1. The ozone hole above the earth is the smallest since 2006 and may disappear by 2050 which is a long time from now. I probably won't be alive then.
2. Our recent budget bill passed by the U.S. Congress included the highly relevant removal of protection against shooting gray wolves.
3. If you were giving out the 2011 Environmental Hero award I am sure that the actress, Darryl Hannah, would not be the person who would first come to mind...but she is getting the award.
4. In my neighborhood several folks leave on porch lights which I can see blazing the woods as I crawl into bed each evening. These lights would not discourage robbers as there are many dark corner windows for them to explore. I suggest we turn off all our outside lights at night to reduce light pollution which is a huge tragedy on this planet.
5. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed rules to reduce mercury emissions from coal plants by 91%. According to some politicians this would be too expensive for coal plants to implement. I think it would be too expensive for baby lungs NOT to implement.
6. Pollution for the copper mine chosen to produce metal for the medals awarded at the 2012 London Olympics is responsible for up to 200 premature deaths each year. Sort of takes the edge off of the reason for the Olympics.
7. In 2006 Brazil and Peru agreed to construct five dams throughout Peru, selling most of the power to energy hungry Brazil which has reduced its poverty rate to 15.3%. Most of these dams will be built in the heart of the last rain forests in the world creating cities and new highways and jobs into the heart of the green.
8. Kit foxes living in cities in California have a diet richer in corn products than their more rural cousins...probably due to corn syrup...i.e. junk food from trash.
9. Earth Week is almost over...how about using cloth for wrapping your Easter Gifts? Turning off all lights at night? Not using so many paper towels or turning off the continual rinse water when washing dishes?
10. I did not know about this group!
11. If you have children you might do one or two of these this week.
12. The good side of rising gas prices is that we will be forced to pay for a fossil fuel at its real value. Of course, those on fixed incomes and those who are poor will learn this lesson in an unfair way.
13. When you go shopping today, look for things you need and not things you want, and please remember that there is no more away to throw it!
Somewhere ahead, the planet will get tired of us. By now we should be preparing Mars for the future generation. The planet is quickly dying, humans will never learn.
ReplyDeleteInformative post.
As always, you are spot-on.
ReplyDeleteBut we all pay lip-service without following through. Some of us, you and me amongst them, do some of the things you mention, we are aware of the destruction of the planet by man's greed, but profit margins and luxury living are still more important for those who could actually do something about it.
I don't agree with HalfCrazy's solution. Why should we have the right to spread our bad habits across the galaxy?
Let's stop messing about here and now, on our own planet.
I listened to a talk show the other day where the scientists pretty much agreed that space living was so far into the future that the destruction of our planet by pollution would occur long before we had the ability to run away.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Friko. If we screw it up, we should have to live with it. Besides, whatever makes anyone think the "little people" would be allowed to go? Only our "upper class" would be rich enough or even considered for transport.
ReplyDeleteSo much and yet so simple to do.
ReplyDeleteOn the lights at night. I have none on but neighbors leave them on all night. I leave my blinds open at night and can see their lights. Wish they would turn them off. At least they are far in the distance and shining through the woods.
Well, you have an excellent list here. I am tempted to re-post it, with your permission of course.
ReplyDelete'Bout time the Republicans with an environmental consciousness spoke up; thanks for including that link.
Thank you for your wonderful list. I'm going to some of them, starting with the porch light. It dawned on me that I could put a time motion detector on and it would just go on when someone was coming up the stairs.
ReplyDeleteOur town recycles, they charge us for it and gave us a 96 gallon can to put it every week. I don't fill it up myself but my sons bring their recycling and add it each week as they have none at their respective residences i.e. apartment and farm. It has been so successful that the contractor who picks it up is complaining about the cost. We will have to pay more or they will cut it back. Too successful, good grief.
I didn't know about the dams. There goes the oxygen, literally.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing, doubly sad as Japan turns radioactive and the hot-but-spent uranium fuel rods pile up 65 miles away or so, is that each day we are reminded via the sun's relentless light and heat that a source of free and almost entirely non-polluting energy beams in free for the taking but mostly ignored...
When I walk my dogs at night or in the wee hours of the morning I curse those who leave their porch lights on. I like everything pitch black. For me though, it is the pain in my eyes and the searing headache the lights cause me to have. I don't even like a night light on any longer. My only light during the night is the stupid flashing from my new router's wireless device. I may start turning it off also.
ReplyDeleteI put gas in my truck, and that's such a giant sin I'm not moving for the next two weeks.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the inspiration and the reminders. It is hard to be green all the time, especially when we live in an area that needs heat. I guess the main thing is that we encourage each other to do better.
ReplyDeleteWe've always ranched, necessitating an agraian life style.
ReplyDeleteI've heard way too many "greenies", that don't have a lick of sense,(I'm not referring to you) telling the rest of us how to live, while they think nothing of their own wastefull life styles.
HalfCrazy speaks from her other half. Somehow, even the optimists begin to sound like pessimists.
ReplyDeleteSo many easy ways we could become more efficient while friendlier to our earth. I don't understand why that isn't important to more. Thanks for posting this.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for the nighttime turn off the light thing.
And where is that beautiful beach where you stand?
I'm almost a week late for this TT! My neighbor just spread mulch and it is stinking up the whole place. (I can't remember what you said that prompted me to say that. I tend to forget what I was thinking by the time I am back here in at comments page.)
ReplyDelete