2007.01.18: January 18, 2007: Headlines: Figures: COS - Congo Kinsasha: Global Warming: Environment: Baraboo News Republic: Myra Furse reviews Mike Tidwell's "The Ravaging Tide"
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2007.01.18: January 18, 2007: Headlines: Figures: COS - Congo Kinsasha: Global Warming: Environment: Baraboo News Republic: Myra Furse reviews Mike Tidwell's "The Ravaging Tide"
Myra Furse reviews Mike Tidwell's "The Ravaging Tide"
Mike Tidwell writes of his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer and of those he went through as a journalist in Latin America and Washington, D.C. Then he goes on to say: "I can say with complete honesty that the darkest, most disturbing, most emotionally unsettling thing I've ever experienced in my life is my visit to New Orleans, Louisiana, 10 weeks after Hurricane Katrina. What you can't even begin to appreciate until you go there is the enormous scale of it all. The vastness of the annihilation and loss — from the empty skyscrapers to the children's toys hanging from trees to the ocean of uninterrupted darkness that still washes over much of the city at night — this cannot be captured secondhand. To wear out a pair of shoes or burn up a tank of gas and still not see one wholly functioning neighborhood or one square block of intact businesses is to experience something no one alive has ever experienced before, much less witnessed firsthand on American soil. It is another world entirely, New Orleans, and to go there is to experience grieving beyond words." Author Mike Tidwell, founder of the Chesapeake Climate Action Committee, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa.
Myra Furse reviews Mike Tidwell's "The Ravaging Tide"
Saving the planet is everyone's job
By Myra Furse
[Excerpt]
I'd like to move on to a similar light-hearted subject, but I've been reading the book "The Ravaging Tide," by Mike Tidwell. Some writers do their craft almost too well and leave their readers feeling very solemn indeed.
Tidwell has written extensively about nature and its effects on population. As founder and director of the U.S. Climate Emergency Council, based in Takoma Park, Md., he has written five books on travel and nature and the effects human populations have on their environment. In his 2003 book, "Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast," he had predicted in vivid detail the Katrina hurricane disaster.
He writes of his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer and of those he went through as a journalist in Latin America and Washington, D.C. Then he goes on to say: "I can say with complete honesty that the darkest, most disturbing, most emotionally unsettling thing I've ever experienced in my life is my visit to New Orleans, Louisiana, 10 weeks after Hurricane Katrina. What you can't even begin to appreciate until you go there is the enormous scale of it all. The vastness of the annihilation and loss — from the empty skyscrapers to the children's toys hanging from trees to the ocean of uninterrupted darkness that still washes over much of the city at night — this cannot be captured secondhand. To wear out a pair of shoes or burn up a tank of gas and still not see one wholly functioning neighborhood or one square block of intact businesses is to experience something no one alive has ever experienced before, much less witnessed firsthand on American soil. It is another world entirely, New Orleans, and to go there is to experience grieving beyond words."
He writes a lot about global warming heating up bodies of water whose levels rise as they are heated. He warns that increasing populations in coastal cities only takes away normal safeguards like wetlands and increases the vulnerability of any area. He stresses the importance of every American citizen to get involved with alternative energy resources like wind and solar, hybrid cars, etc. It's not that we don't know about these things here in Wisconsin. He's saying we can't leave it to the government or mainstream environmental groups. We have to understand the part each of us must play in conserving energy and living less wastefully.
"The Ravaging Tide" is a wonderful, inspiring, well-written book. Hopefully, many of us will read it.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: January, 2007; RPCV Mike Tidwell (Congo Kinshasa); Figures; Global Warming; Environment; Maryland
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Story Source: Baraboo News Republic
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Congo Kinsasha; Global Warming; Environment
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