My Children's Earth

As I was rocking Savannah to sleep I had the TV on; my eyes glazed over and my mind elsewhere. I caught a quick mention of the oil spill in the Gulf; a few photos of oil droplets suspended in the ocean waves, sticky beach sand, and brown marshland.

What will this world look like when Savannah is my age? What are we leaving her?

It was a few weeks after the oil spill before I really knew what happened. Life around here can be a bit chaotic at times, and I'm not always on top of what's going on in the rest of the world. But one morning as I sipped my coffee I stumbled upon a slideshow of the spill and my heart sank. I just didn't realize. I heard this was as bad, if not worse than, the Exxon Valdez disaster. But I just didn't put two and two together.

I was disgusted by what I saw. I was mad. I was hurt and wanted answers. How could this have been allowed to happen? How much more of our Earth are we going to destroy before we wake up?!

My family tries to be eco-conscious, but that's not always easy in our part of the country. Our local grocery store carries one brand of organic milk, and that's all. I've never seen a single other organic item in there, but there's plenty of fat back and cubed alligator tail. Aisle upon aisle of processed food, and an always busy deli, serving fried chicken every day.

The grocery store I frequent is thirty minutes away, and they have a great selection of packaged organic/all natural items. But their organic fresh produce is always withered and spoiled. I have to drive over an hour away to a Whole Foods to find edible fresh organic produce. I doubt many in my community can afford to do that.

My town has no recycling services. Thankfully we have trash pick up (and I am very thankful for that, as my family in the NC mountains has no such luxury). Our garbage goes to a local landfill, and from there who knows? I'm sure it ends up on a barge in the middle of the ocean, leaking and oozing, scraps flying up in the air for sea birds to catch in their bills. I remember when I was much much younger hearing about sea birds and dolphins dying when plastic six-pack rings got wrapped around their mouths and necks. I've cut the rings ever since. Some things just stick with you.

When we moved here I called City Hall to find out where I could take our cardboard boxes to be recycled. They had no clue. We debated forever about whether burning them or trashing them was more environmentally friendly. In the end I can't remember what we did.....

We try. We try to do the best we can, even when it's not convenient.

Why don't big corporations do the same? They have far more resources at their disposal than I. They have more money, more manpower, more influence than I do. Why don't they try as hard as me? Do the executives at BP have children? Don't they worry about what they're doing to the Earth their children will inherit? Don't they want to take their kids to clean white sand beaches? Maybe they think they can just hop a jet and visit a pretty international beach. They can afford that, right? Who wouldn't want to jet off on a tropical vacation instead of visiting the beaches of Alabama? I get that. But don't they realize we only have one ocean? Sure, there are lots of smaller seas and inlets. But it's all one, really. Are the BP executives so naive to think the oil will remain in the Gulf of Mexico?

And speaking of Mexico. And the rest of the world. When will America realize that we aren't the only country on this Earth? Every bad environmental decision we make affects everyone on this planet. America isn't under a bubble. Our air, our oceans....we share them with the rest of the globe. Everyone pays the price for our transgressions.

I rock this baby girl to sleep and I tell her I'm so, so sorry. I'm so sorry that so many people don't care about our planet. I'm so sorry that so many people put profit above safety and responsibility and ethical decision making. I'm sorry that this world is being stripped of its beauty before she's even had a chance to explore it.