What we Already Knew

SHANGHAI -- China's booming car sales have had a devastating effect on the environment, the national environmental watchdog has warned in its first-ever report on pollution caused by vehicle emissions.

About a third of 113 cities surveyed failed national air standards last year as the number of vehicles swelled to 170 million, up 9.3 percent on year and 25 times the number on the roads in 1980, the ministry of environmental protection said.

"All the problems are closely related to vehicle exhaust emissions," said the government report, which was published on Thursday.

Vehicle exhaust emissions exceeded 51 million tonnes in 2009, including more than 40 million tonnes of carbon monoxide, nearly five million tonnes of hydrocarbons and about six million tonnes of nitrogen oxide, the report said.

China's auto sales hit 13.64 million units in 2009, up 46 percent on year, and are expected to rise by a further 25 percent this year to 17 million.

The ministry pledged to toughen supervision and control of vehicle exhaust emissions.

Projects are already under way in several cities to upgrade petrol stations, oil storage tanks, and oil tankers to rein in emissions, the report said.

China's latest Five-Year Plan, for 2011-2015, which was adopted last month, called on car makers to focus on researching and developing new energy vehicles, such as electric cars and hybrid vehicles.

All for me, none for all

The other night I went to a neighbourhood open house hosted by the City,  to address concerns of local residents who are upset by “rat-runners”--drivers who use residential side streets to dodge the backed-up traffic that clogs the main thoroughfare of Hastings Street. 

As the city answers the vociferous complaints of a politicised neighbourhood group, formed to encourage traffic to go anywhere else but down their own street (and likely onto mine) both have completely failed to address the more pressing issues. The city and the citizens group seem eager to chase the particular symptom that is bedevilling them, but continue to completely ignore the wider disease that affects the whole metropolitan region.

It would seem the neighbourhood group is most concerned when people who don’t live in their ‘hood drive down their street in order to dodge the congestion on Hastings St. at  the morning and evening unhappy hours. They are incensed at the inconsiderate behaviour of drivers who roll through the stop signs and then speed between them--just like what happens on my street, and probably yours. They rail against the very system they are happy and eager to see maintained and expanded, so long as it is to their benefit. They identify all the ills that the ‘happy motoring’ lifestyle encompasses but fail to connect the dots to their own behaviour.

I applaud the people of the neighbourhood for organizing, standing up and squeaking their wheels at city hall, yet they simply seem to have the narrowest of NIMBY motivations. While they clearly see some of the problems endemic to car culture, their solution is to push it in someone else’s direction. 

The homeowners seem to have no problem with their own cars parked up and down both sides of the street, and I’m sure they smile and wave to one another as they all drive away in the morning, each single driver needing an oversized gas guzzler to get his- or her-self around town, oblivious to the destruction he leaves in his wake.

Just as the residents on the north side of Hastings St. complain, the rush hour traffic is altogether aggressive, noxious and downright dangerous on the south side too--crossing Pender street at 4:45 is not for the faint of heart, and is explicitly dangerous once winter’s early darkness settles.

As it turned out, the walk down the side of the Hastings Highway at the unhappy hour was more instructive than the oversized information panels that littered the room.

I actually try to avoid making the walk to the library (where the open house was held) during highway hours, it is just so disheartening.  The long lines of oversized vehicles each carrying but a single person, each boiling out pollution. The intersections crowded, forever slowed at light changes as always there is one more impatient guy who thinks he can squeeze through to the other side of his red light, blocking the cross traffic. 

This is where the real problem lies. Not the selfish fool who tries to run the light at the expense of the others, but the whole ludicrous, collectively insane behaviour. Every single day the same people sit in the same line-ups, boiling out pollution, oblivious to any but their own desires. ignorant beyond all understanding. I don’t really think most people are too stupid to acknowledge their own destructive behaviour, but i do think the vast majority CHOOSE to ignore it. And that is unconscionable.

Yes, I’ve heard all their excuses, and none of them wash. Certainly many people have serious legitimate transportation problems to overcome, but there are better solutions for nearly all of them.

Regionally, we know that automobile ownership is outpacing population growth. This in spite of the piecemeal and half-hearted efforts to encourage people to pursue their tasks with alternate forms of transportation. Thankfully they have stopped making Hummers, but there is no shortage of them on our streets. Along with the Escalades, the F-3500 trucks and every flavour of SUV, overwhelmingly occupied by a single person. That anybody believes he needs a 6000 lb. vehicle for personal transportation is beyond my comprehension.

How has selfishness and greed become so commonplace? When did an ostentatious and dangerous “fuck you” to everybody else become socially acceptable, even desirous and applauded? 

Predators live among us.

Is anyone Listening?

By Subhankar Banerjee

05 October, 2010

ClimateStoryTellers.org

via countercurrents.org

The person in the above photo is Malkolm Boothroyd. He is 18 and lives with his parents in the Yukon province of Canada. Behind him we see a carved wood sign that says Welcome to Alaska. He looks a bit tired, because he is. He started his journey in Alaska and biked 1060 kilometers on the Alaska Highway to reach Fort Nelson in British Columbia. He has a warm smile on his face but his posture is firm and his eyes are open and locked directly into our eyes, a bit confrontational, because it is. Unlike macho explorers of yesteryear, Malkolm is on a mission, and he is addressing us directly. We do get a hint of the nature of his journey by zooming into the photo: the bag that is attached to the front wheel of his bike says, 'Shut Down - Tar Sands.'

On June 25, Democracy Now presented a powerful interview with Clayton Thomas

Müller, a Cree indigenous activist and the tar sands campaign organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Müller talks at great length about the massive devastation being brought by tar sands oil production, but he also brings attention to the human-rights issues far too often ignored by the mainstream environmental groups. "The impact is absolutely catastrophic," he states, "particularly to local Dene, Cree, and Metis peoples, who have subsisted and relied on those sacred lands in northern Alberta for time immemorial. And these communities have been put on the sacrificial block of American and Canadian energy and climate policy."

In late August I wrote a piece on how bark beetles are killing forests all across the world due to global warming. And because of this, some boreal forests in British Columbia and Yukon provinces in Canada have already turned from being a carbon sink to a carbon source. But I did not point out then that tar sands oil production in Alberta, Canada, is a major killer of boreal forests, contributing significantly to climate change. If you're interested, you can check out this report, "Tar Sands and Boreal Forest" from Greenpeace [pdf 2 pages].

Right now, the U.S. is considering approval of the massive Keystone XL pipeline project to bring tar sands crude from Alberta all the way down to Texas and the Gulf Coast refineries. Several U.S. congressional delegations have recently visited Canada to learn about tar sands oil. Earlier last month Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) gave vague soothing comments to both sides after her visit there with Representative Ed Markey (D-MA). Most recently, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the tar sands oil field "really blends with the natural habitat" after his visit there with Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Kay Hagan (D-NC). You'd have to be really 'high' to make a statement like that about tar sands and natural habitat--Senator Graham must have been looking at those fields from a very high altitude, where everything peacefully blends into a holistic picture. I suggest you take a look at these photos from a low altitude, no more than table high, and then decide for yourself.

As I was finishing this piece I saw an ad that said, "Tell it like it is," on Huffington Post. It was posted by the Government of Alberta, Canada, to promote tar sands oil production.

The question is: To whom should we listen about the devastating impacts of tar sands oil - the inexperienced Canadian youth Malkolm Boothroyd from Yukon or the experienced Canadian politicians from Alberta?

Malkolm writes in his blog that he is now cycling from Alaska to Washington, D.C., and then continuing on to the U.N. Climate Change conference in Cancun in December. He is riding solo from Alaska to Missoula, Montana, where he will meet up with other people and continue on. I learned from a letter that he wrote to his family before he started his journey that his ride is part of several larger initiatives: in Minneapolis he'll take part in the 'Global Work Party' on 10/10/10; his journey is part of the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition, which is "a united front of youth from across Canada tackling the biggest challenge of our generation, the emerging climate crisis"; and he is excited to have been selected as one of 25 youths for the Canadian Youth Delegation to Cancun.

The best part to me is something he wrote in his blog on September 5: "It can be very lonely and dull cycling alone through the BORE-eal forest. I've passed many hours pretending I'm talking to Stephen Harper (Prime Minister of Canada) or Jim Prentice (Environment Minister of Canada). I say things to the Prime Minister like, "you have asthma so you care about air quality, but you also have children so I can't understand why you don't care about climate change," or "can you look me in the eye and tell me that your government is doing enough to prevent my generation from inheriting a world devastated by climate change?"

See what I mean by his direct gaze toward us in that photo? It's no surprise that Malkolm is doing imagine-talking with Harper during his bike ride. Last year Canada ranked last among the G8 nations on climate change action. I'm sure you're wondering: How did U.S. fare? A whopping 7th place. I bet both Canada and U.S. will be vying for the last two spots again this year.

This is not Malkolm's first big bike ride, though. When he was 15 he went on a yearlong fossil-fuel-free bike ride with his parents in search of birds. They called the journey "Bird Year". They biked 21,144 km, identified 548 different bird species, raised more than $25,000 for bird conservation, and in the process became convinced "that climate change was more serious than they had thought."

[snip]

In 2009, he biked more than 5,000 km, from Whitehorse, Yukon, to Ottawa, Ontario, as part of Pedal for the Planet. When the group got to Ottawa, the Harper government refused to meet with the young cyclists. Does that remind you of a recent episode when Bill McKibben and young students arrived in D.C. with their "put solar panels on the White House roof" proposal?

Malkolm began his current journey in Alaska, a place that has become like a second home for me through my decade-long work on Arctic Alaska issues. So I was curious about youth and climate change in Alaska. Two weekends ago, as I started writing this piece, the Alaska Youth for Environmental Action was finishing their Youth Climate Change Summit.

read the whole thing here.

A most important matter

Dear Friends,

God, what a summer. Federal scientists have concluded that we've just come through the warmest six months, the warmest year, and the warmest decade in human history. Nineteen nations have set new all-time temperature records; the mercury in Pakistan reached 129 degrees, the hottest temperature ever seen in Asia. And there's nothing abstract about those numbers, not with Moscow choking on smoke from its epic heat wave and fires, not with Pakistan half washed away from its unprecedented flooding.

But that's just the half of it. It's also the summer when the U.S. Senate decided to keep intact its 20-year bipartisan record of doing nothing about global warming. Global warming is no act of God. We're up against the most profitable and powerful industries on earth: the companies racking up record profits from fossil fuels. And we're not going to beat them by asking nicely. We're going to have to build a movement, a movement much bigger than anything we've built before, a movement that can push aback against the financial power of Big Oil and Big Coal. That movement is our only real hope, and we need your help to plot its future.

We've got some immediate and crucial priorities. For instance, groups around the world are joining together on 10/10/10 for a Global Work Party, demonstrating that we already know many of the solutions to the climate crisis. That will be a good day not just to put up solar panels, but also to shame our political leaders, to say to them, "We're getting to work. What about you?" Meanwhile, around the country, lawyers and community groups are doing yeoman's work fighting off new coal plants, activists are persuading banks to stop loaning to corporate villains, city councils are figuring out how to make their towns more efficient and resilient. This is the basic work of any movement, the foundation on which hope for long-term progress rests.

But necessary as such efforts are, they're not sufficient. We're making progress, but not as fast as the physical situation is deteriorating. Time is not on our side, so we've concluded that going forward massdirect action must play a bigger role in this movement, as it eventually did in the suffrage movement, the civil-rights movement, and the fight against corporate globalization. Even now, environmentalists in places like the coalfields of Appalachia have been putting these tactics to good use, albeit in small ways. (In the spring of 2009, our three groups worked with others to pull off a large-scale action outside the congressional power plant in D.C. that resulted in a promise that it would cease to burn coal.)  History suggests, in other words, that one way to effectively communicate both to the general public and to our leaders the urgency of the crisis is to put our bodies on the line.

Nobody can predict which one event will trigger social change. Paul Revere was not the only rider to warn of the British advance, and many people refused to move to the back of the bus before Rosa Parks. But we do know two things. First, that we must act with unity, and second, many minds working together are likely to be smarter. So we're asking for your help. As you go about your other work on behalf of the planet and its diverse communities, think about the possibilities for direct action, and write them down and send them to us. Here are a few thoughts to guide you.

• Our actions must be infused with the spirit of Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and other peaceful protesters before us. No violence, no property damage.
• We need large actions, with many members of the general public. Think hundreds and thousands. So don't concentrate on the kind of tactics that only a few hardy specialists can carry out; we're not going to have hundreds of people rappelling or scuba diving.
• We don't think for a minute that we can actually physically shut down the fossil-fuel economy for any meaningful period; it's too big. We need to aim for effective symbolic targets -- say, dirty, old coal-fired power plants -- and use them to make clear the need and opportunity to cut carbon fast.
• Our actions must be rooted in the communities where they are held and be organized hand in hand with local groups and activists.
• Our tactics need to engage onlookers, not alienate them. We have to have effective ways of keeping provocateurs and incendiaries at a distance, and attracting the kind of people who actually influence the rest of the public. Discipline will matter.
• We need to be transparent and open in our planning, not reliant on secrecy. We'll need to do our work certain that law enforcement is looking over our shoulders; our method can't be surprise.
• Beauty counts. We're fighting for the beauty in the world that's being stolen by our adversaries, and at the same time we're aiming for hearts and minds.
• We don't have unlimited resources. The cost and complexity of these kinds of actions can mount quickly. As with all things environmental, frugality and simplicity are virtues.

Note that though all of our groups have international operations, we're only thinking about America right now. That's for three reasons. One, in some parts of the world activists have already done great work that can teach us a lot. Two, America really has to show some leadership, since we're historically the biggest cause of climate change. And three, though we Americans face real and sobering risks when we engage in direct action, people doing the same things in many other nations can be locked up for decades or worse; in those places, other tactics will have to suffice.

Note too that though this letter comes from just three environmental groups, we want this fight open to everyone. We'll happily work with any organization that shares our goals and tactics as plans go forward; in fact, we think that breaking down boundaries between groups is key to any chance at success. We'll do our best to reach out, but please make sure you let us know you want to be involved.

We've set up a special email address for ideas: climate.ideas@gmail.com. By late autumn, we hope we'll have been able to mine those ideas and start coming up with coherent plans for actions starting next spring.

We know this strategy won't appeal to all of you. That's fine; there are a thousand other useful ways to help, and we don't want to distract anyone from other work they're doing. But if you have ideas, send them in. It's clear to us that this is going to be a battle for the long haul, and we're going to need to be creative and committed. Thanks much for being a big part of it.

Phil Radford, Greenpeace USA
Becky Tarbotton, Rainforest Action Network
Bill McKibben, 350.org

Nature of the Beast

Thursday evening, SFU downtown Vancouver, BC.
Book Launch: Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and Its Effect On Our Lives. by anthropologist Catherine Lutz and former marketer/investment banker turned high school teacher Anne Lutz Fernandez.

As book tours usually consist of a series of flights and taxis, it was refreshing to hear the authors of Carjacked state that their tour is being conducted through train and transit.

A captivating talk was enjoyed by a receptive audience, followed by a short question and answer session. They began with a few telling statistics which indicates that car culture is still flourishing in America, and by extension, in Canada. 150,000 new cars are sold everyday in America, and those cars are generally bigger, heavier, more expensive and carry a higher percentage of financing than ever before.

Through targeted marketing assaults and illusion-filled lifestyle advertising, North American society, and much of the developed and developing world has been thoroughly seduced by car culture. In most places, it has become so prevalent and ubiquitous as to go unquestioned and to be unassailable. The fish does not question the water, the motorist does not question his ‘right’ to drive.

After quickly identifying the broad canvas of the car “system” (basically: industry, government, infrastructure-investment, habit, and consumerism-culture) the authors explain that their work focuses on the last of these, upon the consumerist and social history and implications of the automobile as centrepiece of our current culture.

Within this social context, the authors point to some of the prevailing myths about automobile ownership. They further identify these commonly held assumptions, generated by car companies’ advertising/marketing machine, as points of attack to challenge the car culture monolith.

They identify the love-hate relationship many have with their cars--but it would seem the hate only occurs when the actual life fails to live up to the promises and illusions of the lifestyle advertising.

Of particular interest was the auto industry’s notions on safety, or at least those notions they are trying to sell you, the customer. Of course the thrust of safety engineering, since Ralph Nader demanded seat belts, has been to improve the integrity and cushion of the interior cabin, effectively cocooning the occupants from outside harm, yet often from vital outside input as well. Through it all, the car companies insist that they are producing “safe” cars, while driving remains an inherently dangerous activity.

But now attached to this idea of safety in the event of a collision, comes the idea of your car protecting you from all the apparent dangers of a hostile world. These dangers will be depicted either as the forces of nature, or else from more insidious, unnamed evils. With the culture of fear being racheted up beyond belief in the last ten years, this is an easy sell for the car companies.

Curiously, in many aspects of the car advertising game, the car is sold as a solution to the problems of the car. The monotony of the commute is solved with in-car distractions, the traffic jam is solved by a more comfortable seat, the pollution problem is solved by better air filters, pollution concerns are solved by electric cars, hottest summer on record, turn up the A/C, problem solved!...the madness goes on and on.

Car culture has insinuated itself into every stage of our lives, from childhood indoctrination (Disney movies, hot wheels toys...), through the coming-of-age ritual of your first driver’s license, into group identification and notions of individualism and status, and onto the reluctance and even rebellion of seniors who need to relinquish their driver’s licenses. Many feel it is an indispensable part of their daily routine, and have trouble and anxiety even considering a change of lifestyle. Obviously there is a great reluctance among motorists to abandon their cars in favour of more sensible transportation, even among those who recognize the problems.

For those who desire a better collective future, one that is not centered around the cult of the automobile, one not based upon keeping our cars happy at all costs, the talk by the authors of Carjacked was a reminder of the nature of the beast we must fight against, and shed some light of the size and complexity of that beast.

badger

"at ground zero of human species economics the only currency is the calorie"

Police State Canada

The new face of Canada.

Will Scare Children

Another victim.

"Road Terrorist"

MONTREAL – After yet another serious car-vs.-bike collision Monday, Quebec is struggling to come to terms with safety issues involving bike paths, roads and highways.

Between Friday and Monday, four cyclists died and another was critically injured in crashes involving cars and trucks. Each incident happened under different circumstances.

There are no simple solutions to the potential danger of mixing bikes and cars, said Jean-François Pronovost, director general of Vélo Québec Association, which represents 5,000 cyclists.

He said well-designed bike paths and paved shoulders on highways can save lives, but there are other variables.

“It’s a question of infrastructure and behaviour,” he said in an interview. “You can have good infrastructure with bad behaviour, either from cyclists or motorists, and there will be an accident.”

The three crashes:


* Friday morning, three female cyclists, members of the Club de Triathlon de St. Lambert, were killed after a pickup truck plowed into them on Highway 112 in Rougemont.

* Saturday night, a cyclist was struck and killed by a car on a rural highway in Val Morin. The motorist faces an impaired-driving charge.


* Monday morning, a cyclist in his early 60s was involved in a crash with a car in Trois Rivières. The cyclist was riding against traffic and was not wearing a helmet. The road featured a city bike path but the cyclist was not on it, Trois Rivières police said. Doctors fear he won’t survive his head injuries, police said.

On Monday, friends and strangers continued to post sympathy notes on the triathlon club’s Facebook page and planned to remember the fallen triathletes at a vigil Wednesday for cyclists killed on public roadways.

The husband of one of the Rougemont victims sent a letter to media outlets Monday.

“Today, I struggle to find a reason to go on without my wife who was unjustly taken by a ‘road terrorist,’ ” Patrick Lacroix said in the letter.

“If we were in the United States, the driver responsible for destroying our lives would already be before the courts. The simple reality is that we are responsible for the safety of others when we wield a weapon, the automobile.”

Lacroix’s wife, Sandra de la Garza Aguilar, 36, was one of three women killed Friday on Highway 112. Three other cyclists were injured but survived. All six were on racing bikes whose tires are not made to roll on the gravel found on highway shoulders.

Police say the cyclists appear to have been riding in single file on the highway, near the shoulder. The shoulder on that section of Highway 112 is not paved.

“By pure chance, work was just about to start on this stretch of road,” Lacroix said, referring to Quebec’s plan to repave that stretch of highway and add a paved shoulder.

“The Quebec government is criminally responsible for negligence,” Lacroix added.

Quebec coroner André Dandavino has said he is looking at whether cruise control was a factor in a lack of attentiveness by the truck driver, who was headed home after working a night shift.

In his letter, Lacroix said he was surprised to learn police did not administer an alcohol test on the truck driver. “If we add the fact that the driver is a young volunteer firefighter, so a colleague of the police, I won’t be surprised that the file will be closed quickly,” Lacroix said. “The next time you kill someone while driving your car, invoke fatigue.”

Last week, a Sûreté du Québec spokesperson said police did not suspect alcohol was a factor. On Monday, SQ spokesperson Ronald McInnis confirmed the truck driver was not tested for alcohol.

Under the Criminal Code, before they can administer an alcohol test, police must have reasonable grounds, such as alcohol on a driver’s breath or erratic behaviour by the driver, McInnis noted. He said the driver in the Rougemont crash exhibited no symptoms of alcohol consumption.

Police are still investigating the crash, McInnis said.

In 1995, Quebec said it would pave all unpaved highway shoulders, but only when the roadway itself is due to be repaved and only in cases where the highway is used by 5,000 or more vehicles daily.

Transport Quebec is responsible for 21,507 kilometres of roadways where the shoulder is not paved, said spokesperson Mario St-Pierre. He said he could not say how many of those kilometres cover roads used by 5,000 or more cars daily.

Another 15,688 kilometres of Transport Quebec roadways have paved shoulders, St-Pierre said.

Vélo Québec helps oversee the development of the Route Verte, a 4,100-kilometre bike route network, much of it in rural parts of the province where bikes must share the way with cars and trucks.

Pronovost said if a highway is used by more than 1,000 cars daily, it won’t be included on the Route Verte unless it features a paved shoulder.

But he said cycling on a highway can be safe, even without a paved shoulder. “It’s a question of the period of the day, the quality of the pavement, a lot of factors. It’s like every road. It’s impossible to have a patrol every day of every week on every stretch.”

ariga@thegazette.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Plucked from the Ether

“its ridiculous to talk about politics at all on a bike commuting website”

At the risk of appearing argumentative, I must admit that I couldn’t disagree more. To me, there is something inherently political about choosing a bicycle over an automobile. Perhaps not partisan politics, but whether we choose to ride for economic, environmental, or health reasons, we are using public roadways and pathways, sharing the roads with vehicles, and taking ourselves to a certain extent, out of the cycle of fossil fuels and foreign wars.
Whenever we commute by bicycle, we’re taking our mobility into our own hands, instead of purchasing it from the car company, the oil company, the oil cartel, and foreign dictator.
The politics of cycling cannot be easily classified as liberal/conservative, but the simple act of choosing to ride instead of drive has a profound political, economic, environmental, and social impact.
I think that we’re used to seeing politics as an argument rather than a conversation, but I think that those of us who chose to ride, regardless of our ideologies, are, intentionally or not, making a profound political statement that transcends party, ideology, and nation, and a little at a time, makes the world a better place.

A Short History of Oil Addiction

This Oil Ride
by Linh Dinh
1861 - The first major oil well in the world started pumping. Christened "Empire," it stood on Funk Farm in Pennsylvania.

1908 - The Anglo-Persian Oil Company discovered oil in Iran. This was the first major oil field in the Middle East. APOC would become the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, then British Petroleum, in 1954.

1913 - Inspired by disassembly lines inside Chicago slaughterhouses, the Ford Motor Company perfected the assembly line. From this point on, a man must strive to become as efficient and mechanical as a machine.

1927 - The Turkish Petroleum Company struck oil in Iraq. Despite its name, TPC was a conglomerate of European companies, with the biggest shareholder the Anglo-Persian Company, i.e., British Petroleum.

1933 - In New Jersey, the first drive-in theater opened. Thanks to the car, even a lumpen could have his private carriage. Now, he also had a private box in a theater.

1944 - The G.I. Bill helped returning veterans to buy homes, with stipulations that these were detached and in homogenous neighborhoods, i.e., the white suburbs. Like many American laws, this was designed to enrich real estate, car and oil interests.

1953 - The C.I.A. orchestrated a coup against the democratically-elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh, after he had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, i.e., British Petroleum.

1956 - President Eisenhower began the largest public works project in history, the Interstate. What it is is a generous and continuous system of multi-laned highways. It is never intersected, not even once, by a lesser road. One needs not pause on one's life's journey as long as one's traveling on the Interstate. It is eternity made real and proven, a diagram of heaven (or hell) for the wordless masses.

1962 - The Beverly Hillbillies debuted, to become one of the most popular television series of all time. Resonating deeply within the American psyche, its premise might as well be our national myth: a family of hicks struck it rich through oil.

1963 - The C.I.A. orchestrated a coup against Abdul Karim Kassem of Iraq. Kassem had begun nationalizing foreign oil companies, most prominently the Iraq Petroleum Company, formerly known as Turkish Petroleum, i.e., British Petroleum.

1967 - In "The Graduate," Mr. McGuire advised Ben, "I just want to say one word to you-just one word."

"Yes, sir."

"Are you listening?"

"Yes, I am."

"Plastics."

"Exactly how do you mean?"

"There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?"

"Yes, I will."

Plastic is oil, hardened. By 2010, there would be plastic patches the size of Texas to choke both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Thanks to the chemical phthalate in plastic, male genitals are shrinking worldwide, and sperm counts are way down, though not low enough, unfortunately, to slow down this full-throttle-ahead "love" boat. World population is approaching seven billion, with about 30,000 people starving to death each day.

1990 - The Gulf War ignited. Eyeing Kuwait's rich oil fields, Iraq attacked its tiny neighbor. Iraq was bankrupt after its eight-year-long war with Iran. During this previous conflict, the U.S. openly backed Iraq even as it sold weapons to Iran in what became known as the Iran-Contra Affair.

2000 - Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq would now only accept euros, and not dollars, for its oil exports. This prompted the U.S. to invade 18 months later.

2001 - Dick Cheney, "The American way of life is not negotiable." Before becoming vice president, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, an oil services company.

Ari Fleisher, Press Secretary to President Bush, was asked, "Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?"

He answered, "That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one."

With 1/21 of the world's population and less than 3% of its oil reserve, the U.S. uses 25% of the world's oil .

Draped in cheap oil and sweating oil, under an increasingly hot sun, I steer an oil car, on oil, towards an oil job. Before meals, I pray and take an oil pill. To feel upper or downer, I chug a lug oil.

2003 - Using various pretexts, none convincingly and long since discarded, the U.S. invaded Iraq. The invading force was mostly Anglo. Augmenting 248,000 Americans, the United Kingdom contributed 45,000 troops, Australia 2,000 and Poland 194.

2008 - During a debate between Vice Presidential candidates, Joe Biden said, "The only answer is drill, drill, drill. Drill we must," only to be corrected by Sarah Palin, "The chant is drill, baby, drill! And that's what we hear all across this country in our rallies, because people are so hungry for domestic sources of energy to be tapped into."

2009 - Thanks to the U.S. invasion, British Petroleum could do business again in Iraq after 37 years.

2010 - Floating 5,000 feet above the ocean floor, a British Petroleum rig was drilling 30,000 feet into the earth's crust when it exploded, then sank over its drill hole. 210,000 gallons a day are spilling as I'm writing this, and they won't be capped any time soon. This is no tanker breaking up, my friends, but the raped earth spewing what we've been demanding so relentlessly for over a century now. A monstrous ecocide, this is too fitting an end to our reckless oil ride.

Happy Motoring

You selfish bastards.

in reply

When one drives through the Southern and Western United States, it is immediately clear that in the last 10 years there has been no reversal of America’s commitment to a total automotive, sprawl culture. NONE WHATSOEVER. This is true in spite of the Economic Depression of the last 2 years with no end in sight, and the reality of Peak Oil undeniably upon us.

Not only is the lifestyle unchanged, its premises are totally unchallenged. The car is a basic right as well as a necessity – it is part of one’s personhood, especially one’s manhood.... It’s an extension of your physical body. To be separated from the vehicle is profound trauma, loss, the end of freedom.
Scott Schneider

Hi Scott,
Car culture indoctrination begins in early childhood and there are virtually no alternatives offered. Hot wheels and similar toys are seen as benign, cutsey car movies portray inanimate metal to be huggable and friendly little killing machines. Last year our local refinery had an open house including a giveaway to the kiddies of a car and oil-themed colouring book complete with the cutesy smiling cars. Of course, none of the oil executives I talked to saw anything wrong with distributing propaganda to children. No executive shill I spoke with would even acknowledge peak oil. It all left me feeling so dis-spirited.

Even in this relatively progressive city, the everyday, ‘business as normal’ people I talk to all seem eager to make positive changes, as long as it doesn’t affect them in any way. GWB said “The ‘Murikan way of life is non-negotiable.” Include Canada in that.

The range of excuses people offer for the reasons they “need” to drive are numerous and often laughable (“How else am I gonna get to my gym!” is a favorite) By and large, they are awaiting techno-fixes.

Changing the attitudes of kids has to be a start. Raising the driving age to 18 would also be a good start. Congestion pricing and penalties for driving with three empty seats should be mandatory in all cities. Removing the driver’s license as the de facto right-of-passage to adulthood is a step in the right direction. Sunsetting licenses, and proof of necessity measures would also begin to address our societal desires to make cars the happiest things on the planet. of course people regard me as loony if i drop any of these ideas into a conversation.

Sorry to have to quote the smirking chimp, so I’ll leave you with a better one.

“To say it is ‘too late’ is to make it so. –David Suzuki

keep up the fight.
D

Paid a fine.

By The Canadian Press via Yahoo

CALGARY - The driver of a school bus involved in a crash that killed a Calgary girl says her personal life was in turmoil before the accident
Louise Rogers is testifying at the fatality inquiry into the death of nine-year-old Kathelynn Occena.
Kathelynn died in October 2007 when the school bus sideswiped a parked gravel truck on a busy thoroughfare.
Rogers says she had tried to commit suicide the month before and had taken stress leave the previous spring because she was overwhelmed by the number of children on her route.
She says she had been seeing the school psychologist following the breakdown of her marriage and her supervisor was aware of her struggles.
Rogers pleaded guilty to careless driving and paid a fine.

more from cbc

David Ker Thomson

What I’m mostly up for this morning by way of taxing your half-million earballs is this virgin I nearly did the nasty on a few minutes ago. Sweet thing, legal eighteen I guess but looks like my dad used to say, ‘sweet sixteen and never been kissed’.

Well, I’m no prude, but I have to say that the level of offense this advertisement (alas, an ad it is, and the girl’s putting out for the West Toronto Kia at 2445 St. Clair West) generated in me is so intense that my outrage is—and here I wish to be very precise—literally inexpressible.

I mean that in a legal sense. I’m not even allowed to hint at what I think an appropriate response would be for people who run an ad depicting a virgin, a Rio automobile, and a price in such filthy juxtaposition here in the midst of the killing fields. And I’m committed to non-violence. “You never forget YOUR FIRST,” says the ad, which is how we know that, until the deal is sealed, virginity’s for sale. “Why settle for used? Drive new for the same price. 2008 RIO5. We have a fresh one for you…just call us for a pick-up.” Turns out that we don’t have to settle for a “beater,” since the new Rio is “sweet.”

For my part, I’ve never forgotten my first. Guy swerved right and caught me between his car and a parked one. Luckily I’d been doing that proto-parkour stuff and I leapt up and over and landed on the sidewalk. My bike didn’t fare so well. The guy stopped and prostrated himself with apologies and all, but I couldn’t help thinking that without that bit of self rapture I’d have been between a rock and a hard place.

Rio, eh? I live in ’rio, a province of small rivers and big lakes, so the name kind of stands out. These Rios are one of the many eco-friendly cars friendly for the backside of cyclists in the killing fields of the city. We are the cyclists killed every year by eco-friendly cars, hybrid “electric” buses with not one but two powerplants (echo, echo: both powerplants running on energy from fossil fuel), fuckers in leanly carbureted Volvos and their all-wheel-drive brethren, and so on. All the ‘good’ drivers and their clean green killing machines. Leprechaun terrorists.

FULL STORY

With Glowing Hearts

As usual I’m more ambitious than prolific, and had hoped to blog more during the games but shit happens and life ensues. More video soon!

Thus ends the most expensive party ever thrown, 17 days of drunken revelry. There seemed to be some sort of sports competition going on as well.

Today it must be one huge hangover.

Yesterday was the craziest scene I ever did see here upon the streets of downtown Vancouver, or any where else for that matter. The exuberance, joy and good will was palpable, everywhere impromptu parades we’re taking place on the downtown streets, spontaneous eruptions of cheers and hugs and mitten waving. It was an incredibly fun time.

I saw more than one street hockey game being played, and in the downtown parades, all the boys with the biggest trucks had the biggest flags--correlation? hmmm...

An incredible day that could have so easily been flattened if the Americans could have got a follow-up goal. It would have left a bitter taste upon these games, and yesterday would have become ‘somber Sunday’ instead of the celebration it was. Thank you, Sidney.



Canadians have a lot to be proud of in the way we live and get along with one another. We also have many shameful acts perpetuated in our names to be accountable for. But its hard to be cynical in the afterglow of the Five Ring Circus. Once the party started, we all seemed to put on our Sunday best and were welcoming and hospitable to all, as any host should be. A good perspective here, and here.

Not 14 gold medals or hockey bragging rights, but Canadian warmth and hospitality was the real showcase of these games. With glowing hearts, indeed.

Torch

don't blink

No Stinking Badges

These Olympig Games are touted to be “Green”. Or some shady variation thereof. Greenish is more appropriate, which is how the taxpayers are going to look when the final bill comes in.

The ubiquitous Olympig SUV fleet rolls on, every corner has a cop, or more likely, a thug hired for the occasion. (You can tell them apart from the badges) Of course we are all waiting to see if the much anticipated riot squad will show up to beat down the homelessness protestors. Riot squad cops are easily recognized by their high tech ‘man-in-black’ look. They get to carry the BFW’s. Of course, these guys don’t need no stinking badges.

One positive aspect of the whole business is that there is NO PUBLIC PARKING! at any of the official venues. In this case, “public” means the majority of the unwashed sheeple, even when they are shelling out $1500 for a nosebleed seat for the opening fiasco, er ceremony. Of course the Olympig SUV fleet will be exempt. I’m sure also exempt will be the entourage of the various war criminals who masqurade as our political “leaders” and corporate parasites.

All those cars that used to occupy public space now just seem to be roaming around more, gridlocking the streets, perhaps looking for a parking spot that no longer exists. Even though much public money has already been spent on propaganda to get people to take transit, most everybody thinks the advice doesn’t apply to them, and continues to operate under the delusion that what they do is “important”.

Olympics Open

Well here it is, finally. The countdown clock rapidly approaches zero, many cheques have been cashed, the DTES has been sanitized, somewhat. We’re up to our elbows in debt and near civic bankruptcy but all that doesn’t matter now, cuz its time to party!

The buzz has been palpable the last week or so, or is it just the amount of carbon monoxide doubling as downtown routes become gridlocked. You can’t go a block without seeing a Olympig branded SUV rolling down the street, inevitably with a single driver and three empty seats. These are all sponsor provided oversize 4WD, as if this event was going to actually have snow! I happened to see them all parked beneath the Cambie Bridge, a rolling promotional fleet of destruction. The city has pleaded for a 30% reduction in regular traffic to help accommodate the games, but it seems to have only gone up by thirty per cent or more.

I thought it is a horrible glimpse of the future if we carry on with ‘bidnes as usual’.

The Olympic Games juggernaut is business as usual on hyper steroids. As we have been under the heel of the Olympic Corporation for nearly six years now, a lot of people have been ground under that heel, trampled without heed or remorse. Property taxes have increased cross the entire province as a result, and a reduction and failure of public services will be the legacy. As with any public debt, it will weigh most heavily upon the poor.

I’m sure a few people made A LOT OF MONEY off these games, the builders and contractors, the hotels, bars and restaurants. Peter Kieweit comes to mind, for one. Oh, and the prostitutes too, apparently, will cash in. The VANOC people thought they did such a good job that they gave themselves yet another raise in the midst of the most crippling depression the western capitalist world has ever known.

And then there is the security. Planned in the paranoid frenzy of the post 9-11, moron in the whitehouse world, A BILLION DOLLARS hs been thrown down the “security” sewer hole. A billion fucking dollars, that’s nine zeros behind that one, kids.

Meanwhile public spaces that haven’t been taken over by the Olympig corporation--anyone attempt to go public skating this year? futile.--have been defunded and closed. Bye bye Bloedel Conservatory. Those eight hundred teachers the government has promised to lay off, where do you think the money for those jobs went, hmmm?

All told, I’m told the price tag is going to be SIX BILLION DOLLARS! No wonder people are pissed off that they have to work like a dog all week to bring home $350. If they are lucky enough to have a job...But of course, bidnes as usual rolls on, people think they’re rich, Olympig souvenirs are flying off the shelves. Get yer red mittens. Made in China.