Agriculture - 2

So, what is it that makes farming so terrible in the eyes of some environmentalists? too many commercial fertilizers, polluting the water, ruining the soil, too many herbicides and pesticides and causing air pollution are just some of the more common complaints. Before we look at these problems, let me say that we have the most efficient agricultural industry, providing some of the least expensive food in the world. People complain every time the price of food goes up. Yet those same people would have farmers use more expensive methods to produce the food in a more "environmentally safe" manner. Farmers are already working on an almost non-existent profit margin. To expect them to switch to more expensive methods without the cost of food going up would be ludicrous. Many of the methods used by farmers were put into place to get the cost of production down and realize at least a small profit. the two ends of the food chain get the least percentage of the food dollar. The farmer is lucky if he gets a very small profit above his production costs and the retailer works on a small profit margin. The bulk of the food dollar disappears between these two entities. Processing, storage, transportation, etc. are the big reason that food cost are what they are. Now many of the environmentalists say that the higher cost of food would be worth it to clean up the environment and that they would be willing to pay more for their food. first, I am not too sure just how willing the would really be and second, they would be forcing everyone else to pay too. Environmentalists have a tendency not to look at the overall picture when making some of their suggestions. There are people that can hardly afford the prices that food is now and could definitely not afford higher prices. However, environmentalists think with their emotions rather than their brains.

Let's take a look at some of the problems I listed in the previous paragraph. The use of too much commercial fertilizer is a good place to start. Why do farmers use so much commercial fertilizer? a lot of the reason is the ever growing need for more and more food. As the population grows and the farmland acreage shrinks, farmers need to produce more food from less land. This is also one of the main reasons for the extensive use of pesticides and herbicides. People want more and better looking food, so weeds and pests must be kept away so the crops will form better. Some of these things could be done almost as well without the use of all the chemicals, given enough time and manpower. Could natural fertilizers be used instead of commercial fertilizers? Yes, "but" where farmers use a lot of natural fertilizer (manure) they then get accused of polluting the ground water. The runoff goes into streams and part of the liquid seeps into the ground water. This leaves the farmer with very little options. Either he is accused of polluting the ground with chemical fertilizers or he is accused of polluting the water with the runoff from manure. That seems like a no win situation to me. When crops are grown on a field they take nutrients out of the soil. These nutrients need to be replaced and fertilizer of one type or another is the way it is done. Another problem is that on large crop farms there are no animals from which to collect the manure to use as fertilizer. In the past most farms were very diversified, having several different types of animals and several different crops. Except for the susistance farmer, you no longer find very many of this type of farm. Usually one or two crops or one type of animal are raised. For those people who wish all farm animals to be done away with and all of us to become vegetarians, this would be a real problem; no natural fertilizer at all. This is common of people thinking with their emotions. Another example of thinking with the emotions in this area is the people that believe that manure contaminates the ground and that bovine flatulence pollutes the air causing global warming. At the same time these people lament the fact that herds of bison no longer abound. What do they think happened to the fecal matter and flatulence from the huge herds that once were so common?

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Agriculture

Farming is one of those thing that take a lot of heat from pseudo-environmentalists. Although farming is a necessity to sustaining life in these modern times, many Pseudo-environmentalists seem to want to do away with it. Everything that the farmers do seems to be wrong to some of these people. They seem to forget , (or do not realize in the first place), where their food comes from. I think the problem of not realizing where and how food is obtained may be more of a problem than most of us realize. I spent a number of years working in Chicago and it was amazing to me how little some people knew about the food chain. I actually met a couple of people that did not realize that a cow had to be raised and killed to obtain the meat for that "Big Mac" they loved so much. I met people who were born and raised in the city and had never had any contact with rural and farm life. They took their vacations to Disney World, Paris, London, the Bahamas or maybe Las Vegas. They never once rubbed shoulders with the people who grow the food they eat. To them, all food came from a supermarket or a restaurant. Apparently their education did not include farm topics, or if it did, they forgot it. A lot of these people had very strong feelings about the environment. However, they seem to think that "Somewhere else" is the place to clean it up. they could not grasp the concept that the factories that provided their living were just as guilty, if not more so, of causing environmental problems as were the farmers. A report come out that bovine flatulence was harming the ozone layer and some of them actually suggested ridding the world of bovines.When I asked where the would get their dairy products and meat, a couple actually said, "The supermarket". With this type of mindset and lack of knowledge, I can see where we need a lot of education in this field.

Farmers, as I have said before, are the last people that will intentionally mess up the environment. The great majority of them realize that if they do, they will lose their method of making a living. Probably no one knows better the value of good soil, pure water and clean air. These art the things that allow them to grow good crops, feed their families and make a living. Most farmers truly love the land and treat it better than many other people, including many pseudo-environmentalists, do. Some of that is changing with the influx of "factory farms". some of these farms are owned by large corporations and the people that own the farm never even see it. They have no idea of how the farm is being run or much else about it. Managers are hired, workers are hired and to all of these people, farming becomes just a job. The people who own the farm are concerned about only one thing: the bottom line. This can present a problem because the manager and the employees are also only concerned about one thing: keeping their respective jobs. This may cause them to do thing that a resident farmer would not do  beingemployees rather than land owners and farmers makes them react to problems differently. What it all boils down to is that when looking at farming and the environment, we may have to look at family farms different than factory farms.

There are a lot of differences of opinion as to what constitutes a family farm and what a factory farm is. For this book I will be using the term factory farm for the large farms owned by some entity other than the resident landowner. I will use the term family farm for farms, no matter how large or small, that are owned and operated by a person or family that actually resides on the land and is responsible for the day to day operation of the farm. there is a third group of farmers that I will also mention and this group I will refer to as subsistence farmers. these are farmers, who by today's standards have very small farms and probably have an outside job to help support their family. These people, like the larger family farmers truly love the land. They may even have more love and respect for the land than the person who farms the larger acreage and makes their entire living at it. Why else would they put up with the long hours and hard work, even though they need an outside job to support their family? The difference between the subsistence farm and a hobby farm is that on the subsistence farm the owner is adding product to the food chain and attempting to earn at least part of their living from it, whereas the hobby farmer usually is not.

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Plants - Animals - Mankind 4

The ability for vocal communication is another quality that makes humans different from the rest of the animal kingdom. This allows us to verbally communicate our ideas to others. The human is the only creature that has a voice box capable of the wide range of sounds needed for use of a spoken language. Human brains also have an advanced neuromotor mechanism, which gives them the ability to be able to use words and vocal symbols. This means that we not only can solve problems, we can pass the information on to others. Also being the only animal with an opposing thumb, gives us the advantage of using tools and writing. This ability to recognize words and write them down gives humans the advantage for leaving records for future generations. This is something that no other creature on earth has the ability to do.

Whether you believe, as I do, that were created and put here by God or you believe that man is descended from monkeys, it still leaves at the top of the heap. Looking at some of the unique features of mankind I do not have enough faith in dumb chance to think that we evolved from monkeys. When you look at the intricacy of the eye or the brain or the vocal chord voice box unit, it is impossible to see how that could have occurred by random chance. However, this is not the place to discuss that, it could fill a book on its own and has filled many on both sides of the argument. Either way being at the top of the heap puts mankind in a unique position. We are put in the responsible position of taking care of all of the rest of earth and the creatures that inhabit the earth. I have full faith in mankind that this can and will be done. We need to look at the entire picture and work with it. This does not mean that we need a lot of new laws, nor do we need to cry wolf and treat every little problem as a crisis. We may have to change a lot of our thinking. Many of these changes will have to take place in the pseudo-environmental movement. A great majority of this group seem to think with their emotions rather than their rational brain. They need to stop thinking in absolutes, that their way is always right and everyone else is wrong. They need to realize that discussion and compromise does much more good than crying wolf, declaring a crisis and trying to force everyone to do things their way. Given careful thought and planning, there is room in America for many different types of lifestyles. All of this is going to take a lot of education, compromise, changed laws, (not necessarily new laws), and cooperation. The next section of this book will contain, what I feel, are some good suggestions as to what might be able to be done. Do I have all the answers? Heck no, I do not even know all the questions and I do not believe anyone else does either. All I am doing is trying to throw out some ideas and possibilities. I am attempting to do this in a non-professional, non-scientific way, in a way that everyone, no matter their level of education feelings on the environment, can understand. I fully expect people to try, (and possibly succeed at times) shooting many of my ideas full of holes. That is fine, as long as they can offer an equally good or even better option. If getting my ideas shot down will get a discourse started that can lead to sensible environmental changes, let us get to it.

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Plants - Animals - Mankind 3

The difference between the passenger pigeon and the bison is that when mankind realized that there were  less and less animals every year, they did something about it. With the pigeon, there was no such realization. This probably has to do with the size of the creature and its habits. The bison was protected and we will always have them with us. There will never be the great herds again as the space for those herds to roam is gone. Considering today's population, the bison would probably have been pushed into a corner and the herd cut back anyway. I cover this aspect of environmentalism more thoroughly in the chapter on population. You could say that the bison have been replaced by cattle. I know that it is not the same, but they do provide a lot of food and a lot of clothing (leather)  for a lot of people, just as the bison did. As for it not being the same, that is what evolution is; change. For those who believe in evolution, this has to be totally natural. I am glad that some of today's pseudo-environmentalists were not around during the age of the dinosaur. I do not think I would enjoy spending my time hiding from or ducking dinosaurs or mastodons.

Now, let us take a look at mankind and see how the picture changes. Were some of the first homo sapiens to return to earth today they would think they were on the wrong planet. They would not recognize the plants, the animals, the landscape and perhaps not mankind itself. That is how much everything has changed (evolved) over the many years that homo sapiens have called this planet home. Many of the changes in that time period have either been caused or helped by mankind. While every species evolves within its own kind, I do not believe that one species can turn into a different species as do evolutionists. Some of the changes made by humans have been on purpose and some have been done unwittingly. The fact is, humans have been changing the face of the earth since they have been on this earth.

While animals do things by instinct, humans are a reasoning creature. Animals do not have wants and desires, only needs, while humans have wants and desires. Animals concerns are few; food, safety, sleep, warmth and reproduction. All of these needs are filled by instinct, gained over many years or possibly centuries. Not that animals cannot learn, they can. For instance, many years ago deer did not look up into trees for danger. They had no predators that attacked them from above. then humans started using tree stands from which to hunt. Now deer in hunted areas pay attention to things above them. They will probably not lose this trait unless they go many years without being hunted from tree stands. This is instinctive reaction, when danger comes from one area long enough, that becomes an ingrained part of the animals brain. Humans do not live by instinct. Yes, we do have some remnants of the old instinctive ancestors, like when the hair stands up on the nape of your neck under a dangerous situation or when you can "feel" someone looking at you. These traits are probably left over from the time when homo sapiens lived in caves and were hunted by large carnivorous beasts. Once the dangers were gone, these instincts faded, some of them completely. By and large humans are not instinctive creatures. We have a fairly large highly developed brain which allows us to process information, make decisions, plan, make and use tools and most important; reason things through. this is what makes humans different than, say, beavers. While the beaver is a very intelligent animal and a great engineer, building dams and houses, they do all of this by instinct. They have been doing this for thousands of years and it is always the same. Watching a colony of beaver build a dam or a house is a wonderful sight. There are a lot of interesting things going on during their construction. However, after watching several colonies doing their building you come to realize that everything is instinctive. Consider the location of the dam; it is all based on the availability of food and building materials, which are sometimes the same. The beaver does not look around to try to find a spot that would facilitate a dam with far less work. They do not check for water depth, speed of flow or anything else. Find food, build dam that is their instinct. Humans on the other hand would check out the stream for many of these things and maybe more before deciding where to build the dam. When the beaver builds the dam, there are no shortcuts, no better methods, no new materials, no new tools or anything else different that you would just normally expect from humans. that is the difference between instinctive engineering and sane, rationally thought out engineering.

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Plants - Animals - Mankind 2

Looking at this from an evolutionist point of view, they tell us that the animal kingdom started about four hundred million years ago with the appearance of fish on the scene. Invertebrates had preceded them by a couple of million years. Mammals did not show up until about one hundred million years ago, making them the new kid on the block. While nowadays it is chic to blame mankind for causing any species or even sub-species to go extinct, how many species went extinct prior to mans arrival on earth? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? I do not know and I do not believe that anyone else KNOWS either. I do not believe anyone is qualified to give an exact number. I do know that there are a lot of animals that no longer exist. There are no mastodons, sabre toothed tigers, dinosaurs or a long list of other animals. I do not believe that we even have a clue of all of the animal kingdom that went extinct, only to be replaced by another species. We have a good knowledge of the larger species, but what about all of the insects, birds, fish, reptiles and smaller mammals? We find that the animals alive on earth at the present time look a lot different that the ones of pre-history. Are there any of the animals on earth that were here in the early stage of the animal kingdom? We have a few holdovers, such as the sturgeon, the platypus, the crocodile/alligator family and a couple of others, but how much the same or different are they than their ancestors were? Why did all of these ancient species become extinct? Was it the weather? Was it caused by a giant meteor hitting the earth? What was it? In the evolutionist's mind, these extinctions cannot be blamed on mankind. We had not yet even arrived on the scene. 

Now let us take an entirely different look at things. Let us look at it from my viewpoint, from the viewpoint of a creationist. God created all of the animals at one time, meaning that they were all on earth at the same time. He also created man while all of these animals were on the earth. When the flood came, Noah was told to build an ark and gather all of the animals into the ark. There is a good possibility that God, at that time, decided not only to rid the earth of virtually all of mankind but to eliminate some of the animals at the same time. Noah had to rely on God to send the animals that were to be saved to him. If God chose not to send the dinosaurs or any other animal to Noah, they did not get saved. I believe this is why human bones and dinosaur bones have been found in the same layers of ancient earth. The evolutionists cannot explain that to us so they just ignore the fact that it has happened. Either way, whether you are and evolutionist or a creationist, mankind did not cause the extinction of any species at that time. If that is true, why do we get the blame for the extinction of species? The earth is ever changing whether it was created by God or evolved. The ever changing of the earth is what is causing the extinction of species. 

There are a couple of examples of how mankind has interfered with the natural progression of things. First, there is (or was) the passenger pigeon. When Europeans first came to America, there were literally millions of these birds. They soon became the prime target of market hunters. I did not take too many years (in the life of the planet) before these birds became completely extinct. What had looked like a never ending supply of birds was gone.

Now let us take a look at the American Bison. When Europeans arrived in America, there were, like the passenger pigeon, millions of these animals. They roamed over the western half of the country in great herds. Probably, when the American Indians arrived the bison was already here too. I have no way of know for sure, but there were probably less at that time than when the Europeans came. When the Europeans came there were herds of bison even east of the Mississippi. How large would these herds have grown had it not been for man's interference? Would the herds have continued to grow, spreading ever eastward, even to the Atlantic coast? These are large beasts and it takes a lot of food to keep them going. How long would it have been before they consumed all available food in the country? When that happens, starvation sets in along with diseases that the weak bodies of the animals can no longer overcome. Would a scenario like that have caused the bison to become extinct? I have no way of knowing, but the possibility exists. As it was, Mankind became the reason for the near extinction of this great animal. The American Indian had hunted the bison for many years. They used the meat for food, the hides for clothing and shelter and most other parts of the animal for various other things. They hunted the bison with bow and with spear an sometimes by running an entire herd over the edge of a cliff. Now come the settlers with guns and able to0 kill many more bison that the average American Indian ever thought of. Add to this that they were also providing the American Indian with guns and you can see where it is going. Many more people, armed with better weapons and the bison did not stand a chance. My biggest problem with the killing off of the bison is the amount of waste. Many (if not most) of the bison killed at this time were killed strictly for their hides. Most of the meat was left to rot. This, to me, is unconscionable. 

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Plants, Animals, Mankind

After taking a lay persons look at the earth, we find that we have a big ball with oil, coal and many other minerals inside. It has soil, rocks and water covering most of it and it has air and more water surrounding it. So far we are looking at a pretty bleak picture. We need to add some things to make the earth the vibrant and wonderful place that it is. According to some scientists, seaweed and other water plants were the first plants to show up on earth. This supposedly took place about five hundred million years ago. A couple of hundred million years later, land plants showed up. I do not think anyone really knows what the plants of that era looked like. With the constant heating, cooling and changing of the earth, with the glaicers, advancing and retreating oceans, plants probably did a lot of evolving. They had to change to adapt to the temperature difference the differences in moisture content in the soil, etc. I feel also, that many plants have become extinct over the eons. Land plants that were eventually covered by an ocean probably would not survive. This would also hold true of water plants that were in an ocean that eventually dried up. Plants would have been constantly changing, going extinct and other plants evolving to take their place. This is looking at it from an evolutionist's view. In reality there was no rain prior to the flood of Noah. Then the rains came and the entire earth was covered with water. So when an evolutionist says this or that continent was once under water, they are correct. The entire earth was covered with water. The pre flood plants may have been different from the post flood plants. Much of the water from the flood may have frozen and caused the glaciers. That makes the most sense to me.

Plants are probably the most important life form on earth. Plants can, and did exist without animals, until animals were put onto this earth. Animals, on the other hand, could not exist without plants. Plants grow, reproduce, (produce seeds), and die. upon dying they decay, thus providing nutrients to the soil for the next generation. The decayed plant life also helps produce more soil. Thus, plants need no help from animals, birds or even insects to continue to thrive. While many plants now need bees or other insects for pollination purposes, it may not have always been that way. There are still many plants that have both male and female parts and therefore are self-pollinating. We also have plants that reproduce by sending new roots from the old or by the means of runners which create new roots. Another method of pollination is the spores are carried by the wind, just as seeds are carried by the wind to different locations.

Plants help the earth and those living on it in other ways as well. The roots of trees and other plants get into small cracks in stone, spreading and cracking them more. This allows more water to get in and possibly freeze making a larger crack. The water washes, through eroding, small particles. These particles, when added to decaying plants create the new soil. Trees also remove carbon dioxide from the air and give off oxygen, without which animals could not live. This is one of the fallicies of the psuedo-environmentalists trying to convince us that carbon dioxide is bad for the environment. Without carbon dioxide you would have no trees and without trees you would have no oxygen. Without oxygen, you would have no human race or other air breathing creatures. Most plants do help purify the air, however, not every plant does. President Ronald Reagan once made a statement that some trees cause pollution. What many people do no know is that there is a species of pine trees that actually gives off noxious gasses. However, we do not need to get rid of the carbon dioxide, we need to plant more trees. More trees mean cleaner air, so it makes sense to plant trees. However, the save the environment at any cost groups run on money. Anything they can do to scare people into giving more money is good and they do not let facts get in the way. When people find out the real truth they may not give the contributions to these groups, meaning that some of these people would have to get a real job rather than running around crying "WOLF". The major media thrives on these types of overblown theories and would not think about questioning these Marxists for facts to back up their claims. Real scientists do not have a chance because their science is not exciting enough.

While we know that plants can live without animals, animals on the other hand could not live without plants. We have basically three types of animals: herbivorous, carnivorous and omnivorous. The herbivores live entirely on plants, the carnivores live entirely on the flesh of other animals and the omnivores (this includes mankind) live on a combination of plant and animal life. Thus, without plants, there would be no food chain, thus no animal life.  So while we really need to take care of the plants on earth, I do not see any real crisis. While the antis are crying that we are cutting down our forest at too rapid a rate, there is more forrested land in this country than there was one hundred years ago. The purists want to protect every plant and keep it in the environment that it was first discovered in. This is virtually impossible and not ever really practical. Even nature does not do this when left alone. When lightning starts a fire and an entire section of forest burns down, the plants that re-grow are not always the same species in the same mix as the ones tha burned. Thus, nature itself is an ever changing, ever evolving circle. 

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Mother Earth - 4

Soil is the final thing that I am going to discuss in this chapter on Mother Earth. Soil is present in some form in just about every location that is not covered by water. It is also present under the water, just not visible or available for use by mankind. While many consider soil as non-renewable, I disagree. Soil is always being formed by nature. Wind and water working over rocks are always breaking away little bits of it. Anything organic that dies, eventually decays and becomes humus. This mixed with the minuscule pieces of stone become soil. Granted, this takes quite a bit of time, but not nearly as long as non-renewables such as coal or oil. For those of you who may have doubts about this, make yourself some compost. You can find a recipe for it tin the chapter on agriculture. Take that compost and add some sand or other inorganic material and you have produced soil. You can grow crops in the soil you just made. The problem with soil is it is always moving. Wind moves it, water moves it, glaciers move it and man moves it or causes it to be moved. How much of this is helped along by mankind and how much would happen anyway always presents an argument. The glaciers moved many millions of tons of soil without any help from mankind. Here in Wisconsin you can till where the glacier ended by looking at the type and the depth of the soil. Northern Wisconsin has a thinner layer of soil and more stones close to the surface. This is due to the fact that the glacier pushed the topsoil south. The southern portion of the state has deeper richer soil and few stones near the surface. Wind and water are helped by mankind when it comes to them moving soil. Drive by a plowed field or a construction site on a windy day and you will see soil being moved by the wind. Water also has an easier time moving soil at these locations, especially when rivers and streams are at flood stage. Where these types of locations are on a hillside, any amount of rainfall will speed up the movement of the soil. Without soil plants cannot grow. Without plants animals cannot live. Without plants and animals, humans cannot exist. The problems of soil need to be addressed and I will try to do a little bit of that in several upcoming chapters. 

I hope that this rather simplistic chapter has been of some help in understanding the earth and some of its problems. I could have gone much deeper and included much scientific information, but that is not the purpose of this book. I am trying to bring environmental issues down to a common sense level. All of the scientific information that one could want can be obtained at the library or on the Internet. This information is written by real scientists, which I am not. Used correctly this information can be of great value to a true environmentalist. Misused, it becomes fodder for the knee-jerk pseudo-environmentalists. So be careful to get the real science when on line or at the library. Low let us move on to some more thought from an average citizen.

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Mother Earth - 3

Let us get out from the center of the earth and look at the part of Mother earth that we live in: air, water and soil. We will start with water. While water is non-renewable, I feel that there is about the same amount of water on and around earth as there always has been. It may be in different forms and in different locations, but it is all still here. For instance, We are told that at one time most of what is the USA was the floor of some long forgotten ocean. You may want to believe the scientists in this respect nut you may want instead to go with Noah's flood. Although my grandkids seem to sometimes think that I have first hand memories of such events, I am not quite that old. You can see how the scientist's theory overlaps the bible. Either way, this country was once under water. The flood receded or the ocean went away, but that covering of water is no longer with us. Many of the lakes and rivers of the upper part of North America were carved out by the glacier; another form of water. Water changes from solid to liquid to gas but it is always there in one of its forms. I may be wrong, but this is why I believe that the volume of water on earth is the same as it has always been. There are a couple of things that humans can do to water that are not good. They can use up fresh water faster than it can re-purify itself and they can pollute it. Using the water up too fast is partly due to more people being on earth to use it. It is also partly due to some of the uses being a waste of water. Many times when watering lawns, washing cars or even doing laundry, much water is wasted. This water then needs time to purify itself, with the ever increasing population and coinciding need for more water, this waste could present a problem.

Pollution of the water is the second problem. once again, water will purify itself from pollution, but it takes time. The process of purification can be helped along by mankind. I remember back in the nineteen seventies when Lake Erie was declared a dead lake. The pseudo-scientists and pseudo-environmentalists had themselves a field day with this. I remember reading articles that fish would never again live in Lake Erie and that the rest of the Great Lakes would be dead in a few years and nothing could be done about it. Well, Lake Erie is now cleaner than it has been in many years and has an excellent fish population. Record size walleyes are now being caught from "dead" Lake Erie. It took some changes, some new laws, some work and some time, but it got done. The doomsayers once again exaggerated the problem and under-estimated American ingenuity.

Another problem which relates to water is the loss of wetlands. Are we losing wetlands? Yes. There is no doubt that we are losing wetlands, we always have. There are many natural causes for some of the loss. Rivers change course, springs dry up, sever droughts occur and many other natural thing things. remember, if the entire USA was covered by water, we lost a lot of wetland. However, in this case I believe that mankind has as much or more than nature to do with the loss. This has to do with population, manufacturing, farming and a number of other reasons. I will cover more on wetlands on chapters on those various subjects. Wetlands play a vital role in the lives of certain birds and animals. They are also a part of the water purification that I mentioned earlier. While something needs to be done to correct this problem, I do not believe we nee a knee jerk response. There are those who would probably go around after every downpour of rain and fence off and make off limits any puddle they could find. Because a puddle formed after a deluge or the melting of a foot of snow, they would call it a wetland. This makes even less sense than doing nothing at all. All this type of thinking does is irritate landowners and make them harder to deal with. This problem needs to be looked at in a sane and logical manner. Later in the book I will describe how wetlands are being brought back on National Wildlife Refuges.

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Mother Earth-2

When you look at the possibilities that could be occurring now, and the time frames that are involved, it is possible to see many alternatives to mankind being the sole cause of climate changes.These time frames are actually questionable, because if as I believe, God created the universe, it is much to young to have had all of these things happen. However in the writing of this book I will use science's time frames.  While this has been called the post glacial period of earth, no one can tell that for sure. Consider that a glacial period can last from ten to seventy or eighty thousand years and that the warm periods between glaciers can last from twenty to over two hundred thousand years. This could mean that we are not post glacial, but merely between glaciers. Global warming began the instant the last glacier started melting. Without global warming, the glacier would still be covering half of North America. How warm will it get before it starts cooling again? I do not pretend to know and I do not believe anyone else does either. Weather records were not kept until just over one hundred years ago. To use a model of one hundred years and try to extrapolate what its effect is over hundreds of thousands of years is a little like adding a teaspoon of sand to the Sahara Desert and trying to figure how much the volume of the desert was increased.

One of the things we horrible humans are accused of is the release of pcb's and other pollutants into the air, thus causing ozone depletion. When a volcano erupts, it releases the same type of pcb's and pollutants. While we humans are here on the ground releasing our pollutants at or near ground level, the volcanoes are spewing them high into the atmosphere. With the number of volcanic eruptions in the past several years, my guess, as an uneducated lay person, would be that these volcanoes have released more pollutants and done more damage to the ozone than all of us humans. Should volcanic activity increase, it may cause a further thinning of the ozone and even warmer climates. Should the volcanic activity decrease, we might see cooling, even to the onset of another ice age. there are also sunspot activity and carbon dioxide to consider and I will take them up in the chapter on global warming. My feeling is that humans can do nothing (or at the most a very infinitesimal amount) or stop these processes. Our use of chemicals and release of pollutants may make a tiny difference, but in the overall picture of thousands of years, very, very tiny. Once again, it is kind of like adding that teaspoon of sand to the Sahara.

Next take a look at the inside of mother earth, a look at fossil fuels. As I stated earlier, the formation of these fuels has been going on, according to evolution believing scientists, for missions of years. This formation has probably been going on since there was any type of organic matter on this planet that could be deposited and covered to a depth where there was enough pressure. Looking at it from a creationist point of view, either God put it there at the time of creation or it does not take nearly as long to produce as we are being told. Which ever way you believe in I believe that the production of so called fossil fuels is doubtlessly still occurring. I can see no reason for the process to have stopped. I do not think that we can really tell what is going on in the deeper recesses of the earth. This is why fossil fuels, (coal, oil, etc.) are considered as non-renewable resources. They are probably renewing themselves, but even in the shorter time span of creationist thinking, they will not be ready for our generation. While I do believe that these resources are exhaustible and will possibly run out some day, I do not believe that we have a dire emergency on our hands. Back during the oil "shortages" of the nineteen sixties and seventies, there was much hand wringing and wild ranting. there were many books and magazine articles written about the problem. Probably, the majority of the writings were well thought out and sensible. However, there were the doomsayers who predicted the imminent end of fossil fuels and these were the ones that seemed to get the most publicity. I read articles that warned of the end of fossil fuels by the mid-nineties or the year 2000 at the latest. Well, here we  are, almost a decade into the twenty-first century and still going strong. every the doomsayers have a new date at which we will run out of oil. I do not believe that it is possible in my lifetime, my children's lifetimes, mu grandchildren's lifetimes or their grandchildren's lifetimes. These doomsayers are just guessing and just keep extending their dates to keep up their facade; the facade that they are scientists. They are a little bit like the "Boy who cried WOLF", they have cried wolf so many times that most people no longer pay any attention and that is as it should be. We should be thinking about alternatives but not just because we are in imminent danger of running out of oil. We do not need knee jerk reactions but solid thinking and planning. We do not all need to start riding bicycles and burrowing in the ground to keep warm immediately. We need to plan, conserve and convert. I have many ideas on things that can be done and I will cover them later in the book. Cutting down on the use of fossil fuels will lessen pollution and bring our utility bills down. that in itself should get us looking and conservation.

Until next time.

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Mother Earth

I was not sure I wanted to tile this chapter Mother Earth. Too many people and groups that seem to worship the earth, rather than just respect it, use this term. Many of these people and groups are the ones that believe that we should go backward hundreds of years in the progress of mankind. They believe that the earth is sacred and any progress than mankind makes is detrimental to it. However, I could not think of a better term to use for this big ball on which we rush through space. After all, it is the basis for everything else it contains, so in that respect it is mother earth. This chapter will look basically at the air, water and all of the inorganic matter that comprises this globe. We will leave the animate objects to be discussed at much more length later.

One of the first things we have to look at is the age of the earth itself. As I mentioned in chapter one, there is a lot of difference of opinion on this matter. Creationists who take the Holy Bible as the literal word of God, consider the earth to be between seven and eight thousand years old. They base this belief on the seven days mentioned in Genesis as being seven twenty-four hour days. Using that as their basis and following the time lines in the bible they arrive at this number. On the other hand, scientists who believe in the big bang or other theories about how the universe was formed, believe that the earth is millions or even billions of years old. They come up with these numbers by various scientific methods of dating fossils and other things. The problem for this group is that many times, when a new discovery is made, it throws the theory they held all asunder. The third belief is the creationists who believe that the seven days mentioned in the bible were seven indeterminate time periods. If God had not yet created light, how could the measurement be made? God is timeless, so to Him time is unimportant. the people who believe this feel that the word day was used in the bible to give the people of old testament time an understanding. how else could you explain to the uneducated people of that time period the meaning of millions of years? I personally am a creationist and believe in the seven twenty-four hour days, but leave my mind open for the indeterminate time periods. As you read this you can decide for yourself which one is correct. I have tried not to be too inflexible and yet not go against my belief.

First we are going to take a trip back in time. For this example we are going to use the scientific way of looking at it and go back about a million years. In the evolutionist's theory most life other than mankind had appeared on the earth by this time. The order of appearance, according to evolutionists, went something like this: protozoa, metazoa, invertebrates, seaweed, fish, land plants, amphibians, reptiles, apes and monkeys and finally the precursor of mankind, the early hominids. I hope I have that in the right order because not having lived in that era I have to take other people's word for it. Actually, God said "Let there be" and there was. But getting back to evolutionist thinking, during the time, prior to one million B.C. vast changes were taking both on and within the earth. Layers of earth were being formed, mountains were being formed, eliminated and reformed. Continents were being formed, covered by oceans and reappearing in a different shape. Seas, lakes, rivers and oceans were being moved from one location to another. Land masses that were under the oceans became high and dry. Another thing that was happening during this time was that a lot of plants and animals were dying, decaying and being turned into various things such as topsoil. As the upheavals such as volcanoes, earth quakes and other earth changing occurrences continued, as oceans continued to shift locations, this decaying plant and animal life became embedded deeper and deeper in the earth. These are the things that, due to the earth's pressure and time, have become our fossil fuels. They became the coal, the oil, the natural gas and even the diamonds we have today.

Now let us take a look at how it might have been under the seven days of creation. After God created the earth and everything on it, we do not really know what it looked like. The continents may well have been different than they are now. After a few thousand years there was a flood over the entire earth. There are now many scientific signs pointing to the fact that there was in fact a worldwide flood. When the flood waters receded, that is when the continents became what they are today. After that there would only be minor changes due to earth quakes, volcanoes, etc. The oil and coal and other fossil fuels, as they are called, were part of the earth and are probably being replenished continually. We may be using them a little faster than they can replenish themselves. If they are not replenishing themselves, how come every time the scientists tell us we are going to run out of oil by a certain date, we never do?

Back to the starting time of one million B.C. During the past million years, according to many scientists, we find several glacial periods. The first glacier came at the beginning of this million year period. The second glacier came at about five hundred thousand B.C., the third at about two hundred thousand B.C. and the forth and final one at about one hundred thousand B.C. Between each of these glacial periods there was a warming period. The period between the second and third glaciers was so warm that Europe supposedly had what could be considered a tropical. All of this without humans being there to muck everything. No pcb's, no smog, no pollution, no man made carbon dioxide, just nature. Remember this when we get to the chapter on global warming. Just nature caused all of the warming then, "How can that be?"

Until nest time remember I have two other blogs:
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What Environmentalism is Not - 4

Whether one is a creationist or an evolutionist, one has to agree that man is the dominant creature on earth. Whether you believe that God gave us dominion over the plants and animals or that we earned it through survival of the fittest, we still occupy the top rung of the ladder. Humans are the only logically thinking, (most of the time), tool using, upright walking, sentient creatures on earth. this kind of leaves it to us humans to care for the earth itself and the rest of the inhabitants, flora and fauna. Notice I said care for, not ruin, rape, plunder or any other detrimental thing. However, I also believe that we are allowed to use the earth and everything on and in it. Being a spectator to life and the world around us is not what life is about. Plants use nutrients from the soil and air. Animals use plants and other animals for their food. That is a gross over-simplification of the food chain, but it still leaves humans on the top. I believe that we can continue to use our natural resources and if we do so wisely, we can leave plenty for many generations beyond our grandchildren.

This blog and all of my writing is written for America. While I realize that many of our problems affect other countries and that their problems affect us, I believe we need to clean up our own back yard first. Trying to tell other countries how to handle their environmental problems while we have not handled our own seems a little disingenuous to me. Giving them money to help clean up their country while ours needs a much work as it does, does not seem to smart to me either. Therefore I have decided to concentrate on America. While I may mention other countries or other parts of earth from time to time for comparison, these areas are not the point of this book. We will go to look at the earth in general and then to a closer look at what I consider environmentalism.

We will get into that next time. Remember; check out my survival blog at http://www.sasl.blogspot.com and also my political blog at http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com.

What Environmentilism is Not - 3

Now that I have picked on what I consider non-environmentalists, let me go into what I see as true environmentalists. These people come from all walks of life, but you will probably never hear the names of most of them. Farmers: Having been born and raised on a farm and still living in a farming state, I am somewhat familiar with farmers and their beliefs. The average farmer would no more harm the environment than he would cut off one hand. The former makes a living from the environment. They are accused of using too many chemicals and many other things that supposedly harm the environment. I doubt whether any farmer would knowingly harm what he relies on for his living. Foresters and loggers are also good environmentalists most of the time. They, like the farmer, know that this is where they earn their living. Most people will no ruin something just for a quick buck, knowing that their future depends on what they do. There are always a few that will go for the short term profit, the future be damned, but you will find that in any business. People who hunt, fish and trap are usually excellent environmentalists. Here again we have our slobs, but that is to be expected. Human nature being what it is you will always have some bad apples. I will be doing complete chapters on these and others, so I will not go into this subject any deeper right now. I just wanted to make it clear at the outset that, yes there are environmentalists around. There are also good scientists out there that actually study the environment and use analytical thinking to make their judgements. Many doctors, lawyers, and Ph.D's and even some celebrities and media people do make rational decisions when it comes to the environment. The problem is, we almost never hear from this group.

We also have to take a quick look at politicians. These people are in a position to do much good or much harm with the laws they pass. They can pass environmentally friendly laws or they can pass knee jerk, do something, just anything legislation. we have both types of politicians in government, so we hope they at least cancel each other out. I have an entire chapter on politics and government but would like to say right here and now that politicians like Al Gore are only out for two things; money and fame. They use scare tactics to try to turn people to do certain things that they control the profit of.

As I stated earlier, I am not a scientist, therefore this book will not be a scientific document. I consider this book to be a work by a common person written for other common persons. Many of the thing I have written this book may be considered suspect. This is because I, like most other people, am drawing on my own experience and my own opinions. Take the argument of creation versus evolution, the big bang or six days. I do not believe that these things make a lot of difference. We all know that the earth has been here for a long time. there is no exact scientific way to determine exactly how long, only theories. Creationists will tell you that the earth was made in six days and those that interpret the bible literally will tell you exactly how old it is. There are also those creationists who believe that the six days mentioned in the bible are not really twenty-four hour days at all. They believe that God, being timeless, may have taken millions of years to do what is stated as a day in the bible. Neither can scientists agree on the exact age of the earth. New discoveries keep popping up that throw past theories out the window. While I definitely am a creationist, I am not going to get into that argument in this book. I am going to use commonly believed and used numbers. While some of those dates may not agree with the six days of creation, they make it easier for both schools of thought to understand.

Enough for today. Check out my other two blogs; http://www.therealamericanpolitics.blogspot.com & http://www.sasl.blogspot.com

What Environmentalism is and is Not-2

Second, we have scientists and pseudo scientists. These people are actually worse than the antis because they should know better. A scientist is supposed to have an open analytical mind, but when it comes to environmentalism, this is not always true. many of these scientists go way out of their field and lend their name and title to some cause. Just having a Ph.D does not automatically make you an expert in every field. How does a Ph.D in English literature help your knowledge of the rain forest or global warming? These are the people I call the pseudo-scientists. They try to use their degree to pass themselves off as something they are not. There are also genuine scientists that, for whatever reason, (mostly political) seem to always side with the fanatic fringe of environmentalism. these are the people who in the seventies were admonishing us for putting off of the pollution and smog into the air. They were positive that all of that smog and pollution was blocking out the sun and was going to be the major cause of another ice age. Fast forward to the nineties and you have many of these same people saying that all that pollution and carbon dioxide is causing global warming and that, among other disasters, the polar ice caps are melting. It apparently does not seem to be a contradiction to them that they are calling for two different extreme effects from the same cause. Then you have politicians like Al Gore, the inventor of the Internet, who is making a living out of promoting his global position. I will talk much more about him in my chapter on global warming. I kind of liken this mentality to somewhere between "Chicken Little" and "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". Kind of a chicken little who cried wolf. What I think we have is one group that are pseudo-scientists and another group that are pseudo-environmentalists. Another thing that I think is that they are all in it for the money and the power. They are all left wing, communist backed and would like nothing better than to ruin this country by turning it into a communist state.

A third group that deserves a closer look is the mass media. These people, especially the TV news people, can do more harm than good to the real cause of the environment. These are the people that give the kooks, the antis, the pseudo-scientists and others a platform for their views. You rarely see or hear the real scientists or environmentalists on thee shows or in print in major publications. What you see is someone who is considered an "expert" in the field warning us of a hole in the ozone or telling us that pieces of Antarctica are breaking off. What is not told is that the hole in the ozone is not really a hole at all but a thinning of the ozone in certain locations. This occurs at certain times of the year and at other times of the year, these areas again thicken. this has probably been going on from time immemorial, it is just that we never before had the ability to measure it. Actually, you no longer hear much about the hole in the ozone, it seems that carbon dioxide is the newest culprit. As for the Antarctic, no one is coming forward in the media to inform us that there are volcanoes under the surface there and possibly, just possibly, undersea volcanic activity is causing some of the breakage.

Another problem with the media is the media "Stars". Many of the anti groups that I mentioned are led by, or have spokespersons from the media. This is especially true of many Hollywood movie stars. They seem to feel that because they are very wealthy and people pay to see them on TV or in the movies, that they are also a lot smarter than the average person. While some of them may be very intelligent and have a good handle on environmental issues, I am quite sure that some of them are not smart enough to pour water out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. Yet, both types of these people are given the same amount of publicity for their pet projects. Probably ninety percent of what they are doing is for publicity to further their career. All of these, while people who know and study the environment do not get any publicity. You see, with the media, it is all about ratings. A common person going on TV to talk about the environment, no matter how much they know or how right they are, will not get a large audience. On the other hand, a movie star or TV personality will usually draw a large audience, no matter how inane their ideas are. The problem is that many people watching or listening take everything that their favorite star says as gospel. They do not bother to look farther into the subject and they might even be convinced to join the persons pet organization and contribute money to it. Television is an entertainment medium. Even the contents of the newscasts are based on ratings. Movies are completely an entertainment medium, so anything you see about the environment can probably be discounted. This includes Al Gore's so-called documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth". Radio is better than TV, occasionally giving real environmentalists a voice on the air. Newspapers and magazines are about the best, although many of them have editorial policy that excludes any opinion that differs with the politically correct thinking of the day. The only real place to find the environmental news that is really the truth is the Internet. There are sites on the Internet that provide the truth about the environment along with many other things.

What Environmentalism Is and Is Not

When you want to get a good conversation going at a gathering or party, just mention the words: environmentalist, environmentalism, ecology or sometimes even conservation. This will definitely get the conservation started, though you may or may not like the direction it takes. You are liable to get scoffs, anger, delight, seriousness or many other reactions that you did not suspect this subject could evoke. Why this wide range of responses to this particular subject? I believe the problem is that people do not really what the real meaning of environmentalism is. Environmentalism has been taken out of the world of scientific and rational thinking and put in a world of pseudo-science and fantasy. This has been done by the major media and the groups that are allowed to hype their own ideas on that media. For this reason many people do not really know what environmentalism is all about. They hear these groups on TV or read their stuff in magazines and newspapers and feel that it must be fact because they feel these groups know what is going on and that the media would not air or publish it if it were not fact. There are always some partial truths in these reports, but as has been said many times "A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

I am not a scientist nor a professional in any of the environmental or ecology fields. I could probably be considered a naturalist, but a self-taught one at that. I am an average citizen who was born and raised on a farm, who hunts, fishes and camps and who would like to leave the same opportunities for my grandchildren and their grandchildren. I believe that some common sense needs to be infused into the matter of what is good and what is bad for the environment. This common sense needs to be weighed against what is good and what is bad for mankind itself. A balance needs to be struck here, but never can be if we continue to argue the differences with feelings rather than discussing facts.

Let us look at a few things that I do not think true environmentalism is. First we have the bug loving, tree hugging kooks that lay down in front of a bulldozer because they are trying to save a minuscule organism that no one ever heard of until it was discovered in the path of a construction project. Some of these people are out for publicity while others have been misled by some organization that is only out for dues money. These people may truly believe that they are right. Next we have the antis. Anti-hunting, anti-trapping, anti-fishing, anti business, anti-progress, anti-logging, anti-meat and anti just about anything that they feel may have a detrimental effect of some part of the environment. I do not believe the antis are environmentalists. I do not feel that you can claim to be and environmentalist unless you have and alternative for what you are against: most antis do not

The anti-hunter will protest a deer hunt on government land on the grounds that hunting is cruel. they ignore the fact that on over abundance of deer will soon de-nude the foliage of that forest as high as they can reach. The seem to have no concept that the deer will then starve to death, a much crueler death than hunting. The anti-trapper is much the same, calling trapping old fashioned, cruel, inhumane and unneeded. However, they have no alternative to mange, rabies or starvation of these animals when they become overpopulated. They also have no solution for the damage caused by some of these animals. The anti-logger says we should not be cutting down the forests. When you ask where building material is to come from, they might suggest you use plastic or some other man made material. As most of there materials use oil in their production you now run up against the anti-oil drilling people. I could go through the rest of the list of antis, but I think you get the idea. Antis are generally people who are strongly against something that other people need or enjoy, but have no alternative plan. Many time what the antis are against are things that should be done away with, but with no alternative plan really cannot. Occasionally antis do offer plans, but many times these plans are unworkable. Either that or so expensive that they are not practical.

Real Environmentalism

What is real environmentalism? It is not the tree hugging, monkey kissing, animals and plants are more important than people movement. Real environmentalism is real people doing what they need to do to make a living while at the same time trying their best to protect the environment that allows them to make that living. This blog is going to take a look at many aspects of real environmentalism, beginning with how and when the world was formed, what has taken place since, what is taking place now and what we can do in the future to keep it going. this blog is going to take a look at global warming (it is natural not man made) and see why nothing that man does can change it.

I am going try to look at things through the eyes of the people who use the environment, whether for business or pleasure. I believe you will find many of these ideas in this blog different than anything you have been hearing in the media. Come back to this blog next week and take a look at what we will be doing. I am going to start at the beginning (creation) and go from there. I will do my best to update this blog at least once a week.