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Use
these articles and their resources in your efforts to reconnect to the
natural world, to heal the separation that has been created by hundreds
of years of an overdependence upon technology and a lack of appreciation
of the web of life. Woven into these writings are many tools for you to
use including ecofeminism, ecopsychology, deep ecology, spritual ecology
and more.
We
must begin this journey now. We have no other choice.
(c)
2002 Jackie Alan Giuliano.
Permission is given to use these works in classroom learning situtations.
For any other use, contact the author.
NOTE:
Some of the websites in the commentary Resource links may no longer
exist, but most can still be found with the help of the Internet Archive.
If you are unable to find a site, go to http://www.archive.org
and enter the link address. The Archive keeps a copy of most files from
the entire Internet from the last 4 or 5 years.
NOTE:
The Environment News Service is in the process of migrating its files
to another server. As a result, some of the commentaries below may not
be available for a time. If that occurs, type the title of the article
you are looking for into a search engine and you will likely find it posted
at another site. Email me if you are having trouble finding anything.
- November
29, 2002- Give Thanks – and Acknowledge
the Truth
The story of the Pilgrims and the first U.S.
Thanksgiving is taught today in thousands of classrooms
across the nation, and around the world, and is ingrained
in most people’s consciousness. Unfortunately, the entire
story, from start to finish, is a complete lie.
- November
15, 2002- Ivory Trade Is an Elephant Death
Sentence, But Don’t Blame CITES
As long as the brutally butchered pieces of
majestic animals from around the world are considered
commodities, those animals are in danger. The worldwide
trade in wildlife is extensive, and the suffering of
millions of individual animals nets billions of dollars
for the perpetrators.
- November
8, 2002- The Numbers are Killing Us
In the struggle to control the environmental
devastation that takes place every day, one major obstacle
is the incorrect perceptions people have about the severity
of the issues. Most people, even scientists and political
leaders, are using statistics incorrectly and making
global generalities that are compromising our health
and the health of the planet.
- November
1, 2002- The Cycles of Life Continue
For at least the last 12,000 years, people all
over the world have celebrated the passage of time, the
journey of the Earth around the Sun, in ways that have
connected their lives to the life of our planet. How might
our lives be changed, our environmental problems be helped,
and our ability to look beyond race or color or religious
preference enhanced if we took more time to recognize
the seasons and the wisdom they bring?
- October
11, 2002- Wanting Peace Is Not Unpatriotic
In Iraq today, the most serious weapon of mass
destruction is a bottle of water - water tainted with
disease because of the sanctions. Without medicine, diarrhea
means death to many children and elderly people.
- September
27 , 2002- Naval Sonar: The Shot Heard ‘Round
the World
A Navy project left over from the Cold War designed
to detect enemy submarines has the potential to deafen every
marine mammal on Earth. Low Frequency Active (LFA) Sonar
is an experimental sonar system that the Navy is now deploying
throughout 80 percent of the world’s oceans.
- The 200th "Healing Our World"
commentary
September 13, 2002- My Stolen Earth - Flag
As I was thinking about what to write in this 200th
"Healing Our World" commentary, I was presented with
a powerful metaphor for our times and my contributions –
the Earth Flag hanging in front of my house was stolen.
- August
30 , 2002- The Myth of Bus Transportation as
Pollution Control
Government and industry leaders will often tell us
that if more people rode public transportation, specifically
buses, our air pollution problems would lessen dramatically.
Unfortunately, the reality is that most buses are unsafe and
pollute much more than the individual automobiles they supposedly
replace.
- August
23 , 2002- Fire Suppression Bush Style: Cut
Down the Trees!
George W. Bush is a well known supporter of the timber
industry and many of his largest contributors come from timber
company management. Environmentalists accuse him of promoting
misinformation about forest fires in order to capitalize on
the public's fears and to promote logging in order to benefit
timber industry campaign contributors.
- August
16 , 2002- Who's the Real Radical
The mainstream media often calls the efforts of those
who want to stop some defenseless animal from being killed or
who want to end the destruction of the Earth's forests and oceans
as weak minded, ignorant obstructionists who are anti-technology.
This rhetoric only serves to cloud and confuse the issues, making
it appear to those who are against such destruction that they
are in the minority and, in these days and times, even unpatriotic.
- August
2 , 2002- Celebrate the Harvest – But Be Aware
of the Pain
How did we get so out of touch with the cycles of life,
the rhythms of nature, and the truth from our souls? Everywhere
around us the clues to the solution abound, but we keep ourselves
so protected, so isolated, so shut down to the "sounds of the
Earth crying," as Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn says.
- July
19 , 2002- Finally – Proof That Disconnection Harms
The July 20, 2002 issue of “The Lancet” medical journal
includes a report that has remarkable conclusion - the more a
woman breastfeeds her child, the more she is protected against
breast cancer, even if her family is considered high risk genetically.
Finally, a study has been done that proves quite conclusively
that ignoring the web of life and natural human development can
kill.
- July
12 , 2002- Just Breathe
We search so hard sometimes for answers, for direction
and for peace. We try to get our personal and professional lives
to provide us with satisfaction and to cure our longing. Yet it
rarely seems enough. We look in many different directions for
answers, but rarely do we look at the ground beneath our feet
or the sky above our heads.
- June
28, 2002- Independence Day – Celebrate A New American
Dream
Some who analyze the motivations of the initial leaders
of the United States suggest that their intent was never to be egalitarian.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights that followed intentionally
forbade government interference in private property, for example,
so the wealthiest citizens of the new nation had free rein to use
their wealth to acquire large tracts of land. Our country’s original
leaders were very much like our leaders of today in that they mostly
represented the wealthiest citizens.
- June
21 , 2002- Who Really Pays for Corporate Abuses?
Corporations are often found responsible for grievous environmental
and social injustices. Lives are lost, ecosystems destroyed, and
racism and sexism flourish in many corporate environments. Yet the
only punishment our system usually assigns is the payment of a fine.
Does this approach do anything to deter the illegal behavior or
do the industries simply consider it another cost of doing business?
- June
7 , 2002- U.S. Says: Just Live with Impending Disaster
The Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency
released a report last week, quietly and without any fanfare, acknowledging
that global warming not only exists, but that it has us on a path
to certain disaster. The EPA even offered a solution - get used to
it. How is it possible for so many greed based individuals to exist
without any concern for the Earth's life support systems and our very
future.
- May
31, 2002- A Quiet Little Revolution of Thought
Around the world, people are thinking about the need to radically
change the way we interact with each other and the natural world.
Readers of "Healing Our World" commentaries from around the globe
commented last week about how to go on in the midst of all the pain,
suffering, and environmental degradation. Together, these people,
and millions more, are part of a global quiet little revolution of
thought.
- May
17 , 2002- How Can We Go On
Maybe it is just because of my heightened sensitivities at
the one year anniversary of the birth of my son, but recently I have
felt a profound despair at the depth of cruelty, ignorance, greed,
and lack of concern for the health of the Earth and her people and
animals going on all around me. I wonder how I can go on in the midst
of this madness.
- April
26, 2002- September 11th Environmental Hypocrisy
Now that the mainstream news media has decided that the events
of September 11th are not exciting anymore, now that the cleanup is
almost complete, it would be easy ignore the hacking coughs of the
rescue personnel, cleanup workers, and residents of the area who have
been lied to and used by our government. We can't let that happen.
- April
21 , 2002- Earth Day 2002: No time for craft fairs and
discussion groups
While tens of thousands of people die from soil, air, and
water poisoned with pesticides and scores of toxic chemicals, craft
fairs, discussion groups, and lectures will be held. Lost is the passion
and sense of urgency that heralded in the first Earth Day 32 years
ago.
- April
5 , 2002- Toxic Toys are Still Out There
Teething rings, rubber ducks, bottles, and all shapes and
sizes of plastic toys litter a child’s landscape. But the polyvinyl
chloride or vinyl that so many of these toys are made of frequently
contains toxic additives that have been linked in animal studies to
a variety of illnesses, including reproductive damage and damage to
the kidneys and liver.
- March
22, 2002- The Lowest Form of Life
Besides harming children, there is no more cowardly an act
than murdering an animal for sport. What could possible be "sporting"
about shooting a healthy elk, deer, bird, or prairie dog from 350
yards away with a high-powered rifle while hiding in a tree?
- March
15 , 2002- Toxic Indifference
Unless we somehow find the way – and the will – to end this
indifference and challenge the assumptions we all hold dear, the environmental
onslaught will continue until there are no functioning ecosystems
left on the planet.
- March
1 , 2002- Environmental Illness Sufferers Foretell Our
Future
Most of us can have no idea of the terror and aloneness that
the thousands of people afflicted with environmental illness face
every day. Many of them are prisoners in their own homes, unable to
venture out very far into our polluted world before succumbing to
life threatening symptoms.
- February
22 , 2002- We Are on Our Own – But There is Help
Each day, thousands of toxic substances compromise our health
and tens of thousands of people become ill or die every year from
a whole host of environmental illnesses, many of which may never be
diagnosed properly by a doctor.
- February
8 , 2002- The Great Deception
The reality is that most work being done today by the majority
of people involves extracting precious resources from the Earth to
make goods that we could easily live without. That work is also generating
millions of tons of toxic substances every day that are pouring into
our lakes, rivers, oceans, soil, and bodies.
- January
25, 2002- Is Preaching to the Choir a Waste of Time?
A comment from a reader of my weekly thoughts who has enjoyed
Healing Our World recently expressed a concern that helped me focus
on why I do what I do. He feared that I might be "preaching to the
choir," a phrase used to suggest that only those who already hold
my views are part of the audience. This phrase is, I think, an oversimplification.
There may not be – nor may there ever have been – a choir to preach
to..
- January
18 , 2002- Will We Ever Go Where No One Has Gone Before?
Once again the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA), ironically, while under intense criticism for the vast cost
overruns of the International Space Station program, has decided to
prematurely end the life of one of the human race’s grandest achievements.
- January
11 , 2002- Can I Supersize That Heart Attack For You?
Fast food burger companies refuse to acknowledge the impact
that their diet is having on children and adults around the world.
That diet is killing us.
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