Devolution

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

            This past weekend, my brother and took a trip to the family cabin in order to take in the pier, an autumn ritual. It’s a long ride to get up there, just under a four-hour trek, but the fall colors were just reaching their peak, so it was very scenic, although not as breath-taking as it used to be.

            My father bought the cabin back in the sixties, when we were children. I vividly remember the family driving up there through towns that grew smaller and trees that grew thicker as we got farther north. Stevens Point, Wausau, Tomahawk, Fremont, and Rhinelander were all milestones in our yearly trek. The final leg of our journey, on Highway 51 in Oneida County, wound its way through densely forested areas of white pine, maple, oak, hemlock, birch, and more. In places, the old trees would nearly block out the summer sun. 

            Over the years, the forests—at least what I can see of them from the road—have become increasingly sparse, thinned out by logging and development. Much of the old growth that I remember from my childhood, the secret places underneath groves of gigantic white pines, places where animals and spirits of the forest lived, places that swallowed sound, places that spooked me if I went there by myself—are mostly gone now. There are still trees, sure, but not the old wise denizens of my youth. Those have been harvested and are probably now IKEA shelving units and the paper instructions that accompany them. 

            There are more buildings lining Highway 51 now; convenience stores, gas stations, storage centers, fast food restaurants, marine dealerships, bowling alleys, remodeling centers, and even a waterpark. The trees have given way to a new sort of forest, an ugly collection of pre-fab aluminum and particleboard shacks. This urban Northwoods sprawl has been spreading relentlessly for as long as I can remember and shows no signs—even in this age of environmental awareness—of abating. 

            This is progress—the relentless march of commerce and industry, but, luckily, for us in Wisconsin (except in our very recent history) this expansion has been regulated. Our Department of Natural Resources is responsible for instituting and implementing comprehensive programs of forest management and resource renewal. But progress is relentless. 

            I am lucky enough to have experienced the evolution—or devolution—of the Northwood habitat on a very personal level. I came of age on—and in—the lake, and exploring the nearby woods. I grew to know the wildlife, the birds, and the insects; I’ve seen old growth forests dwindle, species—like the American bullfrog—disappear, fish populations come and go, and the lake itself slowly start to age. 

            Not all the changes in this sylvan world are bad; we now have largemouth as well as smallmouth bass in our lake. Somehow, they made their way in. Bluegills are back. Bald eagles nest on our lake or on nearby bodies of water; you can often see them flying overhead in the afternoon, gliding magnificently across the horizon. Ecosystems evolve. 

            On the local, personal level, I have seen the ecosystem change, and I have seen progress march on; I acknowledge the need for progress, but what I fail to grasp is the wholesale and pernicious greed that is destroying our planet, locality by locality. Over 7,200 square miles of rainforest in Brazil, an area roughly the size of New Jersey, has been burned down in order make way for grazing, logging, and agriculture. 

            Thousands of animals have perished or lost their habitat in the rainforest fires, many of them species that exist only in that specific ecosystem. On a global scale, the destruction of this forest will reduce the planet’s capability to absorb carbon dioxide and end up releasing metric tons of carbon stored within the incinerated trees. This is progress ramped up to an intolerable degree. 

            We are at a tipping point. Millions of people, worldwide, recognize this and are demanding an immediate response to our climate crisis. The Global Climate Strike, which took place in 4,500 locations across 15 countries, attracted over 4 million protestors. Most world nations, and many private corporations, recognize the danger to our planet, and are beginning to respond. Other backward-looking nations, like the United States, have refused to acknowledge the Paris Agreement. 

            House Representative Tip O’Neill once said, “All politics is local.” If this is true, perhaps an effective way to motivate our citizens is to make them realize that irresponsible destruction of the environment is as close as our own backyards. This is not a hurricane in a distant land or an earthquake somewhere in Tibet; this is here and this is now. 

            Perhaps we—as a community—need to reacquaint ourselves with the natural world, to see, as I was able to, the physical and metaphysical losses incurred when our environment is assaulted. When the robins don’t return, when the Monarch butterflies no longer come north, when the oceans are fished out, or when the bees are dead and the crops don’t bear, when the sky is no longer blue, then the climate crisis will become local. Then it will become important.

            We just can’t afford to wait that long.