1halffull's Blog

This morning, well actually for the last few days, the talking heads were batting global warming around like a tennis ball made of silly putty. 

Here’s how the ball bounces:  The Al Gore-ites are all for it.  A number of scientists are skeptical. 

Big Al has looked into it via the internet that he invented.  He pretty much knows what’s going on and even made a documentary that got on public TV and won him a peace prize.  He wanted us to know so we’d stop doing the stuff that caused global warming in the first place.

The scientists, on the other hand, are skeptical of Big Al’s contention.  Their point is that it’s difficult to prove that current weather patterns are caused by global warming.  They contend that it’s very possible that the current weather patterns are nothing more than part of a recurring, historical cycle.  This cycle is not very well documented because Al Gore didn’t invent the internet till the mid-1950’s, so people didn’t have many concrete methods to make note of previous weather cycles.  At least not by methods that stand up to scientific examination.  Pictures on cave walls don’t seem to count for much.

But I digress….

Here’s what I think:  People are asking the wrong questions and concerned about the wrong stuff.

Sit down for a moment.  Now, write down all the names of people who you know have cancer or had cancer in the last 10 years even if they are already dead.  Next, if you’re over age 35, write down the names of all the people you remember who had cancer 25 years ago.   Compare the list. 

If you’re like me, your list of currently knowns with cancer (or recently deceased from the disease) is much longer than the list from 25 years ago.  Hmmmm….

For an interesting road trip that will add more information to our sudo-scientific search, go out for a ride through the countryside.  Tell me how many new ‘mountains’ (or at the minimum, very large hills) you see that you don’t remember being there when you were a kid.  I’m thinking you’ll see a significant number. 

Those are garbage dumps that are buried to look like mountains.  They’re springing up everywhere!  Their stench in some places pollutes the air; their decay leaches into our water systems.  One of these days, Columbus will no longer be nestled on the flat plains of Ohio.  It will rest among the mountains.

If you live in the Youngstown area, stand outside for an hour and count how many very large C planes use your house as landing directionals in take off and landing maneuvers from the local air base.  If it’s a clear day, tell me what you see as they fly over.  If you said a cascading gray emission coming out of the back of the engines, you’d be correct! 

What is that?  It’s the exhaust debris.  Where is it going?  Into our watershed, onto our crops, into the grass that cows are eating and consequently, into our bellies to be spread throughout our bodies.  It’s called toxic waste and it messes with something in our bodies known as ‘free radicals’.  Not good.

I”m not picking on the Air Force.  Their gunk is just more visible. 

We also need to be highly aware of all the pesticides used on crops and even our lawns. 

Here’s what we’re told about that:  As long as you wash the produce, the fruit, the potatoes, etc., you’ll be fine.  Uh, I don’t think so.  That stuff they put on the crops to kill the weeds, kill the bugs, grow uber tomatoes (that taste like straw) and delicious apples the size of a baby’s head, is sprayed across the crops, lands in the ground, is sucked up by the plant’s roots, embedding itself in something that you’re going to buy at the store or the local farm market then eat.  Where will it go? Into your belly to ‘nourish’ your body.

So, what’s the problem?  The problem is that your body doesn’t recognize that junk.  Your body wasn’t created knowing what to do with the unrecognizable.  Sometimes it will manage to expel it; unfortunately, more often the junk is deposited into your body tissue, your organs – pancreas, liver, kidneys, lungs.  The body tries very hard to deal with it and does for awhile.  But then it can’t deal anymore. 

Next thing you know, you’re on the list you just made of people you know who have cancer or MS, or MD, or any number of diseases that can’t deal with a ruptured ecology.

So how’d we get here?  Greed.   People learned that if they used chemicals, they could improve their produce, improve their crop sales, make more money.  Steel and oil barons learned that they could build empires worth billions while easily forgetting that their sludge and run off was going directly into our water sources.  The tobacco companies started with a cigarette then built a ‘better’ one, filled with 10 times the nicotine our parents got from each puff.  They used their technology to hook in more consumers, get more sales, fill their greedy coffers with more dollars. 

Americans, in an effort to make life simpler, have created a need for fast foods, bright packaging that sells more products, plastics that won’t break down for thousands of years, and a hellish host of things, including TV’s, computers, furniture and good old every day garbage, that ends up in dumps that are turned into mountains.

The earth shudders.  The weather changes.  The earthquakes come.  The K-Mart closes; the building is torn down; the parking lot is empty.  The earth gets her chance and if you watch carefully, you’ll see her begin to reclaim what is hers.  All’s she needs is a chance.

Will we give her that chance before it’s too late?