How Greed Changed My Life

I live on the Gulf Coast. In the summer, even if I am broke, I have always been able to drive the hour to the beach and enjoy sand, sun, and surf. No more. My beloved Fort Morgan Beach is a mess these days, as are Orange Beach and Gulf Shores. Even more devastating for me, Mobile Bay is being impacted, and soon the rivers and creeks of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta will be hit, as well. Though I love the beach, I have long been a woods wanderer and river traveler, so witnessing this is breaking my heart.

The Mobile-Tensaw Delta is where five rivers flow into Mobile Bay, and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico. Like all such estuaries, it is a nursery for marine life, both saltwater and freshwater, and is vital to the survival of the ecosystem. Compromising this area will have consequences that may last for generations.

I am no tree-hugger. I believe God made this planet and put us on it. He gave us permission to use it. The idea that people don't belong here, and that if we just weren't here everything would be okay, is illogical, even a little stupid. But the naked greed that caused this disaster is inexcusable. It is possible to both replenish and subdue. That's what God told us to do. The oil spill is an example of what happens when the balance is lost. Many of the people who think that we should never cut down a tree, never drill an oil well, and never build a house are just as godless and just as misguided as those who caused this tragedy. Ironic, isn't it?

My dad used to say, "It's always the middle that holds things up." He meant that extremes are pretty much never right and never the answer. Reason and logic are usually somewhere in a middle ground, and most successful solutions to problems are born of compromise. The relationship here among the fishing, tourism, and oil industries is dynamic and complex. It isn't all that straightforward. And placing a moratorium on the oil industry in an already highly depressed economy is a stupid and callous maneuver.

My point is this: Nobody who doesn't live here can really understand what this means to us who do. If you have not spent long summer days looking for shells at Fort Morgan, or been swimming less than forty feet away from wild dolphins; if you haven't canoed these rivers, over and over, laughing with your friends and desperately trying to steer around deadfalls; if you haven't wandered these woods, fished these creeks, and watched herons in majestic flight--you do not understand, no matter how much you might want to. If one more government flunky, politician, or Hollywood celebrity tells me that they feel my pain, I might crack up. This place is not, for me, a cause. It is not a vacation spot. It is not just some pitiful place you see on the news. It is not just a means to promote an agenda. This is my home. You can come visit, cluck your tongue, express your sympathy, and then return to your life as it has always been. My life, and the lives of many others, have been irrevocably changed.

It has been changed, and is being changed, by groups of people who don't know what they are doing. Here's an idea. Give all the money to state and local governments and agencies, and let us clean up behind you. Let us decide the methods to use and whom to help first. Go away and leave us alone. You don't belong here. And long after you have gotten all the socio-political mileage you can get out of our suffering, we will still be here, still be surviving, and still be in love with our home.