May
4, 2020
Today’s
idea – What has the fog of our modern conveniences begat? I read an article last
night published in 1950 by Berton Roueche’ titled The Fog. In October 1948,
a toxic smog settled on the borough of Donora, PA. This town is tucked away on a
meander of the Monongahela River in the Allegheny Mountains. During that time, it was home to three huge
mills, a steel plant, and a zinc and sulfuric acid plant. The towering factory
stacks of these industries pushed out thick plumes of coal smoke all day and
all week. Also, given the town’s proximity to the river, boats and trains added
their emission to the cocktail.
To
seal the deal, Donora sits in the topography of secluded bluffs and hills that
allow for little or no wind to carry the smoke and fumes out of town. So the place was known to be a smutty, smokey
mess, tolerated by residents who referred to the sulfurous stench as the smell
of money. On this weekend in October, a thermal inversion put a tighter lid of
the town as cold front poured in on top of warmer ground currents trapping all
the bad air and creating the first acute toxic pollution event in America. The smog brought collapse to six thousand
people, and twenty died, all in the space of forty-eight hours. As I read Roueche’
account, it seemed strange that so many of the residents he spoke with downplayed
the seriousness as the health crisis, even as it unfolded around them. They
found more comfort in telling one another that it was just the old and infirm affected,
and those residents always struggled to breathe when the smog came. On this Friday and Saturday, the air grew so
dense and oily that, day or night, line of sight was impossible beyond one or
two feet. A gritty black film coated
every surface. One of the attending
doctors to the stricken recalled that as he watched a train pass through town
that morning, he couldn’t help but notice how the smoke did not rise but pooled
along the tracks as it moved. At that
moment, he feared that this was no ordinary smoggy day. No one thought to cancel the annual Halloween
parade scheduled for Friday evening, so to keep up the appearance of everything
is fine, the townsfolk who were not on their backs gasping for air, lined
the streets with bandanas tied across their faces, waving at the costumed participants,
fire engines, official vehicles, and floats.
As soon as the parade passed a city block, the resident made fast tracks
back inside, though. The fire chief reported being relieved to finally be able
to return to the firehouse and close the doors and windows. But it was not long before even his phone
rang with pleas to bring oxygen to the suffering who could not find a
doctor. Of course, the doctors were run
ragged for the whole stretch, collapsing for a nap when they could. One reported
having to give himself a dose of adrenaline so that he could recover from the hypoxia
himself. Then there were the funeral
directors who couldn’t collect bodies in a timely fashion because they couldn’t
see to drive. All the while, those who were inconvenienced but not ill, tried
to normalize the situation. It was just the cost of being so successful and
prosperous, and eventually, the rain came, and the air cleared.
So
much of this story resonated with me, as I thought of the daily news stories
and responses about the pandemic. I
could see how the virus has shined a light on our propensity to downplay and
rationalize the awful costs of our success and prosperity too. Conspiracy theories
abound, even among the president and his administrators. They propose that the coronavirus
is lab born and has been set free for careless or nefarious reasons. I doubt
there is much verity to these ideas. And
how ludicrous and recklessly small-minded it is to lay the blame of this upheaval
at the feet of virus researchers in Wuhan. If there is blame, let it rests on
all our shoulders. Biologists and epidemiologists speak in consensus about the
origins of this virus. We have brought the
deadly pathogen to our own door. It is a fact that as our growing populations
and appetites demand more significant enterprise for resourcing natural materials,
more wild ecosystems go under the blade. Indeed, to keep a robust bottom line, commercial
incursions into the last natural pockets have exploited and disturbed the critical
balance that had sequestered the new virus and inadvertently delivered it into a new pool of hosts. The roots of our debacle come from the
misguided notion that we are separate from nature and feel entitled to its
services and treasure. It is an adolescent attitude that has provided a
convenience mindset giving us immunity from blame and responsibility when bad
things happen. We have designed our lives
to create this apocalypse of our home planet. And we want to blame researchers in Wuhan for
the latest symptom? I think the story we
have told ourselves about the righteous virtues of living the American Dream has
generated a fog as thick and toxic as the Donora smog of 1948. It has obscured our perceptions for the real
costs of our lifestyles and gravely imperils us, our children, our children’s
children, and the natural world in the process.
Fortunately,
the pathogen created a pause. We decided to slow down as a way to avoid collapsing
our medical systems. In this scene, they and the stricken are the ones who must
deal directly with the consequences of our plundering. And we only had to slow the machine of
commerce down for a few months for the fog to thin, both literally and
metaphorically. Maybe in six months or a
year as the world continues to work on a vaccine, and we find ourselves under
its boot again, we will call the second wave of outbreaks and illness and
death, the price we pay to live the American Dream. Or will we?
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