It’s not that I am old, but I remember vividly the first Earth Day in 1970.  I was in college at UNH and taking a class in something nobody had ever heard of – ecology, the branch of biology that deals with the relation of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.  I was inspired and was soon tending my organic garden, raising bees and making compost.  I certainly strayed from that idyllic existence over the years and maybe so have we. The World Wildlife Federation says, “population sizes of wildlife decreased by 60% globally between 1970 and 2014. “  I can’t verify that number, but we’ve all read the reports of declines in bird, insect and marine life numbers.  It makes me wonder what a walk in the woods was like back then.

At least the Cuyahoga River is not on fire and the EPA was founded in 1970.  Of course, I am also concerned about the soil biology, the microscopic bacteria, fungae, protozoa and nematodes that support all the plant life on the planet.  Nematodes are the most populous multi-celled animals on earth, and few people know they exist.  Has their world changed much like ours?