Dirty Windshields

We don’t deserve the earth

Tom

22 Aug 2022 — 4 min read

I remember driving down to the Jersey Shore with my family when I was a young child in the late 70s. That was a time when my father could drink a few beers while driving and get buzzed before we ever got to Manasquan.

The Jersey Shore was always crowded but inviting. The dings from the arcade and the smell of hot dogs lured me in. The roar of the ocean beckoned this young boy to race along the sandy light brown sands.

It was a glorious time to be a boy, full of wonder and imagination. I roamed the jetties looking for crabs and whatever flotsam that washed ashore. I swam away from the jellyfish that would appear with a change of the current.

It was the way of the world back then and it was never going to change

The waves were rough and pounded me into the sand. They would push me under and roll me to the shore. The ocean waves that pummeled me and my sister have long gone from our collective memory, but my father’s windshield has not.

We would stay as long as possible at the shore and start driving home as the sun went down. We did this to “let the traffic rush” pass us by and it meant that I’d be half asleep when we pulled into our driveway.

What I remember about it were the bugs, insects of varying sizes, smashed against our car’s windshield. I remember some made a cracking noise as they splattered. Others made a soft squish while others streaked their guts across the glass.

I never gave much thought about the 1000’s of bug carcasses on our Ford Maverick. It was the way of the world back then and it was never going to change.

When I turned 17 I commandeered my mother’s Buick Regal every chance I got. My friends and I would all pile in a go “cruising for chicks” on warm summer nights. I had to spray wiper fluid and run the wipers every so often at the fewer unlucky insects that died on my windshield.

Now, at 51, I never have to clean my windshield except when there’s too much dust or a bird dropped its shit on the car. The clouds of nighttime insects seem to be gone.

The mountains will remain but bereft of bird song

The insects aren’t the only thing I’ve seen change in the span of a few short 40 years. Cooler springs and summers have thwarted my father’s desire to grow a perfect tomato. Something he’d done with ease decades ago.

I realized something was wrong when I made a trip to southern Utah and the surrounding deserts. I’ve been in “exile” from the desert Southwest for over 20 years and came back to atone for my sins. I saw the remnants of massive fires and man-made lakes at their lowest water levels.

I saw continued human growth manifest into urban sprawl. At every National Park, I saw more plastic garbage caught in the underbrush as I watched the sunrise.

And it’s hot, so very hot these days. I’m aware that the desert is hot, but records are being broken all the time now. This goes beyond the normal temperature variances. We are in a warming trend and the trend is higher.

Our life support systems are failing…

I’m frustrated and belligerent. My reaction is that of my late German father these days, I want to smack some sense into humanity. Alas, not every human being loves to trudge around hiking trails or camp under the stars. Not every human cares for public land or conserves our natural resources.

I understand that and I would never force people to like or do something against their will. All I ask is that they become aware of how important and connected we are to the natural world around us.

I want them to feel a sense of urgency and do something, anything to stop it. Our life support systems are failing and its failure is going to take all life down with it.

The simple fact is that the earth will continue with or without us. The mountains will remain but bereft of bird song. The deserts will remain but without tracks of Big Horn Sheep. The ocean currents will still flow but with no plankton. The earth will remain, but life on it?

The answer to that question is simple, of course, we want life to remain on it, but do we deserve it?

After all that we’ve done to the living world around us, do we even deserve the earth? With all the horror inflicted on the natural world and on each other, do we even deserve a space in the fabric of life?

I often wonder about that.