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Start with the word, "Sewer" now where did that come from?
Sewer means "seaward" in Old English. London's sewers were
open ditches draining human waste toward the River Thames,
and into the sea. These "Sewer" ditches barely could pass water as they
were filled with garbage and human wastes, which always backed up onto
streets throughout London.
By the late 1500s, the king passed laws which made each householder responsible for clearing the sewer and sewage passing by their
home and holdings. These sorts of efforts were never effective.
The details of historical documents provide evidence of death
and disease raging in London for more than 400 years,
due largely to ignorance of the hazards of poor sanitation and
the huge costs associated with any solutions.
The streets of London are 30 feet below the surface of the Thames
at high tide. The sewers would back up. Two Million people
lived in the city and for 4 centuries, death came quickly in swaths
from cholera, typhus, consumption, on and on.
Death would often grip the city, ... this history is, hell.
The Hero in this story arrives in the mid 1800s, Edwin Chadwick,
a reformer of the English Poor Laws, Sanitary Conditions
and Public Health. Chadwick surveyed the sewers, talked with the
poor about their lives and habits. He fought with upper class ignorance
and indifference to the plight of the poor and the health of all of their citizens.
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Chadwick wrote hundreds of Official reports explaining the
evidence of his research. He tried giving people fresh water rather than
the contaminated Thames water. Edwin Chadwick's Public Health Act
was the beginning of understanding the problem.
He repeatedly proved that cost savings from healthy workers was worth investing in.
And today we wonder out loud:
"What were they thinking... Of course this would kill them.. "
Raw Sewage running in the ditch in the street.
A city of 2 million people.
Well, hind sight is 20/20 and all of that..
Jump to today..
We have people who have a very powerful science at their disposal
and they are claiming that the possibility exists that we are killing
ourselves with Green House Gases and other pollutants.
And we hear them but the cry of those that say:
"We do not see this emanate death, it could not possibly kill our planet"
Drowns out their pleas...
Do we want to find out that they were right only to discover it is too late?
Just as it took decades after the science was, in
on smoking for them to finally admit it appears that
smoking does cause cancer...
Some still say that the mountains of empirical evidence
are just wrong.
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Do we want history to say..
"What were they thinking? Of course this would kill us."
We feel that we are some how different from our ancestors?
Like we are a lot smarter then they were?
Yes, we know a lot stuff in technology and engineering..
Or should i say,,, some of us do...
But, most of us.. just a Remote Control away from the cave.
Our ancestors were pretty much as we are..
Not much different.. not evolved..
Technology and Science separates us from them ..
but the way we think... is just the same.
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