Suck it up

On a walk to our nearest nursery we were called over by a local alderman Ivan Dean. Some of our neighbors we standing beside the road talking. We learnt about a proposed Concrete mixing plant just on the other side of the road not 250 m from our home.

Cement contains Crystalline Silica and every bag of cement carries this warning:

“Cement may cause respiratory, skin and eye irritation. Wet cement can be irritating and corrosive to the eyes and skin and may cause skin sensitisation, (dermatitis). Repeated inhalation of the dust containing Crystalline Silica may cause Bronchitis, Silicosis, (scarring of the lungs,) Lung Cancer, and the risk of Scleroderma.”

Already we are experiencing dust from the dumping of landfill on the proposed site as most of the prevailing winds coming from that direction. This stuff will be floating in the air and landing on our veggie’s, on our cloths and on our roof.

There must be a law against using such hazardous chemicals around residential areas. This is a major health hazard for our neighborhood.

I reckon there's probably one in some of the more middle class areas of town, where the voices are a little more confident and scary, where the price of land says you don’t have to put up with the noise of trucks, unsightly hoppers, and carcinogenic chemicals.

I'm sure this isn’t a new thing under the sun, where we ask poorer communities to carry the cost of a ‘developing’ world.

The worlds poorest communities are baring the brunt of global warming. They are the least responsible for carbon emissions, and the least able to cope with climate change. While their survival is threatened our air conditioned apathy asks them to ‘suck it up’ and pay the price for our need for comfort.

Sadly poverty comes with a marred identity that can suppress initiative and disarm people when fighting such gross injustices. Lets use our voices to change these identities, the non poor who think they are like God and the poor which think they are not.

Public Meeting: Tuesday 2:30

Gus