Category Archives: Earth Stuff

News of Earth Changes, climate shifts, weather anomalies, volcanoes, etc

What’s In Your Salad?

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RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Vaccinations can be a controversial subject for many people, especially when it comes to injections. So what if you could replace your next shot with a salad instead? Researchers at the University of California-Riverside are working on a way to grow edible plants that carry the same medication as an mRNA vaccine.

The COVID-19 vaccine is one of the many inoculations which use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology to defeat viruses. They work by teaching cells from the immune system to recognize and attack a certain infectious disease. Unfortunately, mRNA vaccines have to stay in cold storage until use or they lose stability. The UC-Riverside team says if they’re successful, the public could eat plant-based mRNA vaccines — which could also survive at room temperature.

Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers are now looking accomplish three goals. First, the team will try to successfully deliver DNA containing mRNA vaccines into plant cells, where they can replicate. Next, the study authors want to show that plants can actually produce enough mRNA to replace a traditional injection. Finally, the team will need to determine the right dosage people will need to eat to properly replace vaccinations.

“Ideally, a single plant would produce enough mRNA to vaccinate a single person,” says Juan Pablo Giraldo, an associate professor in UCR’s Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, in a university release.

“We are testing this approach with spinach and lettuce and have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens,” Giraldo adds. “Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it.”

Plants are capable of growing more vaccines

Giraldo and a team of scientists from UC-San Diego and Carnegie Mellon University say the key to making edible vaccines are chloroplasts. These are small organs inside plant cells which help convert sunlight into energy.

“They’re tiny, solar-powered factories that produce sugar and other molecules which allow the plant to grow,” Giraldo explains. “They’re also an untapped source for making desirable molecules.”

Previous studies have shown that it’s possible for chloroplasts to express genes which are not a natural part of that plant. Giraldo’s team accomplished this by sending genetic material inside of a protective casing into plant cells.

In the new study, Giraldo teamed with UC-San Diego’s Professor Nicole Steinmetz to use nanotechnology to deliver more genetic material into chloroplasts.

“Our idea is to repurpose naturally occurring nanoparticles, namely plant viruses, for gene delivery to plants,” Steinmetz says. “Some engineering goes into this to make the nanoparticles go to the chloroplasts and also to render them non-infectious toward the plants.”

“One of the reasons I started working in nanotechnology was so I could apply it to plants and create new technology solutions. Not just for food, but for high-value products as well, like pharmaceuticals,” Giraldo adds.

from:   https://www.studyfinds.org/vaccines-salad-growing-plants/

More Ways to Deal With Climate Change

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Bioethicist Proposes Engineering SMALLER Humans With Beef Intolerance to Fight “Climate Change”

skynesher/iStock/Getty Images Plus

North Korean defector Yeonmi Park recently said that America has, unbelievably, become even crazier than her native country. A reality evidencing this is that factual articles about real stories too often now sound like satire. Thus is the case with the subject here: a New York University “bioethicist” who has a solution to climate change, which he and his collaborators call “arguably one of the biggest problems that confront us today.”

To wit: engineer humans who are smaller, smarter, and beef-averse.

Mathew Liao, an immigrant born in Taiwan, has all the “right” credentials, having attended Princeton University and boasting a Ph.D.in philosophy from Oxford; he also holds the Arthur Zitrin Chair of Bioethics at New York University. In other words, he’s the kind of pseudo-elite to whom other pseudo-elites listen.

This is why his pronouncements matter. And perhaps this is why Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson brought his human engineering scheme to light yesterday evening.

Focusing on insanity committed in science’s name, Carlson’s segment opened discussing how it wasn’t just British zoologist Peter Daszak funding coronavirus gain-of-function research in China’s Wuhan lab — using tax dollars provided by Dr. Anthony Fauci — but also monopolistic corporation Google. Daszak and the tech leviathan then conspired to hide from the public information indicating that SARS-CoV-2 likely escaped from the lab.

Google’s complicity was essentially admitted some days ago by one David Feinberg, who heads up the company’s “Health Division.” Answering a reporter’s question, he said that the tech giant was censoring information because it didn’t want to “lead people down pathways that we would find to be not authoritative information”

Yet Liao is also authoritative; in fact, Carlson claims he’s “among the most influential bioethicists in the world.” And that’s why his comments, made years ago but largely ignored, matter.

“My view is that what we need is a really robust ethical framework … to solve big world problems” such as “climate change,” said Liao at an event called the World Science Festival (WSF) in 2016. It “turns out we can use human engineering to help us address climate change.”

Now, “anyone who uses the phrase ‘robust ethical framework’ wouldn’t know ethics if they got in the shower with them,” warned Carlson. This is because such people virtually never know much about what’s a prerequisite for understanding good ethics: morality. Beware those loath to use the term “morality” — for this is usually because they don’t believe in its reality.

But “[h]uman engineering?” stated Carlson rhetorically. “The name alone should make you pause. People aren’t bridge improvements. You can’t just add rebar, pour a few yards of concrete, and improve the human condition, much less the human soul.”

“People are living beings,” the host continued. “They’re alive. They can’t be engineered.”

But don’t tell Liao, who, with collaborators in a 2012 paper titled “Human Engineering and Climate Change,” wrote that “existing solutions such as geoengineering might be too risky … to mitigate climate change.” So we’re instead proposing “human engineering, which involves biomedical modifications of humans so that they can mitigate and/or adapt to climate change,” the scientists continued, also stating that the ethical concerns “can be addressed.”

As for Liao’s proposals, he said at the WSF that people’s consumption of meat was often due to just a “weakness of will.” “So here’s a thought…we have these [sic] intolerance,” he explained. “For example, I have milk intolerance, and there’s, some people are intolerant to crayfish. So possibly we can use human engineering to make it the case that we’re intolerant to certain kinds of meat, certain kinds of bovine proteins. …So that’s something we can do through human engineering.”

 

But Liao wasn’t done. He also suggested at the WSF that we could create smaller humans. “So it turns out the larger you are, think of the lifetime of greenhouse gas emissions that are required, the energy that’s required to transport larger people rather than smaller people, right?” he elaborated. “But if we are smaller just by 15cm…I did the math and that’s about mass reduction of 25%, which is huge. And 100 years ago we’re all on average smaller, exactly about 15 cm smaller, right? So think of … the lifetime greenhouse gas emissions if we had smaller children, right? So that’s something we can do” (video below).

Liao has also argued that we could engineer people to be more intelligent, as higher IQs correlate with lower fertility.

Last week I wrote about how our society is beset by “credentialed morons,” but Liao isn’t dumb. Listening to him makes clear that he’s also not a man of ill will. Yet this perhaps makes him more dangerous. We all know what the road to Hell is paved with, after all.

His ideas aren’t new, either. Using science to improve man was all the rage a century ago in the form of “eugenics,” the science of improving humanity via selective breeding. It’s now associated with the Nazis, whose embrace of it discredited it. But prior to the National Socialists’ rise (in 1933) and till World War II’s conclusion, eugenics was quite popular among American and British pseudo-elites. In fact, the scientist who coined the term “eugenics” was an Englishman, Sir Francis Galton.

And now we’re coming full circle; only, we’ve graduated beyond selective breeding since we now can directly manipulate life genetically. This history repetition was predictable, too, as it’s “what science looks like when it’s been completely decoupled from wisdom, decency and Christianity,” said Carlson.

He’s correct about faithlessness lying at this problem’s heart. Upon concluding that we’re just “cosmic accidents” — the result of godless, unguided evolution — it follows that perhaps we should facilitate that evolution. (Note here that Galton, a half-cousin of famed evolutionist Charles Darwin, acknowledged that he was building on his relative’s work.)

Consider here that people would be very unlikely to fiddle with what they view as God’s design, but they’ll be very likely to try to correct “accidents.” When not believing in God, it’s tempting to play god.

The bottom line is that we should take Liao’s ideas seriously, especially since he has scientific allies in promoting them. For the Critical Race Theory march, “transgenderism,” and so many other destructive movements began with an idea, propounded first by one person and initially dismissed as crankery. And we know what happened with them.

from:   https://thenewamerican.com/bioethicist-proposes-engineering-smaller-humans-with-beef-intolerance-to-fight-climate-change/

Time to Honor the Soil

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Toxic Corporations Are Destroying the Planet’s Soil

Colin Todhunter

Anewly published analysis in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science argues that a toxic soup of insecticides, herbicides and fungicides is causing havoc beneath fields covered in corn, soybeans, wheat and other monoculture crops. The research is the most comprehensive review ever conducted on how pesticides affect soil health.

The study is discussed by two of the report’s authors, Nathan Donley and Tari Gunstone, in a recent article appearing on the Scientific American website.

The authors state that the findings should bring about immediate changes in how regulatory agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assess the risks posed by the nearly 850 pesticide ingredients approved for use in the USA.

Conducted by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and the University of Maryland, the research looked at almost 400 published studies that together had carried out more than 2800 experiments on how pesticides affect soil organisms. The review encompassed 275 unique species or types of soil organisms and 284 different pesticides or pesticide mixtures.

Pesticides were found to harm organisms that are critical to maintaining healthy soils in over 70 per cent of cases. But Donley and Gunstone say this type of harm is not considered in the EPA’s safety reviews, which ignore pesticide harm to earthworms, springtails, beetles and thousands of other subterranean species.

The EPA uses a single test species to estimate risk to all soil organisms, the European honeybee, which spends its entire life above ground in artificial boxes. But 50-100 per cent of all pesticides end up in soil.

The researchers conclude that the ongoing escalation of pesticide-intensive agriculture and pollution are major driving factors in the decline of soil organisms. By carrying out wholly inadequate reviews, the regulatory system serves to protect the pesticide industry.

The study comes in the wake of other recent findings that indicate high levels of the weedkiller chemical glyphosate and its toxic breakdown product AMPA have been found in topsoil samples from no-till fields in Brazil.

Writing on the GMWatch website, Claire Robinson and Jonathan Matthews note that, despite this, the agrochemical companies seeking the renewal of the authorisation of glyphosate by the European Union in 2022 are saying that one of the greatest benefits of glyphosate is its ability to foster healthier soils by reducing the need for tillage (or ploughing).

This in itself is misleading because farmers are resorting to ploughing given increasing weed resistance to glyphosate and organic agriculture also incorporates no till methods. At the same time, proponents of glyphosate conveniently ignore or deny its toxicity to soils, water, humans and wildlife.

With that in mind, it is noteworthy that GMWatch also refers to another recent study which says that glyphosate is responsible for a five per cent increase in infant mortality in Brazil.

The new study, ‘Pesticides in a case study on no-tillage farming systems and surrounding forest patches in Brazil’ in the journal Scientific Reports, leads the researchers to conclude that glyphosate-contaminated soil can adversely impact food quality and human health and ecological processes for ecosystem services maintenance. They argue that glyphosate and AMPA presence in soil may promote toxicity to key species for biodiversity conservation, which are fundamental for maintaining functioning ecological systems.

These studies reiterate the need to shift away from increasingly discredited ‘green revolution’ ideology and practices. This chemical-intensive model has helped the drive towards greater monocropping and has resulted in less diverse diets and less nutritious foods. Its long-term impact has led to soil degradation and mineral imbalances, which in turn have adversely affected human health.

If we turn to India, for instance, that country is losing 5334 million tonnes of soil every year due to soil erosion and degradation, much of which is attributed to the indiscreet and excessive use of synthetic agrochemicals. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research reports that soil is becoming deficient in nutrients and fertility.

India is not unique in this respect. Maria-Helena Semedo of the Food and Agriculture Organization stated back in 2014 that if current rates of degradation continue all of the world’s topsoil could be gone within 60 years. She noted that about a third of the world’s soil had already been degraded. There is general agreement that chemical-heavy farming techniques are a major cause.

It can take 500 years to generate an inch of soil yet just a few generations to destroy. When you drench soil with proprietary synthetic agrochemicals as part of a model of chemical-dependent farming, you harm essential micro-organisms and end up feeding soil a limited doughnut diet of toxic inputs.

Armed with their multi-billion-dollar money-spinning synthetic biocides, this is what the agrochemical companies have been doing for decades. In their arrogance, these companies claim to have knowledge that they do not possess and then attempt to get the public and co-opted agencies and politicians to bow before the altar of corporate ‘science’ and its bought-and-paid-for scientific priesthood.

The damaging impacts of their products on health and the environment have been widely reported for decades, starting with Rachel Carson’s ground-breaking 1962 book Silent Spring.

These latest studies underscore the need to shift towards organic farming and agroecology and invest in indigenous models of agriculture – as has been consistently advocated by various high-level international agencies, not least the United Nations, and numerous official reports.

from:   https://off-guardian.org/2021/06/23/toxic-corporations-are-destroying-the-planets-soil/

Time To Act for the Earth = For Yourself!!!

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Please!!!

Send your intentions and prayers to the planet for healing, for overcoming all the planetary engineering activities — drought, lack of moisture, HAARP, planetary heaters.

Prayers and good intentions ae powerful, even more p[owerful than the evil that people are trying to do in terms of killing the planet, killing the population, killing the animals, killing the ecosphere.  

Corporate based organizations and charities are not the answer when their concern is the bottom line and not us, not what they refer to as “Useless Eaters.”

Its is time to take action before it truly is too late:

Take a listen:

https://rumble.com/vi9o25-climate-engineering-causing-drought-and-earthquakes-dane-wigington.html

Stand Up For Your Local Farmers

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Support local food sources!

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Support local food sources!

When the conventional food system showed its fragility during the COVID shut-downs, local producers kept feeding their communities with high-quality meat, eggs, dairy, and produce.  Artisanal small businesses provide fermented foods, kombucha, and many more foods vital for nourishing our communities.

Yet these local farmers and artisanal producers all too often face unnecessary difficulties created by government regulations, policies, and programs.

Now we have a rare opportunity to urge USDA to change!  The disruptions in the food system over the last year have led President Biden to direct the USDA to submit a report that assesses the supply chains for the production of agricultural commodities and food products.

As part of developing that report, USDA is accepting public comments on “Supply Chains for the Production of Agricultural Commodities and Food Products” until June 21.  The agency will also consider the public comments in its decision on how to spend stimulus funds, since it has been directed to increase durability and resilience within the U.S. food supply.

This is an important opportunity to talk about the significance of localized, decentralized food systems – and to give the agency specific action steps that would help move us to those systems!

In writing your comments, please try to include (1) examples of the challenges farmers and other food producers face in raising, processing, and marketing their products; and (2) specific action items that would help small-scale and diversified producers to build resilient, diversified systems.

Note that the USDA cannot change statutory law.  So issues such as the requirement that meat be processed in an inspected slaughterhouse are outside the scope of this comment period.  But the agency can change its own regulations, policies, and where it directs funding – so there is a lot that it can do to address problems with that meat inspection program, for example.

Topics to consider including in your comments:

  1. Meat processing: USDA should take steps to support the continuation and establishment of new small- and mid-sized operations.
    1. Share your own story about meat processing. Farmers: Were you able to provide meat during the meatpacker shutdowns last spring? Or have you been unable to because of a lack of processing? Consumers: What did you see during the pandemic? From whom did you get meat?
    1. As a small farmer or processor, what changes do you think are needed? Remember to focus on things that are in the regulations and policies, as well as direct relief funding for financial support, not statutory changes that are beyond the agency’s ability to change.
    1. Consider expressing support for these policy changes:
      1. Revise USDA’s policy governing multiple owners of animals that are processed in custom-exempt slaughterhouses. The USDA currently requires that the custom slaughterhouse record each owner and do the division of the meat, which makes it impractical for more than 4 people to co-own an animal. But the statute and regulations merely provide that the meat must be for the personal or household use of the owners. If USDA modified its policy, then “animal shares” could be far more flexible, allowing farmers and consumers to agree to use custom processors.  In effect, we could implement the Wyoming herd share law without the need for new state statutes if USDA makes a simple policy change.
      1. Reform the scale-prejudicial regulations and policies on small-scale slaughterhouses, including: (1) prioritize inspector availability for small-scale processors and provide training specific to small-scale processors; (2) revise the pathogen testing and process-control testing to ensure that small plants are tested proportionally to large plants; (3) reduce the difficulty and expense in developing HACCPs by providing model HACCPs, posting applicable peer-reviewed research, and identifying the control points for different types of products.
  • The agency needs to stop adopting regulations and policies that are scale-prejudicial.  For example, electronic animal ID is much more expensive for small-scale producers, yet the benefits flow to the large players and exporters.
    • Share your concerns about electronic ID, both its impact on you and on others in the industry. Do you run your animals in pasture conditions where they are more likely to lose tags, increasing the time and monetary expense? Does your local sale barn have infrastructure for running all electronic ID or would it be forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars to install it? Would your veterinarian have to buy new equipment to deal with an electronic system?
  • Other areas of needed infrastructure, whether physical (such as commercial kitchens and storage) or logistical (support for food hubs, farmers markets, etc.): What do you see as needed to build resilient, vibrant local food systems? Again, this can involve changing regulations, policy and guidance documents, or providing funding through USDA programs.

You can submit your comment online at

https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/AMS-TM-21-0034-0076

DEADLINE: Monday, June 21

from:    https://www.westonaprice.org/support-local-food-sources/

Solar Cycles

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The Termination Event

/ Dr.Tony Phillips

June 10, 2021: Something big may be about to happen on the sun. “We call it the Termination Event,” says Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), “and it’s very, very close to happening.”

If you’ve never heard of the Termination Event, you’re not alone.  Many researchers have never heard of it either. It’s a relatively new idea in solar physics championed by McIntosh and colleague Bob Leamon of the University of Maryland – Baltimore County. According to the two scientists, vast bands of magnetism are drifting across the surface of the sun. When oppositely-charged bands collide at the equator, they annihilate (or “terminate”). There’s no explosion; this is magnetism, not anti-matter. Nevertheless, the Termination Event is a big deal. It can kickstart the next solar cycle into a higher gear.

Above: Oppositely charged magnetic bands (red and blue) march toward the sun’s equator where they annihilate one another, kickstarting the next solar cycle. [full caption]

“If the Terminator Event happens soon, as we expect, new Solar Cycle 25 could have a magnitude that rivals the top few since record-keeping began,” says McIntosh.

This is, to say the least, controversial. Most solar physicists believe that Solar Cycle 25 will be weak, akin to the anemic Solar Cycle 24 which barely peaked back in 2012-2013. Orthodox models of the sun’s inner magnetic dynamo favor a weak cycle and do not even include the concept of “terminators.”

“What can I say?” laughs McIntosh. “We’re heretics!”

The researchers outlined their reasoning in a December 2020 paper in the research journal Solar Physics. Looking back over 270 years of sunspot data, they found that Terminator Events divide one solar cycle from the next, happening approximately every 11 years. Emphasis on approximately. The interval between terminators ranges from 10 to 15 years, and this is key to predicting the solar cycle.

Above: The official forecast for Solar Cycle 25 (red) is weak; McIntosh and Leamon believe it will be more like the strongest solar cycles of the past.

“We found that the longer the time between terminators, the weaker the next cycle would be,” explains Leamon. “Conversely, the shorter the time between terminators, the stronger the next solar cycle would be.”

Example: Sunspot Cycle 4 began with a terminator in 1786 and ended with a terminator in 1801, an unprecedented 15 years later. The following cycle, 5, was incredibly weak with a peak amplitude of just 82 sunspots. That cycle would become known as the beginning of the “Dalton” Grand Minimum.

Solar Cycle 25 is shaping up to be the opposite. Instead of a long interval, it appears to be coming on the heels of a very short one, only 10 years since the Terminator Event that began Solar Cycle 24. Previous solar cycles with such short intervals have been among the strongest in recorded history.

These ideas may be controversial, but they have a virtue that all scientists can appreciate: They’re testable. If the Termination Event happens soon and Solar Cycle 25 skyrockets, the “heretics” may be on to something. Stay tuned for updates.

from:    https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2021/06/11/the-termination-event/

What’s In Your Water?

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Groundbreaking Investigation Finds Alarming Levels of Arsenic, Lead and Toxic Chemicals in U.S. Tap Water

A joint investigation by the Guardian and Consumer Reports found drinking water samples from systems servicing more than 19 million people in the U.S. contained unsafe levels of multiple contaminants.

Millions of people face serious water quality problems in the U.S.

On Tuesday, the Guardian released the results of a nine-month investigation conducted jointly with Consumer Reports (CR) which showed alarming levels of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and chemicals from plastic PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in drinking water samples across the U.S.

According to the Guardian, millions of people face serious water quality problems in the U.S. because of contamination, deteriorating infrastructure and inadequate treatment at water plants.

As part of the study, CR and the Guardian selected 120 volunteers to provide tap water samples which were then tested for heavy metals like lead and arsenic, contaminants and PFAS — a group of compounds found in hundreds of household products that are linked to learning delays in children, cancer and other health problems.

The samples came from water systems that service more than 19 million people.

Here are four key findings from this report:

  • A total of 118 of 120 samples analyzed had concerning levels of PFAS, arsenic or lead exceeding safety thresholds set by CR scientists and other health experts.
  • Almost every sample had measurable levels of PFAS and more than 35% of samples contained the potentially toxic “forever chemicals,” at levels that exceeded CR’s  maximum safety threshold.
  • About 8% of samples contained arsenic at levels above CR’s recommended maximum.
  • One tested water sample in New Britain, Connecticut, had a lead concentration of 31.2 ppb — more than double the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) action level of 15 ppb, and 25 ppb higher than the water quality report sent to people who use the water.

In response to the findings, EPA spokesperson Andrea Drinkard said 93% of the population supplied by community water systems get water that meets “all health-based standards all of the time” and that the agency has set standards for more than 90 contaminants. That includes arsenic and lead but not PFAS.

However, according to an analysis of more than 140,000 public water systems published by the Guardian in February, millions of people in the U.S. are drinking water that fails to meet federal health standards, including limits for dangerous contaminants.

‘Forever chemicals’ (PFAS) in tap water

CR’s results showed PFAS in 117 of 120 samples tested, from locations across the country. Two CR samples had PFAS levels above the federal advisory level of 70 ppt, with the highest amount at 80.2 ppt.

PFAS chemicals have been manufactured and used in a variety of industries in the U.S. since the 1940s, according to the EPA. They can be found in food packaging, commercial household products, stain and water-repellent fabrics, nonstick cookware, polishes, waxes, paints, cleaning products, fire-fighting foams, oil and plastics industries and contaminated drinking water.

PFAS chemicals seep into water from factories, landfills and other sources. They’re often called “forever chemicals” because they can accumulate in the body and don’t easily break down in the environment.

An investigation into the health effects of PFAS involving research of 69,000 people revealed a “probable link” between exposure to a type of PFAS chemical and six health problems: high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and testicular and kidney cancers. Research has also linked PFAS to learning delays in children.

As reported by The Defender, science suggests links between PFAS exposure and a range of health consequences, including possible increased risks of cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, liver damage, kidney disease, low birth-weight babies, immune suppression, ulcerative colitis and pregnancy-induced hypertension.

At least 2,337 communities in 49 states have drinking water known to be contaminated with PFAS, according to a January analysis by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization.

Despite evidence of widespread contamination and health risks, the EPA has not set an enforceable legal limit for PFAS in drinking water. It has established only voluntary limits, which apply to just two forever chemicals — perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) — at 70 parts per trillion combined.

Harvard environmental health professor Philippe Grandjean has suggested that the limit should be just 1 ppt for PFOA and PFOS, citing his 2013 research published in Environmental Health.

Most municipalities don’t test for PFAS, and when they do, it’s only on a small scale.

Toxic arsenic in tap water

Almost every sample CR tested had measurable levels of arsenic, a common groundwater contaminant, including 10 samples with levels between 3 and 10 ppb, according to the Guardian.

CR scientists and environmental advocacy groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have said the limit should be 3 ppb or lower, but the EPA allows arsenic in drinking water up to 10 ppb to balance the costs for water system operators against reducing health risks.

Research suggests exposure to minimal levels of arsenic can pose long-term health risks. A 2014 study in Environmental Health found that arsenic at 5ppb or greater was associated with reduced IQ in children.

As The Defender reported in March, arsenic was “ranked number one among substances present in the environment that pose the most significant potential threat to human health,” according to a congressional report that resulted from an investigation into heavy metals like lead and arsenic found in baby food.

According to the report: “Exposure to toxic heavy metals causes permanent decreases in IQ, diminished future economic productivity, and increased risk of future criminal and antisocial behavior in children. Toxic heavy metals endanger infant neurological development and long-term brain function.”

Dangerous level of lead in tap water

Concerns of lead in drinking water first made national headlines during the Flint, Michigan water crisis in 2015. Scientists and the EPA have agreed there is no safe exposure level for lead, though the EPA’s action level for lead is set at 15 ppb.

While New Britain’s annual water quality report for customers indicated that its average lead level was 6 ppb, one sample tested by CR showed lead concentrations of 31.2 ppb, more than double the EPA’s action level of 15 ppb.

Lead typically works its way into drinking water through lead pipes leading to peoples’ homes or in the homes’ plumbing. An estimated 3 to 6 million homes and businesses in the U.S. still get water through older lines that contain lead, according to EPA estimates, and an unknown number of homes have plumbing fixtures made of the heavy metal.

It is well established that inorganic arsenic and lead found in tap water are neurotoxic and can result in reduced IQ as well as adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, such as autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — two conditions that have been steadily climbing for several decades, reported The Defender.

According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, lead can also cause reproductive issues, low bone density, poor kidney function, cognitive decline and negatively impacts every organ system in the body. High levels of exposure can cause encephalopathy or death.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has identified no “threshold or safe level of lead in blood.”

Next steps — solving the problem

Although people can seek cleaner drinking water by using filters and home filtration systems that remove dangerous contaminates, CR says fixing the problem shouldn’t be up to consumers.

The NRDC has called on the Biden administration and Congress to enact legislation requiring the expeditious removal and replacement of lead lines and to take immediate steps to address PFAS contamination in drinking water.

from:    https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/arsenic-lead-toxic-chemicals-tap-water/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=8a2338f9-c91c-4d41-816c-8533cf90d2d8

What Is In The Sky? Read & Watch

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New Feature-Length Geoengineering Documentary: The Dimming

MARCH 11, 2021

By Peter A. Kirby

Dane Wigington at GeoengineeringWatch.org has finally released his long-anticipated feature-length documentary film The Dimming.

Like everything Dane and his team do, this new documentary is a cut above. Featuring commentary from a plethora of top anti-geoengineering activists, it masterfully covers many aspects of today’s operations. It slices and dices the insidious claims (usually made by the shills) of the lines in the sky being harmless condensation trails. It deftly and effectively explains the manipulation of atmospheric particles with electromagnetic energy. It exposes the disinformation tactics of the mainstream media. It compiles the extensive evidence proving that the terrible wildfires of late are a direct result of massive aerial spraying.

In particular, the film focuses on biological impacts. You know, the area of study that is the most important and therefore roundly ignored by the geoengineers. The most extensive discussions here revolve around the Human health impacts of aluminum exposure. If you’re new to this topic, aluminum has been found to be the most common constituent of today’s geoengineering sprays, and guess what? It’s really bad for us – especially aluminum nanoparticles. The film also shows how the combination of aluminum in our bodies and our exposures to harmful electromagnetic energy (such as that produced by 5G cell towers) adds another layer of harmful complexity here.

The centerpiece of the film is documentation of the collection and analysis of particulate samples taken in flight. Dane and his team were able to collect air samples at altitude then have the samples professionally analyzed. The whole process is detailed in the film. Samples have been collected at ground level for many years, but these aerial samples eliminate the possibility of contamination. As one might expect, the dispersed particulate matter collected at altitude was found to consist of the same elements prevalent in samples collected at ground level.

In summation, The Dimming is a must see. At its core is a call to action against something that threatens all life on this planet. The last segment is particularly stirring. We have an awesome home, folks. It’s too bad that vigorously defending it is not something that most people do. Since we have our priorities straight, we must be the ones that keep pressing the issue. Thank you.

Links

Websites

 

from:   https://www.activistpost.com/2021/03/new-feature-length-geoengineering-documentary-the-dimming.html

Actually, It’s Getting Colder

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What Lies Ahead? The Grand Solar Minimum

by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Mar 03, 2021 – 19:20

Submitted by Luke Eastwood

We are all aware of the environnmental crisis that humanity (and all life on Earth) faces, characterised by the term ‘climate change’. Much of the current thinking in the scientific community is promoting the idea that our planet is rapidly warming due to excess CO2 (carbon dioxide) gas produced by humans in the last few centuries, and the last 70 years in particular.

While there is a very strong and hard to deny case to suggest that human activity is the main cause of environmental destruction, the premise that it is due primarily to CO2 emissions is beginning to look somewhat flawed. I am well aware that the previous sentence is likely to draw a lot of negative attention and criticism, with accusations of ‘climate denier’ being thrown at me. However, the situation is not that simple as to be a case of ‘global warming’ being the main influence or no influence at all.

The reality of the situation is complex. In my opinion the main drivers of the  environmental crisis are many, but put in simple terms – destruction of wild habitats, pollution due to industrialisation, over-use of soils, over-population, erosion of soils leading to desertification or barren, infertile landscapes, monoculture agriculture and climate fluctuations. Notice that I did not use the term ‘climate change’ which in the current scientific norm implies warming.

While the planet has undoubtedly warmed up, in part due to human activity and CO2 production, the current popular thinking completely ignores historical CO2 levels beyond the last millennium and also the primary input on temperatures on this planet and all eight of the planets in this solar system. That input, although largely ignored at the moment, is of course our sun, which on average generates 3.8 x 1026 Joules (energy) per second. Human energy usage per year is around 5 x 1020 Joules, which is about 1 million times less than the Sun produces during 1 second! In fact, in the whole of human history we have used less energy that the Sun produces in that 1 second.

So, given the above, it stand to reason that the energy of the Sun must have a significant effect on the energy available on this planet and the heat energy (temperature) that is captured by it, as it rotates around the Sun. If we look at the history of Earth, particularly through the use of ice-core samples, we can see that the temperatures on our planet follow a very distinct pattern. On a macro level this can be observed as a huge cycle of glacials (ice-ages) and interglacials, with the ice ages lasting many times longer than the interglacial (warm) periods.  We are currently in an interglacial, which began approximately 11,500 years ago and it is estimated that it will end some time within the next 50,000 years.

On a micro level, the Sun undergoes cycles of around 11 years  known as the solar magnetic activity cycle, which has been studied and recorded by humans for approximately 400 years. During each cycle the number of sunspots peaks and falls in a recognisable pattern. However, this pattern of approx. 11 years is itself part of a much longer solar pattern of solar minimums and solar maximums. For instance the Medieval maximum (grand solar maximum) lasted from 1100-1250 (warm period) and the famous Maunder Minimum (grand solar minimum) lasted from 1645-1715 (cold period). The later was known as a mini  ice age due to the particularly drastic drop in global temperatures that affected crop-growth and led to bitter winters for a period of 70 years.

Scientists that study the sun are well aware of these periodic cycles both on the 11 year scale and on the larger scale of 70–100 years, known as the Gleissberg cycle. We have just finished a solar maximum cycle of around 70 years and are now heading into a both a new 11 year cycle and a new grand solar minimum cycle that will reach its lowest (coldest) point some time between 2030 and 2040.  You don’t need to take my word for it – this has been confirmed by NASA and by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA). NOAA predictions of sunspot and radio flux appears to show a ‘full-blown’ grand solar minimum (GSM) which will last from the late-2020s to at least the 2040s

This means that the coming solar minimum is going to be not only a grand solar minimum, but perhaps the worst one since the Maunder Minimum in the 1600s. One would expert this to have been front-page news, but outside of the scientific community this information is virtually unheard of and little understood. One must ask – why is this the case? The simple answer to this question is that the solar predictions destroy the current scientific and cultural narrative of ‘Climate Change’ in the form of warming.

There will indeed be climate change in the coming decades, but for the next 10 to 40 years it is going to get colder, not warmer! The same thing will happen on the 7 other planets in this solar system, because the main factor affecting planetary temperatures is the activity of the Sun. Given that so much time, effort and money has been invested in ‘global warming’ as a premise for change in how human society is run, it is very much an “inconvenient truth” that is beginning to arrive just at the time when we are beginning to take more affirmative action on environmental issues.

The controversial news that the Earth (and all 7 other planets) will cool down in the next 10-40 years is politically highly inconvenient and that is why it is being kept quiet. Getting rid of fossil fuels, caring for our environment, lowering industrial output, ending industrial farming and reducing livestock, plus a gradual reduction in the human population are all excellent goals.  Unfortunately the rationale for doing this, that has been sold to the public, is most likely entirely misguided.  The net effect of this false premise may well be that environmentalists and main-stream public scientists will look like fools by the end of this decade. The cooling of planet Earth may well be seen as justification to abandon environmental concerns and reform of our economic systems, which would be a terrible tragedy.

In order to avoid this highly likely total embarrassment, world governments and the scientific community need to admit that the coming dip in solar energy output is going to lead to the cooling of our planet for at least 2 decades, possibly 4 or 5 or even 7 decades!  This is not conspiracy, this is not mis-information or propaganda – this is proven, verifiable fact which can be validated by current solar observation, previous observation of sun cycles for 400 years and ice-core samples stretching back millions of years.

As someone who has been involved in the environmental movement since I was 16, when I joined a conservation group at college, I am very concerned about how this plays out. If the public feels that they have been lied to it may lead to a backlash and a disinterest in environmental issues. The reasons I outlined at the beginning of this article are more than sufficient for humanity to change its modus operandi. One does not need to concoct highly improbable narratives about the world ‘burning up’ within decades to justify environmental activism. In fact the coming GSM is likely to produce similar negative effects to predicted ‘global warming’, such as habitat loss, loss of farming land, a drop in food availability, migration, social unrest and possibly other problems too.

It is time that the whole ‘climate change’ theory was re-assessed and the known solar activity cycle as observed by NOAA and NASA taken into account. To fail to do so is total folly and only creates another problem, that will come back to haunt us if the grand solar minimum is ignored.  We do need to take better care of our world and learn to live far more harmoniously within it, but we need to base our actions on good science and not on misleading or inaccurate information.

from:    https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/what-lies-ahead-grand-solar-minimum?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter

On Being Human and Nature

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How To Awaken Our Ecological Psyche

By Kendra Ward
Feb 16, 2021

“Do you think crows are the smartest animals? What are the smartest animals? I bet it’s parrots, or maybe dolphins. No, no, it’s gotta be some kind of dog, Mama.”

This volley of questions from my 7-year-old son about a group of crows on a nearby power line early one morning caused me to reflect on how we are bathed in a human-centric worldview from the very start of our lives.

“What does ‘smart’ mean exactly?” I said. “Perhaps every animal, every being has its own unique genius. Do you think any animal is smarter than another, the way a spider weaves its intricately patterned web, the way an owl sees a mouse in the dark, the way a squirrel flies from branch to branch? It seems to me that there are so many ways of expressing intelligence in this world.”

Somehow we can only understand intelligence from a certain cognitive ladder that exists to always put humans on top. It is this human-centrism, I believe, that is at the very core of our ecological catastrophe. In addition to it being deeply problematic psychologically, when we do not value the lives of all beings, they become unfeeling and expendable resources for our ceaseless human consumption.

There is no doubt that practical, actionable changes to our everyday way of life are essential to creating an ecological civilization. Continuing to shift how we are commuting, shopping, eating, and farming is clearly essential. But beyond these physical acts, what are we doing to create an ecological civilization within our psyches? If our minds cannot conceive of it, we surely will not act to make it a reality.

We must begin by confronting how entrenched beliefs in human ownership of all places and things keep us foreign to and outside of the living world. We are not the Earth’s keepers or savers, just as we are not the Earth’s landlords or masters. The Earth provides for and nurtures our very existence—we must stop perpetuating the harmful illusion that we are separate from and superior to nature’s ingenuity. Clearly recognizing this human-nature split within our mindset is the gateway to other beneficial ways of knowing.

From there we can practice seeing ourselves as one kind of being within a much wider field of living kinship. At its foundation, developing an ecological psyche means that we are reclaiming and diversifying this sense of relational intimacy.

We can engage in simple rituals of reciprocity by finding a daily communion with the creatures, waterways, and stars that remind us something vibrantly alive exists beyond our limited knowledge and understanding.

Perhaps you are already in a loving relationship with a pet, a special tree, or a nearby river. Let us legitimize the way these things nourish and comfort us, and then seek out an even larger web of connection.

Beginning with the place where we live, we can practice rousing our fullest attention by learning its Indigenous history, both past and modern. Bringing a presence to the ground beneath our feet, we can study its slow, ever-changing geology, as well as the names of the plants and animals of the place we call home. We can engage in simple rituals of reciprocity by finding a daily communion with the creatures, waterways, and stars that remind us something vibrantly alive exists beyond our limited knowledge and understanding.

We can regularly seek out experiences that offer a greater perspective, reminding us of our small but unique niche within the mix of all creation. This is what draws millions of people to National Parks every summer or what puts us behind telescopes at 3 o’clock in the morning—the opportunity to feel humbled and awed, put back in place by the immensity of it all.

We no longer need to believe in the story of our separateness—shifting our belief of individualism into a life-affirming sense of belonging with all beings. Earth-honoring ethics are the wisdom teachings of Indigenous cultures around the world. But all of us are on the hook. It is the birthright and responsibility of all humans to come back into relationship with the Earth.

With an ecological psyche we awaken something essential within ourselves. Listening to our quiet biophilic longings, we find that our bodies and spirits are hardwired for wilderness and our cells, our muscles, our lungs have a memory of this: We are more sunflower, more thunder, more ocean tide than we are concrete. We have to rekindle this deep memory of where we come from. We are nature breathing, moving, trembling in human form.

Kendra Ward has been an acupuncturist and herbalist since 2003. She lives with her family in rural Vermont on traditional Abenaki lands.
from:    https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/ecological-civilization/2021/02/16/awaken-our-ecological-psyche/