Page 113 - ECOlogic Book

build houses on flood plains. We build highways and bridges and nuclear
power plants on earthquake faults. We have to intentionally flood canyons
we have dammed, in an attempt to restore the natural integrity of the land
we have ruined. We fail to use materials strong enough to withstand
hurricanes in areas where hurricanes are a common occurrence. We
destabilize our climate by continuing to belch C02 into the atmosphere. We
fill in coastal wetlands, robbing them of their ability to mitigate flooding. We
build levees to channel great rivers where we think they should go. When
the levees break we’re surprised to see the destruction – destruction that
would not have happened if the river had been allowed to flood naturally
onto its flood plain or meander as it wished.

Earth. Air. Fire. Water. These are essential to life. They are also essential
to death – that is, to the completion of the life cycle, which includes
destruction, decomposition and return to the environment, as well as
resurrection in a new form. They are dual in nature. Fire warms, but it also
burns. Water quenches thirst, but it also floods and drowns. Air must be
breathed. It cools. But it can also blow things down. Earth grows things,
things we need to eat. But it can open up beneath our feet and swallow us
in great chasms. It can shake apart what we have worked hard to build.

Sometimes the elements work together destructively, as well as for good.
Air combined with fire intensifies it. Hurricanes bring huge ocean waves that
can wash away beaches and even whole cities. Earthquakes often produce
tsunamis, as do some volcanoes.

These natural disasters are probably more feared than other kinds of
danger, precisely because there is so little humans can do about them. In
the grip of a tornado, you might just as well relax and enjoy the ride.
Hanging on will do you good. There’s no way to control these events. They
remind us of how vulnerable we are, how puny.

Are there more natural disasters today than there used to be, or is it just
that we didn’t have C –Span to watch them on before? By 1996 others were
beginning to wonder too: those who study weather patterns, meteorologists
and climatologists, ecologists, economists, health professionals, and
oceanographers, all began expressing concern over what are now becoming
discernible trends. The data are accumulating. There do seem to be more
“natural disasters” in recent times, and their frequency and severity are now
statistically significant.

Climatologists are beginning to suspect that at least some of these violent
weather-related disasters are the symptoms of the very climate-changes
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