Today we continue our series on the Mother of All Solutions.  We have talked about how increasing the general level of education in a society results in better decision making and a higher quality of life.  We are defining education as a combination of knowledge, awareness and experience.

Last week we saw how improved access to formal education improves the quality of life and gives us a conceptual structure for our knowledge.  We also talked about how the media (including books and magazines) expands our knowledge and helps us stay aware of what is going on in the world.

Now we are going to take a look at how our experiences shape our beliefs and mould our awareness of what is going on in the world.  Consider that nearly everything and everyone we encounter has an effect on how we perceive things.

Interestingly, we are also affected by what we have not yet experienced.  One of the most common primeval fears is of the unknown.   Since most of us do not respond well to fear we tend to have negative opinions about things beyond our direct experience. This also is true about how we respond to other people.  Similarly, we tend to see others who are different than us in a negative light. The more different they seem to us the more likely we are to judge them.

Problem:  Most pet owners place their pets waste into the trash.  When this waste is deposited into landfills it can later seep into and contaminate municipal water supplies.

Solution:  Methane digesters can recycle pet waste into methane gas which can be used as a fuel for producing energy.

According to Will Brinton, an environmental scientist and director of Woods End Laboratories in Maine, dogs and cats in the US  produce over 10 million tons of organic waste each year.  Most of that waste ends up in public landfills.  In Oakland, CA they  had to close local beaches when too much pet waste ended up in the local creeks that flowed into the San Francisco Bay.  The problem was significant enough to motivate several Bay Area cities to look into ways to recycle this waste.

It is estimated that one ton of dog and cat poop might produce up to 50 gallons of fuel.