Slashdot Mirror
Peru Indignant After Greenpeace Damages Ancient Nazca Site
HughPickens.com writes The NYT reports that Peruvian authorities say Greenpeace activists have damaged the fragile, and restricted, landscape near the Nazca lines, ancient man-made designs etched in the Peruvian desert when they placed a large sign that promoted renewable energy near a set of lines that form the shape of a giant hummingbird. The sign was meant to draw the attention of world leaders, reporters and others who were in Lima, the Peruvian capital, for a United Nations summit meeting aimed at reaching an agreement to address climate change. Greenpeace issued a statement apologizing for the stunt at the archaeological site and its international executive director, Kumi Naidoo, flew to Lima to apologize for scarring one of Peru's most treasured national symbols. "We are not ready to accept apologies from anybody," says Luis Jaime Castillo, the vice minister for cultural heritage. "Let them apologize after they repair the damage."
"But repair may not be possible. The desert around the lines is made up of white sand capped by a darker rocky layer. By walking through the desert the interlopers disturbed the upper layer, exposing the lighter sand below. Visits to the site are closely supervised — ministers and presidents have to seek special permission and special footwear to tread on the fragile ground where the 1,500 year old lines are cut. "A bad step, a heavy step, what it does is that it marks the ground forever," says Castillo. "There is no known technique to restore it the way it was." Castillo says that the group walked in single file through the desert, meaning that they made a deep track in the ground then they spread out in the area where they laid the letters, making many more marks over a wide area. "The hummingbird was in a pristine area, untouched,". Castillo added. "Perhaps it was the best figure."
You are a bigot; you think in terms of environmental damage without even considering the people who were insulted by Greenepeace's callousness. This has nothing to do with ecological impact, it has everything to do with irreparably damaging a world heritage site and something that is extremely important to Peruvian and South American culture. They didn't cause environmental damage, but they basically insulted an entire nation by being careless and thoughtless about their culture to make a message that would result in nothing.
Then their initial response was essentially a backhanded slap to the Peruvian people. From the Greenpeace Facebook page:
"Without reservation, Greenpeace apologises to the people of Peru for the offense caused by our recent activity laying a message of hope at the site of the historic Nazca Lines.
We are deeply sorry for this."
Which basically says "we're sorry people got offended by our message of hope." It should be reading "we're sorry we irreparably damaged this site and trod on your culture", so once again, callousness and carlessness.
Greenpeace is not a good organization. It's a bunch of people who make a lot of noise and act like thugs and morons, and often their positions are not supported by science or thoughtful discourse.
I'm more disappointed than I am upset. The Millennials could have been a truly great generation. Yet they've squandered this opportunity in every way. People who could have done amazing things have instead sunk to new lows, dragging everyone and everything else with them. The loss of what could have been is something to be disappointed about.
No their primary goal was to save money, they didn't care what harm was done, pretty much the definition of negligence. Willful negligence is malicious.
Businesses get away with negligence and willful maliciousness all the time, usually because the penalties they pay make it profitable to do so. If the fines were actually set at 3x what they actually benefited in terms of $$$ and then had to make restitution for the damage that was done (and face civil private suits on top of that) then this type of thing wouldn't be so common. Right now they pay some minor slap on the wrist that is 1/x what they made, so the behavior continues.
That anythink you're complaining about the Millenials fucking up is directly the responsibility of the Boomers since they didn't not only didn't have time to raise us, but let us be told we couldn't be responsible nor self sufficient until we were adults.
If you really are a Millennial then your parents are likely Gen-Xers so the Baby Boomers had no role in raising you except as grandparents. If you really were raised by a Baby Boomer then you're more likely Gen-X.
While it is possible for some exceptions for people born at one end of a group or the other, Millennials are the children of Gen-X and Gen-X are the children of the Baby Boomers. For example, it is possible for someone at the end of the Baby Boom to have a child but that would be a rare exception that proves the rule.
Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
As a longtime resident of a 'crumbling downtown' that is getting made 'livable again', I can tell you what's wrong with it. We have had a self-sustaining and functional community in my neighborhood for over 30 years. Everyone from outside called it the 'bad part' of town, and we always just accepted that, because we don't want any attention anyways. A few hipster breweries and barcodes set-up in shop a few years ago, and now rents have gone up between 50-200 percent, the cops are here all the time when those nice cars attract petty theft, there are drunken douchebags screaming, fighting, vandalizing low-income apartments and houses all hours of the night every night, and buildings that sold for 170k 10 years ago are put on the market for 1.5 million.
But but but think of the business!! Amirite??? We were a mixed use neighborhood, but mostly residential and parks, with a few bodegas, a 40 year old family grocer, a few small restaurants and a few pubs. In the last 7 years we have had the displeasure of becoming the home to 9 huge alcohol related endeavors. Business can go fuck itself. It's ruined a decades old community.
By far the worst part about it though, is having to listen to dips hits like you, that move in, live her for a year or two, and then say shit like "BUT LOOK WE CLEANED IT UP FOR YOU DERP".