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K and I rounded out our August Challenge this past Labor Day Weekend just spending time here and there reading in the park, heading to the beach with friends, and simply thoroughly enjoying the perfect weather the weekend afforded.
If you haven’t read about it already, the August Challenge was a challenge K and I put to ourselves to spend August Saturdays outside in an effort to get out of the climate controlled boxes of the workweek and to experience what is actually happening in the world around us. While our expectations of the challenge were varied, it became clear through writing about the experience that the challenge to get outside led to an exploration of place.
In going to Humbolt Park, a few different stretches of beach along Lake Michigan, and a suburban farm last month, I noticed differences in how people choose to interact with the natural environment of a place. In Humbolt Park, the designers attentively preserved patches of prairie and designed structures to interact with the natural scenery; on the stretch of beach in western Michigan where I was raised, the ecosystem underwent changes despite human interference to stabilize the landscape; in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, industry flanked 15 miles of ‘protected’ lakeshore despite the impact that industry might have on the surrounding environment; and surrounding a suburban farm we visited was a homogenized design and lifestyle that did nothing to take into account how the design/lifestyle would interact with the landscape.
In every action we take, we make a decision about how we will interact with the people and the place around us. We can choose to take nothing into account about our surroundings like the developers swallowing up all types of land for the same purpose, or we can take a thoughtful look at our surroundings and then slowly move with constant reflection of the both the positive and negative impacts of our involvement with our surroundings.
Here’s a brief rundown of some of the environmental news headlines from the past week:
The Bush administration has launched a stealth proposal that, if passed, would strike the participation of knowledgeable and involved biologists from the evaluation of projects that could harm endangered plants and animals: Bush Aims to Relax Endangered Species Rules; Bush Officials Launch Stealth Attach on U.S. Wildlife.
Presidential candidate John McCain is continuing his call for increased offshore drilling; and while democrats in congress have criticized offshore drilling as too narrow an approach to solving the energy crisis, they have begun to falter on this stance and are in discussions about allowing more offshore drilling as one part of the solution: McCain touts drilling agenda from oil platform; House to Rethink Drilling, Pelosi Says; Drill here, drill now, get nothing but an opinion poll point or two.
An invasive snail has recently been found in Lake Michigan, which scientists worry could harm the ecosystem as it rapidly produces and competes with native species for land and food: Worrying invasive snail found in Lake Michigan.
After a media eruption of concerns over the use of BPA in some plastics, the EPA has drafted a controversial report claiming the chemical safe for use in food containers and other household products: FDA Draft Report: No Risk From BPA In Food Containers; FDA Says BPA Is Safe For Babies; FDA says chemical found in plastic bottles is safe.
For our August Challenge this past Saturday, K and I went with some friends to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. While the National Park system has some great-looking programming at the dunes throughout the year, we went for the beach. Much of the drive was through beautiful scenic woods and along a more undeveloped lakeshore than available in the city, making this a great destination for many Chicagoans who want to get away from the crowded city beaches. It was a beautiful day and we weren’t the only one’s taking advantage of the hot beach and refreshing lake.
As we started down to the beach after parking, we saw the beautiful color of the lake and could make out the skyline of Chicago on the far shore. We were surprised, though, as we noticed the huge steel mills directly west on the lakeshore, and then again as we looked to the east and saw steam billowing from a nuclear reactor. The stretch of beach we were on was a protected National Lakeshore, but it seemed that just outside of that protection the industrial world was booming.
A quick Google search revealed that there has been a century-long struggle between the preservation of the Indiana Dunes and the unchecked development of the shoreline. Thirteen of the forty-five miles of lakeshore are currently protected, but what impact might the industry on either side of that thirteen miles have on the greater ecosystem? Might it be possible to make better and more sustainable use of the natural resources that exist on the lakeshore?
My burnt back is testament to the power of the sun in the area, and from the beach I noticed two private residences with windmills to supplement their energy use. If industry and development along the lakeshore were reduced, couldn’t we harness the power of the sun through solar panels and wind-turbines that would have minimal negative impact on the dune ecosystem?
Overall, our day at the beach was wonderful. The water was cool, but not so cold that we couldn’t float at the sandbar and play in the swells that tumbled into the shore. Having lived so close to Lake Michigan for most of my life, I often take for granted time spent on the beach. This weekend reminded me, though, that while I might sometimes overlook the restfulness that the lake can offer, it’s important to never disregard the impact of how we choose to be a part of any ecosystem.
Per K and my August Challenge we spent some time again this past Saturday enjoying the outdoors. We were in Muskegon for the weekend so our outdoors time was a bit short to accommodate for time spent with family, but we did head down to the beach to inhabit a different ecosystem than the Chicago prairie.
I grew up on Lake Michigan, exploring the beach and water each summer with my sisters and friends. Since I can rememer, though, our beach has changed many times with the significant rise and fall of the water-level. The first beach I remember is one with “sea walls” that were installed by the previous property owners as an attempt to keep the water from pulling sand out into the lake to curb the erosion of the bluff. These proved futile over the years as the water-level rose beyond them and at one point eroded the bluff to the extent that a new set of stairs had to be built because the old set had fallen into the lake during a storm. The rise of the water and the constant erosion threatened to topple the house into the lake as well for a few years, until over the next summers the water-level rapidly fell. Sand was re-deposited on the beach, first returning it to the state that I remembered as a child, then slowly rising even more to cover the sea walls that were once nearly impassable, and finally, for the first time since I have known the beach, creating a mini-dune with beach grass providing a steady anchor. It was the beach with this maturing dune with which K and I spent time on Saturday.
I find it immensely interesting to examine the changes that can occur in an ecosystem over the course of a mere 20 years. An area that was once unable to support plant-life is now thriving with a diverse array of grasses; that grass now provides food and shelter for insects and animals that would not have found any on our small stretch of beach before; and should the dune continue to grow, a completely different ecosystem will begin to form in the area between the dune and the bluff.
