What can I do?
Dear Friends
How do we become activists for stopping the human caused destruction of our planet? How did I become an activist for human health and environmental health?
Way back in September of 2008 Dohrea was beginning the process of finishing up her undergraduate degree. Through her associations, at Antioch University and the University of Washington, she found out that there was going to be a talk at the Quaker Center in the University District, given by Raj Patel. He had just published his book, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.
She encouraged me to go, as he was also a biologist (as I am) and an economist to boot—the zoological part was right up my alley, and he was going to talk about the food system, part and partial to our development of BioImmersion and our Therapeutic Foods. I made the journey to hear Dr. Patel and was deeply impacted. This led to our deciding that I would write a weekly newsletter, our Forward Thinking, aimed at connecting-the-dots and motivating doctors to become even more active in the cause to save our planet, and to bring about a worldwide ecology where human health can flourish. All of these newsletters can be found archived on our website within the Publishing Blog tab.
We have gathered such a fantastic team of friends and professionals within our BioImmersion. I would like to introduce you to our brilliant IT person, John Sherwin of Rimini Software. I so respect John and his wife Annie for their street-level activism in the cause of saving our environment. I asked John why they made the choice to “take to the street”— i.e. to go to hearings at our State Capitol, and participate in discussions with Puget Sound Power’s executives as to the company’s future plans for expanding the use of fossil fuels (coal) for energy. What was their motivating moment?
John said that he and Annie had been looking at and gathering information on climate change (these two are also great outdoor/nature people), when they heard a TED talk, about a year and one-half ago, by Dr. James Hansen, a former NASA scientist at the Goddard Center. And his talk, pushed them over the edge and into action. So, of course, I had to look up that TED talk and down in Green Facts at the bottom of this newsletter I have it for you to click on.
As we all are, John and Annie are all about solutions. Dr. Hansen in his TED talk, entitled Starting to Reduce CO2 in 10 Years is Too Late, convincingly makes it very clear that we are heading for environmental catastrophy, with the rising tide of green house gasses, and that the first thing we must do is to shut down all coal plants. There’s around 600 of them in the US. Dr. Hansen proposes healthy alternatives that will work, giving us clean energy. You’ll see the talk below! John shared two other links with me.
The first comes from the Center for Health and Global Environment, Harvard Medical School, entitled: Mining Coal, Mounting Costs: The Life Cycle Consequences of Coal. This is the very Center that I have highlighted in previous newsletters whose founder and director Eric Chivian MD, along with Aaron Bernstein MD, wrote the very important and gorgeous book, Sustaining Life. They argue compellingly that biodiversity is a critical component for environmental and ecological health, and that the present rate of species decline into extinction is cause for great concern—we haven’t seen this level since that last great Mass Extincition 65 million years ago, the demise of the dinosaurs.
The second comes from one of my very favorite organizations, The Rocky Mountain Institute. It is a recent TED talk given by Amory Lovins, RMI’s founder and director, giving a doable 40 year plan for clean energy. There is truly no excuse for us not get focused on these solutions collectively, a Gandhian level collective action will enable it to happen now. All I can say is, whow! What a realistic solution Lovins gives us all.
Sincerely yours,
Seann Bardell
Clinical Notes:
We definitely need to protect ourselves with good strong nutrition. When we think of bringing phytonutrients into our bodies we think of ORACs, and consuming 7 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. But that’s hard to accomplish. Did you have 7 servings today? That’s the why of Therapeutic Foods, to help make this possible is a real way.
The key to a health producing phytonutrient intake is to consume consistent and diverse amounts regularily over time. Therapeutic Foods can really facilitate this process. For example just think about consuming these four products daily along with your diet.
- Phyto Power– 2 capsules daily.
- Organic Chlorella– 4 tabs daily.
- Cruciferous Sprouts– 2 capsules daily.
- Wild Blueberry Extract– 1 capsule daily.
Consistency is the key, with modest regular doses of real therapeutic foods!
The Last Quiz Answer:
The Giant Panda is the rarest member of the bear family and amongst the world’s most threatened species. The higher phyla such as mammals, reptiles and amphibians are most threatened by the rising tide of environmental pollution and greenhouse atmospheric gas levels. Amphibians are the most stressed of these three with almost one-third of some 6,000 species in danger of extinction. However, mammals don’t breath easy, according to the UN Report on the State of the Global Environment, almost one quarter of the world’s mammals face extinction in the next 30 years.
