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There is evidence that a student of Aristotle noticed and documented how human activities disrupted the climate back in 300 BC. Now, I’m not sure how anyone is sure about what was said in 300 BC, but, I am sure that my fifth grade teacher taught us (many years ago) how human activity disrupts the climate.

I wasn’t a student as long ago as Aristotle, but, science has recognized and studied the problem for long enough. My weekly reader explained the effects burning coal and petroleum has on the atmosphere. I was apparently dismayed by this information because I remember it vividly. I remember feeling worried.

In 1965 U.S. President Lyndon Johnson told Congress: “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through…a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”

We know that this planet is pretty small as far as planets go and extremely unique as far as being inhabitable. Since we know good planets are hard to find, you would think the world would find that taking care of this one is much more important than pretty much anything else. Why then would senators boycott a meeting designed to protect the climate of our planet.

We heeded the advice of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher after she explained to the United Nations: “The problem of global climate change is one that affects us all and action will only be effective if it is taken at the international level. It is no good squabbling over who is responsible or who should pay;” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created in 1995.   They concluded that humans are causing global warming, saying: “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”

The world is finally deciding we need to do something and our senators are boycotting meetings. Why!!

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee tried to overcome a Republican boycott of a major climate bill. Only one Republican senator even showed up for the meeting, and he stayed just long enough to ask for a five-week delay and more study. (I won’t go as far back as Aristotle, but, it’s been studied) Senator Bernie Sanders lamented the obstruction tactics by what he called “the party of no.” The stalling strategy has so far blocked action on critical issues ranging from health care to global warming. The country, Sanders added, has gone from electing a new president one year ago whose uplifting promise was “yes we can” to the spectacle of a small but stubborn rump group of senators whose motto is “no we won’t.”

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/photos/gallery/?id=b862022d-95b1-4625-963d-34a3a69ac839

So in 2009 our President, along with the other – Group of Eight leaders agreed industrialized nations should cut emissions on average by 80 percent by 2050 and limit warming to a maximum of 2 Celsius above pre-industrial times. The 8 leaders went home to their various congresses and parliaments so we could get it together for our unique planet.

Our senators are so busy disliking our President that they are forgetting what their job is. I guess the citizens who vote for these senators are so busy disliking our President that they are ignoring scientific facts. I just want to jab my eyes out when I read about crap like this! What would happen to you or me if we didn’t go to work because we didn’t like our boss.  Come to think of it the American public is their boss and we should be outraged.

I read about the folks who are against healthcare reform they seem to belong to the same pile of people who are against cleaning up the environment.  The common denominator seems to be they don’t like the costs of these humanitarian interventions.  Talk about jab my eyes out!  Is it that they figure some people and places are just expendable?  They are poor and uneducated and someone has to clean up our mistakes and make our chemicals.  Look at these pictures from China.  This would seem to exemplify the cost of not caring.

So when you are shopping for a toy for your favorite tot and you notice that it was made in China.  Remember this picture of plastic factory waste going in to what was once a beautiful river.

Next time you buy an Iphone, computer or various other electronics and some jewelry remember this titanium plant.

Without rules a nations people are allowed to suffer.  Without activism the suffering continues.  Our country allows activism and yet some refer to those activists as socialists.  I don’t get it.

Don’t blame this horridness on the people of China.  Just like here there are good people trying to do good things to advocate for the health and happiness of all people.  Not just those who can afford good health and happiness.  Please see the entire article and all the photos at

http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/

Tim Gummer says:

If it wasn’t already obvious, then it is surely clear here that our Stuff is made in a Mordor of this very earth, by a people in slavery. In a globalized world, our complicity in their deaths and suffering is no less than those who stood by in the towns of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. These workers’ horrors may be marginally less, but unlike the deathcamps’ neighbours, we cannot pretend we have not seen.

After a free labor day meal, the polystyrene containers that filled the garbage cans were painful to see.  Their usefulness lasted for 1/2 hour and their time in the landfill (polystyrene isn’t recycled) will last for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years.

Did you know styrofoam AKA polystyrene, AKA plastic #6 is manufactured using benzene, from coal; styrene, from petroleum; and ethylene, a “blowing agent”.  The main manufacturing route to styrene is the direct catalytic dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene: If you understand that and want more detail go to…
http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/hlthef/styrene.html

Long-term exposure to styrene in humans results in effects on the central nervous system (CNS), such as headache, fatigue, weakness, and depression, CNS dysfunction, hearing loss, and peripheral neuropathy. This only happens after long term exposure, so if you live long enough you’ll be a deaf, unbalanced, dummyhead with tremors and restless leg syndrome. Know anyone like that?

You might think to yourself…  “Somethings gotta kill me, I’m not gonna worry about monomers of styrene”.  Try thinking of this.  It takes 500 years for the chemical components of polystyrene to dissolve and it’s foreverness accounts for 25% of landfill waste.

While polystyrene is recyclable, most recycling programs don’t.  Burning polystyrene releases all the stuff it is made of into the air;  including dioxin, and carbon monoxide. Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer. Prevention or reduction of human exposure is best done via source-directed measures, i.e. strict control of industrial processes to reduce formation of dioxins as much as possible. That is from WHO, as in the World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs225/en/

There are some positive things we can do with the Styrofoam/polystyrene that already exists.  If you mix it with cement and make building blocks out of it, the result is strong enough to withstand earthquakes.  If the building burns we’re screwed so make sure there is a good sprinkler system installed.

A concern was espressed that if California does away with all polystyrene containers for food use — jobs will be lost.  Those plants that are currently making polystyrene containers for food consumption are in China.  Hong Kong has a study of the impacts of polystyrene. http://www.way-to-go.org/doc/PolystyreneFactSheets.pdf

The legislature (Of Hawaii) finds that it is in the interest of protecting the public health and safety to prohibit the use of polystyrene food containers by restaurants and take-out food operations. http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2008/Bills/SB2629_.htm

The market is bursting with alternatives including polylactic acid (PLA), which is generated using corn instead of petroleum. Many of these substitutes can be commercially composted after use.

Another great product I read about is Angela Morris’ Woolcool… http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article5949979.ece

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A very smart lady named Margarita Calafell is using enzymes to make a super product to replace polystyrene.  Hope she can make it waterproof so we can use if for take out. http://www.engineersedge.com/technology_news/posts/794.html

Hopefully polystyrene will go away as will asbestos.

Some people have been in the Ozarks so long I guess they don’t see its beauty and they leave junk and trash and it makes me mad and I tend to say so.  I don’t like the chicken factories and all the crap they spread on the fields that ends up in the rivers and lakes and I tend to say so.  I don’t like that so much of the population here doesn’t have healthcare and I tend to say so.   I don’t like the coal fired power plant industry actively trying to squash energy innovations and I tend to say so.

Loretta asked me why I complain so much about where we live.  An apology was wholeheartedly given and then a mental inventory was done of the times I’ve been derogatory–>pretty often. Loretta and I live here. This has always been her home. Loretta’s stories of life growing up in the Ozarks make me laugh; what a wonderful time she has had.

I grew up on military bases.  As a teen I worked in a restaurant where we wore nametags stating our name and where we were from.  Mine said,  I was from Don and Barbara. (my parents).  Growing up on military bases was fun.  Like small towns except no one is actually from there.

I asked one of the doctors Loretta and I work with why people around here whoot so much. They don’t whoot on airbases, although they salute often.  In return, he asked me if I’d ever been so happy that I just wanted to holler out my joy.  I decided to try whooting and now I find myself enjoying a good whoot now and then.

I actually love it here and Loretta is one of the reasons why.  We have conversations about dreams, pasts, kids, parents, our fold.  Loretta  doesn’t easily allow anyone in to her fold and I am privileged to be in it.  Her wit cracks me up and she lives her faith.  Many people around here talk faith talk, she exemplifies her faith and doesn’t have to talk it.

We are inquisitive and have had engaging conversations about our different pasts.  Her children and her family are her center. Family picnics and summers at the creek or the lake.  I love that.   She inspires me to see what is in front of me and never complains or says a bad thing about another person or place.  I’m embarrassed that I have dissed her home.

Being accepting is the best way to heal this sore world.  Accepting various religions and ethnicities.  Deserts, mountains, beaches,  cold vs hot climates.  It is a good thing we don’t all like the same things or we’d all be piled up in Lorettas town.

but why would someone come to a beautiful place like this and leave trash.  It makes me mad and I tend to say so.

The news makes me want to jab my eyes out.  “Why do you let things bother you?” is the response I often get when I share my disconcert.

Sometimes, you just want to write your thoughts down, get them on paper, or blog, or comment. So here I am, stumbling around and falling over some information that needs to be shared. The authors aren’t always available to me while stumbling; I’ll try to give credit to the sites and authors of information retrieved and commented on. Quotes are in black and my comments are blue.