The truth about fracking and how it is harming our environment

(NaturalNews) Oil and gas companies are engaged in fracking, a gas drilling process hailed as an economy booster, job creator and greener energy source. However, fracking has propelled hundreds of millions of gallons of hazardous, carcinogenic and radioactive chemicals into gas wells in 13 states, according to the new House and Energy Commerce Committee report covered in the New York Times (http://nyti.ms/lDzSYo). The drilling method, also called hydraulic fracturing, uses a fluid consisting of water, sand and chemicals injected under high pressure to release oil and gas from cracks in shale rock 5,000 to 8,000 feet underground. The practice has been mired in controversy with claims that it is destroying the environment while some lawmakers work hand in hand with energy industry lobbyists. Economic motivation Natural gas is a key element in President Obama’s goal to have 80 percent of electricity produced from clean sources, like wind and solar, by 2035, according to a recent Business Week article (http://buswk.co/eq19Aa) — 90 percent of that gas is obtained through fracking. The Marcellus Shale, a rock formation in eastern North America where fracking is rampant, is thought to contain 490 trillion cubic feet of gas, making it the second-largest gas field in the world. It has enough gas to heat U.S. homes and power electric plants for twenty years. The “shale gas rush,” in pursuit of this massive energy reservoir, is creating thousands of jobs and reviving the economy in states such as Wyoming, Texas, and Louisiana, according to Business Week (http://buswk.co/eq19Aa). It created $389 million in tax revenue in Pennsylvania and 44,000 jobs in 2009. The benefits to politicians of supporting fracking, particularly in this economic climate, are clear. Business Week states: “the drilling is receiving little federal oversight from the EPA and state and local authorities are writing their own rules and having trouble keeping up.” Chemical cocktail Fracking fluids to date have been kept secret by the oil and gas companies that use them as proprietary information. They argue that making the ingredients public would hurt competition, according to a Reuters article (http://bit.ly/lt6wfa). But public fears surrounding the practice are due in large part to that secrecy. With the new HECC report, it is clear those fears are not unfounded. The report, which was written by Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California, Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Diana DeGette of Colorado, found a mixture of ingredients in the fluid ranging from harmless to strange to dangerous. It also blamed the companies for “injecting fluids containing chemicals that they themselves cannot identify.” Harmless ingredients included salt and citric acid, while bizarre ingredients included instant coffee and walnut hulls. Many ingredients, however, were listed as “extremely toxic,” and included ingredients such as lead and benzene, which is a known carcinogen. The Environmental Protection Agency is attempting a national study on the dangers of fracking to public drinking water but the task is a difficult one with companies refusing to make their ingredients public, according to the EPA e-mails reported in the aforementioned New York Times article (http://nyti.ms/lDzSYo). Environmental and health concerns Harmful chemicals are already spreading into surrounding areas during drilling accidents such as well casing failures underground or spills above ground. Environmentalists and lawmakers are concerned, however, that these dangerous fracking chemicals may be seeping through the layers of shale and contaminating drinking water even under normal operating conditions. New information also shows that the process is releasing far more methane into the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a New York Times article (http://nyti.ms/g78RtJ). In a recent incident, thousands of gallons of fracking fluid leaked into Towanda Creek in Bradford County, Pennsylvania due to the failure of equipment at a Chesapeake Energy Corp. gas well, according to Associated Press (http://bit.ly/jzP2kP) and MSNBC (http://on.msnbc.com/lhaFP6). The fluid, which could not be contained initially, traveled across farmlands and into the stream. The energy company finally got the well under control on Monday, April 25, five days after the leak began. Legal action has been taken against Chesapeake Energy, Chesapeake Appalachia and Nomac Drilling on behalf of three Bradford County families who leased their land to the energy companies. The families claim that they are “experiencing daily suffering due to the negative effects of oil and gas drilling,” according to thedailyreview.com (http://bit.ly/gTcSuE). The papers, filed by The Marcellus Shale Oil and Gas Litigation Group, claim that the “negligent and grossly negligent oil and gas drilling activities” have contaminated the individuals’ properties and water supply. See it with your own eyes After being offered approximately $100,000 to lease his land to gas companies and allow them to use his land for fracking, Josh Fox said no to the money and decided, instead, to produce the HBO documentary “Gasland” (http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/trailer/) and discover what exactly fracking entailed. He found water flowing from kitchen faucets that could be set on fire due to high levels of methane, large pools of toxic waste that kill cattle and vegetation, chronically ill residents with the same unusual symptoms living in drilling areas in disparate locations around the U.S., and well blowouts and gas explosions that are routinely covered up. In a PBS interview (http://to.pbs.org/de6oUK), Fox said the drilling is happening in 34 states and has been going on for the last 10 years. Political antics Investigative news outlet, DCBureau.org, uncovered indirect conflicts of interest with New York lawmakers and fracking in its documentary “The Marcellus Shale: The Politics of Gas” (http://bit.ly/ifs8hP). In one instance, DC Bureau found that U.S. Representative Maurice Hinchey of New York was advocating strict control over hydraulic fracturing while his wife lobbied for the American Association of Professional Landmen, whose members acquired gas leases in the state for energy companies. Another instance, found that Republican State Senator George Winner endorsed revisions by the gas industry to gas mining laws at the same time his law firm represented the largest natural gas producer in New York. DC Bureau also discovered an industry-drafted law that aides the energy industry in continuing the controversial practice of fracking. The compulsory integration law allows energy companies to drill beneath private property even without landowners’ permission. Independent Oil and Gas Industry of New York crafted the law, said Christopher Denton, an attorney representing dozens of landowners in cases regarding the law. “This is IOGA’s statute,” Denton said. “They drafted it, introduced it, got a sponsor for it and pushed it through with no legislative hearings whatsoever.” Compulsory integration can only be used if the gas company signs leases on properties totaling at least 60 percent of the proposed land total, which is usually a required minimum of 640 acres. After that threshold is reached, the company can force the remaining property owners to join, according to the DC Bureau article (http://bit.ly/hDsbY3). The energy companies are surging ahead with the “shale gas rush” and politicians can clearly see the benefits, but whether they will stop to consider the costs to the environment and the health and rights of the landowners remains to be seen. Sources for this article include: Fracking: The Great Shale Gas Rush — http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_11/b4219025777026_page_2.htm NY Times: Chemicals Were Injected Into Wells, Report Says — http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/science/earth/17gas.html?scp=3&sq=Congressional%20probe%20finds%20carcinogens%20in%20fracking%20fluids&st=cse HBO ‘Gasland’ documentary — http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/trailer/ DCBureau: VIDEO: The Marcellus Shale: The Politics of Gas — http://www.dcbureau.org/20100720757/Natural-Resources-News-Service/video-the-marcellus-shale-the-politics-of-gas.html DCBureau: Marcellus Shale: The Real Price of Compulsory Integration In New York — http://www.dcbureau.org/201012071284/Natural-Resources-News-Service/marcellus-shale-the-real-price-of-compulsory-integration-in-new-york.html Reuters: Fracking regulations could ease public concerns: White House — http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/26/us-natgas-fracking-regulation-idUSTRE73P6DV20110426 MSNBC: Gas Well Incident Sends Fracking Water into Towanda Creek — http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42691967/ns/local_news-wilkes-barre_pa/ NY Times: Studies Say Natural Gas Has Its Own Environmental Problems — http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/business/energy-environment/12gas.html?_r=1 Reuters: US Interior considering fracking disclosure rule — http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFN3029369420101130?sp=true AP: Driller temporarily stops operations at pa. wells — http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ghITb4WhrytdgW4lcE2grzGUdtZQ?docId=2c049138dbc14ead91568c2fa16288a2 Thedailyreview.com: Group petitions court in Chesapeake matter; Wyalusing residents involved — http://thedailyreview.com/news/group-petitions-court-in-chesapeake-matter-wyalusing-residents-involved-1.1138015

Natural progesterone helps reduce premature births by half, study finds

(NaturalNews) A new study published in the journal Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology has found that natural progesterone cream given to certain groups of pregnant women effectively reduced premature birth rates by 50 percent. Pregnant women with a condition known as short cervix are believed to be lacking in progesterone, an essential hormone necessary for the development of healthy babies. So by supplementing with progesterone gel, such women can help ensure a healthy pregnancy. Many readers will recall the recent US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announcement that the agency was giving exclusive, monopoly approval to KV Pharmaceutical to produce progesterone cream — and that the price of the treatment for women was set to jump roughly 15,000 percent as a result (http://www.naturalnews.com/031684_FDA_drug_monopoly.html). Thanks to new research, though, pregnant women will hopefully now have more progesterone options available to them, particularly natural and customized formulas designed specifically for them. For the study, Dr. Sonia S. Hassan and her team from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) assigned 458 pregnant women to either receive a once-daily dose of vaginal progesterone, or a once-daily dose of a placebo gel, during their second and third trimesters. While 16 percent of those in the placebo group gave birth before the 33rd week of pregnancy, only 8.9 percent in the progesterone group gave birth early. Besides reducing the overall rate of preterm births, the progesterone gel also demonstrably reduced the rate of respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), a breathing disorder linked to early births. Not only did the women themselves experience less cases of RDS as a result of taking progesterone, but so did their children. Infants whose mothers did not receive progesterone during their pregnancies were nearly three times more likely to develop RDS than children from mothers who took the hormone. “The study … offers hope to women, families and children,” said Dr. Roberto Romero, chief of the Perinatology Research Branch of NIH. “Worldwide, more than 12 million premature babies — 500,000 of them in this country — are born each year, and the results are often tragic. Our clinical study clearly shows that it is possible to identify women at risk and reduce the rate of preterm delivery by nearly half, simply by treating women who have a short cervix with a natural hormone — progesterone.” Sources for this story include: http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/health/4690722-417/study-finds-progesterone-cuts-rate-of-some-premature-births.html

Amid global meltdowns, what is the half life of the U.S. government’s fiscal solvency?

(NaturalNews) Thanks to the recent (and laughable) “largest annual spending cut in history” announced by Obama and Boehner, it is now abundantly evident that the U.S. government is headed toward a complete economic meltdown that will make Fukushima look chilly by comparison. While cesium-137 may have a half-life of 30 years, and iodine-131 a half-life of 8 days, if the U.S. government continues on its current path of spending trillions of dollars it doesn’t have, the half-life of the value of a dollar may soon be measured in hours . Want to buy a loaf of bread at the store? Bring a bucket load of cash, because by the time you get there to buy it, the price may have doubled yet again, Zimbabwe-style. Such absurdities are now headed our way, and they will arrive sooner that you’ve been led to believe. The downward spiral of the debt addiction That’s because in order to avoid a government shutdown, the U.S. government has recently decided to go bankrupt instead. Already drunk from the freewheeling spending of other people’s money, the feds have now resorting to the intravenous mainlining of new debt just to take another “hit” that will get them by for another week or two. To call the U.S. political leaders “debt junkies” is an insult to heroin addicts. After all, heroin addicts mostly destroy only themselves and their loved ones, not entire nations. But Washington’s new policies — endorsed by both the Democrats and the Republicans — are based on the street drug equivalent of snorting five lines of cocaine while mainlining heroin while riding a double hit of meth chased down with the desperate chugging of unfiltered Russian vodka smuggled into the country in used gasoline cans. Like a drug addict passed out face-down on the sidewalk in a pool of his own vomit, wearing nothing but a ragged pair of underwear soaked with his own urine, the United States federal government is now beyond the window of opportunity for rational intervention. It is now a basket case of “schizonomics” where key economic decisions are made by leaders who, instead of following the laws of economics, follow the persistent voices in their heads. And those voices keep repeating the same disturbing mantra: Spend! Spend! SPEND! There is no medication strong enough to quell this chorus of fiscal insanity, either, because these voices are not based in reality but rather a kind of economic mental illness that has infected the minds of nearly every lawmaker in America today. Strangely, the CDC offers no statistics on this unsightly epidemic, perhaps because the White House has named this insidious disease “Economic Policy.” IMF declares USA is headed straight into a dead end As if to underscore the chilling degree of derangement in Washington D.C., the IMF has issued one of the strongest statements yet about U.S. debt spending, declaring that the USA lacked a “credible strategy” to stabilize its debt (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dc1aadea-652e-11e0-b150-00144feab49a.html). Furthermore, it warns that runaway debt spending from Washington threatens to cause a global financial crisis . So far, all we’ve seen from Washington is financial sleight of hand and trickery. Most of the recent $38.5 billion in cuts — which were already puny compared to the total debt spending — were achieved by using accounting tricks and claiming to have cut programs that were already slated to be cut anyway (http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110412/D9MI4KNG1.html). Even then, Democrats screamed as if they were having their fingernails plucked out. If they can’t stomach a miniscule $38.5 billion in cuts, how on Earth are they going to find a way to stomach the trillions of dollars in spending cuts that must be made to keep the government solvent? Huge 15.7% increase in budget deficit in just one year Almost as if to underscore the insanity of the situation, recently-released figures from the U.S. Treasury reveal that the budget deficit has shot up 15.7% in just one year. The deficit for just the October-March period (half a year) was $829 billion . (http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness/aap/8236257/us-deficit-up-15-7-in-h111) What we’re seeing here is the U.S. government burning through nearly a trillion dollars in new debt every six months . This is beyond the bounds of everyday, crazy-dude-on-the-street insanity. It is very rapidly approaching a level of economic terrorism on the part of our national leaders. To continue to drive America’s finances into such unbearable depths of debt is very nearly an act of economic warfare against America — a “financial dirty bomb,” if you will. A bomb that, when it goes off, will sadly injure America’s economy in a way that will absolutely dwarf the economic fallout of 9/11. A plot to destroy the federal government? I keep wondering: At what point does all this engineered debt spending become treason against the United States of America ? Recall that a man manufacturing gold coins in the U.S. was recently arrested and charged with a “criminal conspiracy to destroy the federal government.” (http://thewarningsigns.blogspot.com/2011/04/67-year-old-man-arrested-for-minting.html) His gold coins were called “fake currency” (yeah, because paper money is REAL money, I suppose, and gold is FAKE money, if you can believe that), and he is now facing something like 30 years in prison. So I started to get concerned about all this, and because I’m a patriotic American who doesn’t want to see any harm come to this country, I grew concerned about how criminals conspiring to bring down the federal government might actually plot to conduct such an evil plan. And then it was immediately obvious: They would burden the United States government under a mountain of unbearable debt to the point where the whole system would implode and the government would collapse. That’s when I realized, gee, this evil plot is already under way! Care to guess who’s running this evil effort to destroy the federal government? It’s the U.S. Congress itself, of course, with all its mindless debt spending that can have no outcome other than the destruction of the federal government. So at what point do these sellout members of Congress and the executive branch get properly investigated for their role in this plot to destroy the federal government? This is not a flippant question. It’s a serious one. If we have powerful people within our own federal government who are pushing us onto a path that can only end in the outright destruction of our government, then doesn’t that absolutely demand that we consider them to be possible threats to our nation? I mean, isn’t it just astonishing that a guy smuggling a trunk load of marijuana into the USA gets arrested, questioned, threatened and prosecuted, and yet lawmakers in Washington who are acting in concert to destroy the U.S. government’s financial solvency aren’t even considered any kind of danger at all? Madoff’s crime was not thinking big enough Seriously: Bernie Madoff is doing prison time for running a grand Ponzi scheme. And yet isn’t the U.S. Congress running a far larger Ponzi scheme, where money is taken from one generation with a promise that they will be paid back in the future (Social Security and Medicare), but the only way the government can actually pay them is to bring in new money from new suckers who are given the same false promise? Isn’t this the very definition of a Ponzi scheme? And isn’t it a criminal act to operate such a Ponzi scheme? So how is the U.S. Congress, which oversees and engineers this entire scheme, any different from Bernie Madoff who bilked investors for billions? I’ll tell you the difference: The U.S. Congress is doing it with trillions , not billions. If your scam gets large enough, it magically becomes the law of the land. The only failure of Bernie Madoff, it turns out, is that he didn’t think big enough. If you scam a few thousand people, that’s a felony crime. If you scam the entire nation, that’s called a reelection campaign . Worse than terrorism Folks, I think it is time that We the People really began to investigate the possible criminality of our representatives in Washington. If a radical terrorist brought in a chemical bomb and set it off in Washington, that would be widely (and rightly) considered a criminal act of terrorism. So why is it acceptable for lawmakers to keep building a financial time bomb that will soon be set off in Washington? The economic damage could be far larger than the fallout from a chemical attack. I think we should seriously consider adopting a stance where lawmakers who vote to further increase the U.S. federal debt are stripped of their political positions and booted out of Congress… at least until we get the federal budget back into balance, so that we have paid off all the debt and we’re running with a sensible policy where expenditures are equal to revenues, right now, THIS year and every year. No more “we’ll pay for it down the road” justifications. No more smoke-and-mirrors budget cuts that don’t even kick in until five years down the road. We simply walk into the House of Representatives with 435 pink slips and we take a vote on balancing the federal budget. Those who refuse to vote for a balanced budget just get fired from their jobs. We’ll call it “downsizing.” Because if Congress can’t figure out a way to cut government spending, we’ll start the process by eliminating their salaries, one by one, until we either get to a balanced budget or we end up with a U.S. Congress with just two members remaining: Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.

Study: More than half of store receipts and nearly all money bills contain dangerously high levels of toxic BPA

(NaturalNews) Avoiding exposure to Bisphenol-A (BPA), the endocrine-disrupting plastics chemical linked to reproductive problems and other serious health issues, means more than just drinking out of BPA-free bottles and limiting consumption of canned foods. A new study put out by the Washington Toxics Coalition (WTC) says that more than half of store receipts are coated in large amounts of powdered BPA – and nearly all dollar bills contain BPA residue. Many stores use a type of thermal paper in their receipt machines that is coated in unbound BPA powder. A study by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that some receipts contain as much as three percent pure BPA by weight. And since the chemical is unbound, it literally transfers directly onto skin when touched. WTC says that in as little as ten seconds of light handling, BPA receipts can transfer large amounts of BPA directly into the body. “Our findings demonstrate that BPA cannot be avoided, even by the most conscious consumer,” said Erika Schreder, staff scientist at WTC and lead author of the study. “This unregulated use of large amounts of BPA is having unintended consequences, including exposure to people when we touch receipts.” The lower amounts of BPA found on money are likely due to the bills constantly touching BPA receipts in people’s wallets and billfolds. And because both money bills and receipts are practically everywhere, there is no telling how much BPA powder residue is contaminating surfaces routinely touched by children, not to mention the overall environmental impact caused by this pervasive source of BPA. Interestingly, WTC found that recycling BPA receipts represents the largest source of BPA entering waste water treatment plants. And because BPA coating materials are highly volatile, they can spread very easily in recycling facilities as well where they unintentionally contaminate new paper products. Retailers whose receipts tested BPA-free – at least some of the time in some locations – included Trader Joe’s, Costco, Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, Albertson’s, Hannaford, Price Chopper and Sears. Retailers whose receipts tested positive for high levels of BPA included Safeway, Cub Foods, Sunoco, Kroger, Giant Eagle, H-E-B, Randalls, Fred Meyer, Meijer, Shaw’s, and the Rayburn Cafe in the US House of Representatives cafeteria. To read the entire WTC report, visit: http://watoxics.org/files/onthemoneyreport_final2.pdf Also, be sure to inquire of your local retailers to verify whether or not they use BPA receipts. If they do, ask them to switch to BPA-free receipt paper for the safety of their customers and to protect the environment. Sources for this story include: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/03/21/toxic-bpa-receipts-make-sick, http://www.naturalnews.com/BPA.html, http://www.ewg.org/bpa-in-store-receipts

Iodine supplement supplies wiped out by nuclear fallout fear – here are the foods that contain high levels of natural iodine

(NaturalNews) It’s happening everywhere now: Potassium Iodide supplements are getting wiped out as people concerned about the possibility of radiation fallout are purchasing them for their own protection. Yesterday evening, we posted a story about an alternative source of iodine — Nascent Iodine — and now it has been completely sold out everywhere in North America, too. (Our store was sold out within minutes and now the product is back-ordered with 1,000 more bottles arriving on Monday and another 1,000 four days later.) The U.S. Surgeon General has even publicly supported the idea of buying potassium iodide as a “precaution” in case the radioactive fallout reaches the United States. In the midst of all this, some sellers are jacking up their prices to exploit the shortage for their own financial gain. One seller hiked his price from $49 / bottle to $499 / bottle on eBay. Another guy was asking $1500! The NaturalNews Store has been the lowest price on the ‘net for Nascent Iodine, and we kept our prices on sale through this entire iodine shortage because we always strive to deliver exceptional values to our customers (and we operate with ethics, too, meaning we don’t price gouge just because people are desperate — shame on all the pricks and shysters who are trying to rip people off in this moment of crisis! They remind me of the price gouging practices of the pharmaceutical industry…). Remarkably, our Nascent Iodine still sells for just $23 even though the exact same product costs at least 50% more elsewhere (http://store.naturalnews.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=100370&products_id=1004147). (The manufacturer will only allow us to run this low price for another week or so, after which we will be forced to raise it back to “regular” pricing, which is just under $36 a bottle. We often negotiate incredible discount deals for NaturalNews readers, but the always have a time limit window of opportunity…) Not surprisingly, at this price we sold out very, very quickly. And now people are asking what else they can consume to increase their intake of natural iodine. Fortunately, there are several key foods that are very high in iodine — and no, table salt isn’t one of them. To boost your levels of iodine from table salt, you’d practically have to poison yourself with an excess of salt. The best forms of natural iodine, it turns out, are sea vegetables . And YES, sea vegetables can provide sufficient levels of iodine to help prevent radiation poisoning of your glandular system. One quarter of a teaspoon of organic kelp granules (see below), for example, provides 3mg of iodine (milligrams, not micrograms). Remember, 1 mg = 1,000 mcg. And the recommended daily intake of iodine is just 150 mcg (micrograms). Dr. David Brownstein recommends a daily intake that is significantly higher — as much as 6 – 12mg per day, which you can reasonably achieve from eating a planned quantity of sea vegetables. Of course, an iodine supplement such as Nascent Iodine (http://www.naturalnews.com/031708_iodine_radiation.html) is going to provide a far larger serving of iodine, which it’s why it’s worth ordering some and having them on hand for the future. Sea vegetables with natural iodine: Kelp, Nori, Kombu and Sea Spaghetti One of the very best natural sources of iodine is Kelp . The NaturalNews Store consistently carries an inventory of Organic Kelp Granules that provide 3mg (yes, milligrams, not micrograms) of iodine in just a 1/4 teaspoon serving. You can find that product at this link: http://store.naturalnews.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=0&products_id=1001062 We are probably already sold out by the time you read this, but we have 1,000 more bottles arriving on Monday, so if you order now, you can most likely receive them within 10 – 14 working days. You can also find this same product sold at health food stores and online nutritional retailers. It will be the next iodine source that’s sold out as soon as enough people realize that kelp is an abundant source of natural iodine. This product is normally used as a kind of natural salt shaker, to add a salty taste to soups, salads or just about any meal, by the way. It’s a regular superfood source that’s also very high in other trace minerals. All seaweeds contain iodine in a natural state. One of the highest is kombu , which contains up to 2500 mcg (micrograms) per gram of kombu. You can find kombu seaweed at many local health food stores, too. Just soak it in water to reconstitute it, then you can cook it into foods, eat it on a salad, or whatever you want. Cooking does not destroy iodine , so don’t be afraid to heat it if you want to. Iodine is a trace mineral, and no minerals are destroyed through high-heat cooking (just vitamins, proteins and other phytonutrients). Nori sheets (the seaweed sheets used to make sushi) are also a source of iodine, although they only contain about 16mcg per gram. So they’re not nearly as iodine rich as kombu. But nori is easy to find and delicious to eat. Make some nori wraps! Nori is often very easy to find at health food stores, and we also sell it at a special sale price at the NaturalNews Store: http://store.naturalnews.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=0&products_id=1001001 Can you overdose on iodine from nori sheets? It’s almost impossible to do so. You’d have to eat hundreds of nori sheets at one setting to get that much iodine. And given that most people are chronically deficient in iodine, a person can safely consume up to 50 mg of iodine per day to restore sufficient levels in the body, according to Dr. David Brownstein (yes, 50 milligrams, not micrograms). The U.S. government’s “official” numbers on iodine are, just like all the other nutrients, kept artificially low (like with vitamin D) in order to encourage people to actually stay deficient in essential nutrients (http://www.naturalnews.com/030598_vitamin_D_Institute_of_Medicine.html). Sea Spaghetti As luck would have it, we just launched a new seaweed-based superfood product at the NaturalNews Store called Sea Spaghetti . It’s made entirely from a natural brown seaweed called himanthalia elongata . It’s made in France, and we just got it into our store yesterday. It’s a natural source for many trace minerals, including iodine. Although it’s not a huge amount, each 5-gram portion (a very small amount) of sea spaghetti delivers 500 micrograms of iodine (333% of daily value). This is not enough to correct a severe iodine deficiency, but every little bit helps, and even seemingly small portions of this food can start to add up to several milligrams of iodine. It can truly help supply a steady source of iodine to meet your body’s nutritional needs. This is also a fantastic product for completely removing grains and pastas from your diet. You can just make your favorite spaghetti sauces using these sea noodles instead! It contains just 12 calories per serving! (Yes, 12.) Pick some up at: http://store.naturalnews.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=100148_100216_100283&products_id=1004150 The nutrition facts on this product are: Serving size 5 g Servings per bag 10 Calories per serving 12 Protein 1.5% DV Fat 0.4% DV Fiber 6% DV Sodium 7% DV Carbs 0.5% DV Vitamin C 7% DV Potassium 13% DV Magnesium 50% DV Calcium 3% DV Iodine 333% DV DV = Daily Value Don’t get ripped off on radiation pills There’s panic in the market right now. People are desperate to find a source of iodine. But that panic is unjustified. Most people simply don’t know you can get plenty of iodine from eating sea vegetables . There are also brown seaweed extracts available on the market today that have their own natural iodine. For years, I’ve been recommending Modifilan (http://www.modifilan.com), which is an amazing brown seaweed that’s naturally rich in iodine. This product also has powerful anti-cancer properties. I can say that because we don’t sell it. You can only get it through Modifilan.com, and we have no financial relationship whatsoever with them. But you can also just go out and buy seaweed vegetables at your local health food store right now. Or get yourself a “seaweed salad.” Or go visit a local Japanese restaurant and order something with seaweed in it. Lots of seaweed. It’s all good for you for lots of reasons beyond the iodine. Do not get ripped off paying $600 for radiation pills! It disgusts me that some people are profiteering off this crisis by jacking up their prices to insane levels. I will have no part of that. That’s why we kept our prices low and even on sale for the Nascent Iodine sold through our store: http://store.naturalnews.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=100151_100431&products_id=1004147 Oh, and by the way, we are donating $5,000 to the relief efforts in Japan in the next 24-48 hours. I hope to have time to post a story about that on NaturalNews. These are funds we acquired through the registrations for our “Financial Preparedness” event that runs this Sunday (which is also sold out). We are trying to do our best here to help people get prepared for what’s coming. We actually had our Nascent Iodine on sale before Japan’s nuclear disaster , but virtually no one bought any at that time. There’s a lesson here in all this: Get prepared in advance and don’t allow yourself to be caught without being ready for what’s coming: Financial collapse, natural disasters, social upheavals and a whole lot more. That’s why I publicly announced BEFORE all this happened that we would be focusing more on preparedness here on NaturalNews. Ten days before Japan’s nuclear disaster, we announced our first preparedness event: http://www.naturalnews.com/031548_financial_preparedness.html The second preparedness event is going to happen in April and will be announced shortly. Watch NaturalNews for updates, and subscribe to our free email newsletter to be kept in the loop on all these important developments: http://www.naturalnews.com/ReaderRegistration.html The world is changing rapidly. There is information you need to know that your government officials are not admitting. They don’t want to cause a panic, so they tell people everything is okay. The problem with that approach is that is lulls people into a false sense of security and discourages intelligent preparedness. I’d rather we be fully informed and aware of the realistic threats out there so that we can be fully prepared to handle the expected events that life seems to throw at us. Preparedness is wise. And right now, a whole lot of people around the world are suddenly wising up to the reality of what the alternative media has been talking about for years. Stay tuned to NaturalNews.com for more updates each day.

Vendors caught price gouging for potassium iodide pills as citizens panic over nuclear fallout fear

(NaturalNews) Those looking for potassium iodide to help offset the health-devastating effects of a potentially widespread nuclear fallout may be shocked to discover that many vendors of the product have significantly raised their prices since March 11, the day of the massive 9.0+ Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Many distributors who still happen to have stocks of potassium iodide supplements have literally gouged their prices by 500 percent or more, taking financial advantage of those looking to simply protect themselves and their families from potential radiation poisoning. Recent reports indicate that people across the world, and especially in the Western US, are quickly buying out stocks of potassium iodide and other iodine supplements over fears of an impending nuclear fallout that may soon reach North American shores (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703363904576201013720213564.html#articleTabs%3Darticle). And officials are sending mixed signals about whether or not to buy iodine as a precautionary measure, while noting that thousands of people have already flooded pharmacists with requests for the pills (http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Surgeon-General-Buying-Iodine-Appropriate-118031559.html). Based on the very serious nature of the situation, though, preparedness is the best route to take. But this preparedness has caused a massive increase in demand for iodine supplements, which has left most manufacturers and vendors completely out of stock. And many of those that still have stocks have jacked up their prices by massive amounts. Some vendors, for instance, are now selling what would otherwise be a $5-10 box of potassium iodide tablets for over $400 (http://www.amazon.com/iOSAT-Potassium-Iodide-Tablets-130/dp/B00006NT3A/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top). Between March 11 and March 15, the price of iodine supplements has literally skyrocketed all across the ‘net. Just yesterday, many venders were selling the otherwise $10-or-so potassium iodide packs from ANBEX INC. for an outrageous $99. But in a matter of 24 hours or less, this same product is now approaching $500 from the same vendors. You can see for yourself that this 14-pack of potassium iodide supplements that costs $10 from the manufacturer (http://www.mcssl.com/SecureCart/ViewCart.aspx?mid=EDBC3F7A-C1EA-4E60-B473-1D67AA08C00C&sctoken=bf0d439a55f54e968dd4542463026d4e&bhcp=1) currently costs $439.99 at Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/iOSAT-Potassium-Iodide-Tablets-130/dp/B00006NT3A/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top). A quick visit to Vitacost.com offers even more insight into the actual costs of iodine supplements before the Japan quake (http://www.vitacost.com/productResults.aspx?x=0&y=0&ntk=products&ss=1&Ntt=potassium%20iodide), versus what they are now, if available. A 14-pack of 130 mg potassium iodide supplements from Life Extension normally costs a mere $5.21 from Vitacost (http://www.vitacost.com/Life-Extension-Potassium-Iodide-Tablets). And at Google Shopping, you will see a similar array of products all for under $20, and most for under $10 (http://www.google.com/search?q=potassium+iodide&hl=en&tbs=shop%3A1&aq=f#sclient=psy&hl=en&tbs=shop:1&source=hp&q=potassium+iodide+130+mg&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=d57722a22572de1d). But back to Amazon, one seller is peddling 90 50 mg tabs of potassium iodide from Iodoral for $79.99 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002D9PCKY/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000ORSGK0&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0Z2PF9HBG9YZPC5YDR75). Not only is this Iodoral product normally priced less than $20, but the Amazon page deceitfully makes it look like the “list price” of this item is $99.99, and that $79.99 is a special sale price. This is despite the fact that just days ago, the Iodoral product had a list price that was just a fraction of this “special price.” And if that isn’t enough, check out the hordes of eBay sellers trying to make a quick buck — or a few hundred, for that matter — on an unwitting, desperate public. Some eBay sellers are trying to peddle the same $10 14-packs of potassium iodide previously mentioned, which are the exactly the same as the $5.21 Life Extension packs from Vitacost, for up to $600, and maybe even more (http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=iosat&_sacat=0&_odkw=potassium+iodide&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313). Potassium iodide has literally become the new gold. There are, however, many honest vendors out there that did not spike their iodine prices to take advantage of the Japan disaster for their own gross financial gain. This includes the NaturalNews.com Store which up until this afternoon was still selling iodine products for the same low prices they have always been (http://store.naturalnews.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=100370). Unfortunately, these products are currently sold out with new stocks expected early next week. What many people don’t realize, however, is that the iodine found in these expensive, and now out-of-stock, iodine supplements is the same iodine that you can naturally find in many foods. Iodine-rich sea vegetables like kombu and kelp that cost just a few dollars contain very high levels of natural iodine. According to a 2006 review in the Vegetarian Journal , a single 1/10-inch sheet of kombu seaweed contains 150 mg of iodine. And less than a 1/4 teaspoon of kelp contains 150 mg of iodine (http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2006issue2/vj2006issue2iodine.htm). Pectin-rich foods like apples are also beneficial for cleansing the body of radioactive materials. According to the book Fighting Radiation and Chemical Pollutants with Foods, Herbs and Vitamins , pectin binds to radioactive compounds and chelates them from bodily tissues and the bloodstream. It then flushes them out of the body (http://www.livestrong.com/article/334359-foods-that-cleanse-radiation-from-body/). And pectin supplements can also be purchased very inexpensively. Both chlorella and spirulina, two deep-sea algaes known for their incredible cleansing and healing powers, are also excellent at protecting against radiation toxicity. Chlorella neutralizes radiation and effectively removes it from the body, along with various other heavy metals and toxins like mercury (http://www.naturalnews.com/031708_iodine_radiation.html). And spirulina is a highly effective “medical food” that was used during the Chernobyl crisis to treat children suffering from radiation poisoning. So before you get caught up in the mad rush to buy potassium iodide and other supplements that have been greatly marked up in price, and which are now mostly unavailable, check out the many natural sources of iodine and other radiation-mitigating foods and supplements that are available right now at a relatively low cost. And watch NaturalNews.com for more announcements about trusted sources for obtaining preparedness nutritional supplements and emergency medicine products.

EU successfully undermines Ireland as a GMO-free zone

(NaturalNews) Weston A Price Foundation, a nutrition education non-profit, highly recommends butter as a healthy food, particularly grass fed, raw butter, which is hard to come by in America. Because of the lack of availability of locally produced artisan butter, many of our members (and those they have influenced) buy imported butter from countries like Ireland, which have high standards for animal husbandry. My own mother has been buying Kerrygold ever since I sung the nutritional praises of grassfed butter! Until recently the Irish government was in coalition with the Green Party, and there was a policy to declare the republic of Ireland a GMO-free zone. However, in February 2011, the Irish Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Brendan Smith: “confirmed that Ireland has altered its voting position and will support a number of proposals from the EU Commission aimed at authorizing the placing on the market of food, food ingredients and feed containing, consisting of, or produced from genetically modified maize and cotton. Ireland will also support EU Commission proposals to introduce a tolerance for the low level presence of, as yet, unauthorized GM varieties in imports of animal feed.” I weep for Ireland, for both my husband and I are of Irish descent, and I have relatives there who are farmers. But the German side of me wants to fight for Ireland’s purity from GM crops and the pesticide pollution that inevitably follows. I have seen the lush rolling hills and small farms that will be ripped up to put in large monocropping operations. Please read Sir Julian Rose’s article, The Battle to Save the Polish Countryside , which describes what happened in the UK when they joined the EU: “…the ripping up of 35,000 miles of hedge rows; the loss of 30 percent of native farmland bird species, 98 percent of species-rich hay meadows, thousands of tons of wind- and water-eroded top-soil; and the loss from the land of around fifteen thousand farmers every year, accompanied by a rapid decline in the quality of food.” Ireland urgently needs international help to put pressure on the government to reverse this stance. Irish products such as Kerrygold butter are marketed in America and elsewhere as being natural and grass-fed. However, thanks to there being no legal requirement to declare the use of GM animal feed, it is being widely reported that an increasing percentage of animal feed in Ireland comes from GMO sources, and I think Weston Price consumers will be shocked to learn has no stance on GMOs . Until now, I’m sure it wasn’t thought necessary. What You Can Do Contact Kerrygold/The Irish Dairy Board, and the Irish Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; to let them know that the reputation of exported Irish foods is under threat by the recent pro-GM stance, in particular with the Irish-American community (which is of massive importance to the Irish economy). Let them know that they will be risking international boycott if they do not take the necessary action to keep Ireland and its food chain GMO free. Send Your Emails to: Kerrygold/Irish Dairy Board: idb@idb.ie Brendan Smith: constituency@agriculture.gov.ie Send Your Emails to: Kerrygold/Irish Dairy Board: idb@idb.ie Brendan Smith: constituency@agriculture.gov.ie

Why Wisconsin’s economic protests will only spread as health care costs bankrupt the states

(NaturalNews) What we’re really seeing today with the union worker protests in Madison, Wisconsin is the collision of money desires with fiscal reality . Everywhere across the country, union workers want to take home more money. Across the board, from teachers and firemen to law enforcement officers and government office workers, everybody wants a bigger paycheck . But the states are going broke. And the economic realities we’re now facing are making everybody nervous. The voters, you see, don’t really want balanced budgets. Voters, as a rule, are rather short-sighted. They want the higher government wages, benefits and social programs today but they’d rather not think about the financial cost of it all tomorrow . That works fine for a while… until tomorrow actually arrives. And then suddenly your state (or your nation) is facing a debt burden crisis that forces it to make extremely difficult financial decisions. That’s when the protests begin . And before long, the protests lead to riots. If only money grew on trees Nobody is happy about making less money… even when they’re already making a lot. The average compensation for teachers in the Milwaukee Public School system, when you add up the salaries and benefits, is over $100,000 a year . (http://maciverinstitute.com/2010/03/average-mps-teacher-compensation-tops-100kyear/) The salary portion alone is over $56,000. That’s pretty good money for being a teacher in a public school system. But it’s never enough, you see. Nearly everyone spends to the limit of their salary — and then they spend a little more, too, driving them into debt and desperation. The debt spending of a typical wage-earner in America is now so severe that the average annual savings rate is a negative number. And it drives people to a sense of desperation. Yet economic reality says the public salaries must be cut. Either that, or jobs must be cut. One way or another, states are going to have to cut spending to remain solvent, and that means either cutting benefits, cutting jobs or cutting salaries. Of course, states could always just try to raise taxes on individuals and businesses, but that merely has the longer-term effect of driving businesses out of the state, causing a long-term job loss that ends up denying the state income tax dollars from working people, further worsening the state’s economic problems. Why states can’t solve their financial problems by raising corporate taxes That’s why raising taxes may seem like a short-term solution, but it’s really a long-term job killer. Texas is learning this lesson the hard way. When it recently went after Amazon.com, claiming the company owed the state several hundred million dollars because Amazon maintained a distribution center in Texas, the company responded by simply closing down the distribution center (http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/10/22/us-amazon-tax-idUSTRE69L5EC20101022). That’s the thing about raising taxes: When you squeeze companies too hard, they just shift their operations to a more tax-friendly state. The same thing goes for individuals: Raise the state income tax too much, and people leave the state to look for work somewhere else where they can keep more of the dollars they work so hard to earn. This leaves states trying to come up with other desperate solutions to cutting expenditures or raising revenues. Several states are toying with the idea of legalizing gambling — as if somehow having a new crisis of gambling addicts and casino zones is a net plus rather than a net loss to any given society. Why the health care system is destroying America’s economy This all leads me to the real issue that’s destroying state budgets. That is, of course, sick care (state Medicaid). States, you see, cover the health care benefits of both active and retired state employees. This means the states are paying for the monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals, heart bypass surgeries, toxic chemotherapy treatments and other conventional medical treatments that are collectively known as “health care.” Texas, for example, spends roughly one-third of its state budget on health care costs (http://sunshinereview.org/index.php/Texas_state_budget). That’s nearly $60 billion a year in so-called “health care” spending. This is money that’s largely just flushed down the toilet, especially given that conventional medicine does virtually nothing to help people prevent disease and avoid becoming costly medical patients down the road. Remember: Every dollar that goes into a pharmaceutical is a dollar the state cannot afford to pay out in worker salaries or benefits. And yet every state in the United States continues to operate a state medical board that maintains precisely the very same state-enforced medical monopoly that’s causing that state to go broke! It’s the medical board that makes sure doctors don’t recommend nutritional prevention of disease, for example. Any doctor that dares to tell patients that vitamin D can prevent cancer could be stripped of their license and booted out of the state medical system. This is true in Texas, California, Illinois and nearly everywhere else in America. It is the state medical boards, you see, that are ultimately driving these states to bankruptcy through the protectionist, monopolistic practices that censor or outlaw anything that competes with the drugs-and-surgery approach to health care. Any therapy that prevents disease is a financial threat to Big Pharma, hospitals, doctors and clinics. And yes, the sick care corporations and non-profits really are so greedy that they would compromise the health of the public in order to maintain their cash flows. Case in point? Komen for the Cure raising money for cancer through the sale of buckets of fried chicken. (http://www.naturalnews.com/028631_Komen_for_the_cure_pinkwashing.html) The cancer industry, in particular, has willfully pursued a policy of discrediting cancer prevention strategies while increasing the recruitment of “false positive” cancer patients through mammography and other efforts. The cancer industry makes more money when people are diagnosed with cancer, of course — not when people remain cancer-free by being informed about anti-cancer foods, supplements and activities that could save their lives. The result of all this is that the conventional medical system is sucking the states dry , resulting in the very financial crises that are now leading to these economic collisions between state lawmakers and state workers. When the health care system takes away one-third of a state’s money, there’s not much left to go around in the form of salaries and benefits , you see. The real problem isn’t the unions. The problem is that states are paying their money into a broken, fraudulent sick-care racket known as “conventional medicine.” So what’s the solution? Glad you asked. The solution: End the monopoly on conventional medicine If you want to save your state from bankruptcy, you need to dissolve the state medical board . Dismantle it completely. Allow doctors, naturopaths and herbalists to teach nutrition to patients . Allow health freedom in your state by inviting the naturopathic physicians to set up shop and practice real medicine without being harassed by state officials. End the censorship of nutritional supplements by legalizing scientifically-validated free speech on nutritional products. This would allow companies who sell helpful products (such as vitamin D) to make valid health claims such as “Vitamin D can help prevent cancer.” Essentially states need to adopt Ron Paul’s “Health Freedom Protection Act.” Outlaw the dangerous chemicals used in the food supply in your state: Aspartame, sodium nitrite, MSG and artificial colors. Ban the advertising of junk foods, fast foods and pharmaceuticals. Crack down on the price fixing fraud in which drug companies engage on a regular basis. Through these actions and more, states could revolutionize their health care systems and ultimately see health care expenditures drop by 50 percent or more. This could save states like Texas $30 billion a year! After all, taking care of sick people is hugely expensive. Preventing disease, on the other hand, is remarkably affordable. Disease prevention is money well spent . Vitamin D, which prevents nearly 4 out of 5 cancers, is ridiculously cheap to hand out to people, even if the state bought the vitamins for its citizens! No state can survive the cost of caring for a diseased population Presently, no state in America truly supports disease prevention or even basic nutrition for its people. Every state is currently supporting the very same fraudulent medical racket that’s driving them bankrupt. It’s like a snake swallowing its own tail to survive… sooner or later, you only end up consuming yourself. I’ve said this so many times here on NaturalNews, but it’s worth repeating: No state (or nation) has any real future if it cannot encourage its people to be healthy . The sick-care costs will bankrupt you every time. There isn’t enough money in the world to pay for ongoing sickness and disease — even if that is Big Pharma’s profit model. If the states wish to save themselves from bankruptcy, they are going to have to ditch the costly, ineffective and highly fraudulent conventional medical system that dominates health care today. This means taking aggressive action such as dismantling the FDA , opting out of Obamacare mandates and stripping drug companies of their drug patents (many of which are based on molecules stolen from nature in the first place). It also means getting rid of the toxic chemicals that are poisoning people and causing the very diseases that lead to skyrocketing health care costs: Aspartame, fluoride (in the water), MSG, sodium nitrite (in processed meats), psychiatric drugs, antidepressant drugs, statin drugs and all the other pharmaceuticals that are abusively prescribed to patients as part of Big Pharma’s profit push. It means legalizing healing and ending the censorship of dietary supplements and nutritional products that can actually reverse disease and prevent illness. It means, in essence, ending conventional medicine’s deadly stranglehold on the U.S. economy. Because make no mistake: Today’s pharma-centric medical system would rather kill the patient than lose its monopoly. It will squeeze cities, states and nations until they are dead and buried and there’s not a dollar left to suck out of them. The greed of pharmaceutical companies and disease industry institutions knows no bounds, no morals and no ethics. They would rather see America fall than their own profits. And they will do anything — absolutely anything — to prevent America from embracing health freedom, natural healing or disease prevention , because that would spell the beginning of the end of that dark, destructive chapter in world history known as the “Dark Ages of medicine.” We are living through the final days of the Dark Ages of medicine right now. Big Pharma, the vaccine industry, the cancer industry… these are all on the verge of collapse. As states and nations fall under the financial bankruptcy of a failed, broken sick-care system, when they rise from the ashes to start anew, they will abandon conventional medicine in favor of a medical system that actually works: Holistic natural medicine based on patient empowerment and disease prevention rather than chasing symptoms with patented chemicals. Nutrition can save America! I’ve already spelled out all the solutions in a free special report you can download right here from NaturalNews. It’s called Nutrition Can Save America! You can read it at: http://www.naturalnews.com/report_Nutrition_Health_America_0.html This report contains the information any U.S. state needs to save itself from financial collapse under the weight of a failed sick-care system.

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.

Twelve top experts speak out about health, fitness and longevity

(NaturalNews) A little over two years ago, I was invited to be part of a content creation project involving over a dozen experts who teamed up to create what came to be called The People’s Guide to Health, Happiness and Longevity . The producer of the content was none other than Craig Pepin-Donat, who has since gone on to be a key partner in the DotFit platform (http://www.dotfit.com) which now drives some of the most popular online nutrition and fitness tracking websites in the world. I was talking with Craig the other day and asking about The People’s Guide course. I remembered it was a great course featuring two sets of audio CDs and a physical book authored by Craig called The Big Fat Health and Fitness Lie , which exposes dishonest fitness equipment, pharmaceuticals and “miracle” bodybuilding supplements. It turns out he still had a few hundred copies of the course on hand that were part of the final print run right before he got swept up into the DotFit success. So of course I asked if we might be able to make these available to YOU, the NaturalNews readers, at a ridiculously discounted price, because the interviews are really very, very good. In this course from 2008, you’ll hear interviews with Dr Joel Fuhrman, Dr Hyla Cass, Shane Ellison, Kevin Gianna, Dr Henry Lodge and even myself (the Health Ranger). There’s a wealth of information here, and it’s all on CD packaged in an attractive two-box CD set with a bonus book included. This was originally priced at $198, if I remember correctly. It was a very popular information set at the time, and the information it offers about health, longevity and fitness is essentially timeless . Today, this course is available through Truth Publishing for a fraction of its original price: We slashed it to $52 . That’s roughly a 74% discount off the original price, and it’s a bargain for the wealth of information it contains. You can pick it up at the Truth Publishing store: Click here to see it at TruthPublishing.com What’s in The People’s Guide This audio CD symposium is a collection of interviews with some of the top experts in the fields of natural health, fitness and longevity. Interviews include: Dr. Joel Fuhrman , author of Eat to Live . I’m deeply impressed with the depth of his knowledge about using plant-based nutrition to cure so-called “incurable” diseases. Dr. Fuhrman is at the top of my list of people to pay attention to this year, and his participation in The People’s Guide to Health, Happiness and Longevity is, all by itself, worth every penny of investment in your own health that’s needed to get your copy of this course. Kevin Gianni is an incredibly positive and well-informed raw foods and fitness expert. He’s helped train thousands of people to achieve seemingly impossible fitness goals, and he combines it with a depth of knowledge of plant-based nutrition that’s almost unheard of in the fitness industry, even among gym junkies and fitness “gurus.” I’ve known Kevin for nearly two years, and I come to know him as an infectiously positive, upbeat and highly motivating teacher on both nutrition and fitness. His contribution to this People’s Guide to Health, Happiness and Longevity is a phenomenal interview that you’ll want to listen to several times. Debra Lynn Dadd , author of Home Safe Home and an expert on the toxicity of everyday products in the home, kitchen, bathroom, garden and garage. I also know Debra as a friend and colleague, and I can tell you that Debra’s information is absolutely vital for anyone wishing to avoid cancer (and respiratory diseases) and live in a healthy, non-toxic environment. Don’t even think of using another home cleaning product or personal care product until you learn what Debra has to say about chemicals in your home. Dr. Hyla Cass , author of Supplement Your Prescription , is one of the best-informed doctors on nutrition and phytochemicals that I’ve ever met. I met Dr. Cass at a recent trade show, and when we chatted, I was immediately impressed with the depth of her knowledge. I then picked up her book and read it cover to cover, absorbing one valuable fact after another. I’ve since become a great fan of Dr. Cass and hope to interview her on NaturalNews in the very near future. Other experts included in the course are: • Shane Ellison (“The People’s Chemist”) – Expert on reversing diabetes • Kim Lyons, superstar personal trainer for NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” show • Dr. Adam Shafran (“Dr. Fitness”) – Expert on weight loss • Chris Crowley, author of Younger Next Year • Laura Lewis, a “Life Change Expert” • Dr. Henry Lodge, co-author of Younger Next Year for Women: A Guide to Living Like Your 50 Until You’re 80 and Beyond … in all, it’s a combination of 12 of the healthiest and best-informed people on the planet for achieving remarkable new levels in personal health and fitness. Click here to get it at this 74% discount from Truth Publishing. I wish I had this years ago Seven years ago, when I began writing for NaturalNews.com, there was nothing like this available. I had to dig through hundreds of health books to find the most important answers about health and fitness, and that took literally thousands of hours. I’m not saying that this twelve-hour audio seminar is a complete replacement for reading 500 health books, but I have discovered that the most important concepts are all presented in these twelve interviews . If you listen, learn and apply the concepts you’ll learn in these twelve focused hours, you will have learned the most important principles outlined in those 500 books I painstakingly read. That’s because sometimes truly powerful information can be presented in a succinct, information-rich format (and a lot of what’s said in the top health books overlaps information from other health books). Why investing in your health is the best money you’ll ever spend I’ve always believed that investing in your health is the best investment a person can ever make. That’s why I personally spend so much money on nutritional supplements, superfoods, high-quality kitchen equipment and extreme exercise equipment (I have a high-end Pilates Reformer in my living room, and I have a full-size treadmill, a vibration board, an inversion machine, a set of Russian kettlebells, and much more… all sitting in my house where a typical family might put a couch and television set). Since food and exercise are the foundation of quality of life, I put the bulk of my earnings into exactly those things: Nutrition and exercise! But before you start making those investments in the best nutrition and exercise products that will have the greatest positive impact on your health, it’s important to know what works. In other words, where is the best place to spend your hard-earned cash? What’s the best direction to take in achieving that next level of physical fitness, disease reversal or peak human performance in your own life? That’s where The People’s Guide to Healthy, Happiness and Longevity becomes truly essential. Listening to it is like being given a secret treasure map to health and fitness. It’s a set of instructions, guidelines, strategies and tips for getting the greatest results with the least amount of investment in terms of time, money and effort. It’s like being handed the user manual for a new, healthier YOU! And that’s why I think it’s so valuable. How to open doors to curing “incurable” disease Today, I know that virtually every major disease that plagues society today is curable: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, depression, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis and many more. I also know that you can achieve a level of human performance that most people can only dream about — both in terms of physical fitness and mental performance. Over the last several years, I’ve learned a wealth of invaluable knowledge about what it really takes to be in the top 1% of the top 1% of the healthiest people in the world, and in reality it all boils down to a few simple principles. It is those principles that are explored and described in this course, through the perspective of twelve different experts, each of whom has a slightly different approach to telling the truth about health that can set you free — and set you on a new course for the rest of your life. If you’re like most NaturalNews readers, you’ve already taken steps to improve your health, and yet you’d still probably like to learn how to multiply your successes and accelerate the achievement of your desired results . That’s what this course can help you accomplish. It can open you up to a universe of new possibilities and trigger your mind to embark on new pathways that end up being remarkable shortcuts, leading you directly to the results you’ve always wanted to achieve. Today, with the expert knowledge and experience of these twelve highly entertaining and informative experts, you’ll have the missing pieces of that puzzle firmly in hand, and you’ll be able to leap to the next level of personal health and life enhancement, all by just listening, learning and applying the discoveries waiting for you in this course. Click here to get it now at 74% off, only through Truth Publishing. You get: • Two sets of audio CDs (six CDs per set, or 12 in total) • One hardcopy of the book “The Big Fat Health and Fitness Lie” Original price = $198 Your price today = $52 Supplies are strictly limited. No more of these will be published, so when they’re sold out, they’re gone for good. You probably won’t find a better deal on truly innovative health and fitness information from independent thinkers, by the way. This is worth many times our current asking price. I’m thrilled to be able to bring you such a good value at a fraction of its original street price!

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