What's done is done

During the past week an earthquake radically changed the geography of Ranongga, one of the Solomon islands. The result of the earthquake was reef that surrounded the island, had been pushed out of the water. According to a Yahoo news article, "up to 70 metres" had been pushed above sea level. (You can read the entire article at the link at the end of this post). The coral and other marine life have been rendered helpless. The coral is dying and any of the fish or other marine organisms that were in the reef are already dead, dryed out by the sun. The people who live on the island used the sea as their main pantry. Their protein mainly came from fish caught around their island. The reefs provided the haven which attracted the fish and other animals, so now that a significant amount of the reefs are above water it is unclear as to whether the animals will come back. For now and in the near future, the people of Ranongga will have much more difficulty in gathering the food they need.

After I read about the disaster my first thought was an illogical one and now I feel retarded for thinking it: I wonder if they can push the coral back under the water. I took AP Biology last year so I should know that attempting to find a way to get the coral back under the water is altering of an ecosystem and could produce far worse results than letting time handle it. Besides, the earthquake was a natural disaster and, well, things happen. If it means that the fragile reef environment is destroyed, then it has to be accepted as such. Even though the people and other animals that relied on the reef are going to suffer, nature shouldn’t be tampered with. Right? But now I think of all that human kind has done to pollute, hack, blow-up, and toss Earth down to its knees so that she cannot stand again. Humans have tampered with the environment over and over again. It almost seems to be the homo sapien nature to change what is around it. So, what’s trying to save a reef, right? I mean when you line it up with the oil drilling, deforestation, and over-use of resources attempting to protect something doesn’t seem so bad. But then, maybe that’s just my programmed natural response as a human to believe that humans can do anything to preserve what we see fit.


Quake lifts Solomons island metres from the sea