Alexandra Cattich - Love Canal Report

After I read the Love Canal and watched the videos, I found another article about The Aral Sea and the "graveyard of ships." This graveyard is a line of ships and vessels that is rusting in the middle of the desert. After I posted both of these articles and talked to a few people about these environmental issues, I asked them the question, "In your opinion, are environmental hazards something we should be concerned about on a daily basis?" These were some of their responses:

Abby: We probably should be concerned.

Karyn: No, I don’t think that you should be worried about environmental hazards on a daily basis cause that is unnecessary fear, but it is important to keep them in check so looking at public health concerns every month would be a better idea.

Nick: No, I think we should really only be concerned when the problem arises, not every day.

Carly: Yes, it’s important to ensure the safety in our communities and in public. So often we don’t even know the dangers that are right outside of our front door.

Mason: No.

Andrew: Depends on the situation.

Angela: I don’t think we need to be concerned about it every day, but we should be prepared for it everyday.

Jacob: If we are at great risk then yes, we should be concerned everyday. If there is no risk present then no.

Tyler: Yes, we need to take care of our public.

Emma: Yes, we live in a world that will be here for hundreds more years to come. If we don’t take care and show an interest now, the future will be very different. I also think that people should be more aware of health problems and environmental hazards. 

Then my three questions:

 Were you aware that environmental tragedies of this magnitude still exist today?

            Yes, there are environmental hazards that exists everywhere and anywhere. They could have been a problem that was created a long time ago, or they could have just happened at the spur of the moment. The environmental hazard, “Love Canal”, and the one that I read about the Aral Sea ships, were obviously environmental hazards that took years to really start to take effect, but they effect the population every day.

How do environmental tragedies affect you on a daily basis? Why should we care about them?

            On a daily basis I don’t think that environmental tragedies affect us, but over time they have more effect. An example of this would be oil spills in the oceans; they contaminate the water and the organisms that live there, and then everything that uses that water and the organisms becomes affected.  I don’t think we need to be worried about environmental hazards everyday, like my friend Karyn said, “It just causes unnecessary worry.” We should care about them though and take action to prepare us for anything that could happen because it is better to be prepared and cautious about possible issues that could arise.

Why should we care about something that happened over 30 years ago?

            I think that we should care about something that happened 30 years ago because we can learn from the past, and there is the saying that history is going to repeat its self. We can educate the public and better prepare ourselves when we learn about the past.