Burning Fall Leaves May Be Hazardous to Your Health

Burning fallen leaves used to be standard practice across North America, but most municipalities now ban or discourage the incendiary practice due to the air pollution it causes. The good news is that many towns and cities now offer curbside pickup of leaves and other yard waste, which they then turn into compost for park maintenance or for sale commercially. And there are other burn-free options as well. Burning Leaves May Spark Health Problems Because of the moisture that is usually trapped within leaves, they tend to burn slowly and thus generate large amounts of airborne particulates—fine bits of dust, soot and other solid materials. According to Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources, these particulates can reach deep into lung tissue and cause coughing, wheezing, chest pain, shortness of breath and sometimes long-term respiratory problems. Leaf smoke may also contain hazardous chemicals such as carbon monoxide, which can bind with hemoglobin in the bloodstream and reduce the amount of oxygen in the blood and lungs. Another noxious chemical commonly present in leaf smoke is benzo(a)pyrene, which has been shown to cause cancer in animals and is believed to be a major factor in lung cancer caused by cigarette smoke. And while breathing in leaf smoke can irritate the eyes, nose, and throat of healthy adults, it can really wreak havoc on small children, the elderly and people with asthma or other lung or heart diseases. Small Leaf Fires Can Cause Big Pollution Problems Sporadic individual leaf fires usually don’t cause any major pollution, but multiple fires in one geographic area can cause concentrations of air pollutants that exceed federal air quality standards. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), several leaf and yard waste fires burning simultaneously in a particular locale can cause air pollution rivaling that from factories, motor vehicles, and lawn equipment. Fallen Leaves Make Good Compost Purdue University consumer horticulture specialist Rosie Lerner says that composting leaves is the most eco-friendly alternative to burning. Dry leaves alone will take a long time to break down, she says, but mixing in green plant materials, such as grass trimmings, will speed up the process. Sources of nitrogen, such as livestock manure or commercial fertilizer, will also help. â€Å"Mix the pile occasionally to keep a good supply of air in the compost,† she says, adding that a compost pile should be a minimum of three cubic feet and will generate soil conditioner within weeks or a few months, depending on conditions. Mulch Leaves Instead of Burning Another option is to shred leaves for use as mulch for your lawn or to help protect garden and landscape plants. Lerner suggests adding no more than a two-to-three-inch layer of leaves around actively growing plants, chopping or shredding the leaves first so they don’t mat down and prevent air from reaching roots. As to using leaves as mulch for your lawn, it is just a simple matter of mowing right over the leaves with the lawnmower and leaving them there. As with leaves used for garden mulch, this will provide many benefits, including weed suppression, moisture conservation and moderation of soil temperature. EarthTalk is a regular feature of E/The Environmental Magazine. Selected EarthTalk columns are reprinted on About Environmental Issues by permission of the editors of E. Edited by Frederic Beaudry

Using A Bipolar Consolidation Model - 1487 Words

Control IFRS 10 An investor determines whether it is a parent by assessing whether it controls one or more investees. An investor considers all relevant facts and circumstances when assessing whether it controls an investee. An investor controls an investee when it is exposed, or has rights, to variable returns from its involvement with the investee and has the ability to affect those returns through its power over the investee. [IFRS 10:5-6; IFRS 10:8]. Power arises from rights e.g. voting rights or those rooted in contractual arrangements. An investor that holds only protective rights cannot have power over an investee (IFRS 10:11, IFRS 10:14). U.S GAAP ASC 810-10 Uses a bipolar consolidation model. All consolidation decisions are†¦show more content†¦Under this model a reporting entity has a controlling financial interest in VIE if it has power to direct the activities of the VIE’s economic performance or the rights to receive profits or obligation to absorb losses that could be significant to the VIE. 2. Voting interest model-Here controlling financial interest usually exists if a reporting entity has majority voting interest in the other entity. Here the basis for consolidation focuses on control, irrespective of the form of investee. An investor has control over investee when it has rights to variable returns from its involvement with investee and has the ability to affect those returns through its power over the investee. Two firms planning to consolidate their operations must both use one of the two accounting standards i.e. either U.S.GAAP or IFRS in the execution of consolidation. B) The concept of effective control exists in relation with contracts. B) Here the concept of de facto control is recognized by the existence of situations in which a parent company may have control over another entity despite; (a) holding less than 50% voting interest and (b) lacking legal and/or contractual rights to control voting power. An attempt to consolidate two firm using the different standards will lead to several misunderstandings and difficulties to CPAs and other stakeholders Valuation of Non-controlling interest Under US GAAP Under ASC 810, the

Beloved on Slavery Free Essays

In regards to the novel Beloved Toni Morrison says, â€Å"[The novel] can†t be driven by slavery. It has to be the interior life of some people, a small group of people, and everything that they do is impacted on by the horror of slavery, but they are also people. † Critics argue that the novel is driven by slavery and that the interior life of the protagonists is secondary. We will write a custom essay sample on Beloved on Slavery or any similar topic only for you Order Now This is true because most of the major events in the story relate to some type of slavery. The slavery that drives the novel does not have to be strictly physical slavery. Morrison†s characters are slaves physically and mentally. Although they are former slaves, they are forever trapped by horrible memories. The type of slavery the novel initially depicts does not correspond to what really happened to slaves in the 1800s. At Sweet Home, Mr. and Mrs. Garner treated their slaves like real people. Mr. Garner is proud of his slaves and treats them like men, not animals. . . . they were Sweet Home men — the ones Mr. Garner bragged about while other farmers shook their heads in warning at the phrase. [He said,] â€Å". . . my niggers is men every one of em. Bought em thataway, raised em thataway. Men every one. â€Å"1 The things that occurred at Sweet Home while Mr. Garner is alive are rather conservative compared to what slaves actually suffered during this time period. Under the management of schoolteacher, things change dramatically. He turns Sweet Home into a real slave plantation. He treats and refers to the slaves as animals. He is responsible for the horrible memories embedded in Sethe and Paul D. Sethe feels the impact of slavery to its fullest extent. Slavery pushes her to kill her baby daughter. She feels that is the only way to protect her beloved daughter from the pain and suffering she would endure if she became a slave. The minute she sees schoolteachers hat, Sethe†s first instinct is to protect her children. Knowing that slave catchers will do anything to bring back fugitive slaves and that dead slaves are not worth anything, Sethe took matters into her own hands. On page 164 Sethe says, â€Å"I stopped him. I took and put my babies where they†d be safe. † Paul D asks, â€Å"How? Your boys gone you don†t know where. One girl dead, the other won†t leave the yard. How did it work? â€Å"They ain†t at Sweet Home. Schoolteacher ain†t got em,† replies Sethe. This one incident does not only affect Sethe, but it changes things for Beloved and Denver as well. Beloved loses her life to slavery. Her own mother sacrifices her existence in order to keep her out of slavery. As for Denver, she is indirectly affected by the horrors of slavery. She has to put up with living in a haunted house because her mother refuses to run away again. On page 15 Sethe says, â€Å"I got a tree on my back and a haint in my house, and nothing in between but the daughter I am holding in my arms. No more running — from nothing. I will never run from another thing on this earth. † Sethe becomes a slave again when she realizes who Beloved really is. She feels indebted to Beloved for taking her life. In an effort to gain forgiveness, Sethe decides to focus all her energy on pleasing Beloved. When once or twice Sethe tried to assert herself — be the unquestioned mother whose word was law and who knew what was best — Beloved slammed things, wiped the table clean of plates, threw salt on the floor, broke a windowpane. †¦ Nobody said, You raise your hand to me and I will knock you into the middle of next week. †¦ No, no. They mended the plates, swept the salt, and little by little it dawned on Denver that if Sethe didn†t wake up one morning and pick up a knife, Beloved might. 2 Then there†s Paul D, who replaces his â€Å"red heart† with a tin tobacco box. He refuses to love anything strongly and establish long term relationships because he is still hurting from losing his brothers and friends to schoolteacher. Schoolteacher also takes his pride and manhood away by forcing him to wear a bit. Paul D compares himself to a chicken. On page 72 he says, â€Å"But wasn†t no way I†d ever be Paul D again, living or dead. Schoolteacherchanged me. I was something else and that something else was less than a chicken sitting in the sun on a tub. † As a member of the chain gang he suffers another type of slavery because he is both a prisoner and a sexual servant. Even after he escapes and is a free man, Paul D is still a slave. He is a slave to his memory. Having been through so many horrible events, he has trouble finding happiness again. In her novel, Morrison uses the phrase, â€Å"Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another. † This applies to each and every one of her characters. Sethe will always be haunted by the memory of killing her own flesh and blood. It will be a long time until Paul D is ready to turn his tin box back into a red heart. While Denver finally ventures out of 124, she is not going to forget being shunned by the community and being held captive by her own house. As for Beloved, she is her own slave. Her constant dependency on Sethe makes her weak. Beloved needs to free herself from Sethe. Though it is hard, she needs to accept what has happened and move on. Beloved is about a group of people and how they deal with life†s hardships. Many issues in the story deal with control. There is a constant struggle for power throughout the novel. Each character fights to free him/herself from something or someone. The major theme in the story is freedom and how to acquire it. The critics are correct in saying that the novel is primarily about slavery, but they should mention that slavery means more than just being an indentured servant. How to cite Beloved on Slavery, Essay examples

Modern Times Essay Example For Students

Modern Times Essay Boredom breeds blood and poison. In today’s society, it fails to surprise us that children continue to cling to the messages within music, television, and magazines. Such media portrayals tend to then set a model for how we develop our behavioral patterns. However, once a trend grows old or out of style, a strong sense of apathy results, if only for even a split second. In the long run, when such children feel out of place and their emotions run them rather than their minds, chaos results. We have seen several examples of this natural desire to rebel against authority in today’s world; take a look at Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris of Littleton, Colorado. The media definitely exists as our voice of reason when taking into account incidents such as this — for our entire lives, it is all we have known. The mindset of the nineteenth century Romanticists seems unbelievably similar to that of the youths in America. Both time periods ultimately ended up indirectly encouraging one’s naturally hidden desire to revolt against the rules and conventions of society. Romanticism placed a major emphasis on reason through the arts. Literature, for instance, created the classic hero — a mysterious, melancholy figure who felt out of step with the world, thus yearning for freedom. Such writing — the media — determined and verified this approach and definition of life. In the nineteenth century, Lord Byron, Victor Huge, and Sir Walter Scott, among others, proved to be responsible for the promotion of such instincts toward rebellion. The arts during this time period certainly conveyed incredibly violent energy and emotion as well, thus calling for the defense of the rights of man. Since hypocrisy seemed to engulf humanity, a strong emphasis was placed on one’s imagination. Was the test then the same as now? Certainly! Both time periods utilized the power of the hero to survive death and despair; the creative spirit always seemed to prevail. Overall, everything then and now revolves around emotion and our natural ability to distinguish right from wrong. It only seems sane to allow one to make his or her own judgements based on his or her mistakes. Through talent, energy, and ambition, both the Romanticists and today’s American teenagers have risen from a lowly station to carve out their own destiny. The French Realist, Gustave Courbet, said, â€Å"I cannot paint an angel because I have never seen one. † Quite the pessimist, this man opposed the Romantic Movement, ultimately showing no sentiment, and in turn, no levels of dignity or tolerance for humanity. One must possess the opportunity to flourish, though! Gustave Courbet may have not desired such freedom, but today, just let us have our angels.