Day 16 #blogflash2012 - Different World

If I'm reading my calendar right, today I am in Fort McMurray again. Perhaps you have seen the boreal forest, a trip to Alaska, a camping trip to the north... It's a pretty huge biome stretching around globe. Fort McMurray is surrounded by boreal forest, or it used to be.

The mining of the oil sands has segmented and decimated huge tracts of land. Not football fields, not city blocks. CITIES. The entire area disturbed is the size of some of the smaller states.

This is a different world. When the sand blows across the empty stretches, in front of refinery and other man-made structures, you could easily convince yourself that you are on another planet, in a sci fi novel.

This world is changing again. I'm part of that. I'm helping research plants and methods that will, I pray, lead to jump starting the boreal forest into taking hold here again. It's a lofty goal and one I don't really expect to see in my working career. But then again, maybe.

I come from many different worlds and watch them change from one into another. In the end, I hope we find the best one for everyone.