Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
For the first time in several years, I saw a firefly last year. This is not because I'm never outside in the evening in the summer! I am, fairly often, and I've been watching for them.
They're not there.
Where have the fireflies gone? What's happened to them?
They have been done in by pesticides, pavement, the destruction of wetlands, and water pollution. Most firefly species lay eggs in or near water. The ones in Japan have all been done in because the rivers and streams have all been paved over with cement, in make-work boondoggle programs. I know a large stream in a depopulated town the middle of nowhere in Yamaguchi that used have enough fish, eels and other wildlife to support a whole family. A farmer in the neighborhood made a good living fishing there. Then the government came in and paved a kilometer of the stream, from the mountain to the Inland Sea. There is nothing left alive now, and no fireflies.
The Japanese federal officials have spent hundreds of billions destroying the rivers and streams in places like this, but oddly enough it never occurred to them to build a sewer or a waste treatment plant, so the remaining families dump raw sewage and burned garbage into what is left of that stream, which probably does not help.
It will take the Japanese 500 years to clean up the cesspool they have made of their once-splendid islands. Many small, quiet streams like this may be beyond rescue.
Species such as fireflies and frogs are the proverbial canary in the mine shaft. When they are all gone, we will be next.
Technology can certainly help us get out of this mess, but I am pretty sure that building thousands of kilometer-high towers and shellacing over 25 million hectares with glass skirts is not the answer.
- Jed
