News: For Dana

The first article I read this morning was in no way newsworthy. Though the BBC felt the need to post it on the front page of their

World Edition. It can be found here. I'm a bit concerned for either a) the writers capacity for thought or b)their assumptions about their readership (silly brits) its clear they're assuming the intellectual prowess of this to reside in the people:

The second article was about green house emissions and how business is responding. I am impressed to find how hard wall-mart is apparently putting forth quite a lot of effort to become sustainable. charming. And its exciting about sustainability a

nd despite the climate bill being "bogged down in the senate" at least its there and hopefully once Health Care is settled it will get through. Either way, its quite good. However, I find it interesting which things people highlight and the things that people ignore about reducing emissions. The article admits that:

"Limiting the growth in greenhouse gas emissions, let alone cutting them, will require a radical transformation of the nation’s energy consumption and fuels that will most likely take decades. It is bound to hurt some energy-intensive businesses, like petroleum refiners and coal-fired power plants, and some manufacturers, while bolstering the development of alternative power industries like solar and wind."

Which is good, less reliance on oil yada yada better. I have been thinking though, and i find it interesting that when people talk about petroleum refineries and making it harder for them to function people talk about the gas and how we need alternate fuels for cars, but what about the other things we rely on just as much every day that people just either a) don't talk about at all or b) offer solutions that are not good long term solutions which I've really only seen in some limited spaces. Even these solutions are solving a different problem. So, after my long preamble what about plastics?

How much of our lives rely heavily on plastic? from my water bottle to the coating on my table (presumably) the handles of my pans, tupperware, food containers, etc etc...and the other one synthetic fabrics. Polyester, acrylic, acetate, nylon, latex, rayon, and spandex, some were made from coal but again not a renewable resource. So what solutions are offered? I mean clearly we can make clothes from nature since it was the original plan though it will make the lives of housewives a bit harder. What about alternate sources for making plastics? So far there's been efforts to make corn into plastic. And its successful. But the 3rd thing I'm listing that is made from oil is corn. Corn, a nitrogen hungry plant fertilized by the converted war machine. What once was an industry of making oil into bombs now makes oil into fertilizer to sustain the american dependance on corn (or some argue the dependance of corn was encouraged by governmental regulations in order to sustain the war machine in times of peace). So...if we were suddenly at a point where we didn't have any oil what would we do? The amount of stuff made from corn in the states alone if lost would cause a great deal of industrial collapse.

So what would we do without oil? At this point, we wouldn't be able to get anywhere, make clothes or plastics, and we'd be forced to redesign american agriculture (except for the organic farms *yay organic!*) And they make synthetics from soy also these days which actually puts nitrogen back into the soil so the farmers that rotate soy and corn seasonally actually can grow it well. (yay organic thinkers) but do we really want to turn farmland into manufacturing plastics? Especially since most of this farmland will probably be outsourced and our plastics will be grown in some third world country and rather than utilizing the earth to feed its people they will use their land to feed our addiction to synthetics? I realize i offer no solutions, because I don't have any, but as i said in the debate on energy and alternate resources are we really making the right choices? Bio-fuels based on corn use just as much oil as gasoline because of how their fertilized. Plastics made from corn, same issue. So, while America does make corn into the right solution (based upon legislation to encourage corn growing, making almost all other agriculture not worth it) even though corn can't be the right solution with farming as it is today.

So. Where is the solution that doesnt take over farm land nor require oil to make alternate fuel sources. (I do like the algae solution for jet fuel.)

Anyway, just a thought. and one more for Dana: