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 he first rains have yet to touch
Southern California, and already the media is wrapping itself in a blanket
of exaggerated paranoia. On the local and national news, not a day goes
by without an "El Niño" report. If only global warming
would get even half the attention being paid to that crazy kid from South
America.
 At the center of all this reporting
is the constant barrage of images, complete with floods, mass destruction,
and the dead, (both human and non-human) lining the streets. It has always
been my opinion that mainstream media is anti-environment, and the way the
impending weather front is being portrayed, one can't help but see himself
a victim of something that has yet to happen.
Undoubtedly this sort of hyperbole
is very profitable for the media machine, yet I think it is vital that we
look deeper to what is a more sinister truth: the vilification of nature.
Now that the cold war is officially over, Russia is currently off the hook,
and as we have yet to enroll China to play the role, what better villain
than Mother Nature, in all her cruel and indiscriminate violence.
Instead of addressing the real issues
confronting us, such as clean air, clean water, food free of synthetic chemicals,
vanishing wilderness, and dwindling resources, we allow the five multinational
media conglomerates tell us when and where to panic. And since very little
is known about why warm water backs up in the South Pacific, causing irregular
weather patterns, it is easy for the media to whip up a fear based entirely
on ignorance. Why confront problems that you can change, when you can wring
your hands and worry over things that you can't?
Case in point: the fires of Malaysia.
For weeks now, these fires have burned out of control, set by farmers seeking
to turn rainforests into cash crops for the palm oil, rubber, and pulp and
paper industries. Yet somehow El Niño has been accused of adding
to the problem. At the height of the fires, the American press gave very
little coverage to a host of topics that affect the global community such
as increased greenhouse gases, the threat of monocultural tree plantations
and the loss of endangered populations of Sumatran elephants, tigers and
orangutans. So instead the networks blame the disaster on El Niño
for delaying the monsoon rains, completely ignoring that these slash-and-burn
tactics have been illegal in Malaysia since 1995. Also being avoided are
the facts in regards to American involvement in the region's environmental
destruction. |
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Meanwhile, back at bluffside,
intrepid reporters are searching for a human interest story. So they stick
a microphone in the face of a government employee who says she is very worried
about the potential danger of winter storms enhanced by El Niño's
fury. Isn't it odd that these folks constantly ignore the true cause of
beach and bluff erosion along the coast: development, plain and simple.
If you're worried about storms washing your home into the ocean, don't build
or buy a domicile situated on unstable bluffs. If you're concerned about
wave damage to your beach front restaurant, does it make sense to invest
in anything ten yards above the high tide line?
Convinced that it is the weather
that is to blame, not poor planning choices, we seek to compound the problem
by trying to hold back the ocean. So we build hideous cement barriers that
only serve to remind us how futile our efforts really are. Refusing to live
in balance with nature, and that includes the occasional El Niño,
we vilify the elements. To make the vilification process easier, we give
the storms names like Hurricane Andrew, as if that makes it easier to explain
why your life was leveled.
Now don't get me wrong, even I know
there is need for storm preparation: clean out the rain gutters, remove
questionable foliage, stock a few sandbags just in case, all common sense.
Here in San Diego the residents of the Tijuana River Valley complain every
year about flooding caused by winter storms. El Niño or not, they
get flooded, and as regular as clockwork they start calling for the channelization
of the river. So once again the cement saviour is called upon to rescue
people not bright enough to see the connection between rain and runoff.
If we were to be completely honest
something currently not required by those reporting the news or those making
it we would have to admit that human endeavors have a more substantial impact
on the planet than a brief shift in weather patterns, which for all we know,
might be a natural pressure relief valve for a weather system far greater
than the El Niño itself. But instead of educating ourselves and learning
to live in harmony with the planet that supports our existence, we point
fingers, placing the blame at the feet of an unruly child who visits once
every ten years, guilty of only of doing what it has always done.
It is now more important than ever
for those of with the sense to see the sacredness of the elements as they
dance around the globe, to say no to anti-environment propaganda and manufactured
hysteria. It is time for us to remind people that weather happens, and it
always will.  |
