Discovering Another Threat

While channel surfing last night I came upon a program on the ironically named Discovery Channel. I say ironically named because when this cable channel first came out I seem to recall that its content was focused much more on the discovery of the natural world. Nowadays the Discovery Channel is all about “discovering” the latest choppers or hotrods or weapons and technology that the human race has cooked up to make its existence more bearable. Last night’s episode of the show “Mega Builders” entitled Arctic Ice Crusher, featuring the construction of an oil super tanker at the Samsung shipyards in South Korea, was no exception. Alright, very impressive stuff, big pieces of steel, lots of people all working together under tight deadlines to create a big honking ship. What really hit me was that this particular super tanker was the first of its kind to be constructed with an icebreaker bow. Yes, an oil super tanker capable of transiting Arctic waters. At this point I felt a hollow form in the pit of my stomach. Was I the only person watching this show that felt the same feeling or was everyone else glorying in our accomplishment? There aren’t too many places left on earth that we haven’t messed up due to our greed and hunger for resources. The high Artic was one of those places that was getting off lightly due to its inhospitable temperatures and ice covering. Now thanks to global warming the Arctic ice pack is shrinking; the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center has reported that Arctic sea ice has shrunk to a record low 4.14 million sq km (1.6 million sq mile), more than 1.2 million sq km -- or the size of South Africa -- less than the previous low in 2005. A Norwegian study in the Barents Sea has found that sea ice thickness has shrunk by half since 2001.

I think most of us will have realized by now that there isn’t a ship, plane or structure we can build that won’t eventually crash, sink or collapse. It’s bound to happen eventually to anything we create; we’re not perfect beings after all, as much as we might want to convince ourselves otherwise. One day in our future this technological marvel will run aground, or sink and disgorge its cargo onto this fragile ecosystem. The mess will be chalked up to human error, or maybe instrument failure or perhaps even, irony of ironies, environmental conditions.

Hey Discovery Channel, while I think it’s important to know about the threats to our planet, could you be oh, I don’t know, a little less enthusiastic in telling us how super cool they are? The next time I would appreciate a show on how we are trying to save this planet rather than how we are creating a machine that will help destroy it. That’s the kind of discovery I appreciate.