I was flipping through Time Magazine last week and came across an article, "Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Wildfires, Earthquakes...Why We Don't Prepare". It has an interesting map of the so-called American hazardscape. Naturally, I started looking up New Jersey just to see how we measured up.
Since almost all of the United States is colored with at least one climatic natural disaster, I supposed New Jersey is still a relatively safe place to live. Touch wood! Apart from the occasional flash floods (of which I am accustomed to coming from a country with monsoon season), we don't see any major wildfires, tornadoes or significant earthquakes like those in the mid-west and west coast. Touch wood again!
You can run but you can't hide.
Finding a disaster free place to live in this world is like finding a needle in the haystack. World climate has changed so much thanks to us & our lifestyle; hence we can expect the worst weather catastrophe to happen any time. Tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, blah, blah, blah.
Even my hometown in Kuching, Malaysia isn't spared the ever continuing yearly presence of the dreaded haze caused by open burning in Indonesia (yes, our very nice next door neighbor). I don't ever remember seeing beyond hazardous haze until 9 years ago on September 1997. That was the first time a state of emergency was declared. It continued for weeks. People were getting all sorts of respiratory diseases and had to wear masks. At its worst, visibility was so bad that I couldn't even see the car next to me while I was driving. The '97 haze made such an impact in the South East Asian region that CNN aired a news item on it.
Satellite photo courtesy of Wikipedia
While the haze situation this year is not as bad as the one 9 years ago, it is really mind boggling that our next door neighbor still doesn't see the adverse environmental impact of forest fires and open burning. Malaysia's 50th. Jubilee Independence Day celebrations is tomorrow and the haze lingers on. I certainly don't envy those people standing outside breathing in unhealthy air during the parade.
Hazy Kuching City Waterfront, Aug.2006 - photo from Malaysian daily, The Star
Normally, I am not the preachy type. I am also not a hard-core conservationist nor an environmentalist, but I believe we can still help save this planet from an untimely death. Start at home by practising the 3Rs (yup, Reduce, Reuse & Recycle and no, NOT Rest, Relax & Rejuvenate) and conserving water, energy & gas. To the people in South East Asia, stop open-burning and forest fires for earth & our sakes!
If I could think of earth metaphorically, I'd like to think of it as a human stomach having bad diarrhea everyday for the past gadzillion years.
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