On June 18th, 2023 at approximately 8 a.m., Titan, a submersible operated by Ocean Gate, an American tourism company, began its descent in the North Atlantic Ocean with five people aboard, aiming to observe the submerged wreck of the Titanic. Approximately one hour and forty-five minutes later, the Titan lost contact with its anchor ship and over the next few hours failed to resurface.
A massive international search and rescue operation ensued over the next four days, obsessively covered by media worldwide. On the morning of June 22nd, a robotic vehicle found debris from the Titan on the ocean floor, not far from Titanic’s gravesite. It soon became clear that the Titan had imploded at the time it lost contact and that all passengers were dead.
I do not and never would celebrate the deaths of the innocent millionaires in the catastrophic submersible implosion. They were human beings who will be missed by friends, families, and colleagues who will bear the scars of this loss for the rest of their lives.
However, I do take extreme issue with the media coverage of this tragic event.
Just days prior to the Titan tragedy, not a handful but hundreds of innocent men, women, AND CHILDREN died by drowning off the coast of Greece, many of whom were trapped in the lower levels of the boat and were unable to escape. These individuals sadly had no real choice but to board the ship on which they set sail. They were fleeing a most deplorable and indescribable living nightmare in Libya.
Yet this tragedy received only a smidgen of the media coverage allotted to the missing submersible.
The United Nations estimates that there are currently hundreds of thousands of innocent migrants in Libya, many of whom aspire to reach Europe on boats operated by smugglers — boats in terrible condition with few if any life jackets or lifeboats, following no safety regulations, and massively overcrowded.
The Statista Research Department estimates that between 2014 and 2022, over 25,000 migrants drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while trying to reach Europe. It is presumed that many thousands more died who have never been found.
The tragic deaths of the millionaires in the submersible received much more than their share of media coverage. What about the deaths of these other individuals?
The cost of the voyage in the doomed submersible was $250,000 per individual, which raises an issue totally distinct from the above noted disparity in media coverage. It dramatically raises the issue of wealth inequality.
Is it really right or acceptable to society that extreme wealth accumulation would make it possible for millionaire tourists to spend an obscene amount of money for the opportunity to tour the mass graves of those who drowned on the Titanic? Like the migrants who drowned near Greece, many of Titanic’s passengers also died because they were poor and were trapped in the lower levels of the ship. The Titanic also had too few lifeboats, did not follow safety regulations, and was overcrowded.
The United Nations has called the crime of wealth inequality “a defining challenge of our time”.
A recently published report by Oxfam states that since 2020, the richest 1% of the population has grabbed nearly twice as much wealth as the entire rest of the world. At the same time, nearly nine million people are dying each year from starvation and hunger-related diseases.
As Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘”Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
Join me in mourning the entirely preventable loss of five innocent lives resulting from the implosion of the Titan submersible. Offer acknowledgements with me to all their friends, families, and colleagues.
But also allow your blood to boil with mine for the innocent refugees who drown trying to reach safe shores.
And allow your blood to really boil with mine that entirely preventable poverty and starvation causes millions more to die every year.
The time to take action to change our priorities is NOW.
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (July 3, 2023): 422.79ppm
One year ago (July 3, 2022): 420.21ppm
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