Overfishing

Overfishing. When I was growing up I never thought that there would be a word such as, overfishing. I always knew that the world was mostly water and I would always go fishing and saw how many fish were in little ponds; so I could only imagine how many were in the ocean. But, the truth is overfishing is very real. We have ruined certain lakes, streams, rivers, and other bodies of water all around the world with pollution. That means we have brought down the fish population a ton. Also, we have found such good ways to fish that we have actually fished too much. Now we are actually taking too much fish out of the array of bodies of water. Some fishing companies use huge nets, either on the bottom or top of the water, to go and scoop up the fish. Even helicopters are used to find schools of fish and tell the workers on the boat where those fish are.

Since some of the fish populations are too low to fish, fishing companies have moved towards genetically modifying fish and feeding them certain foods so that they grow faster and become bigger. As everyone knows there are more people on the earth no than ever before, so fish demand is high but the populations are low. The impacts of overfishing can be grave. 

If you want to learn the extent of overfishing, click here. 

If you want to see a video that shows consequences of overfishing, click here.

Wind turbines

Wind Power. There are many skeptics out there that think wind power will never be able to become a vital source of energy for us. Then, there are many people that think that wind power will work and become a vital source of energy. As I am typing right now there is a big storm going on outside of my house. Trees are being shoved and bent backwards, forwards, left and right. I know one thing for sure, if I had a wind turbine in my backyard today then I would not have to pay my electric bill this month.

There are wind turbine fields all around my area and they are said to produce enough energy for 120,000 homes. That is 120,000 homes that are not using coal, crude oil, or natural gas to get ‘fuel’. Pollution has taken a hit because of those wind turbines. It is said, from a video that I have watched, that a single wind turbine can produce enough energy for 500 homes. (to watch the video on wind farming click here) That is simply amazing. It is the one of cleanest and most renewable form of energy that we can even imagine and it is already doing wonders for many homes and businesses today.

These massive turbines look simple from a far, but when you get close and see how big they are you realize how amazing they are.

If you want to see what these giants are made up of then click here.

If you want to see how the wind and the turbine work together click here. 

If you want to see how electricity is made and transferred to home click here. 

E-Waste Outsourcing

As of today, in America and other developed countries, problems are being solved using unjust means. The thing that is most talked about is outsourcing jobs from America to other, maybe, under developed countries. The biggest reason to outsource jobs, projects, or labor is because it is cheaper to do business in places that are regulated and taxed less than they are here in America. Although, this type of outsourcing is talked about more on the mainstream, there is another form of outsourcing that should be talked about further and more in depth.

Outsourcing of problems is what I call it. This ranges from bringing electronic waste to other poverty stricken, under developed countries for them to deal with to dumping all kinds of waste near the Mexican border so that we do not have to deal with it. (Read a story and watch a video on the story that was made by 60 Minutes about E-waste by clicking here.) 

It is well known that our industries and companies tend to take the easy way out of their problems instead of dealing with them themselves, even if those problems harms thousands of human and animal lives. Anything to save a few bucks goes with those types of people/companies.

The fact is, chemical waste from electronics is constantly being shipped out of the our country and brought to poverty stricken areas. Those people are not educated about the effects that these chemicals are and will have on their bodies, along with their family’s bodies. They are desperate people that are willing to do anything to make a quick penny and the companies know that. It is time the companies deal with the problems they cause correctly and sustainably.

To watch another video and read about e-waste click here.

If you want to learn on different ways to deal with e-waste safely, click here.

Review of Mountain Top Mining Video

I recently came across a very touching video online. This video really amazed me. It gave me another, large-scale, example of what the world is like today. Big industries and companies will do whatever it takes in order to make an easy profit. And I mean anything.

A coal company has been doing “mountain top mining” for the past two decades in Appalachia. The system is to go on the mountaintops and literally blow off the tops of mountains in order to get far enough down to where the coal is. As a man in the video mentions, the coal company has been using three and a half MILLION pounds of explosives…...per day.

What do they do with all of the land that is reduced to rubble? They take it and dump it in the nearest streams. They have covered up and ruined hundreds, maybe thousands, of natural streams that used to hold life. People that live in the surrounding area have had their lives completely ruined from this coal mining process. When there are no trees, plants, or wildlife on top of mountains anymore then what happens to the area when it rains? Sudden flash floods happen because there are no trees and plants to hold the land down. On top of that, they have completely ruined mountains and the habitats that existed on them. It takes thousands or even millions of years for a mountain range to form. Now they are totally ruined along with the drinking water for generations to come. We need to put a stop to mountaintop mining everywhere! Especially in West Virginia so that no more hurt is caused.

To watch a video on this mountain top mining disaster, click here.
To help stop mountain top removal, click here.
To learn more about mountain top removal and have another way to help stop it, click here.

Far-reaching problems

It is well known that humans are the top dogs on the planet, as a species. We have encircled the world and mastered how to tame the land in order to accommodate our wants and needs; nowadays we care more about our wants more than our needs in America. One thing is for sure, thought. The world is a complete system. Everything on, around, and in the planet is a group of interlocking parts that all feed off of each other in some way.

What I am getting at is that everything that a human, or humans as a whole, does can and will affect something else on the planet in a good or bad way. Since humans have been in existence we have not had many good affects on the things around us. As of today, we have created many problems. I would like to list a few of the biggest, far-reaching problems dealing with the usage of fossil fuels and uranium, in no particular order.

1.     Coal: The use of coal has polluted our environment across the globe because we have burned it in order to create energy. Also, the digging up of coal from the land has ruined terrain and the wildlife surrounding those areas.

2.     Crude Oil: If you do not know, crude oil gets refined in different steps and creates everything from gasoline to jet fuel to kerosene. The use of crude oil has polluted the world’s air and water. It is the reason why Los Angeles has a layer of smog over it.

3.     Nuclear Power: We have used Uranium in order to make energy. This has released a different kind of pollution into our environment, radiation. Effects of radiation release is felt throughout the world and the extent is still unknown

4.     Natural gas: Burning of this fossil fuel is cleaner than coal and oil. But, getting it from underground ruins land, wildlife, and can create sinkholes.

Test your water.

How many people understand where their drinking water comes from? How many people know what is in the water that they drink? These are things that I occasionally think about. Depending on where you get your water from, there could be an array of problems attached to your drinking water. Most bottled waters have different problems with them also. Every company that sells their bottled water cleans their water differently and/or adds different things into the water. So, if you really want to know what is in the water that you normally drink then you need to go to the store and get a PH test kit and a TDS meter.
The PH test kit will tell you what the part of the PH scale the water is on. The Ph scale ranges from zero to fourteen, with seven being neutral. Neutral all the way up to 14 on the scale is good for drinking water. If it is below seven then it is more acidic. Bacteria thrives on acid so that is not what you want your drinking water to be like. A TDS meter measures the ppm (part per million) of dissolved solids in water. Zero means just that, there are zero per million. The scale goes up to eight hundred. The more ppm the worse off the drinking water is.

I would suggest buying those two products (PH scale kit and TDS meter) in order to test you drinking water as soon as possible. You should test all the water that you could possibly drink some time in the future. Or you could test water before you drink it.

If you would like to purchase a PH scale kit online click here.
If you would like to look at different types of TDS meters to make a purchase click here.
If you would like to watch a man on youtube test Aquafina, an off brand spring water from Walgreens, tap water, and filtered water with both of these products click here.

Fruits and Veggies

Every time I go to the grocery store I cannot help but look at the fruits and vegetables and think about all of the things that were done to them before they finally arrived to the store that I was at. I think to myself, “Don’t people wonder how, no matter what time of year, there are ALWAYS every kind of fruit and every kind of vegetable?”. It is a very valid question considering that there are only specific times a year for each specific type of fruit and vegetable to be grown naturally. Also, “How are they all big and juicy still?”, pops into my head. With some seasons being worse or better than others, it is normal for the fruits and vegetable to be terrible one season and good the next; or have excess one season and a shortage the next. But it never fails. There are always plenty amounts of everything and the, for the most part, look like the same quality every time.
It is very simple how this happens. These fruits and vegetables are grown inorganically. The use of genetic modifications and chemicals helps these foods grow faster and bigger. Chemicals are also used to make these fruits and veggies last long enough to make it around the world with enough time to arrive being still eatable. But, if it seems too good to be true, it is. No matter how fast, big, or long-lasting these fruits and veggies are, they are still poor quality food that should not even be considered eatable. The genetic modifications that are eaten make genetic modifications to our bodies and the chemicals harm us terribly. On top of that, they don’t even taste good. If you are used to the tastes and don’t believe me, go to an organic food market and try their vegetables (especially green peppers and tomatoes); you will immediately understand. 

Nuclear Power, Solar and Wind?

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I have recently noticed that nuclear power is used in the same sentences as wind and solar energy. I don't know when this started to happen but nuclear is not even close to the same category as wind and solar energy. First of all, wind and solar are forms of renewable energy. Nuclear power is not. Nuclear power plants need Uranium 235 (U-235) as a fuel source in order to, ultimately, produce heat to spin a turbine to produce energy. Uranium 235 is a finite resource; meaning we could use it all up; meaning it is not a renewable resource; meaning it should not be in the same category or even sentence as wind and solar. On top of that, wind and solar are far less dangerous than using nuclear power plants. It is very simple, if an earthquake hit an area full of wind turbines and solar panels, the turbines and panels might be ruined but will not affect anything else. If an earthquake hits a nuclear power plant (i.e. Japan) then the reactor has a chance of melting down from uncontrollable reactions and radiation will be released into our world. If the problem is big enough, the radiation has a chance at encircling the whole world by the time it is done spreading. One problem big enough at a nuclear power plant has the opportunity to affect everything on the planet while solar and wind sources of energy simply just need to get re-built. The differences between renewable energy sources and non-renewable energy sources are just as obvious as the differences between the dangerous and the non-dangerous. Don’t get it twisted, nuclear power is finite and harmful; solar and wind are clean, harmless, and infinite. 

Houses made of old habitats

There are many reasons to use trees. We use parts of trees every single day without thinking about what it takes to use those things or, most of the time, even realize that trees were used to in the construction of the objects. Even when you walk into a house and sit at a desk you never think about how many trees it took to make that desk, the wooden bed frame behind you, the books pilled up on the desk, and the house that you are sitting in. Something that is even more hidden to our thoughts are the consequences of using that many trees. The consequences are not in the minds of societies as much as they should be. When you cut down a tree you are taking something from the world that took up to 200 years to grow. These trees are cut down and not planted. When you cut down trees you are doing multiple terrible things that include: killing animals and sometimes leaving them for extinction, taking away biodiversity of the planet, taking away “natural levees”, causing erosion, causing flooding, taking away oxygen, adding more CO2, taking away forests/wetlands and turning them into deserts, and ultimately making life very hard for not only animals and wildlife but also for us as humans. Taking down one tree will immediately cause more water run off that will erode the ground where the tree once was. Now, think about what that does to a huge area on a mountain side (currently being deforested in Alaska). The whole mountain, once the trees are gone, will change dramatically from landslides, floods, and the habitats that were killed. Since we are not planting any trees and are continually cutting them down, we are moving closer and closer to turning our whole world into a animal-less desert constantly being flooded without a sight of fresh drinking water anywhere.

Reason for a rain barrel

When I told my friends that it would be a good idea to make a rain barrel most of them laughed in my face. Most of them wondered why I would ever want to do such a thing. They thought it was "pointless" and that I just wanted to do it so that I could be a "penny-pincher". The linkage of saving pennies and collecting rainwater seemed to be the most common thoughts toward this idea. Although I understand their point of view that spending time and energy creating something that is meant to save a few bucks might seem to be over-the-top, I still think it is them that do not understand the whole concept. Water is becoming very scarce around the world. People are predicting that there are going to be many water shortages in the U.S. by 2013. If you did not know, that is only about 6 months away from now. The winters have been warmer and the summers have been hotter. Water has, and is going to continue, to dry with the new, year round, higher temperatures. If you were to have a 60-gallon drum to save water you would be surprised how fast it got filled up. If you had a very unlikely sized rooftop of about 200 square feet you would be able to fill up that 60-gallon drum with only a half of an inch of rainfall. Two hundred square feet is approximately the size of a parking spot ladies and gentlemen. Simply setting up multiple rain barrels at your house will give you the ability to save massive amounts of non-chlorinated water to do any of the following: water plants, save money, use to rinse of hands/feet/tools/cars, clean and treat to use for shower/drinking water, etc.

Kill For Looks.

When I drive around some neighborhoods I always enjoy seeing the more "expensive" houses and the beautiful landscaping, yards, and upkeep of their houses. It is clear when you drive through a neighborhood of wealthy people. I have just recently begun to not enjoy looking at those houses as much as I used to. When you realize that having a great lawn and plenty of weed less flowerbeds entails great consequences. Herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides are a major part in the creation of beautiful flowers beds, lawns, and weed less houses. People love to justify their actions and say that, "I am only putting a little bit on" or "this is only the second time I used chemicals this year" or maybe even, "I'm getting too old and/or do not have enough times to pull the weeds". Actually, just as I type this sentence I am watching a weed killer commercial on TV!! A Round-up commercial just so you get the whole picture. Back to the topic, no matter what type of justifications people make for using chemicals the same things are always true. These chemicals WILL leach to soil, water, and nutrients. These chemicals WILL get introduced into the water tables, wells, and/or aquifer. No matter how good the filtration systems are for the public water, these chemicals WILL enter the bodies of whoever drinks the water. When these chemicals enter the body, they do damage. They accumulate in the body throughout the entirety of the life of the person. Different chemicals attack different parts of the body in different ways. Most of them also can be transferred to babies that are made from chemically consumed people. On top of that, these chemicals kill wildlife, diversity, and ruin bodies of water. The Mississippi River at one point in time had a 250 mile stretch that was uninhabitable and the fish were killed; due to run off of chemicals into the River. If we don't realize that health is more important than getting quick beauty out of our lawns then we will continue to harm ourselves and all of wildlife.