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purpledragonclaw wrote:
I do know electric cars pollute the atmosphere more in their construction than the fuel they save over years!
Tying into Jen’s post about transporting food… those electric cars require materials from almost every established nation in the world. Here’s one for ya — the nickel in the nickel-metal hydride batteries is mined in Canada, and shipped to Japan… then they ship the car back. You would think… hey, put the batteries in here? Yeah, but no. That would cost more… money. Less environment, but more money.
:hi: It is good to hear all you going green… There is always someone out there trying to make money on the newest trend, yes; but,this needs to be a state of mind, not money. If you are worried that the “organic” farmers just trying to make money… Go green by planting your own garden. It saves money, too. It might be hard work in the beginning 🙄 , this is my first year trying it, but when you can eat what you grew it makes you feel so “big”. 😀 I wish that we had a place we can take our hazards to. They aren’t so big about the recycling thing down here. We just recieved recycling privledges. 😆 They say it is a privledge… I hold on to my hazards until I get wind of a organization finally making their way down here to help. The recycling pick up we have right now still won’t pick anything up they can’t make money on either.. They only take aluminum and tin cans, milk and water jugs only, and glass.. All fluid containers are recyclable, why can’t they take those too… I thank all of you trying to help our Mother, Nature, out. She needs help. There are to many of us out there that don’t care… :bye:
:hi: This is WONDERFUL! Keep up the good works and spread the wealth{the knowledge} 😀 Who’s next? Everyone has something to add 😀
Every act matters.No matter how small💞
(Wanted......Brimstone Lap)
Male Hearth....one day🤞Dream on.Most everything we drive is Diesel, we only have one gas vehicle left, and when they make a half tonne diesel pick-up that will go as well. We cant buy meat local, because there is just no “local” (which is odd for me because I grew up in farm land), so we buy from one of the butchers, nor do we have a framers market. We are lucky if we have 4 months of growing season. Have to buy from a grocery store.
:hi: Recycle your shipping boxes.Flip them inside out and you have a clean box ready to ship back out 😀
Every act matters.No matter how small💞
(Wanted......Brimstone Lap)
Male Hearth....one day🤞Dream on.purpledragonclaw wrote:I leaned forward in my seat while I read your post, DZ. Much of that I did not know. I do know electric cars pollute the atmosphere more in their construction than the fuel they save over years! How quickly I forgot that. I also knew that about “organic” farms putting smaller farms out of business.
I already grow my own food. I will go green by passing this knowledge on to others and applying it to my own life. Knowledge is power.
I’ve been told I have a somewhat unorthodox view of the situation. Being a wildlife biologist puts me at the cusp of some very thrilling and new ideas… but it also brings to bare the absolute greed of almost everyone involved. It’s depressing to see things with such promise – like genetically modified foods, nuclear power, etc. – go to the dogs so quickly just because someone wants to make a quick buck, or screwed up so badly everyone simply has a knee jerk reaction to it.
My objection to electric cars isn’t in their production (though, that is a REALLY good point, and one I have stuck in my brain for the future) but rather in that the electricity they run on must still come from somewhere. Given California is prone to energy crises, is this really such a great idea? Hmmm… no, time for the would-be “green” faction to re-think that.
Another one I have a major pick with is wind power. It’s clean, but it has a profound and horrific effect on bat and bird populations, as well as utterly ruining scenic views. Anyone who has seen what becomes of an eagle that got too close to one of these things might sympathize a bit better, and realize that ugly, destructive windmills aren’t an answer.
Knowledge is indeed power. Best not to be a mushroom – that is, fed s*** and kept in the dark!
My personal choice for power is nuclear myself. Like you said, self regenerating.
I don’t like hydrogen fueled cars for the same reason that you don’t like electric. The power to get that hydrogen has got to come from somewhere, often it comes from the same fossil fuels you’d be putting in your car anyway. And it uses up an equal amount.
Hydroelectric isn’t that good either. Mass land and habitat destruction to create them dams.
I’d grow my own food, but I can’t get much on my balcony. 😕 Maybe when I have my own backyard.
I had forgotten about windmills! Yes, they look so pretty from a distance, but once you get up close to them you see what monstrosities they are. Hawks get torn up by them, too, and I think even cows suffer from them. What’s your stance on solar power, DZ?
Another fan of nuclear power here, not only because my dad is a physicist working at the “local” nuclear reactor power plant 😉
I am something of an obsessive recycler, to the point I accidentally got into a fight with my neighbor about trash 😳 You see, where I live, organic waste goes in green bags, recycling in blue and everything else in clear. I went to get my bike out of a shed I share with my neighbor (long story) and found the shed FULL of black garbage bags, of obviously mixed garbage! I was so horrified! LOL I was also really confused, because I know for a fact the garbage trucks won’t pick up anything put in black garbage bags and how did she fill the shed in the two weeks between “clear” garbage pickup, it was at least five full-size bags! So I decided that maybe no one had ever told her the city system, so I wrote a one-page “primer” and suggested the shed wasn’t a good place for food garbage (the door is not animal proof because it’s barely working :X) and boy, that didn’t go over well! She knocked on my door and told me off LOL I tried to be super polite in the note but I guess it rubbed her the wrong way anyway @_@
She also kicked my bike out of our shared shed :X LOL
Anyway, I also bike and walk whenever I can, take the bus to the places I can’t bike or walk to and I also “recycle” in that I am a dedicated street scavenger for people’s unwanted tables and other non-fabric goodies 😉
dark_zorse wrote:Example 2. Pesticides. Here’s a biggie most green organizations don’t want you to know. Most pesticides and chemicals – including DDT – (oh! End of the world! DDT!) are safe so long as you use them as they are SUPPOSED to be used. In other words… you do not go out and DUMP millions upon MILLIONS of gallons into fields, lakes, and streams. Few folks know DDT was the sole reason why malaria never became a problem in the United States.
This is true to a degree, but it’s also true that even if people use pesticides to the amounts they are supposed to, they still end up in waterways and they still build up in the fatty tissue of animals. It takes longer if people use less, but it’ll still kill animals, including people on rare occasion. It’s a poison, that’s what it’s meant to do. That’s why it affects birds so badly, because of the exponential leveling up of poisoning amounts due to the insects and other small animals they eat that already have their own dose of poison, as if the prey were little storage boxes of pesticide. So yeah it won’t poison you, the person putting it on your plants, but it’s still dangerous because of how it persists in the natural world. That’s my problem with it, more so than the harm to me personally. I can be aware of the risk and take precautions to protect myself, but animals can’t.
angelwitnoeyes wrote::hi: It is good to hear all you going green… There is always someone out there trying to make money on the newest trend, yes; but,this needs to be a state of mind, not money. If you are worried that the “organic” farmers just trying to make money… Go green by planting your own garden. It saves money, too. It might be hard work in the beginning 🙄 , this is my first year trying it, but when you can eat what you grew it makes you feel so “big”. 😀
My Grandparents always had a garden in my back yard for years when I was little. It was huge, but she canned enough tomatoes and such to keep all 3 of her kids, 6 of her grand kids, and herself and my Grandfather over every year! I loved going out and picking lettuce and peppers, and carrots with her.
This is my first year too. I have a 15×30 ft garden. I have just about everything but brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and broccoli (Just not enough room.). It is partly shady, in the hottest part of the afternoon, so it’s a real big test situation. But, I am not going to cut down another one of my beautiful 100 yr old silver Maples. I already had to cut one of 3 because it hung over the garage and house, the wind made it a hazard during the summer storms. :shrug: But, I did put a Magnolia tree in the front yard to compensate. It is 7 yrs old and is over 25 feet tall. If you want to grow anything, and have it big within 3 years, I say peat moss is the way to go. I also planted a regular pussy willow bush, supposed to get 10 ft by 10 ft…We finally had to cut it down in 2007, it had grown into the foundation and caused the bricks to dislodge. It was 30 ft tall and 15 ft in diameter. It had 3 inch pussy willows on it, and made beautiful cut stems. I miss it…But, I get to put a new one in this year! 😀
I also have atleast 5 large palm trees inside and one large cactus, also various smaller plants. I love green! 😀My stance on solar is that it is a god technology, but must be integrated accordingly. Eating up vast acreage with solar panels isn’t my idea of heaven. When integrated properly – that is, perched on a roof, or an otherwise innocuous space that isn’t doing anything, they work and work well. There are solar panels going to be installed on the roof of my stable to help keep the PG&E bills down.
sunhawk wrote:dark_zorse wrote:Example 2. Pesticides. Here’s a biggie most green organizations don’t want you to know. Most pesticides and chemicals – including DDT – (oh! End of the world! DDT!) are safe so long as you use them as they are SUPPOSED to be used. In other words… you do not go out and DUMP millions upon MILLIONS of gallons into fields, lakes, and streams. Few folks know DDT was the sole reason why malaria never became a problem in the United States.
This is true to a degree, but it’s also true that even if people use pesticides to the amounts they are supposed to, they still end up in waterways and they still build up in the fatty tissue of animals. It takes longer if people use less, but it’ll still kill animals, including people on rare occasion. It’s a poison, that’s what it’s meant to do. That’s why it affects birds so badly, because of the exponential leveling up of poisoning amounts due to the insects and other small animals they eat that already have their own dose of poison, as if the prey were little storage boxes of pesticide. So yeah it won’t poison you, the person putting it on your plants, but it’s still dangerous because of how it persists in the natural world. That’s my problem with it, more so than the harm to me personally. I can be aware of the risk and take precautions to protect myself, but animals can’t.
Aha, I was waiting for someone to bring up trophic accumulation.
This I will not deny is true. And it is not the chemical itself causing the problem, it is what the chemical breaks down into over time. That is, a chemical that mimics estrogen. And it does in fact, bioaccumulate in tissues – particularly fats – thus making it a candidate to poison or kill off animals higher up the food chain. The conditions you see in keystone predators – your hawks, eagles, and polar bears – was due to YEARS of gross chemical misuse, and yes, such an act should be avoided. Using pesticides as I said – properly – usually prevents this. Used properly, there wouldn’t be enough of the chemical to bioaccumulate unless said keystone predators lived to be hundreds of years old. But most – not even the larger birds of prey – live for a fraction of that. And we still see the aftereffects of this gross misuse today. I am not speaking in favor of anyone misusing a chemical designed to kill pests – but there is a definite line between proper use, and misuse, and I find both extremes absurd.
Less is definitely more, in this case.
Thank you, Zorse, for your posts. I agree in full.
“Being green” is such a faddy phrase – or reminiscent of sickness – that I prefer call the following good stewardship. We recycle paper and cardboard, glass according to color, plastic, aluminum and all other metals. We have a garden, though it tends to serve more to feeding the resident rodents than ourselves. We buy locally as much as possible – wood, milk, eggs, bakery goods, vegetables and fruit come from local or at least inland productions (and inland here is local in American terms). When another vote comes up over renewing a nuclear reactor or building a new one, I’m in favor of nuclear energy.
And still my car is a gas-guzzling V6, and in the summer I can go through 15 gallons of high-octane gas a week on the motorcycle with my evening joyrides. As long as it’s available, I’m going to use it.dark_zorse wrote:My stance on solar is that it is a god technology, but must be integrated accordingly. Eating up vast acreage with solar panels isn’t my idea of heaven. When integrated properly – that is, perched on a roof, or an otherwise innocuous space that isn’t doing anything, they work and work well. There are solar panels going to be installed on the roof of my stable to help keep the PG&E bills down.
sunhawk wrote:dark_zorse wrote:Example 2. Pesticides. Here’s a biggie most green organizations don’t want you to know. Most pesticides and chemicals – including DDT – (oh! End of the world! DDT!) are safe so long as you use them as they are SUPPOSED to be used. In other words… you do not go out and DUMP millions upon MILLIONS of gallons into fields, lakes, and streams. Few folks know DDT was the sole reason why malaria never became a problem in the United States.
This is true to a degree, but it’s also true that even if people use pesticides to the amounts they are supposed to, they still end up in waterways and they still build up in the fatty tissue of animals. It takes longer if people use less, but it’ll still kill animals, including people on rare occasion. It’s a poison, that’s what it’s meant to do. That’s why it affects birds so badly, because of the exponential leveling up of poisoning amounts due to the insects and other small animals they eat that already have their own dose of poison, as if the prey were little storage boxes of pesticide. So yeah it won’t poison you, the person putting it on your plants, but it’s still dangerous because of how it persists in the natural world. That’s my problem with it, more so than the harm to me personally. I can be aware of the risk and take precautions to protect myself, but animals can’t.
Aha, I was waiting for someone to bring up trophic accumulation.
This I will not deny is true. And it is not the chemical itself causing the problem, it is what the chemical breaks down into over time. That is, a chemical that mimics estrogen. And it does in fact, bioaccumulate in tissues – particularly fats – thus making it a candidate to poison or kill off animals higher up the food chain. The conditions you see in keystone predators – your hawks, eagles, and polar bears – was due to YEARS of gross chemical misuse, and yes, such an act should be avoided. Using pesticides as I said – properly – usually prevents this. Used properly, there wouldn’t be enough of the chemical to bioaccumulate unless said keystone predators lived to be hundreds of years old. But most – not even the larger birds of prey – live for a fraction of that. And we still see the aftereffects of this gross misuse today. I am not speaking in favor of anyone misusing a chemical designed to kill pests – but there is a definite line between proper use, and misuse, and I find both extremes absurd.
Less is definitely more, in this case.
That’s why I’m not in favour of letting just anyone buy and use pesticides with no way to ensure they are doing so properly, I don’t think the risk is justified by the desire for a “weed”-free lawn or the preservation of a crop species so genetically weak that it needs high levels of pesticides to even survive. I think there are so many alternatives that the only reason people stick with pesticides is because, unfortunately due to the huge companies backing them, they are cheap and people percieve them as “easy to use.”
I’m not really sure what the other “extreme” end is from pesticide abuse, other than no pesticide use at all? Is that a bad thought?
sunhawk wrote:That’s why I’m not in favour of letting just anyone buy and use pesticides with no way to ensure they are doing so properly, I don’t think the risk is justified by the desire for a “weed”-free lawn or the preservation of a crop species so genetically weak that it needs high levels of pesticides to even survive. I think there are so many alternatives that the only reason people stick with pesticides is because, unfortunately due to the huge companies backing them, they are cheap and people percieve them as “easy to use.”
I’m not really sure what the other “extreme” end is from pesticide abuse, other than no pesticide use at all? Is that a bad thought?
Oh, I am in total agreement with you there. There needs to not only be tighter regulations on pesticides, but quite a bit of emphasis placed on proper use. But, like a lot of things, I think pesticides for crops should be looked at as one potential tool among many to deal with crop-demolishing pests. The reason for it’s popularity, is that it is the most straight forward. Spray, bugs die. People for the most part don’t understand other methods (I’ll not go into the other methods here. That’s a whole different can of worms!).
And yes, the other extreme I was referring to was no pesticides at all. Even I am not above carefully setting rat poison and traps to kill off the little buggers, particularly when they contaminate my horse-feed and leave me with a staggering vet bill because my horse got sick from the feed. Grain is easy to keep safe, as I can put it in metal garbage cans. But the hay is a whole different story. With other critters around who may accidentally ingest some of the poison (chickens, horses, cats), you’d better believe I am extra-careful about setting them. It’s all about care and responsibility.
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