Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Beyond the tipping point

Phillipe Cousteau did a dive into the Gulf of Mexico last week.
Perhaps you have seen it, if not it's on You Tube. So sad to watch
him don a hazmat suit to dive into the oily disaster. So sad to
see what he saw and hear his words. I heard him interviewed
since his dive and he was asked if it was already too late for
our beloved mother ocean. HIs answer was troubling. A man
can survive without an arm, without a leg, with his eye gouged out
but the man will never be the same Cousteau replied. When will
people realize that the ocean will never be the same, never be
healthy he asked?

I too am surprised as to just how many people are not connecting
the dots on the devastation we humans have wrought on the
ocean. The big fish are virtually gone, yet we continue to seek
them out. The list of fish on the unsustainable list grows, yet go
into almost any eatery and look at the seafood portion of the menu.
Gyres filled with plastics ( an oil based product) are in all the worlds
oceans. The stomachs of fish and birds found in even the most remote
places on earth are filled with plastic. Walk any beach on any continent
and you'll see it littered with plastic. Go to virtually every beach snack
bar and ask to buy some kind of drink what you'll get in all likelihood
is a plastic bottle.

The ocean and our unwillingness to look at our behavior is a metaphor
for how many people live their lives. Sure you can survive eating
the wrong food, not exercising, being a workaholic, using your hard
earned dollars to consume for the sake of consuming. You, like the
ocean or the man with one arm, one leg, and one eye can survive. Do
you really want to? Have you, have we gone beyond the tipping point?


1 comment:

Chris Brown said...

Too bad there's not the same concern for much worse conditions caused by US and British oil operations in Nigeria!