Exxon pipeline breaks spilling 84,000 gallons of Canadian crude oil near Arkansas lake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ECKYz00aouo

http://www.treehugger.com/energy-disasters/oil-spill-arkansas-exxon-pipeline-breaks-spilling-84000-gallons-dangerously-close-lake-conway.html

On March 29^th, a 22 feet long and 2 inches wide rupture was opened in ExxonMobil pipeline in Arkansas.
According to treehugger.com, “It was a rough start to the Easter holiday weekend after an oil spill struck in Mayflower. Authorities said as many as 40 homes had to be evacuated Friday afternoon.”  More than 80,000 gallons of oil leaked out from the rupture. The US Environmental Protection Agency says that it was an environmental disaster.

It is still unbelievable how such accidents can happen and the great media and governments do so little to avoid them. Instead of applying considerable fees to companies like Exxon, which has a very dark history in harming the environment, by political pressure the amount of money is insignificant comparing to the profits of the company. These politics create spots for such accidents continue to happen, causing irreversible impacts on the health of people and the ecosystems in the areas where these accidents occur.  

30 Dolphins stranding and incredibly saved

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekmMD8oYtJ0

In the morning of March 5, 2012, approximately 30 dolphins were saved in Prainha do Arraial do Cabo in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. They lost direction and swam to shore. Because the sand, dolphins stranded and eventually failed to return to the sea. Residents who were in there, joined forces and rescued one by one, until all dolphins were saved and back to the sea.
This is a good example of how people can be still connected with nature even without thinking about this. Of course this is a very small action, but the fact of people on the beach get together with the objective of saving the dolphins is a symbolic reaction of simple people against all the environmental issues that we have being facing. It is a behavior to be followed and that touches the heart of every person that sees this video.

Dueces McDonalds

I just happened to see this when I woke up today, McDonalds essentially went bankrupt in Bolivia because it didn't fit into their culture well and the people didn't buy their food. To me, it's amazing what money will do to a corporation like that; if you don't buy it, they pack up and leave. I'm sure this didn't really put a dent in McDonalds overall income. At the time, I'm not trying to give the impression that Bolivia is super healthy nation either, because I think they still face malnutrition problems unfortunately; but it's still impressive.

It was also eye-opening to me because no one is forcing you to live a certain lifestyle or culture. If you really want to make a difference, vote with where you spend your money and encourage others to do the same. I'm not saying it's not difficult, but if the people in Bolivia can do it, then what is stopping any of us? If you believe in something, stay true to yourself and go with it.

Enjoy the 20th of April!

http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/26-12-2011/120084-McDonalds_goes_belly_up_in_Bolivia-0/

Business and the Environment-good business?

        I have heard and read a lot of things about how environmentalists are hurting businesses.  I look at it as helping businesses to be more efficient.  Everything that flows out of a business and is not sold or in some way increasing a profit margin in some way is money that is thrown away.  I think about the fact that any chemical most likely has a way of being broken down or changed into a product that can be used in some other product and then sold at a profit in a market that they have not been a part of.

       Any company that can reduce its total marginal costs below that of its competitors can gain a market advantage in an open market.  It can potentially gain economic profit.  Economic profit is when a company is able to benefit from the gain it has made.  People either complain about the government having too much control or not enough control.  It really depends on who is talking about it.  People that feel that they are being harmed by the government such as taxed too much or being negatively impacted in some way believe that the government is doing too much to control the markets.  An example of this would be the owners of companies that have been complaining about the new Health Care Act, known as Obama Care.   An example of those who believe that the government is not doing enough are those who are losing jobs due to jobs being transferred to other countries.  They want the government to put tariffs or quotas in place on imports of certain items coming into the United States, in order to raise the price of a product so that the total cost of a product is selling at a point where producers in America can compete.  I personally feel that the purpose of government is to attempt to balance markets out, such as getting them to pay for the cost of doing business, such as the cost of pollution.  

wikipedia links to help explain some of the terminology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_%28economics%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import_quota

An Idea about trash

There are people that I have heard saying that climate change is not real, or that we can use technology to deal with the effects of climate change.  Some individuals have opinions that can’t be changed, no matter how much evidence that they are shown.

                I feel that there are other ways to explain to individuals not only benefit to the environment, but by doing things like reduce, reuse, and recycle can help them financially.  Basic economics says that if price is low then there a large demand, if something is selling for a high price, then people are more willing to sell it and less willing to buy it.

                Almost every time I need to throw something away, I think about it as throwing money away.  I think that eventually stuff will get expensive enough that companies will actually be mining landfills because it will be cheaper to get materials from landfills, than to get the raw materials from nature.

By encouraging others to recycle or use materials we already have in the long run can be cost efficient and beneficial to the environment. 

Gross National Happiness

Gross National Happiness

I was researching the Himalayas and how climate change impacted them and the communities there for another class a while back and came across a very unique, small South Asian country called Bhutan. Unlike the other countries along the Himalayas like Nepal, India and the southern half of China, I had never heard of Bhutan before, and their environmental issues intrigued me.

Bhutan is a very small country, I would say about the size of Connecticut and has around 738,267 people living there. It is completely surrounded by India on the east, south, and west side of the country and surrounded by China's Tibetan region to the north. They have various problems with glacial melt due to climate change, as do the rest of the countries in the Himalayas. The most prominent issue with the glacier melt water is flash flooding, damaging building infrastructure and farmland and killing people and their cattle. Bhutan is a very poor country, and has to call on some international help in order to work on climate change relief efforts within the country.

But, what I found really intriguing about Bhutan, and what this post is supposed to be mainly about, is that Bhutan first opened it's borders less than forty years ago and in 1972 adopted a policy of gross national happiness (GNH) instead of gross domestic product. GNH is a policy that relies on various Buddhist values, such as spirituality. To measure their GNH, they use nine domains which rely on psychological well-being, health, education, time use, cultural diversity, and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards.

GNH led to Bhutan to have strong environmental protection policies, such as making the country carbon neutral and banning plastic bags. Bhutan has some of the most progressive environmental policies in the world among developing and developed countries. In a world of failing economies and poor environmental policies, it seems many other countries should consider adopting something similar to Bhutan's gross national happiness.

You can read more about the tiny kingdom of Bhutan where I researched the country at: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091021/pdf/4611042a.pdf, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/01/bhutan-wealth-happiness-counts
http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com/
Or if you really are interested in this, you can watch this video on Youtube about Bhutan and it's gross national happiness. kind of interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXJwNSkdTH0

Religion or Science?

It's 3:03 am, and I just finished my third tallboy of the night. For the controversy of this post, I might need another! This topic came up today as I was studying chemistry in my mom's living room. I was telling my little sister about the knowledge I have acquired during my schooling, pertaining to the beginnings of the Universe, and life on Earth. She asked me if I knew how humans came to be on Earth, in a mocking tone. Obviously I told her yes, and backed it by scientific knowledge of evolution. Evolution is no longer just a theory. It is proven that species have adapted and evolved to whatever environmental conditions they are living in. Although the big bang is just a Theory, it is backed by some pretty serious conclusions and assumptions about the continued expansion of the universe and the echoing sound of the big bang which can still be detected at it's frequency. I explained also about early Earth and how the conditions were right for life to spontaneously emerge (Miller-Urey experiment) and how atmospheric oxygen came to be. From here plants adapted to terrestrial conditions, as did some age old marine organisms that had an exoskeleton that could support their weight out of water. Despite all of the knowledge I rattled off straight from my chemistry and biology book, at the end she says: "I still believe something greater created all this." She is nine years old. I was born and raised with Christian beliefs, so I know where she is coming from. Even though my views are different (Love and Science are my Religion now), it is not my right to taint her views, nor any of my family members that believe different. I simply responded "That's good. You can argue that God was still at the start of it all, that he still set it all in motion, long before he created the human race "in his own image", as the Bible says. The origins of human life, and the origins of the Universe, are still not solid fact." Maybe some day they will be, but even then I won't hold it against any person choosing to believe what they want. I support our constitution and its first amendment with freedom of religion. Every one and possibly every organism needs something that they can believe in and hold on to. Let each individual form their own beliefs, based on their life experiences.