Dirt!, the Movie

(Just to let ya'll know I have been trying to watch some movies to help with my motion sickness & seizure problem before I have to move to my new house... I don't know if it's working.)

So this movie arrived in my mailbox called DIRT! and even though after watching Into The Wild the other night and swearing off all drama, documentaries, tear jerkers etc --- I was tempted to go ahead and watch what I thought would not make me cry. I was wrong.

Let me just say this movie goes through 3 cycle plot points, and here is my summary of what they are:

#1. Ya' find out what dirt really is and all the cool awesome things it does (like filtering all water on earth, feeding us, being pieces of fallen stars...) - by the end of this first cycle you are so crushed on dirt you want to marry it. (One guy in the movie feels the same way, cause he licks it.)

#2. Ya' find out modern man has no respect for dirt, or understanding that without dirt we die. Period. And hence the violent, tragic visuals explode across the screen. (This is where the movie took my breathe away, turned my stomach, I stifled crying, and got abdominal cramps from the stress of reality.) ---(FYI: some of my reaction might be related to PMS though.)

#3. Redemption on a small scale. In fact, as awesome as the last cycle of the movie is of showing ways to make positive changes, ways that work, stories to inspire (cool programs in jails where inmates garden)... my abdominal cramps didn't go away though because the destruction was bigger, more massive, faster and more jarring THEN what we are doing to fix things. Still, this part of DIRT! is uplifting and ends on a good note.

WHAT THIS MOVIE MADE ME THINK:::
That I need to get solar panels right away and stop using electricity. I wish so bad I had enough money. So what really needs to happen is solar & other alternative energies need to be affordable, and all mass scale farming needs to be changed over to a method that won't eventually lead to starvation. ~~~~

This will sound dorky but is entirely true - when I was growing up in suburban New Orleans (Harahan HAwks Baby!) I was a bit obsessed with dirt. More then a normal child because my mom has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which mostly manifested itself in cleaning. Not just regular cleaning, I am talking you could eat off the floors, do surgery on the kitchen counter, lick the bottom of the tub, and drink the water in the toilet sort of "clean". Think museum meets open heart surgery. Back then she thought dirt was the cause of everything that could ail a human being and we were scarcely allowed to touch it, play in it, or mention it(wonda' why i have auto immune?) - it was the evil thing that kept my mom dust mopping and vacuuming 10 times a day.

But I loved dirt. I could not help myself and everyday I would sneak over to the side of our house where dirt still existed in the shade of a neighbor's pecan tree, and i would dig holes. Diggin' holes was my favorite thing to do because I wanted to see when I would hit water or China, and which one I would hit first. One time I even stopped my school principle in the hallway with a dire important question I had been waiting to ask her (the smartest lady eva' of course cause she was even bossing teachers around), I got a hold of her arm and asked with urgancy "how far do i have to dig before i hit water?" and she said "6 feet"... and I believed her.

This is when bad things began happening to my parents cable and electric lines, because I began digging those wires up to get them out of the way of my digging till I hit water project. When i failed to ever hit 6 feet with my hand shovel, I just said F' it, I am filling these holes up with hose water.
Hence my dad banging the cable box and screaming at the TV.

BTW- I even ate dirt once when i was a kid cause i thought, Why Not??? I got worms and had to take some sick pink medicine from the doctor.

OK- did I digress?

PS_ I am going to donate this movie to the madison county (NC) library... hopefully it doesn't give other peeps stress cramps too.

xoxo

Spill in PA Reveals Toxic Ingredient In Detergent

Instead of reiterating the news article about this acid spill on a Pennsylvania interstate I simply want to point out the facts that are screaming for us Americans to wake up & smell the chems in our everyday lives.

The over turned truck was carrying 33,ooo pounds of corrosive hydrofluoric acid causing an area evacuation of 944 households including their animals. The cleaning crews had to wear full protection suits (even when it was down to a drip from the tanker) and the driver was treated at the local hospital. This acid which was spilled has the following health warning: "Hydrofluoric acid, even in low doses, can irritate the eyes, nose and respiratory tract, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. In higher doses, exposure can cause severe burns, chronic lung disease or even death, the CDC says."
Which maybe doesn't mean that much to most of us since we didn't have to be exposed to it at the spill, except that what this liquid acid is being wastefully transported across the US in a gas guzzling tanker, only to be an ingredient in household detergent.

That means a component of detergent can cause lung disease and irritate your eyes while being worn in your clothing & slept in 24/7 year after year (meaning continuous long term exposure) against one of our most sensitive organs - the skin, which regularly absorbs what we put against it into our body.
Not cool detergent makers!
Why don't you guys start releasing your ingredient lists and tell us all about each one, so the consumers of this nation can make educated choices rather then blind choices.

How Clean is Coal? Coal Ash Spill in Tennessee

The following is my personal observation of the recent pollution disaster that happened just around the bend from where I live.

This morning when I woke up I smelled something horrible, kind of like exhaust, raw gasoline, beer and burned poison... so strong I had to shut my windows to keep from gagging. When I tried to enjoy the sunny day outside I got nauseous, lethargic, and seizure prone. I decided to ask some local friends over email whether they could smell something terrible outside too, and I got mail back saying that everyone had "headaches" and it was probably connected to the TN Coal Ash disaster (with link). WTF? I looked it up and there it was... one of the grossest pollution stories I have ever heard since the Exxon Valdez spill.

"The spill at the utility’s Harriman Fossil Plant deluged more than 300 acres of rural Roane County, destroying three homes and damaging 42 other properties. In nearby Kingston, that raised fears of fouled water and air, while 13 families wait to see if their homes can be salvaged, said Carolyn Brewer, finance director for the city of 5,300. The sludge-like spill, a mixture of water and residue from burned coal, escaped from a 40-acre holding pond after a retaining wall burst last week."

What infuriates me besides the fact that the air outside is tainted like we are living inside a can of roach spray, is that "authorities" have already tried to dumb down the implications of such a disaster.

Here is the conflict between a big corporation cover up and reality:
"...in just one year, the plant’s byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems. And the holding pond, at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a T.V.A. plant 40 miles west of Knoxville, contained many decades’ worth of these deposits...
*
For days, authority officials have maintained that the sludge released in the spill is not toxic..."
(VIA NY Times)

And then there's this...
"The authority has been using backhoes and heavy equipment to clean up the ash and is building weirs, or underwater dams, to try to keep it from traveling downstream. Officials do not have an estimate of the cost of the cleanup or how long it will take, said a spokeswoman, Catherine Mackey...
*
Mr. Smith also criticized the agency for increasing the flow of the Tennessee River to keep the ash from approaching the drinking water intake for Kingston, a town a half-mile up from the confluence of the Clinch and the Tennessee. “They’re actually moving the stuff further downstream, in order to protect the drinking supply at Kingston,” he said. "
(VIA NY Times)

They are moving kind of slow on water testing too...
"Samples taken at the site of the spill in Harriman, 35 miles southwest of Knoxville, “slightly exceed” the standards for some metals, according to a statement from the Tennessee Valley Authority, owner of the coal power plant where the Dec. 22 accident occurred. Results from well-water and air tests won’t be known until later this week, the utility said....
*
A test for heavy metals in water, soil or sediment should take two to eight hours, said Peter Schulert, the chief executive of the Environmental Science Corporation, an environmental laboratory near Nashville. “There’s no reason why you couldn’t have the results within a day,” Mr. Schulert said.... "
(And that fact is making people mad, rightfully so!)
“They think that the public is stupid, that they can’t put two and two together,” said Sandy Gupton, a registered nurse who hired an independent firm to test the spring water on her family’s 300-acre farm, now sullied by sludge from the spill. “It took five days for the T.V.A. to respond to us.”

They (whoever this "authority" is) tries to make it sound like it's not such a big deal, if you happen to come in contact with this sludge bi-product then just give your hands a little wash. NO advice on what to do when you are breathing it, since there's no brilliant soapy water solution.
"Authorities are testing air quality in the area and “currently evaluating the potential for health effects,” the agencies said in the TVA’s statement. Anyone who touches soil, sediments or water affected by the spill should wash their hands thoroughly with soap and water and wash clothes separately from other items, according to the statement. "
(VIA Bloomberg)

So do we all get government distributed respirators too, so that we might be able to breathe safely without getting sick? Big corporations are big babies (ego centric to a fault) - they can never admit when they have done something wrong, they give heartless apologies and keep counting their dollars while all of us sit here breathing polluted air and people's homes, land and water are destroyed. They worry over being sued when they should be sued for any damage they may try to weasel their way out of covering. But really, how can you compensate fully for someone's sludged home and health?

Ozone Air Purifiers Are Evil

Ozone is not good for us. We might already know this but for some reason the manufacturers of a large portion of air purifiers have been putting these insidious little ozone producing gadgets in their machines and claiming it kills mold and bacteria. They claim this as if it is safe and scientific but the fact is ozone is not meant to be in your house or in your lungs because the real science behind it shows clearly it will destroy your health & pollute your home.

When the EPA did studies on ozone air purifiers what they found was surprising - the molecules were breaking down and adhering themselves to any other molecule in the room creating new and unstable chemicals in amounts they could not even measure. They tested the claim that ozone would "neutralize" chems in things like brand new carpet and found it made even worse chems then they started with...many of which were a string of varied aldehyde's. The next shocking find was the ozone machine's main "hook" about killing mold was totally bunk, the amount needed to blast mold into death was just not possible with any household machine and the true amount needed would kill a human dead if they tried to breathe it. This is the amount they use on your bottled spring water.

Did you ever wonder why some spring water tastes terrible, even worse then the plastic bottle taste? Most bottled water companies use UV light to kill bacteria before bottling their product - if you read the label you will see it on nearly every brand, except Fiji & Volvic. That UV light produces ozone and tons of it. The problem is when water researchers tested for contaminants in bottled water they found the same string of aldehyde's as the EPA did, but could not link it to the plastic bottle or to the actual water source leaving the researchers baffled as to how these chems ever got in the water. Any guesses? The ozone blast from the UV filtration altered the chemistry of the water and basically we are being sold bottles of dangerous chemicals to drink. Ozone has some other code names like ionization and UV filtration, which should always be investigated if you are buying a product claiming to use these methods of "filtering" in your home or water.

After a bad run in with ozonating my house (story below) I called a few experts to get the scoop. First I phoned some Mold Specialists who were familiar with ozonation as a method of mold removal - I asked them if they knew of any problems using ozone to kill mold and what they told me was originally it was thought to be a "miracle machine" and everyone was using it, until they found out it was actually "deadly" to human health and not killing the mildew. So, I looked up a Harvard Chemist to find out why ozone could give a bad reaction - what he said was the ozone molecule breaks down very quickly and is completely unstable, therefore adhering itself to any molecule it comes in contact with (ozone is a total molecular slut!), then you are set up for any disaster to chemically take place- he stressed the point the ozone level (ex. 3 or 9) all broke down and that ANYTHING could happen and there was no way to clean up the mess unless you could test the air for every chem possible in the universe.

The reason I was so interested in what all these people had to say was because following a doctor's order to ozonate my house for mold I lost my home and all my belongings to an insane chemical breakdown that would not air out, clean up, or was possible to test. I ran the ozone machine to kill mold, which it did not even do - but quickly realized something else terrible had happened in there when I couldn't breathe, got vertigo, nausea, and my cat and I both had a seizure in the house. Almost everyone who came in the house began coughing, getting dizzy, or suddenly got "flu" like symptoms that could last up to two weeks. The more I tried to air out my belongings in the sun, or wash and dry them the worse they got - so after a few months of this I had to walk away from my home and everything I had, taking only the clothes on my back and my cat. Neighbors bought the house and tore it to the ground, building a new house where my once beloved home had been. I embraced a more zen lifestyle yet was left with heightened MCS symptoms.
*
Read more about Ozone Air Machines HERE.
*
PS - Thanks to Susie over at the Canary Report for her post on Ozone Air Filters and inspiring me to write this post!!!

Grass

The history of the lawn is not exactly something to be proud of, not only that but it's history also sketches out a clear picture of how useless the grassy area around your house was meant to be. Back in the day the French Aristocrats decided it would be a grand show of wealth to have pasture that wasn't for animals to graze on - somewhat of a middle finger to the poor. Over time the lawn in America has become the symbol of stable suburban culture, the person who lets their lawn go wild is not only treated like a neighborhood nuisance but can be fined large amounts of money for not mowing- even during a drought! Programs such as Food Not Lawns and the NWF's backyard habitat encourage people with all types of "yards" (from urban to rural) to make your lawn one that grows food for your family or for the wildlife in your area. The idea that some places prohibit the use of one's purchased land from being useful is the stuff of petty & paranoid vanity, since many of the most gorgeous gardens in the world are ones established to be natural habitats growing native flora - like Botanical Gardens & National Forests.

If like me, you are renting property you may have a little less control over what becomes of the lawn around you, but when life sends you mowed grass, rake some hay! On the rare occasion my landlady gets out to mow (because of high gas prices) I go out and gather the dried cut grass in baskets. This makes the best mulch for potted plants, keeping them moist and the decaying grass helps renew the soil.

If you own your property consider using a tiller instead of a lawn mower next time - you'll never have to buy gasoline to mow again, you can put in all native plants, food, clover and other useful resources, you will have the most unique yard with the most butterflies around and help give the ozone layer a breather!

Eco Peeve Friday: 54 Luft Balloons

(This Eco Peeve Friday is written by guest author Nick Coe):

I work counseling adults with developmental disabilities in North Carolina. A couple of weeks ago one of my clients died. Yesterday a tree was planted in her honor and there was a commemoration ceremony. A dark enough event without me having to write an
eco-peeve Friday about it!!

I was informed earlier in the week that 60 balloons were going to be released in her honor. 1 for each of the clients and staff. 60 balloons to potentially suffocate animals with and poison the soil. I was appalled. Would anyone really want to be commemorated in such a way?

It's such a common tradition in our country. I remember as a child I used to love letting go of my balloons to watch them drift off into the sky until they were a speck, finally disappearing altogether. If I knew then what I know now about the impact of balloons on animals there is no way I would have taken
such pleasure in that act.

I had to file a complaint about the balloons. Nothing else to it. My complaint was considered and the number was reduced to 6 balloons. I'm helping to save the planet 54 balloons at a time!!!

As a society we need to take a look at our actions and measure what is helpful and what is potentially harmful. Sure doing things like releasing balloons is great when you are ignorant like a child but when you actually stop and think about how your pleasure may bring pain and even death to other living beings it is time to find new traditions. I think planting a tree is a great start.

Guest Author: Nick- Keep Your 'Butt' Where It Belongs

Leslie was too tired last Friday to post an Eco-Peeve
Friday blog but I am glad to take up the mantle a little late. I've had an eco-peeve I have to deal with all the time; people throwing cigarette butts out of their car windows! I can't tell you how many people I've seen mindlessly tossing their nasty (and often burning) cigarettes out of their cars while I'm driving behind them,
giving me (not so eco-friendly) fantasies of smashing my car into theirs...

I was reading some websites that talk about cigarette butt litter and got even more peeved with the information I found. Not only are cigarettes the number 1 cause of fire related death but the butts themselves are horrible for the environment. It takes up to 15 years for 1 cigarette butt to biodegrade.
It's estimated 700 billion cigarette butts on 1 site, and trillions on another are littered every year. 200 of which contain enough nicotine to kill an adult human. The chemicals are being released into the soil and washed into creaks, streams, and the ocean...Yum give me some of that poison! Thanks for being so thoughtful!
If you are a smoker beware! Next time I might decide
to live out my fantasies!!!

whyquit.com
cigarettelitter.org/

Food Not Lawns

Last eco peeve friday I went off about how much lawnmowers annoy me. A friend tipped me off about this cool program called Food Not Lawns (Thanks Gabi)! I copied some info here for ya'll rather then recount such well stated and statistical ideas. (The following is taken from Food Not Lawns website.)

"French aristocrats popularized the idea of the green grassy lawn in the eighteenth century, when they planted the agricultural fields around their estates to grass, to send the message that they had more land than they needed and could therefore afford to waste some. Meanwhile, French peasants starved for lack of available ground, and the resulting frustration might have had something to do with the French Revolution in 1789.

Today, 58 million Americans spend approximately $30 billion every year to maintain over 23 million acres of lawn. That’s an average of over a third of an acre and $517 each. The same size plot of land could still have a small lawn for recreation, plus produce all of the vegetables needed to feed a family of six. The lawns in the United States consume around 270 billion gallons of water a week—enough to water 81 million acres of organic vegetables, all summer long.

Lawns use ten times as many chemicals per acre as industrial farmland. These pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides run off into our groundwater and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming, and greatly increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease, and birth defects. In addition, the pollution emitted from a power mower in just one hour is equal to the amount from a car being driven 350 miles. In fact, lawns use more equipment, labor, fuel, and agricultural toxins than industrial farming, making lawns the largest agricultural sector in the United States. But it’s not just the residential lawns that are wasted on grass. There are around 700,000 athletic grounds and 14,500 golf courses in the United States, many of which used to be fertile, productive farmland that was lost to developers when the local markets bottomed out.

Turf is big business. $45 billion a year big. The University of Georgia has seven turf researchers studying genetics, soil science, plant pathology, nutrient uptake, and insect management. They issue undergraduate degrees in Turf. The turf industry is responsible for a large sector of the biotech (GMO) industry, and much of the genetic modification that is happening in laboratories across the nation is in the name of an eternally green, slow growing, moss-free lawn"

I believe that these statements speak for themselves, clearly pointing out the consumeristic absurdity of the beloved suburban lawn. I am all about digging up our lawns - but I understand that for those who are renting the landlord may have to be convinced before you delve into your grass obliteration project. But for those who own homes with lawns, you can turn that turf into edible gardens, native gardens, wildlife habitats, raised bed gardens, stone pathways, with cascading morning glory vines and archways... you see where I am going with this. Your Lawn is a blank slate, a white canvas for you to create a beautiful natural garden with a purpose !!! One where no lawn mower will be required ;).