| Tuesday, April 27, 2004 |  |
| Global Population Decrease? | 14 comments |
| 27 Apr 2004 @ 15:45 Global Population Decerease? There is indeed a population shortfall trend developing in Western Europe, Russia and Japan. In Ireland, for instance, families have an average of 1.8 children today, slightly below the "replacement level" of two children per couple. Couples in Italy, Germany and Spain have just 1.2 to 1.3 children each. The average fertility rate in Europe is 1.45. Both Russia and Japan are at 1.3. But it's simply not true that world population is shrinking, because these trends are overcompensated for by the very rapid population increases taking place in the world's poor and least-developed countries. According to the United Nations, population growth in less-developed countries is growing at an annual rate of 1.46 percent, nearly six times faster that the .25 percent growth taking place in the most heavily industrialized regions of the world. We are currently adding 77 million people to the globe annually, with 21 percent of that increase coming from India, 12 percent from China and five percent from Pakistan. Three countries, Bangladesh, Nigeria and the United States each contribute four percent of the world's annual growth. In the U.S., where the average fertility rate was 2.05 in 2002, population growth is due largely to immigration. From 6.3 billion people on the planet today, the United Nations projects we will grow to 8.9 billion by the year 2050. Half of that projected increase will occur in just eight countries, seven of them in Africa and Asia. It is interesting to consider that it took all of human history until 1800 for world population to reach its first billion; from there the second billion took only until 1930. Now, just 75 years later, we've passed the six billion mark. Many environmentalists feel that human population growth is the most important environmental issue of all. The sheer number of people added to the planet each year easily erodes the "per capita" gains made by conservation measures. Globally, the population growth-induced accelerated loss of forestland results in a reduced ability for ecosystems to absorb the also-increasing carbon dioxide emissions that exacerbate global warming. Further, the expansion of human activity and associated loss of habitat are the leading causes of the unprecedented extinctions of plant and animal species worldwide. In the United States, we lose two acres of farmland every minute, according to the American Farmland Trust, and a serious water shortage is developing nationwide, with aquifers once considered inexhaustible now drying up. In poor countries, population growth exacts its toll in the form of abject poverty and chronic food and water scarcity. More > |
| Toothpaste | 2 comments |
| 27 Apr 2004 @ 15:43 Most conventional toothpastes use saccharin as a sweetener. Although it has not been proven that saccharin causes cancer in humans, many studies have linked it to cancer in laboratory animals, and some experts, including Dr. Samuel Epstein of the University of Illinois Medical Center and the Center for Science in the Public Interest, recommend that consumers avoid it. Fluoride has also come under fire in recent years because of its suspected ties to bone cancer, hip fractures and fluorosis, white spots and blotching on teeth caused by excessive ingestion of fluoride. Although the American Dental Association (ADA) strongly endorses fluoride-containing products, claiming they are safe and effective for cavity prevention, some experts argue that if fluoride can damage tooth-forming cells, as in fluorisis, then other harm to the body may also occur. Triclosan is the most often used antibacterial agent in toothpaste. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers triclosan a pesticide and a chlorophenol, part of a class of chemicals thought to cause cancer in humans. Sodium lauryl/laureth sulfate, a foaming agent, and sorbitol are two other oral hygiene ingredients whose safety has been questioned. And most so-called "whitening" toothpastes use sodium or potassium hydroxides, also known as lye, considered a poison by the Food and Drug Administration. For many years the alternatives to mass-market toothpastes were plain baking soda or bad-tasting pastes that most adults disliked and kids refused to use. There are many new pastes on the market now that, if somewhat less sweet-tasting than those with saccharin, taste great-and the dental establishment is warming up to them. The ADA has awarded its seal to Tom's of Maine, which makes a large variety of natural-ingredient toothpastes. And the Journal of Clinical Dentistry found that Herbal Toothpaste and Gum Therapy from The Natural Dentist outperformed Colgate's Total in reducing gingivitis and teeth stains. The Natural Dentist makes pastes and gels in a variety of flavors that contain sodium laureth sulfate, but don't use artificial sweeteners, preservatives or dyes. Peelu Toothpaste, which comes in Spearmint, Cinnamon and Peppermint flavors, uses peelu, a vegetable fiber, as an abrasive and glycerine as a cleanser, rather than a synthetic detergent. Weleda makes toothpaste free of saccharin and sodium lauryl sulfate. Its Pink Toothpaste with Myrrh contains nine essential oils for gum health, and its Children's Tooth Gel is made especially for young teeth. For consumers who wish to avoid fluoride, Tom's of Maine makes fluoride-free natural toothpaste for adults and children. Tom's also makes a whitening toothpaste that uses silica; Jason Natural Products makes one that uses both silica and bamboo powder. More > |
| 2 comments |
| 27 Apr 2004 @ 14:35 Thanks to my friend Patricia Fourstar-Sullivan who sent me this. It is material from Esther Hicks who is an inspirational speaker who dialogs with a group of spiritual teachers who call themselves Abraham. ------------------------------------------- In all the time space realities we have ever focused, the only species that we know of in all of that that believes in lack is the human physical beings.... If you step back into the broader view, you understand that everything that is physical is an extension of nonphysical energy. And as you understand that the nonphysical energy is continuous. In other words, everything is moving forward. Everything is becoming more. Law of attraction says that it must. So when you understand that there is this endless source and that the only thing that even remotely relates to the feeling that you call waste is the disallowance of this energy... When the energy does not flow, the absence of the light exists. Now that absence of the light you could call lack, but it has been imposed by the physical human who stopped it from flowing or who didn't summon it to begin with, but it's existence, it's potential is always there for you. So the only thing that even remotely resembles this feeling of lack, shortage, in other words not enough time, not enough money, all this not enoughness is the very resistance we've been talking about. It's the contradictory thought that disallows the energy from flowing but it does not mean that the source was not there. If you were standing at Niagara Falls and someone explained to you that this is your source of abundance. Wellness flows in this amazing flow. Wellness, clarity, dollars, is all flowing to you in this Niagara Falls, and these falls are yours and yours alone to use in whatever way you are wanting in this lifetime. Oh wait, there is one other... see way over there in the distant bank, and you look way over there and you see a tiny little figure of a thing there in the mist and you are told that other one person and you share all this abundance and energy and you say "Oh! There is more than enough than either of the two of us could ever use." You would not find yourself worrying about what he did with it. You can barely see him anyway. You would not worry about what he would do with it or what he wouldn't do with it because the abundance is so enormous. Instead you would get focused on how you would utilize it, and you would begin to understand that even if you gave it every waking moment in this physical experience, you could not even begin to make the slightest difference in this stream... so finally when you get it, that the stream is enormous and eternal and ever present and always flowing, finally once you get that, then you stop worrying about what anyone else is doing with it or about it and you just develop your relationship with the stream. Abraham - 3/4/98 More > |