The Accidental Reality

A couple of days ago, a fire engulfed parts of a local farm, killing livestock and burning some of their feed for the winter season. The article says that the farm belonged to a family that immigrated to Canada from Holland. The article seems to focus more on the statistics surrounding the farm - how much the blaze cost the family (1 million dollars), how any cows were saved (200) vs how many were lost, and who spotted the fire (a neighbour). The Free Press obviously decided not to examine the story from the human angle - a family who moved from Hollan 8 years ago who lost a siginificant portion of their farm. Both statistics and compassion sell, although what made the statistics a favourable angle for the story? Perhaps we've become aclimatized to the disaster, and the human story becomes the same and not worth reporting. As discussed in class during the Titanic lecture, in today's world, its the factoids that get people interested more so than the human story. Then again, Titanic is a historical disaster, which doesn't affect us directly.

An airplane in Nigeria crashed the other day. On board the airplane was Nigeria's top Muslim leader, a senator, and the sultan of Sokoto who was head of the National Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Nigeria. This incident was a main headline on the CBC main page earlier this afternoon. Ironically, African news does not make the top story too often. Perhaps this crash is of siginficance as it killed several important people in the Nigerian government and leaders of the Islamic faith in the country. Most other incidents or accidents in Africa that may be minor do not make the top story in Canada. What makes this one special in particular?

The BBC published a report on global consumption on October 24th. It claims that if the entire world were to consume goods at the same level as the UK, three planets would be needed to sustain that much consumption. In the report, it said that 31% of terrestial species declined between 1970 and 2003 because the planet could not keep up with the rate of consumption allowing for a natural cycle that replenishes resources. It goes on to say that if humans keep consuming at this level until 2050, humans would be consuming twice as much as the planet could provide. The eventual result would be the collaps of biodiversity.

As apocalyptic as this article may sound, there have been several stories about a large ecological footprint in the past. Scientists and researchers have been letting people know about this problem for years. As I recall, this article prompted Prime Minister Tony Blair to take action on the issue. It seems that it takes dark and dangerous numbers that are real to get attention from the people to act. It seems that these concepts do not seem real to many until they actually materialize as Blair's action has shown. Do ideas and predictions that sound too much like science fiction or a Hollywood movie get brushed to the side and its only when its too late that people decide to act?

CNN published a report outlining that the ice sheet over Greenland is currently melting, but not "as fast as previous research indicated." Al Gore's theory of an Ice Age over Europe (as presented in "An Inconvinient Truth") says that all ice melting will cool down the Gulf Stream, which provides much of the heat over Europe. As the current gets colder, less warm water will flow towards Europe. Gore predicts that if the stream totally shuts down, Europe could be in for another ice age.

If the melting of the Greenland ice sheet doesn't slow down Gulf Stream, it will certainly rise ocean levels that could have negative effects on coastal areas, where people populate. The melting of the ice sheet is commonly attributed to Global Warming. Perhaps the development of industrial technology is the general accident, as it could change climate conditions globally, leading to the end of humanity.

The BBC published an article on their website about a scientist who did some research linking phone usage to low sperm count. It may not be a huge, cataclysmic disaster like 9/11, but it does spark some thought about Virillio's general accident. The telephone (or cell phone) streamlines communication, and one fault in an intertwined web of communication networks will cause a general accident. Its interesting how the scientist in this report says the phone causes lower sperm count (provided that the man using the phone talks on it for more than four hours per day). Perhaps Virillio's general accident will result in the decline in population growth as people become infertile because of technology. However, critics in the article do point out that the idea could be far fetched and more research needs to be done.

This could be considered a "minor" flood in Quebec. It affects a small town southeast of Quebec. According to the news article on the CBC, the floods were caused by heavy overnight downpours. The number of evacuated homes sits at 200.

On Friday, a train pulling ethanol tanker cars derailed in Pennsylvania. According to CNN, 23 cars jumped the tracks. The derailment caused the track to break into two pieces. As for the cause, the article suggests that ethanol leaked from about 9 the tankers and sparked the fire. The article says officials are going to look into witness accounts and check maintenance logs. The train did not get up to the speed limit. A possibility for the derailment might be the broken tracks, but that seems unlikely. If it was known that the tankers were already leaking ethanol, its only a matter of time before a spark from the rails will ignite the substance. The article doesn't seem to mention anything about an explosoin occuring, although igniting the ethanol will have caused some form of an explosion, sending some cars off the rails.

Yesterday was Bridge day in West Vriginia, a BASE jumper died after jumping from a bridge when his parachute failed to open in time. BASE jumping is an acronym for people that jump from buildings, antennae, spans, and earth. Although the jumper died, officials continued to let people jump from the bridge as weather did not play a role in the jumper's death. CNN says its the first death on Bridge Day since 1987, and there have only been 100 BASE fatalities around the world since 1981. For this man, its probably just bad luck.

The other morning on CBC Newsworld, I heard a report about two subway trains crashing in Italy (Rome if I recall). It happened during rush hour, and being the time that I happened, it must have been during the afternoon rush (Italy is about 6 hours ahead of us). The accident is probably attributed to either human error or a fault in the computer system.

Also, the other morning on my way to school, a cop car had pulled someone over in a turn lane. A boy on the bus got excited when he saw the flashing lights from a distance, thinking their was a car crash. When the bus pulled up to the intersection (Wonderland and Sarnia), it turns out there was no car crash and probably somebody speeding. The interesting part of the situation was simply the boy getting excited. People seem to be conditioned to be intrigued by police and other emergency personnel. They want to see how bad an accident can get, or maybe see their "heroes" in action saving peoples lives, especially after the 9/11 attacks.

On Wednesday, major league baseball player Cory Lidle accidentally flew into a residential high rise in downtown Manhattan. The news media echoed the coverage of the events that brought down the World Trade towers in 2001 in its analysis and minute by minute coverage. However, the attention the Lidle accident got in the television news media in Canada was different from that in the US. Around 6pm, about 4 hours after the accident, Wolf Blitzer stood in his Situation Room on CNN examining different angles as to why Lidle's plane flew into a building. The television screens surrounding him showed different aerial shots, close-ups, maps etc. When I flipped to CBC Newsworld, I thought I was going to see the same coverage from a Canadian perspective. To my surprise, the CBC kept to its regular programming, and as usual at 5pm, aired Politics with Don Newman, who was discussing something to do with the Liberal Leadership campaign. That alone made me wonder what defines an accident as significant. A small airplane flying into a residential high rise in the core of a city is pretty significant in that it affects thousands in the immediate area, and in general, the incident is unusual. The passenger jets flying into the World Trade towers fits the same criteria, however unlike a residential high rise, the World Trade towers are symbolic of the American psyche - money and capitalism.

The next question I thought was what deems the accident significant enough to "take over" CNN's national programming? The incident wasn't significant enough for the CBC to do the same.

This week's edition will focus on roadway accidents. Two of the accidents are local while the third deals with the overpass that collapsed in Quebec.

The first of the two local accidents happened a couple of weeks ago when a school girl was struck during the lunch hour by a car at the intersection of Oxford St and Wharncliffe Rd. Busses needed to be rerouted and traffic was snarled for the better part of the afternoon. The chaos created by the accident could have been avoided had the girl known how to obey traffic signals. As I understand it, the story goes that the girl started crossing the road with a solid hand signal. During this time, an advanced green was lit and the girl decided to cross the road. When she noticed the advanced green had ended, she bolted to the other side of the road, but before she made it, the car who had the right of way struck her, sending the girl to hospital. The general feeling of the public when these accidents happen is that the child is innocent and the driver is guilty. I disagree. The child should have known better. The girl is in grade seven, and by that point, the girl will have learned from her parents and from school about obeying traffic signals. The information is based from what I read in the London Free Press.

The second local accident did not make the local media, or at least from what I found online at the London Free Press website. During the weekend, I was driving along Oxford Street and in the oncoming lanes were two cars that were pretty smashed up. Police blocked eastbound traffic at the nearest intersection. Ironically, this accident was down the road from the accident mentioned above. When I drove by, it was about 9:30pm. The accident probably did not receive much media attention because of when the accident happened. Oxford Street is a main artery road, but in the evening, it is not busy, thus the accident did not snarl traffic like the first incident. It may also be that because of the newspaper's print deadline, there was not enough time to make sure the story got in the paper for the next morning. But what decides to get into print? There is a story today in the London Free Press about a car that rolled over in Sarnia. This accident did not close off any roadways that would force people to detour.

Finally, there is the accident in Quebec where an overpass collapsed. It seems ironic that a year earlier the overpass passed inspection, and then collapse a year later. Maybe the inspection was faulty or something was missed, but thats why theres a public inquiry. Some of the deaths associated with the collapse could have been prevented. With the first piece of debris that fell, police should have closed the roadway and called in an inspector instead of removing the piece of debris from the road.