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Health & Fitness

What we must take from the Earth to make our Computers.

Cartoon depicting what we must take from our planet to make a single Computer.

I know ! , I know! if you are reading this you can not help but say "Who is he to whine about using up Planetary resources to make computers when he is using one right now to write his little Blog, were he rants on about all those chicken little "oh the sky is falling " environmental problems, yea; I know that is the catch isn't it we all have them(Computers), We Face book each other over just about every little nuance of our daily life that we deem fit to print ,we do our bills , read newspapers play games , tweet, Skype ,E-mail, Print photos , you name it you can do it on the internet, it is a part of our lives at this present hour in mankind's History. But I had to ask myself when thinking of how every school in America is stuffing it's self  like a Christmas stocking, their buildings full to the brim with  the latest tech stuff ,that will  hopefully give this present Generation the means to do better on all those State Standerdized test that we give out like candy thrown from a car loaded with Alice and dairyland contestents , But gosh we do need to be able to compete with the rest of the World so there you go.  But then  my thoughts drifted to  just a few years in the future with the idea that there are now about 8 billion of us hitting the keyboards  like synchronised swimmers fingers moving in complex rythems all at the same time , so how can we keep this up? ,I mean we all live with the myth of exponential growth that will last till our sun fazes out and grows cold and sucks it;s self into a black hole. But I dare say should we not ask our self's is this way of thinking sound ?, is it even anywere near possible?

     I was reading an article from( "wait for it ') A on line media source One Billion Computers Devouring Earth's Resources

 The on line  Papers called World Wire  and suffice it to say it is most definitely not at all good for this good old planet that sustains, and nourishes us to keep wasting Presious resources that Humans really,really for just plain old fashoned survival , But for the first time in Earths History a species (Us) happen to be using this complicated system of which we barely have any working understanding of, and performing a grand experiment on it, by making machines that most of us do nothing more than play games with, or use to  tell friends and family about every inane little  thing that happens to us, and then everyone who gives a s%+$ gets the remarkable oppertunity to  hit the " LIKE " button and thus give us a reason to live another glorious day tweeting our lives away.

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     Now this article I am somewhat quoting from was written way back in the neolithic period of computers around 2002 and still at that time one billion personal computers had been sold world wide and they were predicting sales to increase 10 % a year ever after which most likely they did and then some. Here is a little factoid that I based my Cartoon on.

The average 53 pound (24 kg) desktop computer with monitor requires at least 10 times its weight in fossil fuels and chemicals to manufacture, the authors say, and that makes it much more materials intensive than an automobile or refrigerator, which only require one to two times their weight in fossil fuels to make.

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The researchers found that manufacturing one desktop computer and 17 inch CRT monitor uses at least 530 pounds (240 kg) of fossil fuels, 50 pounds (22 kg) of chemicals and 3,330 pounds (1,500 kg) of water � a total of 1.8 metric tons of materials - roughly the weight of a sports utility vehicle.

     Now we  all know or should know that this old Planet is running out of clean drinking water ,sure look at a globe or a satellite picture of the Earth and you might conclude that this Art teacher is full of B&$#>@t But remember all that beautiful blue you see is mainly Salt water (not drinkable) so here is another enviromental   fact from

Water quantity FAQwww.lenntech.com/water-quantity-faq.htm

Of all the water on earth that is all 97.14 % of it only 2.59 % is fresh water, of this 2.59% 2.00 is trapped in Ice caps and glaciers, the rest is ground water at o,592 %, the water that makes up lakes ,river and streams is about o,o14% and only like 1% can be considered fit to be called drinking water .... so we really need to think about what's really important, we can not keep wasting water merely to wash out toxic stuff, (which leaves the water toxic after it's use) .  Also keep in mind computers use up a lot  of the earths rare earth metals which primarily are dug up in out of the way dangerous places with no real safe work place standards ,much of it is forced labor or labor done cheaper than you or I would be willing to work that hard for .

     Anyway it's hopefully food for thought ,perhaps the seeds for all of us to perhapes learn to think about things differently , to perhaps think up a new story for this human race to believe in .



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