Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Hungary does the right thing after toxic flood

Zoltan Bakony, chief executive of the factory that caused the mass poisoning has been arrested and the company, MAL Hungarian Aluminum, intervened by the state. PM Viktor Orban declared that those responsible for the catastrophe will bear the financial consequences. The temporary nationalization of the company has two objectives: to preserve the jobs and to make sure every damage is paid.

Now please compare with the attitude of the USA after the much larger and much worse environmental catastrophe caused by BP in the Gulf of Mexico: no arrests, BP put in charge of "cleaning"  and "managing" (i.e. hiding and causing even greater damage), hiding the true dimensions of the disaster from public scrutiny, allowing increased poisoning of the coasts and waters with the use of extremely poisonous dispersants, minimizing the costs for the culprit corporation, etc.

All life in the Marcal river downstream the toxic dam seems to have been extinguished. Much of the same can be said from vast areas of the Gulf of Mexico, however the information arriving from the USA is very fragmentary and most of the time unofficial. Research is being hindered by the authorities, which in most cases cannot be taken apart from BP private security.

Source for Hungarian events: BBC. For the Gulf of Mexico see for instance Florida Oil Spill Law or Project Gulf Impact.

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