The Equation Is The Mission & The Message Is The Mission is the Equation. E=C2

by E.
Originally published on The Conscious Consumers Network: ( 12/08/04 ) 

    Electronic media visionary Marshall McLuhan said “The medium is the message.” Within the bounds of this web site, the message is the equation E=C2.

This equation is a piece of the massive amount of data that I feel was “upoaded” into me during my clinical death experience & it succinctly encapsulates the mission of The Conscious Consumers’ Network.

   Whereas the variable “E” denotes the concept EnvironMENTALism as a way humanity could live in a symbiotic, * synergetic* relationship with the biosphere, the equation relates this concept with“C“, the variable for bothConsciousness &Consumerism.

    * Synergy - Etymology: New Latin synergia, from Greek synergos working together

1.    The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.
2.    Cooperative interaction among groups, especially among the acquired subsidiaries or merged parts of a corporation, that creates an enhanced combined effect. similar to symbiosis & homeostasis in many aspects.    

The exponent two postulates that by marrying an expanded human consciousness (i.e. a consciousness that continuously seeks a more homeostatic relationship with the natural resource base in which it is interdependently contained), then we can balance our demands on the biosphere & experience exponentially positive results which become the byproduct of this equation).

   The ‘mental’ part of the word environMENTALism is capitalized to call attention to the fact that environmentalism is a human concept in itself, & is therefore a product of consciousness (mental activity) in & of itself. This puts the property of consciousness on both sides of the equation.

   As mathematics is a human abstraction of mental absolutes & as our current problems with planetary resources & the pollution produced in putting them to our use, being also a uniquely human phenomenon, we can postulate that these problems can be ameliorated by a fundamental tweaking of aggregate human consciousness.

   I believe, that for every individual that begins to make even small symbiotic changes in their consumption behaviors, we will begin to experience exponentially positive results, because consumption behaviors are an ongoing biological requirement. You might say consumption (like the speed of light) is a constant.. (unless you stop eating, drinking, breathing etc. for considerable periods of time). If you do, let me know how, because air quality continues to drop as we burn petroleum. Hell, we’ve already been fooled into buying H20, O2 is the next corporate gold mine being staked.

   To sum up, I see the environmental problem as a uniquely human problem directly related to our ‘unique within the universe (as far as we know) self-reflective consciousness that has stalled at a point of collective self gratification of the physical component of its existence. This materialist fixation also continues to remove humankind from a relationship with the spirit (but I’ll save that problem for another article). Icontend the environmental challenges we face are solvable by small shifts in collective consciousness as it relates to the constant behavior of human consumption. Fixing the problem is do-able, but only by those who do it. (i.e. all of ‘We The Consumers’,.

   The other living creatures of this planet do not have our self reflective consciousness, & neither do they manufacture macro, (i.e. planetary) problems.. (unless you count the problems caused by theanimals we artificially raise for slaughter in quenching our meat-centric diet. Again, humans do that; (Can’t blame the cows. So don’t be a pig led to the slaughter.. ( as Perry Farrell put it; a “Pig In Zen.”)  Change your mind & we can change the world. E=C2 is a plan to do just that. I challenge you to show me how it could NOT work (other than humans choosing NOT to DO IT.

   In writing that last section I’m reminded of the simple concept from the movie “Pay It Forward“. Maybe someone out there should do a web site that puts that concept into action. ;->
Now that you know the equation, Wear it. Be theREVELution, spread the consciousness.. 

‘E=C2‘ organic cotton T-shirts & other Swag. I’m designing other C2 gear, so Sign up for the e-mail group for updates.

Read about the C2 East Star earthship project…

Expand Your Consciousness: Books

Vote with your Wallet: Products & Services Stories in Production (check back soon)
Do it yourself Green Construction Projects.    

Building Your Ultra-Green-Dream Home
Part One - DIY vs. Hiring the Pros

Other Resources: Eco-Construction Web Links

Green Home Building plans ]]> http://www.consciousconsumers.net/wordpress/2008/10/keeping-up-with-the-joness-becomes-keeping-up-with-the-greens/feed/ http://www.consciousconsumers.net/wordpress/2008/10/how-green-does-your-home-garden-grow/ http://www.consciousconsumers.net/wordpress/2008/10/how-green-does-your-home-garden-grow/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:53:12 +0000 E. http://www.consciousconsumers.net/wordpress/?p=62

Expand Your Consciousness: Home/Garden Books

Vote with your Wallet: Home/Garden Products & Services

Other Resources - Home/Garden Links ]]> http://www.consciousconsumers.net/wordpress/2008/10/how-green-does-your-home-garden-grow/feed/ http://www.consciousconsumers.net/wordpress/2008/10/the-rebirth-of-cool-viridian-green-style/ http://www.consciousconsumers.net/wordpress/2008/10/the-rebirth-of-cool-viridian-green-style/#comments Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:29:05 +0000 E. http://www.consciousconsumers.net/wordpress/?p=59

Vote with your Wallet: Wear Your Conscience

Expand Your Consciousness: Green style/fashion books

Stories in Production The Gap Unfolds Social Responsibility Campaign... But is it Greenwash?

Other Resources Green Fashion Links

Check out The Viridian Girl Models. V-Girls R Sexy & Smart!

   In our mass-media influenced society, where we are bombarded by images of physically fit, beautiful people, there is an enormous interest in what the proper diet is so that we may claim that hyper real body for our own. Diet books were 9% of all book sales in 2003. The health spa and gym industries also take in millions annually. However, even with all this interest over what should be put into our bodies, the American population suffers from specific diet related diseases at a disproportionate rate in comparison to most other populations.

     What can account for such a negative statistic in the so called “most advanced nation on the planet”? Could it be those ultra processed, preservative riddled, artificially flavored & colored “dead” foods we eat from boxes and cans? Or could it be the meat-centric, saturated fat laden fast food we catch on our 30-minute, eat-it-as-fast-as-you-can and get-back-to-work lunch breaks? It couldn’t be. Thoey’re FDA a& USDA pproved so they must be O.K., right? ‘Its’ the same food those people with the beautiful bodies oin the TV commercials are eating .and they wouldn’t lie, would they? Well, they are lying. It is processed dead foods and the meatcentric diet which is giving us and the planet a host of diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, deforestation, soil erosion, certain cancers and many others.

   What diet fad do you follow? Which book by which health guru or pseudo doctor is right? Let’s scrap all that and get down to the basics.

   It’s all very simple; maybe that’s why we’ve been so confused. Let’s break it down to the elements. Your body is a natural eco-system. The body is part and parcel of a larger natural eco-system (the earth and it’s environment). When you put natural fuels into your personal eco-system then your body is going to run smoother, faster and cleaner. It follows that the foods we put into our personal eco-system should be as close to their uncorrupted, naturally existing state for easiest absorption and utilization.

   Food is just a fuel source to power your body and brain. Put something unnatural into it (synthetic and or processed into such a state as could never exist in nature… Even cooking is nutritionally detrimental and chemically corruptive to most foods).

  The more we remove foods from their natural, “alive” states, the more side effects we get from ingesting them. Those side effects develop into serious diseases with repetitive of ingestions over time as the body’s natural state of equilibrium is continuously disrupted. Examples of dietary side effects are indigestion, heartburn, weight gain, certain cancers, cardiovascular, epidermal, and muscular disease. Etc.).

    In order to get more insight, imagine yourself in your body’s place. You are a natural, self-contained eco-system. A foreign agent enters; let’s say it’s a sour cream & onion potato chip (one of my favorites in my former, less healthy-less happy life). Among several other synthetic chemicals, they contain hydrogenated oil. Your body is not acquainted with this artificial molecule. In essence it is forced into a situation of “What the hell is that and what am I supposed to do with it?” Your body reacts, often first trying to jettison what it can’t assimilate (i.e. sweating out the toxins through the skin, passing them through the intestines, carrying them through the blood and lymph fluids, etc).

  Each bodily process of rejection also has reactions; (that zit you buy all those products to eliminate, bad breath and other body odors, etc. etc., etc.) Years of repeated ingestion of elements that cannot be assimilated or completely rejected lead to more serious bodily reactions. Non-assimilated and indigestible elements continually passing through and getting caught within the intestines are a possible cause of cancers here. The same applies to elements being passed off to the kidneys, blood, and lymph fluids; possible causes of cancers in those systems and heart disease.

   Now lets relate the microcosm of the human body eco-system to the macrocosm of the eco-system of the planet earth. This simple relation forms a way for us to understand that eating what’s right for our body is also right for the planet… This forms the basis of my “Personal Health Conscious Diet is the Environmentally Conscious Diet” argument. I believe that this argument, among other things, helps to show that the natural universe makes sense. It is only we humans that ultimately cause our own problems by acting like spoiled children and not playing by its rules.

The body does not have such negative reactions to foods that are naturally in a ready to eat state. These are foods already prepared for you having been cooked all they need to be by the sun. Naturally ready to eat foods; unless you are naturally allergic to them, are perfect, easily assimilated energy sources.

   As for allergies, there are many theories as to why allergies occur and are becoming more widespread; most of them exploring how many allergies are also a product of man’s unbalanced interference in natural systems.

   The other thing that is hard to swallow (literally) for most American’s is the subject of meat eating. Again, let’s get down to basics…

    The human digestive tract has little in common in comparison to other carnivores on this planet. Our Digestive system is most similar to herbivores.

    Meat eating among humans appears to have begun and reoccurred only among tribes who began to settle in harsher, colder climates where fruits and vegetables were not always readily available. It may have begun as a last ditch, desperate need to survive act, during the ice age. Some anthropologists theorize that the practice of killing other humans may have begun and developed among the tribes who first killed other animals to eat. This may have begat murder and war among humans.

    Whatever you think about my murder theory, the evidence suggests that American’s die of heart disease, colon and prostate cancer and many other diseases in great numbers because of their love of meat. Our digestive tract is just plain not set up for it. If we want to continue to argue with our own biology, well that’s up to us.

   What’s worse is that we are not only hurting ourselves with our meatcentric diet.

   As mentioned in ourAgriculture pages, our environment also cannot support this insatiable lust for meat. And if you think you need meat to have the fit muscular body you’ve been taunted with in those gym commercials, you’re also wrong. Look at gorillas, rhino’s and other massive land mammals.. Pretty strong. Not carnivores in the least.

  It just makes beautiful sense that what is good for our bodies is also be good for the environment that cradles, and gives our body sustenance. Wouldn’t it seem like a dirty trick if that wasn’t the case. However, as we continually pollute our bodies with synthetic, dead, and otherwise man-altered food products, we pollute the planet as well and give it diseases which are a direct creation of humanity.

   The standard American diet produces a tremendous amount of byproducts and waste. So, as we are hurting most the ones we love most (ourselves), we are also biting the hand that feeds (planet earth). How bad do we need to let things get before we get these messages. Improving this state of affairs is common sense, easy and best for all.

 For more see my article Escape From The Planet Of The Cows. 

Originally published on The Conscious Consumers’ Network 05/10/04

   Energy. We all use and sometimes misuse it. Fossil fuel energy production and use is the major factor associated with environmental decline and the once theorized and now realized Greenhouse Effect. The production of carbon dioxide has exceeded the rate at which plant life (which is also being harvested beyond its rate of replacement) can recycle it back into oxygen (…you know, that stuff we breath?) There is no other option for making the conversion from carbon dioxide to oxygen on planetary scale. So what are we going to do about it? Well, we’ve already been suckered into paying for drinking water, so I guess we’ll just pay for “breathing air” next. That’s O. K. with you, isn’t it? It’s seems just right that we should pay the same corporations who befoul the air for the privilege of manufacturing some sort of bottled equivalent for clean air. Good business plan. Let’s pollute the air and make billions selling air! Alright, gotta run to the store and buy some water. Be back soon. ;->

    Luckily, there is human consciousness capital & some very bright people using it to help us out of this fix. Learn how you can help them help us all by  leaving your thoughts & comments on this issue.

You’re Going To Need Those Holes For Your Corpses

    [Tampa, FL 10/06/08] As seemingly mindless throngs echo the “drill baby drill” chant like so many corporate robots, I pour over reports of all the oil hurricane Ike poured into the nearby Gulf of Mexico. Ike caused at least a half million gallons of crude to pour into the Gulf (the worst Gulf spill since Katrina). 

    Living in Tampa, FL, I would be directly affected by the lifting of moratoriums to drill for oil off our coasts. I’m not crying “not in my backyard”, I’m crying that we move into the technologies of tomorrow rather than this incessant backwards thinking desire to continue to power the dirty old internal combustion engine. 

    The moment I heard the “drill baby drill” chant I fired up my laptop and wrote it as a line of dialogue delivered by my villian in part two of my “Apocalypse Near” book trilogy. Here’s the dialogue as it appears in the book between the inter-dimensional villian and the protagonist. My protagonist is on a mission to enlighten the humans to their oncoming doom and how they might avoid it:

    ”Yea humans, drill baby drill! Drill; you’re going to need those holes for all your corpses. Finish killing yourselves off; fill the earth with your dead so that we can clear it of your ignorant species without any effort on our part. Drill baby drill; suck your black death from the earth; drain it, burn it and fill the earth with your stupid corpses. You are not smart enough to deserve that planet; the proof is in your unintended mass suicide. Thank you for taking yourselves out of our way.”

    That’s part of a fiction I wrote to try to wake more people up to that fact that we are in fact bringing ourselves to the brink of our own destruction with every drop of crude we burn. You can listen to multi-national business propaganda or you can look at the science. One is based in the math of getting you to reach for your wallet without thinking, the other is based in math, period. Math doesn’t lie, people lie for money. 

    I can extrapolate on the poetic justice of monster storms like Katrina being a possible result of global warming then coming to spill the fuel that gave them birth into the heated waters, but that’s just poetic license on my part. However, the evidence for  the continued breakdown of natural order in the biosphere  is becoming increasingly visible. Even the most cursory web search on recent natural disasters, environmental catastrophes, unprecedented violent weather patterns, inter-species extinction rates, etc, etc, etc indicate that things are getting more out of balance as the  length of time and  rate at which we burn fossil fuels goes up. If our answer is to “drill baby drill” then it would just make sense to keep those holes open to fill with the dead born of our over-indulgence in the putrid fruit of the dirty old industrial age. Cleaner technologies exist and only need to be made more efficient. We’ve only lacked leaders willing to invest in the R&D to perfect and deploy these technologies. Once America is smart enough to do this we will then again lead the world economically and politically. Or we can chant “drill baby drill” and stick “I support our troops” bumper stickers on the back of GM S.U.v.’s as we wave the flag and march into our mass grave.

Big oil, small minds.

Originally published on The Conscious Consumers’ Network  on 07/24/04 

The current enemies of the industrialized nations mostly recruit their soldiers from among the disenfranchised populations of largely non-industrialized nations. Some of their propaganda charges that Western, industrialized nations use disproportionate amounts of natural resources and the cheaper labor of the needy to produce their wealth which is in turn used to produce weapons to proliferate their policies, goods, services and politics. In the process, the biosphere (which all humans must share) is unfairly being exploited. These criteria (among others) are spun to hang the title of “The Great Satan” on the western industrialized nations. Perhaps the larger crime is that the industrialized nations are basically loading bullets into the weapons of their sworn enemies by buying their oil which also has the effect of destroying the environment. It’s a lose-lose situation for the U.S. If Big Oil & our government were really smart they’d be investing all the money we spend on Arabian oil into sustainable / renewable energy technology and selling that technology to the world. (A win-win situation).

   Environmental scientists & environmental groups have often cited industry’s harmful effects on the biosphere and their unbalanced approach to harvesting the natural resource base. The Union of Concerned Scientists has repeatedly cited the harmful effects of unregulated (self regulated) industries.

   Perhaps the way to best combat enemies that use these issues a to justify terrorism is for the industrialized nations to heed the empirical data and lead the way by advancing existing renewable energy technologies and investing in the R & D of sustainable energy technologies. In this way we may no longer harm ourselves exponentially (by both destroying the resource base that gives us wealth while simultaneously funding terrorism).

    Consumers, it’s time for you to take your power back. Find and invest in the companies moving in these directions. In the April 2003 issue of Wired magazine; writers Peter Schwartz & Doug Randall proposed a plan for an Apollo type mission to transform the U.S. to a hydrogen-based economy by 20013. It seems that what is needed is the leadership to implement such a plan and the investment to bring it to fruition. I’m drafting a petition to send to congress & the White House to propose they put such a plan into action.

(You can see that petition and sign it by clicing the following link:

Petition for a National Sustainable Energy Infrastructure 

    History shows that populations tend to respect leaders who rule through inspiration and rebel against those who enforce their will through intimidation. It is arguable that the U.S. and other industrialized nations currently have the mental and economic capital to support our way of life in a way that is less demanding on the health of the biosphere. The need is for leadership to implement new design, and infrastructure. Consumers need to support the businesses that seek to advance and utilize sustainable technologies. Currently, it appears the leadership may have to come from consumers.If you don’t buy products that are harmful to our national security and environment (and subsequently harmful to YOU), then they won’t be manufactured. It’s a supply & demand economy. Consumers truly do have the power to create this change. It is our responsibility.

   The last true vistage of democracy may be divested in consumers who can force these changes within the free market economy.

As the industrialized nations continue to output disproportionate amounts of harmful carbon dioxide/carbon monoxide emissions, chemical biproducts and radioactive waste, the other fact to confront is that ofossil fuels are being depleted and will soon be no more (OR they’ll kill us before they run out either by way of environmental devastation or World War Three.

 AND nuclear power is nuts because it leaves indisposable waste that is poisonous for millions of years.We can’t even agree on what to do with the stockpiles of nuclear waste we have now while our government considers financing new PRIVATELY OWNED nuclear power plants that will be built with YOUR tax dollars.

Furthermore, many geologists think the end of oil is sooner than we thought. Do a web search on the “peak oil theory if you want to scare yourself some more. Is there any light at the end of the many tunnels we face in our age? Perhaps.There are several major corporations, many of which have been among the biggest polluters on the planet, who realize the energy and environmental challenges of this era and are adapting policies and procedures to make the change to renewable and sustainable energy systems and thereby protect their future success.

See my article on General Electric for an example:

Green Change or Hot Wind at GE?

    The “Investment” area of Conscious Consumers will seek to find out about more such companies, investigate their practices, and provide information  for consumers to make ethical as well as financially promising decisions on where to invest. We will also provide information on socially responsible mutual fund and investment firms and links to on-line trading sites where investors can research and invest in companies on their own. Please send comments if  you know about companies moving in these directions or correct me if you find any of the information we provide to be in error or in need of update.

    In light of the recent problems in the U.S. election system and the antiquated Electoral College, perhaps the last aspect of life in which “We the people” can truly have influence is in what we do with our money.

    Ask yourself a few questions. Is your money supporting a company that creates pollution? Is your money being used by a company that adds to the depletion of natural resources without replenishing or accounting for them? Is your money in a company that produces disproportionate amounts of waste in the creation of their products? (If your money is in a company that makes automobiles with internal combustion engines and steel bodies, you should answer yes to all of these questions). Are you putting your money in companies that produce energy from renewable resources or have a progressive energy or natural resource accounting policy? Can you sleep comfortably after answering these questions honestly (sans pharmaceuticals)?

    Do your consumption habits make you a virtual weapon of mass destruction? Do you support companies that are making the United States vulnerable to enemy attack? Does what you buy line the pockets of nations who are hostile to America? If you filled your car with gasoline today the answer to that question is yes. If your money didn’t go to Arab nations it may have gone to Chavez in Venezuela (Citgo is a Venezuelan company). If you shopped at Wal-Mart part of your money most likely went to China (where the military & manufacturing industries are pretty much the same entity.. So right there you just supported a Communist empire with a horrible human rights and environmental record.

As multi-national corporations have become more & more deregulated while simultaneously being given more access in Washington both the strength and sovereignty of The U.S. has been compromised. Every empire in history has fallen at the peak of their military and financial power; why should The United States be any different? I’m asking you for an answer. Do a comparative study of the fall of the Roman, Greek, British, French & German empires and you will see how much we presently have in common with them at the time of their fall.