Part of the problem in dealing with public perceptions about Chesapeake
Bay is that people think it will last forever. This obviously is not
true. As oceanographer Jerry Schubel has noted, twenty thousand years
ago there was no Chesapeake Bay. Since that time, there have been other
beginnings and endings of other Chesapeake Bays. As we look to the
future, however, we can see that increasingly the transformation of the
Chesapeake will be more a human phenomenon than a work of nature.