Ever notice how most folks think backwards? They begin with the answer to a question that wouldn’t be a question except that the answer makes it one. Or something like that.

For example: NPR has a piece about genetically engineered rice that kicks off like this – “Scientists are racing to develop strains of ‘super rice’ that can prevent the return of deadly famines to Asia. Researchers say tough, highly productive rice plants offer the best hope for feeding a world population that will reach 9 billion by 2050.”

Cool, huh? Super rice, coming soon to a paddy near you!

As an experiment, flip the paragraph around and look at its mirror image. The obvious question that pops up is: “Why in hell do we want 9 billion Homo erectus asphaltus running loose on little ole planet Earth?”

Socrates Wilson says: Deal with root causes first, then see what’s left to solve.

Pass the salt.

This just in -The guys in white lab coats have discovered a way to manage health care, reduce costs of health insurance, and cause an abundance of juicy pheromones – for free!

According to the New York Times: “At the start of the study, none had cancer. By the end, 181 had died of the disease. Parsing the men’s activity levels, the researchers determined that, after controlling for cigarette smoking, fiber and fat intake, age, and other variables, the most physically active men were the least likely to develop cancer, particularly of the gastrointestinal tract or the lung. Even more striking, the intensity of the exercise was key. The more arduous it was, the more protective it proved. Jogging was the most strenuous activity studied, fishing among the least. The men who jogged or otherwise exercised fairly intensely for at least 30 minutes a day had “a 50 percent reduction in the risk of dying prematurely from cancer,” says Sudhir Kurl, medical director of the School of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition at the University of Kuopio in Finland and one of the study’s authors.”

Freaking exercise – why didn’t Congress think of that?

According to the erudite Christian Science Monitor’s Bright Green Blog – they have 235 posts related to “global warming,” and 1 post for “overpopulation.”

Dear CSM – suggested reading a.s.a.p. – “Overshoot” by William R. Catton.

posted by Mudd

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Here is an excerpt from a letter we just received from  Kevin and Laura at Basin & Range Watch. I urge you to check out their web site (posted below) and we hope to include more coverage of this very critical issue in the next Zephyr…JS

Seems like 20 or 30 years ago, folks were concerned about protecting their local places, that specific mountain, the river nearby, those particular named canyons near where they lived, and the wilderness they hiked in. Today the shift among environmentalists has highlighted the global, the abstract, even the corporate model of “saving the Earth.”  We are often lectured by this new hybrid of industrial green energy environmentalists about how our attempts to slow down these large industrial energy developments will expedite the warming of the planet and the extinction of the polar bear. We find it ludicrous that these same people would support actions that could lead to the extinction of species like the desert tortoise in an attempt to save the polar bear. Who told them that they were justified in choosing which species get to survive and which do not? Our position is that the destruction of desert ecosystems, which have been proven to be excellent resources for storing vast quantities of carbon, will only speed up the potential habitat loss for the polar bear. Climate is, after all, a global system. 

Kevin Emmerich  & Laura Cunningham

Basin and Range Watch

www.basinandrangewatch.org

I have several phobias—needles, colonoscopies, certain components of Moab, Utah and…downloading software. But I finally overcame one of my fears, bought a $39 color printer and have successfully installed the software and the gadget. I just printed some pages from this issue and they are remarkably clear. Of course they are on 8 1/2 x 11 paper and the text is small and will require reading glasses for anyone over 43, but it’s not bad. What this means for those of you who complained that you could no longer read The Z on the toilet, there is HOPE and Resolution…JS

Alrighty then! All the table descriptions have been updated and we are good to go…thanks!

The Aug/Sep issue went online at 5pm MDT, BUT the Table of Content descriptions, starting at page 34 are wrong…for some reason, the June/July stories are still being listed. However, the THUMBNAILS are CORRECT, so click on the PDFs and you’ll see the Aug/Sep stories…We’ll get the table descriptions fixed ASAP.
Thanks for your patience…Jim

The new issue should be posted by late afternoon..incl:
“Can the Z Survive the Age of Twitter?” Doug Meyer’s
“Ethically Challenged—The fight over solar power in the Desert Southwest”…See Abbey’s Arches Trailer (from 10,000 feet straight up)…fakebook…is it a parody?…Great 1952 images from Herb Ringer at the South Rim….AND…”SUPERSTITIONLAND: A Tale of Boundless Water,” by Scott Thompson…
A Look at the Water Crisis in Arizona & Remembering a Similar Collapse 1000 years ago…and a lot MORE.
Coming tomorrow afternoon….

Hello everyone…we’re working feverishly on the Aug/Sep issue and hoping to post it by July 30…stay tuned. I’ll be providing a preview of what to expect in the next few days…some good stuff, I think.
Jim