Category: Environment
Posted by: an okie gardener
Yesterday afternoon a church member and I excavated to the back of a storeroom in the church. We brought out 3 old computer monitors, a tower, and printer that predate my arrival as pastor. We also found two typwriters. The church now will offer these items for bid, mostly to free up some space. But I got to thinking, what will we do with the computers if no one wants them? btw, we also are offering an old desk if you live near Apache.

This story from CBS demonstrates the danger to the environment caused by the modern electronic technologies we depend on. A CBS 60 Minutes crew followed ditched computers and cell phones from the U.S. to China.

E-waste workers in Guiyu, China, where Pelley's team videotaped, put up with the dangerous conditions for the $8 a day the job pays. They use caustic chemicals and burn the plastic parts to get at the valuable components, often releasing toxins that they not only inhale, but release into the air, the ground and the water. Potable water must now be trucked into Guiyu and scientists have discovered that the city has the highest levels of cancer-causing dioxins in the world. Pregnancies in Guiyu are six times more likely to result in miscarriages, and seven out of 10 children there have too much lead in their blood.

Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, outlines the e-waste pollutants and their effects. "Lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium, and polyvinyl chloride, all of these materials have known toxicological effects that range from brain damage, kidney disease, to mutations, cancers," he tells Pelley. And there's no shortage of refuse that contains these hazardous materials. "We throw out about 130,000 computers every day in the United States...we throw out over 100 million cell phones every year," says Hershkowitz.


While filming in China, the 60 Minutes crew was roughed up when a group of men tried to seize their cameras. The crew escaped, though, with their evidence.

Moral of the Story:

1. Almost everything we buy eventually becomes trash. So cut down consumption.
2. Many things we discard are hazardous, so discard properly.
3. When recycling electronics, try to make sure the firm is environmentally responsible.

CBS reports that the Basel Action Network certifies companies that handle electronic waste in a safe manner.

The Electronic Take Back Coalition also lists responsible electronic recyclers.
Category: Environment
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
I appreciate the Okie Gardener's recent thoughts on Global Warming (and his prior musings), which always reflect a true respect for the scientific method and classic conservatism, rather than the all too common blow-hard varieties of both.

As was noted earlier this week by a friend who knows me well, my knowledge of science is fairly elementary. Perhaps as a result, the Global Warming jokes are hard to pass up. A few months ago, I noted wryly that I spent the night at Gate C-29 at DFW, snowed-in during early March. I confess that I cannot help but get a chuckle every time an Al Gore conference on Global Warming is canceled on account of a 100-year blizzard. And every morning in May that I wake up in Central Texas with the temperature in the high-40s (and then told Global Warming is actually making things cooler before they get unbearably Hellish), I tend to become more skeptical of the UN, NASA, Brad Pitt, and the Hollywood intelligentsia.

Notwithstanding, I agree wholeheartedly with the Gardener's call for better stewardship of Creation and his exhortation to thoughtfully consider genuinely alarming potentialities despite the asinine alarmists.

Minus my intro concering some Texas football history, I am reissuing this concurring opinion based on what I consider a non-scientific, common-sense approach:

The predicament:
Finite resources and exponential population growth equals a problem at some point in human history. Thus far, dramatic advances in technology and an amazingly dynamic and productive economic system have outpaced the inherent difficulty --and made the Malthusian predictions of scarcity during the nineteenth century the butt of modern derision.

However, do we really think that this planet will sustain 10 billion people? Twenty billion? Thirty billion? Do we think the United States will sustain a billion? Two billion? Do we think the American Southwest can continue to meet its water needs in perpetuity?

Does it alarm anyone other than me that we have become accustomed to a luxuriously abundant lifestyle that is predicated on an expanding economy, which is dependent on a growing, building, and expanding civilization, which requires the creation and infusion of more and more inhabitants into an environment with finite resources. There are limits. Where those limits actually exist--perhaps no one can say with certainty. However, undoubtedly, there must be a point at which our demand for potable water, breathable air, and fossil fuels to run our modern world exceeds the planet's capacity to offer them up.

Note: back when I first posted this, Tocqueville directed us to a timeless and provocative piece by Fred Ikle: Growth Without End, Amen. It is a must-read, if you missed it.
Category: Environment
Posted by: an okie gardener
Conservative Talk Radio lately has made much of data indicating that the earth could be in a cooling phase until about 2015, according to computer models. The Telegraph has details on recent climate predictions.

I have addressed the issue of Global Warming many times, for example here and here.

I think the same reasoning I argued earlier still applies. (1) Christians should seek to practice good stewardship of this planet and its resources, which includes minimizing pollution. (2) the model behind Global Warming--that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere helps trap heat--is pretty universally accepted by science. The question is, are humans releasing enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to alter the earth's climate. Since we have only one habitable planet, we had better be careful with it. We do not want to say oops.

I can believe, along with some conservative talk show hosts, that the fear of Global Warming is being used by some to try to destroy capitalism. But, we must not confuse the motive for an assertion with the truth of an assertion. Who knows why I might argue that 2 plus 2 equals four. What matters is the truth or falsity of the assertion.
Category: Environment
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Tocqueville directs us to this jeremiad against the temptations of modernity from the conservative's conservative, Wendell Berry.

This short paragraph is emblematic of Berry's thinking and writing:

"The conservationist indictment of Christianity is a problem, secondly, because, however just it may be, it does not come from an adequate understanding of the Bible and the cultural traditions that descend from the Bible. The anti-Christian conservationists characteristically deal with the Bible by waving it off. And this dismissal conceals, as such dismissals are apt to do, an ignorance that invalidates it. The Bible is an inspired book written by human hands; as such, it is certainly subject to criticism. But the anti-Christian environmentalists have not mastered the first rule of the criticism of books: you have to read them before you criticize them. Our predicament now, I believe, requires us to learn to read and understand the Bible in the light of the present fact of Creation. This would seem to be a requirement both for Christians and for everyone concerned, but it entails a long work of true criticism--that is, careful and judicious study, not dismissal. It entails, furthermore, the making of very precise distinctions between biblical instruction and the behavior of those peoples supposed to have been biblically instructed."

Read the entire essay here via Crosscurrents.
Category: Environment
Posted by: an okie gardener
From MSNBC: full story here
Today, however, Chinese companies have a sizable cost advantage over their rivals in the developed world because many of the environmental costs of doing business in the United States, Europe and Japan are still externalities in China. Polluting the air, water and ground at no cost to the company's bottom line makes it easy to undercut the prices charged by companies that don't have a right to pollute for free.

Buy MADE IN CHINA and help support the destruction of the earth.
Category: Environment
Posted by: an okie gardener
This month's National Geographic has a splendid article on whether or not New Orleans should be rebuilt. Article summary: by geography New Orleans always will be vulnerable to destruction by hurricanes, floods, and is threatened by rising sea levels. Also, the city itself is sinking slowly, the result of the ground drying as water is pumped out of swamps.

Only a small bit of present day New Orleans is above sea level. Until about 1900 that was the city. Then technology progressed to the point that swamps could be drained, levees built, and the city spilled over into areas below sea level. Not a good idea.

I think rebuilding New Orleans to match its pre-Katrina size is an act of hubris. We can control some aspects of nature some of the time. But, keeping New Orleans safe would require big, complex, and perfect systems. No way big, complex human systems will be perfect over a time of centuries.

Let the swamps return and the city shrink.

"You can't always get what you want, . . ."
Category: Environment
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
It is August in the South--and it is hot. This week Atlanta is "hot-lanta."

Further evidence of global warming?

Not in itself. I heard Rush Limbaugh say yesterday that the hottest decade of the last century was the 1930s. Is that true? Perhaps. From what I read, it was evidently pretty hot and dry. The "Dust Bowl" and all that.

Bear Bryant's hellish mini-camp at Junction is a legend near-and-dear to the hearts of most Texas football fans (Aggies especially). The ten-day ordeal took place in 1954 in the midst of a horrific six-year heat wave and drought in the Texas Hill County. The temperature reached the century mark on every tortuous day of the football encampment, and, according to legend, several days saw temperatures in the one-hundred-teens.

Is it hotter this summer than ever before? Probably not.

What I hate most about the current global warming debate is the politicization and hysteria. That is, I just don't trust the people who are the most adamant and apocalyptic in their warnings that we face a crisis of epic proportions. They are the same folks who brought us the Great Society, social engineering, political correctness, and unilateral disarmament.

They are also persons who have cried wolf too often.

On the other hand, the basic concept of good stewardship and prudential long-term planning makes good sense. We ought to be concerned about the future. Perceptive thinkers have fretted about limited resources since Malthus and Benjamin Franklin.

The predicament: Finite resources and exponential population growth equals a problem at some point in human history. Thus far, dramatic advances in technology and an amazingly dynamic and productive economic system have outpaced the inherent difficulty --and made the Malthusian predictions of scarcity during the nineteenth century the butt of modern derision.

However, do we really think that this planet will sustain 10 billion people? Twenty billion? Thirty billion? Do we think the United States will sustain a billion? Two billion? Do we think the American Southwest can continue to meet its water needs in perpetuity?

Does it alarm anyone other than me that we have become accustomed to a luxuriously abundant lifestyle that is predicated on an expanding economy, which is dependent on a growing, building, and expanding civilization, which requires the creation and infusion of more and more inhabitants into an environment with finite resources. There are limits. Where those limits actually exist--perhaps no one can say with certainty. However, undoubtedly, there must be a point at which our demand for potable water, breathable air, and fossil fuels to run our modern world exceeds the planet's capacity to offer them up.

A question for another day: what happens when and/or if the lights go out for good?

16/04: False Modesty

Category: Environment
Posted by: an okie gardener
Rush Limbaugh, and others, have asserted that humanity cannot change the earth's climate, because we are too small and weak; furthermore, to hold otherwise is to exalt humanity to god-like status. Only God can change climate.

While such an assertion sounds pious, in motive and content it is not. I have trouble believing that the motive for making such a statement is a desire to promote God's glory; more likely the motive is to protect the American standard of living and the environmental damage it does.

As a Christian, I judge the content of this assertion non-pious because it gives too little regard to the witness of Scripture. Genesis 1 teaches that humanity was created in the image of God and given dominion over the earth. While Genesis 3 teaches the Fall of humanity, that fall seems explained in the rest of Scripture as depravation, not deprivation. In other words, human power is depraved, bent in on itself away from God; it is not removed (deprived) from humanity.

Psalm 8:4-6 "what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him? Yet thou has made him little less than God, and dost crown him with glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands, . . ."

John 10:35 "If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), . . ."

We are the species that has made tracks on the moon, utilizes the fission of atoms for energy and the fission and fusion of atoms for weapons, mapped the human genome, makes clones, made dams on rivers like the Columbia and Nile, and drills miles beneath the earth for oil. Don't sell us short on the damage we can do.
Category: Environment
Posted by: an okie gardener
Continuing the discussion from this post, photognome sends these links on ethanol and the rural economy.

Ethanol Boom Divides Farmers and Ranchers from WashPost

Rise in Ethanol Raises Concerns about Corn as a Food from NYTimes

Animal Fats Touted as Future Fuel Source from WashPost
Category: Environment
Posted by: an okie gardener
Recently I had a wide-ranging conversation with frequent commentor photognome. He raised some questions regarding hybrid cars. [typically cars that use both internal combustion engines and batteries, running sometimes on one, sometimes on the other].

He questions the actual environmental benefits from the hybrids. Batteries tend to be high impact on the environment, both in manufacture and beyond. [We and Europe have good environmental and OSHA regs in place for the manufacture and disposal of batteries, but where are the batteries being manufactured?]

And in case of wrecks? photognome reported that emergency responders he has talked with have expressed concern over the chemicals and current they may be getting into.

With new high-efficiency automotive diesels getting about 50 mpg, are these not a better choice than hybrids?

[Yes, I do think the question WWJD applies here. I cannot see Jesus tooling down the interstate at 80mph, by himself, in an SUV. How we relate to the environment is a Christian concern.]