Category Archives: Eco-stuff

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Mr. Crankypants is back, and all nice and rested after a long summer vacation. But all the bad news has made him mean and cranky again. There can be nothing good about an entire city getting devastated by a hurricane. Lots of bad news about rising gas prices, too, but Mr. Crankypants has managed to find a silver lining in that cloud. What could be good about rising gas prices? Nothing, you say? Think again….

As Mr. Crankypants gets into his twelve-year-old Toyota Corolla (32 mpg around town, 36 on the highway), he sees someone drive by in a huge, brand-spanking-new Hummer (8 mpg on a good day). Mr. Crankypants just spent $26.37 filling up the Toyota’s gas tank, which caused serious feelings of crankiness. Ah, but watching that brand-spanking-new Hummer drive by, that made everything better. Mr. Crankypants imagines a conversation with the driver of the Hummer….

Hey, look at that brand-spanking-new Hummer! Wow, bet it’s loaded, huh? A/C, power-everything, that looks like a sunroof. Hey, when ja buy that? Three months ago? You mean when gas prices were below two dollars a gallon? Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Hee hee. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Too bad, sucker.

There now. Mr. Crankypants feels much better.

Storm water

We had pouring rain here in New Bedford last night. I could hear it pounding on the skylights of our apartment. When I got to the church this morning, I knew there would be water in the basement. An underground stream flows under the Parish Hall, and the whole foundation is less-than-waterproof. And I was right — there was water in some of the rooms in the lower basement.

Six hours later, most of the lower basement had up to a couple of inches of water. Towards the end of the afternoon, as the water kept rising, I decided to rescue some nice child-sized oak furniture that had been stored down there. I saved a few other nice things as well. By the end of the afternoon, I was hot and sticky and dirty, and feeling pretty cranky.

But I got to go home to a nice clean, dry apartment, with electricity and running water. I got to have a nice dinner in my own apartment. Unlike people in New Orleans, who are dealing with up to twenty feet of storm water — not just a couple of inches in the church basement.

From all accounts, it’s a disaster down there. I don’t pray, but I’ll be sending good thoughts. You can, too — send prayers, good thoughts, positive energy, whatever you got, they can use it. It wouldn’t hurt to send money, either. I’ll be sending my donation to the American Red Cross because I’ve seen first hand the work they can do in responding to emergency situations. Pick your own organization, but do send what you can.

Read BBC News coverage.

Read American Red Cross response. Includes a link to donate online.

You still have time

Today is Pee-on-Earth Day. Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case it’s December 21. Beer to promote participation is optional.

I know I’m posting this a little late in the day for you to participate, but you’ll probably appreciate the privacy of night anyway. And if you don’t read this until after Pee-on-Earth Day, you hereby have special dispensation to pee outdoors at any later date.

Back from extinction?

When I was a child, I remember reading about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, then thought to be extinct. Somehow, this wild-looking bird captured my imagination, and I always had this fantasy that someday someone would discover that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was not extinct. As I grew older and more cynical, I knew intellectually that my fantasy was ridiculous. Once something is extinct, it’s gone forever.

Except that new evidence seems to indicate that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is, in fact, not extinct. My dad heard it on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” show, in a report titled “Ivory-billed Woodpecker Rediscovered in Arkansas” (available on their Web site at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4622633).

Hearing that made my day.