Category Archives: Philosophy

Labor Shortages, Environmental Health, and Societal Renewal

Environmental Health, Philosophy, ,

I recently took a look at my old 2011 World Almanac (see image below) that had mid-year population projections for 2025 and 2050 and realized that back in 2010 the US Census Bureau was projecting the population of the USA to be about 357.5 million in 2025, and 439 million in 2050. As of 2024, it looks like the USA will likely have “only” 338 million people in 2025, a drop of almost 20 million people from the 2010 forecast when the USA had about 310 million people (mid-year 2010). This statistic stood out to me given the recent discussions about depopulation, excess deaths, and labor shortages in the alternative media over the past few years. That 2010 US Census Bureau projection was made only 13-14 years ago.

This population observation from the 2011 World Almanac opens up a lot of questions, such as, was the projection error/inaccuracy caused by a declining birth rate, an increasing mortality rate, or a combination of the two trends from 2010 to 2024? The Great Recession had already caused a significant decline in the birth rate in the USA right after 2007, so I imagine that decline was factored into the US Census Bureau’s 2010 forecast. Also, the surge in immigration into the USA over the past few years would obviously not explain the drop in the population projection. From the 2023 World Almanac, it appears that the birth rate in the USA dropped from 14.3 births/thousand people in 2007 to 11.0 births/thousand people in 2021. The mortality rate increased from 8.0 deaths/thousand people in 2007 to 10.3 deaths/thousand people in 2020 (see graph below). That’s a 23% drop in the birth rate and an astounding 28.75% increase in the mortality rate all the while health expenditures in the USA have ballooned to almost $5 trillion per year.

Labor Shortages and Environmental Health

In the past few years, many governments and many employers in different industries have been complaining about labor shortages at the same time that they ignore or dismiss that they are subtly poisoning their own populations with aluminum nanoparticles, glyphosate, excessive fluoride, non-native EMF radiation such as Wi-Fi and blue light from screens, and numerous other toxins that are actually recognized as toxins by mainstream society (e.g. microplastics, per-fluorinated compounds (PFAS), pesticides, etc.). In addition, as investigators like Edward Dowd have pointed out, after the experimental injection rollout in 2021 many people dropped out of the labor force due to disabilities or firings brought on by vaccine mandates issued by many of the same governments and corporations that are now stressed out about labor shortages. Unfortunately, our dysfunctional, demoralized and overworked society also contributes to many working-age people’s suicides, drug overdoses, or accidental deaths. As a reaction to that situation, many in the younger generations are attempting to work more meaningful jobs closer to nature, and are not applying to standard career positions (e.g. engineer, account manager, a spot in the military, etc.). Lastly, many couples that would have otherwise stayed together and started a family ended up breaking up under the socioeconomic pressures of trying to maintain a mainstream middle to upper middle class lifestyle (e.g. working two or more demanding jobs, no time for each other, disagreement on gender roles, etc.) and this drops the birth rate.

Societal Renewal

Given all the points mentioned above, why then should governments and employers be surprised at the current labor shortages? The slow motion collapse of modern civilization that many bloggers wrote about in the Peak Oil movement of the late 2000s and early 2010s appears to be occurring, though it seems to be manifesting through the labor and financial markets and the “cost of living” crisis as opposed to being brought about by acute resource shortages (e.g. oil skyrocketing to $300/barrel causing a fast economic collapse).

Instead of a societal collapse brought on solely by external causes (e.g. resource shortages, natural disasters, etc.), there actually may be a larger internal mental/psychological component as well, as many people such as myself have been asking themselves certain questions. For example, why should we work 40 to 60+ hour weeks to pay for things we can’t really afford or even want due to rising prices (e.g. $400,000 house, $45,000 car, $400/month groceries etc.)? It seems like trying to win the Red Queen’s race (from Alice in Wonderland), running faster and faster just to stay in the same place. Why not work part-time or drop out altogether and devote more time to building a more enjoyable system? A recent article discusses how many Millennials are thinking at least somewhat along these lines. Now, this may seem like a bad thing in a sense (a collapse of the current system), but it also means more time to devote building simpler houses or cabins, starting organic farms, growing suburban permaculture gardens, socializing and/or doing any number of other useful things to improve our lives on our own terms.

Community Garden Plot

Demographics and the Environment

Maybe 10 or so years ago, I used to be the kind of environmentalist that was actually happy when seeing population projections that showed that human populations would peak and fall, which would then presumably slow down the destruction of ecosystems. However, knowing now that there seems to be possibly deliberate yet subtle attempts by the technologic system to sabotage human biology/health in order to increase mortality rates and/or lower fertility rates, I definitely do not agree with this approach to the population issue from a moral perspective. If people want to have smaller families to lower pressure on the environment, that’s a good idea, but it should be an informed consent choice. I already wrote in my December 2022 post, Overpopulation or Roles Played, that obsessing about overpopulation is probably a waste of time for environmentalists. We need people to be healthy and clear-minded, and when people have healthy and clear minds and bodies, they consume a lot less resources and are able to appreciate nature a lot more. Also, we definitely need a lot of people to assist in healing the damaged Earth (e.g. starting regenerative agriculture farms, restoring salt marshes, reforestation projects, contaminated site cleanup, etc.).

Conclusion

All in all, the slow motion collapse of the current system may actually be a blessing in disguise. We can slowly decouple from this system and start or continue building a much better system than we currently have now. Many people in the alternative society movements have been laying the groundwork for a better system for years and they need some help to really get it going.

“Man has lost his way in the jungle of chemistry and engineering and will have to retrace his steps, however painful this may be. He will have to discover where he went wrong and make his peace with nature. In so doing, perhaps he may be able to recapture the rhythm of life and love of the simple things of life, which will be an ever-unfolding joy to him.”

Richard St Barbe Baker

Divestment from the War Machine

Philosophy,

I haven’t commented publicly on the current Israel-Hamas-Palestine conflict, as my intellectual focus is more in the environmental/natural science realms and not in the geopolitical realm, though these realms are all connected to some degree. Like many others, I was and am currently horrified at the extreme violence that occurred in Israel on October 7th and has been occurring in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since October 7th. I agree with the thinkers/journalists that stated that it was surprising and suspicious that Israel did not “see” the attack coming despite warnings from Egyptian Intelligence and possibly even the CIA of the USA. I have a bit of a geographical information systems (GIS) background and it is surprising and suspicious to me that the heavily technological IDF did not have a military GIS system in place that would have alerted them almost instantaneously about breaches in the wall around Gaza on October 7th. The parallels of this attack to the 9/11 attacks and subsequent War on Terror have been covered extensively already in the alternative media.

It is encouraging to see that 120 counties of the UN voted for a ceasefire with regards to the current Israel-Palestine conflict in October, despite having the resolution vetoed by certain countries (e.g. the USA). A step for many of us as individuals who feel powerless and want to do something else to de-escalate the current trajectory to a much wider conflict is to take our money out of the defense companies abetting the current conflict. I found this organization online that is working toward this goal: https://www.divestfromwarmachine.org/, though I’m not sure how effective it has been.

The defense companies Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Textron, etc. have all delivered weaponry to the State of Israel as they commit the extreme destruction of the Gaza Strip and even killings in the West Bank (note: I see the State of Israel chain of command as the problem here, not the people of the Jewish faith). Also, the US military left behind billions of dollars worth of these defense companies weaponry in the Middle East that subsequently made it into the black market and then into the hands of militant groups in Syria (confirmed) and possibly even Hamas (speculation). In addition, while some people argue that these defense companies are important in keeping Americans and Israelis “safe” from terrorism, it should be noted that these defense companies and governments have not even treated their own employees very well in the past, especially during the Covid debacle. Many working in these defense companies were forced to undergo mandatory vaccination with the experimental Covid injections, or were forced out of their jobs if they refused. In a similar vein, many ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel were also forced to vaccinate by their government despite their intuitive misgivings of the experimental injections. It has become increasingly apparent to many that these companies and governments have been inflicting harm on their own people without much of a chance for justice for the victims.

Back in 2019, I got out of the stock market and for the past few years I have been trying to decide where best to ethically invest my savings (e.g. solar panel companies, organic farms, food-coop, etc.). It is difficult to ethically invest in this world but anything along those lines seems to be a step in the right direction. If you have a 401k or IRA with some investments in defense companies and want to put pressure on the geopolitical entities involved in the current major conflict to initiate a ceasefire, then taking your money out of these companies will send a strong signal, maybe even stronger than protesting. It is sickening that the stock prices of some of these companies have gone up significantly since October 7th while civilians are being slaughtered and severely injured by aerial bombardment. CNBC actually published an article on this topic a few days ago.

Like I commented before in April 2022 on the Russia-Ukraine-NATO conflict, war destroys or damages natural/real wealth (lifeforms, waterways, fertile soil, etc.) and increases the fake wealth of the military industrial complex (bank account balances, stocks). Also, groups of people have had and will always have disagreements but with modern weaponry (long range missiles, airstrikes by drone, etc.) these disagreements lead to horrific violence that does not seem in any way honorable. Here’s hoping that some kind of peace agreement comes to fruition soon in regards to the current major conflict.

What about 15-minute Ecovillages?

Philosophy, ,

The United Nations Agenda 2030 focus on “15-minute” Smart cities for living and working leaves much to be desired for those who desire a life closer to nature working with their hands. While some people enjoy or don’t mind it, there are many of us who do not wish to be stuck in a city job being on incessant zoom meetings and cell phone calls. And while it sounds nice and convenient to have everything you need within 15 minutes of your home and to work from home, this is something similar to what indigenous people had for centuries in their villages, without the need for an overly technological so-called “Smart” city that requires the consumption of vast amounts of mineral and energy resources to keep it going. The materials that make a “15-minute” city possible do not take 15 minutes to get there, as it takes a lot of energy and time to mine the metals (e.g. lithium, copper, coltan, etc.), process them, manufacture them into an item that is then shipped by ship and/or truck to the store (a journey that may be thousands of miles long) that is actually within 15 minutes of a persons home.

Also, many of the “Smart” cities are places with the most sophisticated surveillance technologies and hence, had the most stringent pandemic restrictions from 2020 to 2022. These do not seem to be places that allow for much personal freedom or exercising your personal sovereignty. What happens when your small business is again determined to be “non-essential” during the next perceived crisis and response (e.g. climate lockdowns)? Many alternative thinkers even go as far as to say these cities will become more like open-air prisons than actual cities (this already happened to an extent in many cities during the pandemic).

What about going back to the grassroots focus on designing ecovillages or towns where people work together on their own terms without bowing down to a large governmental entity? A village or town where people can work with their hands farming, fixing/maintaining equipment, cooking, repairing shoes/clothes, weaving, etc. Also, what about a focus on repopulating small towns in rust belts across the world? These places have been decimated by WTO free-trade agreements, lack of investment, and propaganda that paints cities as “the places to be.”

Living in a small town, closer to nature, one can imagine that it would be easier there to become less reliant on the global economic control structure, to reestablish connections to natural ecosystems, and to live a slower-paced life. Now, it may seem that you have to drive more living out in the rural small town areas but that is only because many of these towns have been economically and socially devastated over the decades. By rebuilding the socioeconomic fabric of these small towns people would then be able to drive a lot less as the things they need would be made in the town and many of their friends and family would be there too.

Agenda 2030 co-opted Grassroots Environmental Movements

I was thinking back to the late 2000s and early 2010s when the Transition Towns, Permaculture, and De-growth movements were really taking shape and there was a fast growing public interest in these grassroots movements. We were going to solve most of our environmental, energy, and social problems on our own terms in our own towns. This local-living environmental zeitgeist has now been largely co-opted by the globalized governments that will now dictate what the “15-minute” cities will look like (these are also just culminations of trends that have been building up over the last few decades):

  • Large Amazon warehouses, Walmart stores, and Home Depots instead of mom & pop retail shops along main streets
  • 4-5 story expensive condo buildings that all look very similar (see photo below) instead of dense affordable eco-villages or towns each with their own unique architecture surrounded by small regenerative farms
  • Expensive schools and colleges that train students to become cogs in the techno-industrial complex instead of affordable education “pods” where students learn self-reliance skills, nature connection and have more fun
  • Total surveillance network consisting of large 4G cell towers and 5G small cells that can pinpoint any person’s location within a few meters 24/7
  • Digital passports, IDs, Carbon Credits, and/or Social Credit Scores dividing people into “Acceptable” and “Unacceptable” (dissidents to the established government, look what happened to the unvaccinated from 2021 to 2023)
  • Large incomes required, since the people are largely removed from nature and tight-knit communities they must rely on money and long work hours to meet their needs instead
New condo buildings in Attleboro, MA, image courtesy of Google Earth.

Conclusion

While some of the urban developments around transportation nodes (e.g. train stations, bus stops) make sense from a “weaning off fossil fuels” perspective, many people are not attracted to these expensive condos and apartments and desire a more nature-oriented life (further discussed in this post on voluntary simplicity). Also, many cities have recently been struggling to maintain their public transportation systems (e.g. the MBTA in Boston, MA), so it is difficult to see how these 15-minute Smart cities will really live up to the hype. Though, having lived in Boston (back when rent was moderately affordable) for several years with just a bicycle when I was younger, I can say it is an enticing lifestyle. However, now as I near mid-life I am taking steps to live a slower-paced life closer to nature.

Here is an example of a few people working on reconnecting with nature, simpler living and alternative education:

Jon Jandai’s Video Channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJRGqIuGVko). Jon is a self-reliant farmer from Thailand who lives in what he terms an “unintentional community.” One of his videos is titled “How to fight with dictators in a villager style,” which is quite pertinent to this post.

Dr. Edith Ubuntu Chan’s Website (https://www.dredithubuntu.com/). Dr. Chan is a pioneer in alternative health and education.

Overpopulation or Roles Played?

Earth Processes, Philosophy,

I do not necessarily think that the Earth is overpopulated with humans and obsessing about the overpopulation of Earth may result in immoral justifications for reducing populations. Some thinkers even believe a deliberate population reduction has already been happening for years by nefarious design, but I will not go into that subject here.

My view is that humans are analogous to being some of the most complex “stem cells” of Gaia, as we can be whoever we want, consciously choose whatever actions we want to take out in the world and choose what we want to grow. We could choose to grow a permaculture garden or practice silvopasture on a plot of land increasing wildlife and insect habitats while providing food for our family. On the other hand, we could instead choose to pave over that plot, put up a cell tower, dig a quarry, and sell unnecessary merchandise to our neighbors to make a lot of money to buy more stuff we don’t really need. It is up to us. Most of the environmental degradation happening on the planet is caused either directly or indirectly by conspicuous consumption of resources as detailed by many authors (including in one of my previous posts). However, notice that in a conversation about population many people usually mutter “too many people” under their breath, never “too many machines” or “too many things,” for example. The programming runs deep. Though, choosing to have small families does seem to be a wise choice given the state of the planetary ecosystem right now and would allow for a gentle stabilizing of the world population.

Despite what we see going on environmentally around the world, it seems a bit ridiculous to automatically assume that humans are born inherently greedy and thus become selfish destroyers of nature. Another possibility is that in modern societies many humans are starved of meaningful relationships, nutritious food, and high quality air/water, in a similar vein to how cancer cells are previously healthy cells that are starved of oxygen and proper voltage. Thus these cells must resort to anaerobic respiration to maintain growth at the expense of the larger system (the body of the organism in this case). It seems that many of us humans resort to “anaerobic” activities in a feeble attempt to fill the inner void of our psyches and bodies. Cut off from real community, intimacy, authentic relationships, nutrient dense food, good quality air and high quality water (all examples of real wealth), people will fall into many different addictions in an attempt to make up for these losses. Buying a mansion, multiple cars, excessive electronic gadgets, overindulging on high fat, high sugar foods, taking various drugs, watching pornography, random hook-ups, these actions seem to all be desperate attempts to fill unmet needs with environmentally and/or psychologically damaging consumption, and I have even taken some of these actions myself trying to create an environmentally-conscious life here, they are not easy to avoid.

Top: USGS map depicting urban and suburban areas (purple and red coloring) spread over the interior northeast of the USA despite little population growth in this area over the past 50 years. Bottom: Aerial photos depicting an area north of Houston, TX in 1944 on the left and in 2021 on the right, an extreme example of suburban sprawl.

It does not necessarily have to be this way however, many people are finding ways to escape the socioeconomic matrix by building organic farms, homesteads, environmental non-profits and other things. The matrix is very difficult to escape from as I can personally attest, so I am making due at the moment by just trying to focus my attention on alternative environmental science subjects and volunteering. I agree with the notion that a universal basic income would allow more people to take more financial risk in building environmentally sustainable systems. Many of my own environmentally destructive decisions (such as agreeing to work on questionable ‘environmental’ projects in corporate America) have been made due to financial woes. Though, I would obviously like to see the UBI provided without government stipulations such as vaccine passports or carbon credits, for example. Good luck to anyone else wanting to make the journey on creating a more green world!

Small organic farm with sustainable forest management.

Further reading on this topic: https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/concern-about-overpopulation-is-a-red-herring-consumptions-the-problem/

A quote from Richard Reese’s book What is Sustainable also speaks to this topic:

“A while back, a friend spent time with the MicMac teacher, Albert Ward. She was furious and frustrated about how we civilized humans were destroying the planet. Albert told her that if she wanted to heal Mother Earth – which he really felt didn’t need our help – the first step was to heal herself. She needed to discover who she was, and then she needed to be herself.”

NATO and Russia – Environmental War Crimes

Environmental Health, Philosophy, ,

The world is currently embroiled in a East-West conflict with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries currently accusing Russia of using or planning to use chemical weapons in their incursion into Ukraine. However, it seems to be lost on NATO countries that that they have historically used various internationally illegal chemical weapons in numerous conflicts across the entire world causing immense amounts of environmental harm. Russia and other countries in the East are also guilty of these crimes, but the Western media almost always portrays NATO countries as the “good” guys with almost no questioning of their military practices. The feature image of this post shown above depicts damage to an oil refinery in Serbia that was bombed by NATO forces during the Balkan wars of 1999.

Explicit Examples of Environmental Harm

In the Vietnam War, for example, the United States armed forces utilized Agent Orange and napalm over large swaths of Vietnamese jungles and agricultural land. It also dropped these harmful chemical agents directly over villages, villagers and even their own troops. Many Vietnam veterans have suffered debilitating health effects from exposures to Agent Orange residues and napalm fumes, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people who also died or suffered severe negative health effects. There is also the issue of geoengineering (aka weather warfare) conducted in Vietnam by the US air force through Project Popeye. This is discussed briefly here in this article on weather warfare, here’s a quote:

“During the Vietnam war, cloud-seeding techniques were used, starting in 1967 under Project Popeye, the objective of which was to prolong the monsoon season and block enemy supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.“

NATO countries also used depleted uranium rounds early on in the Iraq War (see this article for more of a discussion on the evidence) exposing both Iraqi civilians and NATO’s own troops to dangerous amounts of radioactive compounds. One of the industrial facilities that formerly manufactured depleted uranium materials for the US military is ironically located in one of the wealthiest suburbs of Boston: Concord, Massachusetts. The former Starmet facility is now a Superfund site with extensive environmental contamination of soil and groundwater. The environmental effects of war are hidden in plain sight, not only in the war-torn countries but also right here back at home in one of the wealthiest areas of the USA.

I will also briefly mention here that many Gulf War veterans have suffered chemical sensitivity symptoms collectively referred to as ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ or ‘Desert Storm Diseases.’ Initially the veterans’ symptoms were dismissed as psychological, but over the years researchers have uncovered multiple possible environmental causes including excessive diesel fumes, ground-level smoke from the horrific oil fires, exposure to sarin gas, and even the ingestion of the “nerve gas pill” pyridostigmine bromide. Though pyridostigmine bromide protects the body from the worst effects of sarin gas, it causes toxic side effects by affecting the body’s levels of the enzyme cholinesterase. See this article for a detailed discussion on Gulf War Syndrome.

There are also reports online that claim several countries have used white phosphorous as an incendiary compound in bombs, though it is difficult to find reputable evidence that this highly toxic substance has actually been utilized in conflicts. Honestly though, it wouldn’t be surprising given the track record of the world’s militaries over the past century.

War: A Pointless Use of Precious Resources

All in all, even ignoring the horrific environmental health effects of war and colossal loss of life, in a world of rapidly diminishing stores of precious natural resources, it seems the height of folly to engage in military conflicts that consume vast amounts of petroleum, precious minerals, and metals. These are highly valuable resources that could obviously be used instead to construct solar panels, remediation systems or ecological shelters. In addition, these military conflicts, by their very nature, destroy the most valuable natural resource of all: fertile agricultural land. Right now the war in Eastern Europe is causing massive disruptions to the global wheat and fertilizer markets and prices for basic foodstuffs are already skyrocketing in many countries.

The petroleum, precious minerals, metals and fertile agricultural land represent “real” wealth. These are not just numbers in a computer representing your bank account balance (i.e. a claim on real wealth), they are the actual physical things that benefit your life and community on a day to day basis. War destroys real wealth while increasing the fake wealth (the bank account balances) of the military industrial complex.

Whether you live in the East or the West or in the middle, tell your representatives to stop their warmongering propaganda and put our remaining real wealth towards creating a better future for our children and grandchildren.

The words of John Trudell in this song really ring true at this moment in time:

Last rush in Babylon

Voices catching up, voices catching up

Watch out child, watch out child

Babylon falling down falling down

Society a broken promise

Economies war citizen whores

Political pimps

Leaving us flat on our backs

Trading today

Waiting for the promised land

…

Arms Race

Jacks boots pounding earth

Military precision

Dissecting elements of life

Taking apart instead of healing

Generals and Gods

Fascists and oil wells

Man images and machines

Petrochemical societies

Trying to hide the sun

…

Babylon in terror

World run over by machines

The economics of captured dreams

The rich are the poorer

While the poor are waiting

Everyone pretending to live

Calling exploitation progress

Calling submission freedom

Calling madness profit

Calling earth a plan et

Plaguing her with civilization

Reclaiming Gaia from the Technosphere

Earth Processes, Environmental Health, Philosophy, , ,

In virtually every sphere of life including the physical, biological, and social, technological devices are displacing and replacing natural systems and the innate abilities of human beings. Why is that? Why don’t we focus on restoring our natural environmental systems and developing our innate physical, mental and social abilities to their fullest potential? For centuries humans have been embarking on a process of mechanization and utilization of increasing amounts of technology, culminating here in the early 21st century with the rollout of a worldwide 5G wireless network over the landscape and the launching of a literal “skynet” of satellites into low-earth orbit. Yet, mental illness is at an all-time high, pollution of our air, water, and food is still widespread, and the entire enterprise is obviously unsustainable on any number of environmental, ecological, and even psycho-spiritual fronts.

Many technologies have their uses and their places, as obviously this blog would not exist without the internet, but the extreme focus on mechanizing, controlling and manipulating every life and planetary process with complex technology leaves something else to be desired for many. A new renaissance is sorely needed at this time, right? The following is a short list of examples of where technology has usurped natural processes and following that is a list of ecological alternatives to those technologies.

Immune Systems and Pharmaceuticals

Regarding our overall health, our natural immune systems are being disrupted and degraded by different types of environmental pollution, as I have discussed at length in previous posts on environmental health. Consequently, our innate immune system capabilities are systematically being replaced with an ever increasing number of vaccines and other kinds of pharmaceuticals, many of which have significant side effects, including the over-stimulation of our immune systems and their contribution to the development of autoimmune disorders. In addition, think of the immensely complicated industrial supply chain that has to exist in order to mass produce a vaccine or other pharmaceutical that is delivered from a research lab all the way to being directly injected into your body. The different biochemical laboratory facilities, the large factories for constructing glass vials or plastic containers, all of the delivery trucks along the supply chain, the refrigeration systems and many more technological systems just to keep the vaccine/pharmaceutical supply chain going. This entire supply chain requires the consumption of vast amounts of natural resources and human labor in order to perform a natural function (immunity to pathogens) that our bodies could easily do well if we actually took good care of them (our “terrain”) and the environments we live in.

Human Breast Milk and Cow Milk/Formulated Milk

In the 20th century, some scientists and doctors decided that breast milk from a human mother could be replaced with cow’s milk or other formulated milks to improve a baby’s nutrition. The problem is that milk from the mother has just the precise balance of nutrients for satisfying the needs of a human baby. As Edward Goldsmith notes in The Way: An Ecological World View, human milk has a higher calcium to phosphorous ratio than other milks which is important for the growth of a baby’s musculoskeletal system. In addition, the level of sodium in cows milk is too high, leading to potential blood pressure issues in babies and toddlers. The level of copper in cows milk is also too low, leading to iron/hemoglobin transport issues and the development of anemia, which was common in North American infants a few decades ago.

Physical Tolerance Limits and Heating/Air Conditioning

After heating fuels and air conditioning became economical in the beginning of the 20th century many people have let their physical tolerance limits atrophy. They do not feel comfortable with temperatures below 65 degrees Fahrenheit inside of buildings in the winter, and temperatures above 72 degrees Fahrenheit inside of buildings in the summer. This is an extremely narrow range of comfortable temperatures and the consumption of vast amounts of fuels and electricity is required to maintain this narrow range inside of the built environment.

Innate Cognitive Capacity and IT Devices

Regarding memory and cognitive capacity, our innate memory skills are being degraded by increased reliance on information technology devices like GPS for navigating, for example. A study was done around a decade ago showing that old-school taxi drivers who had memorized the streets of London had a larger hippocampus compared to citizens who used GPS devices to get to their destinations. The citizens’ ability to create a mental map of London had atrophied, and a part of their brain literally became smaller after increased reliance on the new technology. Regarding cognitive capacity, calculators replace our ability to do simple arithmetic in our heads, emails cause our ability to compose hand-written letters with legible handwriting to atrophy… the list goes on, it is the the literal outsourcing of our cognition and memory to the technosphere.

Natural Waste Recycling Processes and Sewage/Wastewater Treatment Plants

Historically, human waste was delivered by wagon and wheelbarrow back to the agricultural fields surrounding the village for use as humanure commonly referred to as “night soil.” In modern societies, gigantic wastewater treatment facilities are built next to natural water bodies and dump large amounts of treated wastewater, which then still heavily pollutes natural water bodies with excess nutrients, trace pharmaceutical residues that are not filtered out by the treatment process, and some heavy metals. Other areas use cesspools and septic tanks, which when they fail, cause drinking water aquifers to be contaminated with excess nitrogen and traces of pharmaceuticals.

Traditional Social Networks and Social Media/Dating Websites

The vast majority of people desire to be accepted as part of a group and to find a loving partner, and historically this goal was accomplished by living in a small band of people with whom you were intimately familiar with. In modern anonymous mass societies people are now strewn across the country in urban sprawl conurbations with weak social connections to the people around them due to people continuously moving away for jobs and other reasons. The social connections, that often had a large physical component (e.g. handshakes, hugs, sex, etc.), between people in historic social networks have now been largely digitized by social media websites, dating websites, and email. For example, a few extroverted people in historic social networks used to be great matchmakers, introducing potential mates to each other and helping to form couples. This formerly organic process has now been largely relegated to social media, dating websites, and professional matchmaking services with mixed results, not to mention the large amount of resources including the electricity it takes to run the servers that host these websites.

A comparison of a formerly heavily forested area north of Houston, TX in 1944 on the left and the same area in 2021 on the right, an extreme example of urban sprawl.

The Eco-logic Renaissance

With the increasing creep of the technosphere into every aspect of life over the past decades and especially over the past two years, it is uplifting to see a growing interest among the public in ecological living topics including composting, organic gardening, composting toilets and humanure, small-scale renewable energy systems, simple water filtration, holistic health modalities, and other appropriate or “nature-like” technologies.

Natural Healing Modalities as Immune System Enhancers

Instead of relying solely on vaccines and other pharmaceutical agents for solving every health problem or curing an infection, many people are turning to alternative healing modalities for solutions to their health problems that have not been adequately addressed by mainstream medicine. The following table is a brief list of simple holistic health tips to improve immune system function naturally, as an example. Tomes of more information on alternative health can be found online or in an alternative book store.

  • Drink pure, unpolluted water
  • Improve sleeping conditions
  • Improve nutrient intake including Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zinc, etc.
  • Decrease exposure to chemical pollutants and electrosmog (non-native EMFs)
  • Increase time in nature including grounding with the Earth
  • Natural breastfeeding for babies
  • Herbal remedies

Wetlands as Natural Wastewater Treatment Systems

A growing number of communities around the world are turning to restoring wetlands in order to process large amounts of wastewater. Healthy wetlands contain large amounts of peat with brown lignin compounds that can absorb large amounts of organic wastes and sequester heavy metals, thereby filtering the water as it flows downstream to other water bodies. At the scale of a home or small business, many are turning to composting toilet technologies or greener septic systems to reduce the amount of wastewater that is generated and discharged to the environment.

Developing Natural Human Abilities Instead of Overreliance on Technologies

When the power goes out, the GPS signal is lost, the water stops running, and the delivery trucks run out of fuel, people in modern societies are often left helpless as we have lost ancient skills that our ancestors used to survive in natural environments. We can learn or relearn old skills and even marry new ways of thinking to old skills and technologies (e.g. developing new passive solar water heater designs). We can develop mental maps of the towns and cities we live in instead of relying on GPS all of the time. We can practice hormesis (improve our physical tolerance limits) and maintain a comfortable body temperature throughout the year without resorting to excessive use of heating fuels in the winter or air conditioning in the summer. This seems to be a wiser choice than choosing to rely on the fossil-fueled technosphere that is showing increasing signs of incoherence, disruption and outright collapse (especially obvious in the last two years). Explore Arthur Haines’s website on rewilding and relearning ancient survival techniques for more information on this.

Ecovillages as Cohesive Social Networks

Many people are fed up with the social and mental illness that results from living in anonymous mass societies, and ecovillages are one antidote to the increasing social alienation and mental illness observed in modern societies. Ecovillages and ecocentric communities can allow people to form more permanent connections with those around them and possibly lighten the load of anxiety and stress so prevalent in modern mass societies. Regarding love, Tamara ecovillage in Portugal, for example, has a radical take on love and sexual relationships and creates a space for people to freely explore alternative ways to express their romantic desires and form partnerships that are difficult to implement in anonymous and alienating mass societies.

Conclusion

All in all, the wholesale replacement of the basic functions of the biosphere (Gaia) has been going on for centuries, but we still have time to change course if we want to. It is becoming increasingly apparent to a growing number of people that attempting to solve the problems created by technology with ever more complex technologies is maybe not the best way to go about the issue.

Instead of relying on and looking to “tech-no-logic” solutions for all of our problems, maybe a shift to focusing on “eco-logic” techniques and solutions would help? Why develop a Rube-Goldberg type of device to suck carbon out of the atmosphere but breaks down every few months, for example, when you can simply plant and maintain an edible forest garden, instead?

Currently, it appears that the entire physiology of Gaia is being systematically disrupted, degraded and replaced by a technologic mechanical system for whatever host of reasons (there are different theories floating around). However, whatever the reason is, a growing minority of people are fed up with this enterprise of attempting to conquer and control nature and are seeking ways to work with and make peace with her instead.

Further Reading:

The Ascent of Humanity  Charles Eisenstein  (free to read on his website)

The Way:  An Ecological World-View  Edward Goldsmith (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1098214.The_Way)

My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization Chellis Glendinning (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/560830.My_Name_is_Chellis_and_I_m_in_Recovery_from_Western_Civilization)

Green Wizardry John Michael Greer (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17347699-green-wizardry)

When Technology Fails: A Manuel for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency Matthew Stein  (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2332274.When_Technology_Fails)

Shrinking the Technosphere Dmitry Orlov (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29633720-shrinking-the-technosphere)

Do you think you can take the world and improve it?

I do not think it can be done.

The world is sacred.

You cannot improve it.

If you try to change it, you will ruin it.

If you try to help it, you will lose it.

Lao Tzu

Respiration, Cancer and the Electricity of Life

Environmental Health, Philosophy, , , ,

I was reading the chapter on cancer in Arthur Firstenburg’s book, The Invisible Rainbow: A History of Electricity and Life, and it reminded me of Dr. Jerry Tennant’s talks on voltage inside and across cellular membranes, and Dr. Gerald Pollack’s research on the fourth phase of water or “Exclusion Zone” water. In this post, I will attempt to connect their findings together and then tie them into the issue of electrosmog (i.e. electromagnetic radiation pollution).

In his chapter on cancer, Arthur Firstenberg discusses the metabolic theory of cancer which was studied by Otto Henreich Warburg in the early 20th Century. The theory states that tumors thrive in an oxygen-deficient (anaerobic) environment and are caused by that lack of oxygen. Basically, starving parts of the body of oxygen results in cancerous growth. Recently, the research team led by Dr. Thomas Seyfried at Boston College has confirmed by experimentation that cancer is caused by disruptions to the mitochondria in the cytoplasm and not by mutations in the DNA-containing nucleus of the cancerous cell (see this article, titled “Cancer as a Mitochondrial Metabolic Disease”). The mutations in the DNA may be a secondary effect of the disruptions of mitochondrial respiration processes and so this research suggests that the metabolic theory of cancer is accurate. There must be something affecting the mitochondria in cancerous cells and the oxygen transport system to cells which likely involves the synergistic effect of environmental toxins, RF or microwave radiation, dirty electricity and/or certain viruses.

Dr. Jerry Tennant: Healing is Voltage

Dr. Jerry Tennant, who has built off of the work done by Dr. Robert Becker and others, explains healing and regeneration of biologic tissues in terms of pH and voltage in this video. He states that another way to think about pH is that it corresponds to the voltage of a solution, such as pure water. Remember that from general electrochemistry, the voltage or the charge of a substance will have polarity (either + or -). The following lists give a short review of the general characteristics of electrochemical solutions of pure water:

  1. Low pH solution (acidic):
    • pH < 7.0
    • higher [H3O+], lower [OH-]
    • lower voltage (i.e. higher positive voltage, e.g. +100 millivolts)
    • higher positive charge
  1. High pH solution (alkaline):
    • pH >7.0
    • lower [H3O+], higher [OH-]
    • higher voltage (i.e. higher negative voltage, e.g. -100 millivolts)
    • higher negative charge

A neutral solution of pure water with a pH of 7.0 would have a voltage of 0 as it would contain the same number of H3O+ and OH- ions. A pH of 0 would correlate to a voltage of approximately +400 millivolts (mV) and a pH of 14 would correlate to a voltage of approximately -400 mV. Obviously, these voltages would change depending on what solutes are dissolved in the water, or if any oxidizing or reducing agents are added to the pure water. For a solution other than pure water oxidation/reduction potential (ORP), measured in millivolts, would measure the voltage in a solution. A positive ORP value would be mean the solution is oxidizing and a negative ORP value would mean the solution is reducing. Below is a simple list reviewing the basic characteristics of oxidation and reduction agents in redox reactions:

  1. Oxidizing agent:
    • electron acceptor
    • reduced during reaction
    • gains electrons
    • example substances (this depends if they are dissolved into an already acidic or alkaline solution): Oxygen Gas (O2), Hydrogen Ion (H+), Hydronium Ion (H3O+)
  1. Reducing agent:
    • electron donor
    • oxidized during reactions
    • donates electrons
    • example substances (this depends if they are dissolved into an already acidic or alkaline solution): Oxygen Ion (O2-), Hydroxide Ion (OH–), Hydrogen Gas (H2), antioxidants (e.g. vitamin C)

With that general electrochemistry review out of the way, Dr. Jerry Tenant states that any cellular biology textbook will mention that the optimal pH environment for cellular processes ranges from 7.35 to 7.45 (slightly alkaline), corresponding to voltages of -20 mV to -25 mV, respectively. Cells require a voltage environment of around -25 mV to run well and around -50 mV to make new healthy cells. Consequently, an excessively low pH/voltage (acidic) bodily environment will enable a chronic disease to fester or allow an infectious microbe to thrive as the body’s cells cannot repair themselves correctly, get rid of cellular wastes or adequately neutralize an infection. Though, an excessively high pH/voltage (alkaline) bodily environment could conceivably cause health problems as well.

According to Dr. Tennant and other researchers, cancerous growth appears to occur in bodily environments where the cellular pH has dropped to around 6.48, or a voltage of approximately +30 mV. Regarding the metabolic theory of cancer, is there a connection between declining pH/voltage levels and cells being starved of oxygen and negative charge? Do deteriorating environmental conditions stemming from pollutants cause the pH/voltage in the bodily environment to drop, which results in cells being starved of oxygen? Or is something else going on, such as the deteriorating environmental conditions from pollutants disrupt the oxygen transport system to cells, leading to low pH/low voltage conditions and a further decrease of oxygen levels in blood and inside cells? It is known that if the pH of the blood decreases, this leads to a decreased affinity of hemoglobin for oxygen.

The information and discussion above does not imply that low pH or oxidizing agents are necessarily ‘bad’ for health, as we need both the oxidizing and reducing agents to react together to complete the electrical circuit of life and maintain homeostasis. Also, there obviously needs to be a voltage gradient in the cellular environment in order for a cell to do repair work, or replicate. The discussion above just implies that if an organism is sick then there is likely an imbalance between the oxidizing agents and reducing agents within the organism.

The Fourth Phase of Water

Dr. Gerald Pollack at the University of Washington, building off the work of Dr. Gilbert Ling and others, has undertaken interesting research on what he terms is the “Fourth Phase of Water” (here are a few chapters of his book on the subject). This phase of water, with the chemical formula H3O2, exists as a thin layer right at the interface of a hydrophilic (i.e. “water-loving”) surface. Interestingly, his research team has found that this phase of water excludes virtually all particles and even solutes hence the name “Exclusion Zone (EZ)” water. Dr. Pollack’s research team has discovered the following other electrochemical characteristics of EZ water (see this video):

  • EZ water is alkaline (i.e. pH > 7.0) and can act as an electron donor, which, based on Dr. Tennant’s discussions indicates that it is an important factor in the prevention of cancer
  • The EZ water layer holds a net negative charge, while the water beyond it is positively charged, creating a battery-like environment that has a current
  • The EZ water layer increases in width when exposed to certain frequencies of light, especially the infrared spectrum of sunlight (i.e. the sunlight “charges” the battery)
  • EZ water helps to fold proteins inside of cells

In his talks, Dr. Pollack points out the potential health benefits associated with actions that increase the amount of EZ water in the body:

  • Grounding with the Earth: grounding via walking barefoot on the Earth (soil, sand, grass, etc.) is known to bring negative electric charge into the body, thereby increasing the amount of EZ water in the body
  • Absorbing radiant natural energy increases blood flow, improves respiration: spending a significant amount of time outside, absorbing the sun’s radiant energy, especially the infrared spectrum portion, which increases the width of the EZ water layer the most
  • Eating Plants: the EZ water inside of plant cells is yet another reason to increase your consumption of leafy greens and other plants

Breathing, Drinking Water, and Electrosmog

Tying all of this information discussed above together, we now know why breathing clean air and drinking pure water (free from toxins, but maybe has some dissolved minerals) and being out in nature is so integral to physical health. The electrochemical reactions of cellular respiration processes and the oxygen transport system require ideal environmental conditions including optimal pH/voltage values and levels of EZ water in cells. Any toxin or pollutant that disrupts those ideal environmental conditions will most likely result in some kind of serious disease or loss of vitality in the exposed organism.

Oxygen gas is entering our bodies through our respiratory tract to bind to hemoglobin for transport to cells for cellular respiration processes. The carbonic acid buffering system in our circulatory system involving bicarbonate, carbonic acid, and carbon dioxide, must not be upset during this process and excess carbon dioxide must be removed from our bodies by exhalation. Based on the information discussed previously, these electrochemical reactions between water, oxygen, carbon dioxide, bicarbonate, carbonic acid and hemoglobin are most likely being disrupted by electrosmog and chemical toxins. Again, these fundamental substances for life will not react in the correct way to achieve organism homeostasis and optimal health unless the pH/voltage conditions are ideal. For example, per Dr. Tennant, less oxygen is able to dissolve in fluids with a lower pH/voltage, so there is a positive feedback loop there resulting in a deteriorating cellular environment that allows cancerous growth to thrive, or for an infection to grow out of control.

All in all, it may be that not enough negative charge is entering into people’s bodies due to electrosmog, chemical toxins, and other factors which then cause low pH/voltage environments, low amounts of EZ water to form in their cells, disruption to the oxygen transport process to cells and disruption to the mitochondrial respiration processes in cells. Arthur Firstenburg, among others including Martin Pall, Magda Havas, Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, etc., make a strong case that electrosmog is contributing to the disruption of cellular electrochemical processes (e.g. Martin Pall’s research on EMFs and Voltage-Gated Calcium Channels, ‘VGCCs’ in cells).

Why are so many people suffering from chronic disease and infections?

In conclusion, the current focus of society on total war against one kind of microbe (currently coronavirus – Delta Variant) does not solve any of the underlying environmental problems contributing to poor health outcomes amongst the populace, especially poor respiratory health. In fact, sometimes getting a respiratory sickness may actually help remove toxins and damaged cellular debris from the body. The following is a general list of environmental health problems that must be remediated over the next few decades if we truly want to heal and protect others:

  • Insulated from the Earth: Wearing rubber shoes or boots all day cuts us off from receiving extra negative charge by directly insulating us from the negatively-charged earth (soil, sand, grasses, etc.).
  • Electrosmog and Light Pollution: We are surrounded by artificial EMFs from cell phones, Wi-Fi routers, cell towers and poorly configured electrical wiring for most of our day causing all kinds of health effects, including the disruption and degradation of our immune systems and circulatory systems. Visible light pollution at night is already accepted by mainstream society as a legitimate problem as it affects circadian rhythms of people and animals.
  • Enclosed Indoors: Breathing in poor quality indoor air due to poor building ventilation, volatile pollutants, molds, mites, low humidity, etc. Many are bathed in fluorescent and LED light while being cut off from receiving infrared energy from the sun.
  • Noise Pollution: Industrial machines are very loud and create jarring noises and given the findings from the growing science of cymatics, these sounds contribute to chronic stress and disease.
  • Air Pollution: Many people breathe in combustion gases (NOx, SOx, CO, etc.), volatile organic pollutants, particulate matter, and smoke in outdoor air across the world.
  • Water Pollution: Drinking water is potentially contaminated with thousands of different industrial chemicals (e.g. PFAS, TCE, PCE, benzene, lead, excessive chlorine and fluoride, etc.) in addition to traces of many pharmaceuticals including antidepressants and hormonal drugs.
  • Food Pollution: Many of us eat industrial food covered with dozens of herbicides and pesticides including glyphosate, chlorpyrifos, atrazine, etc. which cause all kinds of health effects especially the disruption of the gut microbiome. GMOs, high fructose corn syrup, and other artificial food ingredients are not easily digestible, increase obesity and inhibit nutrient uptake in the body. Sodas are low-pH beverages that may cause bodily pH imbalances in people.
  • Mental/Emotional Pollution: Authorities, media outlets and/or abusive people who attempt to control us by manipulating our fears, doubts and insecurities. Many people are addicted to pornography or romance novels (fake intimacy mediated by a screen or book, due to lack of available intimacy in disrupted social networks). Many people are also addicted to video games (artificial adventures replace the real missions we must go on in the real world, for example, missions to restore our planet). Finally, many of us have excessive anxiety and stress caused by the pace and complexity of modern life and a lack of a strong social network.

As I’ve and others, have stated repeatedly, the coronavirus is exposing the toxicity of the environments we have created via Loius Pastuer’s quote “The microbe is nothing, the environmental conditions (the terrain) everything.” Pharmaceuticals and vaccines may ameliorate symptoms or temporarily prevent health problems related to infections but they have serious side effects and risks. Also, they distract from focusing on remediating the underlying environmental health problems in our society that are growing more alarming by the day. The current focus on vaccinating over 90% of the population with coercion and totalitarian controls does nothing to solve these environmental problems. Who is going to help shift the focus?

Flashback to The Ecology of Health

Environmental Health, Philosophy,

In August of 2020, I wrote the following in my post, The Ecology of Health:

“Lockdowns, mandatory masks, social distancing and mandatory vaccinations all have serious side effects on people’s physical and mental health, and these effects (e.g. increased depression from social isolation and job loss) are the collateral damage from a total war approach.  Instead of the germ warfare approach, why not improve people’s immune systems and their local environments so they can withstand viral infections much more easily?  This approach would help for any number of infectious diseases including influenza.  Germ warfare only solves one problem (eradicating the germ) at the expense of causing extensive collateral damage, while the environmental/immune system approach solves many problems all at the same time, though this approach will take longer to have an effect.

Another quote from The Way:  An Ecological World-View sums up the problems with the germ warfare approach succinctly:  ‘Unfortunately technological expedients [e.g. lockdowns, antivirals, vaccines, social distancing, etc.] only solve technological problems. They cannot reverse the disruption of natural systems [e.g. our immune systems and environments].  Alleviating the symptoms, they render the problems more tolerable and thus serve to perpetuate them.’ Consequently, this current infectious disease crisis could go on perpetually if the environmental health problems facing our society are never resolved.”

Now what happened in 2021? The experimental vaccines were rolled out which contributed to the mutation of the coronavirus into the Delta variant, which has spread across many countries including those that were heavily vaccinated. This is similar to the problem of overusing antibiotics over the past few decades leading to the mutation of bacteria into “superbugs” that resist antibiotic treatments. Indeed, it looks like the current crisis will continue on until we change course.

The chapter titled ‘The War on Germs’ in Charles Eisenstein’s book, The Ascent of Humanity, is even more eerily prescient of the current crisis as it was published over 14 years ago in 2007, here is an excerpt from it with emphasis by me:

“The new diseases of the modern era are of a different sort.  Cancer, arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease, Crohn’s Disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, AIDS, and so on defy the medicine of control, which has made almost no progress in curing them despite research outlays dwarfing those of the vaccine/antibiotic era.  Significantly, most if not all of these new diseases involve a dysfunction of the immune system.

Helpless against the diseases of the 21st century, we instead take ever more extreme measures against the microbial world.  One manifestation of the war on germs is the proliferation of antibacterial soaps, latex gloves for all food service workers, and strap-on mouthguards that appeared (and in some cases were legally mandated) during the Asian SARS ‘epidemic.’  These devices constitute a physical barrier between self and world, concretizing the psychological distance that separates us from each other and nature. Sometimes I have nightmare visions of a future where the very idea of breathing in each other’s unfiltered air is repulsive and illegal, where everyone wears a gas mask and all human contact is mediated through latex or computer terminals.

Equally frightening is the current hysteria about avian flu. Since it is supposedly spread by wild birds to poultry flocks, some officials are implementing new controls prohibiting chickens from ranging free. Yet it is the caged indoor hens with their debilitated immune systems that are the most susceptible, and it is factory methods of poultry production that actually spread the disease. A related proposal in the United States is the National Animal Identification System (NAIS), which would mandate that a digital tag be embedded under the skin of all livestock. Everywhere, the technologies of control are the same: separation, confinement, and the numbering of all things.

As long as their ideological underpinnings remain intact, none of these trends will abate. Already medical microchips are available that can be embedded under human skin to monitor various physiological states. In Asia during SARS, body temperature readings were taken as condition for entering certain public facilities. Potential epidemics offer a rationale for the quarantine of populations and control over their movements – an internal passport system justified on medical pretexts. All such measures make perfect sense from the mindset of separation and control.”

Replace the words ‘chickens’ and ‘livestock’ with “people” in the third paragraph of the excerpt above and what do you have going on here in the world in 2021? We have other options, we could be collectively embarking on a massive environmental restoration operation to improve people’s local environments and reduce the disruption and debilitation of their immune systems. Restoration of agricultural soils, growing more nutritious food, cleaning up toxic waste sites, reducing air pollution, removing cell towers from residential areas, etc. What is it going to take to get all that going instead of more and more control measures and coercion?

Voluntary Simplicity and the Regenerative Farming Movement

Philosophy, ,

Many people, young and old, are becoming involved in the regenerative farming movement, which is a great sign that our society is slowly turning toward an ecological age. Though one major hurdle these people face is the fact that in our society farming does not pay very well, financially speaking. I work at an organic farm myself and it is definitely not financially lucrative which makes it difficult to start a family or to get out of debt. Even many who start a farm and own the business struggle to obtain an average middle class income for themselves as explained in this issue of the Natural Farmer magazine, “Farming for a Living Wage”: http://www.nofa.org/tnf/2017_SpringSectionB.pdf. Though, some farmers become quite successful after 5 years or so. Also, socially and spiritually speaking, organic farming it is a very rewarding vocation, so there are other reasons to do it.

Given that many of us live in extremely financial societies, a potential way out of this predicament is to embrace voluntary simplicity and live on much less than what is the average per-capita income in developed nations. Obviously, this is easier said than done and I am still trying to find a way to make it work (and I may have to find another environmental job if it doesn’t work out). Fortunately, there are many books are out there detailing how to live on a half to a quarter of the average middle class income without becoming destitute, here is a partial list:

Simple Prosperity by David Wann

How to Survive Without a Salary by Charles Long

Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein (it is free to read on this website: https://sacred-economics.com/read-online/)

Eisenstein’s book is more philosophical than the other books but brings up important questions such as: why do we necessarily need rising incomes? With ever rising incomes and economic growth, goods and services that people used to give each other for free in a gift society or for low prices in a local economy are now captured by the global marketplace and sold back to us at prices most of us struggle to afford. Also, increasing incomes tend to decrease community and the feelings of being closely connected to a group of people and relying on them for assistance.

The social and economic pressure to make a lot of money in order to maintain social status, create a long-term relationship, start a family and support ageing parents is very high, especially in developed nations. Unfortunately, many opportunities to make a lot of money involve stressful soul-crushing jobs, deterioration of friendships and substantial ecological destruction. But as more people gravitate to the voluntary simplicity lifestyle and other movements (degrowth, transition towns) because of intensifying life crises (e.g. leave the job they hate, laid off, relationship falls apart, etc.) this socioeconomic pressure to maintain appearances will ease. That, in turn, may help lessen the anxiety and depression epidemic which affects every income bracket. The key would be to view the crisis as a blessing in disguise, and not as a descent into poverty, although the transition may be quite rocky both physically and mentally. Afterwards, another key would be to start thinking of wealth in your life in terms of social capital, natural capital, and health capital instead of in terms of financial capital.

Here is an excerpt from Rob O’Grady’s book 150-Strong: A Pathway To A Different Future on this topic of socioeconomic pressures or as he calls it, the ‘burden of material expectation’:

“Each person will have a different level of resources to maintaining their [social] networks, but, interestingly, it is usually those who have the fewest possessions who are most likely to be able to authentically say that they are in touch with their 150. Perhaps, this is the reason why levels of depression are lower in societies where there is less [material] wealth. From my time in the Philippines, where there is much material want, I was able to compare the psychological state of people there with those in developed Western countries. Despite the lack of material resources in the poorer communities, there was almost always a network of support surrounding each person, and a much lower burden of material expectation. These networks are much more resilient than one might suppose of a network of mere friends living independent lives [i.e. a group of friends spread out across a big city or a rural county in a developed nation].”

Anything we do to lower the burden of material expectation in developed societies will likely help lower the levels of anxiety and depression. This could involve doing such things as changing zoning laws at the local level to allow for tiny houses or small cabins to be built on farmland or suburban/urban lots, converting vacant 2-3 story houses into affordable apartments and allowing for composting toilets instead of expensive septic systems. All in all, the voluntary simplicity lifestyle fits in very well with the tiny house, permaculture, intentional community and regenerative farming movements that are becoming more popular by the day.

In the social sphere, frugal people could get together and show others that people can form friendships, date, have loving relationships and potentially start families without a lot of financial capital (as long as they have sufficient social and health capital, of course, such as extended family and friends to help raise children). With the current crisis going on, we are actually seeing many young people move back to their hometowns, home states or nearby, potentially rebuilding the stock of social capital that had previously left these places.

By reclaiming social, natural and cultural capital from the financial system, the focus of society could then turn to regenerative farming, ecological healing and growing social relationships instead of accumulating and hoarding money and material things.

The Ecology of Health

Environmental Health, Philosophy,

Around 70 years ago, the microbiologist Rene Dubos started publicly discussing his philosophy of health called the “Ecology of Health.”  Here is a discussion of Dubos’ life and views:  Rene Dubos and the Ecology of Health.

Rene Dubos discussed the idea of the microbiome inside of humans, its relationship to the environment, and its relationship to disease decades before this idea became a mainstream topic.   The microbiome and even the virome (i.e. the community of viruses inside of an organism) resemble ecosystems with different species of microbes and different types of viruses interacting with each other inside of the bodies of larger organisms (e.g. plants and animals).  Disruptions to the balance and harmony of these microecosystems can lead to disease and bad health outcomes.

Here is an excerpt from environmentalist Edward Goldsmith’s magnum opus, The Way:  An Ecological World-View:  “Man will always be inhabited by vast populations of microbes; indeed, according to the American microbiologist Lynn Margulis, known for her work on microbial ecology and the Gaia thesis, we harbor in our bodies as many microbial cells (prokaryotes) as animal cells (eukaryotes), most of them playing an essential role in our metabolism.  [Rene] Dubos traces the source of diseases to a breakdown in the critical balance between man and his microbial populations, brought about by a range of possible factors such as old age, malnutrition [e.g. zinc deficiency, vitamin D deficiency], exposure to low-level radiation [e.g. wireless EMR, radon] or to chemical pollutants [e.g. glyphosate and/or other chemicals disrupting the gut flora, air pollution, etc.]…  Louis Pasteur, who was the first to incriminate the microorganism, eventually saw the error of his ways [‘The microbe is nothing, the terrain everything’].  W.R. Day, an authority on plant diseases, also saw very clearly that blaming the parasite leads to the neglect of fundamental causes.  An infectious disease may be caused by a subtle combination of factors which reduces the resistance of an organism, making it vulnerable to an attack which, under normal [e.g. pristine, healthy] conditions, it would repel with ease.”

The human body has a community of viruses (i.e. a microecosystem or virome),  including rhinoviruses, coronaviruses, and influenza viruses that increase and decrease over the seasons, year after year (see this paper:  Virus – Virus Dynamics in Glasgow 2005-2013, which describes how the community of viruses within the human respiratory tract and the human population as a whole changes and interacts over time).  Dr. Skip Virgin gave an interesting talk at the NIH about the mammalian virome and how it resembles a microecosystem.  Also, it may be that these viruses are actually conveying genetic/environmental information about environmental toxins to cells of the body using a form of horizontal gene transfer.

Community of Viruses
A graph from the Virus-Virus Dynamics research paper showing the changes in the prevalence of certain viruses (e.g. RV = Rhinovirus, IAV/IAB = Influenza, CoV = Coronavirus) in the population of Glasgow over time.

The author Charles Eisenstein and Dr. Zach Bush discuss these various virus topics in this podcast titled “Life is a Community”:  https://charleseisenstein.org/podcasts/new-and-ancient-story-podcast/dr-zach-bush-life-is-a-community-e49/.  Part of the discussion in this podcast is analogous to this discussion of exosome theory which theorizes that viruses are actually damaged DNA/RNA remnants (exosomes) of cells that were damaged by chemical toxins or another type of adverse environmental effect (e.g. stress and anxiety).  Though, in slight contradiction to that exosome theory discussion, it is possible that exosomes could then “infect” other people to transfer the genetic/environmental information about the toxin to the next person.

Despite Rene Dubos’ work and these alternative health theories, why is our society still wedded to germ theory and germ warfare?  Is it because this theory is very profitable for certain pharmaceutical companies and segments of modern medicine? Terrain theory, the theory that disease is more of a function of the environmental conditions within and around the diseased organism than the actions of the microbe, is not taught widely throughout society.   However, terrain theory matches up quite well with the ecology of health philosophy (as well as exosome theory), so here is a discussion of terrain theory by a chiropractic physician to tie my discussion all together:  Germ Theory vs. Terrain Theory.

What is the Best Approach?

Considering the insights provided by the ecology of health philosophy, terrain theory, and exosome theory, is declaring total war against just one of hundreds of microbes the best approach to a pandemic made worse or that is arguably caused by environmental problems?  Another microbe will just take its place, leading to perpetual war if the environmental problems are not resolved.  In addition, how are sick people supposed to truly heal when we turn their bodies and environments into a war zone?  How are healthcare workers and environmental health specialists supposed to address the hundreds of other diseases people are suffering from if the CDC and the WHO tell them to put the majority of their focus onto just one virus?  That doesn’t make much sense, honestly.  Maybe if the mortality rate of the coronavirus was 5%, but it is far lower than that, approaching 0.1 to 0.2%.  And the mortality rate across different areas of the world is directly correlated with environmental problems such as air pollution and malnutrition.

Lockdowns, mandatory masks, social distancing and mandatory vaccinations all have serious side effects on people’s physical and mental health, and these effects (e.g. increased depression from social isolation and job loss) are the collateral damage from a total war approach.  Instead of the germ warfare approach, why not improve people’s immune systems and their local environments so they can withstand viral infections much more easily?  This approach would help for any number of infectious diseases including influenza.  Germ warfare only solves one problem (eradicating the germ) at the expense of causing extensive collateral damage, while the environmental/immune system approach solves many problems all at the same time, though this approach will take longer to have an effect.

Another quote from The Way:  An Ecological World-View sums up the problems with the germ warfare approach succinctly:  “Unfortunately technological expedients [e.g. lockdowns, antivirals, vaccines, social distancing, etc.] only solve technological problems. They cannot reverse the disruption of natural systems [e.g. our immune systems and environments].  Alleviating the symptoms, they render the problems more tolerable and thus serve to perpetuate them.” Consequently, this current infectious disease crisis could go on perpetually if the environmental health problems facing our society are never resolved.

Anything we do to strengthen our immune systems and improve the environments that surround us will help to end this crisis.  We are the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and the information we absorb.   One of the silver linings to this crisis is that many people are finally waking up to the immense environmental problems our society is grappling with, and hopefully significant changes on that front will occur over the next few years.  [PS, I hope these changes happen from the ground up on a individual and local level because I definitely do not have a favorable opinion of the UN’s Agenda 2030 plan].