Try as we might to forget or ignore them, natural forces will inevitably assert themselves, a reminder that we humans aren’t always as important as we think we are. A drought has lowered wells, reservoirs and water tables in much of the eastern United States, including islands. Fresh water supplies on islands being limited anyway (and easily threatened by contamination or over-use) the thought of dry or salty wells is indeed difficult to face. Always aware of limits, islanders know this; mainlanders still seem to be in denial about their water supplies.
Discussion at the Swan’s Island town meeting this year suggested that another natural force – the burgeoning herd of whitetail deer – is asserting itself there as it has on other islands, munching on gardens, causing accidents and putting humans at risk for Lyme Disease. A controlled hunt has apparently made some inroads, but in a no-predator environment such as an island, the deer can usually be counted on to replenish themselves.
Insects are the natural force making news in some island and coastal communities. The town of Cranberry Isles faces a perennial mosquito problem, and has appointed a committee to look into possible means (short of chemical sprays) of addressing it. Further west along the coast, the islands, peninsulas and coastal towns of Casco Bay are again wrestling with browntail moth infestations, debating the merits of sprays and other alternatives. Whether you’re in favor of spraying, it appears, depends on (a) your susceptibility to moth-caused rashes; (b) your closeness to the lobster business, which is affected by the spray being proposed; and (c) whether you have moths in your own neighborhood. Spray season is coming, promising still more debate.
These natural forces are operating at the local level, of course, and they pale in comparison with what’s out there at a regional or global scale. For a combination of reasons the lobster population and the fishery that depends on it are doing well these days; for other reasons (or perhaps some of the same ones) the herring and groundfish stocks and their fisheries are in poor shape. Efforts to manage them sustainably are still in their infancy; if the record so far means anything, we’ve got a long way to go.
Globally, the big news this month on the natural-force front is the collapse of a huge ice sheet in Antarctica, probably caused by unusually warm temperatures in that region. We can’t say yet that the collapse was caused by fossil fuels or global warming, but the possibility shouldn’t be dismissed. In the end it may not matter anyway: the real point isn’t greenhouse gas, it’s the power of natural forces to do as they will, whether we puny humans like it or not.