Reproductive Health and its Benefit to Human and Environmental Wellbeing by Hazel Videon

Patriarchy’s integration into capitalism keeps population rates up in order to sustain a workforce. Empowering people able to give birth to control their own reproductive health and giving them access to education lowers birth rates and in turn lowers carbon footprint. Having community resources which empower people to access sex education, contraception, abortion, and other reproductive health care will both act as population control and fulfill basic needs, allowing people to focus more on environmental and community sustainability.

The practice of providing reproductive health care is incredibly important in sustainability efforts. Reproductive health clinics play a part in furthering sustainability efforts in the community by helping to meet people’s basic needs. Physiological needs and safety must be met before people can really focus on other needs. Low income, marginalized people may be less likely to put time and effort into environmental concerns if their personal health needs are not met. Providing choice-based health care assists in fulfilling the physiological needs of everyone, but especially women and queer people who are already marginalized under a capitalist system. When a person is forced to carry a pregnancy to term or care for a child without proper resources, both financial and social, their needs are not getting met. It’s less likely for people in unsafe and unsupportive environments to view a broader picture of environmental wellness. This should not be traced back to flaws of the individual either, rather seen as a product of a profit-focused system that will inherently marginalize certain groups of people. Although current reproductive health care providers exist under capitalism, they still provide a much needed service which helps empower marginalized groups to overcome the system which strives to destroy them and the environment in which they live.

Abortion and contraception access can act as a form of population control. Population control methods can lower carbon footprint. Many organizations rally for population control as a means to a more environmentally sustainable and safer future. Although this ideology includes some points of merit, it is crucial to consider the ways that blame is being put on individuals when we talk about population control. Often, federal movements to create sustainability culture put people in a state of austerity without having to force it. It causes people to self monitor and and monitor others in their sustainability efforts while disregarding class as an important aspect to a person’s ability to live sustainably. It is a form of privilege to even consider making lifestyle changes to be more environmentally friendly. There are people in the United States without access to food and clean water, yet they are still expected to alter their carbon footprint. The issue of sustainable living is largely aimed at those in the middle class and erases the experiences of low income people who statistically are more likely to be women, people of color, and queer people. The capitalist system which targets these marginalized groups is also directly harming the environment. By shifting the blame to the bodies of childbearers, movements for population control disregard the source of why we would need population control in the first place. The nonprofit Uncrowded.org states, “Whether the average person alive today has between 1 and 2 children, or between 2 and 3 children, will largely determine whether our children live in a world that is safe, healthy, and sustainable, or crowded and polluted, with little if any nature, fewer resources and more crime.”  This sentiment is flawed because it assumes individuals or family units are directly responsible for the wellbeing of the Earth. It is problematic to assume that societal and environmental problems can be traced back to population when systems and corporations that are focused on profit above human welfare are the actual cause. Pat Hynes, a feminist activist states, “the military has 1.4 million active duty people, or .0002 percent of the world’s population, generating 5 percent of climate pollution. The U.S. military enterprise is far and away the largest single climate polluter and contributor to global warming.

 The issue should be shifted more toward educating people and providing services for population control while simultaneously dismantling the system that causes environmental and societal problems. Assuming for example, that there will be more crime in a world with a higher population may be true in a sense, however it is not directly related to the amount of people, rather to the institutions and disenfranchisement that encourages crime. A mother who has to drive her children to school across a town lacking public transportation infrastructure should not be blamed for adding to CO2 emissions, rather the companies that monopolize oil and prevent widespread use of more sustainable transportation methods should be. Reproductive health organizations are important resources for the people who are targeted by these harmful systems, and it is very beneficial for population control for the time being, but resources such as this should not be the end point.  

Reproductive health is a widely contested topic, so a non-profit that specializes in choice based and sex positive care risks negative impacts from political and religious anti-choice advocates. When activists violently attempt to stop clinics from performing abortions they fail to consider their long-term negative impact. If abortions were prohibited and people were unable to access other forms of birth control and health care, not only would people (children included) literally die, the population would also spike. A raise in population during the current state of things would cause even more burden on the environment and the same anti-choice activists wanting to make abortion illegal are generally against environmental sustainability efforts as well as community resources such as education, and welfare programs. Politically conservative people who are anti-choice are also generally supportive of military expansion and the prison industrial complex, meaning that without reproductive clinics there would be more crime and fewer resources (environmental and social), but it would not be the fault of the people having babies.

It is crucial to consider that sustainability is achieved through multiple facets, yet placing the responsibility on individuals is harmful. Population control through access to contraceptives, abortion, and sex education as well as resources for families, women, queer people, and people living with STI’s is incredibly important. Having these resources in a community is a form of progress socially and benefits the environment as well, but while using these resources we should deconstruct the sources of structural violence that targets marginalized people and the environment rather than viewing population control as an end goal. When politicians and religious groups target reproductive rights and the institutions that provide reproductive care, they must remember that they are not only attacking people’s ability to access abortion. They are directly targeting the physiological well being and safety of millions of men, women, trans* people, queer people, low income people, people with STI’s, and children who access the care that these clinics provide. When people from every community and walk of life are lacking in their right to reproductive autonomy and health care, the environment will suffer. 

Works Cited

“About BMC.” Blue Mountain Clinic Family Practices. www.bluemountainclinic.org. Web.         2016.

Cohen, Susan A., “The Broad Benefits of Investing in Sexual and Reproductive Health.”  Guttmacher Policy Review. Guttmacher Institute. www.guttmacher.org. Web. 2004.

Hendrixon, Anne. “Family Planning and the Environment.” Solidarity. www.solidarity-us.org. Web. 2014.                                   

“History.” Blue Mountain Clinic Family Practices. www.bluemountainclinic.org. Web. 2016.

Unjustifiable Greed by Thomas Acres

People have a tendency to be more inclined towards what comes easily and makes them feel comfortable. For instance, for several decades since industrialism long began to take into full swing in the mid eighteenth century, the human race (in more modern industrialized governments) has treated animals as a means to an end for profit. The industrial revolution lasting from 1750 to 1825, having nothing to do with all the harmful, sadistic, unhealthy treatments of animals intended for food, was a progression in science and engineering, more or less an innovation. Inevitably leading to industrialism in food specifically. For some the end result is nothing short of simple satisfactions, such as sheer happiness or for plenty the common struggle of adhering to the daily disdain for being famished.

This raises the questions of several pertaining to the ranges of inquiries of class-ism, trickling down to the undesirably mentioned health and well being (or how well off the lowly worker may be) of the 'proletariat' which is a Marxist term for the general worker whose common goal is to thrive off of their ability to work and nothing more.. Usually to make enough to force ends to meet and hopefully bind, nurture, and repetitiously do so thus the proletariat adheres to a tedious schedule that repeats dreadfully to obtain the yearly salary.

Transitioning, all the way to the CEO everything in between remains residuals in stoicism, tenaciously hard-work, and self-rewarding from the farmer to the factory worker to the frivolous consumers but the "chief executive officer,” the highest ranking executive in a company whose main responsibilities include developing and implementing high-level strategies, making major corporate decisions, managing the overall operations and resources of a company, and acting as the main point of communication between the board of directors and the corporate operations. The CEO will often have a position on the board, and in some cases is even the chair. In other words Since the CEO has a more glamorous position and duties to uphold during modern industrialization, the majority suffers a mundane list of objectives that are often referred to unfortunately as soul crushing areas of employment.

Not resigning to the gifting of input, (but steeply keeping it at a sum) this all adds up to multiple decades of developments, resulting countlessly in numerous historical events in the process including millions of deaths to both the general population worldwide and of celebrity types and royal families globally ALL subordinately due to traits of industrialism and fascism as contributors and their notable clash with infamous greed and ruthlessness, inwardly and all throughout the entire subjects plaster effectively creating dynasties of private wealth.

After all, industrialization has spread infectiously like a groundbreaking virus! From its home in Great Britain to the United States to North West Europe to Russia and other parts of the world it has had an ever-changing impact on the lives of thousands upon thousands, upon thousands. This doesn't conclude, rather it has been and perpetually proceeds to manipulate everlasting impacts to cultural and political opinions held strongly by those who may practice whichever particular involved and can well be considered a phenomenon all around being due to some very basic, yet mostly both crucial and complex technological advances in the human race pertaining to science, math, philosophy & history all at once. If the modern Lacanian-Marxist street philosopher (as he considers himself) Slavoj Zizek is correct, our Venn diagram boils lower and lower into the depths of his personal, intriguing question which I will present at the summit of all of this but in order to completely fulfill this rant because I would like it to resonate clearly , so seems to be the opinion of Zizek's that plainly, one of challenging thought and obsessive intellect in mind may variously find ways in his or her mind to go about this hall of endless corridors that IS the new cliché of industrialism in food known as the 'green capitalism scheme’. A clever but sheisty scheme' at best and it WORKS. It Is a theory of Zizek's that It Is being used to manipulate the easily persuaded by a sort of slightest of hand proposal making a company look greater for being cost effective and never going above and beyond or giving exactly what they've promised, in marketing towards the general feeble minded...not to be too specific now that question from early is "why be happy when you can be interesting?"

Who will make the decisions? by Jonathan Bird (Translated by Spirit Pony)

Originally written by Jonathan Bird, based on ideas proposed by the Venus Project.

Man creates laws and signs treaties. However, if the treaty ceases to serve the interests of one of the countries that have signed it, that country will violate the treaty.Most laws, regulations and treaties, are violated. We were raised to believe that somebody has to be up there, at the top, making all the decisions and creating all the laws and regulations, being the final determinant. That is not actually true. The final determinant is always nature.

In other words, we cannot strive for a population of 8 or 9 billion people, without basing it on the existing resources.First, we must conduct a survey of resources. How much arable land do we have? How much water? These factors determine how many inhabitants the planet can support. If we exceed that number, then there will be malnutrition, territorial disputes, burglaries, and so forth. It doesn't matter how many laws will be put in place.

It seems that there are people who still don't quite understand that. They become angry, and say "who are you to decide for me?!" If the pope says "procreate! The Lord will supply!", we'd like to ask him, "and if 'the Lord' won't supply, will you?"

If this is still not clear, when an expedition to the moon is planned, who determines how much food and water must be brought along?

You can't just send people there, basing their survival on "well, the moon will supply", or on someone's personal opinion. The required amount is calculated before the mission.How many days do they plan to stay? How many people are going? How many people do we need to feed, how much water do we need? That's what determines it. The laws of nature always determine everything, in the end.

We live under an outdated system of values, a world of politics and personal opinions. In the past, many philosophers have spoken about the concepts of freedom, and individuality. These perceptions have stayed with us until today.It is because we cannot see how we are actually connected to nature, so we think we're free, and can go anywhere and do anything we want.If we take away the oxygen, everybody on the planet will die within minutes. If we take away the water, we'll all die. Without the sun, all plants will die.

So we are connected to our environment, to nature.We are part of nature, not separate of it, and the nature of our dependency on our environment, ultimately determines what we can and can not do, without causing harm to ourselves.

Therefore, the question "who will make the decisions" isn't even relevant. The real question we should be asking is "how do we reach conclusions and make decisions, so that we'll still live in accordance with the laws of nature and our environment?"

Here's how it's going to work: agronomists will take soil samples from all over the world, and based on their content, will determine that in one location we should grow carrots, and after 3 months switch to sugar canes.That is not an opinion. It is a scientific finding.When people were asked, just two years prior to the moon landing, whether man will ever reach the moon, many of them answered "no, not even within a thousand years." That is a dangerous attitude.Do these people have a background in propeller technology? Space flight and travel? Rocket science? No. It's just their opinion.

In the future, instead of opinions, people will have access to knowledge and information. Similar to the Internet we have today. So that you can go and lookup any information you want, and be part of the process of decision making in a certain field, based on the knowledge you have in that field."

The Venus Project - Global

http://thevenusproject.com/

What about a lack of energy? By Jonathan Bird (Translated by Spirit Pony)

The following essay was written by Jonathan Bird, an activist at the Israeli section of the Venus Project.

As of today, we have no need for petroleum, coal, natural gas or any other polluting source of energy. We have more than enough energy.From the Sun alone, we have enough energy for thousands of years.Geothermal energy, meaning the heat at the core of the Earth, can also be used as a source of energy that'll last for thousands of years.And not to mention tides, wind, ocean temperature differences, undersea currents and more... all of those can be used in addition. The primary reason these sources of energy are not used, is not because they are not efficient, their energetic potential had been demonstrated long ago.

The reason they are not used is because it is impossible to profit off them.In other words, if someone wanted to carry out a project to build huge air cleaning structures, he'd have to go to a private investor and ask for money, to fund the project.However, the investor will then ask, "how are you going to charge people for this service, so that I can make a profit off of my investment?" If the guy then tells him: "Well, listen, we aren't going to charge anything for this. It's just a project to clean the air, to end pollution. I mean, you breathe air, I breathe air, everybody does. We want clean air." The potential investor will then say "that's nice, but I can't give you the money if I'm not going to profit off my investment." Nobody is going to fund a project if they aren't going to make more money off it, than they initially invested in it. It doesn't matter how important the project is to public health, the environment, or the survival of human civilization. It's just not going to happen.

When people say that a certain product has high costs and expenses, what do these costs consist of? I mean, a Nike shoe is made from the same materials as any other shoe, rubber, some cloth, so why does the final cost of the product run into the dozens, even hundreds, of dollars? The answer is profit. There is Nike's profit, the supplier's profit, the profit of whoever rents Nike the factory and/or land on which the factory is built on, and so forth. Essentially, all those costs and expenses, are profits. And if someone invents some type of wheelchair, and files a patent for it, that also contributes to the high costs.Sometimes a product costs $5 to produce, but sells for $5,000, because of patents. This makes it difficult for whoever needs a wheelchair, for example, to obtain one. Most profits are made by just a few people.

So why is a shoe so expensive? Because we're carrying on our backs all the big profiteers. So when they say that the cost of a single solar panel is expensive, they don't mean that we don't have enough glass, or silicon. That's ridiculous.We do not have a shortage of silicon, or sand (from which glass is made), on this planet.Those are not scarce resources.What they mean when they say it's expensive, is that we don't have enough money to cover all the profits that all the corporations which are involved in this process, require and demand. However, if all resources are common heritage, everybody shares their ideas, without patents, without private property, then the cost of the project does not matter.What matters is whether we have the resources and technology, which we do have, more than enough.

In addition, if today one factory is set up, a spare parts factory won't be set up next to it, because the real estate price has gone up, so it is moved somewhere further away.A third factory is set up even further away from both of them, and the result is that we now need a train to travel all over the country in order to manufacture things.

The capitalist system is one of the most wasteful systems imaginable.

In other words, there are many people who try to calculate how much energy is required to sustain society, and eventually draw the conclusion that renewable energy won't be enough.However, these people also think that we need airplanes, cars, inefficient cities, planned obsolescence, infinite growth, and many other factors, that in an efficient society, won't be needed.

We don't have a shortage of anything today, other than brains in the government.

Who will do the dirty jobs? by Jonathan Bird (Translated by Spirit Pony)

Many people ask questions such as "who will clean the toilets?".

Well, today, in Germany, self-cleaning toilets already exist (video here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us5MMi_rguA).

Furthermore, using nanotechnology, it is possible, today, to design surfaces which never accumulate any dirt, and therefore never require cleaning. For example, this liquid-resistent surface, shown here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPM8OR6W6WE.

This is why in the Venus Project, "dirty jobs" don't even exist.

Technologies such as Google's self-driving car can replace all taxi and truck drivers.The Venus Project aims to automate all of these jobs, freeing people from having to do them.

If you're still finding it difficult to understand, picture the following:A young woman stands behind a counter for 8 hours a day, asking "what would you like, ma'am?", "would you like to subscribe?".Is this "using her brain"? When she finally retires, do you know what she has on her mind all day? "What would you like, ma'am?" and "would you like to subscribe?".

We are wasting the minds of millions people who are working pointless, repetitive, useless jobs that get them nowhere.They don't learn anything, they don't develop themselves, they don't gain any more knowledge or skill.We don't need a system like that. Most stores nowadays can be fully automated, releasing people from having to do such jobs.

It is important to note that this process will take place anyway, regardless of whether the Venus Project will be implemented or not.This is because machines are becoming more efficient each year, are faster than humans, can work longer, make less mistakes, do not tire out, don't need air conditioning, health insurance or lighting, and most importantly: they do the job for a fraction of the minimum wage.Therefore, industries will introduce more and more machines whether you like it or not. It'll just happen more slowly, because the owners think about profits first, and will wait until fully automated machine labour will become cheaper than human labour.

From a technical perspective, it is possible to mechanize most jobs today.If you still don't fully understand, there are many parking lots in the Western world, with little cameras that scan car numbers automatically upon entry.

When you want to exit the parking lot, you have to pay in the payment station. If you paid, when you want to exit, the camera scans your vehicle number and opens the gate automatically.Even doctors can be partially mechanized today. In dermatology classes today, students are shown various skin conditions, their symptoms and patterns.If they encounter an unfamiliar pattern, they scratch their head and start searching for it in medical books.If we take a computer and make it scan all known patterns and conditions, we could stand next to it and have it scan our skin, and diagnose our condition automatically.We no longer need dermatologists. We can mechanize all repetitive jobs.Why would we want to put people at risk, by having them clean windows on the 40th floor? We want machines to do those jobs, since we don't want to put humans in that situation.

"We can mechanize all those jobs, and free humans from having to do them."

Isn't this Utopia? by Jonathan Bird (Translated by Spirit Pony)

Many people think that the Venus Project talks about utopia. A perfect, unattainable world. No. These cities can be built with what we already know today. It'll take approximately 10 years to transform Earth onto what most people would consider to be heaven.

If you're having difficulty grasping that notion, take into consideration the following: the Arabs used to have tales of flying carpets, but they'd never tell you what would happen if you had to visit the toilet while you're on the flying carpet, or what would you do if it's raining and you're freezing out there, on the carpet. Nowadays we have airplanes with air conditioning, toilets, Internet. In other words, even the flying carpet used to be considered "too far to ever reach"... nothing is ever too far to reach! The point is that we must learn to lay down our egos, and when we are asked "do you think that man will ever reach the moon?", answer honestly: "listen man, I'm a truck driver, I don't know anything about propeller technology, rocketry, space travel... I really can't answer that question. I simply don't know. "In the 1960's, many people, when asked that question, would simply say "no... not even within a thousand years." Well, 9 years later, we reached the moon.

In other words, people genuinely believe that they have the technical ability required to assess and evaluate everything, when they actually don't. When they hear about some new idea, they usually reject it instantly. If someone comes up with an idea for a wingless aircraft, they immediately say "what's this? This doesn't have any wings! It'll never fly!". In the future, people might react very differently from that. When they see a wingless aircraft, they'll ask "I see that this aircraft doesn't have any wings, how do you suggest to make it fly without any wings?", because that's a question that's required here. Not "Ha! This doesn't have any wings, it simply won't fly!"

Therefore, the change that the Venus Project talks about isn't just a technological change. Many people believe the Venus Project is simply about futuristic cities, architecture, technology - it's not. It's about a change in our whole way of thinking, a change in ourselves. One of the biggest problems with man is that he doesn't acknowledge the fact that he's always a victim of culture.

If we take your grandmother to the beach, and she'll witness all the girls in bikinis with their asses out, she'll say "they went too far!", which is true where she comes from, but not today. In other words, we are entering a new evolutionary phase in the history of humanity. A period of vast, fast changes, in technology, in social norms. In just 150 years we have gone from a chauvinistic, homophobic society, where children are enslaved in factories without any employee's rights, to today's society. The world had changed beyond recognition. If we had asked people 150 years ago, whether we could ever reach the kind of society we have today, where people watch videos hosted on computers on the other side of the planet, from a wireless device that's smaller than a shoe sole, they'd say THAT was utopia. In fact, their idea of utopia back then, would have probably been something far more conservative. The point is that we have to learn to adapt to the changes we face, if we don't want to become that old man on the porch who misses "the good old days" and rejects everything on sight.

The truth is, if you think about it... there's no such thing as a utopia. Nothing is perfect. The word "perfect" in itself is stupid. If we build the best and fastest computer we can build today, it'll be the best and fastest computer today. In a year from now, it'll be old and outdated, because computers will have become faster, smaller, lighter, and capable of doing more things. It is impossible to design the best camera ever. It is only possible to design the best camera we can have today. There is no "best society", "perfect society". People say: "you speak of a perfect society, an ideal society". These expressions are meaningless. The cities we propose today will be looked upon as prisons by future generations. They'll design their own cities.

There are no utopias, and no limitations."

Planned Obsolescence by Jonathan Bird (Translated by Spirit Pony)

The following article has been translated from Hebrew. It was written by Jonathan Bird, an activist at the Israeli section of the Venus Project. The article talks about planned obsolescence.

Planned obsolescence (deliberate malfunctioning that occurs after a certain amount of time)

Did you know? The industry nowadays deliberately produces products so that they'll break and malfunction after a given amount of time.It's not just hi-tech electronic devices like printers, computers, DVD players, iPods and other music players, but also refrigerators, kettles, laundry machines, cars, lamps, batteries, clothes, shoes, and so forth.Essentially, we're not using the technology that's available to us today, because of the current economy's perpetual need for consumption.

"Classical economics was predicated on the belief that nature was niggardly and that the human race was constantly confronted by the spectre of shortages... However, modern technology and the whole adventure of applying creative science to business have so tremendously increased the productivity of our factories and our fields that the essential economic problem has become one of organizing buyers rather than of stimulating producers. The essential and bitter irony of the present depression lies in the fact that millions of persons are deprived of a satisfactory standard of living at a time when the granaries and warehouses of the world are overstuffed with surplus supplies, which have so broken the price level as to make new production unattractive and unprofitable." -- Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence, Bernard London, 1932.

Remember the old, huge, brick-like cellphones? They used to never break. Our cellphones today are engineered in such a fashion that'll cause them to continue working properly, just shortly until after the warranty has expired, and then they start to break and malfunction. This is not accidental.For example, many printers today have a chip that counts the number of times the printer has been used. After a given amount of printouts, the chip creates a deliberate malfunction in the printer**, which requires it to be taken to a technician for fixing. The cost of fixing the printer is usually higher than the cost of simply buying a new printer, and so continues the cycle of perpetual consumption...

Why is this? Let us ask ourselves: what would happen, had we used our current technological capabilities, to produce only the best and most durable products?Well, the need for purchasing new products and fixing existing products would decrease, meaning there would be less jobs and less growth.Essentially, had we used our current technology and knowledge to produce products, the economy, as we know it today, would cease to function entirely.

So wait, how did this happen?

In 1929, during the great depression, several "problems" were discovered in the economy, when products were simply "too good" and "lasted too long". Planned obsolescence is a mechanism that was "developed" to solve these "problems", which caused the market to become saturated (no further demand for products), in the eyes of economists.Planned obsolescence helps to maintain the situation of perpetual consumption.

Not only is planned obsolescence a huge waste of manpower and resources, it also creates a huge environmental pollution.If cars, batteries, lamps, kettles and so forth, would have lasted for 15 years or more, we wouldn't have seen the mountains of trash and waste products that our society produces.

That is not a necessity, it is the direct result of a failed economic system.