Venting Toxic Gases

It seems that every step we human beings take on our planet leaves behind some form of smelly gaseous, or watery, or solid residue, its disgusting as I am sure you will all agree. But the Lebanese are alone in flaunting their total and utter contempt for the environment in their daily living habits. We have turned spewing into an art form.

We have miracles on wheels in Lebanon, vehicles that should have been put out of their misery a long time ago, spewing white clouds of poison as they go. A walk in certain parts of Beirut at certain times of day is likely to make you sick; seriously, you literally feel nautious and dizzy.

Add to the summer heat the fact that the number of vehicles on the roads seems to have doubled, probably due to the influx of tourists to our beautiful land. But the question is for how much longer will this land remain beautiful or livable?

Forget the toxic gases from your vehicle and the fact we seem to be living in a huge garage of a country and are slowly killing ourselves, think of the clouds of chemical pesticides that rise above our most fertile lands. Think of all those cancer causing chemicals absorbed into plants, into our fruits and vegetables and ultimately ingested by us. Are we playing Russian roulette with our lives everytime we eat an apple?

What about the farmer sparying banned cancer causing pesticides while wearing a sleeveless shirt and shorts, with poisonous liquid dripping down his arm and settling in his arm pits. Its not just this generation that is in danger, future generations are at risk too. Children born with congenital malformations and cancer have been linked to their parents absorbing high levels of toxins from pesticides.

The worst thing about Lebanon is people hide the fact someone dear to them has cancer or try to justify congenital malformations in infants as the result of relatives intermarrying. Therefore there are no studies in Lebanon on the link between pesticides and cancers and congenital deformaties in children.

Forget that for a moment, what about the thousands of deisel fueled private power generators, noisy and inefficient, they not only add to the toxic soup in our atmosphere, they add noise pollution and heat. Remember global warming! We seem to be having an early winter this year, how strange, could it have anything to do with melting polar ice caps and the steady warming of our planet?

There is no doubt that the Lebanese and their lifestyle can take a sizable share of the blame for the global rise in ocean levels, disappearing coastlines, islands, habitas, the chopping down of trees in the rain forests, you see we are consumer crazy! By trying to out do each other in the amount of possessions we have we are driving a crazy economy that thrives on excess. We love it, the economy loves it, but our plant is slowly dieing as a result.

So, think next time you buy a car, or drive to work one person to a car, or turn on your generator, or open your fridge , or leave the tap dripping all night, or eat a piece of fruit, or leave the light on all night, or or or or, you get the picture. You are a citizen in this government, that is you are an elector, a small part of four million true, but you still have the responsibility to hold your elected officials accountable, to force them to change things. Dont let them get away with murdering our country.