Damaging your Environment

       Everywhere you look – magazines, newspapers, online articles, T.V. advertisements – we hear about reducing our ‘carbon footprint’ or that we’re damaging the environment.  I totally agree we are carelessly exposing the only planet we can survive on (that we know of) to extreme and cruel punishment that Mother Nature is getting sick and tired of!  And although we spend millions upon millions with special interest groups and hope & pray that businesses will start to be eco-conscience in their decisions, there really isn’t any practical advice coming down the pike to the consumer on how to help with common, every day issues of waste and pollution.  Issues that we unknowingly cause.  

One of America’s favorite pastimes (no, it’s not baseball) is swimming, boating and fishing.  Let’s look for a moment on how we power up our boats.  Those cheapy little pull-the-lever-twice engines give us 10 times more pollution in our water than the pull-the-lever-four-times engines do.  We’re talking about doubling a little bit of effort to get our boats racing across the water … we’re not speaking about someone diving into the water and pushing the thing … we’re talking about  just two strokes (pulls).  The chemical residue outboard motors create leaves an acidic deposit containing long-lasting carcinogens.  These boat motors lower the ph of the water which means that heavy metals will be released as the water becomes more acidic, thereby working their wicked way up the food chain until they become available for human consumption.  We’re looking at underwater pollution up to 1,000 % worse if we’d just bought the bit more expensive, four stroke engine. 

Seems a simple fix, doesn’t it?  But have you ever heard about it?  Doubtful.  This is the kind of information the general population needs in order to actually begin the process of saving themselves and the planet.
 

A recent report stated that 40% of greenhouse emissions were credited to agriculture!  We all know farmers use fertilizer, but what KIND of fertilizer are they using?  They probably don’t know and only care about the cost…the less expensive the better for their bottom line profit margins.  But by realizing that a small change can help reduce the total methane and nitrogen oxide content of our soil is a HUGE deal!  Bottom line for farmers:  improve the efficiency of fertilizer use.

• Having only 5% of the world’s total population, the good, ‘ol US generates 25% of the global waste
• Second in line is Russia
• Third is Japan
• Fourth is Germany, although it has a larger population (approximately 83+ million) so in terms of global waste it produces a mere 1/3 per person of what the United States does
• Spain produces the least global waste

As we continue down the fast lane in the “land of the free and home of the brave”, just how much do we really think about our lifestyles, how changing just a couple of small things (such as recycling – do you do it?) might make a lasting impact on the planet and our life in it?  How about our energy sources?  We get our fair share of wind here in America – I do believe it blows all over the earth (just being a little sarcastic; sorry)…so why is DENMARK the leader in wind power for electricity production (they’re followed by German next, then Spain, lastly the UK)?