Discussion on The Restriction of Plastic Water Bottles

http://www.usernetsite.com/society/every-day-millions-of-plastic-water-bottles-are-being-discarded.php

There is always a tension between individual rights and collective rights.

We restrict all kinds of behaviour by law: even though I can make all kinds of money manufacturing and selling crystal meth, the law prohibits me from doing so.  Ditto the manufacture of child porn:   very few people question our laws on child porn .  (Except for Tom Flanagan!)   Slavery isn't legal either.  Here in Canada, we have restrictions on hate speech. Most people would agree with restrictions on       first three:  I'm guessing or hoping  most folks would frown on urging people to kill  LGBT people because their existence is an abomination. We also regularly send folks to a forensic psychiatric hospital in spite of said folks express wishes!

Once we admit that some actions and behaviours are not socially acceptable, and should be sanctioned, the discussion then becomes one of where the sanctions  should be drawn.   We may differ on where that line should be, but will agree that a line should be drawn somewhere that restricts  freedoms.

I think that the issues of environmental degradation/ destruction and climate change are of the same calibre as slavery and child abuse. Humans stand a very good chance of destroying our natural environments as the climate warms: once we do that, then it’s goodbye Charlie for humans.  ( Please watch the video in the immediately preceding post or read Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer for information on how bad things will get if we continue with business as ususal.) 

Even if one privileges humans over everything else, the choices we make, are causing the climate to change .  We are therefore are killing people right now with our choice of business as ususal : climate change is eroding land in Bangladesh; South Pacific islanders are buying land on larger continents so they’ll have somewhere above water to live; and people are dying of droughts in the Horn of Africa.  I think we have a moral responsibility to alter our choices and actions if our current ones are devastating other people.

So, although banning plastic bottles at the students request at TRU may seem like a small step that arbitrarily wipes out freedoms, I don’t think it is. Plastic bottles are manufactured with oil – are unnecessary for our  health as we have clean drinking water in Kamloops – and their ban would be small step on the road we have to take if we are to survive. If nothing else, the discussion on plastic bottles acts as consciousness raising and symbolizes our collective determination to cut down on affluenza.

Subsidies to Fossil Fuel

You know I have often heard discussion at the local Timmie's regardin goil and cola corporations.  Folks are sympathetic when they consider  how sickly  - how impoverished - oil companies are in Canada.  Ditto those poor, poor coal mining corporation s- hardly make enough to feed and clothe their CEOs.   Why, fossil fule corporations barely made a hundred billions last year worldwide.

No?  You haven't heard that either?  Why in hell is the federal government subisdizing them?
http://www.rabble.ca/news/2011/02/its-time-end-canada%E2%80%99s-billion-dollar-handout-big-oil-and-coal

Meanwhile, the federal government subsidizes oil companies to the tune of $1.4 billion every year, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). It's more if you factor in other fossil fuels such as coal.

If the government ended those subisidies, and directed them to the clean energy industry, wouldn't we all be better off in the long run? 

And why doesn't the mainstream media mention those subsidies more often?

The Climate Action Network is working to get the federal government to end those irresponsible tax breaks.
Please go to
http://www.climateactionnetwork.ca/e/fossil-tax-breaks/index.php
and add your voice to those protesting this.

Drill, Baby, Drill

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/16/gulf-oil-spill-bp

Ocean scientists in the Gulf of Mexico have found giant plumes of oil coagulating at up to 1,300 metres below the surface, raising fears that the BP oil spill may be larger than thought – and that it might create huge "dead zones"....The presence of huge strings of oil deep underwater has puzzled scientists on board the research vessel Pelican, back in dock after almost two weeks at sea. The assumption had been that the oil would rise to the surface, but instead it has formed into multiple layers suspended in varying thicknesses deep in the water.

Does anyone still think that drilling for oil offshore in the Arctic is a good idea?  Does anyone still think that we shouldn't deal with our addiction to fossil fuels?

Oil Spills and Environmental Damage

http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/02/20-year-veteran-of-coast-guard-with-a-spill-of-this-magnitude-and-complexity-there-is-no-such-thing-as-an-effective-response/

Oil spill responses have a very large component of symbolic reassurance to them.  For example, no doubt we will see oily ducks being washed in the coming days. However, the mortality rate of such ducks is extremely high. So while these salves may make us feel better, they do little to actually deal with the situation. ....there will be considerable ecological and economic damage, and there is basically nothing that can be done to effectively stop that from happening. ....prevention is the best policy. But that involves regulations to prevent corporations from taking calculated risks by shaving safety margins to decrease production costs.... We need to get over our technological hubris and stop taking risks with our global ecoystems.

Amen.

Oil and the Earth's Inalienable Rights: A Connection?

Pretty, isn't it? But one's perception alters when one realizes it is an oil slick on drinking water.

Per Amnesty International's  (2009) report on Ecuador:

The human rights situation of Indigenous peoples and environmentalists in Ecuador continues to be a serious concern for Amnesty International. For over four decades, Indigenous communities have witnessed multinational oil companies cut through the Ecuadorian Amazon and their ancestral lands in search of the country's vast petroleum resources. Testimonies by members of these communities, verified by independent health studies and reports (including "Amazon Crude" by Judith Kimerling) have described how oil companies have left dead rivers, road-scarred forests, polluted air, and daily discharges of millions of gallons of toxic waste in their wake that are affecting the daily lives of the communities in the area.

Ecuador's citizens approved a novel constitution in September 2008: it extends inalienable rights to nature.
The Utne Reader (May-June 2009) speculates that "Ecuador was almost certainly predisposed to becoming an early adopter of nature's rights on a constitutional scale" due to the large indigenous population. This view may be correct: indigenous peoples do have a different view of their place in nature than we do. However, I think that witnessing the environmental damage done to the environment and consequently to themselves by oil companies may have motivated Ecuadorians in a large degee as well.  

Ecuadorians understand that the economy is a subset of the environment - and that the equation does not work the other way around.  We all need to respect and cherish Pachamamma - for our own sakes.    While it is unlikely that we will approve a similar constitution in in the near future in Canada,  we can pressure politicians to protect the environment.  We are their employers, are we not?  For starters, please email the Right Honorable Stephen Harper and instruct  him to negotiate a fair, binding, and science based deal on greenhouse gas emissions at Copenhagen.