Venice is sinking.\u00a0 No news there.\u00a0 But the threat to that indescribably beautiful, unique and fragile city is being exacerbated by, of all things, excessive cruise ship traffic. Ever-larger ships, arriving in ever-larger numbers to the congested, enclosed lagoon in which Venice sits are displacing ever-larger volumes of water.\u00a0 The effect on Venice is simple to illustrate: sit in a bathtub.\u00a0 Have a friend join you.\u00a0 What happens to the water level?\u00a0 Exactly.\u00a0 Also known as the Archimedes Principle.\u00a0 Venice already faces enough flooding issues from natural, seasonal conditions; it is insane to add unnatural causes as well.<\/p>\n
This is not a polemic against cruise ships in general (a topic for another time) nor the situation in Venice in particular (recent reports suggest that \u2013 possibly chastened by the Costa Concordia experience \u2013 Italian authorities are taking steps to curb cruise ship traffic in environmentally sensitive areas) but rather a questioning of the deeply flawed logic that accepts, encourages and justifies such activity.\u00a0 For even as the evidence of incalculable damage to their city mounted, many Venetians defended the cruise industry, because it brought \u2018economic benefits\u2019 to the city.<\/p>\n
Behold the poisoned panacea of our times:\u00a0 all ills will be accepted, if only there is economic benefit to be won.<\/p>\n
We hear this sad argument all over the world: wherever mines want to pollute pristine lakes, wherever oil wells threaten ecosystems, wherever landfills promise to destroy precious habitats, the same trump card is always readily played: economic benefit will accrue; all will be well.<\/p>\n
This strain of thinking is currently amping up to an alarming level in my backyard of British Columbia, Canada.\u00a0\u00a0 There is a vigorous campaign underway to embroider our province with a dazzling array of oil pipelines, gas processing plants, off-loading terminals and increased ocean going tanker traffic.\u00a0 Any and all of these activities threaten our precious environment in any number of ways, but all are being staunchly defended because they will bring \u2026 yes, economic benefits.<\/p>\n
But at what price?<\/p>\n
How did we get to a place where a handful of short term dead end jobs is worth the risk of destroying irreplaceable and priceless natural or \u2013 in Venice\u2019s case, man-made -wonders?<\/p>\n
One municipal politician in a directly affected coastal community woke up and smelled the coffee when she realised that the net accrued benefit to her town was a measly 50 jobs.\u00a0 Too small a dividend for such a steep price, she decided.<\/p>\n
This is not the forum to debate these issues in detail \u2013 the energy is better expended locally, where it can be heard and felt.\u00a0 I just think it\u2019s instructive that these conversations are being held all over the developed world.\u00a0 At what point does economic benefit for a few completely overrule the common good?\u00a0 That shouldn\u2019t be a stupid question, but it all too often is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Venice is sinking.\u00a0 No news there.\u00a0 But the threat to that indescribably beautiful, unique and fragile city is being exacerbated by, of all things, excessive cruise ship traffic. Ever-larger ships, arriving in ever-larger numbers to the congested, enclosed lagoon in which Venice sits are displacing ever-larger volumes of water.\u00a0 The effect on Venice is simple…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joesays.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}