With Earth Day, come along the doomsayers that would have us all be dead from a single AAA battery thrown out in the wrong way. Let’s see if they’re really paying attention, and run through the top three ecological disasters to occur during the last year or so, the actions that were taken as countermeasure against these events, and the stuff we’re being asked to do on a daily basis by the President of the Internet, and all his green minions.
April 20th 2010; The infamous BP Oil Spill.
What was done;
After initially setting fire to the floating oil in order to “dissipate it” into the atmosphere, then trying to blow up the whole rig, they finally managed to put some kind of a sleeve over the spill and slow it to a trickle. It should be noted that it is in fact, still leaking.
Meanwhile, what we’re being asked to do;
Keep a composting bin in the kitchen. Yes, many towns at least here in Quebec, have started distributing mandatory containers to keep in our kitchens in order to help us compost our organic waste.
October 4th 2010; Red Mud leak from an alumina manufacturing plant in Hungary.
What was done;
Basically, well, er…nothing. They simply stopped talking about it after it killed pretty much every living thing in what is essentially, one of their prominent drinking water sources. Even now, the main tank is threataning to rupture completely. This would free 500.000 cubic meters of sludge into a small river you might have heard of; The Danube.
Meanwhile, what we’re being asked to do;
Switch our old incandescent light bulbs for new spiral “neon” bulbs. This of course even though some fires have already been started by them, there were even a couple of recalls on some of them.
Use a 4$ reusable shopping bag instead of a .02¢ recyclable plastic bag. (really, they cost 1¢ for 5)
March 11th 2011; Fukushima nuclear reactor is damaged, goes critical, leaks radiation, etc. Still ongoing.
The whole thing started with one of the most powerful earthquakes in history, the nuclear plant simply stopped cooling and overheated, it released some radiation but more seriously to that, it polluted 70.000 tonnes of water with radiation. 10.000 of which are only lightly radioactive but the remaining 60.000 tonnes are seriously radioactive.
What was done;
After being used to cool the reactor core down, 10.000 tonnes of radioactive water were being held in a tank under the plant. The Japanese, not knowing what to do with it, have already released it back into the ocean by using the pretext that it’s not going to make a lot of difference as a radiation source. They plan on attempting to decontaminate the remaining 60.000 tonnes and release them too in the ocean. I won’t bore you with the details of such decontamination but let me assure you, it’s not exactly a walk in the park.
Meanwhile, what we’re being asked to do;
Unplug our unused power adapters to conserve energy and prevent useless carbon emissions.
Use alternative transports like bicycles, walking, electric vehicles and mass transport like buses, metros and trains.
Don’t get me wrong people. I’m all for reasonable, middle ground compromises to everything, and this brings me to our We Interrupt to give you a tip segment of the week and this week, it goes out to Dave Suzuki, Al Gore, and company. Dave, I love you man, I enjoy watching The Fifth Escape and your speeches on Youtube as well as your website but please, why don’t you let up the pressure on mom and pop to do petty things, and concentrate on getting the big almighty corporations to take responsibility for their actions, perhaps come up with better contingency plans for stuff like the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Red Mud spill. After all we’re all responsible for what happens to our ecosystem and as such, as human beings, as parents of children, we should all be ashamed of what we’ve done so far.
