Love Your Rant, Oliver. Also enjoyed reading the related posts. Informative, to be sure.
If you all don't mind another rant...
Climate change is real & it's scary.
Every year, our local weather (Detroit, Mi USA) is different. We get spells of non-stop rain for days, then dry for days or weeks. The winter temperature is higher than ever. Snow is either none or tons. I know a scientist who lived in the artic. She said years ago, when a glacier would calf, they'd all run outside to watch. In the later years (about 5 years ago), calving was no longer a miracle, but an interruption due to the disruptive noise. But, supposedly climate change a myth.
I'm glad to hear you guys are aware of it and trying to make a dent. Please teach the kids! I try to make my small dent. If we all made small dents, the problem could vanish & maybe, just maybe, we could un-do some damage.
Some people refuse to do anything to help, after all it's become a political issue in the U. S. "Stupid liberal tree hugger!"
I watch my neighbors stuff cardboard & water bottles into the plastic trash bags, instead of the recycling container. I've had many complaints that I re-use boxes when I ship and use recycled paper or real popcorn in paper bags for packing instead of oil made, landfill clogging foam nuts or spray-in-place foam. And, how dare I re-use a cardboard box. Sure, cardboard recycles, but it takes energy to recycle in back into cardboard.
Anything oil is something to be minimized. Over 100 years ago, Henry Ford famously demonstrated the strength of soy plastic with a sledge hammer & ax. (I doubt his motive was environmental, rather I suspect was economic. But who am I to judge?) Perhaps we could aim that way again, but with less pesticides and less water to grow the soy. Beef is another thing to be ditched, at least here in the United States. What an environmental disaster it is! As a bonus, the company I worked for owned food manufacturing plants, including beef processing. About 6 years ago when i left, and maybe even now, the beef industry could still add trans fats to beef- and ammonia gas. It was the only industry where trans fats were allowed. Yuck!
Neighbors laugh when I push my reel mower instead of firing up a gasoline eating, carbon spewing gas mower. Even here, where the average lot is 40 x 100 feet, people ride sit down mowers on the little lawns we have left after a house, garage and driveway is placed. My guess is shoving a reel mower around has to have a better health benefit than breathing whatever comes out of a gas mower. A bonus, to be sure. (I do cheat and use my battery mower when things get out of control.) My wish was that we had reliable public transportation so I could use it more. (Detroit bus system's motto is "A bus will get there eventually- maybe".) My bicycle is a real help, as is combining errands.
The planet is a gift and we must treat our gifts well- plus protect them for those who will live here long after we're gone. If there is a "here" in which to live.
Thanks Again for all of you for taking time to post information from which we can learn. I very much enjoyed reading your posts.
FrdNicuolas, how'd your cherry tree make out? Good I hope. They are beautiful!
Paul
PS: Interesting tobacco fact:
In school we learned that 1836, Samuel Green discovered, and made public, that tobacco was a poison, insecticide and can kill mammals, including people. In 1847, Phillip Morris company squashed his publicity efforts. Nicotine is still used today as an insecticide.
