Junk Planet: Is Earth the Largest Garbage Dump in the Universe? Concluding Part
By Robert J. Burrowes, New Age Islam
27 February 2018
Nanoparticles
A nanoparticle is a microscopic particle whose size is measured in nanometres. One nanometer is one billionth of a meter. In simple English: Nanoparticles are extraordinarily tiny. Nanoparticles are already being widely used including during the manufacture of cosmetics, pharmacology products, scratchproof eyeglasses, crack- resistant paints, anti-graffiti coatings for walls, transparent sunscreens, stain-repellent fabrics, self-cleaning windows and ceramic coatings for solar cells.
‘Nanoparticles can contribute to stronger, lighter, cleaner and “smarter” surfaces and systems.’ See ‘What are the uses of nanoparticles in consumer products?’
http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/en/nanotechnologies/l-3/5- nanoparticles-consumer- products.htm
Some researchers are so enamoured with nanoparticles that they cannot even conceal their own delusions.
According to one recent report: ‘Researchers want to achieve a microscopic autonomous robot that measures no more than six nanometres across and can be controlled by remote. Swarms of these nanobots could clean your house, and since they’re invisible to the naked eye, their effects would appear to be magical. They could also swim easily and harmlessly through your bloodstream, which is what medical scientists find exciting.’ See ‘What are Nanoparticles?
’ http://nanogloss.com/nanoparticles/what-are- nanoparticles/#axzz57csSzxep
Unfortunately, however, nanoparticle contamination of medicines is already well documented. See ‘New Quality-Control Investigations on Vaccines: Micro- and Nanocontamination’.
http://medcraveonline.com/IJVV/IJVV-04- 00072.pdf
Another report indicates that ‘Some nanomaterials may also induce cytotoxic or genotoxic responses’.
See ‘Toxicity of particulate matter from incineration of nanowaste’.
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/51734/2015_Vejerano_et_al.pdf;sequence=1
What does this mean? Well ‘cytotoxic’ means that something is toxic to the cells and ‘genotoxic’ describes the property of chemical agents that damage the genetic information within a cell, thus causing mutations which may lead to cancer.
Beyond the toxic problems with the nanoparticles themselves, those taking a wider view report the extraordinary difficulties of managing nanowaste. In fact, according to one recent report prepared for the UN: ‘Nanowaste is notoriously difficult to contain and monitor; due to its small size, it can spread in water systems or become airborne, causing harm to human health and the environment.’ Moreover ‘Nanotechnology is growing at an exponential rate, but it is clear that issues related to the disposal and recycling of nanowaste will grow at an even faster rate if left unchecked.’ See ‘Nanotechnology, Nanowaste and Their Effects on Ecosystems: A Need for Efficient Monitoring, Disposal and Recycling’.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/9539GSDR_Nano_brief%204.pdf
Despite this apparent nonchalance about the health impacts of nanowaste, one recent report reiterates that ‘Studies on the toxicity of nanoparticles... are abundant in the literature’.
See ‘Toxicity of particulate matter from incineration of nanowaste’.
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/51734/2015_Vejerano_et_al.pdf;sequence=1 Moreover, in January, European Union agencies published three documents concerning government oversight of nanotechnology and new genetic engineering techniques. ‘
Together, the documents put in doubt the scientific capacity and political will of the European Commission to provide any effective oversight of the consumer, agricultural and industrial products derived from these emerging technologies’.
See ‘European Commission: Following the Trump Administration’s Retreat from Science- Based Regulation?
’ https://www.iatp.org/europes-retreat- science-based- regulation
So, as these recent reports makes clear, little is being done to monitor, measure or control these technologies or monitor, measure and control the harmful effects of discharging nanowaste.
Fortunately, with the usual absence of government interest in acting genuinely on our behalf, activist groups such as the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
https://www.iatp.org/about and the Organic Consumers Association
https://www.organicconsumers.org/
campaign against nanotechnology as part of their briefs. Needless to say, however, a lot more needs to be done.
Space Junk
Not content to dump our garbage in, on or under the Earth, we also dump our junk in Space too. ‘How do we do this?’ you may well ask. Quite simply, in fact. We routinely launch a variety of spacecraft into Space to either orbit the Earth (especially satellites designed to perform military functions such as spying, target identification and detection of missile launches but also satellites to perform some civilian functions such as weather monitoring, navigation and communication) or we send spacecraft into Space on exploratory missions (such as the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity).
However, getting spacecraft into Space requires the expenditure of vast amounts of energy (which adds to pollution of the atmosphere) and the progressive discarding of rocket propulsion sections of the launch craft. Some of these, fall back to Earth as junk but much of it ends up orbiting the Earth as junk. So what form does this junk take? It includes inactive satellites, the upper stages of launch vehicles, discarded bits left over from separation, frozen clouds of water and tiny flecks of paint. All orbiting high above Earth’s atmosphere. With Space junk now a significant problem, the impact of junk on satellites is regularly causing damage and generating even more junk.
Is it much of a problem? Yes, indeed. The problem is so big, in fact, that NASA in the USA keeps track of the bigger items, which travel at speeds of up to 17,500 mph, which is ‘fast enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft’. How many pieces does it track? By 2013, it was tracking 500,000 pieces of space junk as they orbited the Earth.
See ‘Space Debris and Human Spacecraft’.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html Of course, these items are big enough to track. But not all junk is that big.
In fact, a recent estimate indicates that the number of Space junk items could be in excess of 100 trillion. See ‘Space Junk: Tracking & Removing Orbital Debris’. https://www.space.com/16518-space- junk.html Is anything being done about Space junk? No government involved in Space is really interested: It’s too expensive for that to be seriously considered.
But given the ongoing government and military interest in weaponising Space, as again reflected in the recent US ‘Nuclear Posture Review 2018’,
https://admin.govexec.com/media/gbc/docs/pdfs_edit/2018_nuclear_posture_review_-_final_report.pdf
which would add a particularly dangerous type of junk to Space, the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
http://www.space4peace.org/mission.htm has been conducting an effective worldwide campaign since 1992 to mobilize resistance to weapons and nuclear power being deployed and used in Space.
Military Waste
The carnage and waste produced by preparation for and the conduct of military violence is so vast that it almost defies description and calculation. In its most basic sense, every single item produced to perform a military function – from part of a uniform to a weapon – is garbage: an item that has no functional purpose (unless you believe that killing people is functional). To barely touch on it here then, military violence generates a vast amount of pollution, which contaminates the atmosphere, oceans, all fresh water sources, and the soil with everything from the waste generated by producing military uniforms to the radioactive waste which contaminates environments indefinitely.
For just a taste of this pollution, see the Toxic Remnants of War Project, http://www.toxicremnantsofwar.info/
the film ‘Scarred Lands & Wounded Lives’, http://www.scarredlandsfilm.com/
‘U.S. Military World’s Largest Polluter – Hundreds of Bases Gravely Contaminated’,
http://www.mintpressnews.com/u-s- military-is- worlds-largest- polluter-hundreds- of-bases- gravely- contaminated/227776/
‘Depleted Uranium and Radioactive Contamination in Iraq: An Overview’ and http://www.globalresearch.ca/depleted-uranium- and-radioactive- contamination-in- iraq-an- overview/5605215 ‘
The Long History of War’s Environmental Costs’. http://worldbeyondwar.org/long- history-wars- environmental-costs/
Many individuals, groups and networks around the world campaign to end war.
See, for example, War Resisters’ International, https://www.wri-irg.org/en
the International Peace Bureau
http://www.ipb.org/ and World Beyond War. http://worldbeyondwar.org/ You can participate in these efforts. Nuclear Waste Partly related to military violence but also a product of using nuclear power, humans generate vast amounts of waste from exploitation of the nuclear fuel cycle. This ranges from the pollution generated by mining uranium to the radioactive waste generated by producing nuclear power or using a nuclear weapon. But it also includes the nuclear waste generated by accidents such as that at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Again, for just a taste of the monumental nature of this problem,
see ‘Emergency Declared at Nuclear Waste Site in Washington State’,
http://www.ecowatch.com/hanford-tunnel- collapse-2400226509.html
‘Disposing of Nuclear Waste is a Challenge for Humanity’ and
http://www.newsweek.com/disposing- nuclear-waste- challenge-humanity- behnam-taebi- 609468 ‘Three Years Since the Kitty Litter Disaster at Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’. http://thiscantbehappening.net/print/3460 While the London Dumping Convention permanently bans the dumping of radioactive and industrial waste at sea (which means nothing in the face of the out-of- control discharges from Fukushima, of course) – see ‘1993 - Dumping of radioactive waste at sea gets banned’ https://www.greenpeace.org/archive-international/en/about/history/Victories- timeline/radioactive- dumping/ – groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace continue to campaign against the nuclear industry (including radioactive waste dumping) and to promote renewable energy.
They would be happy to have your involvement.
Our Bodies
Some of the garbage that ends up being dumped is done via our bodies. Apart from the junk food produced at direct cost to the environment, the cost of these poisoned, processed and nutritionally depleted food-like substances also manifests as ill-health in our bodies and discharges of contaminated waste. Rather than eating food that is organically or bio=dynamically grown and healthily prepared, most of us eat processed food-like substances that are poisoned (that is, grown with large doses of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides that also destroy the soil and kill vast numbers of insects –
see ‘Death and Extinction of the Bees’
https://www.globalresearch.ca/death-and- extinction-of- the-bees/5375684 and ‘Insectageddon: farming is more catastrophic than climate breakdown’ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/20/insectageddon-farming- catastrophe-climate- breakdown-insect- populations – and then cook this food in rancid oils and perhaps even irradiate (microwave) it before eating. Although microwave ovens were outlawed in the Soviet Union in 1976, they remain legal elsewhere.
See ‘The Hidden Hazards of Microwave Cooking’, https://www.health- science.com/microwave-hazards/
‘How Your Microwave Oven Damages Your Health In Multiple Ways’ https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/05/18/microwave-hazards.aspx and ‘Microwave Cooking is Killing People’.
http://www.relfe.com/wp/health/microwave-cooking- killing-people/
unfortunately, however, considerable official effort still goes into developing new ways to nuclearise (contaminate) our food –
see ‘Seven examples of nuclear technology improving food and agriculture’ http://www.fao.org/zhc/detail-events/en/c/1039633 –
despite long-established natural practices that are effective and have no damaging side effects or polluting outcomes.
But apart from poisoned, processed and unhealthily prepared food, we also inject our bodies with contaminated vaccines –
see ‘New Quality-Control Investigations on Vaccines: Micro- and Nanocontamination’,
http://medcraveonline.com/IJVV/IJVV-04- 00072.pdf ‘Dirty Vaccines: New Study Reveals Prevalence of Contaminants’ http://info.cmsri.org/the-driven- researcher-blog/dirty- vaccines-new- study-reveals- prevalence-of- contaminants and ‘Aluminum, Autoimmunity, Autism and Alzheimer’s’
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2017/03/aluminum-autoimmunity- autism-and- alzheimers/ – consume medically-prescribed antibiotics (see section above) and other drugs – see ‘The Spoils of War: Afghanistan's
Multibillion Dollar Heroin Trade.
Washington’s Hidden Agenda: Restore the Drug Trade’ https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-spoils- of-war- afghanistan-s- multibillion-dollar- heroin-trade/91 – and leave the environment to deal with the contaminated waste generated by their production and the discharges from our body.
Many individuals and organizations all over the world work to draw attention to these and related issues, including the ‘death-dealing’ of doctors, but the onslaught of corporate media promotion and scare campaigns means that much of this effort is suppressed. Maintaining an unhealthy and medically- dependent human population is just too profitable.
If you want to genuinely care for your health and spare the environment the toxic junk dumped though your body, the ideas above in relation to growing and eating organic/biodynamic food and consulting natural health practitioners are a good place to start.
‘Ordinary’ Rubbish
For many people, of course, dealing with their daily garbage requires nothing more than putting it into a rubbish bin. But does this solve the problem?
Well, for a start, even recycled rubbish is not always recycled, and even when it is, the environmental cost is usually high.
In fact, the various costs of dealing with rubbish is now so severe that China, a long-time recipient of waste from various parts of the world, no longer wants it. See ‘China No Longer Wants Your Trash.
Here’s Why That’s Potentially Disastrous’.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/china-recycling- waste-ban_us_5a684285e4b0dc592a0dd7b9
of course there are also special events that encourage us to dump extra rubbish into the Earth’s biosphere. Ever thought about what happens following special celebrations like Christmas?
See ‘The Environmental Christmas Hangover
’ https://dissidentvoice.org/2018/02/the-environmental- christmas-hangover/ or the waste discharged from cruise ships?
See ‘16 Things Cruise Lines Never Tell You’. https://www.destinationtips.com/cruises/16-things- cruise-lines- never-tell- you/?listview=all
Does all this pollution really matter? Well, as mentioned at the beginning, we pay an enormous cost for it both in terms of human life but in other ways too. See ‘The Lancet Commission on pollution and health’. http://www.thelancet.com/commissions/pollution-and- health
Junk information One category of junk, which is easily overlooked and on which I will not elaborate, is the endless stream of junk information with which we are bombarded. Whether it is corporate ‘news’ (devoid of important news about our world and any truthful analysis of what is causing it) on television, the radio or in newspapers, letterbox advertising, telephone marketing or spam emails, our attention is endlessly distracted from what matters leaving most humans ill-informed and too disempowered to resist the onslaught that is destroying our world.
So What Can We Do About All Of The Junk Identified Above?
Well, unless you want to continue deluding yourself that some token measures taken by you, governments, international organizations (such as the United Nations) or industry are going to fix all of this, I encourage you to consider taking personal action that involves making a serious commitment. This is because, at the most fundamental level, it is individuals who consume and then discharge the waste products of their consumption. And if you choose what you consume with greater care and consume less, no one is going to produce what you don’t buy or discharge the waste products of that production on your behalf.
Remember Gandhi? He was not just the great Indian independence leader. His personal possessions at his death numbered his few items of self-made clothing and his spectacles. We can’t all be like Gandhi but he can be a symbol to remind us that our possessions and our consumption are not the measure of our value.
To Ourselves Or Anyone Else
If the many itemized suggestions made above sound daunting, how does this option sound? Do you think that you could reduce your consumption by 10% this year? And, ideally, do it in each of seven categories: water, household energy, vehicle fuel, paper, plastic, metals and meat? Could you do it progressively, reducing your consumption by 10% each year for 15 consecutive years?
See ‘The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’.
http://tinyurl.com/
flametree I am well aware of the emotional void that makes many people use ‘shopping therapy’ to feel better or to otherwise consume, perhaps by travelling, to distract themselves. If you are in this category, then perhaps you could tackle this problem at its source by ‘Putting Feelings First’.
https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/putting-feelings- first/
No consumer item or material event can ever fill the void in your Selfhood. But you can fill this void by travelling the journey to become the powerful individual that evolution gave you the potential to be. If you want to understand how you lost your Selfhood, see ‘Why Violence?’ ttp://tinyurl.com/whyviolence and ‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.
http://anitamckone.wordpress.com/articles-2/fearless- and-fearful- psychology/
You might also help ensure that children do not acquire the consumption/pollution addiction by making ‘My Promise to Children’. https://feelingsfirstblog.wordpress.com/my-promise- to-children/
If you want to campaign against one of the issues threatening human survival discussed briefly above, consider planning a Nonviolent Campaign Strategy. https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/
And if you wish to commit to resisting violence of all kinds, you can do so by signing the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World’.
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com
In the final analysis, each of us has a choice. We can contribute to the ongoing creation of Earth as the planet of junk. Or we can use our conscience, intelligence and determination to guide us in resisting the destruction of our world.
Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence His email address is flametree@riseup.net and his website is here. http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com
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