All the World in California…the BP Disaster in All the World

For some time I have been threatening to use this space not only as log of my own travels and times but as a means of passing on interesting sites, stories and ideas that crop up in

my studies and procrastinatory online wanderings. Here is a first run at it.

In the last year I have appreciated very much the manicured, historied aesthetics of Oxfordshire, and particularly watching the seasons play upon them. That appreciation has in recent months been accompanied by a craving not only for the company of family and friends back home, but also for the actual landscapes of California. The incredible wildness and diversity of my home is something I have often taken for granted, and its pleasant in my separation from it to let my mind wander the from the dunes of the Mojave to the peaks and lakes of the Marble Mountains. This map, produced by Paramount Studios in 1927 and found at the excellent Strange Maps, depicts that diversity nicely in the context of the film industry. Establishing Hollywood as its center was due in part to the fact that nearly any imaginable landscape was available for filming within a few days travel. The vistas of Siberia, Switzerland or the French Alps could be approximated in the area around Lake Tahoe, the Californian Venice bore a solid resemblance to the the Italian original, and inland swathes of the southern end of the state provided likenesses of diverse ecosystems from Sherwood Forest to the Sahara desert. Interestingly, the  map also places the Black Rock Desert in the heart of Sudan. No wonder California pulls on the heart strings from afar.

Thinking on the importance of appreciating and loving the wild places I am lucky enough to call home has also been helping me to imagine a bit what it might be like to be living in the shadow of the BP oil disaster. Without working consciously at it, its easy to allow that mess to be something abstract, confined in the mind to a cluster of ugly headlines. People continue to perpetuate such gross violations of our natural heritage in large part because they can remain abstract and intangible to those who don’t experience them directly. Images are emerging from the gulf that start to bring the tragedy of it home, that make it more personal. But given my recent musings on the heritage of my own home, the most powerful tool I have come across for making the disaster ‘real’ is an online mapping device called IfItWasMyHome.com. By entering your zip code or town name you can view a superimposition of the BP spill on your own turf. As simple as the concept may be, the application of it seems powerful in its ability to stop it from being just someone else’s problem. Below are renderings of what the spill would look like in the Monterey Bay, and in my little corner of the UK. I recommend entering your own location here.

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