Harmony with nature was the in-thing a few decades ago. In the meantime the flower-power generation of the 1960s has grown up and is ready to retire. Coincidental or not, the touted harmony with nature is no longer exactly as told.
In the City
In the cities around the continent, disease-carrying insects and rodents propagate out of control. Especially in the inner cities “harmony with nature” translates into bed bugs and fleas. They are a common part of the “natural” curriculum in inner-city schools, just ask a public school teacher there. In the backyards of people composting food wastes, as per city ordinances, rats, opossums, racoons and other carrion feeders are taking over. The small areas of neat front lawns formerly found at nearly every house are now patches of weeds you didn’t know existed a few years earlier. Effective insecticides and weed control agents have long been banned by the good city bureaucrats.
Garbage collection, formerly one truck for everything disposed of, has given way to two or three trucks, each collecting different stuff. Provided you sorted and stored your refuse correctly for a while. Otherwise you get a notice from the “garbage police” reminding you – checkbox this and checkbox that – that you failed again in your civic duties. Of course, the “green” promise was that all that sorting, storing, collecting, storing again and (possible) recycling would be very profitable. It would save you, i.e. the taxpayer, landfill costs, save the environment, and so on.
As to the vermin and spreading diseases, the city bureaucrats have no idea how that came about. Must have to do with “global warming” or the “carbon footprint” from the few remaining manufacturing industries or so; their new abundance could not possibly be a result of their own stupid regulations. Obviously, more control is needed.
If we only do away with coal-fired power plants and just “live off the grid” (in energy terms), all will be well. This idea coincides with the quest to ban Edison’s light bulbs and other superfluous electricity-consuming items, such as fridges, stoves, and microwave ovens. The same mindset thinks that we could just as well live on a few kernels of grain – don’t need refrigeration anymore. Milk and cheese are bad for lactose intolerant people anyway – don’t want any of that. Meat and sausages are eaten only by the affluent (“one percent”) of the population - can dispense with that. Farmed fish are unhealthy because of some antibiotics commonly added to their food – no good either; etc., etc.
In the Country
In the countryside things are different – perhaps worse. Even in the remote area we spend a few weeks each summer, the local garbage “transfer station” has strict guidelines as to what can and cannot be disposed of, where, when, and in which manner.
That transfer station now sports a total of eight large containers for different materials. The annual pamphlet to rate payers describes our civic duties in detail. Used Kleenex’s go into the compost bin, cartons over there, scrap lumber here, metal there. Any un-recyclables are highly suspect. They must be in clear garbage bags. Oh, and don’t forget to bring your rate payers garbage-transfer-site-entitlement-card along, otherwise you may be out of luck disposing of your used Kleenexes. Roofing shingles and other normal home maintenance waste is no longer acceptable at all; it must be taken to another site some 15 miles away.
Not long ago, that site was fenced in by a high voltage-electric fence to keep the local bears from “dumpster-diving.” Well, times have changed. Now that site has big padlock on the front with supporting signs warning off anyone who may harbour a thought of illegal garbage disposal during days/hours the site is not staffed. As to bears, obviously they can read and know that the electronic fence is no longer functioning. In other words, the site is now designed to keep the people out and the bears happy.
Harmony with Nature
Harmony with nature was the core message of the environmental movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. The World Wildlife Fund and countless similar minded organizations still keep drumming that theme. Just pet some cuddly polar bear cubs (even if only on your computer screen) and they will be forever thankful and reward you with nice poses. Your “carbon footprint” is
claimed to cause “climate change” to destroy their home at the North Pole.
Ever since the hay day of the flower generation both the civic ordinances and nature have evolved. Nature has its own interesting way of coping with the challenges. Adaption and evolution are the most critical elements of that. For example, the deer browsing on our flowers and shrubs in the city have learned that humans no longer are of concern. When I am out in the bush (hunting or not), any deer seeing me even hundreds of yards away flee immediately. In this city neighbourhood, the deer casually walk down the middle of the street and look at me from a few yards away as if I were out of place. Moreover, they gladly feed on anything we have ever planted. From the yews to euonymus bushes, day lilies to petunias, they love it all. Sometimes, the current head of the tribe, a nice looking eight-tine buck is mere yards away from my computer, munching on our and the neighbour’s plants.
The skunk wandering through the back yard on its evening rounds does nor even bother to look up to us anymore. In spring it rolls back patches of lawn to dig for various grubs; I hope successfully. But couldn’t it put the lawn back to its rightful place after having its meal? Frankly, it’s not easy to teach the skunk some manners!
Nature’s Ways
If you read the regular notices on “Federal Register Items” as
published by EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, you’ll come across numerous “emergency exemptions” for specific pesticides, crops and areas [2]. There may well be a need for the occasional emergency situation, but the frequency of such needs is rapidly increasing. To me, that shows a lack of availability of “EPA-acceptable” compounds that would routinely control whatever pest or weed needs to be controlled in the farm fields and orchards on the continent, from the outset. For farmers and households alike, the list of approved products just does not seem to do the job. If they did, emergency exemptions would rarely be needed and our lawns would not have turned into crabgrass patches.
The real problem is that nature is not at a standstill, anytime. Bacteria and viruses are constantly evolving to get around any (human) resistance and they are becoming more virulent. Even the bears quickly learn to adapt to any new situation. Any un-occupied ecological niche is quickly discovered and taken advantage of. It may take a few years until the word spreads in nature, but it sure will and then with a vengeance.
Nature has its own ways of interpreting the conceived “harmony”
