The Conscious Earth

Conscious Earth Closes

2011-08-07T16:33:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, a huge thanks the thousands of visitors, commentators and followers that took part in this blog over the past years. As those still following know, the blog tailed off after my trip abroad. After a long dormancy I'm ready to turn the page.

I started the blog for a few reasons. I wanted a writing project, and environmental commentary was a natural fit with my work role at the time. More significantly, when I began The Conscious Earth in 2006 environmental awareness was in a much different place than it is today.

The idea of environmental responsibility and values was still largely a special interest. People cared, but environmental concerns were considered something separate from the the social, political, and most importantly economic, decisions of the day. In that context, this blog really targeted three specific issues:

The tendency of "environmentalists" to frame the environment as an ultimate value: to this day, many environmentalists and conservationists place the natural world above human concerns. The stance is not only wrong, but counterproductive to the movement as a whole. The environment never needed saving because it will ultimately outlast us all. Human beings aren't clever enough to wipe life from this planet, and the earth itself has no qualms with spending a few millions years recovering from us in order to re-emerge in full bloom.

Second, and related to the first, our place in the natural world is not as a tiny subset in the web of life. People grow out of the earth in the same way apples grow from trees and poppies grow from fields. We're an end product of the earth, not a subservient part. Wipe out people and the earth goes on. Wipe out the earth and everything goes with it. The environmental movement's failure to understand this has always left the majority of people alienated from the cause.

The criminal undermining of the reality of climate change: In 2006, the so called debate of humanity's role in climate change was in full rage. The news industry had singularly abdicated its responsibility to factual reporting, and the environmental movement was helping them by failing to frame the issue in human terms.

The Conscious Earth sought to address each by framing the environment in human terms, and flipping the spin of those who advocated the ongoing destruction of the planet in the name of profit.

The project was successful, as far as it went. But far beyond these small posts, the world changed rapidly while I was traveling in 2008 and environmentalism moved forward from the back burner. Since then there has been little debate about the need for change, as well as the need to live in a relationship with the planet that is at least remotely sustainable. The economic strains of the last years have only punctuated that. Fewer and fewer people buy into the argument that the economy and the environment are opposed. People want solutions that take both into account.

That is the good news. The bad news is that while everyone understands the needs, far too few are taking action. Every level of society - from the meaningless state of politics, to corporate greed, through voter apathy - has been blamed. I don't think its any of these things.

Paralysis and stagnation has set in at all levels - government, business and citizen engagement. The world seems too complicated, and leaders in all parts of society function more from fear than vision. Everyone's afraid to act out of an anxiety of sending the whole system into a tailspin. There seems to be too much to know, too many facts, too many perspectives.

Knowledge, facts and perspectives - the raw quantity of everything around us, and we're stuck in the middle of it wondering how to cope with the growing volume of an ever more complicated world.

But we mis-framed the question once again. The problem isn't in the apparent complexity. It's in the fact that we have been busy focusing on quantity.

The problems of the world are ones of quality not quantity. They are about meaning and not facts. Their about purpose rather than progress. If you doubt that, look more closely at the rise of fundamentalism and extreme views in the world. This is a reaction to a world obsessed with quantity - doing more, having more, being more - for no conceivable purpose.

The road to quality and meaning is always simpler and more direct. And this is the reason The Conscious Earth has come to a close.

I'll be launching a new site shortly. It doesn't promise to solve the world's problems. But, with luck, it will give a small glimpse at meaning, for better or for worse, to some of the challenges and events of the world today.

Those interested are invited to join. You can find it at http://www.140haiku.com/. Stories and content will begin tomorrow.

Thank you again for every ounce of support along the way. I hope readers gained as much from reading The Conscious Earth as I did from writing it.

Canada Savaged Over Oil Sands

2009-12-01T09:14:00.001-08:00

I typically do not re-post articles, but yesterday's piece is the Guardian is noteworthy. Titled "Canada's image in tatters" the article details at length Canada's roll as a corrupt petro-state, and the litany of damage our nation has caused to climate change negotiations.

The following is an excerpt that clearly paints Canada's true colours when it comes to the environment.

So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.

Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.

In 2006 the new Canadian government announced it was abandoning its targets to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto protocol. No other country that had ratified the treaty has done this. Canada was meant to have cut emissions by 6% between 1990 and 2012. Instead they have already risen by 26%.... the future cut Canada has volunteered is smaller than that of any other rich nation.

After giving the finger to Kyoto, Canada then set out to prevent the other nations striking a successor agreement. At the end of 2007, it singlehandedly blocked a Commonwealth resolution to support binding targets for industrialised nations. After the climate talks in Poland in December 2008, it won the Fossil of the Year award, presented by environmental groups to the country that had done most to disrupt the talks. The climate change performance index, which assesses the efforts of the world's 60 richest nations, was published in the same month. Saudi Arabia came 60th. Canada came 59th.

In June this year the media obtained Canadian briefing documents which showed the government was scheming to divide the Europeans. During the meeting in Bangkok in October, almost the entire developing world bloc walked out when the Canadian delegate was speaking, as they were so revolted by his bullying. Last week the Commonwealth heads of government battled for hours (and eventually won) against Canada's obstructions. A concerted campaign has now begun to expel Canada from the Commonwealth.

In Copenhagen next week, this country will do everything in its power to wreck the talks. The rest of the world must do everything in its power to stop it.

None of this should represent news to any reasonably well informed Canadian. Seeing it laid out in one single column, however, should do more than give us pause. It should be the start of a serious conversation about what it is to be Canadian, and about what role we want to play in the world.

And nowhere is this issue more relevant than with respect to climate change, a crisis that most Canadians feel, "is the planet's defining crisis".

Book Review: Confessions of a Radical Industrial

2009-11-08T14:52:00.000-08:00

Many books offer environmental understanding and perspective, but few of them offer a genuine path for tangible change. This is exactly what Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, the new book by Ray Anderson, attempts to do.

In 1973, Ray Anderson founded Interface, a company he built into the world's largest manufacturer of modular carpets. But in 1994, he charted a new course for his industrial, petroleum based company after reading Paul Hawken's The Ecology of Commerce. In the abrupt, soul shattering understanding that followed, Ray Anderson launched a new transformative direction for Interface - to become not only sustainable, but restorative.

That year, he delivered a new vision to his management team that would ultimately make Interface a world leader in sustainability and environmental responsibility:

"So here's the vision (I) share with you today: I want Interface to be the first name in industrial ecology, and here's my challenge to you. I want to know how long it's going to take us to get there. Then, I want t o know what we'll need to do to push that envelope and make Interface a restorative enterprise. To put back more than we take from the earth and to do good for the earth, not just no harm. How do we leave the world better with every square yard of carpet we make and sell?"

That question was eventually answered by Interface's Mission Zero, a formalized corporate vision to make the company fully sustainable by the year 2020. They have come along way towards that goal. Over the past 15 years while governments and industries in the United States insisted that the 7% reduction in greenhouse gases called for by the Kyoto Protocol would destroy the economy, Interface lowered theirs by 71% while increasing sales by two thirds and doubling earnings.

Their environmental success did not stop there. They have also increased renewable energy use from 0 to 28%, water use has decreased by 72%, and the recycled content of their carpets has gone from 0.5% to 24%. These are just a few examples of Interface's transformation to date.

In Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, Ray Anderson details this success and outlines a pathway that other corporate leaders can follow in transforming their own organizations. He shares what he's termed the "7 faces" of sustainability that Interface embraced in guiding their efforts to eliminate waste, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and build environmental responsibility into every aspect of their operations and corporate culture.

Those faces are:

Moving towards zero waste
Eliminating emissions or rendering them benign
Increasing efficiency and renewable energy
Closed loop recycling and turning waste into raw material
Making transport systems resource efficient
Sensitizing employees, suppliers and communities to environmental responsibility and opportunity
Redesigning commerce to assess accurate costs, set real prices, and maximize resource efficiency

Confessions follows Interfaces success and best practices through each of these faces while weaving in first hand stories of the employees and innovators who created these solutions. At each stage, the value of human creativity and innovation is emphasized, alongside the need to harness these gifts as an integral element in the path to true sustainability.

The book is more than platitudes and idealism. By his own admission Ray Anderson is a competitive capitalist with an eye pinned keenly on the bottom line and ultimate success of his business. And this, I'd argue, is a primary reason for his success. In Confessions, he has supplied a pragmatic roadmap for continuous environmental improvement that is anchored in the constraints faced by organizations in the real world. It is a bottom line approach that should gain the attention of industrialists throughout the developed word, where corporations are facing high input costs and the aftermath of the global economic recession. The competitive advantage Interface enjoys thanks to their efficiency and low waste operations can form a new model for the changing economic reality that corporations are facing here in the emerging era of sustainability.

Despite the author's industrial career, the book goes well beyond the typical line between industry versus environment and points towards a more fundamental relationship, one that accurately places human endeavour within the context of the natural world. It is not an indictment against industry, but instead points to its true and sustainable place as a system that operates through the gifts, and limits, of the natural world. Anderson calls this "thinking in the round", a reference to the perfectly efficient and renewable closed circle that all natural systems operate within. It is a sound model to follow.

And in following that model, the Anderson reveals a deep faith that because human beings are an extension of the environment itself, our best enterprises, values, and talents can find alignment and synergy with the natural laws of sustainability. Readers may respond, "This is the view of one person, in one small corner of the industrial world. How does this apply to global environmental problems facing our global society?" I'll let Mr. Anderson answer in his own words,

I am convinced that having a sustainable society for the indefinite future depends totally and absolutely on the vast, ethically driven redesign of the industrial system about which I have written, triggered by an equally vast mind-shift. But - and this is the hard part - that shift must happen one mind at a time, one organization at a time, one technology at a time, one building, one company, one university curriculum, one community, one region, one industry at a time, one product at a time until we look around one day and see that there is a new norm at work, and that the entire system has been transformed.

Confessions reminds us that while the problems facing the environment are large, the seeds of change are always the same. They encompass the dedicated actions of each individual person doing what they can to improve the world for the better.

However, the magnitude of each person's responsibility is also proportionate to the amount of impact they are responsible for creating. Ray Anderson stands apart not for his environmental awareness, but because he took the rare approach of both confronting the full impact of his petroleum based business, and accepting a level of responsibility that was equal to this impact.

Confessions of a Radical Industrialist and the success of Interface's environmental efforts to date are both testament to this acknowledgment of responsibility. Interface's journey towards complete sustainability is still being written, but with luck and hope we can look forward to reading about those last steps of the journey in Ray Anderson's next book.

For more information visit the Interface website, Mission Zero, or see Ray Anderson speak on TED.

The Dark Side of Recycling

2008-11-13T15:46:00.000-08:00

The following is a disturbing profile of the state of the computer recycling business in the United States, and where the electronics end up.

The town of Guiyo in southern China is now one of the most polluted places on earth, registering the highest levels of cancer causing dioxins anywhere recorded. Governments are guilty of turning a blind eye, as businesses in both the US and China profit from the poisonous conditions.

"The situation in Guiyu is actually pre-capitalist. It's mercantile. It reverts back to a time when people lived where they worked, lived at their shop. Open, uncontrolled burning of plastics. These are among the most toxic compounds known on earth."

"We have a situation where we have 21st century toxics being managed in a 17th century environment."

Watch CBS Videos Online

Campaigning for Change

2008-10-05T21:05:00.000-07:00

With most of the world's people facing the catastrophic fallout of the worst US presidency in history and the now undeniable threats facing the Earth's environment, there seems to be an almost universally shared sense of flux, change and uncertainty. As unpleasant as that might feel, it's also a needed and necessary good that can clear the way towards real change and a new way of looking at the shared problems that, together, we desperately need to solve.

So, following the themes of responsibility and action that I've outlined over the past several months, I hope you'll follow me on my next path. Vancouver is coming up to a municipal election on November 15th, and I'm happy to announce that I'll be running the online campaign for mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson and the Vision Vancouver party.

For those unfamiliar with the local business and political scene, Gregor Robertson is a progressive Vancouver businessman who first rose to prominence by creating an immensely successful national business based on organic foods, sustainability and fair trade called Happy Planet. When the provincial "Liberal" government swept to power and promptly eliminated the Ministry of the Environment, Gregor made the decision to enter politics.

He was elected as a provincial MLA in 2005, where he served until this year. In the wake of outgoing mayor Sam Sullivan's atrocious legacy of homelessness, self serving politics, and social apathy, Gregor stepped down from his office in the provincial government to enter the mayor's race.

After meeting him in person I can gladly say he lives up to every expectation. He's honest, passionate, and is running a leadership fueled, Obama-style campaign for change.

For the past three weeks I've been helping to launch the Vision Vancouver campaign website with my friend and colleague Jason Mogus from the Webby award winning Communicopia and the talented shop of Agentic Communications. The site is now live, and from now through November 15th I'll be be driving all online campaign communications and working to elect a truly progressive government to Vancouver City Hall.

You can follow me during the election on the Vision Blog, our Facebook group, or get on the ground updates from Gregor Robertson on his Twitter feed. I'll also be offering an inside peek at the campaign here at The Conscious Earth. I hope you join us.

8 Months of Photo Highlights

2008-09-18T00:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all my readers for hanging in while I get my feet back on the ground here at home. Many new developments are coming soon, but in the mean time, please enjoy these photo highlights of 8 months of travel.

Thanks to everyone for following along.

My Rights, Your Responsibility

2008-09-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

I’m home now in Vancouver, with the daunting task of summing up and integrating a journey that covered four continents and more than eight months of my life. It can leave a person wondering how to bring that much home, or what home even means.

That said, there are a few common themes that became clear over the course of the journey. A major one concerns the views and assumptions that tend to guide the actions of our culture with the rest of the world, the damage of which becomes obvious when viewing there effects on some of the most impoverished nations on Earth.

In the case of Rwanda, we have been told that there horrific genocide was the culmination of tribal conflicts that stretched back centuries. After a mere days in that country, the truth became quickly and overwhelmingly obvious – that the division between Hutus and Tutsis was a colonial weapon established by the Belgians, and exploited by the French, in order to gain greater control over the population and later to profit by selling the weapons of genocide.

In rapidly developing India, they are celebrating their initiation into the world's nuclear fraternity, while domestically, the moral stance of the Dalai Lama has been criticized and questioned on the grounds that it may threaten Sino-Indian relations. One of the world's greatest ironies may explain India's true motivation. In 1999 , Major William Corson, intelligence aide to US President Dwight David Eisenhower, alledged that India agreed to grant the the Dalai Lama asylum in exchange for US help in developing nuclear weapons.

The case is similar in the issue of global warming, where western governments, in particular the US, points the finger of blame at developing countries while it is responsible for maintaining the worst mileage standards, consumes the most beef (one of the largest greenhouse gas contributors), and uses the most crude oil while they continue to propogate a war over oil to maintain the status quo.

That word, responsibility, is the key. Western morality is anchored on a bastardization of Adam Smith that assumes ultimate good will magically prevail for all by pursuing our own individual interests. However, unless balanced by an equal sense of our personal responsibility, what we perceive as our rights quickly turns into indulgence, and there begins most of the world’s problems.

An embrace of responsibility, alongside of our personal rights, makes it obvious that while we have a right to trade and deal diplomatically with African nations like Rwanda, we equally have a responsibility for the outcome of that trade when we market in weapons of destruction to an oppressive regime. It makes it obvious that the moral rights of an entire people are not appropriate negotiating items in diplomacy and trade. It also becomes obvious that the country responsible for the most environmental damage needs to take the lead in forming environmental solutions.

If we strike another person, that blow is not the fault of the person receiving it. A gun owner is responsible for their weapon falling into the hands of young children. Unintentional murder is deemed involuntary manslaughter and is not the responsibility of the murdered. Likewise, the direct harm caused by our consumer, policy, and business decisions is not the fault of our trade partners, but the responsibility of those perpetrating the actions - exploitative businesses, the government’s that those businesses lobby for profitable trade policies, and we, the citizens, who value what we call prosperity over the human rights of other nations affected. The solutions, then, rest with us.

Responsibility can begin at home. The United States, Canada and my own city of Vancouver have a lot of work to do this fall. It’s time to get to it.

Opening Day in Beijing

2008-08-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

History

Silence

Voice

An Accidental Trip to Thailand

2008-07-21T11:49:00.001-07:00

It was meant to be a side trip to the Philippines where a good friend is doing anthropological research in a traditional Kalinga Valley village. Unfortunately, I let myself get bluffed out by the weather and never made it.

My arrival date earlier this month in Manila ended up being the day after a second of two typhoons rolled through the country. Conditions on the newsreel looked pretty tenuous and I opted to disembark at our stop-over in Bangkok rather than risk being stranded in Manila for two weeks. As it turns out, the route north to the village was fine, much to my disappointment.

Sooooo, I tried to go to the Philippines and all I got were these stunning photos of Thailand....

Ladakh - The Last of India

2008-06-27T03:31:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have definitely been a different flavour. Heading steadily to the north of India, the people and country side have both shifted towards mountainous and Buddhist, culminating in Ladakh which is called the closest thing to Tibet on the subcontinent. It was far and away one of my favorite places in the country.

The main city of Leh is almost indescribably beautiful. The town is a fertile strip of green nestled between the desert hills of brown and a back drop of Himalayan peaks. Set against crystal clear skies the view is an every changing Crayola box of greens, blues, whites and brown.

The culture is also an interesting departure. The area only opened to tourists in 1974 and until then a remarkably self sufficient society had braved the high desert and -50C winters for centuries, key to which was a strong sense of environmental values and strict population control. In addition to a large population of Buddhist monks and nuns, the area is one of a handful of cultures that actively practiced polyandry - the taking of more than one husband by a single woman (pause for applause from my female readers.....)

Polyandry is now a thing of the past (pause for tears from my female readers...), however the strong position of women and an intimate sensitivity to the natural environment has remained, giving the place a far more progressive spirit then many other places in India. I spent
most of my time there hiking up the nearby hills and visiting the centuries old Buddhist ruins, the centre piece of which was the palace looming above the town of Leh itself. Extensive restoration is going on, but despite that it was mostly just me wandering unobstructed
through 9 stories and 400 years of ruins. It was fabulous.

Fabulous and, as I mentioned, solitary. On the verge of departing from India that has probably been one my biggest surprises. This has far and away been the most isolated period of travel I've ever had. There are other travelers around, but the entire time in India has been a strange anti-confluence, like a trip to a parallel universe as if I disembarked in Bombay at platform 9 3/4.

Even where I've been following what should be the beaten path, things turn up empty. The most recommended hotels are barren, restaurants are strangely empty, and when I do things that seem to be the most natural cultural or tourist events there's nobody around.

In a day-trip outside of Leh I visited the active monastery at Hemis, the richest in the province and a 'must see' stop to witness the monks during morning prayers. The monastery again is impossibly beautiful, tucked high into a side valley away from the Indus River and surrounded with green trees and flowers. It was just myself there, taking a humble and uninterrupted seat at the back of the gompa (Buddhist temple) where I was graciously welcomed and served hot tea along side the monks. It was a stirring experience, admittedly made more so by the lack of outside distraction.

It was a similar case a few days later during June's full moon. It was one of my last days before leaving and the natural thing to do (as I saw it) was to climb to the "Shanti Stupa" - a stunning brand new Buddhist monument gifted by the Japanese. It's the highest point in town and the
only vantage point complete with a tea house/cafe. Again, mysteriously, it was virtually tourist free for the rise of the moon, which I can happily say was completely breathtaking.

None of that is to take anything away from the incredible time this has been. There have been countless things to see and there are the more than enough encounters with friendly locals, shop owners, and traders. However, over the course of some weeks, or months, I find I need a
little more than the same two conversations, "What country?" and "Very long man!...How long?", "....that's none of your business sir!."

After being turned back by fictitious concerns about the twin typhoons that recently rolled through the Philippines, I'm now in Bangkok - heading to the beach and the slow lead up towards heading home.

Here's the photo show from Ladakh.

Canada Sued for Climate Change Failures

2008-06-19T02:20:00.001-07:00

I've been substantially away from the home front news for quite awhile, but this is worth mentioning on both a national and personal note.

On June 18, Canada became the first country ever to be brought to court for failing to comply with its legal commitments to combat global warming, specifically its failure to meet (and perhaps more to the point, their failure to do anything about) their mandatory legal obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

The lawsuit itself is being argued by a coalition of groups - most notably my former workplace, Ecojustice Canada - and seeks a declaration from the Court that the government has not complied with the law, and an order requiring it to do so. A decision is likely to occur in the coming months.

For readers unfamiliar with Ecojustice (formerly Sierra Legal Defence Fund), I strongly recommend them as a worthy organization to support (I do so myself). For my American readers, think Earthjustice.

Non-Cooperation and the Olympic Games

2008-05-30T21:04:00.000-07:00

"The present era is rampant with the five forms of degeneration, in particular the red ideology (....)

"In future, this system will certainly be forced either from within or without on this land that cherished the joint spiritual and temporal system. If in such an event we fail to defend our land, the holy lamas, including the "triumphant father and son" will be eliminated without a trace of their names remaining; the properties of the incarnate lamas and of the monasteries along with the endowments for religious services will all be seized. Moreover, our political system will be reduced to an empty name; my officials, deprived of their patrimony and property, will be subjugated like slaves by the enemy; and my people, subjected to fear and miseries, will be unable to endure day or night. Such an era will certainly come!"

These were the words of Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet, spoken two years before his death in 1931 (pictured above). With the exception of the demise of the Dalai Lama himself (the 'triumphant Father), all that he stated has come to pass. The scope and power of the prophecy culminated in 1995, when at the age of 6, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was kidnapped by the Chinese government mere days after being recognized as the 11th Panchen Lama of Tibet (i.e. the 'son' and second most important leader in Tibetan culture). Nobody has seen him, nor his parents, since.

I am writing now from Dharamsala, India - home of the current Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in Exile - where the lead up to the Olympics, the complete lack of tangible support from other governments, and the combined weight of 59 years of Chinese atrocities are the central issues of daily life for the town's Tibetan population.

Since China's invasion in 1949, an estimated 1.2 million people have lost their lives through murder, starvation and disease. Six thousand monasteries were destroyed and the Chinese have continued with an unabated policy that seeks the destruction of Tibetan culture ever since.

It is against that historical backdrop that the International Olympic Committee awarded the 2008 Summer Games to China. The move is sometimes compared to the 1936 Games in Nazi Germany; however, Germany was awarded those games in 1933 prior to Nazi control of government, and the games were held prior to the Nazi invasion of Austria and prior to their systematic extermination of Jews. By comparison, China was granted the games after being the demonstrable perpetrator of an invasion against an independent nation and the systemic annihilation of a culture.

In the 59 years since the Chinese invasion the western response and characterization of China's policy has become increasingly miasmic. It is enlightening to return for a moment to 1960, when a report by the International Commission of Jurists called the Chinese invasion and actions in Tibet what they always have been - genocide. To quote:

"According to the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, which was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in December, 1948, human groups against which genocide is recognized as a crime in international law are national, racial, ethnic and religious. The committee found that acts of genocide had been committed in Tibet in an attempt to destroy the Tibetans as a religious group..."

Further, we often hear about "human rights abuses" committed by China. That is a television friendly phrase that sheds little light on what has been perpetrated against the Tibetan people. Again, the Jurists' report leaves little room for speculation,

"The Committee came to the conclusion that the Chinese authorities in Tibet had violated the following human rights,

Article 3 - the right to life, liberty and security of person was violated by acts of murder, rape and arbitrary imprisonment.

Article 5 - Torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment were inflicted on the Tibetans on a large scale.

Article 12 - Rights of privacy, of home and family life were persistently violated by the forcible transfer of members of the family and by indoctrination turning children against their parents. Children from infancy upwards were removed contrary to the wishes of the parents.

Article 16 - The voluntary nature of marriage was denied by forcing monks and lamas to marry. (Allow me to paraphrase so as to ensure we are being crystal clear here. Buddhist monks and nuns who had taken voluntary and spiritual vows of celibacy were forced to fuck, sometimes each other, by Chinese authorities.)

Article 18 - Freedom of thought, conscience and religion were denied by acts of genocide against Buddhists in Tibet and by other systematic acts designed to eradicate religious beliefs in Tibet.

Article 26 - The right to liberal education primarily in accordance with the choice of parents was denied by compulsory indoctrination, sometimes after deportation (see Article 12), in communist philosophy.

Article 27 - The Tibetans were not allowed to participate in the cultural life of their own community, a culture which the Chinese have set out to destroy."

I could go on. Those were merely the most harrowing of the 16 human rights violations China was found guilty of.

Since that time, they have been condemned by other nations and NGOs for subjecting Tibetan women to forced sterilization and abortions and for systematically denying employment, health care and education to Tibetan citizens. Those who have escaped to India tell more graphic tales of torture including crucifixion, vivisection, disemboweling, dismemberment and burning. Women have been electrocuted on breasts and in their mouths and vaginas while other individuals were buried alive.

On August 8th, the nation that perpetrated these crimes, and that continues to engage in wide spread human rights abuses, will be hosting the world in the 29th Olympiad, an event that supposedly honours "universal fundamental ethical principles". The Beijing games are an offense that strikes the very core of these human values.

Having granted China the games, the IOC will do nothing to oppose them. Nor will there be a boycott from any of the 200 nations slated to compete in them. Action on this issue rests with us.

So in keeping with the themes I began several weeks ago in Generosity, Non-Violence and Non-Cooperation, here are a few meaningful actions that you can take in protest of the Beijing Games.

Athletes - You are the key individuals in the games. Without you there are no games. Given that governments will not boycott you can do so yourself. The higher profile you are, the bigger news it will be, and the more attention it will draw to the Tibetan cause. This legitimately may not be possible in light of corporate sponsorship deals. In this case, compete, and if you win a medal leave it behind on the podium or do not show up to accept it. Academy Awards have been refused. You can do the same with your medals.

In addition to dreams of victory, you may also have dreams of bringing home the medal itself, of displaying it proudly in your home, or making it an heirloom for you children. If so, know that the gold, silver or bronze of your victory was mined through the deforestation, pollution the destruction of the Tibetan environment while the Tibetan people received little to no economic benefit. Is this the heirloom you would leave your children? Or want around your neck?

Viewers - You are the second most important group of people. Through the sale of television rights the IOC has generated $2.5 billion in revenue. That is money networks anticipate getting back in spades through the sale of advertising time. But that is only a smart investment if people actually watch.

You are directly responsible for the profits that are realized by television networks from the games. Do not watch them. Don't watch an event, don't even watch the highlights. If you see your favorite newspaper, or magazine, with a cover story on the outcome of an event do not buy it.

If you think this sacrifices too much of your entertainment time, then I ask you 'what do you value in your life'? What values do you intend to communicate to your children? How important is this single entertainment event when you live in a world brimming with entertainment opportunities? Will you play your part in generating profits in an Olympics being held within a regime condemned for acts of genocide? Will you let your children watch that event? Is entertainment more important than the future of a peaceful culture and the lives of 6 million people? You can also ask yourself how much you remember from the last games, or better still the ones before that. Probably not much.

I am an avid sports fan and have followed every Olympics since 1984. I will not watch a minute of these games.

Shoppers - Olympic memorabilia and authentic Olympic sporting goods will be plugged mercilessly from now through Christmas. There is a fully functional and equivalent alternative available through competing brands for whatever equipment you need. Choose the alternative. Especially if it is a gift for your child. It is a chance to show them how their actions impact the lives and survival of others in the human family.

After your purchase, send a note along with the sales receipt to your National Olympic Committee (links available through the map here), and your national TV network, explaining why you didn't watch the games and why you are not supporting them as a consumer. If you are feeling extra motivation, send another copy to your Minister of Sport, Prime Minister or President.

Pass it on - individual action accumulates weight and effectiveness with numbers. Share these actions with friends, family, fellow students or workmates. If you are taking part in protests or actions, make these actions a part of your communications efforts. A two hour protest will leave little impact unless each individual who attends is empowered to take meaningful action in their own lives.

Most importantly, add your own ideas to the list above. These are only the actions that came immediately to mind and is by know means exhaustive.

Finally, if you feel that your actions do not matter, or won't amount to anything, then I leave you with the words of His Holiness the current Dalai Lama,

"It is therefore part of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy, if not healthier, than when we found it. This is not quite such as difficult proposition as it might sound. For although there is a limit to what we as individuals can do, there is no limit to what a universal response might achieve. It is up to us as individuals to do what we can, however little that may be. Just because (our action) seems inconsequential, it does not mean that we should not do it."

postscript - Incidentally, in light of recent protests do you know the history of the Olympic torch relay? It has no precedent in ancient Greece. It was introduced as a propaganda stunt to embrace other nations around the totalitarian ideology of, you guessed it, Nazi Germany.

Generosity, Non-Violence & Non-Cooperation

2008-04-27T02:15:00.000-07:00

Having escaped Bombay I'm now in Rishikesh, where this morning I was listening to an old lecture by Jack Kornfield over a second cup of mediocre coffee.

He was discussing the roots of generosity and what that force looks like when turned loose in the greater world. Specifically, he talked about how at its root generosity requires an embrace of all hardships in this world as well as all joys, and it is only through that embrace that we can see and change the greatest of the world's ills. To quote,

"...abundance means the willingness to open to life as it is, to face injustice and suffering. As Martin Luther King (Jr.) wrote, 'We will soon wear you down with our capacity to suffer in the struggle for the rights of others, and with that suffering we will win our freedom and (yours along with it)."

To wear down an oppressor with a capacity to suffer is something worth considering in the context of our current social struggles - from the protests over Tibet, to the war in Iraq and the reality of global warming. The truth of today is that we blame a complacent public, unresponsive governments and a corrupt media system for turning deaf ears to the troubles of the world while each one of us places the preservation of our own comforts and lifestyles before the suffering of the world around us.

Consider the description below of Indian citizens staring down the barrels of British guns during the Quissa Kwani bazaar massacre of the independence movement:

When those in front fell down wounded by the shots, those behind came forward with their chests bared and exposed themselves to the fire, so much so that some people got as many as twenty-one bullet wounds in their bodies, and all the people stood their ground without getting into a panic. . . . The paper of, which represents the official view, itself wrote to the effect that the people came forward one after another to face the firing and when they fell wounded they were dragged back and others came forward to be shot at. This state of things continued from 11 till 5 o'clock in the evening. When the number of corpses became too many, the ambulance cars of the government took them away.

Can we even conceive of such a whole hearted embrace of a cause beyond ourselves?

The fault isn't our own, it simply points to the next great state of embrace required in order to face the problems of a global community and the global solutions we need. The movements led by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. were ones involving nations and race. The challenges of today - from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the one threatening Iran; to the global issue of climate change - require a new embrace of ourselves first as global citizens and then as citizens of the Earth itself.

Protests of today are seen by the public for what they are, staged events performed for a known audience where all performers - whether activists or police - go home to their televisions and lives after the sun goes down. Our complacency of response is not a social disease. It matches the level of involvement of those who design these displays of non-violence.

We need to understand that in embracing non-violence as our mode of protest, we have abandoned its sibling non-cooperation, and that estrangement is the primary reason for our current failures. At its heart, non-violence smacks of passivity and a passive action can only lead to a passive result. Gandhi himself said that if faced with a decision between passivity and violence he would choose violence every time. Protesting the wrongs of society needs to directly affect the perpetuation of those wrongs. Any action different from that is, by its very nature, passive.

What would happen if the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan government in exile, and the 100,000 Tibetans living in India joined with those who remained in their ancestral home to march upon Beijing itself for the opening of the Olympic games? What if, like that sole protester in Tiananmin Square, they put their lives in the way of Chinese police and guns to peacefully assert their rights over what is theirs?

What would happen if those employed by Exxon, BP and Shell walked out together from their well paying jobs to demand that the people who issue their pay cheques also act in accordance with their desire for a safe and healthy planet?

What would happen if those employed by the US State Department and Defense Department left in unison until the government that offers them the security of employment, also offers their children the security of a safe world?

The answer is that these institutions would be brought to their knees within moments, and it is this power that is the right of all people, that is at the heart of Satyagraha, and forms the greatest fear of the powers that be.

These are not the only possibilities. The solutions for our problems are as limitless as the imaginations of those who conceive of them. However, the common thread is that our actions must match in scope the problems they are meant to solve. Actions must directly affect the problem, those actions must stem from a sense of self and community as large as the challenges they face.

Many will disagree with this, and that is actually a good thing. The difference between the suffering of the world and our resistance in embracing that suffering - that is, to put our own personal safety on the line - defines the growth we need to achieve in order to create the world we desire.

Beleaguered in Bombay

2008-04-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

I love cities. Though I profoundly love nature, I'll always choose to live within the human dense drama of the urban landscape. The bigger the better, and since first visiting there two years ago, Bombay has been one of my favorite cities in the world.

With sixteen million people, water in every direction, and all the chaos that India has to offer, Bombay makes the head spin, the heart hurt and has you running for cover or screaming for more - usually in the same 24 hour day. That said, my most recent visit had me doing far more running for cover than rejoicing. The flu, heat in excess of forty degrees, and an overwhelming dose of human misery and cruelty left me suffering and gladly departing town.

On the taxi ride from the airport to my hotel in the southern suburb of Colaba, my busted-up cab rear-ended a brand new Honda. We pulled to the side of to the side of the road and after getting out of the vehicle my nearly destitute and toothless driver was physically assaulted before having his mobile phone stolen from him. I can only guess that this was to ensure that he wouldn't bolt out of the area when the claim was filed; however, it was an unnerving act to witness given that the clothes worn by the other driver amounted to more than two months wages for my cabbie.

A few days later I visited the Buddhist ruins of nearby Elephanta Island, where a crippled dog was wandering in near insanity while seeking food wherever it could, as it's rear leg swung freely from a complete break halfway up. I was a gross disfigurement that could only have been accomplished through human hands. Meanwhile, Indian tourists were teasing monkeys by discarding their used water bottles as food, adding to the already substantial layer of refuse littering the once holy site.

Worst of all was the unknown fate of an infant toddler who had been paraded through a downtown intersection. No more than 2 years of age, she was being carried by a man who demonstrated not a hint of parental care as he thrust the pulsing, bleeding wound of her left hand in the face of every passing motorist. The girl stared on in mute shock as we handed over a stack of rupees while her guardian gripped her arm and waved it in our faces, goading us for more money.

The worst parts of Bombay grind you down and leave you wondering at the ultimate fate of the city. Although it possesses upwards of 40% of India's wealth, 55% of Bombay's residents live in slums. New high rises and renovated flats exist beside shacks of tarp and tin in a third world city where real estate prices rival those of London and New York. The lack of public conscience that plagues Bombay is summed up brutally and honestly by Suketu Mehta in his Pulitzer Prize nominated account of Bombay, Maximum City:

Indians do not have the same kind of civic sense as, say, Scandinavians. The boundary of the space you keep clean is marked at the end of the space you call your own. The flats in my building are spotlessly clean inside; they are swept and mopped every day, or twice every day. The public spaces - hallways, stairs, lobby, the building compound - are stained with betel spit; the ground is littered with congealed wet garbage, plastic bags, and dirt of human and animal origin. It is the same all over Bombay, in rich and poor areas alike.

This absence of civic sense is something that everyone from the British to the Hindu nationalists of have drawn attention to, the national defect in the Indian character.

They are words that are worth considering as India surges towards double digit economic growth. But in this city whose history is painted by commerce and currency there is a more striking example of this problem. In a time of soaring wealth and a growing divide between rich and poor, the image of Mahatma Gandhi has been quietly removed from India's new currency notes.

It would be well to carry his message of care forward, alongside economic prosperity.

More images of Bombay below.

A Morning at Elephant Junction

2008-04-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

Although my recent elephant safari was entirely unsuccessful, I was able to spend a morning with several Asian Elephants at the Elephant Junction sanctuary in Kumily.

Throughout the three hour visit I vacillated through a range of emotions. A quiet grief for the confinement and captivity of these intelligent and sensitive creatures gave way to both exhilaration at being in such close quarters with them and optimism for the gentleness with which they were treated by their mahouts, all before feeling my heart spin back again towards remorse.

By all indications the elephants were well treated and looked after. Verbal commands alone were being used to instruct them, and this even applied to the completely unruly 11 month old infant Kanan, who required all the will his mahout could muster just to stop him from eating the thatched shed within a trunk's reach of his enclosure.

The enclosures themselves were immaculately clean. Dung was cleared out regularly, and all of them were layered with thick blankets of maize stalks and palm fronds, which acted as both bedding and a continuous source of food for the elephants' ceaseless appetites.

Some elephants were quite constrained, but in fairness this varied according the manageability of the individual. Some were kept on short chains, particularly the mother of Kanan who could be understandably intolerant of human contact with her infant, but others were left completely free and stood calmly among the visitors and staff. Most importantly, all harnesses are removed each day at 5pm after the tourist hours are through.

However, despite the quality of this particular sanctuary others fail miserably in looking after the needs of their inhabitants. Small pens, lack of contact with the natural world and abusive mahouts are all common. That greater context left me concerned for the future of the species.

The population of wild Asian elephants stands at just 30,000 with about half of those in India. Meanwhile, it's much publicized African cousin boasts a population in excess of 600,000. Meanwhile, while the African Elephants compete for land and resources with about 900,000,000 people across the world's third largest continent, India's 15,000 remaining elephants face the inconceivable population pressure of more than a billion people.

This is the mathematical fact of wildlife conservation in the world's second most populous nation, and until environmentalists address the overwhelming human need of a billion individuals within their calls for conservation, the Asian elephant, tiger and a host of less prominent species won't last the upcoming decades.

I don't have an answer for this one, other than to say that it's my gut belief that there must be a place for elephants in their wild habitats along side our own, for the simple reason that we both come out of, and depend on, the natural world for our survival.

Ultimately, our mutual survival will depend on the preservation of the same natural environment.

Leech Trekking in Periyar

2008-03-28T21:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's a picture of a dead fish floating in a pond. And with the exception of a troop of monkeys, that was all the wildlife available during a full day safari in Periyar National Park, India.

The differences between here and Africa were profound.

While Africa receives most of the press about endangered wildlife, I walked away from every park I visited filled with awe and optimism for the future of species at risk. Periyar felt dead, and even though it apparently boasts healthy populations elephants and tigers, there were few signs of life. Meanwhile, the wilderness experience was compromised by the carnivorous appetite of the jungle's overwhelming leech population.

The Lonely Planet guidebook (which now borders on useless thanks to some key format changes, I'm switching to Footprint) advises that "leeches may be present following rain". That's sporting of them to pass on the tip (Rough Guide failed to do that much), but any review of the park falls short without an precise explanation of what this means...

The tour began at 5:15 am on the heels of week long rains from the nearby town of Kumily. By 7 o'clock we were squinting at a shadowy dot on the horizon that was meant to be a deer (I'm still not convinced) and noticed a few leeches scattered on the roadway. Unlike the slug-like variety you've seen around your local swimming hole, these creatures spring across open ground like Slinkys down stairs, and as we were to find out shortly, nothing short of the tightest woven fabric will halt their march to bare skin, and these few roadside specimens were the first in a plague of near biblical proportions once we reached the jungle proper.

Once at the park's headquarters we donned our 'leech proof socks' - a kind of canvas gaiter worn like a knee high sock inside your shoe - and were rowed across to the far side of the lake for the start of a three hour trek. Twenty feet down the path each of us had a half dozen leeches on our shoes. One hundred feet the ground crawling with, not a handful, not a dozen, but hundreds of marching, swarming worms. The jungle floor was alive and everybody's legs were covered up to the knees, with more disappearing through the leather and canvas of each available shoe.

We turned back then and there having seen no more than a hundred feet of forest and a single troop of monkeys in the canopy above. The downside of the retreat was looking like colossal cowards for calling it quits after a mere five minutes. I'm not worried. The intrepid explorers that kept on enjoyed three hours of soaking rain and annelid infestation to see no more wildlife than we did in the first hundred feet. I'm calling it a victory for our hides and our nerves.

Later that day we headed deeper into the forest via jeep, but the story was the same. With the exception of a few more monkeys and the dead fish expertly framed above, the jungle offered no wildlife while the leeches continued their assault, appearing inexplicably in our covered jeep, on our sleeves, and pasted to our faces.

Granted, I'm more than a bit squeamish of the creepy crawlies of the world, but in addition to the abysmal wildlife experience, the concerted lack of information on trekking conditions bordered on negligence. Periyar is India's most visited national park. I doubt this would be the case if park officials, and tourist guide books, ponied up valid information about the Periyar experience.

I'm interested in other's experiences here. For now, I recommend it to no one. Head to Ranthambore instead where two years ago I saw a tiger and an array of other Indian wildlife.

Shark Alley - South Africa

2008-03-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

Here's one I've been looking forward to, in spirit since witnessing the breathtaking footage of Planet Earth, and in practice since first stepping foot in Africa - cage diving with the Great White Sharks.

Before describing the experience there's a need to address the inevitable and already existing concerns about diving with the great white. In particular, some environmentalists take issue with the activity because they allege that diving with these predators conditions them to view human beings as food. After a day of close quarters observation, both in the cage and from the ship's deck, I can tell you with full confidence that this concern is both unwarranted and unfounded.

To begin with, conditioning an animal to change its natural response patterns takes time, and a unique aspect about the South African great whites is that they are a completely open population, meaning that any given individual shark is only spending about three or four weeks in the area. That's far to little time to ingrain a new conditioning pattern. More to the point, whomever asserts this as a concern has a feeble understanding of conditioning. In order for sharks to be conditioned to view human beings as food, they need to receive some form of reward that causes them to believe this. For starters, they aren't managing to eat human beings during these trips. More importantly, they aren't permitted to eat anything else either. The bait used to attract sharks is pulled away before they can reach it. The entire strategy of shark diving focuses on piquing the shark's natural curiosity in order to bring it within sighting distance. They are not fed, and most importantly human beings are never presented as food, nor are they interested in them as such. Case closed there.

As far as the experience itself goes, its a phenomenal opportunity to appreciate one of natures most specialized creations. In the cage itself we witnessed great whites of up to 4 metres in length passing within a foot of our eyes. The largest of the species can top 6 metres, but there was no shortage of awe and appreciation for the beauty and power of these animals as it was.

In totaly, we witnessed four individual great whites in close quarters, and on one occasion saw one consume a giant lion's mane jellyfish measuring a full metre in diameter. The shark sucked it back with one motion, and even the marine biologist on board the vessel enthused that she had never so much as read about a great white preying on jelly fish, let alone witness it. The sighting will be her next academic submission to the professional journals.

More than anything the trip was an opportunity to witness a species deeply in peril. Despite their dense numbers on the southern tip of Africa, sharks across the world are in steep decline. Each year 100,000,000 (no that is not a typo) die at the hands of long line fishing nets and cast aside as by catch (but only after their fins are lopped off as delicacies, often with the sharks still alive). Meanwhile, collectors across the globe are willing to pay upwards of $100,000 for their very own set of great white's jaws for display as a trophy to god knows what.

The work of the tour leaders and conservationists who bring these creatures to the public eye is one of the biggest forces working in favour of their protection, and from start to finish, I have nothing but praise for the professionalism of this trip and the enormous respect they help spread for the great whites of South Africa.

Tanzania to Cape Town Photo Highlights

2008-03-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

The departure for India is fast approaching, but while I'm still in Africa here are the photo highlights from the past two months. I've included titles and descriptions on the files, so anyone wanting a bit more context for the pics can read those directly on my flickr account here.

My Father the Sun, My Mother the Moon

2008-02-22T00:52:00.000-08:00

I've loved solo travel ever since my first trip across Europe a decade ago. Its sense of freedom and endless possibilities are the rarest gifts, and I find it difficult to give those up to travel with others for long.

Unfortunately, there are days when trudging alone grinds you down. Whether it's the petty uncertainties from being perpetually uprooted, or facing dinner on your own (yet again!), the challenges are always present. Then there are the more difficult moments, the emotional events that come on without warning and leave you limping and lurching through whatever city you're in at the time. It was on that note, and a heavy heart, that I started the sunset climb of the Lion's Head yesterday afternoon.

The Lion's Head is a jagged 669m guardian of rock overlooking Cape Town from a seat directly in front of Table Mountain. The peak thrusts clear from the brush and low trees on its flanks and to form a sentinel watching over the city's Atlantic suburbs and downtown core. It's stunning.

The hike is meant to last two hours, and I started out at twenty after five with the sun still pounding out of the clear blue sky. I was caught without sunblock again, as usual forgetting the relentless burn of the sun at these latitudes until it's all but sunk behind the horizon. But it was beautiful and fresh. The trail circled around the peak, bringing every corner of the city into view one after another before cutting up in a vertical chain climb to the final ascent. All in, it was about thirty minutes and several photo stops before I was crossing the summit to find a comfortable spot for to await the setting sun.

Immediately in front of me was the cold Atlantic and the Clifton and Camps Bay suburbs clinging to the slim line of coast. On the right the smaller peak of Signal Hill stood watch over my current home in Sea Point, and behind me spread the downtown core of the City Bowl nestled into the flanks of Table Mountain. It was a stunning and virtually private panorama until shortly after six when the summit started filling up. The company was nice, and the crowd grew to cover every open space without taking away from the quiet of the surroundings or the sound of my thoughts.

It's amazing how wrong you can get things, how incomplete your own version of the truth can be, and how blind you can be to the right way of simply being with things, most of all with yourself. You try to live from that place, but no matter how well you think you understand, you end up feeling like you need some sort of answer. Sometimes its moments like these.

The sun began its final descent behind the clouds and sea, and as it did the answer to a question I had only whispered rushed in. What a beautiful simplicity, and how terrifyingly easy it is to miss. It's as if you're capable of accepting anything in the world, except what's in your own heart, and sometimes you just need a place like this where you can be quiet for long enough and remember.

A few moments later the sun disappeared and eyes turned exactly 180 degrees to look out across the opposite face, for not only was this the rising of the full moon, it was also a lunar eclipse. The moon broke the horizon over City Bowl and the Sun and Moon embraced its creation, the Earth, in arms reaching from either end of the cosmos, touching every corner of our world and in doing so touching everyone I love.

I spent some time in that place and gave thanks for all the gifts of the day before beginning the trip down. It was time for a burger, and a beer.

Nelson Mandela and District Six

2008-02-20T17:13:00.000-08:00

February 11th marked the 18th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's long walk to freedom. I missed the opportunity to make a commemorative post on that event, but hopefully I can make up for it by sharing an equally important, though less known, story of apartheid - the story of District Six.

District Six was established adjacent to the downtown core in 1867 as the "Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town" – a mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, labourers and immigrants. Over the next century the modest area grew into a cosmopolitan melting pot boasting a rich jazz scene. Later, as the dark years of apartheid clamped down on the city, it became a haven for musicians, writers and politicians looking for a moment of escape. In the words of legendary South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, District Six was a "fantastic city within a city. Where you felt the fist of apartheid, it was the valve to release some of that pressure."

However, by the mid sixties the government had the community in its sights. In 1966, after allowing the area's infrastructure to crumble for years, the government classified District Six a slum and declared it a 'whites only' area under the infamous Groups Area Act. Forced removals began two years later and by 1982 sixty thousand people had been relocated to the Cape Flats township some 25 kms away. District Six was razed to the ground and, despite having once been home to a tenth of Cape Town's population, the area remains barren wasteland to this day. In the face of growing political opposition from within, and international pressure from outside South Africa, the apartheid regime never succeeded in redeveloping the 528 acre site.

I visited the area after a brief tour of the excellent District Six Museum. Arriving there at 5pm with the southeast winds blowing over Table Mountain, the scene was harrowing.

New tarmac winds through what appears to be undeveloped land and overgrown grass, but as you pick your way through barrens, increasingly vivid relics emerge. Broken brick work and porcelain tiles become more frequent and the concrete foundations of old residential buildings poke through the ground. Cracked and weed ridden streets run uphill towards new developments while the housings of old sewer entrances stand open and uncovered, leading 25 feet down to the storm sewers that serve the ghost community.

It was one of the most stark and disturbing sights I've seen, and powerfully symbolic of the injustices committed against non-white South Africans during the time of apartheid.

The healing process continues as the District Six Beneficiary and Redevelopment Trust carries on the work of land restitution on behalf of displaced residents. Their formal goal is to "facilitate the return of previously dispossessed persons to their ancestral land." Negotiations are ongoing.

District Six slide show below.

The Themed Toilets of Ngepi

2008-02-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

A raft of new posts are on the way, including photo highlights from the past two months, and full articles on the wrap up of the African overland tour and of life here in Cape Town. In the mean time, here's a short photo set to pass the time. Our campsite in Ngepi, Namibia had some odd ways of dealing with the calls of nature, among other things....

Ground Rush in Namibia

2008-02-08T02:31:00.000-08:00

This is the sort of thing you don't tell your mother about until you are safely back on the ground...or perhaps never. Sorry Mom!

Skydiving courtesy of Ground Rush.

PS - photos in reverse(ish) order because this flash player is retarded.

Would You Rather Date a Cheetah or a Cougar?

2008-01-24T05:51:00.000-08:00

Anyone from Vancouver, or those who have visited, will have first hand experience of the social disfunction that plagues our fair city's dating scene. Here's a couple of choice responses I've received from friends back home over the past days.

The first is the latest article by a dear freind, fellow writer, and a lovely girl who's to good to be single - Vancouver Guys Suck Ass. The second is just a great piss take of your's truly:

Wow very fun and nice pictures as well. I could not help but giggle a bit
at trying to find parallel opportunities here in the urban wasteland. The whole
story might of read quite differently.
Title: Cougars at Sammy J. Peppers
From: Vancouver Urban Fashionista.
Catching a glimpse of one Vancouver’s trickiest land animals.
“The bar began in 2005, when the owners faced a huge problem with the number of single available women in Vancouver. In the course of one year, cougars number in the thousands took out 38 men and boys, plus an additional four families of elves on Robson. But ratherthan dispersing the cougars, as is both sanctioned and encouraged by the local authorities, they opted instead to capture them - a decision they credit as having changed the course of men’s lives forever.”
You can see the parallels here. Take care man. :)

Cheetah Pets & Cheetah Predators

2008-01-22T00:07:00.000-08:00

The past week saw one of the most impressive and unexpected stops on the tour so far - the Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park in Namibia.

Until then I hadn't caught so much of a glimpse of the world's fastest land animal, and as I said to a travel mate, I might as well pack up and go home if I couldn't see one here.

The farm began in 1994, when the Nel family faced a huge problem with the big cats. In the course of one year, cheetahs took out 38 sheep and goats, plus an additional four calves on the family farm. But rather than shooting the cheetahs, as is both sanctioned and encouraged by the Namibian Nature Conservation, they opted instead to capture them - a decision they credit as having changed the course of their lives forever.

A pregnant female was among the captured cats, and when three of the five cubs survived birth, the family adopted them as house pets and decided to turn their working ranch into a private reserve for the protection of cheetahs. Today, the fenced reserve spans 250 hectares and provides a safe home for 22 wild cheetahs, in addition to their three current house pets.

Time spent with the 'domestic' ones was almost surreal, while at the same time feeling utterly safe. They began purring like idling Volkswagens as soon as we arrived, and all in we had about 45 minutes to spend with them in the Nels' backyard. As risky as you'd think the experience might be, there really was minimal (if any) danger. Cheetahs are specialized for speed and are notoriously weak compared to other big cats. In the wild, they will often get bullied off their kill by lions or hyenas, and although 'big' they stand at about the same height as standard sized dog. They were even left free to play with the family's Jack Russel, doing no more to it than rolling it end over end if it got to yappy or in their face.

After the visit with the house cats we survived an hour long deluge before piling into the back of a pick-up truck for feeding time in the wild reserve. These cheetahs were an entirely different story. Unlike their domestic cousins, these were fit, lean predators in the prime of their lives. Just one hundred yards into the fenced off reserve we were surrounded by no less than a dozen active, pacing animals with no more than the open rail of the truck bed between us and them. I never felt more like a cow being led to the slaughter than at that moment.

But again, it was surprising how little of a threat they were, despite all appearances. The guides stepped directly out of the truck armed with nothing more than a small stick about the size of a conductor's wand - just a prop to make themselves look a bit bigger in the face of a couple bluff charges by the more aggressive cats. Once on the ground, they hauled out the garbage bin of fresh donkey meat that had been riding in the back with us and gave each a healthy 2kg chunk.

I realize that all sorts of people have a problem with keeping big cats or other wild animals as pets. I've never endorsed it, but in secure grounds in the middle of nowhere I could see no harm. All of the cheetahs were in immaculate health, and the service the Nels are providing in giving these animals a safe habitat in the face of the farmers' rifle puts them far beyond most cheetah conservation efforts, particularly the Namibian government who continues to sanction their killing.

All in their are just 7,500 cheetahs remaining in the world, but through their "pest control" policy, the Namibian government endorses the killing of up to 500 to 600 every year. Meanwhile, the Nels are looking to greatly expand their efforts. Eventually, they aim to have their entire 7,500 hectare farm securely fenced for the benefit of the cats. It was more than a pleasure to leave them with a donation towards that effort. The cost of fencing is about $50 Namibian Dollars (about $7 per km), and every square meter of land included in the reserve means a better life for the cheetahs who live there, and more room to transfer other cats that are facing a death sentence on local livestock farms.

For more information on the Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park, see the complete contact details below.

Tollie & Roeleen Nel
Otjitotongwe Cheetah Park
PO Box 60
Kamanjab, Namibia
Phone: 09 264 67 687056
Email: cheetahs@iway.na or Mario@cheetahpark.com
http://www.cheetahparknamibia.com

Safari in South Luangwa

2008-01-06T01:10:00.000-08:00

When you say the word 'safari' most thoughts turn to the endless plains of Tanzania's Serengeti. But where the Serengeti can be likened to driving a sports car on a four lane superhighway, Zambia's South Luangwa National Park is the safari equivalent of a motorcycle ride through a winding country road.

Covering 9,050 square kilometers along the Luangwa River, South Luangwa is a gem. It boasts large herds of giraffe, buffalo, impala, abundant populations of crocodiles and hippos, and of course, elephants. Thousands of them. And unlike traveling with the overpopulated tourists hoards in the Serengeti, the open jeep tours here bring you in direct contact with the environment like few other safari's can. Roadways are narrow and unobtrusive, and in the rainy month of January the sparse forests and grasslands are in full, vividly green bloom.

South Luangwe is also a bit of a success for conservation efforts.

In the 1970s, poaching decimated the park's elephant population to a mere 6,000 animals, but aggressive patrolling and the international ban on ivory trade has helped that number rebound to 16,000 today. Elephants of every age (including stumbling newborns) are constantly within sight, so much so that it's difficult to imagine how dense the herds would have been when the park's original population of 100,000 was intact.

Mother Nature is also lending the elephants her helping hand, proving her wisdom even in the face of mankind's most wanton attempts at destruction. Tuskless elephants have always existed in small numbers, but with selective hunting by ivory hungry poachers, nature is selecting this formerly rare variation in far greater numbers, ensuring that the world's largest herbivor stands a chance of survival even if poaching once again becomes common.

As striking as they were, the elephants were only one half of the surprise and as the hour rolled on towards 6pm, the sun fell below the horizon and the nightime safari began. Hippos emerged from the water to graze in the long grass, and you could feel a tangible shift in power as darkness began to favour the park's predators.

Within ten minutes of nightfall we rounded a bend in the path and our spotlight caught the gleam of feline eyes. It was a leopard, the most elusive and shy of all of Africa's 'big five'. During daylight you're lucky to spot a glimpse of one dozing a hundred yards off in the canopy of a tree, but spinning the jeep around as close as we could the big cat strolled within ten feet of us. It was completely undisturbed by our presence and paused briefly to grant us a photo shoot before moving confidently away towards the unseen (to our eyes) herd of impala collecting in the brush beyond.

Far more terrifying was the awakening pride of lions. The cats strode directly along the sides of our open vehicle, and unlike the leopard, rather boldly surveyed the occupants of the jeep itself, as if casually browsing the menu of a familiar restaurant. The jeeps act as a type of territorial boundary and the presence of the lions is meant to be safe so long as you remain inside. Under no circumstances would I have it any other way.

As immersed as we were during our four hour safari, nature always has something more to offer - sometimes in the most unexpected places.

The next morning while back at the Flatdog campsite on the opposite side of the river, I was sluffing along between the bar and the toilets in half done up sandals when I heard branches breaking off to my left. Twenty yards from the toilets was Uncle Gilbert, a massive bull elephant casually consuming what had formerly been a large healthy bush. he was taking his time grabbing individual branches with his trunk and expertly sawing off moutfuls against his tusks until the bush was satisfactorily plucked clean and he moved away - directly towards the place I was standing.

He hadn't seen me leaning againt the bathroom entrance when he began walking but at ten yards he finally caught sight of me. His ears went up like two sails grabbing the wind, and my entire visual field was instantly filled by a wall of grey flesh. Taking the hint, I kept eye contact while slowly making two long steps back into the toilets. His comfort zone restored, Uncle Gilbert walked off to his next meal.

Exiting the bathroom, I turned towards the bar to do the same.

US To Phase Out Inefficient Lights

2007-12-19T11:51:00.000-08:00

Following Canada's lead, the US will now be phasing out inefficient incandescent lights bulbs in favour of compact fluorescents by 2012. Read all the details here.

Lamu Slideshow

2007-12-19T10:35:00.000-08:00

A few more images of a tropical paradise...

La Paradise in Lamu

2007-12-18T11:32:00.000-08:00

I failed to mention that most of this African experience is taking place on an overland truck tour with a group of other travelers. Though the company is nice, so is stretching the legs out on your own.

So taking advantage of a week long break at the end of stage one, I booked airline tickets to Lamu - small island off the coast of Kenya.

A recognized World Heritage Site, Lamu is the last undiluted outpost of true Swahili culture. Swahili was never a pure group of people, nor language. It grew over centuries through a mixture of the traditional African coastal tribes with Arab, Persian and Indian influences arriving from sea. I never appreciated this before.

My destination was the town of Lamu, the largest town on Lamu Island, which in turn is a part of the Lamu Archipelago. The island population is made up of about 20,000 people and 6,000 donkeys, with the only motorized vehicle traffic being the Island Commissioner's Land Rover and two ambulances - one for people and one for the donkeys. However, they should probably have a third ambulance devoted to tourists who die of heat stroke the second they step off the plane. When the doors opened on my Air Kenya prop, I said to the person next to me, "I think my underwear just melted!"

But that was the only thing to complain about for the next week.

The town itself is a tightly packed outpost of 14th to 19th century buildings that hug the coastline and feature Arab style windows, thatched roofs, rooftop views, and stunning wood carvings that demonstrate all of the island's myriad influences. As for the time spent there, it was nothing but leisure.

The food is picked straight from a tree or pulled from the sea, and my meal of choice was fresh snapper served with a glorious mug of fresh squeezed lime juice, which ran about $5 total. I spent most of the rest of my time making the 50 minute walk to a nearly deserted expanse of tropical sand called Shela beach for sun tanning and swimming.

There was also a day trip in a traditional Swahili sailing dhow to catch lunch from the sea for a traditional swahili meal of fresh fired fish, coconut rice and mangoes cooked on the beach. I should say that my boat mates caught the fish, and our guide did the cooking. I'm alright at negotiating the variables of African travel, but I a fisherman I'm not.

After 5 days of tropical living I've rarely felt healthier. Life remains slow on the island despite the modern world lying just across the sea. To date, islanders have resisted all attempts at rapid modernization or any firm connections to the mainland. From the airstrip at nearby Manda Island the only way to reach Lamu town is by boat. My own motorized dhow featured a diesel engine that used a cooking oil container for a fuel tank, a water bottle for oil, and made about 1/2 a knot at 800 decibels.

Developers have tabled plans to connect Lamu Island to the mainland via road and to build an airstrip, but so far to no avail. With luck it will stay that way. The European travelers who are snapping up land on the island appear anxious to bring in more western amenities and tourist wealth. The islanders could care less. Though poor by any monetary standards, they are rich in health and natural beauty. They have all they need for food and shelter and nobody seems to desire anything other than to carry on as they have for centuries.

I hope the rest of the world gets the hint.

Al Gore Tells World to Go it Alone

2007-12-15T02:25:00.000-08:00

It turns out Al Gore reads The Conscious Earth. Back in June I wrote that to solve global warming the international community is going to have to leave the United States behind and go it alone. As long US motivation is to derail international talks rather than join them, the world's efforts will only be harmed by granting them a place at the bargaining table.

Speaking from the United Nations climate change summit in Bali yesterday, Al Gore echoed my sentiments,

The Bush administration is the main obstacle to progress in international efforts to fight global warming, but the rest of the world should move on without it, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore said Thursday night during a special appearance at the United Nations climate change summit.

"I am not an official of the United States and I am not bound by diplomatic niceties," said Gore in an emotional speech to delegates that lasted close to an hour. "So I am going to speak an inconvenient truth: My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali. We all know that."

Bravo. Lets hope everyone is listening.

Hat tip to NotaryPublic over at BlogCatalog.

Mountain Gorilla Slideshow

2007-12-14T08:41:00.000-08:00

At long last, here is a short photo series of the mountain gorillas....well, except the first shot. Enjoy!

Rwanda from Genocide to Recovery

2007-12-13T08:13:00.000-08:00

One of the moments I've most looked forward to in the early part of travel is visiting Rwanda. The genocide that the nation survived is a defining event in the modern era and, touching closer to home for myself, it was Canadian General Romeo Dallaire who led the UN effort here while maintaining a near solitary voice for further intervention - a call that was patently ignored until the genocide was over and nearly 1,000,000 people had died.

We're told that the genocide was the culmination of tribal conflicts between warring Hutus and Tutsis that stretch back far beyond European colonization. In reality, this is a bald faced lie designed to protect the conscience of the developed world while stopping us from understanding the true nature of the killings, and the integral role of the west in bringing them about.

The Germany was the first nation to first to colonize Rwanda during the late 1800s. At that time they found 18 distinct tribes living in relative peace. The labels "Tutsi", "Hutu" and "Twa" did not identify distinct tribes, but rather represented the social standing of individuals within tribes, much like the labels 'doctor', 'lawyer' or 'labourer' might describe a person's status and occupation today.

More importantly, there was nothing about this distinction that was fixed or hereditary, and an individual's standing changed with changes in their personal circumstances. Hutu would become Tutsi if their personal wealth increased through building larger herds of cattle, and a Tutsi who lost livestock through drought or disease would fall in status to Hutu.

This changed in 1932 when the Belgians gained control of the area. Seeing an opportunity to gain a more rigid control of the local population, the Belgians moved to make these distinctions permanent. Anyone who possessed 10 head of cattle at that time were declared
"Tutsi", and those with less were labeled "Hutu". These distinctions remained unchangeable and hereditary, and they were further reinforced by an identity card system that labeled each Rwandan according to their "tribal" status.

Through class distinction and bureaucracy, the Belgians ruled the colony through the Tutsis until the Rwandan independence movement began in the 1950s. At that time, the the Belgians found it to their political advantage to switch their allegiance to the Hutus. As the Hutus moved into power, Belgian support continued despite increasingly oppressive anti-Tutsi policies that included massacres, job quotas, limits on education, and an increasingly sophisticated and coordinated propoganda campaign. In the decades leading up to the genocide thousands of Tutsi died and 700,000 fled into Uganda and other neighboring countries to escape persecution.

By the time the genocide commenced in April of 1994, the doctrine of "Hutu Power" and the plan for the extermination of the Tutsis was well rehearsed and tightly organized. Between 1990 and 1993, Hutu extremists had initiated eight separate trial massacres in preparation for the launch of 'final solution'. During these warm up phases, the French government was fully aware of the situation and continued to guarantee loans to the Rwandan government for arms deals with French companies.

Near the end of the 1994 genocide Rwanda erupted in civil war. The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Tutsi general Paul Kagame eventually took control of the country, but not before 100 days of slaughter and the death of 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates.

But despite this violence, Rwanda has made a startling recovery.

After becoming President in 2000, Paul Kagame instituted new stability and national cohesion. Tutsi and Hutu class distinctions are now strictly forbidden. All citizens are now known only as "Rwandans". Assuming that mass violence is far less likely to be initiated by women, the new government has also mandated that 39% of representatives must be women, the highest level of female representation in the world. Corruption has nearly disappeared. There is a building boom occuring throughout Rwanda. And though understandably guarded, the people are open, friendly and welcoming, even though there is scarcely a soul who was not touched directly by the genocide. Equally startling is that there does not appear to be a scrap of litter anywhere in the country - a huge difference from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania where old plastic bags collect like snow drifts.

The most striking aspect of the country is the national recognition of the events of 1994. Driving through the impossibly steep farms of Les Milles Collines (land of 1000 hills), there are countless signs marking mass graves and sites of wholesale slaughter. The look and feel of these memorials is ghostly and rarely do they mark a place where less than hundreds died. The most stirring of all is the Genocide Memorial in Kigale where more than 258,000 people been interred so far, including the parents of the young man who guided us through these memorial grounds. As new buildings go up around the country, more graves are constantly unearthed, and it will be decades before all of the phantoms are finally put to rest.

These are but a few words, and in truth it is impossible to capture the emotion and scale of what occurred here....even 13 years later.

Some readers well versed on the history of the region may point out that the summary above ignores the ethnic clashes between Hutus and Tutsis that took place in bordering countries, especially in neighbouring Burundi where several killings of Hutus occurred at the hands of Tutsi forces throughout recent decades. This omission was intentional.

After spending months reading the histories, and now after speaking to Rwandans first hand, I'm convinced that the story we hear in North America and Europe is one that has been purposely focused on so called "ethnic tensions" in order to spare our collective conscience from confronting our own responsibility. The distinctions between Hutus and Tutsis were consciously established, cultivated and maintained by western powers for their own political advantage. They knowingly ignored the threat of genocide, they armed genocidaires for their own profit, and when the killings began they did nothing to stop them.

If we truly want to stop such a thing from occurring again, our efforts need to begin by accepting responsibility for our role in the genocide. Otherwise it can, and inevitably will, repeat.

The question only is when.

Gorillas of Rwanda

2007-12-02T09:13:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to all of my readers for bearing with a lengthy delay in posts since I left for Africa. It's been a few weeks of merciless, ass jarring travel that ultimately led to the portion of my current travels that had most captured my imagination - Rwanda.

After camping overnight in the northwestern town of Ruhengheri, my first full day in the country was the gorilla trek in the Parc du Volcans - first brought to the world's attention by Dian Fossey and her groundbreaking study of the mountain gorilla.

A 6am wake up call had us at the trail head at the mediocre hour of 9am, a level of efficiency I affectionately refer to as 'African time'. When we did get rolling it was bliss stretching the legs as we hiked through the the village hugging the volcanic slopes that led towards the protected parkland. We moved towards the jungle under the escort of a guide plus two armed members of the Rwandan military. The latter being an overcautious assurance of safety due to the ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo taking place on the far side of the peaks.

With or without automatic weaponry, the initial walk was beautiful as it led us through farming villages of potato, pyrethrum flowers, and maize. However, even with lovely farmland and stunning views of Rwanda's countless hillsides, all thoughts were turned towards the jungle ahead of us and the beginning our hike in earnest. It never happened.

At the top of the farm we arrived at the Buffalo Wall, a six foot retaining wall marking the park border and the supposed beginning of our trek. But after a quick check on his two way radio our guide turned to us and said, "How do you say this?.....the gorillas, they are OUT! They have visited the village!"

Two turns later, we arrived at a small farmland stream, where two gorillas were settled around a stand of bamboo just 20 feet away from us. Making our way closer, the two nearest individuals retreated across the stream, but as we turned around we found we were surrounded. Ten feet to our left was a young mother, and just a couple yards away was a toddling yearling rolling past us in the thick grass. We were almost too absorbed in the intimacy of the scene to see the silverback leader himself, in his awesome 200+ kg prime, seated just a couple steps behind us.

The moment is almost impossible to describe. One instant we were walking through tall shrubs and bamboo, and the next we were within touching distance of every photo shoot I've ever seen. Dumb struck awe is the only way to describe being so close to the gentle power of these creatures. For me, it was some hours later before I could quietly consider the experience and start to feel what it meant. The dexterity of hand, their social nature, the way the look and consider each other, and the feeling when an individual looks you in the eye is unlike any wildlife viewing I've been involved in. I'm not even sure what to call these creatures, but 'animals' certainly isn't it. It's a gift they are still with us. With luck they'll remain so.

The Rwandan government has done an amazing job ensuring the protection of the gorillas since Dian Fossey's murder in the mid eighties. At that time, just 250 gorillas remained throughout the Birunga Volcanoes. Today, that number exceeds 700 with nearly half of them living in Rwanda. Ninety percent of the $500 permit fee goes towards their conservation, and with that support, the 13 groups located within Rwanda receive 24 hour monitoring and study. As for our time, we were allowed just an hour. The rest of the day is set aside to let the gorillas do what gorillas do.

From start to finish the day was inspiring and I would have gladly paid twice the price to support their continued protection.

Conscious Earth on the Road/Introducing Odiyya

2007-11-16T02:24:00.000-08:00

Many thanks to The Conscious Earth readers and subscribers over the past several weeks. News posts have been sparse as both the blog and my personal life have undergone some substantial changes.

The Conscious Earth began a year and a half ago, as an anonymous project to sort through the muddled reasoning and outright lies that infect environmental debate in the mainstream news. Through these months, I've remained anonymous to avoid any conflict of interest involving my 9 to 5 job, which until two weeks ago was directly involved in the environmental field. With my recent departure from that job its time to introduce myself to readers and bring you all up to date with the plans for the coming months.

For the past four and a half years I've been the chief fundraiser with Sierra Legal Defence Fund, Canada's leading environmental law organization. More recently I've played a leading role in their rebranding and name change project as they've successfully transitioned to Ecojustice Canada and continue to lead the Canadian environmental community in holding governments and corporations accountable to environmental principles and law.

All good things come to an end, and I've now departed from that role for an extended period of world travel. I'm currently writing from Nakuru, Kenya and over the next 7 months my travels will take me throughout Africa's lake district, through to Cape Town, and then on to India and the Himalayas. Posts will be less frequent through this time and will change substantially in focus. However, they will continue as I work to give The Conscious Earth's readers an on the ground look at the environmental challenges facing some of the worlds most critical developing areas.

I invite everyone to continue reading, and ask only for your patience as I cope with spotty internet access and a hectic travel schedule.

Sincerely,

Kori Brus
Vancouver, Canada (currently Kenya)

The Solution? Hire a Weasel!

2007-11-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

Denier strategy at its best....

Global Warming Critics Proved Right

2007-10-24T01:38:00.000-07:00

In news that will send the spirits of skeptics, deniers and global warming critics soaring, their long maintained condemnation of climate change computer models has been justified.

For years, skeptics have maintained that computer driven models of global warming fail to accurately project changes to the Earth's climate. Recent research now supports their view. Unfortunately for them, the problem is that models have been too conservative in their projections.

"It turns out that global warming critics were right when they said that global climate models did not do a good job at predicting climate change," Robock commented. "But what has been wrong recently is that the climate is changing even faster than the models said. In fact, Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than any models predicted, and sea level is rising much faster than IPCC previously predicted."

The study also shows that carbon dioxide is increasing in the atmosphere faster than expected, with emissions now 35 per cent higher in 2006 than in 1990.

Equally unfortunate is that due to a general failure to read and inability to generate coherent arguments in their own defense, skeptics likely won't read far enough into this post to get the punchline.

UK Court Defends Use of Gore Film in Classrooms

2007-10-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of rumbling in the deny-osphere in the past week concerning the results of a lawsuit brought by one Stewart Dimmock against the British Secretary of State for Education.

The case was launched by Mr. Dimmock in opposition to the distribution of An Inconvenient Truth to UK classrooms. The verdict? Despite the blustering of the right-wing press, the court's decision upheld the use of the film in classrooms while new information has cast Mr. Dimmock himself in dubious light.

In the decision itself, Justice Michael Burton cited a short list of concerns about the film that deniers throughout the media and blogosphere have been quick to jump on while ignoring the actual judgment. Justice Burton endorsed the use of An Inconvenient Truth, its accuracy, and allowed it to remain in British curriculum.

"(The film) is substantially founded upon scientific research and fact."...."The Defendant (Secretary of State for Education) will not be promoting partisan political views by enabling the showing of AIT in the context of the discussions facilitated by the Guidance Note, and is not under a duty to forbid the presentation of it in that context."

Subsequently, the man who brought this so called David vs. Goliath case to court has proved to be a stooge funded by the fuel and mining lobby.

This court case, and the mainstream coverage of it, is simply the latest ill founded attack on Gore and global warming. And for the umpteenth time deniers and their blogging supporters have followed suit without so much as a thought....because their entire argument against global warming is itself devoid of thought.

Thanks to DeSmogBlog for the great coverage of the issue.

Why Does the Right Hate Gore? Because He's Right

2007-10-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

I’m not one to pass along a straight regurg, but today's New York Times op-ed by Paul Krugman’s is superb. He asks the simple question, “Why do Republicans hate Al Gore?”. The simple answer is because he’s right, despite all right-wing attempts to convince people otherwise.

Today, being a good Republican means believing that taxes should always be cut, never raised. It also means believing that we should bomb and bully foreigners, not negotiate with them.

So if science says that we have a big problem that can’t be solved with tax cuts or bombs — well, the science must be rejected, and the scientists must be slimed.

Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He’s taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.

Good stuff.

The Conscious Earth Makes the Blogger Buzz

2007-10-15T14:13:00.001-07:00

Thank you to the good folks at Blogger for tagging The Conscious Earth in their Environmental Blog Roundup. Here's the full list. Congratulations to all!

Cleantech Blog - Commentary on technologies, news, and issues relating to next generation energy and the environment.
The Conscious Earth - Earth-centered news for the health of air, water, habitat and the fight against global warming.
Earth Meanders - Earth essays placing environmental sustainability within the context of other contemporary issues.
Environmental Action Blog - Current environmental issues and green energy news.
The Future is Green - Thoughts on the coming of a society that is in balance with nature.
The Green Skeptic - Devoted to challenging assumptions about how we live on the earth and protect our environment.
Haute*Nature - Ecologically based creative ideas, art & green products for your children, home and lifestyle, blending style with sustainability.
The Lazy Environmentalist - Sustainable living made easy.
Lights Out America - A grassroots community group organizing nationwide energy savings events.
The Nature Writers of Texas - The best nature writing from the newspaper, magazine, blog and book authors of the Lone Star State.
Rachel Carson Centennial Book Club - Considering the legacy of Rachel Carson's literary and scientific contributions with a different book each month.
Sustainablog - News, information and personal meanderings related to environmental and economic sustainability, green and sustainable business, and environmental politics.
These Come From Trees - An experiment in environmentalism, viral marketing, and user interface design with the goal of reducing consumer waste paper.

Al Gore Wins 2007 Nobel Peace Prize

2007-10-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

In recognition of "their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change", Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been announced as co-winners of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

In awarding the honour, the Nobel committee singled out Al Gore as "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted". President Bill Clinton expressed similar feelings,

"Gore's ex-boss, former President Clinton, also said he's 'thrilled by this well-deserved recognition,' and credited Gore with 'warning and educating us about the dangers of climate change for decades. He saw this coming before others in public life.'"

Gore stated that he will donate his half of the $1.5 million dollar prize to the Alliance for Climate Protection, an organization he founded to persuade people to reduce global warming by cutting greenhouse gas pollution.

You can see the announcement via YouTube.

Airplanes, Automobiles & Emissions

2007-10-11T02:26:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder why the media ceaselessly singles out the airline industry as a global warming pariah when it accounts for just 2% of worldwide emissions? In what might be the most irrelevant alarm call of the year, Britons have been singled out as the "world's biggest emitters of CO2 from air travel" while Great Britain itself leads the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.

So why the focus on air travel? As usual, follow the money and you'll find the answer.

Far and away the single largest source of greenhouse gases is the combustion of fossil fuels, a stat being driven largely by automobile use. By no coincidence the automobile industry is also the single largest spender in media advertising, while the airline industry doesn't even make it onto the pie chart (page 7 for those checking).

By keeping attention on airline emissions, mass media has framed a convenient scapegoat that distracts public attention from the real problem and avoided a significant threat to their bottom line. The greatest irony, is that worldwide travel may be one of the most significant social forces capable of driving action on global warming.

A true solution to global warming will start with a genuine world centric awareness that encompasses the needs of all people and the limits of our biosphere. And there is little that can drive this awareness faster and more effectively than the individual decision to get on an airplane and discover something about the rest of the world.

So go ahead and book your next flight, just bike to work when you get home.

Record Setting Year for Climate Disasters

2007-10-06T00:16:00.000-07:00

The UN is calling 2007 a global climate change "mega disaster". So far this year 12 out of a total of 13 emergency 'flash' appeals issued by the agency are being blamed on climate change. Even though the year is far from over the 13 emergency appeals are already a record, surpassing the previous high set in 2005 when only half of the total emergencies were climate change related.

"We are seeing the effects of climate change. Any year can be a freak but the pattern looks pretty clear to be honest. That's why we're trying ... to say, of course you've got to deal with mitigation of emissions, but this is here and now, this is with us already," said Sir John Holmes, a British diplomat who is also known as the UN's under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs. He has conveyed that the dire predictions about the impact of global warming on humanity were already coming true.

In the coming weeks, more emergencies are expected as West Africa is facing widespread threats of flooding. The Guardian has a slide show of the disasters to date. You can also see the pics recompiled below.

Canada Faces Lawsuit Over Kyoto Failure

2007-09-20T17:27:00.000-07:00

The Federal Government is facing a lawsuit for its failure to take action on global warming and address Canada's commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

The lawsuit is a direct follow up to the Conservative government's failure to meet the demands of a private members bill passed by opposition parties this past February. That bill demanded that the minority Conservatives honour Canada's international climate change commitments and draft a plan outlining how they would do so.

But when the Conservatives unveiled their "Turning the Corner" plan for climate change, not only did they fail to meet the demands of that bill, they also demonstrated it in plain math - a move which may have swung the door wide open for this lawsuit to occur.

Conservatives, global warming deniers, and even some environmentally sympathetic Canadians, will be howling that there is no way we can meet those targets by 2012, the deadline of the Kyoto Protocol. They are probably even right. But getting Canada to meet Kyoto isn't necessarily the point of the lawsuit anymore than the point of the Conservatives' climate change plan was to actually address global warming.

The lawsuit is a pointed action directed at the federal government, regardless of what party comes into power next, to push them towards taking the most aggressive action possible against global warming. Kyoto may not be reachable, but this is no barrier to Canada developing a genuine plan to curb greenhouse gases. If the Conservatives present such a plan, you can be certain this lawsuit would disappear - even if that plan doesn't meet the strict Kyoto letter of the law.

The lawsuit was brought to Federal Court by Friends of the Earth Canada, Ecojustice Canada and private attorney Chris Paliare.

Canada to Accept Nuclear Waste

2007-09-14T17:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership will meet in Vienna, Austria to discuss a new era and international agreement governing the use of nuclear fuel.

The conference and partnership are being dubbed as an effort to "promote and safeguard the industry". What it is in fact is an attempt to redraw the lines of responsibility for the management of nuclear waste. The heart of the plan is a new agreement stating that all used nuclear fuel be returned to its country of origin for disposal.

Canada is the world's largest uranium exporter.

The proposal was brought forward by President Bush, and its motivation is clear. As a leader in nuclear energy use, the US is looking for ways to offload the costs of nuclear energy and waste management to other nations while continuing to enjoy the benefits - you know, like being wed to a massively subsidized, polluting, and expensive energy source that burdens the next million generations with toxic risk.

But by shear accident, Bush has stumbled into the polluter pays principle. If Canada is forced to be responsible for the toxic legacy of what we pull from the ground, then suddenly the apparent economic 'benefits' of nuclear mining will need to be weighed against the long-term costs of waste disposal for the first time - a prospect that will not sit well with Canadian voters.

Just as it is the oil company's responsibility to lead the global warming effort by endorsing plans to reduce emissions, just as it is the forestry industry's responsibility to engage in sustainable forestry, Canada has an equal responsibility in the nuclear age. If Canada is to continue to be the world's leader in producing uranium fuel, then it is our responsibility to be the world's leader in disposing of its waste.

If that is a responsibility that we are not prepared to bear, then we shouldn't be producing nuclear fuel in the first place.

Whale Dies from "Old Age"

2007-09-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

The trouble with satire is that sometimes it can be just too close to the truth.

Australian readers will be well familiar with Clarke and Dawe. For the rest of us, here's what may be a first look at their particular brand of humour via "John Howard's" view of seismic testing and whales.

Leaders Agree to Aspire to Stop Global Warming

2007-09-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

At the APEC conference leaders of the Pacific Rim nations are huddled up in a well fortified section of Sydney where they have announced a sweeping new plan to address global warming in the form of "aspirational goals".

Recognizing the public's impatience and mistrust of voluntary measures to control greenhouse gases, world leaders like George Bush, Stephen Harper and conference host John Howard have given up on them. Aspirational goals, they assure us, will provide the effective solutions we need to tackle climate change.

So what is an aspirational goal? Clearly its a huge step forward for all nations. Now instead merely having industry set their own targets for reductions and ignore them, they will now have to "aspire" to reach them. For greater clarity here's YourDictionary's definition for aspire:

1. To have a great ambition or ultimate goal; desire strongly: aspired to stardom.
2. To strive toward an end: aspiring to great knowledge.
3. To soar.

Spirits are soaring now that leaders have endorsed an inspired plan to inspire industry to aspire towards the ultimate goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The move will clearly succeed in helping business take a leadership role in implementing real solutions by giving them the freedom and flexibility to leverage their past success ignoring voluntary targets and misrepresenting global warming science.

I'm feeling aspired...Aren't you?

Think Tank Calls for an End to Green Taxes

2007-09-05T22:45:00.000-07:00

The UK's Taxpayer Alliance (TA) has released a report calling for a stop to future green taxes, while accusing the government of exploiting climate change fears to justify tax hikes.

Citing their own analysis of what they consider to be green taxes, the TA alleges that the average UK household pays £400 extra each year because green taxes were set too high - despite the fact that the country is one of the few in the world on pace to meet its targets for greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the UK economy has enjoyed consistent long term growth.

So where does the real problem lie?

Bear in mind that taxpayer organizations have a peculiar but easily salable mission, namely to campaign for lower taxes. All of their recommendations go towards this one goal, with the assumption that it will translate into a better society and happier, healthier citizens. Anyone with a first year education in economics can tell you this assumption doesn't hold. More relevant here is that their report doesn't address reducing carbon (the real goal of climate change policy), but rather it analyzes something called "the social cost of carbon".

I have no idea what the social cost of carbon is, nor who is paying this (to whom) on behalf of co2. Climate change policy is about REDUCING CARBON. Costing of carbon is only a tactic in attaining this goal. The only true measure of climate change policy is whether or not it is in fact reducing greenhouse gases, in the amount needed, and in the most cost efficient way. That's not what this report is about.

Like most "taxpayer rights" rackets, the pencil pushers at the TA do a fine job playing games with numbers while managing to miss the point entirely. The UK is leading the developed world in revolutionizing the economy and tackling the greatest challenge of our day. Let's keep it that way.

A Victory Over Iceland Whaling

2007-08-28T00:18:00.000-07:00

Conservationists are celebrating a small victory this week after Iceland announced that it will not issue further commercial whaling quotas after existing permits expire on August 31st. Citing poor market demand, particularly from Japan, government officials see no reason to allow more whaling until "market conditions improve".

Iceland created an international uproar last October by announcing a return to commercial whale hunting. Annual quotas were issued totaling 30 minke whales and 9 endangered fin whales. To date, seven of each have been killed with the resulting whale meat relegated to cold storage, as hunters have been unable to find buyers domestically or in Japan. Chief among buyer concerns is the high levels of toxins in North Atlantic whale meat.

Not surprisingly, this outcome was predicted by conservationists at the outset, and Arni Finnsson from the Iceland Nature Conservation Association is looking like Nostradamus himself thanks to his comments made in October of 2006.

"There is no market for this meat in Iceland, there is no possibility to export it to Japan; the government appears to have listened to fishermen who are blaming whales for eating all the fish. This decision is giving the finger to the international community."

Icelandic whalers continue to insist on the need for continued hunts in order to build up markets. And despite this victory against commercial whaling, Iceland continues to hunt whales under the guise of "scientific research", the meat from which is also ending up unused in Icelandic storage facilities.

Western States, BC and Manitoba Join In Climate Goal

2007-08-24T12:31:00.000-07:00

The leaders of 6 western states and 2 Canadian provinces have set formal targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases.

Dubbed the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) , California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, British Columbia and Manitoba have agreed to reduce the region's emission to 15% below 2005 levels by 2020.

Though the figure above represents an overall goal, individual states will vary according the policies they have already established. Arizona and New Mexico are promising reductions over their 2000 emissions, while Washington and California used 1990 as a base year, promising 15 percent reductions. Oregon used 1990 as a base year and promised a 10 percent cut by 2020, as did BC.

The key point in the announcement is the agreement to establish a carbon market and cap-and-trade system over within the next year - a key peice of the puzzle that is needed before any region of North America can make substantial progress on climate change.

Think CO2 is "Just Plant Food"? Think again.

2007-08-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a good rebuttal for anyone still running into the C02 - They Call It Pollution, We Call It Life crowd.

A favorite argument of global warming deniers is that the carbon dioxide is harmless because it's "just plant food". It turns out that like any other "food", too much will only cause harm.

Both Grist and Environmental Defense are covering new research showing that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will mean less food value (i.e. decreased nitrogen and protein) in our fruits and vegetables. Think you'll get around that by boosting your meat diet? Once more, think again. Lower food value in plants, means less protein for grazing cows and pigs and therefore less meat produced by each animal. Add to this the exploding demand for meat from developing countries like China and you will need to tell me where we're meant to get all of these food calories from.

Maybe the new denier jingle can be "C02 - They Call It Pollution, We Call It A Cure for Obesity".

The 11th Hour Opens Tomorrow

2007-08-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

The 11th Hour, the new environmental documentary by Leonardo DiCaprio, is now open in New York and LA and is going national tomorrow. The studio itself describes the film as

a feature length documentary concerning the environmental crises caused by human actions and their impact on the planet. "The 11th Hour" documents the cumulative impact of these actions upon the planet's life systems and calls for restorative action through a reshaping of human activity.

More importantly, The 11th Hour is one of the few efforts that place us in our true context. The Earth has survived countless calamities and will ultimately survive the damage we cause. What is far less certain is our own future, as "our consumerism, our mistaken emphasis on economic growth over quality of life, (and) our growing disconnect with the sources of our food and most other things in our lives" increasingly puts our survival as a species in danger. The film drives this point home, while the likes of Stephen Hawking, David Suzuki, Ray Anderson, and Paul Hawken deliver the solutions we have within our grasp.

Early reviews have been solid. Grab the densest knucklehead you know and drag them along to watch. Previews below. You'll need Flash 9 to view.

Oppostion Could End Government Over Kyoto

2007-08-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Opposition parties are ramping up talk of bringing down the minority government after the Conservatives opportunistically posted their comprehensive climate change plan online while political attention was distracted by the ongoing North American leaders summit.

Both the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois are taking exception to the plan which fails to outline a path to meet Canada's greenhouse gas reduction targets agreed to under the Kyoto Protocol. It also flies in the face of a private members bill passed by opposition parties that legally requires Canada to honour it's Kyoto commitments.

(NDP leader) Mr. Layton suggests the lack of action on climate change would force his party to vote against the Conservatives.
The Liberals did not return phone calls yesterday to say whether they would be willing to prop up the government after the lack of action on Mr. Rodriguez's law.

But Bloc Québécois MP Bernard Bigras, who is his party's environment critic, is making threats similar to those of Mr. Layton. The government is taking a "political risk" by ignoring the law, Mr. Bigras said. The plan released this week "is not acceptable, it does not constitute a response as required by the law that was voted upon by Parliament," he said.

At this stage, critics may be right in saying that it's simply too late for Canada to meet its Kyoto commitments. However, what's equally true is that the Conservative alternative is an industry friendly piece of toilet paper that falls far short of what Canada can and should do. The final blow will fall to the Liberals. Although a minority government, the Conservatives need the support of just one of the opposition parties to survive a confidence vote.

In the aftermath of a lengthy leadership race and a mediocre standing in the polls, the Liberals have looked reticent at pushing for an election. But if the NDP and the Bloc stand in opposition to the Conservatives the Liberals will face a real dilemma - show no leadership or credibility by siding with the Conservatives and their farcical environment plan, or face an election they are not equipped to win.

Here's some advice. The Liberals will not gain power again as long as they show zero backbone in the face of Conservative policies. They'd be better served by establishing, then holding true to, some principles rather than playing politics around them. If they do that, the votes will follow. Fail at that, and they will lose either way.

The Scourge of "Big Wind"

2007-08-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

America's first offshore wind project is being proposed for the windy bay of Cape Cod's Nantucket Sound. The 130 wind turbines would produce up to 420 megawatts of clean, renewable energy and supply three quarters of the Cape and Islands electricity needs.

However, in a testament to our societies 'me first' attitude, a coalition of wealthy residents - including Senator Ted Kennedy and prominent environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - are campaigning against the project because of its potential impact on their seafront views. Witness the scourge of Big Wind first hand courtesy of The Daily Show.

Turf War Brewing Over Alberta Oil Sands

2007-08-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

Former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed is predicting a "war" between the federal government and Alberta over pollution caused by the growing oil sands industry. He says the conflict could be a threat to national unity that will likely escalate to the Supreme Court of Canada as Alberta fights for the right of the province to develop its natural resources as it sees fit.

It doesn't get more dramatic than that.

Lougheed has a history of being an outspoken critic of provincial and federal politics since leaving office in 1985. He's also let his own concern about the oil sands be known, calling the pace of development "haphazard" and a threat to the environment.

Albertans themselves will hold the key to the conflict. If they make the greening of the oil sands a top political issue, the provincial government will likely be forced to negotiate ways to address this with the feds. Greenhouse gas emissions can start to be brought under control, water diversions can be minimized, and the province can avoid turning nearly a quarter of it's landspace into an open pit oil mine. If they choose to hang their hat on their "right" to develop the oil sands "as they see fit", then Canadian greenhouse emissions will spiral, entire ecosystems will be lost, and the country will be locked in a political turf war that will last decades.

In related news, Imperial Oil announced first half net income of $1.49 billion, up from $1.43 billion for the first half of 2006.

Canada Crips Towards Climate Deal

2007-08-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

In the face of inaction by the federal Conservatives, Canada's provinces and territories wrapped up discussions on climate change policy today during the annual premier's conference being held in Moncton, New Brunswick.

Some moderate actions were agreed to, but no consensus was reached on the two big solutions - matching California vehicle emissions standards and establishing an inter-provincial cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases. Twelve of thirteen provinces embraced matching the California standards, which call for a 30% reduction in new car emissions by 2016. Only Ontario refused, saying that the province's troubled auto manufacturing industry was in no position to bear the burden. Meanwhile, Ontario did join British Columbia, Quebec and Manitoba in calling for a firm cap-and-trade system that would apply to all industries in the country.

Two questions. First, the provinces endorsing cap-and-trade represent almost 80% of the Canadian population - what's stopping them from establishing a carbon market on their own? Second, where does Ontario plan on selling all of their inefficient vehicles if every other province adopts California's emission standards?

Nobody ever said politicians made sense.

US Faces the Real Global Warming Hoax

2007-08-09T13:20:00.000-07:00

This week's cover story in Newsweek is leveled squarely at global warming deniers, outlining the concerted and well funded plan by certain industries to mislead the public and derail efforts to fight global warming.

Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless.

Critical thinking 101 - when you see remarks like these, all coming from the same source, know that the people making these claims do not have a real position based on evidence. They are arguing for a particular result, in this case to stop any action that reduces greenhouse gases. If they had a real position to defend, they use wouldn't change their argument on a monthly basis.

The good news is that the denial machine is slowly failing. Last year, polls found that 64 percent of Americans thought there was "a lot" of scientific disagreement on climate change. That figure has now fallen to 39%. However the real discrepancy lies between the opinions of Americans and the understanding of those living in other nations.

In Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia the public is fully aware of the scientific consensus on global warming. Despite the difference in understanding the polls reveal, the continued failure of US to join the world ranks says more about the workings of the country itself than it does about its people.

The fact is that the American people need to confront a very uncomfortable truth about their nation, one that goes far beyond the reality of global warming and touches the core of their culture and society. That is, that while laying claim to the title of the world's leader of democracy and freedom, the United States of America represents the modern world's most sophisticated machine for brainwashing their own populace and ensuring their continued ignorance - to the impacts of their lifestyles, to the loss of their own freedoms, and to the failings of their own democratic state.

Ultimately, the American people need to confront the real hoax being perpetrated by their elected officials, educational institutions, and media conglomerates on a daily basis - that they live in the world's freest country, despite all evidence to the contrary.

To read the scientific information behind the Newsweek article visit Grist.

To learn what you can do about deniers click here.

World Heritage Park Expanded in Canada

2007-08-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday Stephen Harper announced that 5,000 square kilometers would be added to the Nahanni National Park Reserve - a spectacular area of the Northwest Territories that, alongside Yellowstone and the Galapagos, was named one the UN's original three World Heritage Sites back in 1978.

"This is arguably the most important act of environmental protection in a generation," the prime minister said Wednesday. The government plans to add 5,400 square kilometres of land within the Greater Nahanni ecosystem, barring it from any kind of further development.

Despite the good news "arguably" is the key word. There has been an ongoing efforts to protect in the Nahanni's entire 38,000 square kilometer watershed by both environmentalists, and local first nations who already have ceded control of 23,000 square kilometers to Parks Canada. However, proposed mining development still threatens the park from upstream sites. Protecting the entire watershed would be a solid a worth effort at protecting the health of ecosystems instead of defending park 'borders'. Two very different aims.

Readers can add their voice of support for protecting the entire Nahanni watershed by sending an email to Canadian officials

Board Approves Swindle for Surrey Schools

2007-07-30T12:55:00.000-07:00

Surrey School Board Trustee Heather Stilwell gained national attention this past May by proposing that The Great Global Warming Swindle be made available in Surrey high schools alongside An Inconvenient Truth in order to ensure students are offered a "balanced perspective" on the issue of global warming.

The Board heard her proposal in May and unanimously passed the following motion:

THAT WHEREAS it has been reported in the media that all secondary schools in the Province will be provided with a copy of the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”; and WHEREAS this movie is advancing one particular view of the world’s climate change based on ice, etc.; and WHEREAS many scientists world-wide have expressed scepticism about this scientific accuracy; and WHEREAS it is our role as Trustees to ensure that students are provided with accurate information and a balanced perspective when there is credible information presented on two sides of an issue.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the school district’s Instructional Resources staff ensure that the resource “The Great Global Warming Swindle” if approved by the district’s Learning Resource Committee, and/or any other resource the committee identifies that provides a balanced view of global warming, be made available to our schools.

Chairperson Wilson called the question on the amended motion and it was CARRIED unanimously.

I contacted Heather Stilwell last week who said, "As we left it at the end of June, staff were working on getting the kind of permission rights that we require for school use. It is certainly my expectation that this will be available in September."

The Great Global Warming Swindle has been widely criticized for misrepresenting global warming science and the opinions of researchers. In an embarrassing appearance, the film's director Martin Durkin was recently interviewed on ABC Australia where he was confronted about the film's inaccuracies and offered little information in his own defence.

Skeptics, This Way Please

2007-07-30T12:07:00.000-07:00

For as long as global warming has been at the forefront of the media, there has been climate change deniers muddying the public discourse and slowing progress towards solutions.

The press, our politicians, and even the progressive blogosphere, have been integral in giving these "skeptics" a voice - by accommodating opinions that are patently false, and lending authority to those engaging in an agenda of misinformation.

While deniers arguments gain coverage in the mainstream thanks to so called "balanced reporting", bloggers are to blame for freely publishing deniers comments regardless of how demonstrably false they are - a practice that gives the false impression of a debate about the facts of climate change when in reality there isn't one.

There are those who are genuinely misinformed or under-informed about global warming and to their credit seek new information and correct their opinions as they learn more. For the rest - those that knowingly perpetuate lies, or stubbornly refuse to consider new information - it is time that they were treated for what they are, the intellectual children of the online community.

To that end, today represents the beginning of a new comment moderation policy at The Conscious Earth. The following rules will go into effect immediately:

Anyone making ad hominem attacks in the global warming debate will have their comments summarily rejected.
Commenters that regurgitate an existing and previously debunked skeptic argument will be directed to the Grist's Skeptics Page, where they can learn the facts behind the false evidence they are citing.
Subsequent comments regarding the point in question will be accepted only if they provide new evidence that counters the conclusions of the scientific community or that represents new findings not previously discussed in the blogosphere.

In the name of genuine climate change debate, I encourage all members of the green and scientific community to take a similar approach. I'll be placing this post at the top of The Conscious Earth's Top Posts section. Feel free to link to it if helpful. You can also use the following form letter for responding to comments.

Public debate requires learning, openness to new information, arguments that address issues, freedom from personal attacks, and the basic ability for rational discourse. By accommodating deniers, and their refusal to engage in any of these behaviours, we've all played a role in lending authority to their irrational opinions and in slowing progress towards solutions.

Nobody would spend a decade debating bed time with a 5 year old. It's now long past due to end the current climate change "debate" and send deniers to bed, without their supper.

Oil Spill in Vancouver Suburbs

2007-07-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

A geyser of oil sprung up from the streets of a Vancouver suburb yesterday, after a construction crew's backhoe inadvertently broke a pipeline that connected a refinery to a refuelling facility in the harbour.

It's still unknown how much oil was spilled. Though certainly a small spill, the oil quickly made it's way into Burrard Inlent. Photo's below, courtesy of Global TV News.

Turning Car Emissions Into Green Fuel

2007-07-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

Three fishermen from Wales have invented a box that can be fixed to the exhaust outlet of any vehicle and safely capture greenhouse gas emissions.

However, in addition to reducing the vehicle emissions by 85% to 95%, the Greenbox goes one step further by providing the raw ingredients for new biofuel production. Once full, the Greenbox can be detached from the vehicle and sent to a bioreactor where it provides food to algae that can then be converted to bio-diesel.

Through a chemical reaction, the captured gases from the box would be fed to algae, which would then be crushed to produce a bio-oil. This extract can be converted to produce a biodiesel almost identical to normal diesel.

This biodiesel can be fed back into a diesel engine, the emptied Greenbox can be affixed to the car and the cycle can begin again.

The process also yields methane gas and fertilizer, both of which can be captured separately. The algae required to capture all of Britain's auto emissions would take up around 1,000 acres

Although there are no immediate plans for production, the product has gained the attention of UK Labour MP David Hansen, and Toyota and GM have reportedly spoken to the inventors. Facilities and infrastructure are obviously lacking for both the mass production of the Greenbox and the associated biofuel production chain. However, at the bare minimum the announcement shows the sort of ecological and self sustaining solutions that are waiting to be discovered. Time will tell if it becomes economically viable.

Story via Reuters.

The World's Top Green Cities

2007-07-20T12:12:00.000-07:00

The Grist has posted their choices for the 15 greenest cities on Earth. Top place goes to Reykjavik, Iceland on the waves of its commitment to renewable energy a their long-term plan to be fossil fuel free by 2050.

My humble hometown of Vancouver places 5th.

See the complete list at The Grist.

The Death of The Great Global Warming Swindle

2007-07-19T17:25:00.001-07:00

For months, global warming skeptics have been touting The Great Global Warming Swindle as a balanced and fair counterpart to those calling for urgent action on the issue of climate change. In reality, The Swindle is a misleading, dishonest and ill-conceived work of propaganda that is chock full of paid industry mouth pieces while being anorexically thin on genuine evidence.

Nowhere was this better revealed than in a recent interview conducted by ABC Australia's Tony Jones with the Martin Durkin, the film's director. Durkin lurches, sputters and sweats his way through the 10 minute grilling as Jones lines up example after example of omissions and lies that he presented in his film.

For those on the sane side of the spectrum, you are excused from debating this movie with anyone who insists on citing The Swindle as 'evidence' after watching this clip.

Rest in peace GGWS.

See part one of the interview at DeSmogBlog.

Darfur, Climate & Responsibility

2007-07-18T12:54:00.000-07:00

The discovery of a vast underground lake is offering the best hope yet for an end to the war in Darfur. At 30,750 km2 it is the size of Lake Erie and will provide much needed influx of water, and an opportunity for peace, to the Sudan's drought stricken north.

Since 2003, two hundred thousand people have died and a further 2 million have fled the north where water shortages and drought have fueled a human catastrophe of mass migrations and ethnic conflict. With the discovery of this new fresh water resource, plans are moving forward to drill 1000 wells in the area and bring relief to Darfur's people.

The conflict in the region, and the prospect of peace through water, underscores our reliance on the environment and the bigger risks that we're assuming in ignoring the environmental damage that is ongoing throughout the world.

Critics of that view point will point to the overpopulation in the region while turning a blind eye to the same pressures in the United States where the population has swelled to 300,000,000. Critics will downplay the role of environmental damage in bringing on the conflict while ignoring the fact that 12% of the Sudan's forests have been hacked down in past 15 years. Critics will also belligerently shout down the role of climate change in the drought, while embracing fictions and bedtime stories that allow them to ignore all evidence to the contrary and have an easy night's sleep.

Ultimately, it is all about responsibility.

The people of the developed world have built a civilization based on the ideal of personal responsibility. That ideal is the backbone of democracy and the foundation of the free market that drives our economy. What a fitting irony that we are facing unprecedented assaults on our democracy, spiraling debt, and growing environmental carnage while all we can throw up in our defence is litany of excuses.

"It's the Democrat's fault!"

"It's the Liberal's fault!"

"It's all China's fault!"

"It's single mothers' fault",

And the all time winner, "Al Gore's heating bill is too high".

The trend goes far beyond the issue of global warming, and now infects every aspect of our political culture. The reason is simple. We are fat, lazy and more interested in preserving our comforts than taking an honest look at our role in the world's problems. Doing that would mean real responsibility, and there is no time for that in a world of instant gratification and borrowed wealth.

America, and implicitly the modern western world, was built on "Life, Liberty and Freedom". Now the future holds a new American dream with a new call to battle - "Borrow, Spend and Forget"!

It's simple, comfy and easy next to that messy business of personal responsibility.

Ninjas Are Cool. Are You a Ninja?

2007-07-16T11:22:00.000-07:00

Ninjas are cool. Ninjas say fight global warming. Are you a Ninja?

Man Swims at the North Pole

2007-07-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

In a jaw dropping effort to get leaders to take action on global warming, endurance British explorer and endurance athlete Lewis Gordon Pugh has done the unthinkable - swim in the open waters at the North Pole.

Lewis Gordon Pugh swam Sunday for 18 minutes and 50 seconds in temperatures of –1.8 degrees in just a Speedo, cap and goggles.

“I am obviously ecstatic to have succeeded, but this swim is a triumph and a tragedy,” the 37-year-old British lawyer said after coming out of the water.

Are we gettting the message yet? In case the point needs to be belabored further, if Pugh was swimming in open water at the top of the planet, it means that a lot of ice is melting. That melt includes land base ice in Canada's North, in Greenland, Antarctica and alpine glaciers. It means the oceans are rising. It does not mean that selling swimming trips to the arctic is a new business opportunity, and it doesn't mean that global warming is a good thing.

Producing Solar Power Like Paper

2007-07-13T10:11:00.000-07:00

New research released this week concluded that the sun is not driving the global warming problem. However, the sun may be powering our global warming solutions in the near future thanks to a revolutionary solar panel being developed by the California company Nanosolar.

Their product represents a new approach to solar that aims to crank out paper thin panels at low cost through the same mass production techniques used in (not surprisingly) paper production. If successful, translucent solar powers could literally blanket our cities and drive a new era of renewable energy.

Nanosolar has the technology for the product in place and they have secured $100,000,000 for the construction of a pair of manufacturing sites in California and Germany. They can also count the founders of Google on their list of investors, as well as the US Department of Energy which contributed a $20 million research grant earlier this year.

Clip courtesy KQED Public Television 9

Sun Not Responsible for Global Warming

2007-07-11T16:36:00.000-07:00

In yet another blow to climate change 'skeptics', a newly released study demonstrates that global temperatures are rising at an accelerating rate despite the fact that the sun's output has been decreasing since 1985.

The study not only delivers a blow to deniers arguments, but to their credibility as well. For the past decade, a well funded strategy of public relations spin and unsupported claims have been the backbone of skeptics' attempts to derail efforts to fight global warming.

With the solar argument now put to rest, skeptics will be scrounging for a new angle. Watch for it in the coming months.

Boeing Launches New Green Jet

2007-07-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Boeing has unveiled its new greener jet that promises to use 20% less fuel than other similarly sized aircraft by taking advantage of a new lightweight carbon fibre design. Dubbed the 787 "Dreamliner" the craft promises to carry up to 330 passengers in greater comfort than its predecessors by offering larger windows and less noise.

The launch took place yesterday outside the boeing factory in Everett, Washington.

Close to 700 orders for the new Boeing have already been fulfilled, with Virgin Atlantic leading the way. They have already purchased 15 and will likely exercise options on another eight by the end of this year. They also have the right to buy a further 20, in a deal that could be worth up to $8 billion.

How significant is a 20% increase in efficiency? The Grist has the scoop from one the project's lead designers,

According to Jeff Hawk, who oversees environmental efforts for the model, the 787 consumes about one gallon of fuel per seat per 100 miles of travel -- "less than a typical sedan, and a half to a third the fuel consumption of an SUV."

There's something seriously wrong with our transportation system when, mathematically, you can fly to work more efficiently than you can drive. Perhaps Boeing should start designing our automobiles as well.

Miss Live Earth? See the Highlights on MSN

2007-07-09T15:18:00.000-07:00

If you missed Live Earth you can catch all the highlights online thanks to MSN. Following the record setting event that drew 10 million online viewers, MSN is offering highlight clips from every major venues through their concert website. You can scroll through the available footage and assemble your personal favorites in a customized video playlist.

Live Earth Draws 2 Billion Viewers, Breaks Internet Record

2007-07-08T16:34:00.000-07:00

Live Earth successfully wrapped up its 24 hour concert series that spanned seven continents and reached an estimated 2 billion people. In its goal to raise global awareness of the climate change problem, the series can be only be called a success. And unlike previous concert events, this one deals with an issue that will touch every person on globe.

Here are a few highlights from the day.

Internet streaming record: 10 million viewed the concert via Internet streams, which surpassed the previous record held by 2005's Live 8 global concerts to fight poverty.
Largest crowd: The largest event of the series was in Rio de Janeiro where 400,000 attended free of charge.
Concerts on every continent: Nunatak, a previously unheard of band of research scientists in Antarctica, beamed their performance abroad making Live Earth the only concert event to be held on all seven continents.
Walking the walk: Live Earth committed to minimizing its ecological footprint at every stage. Measures included sourcing electricity from green sources, implementing a comprehensive recycling program for concert waste, and purchasing offsets for other carbon impacts.

After successfully raising awareness about the global warming problem, organizers must now face the more difficult task of translating awareness into action.

Live Earth - Complete Viewing & Listening Guide

2007-07-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

In case anyone has been living off planet for the past couple months, Live Earth is here!

Live Earth is a 24-hour, 7-continent concert series taking place tomorrow (Saturday, July 7th) that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis, with concert footage flowing throughout the world over television, radio, Internet and wireless channels.

Here's a rundown of everything you'll need to tune in:

Streaming Online Footage

MSN will stream the Live Earth concerts LIVE from all seven continents starting from Sydney, Australia and continuing geographically and chronologically across the globe. Log on tonight -- Friday, July 6th -- at 9:15pm (ET) / 6:15pm (PT) (since it's tomorrow already in Australia) for the start of what is destined to be an incomparable 24 hours.

OFFICIAL CONCERTS AND SCHEDULE

CITY LOCAL START TIME USA START TIME (EDT)

Live Earth Sydney 11:10 a.m. 7/7 9:10 pm 7/6

Live Earth Tokyo 12:00 p.m. 7/7 11:00 p.m. 7/6

Live Earth Shanghai 7:00 p.m. 7/7 7:00 a.m. 7/7

Live Earth Hamburg 2:00 p.m. 7/7 8:00 a.m. 7/7

Live Earth London 1:30 p.m. 7/7 8:30 a.m. 7/7

Live Earth Johannesburg 6:00 p.m. 7/7 12:00 p.m. 7/7

Live Earth New York 2:30 p.m. 7/7 2:30 p.m. 7/7

Live Earth Rio de Janeiro 4:00 p.m. 7/7 3:00 p.m. 7/7

Check for the most current info at www.liveearth.msn.com.

TV Broadcast

Live Earth will be transmitted worldwide in standard and high definition across multiple media channels - TV, radio, Internet and wireless channels. In the US, highlights from all Live Earth concerts and events will air on NBC at 8:00p.m. on Saturday, 07.07.07. Visit www.liveearth.org for a more expansive list of International Broadcast Partners.

Radio Broadcast

Worldwide concerts will be broadcast on satellite radio through XM, Sirius, Worldspace, Premiere and Radio Express. Follow the links for more details.

The event is just the beginning of a a multi-year campaign led by the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group and other international organizations to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve global warming. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance and Partner of Live Earth.

Visit the Live Earth website for more information on the ongoing effort, and learn how you can get involved.

Guilting the Public is Not a Global Warming Solution

2007-07-04T23:31:00.000-07:00

Throughout the past 18 months, the environment has seen a resurgence in the hearts and minds of voters as the reality of global warming hits home. However, on the heels of chronic inaction, governments and environmentalists are now riding a fine line towards voter backlash.

Public sentiment has been punctuated by two factors: rising environmental concern and a desire for leadership and solutions. In the face of rising greenhouse gases and a complete lack of accountability from industry, the public have been seeking action from elected officials - action that will make a seriously impact on emissions and begin to stop a looming environmental catastrophe.

Instead what we have seen is an utter unwillingness and inability on the part of both elected officials and environmental campaigners to hold industry to account, while all responsibility for the stewardship of nature is dropped onto the lap of the individual citizen. This trend is threatening to squander a rising environmental concern and alienate the people who genuinely want to be part of the solution.

Skeptical? Read on. In the past weeks policies have come forward that take a hard line on leaf blowers and lawn mowers, backpackers are being told how to go carbon neutral, and air travel, which accounts for just 3% of world's emissions, has been inexplicably cornered as a pariah in the fight against greenhouse gases. All of these actions have a single result. They guilt, restrict and constrain the behaviour of you and I, the citizens who genuinely want environmental solutions, while giving a free pass to the fossil fuel and automotive industries who are the real source of global warming.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are boasting a war chest that is growing ten times as fast as the Liberals. When an election does come, this will be money targeted directly at moving public opinion away from the environment and in discrediting opposition leaders who choose to support it.

Both governments and environmentalists need to refocus quickly by increasing pressure on industry and calling for solutions that will genuinely solve the global warming problem. The public wants action and they are willing to do their part, but they will not be content to shoulder the work load for shirking corporations pulling in unprecedented profits on the wings of soaring greenhouse gas emissions.

Denier Form Letter

2007-06-30T23:26:00.000-07:00

Dear (insert commenter's name),

I appreciate you taking the time to respond to the global warming issue. Please see the following page to find the scientifically endorsed and verified response to the information you provided. If you have additional and relevant information to add after reviewing it, I hope you'll return to share it with our readers here.

Thank you for your shared interest in creating solutions for global warming, and a sustainable economy where all can prosper. If you'd like additional information on why you're being directed to the link above, please visit this page.

Regards,

Odiyya

The Evolving Threat to Our Forests

2007-06-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

It is estimated that the mountain pine beetle has destroyed 40% of British Columbia's lodgepole pine since 1993. University researchers have now found evidence that the beetle is adapting to spruce as well.

Researchers at the University of Northern B.C. in Prince George say the pine beetle, which has destroyed about 40 per cent of the province's lodgepole pine since 1993, is now killing spruce trees as well.

"There were rumours before that pine beetles were not only killing spruce but successfully reproducing in spruce, and we have now observed that in Prince George and we have been trying to document what's going on," Staffan Lindgren, a professor of ecosystem science at UNBC, said yesterday.

Lodgepole pine is the most common timber in forest rich BC, covering 14 million hectares of land. Spruce is right behind and covers 13 million hectares. With that in mind, the threat posed by the mountain pine beetle is arguably the most visible and significant consequence of global warming yet seen on the North American continent.

In short, welcome to global warming induced evolution.

Historically, pine beetle populations are kept in check by winter temperatures that drop to -40°C for several days. But since 1993, warmer winters have meant that the beetle has been left untouched by prolonged cold periods and their numbers are skyrocketing accordingly. With greater numbers of beetles comes greater opportunity to take advantage of new evolutionary niches.

One might expect genetic variability within the pine beetle to allow rare individuals to thrive on spruce rather than pine, but they would have been few and far between and would be unlikely to form new breeding populations even if they survived the winter freeze. That changes when the natural weather cycle no longer keeps their numbers in check. What was once an insignificant genetic mutation now threatens our forests with the seeds of a whole new catastrophe.

From the disappearance of the bees that pollinate our crops, to the decimation of our forests, nature is issuing ever more severe warnings that the course our society is on is not in tune with our long term survival. It's time to stop pretending we're both deaf to the message and dumb towards action and begin changing the way we interact with the planet - for our own sake.

Eagles Removed From Endangered List

2007-06-28T17:07:00.000-07:00

Four decades after it was declared endangered, the bald eagle has been removed from the US critical list.

Population levels bottomed out in 1967 when only 400 breeding pairs remained in the lower 48 states. Today, that number tops 10,000, in no small part thanks to Canada. Over the decades Canada has supplied more eagles to the US efforts than can easily be counted, and with them helped ensure that the aggressive conservation policies put in place were bolstered by a growing and healthy eagle population.

A Glowing Bid from Cumbria, UK

2007-06-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to the community of Cumbria, UK! They have emerged as the early front runner to host the the long-term disposal of 500,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste.

However, communities that have fallen behind the early favorite need not fear. The British government is still "eager for other communities to compete" with Cumbria's nation leading bid, and will be throwing in £300,000 in annual "community benefit packages" for the eventual winner.

Project costs are estimated at £10bn at 2003 prices. As a side note, is using 4 year old pricing working well for anyone at home?

Conservatives Told to Price Carbon Now or Pay Later

2007-06-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

Last week, a report commissioned by the Conservative government advised them that a carbon tax of up to $50 would cause no harm to the economy. A new report now follows that up stating that they need to quickly and clearly communicate a pricing schedule for carbon or risk serious economic consequences.

Despite their obsessive-compulsive habit of blaming 2 year old Liberal policy for Canada's inaction on climate change, Environment Minister John Baird and the Conservative government are now firmly in the drivers seat of climate change policy. They can 1) institute effective policy now and succeed, 2) do it later and cause economic harm, or 3) do nothing and set Canada on a long term course of failure both economically and environmentally.

In short, they are going to have to demonstrate leadership on this issue instead of pointing fingers towards the past. It will be interesting to see how they do.

To Act or Not to Act

2007-06-26T00:10:00.000-07:00

A key tenet of the environmental movement is something called the precautionary principle, an inherently conservative principle that says if a course of action could result in widespread or irreparable harm, we should act immediately to avoid it rather than wait for 100% scientific certainty on the issue. Put in the context of global warming it goes something like this.....

Thanks to Debra for the lead.

Hastings Wins Yahoo's Greenest City Contest

2007-06-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

Yahoo has awarded a top prize of $250,000 to the city of Hastings, Nebraska for being America's greenest city. The award was announced today as Hastings is recognized for winning Yahoo's Be a Better Planet - Greenest City in America contest. The money will go towards funding green projects within the municipality.

The month long Be a Better Planet campaign sought to empower citizens to make key changes to their lives to help fight global warming. Every time a resident of an American municipality signed up, points were given to their home town. The town with the most points was the winner.

In addition to the $250,000 grand prize, Yahoo is also sending thousands of compact fluorescent light bulbs to each of the top five cites. The list of top green cities is:

1. Hastings, Nebraska
2. Pelzer, South Carolina
3. San Carlos, California
4. Mill Valley, California
5. Topeka, Kansas
6. Dover, Delaware
7. Spring, Texas
8. Lawrence, Kansas
9. Walnut Creek, California
10. Fairfax, Virginia

The official recognition of Hastings happens tonight at a Yahoo-hosted Nebraska-style BBQ and celebration at 6:00pm at Hastings' Chautauqua Park. Residents are invited to join Mayor Matt Rossen and Lieutenant Governor Rick Sheehy, and other local and state officials at the public event.

Congratulations to all of the contest participants!

Choose Our Ends, And We'll Find the Means

2007-06-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

We all have our own personal fantasy worlds. Mine is to live in a world of balanced political debate where liberal and conservative politicians bring forward different political strategies to address common social problems.

What a world that would be - the perfect balance between tough government regulations and well funded programs, with aggressive fiscal responsibility and market advocacy. The reality is that in the issue of global warming, the real world has devolved into one where the true controlling political party invests millions of dollars to convince you, the voter, of a fantasy world of their choosing - one where cheap, everlasting, and harmless fossil fuels will better our lives for eternity.

Let's be perfectly honest on this one. Metaphorically, there are precisely two people in the world who do not believe in the danger of human generated global warming - The President of the United States and the CEO of Exxon-Mobil. Every other voice chiming in with their agreement are either a paid employee of one of those two individuals - in the form of direct employees, think tanks, media outlets, editorial writers, and yes, the conservative leaders of Canada and Australia - or one of the minority of the general public that they have managed to convince with lies and misinformation. It is on this foundation that magazines like The Economist can publish the following editorial on London's climate change policy without being laughed off of the news stand.

Haringey's plan is merely the latest in a flowering of official greenery. Ken Livingstone, London's mayor, has mooted tinkering with the city's pioneering congestion charge, which already rewards drivers of electric and gas-powered cars by exempting them from the £8-a-day charge. The mayor wants to go further, cutting prices for cleaner cars and hiking them for dirty ones. If he gets his way, drivers of the biggest cars could pay £25 to drive into the city centre. Mr Livingstone's opponents in the London Assembly accuse him of being more interested in revenue-raising than road-clearing.
It is not just local government that has caught the green bug. Earlier in the month, the government wondered publicly about adding a “carbon cost” to the price of petrol by including motor fuel in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which limits the amount of carbon dioxide certain industries can produce.

But none of these plans is obviously a good idea. Britons are already taxed twice on their cars' carbon emissions: once by a sales tax on petrol, and again by a separate tax levied on the cars themselves. And exemptions, however well-intentioned, work against the purported aim of London's congestion charge—clean vehicles take up just as much road space as dirty ones.

Nice positioning statement. But we weren't talking about gas prices and traffic congestion. We were solving the global warming problem.

Raising the cost of gas and the cost of driving polluting vehicles is actually the most conservative type of strategy available in addressing climate change. By placing a cost on the problem (too many cars burning too much fuel), you allow the public to make the right choices by purchasing consumer products that will benefit (or be less harmful) to the environment. Consumers can opt out of higher costs by choosing more cost effective and fuel efficient options while business still sells goods, consumers still have choice, and the economy canl hum along while we all take productive steps towards solving the climate crisis.

In an honest report, London's policy of making fuel hogs expensive and high mileage cars cheap would be embraced as a conservative victory in the fight against global warming. That doesn't happen because the controlling political party alluded to at this articles beginning is not liberal, nor conservative, but capitalist. And that political force has bent the foundation of both parties so far askew that both are hard pressed to address global warming or any genuine social concern.

Democratic political systems are concerned with providing the best solutions to the problems of society. A liberal approach advocates stronger government involvement and spending, while a conservative approach advocates minimum government intervention and free market principles, but both strive towards the same end - the betterment of society.

The political force of capitalism is not concerned with the end of a better society or in solving problems. By nature, it is a philosophy based on the principle of "the end justifies the means". The only end is profit, and any means are justified so long as they realize more profit. Our acceptance of that principle isn't limited to oil, it pervades all business enterprises of our society. Consequently, that 'ends justify the means' philosophy has infected our political and decision making processes so thoroughly that we are losing the ability to question it.

The root of the world's two most prominent problems, the war in Iraq and the danger of global warming, both stem from the pursuit and justification of the same ends. Namely, the continued growth of oil profits, and the continued expansion the economies that rely on burning it. In Iraq, the US justified both the use of force and a case for war that was based on outright falsehoods in order to secure greater access to the world's second largest deposit of conventional oil. In the case of global warming, the use of deception, misinformation and personal attacks on scientists are likewise justified as the means necessary to protect our economy.

As long as we accept those ends - the dominance of the oil industry in our economy, and most importantly our reliance on that same industry for our continued prosperity, genuine global warming policy will continue to be road blocked, and Iraq will not be the last oil rich nation to fall under the control of a hostile foreign power.

Change our ends and the means will inevitably follow.

Power in Numbers

2007-06-22T00:11:00.000-07:00

Nature is full of lessons. This clip shows something of the strength of numbers and the power of community. The day is not far off when all of those who care about the environment will similarly realize their strength in the face of obstructionist corporations and government inaction.

Clip via An Insomniac

China Becomes the World's #1 Emitter

2007-06-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

In announcement that was surprising for it's timing, rather than outcome, China has become the world's number one emitter of greenhouse gases. Experts believed that this would not occur until next year at the earliest, but unprecedented economic growth and their reliance on coal power has catapulted China ahead of the US far earlier than expected.

The analysis was done by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.

In addition to being bad news all-round, the announcement punctuates an opinion expressed here earlier in June. Namely, that in the face of US obstructionism, it's critical for the world community to stop harping on about American involvement in international talks. The key nations are China and India. They represent the world's number one and two populations and will soon be the world's number one and number two greenhouse gas emitters. If you bring them into a productive solution now, market forces will force the US to follow in the coming decades. Dither away time on the US and the growing carbon footprint of these emerging Asian superpowers will squash international efforts underfoot.

Unauthorized Dam Faces Criminal Charges

2007-06-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

We all know the environmental harm caused by large scale hydro-electric projects - silted rivers, destruction of salmon spawning grounds, carbon release from submerged decaying foliage. So what happens when an unauthorized dam gets plunked down in small town America? Simple. Sue the bastards.......

No Danger in Implementing a Carbon Tax

2007-06-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

Fighting global warming with a carbon tax would cause virtually no negative economic impact in first two years and offer an economic boost thereafter.

At $50, a carbon tax would shave about $4.8-billion from Canada's GDP in 2010, which works out to about 0.09 per cent of GDP. However by 2020, the impact would become slightly positive for the economy, working out to a 0.004 per cent increase to the GDP.

That is the result of an internal report prepared for the Conservative government, and obtained by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May through an access to information request.

The report was written by economist Mark Jaccard and analyzes the potential impacts of various climate change measures on Canada's GDP including carbon taxes ranging from $10 to $250. If you're not familiar with Mark Jaccard, you should be. He is one of the world's foremost experts specializing in energy related issues and policy. Jaccard's also been a vocal advocate for the development of a sustainable energy future for the province of BC, but although he consistently has the ear of environmental advocates, he is not an "environmentalist".

His views are those of an informed realist that recognizes the need to meet the energy needs of the developing world as well as the critical goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. He's not against the use of fossil fuels, but he is adamantly in favour of creating policy and economic systems that encourage the solutions we need to drastically curb emissions.

Now with the release of Jaccard's expertly informed report, Canada's governing party have themselves in a pickle and have been resisting a scheduled appearance of Dr. Jaccard before the House of Commons environment committee - an appearance that would likely result in the Tory's own hired consultant stating that there is no reason to delay the implementation of a substantial carbon tax to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

10 Years to Save Civilization

2007-06-19T13:55:00.000-07:00

It's a title that would scream hyperbole if it wasn't true.

Today, six scientists from some of the leading scientific institutions in the United States have issued what amounts to an unambiguous warning to the world: civilisation itself is threatened by global warming.

That warming stems from a new report headed by James Hansen, one of the world's leading experts and voices for climate change science. Based on the results of the study titled Climate Change and Trace Gases, Hansen is predicting that the nations of the world have a slim 10 year window to put in place the radical changes needed to avert catastrophic global warming.

In an email to the UK's Independent Hansen said, "In my opinion, among our papers this one probably does the best job of making clear that the Earth is getting perilously close to climate changes that could run out of our control."

The reason for the alarm focuses on the impact of what is termed an "albedo flip". It layman's terms it's simple. Right now the Earth has what amounts to two continent sized mirrors - the ice sheets of Antarctica and the north polar ice cap - that are reflecting heat back into space and minimizing warming. Once those start to shrink, the heat that used to be bounced off the planet will be absorbed by open waters and exposed rock, causing a runaway warming effect that will lead to the rapid collapse of the world's remaining ice sheets.

If that happens, sea levels are expected to rise not by 40 cm, as predicted by the UN consensus, but by several meters within the next century.

The complete report is posted online through the NASA website.

Exxon Funds Deniers, But Wants to Save the Planet

2007-06-18T11:53:00.000-07:00

In a statement the redefines the notion of cogent argument for the worse, Exxon has launched a volley at Greenpeace saying that the oil giant's stance against Kyoto, their opposition to the European carbon trading system, and their funding of climate change denier groups does not make they themselves 'deniers'.

Mr Cohen (Exxon spokesman) was in London to explain the position of Exxon.
The firm's funding of third-party thinktanks, which have produced papers questioning the human role in climate change, has recently been heavily criticised in a Greenpeace report.
Exxon retaliated yesterday by saying some of Greenpeace's facts were "just flat wrong" and in one case "absurd", though the company hinted that it may stop funding the controversial thinktanks.

Nice explanation. Exxon maintains that it is supportive of an international cap and trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, so long as they continue to fund deception campaigns on global warming and oppose international agreements, like Kyoto, that represent a bare minimum of what needs to be accomplished, the logical conclusion is that they will not endorse a level of carbon limits that would genuinely address the problem of climate change.

On the upside, if their arguments continue to become weaker and more absurd it just might mean that we're moving closer to more aggressive action on the issue.

Global Warming Impacts from the Arctic to Darfur

2007-06-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

A pair of recent stories are pointing to the growing and increasingly human impacts of global warming.

First in the high Arctic, scientists are reporting that some species of plants and animals have begun their annual cycles as much as 30 days earlier in just the past ten years.

In some cases, flowers are emerging from buds and chicks are hatching a full 30 days sooner than they did in the mid-1990s in response to sharply increased temperatures burning off the winter's snow layer.

But while arctic song birds see the light of day a month earlier, climate change is also being implicated as a major factor in Darfur, Sudan where 200,000 have died in an ongoing ethnic conflict. The link was drawn by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in an editorial published Saturday.

It would be natural to view these as distinct developments. In fact, they are linked. Almost invariably, we discuss Darfur in a convenient military and political shorthand -- an ethnic conflict pitting Arab militias against black rebels and farmers. Look to its roots, though, and you discover a more complex dynamic. Amid the diverse social and political causes, the Darfur conflict began as an ecological crisis, arising at least in part from climate change.

The connection between ecological strain and war was convincingly presented in Jared Diamond's chronicle of the Rwandan genocide featured in his acclaimed book Collapse. The key point in the issue is that as we enter an age of increasing shortages of food and water, warfare and genocide will act as the face mask worn by a true root cause of human generated climate change.

Gore Calls G8 Summit a "Disgrace"

2007-06-18T10:31:00.000-07:00

Following the conclusion of the G8 summit and climate change talks about a week and a half ago, I had the following to say in my post titled G8 Leaders Agree to Make an Agreement,

The leaders of the group of eight industrial nations have agreed to make an agreement on climate change in what Tony Blair calls "a major, major step forward".

Wow....I say, wow.

Al Gore has issued his statement on the events, and his words were equally tongue in cheek,

"The eight most powerful nations gathered and were unable to do anything except to say 'We had good conversations and we agreed that we will have more conversations, and we will even have conversations about the possibility of doing something in the future on a voluntary basis perhaps."'

The one result from the latest summit was the US agreeing to work with other nations towards "substantial cuts" in greenhouse gases within a UN framework. No firm timelines or goals were agreed to despite the efforts of German Chancellor and G8 Chair Angela Merkel who wanted countries to agree to work towards a 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050.

Talks resume in Bali this December.

PS - A note of thanks to Crooks and Liars for including The Conscious Earth on their weekly roundup.

Rachel Carson Vindicated

2007-06-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

Readers may or may not be aware of an ongoing misinformation campaign being waged against Rachel Carson, the woman widely credited for the birth of the modern environmental movement.

In 1962 she wrote Silent Spring, a cautionary criticism about the impacts of widespread pesticide use, particularly DDT, on both the natural world and human health. However, recent efforts to posthumously honour Rachel Carson have been stalled thanks to the work of certain Republicans in the US Senate, in particular one Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who implicitly holds Carson responsible for millions of malaria deaths that have occurred in the developing world. The people at Celsias have done a perfect job outlining the controversy and showing why the this accusation is false.

This unfortunate misconception is the result of a very misleading and inaccurate campaign that is being waged against Carson and the movement that she helped to initiate. Basically, the argument is that she pushed for a ban on the use of DDT, which led to the deaths of millions of people every year around the world. I hope to demonstrate that this couldn’t be farther from the truth. First, and possibly most important, is the fact that Carson never advocated an absolute ban on the use of DDT.

The article does indeed demonstrate that point, as do the words of Rachel Carson herself with her common sense prescription that governments should, "Spray as little as you possibly can" rather than, "Spray to the limit of your capacity".

Intervention at an intelligent and effective minimum, rather than a hysterical and reactionary maximum....that's good policy we can generalize to any political issue.

So once again the air clears and we see that it's certain "conservative" politicians who are overreacting - both in endorsing the indiscriminant use DDT and their wholly inaccurate attack on Rachel Carson.

Thanks to Celsias for a great summary of the issue.

Good News for Wildlife, But Bad for the Rep

2007-06-13T14:24:00.000-07:00

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has reportedly been stunned by the discovery of what could be "the largest migration of land mammals on Earth". Over 1.3 million animals including white-eared kob, African antelope, mongalla gazelle, elephants, buffalo and ostriches have been counted in an aerial survey of the southern Sudan where it was assumed that wide spread war had wiped out these herds.

This is great news for wildlife. It is not good news for WCS.

I don't usually play the cynic, but this the worst PR job I've seen in the enviro community since the Center for Biological Diversity sued one of North America's largest wind farms for bird deaths caused by turbines. Rather than assuming all animals had perished when a proper survey had not been completed since 1982, it may have been better to take a conservative approach in estimating the death toll.

The WCS is accepting donations to help them "protect this wildlife haven". Although I don't know much about the organization, my advice would be that if the WCS couldn't locate the world's largest migration of animals in the first place, they're probably the wrong folks to be protecting them.

Check out the BBC slide show for more great pics.

Will Canada's Water Cure the US Drought?

2007-06-13T11:28:00.000-07:00

In the face of global warming and eight dry years, the United States is confronting its worst drought since the Dust Bowl years of the Great Depression. Between 1930 and 1940, 2.5 million people were forced to leave the southwest plains and 50 million acres of formerly productive land was destroyed thanks to a combination of drought and poor farming practices.

Nobody is saying the impacts of this year's drought are on that scale. However, Alabama Senators Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions have are already requesting a disaster declaration for 19 Alabama counties as corn farmers and cattle ranchers face potential ruin. The more drastic consequences may occur much further north, in Canada.

The US federal government, particularly President Bush, still has not agreed to impose mandatory cuts on greenhouse gas emissions. Until they do, they are effectively saying that they are prepared to live with the consequences of global warming rather than try to prevent them. For the states already affected by drought this will mean longer and more severe water shortages and increasing strain on already endangered farmland. If that occurs, the US government will be left with three choices to address the looming catastrophe:

do nothing
relocate millions of people to more economically productive areas
gain controlling interests of Canada's fresh water supply.

One guess as to which option the US will choose. Abandoning large tracts of the country isn't just economically undesirable, it would also mean relinquishing two of America's most cherished bedtime stories - 1) that it's man's right to control and exploit nature for his own benefit, and 2) manifest destiny, the myth that "the American government was "destined" to establish uninterrupted political authority across the entire North American continent."

The US thirst for Canadian water is not a myth. It's a desire and policy goal that's been prepared for by international trade agreement's (NAFTA) and clearly stated by numerous US politicians, most recently Kansas congressional hopeful John Doll.

If the drought continues, look for renewed calls for large scale water diversions from Canada - an alarming possibility given rising world temperatures, shrinking glaciers, and a booming Canadian oil sands industry that has already swallowed up enough water rights to quench the thirst of a large city.

Fight Deniers. Support DeSmog USA

2007-06-13T10:05:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of The Conscious Earth will recognize DeSmogBlog as a frequent link and source for breaking news. The Vancouver based blog was launched last year when local PR professional Jim Hoggan decided to throw his expertise into the global warming debate and fight the ongoing campaign of disinformation being waged by deniers and big oil.

DeSmogBlog exists to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change. An overwhelming majority of the world’s climate scientists agree that the globe is warming - the world's climate is changing - and that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is to blame. We know that the risks are incalculable and, increasingly, we understand that the solutions are affordable.

DeSmogBlog is an invaluable resource for global warming information and the integrity of public debate. Now they are planning to establish a full presence in the United States and are asking for your support to make it happen.

Visit their fundraising page to help raise the $10,000 they need to get Desmog USA up and running. It's money well spent.

UK Gets First Zero-Carbon Home

2007-06-12T17:17:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, the British government announced an ambitious target of having all new homes built carbon neutral by 2016. This week saw the first step towards that goal as the "Lighthouse" was recognized as the nation's first zero carbon home.

The prototype is being billed as "the most environmentally friendly home yet built" in the UK, and it is the first to meet the government's highest standards for sustainability. Energy efficient construction methods were employed in the construction of the two bedroom house, which also features renewable and sustainable energy technologies such as solar powered water heaters and top notch water efficiency devices. In fact, a spokesman boasts that the building will only require heating 6 weeks of every year.

The Lighthouse also hopes to put money back in the pockets of consumers both through energy savings and lower price. By reaching "level 6" of the new government sustainability code, the Lighthouse is exempted from the federal stamp duty of 1% on new homes.

The unveiling is the first step in what housing minister, Yvette Cooper sees as a revolution in housing.

"A quarter of carbon emissions come from our homes. That's why zero-carbon homes are so important," said Yvette Cooper.
"We need a complete revolution in the way we design and build our homes. Many of the technologies exist already, as these new homes show. Now we need more work to test them and deliver economies of scale."

See the BBC article for a diagram of the interior layout or take the vidoe tour below.

Al Gore to Unveil Model Green Home

2007-06-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

Renovations of Al Gore's home are almost complete, and the result will be a model of green design, technology and engineering that will put a final end to the latest round of ill-conceived and baseless smear campaign being waged by right wing pundits.

"This plan has been in the works for a long time," the former vice president said in an interview with The Associated Press. "The only thing that has changed is that we're more public about it because of the misleading attack by a global-warming denier group."

Gore's redesigned home is aiming to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards and will include rooftop solar panels, a geothermal heating system, upgraded windows and ductwork, energy-efficient lighting and a rainwater collection system for irrigation and water management.

However, conservative groups and climate change deniers have been working hard over through this same time period to paint Al Gore as an environmental hypocrite who only talks green as a part of an elaborate ploy to enter the US presidential race. Like most spin jobs this one is slim on facts and long on hot air.

The initial assault on Gore's environmental reputation was a laundry list of outright lies that were thoroughly debunked here at TCE. Next came a gem of an effort from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR), a right wing think-tank of marginal credibility that, among other things, "facilitates" a three ring circus of global warming deniers. In February, the TCPR dug Al Gore's utility bill out of the metaphorical trash bin and promptly launched a southern style swift boating of the former Vice President - an equally inaccurate attack that conveniently ignored the fact(s) that:

Gore pays a premium for green power options in his home,
that the environmentally friendly renos listed above had been in the works well before the time of their attack,
that the only reason solar panels were not installed already is because Gore has been knee deep in a municipal battle over bylaw restrictions, and most importantly
that the Gore "residence" is not only a home but also an office for both Al Gore, his wife and runs a commercial kitchen for events.

But it only takes five words to say "Al Gore is a hypocrite", whereas you need a few sentences and a 10 second Google search to reveal the motivation of the TCPR and the green leading designs of Mr. Gore. If the country can't expect that kind commitment to accuracy from their pseudo elected leader, then far be it for me to ask it of the conservative press.

Cancer Causing Chemicals Decreasing in UK

2007-06-08T15:25:00.000-07:00

Regulation works. A new study shows that the levels of cancer-causing pollutants in Great Britain's soils has been dropping dramatically over the past two decades thanks to the strict regulation of chemical emissions into the environment.

G8 Leaders Agree to Make an Agreement

2007-06-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

The leaders of the group of eight industrial nations have agreed to make an agreement on climate change in what Tony Blair calls "a major, major step forward".

Wow....I say, wow.

The concrete development coming out of the G8 summit is that the US has agreed to work with other nations towards "substantial cuts" in greenhouse gases within a UN framework. China and developing nations will also be involved in emissions cuts and a new international deal is to be completed by the end of 2009. Though there is no agreement on details, Blair is optimistic about the results and the road ahead.

Mr Blair told reporters there is now agreement. "The important thing is we now have an agreement - one; that we need a new worldwide agreement on climate change," he said.

"Two; that at the heart of that should be a substantial reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

"Three; in the process that will then work out what that cut in emissions should be there will be serious consideration given specifically to the goal of halving emissions by 2050.

"This is an agreement in which we want all the major countries to be involved including America, China, India and others - the developed and the developing world."
"We agreed... that CO2 emissions must first be stopped and then followed by substantial reductions," the German chancellor said.

"Now we have an agreement that there will be a climate change deal, it will involve everyone, including the US and China, and it will involve substantial cuts."

Previously, the US has flatly opposed being a part of any post-Kyoto deal. However, mounting political pressure within the US has been seen as a key factor in Bush's willingness to negotiate with the international community. There's still no accounting for the American media though, as ABC was quick to put a different spin on today's events:

US torpedoes German hopes for binding G8 climate deal

Surprise, surprise.

Negotiations resume in Bali this coming December.

US Rejects G8 Climate Goals

2007-06-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

The US says it will reject the climate change goals set out by German Chancellor and G8 Chair Angela Merkel as this week's summit begins today in Heiligendamm, Germany.

Merkel proposes cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2050, setting up a cap and trade system for carbon, and limiting global warming to 2% celsius - goals that are broadly seen as the minimum needed to avert the more severe impacts of global warming. The US rejects all of these goals and, under the guise of defending the rights of individual countries, is pushing for a US led agreement between the world's top emitters that would allow continual increases in greenhouse gases.

Speaking ahead of his meeting, Mr Bush said that instead of backing the proposed emissions caps he favoured his own plan that the worst CO2 emitting nations, including the US, China and India, meet before the year is out to put together a new long-term strategy to tackle the problem.

The US continues to promote reductions in carbon "intensity" and voluntary reduction targets. It is well established that voluntary targets do not work, and as explained here, reducing carbon intensity will do nothing to decrease overall greenhouse gas emissions and consequently will lead to increased global warming.

Meanwhile, outgoing British PM Tony Blair insists that he can convince George Bush to agree to substantial cuts within an UN framework.

Good luck Tony, we're all counting on you.

Airlines Told to Go Emissions Free

2007-06-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

The world's airlines have been told that they have 50 years to become emissions free. This bold and surprising statement comes not from governments but from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) - the global trade organization representing 250 airlines and 94% of the world's scheduled air traffic. The announcement came yesterday in Vancouver during the IATA annual general meeting.

"Climate change is a real concern for our customers and a political priority for many governments," Mr. Bisignani told 700 delegates, including chief executive officers from airlines around the world.

However, the good will was not without a caveat,

"We have been silent in our success and now we have a reputation crisis," IATA director-general Giovanni Bisignani yesterday. He argued that the airline sector has been unfairly singled out by environmentalists and politicians jumping on the green bandwagon.

In this he is right. Global airline emissions account for a small (but significant) portion of the total worldwide pie - 2% according to most experts. Meanwhile, there is scarcely a week that goes by without new cries of outrage over these slim percentage points. A level of blame that is out of all proportion given that the airline industry chronically faces two of the most volatile and uncertain variables of the modern business world - rising fuel prices and ongoing security concerns.

In the face of these challenges, the IATA is deserving of any kudos it recieves for sucking it up and moving forward a new green vision. If our governments acted with the same forethought, we would be well on our way to solving the global warming problem.

Canada and Europe Agree on Climate Change, Sort of

2007-06-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

The Prime Minister's office has released the 2007 EU-Canada Summit Statement outlining the results of Stephen Harper's meeting with German Chancellor and European Union Chair Angela Merkel. It announces that both parties agree to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. However, they are at odds when it comes to the finer points of the math.

Harper and Merkel issued a statement saying both sides sought cuts in greenhouse gases by at least half by the year 2050. However, they remain divided on what year to take as a starting point, with the EU favouring 1990 and Canada 2006.

Oh well. What's 16 years and a few billion tonnes of C02 anyway?

The complete statement is available on the Conservative Party website.

German Chancellor Strong Against Bush

2007-06-04T09:48:00.000-07:00

After initially sounding somewhat limp with respect to President Bush's proposed "US led" global warming strategy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has since come out strong saying that it was "non-negotiable" that the United Nations should take the lead in global efforts to combat climate change and vowed to make no compromises that disregard the scientific evidence on the issue.

"I will not go for a 'lazy compromise' ... I will not get involved in diluting definite scientific findings like those of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental panel on climate change," she said.

The US proposal promises to do nothing to reduce global emissions and has been widely criticized in the international community, despite having effectively fooled the US media machine. It also opposes hard caps on emissions, a carbon trading scheme and the objective goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius - all elements endorsed by the European Union. Maybe the problem is that Bush doesn't have a clue what "2 degrees Celsius" is.

Climate change negotiations will take place at the upcoming G8 summit on June 6th - 8th.

Update 1:13pm: Merkel's comments were echoed by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who today rejected Bush's proposal and insisted that nations come to an agreement under the UN and not through US led negotiations.

CITY	LOCAL START TIME	USA START TIME (EDT)
Live Earth Sydney	11:10 a.m. 7/7	9:10 pm 7/6
Live Earth Tokyo	12:00 p.m. 7/7	11:00 p.m. 7/6
Live Earth Shanghai	7:00 p.m. 7/7	7:00 a.m. 7/7
Live Earth Hamburg	2:00 p.m. 7/7	8:00 a.m. 7/7
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Live Earth New York	2:30 p.m. 7/7	2:30 p.m. 7/7
Live Earth Rio de Janeiro	4:00 p.m. 7/7	3:00 p.m. 7/7