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Sunday Media Review: The Song of the Salmon

Whale song, soft and low
Sing me a story as gently you go
Whale song, I hear what you say
This may be the last time you’re passing this way

Sing me a song of times that you knew
When the waters were free and the seabirds they flew
Through a sky that was clear from the sea through the land
Free from the fear and destruction of man

Song of the whale, so sweet and so clear
But no song at all to the ones who won’t hear
And if people won’t listen, and if people don’t know
Might the song of the human be the next song to go.

— [link url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPo-9wL44Yk” title=”Whale Song“] by the Partridge Family

Nothing that’s ignored ever gets any better

The great wisdom of our civilization is and always has been encapsulated in our music. And that wisdom never really goes out of relevance — largely because when our music identifies a problem, we don’t very often do anything to fix it. We need to work on that. It’s a basic truism of life that nothing that’s ignored ever gets any better.

So the song talks about whales. At the time — 1970-ish — many species of whale were nearing the verge of extinction. That issue has actually gotten better. All we really needed to do to allow the whale civilization to rebound was stop killing them. For the most part, we have.

But it is also recognized that these gentle giants are not universally protected — we still need to work on that — and that some of their dolphin cousins are not protected at all, and subject to several forms of annual slaughter. We REALLY need to work on that.

But this missive talks about salmon. They too have a song, one that’s not so audible to us, and so we’ve had more trouble hearing it. But despite that, we’ve discussed salmon and the slaughter vehicle thereof–in this case, dams–several times before from several perspectives. Here’s a sample:

[relink url=”https://amuedge.com/dam-changes-needed-on-snake-river-to-protect-salmon/” url2=”https://amuedge.com/klamath-river-dam-removal-agreement-signed/” url3=”https://amuedge.com/education/sunday-book-reviews-damn-the-dams/”]

[relink url=”https://amuedge.com/what-is-wrong-with-the-nations-dams/” url2=”https://amuedge.com/dams-its-a-matter-of-water-and-much-more/” url3=”http://edmdigest.com/adaptation/the-levy-of-levees/”]

Media recommendations

Although some of these have been discussed before, it’s worth bringing them forward again.

This resource contributes to contribute to understanding the painful but necessary solution we need to pursue if we’re going to make progress against The Sixth Extinction that’s currently underway.

Recovering a Lost River: Rewilding Salmon, Revitalizing Communities is a valuable perspective that encapsulates the damage we’ve done by building dams.

And to represent the bigger picture [link url=”http://www.amazon.com/Rewilding-North-America-Conservation-Century/dp/1559630612/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1463247237&sr=8-1&keywords=rewilding+north+america” title=”Rewilding North America“] represents what we need to do on the nationwide scale to make this all turn out right for our grandchildren. And the whales. And the salmon.

But ultimately, whether or not we are inspired to save this marvelous Earth for the future of our children will depend on the heart that we put into the effort. So [link url=”http://www.amazon.com/Rewilding-Our-Hearts-Compassion-Coexistence/dp/1577319540/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1463247237&sr=8-2&keywords=rewilding+north+america” title=”Rewilding our Hearts“] provides some wisdom into why we would choose to make the effort to do that.

Choose with your heart. Choose well. Choose for the future of your grandchildren. Emergency and Disaster Management as a feature of humanity is useless unless the right choices are made.

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