Starting this blog’s tenth year with admitting to a National Geographic Alaska show compulsion. There’s something fascinating about seeing a subsistence lifestyle that I’d never choose.
1. A recent Life Below Zero: First Alaskans episode “Rite of Spring” included a visit to remains of a childhood home that had been swept away in a 2009 Yukon River flood. Some of the dialog:
“He put in his will that this land wasn’t ever to be sold or divided. It was for his grandchildren’s grandchildren.”
Nice thought. It’d be better, though, if a person would be around to see that generation of their descendants. Which is impossible when someone risks their survival day after day.
2. A Life Below Zero: Next Generation episode “Uneven Ground” showed a couple and their child repairing an access road, to include clearing trash from their property that’s on a former military installation. I’d guess that there’s a zero percent probability that they weren’t also exposed to leftover environmental toxins in their property’s soil and water.
3. Speaking of which, the park I played in as often as possible until age twelve was mentioned in two articles published decades afterwards:
“They’ll have to deal with toxic waste from incinerator ash dumped on the land as fill that’s buried up to four feet deep. Redevelopment of a water park at the adjacent Grapeland Heights Park required removal of 80,000 tons of soil at a cost of $10 million. Soil tests conducted by DERM in 2006 showed elevated levels of several contaminants, including barium, copper, and dioxins.”
“Toxic trouble at the Melreese site was also well-known. The city got an expensive lesson in the problem in 2005, when buried ash with dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, and other contaminants were found at Grapeland Heights Park, the popular park with ball fields adjacent to Melreese.”
Toxic soil under golf course is a legacy of Miami’s dirty past. There’s a lot more out there
I haven’t had toxicity tests after learning about this a few years ago. Too easy to get thoughts, feelings, and behavior trapped in What was not, is not, and will never be.
4. My oldest grandchild and I had a conversation about their environmental angst, which apparently was due to just reading about pollution. I didn’t say much, or sugarcoat anything, or otherwise dismiss concerns.
I think my teenaged grandchildren will be alright, but it’s also up to each of them and their own actions. Too early to expect to see their grandchildren.
I get pollution and death reminders on every beach walk from brown foam and washed up debris of formerly living things. Focusing on those aspects would take away from a beach walk’s other experiences.
Surface Your Real Self 