Ignoring the Obvious

There is a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  The search for power below the ocean has costs millions, maybe billions of lives, dollars, energy for naught.  It really is sad and I cannot bear to see the destruction it may cause in coming days and months.... years even.

Up near Cape Cod there is a big plan underway to harvest the wind in the form of a wind farm over the ocean.  This is pretty cool to me, but there are grumblings about it messing up the ecosystem and burial grounds, rituals, safety concerns and other stuff not so cool.

Now, sometimes I am a little slow, but really I don't get it.  Why do we try so hard to get around this vast body of water we call the ocean to try to find power?  We're digging below, pulling the wind from above, when the real power is in between.  Water is way more powerful than wind. Ask the victims of Katrina.  The whole thing just baffles me.  Why not a nice watermill on every block?  If we can pour sewage down a drain, why can't we pour clean, re-usable water through a watermill?  Maybe we should quit fighting the ocean and let it do what it's supposed to do.... flow!

Now I do not claim to know all the facts or to have a clue what I'm talking about, but am simply stating what seems to me to be the obvious.  Have you ever noticed how annoying it is to argue with someone who ignores the facts?  Do we really need to hem and haw and try our best to create havoc just for the sake of argument and go 50 miles out of our way to get to a point?  Why do we do that?  Do we love the sound of our own voice?  Is it attention we crave?  I vow right now to simply tell it like it is from now on.   And I'm going to look into a watermill too.

Why not?