"We have met the enemy and he is us" Pogo, Earth Day 1970

OK class, take your Sunday newspaper and turn to page 12A and read the headline; "Judge rules against oil drilling in Michigan forest". Let me start by pointing out that Congress, our body of lawmakers, presently has a national approval rating of 9%. This is one reason why. People are sick and tired and getting poorer partly due to federal judges legislating from the bench. Congress seems to not be interested in doing anything about that. 

We hear the word pristine used often as a reason why we can't drill here or there. Yet I've gone geocaching in seemingly pristine places only to find out that they were restored landfill sites. The things out of place were the occasional pipe sticking out of the ground for water testing. The Discover Channel recently did a special on earth without humans. If we were to vanish from the planet, our roads and buildings would crumble as nature grew in the cracks and crevices. Pollution would be cleaned up by micro-organisms.

Use your best whiny nasal voice here; "Well the big oil companies aren't drilling where they already have leases". Could it be because it isn't cost effective to go after it there, yet? In my travels, I've seen small oil rigs inactive one year and a year or two later they are pumping up and down. Cost effectiveness is why.

We need to get the whole mess going so that we can satisfy our present need for oil while at the same time work toward eliminating our need for it. Congress's approval rating will never get higher than 9% until they begin getting things orchestrated and stop worrying about re-election funding for their cushy jobs. Slapping down judges that are creating roadblocks to this progress would be a good step!

It is probably too late because the science experts called congressmen have already destined tungsten incandescent light bulbs to extinction in a few years.

To set the record straight, I have compact flourescent bulbs in my house.  I counted eleven. I also have several tube type flourescent fixtures.  All long before it became the "green" thing to do.  I did it because I like to save money and Wisconsin Focus on Energy had a big sale on them some years ago. That's market forces at work rather than dictation.

If you have been following the news, you'll know that compact flourescent bulbs have mercury in them. You may also know that there is a movement for dentists to collect the mercury in amalgams (tooth fillings) before they get into the sewage system and then the water systems. I never did understand how these fillings could be healthy.

I know a bit about mercury. Being in the heating business, we have used blobs of mercury in thermostats for decades. They are now obsolete but we collect old thermostats so the mercury can be salvaged. It probably ends up in our light bulbs now!

I also dabble in gold prospecting. Much of the mercury found in streams was from it being used to attach to gold dust and make it easier to "pan out".  This mercury coated gold would then be heated, the mercury turned to a vapor and the gas would go through a condenser coil and out would come clean fresh blobs of mercury. It was the vapor that was the real killer, but the liquid isn't much better.

So you can see, while we have made efforts to contain mercury from thermostats and tooth fillings, we've created a new way to reintroduce it into our landfills and work it's way into our groundwater. While these bulbs last a long time, I've had a couple fail way short of their touted five year life expectancy. We need to come up with a recycling plan for these bulbs now. Something voluntary would be nice, but I believe the best way is to charge a deposit, perhaps $1.00 each, so incentive to recycle them is made rather than disposing into the garbage.

Is this a bright idea or what?