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I even saw the phrase "natural disaster" being used in another article. Perhaps it's mis-translated, and they mean "man-made ecological disaster". But there's
by lioeters 4y ago
I even saw the phrase "natural disaster" being used in another article. Perhaps it's mis-translated, and they mean "man-made ecological disaster".
But there's someone out there who is responsible, who made the decision to dump huge amounts of toxic industrial waste into the water, and that is a serious crime of massive scale. (EDIT: On second thought, this could have been an accident.)
It permanently poisoned the river for its surrounding ecosystem and communities.
- ThePadawan 4y agoI am German and had to look on Wikipedia what the consensus of the term "Naturkatastrophe" (literally "natural catastrophe") is. Wikipedia suggests a Naturkatastrophe is any disaster where the destructive force is nature, regardless of the cause. There is the more specific "Umweltkatastrophe" ("ecological catastrophe") that apparently requires direct human cause. I can imagine this being a mistranslation, but personally also find these terms incredibly nitpicky.
- lioeters 4y agoThank you for clarification. Humanity is part of nature, so I suppose technically all man-made ecological disasters are "natural". But it feels like evading responsiblity, when we've knowingly caused the disaster over years and decades. I know only a little bit of German language, but I did see this headline: Bundesumweltministerin Lemke warnt: „Hier bahnt sich eine Umweltkatastrophe an“ That seems to give a more accurate description, that we're responsible for what's happening.