Conclusion
The following ancient Spanish saying of probable Arabic origin comes to mind as sound advice: "Cuando las barbas de tu vecino veas trasquilar; pon las tuyas a remojar". Roughly translated, this says "When you notice that your neighbor's beard is being shorn, start to soak yours". What if anything, have we learned from lost social groups? Have we learned to recognize the signs in the landscape of subtle changes in our environment that we have degraded or modified for our economic well being and taking the proper, logical steps toward rehabilitating the coastal plains or are we simply looking for more ways to control nature.
Here in Houston we are still making projections to increase the population, expand the urban areas, improve industrial complexes and dredge the Ship Channel to deepen it and make it more comfortable for ocean vessels. This in spite of all the evidence that the industries in the vicinity of the channel have polluted the air and water with different carcinogens during the past hundred years and must have settled at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. To dredge the bottom would dislodge them and threaten the lives of all creatures in the ecosystem including that of humans.
It seems that we are caught up in a spiral that demands benefits to the economy - as if it were an insatiable god - at the expense of the health of the citizenry. Much like the Maya elite who were unwilling or unable to make adequate changes to their life styles in order to relieve their stressed fragile ecosystem we see that our governor and industrialists follow in their footsteps.
Looking at the catastrophic effects that climate change has had upon damaged environments in the past and the resulting impact upon the most culturally rich populations, one wonders what awaits us.
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