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.