Ignorance is bliss. It surely, surely is. If the public knew the truth, well, probably not much would change but I still wish people knew. Just when you think you know a little bit about your home you read a book like this and think “F%$#.”
New Mexico is a strange place. One of my all-time favorite locations but it is odd, and there is no disputing this. What I like is that it seems as if history is still being written here, daily. And nobody knows what comes next. But with the environment, we can at least make solid predictions.
The Manhattan Project forever changed the world but changed New Mexico in ways that are unlike anywhere else. The residue of the era is still here and in some ways more powerful than ever. (The impact of toxic pollution.)
We “America” are corrupt and this place is a reflection of that with the corruption often impacting people with the least amount of options. The Los Alamos Lab, corporations like Intel and a state government that always bows to extraction. You add these ingredients together and you get a truly horrific view of what the future might hold, not to mention how grim things already are. It’s SO easy to get distracted, and thinking about serious and in some cases life-threatening issues like toxic waste in groundwater, isn’t exactly fun.
Water. Just this element alone and the reality of life in these dry parts is enough to make you sit up straight and swallow hard. Lack of water combined with the cultural ideal of “infinite growth” and you know that New Mexico will soon face a reckoning that does not end well even in the most favorable of outcomes.
For me, I see positive things. I do. It’s not that I’m ignoring the negative. Heck, I’ve said this many times before but I believe the human race is destined to destroy itself. Everything around me proves my point, at least in my mind. However, the solutions are what I find positive and interesting and challenging in all the right ways. V.B Price and Nell Farrell’s The Orphaned Land is a great book regardless of whether or not you live in The Land of Enchantment. This is a cautionary tale, one filled with enough detail to make you think twice about what comes out of your tap.(Among other things.) And that is the point. This book makes us THINK. Something sorely lacking in many of the conversations of today.
Get it, read it.