Green Tip #99: Three Birds With One Stone

So this Green Tip will be dedicated to a friend of mine who, ironically enough, won't be able to read this because he'll be in another country where he may or may not have access to the Internet. That other country, which shall remain nameless to protect the identity of those who live there (totally unnecessary), happens to be on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from the USA.

So anyway, after I drove my friend to the airport, I started thinking about oceans and I thought back to the good ole' days before the Atlantic Ocean existed. Ah, yes, I remember it like it was just 130 millions years ago. Times were much simpler back then. Animals didn't have to worry about crossing an ocean to visit their relatives. We didn't have to worry about things like ocean currents reversing because of Greenland melting. There was no such thing as the Great Atlantic Garbage Patch. Good times... Good times...

But wait! Couldn't go go back to those days of Pangea? If we can send a man to the moon, surely we can push continents closer together! I mean, could you imagine if England and New England were finally reunited? It would cut down on so much gas if we could drive 'across the pond' (or lack thereof) instead of having to fly. Also, the GAGP would end up being smushed into a big plastic blob wedged between the two continents. And thirdly, pushing continents together would make Greenland be pushed north into the Arctic Circle, which would keep it cool enough that it wouldn't melt!

Now, how you're going to manage to get continents back together isn't really my concern. Now if someone wants a really fun challenge, you can create a blog about how to put my crazy ideas into practice. It would be difficult, but it could be pretty rewarding!

Green Tip #87: I've Got My Eyes On You...

Dear Readers... This doesn't happen very often, but I'm seriously disappointed in all of you. I gave you a simple task (move away from California) and you throw it back in my face, making things even worse than they already are. I really thought that after all this time you would understand that it's not what I'm saying that's important, it's the root cause of the problem that I'm trying to get at. But you clearly don't understand.

I read a disturbing article earlier this week that claims that The Devil Incarnate might have a twin. Yes, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (the bane of my existence) is not the only Great Oceanic Garbage Patch out there, lurking in the murky depths of our bordering oceans. Apparently scientists found that there is now a Great Atlantic Garbage Patch (GAG-P for short) made up of tiny bits of plastic floating just below the surface of the North Atlantic.

Here's where I get to the part where I give you The Lecture. Back in Green Tip #17, I told you to move away from California so you wouldn't be tempted to hurl your plastic junk into the ocean. (I know most plastic junk comes from China and Japan and maybe you just wanted to throw it in the Pacific Ocean to send it back to where it came from so they could make more plastic junk, but let me tell you... it doesn't work like that.) I didn't imply that you should move across the country just to hurl your plastic junk in the Atlantic! (Besides, how do you think it's going to get to China when Europe is in the way??)

Sigh... who am I kidding? I can't stay mad at you... It was a rookie mistake made last summer before you had learned all these wonderful Green Tips. And I guess I have to do what I always do and look on the bright side of things. This new finding may be just what we need in terms of good PR to fight global warming. After all these years we can finally clear the name of icebergs. You see, it was probably the GAG-P that sunk the Titanic back in 1912 and not an iceberg. Yes, all these years we've been wrongfully accusing icebergs of this heinous crime and ever since then we've been doing everything we can to eliminate them through Global Warming. No more polluting, I say!

Now, I know what you're thinking (maybe). "How could the GAG-P (made of plastic) be around 40 or more years before plastic was popular?" Remember what they say, "The greatest trick the Devil ever played was to convince the world that he didn't exist." GAG-P was around then, it just convinced everyone that it wasn't.

So there you have it. Oh wait, I never really gave you a Green Tip #87. Um... don't throw plastic junk in any ocean. You don't know how mad I'd be if I hear about some Great Indian Garbage Patch.

Green Tip #53: Global Warming is Good, Part 2

I think it is especially poignant that I talk more about Global Warming this week for two reasons. First of all, yesterday was the first day that it snowed here in Northwest Ohio which is a good sign. I can only assume that we’ve won the War on Global Warming, otherwise I’d be out sunbathing instead of bundled up in my sweatshirt and blankets.

The other reason that I feel it’s appropriate to write about Global Warming today is that world leaders are meeting in Europe this week to talk about what countries can do to combat Climate Change. This is a bad sign, which means that we probably haven’t won the War on Global Warming. Dang! I thought the snow was a good sign. Hm, maybe Global Warming is just hibernating this winter so it can make a fierce comeback this spring. We’ll just assume that Global Warming is still out there otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to write in the Impractical Green Resource.

Anyway, I don’t see why the world leaders need to meet to figure things out. I mean, I’ve given the world 52+ very helpful Green Tips that should’ve fixed things by now. I can only assume that people in other countries can’t read English and the IGR is doing them little good. Hm, I knew I should’ve learned Chinese.

But if Global Warming is inevitable, we might as well at least look for a silver lining of the whole situation. So I was reading about how the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are melting more and more each summer. At first I was horrified about rising sea levels and disrupting the oceanic currents. Then I read about how droughts were likely to increase in severity and frequency as the global temperature rises. That’s when I had my epiphany!

If all that fresh water is dumped into the oceans, the overall salinity of the ocean water will decrease (the oceans won’t be so salty). And less salty water is easier to convert to fresh water than more salty water. Ta Da! We can just convert sea water into drinkable water to solve the droughts!

Yes, it’s true, changing the oceans from salt water to fresh water will probably kill off thousands of species of fish and coral and plankton, but you know what? People won’t miss them that much. All of the fish that we eat now can be put into fisheries and the rest are probably weird and gross anyway.