Petey's Pipeline E-zine

Issue #45

February 5, 2007

Contents

Business First Hidden Benefits
Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings National Security—Safe or Sorry: Food Security (Part IV)
Write Thinking Punctuation – the Marks of Professionals (Parentheses)

Business First (Editorial)

Hidden Benefits

Sometimes, when disaster strikes and bad things happen, we're so focused on the disaster aspect of the situation that we fail to recognize any good that it may contain. Oh, yes, even the darkest clouds often have silver linings.

The recent influx of Arctic air, and the accompanying snowfall, across much of the nation had some unexpected—but entirely welcome—benefits. Two weeks ago, when snowstorms bogged down much of the Pacific Northwest and vast areas of the South, a curious thing happened; the amount of unsolicited commercial e-mail that reaches my various "in" boxes on any given day dropped by about half.

A week later, the Pacific Northwest was back to normal (that is to say, no more screwed up than usual), but the South still had its weather-related problems, some of which manifested as power outages. And that, my friends, brings us to the silver lining.

Power outages that coincide with a decrease, by half, in spam tell me exactly what region of the country half the spam is coming from. Although I hate to think that people sat huddled and shivering in the dark, it pleased me no end that a few prolific spammers had the opportunity to feel the same level of frustration I feel when I'm on the receiving end of their spam.

• • •

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Random Ramblings & Miscellaneous Musings

National Security—Safe or Sorry: Food Security (Part IV)
by Phil Hanson

Getting Back to Basics

The threat to national food security has its roots in our collective inability to come to terms with the word "finite." We persist in our misguided (and unfounded) belief that the American Dream can last forever, contrary to reality's harsh lessons of the recent past, oblivious to the harsher lessons yet to come. And though the situation isn't hopeless, yet, it will become so, soon, if Americans fail to embrace new paradigms for sustainability.

Where to begin? The first step in solving a problem is to admit that there is a problem. From that point on, charting a course that leads to a solution is relatively easy. Food security is no exception. That's not to say, however, that maintaining food security for 300 million people (6.5 billion, globally) is without difficulties.

A major threat to food security is overpopulation, which drives demands for more energy and more food, at a time when energy use is responsible for global climate change, which in turn inhibits food production. Cause and effect compound the problems and put easy solutions to those problems out of reach.

Any effort to minimize the threat to food security must begin with a firm commitment to halt population growth and reduce population numbers. More people means more demand for dwindling resources. We can choose to limit—or even reverse—population growth by changing our nation's immigration policies, and by implementing a one-child-per-family policy. This is preferable to allowing wars or a series of natural disasters to decimate the population.

Next on our list of critical strategies for ensuring food security is to tackle the problem of global warming. What? You still don't believe that human activities cause global warming? Then look at some hard evidence.

A consortium of 2500 climate scientists from 130 countries, known collectively as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released a summary of its long-awaited report on global climate change on Friday. In it, they claim with more than 90% certainty that human activities are responsible for global warming. They cite the following statistics as corroborating evidence:

Must you starve, or drown, to be convinced?

You can help reduce the demand for resources, particularly energy, by downsizing your lifestyle. Choose to live in a smaller, more energy-efficient house or apartment, preferably as close to your place of employment as you can get. Work at home, if possible. Drive less. Walk more, ride a bike, or use public transportation when these options are feasible. Become an activist for sustainable living. Be an advocate of renewable energy. In everything you do, strive to reduce the size of your carbon "footprint."

Patronize local farmers that are committed to sustainable agriculture. Support organically grown food, farmer's markets, CSAs (community-supported agriculture), and local producers and processors. Reduce your consumption of meat to the greatest extent possible.

Yes, I know that locally produced organic food is a little more expensive than the stuff that's shipped across the country—or from halfway around the world. Just think of the additional cost as insurance against the day when oil runs out and shipping food long distances no longer makes sense (not that it ever did). Supporting local food producers now will help ensure your access to food, later.

Buy fresh fruit and vegetables in bulk and do your own processing. You'll need a good pressure cooker/canner, and an ample supply of canning jars, lids and rings. An initial outlay might set you back a couple of hundred bucks, but everything but the lids are reusable, so you can expect to recoup your investment in a couple of seasons, providing you do a substantial amount of canning.

Yes, home canning is a time consuming, work intensive activity. To lessen the burden, make canning a family activity that's both educational and entertaining. A couple of weeks spent at the end of harvest season will provide you and your family with enough fruit, vegetables, jams, jellies and relish to last you until the next canning season. And the nutritional and associated health benefits are their own rewards.

In addition to canning bulk purchases, grow some or all of your own food. Have extra yard space? Consider dedicating part of it to a garden. No room for a garden but room enough to set out some large flower pots (6-gallon, or larger)? These are great for growing tomato plants, bell peppers, bush beans, radishes, or strawberries. If you have flowers growing in border areas of your yard, consider replacing some of them with ever-bearing raspberries and/or a grape arbor. You can grow many herbs and spices in smaller containers, placing them in strategic locations to capture the optimum amount of sunlight.

Many plants we now call nuisances have nutritional value, among them dandelions and plantain. If we learn to recognize which common weeds are edible, now, we may be able to avoid a slow, painful death by starvation, later.

Much needs to be done as we strive to design—and learn how to live in—a sustainable culture. Population control, environmental protection, renewable energy resources, and food and water security are paramount; these are our greatest challenges. But if we can get a handle on these things, most other problems will resolve themselves.

A few of us working alone will not get the job done. All of us working together will. We were warned more than 35 years ago, but we chose to ignore the warnings. Now, we no longer have that option. We don't have another 35 years in which to carry on business as usual. Now, we must act, or risk losing everything.

Related articles:

Coming in issue #46: Combating Terrorism

Copyright © 2007 by Phil Hanson
All rights reserved.

Write Thinking

Punctuation – the Marks of Professionals

Getting punctuation right is critical to making your writing intelligible and coherent. As with misspelled and misused words, misused or missing punctuation takes your message off track and confuses your readers. To help you avoid the avoidable, the next few installments of Write Thinking deal with punctuation marks, in all their many forms, with example sentences provided for clarification.

Parentheses ( )

Information contained within parentheses can be said to be less relevant or nonessential when compared to the information contained in the main statement.

• Parentheses are used to isolate supplementary material (words, phrases, clauses, or complete sentences) that, when inserted into a main statement, describe, explain or otherwise clarify the main statement without making the supplementary material part of the main statement.

• Parentheses also enclose numbers or letters that are used to list items in a series.

• If material contained within parentheses needs additional clarification, enclose that material using brackets within the parentheses. Never use parentheses within parentheses.

• If the material contained within the parentheses is a complete sentence, capitalize the first word; place the punctuation mark inside the closing parenthesis when it applies exclusively to the parenthetical material.

* If the punctuation mark is part of the entire sentence and not exclusive to the parenthetical material, place it outside the closing parenthesis (just as I have done, here).

Disclaimer

The articles appearing in Petey's Pipeline E-zine are based on information believed to be true at the time of publication. Neither Perfecttext.com, Petey's Pipeline E-zine nor their publisher assume any liability or responsibility as to the accuracy or efficacy of any information, products or services that are submitted, advertised or rendered by contributors to Petey's Pipeline E-zine. While we make every effort to screen out scam artists and bogus offers, you should still do your homework. Caveat emptor!

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