Written by Madison Pines, Digital Nomad Diversity Awardee<\/p>\n
Right foot forward. Left foot forward. Right foot forward. Left foot forward. Look
\ndown at the brown and wet earth beneath your feet. Look up and see the
\nthousands of stars littering the sky. The crunch of the sticks beneath your feet
\nechoes around you as you walk further into the jungle. The only guiding light
\ncomes from a dim phone flashlight in your hand. You shine the light in a circle
\naround you. As the light passes by, it illuminates the vivid green of the leaves
\nthat surround you, but it reveals more. Creatures that you have only seen behind
\nglass at the zoo make their appearance known. The banana spider slowly creeps
\ncloser to you from the leaf it\u2019s perched on. The light green viper, coiled high
\nabove you, watches as you continue to walk forward, passing right under it. And
\nsuddenly your thoughts start to wonder. Is this real? Or am I in a movie?<\/p>\n
It has always been a dream of mine to be in a movie and this week I was finally
\nable to experience Disney\u2019s The Jungle Book from Mogli\u2019s perspective. The only
\ndifference was that I was in the rainforest in Ecuador and he was in the
\nrainforest in India. Still, the premise holds true. Mogli is a young boy who finds
\nhimself far from home and without family in the jungle. Here, he has to learn to
\nsurvive and overcome all the obstacles the jungle throws his way.<\/p>\n
When I was younger, I used to sit on the blue carpet in my playroom and watch the
\nVCR of this tape over and over again. I was captivated by the moving pictures. The
\njungle was a playground where bears eat only fruit and a monkey was the king,
\nswinging around the trees like they were his castle. Of course, Mogli had his
\nchallenges. He had to outsmart the villainous tiger, Shere Khan, and his slithering sidekick Kaa.<\/p>\n
In movies, there is a clear separation between good and evil. No matter how dark the
\nstory started to seem, it was just a given that good would succeed in the end,
\novercoming evil. It was black and white. But that isn\u2019t the case in real life. The world is
\na messy place filled with many gray areas.<\/p>\n
I am often told that my life is all Disney, rainbows, and unicorns. And I like it that way.
\nI choose to live in my animated Disney world because things are easier there. It is
\nblack and white. There is good and evil. It is blissful ignorance, but you can only stay
\nignorant for so long before something forces you to open your eyes and step up.<\/p>\n
This past week we were given the opportunity to go on a Toxic Tour that showed us
\nfirst-hand the destruction that afflicts the Amazon Rainforest. And just like the Lorax
\nsays \u201cI am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees because the trees have
\nno tongues.\u201d The forest can not tell the pain and hardship it has gone through, that
\nburden is now on me.<\/p>\n
In the 1960s Texaco knew from seismic tests and similar accounts in other countries
\nthat the Amazon Rainforest was rich in oil, so they started chopping down trees,
\ndisplacing people from their homes, sending toxic gas into the atmosphere, and
\ncontaminating the land and water with toxic sludge, all in the pursuit of oil. In total,
\nTexaco built:
\n356 oil wells
\n880 oil pits (but only 660 are recognized by Texaco)
\n200 billion cubic meters of gas has been emitted into the atmosphere
\nThey destroyed the Amazon Rainforest and in doing so caused, resulted in so many
\nimplications for the people living in and around those areas.
\nWhile the entire practice is destructive, the process of separating the waste from the
\noil is inhumane. When you harvest oil, one of the many toxic outputs is gas, which is
\nthen disposed into the atmosphere through tubes without regard for the health of the
\nliving beings in the proximity. This is why the level of cancer here is 10x more than in
\nthe rest of the country.<\/p>\n
In addition to the emission of gas, the 880 oil pits that fill Ecuador
\ncause immeasurable environmental problems. These oil pits are used to
\nmeasure the amount of oil being produced by a pump as well as a place
\nto dispose of the oil that is unable to be used. These pits then have
\ngooseneck pipelines that deposit the waste directly into the water
\nsource (a stream, lake, or river). Animals fall in the tar-filled pits and it
\nrenders the land inhospitable.
\nPeople live here.<\/p>\n
This is their homes, their communities, their loved ones being affected.
\nThis is their livelihood.<\/p>\n
In reparations from the lawsuit, since Texaco makes
\n$36 for every $100, they were charged to clean up 36%
\nof the oil pits. However, even these restoration projects
\nare futile attempts to clean up the harm they have
\ncaused with the extraction of the oil. Once the land has
\nbeen filled with oil, the biodiversity of the forest
\ndecreases drastically. Very few plants (if any) can
\nregrow and the toxicity levels are so poisonous to living
\ncreatures that animals can no longer inhabit that area.<\/p>\n
This is the type of evil that exists outside of movies.
\nThese actions have no gray areas. It is black and white.
\nTexaco is sacrificing other people\u2019s health, biodiversity,
\nair quality, and environmental well-being for their
\npersonal gain and profit. It is sickening.<\/p>\n
But what if this was a movie? What would the hero do? First and foremost they
\nwould try to bring awareness in any capacity to what is actually happening in
\nEcuador. Texaco is exploiting the amazon, not properly cleaning up their mess,
\nand the communities affected have not seen a single cent of reparation. We can\u2019t
\nlet big corporations undermine the humanity of this world.<\/p>\n
But are we the heroes? Or are we complicit? We use oil to fuel our everyday lives.
\nAnytime we start our cars, turn on the lights, use hot water, or even open the
\nrefrigerator, we are using oil. We are continuing to enable and perpetuate the
\ncycle that allows companies such as Texaco to continue their injustice.<\/p>\n
So the question becomes, what can we do? First and foremost we can educate
\nourselves. Becoming conscientious of the environmental impact we have. Second,
\nimplement practices that uses less of oil: carpool instead of driving by yourself,
\nturn off the lights and air-conditioning when you are not using them, and take
\nshorter showers so that it doesn’t take as long to heat up the water. And third,
\nwith social media, it is now easier than ever to spread awareness about all topics,
\nso why not this one? We are the generation that takes to social media to start
\nrevolutions. We can be the heroes in this narrative – speaking out against the
\ninjustice happening in the Amazon and bringing awareness to the situation.<\/p>\n
Because \u201cUnless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get
\nbetter. It’s not.\u201d – The Lorax<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Written by Madison Pines, Digital Nomad Diversity Awardee Right foot forward. Left foot forward. Right foot forward. Left foot forward. Look down at the brown and wet earth beneath your feet. Look up and see the thousands of stars littering … Continue reading