Category Archives: environment

The Air We Breathe 

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I’d reading Sam Kean’s Caesar’s Last Breath, a book with the subtitle of “Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us.”  I’m not far into it. I’m reading about the creation of the world  and with it the creation of the atmosphere that sustains our life.

Kean hooks the reader with a question— the death of Julius Caeser and his dying question, “You too, Brutus?” Imagine, he says, the air escaping your body as you breath. “How much do you really know about this air?  Feel your lungs deflate and sag inside your chest (as you breathe YOUR last breath). What’s really going on inside there?”

“Imagine you can feel the individual molecules of gas pinging your fingertips, impossibly tine dumbbells caroming off into the air around you? How many are there, and where do these molecules go?”

Our molecules, he says, blend in with the molecules of everyone on earth and all of us are re-breathing the molecules of others. And they do not disappear. Kean maintains that “our breaths entangle us with the historical past….Is it possible that your next breath…might include some of the same air that Julius Caesar exhaled when he died?” We won’t know it, of course but it’s possible because most of the air we breathe is in a ten-mile thick belt of atmosphere all around the world and the air we breathe is air someone else, somewhere else, some other time breathed.

Ten miles. That’s a lot of air.  It means you and I in our lives likely breathed some of Caser’s last breath, or the breath Moses used to announce the Ten Commandments, and—if you believe they actually existed—some of the Molecules of Adam and Eve’s breath.

We breathe the same air of Thomas Jefferson, of Jesse James, of Adolf Hitler, of long-dead friends and relatives—molecules of their breaths.  For some it is sobering and for others it is exhilarating to know that we are breathing some of President Trump’s breath.

It’s an intriguing suggestion.  It reminds us of something Maine Senator  Ed Muskie say at a 1972 Jackson Day dinner in Springfield in 1972, four years after he had been Hubert Humphrey’s running mate for the presidency. His remarks at the end of his speech were so profound that I listened back to my tape and typed them.  I don’t know what happened to that recording. I wish very much that I had it so I could hear again that great voice talking about “the nature of the balance that must be struck between man and man’s environment.”

He told the audience that balance had been “put most eloquently recently in a book translated from the Swedish by the University of Alabama Press.

“This point was made:  that every human being carries within him 100,000 genes.  These genes have given him his entire inheritance from the past; his personality, his character, intelligence, talents and skills.

“If all the genes of the two and one-half billion human beings on this planet were backed together, they would form a ball, a small ball, one millimeter in diameter.  That small ball is all that holds us together, as a species.

“It is all we own, as human beings.

“And what sustains its life?

“A thin crust which so far as we know is the only place in the whole part of the whole cosmos which can sustain this kind of life.  In order to portray on a desk size globe the portion of its diameter which will sustain organic life including the atmosphere, there is not a lacquer thin enough to indicate the proportions. 

“All inside that coat of lacquer is the black death of the inner planet, while all outside it is the black death of outer space.  We’ve not yet discovered anything duplicating this coat of lacquer anywhere within range of the technology we have developed to date.

“If it exists anywhere, it exists outside the range of anyone, any human being within his lifetime, using the most advanced technology of which we’re capable.

“This then is the dimension of our existence in this universe.  The numbers of people cannot expect to endlessly exploit that think coat of lacquer and survive.

“And it is poisoned today not only by the insults we make upon our physical resources, but by the poisons which divide us against each other.  We cannot survive unless we deal with both.

“I think the genius of our political system is that notwithstanding all of the evidence to the contrary today, we have demonstrated that a free people can rise to such a challenge, and I choose to believe that we were destined to develop our capacity to do so.  And whether or not we will must still be the result of our own deliberate intent, and intelligence, and work.

“That is the nature of the challenge.”

 The remarks have something of a contemporary ring to them and they underline some simple questions for which humans struggle to answer.

If we breathe the same air as our ancestors breathed all the way back to the beginning of humanity and before, and we live in a large but common atmosphere, why do we insist that some are more privileged to exist than others do?  Why do we spend so much effort trying to prove that some of us are better than others and deserve more for ourselves at a time when we all share  those molecules 17,000-29,000 in a day? We do not separate the molecules of our lives according to our differences?

Why do we waste so much of our time ignoring these basic similarities that unite us as a species?

What good does it do?

The breaths of Adam and Eve, if you believe in that origin story, or the breaths of the first protohumans are yet in our lungs.  Why do we waste so many of those breaths trying to define our differences?

As I live and breathe (as my grandmother used to exclaim), I don’t know.

The Thin Line

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Sometimes when we get all puffed up about how important we are, we need to be reminded not much separates us from our knuckle-dragging ancestors or our three-living cousins.

I have a t-shirt given to me by a good friend who just retired as the Executive Vice President of the Indianapolis Zoological Society.  More important for our discussion today, Karen Burns is the Executive Director of the Indianapolis Prize, considered the Nobel Prize for animal conservation.  Every two years, the organization recognizes an animal conservationist “who has achieved major victories in advancing the sustainability of an animal sp;ecies or group of species” with a $250,000 award.

This year’s award has gone to Dr. Rene deRoland, a Malagasy scientist who has discovered several new species or re-discovered some species thought to be extinct. He has helped establish four national protected areas and heads a team of 48 conservationists wildlife and landscapes in his home country.

The t-shirt is a reminder that there is a thin line between us and members of other branches of our genetic tree, a reminder, perhaps, that Genesis gives humans dominion over other creatures in the sea, in the air, and on the ground. Dominion, not domination.

Dominion, as in caring for. Domination, as in destroying.

The Indianapolis Zoo has special facilities for Orangutans and for Chimpanzees.

There are times when I have to fill in as a Sunday school teacher and when I do, I like to turn to a source called The Wired Word that tries to place contemporary events within the scriptures.  One of the recent lessons focused on Jane Goodall’s life and our place in creation. I’m passing part of it along because her life story and its worldwide impact go beyond standard death news stories and gets to one of the ongoing great challenges humans must consider.

Regardless of whether you follow the lesson’s efforts to tie her work to scripture or whether the direction of the lesson raises questions about your personal view of the world and our place in it, I think you might find a thing or two to think about.

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Famed Primatologist Jane Goodall Dead at 91
The Wired Word for the Week of October 12, 2025

In the News

The Jane Goodall Institute announced its founder, Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, died of natural causes on October 1 while in California for one of the 300 speeches she gave most years even into her ninth decade. The 91-year-old animal welfare advocate is survived by her son, Hugo, and three grandchildren.

In 1957, paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey recruited Goodall to conduct the first intensive study of wild chimpanzees in their natural habitat in Gombe, Tanzania.

Goodall noted the complex structure of the primate world, noting their distinct personalities, intelligence, sense of humor and wide range of emotions, from happiness, love, empathy, kindness and tenderness, to anger, sorrow, fear, depression and hostility. The primatologist witnessed the chimps hunting, grooming, playing, fighting, showing affection, adopting other chimpanzees, and comforting each other.

Her reports of a chimpanzee she named David Greybeard making a tool from twigs to fish termites from a nest mesmerized the scientific community, which had previously held the view that tool-making was a skill only humans possessed.

When Leakey learned of her discovery, he responded with this telegram:

NOW WE MUST REDEFINE TOOL STOP

REDEFINE MAN STOP

OR ACCEPT CHIMPANZEES AS HUMAN

“What the chimps have taught me over the years is they’re so like us. They’ve blurred the line between humans and animals,” Goodall said. Her discoveries nudged the public, including the scientific community, to reexamine how we understand who we are as a species.

In 1986, Goodall attended a conference of chimpanzee researchers where she was devastated by reports of how wild habitat destruction was negatively impacting chimpanzee populations.

“I arrived at the conference as a scientist. I left as an activist,” she remarked. Determined to do everything in her power to protect and preserve the environment, she became a kind of “global educator-at-large.”

“The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves,” the zoologist said.

“In the rainforest [is] … where I felt that deep, spiritual connection to the natural world, and also came to understand the interconnectedness of all living things in this tapestry of life where each species, no matter how insignificant, plays a probably vital role in the whole pattern.”

Goodall remarked that indigenous people and those who practice various religions often see animals as our brothers and sisters, as those who should be cared for by humans, and who provide humans with various benefits as well. She realized that working for animal welfare went hand in hand with addressing human needs as well.

In a 2020 interview with Krista Tippett, Goodall remarked about our ability “to ask questions like, Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of it all? Is there a purpose? Is there a spiritual guiding force out there? … there is no way that what’s happened is just chance. What that intelligence behind the universe is — what it is, who it is; probably what it is — I haven’t the faintest idea, but I’m absolutely sure that there is something. And seeking for that something is part of being human.”

In a video interview recorded shortly before Goodall’s death, released only after her passing, she shared the final message she felt compelled to give the world, which included these words: “each and every one of you has a role to play. … your life matters, and you are here for a reason, … every single day you live, you make a difference in the world, and you get to choose the difference that you make. … Don’t lose hope. … And if you want to save what is still beautiful in this world, if you want to save the planet for the future generations, your grandchildren, their grandchildren, then think about the actions you take each day, because multiplied a million, a billion times, even small actions will make for great change.”

Applying the News Story

As Goodall’s celebrity increased, she sometimes had to gently correct fans who idolized her. One woman once greeted her, shrieking, “Oh my God!” to which she wryly replied, “I’m not your God. I’m just Jane.”

The incident is reminiscent of the time when crowds of people wanted to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas as though they were gods, after Paul healed a lame man, when Paul insisted, “We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them” (Acts 14:8-18).

Use the news to consider what nature and our faith have to teach us about what it means to be human and how we fit into God’s design for creation.

The Big Questions

  1. What is your earliest memory of some aspect of the natural world?
  2. How are humans and other creatures alike? How are humans different from other creatures?
  3. How would you describe the relationship between faith and science?
  4. Goodall seemed to delight in the knowledge that humans are part of the natural world. But some theorize that humans are superior to or separate from the rest of creation. How do you see your own relationship to nature, and what role does your faith play in how you understand that relationship?
  5. Where in the Bible do you find indications of high regard and care for animals, and what does that suggest to you about how we should interact with other creatures on Earth?

Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

Genesis 2:18-20
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle and to the birds of the air and to every animal of the field, but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. (For context, read Genesis 2:18-24.)

Goodall was criticized by some scientists for giving the chimps with whom she lived names like David Greybeard, Flo, Flint and Fifi, because the prevailing practice was to give animals numbers rather than names. Eventually, Goodall’s unconventional method became more accepted, because it helped people view chimps as unique individuals.

Questions: Why do you think God gave the man the task of naming the animals? In what contexts might humans be given a number rather than a name? What difference does it make whether an animal or a human is given a number rather than a name?

Genesis 6:19-21
And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up, and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” (For context, read Genesis 6:11-22.)

This flood narrative begins with an explanation for the coming destruction: that the earth was filled with violence and corruption (vv. 11-13). God gave Noah instructions for the building of an ark, to save him and his family, as well as representatives of all the animals on the earth, “to keep them alive with you” (vv. 14-21). He was also to take provisions to sustain them and the animals, so that they would not suffer extinction.

Questions: Whether you interpret the flood narrative literally or figuratively, what impresses you about God’s instructions to Noah, with regard to the animals? Why not exclude certain creatures that might be troublesome or dangerous at times?

Job 12:7-10
[Job said,] “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you, and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.” (For context, read Job 12:7-16.)

Job was frustrated by the sanctimonious attitude of his friends, who suggested that his adversities were probably due to some moral failure on his part. But Job claimed that they needed to learn a lesson from the animals, birds, plants and fish, who were all aware that the life of every living thing is in the hand of the Lord. What is true for every aspect of creation, from whether it thrives, survives, or perishes, to what kind of weather happens on any given day, is also true of humans: All of this depends on God’s sovereign will.

Questions: How does one go about “asking animals, birds, plants and fish” questions? Goodall said Leakey chose her to research wild chimps because she had an “open mind.” How can we open our minds to learn what God’s creatures might have to teach us — about God? About creation? About ourselves? About our relationships with other humans and with God?

Colossians 1:15-16
[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers — all things have been created through him and for him. (For context, read Colossians 1:15-20.)

John of Patmos echoes the sentiment in this text when he writes that in his vision of heaven, the four living creatures worship God and the 24 elders cast their crowns before the throne of God, declaring, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Elsewhere Paul writes that “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6).

Goodall often spoke of a “Great Spirit in Whom ‘we live and move and have our being.'”

Questions: In what sense are all things created for God and for Christ? If it is true that we exist for God and for Christ, how will we fulfill the purpose for which we were created?

For Further Discussion

  1. “According to my calculations, reality is this very second,” wrote Barbara Johnson, in “A Hearty Ha, Ha, Ha!” in the anthology, She Who Laughs, Lasts!“You see, yesterday is only a memory, and tomorrow is merely a dream. Today is an illusion. That leaves this one second. Every day you have 86,400 seconds. But they come only one at a time. In your bank account of time, no balance is carried over until the next day. You use those seconds or lose them. There is no chance to reinvest. Make your investment wisely …”How can we ensure that we are using our 86,400 seconds wisely, so that at the end of our lives, we can be confident that we have fulfilled the role for which God put us on the Earth?
  2. Comment on this, from Pope Francis, in his encyclical On Care for Our Common Home [Laudato Si’]: “A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. … Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society.”
  3. In a 2020 interview, Goodall said: “I think probably, my very favorite individual tree has to be Beech, in my garden. And when Beech began to grow, over 100 years ago, actually, it was from a pretty tiny seed. And if I had picked it up at that time, it would’ve seemed so small and weak, a little growing shoot and a few little roots.”And yet, there is what I call magic. It’s a life force in that little seed, so powerful that to reach the water that the tree will need, those little roots can work through rocks and eventually, push them aside. And that little shoot, to reach the sunlight which the tree will need for photosynthesis, can work its way through cracks in a brick wall, and eventually, knock it down.

    “And so we see the bricks and the walls as all the problems, social and environmental, that we have inflicted on the planet. So it’s a message of hope: hundreds and thousands of young people around the world can break through and can make this a better world.”

    What message does the Parable of the Beech Seed convey to you today?

  4. Discuss this: Educator Rachel Klinger Cain distinguishes between what she calls vertical morality (“the idea that morality comes from authority above”) and horizontal morality (which “prioritizes the well-being of our neighbors, communities and personal relationships,” according to author April Ajoy).”We act in ways that cause the least amount of harm to those around us, regardless of beliefs,” explains Ajoy. “Someone with vertical morality may help someone in need because they believe that’s what God wants them to do, … [while] someone with horizontal morality may help that same person for the benefit of the person that needs help.”

    People who practice horizontal morality, Ajoy says, actually come closest to a Christ-like approach, because doing so also acknowledges vertical morality. She points to Matthew 25, where Jesus says those who met the needs of the hungry, the naked, the stranger, the sick and the prisoner (horizontal morality) were showing love to him (vertical morality).

    “There’s a quote I heard often growing up … that says, ‘Some Christians are so heavenly-minded that they’re no earthly good.’ And I think that perfectly sums up the risks of holding solely to a vertical morality,” Ajoy says. “Our history is full of instances of Christians causing human suffering because they believed they were obeying God. And God’s will can be manipulated and weaponized for all sorts of harm.”

Responding to the News

Brainstorm how you and your church can encourage greater connection with the natural world, as a way to worship the Creator and learn how to more effectively care for the world God made.

Prayer suggested by Psalm 104:10-31; Genesis 1:24-31; Genesis 2:15; 1 Chronicles 29:11-13; Psalm 24:1-2; Matthew 6:25-34

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. You provided plants for humans and animals to eat, and gave humans the responsibility to care for the natural world, and that design was very good. All that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; we all belong to you. Teach us to care for your creation just as you care for the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the lowliest earthworm and the grass which is here today and gone tomorrow, so that you may rejoice in your human children just as you rejoice in all the rest of your creation. For your glory, we pray. Amen.

Copyright 2025 Communication Resources

And let us add—-don’t forget: 96.4%.

Notes from a Quiet Hill (Annexing Columbia Edition)

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—-the latest version of a series of ponderings that began with “Notes from a Battered Royal” that we used to write in the Missourinet newsroom that became “Notes from the Front Lines,” and then “Notes from a Quiet Street.”  The changes denote changes of the writer’s primary location.

Why shouldn’t Jefferson City annex Columbia?  Or why shouldn’t Missouri unilaterally declare Iowa part of our state?

They’re our version of Canada. They’re north.

If the standard for annexation is coldness, maybe Iowa would be the better choice.  And once we have Iowa, nothing can stop us from annexing Minnesota so we can have something REALLY cold in winter, but a nice place to go to in the steaming and humid days of summer.

The Greatest, or at least the silliest, Geopolitician of our time wants Canada to become our 51st state. If he read a geography book, he no doubt would be stunned to know that Canada is not one big geographic blob but has ten provinces and three territories.*** That might please him because we could go from fifty states to 60, and add two territories to our worldwide collection.

Think of the electoral votes involved.

Here’s a map so you will know more than your President does about Canada.

We would like to be in the same room when he suggests or demands that King Charles allow the United States to annex a country that is 41 times larger than the United Kingdom, of which it is a part, seven times larger than our present largest state—Alaska, and 15 times larger than our second-largest state, Texas.

But if he’s thinking of a one-state addition, he might try currying the favor of those in Quebec who have long advocated independence from Canada.

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King Charles did not attend the inauguration in January and there are no plans for a state visit by the new/old President to the UK so there appears to be little immediate possibility that Mr. Trump will have a chance to try to bully the King about Canada. He DOES know, doesn’t he, that he can’t primary a king?

The Great Geopolitician did meet with Prince William, the heir to the throne, at the reopening of Notre Dame. Cathedral a few months ago. The report from the GP illustrates the depth of their discussion: “He’s a good-looking guy. He looked really, very handsome last night. Some people look better in person? He looked great. He looked really nice, and I told him that.”

We wonder what William told his dad about what an uplifting talk he had with he presumed leader of the free world. We wonder how much they laughed.

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Canada appears not to know what is good for it. Doug Ford, who is the premier of Ontario—the most populous province of the GG’s proposed annexation, has a counteroffer.  He suggests Canada should buy Alaska and Minnesota. As far as the USA taking over Canada: “Under my watch, that will never, ever happen.”

Canada’s Green Party leader Elizabth May, has another offer. Cascadia. She suggests British Columbia join with Oregon and Washington to form an independent nation.  She had suggested California join Canada, too, If not a sister independent nation bit as 11th province. She thinks it’s a great idea for another reason—the United States would be rid of three states that vote for Democrats.

And it would be rid of territory with annual potentials for major wildfires (more on that later).

Before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau quit, he put it more bluntly: “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States.” And Canadians know a lot more about snowballs than the Baron of Mar-a-Lago knows. Trudeau’s successor has been equally uncooperative.

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Speaking of Texas, here’s something the GG might consider in re-shaping the world.  Split Texas into five states.  That would mean ten more Senators, most of which are likely to be Republicans under present circumstances.  And it would mean a lot more electoral college votes.  Congress approved a joint resolution allowing the split in 1845:

New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.

Opponents say that resolution has been rendered moot by later legislation. But from time to time in Texas, there is talk.

Wonder if he’s thought about how that might help fight the thundering hordes storming his wall.

Here’s another bonus: Five new states, each with its own state university that can be threatened with loss of funds if they reject DEI.  How do you suppose the SEC and the Big 12 would split them up.

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We also wonder what the GG’s reaction would be if his good friend Vlad were to decide Russia got a raw deal when it sold Alaska to the United States and demanded a renegotiation at the least and a return of the area at the worst.

Why not sell it back to the Russians?  The money received could be used to buy Greenland. What use is it anyway? It’s not connected to any of the other states. Only a few people want to live there year-around. And why send all of those American workers up there to drill, baby, drill when there is still a lot of undrilled national parks and historic sites in the lower 49 to keep the oil companies busy for decades. And the Great State of Canada has a lot of drillable area.

Let the Russians have the Elk and the Permafrost.

How about drilling, baby drilling at Mar-a-Lago?  Probably not worth it. There already are eighteen dry holes there.

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And finally, this addendum to our earlier meditation on the geopolitician’s plan to export people;

It’s either them or the homeless crowd,.  One or the other group should be forced to stay here and rake California’s forests. You recall that the nation’s leading forest expert, or so he claims to be,  theorized four years ago that California wildfires were caused by all of the dead leaves that had fallen from the soon-to-be scorched trees. The President could even get a gold-painted ceremonial rake to take the first stroke. Probably, somebody would have to show him how to do it. Raking leaves when you live on the 56th through 58th floor of your own New York skyscraper is not a talent you have much opportunity to develop.

And if neither the homeless nor the deportees want to do it, he has an entirely new talent pool made up of former federal employees, a veritable 21st century Civilian Conservation Corps—-watched over by all the Generals and Admirals he has fired who might still be good for something.

***Wonder how many provinces and territories he could name.  How about you? I confess, I had forgotten some until I looked at the map. But I could be excused because I have no interest in annexing all of those provinces.

Should he read this entry (which is doubtful given reports that his attention span is so short that he would have quit reading it after “why not”) and for our own edification, here is the list: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Newfoundland and Labrador (considered one).  Territories?  Yukon, Nunavut, Northwest Territories.

 

Before We Were What We Are

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For most of us, particularly those in mid-Missouri, the Lake of the Ozarks and all of its allure has always been here.  It’s hard to imagine when the Osage River wound through the valleys of the ancient mountains and when generations of people lived and died along its banks.  One long-ago summer night while going door-to-door selling encyclopedias in Columbia I knocked on the door of a man who had been a riverboat pilot on the Osage at a time when he could take his boat all the way to Warsaw.  It was the only door I knocked on that night because of the stories he told me. It’s a shame the young encyclopedia salesmen didn’t carry a recorder in those days.

(Actually, there wasn’t such a thing as a portable recorder, at least not one that could record a couple of hours of storytelling back then.)

Let’s go farther back, to 1931, and a time when Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor best known for Mount Rushmore, came to Jefferson City to testify in the lawsuit of the Snyder family against Union Electric.  The Snyder family owned Ha Ha Tonka, now a state park, and they charged UE had damaged the intrinsic beauty of their property to the tune of one-million dollars by building Bagnell Dam and backing up Osage River water into their area.

(Kansas City businessman Robert M. Snyder had fallen in love with the location early in the 20th Century and built the mansion. He never got to see if finished because be became one of Missouri’s first traffic fatalities, in 1906.)

Borglum came to Missouri to testify on behalf of the Snyder estate.  “My first impression of Ha Ha Tonka was that it was more like some of the ancient estates in England than anything I had seen in this country…I don’t know anything that has the dramatic possibilities and the permanent beauty that this place has,” he said when he arrived. He said the “very soul” of the place had been materially decreased by the lake.

“Gutzon Borglum, famous sculptor and connoisseur of beauty, sees a future for America’s Ozarks that is more promising than the wildest dreams of this alluring region’s inhabitants,” reported R. H. Slighton for the Jefferson City Daily Capital News on December 6.  “The people of the Ozarks, he believes, have inherited a blessing from the hand of the Creator that possesses a fabulous value.  The world as yet knows little of it, he believes, but once it is brought to their realization, and the need for what the Ozarks give increases the events that follow, he feels, will be amazing.”

Borglum “gazed out of his hotel window here one misty, wet day last week and peered into the future,” said the article.  And this is what he saw—or foresaw.

He spoke slowly, deliberately, carefully and precise.  We live in an amazing age. I can sit in my room and speak to New York, Chicago, Portland, any city in the country. I do it almost every day. What could be more amazing?  A few years ago I was driving across the country down into the Southwest. I asked along the way where the Ozarks were. ‘Oh, they’re off down that way,’ people would tell me. ‘Off there somewhere’ but no one seemed to know just where.  At. St.Louis they told me I would have to follow the highway and go around them.” 

He foresaw a time when the Ozarks would be what people were looking for.  And highways would take them there.

Where is it going? It is going away from the tenements and smoky cities.

When I started the Rushmore Memorial project in the Black Hills, I selected for my home a place about twenty-five miles from where my work would be. I did it unconsciously despite the fact that I knew I would be making from two to three tips almost every day. Now, what does that mean? With hard surfaced roads the trip is only a matter of a few minutes with an automobile. In the Ozarks, it will be the same. 

The time will come when people will be living within a fifty-mile radius of Jefferson City and drive in every day to their place of business. That time is not far off.

He thought the skyscraper was out of date. He thought people would tire of crowded cities and seek out quieter places such as the Ozarks.  He knew that “common earth, rocks, trees, and grass,” as Slighton put it, might be worth billions to the city dweller seeking relief from the dirt, smoke, and noise.  He used New York’s Central Park as an example.

Why won’t they sell it?  Because it is worth more to the people of New York City as a place just to walk through in the evening when their day’s work is done.  Borglum recalled a man the previous summer caught with a half-gallon bucket full of Central Park soil leaving the park. He told the judge he needed it for a flower in his penthouse apartment, an argument Borglum used to emphasize the human longing for an out-of-doors. Good roads, he argued, would provide an answer for that longing.

The Snyders lost their lawsuit.  Their great mansion in Camden County became a lodge where visitors could look out over the misty Ozark mountains on the other side of the dammed Osage River.  The house was gutted by a fire in 1942, its stone walls still standing reminiscent of Europe’s bombed-out churches after the Second World War.  It took three-quarters of a century before the state finally made Ha Ha Tonka a state park.

“Already the backwoods stage of the hill country is passing,” wrote Slighton in 1931.     

It’s what the whole world wants.

And what would “the whole world” do when it got to the Ozarks?  “Mr. Borglum believes the Ozarks are ideal for private estates and that before so very long they will be springing up with their private stock of game comparable to the old estates in England,” said Slighton.

We thought that mix of foreshadowing and philosophizing would be interesting to consider these nine decades later.

Forty years or so after Borglum granted that interview in the Jefferson City hotel room, one of the most passionate writers about the need to seek the out-of-doors, Edward Abbey, said in his book Desert Solitaire, “Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.” But then he noted the contradiction of people seeking that “necessity” when he continued: “A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”

The hard surface roads have, indeed, taken the city folks to the Ozarks in search of something basic that cannot be satisfied by the city life. But let us hope there always will be places in the Ozarks where roads don’t need to go.

(Photo Credits: Missouri State Parks, 417 Magazine (color aerial view), National Park Service–Borglum, in light suit, with son Lincoln, in tram inspecting George Washington, Edward Abbey at Arches National Monument)

The Power Under Our Feet

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If you think fossil fuels are the only way to power our lives, you need to go to Iceland. If Iceland doesn’t tickle your fancy (and don’t underestimate Iceland on this score; it’s surprising.), go to Texas.

If you think windmills should be forbidden because they kill birds, that nuclear power should be abolished because it leaves behind tons of dangerous waste, that electric-powered vehicles are actually uneconomical because it costs a lot of gas, oil, and coal for power plants to generate full  battery charges, that the use of oil, gas, and coal shorten lives, that water cannot turn enough turbines to light our cities—-you need to go to Iceland.  Or Texas.

Iceland first. We learned about this on a trip there just before the pandemic set in. We were attracted by the opportunity to see the northern lights.

And we did on a really cold night (we went in November).  Our guide—we called him “Fred” because we would have dislocated our jaws trying to pronounce name—took this one.

A 2020 study, the latest study we have seen, shows at least 90% of all homes in Iceland are NOT heated by nuclear, wind, or fossil fuel-generated power.  That study shows, in fact, that 99.94% of electricity generated in Iceland was geothermal or hydro-generated. Underground hot water and the water that powers the great waterfalls, in fact, provided 99.94% of all electricity generated in Iceland that year. And more than 70% of the total energy used in that country came from geothermal sources. The country wants to be carbon neutral by 2040.

Iceland has a lot of waterfalls—a lot!

Many of them are spectacular and they flow year-around. Why? Because glaciers melt from the bottom up in Iceland, even as winter puts down several feet of snow on top of them every year. The result is a lot of hydropower generation.

As far back as the Vikings, people have taken warm baths and washed their clothes in warm water even on the coldest days because of geothermal water-–water heated by the volcanic activity that created Iceland thousands of years ago and continues to alter its size today.

The number one use of geothermal heat in 2020 was space heating, then heating swimming pools, melting snow, fish farming, industry, and greenhouses (This is the Fridheimar     greenhouse that covers about 2.7 acres that uses pure  glacier water heated in a thermal pool to grow eighteen percent of the tomatoes used by the country—370 tons of them a year—on 20-foot high, or more, tomato vines throughout which about 1200 peaceful bumbleees maintain pollination, each of them capable of pollinating 2,000 flowers a day. The incredible tomato soup and bread for lunch are to die for.)

The Capital of Reykjavick, where about sixty percent of the country’s people live, has clear streets and sidewalks on snowy days because those streets and sidewalks are heated.  Water ranging from 100-300 degrees centigrade heats homes and is then diverted under the streets and sidewalks at 30 degrees centigrade (about 86 of our Fahrenheit degrees).

This issue has been highlighted by recent news coverage of some volcanoes that have become active in recent months. Some of the coverage has focused on the closure of the Blue Lagoon, the country’s most popular tourist attraction.  We were there.  And we floated in the geothermal waters.  The only way we could have drowned was by turning over and having somebody sit on us.

The lagoon’s water is a mixture of freshwater discharged from the Svartsengi Power Station and seawater.

Iceland didn’t officially recognize the power beneath national feet until about fifty years ago.  That’s when energy price inequities forced the national government to address the issue.   Orkustofnun, the National Energy Authority, recommended increased use of hydro and geothermal power to stabilize energy costs.  The Arab Oil Embargo that created an energy and economic crisis throughout the world led the Icelandic government to speed up its adoption of geothermal alternatives.

You might think that’s great for Iceland but the only significant place for geothermal activity here is Yellowstone National Park.  You are wrong. Take a look at this map of geothermal resources prepared by the Southern Methodist University  Geothermal Laboratory.

Texas might not look so hot in this map but it is a hotbed of geothermal energy development. The state well-known for its oil industry, says writer Saul Eblin for The Hill, is poised to dominate what boosters hope will be America’s next great energy boom: a push to tap the heat of the subterrnean earth for electricity and industry.”  He says Texas “is fueling a boom in startups that seek to take the issue nationally.

In March, he says, solar generation in Texas “eclipsed coal both in terms of power generation and market share.  Texas also has more utility-scale wind and solar capacity than any other state” although California still leads in rooftop solar power generation.

Last year, the Texas legislature passed four bills with only one “no” vote that will create new opportunities for geothermal drilling. Eblin says eleven of the nation’s 27 geothermal startups last year were in Texas and the momentum is building.

A few days ago, he reports, Bedrock Energy had a display at a commercial real estate company in Austin showing a new geothermal-powered heatng and cooling system. A few days earlier, Quaise, a drilling company, filed for a permit from state regulators to start field-testing drills that use high-powered radio waves to drill through dense rock. A company in Houston called Dervo, is building a 400-megawatt facility in Utah and the military is looking at geothermal source of electricity. Sage Geosystems soon will start using a fracked well to store renewable energy, a big step toward its goal of producing a reliable source of geothermal energy.

There are those who laugh at the electrification of America, particularly the growing emphasis on electric vehcles, claiming that the production fo electricity still requires fossil fuels and windmills and solar farms are nice but they limit use of land increasingly needed for food production.

But the heated water beneath our feet leapfrogs those arguments.  The SMU map indicates Missouri can produce 50-60 Milliwatts per square meter from underground water. One watt equals one millon milliwatts. Our calculation says Missouri has 180,540,000 square meters.  If we understand the math, that means 9,027,000,000-10,832,400,000 watts of geothermal power generation is beneath our feet.

If we do our math correctly, our largest utility, Ameren, generates 10,000 megawatts a year in Missouri, or about 10,000,000 watts per year.

Whether geothermal generation is an alternative for Ameren, we don’t know. But the company came under new federal pressure recently with the adoption of EPA new rules requiring coal-fired power plants to have new carbon pollution controls. The Post-Dispatch has reported more than half of Ameren’s power is generated by coal. Only Texas generates more power with coal. And Ameren’s Labadie plant in Franklin county is the number two power plant producer in the country.

So it appears we have enough thermal energy under our feet to generate as much as Ameren produces from all of its power plants, whether fossil or nuclear fueled in a year.  And Missouri isn’t even close to the geothermal potential other states who not only can serve their customers well but can export energy to other parts of the country, including to Missouri.

We have mentioned in earlier posts, one advantage to studying journalism in college was that no math courses were required.  If we have misunderstood these calculations, we welcome corrections.

Even if we are wrong, the experience of Iceland and elsewhere as well as the growing experience in Texas shows there is non-fossil energy enough beneath our feet to keep our lights on and to fuel our commerce indefinitely. But energy is politicized here. The fossil fuel industry slings a lot of money around in Washington and on campaign trails.  The Greenies, however, are making progress, incremental though it might be.

We might not be able to operate our cars on water but they can operate on the electricity generated by water, steaming hot water.  A 500-mile affordable electric car is growing closer.  But if we want to see the reality of a society powered by non-fossil fuels, Iceland is a flight of only five hours from Chicago O’Hare Airport. Take a coat, even in summer. It’s pretty far north.

Iceland as a country is one big ground source heat pump, north to south, east to west.

Super hot water beneath OUR feet is something to think about even here in relatively cool Missouri.

(Photo Credit: Bob Priddy)

 

Could we survive yesterday?

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Someone asked me the other day, “If you could go back 150 years, what would be the first things you would notice?”

It took me about two seconds to come up with an answer—because I’ve sometimes thought it would be interesting to be able to go back as an invisible observer of the past.

“Color,” I said. “And smells.”

“And the water would kill us.”

The images with which we are most familiar are all one-dimensional and black and white.  Take that picture of great-great-grandfather and grandmother and imagine what a shock it would be to meet them on the street, in three dimensions, their flesh the same color as yours, eyes (perhaps) the same color as yours, hair—-well it might be the same color but it also might be pretty greasy with the men and not particularly clean with the women.

And they likely would have an odor about them, especially if you met them at this time of year.  Stale sweat for one.  Showers were unknown in most homes (indoor plumbing of any kind). Bathtubs were not as well-used as our tubs and showers are now.  Underarm deodorant was nonexistent.  Mum was the first underarm deodorant, and it didn’t come along until 1888, a paste applied under the arms, by hand.  Deodorant, not anti-perspirant.

Underwear probably went a few days before changing.

In those days, if everybody stank, nobody stank.

Last year, I was on the town square in Springfield, Illinois and I noticed a sign on one of the historic buildings denoting it as the former home of the Corneau and Diller Drug Store. The sign said the store had been opened in 1849 by Roland W. Diller and Charles S. Corneau, who installed a big wood stove circled by chairs, making the pace a popular place for mento gather and swap stories or discuss events of the day including politics, a subject that was appealing to Abraham Lincoln, whose law office was a short walk away.

Wife Mary purchased toiletries there “such as bear’s oil, ox, marrow, ‘French Chalk’ for her complexion, a patent hairdressing called ‘Zylobalsam,’ and ‘Mrs. Allen’s Restorative.”

It continues: “Because daily bathing was not yet customary, the Lincolns—like most other people—bought cologne by the quart!”

Visitors to the Steamboat Arabia Museum in Kansas City can purchase 1856 French Perfume.  It’s not the real stuff that was found when the boat was excavated but it is a reproduction.  The museum sent a bottle of some of the real stuff to a laboratory in New York that did a chemical analysis and reproduced the perfume.

It’s strong stuff.  But for hundreds of years, perfume often was not the olfactory decoration and attraction that it is today; it was a masking agent sometimes poured on and sometimes used to soak kerchiefs that were kept up the sleeves and used to waft away some personal unpleasantness of a companion.

So color and odor would be the first things to jolt us if we went back 150 years.

But the smells would not be confined to the people you meet on the streets.  The streets themselves would be pretty rank.

The New York Almanack published an article a couple of years ago observing that the city had 150,000 to 200,000 horses, each of which produced “up to 30 pounds of manure per day and a quart of urine…over 100,000 tons a year (not to mention around 10 million gallons of urine.”

“By the end of the 19th century, vacant lots around New York City housed manure piles that reached 40 or 60 feet high. It was estimated that in a few decades, every street would have manure piled up to third story levels.”

Jefferson City’s streets didn’t produce that much manure and urine.  But New  York’s problems were the problems of every city in the country, including the capital city.

The manure on the dirt streets (such as High Street in Jefferson City) attracted flies by the thousands, millions.  New York once estimated that three-billion flies were hatched from street poop every day.  They were disease carriers. The dust from the streets and the dried manure mingled in the air, was inhaled and worn on the clothing.

And when it rained in the summer or when the show thawed in the winter, the streets turned into a gluey muck that was tracked into every business and home in town—except for the ones that required footwear to be removed before or upon entering—at which point socks that weren’t changed daily added their own atmosphere to life.

These conditions led to the rise in some communities of a new institution—the country club.  People needed a place in the country where they could breathe clean air, at least for a day or two.  Golf courses and horse-racing tracks developed outside of towns.

Missouri Governor Herbert Hadley, who suffered from a lung disease—pleurisy—bought a farm west of town and several prominent residents gathered one weekend for a big barn raising and cabin-building.  Later, a nine-hole golf course was created and thus was born the Jefferson City Country Club.

Sanitary sewer systems were rare. Homes had outhouses, often not far from the well that provided the house with water.

If we went back 150 years and took a drink of the water of the day, we probably would choke on the taste and if we dank a little too much, we might just die of a water-borne disease.  Even with natural immunity that residents of those times developed, the average life expectancy in the United States in 1880 was 40, a good part of it because of high infant mortality and primitive obstetrics that led to high mortality rates for women giving birth.

We forget how tough, how strong, our ancestors had to be to survive in such an environment.  The Missouri State Penitentiary kept a log of every Confederate prisoner it took in.  The average prisoner was 5-feet-7 and weighed 140 pounds.  Women prisoners averaged 4-feet-11.

Imagine wearing a wool uniform, marching ten or 20 miles a day carrying a heavy rifle and a 50-pound backpack, eating unrefrigerated rations and drinking whatever water you could find, even if it was downstream from a cattle farm.

The good old days weren’t very good.  The problem with going back to them is that we might not live long enough to return.

 

Junking Up the Place

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We were chatting with our minister, Dr. Michel Dunn, at breakfast in the Capitol restaurant last Thursday morning about the upcoming Earth Day weekend and a new program at our church that aims to reduce our carbon footprint—-another one of those phrases that is fingernails on the blackboard to some folks (even those who think a tree needs a good hug sometimes).

We talked about how mankind has an outstanding record of trashing its surroundings.

We once did a story at the Missourinet about how much it costs the Highway Department to pick up roadside trash in which we said the department spent the equivalent one year of the costs of building a two-lane highway between Jefferson City and Columbia.

One thing led to another in our conversation and we talked about our bigger surroundings—how much junk there is circling the earth. It’s gotten to the point that anybody launching a satellite or a crewed spacecraft has to calculate where the junk is and try to fit the flight within it.  And we’ve heard some stories about the space station getting hit.  Space.com recently reported that as of last December, the ISS has made course corrections to avoid satellite and other debris 32 times since 1999.

The European Space Agency reported, as of March 27:

Number of rocket launches since the start of the space age in 1957:

About 6380 (excluding failures)

Number of satellites these rocket launches have placed into Earth orbit:

About 15430*

Number of these still in space:

About 10290

Number of these still functioning:

About 7500

Number of debris objects regularly tracked by Space Surveillance Networks and maintained in their catalogue:

About 33010

Estimated number of break-ups, explosions, collisions, or anomalous events resulting in fragmentation:

More than 640

Total mass of all space objects in Earth orbit:

More than 10800 tonnes

Not all objects are tracked and catalogued. The number of debris objects estimated based on statistical models to be in orbit (MASTER-8, future population 2021)

36500 space debris objects greater than 10 cm
1000000 space debris objects from greater than 1 cm to 10 cm
130 million space debris objects from greater than 1 mm to 1 cm

How big is that:  Our calculator shows 10 centimeters is about 3.9 inches. Doesn’t seem very big but when it’s whizzing along at 17,500 mph it can cause serious damage.

Some of this stuff eventually will lose enough momentum to burn up as it hurtles out of orbit. But more seems to be going up than seems to becoming down.

*We checked the United Nation’s Office of Objects Launched Into Outer Space  yesterday (Sunday the 23rd) and it was counting 15,442 objects that had been launched into outer space.

And this is just stuff flying around in near earth.

Twelve Americans walked on the moon 1969-1972.  The Atlantic magazine reported in its December 19, 2012 issue that almost 400,000 pounds of human-made material was littering the moon, including these items left behind by the six Apollo landings:

Some of these items were left as tributes. Others were left because the landing capsule didn’t need extra weight as it headed back to the command module and, eventually, back home. The two golf balls were taken to the Moon by Alan Shepherd on Apollo 14. He had the head of six iron golf club modified so it could fit on one of the lunar digging shovels. He hit the two balls, the second of which he said, tongue-in-cheek, went “miles and miles and miles.”  NACA later scanned the film and determined the balls actually traveled about 24 yards and about 40 yards.

Writer Megan Garber also noted various craft were crashed into the moon intentionally, or landed on the moon with no way to get back—more than 70, and that was more than a decade ago.

Now, back to all of that stuff in orbit.  Not all of it us junk.  A growing amount is satellites.  Of late, the biggest (worst?) contributor is SpaceX with its Starlink satellite system.  It wants to have at least 12,000 operational satellites in low earth orbit soon and has applied for approval of—get this—30,000 more. It claims these satellites have the means to move out of the way of things. Space.com reports that SpaceX  already had about 4,000 satellites up.

Jonathan McDowell with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told Space.com in February, “It’s going to like an interstate highway at rush hour in a snowstorm with everyone driving too fast except that there are multiple interstate highways crossing each other with no stoplights.” as Starlink keeps shooting up satellites, joined with OneWeb and Amazon Kuiper.

Trash above.  Trash below.  We produce it by the ton. Earth day reminds us we can find some better ways to do some things.  At least, a little bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Leaves

Minnie and Max and I were out on the porch a few days ago enjoying a delicious fall day. 70 degrees. No breeze. Sunny.  The sounds of fall around us—birds, an internet cable crew digging through the rocky hillcrest on which we live (we have just enough topsoil to provide room for the roots of grass and for the moles to have a playground), the garbage truck going by—-

All of us were napping. One of us would un-doze long enough to read a few pages of a whodunit that had been brought to the porch.  The others would be instantly alerted by a squirrel dashing along a tree limb or a bird.

But mostly I thought of the leaves. The leaves on the tree or the bush just outside the porch had turned a triumphant yellow and others in the neighborhood were turning red or orange or variations of brown and yellow. I thought of how much I love them.   And how much I shall miss them when the trees turn to skeletons against the gray skies of December and January in particular.

I can’t wait to see the soft glow of green begin to appear each spring and the promise it brings of warmth, and of leaves.

I am a three-season person.

Have you ever noticed in winter how rare it is to look up?

Winter is the time to cast our eyes down for there is nothing of beauty to be seen by looking up.  We look down because we often must watch our step.  We look down because winter makes us feel down.  We look down because there is no color in the world that draws us to look up.

But spring comes and we look expectantly for that green glow and when it grow into the deep green of spring leaves, our eyes are drawn up for there is beauty around us again.  No longer do we look down and in looking down become lost in ourselves.

Leaves do that to us.   They shade us on the hottest days of summer.  They comfort us with their rustling in the breeze.  Within them there is life—scampering creatures and singing birds.

The best days of our lives are the days when we have leaves.

But then they begin to turn and we begin to sit in our glider swing on the porch, Minnie dozing in the chair across the porch, Max in a sun spot, and we ponder the green leaves suddenly turned yellow just outside and we admire the beauty in the world and realize how much we shall miss them when they are gone—that in four or six weeks, they will be crisp and dry and brown on the ground, the joy of their presence turned to a burden to be removed or burned.

Leaves seem to be central to our spirit. Minnie, Max, and I shall sit with them as often as possible as they take their—-their leave.

These are the days of goodbye from our leaves, the bittersweet season, a season to reminisce—as lyricist Johnny Mercer wrote;

The falling leaves
Drift by my window
The autumn leaves
Of red and gold
I see your lips
The summer kisses
The sunburned hands
I used to hold

Since you went away
The days grow long
And soon I’ll hear
Old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

Since you went away
The days grow long
And soon I’ll hear
Old winter’s song
But I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall

Yes, I miss you most of all, my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.

 (For the record, the tune was by Joseph Kosma, who composed it in 1945)

In a few weeks, Minnie and Max and I will retreat back inside the house.  It will be warm in there because of the furnace and because of the presence of the other person who lives there with us.

—and helps us get through the days of the downward look until once again the magic of leaves returns and we look up again and find renewed beauty.

The Future of Water (update)

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We seldom update one of these posts, and even less often do we do it immediately.  Had we posted on this topic today instead of yesterday we would have changed some information. But here’s an important update that underlines the point we made.

The Corps of Engineers announced yesterday that it was implementing drought conservation measures on the Missouri River.  June runoff from rain (very little) and snowmelt (much reduced) was just 52% of the average amount. The Corps has updated its forecast for upper basin runoff to finally be 60% of average.

It says this will be the tenth driest year in the upper basin since 1898.  Water storage in upstream reservoirs is expected to decline further.  That means less water coming downstream for all of the purposes defined by federal river law.

This doesn’t mean we who live in cities that rely on the river for our water will have to stop watering lawns, wash dishes once a week and clothes once a month and ourselves only on Saturday nights using the same water for everybody in the family (as many of our pioneer ancestors did).  But it adds further weight to yesterday’s discussion.

There isn’t “water, water everywhere” in more and more places.

The Future of Water

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A good part of Missouri has gotten an excessive drenching in the past few days.  But we—and perhaps you—have friends to the west who are being baked well-done by record heat and who are watching forests burn and water reservoir levels drop and disappear.

We might think we are glad we don’t have their problems—although our monsoon week is hardly without problems of its own.

For several years, Nancy and I enjoyed going to the Four Corners area for a week each fall to do archaeological work on or near the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, adjacent to Mesa Verde National Park. We first recorded rock art from the days of the Anasazi (a Pueblo word meaning “ancient enemies”—we don’t know what those people who lived in the area until the 1200s called themselves because they left no written language). Although popular telling of their story has it that they just suddenly disappeared 750 years ago or so, archaeologists and anthropologists think they know where their descendants are, and they have developed some theories on why they fled the Four Corners area.

It’s thought they are the ancestors of the present Hopi people. One of the factors—the final straw—leading to their departure from the Four Corners area is believed to have been a 45-year drought that left them without the food and other resources needed to survive.

All of this has been brought to mind by recent reports that Lake Mead, which is behind Hoover Dam, has declined to its lowest level ever because of a drought that is now in its 22nd year. The condition is critical for 25-million people including the cities of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, Phoenix, and Tucson.  The lake has hit a record low, down 140 feet since 2000, creating the bathtub ring you can see in recent pictures. One-hundred-forty feet is about the height of the Statue of Liberty from base to torch tip.

Some states already have imposed water rationing and they expect to tighten restrictions as conditions worsen. Agriculture is in dire straits. Adding to the awful conditions is the rise in major fires in forests that haven’t seen protective rain for years.

It’s hard to understand that green and verdant Missouri faces some water shortages of our own. Today.  Right now.  And stewardship of our water will become more critical as our population increases, as agriculture is under increased pressure to produce more and more food in an increasingly populous world, and as our economy grows.

The Department of Natural Resources 2020 update to its Missouri Water Resources Plan warns, “Although Missouri is fortunate to have rich water resources, localized shortages do exist because of the distance from adequate supplies, insufficient infrastructure or storage, water quality constraints, and other limiting factors. In many areas, surface water supplies are subject to seasonal fluctuations; supplies are frequently at their lowest when demand is the highest.”

Farther into the study we are told, “On average, the 6.1 million people and numerous businesses in Missouri consume 3.2 billion gallons of water each day. Of that demand, 78 percent is supplied by groundwater, while the remaining 22 percent is supplied by surface water.”  Three fourths of our water comes from under our feet.

We often heard testimony in legislative committee hearings on the dangers of agricultural runoff or industrial pollution going into our streams and rivers, our surface waters. A major concern, yes.  But that’s only one-fifth of the water we use or think we need to use.

Studies indicate our population will rise to about seven-and-a-half million people by 2060, well within the lifetimes of some who read these entries—them or their children—putting more pressure on water, a finite resource.  The report suggests a number of policies and practices that need to be started now in anticipation of that growth.

We need to do more than read about them. Our generation has to start something that later generations can continue to meet Missouri’s water needs.

The greatest pressure on our water supply is agricultural irrigation—65% of our water withdrawals go to farming. Major water systems (that provide us with water to drink, to bathe in, to do our dishes, and flush our toilets) are another 25%.

The study says the agricultural counties of Butler, Dunklin, New Madrid, Pemiscot, and Stoddard Counties—all in the southeast corner of the state—are projected to have the greatest growth in demand in the next four decades. High demand also is expected as our metropolitan areas become more metropolitan.

DNR says the state “generally has plentiful water sources.”  Now, it does. But the report also says, “many supply-related challenges exist.”

Much of the groundwater originating from bedrock aquifers in northern and west-central Missouri is highly mineralized and unsuitable for most uses. In northwestern Missouri, precipitation is generally the lowest in the state, and the lack of surface water availability during prolonged droughts can result in water shortages. Timing is also important in determining the availability of water, since peak demands often coincide with the driest times of the year and multiyear droughts can lower aquifers and drain reservoirs that typically provide ample supply. Even when available, the quality of the water may not be suitable for all intended uses without treatment.

We already are facing a critical problem in dealing with our water supplies. The DNR report says, “More than half of the state’s community public water systems became active prior to 1960, meaning that without repair or replacement original water pipes, mains, and equipment are nearing or exceeding their average expected lifespan…Many small drinking water utilities have indicated that they lack the funding not only to proactively manage infrastructure needs, but also to meet current water quality standards and adequately address water losses.”

At the other end of the process (to coin a phrase): “Similar to drinking water infrastructure in Missouri, a significant portion of wastewater infrastructure may be approaching the end of its expected life.”

Need an immediate reminder of how precious Missouri’s water supply is and how carefully we must use it and prepare for its future use is no farther away than the greatest of our rivers?

This past April 7, the Missouri River Basin Water Management Division for the Corps of Engineers noted the snowfall in the upper basin had been poor.  “We expect upper basin runoff to be below average,” said Division Chief John Remus. The Corps thinks the snowmelt runoff into upstream reservoirs to be 83% of the annual average this year.

Water is going to become more precious.  You and I might not notice it.  But our grandchildren could.  We aren’t going to turn into the Southwest by the end of the week.  But we have to understand that the way we use water today can’t be the way our next generations will use it.  And we need to prepare for those times.

Unlike the ancient pueblo peoples of the Colorado plateau in the 12th and 13th Centuries, we won’t have anyplace to go when the great drought hits us.

If you want to read the entire 2020 Missouri Water Resources Plan you can find it at:

https://dnr.mo.gov/mowaterplan/docs/2020-mo-water-resources-plan-highlights.pdf