Nature, the Oil Spill, and Interdependence

[villager]

Nature, the Oil Spill, and Interdependence

Jeff VanderMeer

Deadlines have meant that I’ve been unable to post about the mass deaths occurring out in the Gulf of Mexico right now due to the oil spill from a BP deep sea rig. These deaths are largely invisible to us on shore, but every day they continue. And why? Largely because we seem unable to imagine that which we cannot see–therefore, the risk is deemed acceptable. We cannot see fertilizer run-off into the Gulf so that must not be harmful. We cannot see how we surround ourselves with human-made poisons in the form of the chemicals in household sprays and plastics. We cannot easily see how this is connected to cancer rates…or to the overall degradation of our environment.

If everyone could perceive it–if every time you came into contact with a toxic substance your arms or hands turned to the color of blood, for example, or if you had to live with part of an oil slick covering your body as you went to work–each person had to have a fraction of the slick permanently attached to them, along with every death, disruption, and poisoning it caused–then, just maybe, we would understand exactly what we are doing, and allowing to be done, to our environment…and why, selfishly, without even considering the intrinsic harm it does regardless of our own existence on this planet…why it matters that we ban certain chemicals, ban off-shore drilling, do a much better job of policing offenders, don’t put sensitive areas at risk.

Everything is interconnected. The land I love, St. Marks Wildlife Refuge, is forest and marsh and sea. If the oil reaches this shore, it affects this whole ecosystem. The one described below, in a post I originally made last year using quotes from Thoreau. This oil slick is the kind of thing that makes me furious, makes me feel powerless. Right now, St. Marks is not in the path of the oil because of the way the currents work. But it’s hard to say how this will all end, and there are ecosystems just like the ones at St. Marks that are at risk.

This approach we take to our energy, to our lives, is a kind of madness.


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http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2010/05/19/nature-the-oil-spill-and-interdependence/