I used to think it was just him being lucky in the plausible deniability department.

1. Why doesn’t Bill Bennett have a final read over of emails “he” sends out?
2. Why isn’t he actually responsible for ensuring his campaign follows the law?
3. Or does he just like to blame other people when he gets called out for inappropriate behaviour?

Whatever the case, I hope he runs for leader of the BC Liberal party.

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This year’s sea ice meltdown is well ahead of 2007 in loss of both area and thickness. The ice is failing at a record pace, in part, because it is at a record low thickness for the date. This ice is thinning at a record rate because of warm air temperatures above and because of melting from below.

via Daily Kos: Arctic Sea Ice Meltdown Accelerates: DK Greenroots.

See http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2010/060810.html

Here’s what I get from this graph:

• 30 years of general decline
• 2007 really sucked
• 2010 looks like it will be far worse than 2007 and it’s only early July
• Anomalous  years affect the line of best fit and normalize outlier behaviour

What does this mean? Climate change is not a straight line effect, but more logarithmic. Positive feedback loops accelerate the melt. And while everyone who thinks sea ice melting won’t rise ocean levels, that’s still correct. But what missing ocean ice will do is remove the plugs that keep the Antarctic and Greenland glaciers from tumbling into the sea.

When is the tipping point?

When do we realize something’s changed?

When do we think that we actually have to start really changing our lives in a myriad of ways, including cutting down on intercontinental trade that hurts economically vulnerable people, but also increases GHGs? The irony, of course, in international trade is if the northwest passage opens up due to Arctic ice melt, lots of innovators in intercontinental trade are going to want to exploit that new route, thereby exacerbating the problem. Suddenly, Churchill, Manitoba may become a shipping hub over the pole.

But in the end, I’m not really worried about climate breakdown and how it would affect me or my loved ones because so many techno-disciples believe humans are so innovative that someone will develop a superhero app that will save us all just before we cross the brink.

And if it weren’t for the SurvivaBall, I think we would have to get going on some plans here.

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While I was watching the Twitter feed of #g20 marches in Toronto and the draconian police response yesterday afternoon, the BC NDP’s leader released two statements on leadership and tourism. They demonstrated why the party is losing credibility among those desperate for a constructive vision for a better future, and those who care about economic reform, the environment and meaningful political participation in the 21st century.

1. Vision: “I believe that leadership is about listening carefully to British Columbians and then making decisions that are in the broad public interest. … That’s the way best decisions are made.”
   1. We actually need leaders who can inspire us with ideas that will truly make a difference with our current ecological, energy and economic challenges like the world has never before seen. In the absence of new ideas we slide towards the opposite: seeing our leaders as cynical or vision-free politicians who can listen to people, then merely make shrewd policy based on what they hear, regardless of principles.
   2. The BC NDP has unanimously endorsed its Sustainable BC plan twice at conventions in 2007 and 2009. Only now, a year after a third electoral loss, is the party starting to implement the vision. It should not be this complicated!
2. Priorities: “I believe that it’s time for a new positive agenda for our province, an agenda that grows our economy, enhances our public services and looks out for our environment.”
   1. Public services are critical to ensure the rapacious profit motive does not suck life out of necessities like healthcare, education and other public goods. That’s good.
   2. But to merely “look out for the environment” is just not good enough considering the scope of how we have threatened our ecological existence for the last 1.5 centuries. The BC NDP’s Sustainable BC plan, in fact, even calls for “a diversified economy that operates within the environmental carrying capacity.” The environment cannot be a subset of the economy, which is how the BC NDP is operating now.
   3. Finally, “economic growth” is simply the wrong paradigm. It still sounds fine for people who haven’t heard of or fully understood the violence to our society from global capitalism and the worship of GDP growth, even with the most recent global economic meltdown. It has cost us trillions to just fix this most recent mess. Anyone who thinks there won’t be a dark, deregulated capitalism sequel cannot read history.
   4. A sad irony is the fact that at the 2009 BC NDP convention there was a workshop on Steady-State Economics put on by the party’s environment committee, the same group that actually came up with Sustainable BC. If you are interested in an economy that can exist within the planet’s environmental carrying capacity, you need to look at Steady-State Economics. Deaf ears, however, exist in the party when we continue to hear about the need for economic growth.
3. Unsustainable Tourism: “Tourism is an essential part of a sustainable B.C. economy. The Approved Destination Status agreement [with China] is an amazing opportunity to grow this critical sector of our economy and build relationships with one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.”
   1. Global tourism is not sustainable. What is the ecological footprint of travelling around the world? It’s too high. Our tourism sector should be focusing on sustainable travel with low footprints, not from tourists from around the planet.
   2. Why is the BC NDP excited about Chinese tourism income? Because they have money and we can “grow this critical sector of our economy.” The Chinese wealth is based on global corporate trade in goods and services combined with massive human rights abuses and environmental devastation, working with horrible retail partners like Walmart, all resulting in China’s growing wealth. There is nothing sustainable about endorsing this economic model or trying to glean some of its wealth. The lure of dollars is flashy when we look to China. Building relationships with that nation, however, makes us further dependent on its economic model of optimized exploitation. That sickens me that we would seek to be a parasite on such a moral criminal.
   3. “New Democrats have taken the lead in having in-depth discussions with community business leaders to figure out the best ways for B.C. to seize the opportunity of our new status with China.” This is simply incompatible with Sustainable BC. In fact, I would expect the BC Liberals to endorse the NDP’s actions here. Further, this approach reflects what kind of listening the BC NDP is doing with British Columbians and what kind of choices and priorities it is making. And when I say that I want a BC NDP that is a beacon of hope, clarity, vision and inspiration to address the dire economic, energy and environmental challenges we have created for ourselves, this is just heading in the wrong direction.
   4. And frankly, it is somewhat galling that the Chinese government, a gang that is profoundly not anyone’s role model, should bestow on us an approved destination status. Actually, it is more a reflection of our sorry state of economic morality. So much for ever trying to tie human rights improvements to continued trade with China when what we really want is for them to like us enough to let us lure their new idle rich to our resorts.
   5. Finally, “New Democrat tourism critic Spencer Chandra Herbert raised concerns about B.C.’s readiness to get the word out that we are open for business“ [my emphasis]. Sadly, we need to rewind to 1984 to see how “open for business” began such an economically despairing quarter century of Canadian economic history: “Canada is open for business again,” said Brian Mulroney. His audience, 1,450 U.S. executives and their guests at an Economic Club of New York dinner in Manhattan’s Hilton Hotel, evidently liked what they heard: they gave Canada’s new Prime Minister two standing ovations. Mulroney, 45, vowed that his government would be “there to assist and not to harass the private sector in creating new wealth and the new jobs that Canada needs.” Honestly? I cannot see how the BC NDP can be a beacon of hope for the 21st century if it is now spouting Mulroney Free Trade rhetoric.

I want the BC NDP to be worthy of support as not just a lite-beer alternative to the BC Liberals. I want the party to be so focused on a sustainable 21st century and beyond that people flock to it.

I’m not seeing it now.

What I am seeing is the party ignoring its Sustainable BC policy for years now. The party has finally started recognizing its membership is in decline despite its polling improvements and success in the legislature, but it is unable to figure out why. That’s just sad.

We need only look to the party’s new Our Province, Our Future consultation process to see what it is blind to: membership engagement. Practically everything I wrote about unions engaging their membership applies to political parties. But when we look at the Our Province, Our Future website discussion forum we see only 14 posts in almost 2 months.

Granted, not all party members are all over the interwebs. Many don’t have email. Many won’t share their email address with the party. But the party does have at least a few thousand member email addresses. But how many members have received an invitation to contribute to the Our Province, Our Future website discussion forum. How many have received an email letting them know the site even exists? Seriously, how hard would it be to at the very least email a few thousand members? Fundraising emails come out without much difficulty. Why not something of more substance if the party values members for more than their financial contributions?

The conclusion I do not want to draw from this is that the party leadership is not really interested in engaging its membership beyond taking their money. But judging from this wholly inadequate explanation for the Our Province, Our Future promotional methods, I have little left to conclude.

I had a dream of Sisyphus and futility. How many times should a voter look to the same political party for signs of hope? A short answer rests in the appalling voter turnout last May, under 50% for the first time ever. Beyond the party’s membership decline, it saw a decline in donations in key ridings, a decline in volunteers, and a decline in its base actually turning out to vote.

Sisyphus was trapped, but BC voters aren’t. If the BC NDP continues to show itself largely bereft of progressive vision, inspiration and policy that can truly address the real challenges of the 21st century, people will go elsewhere.

I can’t help but think about how inspirational it was for the BC NDP to bring Thomas Homer-Dixon to its 2007 convention to speak about resilience and being proactive in the face of paradigm shifting challenges. That was an inspiring time. Sustainable BC was a grand policy statement at that convention that spoke to Homer-Dixon’s issues, all a year and a half before the last election. People were optimistic.

Then it all ended up under the bus.

And now we’re sucking up to China for tourism investment and the party is channeling Brian Mulroney.

• July 2, 2010 -- Yuan Good Turn Deserves Another (3)

An interesting thing happened a few years ago: green got big. Saving the environment became all the rage in even the most conservative of quarters (i.e. the G8). Reducing emissions, tackling climate change, encouraging the use of alternative energies—a new day had truly dawned for humanity. While certain intellectually challenged sectors of the American Right, in particular, continued to maintain that this whole “climate change,” mercury in our drinking water, destruction of the Amazon Rainforest thing was all part of some elaborate communist plot, most of the international community agreed that it was, genuinely, a serious issue; one that posed a serious threat to the welfare of all people on this Earth.

And then the global economy collapsed. Not because of this communist plot, mind you, but because that’s what capitalism does. It collapses, on a regular basis. If we just take a look at the 20^th century, for instance, we see major economic downturns in 1901, 1907, 1910-11, 1929 (you know, the big one), 1973, and most of the 1980s and 1990s in rotating fashion across the US, Europe, Russia and Japan. The 21^st century began with the collapse of the so called “dot-com bubble” which was followed by a wave of corporate scandals of fairly epic proportions (Enron, WorldCom, Tycho etc). The 2000s had been shaky at the best of times, but it wasn’t until 2007 that the floor well and truly gave out. As of 2010, the crisis has yet to be subdued and a number of advanced capitalist countries stand on the brink of collapse (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain—the so called PIGS economies).

So, capitalism, which had always been a failure for the working and impoverished peoples of the world (i.e. the vast majority of humanity), once again had an explosive bowel movement. Unfortunately, this time it wasn’t merely a few billion people that would suffer as a result—it might be the entire population of the planet, as a whole. Suddenly, climate change as an issue disappeared. The focus, once again, became saving the market from itself. Banks needed be bailed out, oil companies needed to be given more favourable tax breaks and regulations needed to be scrapped for all our fellow corporate “citizens.”

In one, sweeping moment even the illusion of “hope” in the ability of the capitalist system to reform itself, to pause, to reflect, to attempt to save that which sustains life itself…washed away. The environment would have to wait. The market was the entity which needed saving. The very thing that had brought the Earth and humanity to the brink (and, arguably, well past the brink) of annihilation was to be saved. Trillions of dollars would be invested in preserving an economic and political system which had failed like clockwork for every generation since its inception; both in daily practice and in seismic episodes, experienced by the entirety of the globe at once. Capitalism, the single most destructive force in history would have to be saved, they told us.

The idea that “market-incentives” could be used to save the environment, to resolve the problem of climate change was quickly unmasked as farcical in one, simple gesture. Presented with a choice between saving humanity itself or preserving capitalism—the world’s leaders, both political and corporate, chose capitalism. The monolith would be resurrected once more.

Another irrelevant gathering of these global elites, these walking criminal syndicates is set to take place in Toronto over the next few days. We have been told that the environment is not a priority, nor are social issues such as maternal health and women’s rights or poverty or education. The priority is “stabilizing the world’s financial system(s).” The stone heads, as it were. No expense will be spared to protect these dignitaries as they meet to carve up the rotting carcass of a planet in its dying throes.

The billion dollar security budget, the razor wire, the surveillance apparatus, the riot police and private security forces—these are merely the symptoms of a rot far, far deeper. Capitalism is a cancer and our species seems to have developed a terminal case thereof. Our leaders and our states have failed and failed and failed again to act in the face of certain environmental and social collapse if this system is allowed to continue on unabated. We, ordinary people, must organize, must oppose, must resist, must challenge, must seek to undo this system like every generation before us has. Except unlike they, we must do so with the knowledge that if we fail to act now it may very well be the last opportunity anyone will ever have to save what remains of this planet.

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Three Mohawks from Quebec travelled to Cochabamba for April’s climate summit. They left on the Haudenosaunee Passport since they accept neither Canadian nor American citizenship. They were easily allowed out of Canada with those credentials.

But then Canada wouldn’t let them in unless they signed a Canadian document. Their story is moving and inspiring. There are allies and enemies to their desire to travel internationally under their own flag. And it shames me to say that most of the enemies were Canadian officials and our policies.

“The Haudenosaunee Passport is a non-violent expression of our distinct identity as a sovereign people,” Deer concluded. “While both Canada and the United States claim us as their citizens, the Haudenosaunee Passport is a constant reminder that our people have never acquiesced our citizenship as Haudenosaunee people. It also provides our people an alternative to acquiring Canadian or U.S. documentation.”

via Prevents Mohawks from Returning from Bolivia with Haudenosaunee Passports

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The government announced yesterday funding to ensure discounted fares for students around the province. The CFS declared a victory holding the government accountable to its election promise.

I have a few questions about this announcement:

1. Will the BC Liberals actually deliver the money in this era of tough choices?
2. Will they re-announce this money as often as they do other transit re-announcements? Have you heard of the Evergreen Line, once, twice, three times?
3. Has someone done the math to figure out if the money the government is pledging will be sufficient to pay for the subsidized rates and increased service required to make the system work?
4. The government enjoys legislating public sector wage increases without funding them, forcing public bodies to cut elsewhere to cover those cost increases. Will the transit systems be forced to cut elsewhere to cover a funding shortfall? Will the systems be “encouraged” to further privatize or partner with corporations or even more radically increase the adcreep in our transit systems?
5. How are post-secondary students so lucky to achieve such a funding increase for transit, but not actual education, especially when after being re-elected a second time this government slashed health authority funding across the province by $360,000,000? Perhaps post-secondary students without cars are a growing demographic of BC Liberal voters?
6. Why, other than to enhance its greenwashing agenda, do the BC Liberals toss a few millions to expand transit to help the environment while spending billions to increase car traffic and exacerbate climate breakdown?

Good news like this needs to be watched carefully. And I know the CFS will be watching this carefully. If the announcement is less than what it seems  I’m sure we’ll hear about it, or that student lobby body will certainly lose a portion of its credibility.

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But how does Vancouver ever become the first car-free city in North America? It’s all about systems theory.

Sure, elected leadership reflect dinosaur corporate interests. It will take us to “think outside the box” and embark on “grassroots mobilization” to self-actualize our “community organizer” vibes…and all the other cliches. But really, it’s about understanding the interconnectedness of everything.

And it isn’t necessarily about converting everyone who shows up to the festivals and getting them to sign a petition. It’s about living the community we envision. People will come. They will enjoy the day. The next day they will watch cars drive over all the great kids’ chalk art. A small part of their souls will be maimed.

Then next year we will have maybe more than four locations. Then we’ll have more than one day. Then people will finally stop griping about bike lanes in the downtown.

And through this we simply manifest the reality we want. Systems theory. Let’s see how the main areas of systems theory play out in car free days:

We move from understanding ourselves merely as isolated individuals to seeing ourselves as parts of a social, community whole. We are part of a hive mind. We have our own existence, but when we get to stroll down the yellow line of Main Street, we’ll see how our neighbours are a part of us.

We will realize that the objects in our communities are not distant items, but connected to us. When cars drive on our streets, we are separated from all these objects. Sitting on the pavement in the middle of Main and King Ed chatting with friends and sharing popsicles helps us see objects as part of us, not alien.

In the end, we become more attuned to our context. We get to question it from the perspective of sitting on the road instead of bolting across King Ed on a yellow light to catch a bus.

When we adjust our normal relationship with roads we get to move past the normal and embrace the rich quality of alternatives: what we can do with streets if we don’t let cars on them. Knowing comes from doing.

Instead of being humans with defined roles in an urban world, when we shift our relationships, we notice the patterns and processes that consume us. We enjoy different relationships and get to evaluate whether we really need the prescribed, unquestioned patterns we have endured forever.

Finally, when we take the rubber off the road we get a chance to build new patterns and relationships with the people, landmarks, shops, artists and green space in our road communities. We can’t get outside any box without experiencing an alternative. Imaginations can be powerful, but a car-free day is worth a thousand words.

And just like another great cliche bumper sticker: when the people lead, the leaders will follows. Eventually, the politicians will start showing up to car-free days because they’ll realize there is a serious constituency there. That’s where we earn the political legitimacy to force the leaders to follow our lead and start legislating car-free space.

And the fact that it’s all an open source, volunteer coordination effort is just icing on the cake. Actually, really, though, if it were all sponsored by Red Bull or Dasani, it would flop.

So what are you doing on Father’s Day? I know what I’ll be doing.

YouTube – Car Free Vancouver.

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I know it is irresponsible for any sensible person to adopt the radical left wing stance that big corporations always care about profits and that they’re the root of all evil, but after watching BP handle the oil spill this past month and you have to start wondering if a large corporation, when their main source of revenue is hazardous material like crude oil, had any intention of being responsible when it comes to handling their product or have any concern about how it affects ordinary people if an accident occurred.

via My Can Of Contemplation: Maybe Corporate Irresponsibility ISN’T Just a Leftist Fad….

BP clearly sucks. But we are all complicit because oil is the lubricant of our society. The oil disaster is a wake-up call for all of us. Corporations by definition and legal mandate “always care about profits” to the point that any charitable or socially responsible acts are goodwill, hence profit, generators. As legal persons corporations are defined with the goal of maximizing shareholder wealth.

BP saying they’ll pay for the cleanup is hilarious considering how Exxon has not paid for the Valdez spill.

1. CAN the leak even be plugged?

2. CAN the damage be cleaned up at all?

3. Does even BP have enough money to pay for it?

My guess is “no” to all three questions. Technology will not save us. The precautionary principle does, however, have a lot to offer here.

The reality is that we as a society are inclined to give BP a free ride on this one to avoid completely weaning our society off oil and leaving the oil in Canada’s tar sands.

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The entire editorial is below, but here are ten comments about how deluded the editorial department at the Globe and Mail is.

1. We live in a post-modern world, if not a post-post-modern world. Corporate media is modernist by design; its paradigm is authoritatively objective, one-way, profit-driven, broadcast and top-down. That sounds pretty jaded to me. The Yes Men can only be seen as jaded because they no longer recognize the primacy of modernist corporate media as being much of a useful force in society unless it is subverted and manipulated.
2. Since the medium is the message, increasing proportions of the population are rejecting the message of corporate media’s medium.
3. The Daily Show and Colbert Report are not anomalies today, but they do threaten corporate media’s monopoly over news/truth/opinion. In fact, just today someone’s again writing about how newspapers could even have a future!
4. The Globe and Mail got quite badly punked by the Yes Men in Copenhagen in December, as did all other corporate media. In fact, much corporate media in Canada showed themselves with their pants down when they recently reported the death of Gordon Lightfoot while he listened to it all on the radio while in his dentist’s chair. Fact-check much?
5. Suggesting the Yes Men are the actual threat to the believability of all forms of communication is laughable since corporate mainstream media are constantly guilty of suppressing critically important news while promoting their neoliberal politics and politicians while marketing sensationalism for maximizing their corporate profit.
6. Suggesting that all forms of communication are threatened by the Yes Men is itself sensationalist, reactionary and further proof that the editorial staff doesn’t really get post-modernism in media…but then how could they, they are the established paradigm.
7. The first half of the editorial describes the Yes Men antics, thereby demonstrating the potency of their brand of satire with free publicity.
8. While the Globe editors are correct in describing satire as a “legitimate form of comment,” their demand that there be “sufficient warning for the public” indicates a few things. The Globe editors didn’t get the joke in Copenhagen and feel embarrassed. They think the public is too stupid to get ironic messages. Again, see The Daily Show and Colbert Report. Those in the public who are duped need to learn the lesson that we should question information authorities and verify sources, then compare stated messages with confirmed messages. Then we need to evaluate in our own minds what policies ought to be. This is the point of satire, which the Globe editors are clearly missing.
9. Their example about no one ever showing up for real free concerts in Missoula is a small risk to society as a whole that is being constantly misinformed by corporate media neglecting its investigatory role.
10. I refuse to allow the Globe editorial staff to be the ones to inspire me to ask the question of whether anyone believes a message. Corporate media is so compromised when it comes to truth, they have very little standing to even pose that question. That they end their editorial with it, with presumably a straight face, is laughable.
11. A bonus comment: ultimately, I hope I am being duped by an editorial that is actually ironic in itself. That perhaps the Globe actually welcomes the antics of the Yes Men and their disciples and have written this editorial in an attempt to mock their own paradigm. If so, I will gladly tip my hat to them. But I’m not holding my breath.

Say no to the jaded world view of the Yes Men

Their ilk threatens the believability of all forms of communications.

Gresham’s Law holds that devalued money eventually drives out good money. The more inferior currency floating around, the harder it is for people to believe in the real thing. The same goes for the news.

Last week, a widely circulated news release claimed, “Shell halts Nigerian offshore drilling in visionary new remediation plan.” The document carried a Shell logo at the top and was distributed via a legitimate-looking website. At the bottom was a media-relations contact number (answered by a real person) and all the standard legal boilerplate. The message: After the Gulf of Mexico oil leak, Shell was halting all its drilling operations in the Niger River delta and embarking on an $8-billion environmental rehabilitation program.

It was, of course, entirely bogus.

A group calling itself the Nigerian Justice League later claimed credit for the ruse, saying they drew their inspiration from the Yes Men, a group of anti-corporate pranksters familiar to Canadians. In December, before the Copenhagen climate change summit, the Yes Men produced a realistic-looking press release purportedly from federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice, claiming Canada was adopting strict carbon-emissions targets and donating $13-billion to Africa. It was accompanied by a fake Wall Street Journal article, a fake endorsement from a Ugandan politician and, later, a fake retraction by Mr. Prentice. All this to draw attention to what the Yes Men considered Canada’s lack of commitment on climate change.

Both pranks got enough press coverage to be considered successes by the perpetrators. With the Yes Men now drawing eager imitators, we’ll likely be seeing much more of this sort of thing. And that’s bad news for everyone.

Satire is a legitimate form of comment. But it requires a deft hand; and sufficient warning for the public to get the joke. A recent prank in Missoula, Montana, falsely promoted a free thank-you concert being staged by Smurfit-Stone, a container company, and Macy’s department store, two firms that recently shut operations in the city. But to what greater purpose? It had no discernible impact on the corporations in question. And if Missoula ever hosts a free concert in the future, no one will show up.

The jaded world view of the Yes Men and copycat pranksters threatens the believability of all forms of communications. It could eventually undermine the very kinds of positive achievements the activists claim to demand.

Consider the historic truce last week between environmental groups and the Canadian forestry industry on logging practices. It seems such a surprising and radical departure from both sides’ normal behaviour, after years of animosity, that it might easily be considered a prank. In fact it is very good news. But will anyone believe it?

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Kerala and Sikkim in India and Montgomery County in Maryland are working on organic farming and carbon taxes.

The southern Indian state of Kerala has officially announced a new farming policy which aims to covert all agriculture in the state to organic methods over the next ten years.

…

Recently, the state of Sikkim, in the northeast part of the country, announced that it had converted 6,000 of its 70,000 hectares of agricultural land to organic agriculture, on way to converting it all by 2015.

via Indian State of Kerala Starts 10-Year Conversion to All-Organic Farming : TreeHugger.

And when it comes to first steps towards a truly effective carbon tax:

Montgomery County, Maryland has enacted one the country’s first carbon taxes. Passed by a vote of 8-to-1 the tax applies to stationary emitters of CO2 releasing more than one million tons annually into the atmosphere.

…

Variations of carbon taxes have previously been enacted by Boulder, Colorado and in the San Francisco Bay Area.

via Not Waiting For the Feds, Carbon Tax Enacted by Montgomery County, Maryland : TreeHugger.

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Yes?

No.

Maybe?

I’m honestly afraid to say yes, but I fear it is so. Below are some sobering conclusions from the Gaian theorist, 90-year-old James Lovelock, on our species’ prognosis. I agree with him profoundly. And if you want to be inspired about the road through this swamp, read a bit about political psychology at the end here.

Let’s begin.

“I don’t think we’re yet evolved to the point where we’re clever enough to handle a[s] complex a situation as climate change.”

“The inertia of humans is so huge that you can’t really do anything meaningful.”

He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.

via James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change | Environment | The Guardian.

Here, Lovelock is talking about our collective ignorance of systems theory. We don’t understand that we belong to something large and complicated and interconnected. We are deluded, thinking we’re individuals who can separate ourselves from our environment, particularly when it turns sour.

Freakish bubble bee population declines concern some people because the price of honey may go up. In reality, they are somewhat critical in all of us…eating food. Even community newspapers are recognizing the fact of the hive crisis, but they can’t go more than one level of analysis to the point of exploring the implications of the immediate consequences.

If you don’t get it, or somewhat get it and want to spend 45 seconds reflecting more on systems theory as a systemic approach to re-visioning your life and interrelationships, read about it here.

Now do something about it with some understanding of political psychology, but first read about pianos falling upon your head. My favourite comment about the Lovelock article:

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The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.

The energy crisis [is] outlined in a Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command.

US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015 | Business | The Guardian.

As much as I have problems with the CIA and US military, I have an enormous degree of respect for their research. After all, they are tasked with something no less than protecting and expanding the American empire.

So when the US Navy started changing their hull designs to be icebreakers several years ago, I knew George w.Caesar wasn’t really a climate change denier.

The JOE [Joint Operating Environment] reports are very useful. They are also critical to the performance of the US military. They don’t screw around.

So when they start up contingency plans for peak oil crises, I think we all need to pay attention.

Will the lazy human species embrace another massive fail by being reactive instead of proactive? We’ll know soon enough, and the direction we’re heading now is largely willful ignorance.

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The audio is weak in places, but the discussion is strong!

The video podcast of the conversation lives at Vista Video.

You can watch it in Miro, the best new open source multimedia viewing software: http://www.miroguide.com/feeds/8832

or…

You can watch it in iTunes: itpc://dgivista.org/pod/Vista_Podcasts.xml

or…

The podcast file is at http://dgivista.org/pod/COOP.Radio.3.1.10.mov

Enjoy!

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OK, maybe it was partly arrogance that led him to phone it in, but in early December 2008 when he did it before, he ended up announcing the suspension of the legislature by standing outside Rideau Hall being sleeted upon by the weather gods, who were clearly politicizing his actions. Who wants to do that again.

The state of democracy in Canada is in a shambles. The last provincial election in BC in May 2009 saw voter turnout drop below 50%. Oh well.

Voter turnout almost dipped below 40% for the first time in Alberta’s provincial election in 2008.

Last year there were rallies across the country opposing the impending prorogation. This year, Harper waited until the seriously sleepy time between Christmas and new years: pretty crafty. Even Hill-addicted journalists were tweeting from warm climates about the prorogation.

You can read all about the reasons why he pulled this move again all over the place. The Reform/Conservative Party has its reasons about consulting with businesses about the economy and such. There are Afghan torture scandals to avoid, Senate stacking to further, the Olympics alternate universe to embrace, and various other benefits and comparisons to pre-1982 traditions about the ending of legislative sessions.

No matter.

What is clear is that responsible government is no longer a given. Technically, elections legitimize governing bodies to do whatever within their power as they govern. Harper is doing nothing “wrong”. Nor is his apparitional coalition partner, Michael Ignatieff.

The flagrant disregard for public accountability, combined with the public’s inability to demonstrate any serious concern for political integrity means that there needs to be forces that can mobilize people to care about it all.

Those rallies last year were an encouraging sign, but until there is a vehicle to truly convey public will or outrage and to educate people about the dismissiveness of prorogation, we will continue to see politicians demean us–their employers–and justify our cynicism of their integrity.

It’s a vicious circle that leaves them continuing to feel confident that they can get away with whatever they want and our voter turnout will continue to drop.

And while the overt fascism in V For Vendetta is not present in Canada today, the soft fascism of diluted democracy is becoming the norm. It’s no wonder young [and older] people today are avoiding political parties and embracing other political mobilization avenues.

2010 has barely begun. The tragedy of the Olympics and its social, political and economic aftermath has yet to be fully visited upon us. We have a glaring absence of hopeful, inspiring, motivating political leadership in most of the country. We have but a few years to turn 180 degrees to avert climate breakdown and our political systems have never been so impotent in the face of such challenges.

On new year’s day yesterday, some stranger asked me if I thought 2010 would be a good year. I said that if we don’t start off being optimistic, we have no chance at all.

Stephen Harper’s new year’s resolution of avoiding accountability is a rough start. But I begin the year optimistically that we will emerge in 362 days in a better place.

If not, the first year of this pivotal decade will put us even further back from where we need to be.

I can’t stomach that. Can you?

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Watching Polar Express tonight reminded me of my favourite part of the film near the end. Everyone’s waiting for Santa to come out and play. All the elves are standing around mumbling. Then there’s this converging anarchy of voices leading to an “ooooooOOOOOOhhhhhHHHHH yyyyyyYYYYYooooooOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU…” that coalesces into “Oh, you better watch out,” etc. of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Many disparate voices joining together.

So I’m thinking about the abject failure of the Copenhagen summit for climate change a few weeks ago. Not surprising, really, when I think about it because the other day I was cutting some french toast in half [well 2/3 and 1/3] to see if my daughter would pick the bigger half. Game theory: the person who cuts is not the one who picks which half. I figured that was related to the realpolitik BS that killed Copenhagen.

So then I started reading up on the The One Degree War and how Evo Morales is convening a climate summit for social movements on Earth Day next year. The first begins a dialogue on solving a global crisis in an open-source, non-proprietary way; it feels quite cooperative. The second recognizes that a way past the 17th century political culture that killed Copenhagen is to convene a movement of movements.

I was thinking of that when I started Canada22.org on Earth Day in 2006, but I didn’t have the mobilization juice to scale it up to a provincial or federal level. But it’s nice to see now that organizations like TckTckTck.org have been able to hack together 15 million people to mobilize in advance of Copenhagen and we now have 11 months to mobilize before COP16 in Mexico next winter.

If we are ever going to get from zero-sum politics to positive-sum gains, we have to change the rules and deligitimize the old politics. And the people have to take control. And we have to see through the corporate greenwashing of Hopenhagen and realize their vibe contributed to the pablum document in Copenhagen and destroyed real movements for climate justice.

Social movements are a dire threat to political parties that still operate in the 17th century and maybe even the 20th century paradigm. Paradigm mechanics like TckTckTck.org and Evo Morales and George Monbiot are most able to pivot us into a new era. We have to get on board or our leaders will sell us down the tar sands river, starting with the Canadian prime minister.

Now I just have to figure out if Bert and Ernie [the cop and cab driver..which is which? and does it matter?] in It’s A Wonderful Life are really the inspiration for the Sesame Street characters and if there’s a nascent social movement brewing there. Then I’ll really have something.

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For decades I’ve been hearing about and studying how humans are living beyond the planet’s capability of sustaining us…and that we’ve been doing so quite unequally.

And what have we done about that? Embraced neoliberal, deregulated free market capitalism: the economic expression of rape and pillage.

Reduce, reuse, recycle neglects the real first R: refuse.

Our notion of progress requires growth and improvement. We measure this in expansion of GDP and trade. But we are so divorced from the ramifications of our lifestyle that despite all the canaries dying in coal mines, we still might screw up Copenhagen beginning this weekend and leave the meeting with a world lacking unity on averting climate breakdown. And Canada may end up being the spoiler.

We are divorced from the reality of nature’s cycles. We think of growth as linear and upward and not cyclical and level. Nature goes in a circle of seasons. We don’t get more winter or spring each year, we just have equilibrium.

Even our calendars do not help us realize this, which is why this new way of envisioning a calendar is quite liberating: Chris Hardman’s Ecological Calendar.

And if people whack the equilibrium, the ecosystem responds. My children may be the victims of that response for decades more years than I will remain alive. If we cannot stomach that, we need to make sure Copenhagen works.

But how do we get off the economic growth addiction?

It requires a massive reframing. 20 years ago, there were no drink or paper recycling containers in schools and offices. Now they’re ubiquitous.

That took a reframed mindset.

Take also environmental footprints, a concept virtually unknown a decade ago. Now it is a useful and widely understood analytical tool for thinking about our individual contribution to a better or worse environment.

Getting off the economic growth fix can mean embracing steady state economics. This is an economic model that treats the economy as a means to human ends, not maximizing short-term shareholder wealth.

But what does anyone know about this model of zero-growth economics? Follow the link above and read the brief description of the values inherent in the model: sustainable scale, fair distribution, efficient allocation. Do they resonate with you? Do they seem more appealing for your moral goals for our relationship with the planet than getting a 9-18% return on your investments until you retire? Because that is the trade off.

More blatantly, the trade off is between something more like a 1-5% return on your investments or reframing our economy so the majority world living in poverty has a better chance at surviving and living in dignity.

If we cannot conceive of economic growth as being a cancer, it may not be because it’s wrong. It may be because we’ve been drinking this Kool-Aid fed to us in a steady marketing diet since birth. How could we be expected to see things differently. We need to use our imagination to contend with liberating ideas that are challenging to our unquestioned mindset.

Try steady state. 4 out of 5 dentists surveyed find it a healing tonic for ecological turmoil caused by neoliberal economics.

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Water is core.

Clearly, it is a human right, though like other core elements of life it is being commodified all around us.

Water justice, security, democracy and knowledge are the cornerstones of the declaration. In my most hopeful moments, I see Copenhagen as a time where Canada can be dragged into line for progressive policy to not eradicate my children’s chances at a sustainable environmental future.

If we can work to avert climate breakdown, reframe our economy to serve humans within the context of environmental equilibrium by eradicating the cancer of growth, then we will need to embrace proactive, constructive paradigms of existence. The Blue Summit Declaration is just that.

Every group that cares about any progressive cause in any sector should be endorsing this declaration.

And if we ever need a philosophical ally in eradicating bottled water from society, this is a great start.

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The breadth of clarity he brings to issues is quite refreshing. He has finally given in to pressure, thankfully, to start taking shots at our wonderful, glorious, selfless, polite and all-around loving country.

Canada is a climate criminal. Stephen Harper and the Conservative-Liberal coalition government are the don and mob standing guard for the tar sands, not thee, or thee, or thee, or anyone else who has to live on the planet.

It’s not brain surgery. We have all this dirty oil that takes insane amounts of energy to extract and process. It is environmentally devastating and requires oil to sell beyond a reasonably high price to justify the billions of dollars of investment to get at it. And peak oil’s supply crunch should provide that high oil price.

That sure sounds like the better mousetrap!

Except that we’re trying to get off oil as it is. And here sits Canada, poised to become an even greater pariah state than any of the OPEC nations or Axis of Evil members because we want to further aggravate climate breakdown by processing more oil so we can get rich. Screw everyone else, the ice caps, ice shelves, glaciers, sea level residents, the poor, etc.

We can finally be a world power, but not in a good way.

Bad Canada. Bad.

Almost a century and a half of reasonable progressiveness that makes us all think that on the whole, Canada is a swell chum. But when we look at how easy it is to suck all that gunk out of the prairies, embrace the cash and screw everyone else, maybe it’s time we started to think of our nation not so much as good, with some bad times [residential schools, cultural genocide, internment camps, disenfranchisement, supporting foreign evil-doers], but on the whole bad, with aberrations of niceness [peacekeeping, apologizing too much, Anne Murray].

So let’s make the bad man stop.

Stephen Harper’s email address is HarpeS@parl.gc.ca

His phone number in Ottawa is 1.613.992.4211 and at his constituency office, you can call him at 1.403.253.7990.

His Conservative-Liberal coalition co-leader is Michael Ignatieff, whose email address is IgnatM@parl.gc.ca

His phone number in Ottawa is 1.613.995.9364 and at his constituency office, you can call him at 1.416.251.5510.

You need to contact these criminals this week because the Copenhagen climate summit starts on the weekend and we can’t be the deal breaker. None of us could live with ourselves if we let it happen.

I suggest you email them both with explicit instructions to agree to the highest level of cooperation possible, not the minimum, and that we have to resist tar sands free lunch and leave it in the ground because there’s a catch: everyone pays, and we don’t want to be the ones delivering the bill.

And when you call their office, be nice to their staff because they are having to field the calls of thousands of angry Canadians.

Exercise your democracy and free speech, because everyone else’s hope for a better life for themselves and their descendants is depending on us not to ruin Copenhagen.

Then, on 12.12.09 find or start a vigil and gather to encourage world leaders to not destroy our descendants’ quality of life through greed, selfishness, fear or inaction. Time is running out.

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Great thanks go to all the people talking about the ideas I was running on, particularly the viral champions who were spreading word widely.

140 was almost half as many votes as I would have needed to beat the person who won the 6th spot. But at the same time 140 votes is a great deal higher than 37 or some number that reflects having made only a passing impact on the 600 or so delegates.

There are many things I could have done better on the campaign, from long-term network building beforehand, extensive volunteer recruitment for activism on the floor, to less reliance on a green online campaign since most delegates didn’t embrace that convention goal of virtual paperlessness. To a certain extent, my candidacy was an exploration into what kind of reception these ideas would receive at the governing body of the party: 20-something percent support.

One of many positives in the run was in shining a spotlight on some Think Forward BC NDP ideas about internal democracy, accountability, transparency, following our policies, engaging members and above all, putting the environment, Sustainable BC and embarking on a plan to avert climate breakdown into the forefront of the party’s priorities.

Many other candidates, delegates and speakers carried these messages beyond just me. And while the months that Think Forward BC NDP has been in existence cannot be the sole explanation for all these people talking about the issues, the dialogue process begun certainly has its place in helping facilitate these ideas.

Where to go from here? That is up to members of the party who want to see the party improve, walk its policy talk better, and more effectively engage members and the thousands of progressive people and groups in the province that make up the progressive social movement out for justice and a better world.

Currently the party is doing an adequate job of representing many people, but it could be doing such a better job of the being the electoral wing of this social movement. Internal and external engagement are critical.

So we’ll see where the new leadership will take the party. There is a batch of new senior staff to hire and a new tone to establish. There will be growing pains and sputtering starts, but people who sincerely wish for a vibrant, effective and solid rock of a political alternative will continue working to make sure the party keeps improving.

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via Eco-Friendly Water Bottles: SIGG Gets Stung by BPA – TIME.

So Halloween marked the last day that SIGG would exchange your BPA-bottle with a non-BPA bottle. A real commitment to honesty would be to not end the exchange program, and especially not on Halloween.

Greenwashing is distasteful, and increasing infuriating. Time is running out to keep my children from living some version of Mad Max when they’re my age. And if the best the corporate world can come up with is “I fully expect” to not let consumers down in the future, then I am right in having virtually no faith in market capitalism to contribute to meaningful dialog and action on climate change.

Oh wait, I didn’t have any faith in them. So, no change there.

Regulation, regulation, regulation!

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