Open Thread - Thurs 11 May 2023 - Some Environmental News
Some Environmental News:
Awesome:
A woman who is a fourth generation shrimper, Diane Wilson, from south Texas, beat a huge plastics corporation (Formosa Plastics) in court, for disregarding the law and the regulations (and agreements the company had made with the state), and constantly sending plastic pollution (tiny plastic balls called nurdles) into the ocean. She won the lawsuit, was awarded 50 million dollars which she's put to use in her community and has now received the 2023 Goldman Prize for environmental activism.
Diane Wilson, with a Megaphone, from the Article on her Website
Her life story is pretty cool, going from a shrimper to an environmental activist, as she saw the life in the ocean, the shrimp, the fish and every thing else, get hurt by the plastic (and other) pollution. And then, she won, she won!
Bleh:
Bill Gates' GMO pushing foundation, the Alliance for Science, which works in Africa, just basically co-opted the legacy of a environmental and climate activist named Wangari Maathai. Maathai died in 2011. She was 'the celebrated Kenyan environmentalist who supported organic farming and condemned “the patenting of life forms and the genetic engineering which it stimulates” as a crime against humanity' (quote from gmwatch article linked above).
Maathai did NOT approve of GMOs or factory farming in any way. Here's a paper she wrote about GMOS back in 1998, when Monsanto tried to recruit her: The Linkage between Patenting of Life Forms, Genetic Engineering and Food Insecurity.
The Alliance for Science put out a series of tweets about/featuring Maathai, basically insinuating that she had supported the Alliance. Here's the first one:
Celebrating the legacy of Wangari Maathai. Happy #internationalWomensDay #WangariLives @SheilaAfrica @Nawe4Earth pic.twitter.com/B1PFAQYtCL
— Alliance for Science (@ScienceAlly) March 8, 2023
Looks good, doesn't it? Too bad the Alliance is all about GMOS and billionaire owned factory farming, and too bad they are using Maathai's legacy wrongly.
Bleh2:
The Beeb recently ran an article which concluded that glass was as bad for the environment as plastic (I bet Diane Wilson agrees with that! /sarcasm). It's got some support from plastic advocacy groups, but not much more mention, as should be expected. It sucks.
The article infuriated me. Glass is NOT as bad for the environment, it is PART of the environment. It breaks down into sand. It doesn't entrap animals, it doesn't fill their stomachs with fake food, it's not floating in garbage whirls in the oceans... it doesn't poison things... bleh.
The conclusion from the article was that it is 'hard' to recycle glass because the colors have to be separated, and then there's the recycling factories which use energy (glass has to be remelted, of course) and the mining (the mining ohmigod! /sarcasm) to get the sand to make the glass. That sand can be used for other things, like factory farming! Yes, glass breaks down into sand, the article admits, which is about 59% of the earth (silica). Got news for all the EV - Solar advocates out there who hate glass but like plastic (all like, 2 of you), apparently mining is bad when it's not for Lithium! /sarcasm
As an aside, glass has been recycled since FOREVER. For example, the Romans recycled glass. It was actually an important source for glass, and is one of the reasons glass is rarely found in domestic archaeological contexts in Rome and throughout the Roman Empire (sez me as an archaeologist).
Common Domestic Roman Glass Vessels from Verre, France (picture by Vassil, Wikimedia Commons)
So, back to the article on glass. One of the supposed problems is separating out the colors of glass, apparently. Can't that problem be solved by hiring people to do the separation? Of course it can! My severely autistic sister worked a job she loved, for over 20 years, separating trash: plastics, papers, colors of glass and more. Her job was terminated when the politicians in her county decided to sell trash management to a national company instead of keeping it locally based and voter-supported (the county voters did NOT want to move to a national company). So, yea, recycling needs salaries and facilities, but we have money to pay for those. We could spend some of the money we waste on the military to do this. As for mining, silica is being used now in factory farming, which has really upped the mining. So, maybe, stop that use? Stop factory farming? And when the reused glass is remelted, yes, it takes energy. Work on better, more environmental, sources for this energy. After all recycling plastic, if it's actually done, takes energy too!
In conclusion, when glass turns into polluting, deadly, nurdles, like plastic, and doesn't degrade back into sand, I might be more accepting of it being as bad as plastic for the environment.
Some good environmental news, and some bad to start today's open thread. Thanks for reading - and remember, everything is interesting if you dive deep enough, so tell us about where you're diving!
Comments
Hello!
Hope everyone is having, or has had, a great day. We are set to head into a abnormal (for May) heat spell in the next few days. Gonna be gardening like mad! I'll get the goats to help with the weeding, too!
Let us know what you are reading, learning and thinking! Would love to hear it all!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Good morning...
I'm in total agreement that glass is environmentally (and functionally) better than plastic.
The power grab by Gates on both farming and health is frightening. We know he basically owns the WHO which is working toward an authoritarian pandemic dictate.
Key Takeaways
What blows me away about Gates, et.al., farming is it is chemical and industrially based. They have a test running with the Dutch farmers which has been approved by the EU. It is irony to the max that they want to stop farms which are actually sequestering carbon in order to save the environment.
...
The Netherlands is the world's second-largest farm exporter according to Investopedia. Top Dutch farm-based exports include flowers, dairy produces, eggs, meat, and vegetables.
First they they de-industrialize and now they de-farm? These WEF servants need to go.
Hope all's well in the garden and on the homestead. Our garden is doing well. Thanks for the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Gates' Farming..
it's awful. His kind of industrial/chemical farming is not the saviour of the world. It's just another power grab. Like the WHO. Gads.
Glad your garden is doing well. Ours is too! Our tomato plants have flowers on them! We've got a Swiss Chard area in the garden that has lived for over 1 year now. It's not flowering, and the three plants are all clustered together, growing well after the winter. Never seen that before. We've got celery from last year that is not flowering, but growing on, as well. Weird!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Super good read
Good news and common sense all together. Cool. Didn't know that about the history of glass, never thought about it. Instead of trying to trick us out of money, couldn't they just use AI to separate the glass colors? I hope Diane Wilson prevails because I think the battle has just begun. After all the Exxon Valdiz award went to the supreme court and was reduced to just 10% of the original number. Cheaper to throw a couple of million at Clarence Thomas than pay out what you owe. Also, fuck Bill Gates. Immense wealth is a cancer on society.
Using AI to separate glass colors..
Great Idea! And great comment! I want more people like Diane Wilson to win, lots more. Not sure it will happen, but I hope so. As for Gates, he sucks. I thought so when I first heard about him in the early 80's, I think so now. Bleh.
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Speaking of Kenya
Illustrating the Gates version of 'green', Kenya recently ended its ban on GMO crops as a response to the 'climate crisis'...
Speaking of which:
Also, what with all the controversy over CO2, carbon neutrality and such, I decided to conduct my own survey. After querying all the plants in my yard and field regarding C02 I now can report that the responses were unanimous - they love the stuff.
Ending the Ban on GMOs
It's all about money, isn't it? Right, Bill Gates?
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Good morning Sima et. al. It's Dali's birthday, also Feynman
and King Oliver, but Bob Marley died. It's National Eat What You Want Day as well as Hostess Cupcake Day and that is probably not a coincidence.
It is also "ego awareness day". I, for one, am aware that the ego was the invention of some dude named Freud who made it up out of whole cloth. It has no scientific basis and like other of his inventions such as the id, ego, superego, Oedipus complex and the like are, at best, projections. Freudism is a self-fulfilling truth system and attempts at proving it run into all of the logical fallacies inherent in such systems. He totally misunderstood women and female sexuality who are at roughly half of the species, fwiw. So much for that.
The "Pullman Strike" began today.
It is Sima's regular day to provide an open thread, so, it seems that this might be called for:
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
That was a great goat video!
Good round up of the history of the day, I enjoyed it :). I am not a Freud fan, at all. 'Ego awareness day', Heh. Too funny!
Hope you had a great day and have a great weekend and once again, thanks for the comment, the video and the roundup!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
In what world would you think this represents war crimes?
,
The article is about how Macron was upset that a person vandalized the painting and not being upset about the painting itself.
I wonder what her thoughts are on the Nazis that tape people to lampposts, remove their pants and then supply objects to beat the people who have no way to defend themselves.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
War Crimes?
Good grief. Looks like child abuse to me. Is that a war crime? It's a crime but not a 'war' crime... I dunno. Sexuality is a weapon of war? Huh? I'm confused.
Your points are spot on!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so