Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Oiled birds

Reading more about the oil spill on PRBO's website, continuing to hear about it in the news, and seeing photos of shiny black oil blobs really brings home to me that we are addicted to oil. I mean, each one of us uses some form of that oil that fell into our oceans, washed up dirtily on our beaches, and killed our birds. Each one of us drives the demand for it, to a small extent. What can we do? What changes do we make, which aspects of our lifestyle are we really willing to give up?

This morning I walked up to the refuge offices through the parking lot where a man was using a leaf blower to clear the sidewalks. It just suddenly seemed to me wrong to use that energy, even that tiny little bit, to blow leaves around. It was just so starkly incorrect.

But what about me? Here I use a computer to communicate with friends and write proposals to study conservation, I have a fridge humming in the background keeping my food from spoiling, a light is on next to me. Why do I condemn a leaf blower?

What can we do? Choose our battles: give up what we can, and ponder what we can't.

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