Narrowly Averted Vandalism
Out with Em the other night walking down Park Avenue we came across this sign on a church which she stopped to take a pic of. This sent me off on a rant—the sign, not her stopping to take a pic. If I'd had a nice, thick black Sharpie, I might have been induced to vandalism, right there on the street. Em unhelpfully goaded me on, offering me her grading sharpie, which was red, but not visible enough. It was tempting. And what would I have written?
WHY THEM? BECAUSE GEOLOGY HAPPENS.
WHY NOT YOU? WASN'T 9/11 ENOUGH?
WHERE IS GOD? S/HE'S MISSING?
Come in and we'll chat about it over dessert didn't need any smart comment from me, being self-parodying. At least I hope that was the intent.
Em went off on the self-centeredness of it all, and I had to agree. Underneath all that breast-beating for those poor beleaguered people in Southeast Asia isn't that awful is wealthy-nation guilt and a nasty, selfish desire to have all the attention, another hit of the wonderful, heartfelt well-wishes we New Yorkers got from almost everywhere in the few days after 9/11. Well, it's somebody else's turn now, people. We've had our fifteen minutes of martyrdom and its time to step up to the plate for the survivors of a disaster that killed not 2,500 people, give or take, but 250,000.
The question that disturbed me most was "Why them?" which, it always seems to me, is asked as though natural disasters were planned by someone, e.g., some idiot in the Horrible Events Agency, Office of Natural Disasters, Bureau of Tsunamis, Indian Ocean Division, who got the timing wrong. Oops! It should have been 6 pm, when everyone was at dinner, not 6 am. So sorry. There is no "them," no "us." Mudslides in California burying 10 people, a tsunami in Southeast Asia obliterating a quarter of a million. Natural disasters do not have a reason or a target, unlike war and violence. The planet is a dynamic object on and in which the laws of natural and physical science play themselves out continuously, whether we notice or not, and without regard for whomever happens to be in the way. Plate tectonics did this. If you're going to bother God with this matter, it should be with gratitude you weren't there, and with supplications for strength and mercy for the people who survived and those who are helping them out. A few bucks in the Funds for the Tsunami Victims box wouldn't hurt either. Get over yourselves.
We Have the Technology
I know people think they would like it if God meddled in our lives that closely, but it's not really necessary. An awful lot of what happens to us in this vein is down to our own stupidity (building on active fault lines, hurricane-prone shorelines, floodplains, steep hillsides, the slopes of active volcanoes, etc.) or to greed (unwillingness by nations who can afford it to install a tsunami warning system like the one already in existence in the Pacific, which would cost less than what we spend every day in Iraq, instead of paying for the damage later). Often, it's our unwillingness to recognize that we cannot escape the effects of natural processes, whether they involve physics, geology, chemistry, or biology, and the unwillingness of industrialized nations to share the wealth.
Even if that tsunami warning system were put in place for the measly $20-30 million it would cost, the cost of upgrading local communications in the area to make use of it would be much more. That's not such a bad thing to spend money on, making that part of the world a little more accessible, a little more modern. But it's not cost-effective and nobody but poor people will really gain from it, so it won't get done until someone figures out how to make a profit from it. I'm not saying that the First World isn't generous in its philanthropy, but we give after the excrement has already hit the rotating cooling device. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
This is what I mean by so many of our woes being greed-driven, and this is not to say that I think westernization and modernization are without their down sides, or even necessarily good things across the board. I don't want to homogenize our world's culture any faster than that's already happening. I don't want a McDonald's on every South Sea island or a TV in every Sri Lankan home. I do want high-tech medicine, access to educational materials, clean water, decent housing, adequate food, and a telecommunications system that would allow the mortality rate for disasters like this one to plummet to the level of, say, Florida after four hurricanes in a row: fewer than 100 people for $9 billion in property damage. Warning systems work. That's not too much to ask for.
It's also not impossible. According to UNICEF, Bill Gates' foundation has just coughed up $10 million to help eradicate polio in parts of the world where it's still a real threat. I suspect that Bill could probably afford to wire the major population centers of the world, and would, if he could get them all to promise to use Windows. But there's the rub. Helping to eradicate polio, excellent goal that it is, makes one look good and is a great tax write-off, but doesn't interfere with actually making money. Wiring the world would cut into Bill's profit margins.
The technology, medical and otherwise, to make the lives of poor people around the world easier, safer, and longer, is already here. If you read any kind of general tech or science magazine like Wired or Discover, you know we can produce clean energy; cheap vaccines and drugs; inexpensive communications systems, housing, and tools; make our manufacturing processes cleaner and safer; clean up our old messes without making new ones; and educate people cheaply and remotely. What's lacking is the charity to actually do it because it's more expensive and to share it with people who can't afford it. Because of that, we so often end up paying through the nose for disaster relief when disaster avoidance would be so much cheaper. Vaccinate before the epidemic. Better yet, provide clean water before the cholera outbreak. We're short-sighted and cheap as a species and it kills a lot of us.
With our present mindset, the correct question is not "Why them?" but "Who next?" If it happens on this side of the world, at least we can pay for it.
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