Clean-up and environmental impact[ edit ] Workers using high-pressure, hot-water washing to clean an oiled shoreline Chemical dispersant, a surfactant and solvent mixture, was applied to the slick by a private company on March 24 with a helicopter. But the helicopter missed the target area. Scientific data on its toxicity were either thin or incomplete. In addition, public acceptance of a new, widespread chemical treatment was lacking.
Lawrence THE HANDLE, which varies in length according to the height of its user, and in some cases is made by that user to his or her specifications, is like most of the other parts of the tool in that it has a name and thus a character of its own.
I call it the snath, as do most of us in the UK, though variations include the snathe, the snaithe, the snead, and the sned. Onto the snath are attached two hand grips, adjusted for the height of the user.
On the bottom of the snath is a small hole, a rubberized protector, and a metal D-ring with two hex sockets. Into this little assemblage slides the tang of the blade.
This thin crescent of steel is the fulcrum of the whole tool. From the genus blade fans out a number of ever-evolving species, each seeking out and colonizing new niches. I also have a couple of ditch blades which, despite the name, are not used for mowing ditches in particular, but are all-purpose cutting tools that can manage anything from fine grass to tousled brambles and a bush blade, which is as thick as a billhook and can take down small trees.
These are the big mammals you can see and hear. Beneath and around them scuttle any number of harder-to-spot competitors for the summer grass, all finding their place in the ecosystem of the tool.
None of them, of course, is any use at all unless it is kept sharp, really sharp: You need to take a couple of stones out into the field with you and use them regularly—every five minutes or so—to keep the edge honed.
And you need to know how to use your peening anvil, and when. When the edge of your blade thickens with overuse and oversharpening, you need to draw the edge out by peening it—cold-forging the blade with hammer and small anvil.
Probably you never master it, just as you never really master anything. That lack of mastery, and the promise of one day reaching it, is part of the complex beauty of the tool. Etymology can be interesting. Scythe, originally rendered sithe, is an Old English word, indicating that the tool has been in use in these islands for at least a thousand years.
But archaeology pushes that date much further out; Roman scythes have been found with blades nearly two meters long. Basic, curved cutting tools for use on grass date back at least ten thousand years, to the dawn of agriculture and thus to the dawn of civilizations.
Like the tool, the word, too, has older origins. The Proto-Indo-European root of scythe is the word sek, meaning to cut, or to divide.
Sek is also the root word of sickle, saw, schism, sex, and science. Some books do that, from time to time, and this is beginning to shape up as one of them.
By his own admission, his arguments are not new. But the clarity with which he makes them, and his refusal to obfuscate, are refreshing. I seem to be at a point in my life where I am open to hearing this again.
Here are the four premises with which he begins the book: Technological progress is carrying us to inevitable disaster. Only the collapse of modern technological civilization can avert disaster.
What is needed is a new revolutionary movement, dedicated to the elimination of technological society. I have a tendency toward sentimentality around these issues, so I appreciate his discipline.
There are two reasons for this. Firstly, if I do end up agreeing with him—and with other such critics I have been exploring recently, such as Jacques Ellul and D. Lewis and Ivan Illich—I am going to have to change my life in quite profound ways.
It has a broadband connection and all sorts of fancy capabilities I have never tried or wanted to use. I mainly use it for typing.
You might think this makes me a hypocrite, and you might be right, but there is a more interesting observation you could make.
This, says Kaczynski, is where we all find ourselves, until and unless we choose to break out. In his own case, he explains, he had to go through a personal psychological collapse as a young man before he could escape what he saw as his chains.The best opinions, comments and analysis from The Telegraph.
Thought Of The Day. ADVERTISEMENT. ExxonMobile: Social Responsibility in a Commodity Market Company Case 5 MKT Chris Boisvenu Introduction This particular case deals with ExxonMobil and its social responsibility in a commodity market. ExxonMobil is the world’s largest publicly traded international oil and gas company.
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Identify and discuss the importance of corporate social responsibility Definition: Corporate Social Responsibility- "CSR is all about performance in a variety of social and environmental topic areas that usually embrace issues such as philanthropy, diversity, socially responsible investing, human rights, business ethics, environment, workplace issues, sustainability, corporate governance and community .