Caleb's story: defending native territory in BC

Devon drillsite, Horn River

Caleb Behn is fighting to save for his people's territory and culture. Canada's biggest "fracking play" is the Horn River Basin in far northeast BC. Eleven corporations are drilling there: Apache, ConocoPhillips, Devon, EnCana, EOG Resources, Imperial Oil, Nexen, Pengrowth, Suncor, Quicksilver and Stone Mountain. They say they offer jobs and revenue to local First Nations -- but what exactly is offered? how long? and at what cost? This is the theme of the film Fractured Land. Click on this link to view it on Vimeo. On Dec 2013 came another film, Resist: the Unist'ot'en call to the Land, by Eli Hirtle, Hilary Somerville and David Goldberg; its trailer can be seen online.

Though still young, and a recent graduate in Environmental Law and Sustainability from the U of Victoria, Caleb has been involved for years (on behalf of West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations) in the arduous reopened-Treaty 8 negotiations with Ottawa and BC (on behalf of energy companies). He is Eh-Cho Dene and Dunne Za/Cree, a skilled hunter of wildlife in his traditional land, and of heads in corporate boardrooms. He hopes to live off the land and teach his future children the traditional ways  – but to do so, he must first do battle with an industry that threatens to destroy his territory and culture.

Despite corporate propaganda, fracking is neither clean, green, nor ethical. It produces huge GHG emissions, pollutes water sources and endangers health. BC shale gas demands new dams for hydro energy, and much of it is destined for tarsands extraction in Alberta. Energy to produce energy -- polluting at every step.

But North America's fracking frenzy caused a continental glut, driving prices down. The drilling companies now want to open up competitive markets, delivering it as LNG (liquid natural gas) by tanker to China, Japan, Korea and Malaysia. Under pressure from the corporate lobby, BC relaxed its Clean Energy Act to allow local LNG production -- leading at least one company, Encana, to tear up  its promise of zero emissions at Horn River. Cash-strapped Encana has since sold out to Enbridge for $220 million. Other $ billions from banks and speculators are at stake.

Filmmakers Fiona Rayher and Damien Gillis follow Caleb to New Zealand/Aotearoa, where he learns of Maori battles with frackers there. In BC, the Tahltan people are also fighting to preserve their sacred headwaters. The film interviews Josh Fox, director of Oscar-winning Gasland; aboriginal lawyer Jack Woodward; Wade Davis, anthropologist and author of Sacred Headwaters: The Fight to Save the Stikine, Skeena, and Nass; Maude Barlow, Tom Mulcair; and Janet Annesley of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Bikers for sustainability

See the June issue of Toronto Now and search "bike" for backstories. The Vermont "Solar Rollers" are a nuke-free cycle group. Here is their latest campaign and a SAGE briefing on the outmoded Vermont Yankee reactor. Download the book of 36 bike tours by Vélo Québec: Le Québec en 30 boucles. Self-guided bike tours of Ontario by Bike ON Tours. Prairie, Atlantic and BC clubs. See these health tips and Wikipedia Cycling article which warns of common injuries and how to avoid them. 

The brown cloud -- map by Randall Martin and Aaron van Donkelaar

10 μg/m3 (darker blue) is WHO "safe" level

Millions die every year of respiratory diseases. A prime cause, epidemiologists suspected, is air pollution by "fine particulates" aka aerosols, smog, soot, smoke from traffic & kitchens, oil & gas flaring; or, when it reaches high altitudes, the "brown cloud". This map, published by Dalhousie University researchers Aaron van Donkelaar and Randall Martin in Environmental Health Perspectives (June 2010) and online by NASA shows ground-level readings of fine particulate matter 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter, about a tenth the fraction of human hair(PM_2.5).

These small particles penetrate deep into the lungs, past the body’s normal defenses.  More than 80 percent of the world's population breathe polluted air that exceeds the World Health Organization's recommended level (10 micrograms per cubic meter). Though most of North America does not exceed the "safe" level, hotspots can be seen in the Midwest and Eastern cities.

Sandstorms lift huge amounts of dust from the Arabian and Saharan deserts; it falls as far away as Brazil. The Asian brown cloud includes sulfate and soot particles from coal plants, factories, burning agricultural waste, kitchen fires and motor traffic.

Vehicles create significant amounts of nitrates and other particles. Untuned diesel engines are among the worst offenders, yielding dark sooty particles scientists call black carbon -- highly visible on the streets of Third World cities. But the total pollution is largely invisible. 

These mix and create hybrid particles that threaten health. "There are still big debates about which type of particle is the most toxic," says epidemiologist Arden Pope. "We're not sure whether it's the sulfates, or the nitrates, or even fine dust that's the most problematic." No one is quite sure of the total impact in  disease and death worldwide, adds Randall Martin: "Most of the epidemiology has focused on developed countries in North America and Europe." That is why this new map is so important.

See also Wikipedia on the Asian brown cloud, aerosol, particulates,

Pig City -- by Jamblichus

This post by Jamblichus is reprinted with his permission. Modestly hiding behind his nom de clavier, the British blogger tries "To point out and record the abuse of power by corporations, politicos, police and anyone else who has it coming. To give big-ups to academics, poets, musicians, activists and any other souls who have something interesting and unusual to say... [And to write about] civil liberties, the politics of the Korean peninsula, genetic engineering, religion and rationality, the environment in any sense of that word, poetry that makes your brain sizzle and music that makes your ears sting. " We recommend his blog.

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MVRDV's Pig City proposal (details below)

Pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world, accounting for about 38 percent of meat production worldwide. And you know what? There’s good reason for that, all you vegetarian puritans out there: it’s downright delicious.

Smoky bacon, crispy Lincolnshire sausages, pork and pineapple stir fry, Korean Samgyeopsal barbecue… God, I’m dribbling on my keyboard already, is it lunch time yet?

Sadly for fans of the full English Breakfast and other craven carnivores like myself, industrial pig farming itself is a much less pretty thing to behold than the aforementioned dishes.

Rife with sickening dereliction of animal welfare, hugely polluting and frankly unsustainable, something has to change. Fast. For pork consumption is booming.

According to the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, nearly 100 million metric tons of pork were consumed worldwide in 2006 alone and it’s been climbing since then as increasing urbanization and disposable income lead to a rapid rise in pork consumption in developing nations across the world.

It’s worth considering what this entails at the point of production: a brief insight into industrial pig farming courtesy of a story written for Rolling Stone a few years back”

Smithfield Foods, the largest and most profitable pork processor in the world, killed 27 million hogs last year. That’s a number worth considering…
… Smithfield’s holding ponds — the company calls them lagoons — cover as much as 120,000 square feet. The area around a single slaughterhouse can contain hundreds of lagoons, some of which run thirty feet deep. The liquid in them is not brown. The interactions between the bacteria and blood and afterbirths and stillborn piglets and urine and excrement and chemicals and drugs turn the lagoons pink.
Even light rains can cause lagoons to overflow; major floods have transformed entire counties into pig-shit bayous. To alleviate swelling lagoons, workers sometimes pump the shit out of them and spray the waste on surrounding fields, which results in what the industry daintily refers to as “overapplication.” This can turn hundreds of acres — thousands of football fields — into shallow mud puddles of pig shit. Tree branches drip with pig shit.
Some pig-farm lagoons have polyethylene liners, which can be punctured by rocks in the ground, allowing shit to seep beneath the liners and spread and ferment. Gases from the fermentation can inflate the liner like a hot-air balloon and rise in an expanding, accelerating bubble, forcing thousands of tons of feces out of the lagoon in all directions.
The lagoons themselves are so viscous and venomous that if someone falls in it is foolish to try to save him. A few years ago, a truck driver in Oklahoma was transferring pig shit to a lagoon when he and his truck went over the side. It took almost three weeks to recover his body. In another instance, a worker who was repairing a lagoon in Michigan was overcome by the fumes and fell in. His fifteen-year-old nephew dived in to save him but was overcome, the worker’s cousin went in to save the teenager but was overcome, the worker’s older brother dived in to save them but was overcome, and then the worker’s father dived in. They all died in pig shit.

There is moral in here somewhere isn’t there? Live by the pig, die by the pig perhaps… Facetiousness aside, although nobody experts a pig slaughterhouse to be the Elysian fields, the facts stand that keeping piggy wiggies in teeny weeny cages, pumping them full of antibiotics and growth hormones and using loads of land to do this all is neither an edifying spectacle nor good for human, hog or planet.

Which brings me, finally, to the point: there may be a solution other than opting for nuts and raisins, which I am in fact (half-heartedly) considering. And it is an elevated one. A well-regarded Dutch architectural firm, MDRDV, has spent four years creating a plan to build seventy six high-rise towers to house pigs. Here’s the Wiki:

In Pig City MVRDV proposes a novel way of accommodating the population of 15 million pigs that share the Netherlands with 15 million human inhabitants.
The prototype is an 80 meter high tower. Each level is divided into animal friendly farm areas… The biogas generated by the pigs’ waste is collected as a clean energy source; fish farms inside the towers provide animal food and help reduce transport. Precious countryside is liberated from the polluting bio-industry.

The proposal (which came to my attention after reading around this New York Times article on vertical/urban farming) was made several years back and apparently caused a real outcry in the Netherlands, where it was seen in no small part as an indictment of industrial farming and our consumption patterns rather than a genuine proposal. The Dutch Archined website summed it up thusly:

Why spend four years on this supposedly unfeasible project? Is Pig City an indictment of the bio-industry? Is this radical proposal and powerful visual presentation meant to inject life into a tiresome discussion?
Seen for what it is, Pig City is a cartoon-like representation of today’s situation and, unlike the secret bio-industry, makes no attempt to gloss over the consequences of our pattern of consumption. The presentation, for that matter, is so lifelike that many read it as a realistic alternative. And no doubt MVRDV would be the first to take on the job should it prove feasible.

It strikes me after looking at it more closely that MVRDV may also have been making a point about the failure of the government to provide nearly that level of eco-friendly architecture to humans, let alone pigs. There are many layers to this idea, all provocative in the best of ways. Food for Thought once more… For more on the debate and urban farming, check out The Vertical Farm Project. Until then, here’s some vegetarian recipes! Bon Appetit.

"The Living Skyscraper: Farming the Urban Skyline" by Blake Kurasek

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Jamblichus takes his name from the 3rd c. philosopher who refused to separate soul from body, an early exponent of panentheism. Read Arturo Vasquez on the historical Iamblichus.
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See also Evan Bromfield's research on urban vertical projects.

Health impacts of climate change - ECOSOC

The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), meeting 6-9 July 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, has officially declared that climate change will create severe health risks. Therefore even greater commitment of funds will be required for Millenium Development Goals.

“Climate change is a gradual and now inevitable event", but the effects of more frequent and more extreme weather events will be abrupt and acutely felt” said World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan in a keynote speech (our emphasis). “The need for humanitarian assistance, for victims of floods, droughts, storms, and famine will grow at a time when all countries are stressed, to one degree or another, by climate change... crop yields in some parts of Africa are expected to drop by 50% in the coming decade. "Among Africa’s poor, 90% depend on agriculture for their livelihoods...There is no surplus. There is no coping capacity. There is no cushion to absorb the shocks.” She reminded governments, “A focus on health as a worthy pursuit for its own sake is the surest route to that moral dimension that is so sadly lacking in international systems of governance.” ....................mothers in Benin: photo courtesy of UNICEF

Japan's delegate called the Ministerial Declaration's omission of all references to human security "extremely regrettable". Others called for greatly increased funding for family planning and maternal health. Family planning in international population assistance had "come down from 55 per cent in 1995 to less than 5 per cent today", thus slowing progress toward the MDGs, said Harry Jooseery of PPD. "Women form the majority of the poorest and the most vulnerable segments of societies."

See the official UN press release and draft Declaration; Wikipedia on human security (economic, health, food, environment, communal and human rights) and Millenium Development Goals; UNICEF report on progress toward MDGs; Global Poverty Project founded 2008.

Weakening the precautionary principle

cartoon courtesy corpwatch.orgThe precautionary principle, officially endorsed in the 1992 Earth Summit, puts the burden of legal proof on advocates of action that could cause severe or irreversible harm. If the risk is high and the scientific data unclear - e.g. introducing new chemicals - the action should not be taken. This reverses the usual legal process, where the plaintiff must prove the damage, after it has been done. And if the risk is high and to the whole earth? The Rio Declaration's principle #15 says "lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective action" -- a criterion that badly needs to be applied by nations which are currently delaying climate action in the Bali-Poznan-Copenhagen UNFCCC negotiations.

The principle was further defined by the 1998 Wingspread conference, the 2000 EU Commission, and the 2000 Cartagena Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In Europe, this means the principle now legally applies to geoengineering, toxins, chemicals, nanotechnology and LMOs/GMOs in food or feed. In 2003 the European Court of Justice, citing the Precautionary Principle's embodiment in the EU treaty, upheld temporary bans on GM food. A 2006 Australian court decision on cellphone towers held that "lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reasoning for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation." The CBD and some fisheries managers have tried to use PP to prevent extinctions.

Corporate lobbies in the US and Canada have long opposed this trend to put health and the environment ahead of profit. For instance, the US Toxic Chemicals Control Act only applies to new chemicals, compared to the EU's REACH which applies to all chemicals produced or imported. European companies have largely accepted this "green" regulatory framework, while North American ones swear to kill any such legislation here. Their lobbyists like to call it an attack on free enterprise and technological innovation.

Environment Canada resorts to hypocrisy, claiming a precautionary "approach" while refusing to give it legal force. Recent scandals in Canadian drug and food inspection show just how dangerous to human health this doubletalk can be. The Conservatives just fired a civil servant who revealed their plans to privatize labs and end BSE testing. Previous Liberal governments are also guilty, as shown by Health Canada's punishment of BGH whistleblower Shiv Chopra.

Like Canada, the United States refuses use of the term "principle" because in the courts, a "principle of law" can be invoked as a source of law.

Gordon Durnil, a participant in the Wingspread conference, said, "From my perspective as a conservative Republican, this [PP] is a conservative principle"; he has been disillusioned by his experience with the Bush administration's use of "scientific uncertainty as proof that no harm was possible", a direct contradiction of PP. The US EPA recently placed chemical hazards (ChAMP, see below) under the SPP, a move which is unlikely to strengthen regulation though it does replace a failed voluntary plan. The drumbeat of lobbying continues. Carefully reprinted by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Chemistry Council, a 2008 article by a Georgetown law professor casts heavy scorn on regulators' attempts to ban GM corn and bisphenol A.
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[Under the Great Law of the Iroquois] we are responsible for seven generations into the future. Our leadership must not make decisions that are going to bring pain, harm, or suffering seven generations into the future. -- elder Audrey Shenandoah, in The Green Bible, ed. Stephen Bede Scharper and Hilary Cunningham (Orbis/Gracewing. 2000) p.63.
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See also: the most recent scientific update on bisphenol A health hazards, in which the Union of Concerned Scientists accuses the Bush FDA of "cherry-picking data" to support industry over consumers; other UCS examples of the need for PP; a 2007 book by Mark Schapiro, Exposed; the toxic chemistry of everyday products; who's at risk and what's at stake for American power; CIR list of Schapiro's sources, including REACH's influence in China and other developing countries; an expert comparison of ChAMP with REACH; EU official details of REACH; Gordon Durnil's fight with the chemical industry as IJC chairman; and his 1995 book The Making of an Environmental Conservative.

Break the bottle habit - by Dana Holtby

poster: CIWEM, UK
After decades of successfully convincing the public to spend billions of dollars on an essential resource that flows freely out of any tap, the bottled industry is finally losing steam. Many Canadian cities have introduced limited bans on bottled water in schools and municipal property, and London, Ontario recently announced a complete ban on bottled water within the city’s limits. Scores of others – including Vancouver, Halifax, and Toronto – began eyeing similar legislation, and it’s time for Montreal to do the same. As an environmentalist and socially conscious student – and thanks to McGill’s tuition and fees, a financially conscious one – I find the issue of bottled water deeply troubling, for reasons ranging from the source to the trash.

The first problem with bottled water is the bottles themselves, including their production, transportation, and even the effects of recycling them. Recyc-Quebec spokesperson Richard Goulet’s suggestion that Montreal introduce a deposit-based recycling program – which has been found to increase recycling rates – is nice, but it does not address the significant impacts that bulk water transport and production have on the air and regional water cycles. Further, the production of these bottles uses Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) – a non-renewable resource that, when produced, releases toxic chemicals cited as a cause of global warming and acid rain.

Despite the Canadian Bottled Water Association’s assertion that different legislation does not affect quality control, bottled water testing contradicts this. When Coca-Cola first released its Dasani product in the U.K., 500,000 bottles were recalled after traces of Bromate, a carcinogen, were found at twice the limit of E.U. standards.

However, when Canada’s Natural Resources Defense Council tested 1,000 bottles from 103 brands of bottled water in 1999, the Council found that one quarter of them violated federal bottled water standards with high levels of harmful contaminants.

Coupling this with ever-growing warnings from the scientific community on the risks of plastic use in food storage and the infrequent government inspections of bottled water plants – on average every three or four years in Canada – leads one to question the public perception of bottled water as a safer and healthier alternative to tap water. In addition, standard water bottles are made with plastic No.1, meaning these bastions of anti-sustainability are only intended for a single use.

Unfortunately, Canada has very little regulation on its water resources, and unlike natural resources such as wood or coal, the bottled water industry does not pay an additional tax to draw public water. Companies like Coca-Cola, which produces Dasani, take as much as they want while paying the same tax – sometimes even less – than individual consumers. No control measure exists to ensure the stability of natural aquifers or that municipal sources are not drawn upon too heavily, as Coke has been known to do in drought-prone farming areas of the U.S. [and India]

Corporations then sell this water at 240 to 10,000 times the cost of the water they used, reaping sales of more than $650-million in Canada alone in 2005, thanks in large part to their ability to market bottled water as essential and superior to tap water – a highly deceitful move.

Canada should realize its need for a firm national water policy and increased water infrastructure. It should deny corporations the ability to sell what is not only a valuable natural resource that needs protection, but a resource to which access should be qualified as a human right.

Bottled water has gone unnoticed on our campus and Canadian politics for too long, especially considering its extremely negative impact on our environment, its potential health risks, and its exorbitantly inflated price. If anything could avoid commodification, water should be it. Instead of waiting for Montreal to join other Canadian cities in banning bottled water, students should start demanding a ban on bottled water sales on campus.

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This article originally appeared in the McGill Daily and is reprinted with the author's permission. Dana Holtby is a McGill Environment & Development student and a member of Tap Drinkers Against Privatization (TAPthirst). See also Inside the Bottle.

The “end of nature” seen in California wildfires

June 26 satellite data of fires in Big Sur, by US Forest Service, from a series in Xasuan Today. See also California Office of Emergency Services maps of 1000+ wildfires and smoke-plumes.

A digest of info in DailyKos 24 June and 26 June 2008:

A week ago 800 fires in the north, from the redwood country south to San Francisco, had already destroyed 44,000 acres of forest. Most are still out of control. In southern California the Big Sur/Ventana valleys are burning. Mendocino County residents were warned to stay indoors and avoid exercise, because of air pollution by wildfires -- the result of what the Los Angeles Times called an "unusual weather pattern" with more than 8,000 lightning strikes.

A East Bay blogger says: “All of us folks streaming along the Interstate in our gas-guzzlers, complicit in climate change, had the results thrust right in our faces. Traffic slowed down by 15 mph... in awe at the smoke drifting over from Napa.” Air pollution is double or triple the amount considered safe by federal standards.

Firefighter Blog reports:

The State of California is in the midst of the worst wildfire crisis in modern state history. More than 900 wildland fires are burning, many unstaffed. Incident commanders are making do with skeleton crews

DailyKos correspondents say there are 300 vacant positions and a shortage of fire engines at the U.S. Forest Service, just one of many environmental rollbacks by the Bush administration. “The lack of preparedness by the federal government and the loss of readiness in the National Guard is unforgiveable”.

Three weeks ago, Governor Schwartzenegger declared a statewide water emergency after two years of drought. “This March, April and May have been the driest ever in our recorded history... As a result, some local governments are rationing water, developments can't proceed and agricultural fields are sitting idle. We must recognize the severity of the crisis we face." The underlying cause: man-made climate change, despite official denials by the federal government.

From Circle's Diary: Last Friday the Feds were acting like they had the fire-response situation in California under control. They said they'd start hiring more personel this coming week, ahead of schedule. He quotes David Helgarv: “We had a million environmental refugees as a result of Katrina.”

"Why aren't we talking about the environmental refugees here in our own country?" Circle asks. "When are we going to acknowledge that natural disasters are as big a threat as terrorism, indeed, if frequency is the measure, a bigger threat? We're seeing the impact of oil wars, but what will it look like when the wars are over water? It's not that far in the future, you know. Part of the reason California is burning is because of the terrible drought here. And already there's a struggle going on over water, and who is going to get what little there is. It's part of the reason the salmon aren't spawning and there isn't a season this year."

Meanwhile, stock marketeers triumphantly crow that unprecedented profits can be made from the water emergency.

Further Reading: Jared Diamond, Collapse; Naomi Klein, Disaster Capitalism; Bill McKibben, The End of Nature.

Peak everything, or “après moi, le déluge“

Click on graphs for fullsize view in their original context.
Peak oil: 1. fossil fuels in the history of human energy use
2. a conventional graph by Van Deas for ASPO: Association for the Study of Peak Oil. See also Wikipedia Peak_oil , theoildrum.com/, and ODAC.

Humans have been exceeding the biosphere’s capacity to renew itself. This is a recipe for species extinction and human decimation. We are eating the world alive, stealing from our children. As we violate the principle of sustainable development, each succeeding generation will have less than the preceding one.

“Peak grain” seems to have been reached – grain stocks are at their lowest level in decades. While oil soared 80% in the last year, food prices rose over 40%. Fertilizers, produced from or with fossil fuels, doubled in price last year.

source: Chicago Board of Trade

For many, the result is starvation. Excerpt from an Associated Press report 29 Jan 08:

Let them eat mud

Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well. The problem is particularly dire in the Caribbean… About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy… two cups of rice now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate…Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say... at about 5 cents apiece, the mud cookies are a bargain compared to food staples.

-- See full text and UN reports from Kenya.

Arable land is declining relative to population. Much is lost to erosion and desertification. For the results, see Wikipedia on food security and world hunger. Stanford scientists predict mass starvation: global warming will reduce Asian grains by 10%, Southern African corn crops by 30%.

Sources: WRI: World Resources Institute (above) and USDA (below) tons per acre

Peak water: shortages already threaten China, India and their neighbours, Australia, mid-Africa, the entire Middle East – exacerbating existing conflicts. Andrew Liveris, chairman of Dow Chemical, announced at Davos meeting that “Water is ... the oil of the 21st century.”
map source: WRI, UNDP-GEF

Fish, the traditional protein of the poor, have been depleted by commercial trawling.

Forests have been pillaged and burned. Below are their original extent, and what is left today.

As climate warms, disease vectors spread. Two examples: malaria, and Lyme disease.

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Minerals too are reaching their peak, increasing the dangers of environmentally disastrous mining practices, and of great-power battles over scarce supplies.

graph: Armin Reller, U of Augsburg & Tom Gruedel, Yale U.

Finally, the world’s political culture seems stuck in the past, or returning to the worst of the past: beggar my neighbor – let the poor “eat cake” as Marie Antoinette foolishly said; my nation right or wrong, tribalism, religious fundamentalism. According to former UK ambassador Craig Murray, we underestimate how dangerous and widespread such ideas can be, even among supposedly educated people:

Last year I delivered a talk on Central Asia at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. As I sat preparing my lecture, I had the television on low in my hotel room because I don't like complete silence. Gradually I found myself listening intently to an evangelical preacher, telling his TV congregation that they should not worry about casualties in Iraq because the Bible showed us that there had to be a great and bloody conflict in the Middle East before the Second Coming of Christ. So the more people who died in these wars, the closer we are to Jesus. -- Murray's blog 24 Jan 08

See also the blinkered views of the North American super-rich reported by Johann Hari, “Reshuffling the deck chairs on the National Review cruise” / “En croisière sur le ‘Titanic’ de la droite américaine”, Le Monde Diplomatique février 2008

Further reading:
Richard Heinberg, Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (2007) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Heinberg
James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century (2006) and his blog Clusterfuck Nation, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Howard_Kunstler
Thomas Homer-Dixon , The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (2007)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millenium_Development_Goals
IISD (International Institute for Sustainable Development) 2008 study Boom or Bust: How commodity price volatility impedes poverty reduction, and what to do about it, for the Dec 2008 IGF in New Delhi
Suzuki Foundation studies and recommendations

Quaker media: film, videos, podcasts

Pamela Calvert’s The Beloved Community, an hour-long 2006 documentary, shows native people near Sarnia, Ontario involved in toxics remediation. Women go door-to-door collecting data, demanding action from the city, companies and governments. Pollution by the chemical industry has been virtually uncontrolled since the 1940s. The Aamjiwnaang (pronounced ‘Om-ji-nong’) First Nation is on the front line of investigations into endocrine disruptors, exposure to which can bring about miscarriages, a skewing of the birth ratios between girls and boys, and long-term neurological damage. But what is happening there is an extreme case of the growing “body burdens” that affect future generations throughout the world, as this September 12, 2007 Guardian article shows. Kathleen Burns of sciencecorps.org says The Beloved Community shows “a strong tribal community…struggling to come to terms with environmental health problems and solve them in creative new ways.” For more details see Beyond Pesticides of April 12, 2007, Environmental Defence’s 2006 news release on Aamjiwnaang and its body burden tests of volunteers across Canada, which finally embarrassed Health Canada into action.
Similar US campaigns have been led by the Environmental Working Group and its alarming 2005 study of newborns. Ft Chipewyan AB doctors, natives and Arctic natives have reported similar problems.
California Newsreel, which distributes The Beloved Community on DVD, also offers many other films with discussion guides, on environmental and globalization issues: A Killer Bargain, Maquilopolis, The Debt of Dictators, Black Gold (about coffee), as well as classics on US race relations, and over 30 documentaries by Africans.
The Beloved Community was made by Pamela Calvert’s Plain Speech company in association with Detroit Public Television. She produced and directed This Far and No Further: Canada’s Asbestos Legacy (for release in 2007), and contributed to two films on communities organizing against hate crimes The Fire Next Time (2005) , and Not In Our Town Northern California: When Hate Happens Here (2005). More films in this series are available from The Working Group.

In 1997 Pamela organized nationally and co-wrote the Community Action Guide for Judith Helfand’s film A Healthy Baby Girl about the endocrine disruptor DES; she later developed campaigns for ITVS programs including Frontline: The Farmer's Wife and La Ciudad. Her 2002 paper “Steps toward a Quaker Media Practice” is available online from Friends Media Project of Bishopville MD ,which offers other Quaker documents, film, video, photos, music and art in digital form.

She is now clerk of SpeakingTruth.org, providing videos and podcasts for Quaker media ministry, sponsored by Quaker Institute for the Future.

Videos and reports by other film-makers on chemical pollution and native communities are available: NFB Toxic Trespass, the EcoJustice (ex-Sierra Club Legal Fund) report Exposing Canada's Chemical Valley, UTNE 'Contaminated Science' article; and Homo Toxicus (Carole Poliquin, Québec 2007, 87 min en français).