Article March 14, 2005 Issue

I HAVE THINGS TO DO

By Elise Rindfleisch

A
sunny day in the summer of 1998 changed my life. I was 14 and on my first backpacking trip through the Appalachian Mountains. Never before had I been so isolated from civilization, nor immersed so completely in the beauty of the natural world. Since the only semblances of human life were limited to my group of fellow hikers and a well-traveled trail, I easily became enraptured with the splendor of pure Mother Nature.

Hiking to the top of one particular mountain peak in Pennsylvania, I felt something was not quite right. The sunlight was brighter than one would expect in a forest. Then as I looked around, my sense of awe turned to horror. All the trees were dead.

I was astounded. (Later I learned the trees had died from acid rain.) What I had imagined was a pristine forest was merely an illusion. Industrialization hundreds of miles away had taken its toll on this forest. The trees' eerie skeletons towered above me, stripped of their protective bark—exposed and vulnerable—against the radiant blue sky. A wave of helplessness flooded over me, and I began to wonder, Would more of the forest spiral into degradation? Picturing a world devoid of nature, I suddenly felt panicked. Although I wasn't sure what to do, I never in my life felt more compelled to do something.