Armageddon in the Making
(A Personal Dissertation)
Dr Abe V Rotor
Series 1 - Stockpile of nuclear weapons can annihilate present
human population three times over.
Series 2 - Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse
Series 2 - Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse
Series 3 - Old and dying cities are abandoned into a concrete jungle
Series 4 - Diseases and many forms of human misery are masked
by the Good Life.
Series 5 - Armageddon Ticking - Defaced Earth from the Air
Series 6 - Radiation Plague - Invisible Deadly Pollution of Our Postmodern Era.
Series 7 - Today's Dilemma: Anxiety, Phobia and Depression
Series 8 - Biological and Ecological Warfare Started in Ancient Times
Series 9 - Never Forget Sept 11, 2001 (Birth of the NOOSPHERE)
Series 10 - Let us stop destroying the Earth - our only ship in space
ANNEX A - Disturbing Signs of our Times
Series 1 - Armageddon in the Making
Stockpile of nuclear weapons can annihilate present human population three times over.
Armageddon an acrylic painting
by AV Rotor
A third world war was averted during the 45-year Cold War. As hindsight, an arms race revealed from both sides USA and USSR and their respective allies built a stockpile of nuclear weapons potentially capable of annihilating mankind three times, and irreversibly destroying the earth’s biological and ecological balance,
1. A third and final world war is inevitable, it is now long overdue reckoning the first and the second at a generation’s interval. I am a witness to the second at its closing in mid 19th century, and grew up in its ruins in lives and properties, and in the relative peace that followed thereafter;
3. A third world war was averted. As hindsight, an arms race revealed from both sides a stockpile of nuclear weapons potentially capable of annihilating mankind three times, and irreversibly destroying the earth’s biological and ecological balance, with radiation and other poisons that can persist for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Fiery scene, painting of an 8-year old. Children's Art Workshop, 2017
6. But what really tore down the boundaries of nations zealously guarded by politics and economics have been the breakthroughs in science and technology, particularly in communication and transportation, disseminating information through multimedia and bringing people together. This ushered the beginning of “globalization.”
Dr Abe V Rotor, PhD
1. A third and final world war is inevitable, it is now long overdue reckoning the first and the second at a generation’s interval. I am a witness to the second at its closing in mid 19th century, and grew up in its ruins in lives and properties, and in the relative peace that followed thereafter;
2. For 45 years until 1989 that peace thrived in fear and uncertainty under the proverbial Damascus Sword. The world was polarized into two warring ideologies – democracy and socialism – with countries, with few exceptions, drawn to either the side of America or that of Russia, then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR.
3. A third world war was averted. As hindsight, an arms race revealed from both sides a stockpile of nuclear weapons potentially capable of annihilating mankind three times, and irreversibly destroying the earth’s biological and ecological balance, with radiation and other poisons that can persist for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
4. Year 1989 marked historical events of global significance: the dissolution of USSR to its core which is Russia, liberating its members as independent nations, and the reunification of East Germany and West Germany in a celebrated tearing down of the Berlin Wall that separated them for half a century. This marked the end of the Cold War.
Two men fighting to death while being swallowed by quicksand, indeed a mutual suicide, by 18th century Spanish painter Goya.
5. The new era favored the transition of People’s Republic of China to open its doors to the free world following Mao Tse Tong’s death. Earlier the two Vietnams were reunited following the defeat of US-backed South Vietnam. South Africa, like India twenty years earlier, gained independence from Britain with Nelson Mandela at the helm.
6. But what really tore down the boundaries of nations zealously guarded by politics and economics have been the breakthroughs in science and technology, particularly in communication and transportation, disseminating information through multimedia and bringing people together. This ushered the beginning of “globalization.”
7. Man has conquered space in cyber communication, and space travel. The whole world is “wired” and crisscrossed by space lanes, shrinking the world into a village, so to speak. Liberalization brought socialism and other restrictive ideologies to their knees. Unopposed, capitalism rose and dominated the economy of nations and the world.
8. The world became one huge economy under capitalism with trade barriers lifted, trade zones expanded, cartels and monopolies emboldened, regional unions created and expanded (EU, APEC, ASEAN), industrialization and agriculture tremendously grew to meet demands of population explosion, affluence and growth of urban centers.
9. Forests were logged, farmlands and pastures exploited, lakes shrunk (e.g. Aral Sea), waterways polluted, air loaded with carbon and gases (CO2, Sulphur, methane) returning to earth as acid rain - and heat. The Ozone layer is thinned out by CFC compounds. Desertification, erosion, siltation add to the wanton destruction of the environment.
Stonewall of the Heart, by AVR
10. A shift from fossil fuel has long been overdue. For more than a century the internal combustion engine has remained virtually unchanged. A shift to nuclear energy has chilling reminder of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombing in WWII, and nuclear plant incidents (Chernobyl in Ukraine, Fukushima in Japan), North Korea’s and Iran’s threat as new nuclear powers, notwithstanding.
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Greek Armageddon, Harmagedōn, scene of the battle foretold in Revelation 16:14–16· a : the site or time of a final and conclusive battle between the forces of good and evil. - a decisive conflict or confrontation. While we do not know how God will use his power, he will have at his disposal weapons such as those he has used in the past —hail, earthquake, flooding downpour, fire and sulfur, lightning, and disease. In confusion, at least some of God’s enemies will kill each other, yet they will ultimately realize that it is God who is fighting against them.—Ezekiel 38:21, 23; Zechariah 14:13.
Armageddon Series 2:
Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse
Environmental degradation is the most serious global abuse, not only in pursuit of actual human need, but his unending want of affluence apparently of no end. The earth is slowly choking with deadly gases, its surface defaced and stripped of natural cover, man-made materials dumped on land and water, in fact its geography has changed and continues to be modified directly and indirectly by man.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Bad air over New Delhi, typical in other big cities like Beijing, New York and Metro Manila
industrial boom and millions of cars as affluence rose to the point of ostentatious and frivolous living. But each car’s exhaust is a miniature volcano, erupting daily, worse than a Mt Pinatubo (Philippines) and Mount St Helens (US) combined.
12. The air accumulates gaseous materials and particulates, building acid rain that turns soil acidic and unproductive, defacing valuable works of art (historical relics and artefacts), causing illnesses heretofore unrecorded in medical books, and triggering other diseases as well, including the resurgence of ancient diseases like tuberculosis.
Thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica. Ozone hole has been detected over the Arctic.
13. The ozone layer, a protective blanket against radiation from space is being thinned by CFC and other gases. A hole at the southern hemisphere as big as continental USA, exposes millions, particularly children, in Australia and New Zealand to ultraviolet rays, a major cause of skin cancer. A smaller ozone hole is building up over the Arctic region.
14. Gases in the atmosphere trap heat from escaping, thus solar heat together with heat generated by the earth and man’s activities collectively contribute to global warming at an alarming rate. Climate change has been the cause of climatic adversities (typhoons, tornadoes, drought, blizzards), erratic weather, and other unexplained atmospheric phenomena.
15. In Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” the world is getting warmer and warmer at a geometric rate, far exceeding any period of the history of the earth except in its early formation. Warming is traced to increasing amount of CO2 in the air, the principal gas of combustion mainly of fossil fuel that runs agriculture, industry, transportation, and illuminate whole cities around the world.
16, The failure of timely shift to alternative fuel even as fossil fuel sources are dwindling, even as alternative energy is available, even as population demand tremendously increased in the past one hundred years, has grave consequences which we are feeling today, and this is just the beginning - fuel shortage, high cost of living, increasing inequity leading to mass poverty.
17. Environmental degradation is the most serious effect, not only in meeting actual need, but unending want of affluence apparently of no end. The earth is slowly choking with deadly gases, its surface defaced and stripped of natural cover, man-made materials dumped on land and water, in fact its geography has changed and continues to be modified directly and indirectly by man.
18. Reminiscent of the Dust Bowl of the Dakotas in the US in the early 20th century are similar desertification cases, farmlands becoming wastelands due to excessive farming and poor management, such cases include the Sahel region (Africa) struck in the 60s by extreme drought, farmlands around the shrinking Aral Sea (Russia), the source of irrigation now only a measly fraction of its original size. A comparison of Aral Sea in 1989 (left) and 2014 (right)
19. We don’t have to go far. Our own Laguna Bay, bigger than the Sea of Galilee, is dying, its once pristine blue water as I saw it in the sixties as a UPLB trainee in a lakeshore barangay, Gatid, Sta Cruz, is now shallow and muddy as siltation and pollution from homes, farms and industries from four surrounding provinces worsen by encroaching settlements and fishpens clogging the lake – indeed a desecration of the lake’s beauty as described in Rizal’s celebrated novel, Noli Me Tangere.
20. All over the world lakes and rivers are dying: Lake Chad of Africa, Aral Sea of Russia, tributaries of Mississippi in the US, Nile in Egypt, Yangtze in China, Mekong in Vietnam. Who would believe that odor of methane and hydrogen sulphide from the polluted harbour of Hongkong is the first to greet passengers even before landing on the sprawling modern airport? So with tourists on reaching the deck of the 100-storey Sears Tower on Lake Michigan in the US.
Continued.
Series 3 Armageddon in the Making
Old and dying cities, and infrastructures abandoned
into a concrete jungle
As we review Gibbon’s thesis of lost civilizations, we can’t help project the future of countless cities in the world – new, “golden”, dying, deserted. We can only gleam at old and dying cities, infrastructures abandoned into a concrete jungle, or buried in “the sands of time.”
29. Domicile used to be community-based with indigenous and genetic roots established by history, culture, economics and beliefs, which prevailed over time: family to tribe to community, expanding into town, and lately into city. Cities continue expand at an accelerated rate, eating out not only their suburbs, but their former provincial bases for which they were once the capital, like nucleus of a cell. The countryside is now an orphan, while metropolises and megacities have grown into cancerous social structures.
30. Today’s city is basically of the same structure as those in the past, even in ancient times – Babylon, Rome, Athens, even those of the Aztecs and Mayans – and what is our outlook of metropolitan life, and the dream place we used to call “the Golden City”? As we review Gibbon’s thesis of lost civilizations, we can’t help project the future of countless cities in the world – new, “golden”, dying, deserted. We can only gleam at old and dying cities, infrastructures abandoned into a concrete jungle, or buried in “the sands of time.” Detroit, once the pioneer and monopoly of the US automotive industry, Is now considered dead, a clear warning in postmodern times amidst global prosperity.
Left, Spirit of Detroit, bronze statue biggest since Renaissance. A family in his right hand, golden sun in his left - indeed a symbol of prosperity. That was in 1955. Restored recently, it symbolizes a past glory.
Right, image of Mother Teresa, now a saint graces an empty plaza. Who is the poor? It's ironic, the poorest of the poor could the wealthiest once upon a time.
Dr Abe V Rotor
21. We don’t have to go far. Pasig River is not only polluted, it is an open sewer! Pasig River in the time of Balagtas and Rizal was a most beautiful scenery to compose songs, verses, to paint scenes, a piece of biblical Eden immortalized and revered, but alas, relegated to the archives, leaving but nostalgic memories, and gloom sans a sense of guilt, even as the dying river passes Malacanang Palace, high rise buildings, and luxurious malls and estates. (See Dirge of the Pasig River in this Blog)
22. Potable water is a scarce commodity. The cost of bottled drinking water is ironically more than gasoline in many countries including the Philippines, when we have direct access to springs, lakes, rivers, artesian and shallow wells. Freshwater constitutes less than ten percent of all the waters on earth, three percent of which are potable, but this is getting more and more difficult to obtain as watersheds dry up, glaciers disappear, natural sources polluted.
23. Wastelands are expanding, a consequence of mismanagement and market-directed monoculture agriculture, depleting soil fertility and balance. On the other hand wastelands like swamps are reclaimed but to the expense of wildlife and natural resources irreversibly destroyed in the same way that I found, as project director of Sab-A Swamp in Leyte, not to mention microclimate change and desertification.
24. Traffic problems are getting worse each day, building up to a point of choking avenues and streets, even private roads are forced to open as alternative routes. Towns like Vigan, San Fernando LU, Laoag which gained city status now experience traffic congestion as more vehicles increase in number and utility. Traffic is today the Number One cause of smog. Smog over Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong is the worst in the world.
25. What a pitiful sight when caught in hours-long traffic! It’s virtually paralysis in practically all aspects of living. Energy loss runs to millions every day. There is virtual dome visible as smog over the city, a huge gas chamber with every vehicle spewing deadly gases and carbon, joined in by factories and establishments, countless homes notwithstanding.
26. No wonder more and more people are getting sick of many pollution-related diseases from the recurrence of ancient diseases like tuberculosis, to modern ailments like allergy and hypertension. When you are subjected to too much stress the body suffers of fatigue, physically and mentally – and spiritually as well. Many people spend their life sick and depressed, dependent on medicine; many die, and die before their time.
27. The Computer Revolution is touching our faith more openly and deeply now than during the age of Bible Study and Sunday Worship. The marriage of religion and technology has gone farther than following Mass on TV. It is now available on the Internet the subject of God in the countless denominations of faith. But even a world-wide web apparently cannot not bind Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists together.
28. On the contrary fundamentalism in many religions is drawing the faithful farther from ecumenicism which has the objective of common understanding irrespective of religious affiliations. On the contrary a crisis is looming with religious members leaving their conventional religious institutions and creating one themselves, such as Born Again, Ang Dating Daan. Others simply quit. They are called Nones, literally no religion. They however, have chosen the way they worship, help the needy, deal with religious congregations in which they are no longer a part, etc.
30. Today’s city is basically of the same structure as those in the past, even in ancient times – Babylon, Rome, Athens, even those of the Aztecs and Mayans – and what is our outlook of metropolitan life, and the dream place we used to call “the Golden City”? As we review Gibbon’s thesis of lost civilizations, we can’t help project the future of countless cities in the world – new, “golden”, dying, deserted. We can only gleam at old and dying cities, infrastructures abandoned into a concrete jungle, or buried in “the sands of time.” Detroit, once the pioneer and monopoly of the US automotive industry, Is now considered dead, a clear warning in postmodern times amidst global prosperity.
Detroit - Death of Utopia
Right, image of Mother Teresa, now a saint graces an empty plaza. Who is the poor? It's ironic, the poorest of the poor could the wealthiest once upon a time.
Detroit today, antithesis of progress, failed Utopia.
My dad worked here in the thirties. He was a working student of De Paul University in Chicago. It was Detroit's crowning glory. Dad never knew of the sad fate of this biggest city in the he world in its time. He died in 1981. In my visit to Chicago in 1976, little did I foresee Detroit's eventual downfall. What really is the world of Utopia we dream of? (Internet photos)Continued
Series 4:
Diseases and many forms of human misery
are masked by the Good Life.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Diseases and many forms of human misery are masked by the Good Life. These are surreptitiously spreading around the world causing many complications, untold sufferings, and death. They turn into pandemic as they merge with other diseases – HIV-AIDS, obesity, diabetes, accidents, are becoming common cases.
31. The most prevalent poisons in food are man-made, mostly from pesticides, particularly those designed to control pests – insects, fungi, weeds, mites, mollusks, nematodes, etc – which have developed increased resistance and even immunity through years of repeated application. They persist as residues in food and in the environment, carried on through the food web and food chain, riding far and wide, not only on the life cycles of affected organisms, but on their interacting populations.
32. The first pesticide of global importance is DDT (deoxy-diphenyl-tetrachloro ethane) introduced in the forties as the final answer to the malaria problem by controlling mosquitoes that spread the disease. Indeed DDT is highly effective not only against mosquitoes but other insects as well that its inventor was awarded the Nobel Prize. It was found out later that its residue is persistent and cumulative, and transferred through the food chain – ultimately reaching man. Although totally banned DDT is still clandestinely manufactured under different brands and names.
33. We exaggerate cleanliness. We use detergents, pesticides, deodorants, air fresheners, and cosmetics. My father used to warn us in the family, "We are unwittingly introducing into our bodies materials which may be more harmful than the germs we are trying to control." Rub-on mosquito repellant is carcinogenic, so with Chlorine added to drinking water and swimming pool. Sodium fluoride mistaken for baking powder or wheat flour is extremely harmful, although fluoride used in small amount in toothpaste helps keep our teeth strong and healthy.
34. Many kitchen utensils contain harmful metals. There is little warning, if at all, not to cook food with vinegar in aluminum pots, not to use Antimony- or Cadmium-plated utensils. Plastic containers react with food, specially the acidic ones, microwave oven emits radiation harmful to the body in the long run. In spite of this warning the use of microwave, because of its convenience, has even increased. Didn’t the Romans suffer of a mysterious disease unknowingly caused by lead (Pb) coming from their drinking vessels?
35. Many food additives cause of ailments and death: Vetsin or mono-sodium glutamate that retards mental and skeletal growth specially in children. Burglars silence dogs with pandesal containing vetsin. An overdose may lead to death. Unscrupulous vendors use Formalin to extend the shelf life of fish, Nitrate or salitre in meat products, food dyes, Aspartame and saccharine (sugarless sugar) and Olestra (fatless fat). The cheap kind of vinegar is diluted glacial acetic acid, the same kind of acid used in photography and other industrial processing.
36. The first case of mass lead poisoning occurred among the Romans when they changed their cups and vessels from bronze to lead. Today it is estimated that over 400,000 children in the US have an excess of lead in their systems. This cumulative poisoning affects the brain, the nervous system, the blood, and the abdominal system characterized by severe stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, weakness and confusion combined with decreased alertness. Lead in the bone marrow interferes with the formation of red blood cells as well as damaging existing ones leading to anemia, pallor and weakness, and to a severe extent, delirium, coma and even death.
37. Rapid economic growth has led to record levels of pollution, producing filthy air rising and spreading over highly industrial centers and densely populated cities. Here power plants, factories and vehicles release pollutants into the air, and as the sun heats up the ground, the polluted air rises. But polluted air cools quickly over water and sinks to the surface and disperses. Without strong wind to clear it away, the pollution mix can build up over time, leading to BAD (bad air days) which can last for several days, and repeated over and over - and can get worse with deteriorating environmental conditions
38. Bubonic Plague brings to mind the dreaded scourge of mankind in the Middle Ages. Rats are the carriers of this bacterium-caused disease also called the Black Death. It was so deadly that it claimed the lives of at least 100 million people with 25 million in Europe alone. It stopped man’s progress that the period was appropriately described Second Dark Ages, spreading around crowded cities and towns, with the pestilence peaking with climatic upheavals, such as what we know today as the El Nino phenomenon. The bubonic plague appeared in the United States in 1900 and then in India in the late 1970’s. Although modern medicine effectively controlled even before it reached epidemic stages, the threat looms like ghost with huge metropolises and megapolises.
39. Diseases and many forms of human misery are masked by the Good Life. These are surreptitiously spreading around the world causing many complications, untold sufferings, and death. They turn into pandemic as they merge with other diseases – HIV-AIDS, obesity, diabetes, accidents, are becoming common cases.
40. On human behavior: “Of all God’s creatures, there is no species more guilt-ridden, confused and self-destructive than man. Fear, remorse and frustration underlie his basic behavior probably as a result of his forbears having been driven out of the Garden of Eden…Man kills not for food, he eats when he is not hungry, he mates in and out of season. His suicidal tendencies are unique. While the lemmings drown themselves as a result of reduced food supplies, man will willingly cultivate cancer of his lungs by smoking poisonous plants, convert his liver into a hobnailed atrophic mass of dead tissues with alcohol, or remove himself from the control of his mind with narcotics…” Arturo B Rotor, MD
Topics to discuss
1. Fish kill, red tide
2. Rising sea level
3. Radiation in the air
4. Loss of thrust
5. Ill effects of tourism
6.Depression and suicide among the young
7. Brand scam and media blitz
8. GMO and cloning
9. Social Media
10. Obesity and Senility
11. Conspiracy Theory
12. Tragedy of the commons
13. Natural - food lifestyle
14. Plastic world
15. On-line anomaly
16. Instant syndrome
17. TNT, man without country
18. Changing sports
19. Evolution in man's hands
20 Shrinking wildlife
21. Global inflation
22. Sitting is the "new smoking"
23. Natural resistance and immunity
24. Planned obsolescence
25. Breakdown of institutions
26. Where is the money?
27. Big bang to blackhole, and back?
28. Hate campaign
29. Collective suicide in disguise
30. LGBT anti-evolution
31. Loss of identity
32. Functional art
33. Neo-Malthusian syndrome
34. Rise of cities - orphaned ganglion
35. Death of megapolises
Series 5 - Armageddon Ticking - Defaced Earth from the Air
Dr Abe V Rotor---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On-line school project: Make a Pictorial Essay from these photos. Write the appropriate caption of each of these 13 photos. Briefly explain the 20 factors that contribute to the destruction of our Planet Earth. Next time you travel on air, take the seat by the window and photograph Mother Nature from the air. These photos were taken with a palm-size ordinary digital camera set on its maximum ISO.
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Armageddon TickingArmageddon in human hands released,piece by piece ticking with the clock;innocence denied, sanity defiedto the final shock.
Time capsules all into infinity:pleasure and pain, evil and goodness -all that is on planet earth,into emptiness.
It's Sodom revived, so with the Floodand Vesuvius a thousand times;and in war none but the innocentis the price.
And the god in man and man in Godin futile struggle comes to endthe earth shall be no longer,so with a heaven.
Fabled paradise shall be no more,lost and regained, and finally gone;then a new world shall rise - perhapswithout man. ~
- Expanding settlements
- Rise of urban centers
- Coastal runoff and siltation
- Water pollution
- Marginal communities
- Vanishing shorelines
- Pirated rivers
- Clogged waterways
- Super infrastructures
- Deforestation
- Desertification
- Siltation
- Illegal constructions
- Heavy industrialization
- Eroded hills and mountains
- Submerged islands
- Reclaimed coastlines and coral reefs
- Garbage dump and incineration
- Inversion layer and smog
- Changing geography
Photos were taken by the author on an airplane, Manila-Iloilo, with
Sony Cybershot, and edited with Adobe Photoshop program. ~
Sony Cybershot, and edited with Adobe Photoshop program. ~
Series 6 - Radiation Plague - Invisible Deadly Pollution of Our Postmodern Era.
It is the man-made or man-induced kind of radiation spawned by the splitting of the atom on one hand and the invention of the microchip on the other, that jointly and collectively with the proliferation of their uses, have become high risk to humans and all living things.
Response to DICT Usec Eliseo Rio Jr's claim that cell tower radiation is safe, citing WHO and DOH as references. (TV Interview with Tony Velasquez, 8:30 AM on Channel 27, Jan 30 2017)
Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature School on Blog [avrotor.blogspot.com]
General Effects of Radiation to Human Health
and Well-Being
Depression and Sense of Abandonment and Rejection
Autism and Mental Disorder
Birth defects
Miscarriage
What should I do if I’ve been exposed to cellular phone towers?
“There is no test to measure whether you have been exposed to RF (radiofrequency) radiation from cellular phone towers. But as noted above (Cellular Phone Towers), most researchers and regulatory authorities do not believe that cell phone towers pose health risks under ordinary conditions. If you have additional health concerns, you might want to talk with your doctor.” Quoted from article Cellular Phone Towers (Source: Internet, American Cancer Society)
Even as an octogenarian, I consider myself an unwary member in a worldwide club of hundreds of millions of cellphone users. The cellphone has become man's best friend in exchange of a biological one. We seem not to be in in today's society without the gadget day and night, often complementary with other electronic devices. Cellphones are virtually implanted in our body, in the mind and heart, in our nervous system - and in the spirit, too. Sea change, and where are we?
Cellphone TrafficNon-ionizing radiation emitted by electronic gadgets, from radio and TV, computers to cellphones, have proved in the long run to be harmful contrary to guarantees of its safe use. Individual units per se have very low emissions, but each one is a miniature volcano to compare with, and with millions and millions now in use - and increasing at an unprecedented rate, the collective effect is alarmingly dangerous to an epidemic level.
We are at center stage of interconnecting cellphone towers compounded by TV and radio antennae, radar discs, interceptor devices, and many more features that service an ever expanding communications market.
A Flashback
Dead man walking is imagined as an aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan that ended WWII in 1945. Zombies aimlessly walk down abandoned streets and vanish into the horizon. Movies even made such fearful scenes dramatic. I could barely understand then in my early age, not until I was able to understand the workings of a maverick neutron targeting huge number of atoms in a blinding blast which scientists call chain reaction.
To this day, seven decades after, people are still dying from radiation residues whose half life remains fatal even after many generations particularly at the epicenter.
Armageddon needed redefinition by this human feat - or shall I say defeat, for it spawned for nearly half a century of Cold War which polarized the world into two warring ideologies, but thanks to the kinder side of humanity, the Cold War was put to an end in 1989.
But it did not actually end there. Nuclear accidents - the melting down of nuclear generators in Chernobyl in Russia, Three-Mile Island in the US and Fukushima in Japan all attests to the vulnerability of technology, however modern and safe it may be.
Today we are engaged in a second great discovery, the power of cyberspace communication tapped by the invention of the microchip. The Age of Computerization. The birth of a second breed of radiation, first alleged to be harmless because of its non-ionizing nature unlike the ionizing radiation that directly break cell-tissues and organic compounds.
Here in these photos, illustrations and graphs sourced from the Internet, we picture ourselves as unsuspecting victims of a super technology the tools we have always believed and in realized in one way or the other, to be the tools of progress. Progress it may be, but the cost is also great. It is actually an antithesis to the point we ask ourselves, "Are we better of with super technology?" What then is The Good Life, when we are victims of our own making? Slaves of science and technology, social media, fast transportation, modern medicine treating ailments, all brought forth by no less than our pursuit of affluence?
Today I have maintenance medicine for my heart, kidney, hypertension, and yes, remedies for allergy and headache, sleeplessness. fatigue, etc. And yet at retirement age, past the world of struggle, I deserve that peace and quiet, of leisure and enjoyment in the golden years of life. I pause to decipher the signs and symptoms that negate such potential gains. It is not what I am that I realize to be more important. It is the future of the young ones who are more vulnerable to risks made complex and mysterious by the invisible plague of radiation.
Cellphone Towers EMR Damaging Biological Systems of Birds, Insects, Humans
by Anthony Gucciar
Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/cellphone-tower-emr-damaging-birds-insects-humans/#ixzz4Crm7R5qX Follow us: @naturalsociety on Twitter | NaturalSociety on Facebook
Of the 919 studies, a staggering 593 showed the negative impact of mobile towers on birds, bees, humans, wildlife and plants. xxx (On the other hand) the experts even cited an international study that pinpointed cellphone towers as a potential cause in the decline of animal populations. They went on to say that there was an urgent need to focus more scientific attention on the subject before it was too late.
In addition to calling for a law protecting urban flora and fauna from emerging threats of electromagnetic radiation, the experts are also suggesting bold signs and messages on the dangers of cell phone tower and radiation to be posted near the position of cellphone towers.
Disorientation - and eventual death - of migratory birds
“To prevent overlapping high radiations fields, new towers should not be permitted within a radius of one kilometre of existing towers. If new towers must be built, construct them to be above 80 feet and below 199 feet … to avoid the requirement for aviation safety lighting,” it said.
Butterfly exhibiting effects of radiation, or by any mutagenic substance.
Disoriented seedlings exposed to RF radiation.
The negative effects of EMR on life is something that has been ignored by health officials and legislators for years. As cellphone subscriptions outnumber the total number of US citizens, more and more mobile phone towers are popping up around the globe. As the experts cautioned, it is extremely pertinent that further independent research is conducted to highlight the dangers of EMR.
Disorientation of plants
Radiation disturbs tropism governed by auxin, plant hormone that dictates direction of growth (geotropism, towards gravity; phototropism, towards sunlight; thigmotropism, away towards of from touch) These abnormal behavior is specific and is not transmitted to the offspring, unless the genes have been impaired resulting in mutation.(AVR)
Milk Yield Dropped in Cellphone Tower Area.
The negative effects of EMR on life is something that has been ignored by health officials and legislators for years. As cellphone subscriptions outnumber the total number of US citizens, more and more mobile phone towers are popping up around the globe. As the experts cautioned, it is extremely pertinent that further independent research is conducted to highlight the dangers of EMR.
Disorientation of plants
Radiation disturbs tropism governed by auxin, plant hormone that dictates direction of growth (geotropism, towards gravity; phototropism, towards sunlight; thigmotropism, away towards of from touch) These abnormal behavior is specific and is not transmitted to the offspring, unless the genes have been impaired resulting in mutation.(AVR)
Milk Yield Dropped in Cellphone Tower Area.
A study into the effects of a cell tower on a herd of dairy cattle was conducted by the Bavarian state government in Germany and published in 1998. The erection of the tower caused adverse health effects resulting in a measurable drop in milk production.
Relocating the cattle restored the milk yield. Moving them back to the original pasture recreated the problem. (Dairy Cow Study)
Mobile phone towers threaten honeybeesThe Philippine Star, September 5, 2009
Honeybee worker gathering nectar and pollen from Kamias flowers.
NEW DELHI (AFP) - The electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phone towers and cellphones can pose a threat to honeybees, a study published in India has concluded.
An experiment conducted in the southern state of Kerala found that a sudden fall in the bee population was caused by towers installed across the state by cellphone companies to increase their network.
The electromagnetic waves emitted by the towers crippled the "navigational skills" of the worker bees that go out to collect nectar from flowers to sustain bee colonies, said Dr. Sainuddin Oattazhy, who conducted the study, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
He found out that when a cellphone was kept near a beehive, the worker bees were unable to return, leaving the hives with only the queen and eggs and resulting in the collapse of the colony within 10 days.
Over 100,000 people in Kerala are engaged in apiculture and the dwindling worker bees population poses a threat to their livelihood. The bees also play a vital role in pollinating flowers to sustain vegetation.
If towers and mobile phones further increase, the honeybees may be wiped out, Pattzhy said.~
Relocating the cattle restored the milk yield. Moving them back to the original pasture recreated the problem. (Dairy Cow Study)
Mobile phone towers threaten honeybeesThe Philippine Star, September 5, 2009
Honeybee worker gathering nectar and pollen from Kamias flowers.
NEW DELHI (AFP) - The electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phone towers and cellphones can pose a threat to honeybees, a study published in India has concluded.
An experiment conducted in the southern state of Kerala found that a sudden fall in the bee population was caused by towers installed across the state by cellphone companies to increase their network.
The electromagnetic waves emitted by the towers crippled the "navigational skills" of the worker bees that go out to collect nectar from flowers to sustain bee colonies, said Dr. Sainuddin Oattazhy, who conducted the study, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.
He found out that when a cellphone was kept near a beehive, the worker bees were unable to return, leaving the hives with only the queen and eggs and resulting in the collapse of the colony within 10 days.
Over 100,000 people in Kerala are engaged in apiculture and the dwindling worker bees population poses a threat to their livelihood. The bees also play a vital role in pollinating flowers to sustain vegetation.
If towers and mobile phones further increase, the honeybees may be wiped out, Pattzhy said.~
Series 7 - Today's Dilemma: Anxiety, Phobia and Depression - they take away the joy of living
All of us are invariably victims of anxiety.
What do we worry or anxious about?
Dr Abe V Rotor
What are the common signs of Anxiety (in increasing intensity).
2. Shaky nerves, sweaty and cold palms and feet
3. Palpitation, racing heartbeat
4. Profuse perspiration, shortness of breath or choking
5. Dizziness, blurred vision, chest pain
6. Nausea, panic, fear of losing control or dying
2. Who are victims of anxiety?
All of us are invariably victims of anxiety. What do we worry or anxious about? Our aging parents, retirement benefits, sex life, health – name it, real or imaginary – and you have it, irrespective of sex, age, domicile, profession, work,
race, creed, etc. While we worry for certain things and situations, other people simply don’t - they simply don’t care. All animals for that matter, especially the small, scurrying kind, appear to feel anxiety – an instinctive response necessary for survival. Rats and chicken freeze in place momentarily when subjected to sudden fear stimulus. The opossum feigns dead which is actually an involuntary fear response.
3. Is anxiety necessary then as a survival mechanism?
Yes, anxiety helped in human evolution. Records of anxiety show how humans shared the planet with saber-toothed tigers. Without it few of us would have survive, if at all. But now we live in a particular anxious age brought about by modern civilization, so that anxiety has developed into a more complex kind. For example, we are worried for 1001 reasons as individuals, but we are also affected collectively. Take the case of the effects of the two world wars on mankind. Then came the Cold War which lasted for nearly half a century, creating an uneasy kind of world order imposed by fear of Armageddon, should the US and USSR and their allies engage in final confrontation. Such mass anxiety was revived by terrorism with its baptism in the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers of New York.
There is something mysterious about anxiety, its dualism. It is a normal response to physical danger so that it can be a useful tool for focusing the mind where there’s a deadline looming. But anxiety can become a problem when it persists to long beyond the immediate threat, which leads to anxiety disorder. It affects 19 million Americans, 25% not having any medical treatment. It is steadily rising in all countries where Western influence is getting stronger.
5.What are the two major forms of anxiety?
According to Sigmund Freud, One is more biological in nature and the other is more dependent on psychological factors.
6. What are the stages in the development of anxiety – and depression?
1. Stress – any external stimulus from threatening words to a gunshot, that the brain interprets as dangerous.
2. Fear – The short-term physiological response produced by both the brain and the body in response to stress.
3. Anxiety – A sense of apprehension that shares many of the same symptoms as fear but builds more slowly and lingers longer.
4. Depression – Prolonged sadness that results in a blunting of emotions and sense of futility; often more serious when accompanied by an anxiety disorder.
7. Of the 12 anxiety conditions listed in the psychological diagnostic, what are the most common?
1. Panic disorder – This is recurrent, unexpected attacks of acute anxiety, peaking within 10 minutes. One finds himself in a situation such as in a crowded elevator. If extreme anxiety symptoms appear, the person may be suffering of anxiety disorder that needs medical consultation, even if this is occasionally experienced.
2. Specific Phobia – This is characterized by consuming fear of a specific object or situation, often accompanied by mild to extreme anxiety symptoms. It may just be plain hate, or fear, say heights. Behavioral therapy – gradual introduction of the cause, until enough courage is built; and cognitive therapy – re-orientation of perception or behavior, may be needed independently or jointly.
3. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - a preoccupation with specific thoughts, images or impulses, accompanied by elaborate and sometimes bizarre rituals. Even if they are irrational thoughts, repetitive ritual (e.g. hand washing, prayer), time consuming – researchers are certain whether of not OCD is genuine anxiety. Whatever it is, it does respond to treatment.
4. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – repeated, anxious reliving of a horrifying event over an extended period of time. It is not anxiety if the experience fades away steadily, but if it may persist, and sometimes PTSD will not appear until six months after the event. This is caused by recurrent recollection or dream of the event, feeling the even to be still occurring, experience reminding you of the event, and difficulty in avoiding thought associated with it.
5. Generalized Anxiety Disorder – Excessive anxiety or worry for days or months, but does not affect quality of life. Characterized by restlessness, difficulty concentrating or sleeping, irritability, fatigue, muscle tension. Have three or more of these symptoms confirm a person is suffering of GAD.
8. Is anxiety inherited?
Yes, some people seem to be born worriers. Some anxiety disorders are known to run in the family. If the genes involved are reinforced by environment, the expression become more distinct. (Nature-nurture) But there is a good note to this: heritability is only between 30 to 40 percent, according to researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University. Identical twins more likely show stronger tendency to suffer from generalized anxiety disorder. However, even one with low genetic vulnerability could develop a fear of something that may even be greater than one with high genetic vulnerability.
9. Is it true that children suffering of anxiety are most likely candidates of depression?
Yes. But it is also true that many kids outgrow their anxiety disorder to become well-adjusted adults. Anxiety and depression have similar underlying biology. Anxiety may surface early in life and depression later. But researchers are divided in this observation.
10. Anatomy of Anxiety - how do we explain it to the ordinary citizen?
First, let’s start with the senses picking up a threat – a scary sight, aloud noise, a creepy feeling – the information takes two different routes through the brain.
A. The shortcut – the brains automatically engages an emergency hot line to the fear center – the amygdale, which sends an all out bulletin that alerts the brain structures resulting to classic fear response as cited in symptoms, notably increased blood pressure and burst of adrenaline. All these happen before the brain is conscious of the event – before you know you are afraid. Now the second paths takes place.
B. The high road - After the fear response is activated does the conscious mind acts; the information takes a cu\circuitous route, stops first at the thalamus (processing center) to the cortex (outer brain layer which serves as data analyzer) to the senses, deciding whether there’s need of fear response. If yes, cortex signals amydala and the body stays alert.
11. How does the body respond to anxiety stimuli?
The amygdala triggers a series of changes in brain chemicals and hormones and puts the body in anxiety mode, characterized by the following:
• Stress-hormone boost – the hypothalamus and pituitary glands pump out cortisol, the stress hormone (Too much cortisol short circuits the cells in the hippocampus making it difficult to organize the memory of a trauma or stressful experience.
• Racing heartbeat – The sympathetic nervous system responsible for heartbeat and breathing shifts into overdrive.
• FFF (Fight, Flight, Fright) - Adrenaline shoots into the muscles preparing the body to do the appropriate action.
• Digestion Shutdown – Brains stops thinking about things that bring pleasure, conserve energy otherwise wasted on digestion, hence vomiting, defecation, urination may occur.
12. What are the ways to relieve anxiety?
• Behavioral therapy – Best for phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder. Panic disorder is to expose patients to a tiny bit of the very thing that causes them anxiety.
• Cognitive therapy – rethinking, behavior modification through proper advice.
• Antidepressants – Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft are best known among the antidepressant drugs.
The newest group is norepinephrine which control emotion and stabilize mood.
• Minor tranquilizers – examples are Xanax, Valium, Klonopin serve temporary relief and therapy under doctor’s supervision.
• Exercise – talk therapy, simple exercise (at least 30 minutes), brisk walk Exercise releases natural opiates called endorphins,
• Lifestyle Changes – cut back or eliminate the use of sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and recreational drugs
• Alternative treatments – yoga, meditation, guided imagery, aromatherapy, massage
Audience Participation
• Cite an anxiety episode you actually experience.
• How did you overcome your anxiety.
References: The Science of Anxiety Time July 8, 2002
Lost Lives Time November 10, 2003
What Scares you? Phobias Time April 2, 2001
Series 8 - Biological and Ecological Warfare
Started in Ancient Times
Dr Abe V Rotor
Armageddon in acrylic on glass by the author.
Biological and ecological warfare is the most dangerous tool of war, setting aside a Nuclear Armageddon. It is also the oldest form of warfare, as old as the ancient civilizations.
Let's take a look at these historical cases.
- Carthage attacked Pergamum an ancient Ancient Greece city with clay pots filled with venomous snakes.
- The Spartans often burned the grain crops of the Athenians.
- The Mongol Empire once the largest contiguous empire in History of the world in Medieval Times brought bubonic plague (Yersinia pestis) from Central Asia to the Middle East and Europe.
- Bodies of Mongol warriors were used for biological attacks, by flinging with catapult the corpses over castle walls of Theodosia.
- The last known incident of using plague corpses for biological warfare occurred in 1710, when Russian forces attacked Sweden.
- The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, was a devastating pandemic that first struck Europe in the mid-late-14th century, killing between a third and two thirds of the population in medieval Eurasia. Its spread was natural and deliberate.
- The Mongols wrecked the irrigation works in Mesopotamia which ruined the local economy.
- Siege of castles and forts was to deprive the besieged enemy of food, water and other basic supplies, while the enemy burned the fields, slaughtered the livestock, and looted the villages.
- The spread of diseases across the Atlantic during the European age of exploration did tremendous damage to the indigenous populations of North and South America. These diseases upon the Native Americans were catastrophic, reducing the population of affected tribes by as much as 50-90%.
- The roots of many diseases that killed millions of indigenous peoples in the Americas can be traced back to Eurasians living for millennia in close proximity with domesticated animals. Without long contact with domesticated animals, indigenous Americans had no resistance to plague, measles, tuberculosis, smallpox or most influenza strains. (Attempts by missionaries to provide inoculation to local tribes people were usually met with suspicion, thus leaving the native population completely vulnerable to epidemics.)
- The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico and the English predominance in North America might not have succeeded were it not for the devastating effect of diseases previously unknown in the Americas, and against which the local populations had not built up any immunities.
- Starting with George Washington in 1779, the US government used environmental destruction as a military weapon to subdue the Iroquoi Nations of the the Indians.
- The US Army consistently attacked the Indians' natural resources - livestock, orchards and crops - wiping out the Navajos.
- The American Indian culture almost followed the buffalo into extinction. Buffalo Bill killed 4,280 buffaloes in one year. Systematic slaughter between 1850 and 1883 left only a few buffaloes placed under protection as an embarrassed afterthought.
- In 1710, during Queen Anne's War, Iroquois Indian tribes used biological warfare against the British with poisoned water sources with freshly killed animal hides, infecting the water with E.coli and other enteric bacteria.
- During the Seven Years' War in North America between the British and French, the British transmitted smallpox (Variola major and Variola minor) through clothing to Native American tribes to which British victory is accredited.
- The French flooded Holland but was stopped by the militant Dutch.
- The Russians stopped Napoleon by scorching their own earth and deprived the French army with food and shelter.
- In 1834 California smallpox epidemic began at the Russian fort soon after trading ships had left. Blankets were a popular trading item, and the cheapest source of them was second-hand blankets which were often contaminated.
- The Confederate States of America forces shot farm animals in ponds upon which the Union depended for drinking water. This made the water unpleasant to drink, and caused diseases to the enemies.
- During the 1948 Israel War of Independence, the Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the Palestine from 1920 to 1948, the main precursor for Israel's Defense Forces militia, released Salmonella typhi bacteria into the water supply of the enemies.
- The genocide of six millions Jews during the Second World War with the use of poisonous gas, and other means of chemical and biological warfare remains a sensitive diplomatic issue to this day.
- During WW II, Japan made flea bombs to spread bubonic plague in the US, after successfully testing it in China where thousands died of the pestilence.
- North Korea accused the United States of large-scale field testing of biological weapons, including the use of disease-carrying insects against them during the Korean War (1950-1953).
- The Korean War allegations also stressed that the United States initiated its weaponization efforts with disease vectors in 1953, on plague fleas, EEE-mosquitoes, and yellow fever-mosquitoes.
- At the time of the Korean War the US weaponized one agent, Brucellosis, an infectious disease caused by the Brucella suis bacteria.
- Cuba also accused the US of spreading human and animal diseases on their islands.
- Around 1950 the US Chemical Corps also initiated a program to weaponize Tularemia, an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Francisella, endemic in North America, parts of Europe and Asia. Tularemia was standardized in the 3.4" M143 bursting spherical bomblet.
- The US used Agent Orange to defoliate the jungles of Vietnam and flush out the Vietcong guerrillas. Napalm was used directly on them as well as the citizens.
- Anthrax spores through the mail was controlled by the US Postal Service before it got out of hand.
- Biological warfare was the issue against Saddam Hussein leading to the attack by the US and Britain on Iraq.
- Milosevic's was charged and found guilty before the International Court of Justice where he later died, for a crime of genocide using poisonous gas and other weapons of mass destruction.
There are many other cases of biological and ecological warfare heretofore unreported, or committed in the guise of natural phenomena. And there are countries that continue to research on deadly microorganisms - especially with the breakthrough in genetic engineering - violating the provisions of the 1925 Geneva Convention that prohibits biological warfare in any part of the world.
The world today faces three deadly viral forms that can spread out globally on pandemic proportions. The Avian Flu virus, a hybrid of bird flu virus and human flu virus, has broken the species barriers between man and birds - lately, with pigs. If the new Avian flu virus strikes, scientists predicts it is likely to kill at least 600 million people on its first major attack. Their estimate is based on the 1920s' Spanish flu which killed 100 million people, a ratio of one out of 6 inhabitants of the earth.
The AIDS virus (HIV) continues to infect hundreds of millions of people around the world, with thousands dying every year.
And now the obesity virus (Ad 36) is fast spreading in the United States where one out of five Americans is an obese. Obesity is also an epidemic in other industrialized countries, and in big cities of both developed and developing countries. The obesity virus may be naturally occurring, but it is possible that it is laboratory-triggered.
Let us be on the guard at all times against any form of biological and ecological warfare. ~
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Living with Nature-School on Blog is purely a voluntary effort to help conserve the natural environment, and to bring functional literacy to millions who lack access to formal education, and to augment formal learning and experiential knowledge. - Dr Abercio V Rotor
Series 9 - Never Forget September 11, 2001 (9/11)
Birth of the NOOSPHERE
Towards Global Collective Consciousness.
The attack on the World Trade Center on the morning on September 11, 2001 (9/11) caused intense, excruciating painful surge of grief and anger and sadness to millions and millions all over the world via media, albeit personal experience at the site in NY, instantly forming a global collective consciousness, a sheathe of mental energy that actually altered the operation of computers,* thus ushering the birth of a third evolution of our planet – The Noosphere.
Dr Abe V Rotor
Today with cyber communication, social media, modern transport, breakthroughs in science and technology and growth of megacities, collective consciousness is evolving and inevitably expanding into a global scale. It is visualized as a planetary sphere of mind, a mental sheathe of the earth. It is the third evolutionary event that our planet earth is undergoing. It is called noosphere – the unity of all minds and its thinking layer, in the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1926).
Prior to this, the first planetary evolution resulted in the stabilization of our fiery and tumultuous planet to form the geosphere which later began to support life becoming a global ecological system millions of years later - the biosphere, which is our living world today. This time we are entering into a new evolution – that of the human mind: noosphere.
Collective consciousness (sometimes collective conscience) is a fundamental sociological concept that refers to the set of shared beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and knowledge that are common to a social group or society. (Concept developed by Emile Durheim, 1894)
Towards a Noosphere from the Big Bang in acrylic by AV Rotor 2001
The Computer and Social Media
With scientific breakthrough in communication, we are virtually just a call away from one another wherever we are at any given time. Worldwide we watch the same programs on TV and the Internet, celebrate common festivities, adapt standard curricula in school, ride cars, and build houses of common make and design.
We keep abreast with the stock market, the same way with follow sports, fashion, and tourism. We shop on e-commerce, enroll in e-learning, preside over meeting via teleconference. The whole world is wired, so to speak. We live in a very modern world indeed. The gap of consciousness separating individuals is fast dissolving, and that between kids and grownup is narrowing down. In fact, in the world of computers the millennials are far ahead. “Students teach teachers” maybe an exaggeration but this is true with electronic devices and use of social media. This is a scenario to illustrate our expanding and converging collective consciousness in our postmodern era.
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*Princeton University researchers have been trying to measure the hypothetical giant humanity-encompassing hive mind, by tracking the effect of events on a network of computers around the world. – Patrick J Kiger (9/11 and Global Consciousness)
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Collective Effervescence
But the earliest proof of collective consciousness is traced to aboriginal societies that practiced religion in its earliest and purest form by periodically gathering to eat, dance, cry, intoxicate, whip themselves to delirium, and the like. Such state of collective consciousness and ecstasy brings material-spiritual and ideal-spiritual experiences to individual and social well-being. The effect is called collective effervescence.Ati-atihan festival in Aklan
Similarly we experience universal joy and merriment in Christmas, New Year, Valentine, and in lesser celebrations like Thanksgiving, Independence, and in local and family affairs. In fact collective consciousness strengthens our religious faith, sense of nationalism, stimulates our creativity, our compassion for one another, or simply takes us to fantasy as a coping mechanism from the harsh realities of life.
However, what we wish from collective consciousness is the making of an ideal society - a society that is peaceful and harmonious, progressive and sustainable. It is a kind of collective consciousness we wish to create reminiscent of Plato’s Republic, though elusive, has been the dream of humankind.
Collective Consciousness and History
Theories have been put forward since the time of the Greeks and the Romans, whose adage “the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome” attests to that dream of an ideal society. Ironically, their civilizations declined and fell obscure in the Dark Ages. The term alone implies the dark period of human society which lasted for more than a millennium. Collective consciousness that bound the two civilizations, the Greco-Roman, was shattered and later its fragments were gathered and adapted by warring kingdoms or fiefs.
It was in the Renaissance Period starting in the 15th century that our world found a new beginning – the revival of collective consciousness, a prototype of the old Greco-Roman values, ranging from religion and the humanities to politics and socio-economics. It flourished quickly in its place of origin, Florence, and swept across Europe onto the opposite side of the globe. The age of colonization carried out this social reform to different parts of the world, including the Philippines. The birth of new nations which joined other nations including former masters, ultimately after WWI, formed the United Nations which is the world’s umbrella of cooperation and peace.
Again our collective consciousness was divided by the Cold War which separated the world into two ideologies – capitalism and socialism. The world stood still in fear of a possible Armageddon. Fortunately the Cold War ended in 1989 with the reunification of divided countries like Germany and Vietnam, and th dissolution of USSR. Collective consciousness began to take shape under a freer global system of politics and economics, and in fact, with the development of modern communication and transportation, the world shrunk into a “global village.” Globalization had begun.
Jungian Collective Unconscious
As a background, collective consciousness has a counterpart - collective unconscious which has genetic roots the psychologist Carl Jung termed as archetypes. It is some kind of “inherited psychic materials,” that link each and every one of us as a species on one hand, and we today with our ancestors in the past, on the other. According to Jung’s theory, though each of us appears to function independently, in actuality we are all trapped into the same global mind. These archetypes or instincts are hunger, sexuality, activity, reflection and creativity, in the order of increasing abstraction. This laid down the three-tier ladder of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, from primordial to spiritual forms. These constitute the so-called Jungian concept of Collective Unconscious that governs our collective behavior that subordinates our own, guided and guarded by the norms of our society he termed as synchronicity. Archetypes are therefore the genetic link of our species and the components of our rationality as Homo sapiens.
The importance and value of being aware of the collective unconscious is visualized this way: “Myriad invisible hands hold your hands and direct them. When you rise in anger, a great grandfather froths at your mouth, when you make love, an ancestral caveman growls with lust; when you sleep, tombs open in your memory till your skull brims with ghosts.” (Carl Jung: A Living Myth - Collective Intelligence yields Collective Action)
The Jungian concept of collective unconscious places utmost importance in the preservation of our tradition, beliefs, myths and other ethnic values, though they may be lacking in scientific evidences. For all we know, the awareness of our connection with our forebears that make us realize the vital role of such genetic inheritance. Which leads us to realize with awe and respect to our ancestors who lived happier and more fulfilled lives than we do in our postmodern era.
Transcendental Meditation
This leads us to the spiritual side of collective consciousness - transcendental meditation and its correlation to world peace.
“Transcendental Meditation program, or the group practice of the TM-Sidhi program by a sufficient group raised the level of coherence in collective consciousness, thus providing a stable basis for a lasting world peace. Increases in societal coherence have been operationally defined as decreases in armed conflicts, crimes, traffic fatalities, fires, suicides, hospital admissions, notifiable diseases, infant mortality, divorce, alcohol consumption, cigarette consumption, unemployment, and pollution; and increases in international cooperation, stock market indices, leading and coincident economic indicators, and GNP.” (Maharishi's Program to Create World Peace: Theory and Research David W. Orme-Johnson and Michael C. Dillbeck Maharishi International University, 2016 Fairfield, Iowa, U.S.A.)
The Noosphere
What are the challenges of the new evolution – The Noosphere?
First, collective consciousness through meditation can release us of fear, anxiety, anger and tension, and help bring peace of mind vital to the attainment of world peace and order.
Second, collective consciousness offers an avenue to resolve divided loyalties and faiths, incompatible ideologies, race discriminations, border conflicts, particularly our present growing problem of terrorism.Dr Jose Rizal, Philippine National Hero
Third, collective consciousness, in order to attain global significance and integrity must exert cumulative power to unite, amalgamate existing and new consciousness, and revitalize waning unity and cooperation of social groups, cultures, and nations, through education, mass media and organizational strategies.
Fourth, collective consciousness must be strengthened and guided towards greater regional cooperation such as ASEAN, EU, APEC, and more assertive global summits and conferences, like Climate Change, the United Nations notwithstanding, all geared towards world peace and unity.
Fifth, collective consciousness, on the compassionate, benevolent and humanistic side, must be cognizant of the lessons set by history and great leaders in the past and present from Aristotle, Christ, Gandhi, Lincoln, Paul, Teresa, Mandela, to our own Jose Rizal, and other great men and women.
Outlook
Lofty indeed is the potential power of the envisioned noosphere in shaping humanity in the future with one-mind, one-heart, one-psyche at the expense of losing much of our rich diversity of intellect, behavior and emotions, and spirituality, physical attributes and health considerations notwithstanding.
Savants are divided. Rationality will make us seek and preserve freedom in many and unimaginable forms and means, retaining our connectivity with the past and the future, and our environment through collective DNA carried on through evolution, and from generation to generation. We belong to this genetic pool. We are natives of Planet Earth.
Personally as a biologist we are heading toward the sunset of our own species. By the way, all species without exemption follow a normal curve of emergence-plateau-decline and finally extinction, in favor of other species under the law of succession (seres) and pattern of the web of life. We may seem to have reached the plateau of our species. This is dangerous. A Damocles Sword hangs above us, forged by our superior intellect. What with the possibility of global nuclear war, unabated wastes generation resulting in progressive autotoxicity or genocide. By manipulating the plantilla (template) of life through genetic engineering, we destroy homeostasis or the balance of nature. We have altered the composition of the earth as modern alchemists. In short we are destroying paradise the second time around. The noosphere could be our saving grace, or at least it gives us respite to examine and amend our wasteful and evil ways in the guise of The Good Life.
To the futuristic minds, man shall be leaving the earth and live in another planet, perhaps a million years from now. By then I believe Homo sapiens that we are today shall be no longer us. ~
Guest Editorial
For the Greater Lagro Gazette 2017 by AVRotor
Acknowledgement with thanks: Internet
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The Noosphere is the sphere of thought enveloping the Earth. The word comes from the Greek noos (mind) and sphaira (sphere). The Noosphere is the third stage of Earth's development, after the geosphere (think rocks, water, and air) and the biosphere (all the living things).
The noosphere is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, and philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernadsky defined the noosphere as the new state of the biosphere and described as the planetary "sphere of reason". Wikipedia ~
The Noosphere is the sphere of thought enveloping the Earth. The word comes from the Greek noos (mind) and sphaira (sphere). The Noosphere is the third stage of Earth's development, after the geosphere (think rocks, water, and air) and the biosphere (all the living things).
The noosphere is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, and philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernadsky defined the noosphere as the new state of the biosphere and described as the planetary "sphere of reason". Wikipedia ~
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Two critical spots - Israel War in Gaza and Russian War in Ukraine - other trouble areas notwithstanding, continue building up worldwide anxiety and fear of potential global consequence reminiscent of the past two World Wars. Such consciousness is expanding across boundaries political, religious, ideological, cultural and the like, all ensconced in this new era called Noosphere
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Series 10 - Let us stop destroying the Earth -
our only ship in space
A view of the Earth from the moon
2. What and Where is the so-called Good Life? The Good Life is shifting with the transformation of agricultural to industrial economy.3. The Good Life is synonymous to Affluence. People want goods and services beyond what they actually need. Want leads to luxury - to waste.
Millions of trees and palms are sacrificed every Palm Sunday in the Christian World. Potential loss in coconut alone is immeasurably high, affecting farmers and the industry.
4. Runaway population is the mother of human miseries. The world’s population is about 8 billion. Another billion will be added in less than 10 years.
5. Cities breed Marginal communities
The proliferation of cities, growth of cities to metropolises and megapolises, each with 10 to 20 million people ensconced in cramped condition. “People, people everywhere, but not a kindred to keep," in condominiums, malls, schools, churches, parks, sharing common lifestyles and socio-economic conditions. They are predisposed to common health problems and vulnerabilities from brownouts to food and fuel shortage, force majeure notwithstanding.
Marikina Valley, a dying ecosystem
7. Species are threatened, many are now extinct, narrowing down the range of biodiversity. Human health depends largely on a complex interrelationship of the living world. No place on earth is safe from human abuse. Coral Reef – bastion of terrestrial and marine life, is now in distress.
Reflection of deer in a fountain, UST Manila
8. Wildlife shares with our homes, backyards and farms, transmitting deadly diseases like SARS, HIV-AIDS, Mad-Cow, FMD, Ebola, and Bird Flu which can now infect humans, allergies notwithstanding.
9. “Good Life” cradles and nurses obesity and other overweight conditions. Millions of people around the world are obese, wih 34% of Americans in the US obese.
10. Global warming stirs climatic disturbance, changes the face of the earth.
11. Globalization packages the major aspects of human activity – trade, commerce, industry, agriculture, the arts, education, science and technology, politics, religion and the like.
12. . Mélange of races - pooling of genes through inter-racial and inter-cultural marriages produces various mixed lines or “mestizos” - Eurasian, Afro-Asian, Afro-American, Amerasian, and the like. Native genes provide resistance to diseases, adverse conditions of the environment. But will this advantage hold on even as the native gene pools are thinned out?
13. Modern medicine is responsible in reducing mortality and increasing longevity. It has also preserved genetically linked abnormalities; it cradles senility related ailments. It made possible the exchange of organs and tissues through transplantation, and soon tissue cloning. It has changed Evolution that is supposed to cull out the unfit and misfits. Man has Darwinism in his hands.
14. The first scientific breakthrough is the splitting of the atom that led to the development of the atomic bomb as the most potent tool of war as evidenced by its destruction at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the nuclear reactor which still holds the promise of providing incessant energy to mankind. The second scientific breakthrough – Microchip led to the development of the Internet which “shrunk the world into a village.”
16. The third breakthrough in science, Genetic Engineering, changed our concept of life - and life forms. It has enabled man to tinker with life itself. Revolutionary industries Examples: In vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, Human Genome Project (HGP or gene mapping), multiple childbirth, post-menopausal childbirth, DNA mapping, etc. Birth of the prototype human robot – pampered, he lives a very dependent life.
17. Genetic Engineering gave rise to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) and Gene Therapy. It has also primed Biological Warfare into a more terrifying threat to mankind and the environment. On the other hand Gene Therapy aims at preventing gene-link diseases even before they are expressed; it has actuallty revolutionized medicine. More and more countries are banning GMO crops and animals through legislative measures and conservation programs, including protection against “biopiracy”
No to Genetically Modified Organisms Campaign all over the world18. Today’s Green Revolution opened up non-conventional frontiers of production – mariculture, desalination, desert farming, swamp reclamation, aerophonics (rooftop farming), hydroponics, urban farming, organic farming, Green Revolution adapts genetic engineering to produce GMOs and Frankenfoods. We may not be aware, but many of us are eating
genetically modified food (GMF or Frankenfood) everyday – meat, milk, chicken, corn, potato and soya products, and the like mainly from the US. Many food additives and adjuncts are harmful, from salitre in longganiza to pesticide residue in fruits and vegetables, aspartame in fruit juice to MSG in noodles, formalin in fish to dioxin in plastics, bromate in bread to sulfite in sugar, antibiotic residue in meat to radiation in milk.
• Hydroponics or soiless culture makes farming feasible in cramped quarters, and it increases effective area of farming.
. Aeroponics or Multi-storey farming Vertical Farming Farming in the city on high rise buildings
• Post Harvest Technology. is critical to Food Production. PHT bridges production and consumption, farm and market, thus the proliferation of processed goods, supermarket, fast food chains, food irradiation, ready-to-eat packs, etc.
19. Exploration into the depth of the sea and expanse of the Solar System - and beyond. We probe the hadal depth of the ocean. We build cities in space - the Skylab. Soon we will live outside of the confines of our planet earth. Now we aim at conquering another planet, another Solar System to assure continuity of mankind after the demise of the earth.
20. Regional and International Cooperation is key to global cooperation: EU, ASEAN, APEC, CGIAR, ICRISAT, WTO, WHO, UNEP, WFO, FAO, like fighting pandemic diseases – HIV-AIDS, SARS, Dengue, Hepatitis, Bird Flu, etc.
ANNEX A - Disturbing Signs of our Times
Armageddon warning
Surreal view
Gays take the street
Shadow of Death
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Swarm of locust
Nature crucified
Fiery sky forecasts typhoon
* Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio 738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday (www.pbs.gov.ph)
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