Attention turned to the skies this week in the world political news, as a defunct Russian military satellite collided with US corporate communications satellite. As people asked how this could happen in a place as empty as space is supposed to be, a computer generated image was released by the European Space Agency (ESA) that demonstrated just how easily it could. This image took the Earth and visualized what the 12,000 pieces of space "trash" floating around it would look like. The effect is quite shocking. There really isn't a whole lot of empty space up there. In WALL-E, which some critics criticized for exaggerating environmental threats too much for effect, the title robot has to go through a layer of junk on his way out of the Earth's atmosphere into open space. Turns out that image is not so outlandish. The reality is not that far out of line with the one portrayed in a kid's cartoon.
It is obvious in today's news that we are junking up space just as quickly and effectively as we are junking up our planet, with the same "out of sight, out of mind" mentality we use in regard to the rest of our trash. By shipping it out to dumps in remote or "undesirable" areas, we remove it from our consciousness and ignore just how much of it there is. The recent fad for everything "green" makes a point of raising awareness of how our actions affect our planet. What I have yet to see is the average citizen really making an effort to follow through with anything but lip service. There are many communities in this country that do not require recycling, if they even have a nearby recycling center. People still buy products that do not contain any recycled materials, or buy those that do not feature reduced packaging. Just because we do not see this trash does not mean that it is not piling up at an alarming rate.
Has space gone from being the "final frontier" to the next destination for our garbage? It is enough that we don't act responsibly toward our own planet, wiping out whole species, environments, ecosystems, and depleting her natural resources. When were we given the right to take our act to the universe too? How long before he rest of the images from WALL-E come to pass?
Let me call you from my Verizon Blackberry while swigging from my individual sized bottle of water and we can talk about it...
Laura Bramble
Stranger Than Fiction
THE RED MENACE
Laura Bramble
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