Landscape

Up north, the Inuit are noticing weather and landscape transformations in Nanavut, an area in the Canadian Arctic. Families, villages and communities are experiencing the direct effects of climate change. Changes in the sea have made traveling difficult, igloos can't be built because of poor snow, drying lakes and rivers disrupt access to hunting grounds, and the poor growth of vegetation affects the health of the caribou, a mainstay of survival.

I'm thinking about the field near a childhood home in Connecticut. It was there that I discovered my pirating skills, and learned that I could be a hero. Three abadoned concrete tubes became my boat on the endless sea of childhood dreams. I buried treasure under snow that would sometimes drift far above my head. Many years later when I went to visit the scene of my crimes and my glory, I found instead a commercial real estate development. Upon my buried treasure now stood a Benihana -- and all the other wastful consumer enterprises that threaten our ecosystem. It doesn't snow like it used to either.

We aren't used to thinking about what landscapes mean to us and how they are integral to our lives. People tend to take them for granted. yet almost every important memory occurs in a location, and everything we do is in part dependent upon the landscape where we do it. Landscapes are more important to our minds, selves and the functioning of our society than most realize. Climate change, and the societal events that have brought it about, force us to reckon with what land means to us, how changes to our terrain will affect us economically, culturally and emotionally. What we are willing to do to preserve it?

On Peoples' Minds:
"My personality feels like it's a mall paving over a wildlife sanctuary." N, a 60 year old man.

In the News:
We think we protected nature and her species by preserving lands. What happens if climate change renders them uninhabitable to the very species they were designed to protect?
Here in New York some developers want to replace beloved ball fields with an entertainment complex. They seem to be missing the point of what it means to play ball: the moist grass leaving muddy smudges on your knees, the subtle darkness obscuring vision ever so slightly as the sun sets, and the warm air scented with the honeysuckle as your strong leg in a split second of intuition kicks the ball into the goal.