Sandra Finley

I deliberately covered a lot of ground in the Blue Book because I wanted people to see the ‘big picture’ on our inland sea and connections between issues that are often considered in isolation from one another, even though the problems never can be solved in isolation.

Poster_Qualicum_8.5×11 (PDF file, not accepted on F/B)

JPEG file, can use on F/B

2018-08-06 Comment on “Estimates of exceedances of critical loads for acidification”, includes connection tar sands – nuclear – university.

Climate, Oil & Gas, Take back the University, Water No Responses »

Aug 252018

THE REPORT is at:

2018-07-13 “Estimates of exceedances of critical loads for acidifying deposition

in Alberta and Saskatchewan” (water and land, nitrogen and sulphur from oil sands)

COMMENT:

I conclude this is a good news story, taking place over 12 years!

Serendipity: In June 2006 I sat beside a water scientist who told me that the lakes in northern Saskatchewan were dying from acidification – – tar sands emissions. A top policy advisor in the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority confirmed – yes, that is the case.

I sent the information to you (“The Battles”), and to media. Our networks sprang into action, including the Council of Canadians and the Sierra Club of Canada. Elaine Hughes did some great work.

Others pitched in, Saskatchewan and Alberta, with public meetings, letters to Government officials and so on.

The Governments had to do something: News, October 10, 2006

EDMONTON (CP) – Alberta and Saskatchewan have begun trying to figure out how to deal with increased pollution drifting over the boundary between them from rapidly expanding oilsands projects.

Changes were made. It seems to have worked! The emissions appear to have been sufficiently arrested:

UPDATE (Good news!)

The exceedances are not huge, and perhaps society will smarten up and scrap the oil sands before any significant damage is done. (I asked Dave Schindler, internationally renowned water scientist, from the University of Alberta, retired but still working, for his interpretation of the Report. His full email appears below.)

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

The scientist, Stan Shewchuk, told his story.
The Government official, Murray Bryck, was forthright when asked.
Our network circulated the information that “Sask lakes are dying” (June).
Citizens organized, work-shopped, were relentless and loud.
Government officials, Alberta and Saskatchewan, re-convened the annual cross-border monitoring meetings (had been stopped) in October, to do something (news report below).

ASIDE: Still sticks in my craw! – –

Stan Shewchuk, the water expert at the Saskatchewan Research Council who first told me about the acidification of northern Saskatchewan in 2006, retired. He had baseline data – – his research on the condition of the water in the lakes in northern Saskatchewan began in the early eighties. He said the water was “pristine” then.

In 2006, I took the acidification story to the media in Saskatchewan. The Government response was: research would have to be done, to establish baseline data!

Some time later, I tried to dig up access to Stan’s data and research, but was not successful.

Never mind! It appears that the steps taken were effective, so today “The exceedances are not huge“. And I congratulate all the people, inside and outside Government and media, who worked to contain the acidification. Details, and copies of letters sent are at:

2006-09-12 Water: Response from Govt to “Saskatchewan Lakes dying from tarsands emissions “

Conscientious people, 12 years ago, could see a disaster coming, and stopped it from happening. That’s a victory!

But now, 2018-02-27 Canada’s largest integrated energy company has filed an application for a massive new oilsands project defying expectations of slowing growth in the oilsands, Financial Post

– – – – – – – – – –

THERE IS A LINK BETWEEN

THE NUCLEAR/URANIUM INDUSTRY, TAR SANDS AND THE TWO UNIVERSITIES IN SASKATCHEWAN

The tar sands in northern Alberta extend across the border into Saskatchewan, where different geology would require different energy-intensive technology to bring the tar (oil) to the surface. The tar has to be heated so it will flow. The uranium/nuclear industry tried hard to make nuclear the energy of choice for the tar sands. But the economics of nuclear energy convinced citizens of both Saskatchewan and Alberta that nuclear energy would impoverish them, while a few people got richer.

The last half of “My letter to the Minister” tells some of the involvement at the U of Saskatchewan of the uranium/nuclear industry:

2018-03-19 Does Environment Minister McKenna KNOW that Natural Resources Minister Carr is pushing nuclear energy in the UN climate talks, Bonn Germany, May 2018? My letter to the Minister.

The University of Regina is home to the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC). They were heavily involved in research to find a way to flow the tar sands on the Sask side of the border which is in different geological formations, and further underground. A group organized and I accompanied a tour of 5 cities in Saskatchewan of a Panel discussion, because the public was hearing very little. Nor were they aware about the acidification in the north. For me, it was additional incentive to stop the building of a nuclear reactor, which would have met the energy demands of the oil corporations when “the lakes (were already) dying”.

Further background:

2010-01-26 Scripps Institute of Oceanography – – – Backgrounder Manitoba & Sask Joint Cabinet Meeting, Feb 2

(Aug 2018: Good news from Dave Schindler: The exceedances are not huge, and perhaps society will smarten up and scrap the oil sands before any significant damage is done.)

= = = = = = = =

WITH MANY THANKS TO DAVID SCHINDLER

From: David Schindler
Sent: August 27, 2018
To: Sandra Finley
Subject: Re: re (Recent) Estimates of exceedances of critical loads for acidifying deposition in Alberta and Saskatchewan

Hi Sandra,

This is a good paper. Aherne and Jeffries are very familiar with critical load calculations, and are co-authors on some of the widely accepted international work that goes back years. Kirk is an Alberta student, and I have co-authored work with her on mercury deposition in snow in the oil sands. She is an excellent young chemist.

Many of the small lakes in the northern Precambrian part of Sask. are very sensitive to acidification, because there are no calcareous rocks to buffer any incoming acids. The oil sands are a big source of both sulfur and nitrogen aerosols, the precursors of sulfuric and nitric acids. Nitrogen oxides are largely from the monster haul trucks.

Because these are aerosols and gases, they travel long distances and are slowly transformed to acids. In contrast, the emissions of calcium and other base cations that would neutralize acids are connected with larger, heavier particles in the emissions, which fall out of the atmosphere very close to the sources. This is a common scenario around mines of different sorts.

The exceedances are not huge, and perhaps society will smarten up and scrap the oil sands before any significant damage is done.

Best wishes,

Dave

– – – – – – – – –

On Mon, Aug 27, 2018, Sandra Finley wrote: (edited)

Hi Dave,

RE: Recent, Estimates of exceedances of critical loads for acidifying deposition in Alberta and Saskatchewan

. . . QUESTION: Have these scientists (Estimates of exceedances) confused “distance” with the quirks of geology? is the cause-and-effect relationship right?

The Abstract for Estimates of exceedances of critical loads for acidifying deposition in Alberta and Saskatchewan, is at http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=21672

I made “Comments” on it.

I am on thin ice because I am not a scientist.

As explained in the Comments, my association with exceedances of critical loads for acidifying deposition goes back to an FSIN Water Conference in 2006 – – I sat beside SRC scientist Stan Shewchuk who told me “the lakes in northern Saskatchewan are dying”. He’d been monitoring since the early eighties when they were pristine.

Serendipitously, the next day I met Murray Bryck from the Sask Watershed Authority who was in Saskatoon for a water conference (Sask Partners for blah, blah, blah). I asked Murray about what Stan had said. Murray’s reply was “oh yes, that’s right. We know it.” The conversation proceeded, I subsequently went to the media.

The CCME in its annual report mentioned that some areas of northern Sask were past critical load limits for acidification. I believe I have mentioned this to you in past correspondence.

I was expecting this 2018 report to have something further to what was known by 2006.

You will see in the Comments that I went down a rabbit hole, trying to determine what happened to the NWRI (National Water Research Institute). It no longer exists as far as I can tell, although one is led to it – – the links go to dead end. I wondered why, if this is about acidification in Saskatchewan, and the well-funded Hydrology Centre is at the U of S, why aren’t they joined in the research?

Back to the ABSTRACT:

Base cation deposition was shown to be sufficiently high in the region to have a neutralizing effect on acidifying deposition, and the use of the aircraft and precipitation observation-based corrections to base cation deposition resulted in reasonable agreement with snowpack data collected in the oil sands area. However, critical load exceedances calculated using both observations and observation-corrected deposition suggest that the neutralization effect is limited in spatial extent, decreasing rapidly with distance from emissions sources, due to the rapid deposition of emitted primary dust particles as a function of their size. We strongly recommend the use of observation-based correction of model-simulated deposition in estimating critical load exceedances, in future work.

(Don’t laugh too hard when I use scientific terms and information inappropriately! Sorry.)

(INSERT: through Dave Schindler’s input, I understand that the correct terminology where I have used ” sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide” is “sulfur and nitrogen”)

the neutralization effect is limited in spatial extent, decreasing rapidly with distance from emissions sources, due to the rapid deposition of emitted primary dust particles as a function of their size.

To me, the scientists who put out this recent research are saying

The acidification “in the region” is neutralized by ionization.
Neutralization decreases with distance from source of the sulfur ~~dioxide~~ and nitrous ~~oxide~~. (Which is to say: the further downwind, the greater the exceedances because there is no neutralizing effect, due to the rapid deposition of emitted primary dust particles as a function of their size.)

The “dust particles” and “Fugitive dust particles”, the “acidifying deposition” are, as I understand, synonymous with sulfur ~~dioxide~~ and nitrous ~~oxide~~ emissions.

However, what I understood from Stan Shewchuk, would indicate that the correlation to distance from source is not the cause-and-effect relationship. The cause-and-effect relationship is geology. (map) of the Canadian Shield – – Prevailing winds are from the northwest. The winds carry the emissions over exposed crust of the Earth – – the rock of the Canadian Shield, rock lake bottoms. Stan explained that the neutralization happens where you have soil, plant growth, on land and lake bottoms. The map shows that the border of the Shield diagonals across Sask, and turns north coincident with the Alberta-Sask border. There’s a loop to the south of McMurray that is not Canadian Shield. The prevailing winds don’t blow to the north of McMurray. Based on what I understood from Stan, maybe these scientists have confused “distance” with the quirks of geology?

I thought to track down one of the scientists who participated in the Research, to speak with. But I could be all wrong in my interpretations.

I will be appreciative if an independent scientist might be able to respond to the question: have these scientists got the right cause-and-effect relationship?

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THE FOLLOWING IS FOR MY OWN PURPOSE. SUGGEST YOU SKIP IT! THE RABBIT HOLE I went down, trying to figure out what happened to Canada’s National Water Research Institute (the NWRI), with whom I dealt in past.

Who is involved in the creation of this new (July 2018) report on exceedances of critical loads for acidifying deposition? (Don’t get me wrong; I’m very happy they’re working on it! I have some history, going back to 2006.)

I notice scientists from the Canada Centre for Inland Waters, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Burlington, Canada.

In years past, it was the National Water Research Institute (NWRI) with two centres in all of Canada – – one in Burlington ON, the other in Saskatoon SK. The NWRI employed almost all of the water scientists in Canada – – more than 300. What happened to it?

I tried to find the “NWRI” on the web (Aug 2, 2018). I found http://www.css.ethz.ch/en/services/css-partners/partner.html/89060. You can tell by the URL that it is not a Government of Canada website.

HOWEVER, it says:

National Water Research Institute (NWRI), by Environment Canada

Main content

The Canadian National Water Research Institute (NWRI) is Canada’s government freshwater research facility. The Institute’s research focuses on water pollution and its impact.

TWO THINGS:

The web page is from ETH Zurich
The link to “Visit the (NWRI) Website” takes you to “Server not found”. I tried web searches (NWRI) from different angles. Got the same thing – – nothing.

There’s a page titled NWRI at https://www.sdtc.ca/en/organizations/national-water-research-institute

You can see from the URL that it’s not a page on an NWRI website. It’s a page under “organizations” on SDTC website. SDTC is “funded by the Govt of Canada”.

Oh I see, https://www.sdtc.ca/en/apply/funds

Sustainable Development Technology Canada

Government agency

Sustainable Development Technology Canada is an arm’s-length foundation created by the Government of Canada to fund new clean technologies. Wikipedia

Oh Lord – – I get nervous when I see a Government-funded entity “Coaching companies for success” (from a drop down list on the website). It’s too often the companies who have a history of “Partnering” with the Government for their own benefit, and a stable of “Communications Specialists” to spin what they’re doing, who get our money.

IN THE ABSTRACT re “EXCEEDANCES”:

The citations in the abstract from the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW) are all from their centre in Burlington. The last time I visited the Saskatoon NWRI, they were under serious budget constraints.

The Hydrology Centre at the U of S worked with the NWRI Saskatoon centre (that is no more). https://www.usask.ca/hydrology/History.php

The Centre will coordinate graduate student training, outreach and research; provide shared laboratory and experimental research basin facilities to researchers from the College of Agriculture, Arts and Science, Engineering, and the National Water Research Institute on campus, and develop major funded programs addressing water and environmental change.

Hydrological research opportunities continue to improve at the University of Saskatchewan. The Canada Research Chairs program, . . .

CURIOUS:

The only citation in the Abstract that is Saskatchewan based (” . . . acidifying deposition in Alberta and Saskatchewan”) is:

Technical Resources Branch, Environment Protection Division, Saskatchewan Ministry of the Environment, Regina, Canada

– Regina is the centre of provincial government. Not known as a centre of science. I searched for this Technical Resources Branch (under 4. at http://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/government-structure/ministries/environment). Couldn’t find them.

Why isn’t the Hydrology Centre at the U of S involved in this research on the acidification of the north?

2018-08-25 Vietnam demands Monsanto compensate Agent Orange victims after US cancer ruling precedent

Health, March Against Bayer-Monsanto No Responses »

Aug 252018

Vietnam demands Monsanto compensate Agent Orange victims after US cancer ruling precedent

Following the unprecedented $289mn verdict against Monsanto in California, Hanoi is seeking justice for victims of exposure to the Agent Orange – the notorious chemical the firm supplied to the US military during the Vietnam War.

After a San Francisco jury proved Monsanto not invincible and ordered the chemical giant to pay $289 million to a school worker who argued he got terminal cancer after using its Roundup herbicide, Vietnam has also demanded compensation from the St. Louis-based company.

“The verdict serves as a legal precedent which refutes previous claims that the herbicides made by Monsanto and other chemical corporations in the US and provided for the US army in the war are harmless,” deputy foreign ministry spokesperson Nguyen Phuong Tra said Thursday. “Vietnam has suffered tremendous consequences from the war, especially with regard to the lasting and devastating effects of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange.”

Around three million people in Vietnam were exposed to Agent Orange during a brutal chemical warfare campaign between 1961 and 1971, in which 12 million gallons of herbicide produced by Monsanto Corporation, among others, were dropped over the jungle to defoliate it. Because of such a high level of exposure to dioxin, a byproduct found in Agent Orange, millions of Vietnamese continue to suffer health conditions, often resulting in deformities which are passed through gene mutations to future generations.

Monsanto, which has never acknowledged its role in the devastation, argues that Agent Orange “was only produced for, and used by, the government,” noting that Monsanto was just one of nine wartime government contractors who manufactured the same toxin from 1965 to 1969.

Monsanto was acquired by German giant Bayer AG in June, in a merger deal valued at $66 billion. Following the cancer compensation verdict, shares in the pharmaceuticals company took an enormous hit. Luckily for US markets, though, since Bayer is now the sole owner of Monsanto, it is no longer traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, lawsuits against Monsanto surged from 5,200 to 8,000, requiring the new owner to engage in costly legal battles.

Bayer’s Monsanto faces thousands of glyphosate cancer-risk lawsuits

While the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains that glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup) is not carcinogenic, the European EPA labeled it a carcinogen in 1985, but reversed its position in 1991. The company itself maintains that no clear position on glyphosate exists in the scientific community, and that more research is needed. The World Health Organization’s cancer research agency classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in 2015.

Meanwhile, Bayer announced that it will appeal the August 10 verdict that found Monsanto liable for cancer due to prolonged exposure to the company’s glyphosate-based product. “We believe it is wrong,” Werner Baumann, chief executive officer of Bayer AG, noted. The firm said its position on glyphosate is “supported by 800 studies and reviews done over many decades.”

“They conclude glyphosate can be used safely and does not cause cancer. Farmers and growers have been using glyphosate safely and effectively for more than 40 years,” it said.

2018-08-25 Letter to the Minister Responsible for Neonic chemicals. Bayer CropScience, Monsanto, University of Saskatchewan.

Corruption, Genetically Modified, Health, March Against Bayer-Monsanto, Take back the University No Responses »

Aug 252018

There’s another round of consultations re neonic chemicals, deadline soon passed. During the last round, not very long ago, Health Canada received 46,000 communications. Why we need another round I do not know.

As I wrote to one of the organizations:

Realistically, you have to call them on the corruption, if we are to make any progress.

(I’m from Saskatchewan, an agricultural province, and a graduate of the University of Sask. I was an elected member of University Senate for six years. The neonic chemicals are understood within that framework.)

= = = = = = = = =

LETTER TO THE MINISTER

CONSULTATIONS ON THE NEONIC CHEMICALS

Dear Minister Ginette Petipas Taylor,

A lawsuit has been launched against the University of Saskatchewan over the issue of agricultural chemicals. Imidacloprid is one such chemical, in the class referred to as “neonics”.

The posting explains why the neonics are not going to be banned. I’ve been watching the ag-chemical corporations and how they operate for a couple of decades. You’re engaged in unrealistic fantasizing if you believe the neonics will be banned. At least, not without a huge fight.

The Industry has re-framed themselves as, for example, the “Global Institute for Food Security“. Take a look at the players – – they are the ag-chem guys. They are well-known scoundrels, liars, and corrupters of public institutions. Hence the international “March Against Monsanto“.

The court case against the University of Sask came a week before the jury verdict in California that awarded $289 million to Dewayne Johnson who has terminal cancer. Monsanto knew, and knows, what its chemicals do. Monsanto no longer exists – – Bayer CropScience bought it.

(UPDATE: Nov. 1/18 The groundskeeper who won a massive civil suit against Bayer’s Monsanto claiming that the weedkiller Roundup caused his cancer has agreed to accept $78 million, after a judge substantially reduced the jury’s original $289 million award.)

After the verdict Bayer’s stock price dropped 14%. There are an estimated 5,000 (UPDATE: 8,000) other lawsuits already in progress. Not all about cancer, also charges of false advertising.

The prognosis is good, dependent upon citizen determination. The forced abandonment of the name “Monsanto”, the jury verdict ($289 million to Johnson), and the pending (8,000) more lawsuits bode well. (Listen to the video of the Judge reading out the Jury’s verdict in the Monsanto trial.)

Canadians, with good reason, have little faith remaining in Health Canada (the PMRA) to protect citizens against the skulduggery of corporations like those represented by CropLife Canada, the lobbyists for the industry, infiltrators of the regulatory system and the University. I’d be happy to fill you in on the details.

I hope you will find the posting brief and to-the-point – – what’s behind the lawsuit. It explains the difficulty getting through the corruption to the actual banning of the neonic chemicals.

(2018-08-18) SIGNIFICANCE EXPLAINED: U of Saskatchewan taken to Court, Refuses to disclose Right to Know symposium proceedings.

In the public interest,

Sandra Finley

2018-08-23 Verizon under fire for ‘throttling’ firefighters’ data in California blaze. (Net neutrality)

Media, public interest No Responses »

Aug 232018

Canadians have reason

To be Grateful, for all the work that has gone into net neutrality (SO FAR, we MIGHT still have it in Canada).

OpenMedia is our excellent leader (since 2008) on internet/communication issues.

Telephone service (the ability to communicate) is fundamental to health and security. Communications are a service, like schools and roads, that citizens joined hands, decades ago, to provide through their government.

The airwaves are a component of The Commons – – they belong to us ALL. If we lose net neutrality, it will be our own doing.

RELATED: 2017-08-07 Further concentration in the Communications industry

Canadians have reason

To be On guard (our American friends HAD net neutrality, and then LOST it, with the consequence below for firefighters in California).

The battle to maintain open access to the Internet without preferential categories (“Net Neutrality”) has been hard fought, with people in many countries pitching in (think of AVAAZ). The battle was underway before 2009, when I first actively engaged. It has not ended:

2015 Celebrate! the FCC (U.S.) voted protection for the Internet, after huge protests.
Later, under a Trump appointee, the protection was reversed.
Today, California . . . you can’t get your data through, you have wildfires to put out? We’re sorry, we made a mistake!

Verizon under fire for ‘throttling’ firefighters’ data in California blaze

The incident was not the first time Verizon has squeezed the firefighters data connection. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Lawsuit argues the impaired emergency efforts show how loss of net neutrality protections can be deadly

Olivia Solon in San Francisco

The incident was not the first time Verizon has squeezed the firefighters data connection. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
California firefighters’ ability to battle a huge wildfire was impeded by Verizon Wireless throttling their internet connection, in a moment advocates say demonstrates the high stakes of the battle over net neutrality.

Santa Clara county fire department had paid for what Verizon described as an “unlimited” data plan for various internet-connected devices, but the data flow was throttled to about 1/200th of the typical speed – unusably slow for any meaningful data transfer.

Californians watch wildfires burn their houses via home security cameras

This restriction created problems for a command and control communications vehicle called OES 5262 as firefighters battled the Mendocino Complex fire, the largest wildfire in California’s history, in late July. The vehicle – essentially a fire engine that is fitted with computers and communications equipment – gets internet access via a device that uses a Verizon sim card. It is used as a hub to “track, organize and prioritize routing of resources around the state and country to the sites where they are needed the most”, according to the Santa Clara county fire chief, Anthony Bowden, in a lawsuit over net neutrality protections, first reported by Ars Technica.

“This throttling has had a significant impact on our ability to provide emergency services,” said Bowden. “Verizon imposed these limitations despite being informed that throttling was actively impeding County Fire’s ability to provide crisis-response and essential emergency services.”

Obama-era protections would have given the fire department the recourse to bring a complaint to the FCC, which could have taken action against Verizon.

The July incident wasn’t the first time Verizon had throttled the firefighters’ data connection.

They had previously contacted Verizon in June when they were dealing with the Pawnee fire and December 2017 when they were battling a grass fire near Prado regional park.

According to emails included in court filings, in June 2018, the fire captain Justin Stockman contacted Verizon requesting that the data connection for a critical piece of communications equipment was unthrottled. A Verizon account manager responded by trying to upsell the fire department from a $37.99 plan to a $39.99 plan.

“In light of our experience, County Fire believes it is likely that Verizon will continue to use the exigent nature of public safety emergencies and catastrophic events to coerce public agencies into higher-cost plans, ultimately paying significantly more for mission-critical service – even if that means risking harm to public safety during negotiations,” Bowden wrote in a written declaration.

Internet service providers (ISPs) are entitled to throttle people who use excessive amounts of data, depending on the terms of the individual plan. However, Verizon has a policy to remove restrictions if contacted in an emergency situations.

“We have done that many times, including for emergency personnel responding to these tragic fires. In this situation, we should have lifted the speed restriction when our customer reached out to us. This was a customer support mistake,” said the company in a statement published on Tuesday.

Harold Feld, from Public Knowledge, one of the organisations bringing the suit, said: “Companies need to be liable for their actions,” adding: “Verizon’s response of ‘I’m terribly sorry your state is burning down, let me sell you this new package’ is not good enough. We need rules to prevent it from happening in the first place.”

The Observer view on net neutrality

The Santa Clara fire department’s complaint forms part of a large lawsuit against the Federal Communications Commission seeking to overturn the repeal of net neutrality rules that prevent internet service providers from blocking, throttling and paid prioritisation.

The Obama-era protections had widespread public support but were scrapped last year by Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, with the former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai at the helm. At the time, Pai argued that ISPs should self-regulate instead as government regulation would stifle innovation in the industry. He also said that the net neutrality rules were established on “hypothetical harms and hysterical prophecies of doom”.

“This should be a warning to lawmakers of what happens when there aren’t protections in place,” said Mark Stanley from digital rights group Demand Progress. “ISPs simply can’t be trusted to police themselves.”

“If Verizon was willing to do this to a fire department during the state’s largest wildfire, when public safety should have been paramount, it’s easy to imagine what they are willing to do to everyday consumers,” he added.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/22/verizon-data-throttling-wildfires-california-lawsuit?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=284128&subid=19904009&CMP=GT_US_collection

2018-08-22 Change the world, not yourself; or how Arendt called out Thoreau. By Katie Fitzpatrick

Change, Empowerment, Non-Violent Resistance, Occupy Movement No Responses »

Aug 222018

ALSO ARENDT:

Hannah Arendt, Crises of the Republic: Civil Disobedience, On Violence, and Thoughts on Politics and Revolution 2011-12-23 The Banality of Evil, Hannah Arendt. Freedom. “The new” versus certainty (action versus behaviour).

2012-04-15 Figure me out. Figure you out. Salvation is coming. With help from Hannah Arendt.

The rebel. dismissed as impractical and zealous, is chronically misunderstood. Those cursed with timidity, fear, or blindness and those who are slaves to opportunism call for moderation and patience. They distort the language of religion, spirituality, compromise, generosity, and compassion to justify cooperation with systems of power that are bent on our destruction. The rebel is deaf to these critiques. The rebel hears only his or her inner voice, which demands steadfast defiance.

2015-03-17 Chris Hedges on Bill C-51: They have won, and it is up to us

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Katie Fitzpatrick is a writer, editor, and university lecturer based in Vancouver, Canada. She has a PhD in English from Brown University, and serves as a humanities editor for the LA Review of Books. During the 2018/2019 academic year, she will be teaching first-year reading and writing in the coordinated arts programme at the University of British Columbia.

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The article speaks well for the author, and for Aeon. Thanks to Hart for drawing to attention:

https://aeon.co/ideas/change-the-world-not-yourself-or-how-arendt-called-out-thoreau

<p>Dr Martin Luther King, Dr Ralph David Abernathy, their families, and others leading the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965. <em>Courtesy Wikipedia</em></p>

Dr Martin Luther King, Dr Ralph David Abernathy, their families, and others leading the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965. Courtesy Wikipedia

It is not often that a neighbourhood squabble is remembered as a world-historical event. In the summer of 1846, Henry David Thoreau spent a single night in jail in Concord, Massachusetts after refusing to submit his poll tax to the local constable. This minor act of defiance would later be immortalised in Thoreau’s essay ‘On the Duty of Civil Disobedience’ (1849). There, he explains that he had been unwilling to provide material support to a federal government that perpetuated mass injustice – in particular, slavery and the Mexican-American war. While the essay went largely unread in his own lifetime, Thoreau’s theory of civil disobedience would later inspire many of the world’s greatest political thinkers, from Leo Tolstoy and Gandhi to Martin Luther King.

Yet his theory of dissent would have its dissenters, too. The political theorist Hannah Arendt wrote an essay on ‘Civil Disobedience’, published in The New Yorker magazine in September 1970. Thoreau, she argued, was no civil disobedient. In fact, she insisted that his whole moral philosophy was anathema to the collective spirit that ought to guide acts of public refusal. How could the great luminary of civil disobedience be charged with misunderstanding it so profoundly?

Thoreau’s essay offers a forceful critique of state authority and an uncompromising defence of the individual conscience. In Walden (1854), he argued that each man should follow his own individual ‘genius’ rather than social convention, and in ‘On the Duty of Civil Disobedience’ he insists that we should follow our own moral convictions rather than the laws of the land. The citizen, he suggests, must never ‘for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislation’. For Thoreau, this prescription holds even when the laws are produced through democratic elections and referenda. Indeed, for him, democratic participation only degrades our moral character. When we cast a ballot, he explains, we vote for a principle that we believe is right, but at the same time, assert our willingness to recognise whatever principle – be it right or wrong – the majority favours. In this way, we elevate popular opinion over moral rectitude. Because he places so much stock in his own conscience, and so little in either state authority or democratic opinion, Thoreau believed that he was bound to disobey any law that ran counter to his own convictions. His theory of civil disobedience is grounded in that belief.

Thoreau’s decision to withhold his financial support for the federal government of 1846 was, no doubt, a righteous one. And the theory that inspired that action would go on to inspire many more righteous acts of disobedience. Yet despite these remarkable successes, Arendt argues that Thoreau’s theory was misguided. In particular, she insists that he was wrong to ground civil disobedience in the individual conscience. First, and most simply, she points out that conscience is too subjective a category to justify political action. Leftists who protest the treatment of refugees at the hands of US immigration officers are motivated by conscience, but so was Kim Davis – the conservative county clerk in Kentucky who in 2015 denied marriage licences to same-sex couples. Conscience alone can be used to justify all types of political beliefs and so provides no guarantee of moral action.

Second, Arendt makes the more complex argument that, even when it is morally unimpeachable, conscience is ‘unpolitical’; that is, it encourages us to focus on our own moral purity rather than the collective actions that might bring about real change. Crucially, in calling conscience ‘unpolitical’, Arendt does not mean that it is useless. In fact, she believed that the voice of conscience was often vitally important. In her book Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), for example, she argues that it was the Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann’s lack of ethical introspection that enabled his participation in the unimaginable evils of the Holocaust. Arendt knew from the experience of Fascism that conscience could prevent subjects from actively advancing profound injustice, but she saw that as a kind of moral bare minimum. The rules of conscience, she argues, ‘do not say what to do; they say what not to do’. In other words: personal conscience can sometimes prevent us from aiding and abetting evil but it does not require us to undertake positive political action to bring about justice.

Thoreau would likely accept the charge that his theory of civil disobedience told men only ‘what not to do’, as he did not believe it was the responsibility of individuals to actively improve the world. ‘It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course,’ he writes, ‘to devote himself to the eradication of any, even to the most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it…’ Arendt would agree that it is better to abstain from injustice than to participate in it, but she worries that Thoreau’s philosophy might make us complacent about any evil that we aren’t personally complicit in. Because Thoreauvian civil disobedience is so focused on the personal conscience and not, as Arendt puts it, on ‘the world where the wrong is committed’, it risks prioritising individual moral purity over the creation of a more just society.

Perhaps the most striking difference between Thoreau and Arendt is that, while he sees disobedience as necessarily individual, she sees it as, by definition, collective.

Arendt argues that for an act of law-breaking to count as civil disobedience it must be performed openly and publicly (put simply: if you break the law in private, you’re committing a crime, but if you break the law at a protest, you’re making a point). Thoreau’s dramatic refusal to pay his poll tax would meet this definition, but Arendt makes one further distinction: anyone who breaks the law publicly but individually is a mere conscientious objector; those who break the law publicly and collectively are civil disobedients. It is only this latter group – from which she would exclude Thoreau – that is capable of producing real change, she implies. Mass civil disobedience movements generate momentum, apply pressure, and shift political discourse. For Arendt, the greatest civil disobedience movements – Indian independence, civil rights, and the anti-war movement – took inspiration from Thoreau but added a vital commitment to mass, public action. In sharp contrast, Thoreau believed that ‘there is but little virtue in the action of masses of men’.

‘On the Duty of Civil Disobedience’ is an essay of rare moral vision. In it, Thoreau expresses uncompromising critiques of the government of his era, while also capturing the powerful feelings of moral conviction that often undergird acts of civil disobedience. Nevertheless, it is Arendt’s account of the practice that is ultimately more promising. Arendt insists that we focus not on our own conscience but on the injustice committed, and the concrete means of redressing it. This does not mean that civil disobedience has to aim for something moderate or even achievable but that it should be calibrated toward the world – which it has the power to change – and not toward the self – which it can only purify.

A Reason, a Season, or a Lifetime

Health No Responses »

Aug 202018

People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed or just felt. They have come to assist you through a hard time, to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. Then, suddenly, the person disappears from your life. Your need has been met; their work is done.

Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share or grow or give back. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They give you great joy. Believe it; it is real. But only for a season.

Lifetime relationships teach you lifetime lessons—things you must build upon to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person and put what you have learned to use in all your other relationships.

Think about the people in your life over the years. Whether they were there for a reason, a season or a lifetime, accept them and treasure them for however long they were meant to be part of your life.

And when they are gone, be thankful for the gifts you received from them when they were here—for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

– Author Unknown

Or as Dr. Seuss once wrote: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

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https://psychcentral.com/lib/reason-season-lifetime-accepting-impermanence-in-relationships/

Reason, Season, Lifetime: Accepting Impermanence in Relationships

By Edie Weinstein, MSW, LSW
~ 4 min read

It has been said that people enter our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime.

Reason (a project or one time activity, a “guardian angel” encounter when someone steps in and moves you out of a dangerous situation, a fleeting/swoop by lesson)
Season (a short term; perhaps a few months or years, interaction that teaches you lessons that you may not have learned otherwise.)
Lifetime (long term connections that may begin at birth or anywhere along the timeline, that endures, perhaps despite challenges, or may even strengthen thus)

The reality is that one day someone will die or leave you, or you will die or leave them. Sound morbid or maudlin? It need not. Instead, it calls for an awareness of the precious and often-times fleeting nature of relationship.

It begins with a desire for connection. According to scientist, Matthew Lieberman, the author of Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, we are social creatures with an inherent need to engage with others.

Everyone you now know and love was once a stranger. When you gaze back over your timeline, can you recall a time when many of these people were not in your life? Some have been with you for so long, that it might be unimaginable.

Sara shares her experience, “Throughout his life my son would look at me puzzled when he would see me smile or greet ‘strangers.’” He would ask, “Do you know that person?” When I would respond, “Not yet,” he would continue, “Then why are you saying hi to them?” My answer was always, “Because they are in my world.”

Continuing, “How sad it would be to have missed the opportunity to connect with certain people who grace my life and how rich I am to now know and love them. It is hard to imagine what it was like before they stepped on stage. I have had fleeting encounters with folks whose smile or comment have made my day. I have lifelong relationships that I treasure. I anticipate connecting with anam cara (Gaelic for soul friend) as each day I set an intention for having extraordinary experiences and meeting amazing people. And each day I do.”

“Walking through my door will be people I will love for decades and look forward to embracing as new links in those overlapping soul circles that so delight me,” she adds poetically. “I am grateful for my far-flung tribe, wherever it is that they are living and breathing now.”

Many of our interactions seem “meant to be,” or in Yiddish, “beshert.” Consider people who show up in unexpected ways as if scripted. You may have thought how wonderful it would be to have someone help you with a task and within short order, a person crosses your path who is ready, willing and able to be of assistance. A desire arises for a new friend who will engage in fun activities with you and later that day you hear about a meetup in your area that focuses on the very thing that peaks your interest.

Once a relationship is established, you may find yourself taking the person for granted; assuming they will fit into the “lifetime” category. Relationships need to be cultivated and tended to like a blossoming garden. With neglect, they will wither and with loving attention, they will flourish. This is so, whether we are speaking of platonic friendships, family relationships or romantic partnerships.

How to maintain the garden:

Keep the lines of communication open. People are not always mind-readers and can only respond to what they imagine you are thinking or feeling.
The same behaviors that drew you to each other can be maintained. Keep courting each other with kind and loving words and gestures.
Don’t let the fire get doused. Feed it with fun, attention and the fuel that lit it initially.
Speak to this person as if they are someone you love and would like them to remain in your life.
Start with the ending and imagine that the relationship is over, so that the pressure is off and you can speak the truth about who you are, rather than hiding your shortcomings to make a good impression.
We can think about the concept of, “If I had a year to live, what would I do in that period?” An even more revealing question might be, “What if I knew my parent/child/partner/friend had a year to live, how would I treat them?” Would you be more patient and understanding? Would you spend more time together creating memories that will carry you through the loss?
Don’t sweat the small stuff and it is mostly all small stuff. Richard Carlson, the author of the beloved series by that name, had it all going for him. A wonderful marriage to Kristine, two thriving daughters, a solid career as a writer and speaker. On board a plane, headed to New York from California, he had a pulmonary embolism and died on December 13, 2006 at the age of 45. Would you be better able to accept what comes your way if you knew that each breath could be your last?

What happens when the show is over and the curtain comes down on the relationship?

Sometimes, despite your best efforts and that of the other person, the relationship dynamics shift and the person leaves your life either by your choice, theirs, or by agreement. Conscious uncoupling has become a more commonly spoken about concept, with the split between actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin; lead singer of Coldplay. How do you maneuver those sometimes-treacherous waters?

It would be understandable to harbor emotions of sadness, anger and resentment in the wake of the loss. Allow yourself to feel it all, but be aware that permitting them to take up residence in your mind, might keep you trapped in a downward spiral. Find supportive people to be on your recovery team as you heal your heart.

Some relationships have toxic qualities (such as abuse, untreated addiction, lying, infidelity, criminal activity) that are better left, lest they pull you down into the abyss. Even if love remains between the two of you, there are times when it is safer to love from a distance.

Remind yourself that you had a life prior to meeting this person and will have one following the changing of the relationship dynamics. Once the relationship completes (as much as any relationship can be fully over), take a pro-active and self-loving stance as you decide who you truly are, outside its structure. Even as it can be a painful process, shedding the layers of who you were with this person, ask yourself who you are without them.

Thank the person, either aloud or in your mind, for the lessons that came as part and parcel of the relationship. There is always a gift in every interaction, even if it might not seem so at the time. Gratitude has a way of easing the pain and smoothing away the rough edges.

Regardless of the ways in which relationships change, be compassionate with yourself and the others involved, to help heal any residual wounds. Honor and appreciate it for what it was as you open the door for even more to enter and enrich your life.

2018-09-13 An evening with Kevin Taft, author, “Oil’s Deep State”.

Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Corruption, Non-Violent Resistance, Oil & Gas No Responses »

Aug 202018

Return to INDEX, Salish Sea

Takeover of our democracy by Big Oil.

You are invited: presentation. . .

Kevin Taft, former Liberal member of the legislative assembly in Alberta will be promoting his latest book “Oil’s Deep State“.

He draws on his personal experience as the leader of the official opposition in Alberta to expose the deep influence that big oil has on government decision making.

David Suzuki says “Read the book, get mad, then take action to restore democracy.” . . .

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(Sandra, addition): EXCERPT, Wikipedia, KEVIN TAFT (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Taft)

Post-political career

In January 2012, just before leaving office, Taft published Follow the Money, his fourth book. Research for the book was supported by two economists: Professor Melville Macmillan and Dr. Junaid Jahagir. Drawing heavily on economic data from Statistics Canada, the book challenges the notion that the Alberta government’s spending on public services is far higher than other provinces. Taft shows that total Alberta corporate profits are consistently double or more the rates in the rest of Canada or the United States. In contrast, spending on public services in Alberta is in the normal range, and the government has failed to increase the value of the Heritage Trust Fund.^[38] Like its predecessors, Follow the Money topped local bestseller lists.^[39] The book was also shortlisted for the Alberta Book Publishers Association Trade Non-Fiction Book of the Year in 2013.^[40]

Between 2011 and 2012, Taft, his wife Jeanette Boman, and two other partners designed and constructed a three-home net-zero ready infill residential project in Edmonton called “Belgravia Green”. Boman called it “our one small way of saying we believe that we can make a difference as individuals.” ^[41] The homes are designed and built with the aim of reducing net energy use to near zero.^[42] The homes were built by Effect Home Builders, and one of them won the 2012 Canadian Home Builders’ Association National Green Home Award.^[43]

Taft spent 2012-2017 as volunteer chair of a team overseeing the $1.6 million re-development of Belgravia community hall in Edmonton as a fully accessible, multi-purpose, solar-powered community centre.^[44]

After his retirement from politics, Taft continues working as an author, consultant, and public speaker while volunteering substantial time in his community.

Latest work (Oil’s Deep State)

In 2014, Taft was invited to spend three weeks at the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University in Australia, to write and speak on the effects of the fossil fuel industry on democracy in the context of global warming. In September, 2014, he published the paper “Fossil Fuels, Global Warming and Democracy: A Report from a Scene of the Collision,”^[45] in the Whitlam Institute’s Perspectives series.

Developing his ideas further, Taft published his fifth book, Oil’s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming — in Alberta, and in Ottawa, (James Lorimer Publishers), in September 2017.

The book, written for a general audience, draws on numerous sources for a wide-ranging and unprecedented look at the effects of Canada’s petroleum industry on democratic institutions such as the civil service, political parties and academia. His analysis uses theories of democracy and institutional capture to advance a theory of the “deep state,” arguing that the petroleum industry in Canada has captured so many democratic institutions that it has blocked the capacities of the governments of Alberta and Canada to effectively address global warming.

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Reason, Season, Lifetime: Accepting Impermanence in Relationships

Post-political career

Latest work (Oil’s Deep State)