Natural Habitat
By Sarah Olson
Look out the right window and see massive Ponderosa Pines, Douglas firs, an assortment of willows and ambers, mosses and lichens in all shades of green crawling over 20-foot tall, immensely thick blocks of concrete. The concrete in place, keeping the wild plants out of the five-lane wide interstate of office goers, public transportation, 18-wheelers, and the occasional motorcycle.
To the left side, the Pacific Ocean, lined with multimillion-dollar homes and business offices, litter and pollution float back and forth with the tide, dulling the natural glow of the ocean water. I can only imagine what it’s like to be an aquatic species navigating my way through the sediments and pollution that filled my habitat.
What I’m describing is a drive through Seattle, through stop-and-go traffic on Interstate 405. In a regular flowing drive, none of this would stand out as something concerning yet also incredible. Concerning in seeing how humans and civilization can disrupt nature and habitats just by going about day-to-day life, incredible in the aspect of how resilient nature is. The delicate vine rested over the concrete block trembling and shaking with every semi that passes, yet it still can continue to grow and thrive. Grass continues to grow through the cracks in the pavement of the road despite hundreds of thousands of vehicles plowing over it every waking minute of the day. Smog chokes the air and obscures the tops of skyscrapers, yet clean air is filtered through the vents of my car. A plethora of factors that would make one shy away, yet still the leaves, vines, and limbs crawl through the wire fences like fingers in a closing door trying to get through, not giving up on the fight to keep the last crack of their home open.
Looking around at the scene that lies in front of me makes me reflect upon a book that I read over the summer, called The World Without Us, written by Alan Weisman. It’s a non-fiction book that goes into depth about what would happen to both the built and natural environment if humans suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. It was fascinating to learn about, and almost overwhelming to try to picture. The main takeaway I got from the book is that nature always finds a way. You can see the resilience of nature everywhere. During the time I was reading the book, I was living in my tent out of Delta Junction, Alaska, a place where not many people live, making it less obvious the human impacts on the world around us. Now, driving through Seattle is where the words of that book start to come to life. Maybe Newtons first law can also come into play when we talk about the environment, just put a little twist on it. The life around us will continue to stay at life unless acted upon by equal or greater life. Equal and greater life meaning brute strength and ignorance.
Leaving the physics analogies behind, I’d like to bring it back to the defiance and resilience, of nature. In his book, Weisman reflects on how the world would slowly turn back to its natural state of being. Just because we, as the fine tuned species of homo sapiens, have discovered strategies and technology to live our lives within nature doesn’t mean that we would ultimately win against it. Think about it, the permafrost doesn’t stop just because you built a cabin on top- no. Your cabin will start to warp and become slanted starting with the first freeze. The pallets you left outside will quickly warp and grow mold and moss if not covered. If not taken care of, your house will decompose back down to the earth and turn into soil for worms and voles to thrive in. We are in a constant battle of keeping our stay against the natural world around us, a never-ending cycle that humans will never win.
In 20 years dams would break down, causing rivers to flood into the streets, slowly deteriorating the roads, breaking down the foundations of homes, and tearing through cities that took decades to build up from the ground. It’s not just flooding either, animals would slowly migrate back into what used to be city centers, heck, rats in New York City would probably die off because they have evolved to live hand in hand with humans, festering on their scrappy leftovers of the subway special McDonald’s Big Mac. Before the buildings would collapse to the ground, it wouldn’t be uncommon to see feral goats on top of tall buildings, just because they can. Those trees and bushes crawling to escape from behind the concrete wall on the side of the Seattle would take a short decade to pierce the hard-packed pavement.
The radio was off as my rental car cruised through the city, that’s something rare, no throwback songs to distract my brain and eyes from the world around me, rather just sitting back and watching what was ahead. I am still struck with amazement and awe at how versatile the natural environment is, the fact that it can continue to thrive despite the ongoing factors that we pummel it through. With the amazement though, comes a pit in the bottom of my stomach, knowing that a wild world is being interrupted by concrete slabs and ten story office buildings. I would like to try to imagine what the world was like before the sprawl of our wrecking ball yet ever-intelligent and forward-thinking species homo sapiens, however, I can’t even begin to fathom hundreds of square miles of old-growth forests, meeting with limestone skyscrapers and fresh, eutrophic waters. The war between humans and nature is ongoing. It will last for as long as people occupy the earth. There is no telling a definite future of the relationship between people and land, but I know one thing for sure. For as long as we are around, we will continue to adapt to the world around us as it adapts to the world we turn it into.