Lessons from oil spill must be learned

06.16.2010

When I see the pelicans covered in goop and each dying alone, with no living creature to comfort them, I realize that Louisiana chose its state bird wisely. For the pelican is an old symbol of protection. But the protection that ought to be there — for the people, the land and the wildlife — has been clogged with the gunk of greed, negligence and spin.

The images of ruined marshes, tar-balled beaches, oil-soaked fish and birds, strangling and starving, are dramatic and heartrending. Just as dramatic and heartrending, though, are the pictures you don't see: lives ruined and livelihoods suffocated. The despairing anger and desperate defiance — we survived Katrina and we'll survive this — rarely make the national news. (Green Bay Gazette) > View article