Environmentalists confuse me, generally speaking. They rant on about the carbon that burning coal and diesel is pumping in to the atmosphere yet they never mention the incredible amount of light we leak. So, as a service, I thought I might catalog the forms of pollution I can think of in the hopes that it will make me (and others) more cognizant of them.

Chemical -- This is pretty intuitive. It's bad stuff in the air, water, and soil. This is the one that gets all the press.

Electromagnetic -- All of the cell phones, flourescent lights, monitors, etc make tons of ordered noise. I don't know if there is a whole lot of concrete edvidence to suggest that this is bad... but, really, it seems pretty likely.

Light -- This is a specialized form of the previous item. Think about the incredible amounts of light we pour out. You have to drive hours from a major metropolis to be able to see the stars because of this.

Waste Heat -- Where do you think all of the heat from internal combustion engines, refrigerators, etc goes? It has to go somewhere.

Attention -- I would argue that all of the advertisement we are subjected to when just driving down the road or taking a walk represents a form of pollution that needs to be taken seriously.

I don't list these because I'm in a blind panic about them. I simply feel that the world would be a better place if we were all a little more mindful of these issues.

Just food for thought. I haven't had a good crackpot rant in a while.

...

More later. :)