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HomeCommentaryOp-edOp-Ed: Earthly Thoughts About a Living Planet

Op-Ed: Earthly Thoughts About a Living Planet

Judi Shimel

With Earth Day approaching this April 22, there’s a tale from the “Earth Stories Collection” (www.theearthstoriescollection.org) about a bombastic king from ancient Greece who defiled a sacred forest. King Erysikthon wanted to build a banquet hall and decided no timber could give him thick beams for the hall like the oak trees found in the forest protected by the goddess Demeter. Despite the warnings he heard as he and his men approached the forest, the king insisted only those trees would do.

The priestess who protected the forest was knocked to the ground. The axes flew. All of the trees in the sacred forest fell and the banquet hall was built. Then, a curse fell upon Eryskithon, leading to his ruin. His daughter, Mestra, also suffered as a result of her father’s actions, but made amends to the forest and was redeemed.

Curators of the “Earth Stories Collection” offer the story – Erysikthon of Thessaly and Mestra – as a cautionary tale about abusing natural resources. Messages like these have been part of Earth Day since public observances began in 1970.

But this year, our readers are invited to observe Earth Day by considering the earth itself. The earth is a geodynamic creation, where temperatures climb up; glaciers melt and crash into the sea; storms blow for hours, rocks and soil slide down hillsides; volcanoes blow their tops; shifting tectonic plates around the earth’s crust make the ground rumble and shake. Any and all of which can bring disaster.

Did you know that the basin of Charlotte Amalie Harbor was formed by the collapse of an ancient volcano? That there are 19 active volcanoes surrounding the Lesser Antilles, including one in the Soufriere Hills of Montserrat where an eruption in 1997 killed 19 people in the town of Plymouth? After that event, human habitation for two-thirds of the island came to an end.

People have heard that an earthquake overtook Haiti in 2010 and a quarter-million people died as a result. Most may not have heard about the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that hit the Dominican Republic on Aug. 8, 1946, triggering a tsunami that rushed over the land. More than 2,500 people died.

Then there’s Kick ‘Em Jenny, an undersea volcano eight kilometers north of Grenada, that researchers say has erupted a dozen times since 1939. After its most recent eruption in 2015 officials set up an exclusion zone for passing ships to prevent damage from rocks and steam that could shoot through the ocean’s surface.

The collapse of undersea volcanoes can also cause tsunamis – towering ocean waves that build up over time and travel towards shore at the speed of commercial jets. The threat to land comes from a giant wave crashing ashore, but its origin comes from changes in the ocean floor.

And don’t forget the glaciers. They may seem far away, but climate change and higher temperatures cause glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise. That affects us here and will for years to come.

King Erysikthon’s example of banquet hall construction offers food for thought. Deforestation – removing all the trees – exacerbates erosion, a natural occurrence on earth. Erosion can lead to landslides, rockslides and mudslides. Normally erosion is a slow process change of the earth, but forces like windstorms can speed them up and make them more dangerous. The U.S. Geological Service says there were 40,000 landslides in Puerto Rico caused by the passage of Hurricane Maria in 2017. Here in the USVI, we know that this event also triggered landslides, and flooding and countless other types of damages.

Earth and its geo dynamism bring both benefits and harm. The services from Nature that we celebrate on Earth Day serve as examples: clean water, green trees, mostly favorable weather and food to eat.

For humankind to thrive, we need to protect ourselves by understanding and working with the earth and its ecosystems. There’s a lot to think about here for us in the Virgin Islands. Here at the University of the Virgin Islands Hazard Mitigation and Resilience Plan team, we know that future disasters will come.

Our task, as a community, is to recognize and understand the potential harm of these events and look for ways to mitigate their impacts on our communities, our homes and businesses, and on our natural resources. To that end, the HMRP team invites the public to attend a May 11 webinar on earthquakes and what engineers think can be done to make buildings and infrastructure better able to withstand their impacts. Please visit resilientvi.org to register and to stay updated on future events.

We can Prepare for Tomorrow, Today.

Editor’s note: Judi Shimel is a project assistant with the University of the Virgin Islands Hazard Mitigation and Resilience Plan team. She is also a veteran reporter and broadcast producer, serving the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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