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Breathable Air and Plastic Waste
Over the next few decades I anticipate that there will be discussions as to how much longer our planet will be inhabitable by the human race. As I see it from what is happening today, we face two great dangers, (1) lack of breathable air and (2) pollution by plastic waste. Carefully, take a deep breath and read on.
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| Your Home, Your Responsibility |
Finding alternatives to fossil fuels, the burning of which dirties the air we breathe in addition to altering the role of sunlight in producing our weather might be part of the answer, but even such alternatives can present environmental hazards of their own, the disposal of nuclear waste being an example. Harnessing oceanic tides might be an answer. How much of these weather changes can be halted by our halting steps to deal with them is debatable. It may already be too late.
Can you see a future where individuals wear masks providing their own oxygen supply? The cost of such solutions would rule out their being available to most of the planet’s population leaving human efforts to control climate change as the best solution. Thus far, that has been at best a challenging task.
Moving on to the hazards presented by plastic waste, getting rid of the plastic in various forms that packages almost everything we use or carry away from stores and restaurants, is an ongoing challenge. Dumping it, even after chopping it up, doesn’t make it go away and ultimately it poisons the biological processes of the oceans, the creatures that dwell there, the soil, and even the food we eat. Evaporation of poisoned sea water comes back to us as poisoned rain.
Have you ever struggled to open up something you just purchased from its well-sealed plastic packaging? That stuff is really tough, and getting rid of it is tougher. Especially if a miniscule bit of it settles somewhere within your body or in the plants or animals upon which our food supply is based. Same goes for those blocks of polyurethane which fill the unused space in a package, and those untearable bags Amazon uses. All are ultimately poisonous. Sure, wood-based material might be safer, that is if we want to chop down more of the trees left in the world, already a problem reflected in the ‘breathability’ challenge discussed above.
A recent article in the New Yorker magazine (July 3, 2023 issue), ‘A Trillion Little Pieces – How Plastics are Poisoning us’ described this problem. The following paragraph concluded the article:
“In the grand scheme of human existence, it wasn’t so long ago that we got along just fine without plastic,” Simon (an author of a book on plastic waste quoted in the article) points out. This is true. It also wasn’t all that long ago that we got along just fine without Coca Cola or packaged guacamole or six-ounce bottles of water or takeout everything. To make a significant dent in plastic waste – and certainly “to end plastic pollution” – will probably require not just substitution but elimination. If much of contemporary life is wrapped up in plastic, and the result of this is that we are poisoning our kids, ourselves, and our ecosystems, then contemporary life may need to be rethought. The question is what matters to us, and whether we’re willing to ask ourselves that question.”
To read the entire article, visit https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/03/book-reviews-plastic-waste OR JUST CLICK HERE.
The lack of breathable air and getting rid of plastic packaging
are both challenges that cannot be ignored. Will they be our
undoing? Even more likely than nuclear war?
JL
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More
Shootings this Past Weekend
The shootings that occurred over the Fourth of July weekend are only more evidence that there is only one solution to gun violence. It is the repeal of the Second Amendment. That currently misinterpreted document was originally intended to protect individual States from intimidation by the Federal government over slavery, and to deal with the fear of slave rebellions. That’s the way their support of the Constitution was bought in 1789.
Well, slavery is gone, and so should the Second Amendment be gone too! This can be done without denying weapons to hunters, sport shooters, and those who need it for family or business protection. The sooner it is repealed, the safer Americans will be. As it stands now, it is the reason for the proliferation of unnecessary weaponry among Americans and that is proving to be very dangerous.
JL
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Immigrants Fill a Need in America Especially in Floriduh
Think
about those who harvested the crops, built the railroads, mined the coal, molded the steel, and did
the dirty work needed for the United States to grow and develop, especially
after slaves were not available for that purpose after the Civil War.
They were the millions of immigrants who came here, often illegally, none of
whom were descendants of those who sailed here on the Mayflower.
If
you eat out in restaurants, have you noticed the increasing number of
headwaiters, hosts, and maître d’s who are pitching in and bussing tables,
setting them up for the next guests. That’s because Florida’s governor
and his butt-kissing Republican legislators have made it tough to hire today’s
immigrants for these jobs.
Over the Fourth of July weekend, we could not get a 12:30 brunch reservation in a top-drawer restaurant and settled for one at 11:30. By 12:30, as we finished our meal, I noted that the place was half-empty. We had thought that we couldn’t get a reservation at that time because of what we thought was a high demand for that hour but rather, it was probably because they didn’t have the wait staff to serve a filled dining room!
Again, blame this on Governor DeSantis’s policies which cater to dumb voters who think ‘immigration’ is a dirty word. Assuredly, all of their forebearers came over on the Mayflower. Sure! Just wait until the price of local produce soars because there aren’t enough immigrants to harvest and bring what grows here to market. DeSantis isn’t dumb. Anyone who voted for him is. And that also goes for anyone who voted for the Republican legislators who kiss his butt.
JL
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Quote from Michael Moore’s Podcast :
"On this week’s episode of my podcast (Rumble with Michael Moore), I celebrate our country’s birthday week by going after the Supreme Court and suggesting ways to remove the Justices who have perjured themselves, been caught taking huge sums of money from billionaires, and how all six right wing Justices have committed various ethical infractions — but have not been sanctioned or removed. Oh, they’ve also taken wholesale rights away from women, the LGBTQ+ community and people of color. Plus, they’ve gutted the EPA, expanded gun “rights,” and killed Biden’s student loan debt relief plan.
The Supreme Court is now the most disliked and distrusted government institution in the land. The Roe v Wade decision has the vast majority of the country up in arms against them now. And enough of the righties on the court are worried about their “legacy” or their possible removal from the court. The more we organize against them, the better it will get. Time to rock this not-so-supreme boat."
Don’t You Agree?
JL
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We Get Published (again)
The
Palm Beach Post published the following letter from me on July 7 under a
caption reading ‘Too Many Democrats Just Don’t Care.’ They included a copy of
the picture referred to in my letter.
‘The picture on page 4C of the June 29 edition of The Palm Beach Post said it all. There was practically no audience at that town meeting to hear State Sen. Bobby Powell and State Rep. Jervonte Edmonds voice concern with Florida’s new laws restricting abortion rights and further loosening gun control. Democrats must get their message out on the streets if they hope to reach the people and win elections. There is no substitute for knocking on doors.’
To put this into better context, I gave up my ‘forever’ status as a registered Democrat about two years ago and changed to ‘No Party Affiliation.’ Recently, I re-registered as a Democrat feeling that was a better place from which to complain. I encourage all of you to share your thoughts with whatever newspapers you read.
JL
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Housekeeping on the Blog
Email Alerts: If you are NOT
receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on
Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you
do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might
suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly
alerted. (You can pass those email addresses to me by email
at jacklippman18@gmail.com .)
Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting
to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.
If you want to send someone the blog, exactly as you are
now seeing it, with all of its bells and whistles, you can just tell folks
to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or by
providing a link to that address in your email to them. I
think this is the best method of forwarding Jackspotpourri.
There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it
though! Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri
is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with
the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to
list up to ten email addresses to which the blog will be forwarded, along with
a comment from you. Each will receive a link to the textual
portion only of the blog that you now are reading, but without the
illustrations, colors, variations in typography, or the ‘sidebar’ features such
as access to the blog’s archives.
Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or
clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting, but I recommend
sending them the link.
Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think
might benefit from reading it.
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