It’s gray and overcast today, the forecast calls for more rain. It’s been a cool, wet spring in New England, very much like the spring of ’98. Burlington usually gets three inches of rain in May, but we’ve already had five. We’re running six inches ahead on rain for the year. Lake Champlain hovers at flood stage. I imagine our Quebec friends at the Chambly Locks on the Richelieu River are keeping the gates wide open, but with all the rain, the lake stays just a bit over its banks.
That’s inconvenient, but as I watched the drops pounding my windshield the other day, I tried to think about the rain from the ecosystem’s point of view. The Lake Champlain Basin is such a complex and finely tuned organism, an oversupply of rain should have multiple and overlapping effects, not unlike, say, rain drops on the water.
First, there are bugs. Mosquitoes and black flies breed in standing water, which at this point is everywhere. A growing insect population is good for insect predators – fish, birds, bats and spiders. On the other hand, all those biting bugs are not good for the human tourism and recreation industries, which are – like it or not – part of the ecosystem. The humans respond by spraying insecticide from airplanes and if you want to contemplate multiple and overlapping ecosystem effects that will keep you thinking for some time to come. This year, in Vermont, the sprayers couldn’t get their plane started and missed some crucial spraying days. What does that mean for the ecosystem? More bugs? Heavier spraying later in the season?
The insect-eating birds, like swallows, will have a good season, but the waterfowl that nest in the marshes are having a tough time finding a spot to brood their eggs.
The rain is affecting farmers, who are among humanity’s primary links to the ecosystem. It’s impossible to plant your crop when the fields are full of water, or so soft anyone foolish enough to drive a tractor in would sink it up to its axles. Even if a farmer managed to get a field plowed, it would just loosen up that much more topsoil for the next storm to wash away. As it is, the streams are full of silt scoured from the banks.
Here in town, the King Street ferry dock is under water. The cross-lake ferry that puts in at Burlington is usually running by Memorial Day, but I’m not so sure this year. Right now, cars would have to take a second ferry to get from the submerged landing to Battery Street. The bar and grill at the ferry dock is the best place in town to watch the sun set, but there’s three feet of water on the deck tonight and with all the cloud cover, we haven’t had a decent sunset in weeks, anyhow.
While much of North America parches, New England is moist to the point of mildew. Meteorologists blame a weakening La Nina in the Pacific, and you can argue from now until the day my shoes are finally dry about whether or not burning fossil fuels plays a role in this, and if so, how much.
What impresses me is the extent to which the change in one variable, in this case rain, upsets the whole ecosystem equation. It makes me wonder about burning fossil fuels, or dumping toxic or nuclear waste, or the consequences of setting loose genetically-altered plants and animals.
I can’t help but believe we’d all be more careful if we tried to think like an ecosystem before we embarked on a serious undertaking, but we don’t. We think like a balance sheet.
Thinking Like an Ecosystem
It’s gray and overcast today, the forecast calls for more rain. It’s been a cool, wet spring in New England, very much like the spring of ’98. Burlington usually gets three inches of rain in May, but we’ve already had five. We’re running six inches ahead on rain for the year. Lake Champlain hovers at flood stage. I imagine our Quebec friends at the Chambly Locks on the Richelieu River are keeping the gates wide open, but with all the rain, the lake stays just a bit over its banks.
That’s inconvenient, but as I watched the drops pounding my windshield the other day, I tried to think about the rain from the ecosystem’s point of view. The Lake Champlain Basin is such a complex and finely tuned organism, an oversupply of rain should have multiple and overlapping effects, not unlike, say, rain drops on the water.
First, there are bugs. Mosquitoes and black flies breed in standing water, which at this point is everywhere. A growing insect population is good for insect predators – fish, birds, bats and spiders. On the other hand, all those biting bugs are not good for the human tourism and recreation industries, which are – like it or not – part of the ecosystem. The humans respond by spraying insecticide from airplanes and if you want to contemplate multiple and overlapping ecosystem effects that will keep you thinking for some time to come. This year, in Vermont, the sprayers couldn’t get their plane started and missed some crucial spraying days. What does that mean for the ecosystem? More bugs? Heavier spraying later in the season?
The insect-eating birds, like swallows, will have a good season, but the waterfowl that nest in the marshes are having a tough time finding a spot to brood their eggs.
The rain is affecting farmers, who are among humanity’s primary links to the ecosystem. It’s impossible to plant your crop when the fields are full of water, or so soft anyone foolish enough to drive a tractor in would sink it up to its axles. Even if a farmer managed to get a field plowed, it would just loosen up that much more topsoil for the next storm to wash away. As it is, the streams are full of silt scoured from the banks.
Here in town, the King Street ferry dock is under water. The cross-lake ferry that puts in at Burlington is usually running by Memorial Day, but I’m not so sure this year. Right now, cars would have to take a second ferry to get from the submerged landing to Battery Street. The bar and grill at the ferry dock is the best place in town to watch the sun set, but there’s three feet of water on the deck tonight and with all the cloud cover, we haven’t had a decent sunset in weeks, anyhow.
While much of North America parches, New England is moist to the point of mildew. Meteorologists blame a weakening La Nina in the Pacific, and you can argue from now until the day my shoes are finally dry about whether or not burning fossil fuels plays a role in this, and if so, how much.
What impresses me is the extent to which the change in one variable, in this case rain, upsets the whole ecosystem equation. It makes me wonder about burning fossil fuels, or dumping toxic or nuclear waste, or the consequences of setting loose genetically-altered plants and animals.
I can’t help but believe we’d all be more careful if we tried to think like an ecosystem before we embarked on a serious undertaking, but we don’t. We think like a balance sheet.