Planete Alu

planete alu par Telerama_BA

Last night I watched a riveting German produced documentary on the French/German ARTE Television Network on Aluminum. If you wish to watch it, it is about 70 minutes long and in French, but here is the link. Even without speaking French, you might find it extremely informative. If you speak German, there is a link to the German ARTE website. Obviously, we live in a modern world where aluminum is the omni present miracle metal used in almost everything we touch. As a metal, it's malleable, lightweight and strong. Every product we use in our every day modern world could be a big name corporate brand using a by product of the Multi national Aluminum Industry. Your over the counter pharmaceutical remedies for heartburn, your toothpaste, sun screen and what is the most common ingredient in most deodorants? Aluminum, not to mention the packaging. It's hard to think of a product that can't be associated somehow with Aluminum.
But, real studies have turned up incontrovertible and damning evidence that the widespread use of aluminum by products is a major cause of cancer, autoimmune infections, allergies and every day there is more real evidence linking aluminum to the ever increasing occurrence of Alzheimer'a disease.
It's insidious and the corporate marketing of Aluminum is so persuasive because the very cost of refining this, perhaps the most common metal on the planet is so expensive. To release it from it's unusable, raw state, contained in bauxite deposits, massive amounts of energy and water are required.
The Red Bauxite Earth is treated with caustic soda. The poisonous caustic water has to be contained because it is deadly stuff. Just look at the disaster in 2010 that occurred in Hungary when a dam containing Bauxite from a Bayer operated mining operation mud collapsed in Kolontar, Hungary. The caustic poisonous sludge which poisoned and devasted this farming community still is being cleaned away today. The earth has to be scrapped and detoxified before it can be used again.

The best deposits of Bauxite are in West Africa, Australia, India, Jamaica and Southeast Asia, but the most profitable operation today is in Trombetas Porto in Northern Brazil, in the hands of one company, the Brazilian giant, Mineracio Rio do Norte. It is a corporate police state unto itself and you cannot enter without corporate permission. The devastation of the disaster in Hungary got the worlds attention because it occurred in Europe and affected the lives of thousands of Europeans and polluted the Danube river. What goes on in Trombetas is epic devastation. They destroy the equivalent of 250 football fields of biodiverse rainforest every year. The ARTE documentary showed ecological disasters in England and across Europe that occurred because of industrial incidents involving Aluminum production. Perhaps, though, the most tragic aspect was establishing the link between aluminum by products and Alzheimers. The research into the health threats caused by the marketing and use of aluminum by products has been sabotaged and hindered by the industry lobbyists in Europe and the the United States, but the reality cannot be denied. This is potentially a much bigger economic and health threat than the asbestos scandal of the 1970's. Aluminum is the most common metal in the environment, but in it's natural form, it is not absorbed by or used by most living organisms. In it's refined state, it becomes a new and poisonous substance that we are not biologically ready to deal with. One other little issue the documentary dealt with was the chemical reaction that occurs when aluminum melts and comes into contact with water. Beyond the obvious energy released when a superhot substance comes into contact with a cool substance, there is a violent explosive reaction. Just a few years ago, scientists, studying videos of the World Trade Center disaster identified a river of molten aluminum pouring out of the first tower. It was the aluminum of the fuselage of the plane melting. 

                                                

 The molten aluminum came into contact with water as it flowed down stair wells and into crevices when the sprinklers of the tower were still operational. The results were the massive chain reaction explosion that collapsed the towers. Of course this was picked up by conspiracy theorists to try to prove their theories that the Towers were deliberately destroyed by thermite charges...Well,some of us are not equipped to make the choice of living in the world of fantasy or facing reality. Here's a video made recently by a scientist who wanted to demonstrate the power of aluminum reacting with water. Here's a pretty good PDF which explains the problem from an industrial insider Point of view....

The final comments from the English Researcher who has been a prime mover in exposing the dangers of Industrial Aluminum and its by products in our present environment could be summed up by the statement that perhaps one day, if we don't address this problem, life will have evolve on earth to deal with the aluminum pollution we have created, but, unfortunately it won't be humans.