Category: Population

I spent five minutes pulling the starter cord and adjusting the choke and throttle on the little pump without a whimper of a start. Then I realized that it would help to turn the switch to “on”.

In addition to the Four Corners Folk Festival, I spent much of this past Labor Day weekend at the Durango Nature Center. It was calm there. The shrill cry of a red tailed hawk made me look up. Once I was buzzed by a great blue heron, and another time I saw her waiting in the shallow water of the Florida River, upstream from the footbridge. My constant companions were lizards, including several “horny toads”. Occasionally I caught the perfume of sagebrush.

The meadow where kids play and learn suffered from drought and the grass was drying up. The only hope was to pump water out of the Florida River. Thanks to Ted’s Rental for loaning the pump and some hose borrowed from neighbors, I was able to rig up a sprinkler.

The pump ran for an hour or two—not nearly enough time to deep water the parched soil—thus the need for multiple trips. Hopefully there will be more green for the Children Discovering Nature program this fall.

Except for the dry meadow, Durango Nature Studies is thriving with the imaginative leadership of Sally Shuffield. Most notable is a new contract with the 9R School District to develop and implement innovative curricula for all kids in grades kindergarten through five. Along with the Discovery Museum, DNS will provide both classroom and field trips with hands-on experiences for these lucky children. They will learn about nature through Children Discovering Nature, and Surviving and Thriving in Winter. Students from other school districts can still attend.

There are many other programs, too! New ones include the New Moon hikes at the Nature Center and the After School Nature Club. Full Moon hikes and Wee Walkabouts are still popular. Kids love the summer camp, and older kids can enjoy a backpacking camp. For information about other DNS doings, consult the website: www.durangonaturestudies.org.

Most exciting is the news that we will soon have a welcome building at the Nature Center! Thanks to generous contributions from BP and many other businesses and individuals in the community, there will be a small log cabin next to the parking lot. Although rustic, it will provide shelter and a place to greet visitors, and perhaps to sell books and souvenirs.

Having a welcome building will allow DNS to open up the Nature Center for visitors on weekends. This will probably start next spring and will just be on a limited basis, but will allow visitors to enjoy this beautiful land.

Much of our country has been turned to serve human needs—agriculture, housing, commercial and industrial uses. This becomes a serious problem as our human population rises. Fortunately we have preserved some land relatively intact, and we live close to some of the best wild areas in the country. The Durango Nature Center is 140 acres of beautiful land near Bondad that has been kept natural so people can enjoy and learn. DNS concentrates on young people, but also serves adults.

Despite our proximity to extensive natural beauty, too many kids spend most of their lives in buildings or vehicles. They are more familiar with TVs and Game Boys than with birds and trees. The goal of DNS is to get youngsters outside so they are comfortable and enjoy being out-of-doors. What they enjoy they will also value.

What makes DNS run? Volunteers! Its programs could never exist without the help from dozens of people. In addition to the three DNS staff, there are many unpaid people who lead walks, board members and people in the community who donate time, services and money.

The training sessions for a new group of CDN leaders has just finished. It included Fort Lewis professor Dr. Alane Brown and a handful of her students. Dr. Brown hopes to join the Peace Corps as an environmental educator; her students chose this service as an alternative to writing a term paper.

About 50 volunteers gave a total of 2283 hours of their time last year to teach our children about the natural world. The monetary value of all this time is over $40,000! Remember, nature is in danger of being overwhelmed by our population growth. DNS helps today’s children—our future decision makers—learn about and love the natural world.

© Richard Grossman MD, 2011

There is something you can do that is likely to make you happier, healthier, save money and lessen your impact on the planet. What is it? Consume less by practicing simpler living.
I usually focus on human population growth, but consumption is an issue that affects our impact on the planet just as much.
A child born in a developing country will have only a fraction of the impact that a child would have in the United States. This illustrates that it is not just the numbers of people but also the resources they use (and the pollution they cause) that really matters. Furthermore, consumption is growing faster than population growth. Worldwide our numbers are increasing by 1 % per year while consumption is skyrocketing at 2 to 4 %.
Costa Rica is a good example of a nation that approaches sustainability. We lived in Monteverde for three months recently, giving us personal experience with the differences from the USA.
The income of an average Costa Rican (or “Tico”, to use their nickname) is significantly less than that of an “American”. Our buying power is about $47,000 per person each year, but in Costa Rica it is less than a quarter of that, at $11,000. Obviously Ticos consume less than do norteamericanos.
Yet Ticos appear to be happier than Americans. One measure, the Satisfaction with Life Index, rates Ticos higher (13th in the world) than Americans (just 23rd).
Most Ticos do not own cars, but use their feet or public transportation to travel. When we lived up in Monteverde we walked to do errands. Sometimes we enjoyed the luxury of a taxi if it was pouring or if we had a lot to carry. When we traveled from the Monteverde area we did so by bus. It cost only the equivalent of eight dollars for the four-hour trip to the capital, San José!
Doesn’t relative poverty cause poor health? No! On average, Ticos live a year or two longer than Americans! The emphasis there is on primary and preventative health care. I don’t remember seeing a really obese Tico; people are physically active and fast food is uncommon. Indeed, I lost weight when eating my favorite Costa Rican food, gallo pinto—but that’s another story.
What is the secret of Costa Rica? It is unique in the world in that it emphasizes education and health. It has no military—that’s right, none! Instead it provides free health care to all citizens and free education through high school. In contrast, the USA spends a huge fraction of our finances on the military. Part of our expenditure is to support our extravagant use of petroleum, which largely comes from far away. A large portion of our military might is used to gain and protect sources of petroleum. Furthermore, our military consumes huge amounts of oil.
Contraception is free and available to all Ticos as part of their health care. Funding for family planning in the USA, however, has been shrinking when measured in real dollars, and its very existence has been jeopardized with recent political changes. (Abortion is illegal in Costa Rica, although a few abortions are done surreptitiously.)
The saying “development is the best contraceptive” became popular during Reagan’s presidency. As people get richer, they do tend to have smaller families. Unfortunately, they also consume more and have greater impact. Furthermore, more refined studies have found that really rich people have larger families than moderately rich families.
The Tico lifestyle uses much less of the planet’s resources and adds less pollution to the environment. Costa Rica has also preserved a greater proportion of its land as parks than any other country in the world. Its rain and cloud forests have become a major tourist destination, and a major source of income. Almost all electricity in Costa Rica comes from renewable sources—hydro and wind—but it is affordable for all.
The Ecological Footprint (an excellent measure of an individual’s impact) of the average Tico is 2.8 hectares (6.8 acres). This is close to the average area of productive land available to each person—if we all had this EF we would be using the planet’s resources sustainably.
We cannot all move to Costa Rica. We here in the USA can, however, endeavor to reduce our consumption. People who choose “simple living” (or a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity) work less, spend less, and enjoy life more. Most important is that they are happier and have less impact on the planet.

© Richard Grossman MD, 2011