Thursday, August 17: Climate Sides
We're on the brink of full-scale climate collapse and it's business as usual
Side Items
Lake Maracaibo: This story discusses the decline of marine life and the awful pollution of Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. Fish populations have declined significantly and pollution has degraded the health of one of the oldest and largest freshwater lakes in the world. Lake Maracaibo was once at the heart of Venezuela’s oil boom, but has since turned into a polluted wasteland. The pollution of the lake, located about 375 miles west of the capital, Caracas, is the result of decades of excessive oil exploitation, poor maintenance of the aging infrastructure and an overwhelming lack of waste treatment plants in the area. Thousands of miles of pipes lie at the bottom of the lake, where oil leaks and system failures are common. A great example of how pollution and exploitation of natural resources leads to tragic outcomes for everyone involved
Water Apartheid: Villages across the occupied West Bank struggle to access clean water for drinking, bathing, and agriculture. Meanwhile, in neighboring illegal Jewish settlements, flowers are blooming, fish are farmed in neat rows of ponds, and colonizing children happily splash in community pools. where Israeli water pipes don’t reach, date palms and olive groves that have grown for generations have been left to die. Greenhouses are empty and deserted. Palestinians say they can barely get enough water to bathe their children and wash their clothes, let alone sustain livestock and grow fruit trees. This is a perfect example of how the distribution of the limited resources we have is usually unequal and discriminatory
Hawaiian Wildfire Update: Last week’s wildfire in Lahaina is already the deadliest in over 100 years, and the death toll continues to climb, as 111 are now confirmed to have lost their lives. Emergency responders continue to hunt for survivors as more than 1,000 people are still unaccounted for since the unprecedented inferno. So far only ~40% of the total burn zone has been searched. But combing through the ashes of what used to be homes, business and historic landmarks is incredibly difficult, and many of those searching are looking for loved ones. Their task won’t be made any easier by the fact that human remains are largely unrecognizable in the aftermath of such a blaze and fingerprints unlikely to be identified. This is, sadly, just the most recent example of how the climate disasters to come will never affect the people most responsible