GStafford

Looking for solutions.

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@pondsntrees @CoffeeDoq Also those machines carry diseases like ash die back from tree to tree.

Good foresters sterilise their equipment. The ESB cutters and others don't.

A forester recently told me they tried to bring this to the Agri Departments attention to no avail.

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@pondsntrees @CoffeeDoq https://t.co/1DsN5L9xCr

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Trees release invisible chemicals into the air to protect themselves from bugs and disease. Turns out those same chemicals also switch on your body's cancer-fighting cells.

They're called natural killer cells. They're a type of white blood cell that patrols your bloodstream looking for cancer cells and virus-infected cells. When they find one, they punch a hole through its outer wall and inject proteins that force the cell to self-destruct from the inside. You're born with them. Unlike most of your immune system, they don't need to be "trained" on a specific threat first. They just attack anything that looks wrong.

The 50% number in this tweet comes from Dr. Qing Li at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, who has been studying the effects of forests on the human body since 2004. His original 2007 study took 12 men on a 3-day, 2-night forest trip, walking two hours a day. Blood tests showed 11 of 12 had roughly 50% more cancer-killing cell activity afterward. A follow-up with 13 female nurses found the same thing. But the part the tweet leaves out: the boost didn't vanish when they went home. It lasted over 7 days in both groups, and in men, it was still detectable in blood work 30 days later. Li's conclusion is that one forest trip per month could keep these cells running at a higher level year-round.

The obvious next question is whether it's the forest itself or just the vacation. Li tested this directly. A separate group took a city tourist trip with the same amount of walking. No boost to killer cells. No stress hormone drop. Zero effect. Then he ran an even more controlled test: 12 men stayed in a regular Tokyo hotel room for three nights while a humidifier pumped tree oil (from Japanese cypress) into the air overnight. Their killer cells still went up. Their stress hormones still dropped. That isolates the cause to those tree chemicals, called phytoncides. Pine, cedar, and cypress trees release the most. These chemicals were found in forest air but were nearly absent in city air. A 2021 lab study showed that one of these tree chemicals directly switches on killer cells and slows colon tumor growth in mice.

The bigger picture connects these cells directly to cancer risk. An 11-year study published in The Lancet (one of the world's top medical journals) tracked 3,625 Japanese people and found that those with weaker natural killer cells developed cancer at significantly higher rates. A separate study screening for bowel cancer found that people with low killer cell levels were 7 times more likely to be diagnosed. Li's own research across all 47 regions of Japan showed that areas with less forest had higher cancer death rates for lung, breast, uterine, prostate, kidney, and colon cancers, even after accounting for differences in smoking rates and wealth.

The caveats: Li's original studies used small groups (12 and 13 people), and the regional data show a pattern but don't directly prove that forests prevent cancer. No large-scale clinical trial has confirmed that yet. But the chain is consistent: trees release chemicals, those chemicals wake up the cells in your blood that kill cancer, the effect lasts weeks, not hours, and people with more active killer cells get cancer less often.

Japan now has 65 government-certified Forest Therapy sites across the country, each tested and approved based on the physical effects they have on visitors.

[Pelham @Resist_05]

Holocaust survivor Gabor Maté describes the Israel 🇮🇱 Palestine 🇵🇸 conflict as the longest ethnic cleansing operation in our history…

Please watch…🔊

[Double Down News @DoubleDownNews]

There’s a Sickness at the Heart of Politics & It’s Called Oligarchy @GeorgeMonbiot

[Mick Wallace @wallacemick]

A St Patrick's Day message for #ButcherBiden from Ireland - "Because of our history, the Irish people will never forgive those who enable the Oppression, Ethnic Cleansing + Genocide of another people as you have done in #Gaza - We stand with the people of #Palestine"...

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@seanohargain Hang on Boss,
I thought I had that right already.

La feile duit

[Sarah Wilkinson @swilkinsonbc]

I refuse to build technology that powers the israeli genocide, says staff member disrupting a google-sponsored israeli tech conference in NYC

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@pippa_hackett I'd like to stick him
head first
into a very deep Bog Hole.

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@NaturaCommunity @forum_wetlands Is it freeely availabke anywhwere,
That Does Not Require Signing In ???

Is mise, le meas,
g.s.

[BDS movement @BDSmovement]

Though the ICJ has ordered it to stop all genocidal acts against Palestinians in Gaza, Israel is openly defying the Court’s orders.

Let’s use #IsraeliApartheidWeek to escalate all #BDS campaigns and disrupt business as usual with genocidal Israel!

https://t.co/wK5s0YuKU3

[Roger Hallam @RogerHallamCS21]

Farmers are on the frontline - and so they are stuck in a terrible dilemma - they are being forced to bear the costs of a post carbon transition while the rich who created the crisis get let off. So they rightly object to this injustice.

At the same time the collapse of the climate and specifically #AMOC will not just put them out of business - it will self evidently create social chaos - which no farmer in their right mind wants.

The solution is to come together in assemblies and decide on a third way:

1. The the rich should pay for the transition, not farmers
2. Citizens' Assemblies, not elite captured governments, are the only bodies with the political legitimacy to create a path through the terrible times ahead without the added horror of people turning on each other.

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@DrUmarAlQadri To anyone who may care.
I vouch for this man as one
of the Gentlemen and Scholars
I would listen to with great concentration
at any give opportunity .

Is mise, le meas

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@gormanifa @IFAmedia What about the SLAUGHTERING OF BABIES ?

Do we value our trade deals and profits too much to stop facilitating the American War Machine using us as a landing base ?

CAN WE NOT STOP THIS
HAVE WE NOT THE POWERS TO STAND UP

[GStafford @GStafford2]

Land Guardians of Ireland.

IS THERE ANY BEEF OR DAIRY in Ireland that is fed purely on Irish grass.

Are they all eating calories from the burnt lungs of our planet ?

The Amazon is being ripped apart to grow the soya and vegetable oil we feed our livestock.

Mise, g

[Roger Hallam @RogerHallamCS21]

The Situation is Beyond F**ked. 1000’s of millions of Climate Refugees, Economic Collapse & Human Extinction.

Only mass civil resistance can stop the top global 1% imposing mass death on billions of people.

Join me in a Global Revolution to change it👇
https://t.co/pokwvHDiPe

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@whittledaway No guardians of the land would burn tyres to poison air that children breathe .

[dr. gianluca grimalda @GGrimalda]

Seeing 36 scientists @ResponsibleSci travelling to the Kyoto🇯🇵Climate Conference (COP3) from Europe by🚅+⛴️+🚴‍♀️in 1997 to cut their CO2 emissions inspired me to start #LowCarbonTravel. It's an honour to support their Fair Lifestyle Targets campaign👉https://t.co/37Zq7NFy3t .1/

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@gormanifa @IFAmedia You'd get some headlines if you just parked up on the runways of Shannon Airport to stop the US Military Planes.

And great applause from all over the world.

[GStafford @GStafford2]

@TadhgHickey @DorancoPaul And The Beef Tribunal