Our World and Everything in It

 
Congratulations James Mulva. For those of you who do not know this man, he is the CEO of Conoco Phillips Petroleum. This is BIG NEWS. Conoco Phillips is the third largest integrated energy company in the US and the fifth largest refiner in the world. Its CEO, Mulva, has just announced his support of emmission limits on greenhouse gases. This is the first major oil company to agree to capping greenhouse gas emissions. He said that their was no one event that caused his decision but that he reflected on this personally. An oil man with a conscience! I wonder if this has anything to do with a scandal I wrote about not long ago. For anyone that missed that here is a recap:

 
Gale Norton was the head of the Department of the Interior, which oversees the EPA. Under Norton was Deputy Interior Secretary J. Steven Griles. Further down the line was Sue Ellen Wooldridge Deputy Chief of Staff to Norton. Griles becomes a target for criminal prosecution in connection with corruption and lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He is the highest-ranking member of the administration to be targeted for corruption. He resigned and went to work for, of all things, Conoco Phillips as a lobbyist. Meanwhile, Norton promotes Sue Ellen to Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources despite the fact she was asked by Senator Ron Wyden about her supposed relationship with Griles. She didn’t answer the question honestly even when her new position would actually oversee the department’s ethics office watching Griles. She and Griles live together in Virginia. An investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found another love nest between Griles and Wooldridge with a third party, Conoco Phillips. It seems Conoco Phillips VP Donald Duncan, Griles, and Woodridge chipped in to buy a million dollar plus beach vacation house in South Carolina Duncan owns 50%, with Griles and Wooldridge pitching in 25% each. The house was purchased before Wooldridge allowed Conoco Phillips to postpone a half billion-dollar pollution cleanup. I wonder where that was? Talk about strange bedfellows. This is the most unethical love triangle yet.
 
This is why I wonder what got to Mulva? Did this scandal tweak his conscience that the Bush administration has covered up much when it comes to the environment?  His statement is his affirmation that he believes greenhouse gases do indeed play a part in the overall global warming of our planet. He acknowledged that in the future the costs of mining coal, and refining petroleum will be higher and it’s going to get passed on to the consumer. Consumers are already overwrought with rising prices and no jobs so this is a good sign. Conoco Phillips is increasing their funding for research into alternatives. Last year the company spent 100 million dollars. They will increase that to 150 million dollars this year.
 
This announcement may create a shift in protocol for other major players in the dirty energy business. BP Petroleum was the first to go green and invest in alternatives, now Conoco Phillips is not only investing more but believes in capping emissions as a way of reducing CO2 in the atmosphere. The sticklers that are left are Chevron and Exxon Mobil. Don’t hold your breath for Exxon Mobil. Many of the detractors for environmental cleanup that blog, have websites, and write against global warming have ties with Exxon Mobil. It appears they’ve invested their money into fighting global warming instead of cleaning up their act.

We’ve lived in our house 20 years and it seems like when one thing goes they all go. This past summer our toilet sprang a leak. Luckily my husband’s a plumber and fixed that. Then one of our sinks started dripping. Not wanting to waste the water I stuck a pitcher under the faucet and figured I’d use it to water some of my mammoth plants. By time they were all watered the leak was fixed. My husband decided to check and change out other plumbing. He showed me some little bitty part that looked like a rubber button, the other parts were just ordinary washers. It didn’t look too involved but then again I wasn’t doing it.

I was rummaging through various environmental sites and I ran across earthtrends.wri.org. They usually have scientific data, but by popular demand also compiled a list of ways for an invidual to conserve water, waste, energy, and biodiversity. It seems I did the right thing with the water, catching it to reuse elsewhere. I was amazed at just how much water is lost by a dripping faucet though. I know I’ve heard some outrageous amount before but when it’s in your face again and we’ve heard that in the not too distant future millions of people will be facing water shortages, it has a different impact. One drip per second wastes 20 gallons per day. In an emergency it is estimated that 1 gallon per person per day will make do. That’s 20 days of water I would need to sustain myself, and 10 days for a couple of people, all lost in one day by a dripping faucet. So get out there and do a little maintenance and get that leaky faucet fixed. There are plenty of people who can help you change a washer in your faucet which is usually the culprit. You don’t want to find yourself without water someday wishing that water back you let flow down the drain.

The rest of the list had some surprising little tricks. Like “Check your toilet for leaks. Put 10 drops of food coloring in your toilet tank. If the color begins to appear in the bowl after 20 minutes without flushing, you have a leak that could be costing you 200 gallons per day. Repair parts are cheap and easy to install.” That’s what it said, 200 gallons! It reminded me of filling a pool, which is another thing. For those of you who don’t want to mess with the seasonal maintenance of your pool, that just drain the thing every year–yes folks, there are people that do this–well don’t do that anymore. It doesn’t take much if you have a really good filter to get the water in crystal clear condition. You wanted it, take care of it.

It went on to say don’t leave the faucet running while brushing your teeth and for the men, don’t do that while shaving either. And the next idea I didn’t know about either, but then again I have low flow toilets. It said to “put a plastic bottle in your toilet tank. If you do not own a low flow toilet, fill a plastic bottle with water or sand and place it in the tank of your toilet where it will not interfere with the operating mechanisms. This will decrease the amount of water used with each flush.”

The rest were common sense like don’t run the washer unless it’s a full load. Hey no problem at my house. Same thing with the dishwasher. Again no problem at my house. I honestly pride myself on being able to cram my dishwasher full with absolutely no space for an extra spoon. They say a dishwasher uses less water than doing them by hand because we all have the bad habit of leaving the water running when we do them by hand. Ladies if you don’t have a dishwasher, this is a good environmental excuse to get one so you can learn the fine art of cramming the thing to its fullest capacity knowing you can just push a button and walk away. Besides there is seldom that accumulation of dishes in the sink because you’ve got a new hiding place for them.

With summer coming up, it’s good to know that using a bucket of water to clean your car versus the hose could save 100 gallons of water. I think the quarter carwash comes in handy here. You know we’re all alike when it comes to seeing how fast we can do an entire car for a dollar. But I’ve done the bucket of water in the driveway too. It works well when you have a giant sponge. The same conservation goes for the lawn. If it springs under your feet, it doesn’t need watering. That’s where the grass mixture called Northern Turf from Garden’s Alive comes in handy, deep roots, less watering. I’d rather save it for my garden. No more wasting water there either. I just bought a nifty little fountain that should cover my garden all at once, no overshooting anywhere, and soak it quickly. Soft soaking water saves on runoff. I’m seriously considering the water barrel drip system. Our old neighbor watered a huge garden this way.

It looks like that’s all I might have this year is a vegetable garden, raspberries, and grapes because of this weather. I don’t know about anyone else but my pear tree, cherry tree, and some ornamentals had buds. It’s been awfully cold and I’m like everyone else, hoping mother nature has a fix for dropping buds if this keeps up, like a new set popping out later on. I got really disgusted today and cut all my daffodils and hyacinths and brought them in to admire. It’s better than leaving them outside to freeze. Nothing else bloomed yet, so I’m still in luck hoping mother nature comes through. Unfortunately, I think we’ve overtaxed mother nature these days. We expect too much. We’ve fed her garbage and expect roses in return. 

            All of my grandparents were farmers and also off the boat so-to-speak. Farms were a la naturelle back then. My grandparents farming practices were brought here from the old country. I don’t know enough about farming today to lambaste the overuse of fertilizer and pesticides by farmers, but I have an ethnic background that was well versed in the natural care of just about anything including everything in the yard. I grew up in the country. My parents had a large yard and grew many things. Now I have a large yard and live in the country. Being a product of ethnicity at its finest I had to learn everything my parents knew at a young age. Yes folks, before I was twelve I knew how to wash, (wringer washer, 2 tub rinse, hang on the line routine), iron, sew, knit, crochet, cook, clean…oh brother. Never ever would I think of saying to my parents, “I’m bored.” It would not be the smartest thing to do. But without ever saying those words my dad still managed to have me totally educated with the riding lawnmower and all of its added equipment so that I could mow the entire 2 acres of lawn for him. And, I could back up a wagon and fit it into a tight space before I was twelve too. That sure came in handy all the years my husband and I had a boat and a very long driveway. I just told him to point where he wanted it. But, I’ve digressed enough. What I’m saying is that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

 
As I’ve blogged before, I have all types of fruit trees, ornamental trees and shrubs, a vegetable garden, bulbs and perennial flowers, grapes and raspberries, herbs, etc. I try my best to stay all natural. I’m on a canal and do not want to pollute anything anymore than I have to with pesticides and fertilizer. If I use anything, I mix up Jerry Baker concoctions, or use products from Gardens Alive, http://www.gardensalive.com/Default.asp?bhcd2=1175870499. They work beautifully. But yes, they cost more money sometimes. We should know that chemicals, fertilizer, and many other things with which we treat our lawns are bi-products of my two (facetiously) favorite industries, petroleum and industrialized farms. The manure from an industrialized farm viewed as an actual nutrient is a statement of horrific consequence if we keep up with that practice. We will experience more tainted food crops for sure. As for the petroleum industry, the higher cost of all natural products is due to direct competition with the wealthiest industry in the world, oil, so duh.

 
In the long run going natural pays off. Your soil is healthier. There are such things as GOOD BUGS! For the bug squeamish, take a pill. Because I don’t use pesticides, and my neighbors basically don’t do anything to their yards period, I have delighted in the most beautiful variety of what many lump altogether as awful bugs. I have seen the biggest, most colorful dragonflies, butterflies, preying mantis, (good) lacewings, varieties of bees, earthworms galore, and yes gardener snakes and the occasional fox snake. Because I embrace nature these things delight me. I had a baby fox snake, a snake on the endangered species list for a while, raise its head and shake its tail at me last summer. A city slicker friend thought it was a rattlesnake and flipped out when I didn’t kill it. Now we know why it was on the list. Too many people mistake them for a rattler and kill them. They do have a bad habit of destroying duck and goose eggs in nests but we have a grandaddy around here somewhere that occasionally leaves its skin behind. My husband found him cooling himself in our pole barn one day. He’s a big one and a wonderful part of nature along with all the bugs I’ve mentioned because they either improve our soil or eat and feed off of the bad bugs that destroy everything. Nature is a balance. When we choose to kill with pesticide, the earthworms and everything else are destroyed also. Everything leaves the yard which is very detrimental

Obviously you can tell I’m countrified and a naturalist all along. So I can’t tell you how unnerving it is for me to receive literature and phone calls from TrueGreen ChemLawn every spring. I’ve spent 20 years wishing them out of business. To me they are an unnecessary addition to runoff pollution problems in this country of I-hate-to-say-it-but-it’s-a-fact,  FAT PEOPLE. Does anyone else see the connection between working in the yard and getting a good workout? I still dig holes to plant trees, hand rake, hoe, push a wheel barrel, pull a wagon, and bend over constantly to pull weeds. When I start looking at it as a real chore, I remind myself, I don’t have to work out and I’m not overweight. Bending over to pull weeds is a reverse sit-up people! If we all did this, we would lose weight and have no need for TrueGreen. However, to my delight, and before TrueGreen lashes back at me, I must announce they now have what is called a “Natural Nutrient Program” that is a pesticide-free alternative to their regular lawn care service. It’s a start and a good environmentally friendly move by TrueGreen. Please people, if you are debilitated and cannot take care of your yard, or are a business that utilizes the services of TrueGreen, please consider their natural program. By doing so, TrueGreen will have a signal that the public wants more and work harder to develop more natural products. Considering their name, they should strive to do so anyway but I’m picking on them again and would rather go the route of encouragement.

 
I’m positive going natural with your yard care will produce a better lawn over time and help trim your waistline dramatically. There is a balance in nature. When we use pesticide to kill bad bugs the balance is destroyed because it really kills them all. Killing earthworms that loosen and enrich soil causes it to compact. Eventually your lawn develops ugly brown rings and needs replacement. The soil should be alive with many types of bugs that feed on each other. You should see preying mantis, lacewings, spiders, bees, butterflies, dragonflies, and snakes. When you do, you know you’re one with nature and not upsetting and destroying the balance. After all isn’t that what got us into this whole global warming mess in the first place, dumping tons of excess pollution on an environment only equipped to deal with it through nature or natural balance?

 
If you want to get started, I suggest using special grass seed for Michigan lawns available through Gardens Alive called Northern Turf. It is more dense so it chokes out weeds, has deeper roots that needs less watering, it doesn’t proliferate with runners like Kentucky blue grass so there is much less edging, and it is resistant to many diseases and insects. Try their WOW pre-emergence weed control with absolutely no pesticides so it’s safe for pets and kids. It utilizes a corn syrup base I guess. Their Soap Shield anti fungicide soap is fantastic for preventing all types of fungicide that wilts garden vegetables and many flowers. They have wonderful products for just about everything in your yard and even your pets. That said, happy “green” gardening.  

The environmental movement is taking off in so many sectors and in so many nations around the world that it’s hard to keep up. While watching the CBC this morning it was announced that “The National” a regular Canadian program not unlike our 20/20 or dateline is airing a special at 9:00 pm tonight called “Ready or Not, Living in a Warmer World.” I think it’s a bit of a misnomer however, to think we are all collectively going to fry in an overheated world when the truth of the matter is that our ocean currents and air currents will shift as a result of global warming so that some places will be freezing while others will be frying. So skeptics of global warming that keep referring to Lowell Ponte’s book “The cooling” to point to another “chicken little” of his time that was wrong are in fact reinforcing the reality of his prediction relative to global warming. That said, watch the The National tonight, channel 9, at 9:00 pm. It will feature many things among them the massive dyke system in place to keep London from flooding. It was said that it was originally built with the idea of being used or needed once a year. It is already being used 10 times per year. There is also another town in Britain that is literally falling into the ocean, while an island nation in the Indian Ocean is slowly disappearing.

 
Another island nation that has officially put a time on its demise as the year 2050 is Kirabati located on the equator and to the NE of Australia. Many of our fathers in the military during WWII and Korea passed through or stopped at many of Kirabati’s neighbors, which are the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Fiji, Tahiti, and New Guinea. All are much smaller islands with the exception possibly of New Guinea and it says a lot about their imposing doom also. Kirabati is home to 100,000 people and just 20 years ago had a landmass the size of 3 Alaskas. It’s diminished by half now, mostly covered with saltwater, its total land mass the size of the NY city limits. It used to have small pockets of freshwater pools overtaken now by the ocean. The mayor or head of the island nation is a realist and said he doesn’t think the islands will exist at all and soon and gave an official time when the nation will cease to exist. What does that say for all the other smaller islands mentioned? Along with fighting global warming we must realize there will be a need to make room elsewhere for thousands of people that will no longer have a habitat in which to live. Hear that all of you who pooh, poohed the demise of the polar bear? Substitute human beings clinging to the last of their habitat and move over to make room for them. Not so pooh, poohable anymore is it?

 
And what about our state of Hawaii? The massive rainfall and mudslides were a concern to me last year. It did not get enough coverage. My husband and I have eyed Hawaii as our retirement place for years. To be certain, we won’t be buying anything near the beach. That doesn’t leave much but mountainside lodging and with the mudslides last year,  that’s not so enticing anymore either.  Anyone else have Apocalyptic flash backs like me? “No mountain high enough, no cave, no valley, absolutely no refuge as a place to hide.” I’m just wondering what’s going to happen to the millions of people that have relocated in the Southwest with only one source of water shared among 3 states? Just months ago I wrote about that for the future, but the future is getting to be shorter and shorter a span for my comfort. If the fires and the drought keep advancing in those states there will be a huge mecca of people moving out of there. Move over again. We need to get moving, we’re still lagging behind.

 
Nations like Spain have entire solar parks in place already the size of 70 soccer fields with 60,000 panels with the intention of increasing to 100,000.  They have completed 2 solar producing plants with the first to start production this month.  For 2007 they plan on building at least 2 more really large 50 MW plants tied to that same solar park. The other day I heard Portugal is ready with the largest solar producing plant in the world. Iceland who will run it’s entire nation by hydrogen in the near future is opening its doors for an experimental process that may be able to bind excess CO2 to porous rock beneath the earth’s surface that will form a stable mineral that could remain there for millions of years. That is of course if any nation goes the extra mile to require all of its coal burning facilities to become gasification plants that trap all the excess CO2. Even China realizes it has polluted itself to death and is investing 64 billion dollars, uprooting thousands of citizens, to divert a river in the south to the north and along the way create new green cities. Nations everywhere seem to be coming up with renewable energy sources relative to their geological locations. Iceland has abundant water supplies so their energy of choice is hydrogen; sunny Spain and Portugal are using that source.

 
All of this from the rest of the world and yesterday I get a newsletter from Earthjustice that companies in the U.S. are still in an all out race to get permits for yet another 150 coal burning facilities across the country before new laws are established to nix them altogether or require they capture their CO2 emissions. Not fair considering our entire ski industry has managed to go green and fast. It knows global warming challenges its survival. Boy when money is at stake watch em turn green fast. And it’s really not fair considering many of us are changing out light bulbs, upgrading our homes for better efficiency, looking to buy hybrid cars, choosing to forego beef and pork, and do whatever little or large we can to contribute. What kind of role model is our industry in the U.S.? No wonder no one likes us.

 
John Dingell is right and fair with his remark that if we point all fingers at the auto industry to get on board to clean up its act than everyone else should have to do likewise. That would be coal burners, manufacturing, and yes those pollution producing, hell on earth for animals, CAFO’s or industrialized farms, which could disappear altogether, and I wouldn’t miss them. They were evil at their conception. We put out animated movies like sweet little “Charlotte’s Web” for our children to watch the intelligent, cute little pig when in reality what we do to animals is short of satanic. If we want to call ourselves a Godly nation than I propose we act it. I’ve sent this message to many congressional people, Cheney, and Bush included: Where do you think your going with all the fortune you’ve gained by raping the earth, raping your own? Of course I never get an answer. If we are made in the image of God, than it’s not a stretch to imagine God weeps for what we’ve done. The prophecy of His wrath is an altogether different scenario we would be wise to avoid.  

I don’t know about anyone else but I hate to see unnecessary urban sprawl. People want to move to the country, As soon as they are in the country they want shopping nearby. Strip malls and drugstores pop up, gas stations, and pretty soon they’re not in the country anymore and want to move on. Remember Canton? It was farmland not all that long ago. It is a concrete jungle of huge, treeless subdivisions now. It wouldn’t be so bad if the contractors building subdivisions would forfeit some profit and the buyers agree to a little higher price to keep some original trees and landscape around. Driving past new neighborhoods on 90-degree days makes me think of frying eggs on pavement. The sun just beats down on those homes and they pay the price with huge A/C bills. It’s not at all inviting, at least to me. Everyone may be different but there is no one who wouldn’t like to lower his or her energy bills, especially with houses that are so large. Wouldn’t large shade trees lining the lanes be nice?

 
Due to energy costs and conservation the big house trend might not be around for a while. I never understood it to begin with. Ladies you have to clean that big house! And there is maintenance for the guys. The same with yards. The idea of a housekeeper and lawn service goes out the window when the job is so much bigger. Watching redesigns on TV for bathrooms the size of half my house is the most ludicrous. The worst room in the house to clean, and we want it bigger? Until we make use of solar and wind power it is just not economical. This may be a good thing for America.

 
According to American Farmland Trust, “America loses over one million acres of fertile farmland every year to sprawling cities and endless suburbs. This is irreplaceable food-growing land.” They went on to say if this continues in 25 years the amount of fertile cropland lost would be equal to the size of New England. We’re not using constructive farming techniques and the government’s practices need to change. Nearly two billion tons of fertile topsoil is lost to erosion each year. It ends up in tributaries along with fertilizers and pesticides, which end up in the ocean. The Gulf of Mexico has a dead zone that has grown from feet to over a mile wide. The water is black and there is no life all the way to the bottom. Fishermen say they can simply tell when they enter it. The water is deplete of oxygen and can’t sustain life. Do you like shrimp? Then this is important. Notice all the farm raised fish these days? There are reasons for all of it and it starts with us. We need to act responsibly. We create a lot of garbage because we are a nation that does not like to recycle and that extends to houses. The urban sprawl over the past 10 years is ridiculous. Houses are all about with for sale signs, yet new subdivisions with no trees, and now no economy to support them, popped up everywhere.

 
We’re using up the space that produces our food. Do we really want to eat foreign produce? Add industrialized farms or CAFO’s squeezing the life out of local farmers and we’re headed for disaster. I personally love my local farm market. The produce is usually from somewhere in America and many times from Michigan. They will not exist if we keep using our land needlessly. I know there are plenty of you out there that agree. I have a dirt road near me that was like Eden at one time. It had creeks and ponds with weeping willow trees, only a handful of houses along the way. I could hear a pin drop if I stopped the car. The birds and wildlife were everywhere. It is now the back way out of a subdivision that never really did sell all of these new homes, and has more for sale now. I’m sorry; I don’t think those homes were worth forfeiting that road.

 
Organizations like American Farmland Trust have a good agenda. They are campaigning for a new initiative to reinvent the U.S. farm policy through Farm Bill legislation. Instead of crop subsidy farmers will get “green” subsidy for making sure their land is maintained properly and available only for farming in the future. Like our need to keep energy costs down, we need to do all we can to keep our food costs down. It will happen through conservation. We need our farms. This is the land of “amber waves of grain and fruited plains” and we’re ruining it. Does anyone agree they hate to see it happen? And if we’re talking ethanol as one of the possible alternative energy sources, we really need to act by urging our congress to enact new farm policy and supporting our farmers and organization like American Farmland Trust. With the latest scare from tainted foods, CAFO’s creating needless pollution and pushing the small farmer out, horrible fires ravaging land, and floods, a return to the farmsas we once knew them would be a comforting process. To know our nation can support it’s own as far as food is of utmost importance to most Americans I would think. Besides that, where are we going to grow the grains for ethanol production? Even if we figure out a way to use weeds for fuel, there will be a shortage of those in the future if we keep sprawling. 

Alzheimer’s disease is growing at such an alarming rate in America that there is fear that it may overwhelm our medical system. This is an odd post for an environmental site I know. But I’ve always wondered about Alzheimer’s relative to the environment. I say this because like many families I’ve seen at least one strange phenomenon of this disease that may be related to a polluted environment.

 
While growing up I had aunts and uncles that were really no blood relation to me. Like many families especially very ethnic families like mine neighbors near by took in children who lost parents early in life and so did my father’s family take in my Uncle Joe in Waltz and the New Boston area. There were others also in a family of 6 already but in a farming family it wasn’t looked at as another mouth to feed as much as another hand to work. As we got older, uncle Joe married my aunt Betty and eventually had my cousin David. And they remained my aunt, uncle, and cousin throughout my life.

 
While I don’t remember much about visiting their house other than my uncle Joe making David play the accordion for us and my chubby Aunt Betty making the most delicious homemade pastries, my mother remembers hanging out with them a lot as young married couples. My aunt and uncle bought a house in New Boston in the late 50’s that was in the direct path of airplanes taking off from Metro airport. My mom remembers sitting at a table in their backyard many times when a jet would fly overhead. The joke was that the planes were so close they could see the faces of the passengers looking out the windows. Of course the planes weren’t that close, but close enough that a mist of fuel fumes would blanket them. It was so long ago; who knew this might be bad for them. They were young couples, it was a new age with bigger and faster planes coming along, and really quite interesting to watch them so closely.  My aunt and uncle continued to live there their entire life.

 
Flash ahead to the late 80’s. My uncle Joe was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, overcome by it quickly, and soon died from the disease. My aunt followed suite shortly thereafter. I remember visiting her in a nursing home with my mother. She didn’t realize Joe was gone but at least was still speaking. The next visit found her lying in her bed in the fetal position only to pass away shortly thereafter. Two people with different genetics died from Alzheimer’s within 10 years or less of each other.

 
There is a lot of talk about heredity and Alzheimer’s so this is a strange case. However, I do remember reading recently that military career people who were exposed to a lot of jet fuel fumes throughout their career were also turning up with the disease. There may or may not be a connection, though I do have a pretty good example of the affects of jet fuel in my own yard

 
Over the past 20 years things have changed in my area. With the expansion of the airport, I’m now in a fly zone. The jets of course are way up in the sky by time they are over my house but nevertheless; I’m definitely in a flight pattern. What I’ve noticed over the years is that I can’t keep the white plastic furniture, like the stuff around pools at resorts, sitting outside in the country no less, unless I turn it over at night. The first set I had turned gray over a few summers, pitted and rough. No amount of cleaner, bleach, scrubbing, acetone, you name it would clean up the chairs. There was a table, chairs, loungers all ruined. I kept wondering what is pitting up the furniture? Whatever it is, it’s landing on us and we’re breathing it. But I could not figure what it was.

 
I had to get rid of that furniture at a garage sale and only bought a few white, cheap plastic chairs to go around our above ground pool. I made sure I turned that furniture over at night so it wouldn’t pit up. But then an ugly brown stain started to appear on our pool liner that my husband could not scrub off. Our filter system is the type that needs no chemicals if we choose not to use them so our pool is normally crystal clear. The water remained clear while the stain grew. I figured out what the culprit was one evening floating on my back in the pool. I was watching the martins swarm and eat bugs but in the background was one of many jets crossing overhead leaving its huge plume of spent jet fuel behind. Eureka! I found what was causing the stain on the liner, and the pitting of my furniture. As soon as we started covering our pool while not in use, the stain disappeared.

 
It doesn’t take a genius to put the pieces together in this puzzle. We’re so unaware of pollution we don’t see, but it’s everywhere. If that jet fuel stains everything in my yard and I’m 30 minutes from the airport, and the planes are pretty high up there when passing over my yard, what effect is it having on our lungs, skin, eyes, hair etc.? I don’t like the idea that this is also falling on my “organic” garden, my apple, pear, and cherry trees, grapevines, bushes, and herb garden. Frightening isn’t it? I can’t even try to survive outside the box by growing and preserving my own food supply. Flash back to a married couple in the direct path of spent jet fuel for years both dying of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s even more frightening.