Learning To Co-Exist With Nature

The ravages of our early and extreme winter are fading fast. The weather is benign. Green shoots are pushing through the earth. Hordes of schoolchildren racket through suburban roads on one project or another. The peloton of cyclists hurtles through the morning traffic again. Soccer pitches are on once more. The first swallows of the year have been seen in Cork. Spring has sprung. Things are falling into place, as they do.

The great wheel of life makes one more turn. How predictable it all seems, how stable, peaceful and timeless. Catastrophe seems so distant. But it isn’t.
Earth, wind and fire will bump, grind, spew and blow, always and ever. People in Japan went about their business right up to the moment the earth shifted beneath the sea and then everything changed. As did others before them in Christchurch… and in Chile… and in Haiti… and in Aquila…
True, the huge increase in the world’s population means that some catastrophes are more lethal than others. An earthquake in Xinjiang desert shakes the stones. No problem. A tsunami that washes on an empty beach is of geological interest but no more. But a quake that shakes a megalopolis and a wave that sweeps over coastal defences in a region where millions live, well that’s different.
In the 21st century we hear about it as it happens and, thanks to the technology of the times, we see it too. The sight of the black flood sweeping over the dykes was truly awesome.
Does knowing about it make it easier or harder? Does the sheer volume of disasters, and the inevitable media overkill, overwhelm our capacity to respond?
Perhaps, but it shouldn’t blind us to two fundamental truths: first that, for all our woes, we Irish are in a pretty safe place – and secondly, that life is both precious and precarious.
Already, there’s talk of another massive quake further along the fault-line where pressure is now building, this time near Tokyo.
How much worse would that be? Not only are there 30 million people living in the city and its environs, it’s one of the world’s most important financial hubs. The first earthquake is going to suck vast amounts of Japanese money back to Japan. A second quake would plunge the world into disastrous financial darkness.
Meanwhile, other tectonic plates grind away in Europe and America. What odds a catastrophe in Istanbul and Los Angeles? It isn’t just that global finances will be overrun. We also have to contemplate the potential deaths and the odds on further nuclear breakdowns.
And isn’t it truly chilling how the most technologically advanced systems of the most organised and methodological people on earth were so undone? All the planning in the world couldn’t withstand the consequences of the earth’s great shudder. (Mind you, we got a little taste of that ourselves last winter when an astonishing proportion of our services failed).
So, we should take nothing for granted and be glad of what we’ve got. And learn to live with the earth…
Two years ago, the Hog took time out in Naples and its environs. Pompeii and Herculaneum were two thriving Roman towns when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. They were both covered by 4-6 metres of volcanic ash and the populations were wiped out.
Today, Ercolano is situated astride the old port of Herculaneum. Like other parts of the Naples area, it gets on with life under the shadow of the twin threats of Vesuvio and the Camorra.
They talk of the volcano as a person. They have no doubt it will erupt again, the only question is when. Yet, on its upper flanks, in the so-called Red Zone, elaborate houses have been built, in defiance of both the planners and the volcano. The owners know they will be swept away by the lava at some point, but between now and then, they enjoy what they have.
Likewise, they know the gangsters are amongst them. They have learned that most important of post-modern skills, the ability to live with ambiguity, to get on with life even though bad things have not been sorted out.
They live in the present and coexist with the earth. This is probably easier for the Japanese with their strong Buddhist background, but the Neapolitans are pretty close.
We could do worse than take a leaf from their book. We’ll be going through the mill for the next four years. We know that many miscreants are still among us. We understand that systems are more fragile than we might have thought and that disaster isn’t far away.
But we’re still here and we’re still standing… if the Japanese can rebuild after the earthquake and tsunami, we can rebuild after the economic earthquake and financial tsunami. If the Neapolitans can live the fullest lives imaginable under the shadow of the volcano, we can too.
All human life is there. Spring is here. Let’s dance when we can!