Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben keynoted the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair (MREA) this past June and his remarks on catastrophic climate change follow. He was introduced to the overflow crowd at the MREA big tent as America’s foremost green journalist; a former staffer at The New Yorker; founder of Carbon-free Future; author of 14 books including the incisive The End of Nature (translated into 14 languages); and a founder of “Step It Up 2007: National Day of Climate Action” (asking candidates and Congress to cut CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050) and founder of 350.org (international climate change organizing). McKibben said:

We’re losing (planet-wise, planet wide). Since the 1980s we’ve known of the Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change. We didn’t know how quickly it would pinch. The 1 degree rise in average global temperature has happened faster than we ever thought. We have learned that he the earth is more intricately balanced than many have thought.

That one degree rise in global temperature average is equal to 2 extra watts per square meter on the earth’s surface. Earth’s ice is melting. [“Arctic Ocean sea ice melted faster in June 2010 than in any previous June since satellite measurements began 30 years ago. The polar ice cover remained on pace to shrink more than in 2007. Montreal Gazette, 7-13-2010] There is 40% less ice at the Arctic than before [the 1950s].

Ocean chemistry changes because of the acid from CO2 is being absorbed by the oceans. [ACID TEST, a film produced by National Resource Defense Council, was made to raise awareness about the largely unknown problem of ocean acidification, which poses a fundamental challenge to life in the seas and the health of the entire planet. Like global warming, ocean acidification stems from the increase of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Leading scientific experts on the problem, many of whom appear in the film, believe that it's possible to cut back on global warming pollution, improve the overall health and durability of our oceans, and prevent serious harm to our world, but only if action is taken quickly and decisively. The film originally aired on Discovery Planet Green. Excerpt on www.acidtestmovie.com]
Rain deluge will increase because of water in warm air. (Warm air holds more water than cool air.) Washington, D.C. has twice as much snow this last year [the snowiest on record] than year before. Nashville has had its “1000 year storm” [May 2010]. Hurricane Agatha [June 2010] hit Guatemala with a record storm. “One hundred year storms” are the norm everywhere.

Heat Increase is everywhere. The U.S. experienced the warmest 12 months ever. *
2010 is on course to be the hottest ever on record. India is in the worst heat wave since the British first kept records. Temperatures in India have reached 129 degrees with 100 people a day dying. In dry, arid areas, there are more droughts; the droughts are becoming epic; they are not being called droughts anymore because they may not end.

Things are spinning out of control and fast. Unless we make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable fuels, planet Earth could see a five to seven degree increase by the end of this century. If a one degree rise in the Earth’s temperature can melt the Artic, we don’t want to know what a 5 degree increase will mean.

(On the positive side) There are bursts of ingenuity and engineering around the globe. In China, 60 million (home hot-water) thermal units were installed. The number of farms in the U.S. is growing because local farmers’ markets are the fastest growing agricultural sector. [McKibben praised the MREA Fair for its many examples of obviously-available solutions in solar and wind energy; alternative vehicles, composting toilets, and more.]

Engineering is not the issue anymore. Political will is needed to make the transition happen quickly enough.

McKibben proposed this as the key strategy: Ramp up the Price of Carbon to pay the true cost of pollution and to force the transition to renewables. How to win against Coal and Oil is a question of How to build political movements.

Bangladesh: 140 million people in a country the size of Wisconsin. But they feed their own population. Mountain glaciers are melting, but their hugest problem is now mosquitos and Dengue fever. ** Mosquitoes love the warmer, wetter world we’re making.

[We must] cause trouble [politically] vs. the wreck caused by Climate Change—the Pacific Islands are disappearing; glaciers that feed the rivers of China and Indian are fading, not to return; the fevers in Bangladesh; [and the climate refugees already of Tuvalu, Bangladesh, and Samoa; and the threatened great coastal cities of earth: New York (Manhattan, in particular), Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Bombay, Tokyo, Kobe, London, and Shanghai; for certain, U.S. cities most threatened are New Orleans, Oakland, San Jose, Galveston, low-lying parts of Houston—see Pat Ward’s The Flooded Earth— and much of Florida.]

Our “intrepid stunt” in Burlington, Vermont [2007]: We wanted to sit-in at the state capitol on this issue. We asked the police what would happen to us. “Nothing will happen,” the police said. [And therefore, nothing politically would happen either.] So instead, we did a walk across Vermont. It took us 5 days. We recruited every Methodist minister we could find to help with potlucks along the way. We came with a thousand protesters to Burlington, so the politicians showed up.

We have the superstructure of a campaign against global warming (Al Gore, the scientists, and supportive Hollywood actors), but we need a movement to give it weight.
As candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama endorsed the idea of an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050. We can’t do it one light bulb at a time. We can’t do it one country at a time.

Jim Hanson at NASA is the leading scientist on Climate Change. NASA now says that anything above 350 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere is not compatible with civilized life on the planet. We are at 390 parts per million of CO2 right now.

Seven of the middle-school students [that McKibben once mentored] have now graduated college. They took up this organizing project with him. In terms of organizing for the world action day in October 2009, they divided up the seven continents—the student who got Antarctica also got the Internet. In Ethiopia, the government banned participation of citizens, but they organized and 15,000 did the protest before the scheduled day. Pictures available on 350.org. In the Middle East, people did the shapes of numbers 3-5-0 is three countries—the # 3 in Israel, the #5 in Palestine, the #0 in Jordan. An eastern Greek Orthodox leader preached a sermon, “Global warming is a sin. 350 is redemption.”

One hundred and seventeen nations signed onto the 350 target, but it was the poorest nations that did. The richest and most addicted countries did not sign on. It will be a long fight against the biggest force on earth: the fossil fuel industry.

10-10-10 (October 10, 2010, there’s no way you can forget that) will be a Global Work Party. People will be doing sustainable models in every place that signs on—harvesting food, making bike paths, putting up solar, planting trees …

We urge you to do something that day, too, and call your local and state politicians and challenge them: “If we’re getting to work, what about you?” Generate news coverage where you are (don’t drive to D.C.).

It’s a question of Physics/Chemistry vs. People & the way things are. The physics and chemistry of how the planet works will not negotiate on 350 parts per million. (People have to change.)

Scientists are telling us that if we, with great courage and speed, do something about climate change now, [we will have] a difficult but livable future. Some scientists say it’s too late already. We have to change the odds a little bit. There are no guarantees. Do everything we can until the last minute.

Government can cap carbon. Government can make industry pay the cost (like BP should in the Gulf).

For more ideas and to link local Oct. 10 activities to the international movement around climate change, check out McKibben’s website on this: www.350.org

(End of notes on speech) [comments and additions by Rick Whaley]

Footnotes:
* January-June temperatures averaged 57.5 degrees Fahrenheit — 1.22 degrees F above the 20th Century average, according to the National Climatic Data Center. Its records go back to 1880. That broke the previous record of 1.19 degrees F above average set in 1998.In addition, last month was the warmest June on record at 61.1 degrees F — 1.22 degrees F above the 20th Century average. 2010 has also surpassed 1998 for the most “warmest months” in any calendar year, the center stated. “Each of the 10 warmest average global temperatures recorded since 1880 have occurred in the last fifteen years,” it added. “The warmest year-to-date on record, through June, was 1998, and 2010 is warmer so far.” www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38263788
** “Wholesale and partial relocation of populations living in severely affected areas such as Tuvalu, Bangladesh, and Samoa has already created climate change refugees. Other areas where populations may need to be relocated include Bangladesh, the Maldives, Guyana, and the Netherlands. In areas where sea level is not projected to rise as fast, vast infrastructure projects have been put into place to lessen the impacts of rising sea levels such as in the Netherlands and London. “ www.wunderground.com/climate/SeaLevelRise.

Aimee Cree and Jessica Koski NMU summit 2010

(A report on the Indigenous Earth Issues Summit,
April 5, 2010, Northern Michigan University)

I journeyed north to the Indigenous Earth Issues Summit at Northern Michigan University (April 5, 2010) with Ben Yahola (Muscogee) and Dona Yahola (Bad River Ojibwe and Oneida) of the Sacred Sites Run. The Indigenous Earth Summit featured remarkable organizers from Indian country, particularly from the Midwest and the East Coast. The gathering raised hopes in the face of ongoing and historical tragedies, and some of the issues it raised have come home to roost in the intervening months. This third annual activists’ conference near the shores of Lake Superior opened with a prayer and traditional ceremony by Dona Yahola. Native spirituality and culture centered the conference, and the proceedings were anchored throughout the day in common concerns for preserving the waters for the seven generations.

The Mashpee Wampanoag Nation of Cape Cod has not opposed wind energy, as reported in the mainstream press. They do oppose an industrial wind farm (130 wind turbines), the size of Manhattan, on their sacred ceremonial ground where they bless the morning sun each day and send it on to the rest of America. Wampanoag Tribal Historic Preservation Officers Chuckie Green and Bettina Washington told the conference how they have fought the federal Mineral Management Service (MMS) for 7 years, long before MMS made the news, currently and tragically, for the mismanagement of BP oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The Wampanoag’s sacred space extends out into the Atlantic where, long ago, they lived in villages and began their ceremonies. Nantucket Sound was dry 6000 years ago, so the Wampanoag have fought the federal MMS over who defines whether water is “a traditional cultural property” or not.

Rick & Ben at NMU summit 2010

The proposed wind mega-farm also could negatively impact fish species and the local economy’s fishery. Massachusetts historical preservationists and local fishers have joined the tribe’s opposition to the Horseshoe Shoals location currently proposed. There are three good alternative sites nearby that the tribe has proposed, and the tribe has reminded Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar and the developer that the wind farm will get 150 million dollars in federal money for each wind turbine they put up, so the tribe and the tax-paying public do have a stake in things being done the right way.
The conference passed a resolution, at the eleventh hour, urging Secretary Salazar to oppose the Horseshoe Shoals site and move the energy farm away from sacred space to one of the alternative sites suggested. However, in the wake of the Deep Horizon explosion (April 20, 2010) and Gulf of Mexico mega-oil gusher, Secretary Salazar approved the industrial wind farm (April 28, 2010). Cedric Cromwell, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, said, “We are extremely disappointed with today’s decision. Every state and federal preservation agency has concluded that Nantucket Sound is a place of great historical and cultural significance. We have raised these concerns about Cape Wind for more than six years, but unfortunately the consultation process mandated by federal law was not followed.” [Boston Herald blogs, April 28, 2010]

The activism and hope of the NMU Indigenous Earth Summit were reflected in the impressive, young environmental-justice activists in attendance as presenters and participants. The environmental justice work of activist and theoretician Damien Lee (Fort William First Nation, Canada) and the Anishinabek Gitchi Gami Environmental Programs centers around stopping industrial waste from Thunder Bay, dumped on their reservation. The grassroots organizing featured recycling and environmental education as a way to take on the illegal dumping on the reservation. Damien shared lessons in developing emergent leadership and structures that don’t repeat the patterns of colonialism. Racism built into the permitting process, he said, was evident in permitting for chemical plants, paper mills, coal-fired plants, or for permitting toxic waste discharge and garage dumping on the reservation. He stressed listening to the elders and remembering familial relations between humans and animals, for example, telling the story of how the squirrels biting maple branches in late winter shows when the sap is running and sugaring should begin.

Equally impressive was Jessica Koski (Keweenaw Bay Indian Community), a key figure in the struggle to stop the sulfide-ore Eagle Rock mine in the Salmon Trout River watershed that runs to Lake Superior. Groundwater is likely to be contaminated and Lake Superior fisheries could collapse. Acid mine drainage would be irreversible in the world’s greatest body of fresh water. Native and local off-reservation communities are engaged in the rural effort to stop the proposed nickel- and copper-sulfide mine at Eagle Rock in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Updating environmental justice theory, Jessica distinguished between “distributive environmental justice”—the disproportional effects, by race and class, of toxic waste (for example, the watershed is in Chippewa ceded territory as well)—and “productive environmental justice” –everyone deserves a clean watershed. Environmental ethics should be framed by the local community that works, plays, and prays in a given ecosystem.
After the conference, Jessica traveled to London to speak to Rio Tinto Zinc shareholders (Kennecott’s parent company) about respecting the sacred site at Eagle Rock, the proposed portal to the mine. Jessica also published a letter in the Detroit Free Press (6-11-10) about the mining struggle which is now on the cusp of a decision from the EPA. Please visit the following websites for updates, background, and what you can do to prevent the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan from becoming scarred and poisoned: www.savethewildup.org and www.standfortheland.com The excellent Headwaters magazine (UP mining struggle) can be seen on-line at http://headwatersnews.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/HeadwaterNewssMagazine.pdf

Ben Yahola of Mvskoke Food Sovereignty Initiative reflected on the cultural history of food. The Muskogee (the holly tree people; “Creek” was the whites’ name for the Muskogee) were removed from the Southeast in order for the U.S. to get those rich agricultural lands. Reservations further changed traditional food systems. As a result of this, Yahola would like to see the huge, new Muscogee food warehouse used for local food, not for commodity food storage. In a “Food and Spirit” PowerPoint, Ben preached that Mother Earth is sovereign because her systems work effectively, and he reached out to other cultures, saying we all have ecological knowledge. He advised asking the ancestors to help us wake up, become more aware: we are equal and involved with all species. Ben’s work has been highlighted in previous posts (“Local Food, Democracy and Health” and “Give Me that Old Time Religion: Native American Sacred Sites).” Ben acknowledged Walt Bresette (the late Wisconsin Anishinabe activist) and his efforts for a 7th Generation Constitutional amendment, which echo Jessica Koski’s questions: What is our right relation with Mother Earth, the waters, and the 7th generation?
For more info, please see www.mvskokefood.org

Lee Sprague, Little River Band of Ottawa Indians tribe and Sierra Club member, was the embodiment of environmental activist, tribal chair and articulate lawyer (with an international law degree). He raised the challenge, “If we can’t make a sustainable economy with 20% of the Earth’s fresh water [the Great Lakes], we have a problem.” His environmental justice work has included stopping a coal plant in Michigan; fighting carbon sequestration from biomass; and he and his daughter were part of the Washington, D.C., coal plant protest in March 2009. “The problems of CO2 and mercury are beyond our historical experience,” he said. “This is the first generation that can’t eat the fish. Animals are part of our bodies; we take life spirits from the Earth into ourselves…Native women have twice as much mercury in their bodies as white women.”
The state and federal government are giving credits for biomass energy development, but it’s the same CO2 problem in emissions as with coal-fired plants. One thing that should not be injected into the ground is sequestered carbon, which he called an upside down smokestack in the ground. Why cut the trees for biomass, then sequester its byproduct (and add it to everyone’s utility bill) when trees already sequester CO2 naturally? One example proposed is to sequester 300 tons of CO2 a year for 50 years. He outlined tribal tools for fighting climate change: meaningful EPA protection; tribes as equal partners; and tribes needing allies.
He reached out: “What’s good for the tribes is good for everybody—you drink the same water; you breathe the same air; your kids play with ours.” He affirmed the precedent from the successful mining struggle against the proposed Crandon mine in Wisconsin, noting the significant EPA rulings giving the Mole Lake Chippewa water quality control and affirming Potawatomi control over air quality.
Sprague warned of the consequences of the Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision giving corporations the same free-speech rights as an individual person. We collectively pondered what corporate campaign donations will do to electoral process. Sprague quoted Wendell Berry, one of America’s finest essayists: “What I stand for is what I stand on,” and Sprague echoed Berry’s long-standing theme that technology cannot solve the problems created by technology [as evidenced daily in the ecosystem trauma of the unmitigated Gulf of Mexico oil disaster]. Lee offered some hope: “Can you imagine what this place would be like if you weren’t doing this [environmental] work?”

Ward Churchill keynoted the evening event to a large, packed room. His address was titled: “Water is Life: Reflections on an Omnicidal Equation.” He said that ecocide (the destruction of land, plant and animal species, i.e., ecosystems) is inseparable from genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas. In the U.S., he said, there’s a whole academic industry to deny genocide. (His book, Struggle for the Land: Indigenous Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide, and Expropriation in Contemporary North America is one answer.) Churchill reviewed the U.N. definition of genocide and gave terrifying examples from American Indian history. Great Lake is not fresh water; you can’t drink it straight, he said in one of his few remarks about water that evening.
Unlike many Indian educators and writers, he chose to confront rather that educate. After he laid into Christianity (“Christianity is obligated to destroy.”), some students got up and left. Ever the provocateur, Churchill said, in his overview of the 1960s social movements, that Malcolm X did not take it far enough when he said, “By any means necessary.” But Churchill (falsely) stated that to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., non-violence was only a strategy. Churchill also didn’t look critically at the violent history of AIM and the Black Panther Party to their respective communities—what they did in the name of self-defense, by any means necessary.
It seems to me that a revolutionary (or radical scholar) should incorporate the insights and lessons of all the social movements of his/her time, not just the 1960s/1970s self-defense movements, but the women’s movement as well. To give specifics from what I’ve seen in movement organizing: How does one treat people inside of movement organizations? How necessary is the process of listening to others and building consensus, rather than dominating an organization and its public strategies? How does one serve one’s responsibilities to one’s own children while doing politics? How accountable is one to “the people”—the immediate community? And, in nurturing multi-racial alliances, does building the broadest possible guilt work better than finding the most meaningful and effective commonalities?

For me and for few several friends who also attended, Churchill’s most effective comment came as part of the daytime’s discussion circle when he said: “How can you heal a wound that’s being inflicted?” It’s a striking challenge, as the insults to tribal governments, the ecocide in the Gulf of Mexico, and the global climate-change catastrophes continue unabated. I would borrow from Dr. King in his sermon (March 31, 1968), planning for the Poor People’s March to Washington, D.C., just before he was killed. Ultimately, King was searching for the “traumatic, non-violent action” to shut down D.C. We need to continue to find ways to work across cultural divides and to create effective dialogue and strategies, as did the workshop presenters at the 2010 Indigenous Earth Issues Summit.

Rick Whaley was organizer for the boat landing Witness for Non-Violence around Chippewa spearfishing, and co-author, with Walt Bresette, of Walleye Warriors: The Chippewa Treaty Rights Story (still in print from Beech River Books). Rick received his anti-racist training in National Organization for an American Revolution (a Detroit formation around James and Grace Boggs, who invited Malcolm X to speak at the Grassroots Leadership Conference, Nov. 10, 1963).

Photo: Amiee Cree Dunn (left), NMU Center for Native American Studies, introduces Jessica Koski (Keweenaw Bay Indian Community) at NMU Earth Issues Summit.

Presentations from the 2010 Indigenous Earth Day Summit maybe accessible for you via mediasite.nmu.edu/NMUMediasite/Catalog/pages/catalog.aspx?

For theogg.blog.com (July 2010)

On June 26th at 11 AM, tens of thousands of individuals will head to nearby beaches to join hands in a massive demonstration of support for clean energy. With enough supporters, these simple events will make a powerful statement the world cannot ignore – please join us and draw a metaphorical line in the sand against offshore drilling. Kathleen Rogers, President, Earth Day Network ———————————————————————————–Wisconsin events:
http://www.handsacrossthesand.org
www.beyondoil.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Rosemary Wehnes, Sierra Club
June 24, 2010 Rosemary.wehnes@sierraclub.org, 414-828-1357

*********MEDIA ADVISORY********
700 “HANDS ACROSS THE SAND” EVENTS OPPOSING OFFSHORE DRILLING, SUPPORTING CLEAN ENERGY
LARGEST GATHERING AGAINST OFFSHORE DRILLING IN HISTORY
SATURDAY, JUNE 26
WHO: Thousands of citizens from every state in the U.S., Puerto Rico and D.C., and 20 countries
WHAT: Citizens will gather on beaches and inland communities and join hands to recognize the tragedy in the Gulf and call for clean energy, no more offshore drilling
WHEN: Saturday, June 26
WHERE: 700 events nationwide and worldwide. NOTE: A complete list of events, all of which begin at 11 a.m. local time this Saturday, can be found here:http://www.handsacrossthesand.org.
A list of key events in Wisconsin the media may wish to cover follows at the end of this advisory.
VISUALS: Citizens will gather with signs and props and will join hands along scenic stretches of beach and inland cities and communities
Background: Hands Across the Sand was founded by Florida restaurant owner and surfer Dave Rauschkolb. The Sierra Club has organized hundreds of Hands Across the Sand events as part of its Beyond Oil campaign, aimed at ending America’s oil dependence over the next 20 years. http://action.sierraclub.org/Hands

SUGGESTED EVENTS FOR MEDIA IN WISCONSIN:
Madison
Law Park, S. Blair St & John Nolen Dr. Law Park is on Lake Monona along John Nolen Dr. east of the Monona Terrace Convention Center.
Contact: Madeleine Para, madpara@juno.com, (608) 446-4882

Racine
North Beach (Lake Michigan,) Barker & Chatham
Contact Melissa Warner, melissa.warner3@sbcglobal.net, (262) 639- 0918

Milwaukee
Bradford Beach (Lake Michigan,) 2400 North Lincoln Memorial Drive
Contact: Jessica Popp, poppj3431@uwc.edu, (262)719-6917

Superior
Wisconsin Point Road: From Superior, take US 2 and 53 to the east. Just outside of the city, turn left onto Mocassin Mike Road. Follow the road for a mile and take a left to access the Wisconsin Point road.
Contact: Jan Conley, janconley@centurytel.net, (715) 374-2088

Events also taking place in Eau Claire, River Falls and Sheboygan

Eau Claire
Eau Claire Co. Park@ Big Falls, County Hwy. Q east to N. 110th Big Falls Rd.
Contact: Michael Webb, wiscobackwoods@ yahoo.com, (715) 559-9011

River Falls
Kinni River In Glen Park
Contact: Kyrsten Parmeter, fruitloop2009@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126222514085424&ref=ts

Sheboygan
Deland Park Beach – Near The Lighthouse, Take Ontario east until it ends at the beach.
Contact: Arielle NaMara, Ari4Sheboygan@aol.com

live-the-solution.com

I’m Rick Whaley. I’m a plastics enabler. No matter how hard I try, the collection of plastic bags under my sink just keeps growing like mold on the food scrapes I save in the same spot for red worm composting. It’s not so much that I rarely get those free cloth bags I think will come from donations to environmental groups. I have plenty of Co-op cloth bags and Sheryl Crow-approved Whole Earth bags. The collection just multiples every time I end up coming home with unplanned purchases or from visits from kids or grandkids. Sometimes I tire of harassing store clerks to give me paper or no wrapping at all, when they’re only trying to help.

Plastic water bottles: another sin. I hand out fliers against their social and environmental costs, and still my collection grows. While sometimes preferable to glass at work when I’m trying to drink my eight glasses a day, I must resolve to go with the more durable plastic bottle sold by social justice causes or lobby for filters on the drinking bubblers I encounter. Plastic juice bottles are so easy to come by, but so hard to breakdown in landfills.

When I can’t sleep at night, I start perserverating (as we say in special ed) on that Plastic Vortex swirling in the North Pacific halfway between Hawaii and the mainland. The ocean garbage dump is the size of two states of Texas, for goddess sake, growing annually and endangering all my Whale cousins. Plastic bags, plastic toys, plastic bottles, almost every non-degradable invention imaginable. Maybe I’m just being obsessive, but if one grew up Catholic, how would one ever notice obsessive compulsions?

On Earth Day last year, my local mainstream paper (still kicking, but degraded by layoffs of the best writers) published a column by a local retired businessman arguing that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was a good idea because, really, it was such a small percentage of the Alaskan wilderness. The same thinking could apply to the great Pacific plastic dump: the size of Texas, doubled, is only a tiny percentage of that ocean’s great surface area. Who cares if wilderness or the wild oceans are living eco-systems, breaking down. I pray this elder “conservative” is not visited by garbage clogging his arteries or by tiny cells mutating into cancer in tiny areas of his biology. If one part of the web is invaded by toxins, isn’t the whole web in trouble?
New York City, as usual, represents the worst problems of urban areas and some of its attempted solutions. Since Fresh Kills landfill (NYC’s last active landfill) was closed in 2001, garbage is now being sent by truck to out-of-state landfills and incinerators. NYC exports over 10,000 tons of trash a day to landfills to Virginia and elsewhere. (The idea was once floated to send it to Haiti.) This means that, in addition to wasting resources that could otherwise be reclaimed, the city is exporting, along with its trash, the pollution problems that come with garbage burning, landfilling, and long-haul diesel truck shipments of waste. “Overall, the City’s solid waste budget has climbed over $300 million in just the last 4 years — a result almost exclusively of the costs of exporting garbage.” (NYC Independent Budget Office, 2001) A New York City law passed in 2008 requires manufacturers to take back their electronics, but the electronics industry fought it. The same year NYC mandated plastic bag recycling, soon to be superceded by a state effort to do the same.
The plastics industry bears some responsibility here, too. Wasn’t it the soon-to-be cuckolded husband in the old movie, The Graduate, who gives Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) that famous career advice?: “Just remember one word, son, plastics.” The benefits of plastic—replacing heavy metals in transportation, electronics, solar cells, pipes, valves, wiring—outweighing its negatives—dioxins in production; disposal of 100 million plastic bags annually; toxic BPA in baby bottles; non-biodegradable— might still be a good debate. But the bad design of much of industry, particularly placing its unhealthy cost onto other sectors in the economy and in the environment is a given. It’s time for a 12 Step Program to change the things I can and pray for the wisdom to effectively cuckold the relationship between government and the plastics industry.

1. Carry concealed cloth bags, everywhere, for safety.

2. Buy or make wooden toys for grandkids. Continue to make my favorite: kids’ chairs from fiberboard barrels (recycled from factories in Milwaukee) and kids’ tables from wood or tri-wall cardboard.

3. Squeeze more juice.

4. Keep trying for “a fearless Moral Inventory” to save the planet.

5. Continually tell whale stories, before it is too late.

6. Use nano-technology to identify and trace all toxins to their source and hold manufacturers responsible (an idea Paul Hawken raised in The Ecology of Commerce.)

7. Empower lawyers if industry refuses to responsibly design products or to pay health and disposal costs.

8. Demand from all responsible and conservative (conserving) politicians a green tax on toxins.

9. Expand my garden again this year.

10. Enjoin cities to mandate “at-store” recycling of used plastic bags, like NY State is doing, or charge fees for every plastic carryout bag used, as in Washington, D.C., or ban them altogether like San Francisco did.

11. Support local programs of Re-Use and Remanufacturing, local ordinances that mandate recaptured local materials, and tax-credits and loans to support this. This new industries/jobs could include glass remanufacturing, local textile recovery industries, recaptured organic materials for compost, energy and gas-capture. (See www.planetdrum.org “Beyond Recycling,” Fall, 2009)

12. Buy bulk at my co-op and add to my mesh bags collection.

For theoggblog.com

Celtic Cross sculpture by Redmond Herrity in Letterkenny, County Donegal

How About a Traditional St. Patrick’s Day?
March, 2010

St. Patrick didn’t drink. In fact, one of the things the Celtic chieftains admired in him was that he could get a good night’s sleep without the drink. Sausage and salted pork are traditional Irish meats; corn beef is American. Cromwell’s armies brought cabbage to Ireland. The Celts wouldn’t have worn green, either—it’s the color of things that die. Purple was the color preferred by royals.

St. Patrick’s Day in America has morphed, party-animal style, into a day to get drunk or, insult-the-earth style, into an excuse to dump green dye in the Chicago River and foam it up. Patrick’s life and the many good stories about him are worth remembering. It seems necessary, too, for most people, including many Irish Americans, to know the real St. Patrick.

St. Patrick was the first published anti-slave activist in history. At a time when British Christians were stealing Irish from along the east coast of Ireland, Patrick wrote: “…But it is the women kept in slavery who suffer the most—and who keep their spirits up despite the menacing and terrorizing they must endure. The Lord gives grace to his many handmaids.” During his life, Patrick negotiated with the court of Coroticus in England for the release of slaves, and, by the end of his life, the Irish slavery trade came to a halt.

Patricius (Patrick) himself, as a boy, was captured in England and made a slave in Ireland, probably around 400 AD. Part of his indenture was guarding sheep up in the mountains, with little clothing to keep him warm, for six years. Then one night he heard a voice in a dream: “You’re hungers are rewarded; you are going home.” He awoke and the voice continued, “”Look, your ship is ready.” He walked two hundred miles to the coast and hitched a ride on a ship carrying Irish hounds back to England.

It took him a few years to make it home. Even then he could not settle himself down, nor make up the years of schooling he had lost. Once night, again in a dream, a man he had known in Ireland, held up letters to him with the inscription, Vox Hibernacum—Voice of the Irish. Patrick then heard the voice of a multitude near a forest on the western sea, crying, “We beg you to come home and walk among us.”

Patrick studied for the priesthood and was then ordained both priest and bishop. He returned to Ireland around 432 A.D. to begin his mission. He traveled Ireland carrying a bata (stick) made of unblemished hazelwood, like the druids would have. But the druids didn’t welcome the competition. It is said that once Patrick and his disciples escaped their enemies in the woods when Patrick said a prayer (now known as St. Patrick’s Lorica) and turned himself into a deer and turned his followers into birds who rode his back out of the forest entrapment. A fine pagan miracle for a Catholic saint to be performing!

I hope those who are not Christian, or even those of us who are no longer Catholic, will forgive the following, but it is part of the historical record that Patrick taught the Irish to give up blood sacrifice (of humans) because he convinced them that the Sacrifice (on the Cross) had already been made. Patrick transmuted the pagan values of loyalty, courage, and generosity into faith, hope, and charity, as writer Thomas Cahill pointed out. Patrick affirmed the natural mysticism of the Irish that the whole world is holy, a legacy not to be lost in our own times of ecological crisis. In the 7th centrury, Adomnán (biographer of St. Colum Cille) extended the peace legacy by raising, for the first time, the Law of Innocents: no women and children killed in Irish wars.

Nor was this conversion of the Celts an easy task. The Irish were a tough lot. It’s said that one time Patrick was baptizing the King of Muenster and he inadvertently jammed the crozier (the bishop’s pointed staff) through the King’s foot. The King did not wince. When Patrick finally noticed what he’d done, he said, “Oh, my God, why didn’t you say something.?” The King said, “I thought it was part of the ceremony.”

The Irish respected Patrick. He was a brave man of peace. He loved the land and people of Ireland. He slept soundly without drink or bad dreams. How did it become that the Irish are said to drink so much? Two historical reasons may be: first, way back in time, it was a way to make sure the water was safe to drink (rationalization though it appears); and second, in subsequent centuries when only the oldest son could inherent land in Ireland, it became unofficial State and Church policy to let (encourage) young men drink all they wanted in the taverns, so they would never consummate certain relationships and inherent a wife and children they could not provide for. There are better forms of birth control for the planet now.

Why then should we be celebrating boozing so much? Drinking your way to a good time or to good art is as inspiring as buying autographed pictures of the Saint at the top of Croagh Patrick.

Matt Talbot (1856-1925) was a Dublin trade unionist and recovered alcoholic who gave most of his money to the poor. Matt Talbot Recovery Centers dot the planet nowadays: in my own Milwaukee, in Seattle, even in Poland, Australia, Scotland, and, of course, Dublin. Some Native Americans (whose cultures make sobriety spiritual as well as anti-racist work) have lobbied the Pope to make the Venerable Matt Talbot into an official Catholic Saint. He could be remembered as an Irish fighter against the slavery of addictions.

This time of year, your local area might have cultural activities worth celebrating. UW Milwaukee’s Celtic Studies often has Gaelic language gatherings, film and history events, music, or cultural lectures. Certainly there is fine Irish music to be found in many corners during March’s madness. Why couldn’t the fine art be toasting, storytelling, sporting, and singing without the alcohol?

This one time it was said, that Patrick was fasting and a mist came down from the mountain. Demons tempted and tormented him, but Patrick defeated them by throwing a bell into the mist. A bell is a call—a call to action, a sponsor’s call, a wake-up call. Ring your own bell. Or check out St. Patrick’s bell in the Irish National Museum.

Wear purple and have a peaceful and sober St. Patrick’s Day.

Rick Whaley, for the oggblog.com

Sources:

Patrick’s Confession and Letters
Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization (Doubleday, 1995)
Prof. John Gleeson’s Irish history and culture lectures at UW Milwaukee
Charlene Spretnak’s The Spirituality of Green Politics (Bear & Company, 1986): a call to and traditions for working with faith-based ecologists.

When did nuclear power suddenly and miraculously become “safe and clean,” as President Obama said in his recent State of the Union address? Or has it merely become miraculously “spun,” as the nuclear industry once again takes taxpayers, citizens, and government regulators for a ride. Wisconsin is considering easing the consumer and environmental protections so new nuclear power plants can be built in Wisconsin. Please join the Carbon-Free, Nuclear Free Lobby Day! The lobby day will take place February 23rd at the Wisconsin State Capitol, and will start at 9:00am. (see call to action at the end of this article and the notice of a Monday, Feb. 15, hearing, also in Madison).

Wisconsin common-sense safeguards on new nuclear plants are coming under multiple attacks. Assembly Bill 516 would entirely remove the safeguards on new nuclear reactors. The bill was co-sponsored by twenty five Representatives and 10 State Senators, the most support a safeguard repeal measure has ever received. The Governor’s proposed Clean Energy Act would remove the language requiring a federally-licensed facility for the radioactive nuclear waste. This would open up Wisconsin to more stockpiles of radioactive waste at nuclear power plants. It also increases the risk that the Wolf River batholith (granite bedrock) would once again be high on the list for a new national repository for radioactive nuclear waste.

No part of the nuclear production process is safe, as Winona LaDuke (Anishinabe environmentalist) and many other citizen activists have warned. Uranium mining contaminates mine workers and the environment (with 70% of the uranium in production comes from indigenous land around the world). The worst toxic waste disaster in U.S. history was the on July 16, 1979, at Church Rock, New Mexico, on the Navajo Reservation (Dine homeland). A uranium mining company tailings-pond dam of ninety million gallons of liquid radioactive waste, and eleven hundred tons of solid mill wastes, burst and spilled into the Rio Puerco, known to traditional Dine’ as To’ Nizhoni (beautiful water).

It doesn’t take an accident for a nuclear power plant to release radioactivity into our air, water and soil. During everyday routine operation, federal regulations permit these radioactive releases. Radioactive water is allowed to be released into the environment containing “permissible” levels of contamination. (Permissible does not mean safe.) …Some gases leak into plant interiors and are released during periodic “purges” and “ventings” into the atmosphere. [Nuclear Information and Resource Service, "Routine Radioactive Releases from Nuclear Reactors,” quoted on www.texasradiation.org/nukesfilth.html]

Worker contamination is part of U.S. nuclear history. Remember Karen Silkwood (the Kerr-McGee union activist) who was killed on November 13, 1974, at 28 years of age while driving to meet a reporter from the New York Times with documentation about plutonium fuel rod tampering at the Kerr-McGee uranium and plutonium plants in Cimarron, Oklahoma. She had been exposed to radiation in the plant and was killed in a suspicious auto accident. In a later lawsuit filed by Silkwood’s father, Kerr-McGee paid $1.38 million for her plutonium-contamination (but the company did not admit to any liability in settling the case).

Wendell Berry (Kentucky farmer and author) said in his famous essay, “The Reactor and the Garden:”

1. Nuclear power is extremely dangerous. For this, the elaborate safety devices and backup systems of the plants themselves are evidence enough. Radioactive wastes, moreover, remain dangerous for many of thousands of years, and there is apparently no foreseeable safe way to dispose of them. [Over 2000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste are currently produced annually in the U.S.]
2. Dangerous accidents do happen in nuclear power plants. Officials and experts claim that accidents can be foreseen and prevented, but accidents are surprises by definition. [In 2002 it was discovered that boric acid had eaten a hole in a reactor vessel’s steel lid at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio. Unnoticed for several years, it could have caused a nuclear meltdown.]
3. Nuclear experts and plant employees do not always act competently in dealing with these accidents. Nuclear power requires people to act with perfect competence if it is to be used safely. But people in nuclear power plants are just as likely to blunder or panic or miscalculate as people anywhere else.
4. Public officials do not always act responsibly…
(1979, republished in The Gift of Good Land, 1981)

Nuclear waste storage is currently handled on-site or shipped away, often to Indian land: Prairie Island, Minnesota, now, or slated for the long-proposed Yucca Mountain, Nevada, site in the heart of the Western Shoshone Nation. But the storage of radioactive nuclear waste, dangerous to life-forms for 100,000 years, is not welcome on Western Shoshone or Mescalero Apache land (New Mexico) or in northern Wisconsin.

Political conservatives who claim to support local control have opposed local control when in comes to the spraying of toxins near schools and homes (for example, Wisconsin’s 1993 Pesticide Preemption Law circumvented the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court support for this local prerogative in the Town of Casey), when it comes to the attempts to site a medical waste incinerator in family neighborhoods (Kenosha, 1989)—these two thanks to then-Gov. Tommy Thompson—and when it comes to the plans, begun in 1986 (Chernobyl was 1986; don’t they get it?), to use northern Wisconsin as nuke waste site.

Call to Action: Wisconsin value conservatives and environmental justice activists, including those who saved the Wolf River from the Crandon mine, are called to speak out again for communities and rivers of our state.

Speak Out Against Nuclear Power!
sponsored by Peace Action Wisconsin
Tell The Wisconsin Legislature:
No New Nuclear Power in Wisconsin!

Are you worried about the possibility of new nuclear power plants being built in Wisconsin? If so, please join us for the next important upcoming hearing (February 15th) and a lobby day, Feb. 23! We need your help to make a difference!

The new state climate bill (The Clean Energy Jobs Act) includes a provision that would remove common-sense restrictions on the building of new nuclear power plants (often called the “nuclear moratorium”). This would pave the way for the construction of new nuclear power plants in Wisconsin and would open Wisconsin (especially the Wolf River Batholith region) up to the possibility of becoming a national radioactive waste repository site. Please join us in asking the Wisconsin Legislature to remove this provision! There are three ways you can help:

Attend a Hearing! There are two hearings scheduled before the Assembly Special Committee on Clean Energy Jobs in February: Tuesday, February 2nd at 10:00am and Monday, February 15th at 10:00am. We need to pack these hearing rooms! For more information, or if you are interested in carpooling with others to these hearings, please contact lizk@peaceactionwi.org.

Contact your state legislators! We especially need people whose representatives are on the Senate or Assembly committees working on these bills. These legislators include: Representatives Spencer Black, James Soletski, John Steinbrink, Josh Zepnick, Joe Parisi, Ann Hraychuck, Cory Mason, Michael Huebsch, Phil Montgomery and Scott Gunderson. Senators Mark Miller, Jeff Plale, Bob Wirch, Dave Hansen, Bob Jauch, Glenn Grothman, Ted Kanavas and Mary Lazich. To find out if you are in one of their districts, and for contact information, try this link click here. Urge your legislators to remove the pro-nuclear measures!

Join us for our Carbon-Free, Nuclear Free Lobby Day! The lobby day will take place February 23rd at the State Capitol, and will start at 9:00am. You will receive training on lobbying your legislators and working with the media and will get information that will assist you in your lobbying. This is a great way to get a chance to interact with your legislators directly and really make a difference! The nuclear industry has lobbyists, we need them too! And who better than actual constituents?! For more information, e-mail lizk@peaceactionwi.org.
See also Wisconsin Resources Protection Council site (Al Gedicks articles…) and the Green Energy Alternative at Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice via wnpj.org/cfnf and on the Worldwatch Institute’s website.

The easing of nuclear plant licensing is another government bailout waiting to happen (this time for the nuclear industry), “given the 1.6 trillion dollars in risk exposure, which is why both industry and Wall Street consider nuclear power plants too risky to finance.” (www.worldwatch.org “Brave Nuclear World,” part 2).

Rick Whaley for theoggblog.com

On January 12, 2010, the shifting tectonic plates beneath the Haitian peninsula snapped from centuries of built up tension, bringing earthquakes, pain and misery to this already impoverished island. The fault lines of poverty, starting with the already-a-mess health care system, followed by urban building construction practices, only exacerbated the suffering and loss. (See emergency relief sites following article.)  According to the mayor of Port-au-Prince, 60% of the buildings in the city were shoddily constructed and unsafe in normal conditions, and they were only worsened by severe hurricanes in 2004 and 2008.  There are no building codes in Port-au-Prince, built on the geological fault line, despite recent foreign investment that President René Préval has secured and that benefit some in Haiti.  These free trade agreements heightened the rural exodus to the city that first began following the 1950s when Port-au-Prince was a small town of 50,000.  The pressures to leave the countryside have brought the capital’s population to 2 million, many of whom come to work now in sweatshops.

The international response to the earthquake disaster has been heartening, though the U.S. media has given little credit to the first countries to arrive with food, water, and medical teams (Jamaica, Cuba, and Venezuela come to mind; even Iceland set up medical shop before the U.S. did).  There is a fault line further revealed in U.S. media coverage of Haiti in crisis, beginning with overwrought headlines about survivors “looting” the food and supplies they need to survive.   Additionally, an editorial the New York Times (1-14-10) bemoaned the “poverty, despair and dysfunction that would be a disaster anywhere else but in Haiti are the norm.”  In a background article, the same paper referred to Haiti as a country “known for its many man-made woes—its dire poverty, political infighting and proclivity for insurrection.” (emphasis added)

This comment is salt in the wound of colonialism and is a sad echo of how the West views and still punishes Haiti for its successful 1804 slave revolt, led by Toussaint Louverture, against the French.  It took the United States 60 years and a civil war against its own institutions of slavery before our government finally recognized the independence of Haiti.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said that America is on the wrong side of world revolution.  He was talking about Viet Nam (in his speech at Riverside Church in New York City, April 4, 1967), but he could just as easily been talking about Haiti.

In this century the United States backed the 30 year dictatorship of the Duvaliers (1957-1986) to hold the line against the poor and any democratic uprisings.  Tens of thousands of Haitians died at the hands of the military and the Tontons Macoute death squads.  U.S. Marines were sent into Haiti twice in the past 20 years to back coups against the democratically-elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide, a former Catholic priest, was the first Haitian president elected by popular vote without Washington’s approval. The coups of 1991 and 2004, taken together, cost at least 13,000 Haitian lives.  U.S. operatives forcibly transported Aristide out of the country in 2004.

While former President Clinton has worked hard and put a compassionate face on the U.S. relief efforts, it is disconcerting to think he has another agenda, preceding and following the earthquake.  The media has highlighted his economic development work in Haiti, but has not delved deeper nor has Clinton answered questions about the real effects upon the poor of “free trade” agreements around the world, pushed by Democrats and Republicans alike in the last few decades. “In particular, Clinton has orchestrated a plan for turning the north of Haiti into a tourist playground, as far away as possible from the teeming slums of Port-au-Prince. Clinton lured Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines into investing $55 million to build a pier along the coastline of Labadee, which it has leased until 2050.  >From there, Haiti’s tourist industry hopes to lead expeditions to the mountaintop fortress Citadelle and the Palace of Sans Souci, both built by Henri Cristophe, one of the leaders of Haiti’s slave revolution.” (source: Wayne Madsen, Peninsula Peace and Justice website)  Such tours would be like visiting Gettysburg and not understanding what liberty means.

The Peninsula Peace and Justice report continued: “Clinton celebrated the possibilities of sweatshop development during a whirlwind tour of a textile plant owned and operated by the infamous Cintas Corp. He announced that George Soros had offered $50 million for a new industrial park of sweatshops that could create 25,000 jobs in the garment industry. Clinton explained at a press conference that Haiti’s government could create ‘more jobs by lowering the cost of doing business, including the cost of rent.’” In what kind of buildings, one might ask now, with what protections and wages for citizens of Haiti?

As TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson told Democracy Now! “That isn’t the kind of investment that Haiti needs. It needs capital investment. It needs investment so that it can be self-sufficient. It needs investment so that it can feed itself.”  To paraphrase Dr. King: True compassion in more than flinging aid to a disaster victim; compassion comes to see that a social edifice that produces poverty needs restructuring.

Relief aid to Haiti should be matched with an insistence that U.S. Marines and U.N. troops not be used for political purposes once relief efforts have stabilized.  (In 1996 Brazilian-led U.N. troops terrorized the Bois Neuf and Drouillard districts of Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince, killing Aristide supporters in the Lavalas Party.)  Former President Aristide remains in exile in South Africa and even President Obama, heroic in his rhetoric against the selfishness of Wall St. and the health care industry, has signed onto the Clintons’/Bushes’ strategy of keeping Aristide and just economic reconstruction out of Haiti.  I would add to Randall Robinson’s call for investments: solar power as an economic engine, just as Sun Ovens are an answer to deforestation caused by the desperate search for cooking fuel, even before the earthquake.

With food, water, and medical supplies still in short supply, and the Haitian government paralyzed, international aid efforts in the coming days and weeks will be critical to preventing more human suffering.

The following charities, along with many others are providing care. Please contribute if you can to this essential emergency relief:

* Partners in Health: Haiti
* Doctors Without Borders
* Oxfam America
* Yéle Haiti

Rick Whaley, independent Green (Milwaukee)
for theoggblog.com
January 2010

The following article by Brian Kaller appeared last year on the winter solstice on the wonderful site restoringmayberry.blog.spot.com.  It is a beautifully written look at raising a child on an imperiled planet. It is a message of hope against the backdrop of global realities. The Restoring Mayberry blog provides excellent coverage of Ireland/ecology news and planetary issues such as peak oil and climate change.  Check out the article “The Moment of Darkness” (used by permission) and the Restoring Mayberry site.  Rick Whaley

Almost vibrating with excitement, my four-year-old carefully carried ornaments to the pine sapling in our living room last night, cradling each one like they were diamonds. We have decked our halls with literal holly from our land, bought a Christmas goose, and are planning a quiet and intimate family Christmas here in rural Ireland.

Holiday cheer, though, struggles against the long winter darkness in this place – we are less than a thousand miles from the Arctic Circle, and today there will be seven hours of dull daylight — and this year, more than most, it also struggles against the world news.

“Papa, Father Christmas lives at the North Pole!” my daughter announced with the confidence of a four-year-old.

Yes he does, I said, wanting her to experience this magic while she can. What is the North Pole like?

“Well, it is covered with ice and … snow … all white and cold …and …”

But by the time she stops believing in a few years, I think to myself, it might not be. The 2007 ice shocked everyone, shrinking so much that the sea drew near the Pole. That year the IPCC had predicted a new ocean there by 2070. Two months later a new projection said 2030. Two months later they said five years. I’m already talking about Santa Claus; what else should I pretend?

What animals would Santa see at the North Pole? I ask.

“Well,” she begins, “there are polar bears, and seals, and …”

Perhaps not for long. The polar bears eat the seals that eat the fish that eat the plankton, and the plankton are dying – 73 percent down since 1960. Half the plankton – almost half the animal mass of the Arctic – have disappeared since the Simpsons’ first episode. Maybe it’s because the oceans are growing warmer, maybe because they are getting more acid, maybe it’s the plastic and chemicals we’ve poured into the oceans in my short lifetime. We just don’t know.

Reality intrudes into other arenas of childhood. I consider showing her Bugs Bunny cartoons with the Tasmanian Devil, and think: the real one is almost extinct. I introduced her to clips of Groucho Marx as Rufus T. Firefly, and she asked, “What is a firefly?”

Fireflies, I explained, are little bugs back where Papa grew up in America, and they light up the night …

Except not any more. They flickered yellow-green across the grass in my Missouri hometown – you could find your way in the dark by their light. I went back there last year and the nights were black – only a few flickers, and then deep in the Ozark woods.

We put together her jigsaw puzzles of the continents, and I am surprised to see Asia depicted, accurately, without Lake Aral. My childhood maps of Asia are now wrong – that massive lake, the fourth-largest in the world, disappeared in a few decades. Her map of Africa does not show Lake Chad, either – maybe the toymakers are thinking ahead.

We live a strange life, those of us who follow closely the breaking of the world. We look at our kitchens and offices and bus stops and see products of petroleum-powered machines on the other side of the world, transported here in petroleum engines. We flick past the mainstream media every morning and go straight to BBC Science, the Oil Drum and Energy Bulletin, scroll through the allied blogs and listen to podcasts on the bus – all while working regular jobs, paying mortgages and caring for children and elderly, each week filled with the burning usual.

In my case, I am also a father, and I want my daughter to have a decent life in a strange time. I am in my 30s now, but I knew five of my great-grandparents, all born in the 19th century, and my daughter, if she is lucky, may live to see the 22nd. Her life might span humanity’s most important decades, and before she is even an adult, the world could grow much more difficult – energy shortages, food shortages, economic collapses and a Malthusian crush. I want her to be able to realize what is happening, and not to be bewildered by a domino line of solitary unthinkables –you can’t drink the water here, the power went out, it’s not safe there anymore.

As a journalist, I know this is how the mainstream media usually show the world. Civil unrest broke out. Congressional leaders said. Troops encountered heavy fire. Our history books show us where we came from in the same tedious way – Black Tuesday followed by the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff followed by the CCC followed by Lend-Lease. In both cases, the story told is the story of federal policies, generals and brokers, far removed from the details of life, from the millions of activists who pushed change through, and from the ebb and flow of resources that drove the national engines.

As news events unfold in her life, I don’t want her to accept them as a string of disconnected troubles – I want her to see that the price spike in oil is connected to the food riots in Haiti, that the plastic wrapper on the celery is tied to the Texas-sized floating garbage patch in the Pacific.

And – while no father wishes grief for his daughter – I want her to be able to grieve for the vanished pieces of our world, not because it is fun or useful, but because it is the right thing to do. Older people are sometimes shocked at what is no longer common knowledge – to high school graduates today, the world before September 11 or Google is as remote and theoretical as Vietnam was to me, or as Pearl Harbour was to my parents. I’m not sure how I feel about the disappearance of two of the world’s largest lakes from the jigsaw puzzle – I want her to learn, when she is older, that they used to be there.

At the same time, I don’t want her to be overtaken by grief. At a peak oil conference in Cork last year I met a man who had journeyed there from Australia on behalf of his teenaged son. His son, Tasman McKee, learned about peak oil in 2005, read the works of the most dire peak oil prophets, joined list-serves that pore over details of a coming die-off, and he became more and more convinced that nothing lay before him but a desperate and despairing future. After a year of this, he vanished, and only after reading his computer files did his parents learn of his obsession. His body was found on a remote mountain two months after his suicide.

I have been getting back in touch with old friends from environmental campaigns, and many have also fallen off the map. Few went as far as Tasman, or as far as a church pastor and Green activist I knew who killed himself a few years ago. But many feel defeated. They had warned of peak oil, climate change and economic collapse for decades – now, some say, it’s started. It’s too late.

I want to spare my daughter this. I want to instill, to whatever extent a father can, the high and driving Spirit, the sanguine craving to restore. Of course it is too late to change everything, and always has been. Everything is too big. But each of us can do something where we are, and there are millions of us.

We could look at the world’s troubles and sink into grief, as we could when a fire sweeps through a forest or a flood wipes away a city. But forests and populations generally come back, sometimes better. We can mourn for the already extinct species, lakes and forests as we mourn our dead, but as long as we remain alive we are greater than grief. Nature will return, and with our help can return in time for our species to appreciate.

And for most of the world, it is not too late. Just a few years ago peak oil and climate change were obscure ideas, and they rapidly spread until they broke into the mainstream. We are trying to return to a simpler life, and so are millions of others – the largest movement ever, happening in every part of the world. I want her to know that we are not trying to turn the tide, for tides are natural. What is happening to the world was done by men, and will be undone. I want her to know, as Tasman McKee did not, that she is not alone.

So I try to teach her, in small and playful ways, how the outside world works, and the basic skills she might need someday. The lullabies I sing to her are old folk songs, because unlike pop songs today, they are meant to be sung by ordinary people together, and we might need such things again. When we pick weeds for soup I tell her what little I know of the plants that can be eaten and plants to avoid. I am proud that, when she was only two and was stung by a nettle, she immediately found the nearest dock-leaf in the grass and rubbed it on the sting – she had absorbed that one heals the other.

She loves animals as much as any child, and we talk in detail about where they live, what makes them mammals or birds or bugs, what they eat and what they do for us and each other. For now, it is just a game, but over time, perhaps, she will make connections.

She knows, in recited pieces of theory at least, how to cook, how to make yogurt and sourdough starter, how to compost. In time, I want her to learn how to ride and bridle, speak different languages, hunt, be sceptical, think logically and organize people. I can’t completely predict what she will face, nor can I plan her life, but I can show her a beginning.

But right now she is four, and is waiting for Santa. She patiently takes a single treat out of her Advent calendar each day, she helps make supper and she will fall asleep listening for reindeer hooves on the roof. Christmas is at this time of year for a reason, and not because we know when Jesus was born. It is just after the weakest day and the longest night, when the world prepares to be born again, when we take our first steps away from the darkness and ready ourselves for the arduous season ahead.

Energy Bulletin article, 2008.

But first a warning not to use my argument, or anyone else’s, including the NSA’s, as an excuse to dispose of Perkins’ entire work. Using a flaw in one argument to dismiss all of them is fallacious, and often wishful, thinking.

Perkins suggests in Confessions that the highly efficient and capable systems of worldwide transportation and communication could be used to help avert and remedy crises, rather than merely enriching the corporatocracy. Simple logic would seem to agree… and I also imagine most people are already asking some questions like why would the wealthy, powerful people who own and control those communication and transportation systems, ever use them to help poor people? Where’s the money in it?

To be fair, Perkins’ focus in Confessions was not upon solutions, and he has written and worked a lot since 2004. Nevertheless I think we’d benefit from someone with his background: corporate, shamanic, and Tom Paine patriotic; suggesting a strategy for those worldwide systems to actually serve the people.

Power Corrupts --Lord Action

Perkins seems to want people to have democratic control over their natural and cultural resources. I argue that if the worldwide transport and communication systems are essential too, they too need to be under the democratic control of those affected, rather than the corporatocracy. Confessions makes a strong case that the corporatocracy is the antithesis of democracy — only a stone’s throw from dictatorship. While a benign dictator is better than a tyrant, I think most of us know that the structure of dictatorship is the ultimate problem, recalling that old phrase that power corrupts.

Benign corporatocrats, to which Confessions might have alluded, are no more a solution than benign dictators. And keep in mind that benign personal values often cannot be followed by corporate executives on the job. The CEO of a lumber company may be a devout environmentalist, but their fiduciary duty requires them to clear-cut forests whenever possible or be prosecuted and replaced.

Further complicating the desire to serve people before profit with those systems is their very structure. Most people like to think that technology is inherently neutral. Jerry Mander effectively argues otherwise in his book The Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television.

These communications and transport systems are efficient, including cost efficient, as a result of high specialization and eliminating redundancy. The small numbers of those systems (think: corporate consolidation) and the specialized skills (internet and shipping/transport control citadels) and resources (undersea cables and seaports for example) structurally lend those systems to control by a few and incidentally makes them rather fragile. Those few with their hands on the levers of those systems have much more power than most other people, which sounds familiarly anti-democratic, oh, and power corrupts.

I don’t think that those possibly-world-changing systems will magically become run by a benign corporatocracy nor that that is a desirable long-term outcome. I also don’t think they’re likely to fall under the democratic control of the people. But if either were to begin to happen, the pernicious systems fragility would be used, possibly by Perkins’ successors, to threaten them back into serving the rich and powerful, or fall to the disgruntled. I’d like to be wrong.

Economic relocalization efforts, which are mentioned on Perkins’ web site, seem to be one response to helping people help themselves in spite of the possibly-useful worldwide communication and transport systems. I feel satisfaction in realizing that economic relocalization is the exact opposite of the scheme in which Perkins played his role, and against which we began protesting in the US, ten years ago, in Seattle.

The Madeline Island Anishinabe Gathering on Friday, September 25, 2009, was a remarkable weekend of reunions and networking, serious talks, festive meals and a ceremonial dance on Friday night. The island’s first name was Moningwanekaaning-Minis, the place of the golden-shafted flicker, and was the place the Lake Superior Anishinabe came to (returned to, some say) in their great migration in the early 1400s, before spreading out into the lands, now reserves, in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and beyond. The organizing group for this autumn 2009 reunion gathering was the Madeline Island Anishinaabeg Gathering Committee with resolutions of support from the Town of LaPointe, Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe, Bad River Band of Ojibwe, and others. The town of La Pointe passed a resolution welcoming Anishinaabeg again to this island in Lake Superior, and the community of La Pointe provided a wonderful lunch to everyone. “It was wonderful that the townspeople fed everyone,” said Lorraine Norrgard, one of the organizers, “and the committee fed everyone back—a beautiful exchange of food offerings.”

The gathering began on Friday morning with a Pipe Ceremony by honored Red Cliff elder Leo LaFernier and then a water ceremony led by Sue Nichols (Bad River Ojibwe). This was followed by morning and afternoon presentations on the importance of the Island to the Anishinaabeg in the past, present and future, featuring respected leaders and elders including Professors Joe Rose and Dr. Rick St. Germaine, activist and author Winona LaDuke, tribal leader Henry Buffalo Jr., and Robert Van Zile (of Mole Lake), all emceed by Jason Schlender (Anishinabe). Paul Demain (Onieda,/Anishnabe and the editor/publisher of News from Indian Country) also spoke and NfIC live-streamed the speeches over the Internet. The Oshkii Giizhik Singers (Native American women singers from the Fond du Lac/Duluth area) performed, and Frank Montano (Red Cliff) sang, told stories and added flute music to the serenity of the island that day. The sharing circle from the audience also brought forth stories, comments, and current issues from Chippewa grassroots activists today, including Butch Stone and Gene Artishon who retold the story of blocking the sulfuric acid trains on the Bad River reservation in July 1996 and thereby stopping the White Pine mine that would have drained into Lake Superior.
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The day-long talks concluded with a traditional feast and a ceremonial dance that invited several drums and dancers from the 19 Anishinabe bands. That night dancers in full regalia from the U.S. and Canada danced again on the historic homeland island. Saturday, September 26 events included a free Open House at the Madeline Island Museum (remodeled in recent years), with displays from Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission’s and from Winona LaDuke’s Native Harvest, a showing of a GLFWC film by Lorraine Norrgard on the Sandy Lake tragedy, and a museum film on the history of Madeline Island. The National Eagle Center brought an eagle as a full participant in the gathering—an eagle that will never fly again due to injuries from mercury poisoning and automobile injury—which led the grand entry of the Friday evening dance. The Oshkii Giizhik Singers did an encore at the Saturday event. While I was standing in front of the series of museum paintings depicting Chief Buffalo’s famous 1854 trip to D.C. to undo the Removal Order, I spoke to Henry Buffalo, Jr., a direct descendent, and asked if the family was OK with the portrait of Chief Buffalo on the cover of the Walleye Warriors: The Chippewa Treaty Rights book. His reply was, “The more people who see that image, the better.”

The speeches I heard and other conversations I had were very helpful in furthering my own ally’s understanding of what sovereignty means in the modern era. This also relates to the question public school teachers face in how to teach Wisconsin Indian culture and treaty history without reinforcing the stereotype of Native Americans as merely historic peoples (not around anymore). Robert Van Zile said, “Sovereignty means building the inner structure of how we will live in this society today…the medicine lodge, the big drum, ceremonies with family, the teaching lodge, language and prophecies, … and tribal schools with Anishinabe curriculum.” Winona LaDuke also raised these self-determination issues for today, particularly renewable energy technologies as democratic, locally-controlled economics, Native gardens (food sovereignty), and freedom from genetically engineered food, particularly commercially-grown “tame” rice, as she calls it.

Many speakers alluded to the late Walt Bresette, Red Cliff Chippewa organizer and activist. (Walt took Winona over to the island for her first visit; she now owns land and gardens there). During Butch’s and Gene’s retelling of the train-tracks mining protest, they recalled Walt’s organizing style: “Come on; we’re going to stop a mine today.” Walt’s political handprint seemed all over the event to me, and even the cadence of his storytelling could be heard in Professor Rose’s and that chuckle of Walt’s was echoed in his cousin’s laughter. Walt’s daughters were there, Claudia celebrating her birthday that day, and Katy there with her son, Braedon, and her brand-new baby girl, Leila. Some discussions continue on a Walt Bresette library (or room within the proposed Mishomis Center Library at University of Minnesota, Duluth). Walt’s family—Cass Joy and their children, Claudia, Katy, and Robin Walter Bresette—want to honor Walt’s memory by attaching his legacy to his community, the Red Cliff Band. “We have been discussing this since he passed on, and we are not sure what form it will take, but as the children become adults, it becomes increasingly their right and their legacy,” says Cass. “We want to support and celebrate the leadership of this new generation, particularly the women, who are coming into their own, regaining their Ojibway language and culture and passing it on to the next generation, their children.”

There were other spirits present as well on Madeline Island: the sacred sites—the old Anishinabe cemetery of grave-houses and tombstones; the Sandy Lake Memorial boulder; and the old burials under the tourist golf course there. Sacred Sites Run members Kathy Lichterman (Anishinabe), Starr Bresette (Anishinabe), and I were given a tour by a local supporter of his place and the woods with mint and hawkweed, his huskies race team and year-round “Alaska” cabin, and at a different location, a ring of cedars of uncertain meaning. The island stories and lessons of old leadership struggles and music and drumming were swirling around the weekend there.

Rick Whaley, October/Nov. 2009
Photo by Bob Albee

IndianCountryNews.com has a few Nick Vander Puy interviews from that special weekend which was the anniversary of the signing of the 1854 treaty on the island: on the iTV link under “Educational” (see interviews with Robert van Zile; Winona LaDuke, and Gerald Perry.) Under “Political Issues” on the NfIC iTV site, see also the Henry Buffalo interview on “Tenacity for Ojibwe Treaty Rights” from the Summer 2009 GLIFWC Treaty Rights conference).
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) via www.glifwc.org/publications

Food Sovereignty update: Ben and Dona Yahola played important centering and spiritual roles at the 2nd annual Growing Food and Justice Initiative in Milwaukee in October. Ben is next in Prior Lake, Minnesota for the “Shakopee Food and Homelands Conference,” this Nov. 18-21, 2009, where he will present on a panel and lead regional break-outs discussing Mvskoke Sovereignty work on restoring food economies. Conference Co-Chairs: Dr. Dan Wildcat (Haskell Indian Nations University) & Winona LaDuke (Honor the Earth)
See flier at www.nativepeoplesnativehomelands.org