A Lamentation for the Seas
Its been many long years since I first heard the sirens song, and felt the pull of the tide. Many long years indeed since I was lured to the sea and first felt its power and fury. And though I may have taken my leave from time to time, I have always, always made my way back to my ocean home.
Even now, though I am far away and sitting high and dry, beached, stranded, virtually land locked, I can feel the pull of the tide and hear, ever so clearly, the sirens song. And once again I am being lured to that place where I truly belong, back to the sea, back to my place of origin. Back to my home.
And yet each time I return, and each time I see my ocean and see the change that has occurred, I weep. It greaves me greatly seeing the damage wrought by man to the place of my birth. As a race, man knows more about the stars in the heavens than he knows about the seas that surround him and provide life to his kind. And yet he has done more to destroy the oceans than can ever be imagined.
In his desire to satisfy an ever increasing hunger for energy, he rips up the sea floor and leaks the residue of his great drilling machines into the surrounding waters. The noise alone disrupts all facets of life for every species of marine creature, for hundreds of miles around.
In his quest to feed an ever growing population he hooks and nets his way across the breeding grounds and nurseries of the seas, taking from a dwindling and severely strained population of creatures that live there. He indiscriminately kills innocent non-commercial species that happen to get in his way and carelessly discards the unwanted dead as though they were so much trash.
He dumps his garbage, sewage and other toxic waste into the oceans either by tributaries, by runoff or directly into the costal waters by barge or outflow pipes. This in turn creates a toxic soup the likes of which no living creature can survive.
Does he not realize that he is killing the very thing that sustains his kind? Surely someone, somewhere, in a moment of clarity has noticed the damage that is being done. Surely someone somewhere cares.
A friend of mine once said that man must learn about the oceans and learn how to be good stewards of all this worlds waters because as the fate of the oceans go, so does the fate of mankind. The fates of the two are inextricably intertwined.
Will you answer the call of the sea and become part of the solution? Know this my friends, before you make your choice, that the solution lies down a long and difficult path. A path that is full of resistance and littered with the bodies of those who began with all good intent but with very little resolve and who gave into greed much too easily.
Know that the task you choose to undertake is not an easy one. But remember that often times the things worth doing, the really important things, rarely are easy. Working to preserve our ocean home is as essential to all of our lives and our futures as the very breath that we take each day.
So what say you my friends? What say you all? Do you feel the pull of the tide and can you hear the sirens song? Will you come down to the sea with me and bear witness to its awesome power and unmatched beauty. Will you do your part to preserve what is left of my ocean home (our ocean home)?
Seawolf