Climate change and the dog-poop principle

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I picked my way in darkness to the shore of Secret Lake — to wait and watch, for hours if necessary. A space weather forecast indicated a northern lights display was likely and I'd missed some spectacular shows the past few years due to clouds or travel. If the sky remained clear I'd be under it, bundled up and settled on a bench.

To my initial delight, a soft auroral glow suffused the northern horizon, a belt 15 to 20 degrees wide. The bright star Capella had just risen, twinkling through the mist of light and the sweeping limbs of spruce and tamarack. But to the west a dark vanguard of cloud seemed poised to advance.

I've observed and recorded 1,083 auroras since the mid-1960s and have contributed detailed observational data to researchers, so I knew this glow might be precursor to a celestial storm or just as likely fizzle, or be obscured by the overcast that I could now see was slowly approaching.

Ten minutes passed and the glow remained static. Twenty minutes and no change, except the western clouds were closer, about to engulf the prominent star Arcturus. Thirty minutes and the glow had stretched a little higher, but was still formless and no brighter. Arcturus had disappeared, as well as the northwestern end of the glowing belt. I braced for disappointment.

At around forty minutes I noticed a brightening spot in the handle of the Big Dipper, and the entire glow seemed "denser." I thought, "Here it comes — maybe." I inwardly winced when the bright spot faded, but four such spots abruptly appeared along the horizon and rapidly elongated into shimmering white "rays" fringed with pale green. All the light intensified. Then, igniting in the northwest, the sky erupted. From behind the clouds auroral "flames" surged for the zenith and in seconds spread across the entire sky. I laughed and thrust my arms skyward — an ecstatic fan — then hustled back up to the cabin to alert Pam.

We deployed lawn chairs and marveled as the sky pulsated in swells of feathery light, a pageant of the northern world. I've never tired of the show, and along with old white pines, icy rivers flush with snowmelt, dazzling fall leaves, loon yodels and other icons of the boreal forest, the aurora evokes a spirited sense of place. Which is odd in a way since the northern lights are not part of the biosphere. Unlike the influence we exert on many constituents of the Earth's life zone, humans lack the capacity to fold, bend, spindle or mutilate the aurora — the rays and flames will sprightly cavort undiminished above the lichened ruins and scattered bones of our civilization.

That bleak image sprang to mind, I think, because our sense of place and our devotion to that locale is under threat by ecological compromises and the blitzkrieg of climate disruption. I'm watching the boreal forest change at a startling rate, and being a compulsive record-keeper have nearly five decades of documentation to prove it — high/low temperatures, phenology, seasonal shifts in patterns of precipitation and warmth, the numbers and behavior of animals — most particularly that of insects and birds.

I contribute regular checklists to eBird, a worldwide database for birders and ornithologists. A few years ago in early spring I spotted a Connecticut warbler in the bog surrounding Secret Lake, and logged it in. Next day I received an email from a skeptical regional overseer of the eBird site, requesting details of the observation. I responded, and was informed that if correct (I had no doubt), it was the earliest recorded appearance of a Connecticut warbler in northeastern Minnesota by about two weeks. Cool, but also distressing — possibly speaking to the warming of the North, which if it continues apace could transform these woods into sunbaked prairie and bare ledgerock.

Everything changes, of course, and 12,000 years ago our homesite was under a mile or so of glacial ice. But we humans had nothing to do with that. We have much to do with a Connecticut warbler showing up too early and perhaps struggling to find food. Any alert observer can witness such shifts. For example, it's obvious that fireflies are vanishing. Where we routinely saw hundreds of blinking bugs — like star clusters amid the trees — there are now just two or three or none. How is it possible we're decimating insect populations? We are badass — wizards of toxicity.

Still, a few weeks ago I found some slightly perverse encouragement.

I walk our dog along a beach at a nearby state park where she seems to relish the sand. I keep a stash of poop bags in my pockets and dutifully pick up and pack out her fecal deposits. Not everyone does, but what confounds me are those people who trouble to pick up a turd, tie off the bag, then just leave it behind. I find that more irritating than the owners who do nothing. Perhaps that's because I'll pick up those abandoned bags and carry them out, and that's what the "leavers" hope — or even expect — others to do. Whether it's litter or global warming, someone else will take care of it.

A few weeks ago we came across a bulging poop bag left in the sand about five feet from the water's edge. My hackles rose and when I bent over to snag it, I saw a neatly folded dollar bill had been tucked beside the bag. Here, apparently, was a person able to do their duty only halfway, but was willing to pay someone else to go the full monte. To assuage guilt? Maybe, but a five-dollar bill would've supplied more convincing atonement.

Still, lame as it was, the one-dollar "tip" did indicate a feeling for the commons of the state park beach, and some sense of responsibility. How individuals treat what is held by all — pasture, aquifers, the atmosphere, the oceans, etc. — as opposed to what they personally own, has been an issue for millennia. Aristotle noted, "That which is common to the greatest number gets the least amount of care. Men pay attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common." Well, the leaver cared a little, but I suspect if he/she happens to own a private strip of beach, there's no neglected dog poop on it. From our own ground to the commons seems a long stretch for many.

That's why government needs to be intimately involved with environmental issues — an arbiter and enforcer for the protection of the commons. History and human nature indicate we cannot rely upon goodwill and a sense of responsibility whether it's poop bags or carbon footprints. Market forces, perhaps? Alas, markets and the commons are ever at odds — the very existence of fossil fuel induced global warming is proof of that; for the sake of artificially cheap energy we conveniently dumped the waste into the atmosphere, the soil and our water, steeply discounting their value — a monumental failure of the market.

The person who left the dollar bill was essentially taxing themselves for the sake of the beach. It was a paltry sum, but if we hope to mitigate and/or reverse anthropogenic climate change or any other significant ecological problem, people (especially the affluent) will have to be willing to directly or indirectly dig into their wallets for the sake of the commons — perhaps in the form of carbon taxes, or significant raises in conventional sources of revenue. If you can't handle you own poop, at least be willing to pay someone else to deal with it.

I had the sublime luxury of waiting under the stars for the auroral show to launch, then savoring it without guilt or cost. A keen pleasure. But when it comes to the biosphere — the ultimate commons shared by all life — there is no such luxury.

Peter M. Leschak, of Side Lake, Minn., is the author of "Ghosts of the Fireground" and other books.