Oil In The Gulf

   
I spend a few hours a week looking for energy saving opportunities in the basements of my clients. Sometimes this means inserting myself into crawl spaces and similar other worldly places investigating where holes in the foundation walls or framing allows air to blow in. I am used to it – the dust and dampness – but what really creeps me out are the invisible spider webs. Brushing up against a spider web, even a really old one not maintained, is horrifying.

There was a really spider-webby basement recently that made me pause because it had a iridescent sheen that reminded me of oil on water. I suddenly flashed on those giant floating plumes of oil being injected into the Gulf of Mexico by the BP disaster. These plumes are hundreds of feet deep, wide and long, creating the equivalent of a huge unavoidable net. For the fish, turtles, and pelicans blithely following their natural instincts then suddenly enveloped in oil – this is a horror. Suffocating in oil, saturated in something that will not come off , breathing it in – this is a million times worse than walking into a room of spider webs. At least when I walk into a spider web, I do not breath it in.

The BP oil gushing out is permeating the psyche of America. The collective we, at least those who think about things, see the parallels to home heating and car driving, pension fund dividends, and wrecked economies, businesses and lives in this environmental catastrophe. Even those who want to bury their head in the sand about this can not avoid the tar balls in their hair. We are a risk taking species that is for sure and I think a lot of us are so caught up in the momentum of what we do every day that any modification of our routine seems either impossible or a drop in the bucket. But the cultural habits of our families, communities and nation can and must change to meet the excesses or possibly unavoidable mistakes that lead to disasters.

Most of us have to risk the metaphorical spider-webs-in-the-basement as we traverse the interconnections of middle class American. Driving is a necessity, our food chain is petroleum based, our pensioners get dividends from oil company sales: everything and everyone is so interlinked in this fragile, wounded ecosystem and economy. So if anything is to come of this it must be that the interconnectedness will be our strength even as it is our nemesis. If indeed individuals can change the world, then let’s at least embrace conservation of energy in our own lives as that one first step. Don’t drive so fast, walk to a store, open a window, hang up the wash, make a statement, get an energy audit.  Collectively these actions will make a difference and it is not a hopeless situation.

I remember a Lake Erie research project I did in seventh grade in 1969. At the time Lake Erie was “dead”, the victim of algae blooms caused by pollution. I thought at that time that the situation was nearly hopeless, but it wasn’t. Many years of clean up and vigilance brought the lake back. In our backyard there are Blue Herons in the Delaware Canal and hawks flying around Yardley, which indicate to me a more balanced ecosystem and a measure of hopefulness. Unfortunately our local backyard now includes the entire Gulf Coast, Kandahar and beyond. Fortunately the small things we do here will have a collective impact. We simply must get it done and now is the perfect time.  To make the biggest impact the best place to start is with a home energy audit.

This article was contributed by Thomas G. Wells


THOMAS G. WELLS CONSTRUCTION L.L.C.
105 Pennsylvania Avenue
Yardley, Pa. 19067

Tel: 215-321-4818
Fax: 215-321-2179
Cell: 215-378-4048
http://www.tgw-construction.com/
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Source:

Superior Woodcraft, Inc. Custom Cabinetry Blog
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