on earth hour

Tonight at 8:30pm is Earth Hour! What does that mean? It means that tonight people all across the world are switching off their lights for one hour to take a stand against climate change. So get out your candles, and join me in giving our planet a bit of a break.

Because it so dearly deserves it.

(Image borrowed from here.)

on nuclear power

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last week, you know about the crisis in Japan.

The aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, alone, are horrific. Bodies wash up on the shores of Fukushima, limp and still like ocean debris. Houses crumble. Whole lives are overturned. Natural catastrophe in and of itself is terrible, but even though the seas have calmed, the danger isn't over.

And that's all thanks to us.

Nuclear power is a hotly debated subject, it always has been. I, personally, am not comfortable with something that leaves waste we are unable to safely dispose of. Even a minute amount of exposure to radiation is harmful, as evidenced by the mass evacuations occuring around the Fukushima Daiichi power plant (a 20km zone, so says this article). It's dangerous to be around unprotected, it's complicated, uraniam mining is harmful to both people and the environment, and when something goes wrong, the after affects can be disasterous.

Chernobyl is, while not the most recent nuclear disaster, certainly the most famous. On April 26, 1986 a systems test led to an explosion that unleashed enough radiation to displace over 336, 000 people, and leave the nuclear plant's surrounding city of Pripyat abandoned to this day. The effects on people and the environment were terrible: 203 people were immidietely hospitalized, of whom 31 died. Radiation drifted through the air to settle as far as Canada. Food produced near the area was adversely affected. The affects are still felt today, from higher cancer rates among survivers and those within the area, to food still being under threat of contamination due to the wind-blown radiation. One of the most noticible environmental affects is the Red Forest, whose pine trees were destroyed by settling radioactive particles, making it one of the most contaminated areas in the world.

Why nuclear power is still used after such an incident both puzzles and enrages me. You would think, given the accident's after affects, that people would think that it was far too dangerous to keep using, that the risks outweigh the gains, and that people and the planet deserve better than the threat of nuclear disaster.

You would think.

Now, 24 years later, another nuclear plant is under threat, making a natural disaster a million time worse. It's not nature's fault; earthquakes and tsunamis happen. But we have to be smart enough to either not put things liable to explode out of nature's line of fire, or not put them there at all. I vote not at all. We are doing our planet and ourselves a huge disservice by using nuclear power, because for all that it can be "clean", if something happens, we put everything at risk. Our homes. Our families. Our health. Our Earth. Escaped radiation leaves traces in trees and soil and in our skin, and long after the rubble has been cleared and normality resumed, the consequences still grow. Like a cancer. As cancer.

So lets not let it.



To help with disaster relief, please make a donation to the Red Cross. And/or head to help_japan, a fandom auction wherein the proceeds go towards charities that give aid to Japan.

(Images borrowed from here and here.)

one household cleaners

A few weeks ago, I did a trial at a coffee shop, and while the job did not work out as hoped, my time there did get me thinking about something: household cleaning products.


When my former employer sent me to clean, he sent me with paper towels, over-the-counter glass cleaner, bleach, and cheap dish soap (the kind you can buy in bulk). I don't use these chemicals at home, and was disgusted when my senses were assaulted by the fumes created by these products. One day mid-week, when I got home, I decided to look up the health dangers that come with interacting with normal household cleaners.

To whit, I was horrified.

First, there's soap. Hand soap, that is. It's what we use most often, in our bathrooms and kitchens, and there are hundreds of options to choose from. There are different scents and colours and sizes; some have flitters, others have "moisturizing pearls"; and each of them is chock full of chemicals that can be hazardous to ourselves and our planet. Triclosan is a bacterial-killing chemical found in 75 % of hand soaps, an article in The Minnesota Daily says. Triclosan can cause allergies in children, and there is a worry that its use in other products (like deoderant, toothpaste, and toys) may cause resistant strains of bacteria to develop, which of course doesn't do anything good for we humans. The affect on people aside, like with the dirt you wash off, your soap--and the triclosan--goes down the drain, through pipes, into a water treatment plant, and then back into our lakes, rivers, and oceans. According to the Minnesota article, waste-water treatment plants do not filter triclosan from the water, but they do add chlorine, which can then lead to chlorinated triclosan, and when combined with sunlight, this can cause a dioxin. This is then taken in by fish, drank by animals, and absorbed by the soil that nourishes plants, and doing nothing but harm, even if it doesn't seem like it at first.

The story isn't any better for the soap you use on your dishes. Like most soaps, they contain Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Sodium Laureth Sulfate. Depending on the concentration, it can be hazardous to the skin it's exposed to. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is also absorbed into the skin, and when that happens it mimics the hormone Oestrogen, which can lead to something as severe as breast cancer. Many dishwasher detergents also contain chlorine, which means that "each time you wash your dishes, some residue is left on them, which accumulates with each washing. Your food picks up part of the residue--especially if your meal is hot when you eat it."

Essentially, we are all eating and drinking chlorine.

Of course, it doesn't stop there. From air fresheners (which contain formaldehyde) to bleach (a strong corosive), laundry room products (which contain chemicals that can cause rashes, sinus problems, and other wonderful things), and toilet bowl cleaner (which contain hydrochloric acid), nothing is free from chemicals, and the predominant reason why they are used is because they are cheap. But they are also extremely dangerous, if not in the short-term, then in the long-term health effects you will suffer from breathing in fumes and absorbing the chemicals you use to clean with. I've heard about these effects first hand, and it's not something I wish on myself or anyone else.

In the developed world, we have become obsessed with cleanliness. That's not necessarily a bad thing (after all, not that long ago people weren't even bathing weekly), but I think we have become overly aware of bacteria, but uninformed as to the effects bacteria has in our everyday life. Germs are everywhere, on our skin and in our bodies and on every blade of grass. But they are not something to be terrified of, to wipe out with the harshest chemicals Mr. Clean can provide. Unfortunately, that concept will take some time to catch on. In the mean time, what is available for those who want the dirt out of their house, but also want to be eco-friendly?

Good ol' hot soapy water.

This will do the trick for most things, guarenteed. If you need something abrasive, then baking soda is handy (it also kills odours and puts out grease fires). But if you want to buy cleaners (and their associated accessories), and definately if you want to buy eco-friendly soap to mix that your hot water, I recommend Ecoleaf and Ecover.

Ecoleaf are UK-based products that use biodegradable, plant-based ingredients, and have recyclable containers. Depending where you purchase, you can also go into your local organic shop to refill your containers. Personally, I love their hand soap.

Ecover is an international company founded in Beligum in 1980 with products in more than 26 countries. They have everything from hand soap to floor cleaner, and like Ecoleaf their products are plant-based, use few ingredients, have recyclable containers, and you can refill where available.

During that week of worrk, I saw my (now ex) boss mix bleach, glass cleaner, and soap in the dishwasher, and I was so horrified I couldn't speak. Hopefully his regular customers--customers who eat off those plates and drink from those glasses every day--aren't harmed by his cleaning methods.

And hopefully by reading this, you won't make his mistakes.

(Image borrowed from here.)

on computers

Three days ago, I returned to the UK. I took a nap, did a bit of unpacking, and set up my laptop. I hadn't been on the thing two seconds before my computer was attacked by malware.

A friend of mine was able to fix it remotely, and in the meantime I was able to use my netbook, but nevertheless the situation was frustrating. The malware had disguised itself was WindowsDisk, a defragmentation software. A similar thing had happened last year, when a Trojan attacked my computer disguised as anti-virus software. Hackers are getting tricky, and in both instances I freaked about the files stored on my harddrive. This most recent incident, I had less to worry about, but I did quickly e-mail myself a short story I had been working on and hadn't got a chance to back up on an external harddrive. But this got me thinking.

Are writers worse off if they use the computer?

Back in the day--and I mean way back--before iPads and laptops and computers so thin not even a CD will fit inside it, when you wanted to write something, you got out a piece of paper and a pen and you wrote it by hand. Many still do, and the success of notebook companies like Moleskine and Paperblanks clearly indicate that people still enjoy using a paper notebook. For myself, I find that a notebook is easier to carry (more so than even my netbook), more conducive to jotting things down, and that editing on paper is better than trying to do it through Microsoft Word.

But there are downsides to using a notebook. For one, I know my hand can cramp if I write for too long, and I don't write as fast as I think, meaning I'm sometimes one or two sentences away from where my pen is on the page. Furthermore, unless the paper in your notebook is 100% recycled, trees are still being cut down in order to produce paper notebooks, and the covers of those notebooks may not be terribly green, either.

So, computers are speedy, but still not as convenient (although the iPad looks like it will change that), and paper is convenient, but sometimes frustrating. Their respective uses aside, however, how do each stack up against destruction? One would assume that paper is far easier to destroy that something digital. Water can saturate and run ink; fire can burn; wind can toss loose-leaf into the air or into a pond (as Colin Firth found out in Love Actually); and earth can render words illegible. People can also steal notebooks and throw away paper mistaking it for garbage, and unless you make photocopies, you can't backup something physical. Digital writing, however, is just as susceptible to destruction as writing on paper. Work can be deleted, and if your computer is attacked, then fixing your computer can result in a wiping of your harddrive--and every file on it. The tricky thing with computers is that rarely can you see an attack coming, and unlike relegating your writing to being indoors to save it from the elements, protecting your computer isn't completely fullproof. It seems that in recent years, you need all kinds of software to protect your PC, and while Macs are famous for not being attacked by viruses, as a friend once pointed out, there will likely come a day when someone does attack Macs, and they will not know how to defend themselves. Now, not only do you need strong anti-virus software (and a host of other things), you also need USB sticks, external harddrives, and/or CDs in order to backup your work. And you need to do it regularly, otherwise when you're caught unawares, then you are left frantically e-mailing and transfering files.

And that is not fun at all.

It seems that writing has always been fraut with peril, as it were. However, I think that adding technology into the mix has made it just that bit more difficult. Yes, it's greener (you aren't using as much paper when you're saving everything in Word), however, there are dangers to digital work that don't occur with hardcopies, and take much more safeguarding against. While I don't think we're worse off, I do think it makes us more stressed.

And really, do writers need more stress?

(Image borrowed from here.)

on social networking

Twitter and Facebook and Blogger, oh my!

Last night, rather impulsively, I joined Twitter. In hindsight, it feels like I was drunk when I did it, although I'd considered joining for months.

I've decided, after a good nights sleep, to give it a shot. However, adding it to my list of social websites I'm currently on, has made me think about social networking in the twenty-first century, and whether or not our current methods are an improvement on the ones we used in the past.


Before the internet, social networking meant going to parties and talking to people, glass of wine in hand, exchanging business cards or, in some cases, writing phone numbers on napkins or the back of your hand. This would lead to more meetings, to more conversations, and if you were lucky, the betterment of your career. Now that the internet has latched onto our lives like a giant leech, social networking has mutated. It is still about conversations, but on a far smaller scale through Tweets. Contact information is exchanged, but it's e-mail addresses. Oh, the telephone is still used, but chances are people are texting instead of talking. The personal, human part of social networking seems to have been lost.

With online social networking, it is true that you are able to reach a larger audience, to meet people who you wouldn't otherwise meet if it wasn't for the internet, and make connections with people on the other side of the globe. However, what you can't do through a computer is to observe someone, to look at their body language and their speech patterns, which are key in determining if you think said person is trustworthy. Part and parcel of being on the internet now is placing our trust in people and websites. Our trust that they won't repeat the things we write in our personal blogs, that they won't give out our credit card information, and that what they're offering isn't a scam. But that is difficult to do when all you can rely on are words. Yes, there is Skype, but you aren't having a Skype conversation with the CEO of Amazon. It's an imperfect system.

I've come to the conclusion that we are losing the personalization in our lives. It's become almost too easy to do things from our desk chairs, that I think traditional networking is fading. You can still do it, but the opportunities are fewer than they were before, and if you want to get anywhere--if you want to promote yourself--you have to sign up to Facebook or Twitter or whatever other site in order to do so. Hell, you don't have to leave your chair for anything these days, let alone socializing. You can go to school online, some work online, you can even buy groceries online. It's got to the point where today's human in the first world doesn't have to leave the house in order to live their life.

And isn't that sad?

Last night, after joining the many Tweeters (or would that be Twits?) already online, I could actually feel myself becoming more tethered to my computer. I'm on my computer so much already (more when I'm not at my parents', since I don't own a TV), and I'd just given myself another reason to be in front of its screen. And I didn't like it. I felt like I was trapping myself, like I was pulling away from the external world and into something that was so internally focused as to seem more real than the things around me. It all just felt so...wrong.

I don't think I'm silly for feeling that way, or the only person who does. For all that the internet is fantastic, I think it is being overused, and starting to damage aspects of our lives. When we're walking down the street now, and we see something, our first thought is no longer how wonderful or strange it is, but rather, how we would form what we saw into a Tweet or Facebook status update. We don't stop to smell the roses anymore, we stop to turn on our phones and comment on them. We are a society who lives in the moment, but in a limited moment, in the superficial moment that we can write in under 140 characters and share, and then read and comment on other people's superficial moments. We don't absorb what's seeing and happening to us, at least not the everyday things. But it's the everyday things that make life life, and if we continue walking with our heads buried in our iPhones then I guarentee that we will become a society that has difficulty enjoying--or caring--about life outside our own heads.

I saw a film in October called Summer Wars. In that film, everything from students to banks were connected to one giant network called Oz, and when that network was hacked, the entire world was thrown into chaos. It's a beautiful film, and now one of my favourites.

And I wonder how soon that will be our future.

(Image borrowed from here.)

on floods

All of this weekend, the news has been drenched (sorry) with stories about two environmental disasters: the flooding in Brisbane, Australia; and the flooding in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state. Both instances of flooding have nigh-devestated the affected areas, forcing people from homes and destroying property and even taking lives. These are things no one wants to happen, and while each can be explained by natural seasonal weather patterns (La Niña and a Humidity Convergence Zone, respectively), however, I couldn't help but think that global warming may have played a part.

It's no secret that polar ice is melting. All of those images of poor polar bears stranded on tiny ice flows attests to that. However, besides rising sea levels, what else would this excess mean? I give you the water cycle:


We all know it. We all get the photocopy in elementary school science class. We all know that water evaporates and condences, forms clouds and then falls back onto us in either rain or snow. But more water in the oceans means more water is being evaporated. More water evaporating means that more will fall on us than it has in the past. La Niña is a natural event, but the reason for its severity could be global warming-induced. As much rain falls in 24 hours as falls in a month in Brazil is likely global warming. And the harsh winter and heavy snow fall experienced in Europe, the UK, Canada, and the USA is, again, global warming, presented in a slightly different form.

The kind of weather being experienced globally is not natural. Yes, some of it occurs during natural phenomena, however, the severity of these occurences clearly indicates that something else is at work here. There is a clear--and almost stupidly simple--explanation, one that we humans cannot afford to ignore anymore. We can't let these sorts of things keep happening. We can't let people keep dying. Because this is just the start. If we don't do something, weather will only get worse, and from there crops are destroyed, fresh water ruined, animals perish, and more people die.

Is that really worth living happily ignorant a little while longer?

(Images borrowed from here and here.)

on freelancing

In admist the holiday travel, the botched New Years plans, the lost luggage, and the parental pampering, I've been looking into becoming a freelancer.

Which is more difficult than one would think.
I know of a number of people who do freelance work, be it editing or writing, and as someone who is realistic enough to know that making a living with a Creative Writing degree only happens to the very lucky, I decided to follow in their footsteps. First came lots of Google-ing. Followed, by more Google-ing. There are a plethora of websites dedicated to freelancing, some as handily labelled as www.online-writing-jobs.com and freelancer.co.uk. However, for all the websites available, finding a website you feel you can trust seems nigh impossible.

As with all things on the internet, and all things that involve money, you have to be very conscious of whether or not the website you're looking at is actually a scam. Reading website and company reviews is helpful in this area. It's also helpful in determining whether or not the website you sign up to has your best interests at heart. A site like Suite101 looks good on the surface, however, some of my research has told me that it "favor[s] the company and deprive[s] writers of revenue". It is not there to help you as a writer or editor to establish yourself within the industry in such a way that you recieve proper compensation for the amount of work you put in. After all, writing and editing is an exhausting, time-consuming process, and no one wants to be short changed for the hard work they produced.

But as with all things, nothing is perfect, and some sites haven't been reviewed and as such I've been wary of signing up with them. Many sites, like freelancer.co.uk, also contain a system which does not appeal to me: the biding system. After signing up, writers and editors wait for jobs to be posted and then they bid on them, directing employers to their profiles in the hopes that they are chosen to do the job. It strikes me that waiting for opportunities to bid is a full-time job in and of itself, and I do not have the patience for it. Say whatever you want, but sitting there pressing the Refresh button all day is not exactly what I want to do with my time.

Thus, I have decided that the internet, for all that it is the best thing since sliced bread and the internal combustion engine, is not the way I want to go. I'm going old school.

I'm going to talk to people.

Wish me luck.

(Image borrowed from here.)