Fire is useful but also potentially dangerous, even lethal. One need only consider the devastation from wildfires to realize the potential for damage. While hiking at Red Rocks Canyon midday, the blazing sun was a force to be reckoned with. On an exposed trail with limited shade, it doesn’t take long to overheat. Fire, sun, heat–sometimes good…
We returned from a week-long vacation to shriveled plants in the yard. The flowers succumbed to a combination of heat and lack of water. But it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The northern states were as oppressively hot as the mid-Atlantic, interspersed with occasional deluges of rain that created humidity. Since the end of…
Can’t wait! It will be beautiful. The forecast is fabulous: sunny summertime weather. Here in the northeast it will be hot. There is no place I’d rather be than the beach. But plastic is here with me! Sure, this is one tiny plastic straw I stepped on at the beach. BUT: There is no escaping…
The businessman advises The Graduate: “I want to say one word to you. Just one word: Plastics.” We have taken that one word to heart. You don’t have to look far to realize that “plastic” has spawned industries, inventions and unfortunately mounds of trash. Plastics, derived from petroleum or natural gas, have transformed our world…
Just one word: Plastics! was the famous line from the Dustin Hoffman movie the Graduate. (Watch the clip!) The anonymous party goer told Dustin that PLASTIC was the future. Obviously, he was right, with a vengeance. Plastic is used everywhere, in every country in the world in millions of ways. It is indispensable for preserving perishables,…
What came first: the chicken or the egg? One could argue about that topic without coming up with a definitive answer. But determining whether legs or wheels came first is not debatable. No child has yet been born with wheels instead of legs. Go ahead, google “child born with wheels.” There are no aliens or…
The average woman today weighs approximately what an average man weighed in the 1960s. Women have grown in girth, but not height. The average man today weighs about what a typical professional football player weighed in the 1960s. So far, the heaviest human was a US man who weighed 975 lbs. Walking speeds vary, but the…
