tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46762962539794201422024-02-18T22:46:38.987-08:00Three Empty SeatsQuestioning the central premise of our society: "How can we make cars happy?"SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-66631119254826071992012-03-25T09:55:00.001-07:002012-03-25T09:57:23.115-07:00The True Price of GasIt's a start but still doesn't cover the half of it.<br /><br /><a href="http://momentummag.com/videos/the-price-of-gas">http://momentummag.com/videos/the-price-of-gas</a>SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-20964688577252613812011-12-28T09:58:00.000-08:002011-12-28T10:01:27.329-08:00True ConfessionsConfessions of a recovering engineer <br /><br /><br />BY CHARLES MAROHN<br /><br />22 NOV 2010 5:26 PM<br /><br /><br />Cross-posted from <a href="http://www.strongtowns.org/">Strong Towns</a>.<br />After graduating from college with a civil engineering degree, I found myself working in my home town for a local engineering firm doing mostly municipal engineering (roads, sewer pipe, water pipe, stormwater). A fair percentage of my time was spent convincing people that, when it came to their road, I knew more than they did.<br />And of course I should know more. First, I had a technical degree from a top university. Second, I was in a path towards getting a state license (at the time I was an engineer in training, the four-year "apprenticeship" required to become a fully licensed professional engineer), which required me to pass a pretty tough test just to get started and another, more difficult, exam to conclude. Third, I was in a profession that is one of the oldest and most respected in human history, responsible for some of the greatest achievements of mankind. Fourth -- and most important -- I had books and books of standards to follow.<br />A book of standards to an engineer is better than a bible to a priest. All you have to do is to rely on the standards. Back in college I was told a story about how, in WWII, some Jewish engineers in hiding had run thousands of tedious tests on asphalt, just to produce these graphs that we still use today. Some of our craft descends from Roman engineers who did all of this a couple of millennia ago. How could I be wrong with literally thousands of years of professional practice on my side?<br />And, more to the point, what business would I -- let alone a property owner on a project I was working on -- have in questioning the way things were done? Of course the people who wrote the standards knew better than we did. That is why they wrote the standard.<br />When people would tell me that they did not want a wider street, I would tell them that they had to have it for safety reasons.<br />When they answered that a wider street would make people drive faster and that would be seem to be less safe, especially in front of their house where their kids were playing, I would confidently tell them that the wider road was more safe, especially when combined with the other safety enhancements the standards called for.<br />When people objected to those other "enhancements", like removing all of the trees near the road, I told them that for safety reasons we needed to improve the sight distances and ensure that the recovery zone was free of obstacles.<br />When they pointed out that the "recovery zone" was also their "yard" and that their kids played kickball and hopscotch there, I recommended that they put up a fence, so long as the fence was outside of the right-of-way.<br />When they objected to the cost of the wider, faster, treeless road that would turn their peaceful front yard into the viewing area for a drag strip unless they built a concrete barricade along their front property line, I informed them that progress was sometimes expensive, but these standards have been shown to work across the state, the country, and the world, and I could not compromise with their safety.<br />In retrospect I understand that this was utter insanity. Wider, faster, treeless roads not only ruin our public places, they kill people. Taking highway standards and applying them to urban and suburban streets, and even county roads, costs us thousands of lives every year. There is no earthly reason why an engineer would ever design a 14-foot lane for a city block, yet we do it continually. Why?<br />The answer is utterly shameful: Because that is the standard.<br />In the engineering profession's version of defensive medicine, we can't recommend standards that are not in the manual. We can't use logic to vary from a standard that gives us 60 mph design speeds on roads with intersections every 200 feet. We can't question why two cars would need to travel at high speed in opposite directions on a city block, let alone why we would want them to. We can yield to public pressure and post a speed limit -- itself a hazard -- but we can't recommend a road section that is not in the highway manual. <br />When the public and politicians tell engineers that their top priorities are safety and then cost, the engineer's brain hears something completely different. The engineer hears, "Once you set a design speed and handle the projected volume of traffic, safety is the top priority. Do what it takes to make the road safe, but do it as cheaply as you can." This is why engineers return projects with asinine "safety" features, like pedestrian bridges and tunnels that nobody will ever use, and costs that are astronomical. <br />An engineer designing a street or road prioritizes the world in this way, no matter how they are instructed: <br /> 1. Traffic speed<br /> 2. Traffic volume<br /> 3. Safety<br /> 4. Cost<br />The rest of the world generally would prioritize things differently, as follows:<br /> 1. Safety<br /> 2. Cost<br /> 3. Traffic volume<br /> 4. Traffic speed<br />In other words, the engineer first assumes that all traffic must travel at speed. Given that speed, all roads and streets are then designed to handle a projected volume. Once those parameters are set, only then does an engineer look at mitigating for safety and, finally, how to reduce the overall cost (which at that point is nearly always ridiculously expensive).<br />In America, it is this thinking that has designed most of our built environment, and it is nonsensical. In many ways, it is professional malpractice. If we delivered what society asked us for, we would build our local roads and streets to be safe above all else. Only then would we consider what could be done, given our budget, to handle a higher volume of cars at greater speeds.<br />We go to enormous expense to save ourselves small increments of driving time. This would be delusional in and of itself if it were not also making our roads and streets much less safe. I'll again reference a 2005 article from the APA Journal showing how narrower, slower streets dramatically reduce accidents, especially fatalities.<br />And it is that simple observation that all of those supposedly "ignorant" property owners were trying to explain to me, the engineer with all the standards, so many years ago. When you can't let your kids play in the yard, let alone ride their bike to the store, because you know the street is dangerous, then the engineering profession is not providing society any real value. It's time to stand up and demand a change.<br />It's time we demand that engineers build us <a href="http://www.strongtowns.org/">Strong Towns</a>.SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-51120816691823744822011-12-22T10:09:00.000-08:002011-12-22T10:11:04.667-08:00Yarn-baughmed<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpUu3TNeIWfT16lOM3ktdoYfxOMC_M_Yu_stcQrNVvlid0LOUCMeh-zr2lV3wOV1Qx7yFQYRRP96g0MObjyHLHEC9e1GqSc-rNvJkqdFCtB2_lnkwEkzWmTYUgggW1LlWaI3GuJGf2ECM/s1600/street_art_mars_6.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpUu3TNeIWfT16lOM3ktdoYfxOMC_M_Yu_stcQrNVvlid0LOUCMeh-zr2lV3wOV1Qx7yFQYRRP96g0MObjyHLHEC9e1GqSc-rNvJkqdFCtB2_lnkwEkzWmTYUgggW1LlWaI3GuJGf2ECM/s400/street_art_mars_6.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689016861877469090" /></a><br />via boingboing.netSilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-53655802584322737452011-10-13T18:39:00.000-07:002011-10-13T18:41:11.992-07:00Just like now, only better!So I had the misfortunate good fortune to attend the city’s dog and pony show of sub-political suasion and careerist bluster-- the firing up of a mystery theatre of deliberate delusion, a mighty wind of feel good messaging salted with reassuring moments -- “Don’t worry, the future will be pretty much the same as it is now, only better!”<br /><br />We gather together inside a capitalist space, curiously orange, temporarily removed from the buying and selling of human lives which usually goes on inside such rooms. It is almost homey, in a minimalist and industrial fashion, an ikea meets danzig aesthetic--if mom were to appear, she’d be in an frilled orange apron and shitkicker leather boots with lots of metal studs. I’d guess the real business of fleecing the sheep happens in the back rooms. Ignore the screaming, please.<br /><br />I sit and listen and listen some more, and wonder. Everyone seems to be ignoring the herd of elephants, asking polite and predictable questions. A hundred and a half questions fly through my mind, most unanswerable, and many, it would seem, unaskable.<br /><br />With gold cufflinks and a reverend smile, a steady-on demeanor, a paced and practiced4 delivery, our man positively glitters in the promise of the future, so bright I had to wear shades.<br /><br />“More of the same, only better!” I heard our man say. “Cleaner, greener, new and improved, “ he recited. “We can shop our way to consumer nirvana, forever munching away at the banquet of goods and services, forever sprawling to the five corners of the earth; all of nature bows to our will, we are the masters of the universe, never to be defeated.”<br /><br />More plastic toys to fill our primate cages.<br /><br />“More,” he shouted. “More,” the crowd intoned in unison.<br /><br />Okay, it might not have gone exactly like that, but the subtext was inescapable.<br /><br />The house is on fire and we argue where to place the sofa.SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-17370671837054539152011-09-15T18:59:00.001-07:002011-09-15T18:59:41.064-07:00Park(ing) DayPARK(ing) Day: Reclaiming Our Streets from Our Cars<br />by Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi<br />On Friday activists and artists will be celebrating PARK(ing) Day in hundreds of cities around the world. <br /><br />Begun in San Francisco six years ago the aim of the annual event is “to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into “‘PARK(ing)’ spaces: temporary public places.” Organizers generally add benches or fake grass to pieces of public property usually taken up by a private car. Some are more adventurous, filling spots with ping-pong tables, basketball hoops or even a knitted garden in a PARK.<br /><br />Incredibly, PARK(ing) Day participants often find themselves contravening the law, even when they fill the meter. In many cities only a motorized vehicle is allowed to occupy a parking space unless the city has granted a special permit.<br /><br />PARK(ing) Day successfully draws attention to a topic that receives little in the way of social commentary. Beyond the seemingly endless quest for an empty spot, parking is rarely discussed, yet it shapes urban environments. Parked 95 percent of the time, personal cars require a huge amount of storage space and whether on the exurban fringe or downtown, parking blight is a plague upon the land.<br /><br /> “Perhaps nothing has made American cities less memorable,” write John Jakle and Keith Sculle in Lots of Parking. “Parking lots have eaten away cities in the United States like moths devouring a lace wedding gown,” chimes in Mark Childs. History reinforces his vivid imagery. In the first half of the century, many charming centers were stripped of their character as historic buildings were razed to make way for surface parking. In 1910, for instance, Detroit’s Cadillac Square met its end and became a giant parking lot. “All across the United States,” write Jakle and Sculle, “especially in county seat towns with court house squares, public space was systematically diverted to parking, thus eroding traditional open space in favor of auto storage.”<br /><br />No great city has an abundance of parking. At least, that was the conclusion of Better Neighborhoods, a study by the San Francisco planning department, which described places like Joe DiMaggio’s childhood neighborhood of North Beach as a dying breed: “If we had to rebuild a place like North Beach under today’s [government imposed] parking requirements, as much as a third of the space where people live would be given up for parking. We would lose much of the street-life — the shops and cafes, the vendors and the stoops — that make areas like North Beach vibrant and interesting. We don’t build places like these today because we require so much parking. There are plenty of examples of the kinds of buildings our parking requirements result in. We just need to imagine a city composed entirely of these buildings, and ask ourselves if this is the kind of city we want in the future.”<br /><br />Contrary to orthodox planning, great streets do well without “enough” parking. In the vibrant central district of Carmel, California for instance, off-street parking is prohibited. Similarly, Boston, New York and San Francisco limit parking downtown (though they require it everywhere else).<br /><br />In 1923, Columbus, Ohio, became the first city to make off-street parking mandatory for all new apartment buildings. Twenty-five years later, 185 cities had introduced parking requirements for land uses ranging from hospitals and theatres to office buildings and houses. “By 1960,” Jakle and Sculle explain, “nearly every large American city included parking requirements in its zoning program not just for tall buildings but for all buildings.” Even Houston — a city without zoning — requires off-street parking for every imaginable land use (restaurants, shops, apartments and more).<br /><br />In many counties, five parking spaces — about 1,500 square feet — are required for every 1,000 square feet of shop or restaurant floor space. In one especially arduous stipulation, Montgomery County, Maryland, required funeral parlors to provide 83 parking spaces (24,900 square feet) per 1,000 square feet of floor area. Perhaps that explains the high cost of dying.<br /><br />Divorce Your Car author Katie Alvord reflects upon the priorities of a California city that required 2.8 public library books per thousand residents and 2.2 parking spaces for every housing unit; a 4,000 unit development with an average of 2.7 people per unit would need 30 new library books and 8,800 parking spaces (2,640,000 square feet). This could be why more people seem to know the make and model of a car than the capital of the neighboring state.<br /><br />Unlike most zoning ordinances that simply prohibit something, parking requirements are proscriptive: They tell developers exactly what to do. No city bans the construction of apartments with one bedroom or bathroom. Many, however, ban the construction of apartments with only one parking spot. Converting buildings to different uses is difficult in places with supercharged parking requirements. In many cities, a new business simply cannot move into a building that formerly housed an operation with lower parking requirements without adding more spaces (or obtaining a variance).<br /><br />Extensive parking requirements have reduced many architects to designing buildings around parking laws. “Form follows parking requirements,” laments parking guru, Donald Shoup. This was already the case in 1948 Los Angeles, when the Journal of American Institute of Planners noted that, “in many cases, the number of garage spaces actually control the number of dwelling units which could be accommodated on a lot.”<br /><br />Since all units, irrespective of size, are generally required to have a parking spot, apartments have become larger and more expensive. The financial and logistical burden created by parking requirements restricts the rooming supply. “Zoning requires a home for every car, but ignores homeless people,” writes Shoup. “By increasing the cost of housing, parking requirements make the real homelessness problem even worse.”<br /><br />Mandatory parking is almost always “free” (the law sometimes stipulates that it must be). In Los Angeles, for example, commercial and office spaces must provide at least three free parking spaces for every 1,000 square feet. Even when zoning laws don’t mandate free parking, the saturated “market” creates an expectation that parking will be free. Would there be any need for parking requirements if people were willing to pay? Wouldn’t profit-oriented businesses sell as much parking as they could charge for? Yet, drivers park free for 99 percent of all car trips. “It is no doubt ironic,” quipped German auto historian, Wolfgang Zuckermann, “that the motorcar, superstar of the capitalist system, expects to live rent-free.”<br /><br />The push for subsidized parking began in the 1910s and 20s. Cities across the USA began devoting tens of millions of dollars to widen streets and cut down trees to increase parking space. Today it’s hard to find a street without space for curb parking, which Shoup argues, “may be the most costly subsidy Americans cities provide for most of their citizens.”<br /><br />The cost of “free” parking is almost always hidden. Be it at Wal-Mart, McDonalds or a hospital, the free parking that lurks in the backyard of almost all private enterprise is buried in product prices. “Seemingly, everyone but the motorist pays for parking,” lament Jakle and Sculle. The cost of “free” parking is astronomical. In 2002, for instance, the total subsidy for off-street parking in the USA was between $127 billion and $374 billion. Shoup argues that, “The cost of all parking spaces in the U.S. exceeds the value of all cars and may even exceed the value of all roads.”<br /><br />The financial and social costs of automobile storage are enormous. PARK(ing) Day helps shine a spotlight on this little discussed topic.<br /><br />To participate go to parkingday.orgSilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-28536721332775433332011-07-15T13:06:00.000-07:002011-07-28T12:04:28.591-07:00hmmmWe don’t normally report on vehicle crashes here on the Capitol Hill blog, but this was so outrageous we couldn’t help ourselves.<br /><br />A 30-year-old woman in Marietta, Georgia was convicted of vehicular homicide this week – and she wasn’t even driving a car. The woman was crossing the street with her three children when a driver, who had been drinking, hit and killed her four-year-old. The driver, Jerry Guy, was initially charged with “hit and run, first degree homicide by vehicle and cruelty to children,” Elise Hitchcock of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. “Charges were later dropped to just the hit and run charge.”<br /><br />The man has previously been convicted of two hit-and-runs – on the same day, in 1997, one of them on the same road where he killed Raquel Nelson’s son.<br /><br />Guy will serve six months for killing the boy, but Nelson will serve up to 36 months – just for crossing the street with her child. Yes, it’s true: they were not in a crosswalk. Are there any crosswalks on that street at all?<br /><br />Hitchcock at the AJC says:<br /><br />The conviction does not sit well with Sally Flocks, president and CEO of PEDS, a pedestrian advocacy organization.<br /><br />“Invest the money in safe crossings,” Flocks said. “For the costs of the trial yesterday, they could have made a safe crossing. But they don’t want to do that.”<br /><br />The Atlanta-Sandy-Springs-Marietta, Georgia metro area ranks 11th in the country for most dangerous streets for pedestrians, according to Transportation for America’s recent report on pedestrian safety and street design. The region had nearly 800 pedestrian deaths between 2000 and 2009.<br /><br />Despite the fact that Atlanta-area municipalities continue to build roads, like the one where Nelson’s son was killed, with inadequate pedestrian crossings and sidewalks, and despite the fact that the federal government continues to vastly underfund pedestrian safety infrastructure on federally-funded roads and highways, the courts have pointed the finger at Nelson, blaming her for the death of her son on a road that was designed with no regard for pedestrian safety.<br /><br />via streetsblog http://dc.streetsblog.org/2011/07/14/mother-convicted-of-vehicular-homicide-for-crossing-street-with-children/<br /><br /><br />+++UPDATE+++<br />28 JULY<br /><br />A Georgia mother who faced a longer prison sentence than the drunk driver who killed her son has avoided time behind bars, following a public outcry. An all-white jury had convicted Raquel Nelson, an African American, of homicide by vehicle and of jaywalking. Nelson’s son, A.J., was killed as the family attempted to cross a busy street between a bus stop and their apartment complex. There were no crosswalks nearby. After facing three years in prison, Nelson has been ordered to serve one year’s probation and carry out 40 hours of community service. The driver who struck and killed A.J. — a partially blind man who admitted to drinking and using painkillers the day of the accident — served six months and is currently on probation. An online petition demanding leniency for Nelson prior to her sentencing gathered more than 125,000 supporters.<br /><br />via democracynow.orgSilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-3446113044336111502011-04-20T11:33:00.003-07:002011-04-20T11:35:25.678-07:00Life in Louisiana, and on Earth, Struggles to SurvivePublished on Wednesday, April 20, 2011 by New. Clear. Vision. <br />Life in Louisiana, and on Earth, Struggles to Survive<br /> by John Clark <br /><br />On this anniversary of the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, attention here in south Louisiana is focused on the consequences of that traumatic event. As the Deepwater Horizon disaster begins to recede into history, we have heard wildly divergent views of what its effects have been for our region.<br /><br />On the one hand, we hear optimistic statements about the almost complete recovery of the Gulf. On the other, we hear troubling reports of what still lies beneath the surface, and of possible long-term ecological damage that can only be assessed after much careful scientific study. Meanwhile, tourist agencies and public officials urge us to relax, take a swim, and eat some seafood.<br /><br />I suggest that in assessing the real costs of oil, we take a larger view of the matter. What are its costs over the long term for this region, for humanity, and for the whole planet?<br /><br />My family came to New Orleans almost three hundred years ago. Over the centuries that we have been here, we have lived in a culture that has been shaped by the bodies of water that surround us: by the Gulf, the lakes, the bayous, the wetlands, and by the great river that created our landscape, the very ground on which we stand.<br /><br />We might reflect for a moment on our local and regional history over that period, and on a much larger history of which we are a part. If we go back a century and a half, we find a Louisiana that was rich and powerful. Its power came from an economy based on cotton, sugar cane and slavery. This economy brought poverty and oppression to many, but wealth and prosperity to the rulers and the more privileged. It was also an economy that was doomed to extinction.<br /><br />On the eve of the Civil War, the great geographer Reclus could observe that according to the conventional wisdom of the American South, this system of production “was not only a necessary and inexorable institution, but also a moral and humane one, producing the greatest political and social advantages.” Just as the economic system based on cotton, sugar cane, and slavery was about to collapse, and the entire old society with it, there was an almost universal outcry among those who could speak and be heard that that system was inevitable and eternal, that our society depended on it, and that without it there would be catastrophe. But this system was itself the catastrophe.<br /><br />Since the recent dawn of the Petroleum Age, Louisiana has produced nearly twenty billion barrels of oil, generating enormous wealth for the national and global economies. Once again, the conventional wisdom has seen the prevailing economic order as both absolutely necessary and highly advantageous. But what, in reality, have the dominant extractive and petrochemical industries, and especially oil, brought to Louisiana? We are one of the poorest states. We are one of the least educated states. We are one of the unhealthiest states. We are one of the states in which government is most abjectly subservient to industry. We are one of the states most scarred by rampant corruption. We are one of the most environmentally devastated states. And now, the oil industry has damaged coastal wetlands and Gulf ecosystems, quite possibly for a considerable period into the future, in the worst marine oil disaster in history.<br /><br />But these are far from the greatest evils that have been inflicted on us by petro-tyranny. Thanks largely to the operations of the oil industry, two thousand square miles of our coastal wetlands have disappeared. Communities whose lives have been dependent on these wetlands and on the Gulf for hundreds or, in the case of indigenous people, even thousands of years, are disappearing. Finally, and most disastrously, global climate change caused by a carbon-based, and above all, a petroleum-based economy, will soon submerge coastal Louisiana entirely. Our home, our native land, will disappear forever.<br /><br />We are not unique victims of such petro-terrorism. We might also ask what the oil industry has brought to humanity as a whole, and to the planet. Oil has fueled a powerful system of production, which, while creating massive amounts of material goods, has also been essential to creating the Sixth Great Mass Extinction in the three-billion-year history of life on earth. This is the great catastrophe of our age. It is, indeed, the single most important fact about life on earth at the present moment, and the single most traumatic one, which is why it is almost never mentioned in electoral campaigns, news reports, or textbooks.<br /><br />Oil has also brought us global climate change that threatens to inundate not only our region, but lands where hundreds of millions of people live. It threatens to create a disaster for global agriculture, thus contributing to the possibility of a catastrophic population crash. It threatens to aggravate species and ecosystem destruction, and thus accelerate the existing biodiversity crisis. This massive climate disruption is the second greatest catastrophe of our age, one which is now much discussed, but almost never faced as if it were a real, impending reality.<br /><br />If we take an only slightly larger view of history than is customary, we will realize an obvious truth. Oil will end, and it will end very soon. The petroleum economy will decline, and it will do so in this century. The Petroleum Age will have existed for only a brief moment in human history, no more than a fleeting nanosecond in earth’s history. The great question is how much social and ecological havoc it will wreak before it disappears.<br /><br />The tragic irony is that we have the technological means to create abundance for all without the massive ecological devastation caused by fossil fuels (and other destructive technologies). A large part of our challenge today, on the one-year anniversary of the worst marine oil disaster in history, is to learn to assess both the costs and benefits of oil in relation to something much greater: the value of the healthy flourishing of life on earth.<br />New. Clear. Vision. © 2010 - 2011<br />http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/20-7SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-46376030405937078522011-03-22T15:52:00.000-07:002011-03-22T15:53:21.107-07:00Out to SeaAll interconnects,<br /><br />Each touches every other.<br /><br />I'm thinking that out here on the left end of Terminal City it's World Water Day, another self-appointed day of reckoning for an issue more pressing than one in three sixty five can possibly accommodate. Somewhat obligingly, water leaks from the sky.<br /><br />Water surrounds us on all sides here on the western peninsula, but I suppose the same can be said for everyone everywhere, if you only stretch your horizons far enough. Turtle Island, my enlightened friends say.<br /><br />Water runs through our cities and towns, grand rivers are synonymous with their grand cities--we know them by name: the Seine, the Thames, the Mississippi and the muddy Fraser. Perhaps the first lesson of civilisation is 'Build near water', but not too close.<br /><br />Without water, there is barren landscape and few signs of intelligent life. Yet life perseveres. Air -conditioned golf course houses to air-conditioned SUVs to air-conditioned workspaces, these creatures of comfort that inhabit this wasteland, these A/C'd hayseeds require huge inputs of energy and water, the extraction and wanton usage of one ruining the purity of the other.<br /><br />I'm thinking of the hydrological cycle we all learned about in grade school. I can still picture the textbook illustration--the "happy clouds" gathered over the ocean, swept inland to drop in the shadow of the mountains. I'm considering the general westward push of the weather on this big ol' ball of water and mud, and how, far to the east, a new sun may be blooming.<br /><br />I'm still thinking of the images of black oil boiling out into the bottom of the Ocean for days, weeks on end, of executive lies and government blinds and cures that may prove to be more terrible than the disease. I'm learning new terms generated from the regime of capital meeting the consequences of disaster, phrases like: "run to failure" and "meltdown chain" and hearing the unspoken behind every corp-o-rat spokesman: "protect the investment, defend the brand".<br /><br />In the Gulf last year and at Fukushima today, the talking heads attempt to reassure the public as the situation rapidly deteriorates. No matter which side of the big lie they lie, the professional punditry seems to offer as a source of comfort that the latest man-made defilement was "drifting out to sea". Out of sight, out of mind.<br /><br />I'm thinking "out to sea" really means the Ocean. Our Ocean. The Ocean that more than two-thirds of the world's population is connected. It is no comfort at all when the unholy gods of energy and industry still consider the Ocean to be an open sewer, a Hoover-matic that never needs its bag to be emptied.<br /><br />The sky no longer sheds its purple tears and the sound of a hose running draws me from my reveries. Peering out I see our neighbour performing his ritual obligations. He proclaims it to be a great day, before commencing to slop suds upon his spotless car, his chariot of smoke and fire well watered beyond the limits of Hur's team. He soaps and rinses, waxes and vains while the dishevelled wife glares from the kitchen window. Ah, the suburban dream continues...SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-70975150739926502652011-03-11T10:59:00.000-08:002011-03-11T11:01:53.229-08:00All so you can have cheap gasWord Games and Atrocities<br />via counterpunch.org<br />By DAVE LINDORFF<br /><br />The people of Afghanistan know who was flying the two helicopter gunships that brutally hunted down and slaughtered, one by one, nine boys apparently as young as seven years old, as they gathered firewood on a hillside March 1. In angry demonstrations after the incident, they were shouting "Death to America."<br /><br />Americans are still blissfully unaware that their "heroes" in uniform are guilty of this obscene massacre. The ovine US corporate media has been reporting on this story based upon a gutless press release from the Pentagon which attributes the "mistake" to "NATO" helicopters.<br /><br />The thing is, this terrible incident occurred in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan's Kunar province, where US forces have for several years been battling Taliban forces, and from which region they are now in the process of withdrawing. Clearly then, it is US, and not "NATO" helicopters which have been responding to calls to attack "suspected Taliban forces."<br /><br />So why can't the Pentagon say that? And if they won't say that, why won't American reporters either demand that they clearly state the nationality of whatever troops commit an atrocity, or exercise due diligence themselves and figure it out?<br /><br />There is a second issue too. Most publications appear to have followed the lead of the highly compromised New York Times, and are going with the Pentagon line that the boys who were killed were aged 9-15. That's bad enough. It's hard to see how helicopter pilots with their high-resolution imaging equipment, cannot tell a 9-year-old boy when they see one, from a bearded Taliban fighter. But at least one news organization, the McClachy chain, is reporting that the ages of the boys who were murdered from the air were 7-13. If that latter range of ages is correct, then it is all the more outrageous that they were picked off one by one by helicopter gunners. No way could they have mistaken a 7-year-old for an adult.<br /><br />No wonder the even the famously corrupt Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused to accept an apology proffered for this killing by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus.<br /><br />Calls by this reporter to the Pentagon for an accurate report on whose troops were flying those two helicopters, and on an accurate accounting of the ages of the nine victims, have thus far gone unanswered. This, I have discovered, is fairly standard for the Defense Department. If it's a story about some big victory, or a new eco-friendly plan for a military base's heating system, you have to beat the Pentagon PR guys off with a stick, but if you call them about something embarrassing or negative, you get passed from Major Perrine to Lt. Col. Robbins to Commander Whozits, and nobody give you an answer. Finally you're given someone to email a question to, and that message goes into the Pentagon internet ether and never gets returned.<br /><br />So let's give an honest report here. Two US helicopter gunships, allegedly responding to a report of "insurgent" activity on a hillside in Kunar Province, came upon the scene of 10 young Afghan boys who were collecting brush for fuel for their families. The gunships, according to the account of a lone 11-year-old surviver who was hidden by a tree, systematically hunted down the other nine boys, hitting them with machine gun and rocket fire and killing them all--their bodies so badly damaged that their families had to hunt for the pieces in order to bury them.<br /><br />This atrocity is being described as a "mistake," but it was no mistake, clearly. The crews of the helicopters were shooting at fleeing human beings who made no attempt to return fire (obviously, because all the boys had were sticks, which they surely dropped when the first shots were fired).<br /><br />They almost certainly saw that they were dealing with kids, because it would be hard to mistake even a nine year old for an adult, particularly in a country where young kids go around with their heads uncovered, and don't have beards, while adult males generally wear head coverings, and have full beards. But killing kids is part of the deal in America's war in Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, 12 year olds were being classified by the US military (in contravention of the Geneva Conventions) as being "combat age," for example in the assault on the city of Fallujah.<br /><br />Let's also be clear that this slaughter of nine Afghan children is the ugly reality behind Gen. Petraeus's supposed policy of "protecting civilians." Here's a number that tells the true story about that policy: since Gen. Petraeus assumed command after the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, US airstrikes in Afghanistan have gone up by 172%. That's not counting attacks by remote-controlled, missile-firing drone aircraft, which are also up by a huge amount. Those airstrikes and drone attacks are notoriously deadly for civilians--far more so than ground attacks, but of course they have the advantage for our "heroes" in uniform of reducing the number of US casualties in this hugely one-sided conflict.<br /><br />There are so many aspects to this story that are disturbing, it's hard to know what's worse. Clearly we are deliberately murdering kids in Afghanistan, and this particular incident is just an example we know about. The men who did this will hopefully pay for their crimes by living with their guilt, but hopefully there will be an honest investigation and proper punishment too by military authorities (I'm not holding my breath). Petraeus and his boss, Commander in Chief Obama, should also be called to account and punished for implementing a war plan that calls for this kind of brutal slaughter of civilians.<br /><br />But the US media are also guilty here. How can Americans reach proper conclusions about this obscene war against one of the poorest peoples in the World if our supposedly "fair and balanced" media simply performs the role of Pentagon propagandist, running Defense Department press releases as if they were news reports?<br /><br />The blood of these poor Afghan kids is smeared on the desks and keyboards of American newsrooms.<br /><br />DAVE LINDORFF is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, the new independent, collectively-owned, journalist-run, reader-supported online alternative newspaper.SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-5658193755529721052011-03-10T09:42:00.000-08:002011-03-10T09:44:13.599-08:00Happy MotoringPublished on Thursday, March 10, 2011 by Al Jazeera<br />Gulf Spill Sickness Wrecking Lives<br />Nearly a year after the oil disaster began, Gulf Coast residents are sick, and dying from BP's toxic chemicals.<br />by Dahr Jamail<br />"I have critically high levels of chemicals in my body," 33-year-old Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi told Al Jazeera. "Yesterday I went to see another doctor to get my blood test results and the nurse said she didn't know how I even got there."<br /><br />BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons toxic dispersants, including one chemical that has been banned in the UK. According to chemist Bob Naman, these chemicals create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil. Aguinaga and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.<br /><br />"I swam underwater, then found I had orange slick stuff all over me," Aguinaga said. "At that time I had no knowledge of what dispersants were, but within a few hours, we were drained of energy and not feeling good. I've been extremely sick ever since."<br /><br />BP's oil disaster last summer gushed at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, causing the largest accidental marine oil spill in history - and the largest environmental disaster in US history. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons toxic dispersants, including one chemical that has been banned in the UK.<br /><br />According to chemist Bob Naman, these chemicals create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil. Naman, who works at the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, has been carrying out studies to search for the chemical markers of the dispersants BP used to both sink and break up its oil.<br /><br />Poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from this toxic mix are making people sick, Naman said. PAHs contain compounds that have been identified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic.<br /><br />"The dispersants are being added to the water and are causing chemical compounds to become water soluble, which is then given off into the air, so it is coming down as rain, in addition to being in the water and beaches of these areas of the Gulf," Naman told Al Jazeera.<br /><br />"I'm scared of what I'm finding. These cyclic compounds intermingle with the Corexit [dispersants] and generate other cyclic compounds that aren't good. Many have double bonds, and many are on the EPA's danger list. This is an unprecedented environmental catastrophe."<br /><br />Aguinaga's health has been in dramatic decline.<br /><br />"I have terrible chest pain, at times I can’t seem to get enough oxygen, and I'm constantly tired with pains all over my body," Aguinaga explained, "At times I'm pissing blood, vomiting dark brown stuff, and every pore of my body is dispensing water."<br /><br />And Aguinaga's friend Vallian is now dead.<br /><br />"After we got back from our vacation in Florida, Merrick went to work for a company contracted by BP to clean up oil in Grand Isle, Louisiana," Aguinaga said of his 33-year-old physically fit friend.<br /><br />"Aside from some gloves, BP provided no personal protection for them. He worked for them for two weeks and then died on August 23. He had just got his first paycheck, and it was in his wallet, uncashed, when he died."<br /><br />National health crisis<br /><br />Many of the chemicals present in the oil and dispersants are known to cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, kidney damage, altered renal function, and irritation of the digestive tract. They have also caused lung damage, burning pain in the nose and throat, coughing, pulmonary edema, cancer, lack of muscle coordination, dizziness, confusion, irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat, difficulty breathing, delayed reaction time and memory difficulties.<br /><br />Further health problems include stomach discomfort, liver and kidney damage, unconsciousness, tiredness/lethargy, irritation of the upper respiratory tract, hematological disorders, and death. Pathways of exposure to the chemicals are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact.<br /><br />Al Jazeera has talked with scores of sick people across the Gulf Coast who attribute their illnesses to chemicals from BP's oil disaster.<br /><br />Paul Doom, 22, from Navarre, Florida, was training in preparation to join the US Marines, until he became extremely ill from swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.<br /><br />"I stopped swimming in July because I started having severe headaches that wouldn’t go away," Doom told Al Jazeera. "But each time I went to the doctor they dismissed it."<br /><br />In October, Doom began to have internal bleeding, but this too was dismissed by doctors. In November, when it worsened, he was given pain medications in the Emergency Room and was told it would pass. Less then three weeks after that, Doom collapsed with a seizure.<br /><br />"Since then, I've had two blood tests for Volatile Organic Compounds [VOC's] which are in BP's oil and dispersants, and they both came back with alarmingly high levels," he said.<br /><br />Since the onset of his symptoms, Doom has been dealing with ongoing internal bleeding, nose bleeds, bleeding from his ears, blood in his stool, headaches, severe diarrhea, two to five seizures per day, paralysis in his left leg and arm, and failing vision.<br /><br />"A toxicologist that interpreted my blood VOC results told me they didn't know how I was alive," Doom explained. "My Hexane was off the charts, and I have 2 and 3 Methylpentane, Iso-octane, Ethylbenze, and mp-Xylene."<br /><br />Wilma Subra, a MacArthur Fellow and chemist in Louisiana, has been testing the blood of BP cleanup workers and residents in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Subra tested Doom's blood and found high amounts of several VOC's.<br /><br />"Ethylbenzene, mp-Xylene and Hexane are volatile organic chemicals that are present in the BP crude oil," Subra told Al Jazeera. "We're finding these in excess of the 95th percentile, which is the average for the entire nation. Sometimes we're finding amounts 5 to 10 times in excess of the 95th percentile."<br /><br />Subra explained that there has been long enough exposure so as to create chronic impacts, that include "Liver damage, kidney damage, and damage to the nervous system. So the presence of these chemicals in the blood indicates exposure."<br /><br />Testing by Subra has also revealed the chemicals are present "in coastal soil sediment, wetlands, and in crab, oyster and mussel tissues."<br /><br />Staggering toll<br /><br />Since January, at least 67 dead dolphins have washed ashore along the Gulf Coast, an event the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared as "an unusual mortality event". In the whole of 2010, 89 dolphin deaths were reported for the same area.<br /><br />In January, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute chemist and colleagues reported that the toxic chemical dispersants BP used to sink its crude oil remained in the deep ocean in an oil and gas-laden plume that had still not degraded.<br /><br />Also in January, Louisiana Senator AG Crowe wrote a letter to President Barack Obama expressing his deep concern about the toxic dispersants BP used, and according to Senator Crowe, continues to use along the Gulf Coast.<br /><br />"Mr President, my concern is that this toxic and damaging chemical is still being used and it will compound the long-term damage to our state, our citizens, our eco-system, our economy, our seafood industry, our wildlife and our culture," the letter read.<br /><br />"We will not be fooled in to believing that the oil and the toxins are gone. Because the toxic dispersants have been, and are still being used today, the oil is being forced downward in to the water columns and then carried endlessly around and about by the Gulf currents adversely affecting our environment."<br /><br />Subra, the MacArthur Fellow, is alarmed by what she is finding in the people whose blood she is testing.<br /><br />"Severe symptoms, lots of respiratory and cardiovascular problems, and skin lesions," she explained. "There is a lot of internal bleeding, and the chemicals cause this by disrupting the integrity of the red blood cells."<br /><br />Subra said: "We’re seeing the chemicals in different classes of people. Cleanup workers employed by BP, clean-up workers no longer employed, and we’re seeing it in community members who come in contact with the crude by fishing or recreating in the Gulf."<br /><br />Al Jazeera asked Subra what she thought the local, state and federal governments should be doing about the ongoing chemical exposures.<br /><br />"There is a lack of concern by the government agencies and the [oil] industry." She said, “There is a leaning towards wanting to say it's all fixed and let's move on, when it's not. The crude oil is continuing to come on shore in tar mats, balls, and strings."<br /><br />Subra continued: "So the exposure continues. There is still a large amount of crude in the marshes and buried on the beaches. As long as that pathway is there for exposure, these problems will continue quite a long time into the future."<br /><br />A bunch of guinea pigs<br /><br />Jo Billups is an environmental activist who has taken it upon herself to assist in the funding, along with her friend Michelle Nix, in the blood testing being carried out by Subra.<br /><br />Working with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network and several doctors along the Gulf Coast, Billups and Nix have been holding workshops and helping sick people get their blood tested and find medical assistance.<br /><br />"We have sick people from Apalachicola, Florida, to Grand Isle, Louisiana, and it's not stopping and that's what's disturbing," Billups said. "The levels we are seeing are not dropping, and we're seeing new chemicals now. We gave some of our blood test results to [EPA head] Lisa Jackson. They know what is going on, and they are not doing anything about it."<br /><br />"The saddest part is the children," Billups added. "We’re seeing young children with extremely high levels of chemicals. We're altering our DNA and our bodies forever, We're a bunch of guinea pigs."<br /><br />Jennifer Rexford, from Panama City, Florida, was an oil clean-up worker for BP.<br /><br />"We were taken to clean up oil and tar balls with inadequate equipment," Rexford told Al Jazeera. "We regularly got oil all over us."<br /><br />Rexford now has a staph infection that covers much of her body that she attributes to the chemicals in BP's oil she was cleaning up.<br /><br />"Everyone I know of that I worked with are now having kidney problems, along with lots of other illnesses," Rexford, who has been to the hospital four times trying to find a solution to her infection, said. "My neighbor has a rash all over her body, and another clean-up worker I know found a lump in her breast a month ago. So when I started calling my co-workers, I realized that we’re all sick."<br /><br />"I have documentation and images showing lesions in my brain," Paul Doom said. "Lesions that are the same as lesions on the brains of marine life from the Exxon Valdez spill from marine necropsies. This is a life and death situation and a race against time."<br /><br />Doom said the water and food along the Gulf Coast are not safe, and he is angry at the Obama administration.<br /><br />"I would ask them why have they allowed this to happen," he said, "How can you live with yourself knowing you allowed this to happen and continue?"<br /><br />Aguinaga feels betrayed as well.<br /><br />"I feel stabbed in the back by my own country," he said, "I feel we are being dictated to by a foreign power. Maybe our president is not strong enough to stand up against them. I know money buys people, but they couldn't offer me enough money for the loss of my friend, and the stuff we’re going through."<br /><br />Aguinaga's prognosis for the future of Gulf Coast residents?<br /><br />"We’re all lab rats and we didn’t even know it. We’re waiting to see how it’s going to turn out."<br /><br />© 2011 Al Jazeera<br /><br />http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/10-2SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-54862588289430020552011-02-01T18:47:00.000-08:002011-02-01T18:59:39.041-08:00SNAFUWell, have fallen into the digital divide so not so much opportunity to post. The fossil fool follies roll on, though. Business as usual.<br />Gasoline is still cheaper than milk.<br />40% of the urban environment is devoted to making cars happy.<br />Nearly 90% of daytime motor trips continue to be single occupant vehicles, three empty seats, 2000lbs to haul yer sad sorry 200lbs to someplace you probably don't really need to go.SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-77941635867797527672010-11-08T00:11:00.000-08:002010-11-08T00:13:00.680-08:00What we Already Knew<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 12px; "><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">"All the problems are closely related to vehicle exhaust emissions," said the government report, which was published on Thursday.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">The ministry pledged to toughen supervision and control of vehicle exhaust emissions.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p></span>SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-63517464928908605212010-10-07T13:05:00.000-07:002010-10-17T23:56:13.217-07:00All for me, none for all<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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. </p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">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? </p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial"><br /></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial">Predators live among us.</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Arial"><br /></p>SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-86044077069288377982010-10-05T13:43:00.000-07:002010-10-05T13:53:21.148-07:00Is anyone Listening?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ahxM-05vOUkjWfkk9b6TyWg2I5hUY4_2dPJk4L02WLjkAZrhrYovshVeY1jIm2c7qzxG5bjW_JgA_znBhaGlqcndn3UZm5w8dVZ5YQRrWr4QYfCKV6XwYyf8jbTICP8lQUmRduOxLDs/s1600/malkolmboothroydhp.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 222px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ahxM-05vOUkjWfkk9b6TyWg2I5hUY4_2dPJk4L02WLjkAZrhrYovshVeY1jIm2c7qzxG5bjW_JgA_znBhaGlqcndn3UZm5w8dVZ5YQRrWr4QYfCKV6XwYyf8jbTICP8lQUmRduOxLDs/s320/malkolmboothroydhp.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524667893776700098" /></a><br /><div><br /></div><div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">By Subhankar Banerjee</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">05 October, 2010</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">ClimateStoryTellers.org</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">via countercurrents.org</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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.'</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">On June 25, Democracy Now presented a powerful interview with Clayton Thomas</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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."</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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].</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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 <span style="color:#990000;">'<a href="http://www.350.org/">Global Work Party</a>'</span> 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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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?"</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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."</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">[snip]</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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?</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">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.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia; min-height: 16.0px"><br /></p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Georgia">read the whole thing <a href="http://countercurrents.org/banerjee051010.htm">here</a>.</p> </div><div><br /></div>SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-50542552981196425142010-09-11T12:45:00.000-07:002010-09-11T12:47:42.604-07:00A most important matter<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; line-height: 12px; "><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">Dear Friends,</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">We've got some immediate and crucial priorities. For instance, groups around the world are joining together on 10/10/10 for a <a href="http://www.350.org/campaigns/1010" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Global Work Party</a>, 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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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 <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; "><em style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; ">mass<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_action" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 3px; color: rgb(0, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">direct action</a> must play a bigger role in this movemen</em></strong><em style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; ">t</em>, 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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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, <strong style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold; "><em style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; ">think about the possibilities for direct action, and write them down and send them to us</em></strong>. Here are a few thoughts to guide you.</p><ul style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 30px; clear: left; "><li style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; background-image: url(http://www.grist.org/i/screen/list-markerLG-shaded.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 140%; background-position: 0px 0.35em; ">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.</li><li style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; background-image: url(http://www.grist.org/i/screen/list-markerLG-shaded.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 140%; background-position: 0px 0.35em; ">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.</li><li style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; background-image: url(http://www.grist.org/i/screen/list-markerLG-shaded.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 140%; background-position: 0px 0.35em; ">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.</li><li style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; background-image: url(http://www.grist.org/i/screen/list-markerLG-shaded.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 140%; background-position: 0px 0.35em; ">Our actions must be rooted in the communities where they are held and be organized hand in hand with local groups and activists.</li><li style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; background-image: url(http://www.grist.org/i/screen/list-markerLG-shaded.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 140%; background-position: 0px 0.35em; ">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.</li><li style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; background-image: url(http://www.grist.org/i/screen/list-markerLG-shaded.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 140%; background-position: 0px 0.35em; ">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.</li><li style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; background-image: url(http://www.grist.org/i/screen/list-markerLG-shaded.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 140%; background-position: 0px 0.35em; ">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.</li><li style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; list-style-type: none; background-image: url(http://www.grist.org/i/screen/list-markerLG-shaded.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: transparent; padding-left: 10px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; line-height: 140%; background-position: 0px 0.35em; ">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.</li></ul><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">We've set up a special email address for ideas: <a href="mailto:climate.ideas@gmail.com" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">climate.ideas@gmail.com</a>. 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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">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.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.45; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(1, 1, 1); margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; ">Phil Radford, <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Greenpeace USA</a><br />Becky Tarbotton, <a href="http://ran.org/" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Rainforest Action Network</a><br />Bill McKibben, <a href="http://350.org/" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">350.org</a></p></span>SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-60633385548446560702010-08-14T12:14:00.000-07:002010-10-05T13:53:53.184-07:00Nature of the Beast<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2oJW5tAl9sW_07rOgv8FCT4wybMI6GsyToglwDIKezWeipbZsOaBw4-tzebxXo_NU1O-vYSuyIO6x8vz8CJ7gSkxwNPkmj6HSjOZoj-5Ny0oifL4__WKz6hWkiFz0Q7bj5xiDWP2XtI/s1600/41SsmtcikDL._SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir2oJW5tAl9sW_07rOgv8FCT4wybMI6GsyToglwDIKezWeipbZsOaBw4-tzebxXo_NU1O-vYSuyIO6x8vz8CJ7gSkxwNPkmj6HSjOZoj-5Ny0oifL4__WKz6hWkiFz0Q7bj5xiDWP2XtI/s320/41SsmtcikDL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5505346532215552946" /></a><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Thursday evening, SFU downtown Vancouver, BC.<br />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</span>.<br /><br />As book tours usually consist of a series of flights and taxis, it was refreshing to hear the authors of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Carjacked</span> state that their tour is being conducted through train and transit.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Through targeted marketing assaults and illusion-filled lifestyle <a href="http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/car-commercials/">advertising</a>, 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Within this social context, the authors point to some of the prevailing <a href="http://www.lestout.com/article/news-society/the-green-channel/greenest-cars-2010.html">myths</a> 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Car culture has insinuated itself into every stage of our lives, from childhood indoctrination (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317219/">Disney</a> <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061300/">movies</a>, hot wheels toys...), through the coming-of-age ritual of your first driver’s license, into group <a href="http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/car-commercials/">identification</a> 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.<br /><br />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 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Carjacked</span> 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.SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-27350493470890271752010-07-13T14:23:00.001-07:002010-07-13T14:23:46.398-07:00badger"at ground zero of human species economics the only currency is the calorie"SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-82794535033927422942010-06-26T19:01:00.000-07:002010-06-26T19:03:29.888-07:00Police State Canada<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHE-vCoBecrkcMwyh-xLwYazjBuSCVHTiZ-9SWZ7fDoGCeFRUIh4Jb8LxrX_oetceRnakYMO677qiDSrxlGlSzpWbvg7alBMpAvI1sv4CGeSZavt7eutTH82XO6skq6LeiuW4_Eb-uoo/s1600/image5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhHE-vCoBecrkcMwyh-xLwYazjBuSCVHTiZ-9SWZ7fDoGCeFRUIh4Jb8LxrX_oetceRnakYMO677qiDSrxlGlSzpWbvg7alBMpAvI1sv4CGeSZavt7eutTH82XO6skq6LeiuW4_Eb-uoo/s320/image5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5487268229048392210" /></a><br />The new face of Canada.SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-45876831424564837782010-06-02T14:09:00.001-07:002010-06-02T14:12:50.639-07:00Will Scare Children<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPQ-yqS2GM8-EAtJfECIwArqhP8bf_nusEX4WHlR3uidLe3eYSHK5o5C3yJhZAoAzm_ujd5t_m_MYhVB4A2FTAY08EwVHCMuP1O-jdHxqsNBKnbkduExJPardjIN-fZTpJs7PAzbs0Mvg/s1600/spongebobbp.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPQ-yqS2GM8-EAtJfECIwArqhP8bf_nusEX4WHlR3uidLe3eYSHK5o5C3yJhZAoAzm_ujd5t_m_MYhVB4A2FTAY08EwVHCMuP1O-jdHxqsNBKnbkduExJPardjIN-fZTpJs7PAzbs0Mvg/s320/spongebobbp.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5478287000204100722" /></a><br />Another victim.SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-69325685495026385332010-05-18T12:32:00.000-07:002010-05-18T12:35:55.491-07:00"Road Terrorist"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzAFw9EJIhsILTk9C_LLRQbk0MJFcvi0ff_5BJwbhHBERTptlm49QjO0F3GEvynbFoCHCdMI2064Th1Ycmj9XOWQUo-vMiClBcFhIp0e2aAfl-EO1CB2uASvSMcuFb3sx37YMTQa_8_iQ/s1600/3029492.bin.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 206px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzAFw9EJIhsILTk9C_LLRQbk0MJFcvi0ff_5BJwbhHBERTptlm49QjO0F3GEvynbFoCHCdMI2064Th1Ycmj9XOWQUo-vMiClBcFhIp0e2aAfl-EO1CB2uASvSMcuFb3sx37YMTQa_8_iQ/s320/3029492.bin.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472696061861325586" /></a><br />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.<br /><br />Between Friday and Monday, four cyclists died and another was critically injured in crashes involving cars and trucks. Each incident happened under different circumstances.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />He said well-designed bike paths and paved shoulders on highways can save lives, but there are other variables.<br /><br />“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.”<br /><br />The three crashes:<br /><br /><br />* 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.<br /><br />* 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.<br /><br /><br />* 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />The husband of one of the Rougemont victims sent a letter to media outlets Monday.<br /><br />“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.<br /><br />“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.”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />“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.<br /><br />“The Quebec government is criminally responsible for negligence,” Lacroix added.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.”<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Police are still investigating the crash, McInnis said.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Another 15,688 kilometres of Transport Quebec roadways have paved shoulders, St-Pierre said.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.”<br /><br />ariga@thegazette.canwest.com<br /><br />© Copyright (c) <a href="http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Cyclist+widower+blames+road+terrorist+deaths/3038308/story.html">The Montreal Gazette</a>SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-73540603309213970162010-05-14T23:26:00.000-07:002010-05-14T23:32:18.849-07:00Plucked from the Ether<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqy0PJIFVXNpGHEuCbxG4F6M0NJmv9BKYnJ4Z-Fx3AcPz3Dyz1S1mJy6Bn_C0KDSGbij1lxC2pBkLR1U2qVTdoM7Xd6_q-f1H77FTPF-b4rblr8aEv74ms77-6vkZqNAFq95XTXnoqCcE/s1600/Harrison_ford+on+bike.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqy0PJIFVXNpGHEuCbxG4F6M0NJmv9BKYnJ4Z-Fx3AcPz3Dyz1S1mJy6Bn_C0KDSGbij1lxC2pBkLR1U2qVTdoM7Xd6_q-f1H77FTPF-b4rblr8aEv74ms77-6vkZqNAFq95XTXnoqCcE/s200/Harrison_ford+on+bike.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471380628697573074" /></a><br />“its ridiculous to talk about politics at all on a bike commuting website”<br /><br />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.<br />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.<br />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.SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-78524364891425852572010-05-04T09:15:00.000-07:002010-05-04T09:16:58.867-07:00A Short History of Oil AddictionThis Oil Ride<br />by <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/04-2">Linh Dinh</a><br />1861 - The first major oil well in the world started pumping. Christened "Empire," it stood on Funk Farm in Pennsylvania.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />1967 - In "The Graduate," Mr. McGuire advised Ben, "I just want to say one word to you-just one word."<br /><br />"Yes, sir."<br /><br />"Are you listening?"<br /><br />"Yes, I am."<br /><br />"Plastics."<br /><br />"Exactly how do you mean?"<br /><br />"There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?"<br /><br />"Yes, I will."<br /><br />Plastic is oil, hardened. By 2010, there would be plastic patches the size of Texas to choke both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />2001 - Dick Cheney, "The American way of life is not negotiable." Before becoming vice president, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, an oil services company.<br /><br />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?"<br /><br />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."<br /><br />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 .<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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."<br /><br />2009 - Thanks to the U.S. invasion, British Petroleum could do business again in Iraq after 37 years.<br /><br />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.SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-67956928076807538342010-04-30T09:44:00.000-07:002010-04-30T09:51:39.762-07:00Happy Motoring<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-QT-LlMV2UcyGNU7qAV7P2iFx7DjQKQbznKjce7J5pdH6Dott3j70B5xARklQCqh7cFCl8jPZDhybtSbVa81TqdnBR2y0_Rh51TO3b_so_zJNJm7Wff0XwWv15pedapI3UJnQxdwiQiA/s1600/NewOil17.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 210px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-QT-LlMV2UcyGNU7qAV7P2iFx7DjQKQbznKjce7J5pdH6Dott3j70B5xARklQCqh7cFCl8jPZDhybtSbVa81TqdnBR2y0_Rh51TO3b_so_zJNJm7Wff0XwWv15pedapI3UJnQxdwiQiA/s320/NewOil17.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465973057608155218" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitjjsPThvldMAs9dDB96QrJC4RsAcNgG12lqn4niy6hefPXjpwMOwxyUDs_P9f6gIdthStqzWXxqVcJ-SHv6mCiQfTz28S77m3DuplNGdnOUU6HMwhp94rd8tIuJzq7UskSKtahxsVDRQ/s1600/NewOil16.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitjjsPThvldMAs9dDB96QrJC4RsAcNgG12lqn4niy6hefPXjpwMOwxyUDs_P9f6gIdthStqzWXxqVcJ-SHv6mCiQfTz28S77m3DuplNGdnOUU6HMwhp94rd8tIuJzq7UskSKtahxsVDRQ/s320/NewOil16.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465973056756532690" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv3Ufat9Cr3s6Ooc78c5vo6YNzGBvIad98EkXyRAkDOm-HpHcpmcqwHL8LFiXB6b917GKvXzMo0t-xQnGm8Ergr7ue7HWHg9lJWrIr1x1s_rvWJxqv0ATUPX0ldagMB0I2h0lq9mYG1-4/s1600/NewOil5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 196px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv3Ufat9Cr3s6Ooc78c5vo6YNzGBvIad98EkXyRAkDOm-HpHcpmcqwHL8LFiXB6b917GKvXzMo0t-xQnGm8Ergr7ue7HWHg9lJWrIr1x1s_rvWJxqv0ATUPX0ldagMB0I2h0lq9mYG1-4/s320/NewOil5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465973045101724290" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj463GrsTAK9PcMCvPqokiFkHH1bT_GA07iUkv76eMSepBh7UVd8FJU-_5P3KKvsxWw2cGAFUE_wSRMLtlVTa3eJUrMH5w6Cp5lEiXOA2M6EJyzdnhkXQ_0UC44sjvvL7kTw-H2wQFAo1g/s1600/phpThumb_generated_thumbnailjpg.jpeg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 228px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj463GrsTAK9PcMCvPqokiFkHH1bT_GA07iUkv76eMSepBh7UVd8FJU-_5P3KKvsxWw2cGAFUE_wSRMLtlVTa3eJUrMH5w6Cp5lEiXOA2M6EJyzdnhkXQ_0UC44sjvvL7kTw-H2wQFAo1g/s320/phpThumb_generated_thumbnailjpg.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465973040172492978" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://countercurrents.org/jones300410.htm">You selfish bastards.</a>SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-40755936766818990552010-04-14T22:05:00.000-07:002010-04-14T22:39:09.417-07:00in reply<blockquote>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><a href="http://scottschneider.dbetv.com/good-ole-boys-330/comment-page-1#comment-135">Scott Schneider</a><br /></blockquote><br /><br />Hi Scott,<br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Sorry to have to quote the smirking chimp, so I’ll leave you with a better one.<br /><br />“To say it is ‘too late’ is to make it so. –David Suzuki<br /><br />keep up the fight.<br />DSilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4676296253979420142.post-85519789734032649512010-03-29T12:47:00.000-07:002010-03-29T13:08:13.787-07:00Paid a fine.By The Canadian Press via <a href="http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100329/national/school_bus_accident">Yahoo</a><br /><br />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<br />Louise Rogers is testifying at the fatality inquiry into the death of nine-year-old Kathelynn Occena.<br />Kathelynn died in October 2007 when the school bus sideswiped a parked gravel truck on a busy thoroughfare.<br />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.<br />She says she had been seeing the school psychologist following the breakdown of her marriage and her supervisor was aware of her struggles.<br />Rogers pleaded guilty to careless driving and paid a fine.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2008/03/26/cgy-bus-folo.html#socialcomments">more from cbc</a>SilentOttohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17775246536032774010noreply@blogger.com0