The lessons of the loon in 2024

What message do we take from the haunting cry that crosses northern waters?

The common loon is an elegant bird, with habits that may inspire us. (Photo by Jeremy Hynes on Unsplash)

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On the night last week that we arrived at an old lodge in the Adirondack Mountains, the haunting wail of a loon swelled from across the lake, and then, from a bit further away, came a responding cry. It was an enchanting welcome to the wilderness, and a romantic one: Loons make their nests as pairs, signaling to their mates as they search for food and shelter, seemingly offering an assurance of their abiding presence.

We have long thought of loons as paired loners among species, their unforgettable calls a reward offered only to those who travel to remote reaches of the north in summertime. In recent years, their presence has seemed somehow a bit less reserved, as though the loons have decided to accommodate the increasing presence of humans in their traditional habitats. Or maybe we have just forced ourselves upon them, and the loons have had no choice but to adapt.

The common loon is an elegant large bird, about a yard long on the water, its boldly checked and striped plumage in black, white and gray making it the best-dressed at any fowl conclave. (Ducks congregate in flocks, but a gathering of loons is called, much more colorfully, an asylum.) The bright red eyes of the loon in this season seem to miss nothing; it’s how they can spot a fish deep in the lake, which they dive to catch for dinner, often disappearing for long moments beneath the surface, only to reappear far across the water. Their usual elusiveness has made up-close loon sightings something to cherish.¹

So when a male loon the next morning allowed us to paddle our kayaks to within just a few feet of him, we were awed into silence. He was cooing in a quiet tremelo, but apparently it was loud enough for his mate to hear a hundred yards across the water, prompting her to hoot back. We drifted with them as they swam nearer to each other and repeated their calls every few seconds. And then we got another surprise: A tiny loonlet emerged from beneath its mother’s wing, swam around her, and then tucked under the other wing. Baby loons are precocial — that is, they can swim and dive as soon as they’re born — but they often travel on their mother’s back for a few weeks, until they’re able to hunt and fly on their own. In the literature about loons that I’ve read in recent days, I haven’t come across accounts of the under-wing nestling that we witnessed.²

Loons emerged in North America during the Miocene epoch, which ended more than five million years ago. But their population has been fluctuating lately, and now is considered at risk in many regions due to lakeshore development, pesticide use and human-induced climate change. Researchers say that the powerful storms that are increasingly common flush loons’ watery homes with bits of material from plants and animals, as well as fertilizer and pet waste, clouding the clarity of lakes, making it harder for the loons to see their prey. That makes it difficult for parents to find the food that loonlets need to survive to adulthood. “It’s becoming clear that climate change is a real danger to loons,” Chapman University biologist Walter Piper told ABC News this spring.³

Yet loons surely deserve our emulation more than our pity. It’s not extinction as much as scarcity among us that likely awaits the loon. That is, if humans don’t manage to reduce the unhealthy carbon emissions that are causing global temperatures to rise, scientists say, loons are likely to move their nesting grounds further north over the next few decades. At least loons will be confronting their changed circumstance, rather than dodging its reality. So don’t bet against the loon: A creature that predates homo sapiens by millions of years reminds us of the value of adaptability.

Humans are a young species compared to others across the eons, but our survival seems to be directly linked to our ability to think creatively — so that when threats arose, our ancestors could imagine survival strategies. Some scientists say that humans are the most adaptive species of any that ever existed.⁴

That outlook is reassuring to a point. That is, we may take comfort from knowing that our descendants in generations and even ages from now will benefit because of our species’ ability to find a way to survive and thrive, even if scientists’ most dire predictions about the dangers of human-caused climate change come true. Indeed, that comfort despite the threat of calamity seems to be the unspoken rationale of those who tell us that the urgent warnings of climate scientists and activists are misplaced.

For example: William Perry Pendley, a top environmental official in Donald Trump’s administration, told The Washington Post this week that climate change is “a problem that doesn’t exist” and that a second Trump term wouldn’t engage in “turning over your lifestyles” to fight it, since that would be “absolutely insane.” Underscoring that point of view, the Republican National Convention this week adopted a platform that makes no mention of climate change. By contrast, the draft Democratic platform mentions “climate” or “clean energy” 141 times, according to an analysis by Evergreen Action, a Seattle-based environmental advocacy group.⁵

Judging by what the Republican-led House passed in recent years, a shift in political control in Washington — that is, a second Trump term, and Republican control of Congress — would likely yield laws to allow more pollution from diesel trucks, open more federal lands to oil drilling and strip protections for imperiled species. Pendley wrote the Interior Department chapter in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s envisioned blueprint for a new Trump administration; among other steps, it advocates gutting a $400 million federal loan program to encourage clean energy conversion and eliminating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which Project 2025 labels “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” Trump himself has labeled climate warnings as “nonsense” and a “hoax,” and CNN has calculated that he routinely minimizes the risk by citing fake statistics that are off by more than 1,000 percent.⁶

In that, Trump seems to be blindfolding his loyal followers to the potential that humans have to adapt to changes around us. It’s as though he is willfully ignoring the opportunity to thrive that is presented to our species, which has been recognized since the time of Charles Darwin. “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives,” Darwin wrote. “It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, that lives within the means available and works co-operatively against common threats.”

There’s a political rationale to the don’t-worry-be-happy camp, because an effective effort to slow climate change will cost trillions of dollars and require lifestyle changes throughout advanced societies. It’s not an agenda that wins easy support from voters. But there’s a moral rationale to the contrary argument: namely, that because humans have the capacity to reason, we can grasp the implications of turning away from reality, such as what confronts us because of climate change.

The United Nations describes climate change as “the defining issue of our time,” noting that 3.6 billion people are now vulnerable to food and water insecurity, and that absent significant changes, climate change will leave billions more at risk of famine and disease over the next quarter-century. A UN report makes it clear that “the choices made in the next few years will play a critical role in deciding the future of our planet and the generations to come.”⁷

How, then, can a civilized society refuse to confront the issue? How can a political candidate who denies the reality of climate change — indeed, how can that candidate’s party — be considered anything but immoral?

The common loon, lacking the reasoning power of humans, has choices more limited than ours. It can respond to the threat posed by climate change, for example, only by fleeing its worst effects. In generations to come, then, the loon may be forced to abandon its nesting areas in the Adirondacks for more suitable sites, perhaps in Canada.

Some may view that development much as we do other regrettable but hardly tragic differences in today’s world compared to yesterday’s, like the loss of the stately elms that used to shade American streets, or the rise of tick-borne illnesses since the 1970s. We wish those weren’t so, but we can handle the results.

But the cry of the loon across a mountain lake these days ought to inspire a deeper response. It could remind us that humans, beyond any other species, have the capacity to change the reality of their environment. We can shape a future that is hospitable for our progeny, so that the young we tuck ever so briefly under our wings and their descendants don’t face a future made bleak by our refusal to face reality today. Yes, I’m suggesting not only that our national response to climate change is one of the key issues facing voters in the United States in 2024, but that our decision is thus more a moral choice than merely a pragmatic one.

In that, the haunting cry of the loon could be an inspiration for our action, rather than a cause of eventual regret for our remorselessness.

1. https://www.nationallooncenter.org/about-loons/

2. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Loon/overview

3. https://abcnews.go.com/General/climate-change-threatens-loon-population-new-study-shows/story?id=109092273

4. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-may-be-most-adaptive-species/

5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/07/18/republican-election-sweep-climate-policy/

6. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/24/politics/fact-check-trump-sea-levels-ocean-climate-change/index.html

7. https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/climate-change

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NEWSCLIPS FROM THE UPSTATES

Dispatches from our common ground *

Wherein each week we look around what we call the nation’s Upstates — those places just a bit removed from the center of things — to find illuminating news and intriguing viewpoints, which you might not otherwise see.

This week, we share reporting published here:

• Waite Park, Minn. (St. Cloud Times, sctimes.com)

• Worcester, Minn. (Worcester Telegram & Gazette,

• Lubbock, Texas (Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, lubbockonline.com)

• Lafayette, Ind. (Lafayette Journal and Courier, jconline.com)

  NOTE: The complete “Newsclips from the Upstates” section, and The Upstate American Midweek Extra Edition, which is sent to email boxes on some Wednesdays, are available only to paid subscribers. Thanks for your support!

  MINNESOTA

  Locality takes aim at unwelcome drones

  Local officials in Waite Park, a small city just outside St. Cloud, have moved to protect the aerial privacy of residents, according to reporting by Corey Schmidt in the St. Cloud Times. After discussing the issue for a year, the City Council voted unanimously to ban drone operation anywhere above a property unless the property owner has invited it. In this, the city is joining at least 135 localities in 31 states that have imposed similar local restrictions. Unsaid at the Minnesota meetings, apparently, or at least not mentioned in the local coverage: The local regulations may contravene federal law, and be subject to lawsuits.

  MASSACHUSETTS

  When it’s hot, make some cool cash

  It has been unusually hot in the Northeast recently, and in some areas of central Massachusetts, homeowners have taken advantage of a trend that is gaining traction nationally: renting out backyard swimming pools for hourly use. Sarah Barnacle reports in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette about local homeowners who are taking advantage of Swimply, an online service that does for pool owners what VRBO and AirBnB do for people with extra space inside. For prices typically $20 to $75 an hour, they make their pools available to individuals or groups. To address risks associated with being a host, many pool owners set rules and prohibit things like pets, glass and alcohol. There’s a downside, one pool owner noted: “I would advise hosts to consider how much of the pool rental business they want to do, as they could be stuck at home when the pool is booked for the entire weekend.”

  TEXAS

  How Texans can hand over a human

  This story is a bit hard to believe: Lubbock has become the second city in Texas to install a “Safe Haven Baby Box” at a fire station, offering parents a way to legally and anonymously surrender an infant by abandoning it in a public place. Alex Driggars presents a video report in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal in which an official describes how someone can put a child inside a box installed into the wall of a fire station and close a locked door on the box — much as one would close a refrigerator door — and thereby surrender the baby legally, under Texas law. By closing the external door, the person surrendering the baby activates an alarm that will summon a firefighter/EMT to retrieve the baby from inside the fire station. Does anybody else find this a terribly troubling development in a state led by politicians who routinely profess their devotion to the sanctity of life and staunch opposition to abortion rights?

  INDIANA

  Twin sisters hold a hostage

  Here’s a crime story that I couldn’t pass up: In Lafayette, Ind., 68-year-old twin sisters held as hostage a 40-year-old man who had been the boyfriend of one of the women, and threatened to kill him in their garage before he managed to escape and hide in a nearby dumpster. All this according to reporting by Ron Wilkins in the Lafayette Journal and Courier. In a video the victim surreptitiously recorded, one woman is heard telling him that “he messed with the wrong sisters.” The twins are facing felony charges.

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  THANK YOU for reading The Upstate American, and for joining us in the conversation about *our common ground, this great country. I hope you’ll join us again next week — or send a message with ideas you’d like to see us address.

  -REX SMITH