Crazy Chemicals

Don’t drink the water!

The good people of small town (Ogden Marsh) Iowa have plenty to worry about in The Crazies, a remake of the 1973 George A. Romero cult classic of the same name, when a government plane carrying a biochemical weapon does what planes sometimes do; it crashes … into a lake. There they are just minding their own business and suddenly everyone—family, friends, neighbors—starts turning into zombies. That’s how it happens in the movies.

But is it only in the movies? No, of course not. Here comes the real-life OMG-the-zombies-are-just-around-the-corner warning.

TakePart has just launched a “real world” social action campaign in partnership with Greenpeace that focuses on unsecured toxic chemical facilities in the U.S.

According to the Greenpeace website, the Department of Homeland Security has currently identified over 6,000 “high-risk” chemical plants on American soil. This means over 110 million Americans are at serious risk from chemical factories with inadequate protection against terrorism or accident. Events like the Bhopal chemical leak in India that killed 20,000 people could happen here if precautions aren’t taken and security tightened at dangerous facilities.

There are five ways to take action in TakePart’s “The Crazies” Action Campaign:

• Help to pass national chemical security legislation
• Locate hazardous chemical facilities in your state
• Demand justice and accountability for the victims and survivors of Bhopal
• Find out about potential contaminants in your local water source
• Learn about the health hazards of common household chemicals

Or, you can do what most humans receiving this message will do: drink whiskey, beer, coke.

All actions are elaborated on the TakePart website.

—Erin Orison, DEAD LOVE/the Daily Slice