Life circles on itself

  I was born in the L.A. basin, atop a hill that overlooks one of them most polluted areas of the world. As I grew older I moved inland, back toward the east of my parents (who were born in Michigan). As you move east from the LA area, you quickly head into the Great Basin, a self-contained basin, one that doesn't reach the ocean. All the water drains inward to landlocked seas such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah or Salton Sea in Southern California. I grew up on the beach or in the desert. Those areas that have little to no rain fall, where there are stream and river beds without water. Flash floods are more common than running water.

 When I moved to the Pacific North West, one of the first things I noticed was the breadth and diversity of life. There were bugs everywhere, of many different types. Those bugs then fed larger life forms, like birds. There were trees and bushes and plants of amazing assortments. Life was present, green was everywhere. It was completely unlike the desert, with it's five or so different life forms. There was diversity here and I fell in love with it. 

  Yet, this diversity and abundance of life came with a great cost. That price was that everyone wanted a piece of it. When Lewis and Clark, and other pioneers came to the Oregon Territory, the found a similar abundance of life, but at a much grander scale than we see today. Trappers were already in the region, capturing beavers for fashionable wear in the east. Natives relied on the abundance for their daily lives. But in came progress.

  Within a hundred years, areas had been clear cut, animal populations cut to single digit percentages of their original numbers. One very sad example of this is the Salmon. Recently, I watched this Nature episode from PBS. It's almost heart breaking to see a species brought to it's knees. The way that they have been hobbled in the Columbia Basin is not humane. Yet, it is the same power that made the Salmon flourish as made hydroelectric power a mainstay of the area. More than four hundred dams dot the various tributaries of the Columbia, a river whose mountainous reach takes more advantage of gravity than most others. 

  The advantages we have taken in this area, whether for farming or for fishing, have taken their toll, and the Salmon have suffered more than most. The best that science can offer is not on the same scale that nature, untamed, can manage. We are destroying that which gives us abundance without giving enough back. We profit at the cost of the future. We profit at the cost of the past. And while there may be abundance for the present, temporarily, all we really leave behind is debt. One that cannot be paid off but in sacrifice.