Homage to a Rural Life / Hommage à la vie rurale - Denis Palmer

Denis Palmer is an artist who moved to the Eastern Townships of Quebec 30 years ago. “I have been drawing and painting the people and events of Sawyerville and its surroundings since I arrived here in 1979. I am attracted to the character of the people, the work they do, the pace of their lives, the manner in which they seek to maintain harmony with their surroundings, and their responses to change and the passage of time. In conversation I record their knowledge of family, ancestry, community; their long memories for patterns of weather and the seasons, the joyful and difficult times of the past, as well as the flavour of their speech.”
Click on picture for full frame.

George Rowell of Clifton © Denis Palmer 1999

The year I went to school it was down here at the Legion hall
-- agricultural course
They was teachin' us about herbicides, animals, chemicals...
Most of the fellas who was there ain't farmin' today.
Afterwards, government sent me a paper
wanted to know how much I was making a day.
I told 'em two dollars and a half and I wasn't lyin' much.
They never wrote back.

George Rowell mending maple sap spiles, East Clifton, Fri. Mar 21, 1997. © Denis Palmer 2002
Fixin' spouts –
They're bent, mashed
where the hammer face hits.
“I shoulda been watchin' you fellas
use a hammer with a flat face;
an don't drive the spout too hard;
Course, aluminum spout ain't too hard to damage.
Guess I'd prefer wood
They don't hurt the tree so much.

Sam Lake shears sheep at the Cookshire Fair, Sun. Aug. 18, 2002. © Denis Palmer 2002. Thanks for your story, Sam.
“I's born 'n' raised here a mile outside 'a Sawyerville.
My grandfather built the place.
I's provincial champion shearin' sheep in '61 and '62.
My record was a minute an' 59 seconds.
Once sheared 101 sheep in a day.
Took me 10 ¾ hours.
I musta been – lotta time back
(pause, scratches his head, runs hand through thinning white hair)
...35, 36 years old.

Denis offers a drawing course to locals at Eaton Valley Community Learning Centre, recently showed and read his work at the Sense and Sustainability conference, and published Homage to a Rural Life / Hommage à la vie rurale (Sawyerville, Quebec: Rabbit Press, 2008; French translation by Aline Élie). It is dedicated to George and Myrtle Rowell of East Clifton, an older couple who welcomed Palmer into their lives when he moved to the area, and whose reminiscences (and others') are recorded throughout, in their own unpretentious words.

If you liked this, see artists Allen Sapp and William Kurelek of Saskatchewan (video, songs, art) and other poets of rural Canada: Alfred Purdy of Eastern Ontario, Milton Acorn of PEI, Alden Nowlan and Elizabeth Brewster of NB, Robert Kroetsch of Alberta. U of Calgary's Canadian Poetry includes interviews and audio. U of Toronto Library Canadian Poets has sample poems.

See also Wendell Berry, Kentucky poet, farm writer and philosopher -- especially his “Idea of a Local Economy” (Orion 2001) and “Faustian Economics: Hell hath no limits” (Harpers, May 2008); James Howard Kunstler's dystopia A World Made by Hand: A Novel of the Post-Oil Future (2008); artisan-designer William S. Coperthwaite, A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity (Chelsea Green 2004, photography by Peter Forbes); Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN), Canadian Organic Growers / Cultivons Biologique Canada, Réseau québécois des groupes écologistes, Solidarité rurale, & Union paysanne.

"The idea of a local economy rests upon only two principles: neighborhood and subsistence...": Wendell Berry.

In Guatemala - by Kathy Coster

(a volunteer with InnovativeCommunities.org in Guatemala)
The villages, volcanoes and Lake Atitlán: photos by D. Millar
Feb. 2: Today saw the delivery of 50 ONIL stoves to Santa Catarina Palopó, the neighbouring town to San Antonio. [The ONIL stove is a revolutionary stove design and implementation system that services the poorest by protecting women and children from burn and lung disease, the number one killer for children under 5 years old, and by saving women 2 days a week gathering wood. This valuable time is then available for economic and social activity.]

I actually arrived on time – not an easy thing to do as I've gotten out of bed most reluctantly these last few mornings as it has been very chilly and windy and bed so cozy. Dressed in several layers, I had breakfast and set off to find a picop. [see photo below]

By the time I reached Santa Catarina I was peeling off clothing because the sun comes over the mountain by 9 am and the wind seemed to die down or it is more sheltered there. Very shortly after my arrival women started to drift into the square and we waited for the truck to arrive with the stoves, which it did shortly. I phoned Rodolfo who was in charge but hadn’t shown up yet and he was in Panajachel so the stove truck driver organized the people to unload the truck and this time we did it by making a spot for each complete stove, which consists of about 14 parts. That worked quite well (my experience had been to pile by parts and each woman was given the parts to her own stove as her name was checked off). With today's method, after all the stoves were complete the women were asked to stand by one and we went around and checked everyone off and had them sign for it. Still shocks me that so many can’t sign their names, even the younger ones, and had to use their thumbs.

Three hours later we still had two unclaimed stoves and 15 water filters. One woman never turned up though had paid for her stove, one was an oversight on my part in that we had received a stove for the demonstration and I had forgotten that and ordered 50 instead of 49. Rodolfo got someone to store the first one for the person and said he knew someone who really needed one and went and asked her and she happily paid for it and carried it away – with the help of many of her 7 kids and husband. The water filters -- I had completely forgotten to mention to Rodolfo that they were coming! There they sat. The intention had been to put them in the health centre, which turned out to be closed all weekend. Some Muni workers came by and when asked said it would be fine but they might get stolen if put in the Municipal building for the weekend. Finally Rodolfo asked the owner of the art gallery right on the main plaza and he said sure and they are hopefully safely stored upstairs in the art gallery!

And then I was off to Panajachel, went to a nice little outdoor garden restaurant near the lake and had a delicious avocado sandwich on homemade wholewheat bread and a limonada. Just as I finished a woman came to the table for some reason I can’t remember and said something about a project, I said where, she said Panabaj, I said are you Louise Sosa, she said yes. We have been corresponding for ages, planning to meet when she got here (she lives in Qualicum BC and works with Mayan families). It was great to meet her and I would say she's a person of remarkable energy and dedication and useful skills for projects...

Sunday... Interesting to see how my energy waxes and wanes. [Afternoon] going with Maria to visit a widow and see if there is any way we can help, and one possible stove recipient. I would like to talk with Francisca, the widowed mother of five whom we are helping, too but need to see if Adelaida, her niece who can translate, would come too...

Later, I went out with Maria and it was really nice and cloudy but warm then the clouds blew away and it got hot. Very strange weather! The hills seemed to groan as I walked up – oh no, guess that was me! When we got ‘up’ we then followed a water course down toward the lake to a house of a woman (and her family) who is going to get a stove and of whom, for some reason, we had no picture. Wow did she have a lovely spot- tiny lot, adobe house, dirt floor - overlooking the lake with nothing to spoil her view. After that we hiked up to the road and then all the way down to the south end of the main road in town and then hiked up again to the house of Petrona, a new widow. She has 4 children, 2 of whom are in school, one´s about 3 with a bad cold and one is several months old and cute as a button, in fact they were all cute. We were talking to her when her mother in law, who is also a widow but of several years, came and started asking for some help too. I said perhaps they could share some of the food! She actually has grown children and can go out and work when there is work washing onions and other things. In the scheme of things I wasn´t feeling very sympathetic toward her.

Anyway, this new widow´s main concern was schoolbooks and mochilas for her children which I said we would buy along with some maiz and a few other things. She speaks no Spanish and is 30 and we will be giving her a stove.

After being with her for a while we went to visit (much higher up) Juana, another new widow and as we approached her door we could hear her crying and she was kneeling in front of a little altar where a candle was burning. She beckoned us to come in and said she was crying because her 10 year old son had headed off to the coast the day before to sell vegetables like his father had done and was due back in about an hour. [Guatemala is still a very dangerous place due to robbers, gang violence and rightwing death squads - Ed]. I tried not to think about that but find myself worrying and hoping he made it back.

We sat and talked for a while. She is already signed up for a stove. She and her husband had purchased a little piece of land higher up in the village but nothing is built on it. She is living on her in-laws property and doesn’t know how long she will be allowed to stay there. She has 5 children, 3 of whom are in school.

She weaves so I ordered three 'servietas' from her and they will take her about 5 weeks to make. These are what the women carry with them all the time and use for shopping bags – a large square piece of material made of the same pattern that the huipiles are made here in the village. They wear them folded on their heads when carrying something heavy and also as a wind shield and a shawl. I think we can sell them for small table cloths.

Malaysia bloggers campaign for trams

Last spring, bloggers and webmasters in Penang, western Malaysia launched a Penangites for Trams campaign. Some tracks still exist from prewar days. A spirited exchange between advocates of trams, bus, LRT and mixed public transit ensued. Supporters admit that trams work best as part of an integrated public transport system, fed by an efficient and extensive network of buses -- certainly a better solution than the current polluting gridlock of private vehicles.

Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple, Penang: UK Daily Telegraph

"Trams are not just a thing of the past but of the future," claims local historian Khoo Salma Nasution, who wrote Penang Trams, Trolleybuses & Railways: Municipal Transport History 1880s-1963. She called the the tramcar "iconic identity for Penang" that could "revitalise the heritage of the inner city." Referring to a rival LRT proposal, Citizens for Public Transport (CEPAT) coordinator Dr Choong Sim Poey said, "There are many alternatives besides the intrusive overhead monorail system that are cheaper, more sustainable and suitable for Penang with its heritage city and tree-lined roads." He cited as a model the O-Bahn bus and rail links of Adelaide, Australia, and many German cities. The campaigners cite benefits of trams from the City of Edinburgh website .
- Trams don’t take up a lot of road space but they do carry a lot of people. As Edinburgh continues to grow, trams will be the most efficient way for people to travel about our city.
Downtown Penang; courtesy travelblog.org
- Trams show a city is a modern and well- connected place to do business which can lead to more investment, new jobs, regeneration and more prosperity for us all.
- an attractive option for motorists... 20% of peak hour and 50% of weekend tram passengers in the UK previously travelled by car.
- enhance the urban environment and generate civic pride.
- Trams will encourage shoppers to travel to the city centre which can lead to more investment by businesses and regeneration. Dublin saw a rise of between 20% - 50% in pedestrian footfall figures on Grafton Street, the city’s main shopping thoroughfare. Some retailers reported a 25% increase in trade.
Penang mosque, UK Daily Telegraph
- Residential and commercial properties may see prices increase beside tram routes. In some cities with trams, house prices have risen by up to 15% and rental prices by up to 7%
- no emissions from the vehicles.
- Trams will be accessible to everyone, with benefits of low level boardings at every stop and other easy-to-use features which particularly help the disabled and less mobile.
- safe to use as, in addition to a driver, every tram will have a passenger attendant on board to check tickets, answer passenger queries and ensure no anti-social behaviour occurs.
- offer concessionary fares.
- To which the Penangites add: electric trams, or light rail transit as they are known in many countries, do not require a licence from the federal government to operate but can be undertaken by the local council."

-- Thanks to bloggers Anil Netto, Sean Ang, and Southeast Asia e-Community for this story.

Ancapagari - by Carolyn Forché

View from Bear creek trail, Ancapagari: Uncompahgre Wilderness
In the morning of the tribe this name Ancapagari was given to these mountains. The name, then alive, spread into the world and never returned. Ancapagari: no foot-step ever spoken, no mule deer killed from its foothold, left for dead. Ancapagari opened the stones. Pine roots gripped peak rock with their claws. Water dug into the earth and vanished, boiling up again in another place. The water was bitten by aspen, generations of aspen shot their light colored trunks into space. Ancapagari. At that time, if the whisper was in your mouth, you were lighted.

Now these people are buried. The root-taking, finished. Buried in everything, thousands taken root. The roots swell, nesting. Openings widen for the roots to surface.

They sway within you in steady wind of your breath. You are forever swinging between this being and another, one being and another. There is a word for it crawling in your mouth each night. Speak it.

Ancapagari has circled, returned to these highlands. The yellow pines deathless, the sparrow hawks scull, the waters are going numb. Ancapagari longs to be spoken in each tongue. It is the name of the god who has come from among us.

-- from her first chapbook Gathering the Tribes. (Yale University Press 1976, poems about her experiences among native women) online at Poetry Foundation. Forché's extraordinary body of work includes The Country Between Us (1981, about the genocides in El Salvador), Against Forgetting (1992, an anthology of other poets of witness), The Angel of History (1994), and Blue Hour (2003). She was deeply influenced by her Slovak immigrant grandmother, some of whose family were sent to the death camps of Ravensbrück and Theresienstadt.

In 1776 when the Spanish Empire was exploring Colorado, Escalante reported the Native American name for the region as Ancapagari (from Ute Uncompahgre) meaning "dirty water" or "red water hot spring" from which its waters came. Forché's poem explores the deep spirituality of the people who were rooted in this land. See also Colorado Wilderness map. The Ute, like many other native peoples, were invaded, massacred, and forced onto tiny reservations. See Wikipedia for brief notes about their traditional art, culture, and use of native minerals and plants.

Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent -- by Andew Nikiforuk

Did you know the tarsands now are 20% of US oil supply? That Canada has displaced Saudi Arabia? Why are critics ignored, censored or fired? What can ordinary citizens do? Veteran environmental journalist Andrew Nikiforuk tells about its environmental impacts and Canadian governments' role.

The frenzied development ($100 billion and counting) of the oil sands in Fort McMurray, Alberta, in the last six years has made Canada the world’s fifth greatest global exporter of oil and turned the country into “an emerging energy superpower.”

Combining extensive scientific research and compelling writing, Andrew Nikiforuk takes the reader to Fort McMurray, home to some of the world’s largest open-pit mines, and explores this twenty-first-century pioneer town from the exorbitant cost of housing to its more serious social ills. He uncovers a global Deadwood, complete with rapturous engineers, cut-throat cocaine dealers, aimless bush workers, American evangelicals, and the largest population of homeless people in northern Canada. Tarsands production:

• burns more carbon than conventional oil,
• destroys forests and displaces woodland caribou,
• poisons the water supply and communities downstream,
• drains the Athabasca, the river that feeds Canada’s largest watershed, and
• contributes to climate change.

The book does provide hope, however, and ends with an exploration of possible solutions to the problem.

"The Alberta tar sands are a cesspool of pollution. Nikiforuk’s elegantly written book delivers all the gory details about toxic lakes, heat-trapping greenhouse gases, and the fiction of reclamation. Tar Sands also reveals how Canada’s new status as a petrostate has jeopardized its democracy. His 12 steps to energy sanity should be required reading for every citizen."-- Georgia Straight

"Award-winning journalist Andrew Nikiforuk explores why, while the world is going green, Canada is going black in Tar Sands, which includes a fascinating look at Fort McMurray’s black-gold rush town, often lawless and corrupt." -- Canadian Bookseller

"Required reading for the President in preparation for his first foreign trop is the book Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, by Andrew Nikiforuk, which was published to wide acclaim in Canada in the fall… It details the impact [of]... the world’s largest energy project and one of its dirtiest and most dangerous. In anticipation of Obama’s visit, Prime Minister Harper told the press: ‘To be frank on the oil sands, we’ve got to do a better job environmentally.’ Read Nikiforuk’s book and you’ll see why Harper’s comment has already won the award for Biggest Understatement of 2009." --Huffington Post

"Investigative journalist and national treasure Andrew Nikiforuk documents the exorbitant economic, social and environmental costs of building Alberta’s Tar Sands." -- Maisonneuve

"Nikiforuk believes the tar sands should be developed gradually and with far greater environmental sensitivity… Nikiforuk paints a picture of the current development as an environmental cesspool. In fact… the tar sands are Canada’s single largest growing source of carbon dioxide, and by 2020 will account for no less than 16% of the nation’s total emissions." -- Regina Leader-Post

“[Tar Sands] provides an excellent guide to all of the environmental repercussions of our oil dependency. The political analysis is also good, sounding a warning about our dangerous energy 'interdependence' with the declining American empire…” -- Quill & Quire

"It’s an important book, one that every Canadian should read to find out how the world’s largest energy project will affect us." -- David Suzuki Foundation

"If you want to be scared, you don’t need to watch a horror movie or read the latest Stephen King bestseller. Real terror can be found by simply firing up Google Earth… [where] you can see what Alberta's tar sands look like from space. It’s not a pretty sight… A recent book by celebrated journalist Andrew Nikiforuk, Tar Sands… explores what these grey spots on Google Earth mean to Canada’s environment and economy. It’s an important book, one that every Canadian should read to find out how the worlds largest energy project will affect us." -- Georgia Straight

"In his recent book Tar Sands… Nikiforuk lands a knockout blow on the kissers of the oil industry, oil-friendly bureaucrats, and petrol-guzzling North Americans. It is obvious that this Canadian is sick and tired of watching his own beloved habitat mutate from a pristine Northern ecosystem to a veritable toxic wasteland. …His book combines intensive research with a lively, caustic writing style… sort of enlightened invective. This makes for an astonishingly entertaining read that raises your hackles while raising your awareness about a seriously dangerous issue. …With Nikiforuk barking and biting at the heels of the oiligarchs stomping around his home turf, every Canadian and American will have little difficulty recognizing that bitumen is far too dirty to have a place in the future of our continent." -- Sustainablog

"Nikiforuk …took pains to ensure his book went beyond preaching to the converted. Tar Sands begins with a bluntly worded 22-point ‘declaration of a political emergency’ and ends with a 12-step plan to regain ‘energy sanity,’ which includes action the general reader can take. In between, Nikiforuk writes not only about environmental and political concerns, but takes the reader into the frenzied boom of Fort McMurray and along the so-called ‘highway to hell’ that leads to it."-- Calgary Herald

See also the feature documentary H2Oil (2009); National Geographic March 2009 on the tarsands: Scraping Bottom and interviews with Albertans of all stripes in the video Shifting Sand; Dominionpaper.ca download special issue on tarsands (Oct 2009); Dogwood Initiative about Haida opposition to tarsands-Kitimat pipeline-tankers to China; Andrew Nikiforuk, Tar Sands (2009) order pb or ebook; James Hoggan, Climate Cover-Up (2009) about oil industry funding -- $millions -- to climate change deniers.

Canada rejects human right to water

The human rights video The Price of Silence is by Amnesty International.

Maude Barlow is senior adviser on water to the president of the United Nations. Her letter to the editor appeared in the Globe and Mail 20 Mar 09.

So the Harper government's effort to win a seat on the UN Security Council could be hampered by its decision to transfer aid from Africa to Latin America (CIDA Cuts To Africa Could Hamper UN Ambitions - G&M 16 March 09). There is an additional concern: I believe the Harper government should be denied a seat on the UN Security Council until it formally recognizes water as an international human right, a right it has rejected at the UN Human Rights Council.

Unsafe water and sanitation are the source of 85 per cent of all disease, and one in every six people on Earth has no access to clean drinking water. A UN covenant would clarify that it is a state's responsibility to provide sufficient, safe, accessible and affordable water to all of its citizens.

If the government fails to act on the global water crisis, it simply does not deserve the leadership role it covets at the United Nations.

-- Maude Barlow

See also Maude Barlow's Blue Planet; Council of Canadians Right to Water campaign; 1h20.org; Water Integrity Network / Transparency International Global Corruption report (2008); previous posts here on water , food, MDGs; Water for the Ages blog with links, by Abigail Brown, a water expert in Oregon; IDRC e-book Water as a Human Right for the Middle East and North Africa (2008), and the Global Elders campaign Every Human Has Rights

Laughing, crying, living, dying: two poems

from the conference Sense and Sustainability, U de Montréal, March 2009.

The Art of Walking - by Michael Mirolla. Published in Penumbra, Vol. 15 (2005).

The roadkill rises, eyes rimmed in red.
The racoons, the rabbits, the rats. And you.
We dwell on the edge of somewhere. Like angels perhaps
flirting between possibilities. Like angels maybe
licking each other’s wounds.
A gaunt cow stands knee deep
in a sub-divided field. Stares out in the fervent hope
of slaughterhouse. That quick clean cut to the jugular.
Here, the signs come fast and furious.
Oops! You’ve just missed Camelot.
An exclusive enclave. For the millionaire. In each of us.
Sheep manure for sale. By appointment only.
Call Art.
The highway leans hard into the wind, its dull roar
like a grinding machine for the future. It spits out
godliness
detached housing
luminosity
evergreen rugs.
One-legged flamingos stalking the elusive fast-food wrapper.
Cars snapping at the heels of brittle corn stalks.
The highway leans hard into the wind. Behind it,
civilization’s stubborn convoy.
Impressions of faces against taut plastic.
Crucifixes around the necks of mourning doves.
Vacuum-sealed.
In the distance,
The hills continue to ovulate.
The trees strain against their leashes.
The windmills ride off half-cocked.
The snakes, the skunks, the squirrels are rising. And you.
We live on the edge of nowhere.
In a quiet cul de sac.
We reside on the edge of nowhere.
In a quiet cul de sac.
The sign at the end of the street:
Roadkill ahead.

Michael Mirolla is a Montreal-Toronto corridor poet novelist, and playwright. He has published two novels, Berlin and The Boarder, collected short stories, The Formal Logic of Emotion (an Italian translation is forthcoming) and Hothouse Loves & Other Tales, and poetry, Light And Time; bilingual English-Italian poems Interstellar Distances/Distanze Interstellari are forthcoming. His short story, “A Theory of Discontinuous Existence,” was selected for The Journey Prize Anthology; another short story, “The Sand Flea,” won first prize in the Arkansas College Media Association Convention and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His short fiction and poetry has been published in numerous journals in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, including several anthologies such as Event’s Peace & War Anthology, Telling Differences: New English Fiction from Quebec, Tesseracts 2: Canadian Science Fiction, the Collection of Italian-Canadian Fiction, and New Wave of Speculative Fiction Book 1.

A Funeral Song for Magda July 3, 1922 - February 16, 2005
- by Ilona Martonfi

On a bitter February day
a light snow falling,
mother is the blue sky.
Bare catalpa tree:
seed pods rattle in the wind
in my blind sister’s backyard.

Mother is the water
washing her daughters’ hair.
Laughing and crying,
in my blind sister’s kitchen.

Mother is the body I carry,
twelve white roses and baby’s breath.

Silver grey hearse.
Cars and lorries pull over:
a small-town tradition.
Cornstalks and funeral flags.

Mother is the railway crossing:
a cemetery on the right.
Six pallbearers and requiem choir.
Purple glass bead rosary.
A Hail Mary full of grace,
in my blind sister’s voice.

Mother is the empty room
we didn’t enter for ten days,
in my blind sister’s house.

This poem by Ilona Martonfi first appeared in Vallum Spirit 5:2, (2007), forthcoming in poetry book, Blue Poppy, (Montreal : Coracle Press, 2009). Her publications include a Coracle Press chapbook, Visiting the Ridge (2004), poems in Fiddlehead, Vallum, Carte Blanche, Carve, Bibliosofia (Italy), Accenti, Arcade, Headlight Anthology, Soliloquies, Helios, Montreal Serai, Fire With Water, Poets Against The War, Fruits Of The Branch: A Montreal Branch CAA Anthology, and Sun Through the Blinds: Haiku Today. Finalist in 2007 Quebec Writing Competition. Published story, “My Daughter, Marisa,” in CBC Story Anthology III, In Other Words: New English Writing from Quebec (Véhicule Press, 2008). Poet, editor, creative writing teacher. Founder, producer/host of The Yellow Door and Visual Arts Centre Poetry and Prose Readings. Co-founder, producer/host of the annual "Lovers & Others".

Birds, songs and sources

These waxbill finches were among several photos of birds just posted by Haole in DailyKos. The adult's brilliant beak is exactly the colour of sealing wax. Apparently the lower ones are juveniles. Like many other species in Hawaii, they may have been introduced. This adaptable tropical bird has spread around the world, often escaping from cages. They also line their nests with predator scat to keep enemies away. Bird brains are smarter than we think.

See also E-bird for US sightings of the common waxbill, its song on Xeno-Canto: bird songs from the Americas; other DailyKos bird pix from lineatus in San Francisco and juliewolf in New England. Birdlife State of the World's Birds (2008) reports one in eight wild bird species is threatened with global extinction, with 190 species now critically endangered. The trend is worsening, according to the IUCN's Red List.

"Care to Care" - Canadian doctors in Kurdistan

Left, Dale Dewar's CME in Solal - Len Kelly photos
Since 2003 Canadian doctors have been giving continuing medical education (CME) to rural physicians in Kurdistan, a wartorn and underserviced region. This is a unique partnership between the Canadian rural doctors / ob-gyn specialists, Canadian Friends Service Committee (Quakers), and the Kurdistan government. Delicate negotiations with leaders different tribal areas, deans of medicine and provincial ministers were also required.

In this region 70% of births are at home with untrained attendants. The other 30% are in hospitals or birthing centres -- where the Caesarean section rate is 50% and the episiotomy rate is 100%. Women fear to go to the hospitals because they will “get cut”. There are worse risks. Maternal morbidity and mortality are high. Obstetrical care is left to women doctors with less training, facilities and simple technologies, and less opportunity to travel for education.

Each session trains up to 40 physicians and nurses in up-to-date skills for early recognition of obstetrical emergencies and interventions.Some will be trained to teach alongside the Canadian instructors in a “train the trainers” project.

One team member stated that it "far surpassed [my] expectations with respect to welcome, teaching opportunities, safety and travel opportunities." Another noted: "[I] developed a respect for the skill and knowledge of Kurdish physicians" and found the people "fiercely proud, warm and welcoming ... we will never fully understand the decades of suffering and loss they have endured."

Along with rural expertise, the trainers share a passion for women's health and women's rights. Dr. Jaelene Mannerfeldt, an obstetrician from Okotoks, Alberta, is in charge of 2008-09 courses. She has experience both in the Canadian development of ALARM (Advances in Labour and Risk Management) and in instructing nationally and internationally. Two other instructors last fall were nurse Christine Nadori from Ottawa and Dr. Ahmed Ezzat from Saskatoon. The facilitator is Dr. Dale Dewar from Wynyard, Saskatchewan who with Dr. Narmin Ibrahim of Saskatoon initiated the Kurdistan project.

One of the 2003 trainings took place in Halabja, site of an infamous gas attack by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1988, when a fifth of the 25 000 local inhabitants died immediately and the rest fled. What was not reported by Western media was that more than 250 Kurdish villages were attacked. Local medical staff still see severe medical effects (respiratory, neurologic, oncologic and fertility) 15 years later. Ground water and soil have yet to be tested.

On the road to Halabja

The local hospital director of Halabja and his medical staff of 12, most of whom were general practitioners, took part in a series of interactive workshops over four days. Being close to the Iranian border, the community was not felt to be safe enough for westerners. At the Ministry of Health's suggestion the visitors spent 4 hours a day travelling by road to and from a more secure area.

Abenaki spring song / Tire d’érable abénaki

American robin by hikerboy45

Traditionally, Nicole O’Bomsawin tells us, the solitude of the winter camps ended in the maple groves where all the women of the Abenaki would collect the sap, singing 400 at a time, a special song with liquid syllables. With spring breakup, the people could now paddle along the “road that moves” to the rendezvous. Rivers are the blood of Mother Earth, the land her body, the sap her milk. And crystallized maple sugar was a eucharist, to be traded for other particular gifts of the Creator, at the sacred truce points: Tadoussac, Trois Rivières, Hochelaga.

Abenaki petrogpyphs, Vermont by aspergillus_n

Selon Nicole O'Bomsawin, dans la tradition des abénakis, la solitude des camps d’hiver prend fin dans la rassemblement du printemps. Après le débâcle, ou le peuple peut prendre la « route qui se meuve ». c’est le festin. Jusqu’à 400 femmes de la tribu chantaient ensemble au tir d’érable. Un chant spécial aux syllabes liquides. Si les rivières sont le sang de notre Mère, la terre son corps, la sève est son lait. Et le sucre d’érable son eucharistie, don particulier du Créateur à échanger aux grands rendezvous qui furent Tadoussac, Trois Rivières, et Hochelaga.

Nicole est adjointe à la direction et responsable du dossier des relations autochtones inter-réserve et internationales, du biosphère du Lac-Saint-Pierre. Sa photo-exploration en kayak, Alsiganteku.

Abenaki Nation and legends, Travel guide to the Lac St Pierre biosphere, E-bird maps and barcharts; date the American Robin is first heard singing.

Worst-case global warming is upon us - scientists

The IPCC and UNU estimated 150 million environmental refugees in a +2ºC scenario, most of them women and children. There are already almost 50 million. See UN maps of threatened areas shown at Bonn in June 2009.
photo courtesy Edouard Stenger
Latest scientific data exceed worst-case IPCC scenarios. At the Copenhagen Climate Congress, 10-12 March 09, scientists say the tipping points for +5 to +6ºC have been passed. The 2007 report of the IPCC said that average temperatures could rise by up to 6ºC this century if no action were taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Many scientists say this understates impacts, because emissions are rising faster than the old BAU (Business As Usual) trend line.

BAU is no longer an option, they told governments and business lobbies who have been delaying action for 15 years. Prepare for at least +4ºC, says Bob Watson of DEFRA, a former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Steven Sherwood of Yale and British science advisor Sir David King warned of "runaway" warming above 4ºC from Arctic methane hydrate release. Research is scurrying to keep up with such changes. By the time all the data are collected it will be too late.

More quotations: Said King, "We begin to have to talk about ordered retreat from some areas of Britain... There's no choice here between adaptation and mitigation [the UNFCCC term for prevention], we have to do both." Prof Neil Adger of the Tyndall Centre countered that we must focus on mitigation, keeping to the previous 2ºC target. "There is no science on how we are going to adapt to 4 degrees warming.... the only real adaptation strategy is to avoid that at all cost because of the pain and suffering." Watson, a former science adviser to President Clinton and ex-chief scientist at the World Bank, urged support on the scale of the US space program, for the (largely unproven) "clean coal" CCS system promoted by the UK and US government and the Bank. However, he admitted that if coal plants scrub sulphur pollution (with the only proven technology so far), dimming would lessen and climate change worsen.

Sir Nicolas Stern admits his 2006 report understated impacts. It said BAU (in the old +4ºC scenario) would risk flooding between 7 million and 300 million in coastal areas every year, reduce water availability 30-50% in southern Africa and the Mediterranean, lower crop yields 15%-35% in Africa, and threaten 20%-50% of animal and plant species with extinction. To which we must now add the probable loss of 85% of the Amazon rainforest, another "runaway" impact, predicted by scientists yesterday.

Stern's original scenario said +5ºC would drown major cities such as New York, London and Tokyo. Increased ocean acidity would destroy marine ecosystems and fisheries, major source of protein for the world's poor. Rising sea levels, droughts and extreme weather would "lead to major disruption and large-scale movement of population". The effects would be "catastrophic" and "far outside human experience".

Stern's original report gave governments a business argument to invest in climate mitigation: GDP would be barely affected, and the losses avoided would be far greater. His argument is now even stronger. See Wikipedia on mitigation and adaptation; UNESCO world water report 16 Mar 09, and the water shortage map above (click to enlarge) from Globe and Mail 12 Mar 09; Norwegian Refugee Council, Future Floods of Refugees (2008); UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and CARE, Humanitarian Implications of Climate Change (2008).

Greenwashing the gas guzzlers – Ford of Canada

Toyota commercial to Blondie's Heart of Glass

Canada's auto CEOs are calling for a scrappage feebate to trade in older cars and pickups. While competitors Chrysler and GM scream for survival bailouts, Ford-Toyota want the Conservative government to add to the porkbarrel so they can have a share. It would only cost taxpayers another $350 million -- CanWest 12 Feb 09. This PR was repeated uncritically by media across the country.

At a Commons committee a month later, Ford's CEO urged Ottawa to offer $3,500 each to consumers who trade in a pre-1997 vehicle for a new one. A similar feebate had boosted sales by 20% in Germany, he said. Does this mean the automakers have suddenly been converted to “green jobs”? Not exactly.

UK ecologist George Monbiot has whisked the green drapes off the scrappage scheme.

1. While automakers say the feebate would encourage low-emission cars, it does nothing of the sort. That was achieved by laws that came into force several years ago in the EU (and in California). The automakers would like us to pay for what they already had to do.

2. Nor is the feebate conditional on the type of car. You can “trade in your old Citroen C1 for a new Porsche Cayenne” and pay the extra gas guzzled with the rebate. Exxon thanks you.

3. Then Monbiot does the math. The test of a green subsidy is $ per carbon footprint. How much does it cost to save a tonne of carbon dioxide? (These figures are mostly estimates. Automakers hope that you never learn the exact ones. Figures for North America would differ.)

   A 1997 car emits about 208g/km
   A 2008 car emits about 160g/km
   Avoided emissions: 48g/km x 16500 km average per year = 792kg/car/year
   

He concludes, "Assuming that drivers are each paid £2,000, that's a cost of £2,525 for every tonne of CO2 avoided, divided by the average age of the cars on the road - 4.9 years. You'd get almost as much value for money by reclassifying £10 notes as biomass and burning them in power stations."

4. Green jobs? “Given that British car plants assemble only around 15% of the vehicles sold in this country, and given that the motor industry is highly automated and has vast capital costs, this subsidy is likely to be just as bad at saving jobs as it is at saving carbon. Every pound we spend on driving is a pound withheld from the alternatives, many of which (such as buses and trains) employ far more people for the same amount of money.”

5. The best investment? Monbiot makes another comparison. A tonne of CO2 saved under the scrappage scheme would cost about £2,525. Energy conservation: replacing incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs £80. Geothermal energy savings (probably under a “decoupling” law) would cost £3.50. That's Canadian $4452.44, $141.07 and $6.17 respectively. As a government or private investor, which scheme would you choose?

6. Monbiot draws much of his data from detailed studies by McKinsey Global consultants. Last year McKinsey reported that $170b a year in world investments in energy efficiency could halve the projected growth in global energy demand by 2020. And would take us halfway to a Kyoto2 target of 450 ppm by 2050. Edison Electric CEO James Rogers in the NYTimes calls it the “fifth fuel”: “The most efficient and environmentally responsible plant you can build is the one that you don’t build.” McKinsey also says US energy efficiency could “reduce energy demand growth by the equivalent of 11m barrels of oil per day and greenhouse gas emissions by 1.3bn tonnes a year. This would cap energy demand growth and emissions at today's levels, while strengthening the economy.” Which global stimulus would you choose?

See the latest corporate blackmail from G&M's "auto pages" flack, Amory Lovins on negawatt power (aka energy conservation), Wikipedia on energy efficiency, and a summary of Thomas L Friedman, Hot Flat and Crowded: Why we need a Green Revolution and how it can renew America (New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux 2008).

PowerShift 2009 in Washington DC

photo: Shadia Fayne Wood, PowerShift 2009You may have heard about the "youth climate movement." It is no longer just about global warming. On February 27th-March 1st, 12,000 young leaders from all fifty states, every Canadian province, and about a dozen other nations converged on the Washington D.C. Convention Center for the largest gathering of climate and clean-energy activists in U.S. history. On Monday, March 2nd, they marched on Congress despite subfreezing temperatures to lobby Senators and Representatives, and risk arrest, to urge US government action on climate, energy, and green jobs.

What began with Bill McKibben's 2006 StepItUp demonstrations has grown into a movement raising issues of equity, justice, and economic reform.

"We are having a broader conversation than just climate change, or climate science," said Marcie Smith, a student at Transylvania University in Kentucky, testifying before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "This is a conversation about justice, equity and opportunity."

"All for green! Green for all!" has become one of the movement's rally cries, a simple turn of phrase that has deep meaning for many pulled into this movement.

Juan Reynosa, a 27-year old community organizer with New Mexico Youth Organized, testified before Congress and shared his vision of a clean, green economy strong enough to lift up the currently marginalized and disaffected.

"It's time to rebuild our communities," Reynosa said. "This time we must include everyone in this new energy economy - single moms, drug addicts, ex-offenders. Everyone." At a time when US statistics show 49% of inner-city youth are unemployed, this is a great challenge, and a huge hope for eco-justice.

See Wikipedia summary of the movement, the PowerShift blog and video.

The Little REDD Book / Le Petit Livre Rouge du REDD: avertir la déforestation

Click on image for downloadable document in English or French.
published by Global Canopy in Dec 2008, is a guide to the proposed UN mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), which was a major issue of discussion at Bali and Poznan. It is the single biggest opportunity to halt deforestation in developing countries, and provide mitigation aid.

The IPCC estimated that tropical deforestation in the 1990s was responsible for 20% of world carbon emissions, 1.6 billion tonnes per year. Different REDD proposals to the UNFCCC have been put forward under the same acronym, which has resulted in some confusion. This non-partisan guide is intended to clarify and compare them.(Spanish and other translations are being prepared)
It aims to help the broad audience of forest stakeholders in the UNFCCC process, including people who live and work in tropical forests, government negotiators, NGOs, the scientific community and the media. With well-designed graphs (see examples online above) it provides a comparative framework for understanding any REDD proposal -- past, present or future.
See also Friends of the Earth, REDD Myths: a critical review of proposed mechanisms to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation in developing countries (Dec 2008) and Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Forest Resilience, Biodiversity, and Climate Change (Oct 2009) a synthesis of scientific research on what would work or not under REDD.
See also Foundation for International Law and Development (FIELD)'s study REDD-Plus (fall 2009)

The Dirtiest Oil on Earth - ForestEthics

Supported by the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations, ForestEthics placed an ad in USA Today and Canadian papers on 18 feb 09, urging US President Obama to take action against dirty oil from the Alberta tarsands, with an online petition to Obama and Prime Minister Harper.
"President Obama," the ad reads, "You'll never guess who's standing between us and our new energy economy..." Suggesting Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach have turned a blind eye to tarsands impacts, it got a lot of attention from Canada's media.
Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation says, "Both the federal and provincial governments have failed our aboriginal community for the sake of money, for the sake of corporate interests, and for the sake of increasing energy exports to the United States. We are seeing disheartening toxicity levels in our animal life and have now received confirmation of unacceptable cancer rates to people in our community. As a people who have been here for thousands of years, we are sad that no one will listen and that government sits back and issues denials and publicity campaigns without substance."

The Beaver Lake Cree Nation of Lac La Biche, backed by the Cooperative Bank, has just launched a court case for an injunction to void Alberta's tarsands permits, grranted without consultation, on grounds that their way of life, as well as fish, animals and plants are being irreparably damaged by pollution: 26 Feb 09 report in the UK Guardian.

These news items were forwarded by CFSC's Quaker Aboriginal Affairs Committee. See previous posts, and Leslie Iwerks' documentary about Dr John O'Connor who was persecuted by Health Canada for his cancer warnings. Her Downstream premiered in December 2008.