Author Archives: d

Don’t Jump!

I was at the beach yesterday and despite the warning sign I saw some people thinking about jumping into the water. I told them it wouldn’t be a good idea to jump from a 6 meter high cliff into 2 meters of water. I’ve jumped from this cliff and had done so about a week earlier however that was at high tide and just after the the moon was lined up with the sun as it is during a new moon or a full moon.

To learn about high tide, low tide, spring tides, neap tides, and how to better predict them check out this website by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.

Predicting the Tides: Webpage

Lesson on Tides: Slideshow or Video

It helps to know where exactly the moon is at.

P.S. I bet Professor Splash and Dana Kunze could have done it safely.

 

A Huge Step in the Right Direction

Although yesterdays historic agreement in Paris falls far short of what is needed to keep the global temperature from rising 2C above pre-industrial levels, let alone 1.5C which was at least mentioned in the final agreement, it does lay a solid foundation to do so; but only if we as citizens continue to press our governments to take increasingly ambitious action to mitigate climate change. This means making it clear to our representatives in government and any candidates who seek our vote that we expect action, not apathy, and certainly not denial when it comes to this increasingly critical issue.

Considering we’re already more than halfway there limiting temperature rise to 1.5C will take a considerable amount of effort and ingenuity but if most of us do our part anything is possible. We can all start by eating less meat and more plants, and by burning less fossil fuels and more plant derived calories by walking and biking. By taking these two health conducive actions and reducing the amount of resources we waste in our daily lives we can go a long way in reducing our carbon footprints and by setting an example and speaking out we can go a long way in helping others reduce theirs.

The U.S. and Climate Change

With the U.S. responsible for emitting more of the greenhouse gas currently in the atmosphere than any other two nations combined and the average U.S. citizen responsible for greenhouse gas emissions that are over three times the global average it is shameful that so many U.S. citizens chose to elect such a scientifically illiterate and ecologically irresponsible group of ill-informed and imprudent people to the U.S. Senate and Congress.

If your representatives recently voted against reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and you disapprove then please let them know that you support the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to curb climate change; and when considering who to vote for in future elections please take where the candidates stand on protecting the biosphere, preserving its biodiversity, and curbing climate change into serious consideration.

White House     U.S. Senate     U.S. House of Representatives
Please write to your representatives in government when their actions do not represent you.

per_capita_emissionshistorical_emissions

United Nations Climate Change Conference

The two most important weeks of this year, the last, and perhaps even the next will be getting started in 6 days with the Global Climate Marches planned across the world for Saturday November 28th and Sunday November 29th just before the start of COP21 on the 30th.

If you have a march scheduled in your area please promote/attend and if you don’t then consider doing what I’m doing and start one. At times like this it is critical that we inform our fellow global citizens and show those who represent us in government where we stand.

For more information please visit 350.org.

paris-2015

Vietnam War

April 30th marks the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. A war which spanned three decades during which millions died, many of them civilians and many of them engaged in armed struggle first against U.S. backed French colonizers and then against the U.S. itself who in addition to bombs covered the beautiful and biodiverse country of Vietnam in toxic chemicals which are still causing horrific birth defects to this day.

While so many eyes are on Japan and it’s Prime Minster in anticipation of how he will represent Japan in another WW2 anniversary apology I think more eyes should be on the U.S. for an apology which has yet to come for what it did in Vietnam as well as in neighboring Laos and Cambodia where people are still being maimed and killed as a result of unexploded bombs dropped by the U.S. which has thus far done far too little to clean up.

There are many lessons to learn from the Vietnam War including how racism and us/them thinking in general can pave the way to unthinkable acts one couldn’t even imagine enacting upon ones “own people”. More important than celebrating victory on this 70th anniversary of WW2 the U.S. should be humbly reflecting upon defeat on this 40th anniversary of the Vietnam War and how an ill-informed public along with bad foreign policy decisions like the one to support the French in their attempt to recolonize Vietnam after it fought with the U.S. in WW2 to expel Japanese forces led to such a terrible tragedy.

East West WW2

On this 70th anniversary of WW2 rather than simply pointing fingers at Japan it’s important to better understand the events which led a country that existed in near complete isolation and at peace with the world for well over 200 years to militarize and to or attempt to brutally colonize it’s neighbors. While Japan has no excuse for its actions during and leading up to the war Western powers must not fail to recognize their responsibility in helping to shape pre-WW2 Japan because one of the most important things that can be learned from any war is the role ones actions played in shaping if not creating ones enemies and adversaries.

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U.S.-Japan Pew Poll

In a recent Pew Poll regarding U.S.-Japan relations I was surprised to read that out of 1000 U.S. adults polled 73% said they had never heard of Prime Minister Abe who is Japans current and longest serving Prime Minister in nearly a decade. Considering the U.S. has around 50,000 military personnel stationed in Japan with over half of them stationed on the small island of Okinawa which represents only around .6% of Japans total landmass, and treaty obligations to defend Japan if it provokes a war with China over its refusal to even recognize there is a territorial dispute with China over the Diao Yu Islands I thought I should provide a brief introduction to Mr. Abe by mentioning some of his fairly recent statements and actions.

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Palm Oil

I don’t eat palm oil, or any oil for that matter, nor do I use products made with palm oil. However you probably do so please consider contacting the companies that use palm oil to make the processed foods and other products you consume and insist they use only Certified Sustainable Palm Oil in their products.

We can’t all be personally responsible for every problem in the world but we are definitely responsible for the problems that we create via our purchases. The good thing is many of the things we enjoy can be provided to us in more ethical and sustainable ways provided we make our support for such better practices known to the companies that seek our business.

WWF Palm Oil

Death Penalty and Animal Experimentation

Rather than be abolished I’d like to see the death penalty replaced because it’d be more ethical and beneficial to humanity to test experimental drugs and other treatments on people worthy of the death penalty than it would be to continue doing them on innocent animals like non-human primates who didn’t rape, murder, or maim anyone. However before any jury votes on sentencing someone convicted of a heinous crime or crimes to a punishment like this they should first be required to watch the documentary The Thin Blue Line because if there’s any shred of doubt as to a persons guilt then such harsh punishments must be taken off the table.

Tell Congress to End Chimpanzee Experiments

Ask Airlines to Stop Shipping Monkeys to Be Tortured

from peta.org by unknown

Umbrellas are Awesome

I saw a tourist on the side of the road yesterday with a little hand towel over his head as his only protection from the extremely intense midday tropical sun. I see many tourists lathered up in chemical lotions or burnt red from overexposure however I rarely see one that isn’t a middle aged Chinese women that seemed to know that umbrellas are as useful on sunny days as they are on rainy days. When shopping for an umbrella I strongly recommend buying the best one you can because it costs our biosphere a lot less to make one good umbrella than it does to make three cheap ones. The same goes for most other daily use items so remember to buy better in order to use longer.

P.S. The best umbrella isn’t necessarily the most expensive one. I invested around 70 USD in a Blunt umbrella thinking/hoping such an expensive, sturdy, and seemingly well-built umbrella would last me a few years however it ended up lasting only a few weeks before the locking mechanism which kept the canopy open failed. To make a long story short I was able to get the original replaced and then replacements replaced a total of 4 times so I have experience using 5 Blunt umbrellas and 4 out of 5 of them were not worth half of what they’re sold for and I won’t be buying a second one. I only sent back one so I’ll see if I can get the 2 broken ones and 1 leaking one I currently have fixed and back into operation.

Church Roof Collapse

Yesterday in New Jersey the roof of a church collapsed onto a group of Sunday churchgoers. One person was seriously injured and about a dozen had minor injuries. According to the NPR News Podcast I was listening to on my way to buy vegetables the Mayor said something like “God was watching over them because it could have been much worse.”.

As any freethinking person would I thought if god was looking over them then why did he let a roof fall on their heads. After doing a search I discovered there have been a lot of church roofs falling on a lot of peoples heads. I’m not implying that there’s any connection, I’m just saying people in an old church worshiping god are no less likely to have a roof fall on their heads then are people in another old building worshiping the devil.

However could you imagine if the roof of one of those atheist churches collapsed and injured people. What do you think a frighteningly large portion of the U.S. population, and world population, would be saying then? Perhaps something like “That’s what happens when you try taking god out of the church.”. I bet an incident like that would help many reaffirm their faith as so many unrelated but desperately rationalized events and occurrences do.

Immoral Cooking Tricks

As humanity strives to feed itself without destroying the environment it’s outrageous that some people are actually taking pills and preparing their precious food in ways they hope will reduce their bodies ability to absorb it. Whether it’s food, water, or any other natural resource I hope you also feel that waste is bad, really bad, and will do your best to reduce it by not doing things like reducing your bodies ability to digest the precious food you eat. If you’re a researcher in the field of nutrition please don’t waste your time pursuing things as idiotic and immoral as finding ways to prevent people from digesting their food.

Scary Statistics

According to a recent Pew report on religion the portion of the population that identifies as atheist, agnostic, or unaffiliated is projected to decline as a percentage of the total population over the next few decades. The good thing is that unlike religion the ability to reason isn’t spread by having children and brainwashing them therefore we freethinkers don’t need to try and breed our way out of this crisis all we need to do is continually speak out and set good examples which encourage those born into religions to think for themselves.

When they do they’re almost certain to come to the conclusion that we’re one species of many living within a fragile biosphere whose fate along with our own depends on our actions. Not on ghosts, not on gods, and not on people who claim to have links to them, but on us, the greatest of the great apes in the sense that we’re capable of the greatest evil as well as the greatest good. I hope this report will turn out to be way off in its projections however that depends on the work of you, me, and all the other people who have replaced superstition with freethought and recognize the supreme importance of human, social, and environmental health.

Do You Really Need All the Chemicals?

I haven’t used soap, shampoo, deodorant, tooth paste, mouthwash, laundry detergent, dish washing soap, household cleaners or anything else the average person has been persuaded they need in order to be clean for over 7 years and you don’t have to either. So why not give it a try and see for yourself what the wonders of healthy living along with some water, sunlight, and fresh air can do for you, others, and our planet.

Our Chemical Lives

Respect the People, Close the Base, Save the Dugongs

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Operation Iceberg which is more commonly known as the Battle of Okinawa. A battle in which perhaps as many as 200,000 people, many of them civilians, died premature and often painful deaths over a period of 82 days of intense fighting on the small subtropical island of Okinawa. However although nearly 70 years have passed since the end of WW2 the people of Okinawa are still struggling to gain control of their land and future.

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Pilot Murder

It’s wrong to use the term “pilot suicide” to describe the horrific crime that took place in Southern France last week and to describe similar heinous acts.

Pilot Suicide: When a lone pilot intentionally crashes an empty plane in order to kill themselves.

Pilot Murder: When a pilot murders innocent people by intentionally crashing a plane.

Tragedies like this will become much less likely to occur when all airlines and aviation authorities who haven’t done so already mandate that two people be in the cockpit at all times on all passenger flights.

I hope the tragedy of Flight 9525 helps everyone realize how fragile and unpredictable life is and reminds us to be grateful for and make the most of the time we have left on our tainted yet still beautiful planet.

Common Sense Science

Common sense tells me that putting a bunch of dead fish of questionable freshness into a grinder, separating out the oil, and placing it into gel capsules which will sit in a bottle for a week, month, year, or more before it’s consumed is not the healthiest thing a person could be spending their money and our environmental resources on. Common sense also tells me that among many other things eating leafy green vegetables is also good for keeping ones mental abilities sharp. However even common sense should be questioned, tested, and verified so it’s nice to often see studies like these in the news.

Fish Oil Claims Not Supported by Research

Eating green leafy vegetables keeps mental abilities sharp

Zoonotic Diseases

What zoonotic diseases are, and how to stop them

A good article on an important topic except although it told readers what zoonotic diseases are it didn’t tell us how to stop them. Disease surveillance in other animals in addition to humans is great but what we really need to focus on is keeping humans away from animals. This could be done by working harder to protect the world’s remaining forests and ending the trade in wild animals. Finally if we really want to stop or at least slow the emergence of new and potentially devastating diseases from making the leap from animals to humans we can stop eating animals with an emphasis on those that have been raised, handled, and slaughtered in conditions that make the emergence of another zoonotic disease far more likely.