Entries Tagged 'environment' ↓

How absurd is it that we have the government on the one hand pulling back from using a hollowed out mountain in Nevada to store nuclear waste because of a remote fear (legitimate I grant) that hundreds or thousands of years hence, some earthquake or other catastrophe might cause the stored waste to leak into the water table, while on the other hand we have this same government deliberately taking some of the most dangerous waste–the actual uranium from the used fuel rods–and putting it into bombs, shells and bullets to be splattered and burned all across the landscape?

Iraqi soldier, body carbonized by depleted uranium shell Continue reading →

It is baffling that the American public has been so effectively stampeded into near-total dependence on a shoddy, crude and ineffective system of health care, paying an extremely high price for drug and surgical interventions.

Did you know that our health care system is the third leading cause of death in the United States?  In a year 2000 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Barbara Starfield, M.D., wrote that physician error, medication error, and adverse events from drugs or surgery cause 225,400 deaths per year, making this the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer.  Why would anyone let themselves be put at the mercy of a hospital, when most chronic illnesses are preventable?  (Answer: Because they don’t know any better.) Continue reading →

I have been re-reading James Howard Kunstler’s “The Long Emergency” recently and I recommend you read it, if you haven’t already.  Kunstler is a big thinker and, unfortunately for his career, is not on board with the happy-face mood of our country.  His is not the message America wants to hear at this moment, but if you want to see around the next turn of fate to protect yourself and your assets, you need to get familiar with what he has to say.

For a prophet of doom, Kunstler is a lot of fun to read — a big improvement over the Old Testament prophets.  I think you could summarize his attitude to his writing with the phrase, “You’ve got to laugh to keep from crying.”  And he will make you laugh!

He writes somewhat like Hunter S. Thompson, but describes the real world with humorous insight rather than his personal hallucinations. Continue reading →

Would you give up the ability to text ttyl to your BFF in order to save a species from going extinct? In 2009, it’s not an insane question.

The next time your cell phone rings, try focusing on these six simple words: The Democratic Republic of the Congo. I ask you to do this because one of the primary components of cell phone circuitry is a metallic ore called Columbite-Tantalite—or “coltan.” Continue reading →

The single most irrigated crop in the United States is…(drum roll please) lawn. Yep, 40 million acres of lawn exist across the Land of Denial and Americans collectively spend about $40 billion on seed, sod, and chemicals each year. And then there’s all that water.

If you include golf courses, lawns in America cover an area roughly the size of New York State and require 238 gallons of (usually drinking-quality) water per person, per day. According to the EPA, nearly a third of all residential water use in the US goes toward what is euphemistically known as “landscaping.”

We have become a nation of pawns with lawns. Food comes from the drive-thru, entertainment is televised, the concept of play exists on hand-held computers, democracy is a reality show every four years, and that tiny parcel of land we allegedly share with some bailed out bank is inevitably set aside to be a lawn. Continue reading →

During His inauguration speech, President Barack Obama declared: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.”

Hmm…if His Holiness is really defending my way of life, he’s slaughtering civilians and wasting billions in taxpayer dollars in the name of atheism, anarchism, veganism, and so on. How odd… Continue reading →

“Every morning when I awake, I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam,” Derrick Jensen writes. “I’ve written books and done activism, but it is neither a lack of words nor activism that is killing salmon here in the Northwest. It’s the dams. Anyone who knows anything about salmon knows the dams must go. Anyone who knows anything about politics knows the dams will stay.”

To that, I’ll add: Anyone who knows anything about hydroelectric dams comprehends and laments the damage they cause From climate change to the destruction of rivers to human displacement to disappearing salmon…and beyond. Continue reading →

“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

- Matthew 16:26

I wasn’t supposed to be born. After my mother gave birth to my sister, the doctors told her she’d never have another child. They couldn’t say exactly why (later, she was diagnosed with endometriosis) but they were pretty damn certain…the way doctors tend to be pretty damn certain. Wisely, my mother ignored such white coat condescension and less than two years later, yours truly arrived on the scene. Mom called me her “miracle baby” and I think this played a role in the amazingly close relationship we always had. Continue reading →

It’s holiday season in Manhattan and despite the economic downturn, there seems to be no shortage of well-dressed humans cavorting, laughing, and spending freely. Walking among them, a homeless man begs for money—shaking his tattered coffee cup (adorned with images of Greek architecture) to rattle the few coins therein. A veteran of the first Gulf War, this man is no longer concerned with yellow ribbons. Right now, he’d settle for a scrap of food and a dry pair of shoes.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that nearly 200,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and nearly 400,000 experience homelessness over the course of a year. Forty-five percent of America’s homeless veterans suffer from mental illness and half have substance abuse problems. According to the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients, veterans account for 23% of all homeless people in America. Continue reading →