Gillian Caldwell, Campaign Director for 1Sky, recently had the chance for a quick chat with President Obama, which she blogged about here:
http://www.1sky.org/blog/2010/02/my-chat-with-president-obama-dont-be-stubborn-or-we-will-be
and to which I replied:
Hi Gillian... I think you and the Prez are both missing another, and much more fundamental, problem. We won't be getting all of our energy from wind and solar, either now or in twenty years, if the assumption is that we need to keep things going along their current trajectory, meaning a continued increase in energy demand.
The arguing over "clean" coal and nukes is a distraction to keep people from waking up to the fact that economic growth, and its role in industrialism, is a failed paradigm. Planned obsolescence, the throw-away society in general, and the substitution of materialism for psychological and spiritual health and well-being is a mistake--and a rather deadly one. The simple fact is that we could kick our coal habit today because all coal is doing is powering our waste and excess.
Plus, the Industrial Growth Society is only possible with the embedded energy of fossil fuels, which are post-peak and what's left of them is so environmentally destructive to obtain that only a society that has completely lost its way would attempt doing so. Even 100% LEED building standards, hybrid vehicles (or any other proposal that thinks we can "green" consumption and continued growth) can't overcome that basic ecological fact.
And since there is a viable alternative that would improve quality of life, that systemically replaces the diseased root of fear-based ranking hierarchies of domination instead of allowing itself to be satisfied with the occasional compromised clipping of branches, why are nationally recognized and rightfully respected organizations such as 1Sky reluctant to advocate fundamental systemic change? 1Sky's masthead states "America wants bold action," so why ask for minor reform on the fringes?
The bold, but thoroughly pragmatic, alternative to the status quo includes powering down, relocalizing, reconnecting to the natural world and each other, and giving ourselves the gift of time for what really matters. This alternative uses steady-state economies that focus on becoming qualitatively better instead of quantitatively bigger; it requires no new technologies and works with who we are right now--not after some shift to a higher state of consciousness or evolutionary adaptation; it can begin restoring all aspects of the natural world, which of course includes ourselves and our communities; it doesn't require mortgaging our future by bailing out industries thought to be too big to fail.
We could move toward true sustainability (which can be both ecologically and legally defined) and become a role model for the rest of the world that our grandchildren would be proud of--instead of our current sorry, disconnected path in which we won't have grandchildren.
We're supposed to be rational creatures. I think it is past time we started demonstrating it, and face the fact that it is not a technological problem that we're dealing with nor one that has a market solution. Thinking that we need more of what got us into this mess is not a rational response.
Showing posts with label industrialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label industrialism. Show all posts
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Decision Time: Change or Collapse?
I wrote the following as an Op-ed piece for the NY Times. They declined to print it. Hmm, why am I not surprised? Don't want people thinking that their advertisers don't actually have anything worth buying? Or becoming aware that there might be an alternative to economic cannibalism that will not only improve their lot in life, but act as an effective response to global environmental crises? Or that it points out that our new Emperor has no clothes either? Or am I just not up to the Times' writing standards? Anyway...
Decision Time: Change or Collapse?
A recent editorial in the NY Times
"Save the Economy, and the Planet" rightly points out that the financial crisis is not a sufficient excuse to put off taking the necessary steps to deal with the global warming crisis. Indeed, putting it off will greatly aggravate both the financial and planetary crises, as national-level reports from around the world are showing.
However, President-elect Barack Obama seems content for his proposals to apply little pressure to either of these crises while primarily ensuring the protection of business as usual. His grand proposal to institute change consists of doing, according to the Times, "the minimum necessary to...avoid the worst consequences of global warming."
This is leadership?
Don't put any more effort into what many are calling the greatest crisis to ever face humanity and civilization (sometimes someone will bother mentioning the planet in an off-hand kind of way as well) than we absolutely have to, and let's just suck it up and learn to tolerate all the intermediate negative consequences. That is, only if this "plan" of action even comes close to delivering the expected results.
This isn't even change.
The increasingly common political goal of 80% greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, while well-intentioned and heading in the proper direction, is based on evidence that is at least 5 years out of date. It assumes the planet can handle 450 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentrations, when the effects of the 385 ppm that we already have today is not only pushing the environment into irreversible tipping points, but these are occurring many times faster than the climate models have been predicting.
This is the difference between modeling and reality. And clearly points out why the denialists should be cautious in using this in the attempt to substantiate their claims about a so-called global warming "agenda" or in their attempts to create an atmosphere of public doubt over the existence of a crisis due to modeling inaccuracy or errors. The only thing that truly matters in the case of global warming is the reality we're actually experiencing.
The actual minimum reduction thought to be required is 90% below 1990 levels by 2030. It's not expected that even this will keep us from all the tipping points -- the uncertainty is over which one will be first. Things are going to change, but these aren't going to be the changes we heard mentioned on the campaign trail by about anyone other than the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney. The Obama plan is to get the US back to 1990 levels by 2020, and this after we've experienced a rise of 14 percent since 1990. This simply won't be sufficient. Anthropogenic global warming was well underway before 1990. Do the math; it's elementary school level.
If Obama really wants to pursue a comprehensive approach, which he says he does, he must find the courage to start addressing the root causes of the global warming crisis. These causes are directly tied to the unsustainability of industrial and financial growth; the fetishization of these concepts in the creation of what can most kindly be called shallow social status; and the belief that we can treat our only planet -- our sole life support system -- as if it is both an infinite supply of resources and a bottomless pit for waste.
It can, however, be quite easily shown, from a number of different perspectives, that neither materialism nor growth actually increase quality of life beyond a certain level, and even then only for a segment of the population. These concepts are inherently unsustainable and often unfulfilling even in the short-term. And this is even in spite of Industrial culture spending much time and energy trying to convince people that increasing their material standard of living is an acceptable substitute for the lives they really do want and are so desperately missing.
This brings us directly and inescapably to what must become the fundamental question for our times: Which is more important, profit and power, or people and planet? If after deep soul searching and, just as importantly, rational analysis, you find yourself answering in the affirmative for the latter, it's time to start directing President-elect Obama toward evaluating a systemic alternative to business as usual instead of irrationally trying to protect it.
From a sustainability standpoint, protecting the growth status quo will prove to be a futile attempt anyway. We're way too far into the realm of ecological overshoot. Fisheries depletion, deforestation, top soil loss, diminishing freshwater, dwindling energy supplies, and increasing overall biospheric toxicity and its effects on declining ecosystem and species health are all measurable manifestations of this fact.
One well-researched alternative that is beginning to be put into practice in communities around the world is relocalization, which the popular Transition Towns movement in the UK is based upon. Relocalization is a systemic process to create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy. It seeks to move production of food, energy and goods closer to the point of consumption, and create thriving local economies that exhibit many of the principles of steady-state economics as developed by former World Bank senior economist Herman Daly -- basically, better instead of bigger.
A fundamental aspect of this process entails reconnecting our lives to the natural world, which includes to each other and our communities. This entails developing lifestyles, organizations, and communities from the models and metaphors provided by the natural systems principles which increase diversity and the opportunities for the mutually supportive relationships any sustainable ecosystem requires to be healthy, vibrant and -- most importantly in crafting the urgent response necessary to today's looming crises -- resilient.
It really just depends on making new choices, based on a new understanding of the human role within the web of life. This is the change we need to both see from our elected representatives and participate in ourselves.
Decision Time: Change or Collapse?
A recent editorial in the NY Times
"Save the Economy, and the Planet" rightly points out that the financial crisis is not a sufficient excuse to put off taking the necessary steps to deal with the global warming crisis. Indeed, putting it off will greatly aggravate both the financial and planetary crises, as national-level reports from around the world are showing.
However, President-elect Barack Obama seems content for his proposals to apply little pressure to either of these crises while primarily ensuring the protection of business as usual. His grand proposal to institute change consists of doing, according to the Times, "the minimum necessary to...avoid the worst consequences of global warming."
This is leadership?
Don't put any more effort into what many are calling the greatest crisis to ever face humanity and civilization (sometimes someone will bother mentioning the planet in an off-hand kind of way as well) than we absolutely have to, and let's just suck it up and learn to tolerate all the intermediate negative consequences. That is, only if this "plan" of action even comes close to delivering the expected results.
This isn't even change.
The increasingly common political goal of 80% greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, while well-intentioned and heading in the proper direction, is based on evidence that is at least 5 years out of date. It assumes the planet can handle 450 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentrations, when the effects of the 385 ppm that we already have today is not only pushing the environment into irreversible tipping points, but these are occurring many times faster than the climate models have been predicting.
This is the difference between modeling and reality. And clearly points out why the denialists should be cautious in using this in the attempt to substantiate their claims about a so-called global warming "agenda" or in their attempts to create an atmosphere of public doubt over the existence of a crisis due to modeling inaccuracy or errors. The only thing that truly matters in the case of global warming is the reality we're actually experiencing.
The actual minimum reduction thought to be required is 90% below 1990 levels by 2030. It's not expected that even this will keep us from all the tipping points -- the uncertainty is over which one will be first. Things are going to change, but these aren't going to be the changes we heard mentioned on the campaign trail by about anyone other than the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney. The Obama plan is to get the US back to 1990 levels by 2020, and this after we've experienced a rise of 14 percent since 1990. This simply won't be sufficient. Anthropogenic global warming was well underway before 1990. Do the math; it's elementary school level.
If Obama really wants to pursue a comprehensive approach, which he says he does, he must find the courage to start addressing the root causes of the global warming crisis. These causes are directly tied to the unsustainability of industrial and financial growth; the fetishization of these concepts in the creation of what can most kindly be called shallow social status; and the belief that we can treat our only planet -- our sole life support system -- as if it is both an infinite supply of resources and a bottomless pit for waste.
It can, however, be quite easily shown, from a number of different perspectives, that neither materialism nor growth actually increase quality of life beyond a certain level, and even then only for a segment of the population. These concepts are inherently unsustainable and often unfulfilling even in the short-term. And this is even in spite of Industrial culture spending much time and energy trying to convince people that increasing their material standard of living is an acceptable substitute for the lives they really do want and are so desperately missing.
This brings us directly and inescapably to what must become the fundamental question for our times: Which is more important, profit and power, or people and planet? If after deep soul searching and, just as importantly, rational analysis, you find yourself answering in the affirmative for the latter, it's time to start directing President-elect Obama toward evaluating a systemic alternative to business as usual instead of irrationally trying to protect it.
From a sustainability standpoint, protecting the growth status quo will prove to be a futile attempt anyway. We're way too far into the realm of ecological overshoot. Fisheries depletion, deforestation, top soil loss, diminishing freshwater, dwindling energy supplies, and increasing overall biospheric toxicity and its effects on declining ecosystem and species health are all measurable manifestations of this fact.
One well-researched alternative that is beginning to be put into practice in communities around the world is relocalization, which the popular Transition Towns movement in the UK is based upon. Relocalization is a systemic process to create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy. It seeks to move production of food, energy and goods closer to the point of consumption, and create thriving local economies that exhibit many of the principles of steady-state economics as developed by former World Bank senior economist Herman Daly -- basically, better instead of bigger.
A fundamental aspect of this process entails reconnecting our lives to the natural world, which includes to each other and our communities. This entails developing lifestyles, organizations, and communities from the models and metaphors provided by the natural systems principles which increase diversity and the opportunities for the mutually supportive relationships any sustainable ecosystem requires to be healthy, vibrant and -- most importantly in crafting the urgent response necessary to today's looming crises -- resilient.
It really just depends on making new choices, based on a new understanding of the human role within the web of life. This is the change we need to both see from our elected representatives and participate in ourselves.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Cancer and Industrialism: My Findings and Therapy
Well, I've recently been diagnosed with cancer, to become the latest in a long line of victims of industrialism. I've long known I was psychologically allergic to industrialism and its attendant stressors, and it seems I'm physically allergic to it as well. In fact, my current thinking, based on my long-held belief that cancer is an industrial disease--it is not per se a lifestyle or hereditary disease--is that the increase in cancers and other widely spreading diseases are allergic reactions to industrialism. Modern medicine then focuses on dealing with these symptoms, while doing little to nothing to advocate for the cessation of their root causes.
Before I go any further here, let me clarify what I mean by cancer today being an industrial as opposed to a genetic disease. It's true that cancer has been around far longer than industrialism has. In fact, every person has cancer cells in their body. Well, this is a bit of a misnomer. They're actually pre-cancerous, or have a higher potential to turn cancerous. As part of the normal cell process of producing energy from oxygen, free-radicals are produced which can cause damage to a cell which may then turn cancerous. Other factors are then involved in whether that cell continues to live, infect other cells, and spread. In a healthy organism, processes exist to neutralize free-radicals and kill cancer cells, and remove them as waste.
So, to use the bit of blame-shifting favored by the pharmaceutical industry that says cancer has a hereditary or genetic basis is a bit disingenuous, since merely being human creates the possibility to develop cancer. One's lifestyle can create a situation conducive to cancer cells taking hold and spreading, but in the toxic world industrialism has created, those situations have been magnified by a few orders of magnitude. Let's look at just a few of the industrial and industrial lifestyle factors.
Poor oxygenation can lead normal cells to turn cancerous. When cells can't get enough oxygen, they turn to fermenting sugars for their energy, and this is the prime difference between a healthy cell and a cancerous cell. Factors that cause poor oxygenation are buildup of toxins and lack of exercise. A lack of the essential fatty acids needed in cell walls also blocks oxygen exchange. As cancer cells ferment energy they produce excess lactic acid which is toxic, and tends to prevent the transport of oxygen into neighboring normal cells. So the cancer spreads if not destroyed by the immune system. The treatments of choice today, chemo and radiation therapy, do kill cancer cells. However, they also damage respiratory enzymes in healthy cells and overload them with toxins--increasing the chances they become cancerous.
In light of the above, let's just think for a moment about industrial farming and food processing, which not only don't provide the nutrients necessary for good health, but also puts more toxins into the body, and/or contribute large amounts of what cancer cells love and thrive on most--refined white sugar. Let's think about the foods we eat that aren't even food, like American cheese and Twinkies. Let's think about sedentary industrial lifestyles of affluence. Let's think about the air and water that industrialism has turned toxic, and the toxic materials in the buildings where we live and work. And then there's plastics...
There are tens of thousands of man-made chemicals floating, flowing, and buried within the thin sliver of biosphere that humans and the other species that make up the web of life can exist within. 20,000 of them are known carcinogens. These chemicals can't exist naturally, and living organisms haven't developed defenses against them. These chemicals tend to be bio-accumulative, are environmentally persistent (their half-lives are ten to fifty thousand years), and are lipophilic (they travel rapidly up the food chain). The vast majority of these chemicals are toxins, neurotoxins, mutagens, or carcinogens whose toxicity and effects are studied in isolation, not in the combinations that actually occur in our bodies and the environment.
Properly fed, exercised, and enveloped in a healthy environment of mutually supportive relationships, the human immune system can handle most things nature can throw at it, but not those of man. I hope I also don't have to explain why I'm sticking to using the male gender in this regard.
The details on my own case are that I went to the emergency room on Aug. 10 with severe abdominal pain and an apparent intestinal blockage (the symptoms pretty much just suddenly flared up in an otherwise healthy body), was diagnosed with colon cancer on Aug. 11, and had my descending colon removed on Aug. 13 by the trauma surgery team at University Medical Center here in Tucson. The pathology report on the section of colon and mass of tissue removed with and around the tumor said the margins were clear (no cancer on either end of the section of colon removed), out of the total of 34 nodes removed only three in the tumor vicinity tested positive, and although the tumor had grown through the wall of the colon it hadn't spread to any other tissue or organs. So, overall the prognosis is good. For those of you familiar with cancer stages, I had a Stage III cancerous tumor: t-3, n-1, m-0.
I finally got to meet with the oncologist on Sept. 11, and like all good cancer docs, he explained the situation, added up the scientifically measurable parameters, and said the only recommended treatment is chemotherapy. If adding up the "markers" had produced a smaller number chemo wouldn't have been called for. A larger number, or if other existing tumors had been seen in the CT scans, and radiation therapy would be added. No other variables are considered, nor thought to be warranted for consideration, such as diet changes, other cancer fighting, immune boosting or detoxifying agents that are not manufactured by BigPharma, or doing a Body Burden test to see if there might be a link to industrialism that has bioaccumulated in the body and might need to be dealt with.
There's no accurate test to see if there's actually any cancer left in the body after surgical tumor removal. The theory is that there might be some cancer cells floating through the bloodstream that are just looking for a place to attach and grow into a mass large enough to detect, which could take up to 5 years. But, that's basically the case for everyone, whether they've had a tumor detected or not.
The statistics for my type and severity of colon cancer are that 60% will have another tumor in 3-5 years if no course of treatment is followed, and that drops to 34-40% (depending on which combination of toxic drugs and side-effects you're willing to tolerate) with chemo. There seems to be a remarkable absence of information (from allopathic medicine) on the 40% who don't experience tumor recurrence within 5 years.
Further muddying the waters is the difference allopathic medicine tries to make between "complementary" and "alternative" treatments. In fact, we were warned by a social worker at the UMC Cancer Center to use the former term rather than the latter when we met with the oncologist--if we didn't want a negative reaction from him. Complementary to them seems to means the status quo--chemo--remains the treatment modality of choice, and they're willing to hear about you tacking on a few extras, like vitamins. However, they just can't accept that you just might be looking for something that really is a true alternative--meaning giving yourself an option to heal without making yourself sicker. The healthy immune system that is so necessary to health and healing is taken to the point of not functioning at all by chemo/radiation therapy in the hope that since the cancer cells are weaker, they'll die before the healthy cells do, and that you don't come down with something else fatal while your immune system has been intentionally compromised. Only a disease care model of medicine could come up with this one.
But the fact of the matter is that certain natural substances support the body's natural defense system, and have certain properties that help fight cancer cells, provide support to the immune system, and clear the body of toxins. Pharmaceutical drugs merely attempt to copy these processes, but because they're not natural, they have a number of unpleasant and/or potentially fatal side effects.
Let's take the "nutritional supplement" coenzyme Q10 (a compound that is made naturally in the body known as ubiquinone, which decreases as we age), which is sold as CoQ10, and compare it to the cancer drug fluorouricil, called 5-FU. They both kill cancer cells by triggering apoptosis, or cell death. This natural cell mechanism gets turned off in cancer cells.
However, because CoQ 10 isn't a toxic synthetic, it won't hurt healthy cells or cause major reactions in the body. Also, it's sold over the counter, isn't based on fossil fuels, or subject to corporate patent and profit. This latter point is extremely important to keep in mind. We're getting more and more doctors who have gone to med school on drug company scholarships, and BigPharms's influence, due to their affluence, on medical research is well known. Industrial Pharma has spent and continues to spend billions on lobbyists and legislators to ensure the status quo remains near impossible to change and that no challengers can arise.
The one commonality I keep running across as I research all these things, though, is that whether the treatment regimen decided upon is allopathic or natural, the largest determinant in treatment success is attitude. And, you know, it just seems to make more sense to me that keeping a good attitude is going to be one whole helluva lot easier if I don't put more of industrialism's toxic products into my body while it's busy getting healthy again with natural supplements, supported by the loving energy of so many others and the natural world itself.
So, the cancer treatment I've decided on includes the following.
Killing the cancer cells: Therapeutic doses (200 mg twice daily) of CoQ10 to kill cancer cells and support oxygenation. Starving the cancer cells by eliminating refined sugar from my diet. Regular exercise--the most natural way to oxygenate cells. Selenium (2-3 Brazil nuts daily). Some studies show selenium to be as effective as current chemotherapies, but it can be toxic in very high doses so don't over do it.
Immune system support: Pycnogenol (French Maritime Pine Bark extract) 25 mg twice daily, which is an antioxidant and recycles vitamins C & E in the body. Noni Juice (1 oz twice daily) which is a powerful antioxidant. Essiac tea (burdock root, sheep sorrel, Indian rhubarb, slippery elm bark)--which is also a powerful detoxifier--twice daily. This is the basic Ojibwa recipe, which also seems to be called Medicine Man tea.
Detoxifying and healthy cell support: Alkaline diet (no coffee or alcohol, powdered barley grass juice once a day or so). The Mediterranean Diet is also recommended (switch to olive oil, LOTS of veggies and whole grains, minimal meat). Flaxseed to oxygenate cells (mixed with cottage cheese or added to soy protein drink with green bananas and almond butter). Vitamin D from sunlight (20 minutes/day as naked as you're comfortable being between the hours of 10am-2pm). Primadophilus (5 billion CFU probiotic). Calcium and a B-complex. Whole grains only. And, I'll be adding Oxy-E for oxygenation and cleansing cells of toxins and lactic acid as soon as we can afford a therapeutic dose (2-4 bottles/month).
There are, of course, other things that can be done to naturally support the body which we might be adding (or have started to use occasionally to supplement) as we go along, or that you can look into for your own needs. These include mushrooms (shiitake, reishi, and cordyceps especially if you're undergoing any type of chemotherapy), Fu Zheng, coconut oil, broccoli sprouts, papaya extract, alphalipoic acid (less expensive than pycnogenol), etc.
The main thing you want to do is return to and stay in balance. Industrialism has created an extremely toxic world, and depends on lifestyles that are so stressful that you don't have the time to do what's good for you. You want to kill the cancer cells that are in your body, not create an environment that allows them to grow (refined sugars, simple carbohydrates, overly processed food with unpronounceable ingredients), detoxify your system from the body burden we all carry, and support healthy cells and the immune system so they can resist infection and damage and do their job.
As I mentioned earlier, another extremely important factor in healing (some say the most important factor) is emotional and spiritual health--a healthy and positive attitude. In the same manner as nature has provided the body with means to repair damaged or injured cells, it also provides the means to repair and heal damaged psyches and souls. I'm a big believer in regular reconnecting with nature activities, which is more powerful than meditation alone. Nature can inform you of what you need to know once you remember how to listen.
The above is a description of my approach to keeping the cells that comprise my body healthy and cancer-resistant. I have also been blessed with alternative healers that have so generously shared their gifts we me, including forms of energy healing, massage, reflexology, etc.
The real work, however, begins after the body heals: taking down industrialism. But, that's another article. Actually, it's an excellent two-volume set by Derrick Jensen, "Endgame, Vols. 1 & 2."
A lot of people have also been saying there is a lesson to be learned in my getting sick, and I don't doubt that one bit. I'm not quite sure what it might be, though, but I do have an inkling. I'm sure I'll be writing about it sometime soon.
Before I go any further here, let me clarify what I mean by cancer today being an industrial as opposed to a genetic disease. It's true that cancer has been around far longer than industrialism has. In fact, every person has cancer cells in their body. Well, this is a bit of a misnomer. They're actually pre-cancerous, or have a higher potential to turn cancerous. As part of the normal cell process of producing energy from oxygen, free-radicals are produced which can cause damage to a cell which may then turn cancerous. Other factors are then involved in whether that cell continues to live, infect other cells, and spread. In a healthy organism, processes exist to neutralize free-radicals and kill cancer cells, and remove them as waste.
So, to use the bit of blame-shifting favored by the pharmaceutical industry that says cancer has a hereditary or genetic basis is a bit disingenuous, since merely being human creates the possibility to develop cancer. One's lifestyle can create a situation conducive to cancer cells taking hold and spreading, but in the toxic world industrialism has created, those situations have been magnified by a few orders of magnitude. Let's look at just a few of the industrial and industrial lifestyle factors.
Poor oxygenation can lead normal cells to turn cancerous. When cells can't get enough oxygen, they turn to fermenting sugars for their energy, and this is the prime difference between a healthy cell and a cancerous cell. Factors that cause poor oxygenation are buildup of toxins and lack of exercise. A lack of the essential fatty acids needed in cell walls also blocks oxygen exchange. As cancer cells ferment energy they produce excess lactic acid which is toxic, and tends to prevent the transport of oxygen into neighboring normal cells. So the cancer spreads if not destroyed by the immune system. The treatments of choice today, chemo and radiation therapy, do kill cancer cells. However, they also damage respiratory enzymes in healthy cells and overload them with toxins--increasing the chances they become cancerous.
In light of the above, let's just think for a moment about industrial farming and food processing, which not only don't provide the nutrients necessary for good health, but also puts more toxins into the body, and/or contribute large amounts of what cancer cells love and thrive on most--refined white sugar. Let's think about the foods we eat that aren't even food, like American cheese and Twinkies. Let's think about sedentary industrial lifestyles of affluence. Let's think about the air and water that industrialism has turned toxic, and the toxic materials in the buildings where we live and work. And then there's plastics...
There are tens of thousands of man-made chemicals floating, flowing, and buried within the thin sliver of biosphere that humans and the other species that make up the web of life can exist within. 20,000 of them are known carcinogens. These chemicals can't exist naturally, and living organisms haven't developed defenses against them. These chemicals tend to be bio-accumulative, are environmentally persistent (their half-lives are ten to fifty thousand years), and are lipophilic (they travel rapidly up the food chain). The vast majority of these chemicals are toxins, neurotoxins, mutagens, or carcinogens whose toxicity and effects are studied in isolation, not in the combinations that actually occur in our bodies and the environment.
Properly fed, exercised, and enveloped in a healthy environment of mutually supportive relationships, the human immune system can handle most things nature can throw at it, but not those of man. I hope I also don't have to explain why I'm sticking to using the male gender in this regard.
The details on my own case are that I went to the emergency room on Aug. 10 with severe abdominal pain and an apparent intestinal blockage (the symptoms pretty much just suddenly flared up in an otherwise healthy body), was diagnosed with colon cancer on Aug. 11, and had my descending colon removed on Aug. 13 by the trauma surgery team at University Medical Center here in Tucson. The pathology report on the section of colon and mass of tissue removed with and around the tumor said the margins were clear (no cancer on either end of the section of colon removed), out of the total of 34 nodes removed only three in the tumor vicinity tested positive, and although the tumor had grown through the wall of the colon it hadn't spread to any other tissue or organs. So, overall the prognosis is good. For those of you familiar with cancer stages, I had a Stage III cancerous tumor: t-3, n-1, m-0.
I finally got to meet with the oncologist on Sept. 11, and like all good cancer docs, he explained the situation, added up the scientifically measurable parameters, and said the only recommended treatment is chemotherapy. If adding up the "markers" had produced a smaller number chemo wouldn't have been called for. A larger number, or if other existing tumors had been seen in the CT scans, and radiation therapy would be added. No other variables are considered, nor thought to be warranted for consideration, such as diet changes, other cancer fighting, immune boosting or detoxifying agents that are not manufactured by BigPharma, or doing a Body Burden test to see if there might be a link to industrialism that has bioaccumulated in the body and might need to be dealt with.
There's no accurate test to see if there's actually any cancer left in the body after surgical tumor removal. The theory is that there might be some cancer cells floating through the bloodstream that are just looking for a place to attach and grow into a mass large enough to detect, which could take up to 5 years. But, that's basically the case for everyone, whether they've had a tumor detected or not.
The statistics for my type and severity of colon cancer are that 60% will have another tumor in 3-5 years if no course of treatment is followed, and that drops to 34-40% (depending on which combination of toxic drugs and side-effects you're willing to tolerate) with chemo. There seems to be a remarkable absence of information (from allopathic medicine) on the 40% who don't experience tumor recurrence within 5 years.
Further muddying the waters is the difference allopathic medicine tries to make between "complementary" and "alternative" treatments. In fact, we were warned by a social worker at the UMC Cancer Center to use the former term rather than the latter when we met with the oncologist--if we didn't want a negative reaction from him. Complementary to them seems to means the status quo--chemo--remains the treatment modality of choice, and they're willing to hear about you tacking on a few extras, like vitamins. However, they just can't accept that you just might be looking for something that really is a true alternative--meaning giving yourself an option to heal without making yourself sicker. The healthy immune system that is so necessary to health and healing is taken to the point of not functioning at all by chemo/radiation therapy in the hope that since the cancer cells are weaker, they'll die before the healthy cells do, and that you don't come down with something else fatal while your immune system has been intentionally compromised. Only a disease care model of medicine could come up with this one.
But the fact of the matter is that certain natural substances support the body's natural defense system, and have certain properties that help fight cancer cells, provide support to the immune system, and clear the body of toxins. Pharmaceutical drugs merely attempt to copy these processes, but because they're not natural, they have a number of unpleasant and/or potentially fatal side effects.
Let's take the "nutritional supplement" coenzyme Q10 (a compound that is made naturally in the body known as ubiquinone, which decreases as we age), which is sold as CoQ10, and compare it to the cancer drug fluorouricil, called 5-FU. They both kill cancer cells by triggering apoptosis, or cell death. This natural cell mechanism gets turned off in cancer cells.
However, because CoQ 10 isn't a toxic synthetic, it won't hurt healthy cells or cause major reactions in the body. Also, it's sold over the counter, isn't based on fossil fuels, or subject to corporate patent and profit. This latter point is extremely important to keep in mind. We're getting more and more doctors who have gone to med school on drug company scholarships, and BigPharms's influence, due to their affluence, on medical research is well known. Industrial Pharma has spent and continues to spend billions on lobbyists and legislators to ensure the status quo remains near impossible to change and that no challengers can arise.
The one commonality I keep running across as I research all these things, though, is that whether the treatment regimen decided upon is allopathic or natural, the largest determinant in treatment success is attitude. And, you know, it just seems to make more sense to me that keeping a good attitude is going to be one whole helluva lot easier if I don't put more of industrialism's toxic products into my body while it's busy getting healthy again with natural supplements, supported by the loving energy of so many others and the natural world itself.
So, the cancer treatment I've decided on includes the following.
Killing the cancer cells: Therapeutic doses (200 mg twice daily) of CoQ10 to kill cancer cells and support oxygenation. Starving the cancer cells by eliminating refined sugar from my diet. Regular exercise--the most natural way to oxygenate cells. Selenium (2-3 Brazil nuts daily). Some studies show selenium to be as effective as current chemotherapies, but it can be toxic in very high doses so don't over do it.
Immune system support: Pycnogenol (French Maritime Pine Bark extract) 25 mg twice daily, which is an antioxidant and recycles vitamins C & E in the body. Noni Juice (1 oz twice daily) which is a powerful antioxidant. Essiac tea (burdock root, sheep sorrel, Indian rhubarb, slippery elm bark)--which is also a powerful detoxifier--twice daily. This is the basic Ojibwa recipe, which also seems to be called Medicine Man tea.
Detoxifying and healthy cell support: Alkaline diet (no coffee or alcohol, powdered barley grass juice once a day or so). The Mediterranean Diet is also recommended (switch to olive oil, LOTS of veggies and whole grains, minimal meat). Flaxseed to oxygenate cells (mixed with cottage cheese or added to soy protein drink with green bananas and almond butter). Vitamin D from sunlight (20 minutes/day as naked as you're comfortable being between the hours of 10am-2pm). Primadophilus (5 billion CFU probiotic). Calcium and a B-complex. Whole grains only. And, I'll be adding Oxy-E for oxygenation and cleansing cells of toxins and lactic acid as soon as we can afford a therapeutic dose (2-4 bottles/month).
There are, of course, other things that can be done to naturally support the body which we might be adding (or have started to use occasionally to supplement) as we go along, or that you can look into for your own needs. These include mushrooms (shiitake, reishi, and cordyceps especially if you're undergoing any type of chemotherapy), Fu Zheng, coconut oil, broccoli sprouts, papaya extract, alphalipoic acid (less expensive than pycnogenol), etc.
The main thing you want to do is return to and stay in balance. Industrialism has created an extremely toxic world, and depends on lifestyles that are so stressful that you don't have the time to do what's good for you. You want to kill the cancer cells that are in your body, not create an environment that allows them to grow (refined sugars, simple carbohydrates, overly processed food with unpronounceable ingredients), detoxify your system from the body burden we all carry, and support healthy cells and the immune system so they can resist infection and damage and do their job.
As I mentioned earlier, another extremely important factor in healing (some say the most important factor) is emotional and spiritual health--a healthy and positive attitude. In the same manner as nature has provided the body with means to repair damaged or injured cells, it also provides the means to repair and heal damaged psyches and souls. I'm a big believer in regular reconnecting with nature activities, which is more powerful than meditation alone. Nature can inform you of what you need to know once you remember how to listen.
The above is a description of my approach to keeping the cells that comprise my body healthy and cancer-resistant. I have also been blessed with alternative healers that have so generously shared their gifts we me, including forms of energy healing, massage, reflexology, etc.
The real work, however, begins after the body heals: taking down industrialism. But, that's another article. Actually, it's an excellent two-volume set by Derrick Jensen, "Endgame, Vols. 1 & 2."
A lot of people have also been saying there is a lesson to be learned in my getting sick, and I don't doubt that one bit. I'm not quite sure what it might be, though, but I do have an inkling. I'm sure I'll be writing about it sometime soon.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Carbon Caps or Lifestyle Caps?
A recent editorial in the New York Times talked about the need for mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases, pollution taxes, carbon credits, and the search for promising technologies that could mitigate global warming with only minimal harm to the economy at worst. Articles concerning personal changes one can make that meet these goals are showing up with increasing frequency as well.
You know, buy different types of new lightbulbs, a different kind of new car, and buy carbon offsets as a new type of gift.
This ruse of putting the brunt of the blame, and the burden of responsibility, on American consumers for America's 25% contribution to the anthropogenic causes of global warming is also becoming increasingly common.
Yes, Americans are addicted to oil.
But let's not forget that addicts need a pusher. Who are the pushers that feed this addiction to oil that energizes the culture of materialism? Who constantly entice more addicts, starting their dependency campaigns while youth are still in the crib? Who are these pushers who are actually even more addicted themselves to the power (in every sense imaginable) that can be derived from fossil fuels?
The answer to these questions should be obvious. It's industrialists and their immediate masters in the global banking cartels. It's the adherents to the holy grail of a growth economy. How convenient that the mainstream media never mentions the role of these elite sects in either the crisis or their responsibility to deal with it.
Change does need to begin from where we are. Currently people have been hoodwinked into valuing money more than life. So putting a price on pollution, toxicity, radiation, deforestation, greenhouse gas production, etc. and so on is a good place to start for a transition strategy toward a sustainable future. This should cause people to start honestly examining what it is in their lives that is truly valuable and gives their lives meaning and purpose.
If we also start to articulate the viable alternative of relocalization, and its very real possibility of increasing quality of life, we can also inspire and motivate people into helping build this necessary alternative that values those things that really matter. People will discover the increased well-being--and even the status and respect that can be gained--from being a responsibly contributing member of the web of life.
Then we can get to the question the mainstream continues to studiously avoid asking.
Is it really new technologies and market-based schemes that we need, or a new way of relating to and being in the world?
You know, buy different types of new lightbulbs, a different kind of new car, and buy carbon offsets as a new type of gift.
This ruse of putting the brunt of the blame, and the burden of responsibility, on American consumers for America's 25% contribution to the anthropogenic causes of global warming is also becoming increasingly common.
Yes, Americans are addicted to oil.
But let's not forget that addicts need a pusher. Who are the pushers that feed this addiction to oil that energizes the culture of materialism? Who constantly entice more addicts, starting their dependency campaigns while youth are still in the crib? Who are these pushers who are actually even more addicted themselves to the power (in every sense imaginable) that can be derived from fossil fuels?
The answer to these questions should be obvious. It's industrialists and their immediate masters in the global banking cartels. It's the adherents to the holy grail of a growth economy. How convenient that the mainstream media never mentions the role of these elite sects in either the crisis or their responsibility to deal with it.
Change does need to begin from where we are. Currently people have been hoodwinked into valuing money more than life. So putting a price on pollution, toxicity, radiation, deforestation, greenhouse gas production, etc. and so on is a good place to start for a transition strategy toward a sustainable future. This should cause people to start honestly examining what it is in their lives that is truly valuable and gives their lives meaning and purpose.
If we also start to articulate the viable alternative of relocalization, and its very real possibility of increasing quality of life, we can also inspire and motivate people into helping build this necessary alternative that values those things that really matter. People will discover the increased well-being--and even the status and respect that can be gained--from being a responsibly contributing member of the web of life.
Then we can get to the question the mainstream continues to studiously avoid asking.
Is it really new technologies and market-based schemes that we need, or a new way of relating to and being in the world?
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