Payback Time

I feel obligated to warn you that this is a bit lengthy

I recently watched Steve Irwin’s Ocean’s Deadliest (which I recommend, by the way, to those of you who haven’t seen it yet) and the narrator, Philip Cousteau said something at the end of the documentary that just stuck with me. I don’t remember the literal saying, but in context he said that the deadliest creature in the ocean is humankind. I disagree. Humans are not the deadliest creatures in the ocean; they are the deadliest creatures on Earth!!!!

Consume, consume, consume! That is what we do. We consume energy. We consume nutrition. We consume natural resources. We are consumers! FINE... I suppose that we have no choice in that. We must consume in order to survive. But the question that I ask here is, are we consuming what we need, or are we consuming what we think we need? Take Ramadan for example, since it is coming up. We fast all day long with no food and no water. Then when it is time to break the fast you find the dinner table covered with food that can feed an army, literally! The question here is, do we really need all that food? The answer is NO. There is just so much food one can eat!! We cover the dinner table’s surface with the food that we “think” we need

That is what we do, us humans, we consume more than our share. It has been like this for years, no centuries! We believe that we are the rulers of the planet, that all creatures were created to help us sustain our lives. So, we fed on animals and plants. We spread throughout the land, marking our territories with cement walls and asphalt paving. We messed with the natural order of things. Now it is Mother Nature’s payback time

Personally, I think Mother Nature is very wise! Don’t you? I mean what better way to get back at the arrogant humans than to inflict upon them a curse made by them! It is very much safe to say that Mother Nature’s revenge is manmade

Remember the: consume, consume, consume! I was talking about before? Well, that is what created the perfect revenge! Everything we consume can, in the end, be labeled as one thing… TRASH! And then where does that trash go? Have you ever wondered where the stuff you throw out end up? Or did you just think that everything you put in your trash can simultaneously disappears? I’ll tell you were it all went, but first I’ll tell you what we do in order to “dispose” of the trash. We burn the trash and then bury the ashes, or we just bury the trash all together. Guess what that did, that my dear readers caused a disaster. All the ashes and gasses that were left from the whole “disposing” process went to us! See over the years Mother Nature has been accumulating all the negative results of our ingenious methods. And now Mother Nature has finally released the wrath it has been holding for so long in the form of Global Warming

Global warming is the gradual increase in the Earth’s surface temperature. Greenhouse gasses (GHG) are atmospheric gasses that contribute to the greenhouse affect, global warming

In other words, all the heat that radiates from different products that humans use (cars, heaters … etc) gets trapped in the lower atmosphere because of the greenhouse gasses. It’s like all the GHGs are surrounding Earth with this bubble and all the heat gets trapped inside instead of descending to the upper levels of the atmosphere and then getting released into space. A result to that is climate change. Notice I said climate not weather. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere "behaves" over relatively long periods of time (NASA definition). So, basically all the climates are going berserk

Climate change is not the only affect of global warming. Noticed any rising allergies? Yep, you got that right. Aggravated allergies are a result of GW, along with the rise of water levels which is leading animals to move their habitats to greater elevations. So, ding dong to those who live on the coast, you better watch out. This next little piece of tangible information might shock you. Did you know that 125 lakes have disappeared in the Arctic in the past few decades? I’m sure you’ve heard of the deterioration of the ozone layer in the arctic too. This just backs up the theory that GW is working extremely fast nearest to Earth’s poles

Enough talk about Global warming tragedies. Let’s talk about what you can do to make it better! The following are simple steps that have life changing effects: First thing you should do is change all the light bulbs you use anywhere to Florissant lights, they consume less energy and last longer than normal lights bulbs. Try to decrease the mileage you put on your car. Grab a ride with a friend every once in a while, because that decreases the amount of GHG emitted into the air. Also, try to cut back on your use of plastic bags and Styrofoam for your takeout food and your groceries. You can’t recycle Styrofoam used to store food or plastic bags. Which reminds me, you know the plastic water bottles we use? Stop using those immediately!!!!!!!!! Let’s say an individual normally consumes three water bottles a day, and there are 365 days in a year. That means that the individual uses 1095 plastic water bottles that cannot be recycled and take thousands of years to biodegrade. So, use your own reusable water bottles or buy the glass water bottles (I know that nova makes glass water bottles, and they cost the same as the normal ones!). And of course don’t forget the three Rs: Reuse, Reduce, Recycle! Oh, and save water =)

I'll be back with more info soon