Ian Armstrong

            I posted the Love Canal Video to Facebook along with some information about the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill which happened in 2010. The question I posted with this was, “In your opinion, are environmental disasters something we should worry about on a daily basis?”

10 of the Responses:

·         “I wonder how many children got chronic diseases from the Love Canal thing… that is really terrible!”

·         “OF COURSE YOU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS IF YOU LOVE MOTHER EARTH!!!”

·         “I think they are something we should definitely fight like the love canal when serous ones come up, but on a day to day basis we don’t need to fear doom, but we can recycle and stuff”

·         “Why would the school say that everything is fine if kids were getting rashes and stuff, and if the company sold the land for 1 buck wouldn’t the builders think it was unusable?”

·         “There are many chemicals out there that pollute things, I do believe it is of the utmost importance to be aware of environmental disasters ON a daily basis”

·         “This is sickening, I wonder how many undocumented people got sick from the water they drank and didn’t even know about it. I guess that answers the question that we should be aware of environmental disasters…”

·         “I don’t want to live in a place like that”

·         “That mom was hardcore! But she got the job done”

·         “Even if we are aware of current environmental issues on a day to day basis, humans are stupid and reckless. We learn from history that we don’t learn from history!”

·         “If we wanna live longer it is for sure important”

Personal Responses:

1.)    Why should we care about something that happened over 30 years ago?: It is important for people to learn from environmental (or any) disasters or damaging human mishaps so we can at least avoid repeating them. Even though this happened thirty years ago there are still hugely damaging disasters to the environment that are largely a result of human error.

2.)    Were you aware that environmental tragedies of this magnitude still exist today?: I am very aware that there have been numerous recent environmental tragedies that have affected many lives. The news does a pretty good job of covering these things, but as the world’s population grows bigger and bigger, this will create more demand for everything and no matter how hard we try, it seems there will always be these types of disasters.

3.)    In your opinion are environmental disasters something we should be concerned about on a daily basis?: It depends, if someone was in charge of an oil company or someone was the safety inspector for a nuclear plant, I would hope they are concerned with these things. On the other hand while I can do my part and try to recycle and everything, I am more likely to be concerned with these disasters when they happen.