“Chris Jordan’s odyssey from Seattle to a small island in the
North Pacific Ocean teeming with dead and dying seabirds was fueled by an
unlikely siren: plastic. Since 2003, Jordan has amassed a body of photographs
that have investigated the United States’ growing addiction to mass
consumption. A river of discarded cell phones, a sea of colored glass bottles,
an army of Barbie dolls: all these and more, in large-format documentary photos
or digital recreations, have pointed to Americans’ propensity to buy goods that
end up as mountains of garbage.” — Rosette Royale, Street News Service
When
I saw the photo accompanying
Rosette Royale’s article, I was horrified. I began to write an angry poem that
I couldn’t finish. Now, as our church in Chapel Hill, NC works to alert people
to avoid single-use plastics, encouraged by the Earth Day 2024 national theme
"Planet vs. Plastic," I remember it.
My
research for this photo led to the article. I hope Earth
News readers will use the URL to access and ponder it. It
explains why this young bird would never reach its adult wing span of up to 12
feet and would be deprived of its lifetime soaring over the Pacific because its
mother’s attempts to nurture and care for it were misled by colorful plastic
that looked like food but was instead indigestibly toxic.
In
the closing of this article with its heart-breaking photos, Chris Jordan’s
thoughts rouse us to action:
“…Jordan believes
Midway is a spiritual place, and finds the name evocative. “Here we are at this
crossroads,” he said, “where everything that has ever happened has led to this
moment and everything we decide now will decide the future.”
He believes the albatross, a central figure in the Samuel Taylor
Coleridge’s epic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” plays a special role
in humanity. “It’s like this spirit bird, the messenger,” he said.
What
Jordan wants the film to communicate is that people can change the way they
live and alter the fate of albatrosses of Midway. “It’s a message of horror,
but also beauty and hope,” he said. “And love.”
A
SIMPLE SONG OF HOPE
Where
could I go from that angry poem begun
when
I first saw that heartbreaking photo? How could I
summon
words of “beauty and hope” or even “love”?!
Since
then, I have learned that the name of the world’s
oldest
known wild bird (she was tagged Z333 in 1951)
is
a Laysan albatross or mōlī named Wisdom.
On
December 21, 2023 she returned to Midway Atoll.
With
millions of other albatrosses she returns to nest and raise
her
young in Papahānaumokuākea
Marine National
Monument.
She’s seen to embody Hawaiian deity, Lono,
a
sacred being. She has lived nearly ¾ of a century
(most
albatrosses survive to about 50).
Bird counters
come yearly to witness this priceless part of
Earth’s
evolution over millions of years, to wonder at their
beauty and power
but also to lament the trash and debris
strewn around
the birds’ nests, washed up on beaches.
They return with
this message: to see these magnificent
creatures is to
know that they are part of us, ones we must,
in this time of
crisis, welcome and protect as a holy trust.
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