Last weekend, I floated down the Green River, from Little Hole to the mouth of Little Swallow Canyon, with the BLM and various other state and federal agencies on a Bio-Blitz. There were two reasons for the trip: to eradicate teasel, and to map populations of Ute Ladies’-Tresses.

Teasel is an invasive species, introduced to North America from Europe as early as the 1700s. The plants are rather attractive in a prickly way, and are sometimes used in flower bouquets. The stems were previously used in fabric production, the thorns being used to raise a nap on wool. A single plant can produce over 2,000 seeds with up to 80% viability, so the plants quickly overwhelm other species, creating a monoculture. There are still relatively few of the plants along the Green River. An attempt is being made to remove them before they become a serious problem. Mostly, we removed the flower-heads from the plants so that they could not produce seeds. Some of the younger plants were dug out and pulled. There are plans to continue removing seed-heads, and a possibility of spraying the plants.

The Ute Ladies’-Tress is a native orchid. As a threatened species, attempts are being made to determine the full size of its population and range. It is not an especially showy flower, particularly when compared to other orchids. They blend easily into the grasses and sedges around them. However, like most things, these flowers reward closer inspection. Rooted in sodden, sometimes submerged soil on the edge of the river, the plants we charted had a spike of white, waxy flowers, rarely over six inches tall. The shape of the flowers reminded me of dragon heads on Viking ships.

Many of the people I worked with were botanists. They told me the stretch of river we were working on was in relatively good shape, considering all that had happened there. Flaming Gorge Dam altered the flow of the river and amount of silt in the water from 1958 through the present. This adversely affected the Cottonwoods, who do not reproduce as well as they once did. Tamarisk, Teasel, Russian Olive, Phragmites Bull Thistle and a non-native vetch are common, but still controllable. On the other-hand there are also healthy numbers of Buffalo Berry, American Licorice, and willows. Along the portion we floated, there was only a short stretch of private property that was overgrazed. All that grew there were Tamarisks

One of the biologists mentioned that it is sometimes nice to go places that are completely unknown to him, so that he can look at the landscape and see the beauty of the place, instead of the number of invasive, non-native weeds.

While on the trip I saw many Prong-horn, Mule Deer, Ravens, Turkey Vultures, Mergansers, Leopard Frogs, Horned Larks and Gray Jays. Also I saw Osprey, a Golden Eagle, a Coyote, Canadian Geese, Sand-hill Cranes, big Rainbow and Brown Trout swimming beneath our raft through the clear water, and a Great Blue Heron who I startled on the edge of the river in the dark. Other members of the trip saw a family of seven river otters.

The Nearer Your Destination

The Need for Science, by Katharine Coles

—for Chris, on the anniversary of moving into our house, August 14, 1989-1994

1. Invisible Weight

[I]f appearance and essence were the same thing, there would be no need for science. —Michio Kaku

Or microscopes, telescopes, steam machines
for stripping wallpaper—remember
that bathroom, navy blooming with pink

irises the size of my head?—poetry, news
analysts, physicians, the FBI, dating
services. The perfect match, we meant

ourselves for each other, at first sight
(allowing for the collapse

of what seems no time), so made
ourselves, over,
took

each other's measure, lip-to-lip,
did not count seconds speeding up

our heartbeats, washing
over our bodies—the past emptying

out the future's rush and roar
dimmed by the sound of our breathing, the hum
of his old air conditioner, heaved

down one set of stairs, up another. Every touch
left its smudge, its slow, cumulative,
invisible weight.
We'd had to wait

an age for each other. And we had
what still looked like forever.

2. Visible Weight

By simple rotation, we can interchange any of the three spatial dimensions. Now, if time is the fourth dimension, then it is possible to make "rotations" that convert space into time and vice-versa. —Michio Kaku

If I could turn a Kenmore washer into time
I could rotate it through this door
elaborated by a Victorian mind

that wouldn't have conceived it. Or
that I would want it, a hundred-

some years down the line. I have
misread again, willfully,

not only science, but history—
it is so hot, and the machine

so unwieldy in its space,
who could blame me for reducing theory
to mere machine?
The physicists,

clucking collective tongues
recisely measured. Their voices

take just so much space in my mind.
Call it x. In time,
they'll shrink to nothing, small matter

converted into energy I could use, now,
resting my back against dusty woodwork,

while this physicist watches over his glasses.
All before we married. He considers

matters of space and time,
machine
versus merely human mind. Counts
complications. The move, the wedding: all

sooner undertaken, sooner finished.
Since then, we've learned a thing or two,
have buried friends we held,

a mother who held us. We recover
nothing: holding each other, we hold

each other's absence. We are turning
into the past. In retrospect,
I would prefer to take my time.

3. Anniversary

Newton, writing 300 years ago, thought that time beat at the same rate everywhere in the universe…. However, according to special relativity, time can beat at different rates, depending on how fast one is moving. —Michio Kaku

Another finished orbit. Recollections
past, or passing, by the time we mark

a heartbeat, a line—anniversary
and universe both contain that turn,
the rhythm we walk. Long

days rush us through
the universe, the universe
through us: another year, or the nightly throb, his pulse

against my pulse, starlight's insouciant wave
rippling the screen. The blind

flaps in arid wind, the heatwave
we confuse with
five years back, summer

beating down two years before,
repeating
a house-of-mirrors' endless trick
reflections. Hell, it's only time. The day we fell

it must have seemed to him I stood still,
my hand resting on a book, composing

my response; but my mind moved
so fast he'd have seen its blueshift
if it were a star, he a star gazer watching

space collapse between us. It must
have seemed to him, but I don't know.
We move through different spaces, different times,

the same space and time differently—
I love the distances, roughnesses,

rotations, odd warps and woofs
we travel to touch each other.
On my birthday
two years after we met we moved in here;

in between, a love at first sight
took two years to ripen

then was there. It is my birthday today.
How long has it been? we ask each other. Yesterday,
forever. The bathroom's eggshell walls

needing paint again, a couch gone dingy, paired
chairs we sit on, staring
into space: all collapse, give

way to mystery. I still love,
over time, even the damage
time has done to him, though, minute-

by-murderous-minute, he looks the same;
though we move so fast
we only seem to have stood still.

Don't I Know You From the Cinematographer's Party?

Last night I coined a new aphorism: "If you can make a donut, you can make a cat."

This is not the point. The point, of course, is to talk here about the greatest and most famous of all aphorisms: "Know thyself."

Actually, no. Strike that. The point is to talk about the aphorism untold, but nevertheless present, in the previously mentioned ancient saying. What I'm trying to get at:

"Know thy place."

To ask: "Where am I?" seems to me to be more or less asking: "Who am I?" By which I mean to say that one of the ways we conceive ourselves, one of the ways that we create and then understand our identity is to know where we come from, or where we live--both the social and natural community which we are a part of.

But how? How do we know where we are? Know a place with the intimacy that will make us care about it? Or care about what it says about our own identity?

Perhaps it is an issue of seeing. Thich Nat Hahn writes: "When reality is experience in its nature of ultimate perfection, an almond tree that may be in your front yard reveals its nature in perfect wholeness. The almond tree is itself truth, reality, your own self. Of all the people who have passed by your yard, how many have really seen the almond tree? The heart of an artist may be more sensitive; hopefully he or she will be able to see the tree in a deeper way than many others. Because of a more open heart, a certain communion already exists between the artist and the tree. What counts is your own heart."

Annie Dillard after failing to draw a horse: "The point is that I just don't know what the lover knows; I just can't see the artificial obvious that those in the know construct."

So is knowing a place--seeing it--an issue of love? Must I become infatuated, falling head over heels for a place before really being able to recognize it, before being able to understand its inner qualities? And then will I know myself?

But love--true love--must of course come from true seeing. I can't fall in love with New York by watching all the movies that are set there (though probably actually filmed in a place like Winnipeg, Manitoba), can I? I've got to know what I know, not the artificial product of a secondary-source. (Though I will allow that these secondary sources can lead a person to a more authentic investigation.)

In the end, I think that to know a place you must occupy it--and only the devoted (the lover) will acheive occupancy. Only the lover will commit herself so entirely as to be able to see a place in its real self--and in turn to see herself more clearly in relation to that place.

By Andy, age 25

New Beginnings.

This past week has marked a very important event for the Environmental Humanities program. Almost twenty new graduate students have embarked on the beginnings of their journeys through the program. With that in mind, many thoughts are stirred, inspired by both the conversations that we've had and by the readings that we are all enjoying.

One pressing question that was asked of us was, "is there really any wilderness left?" As an eternal optimist, I was inclined to respond in the affirmative. 'Absolutely', I thought, 'there simply has to be wilderness left in our world. If there isn't, why am I bothering with this program?'

To understand if wilderness really exists in the world, we need to define wilderness. Most conventional dictionaries define wilderness as "a wild and uninhabited area left in its natural condition". It is also defined as an "unsettled, uncultivated region left it ins natural condition" or "an extensive area, such as a desert or ocean, that is barren or empty". Finally, it is defined as "something characterized by bewildering vastness, perilousness, or unchecked profusion".

Those definitions are loaded with paradoxes. The first definition seems pretty straight-forward, yielding an understanding of wilderness to be some kind of natural area that humans have not altered. By that definition, I am inclined to believe that wilderness still exists. However, if you consider the 'natural condition' of a place, it is more difficult to believe that wilderness exists. Alien species have conquered the world over, but I am not sure if there are still places in the world in which local ecosystems have not been inundated by even one alien species. I'd like to think that these places exist, maybe somewhere in New Guinea or on an nondescript island in the Pacific.

Another consideration is global warming. In 1870, the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas in the atmosphere was about 290 parts per million (ppm) and the mean global temperature was about 13.6 degrees Celsius, or about 56.5 degrees Fahrenheit. In 2009, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere measures about 385 ppm (about a seventy percent increase) and the mean global temperature hovers around 14.5 degrees Celsius, or about 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Thus, every place in the world, however wild, has been affected by humans. The flora of the world absorbs CO2, so undoubtedly, there have been chemical changes in plants that were directly caused by humans. So, apparently, there is no wilderness left; there is no place on the world that has not been affected by humans.

The third definition, likening the wilderness to something that is barren or empty, can more or less be considered as an ill-informed definition that was designed by someone who has never been to the desert or swam in the ocean. Clearly, the desert and the ocean are not barren or empty. Cyanobacteria covers the soil of many deserts, and tiny critters (some too small for us to see with the naked eye) roam through both the desert and the ocean. In the ocean, plankton and bacteria float throughout the water column, hovering in suspense with the likes of larvae and nematodes. To anyone with a brain, the desert and the ocean are clearly not barren or empty.

The final definition provided above characterizes wilderness as something of "bewildering vastness, perilousness, or unchecked profusion". By this definition, wilderness is definitely still very much present. Bewildering vastness can be seen in many places, from the Arctic to the Sahara, and everywhere inbetween. Luckily, vast areas exist that continue to bewilder us. Indeed, wilderness exists in the sense of peril, as humans still lose their lives in the wild, whether it's by a tiger, a shark, an unlucky fall, or by climate conditions that exceed our tolerance range. Finally, unchecked profusion remains, at least, for now. There are still parts of the world that are not managed, and abundant life remains. These places are dwindling, but they do, indeed, exist.

After considering numerous definitions of wilderness and contemplating whether or not it still exists, I remain the eternal optimist. For us in the Environmental Humanities program, it is essential that it exists. I thrive on the wild; I am most at home when nestled up to a warm red rock at the end of the day, or swimming next to a sea turtle. That is my home, in the wilderness. It exists very much in my mind, in my experiences, in my desires, in my dreams, and in my future career.

The key is to embrace the wilderness. It needs to be appreciated. It needs to be explored (carefully). After all, the theme for our Tertulia class is "wild". So, we students of the program, let us embrace both our inner wild and the wilderness. Let us thrive on the wonders of the wilderness.

Written by Lindsy Floyd.

Internship Opportunity

Here is some more information about the internship available with Salt Lake City's Division of Sustainability:

IMMEDIATE POSITION – Education and Enforcement Specialist

Works primarily with the Recycling Program Manager and Outreach Coordinator identifying barriers to recycling in the community. Educates residents about the city's recycling program and what is recyclable. Specialist will engage residents at home and at special events. Saturday availability is required for assistance in outreach at events and farmer's markets. Multidisciplinary position with opportunities to assist with projects relative to climate change, sustainable transportation, food security, waste reduction, open space and energy. Strong communication skills required.
Please send resumes and cover letters to Bridget.Stuchly@slcgov.com

I hope to be working with one of you soon!

-Jack

U Car Share

Hello everyone,

U Car Share began operation in Salt Lake City today. Check out their website www.ucarshare.com for more info. If it sounds like something you would like to participate in, they are waiving the $25 signup fee for a short period if you use promotion code: SLCSHARE.

Enjoy!

-Jack

Environmental Humanities and Summer Times

Thoughts on a Summer in Our Environment:

In a few weeks the school bell will ring and I will be back in the hallowed halls of graduate school. I have mixed emotions about this upcoming adventure. After a year in the Environmental Humanities program I have an idea of what to expect and have a refined perspective on the world that I am surrounded by, which leads me to my short rant.

This summer saw me through the rapids of Cataract Canyon, chocolate drops of the Maze District, environmental education at Rowland Hall, and the north woods of Minnesota. These divergent places are connected through my experience. Experience that opened my mind and now offer memories to draw upon this semester.
Cataract Canyon: Thoughts of the moon glow over the Colorado River while we camped at Brown Betty come to mind. The brownish flood stage waters turned silverywhite as they slipped over the submerged boulders. The torrent that is illuminated in the day is tempered by the light of the moon in the night.
Maze District: The complete and utter desolation of a place that is still real, unpaved, and unpasteurized.
Environmental Education: Being continually reminded of the fascination that children have for their natural world. These days included delays as a rolly polly crosses the path of small feet, snail races on park signs, and the faith in a planted seed.
Northern Minnesota: A place where eagles abound, lakes are clear and natural, and the stars still shine.



It was/is an amazing summer and I wish she would stay for a few more short months. Do you care to share any summer stories? What about feelings toward the beginning of a new semester?