Greening up your Bedroom

Happy Earth Day, readers!

Surprised to hear that from yours truly? Well, let the record state that while I remain miserably apathetic about recycling (because it's stupid and it uses more energy to break down and refashion the original materials than it saves), I am totally and 110% crunchy when it comes to avoiding - and helping my family avoid - hormonal pollution.

On a practical level, that means we make careful choices with our dairy and meat purchases, we don't drink the appalling tap water available to us here in bella Roma, and I don't use hormonal contraception. Now, I have one or two other reasons for refusing to pop the Pill, but for the sake of this post, let's focus on the simple fact that it's bad for you.

Like very, very bad. And also pretty terrible for the environment and surrounding inhabitants, e.g. your neighbors. Human and animal alike.

So without further explanation, I offer to you (and I will permanently link this on the header bar at the top of the blog) my semi-infamous 'Green Sex' talk.

When I was a FOCUS missionary and way back even before that when I was a grad student at good 'ol Steubie U, I began to draft and then revise this talk, giving it every couple of months or so to varying crowds of (mostly) college-aged audiences at conferences and at colleges around the country. While I've been off the speaking circuit for a good long while now, popping out babies and moving overseas and whatnot, the content is still relevant - perhaps more so with all the HHS nonsense still brewing at home - and so I want to share it with you here.

Green Sex

Green sex is the concept of sex ‘au natural,’ as God – or nature – intended.  Sex without props, potions or procedures.  One man, one woman, no equipment necessary.  It’s cost effective, has a carbon footprint of essentially zero, and is a basic proven predictor of marital longevity.  In laymen terms: it’s free, cheap and easy.

Green sex is also the idea that contraceptive use – or the deliberate destruction or suppression of the reproductive functions  –  is in fact seriously deleterious to the environment and may indeed be harmful to the human person - physically, psychologically and relationally.

So why aren’t we hearing more about it?  It seems like the green thing to do – in light of mounting evidence of the effects of chemical contraception on the natural environment, would be to cease and desist all chemical contraceptive use at once.  Or else.  But… that doesn’t seem to be on anybody’s political agenda these days.

Because the idea of "green sex," for all it's shock value and buzz-worthy appeal, isn't exactly catching on like wildfire.  Cosmo hasn't run any features exposing the rampant estrogenic pollution of our streams and waterways resultant from the disposal of human sewage laden with prolific amounts of artificial hormones.  

The White House hasn't introduced any sweeping initiatives to enact protective measures for transgendered trout whose sexuality has been swayed by human interference...

But the consequences of contraceptive use on the environment - both externally, in nature, and internally, within the human body - are staggering.

First, a little background on who is “using:” From a report by the Guttmacher Institute (the research arm of Planned Parenthood), issued in January of 2008, we have the following statistics:

• 62 million U.S. women are in their childbearing years (or fall in the age range of 15–44)

• Of these 62 million women, 43 million, or 7 in 10, are sexually active and do not want to become pregnant, but could become pregnant if they or their partners fail to use a contraceptive method.

• Millions of these women are teenagers.  Of the 3.1 million teenage women who use contraceptives, 53% of them—more than 1.5 million teens—rely on the pill.

• The typical U.S. woman wants only 2 children. To achieve this goal, she must faithfully use contraceptives for roughly 3 decades, beginning in her teen years and continuing well into her forties.

Good to know.  Let’s build upon this information with some facts from the front line, taken from
the drug info packet of Ortho Tricyclen – the number one prescribed oral contraceptive in the United States:

"Taking the Pill at a younger age may increase your risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer. Particularly if taken for five consecutive years prior to a woman's first pregnancy"

Let's break that down.  According to the drug manufacturer’s own warning label,

Taking the Pill:

1. “may increase your risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer"      

Which, could also be loosely translated to “might give you cancer."  Sounds a little more ominous that way, no?

Taking the Pill:

2. "...at a younger age."  

Let’s examine this one.  The average age of onset for hormonal contraceptive use in the U.S. is between 15 and 22 years of age.  

Let's say a 17 year-old, high school junior obtains a prescription from her general care practitioner and remains on the Pill for the remainder of high school and then continues through college and grad school.  Assuming she finishes her MA at age 25.   She's now been on the Pill for 7 years... Hmmmm....

Taking the Pill:

3. "prior to a woman's first pregnancy"  

Let's presume the young lady in our above example marries around age 28 (early average, by today’s standards) and waits 12-14 months to conceive baby number one (again, pretty quick by today's standards.) She has now been on the Pill for more than a dozen years prior to her first pregnancy...

So, transgendered trout aside, it would seem that there are plenty of humane reasons to think before popping those little pink Pills - humane in the fullest sense of the word.

But seriously, does the phrase "Green Sex" do a number on your psyche?  Make your stomach feel a little... off?

Mine too.

But I haven't thought of a more fitting name for it yet, so "green sex" it is.

Some food for thought:

Why aren't we hearing more buzz about "greening” our sex lives?  Why hasn't there been public outcry over the massive amounts of environmental pollution produced by hormonal contraceptive use?  And perhaps most disturbing of all, why aren't women up in arms about the ramifications that even short-term contraceptive use has on their health?
 
Because going green - in the bedroom - is not the most convenient option.  Because we don't really care what we're doing to our bodies, as long as our bodies are performing exactly as we tell them to.

It’s funny though, because for a society so infatuated with the practice of lessening consumerist tendencies, it's awfully fishy that no body's pointed a finger at Merck or Wyeth or one of the pharmaceutical companies’ other big players, asking the tough questions about energy output and the environmental ramifications of pumping billions of gallons of estrogen-enhanced waste through our waterways – not to mention through our bloodstreams. 

It sure gets you thinking...

Maybe – just maybe – contraception is bad for the environment.  Maybe it’s bad for our own internal environments, too.  Maybe, in spite of everything we’ve been told about “responsible” family planning and good stewardship, we’re actually doing more harm than good in our misguided attempts to outwit our own biology.

Need proof?  We could try calculating the carbon footprint produced by the laboratory production, packaging, marketing, shipping, stocking and consumption of Ortho-Tricyclen in the United States alone, and you have an energy output far outpacing that of other more popularly-critiqued industries that have come under recent heavy media fire for failing to properly steward their resources and reduce their footprint.

In an era where incredible emphasis is placed upon social-responsibility, and where those whose endanger the natural world are condemned unanimously… why hasn’t anyone taken up the standard against the toxic wastefulness of artificial – and specifically chemical – contraception? 

Let’s back up and begin with the basics; those three fundamental claims made in favor of contraceptive use, the “Big Three” for Big Pharma.

They’ve been ingrained into the minds of women (and men) over the course of years of careful public health campaigns in public schools and marketing efforts in medical offices and pharmacies, and they are as follows: 

1.      Contraception is convenient

2.      Contraception is responsible

3.      Contraception is liberating 

Myth # 1: Contraception is convenient:

Truth: Contraception as a convenient means of manipulating or “controlling” one’s biology has perhaps become the single biggest selling point for the product.  In a culture which praises immediacy and action, there is nothing more appealing to the consumer than the “quick fix.”

We see it in the marketing of diet pills and supplements, in the advertisements for internet service providers, and in the never-ending quest for quicker service at the pump or in the drive through.  We are a people obsessed by productivity – or the promise of it – and who will sacrifice almost anything to shave a few minutes off our times.  

Let’s examine the promise of convenience as it relates to the proper use of hormonal contraceptives:

1.      You must take your Pill at the same time, every day.  If you miss a dose, its efficacy is dramatically lowered. 

Check out Planned Parenthood’s instructions for missed doses: (read this fast for best effect)

• If you miss 1 pill, take it as soon as you remember.
• Take your regular pill at the usual time, even if it means taking 2 pills in one day. 
• Continue taking your pills, but use another effective method of birth control (in addition to your pill) for 10 days, even if you begin a new pill pack or have your period.
• If you miss 2 pills, take two pills at once, then 2 pills the next day.
• Continue taking your pills, but use another method of birth control for 10 days.
• If you miss 2 or more pills at the start of a new pack of pills and have had sex, you are at risk for pregnancy. 

o    Take your pill at the same time every day. This keeps hormone level steady and prevents ovulation.

o    If you ever vomit within two hours after taking your pill, take another pill

o    If you take your pill late, you may have spotting (bleeding). The best time to take the pill is after a meal. 

Sounds rather complicated.  But what if you are taking your dose on time?  Read on:

·         Begin your first pack of pills by taking the first pill on the first Sunday after your next menstrual period starts.

·         You will always start each new pack of pills on a Sunday.

·         If you are using a 28-day pack, begin a new pack immediately. Skip no days between packages. Your period will come sometime during the last 7 days. 

·         If you are using a 21-day pack, you will take no pills for 7 days and then start your new pack.

So by convenient, I suppose the manufacturers mean mind-numbingly complex.  If Tylenol had such stringent dosing practices, I wonder whether it’d be the number one painkiller on the market.

Myth # 2: Contraception is responsible:

Facts: Billions of dollars are spent on the research, development, production, advertisement, packaging and distribution of contraceptives - from pill packs to condoms, and everything in between.

Our waterways are becoming saturated with astronomical levels of estrogen, decimating animal populations in the surrounding ecosystems.  Case in point: Boulder Creek – (yeah, this town gets a lot of weird press) is now home to a bizarre, mutated kind of “transgendered trout.”

“They [EPA-funded scientists at the University of Colorado] studied the fish and decided the main culprits were estrogens and other steroid hormones from birth control pills and patches, excreted in urine into the city’s sewage system and then into the creek.  Randomly netting 123 trout and other fish downstream from the city’s sewer plant, they found that 101 were female, 12 were male, and 10 were strange “intersex” fish with male and female features." National Catholic Register, July 2007

These are not the chemicals leaking downstream from a steel mill or a pharmaceutical factory, which would surely have local activists up in arms. These are chemicals being excreted in human waste; read: they are coming out of our bodies and causing genetic alteration - mutation in some cases- in local wildlife. 

Curt Cunningham, water quality issues chairman for the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Sierra Club International, worked tirelessly last year on a ballot measure that would force the City of Boulder to remove fluoride from drinking water, because some believe it has negative effects on health and the environment that outweigh its benefits.

Cunningham said he would never consider asking women to curtail use of birth control pills and patches — despite what effect these synthetics have on rivers, streams and drinking water:

“I suspect people would not take kindly to that,” Cunningham said. “For many people it’s an economic necessity. It’s also a personal freedom issue.”

And all the while, we're being told in firm, sensible tones: do your part. We only have one earth. Switch to high efficiency lightbulbs...

Boulder, Colorado is turning a blind eye to one to the mutation of one of their beloved indigenous animal species for the sake of … convenience?  A strange phenomenon for a city known to be infatuated with all things animalia... but then, stranger things have happened in Boulder.

But would anyone consider making the switch from synthetic hormonal contraceptives to something a little, well, greener?  Something with zero impact on the environment and a significantly positive effect on the sociological state of affairs?  Has anyone stopped to consider the very real ramifications of literally millions of couples eschewing sex "au natural" in favor of a more controlled and convenient conjugal collaboration? 

Myth # 3: Contraception is liberating

Truth: Contraception is anything but freeing.  Need we revisit the tedious litany of instructions for proper use of the Pill? 
The truth is, contraceptives have made women less free, not more.  Because for every claim of convenience –

·         “No risk of pregnancy!”

·         “Casual, consequence-free sex!”

·         “Guilt-less hook-ups!”

There is an equal and opposing consequence – take the following three examples:

1.      Use of the Pill increases the risk for sexually transmitted infections based upon increased sexual activity: 

“The morning-after pill is also having a damaging social effect by lulling young women into a false sense of security, encouraging a more casual attitude to sex, and exposing them to increased risk of sexually transmitted infections.” London Daily Mail, May 2009

2.      Use of the Pill encourages promiscuity: take the following statement from one of the inventors of the birth control pill, Dr. Robert Kistner of Harvard:

“For years, I thought the pill would not lead to promiscuity, would not cultivate dangerous sexual behavior… but I’ve changed my mind.  I think it probably has.”

Nobel-prize winning economist and professor at the University of California at Berkley, George Akerlof, agrees.  He found that:

“Instead of freeing women, birth control obligated them to have sex before marriage in order to compete in the “relationship market.”

And finally: 

3.      Use of the Pill gives women – especially younger women – a false sense of security and safety.  According to the Guttmacher Institute in a 1996 study:

“A teenage girl who has unprotected sex just one time has a 1% risk of contracting HIV, a 30% risk of contracting genital herpes, and a 50% chance of contracting gonorrhea.”

What it's really about, this acceptance of contraception as a necessary and indeed essential component of modern life is convenience at any cost.  At all cost.  For some, the cost will be greater.   

Take the following story from the Australian News Service published April, 2009:

“Tanya Hayes, a student from Croydon in Melbourne, Australia, died Monday, hours after collapsing in her car.

Hayes had been taking Yasmin, an oral contraceptive recommended for patients using the acne medication Accutane, for about four months.

Hayes had ignored symptoms of a pulmonary embolism for about two weeks, including "breathlessness" and "a nasty, hard cough," according to her family.

She collapsed outside a restaurant late Sunday night and was rushed to Angliss Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.

Hayes died less than five hours later after a pulmonary embolism, or blood clotting, occurred in her lungs.”

Tanya may have paid the ultimate price for her use of contraceptives, but every one of us is paying something.  

And while it would seem that while there most certainly are individuals and companies who are benefitting from the tremendous sales of contraceptive products, we – the women who use them and the environment in which we live – are not making out so well.

Perhaps the biggest myth enshrouding the practice of contra-ception, Latin for against the beginning (of life) is the unshakable claim that somehow those little pink pill packs have made us, as women, free. 

To read much of recent modern feminist literature, one might very easily assume that the entire achievements of equality enjoyed by the fairer sex in the past century were accomplished thanks to the invention of the Pill. 

Truth be told, the assumption that any woman could be, potentially, ‘protected’ from the dangers of an unwanted pregnancy and available for sex sans consequence has led to the expectation that every woman is exactly that: available.

A girlfriend of mine was recently dating a guy – very casually – and they ended up back at her apartment one evening after dinner, chatting on her couch.  After a few minutes of small talk this ‘nice guy’ got down to business, asking if they were, you know, ‘safe’ to hook up.

“So are you like, on something?  I mean, are we safe?”
“Are we safe?” she wondered incredulously..

He turned red (to his miniscule credit) and elaborated “You know, are you like, on the pill?”
“Um, no, I’m not.  And is that seriously how you just asked me to sleep with you?”

The conversation – and the brief relationship – ended about 3 minutes later.

The point was, the assumption, the entire burden of ‘responsibility’ was on her shoulders.  Only difference between this guy and a million other dudes on campus was that he had the crass to say it out loud. 

And neither a condom nor a chemical contraceptive can guarantee ‘protection,’ whether from deadly disease, unwanted pregnancy or no-strings-attached sex.  Despite what you may have heard in health class, or down at the campus health center (which very conveniently stocks loads of free samples from dozens of pharmaceutical companies hawking product and brochures from Planned Parenthood hawking, you guessed it, product).

According to a 2010 economic analysis of contraception by economist Timothy Reichert entitled ‘Bitter Pill,’ “Contraception creates a demand for abortion.”  He likens contraception and abortion to complementary forms of insurance that resemble primary insurance and reinsurance.  “If contraception fails, abortion is there as a fail-safe.”

Data collected from 1960 to 2005 confirms his thesis that the practices of contraception and abortion should rise until equilibrium levels of sexual activity are reached – and indeed, the statistical evidence shows a strong correlation between the rise in legal abortions and the rising use of contraceptive technology.

But we are not simply a target demographic, potential customers and consumers.  Women in particular have been gifted with a unique and complex sexuality which lends itself to long term investment in a lasting sexual relationship. 

Because of the widespread availability of contraceptive technology, a woman is now compelled to enter the sex market at a younger age and ‘compete’ while she is a scarcer commodity, while at the same time driving the cost of abstinence for other women to an historical high. 

Women who choose to delay their entrance into the sex market until they desire to marry find themselves at a profound disadvantage, both from the perspective of availability of potential mates and the stiffer competition from younger sexually active women who, by nature of their suppressed fertility, are available for consequence-free sex. 

In plain terms, what this essentially means is that from a strictly economic perspective, the availability of contraception compels women to make themselves ‘sexually available’ in order to compete with their peers for a rightful share of the market.  

It’s a rather grim way of looking at romantic relationships, but there’s evidence of it in every aspect of modern society.  Sex has essentially become the currency and women the desirable product or service.  Not an especially attractive scenario, from a feminist perspective.  Which is why I would advocate that authentic feminism must embrace the whole person rather than reducing her to parts or performance ability. 

Being a woman, having the capacity to conceive and nurture new human life, is not a design flaw.  It doesn’t need to be sutured, suppressed or tied off in order to ‘protect’ men from the consequences of intimacy with us.  

Similarly, we needn’t defend ourselves against the scourge of male fertility by means of barriers or chemical repellants.  We are not at war with one another.
 
But we are making war on our own bodies, and on the environment in which we live.  

As human beings we are entrusted with an awesome responsibility to till and keep the garden of the natural world.  We are to be stewards and guardians, not polluters and consumers.  Not of the environment, and not of each other.

So the next time somebody engages you on the topic of responsible environmental stewardship, ask them what they’ve done for the planet lately, and maybe think twice before popping your morning Pill.

Because you never know who’s downstream.

Ewww... And Happy Friday!

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_16037537

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Think Before You Pink

We've Got a Pill for That

I was flipping through Time magazine last night during a lull in dinner preparation, and let me tell you, if you haven't picked up the recent edition, it's really quite something.  The cover is dominated by one word, much as my blog is: The Pill. So small.  So powerful. So controversial.

Indeed.

Except the article, in all fairness, wasn't particularly balanced.  There were a few bland suppositions positing the theory that maybe this miracle drug isn't really "everything we've made it out to be," but for the most part, it was clear that the author - along with the culture at large - had long ago arrived at the forgone conclusion that the Pill is, unquestionably, one of the greatest inventions in human history. 

But is it really? 

The author cited a famous and oft-quoted 40 year study which followed selected women for 4 decades of contraceptive use, and whose statistics are regularly touted as proof positive that the pill is perfectly safe, and that any risks associated are perfectly acceptable.  But there is a critical, fatal flaw in the applicability of the research in question; it doesn't take into account the drug's effect on younger women.

The drug companies are aware of this, of course.  But they're also aware of their largest client base, and loath to put off potential customers with frightening and, in their minds, irrelevant information, so it's buried deep within the text of the manufacturer's insert included in every box. 

To quote directly from Ortho-Tricyclen's manufacturer's information: "prolonged use of the Pill, particularly if taken for 5 consecutive years prior to a woman's first pregnancy, may increase your risk of being diagnosed with certain types of cancer."  (Emphasis mine)

As it turns out, according to a study recently released by the Mayo Clinic, titled "Oral Contraceptive use as a Risk Factor for Pre-menopausal Breast Cancer: A Meta-analysis" and authored by Dr. Chris Kahlenborn:

"There is a measurable and statistically significant" connection between the pill and pre-menopausal breast cancer, re-enforcing the recent classification of oral contraceptives

as Type 1 carcinogens."

That ruling from the International Agency for Cancer Research was supported by the report published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings last October.

However, the study that found that the risk association was 44 percent over baseline among women who had been pregnant who took oral contraceptives prior to their first pregnancy has been, to a large degree, ignored by many media organizations.

Hmmm, wonder why that could be?  Aside from the obvious answers concerning profit margins and quarterly sales goals, one must at least acknowledge the fact that we want this, as a society and as a gender.

We want to control our bodies, our fertility, our lives... and it's evident by the way our culture lives, extolling progress and performance at any cost.

But there are consequences, particularly in this instance, for the convenience we seek.  Serious consequences for our health, for the health of the environment, and for the health of society.

Because if fertility is a commodity, than we ourselves become machinated, to a certain extent.  We expect great things from our bodies, and yet when they fail us in some way, we are often unable to correct the malfunction, to undo the damage we've done.  Case in point: the ungodly rates of breast and cervical cancer we've seen in the past 40 years. 

More on this later in the week, but I'll leave you with some points to ponder:

1. If there were a drug on the market directly correlated to rising rates of prostate cancer in men, would it be one of the top selling pharmaceuticals?

2. Why has so little research been publicized about the risks of contraceptive use in younger women, when girls between the ages of 15-22 are the most likely to be set on a regimen of oral contraceptive usage of any other age group? 

3.  Why aren't women angry - or even aware - that this is happening?

Think about it...

Celebrating 50 years ... of Progress?

But at what cost?

"Natural" Contraception

I spoke at the Colorado School of Mines last night on Green Sex, and had the smartest most engaged audience thus far. The questions were great, the students were really receptive and willing to discuss, and these kids were smart. I mean, most of them are engineers and probably even took calculus in high school. That kind of smart. (Luckily, I didn't let on to them that I have to use my cell phone's calculator function before I check out at Target to get a decent idea of the total damage. Or that I once - or maybe twice - got lost on my way to work. 9 months into a familiar commute which involves 4 left turns.)

So, they were awesome, and it was awesome to be there speaking to the target demographic for contraceptive manufacturers... and to disabuse them of some commonly-held misconceptions about their bodies, their girlfriend's bodies, the Church's funny holdout against technology, and the fact that there is no such thing as "Catholic" birth control.

But the idea is deeply, deeply ingrained in our cultural consciousness. The notion that conception=bad and "protection"= good has made it necessary to explain the natural good of pregnancy, of the creation of a new person, of our very existence. There just isn't much of a concept of the goodness of life in a culture where our young people have come of age always knowing that they - and everyone else around them - were disposable.

The pro-abortion side of the aisle has done a great job advancing the notion of pregnancy as a "disease" and a "traumatic event." My current favorite lovetohateit advertising campaign is a sign in bubbly pink letters proclaiming (on a bus terminal) "Freaked you'll get pregnant?! Call today for cheap (or free!) birth control!"

Classy.

So I'm talking to these young men and women, loving their questions and level of participation and inherent desire to discover the truth... but I have to keep refuting a term frequently misspoken in their questions: the idea of "natural" contraception.

It was unfathomable to some of them that the Church's teachings on family life and sexual love do not leave room for some kind of "loophole" whereby, if you play by the rules, you can somehow contracept "naturally," in a way that is neither harmful to the body or to the environment, and would therefore be acceptable by the Church's standards.

Contraception has so long been sold as an ultimate good, an incredible blessing which has freed us from the slavery of fertility. This is all we've known, my reality tv generation, and to suggest otherwise is to venture into totally unfamiliar territory for most of us.

We scratch our heads, wondering what the big deal about the Pill is ... and then once we discover the consequences, we logically look for a safer alternative... not stopping to think that the method and means are as disordered as the concept itself.

To want to "contra-cept" (which roughly translates to "against" "the beginning") is to desire to prevent life. It is the opposite of love, which is always seeking to expand and to fill.

It is the desire to divorce the unitive from the procreative element of the sexual act... and it is all the rage in our culture of selfish, pleasure-oriented gratification.

Pleasure is not bad, don't get me wrong. But it's not a complete "end" in itself. Pleasure is actually attached as a sort of "motivator" to things we were designed to do: eat, sleep, make babies... among a host of other items.

When something is pleasurable, it makes sense that we might mistakenly begin pursuing the pleasure as an end in itself, but our desire for satisfaction does not alter reality. Just because our reasons for seeking sex have become self-centered does not change the fact that sex is fundamentally "other-centered."

The Church teaches against contraception because it is contrary to love, not because the Church is contrary to love. Contraception is the means by which a couple makes of one another an object to be used, a means to gratification.

Yes, sex should be pleasurable. Yes, it's bonding and satisfying... but why? Sex is designed to be both the means and the result by which families are built. Our desire draws us together, unites us... and expands us, creating (if the timing is right) an "other" who wasn't there before.

What if someone were promoting the concept of sex without bonding? Of sterile, passion-less copulation between couples seeking only the physical fruit of their union: a child?

Well... ever heard of IVF?

The point is, when you attempt to redefine reality, you're going to get burned. Pope Paul IV predicted it in 1968, and we're still reaping the fruits.

October? Really?

In honor of respect life month, I've elected to go 40 days without blogging in solidarity for those whose voices are never to be heard.

Okay, actually, while the above is a noble thought, I'm actually just too busy to write!

But here's a rundown of the latest:

Please pray for two talks this month, one at the University of Denver and one at the Colorado School of Mines. The topic for both evenings is "Green Sex" and this will be my first attempt of such in front of a secular audience, so pray for open hearts, open minds, and a smooth and un-flustered delivery from yours truly. I'm really praying that I don't get in the way of this message!

also... I'm getting married in 39 days! Please pray for Dave and me during these last few weeks of engagement, and for the 10,000 little details that could distract us but don't necessarily matter....

I'll write soon, peace to you all!

Reducing our Carbon Heartbeat

Breaking news: people are - themselves - pollutants. In a shoddy little piece of propaganda issued earlier today, Britain's Daily Telegraph quotes a recent study by the London School of Economics (LSE) titled: Fewer Emitter, Lower Emissions, Less Cost. The bottom line? Babies are burdensome... not only to their parents, but to society at large and, indeed, to the entire human race:

"The UN estimates that 40 per cent of all pregnancies worldwide are unintended." The Daily Telegraph, 09/09/09

The spin continues, "If these basic family planning needs were met, 34 gigatons (billion tonnes) of CO2 would be saved – equivalent to nearly 6 times the annual emissions of the US and almost 60 times the UK’s annual total."

Roger Martin, chairman of the Optimum Population Trust at the LSE, (yes folks, that actually exists) said: “It’s always been [obvious] that total emissions depend on the number of emitters as well as their individual emissions – the carbon tonnage can’t shoot down as we want, while the population keeps shooting up.”

In sum, human beings - themselves the supposed authors of climate change - are becoming a bona fide hazard to global health, and if we could only provide adequate family planning resources (read: harmful, cancer-causing contraceptives, condoms which increase risky sexual behaviors, and abortion on demand), maybe... just maybe we can save this planet from ourselves.

This line of reasoning is the very philosophy of the culture of death, masking the grim reality of what is suggested by the utterance of hip buzz words and soothing, pseudo-spiritual platitudes.

What is actually inherent in the equation "More Humans = More Pollution" is the obvious converse: "Fewer Humans = Healthier Planet."

And isn't that what the climate control junkies have been harping after for decades? They don't want to save the world "for the sake of the children" ... They don't want there to be any children. Period. Except for those whom they selectively deign worthy of existence. Healthy ones. Fit ones. Those who fit the socioeconomic designs of their mercenary mothers and fathers.

Perhaps my acerbity is unnecessary, but then, how does one respond to the charge that human beings are trash? That the human person is intrinsically parasitic? Can one be too politically insensitive when answering such a charge? I think not. Maybe it's the mother bear in me, but anyone who purports that curtailing "40% of the world's pregnancies" would solve some pressing issues relating to the utterly unsubstantiated and unproven "epidemic" of global warming has some 'splaining to do. Particularly in light of all the "chatter" surrounding the great health care debate over here in the States.

Yes, by all means, let's make the Pill more readily available for human consumption. That will surely stop the crushing wheels of progress from lurching forward over unsuspecting subspecies and biomes. But then, there's the mounting evidence (as mentioned here and here) that contraceptive sex ain't the panacea it's cracked up to be, particularly from the perspective of environmental impact.

So maybe the Pill's not the ideal solution to curb that nasty, child-producing epidemic know colloquially as "sexual intercourse." Maybe there's an easier way... a "greener" way. Maybe we ought to be looking down the pike for the eventuality of the ultimate rationalization: forced sterilization.

We have licenses to drive. Licenses to wed. Licenses to install plumbing on build sites... shouldn't we, you know, set up some kind of government authorization process whereby individuals can be screened, processed and labelled "fit to breed?"

Don't think it's not coming just because it's terrifying. Twenty years ago, the notion of starving a disabled person to death was terrifying. Forty years ago, there existed no such notion as "consensual sex" between a sixteen-year old boy and a 22-year old college man. Seventy years ago, the specter of gender-selective abortion was terrifying (well, everywhere but in Nazi Germany).

Which brings us to today. And which brings me to the close of my rant. And the following article, which I'd suggest you share with as many people as possible, with the caveat that you prepare in advance to offer a solid rebuttal to the fallacies contained within.

I'm Putting You People On Notice...

there's been some chatter these past couple of weeks, but make no mistake...

Green Sex is going places.

More to come. Stay tuned...