These days, the news's dystopian excesses sometimes leave us with the feeling that the classic tools of the written press – a certain standard of language, a sense of nuance and balance – no longer quite fit the world as it is. Even once the facts have been reported, there's often a sense that the story told hasn't done justice to all of its strangeness.
The sequence of events that marked the day of January 20 and the inauguration of the 47th US president is the latest example, even if it's hard to say what was the craziest aspect.
The effects of the environmental crisis are also increasingly contributing to this sense of unreality – whether we're talking about the monstrous floods that ravaged Valencia and the surrounding region or the firestorm that has just wiped out parts of Los Angeles. Published in mid-January, the investigation carried out by Le Monde and some 30 European media organizations on the consequences of environmental contamination by PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkylated substances, or "forever chemicals") has been opening up new dystopian horizons.
This time, we're not talking about the unprecedented destruction caused by climate change but about the enormity of the operations required to manage this pollution, which is accumulating in soil, water, wildlife, the food chain and humans, as PFAS are produced and dispersed into the environment.
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In Zwijndrecht, near Antwerp, Belgium, the disaster has caused residential areas to be color-coded according to their contamination level. Two municipal employees are helping residents follow various instructions designed to reduce their exposure to these substances, which have been spread for decades by the nearby 3M factory.
You can't drink the water, of course, or use it for cooking or washing your car. You can't stir or blow on the soil, especially when it's dry. Children should not be allowed to play outside unless the area is covered by vegetation. Fruits and vegetables from the garden? You have to get rid of them. A huge plant collects and decontaminates excavated soil from building sites and gardens. The portion that cannot be decontaminated is sent to landfills. Soil, vegetation and water, but also fish and shellfish caught in the Scheldt estuary, have become toxic waste.
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