DYING TO SAVE THE PLANET
Sometimes living up to our environmental principles seem really hard, doesn't it? Take Mondays! (Oh, please take Mondays.) This is the day that my household have to put out all the recycled rubbish for collection. Now I used to enjoy this. It made me feel as if I was doing my bit to save the planet. Recently though, we I have nagged and nagged the kids to break up cardboard boxes before putting them in For recycling and I still wind up having to flat-pack about 20 boxes......when I am still diving through disgusting rubbish sacks trying to find the aluminium cans thoughlessly thrown away rather than being left for recycling.....then sometimes, after a hard day at work, it all feels too much.....
For those who know exactly what I feel like, or who have other occasions where it all seems like too much effort, this article is for you. I wrote it for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to pay tribute to those people who had died for their environmental beliefs. Yes there are some. More than you might expect. Secondly, I wanted a shining example to help the rest of us realise that when we imagine that environmnetalism is too hard, we really do not know what we are talking about. Here are some of the stories of people who have made that supreme sacrifice.....
CARLOS LUNA
On 18th May, 1998, Carlos Luna was murdered by three gun-toting youths. He had been attending a late night meeting at one of the Catacamas municipal buildings. There is evidence that when Luna was shot he was not killed outright and that he received no appropriate medical assistance up until the time he died, over one hour later.
Before he was murdered, he had been instrumental providing evidence against Jorge Chavez for illegal logging. Chavez was the son-in-law of Pineda Ponce, the President of Congress. This evidence had resulted in an arrest warrant being issued against Chavez five days before the murder. Fortunately for Chavez, he did not leave his home all day that day, which meant that the arrest could not be carried out. (Under Honduras law it is impossible to arrest someone in their own home.) The next day, this warrant was revoked on orders "from the highest authority".
I understand that nobody has formally been charged with this murder.
KAREN SILKWOOD
Karen Silkwood was a union activist who became increasingly concerned about about the lax safety standards at safety at her nuclear fuel production plant. Prior to her death, she had given the Atomic Energy Commission a detailed list of safety violations and there is evidence that after this event her phone had been tapped and that the appartment in which she lived had been deliberately contaminated with radioactive material.
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