As we face the dwindling tail end of Ida, it’s time for some good news on the environment – I just need to find the mosquito that thinks I am a midnight snack. The U.S. District Court for Arizona ruled that the Trump-era cutbacks on protecting wetlands could cause “serious environmental harm.” Caring more about profits than anything else, large agribusiness and other polluters are sure to appeal.
And last month another federal court blocked oil and gas leases for Alaska’s North Slope but greed won out on the oil and gas leases in Louisiana. I mean, who cares about fires in the West as long as oil barons can get their profits?
Every once in a while I wonder what New Jersey must have looked like when the Lenape and the Ramapo lived here. Was it woodland or swamp? Did those Native Americans have the same problem with mosquitos as I do? Obviously we cannot return to a past we were not a part of, but we can protect the future for our posterity.
Prayer for the Day
Gracious Creator, who gives us more than we deserve,
Be with us during these time of ferment and turmoil;
Merciful Spirit, who embraces us even when we resist,
Grant us a clearer vision of our possibilities.
Protect us from our pride, the feeling
That we can do anything without our help.
In the name of the one provides vision,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
To love a swamp, however, is to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised. And sometimes its invisibility is a blessing.
- Barbara Hurd, from Stirring the Mud: swamps, bogs and human imagination.
Healthy forests and wetlands stand sentry against the dangers of climate change, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locking it away in plants, root systems and soil.
- Frances Beinecke, former President National Resources Defense Council
Hear this, all peoples. Hearken, all who dwell in the world,
You human creatures, you children of people, together the rich and the needy.
My mouth speaks wisdom, my heart’s utterance, understanding.
Psalm 49: 1-2 (Tr. Robert Alter)