Well I want to go everywhere in the World, quite literally, but I know that a person could not do that and that there would be huge environmental impacts of that kind of travel. And there would also be mega costs involved. So I will describe three places where I would like to travel. The mud volcano near Sidoarjo Indonesia, Centralia and Palmerston Pennsylvania. If you do a quick search for these three things you will find a common characteristic. They were all 'natural' disasters that where created by us humans.
The mud volcano was created when an oil company was drilling for oil and made a little mistake. Well there was no oil but water and the pipe was not casted in steel the whole way down. This caused the water to mix with the mudstone and explode to the surface. This little volcano has destroyed an area the size of Central Park. And you can see it using Google Maps, although it is not quite up to date. This volcano has enough water that some say it will be going for quite a while. There have been no engineering solutions either.
Centralia used to be a community but now it is down to just a few. Most of them have gone away because the ground is literally on fire. Yup the ground is on fire. Centralia is located in an area where the ground is filled with coal, which caught fire and continues to burn. The ground is falling away because there is no longer the coal to support the ground. The fire has been going on for 45 years, and it will keep on going. Both of these incidents are because our society needs so many fossil fuels to keep it alive.
The last place I want to visit is Palmerston, Pennsylvania. It sounds like a wonderful community, but some areas of the hill will not grow anything at all. You can see it on Google Maps, it is just a grey area to the south-east. This was created with the pollution from a Zinc Plant. There has been many government funds given to the area to fix the after math but it is still present. There are two sides fighting over what they should do for the town; one says it is just fine the, other side says that the ground should be replaced. To make it more interesting people are moving there because it is a cheep location close to major markets.
Yes I know that these places do not make the beauty of the natural world, or mark how great humans can be. But we should always remind ourselves that we can destroy the world with out even really realizing it. Also we have destroyed certain areas so we can not even use them any more. National Geographic and A Walk in the Wood by Bill Bryson inspired me to write about this.
The mud volcano was created when an oil company was drilling for oil and made a little mistake. Well there was no oil but water and the pipe was not casted in steel the whole way down. This caused the water to mix with the mudstone and explode to the surface. This little volcano has destroyed an area the size of Central Park. And you can see it using Google Maps, although it is not quite up to date. This volcano has enough water that some say it will be going for quite a while. There have been no engineering solutions either.
Centralia used to be a community but now it is down to just a few. Most of them have gone away because the ground is literally on fire. Yup the ground is on fire. Centralia is located in an area where the ground is filled with coal, which caught fire and continues to burn. The ground is falling away because there is no longer the coal to support the ground. The fire has been going on for 45 years, and it will keep on going. Both of these incidents are because our society needs so many fossil fuels to keep it alive.
The last place I want to visit is Palmerston, Pennsylvania. It sounds like a wonderful community, but some areas of the hill will not grow anything at all. You can see it on Google Maps, it is just a grey area to the south-east. This was created with the pollution from a Zinc Plant. There has been many government funds given to the area to fix the after math but it is still present. There are two sides fighting over what they should do for the town; one says it is just fine the, other side says that the ground should be replaced. To make it more interesting people are moving there because it is a cheep location close to major markets.
Yes I know that these places do not make the beauty of the natural world, or mark how great humans can be. But we should always remind ourselves that we can destroy the world with out even really realizing it. Also we have destroyed certain areas so we can not even use them any more. National Geographic and A Walk in the Wood by Bill Bryson inspired me to write about this.
No comments:
Post a Comment