My Biggest Oh My Of The Day Do You Have One?
So, I created this thread to share 'Oh My's"... No one subject, but a cornucopia of subjects that got you to stop and say, Oh My! or "What The Hell" or did I hear correctly?
I will kick it off by sharing the legalization of human composting. Yes, you heard correctly.
California Has Legalized Human Composting
By 2027, Golden State residents will have the choice to turn their bodies into nutrient-rich compost
"California has joined a growing number of states that allow residents to compost their bodies after death. A new law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday, directs California officials to develop regulations for the practice known as natural organic reduction by 2027.
Washington became the first state in the nation to legalize human composting in 2019, followed by Colorado and Oregon in 2021. Vermont legalized the practice in June 2022.
Human composting typically involves putting a body into a steel vessel, then covering it with organic materials like straw, wood chips and alfalfa. Microbes break down the corpse and the plant matter, transforming the various components into nutrient-rich soil in roughly 30 days. Staffers at special human composting funeral homes then remove the compost from the vessel and allow it to cure for two to six weeks. Family members can then use the human compost like any other type of compost, such as by mixing it into a flower bed, or they can donate it to be spread in conservation areas."
"Each body produces about one cubic yard of compost, according to Recompose, a funeral home that specializes in human composting headquartered in Seattle. The soil “returns the nutrients from our bodies to the natural world” and “restores forests, sequesters carbon and nourishes new life,” per the Recompose website.
“Natural organic reduction is safe and sustainable, allowing our bodies to return to the land after we die,” says Katrina Spade, Recompose’s CEO, in a statement, as reported by the Sacramento Bee’s Stephen Hobbs.
Advocates tout human composting as a more environmentally friendly alternative to cremation, which accounts for more than half of all body dispositions in the United States and is expected to become even more popular over the next few years, according to the Cremation Association of North America.
By some estimates, the cremation process—which involves burning, dissolving or otherwise processing human remains into ashes and bone fragments—releases an average of 534.6 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air per body, which translates to about 360,000 metric tons of this greenhouse gas emitted in the U.S. each year, per National Geographic’s Becky Little.
Burials, too, can be harmful to the environment, as the chemicals used to embalm a body can leach out into the soil. As Molly Taft reports for Gizmodo, about 5.3 million gallons of fluids like formaldehyde, methanol and ethanol are buried each year. Caskets and burial vaults are also resource-intensive, requiring 30 million board feet of wood and nearly 2 million tons of concrete, steel and other materials yearly, per Tech Insider’s Julia Calderone."
“Wildfires, extreme drought, record heat waves remind us that climate change is real and we must do everything we can to reduce methane and CO2 emissions,” Cristina Garcia, the California lawmaker who drafted the Golden State’s human composting bill, tweeted on Monday.
Still, not everyone loves the idea of turning their loved ones into dirt. The California Catholic Conference opposed the bill, writing in a June letter that human composting “reduces the human body to simply a disposable commodity,” as reported by Catholic News Agency’s Jonah McKeown.
In New York, where a human composting bill has been proposed, the New York State Catholic Conference expressed similar opposition, writing that the process fails to “protect and preserve basic human dignity and respect.
“We believe there are a great many New Yorkers who would be uncomfortable at best with this proposed composting/fertilizing method, which is more appropriate for vegetable trimmings and eggshells than for human bodies,” per the organization."
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne … by%202027.
Now You Can Compost Human Bodies Too
https://contentdev.sierraclub.org/sierr … bodies-too
I "wont let them rot". Do you know what happens to people you bury, right?
What about burning bodies and get the remains to decor your mantel? I dont need an answer.
Like I said, a great idea. Hopefully it will get more popular.
OH MY!!!!
"The Biden administration announced Wednesday that it is appointing the wife of White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain to be a special diplomat overseeing international animal and plant habitats.
The State Department appointed Monica Medina as the first-ever U.S. Special Envoy for Biodiversity and Water Resources to solve the world’s intertwined biodiversity and water crises, according to a department media note. Klain’s wife will adopt an “all-of-government effort” to represent the interests of plants and animals abroad because the administration believes that such species are currently threatened by the “climate crisis"
Medina and the department will crack down on “nature crime” such as illegal mining and logging, to promote biodiversity and keep water supplies clean, the department stated. The special envoy will also implement the White House’s water security plan and the Global Water Strategy, initiatives that seek to stop droughts across the globe without increasing greenhouse gas emissions."
BUT PLEASE DON"T WORRY ---- Medina will continue to serve in her current role as the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
Yeah. this will be a second job... Guess the Klains are now on the payroll for three jobs.
Maybe Biden should appoint someone to handle some of the people that are living in the wilds( our streets) right here in America.
What a crock.Believe it or not, the biggest threat to life on this planet right now is plastic.
Well... other than the seeming effort to start a Nuclear war currently ongoing.
Globally, the world produces more than 400 million tons of plastic every year and the vast majority of plastic products are not recyclable.
The ocean is expected to contain 1 ton of plastic for every 3 tons of fish by 2025. More than 80% of marine litter is plastic which kills up to 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine creatures each year by ingesting it.
Some scientific studies say that we are ingesting five grams of plastic per week, the equivalent of eating a credit card, from the tap, bottled water and through our food. This eventually goes to our blood, which can contribute to cancer and many diseases.
plastic is not biodegradable, it simply breaks down to smaller and smaller particles until it is small enough to be digested by single cell animals. As it cannot be digested, it is almost always terminal to the creatures which ingest it.
A National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey produced by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that BPA was found in 93% of urine samples taken from people above the age of six.
Research found that if no action is taken, the plastic crisis will grow to 29 million metric tons per year by 2040. If we include microplastics into this, the cumulative amount of plastic in the ocean could reach 600 million tons by 2040.
Considering that plastic takes 400 years to decompose, it will be many generations until it ceases to exist. There’s no telling what the irreversible effects of plastic pollution will have on the environment in the long run.
As For SOLAR ENERGY:
You can run your whole house on solar power. It is not so complicated or costly. First, you have to estimate the power that the house needs. After that, you can buy a complete solar system to run the entire house on solar power.
This was not possible 15 years ago, there were a few eccentric people who were able to do so, but it required a separate structure to house a plethora of car batteries (or the like) strung together to store enough electricity to make it through the night. That and a lot of solar panels.
Today technology has advanced to the point where it is possible for a home with a large enough roof space, and a couple of power walls, to meet the needs of a home, using grid power only as an emergency back-up, which could be replaced by a generator if the person were that insistent on not being on the grid.
Many people today have had such systems installed. It is becoming more and more common, making it more economical to do so.
Treasury Department data released Tuesday showed that the total national debt was $31.123 trillion as of Monday.
The national debt at the end of 2020 When Trump left was
$26.9 trillion
Today Joe broke another record ! -- U.S. National Debt Tops $31,123 Trillion for the First Time America’s borrowing binge has long been viewed as sustainable because of historically low-interest rates. But as rates rise, the nation’s fiscal woes are getting worse
The new milestone was reached even as the federal government's insatiable spending has slowed considerably as the COVID-19 pandemic has waned. In the months following the outbreak, the national debt rose by $1 trillion in just a month’s time — not just once but twice in 2020.
As a result, the federal government spent $3.1 trillion more than it received in 2020 and $2.8 trillion more than it received the following year.
In 2022, the budget deficit is expected to be about $1 trillion. Some experts believe $1 trillion per year in new debt is the floor given growth in entitlement spending as well as new spending priorities set by Congress this year. Those priorities include the environmental policy bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act and assisting Ukraine in its war with Russia.
And all in two years.
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