I'm often asked "how much is safe?" Or sometimes I get blanket statements like "Tylenol is bad for your liver." I typically don't like those types of statements.
As a Christian I believe the Bible when it says that "God created all things and saw they they were good". I once had a pastor then add "All the Devil can do is give you a good thing at the wrong time, wrong amount, wrong place, wrong reason....etc". The time and place make all the difference.
As a Pharmacist I commonly hear the phrase "I don't use Tylenol (acetaminophen) because its bad for my liver". My Pharmacist training kicks in and immediately thinks: It's not bad for your liver IF used responsibly. It's only if you use too much that you can cause liver disease or die from liver poisoning.
As a Dad my kids often ask me which is the "worst" drug. I always tell them its the one that's used when you don't need it. I hear things like "smoking is the worst because its so addicting".
Sure smoking is bad. However, when it was used traditionally for help thinking and calm nerves before peace treaties I'm sure it was a good addition. Used once a year in small amounts I doubt it would have a long term problem.
Methamphetamine is bad. Sure Meth is death as hippies knew 50 years ago. However, small amounts in controlled doses could be used for down syndrome or ADHD
Mosquitoes are bad! Just ask anyone who get malaria or really itchy from bites. However, if you are a bat looking for a tasty snack they could be quite delicious.
So, when today's #hivelearners prompt came up "Killing not helping" I had to do some serious thinking. Why? So many of today's common items are things that are not actually bad by themselves but when not being used responsibly they can be terrible.
Finding only ONE thing that I wanted to single out proved difficult because there are so many things that I think are slowly killing our quality of life, our people, our planet and our community.
My apologies if its a long post but this is a topic that is dear to my heart so I wanted to give it a more thorough runover. Hope you enjoy!
What items will I single out as killing us?
Hamburgers
Source: Pixabay
Toilets (and sinks/showers)
Source: Pixabay
Cars
Source: Pixabay
Prepackaged meats.
Source: Pixabay
Air conditioners.
Now
My guess is that you would look at that list a little puzzled. Everything on that list is so common its hard to imagine a world without those items. I mean they are everywhere. Well, at least in places that I've visited. My Nigerian friends might disagree but I'll still assert that they are very common and largely not thought of as things that are killing us.
If I had to say what is killing mankind on earth today these are the broad categories I'd use.
If we could solve those things I think the world would be a much better place. But, how do my choices affect those major problems?
Automobiles and Air-Conditioners
Some people do not believe that climate change is real. They blame lots of different things on the earth getting hotter. They mention to record cold spells or unusual weather patterns that aren't necessarily "hot". However, in the grand scheme of things climate change means hot get hotter, cold gets colder, wet gets wetter and dry gets dryer.
Where I live we've seen much wetter winter weather and much drier summer weather. Forest fires due to forest that don't have enough moisture are much more common than they used to be. Flooding and washed out roads and even towns have happened recently when it never happened before. Plus its not just here. In China I heard reports of a major river drying out putting hydroelectric power at risk causing manufacturing plants to shut down.
In Europe I heard about the Danube river drying up so that cruise ships couldn't do their excursions.
Look at any place on earth and I'm certain you will hear that the weather is changing.
I'm going to blame a lot of this on automobile emissions. More CO2 emissions and other gas emissions (NO2, CO and particulates) have ultimately changed the nature of the air we breathe and the way in which the sun interacts with the earth. It has disrupted life as we know it and will continue to.
But why do I mention air conditioners? Well, to combat the high heat people start using air conditioners to make themselves more comfortable. However, Air Conditioners more heat from inside to outside. Every air conditioner in use effectively makes the OUTSIDE hotter. Net result you have heat bubbles inside of cities. Made worse by pavement (which absorbs heat because its black) and a lack of trees (for shade and cooling from evaporation). PLUS air conditioners use a lot of electricity. While my place typically uses hydroelectric many places on earth do not. Burning coal and other fuel to create power for air conditioners just adds more polution and problems.
Cellphones, Automobiles, Toilets and Showers
Now people love their cellphones (including myself). Flush toilets and Showers are considered necessities in daily life. Automobiles absolutely necessary to get where you need to go!
I have nothing against any of those inventions and indeed I use them daily. However, their environmental impact is considerable.
In today's buy and dispose culture it is common for people to upgrade with every new version of cellphone. iPhone 15 comes out...time to get rid fo the iPhone 14. Granted things have slowed a little but still after a generation or two people start yearning for something new.
The same thing comes with vehicles. I have a 2012 iMiev and I will let you know I wish I had adaptive cruise control, a larger battery, rear view camera and better heads up display. I very much wish I could get rid of the old and bring in the new! A Nissan Sakura would be my dream replacement vehicle.
However, with every item that is discarded and for every new one built there are resources that have to be mined and trash that is being created. Cellphones use large quantities of rare earth minerals and many parts are toxic when discarded. Vehicles use vasts amounts of energy and material to produce and with each one that is discarded think of all the upholestery for the seats, rubber for the tires, toxic liquids in the oil, cooling and braking system that are all going to the waste stream!
Especially concerning because many of those items are still useful when discarded!
But why would I mention toilets and showers? Well, water is one of the worlds most valuable resources! Ask any person in a hot country (I'm looking at you Philippines and Nigeria) and ask how important is clean drinking water. Any honest person will tell you water is incredibly important!
However, every time someone flushes a toilet 6+ liters of water is wasted. Every time someone takes a shower 6+ liters of water is wasted every minute! The earth ony has so much fresh water and huge amounts of it are wasted every minute of every day!
Hamburgers and cellphones
Anyone else love hamburgers? I sure do love them. Almost as much as my cellphone. Giving them up seems almost unthinkable.
However, every good burger requires beef (at at least a mixture of pork and beef). The majority of cows are raised on pastureland. Pastureland is created by bulldozing forests and every acre of forest that is destroyed for a pasture is less biodiversity, less carbon capture, less O2 production, less habitat for wildlife and less beautiful areas we can walk through.
But cellphones? Cellphones don't require pastureland! Which of course is true. However, many of the minerals that are required in cellphones are deemed as "rare earth" minerals. Not because they are actually that rare but because they typically aren't found in any one place but are found in small amounts everywhere. Mining for them typically requires moving large amounts of earth for small amounts of minerals. End result of mining--habitat loss, decrease in biodiversity, toxic waste from runoff, and generally just making the place look less desirable. Just look at the nation of Nauru and I'm sure they will tell you mining doesn't make things look better.
Single use plastics, cellphones, and automobiles.
When you buy food at the store what does it come in? Plastic packaging? Probaby. Perhaps cardboard boxes for those more durable items but guess what's in the carboard? The item handily wrapped in plastic film which promptly gets thrown away.
What happens after those plastics are thrown away? They either get entombed in a landfill (not great), They get burnt where they cause no end of toxic chemicals in the air (even worse), or they make their way into the rivers, streams and oceans where they get broken down into smaller and smaller bits (microplastics). Great, small or maybe even invisible particles, right? Wrong microplastics work their way into people and animals. They are durable and can cause no end of health and other problems. Fish eat them and think its food but there is no nutrition...they die of starvation with a full belly! That happens at the smallest level and works its way right up the food chain! Microplastics are everywhere, plastic waste is everywhere, overall one plastic wrapper might not seem like much but the plastic load on the world is getting larger and larger day by day. Scary if you think about it too long.
How about cellphones and automobiles? Well, they have a bunch of plastic components just like single use packaging. However, they also have a bunch of other nasty stuff. Oils and other fluids in the vehicles. Numerous toxic metals in the cellphones. Overall makes pollution that is hard to get rid of. Of course its not just cellphones...all electronic devices that end up in the landfill are culprits. It's also not just automobiles it is all the "durable" machinery that gets abandoned.
Overall just too many things get thrown away and end up poisoning our world.
I don't want to single out any one of those things as a single culprit in killing mankind as we know it.
I love beef and burgers. I enjoy my automobile and cellphone. I enjoy indoor plumbing. Each item in and of itself is a wonderful advancement and my life would be much less without it.
However, each of those items with a little less convenience and a little more thought into minimizing the environmental impact could lead to a better and more convenient world without all the awful stuff that is currently happening.
So, a few thoughts on each item in the list.
(1) Hamburgers.
I love beef. I love cows. I don't love deforestation.
Alternative? Agroforestry. Cows can quite happily live underneath fruit and other trees. Sure not as many cows in the same area however, I'm going to be that if you put cows under an orchard they would quite happily munch an apple or two that falls from a tree. They may even enjoy some shade on a hot summer day.
Animals and forests don't have to be mutually exclusive. Decrease the number of cows on the land and increase the number of other things produced by the land and you can actually have a more productive hectare of land!
I'm not saying no hamburgers or beef. I'm saying change the way that it is produced to decrease environmental impact.
(2) Toilets and Showers
I love indoor plumbing. However, every flush is water lost. Believe it or not there is actually value in the urine and feces that gets flushed as well. A small change from flush and forget to flush into a biodigester could make a huge difference overall. A Biodigester uses much less water (plus), creates an energy source (biogas) a plus, and creates a useful fertilizer (a plus..but not on food crops). Sure it wouldn't be as convenient but again don't take a shortcut, take the proper way.
As for showers? I love showers as they cool me off and keep me clean. However, in an 8 minute shower I don't actually need water on me for the whole time. I can rinse to start then shut off the water. Use soap to clean everything that needs to be cleaned then use the water at the end to rinse everything off. What's the water difference? 50liters for an 8 minute shower using a high effience showerhead. 12liters (or less) for a Navy shower. A small change to save 75% or more of the used water. Are Navy showers as relaxing...NO. But again, by not taking the shortcut (long shower) I can save a lot.
(3) Cars
Now I own an iMiev. Wonderul car--for a short range. It also has the wonderful ability to be charged from the electrical grid or send energy TO the electrical grid.
Imagine that I have solar panels on my roof. My car would happily charge from them all day long. PLUS once it is full it could happily send that electricity off to other houses that need the power. Or it could charge all day and then send electricity back to my house all night.
Imagine if EVERYONE with a vehicle did the same thing. We could have a distributed power grid with few or no outages powered solely by solar power AND everyone could keep their car. No more greenhouse gasses, no more pollution, and more reliable power. Again, enough of the shortcut and burning fossil fuels.
(4) Cellphones (and vehicles)
Now I dont want to give up my cellphone. I love that thing. I also love everytime I get an over the air update to make my phone more stable and more efficient. Imagine that the cellphone company made my phone hardware "upgrade available". Imagine that I just paid Samsung a small monthly fee and they made sure my phone was always up to date in software AND hardware! I'd never have to upgrade, I'd never have to worry about having an out of date phone, I'd never have to move my contacts and preferences to another phone.....and my phone would never end up in a landfill!
All the convenience of a phone with none of the environmental impact!
Now imaging the same thing happened to my car. Again, imagine my iMiev. Imagine I didn't own it but only leased. When new battery technology became available it would be upgraded (and old battery reconditioned). When new features like backup cameras or driver assist became available they would be added to the car and I just keep on paying my monthly fee. I'd get to keep a car I love, I'd get newer features when they became available, and I'd keep it out of the landfill indefinately.
Again, all the convenience of a vehicle (connect to the grid using solar power) and none of the environmental impact from buying another one and sending the current one to a landfill.
(5) Single use plastics. That's harder. Plastics are everywhere are so useful! However, milk used to come in glass bottles and could again. Meat could come wrapped in paper and could again. Items don't need to be sold in cardboard boxes and covered in pastic. Items can be purchased in bulk to decrease the need of individual packaging. In short single use plastics can be reduced to a large degree if people change their expectations on how things are purchased.
It may not be as convenient but again...no shortcuts...take the better way.
(6) Air conditioners.
Life can be just miserable without air conditioning. I'd be hard pressed to want to give up my air conditioner. However, with a few changes an impact can be made. Example: instead of cooling the entire home, just cool a small room so you can have a "heat refuge". Use better heat pump technology instead of less efficient designs. I've seen Mini-Split units with up to 35 SEER rating instead of the average 11-15. More efficient means less energy usage. In addition if you were to add water purification technology to the condensate you could get a 2 for 1 effect. Cooler house and fresh water.
In short. The inefficient air conditioner can be turned into a more efficient multi-purpose one. Sure it would be more expensive but again...no shortcuts do the right thing for the long term.
There is no one thing that is killing us.
There is no one technology that people thing is great but its awful.
However, the overall effect of many inefficient technolgies or inefficient practices has led to the world being in a pretty tough shape.
I firmly believe that there are altneratives available that can make things better for all people over the long term. I believe that there is sufficient technology available to turn the earth into a Utopia but only if people stop taking the shortcuts and taking the long term viewpoint.
Stop buying things only to dispose of them.
Make your cellphone and car last decades instead of years.
Repair your clothes so they last longer and only buy clothes that can be repaired (no fast fashion).
Eat meat responsibly and raise it properly.
Value water and other valuable resources.
Thats my response to the #hivelearners prompt "Killing not helping"
and as always I love to get responses
Although at almost 3000 words I'm not too sure how many people made it to the end :)
Thanks for reading.
