Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Greenpeace Helps Clean Up Mayapuri Market


If you are in Delhi, you know how hot it is.  So hot that I'm taking a holiday from serious essay writing for the day.   There are a lot of really serious things I've started writing about, but haven't finished, and they'll have to wait another day. 

I figured I'd just run a silly video, until I opened The Hindu this evening when I got home.  It seems the good people at Greenpeace have identified some remaining hot spots in the Mayapuri market in West Delhi.  And now they are helping the Department of Atomic Energy clean them up.  This is not as easy to do as you might think, since trying to cut open a chunk of Cobalt 60, which looks just like a lot of other kinds of scrap metal, results in tiny particles of radioactive mixed in with the regular Delhi dust.  And we all know how hard it is to clean up Delhi dust!

There is poison all around us, and it's no small matter.  Having seen lung cancer up close, I can tell you that it is no fun at all, and it has many causes--smoking is only the most popular and fashionable of them.  Someone you know will most likely get it from the Delhi air, even if they don't inhale tobacco smoke or radioactive dust. (And I'll never say this to you at a party, because nobody likes to hear it, but the fact that we all breathe poisonous air is actually NOT a good reason to continue smoking like a chimney!  That's like someone who can't swim saying, "Hey, this water feels great, and since I'm already up to my neck in it, going a little deeper won't hurt!)

Back to the latest development in our radioactive scrap markets, no big organization is perfect, but you have to admire the way these Greenpeace guys show up when you least expect it.  So hats off to them!

And if all this has been too serious for you, here is the Onion, making fun of Americans who outsource their jobs to places like India.  I'm pretty sure there must be some environmental connection in there somewhere, but I'm not going to look to hard for it. 

Read, rage, laugh. And above all, stay cool!

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