Food Crisis Series 42: Live in an Allergy-Proof Environment. There's no place better than home on the countryside.

Food Crisis Series 42

 Live in an Allergy-Proof Environment 

"Good food and good environment go together." - avr 

Dr Abe V Rotor 

There's no place better than home on the countryside.

A mural painting by the author.  Courtesy of San Vicente, IS municipal hall.

 
1. Design your home in unity and harmony with natural environment, not the other way around.
2. These are fairly quick, simple, and inexpensive methods of making your home friendlier to your asthma and allergies.
3. Build house on spacious lot and surroundings
4. Free house of carpet and wall paper
5. Knock on wood
6. Prefer shiny floors, materials of low-gas ingredients
7. Provide good natural ventilation
8. Let sunshine in, façade towards the east
9. Integrate house plan with garden
10. Screen out plants that are allergen potential
 

“Sick Building” Syndrome
1. Install proper air-con and exhaust fans corresponding to the number people, and nature of work.
2. Avoid blocking the air supply and return vents.
3. Clean up water spills and damp places to get rid of molds.
4. Store food properly, and empty the garbage daily.
5. Observe if symptoms are experienced by co-workers, other occupants, visitors.
6. Check equipment and supplies – they may be the source of irritating odor and fumes.
7. Strictly no smoking allowed.
8. Divide area into independent units – office, manufacturing, kitchen or storeroom.
9. Report problem to concerned persons/authorities.
10. Have a regular building maintenance program
 
Allergy-Free Yard
1. Fix your yard to bring down allergies.
2. Go for plants native to the place (save allergy misery and labor)
3. Maintain a pest-free lawn, naturally (biological control)
4. . Plant ground plants (and minimize mowing of grass lawn – source of allergen)
5. Be a creature of the evening (or early morning when there are fewer allergens)
6. Keep problems outdoors (like pollen)
7. Be vigilant (weed out allergen-causing plants like lipang kalabaw, sabawil
8. Minimize the mold (remove anything that traps moisture)

A. Allergy-proofing the bedroom
1.Keep pets out.
2. Encase sleeping place
3. Clean sheets with lots of heat
4. Run your air through filter
5. Banish the blinds
6. Steer clear of soft seats
7. Filter the vents
8. Pluck pillows and comforters wisely
9. Stow gewgaws away
10.Wash away the pollen
11.Debunk the mites
12.Give Teddy a bath

B. Allergy-proofing the Kitchen and Dining Room
1. Roach-proof your food.
2. Put a lid on your trash.
3. Get crumbs where they hide.
4. Don’t let dishes get crusty.
5. Scrub those floors and cupboards.
6. Battle roaches with smarts.
7. Call the pros.
8. Be a fan of your fan.
9. Avoid the cold mold.
10. Choose your cleaners wisely.
11. Cook your food, don’t gas it.

C. Allergy-Proofing the Bathroom,Laundry Room, and Closets

 1. Turn on the fan.

2. Harvest piles of damp stuff.

3. Pick a natural freshener.

4. Bring down the curtain on mold

5. Bleach the mold away.

6. Be the squeegee man.(Have a washcloth or squeegee on hand)

7. Take your washer’s temperature.

8. Wash permanent-press clothes before you wear them.

9. Opt for smell-free products.

10. Be sure the clothes dryer blows outside.

11. Leave the light on.

12. Air out dry-cleaned clothes.

13. Use wire shelves.

D. Allergy-Free Garage and Workshop

 1. Start the engines outside.

2.  Ditch your damp possessions.

3.  Store chemicals safely.

4.  Moldy rags on the floor

5. Old chemicals stored on table

6. Paint can not closed tightly

7. Car engine should not be left running in garage

8. Room should have a window or exhaust fan

9. Tools should be cleaned outside

10. Insure good ventilation

E. Allergy-Free Workplace
1. Carpenters – acrylate (adhesives), amines (lacquers), isocyanates (paint, foam),
anhydrides (plastic), wood dust
2. Farmers, gardeners – pesticides, insects, molds
3. Veterinarians, petshop owners – animal allergens, feeds, disinfectants
4. Hospital and healthcare workers – antibiotics, formaldehyde, latex,
5. Bakers, millers – cereal grain, flour dust, hay, silicates, insects
6. Beauticians – persulfates, ethyl enediamine
7.Janitors, cleaners – Chloramine-T, detergents, dyes
8. Office workers, market vendors, musicians – wide range of allergens

F. Allergy-Friendly Exercise Program
1.Avoid exercise if you have an upper-respiratory viral infection.
2.Premeditate.
3.Drink plenty of fluids.
4.Perform warm-up exercises.
5.Breathe through your nose.
6.Cool down.
7.Know your limits.
8.Avoid exercising near busy roads.
9.Judge exercise intensity with a “talk test”.
10.Slow down if you feel weak, dizzy.
11.Don a dust mask when necessary.
12.Stay inside during high-pollen days. 

G. A Meal-to-Meal Plan for Fighting Allergies
No single diet is right for everyone. Your nutritional needs are unique to you, because no one else has the same combination of genetic and acquired traits of metabolism, nutrition, and immune status.

1. Breakfast – build your breakfast around fresh fruits and whole grains. Instant breakfast may be loaded with syrup and preservatives.  If you wish to drink milk, restrict to fat-free.

 2. Lunch – Build around fruits, vegetables and grains, unless you are growing up or pregnant. If you eat meat, choose the leanest. Most fat-food burgers contain fat as high as 35%.

3. Dinner – Build around grains, cooked or raw vegetables, and protein from meat, fish or legumes. Trim off fats.  Avoid oils and fats in sauces and dressing.  If you drink, have a glass of red wine rather than beer or liquor.

4. Snacks – Don’t indulge in snacking at all, but if you must, take a fruit like mango or pineapple.     

H. Clean Your Home Naturally
1. Instead of disinfectant, use borax (1 cup to 1 gal of warm water) or grapefruit seed extract (10%)
2. Instead of fabric softener, use ¼ cup of vinegar added to the rinse water.
3. Instead of furniture polish, use olive oil with 1 tbsp vinegar poured in 1 liter of warm water. Keep in spray bottle.
4. Instead of glass cleaner, use ½ cup vinegar mixed with 1 gal warm water, place in spray bottle.
5. Borax instead of laundry whitener; Baking powder on sponge instead of scouring powder.
Hydrogen peroxide as stain remover; borax + vinegar as toilet bowl cleaner.

I. Allergy-Free Stress Busters1. Biofeedback (internal memo)
2. Cognitive Reframing (handling an experience)
3. Guided Visualization (imagination)
4. Humor Therapy (healthy laugh)
5. Hypnosis (hypnotherapy)
6. Journaling (diary, autobiography, literary)
7. Massage, sauna
8. Social Involvement (clubs, parties)
9. Yoga, Tai-chi
10.The Humanities (drawing, singing, drama)
11.Meditation (prayer, communion with nature)
12.Proper grooming.

J. Sounds that make us sick
o Irritable Sounds activate not only the senses but affect bodily functions.
o Pavlov’s Principle on conditioned learning.
o Adrenaline shoots up, increases blood pressure, challenges us – fight or flight.
o Nausea, headache, other forms of irritation.
o Interrupts present activity, interferes with trends of events.
o Destroys relationship, creates personal impressions.
Worst Sounds
1. Scratching the blackboard with fingernail, similar to a hard chalk creating a grating sound.
2. Air escaping like releasing air from a balloon.
3. Productive coughing
4. Throwing out is the worst. ~

Save Millions of Trees Worldwide this Palm Sunday 2022. Tree Holiday with Coronavirus Pandemic

Save Millions of Trees this Palm Sunday 

Tree Holiday with Coronavirus Pandemic 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

Let's join the movement Ecological Reconciliation espoused by the Holy Father (Laudato Si' Encyclical), and local church leaders led by Fr Benigno Beltran SVD. This is a yearly appeal from this website addressed to the leaders of the Church, the faithful, and humanity. Let's plant trees instead and take good care of them.

Planting trees on Palm Sunday

The Christian world loses millions and millions worth of palm trees every Palm Sunday. Coconut-based economy is the worst hit - the source of many domestic and export products, and the foundation of people's livelihood. The coconut is the most important tree in maintaining the balance of tropical ecosystems.

 

Bundles of palm fronds (young leaves of coconut and other palm trees) attest to the  massive destruction and decimation of palms in the Christian world.

Whatever happened to the sacredness of Palm Sunday!

Lavish and wasteful observance of Lent while Nature suffers and people lose their livelihood. 

Let's join hands to save the trees  

• Don't use young (bud) leaves of coconut for palaspas. You will kill the tree.
• Conserve the Oliva or the Cycads. They are living fossils, older than the dinosaurs. They are now endangered.                                    

 Oliva or Cycad, a living fossil is now endangered.

• Don't strip the young leaves of buri and anahaw palms. They are now in the list of threatened species. 
• Get only the mature leaves - never the young leaves or bud. Get only a small leaf or part of it. Don't be wasteful. 
• There's no need for each faithful to carry palaspas. One for a whole family is enough.
• Get substitute plants that are not ecologically endangered and economically threatened. (Examples: MacArthur's Palm, palmera, Areca or betel nut, bunga de Jolo, and 101 non-palm plants from bamboo to ground orchid). Use mature or older leaves - never the young leaves and buds.
• Seek advice from your community and religious leaders, and environmentalists.

Religious Practices Effects to Health and Environment

• Retreat and reflection is therapy, helps the mind and body release tension and do away with the effects of stress.

Buri palm (Corypha) is now classified as threatened species

• Abstinence conserves animal population especially during the lean months, conserving breeding stocks - like seeds (binhi) – in order to multiply in the next season.

• To some religions pork is banned. Pork is a carrier of known parasites such as tapeworm, hookworm, and ascaris.

• On Palm Sunday trees are stripped off of their buds, leaves and stems. This is detrimental  to the environment especially in summer when plants face tight water regime. Millions of pesos worth of coconut trees, potential to provide nuts continuously for a period of up to 30 years, are simply sacrificed for a day's ritual. Endangered species such as the Cycad (Oliva), are pushed to the brink of extinction.

• Ancient religions regard certain places and trees sacred, thus enhancing their conservation. Such worship was replaced by later religions, thus losing their protection.

• The washing of feet is not only ritual, it is also sanitation, getting rid of germs and preventing their spread.

. Avoid dipping your fingers into the holy water bowl, and never wash your hands or face in it. Running holy water is best.

. Take communion on your palm, never with your tongue. Epidemic such as H1N1 (flu) can be spread this way.

Holding hands in prayer is discouraged also for health and sanitation, keeping ones privacy in reverence, notwithstanding. Kissing icons is likewise discouraged for the same reason. Wiping holy objects with handkerchief will only pick up germs.

. Paying last respect to the dead should be done with extreme care, especially if the cause of death is highly contagious like anthrax, Ebola and SARS. Remember the tragic death of some religious sisters who contacted Ebola from their dead colleague?

. Don't walk on your knees to the altar; kneeling in prayer is enough. Be kind to your knee tendon and kneecap; knee injury may incapacitate you permanently. "You re not growing younger," an elder advised me. Let's learn from athletes who retired early because of knee injury.

. Removing shoes before entering a house of worship is an expression of respect and reverence, as well as for purposes of maintaining sanitation in the place. Any footwear carries dirt and germs, and may be teems with bacteria and fungi from long and intimate wear. This practice may not be as strict in Catholic churches as in Muslim mosques and Buddhist temples. Removing shoes in other places like prayer rooms, wakes, even homes, are becoming a popular practice.

. Many religious ceremonies are without the use of incense. Incense smoke and scent usually produce a pleasant and calming effect to the faithful. It is also an effective fumigant against flying and crawling insects. Its repellant effect helped keep down the spread of bubonic plague during the Middle Ages. The causal organism which killed a third of the population in the known world is carried by flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) that resides in rats. Incense comes in various preparations and offerings, candle sticks among the most common. Burning candles have similar but lesser effects. To get rid of flies around food, plant one or two burning candles to keep them at bay. Try it.

Sprinkling holy water with lotus flower before entering the Buddha Shrine. (Grand Palace, Bangkok)

Candle offering is often wasteful and dangerous. It also makes the place untidy. A lighted candle in an enclosed room reduces oxygen level while filling it with CO2 and the deadly Carbon Monoxide. (Our Lady of Manaoag Shrine, Manaoag Pangasinan.)

NOTE: I invite the readers to list down other religious practices - favorable and not - and send them through Comments. It will indeed enrich this article.

Proof of destruction on the altar of faith could be as evident as after a typhoon and other force majeure on the economy and environment. 

Coconut tops other coastal trees against the onslaught of tsunami and storm surge.  

(Acknowledgement: Internet and FAO photos)

NOTE: This article served as a yearly lesson for 30 years on the defunct Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio as host and the author as broadcast instructor.  738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday, linked with  Philippine Broadcasting Service (PBS) network, and this Blog avrotor.blogspot.com

There are many religious rituals and practices in various faiths that fall under either of the categories – to help or destroy our health and environment. This is a good assignment in schools and community workshops. It is time to review them in the light of health warnings and  the environmental concerns, particularly in these critical times.

1. On Palm Sunday trees are stripped of their buds, leaves and stems. This is detrimental to the environment especially in summer when plants face tight water regime.

2. Fasting is cleansing, it helps the body stop the accumulation of unwanted substances such as cholesterol, and allows the body to eliminate toxic materials.

3. Retreat and reflection is therapy, helps the mind and body release tension and do away with the effects of stress.
 
4. Abstinence conserves animal population especially during the lean months, conserving breeding stocks - like seeds (binhi) – in order to multiply in the next season.
 
5. To some religions pork is banned. Pork is a carrier of known parasites such as tapeworm, hookworm, and Ascaris. 

6. Ancient religions regard certain places and trees sacred, thus enhancing their conservation. Such worship was replaced by later religions, thus losing their protection. 

7. The washing of feet is not only ritual, it is also sanitation, getting rid of germs and preventing them to spread. 

8. Walking on knees, a form of penitence, usually along the aisle to reach the altar, is harmful to the knee joint and cap (patella).
 
9. Self inflicting of wounds imitating the scourging at the pillar, practiced by flagellants may lead to loss of blood, serious infection, and even death.
 
10. Communal holy water may become a breeding place of vermin and germs causing ailments and epidemic diseases.

11. Receive holy communion with the palm of your hand to lessen the possibility of disease transmission. (Photos from Internet)

12. Kissing or touching the dead. Diseases like COVID-19, Ebola, SARS, MERS-CoV must be strictly quarantined.~

How do you classify the following practices?

• Removing shoes and slippers before entering a temple of worship
• Viewing the bright sky and even the sun - to witness a miracle 
• Wearing robes and habits of holy persons
• Wearing veil when attending mass or any ritual inside the church
• Baptism by immersion in a pool or river
• Offering flowers at the altar, especially in the month of May
• Walking barefoot as penitence, usually under the sun on rough road..
• Actual crucifixion on Good Friday as "ultimate penitence"   
• Joining a huge religious assembly or procession such as the Black Nazarene. 
•  Kissing icons for intercession or expression of reverence. ~

Tree Planting Builds a Strong Ecological Foundation in Children   

 

 

 

 

 

Acknowledgement: Internet photos

Beware the IDES OF MARCH (March 21 Vernal equinox): "E Tu Brute?" Last Words of Julius Caesar.

Beware the IDES OF MARCH (March 21 Vernal equinox)

Surrealism Art

"E Tu Brute?"

Last Words of Julius Caesar*

Dr Abe V Rotor

Artist's interpretation of the assassination of Julius Caesar on the ides of March 44 BC, symbolically depicted on a reconstructed shattered marble slab, by Dr Abe V Rotor

 2021

* E Tu Brute? is a Latin phrase literally meaning, 'and you Brutus, or 'also you Brutus?', often translated 'You as well, Brutus", 'You too, Brutus?"  As readers of William Shakespeare know, a dying Caesar turned to one of the assassins and condemned him with his last breath.  It was Caesar's friend, Marcus Junius Brutus. 

Marcus Junius Brutus, a leading conspirator the assassination of Julius Caesar, died by suicide after his defeat at the second battle of Philippi. (Internet).

   

Bolshevik troops publicly burn a portrait of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. The last Czar of Russia signed his abdication papers in 1917, endin a 304-year-old royal dynasty. (Rue des Archives / The Granger Collectio

n, New York)

Top Ten Reasons to Beware the Ides of March
March 15 will live in infamy beyond the murder of Julius Caesar. Here are 10 events that occurred on that date

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
By T.A. Frail
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
MARCH 4, 2010 INTERNET

1.Assassination of Julius Caesar, 44 B.C.
Conspirators led by Marcus Junius Brutus stab dictator-for-life Julius Caesar to death before the Roman senate. Caesar was 55.

2. A Raid on Southern England, 1360
A French raiding party begins a 48-hour spree of rape, pillage and murder in southern England. King Edward III interrupts his own pillaging spree in France to launch reprisals, writes historian Barbara Tuchman, “on discovering that the French could act as viciously in his realm as the English did in France.”

3. Samoan Cyclone, 1889
A cyclone wrecks six warships—three U.S., three German—in the harbor at Apia, Samoa, leaving more than 200 sailors dead. (On the other hand, the ships represented each nation’s show of force in a competition to see who would annex the Samoan islands; the disaster averted a likely war.)

4. Czar Nicholas II Abdicates His Throne, 1917
Czar Nicholas II of Russia signs his abdication papers, ending a 304-year-old royal dynasty and ushering in Bolshevik rule. He and his family are taken captive and, in July 1918, executed before a firing squad.

5. Germany Occupies Czechoslovakia, 1939
Just six months after Czechoslovak leaders ceded the Sudetenland, Nazi troops seize the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia, effectively wiping Czechoslovakia off the map.

6. A Deadly Blizzard on the Great Plains, 1941
A Saturday-night blizzard strikes the northern Great Plains, leaving at least 60 people dead in North Dakota and Minnesota and six more in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. A light evening snow did not deter people from going out—“after all, Saturday night was the time for socializing,” Diane Boit of Hendrum, Minnesota, would recall—but “suddenly the wind switched, and a rumbling sound could be heard as 60 mile-an-hour winds swept down out of the north.”

7. World Record Rainfall, 1952
Rain falls on the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion—and keeps falling, hard enough to register the world’s most voluminous 24-hour rainfall: 73.62 inches.

8. CBS Cancels the “Ed Sullivan Show,” 1971
Word leaks that CBS-TV is canceling “The Ed Sullivan Show” after 23 years on the network, which also dumped Red Skelton and Jackie Gleason in the preceding month. A generation mourns.

9. Disappearing Ozone Layer, 1988
NASA reports that the ozone layer over the Northern Hemisphere has been depleted three times faster than predicted.

10. A New Global Health Scare, 2003
After accumulating reports of a mysterious respiratory disease afflicting patients and healthcare workers in China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada, the World Health Organization issues a heightened global health alert. The disease will soon become famous under the acronym SARS (for Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome).

Has man, as a species, reached his sunset?

 Has man, as a species, reached his sunset? 

A search for enlightenment on the future of man 

during these pandemic times.

Dr Abe V Rotor

 Living with Nature - School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]

The riddle of the Sphinx goes this way. “What animal walks on four feet at sunrise, two at noon, and three at sunset?”

Biblical Four Horsemen of Apocalypse

I first heard this riddle when I was a child, and when I failed to answer it my father casually explained the life cycle of man to me. It was one of the many mind teasers taken leisurely and with humor. But in a lecture which I attended at the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School, Science as Critique of Society, where the future of man was discussed, the riddle flashed back to mind serious repercussions.

Has man, as a species, reached his sunset? Or is history merely repeating itself?

The world now and then remembers a sweet-bitter memory of its past. After “the glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome,” mankind plunged into the Dark Ages, which lasted longer than the two previous civilizations combined. Are we taking the same road to destruction, a road strewn with roses, but facing abyss at the end?

This may be a tough question to handle. It is discomforting to consider, but necessary to absorb in the context of a wake up call. How can a world of computers, open universities, mega cities, supersonic transport and satellite communications find affinity with world of the ancients to draw such a conclusion? “No, not in our modern world,” we say.

We Live in a Modern World.

Modern is a Janus word. It is seldom perceived this way because we take “modern” for granted since it is all around us in different forms: modern medicine, modern transport, modern education, modern technology, and modern weapons. You name it and the malls and the Internet may have it. What is modern is something we put to use, often hastily, replacing a present implement or practice.

For example, modern agriculture is pictured as using a combine, a huge air-conditioned tractor that can simultaneously perform several jobs. Modern industries are automated using robotics. Modern society is said to be successful when it brings people of different races, backgrounds and walks of life together. Modern education is one that makes learning computer-dependent. Electronics has invaded our lives, such as e-commerce, e-learning.

How wired is our globe? Today, 95 percent of PC power is idle; the grid aims at tapping it all. As the Net evolves, all machines and people will become nodes on one network, and any one computer will be able to tap the power of all. But by using the grid, crooks could commandeer cars, even home appliances. It is scary. (Time, Life in the Grid)

Let us take a look at the other side of midnight, so to speak. It is modern agriculture that created pesticide residues and spurred resistance in pests. It is also responsible for making man-made desert we call in ecology desertification.

It is modern industry that has thinned the ozone layer and created non-biodegradable wastes. One the one hand, population increases have crossed the line beyond the threshold reserved for wildlife sanctuary. On the other hand, affluent living has thickened the atmosphere with waste gases and particulates causing the phenomenon called Greenhouse Effect. As cities grow the quaintness of living disappears. Much of the essence of the Lyceum has been lost in modern education. The common sense that often goes with the intelligence of naturalism is now being poorly cultivated.

Instinctive versus Acquired Intelligence
There was a conversation between a bushman and a visiting scientist in the middle of the Kalahari Desert.

“Why are you so illiterate?” asked the bushman of his guest in his unique language.

It was a question a civilized person, a beautiful woman and a doctorate holder at that, would have asked instead.

But the bushman knew when a hyena had just passed; if the wind is dangerously picking up human scent and delivering it to waiting predators; and where to find water in a no-man’s land.

Today, instinctive intelligence has been juxtaposed with, if not replaced by, acquired intelligence, that one hardly knows the difference between the two. In times of peace and plenty, instinctive intelligence tends to become dormant, lulled by the many amenities of living. We are like a typical person from New York, who may be street-smart but maybe illiterate in matters of nature, and may be pathetically helpless when  disaster strikes. We do not even know if we are existing in a “desert”, at a loss in realizing danger, because we are so used to the good life. This is the condition into which modernism has transformed us.

Where Does Modern Life Lead Us?
In Shelly’s celebrated fiction novel, Frankenstein, wasn’t the monster Dr. Frankenstein created, a product of modern science of that time? It is not different today. Wittingly, or otherwise, we are creating a modern Frankenstein monster in our quest for power and wealth - a monster which first appears as an obliging genie, but at the end refuses to go back into the bottle of its origin.

Orthodox version of the Apocalypse

Let us look into the monster modern man has created.

1. By splitting the atom man has unleashed the most explosive force the world has ever known. This tremendous power can plunge the world into Armageddon. Today’s nuclear stockpile threatens the globe with obliteration of humankind three times over. This means a thermo-nuclear war can instantly kill a population of 18 billion people, notwithstanding the gross destruction of other organisms, and obliteration of the environment as we know it.

The proliferation of nuclear weapons – atomic, hydrogen and cobalt bombs - reached its peak during the Cold War. With the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR, in 1987, the accountability of nuclear stockpiles became a big question among its former satellites. It is not impossible to smuggle a nuclear warhead which is only about the size of an attaché case, or produce radioactive material for making a nuclear bomb in the guise of nuclear power generation. We know that nuclear weapons technology is no longer the monopoly of the West and highly industrialized countries. The latest additions to the list of countries capable of making nuclear weapons are North Korea and Iraq.

War - the scourge of the human species. Mural, HoChiMinh City (Photo by AVR ca 2007)

2. Unrestricted massive expansion of frontiers of production and settlements has resulted in loss of natural habitats, in fact, whole ecosystems as evidenced by the death of rivers, lakes and coral reefs, and destruction of forests and wildlife. It is a fact that if man can tame the earth, so can he destroy it.
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The demise of a single species can produce a cascade of extinctions and threaten an entire ecosystem. (AV Rotor, Living with Nature in Our Times, 2008)
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3. Growing affluence continues to accelerate man’s conquest of nature through industrialization. Practically every country in the world is on a race towards industrialization in order to meet capitalistic standards of high economic growth and development. But Gross National Product (GNP) merely sums up a country’s output. Very little focus is given to Human Development Index (HDI), the guarantee of equitable distribution of benefits that elevates quality of life in a country. In certain societies such us ours, socio-economic inequity can be aptly summarized as having 10 percent of the population controlling 90 percent of the nation’s resources, and that 50 to 60 percent of the population are trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Industrialization has widened the division between the affluent and the poor, stunting migration patterns that have caused massive urban growth, while siphoning off the resources of the countryside. This, in turn, has created a world order dominated by multinational companies and self-proclaimed global leaders now questioned by the free world, and challenged by civil initiatives and terrorism.

4. The recent scientific breakthrough, the breaking of the code of heredity - DNA (Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid), the Rosetta Stone of genetics, has opened up an entirely new concept of the origin and development of life.

But more amazing and frightening is the new power of man to tinker with life itself – playing God’s role in the creation of new life forms, extending human life to nearly twice its present longevity, and in eliminating diseases even before their symptoms are manifested. Cloning suddenly became a fearful word as applied to humans, following the success with “Dolly, the sheep,” the first cloned animal. Even this early we are warned of food products manufactured from Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), dubbed as Frankenfood.

One by one, countries are coming out against crops with engineered genes – and there may be more to the skepticism over GM crops. Genetic modification can be a strategy to bring agriculture under the dominance of foreign corporations. On the grassroots level farmers doubt if GM crops can be grown side-by-side with non-GMO plants and not being affected negatively since open pollination knows no boundaries.

Public outburst against Genetically Modified Organisms. 

Is the coronavirus a product of genetic engineering?

The biggest scare that can be spawned by genetic engineering is Genetically Modified Man (GMM) - a being different from the original man described in Genesis, who is God-fearing, loving, sociable, intelligent, and with a high sense of values.
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A transformation of our technology and values could make it possible to build a society that will stand the test of time. (Time, A Culture of Permanence)
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5. It was unprecedented that the world has traveled far and wide on two feet – communications and transportation – with the West discovering the East, and subsequently resulting in intermarriages of the races, in trade and commerce, education and culture, politics and government, religion and philosophy. With the advances of science and technology the world has shrunk further into the size of a village now wired with fiber optics. But such union cannot be merely characterized as gross merging of characteristics. Here the rule of compatibility may bring diverging directional paths, especially when we force the union of dynamic processes, such as the liberalism of the West and traditionalism of the East. Through time and with continuing “intermarriage”, perhaps a global society will form and accelerate towards homogeneity. We rejoice in meeting friends from across the globe, at getting international news live, and in finding commonalities of interests, and in being part of a genetic pool.

Remember the universal soldier? The Renaissance man? This new kind of man --- will he be superior over say, than man in the times of the Greeks and Romans? Will this superman represent the fittest of the survivors in accordance with the standards of evolution? Or the righteousness of man in pursuit of the precepts of the Church? 

The Dangerous Game of Numbers
The basic biological principle concerning the survival and dominance of an organism is having a large population, surrounded by a wide range of genetic diversity.

We know that each organism has a life cycle of its own patterned by its species, but the intriguing part is that each species has a unique population cycle.

To attest to this natural law, observe the swarms of locusts and gnats, the spontaneous appearance of mushrooms to make many a fairy tale, the aggregation of corals following a once-in-a-year orgy, large herds of reindeer, salmon runs, schools of tuna.

Additionally, diseases run into epidemic levels, decimating large numbers of people in the bubonic plague which killed one-third of the population of Europe. Sometime between 1918 and 1920, the total number of deaths due to the Spanish influenza was estimated at 40 million with the US and India, hardest hit. Based on the world’s population at that time, one out of six people on earth was killed by this pandemic disease. Today, we are confronted with similar threats, AIDS (Acute Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome), and the recent SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). The world stands alert in preventing the repetition of another epidemic.

Many of us may still remember Pied Piper of Hamlyn, a German folk story. If one would only realize its theme, which is mass suicide, the story would make a horror box office, rather than one for bedside reading.

Pied Piper of Hamlin leads children to a secret mountain cave never to be seen again.

Once upon a time a strange young man called on the mayor of Hamlyn who was worried about how to get rid of the rats infesting his town. “I will eliminate the rats,” assured the Pied Piper. To which the mayor, on seeing his jester’s costume and a small musical instrument in his hand, laughed, “I’ll give you all the money you want if you can do just that.”

So the Pied Piper played a strange music with his pipe and walked through the town, and rats followed him. Rats from the attic, canals, the kitchens, rats from everywhere, were drawn by his music. Playing until he reached the edge of the sea, the piper caused the rats to plunge into their death, thus ridding the town of these pests.

But the mayor did not keep his promise of paying the piper his money.

So the Pied Piper played again, this time with a stranger music that caused children to follow him. Children came from their homes, schools, and the streets, were drawn by the music of the piper that led them to the mountains. They entered the misty forest, and thence into a yawning cave that closed after them. The children were never heard again. Only a lame boy was spared. He saw it all happen and told this story.

Does the Pied Piper story have any scientific explanation?

Scientists in Scandinavia observed a similar mass suicide among lemmings. Every once in a while, the population of this rodent increases substantially and becomes a pest to farm folks and homeowners. In large numbers, they move from place to place, ravaging agriculture and articles of commerce. After this rampage, they plunge themselves in hordes into the sea in the same manner as the rats of Hamlyn.

Here is another celebrated case. Locust (Locusta migratoria manilensis), a major insect pest, follows a more complicated population growth pattern. There are four stages in its life cycle. In the solitaria phase the insect behaves individually like the grasshopper in an Aesop fable. As food becomes scarce in the summer, the individual locusts group together to form congregans. These then coalesce to form larger groups, proceeding to the swarming stage, migratoria. Except for those that revert to the solitary phase, the dissocians, the swarm continues to expand. Because of sheer numbers, an overnight attack by the pest can virtually demolish entire crops like rice, corn, legumes and vegetables. The swarm darkens the sky in midday, hisses in deafening sound, rides on wind current to reach far and wide, destroying many things on its path.

Our planet is getting overcrowded.

This population growth pattern that ends in mass extinction is also happening in the microscopic world. This can be observed in yeast during alcohol fermentation. The yeast cells rapidly increase in number, so with the enzyme – zymase - which they secrete. Zymase converts sugar into alcohol, so that alcohol builds up while the amount of fermentable sugar proportionately decreases. Ironically it is the accumulated alcohol and starvation that ultimately kill the yeast cells, a phenomenon known as autotoxicity.

                                                                

Do we carry in our genes the Pied Piper or Lemming syndrome? Has human society any similarity with the migratory habit of locust? Are we internally building toxic materials, like the yeast, which will lead us to our doom?

These are questions that will trouble and challenge our most profound thinkers. But there is one thing that we should remember. It is not man’s superior mind that is the saving grace of the world, because the more he discovers things, the more he asserts himself in the biosphere.

It may be man’s intelligence that is bringing his doom closer. It reminds us of the Fall when man disobeyed God and ate the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom. Whatever is our interpretation of Paradise Lost, the fact remains that mankind’s vulnerability lies in the improper use of his rationality. One such blatant act is the destruction of his environment as man craves to fulfill his unending quest for food, lumber and minerals.

There is a theological and ecological dimension to this thesis. When we destroy nature, we invariably disrespect the Creator.

Today’s Hercules and the Modern Hydra
Here is a stage play to portray man and the monster he created in battle. The modern Hercules pursues the Hydra of many ugly heads. It will be more dramatic than the romanticized Greek mythology. And the task will be enormous. Will our new Hercules succeed?

These are tools that we would offer to our hero to use.

• Elimination of all weapons of mass destruction
• Preservation of ecosystems
• Renewal of values and strengthening institutions
• Population planning and control
• Social control for equitable distribution of resources
• Restrained agriculture and industrial development
• Science and technology with conscience
• Enlightened education and media
• Effective governance and order
• Investment in the new generation and the future

Let us imagine that the play will last for days, years, generations or eons of time. We must be patient and persistent, like the Sphinx on the watch, but let us not fall victim to it.

We know that nothing is permanent in this world. Everything has a life cycle – even the stars – and this is what makes things transient. Take for example our sun. It is no longer the young blue-flamed torch in the sky for it has aged. It is now reddish and approaching a nova, the last stage of a star about to explode, and die - in the next 5 billion years.

There was once a scientist who expressed the highest level of optimism for humankind. He envisioned that as the sun becomes senile and prepares for its demise, man shall then have colonized the other planets, thus ensuring the continuity of his species.

Our species has its birth, growth, maturity and stability, before it too, shall perish and give way to another dominant being. What will it be? Nobody knows. This natural law of succession is evident from the fossil record that tells of the earth’s natural history. Of the five billion years of the earth’s existence, scientists found evidences of early life forms as early as three billion years ago, progressing very slowly to break away from simple, unicellular life forms.

Then, a billion years ago, life burst into a myriad of multi-cellular forms. Very recently did man arrive. If the world’s history is a year calendar, man arrived in the evening of December 30th. That is how young our species is as compared with, say the Coelacanth thought to have perished 60 millions years ago, or the dragonfly and cockroach which have been existing on earth since before the age of the dinosaurs.

Man in the last one million years became a dominant species, but not for the reason that he possesses the instincts of other dominant organisms before him, but by the use of a special singular tool - intelligence - which no other organism at present or in the past ever possessed.

The question today is not how we dominate the earth but for how long will we dominate it. It is not appropriate to compare man with the dinosaurs, or the early mollusk, or amphibians or fishes. These organisms cannot shape their environment and their destiny as man can. Man has conquered every corner of the earth, and soon the space above and around it, and in the depths of the oceans. He has studied how nature works and has been able to duplicate it in a growing number of ways. He has created new elements and compounds, including amino acids which are building blocks of life itself.

There is reason to believe that our species, if unchecked, may soon face extinction. But it is not unlikely that this demise will come from a giant meteor crushing earth, similar to what is believed to have caused the disappearance of dinosaurs. However, some scientists like Dr. Schumacher, the proponent of “Impact Technology”, believe that this extraterrestrial accident is not remote from happening again.

But if the death of our species would come, it is likely our own doing. Our intelligence may be unable to overcome the dictates of our survival instincts, leading to our own mass suicide. Will our society, perfect as Utopia, simply drift like the migratory locust searching just for food, mate, and other biological needs?

Will our species remain entrapped in a geometric population growth pattern, unable to use its intelligence to break free? It is possible that the population explosion, unending materialism, and breakaway science and technology will combine to create autotoxicity similar to that which killed the yeast cells?

We are engaged in a drama where we are not only the audience, but also its characters, playing the role of a new kind of hero, one who can save our environment and our species. The hero’s victory means the survival of mankind. It is a long struggle and will triumph.

Going back to the answer of the riddle of the Sphinx, man is that animal. As a child in the morning he crawls on all fours; as an adult at noon he walks erect on two legs; and as an elderly person, reaching the evening of his life, he walks with a cane for his third leg.

If we play the hero’s role well, we can yet delay the arrival of our sunset as a species. 

The Sphinx at Giza, Cairo, Egypt. 
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Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) Dr Abe V Rotor and Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday [www.pbs.gov.ph]

Reference: The Living with Nature Handbook by AV Rotor, UST Press 2003