In this special blog, I'll share with you what my 30-year survey of the most powerful, little known and guaranteed health interventions has revealed.
There is no pill you can swallow, food you can buy, nor gizmo that confers complete protection from pervasive toxicity, skewed societal consensus or invisible radiation. There's no place you can go, nowhere you can hide and no authority -- scientific, medical or spiritual -- who can help you to escape what we've all created (or allowed to happen) here on planet Earth. Whether you are rich, poor, young, old, sick, healthy, right or left, no health manna, rural organic garden, island dwelling, nor spiritual belief can give you, me or us an out if we keep on screwing up.
Unless we turn around and heal the disconnect that allows us to misguidedly pursue personal goals, without sufficient care for the health of our society and the earth, than it's likely our health problems will go from bad to worse.
If facing this sad reality seems disheartening, don't worry -- a lot of us are in the same boat. It's called planet Earth. We're worried about it, and we can use your help. Health-conscious people need to do more than take potassium iodide; we need to take action.
However, if this truth is too uncomfortable, or violates your subscription to the All Good News, All the Time network, then retreat to whatever offers you temporary relief. We'll still be right here when you get back.
Lots of people send me their suggestions and questions, not to mention their latest e-books and requests to blog on The Huffington Post. In the current crisis, they either want, or give, answers: Isn't it over yet? Are we sure? Take this -- no, take that. Don't take anything. We'll tell you what to take, and when.
One email boosts a superfood, another social activism, while a third person despairs that industries disseminating toxins or radiation don't seem to care about the gradual, ongoing, cumulative pollution of our bodies, our waterways and our world by their stuff.
People tell me they feel helpless, believing that they've no more influence than a mosquito buzzing round an impervious colossus.
I agree that it's scary to go from the supposed certainty of taking a pill (or an attitude adjustment) to the uncertainty of stepping up to social activism. Unlike other corners of our market-driven society, restoring skewed societal priorities comes with no guarantees.
Instead, some soul-searching is required. Can we live with ourselves if we don't come together and make a solid, determined, all-out effort to protect the health of our children, the wildlife and the earth?
Who will call government and industry to task, if not you, me and millions more like us? If more and more people do that, it gets easier. And if we don't, what is the alternative? Give up on planet Earth, and leave a poisoned mess to our children?
The President's Cancer Panel told us that the total cumulative effects of toxins are major contributors to rising cancer rates, spectrum disorders in children and increased illness in children at younger and younger ages.
I won't go through the litany here, but you can go to my website for blog posts on that. These toxins travel the world and add up, accumulating in air, water, food, earth and us. They combine with radiation. While today West Coast radiation levels from the Japanese nuclear calamity seem okay, it's not possible to make absolute statements about tomorrow, next month or next year. Not to mention the radiation we generate right here in the U.S. How much capacity does the earth have to absorb them? How much do we have? Does asking questions about that mean you're "hysterical," or a concerned citizen?
From years of looking into (and trying) many kinds of health treatments, I can tell you that if we allow toxic exposures to progress from not-so-good, to bad, to worse, at a certain point, individual health solutions won't be enough to protect anyone, unless you are counting on mutating into a hardier species, like the cockroach.
Does that mean we should just live on French fries and pizza, and forget about healthy food, lifestyle, purchasing and energy use choices as individuals? Of course not. Those choices will remain vitally important, but they were not designed to target societal choices, and they haven't.
Up until now, many have hoped that one day our incremental choices would add up to to a society that reflects and serves our values.
Has that happened?
Just look around. What feedback are we getting from nature and the world? What do we see happening in our society and political life? How well are our kids doing? Is it getting better? Worse? Do we need a scientific study to answer that question?
Speaking for myself, I see ecological shifts accelerating, and colliding with unsafe business practices to produce a series of calamities, each one worse than its predecessor. In just the last year, this has happened more than once, and we could go back further and retrace the gradual buildup to this moment. But for right now, let's not.
Instead, what can we do? Here are some choices I've heard:
Confession: Maybe it's just me, but I don't find it all that spiritual to leave behind the mess our society has created. That's like a person who leaves a pile of dishes in the kitchen sink for months on end, and then hopes to sell the house to get rid of them.
In the current critical moment, the Japanese calamity has shown all the world the harsh downside risks of just a few of the societal compromises we've made. In response to this wake-up call, a shift could happen, but there's no guarantee that it will. Unless we step up.
If we all roll up our sleeves and commit ourselves to social activism that addresses our problems at the individual, community and societal levels, things can change. Each of us must play a part. Unless you are raising small children, or are seriously ill, or tending to the seriously ill, then I invite you all to find concrete ways to contribute via social activism. Going to the farmer's market and buying an organic mesclun mix is not enough. And if you don't have any good ideas about where you are needed, then by all means, do ask me.
Do you have suggestions about where people can pitch in to help bring about societal changes? Please share them here! For more information, visit www.HealthJournalistBlog.com.
Follow Alison Rose Levy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlisonRoseLevy
John Backman: What's the Rush? A Response to Our Culture's Crazy Pace
http://p2pfoundation.net/Michigan:_The_Transformation_Manifesto
http://organicconsumers.org/monsanto/index.cfm another site for helping people fight against GM foods and protests coming up
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/nuclear/Fukushima-nuclear-disaster/ some info on Japan and nuclear power. Greenpeace are a great organisation to get info from and get involved in when to comes to the environment.
Thanks for posting this, we need to start thinking of our children and grandchildren's future, this is our responsibility.
Time to get active I think. If on nothing will get done, we can't continue to live with our heads in the sane anymore.
People often say with a sigh, "What kind of crisis will it take to wake other people up?"
When they ask that, I realize that they are wondering whether they will ever find a safe world in which to feel again. If not, they will have to accept what is there to feel in an unsafe world. The other choice is to numb themselves with their preferred addictive palliatives.
All of the crises have touched me very deeply. People have some ludicrous idea that without their participation some shift will come about. The shift is feeling the pain of the world as your own. And caring more about it than you do about your stress levels, or whatever is preoccupying you.
There is no guarantee that any of us can make a difference, none whatsoever.
Thanks for your comments, Aysha, and please feel free to circulate.
http://www.examiner.com/nutrition-in-boulder/greg-ashby
http://greg-ashby.healthcoach.integrativenutrition.com/
In all of the groups I work with, I've felt such joy to be with such courageous and caring people. It's
not to be missed!
Your message is what people need to hear. "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." - Flannery O'Connor. We need people to be empowered and passionate once again. In 1909, 20,000 women went on strike demanding higher pay, shorter hours, and better working conditions including safety precautions such as sprinklers and fire drills that were not required by government regulations, which would have cost businesses money. The women were beaten by hired thugs on the picket line. On March 25, 1911, a catastrophic fire broke out at the Triangle Waist Company in NYC. Trapped inside the upper floors of a ten-story building, 146 workers - mostly young immigrant women and teenage girls - were burned alive or forced to jump to their deaths to escape the inferno that consumed the factory in just 18 minutes. The New Yorkers remembered their pleas.
There have been so many casualties because of our unregulated energy and chemical industries. The victims go unrecognized. I look at the beautiful solar towers being built in Spain and wonder why not here? Wind powers 20% of Denmark's energy. It's only 2% here. There are unnecessary carcinogens and endocrine disruptive chemicals put in our consumer products. Why do we let them allow it? Government heavily subsidizes the most harmful agricultural business practices that destroy the health of soil and consumers and also pollutes water supplies. The healthy business practices struggle to survive. There are solutions. We need people to unite and push
Why do we allow this? Probably because we are afraid, or perhaps numb, and don't believe that it could effect us until it does. Or we are engaging in success addictions, or stress reduction practices, that help us feel calm inside despite the horrors going on outside. Somehow we've been lead to believe that that "outside stuff" shouldn't affect us. If we have a big enough heart to feel the suffering of the Japanese, or of dying dolphins the Gulf, why we would ever think we should ignore that? Or workaround the social forces that cause that?
Our values have flipped. It's up to us to come together-- the more, the better!
I have watched so many in crisis-- everyone so sad-- and always knowing there will be so many that will be sick after the disaster.
I have noticed a change maybe because I have been il for the past 12 years and I have read so much of what is truely going on-- and it is not good.
If you write to your leaders they never do anything. . I have letters I have written and the responses --and it is like some form letter made for that problem.
I am living with chemical injury and originally sick from water damage/indoor mold. So many of the sick and doctors, etc. became tired of waiting for our leaders to do right by us and have put out a research paper for the water damage issue. But many become sensitive to many of these untested chemicals they have aloud companies to make without proving the safety or even what chemicals are in these products. Trade secrets seem to be more important than our children, families, etc.
I got tired of writing to people like Oprah, etc. they aren't going to do anything to help get the message out. I already lost a decade and I don't like what is to come. Lin
To be effectual we can join existing groups,save the turtles,starving and abused children, which is one of my personal causes. "Peace Smarts", www.merrieway.com to create a culture of peace, and to stop youth violence and bullying is impacting thousands of teachers, parents and students.
We are raping our future, by our irresponsible actions we are modeling the precursor to nihilism for our youth. Unless there is anarchy, hopefully of the Peaceful kind, our inept, greedy,gov't serving special interests, Monsanto,Halliburton,among the staggering list of lobby mongers...WE the People, the planet, and all her children are lost. Really ingest that one. Vote, lobby, change NOW!
"If we all roll up our sleeves"....YES! Right in our own backyards, get you family and kids involved. Be a responsible parent, model positive activism...and good news. Blessings to All, Merrie Lynn
I believe this is possible. Can we hear the call to action coming through radioactive winds and water to save all living things, save Mother Earth? I feel Her begging us and She is in tears.