My employer, a few months before I was hired, quietly initiated an voluntary environmental management system known as ISO 14001. This past Tuesday, after a week long audit, we have been recommended to be certified as ISO 14001. That is usually just a small formality-for the most part, we can say that we are ISO 14001 certified, or at least, we soon will be, but for the purposes of this blog, I will assume we already are.
We are now the only commercial flooring adhesive manufacturer in the US to be ISO certified. This is HUGE, and I am proud to say that I intend to play a more important role in this program in the future as anyone who knows me knows how much I care about the Earth, the interconnected nature of living things-Gaia, and environmental issues in general. Our environmental policy is straight in line with my personal belief set and green goals-conserving energy, reducing my footprint, becoming self sufficient and striving to live in harmony with nature. I also hope to become more active in the GreenBuilding community in the coming years.
http://www.usgbc.org/
http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=222
My dream home is a passive solar earth sheltered home in the back pasture at the ridge line. Green Building, rather, sustainable building, is not new to me. It is a rare find to work in a place where your personal ethics and environmental concerns are shared by upper management. One day soon, our company will be building a new lab and office. I saw the architect's plans and WOW, would you believe that the building will be a LEED certified passive solar building with louvers to control the light and other energy saving features?!? How cool is that?
For those who aren't familiar with ISO 14001, you can learn more from the links below, and hopefully, for the sake of our planet, you can convince your employer and/or your community to follow suit. It can make a real difference, both for your organization, and for the Earth.
http://www.iso.org/iso/management_standards.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_14000
To quote Wiki, "The aim of the standard is to reduce the environmental footprint of a business and to decrease the pollution and waste a business produces."
And this could only be the beginning. We, as a business, could go even further, making even more voluntary changes that would benefit the company's bottom line and the environment. In fact, one such program that we could probably benefit from is called Six Sigma. Motorola invented this strategy for consistent business improvement back in the 1980's, and since then, other large, successful companies like GE and Honeywell have developed Six Sigma programs. It is really all about statistics-(I really, really wish I had taken more statistical studies in college). The Greek letter sigma, "σ" or "Σ", is equivalent to our "s" or "S". Sigma is the mathematical sign for standard deviations and there is a mathematical model that states that if there are six standard deviations between the process mean(the average in a data set) and the nearest specification limit, practically no items will fail to meet specifications. It is a process, and if your business operates within the process, then you will make less errors, 3.4 errors per one million opportunities, to be exact. In other words, if you put a system like this in place, and you make a million products a year, you can expect less than 4 product issues as a result of production or business error per million units. It is actually pretty interesting how far math can take you these days. Who knew that statistics would ever be so important in something other than baseball? ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma
http://www.ge.com/en/company/companyinfo/quality/whatis.htm
It is an insane world. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but it sure is nice to work for a company that morally and ethically tries to do what is right. They get it. In a world where no one can agree on the cause of global warming, whether or not it exists, and what should be done about it, if anything, I have found an oasis of green common sense in my workplace. It is refreshing. I only wish I hadn't wandered around in the desert for so long.
Showing posts with label Gaia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gaia. Show all posts
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Non-trivial Science related Trivia
I have this list of useless, but interesting random trivia, so for something different, I thought I would share the list with you. As you might expect, most have a science bent....Big surprise on that one as you all know, Bev is Earth.
Pavement on land creates "expressways" for oil and other pollutants to run into the ocean. "Every eight months, nearly 11 million gallons of oil run off our streets and driveways into our waters -- the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill," --- from the Pew Oceans Commission in 2003
That's why I like my gravel driveway. Yeah, it is rut filled and gets the vehicles muddy, but at least I know that my pollutants stay here and do not become someone else's problem downstream in the watershed.
The quest of alchemists—to change base metals into gold—was achieved to a certain degree in Soviet nuclear reactors, where radioactivity transformed some lead nuclei into gold.
The largest reservoirs of gold on Earth, about 10 billion tons, are the oceans. Unfortunately, there is no practical way to get it out. Gold is also plentiful elsewhere in the solar system. In 1999, the NEAR spacecraft showed that a single asteroid, Eros, contains more gold than has ever been mined on Earth.
That's a WOW from me. I heard the other day on TV that all the gold ever mined in the history of human mining would fill only two Olympic sized swimming pools. Same show informed me that a gold bar weighs about 27 pounds.
Kevlar, superglue, cellophane tape, Teflon, Post-it notes, photographs, and the phonograph: All were laboratory blunders. Chinese alchemists were trying to make an elixir of immortality and made gunpowder instead.
Speaking of Kevlar... the International Space Station is covered with a foot-thick blanket of Kevlar to protect it from over 100,000 meteoroids that will slam into it over a 20 year period. Of course, every day, up to 4 billion meteoroids fall to Earth, most of them insanely small, but you never know when a killer rock might slip in undetected.
Life on earth began about 3.8 billion years ago, but sex did not evolve until more than 2 billion years later. Asexual reproduction is a better evolutionary strategy in many important ways, so it is unclear why sexual reproduction developed.
The hermaphroditic earthworm Dendrobaena rubida has both male and female genitalia. If it cannot find a mate, the worm doubles up so that its female bits and male bits can go to town.
Some fish and reptiles can 'change sex'. In marine environments near coral reefs, most fish change sex at least once in their life, and they can have both male and female organs at the same time, like the worm.
Homosexual behavior is found in at least 1,500 species of mammal, fish, reptile, bird, and even invertebrates.
In the animal world, there doesn't seem to be a choice, just an adaption. Nature wins.
Burials in America deposit 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol, into the soil each year. Cremation pumps dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air.
Americans generate 472 billion pounds of trash every year, including 96 billion pounds of food trash—more than 300 pounds per person, wasted.
Food waste is only 2 percent of the total waste. The rest is industrial refuse, including mine tailings, agricultural waste, construction debris, and chemicals
One quart of motor oil, improperly disposed of, can pollute 250,000 gallons of drinking water.
WOW!
Each year, consumers in the United States spread 300 million pounds of chemical insecticides, including compounds that the EPA says may impair the nervous system, disrupt hormones in the body, or cause cancer.
Not me, not me-I'm getting greener all the time!
Landfills are actually the No. 1 human-generated source of methane, belching 7 million tons into the atmosphere each year.
Those poor cows and pigs have really gotten a bum rap.
Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island in New York, which closed in 2001, is the world's largest city dump, covering about 2,200 acres
Pavement on land creates "expressways" for oil and other pollutants to run into the ocean. "Every eight months, nearly 11 million gallons of oil run off our streets and driveways into our waters -- the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill," --- from the Pew Oceans Commission in 2003
That's why I like my gravel driveway. Yeah, it is rut filled and gets the vehicles muddy, but at least I know that my pollutants stay here and do not become someone else's problem downstream in the watershed.
The quest of alchemists—to change base metals into gold—was achieved to a certain degree in Soviet nuclear reactors, where radioactivity transformed some lead nuclei into gold.
The largest reservoirs of gold on Earth, about 10 billion tons, are the oceans. Unfortunately, there is no practical way to get it out. Gold is also plentiful elsewhere in the solar system. In 1999, the NEAR spacecraft showed that a single asteroid, Eros, contains more gold than has ever been mined on Earth.
That's a WOW from me. I heard the other day on TV that all the gold ever mined in the history of human mining would fill only two Olympic sized swimming pools. Same show informed me that a gold bar weighs about 27 pounds.
Kevlar, superglue, cellophane tape, Teflon, Post-it notes, photographs, and the phonograph: All were laboratory blunders. Chinese alchemists were trying to make an elixir of immortality and made gunpowder instead.
Speaking of Kevlar... the International Space Station is covered with a foot-thick blanket of Kevlar to protect it from over 100,000 meteoroids that will slam into it over a 20 year period. Of course, every day, up to 4 billion meteoroids fall to Earth, most of them insanely small, but you never know when a killer rock might slip in undetected.
Life on earth began about 3.8 billion years ago, but sex did not evolve until more than 2 billion years later. Asexual reproduction is a better evolutionary strategy in many important ways, so it is unclear why sexual reproduction developed.
The hermaphroditic earthworm Dendrobaena rubida has both male and female genitalia. If it cannot find a mate, the worm doubles up so that its female bits and male bits can go to town.
Some fish and reptiles can 'change sex'. In marine environments near coral reefs, most fish change sex at least once in their life, and they can have both male and female organs at the same time, like the worm.
Homosexual behavior is found in at least 1,500 species of mammal, fish, reptile, bird, and even invertebrates.
In the animal world, there doesn't seem to be a choice, just an adaption. Nature wins.
Burials in America deposit 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid, formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol, into the soil each year. Cremation pumps dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air.
Americans generate 472 billion pounds of trash every year, including 96 billion pounds of food trash—more than 300 pounds per person, wasted.
Food waste is only 2 percent of the total waste. The rest is industrial refuse, including mine tailings, agricultural waste, construction debris, and chemicals
One quart of motor oil, improperly disposed of, can pollute 250,000 gallons of drinking water.
WOW!
Each year, consumers in the United States spread 300 million pounds of chemical insecticides, including compounds that the EPA says may impair the nervous system, disrupt hormones in the body, or cause cancer.
Not me, not me-I'm getting greener all the time!
Landfills are actually the No. 1 human-generated source of methane, belching 7 million tons into the atmosphere each year.
Those poor cows and pigs have really gotten a bum rap.
Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island in New York, which closed in 2001, is the world's largest city dump, covering about 2,200 acres
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Sun stuff
A few months ago I made an entry about the sun, and what a solar storm could do. NOAA made a prediction for the next solar cycle and mentioned the Carrington event in the article:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm
As you can see, the government clearly states that it could take ten years for a rec
overy from such an event, so I wasn't exaggerating about what could happen. For me, it is actually quite scary to see this new solar prediction in print. Also in the article is a good graph that clearly illustrates the Maunder Minimum, a time when glaciers expanded and rivers in Europe froze over in what was called the Little Ice Age. I'm sure you've seen the artwork showing ice skaters on the Thames. Scientists still do not know why that happened, and this article and it's graphs make me wonder if we are headed for another 'Maunder Minimum' period, as Gaia struggles to to counter the warming. I think it would be nice to see cooler temperatures and more precipitation, but the longer winters, shorter growing seasons, and possible famine wouldn't be
fun.
Carbon-14 dating in tree rings have shown that there are other 'minima' in r
ecent history: Spörer Minimum (1450–1540)and Dalton Minimum (1790–1820). There has actually been 18 periods of sunspot minima in the last 8,000 years, and while some suggest that these periods are caused by a slowing of the sun's rotation, no one knows exactly why that would happen. It is interesting to think about. What we do know is that since 1996, the sun has been getting dimmer and the solar wind is 20% less than what it used to be. In the visible light spectrum, the sun is 0.02% dimmer, but in the ultraviolet spectrum, it is 6% dimmer. Referencing solar activity and sunspots, the sun is quieter now than it has been in the last 100 years. We are in what is referred to as a 'deep solar minimum'.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/29may_noaaprediction.htm
As you can see, the government clearly states that it could take ten years for a rec
overy from such an event, so I wasn't exaggerating about what could happen. For me, it is actually quite scary to see this new solar prediction in print. Also in the article is a good graph that clearly illustrates the Maunder Minimum, a time when glaciers expanded and rivers in Europe froze over in what was called the Little Ice Age. I'm sure you've seen the artwork showing ice skaters on the Thames. Scientists still do not know why that happened, and this article and it's graphs make me wonder if we are headed for another 'Maunder Minimum' period, as Gaia struggles to to counter the warming. I think it would be nice to see cooler temperatures and more precipitation, but the longer winters, shorter growing seasons, and possible famine wouldn't befun.
Carbon-14 dating in tree rings have shown that there are other 'minima' in r
ecent history: Spörer Minimum (1450–1540)and Dalton Minimum (1790–1820). There has actually been 18 periods of sunspot minima in the last 8,000 years, and while some suggest that these periods are caused by a slowing of the sun's rotation, no one knows exactly why that would happen. It is interesting to think about. What we do know is that since 1996, the sun has been getting dimmer and the solar wind is 20% less than what it used to be. In the visible light spectrum, the sun is 0.02% dimmer, but in the ultraviolet spectrum, it is 6% dimmer. Referencing solar activity and sunspots, the sun is quieter now than it has been in the last 100 years. We are in what is referred to as a 'deep solar minimum'.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Snakes, Chickens, Sex, and Sermons?
We were able to get the jungle under control this past weekend, but we crossed paths with 2 additional snakes..that makes 3 snakes in two days...one King snake and two red rat(corn) snakes. I was down at my friends house this morning and she showed me a single winding track through the grass-the track was muddy, the grass was green, so it was easy to see. The track was several inches wide. The only thing that would make a track like that is a big rattlesnake, or a monster king snake that just ate the monster rattlesnake(like the one we saw in SC). This track definitely h as a Wow Factor associated with it. The snakes are definitely out and about.
We have a few more roosters to dispatch, but in doing that, we will end the great 2008-2009 hatching project to replace chickens lost to predators. I started with 6 birds, and now have 6+ roos that need to be dispatched, 30 hens and 1 rooster in the main coop, and on e poor battered hen in the chicken tractor. There are 2 or 3 birds in the 30 that might be roosters, too, but right now they are just androgynous pullets. I have a beautiful partridge rock looking roo that I am thinking of keeping. He would be part P artridge Rock(mother) and Blue Laced Red Wyandotte(father). Currently, I have a RIR/BLRW roo. I've forgotten the number of hens a rooster can service, but I think it is somewhere close to 15. I doubt I will keep all the pullets/hens, but I can always raise two flocks separately. I wonder if two roos will fight if there are sufficient hens for both?
I'm quite amazed at the percentage of pullets I hatched vs. roosters/cockerels. I think I've maybe a dozen+ roosters in all the birds I've hatched since Thanksgiving and with close to 70 total birds, that's rather amazing. Even at 15/75-that's only 20% roosters, and I believe the actual percentage is closer to 17%. It's got me wondering about evolution and the 
role temperature plays in determination of sex and embryo development. I know that with some reptiles, noteably crocodilians(alligators, crocs, caimans,and gavial), temperature of the eggs during incubation does influence gender. I believe th at it must be true with some birds, perhaps in my case, the chicken eggs I hatched. The incuba tor temps were kind of high, 100-101F. In some reptiles, higher temps can switch off male expression genes and create females. The embryo starts off as a male, but when the egg is exposed to higher temperatures, the embryo undergoes a gender switch and the hatchling becomes female. In addition, some animals that appear female are actually male and visa versa, i.e. their sex is ambiguous;they are intersexed. Could this have happened with my chickens? I think it is possible. Birds are 
descended from reptiles and the sex change thing is related to a changing environment. Perhap s during warmer eons, more females are produced to expand the population, but during cold er eons, the embryos remain predominantly male. The planet is currently experiencing a warming trend as we all know....is it Nature's Way-the ultimate survival technique-the Master's Plan- to turn males int o females to expand the population while it is warm and to prepare for the cold eon to come? Are my ambiguous, androgynous looking pullets really male?
If this interests you as much as it does me, read this:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/sex2.htm
References are listed at the bottom of the page, but consider this:
If you want a good mental exercise, think about all of this with respect to human evolution, global warming, homosexuality and gender identification. You've probably already figured out that I believe homosexuality, intersexuality, as well as heterosexuality to be natural phenomen 
a. I realize that many of you believe otherwise due to your various faiths, so I don't mean to be disrespectful to your beliefs, but I do believe that there is sufficient scientific evidence and sufficient Biblical contradictory passages to suggest that perhaps we all should have a more open mind to things we don't fully understand or know. I suppose the middle ground we meet on is this:
Matthew 22: 36-40
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
We have a few more roosters to dispatch, but in doing that, we will end the great 2008-2009 hatching project to replace chickens lost to predators. I started with 6 birds, and now have 6+ roos that need to be dispatched, 30 hens and 1 rooster in the main coop, and on
I'm quite amazed at the percentage of pullets I hatched vs. roosters/cockerels. I think I've maybe a dozen+ roosters in all the birds I've hatched since Thanksgiving and with close to 70 total birds, that's rather amazing. Even at 15/75-that's only 20% roosters, and I believe the actual percentage is closer to 17%. It's got me wondering about evolution and the
If this interests you as much as it does me, read this:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/sex2.htm
References are listed at the bottom of the page, but consider this:
"Sex is relative. Among animals, especially cold-blooded ones, males
can be turned into females by increased feeding or a change in
temperature. In the case of warm-blooded creatures, it can be done by
extracting ovaries to turn, say, a hen into a cock. In many species,
sex reversals happen naturally. Quahogs (hard-shell clams) are born
and grow up male, but later half of them turn female. Slipper shells
and cup and saucer shells do this too; they commence every season as
males, but nearly all of them later pass through a phase of
ambisexuality and turn into adult females.
Fish have evolved the quickest sex-reversing capacity of any animal:
some species not only change from male to female as they grow, but a
few, like groupers and guppies, develop the ability to switch
sexually back and forth within seconds. [ I intentionally picked an image of fancy guppies-quite 'flamboyant', huh?] If two female guppies meet
while feeling amorous, one is likely to start turning into a male so
he can mate with the other. Occasionally both shift at the same
moment, which usually results in a furious fight, with the winner
emerging as a female who somehow forces the other to stay male."
can be turned into females by increased feeding or a change in
temperature. In the case of warm-blooded creatures, it can be done by
extracting ovaries to turn, say, a hen into a cock. In many species,
sex reversals happen naturally. Quahogs (hard-shell clams) are born
and grow up male, but later half of them turn female. Slipper shells
and cup and saucer shells do this too; they commence every season as
males, but nearly all of them later pass through a phase of
ambisexuality and turn into adult females.
Fish have evolved the quickest sex-reversing capacity of any animal:
some species not only change from male to female as they grow, but a
few, like groupers and guppies, develop the ability to switch
sexually back and forth within seconds. [ I intentionally picked an image of fancy guppies-quite 'flamboyant', huh?
while feeling amorous, one is likely to start turning into a male so
he can mate with the other. Occasionally both shift at the same
moment, which usually results in a furious fight, with the winner
emerging as a female who somehow forces the other to stay male."
If you want a good mental exercise, think about all of this with respect to human evolution, global warming, homosexuality and gender identification. You've probably already figured out that I believe homosexuality, intersexuality, as well as heterosexuality to be natural phenomen
Matthew 22: 36-40
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Vacation Post #3: Eco-Diatribe
I’m not one to think that ‘Global Warming’ is 100% man-made. I actually think that
we are experiencing natural cycles, terrestrial and solar. That doesn’t absolve humanity from taking responsibility for polluting the Earth, it is just a statement of belief. I know that mankind pollutes every environment possible, but I am not so vain or arrogant to believe that we are more powerful that Mother Earth, Gaia, herself. I believe that Gaia can correct, in time, whatever abuse we dish out. In many ways, the Earth itself acts as an That correction may involve oxidation or crustal subduction, but given enough time, that Gaia will repair herself and erase our very existence if need be. Even if we blow ourselves up and blow the Earth apa
rt, She will reassemble the fragments and life will reseed the planet. Extremophilic bacteria are everywhere, even in the magma of volcanoes and in the irradiated upper atmosphere, and they will begin diversification. Life will continue, it is a Force-an Energy, but it may not be recognizable or intelligent as such. For Earth, that might even be a good thing. It probably happened in the past. If so, the Earth that existed before a Mars sized body impacted and carved out the Moon did not resemble the Earth of today. We are complex beings, but you could say that we are the embodim
ent of bacterial diversification and have infected the planet. Whether or not we are a beneficial, benign, or destructive bacteria, we can not know. Whether we are an accident of evolution or have been molded via Intelligent design, we can not know. But I digress….
While on vacation, we visited Hunting Island in South Carolina. It is a state park, located between Edisto and Hilton Head. Native Americans once used the island for hunting, hence the name. It is several miles long and has a lagoon that runs about a third of the island's length. It is beautiful. Like many state parks, there are rental cabins, and on Hunt
ing Island, some of these cabins were near the beach. Were. They are gone. In recent years, there has been so much coastal erosion that the cabins were washed away. If you look closely at the pictures, you can see not only the remains of palms and 250 year old live oak trees, but also the concrete corner of an old septic tank-the remains of a cabin. All in all, this only proves that the ocean is changing the face of a barrier island, which is a normal part of island evolution, but it sure gives one pause to think about how we continue to view our changing planet in a snapshot mode and how appropriately powerless we are to subdue the power of the ocean, the power of Mother Earth. Instead of wor
king in concert with her ebb and flow of energy, we continue to selfishly think only of our own pleasure-we continue to take and try to stop natural Earth changes without thought of the future. The Hunting Island Lighthouse has been moved once, and it may need to be moved again. Without human intervention to restore jetties, install groins and reclaim beaches for recreation, many would have already disappeared and or would have been recreated elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to retreat to the mainland and allow the barrier islands to do their jobs unabated? We often forget that hurricanes and storms are beneficial to the planet as a whole, distributing the heat of the tropics to the temperate regions. If we try to change these processes, then we are ultimately creating our own demise. Humans just need to live more in sync with Nature and stop trying to control it. Click on the pictures to see details. The septic tank is visible in the last picture, and the first image is of the almost tropical lagoon. All of the erosion pictures were taken at low tide. At high tide, the waves would have practically lapped my feet as I stood just above the high tide line.
we are experiencing natural cycles, terrestrial and solar. That doesn’t absolve humanity from taking responsibility for polluting the Earth, it is just a statement of belief. I know that mankind pollutes every environment possible, but I am not so vain or arrogant to believe that we are more powerful that Mother Earth, Gaia, herself. I believe that Gaia can correct, in time, whatever abuse we dish out. In many ways, the Earth itself acts as an That correction may involve oxidation or crustal subduction, but given enough time, that Gaia will repair herself and erase our very existence if need be. Even if we blow ourselves up and blow the Earth apa
rt, She will reassemble the fragments and life will reseed the planet. Extremophilic bacteria are everywhere, even in the magma of volcanoes and in the irradiated upper atmosphere, and they will begin diversification. Life will continue, it is a Force-an Energy, but it may not be recognizable or intelligent as such. For Earth, that might even be a good thing. It probably happened in the past. If so, the Earth that existed before a Mars sized body impacted and carved out the Moon did not resemble the Earth of today. We are complex beings, but you could say that we are the embodim
ent of bacterial diversification and have infected the planet. Whether or not we are a beneficial, benign, or destructive bacteria, we can not know. Whether we are an accident of evolution or have been molded via Intelligent design, we can not know. But I digress….While on vacation, we visited Hunting Island in South Carolina. It is a state park, located between Edisto and Hilton Head. Native Americans once used the island for hunting, hence the name. It is several miles long and has a lagoon that runs about a third of the island's length. It is beautiful. Like many state parks, there are rental cabins, and on Hunt
ing Island, some of these cabins were near the beach. Were. They are gone. In recent years, there has been so much coastal erosion that the cabins were washed away. If you look closely at the pictures, you can see not only the remains of palms and 250 year old live oak trees, but also the concrete corner of an old septic tank-the remains of a cabin. All in all, this only proves that the ocean is changing the face of a barrier island, which is a normal part of island evolution, but it sure gives one pause to think about how we continue to view our changing planet in a snapshot mode and how appropriately powerless we are to subdue the power of the ocean, the power of Mother Earth. Instead of wor
king in concert with her ebb and flow of energy, we continue to selfishly think only of our own pleasure-we continue to take and try to stop natural Earth changes without thought of the future. The Hunting Island Lighthouse has been moved once, and it may need to be moved again. Without human intervention to restore jetties, install groins and reclaim beaches for recreation, many would have already disappeared and or would have been recreated elsewhere. Perhaps it is time to retreat to the mainland and allow the barrier islands to do their jobs unabated? We often forget that hurricanes and storms are beneficial to the planet as a whole, distributing the heat of the tropics to the temperate regions. If we try to change these processes, then we are ultimately creating our own demise. Humans just need to live more in sync with Nature and stop trying to control it. Click on the pictures to see details. The septic tank is visible in the last picture, and the first image is of the almost tropical lagoon. All of the erosion pictures were taken at low tide. At high tide, the waves would have practically lapped my feet as I stood just above the high tide line.
