Saving the Earth

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’ve had a busy week at work and writing. I also took some time to get together with friends this weekend and walk down memory lane a little bit. I needed a night out, but enough about that. Today, I want to talk about cleaning up our planet for the next generation.

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The first thing I want to address is taking better care of our oceans. Eighty percent of pollution in the oceans is plastic waste. Approximately, ten million metric tons of plastic enters our oceans every year, killing marine life, fish, and seabirds.

This is not just a United States problem. This is a global problem. We need to recycle and get everyone around the globe on board with it. The oceans are keeping our planet alive they provide at least half of the oxygen for the earth. It’s imperative we start cleaning them up now.

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But what can we do individually?

We can recycle. That’s the biggest step we can take as individuals. The less plastic we use the better. We can stop using pollutants like bug sprays and fertilizers. All of these find their way to the ocean.

So, by taking these steps we can take care of the ocean, but pollutants also have a negative effect on our land. They seep into our drinking water and contaminate our soil which makes growing food that much harder, and let’s not forget about the Bee. This little insect is so important for pollination, which is essential for us humans in growing our food. The use of insecticides kills these pollinators.

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 We should start growing our food organically and stop using pesticides all around the world. I know this will be hard to do, but if we get everyone around the world to agree to some kind of treaty, it’s not impossible.

I want our earth to be a viable place to live for future generations. I’m sure you do too. What steps do you think we can take now to ensure our kids have a sustainable planet? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

It’s Time to Take Care of Mother Earth

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. Today is the first day of daylight savings time where we turn the clocks ahead one hour and lose an hour. I don’t know about you, but I hate daylight savings time. It messes me up for a whole week. I don’t sleep well and that makes me cranky.

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On a more positive note, my pinched nerve is so much better. I’m going to try to make it through the day without any muscle relaxers or anti-inflammatory meds. My index finger on my left hand is still numb, but at least I can still type.

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But enough about that. Today, I’d like to talk about taking care of our planet. We humans sure have made a mess of things. From depleting our rain forests to the great garbage pile in the ocean, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

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Why don’t we get smart and create a global organization whose primary purpose is to clean up the mess we’ve created? That way every nation would have to be involved. I wonder if that would help get rid of the wars? I mean if we’re all working toward the same goal, wouldn’t we have to get along?

Just like the trees in the forest cooperate with the fungi in the soil, we could cooperate with other countries and clean up our planet. Wouldn’t that be something?

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I know, I’m being idealistic, but sometimes the answer really is that simple. If we don’t do something soon, future generations are going to be in trouble. It all starts with the forests and the oceans. They are the things keeping our earth alive. Along with our pollinators, let’s not forget the bees.

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The bees keep our forests and flowerbeds growing. Isn’t it interesting that the health of the planet depends on such a tiny insect? Let’s do our part this spring and plant flowers so the bees have plenty of sources to collect their pollen. That’s one small thing we can do right now for our planet.

How about you do you have any ideas on how to keep our earth healthy? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

How do We Save Our Planet?

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a week of writing, running, and work. Less writing this week because I had a busy week with work, and it is treadmill season, so I’m changing up my running routine. Not to mention day light savings time. This combination of a perfect storm had me exhausted at the end of the day.

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At work this last week we had what management calls a boot camp. Kind of a training to hone your skills. Anyway, every morning to get things started we would do an ice breaker. One day one of the ice breakers was “Would you rather.”

One of the questions was “Would you rather live forever or move to a new planet?”

I chose, I would want to live forever. The reason being, I could see my kids grow up and see future generations. I was surprised to find other people in my group chose to move to a new planet because they didn’t want to see the demise of the earth.

My first thought when I heard this, was how do you know the earth is going to die? Maybe scientists will come up with something to keep it alive. So, I did some investigating and found that the earth is in fact, in dire straits. According to this article, https://www.livescience.com/ghastly-future-global-crises.html life as we know it will change drastically due to climate disruption, biodiversity decline, and human overpopulation and overconsumption.

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This does not paint a pretty picture for our world. We need to start taking better care of our planet today to ensure future generations have a world they can live in. That means we need to clean up our act.

We need to clean up our oceans and plant more trees. Both are like the lungs of our earth. They both provide us the oxygen we need to breath and they soak up carbon dioxide out of our air.

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So, there are two steps we can take. The next thing we need to do, is take care of our honeybees and other pollinators. By doing this, we will help slow down the biodiversity decline of our many plants and shrubs that we need to keep the earth alive.

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The next thing we need to do is address human overpopulation and overconsumption. This is where we run into trouble. What do we do? Limit the number of kids people can have? Is that even ethical? Do we start rationing our resources? I don’t have an answer for this one. There are too many cons to these suggestions, so I pose the question to you. How do we save our earth? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

Saturday Wisdom

I saw this on Twitter and it resonated with me, so I thought I’d share it with all of you! Happy Saturday!

There is No Planet B

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a busy week at work and rewriting one of the first scenes in my story. I like it much better, but I’m going to have to go through and tweak a few more scenes, but that’s okay. It’ll be worth it in the end.

But enough about that. In honor of Earth Day, I’d like to talk about humans and their effect on the earth. After watching shows like “Erin Brockovich,” “Dark Waters,” “The Big Short,” and “Seaspiracy,” I’ve concluded that humans aren’t good for the Earth. There, I’ve said it.

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We’re all connected. The trees speak with each other through their roots and release oxygen into the atmosphere while soaking up carbon dioxide. The ocean produces over fifty percent of the air we breathe while also regulating the climate.

We need the oceans and the trees to stay alive. Yet, we’re so busy cutting down the forests and overfishing our seas that we’re slowly but surely killing our planet.  We manufacture things that poison our drinking water and kill people all to make money. Who is behind these atrocities? Man.

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We are the most intelligent species on the planet. We can think critically and invent amazing things, but we do so recklessly. In the movies “Erin Brockovich” and “Dark Waters,” huge corporations were making products that poisoned the surrounding town’s water supply. Each company knew about the damage, but instead of halting production and cleaning it up, they covered it up and pretended it wasn’t there because it would eat away their profits.

In “Dark Waters,” Dupont invented Teflon, but found that working with the chemicals caused birth defects. They didn’t tell their employees and continued to allow them to work while pregnant which resulted in deformed children. Now we’re finding that our own government officials have made decisions that adversely affected their constituents. Look at what happened in Flint, MI.

We need to make some drastic changes. It makes me sick what we’re doing to the planet and to each other just to make some bank. We need better regulatory agencies and we need to hold corporations accountable for what they’re doing. It’s the only way future generations will have a place to live.

We also need to start cleaning up the mess we’ve created in the oceans. I’m holding the commercial fishing industry responsible for that one. I think each company should pay a tax each year and that money goes toward cleaning up the sea, and if they’re caught dumping waste into the ocean, they lose their fishing license for a certain amount of time. They must also pay a fine, and they must help in cleaning up the ocean while their fishing license is revoked.

I know it sounds harsh, but drastic changes are needed. What are your thoughts? What changes would you make to save our Earth?

What Kind of World are We Leaving Our Kids?

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back after a week of work and writing. I spent last night hanging with the hubby, we got a pizza and settled down to watch a movie. This one was titled, “Dark Waters,” and it’s a must see. It’s based on a true story. One of my favorite types of movies.

It’s the story of Robert Bilott a corporate lawyer who took on the company DuPont. The company had been poisoning the water supply for at least forty years and one farmer figured it out when his livestock started getting sick and dying. (Sorry this is a spoiler alert)

Robert Bilott took the case and was not only able to get a settlement for him, but for quite a few members of the community when it was determined that the water supply of the town was contaminated. Mr. Bilott was able to prove the company knew the drug they had created had contaminated the water and was dangerous to humans. I won’t go into more detail. I don’t want to ruin the whole movie for you.

In my opinion, this is what’s wrong with America today. Too many corporations are worried about making profits at the expense of society. If that farmer hadn’t stood up to Dupont, who knows how long that company would have knowingly continued to contaminate the water supply. They didn’t care about their employees or the community who happened to also be their customers.

This trend isn’t new. Look what happened in the true story ‘Erin Brockovich,’ when a woman with no legal expertise took on Pacific Gas and Electric when they contaminated the water supply of Brinkley, a small California town.  I know the legal system worked, but not before these companies did horrific damage to many lives and our planet.

This has to stop. Greed is ruining our planet. Look at what commercial fishing is doing to our oceans. Not only are they overfishing it, but they’re trashing it by dumping their damaged nets and other garbage into it. Have you heard of the great garbage patch? It’s a big floating pile of garbage in the Pacific. Why doesn’t someone clean it up?

This upsets me. What kind of world are we leaving for our future generations? I don’t want to leave a mess my kids will have to clean up. We need to start taking care of our planet today, and the corporations have the money to do it. I think they should all ban together and contribute a ton of money to cleaning up our oceans. Then maybe we should all stop eating seafood until the oceans rebuild themselves. Then regulate the heck out of the fishing industry. Let’s bring everything back into balance.

I feel we need to go into conservation mode. Let’s do what’s best for the earth and future generations. I’m not sure what that is, but I’m open to suggestions. Any ideas? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

Don’t Look Now, But Social Media is Taking Control of Virtual Reality

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a stressful week of dealing with kid issues, a pandemic, work, and writing. Because I had a lot on my plate, I didn’t get a lot of writing done, but that’s okay. I needed to take a little break and refuel.

But enough about that, today I want to talk about a trend I see happening. First, I need to give you a little background, though.  Hubby and I were shopping for a virtual reality headset for the boys for Christmas. We found one we really liked because it wouldn’t be obsolete in two years. Anyway, we were all set to buy it when we discovered that in order to activate it, my son would have to open his own Facebook account.

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We dug in our heels and didn’t buy it. We don’t want our kids having social media accounts right now. Especially after watching the show “Social Dilemma.” I remember after watching that show, I made the remark to my hubby that soon this is going to be seeping into the kids’ video games, and not two months later we run into the above scenario.

This is dangerous. The reason being that it’s giving social media platforms way too much control. They are changing human behavior by creating personalized click bait for each member. Their goal is to increase engagement, so your child will spend his free time on their site. Now that they’re invading video games, they’re going after the younger crowd. They’re looking to expand their customer base and more importantly they’re going to gather the same information about your child that they’re gathering about you.

I don’t know how we can stop this. Facebook bought the company that created the virtual headset my hubby wanted to get for our son, so they can require this. No one is stopping them. So, what happens when your child spends more time with their computer than they do with people? Loss of social graces, loss of the ability to communicate face to face, and the loss of empathy.

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All these skills are needed to navigate today’s world. What happens if you as a parent do their do diligence and try to teach these skills to your children? They’ll be the only ones with these skills and get lost in a sea of dealing with socially inept humans. It’s a sad state of affairs. I’m not sure what we can do to stop this from happening.

Do we have the government regulate social media? Who trusts the government these days? What are your thoughts? Do you have any ideas? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!

Could the Movie Wall e be Prophetic?

Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’ve been working hard at work and on my story. I’m at the last part of the story and I’m so excited. It’s turning out to be a good one. I’ve put a lot of my heart and soul into this one, but enough about that. I don’t want to give away too many secrets on that one. 😊

 

Photo on VisualHunt

Today, I’d like to talk about what kind of Earth we’re leaving to our kids. Have you seen the movie Wall e? It was popular when my kids were younger and when I saw the movie, I felt it was strangely prophetic.  It’s the story of how humans had destroyed the Earth by leaving mounds of garbage and waste all over. They also destroyed the air because of smog pollution, so the planet  had become toxic to humans. They had to move into a new world in Outer Space where every technological advantage was available to them. They became overweight and lazy. Pushing buttons for food, drink, and transportation.

Wall e is a robot that has been left behind on earth until one day he meets Eve. A new, sleek search robot, who comes to Earth to see if there are any signs of life. There are, she finds a plant that has started to grow. Wall e falls in love and follows her back to the new and improved world that humans now occupy. It’s a great movie and ends well with the human’s returning to earth.

Even though Wall e ended well, I wonder if, we’ll be so lucky.  Our oceans are heavily polluted endangering sea creatures, and just last week, I found out the Amazon rain forest was burning. We need to take better care of our planet if we want it to be there for future generations. We need to clean up the oceans and take care of the bees and the trees.

I know, it’s a big job, and it’s going to be hard because we need the whole world to participate and get involved. It can’t just be the US. We need some sort of international treaty that holds all countries and continents accountable, but it also has to be done on an individual level. We all must take responsibility for cleaning up after ourselves and taking care of our trash.

I have an idea. Let’s make recycling big business. Can you imagine what it would do to the earth if we could sell our garbage to the highest bidder? People wouldn’t be throwing plastic in the ocean anymore, it’d be worth too much. It’d be like throwing money out the window.  Who does that?

So, let’s make sure Wall e stays a fictional story and do whatever it takes to take care of our planet, because our planet takes care of us.

 

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. Do you have any ideas on how we can clean up the planet? Leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you!

We’re all made of Stardust

 

Hello everyone. I hope all is well with you. I’m back today and I want to talk about the fact that we’re all made from stardust. Isn’t that amazing? We all have the elements of iron, calcium, and magnesium in our bodies. We are literally the by-product of exploding stars.

 

Photo credit: NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

 

That totally blows my mind.

That being said, we all are vastly unique at the same time. Just like snowflakes we all have our own makeup. Each one of us, even a set of twins, is different. I find this intriguing and it begs the question. If we’re all made up of the same elements how can we be so different?

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It’s our DNA. The unique way it’s arranged makes us different, and that’s true, but I’m wondering how many different combinations there can be. Well, I did a little digging and the best answer I could find without going into a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo is that there are seven billion people on the planet so there are four hundred and twenty billion different combinations. Wow.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that even though we’re all made up of the same elements we’re all vastly different. Each one of us. But we’re also the same. It’s mind-bending when you thing about it. What I’m trying to say is we’re connected. And that connection is what I’d like to focus on.

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Historically, we humans have been afraid of other humans who are different. People who have different skin color, different genders, different sexual orientations, and different ideologies. We need to stop ourselves for a second and instead of coming from a place of fear, we need to come from a place of love. That’s right. Love for our fellow man. We don’t all have to agree, but we do have to respect our differences while at the same time remember our similarities out number our differences. That is the only way we will be able to survive on this planet. You have to remember we continue to reproduce, but our planet does not and it doesn’t grow larger either.

 

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In order for our species to survive, we’ve got to take care of ourselves and our planet. We don’t have time for anything else. In a crisis, I’ve seen people come together and forget their differences and work together until the crisis is over. Why can’t we do that all the time? Why does there have to be a major disaster before we’ll work together? I think we should work on that. Don’t you?

Thanks for stopping by and reading my post. Leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!