I'll bet you thought I'd write about the 420 Celebration taking place in Denver, didn't you? I'm actually going to just mention things are going great there. The police have handed out citations for smoking in public, but say things are mellow. Of course it's mellow.
I'll put a link to an article that has a link to a scientific article that goes quite in depth about drugs and health safety (should you want to read that linked-to article, it's deep). Scientifically speaking, smoking pot is 114 times safer than drinking alcohol. Link to that article with the link to a lot of science:
http://www.popsugar.com/...
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What I really want to talk about tonight is something that happened over the past few days that is really serendipitous. Last Friday some folks were in my waiting room discussing climate change (they totally believe it's happening). They wanted to know if there was anything that could ever possibly be done to get all the CO2 out of the air that we are spewing into it. I said only photosynthesis does that in nature.
This led to my office manager asking me why? I explained that animals and combustible engines use organic carbon molecules to get energy from the bonds between the atoms of those molecules. Engines get it all in a single instant which causes an explosion by igniting gasoline, while animals get that stored energy in controlled steps. No sudden explosions take place. The end result is the same. When you take all energy out of an organic molecule you end up with CO2 which has no more energy in it's bonds to be gotten.
I told her the only way to change CO2 into something else was to add energy to create a new organic molecule that then has energy in the new bonds being created. Animals and engines take energy from organic molecules while plants add energy by using sunlight via photosynthesis. In this way molecules of CO2 are bonded together along with hydrogen atoms to create longer organic molecules (starchy or oily) that have energy in those bonds that can then be used by animals or engines.
The only possible solution to what we are doing is to somehow either grow all our forests back (riiight) or mankind would have to develop some type of large scale process that mimics photosynthesis. I let her know there has been research into this but nothing has panned out yet that could really make a difference.
And then just yesterday I read an article about a real breakthrough. Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley have developed artificial photosynthesis that captures carbon as it's being made before it escapes into the atmosphere and then has the potential to turn it into practically anything you could want organically speaking. Serendipity! Here's the link to that article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
If this could really be made into a viable technology, then what a boon. We still have to do something else to get the carbon out of the atmosphere that's already there. Perhaps they'll figure a way to do that. No matter what we do, climate change is happening and can't be stopped. In the mean time, plant trees and plants. Grow some veggies. Not only will you feel great eating stuff you grew yourself, you'll also be taking some CO2 out of the air and having plants turn it into food to boot.
Of course there are those who'll oppose anything rational like this. Pope Francis has angered conservatives with his "green talk." He believes we need to get serious about green house gasses, the planet and regular people. He seems to think these things are all tied together. This guys is on the beam! Here's a link to that:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Whatcha wanna kibitz about this very night?
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Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
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