 27, 2020.

“Votes for Women” was the battle cry of the suffragette movement during the last decades of the 19^th Century and the first decades of the 20^th Century.  The most famous—and fearsome—leader of that movement in England was Emmeline Pankhuurst, born on this day in 1858.  Mrs. Pankhurst was not an environmentalist, but her demands for equality for women provide an opportunity to talk about the same issue about the environment (want to read about a woman who was both a conservationist and a suffragette? read about Rosalie Edge here).

            Although Pankhurst achieved her goal of gaining votes for women in 1918, (and the same occurred in the U.S. in 1920), we still struggle to accept women as full and equal participants in all aspects of modern life. Consider, for example, that despite my best efforts, men appear in these calendar listings much more frequently than women. This is especially true in developing countries and distressingly true for matters affecting the environment and sustainable development. 

            We know that the best strategy for reducing population growth and expanding environmental consciousness is to educate girls and women.  This was a fundamental goal of the Millennium Declaration, and occurs throughout the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  One goal (Goal 5) is devoted entirely to Gender Equality.  Although progress is being made, women still hold only 25% of parliamentary seats and 27% of managerial positions worldwide.  And the U.S. has yet to have a woman president.

            Agenda 21 of the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 (UNCED, or the Rio Conference) devoted an entire chapter (24) to “Global Action for Women Towards Sustainable and Equitable Development.”  It specifically called on governments “to increase the proportion of women involved as decision makers, planners, managers, scientists and technical advisers in the design, development and implementation of policies and programmes for sustainable development.”  It lists goals to eliminate female illiteracy, improve women’s reproductive health, establish women’s rights to own land, and many other specifics.  Because environmental impacts (climate change, pollution, land-use changes) tend to harm women and children disproportionately, Agenda 21 considered gender equality an urgent imperative.

            The Convention on Biological Diversity has taken a leadership role in developing an action plan for enhancing gender equality.  The program acknowledges that women throughout the developing world have the closest relationship with the environment—gathering wood and water, tending subsistence farms, and managing households.  These roles make their knowledge and participation essential to better place-based decisions about sustainability.

            The IUCN has developed an “Environment and Gender Information” project that examines the gender equality of environmental programs around the world.  The EGI uses keyword analysis to examine how programs incorporate gender in their published documents.  The results vary, of course, but in general about 1 in 3 recognize the importance of gender-specific ideas and actions.

Today there are many websites dedicated to telling the stories of women involved in conservation and the environment. Too many, fortunately, for me to list, but you all know how to search the Internet better than I do–so do it!

            If we wish for our world to be sustainable, then we should add a few more slogans to Mrs. Pankhurst’s “Votes for Women.”  Let our signs today say, “Education for Women,” “Decisions by Women,” and “Leadership by Women!”

References:

Convention on Biological Diversity.  2015-2020 Gender Plan of Action.  Available at:  https://www.cbd.int/gender/action-plan/. Accessed March 26, 2020

Global Development Research Center.  Agenda 21, Chapter 24.  Available at:  http://www.gdrc.org/ngo/agenda21/ch-24.html. Accessed March 26, 2020

IUCN.  Environment and Gender Information platform.  Available at:  https://genderandenvironment.org/egi/.  Accessed March 26, 2020.

Purvis, June.  Pankhurst (nee Goulden), Emmeline.  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  Available at:  https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-35376. Accessed March 26, 2020

UN Women.  Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals, The Gender Snapshot 2019.  Available at:  https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2019/progress-on-the-sdgs-the-gender-snapshot-2019-two-page-spreads-en.pdf?la=en&vs=5814. Accessed March 26, 2020

A calendar entry that unites the qualities of water with the qualities of art always seems appropriate, even though picking a particular day to honor this relationship is a bit problematic.  Water symbolizes so much—tranquility or excitement, beauty or terror, peacefulness or power. I can imagine no one who doesn’t think fondly of the rejuvenating experience of a day on, in, under, or near the water.  Water is the inspiration for art, poetry and music.  And, so, symbolically, I have chosen today to represent the link between water and art—July 17, 1717, when composer George Frideric Handel first performed the pieces we now call Water Music.

            Handel was a classical composer of the Baroque age and style—lots of ornate music played with lots of instruments and lots of gusto.  He was born in 1685 in Germany and by age 25 had earned a reputation as one of the great young composers of operatic music in Europe.  His continuing fame stems mostly from his masterpiece, Messiah, the towering composition usually played at Christmas or Easter to celebrate the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

            Water Music is an entirely different sort of composition, for a very different sort of occasion and purpose.  Handel had moved to London in the early 1700s, given permission for a short stay by his patron, the German Elector of Hanover.  However, Handel stayed much longer than his patron expected and took up permanent residence in London.  Unfortunately for Handel, the vagaries of royalty caused a bizarre succession of power, and his patron became King George I of England in 1714. Handel worried what would happen when he and the King met again.

            But, by 1717, King George was suffering a lack of popularity.  His advisors came up with an idea to change his reputation:  Have a big boating party on the River Thames.  King George agreed, and added that he wanted new music for the trip.  The idea was for the king and his friends to float upstream with the tide on a “barge” (think luxury yacht, not a coal-ferrying bathtub) from the government docks in central London upstream to Chelsea, where they would have dinner and float back down after the tide changed.  Handel was secretly given the musical task:  Write and conduct a composition to be played on an accompanying barge to entertain the king and his guests.

            The boating party was a huge success, with many other boats accompanying the king’s barge.  “…so great a Number of Boats, that the whole River in a manner was cover’d,” wrote a contemporary reporter.  Handel composed a large number of individual pieces (somewhere between 13 and 20, reports vary), some quite loud to be played when the barges drifted apart, some softer for when the barges drifted together.  Today the individual pieces are usually played in three “suites,” but the order of their performance on the original trip is unknown.

            King George loved it!  So much so that he made the performers play over and over on the trip upstream and again downstream, in the early hours of the next day.  Again, reports differ but probably the entire set was played through at least three times, perhaps as many as six times.  Handel’s patronage was restored—only now he was the composer to the Court of the King of England!

            One final piece of mystical musical history.  The date of the event and the music’s premier performance was 7-17-1717, a palindrome to make numerologists salivate.  Go sit by some water and mediate on that.

References:

Classical notes.  George Frideric Handel—Water Music and The Music for the Royal Fireworks.  Available at:  http://www.classicalnotes.net/classics/watermusic.html.  Accessed July 17, 2017.

GFHandel.org.  George Frideric Handel, 1685-1759.  Available at:  http://gfhandel.org/index.html. Accessed July 17, 2017.

Kramer, J. D.  1988.  Listen to the Music.  A Self-Guided Tour Through the Orchestral Repertoire.  Schrimer Books, New York.  816 pages.

Schwarm, Betsy.  Water Music.  Encyclopedia Britannica.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/topic/Water-Music. Accessed July 17, 2017.

The founding of this national monument provides an opportunity to discuss the life and accomplishments of George Washington Carver, pioneering African-American plant scientist and conservationist.

            Carver was born during the Civil War, but the date is unknown—because he was a slave.  He and his family lived and worked on the farm of Moses Carver (hence, his last name), a Missouri farm that grew mostly cotton.  After slavery was abolished, Carver continued to live on the farm for several years.  The Moses family cared for the sickly boy, never expecting him to live past his teen years. Carver later wrote, “…my body was very feble and it was a constant warfare between life and death to see who would gain the mastery.”

            The young Carver reveled in nature.  “Day after day,” he said, “I spent in the woods alone in order to callect my floral beauties…”  He had the proverbial green thumb, musing that “strange to say all sorts of vegetation seemed to thrive under my touch until I was styled the plant doctor….  At this time I had never heard of botany and could scerly read.”

            He did learn to read.  For two decades, he roamed around Missouri, Kansas and Iowa, earning a living however he could and attending whatever school was nearby.  He eventually landed at what is now Iowa State University, graduating with both B.S. and M.S. degrees in agricultural sciences in his 30s.  He served as an agricultural teacher there before heading to the Tuskegee Institute in 1896.

            At Tuskegee, he led the new agriculture program and developed the innovations for which he is famous.  Realizing that more than a century of cotton farming had depleted the Alabama soils, Carver taught farmers to plant soil-nourishing crops of peanuts and soybeans.  He performed research on the university’s experimental farm, developing more than 300 products from peanuts and 100 from sweet potatoes, basically establishing both plants as the major crops they are today.  He designed and built the “Jessup Wagon,” a mobile classroom that he took around Alabama to demonstrate new techniques and crops to farmers.  To accompany his tours, he wrote simple booklets for farmers, the precursor of today’s “extension bulletins.” He taught methods to reduce soil erosion and improve soil productivity, rejuvenating southern agriculture.

            Carter was a humble and spiritual man.  His critics saw him as capitulating to white dominance in the South, but Carter cared nothing for politics and strife.  As Tuskegee describes him, “Always modest about his success, he saw himself as a vehicle through which nature, God and the natural bounty of the land could be better understood and appreciated for the good of all people.”  He is considered one of America’s greatest agricultural leaders, and when he died in 1943, it took only months for the U.S. to create a national monument of his birthplace.

            The monument itself is noteworthy.  It encompasses the entire 240-acre Moses farm in the far southwestern corner of Missouri.  It was the first birthplace memorial in the National Park Service not honoring a U.S. president.  And it was the first national park unit to celebrate the life of an African-American.  The congressional hearings to establish the monument included this homage to Carver:

“Occasionally there moves across the stage of time a historic figure, a creative teacher, a profound thinker, a humble servant, or an inspiring teacher. George Washington Carver was all of these. The memorial we create only indicates to the world that once there was a man named George Washington Carver, whose life was a source of inspiration to all men, a pillar of hope to his race, a fountain of service to his fellows, a tower of devotion to his God; and that this man achieved a worthy and enduring stature in the memories of men.”

Amen to that.

References:

Encyclopedia Britannica.  George Washington Carver.  Available at:  https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Washington-Carver. Accessed March 25, 2020.

National Park Service.  George Washington Carver National Monument.  Available at:  https://www.nps.gov/places/george-washington-carver-national-monument.htm. Accessed March 25, 2020.

National Park Service.  George Washington Carver National Monument, History & Culture.  Available at:  https://www.nps.gov/gwca/learn/historyculture/index.htm. Accessed March 25, 2020.

Tuskegee Institute.  The Legacy of Dr. George Washington Carver.  Available at:  https://www.tuskegee.edu/support-tu/george-washington-carver. Accessed March 25, 2020.

Williams, Wendi.  2020.  The Jessup Wagon:  Rooted in History, Still Used Today.  Alabama Cooperative Extension Service, February 6, 2020.  Available at:  https://www.aces.edu/blog/topics/news/the-jesup-wagon-rooted-in-history-still-used-today/.  Accessed March 25, 2020.

The name Herbert Zim may not mean much to you—but what he produced will.  Zim, born on July 12, 1909 (died 1994), was the brains and brawn behind the Golden Nature Guides, also known simply as Golden Guides. 

            Herbert Spencer Zim was born in New York City, but moved with his family at an early age to California.  He returned to New York as a college student, eventually earning BS, MS and PhD degrees from Columbia University.  He became an elementary science teacher for the Ethical Culture Schools in New York City for two decades.  He was a conscientious objector during World War Two, servi            ng as a military trainer and in public service during the war.  He later moved to the University of Illinois as a professor of education from 1950-1957.

            His primary impact on conservation, however, was as an author and editor of children’s science books.  Early books were often about physical science, but he soon turned to writing books about nature.  In 1945, he originated the Golden Guides, a series of 160-page field guides that could be carried in a pocket.  The Guides covered a broad range of subjects, including plant and animal taxa, geological formations, and regions of the U.S.  No budding young naturalist in the 1950-1970s would venture into the field without one or more of these books in her/his backpack or pockets.

            Zim retired from teaching in the 1960s and moved to an oceanside retreat on Key Largo, Florida, where he continued to write and edit.  In total, he produced more than 100 books.  His books were described by the New York Times as “concise, engaging and comprehensible to children without being simplistic.”

            I had the honor of staying at his Key Largo home in 1969, as a senior at the University of Illinois.  About a dozen undergraduates were visiting Florida on a spring break field excursion led by Hurst Shoemaker, professor of ichthyology at Illinois and his co-author for the Golden Guides on Fishes.  I remember Zim as a genial scholar with an encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world and a unabashed love for his local environment.

References:

Archives West.  Herbert Spencer and Sonia Bleeker papers, 1934-1976.  Available at:  http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv50293. Accessed July 12, 2017.

Perez-Pena, Richard.  1994.  Herbert S. Zim Is Dead at 85; Wrote Childrens’ Science Books.  New York Times, December 12, 1994.  Available at:  http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/12/obituaries/herbert-s-zim-is-dead-at-85-wrote-children-s-science-books.html. Accessed July 12, 2017.

University of Illinois Press.  2017.  200 Years of Illinois:  Golden Nature Guides, July 12, 2017.  Available at:  http://www.press.uillinois.edu/wordpress/?p=21733. Accessed July 12, 2017.

University of Southern Mississippi.  Herbert S. Zim Papers.  Available at:  http://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/degrum/public_html/html/research/findaids/DG1086f.html. Accessed July 12, 2017.

            The United Nations has designated July 11 each year as World Population Day.  This date was chosen in 1990 because it was the anniversary of the Day of Five Billion, when the world’s human population was estimated to have reached five billion individuals in 1989.  Total world population in mid-2020 is around 7.6 billion people.

World Population Day is organized by the United Nations Population Fund, the primary global agency dedicated to reducing population growth by enhancing women’s health.  Each year, the organization chooses a theme to highlight critical issues.  In 2017, the theme was family planning, in recognition that “around the world, some 214 million women in developing countries who want to avoid pregnancy are not using safe and effective family planning methods, for reasons ranging from lack of access to information or services to lack of support from their partners or communities.” 

            Human population became a societal issue in the 1960s when the reality of rapid growth collided with fears about the ability of the earth to sustain large populations.  Books like Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, published in 1969, predicted massive famine in the 1970s and the total collapse of India. 

            Fortunately, the dire predictions of the 1960s have not occurred.  With increases in agricultural productivity and improved health in developing countries, population growth rates have fallen—perhaps a counter-intuitive outcome.  But when quality of life improves, birth rates gradually decline.  In the 1960s, the earth’s human population was expected to reach 15 billion individuals before stabilizing.  Today, the stable population is predicted to be about 11 billion.

            Despite this improvement, population continues to grow.  The Day of Six Billion occurred on October 12, 1999, and the Day of Seven Billion on October 31, 2011. Each year, we add a net of about 80 million people to the earth—the equivalent of the country of Turkey.  Birth rates are highest in Africa, and the continent’s total population is expected to double, from 1.2 billion to 2.4 billion, over the coming generation. 

            Consequently, continued attention to the reduction of population growth rate is needed.  And the problem is a multi-faceted one, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has stated:  “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the world’s blueprint for a better future for all on a healthy planet. On World Population Day, we recognize that this mission is closely interrelated with demographic trends including population growth, ageing, migration and urbanization.”

References:

Coleman, Jasmine.  2011.  World’s “Seven Billionth Bay” is Born.  The Guardian, 31 October 2011.  Available at:  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/31/seven-billionth-baby-born-philippines.  Accessed July 11, 2017.

Sommerfeld, Julia.  1999.  World Population Hits 6 Billion.  NBC News.  Available at: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3072068/ns/us_news-only/t/world-population-hits-billion/#.WWUb64TytEY.  Accessed July 11, 2017.

United Nations.  World Population Day, July 11.  Available at:  http://www.un.org/en/events/populationday/.  Accessed March 24, 2020.

United Nations Population Fund.  2017.  World Population Day, 11 July 2017.  Available at:  http://www.unfpa.org/events/world-population-day.

Let’s get one thing straight right now:  Native Americans knew well before 1832 where the Mississippi River started.  So, what July 13, 1832, represents is the day when someone told the world about it.

            That someone was Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.  Schoolcraft worked for the U.S. government, responsible for relations with Native Americans of the Upper Great Lakes Region.  He married a Native-American woman, Jane Johnston, and conducted his work with sincerity and respect.  He was also an explorer and writer, and he sought to investigate a doubtful claim of where the Mississippi River actually began.  An Ojibwe leader named Ozawindib showed Schoolcraft to the place where the Mississippi formed a small channel draining out of a small Minnesota lake—and the rest was history.

            The lake is now named Lake Itasca, and it lies within Itasca State Park in northern Minnesota.  The small channel has become quite a tourist site, and it has been stabilized with a small dam covered with a row of rocks that lets visitors walk across the 20-foot-wide Mississippi (I’ve done it—it’s fun).  And here begins one of the greatest rivers in the world.

            The Mississippi leaves the lake at 1475 feet above sea level and falls gently—very gently—to the sea below New Orleans.  A drop of water leaving Lake Itasca takes about three months to hit the ocean.  And it is a long journey, somewhere above 2,350 miles—different sources report different lengths, with Itasca State Park claiming the longest, at 2,552 miles.  The Missouri River, which is a tributary of the Mississippi, is actually about 100 miles longer.  When the entire length of the Missouri-Mississippi is combined, the river’s 3,710-mile length makes it the fourth longest in the world, behind the Nile, Amazon and Yangtze Rivers.

            The watershed of the Mississippi is just as impressive, covering all or part of 32 states and a sliver of 2 Canadian provinces.  The total area, 1.2 million square miles, includes about 40% of the continental United States.  The river’s two main tributaries are the Missouri, flowing from the West, and the Ohio, flowing from the East.  The Ohio River stretches the definition of a tributary, as it actually carries more water than the Mississippi where the two meet in Cairo, Illinois. 

            The Mississippi has always held a central role in American culture (e.g., the writings of Mark Twain) and commerce.  The US Army Corps of Engineers has built and maintains 29 locks and dams in the upper Mississippi that allows boat and barge traffic from Minneapolis to the ocean.  The Midwestern farmlands of the Mississippi watershed are the nation’s “bread-basket,” and most of the nation’s agricultural exports start there, travel on barges down the river and leave through the Port of New Orleans.  Adds to that exports of petroleum products and other bulk commodities, and the several ports in the New Orleans area together comprise the largest port district in the world.

            The river is subject to frequent floods, as snow-melt from the West and spring rainfall from the East and Midwest swell its discharge.  The largest occurred in 1927, when the river was 80 miles wide in some places.  That flood led to massive interventions by the US Army Corps of Engineers, building levees and other control structures.  Massive flooding followed in 1937, 1973, and as recently as 2019. 

            The river and its watershed are equally important for conservation.  The Mississippi Flyway is the route for 40% of the nation’s migratory waterfowl moving semi-annually between breeding grounds in Canada and wintering grounds in the southern U.S. and Latin America.  One quarter of all freshwater fish species in North America live in the watershed and 560% of all bird species. 

            Of particular importance is the diversity of freshwater mussels.  Most of the 39 species live in the clear upper waters of the Mississippi.  For about 40 years bracketing the start of the 20^th Century, the shells of these mussels were heavily exploited to make buttons, an industry ended when plastic buttons took over.  Today, commercial mussel harvest is prohibited to protect the dwindling populations of the animals, which have also been impacted by dams, sedimentation and pollution.  Several species are endangered, listed either by the federal or state governments.

            Altogether, the Mississippi River shows us how important and how fickle are the rivers of nature.  As Mark Twain said:

“One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver—not aloud, but to himself—that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at.”

References:

Garth, Gary.  2016.  American beginnings:  The source of the Mississippi River.  USA Today, Nov. 4, 2016.  Available at:  https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2016/11/04/mississippi-river-source-headwaters/93241254/.  Accessed March 23, 2020.

National Park Service.  Mississippi River Facts.  Available at:  https://www.nps.gov/miss/riverfacts.htm. Accessed March 23, 2020.

National Weather Service.  Mississippi River Flood History 1543-Present.  Available at:  https://www.weather.gov/lix/ms_flood_history. Accessed March 23, 2020.

State Historical Society of Missouri.  Henry Row Schoolcraft.  Available at:  https://historicmissourians.shsmo.org/historicmissourians/name/s/schoolcraft/. Accessed March 23, 2020.

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.  Freshwater mussels of the Mississippi River.  Available at:  https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/watersheds/basins/mississippi/mussels.html. Accessed March 23, 2020.

This may be a conservation/environmental event or not, we’ll see.  On July 9, 2018, Starbucks announced that it would eliminate use of plastic straws sometime in 2020.  Where did this hatred of plastic straws come from? And is it important, or just the latest social media feel-good craze?

            Let’s go back to the beginning.  Straws have been around since that beginning.  Many animals use straw-like tools to drink, and early humans used them, too.  But they were all natural—hollow reeds and, duh, straw.  Straw straws fell apart quickly and often made the drink taste like, duh, straw.  So, in the 1880s, Marvin Stone objected to his mint julep tasting like straw and took to his work bench.  He spiraled paper around a pencil, glued it into place and coated it with wax—and the proper paper straw was invented.  Straws didn’t advance much until after World War 2, when all sorts of technology passed from wartime to peacetime uses.  And, abracadabra, we got plastic straws.

            Which brings us to 2011, when 9-year-old Milo Cress observed some disturbing straw-behavior.  He noticed that when drinks were served at restaurants with straws in them, some people took the straws out, never using them.  It seemed a waste to him, so he started a campaign, “Be Straw Free.”  But when he couldn’t find any data on straw use, Cress went on the hunt.  He asked straw manufacturers to guess, and, as he said, he chose “an estimate of around 500 million straws [per day].  That was the number I stuck to, because it seemed to be around the middle of what they were saying.”

            And what usage do the anti-straw people quote?  Yep, 500 million.  Milo Cress’s estimate, or guesstimate, or SWAG, or whatever.  I found only one other estimate, that Americans use about 1.6 straws per person per day, But that is so disturbingly close to dividing 500 million by the U.S. population that I think it’s the same number.  Whether it is 500 million or just 100 million, we can safely conclude that Americans use a lot of plastic straws every day.

            The next question, then, is how bad is this straw use and do we need to take to the streets to stop it?  Plastic straws are made from recyclable plastic, but, apparently, straws are so small and light that they slip through the cracks (literally) at recycling plants and generally end up in the garbage.  And, like the rest of garbage, some plastic straws end up washing downstream and into the ocean, where the concern lies.  Plastic garbage in the ocean and on shorelines is a major problem, and it includes lots of straws.  One estimate stated that 7.5 million plastic straws were found along U.S. shorelines over a five-year period.  If Americans use 500 million straws per day, that means that 1 straw out of every 120,000 finds its way to the shoreline.

            Of course that calculation is as dubious as the 500 million number, but I think it illustrates what the anti-straw campaign is really about:  Awareness. Even devoted anti-strawers admit that.  The campaign to stop using plastic straws is important only as a symbol, a rallying cry against thoughtless consumerism.  The goal is to make people aware that single-use plastic is trouble—we use lots of it, most gets thrown away, it lasts for a long time in the environment, and it can have nasty impacts on wildlife.

            Did Starbucks do right by taking this stand?  Hard to say.  The company is replacing straws with a plastic lid that actually uses more plastic than the straws, but can be more easily recycled (provided it makes it to a recycling bin).  Of course, if you just made a cup at home and carried it in your reusable ceramic mug made by a local potter…

References:

Caron, Christina.  2018.  Starbucks to Stop Using Disposable Plastic Straws by 2020.  The New York Times, July 9, 2018.  Available at:  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/business/starbucks-plastic-straws.html. Accessed March 21, 2020.

Connor, Alex.  2018.  That anti-straw movement?  It’s all based on one 9-year-9ld’s suspect statistic.  USA Today, Jul 18, 2018.  Available at:  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/18/anti-straw-movement-based-unverified-statistic-500-million-day/750563002/.  Accessed March 21, 2020.

Our Last Straw.  Facts & Figures.  Available at:  https://www.ourlaststraw.org/facts-figures. Accessed March 21, 2020.

Rude, Evelyn.  2018.  The Backlash Against Plastic Straws Is Spreading.  Here’s How They Got So Popular in the First Place.  Time, July 12, 2018.  Available at:  https://time.com/5336242/plastic-straws-history/. Accessed March 21, 2020.

Wilson, Stiv.  2018.  The Plastic Straw, Starbucks and a Movement at a Crossroads.  The Story of Stuff, July 13, 2018.  Available at:  https://www.storyofstuff.org/blog/the-plastic-straw-starbucks-and-a-movement-at-a-crossroads/. Accessed March 21, 2020.

            On July 10, 1985, two bombs placed on the hull of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior exploded, sinking the ship and killing two crew members. 

            The Rainbow Warrior was Greenpeace’s primary oceanic protest boat.  It was in harbor at Auckland, New Zealand, preparing for a voyage to interfere with planned nuclear tests by the French government at a nearby atoll.  Two spies from the French secret service placed the bombs, one near the propeller and another against the engine room wall. 

            Just before midnight, crew members reported:  “Suddenly, the lights go out.  There’s the sharp crack of breaking glass.  Then, a sudden roar of water.”  They thought that they’d been hit by another boat.  Then came a second explosion.  Within minutes, the boat listed, water filling the hull.

            The French government at first denied their involvement, but soon admitted that their secret agents had placed the bombs.  Reaction in New Zealand was intense and drove bad relationships between the two countries for years.  Eventually the United Nations was enlisted for arbitration that led to a French apology and compensation to New Zealand.  The secret agents were arrested and tried—and imprisoned for a mockingly brief two years each.

            The original Rainbow Warrior began its work for Greenpeace in 1978.  Before then, it had been a fishery research vessel for the UK Government.  Its first voyage for Greenpeace was to Iceland to protest commercial whaling.  Later it moved to the Pacific Ocean to campaign against nuclear testing.  The ship was named after a Native American saying that in a mistreated world “… people will rise up like Warriors of the Rainbow….”  And, indeed, the Rainbow Warrior rose again.  A second ship, Rainbow Warrior II, entered Greenpeace service in 1989, leading campaigns against nuclear testing, whaling, inhumane fishing, climate change and other environmental issues.  It was retired after 22 years, in 2011.

            That fall, a new Rainbow Warrior III entered service for Greenpeace.  The new ship was built purposefully as a protest campaign vessel.  It is nearly 200 feet long and can carry up to 30 crew members.  Storage space is available for 8 tons of scientific equipment for research work.  It is as fast as the commercial vessels it confronts; can launch small boats in high waves; has a helicopter pad for aerial surveillance; and has state-of-the-art communications systems.  As well as being mean, it is green.  It is powered largely by the wind (5 massive sails on an A-frame mast system), sports energy efficient hull and engines, and disposes no waste into the water.

References: 

Greenpeace.  The Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior.  Available at:  http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/history/the-bombing-of-the-rainbow-war/.  Accessed July 24, 2017.

New Zealand History.  Sinking the Rainbow Warrior.  New Zealand History, New Zealand Government.  Available at:  https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/nuclear-free-new-zealand/rainbow-warrior. Accessed Jluly 24, 2017.