What The... Frack

The EPA found over 20 years ago that Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing (Fracking) contaminates water. In 2005 President George W. Bush signed legislation exempting gas drillers that use fracking techniques from the Clean Water regulation. So much has been spoken, recorded and documented about how fracking is destroying water supplies by polluting them not just with methane (natural gas) but also with a cornucopia of toxic materials, that I am not going to focus on that in this blog. Suffice it to say that the EPA which is beholden to politicians who are beholden to the corporations will do to fracking what S&P did with CDO securities leading to the housing bubble. They will ignore it, down play it, defend it, until everyone gets hurt and then they will issue a no-brainer statement.


Watch actor Mark Ruffalo talk about this topic with Keith Olbermann on Current TV. Mark Ruffalo figured out that as a beneficiary of public goodwill through his art, he owed society something. And he figured he owed society a voice to defend the millions of us who are blinded and mislead by the pretty advertising by the Oil and Natural Gas companies and Industry Groups (lobbies).


Here are some take aways from this interview:

• Allowing Fracking as a trade-off to fazing off old Nuclear Power Facilities is trading one lousy form of energy for another.
• Fracturing sets off mini earthquakes which over time threaten the structural integrity of homes near fracking sites.
• USA Today said that today's highest paying jobs in the fastest growing sector of the ecomony is Green Energy Tech. 
• Gas is not the answer. Gas is the bridge to another 40 years of Carbon based fuels.
• A New York based fracking company got busted PUMPING IN 150,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the ground. They could pump in any toxic soup and they are not accountable.
• The water coming out of the fracked landscape cannot be recycled. Its laden with Radium, Uranium and all kinds of toxic substances. Its causing our sewage and water treatment facilities to shut down.
• Josh Fox's movie Gasland did more to bring this issue to light than anyone in the media or environmental activists could. He took a camera and went into Rural America. He discovered that rural communities after being destroyed turned to who else but the fracking companies for support, signing NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements) in exchange for money and silence because now their homes and properties were worthless.

Got Junk Mail? We have a problem!

Did you know

• You waste about 70 hours a year dealing with junk mail
• 28 Billion Gallons of water are used to send junk mail to Americans each year.
• Further more than 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail.
• Creating and shipping junk mail produces more greenhouse gas emissions than 9 million cars.
• $320 million of local taxes are used to dispose of junk mail each year

Learn more here.


You can stop 75% of the junk mail by signing up for this service (http://www.dmachoice.org/).

And remember most financial documents in the mail can be accessed online. Sign up with your bank to get electronic statements only and remember to sign up for BILL-PAY! It WILL PAY in the long run.

More about Unsolicited Mail, Telemarketing and Email: Where to Go to “Just Say No”? Learn from the Federal Trade Commission.

Did you know.. The cost of (y)our lifestyle

It takes 31 Gallons of Water to make 1 Glass of Wine
It takes 37 Gallons of Water to get 1 cup of Coffee
It takes 38 Gallons of Water to take a 10 minute shower
It takes 25 Gallons of Water if you keep the tap running when you brush
It takes 255 Gallons of Water to generate enough energy from a Nuclear Power Plant for 1 home per day
It takes 24 Gallons of Water to generate enough energy from Solar for 1 home per day

Learn more here and find ways to make planet friendly and future friendly lifestyle changes.

Did you know 50 minks are killed to produce 1 fur coat. Further it takes 3 times more energy to create one fur coat from real animal fur versus faux fur. Learn 10 things about the fur industry here.

10 things you did not know about the fur industry

The Vegetarians are Right

Water
To grow a pound of wheat requires around 130 gallons of virtual water. For meat, depending on the type - multiply that by five to ten times. In brief
Water to support a vegetarian diet - 686 gallons
Water to support a USA meat-based diet - 1320 gallons
And thats PER DAY. Learn about your Water Footprint

Crop
Meat Production requires crop production for livestock. 70% of the crop grown in the US is for Livestock. This means:
- More water used
- More energy used
- More land use
- A bigger industry for GM (genetically modified) produce, which means more power (money) to Monsanto and other big evil food corporations, which spend more of our money to spread misinformation, and lobby lawmakers to make laws that go against the health of humans, animals and the planet.
- More GM produce means more animals and humans being afflicted by new-age ailments, requiring greater investments in disease control and treatment. We know that the anti-biotics fed to livestock cause internal bleeding and pus formation (and thats what you eat)

Land
A meat eater requires 200% to 400% times more farmland than a vegetarian. To make room for enough farmland, the meat industry constantly destroys vital ecosystems, thus taking away the habitats of myriad species and reducing biodiversity. The vast Amazon rainforest is rapidly being destroyed to make way for
ranching and growing animal feed and will be gone by the end of this century if the current rate of destruction continues. Do you want to let this happen? Source: Green Decade

Energy
800% more oil is used in the production of animal protein as is used in plant protein production due to the fuel required to manufacture fertilizers and pesticides for animal feed, to operate farming machinery, for transportation and for irrigation.
 
Greenhouse Gas Production Factory
- The bacteria in the rumen as well as the manure from livestock releases Methane, a 1000% more severe greenhouse gas than Carbon-Di-Oxide.
- Forests and Grasslands that would absorb high amounts of carbon dioxide are cleared to make way for farmland. To make matters worse, the enormous fires used to burn down these forests release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

Destruction of Ecosystems
- The manure spills out of open air storage pits and makes it way to water systems. There the algae feast on it and deplete the water of oxygen, causing harm to the aquatic life and disturbing fragile ecosystems
- Manure also releases ammonia into the air, which mixes with rain and kills forests and other vegetation
- Reduced forest cover also drives large wild animals to extinction, further destroying ecosystems and reducing biodiversity.

Human Water Supply and Food Chain
Nitrates leak from manure into community drinking water, causing serious human health problems.
Animals act as concentrators of pesticides, fertilizers, weedicides. Meat produces more human disease than agricultural produce does.

Quality of Life
- Vegetarianism is the fastest way to reduce Poverty per World Bank. Thats not hard to see because reduced demand for meat would allow for greater production of vegetarian food thereby tempering hunger.
- Poverty is the fuel that keeps the fire of Terrorism Alive. Elimination of Poverty would go a long way in reducing the motivation for conflicts and denying terrorists the following they enjoy in poor countries be it in West Asia, Africa or South America.
- You can grow your own food in a small patch of land. Try raising livestock on your P-Patch!
- Vegetarians are happier than meat-eaters according to Discovery.

Credits and Further Reading
Production and Consumption of Meat: Implications for the Global Environment and Human Health
Environmental Benefits of Vegetarianism
An Ecological Argument for Vegetarianism
Five Good Reasons for Being Vegetarian (Ethical, Economic, Ecologic, Health, Spiritual)
Can people have meat and a planet too?

$10,000 Sandwich and Blue Gold

Can you imagine paying $10,000 for a sandwich. That is 2,000 times more than a sandwich should cost!!

And yet that is what most Americans pay, when they buy Half a Billion Gallons of Bottled Water EVERY WEEK.


Ok, so you roll your eyes and ignore it... ie, YOUR addiction to plastic water bottles. You throw up your hands saying its not in your control. You think bottled water is safe!?

Read this, think again and thank me! And if you kick the habbit, I will thank you. And YOU WILL THANK YOURSELF  that you didnt turn into the MONSTER you see in the picture on the left.

- Plastic Water Bottles are a health hazard: Plastic bottles travel hundreds of miles in the heat to get to your store. And those sunny miles work their wonders on the plastic, leeching away harmful chemicals into the water you consume.

- Its Expensive, dammit!! If all you drink is bottled water, you are paying about $1,500 more per year for water! Kick this habbit and you could save enough money to watch movies on netflix for 13 years!!!

- The Bottled Water Companies are pulling wool over your eyes. Why? Because in most cases they fill those bottles with ordinary water any way (not mineral water which you want to believe it is) with some processing at times.

- Bottled water is NOT safer than municipal water. Want to know how your community water supply scores? Check out the Environmental Working Group's National Tap Water Database.

- Tapping Natural Water sources damages ecosystems: If mineral water is indeed used in your favorite brand, its not good either. Its "damaging ecosystems by sucking water from underground aquifers that are the source of water for nearby streams, wells, and farms. Lakes and wet lands are also damaged" (http://www.sierraclub.org/)

- WATER IS A HUMAN RIGHT that is under attack. But like all other human rights, capitalism is making a mockery of it. Corporatization means communities that live near water bodies do not benefit from it. This leads to social unrest. Coke set up a bottled water facility in India, which contaminated the water supply and depleted resources for the local people. The PBS documentary film Thirst, shows how rapid worldwide privatization of municipal water suppliesis affecting local economies.

- Bottled water means less attention to public systems. Public Systems need their leaks fixed and with a small investment they can be made more reliable than the water in your bottle. The more we run away from public water supply, the richer the bottled water suppliers become and the more we get addicted to their crap (because multinationals are stepping in to buy groundwater and other water sources). And its not just overseas. Maybe its gone too far in New Jersey  already.

- The process of making the plastics releases toxins such as nickel, ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide and benzene

- Plastic comes from oil (as if we arent already addicted to oil for our energy needs). The entire energy costs of processing the final product before it gets to you is equalent to filling One-Fouth of that same bottle with oil.

- Nearly 90 percent of water bottles are NOT recycled and wind up in landfills where it takes thousands of years for the plastic to decompose.

WHAT CAN YOU DO:
- Use this helpful guide to talk to your friends, children, parents, coworkers, neighbors.

- Learn how to promote tap water within your office, campus or public place with our guide: How Your Organization Can Promote Tap Water

- Take Back the Tap Pledge. If you don't like the taste of municipal water, use a carbon filter to fix it.

- Dine at restaurants that have pledged not to serve bottled water.

- Hosting an event? Make it bottled water free with the help of this guide: Free Your Event from Bottled Water.

- Watch and Host a movie screening of the Thirst. Or some of the other films on the subject - FLOW, Blue Gold, The Water Front or Tapped, powerful documentaries sure to get the message across. And make sure to make it a bottle-free event.

- Do you know when was the last time your office water cooler was cleaned?

- Do NOT reuse plastic water bottles. The more they are reused, the more chemicals they leech. Learn about the Plastic Numbering System before reusing any plastic.

- Just get a stainless steel bottle and fill it up. Spend your savings elsewhere


LEARN MORE

- Sierra Club's Fact Sheet on Bottled Water
- Sierra Club's Campagn against Bottled Water
- Watch: The Truth about Bottled Water

Humanity's Death March

A 2 minute video that powerfully explains bio-diversity, and how we are ignoring it at our own peril. Will it be sudden death, or slow painful torture?


Biodiversity - Vancouver Film School from Vancouver Film School on Vimeo.

Also check out this news article from The Independent newspaper in Britain which reports on a study that predicts that 1 in 10 species will be lost from planet Earth by the end of the 21st Century.