Remember the Exxon Valdez! Long may it live in infamy!
An essay by Ken Wear, posted January 2000
additional comment added 4-25-06
The port of Valdez lies on Prince William Sound at the south end of the Alaska Pipe Line,
which extends 800 miles from Prudhoe Bay (north of the Arctic Circle). Prince William
Sound was a pristine seashore area, incubator and home of countless species of birds,
land animals and sea creatures (including prolific fisheries for salmon and herring). It was
unique in this world's habitats -- a land of beauty and peace and plenty.
Extensive design features of the pipe line itself, intended to minimize the impact on wildlife
(which were required initially in order to gain approval of the project), may yet prove
inadequate, but there have been no significant reported accidents in the 22 years of
pipeline operation. But preparation for possible disaster apparently ended at the tanker
loading facility at Valdez (on Prince William Sound). Environmentalists had long insisted
double-hulled tankers be used, but shipping interests refused. All went well for over 6000
tanker fillings when the unthinkable (but predictable) happened: A drunken skipper let his
ship run aground, rupturing its hull and spilling ten million gallons of crude oil into Prince
William Sound.
QuoteYou knew it would
happen. What else did you expect?EndQuote
The effect on wildlife was devastating. Despite massive efforts
at clean-up -- and nobody really knew what was needed -- the
nesting and feeding areas were totally fouled for two or three
years. YEARS! And one year interrupts Nature’s reproduction
cycle. I am told the residue of oil is still in abundance these
ten years later. Life does go on and Nature will work its way --
as some say, QuoteIt
will recover.EndQuote -- but the mix
of species present has been forever changed. Our wisdom is not
sufficient to tell us if it is a net improvement, but our intuition tells
us there has been a terrible tragedy and a new balance of Nature
with the different mix of species may be decades away. And,
economically, the men and villages depending on fish for their
livelihood will never be the same.
Spoilage of Nature on a massive scale. As a consequence of
heedless pursuit of gain. Was there any remorse? Certainly not
-- at least initially -- not until public reaction hit the gas
pumps across the nation. Quote It
was bound to happen. What else did you expect? EndQuote
Such pigheadedness! Shame!
QuoteWe have done nothing wrong -- only what was
expected of us.EndQuote Environmentalists had
been shouting for years. QuoteOur
duty is only to our shareholders.EndQuote
Their immediate profit versus all else, even their own future.
Where is the sense of stewardship?
Stewardship! Or the general welfare! Destruction of a natural
area whose ecology has been forever changed. Not even concern for
their fellow humans whose lives would be turned upside down by
loss of livelihoods and compromise of homeland.
There are many voices demanding stewardship. In many areas of
activity. The dilemma we face results from pitting today’s good
against tomorrow’s good. Immediate profit and jobs and pleasures
versus loss of future quality of life -- or life itself.
A Pacific Northwest woodsman was quoted: QuoteI have a job. Who cares about a
few salmon?EndQuote Damn the future,
eh?!
True, some voices of stewardship are strident -- provocative --
heavy-handed in their insistence on attention to their causes.
But, in the face of pervasive apathy on the part of the public and
inertia on the part of economic interests, their tactics seem
justified, even inadequate. At least someone cares!
We were headed toward certain extinction of bird life until Rachel
Carson’s Silent Spring sounded an alarm we could not
ignore. Its bare-faced factuality awakened the public to the
consequences of continuing our unthinking use of insecticides,
etc. But birds are more an esthetic interest than a commercial
interest.
Looking back, we fouled the oceans and fished aggressively until
whaling and fishing declined precipitously. Even then, with
smaller catches, higher prices at the marketplace, and pictures of
raw waste washed ashore, it seemed difficult to accept the proof
that had been so forcefully thrust into our faces. Only then were
dumping and catches and destruction of species curtailed. The
oceans will remain, but will their bounty recover? At present
that is uncertain.
We waited until the Exxon Valdez accident to demand stewardship.
There was never really any question whether it would happen, only
a question of how damning it would be. And in other parts of our
globe oil spills are still a -- not possibility -- probability.
Can’t we develop the technology to contain and recover?
Looking ahead, what kind of proof do we need that Earth’s
population is beyond carrying capacity: leveling every square
foot of forest: loss of all animal species except people and
their pets: massive famine so that even seed stocks,
cockroaches and ants are wiped out for food? A physicist
calculated that, at the then-current (1940s) rate of population
growth, by the year 2500 or so the total mass of humanity would
equal the mass of Earth itself -- an obvious impossibility.
(Imagine crawling over each other with no ground, only people,
underneath our feet, like maggots in ripe garbage.)
What kind of proof do we need that our atmosphere is warming:
inundation of coastal cities following melting of the glaciers:
half the Earth a desert: fouling the air with sulfur so we have
to wear gas masks: continuous and unremitting storms? Of course
there’s inertia by commercial interests, but if our world dies,
theirs dies, too!
Since the Malthusian scare (that the world food supply would run
short) it has become fashionable to deride all thought of dire
consequences of our heedless growth. But, unless we reform, life
for our descendants will be so sterile, so barren, that we would
not ourselves wish to live it.
What follows the demise of our civilization? It will take
millions of years for natural forces to concentrate ores to give
whatever intelligence arises next time the materials from which
to develop a new civilization. Do you suppose there will be
remnants of what we did so they can learn from our mistakes?
Will the growth of their science parallel our achievements?
Will it be again, as it possibly was before, that millions of
years will culminate in a few thousand years of a civilization
that founders or destroys itself in heedless pursuit of its own
achievements?
Long live the memory of the Exxon Valdez. May it galvanize us
into recognition that life holds no guarantees, that what gods
there be will let us pursue our folly, that we will either
practice stewardship or pay the Piper.
Comment added 4-25-06
I recall the short-term responses to the oil spill: Thousands wished to help clean-up;
the destruction of wild life distressed the public; Exxon poured $2 billion dollars
into efforts to repair the damage while no one really knew how to proceed with
such massive and irreparable loss. Last year's tsunami, this year's Hurricane
Katrina and Pakistani earthquakes, brought out our charitable instincts and the
human miseries will be remedied; the Exxon-Valdez disaster also stirred
tremendous responses but Nature had been disrupted and recovery to some sort
of balance of species will take decades or longer. We disrupt Nature at our peril.
Will your great grandchildren curse you for leaving nothing for them? For your
heedless pursuit of self that robbed them to appease your own sense of self?
If you wish to offer an opinion or suggest valuable additions to this
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Environmental concerns are also touched upon in the essay on energy,
which you may view by clicking here.
The Lifeboat Foundation has been formed to explore the various ways civilization may end
and various strategies for mankind's survival of such a catastrophe. You may go to their
web site by clicking here. One proposal to
overcome the near-total destruction of civilization appears by
clicking here.
At zeroyourcarbon is a consumer with a conscience whose thrust is reducing carbon
dioxide emissions. Regardless of your politics, it is people who care that will ultimately
prevail. To visit there click here.
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Afterthought:
Sadly, little over a decade later, public aversion to such a monumental catastrophe
has relegated it to the ash bin of history, and the cries for reform have been
silenced by more immediate concerns. Should our species survive it will surely be
an accident rather than deliberate attention to the needs of the Nature we all depend
on for sustenance.
In the larger scheme of things there are likely other worlds where intelligence has
arisen. Because of our intelligence and traits of inquisitiveness, exploration,
inventiveness and greed, we have developed a civilization heavily dependent on
the products of our own workmanship. No doubt it has happened on other
worlds although, over trackless time, because of civilization's instability, there
may be few civilizations coincident with ours. Bound as we are in time and space, we can't
know of these other peoples and learn from them -- or they from us -- nor can we
learn if there is a pattern of increasing intelligence and evolution of science followed by thoughtless
pursuit of development -- or personal power -- producing conditions that adversely
affect the continuity of life, thus ending that civilization. The rise of intelligence
leading to its own destruction. I marvel at the patience of deity in seeking a
combination of traits of intelligent peoples whose civilization can endure.
And the Exxon Valdez disaster figures in notions of social justice as part of our
social contract, which you may view by clicking here.
(or the limit to social justice by clicking here.)