LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Recent news items are indicating that we may be at the end of the recession. Over the short term this is great news for investors, job hunters, small-business owners and home owners. Simultaneously, there is news in a major national magazine that polar ice is melting at much greater rates than scientific projections anticipated and that the global warming picture is more dire than previously thought.
How are these two ideas related? It's simple: with the improving economy, the more stuff we purchase, the more buildings we construct, the more travel we undertake, the more energy required and the more greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. All this human activity leads to worsening the situation with regard to the climate crisis and makes solving that problem all the more unlikely. Over the long term, what is needed to prevent the catastrophe of the climate emergency is a shrinking of world economies, a lessening of construction and travel and a serious decrease in the manufacture and consumption of unnecessary goods.
Len Frenkel; Bethlehem, PA; 610-709-8984; President- Initiatives for the Climate Emergency; www.iceworks.org
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Recent news items are indicating that we may be at the end of the recession. Over the short term this is great news for investors, job hunters, small-business owners and home owners. Simultaneously, there is news in a major national magazine that polar ice is melting at much greater rates than scientific projections anticipated and that the global warming picture is more dire than previously thought.
How are these two ideas related? It's simple: with the improving economy, the more stuff we purchase, the more buildings we construct, the more travel we undertake, the more energy required and the more greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. All this human activity leads to worsening the situation with regard to the climate crisis and makes solving that problem all the more unlikely. Over the long term, what is needed to prevent the catastrophe of the climate emergency is a shrinking of world economies, a lessening of construction and travel and a serious decrease in the manufacture and consumption of unnecessary goods.
Len Frenkel; Bethlehem, PA; 610-709-8984; President- Initiatives for the Climate Emergency; www.iceworks.org
Recent news items are indicating that we may be at the end of the recession. Over the short term this is great news for investors, job hunters, small-business owners and home owners. Simultaneously, there is news in a major national magazine that polar ice is melting at much greater rates than scientific projections anticipated and that the global warming picture is more dire than previously thought.
How are these two ideas related? It's simple: with the improving economy, the more stuff we purchase, the more buildings we construct, the more travel we undertake, the more energy required and the more greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere. All this human activity leads to worsening the situation with regard to the climate crisis and makes solving that problem all the more unlikely. Over the long term, what is needed to prevent the catastrophe of the climate emergency is a shrinking of world economies, a lessening of construction and travel and a serious decrease in the manufacture and consumption of unnecessary goods.
Len Frenkel; Bethlehem, PA; 610-709-8984; President- Initiatives for the Climate Emergency; www.iceworks.org
Friday, July 24, 2009
Dear Congressional Representative,
Concerning the latest efforts to save our failing health-care system, there are several attitudes and practices that MUST be changed if you are truly desirous of legislating decent health services to the public at a reasonable price as well as minimizing costs to the government. The present proposals are insufficient at best and only maintain the status quo: more and more unhealthy Americans putting more and more demands on the health care system, with minor tweaking to fit political agendas. Here are the steps necessary to accomplish a truly beneficial change to our health-care system:
* You must recognize that the greatest medical costs to Americans and to the existing health-care system are from treatments for the big four chronic diseases: heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.
* You must change the goal of all medical practices from treating symptoms of disease to that of preventing disease, especially the chronic diseases, as the President specified in his talk to the AMA some weeks ago.
* You must understand that the major contributor to the development of these 4 dreaded and disabling diseases is our excessive consumption of meat and dairy products, a fact well-supported by independent medical researchers.
* You must educate yourselves and your constituents about the great health benefits of plant-based eating.
* You must end the financial support of the meat and dairy industries, along with support of the farmers who grow the food for these industries and, instead, support the farmers in growing and harvesting of plant foods to be directly eaten by consumers.
* You must be prepared to resist the pressures of the medical communities, pharmaceutical companies, the meat and dairy conglomerates, the fast-food and restaurant businesses. They will fight like hell but will all adapt to the changes when a hamburger reaches its natural price of around $10, a small steak around $20 while a veggie burger might go for $2, a Portobello sandwich for $3 and a hummus wrap for about $4.
* A healthy society with minimal heart disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes can only be attained by changing our eating patterns. You must find a way to accomplish this. A by-product of this major lifestyle change for Americans will be the spending of billions instead of hundreds of billions of dollars.
* If you find these ideas radical, think how radical it is to have half our population dying unnecessarily from preventable heart attacks or strokes, most of the remaining half dying from one of the dozen or so forms of cancer. Think how radical it is for a large segment of our population suffering with diabetes and about 1 in 3 obese. We’ve been looking for a ‘cure’ for cancer and the other diseases for up to 40 years, but the cure can be on our dinner plates within weeks.
* You can consult with many professional experts currently studying and reporting on the health benefits of plant-based eating, including: John McDougall, M.D., Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., Michael Greger, M.D., T. Colin Campbell, M.D., Neal Barnard, M.D., Dean Ornish, M.D., Michael Klaper, M.D., Paulette Chandler, M.D., Milton Mills, M.D., Kerrie Saunders, Ph.D., Joel Fuhrman, M.D., Brenda Davis, R.D., George Eisman, R.D., Jeff Novick, R.D.
.
Concerning the latest efforts to save our failing health-care system, there are several attitudes and practices that MUST be changed if you are truly desirous of legislating decent health services to the public at a reasonable price as well as minimizing costs to the government. The present proposals are insufficient at best and only maintain the status quo: more and more unhealthy Americans putting more and more demands on the health care system, with minor tweaking to fit political agendas. Here are the steps necessary to accomplish a truly beneficial change to our health-care system:
* You must recognize that the greatest medical costs to Americans and to the existing health-care system are from treatments for the big four chronic diseases: heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.
* You must change the goal of all medical practices from treating symptoms of disease to that of preventing disease, especially the chronic diseases, as the President specified in his talk to the AMA some weeks ago.
* You must understand that the major contributor to the development of these 4 dreaded and disabling diseases is our excessive consumption of meat and dairy products, a fact well-supported by independent medical researchers.
* You must educate yourselves and your constituents about the great health benefits of plant-based eating.
* You must end the financial support of the meat and dairy industries, along with support of the farmers who grow the food for these industries and, instead, support the farmers in growing and harvesting of plant foods to be directly eaten by consumers.
* You must be prepared to resist the pressures of the medical communities, pharmaceutical companies, the meat and dairy conglomerates, the fast-food and restaurant businesses. They will fight like hell but will all adapt to the changes when a hamburger reaches its natural price of around $10, a small steak around $20 while a veggie burger might go for $2, a Portobello sandwich for $3 and a hummus wrap for about $4.
* A healthy society with minimal heart disease, obesity, cancer and diabetes can only be attained by changing our eating patterns. You must find a way to accomplish this. A by-product of this major lifestyle change for Americans will be the spending of billions instead of hundreds of billions of dollars.
* If you find these ideas radical, think how radical it is to have half our population dying unnecessarily from preventable heart attacks or strokes, most of the remaining half dying from one of the dozen or so forms of cancer. Think how radical it is for a large segment of our population suffering with diabetes and about 1 in 3 obese. We’ve been looking for a ‘cure’ for cancer and the other diseases for up to 40 years, but the cure can be on our dinner plates within weeks.
* You can consult with many professional experts currently studying and reporting on the health benefits of plant-based eating, including: John McDougall, M.D., Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D., Michael Greger, M.D., T. Colin Campbell, M.D., Neal Barnard, M.D., Dean Ornish, M.D., Michael Klaper, M.D., Paulette Chandler, M.D., Milton Mills, M.D., Kerrie Saunders, Ph.D., Joel Fuhrman, M.D., Brenda Davis, R.D., George Eisman, R.D., Jeff Novick, R.D.
.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
INITIATIVES for the CLIMATE EMERGENCY
The oncoming train of the global climate crisis is a greater threat to modern societies than the present economic crisis, even more than terrorism. It promises permanent damage to our culture, such as droughts in some areas, flooding in others, food shortages and undesirable insect and plant invasions. It is about to have immediate impact on our American way of life as well as on societies around the world. It is already causing havoc in some parts of the world.
Most of the climate problem is due to rapidly increasing levels of carbon dioxide, and to a lesser extent, methane. Burning of fossil fuels for industry, electricity production, transportation, home heating, travel and entertainment produces the carbon dioxide that has been building up since the beginning of the industrial age. It has been accelerating in the last 20 years to the point where many governments are becoming very concerned, including our own.
Efforts are being made to mitigate the problem by research into electric vehicles, increasing the performance of gasoline-powered vehicles, taxing carbon, cap-and-trade systems, and providing electricity using solar panels and wind turbines.
All of these methods to minimize carbon release into the atmosphere have value, but also some very serious problems associated with them. These include long time-lines to production, corporate cooperation and dependency, questionable benefits and non-established technology. What is needed is a method that will quickly and efficiently reduce the release of carbon dioxide, that can be instituted with existing government structure, that does not involve the banking systems, that will have a manageable impact on the economy (keeping in mind that doing nothing will eventually lead to economic crash) and that can be made acceptable to businesses as well as the public.
ICE (Initiatives for the Climate Emergency) has a solution. One of our many initiatives is to strongly encourage our government to institute gasoline rationing. At the same time that we are instituting a rationing program, we must develop the world’s most efficient public transportation system. Subsidies to the fossil fuel industries must also cease, with the savings being invested in the new, high-tech public transit infrastructure. During the Second World War, when democracies around the world were threatened, the U.S. took the drastic step of rationing gasoline and several food items. It worked. The same must be done now, along with a forceful educational effort to convince the population of the need for such an action. We cannot wait until disaster strikes us; that will be too late. We are rapidly approaching a tipping point where climate feedback systems kick in, making any changes in our policies and actions ineffective at preventing the calamity that climate scientists tell us is rapidly heading our way.
http://www.iceworks.org/ http://www.initiativesfortheclimateemergency.org/
The oncoming train of the global climate crisis is a greater threat to modern societies than the present economic crisis, even more than terrorism. It promises permanent damage to our culture, such as droughts in some areas, flooding in others, food shortages and undesirable insect and plant invasions. It is about to have immediate impact on our American way of life as well as on societies around the world. It is already causing havoc in some parts of the world.
Most of the climate problem is due to rapidly increasing levels of carbon dioxide, and to a lesser extent, methane. Burning of fossil fuels for industry, electricity production, transportation, home heating, travel and entertainment produces the carbon dioxide that has been building up since the beginning of the industrial age. It has been accelerating in the last 20 years to the point where many governments are becoming very concerned, including our own.
Efforts are being made to mitigate the problem by research into electric vehicles, increasing the performance of gasoline-powered vehicles, taxing carbon, cap-and-trade systems, and providing electricity using solar panels and wind turbines.
All of these methods to minimize carbon release into the atmosphere have value, but also some very serious problems associated with them. These include long time-lines to production, corporate cooperation and dependency, questionable benefits and non-established technology. What is needed is a method that will quickly and efficiently reduce the release of carbon dioxide, that can be instituted with existing government structure, that does not involve the banking systems, that will have a manageable impact on the economy (keeping in mind that doing nothing will eventually lead to economic crash) and that can be made acceptable to businesses as well as the public.
ICE (Initiatives for the Climate Emergency) has a solution. One of our many initiatives is to strongly encourage our government to institute gasoline rationing. At the same time that we are instituting a rationing program, we must develop the world’s most efficient public transportation system. Subsidies to the fossil fuel industries must also cease, with the savings being invested in the new, high-tech public transit infrastructure. During the Second World War, when democracies around the world were threatened, the U.S. took the drastic step of rationing gasoline and several food items. It worked. The same must be done now, along with a forceful educational effort to convince the population of the need for such an action. We cannot wait until disaster strikes us; that will be too late. We are rapidly approaching a tipping point where climate feedback systems kick in, making any changes in our policies and actions ineffective at preventing the calamity that climate scientists tell us is rapidly heading our way.
http://www.iceworks.org/ http://www.initiativesfortheclimateemergency.org/
DEATH AND DESTRUCTION ON A PLATE
We think that war is the most destructive force on earth, more than geologic forces or terrorism. Wrong. We think that diseases such as malaria, AIDS, influenza wreak more death on humans than anything else. Not true. It is our current lifestyle that is responsible for the most death and destruction.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year by the meat, dairy, fast-food and restaurant industries telling us that we need to buy animal products for health and enjoyment. Their advertising is pervasive: on television, in newspapers and magazines and even on billboards. But they don’t tell you that millions of acres of grassland and forests, especially in tropical rainforests, have been and continue to be destroyed to make space for growing the corn and soybeans to feed cows, pigs and chickens that we eat. Likewise for cattle ranching. They don’t tell you that most of our water resources are used for farmed animals, nor do they tell you that 70% of our arable land is used for animal food production. They don’t tell you that, according to a widely accepted study from the Univ. of Chicago, more greenhouse gases result from animal agriculture than from all forms of transportation combined. That means that eating meat and dairy contributes more to global warming than all the exhaust from our cars, buses, trucks and planes. They also don’t tell you about the waste from animal-production facilities going into water systems and killing the life of the ecosystem. These environmental impacts are true not just for the U.S. but for all countries using meat and dairy as major foods. The impact on the environment is world-wide, and it is devastating.
Far and away, the most dangerous substances threatening human health are meat and dairy products. Those countries where people consume large quantities of animal food suffer the highest levels of death from heart disease, several nasty cancers and diabetes, not to mention the suffering from auto-immune diseases triggered by these foods. Fifty or so years ago these diseases were hardly on the map. People died from contagious diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms. Only since we’ve become addicted to meat and dairy have we developed the major chronic diseases that are now at the top of the list for death-production. Heart disease and cancer seem to be competing to be considered our #1 killer. More people world-wide die from preventable chronic disease caused by the foods they eat than from all the wars, geologic actions, car accidents, terrorism or contagious diseases. Our only hope in avoiding these unnecessary tragedies is for a plant-based eating lifestyle to become the standard rather than the exception. It will make for a healthy society and will restore our land, air and water to normal functioning. Adopting plant-based eating will turn us away from the most deadly and destructive human activity on our planet. Food for thought.
We think that war is the most destructive force on earth, more than geologic forces or terrorism. Wrong. We think that diseases such as malaria, AIDS, influenza wreak more death on humans than anything else. Not true. It is our current lifestyle that is responsible for the most death and destruction.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year by the meat, dairy, fast-food and restaurant industries telling us that we need to buy animal products for health and enjoyment. Their advertising is pervasive: on television, in newspapers and magazines and even on billboards. But they don’t tell you that millions of acres of grassland and forests, especially in tropical rainforests, have been and continue to be destroyed to make space for growing the corn and soybeans to feed cows, pigs and chickens that we eat. Likewise for cattle ranching. They don’t tell you that most of our water resources are used for farmed animals, nor do they tell you that 70% of our arable land is used for animal food production. They don’t tell you that, according to a widely accepted study from the Univ. of Chicago, more greenhouse gases result from animal agriculture than from all forms of transportation combined. That means that eating meat and dairy contributes more to global warming than all the exhaust from our cars, buses, trucks and planes. They also don’t tell you about the waste from animal-production facilities going into water systems and killing the life of the ecosystem. These environmental impacts are true not just for the U.S. but for all countries using meat and dairy as major foods. The impact on the environment is world-wide, and it is devastating.
Far and away, the most dangerous substances threatening human health are meat and dairy products. Those countries where people consume large quantities of animal food suffer the highest levels of death from heart disease, several nasty cancers and diabetes, not to mention the suffering from auto-immune diseases triggered by these foods. Fifty or so years ago these diseases were hardly on the map. People died from contagious diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and other microorganisms. Only since we’ve become addicted to meat and dairy have we developed the major chronic diseases that are now at the top of the list for death-production. Heart disease and cancer seem to be competing to be considered our #1 killer. More people world-wide die from preventable chronic disease caused by the foods they eat than from all the wars, geologic actions, car accidents, terrorism or contagious diseases. Our only hope in avoiding these unnecessary tragedies is for a plant-based eating lifestyle to become the standard rather than the exception. It will make for a healthy society and will restore our land, air and water to normal functioning. Adopting plant-based eating will turn us away from the most deadly and destructive human activity on our planet. Food for thought.
An interesting dichotomy of values in the July 20 issue of Newsweek. Raising 'designer dogs' in the puppy mill industry is frowned upon. There is legislation that protects dogs from human abuse, whether by a business or a private 'owner'. But another article, by Julia Reed, about the various ways to prepare fried chicken southern style, eating this food is praised and valued highly. Fried chicken comes from live, sentient beings that feel pain just like dogs, but chickens aren't protected by law. They are abused horrendously, but no action can be taken against corporations that produce them on an industrial scale. There may be thousands of dogs that are treated inhumanely in puppy mills, but some 10 billion chickens are abused before they reach our dinner plates.
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