Witchy Woman

Unsurprisingly, the consumer is prevented from knowing what chemicals are in the products they use by federal law. Why? To protect government's favourite customers: major corporations. Although "a number" of the 17,000 secret chemicals "may be harmless" (emphasis mine, as usual) but many "pose a substantial risk" to both public health and the environment. These businesses don't even have to disclose the ingredients if you are in intensive care as a result of exposure to their products. Simply because it contains "inert" components does not mean that they are safe.

The cutest crab has been recently discovered off of Taiwan. (I refuse to say "new" because it isn't. We just haven't seen one before. It's like referring to Christopher Columbus "discovering" the Americas. No, he didn't. The Native Americans did). Unfortunately, the crabs died soon afterward "possibly because the water in the area was polluted by a cargo ship that ran aground." So, we find a species that we have never encountered before and then manage to go and kill it. Brilliant, just brilliant.
Also being killed off by humans, false killer whales are being considered for the endangered species list. Not to mention another rare white rhino was killed by poachers in Kenya, where hunting has been strictly outlawed since the 1970's. Luckily, they caught most of the killers and the buyers. They are primarily hunted for their horns, which they can actually live without and even grow back because it's the same material as fingernails and hair.
Then the largest freshwater fish in North America, the white sturgeon, has been dwindling because Libby Dam prevents sufficient water flow to allow the prehistoric fish to swim upriver to spawn. Unfortunately, they are only one symptom of the many problems caused by the dam.
Even the North American honeybee has been declining, which puts not only the environment at risk but our agriculture. Although one theory is, is that they are suffering from Colony Collapse Disorder because of climate change.
Not just animals are rapidly disappearing, quiver trees in Namibia are dying out due to drought. But, as we all know, there is no such thing as human-caused climate change.

In accordance with my own New Year's resolutions, I donated all of the conventional food in my kitchen. Now I hate shopping. Especially for shoes. Going to the supermarket has been known to give me nightmares. I know, I know... A woman who doesn't like to shop? What's the world coming to?

Bearing in mind my tendency to assume the expression of a deer right before 35 tons of steel plow through its cranium while trying to calculate how many ounces are in a pound to determine which spaghetti noodles are the cheapest (not to mention the Regular vs. Whole Wheat debate), I asked a friend to accompany my partner and I.

Now our friend, Christopher, has been organic for about four years now due to multiple chemical sensitivity. Before you go and Google that, yes, some believe it to be "all in your head." Let's just say that in just a few weeks, I have found that the difference is I used to spend a chunk of a typical evening in the bathroom with a good book. Organics mean that I do not have to ensure that the nearest restroom is within 50 feet. "All in your head" my butt. So we figured that it was best to learn from his mistakes rather than making our own.

That is how I found myself reading store codes (initial digit of "9" indicates organic) in the produce section and pawing wistfully at the ice cream freezers. I remember when the only organic products you could find were of a granola variety and tasted like bark and twigs. Imagine the happy dance when I discovered that there are organic oreos, no more high fructose corn syrup! There is even organic ice cream, whereas before you were lucky if you got pureed fruit on a stick. Not only are there more and more varieties of food being offered, but there are even options between a handful of companies for most products. (Personally, I don't need fifty choices of brands for canned corn).

We only got one very strange look, but I suppose a woman asking the opinion of two men concerning hair care products warranted that. While I am not fairly loquacious in public, I do tend to be the odd one who never learned not to talk to strangers. I told her about my New Year's resolution and joked that, "There is no Organics for Dummies book."

Here are some main points that I learned, so hopefully you won't have to learn the hard way:

The down side was when I hit the register. Yes, each item was a little more expensive, and it adds up. The way I figure it is this: it's cheaper than cancer, easier this way to support local businesses, and, quite frankly, I save on toilet paper.

I brag that the only New Year's resolution that I've kept is to never make another one again. This year, I'm breaking it. My resolutions? To be greener by doing the following:
1. Go organic.
2. Eat local.
3. Compost more.
4. Switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs.
I already recycle, compost some, try to keep the heat down, and avoid chemical cleaners, but I obviously can do more.

"California scientists hope studying 180 black mussels pried from algae-covered rocks in San Francisco Bay will provide clues into how many drugs and chemicals are polluting waters across the nation."

Note "how many," not "if." How many? They're not just talking about oil spills and other standard pollutants, they mean like birth control and hand sanitizers. And it's not just California, it's every coast in America. These chemicals are so pervasive that they have even been found in breast milk, for crying out loud. Unfortunately, I am on city water. I do use a filter, but am not deluded that it does anything other than remove the most common chemicals.

I went into my local convenience store the other day and requested that my hot dogs not be placed in a styrofoam container. Because of the strange looks I got, I mentioned that it never biodegrades. This sparked a bit of chatter with one of the other employees about ecologically responsible practices.

The cashier who had been staring at us like we'd both simultaneously sprouted second heads, said in a rather disparaging tone, "Oh, I'm not green." Emphasis = sneer.

Unfortunately I had too much blood in my caffeine stream (thus the purpose of my purchases) to respond with what percolated through my brain as I walked out the door, which was: "Well, I'm rather attached to the planet upon which I live and am entirely dependent. But I suppose if I were as old as you, I'd say 'Fuck it, I'm gonna die soon anyway. Might as well take the planet with me.' "

I have got to stop shopping there, at least when uncaffeinated. Then again, I really shouldn't be surprised considering their entire marketing campaign is about how they're proud to be rednecks.

Last night was D'n'D night, and the DM's house is about a mile away from mine, two at the most. I pulled on three sweaters, gloves, scarf, bag full of gaming gear, and a headlamp and hopped on my bike.

Now the Green Machine had been sitting in a barn for a year, not through any choice of my own, but she seemed ok. The light kit I picked up the other day didn't work. Going to pick up yet another set of new batteries to see if the ones I used were bad right out of the packaging since they were a couple of years old. About halfway there I noticed the front tire was going flat. Add a bicycle pump to my shopping list, and perhaps a fix-a-flat or even a new tire. The kickstand was loose, and I had no tools immediately available to fix it. The front handlebars squeaked horribly every time they moved. No idea how to fix/oil that. I think the chain was having issues, will have to ride some more to determine if there is a problem.

Everyone at game asked if my car was ok. A perfectly understandable question as she was recently incapacitated, but no, Lilith is fine. The next question was: Why did you bike?

A: It's cheaper.

B: It's better for the environment.

C: It's healthier for me.

All the technical problems didn't even occur to me at the time. But if you think about it, it's really not so different from a car. Check the pressure in the tires. Check the fluids, refill or change as necessary. Fuel. Burnt out lights. Brake checks.

"Coal River Mountain in West Virginia is a beautiful forested area surrounded by communities with long experience with coal mining as been practiced for decades. How long have these folks been settled around the mountain? Many are descendants of those who moved to the area on land grants given soldiers in the Revolutionary War. Now the mountain itself is threatened by coal mining as it's been practiced under the Bush administration -- mountaintop removal."

Article and petition here.

"GHG is the scientific shorthand for Greenhouse Gases, the gases whose build up in the upper
atmosphere is the cause of anthropogenic climate change. GHG Photos is a coalition of science,
environmental, nature, and documentary photographers who have spent the last several years
focused on the emissions and effects of those Greenhouse Gas emissions, as well as attempts to
mitigate their release and adapt to the changing climate."

Go check it out.

"The unwanted horses seemed destined for death. The wheels had been set in motion to put down about 2,000 healthy mustangs, those in a federally maintained herd of wild horses and burros that no one wanted to adopt.
The Bureau of Land Management knew that euthanasia was a legal alternative, but officials were proceeding slowly, afraid of an intense public outcry. The wild horses had become too expensive to maintain, and cattlemen argued that turning them loose would be a drain on the already scarce grazing lands of the West.
Then yesterday, at a public hearing in Reno, Nev., to discuss the issue, a solution arrived on a white horse, so to speak.
Madeleine Pickens, wife of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, made known her intentions to adopt not just the doomed wild horses but most or all of the 30,000 horses and burros kept in federal holding pens. Lifelong animal lovers, the Pickenses just a few years ago led the fight to close the last horse slaughterhouse in the United States.
Madeleine Pickens is looking for land in the West that would be an appropriate home for the horses."

Hope for Horses.

*Doing a happy dance.*

I couldn't resist the title and the imagery it invoked. It made me giggle. Why yes, I am 12, why do you ask? Since my Aunt Flo is in town, I thought I would break out the ole soapbox about girly bits, health, and the environment.

Long story short, regular feminine products are bad for you. They're bleached, made of non-biodegradable materials, and fill up our dumps.

Reusable:

The Keeper (rather graphic name, but whatever)

The above two you can only use if you do NOT have a bicornuate uterus.

Glad Rags (Oregon company)

Or if the reusable options are too much for you, even though they save money in the long run, go organic:

I took Pamprin last night for the first time, even though I normally drink water and/or raspberry leaf tea for my severe cramps. It was a regular dose: two pills. Halfway through game I wondered why I felt stoned, until I asked a friend if Pamprin is supposed to knock you out. She said yes.

For a non-Nyquil effect I recommend

Yogi Tea.

"More than one tonne of ivory products has been seized in Africa's largest-ever international crackdown on wildlife crime.
The operation, co-ordinated by Interpol and the Kenya Wildlife Service, led to the arrest of 57 illegal traders across five African nations.
The haul also included animal skins and hippopotamus teeth.
Interpol said that similar trans-national operations will be carried out worldwide to combat wildlife crime."

Woot! Go Kenya!

"The world’s largest food fishery is on the verge of collapse. Pollock, used to make McDonald’s fish sandwiches, frozen fish sticks, fish and chips, and imitation crabmeat, have had a population decrease of 50 percent since last year.
The dwindling fish populations are largely due to the enormous amounts of fishing being removed from Alaska’s Bering Sea. Factory fishing trawlers take over a million tons of pollock out of the ocean each year. The fish cannot reproduce and recover as quickly as they are being fished."

Greenpeace.

The biggest problem with the mini nuclear reactors is the nuclear waste. The units would require refueling every 7-10 years, indicating that waste would be produced. Considering our current method of disposal is encasing it in cement and burying it and pray that in the next 1,000 years it doesn't leak or accidentally become unearthed, the mass sales estimated by Hyperion would produce large amounts of radioactive waste which we would simply bury.

Bronn said that our technology tends to develop only once a need arises (a.k.a. "necessity is the mother of all invention"), and we would come up with a better method. It is dumb and irresponsible to create radioactive waste on these levels before having a viable solution for dealing with the waste.

And no, we can't shoot it into space either for a number of reasons.

"This may sound like just another Erin Brockovich-style tear-jerker. Enter stage right: Poor people exposed to toxic chemicals who worry that the government is ignoring their plight.

But the story of the hundreds of sick people who live near the former Kelly Air Force Base illuminates an entirely new manner in which the Bush administration has diluted science and put public health at risk. This year, largely in obeisance to the Pentagon, the nation's biggest polluter, the White House diminished a little-known but critical process at the Environmental Protection Agency for assessing toxic chemicals that impacts thousands of Americans.

As a coalition of more than 40 national and local environmental organizations put it in a letter to EPA administrators this past April: "EPA, under pressure from the Bush White House, has given the foxes the keys to the environmental protection henhouse."

So meet lifelong San Antonio residents Robert and Lupe Alvarado. For decades, the Alvarados, whose modest home sits around two miles from Kelly, have lived with toxic chemicals underfoot. This is the poor part of town, adorned with chain-link fences and black metal bars concealing the windows. Many houses lack a proper foundation and rest on simple concrete slabs.

Beneath the Alvarados' house and those of their neighbors are shallow pools of groundwater that are polluted with tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, a chemical associated with cancer, liver and kidney disease. Before the Kelly base closed in 2001, mechanics used PCE to degrease parts on airplanes and fighter jets. For decades, they chronically dumped the solvent into poorly sealed or unsealed waste pits on the base, where it seeped underground, forming a plume that sprawls over four square miles under 23,000 homes and businesses. Locals refer to the area as "the toxic triangle."

On cool or rainy days, when the Alvarados close the windows and shut off the air conditioning, a sweet chemical smell floods the house. When they eat dinner during these times, says Robert, 66, it's like tasting something acrid. "We drink bottled water but there's nothing we can do about the air except go outside and wait," says Lupe, 64.

Robert, a handsome man with almond skin, limps across his cramped living room with a black metal cane. He shows me a letter that recently arrived from the local hospital, congratulating him; he'd qualified for a kidney transplant. A few years ago he suffered a brain aneurysm, causing him to become nearly blind. His wife and one of his daughters both have battled thyroid cancer. "We know at least 15 people on this street alone who have some sort of cancer," says Robert, a former labor relations employee at Delta Air Lines. "We call ourselves the living dead."
In the Alvarados' front yard, a purple cross sticks out of a cluster of banana trees. The crosses, distributed by a local community group, punctuate front yards throughout the neighborhood. They mark homes where people are battling cancer or other illnesses, an estimated 25 percent of households, according to local activists.

Surveys conducted by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry have found elevated levels of kidney, liver and cervical cancer, leukemia and low birth weights in the neighborhoods that surround Kelly Air Force Base. A survey by the University of Texas found that 91 percent of adults in the area experienced multiple illnesses, including chronic sinus infections, nausea, heart and lung disease. Based on these studies, the area qualifies as a cancer cluster (with a higher rate of terminal illness, per capita, than areas of a similar size), says Wilma Subra, a chemist and environmental health activist based in Louisiana, who has consulted with Kelly community activists.

Although it has conducted limited testing, the EPA acknowledges that it's possible for PCE vapor to rise from groundwater into people's living rooms and kitchens. Yet it says the Alvarados and their neighbors have nothing to fear. Based on EPA air quality tests inside five area homes, the nation's environmental guardian claims that it's safe for residents to live above the plume for the next 40 to 100 years, or the amount of time it will take for the chemicals to naturally dissipate.

The fact is, EPA scientists haven't completed an updated scientific assessment of PCE, including its health risks, for a decade. Worse, a comprehensive review of the carcinogenic chemical may never be coming. Anti-regulatory crusaders inside the Bush White House have peopled the EPA with top officials apparently more concerned with limiting government spending than public health. According to critics within and outside the EPA, the agency has stifled independent research and compromised scientific assessments of all manner of toxins and carcinogens that Americans breathe, drink and touch.

"It feels like Stalin-era Russia, like the administration set themselves up to decide what's allowable science and what isn't," says a high-ranking staff scientist at the EPA, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Until the recent economic crash, this has been such an anti-regulatory administration. One of the ways to undermine regulations is to undermine the science behind them. It's absolutely shocking what's going on." "

More at Salon.com.

Am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea? Thanks to Bronn, who told me about this.