Prabhupada, Room Conversation with Mister Popworth and E. F. Schumacher, July 26, 1973, London: ..Hm. “Cars, Profits and Pollution.” I was just reading this article. “Cars, Profits and Pollution.” So this one side, we make profit, another side, we make pollution. This is the material, result of material activities. Whatever you do. Anything you do material, it is same.
In one side, you see, “Oh, there is so much profit,” and another side, you’ll see so much pollution. Therefore the remedy is to act for spiritual realization. Then you will avoid pollution. The remedy is. That is described in the Bhagavad-gita, in the Third Chapter, how we can work for spiritual realization and avoid the pollution of material activities.
This is the sum and substance of Bhagavad-gita. In the Bhagavad-gita, we do not avoid the material activities, but we become free from the material pollution. This is the secret of Krishna consciousness movement.
Popworth: How do you envisage one should act, if I may ask that? Full Converastion
“Dumping Europe’s Toxic Wastes On Africa”
AllAfrica, Paul Adujie: Toxic wastes and other wastes, which are not biodegradable, are being dumped in Nigeria, African nations and other poor countries of the world. This is insidious and vile!
Why won’t western nations leave Africans alone? First it was slavery, then colonialism, and now? It is environmental racism! Have you heard the news? Environmental racism against Africans is on the upsurge. It is calculatingly malevolent!
Westerners know that toxic wastes are disasters waiting to explode. It is the realization of the magnitude of this risk, which has led to stringent regulation and control of hazard materials in industrial societies.
There is therefore a correlation between the fear of atomic, nuclear and biohazard materials by industrial nations, and these opprobrious efforts to “conveniently” dump these dangerous toxic wastes upon unsuspecting Africans and the poor of the world. Many questions therefore arise.
Why the desire to dump toxic wastes on Africa? Why would anyone dump toxic wastes on a people? And what immediate and long term consequences may ensue for the Africans and the poor of the world?
In Nigeria, in Ivory Coast, Somalia etc; toxic wastes have been dumped in the recent past. And as a matter of fact, the Ivorian incident became a major legal battle in Europe and in Ivory Coast. Now, according to news reports, there is quickening of pace, in the use of poor nations as dumping grounds for toxic, unwanted garbage generated by Western nations.
According to ELISABETH ROSENTHAL features published in The New York Times recently, wastes dumping by rich western nations, into poor countries has become pervasive, all permeating and intractable.
Elisabeth Rosenthal catalogued the horror stories of those who have become victims of these mostly subterranean; mostly illegal, garbage dumping upon poor nations. Dumping of toxic wastes and garbage is done through methods which are shrouded, sheathed elaborately, calculated to deceive even the most savvy of nations.
These deceitful channels are so replete with evil intents and imbued with complexly intricate cover-ups. The webs of those who are now dumping toxic wastes are said to be extensive in Europe and North America. They are said to routinely engage in these unconscionable illegal actions for short term gains, all at the expense of fellow human beings on the African continent.
This practice of finding profit while causing misery to Africans should be condemned by all. Those who derive financial rewards, in the unconscionable dumping of toxic waste upon poor nations of the world, ought and must be sought out, and punished to the fullest extent of all national and international laws.
History is repeating itself, all over again? If past is prologue, I can only imagine, a hundred years from now, the consequences of the devastations which are being buried or dumped upon our soils now.
I can imagine the deaths, and devastations, the maiming and mutations which will then arise, and as is usual these days, 100 years hence, there will be those who will blame Africans for such future disasters, now in the making, disasters which are now being planted, and incubated, once again, by very nice people in Western nations.
In the early 1980s, Sunday Moses in Koko Village in Warri who accepted toxic waste ignorantly, from an Italian company upon payment of some pittance as fees, soon died of natural causes or exposure to the wastes. We may never know the short and long term consequences of such incidents.
Nigeria just like many of the 53 nations on the continent of African do not have hazard management equipment and necessary expertise to deal with a Three-Mile Island, Love Canal and or Chernobyl type toxic chemical disasters. Africa is in essence being set up for doomsday reminiscent of “The Day After” and this is the time to nip this brewing catastrophe in the bud!
This is a continuing strand of connective tissues in the treatment of Africans and peoples of African descent. The smuggling of toxic wastes is the latest and newest in the barrages of egregious behaviours which have often been directed at Africans and peoples of African descent perennially, by those, who do not see them as fellow human beings.
They take comfort in devaluing our humanity, and then, proceed to foist upon us, continental Africans and peoples of African descent, such horrors as the depravity of slave trade and slavery. And such complete disregard for our human rights, freedoms, independence, liberty and sovereignty, as they imposed colonialism and imperialism. The newest evil, in these onslaughts of evils and wickedness, is, environmental racism.
All those with human decency ought to raise alarm at this new expression of evil and outright wickedness which is once again directed at Africans. The immediate and long term implications of toxic waste dumping on the continent can only be measured in terms of 900 million lives of the person on the African continent. In essence, these will be millions in human catastrophes, when, and not if, the dams of toxic wastes break which are now being constructed by environmental racists in their conglomerations.
Clearly, it must be said here, and pointedly so, that, there are those in this world who are obviously glad to see Africans as the weakest link in the human chain. There are those, whose manipulations and interferences ensure the fragilities of continental Africans. This is why a destabilized Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Congo, would provide ample opportunity for toxic waste dumpers. It is clear, even with a mere cursory look-over that manipulations, interferences and direct interventions by outsiders, has combined to wrought havoc upon Africans. And further, those who are complicit in these havocs, are quick to then take advantage of resources.
There clearly, are causal connections and links, between internecine crises and control of resources by outsiders, outsiders, who too frequently, act as arms and ammunition suppliers, while doubling as gold and diamond miners; as well as oil, uranium, copper and bauxite prospectors etc. Full Article: http://allafrica.com/stories/200910130454.html
Speak Your Mind