Thinking Green

Thinking Green
By Shaun Swilling

Since the start of the ozone layer scare thinking green went from being an off-beat subculture to something that has now become 'cool' and in some countries is even financially rewarded. There are many examples where green thinking can help your body as well as your bank account.

A good example is where some states in the USA and some countries will reward the addition of any electricity that comes from a household. After installing expensive solar heating on a suburban roof the government will pay for any excess produced after the house has used what is required.

Thinking green can make a difference when we think back on the laws that started destroying the ozone layer. It is a perfect example of how simply changing those laws has started the repair of the ozone layer that can now be seen by observers.

It means that the decisions that our leaders make today will affect the next generation and water is now recognized as the most precious commodity we have on our planet despite the scramble for oil and gold. The experts all agree that the next world war will probably be over water.

Unfortunately thinking green has been taken out of Joe Public's hands when we think of the fracking laws that have been passed. There are currently over 160 countries that have banned fracking for natural gas because of the groundwater that it poisons.

Fracking destroys the precious underground water as they use water to extract any gas from the rock by drilling a hole and filling it with expansion material that somehow releases the gas. It is the mixture this expansion material that they mix into this water which drains down to the underground water and affects all the other water.

Handing the laws on how to treat the environment to Joe Public does not help either as my country spends millions of dollars a year trying to stop the poaching of Rhino's. My country has lost nearly 600 Rhino this year because of the relentless onslaught by the greedy poaches that will do anything for money.

At this rate the chances of our grandchildren seeing a live Rhino is very small and it is all because of money. At a price of nearly half a million dollars for one kilogram of Rhino horn there is simply no way to stop it. But some creative thinkers have offered a solution.

Most of the Rhino horns, after the rhino is slaughtered by machine gun fire from a helicopter the poacher saws off the horn before the blood is cold. The horn is then smuggled out and sold in China, Indonesia and Vietnam. There is a group of game ranches that spend a lot of money protecting their rhino's from poachers that offer an alternative.

It started with cutting off the horn of the rhino to avoid it being killed which resulted in a cache of rhino horns that keeps getting bigger. So they have suggested that rhino horn could be 'farmed' and sold to countries legally. The farming would be these cuttings that the game farmers remove from rhino they believe are threatened by poachers.

A presentation was given that said the value of this current stash of rhino horns that the game farmers have is worth millions of dollars on the black market. The argument is that these funds should be used to off-set the growing debt in keeping the rhinos safe from poachers.

But thinking green could also mean planting a food garden or have herbs growing from your kitchen roof. The consciousness of green thinking is something that can only come from education. From Rhino horns to fracking and planting a food garden the more we know about our planet the better chance we have at sustainability.

I live is South Africa and have been writing SEO articles online for 5 years. If you would like an article written on any subject please send me an email to swilling1@gmail.com

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