Comments on: Walking With the Ghost of Exxon

By: The Squirrel Cam » Blog Archive » Walking with the Ghost of Exxon

The Squirrel Cam » Blog Archive » Walking with the Ghost of Exxon — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:03:16 +0000

[...] Walking with the Ghost of Exxon [...]

By: Irishgirl

Irishgirl — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:39:08 +0000

AKM, thank you. It started with Sarah Palin, but your blog has grown beyond that.

By: G Katz

G Katz — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 17:40:41 +0000

I want to add my thanks as well. I didn’t have time to finish reading this yesterday, but I’m so glad I came back to it. You have further exposed the truth about an ugly situation, but you have done it in an emotionally powerful way. So, thank you, and I hope more and more people will read and understand the seriousness of the conditions human are creating on this planet!!

By: aussiegal77

aussiegal77 — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:24:22 +0000

This is an awesome comment, thank you so much. You expressed it so much more eloquently than I ever could.

What irks me is the causal way my pastor sometimes will say “But oh, of course we have to protect the environment.” Like as if green issues are somehow ‘too liberal” to be discussed broadly. But then we go on and discuss the sins of greed and selfishness! Sometimes I practically have to sit on my hands to prevent from leaping up from my seat and yelling “It’s the greed and selfishness that is driving us to destroy our very environment!!”

By: Crystal Ball: What the Gulf Can expect 21 Years from Now « Wickersham's Conscience

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:18:03 +0000

[...] a comment » Jeanne Devon has written an exceptionally powerful essay on the state of Prince William Sound more than 21 years after the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh [...]

By: mggak

mggak — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:56:56 +0000

Thank you for your trip and your witnessing.

I spent the first 12 years of life in CA. I grew up on the beaches. I was in Santa Barbara when the oil spilled. I remember all the older people among our family and friends cleaning birds and coming home smelling bad, red eyes from oil and tears. We moved to Alaska soon after that.

Eight years after that I visited a beach miles away from where the original spill happened. We couldn’t walk without getting globs of black all over our feet. You couldn’t sit anywhere. The oil never left even though people “said” it was clean.

We moved to Alaska in 1971 and lived through the Pipeline years in Eagle River. Everyone was crazy for the money. It felt like a goldrush and peoples’ ideals seemed all mixed up. I only remember that money was everywhere. Big wads of cash in pockets. Maybe it’s because I was so young, or that I blocked stuff out, but I don’t remember anyone really talking about the future or disasters. We didn’t have much but AM radio, and, looking back, we were oblivious.

We were in Juneau when the Exxon happened. It seemed so far away..even though I got to work a little with DEC on the court case. It felt very “David and Goliath,” and Goliath won.

It seems my life has always been surrounded by oil and that makes me sad. I live once again in CA, after 38 years in Alaska. I find myself afraid to swim in the ocean. No one drinks the water here; we don’t even know if we’ll have enough water. I find it hard to look at the news of the Gulf, but I make myself. I hope for the future but it’s scary as hell. People are so good at destruction.

I read pieces like yours and I so appreciate what people like you can teach the world. I want my son and grandson to have a good life. Funny that my son drives by the pipeline in Fairbanks everyday isn’t it?

By: AKMuckraker

AKMuckraker — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:35:32 +0000

Thanks everyone for your kind words and comments. I’ve been in a bit of a funk since the trip and I’ve appreciated hearing from all of you. It’s hard to know what to do, but I always take comfort in the fact that the number of people who see through the fog and understand what is happening is growing. There is a critical mass for change, and we are heading in the right direction. And the internet provides so many places for people to congregate and come together for a common purpose.

It usually takes a horrible wake-up call, but change comes.

By: AK Sandhills

AK Sandhills — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:00:04 +0000

I really have no words to say but thank you for this post. I recall finding oil in the sound just a few years after the spill and am not surprised that it is still there. I will mention that as one of the many Exxon litigants, some of us are still waiting for compensation. It seems that even after these cases are concluded, the pay-out schedule is very long & drawn out. Just fair warning to anyone in the gulf area who might be reading this post.

By: North of the Range

North of the Range — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 05:18:15 +0000

That should be, “words” of those here

By: North of the Range

North of the Range — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 05:17:20 +0000

NYT article from a few months ago on Glenn Albrecht, the ‘ecological unconscious’ and solastalgia:
“Solastalgia, in Albrecht’s estimation, is a global condition, felt to a greater or lesser degree by different people in different locations but felt increasingly, given the ongoing degradation of the environment.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31ecopsych-t.html?_r=1

In this post, AKM has captured the solastalgia of the Valdez, which is echoing in the present solastalgia of the Gulf, and it all echoes in the word of those here who have responded to the deep feeling in her writing. So, sadly, there is a name for this shared feeling.