Bisphenol-A is the basic component of hard plastics that include baby bottles, linings of food cans, sealants for jars and bottles, and other well-known products that modern people have become dependent on. After several years of news stories about scientific studies and a few legislative attempts to ban or regulate bisphenol-A and other poisonous plastics, a scandal has just emerged involving U.S. government favoritism for corporate perpetrators.

Will compostible-bag substitution accomplish what fees on plastic bags could, at least in the progressive California city of San Francisco? Probably, if the non-petroleum content and biodegradability of the new bags, and the use of reusable cloth bags, are maximized. This reporter believes a worthy goal can be met here starting this spring.

The plastic plague is still growing and out of control, with the ecosystem and our lives in the balance. Targeting bags is a place to start modifying the unconscious behavior of consumers and the conscious pollution by huge retailers.

Two years ago, the City of San Francisco was poised to become the first municipality in North America to enact an ordinance to place a fee on petroleum-plastic bags given out at supermarket checkout stands. But the liberal Mayor, lobbied by plastics-industry and megagrocer-industry interests, scuttled the legislation despite massive and widespread support.

Dear readers,

Too much to share with you to force you to wait for my nearly completed short story, The Trojan Horse Sisters. So here's miscellaneous stuff that has grabbed my attention. I hope the new year is starting out great for you. I've started it with a fast, completing 18 days on just water on January 14. Had to get some plastics et al out of my system and re-energize myself for another Amtrak Petrocollapse Tour. Let me know if you want me to come through your town. Peak oil awareness is on the rise!

Plastics in car worse than even in your kitchen?

The people are being murdered but they don't know how. "Surely, the chemicals and radiation that fetuses and children are exposed to are safe, or else they wouldn't be allowed, right?" This convenient attitude seems to belong to the majority, who indeed have little choice.

Yet, the idea that the world was flat was common enough until dispelled, and the Christian church's view of the solar system was trashed as well. Those flips in world view are considered historically momentous, but an even greater departure, perhaps, from conventional thinking and spirituality is about to occur in our lifetimes. The coming changes in dominant viewpoints will accompany an involuntary, massive, radical shift to living within the sharply reduced bounty of the natural environment.