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!

Omega-3 fats from fish oil and supplements prevent and slow arthritis progression

(NaturalNews) Humans have been consuming omega-3 fats from natural fish, nut and seed sources for countless generations. Our core genetic structure depends on a regular supply of the long chain omega-3 fats EPA and DHA to form cell wall structures and perform millions of metabolic functions that we normally associate with vibrant health. Imbalance of omega-3 to omega-6 fats cause a surge in inflammatory cytokines that can lead to the painful and debilitating condition known as osteoarthritis. New research published in the journal Osteoarthritis and Cartilage has shown for the first time that omega-3 fats supplied by fish oil could “substantially and significantly” reduce the signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis as we age. Researchers from the University of Bristol in England tested the effect of omega-3 fats on a breed of guinea pigs that are genetically predisposed to develop arthritis. Guinea pigs were chosen for this study as they develop osteoarthritis in a similar manner to humans. Anecdotal reports over the years provide support for the beneficial effect of fish consumption on joint health. Dr. John Tarlton from the Matrix Biology Research Group and his team set out to confirm the impact of omega-3 fatty acids, either sourced from fish oil or flax oil, in preventing or slowing down the progression of osteoarthritis. Omega-3 Fat Supplementation Slashes Osteoarthritis Disease Progression by Half The team fed one group of guinea pigs a diet including full-spectrum omega-3 fats (EPA and DHA) and compared the results to a second control group of non-supplemented animals. Typical degradation of collagen in cartilage and the loss of molecules that give it shock-absorbing properties were both reduced in the omega-3 supplemented group. Researchers noted that omega-3 fats reduced disease by 50 per cent compared to the control group. Upon examination of the results, Dr. Tarlton explained: “there was strong evidence that omega-3 influences the biochemistry of the disease, and therefore not only helps prevent disease, but also slows its progression, potentially controlling established osteoarthritis.” This is a critical finding, as most people suffering from arthritis are prescribed a plethora of ineffective pain medications that dramatically increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease or of suffering a heart attack. Omega fat imbalance from a poor diet causes excessive joint inflammation and needless suffering. Researchers performing this study concluded “Most diets in the developed world are lacking in omega-3, with modern diets having up to 30 times too much omega-6 and too little omega-3. Taking omega-3 will help redress this imbalance and may positively contribute to a range of other health problems such as heart disease.” Many health-minded individuals will want to supplement with a molecularly distilled form of fish oil (minimum 1200 mg EPA/DHA content) each day to combat inflammation and osteoarthritis. Sources for this article include: http://www.oarsijournal.com/article/S1063-4584%2811%2900164-6/abstract http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111017111600.htm http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/uob-ofa101711.php

Adya Clarity – how to intelligently read the label and calculate possible toxic exposures to excess iron and aluminum

(NaturalNews) There is a lot of conversation on the ‘net about Adya Clarity following our publishing of information questioning its composition, labeling and safety (http://www.naturalnews.com/034005_Adya_Clarity_consumer_alert.html). Readers have rightly been calling for pictures, documents and charts that help explain Adya’s labeling. They want to know whether they might be consuming excess iron and aluminum if they have been taking the “super shots” as widely demonstrated in the Adya Clarity marketing videos and materials. To help answer this, we have assembled a short collection of information for your review. Labeling and MSDS problems MSDS stands for “Material Safety Data Sheet.” The Adya Clarity “MSDS” is really a sheet on Themarox, which is the raw material that is diluted 10:1 to create Adya Clarity. Notice this isn’t even an official MSDS, it’s just a text document that looks it was just typed in by someone. Where is the original MSDS? Adya, Inc. has not provided one. This is all they provided to us: http://www.naturalnews.com/files/Adya-Clarity-MSDS.pdf Keep in mind that Adya Clarity is imported as “battery acid” http://www.importgenius.com/importers/adya-international-inc An “official” MSDS actually looks like the following document, which shows the hazardous effects of aluminum sulfate , which is one of the mineral compounds found in Adya Clarity: http://www.deltachemical.com/PDFS/DeltaAlumSolid.pdf Here is the MSDS for iron sulfate , which is also found in Adya Clarity at 2,000 PPM: http://www.sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9924056 Note the mention of hazardous toxic effects including: “Potential Acute Health Effects: Hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant), of eye contact (irritant), of ingestion, of inhalation. The substance may be toxic to kidneys, liver, cardiovascular system, central nervous system (CNS). Repeated or prolonged exposure to the substance can produce target organs damage – Chronic Effects on Humans: May cause damage to the following organs: kidneys, liver, cardiovascular system, central nervous system (CNS). Special Remarks on Chronic Effects on Humans: May affect genetic material (mutagenic)…” Here’s the ingredients label from a 32 oz. bottle of Adya Clarity. Notice how the PPM concentration of aluminum is missing? Notice how’s there’s no mention of sulfuric acid, the top ingredient other than water? Notice the mention of barium and cadmium? (Do you realize what these are?) http://www.naturalnews.com/images/Adya-Clarity-Ingredients.jpg This label also suggests that Adya should be ingested (used internally) with the following: “Add 1 teaspoon per 1 gallon of water, stir and enjoy the crisp, clean taste of Adya Clarity water.” Here’s the directions label from a 32 oz. bottle of Adya Clarity: http://www.naturalnews.com/images/Adya-Clarity-Directions.jpg Interestingly, this label says “And while the minerals are clumping these impurities together, they are also activating the oxygen within the water. What does oxygenated water mean? That it is ready to go to work in your body to provide oxygen for you!” Or, I suppose, you could just breathe instead. Miraculously, human lungs actually extract oxygen right out of the air, and then deliver it to your blood! For free, no less. To their credit, Adya does caution people on this label with: “Do not use without properly diluting.” However, I have the Adya founder (and Adya distributors) on numerous videos promoting Adya to be consumed in the form of “super shots” (taken with no dilution). They even show shot glasses while they’re talking about taking Adya shots and how good those “super shots” are for you. Here’s how to convert mg/Liter to PPM: http://www.unitconversion.org/concentration-solution/milligrams-per-liter-to-parts-per-million-ppm-conversion.html Why does 1PPM equal 1mg/L of a solution? Here’s an explanation: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090405002320AAd7WCu Metals toxicity chart Here’s a must-see chart on the levels of iron, aluminum, and magnesium that are allowed in safe drinking water (http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm) according to something called the National Secondary Drinking Water Regulations . This chart also shows the level of these elements in Adya Clarity, along with another column showing the total mg of these elements you will consume in one shot glass of Adya Clarity. A “shot glass” is typically 1 to 1.5 ounces. We are showing it here based on 1 ounce. As you review this chart, keep in mind that the iron in Adya is “iron sulfate” and not free elemental iron. The aluminum is in the form of “aluminum sulfate” and not free aluminum. When these substances meet the strong acid in your stomach, however, all that changes. Element EPA safe drinking water limit PPM in Adya Clarity mg in 1 “super shot” Toxicity begins at Symptoms of toxicity Iron 0.3 PPM (1) 2000 PPM (4) 60.6mg 45mg (2) Irritability, neurological (3) Aluminum 0.2 PPM (1) 1090 PPM (4) 33mg unknown Brain poison, neurological damage (5) (6) (7) Sulfuric acid unknown 5,000 PPM (4) 151.5mg unknown n/a Magnesium unknown 400 PPM (4) 12mg 300-400mg n/a (1) http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm (2) http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/iron (3) http://www.drhoffman.com/page.cfm/120 (4) Adya provided MSDS http://www.naturalnews.com/files/Adya-Clarity-MSDS.pdf (5) http://www.med.nyu.edu/content?ChunkIID=164929 (6) http://proliberty.com/observer/20071207.htm (7) http://www.frankmckinnon.com/aluminum Additional notes on the toxicity of metals “All metals can cause disease through excess. Approximately 95% of an aluminum load becomes bound to transferrin and albumin intravascularly and is then eliminated renally [through the kidneys]. Up to this time, no biological function has been attributed to this metal, and, more importantly, aluminum accumulation in tissues and organs results in their dysfunction and toxicity.” http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/165315-overview “The average person consumes between 3 and 10mg of aluminum daily.” (But just one shot of Adya Clarity contains 33mg of aluminum sulfate…) http://www.vitawise.com/Nutritional_Healing/aluminum%20toxicity.htm There are over 2,000 references in the National Library of Medicine about aluminum toxicity. Here’s a summary of some of the more interesting ones: http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/hydro/al.htm “While the body is able to excrete aluminum in its natural form, the element, like mercury, is toxic to all lifeforms when concentrated in their tissues. No living systems use aluminum as part of a biochemical process. It has a tendency to accumulate in the brain and, to a lesser extent, in the bones. It is considerably less toxic than mercury, arsenic, lead or cadmium, but it appears to be more persistent than any of them. The danger is one that only manifests itself over long periods of time. It is certainly prudent to avoid as many known sources as possible. However, in today’s world, aluminum cannot be completely avoided; it is in our water, our food, the air we breathe, the soil and numerous pharmaceutical products including vaccines.” http://proliberty.com/observer/20071207.htm Action items I have spoken to a naturopathic doctor, a medical doctor and a biochemist about Adya Clarity. In the strongest words, they gave me the following information to pass along in the interest of public safety: Action item #1) If you are currently ingesting Adya Clarity, STOP ingesting it immediately . Action item #2) If you have been taking Adya internally, have your blood levels checked for possible toxic overload of metals, especially iron (and possibly aluminum). Action item #3) If you are diagnosed with an iron overload, seek medical advice. You can typically reduce iron load by giving blood . Ask your doctor for other ways to reduce iron load. And keep reading NaturalNews for more updates on Adya Clarity. Several people who sold or marketed Adya are already stepping forward and wanting to tell their stories of how all this could have happened. We will be bringing you those interviews and articles in the coming days here on NaturalNews.

Cell phone towers may be ultimate cause of honeybee population collapse

(NaturalNews) It’s one of the signs of the approaching food collapse our world will soon be facing: Honeybees are disappearing at a truly alarming rate all around the world. Up to 30 percent of the honeybee population is collapsing in North America every year , and there’s no end in sight to “the silence of the bees.” Honeybees, of course, pollinate about a third of all the food consumed by first-world nations. Without them, the global food supply crashes and food prices skyrocket. The human population, not surprisingly, would plummet. Honeybees are absolutely crucial to the chain of life on planet Earth, and they are dying in record numbers. Efforts to understand the cause of the honeybee population collapse (sometimes called “Colony Collapse Disorder”) have so far pointed to pesticides , air pollution and even GMOs. All of those are no doubt important factors, but new research carried out at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology may have unveiled the real key: Cell phone signals . How cell towers cause honeybee hives to collapse Researcher Daniel Favre and his colleagues performed 83 experiment recording the reaction of honeybees to cell phones in their off state, standby state or active talking state. It turns out that when cell phones are in their “active” state (sending or receiving signals), honeybees are strongly disoriented and suffer from widespread miscommunication that causes them to stop seeking out food and begin swarming. Specifically, their “worker piping” activity increases by 1000 percent (ten times). This was determined with a detailed scientific approach that’s outlined in his paper: http://www.kokopelli.asso.fr/documentation/favre.pdf As Favre explains in his paper, entitled “Mobile phone-induced honeybee worker piping:” Worker piping in a bee colony is not frequent, and when it occurs in a colony, that is not in a swarming process, no more than two bees are simultaneously active. The induction of honeybee worker piping by the electromagnetic fields of mobile phones might have dramatic consequences in terms of colony losses due to unexpected swarming. Favre went on to tell Fast Company: (http://www.fastcompany.com/1752894/are-cell-phones-killing-all-the-bees) “Among other factors such as the varroa mite and pesticides, signals from mobile phones and masts could be contributing to the decline of honeybees around the world. I am calling the international scientific community for more research in this field.” Of course, by the time additional studies are done, it may simply be too late. If the honeybee population collapse continues for just a few more years, pollination of the global food supply may become nearly impossible. That will lead to the great die-off of human beings. Funny how that works, isn’t it? Imagine the narrative of future historians: Humans multiplied and expanded their cell phone towers to the point where the pollinators all died. Then human civilization collapsed and the cell towers went silent. Within a decade, the honeybees were once again prolific and healthy… Honeybees don’t need humans, you see. But we need them. The arrogance of science and technology In Rome, the scientists manufactured the municipal water delivery canals and pipes out of lead, thereby causing the widespread lead poisoning of the population without even knowing it. Science and technology has always come with a heavy dose of arrogance and willful ignorance. Today, the pesticide chemical companies keep producing toxics that poison our planet, and they keep doing it in the name of “scientific agriculture.” See my related documentary – The God Within – to understand just how dark and deep this abandonment of life by the scientific community reality goes: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E3B38227225F9FC62BAEA9CC81BE1D12 Whether it’s pesticides, cell towers, GMOs or some other technology, scientists always insist their technologies are harmless to the natural world, even while the sixth great extinction is now under way on planet Earth. But no one can deny that the collapse of the honeybees is indeed taking place, and the beauty of Mother Nature is that when so-called “scientific advancements” get completely out of balance with the natural world and actually become a threat to life on Earth, the world has a way of keeping the expansion of the human race in check. It’s called population collapse . And it’s coming soon. If we could turn off the cell towers, halt the GMOs, stop the spraying of pesticides and end the mass pharmaceutical contamination of our planet, then our honeybees (and other important animal species) might have a chance. But human beings are too shortsighted to understand their role in causing almost anything that impacts the delicate web of life on Earth. So humans will deny any responsibility for their actions, cover up the truth about what’s really going on, and even accelerate their own global population collapse. Science cannot turn a seed into a living food plant It will all be led by “science” and “technology,” of course. And yet all the science in the world can’t create one scrap of real food that will keep you alive . Only Mother Nature can grow a plant from a seed, pollinate it, produce a flower and then a vegetable or fruit. Only Mother Nature can keep us alive, not science and not technology. And in the end, when the history of our modern world is fully written, it will show how the scientists nearly wiped out the human race through their arrogance, their mass poisoning of the world, and their complete disregard for the value of life. All these things have been carried out under the name of science: Genetically Modified crops, terminator seeds that self destruct, chemical pesticides, cell towers, water fluoridation, mercury fillings, psychiatric drugs and much more. Each one of these, in its own way, threatens the sustainability of life on our planet. And that’s why “science” as practiced today has become the pathway to our own self destruction. The disappearing honeybees are merely a symptom of what’s wrong . The real cancer in our civilization is the arrogance and widespread destruction of the scientists who play God with our world while having absolutely no clue about the consequences of their actions. Watch my documentary to learn more about the soulless, mindless and utterly insane philosophy that underpins modern-day science: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=E3B38227225F9FC62BAEA9CC81BE1D12 Sources for this story include: http://www.kokopelli.asso.fr/documentation/favre.pdf http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1385907/Why-mobile-phone-ring-make-bees-buzz-Insects-infuriated-handset-signals.html http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/13/cell-phones-caused-mysterious-worldwide-bee-deaths-study-finds/

Twelve unsustainable things that will soon come to a disastrous end on our planet

(NaturalNews) If you look around what’s really happening in our world today, there’s an inescapable pattern that curiously emerges: Much of what’s going on is simply unsustainable . It can’t go on for much longer, in other words. And it must collapse due to the laws of economics or physics. Here, I’ve put together a collection of twelve systems that are utterly unsustainable on our planet. Each of these twelve is scheduled for some sort of collapse or shut down in the coming years. They range from economics to medicine, population and the environment. And interestingly, the collapse of just one of these twelve would have devastating consequences across human civilization. What happens when two, three or ten of these things collapse? This article doesn’t cover the consequences of the collapse of these unsustainable things, but we’ll work on covering that in future articles. Here are the twelve: 1) Debt-based banking and economic systems There’s little question that our global fractional reserve banking system is headed for a catastrophic collapse. It’s a system based on debt rather than sound money principles, and the laws of economics dictate that the global multiplication of money and debt is entirely unsustainable. This system will collapse, and when it does, it will be so large that the economic devastation will be global. Governments have actually made this worse, of course, by bailing out the dishonest investment institutions that have made the situation worse. The coming financial collapse will teach humanity some hard lessons about honest money. When it comes to money, banking and debt, Ron Paul has always been right, after all. 2) Conventional agriculture and “rape the planet” farming The current agricultural system that feeds the planet is simply unsustainable. It is a “rape the planet” model that clear-cuts forests to grow GMO soybeans that feed factory cattle which are turned into processed meat. Even the plant crops grown through conventional agriculture depend on chemical fertilizers from sources that are running out (fossil fuels, phosphate mines, etc.). Furthermore, the mass application of chemical pesticides, fungicides and Monsanto’s Roundup chemicals is destroying the viability of soils while polluting the world’s farms, rivers, streams and oceans. This system is unsustainable. When it collapses, humanity will learn (the hard way) that only sustainable agriculture can sustain human life on our planet. 3) Mass-consumption economies based on buy-it-and-trash-it behavior When children are raised to be good little Americans (or Canadians, or Australians, etc.), they’re taught to consume more stuff . In America, it was even called “patriotic” by former President George Bush. To support your local economy, you’re supposed to go out and buy stuff that you don’t need, then chuck it into the trash after you use it, then go out and buy more! Virtually the entire first-world economy is based on this idea that people need to consume more stuff, then throw it away, then consume more. That’s what all the corporate advertising is for, to convince people that they are inadequate unless they buy and consume more high-priced cars, designer jeans, electronic gadgets and throwaway home cleaning supplies. This system is insane . And it cannot continue indefinitely. 4) The accelerating loss of farming soils There’s a great documentary you need to see on this called Dirt. (www.DirtTheMovie.org) It explains the value of dirt (soil) and why conventional agriculture methods are destroying the dirt upon which our civilization depends. We even wrote about the movie here: http://www.naturalnews.com/031597_Dirt_movie.html No dirt = no food. Get it? And the dirt is disappearing at an alarming rate, thanks to the unsustainable practices of conventional agriculture, with all its tilling, soil destruction, poisons and GMOs. I wonder what the people will plant their seeds in when all the cropland dirt is either dead or gone? 5) The mass poisoning of the oceans and aggressive over-fishing Oceans ecosystems are collapsing. This isn’t some future prediction, it’s happening right now. Ocean acidification is destroying the coral reefs and mollusks all across the globe. At the same time, human civilization treats the oceans as giant planetary toilets into which all the toxic chemicals of modern civilization are flushed: Pharmaceuticals, pesticides, fertilizers, heavy metals, hormone-disrupting chemicals and a whole lot more. Massive fish die-offs are becoming increasingly common (http://www.naturalnews.com/031645_dead_fish_Redondo_Beach.html), and fish populations are plummeting across several species. We are beginning to see the results of mankind’s ongoing poisoning of the oceans. 6) Mass genetic pollution of the planet through GMOs It will be the great, dark legacy of our modern civilization: The widespread genetic contamination of the planet through the use of GMOs. Genetically engineered seeds are spreading their altered genetic code all across the world. The DNA of GMO crops is now detectable in soils, foods and water systems. What’s the upshot of all this? It’s a big unknown, of course, and that’s the frightening part: No one before has ever “played God” with the planet, right out in the open, and then observed what happens after a few years (or decades). Thanks to companies like Monsanto, we are the experiment , and no one know if it might ultimately lead to something like a widespread crop failure or even the alternation of natural web-of-life interactions across multiple ecosystems. And if genetic pollution causes problems, how do you “clean” that pollution? You can’t! Genetic pollution endures. Once crops become infected with GE seeds, it’s all but impossible to eliminate the DNA contamination. 7) The drugs-and-surgery conventional medical system Big Pharma’s days are numbered — based on economics if nothing else. The monopolistic pricing, the deadly side effects and the corrupt, criminal operations of the industry make it all utterly non-sustainable. Big Pharma and the whole chemical approach to medicine is bankrupting companies, cities, states and nations. No nation can economically survive in the long run if it keeps spending its money on Big Pharma sick care schemes. Ultimately, those nations that hope to survive will need to ditch Big Pharma and return to natural medicine and preventive nutrition. That day is coming. Sooner that you think, probably. Widespread pharmaceutical contamination of the human population and the environment Until the day comes that Big Pharma collapses into ruin, the pharmaceutical pollution of the planet will continue. Right now, pharmaceutical factories in India (which export their pills back to the states to be sold as brand-name drugs) are dumping untold thousands of gallons of dangerous chemical drugs into the waterways there (http://www.naturalnews.com/025415_water_Big_Pharma_chemicals.html). In the U.S. and Canada, the water near every major city is heavily contaminated with pharmaceuticals. (http://www.naturalnews.com/025933.html) The situation is so bad that Big Pharma’s chemical runoff threatens the future of life on our planet! (http://www.naturalnews.com/029314_waterways_contamination.html) Fortunately, this sad chapter in human history will soon come to an end. 9) Runaway human population growth Here’s the one nobody wants to talk about. But make no mistake: The human population growth we see right now is entirely unsustainable. The available of cheap food and fossil fuels over the last century has contributed to an unprecedented population explosion that is now nearing its end. There are only so many acres of farmland, after all, and only so many acre-feet of water to irrigate it. Don’t misinterpret this, however, of thinking that I support some sort of population reduction measures a la Bill Gates and his quote about reducing the world population by 10 – 15 percent through the use of vaccines and health care (http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_vaccines_Bill_Gates.html). Unlike some of the truly evil world leaders, I don’t believe in killing off human beings just to reduce global population. Rather, it makes more sense to teach sustainable living practices along with good parenting and well-considered parenthood. Strangely, most of the new children brought into the world today are not the result of stable, well-prepared parents choosing to have children, but rather the unintended consequences of casual copulation. 10) Fossil water consumption for agriculture We just published a story on this issue, talking about how the Ogallala Aquifer is running dry, threatening the agricultural output of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and even parts of Colorado and Texas (http://www.naturalnews.com/031658_aquifer_depletion_Ogallala.html). This is a global issue, affecting India, China, North America, South America and nearly every nation that produces any significant agricultural yields. Fresh water is running out all across the world, and while additional water supplies can always be created through desalination, for example, that’s a very expensive way to replenish the water, and it’s almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels (see below). Even if you could build enough desalination plants to irrigate the world’s croplands, the resulting food prices would still result in mass starvation by those who couldn’t afford the food which might cost ten times the current price. Imagine paying $20 for a loaf of bread and you get the idea of what’s coming. 11) Fossil fuel consumption I realize this is a highly contentious issue, with some people claiming that there’s an “unlimited supply of oil” in our planet because it’s replenishing itself all the time. This idea simply doesn’t square with what we know: The Earth is a finite object, occupying finite space. Inside it can only be a finite amount of fossil fuels. The recharge rate of fossil fuels is on the scale of millions of years, meaning we can’t simply wait around for more fuel to reappear if we use up the current reserves. There is convincing evidence right now that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, has been lying about its output capacity for at least the last decade. It can’t reach its production targets, and there is reasoned speculation that its own best-producing oil wells are approaching their end. Even if oil remains available for a few more decades, it still becomes increasingly expensive oil, meaning that everything else down the supply chain becomes more expensive, too: Food, fuel, consumer goods, etc. The era of cheap fossil fuels is coming to an end. Although fossil fuels will no doubt be around for several decades more, the cheap stuff is long gone, it seems. The citizens of Earth will soon need to find an alternate way to power their cities, cars and businesses in the 21st century. Oh, and by the way, solar probably isn’t the answer, as solar panels depend on rare earth metals that are entirely dependent on Chinese mining operations (http://www.naturalnews.com/028160_rare_earth_metals_mining.html). Wind energy also hasn’t panned out as it should have. And the governments of the world continue to suppress free energy technologies such as Cold Fusion , which has now been proven to work by even the U.S. Navy (http://www.naturalnews.com/025925_cold_fusion_science_Amazon.html). 12) The widespread destruction of animal habitat Here’s one that drives some people nuts. What? We can’t keep clear-cutting the rainforests to plant genetically engineered soybeans? Not if you want the planet to survive, actually. There’s a delicate web of life on our planet upon which human life ultimately depends. The more animal habitat we destroy, the more it ultimately comes back to haunt us. Now, I’m not in favor of the insane green police and the UN’s freedom-stealing efforts to pigeon-hole human beings into centrally-controlled behavior boxes. The key here is finding ways for people to live in balance with nature while still maintaining their freedoms. And that depends on education. We need to continue to teach people how to make sound decisions about where they buy their wood furniture (to avoid the slashing of old-growth forests). We need to teach people who eat meat to buy truly free-range, grass-fed meat rather than factory-farmed meats that depend on soybean mega-farms. And of course, we also need to make people aware of the benefits of getting more plant-based foods into their diets where possible, because when properly prepared, plant foods provide a lot of nutrients with a smaller ecological footprint than most meats. I’m not against those who eat meat, by the way. I just think that people need to consider where their food comes from no matter what they’re eating , and then take steps to reduce the ecological footprint of the food they’re choosing to consume. The best answer to this is to buy local food . In fact, I would argue that eating some beef steaks from a local farmer is more ecologically sound than juicing up organic fruits and vegetables grown and imported from Chile (unless you live in Chile, of course). That’s an arguable point, of course, and opinions differ sharply on this, but I believe that we really need to focus on eating local foods just as much as we do on what we’re eating . Personally, I don’t eat cows, but even for the plants I consume, I’m working hard right now on growing more of my own so that I’m acting with integrity — “walking the talk” so to speak — to be aligned with what I’m advocating for others. While we’re at it, one of the best ways to reduce the destruction of animal habitat is to grow your own food by turning your yard into a garden. Reduce your demand for store-bought food and you unquestionably reduce your ecological footprint on the planet. And reconsider how much seafood you eat. Most seafood is extremely damaging to ocean ecosystems. I don’t have space to discuss it all right here, but we’ll cover it more on NaturalNews in the near future. Life is on the line So those are 12 of the biggest things that are entirely unsustainable on our planet right now. Human life depends on most of them. It makes you wonder: How will humans survive when these systems and resources upon which we depend have run out or collapsed? That is a question we’d all better be asking ourselves right now. Because the age of cheap fuel, cheap money, cheap water and cheap food is fast ending. The future of life on our planet will require something far more evolved than the infantile, selfish and self-destructive mindset that humanity has so far demonstrated. Debt-based money systems don’t cut it. Burning up all the fossil fuels is only a fool’s abundance. Medicating the humans and animals with toxic, synthetic pharmaceuticals is a form of medical insanity. These things will all come to an end. The question is: Who will survive the end of these things and be around to help shape the next society which must operate with far greater humility and wisdom?

Food bubble collapse threatens survival of human civilization

(NaturalNews) The following article originally ran on NaturalNews in 2008 but was shifted over to Counterthink.com which ultimately got replaced with political cartoons. In light of today’s sudden attention on the food bubble and the possible collapse of human civilization as described by author and environmentalist Lester Brown , it seems highly relevant to bring this article back. After all, we were talking about the coming food bubble five years ago, long before most people were aware any such thing existed. In this article, in fact, you’ll see that in 2008 I wrote, “…humanity is just one crop season away from mass starvation.” Today, in 2011, a news headline about Lester Brown’s book says, “World is ‘one poor harvest’ from chaos, new book warns.” (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.999426eed38d24123132435f3d303867.31&show_article=1) Sound familiar? What Lester Brown’s book is warning about in 2011 is the same thing NaturalNews has been writing about for several years, even before 2008. Here’s the full article I wrote in 2008, with a few edits and updates. It seems like mainstream consciousness if finally ready to accept this idea — an idea that seemed “radical” just three years ago. Suddenly, it now seems obvious . The Biofuels Scam, Food Shortages and the Coming Collapse of the Human Population It was one of the dumbest “green” ideas ever proposed: Convert millions of acres of cropland into fields for growing ethanol from corn, then burn fossil fuels to harvest the ethanol, expending more energy to extract the fuel than you get from the fuel itself! Meanwhile, sit back and proclaim you’ve achieved a monumental green victory all while unleashing a dangerous spike in global food prices that’s causing a ripple effect of food shortages and rationing around the world. I think politicians need to spend less time bragging about their latest greenwashing schemes and more time studying The Law of Unintended Consequences . Because while growing fuel on cropland initially sounds like a great idea, any honest assessment of the total impact leads you to the inescapable conclusion that biofuels are largely a government-sponsored scam . With a few exceptions (see below), biofuels produce no net increase in energy output, and they cause food shortages while creating strong economic incentives for the destruction of the very rainforests we desperately need to stabilize the oxygen content of the atmosphere. And now we’re just starting to see the early signs of the economic and social insanity that has been unleashed by this foolish pursuit of biofuels around the world: Food rationing in Sam’s Club stores in the U.S., rapidly-rising prices on bread, rice and corn, and price spikes at cafeterias and restaurants that depend on these staple ingredients. The price of rice has tripled globally, unleashing riots in Haiti and Bangladesh, and the United Nations has issued warnings that millions of people around the world now face starvation because they can’t afford to buy food. Americans are even starting to hoard food once again, after years of avoiding basic preparedness measures. (One benefit to all this, however, is that farmers are actually getting paid decent prices for their crops now, after years of operating on the verge of bankruptcy…) Most biofuel efforts are a sham Not all of these price spikes are due to the conversion of croplands to biofuel fields, but much of it is. As a result, it’s suddenly becoming obvious to nearly everyone that the pursuit of biofuels, as currently structured, is a grand greenwashing hoax. It doesn’t produce more fuel than it consumes, and it drives up food prices, too. Of course, there are biofuels programs that really do work. The growing and harvesting of sugar cane in Brazil, for example, provides an 8-to-1 return on energy investment. But even that pursuit is tarnished by claims of unsafe work environments and massive environmental pollution (the sugar cane fields are burned before being harvested, a process that releases huge amounts of CO2 into the environment). The only truly promising biofuels technology available today is based on microalgae. Feed CO2 to a vat of algae, and you can produce biofuels cheaply and responsibly, without destroying the environment. But these programs are only experimental. Nobody is producing biofuels on a large scale from algae farms (not yet, anyway). And that leaves the great American breadbasket: The corn and wheat fields. It is here that food is now being displaced by crops grown for biofuels processing. So where a farmer used to grow corn as a food source, he’s now growing it to sell to a biofuel processing facility which turns the corn into ethanol. Obviously, the laws of economics come into play here, meaning that every bushel of corn used for biofuels production is one less bushel of corn available for food. Factor in the laws of supply and demand, and you can see that the more crops we use for biofuels, the higher the prices will rise for food. Politicians, it seems, have no understanding of economics. They need to study the basics as they are presented in Henry Hazlitt’s Book, Economics in One Lesson , which is a Libertarian-oriented guide that explains basic economics to anyone willing to learn. Economics is focused on the study of human behavior… or more precisely, consumer choice. Now, it seems, consumers are about to be faced with a choice they never wanted to have to make: Should I buy fuel, or food? In other words: Do I want to drive my car, or do I want to eat? You can have fuel or food, but not both Under a biofuels-focused agricultural policy, the same limited resources (soil, sunlight and water, essentially) can be used for only one thing at a time. You can’t use the corn twice, obviously (you can’t eat the corn and process it for biofuels at the same time), so you’ve got to make a choice: Will you grow the corn for fuel, or for food? The more you grow for fuel, of course, the less food you have, and that drives up food prices. But if you swing back the other way and grow more corn for food to ease food prices, the fuel prices go up. Trying to solve both problems at once is a bit like trying to pick up a wet watermelon seed with your fingers: It keeps slipping from your grasp. One thing that has become abundantly clear in all this is that the era of cheap food and cheap fuel is over . I’ve written about this on NaturalNews, where I use the term “food bubble” to describe the most recent era of cheap food. As it turns out, cheap food is only made possible by cheap oil, and with oil now approaching $120 a barrel (a price that virtually no one thought possible just two years ago), food prices are simultaneously skyrocketing. (Modern farming practices use a lot of fossil fuel. So does transporting food across the country or around the world. Eat local, folks!) Add to this the fact that global climate change is already underway, altering weather patterns and creating floods, droughts and other agricultural calamities, and you start to get the picture of just how bad things might get. That’s not even to mention the very serious problem of collapsing honeybee populations due to a mysterious condition called colony collapse disorder that’s devastating honeybee populations across North America. Honeybees, in case you didn’t know, pollinate plants that represent about 30% of all the calories consumed by Americans. That’s about one out of every three bites of your dinner, and it all depends on the “free” work performed by honeybees — bees who are apparently going on strike by refusing to keep working for us. Prepare for mass global starvation So, to repeat, the food bubble is now starting to implode . What does it all mean? It means that as these economic and climate realities unfold, our world is facing massive starvation and food shortages. The first place this will be felt is in poor developing nations. It is there that people live on the edge of economic livelihood, where even a 20% rise in the price of basic food staples can put desperately-needed calories out of reach of tens of millions of families. If something is not done to rescue these people from their plight, they will starve to death. Wealthy nations like America, Canada, the U.K., and others will be able to absorb the price increases, so you won’t see mass starvation in North America any time soon (unless, of course, all the honeybees die, in which case prepare to start chewing your shoelaces…), but it will lead to significant increases in the cost of living, annoying consumers and reducing the amount of money available for other purchases (like vacations, cars, fuel, etc.). That, of course, will put downward pressure on the national economy. But what we’re seeing right now, folks, is just a small foreshadowing of events to come in the next couple of decades. Think about it: If these minor climate changes and foolish biofuels policies are already unleashing alarming rises in food prices, just imagine what we’ll see when Peak Oil kicks in and global oil supplies really start to dwindle. When gasoline is $10 a gallon in the U.S., how expensive will food be around the world? The answer, of course, is that it will triple or quadruple the current price. And that means many more people will starve. Fossil fuels, of course, aren’t the only limiting factor threatening future food supplies on our planet: There’s also fossil water . That’s water from underground aquifers that’s being pumped up to the surface to water crops where it’s lost to evaporation. Countries like India and China are depending heavily on fossil water to irrigate their crops, and not surprisingly, the water levels in those aquifers is dropping steadily. In a few more years (as little as five years in some cases), that water will simply run dry, and the crops that were once irrigated to feed a nation will dry up and turn to dust. Mass starvation will only take a few months to kick in. Think North Korea after a season of floods. Perhaps 95% of humanity is just one crop season away from mass starvation. The carrying capacity of planet Earth has reached its apex The truth about all this, folks, is that the resources on our planet can only support a limited population, and I think we’ve over-populated the planet to a point where we’re wiping out non-renewable resources at an alarming rate. This means a population correction is due . When there are too many people consuming too much food, using up too much water and burning too much oil, you can get away with a rapid expansion for a little while (a few decades, perhaps), but eventually reality kicks in and there’s a global population correction that brings the population size back down to levels that can be sustained on the planet. It’s not a pretty picture. We’re talking about the loss of a billion human lives, perhaps more. This is what’s coming. It’s as predictable as the laws of gravity. When you over-populate a planet and use up all the resources, the population eventually finds itself in a resource panic, and mass death ensues. You can observe the same thing with colonies of bacteria on a nutrient-rich petri dish: They will expand at an accelerating rate, multiplying their numbers until there’s no more food left in the petri dish, and then they will experience a massive die-off. You might say that human beings are smarter than bacteria, and that’s true, but as current events are clearly demonstrating, they’re not much wiser! They still doom themselves to the same stupid fate by refusing to look at the long-term implications of their actions. Humans are really good at making babies and eating food, but they’re terrible at thinking even ten years ahead about the implications of their present-day decisions. That’s why the global population control masterminds call people “feeders and breeders,” by the way. Those are the two things human beings do extremely well: Fornicate and clean their plate. (Not necessarily in that order, though…) The throwaway economy The economies of our world have, sadly, been based on economic models that strongly encourage this kind of consumption and growth. We live in a “throwaway economy,” where people are encouraged to consume and expend as much as possible. No corporation makes money teaching people how to use less. And so we’ve pushed for aggressive expansion since the 1950′s: Build more, eat more, consume more. We’ve turned farm lands into housing tracts, and rainforests into biofuel fields. We’ve over-fished the oceans, over-farmed the soils and over-extended ourselves to the point where a population correction is inevitable. We, the human race, have painted ourselves into a desperate corner, and the simple fact of the matter is that unless we quickly discover some new energy technology that provides the world with cheap, plentiful energy, we are headed straight towards a global population implosion that will leave a billion or more people dead. And biofuels, of course, are no answer for this problem. You cannot grow enough corn to solve the problems of an expansionist, imperialistic race of beings (that’s us) who have taken over the planet much like a tumor, wiped out countless species, destroyed huge swaths of natural rainforests, poisoned the oceans and rivers, polluted the skies and, at every opportunity, betrayed the very Earth that has given us a home in the first place. Humans can betray Mother Nature for a while, but in the end, we will pay a dear price for our own arrogance, greed and lack of vision. The human race is being sent back to kindergarten, where it needs to learn some basic lessons about living in harmony with the planet. Lessons like: Don’t use up all the resources in a few generations. Don’t think you’re smarter than nature. And never forget how much Mother Nature does for us all for free! (Like pollinating the crops, producing oxygen, cleaning the air, water, etc. Read the book Mycelium Running to learn more…) In time, we will either learn these lessons, or we will perish. It’s really as simple as that. And all these suddenly-popular “save the planet” efforts we’ve seen by corporations recently are just a joke. We can’t save the planet. What we’re trying to save here is human civilization . The very idea that we think we can “save the planet” is arrogant all by itself. All we can do is respect the planet and find ways to live with it as polite guests living on a generous host. Whether humans survive the next hundred years or not, planet Earth certainly will. And frankly, the planet will do much better without us. With humans gone, the Earth would quickly be restored to a vibrant, pristine state, full of life and abundance. The Earth doesn’t need us, folks. But we, of course, certainly need the Earth. The real question is this: Can we learn to play nice and treat the Earth with respect? If not, we won’t be around much longer to worry about it. Nature needs to be respected and protected One final thought: I am an advocate of the idea that Mother Nature needs to be granted legal standing. I believe that humans do not automatically “own” nature, and that we cannot simply cut down forests, bulldoze mountainsides, fish the oceans, build dams and engage in other highly disruptive activities without first considering the consequences. Nature is not ours to own or destroy. We, as the guests on this planet, have no right to simply assume ownership over other living systems on this planet and exploit them for our own financial gain. The “destroy and consume” model of free market enterprise is simply not sustainable, folks. It does not lead us to a happy future; it leads to our own destruction. Or, put another way, over the last hundred years or so, mankind has committed countless acts of violence against nature. It has pursued a policy of committing atrocities against Mother Nature — a kind of genocide against anything non-human (animals, plants, fish, etc.). Humans have proven themselves to be, by far, the most violent and destructive life forms to ever exist on this planet. And yet paired with that violence, humans are an infant species, with little or no foresight, with virtually no ability to see the future implications of their own actions. We are, in a sense, the dumbest intelligent creatures ever to walk the face of this Earth. We can land a man on the moon, but we can’t even prevent our own rainforests from being clear-cut by soybean farmers and cattle ranchers. We can develop high-tech medicines, but we can’t even recognize the more powerful medicines found in a simple dandelion plant. We can create amazing computers and televisions and internet technologies the beam information across the globe at the speed of light, but we pollute those information pathways with corporate ads for useless stuff and dangerous medicines that only make our fellow humans beings less enlightened. We are capable of so much, and yet we have accomplished so little. We are, by any honest assessment, a race of little children, running around the planet with far too much power and not nearly enough maturity. We’re like a band of infants with flamethrowers . Frankly, we don’t deserve this planet, and Mother Nature is about to take it away from us. It’s time for us to either grow up, or perish.

Parasites in Your Gut Actually Help Protect You From Allergies

(NaturalNews) Humans and gastrointestinal parasites might have co-evolved in such a way that the parasites actually help regulate to human immune system to prevent against allergies, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Nottingham. Researchers believe that over the course of millions of years, gastrointestinal parasites have evolved an ability to suppress the human immune system as a survival mechanism. Because parasitic infestation has been so common throughout human evolutionary history, the human immune system has in turn evolved to compensate for this effect. This means that if the parasites are removed, the immune system may actually function too strongly, resulting in maladaptive immune responses such as asthma, eczema and other allergies. To test this hypothesis, researchers used drugs to eliminate hookworm infection in a 1,500 children between the ages of six and 17 who were living in a rural village in central Vietnam. This region was selected for its very low rates of allergies and high parasitic infestation rate. Two-thirds of all children in the area are infested with hookworm or other gastrointestinal parasites. The researchers found that once the children were no longer infected with parasites, their rates of dust mite allergies significantly increased. This supports the hypothesis that parasites help regulate immune responses. “The next step is to understand exactly how and when gut parasites program the human immune system in a way that protects against allergies, and for such studies, follow-up from birth will be essential,” said researcher Carsten Flohr. Researchers hope that understanding the relationship between parasites and the human immune system could lead to a better overall understanding of allergies. “The prospects of further studies in this area are very exciting, as we could see groundbreaking treatments for asthma and other allergies developed as a result,” said Elaine Vickers of Asthma UK, which funded the study. Sources for this story include: news.bbc.co.uk.

Cocaine, Spices, and Hormones Now Being Found in Drinking Water

(NaturalNews) A University of Washington research team recently released the results of a study it conducted on contaminant residue in the waters of Puget Sound in Washington State. Various spices, flavorings and other substances are being identified as making their way out of water treatment plants and back into the world’s water supply. Winter holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas bring extra amounts of cinnamon while chocolate and vanilla are especially popular on the weekends. Likewise, caramel corn residue and waffle-cone pieces are particularly excessive around the Independence Day. The most popular contaminant found in the sound is artificial vanilla flavor which is found at an average of 14 milligrams per liter of water. Around the world, scientists are finding all sorts of things from pharmaceutical drugs to illegal drugs in water supplies despite rigorous efforts to remove them at water treatment facilities. Piggy-backing a report from last year that found trace levels of pharmaceutical drugs in most U.S. water supplies, this report highlights even further how easily water is being contaminated by various human elements. While spices and flavorings may not inflict any noticeable harm, the concept that traces of everything flushed end up in the water is what researchers wish to convey. Contaminant byproducts, also known as metabolites, regularly make their way out of water treatment plants back into natural waters. Experts hope that awareness of this will encourage people to be cautious about what they flush and engaged in working toward a solution. Illegal drugs have become a problem in many water supplies where the residue is toxic to both animals and other humans. A 2008 study found that 92 percent of water samples at a Spanish treatment plant contained trace elements of cocaine. Italy’s longest river, the Po River, is also said to carry daily noticeable levels of the narcotic through its waterways as well as 44 pounds of daily pharmaceutical drugs which are also highly problematic. Of notable concern is water contaminated by perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel and fireworks that inhibits the uptake of iodine. Iodine is vital for proper thyroid gland function, and without it serious diseases like hypothroidism run rampant. Perchlorate is currently unregulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Current EPA guidelines require that more than 90 known contaminants be removed from water supplies, but the introduction of new chemicals as well as the use of ones that are not completely filtered out are becoming troublesome. Awareness of the issue will hopefully drive the effort to remedy the problem. Sources for this story include: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091112-drinking-water-cocaine.html