Category Archives: News and politics

The background story on the Minneapolis bridge failure is not as complex as you might think. 

The first deep understanding you must have is that Gravity Always Works. 

The second deep understanding is this:  All Machines Break.  

Engineers look at the design of a machine and figure out a reasonable safety margin to design into the machine, based on good judgement, previous experience and then adds another percentage as a "Murphy’s Law" pad.  This is true for machines as simple as crowbars, or as complicated as aircraft.

Since all machines break, the object of maintenance is to inspect and fix small failures before they become big, expensive failures.  To inspect and fix, you need to know the expected lifetime of the machine. 

A disposable lighter has a short lifetime and the inspection consists of making sure it leaves the factory in good condition.  There is no need, or procedure for field inspection and repair.  At the end of the service life (when it runs out of butane) or if something goes wrong with the flint wheel or striker parts of the machine, you throw it out and get a new one. This no-fix mode doesn’t work for bridges.

The working machine parts of a bridge are the structures that transfer the weight of the bridge (and the things on the bridge) from one place to another, while allowing passage across the bridge over a certain length.  Usually that means over an obstruction of some sort, like a river, or a valley where it would be impractical to make those on the bridge climb or descend steep gradients or get very wet.

That’s all there is to a bridge.  Some kind of structure made of stuff, designed to last a certain amount of time, to do a particular job, to safely go over some natural obstruction. 

Weave together a bunch of swamp reeds to make a rope.  Rope works as a bridge with some planks in between, to allow individuals to cross, on foot, from one side to another.  That fulfils the basic requirements.  Except rope wears out and rots, wooden planks eventually splinter and if nobody checks these things, it becomes unsafe, breaks and someone falls to their doom. 

So far, we’re not into rocket science are we?  Now it is a question of scale.  Not just size, but financial scale too.

We know that stones work, especially if we arrange them in arches so the river below can still pass.  But it’s a bugger to figure out the math of how many arches, how wide, how tall, how many workers, how long it takes to pile the rocks and how are we going to hold the rocks together. 

Then there is the problem of rocks:  They’re not consistent.  Some rocks under compression are fine, others, like slate, shatter apart and break.  Now we need someone who knows rocks as our expert and someone else who knows math and arches and someone else who can figure out where to put the strongest rocks and where we can put smaller or weaker rocks.  That starts to cost some money.  Romans figured this stuff out a few thousand years ago.  Some of their work is still up.

Abraham Darby and Thomas Pritchard figured out how to do it with cast iron in 1773 in Shropshire, UK, over the Severn River Gorge.  It was completed in 1779 and is still standing.  The first US iron box girder bridge was built in 1839 over Dunalp’s Creek in Brownsville, Pennsylvania.

Fast forward to today.  We know that steel, concrete and iron work well as parts of a bridge machine.  We know that the base for a bridge should not be on swamp, or a random pile of twigs.  Bridges are heavy things at the best of times.  We know that steel, concrete and iron will rust, weaken and degrade over time making the bridge machine less safe.  Eventually gravity, which always works, takes over and the bridge falls down.

Nothing exotic yet?  It’s simple enough to understand?  OK, just checking.

We know that if we paint and maintain the bridge every couple of years, the bridge will last a long time.  That means check the rocks, stones, nuts and bolts.  Look at the welds, scrape off the rust and patch any parts that are suspect, then the bridge will stay up and be safe for a long time. 

We also know that eventually, the bridge will be nothing but patches and paint, so we had best plan now for how to pay for a new bridge in the same place.  Are there any huge leaps of logic I’m taking here? 

Following along, the US Federal Highway Administration has studied the problem and come to the conclusion that there are 70,000 bridges that are "structurally deficient" according to their own studies, why are the bridges still open and being used?  There’s a logic gap there, that I’m not understanding very well.

Yes, it will take $188 Billion to fix all the deficient ones in the US, while the others slowly rust away and become ‘structurally deficient’ too.

But to keep some perspective, using the National Priorities Project "Cost of the Iraq War" calculator as a rough guide, Minnesota has already pumped $10.7 Billion into the Iraq war, while the total tab for the whole US is estimated at $449 Billion dollars so far.  I’ll even divide that number in half, just to take out any political hype or axe-grinding, so $224.5 Billion. 

That’s how much the US Government has dumped into enforcing a regime change and getting a nice photo of President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier.

There is the issue of nearly 4,000 dead soldiers, but let’s leave that out of our calculations, simply because they only managed to kill 5 in Minneapolis when the bridge collapsed.  It’s cold, but we’re talking bridge fatalities, not bullet and bomb fatalities.   

Or, to put it very simply, with what the US has paid fighting in Iraq, they could have fixed all the structurally deficient’ bridges in the US and still had $36.5 Billion left over to fix some of the borderline cases. 

By the way, all that money for the Iraq War?  That’s all ‘new’ money that the US came up with out of the blue.  There was no future wars line item reserve in the US Budget in 2001, 2002 or 2003.  Unlike the various state and federal agencies who have to predict and juggle slender budget needs years in advance, the Pentagon decided they needed a couple of hundred Billion dollars, pronto. 

I wonder if someone will hang a "Mission Accomplished" banner on the wreckage of the I-35W bridge for President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy to stand in front of today when he does his tour of the site.

Since the I-35W span fell down Wednesday evening, most of the news networks have been wall to wall with coverage, including special features, in-depth reporting, investigative assignments and the rest of the news hoopla. 

For those of you living under a rock, a bridge fell down in Minneapolis, taking a big piece of the rush-hour traffic with it.  Blood and guts?  So far, five dead, perhaps a dozen missing and eighty injured.  The do have live video of the bridge actually falling, from a security camera.   It was a slow news week, so the three US majors came out in force, while the two cable news outlets are camping out on the banks of the Mississippi.

The outrage pot is being stirred.  The US Federal government knew that the bridge was ‘structurally deficient’ and the Minnesota Department of Tranport (MinnDOT) was working on the bridge at the time it went down.  The talking head brigade is speculating like mad that there is some massive infrastructure failure being covered up by the government at every level and we should all beware that the sky will fall shortly after noon on Saturday.

A reality check here:  All bridges will fail.  Bridges, regardless of size, or contstruction materials, are in tension and compression.  They are machines that need maintenance, just like your car, or your lawn mower, or your bicycle. 

Here’s a reprint of one from Road-Dave from October 1, 2006. http://road-dave.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!15F30E7F138DBB88!295.trak

Yesterday (Sept 30/2006), a 20 meter section of four-lane overpass collapsed and fell onto Highway 19 in the Montreal suburb of Laval, Quebec.  The overpass, the usual concrete and steel construction was originally built in 1970 and fell 15 meters to the road below.  At least two vehicles were pancaked under the slab.  Five people were killed.  Three vehicles and a motorcycle fell on top of the collapse, as the road disappeared from underneath their wheels.  Six people who landed on top were injured, two are in critical condition. You can follow the story at www.cbc.ca if you want.

Stop and think about how many bridges you go over, or under, on your way to work, grocery shopping or doing the myriad things you do every day.  Bridges, even the smallish ones that cross highways, or creeks are marvels of engineering.  Thousands of cars, buses and trucks gallop along pounding the pavement every day. 

To understand what bridges do, find a five pound bag of sugar or flour.  Hold the bag in your hand and raise your arm straight out from the side of your body at right angles.  Keep it there for five minutes without letting your arm sag, tremble or move.  You are now, officially, a cantilever, one of the essential engineering structures that define a bridge.  You can put the bag of flour down now.  And stop you arm from throbbing. 

The Laval bridge was only 36 years old.  This is middle-aged for bridges.  The problem is that in most of Canada we have winter.  Winter means ice and snow on the roads, which, especially in Eastern Canada, means salt on the roads.  Salt eats steel.  To keep this corrosion in check, bridges get inspected, usually yearly, depending on the budgets. 

Uh-oh  I said a bad word:  Budgets.  Budgets for infrastructure have been cut to the bone year after year.  Budgets for inspections have just about disappeared.  Politicians have twin demons of getting re-elected, or doing what needs to be done.  Getting re-elected means not raising taxes, or making sure that voters see what their tax money is paying for. 

Bridge inspections and preventative maintenance are not things that a voter can look at and say "Yup.  We need it and we’re payin’ for it, as we should."  Nor for that matter is replacing or fixing the estimated 30 percent of sewer and water systems in most cities that leak.  Pipes are underground and until you get raw sewage backing up into basements, or find a huge sinkhole in a road, the pipes might as well be on Mars.  The electrical grid in this corner of North America is held together with spit, paper clips, gaffer tape and fervent prayer. 

The ugly fact is that the Great Infrastructure Buildout of the 1950’s and 1960’s was a long time ago.

Did the Laval bridge collapse from a lack of maintenance?  We don’t know yet.  I do know that the inspection process these days is pretty rudimentary:  "It is still there?  Yep.  Is it on fire but shouldn’t be?  Yep.  Passed.  Next!" 

Ontario is a good example of how not to do things.  The TSSA (Technical Standards and Safety Authority) in this province is in charge of inspecting elevators.  TSSA is a private company that slurped up the Technical Standards Division of the Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs for the province.  TSSA sets fees to perform inspections, as required under law.  They are non-profit but are expected to cover their entire budget from license and inspection fees. 

There are more than 43,000 elevating devices in Ontario.  This includes escalators, passenger elevators, freight elevators and personnel lifts.  There are 43 inspectors listed on the TSSA website for the whole province.  This means each inspector, including the managers, has to inspect approximately 1000 elevating devices per year to make sure the old stuff is still safe and the new stuff is installed correctly.

By the way, there are 261 workdays in a year, assuming you get Saturday and Sunday off.  Let’s call it 250 workdays a year, as folks do get sick, have to take training, statutory holidays, vacations, or to go to the doctor. 

That means each inspector, having 1000 elevating devices to inspect, must do four a day.  Two in the morning, two in the afternoon.  I’m not counting travel time, lunch, buildings being closed, people not available, time to do the paperwork and so on.  In the downtown core, this might even be doable, except the inspection time is basically 90 minutes per elevating device.  Or, "Is it on fire and plummeting to the basement from the 28th floor with a load of lawyers?  No?  Passed.  Next!" 

To add to the impossibility of inspecting things, the TSSA in Ontario also inspects fuel standards, boilers and pressure vessels, upholstery and stuffed articles, ski lifts, power plants and amusement rides.  I checked the number of inspectors for each category and at first glance the same names are in all the areas of authority.     

How to fix infrastructure failures?  First, it is going to cost a LOT of money that has to come from somewhere.  Somewhere means you and me and our pockets.  Second, we have to have some priorities as we can’t afford to fix it all.  Someone has to look at all the infrastructure components and decide each year where the bulk of the money has to go to keep things from breaking down completely.

As an example, there is a rail bridge that crosses a major road here in Mississauga, not far from where I live.  This bridge carries the GO Train, freight trains and passenger trains.  If that bridge failed and fell across a major north-south artery, Mississauga would stop from a traffic perspective and a big piece of the GO Train metro system would be out of commission for several weeks. 

Now, make that train a freight, carrying anhydrous ammonia, propane, new cars and bulk sulfur, which is a load I have personally seen on that line.  The bridge fails and two dozen freight cars fall into the boulevard, cutting off traffic and burning for a while.  You would have to evacuate most of Mississauga, which means 600,000 people have to go somewhere because of one rail bridge. 

That is the hidden danger of infrastructure failure.  The failure isn’t just one thing, it becomes, very quickly, several dozen things of ever-increasing danger and impact.

However, we don’t know what parts of our infrastructure are in the worst shape.  We have no clue what bridges are merely looking old and tired and which ones are teetering on collapse from abuse, neglect or bad construction in the first place.  Why?  Because inspecting infrastructure is not a glamorous use of taxpayers’ money.  It isn’t sexy like a convention centre, or a modern toll road.  It doesn’t get the politician any publicity mileage whatsoever, therefore what will get cut first?

Bridges, roads, sewers, natural gas pipes, the electrical grid and all the other infrastructure things we rely on daily will last for several decades as long as regular, comprehensive inspection and repairs are carried out. 

Will it eventually turn out that the bridge in Laval fell down because of a lack of inspection and general neglect?  Again, I don’t know for certain, but I can make a well-educated guess.  The answer is yes.

On Friday in Phoenix, two television station helicopters crashed into each other, then crashed to earth and burned.  The news copters were following an escaping bad guy, wanted by the police, doing the live eye in the sky thing that television stations love.

KTVK and KNXV both lost their pilots and their videographers in the crashes.  One of the reporters was covering the ground chase live to air when the collision happened.  This is tragic in a number of ways, not the least being for the various families of the dead. 

The part that I find more surprising is that it hasn’t happened sooner.  Major metro stations in the US know that live footage of police chases, fires, floods and so on are ratings grabbers of the first order.  Helicopters and small aircraft have been used as traffic report platforms for decades, then with the advent of microwave downlinks, as Live-Eye-In-The-Sky, bringing you pictures as they happen.

About a decade ago, as satellite links became affordable and stabilized camera mounts more common, the live-eye evolved further, using some very nifty technology to deliver dropout-free, gyro-stabilized, gen-locked pictures to the dazed eyes of viewers at home.  The more famous live-eye shots have been the OJ Simpson low-speed Bronco chase:  Riot coverage from LA.  The three days of coverage of Hurricane Katrina by pool reporters in New Orleans.  I’m leaving out the car chase action that happens daily in LA, as the news departments fight for ratings.

By definition, helicopters are 10,000 highly-stressed aluminum parts flying in close formation.  Helicopters do not naturally fly:  You use horsepower and rotors to force the thing to go in the air.  If you lose horsepower, you fall.  Technically, you can auto-rotate to a landing as long as you have some forward speed, a minimum of 300 feet of height and a lot of room to decide where you’re going to engage in a controlled crash.  Losing a main rotor, or a tail rotor means gravity and physics take over immediately and it will probably kill you.

Fixed wing airplanes naturally glide, as long as you have enough forward speed and some height, even a 767 will glide.  Just ask the passengers of G-GAUN (cn22520/47) the Air Canada Gimli Glider.  As long as most of the airframe is intact, fixed wing aircraft of almost any size will glide at least for a while.  Eventually, the same physics and gravity take over.  At the end of the day, helicopter or fixed-wing, as long as you walk away from the landing, it was a successful flight.

Where it goes wrong is the control room, or the news producer pushing for more, closer, better, more striking news footage:  The pressure on the pilots and the videographers to get right into it for better coverage. 

Three or four helicopters, fighting gravity, the machine, uplink connections, the sun, hydro wires, towers, building, updrafts, downdrafts, other copters’ rotor wash, other air traffic and still trying to follow a terrified felon being chased by the cops, (in a helicopter too), at low altitude and not much forward speed, means the odds are stacked up against each news copter.  Add one small mechanical failure, or even just a little mechanical bobble and it is all over.

The issue is really why do we feel it necessary to see, up close and personal from the live-eye in the sky, a car chase, or smoke billowing from a garbage fire?  We know the news stations will cover it, using all the resources they have at their command, including helicopters.  Each station fights to give the viewer the most impressive pictures of the action.  On more than a few occasions, the Michael Jackson motorcade to the police station comes to mind, the news copters seem to miss each other by mere feet.  I don’t care how skilled these pilots are, that’s pushing your luck to get the ‘story’, such as it was. 

The other side of the problem is the pilot in command.  The pilot is the person ultimately responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft.  With extraordinary pressures on him or her from the newsroom, they can sometime be persuaded into making decisions that they might not want to make. 

I’ve shot commercials and industrial films from several helicopters, small aircraft and even hot-air balloons.  Before unpacking cameras and gear, we would have a safety meeting, often at my insistence.  My rule was always the pilot decides and I said it out loud.  If they feel safe doing what I suggest, then we’ll do it, but they can call it off at any time for any reason.  I have survived one emergency auto-rotate landing in a Hughes 500.  I never want to do that again as it almost as bad as falling down a flight of stairs. 

The pilot, a year later, in the same aircraft, was killed in a shoot for a television station in Hull.  He nailed some hydro wires on a high speed pass over a lake.  The Transportation Safety Board brought the tape to where I worked, to find out what happened. 

You saw the copter doing a fast, low pass (called gettin’ the skids damp in the slang of the day) over a beautiful lake and heard a very distinct sound when the wires hit the engine nacelle and turned it all into a spray of aluminum parts. people and camera equipment.  There wasn’t enough time for the four occupants to say "Merde!" when the tape ended abruptly.

What happened in Phoenix is utterly predictable.  If the NTSB does some digging, they’ll probably find the control room, or the director was calling for some really close shots of the perp being chased.  They’ll probably find that three or four helicopters, at a low level, in hot conditions (not as much lift from the air) doing weird acrobatics to keep the camera on the subject, resulted in two of them coming together, showering parts, people and fuel over Steele Indian School Park in Phoenix.

Where we fail as a society, is letting television stations feed us this madness.  It isn’t news.  Mikey Jackson driving to court does not need five copters in the air, covering every mile.  Paris Hilton does not require air cover to get to prison.  Wildfires are smoke, smoke and more smoke with the occasional flame outbreak.  Heck, just replay the same footage from last season and we’ll never know the difference. 

The Media gives us what we want and if that’s live eye footage of the trivial, the unimportant and the merely titillating, then this will happen again.

There’s always something tasty in the Friday Inbox.  Today we hear from The Almighty.

From WOAI in San Antonio:  A 50-year-old pastor from a church here in San Antonio was killed Tuesday afternoon after he was hit by a bolt of lightning while hiking with his two teenage sons, authorities told News 4 WOAI.

The man and his two sons were hiking in the Lost Maples State Natural Area near Vanderpool close to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. It started raining and the family went to seek cover under a cedar tree, Bandera County Sheriff Don Berger said. The father was then hit by lightning and died instantly, officials said.

God was heard to say "Shit, I missed!  I wanted to get that bear that was sneaking up behind them.  Sorry!"

From the Miami Herald:  A Broward prisoner on trial, accused of illegally masturbating in his jail cell, was found guilty of indecent exposure Tuesday.  Terry Lee Alexander, 20, had been fighting the charge, which had been brought by a female Broward Sheriff’s Deputy who saw him commit the sex act in his cell.

In reaching the guilty verdict, jurors found that an inmate’s jail cell is ”a limited public place” where exposing oneself is against the law.  The jury recommended that Alexander be sentenced to 60 days in jail, that on top of the 10-year sentence he is currently serving for armed robbery.

The case drew snickers in the courtroom Tuesday, especially during jury selection, when the jurors were quizzed about their masturbation habits.  The awkward questioning was posed by defense attorney Kathleen McHugh, who faced 17 prospective jurors and asked point-blank who among them had never masturbated.

No hands went up.

Then, she went one-by-one, asking each prospective juror if he or she had ever masturbated.  All nine men said yes, two of the 10 women said no.

God was heard to say "Bullshit!" while covering his mouth to cough and added "I know McHugh’s got a selection of power tools in her lingerie drawer that would make a sex store envious and Juror #2 can only get wet knuckles while watching The Shopping Channel.  You tell me, does the defendant polishing the handrail really deserve 60 days?" 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Some call it the number of Satan, but the city’s taxi commission sees no reason to get rid of taxi medallion No. 666.  Cab driver Michael Byrne asked the agency to retire the number that was assigned to him last year, saying it has brought him nothing but bad luck.

Some other cabbies, however, brought a touch of levity to the debate Tuesday as they argued against retirement.  "How dare you take Lucifer’s number away?" said Thomas George-Williams, president of the cab drivers union, who was sporting red horns. "This is a serious issue."

The commission voted 5-1 Tuesday to keep No. 666 on the streets.

Commissioner Ton Oneto said the 666 medallion had been around for at least 30 years and San Francisco has somehow survived.

God was heard to say:  "Well, at least Satan is working again as there’s nothing worse than the Prince of Darkness taking a couple of years off to re-evaluate his career.  Good to have him back, but driving a cab?  Oy!"

No Diamonds Around Uranus

Irene Klotz, Discovery News  July 25, 2007 — Given enough carbon, pressure and time, diamonds can form — but apparently not everywhere, say researchers who developed new modeling methods to parry the notion that small diamonds could spontaneously form in the skies of giant gas planets like Uranus and Neptune.

The discovery three years ago of a white dwarf star with a solid diamond core bolstered theories that the carbon-containing atmospheres of the large outer planets were celestial diamond factories even closer to home.

"Our simulations indicate that it is extremely unlikely that diamonds could ever have nucleated from the carbon-rich middle layer of Uranus and Neptune," a team of Dutch physicists wrote in paper to be published in Physical Review Letters.

God was heard to say:  "Dave, I betcha a nickel you can’t transcribe that headline without biting the end off your tongue, Deal?"  Deal.

Framingham MA MetroWest Daily News Sherborn – A Sherborn teen was charged yesterday with having sex with sheep at a farm near his home, and police reports suggest the encounters may have gone on for nearly a year.

Roger Henderson II, 18, was arraigned yesterday in Natick District Court on charges of bestiality, cruelty to animals and breaking and entering in connection with an incident police say took place at Boggastow Farm on June 27.

According to a police report, the farm’s barn had been the target of at least a dozen break-ins between August 2006 and June 2007, prompting the property owner to install surveillance cameras.

Between 3 and 4 a.m. on June 27, according to police, the camera captured and filmed a person identified as Roger Henderson II. The man grabbed a sheep by its hind legs and dragged it to the corner of the stall, according to police. The man removed his clothes and appeared to have sexual relations with the sheep. After finishing, the man put his pants back on and left the barn with his shirt in his hand, according to the report.

Following his arraignment yesterday, Henderson was released to the custody of his parents, on the condition he stay at least 30 yards away from the farm, and animals in general. The teen also was ordered to "report immediately to Leonard Morse (Hospital) to continue current mental health treatment," according to court documents. A woman at Boggastow Farm yesterday shouted, "no comment" to reporters before later threatening to call police.

God was heard to say:  "I saw that.  Damn, but he picked an ugly one. When’s the surveillance video going on YouTube?"

Panel Finds Astronauts Flew While Intoxicated
Jul 26, 2007 By Frank Morring, Jr./Aviation Week & Space Technology

A panel reviewing astronaut health issues in the wake of the Lisa Nowak arrest has found that on at least two occasions astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk.

The panel, also reported "heavy use of alcohol" by astronauts before launch, within the standard 12-hour "bottle to throttle" rule applied to NASA flight crew members.

A NASA spokesman declined comment on the findings, which were obtained by Aviation Week & Space Technology. At the direction of Administrator Michael Griffin, NASA Chief Medical Officer Dr. Richard S. Williams set up the panel to review astronaut medical and psychological screening after Nowak was arrested in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 5 on charges of attempted murder and attempted kidnapping for allegedly stalking and threatening a woman who was dating another astronaut. The attempted murder charge was subsequently dropped.

God was heard to say:  "I told them, no Two for One Shooters Night at the International Space Station.  And the nachos up there are just crap.  Stick with the draft beer, at least that’s cold." 

Thursday, July 26, 2007 By LESLIE BARBARO / HERALD NEWS

PATERSON — Someone stole 1,000 gallons of water from Daisy Valdivia’s backyard. And they didn’t spill a drop.

Valdivia woke Wednesday morning to find that her family’s inflatable pool, hip high and 10 feet in diameter and filled with water, was stolen from her backyard in the middle of the night. There is no evidence that the water was poured out, pumped out, evaporated or drunk.

"I’ve never heard of a pool being stolen, let alone one with water in it," Valdivia said.

According to Valdivia, the theft must have occurred between 1 a.m., the time her husband went to bed, and 5 a.m., the time she woke to put out the recycling.

"For them to do something that fast, that’s what amazes me," she said.

Valdivia, a lifelong city resident, moved into her home on McBride Avenue just five weeks ago. She and her husband purchased the bright blue pool for their three children less than a month ago. They never expected that it would be stolen in a neighborhood Valdivia described as "a nice, quiet area."

Although Valdivia said she is grateful nothing else was stolen, she was surprised that the thieves went through all that trouble for a pool. "We have two grills, chairs, umbrellas, they’re much easier to take," she said.

According to Lt. Anthony Traina of the Paterson Police Department, it’s clear that this was carefully planned. "Someone took a little time and effort thinking about this," he said. "This wasn’t just walking by and snatching a bike. That tells us something, too."

In light of the theft, Valdivia said she is considering putting up a fence, She also has questions for the thieves who stole her pool.

"I just want to know what the heck they did with the water," she said.

God was heard to say:  "They needed some good wine on the International Space Station and, well, you know, just up to my old tricks."

We give thanks to The Almighty for offering his comments on the news of the week.  This afternoon I’ll toss a nickel off my apartment balcony.  If He catches it, He can keep it.  I always pay my debts.

There have been some more revelations from the Tour de France aside from the usual nonsense.  Alexandre Vinokourov, one of the premiere riders. tested positive for homologous blood doping and the team he rides for, has been invited to go away by the Tour de France organizers and to take Vinokourov with them.

Cycling at the professional level requires a level of physical fitness that you and I can only dream about.  The Human, being a reasonable efficient machine, on a bicycle, also a reasonably efficient machine, can perform remarkable things.  It is competition of the most elemental, aside from boxing, and that is the attraction of watching the Tour de France.  The riders are amazingly fit, fast and fluid, using every last erg of energy in their bodies to propel a bicycle up a hill, down a hill, or around city streets for hours at a time.

Previous winners, like Lance Armstrong, Greg Le Mond, Floyd Landis and the rest, have always been surrounded by unproven allegations of Better Cycling Through Chemistry.  It seems impossible for mere humans to survive the Tour de France without some kind of assistance.  Homologous blood doping, the charge against Vinokourov, is merely another method to jack up human performance.

Science and money, being what they are, make sure that the human machines are as effective as the science and the money can make them, within the rules.  Wednesday, rider Cristian Moreni and the entire Cofidis squad took to the international departures lounge at the nearest airport and pulled out too.  Moreni failed a doping test.

Then earlier today, the Maillot Jaune, the leader of the Tour de France, Michael Rasmussen got the gate from his team, Rabbobank.  Rasumssen was already in a mess with the Danish Cycling Federation as he wasn’t telling them where he was, every hour of every day, missing what are called out-of-competition tests.

Aside from the daily embarrassment of having to piss for the doctors and give them vial after vial of blood, the riders, depending on their status or standing, have to diary their location and ask for permission to go places.  The idea is to keep riders away from countries like Mexico, Panama, the Czech Republic or other countries where the controls on performance-enhancing chemistry are the punch line to a bad joke.

So far, with three riders and two teams out of the Tour, it is looking like the beauty of professional cycling has taken another half-dozen shots to the scrotum from a foot encased in a steel-toed boot.  Does this mean the Tour de France is now Officially a Crock of Manure? 

It is getting to the point where any competition is going to be considered bent if more than one person is entered.  Professional Wrestling is starting to look like the last bastion of ‘pure’ competition.  Pure, meaning Pure Theatre.  

I’ve spent a few enjoyable hours watching the Tour de France on the magical picture box.  The Tour de France, for those who don’t know it, consists of a couple of hundred maniacally fit young men riding bicycles around France.  Not just Paris, or Lyon, but on roads to little villages like St-Michel-de Maurienne, or Tignes.  You’ve never heard of those little places and neither have I. 

Often enough the roads are in the French Alps and go straight up the side of a 6,000 foot high mountain, then plummet down the other side at a 50 degree angle.  There are crashes, pedals entangled in spokes, riders flying off over the guardrails and multi-cycle pileups that seem to go on for hours, in a tumbling collection of arms, elbows, legs, knees, heads, spokes and wheels.  You can’t quite hear it, but you know there is extensive swearing, in several languages, going on as well. 

Not that I’m watching for the crashes, as I have fallen off my share of bicycles and still have some little pebbles of gravel that come to the surface of my skin from time to time.  What I am watching is not the cyclists or the race. 

There are two fascinating sidebars to the Tour de France.  The first is the cameraperson who is standing on the back seat of a motorcycle, trolling along beside the cyclists, taking closeups of the sweat pouring off the riders as their leg tendons and muscles bulge like a collection of snakes in spandex and sponsor logos.

The second sidebar are the fans.  Apparently people take their vacations to drive for a day and half to camp at the side of an obscure road, near an unremarkable village, to watch two hundred sweaty men cycle by them once.  Some fans have their favourite team or rider and insist on painting the entire bodies and camper trailers in the colours of Rabobank or Discovery Channel, as a tribute to their heroes. 

The cameraperson, I am certain, is insane.  If you would like to simulate what he or she is doing, find a big, hard ball, like a softball.  Put the ball on a kitchen chair.  Place a short wood board across the ball.  Put a fourteen pound weight on your right shoulder and close your left eye.   Climb up on the chair, balance on the board on the ball and try to aim the weight on your shoulder at one corner of the TV and leave it there. 

Just to add to the fun, be on your cellphone at the same time, talking to someone who has consumed too much coffee and is chain-smoking Gitanes in a control room in Paris.  Now, make the kitchen chair go 45 kilometers an hour, mere inches from a group of cyclists while going down an 8% grade.  Oh, there will be helicopters flying just a few meters away to deafen you.  You have to trust the motorcycle driver is not drunk, depressed, high or getting over a particularly nasty love affair gone bad, with the unprotected, thousand-foot alpine drops looking so appealing.

Now add five dozen tiny European cars, with seventy-five bicycles lashed to each of their roofs, dodging in an out of the two hundred cyclists, honking their horns, screaming in a dozen languages and passing lunch to the riders, who glibly throw their empty water bottles at the heads of the spectators.  Meanwhile your brokenhearted motorcycle driver is sobbing at the sorrow of losing his love Pauline to a macon from Vierville who quotes Sartre and makes passionate love to her on the dining room table Sunday mornings after a meaningful repas of bread, cheese and eggs lightly fried in olive oil.

Then there are the spectators who ebb and flow off the side of the road, trying to touch the riders, flying their flags and colours, proffering water, while waving, screaming and taking pictures with their cellphones.  Your motorcycle driver, Jean-Etienne, must weave between them, while you perch in the air pointing a camera at the riders.

Then you are on the downhill descent, watching the speeds climb to 70 or 80 kilometers an hour, feeling the wind from the speed and the nearby helicopters pushing you left, right, back and forward, as the heavy, overbalanced motorcycle must squirt around a 180 degree bend on a road that is half-gravel, half pavement, coated with paper cups and water bottles, at 60 kilometers an hour, while dodging cyclists, spectators and signage.

At the end of a stage, the cyclists look like spent tissues, crumpled and wet.  The cameraperson, I suspect is taken to a padded room and allowed a forty-five minute soundless howl of soul-scarifying terror that makes Munch’s The Scream, look like a child’s birthday card, complete with cartoon puppy.  After he or she stops twitching, they are injected with something to calm them for a week or two. 

Jean-Etienne, the camera motorcycle driver, disappears to a shadowy corner of the media pen with a bottle, his memories of the vivacious Pauline and sad Johnny Halliday songs on his iPod.

The spectators?  They pack up their tents, lawn chairs and caravans and fight the endless kilometers of traffic away from the Tour de France.  Each driver hunched over his or her cellphone reviewing the blurry, poorly framed snaps of George Hincapie or Michel Rasmussen in the maillot jaune.  You can just see the shoulder of the leader, behind fourteen other riders, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, including a fine mist of refined, high-performance athlete sweat.

And you think NASCAR is madness?  Bill France and stock car boys have nothing on these folks who cover, participate and spectate in, on and around the Tour de France.

For those of you south of the border, this might come as news.  Canada has had troops fighting in Afghanistan since April 2002.  Remember Afghanistan?  The first blow the US struck after 9-11?  (Oh yeah, Afghanistan.  The Taliban, and the guy with the furry peaked hat and beard, um, Karzoo?  Right?)

When the US opened up the Shock and Awe taps in Iraq, most of the US forces went south to the Big Show, leaving NATO troops, including Canada, to pick up the slack.  Since then, it hasn’t gone particularly well for our side.  Despite best efforts, we’ve managed to get a lot of our folks killed in the same kind of grinding insurgent fight going on in Iraq.

There are some differences, in that Canada tends to win the hearts and minds by actually doing things for the locals and keeping the peace so the locals can get on with life.  However, when various insurgent groups decided to fight, our folks know how to put rounds on target too.  Just as true, our people bleed and die.  Sixty-seven of them so far.

I was in the convenience store in the apartment building last week when I noticed a person standing next to me.  He had a high and tight haircut, a deep tan and was wearing a blue sweatshirt listing the ops of the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry in Afghanistan.  The jump pants and the heavy boots suggested some military service, but the giveaways were the huge shoulders, massive arms and very calm demeanor.

Every fighting soldier I’ve ever met exudes an aura of personal responsibility, confidence and honour in a perfect sphere that extends about three meters around the person. 

I have a history of working with the military.  2 Circus, 8CH, 2 Commando, PPCLI and the Sherbrookes.  There was even a few days spent in the company of the Watch and the Vandoos, as well as 427 Sqn.  To a person, all good people.  But then there is this war thing.  I don’t care for the reasons Canada is in Afghanistan.  Our commitment was a simple "Kiss Dubya’s Ass" decision and was made in an afternoon of deep, intellectual, moral and political consideration:  "You comin?  Sure, whatever. Can we hitch a lift?"

That doesn’t mean I don’t support our fighting folks.  I have the utmost respect for them doing a difficult job, far away, without a lot of logistical, or physical support from home.  There are very few jobs that start the description with "You can be killed in the normal performance of your daily duties."

Here’s the conundrum:  I support our troops: All The Way.  I don’t support the War.

So, I asked the large shouldered gentleman what I should do?  His response was perfect.  "You don’t have to support the war to support the troops.  We’re fighting so you can have the luxury of a different opinion over here."

For that, I shook his hand, said thank you and asked him to pass on my thanks to the rest of his unit.  He said that he would and knowing the kind of person who was shaking my hand, I’m fairly certain he will. 

I can live with the conundrum now.  We shouldn’t be in Afghanistan, but if we are there, then the soldiers on the ground need us to say thank you once in a while.  They deserve to hear from us, who have the luxury of not agreeing with the war, at least recognizing the soldiers’ contribution.

To that, I can, wholeheartedly, unequivocally, without reservation, say Thank You.

If you want to say Thank You too, this link: http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/Community/Messageboard/addresses-2_e.asp will show you how.

The jury has spoken with a unanimous voice regarding Conrad Black.  Guilty on four of thirteen charges.  Of course, Lord Black of Crossharbour will be appealing the conviction, but as of right now, he’s been adjudged guilty of mail fraud, two counts of mail and wire fraud and one obstruction of justice. 

The racketeering charge didn’t stick, nor did aiding or assisting in preparation of false tax returns but enough of the manure storm is clinging to his vestments that it makes no difference.  As Conrad is reapplying for his Canadian citizenship, I do believe one of the major disqualifiers for consideration as a citizen is a conviction for major felonies.  Mail Fraud and Obstruction of Justice, would perhaps, constitute major felonies by even those who suffer from closed head brain injuries.  Technically, Conrad Black cannot become a citizen of Canada again, as a recognized court, meaning a US Federal court, not some third-world guerrilla tribunal, has found him guilty.

This brings up some interesting possibilities.  We know that Lord Tubby isn’t going to serve the maximum sentence for the four charges, which would be 35 years.  Face it, rich folks don’t do that kind of jail time and it isn’t like he went on a spree robbing 14 banks, waving guns around and shooting up the place.  He didn’t even have the decency to resist arrest and get Tasered by the cops. 

Which gives me a vivid mental image of Conrad Black in a torn, soiled wife-beater undershirt and pair of sweatpants, unshaven, covered in dirt and sweat after running through a trailer court and over a fence, being flung like a sack of potatoes into the back of a police cruiser, cursing and yelling at the "MotherBEEP BEEP BEEP son of a BEEP vultures!" with the camera equipment, then trying to kick out the side window of the cruiser. 

All that would be missing would be his wife, Barbara Amiel, in a pink tube top and white hot pants, clutching a pack of third rate economy brand smokes and screeching at the cops who have arrested her man:  "Let him up you BEEP BEEP cops!  He didn’t hit me none, but I’m gonna crush your BEEP in a bag of BEEP you GodBEEP BEEP!"  Close the scene as the female officer pushes Barbara Amiel across the hood of another cruiser and slaps the cuffs on.  We hear Amiel disintegrate in a pile of tears about "her babies" and yelling for "Mama!"  Fade to (pun intended) Black.

What the jury has done and the judge will do on November 30th of the this year, is send a message to those who figure they are above the law by their position, wealth and power, that we’re not going to take it anymore.  There is nothing wrong with being, rich, or aggressive in business, or even living a lavish lifestyle, but don’t behave like a demented Roman Emperor.

This brings us back to the concept of Noblesse Oblige.  Ed Mirvish, who died this week, came from a dirt-poor background, worked his way up in business, became a theatre impresario, a great philanthropist and was recognized as an all around good guy.  Many of you have never been to Honest Ed’s, but Honest Ed’s is a Toronto institution that makes any discount store or dollar store you’ve ever seen, look like a chi-chi Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills boutique. 

Mirvish made a pile of money and gave a good chunk of it away to hospitals, libraries and foundations.

Conrad Black, his favourite charity was Conrad Black.  Ed Mirvish knew that noblesse oblige meant sharing with those less fortunate.  Conrad Black was all noblesse and no oblige, so we don’t mind seeing him go down.  Streets around the synagogue for Ed Mirvish’s funeral are packed with people who want to say goodbye and thank you. 

Now, as for what to do with Conrad Black.  I have two concepts I have previously floated:  One, he be forced to work at a Hamilton Wal-Mart as a greeter for the next three years less a day, and be made to live on a Wal-Mart salary in a one-bedroom, third floor walkup apartment near the Stelco slag tip. 

My second concept is to ankle chain him at the 150 yard mark at a local golf range and charge $15 a bucket, proceeds to charity for anyone who wants to practice their game, rain or shine.  I’d say run that one every weekend until the season closes in November.  It would raise some money for various charities and teach Conrad Black a hopefully non-fatal lesson about being a greed head and a bully.

There’s nothing wrong with making a ton of money in business.  Look at Sir Richard Branson, or Bill Gates.  Those are two very sharp, some would say aggressive, businesspeople who have made a mammoth amount of money.  Both do good works with their wealth and power:  Noblesse Oblige.

Then there is Dennis Kozlowski, Bernie Ebbers and Michael Milliken.  Greed heads of the first order, who also made a mammoth amount of money and whose good works consisted of exactly nothing.  All Noblesse, and no Oblige.

Which also sounds like President Jo Jo The Idiot Boy, Shotgun Dick Cheney and Kousin Karl Rove.

I got this lovely email the other day, that I am going to reproduce here, as sent:

Dear Gentleman,
   I have many years experience south China(Shanghai)
in trading producks, since long ago grasps very many domains
 the production factory information, moreover has the good
 relation with the Chinese massive many companies. I can find
 cheaper producks with good quantity.If you want to establish
the initial relation with the Chinese company or and the more
 Chinese company carry on the relation, more opportunities and
the Chinese production merchant carry on the trade, we are willing
 to provide the corresponding help. You only need the product
 which tells us you to need, the request and the idea. We can
 in the Chinese with all one’s strength help, you at your service,
 the loyal hope can become the your firm forever friends.

Best regards!
Mr. Lu

Now, I’m overlooking his grammar and spelling, as it much better than mine or yours would be in Cantonese or Mandarin, so cut Mr. Lu some slack.  English is damn hard language to learn and I don’t have my tongue in my cheek.

It brings us to the more recent news of all kinds of counterfeits and knockoffs being imported into Canada, the US, Europe and elsewhere.  The most recent one is counterfeit Colgate Toothpaste being sold in Canada.  The toothpaste looks for all the world like your conventional tube of the well known brand.  With a couple of exceptions.  First, it says it is made in South Africa, spelled Arfica and it happens to contain very bad bacteria could make you very sick, or kill you. 

Second, there is no Canadian DIN number on the tube.  The DIN, or Drug Identification Number is the proof that the product making any health claims, or classified as one by Health Canada, has passed various tests.  For example, Life Brand Psyllium Husks for Fiber Therapy carries a DIN of 02247435.  It is in excruciatingly small type, but it’s there.

Remember the Melamine in Pet Food scare of a few months ago?  The reason melamine showed up in pet food, was that pet food makers were looking for sources of protein that were cheap.  China produces a number of things that go into food, like the various powders, chemicals and additives that are needed to manufacture foods.  China can produce them at insanely cheap prices, so any business with a half a lick of sense would consider sourcing some of them from China.

Surmising here, the potential buyer said "We need wheat gluten concentrate powder at X% protein/ per gram, per this test."  The supplier looked at the test and figured out a way to fudge the results using melamine to jack the apparent protein content up past the requirement.

Like any business, the buyer looked at the price per kilogram, added in the shipping and said "Hot Damn!  Fill us a half dozen containers full of bags of that stuff and get it on a boat!  Here’s the cash!"  The buyer started rubbing his hands together, knowing they saved a lot of money and could increase their profits very nicely.

The seller dutifully shipped it and took the money.  The buyer did a cursory test and yes, it met the standard for % of protein per gram, then dropped into the production process to make pet food. 

As Fluffy and Rover started getting horrendously sick and dying, someone decided to look the components that went into the pet food.  Through an amazing miracle, the wheat gluten powder was contaminated with melamine.  Melamine, combined with formaldehyde makes melamine resin, that indestructible dinnerware you have up at the cottage, or at the camp.  It is also used in counter tops, fabrics, glues and flame retardants. 

We all know what followed after that.  There were massive recalls, several hundred housepets got sick, some died and others will never be the same again.  But the two essential reasons it happened in the first place were these:  Blind Greed.  No Rules or Repercussions.

China’s definition of repercussions has some lattitude:  Generally, it’s a ‘tsk, tsk’ and a press release stating that their standards are as good as any. 

The other side of the repercussions is this:  On July 10th, the Chinese government executed Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of the food and pharmaceutical safety agency.  He was convicted of taking bribes from various companies and, one would surmise, not sharing.

Today, this nugget came via the Xinhgua new agency:  "From today onwards, toothpaste manufacturers are not allowed to use diethylene glycol as an ingredient," the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a notice posted late Wednesday on its Web site."  Oh.  Good to know now.  How about piss?  Is piss allowed in Chinese toothpaste?

We come back to the issue that truly drives it:  Blind Greed.  Manufacturers are willing to cut any corners possible to make a buck.  China is willing to produce stuff that manufacturers want at any price, so they can make a buck.  You and I, merrily trusting manufacturers to do their jobs properly, pay the price.  

I’m not saying China is the sole source of badness here. Some mouth-breathers are calling for labeling laws and No China content boycotts.  That’s just dumb, semi-racist, knee-jerk badness.  China isn’t bad, nor is India, or any other country that is trying to crawl up the chain to first world status:  They’ll do what they have to do.   

The real culprit is the North American business person who moves his or her lips to the "Quality in Everything We Do" and "Our People Are Our Greatest Resource" mantras.  Meanwhile they’re trying to find a way to squeeze the last cent out of their people, suppliers and products, while simultaneously screwing their competitors. 

If they could find a way to get pulverized human skulls into their product, instead of proper ingredients, they would start looking at countries with really bad human rights records and trying to cut a deal.  Hey, Buy Low, Sell High and Let The Buyer Beware. 

Or, to quote Mr. Lu, I can have a firm, forever friend with the Chinese massive many companies.

This is the last part of the series of four.  Sensibly Green can be thousands of things depending on your ability and desire for change.  I’ve identified a few easy, cheap things you should consider doing as part of your day to day existence to help the Green movement along.

If you did a bit of thinking along the way, you’ll see that Green, however you define it, is the mantra of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  I’ll add "Do some creative bitching too" as part of the concept.

I’m fortunate that I live in a city that does get the concept, at least part the way.  A lot of cities don’t have recycling for apartment buildings, or Green box programs for houses.  Mississauga does and it works well. 

Even the garbage trucks have two compactors.  One is for landfill-destined garbage and the other is for compostable garbage.  Yes, it costs more for a truck with that kind of technology, but the Region has done the math and it works out over the life of the truck.  To me, that’s a fair use of my municipal tax dollars that I pay as a segment of my rent. Perfect?  No, but reasonable.

The problem is that the payback on Green is rarely obvious.  By recycling more and reducing the use of landfill, you, as a citizen, postpone the inevitable tax hit when the existing landfill is full and the municipal government has to buy another site, usually further away, at a higher cost.  It’s not like you get a cheque every year as a thank you.  There is no Green Star you can hang on your front door.

By not using as much electricity as you might, you see a smaller electricity bill and that’s about it:  A few cents a month.  However that does mean the Electricity Company doesn’t have to build new generation capacity as soon as predicted, which defers rate increases.

Using less water means less burden on the existing infrastructure of water treatment and sewage, an infrastructure that consumes energy, but is absolutely critical to our continued existence.  You can save a few cents on the water bill and that’s about it. 

Less energy use, means less oil use, but that area has the iron-grip of the oil companies around the cullions of you and I.  If we use less oil, then they complain that demand is down, so they have to raise their prices to keep their profit positions and of course (sound effect of heavenly choir) The Shareholders.  

If demand goes up, they complain that they can’t produce enough, so the ‘free market’ comes into play and they raise their prices.  If a refinery technician in Yemen gets a hangnail, they have to shut the whole refinery down for ‘ maintenance and safety issues’ which reduces production. 

Notice there is no situation where oil prices can actually go down.  Even if the oil companies suddenly discovered 8,000 years’s supply of easy to get to oil, sitting in a warehouse, already refined and packaged for distribution, they would find a reason ("The shipping costs to move it eleven feet to our pipeline is very expensive") to charge us more for it. 

That whole system has been gamed for years exclusively for the benefit of oil companies and government.  Oil is generally taxed on a basis called Ad Valorem meaning, based on the value of the goods.  If the price of gasoline is $1.05 per liter, the government takes a fixed percentage of that price.  In Ontario, it’s about 14 percent.  The Feds also take a slice; an Excise Tax on gasoline, which out of the $1.05 means the governments get, roughly a quarter.  Then, they have the temerity to tax us again on it, as the Goods and Services Tax and Provincial Sales Tax are calculated in as well. 

Needless to say the oil companies charge that expense of collecting the taxes and sending in cheques, as part of their distribution costs that seem to always rise.  And the costs of all the tax lawyers they have to have on staff to try to navigate the various tax acts.  Some fuel is tax-exempt, some is excise exempt and some is taxed based on the alcohol or lead content.  Your head starts to spin if you read the various tax laws.  That whole system needs an overhaul.

Then there is the whole fuel from food issue.  Using food to make fuel is Stupid.  We need the food, not the fuel, as people starve to death on this planet every day for no good reason.

Oil companies, doing the greenwash, say that they’re ‘researching future fuels from corn’  What needs to be researched?  Humans have been making moonshine for a few thousand years, since we found the pleasant and beneficial effects of beverages that contain 5 to 40 percent alcohol.  Ask around in South Carolina if you have to.  The reason they want to research it, is they get a tax credit from you and I to perform research on how to make booze. 

Oil companies like corn ethanol fuel, as it is the easiest to make.  Where the oil companies should be forced to focus is on making fuel out of waste vegetation, like wheat stalks, switchgrass or dandelions.  That stuff also ferments and makes alcohol, but it isn’t as easy as a big kettle of sugar-rich corn. 

Every cow, chicken, pig, sheep, duck, goose or turkey I’ve met takes a crap at least once a day and every farm I’ve been on has a manure lagoon.  Farmers use some of the manure after maturing as fertilizer, but you get into the reality that animals crap more than you can use on the fields.  Take that excess, which still contains plenty of undigested carbohydrates from the feed and straw and make fuel out of that. 

Trap the naturally occurring heat from the fermentation and generate some hot water or electricity for the farm.  Burn the naturally occurring methane from decaying manure to run a generator, or a pump.  Sell what is left after fertilizing the fields to oil companies who will run it through a process to break down the carbohydrates, adding enzymes to convert the carbs to sugar, then ferment it and make moonshine. What is left over can be used as compost, or pressed into bricks of growing medium for newly planted trees.

Oh.  We can’t do that as the oil companies don’t want to.  They want the easy way out:  Fuel from Food.

This is where "Do some creative bitching too" comes into play.  The technology for heat exchangers and fermentation is very well understood.  There is not a lot of magic technology involved, like hydrogen fuel cells or storage batteries made from Unobtainium and Expensivium.  It is simple stuff. 

Remind your elected representatives that Fuel from Food is Stupid.  Remind them that Green = Vote.  Not Green = No Vote.  No Vote = Politician must get a real job.

The real reason it won’t happen soon is it is decentralized.  If every farm generated some of their own heat, electricity and fuel, then the market for the oil and electricity companies would be reduced. 

If every home or apartment generated a bit of their power needs, then the electricity demands would go down and that hits the oil companies in the wallet. 

If we use more public transit, then our cars will last longer, as we’re not putting as many miles on them.  Less car use means less oil use.

Recycling more, means less need for virgin plastic feedstock chemistry.  Less plastic means less oil being used.  

Recycled metal takes less energy to remake into other stuff and it’s cheaper than digging ore out of the ground.  Less energy needed at the smelter, means less oil use. 

Recycled paper fibres take less energy to make into things, than starting with raw trees in forests that need oil to ship the logs to the mill.

Food that only travels a few miles uses less energy than a cucumber from Costa Rica.  Cucumbers grown in a sustainable, organic way use less oil for fertilizes and pesticides. This will mean you can’t have a BLT with Mayo in February unless you are willing to buy from a hydroponic greenhouse grower nearby and pay a lot more for them.  OK, I can live with that. 

Are you seeing the trend here?  Big Oil doesn’t want to see the Green change happen, as it decentralizes all the ways they make money under a highly regulated, highly centralized, highly controlled system that does not allow for innovation and localization.  

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.  And get even with the oil companies.  Now that’s a payback!