corporate capture and the toxic bombs set off by helene and milton

By now we’ve all seen numerous videos of the massive piles of toxic debris created by the coastal storm surges and torrential downpours from hurricanes Helene and Milton. Florida, Georgia, the Carolina’s and Tennessee are looking at many years of cleanup and recovery from this devastation.

Although the immediate concerns of food, water, shelter are now being met, many folks have been wiped out financially. Many may never return to the level of comfort and security they knew before these storms. But a much bigger, longer term concern is becoming apparent - the toxic bombshells set off across the landscape by the devastation from these geoengineered storms.

Yes, there were sewage systems affected. In particular, Tampa Bay sewage facilities were affected by Helene’s storm surge. I also saw plastic septic tanks floating downriver in some of the videos from NC. In another video from NC a fellow commented that he had seen coffins that had risen from flooded cemeteries floating downstream. Then there are the more dangerous toxins released from wood pulp mills, oil and gas storage facilities, fertilizer factories, a retired nuclear power plant, the fuel, oil and antifreeze released from hundreds, possibly thousands of cars, trucks and tractor trailer rigs, as well as the propane released into the atmosphere from thousands of propane tanks broken loose from their connections by flood waters.

As bad as all of that is, it may pale in comparison to the primary form of garbage seen in most of the videos… plastic. Plastic garbage bins, plastic fuel cans, plastic garbage bags, plastic produce bags, plastic shopping bags, plastic coolers, plastic lawn furniture, plastic toys, plastic car components, plastic road barriers, plastic garden hoses, plastic decks and on and on. Perhaps the most ubiquitous form of plastic are the bottles used for soft drinks and water.

Unfortunately the plastic problem is being exacerbated by shortsighted relief efforts. The most common item we see offloaded from planes, helicopters, trucks and cars bringing in supplies from around the country is plastic water bottles. First they came in by the case, but more recently they’ve been coming in by the pallet, unloaded by the thousands from cargo planes and semi trucks with fork lifts.

As will be pointed out shortly, the longer water sits in a plastic bottle, the more contaminated it becomes by plastic leaching into the water.

‘But they need water,’ you say. My response to that is - they’re surrounded by water. The area has abundant streams. All it needs is filtering. Portable water filter technologies have come a long way. I rarely go on a multi-day hike without taking my small hand operated water filter. I’ve used it many times to filter some disgusting looking water and have never gotten sick. Instead of asking for more plastic to compound the plastic time bomb that the hurricanes have exploded across the landscape, those coordinating the relief effort would have been wise to instead, ask for hand operated water filters. Thousands of water filters that can be used for many years would have cost much less, been much less bulky to deliver and would not have compounded the burdensome plastic disposal problem that the storm impacted regions are now facing.

This reminds me of the old adage - “You can give a man a fish every day to keep him fed or, you can teach him to fish”. The same applies to those in need of water. We can give them bottled water for months, or we can give them a portable water filter and show them how to provide themselves with their own water for the rest of their lives.

We have to remember that in many of the areas affected by the storms, garbage service is non-existent. That means all of those millions of plastic water bottles arriving into the affected regions from all over the country will now add to the toxic legacy of the plastic time bomb created by the hurricanes. How will they dispose of those millions of plastic bottles?

Another option that hasn’t been given enough attention are people with wells. If a well owner has power or a generator, or if they’re like me and they have a well that runs on solar power, those wells are a much better source of water than pallets of plastic bottles shipped in at great energy and financial expense from all over the country. Water tank trucks can be filled at a well and delivered to communities heavily impacted by the storms. Or folks can bring 5 gallon carboys to a well and fill them up. Both of these are superior options to dependency on bottled water laced with toxic plastic.

Another thing being brought in by the thousands are more of the plastic fuel cans that can be seen floating in the debris in the video above.

Who is profiting from all of this plastic?

Because plastic is made from fossil fuel based chemicals, all plastics are toxic. If I could wave a magic wand and ban it all right now, I would. We don’t need them. I’m old enough to remember a time when the world existed just fine without plastic.

a closer look at plastic

There are numerous kinds of plastic, most of which have polymers as a primary ingredient. Nearly 10 billion tons of plastic have been made since 1950, with more than half of that being made since 2004. By 2050, corporations that make plastic are projected to generate over 1 billion tons annually.

As I just mentioned, this is a phenomenon that has occurred in my lifetime. When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s there was little to no plastic in our simple household. We ate with silverware from ceramic plates and drank water out of real glasses. Although polyester fabric was first introduced in the early 1950’s it didn’t reach rural communities like the one in which I grew up until well after I graduated from high school in 1971. Because I have two older brothers, I wore a lot of hand-me-downs. On those occasions when I got new clothes, they were all made with natural fabric like cotton, linen or wool. I was in my 20’s before I wore my first polyester shirt. I remember not liking it because it made me sweat. By the time I was 30 I had banished polyester clothing and bed sheets from my life. By then plastic was becoming ubiquitous.

How many of us asked to have all of this plastic thrust upon us and our planet? Conversely, how many asked to not have all this plastic thus upon us?

I’ve written about plastic here in the past, in particular, regarding the polyethylene that was used to make the PEGylated lipid nanoparticles used in the mRNA covid jabs. Polyethylene is also used to make antifreeze.

Let’ take a closer look at the plastic time bomb that has been set off in areas affected by Helene and Milton.

Polypropelene is used to make Rubbermaid products, carpets, throw rugs, dental floss boxes, plastic furniture, plastic drinking glasses, plastic plates, forks, spoons and so on. All of those things can be found in the storm debris.

Polystyrene is used to make insulative foam boards as well as spray-on insulation. It’s often used to insulate coolers and refrigerators. This is what packing “peanuts” are often made of. It has many applications in typical, toxic, modern home construction. Because it’s so light and airy, it floats really well. All of these things are being found in the storm debris.

Due to all of the homes destroyed by Helene, Milton and tornadoes spawned by Milton in Florida, foam insulation debris from them is washing up on the high tide marks of the beaches of Florida. Polystyrene foam insulation can be attractive to marine animals so it’s likely being eaten by sea turtles and other marine life.

Blue Gabe is a YouTuber I follow. He lives in Florida and makes videos about fishing and hunting. He recently posted a video about a friend who lived in the area where Helene came onshore, who, along with all of his neighbors, lost his house. This is the legacy of modern ‘throw-away’ house construction. Every house in the region is gone. At the very least it brings into question the wisdom of building a home in a region prone to hurricanes.

To learn more about toxic home construction, see this earlier post.

In this video from Blue Gabe, we see his family gathering polystyrene foam insulation from the beaches of Florida.

Polyvinyl chloride is commonly known as PVC. It’s used in plumbing, toothbrushes, vinyl records, insulation for wiring, doors, windows, car parts, packaging, credit and debit cards. All of these things can be found in the storm debris.

Other polymers are; neoprene, nylon (dental floss, clothing), silicone, PVB, polyacrylonitrile and numerous others.

That’s just the highly visible part of the ‘plastic’ toxins that have been strewn across the landscape and coastal regions of the Southeastern US. What we can’t see are all the other types of endocrine disrupting chemicals now buried in debris and mud. One of the worst are the PCB’s spilled from electrical transformers once mounted on power poles that now lie buried in debris and mud.

There are also fire retardants from fire extinguishers, perfluorinated chemicals (PFC’s), containers of pesticides like dioxin, atrazine and organophosphates, all of which have been washed downstream from storage sheds. Places in Western NC and Tennessee that were inundated with millions of cubic yards of mud and debris are now toxic and will likely be so for decades to come. Will the Arts District (hit hard by the flood) of Asheville, NC be declared a toxic wasteland? As I pointed out in this earlier post, much of Western NC sits on top of one of the richest sources of lithium in the world.

Was part of the game plan to make this place so toxic that properties would be declared uninhabitable so they could be bought up by lithium mine investors?

What are they doing with all of that toxic mud and debris being removed from streets, homes, businesses, yards, roads and culverts?

We know that rainwater makes its way down through the soil into the aquifer. The question becomes, how many of the endocrine disrupting toxins released by these storms into the environment are now reaching the aquifer from which much of the population of these areas get their water?

With all of our exposure to plastic, it comes as no surprise that according to a study by the University of Newcastle Australia, the average Westerner consumes the equivalent of a credit card worth of plastic every week. Because drinking water, juice and soft drinks from plastic bottles has become the norm, the study found that most of the plastic people consume is derived from the contents of those plastic bottles.

Most polymers are more stable at lower temperatures. In other words, they leach less at cooler temperatures than warmer ones. But they remain unsafe at any temperature.

Furthermore, all of them are susceptible to degradation by UV rays from sunlight, which speeds up the leaching process. What this means is that all of those pallets of plastic water bottles, fruit juices and foods packaged in plastic containers sitting outside in the sun in parking lots, waiting to be handed over to victims of hurricanes Helene and Milton, are endocrine disrupting time bombs.

One product in particular has come to my attention. Baby formula has been one of the most requested items in hard hit Western NC. (We can go into the endocrine disruption issues that can cause mothers to not have enough milk in another post.) Most formula comes in plastic containers. It’s then heated and fed to the baby in a plastic bottle. People, this is a triple whammy. First, the product is packaged in plastic. Then it sits in the hot sun which further degrades the plastic. Then the product is heated and fed to the baby in a plastic bottle. We are talking about an infant, which apart from a fetus, is the most susceptible to endocrine disrupting chemicals! And the parents wonder why their baby grows up to have endocrine related health issues like gender confusion?

Are we going to see an explosion of disease in these flooded areas due to the massive release of all of these endocrine disrupting chemicals into the environment?

One of the most readily acknowledged effects of polymers on the human body is obesity. If we look at an obesity map of the US we can see that one of the most affected areas of the US is the region hit hard by hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Here is a map of Katrinas path.

As can be seen on the obesity map, the Southeast coastal region of the US and parts of Florida, both of which get hit by a lot of hurricanes, are also plagued by obesity problems.

One of the most well understood aspects of how polymers negatively affect our health is how they disrupt the normal production of endocrine hormones. Many of these endocrine disrupting chemicals have a molecular structure that approximates human hormones, which disrupts our native endocrine system. Because our endocrine system operates in parts per billion, that means there is really no safe level of exposure to these chemicals. Because children and pregnant mothers are especially susceptible to these chemicals, new research is looking into these products as the culprit for the rise in many health issues, including gender confusion.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-human-beast/201911/gender-fluidity-and-hormone-disruptors

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1281309/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3222987/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/02/240226204702.htm

https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2024/latest-science-shows-endocrine-disrupting-chemicals-in-pose-health-threats-globally

Unfortunately, research into this issue is hampered by the fact that if it becomes widely known that these and other endocrine disrupting chemicals are proven to negatively affect our health, the highly profitable sick care industry would collapse. Why? Because the entirety of the modern medical industrial complex is built on an infrastructure laced with endocrine disrupting chemicals. Here are some of the plastics I was exposed to or witnessed when I spent 5 days in the ICU in July 2023 and when I had my knee rebuilt after a farm accident in 2012; forks, spoons, surgical tubing, surgical instruments, polymer based surgical thread for stitching incisions, plastic ventilator components, plastic syringes, polyester bed sheets, polyester gowns, plastic straws, plastic monitoring equipment, plastic counter tops and so on ad nauseam.

Apart from gender confusion in young people exposed to these chemicals in the womb or as young children, other health effects are; obesity, diabetes, lowered sperm counts, reproduction problems in both men and women, hormone sensitive cancers in women, prostate problems in men, testicular cancer, thyroid problems, neurodevelopment problems, IQ loss, autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, intellectual disability, metabolic issues, growth issues, heart health, endometriosis, early puberty, breathing problems and so on.

The question we need to be asking is, how did we get into this mess? Don’t we have regulatory agencies that are supposed to protect us from these kinds of toxins? Of course we do, but they clearly don’t work. As I’ve been pointing out here for the past 4 years, the FDA, the USDA, the EPA and other agencies tasked with protecting us are largely funded by the corporations they are meant to regulate. The reality is, instead of working for us, they work on behalf of those corporations. You astute readers are well aware of the revolving doors that exist between those agencies and the corporations they are meant to regulate. In short, the fox is guarding the hen house.

Yes, RFK Jr. has said he will reform these agencies if he and Trump get into the White House. Even CHD has begun a campaign to reform the FDA. I’m dubious on both counts. Buckminster Fuller explains why I’m dubious - “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” I long ago passed that quote to both RFK Jr and CHD. Yet, both want to take the misguided approach of trying to change the existing reality. If Trump and RFK get into the White House and attempt to change that existing reality, I predict they will fail. Here’s why. Their version of reality says that pharmaceutical drugs, plastics and other endocrine disrupting chemicals can be regulated into becoming safe. Trump, RFK Jr and CHD all claim we just need to regulate them harder than we have in the past.

Fuller would say - WRONG!

As I’ve said here many times now, history has shown us that regulation doesn’t work. We need nothing more than to be set free. We can begin by doing away with all the regulatory agencies. They are not needed. They just get in the way of the real solution - the ability to regulate those corporations ourselves. We just need to be free to do so. The key is to allow anyone who has been harmed by these toxic products to sue the offending corporation or industry. I guarantee after a few years and hundreds of billions in lawsuit settlements, those companies will reform themselves and begin to make all-natural alternatives… or their shareholders will abandon them and they’ll go under. That’s how free market capitalism is supposed to work.

The disastrous result of letting the fox guard the hen house can be seen in the numerous videos on YouTube, Rumble, X and elsewhere that show the toxic destruction and the toxic debris left behind by Helene and Milton. Although we are not yet hearing much about it, I predict the toxic aftermath of Helene in Western NC and Eastern Tennessee will be in the alternative news for years to come. Because the legacy media gets its revenue from the same corporate sources responsible for these toxic crimes, we won’t be hearing anything about this from CNN, MSNBC, Fox or any other legacy news source.

Be free.