Putting Together a Pair of Pants
Wal-Mart orders a new production of pants from a manufacturer who then has China purchase:

>raw cotton from the U.S.A.
> Spandex from one of their local manufacturers

China makes the material, dyes it and sends it off to a cutter and sewer in Thailand. Thailand then purchases:

> A zipper from Japan
>>Zipper is tin mined is Chili
>>Aluminum made in the U.S.A.
>>Both alloys send to zipper factory in Japan
>Acrylic buttons for waist and on back pockets, ordered locally.

Unsustainable choices
Acrylic buttons - group 7 plastic not recyclable, can only be remolded if not too badly stressed.
They are not biodegradable and may be highly flammable (enotes.com). Since buttons are not recyclable take them off any material that you plan to throw away. Keep some in a small box of buttons to replace lost ones. Check on-line for hundreds of other suggestions.

When the products are finished they are labeled inside the pants and a plastic coated card with some kind of information on it, is attached to a little plastic bag that has a replacement button in it and they are attached to the pants together with a little plastic thread. (plastic – lot of plastic)

The pants are packaged and sent to a Wal-Mart warehouse in the U.S.A. someone sorts the product and repackages it for distribution throughout the country. At the local Wal-Mart Store they are unpacked again plastic tagged (plastic again) with a bar code and place on a plastic hanger. (oh yes more plastic)

The scenario I have presented could be any major retail chain store and any article of clothing, Just for a moment think about how much it would cost you to fly from the East coast of the United States to the West coast, now think what you paid for a pair of pants whose components have flown all over the world. Think about the non-renewable energy that was used to move all the products around and to make the components. Think about all the pollution from mining activities, chemical processes that mix with WATER, air emissions and unregulated waste.

I would guess that between the clothes that exist in every household in the United States, and all the clothes that exist in every warehouse and every retail and thrift store – that we have enough clothes in the United States at this very moment to clothe the entire U.S. Population adequately for the next twenty years – WITHOUT importing a single article of clothing nor unfinished material. That’s just a guess – and if that’s not enough we still have all the unfinished material in U.S. warehouses and at manufacturing sights in the U.S. for those who are handy with needle and thread.

Sadly, the greatest portion of all of those clothes will end up in a dump within the next few years – why? OUT OF FASHION. NOW – consider every other textile that’s purchased AND REPLACED in the U.S. long before it could be worn out, - carpets, rugs, tile, canvas and tarps, tents, material for furniture (that is thrown away instead of recovered).

AND THE PLASTIC - Sometime look around your house and imagine if you didn’t have everything that is wholly or partially made up of plastics. (remember to look in your refrigerator too).

Now look up what plastic is manufactured from, what goes into the process and what waste or pollution is generated in that process. Then, aside from climate warming, find out what happens to all that plastic that you throw it away? Finally, if you like to recycle (good) BUT consider how that recycling is accomplished – is it sustainable in the long run? Is it adding to the greenhouse effect?


While almost all other industrialized countries have agreed to lower greenhouse gasses—U.S. has not. The U.S. has four percent of the world's population and produces about 25 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. By contrast, India has almost five times as many people, emits only three percent of worlds anthropogenic carbon dioxide.

wierd, the EPA says something a little different, close to the same, but different...

Records from land stations and ships indicate that the global mean surface temperature warmed by about 0.9°F since 1880 (see Figure 1). These records indicate a near level trend in temperatures from 1880 to about 1910, a rise to 1945, a slight decline to about 1975, and a rise to present (NRC, 2006). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in 2007 that warming of the climate system is now “unequivocal,” based on observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level (IPCC, 2007).

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) 2008 State of the Climate Report and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) 2008 Surface Temperature Analysis:

Since the mid 1970s, the average surface temperature has warmed about 1°F.
The Earth’s surface is currently warming at a rate of about 0.29ºF/decade or 2.9°F/century.
The eight warmest years on record (since 1880) have all occurred since 2001, with the warmest year being 2005.


http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recenttc.html

You against 166 countries who tried to work together to form an alliance and a pact - but the U.S. never ratified to join the pact becasue Congress thought the U.S. should not sign any protocol that failed to include binding targets and timetables for both developing and industrialized nations or those that "would result in serious harm to the economy of the United States.”

Well look who caused the "serious economic harm"!

Below is a summary of what happened in the recent 2011 U.N. Climate Change Summit



No one ever 'really' pushed for binding agreements, though many countries did make improvements. Of course the U.S. was not one of them. It's no wonder so many U.S. citizens don't believe what they call "global warming bunk!".

I imagine the inforamtion is much the same, we seem to have used some of the same sources. If you've noticed there are many ways by which science determines what is happening. So when all information starts to come together (putting the puzzle together) then all the sources are quoted and whether a paper is being written by the EPA or the Nationaltion Association of Geologists or whoever, you will see the same information quoted from the origniating sources.

(sorry it really late, I hope that made sense) Work, lawn work, studying for finals and then mingle to unwind - now I'm unwound, time beddy bye, have a good night everyone.

Well it seems to me that there are scientists that disagree on this whole subject.

I'm not going to worry about it because there isn't anything I can do about it. I don't have time to read and study all the details of both sides of the issue so I'm going to drop out of the discussion.

P.S. the Russian scientists claim that oil IS NOT A FOSSIL FUEL. DRILL DEEPER.... and find all the oil you will ever want.

I don't see why there is this immense requirement for justification....and a whole heap of 'supporting evidence' to bolster one's opinion..


Isn't it quite a simple thing?

If over 6 billion people consume 'x'..(which is rapidly increasing in direct correlataion to the number of people) of all the planet's resources 'y'....(which are a finite amount)

how long until there are more 'x' than 'y'...?


how long until there is no 'y' for 'x'...?


Factor in the unstable and non predictable optimum growing patterns of weather...'z'...


then soon x will consume y divided by z...and equal 0

got it right the first time!





ooops!

Just some food for thought. There are three schools of speculation about how fast the Ice Age came on.

The first group are the 'gradualists' who believe that the ice age took anywhere from 10 to 100 years to fully come on.

Then there are researchers who with ice core evidence from Greenland AND Siberia feel that it came on in the course of a few days as in COLDER, COLDER, BLAM you are frozen.

Then there is a sub faction of this group that looked hard at the evidence and said, "NOPE! It hit suddenly, everything froze damn near overnight, and it came suddenly and without warning at all!"

So far the gradualists have lost the argument based on current evidence but the argument goes on as to exactly how fast it happened. So far it is vassalating hard between the 'very fast' and the 'sudden no warning' crowds! The reason behind this is more than one mammoth was found frozen on its feet literally! Most of the finds do not indicate any animals fleeing anything. Likewise they do find other animals besides mammoths frozen in the ice from time to time.

A different side argument also emerged based on the evidence both from cores and frozen animals. The Ice Age did not hit in winter but came during SPRING!

So if everything suddenly starts getting colder its man's fault? Global Cooling as it may be called?

one of the key things there is "they started keeping records in 1880"
so all the data is based on records that are 130 years old, compared to a planet whos weather has been changing for 4 billions years... simply not enough data to say anything that is concrete.

Elephants and Mammoths I think, don't lay down to sleep. And I question how old the mammoths found really are. I don't know the particulars but can they prove those mammoths are as old as they should be? Perhaps they came up from the Hollow earth. I'm wondering if they just assumed they were old. Can meat stay that fresh, even if frozen, for thousands of years? Millions of years? How old are the mammoths assumed to be?

If so, why is there a shelf life on the meat in my freezer?

According to wikipedia, mammoths are believed to have lived as recently as 4,500 years ago.



Lowering the temperature (starting from room temperature) doesn't always completely prevent all bacteria from growing; though it generally slows them down. The lower you go with the temperature, the slower they go with their metabolism (generally, and we're talking below room temperature). Maybe there is a threshold below which all bacteria really come to a complete stop - if so, I don't think we achieve it in our freezers...maybe it is achieved in the middle of an ice block during an ice age.

Also, the interior of a healthy body is an entirely different situation than a slaughterhouse is. Bacteria are virtually everywhere, but the interior of the muscle tissue of a healthy animal is, relatively, a clean space (in terms of bacteria), while a slaughterhouse is one of the filthiest.

Thanks for the information Massagetrade.

Actually there was two mammoth finds where both animals had food in their mouths when frozen. One was sitting and the other was standing when found. Both were encased in thick ice. Another find the animal was in a laid down posture like it was hunkering down. There also have been frozen Caribou and Reindeer found also with food in their mouths. You cannot convince me that these animals even had a chance to flee south. Usually they do have some sense of weather changes enough to know to move south if a freeze was impending.

When you see someone post on a website that "global warming isn't true" or "the sky is falling" or any number of other comments designed to show their contempt that a massive problem identified and studied by the vast majority of the world scientists involved in that type of work, it shows the effectiveness of the misinformation campaign that has been waged for years. Significant changes to our lifestyles and economy to adjust for global warming hurts some big businesses.

The National Academy of Science, NASA, the top oceanographic institutes like Woods Hole and Scripts, NOAA, and hundreds of major universities are not saying the same thing because they are stupid. A very very small percentage of "experts" (and many are not) say this overwhelming group is wrong about Global Warming because they are paid do so.

When you see posted data that "proves" global warming is not happening it always contains data for a small part of the problem, like just the land temperature. The oceans are the Earth's heat sink and, not only are they warming, their chemistry is changing. The oceans' warm energy is released in the form of warm moist air which is what cause severe unstable weather. We are having a lot of that.

The cures for production of greenhouse gasses have been known for years but the technology hasn't caught up yet.

Politics always plays a major role in the solution or failure to solve the problem.

If, for example, the US would build 100 nuclear power plants and switch a majority of it's cars to electric and plug-in hybrid, there would no longer be a need for foreign oil imports but the 300 to 500 billion dollar cost is viewed as prohibitive. After Japan's recent experience, I doubt any new nuclear plants will be built.

The US has long had the technology to run cars on compressed natural gas instead of gasoline. Honda even produced the Civic CRX ready to go and congress never mandated the change. Many utilities have run their trucks on compressed natural gas for years. This one change alone would greatly reduce the need for foreign oil but would not reduce the burning of fossil fuel.

The technology was developed recently to clean up the smoke stacks of coal fueled power plants by two different methods. The first separates and liquefies the CO2 to be pumped underground for permanent storage. This method is easy but isn't free so it increases the cost of electricity produced by coal.

The other method bubbles the stack exhaust through sea water causing the CO2 to react with the minerals in sea water to produce cement, which we need and produce in huge quantities anyway. I understand a pilot plant is being built.

If you remove the evils of coal power and automotive fuel from the majority (not all) of the CO2 production, the problem is greatly minimized, perhaps to the point where natural processes can catch back up.

The biggest problem with global warming is disinformation.

We do not have enough information to make a evaluation whether or not man kind is contributing to global warming. It is exactly like Chicken Little running around freaking out cause an acorn bonked him on the head.

No I am not in total disagreement BUT there is not anywhere near enough evidence to prove it yet either. Everyone blows CO2 emission up our skirts like we are facing a recurrence of the black plague. ON top of that CO2 is consumed by plant life. METHANE IS NOT!

You want a real problem to face, try our use of Nuclear power. At least with an oil spill we can clean that up. We cannot effectively clean up after a melt down. How about being worried about a pollutant with a half life of MILLIONS OF YEARS?

Sorry but weather patterns change. The Earth constantly changes. Look at Japan. 1/4 of their eastern coastline on the main island sunk 2 feet and moved 13 feet to the North in that last earthquake! So are we going to blame mankind for increased Vulcanism too?

Ozone depletion by CFCs was proven and experiments likewise confirmed the evidence. That was more than just data accumulation. There are FAR too many variables the propeller heads do not take into account, solar activity, geological activity, historical evidence (geological and written), and other factors they seem to overlook or interpret to fit what THEY think is going on.

Global warming instigated by man does not have enough concrete proof to have me believe in it. Change is the only constant in life.

Your post is one of of absolute ignorance. One of many I might add. It is quite similar to your posts on why compact florescent lights should not be used. Every intelligent source knows better.

There is abundant concrete proof of everything the National Academy of Science report says. (That is their point!) Too bad you never read the updates from NASA.

However, your comment about "propeller heads" says it all. You don't have the ability to understand science so you prop up your ego by bashing those who do and make up your own science to look "big".

All of the actual geological and historical evidence backs up the real science of global warming. It is you who don't understand.

You are correct. The transportation of all those products uses up a lot of oil too.

Sadly, there are many in India and China that want to catch up with the US in all the wrong ways.

Nuclear power doesn't produce greenhouse gasses. Here is a chart about the cost of the electricity produced.

How many trees did you plant this year? I planted 20 trees. That's my contribution to CO2.

It is said that the south of Florida will be underwater in only 50 years! If that is true I better move to the mountains before that happens!

I think the issue with Global Warming is if it is a natural occurrence or if it is manmade. I believe it is a combination of both. In otherwords, I think the earth has its cycles due to the rotation around the sun as it changes every so many thousands years contributing to the rising and lowering of our earth's atmospheric temperatures. Also I think natural catastrophes help create global warming such as volcano eruptions that supposingly does alot of damage to our atmosphere and elevates the global warming problem. I also believe that humans contribute to global warmings and we should find better ways to preserve our planets health. What is wrong with recycling, putting less pollution in our air, using other methods to keep our environments clean? We are sharing this planet with other species. Shouldn't we respect this? Unfortunately, many don't care about that. They don't care about the future of children. They don't care about other parts of the world. They just care about themselves, their money, and their environment they live in. If that is fine then everything is great. This mentality should change if we want to enjoy this planet or we can just look at Mars and its single ice cap......perhaps that was a earth at one time that supported life...yet they ruined it also by not taking care of their planet.

Whatever the cause....it is good that such professional companies truly look into the matter and inform us on the situation. I am still learning as we speak!