Microwaves: Not Intended as Flotation Devices

I seem to keep having the same conversation with people. It goes something like this:

• I complain about work.

• They complain about work.

• I say that western civilization is evil.

• They ignore me and say "I wish there was some other way to survive".

• I tell them that people used to live in a way where they could survive without paying rent, going to the grocery store, and working a wage-slave job.

• They look at me for a second and then say "you are saying you want to live like a Native American?"

• I say: "essentially yes"

• They look aghast and say something like: "You would give up all of the modern conveniences just to avoid a 40 hour a week job?"

• I nod, and say "To avoid the job, yes, and because it might actually save life on the planet if we all did it."

• This is when they look worried, about me. They start rambling on and on about modern conveniences, microwaves, air conditioning, etc. etc.

• I tend to walk away at that point.

People need to stop holding onto their microwaves as if they were flotation devices. It is amazing to me how worried people get when I mention getting rid of aspects of the typical American lifestyle that are neither necessary nor healthy to use. I have linked a few friends to my other blog, The Plastics Project, to show them how I am working to eliminate plastics from my daily life. When they ask why on earth I would do such a thing I mention the environmental impact as well as the horrible (and often cancerous) effects plastics can have on humans (I mention humans separately from the environment because typically the person I am talking to considers things this way). I have only had one friend that actually wants to know more about the horrible things plastics do. The rest of them told me not to tell them, that "everything causes cancer".

Okay, let's tackle that one for a minute. "Everything causes cancer".

Well--No. Obviously everything does not cause cancer. The fact that this statement has become cliché in Western Society should be a clue as to what the society breeds--acceptance of avoidable diseases. Everything does not cause cancer, outputs of CIVILIZATION cause cancer. Let me repeat that a different way: CIVILIZATION CAUSES CANCER. While living in civilization having a river-side home could result in leukemia, lymphoma, and any number of other horrible health problems. Civilization has made the simple act of eating a piece of fruit risky. "Be sure to wash your fruit with soap and water in order to get the pesticides and waxes off". Umm, why does no one worry about these things? Plants aren't waterproof, external additives (pesticides, etc) leech into them…and we think soap and water will solve the problem?

Everything does not cause cancer. EVERYDAY ITEMS IN WESTERN SOCIETY CAUSE CANCER. Plastic wrap anyone? These cancer causing items are so normalized in our society that it seems that everything causes cancer. Somehow I think there are many things around (or used to be) that didn't cause cancer. Examples?

Well things western society has made disposable (or made profits from) work as good examples:

-I'm sure coral reefs never caused cancer before they had to start trying to survive in a polluted ocean.

-Mercury poisoning from fish never used to be an issue before western civilization took hold.

-Did you know that the chances of miscarriage go up by a large percentage when a woman watches 15 hours or more of television a week? I'm pretty sure that that wasn't the case if she were to watch a camp fire each night, or her community members as they broke into song and dance.

-WATER BOTTLES…everyone was horrified when the neon colored Nalgenes turned out to have BPA in them. I'm pretty sure animal hide canteens didn't have the same effects; gourds were probably pretty safe too.

I recently read a report that said not to be in the same ROOM as a microwave oven while it is running. Why do we fill our homes with such dangers? So many people do not want to hear it when I tell them these things. Why wouldn't you want to know of a danger so close to home? Is happiness so closely tied to Easy Mac that you are willing to risk cancer for it? …Apparently it is.

Everything doesn't cause cancer. However, soon enough if civilization keeps going the way it has been, everything THAT IS LEFT will.

Let go of the flotation devices this society tells you that you need and watch the cancer rates plummet.

Stop Protesting and Start Doing Something

I am starting to get (well, okay let’s face it, I have been) really annoyed with people who are convinced they can change the world with peaceful protests. When I was in college I was in a “peace” group, but we did a lot more than protest. We were more a group that spread the opposing viewpoint’s opinion on major issues (Veterans Against the Iraq War, etc). But now I talk to my friends who are still in college and all they seem to do is plan marches, and march against war, for LGBT rights, and many other things. I am quite frustrated. These are some of the most intelligent people I know, and they are wasting their time walking down streets with signs when they could be doing something that might actually change the world.

GreenPeace can hang all of the banners they want off of the sides of buildings and bridges but if they believe that the hardened heartless CEOs and politicians are going to change their consumer driven goals because of a banner they see, they are sorely mistaken.

The fact that we even “need” an Animal Planet channel is sad in and of itself. If the network thinks they will change things by spreading the word and knowledge about endangered and extinct animals that lived half a country (or even half a block) away from the couch the viewer is sitting on they are wrong.

These silent campaigns are far too easily ignored by both the general public and the leaders of Western civilization. Activists and protestors that go far enough to actually start to change something are promptly silenced and most of the world continues on without even realizing it happened. The news media will cover a business opening (or re-opening) before it will cover the loving soul who is living in the branches of a doomed redwood.

So, what should you do? Well you can continue signing your petitions and making your signs and practicing your chants for your marches, or you can actually change the world. You can join that activist in the tree, and bring a camera along. You can stop the pollution that is constantly streaming into our already quite toxic waterways. You can plant a garden for yourself. You can do all of these things but still it is not enough. It is never going to BE enough when our planet is dying before our eyes. Let me rephrase that, our planet is being murdered before our eyes and we pay less attention than we do to a mid season recap of American Idol.

This world will change all on its own in time, as the oil runs out and the infrastructure crumbles. I, personally, am not willing to wait for it to happen on its own. Humanity may not even be around to see it. 90% of large ocean fish are definitely not going to be around to see it. 23,000 dolphins a year will not be around to see it. The salmon, koala bears, arctic foxes, polar bears, emperor penguins, and clownfish might be gone as well, along with so many other beautiful and intricately necessary species.

So what are you going to do?