But Plastic Bag Monster lived and survived because humans continue to use flimsy plastic bags, take out styrofoam containers, disposable plastic forks, spoons, cups. All minions and allies of Plastic Bag Monster.
On September 25, 2010 Mama gnome and the gnome family will battle against Plastic Bag Monster and his minions on the 25th International Coastal Cleanup Day.
During the 2009 Cleanup, volunteers found 18,000 derelict fishing nets in the United Kingdom alone, and 70,000 plastic bottles in Nicaragua. In 2009, 60 percent of all debris items found on just one day were "disposable."
To find out how you can participate please visit Ocean Conservancy's site where you can look for locations all over the world participating in this cause.
If there isn't one close to you, you can sign up your own clean up cause and location for that day.
And this Friday, the bill must be approved or it will die and Plastic Bag Monster triumphs.
If the bill is approved and is signed by the governor, supermarkets and other large retailers are prohibited from using single use plastic bags starting in 2012.
In 2013, that ban would extend to smaller grocers and convenience stores using plastic bag minions as well.
Plastic Bag Monster is the bane of Mama gnome's existence. She has battled against this monster time and time again.
Perhaps one of the most memorable was the battle of 2009 when Mama gnome succored by her gnome family battled against the Plastic Bag Monster on a sandy beach.
The gnome family was overwhelmed by cigarette butt monster and other plastic bag minions including styrofoam cups and little pieces of unrecognizable plastic scrap minions.
And if we were thinking they were getting recycled, Plastic Bag Monster has pulled the plastic over our eyes, because only a small fraction of that 19 billion gets recycled.
Only 5 percent of those bags get recycled.
So 95 percent of 19 billion bags end up where?
In our waterways, in landfills, in our deserts, our rivers, our forests, inside marine animals, in our oceans, disintegrating...NOT BIODEGRADING. They've taken up to creating their own evil lairs. One of the more notorious one is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Plastic bag monster and his minions become tiny plastic pieces mistaken for food by birds and marine animals.
And guess who eats the marine animals? Humans.
Mama gnome's blog has a running counter of how many plastic bags are used every second in the world.
It's a scary counter. Think of how much plastic the fish eat. Think of how much plastic we eat.
Here's a video of a Plastic Bag Monster trying to weasel his way out of the ban.
Thanks to continuing CO2 emissions, coal and power plants, unmitigated use of oil, continued slashing and burning of forests because of human demands and consumerism,
Earth Warming Machine 2010 is even more powerful.
Earth Warming Machine 2010 created these mind boggling climate change products:
"Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland has lost an iceberg of 87 square kilometers in size. For scale, the ice sheet is said to be 4 times the size of Manhattan. A University of Delaware researcher has been tracking the Petermann Glacier, and in a news release he says that the ice chunk is the largest since 1962."
Mama gnome did not list all climate change products currently wreaking havoc, killing humans, animals, destroying homes and habitat.
Mama gnome doesn't have enough room to list all in this post.
What is fueling Earth Warming Machine to become stronger and bigger every year?
Humans of course.
We are at the cross roads of cross roads.
Mama gnome cannot believe humans continue to fail to come together.
Humans continue to disagree about the Earth Warming Machine.
What further proof do humans need?
Earth Warming Machine 2011?
Mama gnome is afraid. Aren't you?
Please be strong, be brave, help fight against the evil Earth Warming Machine and Go Green!
Mama gnome's face contorted to a painful misshapen look of disbelief when she read this post about recycling cigarettes as a possible "green way."
Cigarettes are not biodegradable. The cigarette butt may disintegrate over time and look smaller and smaller, but the plastic remains and becomes part of the water ways, the oceans, the soil, leaking toxic chemicals into the environment or tragically they are mistaken for food and consumed by birds or marine animals killing them in a slow painful way.
Just like it kills humans in slow or fast painful way.
One was during Coastal Cleanup Day. In one and a half hours, Mama and daddy gnome collected almost one hundred and thirty cigarette butts on a small patch of sandy beach.
And this beach wasn't a main beach visited by throngs of humans.
So it's mind boggling how many cigarette butts are left out there by smokers.
But is recycling cigarette butts the solution to getting rid of this environmental monster?
How about we recycle nuclear waste and we can make them to tiny little nuclear arms.
How's that?
Mama gnome is fuming. And it's cigarette smoke being puffed into everyone's eyes.
It's smoke and mirrors dear humans.
Mama gnome is reposting this from a previous blog entry, an article that lists all the terrible after affects of people lighting up a cigarette. They report:
"According to the American Burn Association, about 900 people in the United States die each year in fires started by cigarettes, and about 2,500 are injured. About 100 of the fire deaths each year are children and nonsmokers. Nationally, annual human and property costs of fires caused by careless smoking total about $6 billion. In 1997, there were more than 130,000 cigarette related fires."
Mama gnome's pointy hat is all rumpled and wrinkled from the nervous wringing it has gone through because Mama gnome has been anxiously waiting for this moment.
But can this really be true?
Has the Gulf Coast Oil Monster been conquered or "contained"?
"The stoppage came 85 days, 16 hours and 25 minutes after the first report April 20 of an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11 workers and triggered the spill."
Between 93.5 million and 184.3 million have already spilled into the Gulf, according to federal estimates."
Here is a picture of the Gulf Coast Oil Monster taken by NASA on Wednesday,July 14,2010.
The containment cap (Top Hat Number 10), currently keeping the Gulf Coast Monster from spewing oil, was placed on July 10, 2010 and the flow of oil was finally "stopped" on Thursday, July 15,2010.
Could NASA's picture be the picture of the last day of the Monster's unabated power?
Mama gnome jumped up and down and practically flew inside her kitchen when she read this post by Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, on Huffington Post.
He reports:
"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed A.B. 1437, a bill backed by The Humane Society of the United States that requires that starting in 2015 all shell (whole) eggs sold in California must come from hens who were able to stand up, lie down, turn around, and fully extend their limbs without touching one another or the sides of an enclosure. In other words: California will become a cage-free state."
Mama gnome continues to fret and gnash her teeth thinking about the Gulf Coast Oil Monster as it spews oil and wrecks havoc on the lives of humans, animals and habitats.
Instead of oil plumes and oil slicks along the Gulf Coast's wetlands and beaches, consider this alternative green power....
No oil slicks, no oil plumes, no oil covered sea turtles, pelicans and other marine animals.
(c) Friendly Gnome's Blog
(c) Friendly Gnome's Blog
(c) Friendly Gnome's Blog
(c) Friendly Gnome's Blog
(c) Friendly Gnome's Blog
(c) Friendly Gnome's Blog
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