Our World and Everything in It

Earlier this month while working outside, I noticed a prevalence of little reddish ants. I’m not saying fire ants necessarily because they are not supposedly indigenous to Michigan, but little reddish ants seem to be everywhere and they bite. I got bit on my left leg. A trail of horribly itchy red bites took about a week or more to get rid of. I put my usual sting cure on them, a wet aspirin. Aspirin is just salicylic acid, so meat tenderizer, and anything else including special shampoos that have salicylic acid usually work to take the sting away. Not so for those bumps.

I live in the country and have been bitten by chiggers, mosquitoes, spiders, fleas, and am really allergic to apple maggot fly bites that many people call black flies. They are those triangular shaped flies with spotted wings. I guess they don’t bite as much as deposit eggs under the skin. Lovely. But, I know when I’ve been bitten by one of those. I feel the pinch, the skin gets hot, and aspirin  works great. Not so with the trail on my left leg. I put all the over the counter stuff on the bites, and the household stuff like ammonia, alcohol, baking soda, vinegar, you name it. I even took tweezers and pulled at what looked like the spot of entry, then applied Neosporin.

Nothing worked. The dots remained and eventually ran their course. After beating up my skin so bad, I started to worry about scars. I can tell where the bites were but they left little trace considering what I did to them and my skin.  I was soooo happy when they were gone.

Last week it was cool outside and I didn’t do much work out there at all so there was little chance for me to get bit right? I thought nothing of pulling on a pair of jeans and sweatshirt I threw off to the side of my nightstand just the day before. I left the house to run errands on Thursday before Memorial weekend. I thought the itch behind my right leg was persistent as I stood at my pharmacy to pick up my renewed prescription for Allegra. I remember scratching there more than once while I was running around. Something in my jeans felt picky.

When I got home and removed my jeans I had a trail on my inner thigh around the back of my knee and down the outside of my lower leg. I was so disgusted knowing what those bites were and how they would itch, be ugly, and not go away all weekend. If that wasn’t bad enough, when I woke up Friday morning and thought I had hives on my back and neck, I found it was yet another trail of ant bites.

I didn’t try any weird treatments this time. I learned my lesson the bites are much like poison ivy, oak, and sumac, all of which I’ve had my fair share. I had poison ivy four times one summer thanks to my cat. They are miserable but I won’t die. My husband made sure I was planning to wear long pants when we went out to eat so as not to look like I had some sort of plague.

So memorial weekend did create quite a memory for me. Now I know what not to do while working in my yard in Michigan. I have biting ants that I didn’t have before. Call them what you will, but I say they are indeed fire ants, and Michigan is getting more and more of them because of climate change. I watched a little black ant bite me and nothing happened. I saw the color of the ants in question. They are reddish and seem to be everywhere. Like a nightmare they are not centrally located around a large mound like ant experts describe. 

When I started to plant my vegetable garden in a pair of shorts and spotted little reddish ants in the dirt, I quickly went inside and returned with long pants, and knee high socks over the pant legs. I also had on a long sleeved shirt that I tucked in. Real cute.  My mom said to put rubber bands around the sleeves of my shirt also. Yard work will not be fun when temperatures soar above 80 degrees and I have to wear this kind of get up. 

One good thought: I know these ants are in Michigan now. And one good cure for the itch is an ice pack.  But my one bad thought outweighs the good. What else is in store for us insect wise in Michigan? What plague of things we didn’t have to worry about before will global climate change bring? The ants are bad enough. I don’t even want to think about the mosquito populations. 

I just wrote about Colorado’s forests being decimated by beetles whose populations are out of control due to global warming. They are killing lodge pole pines with other evergreen trees at risk also, while the Bush administration pushes to end the Roadless Rule that will decimate one of the largest forested areas in the country, which is in Idaho to the mining, oil, and lumber industry.  The big picture for the wolf kill, buffalo kill, and mustang roundups is getting clearer isn’t it? Alaska, Wyoming, and Idaho are some of the states with huge forests at risk without this rule, and the same states that are home to the slaughter of these animals. If these animals remained protected, their habitat couldn’t be touched. They must be removed for the next phase of this unethical, and unscrupulous plan to take place! So now we should see clearly we’ve been lied to again about the reasons for the slaughter.

The intelligence and ethics level of this administration has hit an all time low by destroying the very trees that help remove CO2 from the air and protect us from baking at a time when many of our trees have been destroyed already by fires and floods over the past two years, and on the heels of the Colorado lodge pole blight. We need more trees, not less. Do we see Europe attacking their landscapes as we do? http://www.15years.gov.si/backround-information/biodiversity/.

We cannot afford to let this happen in the interest of big money because once our forests are gone, they are gone forever. And don’t think that once oil, lumber, and mining interests move in they will simply stop with a new president in office. This is the march of the wealthy destroying our country in their last ditch effort to get a stronghold before this administration is through. The sad thing is we haven’t even begun to practice conservation. We haven’t unleashed the alternative energy innovation we already have. This is the same type of unintelligent, quick-triggered decision-making that ignored any and all alternatives that got us into a war, which is costing us dearly. We must unite to keep this type of movement from advancing until we see this administration exit. 

The Heritage Forest Campaign explains:

Spanning 58.5 million acres in 38 states, America’s national forest roadless areas contain some of our nation’s last pristine forests. From the expansive wilds of the American Southwest and Northern Rockies to the colorful deciduous woods of New England and the Appalachians, these last tracts of unspoiled backcountry provide habitat for wildlife, headwaters to rivers, and unparalleled recreational opportunities for millions of Americans.

The state of Idaho contains over 9.3 million acres of National Forest roadless areas - the most of any state outside of Alaska.  Idaho’s roadless backcountry makes up the core of the last intact forest ecosystem in the lower 48 states - the last place where all of the native plants, fish and wildlife - from the smallest plant to the largest predator - can still be found.

In 2001, the U.S. Forest Service issued the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects Idaho’s and all of the country’s national forest roadless areas from most logging and new roads being built for mining, coal, gas, logging and other development. The rule was the result of almost three years of deliberation that included 600 public hearings and more than 1.5 million written comments submitted with the overwhelming majority supporting the complete protection of all remaining roadless areas.

The American public has continued to support this policy, and has repeatedly opposed proposals to reverse or weaken it.

Please join forces for OUR heritage, OUR land, OUR wildlife, and OUR vision for the future not the powerful big money interests that seek to take every last pristine piece of God’s country we have left.

Sign a petition to Chief Gail Kimble to save our forests. There is an April 7th deadline so please sign on for a unified voice: http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/idaho_roadless/i3u8iui227b7jnew?
 

Many of us had lovely ash trees in our yard once upon a time, and there are many parks around Michigan that have yet to clear out all of the ash trees that died from the ash borer, a simple bug.
Well, there are a lot more bugs to come and we can thank global warming for it.

Colorado is bearing the brunt of an increase in bark beetle bugs that have killed millions of acres of lodge pole pines. These pines are exactly what their name describes, tall, tall trees pine trees whose needled branches are disproportionately at the top third of the entire trunk, think Q-tip. The bottom portion of the trunk is a straight shot of wood, used to build log lodges.

An article on abcnews.com stated 1.5 million acres are already wiped out and all of the lodge pole pines may be gone in 3 to 5 years. It said the infestation was first noticed in 1996. What the heck takes so long for our agencies to act on anything? I lost my ash tree, and the whole time Bayer brand systemic spray would have worked. By time I applied anything to my tree, it was already too late. I know what I found for news before that. Our state officials said nothing worked against the ash borer…so people failed to act. State officials were wrong!

Colorado officials said, “the infestation was concentrated in five northern Colorado counties straddling the Continental Divide and has reached southern Wyoming.” The amount of trees taken by the beetles increased 1500 percent last year and “forest officials attributed the spread of the beetle to warm winters and drought. Susan Gray, group leader for forest health management with the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region, said only 20-below-zero temperatures for a sustained period can kill the beetles.” Keep an eye on your spruce trees! Spruce and aspen pines are susceptible to the beetle also.

To add insult to injury relative to our trees and forests, the Bush administration looks to weaken the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This rule protects millions of acres of trees in Idaho against the oil, natural gas, timer, and mining industries. According to Earthjustice, Idaho contains more unspoiled wild forest than any state outside Alaska, providing the last intact forest habitat for countless fish, wildlife, and plant species. These areas are enjoyed by hunters, anglers, hikers, and all who treasure the backcountry. Earthjustice disclosed why Bush is pushing the Roadless Rule aside:

The administration’s proposal will open the door to logging millions of pristine acres, risk dangerous toxic contamination from mining, degrade clean fish-bearing streams and important wildlife habitat, and fail to live up to the public’s overwhelming desire to protect all of these areas for future generations.

This forest giveaway could lead to 545 million tons of phosphate being mined on nearly 8,000 unspoiled acres near Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Any increase in phosphate mining would worsen the already serious problem of selenium poisoning in local streams and aquifers. Selenium is an extremely dangerous contaminant known to cause birth defects, which bio-accumulates in the food web — persisting for centuries after entering the environment.

Read more about this and sign a petition to stop President Bush before he weakens the Roadless Rule even more. We’re already losing trees and a lot of our landscape from extreme weather, i.e., floods, fires, tornadoes, and now bugs. Does the Bush administration have a clue about conservation? Do they even care? Trees protect us from the sun, and take CO2 out of the air for Pete’s sake, and the powers that be want to give them away to big money.

About the pine beetle infestation:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=4133205

More about Bush sidestepping the Roadless Rule: http://www.earthjustice.org/our_work/campaigns/roadless_rule.html
Sign the petition to save our national forests: http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/roadless_ID_0308
 

This should be pretty good. I watched the one on the Science Channel. It answered quite a few of the questions I’ve heard floating around and showcased some of America’s most energy efficient cities like New York. I will be blogging about that soon.

 CNN appears to be more accessible to the general public than the Science Channel but I still think that every major network should keep the environment in our faces until we realize duh, it sustains us, we should take better care of it than stripping it bare of everything and leaving a trail of pollution.

As a quarter million people flee the fires of the Santa Ana winds in southern California, Atlanta’s water supply dwindles and without relief will be gone by January, and floods and tornadoes have steadily pummeled the middle of our country. It’s a little obvious something’s up. Is it global warming and how worse can it get? A lot.

In light of all that’s happening, I searched global warming on the internet and there was a whole new cache of naysayers. Something set them off and I’m thinking it was Al Gore getting the Nobel Prize. I was a little surprised. I checked again today and the opposition has leveled off. Looks to me like the fossil fuel industry turned up the heat against going green. For a few days their bloggers put out a surge of propaganda like: Global warming is a U.N. conspiracy. Watching the news about California tonight, I don’t think so, and when are we going to start thinking about the other guys, especially other Americans?

Global warming affects the entire population of the world and everything in it. Isn’t it wiser to err on the side of caution if things aren’t certain? Besides what’s wrong with cleaning up after ourselves, the outcome of which would be:

The oil money that feeds terrorism will literally dry up.

We get away from fossil fuels for good. No more of the landscape will be destroyed with incessant stripping and drilling.

We could get agriculture involved. Instead of subsidizing them for loss, part of their land will be set aside for wind and solar farms bringing in alternative income.

A new economy gives everyone a chance at new jobs. New investments can be made in the stock market. New people will be able to offer new innovation to sustain us for years to come, creating more jobs.

Disease will dwindle. Clean up the air, earth, and water and possibly ease someone’s suffering.

Low utility bills or none at all. Trying to cut back on energy use, my last combined gas and electric bill fell even more. I paid $103.00 last month for my gas and electric. I’m home all day. The PC is going, TV is on, and an air cleaner. I haven’t taken everything off of standby yet…another TV, Roomba, printer, stereo, DVD player, etc. But by changing my light bulbs, unplugging the old fridge in the garage, adding two overhead fans in the house, regulating my window coverings, and hanging my laundry out on a line, what a difference!

Finally, if we do heat up all at once, chances are our power grids won’t hold up. So we’ll be miserable. Wouldn’t it be better to use that which is going to fry us to cool us? Solar energy could run our a/c units, keep the fridge going, and many other things like boil water.
 

Sorry about the last post. I pasted it from notepad and it still globbed all the paragraphs together. This is easier to read I’m sure. 

Not long ago I was reading about China and the fear of a Dengue Fever outbreak there. I heard of Dengue Fever but couldn’t recall anything about it. So I looked it up. It’s a painful disease that people can get from mosquitoes that can be fatal. Just the other day I open up my web browser and the front page was about a Dengue Fever outbreak racing through South America. South America is too close for comfort. I think it’s funny we’re not hearing anything about it here when its so bad there that there is fear of a pandemic.

Scientists said Dengue Fever is reaching record levels in South America and the Caribbean as the rainy season continues. Officials are doing whatever they can to curb the outbreak before it has an impact on the economy as tourists are reluctant to visit countries where they have to worry about mosquito bites. It was reported that hundreds of thousands of people have been afflicted and 200 have died from Dengue in South America. There is no vaccine, and virtually no cure. The problem is we aren’t hearing anything, so our health officials and doctors aren’t on the alert for it if someone does bring it here. My fear is that not long ago 9 states were under water from constant floods. The residual water laying around in stagnant pools just screams for mosquitoes and Dengue Fever.

The disease is also called Bone Break Fever because it causes intense pain in the joints. The article stated “A deadly hemorrhagic form, which also causes internal and external bleeding, accounts for less than 5 percent of cases but has shown signs of growing.” It’s feared that it will get worse because tourists and people moving about are passing around 4 different strains of the disease. A person might suffer and recover from one strain, but become exposed to another. When that happens, it becomes likely that person will develop the hemorrhagic form.

Over 630,000 people have suffered from Dengue in South America so far with over 12,000 getting the deadly hemorrhagic type. Dengue Fever has more than doubled in Mexico also at some of the most popular tourist destinations like Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, and Acapulco. 
It was thought Dengue Fever was almost irradicated until now. It’s causing serious health problems in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico right now. And the only way to keep it contained is for people to vigilantly use mosquito repellent which is almost impossible to get people to do all the time and everywhere.
Mosquito born diseases are on the rise world wide. DEET the best defense for controlling mosquito populations was banned years ago because it was found to cause birth defects and all types of problems for small children. There has been little else developed since to take its place, another thing I find odd. We can plan a new strategy for walking on the moon, create batteries from viruses, but no one has a replacement for DEET without all the side effects? 
Read more about Dengue Fever:
 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070929/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/dengue_epidemic.
 

Lyme disease is nothing to be taken lightly.

I woke up this morning and the news just happened to feature a woman who had just gone through a yearlong ordeal because of Lyme disease from a tick she found on herself.  Her testimony was an eye opener. Did you know 20,000 people a year get Lyme disease but then only 30% get diagnosed correctly for the disease. So who knows how many people a year get it.

This particular woman went to bed fine and woke up paralyzed from her waist down and neck up. No one diagnosed her correctly for a year. Think about that. If you are the head of the household and wake up one morning paralyzed and then can’t get diagnosed correctly for almost a year after constant visits to the doctor and hospital, pills, treatments, etc. It would just about break a person. There is even more bad news. 60% of the blood tests for Lyme disease are inaccurate also. There really is no way of diagnosing the disease.

The woman remembered pulling a tick off of herself a year prior to any symptoms showing up. A person can harbor the disease for years before any symptoms show up. Once a tick of this sort gets engorged with blood they are easy to spot. It needs to be removed within 24 hours. Once removed, there will be a bulls-eye looking mark. It is important to seek medical treatment immediately because the disease is caused by bacteria. Antibiotics work more easily if they are administered right away, otherwise the bacteria will cause an infection throughout the body. The woman who was on the news was lucky. After a year, a doctor diagnosed her correctly. She had to get high doses of antibiotics into her heart for two weeks.

This is just an example of why no one should feel global warming won’t affect them. Besides the weather itself getting worse with more tornadoes, and straight-line winds, bugs that carry disease might really be worse. There are many, many hunters in Michigan that could be affected easily if the tick populations continue to grow.  Deet is the spray of choice to keep ticks off. But Deet is dangerous to children. Keeping covered up from head to toe is the next best thing. What affects everyone in the summertime here is mosquitoes. That’s a bad scenario if global warming keeps warming our winters to the point nothing totally freezes anymore. There will nothing to kill off pests like mosquitoes, which really carry some miserable and deadly diseases.  

A really large article and headline made the front page of the Detroit Free Press entitled “Deadly Chain Reaction.” It is about predator/prey studies done on the Isle Royale on Lake Superior. The predator is the gray wolf and the prey is the moose. Moose populations are way down and not because of the wolves. Moose numbers are beginning to decline due to increased tick populations, which weaken them so they become easier prey to the wolves.

The big thing about the tick population on the rise is that it is due to global warming. Since 2000 the weather is hotter and hotter farther and farther north, and the hottest since this study began. Michigan Tech’s predator/prey study started in 1958 on Isle Royale and is the longest running predator/prey study in history. I did not know that. Researchers are up there all the time watching the wolves and moose.

The title of the article is what is important and what I’ve been trying to get across to anyone who simply thinks global warming does not affect him or her. It will sooner or later. This is an example for the hunting industry. We don’t like to disturb money making industries in Michigan because our economy is already so bad, but if we do not start thinking of the environment over the energy bill, or the car industry, or the hunting industry, global warming just may go full circle and force the issue.

The tick/moose problem is an example. So much for moose hunting soon. One poor moose can have up to 100,000 ticks on itself. They suck the moose’s blood, weakening the animal. The moose bites at itself and has more bare patches than fur so it cannot withstand the cold in the winter or the scorch of summer. Scientists have yet to come up with anything that is effective against the tick populations. Many other migratory animals have changed behavior due to warmer weather here in Michigan also.

Maybe this isn’t enough of a wake up call for the residents of Michigan yet, but it should be, along with those 6 twisters, and what was described as the weirdest lightening many have ever seen, including my 84-year-old mother. She is not afraid of storms. She told me lightening struck my grandparents home when she was young. Nothing was grounded then, and she remembers balls of fire rolling across the floor. But she says this weekend’s lightening was strange and intense. I was out of town but friends and my mother described it as sizzling, sideways, straight up and down and all the way to the ground. 

All I can say, and have been saying is that global warming will affect everyone before too long and it isn’t going to be pretty. Ticks and tornadoes today, viruses and the return of many diseases for people and pets tomorrow. Michigan is too wooded; too wet an environment to not have deep freezes in the winter necessary to kill off things like ticks and mosquitoes. I feel bad for Mr. Moose. What a horrible way to die. I can’t stand the itch from poison ivy, let alone leach like creatures stuck all over siphoning blood. What happens if and when the ticks spread to people like the one that causes Lyme disease? I’ve already heard about the return of Cholera in parts of India. And I know that more deaths are caused worldwide by water born sources than anything else. Michigan with all of its water will be one big scientific experiment if our weather continues to get warmer year round. The hunting industry may be one of the first to be effected. It certainly is a bad and deadly chain reaction.

I know “Not From Around Here” wanted to know the deal with the Fish Flies around here. Someone commented that fish flies indicate the good health of our lakes. I’m reading reports of what’s being dredged up at designated sites around the Great Lakes through the Great Lakes Legacy Act. We have a lot of coalburners, particularly around Lake Erie, that put mercury in the atmosphere and ultimately the water, I see tumors on fish, and I’ve lived on Lake Erie for the past 20 years. Fish flies are synonomous with clean water but the facts presented don’t warrant that. I went to some websites to find why fish flies mean the water is clean. There is no big connection other than the fish flies live on the bottom of the lakes for up to 2 years before they emerge. So the logic is that the bottom of the lake and water must be pretty clean. Fish flies are sensitive to oxygen levels. Polluted water has lower oxygen levels.

Oxygen levels in water are also low when there is a lot of weed growth. And what about adaptation? The fish flies we’re seeing used to be rare to Georgia I believe. Suppose they’ve adapted to pollutants? And because we’re warming up here in Michigan we’ve had a new influx of these southern fish flies. We had a minor plague of fruit flies last fall that didn’t leave until Christmas that were also a rare type of fruit fly. They had already adapted to global climate change and came from Europe. Lower species of life like fruit flies, and fish flies adapt to change easily, and extremely fast compared to higher forms of life. That is why fruit flies are used in biology classes. The results for generations shows up quickly.

What I want to know is can’t we just check the water in the Lakes to know the lakes are clean. The idea that fish flies indicate the water is clean over-all might not hold true.  It’s not really scientifice. I don’t get very many fish flies and never have in 20 years of living on the water. I know Bolles Harbor is littered with them sometimes. There is a very big difference where they do and don’t appear in quantity. To say the water is clean over-all, based on fish flies, is not correct then. The assumption is that the presence of fish flies indicate water is clean, then the absence of fish flies indicate it’s dirty. Some places are full of fish flies, others are not, therefore, the water is clean in certain areas only. Somebody needs to do more research on this new, rare fish fly. Quite possibly, I don’t have any fish flies because I live near the mouth of the Detroit River, or my fish flies haven’t fully adapted yet.

In any event, I’m glad I’ve never really been plagued with the little boogers and everyone I know is amazed my neighborhood is not overabundant with fish flies. I’m glad because after the plague of the fruit flies last fall, I have a greater sense for what could be real life plagues in the future. Fish flies would be one of the most repugnant plagues for sure.

     There are all types of casualties we endure on a daily basis especially during times of war. Losing someone or something precious can happen moment to moment. And although our lives are upset to the point we don’t think we’ll recover, we do. I just wonder how many people realize the biggest casualty of all is happening in small increments every day that none of us will recover from if we don’t turn it around.

Our environment is taking hit after hit, and many of us still do not know that when it’s stated we have 10 years to do something, it does not mean we have ten years before we start doing something. It means if we do not start today toward reversing global warming by controlling our pollution it will be irreversible within 10 years. It’s a good idea to control pollution to begin with. By all the water bottles I see these days, I realize that everyone does get the idea that maybe our water isn’t all that clean, and probably our air.  What I also see by those same water bottles is that we really aren’t getting it at all. Where do you think those plastic bottles go? If your community recycles that’s great. If you recycle on your own, then bless you, but unfortunately only 70% of all our garbage is recycled. Those bottles end up in landfills of which there are approximately 6000 in the U.S.  Plastic takes around 500 years to decompose. Do we love our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren? Then what are we doing?

The intent of this news blog is to be in your face about our world because we’re all in this together, and if you or my other neighbors don’t jump in and help, the experience of living won’t be what we once knew. Right now it is what it is “An Inconvenient Truth” as Al Gore aptly named it. Many of our little conveniences in life may have to be abandoned to save our earth, save ourselves. It’s a rude awakening, but the sooner we snap out of it, the sooner we turn it around. No more burying our heads in the sand or waiting for “they or them” to do something. They or them is us, all of us.

Anyone who has any questions about anything environmental feel free to blog. If you know something you don’t think the rest of us are aware of blog it. If you don’t quite believe in global warming yet let us know why. Anyone who has already adapted his or her lifestyle differently to save on anything let us know how, so we might adapt. One idea becomes a ripple that becomes a wave and the whole community benefits.

None of us are perfect angels about the environment. I still drive a gas hog, although I’m looking at all hybrids and beseeching Ford to revive the cobra body style with an electric/ethanol motor. I’m a baby boomer that wants a hybrid sports car. Any baby boomers out there want to weigh in on that? Doesn’t an environmentally friendly sports car sound good? My tip to any other gas hog drivers out there, consolidate your running around. I’m down to 2 days per week. Group up and ride to work together. Quit running your kids around and enjoy family nights. Quitting our rat race can help the environment.