When visiting our land, my brother-in-law says that everywhere he looks is a postcard. This morning, with coffee cup in hand, I was watching my favorite early morning “postcard”. The creek flows east/ west, then turns north/south right below the picture window, giving me a quarter-mile view. I can see a beaver lodge and three dams from my easy chair. We often watch beavers doing their thing. Sometimes we see otters hunting in the ponds. Great blue herons are migrating visitors, but ducks and geese are regulars. There are kingfishers every season. This morning, the early sun highlighted the new green growth on the spruce, balsam, and pine lining the ponds. There was not the slightest wind moving the late spring tender green leaves of the popple. Upper winds moved white clouds lazily across the blue sky. The trees and sky were beautifully reflected on the still surface of the ponds. The whole picture, framed by the wooden trim of my window, was indeed a “postcard”.
I thought about the elements I could name working so well together, where the boreal forest biome meets a freshwater biome. Cook County is entirely made of those two biomes, punctuated by human development or preserved by governmental regulation. Most of us can identify only a few parts of those complex systems. Much of our ability to know those parts is because they have a modern prescribed economic value. Water shoreline is sold by the foot. Land itself is sold by the acre or the view. Trees are cut and sold as timber, firewood, paper pulp, and Christmas decorations. Water is bottled to drink or used in paint production. The beaver and otters still have periodic cash value as fur. Even the beauty of our area is commodified by the tourist industry. Minerals on the surface and deep underground are extracted for their dollar value.
In modern times, our natural resources are valued in other ways. Our world-class federal and state park systems exemplify nature’s benefits when protected from human development. Visitor logs, day passes, and entry fees measure the public’s value of nature’s spectacles. Tourist reservations at private resorts and lodges also prove nature’s benefits. “Forest Bathing” is a formalized meditative walking in woodlands use for therapeutic value. The plant world has long been seen and used as a healer.
As I make these observations, let me be clear: I am not opposing any of these economic activities, but I do think we need to be aware of how we consume. Many of our habits are relatively new, being formed by cheap and readily available things we need/want originating from nature. This put some pressure on the restorative capacities of nature, but two things have changed. The enormous world population and sudden climate variations are stressing the biological world to provide for us at our current rate of consumption.
If we look carefully at our own habituated behaviors and wants, it is easy to find ways to lower our consumption of natural resources. In our household, we started making our own yogurt to reduce non-recyclable containers of store bought yogurt. In city life, I used to run tap water the whole time I brushed my teeth or washed dishes. Carrying heavy five-gallon containers of water into our primitive cabin changed that! Our retirement home has modern water amenities, but we keep our cabin water-use habits. Futurists speculate that in a post-oil era, wars will be fought over water. We see the early signs of that truth in the Middle East, China, our own southern states, and the entire Colorado River basin. We are fortunate in Minnesota to have lots of water, but with climate variations, we should not assume that will always be the case. Individual household water conservation has advantages even with plentiful water. Water delivery and wastewater treatment systems, whether urban or rural, all cost money and eventually wear out, needing expensive replacement. Conservation saves money.
Home building puts huge pressure on our forests, iron and copper mines, and cement production. Every family needs a place to live, but how big should that be? The trend influencing our expectation that “bigger is better” is actually a profit strategy prompted by building and real estate professionals. Homes are sold by size, measured by the square foot. The cost to build decreases as the size increases. Real estate commissions increase as home value increases. But to the homeowner, the bigger the structure, the more expensive any future repair or replacement. So, how big a house does a family need as opposed to want? Smaller conserves natural resources and personal wealth.
As a building contractor working with historic and vintage homes, my job was to modify older homes to meet modern owners’ expectations and needs. Clothing closets were a big ask. Oftentimes, closets were increased by a factor of three to four times the existing space. People were less fashion-influenced, resulting in fewer clothes in the era of older homes. The fashion industry and retailers promote a trend of outdating clothing long before items wear out. Specific clothing styles promoted for each occasion increase the need for closet space, and ultimately result in mountains of discarded clothing in third-world countries. The cultural habit puts enormous pressure on agricultural products like cotton, linen, wool, and hemp, plus petroleum-based synthetic fibers. How much clothes closet space do we really need?
When I look out my window, I can speculate if everything I see is converted into economic metrics. If all the trees were cut for timber and pulp, the beaver would leave. Their dams would eventually fail when the water was sold off, leaving behind a tiny creek lined with brush. The otters, waterfowl, and herons would be gone. Total extraction of monetary value from the view out my window would leave a barren and devoid landscape with only the sun and wind remaining as, ironically, a renewable energy source. The barren view might be regrown to its current state in the lifetimes of my great-great-grandchildren. Will they start the extraction all over again or make better use of the sun and wind to help create a more sustainable way to live in and with nature?
