Stories and News No. 1287
If I weren't a human being.
Not an alien, even if I often feel like that – or maybe others made me feel, but just a different life on earth.
If I were not a human being, but at the same time able to reflect on the misdeeds against all other terrestrial creatures, these days I would find myself watching with terror the methane leakage from the pair of North Stream gas pipelines. The first and second, in a kind of one-two with which an idiot boxer insists on smashing his face by himself.
If I didn't belong to our species, the first thing I would find absurd is the dispute among humans about who is to blame for what happened.
Nonetheless, I would learn that Anders Puck Nielsen, a researcher with the Center for Maritime Operations at the Royal Danish Defense College, as well as Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak, believe that Russia is the biggest gainer.
Going on, I would note that the Asia Times News Agency says it will be the Baltic states, Finland, Ukraine and the United States that will benefit the most. While Republican Fox News points unsurprisingly the finger on Democratic President Biden.
Former Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, a member of several NATO think tanks, also blames the United States for the damage.
On the contrary, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, sees the Russians as solely responsible.
Dmitry Polyanskiy, a member of the Russian delegation to the UN, who turns the accusations against the US, cannot but disagree with this last statement.
Opposite opinions are those who argue that the terrorist attack is a sort of blackmail by Putin.
Some European media agree, which are inclined to believe that Russia's goal is to destabilize the old continent.
At the same time, hypothetically it would be the USA itself that could take advantage of it, becoming in fact the preferred suppliers of natural gas of European countries.
For the same reasons, the position of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates appears equally advantageous, even if they do not have the same potential as the United States.
Now, as a non-human, I probably would have gotten fed up with these bouncy mutual accusations long before.
What would interest me most is that the estimates of lost gas range from 150 million to 500 million cubic meters. Also that the losses would be equivalent to emissions ranging from 7.5 million to about 14 million tons of CO2.
I would be thrilled by those humans who even dare to minimize the disaster by arguing that during the year of methane gas we release much more...
Instead, I would pay close attention to those who warn us that in a time span of 20 years, methane has more than 80 times the global warming power of carbon dioxide and about 30 times its power in 100 years. Like scientist David McCabe, of the Clean Air Task Force, who stated that it is not yet possible to assess the extent of the loss. This is due to uncertainties about such factors as the temperature of the gas in the pipeline, the rate at which it leaks, and how much gas would be absorbed by the microbes in the water before reaching the surface. But as both Nord Stream pipelines mainly contained methane, the potential for a massive and highly damaging emission event is very worrying.
I don't know about you, but if I weren't a human being, I was worried before, let alone now. Indeed, I would be tired of anguish because of these stupid bipeds.
Let's say I'd be pretty pissed off, that's it.
I know, it's really bad as an ending, but I can't conclude with anything that doesn't sound self-righteous or self-censoring, except that if I wasn't a human being I'd send a letter into space, some sort of message in the bottle in a cosmic version, begging for some meteorite to repeat the surgical operation performed in the past with the dinosaurs...