It is the day after, the day after Halloween.
I wonder how many people are still on a sugar high? How many are suffering a sugar hangover? How many are going through sugar withdrawals? Luckily for some, the Tim Hortons drive through has Tim Bits and donuts to tide one over until Christmas cake season arrives.
Since Halloween comes around every year I am a little surprised that some enterprising PhD student hasnSA国际影视传媒檛 written a thesis on the Halloween hangover and turned it into a best-selling book and movie. Surely there are a lot of interesting statistical aspects to the event. Who knows what strange things a nation on a sugar high, might get up to?
Personally, I am a little disappointed that once again this year, I didnSA国际影视传媒檛 see any witches flying through the night sky, on broomsticks. However, I believe that it is only a mater of time before someone invents something very much like a flying broomstick for people to use. So, I live in the hope, that maybe next year they will be invented for local travel.
Now, speaking of Halloween, what do you suppose happens to all those pumpkins people bought and carved for the big night? How many of them will end up in the dump? That would be a colossal waste. They could be collected and fed to livestock or they could be composted and turned into fertilizer for the soil. If they end up in the dump that is just plain wrong, yet I suspect in Yellowknife hundreds will and across the country, we are talking hundreds of thousands.
In a landfill, garbage gets covered over and there is little oxygen. So as biological materials like pumpkins rot, they produce methane gas. Methane is what is called an evil greenhouse gas. Apparently, it is 30 times more damaging to the environment then carbon dioxide and 10 to 20 per cent of the methane produced comes from garbage dumps that are euphemistically called landfills.
When I was a kid, I visited a city with a park that had been built over a garbage dump. Scattered about were some vent pipes sticking out of the ground. You could walk over to them, light a match and you got a puff of flame out of the top of the pipe. This was long before people got hysterical over global warming, but I thought to myself, SA国际影视传媒淗ow dumb of a solution to a problem is this, venting a flammable gas into the atmosphere?SA国际影视传媒� Yet, if I returned to that park, I bet it is still vented. Another example of humans throwing away a product that could be a resource.
If you compost biological matter and you do it properly by aerating it SA国际影视传媒� rather than methane SA国际影视传媒� carbon dioxide is produced. That makes the process less harmful than dumps. However, once again the gases should be collected and used or neutralized.
People seem to get bent out of shape over fossil fuels and pipelines, but as much or more greenhouse gases are created by the way we deal with garbage, manure and sewage.
Talking of noxious gas, I thought I would switch to a different topic and pass on some conversations I overheard at our uptown liquor store a.k.a. The Pot Shop.
One fellow leaning over the counter trying to understand the wares available says to his buddies, SA国际影视传媒淕ee, at least my dealer used to let me have a joint to try the stuff before I bought a bag of weed. These packages donSA国际影视传媒檛 tell you anything. All we have to go by is some cockamamie name some marketing executive thought up.SA国际影视传媒�
His buddy replied, SA国际影视传媒淵ea and why arenSA国际影视传媒檛 they selling the leaves and less potent pot, this stuff is going to blow some peopleSA国际影视传媒檚 minds. They should have some mild pot for beginners.SA国际影视传媒�
A woman added SA国际影视传媒淎ll I want to know is which one smells the least. Why isnSA国际影视传媒檛 there some sort of rating system or better yet an odourless version.SA国际影视传媒�
If the pot users are questioning the way it is being marketed and sold, you know that there are some problems and room for improvements. ISA国际影视传媒檓 just saying.
