Sunday, August 1, 2010

Women of the Storm

I've just been reading a letter from "Women of the Storm," an organization formed around the time of Hurricane Katrina. It was just a "thank-you note" for signing a petition,but it made me think of the devastation that is happening there, both in the ocean and on the shore. I thought of the tiny fishing  towns that were completely destroyed in Hurricane Camille, when I lived there almost 40 years ago, and that were again ravaged by Hurricane Katrina

They have now been damaged in a far more permanent way by us. Human beings, people. Thousands of lives were lost in Hurricane Camille and in Katrina when the tiny towns were no longer just fishing villages but tourist destination, but nature is more merciful. Nature does no permanent damage to the earth, and allows us a chance to rebuild.

We're not so kind. We we destroy something, we do it right.We make it last. The small tows will be gone again now, because there will be no way to make a living. Fishing and tourism have been canceled for the foreseeable future. Not as many people died. In fact I'm not sure anybody died. But millions of animals in the sea and on the shore have died and many millions more will before it's over, and given the fact that 30% of our seafood comes from that area, it isn't just the sealife that will  suffer. We will too. Enormously greater shortages and higher prices of some of the foods that are so much better for us than red meat. Oh well, I guess if we feel a craving for sea food we can just get a fish sandwich at McDonald's.
Share/Bookmark

1 comment:

  1. As a native Floridian, I am appalled and horrified, as is everyone who is following the process of the oil disaster. And people ARE already getting sick. Literally poisoned by the water they live near. It's already happening, and, inevitably, as the Gulf Stream moves it into the rest of the world, all of humanity will suffer. And we caused it ourselves. Probably, as a species, we deserve it.

    ReplyDelete

I would enjoy reading your comments.