Disclaimer - I am not a scientist. I am a researcher. And all research is susceptible to errors. If I have made a statement in error, leave a comment and cite a source and I will gladly correct myself. I will not, however, debate.
If you've ever been both concerned about health and concerned about getting sunburns, you've discovered that there are pretty much no healthy sunscreens on the market.
The problem starts with the very nature of sunscreen. To be effective, it has to cover your skin and not come off immediately. So, sunscreens typically include "penetration enhancers" to help them absorb into the skin, but this also means that the other ingredients tend to penetrate into parts of the body (like the blood stream or breast milk) where they weren't meant to be. Methylisothiazolinone (say that five times fast) is an allergen that was banned in Europe because it's unsafe, yet it is still allowed, and frequently-used, in the US. Thanks, FDA.
The most common sunscreens use chemical filters that imitate hormones. In 2018, 65% of non-mineral sunscreens out there used oxybenzone, an estrogen that has anti-androgenic effects. It can also affect birth weights and gestational periods. The CDC has found oxybenzone in 96% of the population of the United States (though, to be fair, it is used in cosmetics as well). In fact, most of the ingredients in sunscreen have not even been evaluated, thanks to being grandfathered in by the FDA in the 1970s. In many cases, the FDA simply lets industries police themselves - a foolish stance. In 2015, the Danish EPA found that 16 out of the 19 ingredients most commonly used in sunscreen have no information on their safety or possible carcinogenic effects.
That's right, carcinogenic.
Imagine putting something on that causes cancer in order to prevent cancer. We may very well be doing just that. If we don't have research on something, why are we smearing it on our skin?
Other ingredients can inhibit hormones. Octinoxate, another common ingredient, lowers sperm counts, causes sperm quality to drop, and delays puberty. In fact, several ingredients found in sunscreen have the same results.
It is also hard to find sunscreens that are environmentally-friendly. "Green" sunscreens are few and far-between.
Sunscreen use has been on the rise, meaning more of it is being washed off into waterways and oceans. But the chemicals found in sunscreens don't disappear once it washes off your skin. A 2019 study found oxybenzone, octinoxate, and many other UV filters can be seen in almost every water source we have, and they aren't things treatment plants are designed to (or able to) filter. Oxybenzone has been identified as a major coral reef bleaching agent. Fish world-wide have been found with elevated levels of these chemicals inside of them, which means they are now a part of the food chain. No wonder 96% of the population has been exposed to oxybenzone. Even organic sunscreens have negative impacts on the environment.
So what options are there that are environmentally friendly AND health-conscious?
Non-mineral sunscreens, which typically use either zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, don't have as much impact on our health, particularly zinc oxide, which - although it is insoluble in water - is safe to eat. Of course, safe for humans does not mean safe for everything. Titanium dioxide, on the other hand, does not absorb into the skin, but can still be harmful. It has not been studied well, but we do know that when inhaled, it is classified as "possibly carcinogenic to humans." Titanium dioxide dust is common in its manufacturing process, and sunscreens use "nano-particles" of it, which are more dangerous. All in all, it requires further study (something you'd think we'd do before making it ubiquitous). And you have to be careful looking at the ingredients; titanium dioxide is usually used in tandem with oxybenzone and octinoxate, so simply seeing it as an ingredient doesn't make it safe.
But there *are* options out there, things that we are just now starting to realize are viable alternatives.
Nature makes sunscreen.
Hippos have been known to "sweat blood," while in reality they secrete two compounds, hipposudoric acid and norhipposudoric acid which act as sunscreen and antimicrobial agent for the hippo. They're just red and orange, making it look like the hippo is reenacting the Passion of Christ. This natural sunscreen, though unstable, has been successfully synthesized in labs... back in 2006. But, in my research, I have been unable to find any commercially-available sunscreen that uses either of those chemicals.
Hippos aren't the only ones. Mushroom Coral in the Great Barrier Reef makes its own sunscreen as well. In 2011, King's College in London found that certain algae make a chemical that the coral turns into sunscreen, based on observations made by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). AIMS has worked for years researching this, and got together with The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO - a scientific and independent agent of the Australian government) to develop sunscreen using this chemical. However, as far as I can tell it is only available in Australia.
Many beetles produce a special wax that protect them from sun and heat, particularly Darkling Beetles, which live in the Namibian Desert, but it is found in North American beetles as well. However, again, we don't seem to have any of this on the market.
Plants are always exposed to sunlight and yet show very little damage from it. In fact, plants are highly resilient to any form of radiation. How is this? They have photoreceptors called UVR8 that activate when there is too much sunlight and cause the plant to produce enzymes - enzymes which not only protect it from UV-B damage, but also repair damage. This is found in almost every plant, and yet we are only discovering all this since the turn of the century. I'm sure that with some research, we can isolate these enzymes and learn to emulate them, synthesize them, produce them.
Finally, fish, birds, reptiles, and other animals produce a substance known as gadusol which protects them from sunburn - usually. Gadusol can be synthesized, and in fact Gadusol Labs is a start-up company doing just that. It is dedicated to making sunscreens that are environmentally-friendly, sustainable, and non-hazardous using gadusol. They've only been around for a couple of years, though.
So there is hope. My only question is, why has it taken us THIS long to realize that nature has better solutions for us?
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Age after Age
Yes yes, I'm still alive and all that jazz.
And I'm sure I've lost all my readership.
I've been trying to write, but it has been a slow thing. I don't want to make excuses. Suffice it to say, getting overwhelmed with work is a vicious circle.
I plan on getting back into the grind of things this week.
So I thought I would make this post today to bring to light some news on one of the passions my wife and I share - the environment.
Call me a tree hugger if that's what floats your boat, but in this day and age, it would be remiss of you to ignore the overwhelming evidence that the environment is changing, and we are the cause.
But this post isn't about trying to convince you that the environment is changing. If you want to argue it, I point you to this resource. Just look up whatever argument you have, and see how it has been thoroughly and completely debunked by actual science.
No, the point of this post is actually names. In particularly, the name of the age.
Some of you might know that Mesozoic Era, that of the dinosaurs (another subject I am very passionate about), consisted of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods (which are also split into numerous stages). A few of you might know that after the Mesozoic came the Cenozoic, the current era, and that we are currently in the Quaternary Period. But, as I said earlier, these periods are broken into small stages, or "epochs." A very select few of you may say that we are currently in the Holocene Epoch, or even the smaller subdivision of the Meghalayan Age (did I mention I'm a nerd?). If you are one of those people, I commend you!
But you might be wrong.
The scientific community is currently debating on the first change of epochs since, well, science. From what I can tell, the only thing stopping them is determining the exact year of the change, which is currently likely to be somewhere between 1945 and 1964. That means a good portion of you may have been born in a different age and epoch, as we may now be in the Anthropocene Epoch and the Homogenocene Age (though I may be wrong about that second one).
Why this change? Anthropos is Greek for "man." This is the Epoch where man has changed the environment to the point where every part of it has been influenced by our actions. Since the mid-twentieth century, more than half of all wildlife on the planet has died, and 90% of all large fish have died. The cause? Pollution, climate change, and over-hunting. We, humans, have affected the Earth so much that we now have an Epoch. Most of these epochs are marked by extinctions, and this one is no different. We are, indeed, in the middle of the 6th major extinction-event of the planet, and we are the cause of it. If we aren't careful, we'll be marking the end of the Cenozoic as well, but let's hope it doesn't get that bad.
Which leads me to a final point. There is another "age" we are in, supposedly. We live in the "Information Age." This is a 20th and 21st century historic age defined by a rapid shift from an economy based on industry to one based on information (computers and the like). At this point, I'm sure I've bored you and you've moved on, so now I can get to the real point of this blog post - a secret letter to my wife.
The macarons are good. Take some with you to work.
Now, back to the blog post, just in case someone really was paying attention.
I propose that we have left the Information Age, as of 2016. I propose that we are entering the Misinformation Age - an age where truth has become harder and harder to determine, where news is formed by lies and social media, where governments make entire entities dedicated to influencing people through fake news and propaganda (such as the Russian-based Internet Research Agency).
There is a new Artificial Intelligence software that has been implemented to write simple news stories with language that makes it indistinguishable from human writing. I worry about this because I am trying to make it as a writer, and I don't want some computer muscling me out of the market. Experts worry about this, because it could be used to flood the internet, and even news shows, with entirely made up news that would be almost indistinguishable from real news - lies that you couldn't tell were lies. This could topple governments. For now they are trying to keep this AI under guard.
The problem is, history tells us that attempts to prevent progress always fail. It will happen. Combine this with the increasing levels of complexity in photo- and video-manipulation, with the computer programs that can put any words you like into anyone else's mouth (yes, these are real), and I fear for the future. We know there are agents out there whose sole purpose is to sew discord, to fan the fires on both sides of any argument they can. This sort of thing should scare all of us. And it both follows the model of Orwell's classic 1984 as well as puts it to shame.
The victor may write history, but the anarchist writes the future.
And I'm sure I've lost all my readership.
I've been trying to write, but it has been a slow thing. I don't want to make excuses. Suffice it to say, getting overwhelmed with work is a vicious circle.
I plan on getting back into the grind of things this week.
So I thought I would make this post today to bring to light some news on one of the passions my wife and I share - the environment.
Call me a tree hugger if that's what floats your boat, but in this day and age, it would be remiss of you to ignore the overwhelming evidence that the environment is changing, and we are the cause.
But this post isn't about trying to convince you that the environment is changing. If you want to argue it, I point you to this resource. Just look up whatever argument you have, and see how it has been thoroughly and completely debunked by actual science.
No, the point of this post is actually names. In particularly, the name of the age.
Some of you might know that Mesozoic Era, that of the dinosaurs (another subject I am very passionate about), consisted of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods (which are also split into numerous stages). A few of you might know that after the Mesozoic came the Cenozoic, the current era, and that we are currently in the Quaternary Period. But, as I said earlier, these periods are broken into small stages, or "epochs." A very select few of you may say that we are currently in the Holocene Epoch, or even the smaller subdivision of the Meghalayan Age (did I mention I'm a nerd?). If you are one of those people, I commend you!
But you might be wrong.
The scientific community is currently debating on the first change of epochs since, well, science. From what I can tell, the only thing stopping them is determining the exact year of the change, which is currently likely to be somewhere between 1945 and 1964. That means a good portion of you may have been born in a different age and epoch, as we may now be in the Anthropocene Epoch and the Homogenocene Age (though I may be wrong about that second one).
Why this change? Anthropos is Greek for "man." This is the Epoch where man has changed the environment to the point where every part of it has been influenced by our actions. Since the mid-twentieth century, more than half of all wildlife on the planet has died, and 90% of all large fish have died. The cause? Pollution, climate change, and over-hunting. We, humans, have affected the Earth so much that we now have an Epoch. Most of these epochs are marked by extinctions, and this one is no different. We are, indeed, in the middle of the 6th major extinction-event of the planet, and we are the cause of it. If we aren't careful, we'll be marking the end of the Cenozoic as well, but let's hope it doesn't get that bad.
Which leads me to a final point. There is another "age" we are in, supposedly. We live in the "Information Age." This is a 20th and 21st century historic age defined by a rapid shift from an economy based on industry to one based on information (computers and the like). At this point, I'm sure I've bored you and you've moved on, so now I can get to the real point of this blog post - a secret letter to my wife.
The macarons are good. Take some with you to work.
Now, back to the blog post, just in case someone really was paying attention.
I propose that we have left the Information Age, as of 2016. I propose that we are entering the Misinformation Age - an age where truth has become harder and harder to determine, where news is formed by lies and social media, where governments make entire entities dedicated to influencing people through fake news and propaganda (such as the Russian-based Internet Research Agency).
There is a new Artificial Intelligence software that has been implemented to write simple news stories with language that makes it indistinguishable from human writing. I worry about this because I am trying to make it as a writer, and I don't want some computer muscling me out of the market. Experts worry about this, because it could be used to flood the internet, and even news shows, with entirely made up news that would be almost indistinguishable from real news - lies that you couldn't tell were lies. This could topple governments. For now they are trying to keep this AI under guard.
The problem is, history tells us that attempts to prevent progress always fail. It will happen. Combine this with the increasing levels of complexity in photo- and video-manipulation, with the computer programs that can put any words you like into anyone else's mouth (yes, these are real), and I fear for the future. We know there are agents out there whose sole purpose is to sew discord, to fan the fires on both sides of any argument they can. This sort of thing should scare all of us. And it both follows the model of Orwell's classic 1984 as well as puts it to shame.
The victor may write history, but the anarchist writes the future.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Fear and Loathing in DC
Congratulations, America, on your purchase of a Trump! Trump will be a good addition to your home if you remember three simple rules.
1) Do not feed your Trump's ego after midnight
2) Do not let your Trump near camera or TV lights
3) Do not let your Trump get wet.
In all seriousness, however, we, as a nation, are going to be led by this man who may very well be the least qualified person not currently in jail. That is not to say he is not qualified. He does meet the requirements: He was born in the US, he is over 35, and he has lived here for the last 14 years. But that's where his qualifications for this job cease.
I have my fair share of friends who voted for Trump, and I asked many of them what they saw in him and why they were voting for him. The answers were mostly nonsense. They want change. They don't like Obamacare. They feel he is a party-man. They like his ideas. Hillary is guilty of x crime. Hillary is a liar. Hillary laughed at rape. EMAILS!
When asked about the crap Trump says he wants to do, the answers were all-too-familiar. The checks and balances will stop him. These are actually good ideas. It's just politic/locker room talk. He didn't say/mean that.
Before I delve into this rant any further, I want to make my observation. Stephen Colbert pointed out a poll that said 4 out of 10 Americans feel the other party (than their own) is dangerous. That is to say, 40% of republicans think the democrats are a danger to the country, and 40% of democrats think the republicans are a danger to the country. An article claimed that this was an election "of fear." I also read a comment on twitter that, unlike previous elections, the losing side is not simply depressed, angry, and sad. They are in real fear. This fear sets this election apart from all others, and is not a good start to what promises to be an eventful presidency.
My observation is this:
This is not an "us vs them" argument. Trump's words are on tape, video, twitter, etc. You can look them up yourself. These are not fear-mongering attempts to control the undecided voter; these are the actual hopes and promises of the presidential candidate himself. We are afraid because he makes us afraid, not because our party wants us to fear him.
Now for the boring part I'm sure you'll skip. Yes, it's a rant. I pride myself on being able to look at both sides, and usually I am pretty fastidious about where I get my sources, how truthful I am being, and how honest I am being with myself. Like everyone, I slip, but unlike everyone, I have the time and training to actually research. I want to attack these things one by one.
- When I heard someone claim that they are voting for Trump because they want change, they tell me that they don't care if it is positive or negative change... or they deflect. Change for the sake of change is not a good thing. Change must be productive, and well-thought-out for it to be beneficial. If you are working on the bottom rung of a company and hear that there are going to be "staff changes," you would be smart to start looking for a new job in your free time.
- They don't like Obamacare. Well fine. It is not perfect. I've seen people who have been burned by it, though far more people depend on it. Removing Obamacare is going to cost us a lot, all of us. But what are you going to replace it with? The current plan is to get a plan. This is irresponsible. You are willing to put millions of people's insurance at jeopardy without knowing what is going to replace it? Last I hard, Trump said everyone will have to pay their own way. That is a death sentence to tens of thousands. That is a step backwards. We, as a society, should be beyond that.
- Trump represents the party. If this were true, wouldn't GOP members be flocking to him, instead of bailing out left and right? He has never represented the party - and that is part of his appeal. He is the outsider, the man of his own ideals and ideas, however flawed they may be. The PARTY is bending to HIS will, not the other way around.
- I don't know how anyone can like his ideas and consider themselves a normal human being. The wall is pointless (it will not work), expensive as hell (trillions, plus maintenance costs), and paying for it is a debacle (Mexico will not pay for it, but Trump has *said* he wants to put SANCTIONS on them, our ally, until they do. International bullying? What the Hell!?). His economic plan is, essentially, to bankrupt America and then "work out a deal." His plan to end abortion is to punish the women. He has no healthcare plan. He wants to deport every illegal immigrant AND THEIR LEGAL FAMILIES en masse. He wants to end the 1st Amendment to make it easier for him to sue the media (and who knows what other crap that will cause...). His gun plan is to have more of them. His plan to deal with terrorists is to waterboard them (or worse) and then "go after" their wives and children. These are actually things he has said.
- Out of every crime people like to accuse Hillary of, from murder to rape to controlling Bill's accusers to being a security risk, she has been investigated by competent, real people who would like nothing more than to put her away for a long time and in every case it turns out there either isn't enough evidence to even present it to court or it was made up. People are hypocrites when it comes to her automatic guilt in crimes, but Trump's automatic innocence. He has been embroiled in far more lawsuits, including 3 rape cases, charity fraud, racist rental policies, and racketeering. There's still a chance he will be in jail - as a felon - on inauguration day. No, Hillary is not nice or likable, and there really is some shady stuff in her past, but none of the stuff she is actually guilty of holds a candle to what Trump has been found actually guilty of.
- I have to laugh when people tell me Hillary is a liar. But it's true. She is a liar. She has lied quite a bit. According to politifact.com, as well as every other reputable fact checker out there, she has lied between 13% and 17% of the time. Here's where more of the hypocrisy comes into play. These fact checkers have determined that Trump is also a liar. About 53% of the garbage he spews from his mouth is a lie. That means he lies more than 3 times as frequently as Hillary does... and his lies tend to be worse. He has more "pants on fire" ratings. They aren't even imaginative lies; half the time he's simply saying that he didn't do or say something that he definitely did or said (on tape, in front of thousands of people, or on twitter). I cannot abide lying, and I hate it every time I heard one from Hillary, but Trump? The very thought of him makes the pit of my stomach give out.
- Hillary did once defend a rapist because that was her job and she was appointed to it. It would have been remiss of her (and possibly illegal of her) not to do so. And she won, like a good lawyer should. Had it been Trump, the GOP would be praising him. Years later, she was in an interviewing laughing about not trusting polygraphs anymore after that case. No, she never, not once, laughed at a rape victim. Listen to the audio. It's online.
- The emails, GOD THE EMAILS! How often has she been exonerated, and how much the people blew this out of proportion. When Comey decided to show his colors (turns out the FBI is heavily Trump-leaning) and announce that he was simply investigating emails that mentioned Hillary, an announcement that is highly unethical and simply not done, its timing could not have been more suspicious, and its impact could not have been more auspicious. Although she was again exonerated, the damage was done, and most analysts agree that Comey single-handedly handed the election to Trump. If there is a God, Comey should spend the rest of his life behind bars. I'm more worried about the fact that he will turn the FBI into some sort of secret service. Oh... I'm not bragging or being hyperbolic. Under Hoover's command, that's exactly what many politicians and agents thought of the agency. It has happened before, and it may well happen again.
-The checks and balances or other politicians will stop him? What, like they were supposed to stop him from being the nominee? Right now he has the majority in both sides of Congress, the GOP will refuse Obama's final Supreme Court Justice nominee and give the SC to the GOP. ALL he is lacking is a supermajority. He has executive orders now. The checks and balances will mean shit. The other members of his party would crawl backwards to attend to his every whim, just as they have ever since he was their nominee. Besides, shouldn't you NOT be trusting in the checks and balances to stop a madman? Shouldn't you INSTEAD not VOTE for the madman?
- These are good ideas only if you are a terrible person. If you have any sense, you should see them for the crap that they are. Every bit of progress our country, perhaps the world, has made is in danger of being undone.
- No. Shame on you. This isn't locker room talk. I would never say that in a locker room. I would not be friends with someone who would say that in a locker room. I would never even THINK the shit that comes out of Trump's diseased mind. And I hate him all the more for implanting such horrific thoughts. No, this isn't politics as normal. Trump is not a politician. Yes, he lies when he thinks it will get him his way. But these promises? Even if half of them are lies, the other half would still be true. You all need to take the things he says seriously. Chances are, he means them.
WHEW! You made it through the rant. Now if you are a rabid Trump supporter, you are either ready to (or currently?) write up a scathing rebuttal full of things you believe to be true, but, given time, I will gladly show you are false. I'd ask that you save us both some time and just don't. Because this next little bit is the important bit.
Trump lost.
Trump lost the same as Bush lost. Neither man should (have) serve(d) in the White House. Neither man was elected by the people. They were elected by the electoral college, an outdated and extremely flawed system that is susceptible to gerrymandering (which the republicans have done in spades) and corruption. There is some old and misguided idea that rural areas need to be protected, so their votes are worth more. That very thought is anti-democratic. It is anti-American. But that's one of the reasons the last two republican "presidents" were not voted in by the people. And look at them. Bush was a laughing stock. He had an abysmal approval rating. He plunged us into debt. He had negative job growth. He started endless wars that he didn't pay for, predicated on a lie. By any agreeable measure, he is one of, if not THE worst president in the history of the United States. And now he's about to get Trumped. No, I am not giving Trump his fair chance. I do not think he deserves one.
And if you want to defend the electoral college, try me. But I guarantee you that if Hillary had won on electoral votes and Trump on popular votes, you would also be decrying the idiocy of this backwards system.
A final thought.
This election was important for a lot of reasons, and failed in them all. One reason, however, remains of vital importance and could well make this the single most important, and worst, election in history. In other elections, in other years, no matter how bad it got, there was also the promise that in 4 years, we'd get a chance to boot the "bad" guy out and put another guy in who can undo all that damage.
We don't have that promise this time. I'm not saying Trump will do something like declare himself president for life (but I wouldn't put it past him). No, I'm saying that the damage his policies could have on our environment are not something that will go away, that we will recover from. Ever. There likely will be another president after him, and then another... but they won't be able to undo the damage to our eco-system. This is a man who believes that climate change, which is now confirmed as real AND as human-made, is a hoax invented by the Chinese. This is a man who said that he wanted to ABOLISH the EPA to make it easier for businesses. Now he wants to put the world's leading Climate Skeptic into position over THE EPA. He has said that he wants to destroy the Paris Climate Agreements. I cannot imagine a scenario worse than this. At this time we are experiencing an unprecedented level of extinctions (1,000 to 10,000 times higher than natural rates). In the last 40 years, we've lost HALF of all wild animals. 75% will be gone within three lifetimes. And by 2070, the coral reefs may be beyond repair. To you, these might seem like numbers. But what they mean is that, unless we act *NOW* to mitigate the damage, we may well have triggered events that will see the end of our species. After all, you can't eat money.
Trump may be our president. But if he follows through on what HE IS SAYING HE WILL DO, he will also be our downfall.
1) Do not feed your Trump's ego after midnight
2) Do not let your Trump near camera or TV lights
3) Do not let your Trump get wet.
In all seriousness, however, we, as a nation, are going to be led by this man who may very well be the least qualified person not currently in jail. That is not to say he is not qualified. He does meet the requirements: He was born in the US, he is over 35, and he has lived here for the last 14 years. But that's where his qualifications for this job cease.
I have my fair share of friends who voted for Trump, and I asked many of them what they saw in him and why they were voting for him. The answers were mostly nonsense. They want change. They don't like Obamacare. They feel he is a party-man. They like his ideas. Hillary is guilty of x crime. Hillary is a liar. Hillary laughed at rape. EMAILS!
When asked about the crap Trump says he wants to do, the answers were all-too-familiar. The checks and balances will stop him. These are actually good ideas. It's just politic/locker room talk. He didn't say/mean that.
Before I delve into this rant any further, I want to make my observation. Stephen Colbert pointed out a poll that said 4 out of 10 Americans feel the other party (than their own) is dangerous. That is to say, 40% of republicans think the democrats are a danger to the country, and 40% of democrats think the republicans are a danger to the country. An article claimed that this was an election "of fear." I also read a comment on twitter that, unlike previous elections, the losing side is not simply depressed, angry, and sad. They are in real fear. This fear sets this election apart from all others, and is not a good start to what promises to be an eventful presidency.
My observation is this:
The republicans are afraid of Hillary because of what the GOP claims she might do. The democrats are afraid of Trump because of what he says he will do.
This is not an "us vs them" argument. Trump's words are on tape, video, twitter, etc. You can look them up yourself. These are not fear-mongering attempts to control the undecided voter; these are the actual hopes and promises of the presidential candidate himself. We are afraid because he makes us afraid, not because our party wants us to fear him.
Now for the boring part I'm sure you'll skip. Yes, it's a rant. I pride myself on being able to look at both sides, and usually I am pretty fastidious about where I get my sources, how truthful I am being, and how honest I am being with myself. Like everyone, I slip, but unlike everyone, I have the time and training to actually research. I want to attack these things one by one.
- When I heard someone claim that they are voting for Trump because they want change, they tell me that they don't care if it is positive or negative change... or they deflect. Change for the sake of change is not a good thing. Change must be productive, and well-thought-out for it to be beneficial. If you are working on the bottom rung of a company and hear that there are going to be "staff changes," you would be smart to start looking for a new job in your free time.
- They don't like Obamacare. Well fine. It is not perfect. I've seen people who have been burned by it, though far more people depend on it. Removing Obamacare is going to cost us a lot, all of us. But what are you going to replace it with? The current plan is to get a plan. This is irresponsible. You are willing to put millions of people's insurance at jeopardy without knowing what is going to replace it? Last I hard, Trump said everyone will have to pay their own way. That is a death sentence to tens of thousands. That is a step backwards. We, as a society, should be beyond that.
- Trump represents the party. If this were true, wouldn't GOP members be flocking to him, instead of bailing out left and right? He has never represented the party - and that is part of his appeal. He is the outsider, the man of his own ideals and ideas, however flawed they may be. The PARTY is bending to HIS will, not the other way around.
- I don't know how anyone can like his ideas and consider themselves a normal human being. The wall is pointless (it will not work), expensive as hell (trillions, plus maintenance costs), and paying for it is a debacle (Mexico will not pay for it, but Trump has *said* he wants to put SANCTIONS on them, our ally, until they do. International bullying? What the Hell!?). His economic plan is, essentially, to bankrupt America and then "work out a deal." His plan to end abortion is to punish the women. He has no healthcare plan. He wants to deport every illegal immigrant AND THEIR LEGAL FAMILIES en masse. He wants to end the 1st Amendment to make it easier for him to sue the media (and who knows what other crap that will cause...). His gun plan is to have more of them. His plan to deal with terrorists is to waterboard them (or worse) and then "go after" their wives and children. These are actually things he has said.
- Out of every crime people like to accuse Hillary of, from murder to rape to controlling Bill's accusers to being a security risk, she has been investigated by competent, real people who would like nothing more than to put her away for a long time and in every case it turns out there either isn't enough evidence to even present it to court or it was made up. People are hypocrites when it comes to her automatic guilt in crimes, but Trump's automatic innocence. He has been embroiled in far more lawsuits, including 3 rape cases, charity fraud, racist rental policies, and racketeering. There's still a chance he will be in jail - as a felon - on inauguration day. No, Hillary is not nice or likable, and there really is some shady stuff in her past, but none of the stuff she is actually guilty of holds a candle to what Trump has been found actually guilty of.
- I have to laugh when people tell me Hillary is a liar. But it's true. She is a liar. She has lied quite a bit. According to politifact.com, as well as every other reputable fact checker out there, she has lied between 13% and 17% of the time. Here's where more of the hypocrisy comes into play. These fact checkers have determined that Trump is also a liar. About 53% of the garbage he spews from his mouth is a lie. That means he lies more than 3 times as frequently as Hillary does... and his lies tend to be worse. He has more "pants on fire" ratings. They aren't even imaginative lies; half the time he's simply saying that he didn't do or say something that he definitely did or said (on tape, in front of thousands of people, or on twitter). I cannot abide lying, and I hate it every time I heard one from Hillary, but Trump? The very thought of him makes the pit of my stomach give out.
- Hillary did once defend a rapist because that was her job and she was appointed to it. It would have been remiss of her (and possibly illegal of her) not to do so. And she won, like a good lawyer should. Had it been Trump, the GOP would be praising him. Years later, she was in an interviewing laughing about not trusting polygraphs anymore after that case. No, she never, not once, laughed at a rape victim. Listen to the audio. It's online.
- The emails, GOD THE EMAILS! How often has she been exonerated, and how much the people blew this out of proportion. When Comey decided to show his colors (turns out the FBI is heavily Trump-leaning) and announce that he was simply investigating emails that mentioned Hillary, an announcement that is highly unethical and simply not done, its timing could not have been more suspicious, and its impact could not have been more auspicious. Although she was again exonerated, the damage was done, and most analysts agree that Comey single-handedly handed the election to Trump. If there is a God, Comey should spend the rest of his life behind bars. I'm more worried about the fact that he will turn the FBI into some sort of secret service. Oh... I'm not bragging or being hyperbolic. Under Hoover's command, that's exactly what many politicians and agents thought of the agency. It has happened before, and it may well happen again.
-The checks and balances or other politicians will stop him? What, like they were supposed to stop him from being the nominee? Right now he has the majority in both sides of Congress, the GOP will refuse Obama's final Supreme Court Justice nominee and give the SC to the GOP. ALL he is lacking is a supermajority. He has executive orders now. The checks and balances will mean shit. The other members of his party would crawl backwards to attend to his every whim, just as they have ever since he was their nominee. Besides, shouldn't you NOT be trusting in the checks and balances to stop a madman? Shouldn't you INSTEAD not VOTE for the madman?
- These are good ideas only if you are a terrible person. If you have any sense, you should see them for the crap that they are. Every bit of progress our country, perhaps the world, has made is in danger of being undone.
- No. Shame on you. This isn't locker room talk. I would never say that in a locker room. I would not be friends with someone who would say that in a locker room. I would never even THINK the shit that comes out of Trump's diseased mind. And I hate him all the more for implanting such horrific thoughts. No, this isn't politics as normal. Trump is not a politician. Yes, he lies when he thinks it will get him his way. But these promises? Even if half of them are lies, the other half would still be true. You all need to take the things he says seriously. Chances are, he means them.
WHEW! You made it through the rant. Now if you are a rabid Trump supporter, you are either ready to (or currently?) write up a scathing rebuttal full of things you believe to be true, but, given time, I will gladly show you are false. I'd ask that you save us both some time and just don't. Because this next little bit is the important bit.
Trump lost.
Trump lost the same as Bush lost. Neither man should (have) serve(d) in the White House. Neither man was elected by the people. They were elected by the electoral college, an outdated and extremely flawed system that is susceptible to gerrymandering (which the republicans have done in spades) and corruption. There is some old and misguided idea that rural areas need to be protected, so their votes are worth more. That very thought is anti-democratic. It is anti-American. But that's one of the reasons the last two republican "presidents" were not voted in by the people. And look at them. Bush was a laughing stock. He had an abysmal approval rating. He plunged us into debt. He had negative job growth. He started endless wars that he didn't pay for, predicated on a lie. By any agreeable measure, he is one of, if not THE worst president in the history of the United States. And now he's about to get Trumped. No, I am not giving Trump his fair chance. I do not think he deserves one.
And if you want to defend the electoral college, try me. But I guarantee you that if Hillary had won on electoral votes and Trump on popular votes, you would also be decrying the idiocy of this backwards system.
A final thought.
This election was important for a lot of reasons, and failed in them all. One reason, however, remains of vital importance and could well make this the single most important, and worst, election in history. In other elections, in other years, no matter how bad it got, there was also the promise that in 4 years, we'd get a chance to boot the "bad" guy out and put another guy in who can undo all that damage.
We don't have that promise this time. I'm not saying Trump will do something like declare himself president for life (but I wouldn't put it past him). No, I'm saying that the damage his policies could have on our environment are not something that will go away, that we will recover from. Ever. There likely will be another president after him, and then another... but they won't be able to undo the damage to our eco-system. This is a man who believes that climate change, which is now confirmed as real AND as human-made, is a hoax invented by the Chinese. This is a man who said that he wanted to ABOLISH the EPA to make it easier for businesses. Now he wants to put the world's leading Climate Skeptic into position over THE EPA. He has said that he wants to destroy the Paris Climate Agreements. I cannot imagine a scenario worse than this. At this time we are experiencing an unprecedented level of extinctions (1,000 to 10,000 times higher than natural rates). In the last 40 years, we've lost HALF of all wild animals. 75% will be gone within three lifetimes. And by 2070, the coral reefs may be beyond repair. To you, these might seem like numbers. But what they mean is that, unless we act *NOW* to mitigate the damage, we may well have triggered events that will see the end of our species. After all, you can't eat money.
Trump may be our president. But if he follows through on what HE IS SAYING HE WILL DO, he will also be our downfall.
Friday, November 6, 2015
Immortality
These are some thoughts I had while researching for a story I'm interested in writing. Tell me what you think.
There is talk about immortality. Will we use the immortal jellyfish, which turns its entire body into essentially an embryonic state, or the axolotl, which can turn specific cells into such a state and regrow limbs? Perhaps both. We may very well be able to form new cells for everything that wears out in the body, thus not only becoming immortal, but forever young.
There are some drawbacks to this, despite the obvious ones of overpopulation and social unrest due to cost (which is a story I am interested in writing).
The first drawback is that you WILL lose muscle memory. They are finding that a lot of our information is not actually stored in the brain, but in the muscles and nerves. For instance, if I had to regrow my left hand, I would essentially have to learn how to play guitar all over again. Sure, it would be in my head, but I would need to retrain my fingers. In fact, if you regrow limbs, you’ll essentially need physical therapy to learn how to use them again. It is feasible that they will find a way around this, however, but I’m not sure how.
The second is more serious. It doesn’t matter how we achieve immortality; we could regrow an entire body and have a brain transplant; we could regrow an entire body and figure out how to implant the information from one to the other; we could simply regrow every organ/limb/cell needed and transplant them; but no matter what we do, the human brain is not wired to achieve immortality. The mind itself will age, EVEN if we manage to grow new brain cells and replace the old ones. It is the information that does it; after a hundred years, our brains are going to have real difficulty storing and accessing memories. This is one of the reasons people have memory issues as they get older. Despite the amazing wonder that is the human mind, it has limitations.
This second drawback, the lack of storage space in the brain, can probably be overcome. I believe the only way we’ll be able to achieve immortality AND retain our sanity is through cybernetic augmentation. That’s not to say we’ll all connect to the internet or have super strength or junk like that. Nor is it to say we’d have computer chips in our heads. Rather, I think nanotechnology would be involved. We would essentially have little bots that go through our brains on a regular basis and erase old information through restoring the cells, but taking the information erased and putting it into some sort of database that our minds would have access to. There would likely be some things that remain: core memories, recent memories, recognition of family and peers, etc. Some things might be erased completely: the trip to the store 20 years ago to pick up milk. Anything of importance, however, would be stored. The way we think would change. Instead of accessing memories, we’d be accessing a program that would draw out the pertinent memories from a database. Our brains would change to learn how to interact with the program, or perhaps the program would have to learn when to interrupt the brain’s natural process of trying to recall information. I think this merits more research…
Friday, June 27, 2014
Break
Sorry, folks. I'm on vacation this week! As much as I would love to regale you with another tale, I've run out of buffer and need to build it back up. So, I leave you all with a science lesson! sure, it might be long, and old, but it remains awesome!
Monday, April 7, 2014
Genesis the Parable
I have a problem; I'll admit it. From time to time, I get in debates over religion, often with atheists. One of my best friends is an agnostic atheist (that is, he does not think there is a God, but is open to the possibility), and we would get in great conversations for hours on end. But online it is a different beast. The conversations are usually the same, with the same rebuttals and half-truths, the same misinformation, and the same lack of education on both sides of the argument.
Here I shall produce a defense and explanation of science. Skip it if you like.
I am not anti-atheist. Belief in God comes down to one thing and one thing only: faith. Not blind faith, not faith in place of logic, just faith. When people try to use science to argue against a religion, it never works. Science is the pursuit of knowledge using deduction and induction by forming hypotheses to explain an observed phenomenon (or "law"), which is then verified by testing. In other words, scientists see something, they ask why that thing is, and they test their hypothesis. Others test it as well. When several hypotheses all support the same principal and this principal has been tested thousands upon thousands of times (and passed each test), then it becomes a Theory (an accepted reason for certain observations - not to be confused with hypothesis). Theories are about as close to the truth as us humans can discern; there is very little room for error. When a theory is disproven by even one test (which is rare indeed), and they verify that this test was valid and not an error, then the theory has to be revised or altogether scrapped for a new Theory, one that still stands up to the hypotheses and tests that have been thrown at the old one.
Here I shall explain and defend religion. Again, skip it if you like.
Religion is rather like science, but with a major different. Instead of attempting to discern the truth by using observed phenomena, it attempts to discern the truth using what we believe has been revealed to us by God (or gods, as the case my be) or through philosophy. This is why science will never explain, prove, or disprove it. We don't simply make things up. The Christian Church has been molded by a series of great thinkers which are referred to as the Doctors of the Church. The idea of the Holy Spirit took decades to arrive at and was not made dogma in its present form until the Council of Lyons in 1274. Other great thinkers are not usually recognized as being theologians. Descartes, the father of the Cartesian Coordinate System, came up with "I think, therefore I am." Most people don't know how this works or what its purpose is. Imagine you are in The Matrix. How can you know that anything around you is real and not simply a fabrication? Well, there's only one thing you can be sure of - that you are doubting. Something that doubts is something that thinks. And there has to be some thing that is thinking, thus the concept of you exists because you doubt, because you think. But Descartes went on. He used some philosophical concepts invented by the ancient Greeks, that there are two ways in which things exist: in thought, and in reality. They Greeks called these "essence" and "existence" - WHAT something is and THAT something is. For instance, my computer has the essence of a MacBook Pro. It is real, thus is exists. The computer of my dreams is Hal 9000 without the evil streak, but Hal 9000 doesn't exist. It only exists as a thought. So what if there is something whose essence IS existence? The mere thought of that being necessitates its existence, and through that existence all other things exist. I think I've got that right. But that's what Descartes argued, and I'm sure there are valid counter arguments. Even Charles Darwin argued that evolution does not negate the existence of God. My point is that many, many great thinkers have shaped religious beliefs.
Defense of theism aside, the crux of this post is an online debate (alright, an argument) I found myself embroiled in some time ago. Someone was telling me that, as a Christian, I have to believe everything in the Bible as literal truth and that I am not allowed to believe in science or evolution. I do hope you can see the irony of an atheist telling someone what he is allowed to believe. I attempted to explain that many parts in the Bible are historical accounts, that many are laws for a specific civilization, and that many are in fact parables. And here I wished to defend the idea that the Genesis account is, quite possibly, a metaphor or parable. This is entirely MY interpretation.
First off, Jesus often spoke in parables. The account of Job is from an impossible point of view. And the entire book of The Revelation to John is riddled with symbolism and metaphor. So it is certainly not unheard of. Let's take part of Genesis. Say, Adam and Eve. Did God really make everything in 7 days? I am not the first to believe that "days" may be a symbol for "stages." God made Eve from Adam's rib - which could easily be a symbol for equality. Not from Adam's foot, not from his tooth, but from his side, close to his heart. Then Adam and Eve were tempted by the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and ejected from paradise when they gave in. It may be that this is part of what makes us human, and that this act is what defines them as the first humans. The first human, whoever he or she was, made the choice to learn actively, to use that knowledge to better himself. This is the temptation, this is what made the first human unable to return to the bliss of ignorance. Suddenly there are responsibilities, the knowledge of death, the understanding of consequences.
So there you have it. Surprisingly, even the Catholic Church has admitted that evolution is real, and shown how it does not, in fact, interfere with the possibility of God. This admission also means that the Catholic Church agrees that not all the of the Bible is to be taken literally. So what is your take?
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Nightmare Fuel
I had a nightmare last night. Well, a series of them. I do not often have nightmares. I know this because I remember a large number of dreams I
have. At least for a good number of hours. Only in looking back on this
dream was I able to really determine what was going on.
This nightmare was what I would call a "meta
dream." That means it was
aware of the fact that it was a dream, but I wasn't. At least not at first.
Similar to a lucid dream but the DREAM had the lucid
part. It started out as a normal
dream, I believe my daughter was in it.
But at some point she was taken away… and then bad things started to
happen. It was almost like a home
invasion, but the invader was not human.
It was too thin. too gaunt, too strong. Its face was like a mask and the rest of it was black. And it started to torture me. I was tied down. I was thrashing my head from side to
side. When I finally looked next
to me, I saw a disturbing figure, almost human but with red stripes against its
white face. The only problem was…
I had already woken up.
I was indeed awake when I saw that figure, and I remember
calling for help. I don't know if
I actually said anything or if that was in my mind. It was meant to be a shout, but what I heard, which could
have been internal, was a whimper.
I couldn't move my arms, only my head. And I was worried that it would be going for my
daughter. It took a few seconds
before I was finally able to move again, and the figure vanished like the dream
it was. It had been lying next to
me one moment, looking disfigured and torn open, and then it was all a
memory… Of course, when I went back
to sleep, it continued. At this
point, the first figure, the thin one, was taunting me. It knew I was dreaming, that I was
asleep, and that I could do nothing about it. I didn't get a very restful sleep last night.
I believe I just had my first instance of sleep paralysis. I was likely awoken
during my REM cycle, which is when you dream. The brain has a
mechanism that paralyzes the body during dreams so you don't actually act
things out. Sometimes, when you
are suddenly awoken, this mechanism can be slow to turn off… but it can also cause very realistic
and terrifying hallucinations. Strangely,
I did some research on this a few weeks ago, specifically about the
"hag" phenomenon.
When I look back, I can see some things that would have
triggered this. The first is that
I went to bed late last night. I
was a bit depressed at failing to be even mentioned in the Dark Crystal
contest. When I get depressed, I
tend to lose the desire to sleep or eat.
I also had seen an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Riker
and other crew members go through the classic "alien abduction"
scenario. And that night, just as
I was heading to bed, I heard a strange and disturbing sound that made me worry
that someone was breaking in. It's
a big house, and with three cats such sounds occur from time to time. I fell asleep while intently listening
for footsteps, breathing, floor creaking, what have you. My mind was going over what would
happen, if I would be able to get to Addy in time, or if the intruder would
even think to look in her hiding spot.
It was prime nightmare material, I tell you.
I hope I don't have another episode. When you find yourself unable to move
and staring at something that should not
exist, when your daughter is threatened and you can do nothing about it… it is enough to make a guy not want to sleep
again.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Logic Laguna
First, I would like to say that I am very much enjoying my story and that I am now past 27k words. I just hope it ends up at least 50k!
Now onto the main part of this post. I have always had a logical mind. I think things through from as many possible angles as I can. And I tend to do a good job getting all the angles. I blame my father, who is a systems engineer, and raised me to see ever problem with a series of inputs and outputs. All you need to do is identify ALL of those.
It irks me to no end when I hear a claim that has nothing to back it up, yet is accepted universally. This happens much more often than you might realize.
Let me give you an example. I recently saw a hand dryer that claimed it was more environmentally friendly and more sanitary than using paper towels. I would like to see evidence. Allow me to give you the inputs and outputs of each.
First, sanitation. Many models are now hands-free, using infrared or some other sensor to determine if someone's hand is beneath it. This is actually a good thing, if programmed correctly. They should stay on for as long as your hands are beneath, and you don't have to touch anything. In this case, there are no inputs (other than the flow of air), and the item is, indeed, as sanitary as you can get. There are other problems with this, but I'll get to that later. However, the model I looked at was NOT a hands-free version. It was one of the ones we all know and hate. Push a great big shiny (and usually damp) button to turn it on. Put yours hands beneath. Rub them until it turns off. Then, either rub your hands on your pants (which is very unsanitary) or turn it on AGAIN until it actually gets your hands dry. Then turn off the water and open the door. In the process of washing your hands, you have touched surfaces that dirty hands have touched 4 times since you rinsed the soap off.
Let's try a paper towel dispenser. some paper towel dispensers are, admittedly, terrible. Pull on one and you pull out a hundred or rip several to shreds. Others involve having to wind something that is wet to get the towel out. However, many allow the user to simply pull on a sanitary paper towel, not having to touch anything which has ever been touched by man before. Either way, you can then turn the water off WITH that paper towel AND open the door with it. Do this correctly, and you have touched 0 surfaces (or 1 surface, depending on the kind of dispenser) since you rinsed the soap off your hands.
So, unless your hand dryer is infrared, it is actually LESS sanitary.
Next, we'll tackle the environment. Now, this one deals with a lot more variables, so there really is no winner. However, as you will see, it is not clear cut and easy to define. In fact, the environmental impact may very well depend on where you are washing your hands.
Both products are made with many metal parts that all have to be manufactured in a factory. However, the hand dryer has decidedly more and more intricate parts, thus requiring more energy and resources (and designing) to produce. The hand dryer is then hooked up to the grid. If you have an infrared sensor in it, it will supposedly only turn on when actually in use, thus saving energy. The one caveat is that sometimes things other than a person with wet hands can activate it. However, most hand dryers still use the classic button. These usually have to be activated twice to actually get your hands dry. They will also often be activated and used for only a quarter or half the time it is on, then abandoned and left to just run (there is no way to turn it off). To heat a coil requires a good deal of energy, so every time someone uses your product, it is taking energy from the grid. This is in turn being provided to the grid by a variety of local resources. It could be that the only power plants near you are coal plants or oil plants. This means you just spewed quite a bit of waste into the environment. If you're lucky, you live near a solar plant, hydro plant, wind turbines, or a nuclear plant, thus not spewing anything into the environment (with nuclear, however, the waste must still be dealt with).
Let's look at this further. A nuclear plant? Really? Yes, really. Nuclear, despite common misconceptions, is remarkably safe. You aren't getting exposed, and you aren't going to see mutant fish like in the Simpsons. The waste is stored at the plant to taken elsewhere to be buried, where it is monitored by the NRC. It is contained and will not be affecting the environment, barring an act of God like a 9.0 earthquake.
But Spencer, why only power plants nearby? Surely the electricity on the grid is shared by all plants providing power to it! Not true. The fact of the matter is, the wires that we use to send electricity are not perfect and have resistance (ohms). This resistance means that for every mile or so of wire that the electricity has to pass through, so much of it is lost. Thus, a power plant can only provide power in a specific region. Anything beyond this region has more resistance in the wires than the plant can dish out, so none of it reaches that far.
So what are the most environmentally friendly power plants? Those which use renewable resources without waste products. These would be water, solar, wind, and geothermal, with wind and geothermal being the most environmentally friendly (due to the materials and power output). Water is higher if it is not given by a dam, because damming up rivers has a major environmental impact.
Back to the discussion. If you use a hand dryer, you are heating a coil AND powering a fan of varying intensities for a specific amount of time, all of which is drawing power. At the very least, it costs the establishment the bathroom is located in money in power bill. At the worst, you're also polluting the environment. And chances are, a good deal of that energy is wasted on an abandoned dryer.
Now let's look at paper towels. A paper towel is most likely created using paper from a tree that was grown in a tree farm. Paper... we should look into paper a little more.
An estimated 95% of the paper we use comes from tree farms. Tree farms are places where trees are grown row on row for the purpose of making paper. They are not home to many animals and do not provide much shelter, since most tree farms are fenced off. A tree is cut down, another is planted in its place. The owner will NOT allow his trees to all be cut down or he'll go out of business! We will ALWAYS have trees. In fact, by cutting down the trees in a tree farm, trees in forests are saved from the logger. Now, unfortunately, making paper is a dirty business, and so is cutting it down and transporting it. But on the plus side, planting a crap-ton of trees has several positive benefits to the environment. So it is hard to say just how much of an environmental impact it has. One thing, however, is certain. Recycled paper is bad. It is transported, bleached (it requires more bleach to get rid of the markings on recycled paper than it does to turn wood into paper in the first place), processed, and then repackaged and transported again. This puts TONS of chemicals into the environment, and the paper is only good for about one round of recycling before it would fall apart. Just buy new paper to keep the tree farms alive. Throw your paper out, especially if you live near a landfill that has methane collectors. Most of the negative impact from landfills is from methane, not used land, and paper is the biggest contributor of that methane. However, when paper breaks down, it helps to break down other things near it, which helps the landfill turn its junk into usable land. And with methane collectors, that greenhouse gas is suddenly being used to put electricity into the grid instead of polluting the air. Win-win.
So, back, again, to the argument. I usually only use one or two paper towels per visit; it is enough to get my hands dry. So, the REAL argument here is this. Does it cost more to your wallet and to the environment to power a hand dryer for two blasts or to produce two individual sheets of paper towel?
You know, my money is that hand dryers cost more.
And this, unfortunately, is not the only instance of a lack of thinking. It spreads to everything! Let's say you are emailed an important document. You want to keep it, so you archive the email. Let's say your entire office is "paper free" and depends on paperless products - i.e. electricity - to run. Does it cost more to send and store those emails or to just print it out and file it away? Emails are information that can only be accessed with a computer (which requires electricity). They are stored on a server somewhere, which must remain up and running and must dedicate some portion of itself to maintaining and retrieving that email's information. Often that email will be sent to several computers and servers, possibly all over the world (and some of those recipients you will probably never even know about). Now there are a dozen servers all dedicating a small amount of energy and storage to maintaining and retrieving that one email. If it is not deleted, enough of those emails add up until a new server has to be added - a server which could potentially hold nothing but emails that are never accessed. And to send the information back and forth, who knows how much energy is being sent through thousands of miles of wires and fibre optic cables. Your server may not even be in the same country as you (although if you are running a decent-sized business, this is likely not the case). Now suddenly that small email is taking a pretty decent amount of energy and creating a real, measurable environmental impact. You could, however, print the email, then fax it around. Now, I'm not saying this is "better" or that it is even more environmentally friendly. The simple fact is, I don't know WHICH is the better option. But it's not simple to see, is it? It would actually take some real work to figure out the TOTAL environmental impact of any given email.
And what about texting? That is sent to a satellite or a cell phone tower, and from there it runs just like an email. Your phone is essentially a computer that only takes electricity from the grid when you plug it in, but it is STILL getting its energy from the grid. Now think of the energy your phone uses when all you are doing is texting? Think of how many billions of texts are sent per day... per HOUR... around the world. Think of how much energy that takes.
These examples can go on and on and on. But what pisses me off the most is when someone who claims to (or actually does) hold some sort of authority makes a decision or publishes something without actually taking into consideration all of the facts. The Worldwatch Institute claims that 43% of all paper used comes from recycled sources. Ecology.com claims this is a good thing. If you actually take into consideration how much more pollution it takes to recycle paper than to cut down a new tree, this is actually a very BAD thing. You're not "saving a tree." That's bullshit. You are actually just taking money away from a tree farmer. When the tree farmer makes less money, he can't have as much land. And what does that land become? Not a forest, dear dreamer. It becomes a parking lot, a Wal-Mart, a factory, a strip mall... it becomes whatever the highest bidder for that land wants it to become. And I GUARANTEE that the highest bidder is not going to turn his investment into a forest. So no, you are NOT SAVING A TREE by recycling. You are just turning land that once had a tree into land that is covered in asphalt.
Now, I challenge you to counter these arguments. I believe they are sound, but if they are not, show me. Discussing these matters can only be good, for it is in friendly, informed discussion that we find the truth and disseminate it.
Now onto the main part of this post. I have always had a logical mind. I think things through from as many possible angles as I can. And I tend to do a good job getting all the angles. I blame my father, who is a systems engineer, and raised me to see ever problem with a series of inputs and outputs. All you need to do is identify ALL of those.
It irks me to no end when I hear a claim that has nothing to back it up, yet is accepted universally. This happens much more often than you might realize.
Let me give you an example. I recently saw a hand dryer that claimed it was more environmentally friendly and more sanitary than using paper towels. I would like to see evidence. Allow me to give you the inputs and outputs of each.
First, sanitation. Many models are now hands-free, using infrared or some other sensor to determine if someone's hand is beneath it. This is actually a good thing, if programmed correctly. They should stay on for as long as your hands are beneath, and you don't have to touch anything. In this case, there are no inputs (other than the flow of air), and the item is, indeed, as sanitary as you can get. There are other problems with this, but I'll get to that later. However, the model I looked at was NOT a hands-free version. It was one of the ones we all know and hate. Push a great big shiny (and usually damp) button to turn it on. Put yours hands beneath. Rub them until it turns off. Then, either rub your hands on your pants (which is very unsanitary) or turn it on AGAIN until it actually gets your hands dry. Then turn off the water and open the door. In the process of washing your hands, you have touched surfaces that dirty hands have touched 4 times since you rinsed the soap off.
Let's try a paper towel dispenser. some paper towel dispensers are, admittedly, terrible. Pull on one and you pull out a hundred or rip several to shreds. Others involve having to wind something that is wet to get the towel out. However, many allow the user to simply pull on a sanitary paper towel, not having to touch anything which has ever been touched by man before. Either way, you can then turn the water off WITH that paper towel AND open the door with it. Do this correctly, and you have touched 0 surfaces (or 1 surface, depending on the kind of dispenser) since you rinsed the soap off your hands.
So, unless your hand dryer is infrared, it is actually LESS sanitary.
Next, we'll tackle the environment. Now, this one deals with a lot more variables, so there really is no winner. However, as you will see, it is not clear cut and easy to define. In fact, the environmental impact may very well depend on where you are washing your hands.
Both products are made with many metal parts that all have to be manufactured in a factory. However, the hand dryer has decidedly more and more intricate parts, thus requiring more energy and resources (and designing) to produce. The hand dryer is then hooked up to the grid. If you have an infrared sensor in it, it will supposedly only turn on when actually in use, thus saving energy. The one caveat is that sometimes things other than a person with wet hands can activate it. However, most hand dryers still use the classic button. These usually have to be activated twice to actually get your hands dry. They will also often be activated and used for only a quarter or half the time it is on, then abandoned and left to just run (there is no way to turn it off). To heat a coil requires a good deal of energy, so every time someone uses your product, it is taking energy from the grid. This is in turn being provided to the grid by a variety of local resources. It could be that the only power plants near you are coal plants or oil plants. This means you just spewed quite a bit of waste into the environment. If you're lucky, you live near a solar plant, hydro plant, wind turbines, or a nuclear plant, thus not spewing anything into the environment (with nuclear, however, the waste must still be dealt with).
Let's look at this further. A nuclear plant? Really? Yes, really. Nuclear, despite common misconceptions, is remarkably safe. You aren't getting exposed, and you aren't going to see mutant fish like in the Simpsons. The waste is stored at the plant to taken elsewhere to be buried, where it is monitored by the NRC. It is contained and will not be affecting the environment, barring an act of God like a 9.0 earthquake.
But Spencer, why only power plants nearby? Surely the electricity on the grid is shared by all plants providing power to it! Not true. The fact of the matter is, the wires that we use to send electricity are not perfect and have resistance (ohms). This resistance means that for every mile or so of wire that the electricity has to pass through, so much of it is lost. Thus, a power plant can only provide power in a specific region. Anything beyond this region has more resistance in the wires than the plant can dish out, so none of it reaches that far.
So what are the most environmentally friendly power plants? Those which use renewable resources without waste products. These would be water, solar, wind, and geothermal, with wind and geothermal being the most environmentally friendly (due to the materials and power output). Water is higher if it is not given by a dam, because damming up rivers has a major environmental impact.
Back to the discussion. If you use a hand dryer, you are heating a coil AND powering a fan of varying intensities for a specific amount of time, all of which is drawing power. At the very least, it costs the establishment the bathroom is located in money in power bill. At the worst, you're also polluting the environment. And chances are, a good deal of that energy is wasted on an abandoned dryer.
Now let's look at paper towels. A paper towel is most likely created using paper from a tree that was grown in a tree farm. Paper... we should look into paper a little more.
An estimated 95% of the paper we use comes from tree farms. Tree farms are places where trees are grown row on row for the purpose of making paper. They are not home to many animals and do not provide much shelter, since most tree farms are fenced off. A tree is cut down, another is planted in its place. The owner will NOT allow his trees to all be cut down or he'll go out of business! We will ALWAYS have trees. In fact, by cutting down the trees in a tree farm, trees in forests are saved from the logger. Now, unfortunately, making paper is a dirty business, and so is cutting it down and transporting it. But on the plus side, planting a crap-ton of trees has several positive benefits to the environment. So it is hard to say just how much of an environmental impact it has. One thing, however, is certain. Recycled paper is bad. It is transported, bleached (it requires more bleach to get rid of the markings on recycled paper than it does to turn wood into paper in the first place), processed, and then repackaged and transported again. This puts TONS of chemicals into the environment, and the paper is only good for about one round of recycling before it would fall apart. Just buy new paper to keep the tree farms alive. Throw your paper out, especially if you live near a landfill that has methane collectors. Most of the negative impact from landfills is from methane, not used land, and paper is the biggest contributor of that methane. However, when paper breaks down, it helps to break down other things near it, which helps the landfill turn its junk into usable land. And with methane collectors, that greenhouse gas is suddenly being used to put electricity into the grid instead of polluting the air. Win-win.
So, back, again, to the argument. I usually only use one or two paper towels per visit; it is enough to get my hands dry. So, the REAL argument here is this. Does it cost more to your wallet and to the environment to power a hand dryer for two blasts or to produce two individual sheets of paper towel?
You know, my money is that hand dryers cost more.
And this, unfortunately, is not the only instance of a lack of thinking. It spreads to everything! Let's say you are emailed an important document. You want to keep it, so you archive the email. Let's say your entire office is "paper free" and depends on paperless products - i.e. electricity - to run. Does it cost more to send and store those emails or to just print it out and file it away? Emails are information that can only be accessed with a computer (which requires electricity). They are stored on a server somewhere, which must remain up and running and must dedicate some portion of itself to maintaining and retrieving that email's information. Often that email will be sent to several computers and servers, possibly all over the world (and some of those recipients you will probably never even know about). Now there are a dozen servers all dedicating a small amount of energy and storage to maintaining and retrieving that one email. If it is not deleted, enough of those emails add up until a new server has to be added - a server which could potentially hold nothing but emails that are never accessed. And to send the information back and forth, who knows how much energy is being sent through thousands of miles of wires and fibre optic cables. Your server may not even be in the same country as you (although if you are running a decent-sized business, this is likely not the case). Now suddenly that small email is taking a pretty decent amount of energy and creating a real, measurable environmental impact. You could, however, print the email, then fax it around. Now, I'm not saying this is "better" or that it is even more environmentally friendly. The simple fact is, I don't know WHICH is the better option. But it's not simple to see, is it? It would actually take some real work to figure out the TOTAL environmental impact of any given email.
And what about texting? That is sent to a satellite or a cell phone tower, and from there it runs just like an email. Your phone is essentially a computer that only takes electricity from the grid when you plug it in, but it is STILL getting its energy from the grid. Now think of the energy your phone uses when all you are doing is texting? Think of how many billions of texts are sent per day... per HOUR... around the world. Think of how much energy that takes.
These examples can go on and on and on. But what pisses me off the most is when someone who claims to (or actually does) hold some sort of authority makes a decision or publishes something without actually taking into consideration all of the facts. The Worldwatch Institute claims that 43% of all paper used comes from recycled sources. Ecology.com claims this is a good thing. If you actually take into consideration how much more pollution it takes to recycle paper than to cut down a new tree, this is actually a very BAD thing. You're not "saving a tree." That's bullshit. You are actually just taking money away from a tree farmer. When the tree farmer makes less money, he can't have as much land. And what does that land become? Not a forest, dear dreamer. It becomes a parking lot, a Wal-Mart, a factory, a strip mall... it becomes whatever the highest bidder for that land wants it to become. And I GUARANTEE that the highest bidder is not going to turn his investment into a forest. So no, you are NOT SAVING A TREE by recycling. You are just turning land that once had a tree into land that is covered in asphalt.
Now, I challenge you to counter these arguments. I believe they are sound, but if they are not, show me. Discussing these matters can only be good, for it is in friendly, informed discussion that we find the truth and disseminate it.
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