modern life vs. human nature

CBC Report

Yes, it seems that the less educated are drinking more bottled water..well, it’s probably better than Coke!

On the other hand, the extra plastic bottles aren’t doing much for the environment.

So if you or any of your friends fall into the “stupid bottled water drinkers”(ha! sorry.) category then here’s some good information for you:

Tap water is safer! Why? According to this article tap water is tested every day and bottled water companies are tested every 3 years. WTF? That is a huge difference!

I wrote a letter to the BC premier after reading the article below.

Dear Premier Campbell,
I just recently read this article about mining companies turning some of Canada’s lakes into waste dumps and I am outraged.

The CBC article

For the future of all Canadians you, as a representative of the people must look into protecting our natural resources. Fresh water, fish and natural habitat are resources that should not be squandered for short time gain. The long term effects of disregarding the consequences of for profit business have got to stop because it is not sustainable for humans or for the planet.
What is the true cost of polluting these lakes to future generations?
We are responsible for leaving the world a better place than when we arrived.
Economics has to start considering the limited resource of our environment before it is uninhabitable.
I hope and expect that you have the courage and foresight to act in a truly progressive manner.

Thank you.

So as you can see I was a little upset. I like lakes.

I didn’t start this blog because I was an environmentalist or an activist. I am a sportswear designer and marketer but what I’ve come to realize is that there is so much that goes on underneath our noses in North American culture that is truly remarkable in so many ways that I’ve become thoroughly engrossed in finding out more. I mean, reading about green fashion is relatively boring compared to reading about how Nestle buys cocoa from farmers in Africa that use child slave labour or that Jack in the Box fast food killed people in California and they are still operating, or that China kills nuns or even that teflon causes cancer and on, and on…It’s so interesting because it lets you see all the warped things people will do just to make money. I am amused, saddened and encouraged all at the same time. Just like this next article. Who could have guessed that one of the key people behind getting aspartame to market after almost all clinical tests linked it to every bad thing that could ever happen to someone, would be Donald Rumsfeld! Mind you I think you would have to ingest a lot of it to really harm yourself like say…5 diet cokes a week for an entire year.

Anyway, the latest information I have found is about aspartame and it’s harmful effects and increasing usage in a lot of food.

An article in The Ecologist about Aspartame.

The New York Times article

Read the full article in Common Ground.

Here are a few excerpts:

Aspartame was discovered accidentally in 1965 by James Schlatter, a scientist and employee of the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle, while working on new drug formulations. Despite disastrous safety studies done by G.D. Searle itself and later by the FDA, aspartame was approved in 1981 with the help of G.D. Searle’s then CEO Donald Rumsfeld who was also the secretary of defence in the Reagan administration at the time.
In 1985 G.D. Searle sold the rights to aspartame to Monsanto, the company that has also given us Agent Orange, recombinant bovine growth hormone and a wide variety of chemicals and genetically modified plants.

In 2000, European researchers demonstrated that one of the breakdown products of aspartame, formaldehyde, accumulates in the brain and other organs of regular users leading to immune, nervous system and genetic damage which consequently may result in diagnoses of multiple sclerosis, lupus, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, as well as birth defects in children of aspartame users.

The reason I put the Dentyne gum picture up(read the ingredients) is that most gums now have aspartame so you might not want to chew as much…or more…your choice.

That title almost sounds like a Radiohead song but unfortunately the tune is more catastrophic than harmonic. I just read an article in the LATimes about how much plastic garbage there is floating in the ocean.

To read the full article go here.

Here are some of the key points that I found completely incredible.

There are two huge floating areas of garbage in the Pacific two times the size of Texas.

They are not actually piles of garbage but sort of like water with a lot of garbage in it; 90% of which is plastic-”supple, durable materials such as polyethylene and polypropylene, Styrofoam, nylon and saran.

About four-fifths of marine trash comes from land, swept by wind or washed by rain off highways and city streets, down streams and rivers, and out to sea.

The amount of plastic in the oceans has risen sharply since the 1950s. Studies show a tenfold increase every decade in some places. Scientists expect the trend to continue, given the popularity of disposable plastic containers. The average American used 223 pounds of plastic in 2001. The plastics industry expects per-capita usage to increase to 326 pounds by the end of the decade.

The qualities that make plastics so useful are precisely what cause them to persist as trash.

Derived from petroleum, plastics eventually break down into carbon dioxide and water from exposure to heat and the sun’s ultraviolet rays.

On land, the process can take decades, even centuries. At sea, it takes even longer, said Anthony L. Andrady, a polymer chemist at the Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina who studies marine debris. Seawater keeps plastics cool while algae, barnacles and other marine growth block ultraviolet rays.

“Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere,” Andrady said, “because there is no effective mechanism to break it down.”-LA TIMES

These last paragraphs were literally copied from the LA Times article so don’t sue-it’s just that the information just makes you go “Holy Shit!  I never realized that plastic doesn’t bio-degrade and that literally millions of tons of it is still floating in the ocean.(which means my Six Million Dollar Man™ doll that I had when I was eight is still out there either in a landfill or in the ocean swimming around with his bionic arms and legs.)

The craziest thing is that some “yachting guy” decided to take a short cut through one these garbage patches after a big race and spent a week sailing through garbage!  Yes, it took him seven days of sailing through garbage until he hit open ocean again! WTF!

I guess the story made me very aware of the plastic I use on a daily basis and so now I’m looking at ways to reduce plastic in my life; plastic made from corn is bio-degradable!

On a side note, we all know plastic comes from oil and so does gasoline. It seems like oil has given us a great many conveniences over the last fifty years but at the same time it’s the root of what is hurting our chances for survival on the planet. It’s too bad our parents didn’t have the foresight to see the consequences of their actions on future generations.  I hope we can.

Even though I own a biodeisel SUV i decided that I wanted to ride my bike more often to work so that I would contribute less pollution to our air. Coincidentally, my SUV broke down soon after I made the decision and so I threw myself wholeheartedly into the commuter biking thing.

Last season I bought a $300 (made in china) Nishiki hybrid bicycle that I used to get around on because my downhill mountain bike was just too heavy. As soon as I started riding the Nishiki more often it started to break down. The more bike shops I went to the more I was told that my bike was basically a “piece of shit” and that If I wanted to get a “good” bike I would have to spend some dough. Feeling a little depressed at having to shell out more money for what I thought was an inexpensive way to get around the city I decided to shop around more..and low and behold I found the best bike shop in the world! Our Community Bikes on Main St. in Vancouver is a non-profit cooperative bike shop where they don’t tell you your bike is a piece of shit and they help you improve it inexpensively with used or donated parts from other bikers.(You still pay for parts but they are super cheap.) The other great part about the shop is that the volunteers teach you how to fix your bike too. So instead of just dropping your bike off and waiting for the repair guy to fix it you bring it in and fix it yourself with their help. What a concept?

So a few months later I have created the bike in the above picture(my CHUB!)

It is a pretty sweet ride, has all the gears of a ten speed and front shocks. All for below $500..which includes the original cost of the bike a year ago. For me it is the perfect combination of all types of bikes. In other words, it works for a curb jumping, wheelie popping, fast commute to work.

My car is now fixed and when I drove it the other day I was not happy.  Traffic sucked and people in cars seemed a lot less happy then the people I meet who are riding or walking to work or just plain cruising around enjoying the outdoors.

I have read that there are other such shops in most major cities and I hope that more open in smaller towns as well because this seems like a progressive way to help solve our pollution problem and enjoy our lives.