Beautiful Messes: A Travel Guide to Man-made Disasters
Whether you want to cruise by the floating pile of plastic in the Pacific or throw some trash into the nation's largest landfill, GOOD has the dirt on the most spectacular man-made disasters.
Whether you want to cruise by the floating pile of plastic in the Pacific or throw some trash into the nation's largest landfill, good has the dirt on where to go to get a close-up look at the most spectacular disasters man has wrought on the environment. Plus: What to do when you visit.
Eastern Garbage Patch
IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN All the plastic that has ever found its way to the sea is still floating somewhere-down to the last plastic bag and wisp of dental floss.Much of it gets pulled into the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a huge, slowly turning whirlpool a thousand miles off the coast of California. "We find floats, crates, tofu tubs," says Charles Moore, a researcher who has explored the area for a decade. "But mostly what we see are fragments. On a calm day it's almost as if someone had taken a giant saltshaker of plastic and shaken it onto the surface. It's dumbfounding."WHAT WENT WRONG:Littering, for starters. But what brings this mysterious collection of trash to a specific place in the waters west of Los Angeles? Circling air pushes ocean currents in a clockwise spiral that draws flotsam into the center of a patch of ocean that covers 2.5 million square miles. There, currents slow and all those lighters and candy wrappers break down into tiny bits of confetti. Naturally, animals mistake the particles-which soak up carcinogens like DDT and PCBs-for food. The toxins then work their way up the food chain, causing hermaphroditic polar bears; overly thin eggshells among nesting birds; and potentially low sperm counts, miscarriages, and developmental disabilities in humans.THE EASTERN GARBAGE PATCHWhen to visit: The gyre shifts seasonally, migrating northward in the summer. In the winter, it drops south and touches Hawaii, blanketing beaches with trash drifts.Where to stay: You'll need a private yacht, and you'll be sailing through a notoriously windless area called the horse latitudes. "I doubt anyone in my business would ever even talk to a client about a trip like this," says Beverly Parsons, a charter broker in the area.Where to eat: You could bring a fishing rod, but your safest bet is probably canned sardines and crackers.Getting there: The patch is centered roughly between latitudes 35º and 40º north and longitudes 140º and 150º west. Plan to spend at least two weeks at sea.Don't miss: Abandoned fishing nets often get stuck together, eventually stretching into "ghost nets" nearly 60 miles long. Look for them on Hawaii's coral reefs, where they wash up yearly.
The Salton Sea
IN CALIFORNIA This accidentally man-made lake, 80 miles northeast of San Diego, is slowly drying up.Despite the dwindling water supply, millions of migratory birds still call California's largest lake paradise. So do birders, who fly in from all over to visit one of the most important avian habitats in the United States. Where else can you stand on beaches caked with washed-up fish skeletons and search the skies for little gulls and roseate spoonbills? "It's always been a big name," says a local guide named Bob Miller, who adds, ominously, "but it's like the Twilight Zone sometimes. I mean, it gets odors."WHAT WENT WRONG:In 1905, the levees for a project to divert the Colorado River burst, spilling trillions of gallons of water into a prehistoric lake bed. By the time they plugged the leak, the Salton Sea covered 400 square miles. Things were looking up in the 1950s, when fishing and boating attracted the makings of any decent resort town-retirees and celebrities-but several years of tropical storms washed away investment dollars. Now, since no new water is flowing in, the Sea is stagnant (and slowly evaporating), causing serious problems for its aquatic ecosystem. Chemical reactions turn the surface red and lime green, causing massive, odiferous fish die-offs, and sick fish poison the more than 400 species of birds that live here.THE SALTON SEAWhen to visit: Skip the summer months and catch the busy south-ern migration around New Year's.Where to stay: Slab City, an RV camp on a former military base. Camping and parking are free, but bring your own amenities. It's on Main Street, a few miles east of Niland, California, on the east coast of the Sea.Where to eat: Enjoy the Chef's Mistake, a hand-tossed personal pizza topped with four kinds of meat ($5.50) at Bobby D's Pizza Plus. 8110 Highway 111, Niland, California · (760) 359-0689Getting there: From Los Angeles, take I-10 east. From San Diego, take I-8 east.Don't miss: Check out Salvation Mountain, Leonard Knight's rainbow-hued folk-art cathedral. Also, if you team up with a Southwest Birders expedition ($210), you may spot more than 100 species in a day. (760) 455-1413 · southwestbirders.com
The Underground Coal Fire
IN CENTRALIA, PENNSYLVANIA Centralia was just another sleepy northeastern Pennsylvania town until the local coal mine was filled with a raging inferno that burned unabated for decades.Even that didn't disrupt the peaceful Centralia life until 1981, when a smoldering sinkhole nearly swallowed a 12-year-old boy. In the wake of the national attention that followed, Centralia became a cult travel destination. To this day, the subterranean fire is still burning. "You can drive through and not even notice," says Chris Perkel, who produced a documentary on the place. "But when the fire's close to the surface, the trees are blackened, and steam and smoke billow from the rocks."WHAT WENT WRONG:The area's anthracite coal stoked the furnaces of the industrial revolution, but by the mid-19th century, companies left the region-and their messes-behind in favor of cheaper energy sources like petroleum. In 1962, burning garbage in an abandoned strip mine sparked a fire. In the years that followed, the flames grew as debate raged about whose problem it was to fix (the debate remains unresolved). Suddenly appearing sinkholes and carbon monoxide poisoning continued to threaten residents untilthe 1980s, when Congress paid to relocate them and bulldozed their houses-though a handful of hard-core Centralians can still be found there.CENTRALIA COAL FIREWhen to visit: Wet days in early spring make for picturesque clouds of steam.Where to stay: Find Granny's Motel by the statue of a pioneer woman holding a pie in nearby Frackville. ($50 a night). 115 West Coal Street, Frackville, Pennsylvania · (570) 874-0408grannys-pa.comWhere to eat: In Ashland, one of the closest habitable towns, grab a cheeseburger with chopped onions and the house hot sauce ($1.60) at Danny's Boulevard Drive-In, open since 1949. 630 S. Hoffman Boulevard, Ashland, Pennsylvania · (570) 875-0711dannysdrivein.comGetting there: From New York, take I-78 west to I-81 north (if you're in Philadelphia, take I-476 NORTH to I-78). Just past Ashland, the road detours around a fire-cracked stretch of highway and then enters Centralia.Don't miss: Ride open-rail cars into the Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine ($8.50) where miners explain the region's history. 19th and Oak Streets, Ashland, Pennsylvania (570) 875-3850 · pioneertunnel.com
Apex Landfill
IN CLARK COUNTY, NEVADA In the bare mountains overlooking Las Vegas lies a dusty, half-buried wonder: the nation's largest landfill.Last year, 4 million tons of trash were laid to rest here, and trucks dump up to 19,000 more every day. "It's definitely a place worth visiting, just to say you've seen it," says the pit's general manager, Fred Kober. Just don't expect heaps of trash and noxious smells. As standards for entombing rubbish have become stricter, landfills have become more contained and much, much bigger.WHAT WENT WRONG:In these parts, each resident generates about 10 pounds of waste a day-more than twice the national average. And it's got to go somewhere, so, like giant yellow beetles, Apex's bulldozers bury it in pits lined with clay and plastic to inhibit toxic chemicals from contaminating the local water supply (though it happens anyway). Before you pat yourself on the back for not living nearby, though, consider this: Every American sends 2.5 pounds to the landfill daily, the same amount we trashed in 1960. Too bad there are almost twice as many of us now.APEX LANDFILLWhen to visit: Apex never closes, but spring and fall are its most temperate seasons.Where to stay: A room at the Cannery Casino & Hotel in North Las Vegas ($69 a night) will put you in striking distance of the landfill. 2121 East Craig Road, North Las Vegas, Nevada · (866) 999-4899 cannerycasinos.comWhere to eat: Make like the truckers and stop at B-Boy's lunch truck in the lot by the gate for a hotdog ($1.25).Getting there: From Las Vegas, drive north on I-15 to Exit 64 and turn right.Don't miss: Here's something you can't do every day: In a strangely symbolic act, visitors can drive up and toss in a few bags of trash for posterity.
Berkeley Pit
IN BUTTE, MONTANA Laden with metals and as acidic as vinegar, the water in this former copper mine-which now looks essentially like a massive rusty lake-is inhospitable to all life but the hardiest microorganisms: a flock of geese that landed on it quickly died.At 36 billion gallons and 900 feet deep, it's perhaps the largest of the highly toxic Superfund sites chosen by the Environment Protection Agency for special cleanup attention. Until they get to it, though, for just $2, you can stand at its edge and gaze into its chocolate-red waters.WHAT WENT WRONG:Butte hit it big with copper. The city, the world's top source for the metal at the start of the 20th century, earned the nickname "the Richest Hill on Earth."But the boom ended in 1955, and the party was over. The day the pumps stopped in 1982, water heavy with arsenic, cadmium, iron, and manganese began to rise through the miles of abandoned tunnels. Undaunted by the threat this water would pose if it ever entered the aquifer, Butte turned a weakness into a strength: It built a ticket booth and set up a gift shop on the lake's observation platform.BERKELEY PITWhen to visit: The pit is open for viewing May through October.Where to stay: The Copper King Mansion built in 1888 by the copper king William Andrews Clark (from $60 a night). 219 W. Granite Street, Butte, Montana · (406) 782-7580thecopperkingmansion.comWhere to eat: Try a "pasty," a delicious Cornish pie stuffed with beef, potatoes, and onions that was popular among miners. Now you can find them served with gravy at Joe's Pasty Shop ($4.25). 1641 Grand Avenue, Butte, Montana (406) 723-9071Getting there: Park in the lot by the Pit wall at the corner of Mercury Street and Continental Drive, then head through the tunnel to reach the platform.Don't miss: The Granite Mountain Memorial Overlook, a monument to the 168 miners who died in a 1917 fire that inflamed union tensions in Butte, a hotbed of the western labor wars of the early 20th century.
Throughout history, women have stood up and fought to break down barriers imposed on them from stereotypes and societal expectations. The trailblazers in these photos made history and redefined what a woman could be. In doing so, they paved the way for future generations to stand up and continue to fight for equality.
This article originally appeared on December 14, 2016.
Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
While conspiracy theories are not limited to any topic, there is one type of event that seems particularly likely to spark them: mass shootings, typically defined as attacks in which a shooter kills at least four other people.
When one person kills many others in a single incident, particularly when it seems random, people naturally seek out answers for why the tragedy happened. After all, if a mass shooting is random, anyone can be a target.
In the United States, where some significant portion of the public believes that the government is out to take their guns, the idea that a mass shooting was orchestrated by the government in an attempt to make guns look bad may be appealing both psychologically and ideologically.
Our studies of mass shootings and conspiracy theories help to shed some light on why these events seem particularly prone to the development of such theories and what the media can do to limit the ideas' spread.
Back to the 1990s
Mass shootings and conspiracy theories have a long history. As far back as the mid-1990s, amid a spate of school shootings, Cutting Edge Ministries, a Christian fundamentalist website, found a supposed connection between the attacks and then-President Bill Clinton.
The group's website claimed that when lines were drawn between groups of school-shooting locations across the U.S., they crossed in Hope, Arkansas, Clinton's hometown. The Cutting Edge Ministries concluded from this map that the "shootings were planned events, with the purpose of convincing enough Americans that guns are an evil that needs to be dealt with severely, thus allowing the Federal Government to achieve its Illuminist goal of seizing all weapons."
Beliefs persist today that mass shootings are staged events, complete with "crisis actors," people who are paid to pretend to be victims of a crime or disaster, all as part of a conspiracy by the government to take away people's guns. The idea has been linked to such tragedies as the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, and the Sandy Hook Elementary attack that resulted in the deaths of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
These beliefs can become widespread when peddled by prominent people. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been in the news recently because of her belief that the Parkland shooting was a "false flag," an event that was disguised to look like another group was responsible. It's not clear, though, in this instance who Rep. Greene felt was really to blame.
After the country's deadliest mass shooting to date, with 59 dead and hundreds injured in Las Vegas in 2017, the pattern continued: A conspiracy theory arose that there were multiple shooters, and the notion that the shooting was really done for some other purpose than mass murder.
Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Making sense of the senseless
These conspiracy theories are all attempts to make sense of incomprehensibly terrifying events. If a lone shooter, with no clear motive, can singlehandedly take the lives of 60 individuals, while injuring hundreds more, then is anyone really safe?
Conspiracy theories are a way of understanding information. Historian Richard Hofstadter has indicated they can provide motives for events that defy explanation. Mass shootings, then, create an opportunity for people to believe there are larger forces at play, or an ultimate cause that explains the event.
For instance, an idea that a shooter was driven mad by antipsychoticdrugs, distributed by the pharmaceutical industry, can provide comfort as opposed to the thought that anyone can be a victim or perpetrator.
Polls have shown that people worry a lot about mass shootings, and more than 30% of Americans said in 2019 that they refused to go particular places such as public events or the mall for fear of being shot.
If the shootings are staged, or the results of an enormous, unknowable or mysterious effort, then they at least becomes somewhat comprehensible. That thought process satisfies the search for a reason that can help people feel more comfort and security in a complex and uncertain world – especially when the reason found either removes the threat or makes it somehow less random.
Some people blame mass shootings on other factors like mental illness that make gun violence an individual issue, not a societal one, or say these events are somehow explained by outside forces. These ideas may seem implausible to most, but they do what conspiracy theories are intended to do: provide people with a sense of knowing and control.
They also misdirect blame and distract from efforts to better understand tragedies such as mass shootings. High-quality scholarship could investigate how to better protect public places. But robust debates about how to reduce events such as mass shootings will be less effective if some significant portion of the public believes they are manufactured.
These steps can work, as shown by the substantial drop in misinformation on Twitter following former President Donald Trump's removal from the platform.
Mass shootings may be good fodder for conspiracy theories, but that does not mean people should actually consume such ideas without necessary context or disclaimers.
Michael Rocque is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Bates College.
Stephanie Kelley-Romano is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies at Bates College
This article first appeared on The Conversation on 02.20.21.. You can read it here.
Between the bras, makeup, periods, catcalling, sexism, impossible-to-attain beauty standards, and heels, most men wouldn't survive being a woman for a day without having a complete mental breakdown. So here's a slideshow of some of the funniest Tumblr posts about the everyday struggles that women face that men would never understand.
This article originally appeared on Common Dreams on 3.3.21. You can read it here.
Emphasizing that the world still has a "fighting chance" to limit global warming with immediate and ambitious climate action, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday urged governments and the private sector to cancel all planned coal projects, cease financing for coal-fired power plants, and opt instead to support a just transition by investing in renewable energy.
"Once upon a time, coal brought cheap electricity to entire regions and vital jobs to communities," Guterres said in a video message at the virtual meeting of the Powering Past Coal Alliance. "Those days are gone."
"Phasing out coal from the electricity sector is the single most important step to get in line with the 1.5 degree goal," Guterres continued, referring to the policy objective of preventing planetary temperatures from rising more than 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. "Global coal use in electricity generation must fall by 80% below 2010 levels by 2030," he added.
Meeting the 1.5 °C climate target over the course of this decade is possible, according to Guterres, but will require eliminating "the dirtiest, most polluting and, yes, more and more costly fossil fuel from our power sectors."
In his address, the U.N. chief outlined three steps that must be taken by public authorities as well as companies to "end the deadly addiction to coal."
Cancel all global coal projects in the pipeline;
End the international financing of coal plants and shift investment to renewable energy projects; and
Jump-start a global effort to finally organize a just transition.
Guterres called on the 37 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)—a group of relatively rich countries with a greater historical responsibility for extracting fossil fuels and emitting the greenhouse gasses that are causing deadly pollution and destroying the climate—to "commit to phasing out coal" by 2030, while urging non-OECD countries to do so by 2040.
Pleading for an end to the global bankrolling of coal projects and a move toward supporting developing countries in transitioning to clean energy, Guterres asked "all multilateral and public banks—as well as investors in commercial banks or pension funds—to shift their investments now in the new economy of renewable energy."
While stressing that "the transition from coal to renewable[s] will result in the net creation of millions of jobs by 2030," Guterres acknowledged that "the impact on regional and local levels will be varied."
"We have a collective and urgent responsibility to address the serious challenges that come with the speed and scale of the transition," he continued. "The needs of coal communities must be recognized, and concrete solutions must be provided at a very local level."
The U.N. chief urged "all countries to embrace the International Labor Organization's guidelines for a just transition and adopt them as minimum standard to ensure progress on decent work for all."
The coronavirus pandemic, Guterres noted, has "accelerated" the decline in "coal's economic viability," while recovery plans provide an opportunity to bring about a green transformation of the world's infrastructure.
In many parts of the world, a just transition dovetails with guaranteeing universal access to energy, said Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and special representative of the secretary-general for Sustainable Energy for All.
Ogunbiyi told conference attendees that almost 800 million people worldwide still lack access to basic electricity, while 2.8 billion are without clean cooking fuels.
"Right now, we're at a crossroads where people do want to recover better, but they are looking for the best opportunities to do that," she said. "And we're emphasizing investments in sustainable energy to spur economic development, create new jobs, and give opportunities to fulfill the full potential."
In some states, women are put through humiliating and dangerous pre-abortion medical consultations and waiting periods before being allowed to undergo the procedure. In four states, women are even forced to bury or cremate the fetal remains after the procedure.
These government-mandated roadblocks and punitive shaming serve no purpose but to make it more difficult, emotionally damaging, and expensive for women to have an abortion.
Eighteen states currently have laws that force women to delay their abortions unnecessarily: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin. In a number of other states, mandatory-delay laws have been enacted but are enjoined or otherwise unenforced.
To help women get around these burdensome regulations, The Satanic Temple is promoting a religious ritual it believes provides an exemption from restrictions. According to the Temple, the ritual is supported by the federal Religious Freedoms Restoration Act.
The Temple is a religious organization that claims it doesn't believe "in the existence of Satan or the supernatural" but that "religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition."
The Temple says its exemption is made possible by a precedent set by the Supreme Court's 2014 Hobby Lobby decision. According to the Temple, it prevents the government from putting a "burden on free exercise of religion without a compelling reason."
Ironically, Hobby Lobby's case claimed that providing insurance coverage for birth control conflicted with the employer's Christian faith. The Satanic Temple argues that unnecessary roadblocks to abortion conflict with theirs.
via The Satanic Temple
Religious freedoms.
The Temple is promoting the ritual on I-95 billboards in Florida where women must endure an ultrasound and go through pre-procedure, anti-choice counseling before having an abortion.
The Temple's billboards inform women that they can circumvent the restrictions by simply citing a Satanic ritual.
"Susan, you're telling me I do not have to endure a waiting period when I have an abortion?" one of the women on the billboard says.
"That's true if you're a SATANIST!" the other replies.
Next to the ladies is a symbol of a goat head in a pentagram and a message about the ritual.
via The Satanic Temple
Image of The Satanic Temple billboard.
The Temple also provides a letter that women seeking abortions can provide to medical staff. It explains the ritual and why it exempts them from obligations that are an undue burden to their religious practice.
The Temple believes that some medical practitioners may reject its requests. However, it believes that doing so is a violation of religious freedom and it will take legal action if necessary.
"It would be unconstitutional to require a waiting period before receiving holy communion," the temple says in a video. "It would be illegal to demand Muslims receive counseling prior to Ramadan. It would be ridiculous to demand that Christians affirm in writing the unscientific assertion that baptism can cause brain cancers."
"So we expect the same rights as any other religious organization," the video says.
To perform the ritual, a woman looks into a mirror to affirm their personhood and responsibility to herself. Once the woman is focused and comfortable, they are to recite two of the Temple's Seven Tenets.
Tenet III: One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone. One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.
Tenet V. Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
Then they are to recite a personal affirmation: "By my body, my blood. Then by my will, it is done."
The ritual affirms The Temple's belief in personal responsibility and liberty that, coincidentally, mirror that of the U.S. Constitution.
"Satan is a symbol of the Eternal Rebel in opposition to arbitrary authority, forever defending personal sovereignty even in the face of insurmountable odds," the Temple's website reads.
There are two types of people in this world – those who panic and fill up their cars with gas when the needle hits 25% or so, and people like me who wait until the gas light comes on, then check the odometer so you can drive the entire 30 miles to absolute empty before coasting into a gas station on fumes.
I mean…it's not empty until it's empty, right?
But just how far can you drive your car once that gas light comes on? Should you trust your manual?
Photo from Pixabay.
I believe that reads empty.
Now, thanks to Your Mechanic sharing this information in a recent post, you can know for sure. Of course, they also want to warn you that driving on a low fuel level or running out of gas can actually damage your car.
Now, thanks to Your Mechanic sharing this information in a recent post, you can know for sure. Of course, they also want to warn you that driving on a low fuel level or running out of gas can actually damage your car.
Proceed at your own risk.
These are, of course, approximations that depend on several factors, including how you drive, your car's condition, etc. So don't automatically blame your mechanic if you find yourself stranded on the side of the road.
If you ask people what they think the “perfect" body looks like, you're sure to get a range of answers, depending on where the person is from. Last year, Superdrug Online Doctor created a project, “Perceptions of Perfection" that showed what people in 18 countries think the “perfect" woman looks like. The project was a viral hit.
This time, they asked graphic designers—11 women and eight men—in 19 countries to photoshop the same image to highlight the male beauty standards for their country.
Some of the images are certainly amusing, but the collective result is an interesting look at what people find attractive around the world.
Body autonomy means a person has the right to whatever they want with their own body.
We live in a world where people are constantly telling women what they can or can't do with their bodies. Women get it form all sides — Washington, their churches, family members, and even doctors.
A woman on Twitter who goes by the name Salome Strangelove recently went viral for discussing the importance of female body autonomy.
Her mother was made to feel guilty about simply exploring the medical options about her own body. But later on, a new doctor made her feel more comfortable about her situation.
