Pretty Disgusting

There isn't a whole lot we can do in the short term to prevent this carnage but there is alot we can do immediately to correct a related problem. The Smithsonian Bioligy Inst. and the Fish and Wildlife Service just released their latest findings regarding song bird kill by domestic cats that shocked their research people to the core. Their conserative findings estimate that the casual habit of letting your cat out for it's daily roam is costing the lives of some 2.4 Billion (yes Billion) song birds yearly in the U.S. alone. Their findings have now triggered the very beginnings of a push to have cats licenced and restrained much the same as dogs.

 

Lucky you. Most don't have a clue what they are eating or drinking or exposed to. Millions of pounds of hazardous waste is disappeared into processed foods precisely because there is no reporting requirement for 2 percent of processed food content in the US. Zoos wouldn't dare give their animals tap water to drink, they have dechlorinator systems. The tap water in the Keys is unsuitable to swim in, but safe to drink. (But nobody does.)

It is also against the law in the US to publicly call in to question the safety of some foods, meats, and water supplies. Reporting on past hazards seems to be legal as long as you give somebody the chance to say everything is okay now.

Typical sort of thing- this one got presidential attention. But a recent news report could not find any vet who had received a benefit from the new law. But I'm sure the revenue to fund the thing is being assiduously coveted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Lejeune_water_contamination

 

If I tied your father to a chair, half drowned him, and then left him lying on a beach, would you be ashamed to be related to him?

 

< the user who left post feedback containing an insult followed by profanity, has been removed >

People and animals alike, no brain themselves into holes all the time. Welcome to life, doesn't it just suck sometimes?. Sure it's a terrible thing occasionally, but nature has a way of sorting out, the less than well equipped among us. So, if you had some difficultly with my tongue and cheek comments about a pea brained animal, damn you must hide under the covers in thunderstorms too. I'll bet you licked a frozen lamp post as a child, more then once I suppose as well?

For what it's worth, no one tied that turtle to the chair, he did it to himself. He could have been like the other turtles that saw the chair and thought to himself, "hey, that could be fun, but I'll pass", but noooo, not this particular rising star in the turtle world, he "just went for it man". Now his son has to go to turtle kindergarten and explain, "yes, I'm the one with the daddy stuck in the chair". Imagine the emotional burden this poor little, impressionable turtle must endure. You see, some are just destined to have this sort of thing happen. Now, if it was me and I was a turtle, looking at the prospect of getting some knookie, I have to start a cult or commune or something, probably quite local, preferably on my favorite beach with a bar and good restaurant nearby, so I don't have to swim 3,500 frigging miles to get laid, let alone doing stupid animal tricks along the way, to impress my equally stupid friends. Because, you know that turtle was just showing off or something, right . . . Maybe another, evil turtle, shoved him into the chair, because he was dating he ex-girlfriend or took a pee while swimming directing in front of him last week. Who knows, but I'll bet CSI UK will sufficient evidence to find out, in an up coming episode . . . Possibly written by you (anonymously of course) . . .

 

Plastic is getting into the human food chain. Fleece clothing, for example, can leave behind up to 1,900 plastic fibers in every wash.

"An earlier study found 80 per cent of prawns were contaminated."

"80 per cent of flatfish and 60 per cent of hermit crabs in the Firth of Clyde have ingested tiny pieces of plastic."

http://www.oceansinc.org/2013/01/tide-of-plastic-devastates-marine-food.html


“Polyester is heavier than water and pollutes bottom sediments where most marine life lives,” he says. Once in the marine system, they get taken up by filter feeders like clams, mussels, and small fish like anchovies, sardines, etc., which are then eaten by larger fish.


The science of the Pacific Garbage Vortex.


http://sio.ucsd.edu/Expeditions/Seaplex/Science/

 

And what does it mean if polyester is ingested ? Is it not excreted along with other indigestibles ? Unless there is toxicity involved, it is hardly a problem ?

 

Yes there is a problem. You need to read more.

Seaborn plastics are sponges for "persistent organic pollutants" POPs . The plastic may be inert and only clog the organisms digestive track but the POPs in the plastic... ... insecticides,. pesticides, industrial chemicals, PCBs ..... are absorbed by the host organism and hence enter your food chain.


http://plasticsoupfoundation.org/wp...8/Microplastics-in-the-marine-environment.pdf

 

Seems to me if plastics are such effective sponges of POP's they are keeping them out of the food chain as much as anything. Don't think too many fish we eat, eat plastic !

 

It's my hope that we get better as our technologies improve.
I might be too much of a simpleton, but it seems that waste leaving out societies is really a energy loss. I would think that we will develop means to capture this energy and be motivated to do so by simple economics.

Post consumer waste has been subject of study for some time.
I used to look askance at the long 1/8" thick plastic strips that single dose aspirin packs are retailed on at convenience stores. These cheap plastic strips are a simple way to waste our fossil oil reserves and add to the waste stream. When the economics change we will stop tossing the stuff with such abandon.
Till then- the place is going to be a mess.

http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/plastics.htm
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5279230/#.USytjsrAH4E

 

To the extent that plastics carry toxins- yes, it is a problem:

http://www.eu-china.net/english/New...r-chinesischen-Markt-gefaehrlicher-als-E.html

 

We eat big fish, big fish eat little fish, little fish eat little bits of plastic. Plastic is probably affecting fish worse than the birds in the video.

https://www.recyclebank.com/live-gr...re-plastic-that-means-were-eating-plastic-too

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/health/People-Eat-Fish-That-Eat-Fish-That-Eat-Plastic-83937442.html

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/jun/30/new-study-finds-fish-eating-plastic-pacific-ocean/

http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/patch.html#1

 

My cats are too well fed and lazy. Cats are not dogs and simply can't be expected to act like them. The birds in our yard are also very alert. The cats keep them sharp.

 

Plastic is now nothing more than another type of dust we ingest and inhale. Really no different than paper it replaced. Paper products were used just as extensively per capita in it's heyday as plastic is today. (on a per capita basis) Who's to say in the paper age, paper didn't kill just as high a percentage of earths creatures as plastic is doing in this plastic age. (again on a per capita basis). We'll never know, no studies were ever done as to it's short or long term effects. Like the fallout effects from weapons testing of the 50's and 60's the toxins are buried with the victims -thus cleanup occurs. Much like the plastics transported to land by those gooney birds results in that much less plastics to be ingested by their offspring at sea. Nature will filter the toxins in weird and wonderful ways until eventually it educates or filters out the source by elimination.

P.S. That includes domestic cats -- Here, they are now an important food source for coyoties --gotta love nature

 

Once it makes its way to the Mariannas Trench it will be subducted into the Mantle and come out as flaming volcano farts.

 

Now Hoyt thats a typical cat owner cop out, however all is not lost in Florida nature has replaced coyoties with gators and automobiles, ask the armadillos