Reckless corporations are destroying our world: Sofia Ashraf made headlines this week when she released her protest rap demanding that Unilever takes responsibility for allegedly abandoning a thermometer factory in Kodaikanal. The factory reportedly resulted in mercury pollution that Ashraf and other activists claim caused 45 deaths, as well as deformities among people who were involved with cleaning up mercury spills. Look beyond the "Anaconda" beat and the "virality" of the video and Ashraf’s message is tragically sad, mainly on account of how often these types of cases crop up. Unilever is a multinational company and a manufacturer of many different types of consumer goods. In 2010, the company invested an estimated £5 billion in advertising. A Western desire for low-cost products and our insistence on using cheap labour is leaving scars on the world. Take the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The collapse of the structurally unsound factory is Bangladesh’s biggest industrial disaster to date. Clothing companies H&M, Primark, Mango and Gap all had clothes manufactured there and did all contribute to the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund, but by this point 1,134 people are already dead. We’re failing in other areas too. It’s easy to think of climate change as an abstract idea that may or may not be there, but in 2010 55,000 Russians died after a heat wave. Forty years ago, heat waves weren’t considered a threat. Shell is pressing ahead with drilling in the Arctic, something that Inupiat villagers in North Alaska are divided over. Scientists have warned that a spill would be impossible to clean up. It‘s rare that we agree with the Pope, but when he said "the Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth," it‘s difficult to argue with. Huge Western corporations are dictating the future of this planet and biologists say that we’re living through a sixth "mass extinction", with human beings to blame. How depressing that it’s making some people extremely rich. As placards on the streets keep reminding us, there is no Planet B. – words @thomasgorton via planetsave.com #dazedinstastory

dazedさん(@dazed)が投稿した動画 - 2015/08/06 01:34:08