Green Leaf Report

Years ago, miners carried canaries deep into coal mines to detect high levels of methane and carbon monoxide gas: If the canaries died, it was time to evacuate.  Interestingly, the National Audubon Society recently issued a report on the declining numbers of common bird species in America.  Some bird species are down over 80% in population since the 1960s.  This means millions of birds are dying; shouldn’t we see this a warning?  It isn’t necessarily gas concentration in the air causing these declining populations; encroachment, climate change, loss of habitat, chemical spraying and more are coming together to decimate our wildlife. 

This problem is on such a macro level - what we can do as individuals to correct decades of abuse?  It really isn’t that hard.  I recently read about Linda Ballow, the Texas widow who was jailed over allowing the grass in her backyard to grow too tall.  This is part of our problem: we parcel out the native habitat into suburban lots and then penalize individuals who don’t have the matching fertilized, chemically treated, non-native matching plots of water-intensive grass.  It’s time to stop placing property values over wildlife, and to respect our environment more than our home owners associations.  The widow went to jail, the birds are dead.  Who really wants this to be our present, much less our future?