Juxtaposing Cornelius Fudge and the Current Oil Disaster

Everyone seems to hate both the film and movie for Harry Potter Year V, The Order of the Phoenix. Harry is 15, but who wasn't utterly annoying at the age of 15? I feel that Harry has a bit of an excuse considering his parents were murdered, the "family" who is supposed to love and support him through difficult times constantly puts him down and loathes him, he just witnessed the death of a friend by the hand of the dark lord who killed Harry's parents, and no one believes Harry that Voldemort is back. In fact, as the wise Luna Lovegood points out, Voldemort is trying to make Harry feel alone by turning the magic world against him. I'm thinking Harry Potter deserves a bit of angst, so I appreciated J.K. Rowling's depiction of human emotion.

Why am I discussing Harry Potter on a nature blog? Well, I believe in intertwining disciplines and practices to better see how interconnected the world really is. Let's take one of the largest lessons of that book: we must accept, confront and believe in ourselves in order to do what is right. This is most apparent in Cornelius Fudge, the minister of magic, who refuses to believe that Voldemort is back out of utter fear. He's so afraid to admit it to himself that he creates an elaborate mess of the magic world by employing the nightmarish woman Dolores Umbridge at Hogwarts. Umbridge tries to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts without the use of wands, sort of like Chemistry without lab time (see my previous blog for how that works out), and completely robs the school of a real education.

As much as I'd love to kick Tony Hayward, BP CEO, in the face, I'm beginning to see him as a Cornelius Fudge archetype. He's not evil, and he definitely didn't intend to destroy an ecosystem (well, quite a few now), a culture, and many people's lives across the world. He has said a lot of terribly inconsiderate things, and seems to constantly underestimate the severity of the situation. He wants his life back, it's a small spill in a large ocean, yadda yadda.

An oil spill is nothing like the dark lord returning. An oil spill is indeed an accident, but it is an accident that can be better relegated through efficient safety precautions and procedures to both prevent and efficiently take care of disasters when they happen. I for one have had sincere difficulty trying to pay attention and write about the oil spill. It's by far the worst part about having a degree in environmental studies or simply caring about the world--you are challenging yourself to learn about everything that is going on, only to feel incredibly helpless that you're only one person in a culture that tears at the seams of the earth. It's been hard for me to sleep at night since the April 20th explosion turned into one of the greatest technological disasters in the history of the United States.

We have the right to be whiney like Harry Potter, and we do have an excuse to point fingers for a while. But what it all comes down to is that something terrible is happening (and with the recent cap, let's hope it'll stop leaking now for good), and it is our responsibility to fight it. We may not of been the ones who had a poorly designed or executed engineering plan to drill off shore. We may not be the ones who blatantly and public undermine the complexity of our mistakes. We are, however, able to accept what has happened unlike Cornelius Fudge. We are also able to talk about what has happened, to learn about what is happening and to spread this to those who may find be struggling to grasp what is happening. We can write about it on blogs, send out e-mails, write letters to our state legislators, write to companies like BP who use offshore drilling and discuss how serious this problem is. We can also reduce our own oil intake by carpooling, riding bicycles, taking public transportation. We can do research, ask questions, and challenge ourselves to be aware and face what is going on. Without all of us challenging each other to do something, we won't get anywhere. This may seem discouraging, but I believe we are all inherently good people who make their own choices. As Dumbledore said, "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

You may not have the ability to stop what is happening on your own. You can, however, chose to do something.

http://www.restorethegulf.gov/ Here is the government's site on updates and information on how to help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yshPScxTw8s This is a friend's video of how she is helping.

And, if the current cap on the oil spill stops the oil from spilling, please know that it's NOT over. There is still oil in the soil from the Exxon Valdez spill from 1989. We need to assure that BP and the rest of the United States finishes cleaning the mess, as all things in this world are connected.