Splish splash
Deerfield Beach, FL, December 2008
I'll be brief because I'm up at an ungodly hour and my head's spinning too quickly to go back to sleep. But I came across this in my archives and thought I'd share it with you.
I can't seem to stop thinking about the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and how it could render tiny, blink-and-you-miss-it moments like this crashing wave mere memories for a while. Mankind has a nasty habit of messing up chunks of the planet - just ask the human and non-human residents of Prince William Sound, who've been trying and failing to fully get rid of traces of the Exxon Valdez spill for nearly a generation - and this latest oil spill is yet another chapter in an ever lengthening book.
The fallout from the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig serves as yet another reminder that something's got to change. I asked this simple question on my Facebook page the other day - Watching the Louisiana coast get smothered by a slick. Wondering how much longer humanity can continue the petrol parade - and ended up touching off a debate between friends living on opposite sides of the planet.
It was a great, eye-opening discussion, and I've been thinking a lot about that exchange ever since. I realize I have no answers, though. So as I look at scenes like the one at the top of this entry, I think to myself that it's time I came up with a few.
Your turn: So, what can we learn from the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico? Will we ever learn?
