Tales From the Roadside Pt.2
Between a Shell and a Slick Place (First published Jan 2001)
Head South from the United States until you reach a piece of land that is approximately 270,000 sq. km in size. Ask the locals (in Spanish) where you are and if they say Ecuador, then swing a right. When you reach the coast, you are only about 1045km from a group of 13 volcanic islands called the Galapagos Islands.
Yes, the same ones! Giant tortoises and other bits and pieces of nature that can not be found anywhere else on this planet.
This place is just a little bit special.
The Spanish stumbled across the islands in 1535 and a bloke called Charles Darwin spent some time there in the nineteenth century. With some help from his discoveries and study of the tortoises on the Galapagos Islands, he later went on to publish "On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection"(1859). Something about a theory of evolution or some such nonsense.
Now picture the scene, as of 23rd of January 2001, 09.00 GMT:
On the 20th of this month an Ecuadorian tanker, Jessica, began leaking after running aground.
After a couple of days of rough seas and prevailing winds, a slick of approximately 150,000 gallons of diesel is heading towards the islands and threatens to kill just about everything in site. The lucky life forms will be the ones in the water and on the beach, because their deaths will be relatively quick. Quick, as in thrashing about and drowning over a matter of minutes or hours. For the others, mortality will take a little longer.
Everybody has panicked and are now trying to put together an operation that can rescue plants, birds and animals. Ecuador has declared a state of emergency and the world watches with bated breath.
23rd of January 2001, 17.00 GMT:
The wind has changed and the unpredictable currents in the Pacific Ocean seem to be dragging the slick away from the danger zone. And everyone breathes a tentative sigh of relief.
Now let us assume for a moment, that the slick will continue to move away and the tortoises will be saved. Let us even assume that the slick does not make any landfall at all and no coastline will be ruined.
This will leave three places for this junk to go.
1. It can disperse, break up and become part of the oceans.
2. It can splash about in the waves and wind, becoming part of our atmosphere.
3. The fuel can sink to the ocean floor, killing off the green slime. The green slime (algae) is vital to the food chain. This will threaten the lives of millions of fish, marine iguanas, sharks, birds and upwards.
Call me old fashioned, but I really do not like the sound of any of these.
WHEN THE H*LL WILL WE LEARN???
This is not and never will be, our planet. We are here by accident and if we are really lucky we will go out with a bang because the alternatives, quite frankly, scare me witless.
