Suzanne Harrington: Destroying stuff for war or profit or both — always the same stupid outcome

“Just don’t think about it,” my daughter says.She says that if she allowed herself to think about the state of the world and all that’s happening in it, she would go mad

This satellite image provided by Planet Labs PBC shows an overview of the damage on the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, June 6, 2023. Ukraine accused Russian forces Tuesday of blowing up the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station on the Dnieper River in an area that Moscow controls, while Russian officials blamed Ukrainian bombardment in the contested area. It was not possible to verify the claims. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

“Remind me to never blow up one of your dams,” Daughter says, when she asks why I am slamming pots into cupboards and bashing knives on chopping boards so early in the morning.

It’s those images of the Ukrainian dam, deliberately blown up, all that precious water flooding the land around it, drowning out the houses, the communities. A deliberate ecological disaster, its destruction so much worse than the localised rubble caused by bombs; there is something so gargantuanly criminal, so profligate, so wanton about this latest offensive.