Among the bones of cormorants...
Usually I hate Fox news, but some woman and man were discussing the oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico and saying how devastating it is for the environment. The images were horrific. Black waves crashing on the shore, thick puddles pooling around rocks, drowning cormorants and making flight impossible even for the birds who spend their lives in water. The woman was going on about how precautions that could have prevented this spill were blatantly ignored, how this is possibly even more devastating than the Exxon Valdez spill, and how marine animals can't even come up for air for miles and miles and miles of ocean. Dolphins and whales living in the Gulf will drown because they can't get up through the thick oil for air, schools of fish (including tuna) will be devastated when the oil clogs their gills, and cormorants, (endangered) brown pelicans and other water birds are stuck on land with oil in their feathers. They can't eat, they can't swim, and they can't fly.
And then they talked about tourism. Though that is a valid argument, I can't help but think who the fuck cares. Miles and miles of environmental devastation, and they're talking about when people want to go to the beach in Louisiana. There's still long-term effects in Alaska, still remnants of the oil spill more than 20 years later. What is the Gulf of Mexico going to look like in 20 years? Or 10 years?
So, since this has happened in the past, it's one of the most devastating things we can do to our oceans, and it's preventable, why oh why does it keep happening? Who says, "Oh it's no big deal, it'll be fine," when shit like this goes down immediately afterwards? Something needs to change.
No comments:
Post a Comment