A unique Thanksgiving (Opinion)

(NaturalNews) In Hawaii, there is a very significant word. That word is Makahiki. The definition of makahiki is as follows: “A period of several months, which was celebrated each fall (Nov – Feb) in ancient Hawaii with athletic contests, religious rites, and payments of tribute to chiefs and during which all warfare was tabooed”. Basically, this was the longest celebration ever. The Hawaiian’s then and all of us here now have so much to be thankful for. We live in a tropical paradise, we are surrounded by sun, cooling trade winds, soothing rains, majestic mountains, never ending waves, fertile soils, and incredible indigenous fruits and vegetables that are to die for. In ancient Hawaiian times, Thanksgiving was a daily happening. There was always receiving and giving. Somehow, when the Pilgrims thrust their belief system on the Indians, they told them to celebrate Thanksgiving by slitting the throat of an innocent turkey and then cooking it and eating it. Of course, back then, that turkey was not top heavy due to all the growth hormones shoved into it. But still it was loaded with heaps of cholesterol and saturated fat, which no one then knew was associated with high risks of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases that now kill 1.3 million Americans a year. Even now the American Dietetic Association has admitted that “vegetarian diets tend to be lower in saturated fat and cholesterol and have higher levels of dietary fiber, magnesium and potassium, vitamins C and E, folate, carotenoids, flavenoids, and other phytochemicals”. So, this Thanksgiving, why not take a walk on the wild side and give thanks by preparing a meal that is heart-healthy, compassionate, and friendly to all involved – one that is totally plant-based? Although it has taken eons to achieve, the California and Hawaii legislatures recommended that their schools offer a daily vegetarian lunch option and many other states are also considering similar options. Aside from the adverse health effects previously listed, consider this: mad cow disease comes from these naturally vegetarian cows forced to eat the remains of the dead, dying, diseased, decaying cows, road kill, poultry remains and genetically modified feeds. What, you thought that these people that raise these animals to kill them would give them organic feed? No way! The cheaper the feed, the higher the profit. So, back to the adverse health effects: turkeys are pumped full of antibiotics because they are always diseased due to the “caring” and “heartfelt” way they are made ready for slaughter. Yet, with all those antibiotics pumped into them, we, the humans, are becoming more resistant to the antibiotic medicines we receive to ward off illnesses. Gee, could there be a connection here? According to the CDC (Centers for Deceit Control and Procrastination), “resistant bacteria may be transferred to humans through the food supply or direct contact with animals”. Likely, when you are treated with an antibiotic to which the bacteria is resistant, the antibiotic not only doesn’t work but it makes your illness worse and requires you to get yet another dose of another antibiotic. Nothing like all those synthetic chemicals to keep your immune system nice and strong. To add insult to injury, upwards of 90% of poultry become infected with E.coli during slaughter, 39 – 75% of the poultry in grocery stores are still infected when you buy them despite the chlorine baths they undergo before leaving the slaughterhouse. And then 70 -90% are infected with campylobacter. Nothing like inviting the family over for food poisoning. Now, if you think that these turkeys spend their lives in a cushy penthouse suite you are grossly mistaken. Would you believe that the 300 million turkeys killed each year spend their entire lives in large, cramped sheds so tight that they spend most of their time rubbing against each other with hardly any room to move? Imagine, 25,000 birds crammed into a shed, barely any ventilation, and their eyes and lungs burned from the fumes of their nitrogen-enriched doo-doo. The good news – one in ten turkeys die on the factory floor. Ok, so much for the health ramifications. What about the environmental effects? Where do you think most of the 10 billion pounds of doo-doo dropped by the 7,300 factory farms in 33 states ends up? Would you believe the streams and eventually the drinking water? And why? Because of the water run-offs that leach into the water table from the piles of untreated manure from its use as a crop fertilizer. When you add in other factors, livestock as a whole accounts for 9% of the carbon dioxide derived from human-related activities and creates an even much larger share of greenhouse gases. What does the future hold? How about going to 465 million tons of global meat production by 2050? And that’s more than double the 229 million tons of 2001. What’s more disturbing is that milk is estimated to go from 580 million tons to 1,043 million tons with most of the consumers being lactose intolerant. Who cares as long as it sells? Did you know that there are manure “lagoons” that store untreated doo-doo that create enormous amounts of methane that contribute the most to global warming? So, cooling the earth is easy – reduce flesh consumption. We, in the good ol’ USA, lead the world in the consumption of flesh products. We also lead the world in arthritis, cancer, diabetes, stroke and all kinds of other good stuff. Imagine what the possibilities could be if we cut back drastically. How then could we reduce factory farming? If we cut way back on poultry consumption there would be less birds to factory farm. Let’s cut to the chase: turkeys are bred to gain large amounts of weight in a very short period of time. Like us, they suffer heart attacks, broken bones, disease and premature death. And if you think “range free” is a better option you are grossly mistaken. To qualify for “range free” all they have to do is open one door in a football field sized dormitory, let in a bit of light, and presto, The USDA says that’s “range free”. Regardless of how they are raised they all end up at the same slaughterhouses, hung upside down by their legs, their throats slit, and then dumped into boiling water to de-feather them even if still fully conscious. So, this Thanksgiving why not have all the fixings you usually have except substitute tofu for the turkey? Hear me out. If you slice the tofu in ? to ? inch slices and fry it or bake it and then add some nutritional yeast to it and pour the gravy you would normally pour on the turkey, it will blow your mind as to how good it is. Doing this will improve your physical health, your compassion, will help the planet and give that innocent turkey you would have eaten another day. It will then be a truly Happy Thanksgiving for your body, a turkey, and the planet. Aloha!

What’s really in the food? The A to Z of the food industry’s most evil ingredients

(NaturalNews) Ever wonder what’s really in the food sold at grocery stores around the world? People keep asking me, “What ingredients should I avoid?” So I put together a short list that covers all the most toxic and disease-promoting ingredients in the food supply. These are the substances causing cancer, diabetes, heart disease and leading to tens of billions of dollars in unnecessary health care costs across America (and around the world). If you want to stay healthy and out of the hospital, read ingredients labels and make sure you avoid all these ingredients: Acrylamides – Toxic, cancer-causing chemicals formed in foods when carbohydrates are exposed to high heat (baking, frying, grilling). They’re present in everything from bread crusts to snack chips, and because they aren’t intentional ingredients, acrylamides do NOT have to be listed on labels. Aspartame – Chemical sweetener that causes neurological disorders, seizures, blurred vision and migraine headaches. (http://www.naturalnews.com/030918_aspartame_GM_bacteria.html) Autolyzed Proteins – Highly processed form of protein containing free glutamate and used to mimic the taste-enhancer chemical MSG. BPA (Bisphenol-A) – A hormone mimicking chemical found in nearly all food packaging plastics. Active in just parts per billion , BPA promotes cancer, infertility and hormone disorders. It also “feminizes” males, promoting male breast growth and hormone disruption (http://www.naturalnews.com/032860_BPA_feminization.html). Casein – Milk proteins. Hilariously, this is widely used in “soy cheese” products that claim to be alternatives to cow’s milk. Nearly all of them are made with cow’s milk proteins. Corn Syrup – Just another name for High Fructose Corn Syrup (see below). Frequently used in infant formula products (http://www.naturalnews.com/029863_Similac_infant_formula.html). Food Colors – FD&C Red #40, for example, is linked to behavioral disorders in children. Nearly all artificial food colors are derived from petroleum , and many are contaminated with aluminum . Genetically Modified Ingredients – Not currently listed on the label because the GMO industry (Monsanto and DuPont) absolutely does not want people to know which foods contain GMOs. Nearly all conventionally grown corn, soy and cotton are GMOs. They’re linked to severe infertility problems and may even cause the bacteria in your body to produce and release a pesticide in your own gut. If you’re not eating organic corn, you’re definitely eating GMO corn. (http://www.naturalnews.com/026426_GMO_food_GMOs.html) Learn more at www.ResponsibleTechnology.org or watch my GMO music video (hilarious) at www.NaturalNews.com/NoGMO High Fructose Corn Syrup – A highly processed liquid sugar extracted with the chemical solvent glutaraldehyde and frequently contaminated with mercury (http://www.naturalnews.com/032948_high_fructose_corn_syrup_glutaraldehyde.html). It’s also linked to diabetes, obesity and mood disorders. Used in thousands of grocery items, including things you wouldn’t suspect like pizza sauce and salad dressings. Homogenized Milk – The fats in the milk are artificially modified to change them into smaller molecules that stay in suspension in the milk liquid (so the milk fat doesn’t separate) (http://www.naturalnews.com/022967_milk_pasteurization_dairy.html). While it makes milk look better on the shelf, it’s also blamed for promoting heart disease and may contribute to milk allergies. Raw milk is healthier, which is why the government had outlawed it (http://www.naturalnews.com/029322_raw_milk_Amish.html). Hydrochloride – When you see anything hydrochloride, such as Pyridoxine Hydrochloride or Thiamin Hydrochloride, those are chemical forms of B vitamins that companies add to their products to be able to claim higher RDA values of vitamins. But these are synthetic, chemical forms of vitamins, not real vitamins from foods or plants. Nutritionally, they are near-useless and may actually be bad for you. Also watch out for niacinamide and cyanocobalamin (synthetic vitamin B-12). (http://www.naturalnews.com/032766_cyanocobalamin_vitamin_B-12.html) Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein – A highly processed form of (usually) soy protein that’s processed to bring out the free glutamate (MSG). Use as a taste enhancer. Partially Hydrogenated Oils – Oils that are modified using a chemical catalyst to make them stable at room temperature. This creates trans fatty acids and greatly increases the risk of blocked arteries (http://www.naturalnews.com/027445_fat_fats_trans.html). It also promotes what I call “sludge blood,” which is thick, viscous blood that’s hard to pump. This is usually diagnosed by doctors as “high blood pressure” and (stupidly) treated with blood-thinning medications that are technically the same chemicals as rat poison (warfarin) (http://www.naturalnews.com/023149_drug_drugs_pharmas.html). Phosphoric Acid – The acid used in sodas to dissolve the carbon dioxide and add to the overall fizzy-ness of the soda. Phosphoric acid will eat steel nails. It’s also used by stone masons to etch rocks. The military uses it to clean the rust off battleships. In absolutely destroys tooth enamel (http://www.naturalnews.com/021774.html). Search Google Images for “Mountain Dew Mouth” to see photos of teeth rotted out by phosphoric acid: http://www.google.com/search?q=mountain+dew+mouth&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ Propylene Glycol – A liquid used in the automotive industry to winterize RVs. It’s also used to make the fake blueberries you see in blueberry muffins, bagels and breads. (Combined with artificial colors and corn syrup.) See shocking “Fake Blueberries” video at: http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=7EC06D27B1A945BE85E7DA8483025962 Sodium (Salt) – The processed white salt lacking in trace minerals. In the holistic nutrition industry, we call it “death salt” because it promotes disease and death. Real salt, on the other hand, such as “dirty” sea salt or pink Himalayan salt, is loaded with the trace minerals that prevent disease, such as selenium (cancer), chromium (diabetes) and zinc (infectious disease). Much like with bread and sugar, white salt is terrible for your health. And don’t be fooled by claims of “sea salt” in grocery stores. All salt came from the sea if you go far back enough in geologic time, so they can slap the “sea salt” claim on ANY salt! Sodium Nitrite – A cancer-causing red coloring chemical added to bacon, hot dogs, sausage, beef jerky, ham, lunch meats, pepperoni and nearly all processed meats. Strongly linked to brain tumors, pancreatic cancers and colon cancers (http://www.naturalnews.com/007024.html). The USDA once tried to ban it from the food supply but was out-maneuvered by the meat industry, which now dominates USDA regulations. Sodium nitrite is a complete poison used to make meats look fresh. Countless children die of cancer each year from sodium nitrite-induced cancers. Soy Protein – The No. 1 protein source used in “protein bars,” including many bars widely consumed by bodybuilders. Soy protein is the “junk protein” of the food industry. It’s made from genetically modified soybeans (often grown in China) and then subjected to hexane , a chemical solvent (http://www.naturalnews.com/026303_soy_protein_hexane.html) that can literally explode. Sucralose – An artificial chemical sweetener sold as Splenda . The sucralose molecule contains a chlorine atom (http://www.naturalnews.com/027491_aspartame_sweeteners_health.html). Researchers have repeatedly found that artificial sweeteners make people fat by actually promoting weight gain (http://www.naturalnews.com/024543_health_Splenda_weight.html). Sugar – The bleached, nutritionally-deficient byproduct of cane processing. During sugar cane processing, nearly all the minerals and vitamins end up in the blackstrap molasses that’s usually fed to farm animals. (Blackstrap molasses is actually the “good” part of sugar cane juice.) Molasses is often fed to farm animals because every rancher knows that farm animals need good nutrition to stay alive. Amazingly, conventional doctors don’t yet realize this about humans, and they continue to claim that eating sugar is perfectly fine for you. Sugar promotes diabetes, obesity, mood disorders and nutritional deficiencies. Textured Vegetable Protein – Usually made of soy protein which is extracted from genetically modified soybeans and then processed using hexane , an explosive chemical solvent (see Soy Protein, above). Widely used in vegetarian foods such as “veggie burgers” (most of which also contain MSG or Yeast Extract, by the way). Yeast Extract – Hidden form of MSG that contains free glutamate and is used in many “natural” food products to claim “No MSG!” Yeast extract contains up to 14% free glutamate. You’ll find it in thousands of grocery store products, from soups to snack chips. I even once spotted it used on fresh meat! Food label tricks Here’s a trick food companies frequently used to pack more sugar into their products without making sugar look like the first ingredient: Ingredient labels, you see, must list the most prominent ingredients first, and some consumers might freak out of they saw a box of cereal that said, “Sugar, whole grain wheat, corn” and so on. Instead, the company uses 3 or 4 different forms of sugar to distribute them farther down the label, like this: “Whole grain wheat, sugar, corn syrup, corn syrup solids…” This way, the first ingredients looks like “whole grain wheat” when, in reality, the cereal might be over fifty percent sugars! How to buy honest food • Shop are your local farmer’s market, food co-op or CSA. • In the USA, look for the USDA Organic label on foods. This is a legitimate claim to being certified organic. It’s one of the few programs run by the USDA that actually has integrity. • Read the ingredients labels! If you see names of chemicals you can’t pronounce, don’t buy it. • Buy more unprocessed food ingredients and make your own meals rather than buying ready-to-eat, processed foods, which are almost universally formulated with disease-promoting ingredients. • GROW some of your own food! The best food you can ever eat is food from your own garden. How to learn more about what’s really in your food Read NaturalNews. I’m the editor of NaturalNews, and I cured my own borderline diabetes, high cholesterol and near-obesity using nothing but healing foods. The more you read NaturalNews, the more you’ll learn about what to avoid in your foods and what to BUY that’s loaded with nutrition! We cover natural cures , superfoods nutrition, juicing, raw foods, nutritional supplements, healing herbs and much more. You can subscribe to our free email newsletter using the form below. We teach you what the mainstream food industry doesn’t want you to know (and what the mainstream media won’t dare report). If you want to learn the truth about food, read NaturalNews. Lots more to come… Some of my favorite nutrient-rich superfoods include… (No, these are not sponsored links. Just stuff I personally enjoy and purchase on a regular basis to blend into superfood smoothies!) • Boku Superfood (www.BokuSuperfood.com) • LivingFuel (www.LivingFuel.com) • Enerfood (www.EnerHealthBotanicals.com) • Pure Synergy (www.TheSynergyCompany.com) • Healthforce Nutritionals (www.HealthForce.com) • X-Balance (www.SGNNutrition.com)

Supplements to the 2nd Edition of Rodd’s Chemistry of Carbon Compounds

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Mushrooms made into green packing material

(NaturalNews) It sounds like a futuristic sci fi idea: a non-toxic, earth friendly packing material that grows itself and, after it’s used, makes a great garden compost. But this isn’t fiction — it’s mushrooms. With support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), two former Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute undergraduates, Gavin McIntyre and Eben Bayer, came up with the idea to make a composite of mushroom roots that could be used as a packing foam substitute. Their product, which they dubbed Mycobond, is now hitting the market and, according to a NSF press statement, has several advantages for the environment. First of all, the manufacture of Mycobond requires just one eighth the energy and one tenth the carbon dioxide of traditional foam packing material. In fact, most of the manufacturing process is virtually energy-free with the mycelia (the vegetative parts of the mushrooms which consist of masses of branching, thread-like hyphae) simply growing by digesting agricultural starter material (mostly cotton seed or wood fiber) in a dark, room temperature environment. The growth take place within a molded plastic structure which can be customized for whatever needs to be packed with the mushroom material. That means no energy at all is required for shaping the products. “We don’t manufacture materials, we grow them,” McIntyre explained in a statement to the media. “We’re converting agricultural byproducts into a higher-value product.” The material has another economic benefit as well, he added, because the cost of mushroom packing material isn’t tied to the price fluctuations of synthetic materials that are derived from sources like petroleum. “All of our raw materials are inherently renewable and they are literally waste streams,” McIntyre said. “It’s an open system based on biological materials.” Once fully formed, each Mycobond piece is heat-treated to stop the growth process and then delivered to the customer. Bayer and McIntyre, whose business is called Ecovative, are working to turn the entire process into a packaged kit that will eventually allow shipping facilities, and even homeowners, to grow their own Mycobond materials. With support from NSF, McIntyre and Bayer are also developing an even less energy-intensive method to sterilize the agricultural waste starter material they use. Sterilization is a necessary step for enabling the mycelia to grow because it kills any spores that would compete with the growing-for-packing-material mushrooms. McIntyre and Bayer have been using a steam-heat sterilization process but they’ve now come up with a treatment made from cinnamon-bark oil, thyme oil, oregano oil and lemongrass oil that will allow the Mycobond mushroom product to grow in the open air, instead of their current clean-room environment. “The biological disinfection process simply emulates nature in that it uses compounds that plants have evolved over centuries to inhibit microbial growth,” McIntyre said in a press statement. “The unintended result is that our production floor smells like a pizza shop.” For more information: http://ecovativedesign.com/ http://www.research.gov/

Vanishing topsoil will lead to food crisis

(NaturalNews) All the world’s topsoil is set to vanish within the next century if current patterns do not change, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Sydney and presented at the Carbon Farming conference. “It could be as little as 60 years and that is a scary figure because it is not obvious that we have time to reverse decline and still meet future demands for food,” researcher John Crawford said. “It is not an exaggeration to say that soil is the most precious resource we have got, and … [we] are not up to the task of securing it for our children, never mind our grandchildren.” The soil-depleting effects of chronic mismanagement, including overuse of plowing, overapplication of synthetic fertilizers, poor erosion control and unsustainable farming (such as in former tropical rainforests), are being exacerbated by global warming and development. Coupled with a growing world population, this poses a recipe for food disaster. The study found that in Australia, soil is being lost five times faster than it is regenerating through natural processes. In the United States, it is being lost 10 times faster. In Europe it is being lost 17 times faster, and in China, an astonishing 57 times faster. In September, Sydney, Australia experienced its worst dust storm in 70 years. According to Crawford, restoring soil requires improved management techniques such as minimizing plowing and allowing soil to lie fallow with cover crops. The United Kingdom has introduced an initiative encouraging farmers to protect soil through methods including using less fertilizer. Yet it may take decades for these efforts to bear fruit, and the rate of soil loss may still outstrip even this accelerated renewal. Loss of topsoil has significant implications for global food supplies and prices, which are already reeling from rising populations and changing climates. In 2008 and 2009, grain shortages and record high prices led to civil unrest in more than a dozen countries. Sources for this story include: www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/6828878/Britain-facing-food-crisis-as-worlds-soil-vanishes-in-60-years.html.

Humans vs. the environment – A thought experiment

(NaturalNews) Protecting the environment isn’t a “liberal” idea; it’s everybody’s business. Liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, the environment provides life support for us all, and if we fail to recognize that, we are truly doomed as a civilization. To help explain this, I’ve put together a simple thought experiment. It begins with three undeniable truths about humans and the environment: Truth #1 – The Earth’s resources are limited. This should be self-evidence, but some people still don’t get it. The Earth’s resources — oil, forests, water, energy, and so on — are finite. They do not exist in infinite quantities. If they did, they would obviously be larger than the Earth itself (and would, in fact, fill the universe). But they don’t fill the universe. They are contained within the boundaries of planet Earth, and therefore they are limited. Of course, many of Earth’s resources can be either regenerated or recycled , but that only happens over time — usually a long time. In the case of oil, it’s hundreds of thousands of years. For fossil water it’s much the same. The rate at which modern human civilization is using up these resources is orders of magnitude faster than the rate at which they can be naturally regenerated. This holds true for oil, water, topsoil, forests and more. Truth #2 – Each person living in modern civilization consumes some amount of the Earth’s limited resources. This should also be self-evident: People consume resources. When you drive your car, you’re obviously consuming limited natural resources. When you buy a car, you’re consuming many other natural resources (all the elements that went into making a car), too. This is true even when you buy a solar panel. Every time you turn on a light switch, or open a package of food, or swallow a piece of food, you are consuming some amount of the Earth’s limited resources. The sum of your consumption is called your “ecological footprint,” and your ecological footprint is much larger than the immediate space you might call your home. The things you consume in your home require the resources of a much larger area far outside your home. A human child born in America today, for example, will consume 45,000 pounds of metal in their lifetime (through the products they purchase). That’s 45,000 pounds of metal that must be mined, processed, transported and manufactured into consumable products, and metal mining is a very dirty business, by the way, even if that metal goes into making clean energy devices such as wind turbines. Truth #3 – Humans are altering the environment You can’t argue with this (although some people ridiculously try). Human activity is altering our environment in a huge way, from the massive deforestation of the planet to the release of gases into the atmosphere. We’ve poisoned the rivers, destroyed natural habitat, polluted the oceans (Gulf of Mexico, anyone?) and altered the chemical composition of the atmosphere. These are undeniable scientific truths . No sane person can reasonably argue that human beings have not radically altered the environment of our planet over the last 200 years. If you visited North America 200 years ago, for example, you wouldn’t even have recognized it as the same continent dominated by human beings today. A few hundred years ago, North America was teeming with life, with huge old-growth forests, pristine rivers and abundant plains. Today it is relatively dead, having been over-developed, over-paved and over-population to a point so extreme that our ancestors would largely consider it “dead”. Truth #4 – Humans really like to have babies This is also self-evidence: People like to procreate. Every family, it seems, wants children, and those children want their own children, too. In general, human beings want to procreate without limitation . This, of course, leads to an explosion in population growth. We’ve seen this explosion over the last two hundred years as the Earth’s population has grown from less than one billion people in 1800 to nearly seven billion today. Human beings do not consider their impact on the global population when they procreate. The decision to have children is made privately, selfishly, without regard to the impact on the planet. One more child seems like no big deal from the point of view of a couple that wishes for another son or daughter, but multiplied by billions, these decisions to procreate en masse lead to overpopulation, which leads to over-consumption of the planet’s limited resources. The Easter Island effect Now let’s work our little thought experiment. Given the four simple truths described above, it is only a matter of time before the continued procreation of human beings collides with the reality of limited resources, causing a crisis of unsustainability . At some point, in other words, the continued expansion of human beings will destroy so much of the natural environment (and use so many natural resources) that there will not be enough resources available to support the continuation of the existing population. I call this the “Easter Island effect,” in reference to the way in which the natives of Easter Island chopped down all their trees to build ever-larger monuments to themselves, and in doing so they destroyed their entire ecosystem and soon perished. The entire human civilization is now pulling an Easter Island on a global scale. Our two choices Given that the unlimited expansion of the human population must inevitably use up key resources required to sustain human life, it stands to reason that there are only two choices for how we human beings can choose to deal with the situation: Choice #1 – We can acknowledge the ecological impact of human beings on our planet and make conscious choices to live within the bounds of sustainable balance with our planet (i.e. keeping our population size relatively stable by limiting runaway population growth, reducing our ecological footprint, respecting the natural environment that supports life on our planet, etc.). Choice #2 – We can continue our mindless population expansion and resource exploitation while ignoring any long-term consequences. This is the definition of stupidity , and yet it is precisely the path that modern human civilization is now choosing. It also seems to be the chosen path of “anti-environmentalists” — people who resist the idea that we need to protect the environment at all. Sadly, human civilization has decided to go with choice #2. I believe the future of modern civilization is now set . Population expansion and resource depletion will soon collide with the limitations of our planet and result in a cataclysmic collapse of our civilization. We human beings are pulling off the Easter Island scenario, but with more than just trees: We’re doing it with oil, water, soil and habitat. We are destroying the only planet that can keep us alive, and there now appears to be no stopping this self-destructive tendency of the human species. I have personally seen no evidence that the current human species is capable of long-term, sustainable balance with any ecosystem. It lacks the intelligent foresight necessary to anticipate such outcomes and make adjustments well in advance of them coming true. Some people among us even argue against environmental protection, not realizing they are essentially arguing for their own self-destruction. Other who are more thoughtful argue only against the fear of a world government enforcing environmental regulations at the expense of losing personal freedoms. This is a legitimate concern, and I happen to agree with these concerns. “Protecting the environment” can all too easily become a slippery mantra for world domination over individual freedom. The best way to avoid losing freedom while saving our environment is through education of the public that urges people to make better decisions without turning them into criminals if they fail to make those decisions. Can humanity save itself? Saving human civilization from its own ignorance is no easy task. It will require intelligent, forward-thinking business leaders who see the long-term picture and who genuinely care about the future. Yet sadly, there is no such thing . Business leaders are, by definition, focused on the next fiscal quarter, not the next century. They will ALWAYS mortgage our collective future to increase their immediate profits. There is almost no such thing as a successful business person who is simultaneously an effective steward of our planet’s natural resources. The simple act of generating more business — in any business — always results in more consumption because our entire economic system is based on consumption. It’s even true about internet businesses, by the way. Every bit and byte you consume over the internet has an indirect environmental cost due to the electricity consumption of the CPUs delivering that content to you as well as, more importantly, the enormous cooling demand in data centers that spend fortunes just cooling all the computers running there. The fact that our economic activity is fundamentally based on consumption rather than conservation demonstrates why humanity is doomed to destroy itself. After seeing the failure of so many environmental summits, I’m convinced of it. I don’t see any possible way that human beings will suddenly gain the intelligence and foresight necessary to live in balance with our natural world. Not without a crisis to teach everybody a few lessons, anyway. But even the Gulf Coast disaster isn’t fundamentally changing the way business leaders think about consumption. They think it’s just an “oil problem” not a global problem with the business models that drive our world into a self-destructive cycle of mindless consumption. What may be coming in the next few years When the population continues to expand and most of the world’s resources are wiped out, the human population will plunge into a time of great darkness. The loss of life will be immense — perhaps as much as a 90% reduction in the planetary population. Ecosystems will fail, crops will fail and civilization itself will be brought to its knees. It won’t take much to crash the current global system. Once the power grid is down for as little as 5 days, there’s almost no bringing civilization back — at least not modern civilization as we know it. Once the population is drastically reduced, the natural environment will have a chance to recover. Plants and animals will re-populate areas once lost to high-density human populations. And once the abundance returns, humans will again have the abundance necessary to re-populate, too. Hopefully future generations of human beings will learn from our present mistakes and not pursue the same path we did — the path of endless consumption of the planet’s resources to the point of destruction. On a long time scale, you will likely see human population rising, then crashing, then rising again from the ashes of a collapsed civilization. This is the ebb and flow of the future of life on Earth. You might even call it a “natural” cycle of human population expansion, then collapse, followed by expansion and yet more collapse. It’s very similar to the way a virus invades a human body and multiplies until it kills the very host that once gave it life. In terms of big-picture behavior, humans are much like a virus on our planet. This cycle of destruction and rebirth could be balanced out, though, by a sufficiently intelligent species gifted with sufficient foresight to see what’s coming and make early adjustments to avoid the population collapse. Our current human species, sadly, is not sufficiently intelligent to do so. The corporate greed machine I hadn’t really accepted this outcome as reality until just recently. I’ve always maintained a more optimistic attitude, thinking that we could find innovative ways to reverse climate change, reduce consumption, educate people and invent new technologies to clean up the planetary messes we’ve made. But I can now see that we’re up against corporate monsters that are relentlessly pushing for our collective destruction. They’re destroying our seeds and genes (for profit, no less), our soils, rivers, oceans and lands. They’re corrupting our minds with pro-business propaganda and our bodies with their chemicals poisons. And they absolutely will not stop until every last exploitable resource on the planet has been used up and sold to a consumer. When our world is dominated by Monsanto, DuPont, oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, weapons manufacturers, junk food giants and chemical companies, there’s not much hope for meaningful change that could set humanity on a new course of conservation and protection of life. Sadly, there is no stopping the great corporate greed machine. It will keep rolling forward, aiming for more growth, more consumption and more exploitation until the very last drop of oil is squeezed out of the tar sands and every last tree is slashed to make room for cattle ranching. A profit-based economic model cannot coexist with environmental protection because the two concepts are opposites. Big Business depends on endless growth, expansion, exploitation and consumption. But the environment can only be protected by consuming less. And that’s not even in the vocabulary of today’s business executives. The idea of consuming less is the antithesis of corporate profit and expansion. Have you ever seen a Coca-Cola ad that urged you to “drink less Coke”? That’s why as long as corporations rule our world (and make no mistake, they already do), there is no saving the environment. Ergo, there is no saving ourselves from a complete civilization blowout that will eventually see the near-destruction of our natural world… with the collapse of the human population to soon follow. The thought experiment – SimEarth Imagine you’re playing a software game called SimEarth. (Such a game actually exists, I believe, but I’m not referring to any real game. This is a fictional exercise.) In this SimEarth game, you get 1 point for every year that one human being is alive on planet Earth. The simulation runs for 1000 years and begins in the year we know as 1500 A.D. In the game, just as in the real world, the survival of human beings depends on the people having access to food, water, shelter, safety and other essentials. When the game begins, you have a blank slate SimEarth planet with enormous untapped resources of fossil oil, fossil water, old-growth forests, abundant ocean life and incredible biodiversity on land and sea. The human population is relatively small, perhaps only a few million people. As the game progresses and the years tick by, you start earning more and more points by allowing the human population to multiply. At one point, you turn on the invention of the combustion engine coupled with the discovery of oil, and then things really begin to accelerate: Food production suddenly multiplies, making food resources incredibly cheap and abundant, leading to a population explosion. As the points keep racking up, you watch as your SimEarth world becomes increasingly taken over by humans. The old growth forests are cut down and replaced with farm lands and cattle ranches. The once-abundant populations of wild animals are replaced by concrete highways and housing developments. Fossil water supplies drop sharply and oil drilling rigs pump out a heavy portion of the planet’s remaining oil resources. Your points are really accelerating now as you watch the human population blow past four billion people, then five, and then six. At that point, on-screen statistics begin to flash red, warning you that world’s oil, water, food, soil and ocean health are all reaching critical levels of deficiency. Although you’re earning big points from all the human activity, the environmental cost of supporting all those people is now threatening the ecological stability of the planetary ecosystem. It is at this point you realize that, to beat the high score, you need to keep your human population alive at some level for the next 500 years, and yet the planet’s resources are running out, reaching depletion in just 50 years or less. What should you do? You decide to just watch and see what happens. With your eyes fixated on the screen, the years tick past. Twenty-five years further into the simulation, the oil runs out, thrusting your simulated societies into an energy crisis. Without cheap, plentiful oil, food production grinds to a halt. Mass starvation takes hold in just one year, leading to disease and the unleashing of a global pandemic. Over the next five years, the human population suffers a massive, catastrophic die-off, plummeting to less than a billion people. Your once-awesome score now looks pitiful: Human civilization crashed and you’ll never win the simulation now. Game over. This is the outcome facing modern human civilization… and it’s no game . The possibility is very real. Unless something drastic is done to find a balance between human consumption (which is directly tied to population) and the natural environment that supports us all, our population is going to crash, too. It is a simple matter of biology. The population problem no one dares speak of There’s no way around this sobering thought: Population is the problem . There are too many people consuming too much stuff. It cannot be sustained — especially not at the very high rates of consumption our western world has grown used to. To solve this dilemma, you can either reduce the population over time (through one-child policies, for example) or reduce consumption (through a variety of means), but you’ve got to do something. In no way do I support the idea of a one-child policy, by the way. I don’t support government intervention in our private lives, and I don’t support governments mandating personal limits on our carbon consumption. But then again, if something radical doesn’t change, it’s fairly obvious that the human population is simply going to keep expanding until key resources are all dried up. And that, of course, will result in a devastating crash of the human population. So there you have it: The price for our expansionistic, high-consumption lifestyles today is eventually going to be the blowout of human civilization in the future, followed by a sharp population crash. The only thing that can really stop it is forced government population control, a global pandemic, or some other widespread disaster that kills off a huge percentage of the world population. None of these seem particularly desirable. Or, perhaps, the world could be saved with a sudden burst of global education that teaches people to think about the long-term consequences of their own actions, but I’m not betting on that happening anytime soon. Even really smart people in first-world nations still burn up oil and use up resources as if there were no consequences. Education alone cannot save human civilization from destroying itself. Smart people are not necessarily ecologically-aware people. In fact, you could argue that the most highly-educated people on the planet are precisely those who are consuming the greatest natural resources. (Poor, uneducated populations don’t consume much for the simple reason that they cannot afford to.) There’s no way around it: We are on a track headed straight for our own destruction. A planet-wide collapse is coming sometime this century. If you think I’m wrong, I’d like to hear from you. I hope I’m wrong, and I’m looking for a reasoned argument that can offer a solution to our population problem — preferably without resorting to government-run population control initiatives or forced one-child policies. Seriously: How can the human species now save itself from its own destruction? Even free energy technologies aren’t the answer, as they don’t solve the problems of running out of fossil water, topsoil, natural habitat or rare earth metals used in industrial processes. Free energy will only cause the human population to explode even more rapidly, worsening the current problem of over-population. I challenge every person reading this to do the math . Run the numbers yourself. Look at the limited resources on our planet and compare them with the per-capita consumption facts associated with modern-day consumers. Then consider what happens when the population keeps expanding… and add to that the desire for poorer nations to “achieve” the consumption rates of first-world nations like the USA. If you do the math, you’ll quickly see it doesn’t add up. The projects all come to a screeching halt in the next hundred years (if not sooner). The population growth rates still under way lead to a literal dead end, given current rates of consumption. This may not be a popular topic to write about. Most people prefer to pretend this problem doesn’t exist (much like the U.S. national debt). But it is, in reality, the single largest problem facing the future of human civilization: How do we find a way to live in balance with our natural environment while sustaining a steady population… without turning our world into a population control police state? I personally cannot think of any acceptable solution to this problem that does not involve some sort of massive population control measure… and that solution is, itself, unthinkable.