The Axiomatic View

2012 A vote for survival.

2012-01-15T15:50:00.001-06:00

Edison and Sinclare clearly understood the nature of people who, today, deny global warming and chant "drill baby drill."

In 1916, Edison stated, "We should make use of the forces of nature and should obtain all our power in this way. Sunshine is a form of energy, wind and sea currents are manifestations of this energy. Do we make use of them? Oh no! We burn forests and coal, like tenants burning down our front door for heating. We live like wild settlers."

In the early 1900's Upton Sinclare wrote, “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”

Obviously, careless people have existed since the beginning of time. It is a marvel that the species has survived, or is survival a fleeting fancy and the reality a harsher truth. Could it be that we are slowly burning our front door for heat and living like wild settlers still? Are we so fraught with the worship of power, prestige, and wealth that we live with wild abandonment, pushing the cost of our greed and recklessness onto future generations? Could our ever-growing lust for abundance, even at the expense, globally, of others of our species, be slowly deteriorating the gene pool? Are there enough voices of reason in this human wilderness to prevent extinction?

Sinclare was optimistic that America could change. His optimism inspired his book, "The Jungle." Realizing how slow the process is and how much his book did cause change in the early days of the meat "industry," could give one hope. However, today many of those conditions he illuminated have resurged. That resurgence has occurred because modern advertising anesthetizes the public and multiple layers of middlemen have been wedged between suppliers and consumers.

Many of today's issues hide behind the size and complexity of corporate relationships and inbreeding coupled with a media dependent upon advertiser's support. Sinclare's view, regarding how difficult it is for individuals to do what is morally and ethically right when their salaries depend upon denying a problems existence, remains as true a detriment to today's society as it ever was. Thus, some people deny the science of global warming and others profit from poisoning the land, air and water, in the name of productivity and profit.

Edison's foreshadowing observation is reality in Haiti today. Nearly void of trees, due to poor agricultural regulations, a corrupt government, and because the common fuel is charcoal, Haiti suffers. Its lush forests are now gone, cleared for fuel and industrial farming by monolithic citrus operations. Re-forestation is a faltering startup project and, because treeless soil cannot stop water runoff, the riverbeds are dry and multitudes starve, thirst and suffer devastation from weather events. Some even claim that the weight lost along with the trees changed the load on subterranean plates and may have contributed to the massive earthquake January 12, 2010.

Modern Edisons and Sinclares rile against an American government, festooned in corporate donors, relying on a contaminated Electoral College System of elections, and federal agencies infiltrated by wealthy business representatives with a solitary interest in their own wealth, with service to their country an afterthought. Too often, our responsible stewards of earth and resources, even learned scientists, are trivialized as "environmentalists" in an attempt to demonize their concerns.

When political candidates ignore the reality that fossil fuel kills in its capture and use; support agriculture modalities that are inhumane, soil depleting and toxic to the air, land and water; then, many agree, their underlying motivations must be scrutinized. Does power, prestige or wealth motivate their indefensible positions?

Today's voters, charged with finding candidates with honorable motivations, do not have an easy task. Super PACS, with unlimited financial resources, and a distracted media conspire against them. However, voters must work to elect honorable representatives.

It is wise to remember that before 1950 Haiti produced and consumed more than 80% of its food. As of 2008, Haiti imported more than half of its food while the farmers suffered due to government agriculture policies that allowed monolithic corporations to reign over operations and export product leaving poverty and deforestation in its wake. American corporations, and some candidates, are promoting the elimination of government oversight that has traditionally protected the health and well-being of American citizens.

Today, voters must vote as if their life depends on this 2012 election outcome, because it does.

The US Government's failure to respond to the climate sirens is not acceptable.

2011-11-03T17:02:00.000-05:00

Much of the southern United States is parched. Food prices are rising due to shortages caused by unusual and devastating weather conditions. The sirens are getting louder.

Are the current, unusual weather patterns warnings or flukes? Have humans become Earth's terminators? Can we continue to satisfy the energy requirements of our desires? Might we leave our descendents a ruined planet?

Worldwide, a myriad of hydroelectric dams were constructed to produce energy but at a great cost to the environment and people. Coincidently, as the planet warms, worldwide droughts are sucking the water out of those dams, reducing production.

The 'Arab Spring" has and will continue to affect oil production in the Middle East. Failed nuclear plants in earthquake and tsunami ravaged Japan once again bring into question the safety of this odd, enriched uranium nuclear reactor design when there are known safer nuclear alternatives such as Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) . The easy oil is diminishing fast leaving only the difficult and expensive to acquire shale oil deposits. Deposits that require excessive blasting, water and infusion of toxic chemicals that ultimately contaminate drinking water in a process called hydrofracking, a process that negatively affects surrounding populations both environmentally and seismically.

Coal, renamed "Clean Coal" to disguise a venomous product, is falsely advertised as cheap energy. The public chooses not to acknowledge coal's devastation of people's lives and health or the impoverished local economies that killer coal causes. From mineshafts to cities and coal buring energy plants, coal kills and sickens. Coal is not an answer but a terrible corporate swindle of the public. Air borne particulates and poisonous coal ash spills intoxicate communities. Coal lobbyists have successfully thwarted EPA testing and regulation of radiation and other toxic gases released into the atmosphere through mining operations. The public accepts coal's advertising of such myths as safety and job creation because their own desire for cheap energy outweighs their sense of right and wrong.

The climate sirens are getting louder. What will it take to slow the out of control, energy-train wreck that is rushing toward an expiration date in history? Will the US join the world's response and end the irresponsible Climate Change Denial facade perpetrated by American corporate interests. The worldwide Occupy Movement seems to have placed its boot on the corporate neck of the issue and demands the media and leadership hear the message and respond accordingly.

Nothing is won without risk and inaction carries the greatest potential for failure. In the matter of existence, failure is not an option.

Food, Farming and Environment - A Human Connection.

2011-08-10T15:59:00.004-05:00

A ragtag group of neighbors recently had a conversation about how farmers get more nitrogen into the soil. The conclusion, gathered from collective memories of childhood, was a rotation of soybean or alfalfa crops, which boosts nitrogen in the soil and eliminates the need for manure, particularly near water sources.

It turns out that, over the past fifty years, the chemical farming industry has thwarted such tried and true farming methods. The chemical companies and their seed divisions cannot make profits if farmers work their fields naturally.

Gardeners know that rotating vegetable plots, helps maintain healthy plants and adds nutrition to the harvested vegetables and fruits. Monocultures, one crop grown repeatedly, deplete the soils nutrient content, particularly nitrogen, and thus, the vitamin content of the crop. Repeated chemical spraying to kill pests or to add lost nitrogen, also kills the microbes, needed to create nutrient rich soil. Crops that will survive being sprayed by weed killer, also must be genetically modified to withstand the plant killing (weeds only, hopefully) chemical. In fact, new weeds are immerging, "super weeds," weeds resistant to many weed-killing chemicals. This is evidence that nature learns from the environment.

If you see the link between today's farming methods, chemical corporations, your food and your health, then you are peaking under the mysterious blanket, which most consumers ignore. Costs (chemicals, seeds, packaging, and advertising) increasingly go up, but government subsidies, which the tax-payer/consumer underwrites, off-set some production costs. Thus, the same tax-payer/consumer is fooled and believes food is less expensive that it really is. When prices increase, they rarely reflect the true value of the food, even for the nutrient-void processed foods and meats from CFO's (Confined Feed Operation). Consumers pay more realistic food prices in the fresh food departments. Mind you, unless the fresh food purchased is "organically grown" the chemical corporations have a fingerprint there as well.

Fish, another one our foods, need oxygen, as we do, in order to live. While nitrogen is good for plants, too much nitrogen in water sucks the oxygen out of the water. When excess nitrogen, sprayed onto mono-crops along the great Mississippi River, and its tributaries in neighboring states, washes into the rivers it collectively flows into the Gulf of Mexico and creates "dead zones" of oxygen-void water. This is another way that chemical farming affects our food source, ultimately decreasing the fish populations and affecting the price of our food. We should remember that the same oil that pollutes the Gulf of Mexico is the basis for creation of chemicals used in many areas, including farming.

It is easy to forget that we are not alone, that we are connected through our food, to each other and to our environment. What we eat, affects many more people other than ourselves. How our food producers treat our land and water, our animals and our environment, directly affects our food and our lives. We need to care and be aware.

Reports indicate there are benefits in today's growing Farmer's Markets. This is evidence that people learn from their environment as well as plants.

Coupons - The Food Industry's Gerbil Wheel

2011-08-02T17:43:00.000-05:00

From a recovering coupon clipper, to all those who have yet to see the light, listen up.

Extreme coupon cutters save cash. They have their own lingo, such as "stacking", "catalinas", "blinkies" and "peelies", depicting various sources and uses of coupons. They have web sites designed for coupon clipping groupies. They even have a reality TV show for the junkies of advertised specials who spend hours flipping through newspapers and magazines with scissors in hand, clipping coupons and cataloging them like treasures. They are industrious and creative as they pounce on a coupon sale, like a fish to a lure. However, are they really victims of a manipulative and corrupt industrial food system?

Some coupon clippers keep photos, on their Smartphone's, to view inventory and judge remaining storage space. They evaluate what already lines every horizontal surface in their homes for possible places to stash more food. Highly processed chemical compounds, sold as food today, line their children's closet shelves in the form of hundreds of boxes of cereal, macaroni & cheese, cookies, and other such concoctions. The pantry and, if available, the basement has been fitted with additional shelving specifically built to store their booty. Closets and cubbies are crammed with food that does not rot and cannot spoil because, it has been produced chemically, and it lasts forever. Some call it "frankenfood" and many avoid it because it has so little nutritional value in relation to its volume.

Also stashed are national brand cleaning, preserving, wrapping and storing products. Not to be missed are the soaps and personal care products that overwhelm the Sunday newspaper's ad section, and which, by the way, by sheer volume, out weights the news! Many of the nationally advertised products often rank high on the EWG (Environmental Working Group) toxic product lists as well.

On a gambler's high, the adrenaline kicks in as cashiers ring up their huge grocery bills. Then, ka-ching, ka-ching, the coupon deductions begin. They stack coupons, using more than one on the same item or on a configuration of items such as the "two for's" and the "buy four and get two free," etc. They make sure to alert clerks to the "peelies", which are to be peeled from packages, and they carefully grab up all the "blinkies", blinking and popping out at them from movement sensor machines, as they cruse store aisles.

Madness you say. Frugal they would retort. Look at the savings! Hundreds of dollars of what the food industry advertises as food, with industry coupons, is reduced to its true value, pennies.

Anyone who believes that they can feed a healthy diet to their family, using coupons, is evidence of the grand brainwashing scheme of the American industrial food industry, perpetrated on the public since World War II.

Finding coupons for organic products, real food, and products that, when used to clean or beautify, do not pollute or contaminate our bodies or our environment would be an extraordinary find. This is due to their lack of government subsidies. It is not possible to humanely raise a chicken, cow or pig, with access to natural and healthy species appropriate food for the prices that Americas industrial food industry does it. Sliced ham cannot be produced from animals humanely raised, without high blood pressure causing chemicals, and sold in a quick-lunch snack-pack for just one dollar per pack. Reality should warn us that something is not right.

Few consumers give thought to the care or work required to produce quality, real food, or the true cost of producing and delivering real food. For this reason, major brand producers are rarely held to account for their inhumane treatment of food animals or the purity of their product ingredients. Many of the foods eaten today include ingredients that have been genetically modified.

In America, GM foods have yet to be tested for their long-term affects in human consumption nor are they labeled for easy detection. However, tests by the EU (European Union) have resulted in the EU refusing to allow GM foods to be sold in member countries. This has resulted in many American chain restaurant operations having to procure different ingredients for products sold in Europe than those sold in America.

The American, production oriented, food producers squeeze profits out of every product. CFOs (Confined Feedlot Operations) are profit boosters. In CFOs, animals are compacted in inhumane confinements and fed industrially produced grains, rather than pasture grazing. The result is that the animals require antibiotics because of their adverse reaction to confinement stress and poor diets. Another tool of the industry is package downsizing or weight downsizing without, at least in the beginning, increasing prices, which would be the real attention getter. Anyone who bakes cookies from old recipes knows sixteen-ounce packages of chocolate chips are a thing of the past. Other profit producers are chemical additives used for taste and texture, which replace real ingredients. Then, of course, there are coupons.

Millions of coupons, issued to reduce prices, lure clippers and savers to buy nationally advertised industrial food products instead of real food. The lower prices and coupons are the result of the many subsidies paid to industrial producers. Ultimately, coupon clippers and other unconscious consumers who buy these products, pay twice. They pay once at the cash register, and once as taxpayers supporting corporate subsidies.

The motto "pay me now AND pay me later," surely must have been coined by an industrial food producer at the same time that the grand scheme of coupons was developed.

Those who feel like a gerbil on the industrial food system's wheel can analyze their family's real food needs and source food locally. There are many products, for both home and personal care, which are good for the environment and your health. Then, they can enjoy the extra space now taken by boxes of pretend food. Families can eat and be healthier, help the environment, and refuse the manipulation by America's industrial food system, all at the same time when they become conscious consumers rather than compulsive coupon victims.

The Omnivore's Responsibility

2011-04-17T16:30:00.010-05:00

     Remember the famous granny who demanded, "Where's the beef?" She should have asked, "Who packs the beef?" We should all ask who is packing our beef, pork, or the chicken. It is amazing that in one generation a nation that once thought chicken was a Sunday dinner fit for guests, has grow such an oversized desire for cheap red meats. Also of interest is how such desire translated into a multi-corporate gang focused on gratifying and encouraging that desire.
     For most meat eaters, how their meat gets from hoof to grille is of little concern. They worry more about getting large amounts, from hand to mouth, as fast as possible. What gets their attention is when a favorite grille cut is sold out, burger prices increase, or the fast food window is closed for repairs.
     Even those outside of Chicago cannot forget the meatpacker's story, told in the 1906 by Upton Sinclair in his novel, "The Jungle." Meatpacking, like most industries then, overworked their people. Meatpackers worked with poor sanitation and the danger of injury. In many cases today, that has not changed.
     Sinclair exposed the underbelly of meatpacking and focused lawmakers' attention as the workers, usually new immigrants and African Americans, organized. Today, the meatpacking industry no longer feels compelled to operate near rail hubs or large cities. As they relocate closer to ranchers and farmers in more rural locations, some protections of the union organizations have weakened. Today, the meatpacking industry is, once again, operating almost unfettered by regulation. See Smithfield workers seek justice.
     Another casualty, in the loosely regulated meatpacking industry, is the animals. As the industry developed multimillion-dollar operations, they began gobbling up producers. The result is that the condition in which an animal lives is of little importance as reflected in the industry's inhumane confinements and treatment of livestock. Once livestock was categorized as production units, their lives changed in the cruelest of ways. In America, production became another name for greed and the animal/human relationship, which honored the well-being of the animal soon to give its life for human consumption, was lost.  How we treat our animals speaks to who we are as a society.
     In the past 120 years, the meatpacking industry marketers have successfully developed strong appetites in the public for meat and an even stronger desire for it to be cheap. They encourage eating fast, making real taste irrelevant. Filler and chemicals are added to make less genuine product look good and voluminous and, voila, you have the modern Western Diet and sick, fat Americans. Increased production and taxpayer subsidies have resulted in increased meat production and the product sold artificially cheap. As the industrial animal operations grow, greater profit is achieved at the cost of the short-lived miserable reality of the animals. See Smithfield's pig operation.
     Coincidently, in the past 120 years, the numbers of major meatpackers has dwindled, or more precisely processors have been gobbled up so that there are now just four; Tyson, Cargill, Brazil-based JBS, and National Beef. These four represent 80 percent of the U.S. beef market, Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer/processor and Tyson remains the largest chicken meatpacker. This consolidation has more than doubled the meatpacker's power and is slowly putting the small and middle-sized ranchers out of business. See Ranchers petiton for enforcement of the 1921 Packers and Stock Yard Act - Feb. 2011
     How does fewer meat packers and inhumane treatment of livestock affect the omnivore with spatula in hand, wearing the grille apron? When fewer meatpackers control production and packing, choices are limited and broad scale contamination risks are more likely. Omnivores who oppose inhumane treatment of animals, want to know what meatpacker's brands to avoid. When spending precious food dollars, responsible omnivores want all the nutrition available, in reasonable amounts, at fair prices.
     This month it was reported that over half of all grocery market meats were contaminated with drug resistant bacteria.  Another good reason to try to buy local. Many small farmers humanly raise livestock and are open to the public. Some deliver into larger metropolitan areas and participate in neighborhood Farmer's Markets. Many have eggs and chickens available as well.

Education and responsible consuming are the best defenses for protecting you and your family's well-being.

Attitude Over Aptitude Will Change Food System

2010-09-27T16:55:00.000-05:00

As consumers, we would like to believe that “somebody” is looking out for our welfare. As enlightened consumers, however, we know the goal of business is not the welfare of people but the welfare of their profits. Doctors make more money treating illnesses and businesses make more money convincing people to buy things they do not want or need at prices that exceed their worth. Often we feel defenseless in the face of power, however, we can make change happen through our personal choices.

A consumer, who buys directly from the hand of a producer, avoids being a statistic, a profit or loss figure on paper. Buying direct from a producer invokes trust. It honors the consumer and producer by creating a personal relationship connected by the product exchanged. That relationship is the “somebody” who is looking out for our well-being as a society. Old fashioned? Yes. The way it used to be? Yes. The way it could be? Yes.

What makes us feel unable to make change happen? We have been lead to believe that we do not have the education needed; we are too young or too old; our voice lacks the strength required; we are without power. None of this is true. I suggest that attitude far outweighs aptitude.

This eleven-year-old boy represents the power of attitude. He is changing lives as his TED presentation has gone viral on the internet. Watch and listen to his simple but profound message. Birke Baehr, a young man before his time.

A Food Industry in Sheep’s Clothing Is Still A Wolf

2010-09-16T11:18:00.000-05:00

The Corn Refiners Association has asked for high fructose corn syrup sweetener (HFCS) to be renamed, “corn sugar” for labeling purposes. HFCS has been revealed as problematic in the weight and health of those who eat it in large quantities. Unavoidable as that is in today's industrialized food supply. The FDA can ease confusion about HFCS by requiring all corn sugars, including dextrose and maltodextrin, to be given the same name. People would then be able to understand the reality of the amount of “corn sugar” being stuffed down their throats.

Renaming products has worked but has left the public skeptical. After all, when sheep watch the wolf dress in sheep’s clothing often enough, there is little pretense left.

The 1938 the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act imposed rules requiring the word “imitation” to appear on products that were imitations of standard foods. For example, margarine is an imitation of butter and Velveeta is an imitation of cheese. Commonsense dictated, people should know what to expect from their milk, cheese, butter, beef, etc. The Act required an “imitation” label on imitation foods. It took the food industry until 1973 to get this rule tossed out. Congress did not write a new law; rather, the FDA simply repealed the Act.

For years, the FDA and the industrial food industry have herded the public down a path for industry profits while the nutritional content of our food has deteriorated and chemical additives increased. When we peek below the sheep’s skin and find corn syrup is making us obese, increasing medical costs, and refuse to buy it, the industry answer is to change the name, increase advertising and wait for the dust to settle.

Businesses practice salesmanship, persuading people to buy what they do not need, and do not want, for more than it is worth. In terms of food, that means that the public desires cheap food in large sizes. Slap a ‘sale’ tag on it and, nutritious or not, needed or not, it sells. The orthodoxy “newer and more is better”, which is born from propaganda authored by greed, entices mindless spending. Spending, which many would have us believe grows our economy but which has, instead, grown the percentage of poor in America to over fourteen percent and almost eradicated the middle class. In terms of food, it has alarmingly increased the number of morbidly obese and under nourished Americans.

Name changing and smaller packages are but a few of the tactics used by the industrial food industry to increase profits and fool the public. However, between recalls and new food awareness campaigns, the industrial food industry is losing the public’s trust and that, by any name, should be the game changer.

Child Nutrition Act Expires - Sept 30, 2010

2010-08-01T16:45:00.001-05:00

As a parent looks at their child’s small body, a blueprint of the future, it is natural to wonder, "What will this child become as an adult?" Everyone wants the best for their offspring but parents know that wanting and making sure that they get all the help they need takes more than just wishing on a star.

According to the “Healthy Americans Organization’s recently released report , adult and childhood obesity increased in 2009. One wonders, “How can this be? Especially, in a year when so much media attention has been focused on the issue. This is probably because the foundation of obesity is set when children are the most active and seem the most fit and learned habits are hard to break.

Diets that limit variety in foods are defended by the “my child is a fussy eater” excuse. Processed foods are substituted for real foods in home and school diets using the excuses of cost, convenience and so-called time saving. Unhealthy building blocks for future adults are created by limiting variety and not offering new real foods. They are created by supplying processed foods as replacements for real food. The result is an adult who, one day, will not fit into a single seat on an airplane or even a standard coffin when they prematurely expire from diet induced diseases. The Western Diet is the most pervasive pandemic to fear in our world today.

Recently published information, by the The Telethon Institute of Child Health Studies notes that the Raine Study indicates a link between diet and ADHD. For over a decade information has been reported about the link between the Western Diet and heart disease, diabetes and other such ailments, but habits are hard to change.

The Child Nutrition Act expires September 30, 2010 and includes the mechanism of dictating the American school lunch program, which the majority of our children rely upon. Jamie Oliver has been working on programs and legislation that refocuses Americans on the health of their children. The school lunch program is one in which all Americans should be involved. While there are many ways to bring the deficit down, sacrificing a child’s health is not the way to do it.

As always, we have to remind our legislators that, while there is much on their plates and although they may disagree on just about everything, we will not let them ignore our children and their health. It is time to tell our legislators to ask for the House and Senate to bring forward for debate, then support and pass substantial Child Nutrition legislation.

What is the cost of the Gulf Oil Spill?

2010-06-07T18:32:00.002-05:00

As we continue to witness the Gulf disaster unfold, and it begins to dawn on us that this is something we may not be able to fix, it might be a good idea to realize that it is but a stone on the dark side of the scale that has been tipping toward the declining health and bounty of our oceans. The following is a link to a lecture, presented by TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) whose mission is to share “Ideas worth spreading.” I believe that knowledge is the best way to find hope in what, at first blush, may appear to be a hopeless situation. View TED Lecture.

It is heart wrenching to watch the oil soaked pelicans and their babies struggling for life and it makes us feel good to see them flying free after being cleaned and relocated. Please do not be lulled by the show. Cry for the microbial life of the ocean that has been in decline for years; picture the bodies of dolphins and fish that have perished under the surface because dispersants were used to hide the oil from the cameras; and when the price of the holiday party shrimp (foreign) impacts the Christmas appetizer table, stop and have more than a passing thought, maybe a moment of prayer, for the Gulf residents and their way of live that died with their shrimp.

It will not be easy to asses the cost of the oil spill until people fully recognize the value of what has been lost, either in the priceless, human and non-human, Gulf region life, or the vast interconnected ecosystems.

Gone Means No Do Over

2010-06-02T15:57:00.001-05:00

This was a comment posted on a website, as part of a week of chatter, regarding the possibility that BP/Halliburton/Transocean and the government may never be able to stop and/or clean up the Gulf oil spill. This anonymous person, known only as gristswat, said it all.

“Hmmmm....well this is interesting. Normally, mindless consumers funnel their money to some big corporation so they can rape the Earth of its (finite) natural resources on their behalf. Then, KABOOM!.... and suddenly the consumers want the money funneled the opposite way, to try and clean up a violated environment. Here are three enormous problems with this formula: 1) It is generally based on the assumption that the Earth's natural resources are infinite, and they are not. 2) It assumes that with enough money we can fix anything, and that is also not true, and 3) Too many people on this planet flat out do not understand, or care about, what it means to lose something INTANGEABLE: there are things/conditions which, once gone, are fone forever and can not be replaced.

Newsflash!...Breaking Story!....This Just In!......World War III has begun! It is not going to be waged with nuclear weapons, like everyone thought. Also, the combatants are a surprise: They are Mother Nature and Father Time in one corner, and Stupid Humans on the other side. The weapons: Ma & Pa have control of the life support systems. Humans have money. Strategy for Ma &Pa; give the Stupid Humans plenty of rope, then just sit back and watch and wait while they hang themselves.
This is a profound turning point in our very existence. We are faced with two extremely difficult options: Either we adapt to living SUBSTAINABLY, or we are going EXTINCT.”

This person’s message will be lost on those who believe dispersants applied to the oil on the ocean’s surface actually make it disappear; those who do not see pesticides on cheap food but trust somebody has made sure it is safe to eat; and those unable to relate the overwhelming amount of plastic in our lives, to the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

While under the surface, World War III, as this person so eloquently describes, is fully engaged, as we close our eyes, hearts and minds, and pass the true cost of our folly on to future generations.

Earth Day - 40th Anniversary

2010-04-22T16:26:00.000-05:00

Today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. In those forty years, environmentalists have pressed for change. There are now more organically grown vegetables available and resurgence in farmer’s markets around the nation. Many farmers realize that they can make more money and keep their farms by rejecting pesticide/herbicide farming. Farmers are beginning to understand that factory farming sterilizes the soil and contaminates the water, causing municipalities to commit billions of tax dollars to provide clean drinking water. Often the process is ineffective, as is the case for Atrazine. Studies are revealing that the despoiled water also negatively affects the farmer’s own livestock. Change, however, comes slowly.

There is a surge of restaurants serving small plates and a Chef, Jamie Oliver, who has begun a “Food Revolution,” using the media to bring America’s unhealthy school lunch system, directed by the USDA, to the front of the public’s consciousness. American food portions have increased three fold and the use of processed foods, high in corn syrup and chemicals, has quadrupled. Obesity, food induced illnesses and allergies have spread, threatening the American segment of the world’s population. Change will come, however slowly.

There is hope, however. Europe and Asia are withstanding the pressure from America’s monolithic agri-businesses intent to export of their destructive farming methodologies and genetically modified foods. Government’s leaders are beginning to question why Americans suffers so much food contamination and it is getting harder for the producers to hide their tainted production processes. Slowly, the American eater is awakening. Slowly, change is coming.

Gluttonous use of fossil fuels has been identified as a possible human cause for ‘unusual’ warming trends on the planet, which are adversely affecting species from insects to whales, globally. Yet, there are some, fearing their wealth will be diminished if action is taken to stop the trend, who rail against the science. These same individuals, it should be noted, support action against countries that demonstrate a less than one percent chance of having nuclear weapon capabilities. They protect themselves against a less than five percent statistical chance their house will burn. They insure themselves for the less than twenty percent chance they may get sick. The question is what if the global warming skeptics are wrong and the scientists are right? If there were even a less than one percent statistical chance that humans might not survive the damage done by global warming, why would we not choose to take action? After all, currently, there is no other spaceship but Earth in this galaxy. There is no option to be transported to Pandora for safe refuge. If nothing is done, change could come too late.

While we celebrate this fortieth anniversary of Earth Day, America’s leadership is flirting with micro-sized solutions. Some are meandering toward thinking about, while others are researching, America’s contribution to the global problem. While Earth Day participants have learned to celebrate baby steps, over these forty years, baby steps may not be enough this time.

Our choices, action or lack of action, will be our gift or curse for future generations. Earth Day calls us to commit to the three R’s, “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.” For some it will mean they purchase locally grown vegetables, grass feed beef, or buffalo burgers instead of factory farm provided ‘value meals.’ For other, they will eat smaller portions or try to save 4 gallons of water a day by turning the water off while brushing their teeth. Many will pressure their legislators to take legislative action. Small changes, made by a multitude of people, will accelerate the change needed to insure Earth and her future inhabitants. Happy Earth Day!

No Bee - No Food - No Honey

2010-02-23T16:31:00.005-06:00

“Hmmm” Winnie-the-Pooh would say, “I love honey.” At our house, a steamy piece of cornbread is naked without honey. Pooh was regularly reminded that his honey came from busy bees. We humans, however, rarely think about bees or how much of our food depends on their hard labors.

It is but for the bees, busily foraging for nectar and transferring pollen from flower to flower, that we enjoy more than one third of all the foods we eat. Without their labors there would be no blueberries, cherries, tomatoes, apples, oranges, peppers, squash, watermelon, strawberries and the list goes on and on.

Though small, they have finely tuned brains allowing them to communicate to their hives, detailed directions to fields of sweet nectar they have found, a communication feat many humans find challenging. With this information, worker bees fly far away from home, returning to share their nectar with their hives and subsequently, with all of us who enjoy honey. So finely tuned are their small bodies that, just like humans, environmental poisons can devastate their immune systems causing them to forget where home is. They leave their homes but never return, a phenomena never seen before.

Between 2005 and 2006, the media’s hot story was about a “honeybee die-off.” Although there had been a notable decline for several years preceding that, that period of time seemed to be a waterloo for the bees. There were suspicions as to the cause, but it has been the worldwide community of beekeepers themselves, who have been able to determine the culprit. This catastrophic collapse of bee colonies, occurring in dozens of countries, simultaneously, was found to have one common denominator, a surge in the use of neo-nicotinyl pesticides, particularly their systemic use in seed treatments. An example would be the genetically modified corn seed. Modified, with a pesticide used to kill the corn rootworm, the pesticide is residual in the corn’s flower, pollen, dew, and water run off. It is also used in formulations for field spraying. Thus, bee contact is inevitable.

Neonicotinoids were in use, in smaller dosages, for several years prior to 2005. Beekeepers, puzzled by the affects they saw in their bees, were yet unaware of the pesticide connection. However, in 2005 the manufacturer drastically increased the amount applied and beehives collapsed in record numbers. This got everyone’s attention, even the media. Since industry in the U.S. can give EPA things environmentalists and small businesses cannot, such as contributions and high paying jobs, the message did not get through to them. Some European Union member countries, however, have taken action to ban use of these pesticides and have seen recovery begin in their honeybee colonies. Italy reportedly banned several uses of neonicotinoids with highly successful results.

While it is widely thought that the EPA is hard at work in Washington, protecting the public from potential poisons and their affects on food supplies, this is not the case. Licenses to sell potentially lethal chemicals are approved through a simple process. A manufacturer tells the EPA their product is safe and good for agri-business. They show the EPA tests, which they have performed and which prove their claim of safety and efficacy, after which they collect their licenses. While it might be advantageous for justice to be blind, it is an obvious disadvantage for the EPA to be purposefully blind. It is a disadvantage for bees, the bee industry; those who eat the many foods bees help produce, and lovers of honey. That includes Pooh, who would sigh and say “Oh, my” and go back to his honey pot which would, on the next page, be magically full.

The alfalfa, which cows turn into milk and meat, requires bee participation. We cannot assume foods we enjoy will magically appear on our tables like a full Winnie-the-Pooh honey pot. In fact, if nothing is done they could all disappear. How, then, will our grand children describe that sweet juiciness of a watermelon on a hot summer’s day to our great-great grandchildren?

In the real world, we have to take action and tell the EPA that we are watching, concerned, and expect them to take the necessary actions to protect the honeybee industry and our right to clean, healthy, real food.

Learn more about the plight of the honeybee, a letter sent to the EPA on January 28, 2010, and the availability of the documentary film “Nicotine Bees” at www.nicotinebees.com

Water – The Simply Complicated Life Source

2010-01-05T10:01:00.008-06:00

Why think about water? We play in it. We bathe in it. We float on it and fish for food that lives in it. It makes up approximately 70% of our body’s volume and covers over 70% of earth’s surface. We use it in our religious rituals and recognize it as the lifeblood of all that lives on earth.

When tranquil, it mesmerizes and soothes us. When it falls from the skies, it can be welcomed, or threatening. In either instance, it affects our wellbeing. In unexpected volumes, it can kill us. Its absence will also kill us. While some creatures have access only to contaminated water that sickens them, others thoughtlessly waste it. History tells us that wars have been waged over access to it.

Although protected by landowner laws, water cannot be owned in its entirety, just as one cannot own sunlight or air. Today, industrialized farming methods use excessive amounts of water, depleting and contaminating supplies. There are financially powerful entities that seek to own all of the world’s water and limit access to it. Profiteers withdraw it from local aquifers, far below earth’s surface, depleting available supplies. They bottle and sell it for profit, nationally and internationally, often selling it back to the very inhabitants of the area from where they have taken it. They use it as a tool to gather power and wealth. Powerful international forces finance construction of dams, displacing millions of people, to gather greater power and control of water sources. Worldwide, water, its purity and availability, is a focus for concern. It is easy for people to take it for granitite, oblivious that this life sustaining resource is at risk.

Why should we think about water? The answer is our lives depend upon it.
See the documentary film titled “FLOW – For the Love of Water”, available on DVD via the internet or view excerpts, in this six segment YouTube Presentation.

Afterwards, you may be inspired to sign a petition to add a 31st article to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, establishing access to clean water as a fundamental human right. Also, at this site, are links to the world wide organizations of citizens and corporations working against the privatization of water and to assure the community of man access to water for generations to come.

Other resources:
“Blue Gold: World Water Wars”, by Malcolm McDowell
“The Holy Order of Water: Healing the Earth’s Waters & Ourselves”, by William E Marks
“Song for the Blue Ocean”, by Carl Safina, Marine Biologist.

2010 New Year and the Great Awakening

2009-12-30T16:57:00.003-06:00

How can, and why should, 2010 become the year of Great Awakening? Who should awaken and what would they awaken to, or from? The Great Awakening is about global warming. It is about genetic manipulation of nature and about seizing ownership of life resources by a select and rich minority. It is about a denial of responsibility for the subsequent consequences of these actions, which could result in the extinction of life as has been known on Earth. Mostly, it is about how these wrongs can be made right through a collective re-commitment.

Regardless if one has faith in a higher power or not, it is difficult to ignore how the environment affects life on Earth. Simply quenching one’s thirst with a glass of pure water, or inhaling a breath of clean air, done with thoughtfulness, reminds one of our body’s reliance on our environment. We expect our environment to be nurturing and not polluted or dangerous. Like all things of value, the environment must be protected. At the very least, environmental responsibility requires awareness and thoughtful care. Ideally, awareness and care would inspire activism on a broader spectrum.

For the millions of years Earth has existed, development and change has occurred slowly and methodically. Species have flourished and perished, due to genetic strengths or weaknesses and their relative biological adaptability. Humans, with brains developed to far greater extents than any other of Earth's creatures, share many characteristics with other species. However, they are, if not the strongest or most agile, the smartest and most successful of all. In synchronization with nature, man has prospered. Nature took great care of man, he reciprocated, and both thrived. The relationship, however, has changed.

In contrast, many of today’s humans, particularly those who believe they control everything within their reach, are reaching for and gathering even more than they need. They do this even at the peril of their own species as well as other creatures; and often contaminating the very food, water and air, their own lives depend upon. By ignoring nature’s rhythms, modern man is writing a new story, one of extinction, framed by denial.

While some are aware of their symbiotic relationship to the environment, others are too greedy for material wealth to realize the harm they do. Material wealth, hidden under a blanket of industrialization and production, is nothing more than the acquisition of food, water and air, the same essential elements needed by the single celled creatures that first inhabited the planet. Some people believe that fortune is something far fancier but in reality, it is not. Without food, water and air life, as we know it, cannot exist. Those three elements control all that lives.

A Great Awakening obliges humankind to be responsible for the protection of food, water, and air from unhealthy molecular manipulations and contaminations. It requires humankind to recognize the sovereignty of the life source, seed or egg, and not strive to patent it for private gain. Most of all, it calls humankind to commit its superior abilities to safeguarding the purity and health of life’s three most important elements so that they may be safely passed to the generations yet unborn. Finally, as a being that expresses belief in a greater power, a Great Awakening would compel humankind to share, and assure access to, safe, healthy food, water and air for all other life on planet Earth.

Happy New Year to all and to all a Great Awakening.

Biologics - Food for thought.

2009-08-24T17:00:00.004-05:00

If we are what we eat, as the phrase goes, and we value good health, exercise, and making healthy food choices, would we knowingly ingest bacteria or viruses? Of course not. However, viruses and bacteria are used to genetically modify crop seeds, which are slowly invading America’s food supplies. The science is known as biologics. For the nonprofessional, because bacteria and viruses can effectively penetrate cell walls, they are used as elite limo services to transport foreign DNA, proteins, and other organisms into targeted cells. In the case of genetically engineered foods the target cells are those of corn, beans, tomatoes, cotton and a host of other foods.

Biologics is the science of ‘recombinant’, or artificial DNA. Monsanto controls the genetically engineered seed market as well as the herbicide and pesticide markets. Herbicides and pesticides are required when growing GM seeds. In fact, farmers are required to sign contracts that bind them to exclusively use Monsanto’s Round-up herbicide, when planting “Round-up Ready” GM seeds. It should be noted that Monsanto refuses to make public laboratory results involving glyphosate, the active ingredient in Round-up, and its relationship to abnormalities in rats.

Monsanto purports that genetically modifying seed is harmless, that it increases yield and, therefore, profit and, that it could solve world hunger. They trivialize the affects of such alteration of food, at the cellular level, while actively fighting those who would establish labeling laws that specifically identify foods that include GM ingredients. Without adequate labeling, information about what food contains GM ingredients, tracking health reactions to such foods by public health officials, and avoidance by the public, is almost impossible. Simply put, If genetically modifying food is safe, why the concern about labeling? What is the biotech industry afraid of?

Since World War II, as each revolutionary chemical was introduced to the public insecticides (DDT), fire retardants (PBDEs ) , herbicides (Round-up), Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) , and the myriad of others, repeatedly, failure by the FDA to test and adequately protect the public from their harm has caused suffering and increased pollution of our environment. Environmental pollution has escalated to the extent that newborns, which have been harder and harder to conceive these days, are found to be pre-polluted at birth . They have in their tiny new blood streams, many of the chemicals found in the chemical soup of life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Many consumers believe that biologics should not be involved in food production. Nonetheless, Monsanto remains a driving force to advance genetically modified food. Since they have positioned themselves for the greatest profit, they are at the center of much of the controversy. As revealed in the movie ‘The Future of Food’ Monsanto pressures across multi levels of government agencies, businesses, farming, and the legal systems, both nationally and internationally, with a single goal of controlling the worlds food production from proprietary seeds and herbicides to pesticides. Even the laboratories of many U.S. Land Grant Universities have become extensions of the powerful biotech community. There have been suggestions that their strong financial influence have successfully forced professors, who disagree with their influence, to leave the programs. Former Monsanto executive and board member have infiltrated government agencies, charged with protecting the public interest, from the FDA, EPA, US Chamber of Commerce, even to the US Supreme Court.

An example of Monsanto’s power in congress is Senator Lugar of Indiana, who presents himself as an environmental and energy conscientious leader and has received Monsanto's financial support for most of his career. He works hard for Monsanto, as is evident on his web site that publishes many of his pro-GM speeches. The consistent message is his commitment to Monsanto and GM farming. On July 2, 2008, he addressed the American Enterprise Institute . Monsanto representatives were blatantly present in the audience and were acknowledged by Senator Lugar. It was an instance which exposed the shadowy figure below the surface of Lugar’s career, and exemplified the extent of comfort Monsanto enjoys in its powerful influence.

It has taken but a short time for the biotech industries to accomplish such broad influence through infiltration and they have had help from the exploding big-box grocers, such as Wal-Mart, where the greatest number of GM foods is sold. Consumers are lead to believe that cheap food is, somehow, comparable to quality food and competition for grocers who offer food with integrity and quality is difficult. That said, it does not even speak to the extent of environmental damage and the potential to diminish, if not destroy, the worlds agricultural biodiversity that genetic modification of food represents.

Food is the basic currency of powerful civilizations and ours must be safe, healthful and desired by all nations. We should heed the rest of the world, which has rejected U.S. genetically engineered products .

If we are what we eat, we must demand that our food is safe and healthy, and produced in such ways as to not destroy the environment. We must continually ask that our government agencies, like the FDA, EPA and others, charged with the responsibility of assuring food safety and quality, protect American consumer’s health and the American family farmers, not Monsanto’s, and other biotech corporation’s, bottom lines.

Fix Food Industry - Fix Healthcare

2009-07-22T09:52:00.003-05:00

There is a story about a village near a river. One day, a villager saw a baby floating down the river. He ran to save the baby, only to find another floating down the river. The villagers came to help, when another and yet another baby came. Soon, all the villagers were occupied with saving the babies that were floating down river toward their village. Nobody thought to look upstream to find out where the babies where coming from, or why.

Nobody doubts that healthcare in America needs reform. Medical practice inefficiencies, rising insurance costs, over priced drugs, and a lack of access to quality care for all, are the babies floating toward us. Politics exponentially adds to the problem. Meanwhile, Americans enslaved, if not crushed, by healthcare costs often fail to see the snake in this box of pain, which is a broken food industry.

While everyone wants the system fixed, nobody wants to pay for it. Everyone wants better healthcare; unfortunately, few care enough about how such a broken system affects their neighbors. Politicians fear loss of campaign funding, from corporations potentially affected by healthcare reform legislation, while they attempt to make their constituents believe that they are working for the people’s best interests.

A look upstream would reveal unique funding sources for healthcare reform as well as a remodeling of the broken food industry. Taxing processed foods, laced with corn syrup, salt, and unhealthy fats, could yield new revenue as it forces a change to healthier ingredients in the nation's diet. Concurrently, outdated farm subsudies could be shifted to encourage local production of organic fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, dairy products and to also support healthy school lunches.

By taxing corporate farm operations, those using genetically modified seed that rely on excessive use of pesticides and herbicides, healthcare reform would be funded and healthy farming practices encouraged. This could remedy the agricultural disaster perpetrated on America’s farmers when post WWII chemical producers, seeking new markets for the war’s chemical surpluses, fathered post war farming techniques that are destroying the land and life throughout America’s heartlands today.

By taxing feedlot operations, which use inhumane and unhealthy production methods for beef, pork and poultry, additional new revenue could be generated. Such meats, grown with excessive chemicals and drugs, create health issues, which drive the need for more healthcare services. This would be yet another win-win situation.

Such a remodeling of the food industry would cause America’s fast food giants, one of the unhealthiest sectors of the food industry, to raise prices. Thus, choosing unhealthy foods, and creating a drain on the American healthcare system, would be a more obvious and conscious decision. It would also help curb America's addiction to sugar, salt and fat that has caused American's to be the fattest people in the world.

These actions could strike at the heart of our health and healthcare issues if Washington could just stop drowning in politics and look upstream.

Finding SOLE food

2009-06-14T19:18:00.004-05:00

Finding and eating SOLE Food (Sustainable, Organic, Local, Ethnic food) requires thoughtful planning, searching and gathering. The same hunting and gathering requirements involved in staying alive since the beginning of time.

Those who hunt the local grocery store to supplement purchases from local farmers, and private gardens, must rely on labels to understand the contents of the packages they put into their shopping carts. Trusting information found on those labels, however, is becoming increasing difficult. The first concepts that the hunter and finder of foods accepts are that nourishment is required for life, that we are responsible for finding food and feeding ourselves, and that we must learn what is nurishing and what is dangerous.

There was a time when the U.S. government intended to become the public guardian of our health and well-being by watching over the food industry. That changed when the food industry became larger than the government. When that happened, legislation, rules and governmental processes became vulnerable to industry influence as they sought to protect their increasing profit margins. The public’s safety became an after thought and the food industry grew fat and unhealthy. Today, the laws and regulations, meant to guard the safety of our nutrition, food, farming practices, and delivery methods, are suffering the typical system failures caused by over indulgence. Just as we have witnessed the failure of our financial institutions, the repeated food recalls and contamination warnings are symptoms of a similar institutional collapse occurring in the food industry.

Unable to see past their bloated profits, some food producers have lost their commitment to delivering healthy food. This is not just due to a skewed sense of value and business ethic. In part, some businesses are responding to a public that has lost touch with the value of adequate portions of quality food and seeks, instead, cheap food in excessive amounts. Not to discount that the food industry has learned to manipulate human cravings with salt, sugar and pervasive advertising, people still feed themselves. Thus, the combination of industry manipulation and personal choices has resulted in a society that is becoming fatter and less healthy. It has also fostered the rise of big box stores, which force unreasonable competition, resulting in a degradation of product quality. Any economic shift magnifies these problems, as it does many other interrelated process within any society.

So what can be done to find quality food? Commit to adjusting the standards of intake and quality. Scour the internet for trusted sites of information. Exercise the power of purchasing by sending a clear message that people want non-GM (genetically modified), wholesome food, organic, and locally grown, as much as is possible. Involve the grocery managers and staff. Purchase from local farmers and farmer's markets when possible. Become better educated consumers. For example, Wal-Mart offers organic milk at an unusually low price. However, an article at Organic Consumer's Organization , and the list of organic milk producers at The Cornucopia Institute exposes the fact that the cheap organic labeled milk, at this big box store, is not so organic and, subsequently, not so cheap either.

The axiomatic view here is that since the beginning of time, as successful hunters and gatherers, we educated ourselves, and learned best practices for the finding of nourishment to assure our survival. Nothing and everything has changed. What has changed is that we can no longer look at food and determine that it is, or is not, edible. Today, some foods are advertised as being edible, smell edible and taste edible, however, they may not contribute to our health. In some case, over time, they may even cause illnesses such as, diabetes, heart disease or cancer. Luckily, our technology has advanced with us and we can still search for the needed information to make appropriate choices and assure the survival of our species. As always, it is our choice.

“Be the change you want to see in the world,” Gandhi

2009-06-05T19:46:00.007-05:00

Reality is dawning regarding environmental and health issues in America and the protections provided by our governmental agencies. Government protection is like fighting a forest fire with a squirt gun. Not quiet as effective as needed.

As broken as our economy is, many government protection agencies, which we have believed are protecting us from harm, are also broken. We were awakened by the recent economic crash and the disaster of New Orleans. Another alarm sounding is the constant barrage of contamination warnings and recalls of food in America.

The axiomatic view here, is that governmental mechanisms, set up to protect citizens from financial collapse, disaster recovery, safe food distribution, safe chemistry in the things we ingest and use, and food processing methods, are failing. Well intended, at their inception, years of successful special interests’ lobbying and corporate infiltration of key agency leadership positions, have defused the objectivity and strength of our government oversight. Like hoping the squirt gun will be effective, we had better find additional answers.

The environmental rules are simple. As stated in Paul Hawken’s commencement address to the Class of 2009, University of Portland, “… don’t poison the water, soil, or air and don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat….” Each rule broken, affects every aspect of life all over the world. From health and economic issues to international relationships, lest we forget that wars are often fought for land and resources.

While damage has been done to the environment, it is not too late. At some point, however, the planet could be damaged beyond its ability to recover enough to sustain our species. Action, sharing of the message and knowledge, each to the best of our ability is needed. Holding corporations responsible for their methodologies by using our purchasing powers sends an important message. Helping our youth understand the importance of our environment, by our actions, is most important. They will grow to create the new environmental and business methodology, necessary to heal earth and for its inhabitants to prosper.

While we can hope that the current administration can reinvigorate the effectiveness of government oversight, we must take responsibility for making conscientious decisions, acting to protect the environment, promoting healthy eating practices, and for everyone. If we become the change that we want to see happen in the world, change will happen.

Follow the Resource Links and begin the journey.

Plastic – Miracle or Monster

2009-05-06T09:00:00.002-05:00

Most packaging used today is not biodegradable and has a never-ending future, which may be ruining our children’s futures.

Plastic is both miracle and monster. The miracles are helmets that save lives; packaging peanuts that protect valuables in transit; utensils, trays and clear wrap for the portability and protection of food; bags for handling groceries and garbage; and indestructible toys and auto dashboards to name a few uses.

The monster is revealed, however, when birds and fish eat plastic forks and spoons, food trays, bags, and take out food packaging like lids and straws. Their stomachs fill with non-nutrient junk and they die. This is not a miracle. This is a preventable disaster. As the per capita demand for fish consumption increases, plastic is taking its toll. In the future, the need for, and loss of, seafood will create another undesired outcome.

Many of our beaches glisten with polymer pearls called ‘nurdles.” From nurdles, all forms of plastic are created, from polyvinyl siding, to food packaging, the elastic polystyrene in truck and car tires and they even find their way into our cosmetics. Nurdles are injected with chemicals to affect the attributes of the final products, making them hard, soft, flexible, brightly colored, shatterproof, etc. The monstrous side of plastic is that once created, it never, ever, degrades and then, buried in landfills or carried by the winds, it pollutes our land and water.

Most of the flotsam at sea comes from the same plastic products that make our lives so convenient. There are several areas at sea, one as large as the state of Texas, where currents create doldrums and the plastic garbage collects there. See the The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

There is hope, however. Beyond the miraculous and monstrous sides of plastic is our American ingenuity. There are biodegradable replacements for many commonly used plastic products. Some are shown at the Natur-Tec site. There are dissolvable shipping peanuts that replace Styrofoam peanuts, biodegradable eating utensils and many other choices available. Americans discovered plastic and now we are developing the cure for its design flaw.

We can have safe, convenience products that will not destroy our planet. We can protect our children without poisoning their environment before they have children of their own. We can make this change happen. We simply have to convince our government and business leaders that we want environmentally safe, biodegradable packaging used exclusively. If we continue to send this message we will enjoy the convenience and flexibility, we have all come to expect, from products that do not have such a monstrous second face.

The Story of Stuff

2009-04-27T05:00:00.003-05:00

Humans are but a speck on the earth. This statement might lead one to believe that humans are powerless. In fact, humans are the most powerful species on the planet. Unfortunately, we are not conscious of our impact. We continue habits that could be changed, with little effort, and we wait for “somebody” to do something. We believe that, if we do nothing, there is a “Mother Earth,” like Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny, who will take care of it all. Naturally.

We have used up one-third of our planet’s resources. With ever growing speed, we are burying the earth in garbage. Much of it toxic. How did we get to this point? What can be done to fix it? It all seems so overwhelming.

Annie Leonard, an expert who has studied international sustainability and environmental health issues, all over the world, for more than twenty years has accomplished the impossible. She explains “the impact of consumerism and materialism on global economies and international health” in an easy to understand video.

Watch The Story of Stuff and be prepared for an A-ha moment that will not soon be forgotten.

Ant Wars

2009-04-27T05:00:00.001-05:00

When I arrived home to find my spouse pouring gasoline on an ant hill in the flowerbed, it could have been grounds for war. It took many deep breaths, and a strong will, to restrain from engaging in battle. Yes, the gasoline contaminates the soil. Yes, it will probably damage the plants. Yes, it was not an environmentally responsible act. It was, however, an opportunity for learning, for both us. The point is that, change evolves through knowledge.

Remember our mothers saying, “a lesson earned is a lesson learned’? That was after we tested just how hot that burner really was, when she warned us “it’s hot, don’t touch.”

In this case, the love of my life did not intend to contaminate the soil or damage the flowers. The focus was on the ants, in an overwhelming number, and in an undesirable location. A narrow focus, something we all experience, is what causes many environmental contamination issues.

Aquifers, the source of our drinking water, are deep below the land surface. They can become contaminated by traces of medication flushed down the toilet, as pills or in human waste. They can pass through the most sophisticated water purifying processes. Many of the same chemicals found in medications and cosmetics are used to manufacture electronics, the life’s blood of the computers, cell phones, and other gadgets we depend upon. The wastewater output of those production facilities, even when scrubbed, leaches traces of chemical into the water systems. Homeowners want lawns free of weeds. Therefore, the weed killer Roundup remains available at our garden shops. Roundup tops the list of the most toxic compounds in use. In all of these instances the contamination occurs because of narrow focuses.

If we want to change how humans affect the environment, we can take three important actions. We can learn. We can implement what we learn, and then we can share the knowledge. For every three people who remain inconvincible, or who chose to deny the knowledge, one will understand and take responsibility. Therefore, we cannot stop learning, implementing or sharing. One gasoline dousing of an anthill may cause trauma in one spot of the garden, but it will not cause a worldwide catastrophe. Refusing to move outside of our comfort zones, by sharing our knowledge, would be the greater catastrophe.

By the way, there is a natural way to solve ant problems. If they are inviting themselves in, seal cracks with 100 percent silicon caulk. Put up “detour” sign by sprinkling powdered red chili pepper, paprika, dried peppermint or borax on their trails. If they have already breached the perimeters, create a liquid bait by mixing 1 tsp boric acid with 2 ½ ounces of corn syrup or honey. Heat this until the boric acid dissolves, add equal amounts of water to the solution and, with an eyedropper, drop in places ants frequent for two weeks. Address issues in the garden such as mealy-bugs, aphids and whiteflies. They excrete a sugary substance that is gourmet ant food. Finally, attack the anthill with a natural repellent of citrus peelings and water, puree in a blender, and pour on the hill. If you are feeling particularly vindictive, pour 3 gallons of boiling water over the mounds and into the cracks of the bricks.

Protecting the environment means broadening of the focus. The dissimilar organisms that make up the environment of this planet, including humans, have a symbiotic relationship. We have to live, healthy, together, and as peaceably as is possible. After all, getting off the planet is not yet an option.

Research, and as our physicians pledge, “First do no harm.” Both are excellent mottos to remember except, even when at war with ants.

Real Food vs. Chemical Compound

2009-04-24T15:59:00.001-05:00

In America, when it comes to eating, its eater beware. For example, a major potato chip brand cannot use the name ‘potato’ on their product, when selling it in some European countries. The reason is that there are no potatoes in the product. The chips are made of starch powder, chemicals, flavor extracts and salt. But they stack well.

Advertisers would have us believe that hot dogs, or wieners, are a healthy food that cute kids, who can sing catchy tunes, just love. However, if you read the package, they are actually chemical compounds made from butcher’s throwaway cuts.

Processed foods, wrapped in plastic, made with additives and chemicals that assure decades of shelf life, are advertised as time savers. They are easy to heat and eat fast. The health value of the fast food is outweighed by purported convenience. Unfortunately, the amount of garbage created by processed food packaging becomes a health problem for the environment, as well.

Some people rail at spending more for perishable, real food. Real food is not laced with chemicals. It uses less fossil fuel intense packaging than processed foods. Most important, eating real food is actually less expensive because much more nutrition is gained from every penny spent. The environment also benefits from the reduction of packaging needed for perishable foods, which reduce garbage output.

Since our environment and we are products of our choices, we can make little changes that make a difference everyday. So which breakfast should I choose for the kids today? Apple slices and a glob of peanut butter to dip them in? Or the toaster breakfast bar? Hmmmm.

The Hidden Cost Of Perfect Turf.

2009-04-24T13:33:00.010-05:00

America spends billions of dollars researching cures for diseases our grandparents rarely heard of. We are not just loosing family members to these diseases, but many of us have lost our pets to the growing list of cancers. And, all for the love of a perfect lawn.

Advertisers and community associations that demand uniform weed less turfs skew our sense of beauty. Those perfect lawns are cash cows for chemical companies and the health care industry.

Post World War II chemicals are marketed as ‘safe if used properly.’ They fly under the radar of lax regulatory systems put to sleep by chemical industry lobbies rich enough to influence regulation. In the earliest days of chemical lawn treatment, they provided HAZMAT uniforms to protect their employees. They soon recognized these outfits sent the wrong message. Today, the chemicals arrive in clean white vans with a friendly, puppy face on the side. A much more appealing, if not misleading, message. Employees, no longer protected by HAZMAT suits, believe the products are not harmful to people or pets, at least that is the corporate position given when concerns are raised. Every big box store sells variations of these products for those who rather do it themselves.

Here is a thought to ponder. It is the day after the lawn service was here. There are still tiny pellets, left on the driveway after the kids played basketball and wrestled out there before dinner last night. The brood has left for school. You grab the morning paper from the driveway, pull the wrapper off, and have settled down for a quiet breakfast. As you glance at the headlines, you move that buttery bagel to your lips with the same hand that retrieved the newspaper from the driveway. Tag, you’re it. You have just joined the statistical list of potential cancer cases.

It is time to think. What can each of us do to make a difference in today’s health care issues? Hmmm. What can we do?