Sigh of Relief from Copenhagen?

What did the heads of state, heads of government, ministers, and other heads of national delegations agree upon at the Copenhagen Accord? The news pundits report disappointment with the Copenhagen Accord, but when I read it, I see a hopeful turning toward the reduction of greenhouse gas concentration in our atmosphere. The representatives present at the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen, agreed to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” They acknowledged that the increase in global temperature because of accumulation of gases should be below 2 degrees Celsius. The delegations also agreed to “enhance our long-term cooperative action to combat climate change.” I realize that the delegates now face the challenge of going home to communicate these goals to their nations’ leaders. The developing nations face many obstacles because they understand industrialization to be the key to development so they can emerge as a competitive force in the world. They are very vulnerable to military coups, dictatorial leadership, and war. The Copenhagen Accord addresses this issue and proposes funding programs “aimed at reducing vulnerability and building resilience in developing countries, especially in those that are particularly vulnerable, especially least developed countries, small island developing States and Africa.” If we work together toward these goals, we will not be disappointed and the whole earth will breathe a sigh of relief.

Ban the Bulldozer and Urban Sprawl

I remember how angered I was at age twelve when contractors bulldozed my favorite pastures and woods and filled in the ponds, preparing the land for a large housing development. I personally experienced how urban sprawl resulted in loss of habitat for many animals and I have noted particularly the decrease in reptile and amphibian populations around my childhood home in Topeka. Aldo Leopold raised national awareness of the abusive patterns of land use in his famous book, A Sand County Almanac (1949). He observed that land abuse and the subsequent destruction of natural environs for all forms of life is the result of humans understanding land as a commodity. His famous quote reveals the need for an ecological worldview: “When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.”[1]

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[1] Rome catalogues the numerous times government documents on land use policy quote Leopold. Note 41, Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside: Suburban Sprawl and the Rise of American Environmentalism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 241-242.

Where the Deer and Antelope Roam

Our Kansas State song cites this line, but I have seen few antelope in north-central Kansas where those lines were pinned. Instead, I find pronghorn antelope in far western counties of Kansas where there is a greater expanse of land for them to roam. Antelope, prairie chickens, black-footed ferrets and other prairie wildlife have been pushed out of their original ranges as human civilization with its agricultural practices claim the prairie. I am concerned that discontinuance of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) will soon force more native wildlife from our prairies. The CRP program paid farmers to establish long-term, resource conserving covers on eligible farmland. CRP land proved to be a great environment for many prairie plants and animals. Now that the program is being discontinued, land-owners will be tempted to get a return on the previous CRP land by cultivating it. Once again the native creatures will have to struggle for a place to live and room to move.