photo borrowed from Oiled SeaBirds: To Kill Or Not To Kill? What Is The Ethical Thing To Do?
I have been very stressed out lately from watching too many news related broadcasts about the catastrophe in the Gulf. The pictures of the birds coated in brown goo have got to be the worst. This fellow in the picture above may have a good chance of survival, depending on how stressed he is, and how much oil he ingested trying to clean himself before he was caught, but if you want more info on the process, check out the "oiled sea birds" link above. It has links to a lot of the scientific research on survivability of cleaned birds after spills. Unfortunately, most of the studies are not from pure scientific experiments, as our desire to extract these resources from under the ground/ocean provides lots of opportunity to clean oiled wildlife.
When I see video of boom that is not properly protecting some of the little barrier islands, and as a result there is oil washing up on shore, I feel personally responsible. Part of that is due to my overdeveloped sense of Catholic guilt, since I know that the USCG is supposed to verify that booms are protecting sensitive areas from the impact of the spill. The other part is that I drive my car almost every day, travel quite often in airplanes, and generally participate in the oil economy almost as much as the next person. (Hubby drives the hybrid to work, while I prefer my trucklet.)
I hope that this disaster will wake people up to the fact that we need to move faster towards making alternative fuel sources an affordable reality for the average american, but I'm not going to hold my breath!
No comments:
Post a Comment