Friday, April 26, 2013

Message for Survival


The Huffington Post discusses a study suggesting that Round-Up maybe linked to a variety of diseases:

Roundup, An Herbicide, Could Be Linked To Parkinson's, Cancer And Other Health Issues, Study Shows http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/roundup-herbicide-health-issues-disease_n_3156575.html


Majia here: I've been following the scientific literature on this for years and the evidence is very strong that Round-Up is quite dangerous for at least two distinct reasons:

1. It is an endocrine disruptor. It especially interferes with early development in mammals (read 'humans') and also impacts blood sugar, thereby contributing to diabetes and tumor growth.

2. A newly discovered pathogen flourishes in the Round-Up environment. Round-up disrupts normal soil biota, allowing over-growth of a dangerous pathogen capable of moving from soil to plant. It is clearly linked to animal miscarriages and infertility.

Round-Up was not tested for either of these effects. Studies on animal toxicity in laboratory conditions would not have addressed endocrine effects. Laboratory studies of Round-Up (most likely on fish) would not likely be contaminated with the pathogen, which lives in soil.

Round-Up is simply not safe and we are eating it routinely through our consumption of Round-Up ready corn, soy, sugar beets, etc.

How can this be?

I will tell you. Round-Up ready seeds were approved and mass-marketed as safe products when they are not safe. The laboratory studies had no ecological validity, meaning their findings cannot be validly generalized beyond the laboratory.

Monsanto simply cannot refute the evidence that Round-Up poses significant health risks. Thus, Monsanto holds full moral culpability for continuing to push a product that has been proven empirically to be unsafe.

Our government is also morally culpable for allowing this to occur.

And Jane and Sam Citizen are responsible for routinely using Round-Up and pesticides in their gardens when it is clear from the product disposal guidelines that these chemicals are toxic.

The Round-Up case illustrates that we are in denial about the fact that we are committing species suicide.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant crisis management is another example of our denial to come to full terms with the extent of our species suicide.

The plant is clearly becoming more radioactive. Steam is erupting FROM THE GROUND.

Let us stop denying what is happening there.

The range and volume of radio-isotopes stored at the plant in the form of spent fuel pose an extinction threat.

The fuel at the plant is degrading. Degraded fuel is being swept into the sea and vented in hot steam into the atmosphere.

In total, Daiichi presents a slow, but inevitable, global extinction event for many species.

Humanity had already precipitated a global crisis in species extinction before Daiichi:



Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived? Nature (3 March 2011), http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7336/full/nature09678.html

Majia here: Notice that this article was published just days before the Daiichi event.

Since Daiichi, I've been documenting scientific reports of unexpected accelerations in species' die offs among Alaskan salmon and seals and California bees, horses, sea lions. West coast monarch butterflies have also been devastated. 

Anecdotal but empirical evidence I've collected suggests cockroaches, june bugs, and quail have also decline in significant number in Maricopa County, AZ. 

One cannot deny that we have created an environmental crisis for many species. 

One cannot regard scientifically documented die-offs without knowing in one's heart what is happening.

The spiking rate of hypothyroidism in California infants is the most recent proof that humans are not immune to environmental toxins.

We cannot deny what is happening and yet we do.

We deny what is happening because of our estrangement with nature. We cannot accept our nature, which is above all our dependence on the eco-system.

We deny our dying because we will not face the contradictions in our mythos about progress and reason.

We refuse to confront the power of the status quo because we are content to be led, even to our own extinction.

We have leaders. They are everywhere. I have met so many of them. Although they attract and connect us in important ways, their messages are ignored, ridiculed or corrupted by the predators among us.

How can we organize ourselves so that our message for survival is heard?

1. We don't want to deny our imminent collapse and potential extinction!

2. We want to do everything we can to survive the ongoing environmental collapse we have created through our plundering, carelessness, and outright greed. We ACKNOWLEDGE our culpability.

3. We want the best for our children because in them resides humanity's love for itself. We can change because we love.

4. We need leadership to emerge from those well positioned to be heard. They must speak truth to power and help orchestrate and implement measures that will help us survive cooperatively.

5. We have the expertise. We are a very clever species.

6. We recognize we must work collaboratively on projects aimed at eliminating dangerous toxins all over the world.

7. We know we need to discover and engineer sustainable technologies.

8. We must also promote kindness and find beneficent and healthy ways to satisfy needs to reduce greed.

9. We need to teach awareness, responsibility and accountability and expect it most of all from our leaders.
 

2 comments:

  1. I wonder if perhaps the government/environmental groups go all-out to protest certain harmful substances such as DDT or marijuana, just to provide cover so in the future they can tell people, "Look at what a great job your government is doing in keeping you safe." (in this case, safe from environmental toxins), even as they turn a blind eye to a deluge of toxins that will put an end to the entire ecosystem (and life) as we know it.

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