tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28837843.post2695625175771839356..comments2024-03-19T07:10:27.303-07:00Comments on Quark Soup by David Appell: Oil Spill is Worse US Ecodisaster?David Appellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03318269033139447591noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28837843.post-22344075197791439262010-06-15T10:52:09.053-07:002010-06-15T10:52:09.053-07:00Yes, I like John's comment as well.
We learn...Yes, I like John's comment as well. <br /><br />We learn in classes that teach ecology that there are countless human-caused disasters - fisheries, dam building, city building - that work in slow motion, outside of our sensory receptors. <br /><br />Things that work at scales outside our senses require us to think about our impacts, and this is what allows us to look the other way or to get distracted and not pay attention. <br /><br />Or because we are almost totally separated from nature - because we move from climate-controlled box to climate-controlled box to climate-controlled box to climate-controlled box - we just miss it, and no one tells us because full knowledge might mean preservation and no more exploitation. <br /><br />What gets measured gets managed.<br /><br />Best,<br /><br />DDanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03709762632849004871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28837843.post-84449829274902965502010-06-15T10:04:13.398-07:002010-06-15T10:04:13.398-07:00John, that's a very thought-provoking comment....John, that's a very thought-provoking comment.<br /><br />It reminds me of a letter to the editor I read when I lived in Tempe, AZ. There was a large fire in the desert and a homeowner had complained to a reporter about how now the burned landscape was so ugly around their (spared) home. The letter simply said "The desert around their home will recover, but that underneath their home is pinned there forever."David Appellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03318269033139447591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28837843.post-59691495985630833952010-06-15T08:42:08.988-07:002010-06-15T08:42:08.988-07:00I've long thought that there are a lot of thin...I've long thought that there are a lot of things that we don't normally think of as "eco disasters" that have all the same characteristics, but that we take for granted and find acceptable.<br /><br />The Google map tools people have built to allow you to overlay the size of the Gulf oil spill on your town are a great way to visualize this. Overlay the spill on, say, greater Los Angeles, and you'll see that the sprawling metro area dwarfs the spill in size. That metro area used to hold an entire ecosystem, which was completely destroyed to create a city. Any city will do here. The point is that we've decided some ecosystem destruction is OK (that from which we comfortably benefit) while other ecosystem destruction horrifies us.<br /><br />I have bird feeders and some nice plants and water in the my backyard, but I shouldn't kid myself that the existence of my house hasn't made life impossible for the critters that used to live here.John Fleckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01945772782727225745noreply@blogger.com