something scary

When I was a kid, I remember seeing a dramatic film in the 9th grade about the environment and where we are headed if we don't change our ways.  That's how strongly it impacted me, I haven't forgotten it.  One of the few things I remember.  I'll never forget people having to wear gas masks to go outside because the air was so toxic.  As I said, it was dramatic, an extreme, but I got the message.

That was around 1978-79.  Can you imagine what our environment would be like now if we had listened and started practicing eco-responsibility then?

But here's what scares me.  Really scares me.  One of the points in the film were waterways that couldn't recover from pollution caused by man because we just keep dumping more pollution into it.

Fast-forward to today.  In the Gulf.  While the oceans have experienced natural oil leaks, we have to own this one.  We caused it.  Negligence or not, we caused this.  And it's a big one.  All attempts to cap this have failed to this point.  We are now looking at a few months before they can build another rig and try to stop the leak.

Will the Gulf recover?  Eventually.  I have a frightening vision of the Gulf becoming "un-usable" to man in MY lifetime.  My 9th grade film becoming a reality I thought couldn't possibly happen in my lifetime.  No fishing.  No beaches.  Has anyone really given any thought to what would happen ecologically, socially, and economically if that region becomes contaminated?  We are talking about contamination that could take beyond our children's lifetime to recover from.

This isn't a scare tactic or negativity.  This is reality.  We need to realize that with greater technology we have the ability to affect our natural world in staggering ways.  We are not the peons we think we are that can't have an effect because we're so small; but an integral, interconnected piece of our planet.  We can't ignore this because we believe it does not affect us directly. It still does.  We ... are ... interconnected.  Get it yet?

Is the Gulf the catastrophe we need to open our eyes to our capabilities for self-destruction or will it take another Hiroshima before we comprehend our ability to destroy our own race?  I'd like to think we could get it now.