Flint, MI and Saudi Arabia...Water and Oil

Thanks Dien
In answer to your question, “Why do we let others do this to us?” someone once said, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I used to think that meant, I intended to do good but ended up doing nothing. Now I think it means, I intended to do good, but there were unintentional consequences to my actions.

I believe that the people who were responsible for changing water sources in Flint had good intentions. Their main goal was to keep the water affordable for city that had 40% below the poverty line. The unintended consequence of their good intentions was water that poisoned a lot of innocent people. Their actions afterwards are a different matter altogether.

The people who put lead in paint did so because the it made the paint coating last lot longer. However, in spite of their good intentions, they did not consider that children might get lead poisoning by coming in contact with dust from the paint. In my area, when sandblasting a water tower, the entire water tower has a skirt around it to keep the dust from getting into the atmosphere, just in case there’s lead in the paint.

The people who decided to add lead to gasoline had good intentions of making the engine last longer because the lead coated the internal parts of the engine. The unintended consequence was lead being released into the atmosphere putting everyone at risk of breathing in lead particles. Now, with new advancements in the manufacture of engines and other additives to the gas, engines are lasting far longer than they did when lead was added to the gas.

The people who designed my house had the good intention of installing my furnace vent below the peak of the roof to make it more aesthetically pleasing. The unintended consequence was that it nearly killed me and my wife because it didn’t vent properly and my house filled with carbon monoxide. Had I not installed a carbon monoxide monitor, I probably wouldn’t be here today. (And that was just the first time my house tried to kill me. After adding a radon monitor I discovered I had high levels of radon. That’s for another discussion.)

There are hidden dangers all around us. Things we can’t see, things we can’t smell, things we can’t hear. That’s why the main thrust of my report involves testing your water before doing anything else. I believe it’s our responsibility to be aware of potential hazards.

Even though people in authority are not trying to do us harm on purpose, we can’t blindly trust them to be 100% right. They can’t be relied on to know everything or think beyond their intended goal (which usually involves a lot of money.)

Gregg