Addiction to Oil and Solutions

It is no secret that America is addicted to oil, we are crack fiends for oil. America uses one third of the worlds cars, and one quarter of the worlds energy produced. America has gone to war over oil. After 9/11 the Bush administration declared war on Afghanistan and Iraq without the permission of Congress. Bush claimed that they were going to find Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), but that turned out to be a deliberate lie created by the Bush administration ands its bureaucrats. They claimed that they would disarm Saddam Hussein and prevent him from further killing people, but we learned that we were responsible for arming him in the first place. Even after his capture and the fall of Iraq, and the longest war in America’s history, our troops still remain in the Middle East. The real agenda was later revealed, and if was already well known, but the real agenda of the war was to gain control of the oil. The Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia, has 25% of the world’s oil fields.

After years of searching for WMD, nothing even close was discovered. When the support of Bush’s plans declined over the years, more and more people demanded that we bring our troops home. But will that ever be accomplished. I hope so, but as long as we are addicted to oil, I think that will not happen. Right now, we have built three of the world’s largest military bases in Iraq and a U.S. Embassy in the heart of Baghdad that is larger than Vatican City –that’s not a temporary deal.

Sweden is nearly entirely petroleum free, it plans to be in 2020 - that's mind-blowing. Germany, England, Denmark, and many other countries are working tirelessly to only use renewable energy and rely less and less on foreign oil.

We continue to drill offshore, which is a large waste of money and manpower. It also is very dangerous and risks a huge spill. As seen several times since the 1970’s oil spills are frequent and response to them is slow. These spills cause much damage to the environment. America goes as far as trying to drill oil beneath the polar ice cap. This is a problem since ice floats and moves. So you cannot expect to build a station on Tuesday and expect it to be in the same place on Thursday, that is why a lot of conservative think tanks and oil companies are cheering the melting of the polar ice cap and spreading the lies and misinformation that global warming is a hoax.

Even on land, producing oil is dangerous. I can go on and on about cancer allies, but lets take a look at incidents like Katrina. Millions of crude oil spilled into the city, costing the tax-payer millions of dollars too clean it up, but the company who produces the oil did not pay a single dime in the clean up. This is why I strongly promote green taxes, or ecotaxes, because these taxes drive companies to push to produce less pollution.

America needs to find an alternative to oil fast. We must provided greener jobs. The problem is that oil plays a large role in everything. Oil is in our cars, paints, tires, toothbrushes, etc.

Continuing of using cars demands more oil. America can still make a change. We can drive less, carpool, and use public transportation. The cut back on cars is very beneficial, it helps the environment, economy, and it battles global warming.

Can we use electric and hybrid cars? Remembering that there are seven gallons of oil in every tire and oil in the paint, these cars are not completely free of oil. However, cars can be manufactured from recycled material and the oil can be replaced by other forms of biofuel, such as algae, used cooking oil, and hemp. The materials that make the car can bee made from oils like algae instead of crude oil.

However, oil is in nearly everything so we can do more than focus on saving fuel for our cars. What about plastic? Petroleum is used to make plastic, and we make 200 million plastic bags every day. Sadly, less than 1% of that is recycled. The rest is out floating in the ocean or siting in a landfill not degrading. Several food markets are no selling reusable bags, or charging customers per plastic bag to encourage them to bring their own bags. Paper bags are not a better option, bearing in mind that millions of acres of trees are cut down every day to make such bags. So the only option is to use reusable bags, or plastic bags not made with petroleum that are biodegradable. Perf Go Green was developed in response to this.

Will we ever run out of oil? Many scientists, geographers, lawyers, economists, etc. think we might and soon, perhaps they are right. They have proposed a theory based on science and mathematics called Peak-Oil. That is, in a shape of a bell curve, when oil production has reached its zenith, oil productivity will permanently begin to decline. Even former CEO of Chevron, the largest oil company, even came out and said that oil is becoming harder and harder to find. Lets say that oil does run out, what will happen? Thankfully we have seen what happens when a country that is dependent on oil loses it all. When communist Russia collapsed, the two countries that were affected were North Korea and Cuba. Each was dependent on Soviet oil. Korea suffered dearly, cars did not run, planes didn’t fly, mail was not delivered, food was not transported, etc. Cuba however did not suffer. The Cuban government told all their citizens to plant and grows their own food. If anyone found a patch of land that was unattended, the person would be responsible to farm it. Cuba was growing food everywhere, in their backyards, on streets, on their roofs, even in flower pots. Everything was organic and local, and Cuba was eating healthier then they ever have. They were free from industrial agriculture. Cuba thrived. That is what we will most likely encounter when oil supply becomes low and prices sky rocket. Everything will be local and communities will work together. However, lets say Peak-Oil was inaccurate, does it make a difference? Just because oil may never run out does not mean it should remain the source of our energy.

Do I think Peak-Oil is true? Science magazine, documentaries, and top oil companies are saying it is true. Even oil banker Matthew Simmons agrees with peak oil and has testified before Congress. Saudi Arabia is home to the largest oil reserve in the world. It provides 25% of the world's oil. However, why are they moving and investing into off-shore drilling? Off-shore drilling demands massive amounts of labor and money, you would rather go to the moon. If the Saudis are moving to off-shore drilling, doesn't that seem as if they are aware that their oil is running out? Of curse, the Saudis don't dare announce they are past their peak-oil, otherwise there would be a revolution, and if a revolution takes place in the country that provides the world with 25% of it's oil, then we are screwed. And given the recent events, the revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, it seems very likely revolution will hit Saudi Arabia. Once America cannot get it's oil, we will ave no choice but to find an alternative energy source.

Do alternatives to petroleum oil exist? Absolutely! They do exist, and they have for a long time. We are expanding their efficiency and technology, we continue to search for multiple new alternatives. Many alternative sources of energy for cars have been presented (water, hydrogen, ethanol, etc.) but I think the three that stands out the most is algae, coking oil and hempoil.

Algae is exactly that which became the oil we suck out of the planet. But we do not plan to wait 15 million years for algae to turn into oil, since we can turn it into sustainable and effective oil in about 3-10 days! What they do is grow and collect energy and convert it into oil. A petri dish of algae cells can turn into liters of oil in a matter of days. These cells have double and reproduce overtime to create a full tank of fuel in about 10 days. The oil from algae can be used for biofuel, plastics, ammonia, and virtually everything we use petroleum for. Where and how do you grow and collect algae. Algae can grow in all types of water: fresh, salt, ocean, dirty, etc. Building algae farms adjacent to factories is a great start, since carbon-dioxide is algae food and natural gas and carbon factories provide plenty of that (in fact, they account for about 50% of the green house gases). We can build algae farms adjacent to the factories and we do not have to modify them in anyway. Collecting algae from 1700 power plant algae farms can produce enough oil equal to 25% of the nations fuel demand. Biofeul must come from waste. A company known as PetroSun is currently working to build ponds next to waste facilities. The waste put in these ponds is food for algae, where it can be collected and turned into oil. Do you know how much money the city pays just to get rid of that stuff? Norway already has a system that converts its waste into energy, why don't we? It has been estimated that 10 years of fuel from waste to algae farms can equal all of Alaska's oil.

Algae oil has many other benefits, including nutrition, fertilizer, and can even be a very useful anti-pollution tool. How much land is required too harvest enough algae oil to sustain us? It has been estimated that 10 million acres of land would need to be used for biodiesel cultivation in the US in order to produce biodiesel to replace all the petrodiesel used currently in that country. This is just 1% of the total land used today for farming and grazing together in the US (about 1 billion acres). This site shows the math that can be done with just investing in algae oil in a 250 acre area. To get America off foreign oil, Michael Briggs concluded that 140,800,000,000 (140.8 billion) gallons of biodiesel could replace 100% of the petroleum transportation fuels consumed in the United States annually, without requiring a big change in driving behavior or automotive technology. The math divides that by 10 million acres to 250. Each 250 acre area must produce at least 15,000 gallons every year, which is not that much since this CNN report of Glen Kertz, president and CEO of Valcent Products, " Kertz said he can produce about 100,000 gallons of algae oil a year per acre, compared to about 30 gallons per acre from corn; 50 gallons from soybeans." So producing enough algae oil to meet all ends for foreign and domestic oil does not take a lot of room or effort, but it does require a lot of support and political and financial backing. Not only does it take less land to make sustainable fuel, it requires a lot less water. how much? 350 gallons of water per gallon of oil -- or a quarter of what the country currently uses for irrigated agriculture -- would be needed to produce that much algal biofuel (further explained here). So algae seems to hold a lot of potential, so I would highly recommend investing in algae oil.

In a future blog, I will discuss America's food problem. But just briefly, fast food restaurants can be found in every city in every state. Restaurants use cooking oil to make food, but what do with it afterwards? They toss it. Several projects are being initiated in several cities, like New York, to have trucks go around town collected these wastes and turning it into biofuel. To make biofuel, all you need is the 90% of cooking oil (grease), 9.9% alcohol, and 0.1% lyre and presto you have biofuel. Can you imagine if every restaurant in every town was mandated to rather just tossing their used oil to donate it to a company that would convert it into biofuel? Massive massive amounts of extra fuel for transportation, prices go down, and we have saved lots of waste into something beneficial.

What about hemp? Hemp is a very very useful resource of man. You can use it to make food, clothing, houses, and biofuel. But why is hemp illegal? It should never have been illegal in the first place. The main reason why people do not see hemp in a bright light is due to the false presumption that the hemp plant is the same as marijuana. Since the war on drugs, marijuana had been criminalized, which I will address later on, but alongside marijuana people feared hemp as well. The top paper and oil industries ran smear campaigns against industrial hemp, and they won but they did not do so fairly.

What we are currently doing is collecting biofuels from timber, which leads to deforestation. In response, we have developed these trees called megafloras, which are trees that can mature in three years, be cut down and a new tree can grow from the stump. Clever way to grow trees and prevent deforestation, while absorbing carbon dioxide and producing biofuels. Megafloras also absorb the heavy metals from the land, like selenium and borone, put in there by man. Due to modern agriculture, spraying fertilizers and other chemicals into the land, we have turned the soil into a junkie, so megafloras can be very beneficial. The leading company of this project in Emerald Energy. Megafloras can clean the land, and it has been calculated that 10 years of fuel from California's megaflora trees can equal all drilling of oil in Alaska. However, when considering the growth rate of hemp, which is a few weeks compared to megaflora's three years, hemp is a clear winner. Growing hemp can also prevent deforestation. Hemp does not require pesticides.

Hemp can be used for food. After the oil is collected from the seeds, the seeds can still be used to make food, so hemp can produce biofuels and combat global hunger. Hemp can also be used for cloths and fabrics.

The bottom line is America needs to end its addiction to oil and renewable energy is the solution. Biofuels is not the whole solution, and I will discus multiple possible solutions in future blogs. Renewable energy collected by solar and wind is a must. Wind is cheap (3 cents per kWh), which is much cheaper than coal, natural gas and nuclear (all over 5 cents per kWh). Solar power is a no-brainer. If every house had a solar panel, then every house will be an entrepreneur and American will become richer and produce their own power. Solar panels put the power from big corporations into the hands of the common man. Isn't that part of the American dream?

Americans need to change their habits. It starts off with the individual. Change your light bulbs to florescent, get replace your old appliances with new ones that use less energy, get a green car, carpool, or even don't use a car and use public transportation or bike. Call your legislator, senators, and mayors. Change your politicians, especially with those who have a green vision and ambition for America and who are not bought buy big oil corporations.

Big Issues Regarding Health and Food

I would like to see America become healthy. I know I said I would address things that matter, but I am not some bloke who thinks all Americans need to get fit and thin. There is more to it. The second leading cause of death in this country, right behind tobacco smoking, is poor diet/health. Americans have an obesity problem, even in children. More people have diabetes, which is more and more effecting kids. In fact, 1 out of 3 children in minorities will have a great chance of getting diabetes. Even I come from a family with a history of diabetes. People need to make a change in their lives and watch the way we eat.

America is driven by the deep desire to buy everything cheap. This has driven companies to produce massive amounts of food, much larger in less time. They no longer see cattle and animals as they are, so they pump them full o enzymes to make them grow, shelter them in terrible conditions, feed them crap, etc. As long as the American people continue to eat the way they current do, things will not improve one bit. In 2005, a study showed that in order to preserve our forests, we spent a total of $8 billion, while in the same year we spent $22 billion on sack food and potato chips. See a problem here?

You can make a difference. It does not take that much of an effort to make an alternative diet. A simple and easy step is to eat less meat. I'm not at talking about eating no meat at all, just reduce the amount you have. There are thousands of there meals to have with less meat, such as pasta. Many people don’t realize that a single person can make a difference.

Schools should feed their students the right food. Schools are the center of education for the next generations and the future. Today, what kids know as far as food in school is what they serve in the cafeteria, buy from vending machines, and/or go to a local store, restaurant, or fast food store.

A change in diet has not just a positive effect on our health, but also the environment and economy. For example, shark fin soup costs the lives of thousands of sharks, just for their fins. There exists alternative to shark fin, even vegetarian.

If you compare countries like America who loves eating meat to those who eat less meat such as South Asia, the countries who eat less meat have much less heart attacks.

Much of our cattle are settled in CAFOs. These are mainly located in desert like areas. These animals eat grass, but grass does not grow there. How do you feed these animals? Nowadays we are training the cows to eat corn, something that these animals are not built to eat and often make them very sick. These corns are genetically modified to grow fast. How much corn do we give these animals? 12 pounds of corn can produce 57 bowls of cornflakes, or 20 loafs of bread. How much meat does 12 pounds of corn produce? Just 1 lb. of meat (which is just one patty of meat). If you were stuck on an island and all you had was 12 ponds of corn, which option would you use? Grow your food or give it to a cow? I think the answer is obvious. What we must understand is that the earth does not have an infinite amount of resources. This is the problem of the entire world’s economic systems, is that they are built on the belief that resources are infinite. What happens when a society runs out of resources, look at what happened at Easter Island.

Can we grow grass in the area to feed the cows? Well you need water for that. Most cattle used for beef are raised in the western America, an area that is mostly dry. The crops they are fed are grown in the west where rainfall is scare and water is a precious resource. How do you get water into the desert, well you transport it there. This takes energy and vast amounts of water to irrigate the crops. Most people are not aware how much water is used to irrigate cattle feed. Los Angeles is known to use up a lot of water -12 million people surrounded by lawns and swimming pools in a semi desert. But irrigating pastier crops in Alfalfa uses more water than all the people in Los Angeles combined, in fact, more than all the cities in California combined. It has been estimated for ever 1,000 lbs. of meat coming from the slaughterhouse has consumed enough fresh water to float a US Naval Destroyer. To grow a pound of apples in California requires 49 gallons of water. To grow a pound of potatoes requires 24 gallons of water. But to grow one pound of beef in California requires 5000 gallons of water.

Where does this water come from? What many people do not know is there is a vast amount of pure fresh water in the heart of America. It is as big as the Louisiana Purchase beneath America, a gift from the ice age, and contains as much water as the Great Lakes. The high plain states depend on this water. The bad news is that we are pumping it all up so rapidly that environmentalists say that it may be bone dry in about 30 years. The vast majority of this water is being sent to irrigate crops to feed cattle. Since the drought of 1988 it is clear how precious water is to us. Our rivers and aquifers are at a very low rate, and the top activity we do as a society that drains water from our rivers and aquifers goes to cattle. Water is the life and blood of not just the west but this whole country. The only way we can save this water for ourselves is to eat less meat and put that water to grow crops that we are going to eat ourselves.

Think about the extra stages of production that are required to get dead chickens, pigs, or other animals from the farm to the table:

1. Grow more than 10 times as much corn, grain, and soy as would be required if we ate the plants directly. How do you get those plants? First you drive an oil-powered machine to plow the land. Then you have another oil-powered machine that drives along and it plants the seeds. Then you have to irrigate the plants, but how do you irrigate them? You pump the water through pipelines, and that pump is powered by electricity well where does that electricity come from? In the U.S. It comes from either coal or natural gas. The next thing you have to do it fertilize it -ALL commercial fertilizer is made from ammonia, and the feedstock for ammonia is natural gas. So you have these ammonia fertilizer sprayed on the plants, driven by another oil-powered vehicle, and then the crop dusters come along that are powered by oil. The pesticides are all made from petroleum. When it's time to harvest, you drive another oil-powered machine and finally you harvest it.

*Note the chemicals (nitrates from fertilizer and manure) from agriculture find their way into our lakes, rivers, and water system, killing thousands of animals and threaten human life. If a pregnant woman drinks this water, researches say that her fetus has a large chance of having birth defects. Corn is the major crops that uses the largest amount of insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizer in the nation.

2. Transport -- in gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing 18-wheelers -- all that grain and soy to feed manufacturers.

3. Operate the feed mill (again, using massive amounts of resources).

4. Truck the feed to the factory farms, again by gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing 18-wheelers.

5. Operate the factory farms.

6. Truck the animals many miles to slaughterhouses using (you guessed it) pollution-spewing trucks that run on oil.

7. Operate the slaughterhouses - which have a LOT of problems that will be discussed in another article.

8. Truck the meat to processing plants, again with oil-powered trucks.

9. Operate the meat processing plants.

10. Truck the meat to grocery stores (in refrigerated trucks, but still run on oil).

11. Keep the meat in refrigerators or freezers at the stores.

12. Customers have to drive their oil-powered cars to whatever distance, pick up the meat, and then drive it back home. Usually, they carry their groceries in plastic bags, which is made from oil.

No matter where meat comes from, raising animals for food will require that exponentially more calories be fed to animals than they can produce in their flesh, and it will require all those extra stages of CO2-intensive production as well. Only grass-fed cows eat food from land that could not otherwise be used to grow food for human beings, and even grass-fed cows require much more water and create much more pollution than vegan foods do.

If we eat less meat, less land will be needed to house cattle or keep clear for crops. Those croplands could be reforested to the tens of thousands of acres which could help from lumber for houses, more oxygen and less carbon dioxide (effective against global warming), stabilizes the top soil, purifies the water, provides a home for the wild life, attracts tourists, and more. Land with a forest is more valuable than a clear land with a cow on it. It would also mean we would have less chemicals being poured into the environment. We would have less heart attacks, less strokes, less cancer and less fear of cancer, less diabetes, we would be fitter, healthier, and more happy people.

Did you know that according to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations), as much as 70% of the food produced worldwide is lost through spoilage, inefficient processing and preparation, and plate waste. Nationwide, U.S. households throw away food worth as much as $43 BILLION a year - almost twice the $24 billion a year needed to eliminate global hunger and malnutrition. Seriously, we can all live a better, healthier, easier life if all we do is care!

1. The earth will only allow a certain number of top carnivores.

2. We can’t escape the Second Law of Thermodynamics and ecological efficiency no matter what other rationalizations you pit against it. As one student wrote in the TD: "It doesn't really matter how different the statistics are… even the best case scenario is horrific”.

3. Comparing resource use of grass-fed versus grain-fed: Although there’s a case for grass-fed being a better option is some ways, there’s still one extra trophic level - they’re both wasteful practices according to the second Law. Anyway, there’s not enough grazing land to support ALL the cattle being raised at this moment, and grazing cattle cause a tremendous amount of loss of biodiversity in the ecosystems in which they are grazing (and degrading).

4. Animal agriculture is swallowing up the world’s NPP.

5. The rules have changed since we were a just several million people on the planet! We can’t use the excuse that “mankind has always done …this or that”. There are simply not enough resources to support our present logarithmic population growth, certainly not in the way we’re currently managing things. Once we overshoot our own carrying capacity, natural processes will limit the number of unsustainable practices we engage in, whether we’re prepared to do so or not.

6. Some of us are using more than our fair share of resources; others must do with less or go without.

7. Presently, only the privileged have the luxury of eating meat at the rate they do. (In an affluent society, a person may not be considered “rich”, but may nevertheless be privileged.) The affluent require an extremely high amount of energy, resources and land to maintain their diet, and contribute to more waste and pollution.

8. Poor countries export grain to make money, while their own people are starving from not having enough to eat. Land which could feed them is instead used to grow cattle feed which is shipped to affluent countries.

9. Nutrient cycles are overtaxed and disrupted due to excess nitrogen waste (especially from concentrated feedlot manure), increased phosphorous waste, and increased carbon dioxide production inherent in the way agribusiness grows crops for animal feed.

10. Cattle produce the greenhouse gas, methane, contributing to the enhanced greenhouse effect (climate change).

11. The world is losing fertile land – forests and grasslands are being destroyed for growing animal feed and for grazing; deserts are degraded by overgrazing. Anywhere cattle are grazed, we see severe reduction in biodiversity of both plants and animals. Marine and freshwater habitats are being degraded by stockyard runoff. Species in competition with livestock are destroyed as well, including keystone species such as wolves and prairie dogs.

12. Using our land sustainably means reducing our resource use, waste, and pollution. That unequivocally means reducing and replacing the harmful practices of animal agriculture with more sustainable ones, repairing our soils, growing crops sustainably to feed humans, and removing greed and profit from the food distribution equation. This will result in a decrease in the inequality in standard of living for a global population. These things will not happen unless the demand for high throughput meat goes down.

13. One of the reasons for this discussion was to help you recognize high-throughput when you see it, and avoid it.

14. Human health – Studies have shown that diets high in red meat lead to a higher mortality rate. Diets high in meat can cause diseases attributed to overnutrition, such as obesity and heart disease.

15. Processing and Transportation costs - pollution plus use of oil, plus all the energy and land it takes to grow animals, cut them up, dispose of their carcasses, perhaps cook and otherwise process, package and ship, store (refrigeration), and finally, more waste – as is the case in the US, much (lowest estimate is over 40%) is not eaten and must be trashed!

16. Carrying capacity, Hunger and Poverty - Meat consumption creates significant increase in one’s ecological footprint. You can feed more people if we all ate lower on the trophic levels. If we reduce meat demand, we enable more people to live well on this planet. Some people don’t do their part to reduce their “food footprint” based on the excuse that there’s plenty of food and the problems lie with distribution and politics. Does this argument distract you from doing your part? Does that mean we ignore the waste/inefficiency/degradation/pollution issue just because charities can’t keep up with the hunger problem, or because governments aren’t properly regulating corporate practices? If we reduce demand, we reduce the numbers of acres dedicated to wasteful animal agriculture, we reduce the amount of pollution we create, we increase the amount of available, fertile farmland, we increase the amount of water, food and energy available to other creatures on this planet, and we shame politicians into following suit.

17. We reduce our dependence on oil, a nonrenewable resource.

18. Other factors - business, government, special interests, greed, profits, affluenza, selfishness, status quo mentality

19. Reducing our own personal meat consumption is a simple, inexpensive action that requires no new laws, and has the most immediate realization of benefits: to humans (health), plants, animals, grasslands, deserts, rainforests, wetlands, oceans and fresh water, air, and soil, with less pollution, less waste of water, petroleum, and energy, less soil erosion, less greenhouse gases, less habitat loss, and (of course) increased ecological efficiency for the whole planet.

AND THAT’S JUST ONE THING YOU RESEARCHED, ONE THING YOU CAN DO, WHICH CAN MAKE A HUGE IMPACT. WE’VE BEEN UNSUSTAINABLE IN OUR AGRICULTURAL METHODS, AND WE NEED TO TURN IT AROUND.

HOW?

DON’T SUPPORT HARMFUL PRACTICES.

SUPPORT ONLY SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES AND PRODUCTS!

Once we discover the evidence, what can “little” citizens do against “big” profit-centered corporations and do-nothing government agencies? How can we help empower the masses to throw off their veil of misinformation and break out of the deep rut of status quo?

We do have power because businesses need us to make their profits. Quit encouraging profits for those who are damaging our planet, our health, and our prosperity: Vote with your pocketbook! Refuse to buy unsustainable products and services, and changes WILL miraculously occur!

Intro

As Gandhi once said, "When the people lead, the leaders will follow."

Thanks to the internet, it has given the common man a turn at the big microphone. Since this being my first blog where I just write along as I go, I do no not expect it to be a masterpiece, nor do I really expect to get any readers and if I do get readers I do not expect much. So what exactly am I doing here? Ever since I started this blog, I wanted nothing more than to write down what I constantly had on my mind; just let it all out and write it down, and share with as many people as I can. I do not expect much attention, and I am fully aware other great people out there are promoting exactly what I plan to write about, but I feel as if the messages are not being heard enough. All I hear today is concerns about little things like getting a new phone, sports, celebrities, new video games on the market, etc. If the message is being heard, then I must stress he importance and hope that people will take action. Why don't I hear people going around talking about things that really matter, like trying to find an alternative fuel instead of oil or doing everything in their power to end poverty.

I know there are other great resources out there then my blog on these issues, however if my blogs reach one person unaware or unconcerned of these problems, then that is all I need.

Why do I have the urge to even bother writing this stuff? I feel that my own purpose is to help my world. I have little interest in myself, just a average cozy place to live and a very simple lifestyle. I demand little for myself. I never ever get hyped over little things everybody makes a big deal out of (like shoes. My non-fancy simple shoes have small holes in them, but I wear them for years without care or desire to run to the market to buy a new pair. Anyone who buys shoes over $300, I think they need a swift visit from Chuck Norris's boot up their ass). So why do I care about others? Every humans and animal on earth shares a connection. We are genetically linked and share the same home. Whenever I know that someone else is suffering, I feel that my family is suffering. It is a heavy burden to rest the world on your shoulders, but I know I cannot help everyone. It is an impossible task. But as history has shown is that one man can make a difference, no matter how significant. But one person cannot fulfill all their goals. If we are to survive, we must work together. If one person takes action, a small circle of friends and like minded people will soon follow, then the circle grows then their friends and co-workers join, and so on and so on until revolutions start.

Let me share two of my favorite quotes. The first one is from one of my favorite films of all time: “There are two kinds of people in this world when you boil it all down; you have your talkers and you have your doers. Most people are just talk, all they have is talk. But when all is said and done, it’s the doers who change this world. And when they do that, they change us. And that is why we never forget them. So which you are you? Do you just talk about it, or do you stand up and do something about? Because, believe you me, all the rest of it is just coffee-house bullshit.”
That is what I dream of becoming, that is what I work for, which leads me to my next quote: “If you do not do anything, then you're worth nothing.” So besides from typing on the internet, I contribute portions of my day to do what I can to help. My new job, the California League of Conservation Voters, allows me to deal with some of the big issues, from political and environmental. I join certain clubs at my university to work on fund raising. Other times, I go out in public and protest when other people on a variety of things I feel are important.

My blogs will cover a wide variety of topics, some will be linked or intertwine. Of course, I cannot fit all that needs to be said into one blog, so many will have follow-ups.

Some of the Topics I will discuss
Oil, The War in the Middle East, Peak-oil
The War on Drugs, Prohibition
Global Warming, climate change
Environmental Causes, both political and cultural
Religion in general and the Secular Movement, Church and State Separation
Equal Rights
Food, health and environmental consequences
Education and a higher acceptance of science over pseudoscience and quack medicine

And several other things. I must point out, just because I did not list several huge problems (like global hunger, poverty, terrorism, racism, and AIDs) does not mean I will not mention them in my blogs or that I do not think they are worthy of our attention. No, all these things are VERY important. Very important, and we must deal with them as soon as we can. While at the same time, we must not lose focus on many other huge issues.

I care a lot about the planet and my fellow mammals. Really, I would love nothing more that to minimize the suffering of my fellow man and the animals we share this planet with. Let me ask you a question, and please pick the response that best fits you.

“How do I react or respond to discovering that I’m contributing to negative impacts on the planet?”
1. Believe whatever I want to believe, regardless of the data.
2. Don’t know what to believe. Shrug. Do nothing.
3. Become hopeless and depressed. Do nothing.
4. Make excuses: Too expensive, too inconvenient, doesn’t matter.
5. Don’t care. Keep wasting and polluting.
6. Become defensive, rationalize actions.
7. Become enraged with others. Become an eco-terrorist.
8. Make a little sacrifice to ease the guilt.
OR:
“I’ll do my best to educate myself so I can make the best choices with the information I have. Acting selflessly as much as possible, simplifying my life, acting not only to satisfy my desires, but for the welfare of the whole, I’ll offer whatever form of charity (money, resources, and/or services) I am able. And I’m making changes right away.”

I hope your answer was the same as the last one, like mine. If not, then I'm not sure if you will find much interest in further reading my blogs, although I recommend you stay and become educated. You are still welcome to read and comment.

Meeting Two Evangelical Canadians

About two weeks ago at my university, I was approached by two young girls from Canada; Crystal and Carolynn, but turned out they were not interested in me but rather my "soul." They sat down and wanted to ask me a series of questions from their gospel tract, but I think I broke their chain of thought with my response to Question 1. Like usual, the first question is "Do you believe in God?" When I said no, something told me that I threw them off their normal routine. That is a total guess based on their reaction, but we went on to discuss several things that I have seen many times when a theist meets an atheist. We discussed why I am not a theist, religion in general, where do morals come from, and I touched a bit on history.

I learned that they were bible literalists and believed in absolutes. They believe that God made us in his image and made this planet, but they were quite on the age of the earth and I speculate that they do not accept biological evolution (I already said I did). But they were more interested in the Bible, and we engaged in a really good talk. Unfortunately we did not have a lot of time, so I suggested we stay in contact. Recently, we agreed I would start this blog so we all can stay in touch.

Dear Crystal and Carolynn, thank you for the talk and I am glad I got a chance to meet you two. I hope you are both doing well.

So far, we covered a bit on the Bible and morality, so I guess I will try to write my thoughts on them in this blog. I noted to you that I study in history and thus discussed history a lot. I mentioned that history played a role in disbelief in the book I was raised to believe as the literal truth, so I will include a bit of this in this blog as well. So I will break this blog in three sections, but I want to be clear: I am not limiting this discussion to just these topics. Please feel free to include and discuss whatever you wish, all I ask is that whenever a topic is brought up if we both can stay on topic.

Also, regarding Brian Miller, I looked him up and noted he is a physicist currently teaching a 14-week course at some evangelical campus. From what I have gathered he promotes pseudoscience (especially in fields he is not trained in), but he is obviously not a historian or scholar, rather he is a HORRIBLE historian. After a bit of digging, I found his saying that modern science was birthed from Christianity. I SWEAR I NEARLY FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR - I will address this later on. I will begin with explaining my position on atheism.

Atheism

I am an atheist, and like most atheists I am an atheist-agnostic. That is, I do not believe there are any gods and I will remain so until valid evidence is brought forth. When that happen, I will change my views accordingly. If you can prove to me today that atomic theory is wrong or the Flying Spaghetti Monster is real, I will have to accept it.

I will make it clear, atheism does not mean "belief in no God." This cannot be the right definition because this would also include polytheists who do not believe in one supreme God. Properly, the "A" in Atheism is Greek that means "without" whereas theism means "belief in God." So atheism is defined as "a lack of belief in God." The label atheist tells people what I am not, it does not tell you what I am. If you wish to learn more about an atheist, just ask more questions. They will be glad to share I am sure.

When it comes to the Abrahamic God, the theists are the ones who believe he does exist. The ones asserting a positive belief are the ones responsible for providing evidence for their claims. If you wish to change my mind, you would have to provide empirical proof that is distinguishable from any other god.

When I was young, the first book I ever picked up was the Bible, the second was a book on Greek mythology for children. In all my years as a believer, I never connected the two. My deconversion started when I examined the history of the New Testament (I will get into that later). I also read the entire Old Testament (which many Christians are sure not to teach children) and became convinced that Jesus could not be the messiah after all. Right after that, I was seriously thinking about becoming Jewish and wait for the actual messiah. But eventually I started thinking about religion in general, realized it was WAY to man-made, so I abandoned religion altogether and became a deist. However, I was only a deist for no more than a week. I carefully thought about it and realized deism was a bunch of wishful thinking, so I took the final step and here I am as an atheist-agnostic. I abandoned faith altogether and live a life based on evidence, knowledge and reason.

Morality

Morality is clearly a tricky and complex subject, but I do know that morality can be found outside monotheistic traditions. I often call myself a secular humanist, but I simply understand that empathy alone is enough to morally guide me, and thus far it has been very successful. If morality means anything, it is reducing or minimizing the suffering of others.

The following two videos, I think, give an excellent presentation and lesson about morality.

As I think one of these videos noted: belief in God would make anything justifiable. During our talk at my university, I mentioned Ron and Dan Lafferty, but I did not provide a full detailed story. Dan and five brothers, one of them was Ron. Dan converted all his brothers into Mormon fundamentalism and made them practice polygamy. They had all their wives from being treated like queens to slaves. Only Brenda, the wife of the youngest brother, did not submit. Ron was a chiropractor (pseudoscience is very common in Mormonism; Joseph and his father practiced dowsing and used crystal ball) and became a Saint and a student of Onias. Ron would over time have many revelations from God himself. One of them was instructs to kill several people to further progress of God's plan. The target was Brenda and her baby, and the revelation specifically instructed Dan to do the killing. After prayer and much preparation, Ron and Dan set off to find her. When they did, Dan beat Brenda with his fists while Ron watched. When she failed to escape and fainted, Dan strangled her with a vacuum cord. Then Dan got a knife, went to the babies room and found her standing in the corner of her crib. As Dan described it in his cell:

I spoke to her for a minute. I told her, "I'm not sure what this is all about, but apparently it's God's will that you leave this world; perhaps we can talk about it later." And then I set my hand on her head, put the knife under her chin like this, and I just...'

He virtually decapitated her. After cleaning the blade, he then returned to Brenda's corpse and slit her throat, and returned to Ron who was waiting for him and said "Okay, we can leave now." They drove around looking for their next targets, but were apprehended on August 7. Dan and Ron were tried separately. Dan received two sentences of life imprisonment after his jury was not unanimous on the death penalty. Ron refused insanity as a defense and was quickly found guilty, but was later was countered by theologians and others because it implied anyone who talks to God is crazy (since the whole Mormon faith relies on talking to God they could be considered legally insane). After going through months of psychotherapy, it was later ruled he was competent to stand trial although the countering continued to try to show that Ron's delusions were different from the billions of people around the world. On April 10, 1996 the jury convicted Ron of first-degree murder and he choose the death sentence of four bullets through the heart at close range. He is still on death row. Dan, on the other hand after all these years in prison, considers himself the "new Elijah" designated by God to recognize Christ when he instigates the thousand-year kingdom of God.

Please do not disregard this as “oh, they were just Mormons, they followed the wrong god.” Examples like these are numerous coming from any denomination of Christianity. A mother murders her own children because she does not them to suffer during the rapture or God tells a mother to lock and chain her own daughter in a closet for nine years because “she is a witch” according to her and her pastor. The point is, when you bring God into the moral equation anything is justifiable. God can order whatever he wishes, from slaying the Canaanites, Egyptians, to flooding the entire world if he chose to. If God ordered someone to kill your parents, there is no way for you to prove that God did not.

The Bible and History

I noted that history played a role on my path to disbelief. When I learned how the Bible came to be revealed that it was not as infallible as I was told.

Over the years I have examined the historical claims in the NT, and what surprised me was not what I found but was what I did not find. The stories from the NT has no historical evidence to support them. First century Palestine is a very well recorded era. Jerusalem was the center of education at that time, were illiteracy was at its lowest. Jewish parents were teaching their children to read and write the Torah. There were poets, scribes, scholars, historians, tax collectors, Roman reporters, and such. But not once do any of them record anything about a man named Jesus. How is it that this man, who is said to have startled ALL of Jerusalem asking who he was (Matt. 21:10), had so many followers so large they were "innumerable" (Luke 12:1) even coming from beyond Jordan (Matt. 4:25). If the poor, the rich, the high priests, the Romans, travelers and foreigners, and the scribes all knew about jesus, who would not have heard of him? If Herod really took the time to hunt down and try to slay jesus, but instead murdered hundreds of other babies, then this would have gotten the attention of historians all across the land. And yet, how is it that this man could enter the Temple in Jerusalem on Passover and start a riot AND NOT BE MENTIONED ONE TIME!?

Practically, every major miracle of jesus has no historical verification either. I pointed out to Crystal and Carolynn Matthew 27 where after Jesus supposedly died, all the dead rose from their graves and walked in the streets for all in Jerusalem to see. Something like this is not ignored, this is something whose news would reach the farthest corner of the Roman Empire within a week. Where is the evidence of Herod slaughtering thousands of infants? Nowhere.

All we have to go on regarding Jesus is the gospels, and unfortunately it does not get any better. What we know about the gospels is that they are all anonymous and not written by eye-witnesses.

I wrote more regarding the historicity of Jesus and the reliability of the gospels, which you can read by clicking the link below.

http://feredir28.blogspot.com/2010/12/did-jesus-christ-exist.html

After reading the blog posted, with all this in mind, I often ask Christians who quote the words of Jesus: how do you know those are the words of Christ himself? And for that matter, how do you know what Jesus did what the Bible supposedly said he did? How can Mark know what jesus said in the Gethsemane scene when Jesus was all alone?

These are all important questions; this is why I ask Christians before they go on talking about their theology, I would prefer if we all start at square one regarding God and regarding Jesus. First prove that they are real and did what you claim they have done. Once that is dealt with, then we can discuss if Jesus is the savior, is there an afterlife and whatever.

Christianity and History

I do not expect a reply from this piece. This is only regarding why Miller is a very poor historian. He claimed that science was birthed from a Christian culture, and I knew right there that I was dealing with an amateur.

Lets look at the ACTUAL history of science. Science goes back very far to the ancient Greeks (btw, they were pagans!!!). Ancient polytheists invented geometry, but that does not mean that polytheism was essential or required for the development of geometry.

Aristotle performed numerous dissection and vivisection experiments in animal anatomy and physiology - composing the most scientific range of zoological works then known.

His successor, Theophrastus, extended this work to botany and plant physiology, and the first person to produce the first known works in pyrology, mineralogy, and other fields.

His successor, Strato of Lamsacus, extended their experimental method to machines and physics - by which many of Aristotle's physical theories had been altered or abandoned

A research institute was built in Alexandria, Egypt in the third century BCE, in which Ctesibius and Philo completed the first known scientific works in experimental pneumatics.

Eratosthenes invented the science of cartography and was one of the first scientist in history to measure the diameter of the earth (he was off by 15% - not bad), and he analyzed the effect of the moon on the tides. (QUICK: someone tell Bill O'Reilly this was explained in the third century BCE.)

Herophilus became the first scientist to dissect human cadavers. Also, he and his pupil Erasistrus originated neurophysiology, establishing with detailed experiments that the mind is a function of the brain and the specific mental functions were controlled in specific areas of the brain, and they distinguished motor from sensory nerves and mapped them throughout the body. Altogether. their study of the human body and its bones, muscles, and organs, was so thorough that we still use much of their anatomical terminology.

In Sicily, their colleague Archimedes was advancing sciences of mechanics and hydrostatics, and discovering, describing, or explaining the first mathematical laws of physics.

Aristarchus began measuring the distances of the moon, sun and planets, and proposed the first heliocentric theory.

In Rhodes, Hipparchus discovered and measured celestial precession, observed the first supernova, established the first detailed scientific star charts, made numerous advances in planetary theory, and developed the first scientific system for predicting lunar and solar eclipses.

Seleucus of Babylon discovered the effect of the sun on the tides (not just the moon), developed the first mathematical lunisolar tide theory.

During the Roman Empire, science reached its pinnacle of achievement, producing works not exceeded until the Scientific Revolution. Just to name a few: Dioscorides in botany, mineralogy, and pharmacology. Hero in mathematics, pneumatics, and theatrical robotics. Ptolemy in astronomy, cartography, optics, and harmonics. Galen in anatomy, physiology, and medicine

I will stop there, I am sure you get the picture. When the cause is in place, its effect is seen. The Christian religion dominated the whole of the Western world from the fifth to the fifteenth century, and yet in all those thousand years there was no scientific revolution. Nor did any scientific revolution occur in Eastern Christian world, such as the Byzantine Empire, even though the East was just as prosperous and largely peaceful for five centuries. When the scientific revolution did take place, in a culture where religion was dominate and very authoritative, it is not surprising that the scientists were Christians and had to somehow present their work in a manner that did not contradict scripture or risk losing their career, reputation, or even their freedoms (or their lives). This was not a time when you can enjoy being an atheist, infidel, pagan or heretic. If a scientist wished to publish his work, he had to find a way to sell it without being detrimental towards the Bible. Since the Scientific Revolution took place during a Christian culture does not mean that Christianity caused the Scientific Revolution, rather it was just a marketing strategy required to sell at the time.

The point is, Miller's history is dead wrong. As a physicist thinking he knows how to properly do history, it makes me very skeptical he knows much regarding anything outside his field of work.