Come for the beaches, say tourism ads for the Dominican Republic.
But it has some beaches you might want to skip right now.
The Caribbean nation is known for sapphire seas and ivory beaches, but it is grappling with waves of garbage washing up on its shores, a vivid reminder of the presence of thousands of tons of plastic in the world’s oceans.This article is garbage. I know for a fact that the DR's beaches are some of the best in the world. The Queen Of The World and I went there just three years ago.
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| Bavaro beach, Dominican Republic, 2015 |
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| Bavaro beach, Dominican Republic, 2015 |
But back to the Times. It seems that the reporter put the story together from press releases from an environmental advocacy group:
Relying on Cyrill Gutsch, the founder of Parley for the Oceans, who is based in New York, Karasz parrots “It happens pretty much all the time if there is a strong rainfall or a storm,…The phenomenon is not confined to the Dominican Republic, and can be seen in many developing nations with a coastline. “Everybody uses the rivers and the beaches as dump sites.” and “What is happening in the Dominican Republic is only a small symptom of the larger global problem”, Mr. Gutsch said. Plastic dumped in and near rivers washes into the ocean, and only a small percentage bounces back onto shore. The majority makes it to the high seas.”So who are you going to believe, the Cyrill Gutsch and his anti-plastics crusaide, or your lying eyes?
But it's worse than that. This sort of naked, fake news environmental advocacy comes at the expense of the people to the DR. This is a developing country, and the people there are poor. Why would the Times publish and incorrect story that might cause poor people to lose their jobs?
The obvious answer, of course, is that environmentalists in general and the Times in particular don't care about poor people. They care about their ridiculous dogma. It's Rich People's Leftism. That right there is why I have a tag It's Not Easy Being Green.
I saw that article and thought it was particularly deceptive. They start out talking about trash on the beaches as if it’s washing up from the mythical Great Atlantic Trash Patch and end up talking about teaching locals about using garbage cans.
ReplyDeleteIt’s not a global problem in the sense of being like that everywhere; it may be a widespread problem in the turd world.
This stuff kills me. Over 90 % of the plastic trash in the ocean comes from just 3 countries: China, India and Malaysia.
ReplyDelete'The great garbage patch' does not exist. There are little trash patches, true, and the projected surface area of all the plastic in the sea does equate to the supposed size of the patch... but there is no great garbage patch. Ever notice you don't see pictures of it?
The third world is gross. The DR actually does have beautiful beaches. And like every coastal area, after a strong storm, you do get more trash for a day or so. That happens everywhere.