Gulf oil spill changes ecology consciousness

Phil Greenspun always shares germane and interesting observations in his public writing. Here’s a doozy . .

After the big Gulf oil spill, though, I’m beginning to wonder if a soda can in a Massachusetts landfill has any significance. The U.S. has millions of environmentally-conscious citizens. We probably have close to a million people involved in complying with various environmental laws and regulations. Yet we’ve just destroyed the ecology of the world’s ninth largest body of water, 660 quadrillion gallons (6.6 x 10^18) of water. This was home to sea life for 300 million years before we came along and trashed it. Will it be possible to summon up any outrage the next time we see an SUV driver throwing a cigarette out the window?

Jump to Phil’s blog post

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *