Apr 23, 2012 -- 3:58PM, mytmouse57 wrote:

Like the huge coastal metropolis areas have done wonders for the environment?

I live in one of those "barbaric" areas --  right up against some of the most pristine wild country in the world. Millions upon millions of acres of it. All teeming with wildlife. I've also spent considerable time on the Great Plains, and don't have a clue what you're going off about. It's some of the most breathtaking topography on the planet. Much of it, also, teeming with wildlife. 

You want the coasts? Hey, knock yourself out. Personally, you couldn't pay me enough to live in one of those over-run rat traps. (but hey, at least they have subways and recycling centers, eh?) 

I think I'll stick with these here "barbaric" places. 

If you understand that I am criticizing the lack of public transportation (not just subways, but also busses, trolleys, trains, and taxis) as well as the lack of recycling centers other than places to recycle strap metal, then you certainly DO have a clue as to what I'm "going off about."

One thing I have discovered visiting my relatives out East -- the East has more trees than we have out here on the Great Plains. In fact, the East seems to have more natural land as well. Almost every tiny little bit of land here on the Great Plains has been turned into cropland or grazing land. The wonder of the primeval grasslands of the Great Plains has been all but destroyed and turned into fields for crops, pigs, sheep, and cows. 

And when one considers things from a humanistic perspective, the coasts also have wonderful things like museums, opera houses, concert halls, and places where I can actually see a Shakespeare play live. Out here, there is what? County fairs during the summer months with country 'n' western singers and rock bands from the '70s and '80s playing their outdated tunes, and some hunting activities such as pheasant hunting and coyote calling contests (which are more like coyote slaughtering contests). And, of course, there are lots of Catholic monasteries to visit, which is where the South Dakota author Kathleen Norris says she goes when she desires intellectual stimulation. The town I live in doesn't even have a restaurant; people go to the gas station and order broasted chicken and pizzas if they want to eat out. So yes, I do want a little different change of environment, at least for a while. 

There are, ecologically, no doubt advantages and disadvantages of living in cities, suburbs, rural areas. 

Where I live (outer suburbs of NYC), energy use is a disaster.  You cannot get anywhere without a car; carpools and mass transit make little sense since people and places of employment are scattered without any sensible pattern (I commute 35 miles roundtrip per day, and in a department of thirty people, nobody lives within 10 miles of where I live).  Down the mountain, there is more traffic, and more stores and restaurants within 30 minutes than I want to think about (of course, I can be in New York City within in an hour on a good day).

Yet in other ways it is ecologically very sound. There are forests, mountains, lakes. The diversity of wildlife is amazing. I see ducks, geese, swans, turtles, hawks and other birds every day. Deer are everywhere.   I've seen bears and foxes and wild turkeys in my front yard, and my dog routinely chases possums and groundhogs and raccoons in my back yard. Frogs and salamanders come up from the reservoir (and often end up needing a rescue from my pool).   I can walk to a preserved mountain area in about 10 minutes.  It's not Yosemite by a long shot.  But it's pretty nice, all in all.

Apr 23, 2012 -- 3:39PM, TemplarS wrote:

Well, it depends.

Provided the tree that gets burned is replaced, that is true. 

But, say, if a developer clearcuts a lot to build a strip mall, and sells the wood as firewood- then those trees are not going to be replaced, and the CO2 from the burned wood is not going to get re-incorporated into a new tree.  Parking lots do not remove carbon from the atmosphere.

It's still short term cycle carbon. The environment would have been able to easily take care of it. It is the addition of long cycle fossil fuels that have upset the balance.

Apr 23, 2012 -- 11:11PM, Swim4fun wrote:

To create a sustainable world, we should act right now and always think about the products we buy, the way we vote, and support environmental organisation.

With respect to choosing green products, I came across the biodagradable tableware online (www.biodegradabletableware.com.cn/) two days before my birthday party. To some extence, I think it's a eco-friendly products we can choose from for the sake of the Earth.

Think about that for a second.... how is the raw material for that product obtained? How much energy went into making it? Does something that takes resources and energy to make and then toss out, even if it is biodegradable, make ecological sense? How about something that can be made from recycled metal and used over and over again for over 100 years? Wouldn't that make more sense?

Of the three R's, recycling, or biodegrading, is the LAST thing we should be doing. The first is reducing our needs and the second is reusing.

That's one of my hobbies; repurposing things. I take scrap metal and weld it into pieces of art. I take old fire extinguishers and make wonderful bells out of them. I've taken old chains and welded them into all kinds of neat things.  I take old climbing ropes and make rugs out of them. Give me a pile of scrap about to be thrown away and I can make something beautiful out of it.

Apr 24, 2012 -- 9:01AM, farragut wrote:

Dave, can you elaborate on the extinguisher bells?

First, they are not my invention. I copied what someone else did.

I take an old CO2 extinguisher, one that is too old to be refilled, cut the bottom off, then strip the paint off and let it develop a nice patina (aka rust). Sand that rust down smooth, but not all the way to clean metal. You want that rust. Then coat with several layers of clear spray paint. To make a clanger and mounting hardware take two eye bolts, some washers, and a "connecting nut", and put them in so that one eye bolt is outside the top and one inside. Have a sisil or hemp rope threaded though the inside eye bolt, so that about a foot hangs past the end of the bell. Take an appropriate sized floor flange (from the plumbing dept.) and use one of those clamps that clamp down on wires going into a junction box to hold the floor flange inside the bell.

Make the end of the rope fray in a fancy way.

Now you have a bell. They sound awesome. Some will continue to vibrate for over a minute after being rung. I've sold them, depending on size, for $50 to $750.

Did I elaborate too much?