An oil tanker strikes a reef off the coast of Mauritius. Oil begins to seep from a crack in the hull. The government looks for the ship's black box; the opposition party calls for the removal of the Environment and Fisheries Ministers. And, the oil continues to seep from a crack...for over a week.
And, in the absence of any meaningful action from the government, volunteers are ignoring an official order to leave the clean-up operation to local authorities, donning rubber gloves to try to mitigate the environmental disaster.
From a chilling report in The Guardian: “People by the thousands are coming together. No one is listening to the government anymore,” said Ashok Subron, an environmental activist at Mahebourg, one of the worst-hit areas. “People have realized that they need to take things into their hands.”
It's happening all over the world. After manipulating the truth and proving they are incapable of fixing problems, governments are no longer the authority. We are.
I'm not sure which is more frightening.
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