"Snails Don't Feed Nobody"

Yet another situation guaranteed to add more fuel to the ecology vs economy debate in rural middle Tennessee:

Development of a proposed limestone mine has been put on hold while the fate of a threatened species hangs in the balance. The painted snake coiled forest snail has been on the threatened species list since 1978, and has not been found elsewhere in the world. Of course, folks are painting this situation as another instance of much needed jobs for humans versus some stupid insignificant critter. Can't eat it, can't sell it, can't get a job from it, so what good is it? In other words, if the instrumental value of some part of nature isn't patently obvious, it must be good for nothing and thereby in the way of progress.

To further complicate matters, there's more than a snail at stake here. The proposed mine would be of the open-pit variety, and would likely have larger impact on the environment than interfering with the survival of one species (aesthetically and otherwise). Further, there are ruins from a previous mining operation in the area, which have been listed with the Tennessee Preservation Trust as among the ten most threatened architectural sites in the state (more evidence that when mining operations are finished, communities are abandoned and workers forgotten). In addition, the man responsible for the quote in the title is mentioned in an AP article (link below) as being disabled with cancer. His father and grandfather worked in the Gager mine (now in ruins); one wonders what the long-term health effects of mining in the area might be.

Also, I'd be curious how the snail fits into the larger ecosystem -- whether other species rely on it as a food source, etc. Species don't exist in a vacuum. They act upon and interact with larger systems of life. They can serve as "canaries," signaling impending doom for other species in the area, as in the case of frogs. The fact is that snails do feed somebody, or somebodies, even though the impact of that feeding may not be as immediately obvious as the impact of thirty jobs (that will last until the limestone is extracted, or that will be given to people outside the community, etc).

What happens to the limestone once it's extracted? One proposal on the table is to sell it to coal-fired power plants.

You can find an AP wire report regarding this situation here.

World Environment Day

June 5, 1972, marked the opening of the Stockholm Conference of the Human Environment. Every year since, June 5 has been recognized as World Environment Day.

CNN and BBCNews both feature stories on the changes in the environment since that first World Environment Day 33 years ago. Now we have the benefit (or the added perspective) of having had satellites with cameras up in our orbit for three decades; and so we can view pictures of the dramatic changes humans have made upon the landscape in that short time.

You can view side-by-side photos on the CNN website, posted with this article on the new "One Planet Many People" atlas: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/06/04/un.atlas.reut/index.html

This year's World Environment Day is focusing on cities (no surprise, given the dramatic changes in urban sprawl evidenced in the atlas photography) and the possibility of sustainable development, or "green cities." Almost half the world's population resides in urban areas. A third of those live in slums and "squatter settlements." The UN estimates that 60% of people will live in urban areas by 2030. Not surprisingly, more urban areas and increased population concentrations in those areas signal increases in pollution and environmental destruction for the natural resources necessary to keep the expansion occurring. You can read the BBC's feature on this at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4610761.stm

While at the BBC site, be sure to investigate their sidebars, particularly the Changed Earth links. Here, you can find side-by-side pictures chronicling the disappearance of glaciers in the past century -- photographic evidence of a warming planet. Very dramatic stuff.

Pedestrian Crossing

I can't take credit for this one --

OK. Say we take some big ball bearings, grease 'em up, and put the crossbar of that giant 110-foot cross (see below post) on permanent rotation. Presto! The Christians get their symbol (well, at certain points in the rotation anyway), AND we environmentalists get a viable, renewable energy source. How ecumenical. Now if only we can keep Don Christ-hote and his sidekick Sancho Peter from driving down from Ohio to tilt at it on their way to play Hillbilly Golf.

Thanks, Jake!

Who sucked out the feeling?

According to a post today on the SK Bubba Blab, the Knoxville News Sentinel ran an article today by Greg Johnson in which Mr. Johnson laments the possible woes associated with the generation of wind energy:

". . .windmills sucking more energy from our already sluggish air could very well cause East Tennessee's poor-quality air to stall in the EPA nonattainment zone until the next millenium."

WHA?!?

And our own Sen. Lamar Alexander recently introduced legislation to restrict tax credits for new windmills with this logic:

"It keeps these 100-yard-tall, monstrous structures away from Signal Mountain, Lookout Mountain, Roan Mountain, the Tennessee River Gorge, the foothills of the Smokies and other highly scenic areas," Alexander said.

"As for jobs," he continued, "every Tennessee job is important, but I fear that hundreds of these giant windmills across Tennessee's ridges could destroy our tourism industry, which could cost us tens of thousands of jobs."

I hope I'm not alone in my thought that there is definitely some sucking going on here, and the windmills are not at fault. Alexander is also opposed to off-shore windmills, although in favor of off-shore oil drilling. He's also in favor of oil drilling and other fossil fuel exploration / extraction in national parks. Perhaps in his estimation, a big white windmill is far more aesthetically harmful than a strip mine? Talk about fuzzy logic.

And don't get me started on the massive 110-foot zero-energy-producing Christian symbol that has been approved for Pigeon Forge (the dreck-hole that greets visitors to the Smokies and generates so much revenue with its putt-putt courses, race tracks, chain restaurants, and outlet malls that it has apparently been grandfathered in as a "highly scenic area").

Get more info on opposing Alexander's incoherent legislation from Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Mead's Quarry officially open at Ijams

The blogging has been on hiatus for a few days. It's been so nice to be away from the computer-umbilical!

South Knox Bubba has a nice feature on the newly christened Mead's Quarry trails at Ijams Nature Center. You can also read about it at the Ijams website. I skulked around there a bit prior to the official opening, and it's a great example of environmental reclamation. I hope they haven't done away with some of the more creepy, Southern gothic elements -- the old abandoned quarry building, for instance -- although the silhouettes of submerged debris and the stillness of the surrounding rock and forest can surely evoke a few chillbumps on a humid summer afternoon. I'll have to get out there soon with camera in hand . . . more to come.