Environmental Racism Strikes

Byoliveridley

If you had not been following this story previously, the NY Times finally mainstreams it.

Global Sludge Ends in Tragedy for Ivory Coast – New York Times

Over the next few days, the skin of his 6-month-old son, Salam, bloomed with blisters, which burst into weeping sores all over his body. The whole family suffered headaches, nosebleeds and stomach aches. How that slick, a highly toxic cocktail of petrochemical waste and caustic soda, ended up in Mr. Oudrawogol’s backyard in a suburb north of Abidjan is a dark tale of globalization. It came from a Greek-owned tanker flying a Panamanian flag and leased by the London branch of a Swiss trading corporation whose fiscal headquarters are in the Netherlands. Safe disposal in Europe would have cost about $300,000, or perhaps twice that, counting the cost of delays. But because of decisions and actions made not only here but also in Europe, it was dumped on the doorstep of some of the world’s poorest people.

“Dark tale of globalization”?? More like blatant disregard for non-white life, just saying…

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    FT.com | Gideon Rachman’s Blog | The G8: How to write about pointless international organisations

    Just about sums up the recent G8 conference where a “commitment” to cut emissions by 50% by 2050 was touted. Of course, the baseline year this “cut” was not mentioned, so nobody knows what this number means or what its significance is.

    Was not even worth blogging about except for the boilerplate article above which could apply to just about any international organisation.

    Note that it is not the fault of the people who work there. It’s the political leadership, people blame the U.N when they really should be pointing fingers at the Bushes and Harpers of the world. So, while the above article makes a little sense, it still falls into the same trap of missing the forest for the trees, blaming the process rather than the people who keep it going…

  • | |

    Green Building in India: NOT

    Byoliveridley

    There is a buzz about green buildings. But the question is: what does one mean by building green? And how does one design policies to make the green homes of our dreams?Green is not about first building structures using lots of material and energy, and then fixing them so that they become a little more efficient. Building green is about optimizing on the local ecology, using local material as far as possible and, most importantly, building to cut the power, water and material requirements.

    via Green buildings: how to redesign | Centre for Science and Environment.

    Sunita Narain makes some excellent points about building in India, and how western architecture influenced glass facades, closed buildings, etc. make little sense in India, and how traditional building concepts, optimised for local conditions would make more sense.

    Two points:

    1. Traditional buildings are not necessarily optimised for density. To fit a lot of people in a little space, you need to build up. No, not 100s of stories, but fives and tens? It would be interesting to figure out that contradiction. But I’m no architect and I don’t know the answer
    2. The glass facade concrete skyscraper jungle look is associated with aspirational prosperity, ask any affluent Indian what they like about Hong Kong, or New York, or Singapore, and the shiny buildings will figure pretty high on the list after cleanliness and shopping. This is the kind of building associated with modernity and “class”. Making a sealed glass and concrete hell hole work in regions of high heat and humidity without large amounts of energy use for air conditioning is difficult.

    It appears, though, that at least some people are thinking about this, as this book, helpfully titled Tropical Sustainable Architecture, would attest to.

    BTW,
    Sunita Narain’s editorials for the Down to Earth magazine are always thoughtful, and required reading for anyone interested in India’s development and environmental issues.

  • BC's Election

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    Screw ethanol, put all your energy into developing solar and wind energy, battery technology and electric vehicles. See how much better an idea that is compared to corn ethanol.

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    Byoliveridley

    seattle.jpgI’ve noticed that a lot of global warming stories, and books use abstraction and remote examples to illustrate their point. Elizabeth Kolbert’s excellent and readable Field Notes from a Catastrophe calls up the Arctic, the Antarctic, Polar Bears and rising sea levels. The publicity for Al Gore’s (Gore/Obama 2008!) Inconvenient Truth which I have not seen, talks about the Snows of Kilimanjaro extensively.

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4 Comments

  1. The link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues.

    The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

    Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment.

    Subject : In a fast society slow emotions become extinct.
    Subject : A thinking mind cannot feel.
    Subject : Scientific/ Industrial/ Financial thinking destroys the planet.
    Subject : Environment can never be saved as long as cities exist.

    Emotion is what we experience during gaps in our thinking.

    If there are no gaps there is no emotion.

    Today people are thinking all the time and are mistaking thought (words/ language) for emotion.

    When society switches-over from physical work (agriculture) to mental work (scientific/ industrial/ financial/ fast visuals/ fast words ) the speed of thinking keeps on accelerating and the gaps between thinking go on decreasing.

    There comes a time when there are almost no gaps.

    People become incapable of experiencing/ tolerating gaps.

    Emotion ends.

    Man becomes machine.

    A society that speeds up mentally experiences every mental slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

    A ( travelling )society that speeds up physically experiences every physical slowing-down as Depression / Anxiety.

    A society that entertains itself daily experiences every non-entertaining moment as Depression / Anxiety.

    FAST VISUALS /WORDS MAKE SLOW EMOTIONS EXTINCT.

    SCIENTIFIC /INDUSTRIAL /FINANCIAL THINKING DESTROYS EMOTIONAL CIRCUITS.

    A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY CANNOT FEEL PAIN / REMORSE / EMPATHY.

    A FAST (LARGE) SOCIETY WILL ALWAYS BE CRUEL TO ANIMALS/ TREES/ AIR/ WATER/ LAND AND TO ITSELF.

    To read the complete article please follow either of these links :

    PlanetSave

    EarthNewsWire

    sushil_yadav

  2. Europe has perfected the art of “progress” on the backs of the South. It was industrial progress at one time (Switzerland, I’m looking at you too) and now it’s a clean surroundings for some at the cost of others.

    America is even better since it doesn’t even see the need to pretend anything. I met the local congresswoman the other day and she wanted to know what I thought of her plan to remove the oil rigs from just off the coast of SB. When I asked her where they were to go, her answer was “Oh! We’ll move them to Mexico!” That’s it. That thing too seeks a spot under the umbrella of environmentalism.

    One of the most depressing sights I’ve seen is the slum just next to the domestic terminal in the Mumbai airport. Imagine living a few meters from the taxiway in a shaky tin and plastic dwelling. That’s got to be one of the most noise-polluted neighborhoods on earth. I guess that has no relevance here, but I was just reminded of that scene out of my plane window when I thought of enivronmental cost borne by the poorest for our
    “progress”.

    Hey B, why is noise pollution so often ignored?

    Sorry for the all-over-the-place comment.

  3. Hey Mr Morphsim-ism:

    Why is Noise pollution ignored? Good question. From a cynical perspective (Do I ever have any other perspective?!), it is a one variable problem, just plonk that decibel meter down and measure away. Scientists and researchers are understandably bored by doing this repeatedly, don’t write grants to fund measurements, and so the work never gets done. Do you have a better explanation?

  4. Hmmm.. That sounds good. I don’t have a “better” explanation. I didn’t mean scientific research into it. Just people’s reaction.

    Could it be that the effects of noise pollution are long term whereas other types of pollution (air, water) are usually associated with disease that does damage in the (relatively) short term?

Comments are closed.