SAY NO TO PLASTIC …

This one makes my blood boil.

The Obama administration’s policies to permanently destroy the Gulf oil industry along with thousands of much needed jobs in this country is also causing irreparable damage to marine ecosystems. What we’re dealing with is irrational hatred of anything not perceived as green according to the Book of Obama.

Make no mistake, Obama and his team of radical progressives are incapable of making any decision that isn’t submerged in rank ideological stupidity. Team Obama talks green but then adheres to policies that destroy the environment.  Team Obama  supports industries they like and have decided will be the winners of the energy race.

The reality is they hate anything that competes with their vision of windmills for as far as the eye can see, electric cars and solar energy for everyone regardless of the costs, ergo their war against oil, gas, and coal.

The focus and raison d’être of this blog is common sense environmentalism.  The consequences of the government dictated dismantling of oil platforms in the Gulf is destroying tens of thousands of fish and their ecosystem of artificial reefs that grew as a result of the huge platforms in the Gulf.

According to FrontpageMag:

The most prolific marine ecosystem on earth is being systematically destroyed on orders of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Where the BP oil spill failed miserably, Obama’s Dept. of the Interior now triumphs.

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Dismantling their production platforms could cost oil operators “$6 billion to $18 billion in lost future production,” according to a report by Mark Kaiser and Allan Pulsipher of the Louisiana State University Center for Energy Studies.

The federal government, however, is unmoved by such projections. Production? Costs? Profits?—come on! Where’s the federal “environmental expert” affected by such stuff?

So let’s try this: the most prolific and “diverse marine ecosystem” ever recorded by marine scientists was created by the “facilities” the U.S. Dept. of the Interior is hell-bent on dismantling (offshore oil platforms). Acting as artificial reefs over the past half century, the natural beauty, teeming fish life, coral colonies, and “bio-diversity,” created by these structures is amply documented in several studies commissioned by none other than the U.S. Dept. of the Interior.

One recent report by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Minerals (a division of the U.S. Dept. of the Interior) boasts that “fish densities are 20 to 50 times higher at oil and gas platforms than in nearby Gulf water, and each platform seasonally serves as critical habitat for 10 to 20 thousand fishes.”

In fact, “villainous” Big Oil produces marine life at rates that puts to shame “wondrous” Earth Goddess Gaia. “The fish Biomass around an offshore oil platform is ten times greater per unit area than for natural coral reefs,” found Dr. Charles Wilson of LSU’s Dept. of Oceanography and Coastal Science (emphasis added). ”Ten to thirty thousand adult fish live around an oil production platform in area half the size of a football field.”

I look for and support common sense energy policy and environmental solutions. This policy lacks common sense and good stewardship of the earth’s marine environment. This is wonton destruction on a grand scale!

Accidentally drop your boat anchor over coral off the Florida coast and you’ll be fined up to $25,000 pursuant to federal regulations. Catch and keep a Gag Grouper, Amberjack or more than 2 Red Snapper per fishing trip in any U.S. federal waters and you’ll be fined $600 per fish, pursuant to federal regulations.

Yet endangered coral in the Gulf of Mexico is being blown up, blow-torched, and winched out of the Gulf by the ton to bleach in scrapyards — as mandated by federal regulations. Tons of Red Snapper, Grouper, Amberjack and thousands of other “endangered” or “threatened” fish species are being dynamited in the Gulf of Mexico and left as shark-chum—as mandated by the same federal regulations. Most of these “facilities,” you see, are “dismantled” with explosives detonated around their legs below the Gulf floor.

I once called Barack Obama the worst pResident for the environment ever. These federally mandated regulations prove this beyond a doubt.

For more read here.

Manufacturing plastic bags is big business, make no mistake about that. The inroads that Eco- groups and blogs like Say No to Plastics have made getting consumers to switch from single use plastic bags to reusables has not gone un-noticed by plastics industry.

Rather than change their products by producing biodegradable bags that consumers could feel good about using, theses plastic bag manufacturers have decided to  bully ChicoBag and sue the company in South Carolina.

What’s their gripe? Well, it seems that according to the lawsuit, entrepreneur Andy Keller aka The Bag Monster and President of ChicoBag, his company’s website is using outdated EPA information about the percentage of plastic bags being recycled and that has caused them irreparable damage.

What this is really about is intimidation and bullying by manufacturers who see the future of their company’s bottom lines. Keller’s creation Bag Monster, so named because Americans use an average of 500 plastic bags a year, is having a lasting impact.

It’s hard to forget a guy running around wearing 500 plastic bags walking down the street, swimming in the ocean, and riding a motorcycle! In other words, his message is getting through.

According to the New York Times:

Three large plastic bag makers are suing ChicoBag Company, claiming that the eco-friendly company has caused irreparable harm to their businesses.

Hilex Poly Company, LLC, Superbag Operating, LTD., and Advance Polybag, Inc. have an issue with ChicoBag’s Learn The Facts page on its Web site. Here, the firm cites facts from the Environment Protection Agency and other reputable sources about the effects of plastic bags on the environment. For instance, the group cites facts such as “only one percent of plastic bags are recycled.” This and other similar statements, the plaintiffs believe, are false advertising and unfair competition.

The lawsuit, filed by three leading plastic bag manufacturers, contends that ChicoBag (whose reusable bag, when compressed into its carrying pouch, looks like a slightly squished Hacky Sack) knowingly overstated figures like the size of the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean and the number of marine creatures killed by eating plastic garbage.

Andy Keller, like millions of us,  is absolutely passionate about the environment’s need for us to break our addiction to single-use plastic packaging.

BTW, the EPA’s new figure on the percentage of plastic bags being recycled is a whopping 7%, not very impressive!  The plastic bag manufacturers should be ashamed of themselves and their companies. The degree of death and devastation caused by these single use plastic bags outrageous.

Of the 30.7 million tons of plastic generated in 2007, only 2.09 million tons, or less than 7%, were recycled. Learn more about municipal solid waste facts and figures (Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in the United States).

As a reminder, we have been recommending these reusable bags for two years.