Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write off the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Showing posts with label Ecology and Fresh Water. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ecology and Fresh Water. Show all posts

Saturday, October 22, 2022

Picturing the Great Lakes and Its Fragile Ecosystems


Great Lakes Fishing


A Look Out Over Lake Michigan


A Nor'easter on Lake Superior, April 8, 2007 : Iron Ore Ship the USS Herbert C. Jackson


Severe weather along the Straits of Mackinaw, June 11, 2017


Severe lightening along the Great Lakes


Massive ice balls along Lake Michigan


Five Magnificent Things About the Great Lakes | Canada Geese on Lake Ontario, Toronto


Niagara Falls near Toronto


The Winter Majesty of the Great Lakes



Amazon link

The Great Lakes―Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior―hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water and provide sustenance, work, and recreation for tens of millions of Americans. But they are under threat as never before, and their problems are spreading across the continent. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.

Kayaking the Inland Lakes of the Great Lakes


The Worth Of Water: A Great Lakes Story
2020 (Full Film) | Premiered Oct 16, 2020

The Worth of Water: A Great Lakes Story is a feature length documentary that follows the co-creators of Walk to Sustain Our Great Lakes, Julia Robson & Alyssa Armbruster, as they embark on their 343 mile walk from the shores of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI to Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The two women interview political leaders, educators, activists and professionals to help bring a greater understanding of the issues these Great Lakes face, as well as highlighting the progress that has been made in restoring the lakes since the establishment of the Clean Water Act in 1972.

What’s so great about the Great Lakes?
Cheri Dobbs and Jennifer Gabrys
Jan 10, 2017 

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-s-so-g... The North American Great Lakes — Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior — are so big that they border 8 states and contain 23 quadrillion liters of water. They span forest, grassland, and wetland habitats, supporting a region that’s home to 3,500 species. But how did such a vast and unique geological feature come to be? Cheri Dobbs and Jennifer Gabrys takes us all the way back to the Ice Age to find out.


Frankfort Lighthouse on Lake Michigan in Frankfort, Michigan


The Mystery of the Inland Waterway of Northern Michigan
Old Transportation Route
Nov 12, 2020

The inland waterway is a transportation route that spans almost from Lake Michigan to Huron, the 3000-year old history dates back when it was used by natives in order for them not have their journey cut short due how far away Macleay River would be.
➡️ Today you can take this scenic path and witness beautiful scenery such as forests on both sides while being surrounded by the vastness of nature.

This is the story of two adventure seekers: my son Noah and I.
➡️ We attempt to take the inland waterway from its western terminus in Conway Michigan to the lake here on our leaking Zodiac Killer boat.
It is a lonely time of year as the crisp air foreshadows winter when strong winds blow hard to pull a few days of rain into the region.
➡️ We wager that we can beat the downpour by cruising the 30 mile route to the safety of our warm Jeep parked at the mouth of the Sheboygan River and Lake Huron.
Join us as we practice our accents, joke about the sights, black the LAX and spend some father son time on another Great Lakes adventure.
📕 Book: The Inland Water Route [Paid Link]-https://amzn.to/3eVxDz7


Lake Michigan


Creation of the Great Lakes
How the Earth Was Made (S1, E7) | Full Episode | History
Jan 23, 2021

Join us as we highlight the trends that have defined us from the 1920s to now in History by the Decade - https://histv.co/ByTheDecade

The Great Lakes of North America are the largest expanse of fresh water on the planet. Searching for clues of their formation, our geologists delve deep into an underground salt mine, in Season 1, Episode 7, "Great Lakes." #HowtheEarthWasMade
Subscribe for more from How the Earth Was Made and other great HISTORY shows:

Watch more How the Earth Was Made on YouTube in this playlist:


Winter Ice Shards, Lake Michigan




No bodies of water compare to the Great Lakes. Superior is the largest lake on earth, and together all five contain a fifth of the world’s supply of standing fresh water. Their ten thousand miles of shoreline border eight states and a Canadian province and are longer than the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. Their surface area of 95,000 square miles is greater than New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island combined. People who have never visited them―who have never seen a squall roar across Superior or the horizon stretch unbroken across Michigan or Huron―have no idea how big they are. They are so vast that they dominate much of the geography, climate, and history of North America, affecting the lives of tens of millions of people.

The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas is the definitive book about the history, nature, and science of these remarkable lakes at the heart of North America. From the geological forces that formed them and the industrial atrocities that nearly destroyed them, to the greatest environmental success stories of our time, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario are portrayed in all their complexity.

A Michigan native, Jerry Dennis also shares his memories of a lifetime on or near the lakes, including a six-week voyage as a crewmember on a tallmasted schooner. On his travels, he collected more stories of the lakes through the eyes of biologists, fishermen, sailors, and others he befriended while hiking the area’s beaches and islands.

Through storms and fog, on remote shores and city waterfronts, Dennis explores the five Great Lakes in all seasons and moods and discovers that they and their connecting waters―including the Erie Canal, the Hudson River, and the East Coast from New York to Maine―offer a surprising and bountiful view of America. The result is a meditation on nature and our place in the world, a discussion and cautionary tale about the future of water resources, and a celebration of a place that is both fragile and robust, diverse, rich in history and wildlife, often misunderstood, and worthy of our attention.


Most dangerous Great Lake: 23 people drowned in Lake Michigan so far in 2022. Swimming alert issued for Lake Michigan: 5-7 foot waves, dangerous currents.



Watch as big wind storm on Lake Michigan
develops over 24 hours
 Nov 12, 2015

The video begins with calm Lake Michigan at the Muskegon breakwater at 4:00 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015.  Transitioned by a time-lapse of the clouds rolling inland, followed by heavy rain and wind at 1:00 a.m. Thursday morning.  At 7:45 a.m.


High waves up to 18 feet slam Lake Michigan shoreline
Sep 23, 2021


 Dangerous weather is forecast in Chicago along
Lake Michigan with high waves of up to 18 feet expected.



Thursday, June 30, 2011

NPR - Natural Gas: Promise and Perils



Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Listen: 10:06 a.m. (ET) Natural Gas: Promise and Perils


An environmental clean water protester participates in a rally
in the state capitol  against gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale
natural gas formation Tuesday, June 7, 2011 in Harrisburg, Pa.
(AP Photo/Bradley C. Bower)
Natural Gas: Promise and Perils

New questions about what's been called the fossil fuel of tomorrow: The natural gas industry faces scrutiny over its optimistic financial forecasts and the environmental safety of fracking.

Natural gas extracted from deep shale deposits has been hailed as the key to America’s energy future. Compared to alternatives, natural gas is cleaner and is said to produce fewer greenhouse gases. It is also forecasted to be available at affordable prices, but some say as production rises, extraction costs will go up as well putting a squeeze on profitability. In addition, many argue short and long term environmental risks have yet to be adequately addressed by regulators or the industry: Opportunities and unanswered question about this country’s natural gas boom.









Guests

Ian Urbina
reporter, NY Times

Tony Ingraffea
Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering
Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow
Cornell University

Seamus McGraw
writer and author of "The End of Country"

John Hanger
former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.




Related Items

Amazon Link




Monday, June 27, 2011

Fresh Water Preservation vs Fracking for Natural Gas in NE America

Sportsmen Alliance for Marcellus Conservation: Fishermen, Hunters Take On Fracking
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/25/sportsmen-alliance-for-marcellus-conservation-fracking_n_884589.html

By KEVIN BEGOS
posted 06/25/11

Sportsmen Alliance For Marcellus Conservation

WHITELEY, Pa. -- Fishermen are gearing up and hunters are taking aim – for Marcellus Shale gas drilling.

A new coalition of outdoors groups is emerging as a potent force in the debate over natural gas drilling. The Sportsmen Alliance for Marcellus Conservation isn't against the process of fracking for gas, but its members want to make sure the rush to cash in on the valuable resource doesn't damage streams, forests, and the various creatures that call those places home.

The movement grew out of grass-roots anger as passionate outdoorsmen found their questions about drilling and wildlife brought few answers from local or state officials.

"Either we didn't get a response or the answer we got didn't seem feasible or acceptable. It didn't seem like the people who were in charge had their pulse on what was actually happening," said Ken Dufalla of Clarksville, Pa.

Energy companies have identified major reserves of natural gas throughout the Marcellus Shale, which underlies much of New York and Pennsylvania, and parts of Maryland, Ohio and West Virginia.

More than 3,300 wells have been drilled across Pennsylvania in just the last few years. The boom has raised concerns about the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drilling technique in which water, sand and a small amount of chemicals are used to open gas-bearing shale formations deep underground.

Already, preliminary water testing by sportsmen is showing consistently high levels of bromides and total dissolved solids in some streams near fracking operations, Dufalla said. Bromide is a salt that reacts with the chlorine disinfectants used by drinking water systems and creates trihalomethanes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says trihalomethanes can be harmful to people who drink water with elevated levels for many years.

Dufalla stands alongside Whiteley Creek, a little mountain stream in Greene County. But something is wrong. The grass is lush and the woods are green, but the water is cloudy and dead-looking.

"It used to be a nice stream," teeming with minnows, crawfish and other aquatic life, he told The Associated Press. No more, said Dufalla, a former deputy game and fish warden for Pennsylvania.
He's worried that nearby gas drilling has damaged the creek, either from improper discharges of waters used in fracking, or from extensive withdrawals of water. The drilling industry says numerous studies have shown fracking is environmentally safe, but Dufalla and other sportsmen want to be sure.

The goal is to build a water quality database that identifies problem areas and makes that information available to the public. Currently, there's little scientific information about whether or how much fracking water impacts wildlife.

Numbers suggest that many people share Dufalla's concerns, in Pennsylvania and throughout the region. Two years ago his local chapter of the Izaak Walton League (a fishing group) had 19 members. Today there are 111.

More than half a dozen existing outdoors groups are part of the Sportsmen Alliance, and collectively they have more than 60,000 members in the states that overlay the Marcellus. Numbers like that mean there's an established grapevine to reach sportsmen and women, and the ties to national groups bring access to experts and funding.

Members of the Sportsmen Alliance are scheduled to meet in July with Michael Krancer, the new secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said Katy Dunlap, a spokeswoman for Trout Unlimited, a national fishing group based in Arlington, Va.

"We are making specific requests with regards to Wilderness trout waters in Pennsylvania," Dunlap said, such as additional review of proposed wells near such waters.

Some areas may be too environmentally sensitive for drilling, and the Sportsmen Alliance is building a list of places that need special protection, Dunlap said. "Places that once you destroy, you can't take back," she said.

Whether the drilling industry would accept additional limits in some areas remains to be seen. So many wildlife lovers have expressed concern over drilling that the Sportsmen Alliance has moved beyond relying on volunteers.

Earlier this year Dave Sewak began working full-time across Pennsylvania, giving educational talks and training a network of volunteer water testers. "We support the energy development; we just want to see it done right the first time. I think hunters and fishermen are the original environmentalists," said Sewak, a Windber, Pa. resident. He's paid by Trout Unlimited.

There has been considerable public debate over how and if fracking impacts drinking water supplies, but Dufalla and other sportsmen are worried that even low concentrations of fracking chemicals may affect aquatic invertebrates – the tiny water bugs that grow into mayflies and stoneflies, which are in turn eaten by fish and birds.

The sportsmen worry that a stream without bugs could quickly become a stream without fish, and then a valley with fewer birds, and so on up the food chain.

There are signs that both the drilling industry and sportsmen are trying to find common ground. Patrick Creighton, a spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a drilling industry business group, told the AP his group has already met with numerous outdoors groups.

"It's a relationship that we're building," he said. They're also working with local groups on a set of "best management practices."

Some pro-drilling outdoorsmen said that's exactly the area that needs work.

Ed Gaw leased drilling rights to a five-acre tract of his 140-acre farm in Evans City, Pa., to the T.W. Phillips Co. and fracking began in the spring of 2009. The next year the drillers did what they considered to be a basic restoration.

"Their idea of reclaiming a site and mine were kind of night and day," said Gaw, who knew when he signed the lease that the landscape would never look as it had before.

But Gaw didn't just complain. He got to work, investing about $20,000 in a restoration that included planting hundreds of spruce and fruit trees. Now there are more deer on the property than before drilling began, he said.

But no one wanted to talk about restoration in the beginning. Gaw remembers telling the drilling company that a beautiful restoration would be in their long-term interest too, but they didn't see the point. "I'm going [to] take you guys kicking and screaming into this model recovery," he recalls saying.

He was right.

Last year, the Pennsylvania Game Commission sponsored a field day on the issue of reclamation at the Gaw Farm, which is about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. At the time state officials echoed some of Gaw's concerns.

"Landowners have received a wealth of information across the state on leasing, but little attention has been paid to reclamation and habitat recovery," said Tim Hoppe, Northwest Region Wildlife Diversity Biologist for the Game Commission.

Part of the challenge for outdoorsmen and industry is that there isn't much scientific information on how or if fracking impacts wildlife in the Marcellus Shale region.

University of Pennsylvania biologist Margaret Brittingham is just starting such a project, with support from the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The study will look at how drilling changes the forest habitat, and how it could impact wildlife. But it will be a few years before results are in, and that's just one study.

In the meantime, the sportsmen know the value of keeping their hooks sharp and their powder dry, so to speak.

Trout Unlimited and some of the other sportsmen groups have staff attorneys and a history of organizing and funding successful water quality lawsuits.

Dufalla hopes the volunteer water testing database becomes a tool for negotiating with state officials and the drilling industry.

If the testing shows an ongoing pattern of water quality problems near drilling operations the sportsmen may file lawsuits, he said.

"It's the last thing you want to do," Dufalla said.

But some people in rural communities are past accepting assurances by the industry that fracking doesn't cause environmental problems. Some who don't even hunt or fish have joined the effort to patrol waterways.

Waynesburg resident Chuck Hunnell, 68, said a recent public meeting on drilling was the most radical one he's ever been to. But what he sees in the community he grew up in has turned him into an activist monitoring the drilling industry.

"And now until I breathe my last breath, I'm going to be checking on these people," Hunnell said.