The technology manufacturing giant, Foxconn has been given permission to drain 7 million gallons of water a day from Lake Michigan to use for free in their factory.
The post Gov’t Just Gave Foxconn License to Drain 7 Million Gallons a DAY from Lake Michigan to Make iPhones appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
(The Real Agenda News) Science proves it: Living in large cities results in less healthy life.
Urban life is harmful to health, so how can we transfer this public health emergency to the citizenship and the decision-making process?
More than 100,000 scientific articles talk about air pollution and health, according to Pubmed, the largest database of biomedical publications.
The scientific evidence is clear: current urban life has serious negative impacts on our health. But the simple fact of living in a city should not imply these risks, especially because they are perfectly avoidable.
We have a double challenge ahead: to make this information understandable to public opinion, that is, for people on the street who are not scientists, and as the ultimate goal, to transfer it to political decision-making.
The company ISGlobal developed the interactive digital report The Cities We Want, which aims to summarize and adapt scientific information on urban life and health so that it is understandable to a general public.
Scientists and communicators have started working together to explain with simple words, videos and illustrations, the keys to build healthier and more sustainable cities.
During the preparation of the report, one of the key messages that we have heard the most from scientists is that it is a global public health emergency that can be addressed from today, because there are many measures available to design healthy cities. That is, the situation is very serious but there are solutions.
The cities we want are cities designed for people: spaces with good air quality, low noise levels and no heat islands. Urban environments with more green spaces that promote healthy levels of physical activity.
So here are 5 measures that cities can apply to put health at the center of priorities:
1. Reducing Air pollution from motorized traffic
Cities were built mainly around cars generate pollution and promote unhealthy lifestyles. In some cities private vehicles occupy between 65% and 70% of the city’s space.
The World Health Organization proposes a series of comprehensive solutions to recover public space for pedestrians and cyclists, as well as to reduce levels of air pollution – a toxic air we breathe in 98% of cities in low-income countries, and in 56% of high-income countries.
2. Reducing noise caused by motorized traffic
Urban planning also plays an essential role in reducing noise levels. The populations most report noise pollution, create noise maps and carry out action plans to reduce noise in the most affected areas.
Some of the most frequent strategies are the use of sound-reducing pavement in the roadways, the limit of traffic volume, the reduction of speed limits or the promotion of silent zones and the creation of green spaces.
3. Increase Physical activity through active transport
Lack of physical activity is the fourth risk factor for global mortality and causes one in four cases of breast and colon cancers.
Active transport, or moving on foot or by bicycle on a daily basis is the most practical and sustainable way to increase physical activity.
A good public transport network makes it easier for citizens to walk and reduce the use of private vehicles. In addition, the availability of green spaces is important to perform physical activity safely.
These measures are collected in a study published in The Lancet, which analyzes physical activity in 14 large cities.
4. Reduce the infrastructure for motorized vehicles and increase green spaces
In the cities, the temperatures are usually higher than in the areas that surround them and the night temperature can reach up to 10 degrees more than in the surrounding area. This effect is known as “heat island”.
Islands of heat and high temperatures increase mortality, especially cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.
For this reason, it is necessary that the urban design incorporates as a priority the prevention of the increase in temperatures.
The insulation of buildings can be improved to depend less on the use of air conditioning, to change urban materials for others that absorb less solar radiation, etc.
There are several mitigation plans, such as this guide from the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
5. More natural spaces to increase access to nature
The city of the future must be a green city. Scientific studies associate green spaces – urban parks, gardens, tree-lined streets or forests, among others – to numerous health benefits, such as stress reduction, the fact of living longer or in a better state of general and mental health.
Nature must be part of the city. Beyond scattered points, the natural spaces must be a plot that communicates all the urban space and benefits all the citizens.
It is estimated that with better urban planning and transportation, cities could avoid 20% of premature deaths each year.
The post 5 Ways to Improve Urban Living and Reduce Premature Death appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Our most recent article about the most recent minor eruptions at Yellowstone briefly touched on the mitigation process this type of disaster entails and the evacuation efforts that would need to be made for millions before a supervolcano were to erupt. This brings to mind an even greater question of how the world governments would be able to feed and care for citizens without the help of the sun.
Following a massive volcanic eruption, and especially in the case of a supervolcano erupting, the eruption would blast 240 cubic miles of rock, dust and volcanic ash into the sky. This would spread throughout the world and lower global temperatures by up to 28 degrees for years and cause what scientists refer to as volcanic winter. Due to the debris and ash spewing into the atmosphere, the sun will be blocked, and crops would not be able to grow. As a result, this would cause worldwide famine. Additionally, abnormal rainfall will cause major rivers around the world to flood.
In 1816, a similar situation arose when the world experienced a decrease in global temperatures caused by a volcanic eruption and caused major food shortages and famine. The anomaly was predominantly due to a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies. This event was exacerbated by a previous eruption in 1814 of Mayon in the Philippines. Adding to this dire time, the world was already in a centuries-long period of global cooling that began in the 14th century, and the volcanic eruptions in the early 1800’s only added to the agricultural distress in Europe. Failed harvests were widespread and deeply felt.
“Food riots broke out in the United Kingdom and France, and grain warehouses were looted. The violence was worst in landlocked Switzerland, where famine caused the government to declare a national emergency. Huge storms and abnormal rainfall with flooding of Europe’s major rivers (including the Rhine) are attributed to the event, as is the August frost. A major typhus epidemic occurred in Ireland between 1816 and 1819, precipitated by the famine caused by the Year Without a Summer. An estimated 100,000 Irish perished during this period.”
To prevent history from repeating itself, scientists have been searching for ways to feed the world without the help of the sun.
“At least two scientists have already sketched out a blueprint. In their 2015 book Feeding Everyone No Matter What, David Denkenberger and Joshua Pearce propose several ways to feed billions of people without the help of the sun.
Denkenberger, an architectural engineer at Tennessee State University in Nashville, started moonlighting as a catastrophe researcher a few years ago after reading that fungi may have thrived after previous mass extinctions. If humans ever face a similar threat, he thought, ‘Why don’t we just eat the mushrooms and not go extinct?’
Indeed, people could grow mushrooms on leaf litter and on the trunks of trees killed by the disaster, Denkenberger says. Even better would be raising methane-digesting bacteria on diets of natural gas, or converting the cellulose in plant biomass to sugar, a process already used to make biofuel. Denkenberger and Pearce—an engineering professor at Michigan Technological University in Houghton—calculate that by retrofitting existing industrial plants, survivors of the catastrophe could produce enough of such alternative foods to feed the world’s population several times over.
Of course, a few other ingredients would have to survive as well: infrastructure, international cooperation, and the rule of law. Whether human society endures or snaps is the unknown on which everything else could hinge, says Seth Baum, executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute in New York City, a nonprofit think tank whose researchers include Denkenberger.
‘How would we fare? I think the only reasonable answer one can give to the question at this time is that we have absolutely no idea,’ Baum says. To him, social resilience after a catastrophe is just another question for scientists to address, instead of leaving it to dystopian writers and doomsday preppers.
Not that he has anything against survivalists. ‘As much as they might seem silly on television, I’m actually a little happier knowing that there are people out there doing that stuff,’ Baum says. He quickly adds, ‘Hopefully, it’ll never come down to just that.’”
Source: ScienceMag.org
Fortunately, there are scientists and teams of individuals looking out for the human population and finding ways to keep us alive during the worst possible circumstances. But, as Seth Baum remarked in reference to preppers and survivalists, it is a relief knowing there are people out there doing stuff to get ready and are preparing for the worst-case scenario.
The post How Scientists Plan to Feed Billions Without the Help of the Sun appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
– According to many experts, chronic, heavy exposure to wireless radiation is likely having severe repercussions for our health, especially that of children, who are now being exposed even before birth
– While a number of different devices contribute to the overall radiation burden, those kept closest to your body on a regular basis, such as your cellphone, are of greatest concern
– Your body has natural electromagnetic fields (EMFs), as many of your bodily processes involves the transmission of electric signals, and external interference can disrupt those signals
– Inside every cell in your body are mitochondria, the power plants of your cell, and they are adversely impacted by EMFs, resulting in mitochondrial and cellular dysfunction
– Two organs most vulnerable to outside RF interference are your heart and brain. Both also have the highest density of voltage gated calcium channels, which are inappropriately activated by EMFs, thereby causing most of the damage associated with EMF exposure
By Dr. Mercola
Most people today live in a sea of radiofrequencies (RF), emitted from wireless technologies of all kinds, from routers to smartphones, tablets, baby monitors, TVs, appliances, smart meters and more. In the featured ABC program “Wi-Fried,” originally aired in 2016, Maryanne Demasi, Ph.D., investigates the alleged safety of mobile devices.
According to many experts, chronic, heavy exposure could be having severe repercussions for our health, especially that of children, who are now being exposed even before birth.
As noted by Devra Davis, Ph.D., an epidemiologist and author of the book, “Disconnect: The Truth About Cell Phone Radiation,” children have never before been exposed to this level of pulsed radiation, and it’s still too early to determine the exact extent of the harm. Still, mounting evidence suggests harm is indeed occurring, so it would be foolish to wait until we’re in the midst of a global catastrophe.
While a number of different devices contribute to the overall radiation burden, those kept closest to your body on a regular basis, such as your cellphone, are of greatest concern. Worldwide, there are more than 6 billion cellphone subscriptions. In other words, we’re rapidly nearing total saturation, where every single person on the planet has one of these devices.
Many of these mobile phones are smartphones, with apps that frequently receive and transmit pulsed electromagnetic signals. The human body also has natural electromagnetic fields (EMFs), as many of your bodily processes involves the transmission of electric signals, and as noted by Demasi, “External interference can disrupt those signals.” In a 2016 article, Jerry Phillips, Ph.D., a biochemist and director of the Excel Science Center at the University of Colorado, explained how living cells react to RF radiation:1
“The signal couples with … cells, although nobody really knows what the nature of that coupling is. Some effects of that reaction can be things like movement of calcium across membranes, the production of free radicals or a change in the expression of genes in the cell.
Suddenly important proteins are being expressed at times and places and in amounts that they shouldn’t be, and that has a dramatic effect on the function of the cells. And some of these changes are consistent with what’s seen when cells undergo conversion from normal to malignant.”
When you consider that your body runs on bioelectricity, it’s easier to understand how and why biological damage from wireless phones might occur.2 For starters, your body has natural EMFs, as many of your bodily processes involves the transmission of electric signals, and external interference can disrupt those signals.
In recent years, it’s become increasingly clear that mitochondrial dysfunction is at the root of most chronic disease, so in terms of public health, the effects of chronic EMF exposure may be far more profound than currently suspected. We may not only face an avalanche of brain cancer in coming decades, but also heart disease, neurological disease and infertility.
Two of the organs that are the most vulnerable to outside RF interference are your heart and your brain. Both of these organs also have the highest density of voltage gated calcium channels (VGCCs). Research.3,4,5,6 by Martin Pall, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of biochemistry and basic medical sciences at Washington State University,7 suggests VGCCs are activated by low-intensity EMFs such as those emitted from cellphones, triggering an excessive influx of calcium into the cell.
The excess intracellular calcium and the increased calcium signaling appears to be responsible for most if not all of the biological effects associated with EMF exposure, which include an increase in:
| Neuropsychiatric disorders and diseases such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, autism and Alzheimer’s8 | Hormonal effects | Cardiac effects | Chromosomal breaks |
| Impaired fertility especially in men | Oxidative stress | Changes in calcium signaling | Cellular DNA damage |
| Breakdown of the blood-brain barrier | Cancer | Melatonin depletion | Sleep disruption |
As early as 1990, before there even was a consumer cellphone industry, at least two dozen epidemiological studies on humans indicated a link between EMF and/or RF and serious health problems, including childhood leukemia. Most recently, two government-funded studies9,10,11,12,13 — one on mice and one on rats — found evidence of heart tumors and damage to the brain and DNA.
This $25 million research, conducted by the National Toxicology Program — an interagency research program housed at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences — is said to be the most extensive to date, and it confirms that the heart and brain are key areas affected by high, chronic EMF exposure.
Earlier research14 by Allan Frey, Office of Naval Research, also revealed cellphone radiation weakens cell membranes, including your blood-brain barrier, placing your brain at further increased risk by allowing systemic toxins to enter.
Male testes are a third area with high VGCC density, and indeed, studies have linked EMF exposure to male fertility problems as well. Cellphone radiation has been linked to a reduction in sperm motility and viability,15,16 and Wi-Fi equipped laptops have been linked to sperm DNA fragmentation after just four hours of use.17
Disturbingly, most people will carry their cellphones either in their breast pocket or pants pocket, effectively radiating the most sensitive parts of their body — their heart and reproductive organs. Then, when talking on the phone, they will place it to their ear, exposing their brain.
Pregnant women are also exposing their unborn children to harmful radiation when carrying a cellphone on their body, or using it near their body. According to recent research, prenatal exposure to power-frequency fields can nearly triple a pregnant woman’s risk of miscarriage.18 Several other studies have also linked prenatal EMF exposure to an increased risk of miscarriage.19,20,21,22,23
With regard to brain cancer, it’s important to remember that brain cancer typically has a long latency period. According to Davis, it took 40 years before the brain cancer rate in the Japanese population spiked after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Compared to radioactive radiation, RF is likely far less carcinogenic, but the fact that we have not seen a dramatic increase in brain cancer rates as of yet is by no means proof that flooding your brain with RFs is harmless.
It simply means we haven’t been using cellphones long enough yet. In my view, it seems really foolish to make such a gamble with entire generations of people. Davis also points out that if you want to get an indication of how cellphone use is influencing brain cancer rates, you have to look at the types of brain tumors that have become predominant, and the groups in which they occur.
In recent years, we have in fact seen a statistically significant uptick in brain cancer in younger people and children. We’ve also seen an increase in tumors situated near the ear on the side people hold their phones.
Also noted in the featured video is that anytime you carry your phone on your body and it is not in airplane mode, you are, breaching the safety limits of your phone. This safety limit, known as the specific absorption rate (SAR), is typically buried in the legal section of your phone, but will state that you need to keep the phone at a specified distance from your body to prevent overexposure and potential heat damage.
Demasi’s cellphone specified a safety limit of 10 millimeters, meaning she would need to keep it at least 1 centimeter from her body at all times. So, it’s important to realize that your cellphone no longer complies with safety regulations once it’s placed in your pocket or bra. It’s also worth noting that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) bases its thermal safety standards on a model that does not apply to the population at large, especially not children.
The standards are based on a model called “standard anthropomorphic man,” a model much larger than the average person. The larger the body, the shallower the penetration of the radiation, so SAR levels are likely too generous for most people. The experts interviewed believe it’s safe to say that most people breach the SAR limits of their phones on a daily basis, possibly exposing themselves to heat-induced cell damage.
However, it’s important to realize that the SAR value of your phone is worthless when it comes to assessing the safety of your phone, as the most significant damage is not caused by heating. In reality, there’s no such thing as a safe cellphone, as they all emit EMFs. The only way to make it safe is to turn it off, or keep it in airplane mode, which suspends RF signal transmissions. Pall calculates that the safety standards based on thermal damage, not molecular biology, are off by a factor of 7 million.
As noted in the video, safety standards are based on the decades old and now-debunked theory that no damage can occur unless the tissue is heated, but mounting evidence strongly suggests this simply isn’t true, and a number of different mechanisms of harm have been presented in the scientific literature in recent years.
There’s even evidence suggesting that radiation affects your microbiome, turning what might otherwise be beneficial microbes pathogenic. This too can have far-ranging health effects, since we now know your microbiome plays an important role in health. Importantly, while the mechanisms may differ, the end result is often the same. In short, EMFs:
As of September 2018, France will impose a complete ban on cellphone use by primary and secondary school students during school hours.24 Students will not be permitted to use their phones even at breaks, lunch or between classes. California also recently issued consumer guidance on how to lower cellphone radiation exposure (after initially trying to cover up the hazards).25
Russia has also implemented laws to minimize Wi-Fi exposure in schools,26 and countries like Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Israel and China have RF exposure limits that are up to 10,000 times lower than the U.S.27
In my mind, EMF exposure is unquestionably a significant health hazard that needs to be addressed if you’re concerned about your health. Schools, especially, really should take a step back and begin to implement strategies to protect students. There’s simply no reason to flood children with wireless signals all day long.
In the featured video, an Australian school simply installed an on/off switch on the router in each classroom. Unless online access is required for a particular lesson, the Wi-Fi is turned off. If you have Wi-Fi in your home, I would recommend implementing a similar strategy at home.
Here are several other suggestions that will also help reduce your EMF exposure:
| Connect your desktop computer to the internet via a wired Ethernet connection and be sure to put your desktop in airplane mode. Also avoid wireless keyboards, trackballs, mice, game systems, printers and portable house phones and opt for wired versions. |
| If you must use Wi-Fi, shut it off when not in use, especially at night when you are sleeping. Ideally, work toward hardwiring your house so you can eliminate Wi-Fi altogether. If you have a notebook without any Ethernet ports, a USB Ethernet adapter will allow you to connect to the internet with a wired connection. |
| Shut off the electricity to your bedroom at night. This typically works to reduce electrical fields from the wires in your wall unless there is an adjoining room next to your bedroom. If that is the case, use an EMF meter to determine if you also need to power down the adjacent room. |
| Use a battery-powered alarm clock, ideally one without any light. I use a talking clock for the visually impaired.28 |
| If you still use a microwave oven, consider replacing it with a steam convection oven, which will heat your food as quickly and far more safely. |
| Avoid using “smart” appliances and thermostats that depend on wireless signaling. This would include all new “smart” TVs. They are called smart because they emit a Wi-Fi signal, and unlike your computer, you cannot shut the Wi-Fi signal off. Consider using a large computer monitor as your TV instead, as they don’t emit Wi-Fi. |
| Refuse smart meters as long as you can, or add a shield to an existing smart meter, some of which have been shown to reduce radiation by 98 to 99 percent.29 |
| Consider moving your baby’s bed into your bedroom instead of using a wireless baby monitor. Alternatively, use a hard-wired monitor. |
| Replace CFL bulbs with incandescent bulbs. Ideally remove all fluorescent lights from your house. Not only do they emit unhealthy light, but more importantly, they will actually transfer current to your body just being close to the bulbs. |
| Avoid carrying your cellphone on your body unless in airplane mode and never sleep with it in your bedroom unless it is in airplane mode. Even in airplane mode it can emit signals, which is why I put my phone in a Faraday bag.30 |
| When using your cellphone, use the speaker phone and hold the phone at least 3 feet away from you. Seek to radically decrease your time on the cellphone. I typically use my cellphone less than 30 minutes a month, and mostly when traveling. Instead, use VoIP software phones that you can use while connected to the internet via a wired connection. |
The post ‘Wi-Fried’ — Is Wireless Technology Dooming a Generation to Ill Health? appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Everything changed for Dr. Tyrone Hayes when in 1998, the largest chemical company in the world asked him to use his expertise to try and understand if its top-selling product interfered with the hormones of frogs.
The company: Syngenta. The product: weedkiller atrazine.
Hayes, an American biologist and professor of Integrative Biology at University of California, Berkeley, discussed in his nearly 16-minute TEDxBerkeley talk the results of exposing African clawed frogs in his lab to atrazine. He presented an image up on the big screen of frog testes, showing a considerable difference between the controlled and exposed groups, and said:
“The controlled testes, if you look under the microscope, is full of sperm soldiers ready to go. The atrazine-treated testes, the testicular tubules are filled with cellular debris.”
Hayes explained how after exposure to atrazine, frogs that were genetic males became completely functioning reproductive females. In another frog species, he showed the gonads with “eggs that are bursting through the surface of the male’s testes.”
Yikes.
Read ‘Atrazine’s Dark Secrets Reemerge in Must-See TEDx Talk’
h/t: Organic Consumer’s Organization
The post Must-See TEDx Talk. Syngenta Weedkiller appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
Most air travelers are oblivious to the fact that the airline industry forces them to breath in highly toxic jet engine air due to what is, from the perspective of the public health, imbecilic and ruthlessly neglectful aircraft design.
When the issue of so-called aerotoxicity first came to my attention, I could hardly believe what I was learning: namely, that hundreds of thousands of passengers and crew each day are forced to breath in highly toxic chemicals, which the airline industry knows about but has done virtually nothing to mitigate or resolve since the inception of the practice almost six decades ago.
The facts speak for themselves, and today nearly every airplane designed and produced by the world’s airplane manufacturers forces everyone within them to breath in highly neurotoxic chemicals like tri-cresyl phosphates (TCPs) which are used to lubricate and maintain the jet engines. Were this seat belt safety design, it would be the equivalent of mandating passengers ride on the roof of cars without anything holding them down!
Here are some of the known side effects of short term exposures to the fumes:
“Blurred or tunnel vision, disorientation, memory impairment, shaking and tremors, nausea/vomiting, paresthesias, loss of balance and vertigo, seizures, loss of consciousness, headache, lightheadedness, dizziness, confusion and feeling intoxicated, breathing difficulties (shortness of breath, tightness in chest, respiratory failure), increased heart rate and palpitations, nystagmus, irritation (eyes, nose and upper airways).” [Source]
Here are some of the known symptoms of long term low level exposure or residual symptoms from short term exposure to the fumes:
“memory impairment, forgetfulness, lack of coordination, nausea/vomiting, diarrhoea, respiratory problems, chest pain, severe headaches, dizziness and feeling intoxicated, weakness and fatigue (leading to chronic fatigue), exhaustion, increased heart rate and palpitations, numbness (fingers, lips, limbs), hot flashes, joint pain, muscle weakness and pain, salivation, irritation (eyes, nose and upper airways), skin itching and rashes, skin blisters (on uncovered body parts), signs of immunosupression, hair loss, chemical sensitivity leading to acquired or multiple chemical sensitivity.” [Source]
We’ve covered this topic before in greater depth. For instance, you can read, “Asbestos of the Sky” – The Aviation Industry’s Darkest Coverup, to learn more. You can also take a look at the full version of the timeline poster below which covers the issue going all the way back to 1936!
I’m writing about the topic again mainly because as a regular air traveler, I can not escape the clear harm that is being done to me and my fellow humankind, every time I fly. And it literally pains me not to do something about this profound health issue. I take protective supplements as often as I can before and after flying, but the reality is that until the root problem is addressed and the chemicals are removed from the air we breath, slapping band-aids on a problem will only go so far. As one prominent US lawyer once opined: “The only thing filtering this toxic soup out of the cabin are the lungs of the passenger and crew.”
The good news is that, after decades of ignoring or actively covering up the issues, minor but significant reforms are taking place internally within the airline industry. For instance, back in 2009 Boeing introduced the 787 Dreamliner, which — finally! — takes its cabin air from outside the plane and NOT directly from the engines. This move lead to Airbus officially announcing in 2016 it would allow a “bleed free” filtering option on their A320 Neo.
More recently, in September of last year, the Australian airline EasyJet announced it was retrofitting their aircraft with filters, “…to stop toxic fumes entering its passenger cabins and cockpits in a move seen as the industry’s first acknowledgment of “aerotoxic syndrome,”” as reported by The Australian. Even foreward thinking legislators are starting to take action. In July of last year, Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal proposed new legislation (The Cabin Safety Act) to protect pilots, flight attendants, and passengers from this completely preventable public health problem. While the bill appears stalled, it is part of a growing number of trends which indicate a critical mass of awareness is gathering, and this is putting pressure on the industry to reform.
Can you imagine the mass appeal among recently awoken health activated consumers for an airline alternative which would ensure that the planes provided clean air to their passengers? Take notice. Speak up. Write about it online or via social media. Also, contacting your airlines directly will have a significant impact if enough of us do it.
If you are interested in learning more there are a number of citizens’ organizations who are doing their part in keeping the public educated on the topic. Here are just a few:
© April 8, 2018 GreenMedInfo LLC. This work is reproduced and distributed with the permission of GreenMedInfo LLC. Want to learn more from GreenMedInfo? Sign up for the newsletter here http://www.greenmedinfo.com/greenmed/newsletter.
The post Why Do Airlines Force Us To Breath Toxic Air From Jet Engines? (VIDEO) appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
A team of hard-working entrepreneurs and scientists have developed a paradigm-shifting solution to air pollution that combines living organisms and sophisticated computer technology to provide a self-sustainable biological air filter.
The post Entrepreneurs Invent City Bench that Absorbs More Air Pollution Than a Small Forest appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
(RT) Residents across Oklahoma and Texas were jostled from their daily routines after hearing a loud boom Tuesday afternoon. Many were left scratching their heads and watching the skies for the source of the explosive phenomenon.
While the US Geological Survey has not reported any earthquakes in the region, the National Weather Services in Norman, Oklahoma has said it is possible that the deafening boom was the result of “a ‘bolide’ or the breaking up of a meteor.”
A flurry of baffled residents shared their comments online, trying to make sense of the afternoon shocker. One nearby resident offered his account of the mysterious heavenly “green light” he spotted that afternoon.
“Meteor flew over Oklahoma City today at about 16:20, with a sonic boom and some shaking in nearby Norman! Was beautiful green and orange streak in the daylight,” he tweeted.
Chief Meteorologist for KFOR-TV OKC Mike Morgan was completely befuddled by the extraterrestrial visitor and asked others to clarify.
One resident’s speculation revolved around reports that China’s first space observation station was due to fall into Earth’s orbit at any moment.
“I was wondering if the meteor reports in North Texas and Oklahoma were actually Tiangong-1, but it looks like we’re still a week or so from that possibly happening,” he said.
Oklahoma is no stranger to unexplained booms, which have been attributed to an assortment of different causes. Last year, Midwest City residents were perplexed by large underground booms comparable to underground explosions, one witness stated.
“It turns out, this is a really neat deal. It has to do with water underground,” said Meteorologist John Slater. “With these cold fronts coming through, the water just freezes rapidly. And as it turns out, when it freezes, it expands.”
On January 25, 2014, News On 6 speculated that F-16 fighter jets from the 138th Fighter Wing division in Tulsa peppered the area with sonic booms powerful enough to rattle furniture and windows. However, the cause of the disturbances still remains a mystery.
Another shockwave dubbed the “Bama Boom” was felt across cities in Alabama on November 14, 2017. No explanation was offered other than either a hypersonic aircraft or meteorite shower.
The post Mysterious Loud Boom Shakes Oklahoma, Locals Report Green and Orange Flashes appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
The battle to take back our food and farming system from Monsanto was never going to be easy—or quickly won.
That said, consumer awareness—and consumer demand—is chipping away at Monsanto’s GMO empire.
In this interview with Dr. Joe Mercola, for Mercola.com’s “GMO Awareness Week,” OCA’s Ronnie Cummins outlines some of the ways we are winning, and how OCA plans to keep up the pressure on Big Biotech, including:
With glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller, now being detected in the urine of 70-80 percent of Americans and 90 percent of water samples, anyone concerned about their long-term health can’t afford to ignore the potential impact of using poisons to grow our food.
Watch the interview with Ronnie Cummins
The post GMO Awareness appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
This report was originally published by Chris Martenson at PeakProsperity.com
Most experienced investors know the four most dangerous words are: This time is different.
It never is.
And yet one of my key predictions here at Peak Prosperity is that The next twenty years will be completely unlike the last twenty years.
So am I saying that things really will be different this time?
Yes, I am. But to understand why, you have to look closely at the unprecedented moment in history in which we live, as well as how the Three E’s – the Economy, Energy and Environment – all tie together now in a way they never have before.
For those who prefer their conclusions right up front, the simplest summary I can provide is that everything we think we know about “how things work” is just plain wrong.
This explains why, among many other grotesque distortions, the stock and bond markets are spectacularly overpriced and overvalued right now.
This danger is important to be aware of because when things correct, as they inevitably must, the next crash will be incredibly damaging. It could be as profound as that which dethroned Spain as a world power, permanently.
Peak Prosperity user Gyurash put this risk in context within his comment to our recent podcast on Economics for Independent Thinkers:
The mention of Paul Volker was interesting. I remember listening to a lecture given by Mr. Volker played on public radio in the mid 80s. He talked about the Spanish empire in the 16th century and the easy money train they had coming from South American gold and silver. He said that although it seemed to create great wealth it also made for a false economy in Spain. In addition to creating price bubbles, the Spanish did not use it to build much of anything other than big villas, built by itinerant foreign labor by the way, so when the gold and silver flow slowed when the biggest mines were effectively depleted, their economy crashed so hard that it never recovered, even up to today.
(Source)
Delusional Thinking
What’s worse than wishful thinking? Delusional thinking.
The sort of ideas that harm rather than help those who hold them.
Of the many current policy delusions I could rail about, perhaps the greatest of them all is the quite-impossible belief that we can have infinite growth on a finite planet.
I know, I know, refuting this is so brain-dead easy to debunk that it seems pedestrian, if not childishly so, to raise it here again. It’s quite an impossible proposition.
Even the most cursory of reviews of mining data (just one of many possible examples), show that many critical ores and minerals are vastly more difficult and expensive to extract and bring to market than they were just a few decades ago. And the trendlines keep getting worse.
But let’s go through this once again, because it’s such an important point. For those of you already on my side of the boat, please bear with me. Perhaps something new will emerge for you on this next go around.
The Harsh Math
Exponential expansion requires not just some new minerals coming to market, but exponentially more.
It works out like this. Suppose that 100 units of copper were produced in year 1, and output (as demanded by economic growth) was expanding at a 3% rate. How long would it take for production to double? The answer is that after 24 years we’d find that 203 units were being produced. So a 3% growth rate means that it takes only 24 years to fully double production.
However, the more interesting fact is that over that same 24-year stretch, if we add up each year’s production into a cumulative total we discover that 3,546 units of copper had been produced. How much copper would you guess was produced over the prior 24-year stretch (the one that got us to 100 units in the first place)?
The answer is just 1775 units. In other words, half the amount produced during the next doubling. Going back further and adding up all of the doublings of copper production throughout all of history we’d discover that each new doubling produced (and consumed) as much as the sum total of all the prior doubling periods combined.
You can prove this to yourself by looking at a doubling sequence such as 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc. Note that 4 is larger than (0.25 + 0.5 + 1 + 2) and that 8 is larger than (0.25 + 0.5 + 1 + 2 + 4) and that 16 is larger than (0.25 + 0.5 + 1 + 2 + 4 + 8) and so on — into infinity.
Again, each new doubling involves an increase that is larger than the combined values of all the prior doublings in history.
For the visually-minded, here’s that same idea expressed in an image:
How Many More Doublings Can We Possibly Have From Here?
Only the most delusional would argue that we can dependably double our extraction of key natural resources forever.
Every two decades (or so), will we always be able to use twice as much farmland, twice as much fish in the sea, twice as much oil in the ground, as has been used before throughout all of human history?
Of course not. Planet Earth is a finite system.
This is why I claim that everything we think we know about “how things work” is wrong. Our entire economic and financial systems, their associated monetary models and their current financial asset prices, are predicated on the principle of continuous growth. And not just any sort of growth: Exponential growth. Predictable doubling — forever.
Look, it’s ridiculously easy to prove that there won’t always be twice as much copper (or nearly any other key natural resource) as has been extracted throughout all of prior human history. Things run out. They deplete. They become more dilute as the high grades are exploited first.
At some point, doubling becomes impossible. That’s when you’re past the point where half has been extracted and half still remains in the ground. After that, there are exactly zero doubling periods remaining! That’s just elementary math.
Why care?
Because once the doubling periods are over, every single economic model and financial asset that is predicated on continuous expansion breaks. Our systems stop steadily growing; and instead start increasingly shrinking.
This not a hard concept to grasp, intellectually, for most people with an open mind. But in practice, because it challenges our comfortable understanding of the world, because it collides with an entire Disney World of incompatible social belief systems, it’s pretty much impossible for the many people to even begin to wrestle with. Forget about a mainstream economist or central banker, whose salary requires them to adhere to the status quo.
The warning here is that we our deluding ourselves as a society. We are herding ourselves, lemming-like, straight towards the cliff ledge.
Think Critically!
Our mission here at PeakProsperity.com is to Create a World Worth Inheriting. While we help people make informed decisions to imbue their lives with greater abundance and satisfaction today, it’s our dedication to the long-term picture that shapes everything we do.
Very few voices are standing about waving their arms in the air like we are, warning of the approaching cliff. We’re aware that the point of no return might still be several decades out into the future, but we also realize that it could already be behind us. It’s nearly impossible to know right now given the complex system that is our planet — but given the existential risks involved, our opinion is that everyone should be mobilizing in response to this arriving (arrived?) crisis.
We often get labeled as narrow-minded “Malthusians”. Or accused of failing to account for human ingenuity. (Neither is accurate, we think.)
But in reality, we’re simply data driven. The facts are what they are. Logic is what it is.
And we get it. It’s both a factual and a logical nightmare for the infinite growth crowd that the earth is finite.
But as Einstein famously quipped:
And as you wrap your brain around the limits to growth, remember that you’re subject to the same comprehensive programming that envelops us all. The messaging that constantly reinforces the idea that endless growth is what we need, and what we can expect.
This programming is subtle, reassuring and ubiquitous; which makes it hard to resist. Here’s a prime example:
(Source)
To an economist like Bernanke, there are only virtuous expansions. Of course, the sort of expansion he refers to is exponential growth. Which is absolutely destined to fail in the long run (and now, maybe, the short).
And when that happens, the fallout will be spectacular and highly destructive to the hopes and dreams of literally billions of people.
Make Your Choice: Change By Pain Or Insight
What’s unclear to me is if there can be any meaningful recovery from this next crash, whenever it happens and however long it takes.
To return to the opening piece of this article, while I know that this time is different are dangerous words for investors to believe, the impending collision between delusional infinite growth thinking and resource limits and other realities will appear to the average observer like a gigantic change. But, in fact, it simply will mean that humans are subject to the same limits as any other life form on earth.
In other words, it really won’t be different this time.
In boy-meets-girl story form, the plot line of the natural process for all forms of life is:
Given that literally everything we hold dear and take for granted, such as well-stocked supermarkets, 24/7 electricity, and an appreciating retirement portfolio are all themselves dependent on an economic model that requires perpetual exponential expansion, several questions emerge.
How can I protect myself, my family and those I care about? How can I secure a prosperous future? What do I need to do to develop the right mental models and belief system to deal effectively with the coming challenges?
You can either address these questions head-on now, while the world still works the way we’re accustomed to. Or later, under crisis conditions.
We’ve learned that there are two ways that people change their beliefs and then their actions: by pain or by insight.
Most people go the pain route. And in the process, they waste a lot of valuable time that could have been spent constructively. It’s only after the heart attack, the divorce, the backing over the family dog while drunk—moments of extreme pain—that most people will begin to actively face the idea that they need to make different decisions in life.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Part of the beauty of being human is that we can learn from observation, reflection and experience, and can adapt. Critical thinkers have this ability to change by insight. They use new information to put new behaviors into practice until those practices become new habits. And with better habits, we achieve better destinies.
So which route will you choose? Pain or insight?
The story told by the Three Es is loaded with the potential for plenty of painful moments over the next few decades. Sadly, a lot of people will not take precautionary steps far enough in advance to matter. They’re just not focusing on the risks right now. As a result, much of the world will be forced to change its behavior via the pain route.
Use this awareness as a sense of urgency to prepare now. To secure your future prosperity, as well as to help those regretting that they didn’t follow your lead.
In Part 2: Steps For Changing By Insight, we lay out our prescriptive guidance what what to do now, in a world saddled with record debts, and a debt-based system of money that itself is utterly and completely dependent on infinite expansion, where something’s got to give.
If you believe in eternal infinite growth, then sure, stay invested in stocks and bonds and go ahead and buy the dips.
But if you don’t, take steps today to change your life by insight, secure your future prosperity, and serve as a model for others.
Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)
In 1999, Jon Taggart converted the 900 acres of crops on his recently purchased 1,400-acre ranch in Grandview, Texas, into 900 acres of native grasses. Then he launched his 100% grass-fed beef business.
Everyone, including the “people in the cow business and people in the meat business” said he was crazy.
But in 2011, when Texas was hit with a drought that dragged on for nearly 18 months, Taggart was one of the few ranchers who was able to keep on doing business as usual, while other ranchers had to move their cattle out to more fertile ground.
While acres of GMO corn and soy on many of the state’s ranches shriveled up and died, the deep-rooted, “warm season grasses, cool-season grasses, grasses that germinate early and grasses that germinate later” on Taggart’s ranch survived.
And so did Taggart.
Taggart, recently featured in an ABC News “Food Forecast” segment, calls himself a pioneer in the grass-fed, grass-finished—also known as 100% grass-fed—meat industry. But he’s the first to admit he isn’t doing anything new.
“Cows are ruminant animals. They have four parts to their stomach for a reason, and that’s so they can digest grass, which we don’t very well, and convert it to a protein that we can consume. They were designed to eat grass. This system worked for a few million years before we got here. It’s designed to work that way and it works very well if you just get out of the way and let it happen.”
And happening it is.
Read ‘Saving the Soil—and Their Ranches—by Raising 100% Grass-Fed Beef’
h/t: Organic Consumers Organization
The post Crazy for Grass appeared first on The Sleuth Journal.
