Opinion - The cause of our own undoing

The unpronounceable volcano in Iceland is still spewing ash.

Although not the biggest eruption ever, it may have the largest impact of any in history. International air travel has been affected. Entire airports have been shut down for fear of the danger of the airborne ash to airplanes. At one point, virtually all of Europe’s air traffic was grounded.

The volcano is a natural phenomenon. Humans will have to adapt and adjust. As with other such natural events, the negative environmental impact may not be long lasting. A case in point is the recovery in Washington from the Mt. St. Helens eruption.

A more serious environmental problem is evolving. The explosion and collapse of a deep-water drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico has released millions of barrels of oil into the sea. The gushing oil continues despite several efforts to stop it or pump it into container ships. No firm estimates exist on the quantity of oil already released or when the flow will be stopped.

The Gulf of Mexico is streaked with ugly ribbons of oil. The surface oil can be seen from space. It is threatening important natural coastal environments as well as offshore fisheries. Worse, great concentrated clouds of oil are below the surface. The surface oil poises a grave danger, but the subsurface oil clouds are thought to be more serious.

We cannot do anything about nature, but we can do something about our own actions.

The economic and ecological impact of the oil discharge is still in the making. We know only one thing for sure. The disaster is totally man made, the result of hubris and corporate pressures, if current reports are correct.

Neither the short nor long term outlook is good. Latent, unweathered oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in the 1980s is still causing biological harm. The Alaskan environment still has not fully recovered from the spill and, in some instances, the heavy-handed cleanup.

The oil discharge in the Caribbean has the potential to be the world’s worst man-made ecological disaster.

Nature may be tough on us at times, but we seem increasingly able to be tougher yet on ourselves and Earth itself.

As many predict, we may be the cause of our own undoing.

Gordon Forgey

Publisher