A Spork in the Road

I walked to some friends’ house last night around 7:30pm. It was cool. The moon was one night short of full and glinted off the silhouettes of palm trees. As I walked, I could feel the living organism of the town around me, breathing and metabolizing. I felt like a cell wandering down an artery, and it was a gift to have even a glimpse of my connection to the greater organism.

The town around me. The region around the town. And out and out to the entire planet and its interlocking ecosystems. The magnificent body of the Earth.

I have cancer, I thought. And I am cancer. Humanity has become a cancer to the body of our planet, and we’re beginning to metastasize. Is it possible for cancer to decide to change its nature, to stop reproducing madly and corrupting its host? I guess we’ll find out over the coming decades.

The oyster population in the Chesapeake today stands at just 1% of its pre-1980 levels.
“Gem of the Ocean” – The Economist

Considering how integral oysters are to cleaning up the water, this is not good, as any Chesapeake aficionado knows. And oysters aren’t faring much better elsewhere; I’ve seen estimates that the current total oyster population is somewhere around 10% of pristine levels.

As in 90% gone.

The Environmental Defense Fund has a convenient seafood selector to help make eco-conscious seafood choices.

Do you think this would be a more effective ecological rallying cry: Don’t be cancer!

Hm. Maybe not.