Wednesday 9 February 2011

Lord Noel's Pathogen Alert

Whatto! Peeps....

Is our Planet really in good hands?
The Earth is changing......
....and the future of Human Existence is at risk.....
.....and we're ALL responsible.
Author Joseph Jenkins in his fascinating book entitled "The Humanure Handbook"....
....draws a comparison between traditional human activity and that of dangerous Pathogens as they destroy their host.

  • Although the natural background rate of extinctions on Earth is estimated to be about one to ten species per year, we are currently losing 1,000 species per year.

  • Since the 1950s, more than 750 million tons of toxic chemical wastes have been dumped into the environment.

  • By the end of the 1980s, production of human made synthetic organic chemicals linked to cancer had exceeded 200 billion pounds per year, a hundred-fold increase in only two generations.

  • By 1992, in the U.S. alone, over 435 billion pounds of carbon-based syn-thetic chemicals were being produced.

  • In 1994, well over a million tons of toxic chemicals were released into the environment. Of these, 177 million pounds were known or suspected car- cinogens.

  • There are now about 75,000 chemicals in commercial use, and 3,750 to 7,500 are estimated to be cancer-causing to humans

  • The United States has 1,231 “priority” Superfund (Hazardous waste) sites, with 40 million people (one in every six Americans) living within four miles of one.

  • 40% of Americans can expect to contract cancer in their lifetimes.

  • 80% of all cancer is attributed to environmental influences.

  • Breast cancer rates are thirty times higher in the United States than in parts of Africa.

  • Childhood cancers have risen by one third since 1950 and now one in every four hundred Americans can expect to develop cancer before the age of fifteen.

  • The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency projects that tens of thousands of additional fatal skin can- cers will result from the ozone depletion that has already occurred over North America.

  • Male fish are being found with female egg sacs, male alligators with shriveled penises, and human male sperm counts are plummeting.

  • The average person can now expect to find at least 250 chemical contaminants in their body fat.

  • Fifty new diseases have emerged since 1950, including Ebola, Lyme’s Disease, Hantavirus, and HIV.23

  • Earth's atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have climbed to the highest levels for 150,000 years.

It's sobering reading....but he also puts forward a series of suggestions to improve our situation.
Tallyho!
Best Wishes - Lord Noel