----Global Maintenance Handbook----

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Global Maintenance Handbook ID~kid641 Oct 9, 2007

A handbook to guide the citizens of Earth toward better habits regarding our responsibility as good custodians of both the atmosphere, the land and it’s creatures would be quite easy to write. As a matter of fact any grade school child could write such a thing as the entries would be more than obvious but who could apply it and really who would even agree with it?

Throughout the articles in INTS there are solutions scattered about and they will eventually be compiled to just such an end. The main problem isn’t finding the appropriate actions to take, however, it’s overcoming the apathy, greed and stupidity of the human animal known as man. Consensus is always required for what is wholly a world problem involving all of us before anything can be accomplished and this is largely impossible given our ridiculous habits and penchant for convenience.

We are so pampered in the so-called first world of North America. We clamor to purchase the latest of everything including the newest of the new. When a recent nutrient called ‘glucosamine’ came on the market, many of us immediately included it in our diet of pills advocating to our friends "I should have started taking this years ago" causing them to rush out and include it in their vitamin consumption as well. No research, or cursory research is done on the web looking mainly at what could only be considered as advertizing spouted by doctors, scientists and others that profit from our gullibility. Most would only get their information from the television or worse from friends that are totally uninformed but see the additive as some kind of panacea for all their physical troubles. The point here being that information on something as important as things we ingest is very hard to come by, unless you consider the profiteers a reliable source, which would readily qualify you as one who simply takes up space in the gene pool. Occasionally there are glimmers of light in our news system and for a short moment some reality is cast on the truth of the matter, but that usually isn’t until years later when the companies involved have had their merry way with us. A good example of this is vitamins A and E that have been shown to be largely poisonous when taken internally in the rarified chemically produced form from artificial sources. Chewing a raw carrot or eating raw whole grains is really the only reliable source for these nutrients and the producers know this but couldn’t care less until they are caught. Their purpose is to find new marketable conveniences that will allow us, ostensibly to continue our unbridled consumption of junk food or less than desirable sources such as canned or frozen cooked carrots and so-called enriched flour. If we actually knew how harmful and lacking these items were we would never touch them. Proof of this is not hard to find. Ask yourself why more than half of the population of wonderful old Canada will contract diabetes, heart disease, stroke or cancer in their lifetime and the normal scale could be found in countries that do not have such poisons marketed. This is only the tip of the iceberg, as they say. We are incredibly stupid in almost everything we do and unfortunately there is really no other word to describe us.

So how do you get a bunch of greedy idiots worldwide to clean up their act and start making some sense of our pollution and atmosphere problems? That is a good question and the answer isn’t in some guidelines found on some obscure website lost in the megablog of today. The answer is where we live, in our hearts and minds, in common sense gut feeling or you could just go and ask some kid.

Namron Soar

If only there was a guide 
that all could plainly see
Just turn to page fifty-five
to find out what’s to be.

Religious manuals are filled with passages to guide 
our every move, but when it comes to earthly things 
like refuse, dirty water and dirty air. 
No deity has given such advice.

Writing a Handbook of this nature might be fun and even easy but who could apply it?

This is one subject that needs little introduction. An environmental handbook would not be necessary if we were a bit more studious in our effort to look after our little planet, but as the second millennium passes more and more people are beginning to realize that we aren’t doing a very good job of things. It isn’t because we don’t want to be good citizens of this earth. It isn’t because the earth itself is worn out and beginning to deteriorate all on it’s own. The reason is very simple, not too easy to swallow and very very difficult to do anything about. The social system that we use here on earth binds everyone in every country to strictly monetary goals and the companies and governments that control this system can’t figure how to make money without polluting heavily.

In this sixth year of the third millennium we are faced with only two choices. Either we allow our greed to continue to foster laziness and poor habits and just enjoy the last few years of civilization as we know it or we pull up our collective socks, as they say, and make the system work properly.

This isn’t the time to try to place blame on the major polluters, be they the so-called first world countries and their mega-industries or everyone in general. Nor is this the time to initiate very slow moving and ponderous band aid measures similar to Kyoto. By the time these get rolling it will be too late and concentrating on green house gas emissions, as does Kyoto, is really missing the whole point. All countries are heading in the same direction, some like Sweden, for example, are pressing ahead with measures that make real sense but the rest of the world is ignoring their progress. Most of the poorer nations’ people can hardly wait until they too have an SUV parked in their driveway and just as in Canada and the US, little attention is paid to the overall effect of such machines regarding the atmosphere but much is made of the comfort and convenience provided, not to mention the impression on the neighbors.

end of session one

Question: How can the corporate world be altered to allow only clean production?

Question two: Can this only be done with legislation?