It's 70 days now, since the spill. I had hoped that maybe, somehow, soon, the damage could be at least halted, what with all the people working on it. Now I don't think it will; even stopping the flow of new oil, while essential, will not stop the snowballing consequences of what is already floating ashore, or clogging the ocean floor. It's too late; the horse is stolen, butchered and turned into glue.
I stop to look at the hermit crabs and anemones in the clean water of my aquarium, and it hurts; I saw a photo here of hermits under the oil. Are we going to eventually have nothing left alive, except our lonely captives?
I'm finding it harder and harder, these days, to celebrate the beauty and variety of our world. Everywhere I look, the machines are at work, digging, destroying, breaking, burying, paving, poisoning. Today's casualty was an old farmhouse surrounded by tall trees; as we turned our corner, we saw a truck sitting in the new scar. The house and trees are gone. The birds that nested there, the tribe of cross spiders that webbed the hedge, the squirrels; all dispossessed, or worse, buried in the rubble.
What are we doing? Do we not see? What are we bequeathing to our grandchildren?
I can't write any more. Go look at the photos.
Vote for tomorrow. Vote green. We mumble the words, anyhow. Yay us.
I feel the pain, too. I look out on my precious lake, watching the loon ducking for cover from big PWCs. People who trip up and down the lake at warp speed. My precious Muskoka is a mess. It smells of smog from the US. Many do not know, care or understand.
ReplyDeleteI tried. I tried to look at the pictures. I managed to look at a lot of them, then I couldn't see the screen anymore because of the tears. I have been sick over the spill since it began - now I'm even more outraged. And sad. Beyond sad.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see what we as the human race are doing to our precious planet - to fulfill our greed - I want to scream. I do my little part, but it seems so insignificant to fill the composter with scraps, to feed my little flock of chickens leftovers, to recycle everything I can. I know it has to start somewhere, but with the Gulf disaster on such a large scale, I feel pretty pathetic.
When an oil-soaked creature appears on the news, I cringe at the sickening site and at the seeming helplessness of “experts” and people in power. Hopefully, this disaster will create a cosmic shift in how people view issues of preservation. The consequences of the spewing oil now and down the road are too enormous to forget!
ReplyDeleteI couldn't look at the photos because I knew what I would see, and like you, am sickened at the fate of wildlife, and mystified that we haven't managed to take better care of our earth.
ReplyDeleteJust one more example: right now, most of the birds, except for those with babies too young to move, have abandoned Jericho Park because of the folk festival. I can't even begin to imagine their stress. Booming speakers were testing out the sound last night, machinery, port-a-potties, kitchen equipment, litter - and the festival hasn't even begun yet!
So sad. As Clytie says, I do my little part to help, but sometimes it seems like trying to stop a landslide with a feather duster.
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