Losing Nature’s Services

11/7/07:
Since the August 15th photo, the only visible work done by the contractors was hydro-seeding. This is spraying a mix of grass seed, fertilizer, and a mulch-binder with a water cannon. The grass has taken hold across much of the site. In the last few days, a dump truck dropped off several loads of dirt that is visible in the center.

Losing Nature’s Services

Above: April 9, 2007

Above: August 15, 2007

Here are two photos, the first from April 9th and the second from August 15th. Precious little has happened at the development site except a few loads of fill dirt was delivered in April and early May. For most of the spring and summer, the only thing that has happened is that the lack of trees has not allowed for the absorption of carbon dioxide or mitigated the air temperatures at the houses nearest the site.

Losing Nature’s Services

Above: Wide angle shot showing "termite mounds" and how much the land has been altered.

Above: Close up showing how much the land has been altered.

February 19, 2007:
The earth moving machinery continues with their relentless attack upon the land. The top of the tall “termite mounds” is the former elevation of the land. The earthmovers whittle down the high spots and fill up the low spots with sterile sub-soil.

Losing Nature’s Services

Above: Photo of January 25, 2007
Above: Photo of October 14, 2006

January 25, 2007:
Here are two photographs for comparison. The first was taken on January 25, 2007 and the second on October 14, 2006. How many hundreds of trees, and under-story plants were removed? How many tons of carbon dioxide absorption services were removed from Earth’s ecosystems when these plants - that give the “breath of life”...oxygen - were destroyed? How many homes - inhabited by the many other creatures that share Planet Earth, and often provide intangible Nature’s Services to non-humans and humanity - were destroyed to make room for our increasing numbers? It would have been much more satisfying if the developers had bought older homes around Memphis and revitalized them instead of bulldozing everything in sight and leaving this land as a conservation easement.

Losing Nature’s Services

Corpses of trees.

Humanity's climate change safety net is being carried away in the back of a truck.

Destruction by December 8, 2006

December 8, 2006:
The destruction continues at the residential development site. The dead and dying continue to be carted off. The corpses of trees are piled so high in the truck that the branches are snagging electrical and cable lines as the trucks go down the street. To my knowledge, none have been snapped.

In 1911, John Muir, one of the founders of the Sierra Club stated in his book My First Summer in the Sierra, “Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed - chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides. Branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods - trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools - only Uncle Sam can do that.”

Not much has changed in about 100 years, except that there are many more humans consuming more of everything, and global climate change is a proven fact. Human greed will never change.

Losing Nature’s Services

Above: Magnified image of the destruction

Above: Non-magnified image

November 9, 2006:
As Autumn progresses, leaves are not the only thing falling, the trees on the development site are literally being stacked up like cordwood.

Losing Nature's Services

October 30, 2006:
Nature’s services, reduced to dead and dying wood and topsoil, is carted off-site in the back of a truck…victims in the one-sided conflict with humanity’s technology.

Losing Nature's Services

October 30, 2006:
With a rending “crack”, a mature tree falls victim to the trackhoe, and with it, the loss to nature’s services of about one ton of carbon dioxide absorption over the lifetime of that one tree. R.I.P. old friend.
See: http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/whatyoucando/index3.html

So far, this development is already causing a carbon debt to Planet Earth from the burning of the diesel fuel and gasoline (28 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted per gallon of diesel and gas burned) in two bulldozers, a trackhoe, several dump trucks, plus the vehicles the workers are using to get to and from the site. Plus, a number of trees are falling by the hour. It is a debt that will not be repaid. How short sighted can humanity get?

Losing Nature's Services

October 24, 2006:
The destruction of nature’s services continues. A huge hole is opening in what was once, a solid stand of second or third growth forest. Like mechanical locusts, the trackhoe and dozers continue on their paths of destruction.

Losing Nature's Services

October 14, 2006:
The tools for the destruction of nature’s services have been delivered to the site that the Memphis City Council approved for a new residential housing development in Raleigh. In fact, a few hours after this photo was taken, the bulldozers sallied forth on their missions.

What does the term, “nature’s services” mean? In Wikipedia, the term is defined as :
Nature's services is an umbrella term for the ways in which nature benefits humans, particularly those benefits that can be measured in economic terms. Robert Costanza and other theorists of natural capital conducted extensive economic analyses of nature’s services to humanity in the 1990’s.
Go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature for further reading on the subject of Nature’s Services.

One service that is overlooked on Wikipedia is the service the trees and understory plants provide. That is, providing the “breath of life”…oxygen, to humanity. Of course, humanity is steadily increasing the carbon dioxide levels of the atmosphere through the increased burning of fossil fuels. As many readers know, carbon dioxide is absorbed by green plants and in the process of photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is converted into food for the plants, and release oxygen to the air. A free trade that those interested in short term profits, such as the developers of this residential project, and the approvers of said project seem clueless to grasp in their minds as they bulldoze humanity's life support system to the ground.

More on Ecosystem Services:
http://esa.org/teaching_learning/pdfDocs/ecosystemservices.pdf