Friends of the Richelieu. A river. A passion.



"Tout cedit pays est fort uny, remply de forests, vignes & noyers. Aucuns Chrestiens n'estoient encores parvenus jusques en cedit lieu, que nous, qui eusmes assez de peine à monter le riviere à la rame. " Samuel de Champlain


"All this region is very level and full of forests, vines and butternut trees. No Christian has ever visited this land and we had all the misery of the world trying to paddle the river upstream." Samuel de Champlain

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Les Cousteau: quand on a l'eau dans le sang

Photo: Blue Legacy

Alexandra Cousteau, la petite-fille du célèbre Jacques Cousteau, est en tournée nord-américaine en autobus qui roule au biodiesel pour documenter la crise de l'eau sur notre partie du globe. À l'emploi du National Geographic, la femme de 34 ans parcourera une route de 14,500 milles pour observer les systèmes aquatiques du Golf du Mexique jusqu'aux Grands Lacs.

Son grand-père a changé notre façon de voir nos océans en racontant des histoires et en provoquant les gens à y réfléchir et à se prendre en main. Elle ne voit pas d'autres façons de le faire. Elle prend comme exemple le désastre pétrolier du Golf du Mexique: un désastre terrible qui fait les manchettes. Mais nous ne sommes pas assez conscients des huiles et polluants qui ruissellent de nos villes, de notre agriculture, de nos industries. Les lois sont là, mais nous n'y travaillons pas assez.

Quand on lui demande ce qu'elle pense que son grand-père dirait en voyant la marée noire de BP, elle dit qu'il serait horrifié de voir les tortues, les dauphins, les baleines morts. Elle a été témoin du nettoyage des plages, mais ne pense pas qu'on peut effacer les 11 vies humaines perdues à bord du puits, ni les quantités innombrables de créatures et leur descendance qui sont mortes à cause du désastre pétrolier. La perte de revenus de toutes les communautés côtières et des pêcheurs ne peut pas être compensée. Ce qui est perdu est perdu.

On peut suivre son périple sur son site Blue Legacy ici: http://www.alexandracousteau.org/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Cousteau’s granddaughter documents North America’s water crisis

Alexandra Cousteau is following in the flippers of her late grandfather – Jacques Cousteau – except her RV Calypso is a biodiesel-fuelled bus and her expedition’s goal is to open our eyes to a water crisis in North America. An emerging explorer with National Geographic, Ms. Cousteau, 34, is knee-deep in a 14,500-mile tour of water systems ranging from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes.

"My grandfather shifted a paradigm in our world on how we understand our oceans, and he did that by telling stories and engaging people to think about the issues and to take action in their communities. I really don’t see another way to do it. We talk about the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which is a terrible disaster, and yet in that conversation we neglect to discuss all of the oil and pollutants and runoff that come from our cities and go into our waterways, which are really just as serious but somewhat invisible. There’s urban runoff, there’s agricultural runoff and industrial runoff, which we’re making huge strides in regulating but we need to be better about."

What do you think your grandfather would say about the BP oil spill?

"He would be horrified. We’re finding dead turtles, dead dolphins, dead sperm whales. I was standing there on a beach and there were people in hazmat suits carting away white sand that had huge tar balls in it. I think you can maybe clean up a lot of it over time, but I don’t think you can ever make up for those 11 lives [on the rig] that were lost or the unknown quantity of marine creatures and their offspring that were killed. You can’t make up for all the communities and fishermen that are losing their livelihoods. And when they’re lost, they’re lost.""

Excerpts from an interview published in The Globe and Mail here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/cousteaus-granddaughter-documents-north-americas-water-crisis/article1643407/#comments

Well, like she says, I may be fatalistic about the environment, and that's one of the reasons I don't have children, like she says, but that doesn't mean I won't fight and scream all the way down.

2 comments:

  1. Merci de publier et de faire circuler.
    Il faut remettre le pipeline Montréal-Portland à l'agenda !

    http://montreal-portland.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Latest production of Alexandra: TVA Kingston plant disaster of December 22d, 2008. A must see: http://vimeo.com/16524532

    ReplyDelete