Nov. 23, 2008 (World News Trust) -- Awakened by the muffled, distant howls of
slaughtered Indians, Uncle Sam rises from his bed and hits the light
switch… blissfully, purposefully unaware of how valley fills enable
him to gain access to that electricity day after day.
***
Here’s how The
Sierra Club begins its discussion of mountaintop removal mining: “In
places like Appalachia, mining companies blow the tops off mountains
to reach a thin seam of coal and then, to minimize waste disposal
costs, dump millions of tons of waste rock into the valleys below,
causing permanent damage to the ecosystem and landscape.” That
is a valley fill.
Then comes word -- Oct. 18, 2008 -- that the Interior Department has “advanced a
proposal that would ease restrictions on dumping mountaintop mining
waste near rivers and streams, modifying protections that have been
in place, though often circumvented, for a quarter-century.” This
from a New York Times
article, which continues: “The department’s Office of Surface
Mining issued a final environmental analysis Friday on the proposed
rule change, which has been under consideration for four years. It
has been a priority of the surface mining industry … The proposed
rule would rewrite a regulation enacted in 1983 that bars mining
companies from dumping huge waste piles, known as “valley fills,”
within 100 feet of any intermittent or perennial stream if the
disposal affects water quality or quantity.”
***
Like any good
American, after subconsciously blocking out the faint sounds of slave
chains clinking and bull whips cracking, Uncle Sam’s first chore of
the day is to check e-mail. No time for him to contemplate e-waste,
now is there?
***
E-waste (discarded
electronics and electrical products) has some potential in supplying
secondary raw materials to keep the entire system afloat, when not
properly treated properly it becomes a major source of carcinogens
and toxins.
“A whole bouquet of
heavy metals, semimetals and other chemical compounds lurk inside
your seemingly innocent laptop or TV,” adds Jessika Toothman at
HowStuffWorks.com. “E-waste dangers stem from ingredients such as
lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, copper, beryllium, barium, chromium,
nickel, zinc, silver and gold. Many of these elements are used in
circuit boards and comprise electrical parts such as computer chips,
monitors, and wiring.”
According to the EPA, in 2005, “used or
unwanted electronics amounted to approximately 1.9 to 2.2 million
tons. Of that, about 1.5 to 1.9 million tons were primarily discarded
in landfills, and only 345,000 to 379,000 tons were recycled.”
***
Uncle Sam decides he
wants eggs for breakfast and what Uncle Sam wants, Uncle Sam gets.
Not even the din of doomed chickens can slow down this hungry man.
***
Karen Davis of United
Poultry Concerns has written a narrative of what a battery hen might
say if it could speak human language. The narrative begins: "I
am battery hen. I live in a cage so small I cannot stretch my wings.
I am forced to stand night and day on a sloping wire mesh floor that
painfully cuts into my feet. The cage walls tear my feathers, forming
blood blisters that never heal. The air is so full of ammonia that my
lungs hurt and my eyes burn and I think I am going blind. As soon as
I was born, a man grabbed me and sheared off part of my beak with a
hot iron, and my little brothers were thrown into trash bags as
useless alive."
Battery hens produce
the vast majority of eggs you’ll find in your market.
***
With food now in his stomach, Uncle Sam
joins the vast majority of Americans who take at least one form of
pharmaceutical drug each day. Choosing to ignore the agonized screams
of tortured animals, Uncle Sam gulps down his pills.
***
Aysha Z Akhtar, M.D.,
M.P.H., is a senior medical advisor and Jarrod Bailey, Ph.D., is a
senior research consultant for the Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine. "The more we study the relevance of animal
tests, the more apparent their shortcomings become," Akhtar and
Bailey state in a Feb. 9, 2007, letter published in the British
Medical Journal. "Even subtle
physiological differences between humans and animals can manifest as
profound differences in disease physiology and treatment
effectiveness and safety. For example, numerous differences in spinal
cord physiology and reaction to injury exist between species and even
strains within a species. These differences likely contribute to the
repeated failure of spinal cord treatments that have tested safe and
effective in animals to translate into human benefit."
"Results from
animal tests are not transferable between species, and therefore
cannot guarantee product safety for humans," agrees Herbert
Gundersheimer, M.D. "A major shift in our research paradigm is
long overdue," declare Akhtar and Bailey. "The move away
from animal experiments toward more accurate methods of studying
disease and intervention is scientifically superior and more ethical
for humanity, as well as for animals."
"Ask the
experimenters why they experiment on animals, and the answer is:
’Because the animals are like us,’" writes Professor Charles
R. Magel. "Ask the experimenters why it is morally OK to
experiment on animals, and the answer is: ’Because the animals are
not like us.’ Animal experimentation rests on a logical
contradiction."
***
Uncle Sam’s medicine is washed down thanks
to store-bought water. As he packs his water bottle in his work bag,
he could swear a cruise missile has soared past his house but instead
nods his head in disbelief.
***
“Americans buy 30 billion single-use water bottles every year,
the majority of which end up in landfills,” writes Dominic Muren at
TreeHugger.com. “In fact, 845 bottles end up in the land fill every
second. All these water bottles are made from petroleum, and require
petroleum to be shipped around the world. All that, and there's no
evidence that bottled water is any cleaner than tap-water.”
Catherine Clarke Fox
of National Geographic
adds: “But all those plastic bottles use a lot of fossil fuels and
pollute the environment. In fact, Americans buy more bottled water
than any other nation in the world, adding 29 billion water bottles a
year to the problem. In order to make all these bottles,
manufacturers use 17 million barrels of crude oil. That’s enough
oil to keep a million cars going for twelve months. Imagine a water
bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil. That’s about how
much oil was needed to produce the bottle.”
***
Tired of getting animal blood on his socks,
Uncle Sam reaches for his leather shoes… courtesy of the
$1.5-billion- and 100-million-animal-skins-per-year U.S. industry.
***
"Leather is not
simply a slaughterhouse byproduct," says animal issues columnist
Carla Bennett. "It's a booming industry and an important part of
the slaughter trade, since skin accounts for approximately 50 percent
of the total byproduct value of cattle." Leather is also made
from slaughtered horses, sheep, lambs, goats, and pigs. "When
dairy cows' production declines, for example, their skin is made into
leather; the hides of their offspring, 'veal' calves, are made into
high-priced calfskin," adds Bennett. "Thus, the economic
success of the slaughterhouse (and the factory farm) is directly
linked to the sale of leather goods."
Another tactic for procuring animal skins is
hunting. Species such as zebras, bison, water buffaloes, boars, deer,
kangaroos, elephants, eels, sharks, dolphins, seals, walruses, frogs,
crocodiles, lizards, and snakes are murdered solely for their hides.
These animals are often endangered or illegally poached—and death
is rarely swift or painless. Alligators are clubbed with axes and
hammers and may suffer for hours. Reptiles are skinned alive to
achieve suppleness in the leather and may take days to die. Kid goats
are boiled alive.
A clever diversionary
tactic of leather makers is to label their products "biodegradable"
while pointing out that synthetic versions are usually
petroleum-based. However, says Sally Clinton in Vegetarian
Journal, the tanning process acts to
"stabilize the collagen or protein fibers so that they are no
longer biodegradable." In turn, the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of
Chemical Technology explains, "On the basis of quantity of
energy consumed per unit of product produced, the
leather-manufacturing industry would be categorized with the
aluminum, paper, steel, cement, and petroleum-manufacturing
industries as a gross consumer of energy." The primary reason
for this is that over 95 percent of U.S. leather is chrome tanned.
"All wastes containing chromium are considered hazardous by the
EPA," writes Clinton. The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention found that the incidence of leukemia among residents in an
area surrounding one tannery in Kentucky was five times the national
average. According to a study released by the New York State
Department of Health, more than half of all testicular cancer victims
work in tanneries.
***
Uncle Sam heads for his beloved SUV, trying
his best to not only find his cell phone but also to avoid stepping
on the thousands of dying frogs that litter his driveway.
***
The South American
tree frogs’ population is declining and biologists are blaming
global warming. These frogs, it seems,
have the very un-froglike habit of basking in the hot sun (most frogs
normally avoid prolonged exposure to light due to the risk of
overheating and dehydration). According to a research team at the
University of Manchester, “global warming is leading to more cloud
cover in the frogs' natural habitat. This, in turn, is denying them
the opportunity to 'sunbathe' and kill off fatal Chytrid fungal
infections, leading to many species dying out.”
Andrew Gray, Curator
of Herpetology at the Manchester Museum, says: "With a third of
the world's amphibians currently under threat it's vitally important
we do our utmost to investigate the reasons why they are dying out at
such an alarming rate.”
***
Uncle Sam starts up the engine and plugs in
his cell phone headset, ready for a drive’s worth of important,
essential, and utterly crucial business calls… but how can he hear
over the sorrowful primate calls echoing off the SUV’s interior?
***
Here’s how the United Nations describes
it: “Columbite-tantalite -- coltan for
short -- is a dull metallic ore found in major quantities in the
eastern areas of Congo. When refined, coltan becomes metallic
tantalum, a heat-resistant powder that can hold a high electrical
charge.” Tantalum from coltan is used in consumer electronics
products such as cell phones.
Why would the UN be involved in describing a
component of your cell phone? Well, coltan is mined in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, an African nation besieged by a brutal civil
war. The mining and sale of coltan is used by both sides in the
conflict to fund their military mayhem. In addition, the UN explains:
“In order to mine for coltan, rebels have overrun Congo's national
parks, clearing out large chunks of the area's lush forests. In
addition, the poverty and starvation caused by the war have driven
some miners and rebels to hunt the parks' endangered elephants and
gorillas for food.” Within the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
the number of eastern lowland gorillas has declined by 90 percent over the
past five years, and only 3,000 now remain.
***
Uncle Sam (on the phone): “Yeah, I’m on
my way. (pause) I’m fine. Just got a headache. So much damn
background noise lately. (pause) Ah, stop your worrying. It’s
all gonna be fine. What could possibly go wrong now that Obama is in
charge?”
(To be continued?)
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at
http://www.mickeyz.net.