The article last week about the continued efforts and failures to "clean up" after the meltdown at the Fukushima power plant brought up an old soap box topic for me: the issue of the difference between a naturally occurring environment and a closed system and how it relates to the waste we create as a species on a small planet. I've always found the idea of a closed system an academically convenient but purely theoretical one, that an environment smaller than our planet could be completely separated from those around it to substance (or people, idea, etc.) transfer. And yet, it seems that the idea of a closed system is central to our society's world view. When we hear about species extinction, chemical spills across the country, or even political upheaval in foreign countries, we may feel empathy, but rarely do we think about how our own small, daily environment will be effected by these tragedies.
With the continued nuclear contamination of the seawater off of the coast of Japan, the connection to our environment may be more obvious, as we share an ocean with currents, winds, and animals migrating back and forth all the time. In my opinion, to maintain the view that this pollution won't find its way into our bodies in some quantity (not to mention all people's bodies who share the Pacific coastline) would be naively optimistic. Now, I'm not nuclear expert, so I have no solutions to propose to stop the contamination, but it seems as though no one has any solutions. So, (some of) my questions are... why build it if you can't take it apart? Why create something (nuclear waste) that you can't get rid of? And, finally, why did no one think about this possibility? The world is connected in so many ways, and water that runs down the slopes of a mountain in Japan will certainly find its way to other countries and other people's gardens and childrens' bedside glasses of water.
But, on the bright side, I once heard a woman speak who said something along the lines of this: a caterpillar, when it is growing, consumes an unbelievable amount of food. It will eat everything around it, and some caterpillar's starve because they destroy their surroundings and, thus, cannot find enough to eat. However, after a little while of this, they make themselves a chrysalis, and in time emerge as butterflies, which go on to pollinate and live symbiotically with their surroundings. This woman postulated that this time in human history is our caterpillar phase, and that our inevitable course is that of the butterfly. I'll take it.
Hilary, Yes! Your words are beautiful and powerful. "Water that runs down the slopes of a mountain in Japan will certainly find its way to other countries and other people's gardens and childrens' bedside glasses of water." A wonderful picture of the connectedness of our world.
ReplyDeleteAnd how often to we look away from others' tragedies, closing our system, unwilling or unable to feel the connection. I certainly do.
But the caterpillar is my favorite. The analogy of the human as the hungry, hungry caterpillar is perfect. The makings of a best selling children's book. I can just picture the little girl reading it in bed with her contaminated glass of water beside her. And to emerge a beautiful butterfly living symbiotically in the universe. I appreciate your optimistic closing at this time of night.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of closed system is convenient to those in power. There are many solutions and alternatives, but the inconvenient ones are not made visible by corporate media. We speak in the discourse imposed on us by the corporate elite and the state- to discuss consuming less and resource sovereignty is taboo. If our caterpillar moment is a metaphor for rampant global capitalism, then the butterfly just may be a planet without humans. Sounds fatalistic, but seems poetic to me.
I could not agree with you more, it's so much bigger than just the oceans being affected. And it's disgusting that we even view the ocean as being split up, when it is all one. This will no doubt effect everything around us, yet we choose to listen only when "our" ocean is effected, or "our" food, or "our" water, when it's so much bigger than that. This is a planet, that belongs to no one to but itself, yet we are treating it as if pars of it are "ours". Acting as if it's not all connected.
ReplyDeleteI want to thank you though for that beautiful analogy of the catipillar. Some days I do ponder on how this is a part of an evolution, whether it's natural or not. We will and are turning into something else.