This morning I glanced out the window to see a titmouse sitting in the little plastic feeder that is suctioned to the glass.  I watched the bird grab a sunflower seed and pirate it away to a nearby tree branch.  Just a moment later, the titmouse’s feeding spot was occupied by a chickadee.  It too darted quickly off, soon to be replaced by a nuthatch, then a junco.  It was as if the birds had lined up, each taking its turn for morning snacks.  And in the process, I got to enjoy a little parade of the different birds that animate our winter woods.

     As I watched with delight, tears sprang to my eyes.    For intruding on my pleasure almost immediately was the thought that all this beauty, the wondrously intricate workings of nature that took millions of years to evolve, could be snuffed out.   

     This sad thought had been stimulated by a book that is constantly at the edge of my consciousness these days.  The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, is a dark and beautiful story about a father and son struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.  It is a charred world devoid of almost all life.  Immersing myself in this vision of the future has awakened an intensified love and gratitude for the magnificence of nature that is all around me, that has always been here.   

     What would it be like, this book has caused me to ask, to live entirely without beauty, to see no living green leaf or blade of grass, to live on a mostly dead planet that my kind had destroyed?

     I used to work in the arms control movement in Washington, DC, and the prospect of a nuclear war felt real.  I knew that all of nature could be destroyed forever.  I am now much less worried about the possibility of an all-out nuclear war (although it is worrisome that so many nations are members of the nuclear ‘club’).

     The threat of a nuclear holocaust has been largely replaced, I believe, by climate change, a global emergency that is already well underway.  We have yet to stop increasing our carbon emissions so that we can begin to reduce the dangerous warming trend.  I was disappointed to read yesterday that global warming ranks last among 20 issues that Americans say should be their elected leaders’ top concern.  The economy, terrorism, energy, and immigration all ranked higher, the Pew Research Center reported.

     I notice that, paradoxically, my love for the natural world seems to be heightened by the fact that we humans are damaging the ecological balance, cutting short the lives of many species.  Knowing that populations of the common birds I dearly love are in steep decline makes me cherish the little fellows all the more.  Knowing that bears are threatened by a warming climate and by encroachments on their habitat makes me sigh with relief when I hear a forest ranger say that the bears in the nearby George Washington National Forest are ‘doing fantastic.’

     Of course, as individuals, we are all temporary.  And I have often felt that my own temporariness deepens my appreciation for all that I love–nature, family, friends.  After all, my time to enjoy them is limited.  If I were going to live forever, I doubt I would appreciate all that I love nearly so much.  The ephemeral nature of life is what makes it all so precious.

     But what I can’t accept is for the incredible web of life on this planet to be rendered temporary by our human actions.–April Moore     

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 7th, 2009 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Celebrating our beautiful Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.