Exit 215 is intended to be a gift to the next generations in a Land that has well cared for us “old SHS guys & gals” never forgetting that many of our ancestors came here to escape famine.  In our lives (this written in 2024) we have seen the creation of plutonium (1940), the filling of ocean gyres the size of France with poison-absorbing, floating, microscopic plastic balls (1st noticed in 1962), climate change (we lived and worked in Barrow, Alaska in the 60’s when 2 out of 3 years the Arctic Ocean icepack did not allow ship-supply/transit … this writer in a 2-story parsonage, the tallest house in town), the loss of insects (a major news item in late 2018, though we have not cleaned splattered windshields in years), transistors  (1947) that led to today’s IT socially connected World, CRISPR -cas9 (1987) technology sold in UK hobby shops, the killer Candida auris fungi (2009),  3G, 4G, 5G the former found to heat insect chitin exoskeletons, the latter recently closing airports, our 1st plague in 100 years: COVID-19, and the post-Vietnam spraying of cut forests with chemical defoliants.  In the State of Washington 50% our lands are forested, cut every 55 years, sprayed, slash piled, burnt and replanted with a single species; 20% of our land is agricultural that also uses herbicides and pesticides.  Now we charge ahead with AI.  The Gardens’ sponsored WWU SAM Project’s discovery of the recent loss of many NW native plant species, complemented with the absence of birds and insects, is and was discouraging.  It was not our ancestors who did this.

CRISPR, plutonium, transistors, AI, climate change, social IT, plastics, Candida,
chemical defoliation, COVID-19, loss of birds, insects, and plant species
It all happened on our Watch!

https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-youth-montana-trial-c7fdc1d8759f55f60346b31c73397db0
https://www.salon.com/2023/08/05/are-humans-a-cancer-on-the-planet-a-physician-argues-that-civilization-is-truly-carcinogenic/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/catastrophic-fires-13-000-years-180101708.html
https://www.thecooldown.com/outdoors/antarctica-sea-ice-levels-plummet-unprecedented-heat/
https://crosscut.com/2019/03/when-seattle-cared-more-about-coal-climate-change
https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/gm-plants/what-is-gm-and-how-is-it-done/
https://www.theenergymix.com/2019/07/09/forest-herbicides-monocultures-drive-wildfires-harm-wild-species/
https://qz.com/2150031/plastic-use-in-agriculture-is-contributing-to-climate-change/?utm_source=YPL

Barrow (Utqiagvik), Alaska is no longer a “small town” in that they’ve extended the North Slope Borough’s borders 204 miles to the East to include Prudhoe Bay’s property tax base.  If you visit today, the seemingly shortest house in town is the:

High School
City Hall
Presbyterian (green) Parsonage

Comments, content, questions appreciated; email bb@plc215.org

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