Natural Living Tips

As part of the conservation and environmental movement worldwide there are several campaigns aimed at banning the plastic bag.

A quick search on the web will take you to the California’s San Francisco Bay Area, “Bay vs Bag”, to the Daily Mail’s (UK) “Banish the Bags” as well as similar situations in Canada, Holland, China, elsewhere in the US and even Zanzibar.

A lot of the focus is based on the damage done to wild life, including sea mammals and birds; the effects on waste and the average number of bags used per person in different countries. In one of the lists I saw, Singapore was topping the list at 625 bags. One of the targets is to reduce by 10% the yearly consumption of these bags.

On the other hand there are also “Save the Plastic Bag” campaigns, with the plastic industry behind it. Their main focus is highlighting what they call misinformation. Their points are based on “exaggerations” on the damage done to wild life; errors in how plastic bags are made (from ethane gas that would otherwise be burnt and not petroleum); effects of co2 vs methane; potential job losses and so on.

On the banning side of the argument, there can be exaggerations as well as questionable scientific data - questionable as in anybody can question it, after all to have an argument you must always have at least two points of view.

From the “saving” the industry point of view, there can be many counter arguments to the data that is presented.  And this is quite understandable, after all their industry could be hit very badly.

(This just reminds me that all businesses have a life time curve that goes from birth, to growth, to maturity and finally to demise.  The time scale can be as short as a year to as long as a hundred years or more, but the end result is that it is replaced by something else).

To get back to the plastic bag banning situation, where paper bags have the negative effect of more trees cut, the information that is being retrieved is very important.  But it must also be as objective as possible.  Having said that, we know that it takes literally centuries for plastic to degrade and this should be the foremost argument.

Just to expand a little on the paper bag argument, which is totally reasonable, the option is not to cut more trees.

The options are to recycle and use bio-degradable alternatives.

In the old days, when plastic bags hadn’t been invented but grocery shops had, natural fiber bags were used and the customers were the ones who brought their own to the shop. With just a little effort on the individual front, these campaigns wouldn’t be necessary.

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Yesterday the Supreme Court allowed the Navy’s use of sonar in training exercises off the California coast.

This is a defeat for environmental groups, but more importantly for the whales.
See my previous post: Killer Whales Sonar Confused by Navy Call

The basis of the decision appears to be that the Navy needs to perform realistic exercises to prepare for potential threats from enemy submarines.

What’s worse is that the decision was taken because federal courts abused their discretion by ordering the Navy to limit sonar use in some cases and to turn it off altogether in others.

The decision was not based on the merits of the case.

So, “legalese”, triumphs over responsibility.

I trust this isn’t the last we hear about this.

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Every so often I hear about another set of scientists that study the methane and global warming impact that cows make.

It is a serous subject, but then again it makes you wonder.

Passing wind, or as most people would say, burping and farting, release enormous amounts of gas, methane to be precise.

One of the qualities of methane is that it retains more heat than CO2, and there lies the impact on global warming.

Argentina has over 50 million head of cattle in the Pampas, New Zealand has great amount of sheep and I would guess just about every country in the world is a contributor to this form of global warming.

Scientists have created interesting methods of collecting this gas to be able to study it. I suppose it is the amount and frequency of release. They are even working on a vaccine as well as alternative diets.

There are bound to be effects on farming and meat production and all due to the passing wind.

As I mentioned this to my youngest (at ten he has great insight in many subjects), he immediately suggested that cows shouldn’t eat beans.

From the mouths of babes.

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I just read that the air temperature in the Arctic is at a record high.

According to the NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) autumn air temperatures in the region are at a record 9ºF above average.

Ice melting during the summer has been high and fits into a pattern that has been spotted since the sixties.

The report goes on to say that it is probable there will be even less ice next year. There is bound to be an impact on land and marine animals.

There are many guesstimates and projections on future effects but nobody really knows.

As I read this two things came to mind:

1. Climate changes, either global warming or cooling, have happened many times before. With countless effects, both good and bad from our point of view. They are cyclical in nature. But we weren’t around at the time, at least in the numbers we are today. (I say at least because early man was around in the last ice age).
2. Dinosaurs became extinct in a very short period of time and the theory is that some natural catastrophe created a major climate change.

Well, it looks as if we are in a hurry to provoke climate change - the worse part is that our hurry is fed through irresponsibility, selfishness and ignorance more than anything else.

From a geological and extremely long term point of view, things will regain their balance, though we really have no idea how out of balance things will get. We haven’t a clue what sort of world the next generations will inhabit.

The good news is that there is much more awareness of the environment than at any other time before, and this gives me hope we can reverse the damage we have caused, (although there is a risk that we may have reached the point of no return where natural forces start taking over under their own steam).

Can we learn from what happened to the dinosaurs?

At the end of the day that is a question that can only be answered by each individual.

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