At the start of Comics on the Brain, we decided that this blog would focus on the fun things in life. We wouldn’t be sullying this Web space with politics, disasters or real-world horrors.
But that all ends now.
The COTB staff has uncovered a terrible plague on us all: The pollution threat of dihydrogen monoxide.
Unlike the debate that’s raging on global warming, you won’t find a single scientist that will dispute the facts about dihydrogen monoxide.
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One Web site, DHMO.org, is an active participant in the campaign to remove or at least limit the use of DHMO around the world. The site includes a fascinating FAQ that provides a laundry-list of the irrefutable dangers of this caustic chemicals, some of which PQH! feels obligated to list:
- Accidental inhalation of DHMO can kill, even in small quantities.
- Proven to be a major component of acid rain.
- In case after case, it’s been shown the chemical was given to vicious dogs within hours of attacking children.
- Detected in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit.
- A major ingredient in terrorist-made bombs, and chemical and biological weapons.
And the list goes on as long as your arm. In all, it paints an ugly picture of this awful, caustic chemcial.
So just what is dihydrogen monoxide? Well, that’s the scary part. It’s like a stealth chemical. Accoding to DHMO.org, “Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a colorless and odorless chemical compound, also referred to by some as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen Hydroxide, Hydronium Hydroxide, or simply Hydric acid.”
So basically, we can’t see it. We can’t smell it.
So if we can’t detect it, we must rely on our government to take control and ban it.
Y
es, COTB! demands that every reader of this blog call his or her elected officials and demand action.
We can push for change if we can only work together.
All political leanings, all races, all religions need to work together on this!
Yes, we certainly could do this … if the threat were a real one. It’s not.
You see, Dihydrogen Monoxide has yet another name: Water.
Yep, plain old H20.
Yep, the DHMO.org web site is really a sort of test to see how gullible people can be.
The site, and various DHMO fact sheets that circulate around the Internet, simply measure the reception of information depending on how it is framed.
In fact, just last week, snopes.com, the well-known debunker of urban legends, reports that a New Zealand politician fell victim to the “DHMO panic” and requested the government take action on it.
The story of the hoax, which also includes a pro-DHMO site, and the studies based on it are actually quite interesting as told by the folks at Wikipedia.
Of course, maybe we shouldn’t trust them either.
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