Today my ever present boss was at it again with insightful ideas like “recycling is worse for the environment than not recycling”(I think she read it in a book). So my mission right when I got home was to see if there is any truth to what she said. Is recycling worse for the environment than not recycling at all? This of course comes as a concern to me because I drink a good 4 liters of diet mtn dew/pepsi a day. I kill a lot of two liter bottles, but always make sure to recycle them on campus because my apt. complex just put their recycling bin contents in the trash. I even make bird feeders out of them, I know it sounds awfully gay, but hey, it’s being reused for a good purpose and the house finches and cardinals love it. When looking at recycling we have to take in the whole picture. This doesn’t mean only looking at a plastic bottle and knowing that it will get melted down and reused. Instead, we need to look at the whole process, which includes fuel costs, emissions, and chemical processing as opposed to just putting it under ground somewhere and letting microbes munch on it for the next thousand years. In my quick search for the answers I’ve found conflicting information. Some say it’s good and saves a non-renewable resource, while others say it’s using up more of the resource your trying to save by recycling. Although, plastic does take up an extremely large amount of space in landfills for its weight. One of the problems with recycling is that it’s costly. For companies it’s easier just to make it from a virgin product. However when oil and natural gas prices rise, the demand for recycled plastic does to. Aluminum is much more efficient to recycle than plastic, the most in fact. However, aluminum is also very abundant and easily taken from the earth. So which is worse spending the money on recycling or continuing to mine? Opposition says that because the ore that aluminum is smelted from is so abundant, we shouldn’t worry about recycling. The same goes for plastics, because they’re derived from petroleum, we shouldn’t worry. The theory being that with the price of gas going up it will leave more petroleum in the market for plastic production, because it’s so much cheaper to derive from petroleum than gasoline(although that sounds a bit fishy to me). Paper is another big one. My father is a paper salesman, so I have a bit of an interest in this. His company has an environmental specialist on board, but when dealing with larger paper product producers it’s something that must be hard to manage. Much paper comes from paper farms where the trees are grown specifically for paper use. This is a much better option than going and hacking down forests. However, where these paper farms once were, were actual forests. It could be said that now it isn’t posing much of an environmental risk, but it did at one time, and continues to be a poor ecosystem for native animals. This is especially true in the Southeast U.S. where much of the trees for paper production are grown, not to mention sprawl. Not too far from Wilmington you can see these tree farms. The ones I’ve seen have been owned by International Paper. So does recycling benefit or cause harm to the environment? It’s hard to say. There are pros and cons to both. Recycling saves a material from rotting in a land fill for years. Not to mention the greenhouse gases that landfills produce, like methane. I know a landfill back home was thinking about trying to capture the methane produced and using it to produce power. This doesn’t even touch on the issue that trash isn’t localized. Instead it’s shipped from one place to be buried in another. If people’s trash was buried in their own backyard, I think they’d be a lot more apt to save. However, it also takes energy to put it back into a reusable form. What’s the best answer? Let’s go way back to “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Notice how recycle is the last one? REDUCE. If people would just cut back, use things more than once, and be creative about it. I use my paper bags over for things like ripening fruit or just a good cabinet liner. In the end consuming like we do will outweigh any benefits given by recycling. It just promotes the consumer ideology that is so engrained in our heads. We’re going to have to relearn how to live. Cuba is a great example. They get by on so little, but yet manage to make things work with ingenuity and creativity. America doesn’t award those ideals, instead it awards consumers to buy more stuff and make more money in a perpetual cycle that will be our demise. It’s time to wake up and start cutting back, reusing and yes recycling.

The “Economic Growth Index” study gave an ‘F’ to Erie, Niagara, Orleans, Genesee, Allegany and Chautauqua counties, while Cattaraugus and Wyoming counties received a grade of ‘D.’

I completely feel for the folks back home who feel like they can’t get a break. However, when I look at the alternative, a economically thriving area such as Wilmington, North Carolina, I can only shudder at the consequences of a “thriving” economy. The problem seems to be that our economy works on growth. Stagnation is a cancer of the economy. The world we live in is not unlimited. We only have a limited amount of land, water, air and animal/plant life. If our economy aims to keep growing forever and ever there will come a point where there is nothing left to sell but the ruins of old condos and bottled air, presumably owned by Pepsi or Coke. You can preach about it all you want, but to some people it just won’t sink in until it’s too late. They won’t wake up until the last tree has been cut down for a gated development called something like “Long Gone Forest.” I still have a bit of hope people will stop being blind to it, and with the hope feel the responsibility to bring it to people’s attention. It’s the ones that are most blind and careless when it comes to protecting our world that we must give the most attention too. I’ve found more often than not it’s not that people don’t care, but rather they just don’t understand. It’s like when you tell someone of the genocide in Sudan, they might say, “oh that’s horrible” and then go back to watching Jeff Foxworthy’s new game show. But, if you could show them first hand the devastation, I don’t know a single person who wouldn’t try to contribute in some way to stopping it. People do care, they just have to much other junk in the way. Like my buddy over at Jackburnslives.com says, “it’s not the earth that’s in trouble, it’s us.” We’re only a blip on the timeline of earth. We may off it just as soon unless we wake up and start being proactive about protecting the earth and our resources. So today as I went around snapping photos that thought ran through my head and so did and old poem I had to write for class.

A lot can change in twenty years
even a simple cable repair man can see that much.
My view from the top of the telephone pole used
to be refreshing. A flat sand worn landscape
brimming with sea birds and evergreens.
Now plastic condos litter my view
from my crows nest of telephone wire.
They stand in the footprints
of stamped out copper roofed homes.
The four lane road down below hides
the old two lane “county 21.”
The same road that used to carry beat up chevy’s
now fills up with Mercedes and BMW’s.
Hell, you can’t even see the ocean
unless you’re standing on the shore!

They call it “progress”, I think not.
Long ago a man wrote, “the woods are lovely, dark and deep.”
So, with no longer to go before I sleep
I hope to dream of creeper vines reaching over concrete
of trees to shadow the shore
and gulls to roost in the apexes
of mansions long abandoned beside the sea.

As some of you know I’m spearheading the first annual “Cape Fear International Environmental Film Festival.” It’s a long name I know. The point of the film festival is to bring awareness to global and local environmental issues through different media outlets such as photography, poetry, and mainly film. This will be happening next spring through UNCW’s facilities, if all goes as planned. Well, today I met with UNCW’s film dept. chair, Dr. Buttino. He finally gave me the go ahead even though nothing is final until it gets approved through the school. Now I’ve got to meet with a group of academic advisers to lay out the blue print for the festival. This way, Dr. Buttino can take the semi-concrete plan over to his friends in the Environmental Science departments and see if they want to get on board. In the end I’m hoping the school will sponsor it, and with help from the students and faculty it could become something really big for the area. More importantly I hope it just gets the message out there. Anyway I’m open to taking suggestions or ideas for the festival. So if you live in the area or just have an idea, feel free to leave a comment of email me at seancarr54@yahoo.com. Thanks.

Just Some Poem I don’t have a Title For

The old fence post sits lonely in the field
Every night I look at him through the blur of twilight
He’s what’s left of his family
Who’s siblings have succumbed to time and the occasional brushfire
Even he shows the scars of too many years in the field
No reason to take him down now
He’s earned his keep watching over
The cattle in the wilting summer heat
There’s at least a few more years left in him
Even if it’s being a perch for the occasional black crow
At first winters snow, he’ll be there to reassure me
No matter how bad things get
From fire, to snow, to drought he’s never left my side
And when its time for the coyotes to pick through my bones
I’ll be buried where I can never leave his.

Cry of the Raven

Alone in the shadows of the winter twilight
a raven cries in the distance

He can hear coyotes rustling further up
on the hill that is taking all of his strength

As the sun falls further and faster below the tree line
his body numbs and weakens

again the raven taunts, flying its clear path
overhead of the bare oaks and evergreens

like a snake in winter his body is stuck coiled and cold,
given time he might find the way back to when he was 15

to the cabin warm with the soft glow of burning beech
and the wool blanket his grandfather bought him

but the cold has crept inside his jacket, working its way
down through his skin to slow down the beating heart

as he lays down to rest, the raven perches in a tree
they are alone in the forest of growing shadows

The penetrating cold stills the forest as the sun disappears
and his last breath turns to frost under a creaking tree.

- By me as always

Autumn’s Arrival

Through the frosted windows of my kitchen
I observe the change in seasons

The giant oaks deliver their seeds
for anxious squirrels to harvest

Ice crystals cling to the porch
door every morning like burdocks after a summer walk

Friday night you can hear the echos
of the football game pierce the valley air

Down the road the cider mill seeps
the smell of fresh fritters into the morning fog

The mountain air crispens like a dried pine
needle in the light of shortened days

Soon the first snows will blanket the earth
and cling like a newborn, suckling from its mother

I always wonder why the geese
never stay to see such a beautiful sight

An Old Man’s Canoe

Past the docking stations I cruise
the Cape Fear River hoping to find silence
in a canoe I inherited from my stepfather’s stepfather.

Past a ship called the “Silent Wailer”
no pun intended I’m sure, as I start to wonder
what waters has the bottom of this vessel touched?.

The cold meltwaters of Alaska?
I know my step-step grandfather was there once.
Or has it only seen the flowing streams and lakes of his hometown?

The end of his river came a few years ago
the chance to ask him is well past due and
I don’t see this canoe sharing anytime soon.

It like him holds its history to itself,
unwilling to give or share with anyone
but time is fading fast for us all.

Like the waters, once it’s flown past, it’s gone forever
and with each new scratch and fading mark
I wonder, does the canoe know its ultimate end?

The loss of a chance to tell its story or at least try
like my step-step grandfather surely must have know
as his hair faded to grey in his old smoke stained room

I found the silence I was looking for on this river
but it does not comfort me like I had hoped
instead it reminds me how alone and fragile we are

The water beneath me is calm on its muddy surface
but below the waters churn and moan fighting
to reach back upstream and prolong their journey to the sea

Well I’m going to start a new tradition here on theearthwalker.com. A new weekly entry of poems that I’ve written during my duration as a creative writing student. So here’s the first of the new series….also if you get time check out this new show on the travel channel. Living with the Kombai.

The Remains of His Story

There is a house just south of the old water well
in the overgrown field next door

It’s cast iron stove hasn’t been warmed
since the summer of ‘41

That’s when “Stewie” Blumenthal
shipped out never to return

He was shuffled off to war
and to his unknowable demise in a foreign land

He left from New York Harbor watching
the empire coast fade into the past

That’s all I know of Stewie Blumenthal
I was only 3 when he died

But when I was a kid we used to play
on the roof of his home

His parents were long gone by then
they just left one day and never came back

My mother told me
they never even said goodbye

All that remains of their story
is the old shack we used to play on

A dilapidating tombstone of shingles
housing the remains of his family’s life

In a month from now it will be torn down
and replaced with rows of condos

The county planner say it will bring money
Maybe so, but it will also bring and end to the story.

In the end all our stories get lost
it’s only a matter of time before we’re forgotten

Coastal Remains

A lot can change in twenty years
even a simple cable repair man can see that much.
My view from the top of the telephone pole used
to be a flat, sand worn landscape
brimming with sea birds and evergreens.
Now plastic condos litter my view
from my crows nest of telephone wire.
They stand in the footprints
of stamped out copper roofed homes.
The four lane road down below hides
the old two lane “county 21.”
The same road that used to carry beat up Chevy’s
now fills up with Mercedes and BMW’s.
Hell, you can’t even see the ocean
unless you’re standing on the shore!

They call it “progress,” I think not.
Long ago a man wrote, “the woods are lovely, dark and deep.”
So, with no longer to go before I sleep
I hope to dream of creeper vines reaching over the concrete
of trees to shadow the shore
and gulls to roost in the apexes
of mansions long abandoned beside the sea