The Vineyard will be a very different place in 100 years, notes Island naturalist Gus Ben David. The changes in his lifetime have been “phenomenal,” he says, especially the explosion in population and degradation of natural habitat.

Less than three per cent of the earth’s water is fresh, the water that sustains us. As the oceans rise due to global warming salt water is creeping into coastal aquifers, underground reservoirs where drinking water is stored. This is called saltwater intrusion.

In 1998 the Environmental Protection Agency designated the entire Vineyard as a sole source aquifer, which means our groundwater is the sole source of drinking water for “the Island’s residents and visitors; there is no viable alternative source of sufficient supply.”

Neither surf nor turf, land or sea, salt marshes are a spongy, mucky, stinky in-between zone full of biting, stinging, snapping creatures. Yet they are stunning to the eye — think Poucha Pond, Mattakesett Bay, Nashaquitsa Pond. And more importantly they are one of the most productive ecosystems on earth.

Salt marshes — our local coastal wetlands — provide recreation, jobs, human health and safety protections, and an incredible array of environmental benefits.

Southern New England is overdue for a major hurricane. The last big one, in terms of lives lost, damage and cost, was the Great Hurricane of 1938. A lot has changed since then that will make the next one even more severe.

Eat fish, we are told, they’re good for the body and brain. Eat local fish to support the Island economy and limit the use of fossil fuels used to transport food. But eating traditionally local seafood will become a challenge as marine species struggle to adapt to changes in ocean waters due to human-induced global warming. Some species may not be local for long.

The Devil’s Light, Richard North Patterson, Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., N.Y. 2011, 337 pages, hardcover, $26.

It could happen. It is not un thinkable. The detonation of a nuclear bomb on a major city by al Qaeda 10 years to the day after the Sept. 11, 2001 attack.