I’m sitting at the computer in the office work-space of my studio apartment trying to comprehend the size and weight of the green house emissions released, each year, by oil refineries in California. And, it is mind-boggling. For example, in 2008 the BP refinery in Carson alone, according to reliable sources, released a staggering 4.5 million metric tons of green house emissions. A metric ton equals 2,200 pounds.

I now have a one-pound bag of white rice on the table next to my computer desk. Imagine fifty bags of rice in a cardboard box the size of an end table. Imagine forty-four fifty-pound end table-size boxes now stacked around my compute desk. The weight of the forty-four boxes is one metric ton. With forty-four end table-size boxes around my computer desk my studio apartment is now nearly full.

Now try to imagine the space required for 4.5 million studio apartments, each filled with one metric ton of green house emissions.

Remember … 4.5 MILLION metric tons of green house emissions were released in 2008 from the BP Refinery in Carson. How about all the other sources of green house emissions in California? It is truly mind-boggling!

As circumstance would have it,Saturday was talking with a former airline
pilot who is astounded by the trails on hydraulic fluid left behind by the
City's trash trucks as they make their weekly rounds.

Those alleys,roads,streets in close proximity to the water front areas–and
there are more than a few–seep down into the gound–and into the water!!!

Some enterprising reporter might do a story on the amount of such fluids
used by our trucks—goes also to a insight into maintenance of the fleet.