There is something filthy under the pretty facade of tourist towns. Recent indeed very tragic accident of an oil cargo train in small Quebec tourist town killed over 30 people. This reminds me, that even though there is a lot of talk how our economies in Europe and in North America have grown greener, we still fundamentally rely on crude oil supplies. Pretty towns, just like Lac-Mégantic in where a dozen blocks of houses were swiped by the powerful explosion and fired which followed, are perhaps not as pretty deep in the core as we might expect. Both big and little town are strongly relying on fossil energy sources in North-America and in Europe, and what this extremely tragic accident brought to the light was, in my view, the manifestation of our dependence on oil. According to the coverage by The New York Times, these old rail tank carts were transporting oil from the Bakken Oil Fields in the Western United States. The articles also mentions that rail transport of oil in North America is a booming business, and that makes me worry that the pretty town of Lac Magnétic was not the last urban area which is devastated by the growing volume of hauling crude oil on rails. I am wondering when we make an assessment, whether it is worth to live in a suburb, run an AC, have and drive at least two cars per family and fly frequently, do we count in the dead in Lac Magnétic? nytimes/2013/07/08/world/americas/deadly-derailment-in-quebec-underlines-oil-debate.html?ref=todayspaper
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 10:25:33 +0000