Don't Shut Up

In a previous post, "On The Turning Away," I referenced a Pink Floyd song. It's a good one. Written in 1987, it is no less spot-on now. Why don't we listen the first time around? This seems common. Here are some of the lyrics:

No more turning away
From the weak and the weary
No more turning away
From the coldness inside
Just a world that we all must share
It's not enough just to stand and stare
Is it only a dream that there'll be
No more turning away?

It's why I say over and over again, don't shut up. Those that spread lies don't shut up. They keep talking until their lies become truth. We're polite, so we back down. We don't want to argue. We don't want to seem loud or inappropriate.

What has this gotten us? Frustration and abundant stupidity. Misinformation. People who don't know and don't care. It's time to change that.

So what if there are some who think we are rude or don't want to listen to us? It's not for them. It's for the people who don't have a voice. It's for that person on the side who hasn't had the courage to speak up and maybe thinks they've been wrong this whole time until they hear you, you - speaking up, saying exactly what they have been wanting to say but were scared. Next time, because of you, they may be able to speak. Or the time after that. We speak because it's the truth and the truth should be spoken. The truth should be shouted from the rooftops.

The stakes are too high, the risks are too great, the losses are too unfathomable. Don't shut up. We can't. It's up to us. There's no one else. So we sound a little crazy. (Crazy people, incidentally, don't shut up either.) We may sound like conspiracy theorists. Again, so what? When the shit goes down, at least we can say we tried.

Let me say that again: At least we can say we tried. Don't shut up.

Here's a link to a version of the song if you want to check it out, with the lyrics listed, I highly recommend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojf18wT_Xtk Love the album art, too.

On the Turning Away

It's no secret that we have turned away from Nature. I'm far from alone in thinking that this is the source to most if not all our problems. Sometimes, though, my brain goes a little sideways and I get all X Files on myself. I can't help it - I think a lot. (And I like the X Files.) Step into my brain for a few. It's OK. It's dark, but I'll let you out. Maybe. Mwahahahah...

This is going to apply largely to the US, because in Europe and other places, humans actually eat a lot more sensibly. I am anticipating Spring, and the bounty that will explode in my yard. I will practically graze after this hard Winter. Plantain, dandelions, purslane, chickweed.... an abundance of healthy stuff provided by Nature. For free. Healthier than some of the stuff we pay big bucks for in supplement form. Every one of them is either ignored or cursed by the majority of those with yards or gardens.

I only mention the four most common in my yard. Other "weeds" are maligned in other places, healthy things like burdock and nettle, but I'll focus on these. Especially dandelions. As a child, I was completely delighted by every aspect of these happy bright beauties. They provided hours of entertainment on the playground. We wished upon the seeds. We made chain necklaces out of the stems. We picked giant bouquets of sunny yellow happiness. I can practically still feel the consternation of our neighbor, as our dandies grew freely, and he had his lawn visited by the ChemLawn truck every year. (I shudder to realize that I played on that lawn, too. Ick.)

We spend millions and pour tons of herbicides into the Earth to destroy this little piece of sunshine. And still it grows. And it may be one of the most beneficial plants on the planet. I had received news that my cholesterol is a tad high. As I refuse to take drugs for this, I turned to my herbal remedy books to look up what Nature recommends. First on the list? Dandelions. What do we do to manage our cholesterol? Get prescriptions for something created in a lab. What am I going to do? Turn to Nature.

Purslane is crazy high in Omega-3 fatty acids. And it grows like crazy. The more you try to pull it out, the more it grows. Like crazy. And it's actually delicious. Raw, cooked, sauteed, steamed, tossed in with almost anything. And yet where do we go to get our Omega-3, which are highly recommended? FISH OIL. Because no one is making money if you get your supplements FROM YOUR YARD. Money would be lost all the way down the line, right to Big Oil who is responsible for those plastic bottles. (Thanks, Roger!) And if we knew we could munch on free stuff from our lawn, we might not spend money on herbicides (Monsanto) and we might be more healthy and we would not need Big Pharma. Follow the money.

It gets worse. Grape seeds - insanely healthy on multiple levels. What do we buy in stores? Seedless grapes. I have actually looked for black grapes with seeds still in them. They are very hard to find. Hmmm....

The list goes on and on of things we can easily get in Nature that would keep us much more reasonably healthy, but we ignore them completely, avoid them, or worst of all actively kill them with poison. Poison that harms us too. So we need more Big Pharma. Can you blame me for thinking it's a conspiracy? Do you see it now, or just think I go too far? I'd love to hear. When did it start? This turning away? Have we been turned away on purpose... slowly... slowly... am I going to disappear?

Pink Floyd has an awesome song that comes to mind for this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojf18wT_Xtk 

"Don't accept that what's happening
Is just a case of others' suffering
Or you'll find that you're joining in

The turning away"

Make the Connection

It was over the course of a few days - a flurry of plastic articles and headlines.

From the Guardian:

Phthalates risk damaging children’s IQs in the womb, US researchers suggest

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/10/phthalates-damage-childrens-iqs-womb-plastic-chemicals

While at the same time, in another area: 

The Oceans' Plastic Pollution Problem Is Far Worse Than We Thought, and Here's Why

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/12/10/worlds-ocean-plastic-pollution-problem-just-got-bigger--lot-bigger?cmpid=ait-fb

And even this:

Fleeced again: How microplastic causes macro problems for the ocean

http://grist.org/living/2011-12-07-how-microplastics-cause-macro-problems-for-the-ocean/

(Photo: Paul Kennedy/Getty Images)

Maybe I was just paying extra-super close attention. Maybe I'm extra tuned in. Maybe people really don't care. Maybe I have more time than parents. Maybe they should make more time. After all, they're the ones that have to deal with the consequences. Theor kids and their kids' kids.

The phthalates story was in the news scroll at the bottom of my morning news viewing, and t was followed immediately by the warning that there are more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the ocean. Surely, surely that was on purpose, and surely, surely people made the connection.


Right? Surely? Yeah.

Too much plastic in our oceans and environment, and too many plastic chemicals messing up our children. There is no magical solution to this whole thing. It won't be cleaned, it won't go away. There is no "away." There is only mitigation at this point. We are not going to find a way to magically scoop up the plastic in the oceans despite the cool articles you see people share. There is no amazing bacteria that is going to lunch on plastic and solve our problem. Frankly, if there is - like the shared articles claim - then I will just wait for the whole new host of problems brought on by overfed insane mutant bacteria. There is no fix, other than to stop adding to the problem. Stop.

It is the one solution: stop using this stuff. It wasn't enough to tell you it was bad for the environment and to cut it out before it was too late. Now it's directly affecting your kids and it is too late and now maybe you'll pay attention.

Surely.

There are too many people here. It is unsustainable, and we are ruining the place. And because we need cheap and convenient for all these way too many people, we use plastic, and it's just plain bad.

I have to wonder what's going to give first. Will we back off in time or will Nature take care of it for us? I know what my bet is on. Go ahead - guess. I'll wait.

I do use plastic. It's very hard to avoid. I wear fleece and other clothing that will give off microfibers. I am certain this would not be so much of an issue were we keeping a closer eye on population. There is nothing that cannot be blamed on there being too many people for this ecosystem. Period. So, here we are. Let's see where we go next.

The Mama Bear Myth

The Urban Dictionary defines “Mama Bear” as a mom who can be cuddly and lovable but also has a ferocious side when it's necessary to protect her cubs, and suggests “a tough, aggressive, and protective mother, often going to extreme lengths to protect her child, usually her son, and herself.”

There are a number of memes and blogs saying things like, “If you mess with my child, I will unleash my fury and destroy your world” or “I may seem quiet and reserved, but if you mess with my children, I will break out a level of crazy that will make your nightmares seem like a happy place.” And a favorite: “You ain’t seen crazy yet … but you will if you attack my children physically or verbally. Hugs! Love, Mama Bear.”

Yes. All well and good. Sounds bold and protective. Except you don’t really mean it. I don’t believe you. When asked this question, “Is working to try to prevent environmental damage for the future really a part of being a good parent?” ninety-three percent of the public (men and women) agreed in an anthropological poll and study by MIT investigators. Yet, where are you? Where have you been on the great threats of our day?

You will overreact to some perceived slight and call it being Mama Bear. You will get all Mama Bear on those of us who might cast a glance aside if your child is having a public tantrum and we have the nerve to let a touch of annoyance cross our face, as though your child can act up anywhere but we are not allowed to have any feelings about it. Because you’re a Mama Bear. “Don’t mess with my cubs.”

Here is why this doesn’t ring true. You aren’t fighting the most important fights for your children. You are busy insisting you can breastfeed wherever you wish, and your children are allowed to run amuck in a restaurant and we have to tolerate it because they are kids and tough nuts to anyone else in the vicinity. You cheer on a mother who punched another woman for daring to speak about a tantrum the child was having. While you are doing these things, your kid’s real and actual future is in trouble. Your kids and your kids’ kids are in profound trouble, but somehow, this doesn’t bring out the Mama Bear in you. Why is that? Why are there so many moms claiming to be mama bears sitting back and doing nothing when climate catastrophe can be seen on the horizon, or when the chemical industry teams up with bioengineers to alter your children’s food supplies in dangerous ways?

We have the very real threat of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the chemicals they can tolerate on our dinner tables. You can’t be bothered. With all the studies pointing to danger, we ask you to use your mother bear might and vast numbers to help fight, but apparently it’s too much trouble. Your daughter’s reproductive rights are at risk, but you won’t go vote because you can’t or won’t make the time. BPA bleeding from plastics are affecting your kids’ long-term health, reproductive health, your unborn kids’ health and development, but you haven’t taken the time to even know what BPAs are. The research is everywhere, but you don’t know and do not care to educate yourself. Climate Change is here and it is causing widespread disruption to the point where your kid’s future is going to be very tough - full of droughts, famine, intolerable heat and dangerous cold, diseases, shortages. Scientists just warned that the oceans will be completely destroyed by 2048. Where’s Mama Bear on this urgent warning? Too distracted? Too tired?

You are not a Mama Bear. You fall for every convenience out there because you are so busy. You give your kids fast food and chemical-laden plastic-wrapped processed crap, because being a mom is tough and you are tired and don’t have time or energy. You are putting your kids in very real danger. No, it’s not the immediate and very real danger of a bully or a snarky comment in a store. It’s the slow, deadly danger of cancer. Or sterility. Or developmental difficulties. Where is your fury and your crazy here? Where is the Mama Bear now?

This is where I get a lot of “You aren’t a mom, you don’t know.” What I do know is that people like me who don’t have their own kids are fighting for your children. We are fighting on a pretty grand scale, as a matter of fact. We’re trying to make sure your kids have a future here on this planet. We are thinking ahead. I know we’re in trouble here, and I know you brought your kid into this world, but you aren’t really thinking about their kids with your Mama Bear claims. I am. I’m thinking about your kids and their kids and all the kids, everywhere, while you are busy growling about your kid getting a behavior correction from a store employee.

So before you get all Mama Bear and smack me down with a giant paw, why don’t you listen for a moment, and take the time to realize that I am on your side. I’m on your kids’ side. While you are all riled up in the moment, I’m in it for the long haul. Yes, there are some super-awesome moms out there. There are moms out there fighting the big fight, there are some really good Mama Bears out there. They see the whole picture, and this little piece is not aimed at them.

Think about this: actual mama bears raise their cubs then never have anything to do with them after about their second spring. Is short-term parenting what you are modelling for your children? I doubt it. Let’s drop the bear myth and end the misplaced ferocity, or better yet redirect your focus and anger to the real threats by fighting for your children’s future.  Let’s work together for the long-term future of children everywhere.

Debunking the Debunking

We've been over this before, but it seems to bear repeating. Someone tried to bring it up to me as a debate point, so here I go again.

There's this whole group dedicated to "debunking the myth of overpopulation." Actually, they've distilled it down to three easy steps. That's all it takes to prove that we are not overpopulating the planet. I can beat them. I can debunk their debunking by their third paragraph. Observe:

"... let’s define overpopulation. Overpopulation describes a situation where the number of people exhausts the resources in a closed environment such that it can no longer support that population.

Let’s imagine that our PRI offices were to suddenly become a closed environment, with nothing allowed in our out. Obviously, I and my colleagues would exhaust the available resources very quickly: The water cooler would be drained dry, the refrigerator would be emptied out, and the oxygen would be all used up.  

Obviously, my office has too many people for its natural resources, but I haven’t started trying to eliminate my co-workers to ensure my own survival.  I haven’t launched a sterilization campaign against my younger colleagues or encouraged my older colleagues to jump out of the windows.  Why?

Well, of course, I am constrained by Catholic moral teaching.  But aside from that, I know that my office is not a closed environment. Neither are most instances cited by overpopulation zealots, such as crowded cities or poor countries.  None of these are closed environments."

Well, there's the problem right there. What's the problem? They make no sense. At this point I start to feel it's unfair to even pick apart their points, because really they just aren't good points to being with. They are defining overpopulation (supposedly), but they aren't defining a "closed environment." Sure, they can leave their office. Sure, people can leave the cities. Sure, people can leave poor countries. But at the end of it all, we are still just on one planet, which would seem to indicate a "closed environment." Unless they have a spaceship and another M-class planet that they haven't mentioned.

Until they define "closed environment," I can't be swayed but this.

We haven't even gotten into their three reasons and they have already lost anyone with any sense. I like to hope, anyway. But let's entertain them a bit longer and look at their three reasons that they think overpopulation is a myth:

1) “Food: there isn’t enough!” Since the time of Thomas Malthus, who lived in the early 1800s, doomsayers have gloomily predicted that mankind would outbreed its food supply, resulting in catastrophic famines.  Yet the world currently produces enough food to feed 10 billion people, and there are only 7 billion of us. That is, with 7 billion human minds at work, we produce enough food for 10 billion human bodies. Imagine how much food we can produce with 10 billion minds!


This one kind of makes me squint - you know that look you can't help but get on your face when you are talking to someone and you start to suspect they aren't all there ... like this:

They seem to be missing out on a few points here. How much waste is created by that food? How much of that food is actually healthy and sustainably produced? How much harm are we inflicting on the environment producing that "food"? For that matter, define food. Oh, they go on, but they really don't get much better. So I keep this expression on my face. Oh - and I like Malthus. He knew stuff.

2) “We are running out of water!” The earth is awash in water.  Oceans cover 70 percent of the planet’s surface to an average depth of 6,000 feet.  That’s why the earth looks blue from space.  You cannot use up or destroy water; you can only change its state (from liquid to solid or gas) or contaminate it so that it is undrinkable.

Wow. See the picture above. Or, let's just look at actual facts rather than Fox News talking points:

1. While nearly 70 percent of the world is covered by water, only 2.5 percent of it is fresh. The rest is saline and ocean-based. Even then, just 1 percent of our freshwater is easily accessible, with much of it trapped in glaciers and snowfields.

2. Clean Water Crisis - Environment - National Geographic 

   environment.nationalgeographic.com

Um .. I'm gonna have to go with Nat Geo on this one. Oceans? Yeah, sure. Here's a glass of ocean water. Drink it. Go ahead. I'll wait. Finish it! And yes, we are actually contaminating it at an alarming rate as well. Because, you know, feeding 10 billion people creates a lot of waste that goes into where? Water supply. Oh, and while our glaciers are melting, to where are they melting? INto the oceans. So the fresh water locked up there becomes ... say it with me ... ocean water. Drink it.

I almost can't go on. But I must, to #3.

3) “But we’re growing exponentially!”  Um,...No. We’re not. We are growing, but definitely not at an exponential rate. In fact, our rates of growth are declining. Between 1950 and 2000, the world population grew at a rate of 1.76%. Between 2000 and 2050, it is expected to grow by 0.77 percent. So yes, because 0.77 is greater than zero, it is a positive growth rate, and the world population will continue to grow.

Give me a minute. My brain went all squishy and tried to ooze out my ear for a short time there. Um ... yes, yes we are. If our rates of growth are declining, how is population still increasing? Is it increasing more slowly? In some areas, perhaps. But they contradict themselves all in one paragraph. So I don't even feel the need to argue it. I'm hoping sense prevails with most people reading this. And let's just put this right here: 1.76% of 5 billion versus .77% of 7 billion. See what I'm saying? Exponential - they keep using that word. I don't think it means what they think it means.

They go on to spout a few fun facts which really just leave me despondent. Here's the link to the page if you really want to check them out. You've been warned. https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/dubunking-the-over-population-myth
I've glossed over some of the points. I had to. Really, if there are people that are falling for this, there's really no hope for them anyway.

Let's all enjoy a moment of silence.

*****
Thanks to Futurama for an endless supply of Fry faces from which to choose.

Tread Lightly

Sometimes the smallest things become really big analogies. Yes, I will definitely explain that vague splutter. I arrived home the other day to find my husband sitting outside with our neighbor, having a nice chat over a beverage. My husband sat in a lawn chair and the neighbor enjoyed our porch swing, which is not on a porch but rather in the grass under our shady magnolia tree. Apparently they had been there for about half an hour. Our neighbor is … er … well, he’s a super cool guy and I like him a lot, so I will say he is ... energetic. Maybe twitchy. Excitable? Passionate. Let’s stick with energetic. He kept the swing in motion which is what you do on a porch swing. It’s what I do on the porch swing. It has “swing” right in the name. I looked at the ground beneath him. He had on some pretty serious work boots, and in the short time he sat there, he had chewed away the grass beneath him with the heavy tread on his boots and total restlessness. It has been a very wet summer here and our grass is lush and thick and more tough weeds than actual grass, but he had cleared it to the dirt in no time at all. Dude left, and I pointed it out to my husband, who for some reason had not noticed. Gashes in the Earth. Gouges.

This is of course not a big deal. Sure, it’ll take a few weeks for those spots to cover again, but no harm, no foul. Our yard is not neat, it’s just a fairly respectable yard. But this opened up a pretty big realization on my part. This tiny little nothing-incident made me think of how little most people think of their actions upon this Earth. So many of us tread so heavily and don’t ever even notice. In this case it was literal tread.

How many of these have you stepped on today?

While I go about the business of trying to bring awareness, so many others go about their life on this planet without a thought as to the weight of their tread. This isn’t even as far as carbon footprint, which figures in there, of course, but just the footstep upon this place we call home. Sometimes I get paralyzed in my yard because I realize how many creatures are under my feet at any given time! I admit I am a little uber-aware. (If “uber” can have the value of “a little.”) But I have to be the balance for those who are completely and totally unaware, apparently. I’m surrounded.

It comes down to this: we have a lot of problems going on today. We aren’t going to fix them, they aren’t going to go away, nothing is going to get better until we realize the effect we are having on the planet. We are disconnected, we don’t think, we don’t realize. We gouge and gash and scar and simply walk away, don’t look back. We consume, waste, dispose of, procreate, and we go about it with too little awareness of the consequences. We need to reconnect and we need to do it now. After all, how can we fix the big things if we can’t even notice the little things? I found this great quote but not the author, so I cannot give credit, but it’s a really good one: “The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow. Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show.”

The Truth of Selfishness

All our lives, we are told that if we don't want to have children, we are selfish. Don't believe me? That's because you probably have children and have never had to hear it. And I don't mean the good best-me-I-can-be selfish which actually exists but of which most people are ignorant, but the me-me-me-I-me selfish because the world revolves around me selfish. "You aren't having kids? That's awfully selfish of you." "You don't want a baby? You must be very selfish." I won't get into the how and why of that, because I pretty much don't understand it, but I will say I used to agree and be OK with it. I figured since I didn't want to do the things that are involved with having and raising a kid, I must be selfish. Selfish with my time, my relationships, my possessions. OK, so I'm selfish. And I'm fine with that.

Except now I'm not. I've come to my senses. I got tired of being the bad guy, when the truth is actually the complete opposite. The truth of the matter is that there is nothing more selfish than having a kid.

From the very beginning: "I'm having a baby!" "I'm expecting!" "We're pregnant!" (Of course, that last one is always annoying. If anything, the two of you together failed at birth control. We? Your partner ejaculated and nothing caught it.) Look at all of these statements. They are all me-me-me.

Then the next eight months or so are all about you. How you are feeling, how nauseated you are, how your boobs look, what you can and can't do, what you want to eat, what you can't eat. How you are dying for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine but you can't because you are pregnant. How important it is that the world makes concessions for your condition. How you can't go into a place that serves a certain kind of food because it will make you ill. How you can't be expected to act normally and do certain things because you have hormonal fluctuations and you forget things because you are pregnant. It's not your fault. And no one else has ever been through anything like this before. Just you. It's all about you. Is that not selfish? That no one else's workday or home life is important because you are doing the very important job of breeding? Yeah, see, my life and my job are still going on over here and you are now negatively affecting it because you are the selfish one, not me.

selfish

/ˈsɛlfɪʃ/

adjective 

1.

chiefly concerned with one's own interest, advantage, etc, 

especially to the total exclusion of the interests of others

It doesn't end there. Oh no, it's just the beginning. Birth. Endless stories about what it what like and what the child does minute to minute. Come see my new baby and I will tell you all about me and what I went through and what my my my life is like now that I don't get enough sleep and it's so hard for me and you have no idea because you haven't been through what I have been through because you're too selfish to do what I did and I don't want to hear anything about you because it's all about me and what I'm going through because I'm more important than you because I brought another life into the world, so selflessly.

Somehow, it's all twisted into some weird illogical thing of not being selfish because it's all about this other life brought into the world. "See, it's not all about me, it's about my kid. So that's not selfish. I'm thinking only of my child. I'm very noble, after all. Not selfish at all. How can it be selfish when everything I do is for the good of my child?" Well, let's see. Let's go back to the definition posted above. Your kid is your own interest and you are chiefly concerned with your kid to the total exclusion of the interests of others. You can't attend something because of your kid. You can't get to work because of your kid. You can't pull your weight on a project to which you committed because something came up with ... your kid. That's all well and fine. You are raising a human. It takes work, and so-called sacrifice (although don't even try to tell us you didn't know what you were getting into - we knew enough to not get into it). But don't dare say I'm selfish and you are selfless for what you are doing. I'm still over here pulling my weight, and now yours. Because your life with your kid is more important. How does that make me the selfish one? I have to work around you and your pregnancy/kid things that come up because ... I'm selfish? I don't think that's how that works.

Let's look at that definition again with a different lens. "Chiefly concerned with one's own interest especially to the total exclusion of the interests of others." Why does one have a baby? When you ask, the answer is "because I wanted one." Or five. So, that was to your own interest to the total exclusion of the rest of the world, which is overpopulated. Too many humans for the resources here on this finite world. Humans are not endangered. If you weren't being selfish, might you have adopted a human that was already here, rather than further burdening the system? Rather than creating more of a carbon footprint? No, having a child is the very definition of "selfish."

Are all who procreate like this? Of course not. Not at all. Those that aren't like that have never called me selfish. So this was never aimed at them. There are wonderful parents who are really good at it and are raising wonderful kids and everything is grand. Those people are awesome. Those people never make it everyone else's problem. They are not selfish and would never accuse me of being selfish. I don't know how they do it, and they are super-aces in my book, because I could never do what they do.

Because, you know, apparently I'm selfish. Begin again.

7 Rebuttals to 7 Reasons - We are Actually Screwed.

There was a very hopeful article in the Huffington Post entitled "7 Reasons the World Isn't Totally Screwed Right Now." That's so cute. I can refute everything in the article and conclude that 1) these things are nothing in the larger scheme of things and 2) yes, we are screwed, now and the foreseeable future, in which we likely go away for good. Let's have at, shall we? My comments are in red bold italics. A fun romp will be had by all.

7 Reasons The World Isn't Totally Screwed Right Now

The Huffington Post  |  By Carina KolodnyPosted: 08/06/2014 7:19 am EDT  |  Updated: 08/07/2014 12:59 am EDT

If you've turned on the news lately, you may have gotten the sense that the world is falling apart. From rising body counts in Gaza and Israel to a plane getting shot down in Ukraine to increasing violence in Nigeria and Syria, it can often seem like a never-ending stream of grim realities. Um, BECAUSE it is a never-ending stream of grim realities, once you get past what non-celeb celeb has a baby bump or punched someone in an elevator. 

But although bad news is dominating the headlines, it doesn't mean those are the only stories out there. The sky isn't falling -- and the proof isn't hard to find.

Amazing Advances In Medicine Are Happening Daily

• Every day in Africa, more than 1,500 children die of malaria -- but that might not be the case for long. A pharmaceutical company is awaiting regulatory approval on a new drug that could be the world's first malaria vaccine. According to Time magazine, it may be available to the public in one year's time.  Mosquito nets can save many of these children. But Big Pharma doesn't make scads of money on mosquito nets. Shareholders need their money. Available vaccine? Let's see how much they sell it for and who gets it. Nope, we're still screwed because we cannot employ an existing $5 solution. Also, what happens to population? NOT A REASON.

• An experimental drug for hepatitis C got rid of the disease in more than 95 percent of patients during trials. It's currently awaiting FDA approval, and could be a cheaper way to treat the disease than medication currently on the market.  Could be? Could not be, just as easily. NOT A REASON.

• A 19-year-old from Chicago might be well on his way to discovering a cure for colon cancer. His experimental vaccine has been 100 percent effective in ridding young mice of malignant tumors. Might be? And when he and his cure disappear because Big Pharma loves how much money cancer raises, what then? This isn't in the news now. Where did it go? NOT A REASON.

Huge Strides Are Being Made For LGBT Equality

• On Aug. 1, Uganda struck down its draconian Anti-Homosexuality Act, which made some homosexual acts punishable by life in prison. Awesome step, but rather limited in its scope of the entire rest of the world. I'm all for striking it down, but really that isn't helping gay men and women in, say, Georgia. Therefore...  NOT A REASON.

• The United Nations announced last month that it will recognize same-sex marriage of all employees, regardless of whether their home country outlaws it. Again, great. Necessary. Helpful. Is the couple still going to get killed in their home country? A step in the right direction, but ... NOT A REASON.

• In the past 10 years, 21 states and the District of Columbia have recognized same-sex marriage. A GREAT step in the right direction. 110% behind all 50 states getting there. LGBT is suffering blows left and right under Republican governors, making one step forward and 10 steps back. NOT A REASON. Not even close. Yes, it's great. Then it's horrible as other bad laws come around and are celebrated by masses.

Programs To End Poverty Are Working

• Using the World Bank's classification of low-income countries, philanthropist and billionaire Bill Gates wrote in his foundation's annual newsletter that "by 2035, there will be almost no poor countries left in the world." This is almost too pathetic to argue. But here goes. 1) Reclassifying what constitutes poverty doesn't make it go away, just makes it seem OK. 2) Wealth will never be evenly distributed. 3) Countries don't mean people. The US is not a poor country but look how many people are POOR. 4) And really read this one: by 2030, things will BE so screwed that this will have been a long-gone joke. Is Mr. Gates taking anything climate-related, population related, into account? Doubt it. NOT A REASON.

• The U.S. food stamp program isn't just working -- it's helping millions. According to a recent article in the New Republic, "program benefits improve the long-term health outcomes of children" and "reduce the number of households with children in the U.S. living in extreme poverty by about half." Wow, these really are some pollyanna blatherings. Does it bring them out of poverty, or just "extreme" poverty? Is it doing anything to help curb population? Another good thing that helps, but - say it with me - NOT A REASON.

Protecting The Environment Is Increasingly Popular

This one's really funny.

• The Philippines is hopping on the electric vehicle bandwagon -- or in this case, the electric taxi tricycle. In an effort to reduce urban pollution, the country has invested in 100,000 electric-powered tricycles that will be rolled out in 2016, according to Fast Company. Great. By 2016, how much irreparable damage will have been done by the CO2 spewing in the meantime? Answer: lots, here we are. Still heating. Where are they getting the power for the electric tricycles? Fossil or solar? NOT A REASON.

• If you haven't heard of Tesla yet, it's time to get up to speed. The electric car company is proving that a green business isn't just possible, it's hugely profitable and has the potential to disrupt and transform the gas-guzzling auto industry. Tesla's great. Elon Musk is the best. They are rolling out less expensive cars really soon. In the meantime, all those of us who can go get that $80,000 car ... "Has the potential." How much damage until that's a reality? How many people are using fossil fuels to power their electric cars? NOT A REASON. Good stuff, but not a reason. 

• Indigenous farmers in Peru are banding together to fight climate change and diversify their agricultural output by saving and exchanging seeds. Their hope is that by collaborating, they can identify the strongest and most resilient crop varieties and encourage biodiversity throughout the country. Good. Seeds. In Peru. A hope. That'll show Monsanto. Oh wait, no it won't. NOT A REASON.

Women's Rights Are Improving

• As of July 2014, Saudi Arabian women can vote and run in municipal elections. This means they'll be able to vote in the upcoming elections in 2015. Uh huh, but are they allowed to drive yet, or ride a bicycle, or walk alone, or talk to a man without being stoned? No? That will come now? When? How many die first? Nothing has really changed. NOT A REASON.

• Egypt criminalized sexual harassment last month with a law that can send offenders to jail for up to five years. And just last week, a group of dozens of civilians took to the streets to raise awareness about street harassment and violence against women. Band-aid. A small help that would take a long time to help anything. A step, but NOT A REASON.

• On Aug. 1, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees held the first international convention to address gender-based persecution. Women can now seek asylum due to gender-based violence. Yes, because of course these women have recourse to flee. Seconds before they are killed. Asylum's great after you have been raped and beaten to death. This will really help. One country's violence is another country's social norm. Stretch, and definitely NOT A REASON.

Biggest not-a-reason? Look at the attacks on women's health happening right now in many states, clinics closing, still no equal pay. We're actually going backwards. 

New Technologies Are Enhancing People's Lives

• War victims in Sudan are getting help from a Los Angeles company that is using 3-D printers to create low-cost prosthetic limbs. But the war will still go on, and people will still suffer, and we don't have prosthetic lives. NOT A REASON.

• People in Zambia who have cellphones but no Internet connection will now be able to access health and education services online, thanks to an app recently rolled out by Facebook. The company says it plans to expand the program into other countries as well. Um. They'll still be subject to drought, starvation, war, etc, but darn it they'll have an app. NOT A REASON.

• Researchers at the MIT Media Lab are working on a device called the "FingerReader," which scans written text for the visually impaired and reads it aloud. According to its creators, the device "could help the visually impaired read everything from books to restaurant menus to important forms at doctor’s offices, and thus increase a visually impaired person’s self-sufficiency." Now that's really cool. Not quite sure how it keeps us from being screwed, though. Stretch! NOT A REASON.

Everyday People Are Coming Up With Innovative Solutions To Complicated Problems

• Four MBA students from McGill University in Canada might have come up with an unexpected cure for world hunger: insect farming. The students are testing their concept in a pilot program in Ghana, where they're teaching rural farmers how to breed tiny bugs called palm weevils. That's great, until palm weevils kill all the real food around because they weren't supposed to be there. And looking for little fixes that might not even work is simply hitting symptoms while not curing the disease - NOT A REASON.

• An Indian man named Mansukh Prajapati has designed a new fridge that stays cool without electricity. The fridge costs about $50 and could be a game-changer for the environment and communities lacking electricity. Do these communities even have enough food? Water? Hm. Let's give them solar powered microwaves too so they can re-heat their leftovers. That they don't have. Because they have no food. Or water. NOT A REASON.

• In Goma, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has been called "the rape capital of the world," one group of women is taking their lives into their own hands. They've trained as mechanics and started an auto body shop -- lifting themselves out of poverty and empowering themselves along the way. Now this is promising. I like this one. Women taking over is a cool thing. I looked up Goma. Goma is pretty farkin' screwed. This would be great if it can spread to other regions, but Goma is threatened daily by war, volcanoes, earthquakes, and deadly lakes that are erupting methane. Are we discussing that? Gomo is referred to as "The Rape Capital of the World." It would take one visit from the Boko Haram and they would all be gone. Don't even try to float this one. NOT A REASON.

Now, I may seem harshly and unjustly cynical with this whole thing. Good things happen all the time, and even though they are small, they all help, right? Sure. Except all these little things cannot possibly be stacked up against what is happening with the climate. What good are electric tricycles if the island is swallowed by rising ocean waters? What part of this addresses drought? Flooding? Antibiotic-resistant superbugs? Disappearing bees? No part addresses that. Yes, good things are happening here and there, but let's not get all shiny and happy. Not to mention so many of these little blurbs are filled with "might" and "could" and "hope." Way too many for my taste. Very few realities here. The reality is, we are pretty screwed, and we better figure that out pretty damn fast. We're running out of time. I am not the only one sounding this alarm, but then again, they don't write shiny happy articles about that. Wake up. These are great occurrences, but they are not reasons why we are not screwed. We're still screwed. Enjoy and spread fun news items, but do not claim that everything's fine. Sorry, Carina, the sky is falling, and the world is falling apart. Thanks for trying, though. 

Killing Ourselves with Stuff

From collective-evolution.com: http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/03/22/feeding-the-consumption-were-killing-each-other-the-planet/

"In the past ten years alone, one third of the world’s natural resources have been used up."

We are a society of consumers. If we stop consuming, or cut back on consuming, there is panic, because our economy demands we continue to spend spend spend, consume consume consume. Rather than having a few pairs of good quality shoes, we have to have 50 pairs of things that are easier and cheaper to replace than repair. Our closets have to be bigger and bigger because we need so many clothes.

Storage rental units are successful businesses because we have so much stuff that it can't even live with us anymore - we have to store it off our own property. Hoarding is a widespread, serious mental condition.

Products are made with planned obsolescence, so that we desire to discard something that is still in working order in favor of purchasing newer, better. Other products are made cheaply so that things like your toaster, your vacuum, your refridgerator - things that used to be pricier but lasted a long time - are simply trashed and replaced. Computers, cell phones... everything. 

The article also gets into the environmental crisis of raising livestock for food. Yes, this is a problem. This is, however, where I veer off the article. The problem isn't that we eat meat. The problem is that there are too many of us eating too much meat and wasting even more. But that part gets left out, because it's easier to criticize omnivores loudly than to whisper about population. 

Yes, the richest among humanity consume too much. Of everything. Would this be a problem if population were not so out of control? If the population were much smaller, none of this would be an issue. Mass-production would not be necessary. More stuff cheap would not be desirable. Global economy, so-called progress, GDP, how are these things improving our life here on Earth? 

The struggle to get people to consume less just isn't working. Cutting back on the population, everywhere, all over, is the only hope we have. If we don't do it ourselves, the planet WILL do it for us, and that will not be pretty. Sure, the richest among us will be OK for awhile, but the mass suffering everywhere else? Why is it OK to face that, rather than have the discussion about curtailing population before that happens?

I'd seriously like an answer to that. 

Do Not Go Gentle

It has been suggested that it is time for women to gently move to the fore. I think this can be credited to the super-amazing Jane Goodall.

She's an inspiration. She is wonderful. But this is incorrect. The time for “gentle” is long past.

I think of Dylan Thomas' poem, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" - especially that last line, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." But, on from there, I think of the movie "Back to School," in which Thornton Mellon, played by Rodney Dangerfield, was asked by Sally Kellerman's character to say what that poem meant to him. He replied, " It means, I don't take shit from no one." I love that. Hell, I love that silly movie.

People try to tell me all the time that I have to be gentle with my ecological message. That I'm too aggressive. Angry. That love prevails. That I need to speak with love and kindness. 

I have little patience for that. We are running out of time. Obviously, the gentle crap isn't working, because I am not seeing any improvements. None. We're still over-consuming, we're still wasting resources and everything else, we're still worrying about conveniences rather than consequences. I do not see an end to it. I am told that more people will listen to me if I say it nicely. Screw that. There are plenty of people talking nicely. I believe I shall rage instead. It's my real voice. We'll file it under the "Hear me now and listen to me later" file.

I'm just full of pop references today! You get the point. Everyone has a voice - their own voice - in comedy you "find your voice" and that's when you succeed. I know what my voice is and I shall be true to it. Gentle loving crap can come in after we've torn down the shit. I am not the gentle voice. I am MotherNature's warrior. And I don't take shit from no one.

That could be a really great mantra.

Our light is dying. Seriously. We are killing our ability to live on this planet, we are killing our light. We HAVE to put the brakes on, or Nature will do it for us. If Nature has to do it, it won't be pretty. There will be a lot of suffering of the innocent. So, it's time to rage.

Who's with me? This Atypical Chick is going gently no more.