(06-23-2023, 06:42 PM)NightskyeB4Dawn Wrote: My old behind has been doing a lot of reminiscing this week. I guess it is just more proof that I am really getting old, or that I have arrived.
When I saw this video again today, tears actually came to my eyes. I spent the majority of my childhood on the Chesapeake Bay and the St. Mary's river. It is heartbreaking to think that those simple joys of childhood that we experienced as children, will never be known to our future generations.
What are we willing to stand up for? We seem to not value anything or love anything any more.
Quote:More than three decades after the Clean Water Act was supposed to make America’s waters clean enough for swimming and fishing, two iconic waterways — the great coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay — remained in perilous condition. (Aired 2009) This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: http://www.pbs.org/donate. In this 2009 documentary, FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith examines why it’s so hard to keep our waters clean. Through interviews with scientists, environmental activists, corporate executives and average citizens impacted by the burgeoning pollution problem, Smith reveals that a growing environmental threat came not from the giant industrial polluters of old, but from chemicals in consumers' face creams, deodorants, prescription medicines and household cleaners that found their way into sewers, storm drains and eventually into America's waterways and drinking water.
This is another one of my hot button issues. It's not just the pollution aspect that bothers me so. It's that this is a result of the chemical weapons theyve been using on us. If these chemicals are so dangerous, as to pollute our water with it, then why the hell has this garbage been approved for consumerism in the first place??
If these chemicals are doing this to our waters, and for the reason stated in OP, then this proves how dangerous things like face cleaner, prescription meds, and household cleaners really are. Point blank: we are 70% water (i believe) ourselves, and if these chemicals are destroying our water systems, then its all "polluting" the water within our own bodies. And so now, we have the responsibilty aspect of this. These products mentioned, as the cause for the pollution, are (apparently) extremely poisonous, and yet they are in everything we use.
Makes one wonder, who it is that is truly responsible here. I guarantee the knowledge of the dangers of these chemicals have always been known, and yet they are on every shelf in every store, and our homes are filled with all of it. Our damn soap isn't even safe. These dangerous chemicals are in the clothes we wear. My point to my little detail addition rant here is, nothing we use is safe, and it has all been destroying our planet.
ETA:
I lived on the St. John's river growing up. We knew back then not to swim in that water (that ran all through the city of Jacksonville). It was said to be the most polluted river in the country. FYI, there were 4 military bases there at that time as well. There are 3 now. Most people know not to eat anything you pull out of that river. It's even more disgusting these days.