Desert Solitaire Review

The book Desert Solitaire was, in my opinion, a terrible book. I find the writing style of the author to be more stuck up and full of himself than it needed to be. But despite this he did bring up a few good points of interest, not on environmental issues but issues involving humans interaction with nature.

The first point that covers this is what he calls his “duty to protect and preserve the lives of all living animals.” This is brought up when he is confronted by a rattle snake hiding right under his front stairs. He decides to not kill the snake but rather to just move him to a different location. This tenderness of heart is shown to have a few breaks through the book. First when he expresses his desire to thrust his walking stick into an ant hill and second when he tries to test his idea of how people hunted before the creation of the bow and arrow by throwing a rock at the head of a rabbit and killing it. He tries to make himself feel better by calling himself a “scientist” and leaves the body for the birds. Which brings me to the question: Why is it that humans show tenderness to some species of animals over others? Why does our view of nature change?

Horned Rattlesnake:

Next is a point he brings up when he is taking the first initial tour of the park he is working in. He comments on the “undeveloped” nature of the surrounding areas and how though it is called undeveloped it is actually quite developed. There are paths leading through the whole park making it easily within walking distance for all of the major attractions and places to sleep. This leads me to ask the question: Is it possible for humans to go into any form of wilderness and leave it a wilderness? All though dirt trails may seem to be a rather low tech and natural way to formulate paths through an area those paths still change the environment and how the wildlife acts.

A huge part of this book has to do with the incredible need for water in the desert and how it seems that the area is devout of life. But he brings up several very good points. The first is that “if we had water here, this country would not be what it is.” Implying further that if there was water in the desert it would rip away that which makes the desert wild. Once there was more water everyone would move in and populate the place. Industry would take over and the wild would no longer be wild. Instead he makes the best comment, in my opinion, in the whole book. He says that there is a balance in the desert. It isn’t that there is too much water, but just enough. That there is a sort of equilibrium that allows life to continue just enough to survive. But why is this? with the geography of the area it is obvious why it is desert, but is it possible that this is earths way of trying to purge itself to start over? Is it possible for the earth to erase everything and try to start off fresh?

This is a website that explain how deserts are made:

http://www.stmarysmedia.co.uk/jb19/project/desertsmade.htm

The last strong point I feel he brings up is the difference between the working men in the desert and the city busyness men. He is confronted with this observation when he walks into a bar after getting groceries. He describes a scene of many different types of workers, everything from miners and truck drivers  to cowboys and prospectors. Men who spend their entire day working their butts off. And they sit in relaxation enjoying a beer and conversation. He puts this in contrast to city bars where the men are sulking in the chairs watching television and feeling sorry for themselves. He comes to the conclusion that these men do work that makes them happy. Work that takes skill and strength. They have confidence and spend their entire day working alone and welcome a crowded bar with many people to converse with. So my final question: Is it possible that nature or wilderness can alone provide us happiness? These men who spend their whole day outside working in the sun and rain live lives that they are happy with. Was this just from the influence of calm mother nature?

Agave the new biofuel

Agave fuels excitement as a Bio-energy Crop

Agave, often associated with deserts, tequila and warm tropical vacations in Mexico is getting a facelift. Instead of the brew makers, this time scientists researching into bio-fuels and renewable energy. Research on 14 different studies has shown that the agave plant when processed produces higher yields of energy than comparable amounts of corn wheat, or soyabean.

This coupled with the fact that the agave plant grows in semi arid conditions and doesn’t compete with other food crops in most traditional farming regions makes the potential for rewarding research into the plant for the near future.

The fact that the agave plant isn’t a mainstream food source coupled with the now possible uses of spent agave used in tequila production is becoming a topic of increasing viability and further research is being conducted currently.

If the studies do elevate agave to a viable energy source many underdeveloped countries like Mexico, and parts of Africa can use the crop to fuel their economy and future.

Being Green

“From dust we are, and to dust we shall return”

Although a slightly morbid article I did find the process of resomation interesting. Currently you have two ways of removing your body from society, burial and cremation, however the new process resomation will be a more green option. By using less heat and chemicals to aid in the degradation of your body your last choice in life can still be a green one. Currently only a couple are in service and the majority of states have yet to approve this new method.

 

Desert Solitaire

Like last week I wasn’t familiar with the natural settings in this area, I was under the assumption that this was to take place in the typical desert, sand and dirt with little land height variations, and couldn’t understand how you could write an entire book about it. Reading through the introduction and looking at pictures of the Arches National Monument park then proceeding past the first few chapters I saw how interesting and special an area this was, as well as having a significant history it also had a resounding beauty that Abbey did well in describing.

History seemed to be an important aspect as Abbey spent a couple chapters discussing the natural history as well as the human history with the surrounding areas. I was very surprised to learn that there was a similar “gold rush” in this area but instead of something we typically value as a society companies were looking for a much more dangerous rock. However, before the history of mining in the area I was also surprised (and agreed with) Abbey’s detailed look at how modernization of the park was occurring, specifically found the line “are men no better than sheep or cattle, that they must live always in view of one another in order to feel a sense of safety?” (72), I thought it tied in well to the discussion last week of how national parks were turning into amusement parks, that everything was predetermined where you walk, camp, eat, and relive yourself.

Something else I found particularly interesting was Abbey’s continued discussion of loneliness and how he found various ways of coping with it.  At the start of the book it was the mice and later a gopher snake (although it served for a secondary purpose too)  and in later parts of the book it was nature, that he would sit outside to be accompanied by nature.  I found this intriguing because Ive done this couple times, where its early in the morning and having a sense of being not being alone eating outside.

Discussion:

Abbey’s ideas on keeping natures parks more “natural”, limiting roads and such, just thoughts on his ideas that started on page 65.

Playing off the former idea, Abbey states that the area is totally useless and unprofitable, yet we see desert settlements like Vegas and the park now with an increased revenue since his departure. Is this area of land worthless and unprofitable? Does it serve any use to humans?

Thoughts on the story of the Husk family, that in contradiction to the Meadowlands, this land had value in mining resources yet at the same time the ability to destroy human relations, where as the opposite held true to Meadowlands, so is a “more worthless” land better or worse for human purposes/relations?

Desert Solitaire

The author recounts his adventures, observations, and musings on a time spent working as a Ranger for the National Park Service in Arches National Monument. He shows us his respect and sensitivity for wildness and free nature and seeking to better understand the human place within it; we feel his struggle between a genuine concern for the land’s preservation and traditional sense of wilderness and his determination that people enjoy and experience it; his dilemmas to modern society’s mood toward our natural heritage, and proposed ways to cope with this.

Some of the themes I noticed in the reading of Desert Solitaire were that: -The desert is a harsh place, wild, and very sublime; there are many meanings of and causes for the power of nature

Example of the many ways of looking at Delicate Arch

“Wilderness. The word itself is music” (189)

-Very Paradoxical

-Obedience to the earth

-Nature has a very intrinsic value-

-The relationship bewteen Nature and Civilization

• • Nature stirs wonder and creativity
  • Nature is necessary for sanity
  • Nature introduces us to ourselves
  • Nature is place to escape/resist the government
  • Nature defines civilization
• Mankind vs. man-centeredness, culture vs. civilization, science vs. scientism (274-277)
• Humans are abusing and mismanaging the natural world, even in the National Parks
  • Industrial Tourism and the National Parks
• Abbey says and does some outrageous things; he challenges our preconceptions and biases

Questions to think about?

• Is it possible to truly escape the cultural bias and mental constructions we have toward nature?
• How should we critique Abbey’s proposal in this book?

• What are the merits of National Parks? What is the best way to manage them?
• Is Wilderness crucial to society?
• What is Abbey’s point in writing this book and what purpose does it have?

Desert Solitaire

Desert Solitaire invokes images of wide-open, barren wilderness that only the true naturalist could enjoy.  The opening pages of Edward Abbey’s novel sound brutal.  The man has to live by himself for half of the year, with the majority of his human encounters coming from obnoxious tourists who don’t understand the true beauty of the area they are visiting.  The entirety of this book makes think about nature and of what it is comprised.  Some of Abbey’s descriptions seem so illustrious that I could hardly believe them.  Regardless, Abbey expounds on the area in which he lived and how fellow humans drove to ruin it (in Abbey’s eyes, at least).

Abbey discusses how you can’t get to know nature unless you immerse yourself in it.  It’s hard to argue with him.  Abbey lives in a small trailer in the middle of Arches National Park in Moab, Utah.  He receives supplies once a week, lives on his own, and can feasibly go a few days without seeing another human being.  He is employed as a park ranger who makes sure the facilities are kept clean, tourists don’t get lost, and ensures that nothing is out of order.  He loves his job.  He claims the thing he fears most is getting promoted to a job out east where he couldn’t immerse himself in the wilderness…even if the job paid significantly more.  Abbey spends much of his time when he isn’t “working” wandering around the area.  He never thinks purely from his viewpoint.  Rather, he views the world from the perspective of animals, rocks, tourists, and government officials, as well as himself.  For him, the park is not just for humans to visit.  The area belongs to the Earth.  It’s apparent from the first 20 pages of the book that Abbey is a naturalist, an environmentalist, and, quite possibly, crazy.  But, he’s also extremely dedicated, which is admirable.

One part I found interesting involved the discussion of man-made tools that aid humans in our travels.  Some artificial items, as Abbey discusses, are quite helpful: shelter, heat, and an automobile (though Abbey spends the majority of his time walking around, he had to get to his campsite with a truck, otherwise it’s a twelve mile walk to Moab).  However, once at his campsite, Abbey shuns the the excessive use of tools that do not directly aid survival in the harsh conditions of the National Park.  The flashlight is a prime example.  Though it helps increase your line of sight, in another way, it dampens your ability to see everything naturally.  You cannot train your eyes to see the world as it was meant to be seen.  The flashlight is just one metaphor in this novel, where truly seeing your environment is the goal.  Also, as will be discussed later, it can be viewed as a helpful “development” of mankind that is anything but.

Another peculiar thing about Abbey is his relationship with animals: he likes to look at things from their point of view.  He is a conservationist, so he only kills animals he intends to eat – a rare occurrence, indeed.  He lives with mice in his trailer…a whole family of mice, at that.  My mother would not approve.  Either way, it doesn’t bother Abbey – he leaves them crumbs and they generally clean up all of his food waste.  Then, one day, he discovers a rattlesnake hanging out under his trailer.  Instead of immediately killing it, he devises a way to drive off the rattlesnake with as little violence as possible.  He domesticates a gopher snake – a docile snake – in an attempt to have it eat the mice living in his trailer, which would kill the interest of the far more dangerous rattlesnake.  This is Abbey’s relationship with nature: his job as a park ranger doesn’t only involve humans…he acts as a caretaker of animal, as well.  His method of dealing with snakes did not change anything that would have normally happened in nature.  He just prodded the animals in the direction to help ensure his own safety – a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Perhaps Abbey’s most interesting observations do not involve animals or rocks, at all…rather, the humans that invade the park.  Normally, one might think a park ranger would be happy to see people visiting his park.  Not in Abbey’s eyes.  He has concerns over the intentions of those who visit his park.  The park, at one point, had no paved roads.  It couldn’t be more perfect for Abbey, who eschews the excessive use of paved roads – he feels they keep you away from the interesting sights of the park.  In Abbey’s eyes, the park should be viewed completely on foot.  Driving through it severely limits how much of the park you actually see, and you can’t get down in the dirt, so to speak, and really observe the park.  So, when some engineers and surveyors come knocking at Abbey’s door, he, understandably is not too pleased.  Of course, Abbey’s viewpoint is much stronger than others, and it’s doubtful that everyone feels as passionately about this as he does.  However, he does hold a valid point in his assessment of his surroundings.  Indeed, it would be hard to give such vivid descriptions if one were to merely drive through an area, as opposed to doing what Abbey did.  With this in mind, I can understand why Abbey opposes “development” of the area.  Development is the worst thing that could happen to the area, in Abbey’s eyes, and unfortunately, Abbey’s nightmare comes true.

Discussion Questions:

1) Why does Abbey feel development – at least in this context – is detrimental to the area?

2) What is the value of being by yourself  for extended periods of time in an area like this?  Explain

3) Give an explanation of Abbey’s viewpoint on the area around him.  Specifically, elaborate on his description of the surrounding rocks and their “life”.

4) Abbey never seems bitter about living in conditions that most would describe as inhospitable.  Why do you think this is?

Image Source

Renewable Energy

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19785-sun-and-sand-breed-sahara-solar-power.html

Scientists and entrepreneurs have been trying to find the best possible way to use the suns energy and thus move from the dreaded fossil fuel era to one that is renewable and thus sustainable. This solar project I came about is possibly the most realistic mass production project out there. Usually most businesses abandon the idea of solar energy because one does not get enough energy for the return of their cost. However, this project is one which reuses the energy produced to increase the umber of silicon plants and thus eventually reach a stage where enough plants will produce 50 percent of energy used by humanity in 2050!

An additional contributor to climate change.

So it turns out that humans aren’t the only contributors to aerosols and particles in the atmosphere. A recent study used data and computer modeling to figure out just how much desert dust and dirt particles are being thrown into the air.

Information was gathered from ice cores, sediment from lakes and coral and then diagram out to be compared with fluctuations with temperature, humidity and carbon uptake. And it turns out that the dust in the earths atmosphere has doubled in the last century and this increase is effecting the climate.

Desert Solitaire

Edward Abbey, a park ranger, has got some serious qualms with this country’s treatment of its natural resources. His personal favorite place (Moab, Utah) has become victimized by industrialization and development, robbing it of (at least in his opinion) its former natural beauty. Throughout the book, Abbey discusses all facets of the environment of Moab: the animals, the plants, the geography and the people. He draws an interesting line between solitaire and solitary, saying that the latter implies loneliness while solitaire (which is defined as a gem set aside by itself interestingly enough) is simply removing oneself from the “equation” of man, civilization and the destruction of natural lands.

Number 1 or Number 2?

The first section of the book details Abbey’s first day back at the park after a long winter of living out in the canyonlands. While not the most luxurious of lodgings, many amenities make Abbey’s stay quite comfortable. The most foreign idea presented in this chapter for me is his sense of unity with all the animals living in and around the ranger station. Not that I hate wildlife, quite the contrary in fact, but I rarely ever look to ravens and mice for solace as he does on page 8.

The bulk of the next two chapters are spent describing the wildlife and landscape around the canyonlands,  especially snakes and the juniper tree. He describes the whole of the land surrounding him as a garden rich in natural beauty and “takes inventory” of all of the plants and animals around him. Abbey is acutely aware that this natural wonderland is not going to last with the demon of development creeping ever closer. His fears seem to be realized today after looking at the Moab, Utah tourist website, which features such activities as Jeep rental (a contraption that prevents people from seeing nature, according to Abbey), ATV tours and ballooning. It’s amazing how simply adding a road to a national park can begin a domino effect causing all sorts of other gimmicks and activities to be put into the park.

Overall, Abbey’s opinion of those who try to change nature is that they have the capacity to love it, but they never gave it a proper chance. They simply watched it from a distance as opposed to allowing themselves to walk and be immersed in wilderness and nature. By far the happiest Abbey is throughout the whole book is throughout the “Down  the River” chapter. He feels the “delirious exhilaration of independence” (pg 192), and it gives him a moment of clarity regarding how meaningless a lot of the things humanity does to survive (the whole domestic routine, as he puts it) are completely pointless in the grand scheme of things. By completely immersing himself in nature, Abbey grew to appreciate it as an experience, not just something to look at. That is the takeaway message of the book for me: don’t just look at nature and think about how pretty it is, dive into it, see what it’s all about, then make your decisions about how you want to change it.

Something I found to be a humorous parallel to The Meadowlands (though it probably is not meant to be) is the finding of the dead body in the ravine. There were multiple occasions of Sullivan citing bodies being dumped into the meadowlands, but he, unlike Abbey, never found one.

Overall Abbey left me with a few questions:

- Do civilization and wilderness have to be mutually exclusive?

- Can development of these areas really be stopped at this point in American society?

- Does this book change your preconceived notions of wilderness at all?

Coal Mining stopped in its tracks

A coal mine in West Virginia has had its permit revoked by the EPA, with the agency saying the mine would be a detriment to the environment surrounding the mine.  The main concerns revolved around the water and surrounding waterlife and how it would be affected by the large-scale clearing of land to mine coal.  Surface coal mining, the cheaper of the two types of mining, involves clearing all of the land above a coal deposit and then mining the coal from the surface.  Many are elated by the announcement, claiming it’s a step in the right direction towards the reduction of mining in the United States.  These people, mainly activists and those who live in the area – and, importantly, are not coal miners – say it’s a great decision because it helps preserve the natural appeal of the area, as well as help conserve the wildlife and resources of the area.  However, the area is rife with coal miners and their families, who are devastated by the decision.  One wife of a miner fears more mines will have their permits revoked, further reducing the work available for her husband and other miners.  It’s a touchy issue, considering the push to create jobs, which the coal mine would do.  Environmentalists don’t like coal mines, especially surface mines, because of the destruction it causes to the ground cover.  No matter the way it’s mined, the burning of coal releases Carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, which has been causing a hysteria the past few decades.  But, considering the availability of coal within the country and its relative cheapness to mine, it seems unlikely that coal will be weaned out in the near future.

Link to article

Click here to read more about opposition to coal mining.

Below is an image of a Dragline mining coal out in Wyoming

Image Source