The Toronto Strike is wrapping up, so soon the mounds of garbage putrifying the city will be collected and taken to landfills. Yet it seems people still aren't cluing in on a very important lesson: looking at the amount of waste we generate. Most of it does not biodegrade and is potentially toxic to the environment. Landfills are serious zones of contamination for soil, groundwater, and the nearby ecology. And yet, while we know about waste, pollution, plastics and styrofoams that don't break down, we continue with our consumption and callous wastefulness.
Try imagining for a moment every MacDonald's in the world. If you go to one, you will see unbelievable amounts of plastics and syrofoams and cheap uneaten food filling garbage bag after garbage bag, everyday. Now multiply.
I personally know full well how much waste I generate, and while I've been trying over the last few years to find a lifestyle that wastes nothing but compost and a bit of recycling, I am still ashamed of myself every time I acquiesce to throwing stuff into the garbage, which is still too often.
So I just wanted to re-post this video, which I posted before in March in a tremendous rage of anger. I re-posted this earlier because of a comment on my statement that "the ocean's are FUCKED."
I, for one, encourage everybody to try a little experiment, which I have done more than once: don't throw away anything, for at least a month. Watch how much waste you produce. I guarantee it will surprise you. As you build up your pile of garbage, try to find ways to recycle the stuff by yourself, close to home. I don't know the figure, I need to re-check, but I think that the average amount of material we put in the recycling which actually gets recycled is only 30%. The stuff that doesn't get recycled is predominantly plastic and styrofoam.
Watch this:
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Re-cap
I just wanted to re-post this video, which I posted before in March in a tremendous rage of anger. I wanted to re-post this because of a comment on yesterday's post on my statement that "the ocean's are FUCKED." I, for one, encourage everybody to try a little experiment: don't throw away anything, for at least a month. Watch how much waste you produce. I guarantee it will surprise you. As you build up your pile of garbage, try to find ways to recycle the stuff by yourself, close to home. I don't know the figure, I need to re-check, but I think that the average amount of material we put in the recycling which actually gets recycled is only 30%. The stuff that doesn't get recycled is predominantly plastic and styrofoam.
Watch this:
Watch this:
THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK
If you want to know why our world today is so fucked up, check out this book. Capitalism in action.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
So, here's the situation....
To those who read or check Peaceful Seeds, thank you so much for your interest, and I'm truly sorry for the lack of activity over the last while. Life has calmed down now for a little while, giving me some actual time to reflect and write for my blog again.
over the past few months it's been nice to mostly have some fun with my posts, especially since the workload as well as the information intake got so enormously heavy. But now I've been able to rest a bit and can get back to business.
First of all, I'd like to just make a few points.
The Earth's climate is changing. This is old news, but a lot of people actually still don't believe in it. Particularly I want to address the Esoteric Agenda/New World Order conspiracy theorists. While we definitely live in an age of plutocracy and imperialism, Climate Change is not a lie dreamt up by the ruling elite. It is due partly to increased activity from the Sun. The sun, and as a result, the rest of the solar system, is getting hotter. However, because the sun has only been increasing in radiation output by 0.05% per decade, it's not nearly enough to account for the changing climate we see today. Now, of course there's always lots of misinformation, hearsay, and conjecture around these issues, and I myself must technically be included among it. Even so, as an environmental student, the actual science is very clear, as are the obvious trends which the climate is undergoing. I actually first noticed it when I was 12. But the point is, the number of cars in the world today is somewhere between 600 and 700 million. Carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere at an astounding and increasing rate, STILL. So much for the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, as are water vapour and methane. The CO2 being emitted by humanity is causing what is called the "Enhanced Greenhouse Effect", as opposed to the Natural Greenhouse Effect. The Natural Greenhouse Effect is part of the balance we used to have on this planet. The CO2 we used to emit was nowhere near the amount we emit today, and so it was absorbed by forests, grasslands, and oceans. Today, at least 20% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions comes from deforestation. The reforestation that is occurring is nothing compared to the amount of deforestation which is still being done, especially today in this economy. Alot of burning is being done. We're all still getting alot of our energy from coal, something i think should've stopped long ago. I was actually shocked when I was 13 when I learned that Canada was still getting energy from coal plants at all.
This is all indicative of anthropogenic climate change. Most of the people in the world are truly unaware of how fucked the environment is. We've lost half of our forests, half of our wetlands, much of our grasslands, our oceans are FUCKED, industries are still plundering resources and producing tons of pollution, nuclear energy is still putting people's health at risk and generating tons and tons of nuclear waste which we have no idea what to do with, and species are going extinct at a phenomenal rate. The other great extinction events throughout the Earth's history all took millions of years to happen; today's, which is called the Holocene Extinction event, is occurring alarmingly fast.
If you're reading this and you don't believe me, as I know some of you don't, please just go and check. But check exhaustively; don't just believe me, but find out for yourself. But if you don't believe me, then please don't just go and believe someone else's theories either. Check their facts and sources. If you go on Google scholar, you can find actual scientific reports based on real, hard data gathered in the field.
To encourage people to conduct their own research, I will not post my sources until tomorrow. See for yourself what's going on. The problem of course with the internet, is that all of the information is there, but so is all of the misinformation. One has to sift through it, and not be satisfied with any answers until they can be proven. If anyone can come up with some solid data that refutes anything I've said, please let me know so I can see it. Thank you all.
over the past few months it's been nice to mostly have some fun with my posts, especially since the workload as well as the information intake got so enormously heavy. But now I've been able to rest a bit and can get back to business.
First of all, I'd like to just make a few points.
The Earth's climate is changing. This is old news, but a lot of people actually still don't believe in it. Particularly I want to address the Esoteric Agenda/New World Order conspiracy theorists. While we definitely live in an age of plutocracy and imperialism, Climate Change is not a lie dreamt up by the ruling elite. It is due partly to increased activity from the Sun. The sun, and as a result, the rest of the solar system, is getting hotter. However, because the sun has only been increasing in radiation output by 0.05% per decade, it's not nearly enough to account for the changing climate we see today. Now, of course there's always lots of misinformation, hearsay, and conjecture around these issues, and I myself must technically be included among it. Even so, as an environmental student, the actual science is very clear, as are the obvious trends which the climate is undergoing. I actually first noticed it when I was 12. But the point is, the number of cars in the world today is somewhere between 600 and 700 million. Carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere at an astounding and increasing rate, STILL. So much for the Kyoto Protocol. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, as are water vapour and methane. The CO2 being emitted by humanity is causing what is called the "Enhanced Greenhouse Effect", as opposed to the Natural Greenhouse Effect. The Natural Greenhouse Effect is part of the balance we used to have on this planet. The CO2 we used to emit was nowhere near the amount we emit today, and so it was absorbed by forests, grasslands, and oceans. Today, at least 20% of global annual greenhouse gas emissions comes from deforestation. The reforestation that is occurring is nothing compared to the amount of deforestation which is still being done, especially today in this economy. Alot of burning is being done. We're all still getting alot of our energy from coal, something i think should've stopped long ago. I was actually shocked when I was 13 when I learned that Canada was still getting energy from coal plants at all.
This is all indicative of anthropogenic climate change. Most of the people in the world are truly unaware of how fucked the environment is. We've lost half of our forests, half of our wetlands, much of our grasslands, our oceans are FUCKED, industries are still plundering resources and producing tons of pollution, nuclear energy is still putting people's health at risk and generating tons and tons of nuclear waste which we have no idea what to do with, and species are going extinct at a phenomenal rate. The other great extinction events throughout the Earth's history all took millions of years to happen; today's, which is called the Holocene Extinction event, is occurring alarmingly fast.
If you're reading this and you don't believe me, as I know some of you don't, please just go and check. But check exhaustively; don't just believe me, but find out for yourself. But if you don't believe me, then please don't just go and believe someone else's theories either. Check their facts and sources. If you go on Google scholar, you can find actual scientific reports based on real, hard data gathered in the field.
To encourage people to conduct their own research, I will not post my sources until tomorrow. See for yourself what's going on. The problem of course with the internet, is that all of the information is there, but so is all of the misinformation. One has to sift through it, and not be satisfied with any answers until they can be proven. If anyone can come up with some solid data that refutes anything I've said, please let me know so I can see it. Thank you all.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
man....
Get up this morning. Have moved into the new place. Basement apartment - needs alot of work. Landlord fixing floor on Monday. Needs new light fixtures, new paint job, serious cleaning, and deodorizing before I really unpack. And goodbye sunshine, hello dark clouds and strong winds. Don't know if I should do some work or not. Still weary. No internet; too much going on in the world; no time...
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