The Knock Knock (No-Bell) Peace Prize

                I am almost completely sure that most of you science nerds, yes that is including myself, or anyone that just pays attention to the news would know all about the Nobel Peace Prize just awarded to a coalition of people who work together to take apart chemical weapons, but just in case you have not, you can see a summary of it here. There were many contenders for this, including a girl who was shot in order to protest women’s education. The scientific part of this though is how these people actually plan to get these weapons of mass destruction destroyed, and keep in mind, not everyone fully appreciates them.

                One of the largest concerns for me in disposing of chemical weapons is what kind of effects will it have on the surrounding environment. Think about it, these are chemicals that can easily kill many people, what could it possibly do to the environment. This organization always says “dispose of these chemicals” but it is not always as easy as that. It is not really like they can go into whatever country they want and just pick up all the chemicals and dump them into the ocean either. Of course, in order to dispose of weapons of mass destruction, because they are extremely dangerous to human health and are immoral, it thus makes obvious sense for our government to force Syria to disable their chemical warfare programs. If you could not tell, that was extreme sarcasm used in that previous sentence. To put this action in other terms, it is like if your house is made wood, and a small portion of it catches on fire, would you use Greek fire, which burns nearly everything, to burn out the fire? Obviously not.

                Although I am not trying to be extremely critical of this group, it kind of makes me think that what they are doing is not that important in the grand scheme of things, because even a Syrian criticized them. To continue the previous comparison, it would be tantamount to a town with only one fire truck going to put out a fire on the far east side of town in completely metal houses, while a fire is rages on the west side of town demolishing wooden houses. This may seem critical of me, but I really do understand the intent of their actions and that they could be extremely significant in the long run. Remember kids, one million begins with one, so although something small, like a random act of kindness does not seem like much, it could be all someone really needs.