Algae Bloom

 

This past Saturday, a few friends and I decided to find a park not too far away from campus and just sit and have a picnic. We brought sandwiches and other spreads and found ourselves at Oakland Lake Park. I had never been to this park, and I had never heard of it, but a quick google search later and off we went. It was only fifteen minutes away from campus and it was hidden from the main roads. The first thing I immediately noticed was that it was almost empty. There was one other group there at the same time we were there. No children were playing on the playground, no families with their dogs throwing the frisbee, and nobody else enjoying that beautiful Saturday afternoon. Either way, my friends and I took advantage of the empty park. Imagine a bunch of twenty-one-year old’s running around the playground and pushing each other on the swings. We made the most out of it. 

      

The first image is down by the lake. Immediately I noticed how much algae is in the water. Algae grow through photosynthesis and the absorption of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous. When it absorbs too much of these nutrients it leads to an algae bloom. When there are too many algae in the water it can hurt animals by producing a toxin and by taking nutrients away from them. When I look at the lake, and all the algae, I am not concerned because that means the lake is going untouched by human intervention. Rather the lake is left to its own devices and as a result, algae is growing at fast rates. Through our readings of Edward Abbey, we know that he is a strong proponent of leaving nature untouched. In our newest reading, he discussed industrial tourism and its impact on National Parks like Arches National Park. Like this lake, he wishes these parks were left to their own devices. But as the human population continues to grow, he fears that National parks will be “forgotten under the overwhelming pressure of a struggle for mere survival and sanity in a completely urbanized, completely industrialized, ever more crowded environment” (Abbeys Polemic, 8). He finishes that paragraph by saying that he would rather take his “chances in a thermonuclear war than live in such a world” (Abbeys Polemic, 8). It makes me wonder if Abbey is right. At some point in our time whether it’s my lifetime or the next, will a park even exist? Will the need for land and space for us humans supersede our right to access nature?

This next picture I took as we walked up a hill to the other side of the park. To me this picture represents openness. As you can tell, the park is empty besides the trees and the bushes that occupy its land. In this picture, you can see one car on the right side of the frame, but the rest of the image makes the park look like it can keep going for miles.

This last image is an elm tree that caught my eye because of all the intricate branches going off in different directions. When I look at this tree it makes me think that this is what nature is all about.  Anyone can look at this tree and draw many different conclusions regarding it. Some people may hate the look of it, and some people may love it. Some people may think the tree is one hundred years old, and others may think it’s two hundred or fifty years old. Some may derive different meanings from the shape of the tree, or even if it’s a healthy or unhealthy tree. What I mean by all that is that people will look at a form of nature or even a landscape and think of something completely different than the next person. As we have seen from our readings, some people care more for the environment than others. Some people want it completely untouched while other industries may not care what happens to the environment. That is nature in its essence. It is the world around us but does not necessarily mean the same thing for everyone.