Can We Talk?

The Olympics Are On

I hope the fog lifts.  I hope the sun shines through.  I so admire the Chinese. Why, you ask?  For many reasons, most of them personal.

As you know, I am a head-hunter.  My job is to place suitable candidates with my clients.  I have never over the years had any of them let me down.  They have always done an outstanding job.  They are hard workers, quiet, they don’t get into the office politics, they mind their own business.  If you tell them something they are not supposed to know, they shyly giggle and it is never mentioned again.  In short, they made me look good.  So if these candidates are any indication of the country they represent, they are certainly on my A-list.

Go China.  One day I hope to visit.

August 8th, 2008 Posted by Lugatz | Environment, Pollution, china | no comments

The Joy of Spring

A time of renewal in body and spirit.  Things that looked dead for months, suddenly burst with life.  Tender green foliage appears everywhere.  Little buds soon growing into lovely flowers.  The air is still cool and clear.  Spring, like Autumn never lasts long enough.

Soon summer will set in along with the heat, humidity, smog.  I am not looking forward to it.  My hair will be frizzy, my skin oily, my clothes wrinkled.  So what if we don’t have to shovel snow?  I wish there were a way to shovel smog and humidity to make it go away.

Here, beside Lake Ontario, our summers are rarely clear.  The haze caused by humidity gives a grayish cast on everything, making it look like a gray winter day - only hot.  Colours are muted.  Here on the 26th floor we have a birds-eye view of the lake.  On clear days, we can see the Niagara Peninsula.  Oh well, what’s the use of complaining.  Can’t do a thing about the weather no matter what those environmentalists say.  It will do what it will do.  The earth is forever changing.

While on that topic, it would be very nice to see a country free of pollutants.  It would be very nice to have motorized vehicles fueled with hydrogen rather than gasoline.  It would be very nice to have everyone throw their trash into proper receptacles.  It would be nice to have the steel plants treat their refuse before pouring it into Lake Ontario.  It would be very nice. 

May 11th, 2007 Posted by Lugatz | Environment, Musings, Pollution | no comments

Our Crazy Weather

It’s April 16 but it might as well be January 16.  I take that back.  In January the weather was mild.  Seems as though the seasons have shifted.  Last summer didn’t want to end.  Autumn - well - autumn is never long enough.  It’s everybody’s favourite season.  Even after the leaves are gone, there is still something magical about autumn.  Winter didn’t start until over half-way through January.  Now it’s officially spring but you could have fooled me. 

Still, I keep hearing about the warming of the planet.  Could be true.  The earth is ever changing.  It just doesn’t remain the same.  Whether we, as people, had anything to do with it is still up in the air.  Personally, I think it was changing anyway.  That doesn’t excuse our smelly air or dirty rivers and lakes.  People are pigs.  It’s just so easy to throw stuff in the water.  Usually it sinks to the floor of the lake and is gone from sight.  Meanwhile, the garbage piles up.  People are pigs.  While walking one morning, I saw one man, when he’d finished with his coffee, just throw the styrofoam cup on the lawn.  I saw him.  I yelled at him to pick it up and put it in the trash bin, which was a couple of feet from the lazy slob.

Industries are pigs.  They’d rather just dump their crap into the lakes and rivers rather than clean it up and disposing of it in a proper way.  They’d rather spew their crap in the air rather than clean the waste before realeasing it into the atmosphere.  That takes money.  They don’t want to spend the money.  I’d like to see some heavy fines put into place.  Enough is enough.  We want to take back our rivers, lakes, cities, highways and biways.  As long as there are slobs around, that can’t happen.

April 16th, 2007 Posted by Lugatz | Climate Change, Environment, Pollution | no comments

Whatever Happened To The Hole In The Ozone?

Talk about things going out of fashion.  A few years back, the whole panic was over the ozone layer.  More specifically, the hole in it.  I don’t remember the last time I heard anything about that, do you?  You should have heard the hue and cry over it, at that time.  That’s when the sun screens came into vogue. 

Seems the ozone layer was supposed to protect us from the sun’s harmful rays.  With the hole, there was no protection from all that UV.  Eeek!  One by one came the parade of sun screens to save us from the evil UV.  I may be all wet but I don’t like stuff on my skin that’s all oily and yucky.  Sun screen is.  I refuse to wear it.  I have an olive complexion and am not that sensitive to the sun.  My husband, on the other hand, is a redhead and he does wear it along with a wide brimmed hat, whenever he walks outside on sunny days.  Funny, he didn’t do that when he was a kid although he got some pretty bad sunburns, he tells me. 

Yes, I feel sorry for the redheads of this world.  Think of all the summer fun they miss.  I feel sorry for anyone who has such a sensitive skin that they can’t enjoy nature.  That has to suck.  But to get back to the Ozone layer, I’m willing to bet, just as dialogue over the hole in it waned, so will the carbon dioxide dialogue.  Sooner or later, we get bored.  Time to think of something new to panic about.

March 30th, 2007 Posted by Lugatz | Environment, Personal Opinions | no comments

And Speaking of the Environment

Seems that - oh boy, my face is red - I am confusing pollution with the climate change culprit, carbon dioxide.  Hey, wait a minute, maybe I’m not the one confused.  Carbon dioxide.  Isn’t that what we exhale?  Don’t tell me exhaling is bad. 

Carbon dioxide - isn’t that what trees breathe in?  Isn’t that why it’s good to have indoor plants?  Oh, I don’t know.  I’m just going to stick to what really bothers me - POLLUTION! 

When stinky stuff spews out of tailpipes, that’s pollution.  When slobs throw garbage on the sidewalk or anywhere other than trash receptacles, that’s pollution.  When I can hear, from the penthouse, boom boxes blaring from cars thirty floors below, that’s pollution.  Let’s face it, if you want to blow out your eardrums, that’s your business.  Do it with the windows up.

But to get back to air and water quality.  We still have to live and work and manufacture things.  Without that, we’d be back living in caves.  So what are we to do?  Well, the technology is there.  Solar energy, wind energy, hydrogen fuel, methane gas made from sugar, corn and any number of renewable things.  And whatever happened to cold fusion?  Wasn’t that supposed to be the energy source of the next millennium?

Oh, come one, we’re smart, creative and obstinate.  Are we going to be forever beholdin’ to the oil god?

March 28th, 2007 Posted by Lugatz | Climate Change, Environment, Personal Opinions, Pollution | no comments