Having a Nosey in.

I notice there are five looking, but I am the only one signed in.  So when you read this Atlas I will be tucked up in bed.

six looking in at this time and 4 read.

My My! 7 looking in now. Word must be spreading I am signed in.

8 users looking in now. at this time passed 16.00 hours.

Well hello teamplayer2. And how are you this fine day? It does appear as we are few and far between on this site these days. I don't post if there are no replies to my meanderings as otherwise I feel I am going crackers talking to myself as it were. And how are things with you? Well I hope.

Hello Atlas. I have been busy with various things Will not go into full detail. I have had a few problems health wise. Was having trouble myself and in the end for nearly 2 months I was having test myself. After various scans myself and a series of test I had to have a biopsy  to have a test for cancer. I was one of the lucky ones. The test was not cancer in the end, but in the mean time my younger brother died of terminal cancer  last night. Had a friend who passed away in Southport a couple of weeks ago so end up at his funeral in Southport.

Sad about Hinch, but hearing about cancer all over a the moment with a few people I know or use to know.

Just say I caught the Facebook bug, but now finding it tedious now on a lot of it. Going to give these sites a rest soon.


Ken.

It's difficult not to see the connection between pollution and cancer, the two seem to go together.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/.premium-1.652512

So where does the pollution come from, road traffic and industry, chemicals in consumer products etc. Cancer rates are far too high. Industry and industrial type processes generally makes the bulk of cancer-causing pollution. Far too often someone somewhere is making a profit at the expense of other peoples lives.

Steam trains? Not at the moment. Gone back to my writing. Put all of my books on Kindle for free reading for those orf a discerning nature - or to put it another way - for a bit of reality. Still getting royalties from the previous batch so though I would spread this time amongst the mad people for nowt.

Cancer. Yes we haven't got to grips with it yet. As to the question of 'why'? Perhaps more to do with genetics than environment but one cannot discount environment if the pollution is excessive.

What affects one doesn't another. No rational to the disease. Makes me think that there are probably 'triggers' little of which we have yet to come to understand. Excess stress seems to be one. Not prolonged but sudden and traumatic. I suppose that such can affect the body's system and could be the answer to why certain foods/digestables if taken in excess could be the answer to some cancers. It's a minefield. All I can say is you will be lucky to avoid cellular mutation of one form or another throughout a life span. And as such - it's a lottery.

Pollution is excessive, in that the environment is definitely damaged. As medicine and science develops, it becomes more apparent how various pollutants even in small amounts have long term effects. After millions of years of relatively stable natural systems, it's only the last few hundred years that those systems have been suddenly churned up in so many ways. We do gain short term advantages by chemical technology and industry, but need to be commonsensical enough to accept there are long term consequences.

Oh yes. It's that double-edged blade again. Two steps forward, one step back. Everything has a cost. Quite often it's our health and happiness. On balance we must continue the 'dance' for that is man's destiny - to the stars and beyond.  Then what _----!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few steps forward, away from the main road and generally towards less polluted areas can be worthwhile. Seeing toddlers in those low level pushchairs at vehicle exhaust pipe level and things like that make me think we could usefully be more aware of pollution.

On balance the air you breathe is far less polluted than it was when I was a boy. That however does not make it safe by any stretch of the imagination. It is easier for governments to concentrate on such things as tobacco smoke as to admit the failing of the technological advancement of the combustion engine. The combustion engine is a far bigger business in the West than the tobacco manufacture -and an easier target being more in vogue so to speak. To all other points of the compass tobacco and air pollution will only become a problem as they expand their economies and find it less easier to breathe and more costly on their health budgets. They will get there eventually.After the conglomerates have had their profits and the world moves on.

A lot of the pollution that is damaging to health is due to carelessness and lack of awareness, disused mill buildings that set on fire and so on. Sometimes it almost seems as though they are set on fire for the insurance.

Ah ah. You should read - it's either Ower Detinue or Ower Dabbling - possibly both. Therein you will find what you seek as to the answer of the 'mill burnings'. Not a new phenomenon by any means. I know. I was there.
Air quality/pollution (man made that is) will be with us for another couple of generations before technology edges it out of the way for some other cataclysmic immediacy. I would proffer something like - viral/bacteriological pandemics or fugitive/nanobot evasions. It will be never-ending in that man's capacity to search for answers to the meaning of everything will always lead us towards our own endangerment and ultimately or own wholesale destruction. - Not I hasten to add that there won't be survivors. But I am not sure I would call 'them' the lucky ones.

Lucky ones? Lucky ones in as to Atlas?

Well I suppose it could be said that 'any' life' is better (lucky) than 'no life'(unlucky) however traumatic the experience. Far better of course not to have been born into such a situation in the first place. I would proffer the possibility that regardless of the cataclysmic outcomes that may arise there will always be some 'protected' from its extremes either by way of 'rank' or 'status' and it will be those that will continue the 'human' project ad infinitum.