The planet is scattered with hazardous or explosive leftovers from a succession of technical breakthroughs – be they military or industrial – just waiting to be washed away by a flood or mudslide or carried off by a hurricane. If disaster strikes these “powder kegs” multiply the danger to people and the environment.
If this topic is of any interest to you, please see “President Eisenhower’s farewell speech”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY about the dangers of the arms race and what he and many others term the “Military Industrial Complex.” Many of the landmines and other weapons used to kill all over the world have their roots here in the United States and it is only by waking up to this and changing the subsidy programs in this country that we can possibly change the violent realities in other countries. In the mean-time, there are organizations like the “International Campaign to Ban Land Mines”:http://www.icbl.org/ that work to deal with the short-term effects of this plague.
This map and description has been shamelessly lifted from “UNEP”:http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/conflicts_and_disasters_potential_powder_kegs_landmines_and_other_explosives.
Previously featured on Duenos:
* “Anti-Landmine Commercial”:http://duenos.net/article/68/iraq-war-continues-unimpeded-soccer-players-at-risk – A scary look at what it could mean if these problems were as common here as they are in some of the places highlighted in the map above.
* “Map Monday: Thermohaline circulation”:http://duenos.net/article/433/MapMondayThermohalineoceancirculation – The current that keeps the world temperate.
* “Map Monday: Deforestation in Borneo”:http://duenos.net/article/432/MapMondayDeforestationinBorneo – Another human trend that is doing damage, this time to Orangutans.