There are many different groups of people that have been part of the alcoholic anonymous organizations. These are organizations that people are going to go for help when they do not want people to know they are going. That is why they are called the alcoholic anonymous groups. It is all because they do not want others to know that they are trying to get help for a problem they are having. There are many reasons that you may be going to an alcoholic anonymous meeting for some help. You may think that this is the only way that you are going to receive the help that you need.
When you choose to go to the alcoholic anonymous meeting, you are one of the few that is ready to admit that you have a problem with the alcohol that you drink all the time. If you are able to do this on your own that is great because then you are ready to get the help, that alcoholic anonymous is going to be able to give you. If you are one of the ones that will only go to the alcoholic anonymous, meetings because you are required by lay to go thru them. You are not going to take all the information into heart that you will be receiving from the alcoholic anonymous meetings.
When you feel that, you are in need of help because of you drinking but you are not ready for everyone to know that you are seeking out help you will want to check into some of the alcoholic anonymous groups that are out there to help you out with your problem that you may be having. When you see that you have a problem and are willing to get the help for it them you are taking the biggest step that there is and that is to go to an alcoholic anonymous group and say that you need help to get thru the problem that you are having.
When you see that the drinking is causing much pain in your family you are going to want to face your problem and check out some of the alcoholic anonymous groups that are in your area so that you can get the help and support that is needed to get thru your addiction. You must remember that the alcoholic anonymous groups are there to help you out and not to get on your case about the problem that you are having with the drinking. You are going to need a lot of patience and confidence in yourself that you will be able to beat this addiction that you have so the alcoholic anonymous group can get you thru it with out much pushing away from you.
There's no doubt about it: if you're a patriot, you should feel great about recycling.
Think about it. Recycling saves trillions of kilowatts of energy every year. It conserves our natural resources. It makes our country's air, water and soil cleaner by limiting pollution, and it stimulates our economy by creating new jobs.
Politicians and pundits from both the Left and the Right strongly agree that we should decrease our dependence on foreign oil. So recycling makes you a true patriot who's doing something to make the people and economy of our great nation cleaner, healthier, richer and stronger!
I can see some folks in my mind's eye (not you, of course!) with a slight sneer of disbelief on their faces. So allow me to share some basic statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency and other reputable sources that back up my argument.
Be a Patriot: Save Energy!
In 2003, the energy savings from recycling 54 billion aluminum cans exceeded the energy equivalent of 15 million barrels of crude oil, or the amount of gas the U.S. uses in one day.
Another way to look at it: recycling 1 can = 3 hours of TV, so in 2003 the U.S. saved enough energy by recycling cans to run 162 billion hours of TV, or about 25 hours of TV for every man, woman and child on Earth.
The Center for Ecological Technology found that the glass industry uses 50% less energy to create glass from recycled glass than from raw materials.
Americans recycled about 40 million tons of paper products in 2003, creating an energy savings of 163 trillion (yes, with a "T"!) kilowatt hours of electricity.
Recycling one pound of plastic soda bottles - or PET plastic - saves 1200 BTUs of energy (1 BTU is the amount of energy needed to raise a gallon of water by 1 degree Fahrenheit).
2005 saw the U.S. recycle 5 billion pounds of PET plastic, which equals a savings of 60 trillion BTUs of energy.
Be a Patriot: Conserve Natural Resources
Americans disposed of 83 million tons of paper products in 2003. According to the EPA, by recycling nearly half of that, we saved 705 million trees and 290 billion gallons of fresh water.
4% of U.S. annual oil consumption, or roughly 219 million barrels of oil, goes into the manufacture of plastic. Thus increasing the amount of plastic we recycle can make a significant impact on oil use.
In 1997, the U.S. recycled 13 million cars, which conserved 32.5 billion pounds of iron ore, 18.2 billion pounds of coal and 1.5 billion pounds of limestone.
Aluminum can be recycled forever. Over 2/3 of all aluminum ever created is still in use. Most of the 1/3 not still in use is aluminum cans in landfills.
Be a Patriot: Limit Pollution
Recycling just half of your annual recyclable household waste saves 2400 pounds of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. Many scientists contend that human-released CO2 is a leading cause of global warming.
Recycling household and car batteries keeps heavy metals such as mercury, lithium and cadmium from being released into our air and water. Heavy metals, when consumed by people and other animals, cause numerous health problems and diseases.
The EPA estimates that 200 million gallons of used motor oil are improperly disposed of each year. Recycling used motor oil keeps it from polluting your ground and fresh water.
Americans dispose of 270 million waste tires each year. Illegally-dumped and stock-piled tires are fertile breeding grounds for rodents and mosquitoes, and illegally-burned tires release oil and soot into the air and ground water.
Be a Patriot: Stimulate the Economy
Recycling creates a net gain in jobs - 5 to 1 over landfill management. Jobs created by recycling cover a wide variety of skill sets, including basic labor, manufacturing, entrepreneurship, advanced science and engineering.
Recycling creates new "green" technologies designed to take advantage of the reclaimed resources.
The National Recycling Coalition reports that recycling has created 1.1 million jobs, $236 billion in gross annual sales, and $37 billion in annual payroll.
So there you have it. Patriotic people recycle! I challenge you to come up with another activity that every family in the country can so easily do to make such a huge difference in so many critical areas of the health of our great nation.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could all do something to help with global warming? Actually, wait a minute, we can! You would have to be on a different planet not to know about how bad global warming has become. You only need to take a look out of the window to observe the ever increasingly unpredictable weather. The weather is becoming so bad that natural disasters are becoming more frequent and causing more death and destruction than ever.
Why is it important for us to change the way we live?
As you know, the earth as we know it is damaged. The way we humans have lived has taken its toll on the planet and because of it, global warming is causing things to happen that shouldn't happen. Icecaps are starting to melt and as a result, species of animals are becoming extinct.
So what can we do it about it?
The problems we humans have is that we are naive by thinking how can one person wasting electricity or doing something else along the same lines cause this much damage? Well, this may only be your thoughts, but then how many other people think if I do this it will not do any harm? Before you know it, a lot of people are doing the same thing and it all contributes.
So, if you are not sure what to do, assess the way that you live. Basically, do you leave lights on when you do not really need to? Just by making little changes, you could be doing your part to help save energy.
Smart houses could be a reality
There has been a call to produce smart houses that eat their own rubbish and power themselves up. The government's chief scientist, Sir David King, is overseeing this project that plans to design these smart houses that can withstand the conditions of the 21st century. It is thought that the homes need to be wireless so it would need to draw any energy that it can from its own environment, whether it be solar or wind energy.
It could be a fair few years before this can happen, but in the mean time, the government is constantly trying to find new ways to help reduce carbon emission and other things. New methods include taxing people for the amount of rubbish that they have and they are trying to also encourage people to recycle more of their rubbish instead of throwing it away.
Why not change the way that you live today by switching off lights, or by trying to find other ways of saving energy. Together, we can help to make the changes needed and to try to help the planet repair itself. If nothing is done, things will just becoming a whole lot worse and it may get to a stage where nothing could be done whatsoever anymore.
It seems to that every time we turn on the TV or listen to the radio we are bombarded with the next rise in fuel prices.
Is this a true supply and demand question? Well it is true that the booming Chinese economy is consuming vast amounts of natural resources including oil, but the United States is still the world's largest consumer of oil and related products.
The peak of oil consumption in the US is in winter, with oil being used for heating and in recent years there have been big surges in the price of oil at this time.
As supply is limited by OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) the price can be somewhat governed by the amount of oil they let onto the market. As oil is a limited resource we might be inclined to believe that that oil will run dry in the near future but the reality is, as the price of crude increases, the cost of recovering oil from remote, inhospitable places become more and more viable.
There are masses of such types of oil reserves all over the world that are only now being seriously looked at as a viable resource.
In Alaska, for instance, there are vast oil fields that are deposited in sand under the ground. This oil, once considered worthless is now starting to be extracted from the sand and will be a resource that will last well into the millennium.
As a result of our overwhelming need for oil we are now facing the world's biggest problem in history, Global Warming.
Caused by excessively high levels of green house gases in the atmosphere, global warming is a direct result of the burning of fossil fuels such as oil. As the levels of gases build the heat that the sun produces is trapped in the worlds atmosphere rather than being able to dissipate back into space. Hence the name green house effect.
The green house effect can be seen on another planet, Venus. Venus can reach 480C as a result of green house gases and of course life at these temperatures for humans is not possible.
Unless we can curb our consumption and reliance on oil, coal and other fossil fuels we run the risk of heating our planet to a level where the sea levels will rise as a result of melting the polar ice caps which will displace hundreds of millions of people.
Even worse than this we could be creating the demise of the entire human race by making the planet uninhabitable.
So the true price of oil is not what we pay at the pump or the bowser but the price is life itself.
Governments around the globe are starting to take notice but unless the major consumers start to reduce their consumption the efforts of countries who have been working towards World green house gas reduction will fail.
There are steps that you can take as an individual also. Try taking public transport to your sports game or local bingo hall or better still watch the game on television or play bingo online.
What you do matters and if enough people start to think about the effect we have on the planet and on our children's future we can force Politian's to take notice and act.
Man kind came together once before to stop the production and use of CFC which deplete our UV protecting layer of the atmosphere ozone, so there is no reason we can't beat this global problem.
It seems everyday we're bombarded with even more information regarding global warming. Scientists give us finding after finding; this ice shelf is melting, that drought is longer and more severe than even before, plus it seems wherever you are in the world politicians add their personal opinions, whether genuine or not.
Early summer, late winter. Here in London we've been basking in beautiful near summer weather for the past few weeks, a full 3 months early. Yet now tonight we have snow forecast over the next couple of days. No matter what we think is happening, nature is confused. Trees and flowers in full blossom thinking it to be mid to late April will now lose their colour to late frosts and snow.
Is it true; are we to blame for Earth's atmosphere warming to artificially high levels?
I was recently inspired by the new movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Based on US Senator Al Gore's illuminating and extraordinary slide show dealing with the onset of global warming dating back to the industrial revolution, the movie contains all the latest factual information, plus strategies of what we as individuals can do to alleviate the situation. It most worryingly shows how the human production of CO2 and other harmful greenhouse gasses have dramatically increased in the latter half of the 20th century.
Tackling such a serious subject head on, I also found famously heavy and some-might-say-boring Al Gore to be light, informative, funny and a very human person indeed.
I don't usually make movie recommendations during my newsletters and articles, however on this occasion I would recommend and encourage you to seek out 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Have a look at the official website (link below) and take an extra step forward today.
What would it take for you to become inspired? Being inspired to make positive changes for our planet and future generations surely is the biggest legacy any of us can leave, isn't it? I'm currently coaching with Tom, a young man in The Netherlands who's re-training in order to move into environmental research to reduce and reverse global warming, and even though much of the technical side of what he does is completely over my head, his focus and dedication is totally inspirational to me.
The spectrum of what we can all do is huge. And just to bring this back into the area of life coaching & personal development, it's the area known as 'contribution'.
Of course, there is also a debate doubting the present scientific data. Some suggest the Earth warms and cools as part of its greater long-term cycle, and that what is happening now is simply a part of that. It's mentioned the oceans produce far more CO2 than any human factory ever could, that cows produce more methane than a human ever could, and that most of the predictions published by scientists throughout the past 20-30 years have proved either inaccurate or just plain wrong.
Personally I lean on the side of global warming being a reality, and one I can effect. I believe we have an obligation to future generations to safeguard their world whether we have irrefutable evidence or not. If we took no action, believing scientists to be wrong, and they turned out to right, by that time we might have inflicted irreversible harm on the world they inherit.
So, what some actions we can take that will tell future generations that even if the scientists are right or wrong we took care of their planet anyway? Here are a few handy hints I've picked up along the way, which as well as helping reduce global warming will also cut down your fuel bills and make you more healthy!
1. Leave the car at home more often, especially for short trips. Use public transport, walk to the shops instead of driving. As well as saving money on gas (petrol), carrying the bags and walking will be great for your body.
2. As light bulbs blow in the house, replace with low emission bulbs and also switch lighting and other appliances off in rooms or areas not in use. Think TV, DVD, music system, think big savings on your fuel bill each year!
3. Take a shower instead of a bath. Showers use only around a 5th water compared to taking a bath.
4. Recycle household waste. I know some countries and cities view this with different levels of urgency. Even here in London some councils are more proactive than others. I just moved from a lackluster one to a really good one, and now have separate bins for garden and vegetable waste, one for cardboard, plastic and glass bottle, papers and books, etc, and everything else goes in the regular black bag destined for a landfill. What I've noticed however, is since I've been doing this the size of the black bag is smaller and smaller as I feel better and better.
5. Become more eco savvy. Check items that have less, or more easily recyclable packaging. This gives supermarket shopping a whole new twist, which for those of us who seem to spend hours in the places each week, helps pass the time and make the experience a whole lot more interesting.
And finally It has been suggested that intention is everything. In the case of global warming, whichever side of the debate you're on, your intention is still so important, and asking the question, what condition do you want to leave the planet in for the future, does make a difference, not least to you.
There is a lot of talk about NASCAR changing from leaded fuel to unleaded. The long term plan was that unleaded fuel was going to be introduced to the Nextel Cup Series in 2008. Why the change in plans?
For those of us who are not engineers, leaded fuel gives more lubrication and "padding" to the engine. This cushions the engines and valves and lessens the chances of the engine burning up. Using average unleaded fuel will kill the engine on a NASCAR racecar.
For several years now NASCAR has been working with their fuel supplier, Sunoco, to develop a special unleaded fuel that will be kinder to the Cup car engines. This is not a new or spur of the moment decision. Because every decision within NASCAR affects so many people, much time and research goes into every change of rules and policies.
The Craftsman Truck Series and the Busch series have been using unleaded fuel for about six months now. The reason NASCAR began with those series is that their races are 300 miles. The Nextel Cup race in California is 500 miles. It's the last 200 miles for the engine that has people concerned.
The first race using unleaded fuel proved that it was indeed an issue with several teams losing their engines during the race. But the interesting thing is that the drivers aren't complaining about the switch like they did with the Car of Tomorrow. They aren't fighting it at all. Maybe they knew it was inevitable. We can only put so much exhaust in the air before we get to the point that the damage is irreversible.
Except for the season opening race at Daytona, unleaded fuel will be used in all of the races during the 2007 season. The possible motivation for the moved up timeline to phase in the unleaded fuel could be pressure.
An environmental activist group has requested that the Environmental Protection Agency investigate lead levels in the air on and around racetracks. This activist group alleges that innocent bystanders, such as homeowners that live near racetracks, are in danger without even realizing it.
NASCAR is trying so hard to shake off the country boy image and adopt a more sophisticated persona. It definitely looks good for them to be concerned with the environment and the health of their fans. But whatever the reason for the expedited introduction to unleaded fuel, NASCAR has done a good thing and once again we are made proud.
A campaign to plant a billion new trees is being welcomed by environmentalists, but with a warning by some that in certain regions it could do more harm than good.
While the campaign claims that each tree uses up 26 pounds of co2 emissions and in return produces enough oxygen for a family of four, planting the right trees is important to help the world improve her ecological and environment balance.
In areas that historically have suffered from a lack of rain, and in areas where global warming could potentially produce deserts, new trees that use a lot of water could have a serious affect on their biodiversity.
Eucalyptus trees can consume two thousand litres of water a day, and planting new ones in Africa would be a catalyst to disaster, and local campaigners for planting trees are urged to consider their area needs and decide carefully before deciding on which type of tree to plant.
As well as individuals planting a tree, it is hoped that businesses will do the same and encourage employees to do the same, with government and civil servants also being asked to take active participation to reach the target of a billion trees by the end of this year.
The patron of the campaign is Prince Albert of Monaco. Prince Albert has been campaigning for the environment since becoming Monaco's Sovereign two years ago, and one of his first acts was to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Previously, along with Australia and the USA, Monaco was one of a handful of countries not to ratify the treaty.
Monaco
Prince Albert's father, Prince Rainier, was Europe's longest reigning Monarch until his death in April 2005. Known affectionately as the 'builder prince' he transformed Monaco into the world's favourite tax haven and ensured the Monaco Grand Prix became one of the best known annual sporting events. The Principality Albert succeeded to was a country known throughout the world for money and glamour, and the Monte Carlo casino only added to its legendary status.
Albert has continued in his father's footsteps with a plan to develop an island off Monte Carlo, and like his father with the reclaimed land in Fontvieille the map of Monaco will change again.
In keeping with his stance on the environment, it is thought that a successful bid to build the island will need to be seen to be environmentally friendly, with the possibility of lower rise buildings than some parts of Monaco have endured to create more living space.
Monte Carlo has long been associated with glamour, heightened throughout the world in 1956 when Prince Albert's father married his mother, US actress Grace Kelly.
Speculation was rife earlier this year that Prince Albert would be announcing his own engagement to South African swimmer Charlene Wittstock.
'Things have gone quiet recently on the Charlene front', comment a Monaco travel guide, 'Monaco is all about glitz and glamour and perhaps a surprise announcement will be made soon. But it's possible that Albert is more interested in environmental affairs than affairs of the heart'.
Monaco has been making the news recently as Monte Carlo real estate prices have escalated, and are on a level with London and New York.
Even the cheapest studios are edging towards the million Euro level according to Monaco estate agents.
'Increasing taxes elsewhere in Europe, especially in the UK, have seen inquiries increase significantly over the last twelve months,' they say, 'and it's not the weather in Monte Carlo that's drawing buyers, but the income tax free status of being a resident, and the security that goes with living in Monaco. There's one policeman for every one hundred residents and has to be the safest country to live in Europe'.
