Global Weirding???

I believe it was in the 1950s that scientists began measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere and noted that it was increasing significantly.  Since then, further study focused on causations and other contributing factors to accelerated global warming.  Oops, I guess to be "politically" correct, I should have said climate change (a more distracting term).  Anyway terms evolve, and the term global weirding is now beginning to be used.  Is it just my imagination or do politically correct terms, relative to issues at odds with the economic power structure, tend to distracting?  

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Questions or Windmills?

Recently I had occasion to talk with several "professionals" (as in extensive formal educations).  Not wanting to come across as a rabid naturalist, but curious about how much they comprehended relative to humanity's ecological dilemma, I limited myself to simple non-confrontational questions interspersed in polite conversation.  Such piqued my curiosity, and I've repeated the approach with a number of other people since, people that I normally don't converse with at length.  

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Why an edible forest garden?

Consider, if you will, the fact that natural world ecosystems sustain every life-supporting function on the planet, including climate regulation, water filtration, soil formation, food, fibers, medicines, and so on.  All that and yet these ecosystems are essentially just combinations of biotic and abiotic components.  They are life, as we know it, which sustains, builds upon, and propagates further life in a cycle of renewal, through an elaborate dance of successional state changes in geologic step with changing environments.

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How's Your Mental Well-being?

At the chemical level, food is the brain's primary link to its evolution and its ongoing physiology (i.e. how well it functions).  It's scientifically established that diet is correlated with (among other physiological aspects) the brain chemicals that influence mood and behavior [e.g. 6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15].  That is, diet notably influences the thought processes and emotional reactions that ultimately guide us on our path through life.  Thus, if our diet is lacking, then at a minimum our brain is not functioning optimally. 

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Natural World Consciousness

You've very likely heard before how humanity can't go on the way it is, but just as likely either don't see the immediacy/seriousness of the issue, or dismiss the idea as fringe lunacy, or are resigned to humanity ending in some cataclysmic event regardless of our actions. On the other hand, you might have enough of a grasp of the ecological underpinnings to appreciate the issue, but as an individual are either confused about what you can do, or too intimidated to challenge culture's steamroller.

It is scientifically accepted that on a cosmological timescale the Earth’s period of habitability is at least half over. In about another billion years the Sun will start to be too luminous and warm for water to exist in liquid form on Earth. Even within the next billion years, there are numerous factors we can't control that threaten our existence on Earth (e.g. volcanism, earthquakes, asteroids, global epidemics, etc.). The future is undoubtedly a bumpy ride.

The issue here though is not about factors over which we have no control, that are likely to occur within the next billion years. It's about factors we're creating now, that we could better influence. Factors we're already seeing the detrimental consequences of, and which at the current scope and pace will cause substantially increasing harm to humanity well within the next couple hundred years. That is, the issue is about surviving our own controllable actions in the shorter term, to have time to possibly learn to survive uncontrollable factors in the longer term.

This isn't another prophecy, or mythology, but rather is based on our accumulating objective understanding of natural world ecology, in which our continuing existence is rooted. Our expanding knowledge and focus is more realistically encompassing the discontinuity in the gradient of human interaction with the natural world, yet the scope and pace of our detrimental actions are accelerating frantically.  The shorter term state of human existence on Earth depends on whether wisdom or irrationality prevail.  That is, whether objective understanding or subjective beliefs prevail. 

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Ol' Shep's Well-being: A Natural Perspective

Second revised edition dated Friday, June 18, 2010.

Have you had occasion to reflect on the continuing escalation of debilitating chronic illnesses like cancer, heart diseases, various forms of arthritis, and the many other autoimmune diseases, despite our advanced development and medicine? Maybe you've also wondered why some people and animals are so naturally healthy despite this trend?

The author Euan Fingal has offered up a free ebook to try to help us understand how we might improve our well-being and that of our domestic animals in general, but especially that of our canine companions.

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Nature's Magic Mirror

A departure from the normal presentation approach, this story is intended for the imagination of younger minds, and those that haven't lost such, to try to convey how important all animals are to us, and how companion animals reflect back the core of goodness in our humanity.  It's a short story about one day in a young boy's life, that has its roots in real life, but with artistic license taken to focus on the theme.

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Dr. P. Kibble Interview

On a lighter note, I'm offering up a fabricated interview that I modeled after a piece that has been kicking around the internet for a number of years.  Hope you enjoy it :o)  

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Is Soda Pop or Milk Healthier?

Interested in another thread of the “Chronic Illness Industries” real-life saga, replete with all the sorted chicanery a novelist might conjure up?   I'm trying to present this in bite-sized threads because there's so much material it's overwhelming.   Please come along for the journey to a more well-rounded perspective of our “advanced” industrial development and its effect on our quality of life – it's really not as boring as you might presuppose :-)  

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