Well I have had another day, and more things to think about and process. As any good day should present you I believe.
Today I had my class called Environmental Problem Solving. It is a good class, talking about as the name implies Environmental Problems. Well today we watched a video about the use of our natural resources. It was called "Affluenza". It presents to the viewer that problem that people over use overall and the earth really can't handle it. It actually talked a lot more about how we over use resources and have so much at our disposal and we are less happy than we have ever been. We actually may be at our worse in 100 years because of stress, and other problems.
That is an interesting problem. Americans when polled said that they were their happiest in the 1950's, as compared to now. That was done year by year. Wow. For myself I realize that I am not happy overall when I seek after possessions.
Do our possessions control us or do we control them?
We work so hard at getting ahead of the game and we really have nothing to show at the end of it all. If you have to work 16 hours a day to accomplish your goal what does that get you? Theodore Roosevelt in endorsing big business was worried what it would do to us. He knew that the simple life was the best life. He lived that and hoped others would as well.
It seems that the middle ground between poverty and wealth will bring us the most happiness.
The other thing that the video talked about was how much we use. On average the American uses directly or indirectly on his behalf 20 tons of resources a year. This is all the trash we produce, food we eat, gas we burn ecetera... That is 40,000 pounds. Sounds a bit outlandish? Consider this aspect of it...
How much gas do you use to fill you tank? How many times a month? How about for trips? How about for the year, daily normal use and big trips? For myself I am really a big user of gasoline for when I travel. I ride my bike to work and school. That helps actually by my calculation save 300 gallons a year. Not only do I save money but that is almost 1 ton of resources right there. Don't kid yourself into thinking that gas comes out pure for the ground. It takes actually about 2 gallons of crude oil to produce 1 gallon of gas if that is the only thing they are making. That is on a good day. It could take a lot more.
Overall I probably use 1000 gallons of gas a year when I travel moderately. Like this year. That is adding up to at least 8000 pounds of resources right there if you don't count how much oil it takes to make gas. So really next year when I travel twice as much I will probably add up to be over using past the 20 ton mark.
Then there is the trash and heating or cooling my house. For me it is cooling the house 9 months a year. They also have to use resources to keep my school library nice at 55 degrees. That is a big building. In the winter they keep it at 80. Heating and cooling uses a lot of resources.
The point is that 20 tons of natural resource use per American isn't that outlandish.
So what am I going to do? In the next year I will try and use less of the resources where I can, buy used and attempt to recycle 1000 pounds of my own trash. To start I went out of my way to recycle my computer monitor that died. That prevented lead and other heavy metals from being put into the landfills, as well as helping to reduce the waste overall.
That isn't the main thing I intended to write about but it became big.
A funny story about my day then I have to head to bed.
In my Environmental Problem Solving class there are a few students that go out of their way to help save insects, vermin and rodents. For example Spiders and Mice. Both people had them in their house. What did they do? They captured them, pampered them and relocated them. The mouse story what the funniest. She said she had a mouse problem and said she caught them and relocated them to the country side. I said really? I usually just drowned them when I was living out in the sticks. 97 in 3 weeks to be exact. She said it was terrible that I did that. Another guy in the room said you were dropping them off in front of his house were you? I couldn't stop laughing, and neither could the rest of the group. She had no idea what the joke was.
I also told them about the pest problem they were. I guess she didn't realize how many there could by simple reproduction. For example if you had 2 mice, that had 6 babies. Those 6 babies mated and made 18, then assume some die, you get 36 after the next round, then 72, then 145, then 300, then 600, then 1200, then 2400, then 5000, 10,000, 20,000, 40,000, 80,000, 160,000, 320,000, 640,000, 1,280,000. In less than 2 years you could have more than a million mice if you assume the babies can mate in a month and 1/2 of all the mice die each time and they have 6 babies. Thank goodness they don't go that fast but killing 100 mice in a month may actually just about do nothing overall. Argh. Especially when your cats are really dumb about mice.
Douglas I never understood you...Zenger though was a good cat.
