Vacation Post #3: Eco-Diatribe

I’m not one to think that ‘Global Warming’ is 100% man-made. I actually think that we are experiencing natural cycles, terrestrial and solar. That doesn’t absolve humanity from taking responsibility for polluting the Earth, it is just a statement of belief. I know that mankind pollutes every environment possible, but I am not so vain or arrogant to believe that we are more powerful that Mother Earth, Gaia, herself. I believe that Gaia can correct, in time, whatever abuse we dish out. In many ways, the Earth itself acts as an That correction may involve oxidation or crustal subduction, but given enough time, that Gaia will repair herself and erase our very existence if need be. Even if we blow ourselves up and blow the Earth apart, She will reassemble the fragments and life will reseed the planet. Extremophilic bacteria are everywhere, even in the magma of volcanoes and in the irradiated upper atmosphere, and they will begin diversification. Life will continue, it is a Force-an Energy, but it may not be recognizable or intelligent as such. For Earth, that might even be a good thing. It probably happened in the past. If so, the Earth that existed before a Mars sized body impacted and carved out the Moon did not resemble the Earth of today. We are complex beings, but you could say that we are the embodiment of bacterial diversification and have infected the planet. Whether or not we are a beneficial, benign, or destructive bacteria, we can not know. Whether we are an accident of evolution or have been molded via Intelligent design, we can not know. But I digress….

While on vacation, we visited Hunting Island in South Carolina. It is a state park, located between Edisto and Hilton Head. Native Americans once used the island for hunting, hence the name. It is several miles long and has a lagoon that runs about a third of the island's length. It is beautiful. Like many state parks, there are rental cabins, and on Hunting Island, some of these cabins were near the beach. Were. They are gone. In recent years, there has been so much coastal erosion that the cabins were washed away. If you look closely at the pictures, you can see not only the remains of palms and 250 year old live oak trees, but also the concrete corner of an old septic tank-the remains of a cabin. All in all, this only proves that the ocean is changing the face of a barrier island, which is a normal part of island evolution, but it sure gives one pause to think about how we continue to view our changing planet in a snapshot mode and how appropriately powerless we are to subdue the power of the ocean, the power of Mother Earth. Instead of working in concert with her ebb and flow of energy, we continue to selfishly think only of our own pleasure-we continue to take and try to stop natural Earth changes without thought of the future. The Hunting Island Lighthouse has been moved once, and it may need to be moved again. Without human intervention to restore jetties, install groins and reclaim beaches for recreation, many would have already disappeared and or would have been recreated elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to retreat to the mainland and allow the barrier islands to do their jobs unabated? We often forget that hurricanes and storms are beneficial to the planet as a whole, distributing the heat of the tropics to the temperate regions. If we try to change these processes, then we are ultimately creating our own demise. Humans just need to live more in sync with Nature and stop trying to control it. Click on the pictures to see details. The septic tank is visible in the last picture, and the first image is of the almost tropical lagoon. All of the erosion pictures were taken at low tide. At high tide, the waves would have practically lapped my feet as I stood just above the high tide line.