As oil runs out, energy-intensive industrial agriculture will fade and food insecurity will increase, so Salmon will return to a position of high value in the new economic order. They can sustain people longer than the oil bubble, as they sustained hundreds of generations up till recently.
Only 1% of Coho Salmon survive. Translated to humans, this 99% loss would mean 6 billion deaths, 1,000 times the number of Jews killed by Nazis. For the U.S., a 99% drop would leave us with the population of Albania after a loss 100,000 times the death toll of the World Trade Center attack of September 11.
This disaster came about because there has been more than a century of failure to take the warnings seriously, responding with too little too late. (For details see Salmon Without Rivers, a history of the Pacific Salmon Crisis by Jim Lichatowich.) The time is past for debate on short-sighted priorities. It's time for action, recognizing that our natural security is more important in the long run than our national security.
2,000 generations from now, no one will remember what the United States was, much less what Iraq was, no one will know or care what Hitler did, and no one will remember what gasoline was, much less what happened to its price, but life would still be impoverished if Salmon had been driven to extinction by our actions and inactions.
Salmon are miner's canaries revealing the health of our watersheds. They have been here millions of years longer than people, during which time there have been multiple ice ages, droughts 200 years long, and lava flows 100 feet deep. If they can't make it now after making it through all that, then there's something very wrong in our life support system, and we can expect to face trouble ourselves if it's not turned around.
Salmon are vital to pacific ecosystems, bringing ocean nutrients without which the land's vitality might decline as rains wash nutrients downstream. In some places, 50% of nitrogen in trees came from Salmon. Farmers, loggers, and ranchers owe a part of their wealth to Salmon.
Salmon are supreme gift-givers, sacrificing their lives to future generations by feeding the whole watershed. Such nobility and wisdom can inspire us to rise above self-orientedness and strive for sustainability of _all_ life, including that beyond our own kind.
Surely we can make smaller sacrifices to restore a greater quantity and quality of habitat and reduce our footprint, consuming less water, energy, forest, and toxics. What are you doing to make this happen?
-- Walter Epp for7gen àt idiom døt com