Picture yourself five thousand years ago in a world that has never seen rain. Surrounding you are luscious green fields watered by underground springs, small homes dotting the rolling hills -- and some old white-bearded guy banging together a boat.
But this isn't your ordinary take-it-out-for-the-afternoon fishing dingy. Notwithstanding its massive 450 foot length and 75 foot width, this monolithic multi-story piece of pitch and Cyprus wood was to house two of every living creature on Earth. Problem was, the ship wasn't built even remotely close to any existing bodies of water. It just sat in Noah's backyard, an object of ridicule amongst his dumbfounded neighbours.
And after the poor old guy had laboured away for what must have been the better part of a century, the animals were loaded aboard, the doors were shut, and the flood waters came and wiped out everything but him, his family and the animals. At least that's how the book of Genesis tells it.
Fast forward to March 11, 2011. An underground megathrust earthquake with the force of 600 million Hiroshima nuclear bombs rocks the coast of Japan. Besides knocking the planet 10 inches off its axis, the energy displaces enough ocean water to create a wall of water 128 feet high.
The wave, initially the speed of an airliner, slows at it approaches the hapless fishing hamlets dotting the Eastern Japanese coastline. In the blink of an eye, the torrent smashes the land with unimaginable force. Houses and bridges are ripped off their foundations; buses, boats, cars, trains and nearly anything else buoyant enough to float is unwillingly swept into the deadly morass of mud and debris.
Further inland -- and in the direct path of the onrushing tsunami -- is the fishing port of Fudai. At the mouth of the city, nestled between two mountains, is a massive 673 foot long concrete tsunami barrier. Built 38 years earlier after much controversy (and at the insistence of the late town mayor Kotaku Wamura) the barrier's 66 foot height and $40 million cost was considered too extravagant and unnecessary by many of the townsfolk.
However Wamura knew better. Having spent his life in Fudai, he had seen first hand the effects of Mother Nature's fury. The 1933 Earthquake and tsunami had so ravaged the area that for decades after bodies were still being dug out of the mud as the town rebuilt and expanded. Despite the doubting of others (as well as Wamura's own misgivings) he managed to convince the resident's that the barrier was in their best interests.
But as the onrushing water approached the barrier, something went terribly wrong. Despite the successful closing of the four main gate panels, a small door refused to budge. Springing into action, a local fireman raced to the jammed door and shut it moments before the torrent collided with the barrier.
Despite the water lapping over the edge of the berm, the barrier stood solid. Amazingly, all but the town's port was spared from destruction, thanks entirely to Wamura's foresight and persistence.
Something needs to be said for those visionaries -- be they thinkers in alternative energy, environmental protection or what have you -- that clearly foresee the potential disasters ahead and act on behalf of others to save them. They brave the stigma of doubters, overcome collective ignorance among society and struggle to maintain their reputation or even livelihoods in order to raise the warning.
Often times these persons are not even alive to see the fruit of their struggles, but this should not deter them from acting. Recent efforts by the current American administration to address the severity of the US debt might be seen as such an act, though possibly this may be an example of sounding the klaxon alarm too little, too late.
But in other areas, such as the alternative energy front, there is still plenty of time to enact change and steer the boat of global warming and fossil-fuel dependence away from the swirling whirlpool. Most of us can concur that something needs to be done here, but most of us expect someone else to do it.
What is necessary is a collective awareness that we all have a share in this global biosphere, and should ( in the very least) approve of and encourage those who have the capability to protect and preserve -- like Noah and Wamura -- to do just that.
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