• If humans disappeared, the average house would last about 100 years before toppling over due to decay. But if you cut a one-foot diameter hole in the roof, the same house would crumble in about 10 years. This is the power of nature once it gets inside and gets to work.

• Here’s a quote that should make you pause: “Except for a small amount that’s been incinerated… every bit of plastic manufactured in the world for the last 50 years or so still remains. It’s somewhere in the environment.” How much is that? One billion tons.

• If people vanished, the 441 nuclear power plants currently in operation would run on autopilot for several months and then begin to overheat. The resulting deadly radioactive damage to the environment would poison the areas around the plants for a very, very long time – we’re talking geological time of hundreds of thousands of years.

• Mount Rushmore would probably last about 7.2 million years.

• There are about 20 billion birds in North America alone – yet the population is plunging. Two of the strangest mass killers of birds are windows and cats. Birds can’t see windows and they fly into them and snap their own necks at alarming rates. About one billion a year die this way. Domesticated cats – even when well fed – hunt and kill about 28 birds each every year. There are between 30-60 million cats in North America. Do the math.

Labels: Alan Weisman, book review, environment, The World Without Us

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“I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.”

It’s a disturbing image – and one that might be difficult to refute these days. Conventional wisdom suggests that we’ve entered a tipping point on the environment. Our culture of modern conveniences, technologies, and machines has knocked the natural order of the planet, well, into orbit.

Our sins are many from increases in industrial farming (requiring chemical fertilizers, ever-increasingly potent pesticides, and overuse of antibiotics on cattle and chickens) to an overabundance of smog-clogging automobiles causing air pollution and ozone depletion.

But a careful review of the mounting evidence seems to show that we aren’t heading for a major crisis – but that we’re already knee-deep in one. Just take a glimpse at the recent news headlines:

• Honeybees are dying by the millions – up to 90 percent of hives in some regions. Biologists call the unknown killer “colony collapse disorder” – a colorless government term for labeling this fierce and mysterious plague. Honeybees are crucial to pollinating flowers and fruits (apples and oranges, for example, can’t grow without them). In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says honeybees pollinate about $15 billion worth of crops in the U.S. alone. One theory is that a virus has struck the bees because their immune systems have been weakened and destabilized by overexposure to toxins and pesticides.
  

• Thousands of bats in the Northeast are dying from a mysterious disease and biologists are worried that tens of thousands of bats could die this year. Many bat caves have seen 100 percent mortality rates. Scientists are speculating that that toxins and pesticides have weakened the bats and destroyed a lot of their food supplies in the last few years – making them susceptible to disease. There has also been speculation that the electromagnetic radiation emitted by cell phones is responsible. Bats are crucial to controlling insect populations – especially mosquitoes.

• Climate change, caused by carbon dioxide emissions, continue unabated. The number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has doubled in the last 30 years, Malaria has spread to higher altitudes, ice flow from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled in the last 10 years, and 279 species of plants and animals are moving closer to the poles, according Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth.”

• The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River has become as large as the state of New Jersey – and continues to expand. Few creatures can live in this oxygen-deprived desert of ocean, which is caused by nitrogen-rich fertilizer that runs off from industrial farms in the Corn Belt into the Mississippi River.

If these four examples don’t convince you that human activity is changing the environment then perhaps reports from the World Health Organization that global cancer rates may increase by as much as 50 percent by 2020 will.

Yet, the conversation on how to turn back – to save what we haven’t yet destroyed – continues to be a backburner issue, especially in the United States.

Perhaps one reason is our arrogance and unfounded confidence that the technologies that brought us to this precipice will ultimately save us. This is ironic since these technologies (automobiles, air conditioning, plastics, radiation, etc.) are what have led us here in the first place.

We have a tendency to embrace new technologies before we fully understand how they will affect us in the long term. Isn’t that why we painted our homes with lead paint and used asbestos to insulate our pipes? Recently, we’re learning that plastic water bottles – already owned by most American families – may increase the risk of cancer.

As Agent Smith might have observed, human beings think they can improve Mother Nature. We believe that we can do it better – despite a history of shoddy results.

That’s why we end in situations like this one: We force feed our cattle corn – when they evolved to eat grass. By forcing them to eat corn, the majority become sick, so we treat the corn with antibiotics to keep the cattle alive and healthy long enough to slaughter them. As a result, we dine on sick, drug-infused beef while overusing antibiotics to a point that they’re becoming less effective.

Or why we end up pouring tons of chemicals on our lawns – forcing grass to grow lush and green in environments unnatural to the species. Believe it or not, but Arizona isn’t supposed to have grass. It’s a desert.

It’s time for the environment to become a top and urgent priority in the United States. The economy, gas taxes, and the war in Iraq all pale in comparison with the sorry state of our sick planet. We’ve broken it and now we need to fix it. Without Earth – what else is there?

Read some of our other essays:

The Threat of Bottled Water

The Trouble with the Mormon Religion

Labels: environment, Essay, Global Warming, water

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While in the cashier line at Whole Foods last week, I watched a gray-haired gentleman in a cashmere sweater and expensive slacks place two heavy cases of San Pellegrino water on the conveyor belt. The sparkling mineral water from Lombardy, Italy is among the hottest selling brands of bottled water.

But it may shock some people to learn that this high-end water supplier is owned by Nestle, the same company that manufactures Hot Pockets and Butterfinger candy bars. Nestle also owns 26 other brands of bottled water included Perrier and Poland Spring.

Americans spent more than $15 billion on bottled water last year – more than we spent on iPods or movie tickets, according to Fast Company magazine. This was clearly evident at Whole Foods as I watched the gray-haired gentleman shell out about $60 for his purchase.

Has there ever been an advertising and marketing triumph quite like bottled water? We have allowed ourselves to be duped into believing in luxury brands of water – that spring or glacial water is somehow a premium worth shelling out money for. This despite the fact that water flows for free out of most people’s kitchen and bathroom taps.

San Pellegrino is a perfect example of this charade. The Italian water isn’t naturally sparkling. It is mineral water infused with carbonation. Analysis shows that the water quality is about the same as water that flows from the average sink.

Some bottle water, in fact, really is municipal tap water. It may be as much as 25 percent of all bottled water, according to a report on ABC News. Pepsi Colas’ Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani brands have admitted that they are simply filtering tap water.

“Whether bottled water is better than tap water, and justifies its expense, remains under debate,” according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

This fact has done little to hinder the success of the bottled water industry:

• In 2004, more than 41 billion gallons of bottled water was consumed. The United States was responsible for 28 billion of the total.
• It takes about 17 million barrels of oil to manufacture the plastic bottles for water, according to the Pacific Institute. This caused more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere.
• Approximately 80 percent of the plastic bottles used for water end up in landfills – only 20 percent are recycled.
• In the United States, bottled water sales are expected to surpass the sale of beer and coffee in the next few years, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Marketing and advertising, of course, play an enormous role. We’ve been fooled into thinking that bottled water tastes better and is safer than tap water. But we’re also turning water into a valuable commodity that is enriching corporations and forcing a privatization of what was once a public resource: water. With the well-off consuming bottled water are we in danger of ignoring or letting public water supplies deteriorate?

Water is too valuable – too necessary – to our public health to hand over to corporations. Water needs to remain a public resource for the world – and not a luxury for the rich.

The good news is that there is a developing backlash against the dangers posed by bottled water. What can you do? I’ve vowed to stop buying bottled water (and save myself a lot of money). I’ve purchased a water pitcher with a filter that I keep in the refrigerator. Rather than buy bottled water, I now use a refillable plastic bottle that can be washed and reused over and over again.

Now if we can only convince well-to-do gray-haired gentlemen to do the same.

Read our essay on slowing down to the speed of life

Read our essay on global warming

Labels: environment, Essay, water

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• The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years
• Malaria has spread to higher altitudes in places like the Colombian Andes (7,000 feet above sea level)
• The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade
• At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles

But you don’t have to watch Gore’s documentary or head to North Pole to see melting glaciers to know that global warming is real.

All you have to do is vacation in Maine.

My family has owned a small pine cabin nestled in a hemlock forest on the shore of a small lake in Maine since 1978. The joke used to be that Maine had two seasons: Winter and the Fourth of July. That’s because Maine is a cold state – vicious, snowy winters that begin in October and stretch out until late April. It’s a rugged state Maine – rocky, moss-laden terrain, jagged hills, thick dark forests, and a coastline battered by a cold ocean.

It used to be that Maine never really shook winter. Its icy grip clutched to summer through the fireworks on Independence Day and the dog days of August. An average summer day had temperatures in the high 70s and early 80s with a drop of a few degrees when you wandered into the shade. At night going to the drive-in required long pants, a sweatshirt, and socks to keep away the chill. Stargazing was best done under a blanket. And then there were those cloudy days when the temperature fell into the 50s (the average low in July and August in Portland, Maine is 56 degrees).

And, of course, the lake never lost the cold – especially when you dove down a few feet and the icy water bit your skin.

Packing for vacation was always difficult – because you needed to be prepared for two seasons – daytime at the beach and night time everywhere else. But this was the beauty of a vacation in Maine. Vacationers got relief from the heat and pollution of the city for the crisp, clean air of northern New England.

Not anymore.

Summer in Maine has shaken off the bully winter. In fact, summer has knocked off winter’s hat and pushed it into a mud puddle. Summer has taken lessons from Charles Atlas and is now the one kicking sand. My suitcase for my weeklong vacation this year didn’t include any long pants, only running socks, and one sweatshirt (which I never used). It’s was warm enough to keep the windows open and on two nights it was uncomfortably humid.

Some of the changes are manmade. Our cabin shares a windy, tar roadway with 20 other cabins – but most of these cabins have been upgraded by the owners. New floors and additions have been added, foundations built and garages and bunkhouses constructed. As a result, many (too many) conifers have been cut down to make room for this “progress.” This has caused an increase in sunlight – which used to be blocked by the thick pine canopy.

As a result – our specific area is hotter because there’s not as much shade. Amazingly, some of the new owners have installed central air conditioning and my nights on the screened porch, which used to be filled with the peaceful sound of crickets and the haunting cries of loons, are now interrupted by the drone of air conditioners. These owners, who have cabins just a few feet from the lake, now sit in their temperature-controlled cabins with every window and door sealed tight. They might as well live in a plastic sandwich bag.

But the removal of the trees and the resulting increase of open space is only part of the story. The lake temperature has spiked considerably. The water can feel like a bathtub and even diving deep gets you only a minor difference in temperature. The day time temperatures are regularly in the high 80s and even the 90s. At night, you don't need the extra layers.

It’s hot.

And that may be why Gore’s movie was such a success this summer. Global warming can no longer be ignored . People, regular folks, are beginning to experience its effects first hand. You don’t need to be a scientist to realize that you used to have to wear a jacket to the drive-in when you were 13 and now your only need a t-shirt and shorts. You don’t have to be a climate control specialist to notice the temperature is consistently creeping up to the 90s. You don't need to be an environmentalist to realize that the water is warmer.

All you have to do is summer in Maine.

Read our essay on slowing down

Labels: environment, Essay, Global Warming, Politics

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