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.

Disgusted by Passivity

I have been meaning to check into the recycled content of the toilet paper at my workplace since I started here. I have told myself to research the brand over and over again, but have just been too lazy to check into it (and now it’s been over a year). Finally, today, I did. I was surprised and impressed to find out that it is incredibly Eco-Friendly paper and isn’t just marketed that way. They use 100% recycled pulp in the paper. This made me feel better for not doing anything for so long. Then I realized feeling better is the opposite thing I should be doing. My passivity on the issue disgusted me.

I consider myself an environmentalist. I read Derrick Jensen like his works are the books of the Bible, I preach up and down about the problems in our society and in nature. I talk constantly about it. Yet, I don’t DO much. I do not do a hell of a lot of things. I don’t drive much. I don’t leave my computer or TV plugged in when I’m not using them. Sure, these things are good. But when’s the last time I researched a company on my own (without the work done for me by Green Peace of the Sierra Club) and contacted them about their harmful practices?

I have wanted to email the restaurant Egg Harbor about their Styrofoam to go cups for over a year. I have meant to email the Sheraton about their use of Kimberly Clark products. (I waited so long on that one that Kimberly Clark has actually pledged to stop clear cutting before I sent an email).

That is the problem with the environmental movement. We are all too damn passive. We have been sucked into this society like everyone else and although we see the problems, we refuse to step out of the cave. How scary would it really be to get our feet wet? I preach about conservation yet work a full time job on a computer. My company isn’t the worst when it comes to environmental practices but it isn’t the best either. Yet I do nothing, because I must pay the bills. I refuse to admit that there would be far less bills if I lived in a place where I didn’t have to commute and could grow my own food.

I don’t know what it will take, a question that Derrick Jensen asks, to get people to actually do something about the destruction of our planet. Forests cut to the ground, global climate change, widespread starvation—none of this has been enough for me. Maybe I just need to admit to myself how bad it has gotten. Perhaps I need to travel to the forests that can no longer support even plant life because their soil is ruined by clear cutting. Perhaps I need to embrace a wolf pup and try to explain to it why there will be no supper now or ever because his entire family was shot dead from an airplane. Perhaps I need to leave the protective bubble of the 9-5 grind and get out there.

But that would be hard wouldn’t it?