The earth not the Earth. To be not to Be.

I'll find a new topic soon, but just a couple more things about our one and only home, the earth:

1. You don't have to capitalize "earth" if you use "the" before it. Also, you don't generally have to capitalize it unless you also mention another, capitalized, celestial body in the same sentence, such as "Earth and Jupiter." Don't worry about it too much, though--most of us are clueless.

2. Plastic does suck. Recycle. An albatross' stomach was cut open to reveal about a pound of plastic, including a cigarette lighter. Buy refillable ones!

3. You can always find something new to implement in your life, even when you feel like you're just hearing the same thing again and again. I mean, how many times have we all heard that batteries simply aren't landfillable, and how many of us take the trouble to find out how to recycle them? (I've heard Staples will recycle them.)

4. How do you pass the time here on earth? Any ideas that don't include drugs will be welcome--I believe compiling a list of such activities is going to be one of the new big crusades in my life. (I'm not knocking drugs, I just don't require any suggestions in that arena.)

Trash Vortex Update

Not really that surprising that Greenpeace has something to say about this.

Not really surprising that I don't know what more to say.

Recycle!

On to a new topic. I've finished The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, both in book form and in the Nova made-for-TV movie form that's available on the internet.

My conclusion: while it did serve to get me interested in physics (reference my anticipated shipment of Einstein's paper on his theory of relativity--and another book to explain the Einstein) it's kinda lame and really cursory. Though maybe that's as it must be. The book was about 400 pages and the movie, three hours. Who could even start if either were longer?

Reminding me of resolution #7. Be less verbose.

Guess I recently notched it up to 8--no alcohol this year.

Reminds me of a great friend from college who'd always give up Bud Light for Lent.

we're all Deer in the Headlights of this one

When I stumbleupon'd the plastic soup twice the size of the continental united states that is afloat in the pacific seas, I was reminded of why we need to chuck our disposable culture.

I've always had the hope that our huge ocean rafts would be more intentionally created. (Reference one of my favorite sci-fi novels, Snow Crash.)

What do we do about this? It's one of those "Oh, man.." kind of problems.

Drowning In Waste

I'm about a third of the way through Rubbish by Richard Girling, and my favorite parts so far have been the tours he's taken me on in management facilities for our three primary wastes: bathroom waste, recycled waste, and unrecycled waste. I was actually most surprised by the recycling section, because I had slightly higher hopes for what's being done in that sector.

Worry number one: Why aren't more things recyclable? This doesn't even come from the book, it just comes from looking around. Can we recycle CD jewel cases? Can we recycle plastic bread bags? Can we recycle the screw-on tops of our water bottles? In most cases, the answers I've found have been NO. WHY?? And why don't we listen to people who tell us not to buy things that aren't recyclable?

Worry number two: Why aren't things recycled more efficiently? If I have a first-edition PET bottle, never before recycled, why does it have to become a gutter in its next life? Why can't it be washed out and reused the way it is? Or at least cleaned, melted, and reused as another PET water bottle? What is the deal with making our recyclables into disposables after only a few cycles?

Worry number three: Why aren't more people worried about this? I mean...how much more room do we really have for landfills? And isn't anyone worried about this modern-day version of 'sweep it under the rug'? I've heard the argument that we can just store our garbage on the moon, or shoot it into the sun, so why get up in arms...but I've also heard the argument that it costs between $5,000-$10,000 per pound just to get something into orbit, so that doesn't really seem all that feasible of a solution. Besides which, siphoning off resources out of our closed planetary system just because we don't want to go without our chuckable water bottles seems like an awfully shortsighted idea.