To Be at This Moment...

Source: http://www.universetoday.com/
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Temple Terrace - -    As you sit on your laptop or computer, take a minute to ponder.  To be at this moment, history of thousands of years had to happen exactly the way it did.  Of course, you made decisions that have kept you alive and hopefully healthy.  History and Technology have created the world we live in today.  People like Lewis and Clark exploring America's uncharted territory.  The Westward Expansion, where the white man forced the Natives to leave there lands and keep migrating.    Men and Women conquered the Natural Environment with the use of wagons and horses.   The most advancement came with the increasing supply of petroleum from fossils, as technology has progressed individually and privately.  The invention of the internet, by Vinton Cerf and D.A.R.P.A.  That increased the speed of time, creating a relative impatience within the developed world.  We, as developed nation citizens, want efficiency, speed, less cost, and the best quality. With 3G and now 4G networks, nobody is out of reach. 
Decisions made by each of us, have a collective effect on the entire population and thus the world. 
That is History!  History since the Human rose to be the 'Alpha Species of Earth'.
You are sitting here today, most likely, because a world around money and oil has been created so you do not have to waste time.  Wasting time hunting food, finding clean drinking water, place to go to the bathroom safely, and a place to sleep inside a built environment.  All that is available for a price.  Coal is becoming the new oil in terms of going electric with vehicles, but that may be reduced once solar panels and alternatives grab hold of the market.   Seemingly endless amounts of energy for a price.  There is an end however.  That's another topic!

The music we love, the movies we love, the memorable conversations; being able to travel in one day what used to take months or years;  These are some of the great things you and I can enjoy through the creations with technology.  We live in a world that has been taken over by the dependency of energy, especially water and electricity and oil.  These three components have given us the time required to make more advancement in a lifetime than what used to be much more with just the bare hands of labor and slaves.  But resources are finite so we must progress.  However progress at the moment is a different play book in each of our mind's.  I am thankful for the fact that I am still alive and have found a life that makes me happy and keeps me bettering myself.  As much as I am against the dependency on Energy, I realize how my life and probably your life would be much less experienced and fulfilling without the consistent source of electricity. May we find a balance between minimizing energy consumption while still maximizing our lives.

So as you get back to your day, remember how technology and history have shaped the person you are today!!

Facts about Coal

Source: http://media.treehugger.com/assets
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Temple Terrace - -

     So You have seen those commercials on cable lately about "Clean Coal".  We'll today I did some research and found some interesting facts.  The Sierra Club collected data from the Coal industry and all the National Parks in the United States in 2011 and found that coal mining and burning for electricity has some of the worst natural environment effects, especially on these ecosystems. 
 
Facts in Numbers (2011)
260,000,000 gallons of water every day used in mining
 90,000,000 gallons of liquid waste.
 2,000 streams destroyed since the use of mountaintop removal
47 states warn against consuming fish contaminated from mercury emission due to burning coal
130,000,000 tons of solid waste every year from burning coal
 21 million people live within 5 miles of coal burning power plants

 Facts about National Parks and nearby coal fired power plants:
 Great Smoky Mountains - since 1990, every summer visibility has been low at 20%
due to sulfur and nitrogen release from coal fired power plants.  

Big Bend National Park - increased wildfires, droughts, and flooding; visibility and air  quality severely impacted

            Yellowstone National Park -
Summer warming so intense, streams boil and kill trout; White Bark Pine extinction linked to increased pollutants in soil

         As the reader can see, the emissions from producing electricity by burning coal may have scrubbers, but the worst environmental effects have no controls applied.  There is no American progress involved with destroying natural environment to be used and wasted.  Please do more research and you will find overwhelming data on the negative effects of coal mining and burning rather than the benefits it gives society.  We must implement all alternative energy and off grid living capabilities to counter the increasing use of coal as an energy source.  The technology is available, just not on a mass market scale yet.  Individuals are taking creative and efficient steps towards self sufficiency.

Source: Sierra Club, 2011