The Oil Slick

Sometimes personal circumstances accentuate global events, magnifying emotional impact. Just yesterday a younger and dear relative unexpectedly died.

At the time I was having a foot operation. The operation was non-critical, but it required me being “put under”. The doctor emphasized that the main risk I faced was from the anesthesia. I had to sign a form releasing the hospital of any financial risk of me not resurfacing post-op.

Looking out from my pre-op room the sun was just beginning to rise and it was deep scarlet as in, “Red Sky at Morning, Sailor Take Warning.” Outside the Duluth Harbor was anchored a “Laker” much like the Edmund Fitzgerald. It lay motionless as Superior was treating us to a red mirrored reflection. There was not a ripple on the surface.

43 years ago I was a co-pilot in a rescue helicopter searching for the Edmund Fitzgerald. Gitche Gumi  had only hours earlier, swallowed the pride of the American Side in a ferocious storm. At sunrise, Superior was mirror flat. Mother Nature, satiated with her prey, had proven once again her might. She lazily digested 29 mariners.

Twenty-nine dead men. We mourned the decision of the Captain. Meteorologists had issued dire warnings and the warnings were ignored.

 We found the Oil Slick. That all that was left. We checked our sectional maps. I blurted out, “If they had made thirteen more miles, they would have made Whitefish Bay.”

Last week I read an editorial that encourages us to build new oil and gas pipelines. Of course, if we build new pipelines, we will burn more oil. If we burn more oil, we add more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Mother Nature does not need more carbon steroids to prove to us her might. Building any new carbon-based energy infrastructure today is genercidal. If we conveniently ignore the warnings of the scientists, we doom the next generation.

The beauty of our climate crisis is that it not only challenges us to use reason and logic, but if forces us to search our souls to see what we are made of. Like the Captain of the Edmund Fitzgerald, we can make short sighted decisions to appease our lust for riches and convenience.

Or, do our souls have loftier ambitions for us and our generations to come?

We have been given the most life-giving planet in the universe. We also know that the gift of life is not one to be taken for granted. Convenience invites ignorance. Ignorance can and does kill.

My fear is that one day a young alien co-pilot and his crew from another planet will survey earth for life. They will look down at a storm riven planet. They will not see our blue green verdant globe but the oil slick that marks our grave.

Then an alien crewmember will blurt out, “If they had  listened to their scientists, they could have made it.”

This is all avoidable. We just have to search our souls.

*The Fourth National Climate Assessment just out:

https://science2017.globalchange.gov/

*The New Yorker Magazine: “How Extreme Weather is shrinking the Planet.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address - 335

Lincoln gave two great speeches: the Gettysburg Address and his second Inaugural Address. His second inaugural address must have come as a surprise to most Americans. He had just won a landslide election, and the Union Armies had defeated the Confederate Insurgency. You would think he would have taken a victory lap. But the President was wrestling with God's purpose. Why had the nation, both sides, suffered so grievously? In a country of only 32 million, 650 to 750,000 soldiers had died. Lincoln believed the nation was being punished for the institution of slavery. The South for creating its wealth on the backs of the blacks, but also the North for being too slow to challenge the appalling injustice of slavery. Seven times in his short speech, Lincoln referred to the book from which he had learned to read. The book he referenced was the King James version of the Bible. Here is his speech: "Fellow countrymen: at this second appearing to take the oath of the presidenti...
Read more

Right Wing Wokeism - 344

China Must Be Thrilled Donald Trump was elected to manage borders and curb left-wing wokeism, but his right-wing wokeism—attacking electric vehicles and renewable energy because they don't fit MAGA ideology—is equally senseless and against national interests. Ironically, his own base benefits from renewables. The five states with the largest share of wind power are red states, generating at least a third of their power from wind. This is about geography, not politics. Rural America has vast solar and wind potential and is already capitalizing on it, regardless of voting patterns. More critically, Trump's "drill, baby, drill" approach at a time when artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and autonomous technology are advancing will not make America great again. Instead, it risks making China great again. Trump once boasted about sending Americans to Mars. The real question is whether a Chinese astronaut will greet them there, asking, "What took you so...
Read more

Power Corrupts - 342

A Link between Slavery & Big Oil   Noam Chomsky, one of the world's most quoted authors, expresses his opinion of the Big Oil misinformation campaign: "I don't know what word in the language—I can't find one—that applies to people of that kind, who are willing to sacrifice the existence of organized human life, not in the distant future, so they can put a few more dollars in highly overstuffed pockets. The word 'evil' doesn't begin to approach it." Was there another time in US history when evil ruled?  Let's look at the United States before the Civil War. In the South, there were 4 million enslaved people. The slaves, or their parents, or grandparents, or someone in their lineage had been kidnapped, shackled, and shipped to the Americas to spend their lives with no freedom whatsoever. This criminal operation started in 1619 and accelerated until the Union forces ended it. The black humans had no rights and were conveniently labeled as les...
Read more