"CRAPPY EARTH DAY"
As you read this endocrine disruptors may be mutating your gonads while Government and Corporate Liewyers argue about who is "kinda" responsible for plopping PCBs into our water supply.
I call this the Feud Chain.
Back in 1970, 20 million Americans ( 1 in 10 the largest protest ever) gathered en masse to protest the polluting of the EnviWRONGment.
So how is the cleanup coming along?
Did any of you watch Poisoned Waters on Frontline?
It was a scary synopsis of what is happening to two estuaries located in the USA, on the Wet Coast, Puget Sound, and on the East, Chesapeake Bay...
here is a hint...
they are dying.
Earth IS the water planet..as Carl Sagan would have nasally proclaimed it's where Life began billyuns and billyuns of years ago. Like it or not when the Oceans and Rivers die, and they are all connected, we all die.
PROFIT BEFORE PEOPLE
Our North American model of Government (which in theory is us) is chickensh*t about dealing with the millions of tons of phosphorous and nitrogen laden chicken sh*t, swine crap, and bullsh*t that is flowing into culverts to streams to estuaries to the Sea.
Phosphorous and Nitrogen are sucking the life-giving oxygen out of the water and creating dead zones.
Agriculture seems to be the number one enemy of the EEK-oh!-system. Factory farming and it's present economy of scale model has replaced the traditional Ma & Pa farm that Clark Kent grew up on. Most Pig, Poultry, Dairy and Beef operations are now massive incorporated entities.
Robert Kennedy Jr. called Corporations "externalising machines" because they shirk responsibility for their operations by offloading the cost of doing business onto the government (Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!= Votes! Votes! Votes!) which is funded by taxing the public...
so we are paying for it in more ways than one!
Sadly, little Piggies which are destined to go off to market, no longer prance about the farmyard like Babe.
Why are we so casual about what happens to all of the crap?
One factory farm can produce as much crap as a medium sized city.
Why do we tolerate this bullsh*t!
The damning example cited on the show highlighted how the Processor owns the chickens from the time they drop off the chicks to the time that they are loaded up...except they don't own the sh*t..that is the suppliers problem.
Some of it gets spread on neighbouring fields as fertilzer but much of the toxic ooze (filled with chemicals to speed up the growth of franken food species) runs straight into streams and makes it's way to the Ocean.
Industrial PCB laden waste is still gushing into the watershed from Factories and urban runoff. A double whammy..we get crap killing the oxygen and contaminents infecting OUR food chain.
After the get tough start spurned on by the Eco movement of the early 70s, the 80s became the deregulation corporate asskissing era under Ronnie Raygun who of course wanted the Government to do what it is supposed to do...protect Corporations and defeat those Godless Communists.
After the get tough start spurned on by the Eco movement of the early 70s, the 80s became the deregulation corporate asskissing era under Ronnie Raygun who of course wanted the Government to do what it is supposed to do...protect Corporations and defeat those Godless Communists.
THE FEUD CHAIN
The program presented a prime example of the Feud Chain; Boeing and the City of Seattle are arguing in court about who was responsible for the PCB runoff...basically re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
On the other coast, the Chickensh*t Lobbyist argued that the so-called contaminated waste might be coming from all of the wild Fox, Geese, and Deer that live near the barns!!!
Those barns contain half-a-million f*cking chickens!
Hel-LO!
How does that Poultrygeist sleep at night?
The Orca population off Seattle may become extinct in about 20 years. As the top predator in the food chain, the PCB levels of the world's largest Dolphin are now so high that young Orcas are dying off at alarming rates.
There are only 86 indivduals left and they are now on the endangered list.
We (Me) are all polluters..we (me) live and support a profit before people society and our suburban sprawl has created millions of miles of impervious surfaces. Whenever it rains, an average sized city flushes an Exxon Valdez worth of crap into the rivers every two years.
We (me) all need to become Sea-huggers as well as tree huggers. We need to stop building McMansions out in the middle of nowhere that are dependent on driving cars and paying a few more bucks for buying food that isn't produced on factory farms. If we stop supporting them they will quit...
and no doubt start screwing us in other more creative ways but what-are-ya-gonna-do?
We also need to elect officials that aren't "chickenshit" about standing up to the Corporations..HAHAHA! good luck with that.
We have a small window of opportunity in which to change the way that WE live before the Biosphere reaches the point of no return. Mother Nature may have already started her plan to eradicate us by sterilizing Humans with our own PCBs.
Here endeth today's preachy sermon.
Oh Donn... I could hug you. Despite your tongue in cheek typing, your passion for this planet comes through loud and clear and I applaud everything you say here.
ReplyDeleteWe humans *are* killing off this planet and those of us who seem to care have a very difficult time trying to get anyone else to care... and to do something about it.
I didn't watch that program, as I was at work, but it scares the bejeezus out of me to think of the harm we are doing... and we *will* live long enough to see a lot of the consequences.
Excellent post.
I hate to be a Negative Nancy...but do you really thing that window hasn't already closed?...with all that's going on? I mean really...with, in particular, the rate of glacier melt being way faster than ever imagined even five years ago); the ocean dying (and this show is only a small..very small picture of the whole story), old growth Redwoods STILL being harvested at the tune of 500K+ board feet a year(by the Bohemian Gvove asshats, no less...the "leaders of the world"...she seethes... http://tinyurl.com/cupvzh).
ReplyDeleteLong ago, I got an image of Earth shaking us all off,kinda like the fleas we can be. Wonderful, loving fleas in so many ways, but fleas, nonetheless.
I look at my grandsons and cry.
Jeebus...typos..."Bohemian Grove" that one's important.
ReplyDeleteI'm a polluter, and awfully fatalistic, disgusted, scared, inert, hating the factory farms, worrying about my daughter.
ReplyDeleteLiving in NYC, right in the heart of the conspicuous consumption, the noise, industry and obvious pollution, it seems an impossibility. I can only properly think about the topic when I step back literally from where we live and think outward.
But I don't know. I'm lazy and most of the time can't think creatively beyond my own paltry personal recycling efforts...maybe my energetic little girl has a brilliant idea. I wouldn't put it past her.
PONITAYou can see it at PBS.org. I find it interesting that Farming is still such a sacred cow. When I was born more Manitobans lived in rural communities but 50 years later most of us are city slickers.
ReplyDeleteWe need to eat and the economy of scale in having factory farms might make economic $en$e but the "cost" is too high.
Nothing will happen until we start seeing widespread medical problems..Humans are notorious for being reactive rather than proactive.GILLETTEDespite my nagging optimism I think that you are right. There have been 5 major Extinction Level Events that removed the dominant species of that era...the last not that long ago when large mammals disappeared..not quite as famous as the Dinosaurs.
Gaia could shake us off like Fleas and we should be "smart" enough to understand that. But, we spend more manufacturing weapons than we do on education and healthcare so that pretty much sums it up.LEAHOne bright light on the show was a portion that showed a new approach to urban living..high density, reclaiming paved surfaces for markets and rapid transit were the key.
If we can somehow wrench our lips off of the teat of the automobile we might have a chance...and stop the sprawl..gawd don't get me started on the suburbs!
I worry about what kind of world my kids will inherit..the main problem is that Humans create so many immediate threats on other Humans that the BIG PICTURE is lost. We literally cannot see the forest for the trees.
Scary shit indeed...
ReplyDeleteI am doing my bit by drinking locally produced wine.
ReplyDelete*hides Irish whiskey bottle*
I'm with you on the fury level Donn and support local agriculture and all that stuff but Gillette has a point in that we are probably beyond saving especially if you listen to James Lovelock on the issue.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that we are sterilizing ourselves may be the best thing for us.
Oh Hai MJ - I can't visit you because I am locked in a prison that blocks your site from my delicate eyes (you I can understand but it blocks me from Flikr too).
Very insightful post! I buy a lot of chicken and pork products because I like eating them. You're right. Profit does come before people.
ReplyDeleteAnd in the long run, the earth will move on--with or without us. I'd like to think that we are smart enough to acknowledge that we aren't at the top of the food chain...we're actually in the middle of the food web. And when we've succeeded in poisoning ourselves out of existence, the food web survives through its many other links. Life goes on without us. It has done so before; and it will do so again.
I hope that we're smart enough to realize that we need to take action. At the very least, be brave enough to accept that we did this to ourselves, when we find that our inactions have led to our destruction. But I'm an optimist; I believe that we can survive. We want to, don't we?
Well done Mr Kopenjz!;)
ReplyDeleteYou're still on your Mr. Kopenzjh kick huh?
ReplyDeleteYou have touched so many bases here, all of them brilliant, and you are so right.
But that's the strangest thing of all. Everyone, even the politicians and corporations, know this is true.
But as you say, they don't seem to care because nothing truly bad has actually happened yet as a consequence.
And it will continue that way until something that is undeniably a result of this rains down on us like a plague or something and destroys a continent or something.
So what do we do instead? We invent Earth Day and continue to actually do nothing.
It's a worthwhile idea and all, it IS about public awareness. But still, nothing will change until disaster strikes.
Oh Hai Lulu!
ReplyDeleteShall we organize a jail break?
I just find it amazing that we are all still talking about the impact all of this has had on *us* *ourselves* *we* *people*.... we've totally wrecked the planet and the planet had no choice. It's fighting back now.. but so many other things, beings, plants, microbes, etc, are being wiped up with our Gaia cleanse. Big hurricanes wiping up the messes take up more than just people and thier pictures and plastics. But the Earth is retaliating.. and well she should.
ReplyDelete