The (English) Empire Strikes Back : A Pompous Disaster
Read Time:2 Minute, 43 Second
Good grief! I have been designated the term ‘pompous’
I am uncertain whether to be flattered or offended. (Actually…me being me I couldn’t give a monkeys)
Me?? Pompous?? I may be getting older than I realised.
America. Please. All I did was suggest (in a comment…not even a post!) that the oil disaster off your coast was, whilst a true disaster, not necessarily unduly high on a scale of disasters throughout history. At least not from the point of view of humanity.
I suspect the Dinosaurs would, conceivably, defend my position.
I wasn’t intentionally belittling your disaster – it doesn’t do to belittle anothers disaster – in the same way that I wouldn’t for one moment suggest YOUR hurricanes are less viable as disasters than China’s earthquakes.
However. (At the risk of pissing Mike off – good job he likes me)…;-)
Reading various ‘news’ bits on the internet and listening to Sky, all I’m getting is ‘Oh My God! My beach will be ruined’ and ‘Our fishing industry will be destroyed’ (which are both, in fairness, unfortunate circumstances) but, I suspect the situation for the Manatee is considerably worse.
Whilst your beaches and fishing may be adversely affected, any Manatee unfortunate enough to get in the way of the oil slick will be dead. Deceased. No longer of this world. It will have shuffled off this mortal coil. It will be no more. It will be an ex Manatee.
All I was trying to put across was that, frankly, the consequences of this disaster to you will be as nothing to the late Manatee that swam the wrong way at the wrong time.
As an avid enviromentalist I get a tad miffed at humanity – even the innocent section – whinging on about ‘their beaches and seas’ when, in actual fact, the beaches and seas belong more to the wildlife who have not the chance to ‘whinge’ as they’re too busy dying from being covered in oil and, more than likely, getting the bloody stuff in their lungs and gills and wings.
Yes. It is indeed your disaster but only, I must insist, to a point.
I respectfully suggest that it is far more a disaster to the Dolphins, Marlins, Sharks, Manatees, Storm-Petrels, Masked Booby’s, Double Crested Cormorants, Frigate Birds, Tricolored Herons etc etc et al than it is for humans.
Unlike them, you are unlikely to have to run the unexpected risk of swimming into or landing accidentally in the muck. You already know it’s there. They don’t.
If that belief makes me pompous then so be it.
Good luck to the humans dependent on fishing and good luck to the humans dependent on nice beaches but, ultimately, tough shit to you.
Good luck is needed more for the Manatee and the wildlife. Their ‘livelihoods’ aren’t threatened, their lives are.
If caring more about them than the human ‘casualties’ is pompous then I am. I’m also glad I am and will continue to be. So there.
The fishermen will find an alternative source of survival if needs be.
The beaches and coves will be cleaned up eventually.
A dead Manatee will continue to be a dead Manatee.
Your’s pompously from England
4D
ps…love yer Gwenny….any friend of wildlife is a friend of mine xx
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
Something could be done if the oil was to stop today- there are bacteriological and chemical ways (both OK for wildlife) that would help- so the area might be able to recover- but it ISNT stopping. BP has been offering people $5k to waive their rights to sue. People, tourism, and worst of all, the animals are well and truly screwed.
Hope Obama thinks offshore drilling is a bad idea now!
Holty : Just watched some stuff on this on the news. Dead turtles washing up etc. Breaks my heart. BP are apparently footing the bill but that hardly helps the turtles – and neither I suspect will they foot the bill for the fishermen who can’t pay their bills.
What Mr. Dinners probably does not grasp is the scale of what’s happening, the sheer scale of the area affected and the population that will not die a death, like the wildlife, but will be ruined economically and maybe, after all the hurricanes in the past 10 years, this preventable leak, it will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Tens of millions of people, thousands of miles of coastline, could be ruined. The slick is growing everyday, getting bigger and more dangerous and threatening a bigger and bigger geographical area by the hour. The United States is 3,000 miles wide and 2,000 miles deep, Britain is 150 miles wide at it fattest point. The scale of thinking has to be different here, it has to be big, to match the country.
As an aside…..I actually went into debt to the tune of £2,000 for a stray cat that sort of moved in and needed urgent medical treatment so, when I say ‘sod people’ in favour of animals, I will put my money where my mouth is….
Yep.
Mad as a hatter….;-)
Shellfish doesn’t agree with me….so perhaps I’m a wee bit biased?..;-)
Me too, I have an allergic reaction to the iodine content in shellfish. I was lucky I found out about that before my accident and hubby knew about it to tell the surgeon, since I was not conscious. They had to find another cleansing agent before my surgery to use, instead of the iodine to cut into the parts that had to be cut into, so that I could continue to rant on the toobs here 😉
=^..^=
4d remember, this area has a whole pristine wetlands area too that will be affected. Me myself, while the livelihood of the people does upset me, I am more concerned about the ecological disaster this is going to be, for years possibly decades to come. Those wetland areas are already eroding at a rapid pace, this will just quicken that pace. Most of it is in Louisiana that just had Katrina a few years back ravage it and now more.
That being said, here is another example, if the shrimping/seafood industry is somehow affected, we will have to get that from areas that do not have the food safety regulations in place, like dirty shrimp from Vietnam and China, that bastion of food safety. I don’t know how much shellfish is exported to Great Britain from here in the US, you may now need to look elsewhere for shrimp and sea foods if you get any from the Gulf Coast, and it could be coming from the same dirty areas I mentioned above.
=^..^=
Very good point- Japan has almost no regulations on fishing (and pretends even those don’t exist- anyone see “the Cove”?). I don’t want to support another country’s inhumane practices. Ours are bad enough.
And while I care about the lives and physical health of the people in the gulf, the industries affected are of secondary importance to the crime against nature that man has now inflicted upon his fellow creatures. So I am with you 4D.
I’d like people who stay to be the ones concerned with recovery and seeing that the ecological impact is addressed, not the industries that exploit what is now a not-so-exploitable resource. Man has a lot of hubris assuming that the land, water, and other species are here for him to exploit, plunder, use, consume- and we continually behave as if we are the only species that matter.
Not ‘attacking’ old bean….I do understand the implications of this disaster but, for better or worse, I put wildlife ahead of humans…that’s all.
The choice of 500 or 500,000 humans losing their livelihood but 100 or 1,000 animals etc saved….bye bye livelihood.
Saving the fishermen’s business etc etc IS important, but, to me – and I would say this if it was England – not as important as saving 1 solitary Manatee or Dolphin or Cormorant.
We’re the virus old bean. They aren’t.
Let’s say my Euro Lottery came in for 20 million pounds and I wasn’t allowed to keep it but I was given the choice of donating it all to the fishermen over there, or the wildlife.
Guess?
I’m really not ‘attacking’ old bean. Just worrying more about the wildlife than the humans – I sort of prefer the wildlife given the choice. Here, there or anywhere.
Mad as it may sound, when we (humanity) screw up, we should carry the can all the way – even if it means tourism / exports etc etc going down the pan – if our screw up / accident threatens wildlife we should prioritise wildlife ahead of our own species – simply because they’d never create a situation like this. Only humanity can cause this, accidentally as in this case, or otherwise.
We’re here by luck not judgement. Our ‘rights’ are no greater than the Dolphin. If saving 1 Dolphin screws up tourism or anything else for this year or ten years it’s the price we should pay to even exist on this world.
It was an accident, but it was OUR accident.
We carry the consequences including the ruination of business.
Wildlife have to be the priority old bean. They are the only real innocents in this sort of thing.
I will now shut up before I get banned….
4D
I’m sure you couldn’t imagine to do without fish and chips due to the greed of some. Actually I never had real fish and chips but I’ve been to Long John Silver’s.
Really though most of us are pissed off. The fact that Halliburton was involved, screwed this up just like the showers in Iraq. Halliburton that is/was involved with Big Dick Cheney.
This slurry thing that has proven it’s about the worst thing to use but the cheapest (if it works).
We have been F***ed before dealing with Oil companys. We remember Exxon Valdez in Alaska. Were still trying to collect on that one. Last but not least…it breaks our heart what we are doing to life on the coast. As a boy, I used to swim in the Ocean,Gulf Port Mississippi. I fear life there will never be the same.
Later Brother
eww Long John’s is not real fish and chips Tim ;). Here is a real quick recipe my Scottish friend gave me a while ago. It is way easy to prepare and is done in less than 30 minutes. I get orangee roughy fish or Dover sole, coat it in an egg and then in Corn Flake crumbs. Fry it in oil that covers it, for about 5-10 minutes, till it is crispy and golden brown, done. Same thing for french fries. Cut up the potatoes into french fries, with or without peeling them, your choice, stick in the deep fryer, 20 minutes or so. Voila fish and chips and you have done it at home with fresh ingredients. I have not mastered her beer batter yet but I do try it. She takes flour, beer and a little water then coats her fish and throws it into the deep fryer. Mine always ends up runny, so I go to her house when I know she is making that.
=^..^=
Dinners you are part of a team that shares your sentiments when it comes to our creatures. This is one environmentally aware group of animal lovers. But you know that.
I am not sure, however, you have a sense of the huge loss of income and the terrible cost that will be associated with this disaster. There is not a lot of news on it here…yet. This is because the slick has yet to hit the shore. Keep in mind that the tourist industry in the Gulf is a multi-billion dollar business and thousands of people depend on it for their livelihood. We are talking hundreds of miles of beaches here, not just a little patch at Brighton. As to the fisherman, this part of the Gulf is responsible for yielding one third of the seafood harvested in the United States. It will be devastating not only to us but also to those countries that import our products. Aren’t you one of them?
Finally my heart breaks for the precious lives of our innocent animals. I cannot watch the horror that is just now starting to unfold. They are already finding dead turtles, more than usual, washed up on the beaches and the oil has yet to hit the shore. Entire species indigenous to this area may well be wiped out. As to the Manatees, this is not a popular hangout for these guys, so you can take a breath. All of the others you mention, however, are lost.
Thanks for taking the time to explain your position. Just remember, while we bitch and moan about some of the things that happen in America, we can because we are Americans. We don’t take kindly to “foreigners” attacking us, any more than you would take kindly to “foreigners” attacking you. As a matter of fact I recall a rant or two from you about just that.
That being said I wish peace to all…especially our critters.
ditto~!