Post To World Changing #1: Alyssa Olson

I chose to read the section in World Changing about land mines. I was interested in this subject because I never have had to worry about such things while other people are constantly in fear of encountering one. Living my entire life in the U.S. has sheltered me to such incidents and my only real interaction with the issue is through the news and media.

The most shocking part of this article was that over 1,500 people a month are killed by accident by buried land mines. These land mines are the result of past wars, many which involved the U.S., and not much effort has been put forth to exterminate the left over mines. Especially from the countries which put them there in the first place. The result is a large amount of unused land in many of these countries. Many people are too scared to build, grow, or even live near certain fields because of the fear of a land mine. This causes economic trouble for many of these countries.

I was quite surprised to find out that there is new technology being made to care for this issue, seeing as removing these mines using humans is very expensive and very dangerous. The MineWolf and The Dragon both use similar techniques to find the land mines and either destroy them or detonate them. The most innovate of all of these techniques is the land mine detecting flowers. These flowers change colors when in contact with large amounts of NO2, which is common within land mines.

I never quite understand the great risk of land mines that other people live with each and everyday. This article not only opened my mind to this issue but also to the new technologies and innovative designs that are being made to combat it.