One of the things I’ve heard pointed out re: the catastrophe in the Gulf on Mexico is that it actually happens a lot in other places. I actually have been blown away by how little coverage the spill has received here, but concede the possibility that I am not as tuned into the news as I have been during other disasters.
What’s insane (or maybe it’s only insane that I’m surprised) is that spills of this magnitude have happened before and not even been a blip. Nigeria seems to be the prime example, and AidWatch pulled a quote from the NYT that notes (horrifyingly) that Nigeria has experienced a spill on the scale of the Exxon Valdez EVERY year since 1969. And we don’t hear about it (don’t want to hear about it). That doesn’t really ‘put things in perspective’ so much as ’cause a giant stomach-sinking sadness freakout’.
Monday night I played a frisbee game in the smoke that blew over Boston from forest fires in Quebec. I was startled at how much it impacted my ability to run, and to breathe (again, as above, the reason for my startlement is that I’m in active denial). I’m not saying the fire there was another environmental disaster (I did no research; it may have been a healthy burn for all I know), but it made me pause and think about smog warnings and my kids and whether there will be days of our lives that we can’t go out and run around without choking.
Of all the things I don’t pay enough attention to, maybe the one I will regret the most is the health of the planet. It’s easy to ignore on a daily basis and hard to contemplate the scope of the damage we’ve done without total paralysis. So, you know, it’s good that I wrote this blog post about how I’m feeling. And will now go about my business in false ignorance until I’m ‘surprised’ by the next thing.
