Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 What's far more likely to happen is that imbalanced ecosystems will unleash famines and infectious diseases that will ultimately devastate humankind.
Why famines? Because radical weather patterns caused by global warming will disrupt food production, causing droughts in some areas and floods in others. As food production plummets, famine will become widespread. We are, after all, in a "food bubble" right now.
Why infectious disease? Because only balanced, healthy ecosystems keep infectious disease at bay. When ecosystems are disrupted, they become breeding grounds for infectious pathogens. |
| The acceleration of natural disasters and radical climate change
Today, as mankind continues to destroy the planet's environment and ecosystems, some rather inconvenient natural events are about to be unleashed that will no doubt severely impact human populations. It doesn't mean trees will uproot themselves and march upon our cities, of course. That's just a cartoon depiction. What's far more likely to happen is that imbalanced ecosystems will unleash famines and infectious diseases that will ultimately devastate humankind.
Why famines? |
Mark Lynas
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 The area we now call
California had in medieval times been hit by a mega-drought, lasting at different periods for several decades, and altering both landscape and ecosystems on a scale that dwarfs today's drought episodes. But just how geographically widespread was this event? Evidence from another lake, far away on the Great Plains of North Dakota, provides a partial answer. Moon Lake, like Mono Lake in California, is a closed basin, making it saline. Salinity fluctuates with the climate: in sequences of wet years, more fresh water ends up in the lake and salt levels go down. |
| Warming in the Arctic will continue to accelerate rapidly in the one-degree world, with temperatures soaring far higher than the global average and tearing apart the fabric of landscape and ecosystems alike.
In Barrow, Alaska, snowmelt now occurs ten days earlier on average than in the 1950s, and shrubs have begun to sprout on the barren, mossy tundra. Scientists based in Fairbanks, Alaska, have documented a sudden thawing of underground ice wedges on the state's normally cold North Slope, with new meltwater ponds dotting the landscape. |
| One of the most spectacular and diverse ecosystems on the planet, the reef is home to 1,500 species of fish, 359 types of hard coral, 175 bird species and more than 30 types of mammal. It is one of the last refuges of the dugongs (sea cows) and hosts six of the world's seven species of threatened marine turtle.
But the oceans around the Great Barrier Reef are warming - as they are all over the planet - threatening to tip this unique ecosystem into irreversible decline. |
| Other coral reef ecosystems - from the Caribbean to Thailand —would be similarly transformed. With the end of the coral reefs, one of destroyed for ever. /
It was with this grim scenario in fiiind that we both went the world's great treasure for a snorkel on the afternoon I arrived on Heron Island. Splashing through the shallows, we disturbed a huge shoal of pilchards, which tuVned en masse and darted off further up the shore. Half a dozen large stingrays flapped lazily further out, where a stronger wind raised enough of a chop to make snorkelling a hazardous experience. |
| Species have evolved to fill particular ecological niches, which may disappear as other species die out or migrate. ecosystems also tend to be highly adapted to their geographical habitat. Chalk grasslands, for example, will not have much success moving north if the soils in cooler climes are all underlain by clay or granite. Habitat fragmentation is another problem: cities, agricultural monocrop 'deserts' and major roads all present insurmountable barriers to species migration. |
David R. Montgomery
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 Regardless of how we view such things, the changing climate of the last two million years rearranged the world's ecosystems time and again. The
Ice Age was not a single event. More than twenty major glaciations repeatedly buried North America and Europe under ice, defining what geologists call the Quaternary—the fourth era of geologic time.
At the peak of the most recent glaciation, roughly 20,000 years ago, glaciers covered almost a third of Earths land surface. Outside of the tropics even unglaciated areas experienced extreme environmental changes. |
Mark Lynas
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| With this big fossil energy subsidy, human impact on the planet and natural ecosystems has been profound. Humans already appropriate between a quarter and 40 per cent of planetary net primary production (NPP: defined as the net amount of solar energy converted to plant organic matter through photosynthesis). As the authors of one scientific study remark: 'This is a remarkable level of co-option for a species that represents roughly 0.5% of the heterotroph [animal] biomass on Earth. |
David R. Montgomery
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| Three elements—nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus—usually limit plant growth and control the productivity of whole ecosystems. But in the big picture, soil regulates the transfer of elements from inside the earth to the surrounding atmosphere. Life needs erosion to keep refreshing the soil— just not so fast as to sweep it away altogether.
At the most fundamental level, terrestrial life needs soil—and life plus dirt, in turn, make soil. Darwin estimated that almost four hundred pounds of worms lived in an acre of good English soil. |
| Eventually, communities came to depend on enhancing the productivity of natural ecosystems just to stay even, let alone grow. Early cultivators became tied to a place because mobility did not allow for tending and harvesting crops. Once humanity started down the agricultural road there was no turning back.
Learning to support more people on less land once they settled into a region, farmers could always marshal greater numbers to defeat foragers in contests over territory. As their numbers grew farmers became unbeatable on their own turf. |
| Ultimately, the availability of soil nutrients constrains the productivity of terrestrial ecosystems. The whole biological enterprise of life outside the oceans depends on the nutrients soil produces and retains. These circulate through the ecosystem, moving from soil to plants and animals, and then back again into the soil.
The history of life is inextricably related to the history of soil. Early in Earth's history bare rock covered the land. Rainwater infiltrating down into barren ground slowly leached elements out of near-surface materials, transforming rock-forming minerals into clays. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 We are no longer human beings that operate in harmony with the natural world, we are people who try to conquer our own internal ecosystems as well as the ecosystems in the natural world around us. And we do that through the use of synthetic chemicals and prescription drugs.
The message that we truly need to hear is one I've been repeating for years: being healthy does not require the use of synthetic chemicals. Being healthy is something that your body was designed to achieve naturally, you have a blueprint for health in every cell of your body right now. It's called your DNA. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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| When humans treat nature with respect, she responds with abundant crops, predictable weather and stable ecosystems that sustain life. But when humans treat planet Earth as a dumping ground for chemicals, pharmaceuticals, power plant emissions and automobile exhaust, nature responds in a way that ultimately "rebalances" the global ecosystem.
And how do you rebalance the global ecosystem? The most direct way, from nature's point of view, is to get rid of the cancer that's destroying the planet. That cancer, of course, is us. |
David R. Montgomery
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| Tucked away out of sight, soil-dwelling organisms account for much of the biodiversity of terrestrial ecosystems. Plants supply underground biota with energy by providing organic matter through leaf litter and the decay of dead plants and animals. Soil organisms, in turn, supply plants with nutrients by accelerating rock weathering and the decomposition of organic matter. Unique symbiotic communities of soil-dwelling organisms form under certain plant communities. |
David Steinman
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 Cox of the Hadley Centre and coresearchers tell us, "About half of the current [greenhouse] emissions are being absorbed by the ocean and by land ecosystems."50'51 By 2050, his team expects that if we continue to release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at current and projected rates, the rain forests will be afflicted with drought. At that point, the vast amounts of carbon dioxide being stored in rain forests like the Amazon will be released. This could lead to global warming increases of 1.5 degrees C, which would cause tremendous climate change. |
David R. Montgomery
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| Temperature and rainfall primarily control the plant communities that characterize different ecosystems. At high latitudes, perpetually frozen ground can support only the low scrub of arctic tundra. Moderate temperatures and rainfall in temperate latitudes support forests that produce organic-rich soils by dropping their leaves to rot on the ground. Drier grassland soils that support a lot of microbial activity receive organic matter both from the recycling of dead roots and leaves and from the manure of grazing animals. Arid environments typically have thin rocky soils with sparse vegetation. |
Peter h. Fraser and Harry Massey
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 Our bodies are actually vast ecosystems for these organisms, many of which we could not live without because they contribute to the vital functioning of our bodies.11
It only makes sense that with so many trillions of cells in our bodies, cells are indeed tiny things. How tiny? About twenty microns wide, on average. To appreciate just how small the average human cell is, imagine marking off one inch on a piece of paper. If you laid average-size cells side by side, you would be able to fit 1,270 into that inch.12 If you are like most people, you can hardly conceive of anything so small. |
David Steinman
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| It is morally reprehensible that America's second largest bank is connected with corrupt timber cartels that are directly responsible for the wholesale destruction of the most fragile and endangered forest ecosystems on Earth. JP Morgan Chase's involvement in the illegal timber trade is not only a national scandal, but further proof that the company must put renewed effort into matching the environmental commitments of industry peers such as Citigroup and Bank of America."
In an e-mail to me, BlueLinx's Ashley E. Freer forwarded a message from Steven C. |
| Their suppliers' forestry practices are certified by the prestigious Forest Stewardship Council and guarantee a perpetual yield of high-quality timber while maintaining or restoring healthy, self-regenerating forest ecosystems. They also offer wood that is reclaimed from old buildings and wood alternatives such as bamboo. www.ecotimber.com
Forbo
If you are looking for a healthy petrochemical-free solution for floor coverings, look no further than Forbo, best known for their Marmoleum linoleum that has an excellent record of causing no adverse health issues. |
Dawson Church
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 But it is in the bodies of organisms and their interactions with other organisms and the physical world, in the context of ecosystems, where all that matter and energy flows. Genes, in contrast, are about storage and utilization of information." Researching genes without looking at the energy component of DNA is like studying a computer hard drive without plugging in the power cable. Hard drives are composed of thousands of sectors, substructures that store information. |
Peter J. Whitehouse and Daniel George
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 Perhaps most important, in the ancient ecosystems of mountains we also see the need for our species to keep adapting as we move into the future. But what humans have over mountains is our creativity, ingenuity, and agency—the capacity to influence our environment and take some control of our own aging process.
Ever so slowly, the landscape of aging is evolving. As we embark on the path of our own brain aging—individually and collectively—we must look ahead to the changes that await us so that we can best adapt. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
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 We aren't dealing with an insignificant change to our diets here, we're dealing with a revolutionary technology being used in our food supply—affecting us, future generations, and the ecosystems on which we depend."
—David Suzuki, geneticist
PART 1
The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered
Foods
Section 1: Evidence of reactions in animals and humans....................................................................................21
1.1 GM potatoes damaged rats............................................ ....................................................................... |
Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith
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 THE WASTE IN WATER
Water is essential to life, the life of the planet's ecosystems as well as to the human body. The pollution and toxicity of our oceans, lakes, waterways, ground water, and drinking water is having a devastating impact on our health and the health of our planet and wildlife. And you don't have to live near a beach that has closed down due to a toxic spill to be aware of the dangers or experience the effects of contaminated water. |
| Without a doubt, the state of our planet's well-being, including its climate and ecosystems, has a measurable impact on our health, and that impact has prompted countless concerns about the level of toxicity that surrounds us each day and the ever-growing toxic burden with which our bodies must contend. Individuals, as well as health and government agencies, have begun to acknowledge this alarming reality and take steps to change it. |
Alex Steffen
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 At a time when taking responsibility for our impact on the planet's ecosystems is more important than ever, it strikes me that fewer and fewer young people are actually engaging with, or know anything of, the great outdoors. I certainly hope that my expeditions will fleetingly point the media's spotlight at the polar regions and the delicate balance in which the earth hangs at the start of the twenty-first century. |
Leslie Taylor, ND
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 Graviola is certainly a promising natural remedy and one that again emphasizes the importance of preserving our remaining rainforest ecosystems. Perhaps—if enough people believe that the possible cure for cancer truly is locked away in a rainforest plant—we will take the steps needed to protect our remaining rainforests from destruction. One researcher studying graviola summarized this idea eloquently: "At the time of preparation of this current review, over 350 Annonaceous acetogenins have been isolated from 37 species. |
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