Cartoon Copyright Jean Burman 2008
Earth Day came and went here with narry a squeak in my part of the world. In fact… ashamed to say… I didn’t even know it was Earth Day (April 22 for those like me living under a rock ~grin~)
I still would have been none the wiser except for the conversation (in the last topic) straying… as oft it does… to Al Gore. (Okay not always to Al Gore… but conversations there DO stray! LOL) So I googled me old mate Al… to see what he’s been up to recently… and discovered…
Voila… Earth Day!
In my cyber investigations… I stumbled upon an interesting article in the Washington Post detailing measures put in place by various green organisations… and tabling people’s individual and cumulative efforts to bring awareness and conscious change to our problems with the environment.
To date… much of the burden of responsibility for change has been lumped at the feet of the man/woman in the street. And this article was no different.
This has always puzzled me greatly… as it is the man/woman in the street who has the least control over anything… leave alone the ability to make the vast leaps in acknowledgement and acceptance… not to mention faith... that will be required to make any REAL kind of difference… to well… pretty much anything! ~grin~
In fact… in what might prove to be a classic case of one step forward two steps back…the man/woman in the street is being urged (read: coerced) into sacrifices that may or may not make any difference at all in the long run.
Now don’t get me wrong… I’m all for making sacrifices… but first let’s take a closer look… and make sure that the changes we are making will be for the better… and will not contribute further to the demise of our beautiful planet earth!
Some of the changes currently being mooted may even be detrimental to the environment in the long run. Like compact fluorescent light bulbs for instance. These little monsters are yet to prove what a menace they will eventually become in landfills across the planet… not to mention our health!
If you do nothing else… for heaven’s sake… please promise me you will read the above linked report from the EPA regarding the health hazards of CFL’s… what to do about breakages and the protocol for their cleanup. If one of these bulbs breaks it is not just a matter of vacuuming it up! (SCROLL OVER “little monsters” & “our health” above)
No one talks about it. Least of all the lighting companies who know full well the potential for harm these bulbs present… yet stand to make substantial profits from sales of the more expensive bulb. So they’re not saying anything.
When I asked my local lighting shop what I should do to responsibly dispose of the spent bulb… they blithely told me to put it into the household rubbish!
OH… MY… GOD…(!)
Compact fluorescents contain MERCURY.
Inorganic mercury compounds are highly toxic and persistent in the environment. The World Health Organisation has been advising of this for years… and recently put limits upon levels of mercury waste that can be emitted by the health sector into the environment via sewage (and incineration)
As an aside… one would have to wonder why this is so… when it seems to have been perfectly okay for decades.. (and remains perfectly okay to this day)… to place mercury amalgam fillings into our teeth! (SCROLL over for link)
Why weren’t we warned?
Is the environment more important than us?
And surely… if mercury amalgam were to be removed from teeth and replaced with a safer more inert substance… there would be less mercury showing up in the environment via sewage anyway?
WHO here… isn’t connecting the dots?
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