I was deeply disturbed to see
this in the press. The 'greening' of the Limmat River in Zurich as an 'event', as an act of protest, is obscene. No more dangerous than table salt, they claim? Let's look at some of the background to uranine, the substance used to colour the river in 'protest'.
Uranine has a complex chemistry and a complex history. Sodium fluorescein has made appearances as part of
St Patrick Day Celebrations in Chicago, and had coloured the Danube in the 1870s. It is used to trace leaks in water tanks and pipes, but with a strong warning that it is not suitable as a 'food dye'. The materials used to make the dye are from inevitably dangerous extractive industries.
Its apparent 'non-toxicity' means it is used in some surgery, but in undiluted large doses it can prove fatal. It turns up in a report for
Project Shad — a series of tests conducted to see what vulnerabilities US warships presented to biological and chemical agents. The
report is telling in its implications of industry and application, in the journey a chemical product makes to its eventual usages.
Unless Extinction Rebellion collectively start to comprehend cause and effect, the sources of the materials they use, the extended metaphors (their conceits) and symbolism in the world as a whole they enact, then they are performing and enacting their own (collective and individual) need to be doing something, rather than changing anything.
Phones are their devices, and phones are at the core of much mass extinction. These devices are
manufactured. The irony of table salt —
no more dangerous than... — is figurative and literal. The salt industry in itself is worth scrutiny, and salt on the human body... well, hardening of the arteries is more than a symbol. Collapsing symbols. This photo op of people floating on the greenness of wish-fulfilment contributes to planetary dissolution; it does not help prevent it. Let the phones you use now (and, indeed, this computer), be the last you purchase. If they are 'de-teched' out of existence, so be it.
Stop buying the crap with horrific environmental consequences and the city will become far more aware than it would from you impressing your friends on social media. Sorry, you disappoint me and many others. Now is the time to act — you/we have the will, but also need to think about
how.
Not
super strong glues (horrific chemistry and horrific side effects to people and the environment); not dyes (
synthetic at that! seeing is also perceiving), no phones... people stopping the consumerist new-tech new colonialism. That way we might make a difference.
I once worked with these dyes in a lab as a teenager. As 'harmless' (!?) as the mineral sands industry the lab was ultimately serving. Not all the leaks were caught, either.
Extinction Rebellion needs to stop being a showpiece and start being a rejection of all tech consumerism. They need to understand that the 'non-toxic' dye down its chain of being encounters origins in naphthalene (hydrocarbon), sulphuric acid etc etc. (consider how we get phthalic acid anhydride, how we get resorcinol... how the reaction takes places etc etc!). Need to dig deeper, think deeper, and act less for performance's sake.
Protest is
being there, and we are all here, in the moment. We don't need to see
you, we need to see the changes brought by your (and our) non-consuming and non-self-privileging of access to goods. Altering the 'mere' look of a river is nonetheless
altering the river. Leave it alone and stop pouring shit — any shit — into it.
Villanelle of a Green Limmat River: with great
sadness
The
disconnect between cause and effect
as Uranine
is poured into sharp contrast like snow melt,
the damaged
river through the city is made bereft.
Temporary... as chemical warfare?... temporary as the best
laid plans floating
in the bright emulsification of death — a test —
the
disconnect between cause and effect.
Social
media traces through screen memory through distinct
moments of
play in the horror of on and on it goes left right left,
the damaged
river through the city flows bereft.
Rebellion
that feeds the extinction that synthesises and treats
‘world’ as
playground to announce the leaks — halt!
the
disconnect between cause and effect.
This
landlocked calenture this old city called to order this cost
of
confronting like a green algal bloom swallowing each breath,
the damaged
river through the city is made bereft.
‘As toxic
as table salt’ — sum of the parts — investigate the collect
&
refining of salt, the world’s hardening arteries, the logo the crest —
via this
disconnect between cause and effect
the damaged
river through the city flows bereft.
John Kinsella
