Earth Day and Relevant Rants

Tuesday was also Earth Day, but there was no celebration or events happening whatsoever. I guess the election overshadowed everything. As far as environment protection goes, I don't have a car, so I'm living quite guilt-free. Although there's a lot of improvement that can be made. I love baths, it's so relaxing but it consumes a lot more water than shower. I leave my bathroom lights on 24 hours a day, because I'm afraid of the dark and I need a night light. The whole city has recycling, but somehow my apartment building doesn't and nor does my work. Well not until a few weeks ago actually. Now we have three trash cans with different signs on. I'm so uneducated when it comes to recycling, especially in what's defined as plastic. Are Styrofoam, Saran wraps recyclable? When I watch the today show, they say not all the bottle caps are recyclable and we needs to look for number 1, 2 or 3 under the caps and need to unscrew them before we put them in the recycle bin or else they might explode in the recycling process. So complicated.

Due to the recent escalating gas prices, the price of food has been skyrocketing worldwide, especially the price of rice and wheat. Rice are being rationed in part of Asia and West Africa. There are people who attributing the low supply of grain to the fact that the production and transportation cost of rice is higher due to gas prices or that the US dollar is weak hence Thailand and China won't export their product here. And there are some who suggested that US should rethink using corn to produce Ethanol, but it all sounds like another scam to increase prices of food to me. Costco and other wholesales stores are limiting the purchase of rice to 4 20-pounds bag of rice a day. Who eats that much rice anyway? Not even the largest Chinese restaurant use that much at a time. And if we don't use corn to produce Ethanol, we'll have to depend on oil like we always do and then when the price of gas increase then the cost of everything else will increase just the same. Propagandas, I'm so sick of being scammed by all these lobbying companies.

Of course, as a member of the rice-eating culture. It does affect me deeply. When I went to Chinatown to get my 5-pound bag of rice, the price has increased about 25%. Is it not possible to live in an environment that I don't have to worry about people constantly scamming to get each and every cents out of my pocket?