How Hot Is It?

Thee temperatures in Abilene, Texas have been 100+ degrees for at least 40 days this summer. Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma are coping with their driest nine-month stretch since 1895

 

.The infamous European heat wave that killed more than 30,000 people during the summer of 2003 may be repeated soon.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)  recalculates climate “normals”  every ten year for 30-year averages of temperature and precipitation for about 7,500 locations across the United States had several weather-related disasters this year: sand storms, rought, floods and fires,

Take care of yourself and your family.  When in the sun,, protect with SPF clothing, shade cloth, hat and UV sunglasses, You may use SPF lotion, but you must repeat it every 30 minutes. As people ignore these precautions, expect to see the incidence of skin cancers increase.

Uranium Mining in Grand Canyon, Bad Air, Bad Water, Dead Animals

Just when you think the Earth might be safe. . .

The House is stuffing the Interior Appropriations bill with 40+ anti-environment amendments and policy riders. They are not finished. When the bill comes to the floor, many members of Congress will have a chance to add more.

Below are just four of the more outrageous amendments in the bill:

• Blocking EPA from regulating deadly pollution like mercury, smog, and soot from power plants and cement plants. The pollution that these facilities would then be allowed to spew could cause up to 27,800 premature deaths.
  
• Opening up lands immediately next to the Grand Canyon to uranium mining, despoiling one of the most iconic landscapes in the United States, and potentially contaminating its waters with radioactivity.
  
• Stripping Clean Water Act protections for the drinking water sources of 117 million Americans.
  
• Driving endangered plants and animals to extinction, by preventing federal agencies from listing any species as endangered or protecting their critical habitats.
  

These four provisions alone would represent a historic assault on the environment and on human health. There are many, many more contained in this bill.

Remember the words of Carl Sagan:

Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet. ~Carl Sagan~

Please take action at the Environmental Defense Fund website.  It only takes a minute. The breath you save may be your own or that of your children,

All Purpose Citrus Household Cleanser

All-Purpose Cleanser from Citrus Peels, Vinegar and Water

Vinegar and Water Cleanser

Using vinegar to clean is easy and it works. However, the aroma of vinegar leaves something to be desired. If you are cleaning calcium deposits out of the coffee maker, washing machine, dishwasher or bathtub, there is nothing better.  However, the scent of vinegar is not exactly aromatherapy. Below is an alternative to plain vinegar cleanser that leaves a clean citrus scent.

All-Purpose Citrus Household Cleanser

Combine the cleaning power of acetic and citric acids by making an all purpose household cleanser using orange/citrus peels and vinegar. It is easy to make, but the first batch takes several weeks to steep, so start your citrus peels soaking today.

How To Make Citrus Household Cleanser

Fill a container (I use glass) with citrus peels. Cover peels with vinegar and let steep for a month.  Shake container occasionally.  At month's end, strain the mixture. The remaining fluid is concentrated cleanser.  Mix two parts water with one part concentrate in a spray bottle and use it to clean floors, surfaces and windows.

Benefits

The natural, high-powered all-purpose cleanser you have made will leave your home smelling of citrus and not vinegar. The monetary cost is negligible, but the benefits to your household and the environment are tenfold.  Try this Earth-friendly cleanser today. 

President Obama, Members of the House and Senate

Below is an open letter to the politicians who should have put together a budget last October, when it was due. These are the same politicians that are pointing fingers at each other during prime time. This letter is too long and not grammatically correct for an editorial.  I wrote it when I was angry.  I think I will remain angry for awhile.

-Begin-

To The [decision makers}

I am a 58-year old woman who is fighting liver disease and cannot work. My husband is a disabled Viet Nam vet with 3 purple hearts (he was a medic).

With his social security, VA benefits (100% disabled) and a small annuity from the Post Office (out of which Medicare premium is automatically deducted), we manage to live a somewhat skewed version of the American Dream. What I mean is we are holding on with teeth and toenails to lower middle class status.

My husband and I have worked since our teens and were never given a choice about the social security deducted from our paychecks. Neither were our employers given any choice about paying for 1/2 of the social security tax..

If we do not get any money on the 1st or 3rd of next month, we will be living out of our 17 year old truck in a month or so. First, we will go through the IRAs that I managed to deposit as a single parent.. At the end of 3 months, I will be dead because I cannot afford the drugs to fight my disease without the VA insurance.

Do you know that there are WWII and Korean vets still living?  I see them at the VA Hospital in San Antonio. They are proud Americans and I hate to think that they will not be getting their medicines, groceries and rent money.  It is hard to be homeless in a non-motorized wheelchair. None of them are rich! They are old, ill and defenseless.

There are also tens of thousands of Viet Nam vets that had their health destroyed by being exposed to Agent Orange. They take medicine for diabetes, enlarged hearts, damaged livers and lungs.  These vets were betrayed when they came home to be called baby killers,to be spit upon and to be beaten. Throughout the years, some of the damage has been healed. I always cry when I see one Viet Nam vet say to another, "Welcome, home."  No one ever welcomed them home!. Many are homeless and some are mentally ill or addicted to substances.  They beg for a  living and wonder what happened to their life. It is a brutal picture, but it is the truth.

Now, what are you going to do?  Cut their Social Security and Medicare?  Will you take their VA disability as well?  How are they to survive?

What about Supplement Social Security, the last safety net for people with mental and physical handicaps too severe to allow them to work in a regular job?

One more person, I wish to discuss.  My husband's mother is 89 years old.  She is bedridden and is cared for at home by the family because there is not money for frivolous expenditures, like physical therapy, rehabilitation or nursing home.  When the check does not come on the 3rd, this 89- year old women will not understand.  Her family will try to explain it to her. At least I will try.  To tell you the truth, I do not understand.

The Social Security fund was never to have been part of the Federal Budget. Due to moves, which probably were illegal, the surplus has been robbed from the fund. Even so, the fund can continue, as it does today, until 2038. Then benefits will be reduced to 75%.of their benefit level.

If mass extinction of the old, ill and defenseless is the answer to this budget crunch--to all the money wasted on oil and gas subsidies, corporate loopholes, wars and foreign aid, there are more humane ways to eliminate us. I would prefer a head shot without warning.

-End-

AARP is not standing still on this one.  Please visit their site to take action. Take action before they take away everything for which we have worked our entire lives.

While you are visiting AARP, try to Balance the Deficit,.  This is not rocket science. The first time I tried it I took ten minutes, the second time, I only took five. Politicians take note!

September 14 : Reality Check Around the World

The glaciers are melting, the sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is disappearing, temperatures are soaring this summer, torrential rains drowned major cities in half of the USA this spring, while wildfires burned huge swaths of land, homes, forest in the southwest.

Of course, with the "science" of Big Oil, Gas and Coal, no one believes what they are seeing. It must be a vast liberal plot to undermine national security or some such drivel. I do not care if you do not like Al Gore--just listen to what he says, view the photographs and check the data. This is real science--reality. Get yours on September 14.

Win Prizes in Scuba Scavenger Hunt

The Dive Against Debris is an excellent way to help a conservation organization (Project AWARE) while cleaning up your favorite dive spots. And, you can win some really nice prizes, like scuba gear or digital underwater camera,

The marine debris you collect will be entered into a database that will be used to inform, persuade and empower policy makers to establish integrated solid waste management practices. Practices where we reduce, reuse, and recycle our way to an ocean free of marine debris!




Your entries in the Dive Against Debris database will count towards your Scavenger Hunt total.

• The winner, the diver logging the most marine debris by August 1, 2011 wins the ultimate Scubapro Diver Duffle Bag packed with fins, mask, snorkel, boots and gloves from Scubapro's new SUB GEAR range valued at $420 plus Project AWARE goodie bag.

• Second place scavenger will win the latest IC14 Intova Digital Camera with Waterproof housing plus Project AWARE goodie bag.
  
  
• Third place scavenger hunters will receive a Project AWARE goodie bag including a mask strap, BCD clip, polo shirt and more.

So scuba and enjoy the waters while picking up debris that will both improve the marine environment and could win you new scuba gear from Scubapro!

July 4, 2011 : Winds Blow on Free Men

The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men.  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt~

20 Myths about Air Pollution

The Health Crazies at MPG blog have written post about 20 myths about air pollution. The post is articulate, concise and readable. The myths cover decreasing air pollution and increasing air pollution.

If you want the scoop about air pollution, please visit 20 myths about air pollution. Tell them CyberCelt sent you.

Below are some facts about air pollution I wrote in  April 2011.

Clean Air Act by the Numbers

92% = Drop in airborne lead levels since 1980. The Clean Air Act called for an end to use of lead — an acute neurotoxin that lowers IQ in children and shortens lives — as a gasoline additive. (source)

60 = Number of U.S. metro areas that, without the Clean Air Act, would have higher total suspended particulate concentrations than present-day Moscow. Particulate pollution causes lung cancer, asthma, cardiovascular issues, and premature death. (source)

295 million = Skin-cancer cases averted by 2075, courtesy of the Clean Air Act program eliminating use of ozone-depleting CFCs. (source)

$42 = Quantifiable benefits generated by each dollar invested in Clean Air Act programs during the law’s first 20 years — that’s $523 billion in, $22 trillion out. (source)

30:1 = Benefits-to-cost ratio EPA expects from Clean Air Act programs, 1990–2020. (source PDF)

5% = Amount of tailpipe pollution produced by a typical late-model car, compared with older models. Clean Air Act programs spurred automakers to develop and deploy catalytic converters, computerized emissions-control systems, and other innovative technologies. (source)

13,000 = Lives still cut short each year by pollution from coal-fired power generation. The nation’s coal-burning power plants are the leading source of toxic mercury emissions, and half of them still lack scrubbers and other basic pollution control technologies. (source 1, source 2)

$100 billion = Annual cost of continuing adverse health impacts — deaths, hospitalizations, heart attacks, acute asthma attacks, lost work days — from dirty coal. (source)

2.5 million = Days of missed work or school averted by tightening the “smog rule,” which establishes allowable levels of ground level ozone, from 0.075 ppm to 0.060 ppm.

1.85 billion = Barrels of oil saved over the lifetime of model-year 2012–2016 cars and light-duty trucks, under landmark greenhouse gas standards issued by EPA in April 2010.

960 million = Tons of greenhouse gases conserved by these tailpipe standards, which stem from the Supreme Court's 2007 ruling that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases do meet the Clean Air Act definition of an air pollutant, and EPA's subsequent finding that greenhouse gases do indeed "endanger both the public health and the public welfare of current and future generations."

93% = Percentage of Congressional lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans both — voting Yes on 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, subsequently signed into law by President George H. W. Bush. It remains to be seen if, in today’s polarized political climate, this bipartisan tradition can be preserved or will crumble at the expense of all Americans.

via Environmental Defense Action Fund

Tags: dirty air act, take action, stop cutting EPA's powers, science by congress, global warming, health hazards